1. "The Strangest Secret" by Earl Nightingale. Still smitten with Earl's recordings after finding out about him last week. This one is great and has a 30 day challenge at the end to be very careful with one's thoughts.
2. Philanthrocapitalism. What an awesome word. Stumbled across it reading the wiki entry about Warren Buffet after thinking it'd be fun to be a billionaire. The article link to philanhtrocapitalism redirects to an entry on Venture Philanthropy.
3. Robin Hood. This is an anti-poverty group in New York City that was listed as an example of venture philanthropy. I like the concept of being hyper efficient with time and resources, the giving of expertise as well as funds, and the transparency about where their budget comes from and where it is going.
4. Sam Roberts Band - "We're All In This Together" especially the "we are, we are the angry apes..." part
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Sunday, July 6, 2014
This Week's Favourite Things! June 30th - July 6th, 2014
1. This video with a message from Earl Nightingale
2. Electricity. So nice to have after Hurricane - turned tropical storm Arthur, thanks to all the hardworking linespeople who worked to restore it.
3. Hurricane Arthur - so happy Arthur didn't smash up our place. To be honest I didn't think it was that bad a storm by the time it reached us so the reason Arthur made my weekly list is I think he 'outed' Emera for its poor handling of Nova Scotia Power.
I polled some people who have lived in the province much longer than me and consensus was 2 days of no power for this degree of weather seemed excessive. We were surprised to lose power at all and thought maybe it'd be restored within a couple hours, not a couple of days. Seems like poor customer service to get from a company that keeps cutting and outsourcing jobs while raising power rates and giving executives big pay hikes and returning profit to shareholders. And storm season hasn't even begun! We all agreed that with this level of service, if we took a direct hit from a real hurricane we'd be screwed so it's time to solar up. If Emera keeps this up, at some point I wonder if a class action lawsuit for negligence is going to make sense.
One of the most frustrating things about the weekend was the fact that it was incredibly difficult to get through to any humans at Nova Scotia Power. We didn't have internet access because of our outage and our lack of smart phones, but the internet site that had outage information somehow went down. My pet theory as to why this happened is that the site was taken down by management because they realized that people might have seen how few crews were working and gotten upset at the company for being understaffed. Why the phone lines were overwhelmed was another good question but most times I called I got a busy signal. I wanted to report a downed line I saw so when I finally got through at 1am I decided to see how long it would take to get through to a human. About 1/2 an hour I think. It shouldn't have been that hard for people to report downed lines. At least when I finally did get through the person I spoke to was in the province and not at a foreign call center.
I also wonder why this province's utility is owned by a private corporation in the first place. I wish ownership would go back to the province, and that individual households were rewarded for selling power back to the grid via their own solar panels, windmills and micro-hydro systems. This would create incentive for individuals to invest in these technologies and take the burden off the utility for getting itself off of foreign coal. It would be nice if low interest loans were made readily available for individual investment in these things. However, as my husband pointed out, with a private corporation like Emera this would mean they wouldn't have anything to 'sell' and charge us for, so really for them it makes more sense to build a big wood-fired electric generator to start munching up all the provinces forests to burn up into power so Nova Scotia can look like Easter Island and Emera executives and shareholders can profit.
I learned a lot about local politics from Hurricane Arthur yesterday when we drove into Bridgewater looking for food; it was interesting that the side of the street with Sobeys on it had power all day, while Loblaws-owned Superstore went without. Esso and Petro-Can had no power, but it somehow miraculously reappeared at the Irving Station. Hmmm.
4. Crony-Baloney. New phrase I just thought up writing point #3. Ah, I googled it. I'm not the first person to think this phrase up.
5. This awesome video of Dongdu International's (DDI) plans for Nova Scotia! I think things are about to get interesting here, I joked to a fellow "Come From Away" several months ago that if this province doesn't get its act together some mainland Chinese investors are likely to fly in and start buying up the whole show. But I never anticipated this!! DDI has also been buying up Detroit. Not sure what that says about the province's economy... but having grown up in Richmond BC I'll be curious to see how this development impacts the province. Hopefully the government will be smart enough to ensure that it is with maximum positive benefits for its current residents; both humans and wildlife.
2. Electricity. So nice to have after Hurricane - turned tropical storm Arthur, thanks to all the hardworking linespeople who worked to restore it.
3. Hurricane Arthur - so happy Arthur didn't smash up our place. To be honest I didn't think it was that bad a storm by the time it reached us so the reason Arthur made my weekly list is I think he 'outed' Emera for its poor handling of Nova Scotia Power.
I polled some people who have lived in the province much longer than me and consensus was 2 days of no power for this degree of weather seemed excessive. We were surprised to lose power at all and thought maybe it'd be restored within a couple hours, not a couple of days. Seems like poor customer service to get from a company that keeps cutting and outsourcing jobs while raising power rates and giving executives big pay hikes and returning profit to shareholders. And storm season hasn't even begun! We all agreed that with this level of service, if we took a direct hit from a real hurricane we'd be screwed so it's time to solar up. If Emera keeps this up, at some point I wonder if a class action lawsuit for negligence is going to make sense.
One of the most frustrating things about the weekend was the fact that it was incredibly difficult to get through to any humans at Nova Scotia Power. We didn't have internet access because of our outage and our lack of smart phones, but the internet site that had outage information somehow went down. My pet theory as to why this happened is that the site was taken down by management because they realized that people might have seen how few crews were working and gotten upset at the company for being understaffed. Why the phone lines were overwhelmed was another good question but most times I called I got a busy signal. I wanted to report a downed line I saw so when I finally got through at 1am I decided to see how long it would take to get through to a human. About 1/2 an hour I think. It shouldn't have been that hard for people to report downed lines. At least when I finally did get through the person I spoke to was in the province and not at a foreign call center.
I also wonder why this province's utility is owned by a private corporation in the first place. I wish ownership would go back to the province, and that individual households were rewarded for selling power back to the grid via their own solar panels, windmills and micro-hydro systems. This would create incentive for individuals to invest in these technologies and take the burden off the utility for getting itself off of foreign coal. It would be nice if low interest loans were made readily available for individual investment in these things. However, as my husband pointed out, with a private corporation like Emera this would mean they wouldn't have anything to 'sell' and charge us for, so really for them it makes more sense to build a big wood-fired electric generator to start munching up all the provinces forests to burn up into power so Nova Scotia can look like Easter Island and Emera executives and shareholders can profit.
I learned a lot about local politics from Hurricane Arthur yesterday when we drove into Bridgewater looking for food; it was interesting that the side of the street with Sobeys on it had power all day, while Loblaws-owned Superstore went without. Esso and Petro-Can had no power, but it somehow miraculously reappeared at the Irving Station. Hmmm.
4. Crony-Baloney. New phrase I just thought up writing point #3. Ah, I googled it. I'm not the first person to think this phrase up.
5. This awesome video of Dongdu International's (DDI) plans for Nova Scotia! I think things are about to get interesting here, I joked to a fellow "Come From Away" several months ago that if this province doesn't get its act together some mainland Chinese investors are likely to fly in and start buying up the whole show. But I never anticipated this!! DDI has also been buying up Detroit. Not sure what that says about the province's economy... but having grown up in Richmond BC I'll be curious to see how this development impacts the province. Hopefully the government will be smart enough to ensure that it is with maximum positive benefits for its current residents; both humans and wildlife.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
This Week's Favourite Things! June 23rd - June 29th, 2014
1. Boney M Rasputin. Last week I got really into watching random youtube videos of things that get stuck in my head, this is just one of many awesome versions of this song which makes me nostalgic for the 70's...
2. Come on Teacher by Joel Plaskett. Ah. Heard this on the radio once a couple years ago had no idea what the song was called or who was singing it but loved it, found this after watching his "Fashionable People" video as I heard that song on the radio recently and it got stuck in my head.
3. It's yer money I'm after baby by The Wonderstuff which makes me super nostalgic for the 90's which I remember a lot more of than the 70's... only version of this one youtube is a reversed one some fan made
2. Come on Teacher by Joel Plaskett. Ah. Heard this on the radio once a couple years ago had no idea what the song was called or who was singing it but loved it, found this after watching his "Fashionable People" video as I heard that song on the radio recently and it got stuck in my head.
3. It's yer money I'm after baby by The Wonderstuff which makes me super nostalgic for the 90's which I remember a lot more of than the 70's... only version of this one youtube is a reversed one some fan made
Monday, June 23, 2014
This Week's Favourite Things! June 16th - 22nd, 2014
1. Cilantro. It's one of our first crops up in the garden so I've been eating entire leaves of it which is fun because it's on this list:
2. 11 Ways To Decalcify Your Pineal Gland Regardless of Your Age. Cool. This is a link from Spirit Science which has a great Facebook page as well as awesome videos on Youtube.
Like this one:
3. Water.
4. Another article from Spirit Science: What A Shaman Sees In A Mental Hospital
5. 28 Pieces of Street Art That Cleverly Interact With Their Surroundings
6. This Abraham-Hicks video: "Trust Your Own Guidance And Leave Others To Follow Theirs":
2. 11 Ways To Decalcify Your Pineal Gland Regardless of Your Age. Cool. This is a link from Spirit Science which has a great Facebook page as well as awesome videos on Youtube.
Like this one:
3. Water.
4. Another article from Spirit Science: What A Shaman Sees In A Mental Hospital
5. 28 Pieces of Street Art That Cleverly Interact With Their Surroundings
6. This Abraham-Hicks video: "Trust Your Own Guidance And Leave Others To Follow Theirs":
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
This (past) Week's Favourite Things! June 9th - June 15th, 2014
1. Lots of stuff on paidtoexist.com which has a bunch of interesting articles like this one:
The Best Way To Solve A Problem: Give Up
2. "How To Drop Out" by Ran Prieur. Cool essay written in 2004.
3. "What Teachers Make" by Taylor Mali
The Best Way To Solve A Problem: Give Up
2. "How To Drop Out" by Ran Prieur. Cool essay written in 2004.
3. "What Teachers Make" by Taylor Mali
Sunday, June 8, 2014
This Week's Favourite Things! June 2nd - June 8th, 2014
1. "Empty" by Metric in particular the first line "there was no way out, the only way out was to give in" which was stuck in my head all week
2. Lupines. These were #1 last week. They are just so pretty that I'm still smitten, so are the neighbourhood bumble bees. I started a lupine bed from seed last year at one edge of the garden and it's nice to see everything blooming.
3. The garden. A bit late getting everything planted what with the cold long winter but here it is so far, still some silage plastic to roll up for more rows:
3. San Marzano Paste Tomatoes. Despite frying a bunch of these prized seedlings in a makeshift greenhouse mishap, they've decided to keep growing, have to admire the resilience of tomatoes. Hoping to be able swap ripe paste tomatoes for pizza with the local pizza guy. We have a bunch of other varieties that are a lot bigger but I'm guessing these will catch up quickly.
4. Currants. The cuttings my mom sent me in 2012 are now a currant forest. We're going to have a lot this year!
5. Gai Lan Seedlings, aka Kai Lan or Chinese Kale. I picked these seeds up in BC and am looking forward to seeing how they do.
6. Cucumber seedlings. Pickles!
7. Working on creative pursuits in small daily chunks of 20 - 30 minutes. I've decided perhaps this'll be the key to one day getting to grade 10 on piano and writing a novel (finally, this has been a long standing goal) as well as making better sculptures when I finally get back into doing that... I know this 'art' blog is lacking in art lately but it's coming... though taking an extended break is going to be good 'reset' for me, I can already tell. I did some googling and there are lots of other creatives who have accomplished great things by working in small chunks. Here are a couple posts I found that I like:
"The power of working little and often" by Sustainably Creative
"Why you need to write everyday" by Jeff Goins
2. Lupines. These were #1 last week. They are just so pretty that I'm still smitten, so are the neighbourhood bumble bees. I started a lupine bed from seed last year at one edge of the garden and it's nice to see everything blooming.
3. The garden. A bit late getting everything planted what with the cold long winter but here it is so far, still some silage plastic to roll up for more rows:
3. San Marzano Paste Tomatoes. Despite frying a bunch of these prized seedlings in a makeshift greenhouse mishap, they've decided to keep growing, have to admire the resilience of tomatoes. Hoping to be able swap ripe paste tomatoes for pizza with the local pizza guy. We have a bunch of other varieties that are a lot bigger but I'm guessing these will catch up quickly.
4. Currants. The cuttings my mom sent me in 2012 are now a currant forest. We're going to have a lot this year!
6. Cucumber seedlings. Pickles!
7. Working on creative pursuits in small daily chunks of 20 - 30 minutes. I've decided perhaps this'll be the key to one day getting to grade 10 on piano and writing a novel (finally, this has been a long standing goal) as well as making better sculptures when I finally get back into doing that... I know this 'art' blog is lacking in art lately but it's coming... though taking an extended break is going to be good 'reset' for me, I can already tell. I did some googling and there are lots of other creatives who have accomplished great things by working in small chunks. Here are a couple posts I found that I like:
"The power of working little and often" by Sustainably Creative
"Why you need to write everyday" by Jeff Goins
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
This Week's Favourite Things! May 26th - June 1st, 2014
1. Lupines
2. "Let it be" by the Beatles
3. This CBC National story about small farming from May 31st
2. "Let it be" by the Beatles
3. This CBC National story about small farming from May 31st
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