Month: May 2007

morning sighting


I spent five minutes yesterday morning watching the shoreline antics of a mink. The mink was swimming in the shallow water of Georgian Bay in front  of my home. It was checking along about 120 feet of shoreline for its breakfast, dancing in that odd humpty backed lope they have over the shoreline rocks and then slipping back into the water and diving under the surface to emerge onto flat rocks just below or just above the surface of the water. The bay was calm yesterday morning. After a bit, the mink brought something up after a dive and carried it into shore. Looked like a small fish. Glad breakfast got caught. I went in to have mine.

facebook, my experiment


I was curious about facebook and decided to open up an account and see what all the fuss is about. Heard a CBC radio report about it and thought I would try a little experiment.

First hurdle to get over: of the email systems that facebook supports to help you quickly import contacts and find friends, my primary email account is based in an email system they don’t support. Workaround: I opened up a new hotmail account, imported contacts to it, then used it in facebook to select contacts to invite as friends.

Second and third hurdles: networks – neither my high school or college were listed….I found out how to request that they be added to the list of high schools and colleges. When you do this you can check a box and get an email notice when the requested is acted upon. No emails yet.

Things I like: oddly enough I like “the wall” and the overall look and feel of the interface.

I guess I have been “on” about four times in the past few days since I started my account. I learn something each time.

Smoothing it down – a poem


I thought of writing the Dremel Tool people,
another use for their fine little power tool,
the evening I used the grinding wheel attachment
to smooth down the hand grips of the wheels
of my mother’s wheel chair.
Dings and bumps from door frames
and the metal edges of her bed frame.

She sat in the chair.
We watched the sparks fly.
I tested it by running my hand
along the grips. Finding the rough spots.

She let me work around the whole circle
of the grip, then she tested it.

“It’s still rough here.”
I let my fingers follow hers.
The paper-like skin,
the flesh receded,
knuckles, tendons, bones.

(an old poem of mine that I decided to post here, it is also part of my April 2007 issue of bluetyger magazine, which can be found at http://www.bluetyger.ca