Soul Fest Day two

I arrived a little later than I would have liked, but I caught the last half hour of the second performing artist today, Papi Jay. He has a strong voice, sings songs in both English and French, and often engaged the audience by both voice, and by moving off the stage and into the lounging area where the tables, chairs and attendees were seated.

I found a bench a little further east on Ste-Catherine street and sat for 25 minutes as there is an hour gap between shows so as to take down the music equipment of the finished performer, and to set up and sound check the next one.

The next one was Naïka Champaïgne. She has a powerful voice and used it quite a few times to sing out very long extended notes. During this performance I was surrounded by women, the one to my right dancing in such a way that her left arm was very close to battering me in the head. I ended up leaving this show after about 35 minutes of the hour long set as I didn't want to be next to this excited dancing person and I had had enough.

Soul Fest Day One

Even though it was raining last night, and even though it was forecast to rain, sometimes hard, for the duration of my stay, I still went to catch the first two free shows of this small festival, in its third year. Soul Fest brings together new and established artists in R&B, Funk and Disco. They have a single outdoor stage for free shows, and a single indoor venue (Le Balcon) for paid shows. The outdoor staging area is at the front of a church on Ste-Catherine street near address 463 West, where a cordoned off area has become a restaurant which I imagine is what helps to fund the festival. The sidewalk, however, is free to enter and to stand and watch the show, so that is what I did.

During the first show, where Mary Grace and her band sang an Etta James Tribute, there was a thick crowd of people on her left that were all just talking with each other, not hardly paying attention to her. On Grace's right were perhaps a dozen small groups at least half of which were avidly following Grace. There were perhaps ten of us standing in the free zone.

She was super animated as a singer, with a lovely voice and she tried to get participation occasionally.

Grace finished at just before 20h and the next show was to start at 21h and I was pretty drenched from the nonstop rain, so I walked to the Place des Arts metro station, went down to the platform level, and ended up sitting there to escape the rain, dry out a little, and watch trains and people pass by. I resurfaced at 20h50 to walk back to the venue to watch the next show, and at this time it was raining even harder.

Jules has become somewhat well known here in Quebec for his appearances on La Voix and Star Académie; he is a French language singer with his own original songs and he has two albums. Accompanying him on stage were two musicians, one of whom curiously had a bass drum foot pedal; so when there was a rhythm requirement, he provided it by simply tapping his foot.

I did not stay for his whole set as I had had enough of being in the rain.

well, why not?

It is often an amazing thing, to enjoy the summer when it is hot and raining.

In January, on the tenth of the month, it is not hot and raining (generally).

I, for one, can count to two. Can you too?

The weather, as a topic, is sometimes preferable to the inane.

The weather, as a topic, is often a waste of time - who cares about the weather?

I try in my day to day conversations with people to avoid this topic, but I do not always succeed.

buck up, fried

I've been on public transit a lot more lately, taking the metro, the REM and buses. While looking at the metro map while riding the metro, I had an idea about expansion. Below is the network as it is and showing the Blue line extension heading north eastwards.

Once the Anjou station (the blue line extension furthest station north-east) is built and in action, it seems a no brainer to create a U connection to the tip of the green line with perhaps one or two stations in that U shape.

The next obvious one is to connect the Orange line from Cote Vertu to MoMo, stopping a few times on the island of Montreal and at one of the two REM stations in its path, and then one or two additional stops in Laval before reaching MoMo. This makes the Orange line a loop.

The least obvious one is to connect Angrignon to Snowdon, so that what was once a U shape given the first suggestion I gave above, now becomes a loop.

The final suggestion I have is to extend the Yellow line to end up directly at the St Hubert airport, to have the metro station embedded beneath the terminal.

The mayor of Montreal has asked what can be done with Lisette, the TBM being used for the Blue Line extension, and I would say at the very least, do that connection to the tip of the green line at that north-east end of the island; the TBM will already be in exactly the correct position to simply continue going along the path I propose.

Jass Fest 2026 review

I succeeded in attending every day of the festival, getting to see mostly three shows per day, though on one occasion it was only two.

I enjoyed almost all of the performances, but there was one in particular that I hadn't prepared for and ended up missing. On June 27th I arrived early and my last show I attended was the Asesino Trio performance. I had noticed when I tried to leave the TD stage audience area that almost no one was leaving, and in fact, more people were entering, making the population density even greater.

It turns out that it was Angine de Poitrine who performed at 21h30, and that show closed the Jazz Fest grounds for there having reached a capacity of people. I did not, at the time, know who this band was or what they were doing; had I known, I would have stayed right where I was, as I was already in a good position having watched the Asesino Trio perform. I have since learned about them having watched a handful of YouTube videos and now I regret (as much as I ever regret anything, which isn't very much) not having stayed after the Trio to keep my good position to watch them AdeP play.

I found as the 10 days progressed that a ligament, likely my right hip flexor tendon, was becoming achingly sore only to a very minor but noticable degree, due to me being standing and sometimes dancing in place, for 3-5 hours per night, for 10 consecutive nights. Doing all of this in addition to going out for a 3600m run a few mornings during the festival had me aching this way.

So for next year I plan on doing both stretching and leg strength exercises in advance of the festival, and, to decrease or even eliminate any distance running during the festival to reduce the amount of irritation all of my joints experience.

Hopefully I am in a better position financially next year to buy a t-shirt and hat, or some memorabilia, and perhaps also attend perhaps one paid show.

There is Soulfest and Nuits Afrique both that are coming up soon, as well as Osheaga. The first two have free shows, the latter does have a cost, so I won't be attending this year, but maybe in a future year I would consider attending.

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Jazz Fest day 10, the last day of the festival, had me arrive at the TD Stage at around 18h25, I found a somewhat younger woman alone wandering around a little in my immediate vicinity, I ended up engaging with her in conversation for the half hour we were waiting for the show at 19h to start. That was very pleasant, we talked about shows we had attended, what we liked about them and so on.

At 19h, Sparklmami began her show. Her backing band was excellent in all of their skilled positions, she herself was a little odd, seemingly stream of conciousness word play bounded by also some singing. On one hand she wore a black glove with the glove's fingers extended a hand length beyond the end of her own fingers. I mostly enjoyed the show due to the band surrounding her.

At the end of that show I sped, as one can between thousands of people moving in random directions, to the Rogers stage to catch the Sue Foley show. She is a highly skilled guitarist herself and had a good band including a second guitarist who mostly played rhythm behind her, but who also soloed at times when she would allow for it. She soloed so much, if we added up her solo time it probably was about 3/7ths of her one hour allotment. The backing band did well to keep a great rhythm behind her, though, the bass guitarist looks a little bored at times.

Once Sue Foley's show ended, I stayed at the Rogers stage and moved to be right up against the front gate of the stage for the next show that would start in 90 minutes. While waiting there I could hear Etran de L'Air on the adjecent Rio Tinto stage next door; and they sounded really great; maybe in a future year I will make an effort to be at their stage for their show.

The last show of this year's Jazz Fest that I attended was Chicha Libre, the alternative was a rap show by Smino that given my preference, I was happy to miss out on. Chicha Libre is from Brooklyn, but each of them are also from various countries like Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the guy in front from France. They played Peruvian music that also sounded a little bit like klezmer music without a central and south American angle. Unfortunately the drummer from my vantage point was often hidden by the main singer and ukelele player up front. The video below I try to show her.

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Jazz Fest day nine wasn't quite as hot, so that was good.

I arrived in time to catch the Choir! Choir! Choir! show at the TD stage at 19h. It was two men, both choir directors in times past, one of them playing acoustic guitar accompaniment, dividing us down the middle to create harmonies, words on the screen Kareoke style, singing songs we all know like Bon Jovi Living on a prayer, Karma Culture Club and Fleetwood Mac Dreams. The two of them encouraged everyone in the audience to sing and pretty much everyone did. At one point they asked for a raise of hands who had been to a CCC show before and it seemed about 3/7ths did, then he asked a raise of hands who hadn't, and it was about 4/7ths, me included. It was fun to sing along.

After that show I made my way to the Rogers stage, to get there I had to pass through reams of people - I guess on a good weather Friday night, the festival had a lot of extra people. Guy Bélanger and his band were performing. He has a special belt that has perhaps a dozen harmonicas, I suppose each one tuned a little differently. For most of the songs, he played one of his harmonicas, and/or he sung, or, his bassist sung two songs. Most of the songs were up tempo and many included both a harmonica solo and a lead electric guitar solo. It was okay as a band and performance, but it was a little too much harmonica for me.

I stayed at the Rogers stage so that I could be at the very front of the next show, even though it was 90 minutes later. About a half hour before the next show started I engaged in conversation with two people who were friends with each other, a young man and woman, talking about the festival, the shows we had attended, what this upcoming show was about and so on, so that was nice. The performer was Tanya Tagaq who, with a cellist and a drummer, filled about 50 continuous minutes with a wide variety of sounds, including some throat singing and mostly unintelligble sounds. The drummer and cellist contributed in their own wildly random ways to provide a show that is both bizarre and moving, odd and compelling. The light show added to the whole effect of this very peculiar performance.

There was a young woman right next to me at the front railing as close to the stage as possible whom Tanya seemed to recognize; in the end this young woman joined Tanya on stage and the two of them together did a short throat singing duo.

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Jazz Fest day eight wasn't a very good one.

I arrived earlier than I had been arriving and got a Notre Dame de Beouf burger and chatted with the two young women working there as it was prepared. That was nice. I found a picnic table nearby, ate it, and then attended the Thee Marloes show that started at 18h. The best way I could describe this band is as a higher end lounge singer group, with the woman having a lovely and semi-sultry voice, and though she was sitting at the keyboard the whole time, still she moved like a vixen singer would with a spotlight on her in an upscale lounge.

I left this show at 18:35 so that I could get a good spot at the TD stage for the Annahstasia show that was to start at 19h. (my plan was to go back to see Thee Marloes second set starting at 20h, but as you'll see later, this didn't happen) As I approached the TD stage it started to lightly rain, I found a spot very close to the stage, but surrounded by perhaps 1000 girls of approximate age 15-18. They were exceedingly noisy and many of them chatterboxes that were talking ever so loudly due to how many of them there were, and this talking continued well after the show started. I found this highly disrespectful to Annahstasia who was singing to us even though she could likely hear all of the chattering from this front of scene large group of girls. 

While waiting for the show, and during the first 10 minutes of the show, the rain continued, and in my immediate vicinity, two umbrellas were open keeping those nearby people dry, but then spattering the rain on to me. Internally this irritated me, the inconsideration of the umbrella holders and the chattering all around me. Externally I remained stoic. I ended up moving to a less advantageous place.

Annahstasia's first three or four songs were slow songs, with her sustaining long notes, and only the viola, sax, piano and cello accompanying her. I failed to understand why these girls were present at this show as they weren't paying attention, and this slow music probably doesn't appeal to them. Subsequently, an electric guitar player got added who mostly just played atmospheric sounds, and then by about 19h30 the drummer finally got involved for a few more songs with a stronger rhythm.

She has a great voice, but I had a hard time knowing if I liked her music given all of the distraction of what was going on around me.

At around 19h40 I noticed some really dark clouds above us, so I snaked my way out of the audience where none of them had noticed the same thing I had. I walked to the far side of the NFB building which was adjacent to where the stage is and found an exterior overhang to stand under. Within seconds of me reaching that place a torrential downpour with violent winds came upon us and a minute later someone figured out how to enter the NFB building where the entire ground floor is an open area lobby, so I entered there to wait for the storm to pass.

By 20h45 the rain had mostly stopped and so I exited the building and walked the grounds of the festival, the next show at the TD stage was at 21h30 and I decided that I had had enough of this night and headed home.

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Jazz Fest day seven; it was around 34c when I arrived with high humidity, but I didn't feel it was too bad. I attended after 18h so the worst of the heat was just during the first hour or so that I was there.

While waiting for the first group, I engaged in conversation with two much younger guys who showed up moments after I did and stood very near me. We talked about this band that none of us knew particularly well and about other shows we have attended, in particular Angine de Poitrine, and Naika. The first group I saw was Dustin Conrad and his band. He was entertaining, and his band were very highly skilled, with some great combined and solo playing; however, his actual singing wasn't really that great. He has released two albums, the first a pop album the second a jazz-pop album and he played songs from both.

Very soon after that show ended I moved as quickly as I could to go to the other stage to watch Ron Artis II; he is a highly skilled electric guitar player and has a very highly skilled band behind him. He sang songs that were really touching; one in particular, No Weight: "best way to rise is to go lift somebody up". I was quite impressed with this band and would be happy to see them again.

The last band I saw was Larkin Poe, I arrived a half hour before the show started, entered the area from the rear and was able to move ahead almost to the very front; there I engaged with a guy perhaps about my age and we talked about this band and about the festival. Larkin Poe is clearly a rock band and they are a high power rock band, the two sisters leading the band are really pro performers, moving around the stage, interacting with the crowd, telling brief stories that lead directly into the start of a song. You can see in the photo that one of the two of them plays a guitar in an odd way; it is because she is playing it as a steel guitar, with a metal cylinder in one hand that she slides across the strings.

I really enjoyed this last show; all in all this was a really good day at the festival.

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Jazz Fest day six had me attend only two shows as there was a very high risk of heavy rain during the Willow show that started at 21h30, so I ended up leaving at around 20h40 as I had listened enough to Mei Semones.

The first band I saw was Alfa Mist at the big TD stage. I am kicking myself as I arrived a half hour early and stood at the 4 o'clock slightly behind a young woman. Throughout that half hour I could have been chatting with her, asking her if she knows about Alfa Mist, or has she attended any other shows, but I didn't know if she was alone (she was) or if she was waiting for someone, and I didn't know what language she spoke. Anyhow, if this situation presents itself again, I will act. 

In the photo below it is very difficult to see the painist at the grand piano on the left, but he was there and he was the only one who spoke to us, not very much. This band played true jazz, with arrythmic beats, taking turns of each player to get solo opportunity, brief syncopated connections among all members for a short ryhtmic section and then back to complex or sole player performance. The drummer in particular was spectacular.

Here is a video that I took:

The next band I saw was Mei Semones and her band. She sang songs with cute lyrics, the violin and viola on the left added excellent backing sounds and did have a well rehearsed duo performance for perhaps a two minute stretch during one song. Mei herself did a lot of individual note picking up and down the neck of her electric guitar, it was kind of fun how she played, but a full hour of it was too much, so I ended up leaving before the show ended.

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Jazz Fest day five began with me standing at the Rio Tinto stage while listening to the last half of Cécile Doo-Kingué's set at the adjacent Rogers stage, then catching Fabiola Mendez's show at the Rio Tinto stage in full, then catching the first half of Cécile Doo-Kingué's second set, and then attending the Naïka show.

Fabiola Mendez and her band are from Costa Rica and they played latin based Jazz influenced songs, sung in Spanish leaving a lot of time for solos from Mendez herself, playing a special electric Quattro guitar (10 strings sorted into five pairs of doubled) and her bass guitarist who he himself was playing a five or six string electric bass guitar.

Next was Cécile Doo-Kingué with a band that played a Rock and Blues combination. She is originally from Cameroon and spoke French equally well to us in the audience as she also spoke English. Of the bands I've heard over the last few days this one sounded like one of the ones I enjoyed the most.

I left the Doo-Kingué show a bit early, at around 20h30 so as to get to the biggest stage area (the TD stage) in hopes of obtaining a good spot for the Naïka show, however, this didn't go exactly as planned. There are two main entrances to access where the audience goes for this TD stage, one at the north end of Jeanne-Mance and another at the south end of Jeanne-Mance with the stage at the corner of JM and de Maissoneuve, and the tail end of the audience at the JM and St-Catherine. The past few days I managed to get to a near the front position by walking through the north end (the stage end) and gently snaking my way inwards. Last night I attempted this also, but already with 50 minutes before show time, the front area was too dense with people. I walked around the grounds to then enter by the south entry and found I could walk forwards and I ended up probably at 5/7ths of the distance, so not quite at the back, but behind the halfway point. Over the next 45 minutes the space around me got denser and denser with people until it was likely as dense as it had been at the front when I first arrived.

I had not heard of Naïka before this performance, but the thousands of girls and young women in my immediate vicinity clearly had, and sang along with almost every song. Naïka sang pop songs with a Latin drum beat backing. She had both French language and English language songs and she spoke to us in both languages. More than once she exclaimed how insane this concert was - that so many people were present.

I waited for perhaps four minutes standing more or less where I had been, once the show was over, to allow the crowd around me, and the crowd between me and the metro entrance, to thin out. Once I got to the metro, wow, the platform going in the opposite direction was full.

twice and not a single time

All of the answers to all of the questions can be summarized by providing an answer that answers the questions.

It is about this time of year that some people run in Spartan Races. I should know.

It isn't clear to me if the people who started Daylight Savings Time knew anything about kleptomaniacs. But then, not a lot is clear to me that doesn't involve lint or napping.

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Jazz fest day four; I decided to attend a later set of shows as the weather is getting hotter and I wanted to avoid being in the Sun and at least have some of my time at the festival be during and after sunset.

The first show I went to was Son Little, he sang songs a bit reggae sounding, he had a woman bass player who also did backing vocals and in an interestingly minimal way, just a word here, a phrase there. A facet of their playing in quite a few of their songs would have a crescendo build to a dramatic level.

Next I went to see D.K. Harrell, a rhythm & blues singer, performer of large size. He had great showmanship and interacted with the crowd, getting us involved in some of the songs.

Finally I went back to the main TD stage for a show that would start half an hour later. Already there were many thousands of people there, but I managed to snake my way in where I found an empty spot for me to stand. The performance was from Kamasi Washington and his band. It was the most avant-garde jazz I've seen so far with a reliable rhythm only some of the time, arythmic sound most of the time, generous 5-8 minute solos from every player in the band. I'd have left this performance earlier, but leaving from that thick crowd was a challenge and I wanted to give Washington's band a chance. Eventually I did come to enjoy the show. This band too, like Son Little, would use crescendos in their songs.

I decided at this show to take a photo backwards to show how big the crowd was; as it was dark when I took the photo, it is hard to tell, and the green tinge is because there are some lights above us shining green light upon us. The crowd goes all the way back to those joined towers you see in the background as there is another screen back there that shows by video what is happening on the stage.

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Jazz Fest day three began with me attending another youth jazz band, this one from high school students from the Vicent Massey high school. In addition to a few jazz band classics, they had one song written by one of the students, with the writer singing his part.

Next was Brittany Davis; as evidenced by her bass player giuding her, her walking stick, she is a visually impaired performer if not fully blind. She is a mix of stream of consciousness singer and one who sings traditional jazz songs, very adept at the keyboard and a great rhythm section from her two players.

The last show I attended was to see the Trio Asesino which curiously was made up of four players. I wasn't too impresssed as they were a solely instrumental band and I found all of their songs sounded very similar. I like what they played and would include their songs on a play list, but would be happy with one of their instrumentals mixed in among other songs. 

At the end of their set I was a little surprised that a very large number of people at this, the biggest stage, simply stayed put even though the next act at that stage was an hour later. I gently snaked my way out to get home as I had been at the festival already for three shows and didn't have the stamina to wait an hour and then be at another show for another hour. If I was to do this over, maybe I would have stated.

It turns out that Angine de Poitrine was to perform at 21h30 that night, so it was 90 minutes before the next show. This two person group from Quebec has become exceedingly popular, so much so, that the Jazz Fest grounds were closed due to having reached max capacity. Being there for such a momentous occasion would have been worth the aching I was feeling in my feet.

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Jazz Fest day two, now knowing there is a show that starts at 17h, I left earlier so as to catch more of it. The band showing was the McGill Jazz Orchestra 1; it was nice to see these students, these young adults, playing as they did. More or less everyone got a turn to solo as they ran through a bunch of classic Jazz band songs.

Next was Campbell and Johnston, a band from Nova Scotia; it was cute that the lady of the duo spoke her DuoLingo French to us passably with a very anglophone accent. The crowd was appreciative and gave her feedback that she was doing well enough. This band had a strong guitar focused sound, they play mostly traditional rock sounding songs, including a few covers, one from the Rolling Stones and the other from Stevie Wonder. From my vantage point, the bass guitar player was directly behind the lead guitar play of the duo so I could hardly see him. Though, in a few spots in a few songs, the bass guitar player would mirror the lead guitar player and from my vantage point I could see both players hand on their strings on the neck of their instrument moving in sync.

The last show I went to on this day was to see Cymande, a large group that performed a variety of songs, often giving the brass players time to solo. The songs they chose to play all had good rhythm and dance-ability, in particular the bass player had really interesting bass lines which were very creative with each different song, but the same creative riff played through each song.

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I live closer to downtown now than I ever have, so attending the Montreal Internation Jazz Festival with daily free concerts has now become much easier. Yesterday was the first day and I watched the last 4/7ths of one show, all of a second, and the last 6/7ths of a third show.

I finished work at 16h30 and dilly dallied; if I had paid closer attention, I would have left right after work. The first show I attended was Annie and the Caldwells and they started at 17h; I arrived at 17h24 and so caught the remainder of their set.

They had a really strong rhythm section and they sang funky songs. They encouraged audience participation, but I had trouble understanding what they were saying. The stage of the next performance I attended was pretty much adjacent to this first one, so I walked over and waited the six minutes for this next show.

Next was Hannah Cohen.

She wore a revealing outfit but seemed very comfortable in doing so.

She and her band played sort of a lite rock, folk and country mixed up genre, this was my favourite performance of the day, the band sounded really good and I liked most of the songs. Her set went right to 19h and the next show was at a different stage, so I missed perhaps the first five or six minutes to get there. It was Teona Major 9 performing.

She sang Aretha Fanklin or Whitney Houston inspired songs, and a few covers of such songs. She is a new artist from London, UK, she just released her first album and will soon be going on her first tour.

All in all it was a good first day; I didn't have the stamina to stay longer as after TM9 finished at 20h, the next show of interest was at 21h, so I walked around a little and then decided to return home. It is likely to be raining today at those same hours, but I will still see about attending anyhow.

Roma Roma basil pepper garlic

The two Roma plants are flourishing, the pepper plant looks healthy but it isn't clear there are any peppers yet. At the far end is garlic we are attempting to grow.

A closeup of one of the Roma tomatoes, there are about seven small ones with this one the biggest of them.

twist and cry

Without just having received a concussion, I saw spots all around. They quickly faded. I had just gotten up from my chair quickly, took a few steps away, then some same steps back and sat down quickly. I wonder if that motion alone can be a cause of seeing spots.

In other news, things happened, somewhere, that caused some people to become very happy, while others remained mostly indifferent.

To have indicated otherwise would not have been helpful in any way, whatsoever. I should know.

buckets of elbow grease

So last Saturday we held the funeral mass for my mom, and subsequently went to the cemetary to lower her urn into a hole dug for it, we sang the first verse of Amazing Grace, and then we went to the Chartwell residence where my dad, aunt, uncle and his wife are living.

At the residence, food was provided and I sat at a table with my Aunt Therese, my uncle Paul and his wife Lucy. Paul is recovering from a critical health issue of some kind and was basically unresponsive. Lucy had all sorts of questions for me that I answered and gradually I became more comfortable to talk about myself.

I cannot remember the last time that I had so directed an interest, in person, from anyone asking about me; apart from posts on this blog I do not tend to talk about myself hardly ever.

I do talk with my friend Beverly at church every Sunday morning as we both arrive early and act as greeters when parishioners arrive. With Beverly I do talk about myself but only in bits and pieces, not in a protracted way like at that event with Lucy.

Throughout my life I have always been a pretty good listener, I am good at being present in the moment and focusing on the person talking to me, and asking well thought out supplementary questions. I have heard it said that people really like to talk about themselves, I suppose I am in a minority who do not like to do so.

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Two Roma tomato plants in 5 gal buckets, just transplanted yesterday from store bought started plants that each already have one flower. In the foreground, a pepper plant that still needs to be repotted. The photo was taken at 9h50 today.

While the large sun lit area in the foreground will eventually move off the balcony, the strip of sunlit balcony that the three plants are in will persist until between 15h and 16h. That strip of sunlight is caused by the balcony wall in view and from the balcony above as well.

being three not tree or fee

Oddly, I noticed twice in the last two days; on two separate occasions, two different individuals, both with protruding bellies, both seated, both seemingly completely unaware that the shirt they were wearing, for whatever reason, had risen sufficiently that part of their belly was exposed.

I do not have a protruding belly, but just the same, if any part of me became exposed that I did not in that moment wish to expose, I tend to be extremely aware of such things and would correct it immediately.

a tri-dent, a bowling ball and a wedge

The particulars of the left most brain, when counting to seventeen varied only moderately from the right most brain that was listening.

Listening and hearing are not usually the same thing.

Hearing and earring are never the same thing.

A speed reader tried to apply the speed reading methodology to urination, to speed pee. She was only moderately successful.

If I had been a barn, I'm not certain what type of tamed farm animal I would want to have within me. Among the cows, pigs, chickens, horses, sheep, goats, llamas, and donkeys; perhaps ferrets would be best.

If you happen to be at sea on a cruise ship tomorrow, try to awake early and go for a run on the upper level deck that has a running track; hopefully the weather will be conducive.

Baked cake in a lake

It is frustrating to me that the media is reporting only complaints from farmers and rural areas that won't benefit from having high speed rail, they are upset that the track could cut through their farm, cutting off as much as 80% of their land.

I feel bad for these farmers, however, I find the coverage is imbalanced, they should interview people in Peterborough or Trois Riviéres who will be getting rail stations that they never had. Or, they could interview people in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal or Quebec City.

tulips, two lips, three lips, the pits

The choice that some people make, to turn left or right, when moving about their day, it doesn't irridate in the same way that a discarded red lollipop is chewed upon by a pubescent albino squirrel.

The choice that some squirrels make, to go up or down, when moving about their day, it doesn't scintillate in the same way an imminent supernova shines when discovered in the Barbie lunch box in the hand of Lucy's little sister.

Day IV

Slept much better as the chapel was cleared out except for me and another occupant, both of us peaceful and having enjoyed uninterrupted sleep. I awoke at 5h. The big step today is getting S to pick me up, with my possessions that J handed over to S, to bring me to CSL. I conversed with S repeatedly yesterday evening and asked what time would work but have yet to receive an answer.

At 6h30 I messaged S to ask about the plan today. I realized, worse case, I can transit to CSL with what I have now and those extra possessions can come later. Hopefully S responds.

Breakfast was the usual with nothing extra, I ate a bagel toasted with cream cheese and two hard boiled eggs.

S picked me up at around 11h, had my stuff, drove me to CSL, the three of us chatted for a while, then R and I worked on and off preparing the apartment for me.

The fiasco is over, this blog can now return to regular programming.

Day 3

I awoke at 4am ish and had trouble falling back asleep. A few things need to go right today. My pants need to be found, or, from their clothes storage they need to find me new pants, which I find is unlikely to be successful due to there not having been any pants when they gave me clothes from their storage on day one

The second thing that has to go right is I need to meet with an intervenant to explain that I need to leave Ricochet after work to go and pay Robert and that on Saturday I will be leaving, hopefully this doesn't pose a problem.

The third thing that has to work out is that Robert calls my references and through those discussions decides he will now accept to have me as his roomie.

The fourth thing is something doesn't go right in my travel from Ricochet to Desjardins on Monkland, or that there is a problem to withdraw the 1000$. Walking from Desjardins to 4900 Cote St Luc road is easy, but then it needs to go well with R, and finally the transit trip back to Ricochet needs to work out.

And finally, J has some of my possessions and so I need to have either him, or R or S drive me from Ricochet to this 4900 Cote St Luc on Saturday, but definitely need to get my stuff from J, who isn't easy to reach.

My Opus card had only one transit trip left on it, so I figured out how to add my Desjardins debit card to my Google wallet and I was able to add 10 transit fares using the Chrono app using the wallet.

Finally I got out of bed at 5h35, shaved and went to the cafeteria to wait for the day to start. At 7h30 breakfast came out of the kitchen, the same yogurt and granola bowls, bread of various types for toast and jam, breakfast cereal and milk and hard boiled eggs - all of these appear to be regular and daily. Different today was a turkey sausage and a strip of bacon of which I ate one of each with toast and a hard boiled egg.

My pants were found, so that's good. I've coordinated with the main person about exiting Ricochet this evening and then returning, and exiting with finality tomorrow. I also explained to them that I need to work and that they are dismantling the chapel where I had been working, so they put me in their intake office which is unlikely to be used during my work time. 

Lunch is served here at noon and on Fridays my lunch break at work is at 14h, so I went AFK at 12h15, no queue to get my meal, and I ate it not hurriedly, but not slow, either. Four chicken wings atop somewhat spicy rice, a garlic bread and a separate bowl of salad. It was good. I was back on queue at work at 12h31, so it wasn't bad

At 18h I left Ricochet, took the 213 bus to Cote Vertu, took the metro to Villa Maria, walked down Monkland to get money out of Desjardins, then walked back up Monkland and then up CSL and met with R for about an hour. He had prepared a cursively hand written room let agreement; I agreed to the terms, May to August inclusive with option to renew. His master bedroom and ensuite 100% off limits to me, but otherwise shared common area. I gave him the money I took out. He has started to prepare the apartment for my arrival and has a little more to do. We talked about meals and food but didn't come to any reasonable conclusion. He will see about getting keys for me. 

To get back to Ricochet I used a slightly different way, I walked a bit further to Snowden metro, then the blue line up to Edouard Montpetit, the elevator down to the REM platforms gave away very little in terms of how far down we went. Riding the REM for my first time I found it to be very quiet as a passenger. I rode from Edouard Montpetit to Sunnybrook and walked the ~2 km back. 

I caught the overtime period from the beginning of the Tampa-Montreal game where sadly a Lightning player scored the overtime winner. 

Day two

I slept fitfully, fortunately the snoring in the room was pretty minimal, however a couple of guys were coughing intermittently. A few times through the night a person would get up to pee and two motion detection lights would turn on on the end of the room my bunk is on. Each light would stay on for about 60 seconds.

As I am staying in the chapel I need to use the communal washroom that is adjacent to the cafeteria, I awoke and exited my bed at 6h30 so as to brush my teeth with fewer people around, though still, others were up and about at that time. 

Then I hung out in the cafeteria, breakfast was brought out at 7h30 and left out for people who came later. I had a hard boiled egg and an English muffin with ham and egg and a dollop of mayo. Other options included bread to be toasted, yogurt and granola to be combined, and breakfast cereal and milk.

The Chapel was good to work in, there were just two other people here mostly, both of them deeply asleep the whole time. I could even take calls and talk to customers through my headset without bothering them, and no noises bothering me except for an occasional noise from the hallway the chapel is connected to.

Lunch was shrimp on a stick with rice. I don't like shrimp so fortunately they had an alternative, macaroni with carrots and peas mixed in and the same meat surrounding egg from the previous night. There was a bowl of salad and a slice of banana bread. I ate more than I needed to.

The afternoon was uneventful, I worked without any noise in the room. At around 14h15 I went to get my clothes that they had taken from me. We found the bag that has the bulk of my clothes, but the large plastic bag that had what I was wearing when I showered was nowhere to be found. This was disappointing as my INXS shirt and a favoured pair of pants were in the bag. I will try tomorrow to see if they can be found.

Even though supper is at 17h and I worked until 18h, they still had the meal there - pork chop, mashed potatoes and a salad. Between the end of work and eating, I had to do what we all have to do at 18h every day, do a check-in at reception, what they call a bed-check as the staff do another at 2am.

After supper I put my sweater on and went outside to take a few photos of the place. Then, I called R who lives at 4900 Cote St Luc as he had messaged me about becoming his roomie. I had met him in person Tuesday night and he got a good impression of me. He had a guest over and said he would call me back. 

When I responded to his message on the roomies.ca interface I said that 1150$ was too much for me. What I will propose is 1050$, which is still too much, but, I can swing it. A selling point is that I get my own bathroom, though, I will keep it very clean, so that if there are guests, they can use it. 

He accepted the offer at 1050$, and asked to meet again tomorrow. 

In the meantime I made it known that I wanted a haircut which they offer here, and even though it was evening shift, it looks like they are going to make it happen at 22h. It didn't happen at 22h, but the guy said it could happen at 7h the next morning.

Day one

Due to exceptionally poor decisions I've made, I was made unwillingly itinerant and was very fortunate that as a Catholic I had help from friends at church. First. R at the moment of urgency, put me up at the Quality Inn Herron for two nights. Then, R through a friend, got a discount for one night at Hilton where Holiday Inn Fairview once was. 

Then I spent a night at Pavilion Jean XXIII, J both brought me there and the next day picked me up. While there I visited with a different R who lives at 4900 Cote St Luc with a glorious view westwards from the ninth floor. I found him through roomies.ca, a site for renting out a room, or renting a room. His room for rent was 1150$ a month. The morning at PJ23 I organized a second roomie visit for that evening at 6612 Wilderton for 850$ a month, but when J picked me up he was upset that I would ditch the effort that he and R had spent all week on getting me into Ricochet.

So I cancel the roomies plan on Wilderton and have J take me to Ricochet even though in my heart I had it solved, S had paid for two nights at Quality Inn Herron, I would take transit to Wilderton, check out the room, most probably agree to it, then return to QIH, work the full next day in peace and move in soon after. 

Once I arrive, I get the place explained to me, get asked various questions about situations I could be in, like alcoholism, drug addiction, disability, etc. To be certain of no bed bugs in my clothes, including what I am wearing, the clothes I brought get put in plastic bags into a heater tent, for 24 hours, so my clothes are hostage while I wear donated clothes. I am compelled to take a quick shower between removal of my clothes and the new ones provided. I am temporarily situated in the chapel room of the building with 22 beds set in 11 bunk beds, most occupied. I'll be here for five nights when a spot in a room becomes available. Others in this room unfortunately will be cast aside as they won't have beds in rooms for everyone as they plan to empty the chapel to put it to a more communal use.

I managed to clock 2.5 hours of work after having taken a little over two hours of lunch break to get from Pavilion Jean XXIII and through the intake process.

I chatted with Jennifer, an intervenant, during the last quarter hour of me working; I had set my laptop on a desk in this chapel room. It isn't ideal as some of the occupants may have been trying to sleep. I mentioned about looking for a place to live and she let me know about a specific wall that had printouts posted. 

I had my first meal, it was a small plate of salad, a scoop of mashed potatoes with a tomato sauce poured over it, and an interesting hard boiled egg encased in some kind of ground meat that was shaped in a ball. A very dry mild garlic toast was also provided. All of the meals are provided for free here, so that is a plus.

After supper I checked out that wall and it was just a bunch of Kijiji postings of studio rentals or room rentals; no different from my own searches.

In an alternate universe I'd have gone to the Quality Inn Herron, visited a room from roomies.ca, have agreed to the terms of 850$ a month, returned to the QIH to watch the hockey in peace, and work tomorrow in peace.

I had a long conversation with my ex wife on the phone, nice that she is checking in on me. She is pretty firm that I need to see a psychiatrist, psychologist or social worker but I don't know that anything is specifically wrong with me. 

Perhaps ten minutes later the game five of first round NHL Canadiens at Lightning was put on the communal TV. The room has three rows of sofas and chairs and I sat in the very back row. My son G decided to call me just before and as the game started, not sure why, but it is nice he thought about me to call me.

For the second period a guy sat next to me, he smelled of cigarette smoke and moved around a lot, wafting the odour in my direction. He was constantly charging his and other mobile devices.

I was about to go to bed after the Canadiens won when I and 15 others were sequestered into the cafeteria due to a 'lockdown' with no explanation other than this word. From 22h10 to 22h23 no clue, but then we see a pair of paramedics and a rolling stretcher pass through the hallway that has two openings to the cafeteria. Looks like we'll be in lockdown until these paramedics leave. It is terrible for whomever is being carried in the stretcher, I will pray for him. Unfortunately it meant that my freedom to have simply gone to bed was removed and only restored at 22h43.

a turbulent time in the off site Mesopotamia

Sent to a bounce-back by knights. They all think it is for my own good and they went out of their way to put me here. In good conscious I could not refuse them, however, now that I am here, it is less then acceptable for me to be here.

I had an alternative solution that would have made me so much happier. Now I am hostage.

No safe place to work, with no noise, unclear yet about what is next, having to wear new clothes while they heat up mine. 

Maybe the turniquet was ideally the best solution. Maybe a future millionaire will be better suited.

block the rock, duck the luck, smash the cheese

CAQ Premier Francois Legault stepped down a few months ago and now, after a leadership drive, Christine Frechette got elected and she is in the basement presently, attempting to convince people there that the felon Cheetoh Buffoon's tariffs are hurting their ability to build homes (lumber tariffs) and cars (automative and aluminum tariffs).

It is unclear how effective she will be, but anything that could help increase the soft power within, could help.

Tomorrow the Carney government is announcing a Spring Economic Update, and there was a pre-release today about a public investment fund that Canadians can invest in so as to help push forward projects on the Major Projects office. I will be curious to learn about the details of this; like, are there any income tax implications, or, what kind of return can we expect to get.

Belt buckles climb a tree

That a mo mo would boot me out, that c would kick me out, that no bed to be found, that r delays, confounded, that unluck is inopportune, that trends are leaking, that dog is wheezing.

Incomplete selectivity, borrowing a soliloquy, sending a catastrophe, devising rapidity, electric passivity.

Lividity.

Excruciatingly.

Moribundly.

Oh what I would do for a silhouette. Twice.

box cut the elbow macaroni zamboni

If it wasn't for the cheese cake that went uphill on the battle up front behind the aforementioned elbow, a single sturgeon would make the best placemat in a world devoid of calligraphy.

All syllables that bank locally tried to wrestle a partially eaten egg sandwich left behind by the neighbour's son's pet algebra.

tuck luck yuck

So four CPC members crossed the floor to join the LPC in the last six months, an NDP MP did the same thing. Yesterday were byelections in three ridings that the LPC swept, giving them a majority in parliament.

Accruing floor crossers to flip from a minority parliament to a majority parliament has never happened before in Canada's history. So for those of us who are both aware of the world beyond our home and nuclear family, and for those of us paying attention to Canadian federal politics, we have experienced a moment in history.

I personally am glad that the Mark Carney government has achieved a majority, hopefully soon the LPC will reshuffle the committees so that it represents a majority. In this way the repetitivte obfuscation that the CPC has been inserting into committee meetings can be curtailed to allow for new policies and regulations to be passed more quickly, so that more can be done to push Canada forward.

In particular I hope the MPO can accelerate many of their projects now that the opposition has been reduced.

When all else is lost, plant a lozenge

Escaping the dance because one is left footed in terms of agility and/or dexterity on the dance floor is not a real reason to avoid the situation.

You can move about, flailing your limbs out of sync with all of the beats and be confident that some people will judge you as a poor dancer. The nice ones, however, will see that with abandon you make your presence known and they would be encouraged to will themselves onto the floor to move about haphazardly themselves.

There is no need to impress on the dance floor; at least, not under most circumstances. Feel the music and move to it as you will.

immigrate, ingratiate, inebriate

Canada's Auditor General issued a report yesterday about how the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has done a very poor job of tracking foreign students among other groups. I won't go into the detail of the report as it is widely available; below is my proposal to solve the interminable backlog of IRCC and to make our IRCC the best in the world.

The tl;dr is to use algorithms that are designed based on the already existing processes and flowcharts that go from applicant to permanent resident, and, have an agentic AI that interfaces with the applicant, uses those algorithms, and reports to the IRCC Officer to make a decision, eventually to gradually automate the simplest and clearest of cases.

This is another idea that if I had 100M$CAD I would implement, though probably I wouldn't need the full amount. With a 12-15 person team of technicians, one of which would be a security expert to  require strong encryption, strict access controls, and transparent audit logs to protect applicants’ data, we would proceed as follows. 

Month 0-2 - get a meeting with the minister, propose the plan, enlist an IRCC manager to work with, hire my team of technicians and explain the plan to the technicians and the project manager I hire to manage this project.

Month 3-6 - the technicians would work on building the agentic core, a technician would meet with the IRCC manager to obtain in detail the process for international students so as to translate that into an algorithm that can be programmed. 

Additionally, the technicians would build a staff interface, a web based desktop interface that allows interaction with the agentic AI, where the AI would deliver cases that need human intervention. This interface would also allow the human staffer to search on any applicant, run reports on the different streams of applicants, and to drill down on any case to see all of the applicant information that was supplied.

Next would be an applicant mobile application, that for any of the streams, asks the appropriate questions based on the algorithm, and supply a method to upload documents and images and so on. It would be in the form of an AI that simply and conversationally asks questions, it would be highly multi-lingual, and it would be trauma aware for those refugees coming from war torn places or persecuted groups. The applicant ought to be able to fulfill all of their IRCC application through this interface.

Finally a representative portal would be created for immigration lawyers, NGOs and other community groups, that, if the representative obtains a 'represent me' authorization, can then look up the specific case of the person they are representing in the IRCC platform, and can send in a comment, a document or fill in anything that might be missing for this applicant's case. Obviously the representative would be able to check the status of a case as well.

Month 7-9 - working with only the international student stream, we would integrate the document pipeline, run internal tests with IRCC staff, fix edge cases, and do run throughs of test student applications from all of the interfaces we've built, starting with the simplest student application to more complex ones. At this stage every student application would pass through the agentic AI and algorithms but would stop at the IRCC officer to do the approval.

During the last quarter of the first year, the lead technician and the IIRC manager assigned to this project would formulate the algorithms for the TFWs and Refugees, each of which could have multiple unique streams within them. 

Month 10-12 - pilot launch where real applicants are onboarded, perhaps manually at first, and then eventually onboarded automatically. The backlog of student applications could begin to get reduced. Once this system is in place there would only be two bottlenecks, either the student is unresponsive, or, the IRCC staffer is over worked with 10,000+ cases to address. For the former, we could have the agentic AI send emails, SMS, try phone calls, mail letters, and also, flag CBSA so that if that applicant leaves the country, if they re-enter the country the CBSA agent can pull them aside, have them fill out an IRCC  questionnaire on a tablet (connected to the IRCC platform) that is witnessed by the CBSA agent and then the applicant is free to continue their travel. 

For the case where the IRCC staff have 10,000+ cases to deal with, eventually we would find a very small subset of student applications that time after time they meet every condition faithfully, and so we first fully automate to approval of these cases that meet that criteria. Now, going forward, all of the backlog, and all new applications can happen extremely quickly as the agentic AI using the algorithms runs through the correct applications in minutes, rather than months. Gradually we add a few more very specific cases that can be fully automated from receipt of application to instantaneous approval. We continue doing this so that really only the edge cases have to go to the IRCC officers. Note that no automated system would ever refuse an applicant; auto-approval only happens for the clean cases; complex or sensitive cases go to the IRCC officer.

By the end of this period, the IRCC minister will have their own access to the IRCC platform to see backlog reports, processing times, bottlenecks, auto-progress rates and would be able to ask the agentic AI specific questions like how many students have been flagged with incomplete documents, or, what are students most often forgetting to include, and things like that.

Once it is proven that the student backlog has been dealt with and that the student processing time that has been automated is so quick, it will be easy to convince the IRCC minister that we are to continue expanding the IRCC agentic AI platform.

We would follow the same development, testing and production steps to implement the TFW and the Refugee immigration streams. The TFW applicant interface would also have an easy way for the applicant to report being mistreated that would eventually get to an IRCC agent who can send someone to do an inspection. As the interface is simply a chatbot in the language of the application, the applicant can simply state that he or she has very poor living conditions, for example, the AI could ask some clarifying questions, and then produce a report.

For refugees that have trouble understanding, or need help, using the 'represent me' at a commuty refugee organization or with an immigration lawyer, the helper there could gently help the refugee to get all of the required documents entered and questions answered, and can then see what the status is of the application which ought to be much faster given this new IRCC platform.

In the third year the remaining immigration streams (Family reunification, Express Entry, caregivers, and provincial nominees) would be added in the same piecemeal way.

In the fourth year we start some value added development, first is a spot for immigration numbers to be reported that is public facing. For example, a map of Canada shows at the top that 123443/500000 immigrants have entered during the current government year. When clicking into a province, it could show 48221/150000 which includes 21000 students, 12500 workers, 6200 refugees and family reunification of 8521 and a small note below these statistics that says that Ontario has indicated it can support 150k newcomers this year. Once within a province, cities that have provided their readiness for immigrants can be clicked, and so municpal data can be shown, for example, Kingston, ON 1588/3412, housing availability: green, school capacity: yellow, healthcare load: green, labour demand: strong in healthcare, trades, IT

This public facing dashboard will be available all of the time and updated in real time as the agentic AI approves (or as IRCC Officers approve) cases.

Once a year the federal government would need to work with the provinces and to set immigration level for the different types of immigrants, and the municipalites would need to report how many they can receive, in line with the province and Canada's plan. So once a year the totals on the publc facing site would get updated, and, the data would be stored within the IRCC platform to fulfill what comes in the next paragraph.

At the beginning of the government year when the immigration numbers are reset, new applicants coming in can move to pretty much anywhere that a city indicates that the immigrants are welcome. Municipalites can also specify what kinds of workers are needed so that the applicants can know where they will get a job in their industry. As the year progresses, some municipalites will reach their quota, and when they do, they will continue to be visible on the IRCC webpage, but no longer available to be chosen by the applicant - so now their pathway to permanent residency can only go forward if they pick an available city to move to.

Once all of the backlogs are taken care of for all of the immigration streams, the approval process ought to be much quicker. Any that have been automated due to having only green flags and meeting all requirements, would get approved within minutes. Any that require an IRCC officer to do further research can be addressed much more quickly with the help of the agentic AI and the case file that the agentic AI built.

On Power & Politics today JP mentioned that recent polls show that support for immigration has dropped to around 1/3 of Canadians. I hope that having a transparent and efficient IRCC platform would help to raise again the support for immigration in our country. As a country we are much stronger with our new immigrants coming in.

Canada could become the first country in the world with a humane, transparent, real‑time immigration operating system — one that treats newcomers not as files, but as future neighbours. We could set an example for other countries.