box kite and flip switch

Perhaps it is the media at the moment that is having many ads from local charity organizations for food drives as we are in Christmas season, or all of the reports of homelessness that are pervading many Canadian and American cities.

I am getting the sense that there are many things considerably wrong with the structural way that our western society operates. 

• The number of homeless people has grown significantly in the last year as home and rent prices have skyrocketed. Should not being housed become a fundamental right?
• As mentioned in the opening, food has become more expensive putting more pressure on food banks. Why should food banks even exist? Ought sustenance not be fully provided as a basic right?
• Health care systems world wide are running short of nurses and doctors, rural areas are particularly hard hit. A new poorly reviewed Alberta health system change and a less clear Quebec health system change are imminent; will either of them make it better for the people in those provinces to get the health care they need?
• How the climate crisis is exacerbating all sorts of problems for the most marginal globally, and so many people across Canada with the wild fires that affected almost every part this past year
• More locally as evidenced by my recent blog posts; I have become frustrated by the Quebec government's antithesis towards finding new, imaginative and progressive methods of funding and expanding public transit province wide and most specifically in my city
• A colleague of mine at church works at Walmart as a greeter and I chatted with him today about his job and he mentioned that he has caught 3000$ worth of shop lifting in the last two weeks, mostly of really poor people trying to get something they need for their family, like baby formula
• There is a worldwide epidemic of loneliness that once used to be strictly an elderly problem, is now becoming a considerable problem with gen-z who through their childhood and teenage years had mobile devices and now as they graduate out of education find themselves friendless
• Of course there is war with Russia's illegal invasion into Ukraine and the Israel/Hamas war instigated by Hamas' Oct 7 attack; the former causing a worldwide impact given Ukraine's world breadbasket 
• COP28 and ADNOC's president being one and the same; so many fossil fuel interest lobbyists trying to continue the omittance of the term 'fossil fuel' to appear anywhere in a final COP document

One of the yTube channels I follow is called 'Second Thought' where the creator speaks often about socialism; not the kind that people in South America would protest heavily against, but about the more practical theoretical kind to replace Capitalism where instead of having capitalists with few owners focus production solely on profit, a socialist democracy would have the people be owners and decisions made democratically where profit may not be the primary goal, but rather, the health or job satisfaction of the employees.

There seems to be so little I can do to effect any change that is structural in nature. I can make donations to local associations that help with the homeless and destitute in terms of providing paths to housing and warm meals. I can write to my local, provincial and federal members of government to let them know my dissatisfaction with the the structure of the running of our society.

image

Out my living room window yesterday just after 10h. It has been many years since we had a significant snow fall as our first snow fall of the season. By the end, yesterday, we had received 30cm,

It has been well below zero for today and tomorrow and so many of these trees are maintaining the snow that is being held by them. This coming weekend, however, the weather is reaching far above 0c as compared to the normal this time of year, and will do so for at least three days, so that will turn much of the snow to slush, or melt it altogether.

I read about this place called Naujaat, it has an airport to get to it and is located just about at the Arctic Circle in Nunavut. It is pretty amazing that the sun set there today at 13h15. There is a hotel in this village and so I would have a place to stay. I found through local and commercial airlines it would take four different aircraft and about 4200$ over three days to get there (and back). Alternatively, for 55,000$USD I could charter an airplane that flies direct in about 5.5 hours.

The chartered aircraft from the Jetone site I got the quick quote from says it seats 6-8, so let's say six. If I had 9200$USD that I could dig up and also had five equally wealthy and interested friends, we could book it. Or, I win the lottery and pay for the whole trip.

Mind, what does hiring a private jet to get somewhere (even if it is a turbo prop in the case) do to the environment? There is no train that can get me there.

taking the underground transport backwards

Earlier this week Quebec Transport minister announced only a moderate level of assistance to the province's public transport networks for an over the next five years plan.

The report indicated that all of the agencies have a 250B$ deficit, but she (the minister) announced only a 500M$ allowance. She cited that Montreal represents 90% of the deficit and why should the rest of Quebec subsidize Montreal? Receiving significant pressure she said that this weekend she will provide a revised amount, likely higher, but still nowhere close to the 75% coverage that the transit agencies are asking.

Among many factors she seems to not be considering, Montreal also provides the lion's share of Quebec personal income and corporate tax income so proportionally speaking it ought to get more of this transit money. Also, there was an announcement a few weeks ago about a new massive battery factory in an outer suburb with the Quebec government providing billions in subsidies. For the purposes of climate change we need to reverse that spending and put the billions in transit improvement and expansion and slow down the advance of individual car ownership.

I've been walking a lot lately in an area of my suburb that has significant car traffic, having to walk along a stroad for a fair distance. As a result of doing this I have been feeling a little overwhelmed with the number of single occupancy vehicles that are out there.

Anyhow, back to the minister; I seem to feel strongly enough about this to write to my provincial member of Quebec's government. Unfortunately it won't do any good as he is in a minority party, but I'll write to him anyhow.

bring in the lawn ornaments, it is getting windy

With more tumultuous weather happening in 'red' states, hopefully this sways at least a few people who are somewhat less hardened to now understand that anthropomorphic Climate Change is a real thing.

With Donald Trump indicted in the first of three or four cases against him he is to present himself to court on Tuesday this week. This first case is the pay-off Stormy Daniels case; the remaining ones include illegal election influence in Georgia, inciting a riot on that Jan 6 and the hiding or denying about confidential documents held in his Florida home. Media reports that NYC, where his first court case is, is ready for any and all MAGA people that come with violence in mind to support Trump.

I've read a few different articles about Joe Biden's regretful approval of what is known as the Willow project, the opening of land in the Alaskan Arctic circle for oil drilling and production. This Willow announcement came two weeks after the release of the latest IPCC report where Antonio Gutteres said unequivocally that all current fossil fuel business needs to wind down and all plans for new ones need to be canceled.

In more local news the Quebec government released its annual budget and to my disappointment there was only the shoring up of public transit; there was no meaningful announcement of measures to change the funding method, or plans for expansion. With more and more cars becoming electric, especially here in Quebec, the gas surtax that helps fund public transit is diminishing. As a transit user I do wish more was done.

In less local news the Canadian government also released its annual budget. Among new social and cost of living investments (dental care, improved GST rebates, etc.) there is a big push to invest in a very targeted manner into 'green technologies' that are homegrown here in Canada. This I am in support of, but what I felt was missing was any mention of addressing the housing crisis. We are receiving hundreds of thousands of new Canadians every year through immigration, and who can blame these people for choosing Canada? Where will they live? What is upsetting about the housing crisis is that the majority of people are housed and so for them this is not a primary concern. It is the minority of newcomers and the destitute, the marginal people who are suffering the most. Given this majority's relative indifference to the problem, there isn't the political will to do enough about it.

With respect to my job, there are four weeks left to the personal tax season, and so the crazy busy period has a light at the end of the tunnel. As of April 1st I am getting paid 3% more in terms of annual salary, so that is good, though not matching what inflation is doing these days. I also received a bonus based on the company's 2022 performance. I only received 2/3rds of what I'd otherwise have received as I only started with the company in May 2022 and so wasn't there the full year. On March 28 my manager sent a message asking people, in order of seniority, to put in for their summer vacations so as to not have everyone off at the same time. I have already booked a trip to the Saguenay in July and bought day event tickets to the National Bank Open in August; hopefully nothing prevents these two vacations from happening.

be boo baw

Yes, I experienced yet another SLI event during my walk this afternoon/evening.

The Grammys are on tonight, I will watch at least part of it. I am always on the look out for a breath taking performance. The one that comes to mind was Pink's Glitter in the Air that opened up this show back 2010. I still get goosebumps when I watch it on yTube.

In other news, a sock went after a doughnut and found itself wringed out.

At work, finally, the schedule has been updated to give each of us specific times of day that we are to be responding solely to emails, or, responding solely to phone calls. I had been doing phone calls only over the last two weeks, as we enter into our busiest time of year, and would get call after call while I see most of my team mates are on email only, not knowing if they are actually working or absconding. For each of us it has been scheduled to be roughly half of the day on one and then the other half on the other.

If I was a pie plate, I wouldn't know how many fractions I'd be beholding to for the contents of said pie plate as the person about to divide it considers. If I was the person considering how to divide the contents of said pie plate, undoubtedly I would use sevenths as the fraction. Certainly the pie content of said pie plate would be easier to divide into sevenths as compared to a dodecahedron plate.

I have been in touch (by email) with the city council person who represents my district to discuss the impending transit oriented development (TOD) with my city as the REM eventually comes into service. The city council meetings are recorded, so I watched the one that took place in January and felt compelled to respond to it to someone and felt that my local councilor was the one with whom to do so. I am of the mind that the greatest number of residential units possible in a mixed use development abutted to the REM station would be ideal, especially if at least some of them are 'affordable' and perhaps at least one building is fully rental units while all of the rest of the development would likely be condos. Having excessively high density within easy walking distance of the REM station could make it that many of the new residents can be carless, which is a boon for both the local environment, and local traffic concerns.

Other residents are pulling their NIMBY card and are concerned for the future 'lifestyle' of our town; that adding so many new residents all at once could severely change how the town is. I am of the opinion that it is very well known there is a housing crisis across this country, and anything we can do to ease that, ought to be done. Also, high density living brings the city more residential tax income without requiring nearly as much infrastructure as compared to sprawl development. This savings on infrastructure and increase in municipal tax income could help to improve services.

I have a lot more to say about this.

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Yes, that is the view out my kitchen window of the exhaust of the methane usage that our apartment buildings use to provide heat and hot water to the apartments.

There are people who are saying that what individuals do to reduce emissions is too insubstantial; that instead, vast government policies need to be put in place to reduce the national GHG emissions.

Others who will point to recycling, garbage reduction and clean air and water policy as the direction to go; but while these are nice, they do not do what it takes to reduce significantly GHG emissions.

My personal decisions to add my very small drop to the lowering of GHG emissions include:

• not driving or owning a car and walking or using public transit when needing to get anywhere
• reducing the amount of meat I eat and in particular, reducing beef consumption
• reducing the amount of flying I do and offsetting for the few trips I would do

There doesn't appear to be anything I can do to convert the apartment building within which I live to remove the methane boiler and replace it with some form of electric heating. As electricity here in Quebec is provided by non-emitting hydro-electric dams, a conversion to electric heating would further reduce the GHGs my existence puts out into the world.

who else knows what?

So with COP26 winding down now, most reports are indicating this was a tiny incremental improvement where bold large changes were needed. I am disappointed in my own country's response with respect to a few specific items.

• No commitment to cease funding fossil fuel companies
• Not enough commitment to paying our appropriate share of the 100B$ to developing countries who really need the help
• Not accelerating the price increase of the carbon tax
• Not having a detailed plan as to how, logistically and through specific policies, we can electrify transportation (cars, buses, trains, trucks, etc.) by the year 2035

Walking around I still see thousands of single passenger automotive vehicles driving all around in my mostly car dependent neighbourhoods. Yes, more and more of them are electric and so zero emissions; a result of my province's generous ongoing subsidy for vehicle electrification.

When I see these people in their cars, and given I've been successfully carless since 2018; how can these people not understand that we need to severely curtail our use of fossil fuels? Where are all of these people driving to/from? Do they really need to be driving?

Anyhow; I know I just bought airfare to get to and from Orlando this coming May for a cruise I'm going on, so that alone is a huge chunk of GHG emissions, huge at least in comparison to how else I emit through my actions and purchases. I will research what is the best way for me to offset these flights.

twice it didn't happen, and I noticed

I didn't eat bacon today.

I did not jump off a garage roof.

I have not eaten squid today, and I do not plan on eating squid tomorrow.

I live on the top floor of an apartment building, so my ceiling is the underside of the structural support of the roof upon which the flat roof sits. Periodically I hear the pitter-patter of squirrel feet crossing the roof above me. I fear he may have found his way on to the roof without now knowing how to get off of it.

Quebec has joined Costa Rica and Denmark in the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, or BOGA. Quebec will permanently ban oil and gas exploration and extraction. It wasn't a big thing for us to do here, at the moment we do not have any extraction going on, and while there were permits out there to do exploration, these can easily be rescinded. I am pleased that my provincial government has signed on to this alliance.

I did not see a single centipede in my 7.25km walk this afternoon.

I did, however, notice that there wasn't a single cloud visible anywhere in the sky that I could see.

pandemic federal election, a good idea?

Yesterday the prime minister asked the governor general to dissolve parliament to allow for an election to take place. The federal election is to take place on September 20.

Here is what happened in my electoral district at the last election:

The Liberal party candidate won by an enormous margin, so my vote to the Green Party candidate last election served no purpose. Francis Scarpaleggia has had it easy as he has had a significant majority like this in every election since he first became this electoral district's Liberal candidate back in 2004. Well, in 2011 it was close as the Orange Wave took place when Jack Layton led the New Democratic party to its best result ever.

I am leaning toward voting for the New Democratic party for this election even though it is a very high probability that Francis Scarpaleggia will yet again get elected. My reason for voting for the NDP is that I believe that if they were in the leadership position, they would do a better and more aggressive job of cutting GHGs. The recent IPCC AR6 report is a clear signal to policy makers that the time has come to not only get serious about emissions reductions, but to make significant changes in all areas that could lead to CO2 and methane emissions.

In terms of running an election where there are still SARS-CoV-2 transmissions going on, there will be plenty of advanced polling days and mail-in votes which will make it so that on election day, the polls should not be too overrun. I know that in my recent pre-pandemic voting experiences in my electoral district, I would vote on election day and there were barely any people around.

air what?

So, G-bot prepared a PPT to influence me about taking my share of the family patrimony and investing in an aircraft that he and his buddies would use for the purposes of learning and trying to earn some money. By them paying for the maintenance and any upgrades that happen, five or eight years later, the aircraft could be sold and I'd be the sole beneficiary.

The total amount comes to around 100,000$ which represents perhaps 4/7ths of what I'd get from the family patrimony.

I may not get 7/7ths of my share all at once; I may only get 0.83% of my patrimony every month for ten years. That doesn't help with the purchase in terms of an up front buy out, but I suppose it could mean that these monthly patrimony amounts could pay a monthly aircraft loan payment.

If this was considered as part of an investment plan, a question becomes how does the value of the aircraft improve over the duration I would be owner?

This is what he currently has in mind, though the specific one for sale at this moment may not still be available at the time the divorce is settled and I get my share.

G-bot is fairly convinced that he and his buddies can make a go of this in terms of sharing the aircraft to allow each of them to gain the hours required for them to work up to a commercial license. And with six seats, and a 1500lb capacity, it could also be used to charter individuals or small families or groups to anywhere they would want to go. As a group they would need to advertise in distant communities to let people know that this young charter flying group are willing to get you to where you need to go. Without a commercial license, they can do this and just charge the cost of the flight with no income for themselves.

Of the five of them, if I recall correctly, G-bot told me that two of them already have twin engine certification. G-bot himself only has a single engine VFR license, so even if we did go ahead with this, G-bot himself wouldn't be able to fly it right away; though, he would have it for him to take the lessons. The other two who do not yet have twin engine certification could also use it for training purposes. Then all five them would use it to gain the hours needed for the commercial license.

In order to protect the aircraft, both from the sun in the summer, and from freezing in the winter, while it is not in active use G-bot is researching into hangars in smaller airports to see how much it would cost to hanger the aircraft so as to preserve it. Also, if its home base airport is a reasonably good one that is easy to access, that would help with their business.

The St-Hubert airport is the one he is looking at first, to see if there is a hangar there that can be within their price range.

What is good about this airport is that it is accessible by public transit, so even being carless, G-bot can get to this airport with relative ease. The only other airport that he could get to with relative ease is YUL which is an international airport whose hangar, landing, takeoff and other fees would likely be exorbitant for a burgeoning company like this one would be.

Another question I ask myself is back when I was 18 years old, the age G-bot is presently, if I had had an idea like this, or this exactly, would I have enlisted my parents to help; would I have gone to a bank to see what options were available? What is different, of course, is at the moment he is wanting to do this coincides with me getting my share of the family patrimony - something that didn't happen when I was 18 years old (my parents are still together).

What is tipping me in the direction of going ahead with this is that the aircraft is an asset; if maintained properly, or perhaps even improved in terms of equipment, the value will likely go up over the time of ownership. I do not know how much or how little it would go up in value as compared to had I invested this money in the stock market, and it is this uncertainty that is staying my hand; though, as I haven't yet the share of family patrimony, that is ultimately the hold back presently.

I do have another thought about this - given the IPCC2018 warning that we really only had 12 years then, 10 years now, to bring CO2 emissions down to near zero, do I want to be promoting air travel so directly and in such a large amount that consumes fossil fuels and emits pollution? This is the tough part - I would really like to help G-bot if this is where his passion is, however, I also want to leave the world in as good a shape as I can for G-bot, C-ling and V-8, so that the next generation does not have as hard a time with the climate crisis as they would have otherwise.

There is lots to think about, but no decision yet to be made.

twice the left, thrice the wrong

I've subscribed to 'Heated' and have found Emily's posts enlightening.

I've ordered an ET-3710, it should arrive either tomorrow or early next week. It is an Epson printer that takes ink, not ink cartridges. I don't have a good place to put it yet in my apartment, I have a vision of a temporary arrangement and a vision of a better more permanent one.

The Coronavirus has stopped a cruise ship outside of Tokyo, anchored as quarantine for 14 days. The passengers are required to stay in their rooms. A cruise I am going on in March is an inside cabin and will just have me in it. If my ship was quarantined and I had to stay in my room, it would be like solitary confinement. Apparently the staff of that near Tokyo ship are bringing meals to each of the cabins three times a day; so for sure I wouldn't be starving.

What would I do to fill the time? If there is a TV, I would watch TV shows and movies. If there was Internet, I would do a number of things on my mobile device. There really isn't any room to do cardio, however, I would pick two, three or four times a day to do things like push-ups, squats, lunges, hand-stand push-ups, stretching and other body-weight exercises that I could either conceive of on my own, or, if there was Internet, that I could find from others. For certain I would see what books I had on my mobile device and read one or more of them. I suppose laundry would become a problem, but I could wash and hang my underclothes, hoping there is enough air circulation to help them dry.

crying about laundry that isn't made of hemp

The walking directions that get you from one place to another do not give you any ideas about the least modern episode of a TV show that aired in the late 1970s.

The seventeenth season of the Survivor TV show; will it still be of interest seventeen years from now? Do reality TV shows age well?

This coming weekend the Superbowl will be played, the San Fransisco 49ers will play against the Kansas City Chiefs. The game will be played in Miami, on Sunday evening starting at 18h30. I heard a news story of a movement to have Superbowl games be played on a Saturday night instead of a Sunday night, so that people can party overboard, should they wish to, and have Sunday to recuperate. Of the two teams, I do not know which is favoured. What I do know is that the two teams have very similar colouring to their uniforms, however, the 49ers will wear white while the Chiefs will wear red.

I may need to acquire a new pair of shoes some time in the next eleven months.

Not all of the finger nails that a person has had painted orange reminded Hank of Halloween. That Hank, as a character in this post, didn't see a single episode of Survivor Season Seventeen comes as no surprise to the author. The person whose finger nails had been painted is an enormous Survivor fan, has seen every episode of every season at least three times and has submitted an application to be on the show numerous times.

Raising rabbits to then slaughter them for human consumption is something I did think about at some time in the past. I have not thought about it at all in the last thirty-nine days, well, not until I decided to add this sentence to this post that brought the subject up. What I read back then, if I recall correctly, that rabbits are prone to disease, and eating diseased rabbit is not a particularly good thing to do. I also don't know how comfortable I would be with the whole slaughtering process.

Standard clauses in variable contracts concerning tenured roach disco clubs are not like a toaster-oven made of iron mixed with celebrity facial oil.

The half-time show of the Superbowl game this weekend will include performances by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. These are two artists that I don't really know all that much about, though J.Lo, as far as I am concerned, has had a higher profile. I'll be going to my parent's house to watch the game.

In other news there is a crazy locust infestation in a few adjoining African countries happening right now. On a website I saw some photos that showed the vast quantity of them. They are eating at all of the crops and vegetation making an already arid area suffer further. The people living there are doing what they can to scare away the locusts, but when they are in that number, it is a woefully measured losing battle. We have no locust infestation here where I live. I do not know that locusts would survive winters here.

In still other news there is a 'Trillion Trees' movement that many environmentalists fear will give people permission to continue emitting greenhouse gases. I support the idea of the Trillion Trees plan, but I am also clear that much more than this needs to happen. That I have gone carless was a big step to reduce my own personal emissions. When I moved from my house (heated with a heat-pump and with heating oil) to my apartment (heated with natural gas), I believe my emissions have gone down as the amount of natural gas burned to heat my 800sq ft apartment is likely less than the amount of oil that was burned to heat the 3500sq ft house. One thing I'll be doing in 2020 that I haven't done much of in the last few years is that I'll be flying a few times. I have a flight to Amsterdam in February (and back) and another one in March to Miami (and back). I am considering using less.ca as a carbon offset for these flights. Those two trips are for pleasure, I also have a trip to Chicago in August for work. There may be other work travel in the future.

A silhouette made of cream cheese was slobbered upon by Hank's pet Fox Sparrow. Hank has a small selection of sparrows as pets that he takes for a walk occasionally. Though the sparrows do not like the leash used, they do really appreciate the cream cheese.

when push comes to shore

So, Greta is sailing back to Europe.

Not all of the people who understand the Climate Crisis are doing everything possible that they can do.

I, for one, am trying.

It snowed today, and is snowing presently as I type this sentence.

I attempted again to engage Jel in a plan for tomorrow; but as usual, nothing came of it. I'll have to put it out of my mind and not bother trying again, even though I think it might benefit both of us.

There were exactly zero octopi on my way in to work this morning on the seat to my left as I took the bus.

If a belt holds up, what holds up the belt loops?

Every day is a day closer to the day that follows it.