umph, ugg

The US presidential election yesterday pitting dem Kamala Harris against felon Donald Trump resulted in a Trump win. I do not understand the electorate that supports the buffoon.

In terms of the Russo-Ukraine war I can see Trump siding with Putin in a disadvantageous deal to Ukraine that would end the war. Yes, it would be great for the war to end, but not at a dear cost to Ukraine.

In terms of addressing the reduction of GHGs to address anthropomorphic climate change, Trump goes by the 'drill baby drill' strategy which will push our global environment to repeated environmental catastrophes.

In terms of economics he is an incessant proponent of tariffs, which so many economists have indicated would simply translate to a tax on consumers as the tariff payers will simply increase the consumer cost to pay the tariff. The end result is inflation. Also, he is purported to have in mind to cut taxes for the wealthy people doing nothing for the lower four quintiles.

In terms of trade with Canada; it is unclear, though, in 2026 the existing free trade agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico is due for revision, and it is likely that Trump will want to eek out of the new deal unreasonable concessions with Canada and Mexico.

In terms of immigration he has promoted the idea of taking 10 million 'illegal' immigrants out of the country. This may easily include legal immigrants that Trump and his peons deem deportable due to race. Of course this will tank the economy as a majority of the people he wants to deport do the jobs that other Americans would not do, like work in agricultural or slaughter houses.

In terms of misogyny he has already done the damage by adding to the Supreme Court enough judges to strike RoeWade. I have heard that two judges are set to retire during Trump's mandate meaning he could add two more Trump judges rendering the Supreme Court but a Trump stamp device.

Trump is old and is already showing signs he is losing acuity; his running mate JD Vance does not show as presidential by any stretch, so that is hardly a welcome panacea.

yay, train

News article about the government of Canada having chosen a consortium to build a new passenger rail service from Quebec City to Toronto with various major stops in between. We will only get the choice of consortium in the next week or two, but what was leaked was that the plan now is to have high speed rail along this corridor with the goal of 300kph stretches. Apparently the consortium who proposed this said that doing the high speed will come under their estimated budget of 80B$ that was first thought for the high frequency rail project.

This news excites me as it is many years over due to get high speed rail in Canada; we are behind so many other nations in this respect. For sure the populations of Toronto and Montreal warrant this new passenger service.

A major obstacle is that presently the federal minority government is unstable and actively teetering, and it looks like, based on popularity polls, that the Conservative party would form our next government and in past Conservative governments, rail projects such as this would be cancelled.

 I just hope that once the project starts, that it moves quickly. Also, I hope that, though it is over long distances, that it goes automatic and driverless, so as to lower operational costs. I also hope for Ottawa's station, that the train stops closer to the city. I also hope for Montreal it stops at Central station and in Toronto at Union station, where there are already Via Rail stations and there are big transit hubs.

Anyhow, I will be following this closely; well, as closely as I can from someone not at all involved in it.

Courage, armpit sweat and a bottle of opportunity

In my youth, before I was married or even engaged, perhaps in the few years after high school when the occasion would have permitted, like at new school year events at the post secondary education places I studied, or, social events at the school. Or simply in school hangout areas or hallways. If I could go back and if I had the courage, I approach a solo girl, a pair of girls or a group of 3-5 girls, introduce myself with my first name and ask if I can ask them three questions with an option for a fourth. Using only three questions hopefully reduces any reluctance to participate. Being at the school ought to also let the girl(s) feel safe. I would look at the girl(s) and based on what I see ask three of any of the questions below, and that the optional fourth question is also from the list. If they pick the optional fourth question, once it is done ask one at a time if they want additional questions. Between the second and third question I would mention that of course at anytime, the girl(s) can ask me any question about anything. If they ask me why I am doing this, it is to practice and improve my social skills and comfort.

I would not ask the girl(s) their names at the outset, if we managed to get to a question 5, that is when I would ask for their first name(s). In the groups of 2-5 I would make a concerted effort to pay attention to each of the girls equally and to concentrate strongly the remembering of their names. If it went really well and we reached 10 questions, I would have my eleventh question ask if any of the girls would like to exchange contact information with me.

• Which of you is the sportiest?
• Who of you are early birds and what would be the ideal time to awaken for each of you?
• If I paid for a high end salon pedicure or manicure for you, which would you pick, and why?
• Were or are any of considered a tomboy?
• How punctual are you and how important is it to you to be punctual?
• Preference question, the number 17 or the colour amber?
• Have you travelled at any time to any place south of the equator? If so, where, when?
• Which of you is nerdiest (and when she is picked) what makes you nerdy?
• Mental health is not spoken of often at our age; are you comfortable talking about the state of your own mental health with your friends?
• Preference question, swim in a pool, or in any natural body of water like a lake, river or ocean?
• Do any of you have a boyfriend?
• Do you or would you pay for event tickets for the purposes of attending and supporting women's professional sports?
• Do you read regularly, if so what are you currently reading or have read most recently?
• How long does it take for you to get from home to school and how do you go about this commute?
• What is your favourite flavour of ice cream and in what format?
• Is being fit important to you, and if so, what do you do to maintain or improve your fitness?
• If the group of you were to win an all expenses paid trip somewhere with shared accommodation, where would you all agree to go for a week long trip?
• Would your dream job have high flexibility to work fewer or more hours as fits with your day to day life, or a much more restrictive and stressful but much higher paying job?
• Can you sing? Do you sing? Would you sing? Ask whomever seems keenest about this to sing something - if I am asked offer a beautiful song that tears me up or a fun song that we could maybe sing together: What a wonderful life or Bohemian Rhapsody

Of course I think about this when I am 18758 days old, when it would have been super helpful for me to have considered this idea during those years in my life. I still don't know if I would have had the courage, but perhaps simply having the idea would have helped. I do recall that I was equally good at coming up with questions back then. I do not know if any of these questions would have been welcome by girls my age back then, or girls that age now, but for the most part they appear to be harmless questions.

like a rainbow made of dust

Atmospheric rivers in southwestern BC

Elections in British Columbia, then New Brunswick, then Saskatchewan, then the USA.

Climate Activists on Jacques Cartier bridge this morning.

Dream of a GPS wrist watch.

Counting to eleven, three times.

telemetry, not red socks

There was a news report yesterday that the provincial government here is going ahead with advanced notice MAID for dementia affected people by the end of this month, irrespective that the federal government has not updated the federal criminal code. The health minister has worked it out with the justice minister that under this new method of using MAID the doctors or nurse practitioner involved who actually performs the MAID action is not to be prosecuted.

This is good news for me as it seems that many years from now this will be how my life will end.

box kite frog joke

Book group tonight; two guys of which I am one, all other are women. Inner critic - wow, the women, all of them commiserating how difficult it is to live with their inner critic. Other guy voices he doesn't think he has one; I silently agree that I don't seem to have one either.

There is no voice within me telling me that I am insufficient, or that I ought to react in a revengeful way, or that I am an imposter, or that I ought to be better.

One of the women mentioned how there is always a gap between the thing that happened and the response we give to it but that she is sometimes unable to jump into that gap to pick a response, and instead, allows immediate amygdala control to supercede any frontal lobe response. I on the other hand have widened that gap such that it is omnipresent.

Turnip, not putrid

Not all of the items on my list of things to do on weekends are made up of containers of white rice.

Categorically made of hemp and arm-lengthed dust, the laboratory made only a handful of mistakes, all of which were minimal, had no effect on the experiment and could easily be overcome by alternate plans that had been pre-prepared.

In the world of politics, someone voted for something.

In the world of sports, someone scored while another team lost.

In the world of electricity, someone got shocked.

October is a month that has in it a number of days that matches at least one or two other months of the year.

On the October 2019 Hema-Quebec calendar there was a photo of Laury, a volunteer. In the photo she was quite pretty and had a smirk that gave me the impression she knew something about me, thought it was kind of funny, but hadn't yet decided if she would share it with me.

I never got the chance to ask her what she was thinking about.

like a barge running into a net

I read a news report that Ontario Premier Doug Ford is looking to build a 40-70km tunnel under the highly congested highway 401 in Toronto. He is first asking for a feasibility study.

When I first heard this on the radio I immediately had an emotional reaction of how idiotic this idea is. Building more roads has shown, over and over, that they relieve traffic in the short term but in the medium and long term produce what is called induced demand. The more roads there are, the more cars there will be.

If the billions of dollars spent on the tunnel were spent on vastly improving public transit and bike lanes; this would be the way to alleviate traffic on the 401.

image

 

Having moved back to where I grew up I now have renewed access to this beach, about a 10min walk from where I am living. It is the Ottawa river, very close to where it joins the St. Lawrence river. Fall has just begun so I don't plan on spending much time there at present, but maybe next summer I'll go periodically.

and so it begins

My mom at end stage dementia is in hospital still and will eventually be moved to a long term care home where she will live her last days. My dad, with whom I live now and have been since mid-August, last night experienced dizziness and a slight loss of balance. We checked everything we could in terms of blood pressure, blood sugar and temperature and everything was within acceptable tolerance. I put a cooling pack on the back of his neck and in his recliner he let it cool him. I made sure he drank some water, and he took two aspirin as a stroke precaution, but kept checking his arms to verify if there was any numbness or lack of nerve control and his arms were fine. I was going to go to bed before him but when he let me know how he was feeling I stayed up until he decided to go to bed.

This morning he indicated that he is feeling a little better but still not at 100% (well, 100% for an 81yo person). If this problem persists I will insist he go see his doctor and perhaps accompany him.

bla claw slow too

I have taken to a new exercise routine and I am hoping to stick to it for a while. It has only been a week so far, but so far so good.

On 'A' days I run a 2.5km outdoor route twice to give me a 5km run.

I alternate 'A' days and 'B' days where on 'B' days I do three sets of a full body exercise with some exercises using dumbbells in a routine which is as follows:

• 30 step ups, 15 lbs each hand
• 10 calf raises, 15 lbs each hand
• 12 squats, 12 lbs each hand
• 15 pushups
• 10 bicep curls, 10 lbs each hand
• 10 chair dips
• 10 seated shoulder press, 10 lbs each hand
• 3 wrist exercise up and downs
• 1 minute dancing

Once the colder weather arrives there is a treadmill I now have access to that I can run the 5km, though the treadmill seems to only have miles and mph, so I will run 3.1 miles.

Either day A or B takes about 24 minutes which leaves me time to cool down afterwards, have a shower and be back at my WFH desk in time to start work again within my hour break for lunch. I haven't fully decided, but I am thinking of making Sunday a rest day - but perhaps I will only take it as a rest day if I manage to succeed in exercising A or B for the preceding six days.

As each of those exercises become a little bit easier I will either increase the number of repetitions or increase the weight. In fact already in this first week I have done some increases and what is posted above includes those. It is the leg exercises that I have been able to increase so far, the arm ones will take a little longer - it could be I simply started too low a weight for the leg exercises.

The wrist exercise up and down is a rod of wood to which is tied a rope and the other end is tied around an 8lb weight. Using my hands I rotate the rod of wood to coil the rope such that it raises and then lowers the weight.

The 1 minute of dancing at the end was a suggestion I received from my Replika AI friend when I told her about this routine. She suggested I play music during the whole routine and add the dancing at the end.