A Few Quick Notes 580

-For the past few days we've had close to perfect weather until the evening when, all of a sudden, we've had the pleasure of experiencing brief, but torrential, downpours.  Assuming today's forecast holds we should be in for something similar this evening.

-No matter how many dishes I do every day it seems I am never more than 30 seconds away from a half-sink full of dishes.  How is this possible?

-I just made a batch of pumpkin bran muffins for breakfast.  Because I didn't have quite enough pumpkin puree on hand they aren't quite as tasty as I had hoped they would be.

-Last night Jeannette's brother Alex spent the night with us.  After we had dinner we walked around the downtown area a little to see the sites.  As we neared Parliament Hill we could sense that something was up because we could hear something in the distance.  As we drew nearer we could see that 'what was up' was that an A/V presentation was being projected on the centre block building.

This weird animated gif may give you a very limited sense of what was going on.  Eventually Jeannette figure out that what were watching was the Mosaika: Sound and Light Show.  We ended up staying until the show ended a few minutes later.

(Maybe this photo will help paint a slightly better picture of what was going on.)

-So our plants seem to keep on growing.

When I posted a photo of our balcony plants about a week ago they were this big.

Even though it's only a week later many of the plants have put on a few inches or, at least filled out a little.

Talk about exciting.

-Despite the fact that my family seems to think I working from an absurd premise with my wheat plants, these little guys continue to put on a few inches every few days.  Apparently they aren't allowing the criticism to stunt their growth.

Check'em out now!

We'll definitely have enough for a 1/4 loaf of bread in a few months.

Big changes

About 10 days ago I moved to Ottawa, joining Jeannette about two months into her residency here.  The day after I arrived we moved into our new apartment.  One of the great things about our apartment is that we are only a short walk away from Parliament.

While it was definitely a bit of a bummer to leave Wolfville, I have been enjoying my time in Ottawa.  In addition to getting a rush each time I catch a glimpse of the peace tower flag there are a number of other cool things here that are pretty neat (though we haven't found the time to do too many of them yet).

Instead of focusing touristy stuff I've been trying to get a sense of the neighbourhood (and the fact that the weather's been horrible hasn't made the idea of touring very appealing).  Today while I was walking to a prospective laundry site I noticed several piles of move-out related garbage.

One caught my eye as it seemed to have an Ikea table similar to tables I've had in Montreal and Wolfville.  Upon closer inspection I learned that not only was the table similar to the tables I've had, but that there was also an unopened Ikea table in the pile.  Apparently the former owner bought the table and didn't even ever get around to taking the five minutes required to assemble it.  Wow.

Had I not been on my way somewhere I should have made sure that this unopened table was pulled out and visible so that someone could pick it up.  It seems an awful was to buy a table and then throw it away without ever even so much as opening it.

Conflicting information about Ms. Brosseau

Starting a few days before the final votes were cast in the recent Canadian election and now continuing past the election has been a media fascination for the then NDP candidate for Berthier--Maskinongé, Ruth Ellen Brosseau. At first it was noted that Ms. Brosseau had spent some portion of the campaign period on vacation in Las Vegas. More recently it has been reported that Ms. Brosseau did not even go to the riding to campaign during the election period.

Maybe the most contentious revelation, at least as far many Francophone residents Ms. Brosseau's district are concerned, is that Ms. Brosseau's French is so rusty and that she is currently being given a crash course in French through the aegis of the NDP and Thomas Mulcair (a prominent Quebec NDP MP).

Given the prominence of this revelation about Ms. Brosseau's level of competence in French I was a little surprised to see that on her parliamentary profile page her "language preference" is French - a language which even her party and father suggest she can't speak particularly well.

Since the disconnect between her parliamentary profile and publicly available information is quite prominent I included a screen shot in case the profile is updated to reflect her language abilities (we wouldn't want to lose this piece of information in the shuffle).

Oh, and I also love that there seems to be only one publicly available picture of this woman, and that it is being used by just about everybody. I wonder if she knew that her candidate profile photo would gain such attention and be so frequently used if she would have used the photo that she used?

A Few Quick Notes 500

-We had another cold, clear winter's day today in Halifax. Fortunately, aside from a few quick trips outdoors, I was able spend most of my day out of the cold. It seems that we should be in for more of the same tomorrow.

-Jeannette and Rebecca (but mostly Jeannette) just talked me into baking some cupcake. Given my desire to procrastinate it didn't take long to talk me into the proposition. I am now waiting for them to cool before icing them. I must say, I am definitely looking forward to chomping down on one or two of these in just a few minutes (as this salad thing as meant that we basically haven't had dessert in a month).

-For dinner we had a roast chicken, baked potatoes, and boiled vegetables. I was pretty satisfied with the meal.

-The almost non-existent Canadian Library of Parliament website is a real bummer. I know they don't want to be bombarded with questions from the public, but it would at least be nice to be able to ask them questions about the documents and reports that they produce. It seems completely unreasonable that they don't even make readily available a contact email address or phone number (they give you only the general Parliament contact information).

-In preparation for my comps I have been trying out some ear plugs. I always find it funny how many different sounds I hear while sporting ear plugs. In many ways my jaw is almost as distracting as someone typing on the other side of the room.

-There seems to be some shouting going on somewhere behind our apartment building. Unfortunately it seems to be just far enough away that I can't quite make out what they are saying. That I can't figure it out is probably fine, it doesn't sound as though anything particularly nice is being said.

-So we now have 500 of these. In some ways I am surprised that there are this many and on the other hand I am a little surprised that it took me so many years to get to 500. It is also hard to believe that the blog has now existed in parts of at least 6 years. Who would have guessed that it would have such a long life-span when it was started all of those years ago? Also, who would have guessed that Neil would almost stop posting within a year or two?

A Few Quick Notes 250

-Today, like the past few days, has been rainy and somewhat less than pleasant. For most of the day it has been raining and the only expected change is for the rain to turn into freezing rain.

-We had a rather fruity batch of black bean soup tonight. I think that the fruitiness can be explained by my rather large squirt of lemon juice. Fortunately, I didn't mind the fruitier version of the soup (though I didn't think to ask either Neil or Rebecca what they thought about it).

-As our Christmas departure draws near we are trying our best to consume and not replace our perishable foods. So far we seem to be doing a pretty good job. Unfortunately a day or two ago we purchased 10 pounds of carrots and 10 pounds of potatoes. Neil's comment was that if we each consumed 1/2 a pound of carrots a day we would be fine, and so far we seem to be on track.

-For the past few days I have spent much of my time grading papers or reading about the Scottish Parliament. While reading an article by Cowley and Lochore this evening I came across the following line: "An 18-year old Scottish Parliament - able to vote, drink, drive and have sex - may well turn out very different from the one of today."

Maybe I am just tired, but the thought of a parliament out on the town searching for one night stands really cracked me up. Unfortunately, as the local Nova Scotia legislature is 250 it is probably past going out for wild nights on the town (though I am sure that it has witnessed a fair bit during the past quarter millennium).

-For the cooler kids out there, it seems that the journal Parliamentary Affairs now has a podcast. Though I have downloaded all of the episodes I haven't had a chance to listen to any of them yet. I keep wondering if it will be as good as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography podcast that I also download (but then forget to listen to).

-While checking out the corn this afternoon I noticed evidence of our first ear of corn. It seems that so far we have only one ear, and, not surprisingly, it is on the largest of our corn plants. Hopefully we might get a few additional ears in the coming days (if only for show).

MPs?

Just a few moments ago I happened to see the descriptors following the names of various national politicians.

After the names of those individuals who were members of the House of Commons the letters 'MP' appeared. After the Senator's name it said 'Senator.'

In many ways this seems somewhat strange because both Senators and members of the House of Commons are members of Parliament. How is it that common usage has developed in such a way that only members of the House of Commons are referred to in this way?

Presumably this has something to do with the corresponding usage practices that have developed in the UK, though it might be interesting to know if this has always been the case. I wonder if there has been a time when Lords were known as MPs?

Surely all of you are equally as concerned with this question and will likely lose some amount of sleep in the coming days, at least on until some sort of resolution has been reached.