Renovations

Michael's Blog

I decided on Saturday to do some renovations on this blog. It had been bothering me off and on for a while on how dark my original choices of colour scheme was on the original blog.

I had chosen the original blog layout based on the blues in order to match my original website's colour scheme (which was newish at the time for the website).

But the dark navy blue background bothered me. I had attempted to try and offset the dark blue by using white in the main posting section. But the dark background still bothered me. I played around with the existing setup by changing the various components colours. But nothing seemed to work.

So I merely chose a different template from Blogger.com's myriad of choices. Why choose from Blogger's choices and not create my own? Simply, when it comes to technological coding from scratch, I am useless! But I am pretty smart at decoding existing html language and molding it into what I need (which if you view the source on this blog might give a computer programmer a heart attack). So voila here it is. The New Michael's blog!

The new blog maintains the blues from the original website (which I am currently also renovating as well) and makes the blog more readible by removing the dank dark background and enlarging the text somewhat from before.

Don't worry, the original website will continue to exist and expand under the "michaelsuddard.com banner" using the existing framed pages. But some of the older material will be updated as well reformatted to use the current newer colour scheme and layout.

Once that is complete I intend to start adding more expansion to include my teaching lesson plans, more pictures from both New York City, Toronto, Aurora and other places.

So stay tuned! There is more to come!

The Art of the Rant: Disservice to the Troops?

The Art of the Rant: Disservice to the Troops?

I had been thinking about the issue of closing CFB Trenton to the media and the general public for the returning of the four Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan to Canada for much of last week. Should the air force base, CFB Trenton, only be open to the families and friends of the fallen soldiers and closed to the media and the general public?

My mind raced back and forth to come up with a solution based on the right of the public's need to know and the right of the families to mourn in private. Here is what I came up with.

A "Down to earth" question

TheStar.com - Down to earth

Have you ever wondered why some technologies don't seem to receive the same government support as others? Take a look this article and start wondering.

Why can't the provincial and federal government understand the need of reducing power consumption more than one way? Currently the governments want us to use lower wattage light bulbs, more energy efficient appliances, have environmental home audits and so on and so forth all in the bid to reduce energy. All of these methods only reduce what we currently use through either natural gas or electricity.

Why doesn't the government start investing in ideas like thermal heating exchange units similar to thos mentioned in Tyler Hamilton's article referenced above. That article points to a technology that could reduce electricity and natural gas consumption quite considerably both in the immediate and long terms. So why won't governments do it in the name of trying to achieve the targets set out by the Kyoto accord and reduce greenhouse gases?


In Canada quite a few of the local municipalities are in the electricity business. So having all of these homes and businesses switch over from being electricity consumers to possibly even being energy producers. How could they be energy producers? One is obviously by reducing the amount of electricity being used quite considerably by installing the thermal idea referenced in the article. The second might be to either install an electrical generator to use the heat in the summer being forced underground in order to produce electricty. Or the second might include the installation of solar panels and/or a wind turbine to create the necessary energy that the home or business might require. However, if an over abundance of electricity is generated because of the seventy percent energy reduction as well as the energy production, the home/business could sell the excess back to "the grid." In other words the hydro (electrical) companies could end up paying to the home or business owner for electricity produced instead of billing the homeowner/businessowner for energy used. If enough buildings convert, then some municipalities wholly owned hydro companies may start to have to pay out more than is coming in. But that is more likely to be long in the future.

Could it be that the local hydro companies want us to reduce our power consumption because they cannot build generation fast enough? Probably. Do these same companies want us to reduce our electricity consumption by as much as seventy percent? Not likely. Why not? Because that just might put them in a financial hardship if the money starts to slow while the electrical company gets stuck with the bills for maintaining the infrastructure required to maintain "the grid."

But then again bureauracy, as we all know, takes sometimes to recognize the most obvious things. I just hope that the bureaucracy of the government notices this twenty-five year old technology pretty shortly and comes up with a way to fund the installation of it before the ice caps of the Artic become an endangered species.

School Scope & Wasted Legal fees: New York City Department of Education Edition

School Scope

One of my favourite columns I love to read is in the local paper out in the Rockaway's of New York City. Turns out the City of New York's Education system hasn't changed since I have left.......

Furthermore, I have learned that more than 50% of the Canadians that were international teacher's to New York City to start in September of 2004 didn't renew their work visas. Source? Just let me tell you the "legal beagles" in New York are astounded at this one.

There are litterally thousands of dollars worth of wasted work visas being sucked up by the New York City Department of Education's international teaching program instead of this money being properly directed to the classroom. More than half the international teachers recruited by the New York City Department of Education teaching program leave within their first year of teaching. So the unit ends up going back out jetsetting around the world in search of more international teachers to fill the needs. The people who work in this unit sell the life of New York City. Why only the life of New York City? Because nobody in their right mind would work in the chaos that is New York City Department of Education.

I should have known, if New York City can't attract enough domestic teachers to teach in the city, why would they go to foreign trained teachers? Because foreign trained teachers are more willing to take the abuse in order to obtain their American green cards.

Apparently I was smart to return to Canada. Where people don't stab you in the back like the New York City Department of Education does. Want proof? See the complete story here.

Is it Swedish?

Is it Swedish? That is my question of the Ikea products I bought today. More on this in a bit.

I was off to Ikea today to pick up some curtains for my apartment's living room windows. I happened to notice in the Toronto Star on Thursday that Ikea had a whole whack of things on sale for the living room. Feeling my living room was a little sparse and a Saturday morning free I headed to Ikea in Vaughan.

Being the environmental concious guy I am, I hopped on VIVA in Aurora and headed south to Richmond Hill Centre where I changed from riding VIVA Blue route to the VIVA Purple Route. I had to wait 15 minutes to make the transfer ("this is supposed to be convient?" I thought to myself). Then I changed from VIVA Purple over to VIVA orange (another 15 minute wait...same question as before...). At last I got to Ikea Vaughan to do some shopping.

I immediatly skipped the Ikea furniture showroom and headed to the marketplace. I was looking for some pillows and blanket for my futon. I also picked up the white curtains that were onsale. I didn't have any problems until I relized:

1. Pillows need pillow covers. Who knew pillows needed covers to go over them. Wouldn't pillows come with existing covers when you buy them? Wouldn't new pillow covers be for older pillows that simply need a recovering because the pillow doesn't look so hot? Apparently not. Even new pillows need covers.

2. Who designed the layout of Ikea? You cannot go from the restaurant (second floor) down to the exit after purchasing your items without going through the entire store again. I wanted to get my shopping done first and then eat. That is not a good idea....or so I learned.

An interesting thing I came across while I was opening the packaging of Ikea and noticed most of Ikea's products are made in the People's Republic of China (which makes the Ikea store opening in Taiwan even more interesting...just think of the shipping!). Also, if all the products are being made in China, doesn't that make this a Chinese company or is Ikea a Swedish company because all of their designs come from Sweden? I'm so confused! Which is it?

Requim

We come...to worship the Christ, Living Water, Sacred Truth, Loving Friend. We come to hear again the story of sacrificial love, we come to remember, and we come to be transformed. - From the Bullitan of Requim performance at Aurora United Church.

A very nice night out at my church to see the musical stylings of the Aurora United Church senior choir accompanied by an extroadinary group of musicians. This combination provided a moving musical tribute to the death of Jesus that Christians mark on Good Friday.

Mark Ruhnke, the Director of Music at Aurora United Church, continues to outdo himself time and time again. Tonight brought my memories flooding back to last summer in New York City. Last year I was able to attend several classical music concerts that I felt were very well done. The New York concerts, as one would expect, were done by professionals who work on this music from day in and day out.

Mr. Ruhnke, however, does not have the luxury of having paid professionals to draw upon to perform. He does have quite a talented senior choir and musical background he can draw upon in order provide an outstanding performance. The performance tonight transformed the historical sanctuary of Aurora United Church into an occoustical masterpiece complete with accompanientment of pipe organ, oboe, flute, timpani, cello & harp.

The wonderous music was in both English and Latin. At times the choir seamlessly changed between the two languages within one song without anything seeming to be amiss.

Following the musical offering of Mr. Ruhnke and his accompaniests the story of Jesus dieing on the cross was presented by the ministry team of John Smith and Ruth Noble using selected verses from the book of John.

A very moving presentation on Good Friday was had by all. There will be, no doubt, more musical masterpieces in the future. Keep watching the church's website for future musical events.

One final note, congratulations to Mark Ruhnke and everyone else for an exquisite presentation of John Rutter's Requim. Also, thanks to the music departments of Aurora High School & Newmarket High School for the use of timpani, glockenspiel & music stands. Aurora is a true community when everyone comes together to put on such a great performance.

We go eagerly and with purpose, For God is with us this night as God was with Jesus on that Friday so long ago.

Photo of New York City Ground Zero courtesy of Mark Ruhnke.

Spring Damp days suck

Anyone ever notice the words "cool", "damp" and "the spring season" never seem to go well together?

Today is one of those days in Aurora. A rainy, overcast cool spring day is now underway. I went for a walk this morning to the local Tim Horton's. It was a warm eight degrees celcius as I sat down for my coffee and blueberry muffin (both the coffee and muffin were freshly made in case you were wondering).

On the way home I felt a shiver down my spine. Following the shiver I noticed that the dampness and cool air made me feel even worse than some of the coldest days in a Canadian winter.

Why is that?

Why do people feel colder when there is high humidity in the air during the spring?

For that matter, why do people feel even more warmer during the summer when there is a high humidity or a humidex?

I find th world of weather to be quite intriuging. Weather can make us feel different emotions or assist in stiring up those emotions.

Take a look how I felt this morning on this cool and dreary spring day. I felt a little down. However, on a warmer and sunshiny day I usually feel excited and happy.

I even notice it outside from my new perch (aka apartment) in Aurora. When I look out the window this morning I don't see that many people out enjoying the overcast and damp day. However, I peeared out yesterday and saw quite a few people walking by with their dogs or with their significant others. I love people watching from my new apartment to see what people are up to. Thats why I love summer weather, the ability to sit outside and watch the people go by. I can't wait to get rid of the damp and dreary spring days. THEY SUCK!