New Computer -- Yaaayyyy!

WOW! Do you see this?? It is a brand new MacBook-- the most marvelous laptop there is, almost. This is the first time I have ever had a brand new (not just a new-to-me-but-used) computer. It's 2.16GHz, has 2GB memory, 200GB hard drive, and it will soon be running the latest OS -- (the awesome Leopard, for those of you "in the Mac-know"). I have been spending a bunch of time on it, getting it all set up the way I want. It is so much fun. Gotta go, and get back to it.

Here's a couple of photos of Victoria.

Photos of new apartment house & van

This is where we live now. I don't want to include interior pics yet, because we are still getting it arranged. The car shown (top picture) is our "new" 1989 Mazda MPV minivan. Our balcony is the 3rd one up on the left, overlooking the parking lot.

Big MOVE

We have MOVED, finally, to an apartment in Esquimalt (Victoria). The new address is:

. 406-855 Ellery St.
. Victoria BC V9A 6X6
. Canada

It is on the 4th (top) floor, 2 bedrooms, balcony. It's hard to adjust to having only 1 bathroom, but it is otherwise not bad. We'll get pictures up shortly.

The phone number is still the same as before: (678) 748 5806 for US (that's our old Georgia #, local for friends in Ellenwood) (250) 984 1319 for Victoria

Trip to Whistler

Chuck and Diane Fitzgerald came to visit from California, and we made a flying trip to Whistler. We were supposed to go to Vancouver early in the morning to meet them, but we missed the ferry, by a few minutes. 2 hours wait for the next one. We finally got to Vancouver, rented a car, and went to Canada Place, where they were coming in on a cruise ship. The drive to Whistler was very nice, no major construction and some improved roads. At Whistler, we took a gondola and chair lift up a mountain where lots of people were skiing and boarding. Here are some pictures.

Insite du jour

1984 and Brave New World both predicted a future in which people were controlled by a central power. But the form of control took different forms, and each author saw a different aspect. 1984 showed the people being controlled by TV, but Orwell saw the TV as a monitor of the people so they could be punished for any deviation from the "law", (the "stick"). BNW showed the people being contolled by "the good life" and "shiny toys", but Huxley saw the shiny toys as being enough in themselves, the "carrot"). The engineers of our world used both TV and shiny toys. They got people to depend on the TV for information about what is going on in their lives, and they used the shiny toys to make them dependent. So, whenever they want to do something unreasonable, they use the TV to say, "If we don't do this, you'll lose your shiny toys." and the people believe it because they have been trained to believe the TV. If we don't use oil for transport and electricity, you'll lose your shiny toys. If we don't go to war in Iraq.... If we don't help the big oil companies.... We could use wind or solar power, but you'll lose some of your shiny toys. The result is that the people work for about 6 months of the year to pay all their governments and related stuff and for things the government should be providing, and about 4 months of the year to pay for their shiny toys, and 2 months to pay for their necessities. Since money = power, they are giving their power away to the controllers.

New/old building blocks

clipped from www.livescience.com

Houses of the Future Could Be Made from Trash

Last year’s trash could become next year’s model home, thanks to the invention of a new type of construction material made entirely from waste products.

“Bitublocks,” created by engineer John Forth of the University of Leeds in England, are composed of recycled glass, sewage sludge, incinerator ash, the by-products of metal purification and pulverized fuel ash from power stations.

“Bitublocks use up to 100 percent waste materials and avoid sending them to landfill, which is quite unheard of in the building industry,” Forth said.

Forth hopes his new invention will revolutionize the building industry by providing a sustainable, low-energy replacement for concrete blocks.

“Less energy is required to manufacture the Bitublock than a traditional concrete block, and it’s about six times as strong, so it’s quite a high-performance product,” Forth said. Something completely different -- I just liked this photo of Rio.

Space photos

Got these neat pics from the Hubble web site. Click on them to go to the site... there are lots, free, for wallpaper or whatever.

Victoria weather widget

I just put on a widget showing the weather here in Victoria, B.C. ----> The background picture changes to show the current conditions. If you click on it, you go to a really great weather site, with detailed weather from all over the world. Since my computer is a Mac, we've always had a lot of cool widgets which make computing fun. We have them for news headlines (including German newspapers), games, search engines, our appointments and activities from our calendar, timers and alarms that can be set, iTunes new releases, eBay watch list, and lots of other neat things. I understand that Windows is finally going to get them too, but they're calling them gadgets.

THE AMBERSAND CASTLE TRILOGY

The AMBERSAND CASTLE Trilogy
by Janet R. Shaw,

My sister, Janet R. Shaw, is an author and these are covers of her books: the first 2 books of The Ambersand Castle Trilogy. They are part fantasy, part philosophy, part adventure.

The flying zebra is Zendor Din, the mentor throughout the series. He can take any form and often appears as a cat. The locations range from present (or maybe future) Hawaii to Africa to Hollywood to ancient Egypt. The books would also be popular with kids who like Harry Potter.

See more on Janet's sites: click on the book covers or see links in the [Links] section.

Happy 2007

Wishing all of you a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year! We didn't do much for the New Year -- watched the fireworks on TV (this is the Space Needle in Seattle) and drank a toast to all our loved ones (you know who you are).

Seasons Greetings & contact us

Merry Christmas to all.

We are here in Victoria, having some friends over for the traditional turkey dinner. Canadians do turkey also, but other dishes are different. The picture shows the Parliament Building.

We hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday and wish you a Happy and Prosperous 2007.

Please write to us, email, call OR enter a comment on this blog. We'd love to hear from you. If you are in Victoria, call --> 984 1319 If you are in Port Renfrew, call --> 385 7758 If you are in U.S.A., call --> (678) 748 5806 (local call in Atlanta area) email --> observer@islandnet.com snailmail --> 425 Cecelia Rd. Victoria BC V9A 1C9 Canada If you didn't get an e-card with this picture of the Victoria Parliament Building, it's because we don't have your correct email address, so please help us update our address book.

Snow in Victoria

Very strange happening. We are snow bound in the middle of town, and will probably be for a few days. They have almost no snowplows here because it's not supposed to snow like this. We are lucky that we still have power -- thousands in Victoria do not. Anyway, it's very pretty.

Still here

Looks like we will still be here for a while -- we have an "open ended" agreement with the house owner, so we will stay on for a while and continue fixing things up. We still have the van (of course), so are not doing a lot of driving. But we are practically in downtown Victoria, so we don't have to go far for stores & restaurants. The weather has been cool and drizzeley.

nothing new

We are still here in this tiny house in Victoria, (Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada) sawing and sanding and painting and papering. We laid a new floor of wood-laminate in one room, papered 2 walls, painted 2 walls & the ceiling, finished baseboards, etc. Doing lots of filling and sanding.

Manfred just spent a lot of time and money getting the van "legal" for here in Canada. (Of course, he has not sold it!) There were several small repairs that had to be made to get the sticker. Gas here costs more but insurance is cheaper than the US.

Current telephone numbers are : 678 748 5806 == this is a Georgia (U.S.) number & is a local call if you are calling from Atlanta 250 984 1319 == this is a Vancouver Island (Canada) number, a local call from Victoria but not from Port Renfrew 250 385 7758 == this is a Vancouver Island (Canada) number, a local call from Victoria & also from Port Renfrew

The first 2 numbers are the internet phone, you can leave a message. The third number is the house phone here and there's no message service.

We are not using the cell phone at the present, because every call made or received to/from Canada is long distance.

These photos show before and after sanding floor.

Finally -- in Victoria & Back on line!

We just now, this minute, got back on line! With Shaw, the Victoria cable company. We are living in the house, sort of, but we have to go, right now, and exchange the bed we bought, which is no good. More later. Back with more info (and the new bed). We moved into "the house" 4 days ago, on Tuesday. It's a small house on the end of a cul de sac, next to a park. Close to malls and next to the "Galloping Goose Trail". The "Goose" is a paved walking/bicycle trail that goes right downtown. We moved into the house in Victoria 3 days ago -- we still have a lot of unpacking to do and trying to find space for all our junk. Then there's a lot of cleaning, re-arranging, painting and fixing up to do. We got some laminate flooring to be laid in one room. We are going to change our Vonage number so it is a 250 area code, so people in Victoria & Port Renfrew can call us for free. That means it will be long distance from Georgia, CA, etc. Can't please everybody. It may take a few days to change, so it's still a local number in GA. We'll let you know what the new number is as soon as we get it. The land line here is: 250 385 7758, there's no message service. Snail mail address is: 425 Cecelia Rd. Victoria BC V9A 1C9 Canada Now we can blog any time again, so keep looking. Pictures soon, I hope. If you want to tell us something, put a comment on this blog, now that we'll be checking it regularly. email is still observer@islandnet.com

Port Renfrewwwwwww

Yes -- we're still here. But we do have plans. We are going to Victoria tomorrow to buy some furniture so we can move into the Victoria fixer-upper house. We will take a load of stuff, mostly stuff that's still in the van. Then, the following Sunday or Monday, we will actually MOVE IN. In the meantime, our contact numbers are still the same, for what it's worth. Manfred is not sick any more, but he still has a cough and is very weak. Somehow, I managed to NOT get it--whatever it was. This pic is looking out of the window of Bill's house (note the eagle on the post).

Port Renfrew still

We are still here at Bill Jones' place on the Pacheedaht Indian Reserve in Port Renfrew, British Columbia. The weather is great -- no heat wave here. Manfred is still not over his virus, so we have not been able to do much, but we went to Victoria to see the "fixer-upper". We will probably be moving into it as soon as Manfred is better. It needs a bunch of work, but it's in a very nice location. The phone number here is: 250-647-0022 (Canada) street address: 150 Pachidat Rd. Port Renfrew BC V0S 1K0 Canada email (always): observer@islandnet.com our cell: (please only call from U.S.) 678-516-6907

In Port Renfrew, B.C.

We came to Port Renfrew over a week ago, and have been unable to update this blog since then. Manfred came down with a particularly virulent virus shortly after arriving here, and has been "sick as a dog" ever since. I have never seen anybody be so sick -- he can hardly walk across the room. It is getting better, but he still coughs all the time, which causes him terrible pain in muscles and head. Most of the people here seem to have had it, and it lingers. So, we have not been able to deal with our stuff very much, but we have a good possibility to stay in and fix up a house in Victoria. We are going to look at it tomorrow or Wednesday, but it is probably "a go". I am still OK -- been taking echinacea and Xango and resting a lot (mostly reading). It's been nice seeing old friends and enjoying nature, although the heat wave has gotten here too, the temperature was in the 80s for a couple of days, but we are staying at Bill Jones house which is quite cool. The telephone number here is 250-647-0022. email is still observer@islandnet.com

Still here

We are having such a good time at Rosemary's that we stayed another day (again!). This time we are leaving for sure. Next post will be from Port Renfrew, guaranteed.