The things that go through my head

I went to check out the We Are Many Festival that is taking place right now at Diefenbaker Park. It’s an event aimed at educating the public about the things they can do to make a greener world. Festival goers are encouraged to sign the following WAM pact. I signed up, as it’s a pretty painless way to feel like you are helping the environment. I’m such a cheapskate that I do most of this stuff to save money and the environmental considerations are secondary. Should I be admitting that?

I agree to:

1. Stop using pesticides on my lawn and garden.
2. Walk or bike if the trip will take 15 minutes or less.
3. Carpool to at least one regular (daily or weekly) activity.
4. Learn the bus routes near my home.
5. Repair or replace windows that are not properly insulated.
6. Install a high-efficiency furnace.
7. Avoid packaging by carrying reusable grocery bags and purchasing in bulk.
8. Subscribe to my local household recycling program.
9. Compost
10. Bus, take the train or carpool when travelling to nearby cities or provinces.
11. Eat meat half as often and buy it from a local farmer.
12. Plant a vegetable garden.
13. Go to the farmers’ market (fresh vegetables taste better and are more nutritious).
14. Use Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs in my home, school or workplace.
15. Use a power-bar for my appliances that I can switch off at night.
16. Water my garden less often and only in the morning (otherwise it evaporates).
17. Wash my clothes in cold water and hang them to dry (clothes and colours will last longer).
18. Stop idling my car for more than 10 seconds at a time.
19. Use a solar panel, a wind turbine, or geothermal energy at my house or cabin.
20. Sign up a friend or my household.
21. Spread the word to family, friends, elected representatives, store managers, the media…

My report on my environmentally friendliness after the fold. Read more…

I am very fond of TED talks. I learn so much from them. For instance, I agree with many of the views shared by Sir Ken Robinson in the following TED talk. I have many loud opinions about public education that I promise to share. Having a forum for my views about education is one of the reasons I started this blog. Anyway, I’m off to a writing workshop at the WAM festival and I will be back with blogular goodness.

No, I am not writing a blog post to brag about my stealing food from Superstore. I actually grew these potatoes by myself in my back yard and thus have deprived Superstore the $5.95 I would have paid for a bag. I also made use of slave labor when I made my oldest child pick the potatoes, wash them and make them into Greek Potatoes. That kid sure knows how to cook. She robbed three of our potato hills to make them. We still have at least twelve hills left. I surely do love free food. It tastes so much better. A pic of my potato hills below the fold. I should have weeded before I took this pic.

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I opened the Star Phoenix this morning and in between the articles covering the Beijing Olympics, the tragic news of the death of yet another Saskatchewan soldier, and the apprehension of yet another high-risk pervert, was an article showing that coffee harms the performance of firefighters. Here is a link to a similar article in the Vancouver Sun, since I can’t find the SP article to link to.

Do you have any idea what this means? They are coming for our coffee pots. It’s bad enough that you can’t light up a cigarette on an outdoor patio in Saskatoon (HA good luck enforcing that law) pretty soon they will be coming for our coffee pots.

Did you know that every single school staff room has a coffee machine? If they find a way to take coffee away from the fire fighters, teachers will be next. I can see it now. Articles in the newspaper questioning the performance of teachers under the influence of caffeine. Serious screeds written by important sounding people with letters after their names questioning the wisdom of caffeine impaired educators. Somebody will say, “Dear God, What about the children?”

Many teachers will approve of the coffee ban. Many will say “It’s about time!” Pretty soon they will tell stories of how it used to be when teachers could drink coffee. Remember that time that Mr. Teacherson was zipping around the classroom all hopped up on caffeine, will be whispered, as all the teachers proudly discuss which brand of bottled water is the best to carry around in their trendy save-the-planet water bottle, which certainly does not contain bisphenol A. Of course, the water bottle will be clear to show that we are definitely not sneaking a caffeinated beverage into a dark colored bottle.

But then, as I am preparing for class, a friendly colleague, who knows about my love of the bean, will take me aside and inform me that there is a special, top-secret meeting, at Ms. K’s car at 8:00 am before class starts. I will give her a questioning look, but she will implore me to keep the meeting a secret.

I wonder if I should go to the meeting. What could it possibly be about? Why me? But curiosity will get the better of me and I will be right there like a dirty shirt. I get to Ms. K’s car, and do you know what I will find?

Steaming cups of delicious coffee! Like junkies seeking their caffeine fix, we will all be crowded around her, waiting our turn. We will guiltily sip the forbidden, caffeinated fruit and hope that the principal doesn’t stop by. Maybe she will be there too, waiting for her fix. That’s how we will keep out of trouble, we will give the principal her bean for free.

That’s how the coffee black market will be born!

Sound crazy and far-fetched? Well, if they could do it to marijuana, they can do it to coffee! Just you wait, people.

My oldest child owns a horse that lives out at Sargent’s Holiday Farm. My dad bought her Corby for her twelfth birthday. Isn’t she cute?

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One of the reasons that I started this blog was to have my very own place on the web where I can document my life. I find blogs about peoples’ personal lives fascinating. You can learn so many interesting things from the lives that we lead. This will be my very first anecdote and I hope that you will come to enjoy them.

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I live in the riding of Conservative MP Carol Skelton. Like all Canadian conservative MP’s, she feels the need to fill my mailbox with spammy propoganda. I received the junkie spam in my mailbox. The blogosphere , as well as a Liberal MP, have done a good job of bringing attention to this garbage but I do feel that there needs to be a more scathing smack down of the faulty reasoning behind the following excerpt on the flyer:

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You may recall that at the beginning of summer there was a bit of controversy over Dr. Henry Morgentaler receiving the order of Canada. Well, Bronwyn Eyre, a cringe-inducing editorialist at the Star Phoenix published a screed that was painful for me to read and required a response from me. I just could not let her anti-feminist sentiments go.

I do realize that thanks to a successful public relations campaign from the likes of hateful jerks like Rush Limbaugh that most people wouldn’t touch feminism with a ten foot pole. So I fully expect men to have their worthless anti-feminist opinions published in the newspaper. But when that kind of garbage comes from a woman, it really burns my britches. So here you go, the unpublished LTE. Read more…

I was inspired to start this blog for a number of reasons. At one time I did have a humble blog where I blamed the drug war for wasting our tax dollars and turning people pot smokers into criminals, among other things. However, blogging about one thing became very frustrating for me. I had many other things that I wished to blog about which did not seem to fit in with a blog about blaming the drug war. Also, I have the attention span of a squirrel with ADD and I got busy with other things. It happens.

Another reason for starting this blog was frustration over an unpublished letter to the editor that I sent to the Star Phoenix. I have sent countless letters to the editor praising cannabis as a wonderful plant. In fact, every single letter to the editor that I have sent them about my favorite plant has been published. Yet, not one of my feminist letters to the editor gets published. That is just wrong! I find it hard to believe that my pro-pot sentiments are less controversial than my feminist sentiments.

There are so many things in this world that suck and somebody needs to point it out.

I have always wanted to be able to tell people “Just google me. I’m easy to find.” And now I can.

So welcome me to the blogosphere and tell me how great I am. It’s about time I had a blog, isn’t it?

I am very proud of the existence of this blog.  It is proof that I can manage my very own domain name!  I can install software or at least click buttons to make it happen.  This took a lot of my time and turned a number of my hairs grey, as I am quite n00bular when it comes to software.  Hopefully soon I will get a decent blog template installed instead of this horrific default template so that I can start boring the world with my bloviating opinions and pictures of my pets.   Until then, I will be pissing around in my cPanel.

I have a cPanel.  That is so awesome.  If only I had a clue how to use it.