Northbound Delivery

Message dated May 31st:
I had the very good fortune to get a call less than two weeks ago from a sailor who needed a watchkeeper for a yacht delivery from Tortola to Rhode Island. He called Sunday, and it took me all of about one nano-second to accept the non-paying position but with all travelling expenses and daily provisions covered by the owner. Arrived on board the Isabel at Soper's Hole on the following Thursday one full day before the captain and other watchkeeper. The Isabel, a 47 footer fitted with a genoa, a self-tacking staysail, an in-mast furling mainsail and motorized winches, is seven years old and has made this trip for each of her seven years. The captain, Robert, is a veteran sailor in his late 50's with over 250000 nm in his log and has delivered the Isabel to and fro for the owners for past 6 years. So, with all the experience he has, he's the ideal fellow to have on board in command. The other watchkeeper is Jim, a United Nations peace keeping intelligence officer on holiday who is five months away from retirement and itching to accumulate enough sea days to obtain his RYA yacht master certification. Robert's on the 4-8 watch, Jim's on the 12-4, and I have the  8-12. We're each responsible for making our own breakfast and lunch, but we take turns cooking a proper meal which we share together every evening in the cockpit. Robert's only stipulation is that it must be a meal which can be served in a bowl for ease of ingestion. So far, the meals have been great, although cooking on the stove can sometimes be quite a challenge when we're heeled well over in a stiff wind and rolling with the waves! Except for the common meal, we are, for the most part, during our watch, alone in the cockpit responsible for keeping the course, trimming the sails and collision avoidance and then we goof off for 8 hours until our watch rolls around again.  Loving it!  Our course is pretty well due north which makes the sailing easy...we just set the sails and leave them until the wind veers around to the other side which has happened only once so far in this first 5 day leg of the voyage. Since departing Tortola we have had only three visual targets, well spaced apart. Two days ago, the Amuraborg was heading south 8 miles to our starboard (east) and another, the Hammonia Malta (!) was heading west across our bow at a distance of 7 miles. Those were both during my night watch, but separated in time by abt 90 minutes.  The third, the Nord Ranger, heading south-east crossed our bow at a distance of 3 miles this morning at the end of Robert's watch. The Isabel is equipped with AIS which picks up the targets and places them on an electronic chart display indicating the ship's name, speed, direction, length and beam, closest point of approach (cpa) and time to the cpa. It's really neat, and so much easier than the old days of plotting targets on the radar. This  technology is already seven years old (same age as the Isabel), so I imagine that modern systems must be something quite extraordinary.  I miss the old chart work which was always fun as well as reassuring, but this new age aid to navigation is so easy and reliable that it's a vast improvement over the old techniques and should prove to make navigation safer than ever before. Anyway, you might be able to imagine that the lack of traffic on this route makes it seem as if we have the entire ocean to ourselves which allows the mind to wander freely as the eyes scan nothing but sky and water, stars and clouds and waves. So, the other night, my mind wandered haphazardly into a discovery of a formula which I found quite interesting. It's nothing extraordinary and, as you'll note when you see it, pretty obvious. In fact, it's probably something learned in highschool and long forgotten, but fun nevertheless to stumble upon it in free thought.  It applies to the complementary fractions of square roots:
X = the square (eg 36)
S = the square root (eg 6)
n = the denominator of the fraction
X = 1/nS * nS
Eg:
X = S x S
X = 36 = 6 x 6
 = 1/2 S * 2S = 3 x 12
= 1/3 S x 3S = 2 x 18
= 1/4 S x 4S = 1.5 x 24
= 1/6 S x 6S = 1 x 36
There's no practical value in this beyond entertaining an idle mind and perhaps corroborating the old sailing expression, there are more ways than one to skin a cat.
We should be arriving in Bermuda this evening at which point you may get this message if I can find wifi.  We'll be stopping there for fuel and provisions while awaiting an appropriate weather window for the final leg up to Newport and across the Gulf Stream (a tricky bit of business apparently).
Wish you well. You are always in my heart and never far from my thoughts.
Fair winds and following seas!
(more pictures available in my Picasa album at: https://picasaweb.google.com/105075160125934020259/NorthboundDeliverySpring2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCJCWysm8xqz_HQ#)

Driving Mom Home from Florida

Now that Michele is also retired as of last October, she was able to join me on the annual Spring road trip in to Florida to pick up my Mom and drive her home to Ottawa. 

The Waterfront Trail (Lancaster to Iroquois)

The weather was perfect last weekend for a bike trip along the Water front trail which stretches between Lancaster (just acros the Ontario/Quebec border) all the way to the Niagara escarpment.  As we were heading to Fallowfield (a little south west of Ottawa) for, my sister, Kathy's 60th birthday, Michele and I decided to follow the trail as far as Iroquois and then head north through Kemptville enroute to Fallowfield.  What a great trail!

Futureshop Agrees to Replace the Kobo

After a lot of finger pointing going on between Kobo and Futureshop, I finally gave up and decided to go back to paper books for a while until the e-book technology improved.  As fate would have it, on the very day I deleted my Kobo account, I also received a call from Futureshop telling me that they would exchange my unit.  So, I opened up a new Kobo account and have now been using my new unit without any trouble (yet).  I still haven't given up my boycott of Futureshop yet, but may relent eventually.

Future Shop Warranty Scam on the KOBO e-reader

OK, I'm a firm advocate of the Caveat Emptor principle, but I'm still having trouble with Future Shop's refusal to honour a warranty they sold me for extended coverage on a new KOBO e-book.  So, here's the story.  I was booked to fly to Malta on June 19 and thought, maybe this is the right time for me to take the electronic plunge and purchase an e-book.  It's lighter, takes up less space than a paper book, and you can load many books (maybe thousands) into the same unit with no extra weight or space considerations.  So, on June 17th, I headed over to Indigo to buy one of their new KOBO Touch e-books, nick-named the "Kindle Killer" by some reviewers.  It turns out, they were selling them faster than they could make them and didn't have any left that day...so, I went over to Future Shop, and they had some.  So, I bought one from Future Shop.  As usual, the sales clerk asks, "do you want to purchase an exctended warranty...only $30 more for 2 years of the convenience to bring it back here for replacement rather than having to mail it to the manufacturer."  OK, sound good to me...afterall, it is a rather new product without much of a track record...so, I paid the additional $30 for peace of mind just in case something went wrong.  Just to minimize the possibility of a problem, I purchased a stiff KOBO leatherette cover and handled it with the utmost care consistent with the most cautious maniac with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  Sure enough, after one week of routine use without any trauma, 25% of the e-book's screen froze...I reset it, recharged it and did everything possible a user could do to fix it, but alas without success.  So, I researched the problem on-line...try it: type "KOBO Screen Problem" in google, and you'll see dozens of forums discussing this very issue and they all indicate that this is a known issue.  Great...when I get back to Canada, it'll all be history and I'll get a new unit.  So, I get back to the store...it's the day after my return to Canada which happens, coincidentally, to be exactly the 30th day after purchase...there's something magical about the 30th day, but I don't understand magic and besides, they don't have any units in stock and they don't know when they'll be getting anymore.  Get this, that was yesterday.  This morning, on the 31st day, I call, and, now they have some new units...so, I go to exchange my unit for a new one.  Oh, but this is the 31st day...sorry, no can do...this had to be done yesterday....but I was hear yesterday and you didn't have any units...sorry about that....that's our policy.  Wait a minute, what about the 2 year extended warranty during which time you give me a new unit and you deal with Indigo?...sorry, that doesn't cover this problem...but Indigo is aware of the problem...yes, we know that, so go to Indigo and they'll take care of it.  So, what was the point of selling me a 2 year extended warranty if I have to deal with manufacturer anyway?....CAVEAT EMPTOR, BABY!  Here's the moral of the story....don't buy anything at Future Shop...they don't honour their warranties.  I told the manager that I would never, ever, again purchase anything from Future Shop...that's my new policy, and I'm sticking to it.

A Tribute to Brigitte DePape - Canadian Democracy (part 2)

Further to my post on May 3rd, it is only appropriate that I should pay tribute to Brigitte DePape for her bold act of bravery yesterday in the House of Commons.  A recent university graduate, she sacrificed her new job as House page for an opportunity to express her frustration with the ruling federal Conservative government.  Apparently, she had, cleverly, smuggled her stop sign into the House by hiding it inside her skirt.  Not only was she escorted out of the House of Commons, she was also fired immediately.  At least there is (was) one person in the House who was not mesmerized by the Emperor's New Clothes.  One can only hope that the opposition party will follow suit by asking for a vote of non-confidence when the budget is delievered on Monday.  Such a vote would, obviously, not survive against a majority government, but it would ring the bell to awken the House from it's current state of somnambulism.

31 is a prime number

Michele ordered "6" plastic clips and a slender rail for a sliding door in our laundry cupboard.  So, when I went to the local hardware store on my bicycle today to pick it up, I was rather surprised at how large the package was.  Fortunately, my single bungee cord was sufficient to secure it safely to the back on my bike.  When I got home, and opened the package, I found "31" plastic clips with "6" mounting screws.  No matter how you cut it, 31 is a prime number and is, therefore, not divisible by "6".  So, the only conclusion which I can draw is that someone in the packageing department at Reno-Depot made an inadvertant arithmetical error.  Considering that I only needed 2 clips to fix the door, I'll bring the extra 25clips back to the store so that someone doesn't get into trouble.

Katherine Graduates

It was a wet and chilly day, but a good time was had by all at the MacDonald Campus of McGill University on May 27th, 2011.  Katherine received her BSc in Nutritional Sciences with distinction. We're very proud of her accomplishment!  For more photos of the convocation: https://picasaweb.google.com/dcrowe2/KatherineSGraduationMay272011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMSW75K0o4vpVg&feat=email

Laying new wire

As I walked to the bus terminus at Chevrier this morning, I noticed someone laying new 1/4" wire.
I guess when it comes to laying new electrical wire along the telephone posts, there hasn't been too much innovation in the process.  Would love to get my hands on one of those spindles when depleted of wire...what a great round table it would make.

New Tourist Bureau for the Monteregie

As of March this year, we have a new Tourist Bureau in Brossard for the Monteregie.  According to a tourism brochure we received in the mail box on Friday afternoon, the tourist bureau is offering a map of all the cycle paths in the Monteregie.  What a great idea!  I bought a book published by La Route Verte a couple of years ago, but it's not terribly useful as it focuses only on their paths and does not integrate the numerous municipal paths into La Route Verte maps.  La Route Verte has done a great job managing the paths (although a bit more signage at certain junctions would be helpful), but their maps leave a lot to be desired.  I'm hoping that Monteregie maps offered by the Tourist bureau will combine the two together well...so, yesterday, I cycled over to their new tourist bureau near the dix30 shopping center and discovered that it is closed on weekends!  Seems rather odd that a tourist bureau would be closed on the two days that most people would be out and about.  Will return nect week during office hours to see what they have.

The Chestnut Experiment

Squirrels like to bury chestnut seeds in our garden.  So, every year, I find little chestnut saplings growing amongst the bulbs.  Last year, I succeeded, on my second attempt, to transplant a sapling into the lawn.  It survived the winter and began sprouting new growth last week!

It looked like it was going to make it. 

Last November, before we left for the Guatemalan mission with DSF, I had raked up all the fallen leaves, but a few of the large tress in the backyard had not yest lost their leaves by the time we left.  By the time we returned home, all the leaves had fallen, but so had snow which covered the ground.  So, I never had a chance to clean the lawn before winter set in last year.  During the winter, we received a great offer from a garden caretaker which included a Sping cleanup.  It was such a great offer, that I decided to try them out.  They cleaned the garden better than I ever did, which made for a good impression.  The contract also covers weekly lawn mowing...this is actually a job I enjoy, but because it was part of the package, it was simply one less thing to worry about.  When Michele and I returned from our bicycle trip to Lachine on Thursday afternoon, Jerome reported that the fellow who mowed the lawn confessed with great remorse to having mowed down my chestnut. 

Oh, the horror!  Hard to imagine how he didn't see it...as the picture above illustrates, there was a stake next to it and a white plastic protective sleeve around its tiny trunk.

No big deal...the squirrels had ensured that I had a supply of back-up saplings, so I simply dug up another one and replanted it.  There will be two big tests to pass in order for this sapling to survive.  It will first have to survive the hot dry summer which we are anticipating while we are away in Malta and Italy.  Then, it will have to survive the winter.  If it can make it through the first winter in it's new location, then it should be good.  I've placed an additional stake next to it as well as a plastic guard rail to protect it from accidents and will keep my fingers crossed.

Cycling To Lachine

On May 12, 2011, Michele's parents celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary!  That's something which doesn't happen very often.  Michele and I decided to cycle there.  It was a perfect day for cycling...light breeze, clear sky, mild temperature, and becuase it was a Thursday, traffic on the cycle path was light.  Gaetan, Helene, Francis, and Celine were also there to celebrate the event.  Michele and I picked up Chinese take-out on the way for lunch.  It was a great lunch and we all had fun. We added another 66 km to our odometers (what a numerical coincidence!).

Spring Time Comes Alive

Lots of new growth returning for another season.

Canadian Democracy

I think most people living in a democracy expect, or at least are not surprised by, a certain level of corruption in their politicians.  Those elected to represent us in our capitals are, afterall, instilled at birth with all innate aspects of human nature and, occasionally, we will, predictably, be disappointed when they succumb to some of those darker and least appreciated characteristics which have been expressed by humans throughout the ages.  What is more disturbing and deeply disappointing to me, however, is both the individual and collective condonement of such behavior demonstrated by citizens who choose to either ignore the issues of revealed corruption or, worse, vote for a political party which has demonstrated a consistent pattern of succumbing to the dark side of their nature.  So, a ruthless, rule-breaking minority government in Canada whch was held in contempt by the House twice (the first time in Canadian history, by the way, that a leading party has been held in contempt) and which, after receiving a healthy budgetary surplus from the previous government, has generated the largest budgetary deficit in Canadian history, has just been given a majority government by Canadian voters.  What's most depressing about this is that Canadian voters have indicated to our political representatives that respect for the rules of parliamentary process and the support for the civil servants who have fulfilled their mandates is unimportant.  Anyone who voted for this majority governement has, fundamentally, legitimized and authorized the corruption of Canadian politics.  Lest we forget, here are a dozen examples of the type of political behavior which the current election has, essentially, condoned:
(1) Forcing the Chalk River nuclear power plant to reopen despite the fact that it had been closed for violations of safety regs and, furthermore, forcing the removal of Linda Keen, president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, for opposing the reopening of the plant on the basis that the risk of a fuel leak was estimated to be "1 in a 1000" rather than "1 in a million" as set in the Canadian atomic energy standards....that is, in her capacity as president of the commission, she had estimated that the risk of a nuclear incident was 1000 times higher than it would have been had the plant been operating within the regulations. 
(2) pro-roguing parliament to avoid certain defeat by a coalition of the opposing parties over the government's failure to produce unredacted reports over the Afghan detainee issue in contempt of the orders from the Speaker of the House.  Richard Colvin, 2nd in command at the Canadian embassy in Afghanistan was ridiculed by the minister of defense and his entire party for claiming, what everyone knew to be true, that Canada knew that the Afghan detainees were being tortured.
(3) veto of the long form census and precipitating the resignation of Munir Sheik from his position as the head of Statistics Canada
(4) the dismissal of Elena Georgis from her party over unsunstantiated claims
(5) Bev Oda unilaterally directed the alteration of a document previously signed by three members of parliament which had approved funds for a foreign aid group...the alteration resulted in the denial of funds to that group.  The Speaker of The House ruled, for a second time, that the minority government was in contempt of parliamentary process.
(6) Jason Kenney used federal assets to solicit donations to his party
(7) 2006 election campaign funds were transferred in and out of the accounts of local ridings contrary to parliamentasry rules...there is the added speculation that these same funds generated tax rebates as expenses by the local campaign offices which were never actually incurred at the local level.  One Conservative candidate, David Marler, was fired from his party for questioning this practice and ultimately refusing the use of his local campaign account for the laundering of $30,000 of Conservative funds.
(8) Conservative MP's required to refer to "The Harper Government" rather than "The Government of Canada"
(9) The issuance of cheques for economic stimulus with the Conservative party logo rather the logo of the Canadian government.
(10) the forced removal by security staff of a female student from a campaign rally for Harper because she had a posted a picture of herself with the Liberal leader on her Facebook page.
(11) in an attempt to justify their expensive budget on the 2010 G8 summit, the conservatives made an inappropriate and misleading reference to the auditior general's remarks after the Sep.09.2001 security costs report from the Liberal government in which the transparency of that report was praised.  In fact, the auditior general took great offense to that reference and indicated in her initial report that the Conservative government's spending was far from transparent and, possibly, illegal in that it appeared on the preliminary analysis that approximately 50 million dollars allocated for G8 secutity had been misdirected towards development in the Conservative riding of Tony Clement.
(12) refusal to release the projected costs report on the purchase of new fighter jets contrary to the orders of the Speaker of the House.  Before this current election, indications were arising that the actual costs would be twice that projected in the budget.
Final thought: this government which has been given a mandate to continue to ignore legal parliamentary process will be in a position to appoint 4 judges to the Supreme Court of Canada during its new mandate.  It cannot be beyond the realm of possibility that the corruption emanating from this government will have the capacity to infect the health of our legal system.
For me, this is, sadly, a depressing day for reflections on the integrity of Canadian democracy.

First Flat of the Season

So, today, my bike excursion to explore the bike trail options to Boucherville was thwarted by my first flat tire of the season about 7 km from home.  My little hand pump is completely useless for blowing up these tires which need 100lbs pressure.  So, I walked back a few km until I arrived at an Ultramar gas station where an air-pump was available at a cost of 50 cents which I didn't have.  So, I asked the attendant if I might be able to purchase 50 cents with my debit card...after a thoughtful pause, he determined, that, yes, this would be possible.  After pumping my tire, I was happy to note that a very young girl, accompanied by her mother, was able to take advantage of my purchased air time on the pump to inflate her little pinked rimmed tire as well.  I was able to cover about 3 km towards home before my tire was completely flat again, but, fortunately, I only had to walk a few hundred meters to an Esso gas station whose pump required 1 dollar to activate.  When I asked the attendant if I could purchase a dollar with my debit card, he told me that it was free for bikes...how nice of Esso!  I was able to cover another 2 km before the next gas station, this one a Petro-Canada, which didn't have a pump at all...the attendent told me the proprietor of the station did not give her permission to install a pump...how odd is that?  Esso has my business now!