Morels are up.
May 27, 2019
The last time I walked the property I came home with three small dog ticks, so my wife suggested pointedly that I cut down on the bringing home of arachnid pets if I wished to continue to eat as well as exercise.
To that end, today I mowed a one-mile path, 5′ wide, on a route which by and large avoided overhanging pine trees. Then I walked same route, only to discover a location where I had run over an entire patch of white morels.
Driving a hybrid: first impressions
May 18, 2019
Yesterday I picked up a 2014 Lexus es300h in Hamilton and drove it 375 km home through holiday-weekend traffic. Then my wife and I returned to Kingston this morning to collect my Porsche Cayenne from the train terminal. The shock was in starting Ruby up. My faithful companion for the last three years had suddenly become a creaky old car.
Driving the hybrid is an entirely different mechanical/gaming experience than I’ve had before. It’s quite interesting on several levels, and promotes a whole new set of bad behaviours. For example this morning I cruised up the hill through Morton at 100 km in a 60 zone so I didn’t have to get out of “eco” and re-accelerate. On the 401 yesterday I tended to hesitate a bit too long when overtaking to avoid getting out of cruise control for the same reason. The car has lots of zip in sport mode, but that lowers your score on the efficiency graph. 120 km/hr remained the optimal pace for travel on the busy road, but slower traffic brought its own rewards in a higher mileage score.
Virgin owes me $503.28.
May 5, 2019
An item on my news feed today led to a morning of interaction with Virgin Mobility, culminating in a reduced monthly rate for our two cell phones.
Global News led with an article explaining how the CRTC deliberated, and then allowed mobile phone network providers in Canada to fail to notify subscribers of the expiration of their sales contracts at the end of twenty-four months, for example, and the subsequent reduction to which the customers are entitled at that time. In our case the monthly add-on amount for my wife’s new iPhone was $29. and change. The contract to pay that portion expired in November of 2017.
In the interim until Global informed me about the potential class action lawsuit against the Big Three, the Bell subsidiary Virgin has overcharged me $503.28. When confronted with this information a nervous woman put me on hold a couple of times, but eventually offered a new “loyalty” plan for $35 per phone per month with unlimited minutes. This is effective on the next billing, though I have no written information yet on the unadvertised plan, and Virgin’s most recent mail communication with me was in French. When I asked for an English version, the operator promised to send it right away, but that was months ago.
The writing of this was just interrupted by a series of texts from the Virgin computer asking for feedback. In summary, I wrote that I might recommend the phone service to a friend, though anyone who successfully cons me out of $500 had better be either a relative or a Member of Parliament, and Virgin is neither of these.
We’ll see how that class-action suit goes.
Canadians can pay off their mobile phones, but their bills might not drop. Here’s why
UPDATE: 23 September, 2019
Virgin owes me another 79.10. A problem with Virgin’s billing system is that they send an email early in the month identifying the amount the account holder owes. A paper bill appears much later, though they try to push one to pay online by logging into their website. I can’t do that. I have never done it, and I don’t remember the password. I just pay through my bank.
They also send a due notice to my wife. We share the account.
Anyway, a demand for payment in August caused me to pay 79.10 on August 6th. My bank record shows that I had made a payment to Virgin on July 25th, and another on August 26th. There are no identifiers on the requests for payment I receive by email. How do I convince the friendly lamebrains at Virgin that I have overpaid once again?
Don’t trust these guys. If they can get you to overpay, they’ll take the money and run.
Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea
April 24, 2019
Years ago I used to play video games in the SIM series where one methodically built homesteads or cities, or even whole civilizations. A look at Fiery Cross Reef, South China Sea, on Google Earth shows the ultimate SIM game: build a whole city, including a 2-mile airport runway system, on a sand bar in the middle of the South China Sea. Memories of SIM Civilization quickly morph into the recollections of the obsessions of various Bond villains over the years. And Google Earth brings it all to the screen of your laptop, whenever you want to look at it.
It’s not live, though. The version I saw was filmed in 2014. Four-storey buildings seem complete. Others are under construction. I’d love to see updates. It would be like looking at a time-lapse ant farm.
I realize that the construction of this project is a major disruptor in world politics, but my first reaction to a look at it was fascination at the detail that I could see in the satellite photos, and admiration for the organization which could mount such a massive project in the middle of nowhere.
Ice-out 2019
April 20, 2019
I just read on Facebook that the ice cleared Newboro Lake on April 18, 2019. Bill Curwood of Ebb Island is the winner of this year’s ice-out contest. My map indicates that Ebb Island lies just north of Brothers Island and east of the channel marker in that area.
Why are skunks so creepy (another Quora question)?
April 8, 2019
All other wild animals make every choice, every movement, in the context of danger checks from their environment. Skunks are utterly self-involved.
When I have had a chance to watch skunks in daylight, each has had a slightly comical detachment reminiscent of the best Bond villains.
Case in point: Our cat lived outside in a heated kennel with a heated water bowl and her food dish inside the small shelter. Something had been booting her out and eating the kibble at night recently, so I had been pressed into service with the Have-A-Heart live trap to remove the miscreant. I suspected a raccoon.
It was 6:30 on a summer evening when I looked out the long laneway leading to the house. Up the road at a slow, undulating gallop came the fattest skunk I had ever seen. This Falstaffian character had a magnificent coat of black and white, and everything was in motion as he approached. It wasn’t that he was nearsighted and didn’t notice me. He just didn’t care. All he could think about was another meal of that glorious cat kibble. The image sticks in my mind of this beautiful, clean, shiny, happy critter, with its mind fixed on one single idea: food.
Of course as he grew closer I grew more and more uncomfortable. Here I was setting up a Have-A-Heart, but it was I who felt trapped. There was no point in attempting to shoo the critter away. He was too dumb to frighten, and of course he had the nuclear option.
Sorry, Cat. I must retreat.
Subterfuge time. I built my skunk-removal strategy around coping with the fallout from the nuclear blast. Obviously the interception point should not be the front verandah of a tall, Victorian brick house in mid-summer. I considered the prevailing wind and land elevation and eventually set the trap behind a low stone wall, to the north and east of the house. The rest of the plan involved a small wagon to transport the toxic trap and its contents after despatch with a .22 round. A raccoon would climb aboard the wagon and into the trap quite willingly, but Falstaff, here, looked as though the height might be a problem for him.
So a day or so later I did the deed, then lifted the trap onto the wagon, dropped the handle over the trailer hitch on my UTV, and towed the reeking problem a half-mile back to the woods, where I unhitched the wagon and got out of there to let the radiation die down.
A couple of days later after a rain I was able to dump Falstaff’s carcass out of the trap for the vultures, but I still had to leave trap and wagon out in the weather in an open area for the forseeable future. Back at the house the ground under the scene of the assassination was soaked with musk. A month later the area still smelled of skunk, but it was away from the house and life went on.
Karma did in the trap and the wagon, though. A neighbour’s tractor ran over the wagon and crushed the trap while mowing the field. I guess I had left my skunk-removal rig out in the air for a little too long.
That’s why skunks seem creepy. They produce in us feelings of admiration undercut by fear, revulsion, and guilt. And the skunks don’t know or care.
Response to Globe article
April 3, 2019
A Globe and Mail columnist published an article today claiming that Trudeau was getting his Trump on in turfing former cabinet ministers Jody Wilson-Raybourn and Dr. Jane Philpott from the Liberal caucus on Tuesday.
I posted the following response to Andrew MacDougall’s article:
To compare Trudeau’s actions in this case to those of Trump is to use a weak analogy, lazily.
A far more apt comparison can be found in Jean Anouilh’s modern tragedy, Antigone. Set in Ancient Greece following a civil war, King Creon faces a crisis. He vowed that anyone who rose against him would lie unburied on the battlefield, but then his daughter-in-law attempted to bury her two brothers. Three times she is caught by his guards, and three times she refuses to see reason. Finally he has no choice but to execute her by entombment, but his only son insists upon joining her in execution. Creon’s wife kills herself in grief. At the end of the tragedy Creon has done his job and restored order, only to wear an empty crown.
In her hubris Jody Wilson-Raybould fits the role of Antigone quite well. Hers is a correct moral perspective. For her that’s all she needs. The problem is that her moral vision doesn’t take into account the aggregation of other moral visions, also correct, which make up the moral essence. Because Antigone’s too-particular ethical position is destructive to the moral essence, the gods must strike her down. The spectacle of wasted greatness is the tragedy.
Ruby doesn’t do off-road.
March 13, 2019
It was a simple task. Put the utility trailer back on the slightly elevated area where it sits in my trailer yard. There was a bit of a snow drift, but so what?
Before I knew it, Ruby was stuck. I disconnected the trailer and realized that there was a fair amount of snow in that drift, and the ground underneath was pretty icy.
Low range and diff lock did no good. I had forgotten all about traction control and how to turn it off. Maybe that is the button on the dash with a three-letter acronym.
Desirable characteristics of an off-road vehicle are flexibility, light weight, simple power train and aggressive tires. Ruby is the antithesis of this, regardless of winter tires, 4WD, differential lock and low range. She still behaves like a lead anvil once belly-hung on hard snow.
Towing requires a second driver because you can’t leave the car in neutral if you want to remove the key, and if you leave the key in the ignition, Ruby may lock you out if you jolt her through the tow rope.
I matched my 35 hp tractor to the Cayenne. With snowblower, cab and loader as well as loaded tires with chains, the TAFE weighs about the same as the Porsche. At 5400 pounds, Ruby is too much dead weight for my little tractors. My wife operated Ruby correctly and the behemoth came out of the snowdrift after several sharp tugs from the tractor through a 30′ tow strap. No, I did not hitch the strap to the tow ball. I looped it over and around the ball holder.
Ruby does fine on the highway, but I don’t want to go off-road with a vehicle I can’t push.
the Walnut Diary 