Seeing Red

So bbcworld.com/health says that women can see more subtle shades of red better than men. They go on to say that this is one more step in the evolution process. Women were better at gathering fruits and nuts than men - science has proved the domesticity of the fairer sex. Wonder what the feminists will say to that. Wonder if there were any "women see red" jokes going around the research lab?
And the clincher - a fourteen year old has taken his father to court and had his parental rights taken away because he was not fit to be a parent. Now there will be a flood of such cases for this reason and that one and every other one, religion perhaps? Course no one will remember that the kid's father had killed his mother. Now if we had capital punishment the case would never have come up would it? No mention of that. Oh we are so civilized!

Three Deer Day

It was a three deer day today. On the way to work two bounded along the ditch stopping every so often to look at me. I stopped too. And then finally off into the tall grain by a slough where I could only see them at the top of each bounce. Everytime I see them do that I think of a big jack rabbit. The deer on the way home was also bouncing along in a field of tall grain. He went over a hill and all I could see was a head pop up every so often. Then he stopped to look at me for a while, just a set of ears and some antlers silloetted on the western sky.
So today we found out that the US government did not stop the nine eleven destruction. I could have told them that for a tenth of the price that they paid. Hind sight always has twenty twenty vision for something like that. There were lots of oportunities to have delayed the attack – delayed? What good would that have been? Or reduced or stopped it. Now we have learned for the second time to expect the unexpected. We all should have known. What was the matter with us that we didn’t see it comming? People ! The prez was incompetent that he didn’t stop nine eleven AND he is incompetent that he invaded Iraq !
Some time I would like for the news people to tell the whole story. Who owns Gaza strip? Who owns the west bank? Who is the world to tell Israel what it can and can not do when China still occupies Tibet and tommorow would occupy Tiwan, they still think it is theirs; and what of Quebec National? Is it Canada holding Quebec or the other way around? And what of England and Wales, Wales? Is that what they call themselves? No. So the people who live in card lock enclaves in the city have decided that Israel can not build a wall. And the Palistinians are fighting among themselves again. Course, can’t blame England that Scotland is part of them cause the Scots couldn’t stop their infighting and politicing capers. If, as I suspect, God has the mosque sitting where the temple was it is He who has the middle east in hand – but earthly steaking if the Arab countries got all their horses running in the same direction Israel would be half way to The Rock. Not Alcatraz. Speaking of which, by the way, who owns Gibralter anyway?
Blogging is a big chore. It takes time and effort to decide what to comment on and then, how to comment? In any case enough for one night.

Eclipsed Highlights

Today Irene is comming home ! She has been gone, well first west for four days and then right away east for a week and a half. To New York. I hustled off to the store to get a few essential groceries and then back out into the auto current and down the freeway across the city around the block a few times. I missed the right turn and got onto a street that did not go straight through to the one that I wanted so I had to go to far east and back west one block too far north and then down the right street, but it was one house east of the house Irene and there was construction so back west I went and missed the first back alley but caught the next one and back east across behind the house Irene and around the courner and up the street and down the avenue and there it is the house that Irene was at. She went to NY to help out a friend who had gone there with all her kids. So when the friend’s husband picked up his family at the airport she got to tag along, looking after the kids of course, and wait for me at their place. It was so good to see her. She talked all the way home, an hour or more, an tol me all ammend some of what her experience was. It is interesting, she can put you right in the picture. She came home with nine hundred pictures ! Nine hundred? Yep, on CD. She absconded with the digital camera that is James’ but in reality is a family commodity, Thanks James for your generosity, though Irene had it when we could have used it around here a few times. The kids do not realize what the number nine hundred does to people like me. In all the years of growing up our family never had half that many! My my what techno has done for us. I’m sure that the family will be sitting looking at pictures for some time to come. New York sounds too busy for me even if it was not the city itself that she was at. For some of us it is very hard to imagine what it is like to live where there is wall to wall people. How do people live in the BIG cities? Course I find it hard to beleive that even in a small place like Edmonton there are people who have not been outside of the city limits.
Irene will be wound up for days to come, she sure was excited all the way home and it does rub off. Now I am in trouble Willena came home after a week and a half away and I did not post a long blog like this commemorating her. . .
But wait till you hear this. The highlight of the month. When I came around out of the parking lot from a frusterating busy day at work, there was a rabbit ! He was sitting in the middle of the lane that crosses in frount of the warehouse doors where the big trucks back up. No, although we do get computers by the truck full and ship them out by the truck full we have only one door for our shipping. Our sister company a furniture wholesaler has all the other doors, ten or so. There was the urban wildlife sitting as calm as could be with all the mad headlong rush out of the lot and onto the auto river that slowly snakes its way from the industrial areas of the city to the suburbans. Any rabbit to me is somethin special. Imagine sitting on a bike in the middle of a big field at night in the moonlight. Listening to the thumpity thump lipperty lip of a rabbit making its way from here to there, I don’t know, where ever rabbits come from and go to. His path takes him right past you. Right past. Within, well I could have stuck my foot out and tripped him he was that close. Rabbits are special. We only ever had one pet though. He was a baby. Urban rabbits are amazing to me. How do they survive? I mean here I am talking about people in cities, what of rabbits living in a parking lot?
That would have been a highlight but. But on the way home we passed by a herd of buffalo. Eight foot fence but real genuine buffalo all the same. I’ve seen a two foot fence contain a herd of cattle but buffalo need a tall fence. I guess that they are wood buffalo, really dark brown almost black as we could see them. They were right by the road on the south side of a hill, some standing some laying down, all relaxing and taking life easy. Here and there was a light brown body, a calf. Then I saw it. A cayote. Right there walking along between the buffalo and the fence. Walking not sneeking. Walking not running. Head up looking around but apparently absolutely unconcerned. He ambled south and I stopped and backed across the road so that Irene could see, and then backed up but he was going the other way so he didn’t see us. Then he turned around and started back the way he had come but he had not gone far when he ventured to leave the fence and walk diagonaly up the hill right through the herd. They never stired. When he went out of sight I sighed and resumed our mundane trip home. Well It would have been the highlight of a half a year but Irene was home it was not a mundane trip home but it is not every day that I see a cayote ambling through a herd of buffalo. . .

History

If ever anything deserves to be blogged this is it. For the first time in a long time if not the first in history Willena went to bed first, at a decent time even. and Ian was last to go to bed ! (That may be in part because there is no Irene to give any competion being last to bed. but come to think of it she may have been last to bed in real time in any case because she is only two hours behind us where she is !)

Home Today

Yesterday at work I suddenly got tired. We have been busy trying to keep everything in balance, we need to do these systems and then those and then we can get at those other ones. The label printer quit the other day so yesterday we get the new part and tried it out. It worked. But then there was a need for some labels that we do not usually print an I could not get it to work right. Monday the team lead will not be there so I will be the one to keep things going. Unfortunatly when I get too tired I get grouchy. So yesterday the last few hours at work were not too good. People are still buying computers, companies that is we do not deel with retail sales, and computers are still getting upgraded at regular intervals. Quite a few companies that we deel with are migrating to the XP operating system – to late because the next one will be out soon; we actualy have systems in our warehouse that are already sold to a customer and will possibly sit there till september when a new service patch will come out for XP. Service pack is patches to “fix” known problems with the OS. Like driver being incompatable and loopholes in internet explorer. By the time the computers sit on the client desks in their offices those computers will be outdated, you will not be able to buy that model any more as well as the OS being old. When will these companies learn that Linux is cheaper AND better ? ? ?

I came home and had a nap and then had another and then decided that it was time to go to bed. Thanks Vicki for having supper ready when I came home ! I don’t think there would have been any cause I was to tired and grouchy to try making something myself.

Yes we do need a raingage. When we need it we need it. Lots of rain. The garden is growing! Lots of things, a bunch of which I can not name and a few vegetables. We got some natural ferlilizer put on the garden very early this spring and we are still working the weeds out. Need to get the roto going but it is too wet. Can’t cut grass for the same reason. It is good to see the rain. Thank you Lord ! Still picking strawberries, haven’t gone out seriously yet to get enough to do something with but they are good a few at a time too.

So Willena got on the bus last night – we hope – and now she will be at hummm Edson? Some of the clan want to go to the city today so it is about time to get them stiring so that we can get to the bus depot by 11:15.

Haven’t had much time to peruse (how to spell) the news, but then things don’t change much. It would be nice to be able to tell what really is going on in the world. What with reporters not being able to get to the right place at the right time and having their own bios and embelishing and the editors doing the same it is hard to really know what is up. Something happened we know but what and what IS the significance of it ? ? Well we DO know that our reason for being here is not affected by any of that. “Preach the word inseason even if it is out of season !”

where are they

Let me see, past No Jack, past Niton Junction, right about now they should be half way between Niton Junction and Edson. I am eating my fruit salad and Timothy is playing Jedi Knights and Nathaniel is watching him and we have heard nothing from James and it is 9:15. No Jack? From guys comming into the bar with no jack – no money. Niton Junction is the village at the junction of the road from the now non existant village of Niton and the highway. I taught Vacation Bible School there when my brother was a pastor there and I built a set of steps for the back door of the church building. It is 62 degrees, 17C. Clouds are dispersing somewhat.

Now, 10:15am they should be at Hinton. Can’t see why they would have any stops or such before this. Now the first wave of sleepy may have come and gone. The Mountains will be calling and they will not want to miss that. 3 hours that should be a straight through drive right along passage. Teena went out on the deck and I did not shut the door all the way so there are a few misquetes in here. At 10:00 John called for James but his room was still dark so John said don’t bother waking him but a few min. later when I went down for something James was up so he called John and now John is going to come over for the day.

Funny day not much warmer and the cloud cover is complete again but now it is a funny grey colour. 1:30 pm Where are they? Jasper? That is 6 hours that they have been gone, so if it is only a 7 hour trip they should be half way between McBride and PG. But they all say that it is more than a 7 hour trip so where on earth are they? Now if we had a cell phone – do they work out there? We need a transmitter in the car to get to the satilite and then we could find out! Oh technology. Where are they. What are they doing? Not much going on here. James and John are playing some game and Timothy is and Nathaniel is waiting for me to go outside. Outside. Yes we will go out. More later.

3:30pm that means that they have been gone for 8 hours. Now where are they? Baring trouble and too many pit stops and wake Irene up stops they should . . . be there! They have to be past McBride, they must be . . . there! I don’t know. Where oh where are they. We went across the road and around the bend (you thought I was already there didn’t you?) and voila strawberries. We being Nathaniel and Teena and me. Between them walking all over the berries, and bugs and grass and weeds and thistles tickling and poking and scratching Nathaniel’s legs and making him want to get out of there and the fact that it now is about 80 degrees/ 27 we only got the bottom of a yogurt container covered. Well two layers deep. Too bad my sence of taste isn’t more cute ah accute. With time, patience, and no one running interferance we could have gotten a half cup I think. So we got up and with NDF on my back we trudged on along the perimiter of the trees and over east to the next bunch and along them and somewhere along there we lost Teena so we started to sing “oh where oh where has my little dog gone” – Oh where oh where can they be? James decided that the jello was ready but Timothy and NDF decided that they do not like it. Too bad James put too much water in it, it is too soft and it melts in no time. It is lime flavor. Hummm when will we hear from them? E-hear. Doubt that there will be a blog for a while. Hummm can I send an e-mail? We’ll try it. Later.

6:00pm They have to be there.

PG Jul 1 815am

They’re off in a cloud of dust. 7:05 A.M. Prince George here they come. They are back 7:17 the door pops open and in comes someone and right back out again, the car is in the lane; it is gone – again. I looked out the window after the intrusion to see Vicki running to the car with Irene’s purse flying along behind her. Well that was unexpected. I just had time to go to the washroom and get Word fired up and boom the door poped open. We hope that this time they ARE gone.
Up at 5:00 after going to bed – well for me it was midnight who knows when the rest of them finally hit the hay – do this do this do that just like the game. Then get everything into the car everything into the car – we didn’t suceed Irene’s purse didn’t make it – and have some food and . . . discover that home to Prince George according to the map is 700KM. Hinton 300. McBride 500 and PG only 700. 7 hours of driving I thought it was more than that. Five Ninths of the family is gone it is quiet already. Timothy is up for the day and so it appears am I, I had the fond notion of going back to bed but I thought that since I am now the cronicoler hummmm how to spell that? the guy to whom the task of keeping record of what happens here at the home frount while the rest of the story is off gadding about the neibouring province; I should set down what is here and now before I forget it so that I can blog it for anyone who may be interested. They should be half way to Onoway by now. Half past 10 at Hinton. It is a nice day so far for driving, cool and cloudy but not dark clouds. 54 degrees, 12 for the unorthadox. When they tried to back out of the lane the dogs were milling around and Irene ever carefull was trepidatiously trying to get around them or well anything but over them and I told her just to keep driving they will get out of the way. There were at least three of the neibour dogs as well as our’s and the one who seems to have taken up residence here. When they took off down the road two of the neibour dogs leaped out to follow the chase, they can really go. Dogs. Irene came out of the house and the little brown dog jumped up on her first thing, green stains on her freshly cleaned light coulour pants. I guess that she saw the dogs rushing after her because the car gave a spurt of speed – hence the cloud of dust (not that there wouldn’t have been one anyway) the dogs made it almost a half mile before they gave up the chase at the top of the hill just when I saw the faint silowet (this spelling thing) crest the apex of the hill. That was a suprise to see the car sitting in the lane again. Oh yes I said that already.
We have not so far figured out how to set the clock in Hummy, our chevy car, so it tells time right in the winter but all summer it is one hour out – except for the next few days it will be right again. At this point Andrew would be asking “how fast do you have to go west to make time stand still”. Andrew 1000 miles per hour. “Oh yesss, how fast would we be driving?” Andrew not one tenth of that but you will go fast enough to make the trip one hour shorter than it would be if you went say south for an equal distance. Funny how that works. Around the world in 80 days here we come. Just like the real explorers they got back one day early even though they took 80 days to make the trip. They should be north of Wabamun Lake now, around Fallis.