mmmmm... Caffiene and Boo Urns to Vandels.

Ah - In front of me, besides a mess of rulers, pencils, calculators (I have 6 but only 3 on my desk) is a tall glass of diet cola and half an extra large Tim Horton's coffee. Sorry G - I have to admit that I actually hate Tim Horton's Coffee. I'm sure it tastes great with milk or cream and sugar, but black it tastes like something I'd use to discourage ants from coming into my kitchen. I hear they have expresso now. I've never had expresso, but somehow it doesn't appeal to me.

Other news. . . I found this news group run by Robin Hobb. Its awesome!!! You can get to it from her web site by clicking on the contact button.

As to the vandels. Apparently last night several individuals went on a rampage in Fredericton. It was describe as "no mailbox left standing, garbage everywhere and a fridge in the middle of the road. Now I have to admit that vandalism really irks me. If you want to make it so other people can't use something, at least steal it. Wrecking it doesn't benefit anyone. Not that I'm advocating theft - it too is a form of anti social behaviour, but at least I can see why someone might want to steal something - there's motive. Vandelism on the other hand. . .what do vandels get out of it? A feeling of satisfaction that they've been wreckless (prehaps an ironic term in this context) or destructive? Besides, it automatically gets blamed on university students (especially given the neighbourhood of this incident) and it makes the rest of us look bad. So, boo urns to the vandels, may the police catch them and put something on their record.

Growl,

Jennith 

Mississing Water Found

I've managed to track down all of the water that had escaped from my storm system. It was actually the fancy system with pipes (and 148 nodes) that had the problem, while the pristine environment was doing exactly what it was supposed to. (Sort of like real life, but I wasn't as sure of the assumptions for overland flow, owing to the fact that we didn't use in in our course last semester)

The main problem is that the data I started with has several manholes that were double sampled (i.e. they had 2 ore more entries for the same location.) Although, I managed to clean most of these up, I made some quirky error in Excel, that resulted in some of them being missed. So, some of it was hiding in manholes that have 2 different ID number in the same spot with one connected to the system and the other not. The last and most exasperately piece was a pipe that turned the corner missing a manhole by a fraction too small to see unless you blew up the map to a fairly large scale.

Argh for computers . . . or yeah? And I agree with Colin - Douglas Adams knew about engineering.

Jenn 

Why oh why?

This Blog is brought to you by the pitfalls and dangers of using fancy computer programs to model the real world. As you have noticed, I'm desparately scrambling to complete my senior design project so that I can graduate and get my iron ring and a job and that fancy Echo. . . and I'm modelling stormwater. Now, I want to say first that I hope that I'm lucky enough to spend the rest of my career in the field of stormwater management. It is biology, forestry, and civil engineering in a challanging package. It is has lots of research potential and in spite of numerous modelling programs - it is a field with numerous outlets (pardon my pun) for creativity.

However, that said, my current project is proving frustrating owing to the demons and pixies playing pranks in EPA SWMM. It appears that the runoff volume and peak flow rate before development is significantly larger than after development. This is noteably contrary to convential wisdom where paving large areas of land reduces infiltration and quickly shunts the runoff away. So, what is causing this discrpency?

I supect that the "pristine" model is short circuiting and dumping a shocking 82% of its runoff into the pond below compared to 68.5 % of the runoff from building and parking lots conveyed in sewers. So, its back to the land of reading help files for me - I've been doing this alot lately and hopefully I can let you know when I solve the mystery. Of course, in a few hours I may have something to say about the helpfulness of help files that may not be too complementary.

Until then - models may be easier and take into account more factors, but if you don't know them well, they can easily make assumptions for you that you have no way of tracing. And sometimes they are more work and give you results that are no better than the simple, blunt method. . .

Cheers,

Jennith

Would you believe it?

There is actually an equation used to calculate a unit hydrograph called the discrete convoluted equation and believe it or not, I'm really not sure what it is all about. . . its confusing. . .

Dreams of Summer

The picture to the left was taken early morning in Martin's Head, NB. Getting to Martin's Head is probably half the adventure, but it is certainly beautiful once you get there.

We arrived there on a foggy Friday night in August (Me, Gabe and Trevor) and set up camp. The "getting there" part involved me and Trevor coming from Fredericton to Sussex to pick up Gabriel - who was coming up from Alma and then continuing in Trevor's Truck - since there is no way that Gabe's car would have made it on that road. This infamous road is an over utilized logging road with water filled washouts deep enough to loose a small car in. (I suspect that Trevor enjoyed the drive) The going is slow owing to the number of other users - mainly four-wheelers and moter bikes. The last bit of the road is an insanely steep and washed out road - and I say this having spent most of the summer deep in woods on logging roads in areas that were not currently under operation - so its not like a little rut or fallen tree was going to shock me. - that comes rattling out onto an imense (and fog covered in our case) beach.

The pictures we took the next morning as the fog lifted off of the ocean (bay of Funday) are probably some of the best I've ever taken. The tide was low and we were able to walk out to an Island/Isthamus where I took the above picture. The vegetation was facinating to my repressed biologist and the view of the ocean and the rocks was breath-taking. I think that the beach is crown land and sadly has become a party beach for four-wheeling and others much to the detriment of the surrounding environment. We were lucky that there were only 4 other groups that night on the beach and that they were quiet familys for the most part. I'm going to miss the Ocean. There is something about real ocean beaches that freshwater ones can't match. I will have to take Gabe to Wasaga or maybe even singing sands or Lake Superiour Provincial Park as they do have some charm.

As for me, I'm back to designing parking lots and swales until summer comes and I can occasionally escape the city (to the Escarpment at least).

Cheers for now,

Jennith

Connecting The Dots: Not Just for Kids

This somewhat childish looking snapshot represents about 30 or 40 hours of work (including learning how to do strange things with Arcview). I get to do it all over again for sanitary sewers too, although, it'll take a fraction of the time now that I know what I'm doing.

I'm sure that there are easier ways to do some of the things I've done, and certainly more acurate. Most of the shapes were picked off of a pixally printout of quasi-proposed archichitectural drawings meant to impress rather than be acturate. I had to superimpose the actual NS grid onto this picture and then identify the location of the corners of the buildings. I then literally connected the dots, which explains why some of the buildings are slightly funny shapes, but hey - what can you do ath this time of night other than blog and/or go home an go to bed.

I actually added a whole bunch of new links to this blog, only to have the template editor crash when I saved my edits. Obviously, you'll have to wait until I get around to redoing it (not in the next 2 weeks.

At any rate, I should go to bed or get back to work (seeing as I have lots of it, and Tim Horton's is making me giddy - I won a coffee this time!!!)

Cheers,

Jennith

My Spastic Blog

It appears that my blog is on Blogger's bad server and as a result my blog has only been intermittantly available the last few days and prone to errors during posting. So, I'm posting again in the hopes of fixing the current errors on the page. The most recent errors occured when I cancelled the spell checker and picasa crashed halfway through posting as a result my sidebars are missing - although by the time you read this, they will hopefully have reappartated like Azi's legs.

After ranting about discourteousness, I thought I'd put some happy thoughts in.

The first is a quote:

"May you spend the best of your days nuturing beauty and peace in the garden of your soul."

You'll note the cute little car in the upper left corner. Its the sweet and snazzy toyota echo - replacement dream car. Although, I have to admit that I'm not impressed with some of Toyota's recent deciscions like increasing the size of the RAV4 by 21%. The best thing about the RAV4 was that it was made to have a canoe on top and get to Opeongo, but it wasn't a big monster SUV and got gas mileage similar to a sedan and better than some. The other thing they did was to drop the echo for the Yaris in 2006. Although the name is slowly growing on me, I'm really in love with the Echo and I think the name is brilliant.

Lastly, it is 15 days until Iron Ring and just over a month until I finish exams. I've managed to get in touch with James and Trudi and Tricia. Man do I have a lot of packing to do.

At any rate, fare well to thee all, I'll try to keep up my writing and picture posting. I have a few pictures that I took this summer at Martin's Head that I'd like to post, although they are on my msn space - I've pretty much abandoned it for this one.

Be well and find some time for soul gardening.

Jennith

Happy St. Pat's Day

No Green Beer for me this year. Had a quiet evening blogging and trying to fight with Corel Word Perfect. Early rising and more school for me tommorrow, no energy to tackle the bar scene - I did wear green though.

Night,

Jennith 

Courtesy

Good Evening,

After a hectic week that is unlikely to end for another 7 days, I find my brain unable to do anything more useful than write a blog, I fear that I'm temporarily school-worked out. . . I have spent most of this week tackling a stack of maps and autocad files, attempting to glean data out of them in a useful form. The process has been slow and frustrating, and I owing to the need for specialized software (like ArcView and AutoCad) I was forced to work in University computer labs.

You might think that these labs - free of distractions like Boggle and online Canasta and Snood and links to all my favorite websites and MSN - might be great places to work. This would be true if it weren't the large number of people using the labs with an utter lack of courtesy for their fellow students.

The university doesn't actually have a quiet space policy in their labs, nor do they enforce their restrictions on gaming, chatting and eating. The result is that it is frequently next to impossible to get any work done in the labs unless you are lucky or willing to be there late at night. I'm not suggesting it is necessary to designate school computer labs as silent zones, most people can tolerate the noise made by people sitting next to each other chatting quietly or intermittantly consulting with each other on a project, however, few people can work when a loud boister conversation is continuing for several hours. One incident, in the AutoCad lab, involved 3 engineering students playing poker and jesting (sometimes in a less than polite manner) for about 2 hours. This makes me sound like a bit of a spoil sport or suck. I wasn't really offended by the content of their comments, I only noted that it wasn't really appropriate because other people may have found their remarks offensive. I was more distressed by the volume of their voices and distracting behavior which made in next to impossible for me to concentrate on my already frustrating assignment.

Unforetunately, events like this one are not at all unique. Those gentlemen were the most eccessively discourtesious folks I had the misfortune to share a lab with, but I encountered this situation repeatedly throughout my stay here. Some people simply aren't aware of the volume of their voice - in my case I have to conciously think in order to be heard at times - and some people don't care. It would be unfortunate if the university had to make a strict policy on behavior in labs and a pain to enforce it, however, for those students who don't have access to their own computers or special software, a lack of reasonably quiet workspaces is a real problem. This situation also differs markedly from my experience using the computer labs at Lakehead. I think part of the explanation is computers have become more and more oriented towards entertainment, and computer access is not longer seen as a privledge owing to the fact that nearly everyone has one. Lakehead also had a quiet policy, which I never saw being enforced, but worked nonetheless.

Certainly, the behavior of those gentlemen would not be accepted in a library, restaurant or a coffee shop. It may have been passable at a party or a bar. It certainly showed a lack of courtesy for the 15-20 other students using that lab that afternoon. Another question one might ask is: why not one of use asked the guys to quiet down? They were kind of intimidating - their behaviour made it clear that their reaction to such a request would likely be unpleasent. Myself, I was busy being frustrated, and simply didn't have the energy to fight another battle. I find in general, people don't assert their right to courtesy. Even proffessors - they rarely will speak out when a couple of students are chatting or being disruptive while they are teaching. I, on the other hand, have frequently given students in my vicentity the teacher look or asked them to stop talking when their was an opportunity. Even in a classroom situation the reaction of those students to my polite request to stop talking was suprisingly negative. I really don't think people take courtesy that seriously any more and unfortunately, it only takes 1 misbehaving student to interfere with the learning environment of the rest and I suppose if the proffessors appear to tolerate, why should they listen to thier fellow students?

So, there is my rant. I think the school could easily improve the learning environment on campus by educating people to the impact of their behavior on others. I think, in the labs anyways, a few posters reminding people that the labs are a workspace first and entertainment 2nd would at least help with the folks that weren't aware that their behavior might make it hard for others to study. In classrooms, Profs should assert their right to a courteous audience and protect the quality of the learning environment for all of their students. As for the rest, well, I suppose human's do worse things to each other than discourtesy - no easy solution there.

Good night,

Jennith. 

ARRRHHHHGGGGG View

Greetings,

I'm frustatingly battling spatial data today. I think I"m almost there - of course I could be wrong -sigh.

School is getting into the crazy phase before the end of term. I have two large projects on the go, so its extra frustrating to keep pounding on a problem and not have it yeild easily. I guess the programmers among you would understand that.

I'm working with maps on ArcView, which is actually a pretty user friendly program (compared to my other choices)

If only my data was user friendly or I knew what i was doing.

Cheers,

Jennith

The Many Roads To Procrastinus

Greetings,

I've been up for two hours and have yet to start into the very important stuff that I should have done a week ago and which will make the next few days crazy. I did however discover Google Earth and locate my house and a few other special places before realizing that I should escape before I get too interested. I also added a new link to Gabe's fledgeling blog and emailed a bunch of people whom I haven't talked to in forever. I also added a counter to the bottom of this page.

Our adventures in Sussex continued Wednesday night with a Women's Day Tea where we had the priledge of hearing stories from 3 local war brides who came to the maritimes from Britain with their Canadian soldier husbands. It was pretty neat, and they were all first rate story tellers. I think it would be terrifying to leave Canada to move to the homeland of a foreign soldier. I'm not sure I'm that adventurous. Charlene and Andrea came up from Kingston and had a good time.

Thursday afternoon we spent with Gabe's Dad playing cards and debating a variety of issues. I'm not sure I didn't convince him that I was nuts.

Friday we headed back to Fredericton. The weather, which had be beautiful, took a turn for the worse, but we seem to have come around to fine weather. Tintaglia is back on the road with only minimal fussing for a dragon and we haven't won a RAV4 yet, but we're still hoping.

I got laughed at by my co-worker for having a RAV4 as a dream car, apparently ones dream car should be completely impractical and have an 8 cylinder engine and leather interior. I'm actually leaning more toward the Echo these days. The RAV4 is more car than I need unless I win one.

Anywho, I'm farther down the road to Procrastinus than I intended. I'll try and keep writing and maybe remember to write about those things that pop in my head and I want to write about, but then forget when I actually go to write about them.

Until later,

Jennith 

Sunset Over The Hills

So, our adventures continued and I went for another photo walk at sunset. Unfortunately my camera struggle to capture what my eye was seeing, but here is one of the better photos for capturing the colour of the sky.

Wednesday, we went out to Gabe's old place and hiked on some even quieter countries roads. It was a frosty spring morning and the hike was awesome. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the Tree Farmer Grapple Skidder that we saw. We ran into a guy that was buying up and harvesting local wood lots - his son was an FE Grad from UNB.

Another cool place in the Sussex area is "The Soap Works" The owner has been making soap for quite a few years. Some neat soaps, we are trying the "breakfast bar" right now. The web site is oriented to sell, but if you click on the individual product's, she posted a discription of what each soap is good for.

We had a great couple of days hanging out with Gabe's family. I'd also like to speak on behalf of an awesome game called Jaborwackey. We had a blast playing it. Its back to work for us now though. Gabe has his 4th essay to tackle and I am working from 11:30 am to 3 am tommorrow.

I'll continue the story with more pictures in a couple of days. I don't want to use up all of my stock too quickly. Another few notes: I've updated my links on the side bar and I'm homing to figure out how to add a counter. I'll continute to add links as I go. A notable new one is Blaine's site in PEI.

If anyone has a site they want linked, let me know and I'll set you up - assuming I know you and your site is something I'd want to be associated with.

Cheers,

Jennith 

Big Skies on Tuesday Afternoon

On Tuesday, Gabe and I went for a walk up a country road capturing that unique light that only happens in the afternoon a bit before sunset. It was perfect walking weather and and the light was great for photos. Later in the afternoon I took another series of photos as the sunset - see the next entry - The best part was getting fresh air and getting out of Fredericton for a couple of days. 

Farewell to Noveau Brunswicke

Well, I suppose its still a bit premature for farewell, but for those of you who are not new brunswicker's by birth or habitat. Here is our flag, flapping wildly in a Sussex wind at one of the most characteristic institutions of this fair province - The Irving Gas Station.

I finally took some new pictures (about 280 of them) so read on for the rest of my March Break adventures. 

YEECHCH!!!! BLECK!!! BLAH!! There is something living in my sink!!!!

Yes, another post - I've been busy today!!

I have just survived one of the most revolting experiences of my life. Battling the thing that is living in the bathroom sink. I'm not sure what it is? It smells a bit like algae (Yeah... I've been exposed to a bunch of nasty spores) I suppose it could be a fungus or a bacteria or some sick (i.e. non lichen) unholy mixture of the lot. If I die in the next 24 hours you will know the cause. I've scrubbed it with an old tooth brush, comet, q-tips and a lot of hot water. If put it back a bit, but I think it is going to need to a bottle or two of draino, and a man's touch (i.e. - sorry gabe, tag your it, I think I'm going to puke if I have to deal with it again).


Okay, its possible that I've seen grosser - I was a first repsonder at one point. But I'm thinking this is going to give me nightmares. . . so, I think I'm going to stay up a bit longer.

Later,

Jennith

The Best Snow is in December

Greetings,

It is Sunday evening at the end of a healthy break weekend for me. I've managed to get in touch with half a dozen of the people I've neglected over the last few years. This is a picture of one of the coolest kids I've ever met - who was persistant enough to convince two tired adults to go tobboggening on a bright december day.

One thing that came out of this Johari window/communications excercise is that I realized how anxious I was about moving back to Ontario - heck - the problem is moving back to the Mississauga area (If I were moving back to Thunder Bay or Sudbury, it would just be an adventure.) Up until now I've been focused on how great it will be to be able to spend time with my family or worried about getting a job and looking forward to the opportunity to begin my career. I guess the exercise of sending out that link to as many of the people I know and have functional email addresses for made me realize how many folks I've lost touch with.

This exercise has reminded me sharply of how much I've changed over the last 10 or so years. Not that I regret my highschool years, but I don't recall them as my happiest (that would probably be reserved for Thunder Bay aka the EFRT years - which was the first time I felt part of something bigger, I loved the biology that I was studying, I was doing well in school and I have to admit that I had some pretty awesome friends) I sort of sorted out most of my teenage angst there and I belonged in Thunder Bay - I always felt that I fit into the culture there, sort of outdoorsy, northern, friendly and humble. I know the year I taught in Kashechewan changed me - I grew up a lot and gained a lot of confidence and assertiveness. I'm not sure I've evolved much in Fredericton. I've had some good times, but I've been focused on school more and been less involved in the school than I had been at Lakehead. I know that I'm probably not going to really end up hanging out with my old highschool friends if I move back to Mississauga - they've all got adult lives and other friends - but I'm worried that other than my family there aren't going to be people I fit in with. I don't really identify myself as a city person any more - I like small cities.

Perhaps I've lived outside Toronto long enough to catch some of the negative feelings that towards the big city. I always feel slightly apologetic to admit that I'm not only from Ontario, but from a suburb of Toronto - it makes me feel slightly dirty or at least that I have to make sure that people don't think I think that it makes me think that I'm better then them. (if that isn't a complicated enough sentence for you) I guess it sounds like a Canadian sentiment. Sigh. . . nothing is ever simple is it. The view certainly isn't as nice - my window here overlooks the Saint John river vally (facing west towards the sunset). I'm sure that its harder for Gabe - I'm worrying about ghosts from my past and trying to go back to a place I used to come from where I'll be supported by my family. He is leaving his familiar haunts and people behind to go to a part of the country that he's never really wanted to live. I'm a pretty lucky girl. I'm sure it'll all be fine, and I'm glad Gabe is going to be there. He knows who I am now and that'll keep me grounded as I try hold onto that while tackling my past and a new job at the same time.

I guess it is human to worry, and I feel better having named my fear and faced it. I think its been bouncing around in my brain and colouring my dreams. Its also good to know that there are so many folks who like me well enough. I want to thank everyone who responded to my Johari window link. It helps to know that you have friends out there, I hope that I'll get the chance to visit some of you once I'm back in the same province.

Cheers,

Jennith 

Johari Windows

Greetings,

I've been lax in keeping up with this Blog, but today I've been inspired to write again.

The Johari window is a set of adjectives that you pick 6 of about a friend. The program then gives you stats about how people reponded to you. The whole idea is really cool and quite a few people I've sent it to have responded and started their own pages.

http://kevan.org/johari?name=Jennith+Peart

This is the link that will get you to my page if you haven't been there already. If you set up your own page, please send me a copy of the link, because I think this is great.

Cheers,

Jennith

P.S. the pictuer was taken on the UNB campus facing Joy Kid residence on a cold but snowless february day 

Monday Brain

Greetings everyone. . .

It is the last week before March Break and I am busy studying for my last midterm and working on group project stuff. I don't suppose that it will be much of a week off, but at least it will give me a couple of days to catch up on all this mess of school stuff. I've been busy applying to jobs. I think I'd really like to be a stormwater engineer or something related. Urban planning and transportation are also pretty interesting too. I guess I'll find out at some point.

Continuations and enemy in the Bushes

Greetings,

I think I've run out of steam on talking about storm water management. I promise to update you if something neat comes my way. I did want to link to this story (STORY) in the star about the fate of several high level people who have spoken out against President Bush and his ill fated war on Iraq. It sounds like the days when having communist view could get you into all sorts of trouble. It seems that certain circles have made the assumption that only people connected with terrorism would speak out against the war. It is a good article with some eye opening facts.

In completely different news, I have learned that modelling is much harder work that it appears. I was helping Gabe work on his portfolio last night and was exhausted by the end just from smiling and having lights shone at me and flashed and trying to sit still. It was fun, and a pity for Gabe that he ended up having to use me as a subject, since I have a tendency towards blinking and having incredibly stupid expressions on my face (the harder I try to smile the worse I do) But it looks from the digital shots that a few worked out at least and he only needs one or two. I'm glad I'm in Engineering -

Thats all for now,

Jennith

Living a Greener Life

I am knee deep in searching for references and information on environmentally concious watershed management - this being necessary for 2 or 3 of my current school projects. There is a tonne of stuff on the web and I just wanted to post some links.

http://www.nrdc.org/cities/smartGrowth/default.asp

There is a link to a document on affordable green housing - which is short but makes some interesting points.

The long and the short of why urban development is bad for watersheds is simply that large areas of impervious surface change how stormwater acts. It prevents water from infiltrating into the ground - think about how this might effect ground water recharge and how often you need to water your lawn. Instead much of the rainfall runs off hard surfaces like roads and roofs -right into stormsewers and often right into recieving waters. The total volume of runoff is larger and the peak volume is higher. Imagine that you take 2 squares - one made of grass and one made of concrete - place them on a 10 degrees slope and pour a cup of water on upper part of each of them. In short order, most of a cup of water will spill off the bottom edge of the square, while much less water will come off the grass square and it'll take longer for the water to reach the bottom. Now imagine this on the scale of say - Mississauga - and a cats and dogs buckets of rainfall storm in the early spring and suddenly all the ice and sand and oil and dirt that has built up over the winter is swept into the storm sewer and then..... Lake Aquitane and Lake Wabakyne. I can't really pick on Mississauga, since I'm not sure where their storm water goes. The two lakes near my home are examples of wet ponds, a stormwater detention method that allows stormwater to settle out some of the nasty stuff it picks up, and also gives the city control over the speed that the water is released to natural recieving waters. Lake Wabakyne has a very typical shape (in fact the picture of a wet pond in the Ontario Stormwater Design Manual (here is the link for any hard core engineering types - chapter 4 has the nicest pictures http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/gp/4329eindex.htm)

Okay I ran out of time while looking for Peel stuff.

I'll continue the second part of this blog later

Random Pictures of my Boyfriend

Greetings, I must again apologize for posting a December picture for a lack of anything more recent. I rather like it. . . But I'm sort of biased.

I should see if I can get any tonight, the wind is roaring and the temperature plummeting (from a rediculous high of 12 degrees). I should be working - but its hard to work on Friday night my mind feels like it is owed a bit of a chance to relax, even if it means stress later.

I figured this was a compromise between schoolwork and necessary things to do that weren't too much like real work and didn't involve vaccumming.

This time next week, Gabe and I will be just finishing up our dinners at the Beaverbrook hotel (Civil Banquet). So I guess a quiet night is good. I've gotten to the point where going out is more effort than it is workth most of the time, I've come to appreciate the nicities of a quiet night in with a mug of hot chocolate and all the internet news sites (namely the Toronto Star and CTV sites) where I spend far too much time, but at least have some knowledge (however distorted) of current events.

I finished my first subdivision plann - it was harder to do than I expected, but I could see myself getting to like it. School has been interesting this term, but I'm pretty focuesed on the end part, and I'm not savouring the autumn days of my undergraduate career as perhaps I should. Ah well, I promise to get some pictures tommorrow of something intersting - well, at least that is a semi promise. Until then, hang on to your umbrellas.

Jennith 

Flora and Fauna at nearly thirty

Ah, how quickly the years pass - especially if you spend them all (or almost all) as a student. So here we are 12 years after the flora and fauna video made by our grade 12 biology class.

For those of you who were not lucky enough to see the video. It was a class video - and Emma had a big role. Beyond that - it was the workings of a gr 12 enhanced (and under the stewardship of Mr. Doketis) biology class. Erin and I played a pair of telepathic eco-nuts - I think. Not to be confused with our grade 12 english presentation that included Jason Rowe with a green jello (aligator) pie and erin wearing a metal colonder on her head. Its funny I can't remember what we talked about. Ah well, I guess one's memory starts to go at some point. We are both still in school (although hopefully one of us (namely me) will escape soon.) Erin, I think, is in for a few more eons in the clutches of teachers, assignments and tests.

Thats all for now folks - I have a subdivision to design and report on, a shower to take, laundry to dry and we shall not even discuss the kitchen. Not to mention the other stuff that I should be doing, but can't find time for... ah well, sleep less - that is about all you can do.

Good night,

Jennith 

View from School

Evening everyone,

This is a quick pre-bed post before I go to sleep.


Eek, I'm zonked... and its cold in here even with the heat on...

Night

Jenn 

A Few Wintery Days

Well, it is still crazily warm for winter. . . Luckily for me, that weather has little bearing on my life while I"m in school, however you have to wonder how this winter is effecting wildlife, nature, and will effect farmers and others. Construction companies for examples have encountered weird problems like flooding in winter, while, I'm certain that this has been a distasterous year for forestry operators that depend on winter freezing to get into sensitive areas.

Myself, I miss snow and the chance to go skiing - as I may be moving back to the part of the country wheree winters like this are sort of par for the course - I was hoping that my last winter in New Brunswick would have plentiful snow. As it stands, it doesn't look like I'll be going downhill skiing this year.

We are supposed to get 40 mm of rain on the 5th of February (Happy Birthday Uncle Stevie) My memories of Febrary in Thunder Bay have a lot to do with -40 C, not 40 mm of rain. . . but maybe we'll get luck and get cold enough weather for snow.

I'm not up to writing my version of the rant on the "no right to freedom from responsibility" topic tonight, but I'll be nursing it.

I'm going to yawn and go to bed.

Talk to you all tommorrow

Jennith 

Us at our horkiest

Hey all,

A quick post on the way to sleep...

Another quiet night spent knitting and watching Due South. I'm working on a new set of mitts - this time using an actual pattern - I picked briar rose, midnight blue and fir green - so far, everything is stripes but hopefully I'll start working some trees in soon.

Heres a link to a cool sight we found in popular science.

http://www.domehome.com/index.html

Night,

Jennith 

View from the Gates of of Frogmore Estates

 

Fredericton Court House Taken from Gillan Hall Stairs

 

The Church Spire

 

Winter Dawn

Albert St. the day after the election - 8:30 am

Canada Today

I wish to add to my first post, expanding my response to the election.

The first thing I would like to do is to refer you to the coast of Araska, where my brother has done and outstanding job of responding to the election. (Please see the links in the margin) Having spent several hours this morning reading the news online, encountering the same voices comments posted on the Toronto Star web page, it was neat to see Geoff's responses to them (as I largely agreed). I would like to note that surprisingly the Globe and Mail readers responses to some of the stories about the election were far more pro-liberal, longer and more thoughtful.

Over the past few months my opinion of the media has taken a turn for the worse. During the Kashechewan evacution, I saw first hand, how the media skews the story and reports incorrect information. I was able to observe this, partly because I had more background knowledge than the average reader, and partly because I read every story I could get my hands on and noted glaring contridictions in technical facts published. I was also disappointed at the media's failure to tackle the story at any depth or include research. There has been a lot of evolution in the relationship between the federal government and the First Nation's People, and the media did not give much credit for the progress that has been made. The emphassis on pointing fingers and attacking the government in power, may have helped Kashechewan directly and put Native issues into the consciousness, but overall I think the shallowness of it hurt the First Nation's cause by focusing on their weaknesses rather than their strengths.

I was also unimpressed at the media coverage of the election in gereral. Perhaps I have unfair expectations for journalists, but I think they should put more effort into telling both sides of the story in a researched context. I know that there is a bottom line, but news should be more than sensationalist entertainment - it should be a reliable source of information.

In terms of the election coverage, I think that the media tended to shift the focus towards sensational aspects of the campaign. I would have liked to have seen more articles comparing the parties stances on different issues. I wonder if the media's tendancy to cover sensational stories, changes how politicians campaign?

At any rate, I seemed to have slid away from discussing the election. The truth is that the results are neither good or bad, just the sum total of Canada's voting. I think that it is a result that I reassures me about my fellow Canadians. We aren't becoming an uncaring, right wing country, nor a stagnant one. Even though the Conservative's won, they had to stick to the middle road to win a "shaky minority". No one won big, no one lost big . . . and the story should have a most interesting plot line.

My title to the previous post relates to the fact that I don't like how Harper played the game. I felt he was too busy trying to topple Martin to do his job as a politician. I think think this is sort of devine Karma that he will have to "put himself in Martin's shoes" and see what it feels like to be the leader of a minority. I think it will be a good growing experience for him.

Cheers,

Jennith

Stephen Harper may have won, but he's in for a taste of his own medicine

Well, the election results are interesting. I think that Stephen Harper is going to to find out that running a weak minority government makes it hard to keep your promises. While I doubt the folks in oposition will be quite as bent on toppling the government and sabatoging any efforts to go forward, I think he'll find he's on a short leash. The other 3 parties have more social views than Harper and should be able to keep him from dismantling our social programs wholesale.

I think that its going to be an interesting few months.

Jennith

He Got Me!!!

Election day is here . . . and I finally voted which means I did eventually make a choice which I don't plan to reveal here. Not that I did anything shocking, but its information I don't necessarily want public.

About the picture, taken in December at the McMichael Art Gallary, one of my favorite places, I'm not in quite as much pain as I appear to be. The photo credit should go to Gabriel Jacques, btw.

So, I'm preparing for an evening of watching the election coverage on live feed CBC.ca and having a beer. . . maybe digging into the hard liquor if the result call for that kind of amnesia.

I think our riding should go liberal. The incumbant was a fairly high ranking cabinet minister. I think the NDP guy had the most lawn signs up though. My parents home riding is predicted to go conservative, but it is a pretty tight race. I have no idea how the results will come out, predictions are great, but I still think there is a lot of play in the results. People don't have as clear an idea of the results, and I think that will make them vote differently and change at the last minute.

So, I guess the results are out of my hands, but I'm itching to see what they turn out to be in the end. I should, in the mean time, tackle some school.

Cheers,

Jennith

Friday Night's Alright

Greetings.

It is a miracle I'm still awake, given how little sleep I've had in the last day. I meant to include the Briggs and Little website in my last post, so here it is:

http://www.briggsandlittle.com/wool/default.htm

Tommorrow is market day. I get to go to the market and have a yummy smoothy and pick up our Briggs and Little wool order. I haven't been since before christmas. Its a nice atmosphere and you always run into people you know. Oh, and it smells good!!!

http://www.boycefarmersmarket.com/

I seem to be too tired to write much usualful, having exhausted my considerable political angst having a lovely chat with my brother. I am still undecided, but I can figure it out by Monday.

Back full tilt to school work tomorrow.

Cheers,

Jennith

Goodness me!!! Is that a casarole made of leftovers?

Allright - I suppose putting pictures of Shepard's pie as filler on my blog is a bit desparate... but it did taste pretty good considering that I did damaging things to the potatoes on 2 seperate occasions :D

CHeers

JEnn

A Woolen Rainbow

Here are Gabe's Briggs and Little Wool samples. Knitting knight was quiet. I finished my second "pair" of mittens, but may have to knit at least one more mitten before they actually make a pair as they are vastly differing in size and shape. Sigh . . .

Another thing I learned this week is that an elipse has spaces between the periods! Oh, and in other grammar news - i also learned about restrictive and non-restrictive clauses.

I have started reading delivered from distraction. I'm not sure I love the book. So far, it seems to be building a case that people with ADD are better than others. While I realize that his intent is to bolster the self esteem of people who suffer greatly and keep an optomistic tone, I find that I have trouble taking it as seriously as I might. I haven't gotten to the more technical bits though.

I have tonnes to do and a headache, so I'd best get to work... sorry i mean . . .

Cheers,

Jennith 

And the band plays on

Greetings,

I find that I haven't taken the time to post anything on either of my blog's lately, owing partly to my instense efforts not to get behind this term and partly due to the fact that as a result I haven't taken or painted any pictures.

Well, actually I did paint some pictures, but they really didn't turn out that good and I'm getting close to finishing my second pair of mittens, but otherwise I've been imersing myself in first year economics for engineers.

Economics, at the level that I'm studying, have a seductive logic. It is certaintly a different way of looking at government policies and there effects and side effects. It is interesting as this study also coincides with a rabid election campaign. This imersion has not swayed me to Harper's side or any side for that matter. I'm still rather undecided about who to vote for and what to do. I am planning on voting and I am spending time researching my options.

My boyfriend and I have a friendly disagreement on the subject of strategic voting. I suppose there are many strategies. The one that come to mind for me is voting for the party with the greatest chance to win against the party you can't stand. Having had the misfortune of being a teacher under Mike Harris's regieme, I had no choice but to vote against him because his policies made me crazy. Unlike many people, I don't have a specific party loyalty. Considering how similar the platforms of the 3 federal parties are (I would say they all fall withing the liberal range of things ) it really comes down to capabitily of the politicians in the party.

Another strategdy I've heard of is in BC where they vote for whoever did poorest in Ontario. Being from Ontario, I don't really see us as a national threat, as we've never threatened to seperate, but then I probably count as biased.

Back to individual competency and honesty of politicians, I think this is hard to gauge. It appears that all three parties have had their share of corruption and scandal (Even the NDP in BC, whose record outdoes the liberals at present.) I don't have a lot of background knowledge on how politicians are selected or the kind of contract they have with the people of Canada. Oddly, this was never discussed in my years of public school. What qualifications do you need to be a representitive or a cabinet minister? Not a lot of formal ones if you consider Mike Harris. How do you screen for people who might jeapordize the party's repuation? How are candidates educated about the ethics around political issues? I think one problem is that local representives have so little impact on the outcome. A few rare and hard working idividuals can sway the support of their riding in spite of the leaders platform, but by in large we vote for the leaders and the party platform and few of us know anything about our local representive. So perhaps the voter is as much at fault for the failure of the political process.

Many voters certaintaintly don't take the time or effort to research the Party leader or their policies, nevermind follow national debates, news or pay any mind to the abilities, qualitifications or merit of their local politicians. Even though their local representitives are the ones who will be bringing the issues of your community to Ottawa. A lot of people simply decide when they are young that they are affiliated with this party or that and thus there is no point in worrying about he details.

An election campaign is a job interview, we are hiring (as a collective hiring committee) the men and women who will be running our country and making policy decisions. They will be instrumental in developing our representation on an international stage. So, what should your voting strategy be? (Even voting for the party you believe in regardless of their chance of winning is a strategy, one that has important benefits for that party in terms of status even if they lose.) I want to hire a competent leader backed by a competent team. I want my local representive to be someone committed to bringing my communities issues to Ottawa in an effective way. I want to hire someone that I trust to share my values of country that looks after its people and its environment. How shall I cast my vote most effectively?

At any rate, there are 6 days until election day for me to figure it all out. I encourage everyone to vote thoughtfully.

Cheers,

Jennith

My First Mitts

Hello Everyone,

These are the first pair of mittens I ever knit myself. They have many loveable imperfections (including that they aren't quite the same size and the pattern on one is a bit offset) But they are warm and finished and I love the colours. I've also started a pair for my mom, not quite as fancy.. but pink - so there we go.

Jenn