Maintenance of any mechanical device is important for the smooth and trouble free operation. A ripstik is a kid’s toy, similar to a skateboard, and as a kid’s toy, gets vicious abuse. We bought a used Ripstik Classic and it really needed some TLC. Here is what we did. As a result of our maintenance the ripstik runs much smoother and glides farther, resulting in faster speeds and/or less effort. These are all benefits of a couple of hours of maintenance.
While I consider myself a project manager, I can also play the role of business analyst. Situations often occur in life that scream for the need to re-engineer the business process.The Little Weed has attended the same summer sports camp here in Agincourt for the past couple of years, and each year there are many inefficiencies related to the initial first day of camp: registration. I have written about these in past posts, but today I will re-engineer the registration process that I participated in this year, 2012. Note that I do not work for the camp nor am I in anyway related, other than the Little Weed participates, and therefore I am only a consumer. Please note that this and other articles on this camp should not be considered a criticism of the camp. The Little Weed and I have verified that this camp is largely well run, the kids have a lot of fun, and to me, this is much more important than the inconvenience and inefficiencies that parents experience on registration day.
We did not intend to live in a Chinese enclave when we moved into our Scarborough, Canada home in Toronto. It seemed like when a white elderly couple would move out, a Chinese family would move in. As the years passed, this continued, until 50-60% of our street is now Chinese. It also was not our desire to live in a Chinese enclave. Our intention was to live in a multiculturally mixed neighbourhood.
I write this post after being prodded by this article on Markham Chinese enclaves. Markham is just north of the Scarborough and Toronto border, and can be considered an ethnic extension of Scarborough. In fact we often shop there.
Xavier Ovando of Montreal uses a two-plunger ear protection to protect his hearing during a Montreal protest march. Maybe more Canadians should join him.
We in Canada are not prone to protest. On the contrary we Canadians are more pacifists, and some say worse, that we have no backbone. Maybe the current economic recession will help change our attitudes. Our young people are getting slaughtered when they leave school, and what should they do? Be passive and simply accept it? No, this cannot do. It was interesting to me when average Canadians started taking up the cause of Quebec students, who are protesting tuition fee increases. Do they belie a more significant rot in our society? Should we average Canadians in the rest of Canada join?
My big Weed has a milk allergy from little, so our family almost never cooks with milk products. We have become very adapt at modifying recipies to exclude milk. As we recently purchased a Shule Biscuit cookie press, we found a lovely recipe, which we had to substitute “no milk proteins” margarine for butter. Little did we know that not all margarines are the same.
Regret is how I feel about not posting these earlier. Still, life goes on and so I go. All these events have been memorable, and at each one I learn more as I continue on my way, either through technique, talking to people, or myself. Overall, it is 3 x win. Clovent clovents
After three weeks of sleeping in the basement living room, somewhat stateless with no place to store his clothes, Little Weed was finally able to return to his bedroom. It was a monumental event for him and a good step back to normalcy in our house. A stable home is so important for kids.
One of the many benefits of having kids is that you get to reexamine many aspects of life you easily take for granted. Because of the low level of driving skill and sometimes reckless attitude of local drivers, teaching my Little Weeds to safely cross the street terrified me. In our sleepy suburban neighbourhood in Scarborough, Ontario, it is not too bad, but when it comes to major intersections the concequences for a miscalculation are dire. No matter how well you teach your kids, they also rely on drivers to keep them safe. Here in Scarborough we have terrible drivers. Teaching my kids how to safely cross traffic intersections has been long in the making, Here is what I tell them.
Off the bucket list is cake decorating with the Little Weeds. It had to be done and today it was. Cake decorating is pretty difficult, and so unlike Cake Boss, where everything comes out perfect the first time. From a bag of confectioner’s sugar, and some egg white came a nice creamy paste, which was then coloured with food colouring. Overall the flavour of home made icing is far better than the commercial icing we used to buy in plastic containers. It is not as sweet. The Little Weeds liked it, but their standards are quite low to begin with. On this cake we tried blue, red, green, yellow and purple colours, because we have never done this before. While the results were closer to abstract art than Cake Boss, it was sufficient to take it off my bucket list.
Freshly squeezed orange juice is so much better, and way more expensive, than tetrapacked or frozen
Growing up, orange juice was a valued commodity in our family, in that it was rare on our table. Orange juice was expensive to buy and my family could not afford it on a regular basis. While we were “encouraged” to drink water in actuality we had no choice. For this reason, I provide orange and apple juice to our Little Weeds. To me orange juice is a daily reminder of the importance of the small things in life. In a revelation of sorts I set up a taste test of freshly squeezed vs cartoned orange juice (OJ) for the Little Weeds. It was no surprise that they were able to identify which one was freshly squeezed, and also no surprise which one they preferred. Freshly squeezed orange juice is so much better in taste than cartoned orange juice. You really cannot believe all the marketing and packaging of products, as they can warp your life perspective.
