Heads or Tails – Tool

Skittles runs a meme called Heads or Tails this week’s theme is Tool

There is biblical evidence, my husband claims, that he is not required to pick up a tool and do chores rather than go fishing.

What 5 things would you not want to be without for 5 months?

As some of you know we are going to be spending five months in Mexico this winter. Although we had hoped to spend many winters there reality indicates that will not be so. However I have to think of all the things I really don't want to be without or need to buy before I go. I thought it would be interesting to see what others felt they really would hate to be without for five months.

Heads or Tails – Summertime memory

Skittles runs a meme called Heads or Tails and this week the theme is Summertime Memory.

Every summer my husband can be found on his hands and knees looking for worms for fishing in the river.

This was taken yesterday but he has done this every year I can remember as soon as the rivers open for fishing.

He gropes around in the leaf pile, bare hands as well, until he has collected several worms for his tin can.

He went down to the Fulton River today and he said the fishing was great, he threw back several rainbow, white fish and squaw fish. He just does catch and release because I don’t want any more fish.

I may have fears of getting addicted to internet pursuits but he is definitely past reclaiming when it comes to fishing.

Can’t find what you are looking for on the web?

1. Looking for a Specific Phrase? Use Quotation Marks

Probably one of the number one things that has saved me some serious Web search time over the years is the simplest - and that's searching for a phrase by putting it in quotes. When you use quotation marks around a phrase, you are telling the search engine to only bring back pages that include these search terms exactly how you typed them in-order, proximity, etc.

2. Site Search with Google

You can use Google to search within a site, and since most site search tools just aren't that great, this is a good way to find what you're looking for with a minimum of fuss. I use this one many times a day.

3. How to Use the Inurl Syntax

The inurl search syntax allows you to search for words within the URL, or Uniform Resource Locator. This is just another interesting way to search the Web and find Web sites that you might not have found by just entering in a query word or phrase. I love this Web search trick because I find all sorts of interesting things with it, and it's so simple.

4. Use Basic Math to Search More of the Web

Another Web search trick that's deceptively simple. Basic math can really help you in your search quest (your teachers always told you that someday you would use math in real life, right?).

5. Google Cheat Sheet

I use all sorts of different search engines throughout the day, but Google is my standard goto guy. I use it a LOT. And with these Google Cheat Sheet search shortcuts, I find that I'm able to locate what I'm searching for with the minimum of fuss.

6. How To Search A Specific Domain

If you'd like to limit your searches to a specific domain, such as .edu, .org, .gov, and more, you can use the site: command to accomplish this.

7. Use the Web to Check Your Local Weather

You can get your weather forecast quickly on the Web from a number of different sites, without waiting through the news report and endless commercials; you can also use Google to find your weather, or Yahoo.

8. Use Different Search Engines for Different Searches

Don't fall into the rut of using one search engine for all your search needs. Every search engine returns different results. Plus, there are many search engines that focus on specific niches: games, blogs, books, forums, etc. The more comfortable you are with a good variety of search engines, the more successful your searches are going to be.

9. Use the Web to Find a Definition

Need to find out what a word means? From obscure to common use, you'll be able to use search engines to find the definition of any word you can think of.

10. Search the Web with Toolbars

Many people save a lot of time in their Web searches by using a toolbar, which is basically a software application which gives searches the ability to perform searches and other functions quickly. For example, I have the Google Firefox toolbar on my browser right now.


Information found at http://websearch.about.com/od/enginesanddirectories/tp/toptentp.htm

Can’t argue with his logic

I was talking to my youngest son yesterday. I saw him pop up on Messenger so I called right away because he works away from home so often and doesn’t take his cell phone so I don’t often get the opportunity to talk to him and although he is faithful to call at Christmas, my birthday and Mother’s Day he forgets in between. So after reminding him that he is my youngest son and I am not likely to have another one and I like to hear his voice once in a while we got to talking about other things.

One part of the conversation turned to how it was up here

“Do you get out much Mum?”, he said

“Not much, apart from the bears and bugs there is not much to do or see here”, I said

“Don’t you go for walks around there?” he asked

“No, I am afraid of the bears and we have a lot”, I replied

“Come on Mum, how many bears have killed people there this year so far?”, he said

“None”, I replied

“And how many people have been murdered?”, he asked

“One”, I said

“There you go, your more likely to get murdered there than attacked by a bear”, he shot back.

How can you argue with that logic?

It is a fact that bears don’t usually attack humans, and that I have developed somewhat of a phobia after the almost break in a couple of years ago.  On the other hand we have a mother bear and two cubs hanging about on the corner, about a 100 ft away and  I would have to walk past it to go to the village. I am always concerned that I may inadvertently get between her and her cubs. A couple of years ago a mother bear, probably the same one, went for a man chopping wood nearby. Also the bears have got used to the people in the village and some people are careless with their garbage or have bird feeders, bears like the seed, and it is common to see bears sniffing around. Most garbage cans get teeth marks on them, ours has and it is hidden away in the car port but a bear got to it. I used to freeze my garbage and put it out on garbage day but when I was told by the wildlife ranger that bears can smell right through freezers I thought it a waste of time to do so. I have two freezers in the carport.

Currently there is a rumour of one grizzly hanging about but he is probably just passing through his territory, they don’t often come into where humans live. Last fall on the Lake Babine Nation’s reservation they pulled in a large salmon harvest from the lake and they had to contend with nine grizzly bears hanging around.

So I don’t think I am going walking today even though I am more likely to get murdered than attacked. No thanks. 

 

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• Alberta men recovering from grizzly sow attack (cbc.ca)

I need a new life

I am going to whine today. I am really bored of life right now. I didn’t think I would ever say it but retirement is not what it is cut out to be. If I could find a job I might consider it but there is nothing to be had out here. The volunteer positions available in the village are not many and they are year round commitments, and we will not be here for five months. It may sound snooty but I haven’t met any women in the village that I have common interests with. I don’t care for bingo, darts or carpet bowling. I am ready to tear my hair out today. There are two villages relatively nearby, about an hour and half drive and I have exhausted what they have to offer and Smithers is further still and I went there on Monday, they don’t even have a Wal-Mart.

Hubby is gone fishing with his buddy and if he is not doing that he is off earning money by doing odd jobs, and I wouldn’t want to stop him doing either. He enjoys both so much. He likes it here although he is willing to move if we can find a place that we can afford, we both like and he can fish and I can do something other than piddle about the house.

Today I swept and dusted, listened to my bible tape while I walked for half an hour, watered the flowers that did not get enough rain yesterday because they are somewhat undercover. The rest of the day I poked about the internet. Basically my return to Facebook is for some interaction.

I have been keeping myself busy sewing but that is just about finished, I have made all sorts of jewellery which is in the Information Centre waiting to be sold, hopefully. Now what?

What concerns me is that I am only 62 I have every chance of living another 20 or even 30 years. This can’t be all there is. Usually I am relatively content but the last two months I have been really restless and I have been overeating the last few days out of boredom. I am careful not to eat anything to raise my blood sugar but I am packing on the calories with nuts, cheese and stuff like that, although I have not gained weight as yet, actually I lost a few ounces, but I will have to get it together soon or I will.

I used to volunteer as Treasurer at the library but gave that up because I could not be available all year. It was a huge commitment and I was many times way over my head as I have never even done bookkeeping before.  I would love to help someone with their computer or help some of the women here who haven’t got a clue about nutrition. However the library and the local school offer free computer lessons and very few go to those as it seems my age group aren’t particularly interested and I am not allowed to help anyone with their nutritional choices as I am not qualified and we have a nutritionist that comes in to the clinic once in a while and no one shows up anyway.

So I have had my whine I won’t do it again.

Science, low carb diets and cholesterol

"How do low-carb diets affect cholesterol and triglycerides?" By Laura Dolson at About.com

• Question: How do low-carb diets affect cholesterol and triglycerides?
• Answer: In general, low-carb diets tend to improve blood lipids. Specifically:Triglycerides

Triglycerides are the form in which the body stores fat (our body fat is mainly made up of triglycerides.) When we talk about someone's triglyceride level, however, we usually mean the amount of triglycerides that show up in the blood when it is tested. A high triglyceride level is a risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Numerous studies find that low-carbohydrate diets cause high triglyceride levels to fall; in fact, the results are quite consistent and dramatic. Many physicians now recommend reducing carbohydrate as the first line of defense against high triglyceride levels, and this is often successful.

High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL) -- 'Good Cholesterol'
HDL cholesterol seems to protect against heart disease; it becomes a risk factor for heart disease if it's low. Scientists think it carries excess cholesterol back to the liver, where is it broken down. There is also evidence that some aspect of HDL is involved in the initial response after injury or acute illness, and that people with higher levels of HDL have improved recovery. Low-carbohydrate diets tend to raise HDL cholesterol levels, so this is a good thing.

Low Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (LDL) -- 'Bad Cholesterol'
Although there is some controversy on this point, LDL cholesterol is considered 'bad' in terms of heart disease risk. The relationship between low-carb diets and LDL cholesterol is more complex than with triglycerides and HDL cholesterol. There are some studies in which LDL is reduced on a low-carb diet, some in which it doesn't change, and some in which it goes up. But there is one thing about LDL changes which is consistent with low-carb diets, and that is that it causes a change in cholesterol particle size.

What has particle size got to do with it? Evidence is accumulating that the size of cholesterol particles has a lot to do with risk for heart disease. Basically, the smaller the particles are, the greater the risk -- it is thought that perhaps the small particles lodge in the walls of blood vessels more easily.

The good news for those of us following a low-carb way of eating is that studies of diet and cholesterol particle size have consistently shown that low-carb diets produce larger-sized cholesterol particles. However, a larger-sized particle weighs more than a smaller one. When LDL does go up on a low-carb diet, it may be due to the larger particles, since weight is what's being measured. (A total cholesterol of 200, for example, means 200 mg per decaliter.)

On the other hand, high-carb diets seem to produce a greater percentage of smaller cholesterol particles in some people. So the total LDL goes down (particles are smaller, so the total is lighter.) While the reading may be low, it can be deceiving as risk goes up in those cases.

A good way to sort out risk? LDL particle size seems to be strongly correlated with triglyceride level (high triglycerides go with small particle size and vice versa). So if your triglycerides are low, your LDL particles are probably larger.

The Bottom Line
Reducing carbohydrate in the diet generally has a positive effect on both HDL and LDL blood cholesterol and triglycerides. Still, there are different reasons for high cholesterol in different people. As with almost everything going on in our bodies, there is much individual variation. There is almost certainly a strong genetic component to the all the different correlations between blood lipids and risk for disease.

Sources:

Lamarche, Benoit, et al. “A prospective, population-based study of low density lipoprotein particle size as a risk factor for ischemic heart disease in men.” Canadian Journal of Cardiology 2001 Aug;17(8):859-65.

Siri, Patty, and Krauss, Ronald. “Influence of dietary carbohydrate and fat on LDL and HDL particle distributions.” Current Atherosclerosis Reports 2005 Nov;7(6):455-9.

Volek, Jeff et al. “Modification of lipoproteins by very low-carbohydrate diets.” Journal of Nutrition 2005 Jun;135(6):1339-42."

About.com - Low-Carb Diets and Cholesterol: What does Science Say?

Why can't they agree on women's clothing sizes

Today I was sorting through some of my clothes so I could make room for three more thrift store finds and started looking at the sizes in my closet. I have blouses marked M, some marked XL or X1, some are marked 14, 16 and 18 and one top marked 10 and they all fit me. I have jeans ranging from 12 to 16 but when I recently made a pair of pants I cut it out at size 14 and it fit. Why this inconsistancy?

My husband can walk in a store and buy clothes and walk out without trying them on, his sizes always seem the same but I can't they are all over the map.

When I bought some T-Shirts last summer I fit a size 10 and I mentioned to the sales woman that the sizing must be wrong as I have never been a 10 and she said that some clothing companies are changing sizes so heavier women will think they still fit into a smaller size. Do they think we are fools? I don't consider myself very overweight, about ten stubborn pounds that nothings seems to shift but at 62 maybe those ten are OK but I don't like not being able to just walk into a store and buy something without having to try the darn thing on. It also makes reading sewing patterns difficult so I end up cutting things to big and gradually fitting them.

One of life's little annoyances.

We are both addicted

Any evening in our house you will find hubby on the laptop and me on the desktop playing Mah-jong.

It works inside my browser so while I am waiting for something to load I go and find some matching tiles. It can be quite frustrating at times but I sometimes win and I hear moans from the armchair about the times hubby doesn’t get it out. It is a true time waster, but I have lots of time.

Do you have two Facebook accounts you want to access?

Facebook lets you have more than one account however under normal circumstances one has to log out of the first and then log into the second. I have a Facebook Google gadget on my iGoogle page where the Facebook account I use for family and friends is always on and I don’t want to have to log out every time I might wish to go the other Facebook account I opened to interact with online blogging friends, which I must admit because of the logging in and out I hardly go to and I am still not a great fan of Facebook anyway. 

There is a way around this if you wish to have two Facebook accounts available to you. It involves using two browsers.  I have six browsers downloaded onto my computer Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Flock. Currently I am using Chrome since Firefox, which has been my favourite browser for years, seemed to have slowed down and  for some reason loads the old iGoogle page whereas Chrome is purportedly 30% faster and shows the new iGoogle page with the sidebar which I like.

To have another Facebook account available I can open another browser. I would choose Flock because it is dedicated to social media and login to the second Facebook  account. You could not use a Facebook gadget on your iGoogle page as it will conflict with the first one already set up on the other browser, but if you set Facebook as a start page or use another start page like NetVibes and link to your second  Facebook account from that it would work or Flock will keep you logged in on its side panel.  The reason you have to use two browsers is the SEO in the computer is conflicted if logging into two accounts and therefore you have to log out. In theory, I suppose one could have many Facebook accounts using different browsers.

An oddity of Facebook is that they allow two people on separate computers to log into the same account, I think this is an oversight actually because I am sure it would cause some problems and stalls.

I have tentatively returned to Facebook but what put me off before is the silliness of it. Do you use Facebook and how do you like it? By the way I think this method would work with Twitter as well if you have two accounts, I haven’t tried it though as no one I know outside blogland uses it.

I bet all that is clear as mud.

 

 

Heads or Tails - Tune

Skittles runs a meme called Heads or Tails this week the theme is tune and I have had a job to think up anything but I wondered what a hit was in July 1968 when I came to Canada. July 1968 so here it is: I had a bit of trouble putting the video on here so I hope it works.

This Guy's in Love with You by Herb Alpert

Google has gone squared

Google Squared has been released so now your search results can appear on a spreadsheet, you can remove content, add suggested columns of your own, and even save your squares.  Google Squared is really just your normal search results in column and row form, so it is best to use if searching for groups of items. TV shows, dog breeds, planets, and so on.

Treasure Trove

A few years ago a man who owned a home in our village died and because the property has gone to rack and ruin the heir wants to burn it down and announced that anyone could take whatever they want.

So we scooped the antenna and now I can get 13 channels which are provided by the village. Since it is part of our taxes it is great to get it. We have been trying to purchase an antenna like this for a while and you can't seem to get them anymore.

The other treasures were videos. He must have belonged to a club because we hauled about 300 of them home. I spent this morning going through them and decided to keep about half. There are some really good movies still in their plastic wrap.

Apart from that there where several unused notebooks, and paper still in their plastic packages. A few newish garden tools, pails of nails, screws etc.

We had waited for a couple of weeks since we saw the notice in case others might want stuff but no one else turned up to poke around for treasures so we scored.

Showcasing my iGoogle page

Google has a new feature called Showcase where you can see celebrities iGoogle pages. I am not interested in them but thought I would share mine and maybe someone would like to share theirs.
I have several Google Gadgets as you can see. The picture is of my grandson Aiden it is from my Picasa albums and pictures cycle through my albums every few seconds. I have the obvious gadgets like calender and gmail but I also like Blogger which lets me blog directly from my igoogle page when I have something quick or don’t have a picture to add. I have Facebook and Twitter on there also. I have tried other start pages and always revert to my iGoogle. If you use iGoogle I would love to see what you see every day.

Heads or Tails - Motion

Skittles has been running a meme called Heads or Tails for some time now and this week the theme is Motion.

I have been watching lots of motion the last few days as there are several barn swallows swooping and diving in over our property . They appear to be deciding on which of the many boxes my husband had built and put up under the eaves of his workshop several years ago. They have been checking out the real estate for a couple of days now but this afternoon I saw the first furnishings of straw arrive so I guess it is a done deal with at least one of the boxes.

I hope they settle, and bring family and friends,  because it is estimated that swallows eat 1000 bugs per day and bug season is just about upon us and as we are surrounded by trees and bush we have a lot, especially black flies.  We have been hoping for over five years, when he built the boxes, for summer visitors but this is the first year they have come.

Every year thousands of swallows arrive and nest down in the village but they have never made their way up the hill to nest, we are about another 600ft up from the village and that seems to have been a problem, I don’t know why. We are both quite excited about it and look forward to watching them and the babies.

All about fruit

Image via Wikipedia

If you are trying to lose weight or control your blood sugars this list might help from Low Carb diets at About.com

Fruits Lowest in Sugar

• Small Amounts of Lemon or Lime
• Rhubarb
• Raspberries
• Blackberries
• Cranberries

Fruits Low to Medium in Sugar

• Strawberries
• Casaba Melon
• Papaya
• Watermelon
• Peaches
• Nectarines
• Blueberries
• Cantaloupes
• Honeydew Melons
• Apples
• Guavas
• Apricots
• Grapefruit

Fruits Fairly High in Sugar

• Plums
• Oranges
• Kiwifruit
• Pears
• Pineapple

Fruits Very High in Sugar

• Tangerines
• Cherries
• Grapes
• Pomegranates
• Mangos
• Figs
• Bananas
• Dried Fruit, such as
  • Dates
  • Raisins
  • Dried Apricots
  • Prunes