Letter from an interested party

I received this email titled "Precipitriumph" today.


jgm: In your campaign to get the weathergods to give Toronto an alltime record precipitative winter, the Toronto Star reports today (page A3) that the precipiformance is advancing.

If forecasts of 5 centimetres of downfalls today are correct, that will puff up the Torrate from yesterday's 189 to 194 cm--third place!

The current records:
1. 1938-39: 207.4 cm
2. 1949-50: 196.4 cm.
3. 2007-08 including that 5 cm today: 194 cm
4. 1964-65: 190.6 cm.
5. 1971-72: 188.9 cm.

Of course, if today's fortold snow-rain flurries fail to materialize, we're back in fourth spot--one-tenth of a cm ahead of 1971-72. . . .

Speaking of cms, cm 3:20 pm 25-3-08

Dinosaur tour at the ROM

A docent I met while I was at the Darwin exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum a couple of weeks ago invited me to attend a tour of the dinosaurs.


I had grumbled to her about how I missed the way the they had been displayed before everything was reworked after the Crystal was added to the building.


Marion, the docent, seemed to think I had thrown down the gauntlet with my statements. She wanted to convince me otherwise about the dinosaurs.


It was an excellent tour, despite the crowds. At the conclusion of the 45 minute walk through the galleries, Marion answered questions.


Marion taught biology in high school for 37 years and knows her stuff, but it was so crowded in the galleries that I couldn't hear everything over the racket of the kids and video display monitors.


I saw all kinds of beasts . . .







. . . and parts of beasts.





I didn't use a flash for any of the pictures I took in the museum.


Except when I went into the old bat cave afterwards.

The cave and bats seem to have been dusted recently. The museum seems antiseptic now. Pre-Crystal, the dinosaurs had their own special leafy environment.


Went for cafe latte and baklava afterwards.

A windfall week

I went for dinner this evening with a friend who works for Cadbury. She brought me a bag full of candy. It should last a few years--unless I decide to share it.


This is the old elastic band ball started in about 1990 by my father. It is now almost a foot in diameter.


And I was lucky enough to go for a couple of cold ones at P.J. O'Brien's the day after St. Patrick's Day. I'm not Irish, but it is a good pub. The white spots in the photo are rain. Unfortunately, we didn't get more snow--I was hoping we'd break our snow accumulation record.

In like a lion

After the massive snowstorm we had last weekend, Toronto is now about 17 centimetres short of its annual snowfall record. When the record was set in the winter of 1938-39, it snowed 207.4 centimetres.

A week later, it's already cycling weather, although the streets are dangerously narrow because of the monstrous snowbanks.


Last Saturday, a friend and I braved the elements and took the Dufferin bus down to the Liberty Grand building in the Canadian National Exhibition grounds to see the Artist Project.


There was a wide variety of work in the four-day exhibition and sale. The show was mostly comprised of paintings, but there were also a few sculptures.


A lot of the rural scenic art works are apparently painted by artists who drive around taking photographs in the countryside and paint from snaps of images of the highway and surrounding fields.


The only thing I bought were these two dolls made by DD. They were on sale in the Sketch area. Sketch is a community not-for-profit organization that helps street-involved and homeless youth get involved in the arts. DD wasn't there, but the people I bought the dolls from were thrilled that I bought both of them. They were glad the two weren't going to be separated.


The 10-minute walk back to the bus stop was brutal ... I accumulated about four inches of snow.

Magnifying Darwin

I went to the opening of the Darwin exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum last week. It is titled, "Darwin: The Evolution Revolution".

The exhibit examines personal aspects of Darwin's life as well as focusing on his discoveries about evolution.

There was a large magnifying glass in the children's play area. The enlarged images of the objects put under it were projected on a screen on the wall.

I spent quite a bit of time observing different objects being magnified and taking pictures.








From time-to-time photos flashed up on the screen.



There were two live tortoises in a display case. They aren't the kind Darwin observed in the Galapagos, but they are quite big. It didn't look as though they were having much fun. People kept tapping on the glass to get their attention. It worked, but in general I found they were quite alert to their surroundings and any new presence nearby.


This tortoise in the picture below looked up to see what I was doing. I didn't tap at him or try and get his attention. The tortoises spent a lot of time hiding their faces toward the rocks. It seemed quite bright inside the contained area.


This is a stuffed tortoise--I think. I forgot to read the label.

The 4th . . . uh . . . 5th estate

Check out http://angryjournalist.com/


This is what it says:

Why are you angry today?

Tell us what’s making you upset at your journalism job.
Anonymity guaranteed. One rule: no real names.

Due to trolls & spam, all comments are held for moderation.


I thought most trolls lived under bridges.



Who knew?


Check this out too: http://happyjournalist.com/blog/

Buckwheat's new blanket

This is Mish's cat Buckwheat.

Mish and Buckwheat live together in Montreal.

Mish recently sent me a couple of seasons of the TV series "Battlestar Galactica" because I'd never seen it, so I knit Buckwheat a blanket with some Peruvian cotton yarn that I had received as a gift.

According to Mish, Buckwheat is enjoying the blanket.

I met Mish long ago when I lived in Ottawa, but I've never met Buckwheat.

Buckwheat has his own cat door and comes and goes as he likes.

His fur got matted this winter, so Mich had to take him to get it trimmed.

It doesn't look too bad in the picture at the top of the page, but you can tell he isn't too fluffy.

This cat curled up in the picture below is another cat lucky enough to have his own door.

His name is Cooper. I don't know Cooper's owners, but he lives on Bloor Street in Toronto.

A friend--Roxanne--pointed out the sign on the gate about Cooper one day.


I don't have any pets . . . only a couple of plants.


This is one of them. It's no longer decorated for Christmas--it's just a regular miniature evergreen.

I can't remember what kind.