Of Two Minds

As I mentioned I was off to our local small airport to attend the "Roll Out" of a Curtis Jenny, a replica of the craft flown by Fred McCall Senior, the replica having been built by his son, Fred McCall Junior with the assistance of some friends. Of two minds, the sleek beauty of the small jet and the visions conjured up by the Jenny of "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines". Now, fortunately, we have "Magnificent Pilots" without consideration of gender.
This would be the cockpit of the Curtis Jenny, tandem seating, with the simplest instrumentation for the pilot in the front of the plane.












This would be the wonderful and sleek Cessna Citation and it's cockpit






























Ahhhh the "Jenny", in its complicated simplicity and beauty.

Better Things To Do With My Time or… All Dressed Down ...

Well, I’ve read everyone’s blog who is anyone, and in some cases, actually made comments. My “To Do” list has been more or less – in this case “MORE”, ignored and now, I’m sitting here piddling around on the computer, when I ought to be doing “something” of value – so says my WASP upbringing – which I might add, as an adult, I’ve modified significantly to more like WASSOC, but more about THAT some other time.

Lately, I’ve been struck of how I’ve been of “two minds” on stuff, sometimes more than two, having to come to terms with the various shades of grey of many decisions. Some decisions were and are stark in their contrast to context. Moving my office comes to mind as one of those “stark” ones where there just wasn’t any question.

A friend of mine in her wise counsel, would explain stuff and then say: “On the other hand, which is why God gave us two hands…” and then launch into an alternate explanation for “the other hand”. She was, no doubt, very much aware of the shades of grey and might have at times, wished to be a millipede if hands and feet are interchangeable, which they seem to be in the animal world, of course except for humans.

Anyway, I am off to the local airport, and if you are reading this Amelia, I read where Singapore’s airport won first prize for best airport world-wise, coming out tops in 39 measurements, the airport I am going to is teeny-tiny compared to that one, it does however house a relic of sorts. A fellow called Fred McCall Junior has built a replica of his father’s “Curtis Jenny” and it will be put on display. The Prez. of our local Flying Club is off to Oshawa, not Ottawa, to receive a national prize on behalf of the Club and most of the other Board members are doing what WE ARE ALL SUPPOSE TO BE DOING – OFF FLYING SOMEWHERE and I, on behalf of the Club, road runner that I am, will be there to represent the Club. Anyone familiar with road runners knows that they are a bird that feels much more comfortable on the ground than in the air – certainly my state of late.

So, here I am, in my CFC tee-shirt and jeans, stuff that I WOULD WEAR if I were going FLYING, just ticking the time away getting ready to leave. The “other hand of all of this is … my natural inclination in a/c is towards the glass cockpits and sleek small jets like the Cessna Citations and here I am, “on the other hand” about to celebrate the memorialization of the “Jenny” and by extension, Fred Jr’s father.

More about dichotomies later as I sort through the flotsam and jetsam of my mind over the new while.

Pieces of Weirdness

A week has passed since my last entry and an interesting week it has been. For the first time since age 16 I am car-less and pretty darned cranky about it. The lease on my car expired and I decided that I did not want to make the sort of payments the manufacturer would like in order to clear the account. Leasing has been interesting but at the end of a lease … well there is just nothing there. Certainly I considered another lease but I just could not get what I wanted in any sort of amount that my budget could tolerate. However, it seems that I am going to be able to “lease” a car from a friend of mine – talk about “friends”, eh? They don’t come any more devoted than that, I don’t think. Anyway, the car is somewhere between here and Halifax and, even if it were to come tomorrow, our GST tax is scheduled to drop by 1% July 1st so rather than pay 7%, I will wait until July when it is only 6% - at least right now, that is my vow, but I must say not having wheels is driving me and everyone around me, buggy. Singapore would NOT be a good city for me as I understand there is a humongous charge for having a vehicle there, seems to me too, London, UK has some sort of user tax if one drives down town – another good reason to live in Canada, yes?

This has been my first full week of working from my home. It has had its moments. It is very difficult to “work” in terms of paper-work; the rest seems OK although I am somewhat preoccupied with what the neigbours might think. The cats have adjusted amazingly. Speaking of which …

Now that I am home much, much more they are even less attentive to me during the day, if that can be imagined.
This picture shows Precious mostly under the bed trying to get some zzzz’s in.











You can see by this picture, Precious has both paws over her little eyes to block out the light, clearly indicating she would like to continue to snooze rather than entertain me.

Finally, she grants me something of an audience.


Ultimately, can you detect cat-speak for “What is it that YOU think is so important as to disturb me?!?


Spook? She has retreated far under the bed where it is comfy and dark!

So, the computer guy came, most of the work was painless, but why oh why does my wireless internet only work occasionally? Is it run by cats??? Why does my wireless prefer my neighbour’s signal to the one I pay for, located, I am sure in closer proximity? This sort of weirdness and unpredictability seems like cruel and unusual punishment, I mean, after all …. I do live with cats, is that not weird and unpredictable enough?

Some Things Are Better on the Carpet, Size DOES Matter and Screwing Around on a Saturday

Now that I have your attention ...
Some of you have been following my tale of relocating my office to my home. This move has entailed many changes, getting rid of some stuff and the need to acquire more storage space. Today and last evening were spent assembling Ikea products and for the record, I now consider myself the “Ikea-Queen-For-A-Day”

In this first picture you can see where I have obsessively lined up all the parts that came in the package, plus, you will also see a stuffed mouse, complements of …




This is the package without the mouse, just the stuff I think I might need.

Part of this project required me to pound some runners into some pre-drilled holes. While some things might be better on carpet, constructing Ikea furniture is NOT one of them - a little more rigidity is required for hammering, speaking of which …



Size does matter, at least in the hammering department. At first I was using a little tack hammer and getting nowhere fast, hence a larger, heavier hammer was employed.


This is the screwing part:




Lastly, you can see my final piece in the midst of construction under the watchful and critical eye of Spook, who finally got off her duff to check things out – she is probably looking for the mouse seen in the first shot. No doubt, quite concerned that it has been entombed somehow in the building project.

Well actually, it seems like the last picture does not want to load for this submission - who knows about the moods of the god blog!!!

Telus, Round Two And It Is A DRAW!

The telephone guys were here as promised. My hand, the one I pounded on the table in such frustration is almost healed, I hardly notice it. The fellows that came this morning to do the job that was requested a week ago were as accommodating as all get out, very pleasant. Couple of tiny, tiny little flaws - at least at this point, if it isn't another box of books to unpack or diploma to hang, it must be a tiny flaw, but I digress …

It seems, I live in such an old building that there are only three telephone lines per unit. This means I either perpetually forward my personal line to the business lines or I lose a business line. Since, on my personal line, I seem to be providing a service only to telemarketers, I am seriously considering giving it up. The decision is not final and tonight I left it the way it was but … The other issue is, my alarm is completely gibbled. Well “gibbled” is too strong a word, it still works but if it were to be tripped, there is not communication via the phone line to the monitoring station as it is not set up to dial 9 before dialing the number … long story which I won’t go into, “9” is a characteristic of the Centrix system.

The other problem is, just when I thought I had this place sort of “together”, I’ve had to take it apart to accommodate jacks and so on. Books have been removed from shelves, fake trees dragged out of their perches and so on, all required to accommodate the installation process. Now that the guys are gone, one would think, finally, at long last I could get some closure … EXCEPT … I now need two additional two-line phones. This little project is seemingly endless at times.

Green - For My Big Sister!

Man, I've got to cut down!

Hey sis with the green eyes, ... this one's for you!

You Are Olive Green

You are the most real of all the green shades. You're always true to yourself. For you, authenticity and honesty are very important... both in others and yourself. You are grounded and secure. It takes a lot to shake you. People see you as dependable, probably the most dependable person they know.

What Color Green Are You?

From Canagal's Page

Canagal always manages to find neat stuff.

You are ...

You're not sure if God exists, and you don't care. For you, there's no true way to figure out the divine. You rather focus on what you can control - your own life. And you tend to resent when others "sell" religion to you.

What's Your Religious Philosophy?

Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful

You've got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog. Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights. A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time. You blog for yourself - and you don't care how popular (or unpopular) your blog is!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Tidy Time

Client allergies taken care of, more or less order in the lower parts of the condo (“fur couch” notwithstanding – I’ll get to it with Fabreeze and a vacuum this weekend), essentials in order. OK, so what’s this? The last two mornings I have awoken to finding various small pieces of clothing randomly scattered throughout the house, office floors included. Nothing as serious or as comical as those of

paksenn

but none the less a little on the “we-are-not-amused” side of things.

It seems that a cat who’s initials are PRECIOUS has taken it upon herself to distribute various articles of clothing here and there as part of her “slidy-game”, where she runs very quickly and pounces on a sock or in one case, a toque as some kind of prey which must be beat into submission and part of that enforcing dominance requires a good drag around the kitty litter box area. The litter box is filled with wheat litter – very good for the cats and vacuum companies, not so good if one wishes to avoid pale yellow dust, which is why it is in an isolated area.

The point of this is, who would have guessed that clothing relocation and retrieval would have to be one of the recognizant events of morning office prep. Really, I swear, between being ever vigilant about paper clips, elastic bands and any thing small and shiny, I can add clothing to the list of things that MUST be picked up before they end up inside Precious. It is possible, a coincidence, but Precious IS TWO and it really is like living with a two year old in terms of watching what is available for ingestion …. I have proof, I do the litter tray daily.