The Joy of Skype

It took me a long time to decide, but I am now the user of Skype.
You might ask, Dear Reader, what took me so long?

Skype is a universal, free, telephone and video program, used by many of our friends, and often adopted by TV news journalists who aren't able to use a camera crew or even an iPhone to file their stories.
Many families have used it for years, allowing members from all around the world to check out new babies, children, etc. One of our friends, who has a first grandchild (named: Colin), living in Toronto, even used Skype each evening

Place Names Guide … for C-F-As

Today, class, we will be providing some help for those who will be visiting Nova Scotia during the Christmas / New Year's holidays.

Place names in this province can present a real minefield for those who are not familiar with local pronunciation.
To save folks from being labeled as C-F-As (“Come From Away's”), we present this handy guide, which, at best, is a good start.

Dumping Day

Pop Quiz: Do you the meaning of Dumping Day?'
Throughout much of Nova Scotia, it refers to the day lobster traps are 'dumped' into the water in a race to get to the most coveted locales across fishing grounds. That event occurred yesterday, in fishing ports in Areas 33 and 34:

all the way from Digby around to Cole Harbour, near Halifax.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada had delayed the start by 24 hours because high winds would have made it dangerous for thousands of boats to leave port with high deck loads of traps.

"Lest We Forget"

Remembrance Day, 2012

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
-- From Laurence Binyon's poem, For the Fallen

The Detective Sidekick

We both read a lot of mysteries around here, and devour the stories of many mysteries on television.

You know the plot: detective -- police or 'private eye' -- looks at the event, gathers and studies the evidence and solves the crime.
But, I ask you, Dear Reader, Where would we be without the'sidekick'?
I present three here, and others will follow.
Of course, we begin with Dr. John Watson, who wrote about the exploits of Sherlock Holmes.

Fall Colours

There are many great rewards from living in Nova Scotia: you were always within “smelling distance” of salty or fresh water, you can choose without penalty to follow a slower pace of life, and you have those beautiful Fall Colours all around you.

The Cabot Trail in Northern Cape Breton is legendary around the world for showing spectacular colours at this time of year; friends have assured us that the vistas along the Trail were just as spectacular this year.
My wife and I have just returned from our “33rd Anniversary Tour” around Western Nova Scotia (Well, rock bands can name their tours, why can't we?),

THE Goal

It was the only goal that mattered.

As CBC News told the story this morning, "40 years after Paul Henderson's famous goal in Game 8 of the Summit Series, many still remember exactly where they were."
I can ... and I'll tell you later.
It was the perfect cap to a surprisingly hard 7-game hockey series, between the best from Canada and the best from the U-S-S-R.
The series had been a long time in the making.
For more years than Canadians wanted to remember,

New Homes for Old Books

Over the last few weeks at our house, the project has been “clean out the basement of extra stuff.”

You may think that it's a regular event with us, but I want to point out that we moved into our house SEVENTEEN years ago!
Since both of us are retired teachers, we got to amass a lot of teaching materials in our respective classrooms. Some of those are still good, but many were outdated, since today's students preferred to consult the Internet. Some of the boxes had “useful” items

Injustices

A number of incidents have been reported over the past few weeks which fall into the category of: How-could-this-have-happened, in-this-enlightened-age? Two occurred in the local area, while the other was international in scope.
-- A young man, who is visually impaired, was denied entry to a job-search facility, because he had a dog guide.

Here in Nova Scotia, legislation states that dog guides cannot be barred from any public area. The receptionist/clerk, employed by the "Y," was not convinced when this fact was pointed out to her, and she did not allow the prospective client to enter. In addition, he was not permitted to use the facility's job-search computer software. (Photo: http://www.labretriever.net)
-- Later that same week,

Bonne fête nationale!

Félicitations à tous nos compatriotes, les Acadiens et Acadiennes, ici, chez nous, et partout au monde. Demain, nous célébrons notre Fête Nationale. C'est aussi la fête de l'Assomption de la Vièrge Marie, 'Stella Maris,' notre Patronne. (Photo: museum.ns.ca)
Congratulations to all our fellow Acadiens, both here at home and around the world. Tomorrow, we celebrate our National Day. It's also the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, the Ocean Star, our Patronness.

Three Remarkable Women

In the last few weeks, three notable women passed away: two were famous pioneers in widely differing fields, while the third was a good friend.
-- Kitty Wells, known as the "Queen of Country Music," died at the age of 92, in Tennessee, after complications from a stroke. She had worked in a male-dominated field for about 30 years, but didn't achieve widespread fame until 1952, when she recorded the #1 hit "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels."

(Photo: music-mix.ew.com)
That 'answer song' led to a recording and touring career for the next 50 years, and established her as a strong voice for female singers. She scored other hits with such songs as, "Making Believe," "Mommy For a Day," "Amigo's Guitar," and my favourite: "Heartbreak, USA."

TV Stars Dimmed

Three actors, who each played a big part of my TV watching in the 1960s and later, died recently.

-- Don Grady, of 'My Three Sons' (1960-1972), played Robbie Douglas, the quiet, middle son, later the confident, eldest son, when the eldest went 'away to college.'

He was often portrayed with oil-smudged face and clothing, as his hobby was tinkering with gasoline engines. I don't ever remember if the car engine ever actually worked!

Happy Canada Day!

I have always promoted my love for Canada. No hanging on the sidelines, no 'sorry,' no 'second best,' . . . no wallflower, I.

From my childhood days, and throughout my working career, I have been proud to display the Canadian flag and wear a flag pin in my lapel. And, that was only the start!
During my year of study in Boston, other teachers and students, as well as public citizens would often strike up a conversation when they saw the Canadian Maple leaf emblem.
It appears that more Canadians are taking up this patriotic 'statement.’

Start 'Giving Back'

The nightly marches protesting tuition hikes at Québec CÉGEPs show no signs of fading away, even after 100+ days. As many as 20,000 marchers have turned out on some nights.
Background: CÉGEP is an acronym for 'Collège d'enseignement général et professionel,' known officially in English as a "General and Vocational College".
Students in the province of Québec who intend to pursue post-secondary education must attend a college before enrolling in a Quebec university.

Radio ... and Me - 24

As we continue our trek up the radio dial, we will focus on only one 50,000-watt station in New York City, which I often captured on my first transistor radio:
-- 77 WABC, or: 'Seventy-Seven, W-A-B-Ceeeee!' billing itself:
'Musicradio WABC' was a big 'Top 40' sound that usually led the ratings battles.

(Photo by: http://www.freewebs.com/oldradios/)
(Check the history reports and jingles; it's a great website!) They had a loud, fast-paced format, with lots of jingle and live commercials, as well as distinctive ID jingles.
Their best asset, of course, was their collection of 'All American' DJs / 'personalities' -- round the clock:

Radio .. and Me - 23

My AM radio in the early 60s delivered few choices -- during the day, that is.

As have written before, the family 'tube' radio, then my new portable 'transistor' radio, captured only two or three stations.
But, after dark -- AM radio signals began to bounce across the ionosphere, and 'the heavens opened up' to a variety of excellent stations along the Eastern Seaboard! (Photo by: http://www.freewebs.com/oldradios/)

These came in reliably about 50 per cent of the time, depending on atmospheric conditions (and NOT, surprisingly, the weather), and appeared to be strongest during clear, cold winter nights. On other nights, though, signals were unreliable, or even not there.

What is … Jeopardy!?

The Clue was: 'This popular TV game show is hosted by Alex Trebek.' (Photo: Newspaper Li)

The game was created by actor / singer / talk show host, Merv Griffin, in 1964. His wife, Julann, is credited with the idea of using the quirky answer-and-question format. Hosted by Alex Trebek (native of Sudbury, Ontario) since 1984, when it was launched in five-day-per-week ('strip') syndication, it is currently completing its 28th season.
Its format: Three Rounds: Jeopardy!, Double Jeopardy! and Final Jeopardy! In the first two, six answers in six categories are revealed on a big board of TV monitors, then contestants 'ring in' to supply correct … er, ah … questions orally within five seconds, and build up a money score by responses.

Radio … and Me - 22

The radio dial was an exciting source of news and entertainment during the late 50s and early 60s.

Of course, everything I was listening to was available only on the AM dial. (FM radio had existed in Nova Scotia since the late 40s, but ran only simulcasts in higher fidelity (in mono) of the AM output, except for a couple of hours of show tunes and classical music in the evenings.) (Photo by: http://www.freewebs.com/oldradios/)
However, I was able to make occasional forays into “Short Wave” broadcasts, usually from the “BBC World Service” or “Voice of America,” along with the beeps of the Dominion Observatory Official Time Signal!
We had two “local” stations:

Signs of Spring … Really?

Last week we had a 40-hour heat wave across Eastern Canada. Heat wave in March?
Yep; high temperature records for March -- and even April -- were being broken by as much as 20 Celsius degrees!!! It was back to seasonable temps by Friday, and it's featuring snow squalls and gales right now. We've had one of the least-wild winters in many generations.

(Photo by: allaboutbirds.org)
Dear Reader, can you say: "Climate change?"
I present some of my favourite 'signs of spring.'
-- Let's begin with the famous line: "In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love," from the poem, 'Locksley Hall,' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Love to read all those rhyming couplets!

The Wonder of the iPod Touch

I've joined the iPod generation.
It was just a matter of time. My wife gave me an iPod touch for Christmas, and, for the last 3 months, I've been learning how to take advantage of this device.

(Photo by: coolgadgetconcept.com)
I can tell you right away that, even though I had tried to keep up on the iPod touch and its cousins, it has exceeded ALL of my expectations!
First of all, I plugged it into my iMac with the USB cable that was supplied, and pushed the “on” switch on the bottom (the only switch there is!).

Radio ... and Me - 21

Back in the 1950s, radio appeared to be in peril, from the onslaught of television.

But radio fought back, with a fiendishly clever campaign, produced by the American satirist, Stan Freberg, entitled: “Nobody Listens to Radio.” Each radio spot message ended with the tagline (sung by the great Ella Fitzgerald, no less!), “Only one hundred and fifty million people … that's all!” (Photo by: www.textually.org/)
Radio may be in another kind of “peril” today, with the rise of radio on the Internet and the widespread use of iTunes.
However, all is not lost.

Glenn's Space Shot -- Plus Fifty

My first reaction, a couple of days ago, was almost disbelief: It has been 50 YEARS (!) since John Glenn carried out his historic five-hour flight, making three orbits of the Earth.

By early 1962, the American space program had fallen way behind that of the Soviet Union, who had launched the first man-made satellite, “Sputnik,” in October, 1957. (I can still hear the beeps that were transmitted at the time.) The USSR followed it with a series of satellites, some of which carried animals into space, and, of course, their most important feat: the orbital flight of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, in April, 1961.

A 'Bill Gates Moment'

Do you know what it means to have a 'Bill Gates Moment'?
(If I have to explain it, Dear Reader, you have never experienced one; but, if you work on a PC and/or use Microsoft products, you probably will!)

Because most of us over the last 30 years have been using computers based on the Microsoft model, we have had to put up with plenty of software/hardware mismatches and glitches to try to get our work done. Lots of timely, messages, such as (Not Responding). Sometimes, you are left to face a brick wall, and no matter what you do, you will not be able to carry out your task. On a few occasions, however, your task will get completed, after you employ an astonishing array of work-arounds.
(On a Mac computer, you may meet these problems -- perhaps in Microsoft Office for Mac -- at the rate of once in a blue moon!)

Without Shame, eh?

One of my 'Facebook Friends' -- who shall remain nameless -- recently took part in a 'Facebook Challenge' and then hurled on to the rest of us:
1. Find the song that was #1 the week you were born.
2. Find the song on 'YouTube.'
3. Post the video on 'Facebook' without shame.
I cannot even begin to speculate on the 'without shame' component!

Here goes: My birth month is June, 1946.
The result at 'Billboard' magazine (still the radio music director's bible) was no surprise.