dog training and dog runs

I had dental surgery, which laid me pretty low for a week now. Not a lot of energy to do anything. Spent most of the time worrying needlessly, taking painkillers and reading dog training books.  I have learned that dog training is definitely a personal approach. It's amazing to see how animals are trained for film tricks.  Some of the trainers I researched use hand signals, sounds, voice cues, food .... there doesn't seem to be a lot of agreement, but the success rate makes me think there is no way to really get it wrong, as long as the dog is treated like a dog, not a person.

After training I started researching how to build a dog run - I often over estimate my ability to do handyman stuff, and I think reinforcing the fence will be one of the big mistakes I might get myself into. Internet shopping is risky - I always read customer reviews, but having posted a few myself I know that most satisfied customers wouldn't bother, so that makes the positive and negative reviews extremist - the bad ones definitely had bad experiences but ranting doesn't fix anything, and the positive ones were probably written by owners and family members to generate business. Hmm. Anyway, in the light of day I sincerely doubt I'll have the patience to string chain link fence, which means I have to look at pre-assembled panels - and the price range is really something! This dog  adventure is going to be an expensive one, no doubt about it.

Canadian Politics

I guess yesterday's post got eaten somehow....it was on concussions. I'll have to redo it sometime. Anyway, today I spent hours looking up Canadian politics - the parliament buildings, political scandals (yes, we have had a couple), roles of various parliamentarians etc. I ordered some kids - all this in aid of finding background material for Best Laid Plans, the novel I'm using this semester in Grade 11.

Zacharaeus, Caesar Milan and mushrooms

Still haven't been Idle, but I find the iPod and the school day requirmeents very distracting. I' m still working hard to learn something new everyday, but I haven't had the time to write it up. I've leaned how to get a dog to respond to Basic Commands, and the basic requirements to train a dog, I've been teaching kids a new bible story, one that I didn't know before, and I've been working on recipes that include cremini mushrooms, which are a kind I have't used before. I also went to a lesson today on the history of tea.

credit ratings

I haven't been idle, I've been looking into my financial literacy - beyond the "i don't have any" view that I had before. I learned how easy it was to get my credit report - I thought I was complicated, but no - and I was happy to see that mine is okay - considering my debt, and lack of savings. I was also looking into identify theft, which scares the pants off me. My goal this year is to stop shutting down whenever I hear math/money words. I need to make sure that I understand more of the stuff I've signed up for and will depend on in my old age.

Paro and Parkinson's

Well I learned about some very unhappy things today, but it had to be done

Why are there so many new "weather words"?

when I was a kid I swear there were far less words for weather than they are now. We didn't have meterologists, we had Dave Duvall, the weatherman, who had a glass screen and a piece of magic chalk. We had rain, snow, sun, partly cloudy (a catch all then and now) fog ...you get my point. I also never hear thunder in a snow storm when I was a kid. Now there are all sorts of weird weather words - Alberta Clipper, Colorado Low, tusnami, wind chill... fortunately I've found a great website where I can look up these words and determine if it's safe to go outside. I swear, they make a little rain and snow sound so dangerous now.
So, an Alberta clipper...now I know that snow storm with blowing snow....but when I was looking that up I found hundreds more scary weather words....

http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/general/glosswx.htm

What is a sadler teapot?

Well, I bought a teapot at a charity auction, and the fellow who donated it said "that's a real Sadler teapot". At the time I thought ...okay, whatever ...the money was for the United Way, and then I put it on a shelf and thought nothing more about it. Today though it caught my eye, and I thought I'd find out a little more about it.

Turns out I knew more about Sadler teapots than I thought, because I've been drinking out of brown betty teapots my whole life! I didn't realize that they were "special" - I just knew they made the best tea. The tea out of a brown betty is never bitter, and it stays hot much longer than other pots. My mother always said never to wash my brown betty, and I also wondered where that came from. A quick search on the internet revealed that some heretics apparently do wash and even bleach their tea pots -  heaven forbid.

http://www.tealaden.com/teaweb/choosing.htm

imagine my shock - when I tried to find an image of my litter tea pot, I found the estimated worth at one auction to be between $100 and $400!!! Not so on ebay though - on ebay it's currently going for $26.00 - still that's a lot more than I paid for it!

http://www.english-teapots.com/england/teapot_james_sadler.htm

Cocker spaniels

The last few days I've been learning about cocker spaniels because we are getting one!!

Paprika and guinea pigs

Now that I have the iPad I'm totally distracted. I did learn how to make my own cage though, with storage cubes. I think it's a great idea except for being too big to clean.

As for paprika, for some reason I' ve made three dishes this week that heavily feature paprika... Not sure why, except for the comfort food factor.ithought paprika would be spicier than it was...like scary curry spicy, but it was just pleasantly warm

more hedgehogs, more on ipad and fibonacci

We did more research on hedgehogs today - many cute videos on youtube - enough to tempt even me - but I'm keeping to my rule that pets must have fur. I do understand more of their living requirements and their care (exactly where does one pet a hedgehog anyway?), which is probably good since I will have to look after it from time to time.

I also learned how to sync my ipad without deleting my ipod - useful, considering Dunc already considers the ipad his - dream on ..

Lastly, Cam and I were talking about dinosaurs, Darwin, evolution and Fibonacci at dinner - quite the accomplishment for an 10 year old -I told him what I knew, but clearly it wasn't enough. Now I now what I need to learn this week anyway....

ooh, a busy night for learning - hedgehogs and ipads

oh, today I've been up to lots - I got my ipad!! yippee - so I'd learning how to download stuff - open university, games, books - oh, it's going to be fun.

I also was researching african pygmy hedgehogs. A friend will give me one for the boys - but do I really want to clean up after anotehr pet, and have another lonely pet waiting for me to sit down and cuddle?  hmmm, but they are soooo cute...I thought they just ate bugs, but they eat catfood (which is much more manageable). They are nocturnal - which is not good -- but they are supposed to smell less than rodents. They are supposed to litter trained....but they get fat and lonely if they don't get exercise, and they are supposed to need 4 feet of space to play in. The trouble with looking at hedgehog sites is that they are written by fans - they people who aren't going to tell you if they're mean, biting or bad tempered.  Hmm. more to think about there too.

spanish lessons

so today I'm trying to find Spanish lessons near home. I'm not sure if I will ever do the Camino, but I'll need to know Spanish if I do. I've never really been good at languages, but we'll see. The Rosetta stone spanish is about $200, and there are some apps too. I'll have to check with the spanish teacher at school as well.

drywall

so, today i had to learn how to patch a hole in drywall. Not a happy experience. I'm still bitter that I wasn't allowed to take any kind of shop courses in high school, especially now that I don't have the money to pay a handyman. and so it goes. Youtube: all those fellows who put DIY stuff up - bless you.

Hadley and Ernest

I just finished The Paris Wife, which I enjoyed, but I just wanted to smack Hadley towards the end where she just lets Pauline worm her way into Hadley's marriage with Ernest Hemingway. I realize things were different and divorce was less common, but I wanted to know how realistically events were played out. I also wondered about a toss off line towards the end when she mentions Hemingway had shock treatments. I knew a lot about Hemingway from school, and a long time ago I read a biography about him, but he's not a favourite of mine.  I think I started reading Hemingway with A Moveable Feast, which is the one book of this that I really liked. The macho quality of his stories really bothers me. The most memorable thing about Hemingway and Hadley that I knew before The Paris Wife is the story of her leaving his stories in a train station, because it was implied she did the world a disservice.

After skimming several internet sites it appears they all share the same sort of info - which makes me believe that his and her private papers must be in a reference library somewhere, and have been combed over by too many people.  There are too many blogs slavishly devoted to him too.  After I read for about 10 minutes,I really didn't want to read anymore about Hemingway, because what I read didn't make me feel better about how he treated her.


http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-07-01/news/ct-oped-0701-hemingway-20110701_1_hadley-richardson-ernest-hemingway-marriage

Have I seen all of the power ranger incarnations?

I was watching Power Rangers Samurai with the boys and we were trying to remember all the different Power Rangers series we've watched over the years. These are the ones we can remember: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Wild Force, Ninja Storm, Dino thunder, SPD, Time Force, Mystic force, and now Samurai.
We watched the Turbo movie, so I guess that counts. That means there were 7 seasons we missed...I think we started watching it at Wild Force.  What I remember most is how they would bring the toys out just before Christmas, but after I'd bought the presents. It used to irritate me beyond belief that they toys would be so seasonal. Now it's just par for the course with every show targeted at kids... oh, the money we're spent over the years - yikes!

http://www.powerrangers.com/

playing around with assistive technology

I think voice commands are going to become huge in the next few years. I get very excited about Dragon Naturally Speaking - the idea of my spoken words appearing as text - well, it's magical.  Trouble with teaching English is there is never any time to play with all the latest innovations because I'm always buried in marking - fat lot of good it does anyone too. Anyway, today I had a little more of a look at Exploratee, which is free onloine library of graphic organizers. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but I'll bookmark the site and see where i leads me.


The other website I looked at was storify. I think I just like the name more than anything else. Its supposed to" curate social networks to build social stories, bringing together media scattered across the Web into a coherent narrative". Well, that sounds like looking through a flaky bunch of sites to create an even flakier version of reality. No doubt I will never use this one - it may be worth more than I think on initial viewing, but honestly, not every thought is worth uttering, and that's my biggest complaint about social media.


http://www.exploratree.org.uk/
http://storify.com/

assistive technology

Another short post, but that can't be helped - today I spent the day learning more about assistive technology, and websites for educators, including one I want to look at tomorrow called exporatree.

I learned to use wordle

Not much time to write anything this evening - just a quick note to say I learned how to use wordle - or at least I started to figure things out. I can't figure out how to save an image yet, but I'll keep trying!

How does one make dreadlocks? And how does one get rid of them?

When I was about 6 or 7, I was in charge of combing my own hair, which at that time fell to about my waist. I'm not sure whether my mum was just busy, or if she really thought I was up to the challenge. Anyway, I only combed the top part - that is, what showed to the general public, and my secret would never have been revealed if a visiting family friend hadn't patted my hair to compliment me on how beautiful it was, and discovered the giant rat's nest mass of tangles that sat just at my neck. Oh well, it was probably an embarrassing parenting moment for my mum, which she solved by getting the scissors and cutting it all out, in one giant clump.   Fast forward forty years...one of my students made dreadlocks out of her perfectly straight shiny hair, and I wondered, how did she do it?

Making dreads is far more complex than I first believed - I knew you couldn't just let bedhead get the best of you if you wanted them to be even,  thick ropes, but the idea of twisting or backcombing hair for hours - ouch! A dread perm is expensive, and straight hair won't twist into dreads the way african hair will. All the methods of making dreads sound very painful and very laborious - latchhooking, twisting, backcombing..ugh.

As a side note, I was surprised to see how many internet sites exist to make money selling products to make dreads, although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because when I walk in the Shoppers Drug mart, there are full aisles devoted to hair care products. It must be a lucrative industry.

http://www.dreadlocks.com/
http://fromgrandmaskitchen.com/

More walking tours

Here's the walking tour at the top of my dream list: Walking Ireland. I've been trying to get to Ireland for years - I was there once - sitting in the Shannon airport in the middle of the night - but that hardly counts. Then, years later, I almost had a flight booked  before I found out I was too pregnant to be allowed on a flight at the time I was able to go. Then I ran out of money, of course, and have been living on pennies since. Anyway, since this is a optimistic flight of fantasy, so if I had the money, walking Ireland is what I'd love to do. I'd love to see Dingle, now that I know it exists, and the Giant's Causeway, and the book of Kells...so, back to buying lottery tickets.

http://walkingadventures.com/2012/Ireland/brochure2.php

If I'm feeling ambitious, what walking tours should I try?

I'm a lazy person, but going on a major walking tour is on my "bucket list". Today I had a few minutes to spare, so I thought I'd start doing a little research to see if I could actually afford/complete a walking tour. My friend Steve did a walking tour in Spain, so when I googled that I came up with the one I think he did, which is called the Camino de Santiago.  One expert says you can do this walk at any fitness level or age - although I think that's pretty optimistic. Still, I have to start somewhere. This particular walk covers northern Spain,from St Jean Pied de Port to finish in Santiago de Compostela about 780 km later, ending at the cathedral that is the burial place for St James. The pictures and sites I visited to get more information are very appealing - the pilgrimage sounds idyllic - not one mention (so far, on this first superficial look) of blisters or pulled muscles...just mile after mile of beauty.
.    
http://www.caminodesantiago.me.uk/

When were women declared persons?

in the summer we visited Ottawa, and saw a lovely sculpture of some famous women. I knew some of the details, and some of the names, but I thought I'd learn the whole story today.

It's hard to imagine now, but up until 1929 women weren't considered "persons" in Canada - that feels like such a short time ago!  It's even harder to imagine that the first time the matter was brought before the court (in 1927) the case was denied, and only pushed forward because of some very  strong women: Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Louse McKinney and Henrietta Muir Edwards.

It's staggering to think that women couldn't vote across most of Canada until 1919, and 1940 if they lived in Quebec. Widows and unmarried women could vote in municipal elections in Ontario in 1884 - which meant it was better to have no husband, politically. I just shake my head, and wonder what would have happened without "the famous five".

What is a farthingale?

I was thinking about strange women's fashion today - not that I follow fashion, but I do think men should have to wear the women's fashions they create - my current pet peeve being 5 inch stilettos,  that make every women who wears them walk like a constipated fool - but I digress....

And so, the farthingale.  I couldn't remember which end of the woman the farthingale was to cover up - at first I thought it was the ruff around the neck seen in Elizabethan fashion - but no, it's part of the large hoop skirt favoured by women at the time. Clearly I was born in the wrong era - now the fashion is for "stick insects" (a term I first learned from Bridget Jones Diary) and I am not a stick insect. If only I'd lived in Elizabethan times--not only would I get to wear a farthingale to disguise my thunder thighs, I'd get to wrap a bumroll around my waist to make me look larger. sigh...those were the days...

http://www.elizabethancostume.net/farthingale/history.html

How easy is it to find a four leaf clover?

I guess I was thinking about lucky charms today (because, like everyone I know, I would like to win the lottery). It turns out I can buy a shamrock off the internet - although I'm not sure they'd really be lucky that way. The website that sells them states that Eve carried one out of the garden of Eden - I'll have to ask Reverend Jim about that on Sunday....sounds pretty fishy!

Of the plants in the photo at left, only the first one is a four leaf clover, and the rest are other plants that look similar, but aren't "real" 4-leafed clovers. Fortunately, the real shamrock comes from white clover, and my lawn is usually full of that in the summer, so I'll have to spend a few hours combing through my weeds when it gets warm enough. How long will that take? Apparently not that long - it's a mutation that occurs about 1 in every 10,000 clovers. I'm putting it on my summer to-do list right now.

http://www.fourleafclover.com/vshop/facts_about_4-leaf_clovers.html

Does a pomegrante grow on a tree or a bush?

My friend Carolyn told me I had to eat pomegranates because they're good for me, so I bought one for the first time in many years. I find them really irritating to eat because of the peel and the seeds,and the red stains they leave on clothes, but, hey, they are cheap. When I saw the giant full bin at the grocery store I imagined how heavy they'd be on the stem, and wondered what they grow on - a tree or a bush? Apparently, it's a short tree, or a shrub.  I imagine they are quite heavy when ripe though, especially if grown to today's standard with many assistive chemicals and pesticides. It turns out what they grow on isn't as interesting as how long they've been growing though...the name comes from medieval latin and means "seeded apple", but the fruit was been popular much earlier. One was found in the tomb of an Egyptian queen, from about 300BC, and the fruit also makes appearances in the Bible. One can't say the same for a kiwi or an orange.

I was nostalgic to learn that pomegranates form the basis for grenadine syrup, and was fondly reminded of many Tequila sunrises consumed in younger days, which is far from how pomegranates are promoted now, as healthful bundles of antioxidants and fibre. The FDA has not concluded that they are healthful, however, despite what POM wonderful claims.

I am much more enamored of this fruit for its mythical heritage, though. What a wonderful story - Demeter, goddess of the harvest had a daughter named Persephone, who, having been captured by Hades was tricked into eating pomegranate seeds, and thus was forever doomed to return to the underworld, leaving us plain old mortals with barren seasons where nothing would grow, which is pretty much what's happening outside my window right now.

Why do some people/namilas have one brown eye and one green eye?

I know, it's genetics - hey I wasn't sleeping through those grade 9 lectures on Mendel's peas. I know it happens often with huskies, I even knew that David Bowie has one blue eye and one brown eye - but I didn't know that Christopher Walken and Keifer Sutherland also have differently coloured eyes - but it kind of explains how they can look so weird in some roles. I also didn't know that Jane Seymour, Mila Kunis and Kate Bosworth also have heterchromia either - because that's what it's called when you have differently coloured eyes. It can be caused by genetics or injury.

Eye colour is made by cells called a melanocytes. If something happens to affect the melanocytes or the amount of melanocytes then eyes can be different colours. This can happen when the baby is in the womb. Eyes can also be different if people have different OCA2 genes for each eye because apparently OCA2 is the eye colour gene. There are also two other possible causes called mosaicism and Waardenberg syndrome but the coolest reason mismatched eyes can happen is called chimerism. That's when two fertilized eggs fuse to form one person - I saw something about that once on TV about a women who didn't have the same DNA as her children, even though she'd given birth to them.

Eyes can also look different because of injury - that's what happened to David Bowie - one of his pupils is permanently enlarged because of a bar fight he was in when he was young.

The more I learn about genetics, the more questions I have, but those questions will have to be explored another day.



http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=226

Why are so many old farmhouses in Ontario so similar in style?

I know nothing about architecture, but I have noticed that all the little farmhouses when I drive out into the countryside of southern Ontario look remarkable similar. I got curious today if there was a name for that particular style, and if so, what was it called and how did it become popular. Fortunately, I found a great website for a visual person like myself  that had pictures of every kind of architecture style, with the names underneath. Yeah! Unfortunately the site has many scary warnings about copying it, parts or it, or even referring to it, so I can't include its address here in case internet gestapo come after me and demand a pound of flesh.

So, anyway, today I learned about "Gothic Revival", but I will be sure to go back to this site to learn more about the other styles of building there are in Ontario. Anyone interested in finding the website can google that, and it will pop up, but (nudge nudge, wink wink) you didn't hear about it here.

The houses are called gothic revival cottages, and probably became so popular because the plans for building them were published in something called the Canadian Farmer periodical.in the 1860s.

what is a tablet and what can you do with it?

Okay, time to confess: I really have no idea how any computers work at all, therefore the idea of choosing a tablet is totally mystifying. Also, exploring any kind of technology review make my eyes glaze over, but I'm motivated today so I thought I'd do a little research, in case a miracle happens and I win the lottery (or a tablet).

I tried a kobo, and found it was like trying to read off a piece of sludgy newspaper. Of course an ipad would be wonderful, but it costs more that a mortgage payment, therefore I can't justify that expense to my penny-pinching self. I've heard "android" sytems but it makes me think of Data (Star Trek NG) when I hear of it, and that's a terribly positive fun image. The Blackberry playbook makes me feel patriotic, but I don't know if it's any good. My dad loves his Kindle, but he lives too far away to share it. Samsung has  a "honeycomb" tablet, which I thought had something to do with the picture resolution, but apparently it just refers to the new operating system (as if I know what that meant to begin with). Screen size between tablets is a huge difference...and to me it's like when geeks talk about TV screen sizes...I start to snore, but when I saw a picture of the difference in screen sizes my visual learner self instantly understood the importance.So, when i get the money or the air miles, now I know what I'm going to buy, thanks to this wonderful review site.

http://reviews.cnet.com/tablet-buying-guide/?tag=auxPromo

Why do ostriches bury their heads in the sand?

Cam asked me this today, and I didn't know, so I thought I'd better learn something about ostriches. Turns out they don't bury their heads at all. To camouflage themselves an ostrich will stretch its neck along the ground to hide and from a distance it looks like its head is buried.  I tried to find a picture online to confirm this, but sadly could only find billions of cartoony versions of ostriches burying their heads, and many of stupid humans doing the same.

I knew that ostriches could run really fast, but I also learned that ostriches kick to fight  - that would be scary.

Ostriches travel in herds, with one dominant male and female. All the females that the male mates with will lay their eggs in the same nest - the nests can hold up to 60 eggs! Imagine them all hatching at once!

Canada has an ostrich association - where for the first time I saw what ostrich steaks look like - ugh, not for me. http://www.ostrich.ca/

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature/ostrich/

How long does a song's copyright last?

I was in Wendy's today, listening to fake pop songs over their internal sound systems. Those songs sound like the originals, but they aren't, and it got me wondering: how long does a song's copyright last?

I knew that "happy birthday" was copyrighted, as odd as that sounds, but I didn't know the history behind it. The song was written by a kindergarten teacher in 1893 (who knew they even had kindergarten then). The original words were "good morning" rather than "happy birthday", but the song wasn't protected by copyright until 1935, when one one of the sisters involved filed a lawsuit to prevent its unlawful use by other musicians, and in other forms of entertainment. In the US copyright law now protects a song for 75 years after publication, so it will still be some time until Happy Birthday is in the public domain, if it ever will be. (I wonder how much you have to pay to use it in a movie/tv show now?). In Canada, copyright last for 50 years after the death of the creator of the piece.


http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/legislation/canadian_law/federal/copyright_act/cdn_copyright_ov.cfm

Where is Stromness, and what was in like in the 1800s?

Why do I want to know anything about Stromness? The truth is, I've tried to do some genealogy in the past, but I really don't have the time and patience to do it myself.  My starting point is a paper copy of the family tree I got from my uncle Don in the 1990s - he still lives in Liverpool, where my mum and dad come from. Anyway, Stromness is the birthplace of the most distant ancestor I can trace back: John George Manson Brown, born in Stromness in1857.

Stromness looks very picturesque - all stone buildings and narrow winding streets. It was neat to learn the Canadian connection too - the Hudson's Bay Company began recruiting workers in Stromness  in 1702. Whaling, fishing and boat building were . At the time my ancestor was born, only about 3000 people lived in Stromness. I wonder what it was that made my ancestor leave?

http://www.visitorkney.com/stromness/index.asp
http://www.orkneyjar.com/orkney/stromness/stromnesshistory.htm

Where do chickadees sleep in the winter?

Today I was watching the little black capped chickadees at my bird feeder, and I couldn't help but wonder how they can survive this cold and nasty weather. I know they have to eat a lot of sunflower seeds, and I knew that they had the capacity to store food, like squirrels do, and remember where they left it.  What I learned today is that chickadees also have the capacity to lower their body temperature when it's cold so that they use less energy. At night they puff up their feathers to stay warm, turn down their body temperature and crawl into little crevices and holes in tree bark until morning. Who knew?

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/12593411.html
http://www.adn.com/2010/12/27/1621803/where-do-chickadees-catch-zs.html

Learn Something New Everyday - January 1 2012

For my New Year's resolution I've decided I need to learn something new everyday. Fortunately, the internet will make this easy!

Why? Well,  I can't afford to go back to school for anything, so why not see what I can get for free? I have no idea where this will take me, but I have nothing to lose.