An Evening Walk

A walk is something that is more difficult than sitting in front of the tv, however it can be more relaxing.  There is something nice about a walk on a crisp fall evening.  You get to experience the sunset and see the leaves falling from the trees.  You can see people finishing up their yard work for the year and getting ready for a long winter to set in.  Sometimes we miss out on the opportunities to take a walk, get outside and experience the world though something other than a computer or a tv.

Sportsnet One

Yay, finally Canucks, Flames and Oilers fans will be able to see their Team on Sportsnet One this year, (provided they live in the right market of course) as Shaw has picked up the channel.  Oh yeah and Blue Jays fans, if there are any left, will also be able to watch their team. It is hard to know whether any other companies will pick up the channel or how much Shaw will charge for the channel once the free preview is over on October 3rd, but for the moment anyways, balance has been restored to the world.  The Channel is on 225 in HD and channel 159 in SD on Shaw Cable in Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary with other cities arriving shortly.

Developers and poorly worded documentation

Today I found out that even reading the fine print doesn't always matter.  The developer for my area apparently has a thing against cedar trees and rather than list this type of tree in the list of unacceptable trees it assumes that every tree that looks like disallowed tree (a Juniper) will be recognized as not allowed.  I complained about this oversight and was provided with documentation from other areas saying that Junipers and Cedars are really just bushes.  I complained some more and was provided with a "well not much we can do" look. So now i have a week to find and plant a different type of tree and find a place to put my cedar, which can go in the yard but is not acceptable as my landscape tree.

Call in sick go to Jail

The above link is to a BBC story about a Police officer in the UK who repeatedly called in sick when his second job performing weddings conflicted with his police job. He has been sentenced to 9 months in jail for calling in sick when he was actually fine and working his second job. Let that be a lesson to you call in sick do hard time.

The Weather

Yeah that's right in great Canadian tradition I'm going to talk about the weather. It's often suggested that if the weather wasn't so bad or variable that Canadians would have nothing to talk about. People from other countries often can't understand our obsession with weather. In Japan stocks scroll across the bottom of peoples tv screens, in the US it's sports scores, here it's almost always weather. Here the weather has been very cold for the past month. but now it's going to change to +5 which will be really nice. however we can count on February to be a month of cold days. It's not really that we complain about the weather we just discuss it and talk about how we survived it like a group of old men at a bar sharing war stories. Statements like that's nothing you should have seen the pile of snow in my front yard are common and the oneupmanship can be crazy. However the long dark winter does make summer all that much better so that's at least one positive.