‘Far North’, Manitoba snowburns, ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’, home networking problems
(posted from home)
(This post covers 20 – 24 November, 2008)
------------------------------------------------
Monday, 24 November-
Today I wanted to get out of the house for a bit. I drove down to ‘Flying Feet’, a running shop in York, and bought a new pair of walking shoes. I bought newspapers at Bookland, then spent an hour reading them and enjoying a mocha at the Starbucks near Dallastown.
That afternoon I dropped off Mocha Joe for its inspection appointment tomorrow and walked home the mile and a half, then worked on my wireless networking problem and finally solved that.
After supper I drove to the library only to find it closed (oh, yeah— today’s Monday!) and then spent a few hours on the web and posted my blog update.
------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 23 November-
This morning Labashi gave me my periodic buzz-cut haircut. I made a few blog entries and wrote up a description of a network-intrusion problem we had a few days ago for TechSupportGuy.com. Hopefully someone there can help me work out what the intruder device was on our home wireless network the other day. While our PCs show up with a lot of identifying details, this intrusion device only shows as ‘network device’ with no details. That’s ominous. I had the network temporarily unsecured because of a problem when this happened and immediately shut it down when my network software popped up a warning about a possible intruder. I’m mostly just curious about what it could be.
In the afternoon I decided I’d take our DVD rental back to the shop by foot rather than drive it. The roundtrip is almost exactly ten miles so I started at 1430 and made it back home at 1715. I was comfortable for most of the walk but the dropping temperatures at dark stiffen up my muscles so I took some ibuprofen and a hot bath. That seemed to help ward off stiffness later in the evening.
------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 22 November –
This morning I cut Labashi’s hair (I just do some trimming, actually) and caught up with my blog updates. After lunch I called Orat and talked at some length about progress on his house (we don’t need to go back up there at this point but are willing to if the schedule gets behind) and then I did some estate work.
Today was very cold so I over-dressed for my four-miler this afternoon but that turned out to be just right. I was a bit over-heated going downwind but once I turned back into the wind, I cooled very quickly and had to button up tight. Time for longjohns!
That evening we watched ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ with Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. I see RottenTomatoes only rates it at 40% but we liked it. Actually, Labashi liked it and I thought it generally ‘okay’. Anne Boleyn is well known in English history but the role of her sister, Mary, and her relationship with Henry less so, even though it appears she had two children to Henry. While looking for the trailer in the Extras section, we found a good little intro to the characters and that helped us get up to speed quickly rather than wonder who the characters were as they were introduced. Recommended if you have an interest in the 1500’s or Henry the Eighth.
-------------------------------------------------
Friday, 21 November-
Today Labashi, Maypo and I met with the lawyer for Mom’s estate and started the legal processes for it. And of course, today was the first snow of the season. We only had about an inch but the roads were slippery and we saw a miles-long backup in the other lane on I-81 as we came home.
We didn’t get home until late evening so just watched ‘Bill Moyers Journal’ and ‘Now’. The latter had a particularly good piece on what happened at the Standard and Poors, Moody’s, and Fitch securities-rating agencies with regard to the sub-prime mess. In short, subprime loans which in themselves were rated at ‘B’ were separated out from other loans and packaged together into securities which were inexplicably rated ‘AAA’. The reason? Pure greed.
-------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 20 November-
This morning I did our grocery shopping and made a DVD run. After lunch I worked for an hour or two starting to organize my new office and then took my four-miler. On my walk I listened to an interesting piece on Manitoba This Week. Now remember, I’m listening to podcasts I’ve collected for the last year and I’m just up to Easter 2008 on the Manitoba podcasts I’m listening to now. The story is about Manitoba farmers burning the snow off their fields in order to start planting earlier. We are led into it by a discussion of the wheat farmers burning the stubble off their fields each Fall. But now they’ve discovered they can use a propane torch--- under just the right conditions, of course – to light the snow afire in the Spring. By careful timing, they not only clear the fields of snow, the byproducts of the burning fertilize the fields. A search of practices in other cold-climate wheat-growing areas found that nine out of ten wheat farmers in Finland were able to increase their yields by as much as 50 to 67 per cent using this new and innovative technique. Environmentalists are concerned, however, and report that the burning reportedly not only threatens to increase global warming, it has an adverse effect on the reproductive systems of any kittens which happen to live near a snow-burn. A local farmer demurs: the local wheat-growers society reports that it actually seems to increase the libido of such kittens.
But the scariest potential problem came from a neighbor who fears the snow-burn could get out of control and cross onto his property. And what happens, he wanted to know, if during one of these snow-burns, it starts snowing? Isn’t it likely the whole sky could catch fire?
Anyway, what a super, super April Fools story.
That evening we watched ‘Far North’, an odd little film starring Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Krusiec, and Sean Bean. Saiva and Anja live well above the Arctic Circle in isolation. When Saiva finds Loki, an escapee from a forced-labor crew, he’s near death and Saiva makes the fateful decision to save his life. After Loki recovers, his presence drives a wedge between the women, ultimately leading to disaster.
This is one of those ‘I see what they were trying to do’ films which doesn’t quite make it. There are holes in the storyline and the film feels like a first-time effort. On the one hand we have to respect the challenging conditions under which the movie was filmed and the scenery of the film is wonderful. But the story doesn’t cut it. If the filmmakers were to tell us the story is an ancient legend, we’d be more forgiving. The storyline simply would not work in real life. We’d be willing to suspend disbelief and think of it as a legend-brought-to-life but if we’re supposed to believe the actions could literally happen, then that’s too much of a stretch for me.
===== END OF POST ======
(posted from home)
(This post covers 20 – 24 November, 2008)
------------------------------------------------
Monday, 24 November-
Today I wanted to get out of the house for a bit. I drove down to ‘Flying Feet’, a running shop in York, and bought a new pair of walking shoes. I bought newspapers at Bookland, then spent an hour reading them and enjoying a mocha at the Starbucks near Dallastown.
That afternoon I dropped off Mocha Joe for its inspection appointment tomorrow and walked home the mile and a half, then worked on my wireless networking problem and finally solved that.
After supper I drove to the library only to find it closed (oh, yeah— today’s Monday!) and then spent a few hours on the web and posted my blog update.
------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 23 November-
This morning Labashi gave me my periodic buzz-cut haircut. I made a few blog entries and wrote up a description of a network-intrusion problem we had a few days ago for TechSupportGuy.com. Hopefully someone there can help me work out what the intruder device was on our home wireless network the other day. While our PCs show up with a lot of identifying details, this intrusion device only shows as ‘network device’ with no details. That’s ominous. I had the network temporarily unsecured because of a problem when this happened and immediately shut it down when my network software popped up a warning about a possible intruder. I’m mostly just curious about what it could be.
In the afternoon I decided I’d take our DVD rental back to the shop by foot rather than drive it. The roundtrip is almost exactly ten miles so I started at 1430 and made it back home at 1715. I was comfortable for most of the walk but the dropping temperatures at dark stiffen up my muscles so I took some ibuprofen and a hot bath. That seemed to help ward off stiffness later in the evening.
------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 22 November –
This morning I cut Labashi’s hair (I just do some trimming, actually) and caught up with my blog updates. After lunch I called Orat and talked at some length about progress on his house (we don’t need to go back up there at this point but are willing to if the schedule gets behind) and then I did some estate work.
Today was very cold so I over-dressed for my four-miler this afternoon but that turned out to be just right. I was a bit over-heated going downwind but once I turned back into the wind, I cooled very quickly and had to button up tight. Time for longjohns!
That evening we watched ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ with Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. I see RottenTomatoes only rates it at 40% but we liked it. Actually, Labashi liked it and I thought it generally ‘okay’. Anne Boleyn is well known in English history but the role of her sister, Mary, and her relationship with Henry less so, even though it appears she had two children to Henry. While looking for the trailer in the Extras section, we found a good little intro to the characters and that helped us get up to speed quickly rather than wonder who the characters were as they were introduced. Recommended if you have an interest in the 1500’s or Henry the Eighth.
-------------------------------------------------
Friday, 21 November-
Today Labashi, Maypo and I met with the lawyer for Mom’s estate and started the legal processes for it. And of course, today was the first snow of the season. We only had about an inch but the roads were slippery and we saw a miles-long backup in the other lane on I-81 as we came home.
We didn’t get home until late evening so just watched ‘Bill Moyers Journal’ and ‘Now’. The latter had a particularly good piece on what happened at the Standard and Poors, Moody’s, and Fitch securities-rating agencies with regard to the sub-prime mess. In short, subprime loans which in themselves were rated at ‘B’ were separated out from other loans and packaged together into securities which were inexplicably rated ‘AAA’. The reason? Pure greed.
-------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 20 November-
This morning I did our grocery shopping and made a DVD run. After lunch I worked for an hour or two starting to organize my new office and then took my four-miler. On my walk I listened to an interesting piece on Manitoba This Week. Now remember, I’m listening to podcasts I’ve collected for the last year and I’m just up to Easter 2008 on the Manitoba podcasts I’m listening to now. The story is about Manitoba farmers burning the snow off their fields in order to start planting earlier. We are led into it by a discussion of the wheat farmers burning the stubble off their fields each Fall. But now they’ve discovered they can use a propane torch--- under just the right conditions, of course – to light the snow afire in the Spring. By careful timing, they not only clear the fields of snow, the byproducts of the burning fertilize the fields. A search of practices in other cold-climate wheat-growing areas found that nine out of ten wheat farmers in Finland were able to increase their yields by as much as 50 to 67 per cent using this new and innovative technique. Environmentalists are concerned, however, and report that the burning reportedly not only threatens to increase global warming, it has an adverse effect on the reproductive systems of any kittens which happen to live near a snow-burn. A local farmer demurs: the local wheat-growers society reports that it actually seems to increase the libido of such kittens.
But the scariest potential problem came from a neighbor who fears the snow-burn could get out of control and cross onto his property. And what happens, he wanted to know, if during one of these snow-burns, it starts snowing? Isn’t it likely the whole sky could catch fire?
Anyway, what a super, super April Fools story.
That evening we watched ‘Far North’, an odd little film starring Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Krusiec, and Sean Bean. Saiva and Anja live well above the Arctic Circle in isolation. When Saiva finds Loki, an escapee from a forced-labor crew, he’s near death and Saiva makes the fateful decision to save his life. After Loki recovers, his presence drives a wedge between the women, ultimately leading to disaster.
This is one of those ‘I see what they were trying to do’ films which doesn’t quite make it. There are holes in the storyline and the film feels like a first-time effort. On the one hand we have to respect the challenging conditions under which the movie was filmed and the scenery of the film is wonderful. But the story doesn’t cut it. If the filmmakers were to tell us the story is an ancient legend, we’d be more forgiving. The storyline simply would not work in real life. We’d be willing to suspend disbelief and think of it as a legend-brought-to-life but if we’re supposed to believe the actions could literally happen, then that’s too much of a stretch for me.
===== END OF POST ======
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 20:42
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