Apparently we are approaching that time of year again

For the past few days Jeannette has been slowly ramping up for the holiday season. One of primary ways that this ramp up has manifested itself is through gingerbread person themed ornament versions of people (fictional and real).

At first Jeannette started with pretty run-of-the-mill gingerbread men.

Then the neckwear started to change.

First there was a scarf.

Then a standard issue necktie...

...and a bow tie.

I am proud to say that a few of my suggestions were even accepted and gingerbreadized.

One of my earliest suggestions was 'construction worker.'

I then moved on to eighties classics when I suggested Richard Simmons.

Jeannette then decided to run with the popular persona theme and chose to do an Einstein, ...

...MJ (from the Beat It music video),...

...Freddie Mercury, ...

...Luke Skywalker,...

...and Han Solo and Princess Leia.

Oh, and because it was Jeannette making these there were also a few zombies.

And just to demonstrate that Jeannette's skills aren't anything special I decided to make one of my own, a school crossing guard.

Not to brag too much, but I totally nailed it. It's pretty clear that I have captured the essence of crossing guardness more than any other artist before me.

Then, to try to top my crossing guard, Jeannette moved to the 3D realm with this third rate wintery scene.

I mean really, can you get more hotel room art than this? Where's the passion and feeling that you see in my crossing guard? Where's the humanity?

Anyway, we're definitely in the ramp up phase. If we aren't careful we will soon be overrun with homemade seasonal crafts.

To help with that party vibe

Frequently the Killam Library has something of a party vibe. Instead of studying, many students sit around at large tables and socialize. On some evenings it is a particularly raucous and happening place.

I am now starting to wonder if this state of affairs isn't related to something that I found on the fifth floor.

A place that makes the location of its 'staff ounce' known is surely the obvious place to go for a party. Apparently all kinds of the undergrads knew about this before I did.

Very delayed reaction

A few years ago I posted about a fire that took place near our South End Halifax apartment. The fire, though not particularly large, did manage to damage a few restaurants and some row housing.



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Since the fire in January 2010, at least as far as I could tell, not much had happened with the buildings. Though the adjacent buildings were soon fixed and the restaurants re-opened, the restaurants in the primary fire location did not re-open in the same place.

Well, after almost two years, it seems that the building is finally being torn down.

I guess this means that there will now be space for new development beside Cornwallis park. I would be curious to know if there are already plans in place, or if they will only begin thinking about how to fill the space now that the building has been torn down.

Post-shovelling

At about 10:40 the snow had almost come to a complete stop. Obviously this meant it was not time to start shovelling.

I set out with the shovel left to us by the previous tenant. At first thing seemed to be going quickly as the snow was light and easy to shovel. Then, after a few minutes, I noticed that the shovel I was using was really quite short. It didn't even come up to my waist.

The shortness of the shovel, I noticed, was forcing me to bend over quite dramatically. While I could sustain this position for a while it soon became clear that the entire driveway was going to be a bit of a challenge.

The other problem that I soon noticed was the that the snow seemed to be getting heavier as I kept going. I am not sure if this was an illusion, or if increasing temperatures were causing a change, or if the snow nearer the road was heavier, but an already bad situation was seemingly becoming even worse.

Of course, I managed to use the collapsable emergency shovel to clear enough snow to allow us to access the car. Assuming that we aren't ploughed in over night we should even be able to exit the driveway without too many problems.

Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to use this driveway access to make our way to a local shovel store to acquire a more suitable shovel. I really don't think I can do the driveway again with that less than adequate shovel.

Oh, and I would guess that we had about 40ish centimeters of snow.

Still?

We are close to fourteen hours into this thing and it is still snowing (though it has finally slowed). For the first time in hours my 'reference point' has finally started to accumulate again. I am not so sure why this seems like such a victory.

I also managed to take a photo that makes it look as though it is still quite a storm.

This one is likely a more accurate representation of the current state of affairs in once-sunny Wolfville.

Anyway, this has definitely lived up to the forecast. I guess there is a first time for everything.

This is getting crazy

It has now been snowing non-stop for about twelve hours. It seems that we must be getting close to 30 cm, if we haven't already passed it. Of course, my 'reference point' hasn't been of any use for the past several hours. (And we have moved from a 'snowfall warning' to a 'winter storm warning.')

What has been amazing about this storm is that it has lived up to, if not exceeded, its hype. The other aspect of this that I find amazing is that given the lead time there hasn't been much ploughing or salting. And I guess I also find it amazing that so many places didn't close today. Didn't they see how much it was snowing?

Only halfway there?

Are we really only halfway through this thing?

It's really getting old now

The snow keeps on falling and leaving my increasingly useless reference point.

It's getting old now

This snow stuff keeps on coming. If I had to guess I would say that we have at least 15 cm, though I am not sure how accurate a guess that would be. And the wind has definitely started to pick up. The wind has picked up so much that my 'reference point' is now pretty much completely useless as any indication of the amount of snow that we have received.

Maybe this next photo will give a more accurate sense of the conditions here.

As I hope you can see, we are still in the midst of the snowfall.

And it keeps on coming

Yup, it's still snowing heavily.

And still cold.

It's worse than I thought

Just a few minutes ago I returned from a trip out into the eye of the storm to retrieve a stuck Jeannette (she and the car had been unable to make it up one of the steeper hills in Wolfville). Anyway, any sense that I might have had that things were slowing down was probably premature. The snow is still coming down quite quickly and it is incredibly slippery on the roads. Even walking on the roads can be tricky. Furthermore, while it still isn't particularly strong, the wind has definitely started to pick up a little.

For those of you who are becoming attached to photos of my reference point, here is the picture I took at about 1:15.

My sense of things is that the accumulation is increasing. Unfortunately, when choosing reference points, I didn't even do a particularly good job of choosing a point that would clearly show the full extent of the accumulation. I would guess that this post is several centimetres shy of what you would find on the ground.

And it continues, though maybe it has slowed?

My 11:45 photo seems to suggest that we are still seeing some accumulation.

I guess if I really wanted to I could try to figure out how much accumulation happened between the points in time that I have documented and then determine if things have actually declined. I am not sure if I have the energy for such a calculation.

And it seems that the storm system might be shifting southward into our territory. Presumably a continued shift in this direction will mean worse weather for us as the day continues.

I know you will all be waiting with baited breath for my next update.

Some nice accumulation

At about 10:15 I took this photo.

At about 11:00, or 45 minutes later, I took this photo.

Not only have we had a fair bit of accumulation in the past 45 minutes, but during that time the snow flakes also seem to have become a little bit larger and fluffier.

It's certainly something

Well, as predicted we are receiving some snow (though when I woke up it hadn't yet started snowing). And so far the snow and the gloomy forecast have lead to quite a number of closures (with more in the works).

What troubles me is that it looks like the majority of this system is heading north of much of Nova Scotia so I really don't know how bad it will be for the rest of the day. I guess if it makes a sudden shift south we will be in for it, but otherwise I wonder if we might not just get the gentle, if steady, snowfall that we are getting at the moment.

Of course, if/when this turns to rain things could become quite treacherous on the roads.

Anyway, I guess I will allow myself to be distracted by the weather conditions as the day progresses, though I hope the extent of this distraction is limited. There is nothing worse than being completely and uncontrollably enthralled in a non-event.

This looks yummy

It seems that the first major snowfall warning of the season has been issued, and if the satellite imagery means anything I think that we will be due at least for some quantity of precipitation tomorrow.

Hopefully I won't have to spend too much time out in the snow/rain.

And I guess this also means that we may have to pick up some salt for our steps.

Apprently I have cried wolf too many times

It seems my recommendations of my own YouTube videos aren't worth very much these days. About a day after my latest recommendation my recommended video has only received 8 'views,' at least 2 or 3 of which came from me (and during this time we've supposedly had 15 unique visitors and some number of (dozens?) RSS subscribers).

I suspect that my inclination to post absolute garbage to YouTube for the past five years has made you hesitant to give anything I post a shot, and I guess I understand that. At best most of it is only moderately entertaining, and at worst some of it is downright atrocious.

Anyway, this isn't some kind of lame attempt to get more views for my vid (it's Ok, but nothing too special), just an effort to let you know that I know what you think about my vids (and to let you know that I'm a little relieved to know that our readers do have at least a modicum of taste).

Maybe my best time-lapse event yet

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This was taken over the course of a few days in early November.

While this isn't anything earth shattering, I do think it is one of my more worthwhile attempts at time-lapse video.

A Few Quick Notes 553

-Though I didn't spend much time outside today while the sun was up, my recollection is that it was a nice day (though maybe a bit chilly).

-Bright and early this morning started doing some dishes. Once I finished with the dishes I moved on to a single loaf-sized batch of bread. The bread looks good, but I haven't yet gotten around to sampling it.

-After a few hours of work I took a break to make a batch of hard candy. The break became somewhat extended when I managed to burn the first batch (the temperature seemed to jump from 300 to 350 in about 60 seconds). Fortunately, the second batch went according to plan.

What didn't exactly go according to plan was the shaping of the resulting candies. It turns out that they were a little harder to shape by hand than we hoped. Fortunate we were able to cut them in a way that resulted in candies of a reasonable size.

Now that we have something of a handle on the process we may try another batch in the near future.

-Even though I spent a while with the dishes the morning they have continued to accumulate through the day (I guess the baking and candy making projects haven't helped). I hope that somehow by the time I go to bed they are under control.

Baking misadventures

A few weeks ago some friends were coming over. I thought that having some freshly baked muffins on hand might be nice.

Of course, part way the baking process, at about the time when I realized things were going according to plan, I came to the realization that I had forgotten to add the baking powder.

The resulting muffin shaped dough pucks ended up kind of looking like muffins, at least until their innards were exposed. And while aspects of the flavour were as expected, the overall package was quite disappointing.

Today, while making a scone recipe I have made dozens of times I neglected to add the called-for sugar. Of course I didn't notice this until part way through the first scone.

In retrospect this omission likely explains why the scones looked a little different than normal.

I am really hoping that this will be the final instance of my baking forgetfulness for the foreseeable future.

I have a hard enough time single-handedly eating full batches of baked goods when they are properly prepared that I don't need to give myself additional hurdles, particular if those hurdles make the output less palatable.

A Few Quick Notes 552

-Though chilly, today was a beautiful day. Much to my surprise, there are even remnants of the dusting of snow that we received a few days ago. I think it is safe to say that we are definitely into late fall now (even if on Wednesday I saw people sitting on the sidewalk in shorts and a tee-shirt while reading the paper).

-Today, at Jeannette's insistence, we made our way to a local Christmas craft fair. While much of the content was a little too Christmasy for me, there were a few vendors selling some really neat products.

Though for some time Jeannette has been telling me that this thing is a big deal, I really didn't think that it was going to be as big as it was. Not only were there more vendors than I expected (maybe even twice as many), the event seemed to be attracting hundreds of people, likely thousands over the course of the three-day event. It was really quite surprising.

-A few days ago I had the pleasure of doing some multiple choice grading. The upside is that this process is much easier and faster than essay grading. A downside is that, because I wasn't involved in the creation of the test, I don't have as good a sense of the areas where the students are and aren't doing well.

-I am in the midst of keeping a food diary for kidney stone related reasons. Knowing that I will have to record each thing I consume has encouraged me to think a little more closely about my consumption patterns. While, at least for the most part, I don't think I am too bad, I do think that this process has encouraged me to skip a few unnecessary even snacks that I might have otherwise been careless enough to have. (I am not sure how the observation process is impacting the data collection, but there is definitely some impact).

-I should probably head back to the kitchen to check on some food I am preparing for dinner. Assuming all goes well we will be having some dal (with vegetables) and rice. If I manage to get the recipe down I may end up making this on a semi-regular basis.

I was starting to think I had imagined it

For a few years I have had a vague memory of a television show from my childhood. Basically all I could remember was that there was dancing and that the the title was something along the lines of The Rockets.

Shortly after I mentioned this to Jeannette, though she had no recollection of the show, found a few clips and the theme online.



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It turns out that the show as pretty much as I remembered in that it had some kids, dancing, and a Rocket based title. Apparently it was filmed in Winnipeg.

Now that I have reacquainted myself with the show I just want to know how long the show was on the air and why I possibly would have watched it. Also, does anyone else remember this show? I can't ever remember anyone talking about it.

And if it turns out that this clip really gave you a taste for more you are in luck, it seems that a number of episodes are available on YouTube.

Is it just me or are do these bare more than just a passing resemblance to one another?

I have recently come across a few passage that deal with the election of speakers in Canadian legislatures. As I was reading these I occasionally had a strange sense that I had read some of the passages before.

From Monpetit and Marleau's House of Commons Procedure and Practice (2nd edition):

The election of a Speaker has precedence over all other matters. No motion for adjournment is accepted until a Speaker is declared elected and installed in the Chair. Once he or she has been elected, after the customary thanks and congratulations have been expressed and after announcing the time and the date for the Speech from the Throne, the Speaker adjourns the House until the next sitting.

From British Columbia legislature's Standing Orders:

11 (a) (4) The election of a Speaker shall take precedence over all other business and no Motion of any kind shall be accepted, and the House shall continue to sit, if necessary, beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, until a Speaker is elected and is installed in the Chair and if the House has continued to sit beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, the Speaker shall thereupon adjourn the House until the next sitting, unless otherwise ordered.

From the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly's Standing Orders:

2 (7) The election of a Speaker shall take precedence over all other business and the House shall continue to sit, if necessary, beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, until a Speaker is elected and is installed in the chair and if the House has continued to sit beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, the new Speaker shall thereupon adjourn the House until the next sitting day.

From the Rules and Procedures of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan:

40(4) The election of a Speaker shall take precedence over all other business and no motion of any kind shall be accepted, and the Assembly shall continue to sit, if necessary, beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, until a Speaker is elected and is installed in the chair. If the Assembly has continued to sit beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, the Speaker shall thereupon adjourn the Assembly until the next sitting.

From the New Brunswick legislature's Standing Rules:

The election of a Speaker shall take precedence over all other business and no motion of any kind shall be accepted, and the House shall continue to sit, if necessary, beyond its ordinary time of daily adjournment, until a Speaker is elected and is installed in the Chair and if the House has continued to sit beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, the Speaker shall thereupon adjourn the House until the next sitting, unless otherwise ordered.

A quick end for the new Occupy NS site?

It seems that since my last post the police were called to the Occupy NS site to make sure that the occupiers vacated Victoria Park. Based on the photo accompanying the CBC story it looks as though the removal was really happening quite quickly.

This surprise tactic, at least in the short-run, seems to have worked for the city. They seem to have removed the occupiers from the city parks. Of course, I suspect that we will have to wait a few days to see if this all fades away quietly or if the protestors mount some form of rebuttal.

I am also curious to see if the protestors question the validity of the eviction notice and claim that they were given permission by the city. Unfortunately, as the news stories thus far seem to be focusing on the position of the city officials I don't really have a sense of how the protestors are responding to these developments, though I don't get the sense that there has been much of a fight so far (though I guess it's still early).

Hopefully more news will make it out shortly.

Update: Based on Twitter reports I gather that there have been a number of arrests during the eviction process. I guess we'll have to wait a little longer to see exactly how many there are in total.

Big news on the Occupy Halifax/NS front

Though I haven't mentioned anything about the Occupy NS/Halifax front for several days the protest has been on-going. After a negotiated departure from the Grand Parade (in advance of today's Remembrance Day ceremonies) the occupiers set up camp in Victoria Park, a site across from the Public Gardens. As far as I knew things were in motion for the Occupiers to return to their original location in the near future.

It seems now, at least according to the Chronicle Herald and a city notice, that this may not be happening. The city seems to now be attempting to shut down the protest before it returns to the Grand Parade. Apparently the city is now going to try to enforce the no camping and park closing rules that they have been lax about for the past few weeks (That the city seems to think that it is Ok only to enforce rules when it wants to is troubling and, at least to some extent, undermines the principle of Rule of Law that is so important in Canadian society).

In many ways this was a neat little maneuver by the city. The protestors left the site directly in front of city hall voluntarily based on negotiations with the city (a city that seemed to imply that it would support a continued occupation - it even suggested land that could be used for an encampment site). Now, once the protestors have vacated the prominent location, the city has decided it will shut them down.

Though I don't know all of the details, from the outside this definitely seems a little duplicitous on the part of the city government. Not only were the camps allowed to pass health and safety inspections, something that seemed to implicitly suggest some level of governmental approval, but the protestors were also explicitly offered an alternate park-based location for their protest by the city. This latter fact seems particularly pertinent.

For the city, which seemingly approved of the activities protests, to now try to shut them down, if anything, is asking for trouble. I suspect that many of the protestors and those who support the protestors will feel betrayed by the city. As I haven't been in Halifax for the duration of the occupation I don't really know what the public's position is on the matter, but I suspect that it could have a big impact on how this will all play out (and who knows, maybe the city knows that the public doesn't support the occupation). In any case, the city seems interested in forcing the issue sooner rather than later.

Sadly, this isn't particularly surprising

It seems, at least according to a recent report by the CBC, that the new farmers' market in Halifax is having some financial difficulties.

Sadly, this isn't really much of a surprise.

One of the issues that Neil and I discussed years ago when we first heard about the new facility was the location. Even though the last location was a little out of the way, this new location is hidden behind a hotel and isn't in a part of town that many locals would visit organically. Actually, given the concentration of tourism activities in the area it is even possible that the new farmers' market is in a location that many locals would actively avoid, particularly in the height of cruise ship season.

Related to the location problem is that there is also a parking/walking problem. I am not sure if the parking for the site is ideal. I kind of get the sense that there probably isn't enough parking during peak times.

Alongside the parking issue is a walking issue. The new site is incredibly unpleasant to reach on foot. There are a few cross-walks that seem to be missing from the mix that would allow pedestrians to conveniently access the market.

All of this is to say that transportation-wise, things don't appear to be well designed so that the location is easy to access.

I suspect that another problem that the Halifax farmers' market is having is that many of their vendors aren't really farmers'. It's one thing to buy an omelette or some freshly prepared food on a Saturday morning, but I am not sure that the food-service vendors are really attracting people during the week when the market is open. At least when I visited on during the afternoon last week most of these places weren't open.

Actually, another problem, and a tricky one, is that the market may be open but most of the vendors aren't. When I was last there it seemed as though only a few of the vendors were open for business. And if the market doesn't have enough selection to allow a shopper to forgo a trip to the supermarket they may instead to forgo the trip to the market.

So being a little out of the way and having an incomplete slate of vendors likely means that an extra trip to farmers' market just isn't worth it for most people during their day-to-day grocery buying activities.

Oh, and not that I am always one for 'character' in a building, but the warehouse feel of the new location does not really induce me to visit.

The worst part is, aside from scaling back to only being open once or twice a week, I really don't know what they can do about the problem as the building has now been constructed and a location change is off the table. Hopefully they manage to come up with something in the near future as it would be disappointing to see the collapse of such a well-respected Halifax institution.

A strange contrast is. the Wolfville farmers' market. They too recently acquired a newly remodelled building and, while I don't know the particulars of their finances, I get the sense that things are going quite well.

It can be funny how things work out sometimes.

Where did this idea come from?

I was just listening to an interview on CBC about financial shenanigans in a small Nova Scotia town. At some point in the interview the interviewee, a small business owner, suggested that it was clear that the town's finances now needed to be managed more along the lines of how a business would be run.

What I want to know if when businesses came to be seen as as models of financial propriety?

Is it not the case that there are frequently businesses that are involved in various financial skulduggery? My recollection is that the questionable use of business managed funds lead to the big economic downturn in 2008. And is it not also the case that Olympus is currently being investigated for the questionable financial management practices?

So in the face of countless examples of business/corporate mismanagement/questionable management of funds why are they seen as the examples that public sector should follow?

More poking about on the internet

Not surprisingly, my poking about on the internet didn't end with my examination of The Council on Governmental Ethics Laws's membership list.

I soon found myself looking at Standing Orders/House rules for various legislatures in Canada. While looking at the standing orders for Newfoundland and Labrador and the House Rules for Nova Scotia I was surprised by the fact that neither had been amended in the past few years. The last time the Newfoundland Standing Orders were amended was 2005. The last time that Nova Scotia's House Rules were amended was 1998. Between these two amendment dates and now both of these legislatures have had significant spending scandals that seem to have had no impact on procedure.

This means that in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia the newly constituted Management Commissions that came about because of these scandals are not mentioned. Though these Management Commissions aren't technically matters of procedure, that they aren't mentioned at all seems a little strange to me.

It should also be noted that neither of these two sets of rules seem to deal with matters relating to matters of ethics or conflict of interest.

I think these last two points become a little more significant when these provincial rules are contrasted with the House of Commons' Standing Orders. Both the Board of Internal Economy (the federal analog to provincial Management Commissions) and the Conflict of Interest Code are included in the Standing Orders. Though I guess I will leave it to you to make of this what you will.

Am I missing something?

I have been doing some work this afternoon and through a somewhat circuitous route I ended up on looking at a list of members of The Council on Governmental Ethics Laws. Not surprisingly, most of the members on the list appear to be governments or public entities with a pretty explicit stake in the governmental ethics arena. There are also quite a number of law firms, which I guess also makes sense (presumably some specialize in this area of law).

I also noticed that there are a few technology companies that are listed as members. For the life of me I can't figure out why Apple, Oracle, and Xerox would be members of such an organization.

Given that there are at least three such companies with membership in the organization I presume there is a reason for this trend, I just haven't been able to figure it out yet.

Finally, my first glimpse of an Occupy site

Since deciding to come to Halifax for a few days one of the things I have wanted to do is take a look at the Occupy NS site on the Grand Parade. Though there has been more media coverage of the protest as a result of the city's request that the protestors vacate the square to allow things like the Remembrance Day celebrations to take place, my sense of the physical reality was still lacking. How many tents were there? How full was the Grand Parade? Did it look like a tent city?

Finally last night Jeannette and I had the chance to drive by the occupation and get a look at the set up. Much to our surprise the Grand Parade was not full, there seemed to be a line of tents along the back of the paved area, but much of the rest of the pavement was unobstructed. Though there may have been one, I didn't see a single burning barrel (and we all know it's not a real strike/protest if there isn't at least one burning barrel).

As this view of the site was relatively brief I may have to find some time tomorrow to examine the site a little more closely and really get a sense of how things are working at the Occupy NS headquarters (especially considering this is a protest site that has passed it's health and safety inspection).

Oh, and in related news Occupy Magazine seems to have come out with its second issue a few days ago. As far as I can tell this issue also seems to be comprised primarily of articles harvested from other sources rather than original content. In this issue I really was expecting to see more content exclusive to this publication, but maybe that isn't the type of publication they are going for. Maybe if I make it to the Grand Parade tomorrow I will be able to pick up a print copy of the magazine to inspect in more detail.