There’s two sides to this business: the consumer and the provider.

Consumer: If I’m walking along the beach, which traditionally has shells strewn about in random fashion, why would I be inclined to buy them from someone nearby? I could simply bend down and pick them up, unless the female entrepreneur that is the protagonist in our tonguetwister has pre-combed the beach of all the choice shells and is purveying only the best ones.

Provider: How does one decide to go down to the beach one day, pick up shells, and proceed to sell them. What’s the markup? Can you register this as a business, incorporate it and expense various things like office space (fold-out poker table), parking at the beach, gas, insurance etc.? How do you take this idea to the bank and get a small business loan?

All this leads me to believe that since the sea shore that is the chosen business location for the purveyance of sea shells DOES NOT have shells naturally deposited there, it’s an importation business! Or, the target demographic are people that don’t like to get wet, sandy, wear bathing suits, are hydrophobic, silicaphobic but still desire the former accommodations of gooey sea creatures.

The proprieter, or employees thereof must really be combing other beaches for good shells, transporting them to a central quality control center, and the qualifying shells packaged and distributed to franchises where the target markets do not reside near seashell laden beaches.

Which leads me to wonder, when I walk along a beach and stoop to pick up a shell, what am I missing out on?

Turns out the Canary Islands are a perfect example: shell harvesters pick the beaches clean and resell these shells by the sea shore. Thus my conclusion is finally reached: the tongue twister was originally sung by a little yellow bird in a cage!

Since I moved to New Brunswick, you have continued to make the news with controversy. I’m not talking about political decisions, spending cuts, budgetary concerns or other job related things. I don’t even care that you didn’t attend the pride parade. I’m talking about off the clock: vulgar gestures at your constituents regardless of circumstances but in the same breath, disregard for the same cell phone law that we’re all subject to, then along came this 911 call and the details that unraveled afterward. The call was entirely unnecessary based on the footage I saw, and your behaviour afterward was nothing short of deplorable and unbecoming of your position. Every last bit of controversy surrounding you was initially met with denial, but then recognizance and apology.

Mr. Ford, I turned a blind eye and voted for you in a dying city hoping for change. I’m now ashamed, and glad I’ve left.

Toronto, occupy Nathan Phillips Square. The gravy train may be over, but that doesn’t mean your host should treat you like shit.

20 years ago, I turned 16 and was handed the keys to the family car. I lived in Toronto (Etobicoke) and was in grade 10.

10 years ago, I turned 26. I was married for a few years and renting a basement apartment. It would be another 6 months before I had my first house.

Today I’m 36. I’m in the maritimes, I own my house and have 3 noisy but good kids.

“Life’s fast; if you don’t stop and take a look around once in a while, you might miss it.”

-Ferris Bueller

Late Saturday afternoon a rare thing happened. I realized that the kids were occupied in various corners of the house, and that my husband and I had nothing pressing to do. Nothing. With a big back deck, comfy chairs, and crystal September air, we did it. We sat. Alone with each other out in the beautiful (quiet!) air. It didn’t last (it never does) but I’d say we got almost half an hour before #1 found us, and triggered the followers.

A little while later I went upstairs for something or other, and noticed all of the closet doors open. Four bedrooms and a bathroom and ALL of the slidy/foldy closet doors were open. So I questioned #1, he denied playing with the closets. I questioned #2 and this is what he said: “Yes I opened the closests….cause I was looking for YOU!” In the most ‘isn’t it obvious’ tone of voice he could muster.

So there you have it. No point hiding in closets. They’re on to it.

I guess it’s logical enough, but I couldn’t figure out a way to flush this topic out. One might presume in the days before indoor plumbing there needed to be a more private way to drop the kids off at the pool. After all, if you said you had to see a man about a dog but were then caught a few minutes later dropping a log, your previous audience might be in a fog about why you lied to them. So we built four walls and a seat around our little piece of heaven so that we could use truthful with statements like “I gotta take a dump”.

I can just picture someone deciding that a small room was to be built in the back 40, “Hey, having the smell over there is far better than having to trudge through 7 feet of snow in the middle of the night to relieve yourself”. Why was the initial prototype not co-located with the dwelling? Sure it stinks, but you likely lived on a farm for pete’s sake! “Man, the smell of human poop really overpowers the smell of sheep, pig, cow, horse and chicken poop.” O_0

But then some genius decided to cut a moon-shaped hole in the outhouse. Just a wild-ass guess, but for ventilation. By why a moon? Why not a star, sun, or more logically a person to indicate the target market of the facility? Was this idea marketed and/or patented? Was this idea brought to tradeshows and hauled around the country for sale? Did Thomas Crapper expand upon the idea?

That brings me to my next point: Somebody decided, logically, to have this thing indoors! But we didn’t call it an inhouse… Despite the original intended purpose of this new addition, we call it a bathroom, washroom, powder room, commode, lavatory, latrine, privy, loo, restroom, comfort room, ladies’/mens’ room, or even water closet (yes, that’s where we keep our water after we fold it). We have never called it the toilet, shitter, crapper, throne, porcelain telephone, or swirling heaven room.

Why don’t we cut moon-shaped holes in our bathroom doors? Not all dumper rooms have windows or fans, so those that don’t still have ventilation requirements.

It’s a mystery. For now, this is me signing off and reminding you to check your shitters, they may be full.

My biggest problem now is getting the time to intelligently edit this stuff. I’m going to make a couple of versions I think; since the footage is out of order on the reels I’ll have one version that just goes from reel 1 to reel 12 in sequence and one version that makes an attempt to have the footage appear chronologically. I’d like to caption and title it too so that future generations know who’s who and what’s where. For the most part, dates can be easy to figure out but people not so much. I’m going mostly on memory but once I have something together I’ll see if I can get the blanks filled in. Might even be interesting to try to track down some of the people and give them film they’ve never seen.

Keep you posted. I’ll see if I can run off a minute or two and post it here.

I hope.

For now, have a look at my capture rig. I now have 1 tape of footage to capture into iMovie and edit it down to something esthetically pleasing. Keep you posted.

13 pictures of Christmas Eve

19 pictures of Christmas Morning

Phew! It is not everything, but boy is it better than nothing. I am so thankful to the Data Gods for having mercy on us. That particular scan was not the first, nor is it the last, Trevor is still scanning and searching today. Particularly now looking for videos and Liam’s birthday.

What happened to the December 2010 pictures folder (which also housed videos) is still a mystery. Lots of theories abound, nothing makes perfect sense. Human errors were undoubtedly made, which includes writing over a backup drive within days of using it to re-do the computer and assuming it went well.

All that being said, I highly encourage all you ladies out there to make sure you have a handy husband. Light-bulbs and supergluing aside, computer tech handiness has got to be up there in the marriage contract. Oh and maybe some of that caring mumbo-jumbo too. Cause quite frankly after a few days of searching Trevor pretty much said it was hopeless. Then I cried for an entire Sunday. Boo Hoo Hoo. And started brainstorming with the children about what they got and could anyone remember what pjs Lily was wearing for pete’s sake. That got him back in the saddle-ikea-computer-chair.

And I’m happy to report it was the red footy fire-truck pjs. A classic hand-me-down in this household.

Phew!

Thanks to the wonderful people at work, we were able to conjure up a Bell & Howell 1620 projector which was plopped (gently) on my desk this morning, double boxed, bubble wrap underneath. My biggest fear was the bulb; more often than not they’re burned out, shattered, or burn out the instant they’re turned on having been dormant for upward of 30 or 40 years. When I flipped the switch on my desk, it lit up and hummed like the day it was built.

I was ecstatic! I searched for a few weeks for methods to get these films transferred. Taking them to a service would cost upward of $600 it turns out, and getting my hands on a projector seemed to be a difficult task short of buying one off eBay. These devices just aren’t made any more. It was a simpler task than I thought: ask at work and ye shall receive. The price? Digitize the owner’s films too.

Fair enough.

Further examination revealed the shutter not functioning correctly, but the fan ran the light lit up so how bad could it be? I feared the worst. Parts are impossible to get and I was left wondering if I’d end up back at square one. When I got it home and pulled the back off, the belt had slipped off; a simple fix. Katie and I are sitting down to watch the first few reels right now, I’ll keep you posted.

We picked up a decent kite in St. John yesterday. It was a decision that was wrought with history: Katie claims not to have had much success with kites and the little one I bought a couple years ago wouldn’t fly in a hurricane, but the kids wanted a kite after they saw one flying at the beach on Friday. Ah what the heck?

Today we took it for a test run; put the crossmember in, tie the string on, explain several times to the child how to hold the kite and toss it straight up when I give the signal. And up it went. The first few attempts weren’t so good, but there’s wet weather coming and the wind was really picking up. After a few minutes, we had a sustainable kite!

First real experience went well. Liam needs to work on his grip though.