How can it be this amazing?

Every time I head out and drive through the Annapolis Valley area I am struck by its incredible beauty.  And whenever I think I have seen it at its most beautiful it manages to find a way to outdo itself.

Anyway, today I ended up stopping by the Look-off and then heading back through Gaspereau.  I wasn't disappointed.

Of course, I don't think my photos do the scenery justice.

Why is snow-covered farmland so fun to look at?

Oh, and because it was me visiting these locations I decided to try to take a quick time-lapse video from the Look-off.

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I actually think that this time-lapse clip turned out pretty well.  The downside is that the image quality is not as high as I would like.  Maybe I will pay the $1.99 to upgrade from the free to paid software to be able to get higher quality images.

Cameron: 44
Neil: 0

The end is near

Well, we're only a few hours away from the end of the blog-off and we still haven't heard from Neil.

Is he just going to let me have this one?

I had really been hoping that he would put up a fight.

Anyway, he only has to post about 8 times, so if he wants to do in the final few hours I think it would possible.

Be sure to check back for the thrilling conclusion to this year's blog-off.

Cameron: 43
Neil: 0

Was something lost in translation at the border

Last night I took a few minutes the results from the Michigan and Arizona primaries come in.  In both cases Romney received a plurality of the votes, though in Michigan the margin was pretty narrow.

Given recent stumbles by Romney and the fact that Michigan is where Romney grew up many suggested that success there would be particularly important.  So now that he has 'won' in Michigan I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the coverage (mainly through their choice of headlines) and see how they have interpreted a similar set of facts.  In the following cases I looked at the most prominent story in these organization's news sections - it's possible that there is additional coverage with a different take on things in a dedicated election coverage wing of the website/organization.

The New York Times' headline was:

Romney Regains Stride With Victories in 2 States

I think it is fair to say that the tone of their article is summed up in the following passage:

His victory over Mr. Santorum here in Michigan was far from commanding, but it was most likely sufficient to dampen the rising clamor from across the Republican Party about his ability to win over conservatives and connect with voters. The tussle with Mr. Santorum highlighted ample concerns about Mr. Romney, but his win spared his campaign from deep turmoil. 

 NPR's leading primary related headline is:

Santorum and Co. Left to Mourn What Might Have Been In Michigan

 Immediately the focus on the significance of the loss for Santorum rather than the significance for the 'winner,' Romney, is apparent.  This emphasis is particularly clear in the first paragraph:

Rick Santorum and his campaign will likely look back on Michigan's 2012 primary not only as a heartbreaking loss in the battle against Mitt Romney but also as a historic lost opportunity.

USA Today's headline isn't too different in tone from the New York Times:

Romney campaign breathes a sigh of relief after Michigan win

A USA Today 'blog' story on the primaries take a slightly different tack, noting the proportionality of delegate distribution in Michigan:

Romney, Santorum to split Michigan delegates

Fox News seems to hedge their prediction bets with the uninspiring:

Romney wins Michigan, Arizona primaries

The seem to be suggesting that Romney's candidacy is still not out of the woods and that this whole Super Tuesday thing might be the real proving ground.

Mitt Romney, after fending off Rick Santorum in his home state of Michigan, is fast-approaching the biggest test so far of his volatile front-runner status: next week’s Super Tuesday contests where 419 delegates are up for grabs.

There seems to be a strange parallel between the Fox News headline and the headline used by the Washington Post:

Mitt Romney wins Arizona, Michigan primaries

The Washington Post also seems less inclined to suggest that success in these two contests have turned around Romney's campaign.

Romney’s victories on Tuesday are unlikely to solve the larger problems that have held back his campaign. Even after months of work and millions of dollars spent, he has not won over a vast swath of Republicans. 

The most surprising headline that I have yet seen comes from the Globe and Mail.  For some reason they seem to have interpreted last night's events as being bad for Romney:

Narrow win in home state of Michigan clouds Romney's chances

And they don't beat around the bushes with this strongly worded first paragraph.

Mitt Romney’s tortuous path to the Republican presidential nomination took another detour into rocky territory on Tuesday with his thin win in a contest he should by rights have owned. 

Obviously these are just a few of the many thousand headlines that have been written as a result of last night's primary results.  But as you can see, depending on your source, things are either looking great for Romney or things are looking bad for Romney or Santorum.  It's impressive that a single event can lead such widely varying news output.

Cameron: 42
Neil:0

Bad news for Dal profs

If the experiences of striking transit workers are in any way indicative of what Dal profs might face on a picket line, things are looking good as far as those all-important burning barrels are concerned.  It seems that after a slight reprieve the city is not less inclined to let the practice go unchecked.  A local newspaper is now reporting that if when 911 calls are lodged about barrels the fire department will be dispatched to douse the fire.

What a sad state of affairs for organized labour in Halifax.

Cameron: 41
Neil: 0

A Few Quick Notes 566

-Though at times chilly, today was another beautiful day.

-Being 1 for 6 in this year's RUTRTW contest, which is my current position, might be a good point to stop.  I guess this it is unlikely that I will stop at this point, but it's at least a good sign that I'm thinking about it, right?

-I tried to take a picture of myself today.

I think I was probably about 60% successful.

-This whole robocall thing keeps on chugging along.  What a bummer that this kind of thing happens.

-We now only have two and a bit days left in this blog-off thing and Neil is still yet to make an appearance.  What's up with that?

Cameron: 40
Neil: 0

Kind of like solitary

For the past few days I have been spending most of my time indoors.  More specifically, I have been spending most of my time sitting at my desk trying to get some work done.  The upside of this turn of events is that I have managed to get some work done.  The downside is that I haven't really moved much and I am beginning to think I know kind of what it's like on the "inside."

Of course my recently sedentary existence is nothing like imprisonment, but sometimes it's hard to control a daydream. 

This afternoon I convinced myself that even if my voluntary confinement wasn't quite as rough as solitary that I would probably we well served by a trip outside.

After heading downtown and picking up a coffee I decided to go for a quick walk along the dykes.  Of course it only took me a few hundred feet to realize that these elevated and exposed dykes were not a good place for a walk on a cool and windy day.

Of course the photos I took do the miserableness of the conditions no justice.

After aborted dyke walk I decided to try a quick drive through Gaspereau, a community/valley near Wolfville.

Fortunately for me Gaspereau almost always seems to be at its best, and today was no different.

If you have a chance Gaspereau really is worth a visit.  In the summer when the orchards, vineyards, and farms are in full swing it's hard to believe that you are the only one on the roads that it isn't swamped with tourists bussing past the scenery.

Cameron: 39
Neil: 0

It's that time of the blog-off

With only three days left I have no choice but to defend against a late surge from Neil by making posts about such things as remembering to take my vitamins today (and remembering to photograph them before swallowing them).

Can you tell that my day has been pretty exciting if this mundane event merited (I use the term loosely) documentation?

Maybe a little later I'll go for a walk or take the compost out later or at least do something a little more exciting that remember to take my vitamins.  Whatever it is I end up doing, I'm sure you'll care about it so much that you'll want to kept apprised via this blog.

Cameron: 38
Neil: 0

A Few Quick Notes 565

-After yesterday's talk of a storm, today has been a surprisingly nice day so far.  Maybe this will last?

-I am not sure if it is generally the case that whole wheat banana bread is as good as regular banana bread, but the stuff I made yesterday was good enough for me to eat about two-thirds of the loaf before dinner.

-For the nth year in a row I haven't managed to wangle myself an Oscar party invite.  Oh well, I guess I won't get to watch America's second most popular live television event.

-Over the past day or so I've been in the process of convincing myself that there's a good joke about  downhill skiing and the fact that it seems to be one of the few sports where you sit down and get machine to do the boring bits so that you only have to stand for the fun stuff.  Kind of a 'just dessersts' scenario.

Maybe downhill skiing as a concept just isn't as ripe for humour as I keep thinking it is.

-Back to work.

Cameron: 37
Neil: 0

Good news for Dal profs

As some of you may know, it looks as though the Dalhousie faculty and support staff may both be drawing closer to strikes.  Given the time of year these strikes would be taking place one would expect any picket lines to include strike huts and burning barrels.

Fortunately for future Halifax strikers, as a result of the ongoing transit strike the municipal government has recently agreed to not enforce the bylaw that makes illegal to have barrel fires in Halifax.  Presumably this precedent will carry over to other contemporaneous strikes?

Anyway,  assuming that the transit strike keeps going and the Dal faculty and support staff strike, Halifax could soon become the barrel fire capital of Canada.

I'm also curious about strike etiquette.  If to separate unions at the same employer are on strike at the same time how are picket positions determined?  Seems like there's a chance that the second union to go out could get stuck with dud locations.

Cameron: 36
Neil: 0

Presumably this is how to make an editor's day

First you send out a horse cop on an icy day.

Have the horse slip, causing the cop to fall off of the horse.

Then have the horse run off for a few minutes.

Then have one of the responding car cops get in a wreck on their way to the scene.

An editor can then use the headline: Halifax cop falls off horse, responding officer involved in collision

Oh, and this same series of events could probably be used to ruin a chief of police's day.

Cameron: 35
Neil: 0

A Few Quick Notes 564

-While I was expecting be faced with either the rain or snow when I woke up this morning, instead what we got was just a little wind.  I wonder if Sackville is getting any of the 10 to 15 cm of snow/ice pellets they were expecting?

-I think I am not 1 for 5 in this years RUTRTW contest.  As I am only giving this whole thing a half-hearted attempt I am not surprised with such results.

-Oh, and even though we didn't really have that much rain or snow it seems that close to 2000 are without power in the area.  I can't help but wonder how this is possible.  Maybe a branch landed on something and broke it?

-While waiting for someone to stop by and pick something up this morning I decided to make some banana bread.  Of course part way through the process I remembered that we were out of regular flour.   So I now have a loaf of whole wheat banana bread cooling in the kitchen.  Yum?

-About two nights ago I went to my local grocery store and discovered that they were selling some kind of super pomello that must be close to twice as large as a normal pomello.

The problem with this picture is that it is hard to grasp exactly how big this piece of fruit was.  Maybe you can see that it is positioned in front of a microwave and that it's as tall as the control panel?  Anyway, eating this thing was not a one-sitting feat.

Cameron: 34
Neil: 0

Is the web off-limits to reporters?

Today I learned that the Globe and Mail's long-time parliamentary bureau chief, Jane Taber, now heads the paper's Atlantic bureau.  I learned about this change in part by reading what I understand to be her first contribution from her new post.

This first article, which deals with Halifax mayor's Peter Kelly's current political challenges, seems to have been triggered by a recent article in the Coast that deals with Kelly's failings as executor for the estate of a late friend.  The Coast article really goes after Kelly and outlines a number of problems with the way in which the probate process has been handled so far.

As Taber notes

Now Halifax is buzzing over allegations that Mr. Kelly took more than $160,000 from the $500,000 estate of a long-time elderly friend, Mary Thibeault, and with questions of why, seven years after her death, the will has not been settled. 

These questions were first posed last week in The Coast, a free weekly newspaper.

The primary issue I have with the article comes from the final sentence of the previous quote.  As many of us resident in Nova Scotia know, the Coast has been covering the issue of this will for quite some time.  A quick Google search for "peter kelly executor" lead me to a March 2011 story on the topic.

Maybe I should at least be happy that the mainstream media finally picked up on the story, even if it took them almost a year?  And isn't this the kind of story that the mainstream media should be breaking rather than re-reporting from the local alternative/arts weekly?

Cameron: 33
Neil: 0

A Few Quick Notes 563

-We had another crisp Winter's day in the Valley.  Apparently tomorrow is supposed to be rather nasty with some snow and rain and temperatures just a few degrees above freezing.

-This afternoon Rebecca drew my attention to an easy to misinterpret headline from CBC: Fiddling Bishop Dies in Charlottetown.  Wasn't anyone on double entendre patrol when this story was posted?

-For dinner tonight I made myself a massive tofu stir-fry.  Sadly, I learned that I can even overeat foods that are basically healthy.  I feel pretty gross.

-The bread I baked yesterday definitely tastes a little like cardboard.  I guess it's good that I made only one loaf.  On the other hand, it's too bad that the one loaf that I did bake is incredibly dense and probably weighs twice as much as a normal loaf.

-Back to work.

Cameron: 32
Neil: 0

Fun facts

After months from calls from financial institutions and collection agencies, we have finally received a call for our phone number's previous owners on a different subject - dogs.  Actually, the call was about a particular type of dogs, Chihuahuas.

If all our wrong numbers were like this instead of daily robo-calls from the same bank this dud number thing might not be so frustrating.

I guess I am now getting a sense of what it must be like to be one digit off a pizza place.

Cameron: 31
Neil: 0

A Few Quick Notes 562

-Though today was a cool day, it was also a beautiful day.  If only most winter days were like today nobody would have anything against winter.

-I guess RUTRTW started today.  I am already batting a big fat .000 at 0 for 1.  I don't think I am even going to joke about trying harder this year.  If anything I will try harder to make my own coffee.

-The bread I mentioned this morning is now done.

The taste and texture are pretty much what you might expect them to be in a bread with 12 grains.

-We had a somewhat pleasant sunset tonight in Wolfville.




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-While sitting in a reception area this afternoon I had the chance to catch parts of three day-time talk shows.  Maybe my sample size is limited, but I have no idea how anyone could watch that stuff.  Not only were all of the shows at least mildly exploitative, but they were just unpleasant and void of substance.

I guess I can feel a little more comfortable with my decision not to consume this kind of media.

Cameron: 30
Neil: 0

Back in the saddle (in more ways than one)

Some of you may have been inclined to think that my paucity of blog posts meant that I had given up on this year's blog-off.  The reality could be nothing further than the truth - I am still in it to win it this year (even if Neil doesn't seem interested in taking his usual late surge approach).

My failure to post was nothing more than a few days worth of pre-existing obligations trumping blogging.  And while I would like to say that I live in a world where blog-offs would always come first, it seems that at least from time to time this isn't the case.

Anyway, it has also been a few days since I've had the chance/need to bake bread.

The loaf I am making today is based around some "12 grain" flour I purchased yesterday.  As I was trying to rush the preparation process this morning I didn't really cut this flour with regular flour, so the resulting loaf may be a bit heavy on the multi-grain aspect.

As you can seen in the above photo, there's so much millet it seems to be coming out of the dough (maybe millet doesn't like being smashed up next to sunflower seeds?).  At least it still looks edible?

Cameron: 29

Neil: 0

Halifax sleep-watcher caught?

CBC Nova Scotia recently tweeted:

Barry Sinclair charged with five counts of voyeurism and two counts of break and enter in south-end Halifax. #cbcns

Does this mean what I think it means?  Have they finally caught the South End Halifax sleep watcher?

Unfortunately, they don't yet have a fully story relaying the significance of the tweet (and either confirming or refuting my assumptions).  I am hoping that they have one soon.  Whether or not this is sleep-watcher related I also hope that the whole sleep-watcher situation is resolved sooner rather than later.  It's hard to believe that the sleep-watcher thing has been going on for years without a satisfactory resolution.

Update: A story on the case from October, 2011 can be found here.

Update: An earlier tweet from the CBC reporter covering the police press conference seems to confirm my suspicion that they are dealing with the sleep-watcher issue:

Waiting for police chief Beazley to explain arrest of alleged sleep watcher. #cbcns

Cameron: 28
Neil: 0

Mostly vegan

Since just after Christmas I have almost completely eliminated meat from my diet.  Since just after Christmas Jeannette has been vegan - meaning she doesn't consume any animal products at all.

Because I try to prepare food with Jeannette's diet in mind I have been thinking vegan for as long as she has been vegan, and in many instances eating vegan for longish (at least for me) stretches.

While I realize that I am not vegan, I do think that it fair to say that I am mostly vegan (you know, vegan except for butter and an occasional piece of beef).  Such claims annoy Jeannette quite a bit - she thinks I shouldn't use vegan in any way to describe myself if I am not vegan.

I disagree.  Firstly, thinking vegan has to be a big first step.  If you don't think vegan it's hard to be vegan. Secondly, I am clearly facilitating veganism - and I think that has to count for something.  Thirdly, I am clearly moving in that direction myself.  Once we get rid of the eggs and remaining animal products I don't really plan on replacing them - and I think that also has to count for something.  If we mapped veganism to the Kinsey scale I think it is fair to say I would be predominately vegan.

Maybe Jeannette is right and you are either all vegan or not at all vegan, but shouldn't thinking vegan count for something?  If I put all the time into planning vegan meals shouldn't I get at least some vegan credit?

Cameron: 27
Neil: 0

Life in Halifax, Nofuna Scotia

As part of his continued effort to justify the use of the moniker "Nofuna Scotia" the HRM chief of police has recently blamed bars and alcohol for high crime rate in Halifax.

As the Metro story puts it:

HRM drinks too much and Halifax Regional Police Chief Frank Beazley says he has the assault statistics to prove it.

He told the municipality’s police commission on Monday there’s way too much easy access to liquor in this town. Many people sit at home and drink heavily before going out late to the bar and pounding drinks until 3 a.m.

“If I could take the alcohol out of this, I could plummet the number of assaults in HRM,” he said.  

Beazley added that several of the 3,202 assaults last year involved people getting drunk and going home to beat a family member.

The access, hours the bars are open and the density of liquor establishments downtown combine to cause real problems.

“Why do we need that many bars in that one area of the community that require so many resources to police it?”

While I am sure it is the case that some number of Halifax's crimes were committed by people who had recently been drinking in bars, do we know that access to alcohol really lead to all that many crimes - or do criminals just happen to also be drinkers?   Do other communities with bar districts face similar problems?  If not, why not?

And is the chief of police really suggesting that some number of legally operated small businesses be closed or have their capacity to collect revenue severely restricted?  Might there not be other steps that we can take before this one?

And I am curious if the chief's suggestion that if he "could take the alcohol out of this, I could plummet the number of assaults in HRM" is accurate.  An interesting story from the Guardian today seems to suggest that people will go to great lengths to secure intoxicating substances in the face of prohibitions.  At least in the UK an ever-changing array of legal synthetic drugs seem to be popular at the moment.  And of course not much is know about these synthetic drugs and what kind of long-term impact they might have on their imbibers.  And should one not think about the risk of encouraging such a development be worth by changing alcohol rules?


Cameron: 26
Neil: 0

A Few Quick Notes 561

-Though we had a surprise snowfall yesterday, today has turned out to be quite nice.  Actually, my only fear about today's weather is that it might get too nice.  By this I mean that we may see a 16 degree temperature swing that will bring us above the melting point and contribute to slush formation.

-Because of the aforementioned surprise snowfall yesterday I had to do some shovelling.



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-I made another batch of chickpea cake last night.  Because Jeannette and I both overate at dinner we didn't have any last.  I guess we might have it tonight?

I am hoping that this batch will be better than the last one and that the changes to cooking time that I made this time around have paid off.

-I really should be doing work or eating lunch.

Cameron: 25
Neil: 0