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Thursday, June 2

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12;30-1pm:
Ran to Eglinton and back on the Beltline. Fairly hot, 25C, but the Beltline is completely shaded by leaves now so it’s cooler and out of the sun; the UV is very high today.
My injured right calf/achilles is getting stronger every day and is almost 100%.
This project is exciting; I am enjoying it. Also did 15 pushups.

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Tuesday, May 31

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6:30 to 7am:
Ran to Eglinton avenue and back on the Beltline, approximately 4kms.
I haven’t run for a long time; I have been cycling and there are thigh muscles that seem to be used more in running than in cycling. Some thigh muscles are weak and the achilles I tore playing tennis in mid-April is only 90% healed.
I also did 12 pushups after the run. Feels great; I think I can do this.

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Cultural lag, a lethal drag

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We’ve adapted to all the new hi-tech toys of the 21st century, but aren’t so quick to accept scientific evidence that we’re cooking the planet and endangering humanity, says CLIVE DOUCET

By CLIVE DOUCET
Globe & Mail, Monday, May 23, 2005 Page A13Key

Cultural lag is the term first coined by anthropologists to describe the gap between an invention and society’s ability to actually use it. It took about 50 years for the typewriter to displace the pen, and initially women were thought much too feeble to manipulate it. It was a man’s machine.
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Cynicism about politicians

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The Gomery inquiry exposes one of our many human failings, greed. Take the money and run, in this case from the “anonymous” taxpayer. The Conservatives are acting like they will be different. This reminds me of a personal experience from the Mulroney years.

At dinner one evening my wife told me about one of her acquaintances from her exercise club. Her husband had sold his cellular telephone business and was retiring at 45. I felt slight pangs of inadequacy as a husband and a provider.

As the years went by this couple renovated their house, bought a condo in Florida, married their daughter at the Ritz, upgraded their condo in Florida, etc.

Then while reading On the Take, Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years, I read a paragraph in the chapter on Enterprise Cape Breton. It told of Cellcom, a cellular telephone company, that received a grant of $2 million but never started in business. It was then that I noticed that the family name of my wife’s acquaintance matched the name of two of Mr. Mulroney’s classmates from university, both of whom had worked in either the PMO or the Conservative party during the Mulroney years.

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Aging Japanese pen heartfelt notes to heirs

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Aging Japanese Pen Messages to Posterity
Heartfelt ‘Ending Notes’ Give Elderly a Voice in Traditionally Reticent Society

By Anthony Faiola, Washington Post Foreign Service, Monday, April 11, 2005; Page A13

TOKYO — Living alone in a tidy little house on the outskirts of Tokyo, 75-year-old Tomohiro Ishizuka spends hours dwelling on things unsaid. There are, he recalls, the stories he never told his two adult children — such as the horror of finding the charred remains of boyhood friends after the U.S. firebombing of Tokyo in 1945. And then there are stories half-told — such as the depth of his pain after the sudden death in 2002 of his wife of 45 years.
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Blood Donor

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I have donated blood for several decades. Recently I have been donating every 56 days which is the minimum delay between donations. I am a universal donor, O negative. It takes only 60 minutes and I suffer no after effects; it seems a simple way to help others. The nurses at Canadian Blood Services tell me that my O negative blood goes directly to the Sick Kids Hospital.

April 2006 – I have been told to wait until after my brachytherapy treatment for prostate cancer before I give again.

April 2007 – I have been told that I can’t donate again now that I have had cancer. The nurse was very sympathetic and told me she wasn’t able to give for the same reason.

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Third Client

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Last week we signed up our third client. Andy Thomson is a retired history teacher in Toronto. He is researching several subjects including his family lumber business, the Northern Ontario lake where it was situated, currently a family recreational compound, and an uncle who was an RCAF pilot during WWII.

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Dear Dad

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A father passing by his son’s bedroom was astonished to see the bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the center of the bed. It was addressed, “Dad”. With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands:
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Study Shows Decline in Earth’s Ecosystems

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A new U.N. report shows a dramatic decline in the many benefits that mankind reaps from the Earth’s forests and oceans. The study by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is unusual because it examines the benefits of nature as if they were services. The study also outlines what politicians and people can do to reverse the decline in these so-called services.
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