Scribble’s blog

Jeez - I wish there was a way to move without actually moving - you know?

Wouldn't it be great to just say - Ok - I want to be there. And the next thing - you and all your stuff were just - there. 

Our company is moving downtown and that will be great. I just don't want the boxes and the mess and the can't-find-stuff and the cant-find-people and new telephones and no email and all that. sigh. 

Ok - I am going to focus on the positive - I can walk to work or bike - a 10 minute ride - max  - along a really pretty route - water and park nearlly all the way. I get to go past my favorite coffee shop the Spiral Cafe and grab a mocha.

 Hey- has anyone invented a coffee holder for a bike yet?  If they have - will someone please tell me where I can get one?

I get to stay in bed longer - every single day. Yum. I get to try out all the yummee places for lunches. And guess what's right next door - a movie house with popcorn. Oh - woe is me. Good thing I will be riding or the expansion program my hips are running might take over completely.

I have been feeling pretty much like digging a hole and climbing into it lately. But then my friend Diana sent me this link. It blew me away.
It is so worth watching. I only hope that all the people in that audience took it to heart. For anyone who needs any persuasion about environmental issues, this is a must-see.

I am very proud that this little girl is Canadian. It embodies so much of what is wonderful about Canada. But as she says - we are no longer a world that can worry about borders. We are one earth, one people, and we need to act that way. Click here to watch the video.

Some thoughtful person, planted orange tulips outside the front door of the office - to match the company logo. Isn't that cool? 

Flowers

Actually the gardens all around us are looking really lovely.

Driveway flowers

If you could pick a cartoon world to live in, which would it be?  Why?
Submitted by Scio, Scio.

Tintin or Asterix. In one I would have adventures and in the other I would would be super strong when I drank the magic potion. 

I am in love with my new bike.

It is such fun to whizz around town with NO guilt attached and much faster than I could in my car. I volunteered to hand out race packages on Thursday for the Times Colonist 10K race and rode my bike across town to Frontrunners. It took me 7 minutes - a journey that would be 10 -15 in a car if I hit the lights wrong. It rained later and so I rode home in pouring rain. And the disc brakes work like a charm. I did not feel unsafe at all. BUT I did look like I had rolled in mud by the time I got home. The rack did NOT do the job of a fender as I had hoped! LOL Everything had to go into the wash including my backpack and me. I obviously need a lot more gear before I can sell the car.

On Sunday, my friend Char and I took a free course on biking at the community centre. Phew. Good thing - because man was I ignorant of my rights and the rules of the road for bikers! I have been breaking a LOT of rules and also riding unsafely because of not knowing how to deal with intersections etc. Like staying in the middle of the lane so you can be seen rather than pulling in to the right. I would recommend reading up on the latest safety rules for biking if you haven't recently cos a LOT has changed. Or if you live in Victoria, take the course. It is being offered by the Bike to work people (see more here) and there are several more coming up. The normally $100.00 course is free for the next few months.

They also gave us this cool map (I love maps) on biking around Victoria. It includes all the hills and bike trails and streets with bike routes. They are apparently available at bike stores and are really great. Our instructor had a sticker on her bike that said "One less car". Hopefully I can get one of those soon. 

It is not often that something on the TV gets me to the point of sobbing out loud. I made such a noise that I frightened Molly - our dog - who whined and scratched at my leg to see what was wrong and all the cats took off in all directions. No - it was not a chick-flick tear-jerker, but the truly horrific footage of how Japanese fisherman round up and slaughter thousands of dolphins - to send the "pretty" ones to zoos and aquariums and chop up the rest for food.

They beat the sides of thousands of boats and herd them into narrow bays. The picture that undid me was whole pods of terribly wounded dolphins, screaming in pain and confusion, tossed about as if they were just pieces of meat. They were calling out to each other - out of the water - all of them listening to their families dying in terror around them.

This was the culmination of a show that provided shock after shock after shock in what we have done to the oceans in the last 25 years. When the United Nations report came out a few months ago saying that the ocean's ecosystems will have completely collapsed in 40 years, I was surprised. Now I know why.

The show was on PBS - and is part of the series called Journey to Planet Earth. This episode was The State of the Ocean's Animals. Narrated by Matt Damon. If you go here: you can see footage and read a full transcript.
I am inserted the full URL - just in case. http://www.pbs.org/journeytoplanetearth/sop_oceans/index.html

What can we do to stop this? I know that writing letters to governments eventually works. But WE DON'T HAVE TIME!!
What if - just what if - a billion people around the world stopped eating or buying any fish or marine produtcts? What if we stopped tomorrow?

I stopped eating or using any marine products in response to the fact that the Canadian Government is ignoring the fact that 80% of Canadians do not want the commercial slaughtering of the seals to continue. Many are calling for a boycott of all Canadian marine products until the killing of thousands of helpless baby seals ends (more info here) but now I think it should be MUCH bigger than that.

Governments are simply too slow. We have to stop the clear-cutting of the oceans by commercial fishing. They are doing this because it makes money. If we stop them making money, we stop them. We do have a voice. We can vote - with our feet.

Walk away - walk away from any commercial product from the sea.

But don't just stop buying stuff - tell the stores that you are no longer buying those products and why. Tell your friends. Write it on your blogs, TALK to any person who will listen.

We can do this and faster and more effectively than any government.

There is no place in the world like Victoria in the spring. My friend Charlotte and I went for a long ride on Sunday - had to try my new bike! It was a gorgeous sunny day - 13 degrees and perfectly calm. Riding through quiet roads lined with blossoming cherry trees and neat gardens full of tulips and daffodils and hyacinths and buzzy bees. Life just fills you up sometimes.

Then of course, we had to drop in at the MEC - Mountain Equipment Co-op - my favourite shop - to check out the bike gear. Man - do they ever have a selection of goodies. The coolest pannier that zips right off and you have an instant light-weight back-pack. CLEVER! Have to get one of those when the budget recovers from the bike!
I love wondering around that store. Just being there and looking at all the amazing equipment makes you feel like you are standing on the edge of a cliff with sea-breezes blowing in your hair. You can feel yourself getting fit just standing in the store - like osmosis. It has to have some effect - surely?

Then we went home and I mowed the lawn and Char helped me with the edges and to dig a overgrown flower bed out of the front lawn. Anyone who has ever dug up grass will tell you - this is no mean feat. To say I am creaking this morning is an understatement. ARGH. Getting out of bed was a 10-minute groan. It took a 20-minute hot shower just to get me mobile. More ARGH. I will not mention what my backside feels like. It's unmentionable.

That'll teach me to be a blob all winter - never again. I am going to spend next winter sitting in front of the TV lifting weights.

I actually got a response. I am amazed. How encouraging that was. Thank you Alphabet. So that has inspired me to keep going.

Also - I just finished a major project so I have time for some other stuff besides writing and graphics. I've been writing the Getting Started Guide for the latest version of our software. I am the tech writer for ACDSee. Don't get me wrong. I love my job - mainly because I actually love the software and enjoy writing about it. A big change from previous jobs.

Being a technical writer/training person, is a lot of fun though. A lot of what you end up learning, you never get to use, like the Action Information System on a naval strike craft. But ACDSee is about digital photos, and we all take those!

Anyway, I liked this project cos I get to use InDesign, and it was in color with lots of graphics. Much more fun that online help.  I will post a link to the GSG as soon as it is online.

I am also really excited 'cos I bought a new bike! I had no idea you were supposed to try on a bike, like running shoes. I went to Russ Hays - this great Biking store in Victoria and the guy who helped us, Mike - was just great. He made me try out a whole bunch of bikes. When you are trying on running shoes - usually you eventually get to a pair that just says "Yes" to you. Taylor (my other half) said the same would happen with the bike - and it did!  Suddenly I felt totally comfortable and in control and went whizzing about like a bumble bee.

So now when we move downtown - the company - not us - I can ride to work.Yipppee. I also plan to sell my car - as I reeeally want to do more about reducing my footprint than recycling.

OK - enough. I have actually finished my second post. This is a lot easier than I thought. LOL.

This is scary and it's taken a long talking to myself to get to this point. I would be very interested to know how many bloggers are introverts.

Started a conversation is normally fine one-on-one. But for someone who balks at parties of more than 6, this is not easy. Talking to everyone - all at the same time - ARGH.

But then again. I write stuff everyday that no one ever reads. So chances are - no one will read this either and I can stay in my nice, safe corner of the world unexposed.

Or maybe not. Maybe there is this part of me - the one who sends Web links to my whole contact list until they are all sick of me - that does want to share what is important to me with others. I certainly have lots of opinions about lots of stuff. Some of which others find interesting (as in the chinese proverb) and others probably think are totally whacky and are too polite to say. But it seems that blogging is where you do that.

SO - here goes.