Population and the Environment November 27, 2006
Posted by Dale in Environment.2 comments
The September 2006 issue of Scientific American was all about Climate Change and what potential impact the scientific community believes energy alternatives could have at reducing carbon emissions. It was a very interesting issue all around, but there was one article in particular which I found quite thought provoking: Lower Fertility: a Wise Investment by Jeffrey Sachs, in which he discusses the ramifications of world population growth to the environment. Sachs points out that the main problem is not the sheer number of people in the world, but the high consumption levels of people in the rich countries. Yes, us. But Sachs makes a good case for reducing fertility rates in both rich and poor countries, pointing out that people in poorer nations aspire to the lifestyle of the rich – a lifestyle that is resource draining and unsustainable. His “four-part strategy” for reducing fertility rates in poor countries is fascinating:
First, promote child survival. When parents have the expectation that their children will survive, they choose to have fewer children, with a net effect of slower population growth. Second, promote girls’ education and gender equality. Girls in school marry later, and empowered young women enter the labor force and choose to have fewer children. Third, promote the availability of contraception and family planning, especially for the poor who cannot afford such services on their own. Fourth, raise productivity on the farm. Income-earning mothers use their scarce time in productive employment rather than childrearing. [You can read the full article here].
Who would have guessed that gender equality, in addition to all its other benefits, is also good for the environment!
Nexcare Active Strips November 24, 2006
Posted by Dale in Products.1 comment so far
When I come across a good quality product, I get kind of excited about it. It’s a little sad really. With all the innovation in technology out there, you’d think good quality would be the norm. Yet, there is crap everywhere you turn. Why?
Writing about it makes me recall a passage from Daniel Richler’s book, Kicking Tomorrow, wherein the protagonist ponders over institutional toilet paper. To paraphrase, he says something to this effect: “If someone is going to dedicate their life to making bum wad, why wouldn’t they take a little pride in it and make something that works half decent?”. Good question.
Anyway, the product that got me thinking about all of this was a simple bandaid, or more correctly, bandage strip (there’s an example of the brand becoming the product). I cut my finger this morning, and applied a Nexcare Active Strip (made of rubber latex, rather than plastic or cloth). Well, this thing is incredible. It stayed on all day, through chainsawing, clearing brush, moving logs, hammering, wrenching, laddering (?), and numerous hand washings. After all of that, it was still stuck to my finger as surely as when I put it there. When I finally removed it, it left no residual stickiness, and more importantly, it kept my cut clean and protected. Love it!
So, you may be wondering which one of the dangerous and strenuous activities I mentioned was the cause of my cut. It happened while opening the door to come inside to take a phone call. You never know where danger lurks.
Stupid Bag November 21, 2006
Posted by Dale in Environment.add a comment
Hard as we may try, some people just don’t make it easy for us to do the right thing for the environment. This evening I bought a pair of winter gloves at Sears, and the cashier insisted I had to use the plastic Sears bag instead of the cloth bag I brought with me. She told me it was for “security” reasons. I suggested that having the receipt with me should be good enough, and that I just didn’t want to waste the plastic bag. She said, “Well, I have to put it in this bag, and then you can put that in your own bag if you like. You know you can just put it in the compost or whatever when you get home”. Huh?!
Freshness Guaranteed November 17, 2006
Posted by Dale in Food, Life.add a comment
On my way home one evening, I stopped for gas at Petro Canada and, since I was really hungry, bought a bag of Yum-Yum Vegetable Chips to tide me over until I got home. At least, that was the plan, except that the chips had that really rancid-oil taste – so much so, that, hungry as I was, I just couldn’t eat them. Now, I know it’s only 99 cents, and that’s not that much money, but it is money, and more importantly, it’s my money, and I don’t like to waste even a little bit of it. Usually, I will take bad food back to the store and get a refund or exchange, but this time Yum-Yum’s “Freshness Guarantee” caught my eye – you’ve seen it: “If this product is not fresh, please return it to us for our analysis. We will send you the value of this product, plus mailing costs, in redeemable product coupons”. I’ve read it before, and I’ve always thought, “Who would actually do that?” Well, guess what? I was in just the right mood, so I grabbed a recycled CD mailer, crammed the bag of chips into it (flattening it enough so it would pass as “letter” rather than “parcel”), and mailed it off. A few weeks later I received a letter from Yum-Yum, saying – well, read it yourself:
Mrs. Sorensen, [ha ha, I like that!]
We acknowledge receipt of your comment regarding one of our products.
We have forwarded your complaint to our Quality Control department. Be assured that a series of tests and controls are done at different checkpoints, on a frequent basis, all through production in order to offer a quality product.
We greatly appreciate your comments as it helps us to always keep a better service level and offer a higher quality product.
In appreciation of your effort and patronage, we want to send you some samples of our Viva products but we need your home address. Please [call us]…
So, I call the number and talk with a really nice woman in Customer Service who informs me that they can’t send the samples to a PO Box. Well, there’s no use giving her our civic address – the only people who can find us back here are Jehovah’s Witnesses, right? [See this post if you don’t know what I’m talking about]. So I give her my parents’ address in Tryon. Now this was funny: she was spelling “Tryon” back to me to confirm that she had it right, so she says, “T as in Thomas, R as in Ralph, Y as in… as in…”, and I say “uh, Yum-Yum?” She got a great kick out of that. Anyway, a week later there’s a phone message from the woman asking me to give her a call. I call again. They need a different address because that one didn’t work – something to do with the postal code not matching the “city” – my parents reside in Tryon but their post office is in Crapaud. So I give them my brother-in-law’s address in Charlottetown. Well, today, several weeks after buying those rancid chips, a box containing a dozen bags of three different flavours of Yum-Yum Viva Vegetable Chips arrived, and so far they all taste pretty fresh! Munch, munch, munch. Good chips, good customer service, and good fun! Just think how much entertainment I would have missed out on if I’d simply thrown those chips in the compost!
Hummus with Fries November 17, 2006
Posted by Dale in Vegetarian Food, Wheat-free.6 comments
I ate at one of the many Lebanese restaurants in Charlottetown recently, and despite there being lots of vegetarian choices on the menu, my own choices were restricted by the fact that I can’t eat wheat. I really wanted hummus, but needed something other than pita bread to eat it with, so I ordered the only thing I could – fries. This got me thinking about how throughout history, and throughout the world, great things have resulted from the merger of distinctive cultural elements. Think British curry, Jazz, Afro-Cuban music… Canadians!… Considering that hummus is one of the signature dishes of Lebanese cuisine, and that PEI would be nothing without the humble potato, I can’t think of a better representation of the intersection of these two cultures than the combination of hummus and fries. You may not find it on the menu in any restaurant, but each are available separately. Order them and eat ‘em together. I think you’ll agree that they are a winning combination!
Rosie the Ruffed Grouse November 10, 2006
Posted by Dale in Pets, Wildlife.1 comment so far
We first met Rosie at our house in the spring of 2004, and he has been a fixture here ever since. At first, we weren’t sure exactly what kind of a bird it was. I looked in our Birds of North America book and decided it must be a spruce grouse because it didn’t have the “ruff” on top that makes a ruffed grouse ruffed. Then a local biologist informed us that ruffed grouses are the only kind we have here on PEI. We decided ours must be female, because the picture of the female grouse in the bird book didn’t have as prominent a ruff as the male. So, our daughter named her Rosie (and the name has stuck, even though we would eventually determine he was in fact male).
Initially cautious, Rosie soon learned there was nothing to fear from us, and gradually became more and more friendly. Very friendly. Too friendly. Rosie would always come around when I was working outside, and became my constant sidekick, following along behind me as I mowed the lawn. The more noisy and dangerous the work I did, the more likely Rosie was to be hanging about. If a friend came over and wanted to see our famous grouse, all I had to do was break out the chainsaw! Sandy took a great photo of me splitting wood with a maul, with Rosie perched inches away on the woodpile.
As our relationship progressed, though, things started getting out of hand. I remember the first time Rosie “flapped” me; he came racing up behind me and beat his wings against the back of my legs. Talk about getting freaked out!! I couldn’t figure out what the hell was happening! I dropped what I was doing and raced into the house, with Rosie hot on my heels. I got the door closed just in the nick of time. I knew I couldn’t stay in the house forever, so I steeled myself and went back out to see if he had calmed down at all. Nope. But once I got used to it, it wasn’t that bad. I learned to ignore him, and to put up with him attacking the backs of my knees. At first he only did it to me, and this is when the aforementioned biologist figured it must be male, and had “imprinted” himself on me. Ah, true love! Eventually though, Rosie became less selective, and let me tell you, the kids did not like it very much. They would come inside, bawling their eyes out, whimpering “Rosie’s in a flapping mood”. He was around constantly, terrorising us if we were outside, and pecking repeatedly against the glass on our sliding doors if we were inside. Things had gone too far, and something had to be done. One day, I went out and faced off with Rosie, mano a mano, and there was no way I was going to back down. Without hurting him, I made sure he knew I was boss. The result? It insulted Rosie enough to send him back to the woods for good. Here’s the thing, though: after a few days we started to really miss having the little guy around, and started worrying that maybe some ill had befallen him. So we went out looking for him, calling “Rosie! Rosie!” Eventually he emerged, and we would come to an understanding about the terms of our relationship. Rosie still drops by for a visit, and does occasionally get in a “flapping mood” from time to time, but he doesn’t overdo it, and we enjoy having him around. And I must say, as he’s matured he really has developed quite an attractive “ruff” on his head. So if you decide you want to meet this extraordinary bird, please drop in – these days he’s guaranteed to come when called, no chainsaw required.
Click here to view more Rosie photos on my Flickr site.
Penelope and the Humongous Burp November 8, 2006
Posted by Dale in Kids, Kids Books.2 comments
There was a time when my daughter was absolutely disgusted by burps, and if her younger brother should happen to bless us with one, she would make the biggest fuss about it, screaming and freaking out like only a little kid can. We tried to reason with her, explaining that these things happen, and if you don’t like it, just try to ignore it. It never worked. Then we saw this book in the Scholastic catalogue that came home from kindergarten: Penelope and the Humongous Burp, by Sheri Radford with illustrations by Christine Tripp. We ordered it, thinking this might be just the ticket for helping Riley get over her humongous distaste for burps. Well folks, it backfired. I made the mistake of providing realistic sound effects in the story, a talent I developed as a kid myself. Now, not a day goes by when she doesn’t ask me to read the book to her – several times. She can’t get enough. Luckily for me, it really is quite an entertaining book – Penelope drinks too much soda pop, then lets out a series of property-damaging burps of escalating intensity, culminating in such a humongous burp that she basically blows up the house. And there is a message, simple yet important: If you burp, say “excuse me”.
Black Bottom Brass Band November 6, 2006
Posted by Dale in CDs.add a comment
I bought two CDs two weeks ago for two bucks each at the Book Sale at the Confederation Centre Library: The Cranberries “To The Faithful Departed” and Black Bottom Brass Band “Best! Best! Best!”. I’d never heard of the BBBB, but for $2 was willing to take a chance, and I’m glad I did. This is music that makes me want to dance! I mean really dance – the I-can’t-help-myself-no-matter-how-much-a-fool-I’ll-make-of-myself kind of dancing that takes over me when I hear such music as Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous”! BBBB are a Japanese group playing in the traditional New Orleans brass band style, and man these guys cook! Of special note is the guest appearance of Louis Armstrong-influenced New Orleans trumpeter/singer Kermit Ruffins on one track. Fantastic! The CD notes are not very informative, providing little more than song titles and the nicknames of the band members: Mitch, Koo, Yassy, Iggy, Monky, DcCoy, Oji and Anton. Their very cool website does contain more information (such as each musician’s blood type!), although most of it is in Japanese. Bottom line is: these guys know how to have fun! I should add that I had slight misgivings about buying the CD because one of the tunes is titled “Hard Work For Blow Job”. I like to be able to share music with my kids, and a song title like that would mean keeping the CD to myself (at least until they’re 30 and beginning to understand the ways of the world 
). Luckily, the tune is an instrumental, so I had nothing to worry about. Let’s dance, kids!
Enjoying the Moment November 5, 2006
Posted by Dale in Life.add a comment
It’s midnight and I just got home. The moon is full tonight and so amazingly bright I could actually work outside. It makes me wish I didn’t have to sleep. There’s so much to be done, and so little time to do it – and the weather has been so crappy lately too. To have to sleep tonight seems like such a waste of a great opportunity. Of course, in the morning I will wake up in my cozy bed with the dog curled up next to me, and I will wish I could just sleep all day. And that, my friends, is my problem – or not, depending on how you look at it. I love the moment and want to savour it forever, to not have to move on to the next thing even though I will enjoy it just as much. This is the reason I am a procrastinator (problem), and the reason I am always the last one to leave a party (no problem) – why I am always late getting out the door (problem), and why I am always the last one at the table (definitely no problem!). Anyway, sitting here at the computer isn’t helping me enjoy the moon, or get anything done, so although I am enjoying it, I’m going to get off my butt right now and go watch the moon for a while. And then go to bed…
