Apr 8 2022 - New in 2022 Maybe

 

Consider what is called a technical breakthrough and a new product for 2022.  I would think it is an introduction in the last 6 months. What do I find? I find newish products.   Some have been around long enough to have 12,000 optometrists using them - that's the Peeps eyeglass lens cleaner. Most of the other products are also old enough to not really be newish.   There are so many reviews that the product has to be around for a while. The reviews of products are definitely problematic. How do you check whether ratings and reviews are valid?  And then so many of them are unreadable English with jumbled sentences, failed grammar and nonsense words.  Amazon reviews pop up at the top.  It is known that a substantial number of these reviews are not authentic.  Amazon pays for them with free products and gift cards.  The producing company does the same.  Competing companies pay for bad reviews of their competitors.   That's my exercise in finding new products today.  The Google search engine is crammed with junk now.  It is no longer a usable general search engine.  It is fine for shopping and finding things on Amazon.  Bing is in better shape. One actually retrieves articles on newer technologies.  Now the issue is that the articles in magazines like Esquire stretch the definition of new, so we're at a base level problem.  Those peeps eyewear people must pay a lot to get their products constantly included in reviews. In contrast to that, there was a pleasant 'aha' moment this morning when I looked at the front page of the Globe and Mail.  The picture of Chrystia Freeland is a showcase moment of her budget speech.  I thought the headline could easily read: "Meet your next Liberal Leader".  Or even "Meet your next PM".   We won't be seeing the Himalayan Poppies at Longwood this year.  This picture was taken in 2013.

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July 1 2021 - Fireworks and Phat Boy

 

I consider today, July 1st, to be the pinnacle of summer - it seems the midpoint of the year for me whether it is a leap year or not.  Close enough.  Mid-summer is also fireworks time.  "PHUN WITH PHATBOY: This name has become synonymous with the Big Boom Theory! Phatboy Fireworks is a leading retailer..."  That's it. So tantalizing to find out about this insultingly catchy named company.   That's all there is to find out about Phat Boy the fireworks company.  It is all over Canada with its retail and wholesale fireworks facilities.  I expect to find out about the Phat Boy name after I've done all these various searches.  It will pop up in the days to come.   Just like the screaming tunnel - there's an even longer tunnel in Brockville worth visiting. Tunnels everywhere via Pinterest.   This is QEW at Seventh Avenue St. Catharines.  We might call it overpass and roses.  This rose field in 2020 was harvested last fall.  There would have been close to or more than a million of little roses in the field - a heavenly scent.  But of course, gone now. I have to do a little drive about to find this year's fields.  They have to move every year.  I did think this was a telling picture - the highway that most people travel to go to Niagara Falls Canada or to Niagara Falls US and Buffalo.  Many more cars than roses travel this road.  Of course, little in the way of border crossing this year.  We've enjoyed the highway being less congested.

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Passing Through Grimsby

I got to thinking about those 14,000,000 million people visiting Niagara Falls.  That's a lot of people on the QEW.  But then I find out from  a more authoritative-looking source that the estimate is more than 30,000,000 visit the Canadian side, along with 6 to 8 million who visit Niagara Falls, New York and don't go to the Canadian side. How many of those come over the border to visit and how many come along the QEW to visit?  That's my question that has been lingering.  it is a personal question - how many cars on the highway passing through Grimsby each day are on their way to Niagara Falls to see the view.  Even if only half of them came from the Toronto/Hamilton direction, there would still be 45,000 a day on average, and that would likely mean about 450 every hour passing through Grimsby if we limited it to a 10 hour time span.  Now I've done my estimating for the day.   Today's pictures were taken at Bill Scobie's Sn3 scale railroad.  He's in Ottawa.  He has modelled 66 miles of the Rio Grande Southern Railway from Ridgeway to Rico, Colorado.  Find out about the scenes along the way at this site HERE.

Out of a Rut

Every day a new topic for discussion.  Yesterday I listened to a CBC interview with a person who explores a new topic in-depth every month.  They interviewed Ronnie Hoffman who every month pulls a hand-written goal from his box and challenges himself to explore something new - really new.   What about this?  On his list are things like Conlanging, write on blank paper instead of lined paper, learn to appreciate coffee, read as much travel literature in a month, and so on.   So what is the first item - conlanging? It is the creation of constructed languages such as Esperanto, Lojban, or Klingon.  A conlanger is someone who creates or constructs languages.  You can go to their website here - conlang.org.  You can go to their annual conference. What about celebrate every national independence day that occurs this month?  This was noteworthy yesterday.  January 26th has been in the news - it is Australia's national day.  There's a protest movement in Australia over 'Australia Day'.   That's because it is the celebration of the landing of the first English ship in 1788.  For the indigenous people, that marks the date of the invasion of their land.  Protest marches have been growing over the years and aren't likely to stop until there's a change. There's no indication of the government moving forward to reconcile this gap in the short-term. Ronnie's approach to his monthly list is to do these things every day. He goes 'all in'.  He is reading all of the editions of Anne of Green Gables.   I checked and there are a lot of editions, so it will take the entire month.  The first edition sold at auction in 2009 for $37,500.  There's one in stock now, listed for $22,000, from a rare books website.  I expect that he isn't planning to acquire the editions as well. Ronnie's list is available to download HERE.  Perhaps we should try flag designing - that's on his list. And here are two pictures today from the Minneapolis Convention that could challenge one to build a scale model railroad.

New this Christmas!

New This Christmas! Is there something new this Christmas?  We who are older seem to have seen everything Christmas. So what could be new this year? It's right in front of us:  this is a Trump Christmas! What's different about a Trump Christmas? By Tara McKelvey BBC White House Reporter "It was a warm day at the White House with the scent of roses in the air and it hardly felt like Christmas.  Yet the holiday season was in full swing - a week earlier than many of his predecessors chose to begin.  Trump likes to do things differently, though.  In that spirit, here are five ways that his Christmas is unique." 1. It started before Thanksgiving This year the tree arrived early - three days before Thanksgiving - apparently because of the president's travel plans.  2. No more 'Happy Holidays' During the presidential campaign, Trump would tell his supporters that people would soon be saying "Merry Christmas" again, instead of "happy holidays", which he has derided as politically correct. 3. A special present for the people  It's not the kind of gift you'll find under the tree. Tax cuts don't come covered in wrapping paper. The president has described his proposed tax cuts as "a great, big, beautiful Christmas present" for Americans. 4. No pet photos He's the first president in more than a century without a pet - so no cute pictures of a first dog, marking another departure from tradition.  5. 'Bah, humbug' for the media Under previous administrations, the president held a press conference in the briefing room in December. Trump's not likely to do that.  One administration aide told me that she thinks it's beneath him to appear in the briefing room. Instead the president talks to reporters on the south lawn, in the Oval Office or on Air Force One, places where he seems to feel comfortable. Besides that, he's invited a smaller number of reporters to the White House to celebrate the holidays.  The party invitations have gone out, but a CNN spokesperson said they weren't going to attend because of "the president's continued attacks on freedom of the press and CNN". That suits people who work for the president just fine. Our picture today comes from the Buffalo Garden Walk this year - it is here to distract us from our Trump Christmas - a festive Flamingo display in one front garden.

It's Almost a New Year

A New Year

In order to realign the Roman calendar with the sun, Julius Caesar had to add 90 extra days to the year 46 B.C. when he introduced his new Julian calendar. The Julian calendar closely resembles the more modern Gregorian calendar that most (!) countries around the world use today. As part of his reform, Caesar instituted January 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honour the month’s namesake: Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future.  The move to the Gregorian Calendar took place starting in 1582 and was adopted country by country.  There's a schedule here: 

http://www.tondering.dk/claus/cal/gregorian.php

What are the unusual New Year's traditions - Spain's 12 grapes seems to make the top of the list for many. In Spain they eat 12 grapes at midnight - one for each stroke of the clock and for the coming 12 months ahead.  They have to be eaten in 12 seconds for the new year to have good luck.

There are six common profiles of those who've been (mostly) successful achieving this feat:

1. Zen Master – Neatly lines up the grapes and methodically eats them one by one, while meditating on the sound of the 12 chimes. Starts the New Year fully in the moment.
2. Full Frontal – Embraces the New Year with gusto by shoving all of the grapes in their mouth at once. Worries about swallowing them later.
3. False Starter – Anxious about getting all 12 grapes down, starts eating the first one before midnight strikes, which doesn’t count and is said to bring bad luck.
4. Reina Isabel – Prepares grapes in advance by cutting them in half. Eats them with a fork from a plate. Eating the grapes by halves may be less authentic, but it is the best method for small children, and for anyone worried about looking like a slob.
5. Exhibitionist – Also known as “el chulo.” Sees grape eating as another extreme sport, or just a chance to show off. Starts the New Year with an ego boost, by throwing the grapes in the air and catching them in their mouth. Requires secret pre-New Years’ Eve practice.
6. Drunken Style – Makes an effort to eat the grapes but cracks up, starts talking, drinking, hugging or otherwise gets distracted midway through the 12 grapes. This is, needless to say, what happens most often. Happy New Year

The most famous ritual in the U.S. is the dropping of a giant ball in New York City's Times Square. Dillsburg Pennsylvania drops a pickle in celebration of the stroke of midnight.