tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60308302024-03-14T04:19:51.358-04:00Dave DuncanDon't come here, go to my site at blog.daveduncan.ca
HOST YOUR OWN BLOGS!!!daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comBlogger117125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1085601024464635182004-05-26T15:48:00.000-04:002007-05-08T09:43:46.314-04:00Bye Bye BloggerI'm outta here... I've finished up setting this blog up on my site, so this is my last post on Bloggger. Thanks for the memories. Please redirect your bookmarks and links to my new home...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blog.achtungdavey.ca/">http://www.blog.daveduncan.ca</a> (updated May, 2007)<br /><br />All previous posts from here will be there, and you can search on them. I'll also be hosting photos and you'll have access to the rest of my site as well.<br />See you there!daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1085596561714951732004-05-26T14:28:00.000-04:002004-05-26T14:36:01.713-04:00Now You're Cookin' With GasI'm not much of a kitchen man myself... just ask Jen, but there's something about cooking outside that I just love. Maybe it's the primal male instinct that draws us to an open flame in the fresh air of nature, but I love cooking meals and prepping food when I'm camping.
<br />I'm sure one of the big reasons is that you never have anything better to do when you're camping, so you can enjoy yourself. At home, preparing a meal keeps you from doing all those other little things that need to be done.
<br />Another reason I like it is for the toys... Propane stoves, Camping Gas burner elements... and the mother of all toys... FIRE! I also get to play with sharp knives and eat full meals of meat and meat by-products, if I so choose. It's perfect.
<br />It has to be said though, that Mike Brubacher is the only man who should be cooking breakfast. That's just a general statement too. I don't just mean camping, or at the cottage, I'm talking any time and anywhere. He's got 'the touch'.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1085513291572548202004-05-25T14:57:00.000-04:002004-05-25T15:28:11.573-04:00The World According to TarpWith rainfall that felt like it should be measured in metres (not centimetres), we were glad that we brought a plethora of tarps with us. These included the MOTHER of all tarps. I kid you not, I think the dimensions were 32x20 feet! Plus, we attached another 12x24 foot one to that to cover a fire pit.
<br />One thing that few of us had considered before this weekend when it came to tarp setup, was drainage. Sure, you put up a tarp to keep water off your table/tent/firepit... but where does that water go once it's on the tarp? Usually, with a light rain, or even a brief downpour, most of the rain gets caught in the sags in the tarp, or spills down the sides and is absorbed into the ground, but with a steady, heavy rain the ground quickly becomes saturated and water begins to pool... and even worse... to flow.
<br /><strong>The Highs and the Lows</strong>
<br />One of the first things we like to do when we show up at a site and there's a good chance of rain at any point in our stay, is to set up the tarp before anything else is up. Your first consideration is how much rope you have and where good supporting trees are located, but if you're expecting really foul weather, also keep in mind where the high and low points of your site are. You'll want drainage points on your tarp to be uphill from the low points on your site so water flows away from your 'dry area'. If you can't position your ropes to do that, you can use string tied to water bottles or saplings to pull the tarp edge down by the grommets. This will force the water to flow to the low point of the tarp. You may have to use long sticks as tent poles to hold up sags in the tarp, but we found this worked really well.
<br /><strong>Into the Trenches</strong>
<br />So... your tarp is up and the water is flowing, but it's flowing into your dry area and pooling up. Now what? Well, you change the flow of water by digging yourself a little trench. It doesn't have to be spectacular and deep. You can even use a heavy stick. Just draw a line in the ground that either leads downhill through your dry area or out of the dry area from where you've already got pooling. The only things to keep in mind is that you want the trench to lead somewhere downhill from where your dry area is, and that you want your trench to get steadily deeper to ensure that the water will keep flowing. Like the canals of yesteryear, you'll want to dredge these trenches from time to time to keep the flow going. Just drag a stick along with the current to push silt along. It also helps to clear downgrades of debris like leaves and sticks that can impede water flow away from your dry area.
<br /><strong>"I'm Dutch... Isn't that weird?"</strong>
<br />Your last resort is to go Dutch and start building dikes (no, not those ones). Now, it's harder to stop flowing water than it is to redirect it, so this is what you do AFTER trenching hasn't quite done the trick.
<br />Mud and dirt will quickly dissolve with water and just add to the mess, so you your best bet is to jog into the bush and round up a whole lot of forest-floor organic matter. If it's already raining (which I think it will be, since you're in a last ditch effort to bail out your camp) then this stuff will already be good and damp, and that means it'll be good and heavy and easy to pack into shape. Just dig it all up (a frying pan is good when a shovel isn't handy) and pack it just inside your tarp-line or downhill from your flooding area. A triangle shape works well, especially once you pack it a bit with your feet to seal it up. Even if this stuff takes on some water, it just makes the matter that much denser and helps stop water that much more.
<br />More to come tomorrow.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1085511447815488852004-05-25T14:54:00.000-04:002004-05-25T14:57:27.816-04:00Camping: The ReturnHappy Monday, everyone. As you can see, I survived the camping trip and that will seem more impressive to those of you living in Ontario than those living elsewhere. We had enough rainfall in Ontario this weekend to increase the water level in the Great Lakes. That's not exactly ideal camping weather. We had mosquitoes a-plenty on top of that.
<br />Still, there were 17 of us, so we broke up in to groups and kept ourselves busy and happy all weekend, so it was a success.
<br />As I said a few weeks ago, I'll be posting all week about camping.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1085158126306622242004-05-21T12:44:00.000-04:002004-05-21T12:48:46.306-04:00Two ThingsFirst... tonight is camping night, and the weather doesn't look to co-operative. I think it's going to be a wet one. We're bringing lots of tarps and games though, so it'll still be a good time.
<br />Second... my blog will be moving. I took Steve's comment to heart yesterday (see yesterday's post) and decided to host a blog on my own server. This means that I can easily have images and I can do all sorts of stuff that I can't do with a blogger account.
<br />When I first set this blog up, I just meant to use it to see if this is something I'd be interested in, and it turns out that it is. Apparently some of you enjoy reading it too (or prefer reading it to... say, doing work?), so I'm going to kick it up a notch.
<br />When the time comes to switch over, I'll post the link here and anyone who has me linked can update with new URL. I'm going to be doing some work on the format so it could be a week or two yet. In the meantime, I'll still post here.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084971874735909612004-05-19T09:02:00.000-04:002004-05-19T09:04:34.736-04:00Fiddling AroundSince I'm considering hosting a blog on my own website (I've mentioned before that this is just an experiment, right?), I'm toying around with a few formats and styles. This is the latest incarnation of the AchtungDavey Blog... or the 'BlAchtung' as it should be called from now on.
<br />Let me know about any changes you'd recommend, or anything you'd like to see.
<br />daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084887397560047512004-05-18T09:34:00.000-04:002004-05-18T09:41:18.643-04:00Just Toying With Some Settings... Nothing to See HereJust ignore this... please. Why are you still reading this? Are you secretly hoping that I've hidden the secret of life in this meaningless post to test my blog settings?
<br />Fine. Here it is. Ready? The Secret of Life is to keep your socks dry. Happy?daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084823948274820142004-05-17T15:49:00.000-04:002004-05-17T15:59:08.276-04:00<b>Cool Places I Visited This Weekend</b>
<br />A trip to church turned out to be a little more eventful than I had imagined. You see, our chruch (Grace Presbryterian of Toronto) is 'in between' buildings, so we're meeting at Little Trinity Anglican Church on King St.E. It's a beautiful little church in an area of Toronto that was a trendy little town... back in the 1860s. The church was built and maintained by the Gooderham and Worts families, who ran a profitable whiskey distillery on Toronto's lakeshore. I recommend checking out a service there if you're ever in the city. It's at King and Parliament. I also suggest taking the time to walk from Yonge (about 20 minutes). It's a beautiful stroll on a pre-summer's day.
<br />Our next stop was to grab a coffee in the new Distillery District. Appropriately enough, this indoor/outdoor arts market is located in the shell of the nearby Gooderham and Worts Distillery (we came for the church and stayed for the booze). If you've ever taken the GO train east of Toronto, it's the brick building on the north side of the tracks just outside of Union Station. For everyone else, it's the film set for the Auto Parts factory in Tommy Boy. Yes, that's right. We stood right where Rob Lowe was attacked by a guard dog and peed on a transformer.
<br />It's a little pricy, and painfully trendy, but the art is cool and it's a nice walk. Bring your camera too. Apparently a lot of celebreties pop up down there. We saw Scott Thompson (Kids in the Hall fame... the gay one) shooting a TV movie there.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084823367235796832004-05-17T15:46:00.000-04:002004-05-17T15:49:27.236-04:00<b>Four Days Until Camping</b>
<br />Oh, Bon Echo Provincial Park... I hear you calling my name across the Province. Soon I will be with you. I will find myself nestled in your deeply forested bosom while the called-for thunderstorms rage down up us. Alas, thunder and lightning are no match for our love.
<br />Man, I need out of the city.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084543303018779282004-05-14T09:52:00.000-04:002004-05-14T10:02:54.653-04:00<b>Bump, Set, Spike</b>
<br />I would like to apologize to Mother Nature for yesterday's post. Ma'am, although your heatwave has inconvenienced me in many ways, it made for some kickass conditions for beach volleyball yesterday. Warm sand and hot sun were only beat out after sundown by a brisk lake wind and some light fog, which made things a little chilly... relatively.
<br />As for the actual games, we (The Underhands, as we're known professionally) played pretty well, all things considered. We won 2 out of 5 games... our last two. It took many of us some time to let our limbs remember how to play sports, and Jana needed about 20 minutes to regain sight after I wailed her in the head on a mid-dive collision. She's fine now, but we'll have to wait for the CAT Scan results.
<br />I wasn't quite the Beach Volleyball Player I'd hoped I'd be, but I played a little bit better than I expected, and I got sand wedged into all the right places. All in all, I think it's going to be a great season.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084456005707118052004-05-13T09:34:00.000-04:002004-05-13T09:46:45.706-04:00<b>April Showers bring May Heatwaves</b>
<br />That's right... for those of you in Southern Ontario, you already know what I'm talking about. Three days of unseasonably warm weather (well over 10 degrees above normal) have made us all believe that summer is already here, but let me remind everyone that just two years ago, it snowed on May 24th...
<br />Last night marked the official opening of "The Dude Ranch Patio" (our balcony), where we sat in our new lawn chairs (courtesy of Par's parents) and sipped at some cool libations (beer and some sort of vodka drink I invented... after drinking beer). For the first time in about six months, I could sit comfortably outside wearing shorts and a light sweater, but the whole time I was looking over my shoulder... just to make sure that Mother Nature wasn't going to sneak attack me like she did to most of the Prairies this week.
<br />
<br />Here's a dramatic presentation to demonstrate...
<br />"Hi. I'm Mother Nature. I'm all sweet and stuff. Here, take this nice weather... a little earlier than usual even." (Mother Nature hands over temps in the high teens and clear skies for a few weeks)
<br />"That's pretty sweet, eh guys? Well, I got stood up for my prom, so I guess I'll take it out on <em>you </em>now." (The temp drops below zero and inches of snow fall)
<br />"Oh, and I gained a lot of weight over the winter. I really only have myself to blame, but I'd rather not, so I'm going to pin this on... hmm... let's say... ah... <em>Winnipeg</em>!" (Winnipeg gets pounded with a winter storm)
<br />
<br />I'm no Scientician, but I'm pretty sure that's how it all went down.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084367328053576862004-05-12T08:57:00.000-04:002004-05-12T09:08:48.053-04:00<b>May 12: The Day My Brain Broke</b>
<br />So I was up until 3am ironing shirts and watching 'Rounders' at home. The late night can easily be blamed on two cups of coffee around 10pm (to wash down Par's birthday cake), and is entirely my own fault. Here's what my fatigue did to me this morning...
<br />So I pack up all my stuff for playing beach volleyball (as I will be every thursday for the early part of the summer), and as a result, I'm a little late meeting Jen in our courtyard to walk to the subway. When I get there, I'm complaining about not wanting to play volleyball and she gets this confused look on her face... you see, today is wednesday, not thursday. Brilliant. I'll be well rested for volleyball tomorrow then.
<br />So we start walking, and I put my hand in my pocket... "Where's my TTC pass?", I think to myself. It must be in my apartment. So I wish Jen a good morning, and run up to my apartment (already late) and start looking around. It's nowhere. I'm getting frustrated and I put my hand in my <strong>other </strong>pocket... ah, yes. And then I'm running to the subway.
<br />Seriously... what can happen next?daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084285788233709372004-05-11T10:23:00.000-04:002004-05-11T10:29:48.233-04:00<b>Camping Countdown... </b>
<br />Eight more days until camping in Bon Echo! For the short week after the Victoria Day weekend, I'll be posting stories from some of my recent camping trips, and rating a couple of Provincial Parks.
<br />Did I just advertise <strong>for</strong> my own blog... <strong>in</strong> my own blog... for <strong>two weeks </strong>from now? Yes. Yes, I did.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084285387606647782004-05-11T09:56:00.000-04:002004-05-11T10:35:08.736-04:00<b>Frontiers of Construction</b>
<br />Lately, a lot of my spare time spent in front of a computer has been devoted to researching basic construction techniques. Specifically, I've been reading about concrete pads as simple foundations, framing for multi-story buildings, and basic insulating and electrical work. In the future, I hope to do some serious renovations on my cottage property, and I figure that knowing all this stuff will come in handy.
<br />One of the things I've noticed is that the basics of building a house are pretty simple. Anyone could build a shack that they could live in for a long period of time, with just a rudimentary understanding of construction. It's strange that all this time, I thought of building a house as being as complicated and foreign to me as the science that put man on the moon, but it's not.
<br />I think I'll go to Home Depot and pick up a few things...daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084197616749114152004-05-10T09:43:00.000-04:002004-05-10T10:00:16.750-04:00<b>Supersize Me</b>
<br />I'm not sure how many of you have heard of this documentary, but no doubt you heard about the guy who was the subject of it. Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonalds for thirty days. He had a few simple rules for himself...
<br />1. Everything he consumed (even water) had to come from McDonalds.
<br />2. He had to eat three square meals a day
<br />3. He had to SuperSize his meal every time he was asked.
<br />Now, I'm not going to go into too many details about the movie, nor will I start preaching about the evils of fast food. For anyone who knows me, I love fast food, and it should be enough for you to know that I'll be cutting back A LOT.
<br />As far as a critique of the movie, it's funny and scary. For factuality and bias, I'd equate it with any Michael Moore movie... that is, you probably shouldn't change your entire outlook on life based on this movie, but hopefully it'll make you think. It uses extremes to point out an aspect of our daily lives that we take for granted in easy access to food, a focus on weight loss instead of healthy living, and how easy and fun it is to be lazy.
<br />I think Supersize Me is showing at most Independent theatres in North America after its big opening on friday. It's easily worth the $10 to see it, if only to watch Spurlock hurl after eating a supersized double Quarter Pounder combo. Pure gold.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1084046705762141262004-05-08T16:05:00.000-04:002004-05-08T16:09:35.640-04:00<b>Tidy-Up Time! </b>
<br />Argh... spring cleaning. Now that the rest of the apartment is in order (after Ryan leaving, and Par moving in), it's time to reorganize all my own crap... and I have A LOT of it. Shoeboxes, milk crates, and old clothes. I have books coming out my ears, and my U2 Collection needs a bookshelf of its own. Not <strong>A </strong>shelf, but an entire unit.
<br />This is going to be a great excuse to toss all that stuff that I keep moving with me, but has no practical use. Goodbye KW phone book, see you later 3 old computer keyboards.
<br />Hopefully, having a clean apartment will prepare me to shed winter's blah and slip into the hectic pace of summer. I highly doubt it, but looking for symbolism is my perogative. At the very least I'll be able to walk around my room without hearing 'crunch' or 'squish' under foot.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1083722190657457562004-05-04T21:56:00.000-04:002004-05-04T22:00:55.483-04:00<b>Garp</b>
<br />Since childhood, when my Grandpa read me the works of Robert Service and Jack London, I've been a fan of just plain stories. There's something about a well-written tale that can take you from the life you know and drop you into a completely different world... but do it in a way that you can still identify with the characters... and think of them like people that you know.
<br />Probably my favourite book of all time is Farley Mowat's <strong>The Dog Who Wouldn't Be</strong>. It's not considered one of the great works of the literary canon and it doesn't raise complex issues about life, death, or religion. It's just a really good story about a boy and his dog. Although much of it is autobiographical, even Mowat admits that most of the story is embellished beyond reality.
<br />A close second, is John Irving's <strong>The World According to Garp</strong>. Irving's novel is like reading the diary of someone you barely know... and by the second or third chapter, you feel like you have an investment in the main characters. It's a remarkable feeling to be caught up in ficticious events as you would in your own life, but this book has that power. Unlike stories like Lewis' Narina series or Tolkien's novels which dazzle with graphic description, these novels use action to draw the reader to characters.
<br />I'd forgotten how much I loved these books until a recent conversation with Jen about Garp. I really should visit him again sometime soon.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1083594749383322072004-05-03T10:32:00.000-04:002004-05-03T10:59:52.560-04:00<b>Poetry </b>
<br />I recently received a complaint about the lack of poetry on my blog, so here's a little ditty I threw together for you all...
<br />
<br /><strong>Ode on a Straffordvillian Urn</strong>
<br />There once was a guy named 'Steve',
<br />Whose wife became quite bereaved,
<br />When I kicked his ass,
<br />For having no class.
<br />He should've just laughed up his sleeve.
<br />
<br />Please forward all literary awards and accolades (and cash prizes) directly to my literary agent.
<br />Thank you.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1083593881311355772004-05-03T10:18:00.000-04:002004-05-03T10:22:39.060-04:00<b>Par Is In </b>
<br />The moves are all officially over and Par is settled into his digs. We now have more movies than you can shake a stick at (well over a million, to be exact), and we have no kitchen table and very few cooking tools. Nice.
<br />Thanks to Jen's creativity, the apartment has a new name as well. Previously, apt. 1008 had been known as 'The Bastards's Haven', but henceforth, it shall be known as....
<br /><strong>'The "Dude" Ranch'</strong>
<br />So y'all should mosey on over for some sasparilla sometime. There's plenty of street parking for the horses, and we might even be able to scrounge up some grits.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1083333206319594922004-04-30T09:53:00.000-04:002004-04-30T09:57:44.983-04:00<b>Moving</b>
<br />The first of May is fast approaching, and in any major city, that means one thing... it's moving day. I can only assume that years of Post Seconday education train us that the world moves in four month cycles, but eveyone seems to move on the first of May, and my friends are no exception.
<br />Earlier this week, we moved Ryan down five floors in my building to the one bedroom apartment that will be his marriage home in a few months. And on saturday, The Par moves into 'The Bastard's Haven'. We've talked about changing the name, but since we're bastards, and it's our haven, it's just a little too appropriate.
<br />What changes does this mean for the AchtungDavey? Probably less sleep since Par doesn't have a job yet and we'll stay up all night drinking Fiddy and playing PS2. It means the loss of one sweet entertainment centre, and the gain of another, no kitchen supplies WHATSOEVER (we're going to be using all my camping cooking stuff for a while), and it means that I have to buy a microwave... something I've never wanted to do. Which leads me to...
<br /><strong>Dave's List of Things He's Never Wanted To Buy</strong>
<br />1. A Fridge. Really, who wants to shop for a fridge?
<br />2. China. No one wants China... no one uses China.
<br />3. A Toilet. A good toilet is a great thing, but I don't want to shop around for one
<br />4. A House. I want the house, I just don't want the hassle. (see below)
<br />5. A Bed. It means I'm grown up... and I bought one just a few weeks ago. Damn.
<br />
<br />Here's my little sidenote... most of these items are things I want, but just don't want the hassle of buying myself. This goes double for buying a house. No one has ever had a good experience buying a house. It's all about getting shafted, not getting everything you want, and having deadline after deadline broken. I'm just going to build my own house, with my own bare hands... and to anyone who's ever seen me build anything, you know that it ain't gonna be pretty.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1083094196797857692004-04-27T15:29:00.000-04:002004-04-27T15:34:11.186-04:00<b>Big Words... Small Brain</b>
<br />Okay, so after a long day of reading emails and surfing the net, I'd like to say one thing to everyone... write like you speak. These people who use big fancy words to sound smart only end up sounding stupid because they either use them in the wrong context, spell them wrong, or use WAY more of them than they do in speech... so everyone just knows that they're trying to sound smart.
<br />That's about it for today... I'm going to the airport with Jen to pick up Jackie , so I guess that means that today is the official start of Summer 2004. Let the good times roll.
<br />I'll make a more official declaration tomorrow.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1082987937604249632004-04-26T09:58:00.000-04:002004-04-26T10:06:00.936-04:00<b>"Put Trash in its Place"</b>
<br />Thanks to Jen's sense of Community Spirit, I was up a little earlier than I'd planned on saturday morning to help clean up the Park near our apartment complex. She had signed us up to clean the Park as part of a nationwide day to clean up Public Areas, and we had planned to get a lot of people to join us (because the Park is pretty big). In the end, it was me, Jen and Jana. That's a lot of ground for three people.
<br />
<br />Here's what I learned about the general public by picking up after them...
<br /><strong>1. </strong>People drink a lot of beer in public places
<br /><strong>2. </strong>The aforementioned people prefer to smash their beer bottles rather than return them
<br /><strong>3. </strong>If you're a man, and your underwear are in rough shape, throw them in the bushes in the park to decompose. Oh, and make sure that they're briefs.
<br />
<br />... aside from that, the trash was pretty straightforward. Cigarette packaging, coffee cups, sundry bits of plastic, and pop cans-a-plenty.
<br />Early on, I was starting to lose hope in mankind from seeing some of the crap that people threw away within feet of a garbage can (there are more than six in the park), but then good things began to happen.
<br />One man was walking through the park with his two sons. He told them to each pick up a few pieces of garbage and put them in my bag. While they were scrounging, he thanked me and apologized for the state of the park. He even made a joke that his kids should help all day because they probably caused most of the mess. He was the most helpful passer-by. I was thanked by a few more people (mostly older people... 50+), and overall I was pleased with how the park looked.
<br />But... then it happened. We went to grab some coffees, and by the time we came back (20 minutes later), there was a big white piece of trash right by the main path. I thought Jen was going to freak out and start taking lives.
<br />So, the point of this story, is that cleaning up a local park is a sacrifice we all should make for our communities, and because I made that sacrifice first, I'm better than you. Called it.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1082553699151360152004-04-21T09:21:00.000-04:002004-04-21T09:25:45.060-04:00<b>"WooooWoooo" </b>
<br />In Toronto last night, that was the universal greeting that finished off what little was left of my vocal cords. Stan came into town, and we headed down to the ACC to check out the 'Ultimate Tailgate Party' being held out front. Basically, it was just a huge tent with a projection screen TV and really overpriced beer, but when you're crammed into a tent with 150+ other Leaf fans, and the Leafs win the Eastern Conference Sem-Final, there's bound to be a lot of yelling. At the time I post this, it's been 12 hours since the win, and my ears are still ringing with the same intensity that they were last night.
<br />Yonge Street was packed with revellers and police, and it was nice to see that the police, while focussed on keeping the peace, still cheered along with the other fans. Something that also pleased me was the lack of violence or destruction we've seen lately in celebrations for sporting events. I didn't see any destructive acts at all last night. Actually, the crowds were even polite. Once out on the streets, chants with some colourful language would start up until someone pointed out a small child in the crowd. The chant would stop and turn into either 'Ed-die, Ed-die' or the standard 'Go Leafs Go'.
<br />Yeah, so that's it. Come on down to TO for the next series.daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1082483297854564832004-04-20T13:48:00.000-04:002004-04-20T13:52:22.293-04:00<b>One of Those Weeks</b>
<br />The time is now 1:45pm EDT and I haven't left my desk since I got up this morning. Not even to go to the bathroom... which I need to do, incidentally. Yesterday, I left my desk for only a few minutes. I reheated some leftover Thai food, and back I came. Ah, the joys of being chained to your desk.
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<br />daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030830.post-1082386381031920332004-04-19T10:53:00.000-04:002004-04-19T10:57:04.653-04:00<b>Werner Von Braun... the REAL Rocketman</b>
<br />Ah, History Channel... what would I do without you? I'd have to find other ways to learn useless information, and watch the same war movies over and over and over again. This weekend, was a little different, as I had a chance experience with two rather unrelated shows that appeared back to back.
<br />The first show was about the US rocket program in the 60's that built into the Apollo program. The show paid some attention to a man named Werner Von Braun, the Unite States' leading rocket scientist, and how he had been plucked from a German Ballistic Missle research laboratory at the end of World War II. The programme discussed how he had been forced by the Nazis to rush production on the V1 and V2 rockets to help speed the end of the war (and rain fire down on England, Holland, and Belgium). The show alluded to the fact that Von Braun had been investigated by the Nuremburg Council at the end of the war, but that his scientific acheivments outweighed 'suspicions of his use of slave labour'. And that's where the program left it. Hmmm.
<br />The second program was about famous divers and how they were diving in an abandoned Nazi Rocket Research Station built into a mountian that had flooded after the war. It was the facility where Von Braun had worked all through WWII, and much of the show focussed on the disproportinate number of Concentration Camp workers who had been worked to death there, compared to other Arbeitslager (work camps). They were basically forced to tunnel into the rock of a mountain using little more than hand tools. The little known camp (called 'Mittelwerk Dora'. but known to survivors as just 'Dora'), has nearly been erased from history as it's story was covered up by the US in an attempt to whitewash Von Braun and his wartime 'indiscretions'.
<br />I'm not the first person to be sickened by all this. Peter Sellers took more than a few jabs at Von Braun in his Cold War lampoon "Dr. Strangelove". I guess this leaves us with the question... 'What can we justify in the name of science?'daifhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09784720271232062841noreply@blogger.com