Dear pedestrian dressed from head to toe in dark clothing who ran across the road in front of my car on this dark and stormy night:
I have no desire to facilitate your progress toward a Darwin Award.
If I hadn’t noticed you weaving on and off the sidewalk like a scared rabbit, I may not have seen your sudden dash.
Oh, and BTW, you were moving toward a well-lit crosswalk just ten or fifteen meters down the road.
If I see posts on Facebook that ask me to like or share them, nine times out of ten I ignore them.
If I see posts on Facebook that I like, that I find interesting or informative, I like and share them, no pleading or emotional coercion involved.
If I see posts on Facebook that have anything like “let’s see how many likes this can get” I ignore them.
If I see posts with anything along the lines of “I’ll know you care if. . .” or “I’ll know you’re really a friend if. . .” I get angry, and have to restrain myself from un-friending the poster, or replying with a rant.
If you like something, or are interested in something, simply post it with no strings attached.
Let me, and others, decide if we like it, with no emotional harassment.
I got the winter tires installed on our faithful ’98 Subaru Outback today. Will be doing a trip into the BC interior later this month, and while there’s no snow yet, the higher passes could get some any day now.
I’ve always been a believer in winter tires from the days I first began driving in Saskatchewan a long time ago. And as the experts recommend, I put them on all four wheels. (And that’s not because of Subaru’s all-wheel-drive. You should do this for front-drive or rear-drive vehicles, too.)
The “all-season” tires that I use most of the year are rated “M+S” and therefore are accepted as snow tires in BC, but I figure using the real thing adds a margin of safety.
What I changed in my routine several years back was getting winter wheels (yes, those drab steel items). They pay off in just a few years, because if you keep your winter tires mounted on rims, dealers and garages will often swap summer for winter, and vice versa, for free as part of regular maintenance, since they need to take the wheels off to check brakes, etc., anyway.
Or if you just get the tires swapped, if they’re already mounted on rims, it’ll run around $40 rather than over $100.
And if you have a partner with aesthetic sensibilities that are offended when the mag wheels are replaced by black-painted metal, you will find that they will be eager to ante up for fancy wheel covers : -).
But what about the cost of those extra winter tires?
The way I see it, if you keep your vehicle for many years, like we do, there is no extra cost. You’d be buying new summer or all-season tires more often if you weren’t using winter ones, eh?
Burnaby RCMP held their second annual open house today, and it was a fun, informative event on a lovely, sunny day.
Burnaby RCMP have done a great job on community relations for many years, with four community police offices in addition to HQ, and lots of programs that involve community and volunteers.
Surprise visitor, a Burnaby boy who sings a little 🙂
Checking out bomb squad gear
Emergency Response Team was also popular
Anti-Graffiti Program. The City of Burnaby and the RCMP have done a great job on this issue over the last several years
Burnaby Emergency Program Office – are you and your family prepared for a disaster?
Great view to the north from Burnaby RCMP HQ
Staff Sergeant Major John Buis sports an 1870s Sergeant’s uniform
I attended the “Official Dedication and Unveiling of the New Commemorative Paving Stones at Citizen’s Plaza” at Burnaby City Hall today.
It was a lovely, sunny, autumn day, with a congenial crowd of local volunteers, City staff, and politicians. In addition to the unveiling of redone commemorative paving stones (they’d faded over the years), the event was also an opportunity to recognize several Burnaby Citizen of the Year Kushiro Cup award recipients, inductees to the Burnaby Business Hall of Fame, and the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame. These awards had been presented at previous events, but it was nice for recipients to get another round of public appreciation.
The event was combined with an Open House at City Hall, and many City departments had displays.
People checking out commemorative paving stones
Burnaby Art Gallery booth
Burnaby has an ongoing eco-sculpture program. There were several sheep on display in readiness to be planted for the upcoming Year of the Ram (Sheep)
Burnaby Fire Department presence
Burnaby RCMP booth
Monument in City Hall garden commemorating volunteers
Paving stones commemorating the four founding members of the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers
I’ll be speaking about streamkeeping, and how these volunteers help to protect and restore Burnaby’s waterways. I’ll be supplementing a presentation by Elmer Rudolph, a long-time volunteer who has amazing knowledge of the history of the decline, and restoration, of the Brunette River. This is part of the Burnaby Neighbourhood History series sponsored by the Burnaby Village Museum and Burnaby Public Libraries, and I encourage you to register for this, and other sessions, here.
The Alta Vista Park Community Picnic in South Burnaby is always a great event. It’s truly a community gathering, and the organizers are excellent.
Byrne Creek Streamkeepers have participated for many years, and it’s one of our favourite events.
Some photos from yesterday:
Byrne Creek Streamkeepers booth
Organizers with local politicians
Arts and crafts
Burnaby Fire Department
Mini golf
Air guitar contest led by the popular band Rainshadow
Yumi and I had a great time at the Nikkei Matsuri today, just up the hill from our place at Nikkei Place. Great music, displays, food, and culture, with a wonderful family-friendly crowd. It’s on tomorrow, too!
Here’s my Flickr set from today.
Yep, since I stopped posting to my old blog, and started this new blog on July 5, 2014, every single “comment” has been spam.
That’s why I never had comments open on my old blog on an aging software architecture.
So what the heck is the purpose of comments, if they are ALL spam?
UPDATE: August 25, 2014. I have turned off comments on all previous posts on this blog.
Lauren and Boggie. That’s what most of us remember. But recollections of them together are framed by where we saw them on the big screen. And that brings back memories. . .
I think the first place I saw this movie aside from small-screen TV may have been an old theater In Takadanobaba, Tokyo.
Back in the 1980s Takadanobaba was a haven for students, local and foreign. Cheap dorms, cheap cafes, cheap bars and a dingy, cheap movie theater that ran amazing series of foreign films. The theater is likely long gone by now.
Oh, gosh, my mind is tickling at the answer, but it’s not quite there.
“Waseda Shochiku”? Something like that. Anyway…
I’d walk by the theater every few weeks and sign up for series of Bunuel and other Euro masters. Saw a lot of stuff in many languages that I didn’t understand, but the lighting, the photography, the acting remains in my mind to this day.
it was a perfect place to watch Sam play it again.
Hot damn, a Google search says it’s still alive? Hard to comprehend, but wonderful.