My brothers in China have purchased 2 Philips brand compact flourescent bulbs from Walmart China, one which burned out after only a month and another which burned out in less than a week. These bulbs should last for 10,000 hours, or over 6 years. His case is well documented.
___He paid 30.80RMB each, for a total of 61.60RMB, for which he received 1 month and 1 week’s worth of light, all in an effort to be more environmentally friendly. Due to terrible quality control in Philip’s China factory these bulbs were shipped to Walmart stores in China, where my brother purchased them and was cheated. That is a lot of money to lose.
This morning the sun arose just a little bit earlier. It was brighter outside than usual. The kids were just a little happier, and walk with a little more skip in their step. They are more eager to go to school and play with their friends. In fact we are all a little brighter than usual. It snowed last night.
___It’s magical that a sprinkling of 5 cm of new snow can transform our landscape, and with it the spirits of our neighborhood. New snow is pristine, covering everything with a whitewash of, well, white. It’s as if some gigantic bottle of baby powder was evenly sprinkled on everything. A landscape of white greets your senses, with only a hint of green showing from our evergreens, who have the ability to partially shed their coat of snow.
On a recent airline flight we ordered kosher meals, but only for one person in our family. The stewardess looked at us quizzically, but gave us our kosher meal anyway. She double checked to ensure we had indeed ordered it. There was no mistake; we were the ones that ticked the kosher box when booking our tickets. As the long flight progressed the stewardess, now quite curious, asked us why we would order the kosher meal. On this trans Pacific flight, of the 500 or so passengers, we were the only ones that ordered a kosher meal.
I have highlighted this site because this site really stands out. By capturing the essence of the organization, working as an effective marketing tool, as well having strong usability, this is one very effective and creative website.
In true Canadian spirit, we must talk about snow and winter. This winter is unique in that while it has snowed a little more than an average year, there has been very little melt. This means that, not surprisingly, the snow accumulates. In downtown Toronto, snow may be carted off in trucks to a local park and dumped, but in most residential areas, it is simply too expensive.
My neighbour S has a snow service that clears his driveway with a truck. The truck has a plow and scrapes the snow backwards towards the street. Once on the street the snow is pushed up onto the side of the curb.
It is with not a small amount of irony that “60 Minutes”, the show that airs at 19:00 every Sunday, presented a drug that is reported to prolong human life. It is remarkable that this fancy marvel of scientific achievement, Resveratrol, can nearly double the lifespan of all forms of life. This chemical, present in the skin of grapes, and therefore found in red wine, mimics the effects of a caloric restricted diet.
A what restricted diet? Yes, you got it right, “caloric restricted diet”. You eat much less, feel a little hungry and you live twice as long. Even more surprising is that scientists have known about this for a couple of decades.
They are so very interesting. Icicles look like they have concentric rings, but are formed by single drops of melted water that refreeze as it gets to the tip. The wind and temperature influence their shape. Don’t they look like limestone stalactites, the ones you find in caves? They have a screw shaped design. Quite pretty and very organic. One icicle at the side of the house is quite long and needs to grow only about 3 feet before it becomes an ice column.
Maybe we should call them winter carrots because of the resemblance. The kids want to eat them.
A whole lot of snow has fallen in Toronto, and I’ve been shoveling once last night and twice today. While the temperatures are -4C and the snow is fluffy, it looks like around 20cm, which builds up and becomes heavy. It is not cold outside.
Crabapple tree in winter
The trees have snow but not ice.
Icicles by security light
We have some icicles growing from various parts of the eavestrough that are melting, so there’s a constant drip, drip onto the snow outside. They will freeze solid tonight. The kids want them to eat, but they’re too high up and when you crack them off you don’t want to be underneath when they fall.
