Bear's Journal

2:14AM - New Glasses

I picked up my two new pairs of glasses. I ordered them        on the intertubes from Zenni Optical.

One pair with metal half rim frames:

From new glasses

And one pair with plastic half rim frames:

From new glasses

11:27AM - Travel Document

I went to the Canadian Consulate in L.A. on Friday. My sister drove to work and it is only two blocks away. I gave them some papers, CAD 50.00, passport, and my Quebec driver's license. They told me where I could get an acceptable photo and told me to come back at 14h30. So, I got the photo taken at the Post Office and brought it back to the consulate. I got the visa in my passport right away. Phew, I won't get stuck here. I can get home. That had been a concern.

I wandered around a bit. Los Angeles is prettier than I remember. There are some really lovely old buildings. I guess it doesn't hurt that people appreciate them now. I took a bunch of pictures with the camera on my phone, so they won't be all that good.

Today I will wander the historic downtown of Fullerton.

12:01AM - Memorial

We had the memorial for my mother yesterday. It went really well. It was mostly friends of my sister who showed up. The only people who were close to my mother, who showed up, were two of her care givers. There were only about 25 people. The owner of the mortuary said something that made me feel better. When you get to 95 you have outlived most of your friends. That's better than dying young and having a big funeral. I have to agree. Unfortunately her brother, who lives in L.A. couldn't make it. He is 100 and not very mobile.

The funeral home made a truly lovely "in remembrance" DVD. My sister and I both gave eulogies and both blubbered a bit. The service was given by a Unitarian-Universalist minister. He gave such a lovely talk that both an atheist and a born-again Christian went out of their way to compliment him. I was impressed too. I think my favourite line was the one about being relieved. We are not relieved because my mother died, but because she stopped dying.

12:19AM - breakfast sausages

I am very pleased with the batch of breakfast sausages I made today. I modified the recipe from the previous batch a bit and used pork instead of beef. I will be tweaking the recipe, but it's better than store bought.

11:52PM

The QC government has its knickers in a twist because the supplier of H1N1 vaccine is vaccinating workers' families. Hunh? We only have one vaccine supplier. They are already behind schedule and they want to risk that the workers get sick or have to stay home to take care of family? On both counts, what were they thinking?

3:10AM - Quote of the day

"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity."
--The Red Green Show

5:31AM

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

2:37PM - Happy Halloween

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

1:18PM - attention geeks

A friend posted this on Facebook: Nerdy cover of the The Beatles "Let it Be": "Write in C"

11:31AM - Quote of the day

Do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is: it is so inestimable a jewel that, if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour's slumber, it cannot be bought: of so beautiful a shape is it, that though a man lie with an Empress, his heart cannot be quiet till he leaves her embracement to be at rest with the other: yea, so greatly indebted are we to this kinsman of death, that we owe the better tributary, half of our life to him: and there is good cause why we should do so: for sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.
--Thomas Dekker (c. 1572 – 25 August 1632)

1:35AM - breakfast sausages

I just tried an experiment. I made beef breakfast sausage patties. Yum, the seasoning is really good. I'll do some tweaking, but these will definitely do for now.

2:30AM - buying glasses online

I need new glasses. Has anyone bought bifocals or progressive glasses online? Please post your experience here.

6:13PM - Three simple tests for stroke

I got an email from my mummy-in-law today about the symptoms of stroke. You know, one of those "send this to everyone" kind. I checked it out at Snopes, and they say it's accurate. Here's the link to the Snopes article

6:07PM - Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday unrooly

5:12PM - October snow

Okay, so mousme beat me to it, but it's snowing!

Not a great photo, but if you look carefully, you can see the snowflakes falling.

From Weather pix

( more pix )

2:41PM

1 in 4 Quebecers would go to work with H1N1 flu: poll

There's a recession. There are families living on one pay cheque that had two pay cheques a year ago. Though I don't agree with going to work with the flu, I can understand why some people would feel the need. It's time for the government to step up to the plate and compensate people for lost wages for staying home when they have the flu. Partial compensation, like Employment Insurance would be appropriate.

It's everybody's health that's at risk.

1:22PM

3:16AM - More learning to make Danish food

I have been working on making rullepølse. It's a Danish cold cut. I like the idea of making my own cold cuts, because the ones from the store have scary, long lists of weird chemicals. And, they are rather expensive compared with other meat.

This is my second attempt and though the first one was okay, this is a little better. It may take a while before I get it right. There are loads of recipes on the intertubes and I'm working my way through the ones that look appealing.

From food

3:07AM - Planned power outage

This morning I woke up to no power. Hydro had phoned last week and told us that the power would be out from 07h30 to 15h30. I forgot until yesterday when I got a reminder email, but I was too tired to do anything about it.

So, I went downstairs and rummaged and eventually found the "Thunder Range"

From Miscellaneous

I hunted up the stove top espresso maker and filled it with water and ground coffee. Oops, it's too small to sit properly on the burner.

From Miscellaneous

So, I filled the non-electric kettle and was getting out the Melitta cone, when the power came on. It was only 12h15 or so. I count that as a win, in spite of taking 1/2 an hour to make my first coffee of the day.

9:05AM - Thanksgiving Supper

Happy Thanksgiving!

sfries invited us to Thanksgiving supper, which she held last night. It was great. There were a bunch of nice people and the food was really good. Best turkey I have ever had. (I'm not a big fan of turkey). It was tasty and not dry.

One guest brought homemade "very, berry pie", which was fabulous. Another brought pumpkin cheesecake. I'm sure that was really yummy too. I had one bite and I could taste some really yummy cheesecake under the nasty pumpkin. No, there was nothing wrong with the pumpkin, but I really don't like pumpkin - not a surprise, since it is squash.

Anyways, it was a very enjoyable evening with good food and good people. I stayed later than I had planned.