A picture speaks a thousand words

Wife managed to get into work this morning despite several inches of snow. I'm working from home today, but it might be worthwhile dragging our little 4x4 up and down the road a few times to help keep things clear for her on the way home this afternoon. Neighbour prophesised blandly that 'this crap' will be gone by tomorrow. I hope so. My diary is full of meetings and schedules this week, and all this white global warming stuff is inconvenient to say the least.

Image taken of our view over the southern end of Dodd Narrows at 10:50am PST.

Day at home

Worked up until ten last night, and find this morning that I've done everything I should. No meetings to attend today, and I'm told that town (Nanaimo) is a bit chaotic right now with last nights snowfall.

Wife is road testing new all weather tyres on the van and just phoned home to let me know that she got to work safely. Dog and I have been for a walk in the three or so inches of snow lying on the ground. I've read the online papers, had breakfast but right now I'm not in the mood for anything serious.

Outside, the Narrows are a steely blue and the trees and hedges lumpy whiteness. No more snow is falling.

What I did today

While some people were bunking off to watch a US politician make a speech, I was doing voluntary work. As were a lot of people. Having no TV I went through the whole of today not hearing a word (Despite doing a lot of walking and talking to people) about today's events in Washington DC. Well, this is Canada.

Came back home and checked out the news, and found much of it deluged in what can only be described as open verbal masturbation. The mainstream media have been behaving like it's the second coming.

Now I'm willing to cut a man some slack, even if I disagree with his policies, but I have the distinct impression that a lot of people are in for a bit of a let down. I actually feel sorry for the poor guy. So many people have pinned so many hopes to his coat tails that the first time circumstances force him into a turnaround, the very people who sing his praises now will be the ones to bury him.

Besides all that, got through a lot today. Still a little more to do, but we broke the back of the job today. Will finish off tomorrow, day job permitting.

I'm all right

Kind of sums up the way I feel right now. Things are a bit tough in some ways but Wife and I are still breathing and doing better all the time despite tripping over the bureaucracy at seemingly every turn ("No, your work permit doesn't cover that" or "We have to charge you foreign student prices"). Immigration to Canada is an expensive business unless you're being 'imported' by a big employer with an HR department well versed in the byzantine ways of Work Permits etc.

Still, lots of help if you up and ask for it, and the rules are changing week on week to allow people like me to bring their skills to a market which needs those skills (Electrical, Plumbing, Carpentry, Computing). As the song says, "I'm all right".

Death to television

Friday was a day when a figurative bucket of cold water was thrown over my occasionally overheated good intentions. I work for a charity, and part of my job entails home visits. Oh boy. Some of the homes I visited on Friday made me thoughtful. If ever anyone asks me for a definition of squalor, I think I can understand. Not that I mind you understand, it goes with the territory.

On the up side, most Canadians I have contact with are polite, unfailingly positive, and honest. Almost stereotypically so, but this is not a bad thing. For the most part I love the people over here, they give you hope in humanity. On the down side of the equation there are a few who, for one reason or another, are the authors of their own undoing.

I know no one is going to read this if my reading figures are anything to go by, but I have to get it out of my system. There is poverty here in Canada, real, hardly any clothes on your back poverty. Even here in one of the most carefully wealthy nations on Earth. Not that this is the fault of any political system. Most of it (But this is only my opinion, for what little that is worth) is to do with what I would call 'poor life choices'.

Visit 1: Person living in a rented apartment. Condition; 'grubby', a fine patina of greyish brown over everything that seemed to permeate the very air. Tidy, but poor quality furnishing that would look more at home in a landfill. Persons condition; prematurely aged by a mixture of alcohol and / or drugs. Physical age was probably early forties, but physical appearance was more like someone of sixty plus. We met parents who actually looked slightly younger than Visit 1. The self neglect / abuse was palpable. The biggest and newest item of furniture was the TV, and even that looked like it was from a thrift store. The TV was left on all the time I was there.

Visit 2: Single parent of teenager living with elderly newly bedridden parent in rented apartment. Kitchen was full of unwashed dishes with weeks old food ingrained into the preparation services. All the rooms were piled with unwashed bedding and junk. No real attempt had been made to clean or make the apartment presentable. Curtains were drawn, giving an extra gloomy air to the apartment, and the TV, a modern 32 inch plasma screen, was on all the time.

Visit 3: 1960's built apartment block. Occupant elderly with careworker present. Most charitable description of the apartment and occupant would be 'threadbare'. Frayed bedding, likewise furniture. As in the other two visits, the word 'dilapidation' was uppermost in my thoughts. Elderly TV was on all the time throughout our visit. Like in the other two apartments, the occupants paid more attention to the TV than to us newcomers.

In all three cases, the occupants kept the television on all the time, it beckoned even my attention (And I personally think most of what is on TV is pap at best) like some consciousness sucking black hole, or audio visual wallpaper over the gaps in people's lives. Possibly a little of both. It verged on the hypnotic.

When I lived in the UK I used to be an avid reader of Policeman's weblogs (Coppersblog, PCBloggs, Inspector Gadget), and all three detailed (and still do) how much of their work took them to places similar to those I have described. The common denominator in all their writings is the TV.

We have a modest 24 inch television set in our apartment, but I refuse to have either a cable or satellite subscription, and it sits unused for all but an hour or two each day when it is used as a DVD player for a movie or old TV series we want to see again. In my family, the television and its output was referred to many ways and most of them disparaging; 'One eyed monster', 'goggle box' etc. We used it sparingly. Not like many, who leave it on all day. The news we get off the Internet, and even then sparingly. Life is too short to just sit in front of a screen all the time just watching or reading. A man (or woman) needs time in his / her own head, with his / her own feelings, and this is something having the TV on constantly denies us. It takes the place of thinking. It promises us an unattainable world yet gives nothing back. It is a one way distorting mirror where we can observe but not partake of life.

My friends who have TV services often complain that they have 'two hundred channels, but nothing worth watching'. One friend has a sixty inch screen in his living room. He switches it on for one hour a night, and then complains that the news coverage makes him "Angry", especially the BBC news he gets via his satellite connection.

Now the TV is not wholly at fault. It is partially at fault because it forces passivity upon us, and humans are not necessarily passive. It is an excuse for procrastination, for not dealing with your inner self because that requires mental work. It also acts as an excuse for not performing those physical taks like cleaning that can make our quality of life better with only a little effort.

Even standing quite still in the middle of the woods, ears straining, listening to the far off blare of someone playing music across the Narrows, Dog crashing through the brush, the cawing of crows, and the high pitched cries of Bald Eagles, the rustle of leaves, the cool autumnal air like chilled satin across your exposed skin, requires thought. That kind of active watching is what humans evolved to do. We are a predator species, originally reliant upon our senses for survival, and just sitting in the warm staring at a screen and consuming is probably not really all that good for you. You need to get out and do, or even just 'be'.

By comparison, watching Television is a passive process which requires little mental input from the observer. It requires amongst other things willing suspension of belief and inaction. Yet I have the overwhelming suspicion that if there were no television, the 'social problems' of which it is symptomatic would not disappear. It is a symptom, not the disease. The poverty I often see in my working life will not cease if the TV does. That is within some of the people themselves.

Dolphins!

Sighted in the Southern part of Dodd narrows at around 10:15, a lot of splashing out in the middle of the channel. At first I thought they were two of the Sea Lion population come to pay us a visit, but before I could get a good look, they were gone. At around 12:00 they turned up again. Two of them, and this time I got a good enough look to definitely identify them as Dolphins and nothing else.

The fins had a particularly sharp profile, which leads me to suspect that they were White sided Dolphins known to be native to BC, although I could not be certain, only having a set of old 7x35mm binoculars. However, they were just mucking about in the water, hunting and generally plaguing hell out of the local fish population. Until two large power boats bimbled up and down the channel, sending the Dolphins diving for safety. Our local seal simply regarded the intruders with his (Her?) habitually mournful expression before diving and heading for the shallow side of the channel to the west of Round Island.

Spent four solid hours down at the waterfront, casting and ledgering until just before three at slack tide with no luck. However, my casting has improved dramatically, and nine out of ten of my casts are well over twenty plus metres. Even managed one or two closer to forty metres than thirty. No fish though. Not even a crab like last time. Never mind.

Wife has been monopolising my ageing 'pooter, having been given the job of rewriting mini biographies of some of the local worthies for the re-opening of Nanaimo's Museum and chopping the prose down to 175 and 75 word chunks. She asks my advice every so often, which is gratifying. I'm also a little amused by the folk who get a bit carried away with the written word. Some of the offerings Wife has had to rewrite have been heading over the verbosity event horizon and accelerating. However, it's easy for me to say this, I've been writing to wordage limits for years, and précis kind of becomes second nature after a while. All it takes is years of abuse.

The manuscript is looking better, although I'm going to have to research a little more plasma physics so my characters sound like they know what they are talking about, even if I don't.

Oh well, it's our Wedding Anniversary tomorrow, and after that we're both helping out at a Kids event down at the Waterfront on Monday. Meeting on Monday night, followed by a busy week. All this and the price of gas going up. Hi ho.

Dear diary, nothing much happened....

Spent a good deal of yesterday on researching supersonic wing configurations for a story that keeps on popping on and off the back burner. Soporific stuff sometimes, but writing without research isn't worth the effort. A good tale needs a well coloured background, or it comes out as insipid and somehow unsatisfying.

Read the blogs etc, and as always put my big clumsy but well meaning oar in. Hey, I may be opinionated, but that doesn't automatically make me wrong.

Today I pitched back into one of the three major projects I have going and added a thousand words to one, two thousand to another, and decided project three needed a new direction. Tonight I have a meeting to attend, people to talk to, and fund raising to organise. Somehow I've even got to engineer an appearance on the local cable TV station. I'll talk to my guys first and find out what they want me to say before I do anything else.

Well, the sun shone, it rained a bit, then it shone again. Must be spring. About time too.

More snow

Down at the shoreline it's still pretty chilly, with temperatures around the five degree mark. Took a short trip into town and noted fresh light snow cover on Mt Benson where it had previously melted. Winter is still here, despite it being past the vernal equinox.

A number of the AGW crowd are leaping up and down with glee, pointing at a chunk of ice shelf that has broken off. Shame it means nothing really. It's one little bit of an ice shelf, comparatively speaking. Mechanical stress and increased cold are more likely to cause catastrophic collapse than any warming.

Away from the weather, I'm busy getting on with my new job despite a relative lack of information from head office. I shall just run it like any business; making sure that a service is provided and that there is a cashflow for the facilities needed to do the work. I don't mind, I'm more or less my own boss and I like that.

Another nice day

Nice day; not that much doing. Am taking a day out from working and just chilling outside. Read the morning papers and waded through the 58 pages of the Mills-McCartney divorce Judgement. The irony is that if she'd shut her mouth in public, the Judge might have been a bit more generous. Even so, £24 million for four years marriage! Holy smoke! As someone said when the Pope spontaneously combusted. What do you do with that much money?

Really must stop reading the UK newspapers, they are so annoying. I think the only reason I do is to keep an eye on the slow motion train wreck that is the UK economy. We have money still sitting in a high interest account and are wondering at which point we should shift it to a less high risk environment.

Computerwise I'm toying with the idea of replacing my old 1998 Compaq laptop with a Mac. Much nicer. The only reason I stay with a PC is that I've got so much licensed software. Don't like Vista at all, not that keen on XP either. In fact the more I see of the alternatives, the keener I am to ditch Microsoft products. If I had the choice I'd have WordPerfect as a word processor. Microsoft Office is okay(ish), but there are features in WordPerfect that I miss, like the Alt-F3 reveal codes option which gave you the opportunity to really clean up your document code. The revision functions were better, so I could keep track of MSS document changes more readily. I've looked at Open Source / Linux and other stuff, but that would end up distracting me from the business of writing. I'm not a code cruncher, and programming quite frankly, bores me to tears. Always did. It's not that I can't do it, it's just that I really can't be bothered. I find programming sends me to sleep. Did do a bit of it professionally once. Completed a job once, but I tended to find myself nodding off at my desk by the middle of a working week. It was more fun in support, even though the pay wasn't as high.

Dog has arrived, and is looking at me hopefully, so it's time to pootle off down to the beach. Heavy sigh, life is so hard.

News from the UK

Busy trying to sort out work permit so's I can take my new job. Last time round was a bit of a cock up, but we have since been to see immigration, who have helped us with my application. By tomorrow I should have had the problems ironed out, and might just be able to go and actually do some work.

Not that I'm keen to go back to the UK any time soon. The news is uniformly dire with nary a glimpse of a silver lining. Bills are rising all the time; Phone, Gas, Electricity, Council tax, food, petrol and transport costs. Bankruptcies are at record levels. The Government has nationalised it's first Bank. A 'credit crunch' is in progress. Taxes are up. Services are down. You pay a grand a year, and if you're lucky the Local Authority doesn't bug you, and might, just might, if you ask them really, really nicely, empty your bins once a month. Not only that but people are being murdered on the street and their killers given comparatively light sentences if caught by a Police 'Service' that is so busy collecting statistics, that the Constables don't get out on the streets doing their job half the time. The only people who seem to be making any money are the Politicians and their hangers on, who are trousering more than I used to make in a year after tax in expenses alone. Well, them and a few city traders. Although I never begrudged the money men their massive wedges. At least they don't go round telling the rest of us what to do.

Oh yes, and that doesn't even mention the demands for Sharia law from a minority of the population, and the selling of old Englands soul and sovereignty to the ever more bloated European Union. Hells Bells and ecky thump! I am glad I got offered the job I was.

Over on Vancouver Island, life is comparatively peaceful, with only odd bits of body found washed up on the shores of sparsely inhabited islands like the three right feet washed up on Valdez in the past year. I found the carcase of a Deer on the shoreline, and something that looked like a human tibia, but after careful examination, and careful perusal of some textbooks, saw that it was a bone from one of the local Deer that had tried to swim the narrows and drowned. The two articular grooves at the bottom were the big clue. So it was that I didn't waste the RCMP's time with a false alarm. From those I've met, they seem a decent bunch. Although I wouldn't like to get the wrong side of the law anyway.

Have been pounding the keyboard on a new project inspired by my own blog musings about going to the stars. I'm enjoying it, and don't really care about submitting it to any publisher. It's too niche, too rough cut. Too small a market sector.

Weather has been nice this weekend. Glorious light reflected from Mudge and Link in the late afternoon. This is a tiny tranche of Canadian Paradise. I am so very lucky to be here.

Dangerous to know

Busy day today, fixing wheelchairs and aids for the disabled. I just got on with it, not fussing the rest of the guys with 'what do you want me to do now?' I just picked my jobs and did the ones I could. I like working with my hands. It's absorbing, even cathartic, and strangely enough helps me think. Successfully fixed four wheelchairs, a stroller, and a few other bits and pieces.

I used to blog about my last UK job under a pseudonym, and had a regular readership of over 2500 'hits' a week. During December 2006 this rose to over 8000 individual readers a week on the run up to Christmas. Not like this blog, which is a very placid and obscure little backwater in the blogosphere, which suits me just fine.

Six months after I finished that job and stopped posting about my job on the blog, my ex-employers thought they'd found me out, and my old alter ego got a threatening 'cease and desist' e-mail from my old boss. One of the things I gave thinking time to today was what I was going to do about the threat, which has been bothering me for quite a while. What it boiled down to was this; what were they going to do if I left the blog up? Have me arrested? Sue me? Refuse references? These three options had me pondering until I arrived at the following decision; they can go swivel on it. The blogs will remain. Firstly I don't like being threatened. Secondly I'm over five thousand miles away and the UK civil courts have no juresdiction. Thirdly, in the UK I'm broke, so they aren't likely to get any money out of me. Fourthly I'm not going to quote them as a reference. Although I did a capable job for them and always got praise from my immediate superiors for the quality of my work, I hated every minute of the time I had to spend in my erstwhile bosses presence and almost wrecked my health working for them. Upon careful reflection I have decided that I owe them nothing. Fuck 'em. Petty little sods. The blogs can stay up as a memorial to their ineptitude. If they can prove it was me in a court of law, which I doubt they ever could; there's no benefit for them. If the press ever connected my alter ego's blog to my real name, it would make my employers look even more petty and ridiculous than ever I found them. The blogs traffic will eventually wither and die until it becomes a dusty little cul-de-sac on some back road off the information superhighway. Calling attention to it would be a mistake. If they had any sense, my ex employers should let that particular sleeping dog lie. But they haven't. That's probably what drove the blog.

Talking of sense, I've been haunting the UK newspaper forums of late, although I know I shouldn't, and find precious little there. If what is written is the reflection of the UK's general level of intelligence and education, then UK plc is in serious trouble. Very few people seem to think before posting. They don't look at the big picture at all. From the insulting behaviour of the online 'trolls', to the frothing insanity of the conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics, there's hardly an atom of logic to be found at all. They almost always attack the messenger, not the message, because many have nothing but dogma to fall back on for argument. Their intellectual bankruptcy appals me. For myself I often erase what I've written and step away from the keyboard because reacting to the futlity of it all is just not rational.

Whenever temptation to get involved in a posting free-for-all strikes a choice piece of dialogue from the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy drifts into my head. "You can read my mind?" Goes the outraged voice of Arthur Dent, the quintessential middle englander.
"Yes." Responds the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android. "And I'm amazed you can live in anything that small."

Such is the human condition. Never mind; the fishing season is almost upon us, and I've got a nice little spot picked out from which to bag the odd salmon. One of my daily tasks is to improve my access by placing rocks to form a stable stairway down to the shore. I've also taken to reading 'Hemingway on Fishing' and P J O'Rourke's pieces on the subject, which may not have as much literary merit, but are far funnier.

Too nice to stay in

The past couple of days have been glorious in terms of sunshine. Air so clear you can see the snow capped Coastal Mountains of BC some eighty kilometres away from the middle of Nanaimo. What a view. Of course we have to pay the price of a fairly sharp frost (-6 Degrees Celsius), but seeing as our house is well insulated and heated, we don't have to worry much about the cold.

Have been reading up on the 'Frost fairs' on the River Thames, and watching the latest financial news with a little trepidation. I'm not too concerned as the credit crunch that started the slide is world wide, so meaning (hopefully) that our investments will not be too badly hit. Our house in the UK sold just before Christmas, and the money therefrom resides in a high(er) interest account, meaning it won't lose much value providing there's no exchange rate disaster.

Work permit application this weekend. I'm not a little anxious because my new job doesn't pay much, and the if the issuing officer has had a bad day already, I might have a problem. They can refuse to issue, which is my chief anxiety. Oh well, all I can do is fill in the forms, check them with Immigration and hope for the best. If Immigration in Nanaimo gives me the green light, I shall head for the US border with a light heart and a spring in my step.

Talked to one of my volunteers and opposite numbers yesterday. I was a bit nervous, but they seem nice people, and willing to forgive any immediate gaps in my knowledge and experience. Things seem to be rather neglected, and in need of publicity and an injection of new blood and fresh funding. Fortunately, I've found that I've more or less got a free hand in the matter, so if I have to get 'creative', there will be no one to slap my wrists and say 'NO!' My 'territory' runs from Duncan, BC all the way up to Port Hardy. This came as a bit of a shock, but I'm sure I can find some way of managing, so long as I'm not paying the Mill owner to go to work.

Today I am on the scrounge for kit, and am going to take posession of a wheelchair with a beautifully engineered pivot and tilt mechanism which some disabled person will find good use for. It's only an instinct, a 'seeming' or prescient feeling if you will, but it's just one of those pieces of kit that you just know you're going to find a use for in the near future.

Anyway, It's too sunny to stay indoors, I'm going to visit the shoreline with Dog, and see what the rest of the day brings.

Jam Daywalkers

Dropped Wife off to do her voluntary stuff this morning, and returned home to do some work, and see when I was going to receive the letter which would enable me to pootle off cross border, and come back to apply for a Work permit.

Heard the local Bald Eagles wheeling around, but could not photograph them as the zoom on my little digital camera is too weedy to capture their wheeling majesty. There's also a 'feature' on the wretched thing that sometimes prevents the shutter operating if it's pain in the arse little silicon chip tells it there's too much / too little light.

Mildly frustrated after a fruitless morning, I got back in our well worn old battle bus and set off to collect Wife and run a couple of errands. On my way into Cedar I was forced to brake sharply by three Peacocks crossing the road. WTF!? Peacocks? In Canada? I thought they were African or Asian, or only kept on English Country Estates or Zoos, not parading around south Vancouver Island like they owned the place. A few hundred metres later I was forced to slam on the anchors quite precipitously as a string of Quail scuttled across in front of me. Damn Jaywalkers, or as Wife spoonerised, Jam Daywalkers. What has got into the local avian population? Acute depression or something? Or are the little sods trying to frighten me into a cardiac arrest? Can't trust birds, cunning little tinkers.

After that, we returned home and I managed to get through to my new boss re the job. I asked her about the letter, which I was assured would be with me within the next week or so. As soon as I get that, Wife and I will take a wander over the border and back with all our paperwork. That done I can get cracking with the new job, and see what good I can do. I may even finish the book.

Real men cook

Stormy day outside, with a gale pushing the tide up the narrows. There are whitecaps out in the straits and next time I go walking in the woods I expect to see trees down.

Damn it all I feel tired. I'm stone cold sober and have been for three days. Not a drop has touched my lips.

Sobriety? At Christmas? WTF is wrong with me? The answer is I'm driving again today as it is both Christmas day and Wife's birthday. We have to visit sister in law as we did last night, which is proving a little stressful.

I'd like to give up this Christmas lark as, being the cook of the household, I seem to end up at everybody else's beck and call. The mirror is doing me near favours either, I have bags under my eyes that were not designed by Louis Vitton. I seem to have aged twenty years in less than a week. Not a happy state of affairs.

Was I looking forward to this? Jesus H Christ I'm bloody exhausted. My sleep patterns are more disturbed than a psychopathic schizophrenic on amphetamines. I'd like to find out if the drugs were working, but nothing seems to help. I need to work solid for a few days with no interruptions to kick my system back into it's usual hyperactive groove.

At the moment I'm cooking Christmas lunch. Dessert is a complete experiment because youngest whined about pre prepared pudding. A sort of apple and batter slice with maple vanilla ice cream. Real men can cook, but I'd really like to have some privacy for a while. Just to work. Failing that, a bullet in the brain might be nice.

Red letter day

Today has been a day and a half. Today we got notice from our Solicitors that the buyers of our house in the UK have exchanged contracts. Today I got word from the Immigration people that the job I have been offered is worth a work permit and that they do not need a HRSDC Market opinion on the job. Today I got my job offer confirmed. All I need now is for a publisher to tell me they want my latest manuscript to publish as a book. Although I do not mind if I get another rejection letter.

This, despite the rain, has been a very good day for me. I love Canada.

The news from the UK isn't good. The Police are threatening to go on strike, the Western economies look like they are in for a banking meltdown. The current Prime Monster of the UK has just signed away their national sovereignty. Christ knows what else is going to go pear shaped over there. I just thank the Lord I'm over here.

I still think my good news is all too good to be true. Maybe God has decided that it's my turn to have a really great day. If that truly is the case, then thank you God. Thnak you. I really mean that.

Wife loves me, my kids think I'm an okay sort of guy, Dog loves me, my cup runneth over. Of such things is true happiness constructed.

Now watch some bastard try to rain on my parade.

Curses foiled again

Gorgeously sunny today, though a little chilly. Definitely saw Orca's out in the Narrows this morning. Too far away to take a photo, even on full zoom, but it looked like there were two or maybe three of them zipping around after something piscine and tasty down towards Round Island.

Lots of tell tale fin wakes and blowing. Boy can those critters shift! There was a big Whale watching boat shadowing them, but that was well over a mile away when I dashed out of the house with Dog drushing excitedly around, trying to trip me up, silly mutt.

Have done the Christmas socialising at our respective voluntary venues. Got an e-mail about the potential job with a load of attachments that I have to read and digest. All makes work for the working man to do as they say in 1960's comedy songs.