Tag: Life

Determined Soaking

Today Yoshi needed a big run, and I was determined to make sure he got it. Unfortunately for me it was raining. The closer we got to the park, the harder it rained. I knew I would be getting quite wet on this walk.

We passed this tree a couple times. Each year someone (or some people) decorate a few trees at Elk Lake, and it always makes me smile when I find them.

Yoshi ran, and ran, and ran. Whenever runners were coming our way I would call him, and he would gallop back to my side and wait until I released him. Such a good pooch.

An hour after leaving the warmth of the truck, we returned. I was quite wet, but Yoshi was soaking wet, and covered in mud. After starting the truck I towelled him down, the stripped out of my soaked jacket. I was cold, wet, tired, and worst of all, hungry! I stopped at Starbucks on the way home for a snack and a hot coffee, then it was time to head home for lunch.

Since we have been home, Yoshi looks very contented sleeping all curled up on his bed. Such a good dog …. when he is sufficiently exercised!

Light Base

Friday night we went out to CFB Esquimalt to see their Christmas Light display. It was a bus tour of the base that provided a lot of information about the different parts of the facilities. CFB Esquimalt is a pretty old base with parts built in 1850.

The light displays were quite nice too. Entrance was by donation to the Mustard Seed foodbank, and there was a school fundraiser selling cookies and hot chocolate. One of the fact told us was that this light display raises approximately 51% of the funds needed each year by the Mustard Seed. Incredible.

I think Sprout liked the bus ride the most. The pretty lights were nice, but the bus trumped that. I enjoyed the warmth on the bus though. I was expecting it to be quite chilly, so I dressed appropriately. The heaters were working full force, so we were toasty warm.

We even got a glimpse at one of the submarines that Canada purchased from Britain. It is in for refit, but was covered in scaffolding and tarps.

The picture taking was hard since it had to be done through the windows of the bus. We went through a couple check points on the base and of course there was a guard that had a gun (rifle is the military term). Many people on the bus seemed shocked to see someone in camo holding a gun. Their reaction was a little strange to me since we were on a military base.

Speechless Hit

Sunday we took Sprout out to the Saanich Historical Artifacts Society’s Christmas display. I think he enjoyed it quite a bit, but he was still pretty quiet. We did the train ride, which was a lot longer than it was last year and quite fun but he seemed a little speechless throughout. We then toured some of the light displays and checked out the model train set.

The model trains were a hit. We had to tour them twice while the rest of the troup toured the doll section.

After seeing the sights, we headed to White Spot for a bite to eat, then it was home again for Sprouts bedtime.

Christmas Tapes

This past Friday our group of friends had their annual Christmas party that includes a crazy gift exchange. It was lots of fun as usual, and the gifts were still lame as usual. The whole point of the gifts exchange is to grab something from your house that you don’t want any more. Nothing like old VHS tapes, old picture frames, and well loved candle holders.

One of the rules to the exchange is that if you regift something from the previous year, it must be altered somehow. Well, a long time ago there was a Spice Girls puzzle that showed up. It was unopened. The next year it was put together and mounted. The next year it was a set of placemats, the following year a mobile, the following year their faces were glued to a set of camp chairs, and last year Sox and I turned it into a marionette. It was then retired to be replaced by Flat Cat.

Flat Cat spends a year with the owner, and has a travel log that must be filled out, including pictures of its travels. Very cool. This is now the treasured item in the group. I think everyone wants a turn with the cat.

Fight Canadian Copyright Reform

Below is a letter sent using the Online Rights Canada webpage regarding potential changes to copyright law that might introduce the Canadian version of the DMCA. I don’t normally get that involved in politics, but when I hear about changes such as this, I get riled up. Imagine not being able to legally rip your music CD’s for use in your iPod? Imagine not being able to use your VCR to record TV shows? Imagine it being illegal to make fun of an ad or a song by using part of it in your parody?Imagine this happens because some company (US based or otherwise) buries some wording in a multipage EULA?

From BoingBoing regarding the Canadian DMCA:

It will contain an “anti-circumvention” clause that prohibits breaking the locks off your music and movies in order to move them to new devices or watch them after the company that made them goes out of business — and it will follow the US’s disastrous lead with the DMCA in that there will be no exceptions to the ban on circumvention, not even for parody, fair dealing, time shifting, or other legal uses.

Currently there exists in Canada a levy on all blank media (including iPods), that is supposed to help reimburse artists whose music is not purchased legally. Everyone pays this levy regardless of how they obtain their music. Why does the law need to change?

I’ve read some theories that feel these changes will pave the way for the RIAA to start suing Canadian consumers who have downloaded music. Nothing like gnawing off the hand that feeds you.

I sincerely hope that the politicians seriously consider what this will lead to. There have been two other politicians who lost their jobs because they tried to introduce such legislation.

Here is the letter that was sent.

December 8, 2007

The Honourable Keith Martin
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

Dear Sir,

I am a constituent who cares about Canada’s cultural policy, and I am
writing in regard to legislative proposals for “copyright reform.”
During the last Parliament, Bill C-60 provided some very sensible
approaches to this complicated topic, but it also left room for
improvement. As you consider the issue of copyright reform, I hope
that you will work to ensure that any new legislation is not a
regression from the sensible policies set out in Bill C-60.

In particular, I do not believe that “digital rights management”
(DRM) technologies should stop the public from making lawful uses of
their legitimately acquired media. Publishers using DRM push aside
the delicate balance between copyright and the rights of the public –
a balance set according to an assessment of the public interest by
legislators – and replace it with one-sided rules that reflect
publishers’ private interests. Even artists disagree with publishers’
anti-consumer use of DRM, as evidenced by the recently formed Canadian
Music Creators Coalition. Therefore, as in Bill C-60, new copyright
reform legislation should not make it illegal to circumvent DRM for
lawful purposes.

I am also concerned that the use of DRM can threaten computer
security and consumer privacy, as in the recent Sony-BMG “Rootkit”
fiasco. When content companies routinely use technological measures
to control how people enjoy entertainment in the privacy of their own
homes, I think we need protection *from* DRM more than we need
protection *for* it.

These concerns are shared by a substantial and growing number of
informed Canadian citizens. I hope that you will take them into
account when considering any changes to Canadian copyright law.
Thank you very much for your time.\r\n

Sincerely,

Greg Fox

LED Elaborate

We got some of the new style LED Christmas lights this year. We got four strands from a couple different places. So far I like them, but they got me to thinking about something.

Lots of people are now sporting LED Christmas lights and this is due to energy concerns. Anything easy that can help the environment is great in my books.

My big question is those inflatable, light up deals that had snow blowing inside. Surely those must suck back the electricity. How can they not? Turn on your vacuum for a few hours, and shine a spotlight on it. Would you do that in your house? Probably not, but many people do this every night over the Christmas season with these things. Some of them are huge, and very elaborate.

For many reasons, we won’t own one of those , but one of them is the fact that I just can’t believe they are energy efficient.

Incident Balloons

On to tonights weird incident.

At the light up, after our hot chocolate trip, we headed back to Archie Browning arena to see what was going on. We saw that Daisy from Island Farms was there, and her assistant was handing out balloons to the kids.

We decided to get one for Sprout.

When Sox walked up the assistant lady denied us. She said some ridiculous thing that they were stopping handing them out, and that the lady in red was the last person. The lady in red was in her 70’s.

WTF?? Sox and I were angry and walked away a little confused. An elderly lady could get a balloon for her walker, but we couldn’t get one for Sprout? That makes no sense.

Then we turned around and saw they were still handing the balloons out to the kids. We were tempted to go back and get one, but then decided that it wasn’t worth it.

I don’t know what this assistant lady was thinking. It was so bizarre. Denying our son a balloon because they wanted to stop handing them out ?? And telling us they were stopping handing them out?? Why not just say they had run out? People are weird, but public facing people representing a company to children definitely shouldn’t be.

Sox and I still might right an email to Island Farms regarding this. In retrospect it seems petty but it still rubbed us the wrong way.

Esquimalt Spacey

Tonight was the 2nd annual Esquimalt Light up. We grabbed a little road dinner for Sprout and headed over to catch the parade. It was pretty short and sweet. More lighted trucks, more honking, and more spacey Sprout. As soon as we moved the stroller he was upright, but any time we were still for a few moments, he slouched over and looked a little spacey.

The lineups for hotdogs and hot chocolate was incredibly long. The I saw someone walk by with a Serious Coffee cup and remembered there was a new location close by. We headed over for some delicious hot chocolate which we enjoyed very much. We headed back to the festivities to see what else was going on.

Overall, it was a good time. There was one weird incident though, which I will detail in a subsequent post.

Truck Decorated

Saturday I took Sprout out to the truck parade. It was the Island Equipment Owners Association 9th annual Lighted Truck Parade and Food Drive. It was pretty cool to see how much work went into decorating those big trucks. The cement trucks were especially well decorated. Sprout was well bundled up since it was so cold that night, and while watching the parade he was sort of slouched over, mouth agape, eyes wide, the entire time. I think he enjoyed it. Once it was over we headed to a friends place to warm up and play with a few toys.

Fun night.