Election in village and hubby home tomorrow

I went to a village meeting tonight to listen to the candidates for mayor and councilors. Lots of enthusiasm and opinions but no experience, however not a bad showing for a village of 300 souls.

I have to drive to  Prince George tomorrow to pick up hubby who is returning from London Ontario. Since he has to jog all over the country it is taking 12 hours with layovers. So I think we will stay overnight in Prince George and come back on Friday since it will be four hours each way and hubby probably will be tired of sitting, and it will be an excuse to go out to eat somewhere nice.

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• Home alone

Trying out some blogging enhancements

I found a new gadget that allows me to blog directly from my iGoogle page. It is pretty basic but for simple posts will work fine. If you are interested click on Add Stuff and type Blogger and you will find it.  This post was written from iGoogle, but my favorite blogging tool is Windows Live Writer which has a lot of plugins available to enhance a post.  I do have the ScribeFire extension on Firefox because it allows drag and drop from a website into a post.

I also read Blogger Buzz where they posted the option of putting the comment form at the bottom of the post, but it did not seem to work for me, so went back to the comment page.When the kinks are out I probably will enable it.

Another option mentioned on Blogger Buzz is to follow blogs but since it repeated the list of blogs I already read and I would have two lists the same I did not bother with it. Although it does show on your profile so I guess that might be helpful in creating a link for a blogging friend. I will have to think about it.

Finally there is  Zemanta which is a neat tool. It finds suitable links to add to your post.  I have added my favorite blogs as sources for links. So if I write a post and you have written something related it might show up on my post. All helps in promoting each others blog.

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I am a fan of Omega 3 because it works

I have been taking Omega 3 capsules for a long time now. I used to suffer from headaches a lot and all I could get from the doctor were pain killers, but they did not solve the problem. My husband suggested visiting a chiropractor and in the course of my visits to her she suggested taking Omega 3 capsules to reduce inflammation of an old neck injury which she felt was causing my headaches. It was like night and day, almost as soon as I started taking the Omega 3 capsules my headaches subsided and now if I get a hint of a headache which may be caused by the neck injury I step up my Omega 3's. I usually only take one but if necessary take 2 or 3 over the course of a day. About a month ago my left leg was painful at the site of an old scar, the doctor told me it was scar tissue that had built up and had become inflamed, so I stepped up the Omega 3's again and it has gone. The doctor told me to take anti-inflammatory pills but I told him I would try the Omega 3 capsules first and he was all for it.

The other thing that I have found them good for is boosting my immune system. I have never had flu so I am not planning to take the flu shot and I almost never get colds. A couple of months ago when I went to Calgary I kissed my hubby goodbye, a nice squishy germy one, you know. Next day he came down with a virulent case of larangytis, but I never got it. He claims he can still feel the effects of that bout of illness and he is usually pretty fit. I believe it was my faithful Omega 3 capsules that gave my immune system the ability to fight of those germs. I am so thankful because I would have felt terrible passing on those germs to my two sons, because they would have had to take time off work and one of them doesn't get paid if he doesn't work.

There is lots of information to be found about Omega 3 on the internet if you are interested.

Also for you Moms and Dads out there you might find the following article interesting from BBC Science.


"Fish oils are supposed to boost our brainpower. But do the facts really stack up? We went in search of the evidence.

Elliot is nine years old. A year ago, he was falling behind in his schoolwork, particularly reading – which he found a struggle. He had little interest in studying and would crash on the sofa to watch TV when he got home from school.

But over the past year, a dramatic change has taken place in Elliot. He has soared through the Harry Potter books and now heads to the library after the school bell has sounded.

Elliot has been taking part in a scientific study on more than 100 children from 12 Durham schools. The children were required to take a course of capsules with their meals for the duration of six months.

“His reading jumped 18 months [over the trial period]. He’s just a lot more interested in everything. He’s even developed an interest in classical music,” says Sheila, Elliot’s mother."

BBC - Science & Nature - Human Body and Mind - The Omega Wave

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Do clothes maketh the woman?

I would have thought that character and ability to do the job were more important attributes in choosing a Vice President rather than the clothes they wear. $4716 spent in September for hair and makeup alone. Clean simple clothes with honesty before the people would be more becoming I think. What about you?

Do the men get the same wardrobe perks? Sexist if they don't, don't you think?
On a recent poll most Canadians claim they would vote for Obama if they were Americans. I must say I am in agreement.

I have nothing against Caribou Barbie herself except I would not want you to think we were related, me bein' Cariboo Ponderer an all.

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A computer goodie one of my friends found

Another computer goodie I found over at AlwaysBCMom today. It is called Jing not sure what I will use it for but the concept is neat, maybe you will find it useful.

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Heads or Tails - Wire

Skittles started a meme called Heads or Tails which I try to participate in but I have missed a few lately, but this week the topic is Wire.

In the 50's my father worked for the Iraq Petroleum Company located in Kirkuk. I would visit him in the summer holidays away from my boarding school in England. One of the things I remember is the club house where everyone hung out and which had a large swimming pool. Due to the turmoil in the country and the raids that would be made from the Kurds into that part of the country there was wire all around the club and pool area and large guns placed every so often and the Iraqi army could be seen everywhere.

During that time a curfew was declared and a friend of my father's had not made it home in time and was shot, not fatally but he took some time to recover. Life was getting more precarious and the whole compound where we lived was surrounded with wire also.

On July 14, 1958 we heard over the radio that King Faisal had been assassinated in Baghdad. Shortly after that all British personnel were evacuated from Iraq. I was back at school by that time but my father just made it out by the last helicopter. However his days in Iraq where probably my father's favorite topic of conversation.

I am going to have nightmares

Because of hubby being away for two weeks I am watching a lot of TV, mainly for some company, unfortunately because Halloween is not far away all that is on are horror shows. I watched Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in a vampire movie. Now I will be looking over my shoulder for the rest of the night. LOL

I may venture out tomorrow but a light snow is threatened and that will make the road to the highway very slick. It is better when we have enough for the tires to get a grip but the light stuff just thaws and freezes. I wish I had nagged hubby to put the ice tires on my car before he left but he was so sure there would be no problem on the road. It probably will be okay by afternoon but I will have to get on the road by 9am if I want to get to church by 10:30 am and since the road was so slick when I went to town on Friday I probably will talk myself out of going.

I have made three necklaces so far, two bracelets and some earrings so my time is not a dead loss. I eat a bit differently also when on my own. I tend to eat vegetarian when alone whereas when my husband is home we eat  more meat, so I suppose that won't do me any harm. At this rate I will probably get round to cleaning out the closets and hemming the jeans that have been waiting since August just for something to do.

No sign of the bear who was here a couple of nights ago, but I have the place locked up tight and my bear banger is handy. A bear banger sounds like  gun when fired but won't kill anything, the idea is to scare a bear away, I hope I don't have to use it and if I do the bear will be scared because I will be.

Need to organize your life

One of the sites I like to check out is Open Jason, today he lists 130 sites that can help you get organized. Lots of computer Web 2 goodies.

Open Jason - Get Organized Web 2 Style

My personal organization tool is Remember the Milk which I have on my iGoogle page, along with a day timer that I keep on the computer desk where I scribble all sorts of things I need to remember. I do try and keep from little pieces of paper all over the place. I also keep a copy of needed info in Google Docs so I can access that from any computer. My passwords for example, and before you exclaim with shock that I would do this, I leave myself a message like "welshword hubby's forces demob date" and that is enough of a prompt for me to remember what the password was. I haven't found anything I like better than this, although I am sure there must be something. While mentioning Google Docs I have a Firefox extension that I love called GDocs Sidebar which allows me quick access to documents that I store online. I don't bother to store much on my computer as I may need it on the other one. So both computer hard drives are relatively clean although I do have a few notes on my laptop that I might need if I can't access the Internet on our trip to Mexico and I used Picasa 3 to store photos and upload to the Internet. I clean up anything I don't want as I go rather than tie up a lot of space. I am a bit compulsive about keeping my hard drive clean.

Also since I am now running my desktop computer and my laptop I am careful to use Google Bookmarks which I can access from both computers, or any other computer, rather than just bookmark a page in Favourites. I like Google Notebook which helps with bookmarks also as you can tag them and type a note to attach to the Bookmark and that too can be accessed from any computer.

How about you, do you have a  method that works well for you?

Item #1 on exciting things to do

When I put the garbage out this morning I noticed that what seemed like a troupe of carthorses had left a deposit right outside the kitchen window. On closer inspection noticed it was full of berries so a large bear went through here last night. So first thing today I was out there before it defrosted and picked it up and threw it into the bush. There was more than one dump when I really started looking for it. The bear had been hauling a bag of garbage too, it's high in fibre don't you know.

Home alone

Yesterday morning we left here and drove to Prince George so hubby could take a plane to London Ontario to visit his sister. It is a 12 hour flight as he has to shuttle all over the country to get there. So I drove home today and now I have 15 days before driving back to pick him up.

I know the mice are meant to play when the cat's away but I haven't thought of anything much as yet. I have to take my car in for an oil change, exciting! I probably will make some more beaded jewelry as I have booked a table at the village Christmas craft sale. I hope I sell some of the stuff I have made. That is as about exciting as it gets.

Break the law of the land and get honoured

Henry Morgentaler, the Montreal doctor who defied Canada's abortion law in a struggle that led to the legalization of the procedure across the country, received the Order of Canada yesterday from Governor-General Michaëlle Jean.The announcement in July that Morgentaler would receive Canada's highest award sparked protests and members of the order who oppose abortion returned their medals.

In my opinion he should not have got this award for breaking the law, even though abortion is now legal in Canada it was not then. Many in Canada hold this viewpoint but their wishes were over ruled.
Personally I am not in favour of abortion, but I do believe there are extenuating circumstances that would make it an available option for some women.

Marvellous what some people will do!

Man Builds Noah's Ark (exact scale given in Bible) Working Replica of Noah's Ark Opened In SCHAGEN, Netherlands.
The massive central door in the side of Noah's Ark was opened the first crowd of curious townsfolk to behold the wonder. Of course,
it's only a replica of the biblical Ark, built by Dutch Creationist Johan Huibers as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.
The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That's two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house. Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras,
bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold.
  A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine. Biblical Scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been. Huibers did the work mostly with his own hands, using modern tools and with occasional help from his son Roy. Construction began in May 2005. On the uncovered top deck - not quite ready in time for the opening - will come a petting zoo, with baby lambs and chickens, and goats, and one camel.
Visitors on the first day were stunned. 'It's past comprehension', said Mary Louise Starosciak, who happened to be bicycling by with her husband while on vacation when they saw the ark looming over the local landscape. 'I knew the story of Noah, but I had no idea the boat would have been so big.'
There is enough space near the keel for a 50-seat film theater where kids can watch a video that tells the story of Noah and his ark. Huibers, a Christian man, said he hopes the project will renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands, where church going has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years.

Decisions Decisions

Now I am a full fledged Canadian citizen I want to take responsibility and vote. However I find myself swayed back and forth because all the parties have something to offer but the leaders have something to be desired. I have to make up my mind pretty soon as we have to vote on Tuesday morning on our way to Prince George to take hubby to the airport for his flight to London Ontario to see his older sister. He will be gone two weeks.

So back to the election. I have listened to everything that the parties have to say and followed the polls and I  am still undecided. I had a call yesterday asking if the Conservative Party could count on my vote. I told them I was undecided. It was easier when I was not allowed to vote because I was not a citizen. I could just gripe about the government now I will have my little part in the mayhem they will no doubt make.

Either way I think it will be another minority government because the two main parties Conservatives and Liberals appear to be neck and neck so regardless we will have the same scenario as before whoever comes into leadership. Constant heckling and fights in parliament instead of getting on with governing. I watched some of the parliamentary debates a while ago and was shocked to see the behaviour.  A very poor message to go out to the younger generation that it was okay for their leaders to act in such an unseemly fashion, sniping and name calling and shouting over each other. So why should we expect the young people growing up to act better but we do, don't we?

Two new sites to check out

I was reading my feeds today and at Reap Money on Line Jeni and Bong had written about a new type of networking site called Scoutle where it does the seeking of new blogs for you. So I signed up just to see how it goes.

The other is just out today called Reframe It which allows you to make comments on any website.

"Reframe It seeks to transform the nature of the public web by creating a virtual margin alongside any web page on which users can post comments to be shared with other users and read what others have written."

So we will see how they go.

Heads or Tails - Black or White

Skittles started a meme called Heads or Tails - today the topic is Black or White but I changed that to Black and White.
When I was a little girl I lived with my Aunt in London and there was one television show that she never missed. It was called The Black and White Minstrel show. Probably it could not be on television in these days as it would not be considered correct but I don't think there was anything really that one could take offence with.

The Black and White Minstrel Show won the 1961 Golden Rose Of Montreux. The variety series could almost always guarantee an audience of at least 16 million, but frequently managed to top 18 million viewers. At a time when the variety show was a popular television genre for the whole family, The Black And White Minstrel Show established itself as one of the world's greatest musical programmes on television. The music from the show broke sales records and the stage show was equally popular. Robert Luff's production opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre in 1969 and established itself in The Guinness Book Of Records as the stage show seen by the largest number of people. At this time, the creation had gained considerable international respect and kudos. The Black And White Minstrel Show's success was marked by its regular Saturday night transmissions over a vast period. The programme managed to maintain its freshness, its manic pace and its nostalgic premise on a weekly basis.
www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/blackandwhim/blackandwhim.htm

Black and White Minstrel Video

Social Networks

When I first started blogging I joined just about everything in order to promote my blog. MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog, Orkut, Multiply, Facebook and on and on. I don't think I have had that many visitors from any of them. The occasional email advises me that so and so is now my friend and I should check out their site, which I do but rarely is it of similar content to mine. I don't think any one really looks when they click to become your friend it is more quantity of contacts rather than quality of content. I don't go to any of them now.

I think I have made more blogging friends by clicking on links on a blog I visit regularly, after all if we both find a blog interesting then one would assume that we might be interested in each others blog and may strike up an Internet friendship.

Now winter is upon us again I probably will be blogging more and was wondering if there was anything new and interesting in the blogging world that I don't know about.

I hate Facebook

I find Facebook takes forever to load, I really dislike it, the only reason I started trying to use it is that my son said he would upload pictures of his boys on there but I find it so cumbersome to use. Is it me, my computer, my connection or anyone else despise this application.

Watched both Canadian and US debates

I switched back and fore and caught the gist of both debates. The US debate certainly was more polite and seemly than the Canadian one which was more like a school yard brawl in my opinion, however maybe the personalities were more exposed because of the rudeness displayed.
This is my first time to vote in a Canadian election since we became citizens this year. I know one is meant to vote for the party at least in Canada, although in the States it seems it is a more personality driven election. How can you get around the personalities though? The NDP Jack Layton was very aggressive and rude, constantly interrupting other speakers, although he seemed passionate about what he believed in. Stephan Dion did seem to be respectful in that he waited for someone to finish speaking before starting himself. Stephen Harper seemed laid back and rather amused, the half smile on his face rather plastered as invective was thrown his way. I felt the Green party's Elizabeth May did very well and was very articulate although she too interrupted and carried on speaking after her time was up and the Bloc representative was as free with his accusations as everyone else.
I don't think that the Canadian debate helped me decide which party to vote for at all. Each party has good and bad ideas as far as I am concerned so it may come down to deciding which of the parties represented bothered me the least. I can't say any one of them inspires my confidence particularly,
I would be just as undecided in the American election. I thought, despite predictions to the contrary, Sarah Palin handled herself quite well. She was articulate and answered questions clearly and managed to avoid questions she did not want to answer or did not know how to answer with skill although she did not fool Joe Bidin who would often grin when she would diverse from the point.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans have good and bad points. I don't care for McCain, I think it is not a good idea to have a man as old as he is leading the US, let's face it he could drop dead anytime. He does not look a fit man to me, although he may have the experience he may not have the time and I really don't think Palin is ready to take on the Presidency in these troubled times. Obama has the time and personality although lacking experience but he is backed by Bidin a man who does have thirty years experience and could fill Obama's shoes if he had to.
I wish we could amalgamate some of the opposing sides and get something all of us want.

Just doing some updates

I had to do some changes with my domain provider to try and stop the blogger address showing, I think I have solved that and at the same time I thought I would submit this blog with the corrected address www.caribooponderer.com to Google. I had omitted to put the www part in and although everything was okay, I think, there was some confusion especially at the paid post sites about whether it was caribooponderer.blogspot.com caribooponderer.com or www.caribooponderer.com so hopefully I have now solved that and we are officially at the correct domain address which is www.caribooponderer.com.

I found some helpful information from my pal Bong at www.reapmoneyonline.com about getting Google to reconsider your ranking and while I was at it I submitted this new URL the one with the www in front of it and created a site map. I didn't think one could submit a site map for a blog but actually it is quite easy, just use your feed address. Apparantly this helps Google find your posts when people are searching.

So now I have to see if I get this post in my reader or not as I have not told it about the www yet. So then I will know if you folks may or may not be getting this feed. It can get complicated can't it. It also appears that some of the feeds from folk that I was reading have disappeared from my reader so I will have to go and find them again. Sorry if I haven't been visiting for a while, although I have been really busy this Fall. Looks like this is going to be our last nice day for a while so I probably will get into the swing of blogging and visiting again soon.