Suanne and I must have a cuppa every morning. For some reason, we had never really liked the coffee from Starbucks. If we wanted coffee, we would head to Tim Horton's. While we were still in the Pike Place Market, we thought we make a visit to the first Starbucks outlet. This is (almost) where the it all began, where the first of trillions of cups were served. For coffee lovers, I guess visiting the first Starbucks is like a pilgrimage. I said this is "almost" the first Starbucks. The actual first Starbucks is located just 500 ft from this shop. In many ways, this outlet can be considered as the first Starbucks. You see, when Starbucks were first opened in the earlier location, they only sold coffee beans and equipment for about 11 years. It was only after they moved to this location that the first cup coffee was brewed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/business/10transit.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

This article in the NewYorkTimes shows how we will change or are changing as gas & diesel prices increase our travel costs. Now we just need to change the direction our governments are taking us. There is ample evidence that we need more transit and less roads as fuel prices increase week by week. As well, there is no shortage of articles in the media showing how out of touch our governments really are when it comes to allotting the appropriate funds to our transit systems.

Some cities are seeing spectacular gains. The Charlotte Area Transit System, which has a new light rail line, reported that it logged more than two million trips in February, up more than 34 percent from February 2007.
Caltrain, the commuter rail line that serves the San Francisco Peninsula and the Santa Clara Valley, set a record for average weekday ridership in February of 36,993, a 9.3 increase from 2007, according to its most recent public calculation.
The South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which operates a commuter rail system from Miami to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, posted a rise of more than 20 percent in rider numbers this March and April as monthly ridership climbed to 350,000.
“Nobody believed that people would actually give up their cars to ride public transportation,” said Joseph J. Giulietti, executive director of the authority. “But in the last year, and last several months in particular, we have seen exactly that.”

From the Los Angeles Times.

Rising Fuel Prices Are A Driving Force For Change - Away From Autos

But people are cutting back in a million little ways, and even in the Los Angeles area they're cutting back on driving. Interest in cycling is growing, gasoline consumption is down and bus and light-rail ridership is up.

After declining at the end of 2007, L.A. rail and bus ridership started rising in January. From January to March, average weekday boardings were up 16% on the Red Line rail system, 13% on the Blue Line and 17% on the Gold Line, which set a record for highest average weekday boardings in March with 22,231. Bus ridership grew 8% from January to March.

The explanation is in the math. It costs $1.25 to take the train from the North Hollywood Metro station to the stop at Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, while driving a car would cost $6.05, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. (The agency uses the AAA formula, which sets the cost of driving at 56.2 cents a mile when gasoline and vehicle wear and tear are taken into account.)

And from the Falls Church News-Press.

The Peak Oil Crisis: Transiting to Transit

With crude oil now above $120 a barrel and threatening to go higher, it is clear that our preferred and convenient means of going places, our car, the airplane and the rental car soon are going to be parked because they will be too expensive to operate.
Like it or not, most of us are going to be riding some form of mass transit or multiple passenger vehicle – trains, buses, trolleys, car pools, van pools etc.- while waiting for our cars to be replaced with electric or higher mileage vehicles. As there are currently about 220 million cars and light trucks registered in the U.S. and 700 million or so elsewhere, the replacement process is going to be lengthy one.

One day soon, it will simply be too expensive for electricians, plumbers and a myriad of other household service providers to drive 50 or 60 miles in large, inefficient vehicles to perform some relatively minor maintenance task. The very nature of such services will have to change, be localized, and planned so that travel is minimized. Someday, your electrician may arrive on a city bus pulling his tools and parts behind.

I wrote about my mom on her birthday a week ago. And lo, since today is Mother's Day, it only makes sense I will write about her again. But, the thing is, I already said a lot of the stuff one might normally say on Mother's Day already, AND I did it ...

This spring I planted my floating garden at the end of March. It was a little early, and we had quite a few cool
days, but the sunshine last week was a real boost.

My asparagus has been in the ground several years. This year we were rewarded with spears that are almost store-bought size. We can continue harvesting through mid-June. Then I'll let them go to fern to replenish for next year.

My herbs made it through winter. The parsley is already so large I cut it back to give to my friend Helen for her homemade vegetable juice. Later I'll cut more to dry and put in an herb blend I call Margy's Mix.

My onions are ready for salads. I like red onion sets. This year I also tried bunching onions. An advantage is they continue to produce even as you harvest.

For some reason my lettuce didn't sprout, so I replanted. My spinach, on the other hand, is the earliest and best I've even grown. We treated ourselves to a spinach salad with some of those fantastic onions.

I know it's early, but if this is a taste of what's to come, it's going to be a great summer. Do you have a vegetable garden? Let us hear some of your stories. -- Margy

SOUTH DELTA POLL/APRIL 08

This telephone poll, concerning public opinion about the proposed Port Expansion/Terminal 2 and the South Fraser Perimeter Road projects, was conducted by a small group of volunteers in late April. A total of 180 individual households were contacted in Ladner and Tsawwassen, (98 and 82 respectively), and were chosen randomly from the South Delta phone book. The results of the poll are as follows:

1. Level of Awareness of the projects:
None - 0%
Not Very - 22%
Don't know - 8%
Quite - 53%
Very - 16%

2. How well informed:
Not - 2%
Not Very - 33%
Don't Know - 7%
Well Enough - 42%
Very Well - 22%

3. In Favour Of/Opposed To The Projects:
In Favour - 16% (7% strongly)
Neutral - 19%
Opposed - 61% (54 % strongly)
Don't Know - 4%

4. Concerned About Possible Impacts:
No - 10.5% Yes - 89.5%

5. Areas of possible Concern:

a) Environment:
No concern - 4%
Neutral - 5%
Concerned - 91% (79% Extremely)

b) Wild Life Habitat:
No Concern - 5%
Neutral - 7%
Concerned - 88% (76% Extremely)

c) Land Removal From ALR:
No Concern - 11%
Neutral - 5%
Concerned - 84% (67% Extremely)

d) Air Quality/Health:
No Concern - 6%
Neutral - 7%
Concerned - 87% (79% Extremely)

e) Burns Bog:
No Concern - 10%
Neutral - 5%
Concerned - 85% (73% Extremely)

f) Traffic Congestion:
No Concern - 7%
Neutral - 4%
Concerned - 89% (82% Extremely)

g) Residential Property Expropriation:
No Concern - 14%
Neutral - 14%
Concerned - 72% (59% Extremely)

h) Property Values:
No Concern - 11%
Neutral - 12%
Concerned - 77% (62% Extremely)

i) Quality of Life:
No Concern - 8%
Neutral - 8%
Concerned - 84% (72% Extremely)

6. Opportunities for Public Expression of Concerns:

Not enough - 39%
Neutral - 22%
Don't Know - 10%
Enough - 28%

7. Rating Levels of Government For Public Forums: (3 Parts)

a) Federal:
Don't Know - 9%
Not Good - 74%
Neutral - 12%
Good - 5%

b) Provincial:
Don't Know - 10%
Not Good - 64%
Neutral - 19%
Good - 7%

c) Municipal:
Don't Know - 10%
Not Good - 47%
Neutral - 19%
Good - 24%

8. Level Of Trust In Governmental Environmental Review Process:

No Trust - 37%
Little Trust - 39%
Neutral - 11%
Don't Know - 4%
Some Trust - 6%
Great Trust - 3%

Additional Information:
Regular Tunnel Commuters - 47%
Home Owners - 87%

For additional information, please contact: Perry Long

Phone: 604-940-8969
Email: perry(at)dccnet.com

WANNABE’S SUPERHEROS GUILTY FUN   Directed by: Kinka Usher Written by: Neil Cuthbert Starring: Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, William H. Macy, Hank Azaria, Wes Studi Notable: Totally love Tony P. Leader of the Disco Boys Gang! Rating: 6.5 out of 10 stars IMDB ROTTEN TOMATOES  What do you think ~ Please leave a comment © LEENY for 353 Haiku Movie Review, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to [...]

I moved. Strange feeling it is, waking up 10 days later and suddenly realizing that yes indeed, you do now live in a completely strange and different place. Even stranger for me, is coming to the realization that I now live in an urban environment. The jump from a village of 2,000 to a city of [...]

THE SOUTH WINS RACIAL REVISION LONG AND STRANGE   Directed by: Kevin Willmott Written by: Kevin Willmott Starring: Charles Frank, Shaun Toub, Jeris Poindexter, Rhonda Stubbins White, Gloria Stuart, Notable: Fake racist ads (based on real ads) inserted. Rating: 6 out of 10 stars IMDB ROTTEN TOMATOES OFFICIAL SITE  What do you think ~ Please leave a comment © LEENY for 353 Haiku Movie Review, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add [...]

SURVIVOR GROWS UP WITH BURDEN THOUGHTFUL FILM   Directed by: Jeremy Podeswa Written by: Jeremy Podeswa, Anne Michaels  Starring: Stephen Dillane, Rade Sherbedgia, Rosamund Pike Ayelet Zurer, Robbie Kay Rating: 7 out of 10 stars IMDB ROTTEN TOMATOES What do you think ~ Please leave a comment © LEENY for 353 Haiku Movie Review, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us digg Who's linking ? Technorati BlogPulse Google Want more on these [...]

It's easier to take a photo of one eagle than it is of a half-dozen.

We got to the beach at lunchtime, earlier than usual. The tide was low, but still going out. The wind was chilly, in spite of the bright sunshine. We walked south, facing the wind; it would be easier work coming back, when we were tired.

Ahead of us, a pair of eagles called to each other, a high, skittering ee-ee-ee-ee-ee. They were too far away to consider getting a photo, but we walked faster, watching them. Others showed up, soaring in low circles, dropping to sit far away at the water's edge, then rising to make another lap of the beach. When they flew closer to us, we started clicking.


The problem with a bunch of eagles is that, while you're tracking one that seems to be coming your way, another always shows up, just barely overhead, coming from behind you. You spin to take the photo, too late. When you look back at the first one, he's headed for the stratosphere. Eagle # 2 is now hidden in a tree.

Laurie takes his photos carefully, getting the frame right, but in this case, I just snap away any time I see a black shape on my screen. He usually gets better photos.



The eagles had paired up; when they landed, they sat two by two at the seaward side of the last sandbar. Once, when I had more or less given up, two of the eagles rose, screaming, to tackle each other with wings and talons. The argument didn't last as long as the duck fight at Reifel a couple of weeks ago; by the time I had the camera aimed at them, they had sorted things out, and were settling again to sit with their mates.

Looking around the web at eagle sites, I found the way to distinguish between the male and female eagles:

Another way to tell them apart is to measure the height of their bill. The female’s bill is always deeper than the male’s and usually has a larger hook than the male’s.

Simple. All you have to do is convince the eagle to come over and sit still while you measure its beak.

It might help to know that the female is bigger and has a deeper voice. Or not. At least I can tell a young one from an adult; the adult has the white head.


We'd come quite a ways south. That pillar, on the far right, just beyond the low tide line, marks the American border. I'd never seen it that close before.

On the way back, now with our backs to the eagles, we looked down rather than up. I poked in a few tide pools, looking for crabs.



In one pool, I saw these things, all about an inch long, and very squirmy.


Something that looks like a tiny eel. In another, very fuzzy photo, I got a side shot; he's like a narrow ribbon rather than a tube.


The "eel" and some sort of segmented worm.


And another worm, a spiky creature. I can't tell if he's the same species as the previous one.

I've worn out my eyes looking at worm photos. Is he a polychaete? I'm not sure. Kozloff has a photo of Ophidodromus pugettensis that looks very similar, and lives in this area; that would be my tentative guess.

On a barnacle- and mussel-covered rock, I found a family of a snail I'd not seen here before; it has a green or blackish mottled shell, much shorter and fatter than the usual Batillaria.






Laurie found this one: a convoluted knot of tubeworm tubes.

And at home, sorting out tiny clamshells and sand dollars, I discovered that I had a snail shell less than 1 mm. across.


The snail is the red-brown dot in the centre of the photo. I don't know how I managed to notice that this was a snail. It's about the size of the grains of sand I was washing away.

I probably had snails and clams in my shoes and didn't know it.
.

Yes Mom, you are the target audience of this post. I thought that this Dilbert strip was especially funny as your sewing machine is more advanced than your computer (which isn’t too shabby either). Have a great day and thanks for being my Mom.

Stolen from Bridlepath

Here’s an original design I came up with today.

for this mothers day, some poems i’ve written over the years: mother of the centre mother of the centre, black madonna, spirals around herself – invisible and solid iridescent and opaque invincible and weak irresistible and stark irreverent and pious – and dances: she is a dervish queen! the dust that swirls around her feet adores her.   mother haiku waking up again she cries; it’s a cold, cold night. her [...]

Watch this chick get thrown around like a ragdoll by this quick moving treadmill. That’s gold, Jerry! Gold! Loading... fall, stupid, treadmillShare This

I’ve never read any Alien Vs. Predator comics (though I’ve greatly enjoyed the Alien Loves Predator web comic about Abe and Preston who lives together in a flat in New York). (...)

Well folks, it’s been nearly a week since we had a dose of Ateneuousness, and we’ve just been served a brand-new video, steam still rising from its loops and whorls. I, personally, want to see him do The Chairs with Barbie furniture. But one must be patient. Rome wasn’t YouTubed in a day. [...]

That’s me in the checked shirt and my mom in the bell bottoms.  I always think about her when I hear this song, so it seems a good one for Mother’s Day.   This is a song by Cholcate Genius. If you’ve ever had to take your mom to hospital, then it’ll speak to [...]

Israel apparently is the only country in the world that can torture prisoners, murder innocent civilians, kill children with impunity, assassinate political opponents, ethnically cleanse Palestinians, demolish thousands of Palestinians homes, steal land that individuals have legal title to without compensation, and have policies that are routinely condemned as racist That’s from Canadian Dimensions magazine responding [...]

I used to be an angry person. Okay okay. I am still an angry person when it comes to certain circumstances. I have learned a lot over the years about controlling my anger.

Last night, however, I had a woman insult me. After watching this woman annoy me all night, somehow we ended up in Tim Hortons and she was there, and she tells me I look like a picnic blanket. I told her that was rich considering the plaid pants she was wearing. I wanted to just take her out, to put my foot in her mouth. Instead I went to the bathroom and tried to calm down. I couldn't, so rather than go sit with everyone I just left without saying anything. I slammed open the door on my way out and then I kicked something instead of her head but it didn't make me feel better.

I have learned to accept a lot, to forgive myself most of all, and therefore learned to forgive others and take the "live and let die" approach to life. Occasionally I fail. Occasionally someone like that girl just get to me.

Anyway, I found these articles which I think are very helpful and thought I would pass them along for reading.

---

4 Critical Habits To Develop For Good Anger Control!

Anger management classes teach people a range of skills so that they have better anger control. With practice these skills can become daily habits that reduce anger outbursts, improve your relationships and minimize conflict with others. These 4 habits will help you to develop good anger control and make your life more peaceful.

1. Don't always express exactly what you are feeling. Learn to think through the consequences of expressing yourself before you say what you think. It used to be thought that expressing anger, getting it all out, was good for people and would reduce their anger. Research has clearly shown that for those with anger problems this only makes anger much worse.

2. Give other people the benefit of the doubt when there is a problem. Learn to be gracious and tolerate the frailties and mistakes that we all make at time or another. People are generally just trying to get on with their own lives. Before you speak up to criticize someone count to 10 and decide if it is really worth it. You do not have to point out other people flaws or errors.

3. Learn to have empathy for other people instead of being selfish and putting your own wants and desires first. Consider that the needs of the other person are just as important as you own. Try and do a good turn for someone else each day secretly. Volunteer to help out people who are less fortunate than you are. The distorted thinking patterns that occur in anger make you feel that you are very hard done by that life is a struggle. Helping other people will improve your self esteem and help you improve your communication skills. This will improve your range of anger management techniques.

4. Learn to listen first, and speak second. Angry people usually interrupt other people to make their point. They often do not listen properly and instead, they are thinking about what they will say to defend themselves or they may even attack the other person. Practice listening without interrupting and letting the other person completely finish what they are saying. Learning to listen first and speak second can transform your relationship with your partner.

Developing new habits for anger management takes practice and patience. It will feel uncomfortable at first but the effort will be well worth it. Learning to tolerate other people different opinions and ways of doing things is vital to reducing anger. Learning to listen well and not interpret what you hear will help you challenge the distorted thinking patterns that occur as anger rises.

These 4 habits can help you feel a lot calmer, more peaceful and more in control of feelings of anger. The people around you will eventually begin to see the differences in your behavior and feel safer and more trusting towards you. Anger management classes will teach you these, and other helpful anger management techniques. You can complete online anger management classes and read self help anger workbooks to learn the skills for anger control.

There is never a lack of eating places in the Seattle's Pike Place Market. Everywhere you turn, you will come across food from every corner of the world and all of them seems so authentic. We came across this small little dank looking shop and had a long queue of customers. The queue was so long that it spilled out to the sidewalk. Well, with a line that long, this place would certainly be something.

Important Meeting!
Monday May 12th at 7pm
Delta Municipal Hall - 4500 Clarence Taylor Crescent, Ladner, BC

Map

WE CAN STOP GATEWAY -- the South Fraser Perimeter Road is the key.

Delta municipal council will be discussing both Delta Port expansion and the South Fraser Perimeter Road at the council meeting this Monday! Council staff have prepared reports regarding the environmental impact of the port expansion and the environmental assessment being done before the South Fraser Perimeter road can be built.

The building of Terminal Two at Delta Port would have massive environmental implications including impact on whale migratory routes, the largest bird estuary in the region and drastic increases in pollution and green house gas emissions. The Council report recommendations suggest that port expansion be delayed for five years to study the impact of the smaller scale expansion that has already taken place.

The South Fraser Perimeter Road if built will have very serious impacts on Burns Bog, the "lungs of the lower mainland" and the largest carbon sink in the region. The Burns Bog Conservation Society has come out against the building of this major highway designed to serve increased truck traffic generated from the expansion of delta port. The Gateway programs own studies show this highway could lead to increased cancer rates and other illnesses in the region. The council report suggests that council staff be involved in the environmental review process. Lets make sure they know we want them to raise serious concerns at these meetings!

Council will be discussing the reports from staff and then making decision based on their recommendations. We need to be there to make sure they know folks in Delta and throughout the lower mainland are concerned about these decisions.

The meeting starts at 7pm (the important items are close to the end of the agenda so folks could show up closer to 7:45 or 8pm if they want to get out there on their own).

A group of us will be leaving on the bus from Burrard Skytrain in Vancouver at 5:45 to go out to the meeting. We will be meeting up with friends from the Burns Bog Conservation Society and other concerned citizens.

Gateway is far from a done deal ... its a dumb deal and here is a chance from us to do something about it!

--
Ben West | Healthy Communities Campaigner
Wilderness Committee | Canada's largest membership-based wilderness preservation organization
w: 604-683-8220 | www.wildernesscommittee.org

Damned Red Wings! They make it look so easy out there don't they? But that is what a team that is completely on the same page does, as Kris Draper had alluded to after the Wings' 2-1 victory Saturday.
The Stars look either out of gas, outclassed, or both. They just can't sustain any pressure or even get any pucks to the net. The Stars could use a shot of adrenaline, and maybe returning home for Game 3 might do that. For now, the curse of Dallas winning in Detroit still lives.
Besides all of that, what happened post game was a piss off for me, for several reasons.
1. Mike Ribeiro turned around and slashed Chris Osgood after the final horn sounded. Why did he do that? No, it was not because Osgood was chirping at him. It was because Ozzie sneakingly raised his stick hand as Ribeiro skated past him and caught him in the face with the butt end of his stick. It was intentional. Ribeiro, obviously angered by that dirty play and the loss, turned around and whacked Osgood over the chest with his stick.
2. Oh yeah, then the CBC panel gets all over Ribeiro because it looked so bad. Not one of them even noticed that Osgood butt-ended Ribeiro! Fools! Did any of the American commentators catch on to that? Because our guys didn't.
3. Osgood falls over like he's been shot to sell the slash. If any of you have ever worn goalie equipment, you will understand that getting slashed in the chest doesn't hurt. A guy could stand there and do that to you all day. But Osgood lay on the ice like the classless fucking idiot that he is!
And to top that off, the Detroit netminder is interviewed post game and says that the slash caught him in the ribs and that basically the League needs to look at it!

“Even if I did butt-end him, it was an accident,” Osgood said. “I was trying to protect our best player, Nick Lidstrom, so he didn’t get run.”

Fuck off! Be a man and own up to the stick job you put on Ribeiro! Gutless puke. (For the record, Lidstrom wasn't behind the net when the horn sounded, he was in front of Osgood.)
Even this ESPN footage doesn't capture the Osgood butt-end properly. Everyone only sees the slash. And the jackass media cries fowl and wonders if a suspension will come. I know that the NHL will see the whole incident, and probably let Ribeiro off easy. They should. If Ribeiro gets any punishment, Osgood should as well. (Here's a good clip of the whole incident from ESPN. Thanks Tapeleg for the link.)
4. The strange thing that angers me is that I'm defending Mike the Spineless Star Weasel Ribeiro. What has it come to? There are not enough teams in the top 4 that I like!
5. Hockey is turning into soccer. Bunch of diving assholes out there. Hail to those who don't dive and play like men with honor. The rest of them need to check if they have any balls attached to them.

Yeah, I'm pissed off. The sport that I love is turning into a god damned joke.
So no, Ribeiro should not be suspended. More like Osgood needs some lessons in class. I would have slashed the jackass too.
But at least there is more emotion in this series now.

UPDATE FROM TSN: Osgood, Ribeiro and Ott will all be fined but not suspended. Nice! I agree with the NHL on this call.



T Tags: Stars Red+Wings Ribeiro+slashes+Osgood fucking+bullshit

One of my new favourite quotes: I’ve never been impressed by middle ground, or compromising, or art-of-the-possible stuff. Why would people bother with politics if that’s all they wanted to do? If you weren’t trying so see if you could expand the art of the possible at least, break the limits of the feasible, redefine them, [...]

I have spent days looking for a place in Mexico with two bedrooms and baths so hubby and I, plus our friend, can go to Mexico next winter, and so has our friend S.  My husband has left it up to us as he does not use computers and during this search our personality differences [...]

Is anyone else out there on risperidone AKA Risperdal? If so, what are some of your side effects?

When I was seeing my worker on Thursday, she had a book (not the CPS) with a list of the common, less common, and "go see your doctor immediately" side effects.

This site has the following list (red = yes I have/am experiencing):

• drowsiness
• dizziness
• diarrhea
• constipation
• heartburn
• dry mouth
• increased appetite
• weight gain
• stomach pain
• anxiety
• agitation
• restlessness
• dreaming more than usual
• difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep
• decreased sexual interest or ability
• runny nose
• cough
• sore throat
• muscle or joint pain
• dry or discolored skin
• difficulty urinating

Additionally, along with the constipation, I have extreme gas and bloating. The gas is so smelly it could stop a tidal wave. Yesterday, I was so gassy and bloated you could have stuck a prong into me and I would have deflated and gone through the roof. It was painful, horrible, and embarrassing. And it's happening more and more. The constipation is pretty bad, too; there's nothing like eating a high-fibre diet and straining on the can only to pass two turds the size of a peanut. Other side effects I'm experiencing but that are not on the above list are severe, severe sugar cravings. I almost feel like I did when I was on Zyprexa. Yesterday, I bought a small package of 6 small-ish cinamon buns from my local overpriced grocery store and upon arriving at home, I inhaled 4 of them without blinking an eye.

As for the dryness of my skin...This is very strange because my hands are so dry I am almost constantly moisturizing. Also, my skin tone on my legs, hands, and arms has gone a tinge - just a minute tad - purple.

Does anyone else out there take Risperdal? If so, are you having any weird side effects?

Me, the day before Lila's birth, preparing to drill holes for shiitake mushroom plugs. (I also lifted rocks and pushed a car that was out of gas that day; I figured that at 12 days overdue, it couldn't hurt).I've been...

Well, the Con MP in a neighbouring riding never got back to me last week regarding propaganda mailings I've been receiving from him for a while now (story here), so I am going to send the following email to my actual MP, NDP member, Alex Atamanenko, and ask him what he thinks. I hope I receive a timely reply, though yes, I realize MPs are busy and that Parliament is in session.

Dear Mr. Atamanenko,

I am writing because, as a constituent living in Rossland, I am curious about why a Conservative MP, namely X of K Riding, is sending mailings to people outside of his constituency.

At least a few times a month I receive what appears to be Conservative propaganda in my mailbox. Most recently, it was a black & white flier entitled "Tackling Crime, Protecting our Children." It included a referendum-type question ("Do you support the Conservative government's plan to raise the age of protection to 16 years?") with YES or NO boxes to tick for replying, and then you could detach this and send it to X's Parliament Hill address. There was no indication on the flier what constituency X represents.

I am just wondering if it is common practice for MPs to send mailings to people outside of their constituency, and I wonder why we in BC Souther Interior are getting Conservative propaganda from a neighbouring MP in our mail.

Thank you for your time,

WC.

I'll keep y'all posted.

Last night I cooked a huge meal for my family and roommate, with recipes gleaned from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's new and gorgeous book, Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China. The food was copious and pretty fabulous, with the dumplings being the most popular dish.

Go check it out!

Lately I’ve been fascinated by the concept of open source spirituality – an approach that means each individual who participates is a co-creator of the energy field, and of the aspiration to the one goal of transcendence or realization or enlightenment – and from this there is a renewed connection with humanity and our goals [...]

The flap reads: "In the West, when we think about food in China, what usually comes to mind are the signature dishes of Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. But beyond these urbanized eastern areas lies the other China: the high open spaces and sacred places of Tibet, the Silk Road oases of Xinjinag and Qinghai, the steppelands of Inner Mongolia, and the sleepy terraced hills of Yunnan and Guizhou. The people who live in these regions - Tibetans, Mongols, Uighurs, Miao, Hui, Dong, Yi, Dai, and others - are culturally distinct, with their own culinary traditions."

Beyond the Great Wall is indeed a cookbook like no other. It combines the best of many writing genres: travel, autobiography, National Geographic-quality photography, history, geography, and culinary literature. The content is as varied as the some fifty-five other minorities living in the three fifths of land of China not dominated by the Chinese majority, the Han. And the Han is what we typically see or think of when it comes to Chinese people, and their food traditions are the ones we are most familiar with, the ones that come from the well-known urban centres of Beijing and Hong Kong. The authors, couple Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, also authors of Hot Sour Salty Sweet, take the reader on a very experiential tour of those minorities that lay beyond the Great Wall of China, sometimes the tiniest, most isolated corners of a vast former empire that encompasses today an ethnic variety that is truly stunning.

The book is divided into chapters as most cookbooks are: soups, salads, breads, fish, etc. Accompanying each chapter and interspersed between recipes, we get small vignettes of travel stories written from the authors' own experiences while travelling beyond the Great Wall, in addition to histories written about the minorities being explored in the book. The photographs are lush and capture so well the unique qualities and characteristics of some of the worlds most fascinating, but little heard of, cultures.

The food is stunning, too. For the purposes of this review, I decided to have my family over for dinner last night and make a menu derived from the book. My initial response to the recipes was, Uh, I'm not going to be able to find any of the ingredients I'd need to make this here in the boonies. But the more I read, the more I was able to figure out substitutes, and the more recipes I found were very appealing and would involve simple ingredients prepared through simple methods. I now go through the book pretty much thinking that I could make any of these dishes, and bring some little semblance of these out of the way cultures into my home, a world away.

The menu consisted of:







These are the dumplings before cooking and after cooking, and the Hui soup.









And finally, this is the Chicken and Mushrooms with Cellophane Noodles.

Some dishes we liked more than others. The unanimous favourite was the dumplings, and the least popular was the soup. Not that it was bad at all, it was just a bit bland, so we used the dipping sauce left over from the dumplings to spice it up, and then it was great. I thought the mushroom dish was really good, too. The shortbread was excellent, as was the Kazakh Loaf, which I think will become one of my staple bread recipes.

All in all, Beyond the Great Wall is an excellent book. It's probably, at the moment, the nicest, most interesting book I own. It would make a great gift for someone with wanderlust or for a cultured friend who might appreciate the experiences the book narrates. Definitely a keeper on my shelves!

So where’s the warming? Where’s the CO2? As the facts start to pile up a lot of people on the left must be getting worried about having invested so much of their credibility in Global Warming. Here’s the latest on the ‘warming’ oceans and ’shrinking’ ice caps: Antarctic Deep Sea Gets Colder ScienceDaily (Apr. 23, 2008) [...]

Does that make you feel better about a potential Liberal government? This is Bob Rae condemning the Tory government for siding with Israel during the Lebanon war: “It would be great if we had a government that could lead on foreign policy and lead in a way that would make people in the Middle East [...]

You never believe how hilly Seattle is sometimes.  I’ll always be reminded that it’s a long way up from the Waterfront to The Pike Place Market in our previous trips.  That was when we did not realize that there were actually lifts that we could use. No trip is complete without making a trip to the [...]

We walked almost down to the tip of Point Roberts.

Story and critters tomorrow.




For now, goodnight!
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the written word – of course, bloggers like me, we love it. and it certainly has healing powers, in many ways: it educates, it helps us think, it can soothe, it can make our hearts soar. but there are so many other ways. here is a delightful little music video by m. ward that [...]

Each Saturday tnchick, the sponsor of PhotoHunt, announces a theme. Then participants worldwide post pictures on their own blogs or websites to share. This is a free week with no specific theme.

My favourite picture is a rainbow spreading across Goat Island in front of my floating cabin on Powell Lake in Coastal British Columbia. It's a display that we get fairly often late in the day following spring showers. In the foreground you can see my floating vegetable garden and stump collection. If you look close, you can see a double rainbow. Every time I look at this picture I am reminded that we live in the best place on earth.

If you haven't visited my site before, take some time to discover what life is like in a floating cabin. It's a lifestyle that's fairly unique to Coastal BC. Originally, float cabins provided mobile living quarters for logging and fishing camps. You can still find some used in these traditional ways, but they are now more often recreational in nature. In our case, it is our primary residence. There are some challenges living off the grid in a water access only location, but the benefits far outweigh the difficulties. Interested in learning more? Check out the Float Cabin Living and Float Cabin Construction sections of my blog. If you have any questions, please let me know. -- Margy

THE ARCHITECTURAL GODDESS CONTINUES THE SEARCH (Metro Vancouver and beyond) Reply to:XXXXXXXXXX@gmail.com Date: 2008-05-08, 5:29PM PDT THE GODDESS NEEDS YOUR ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN SKILLS ! Yes, The Architectural Goddess is back and in need of new staff. So if you are thinking of a career move, feel like ditching the computer to spent more time on site or maybe [...]

Bob Rae rose in the house today to defend the opposition against the PM’s suggestions of anti-semitism: “I am disturbed that there are some elements in our political system, there are even some members of Parliament we saw during the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah a couple years back — some that were willing to cater [...]

Because I write a lot of posts related to phones, especially Canadian cell phones, I often get asked about SIM card options for people travelling to Canada. Here is the little that I know Please feel free to correct me if I’ve made any errors! First of all, if you have an unlocked GSM [...]

A new video from Ryan Longoz shows just how BC's gateway project will reinforce many of our regions bad habits.

From Ryan: "It's about the problems of consumer culture and how our love of convenience fosters car-oriented living spaces."

It is highly informative and very well done.

REVENGE COMES VIA THE BLUE HANDS SO DAMB STRANGE Directed by: Guy Maddin Written by: Guy Maddin Starring:Darcy Fehr, Melissa Dionisio, Amy Stewart, Sue Birtwistle, Michael Bell Rating: 7 out of 10 stars IMDB ROTTEN TOMATOES Zeitgeist Films What do you think ~ Please leave a comment © LEENY for 353 Haiku Movie Review, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us digg Who's linking ? Technorati BlogPulse Google Want more on [...]

Unfortunately, I have had to set this blog to full moderation. I received some spam that was autposted despite the fact that the settings allowed only those who had previously commented this privilege based on trust. So that’s a pretty strong indication to consider. I have previously published a post on spam attacks and this [...]

In this town - Vancouver - you can’t drink outside unless you’re naked.   Otherwise the police will be on you like stink on a monkey.  You can walk down the street with a blunt, but don’t dare carry around a beer.  That’s not just the norm here, but across North America. In London, it’s different, there [...]

I have no clue what to write these days. I'm writing everywhere else -- at work, on blogs and in songs. But here? I'm having a writer's block for sarcasm. Why? Sarcasma . . .

Let's face it, with these fake drugs running through my system, I'll never be able to get-snarky-wit'-it again. But I'll always have my blind humour. That's what counts, I guess.

We're back in town after a glorious week at the float cabin. Spring is the season of rebirth and it is evident everywhere. Trees are leafing out, flowers are blooming and my veggies are sprouting. Throughout the Hole in the Wall birds are searching for nesting sites. And under the float, the deer mouse population is exploding.

We've been very lucky that mice haven't gotten into the cabin and we want to keep it that way. Earlier I shared about using a Havahart live trap to capture and relocate mice. It works fine, but at one mouse a night it could take a long time to get rid of the problem.

One night I couldn't sleep and came up with a brainstorm. I call it Margy's Mousie Mechanism. With this trap we can capture multiple mice in one night. The design is simple. It starts with a large plastic tub. We have lots of these around the cabin for a variety of purposes. Some scrap lumber were used to fashion a ramp and "diving board" into the tub. A few dabs of peanut butter, and the trap was complete.

On the first night we caught three mice in one fell swoop. In the morning, they all got a quick boat ride to nearby sandy beach with lots of hidey-holes and natural food sources. That's much better than poison or a kill trap for sure. -- Margy

Spring is finally here!! I have put in a mixture of some of my pictures of last year and this years spring time flowers at Government House where there is a Garry Oak meadow. The woodlands of Government House consists of 8 hectares of Garry Oak ecosystems. 95% of Canada's range of this species has been lost, there are 700 species identified within and interdependent upon the Garry

"After meeting with Joel, we mutually agreed that the best decision for both parties involved is to go separate ways," said Avalanche Executive Vice President & General Manager Francois Giguere. "On behalf of the organization, I want to thank Joel for his years of service and wish him the best in his coaching career."

I'm not sure which part of Giguere's brain thought up this idea. Quenneville, who was in the last year of his contract, had coached the Avalanche to a 131-92-23 record in his 3-year tenure, and this year led them past the Wild in round 1 only to be swept by Detroit in round 2. The roster was depleted most of the time this year yet Quenneville still got this gutsy bunch into the playoffs. How far could you expect the Avs to go without Stastny, Smyth and Forsberg (half the time)?
Oh well, that's business, right?

What are Avalanche fans saying?

Tapeleg at Jerseys and Hockey Love said this after the 8-2 drubbing by Detroit in game 4:

Perhaps this will make the people who like Joel Quenneville realize that he took this team into the ground. Missed the playoffs last season, swept in round two this season, backed a horse in Theodore that turned out to be a donkey. There is only so much I can take the injury argument, and getting swept is about that far.

Jibblescribbits has a massive post up about the firing, which includes:

I think Q has the tools to be a good coach, but he seems hell bent on making his personnel fit his scheme, rather than letting his scheme compliment his personnel. For example Smyth-Sakic-Hejduk should be a great line, puck control and great shots with a top-flight rebounder in front. But Q insisted that the puck starts behind the net, which isn't this roster's forté. Especially on the powerplay (which was an unmitigated disaster this season). To be a top flight coach you need to adjust your schemes to your personnel (See Bowman, Scotty; Babcock, Mike).

Wow, no love for the giant f***ing Q in Avs land.

T Tags: Colorado+Avalanche+fire+Joel+Quenneville

You know you’re reading a great book when all of a sudden you’ll want to reach out through the pages to the author and say: YES! I know what you mean! That’s happened to me! The passage I was reading is from What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt and it deals with a father talking to [...]

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon For more of Zena Koo's photography visit Slate.com...

Most folks tend to socialize with people of the same age and with similar interests. Most couples hang out with other couples. This isn’t the case with me. I live in a very small place with a low population so that may be a factor. I was raised in an extended family and friends [...]

for today’s “frozen pea friday” post on cancer, and because it’s national mental health week, i’ve interviewed someone on how she deals with the emotional effects of cancer. here’s what she says: i have 100% permission to have all the meltdowns i need to have (i.e. anger, crying spells) have a relationship with a psychotherapist [...]

These days I see a divide between marketers. There are 2 camps, the traditionalists and the technologists and rarely do the 2 meet, far less collaborate - which is a shame because a marketing project is much more likely to be a success if it blends the best of both to reach the intended [...]

Try this. From me to you.

Every Friday I am going to feature a Flickr contact I think you will enjoy. I think I have a lot of interesting Flickr contacts and they take some pretty amazingly wonderful photos.

---

This week I am focused on to Fuzzbox's Dad aka Jim Livesey.

[I previously focused on his wife Eve Livesey on April 4th 2008.]

Jim has taken some amazingly wonderful photographs and I hope you all go check out his large photo collection on Flickr. I had a hard time picking just a few to highlight here for you to view.





Jim says his themes are architecture, cityscape, landscape and seascape, and and finally my favorite - people in unguarded moments.





Fuzzbox's Dad also says that he thinks his stuff is "lousy but improving" so go to Flickr and tell him he is so wrong.

THE BEST THING? GEORGE CLOONEY DIES FIRST SADLY BAD   Directed by: Bill Froehlitch Written by: Mark Lisson, Bill Froehlitch Starring: Vince Edwards, Alex Rocco, Brendan Hughes, Lori Lethin, George Clooney 353 Related link: Return of the Killer Tomatoes Rating: 3 out of 10 stars IMDB ROTTENT TOMATOES What do you think ~ Please leave a comment © LEENY for 353 Haiku Movie Review, 2008. | Permalink | 2 [...]

New Nik Nanos poll out today. In spite of all the mud slinging by the NDP and the Liberals, Harper’s trustworthy rating actually INCREASED! Layton seems to be falling on everything. Good - the more you see him, the more you just want to slap him. Most importantly, more and more [...]

Announcing the second annual Silk Road Fibre Studio Tour & Sale Sunday May 18, 11 AM - 5 PM Studio #1. Heather Hansen’s Studio, 3600 Ketch Rd.  Heather Hansen: creative & wearable fashions. Heather Grant: china saucer pincushions, contemporary shoulder sacs & fun yarn scarves. Studio #2. The Buttonlady’s Gallery, 3733 Frigate Rd.  Wendy Dunnett: hand-made ceramic [...]

How’s that for a title? First, we will explain each element in isolation. No, first we will tell you what we’re going to tell you. Then we will tell you. Then we will tell you we’ve told you. I’ve been told that’s what to do. Then, we will invoice you. No, wait, that’s how it works in the corporatesphere, [...]