As luck would have it, I had my camera with me today while walking in the late fall sunshine and unseasonably warm air.
This immature Cooper’s Hawk swooped in, as if on cue, and perched in the tree above for a long time, oblivious to my footsteps rustling in the leaves below as I jostled for a good sight line.
Cooper's Hawk
The loud whack at the front door woke me up again at 5am, reminding me that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. I was paying a monthly fee of $33.68 for the home-delivered print edition of The Globe and Mail to be hurled against the door, effectively paying to lose an hour of sleep. It was clearly time to change something.
But what to do? I could leave a light on – funny how if someone were up early with a light on, the paper would magically appear by stealth delivery, not by strong-arm pitch from the street. But burning a light bulb all night is a waste of energy.
Come to think of it, it’s even a bigger waste to pay for news content to be printed on trees made into inked paper in a factory and then driven to my front door. The whole production chain from cradle to grave boggles the mind: logging, trucking, milling, printing, home delivery, and even more processing with recycling.
News has been available for a long time in many other formats that do not waste as much energy. I know I’m late to the party breaking this print habit and moving to a digital format. But reading the hard copy paper had become part of my morning routine of rising early before the family chaos and enjoy a good read with a quiet breakfast.
Online print subscription trial
Incredibly, you can’t change your subscription from home delivery to the digital print edition with one move: you have to cancel one by phone and then sign up for the other online. Good grief.
I liked that $15.95 monthly fee would be less than half of the home delivery rate, which had increased 54% from the $21.80 I was paying in 2002. I also liked that I would not be lugging a full blue box to the street every week. I could have access to all of the different regional versions, archives and premium investor tools.
I hated the online print edition. Here’s why:
Comparing the online digital version
Side by side, the online digital version was an easier read, albeit with its own drawbacks. The Globe has correctly determined that the online web site should have an entirely different user interface. There are graphics, icons, titles, menus, a heads-up dashboard menu and thumbnails to click on. Once you select what you want to read, articles are a readable size, not requiring any zooming.
But Flash ads are such a distraction from the content. It’s downright ironic that a content marketer needs revenue from ads that are hell-bent on taking readers’ eyeballs in all directions away from the content. Most of the Flash ads run in the same location so I can block the screen to avoid them.
Scrolling on the page is easy using a trackball, with the one caveat of needing to avoid rolling over the magnifying glass icons, spry widgets that pop up extra menus with random content someone else has decided is related.
The larger question of content delivery
In terms of news consumption, the question becomes how to still get my fix. Much has been written about the demise of news in print format as the Internet and social media grow exponentially. Content is indeed king, but the question becomes how best to receive that content and at what price. Since joining Twitter last spring, I found I was tapped into lots of news that would be covered on television and radio the same day but found in The Globe and Mail the next day.
Historically, I depended on The Globe and Mail to be my filter for thoughtful, researched journalism and it delivered. Over the last few years however, I have found a shift toward more entertainment fluff and less in-depth pieces as departments have been downsized. For example, all too often a staffer who just happens to be in a foreign location writes the lead Travel article, so it feels like the section has become a wrapper for the travel ads, not an interesting read about travel.
Twitter, RSS feeds and Google Reader have broadened my net for news sources such that I don’t view The Globe and Mail as my main source any longer. It has become one of many places to find news, and moreover, the role of filter has shifted to me.
Bottom line decision
I know someone has to pay journalists to create the stories, conduct the interviews and provide the thoughtful analysis I crave. What would I be willing to pay for? News in a format that delivers timely and insightful content in an accessible format, and doesn’t cost me sleep.
While I admit that I feel like a defector, my decision is to go with the free online version. Flash ads be damned, at least it’s presented in a size I can read. The extra hour of sleep every day is well worth it.
Bruce National Park October 2005
While I would much rather have been on the Bruce Peninsula today, hiking along the shore with the wild wind doing its best to smash sunshine and water into the rocks, a hike at a conservation area provided some welcome glimpses of fall colour.
Scanlon Creek Conservation Area October 2009
Hi, my name is Jane and I’m a wordaholic.
I knew I would be in trouble last Sunday at Toronto’s The Word on the Street, a festival promoting all things literary for all ages. Good thing I took an empty knapsack for some purchases! It was great to wander the exhibits and pick up some bestsellers, back issues of magazines I don’t subscribe to and single issues of indie publications that are difficult to find in the burbs.
Margaret Atwood
The highlight of my afternoon was to hear Margaret Atwood read a passage from her new book, The Year of the Flood. Such a bright lady, with a sarcastic wit and simultaneous twinkle in her eye. I think she knows full well what she’s getting away with in terms of social commentary and I love it. Apologies for the grainy photo: there was no way to avoid that tent pole between Margaret Atwood, John Cruickshank (Publisher of The Toronto Star) and Eleanor Wachtel (host of Writers & Company on CBC Radio). After she read a passage, there was a Q & A session live with audiences in both Vancouver and Halifax: we could see them on large screens and they could presumably gawk back at us in Toronto.
Atwood said that The Year of the Flood is neither a prequel or sequel to Oryx and Crake, but that it is a “simultanial”. It is set in the same world, it ends on the same day only 12 hours later, and tells a new story from a different point of view. Fabulous! I really enjoyed Oryx and Crake and look forward to savouring her speculative post-apocalyptic future in this new book.
I find it hard to believe that people will still ask her what she thinks the future holds, as if they think she has some magic crystal ball the rest of us are not privy to. She answers this question the same way everytime – she does not predict the future, there are too many variables. So why don’t people accept that she is writing speculative fiction and think that her imagination is some kind of prognostication? Perhaps because she weaves in enough currency in terms of trends taken to extreme that the reader wonders if some of it could come true if trends run amok. Whether they will or not is anyone’s guess, including Atwood’s.
Two years ago, my daughter completed an independent study project for high school English where she chose to write an alternate ending for Oryx and Crake, a monologue for Jimmy. She presented it as a drama skit to the class and the teacher was speechless. Later, she sent her assignment to Margaret Atwood who very kindly replied with a personal letter saying “You write very well” and encouraged her to keep writing. This praise was wonderful and my daughter is indeed still writing, almost everyday: at last count she was working on her eleventh book of speculative fiction. The fridge magnets hold a special place of honour on her mini-fridge at university, “I think, therefore I spam.”
On a final note, this award-winning author has interesting taste in footwear. She was sporting a conservative black pant suit with a book tour t-shirt, accented by a bright red pair of MBT Anti-Shoes. I like her style: she’s true to her own choices.
The hairs on my bare forearms stand up in anticipation as I set out from shore in a tandem sea kayak with my newly minted teen son. We are lucky to have a perfectly still morning to explore Newman Sound, one of the long fingers of Bonavista Bay on the eastern coast of Newfoundland that reaches into Terra Nova National Park to tickle its shores. The ocean surface is a flat-water sheet of emerald glass. We develop a nice rhythm gliding across the mirror, as each pull of our paddles makes great headway in zero wind. The only sound is the occasional dripping of water across our hands into the sea as we alternate from side to side.
We are hoping to make it past The Narrows to Minchin’s Cove for lunch and then return, a 12 km trip in total. The still water provides excellent visibility, so we drift occasionally without paddling in shallow areas along the shore to see orange and purple starfish, sea urchins and rocks of all shapes and sizes. We easily clear The Narrows in about an hour and then head out across the open ocean. Jamie hopes to see a whale and I tell him we just might.
Without warning, he pulls his paddle over his head and yells, “Mom, there’s nowhere to go!” Hundreds of jellyfish in all sizes undulate in the water: some at the surface, brushing past our kayak, others pulse at deeper depths. We are completely surrounded. I am alarmed and lift my paddle out too, trying to figure out what to do while fear pumps adrenaline around my body. I do not want to endure the fiery rash of a jellyfish sting again. Several years earlier, I was stung by a loose stringer that drifted past unseen while diving in the Caribbean. The burn mark on my arm had taken a year to disappear.
Here we see huge rusty red lion’s mane jellyfish, with bell diameters ranging in size from dinner plates to car tires. Tentacles float willy-nilly at the surface or twinkle in the sunlight bands leading down as far as the eye can see. Translucent white moon jellies, the size of baseballs pulse by, revealing four white circles in their alien centres, nature’s failed attempt at Venn diagrams. The moon jellies do not have long tentacles, just little propeller ones close to their bodies. Some moon jellies are tangled in the red manes’ tentacles, slow meals for the commanding species.
Jamie freaks, “I can’t paddle anywhere, there are too many!” He bangs his paddle across the bow of the boat to see if loud noise will scare it away. I sweep my paddle close to a red mane jelly, to see if it will sense our presence and move away. Nothing works. The last thing we want to do is flip a tentacle up onto a bare arm or hand. While not lethal, we know the sting would leave us itching and moaning for hours. We have to keep going, so I agree to be the sole engine. Jamie takes up the role of spotter, with paddle and arms held close to his body for insurance. At 13, he is a curious paradox: he won’t permit hugs anymore, but he is glad to embrace a backup plan when the going gets tough.
In the dead calm sea, it is easy to propel the tandem by myself, so I paddle gingerly, watching every entry to avoid the stringers. I try to get Jamie to focus on the interesting part of this encounter to get his mind off the danger. We talk about why the jellies are here in such large numbers: is it a sign of global warming, and they are closer to the surface than usual in their quest to find plankton? Has the whale population dropped so low that the jellyfish population has increased unchecked? As we glide by, Jamie calms down and notes that they are really quite beautiful and peaceful; drifting along as if listening to some primordial command that only they understand.
We finally pull into Minchin’s Cove and land the kayak to take a lunch break. It feels wonderful to get out and stretch upright after being bent at the waist for 3 hours. We sink into sticky peanut butter and honey sandwiches as we tramp around to explore the remains of an old logging camp in the clearing. Deer flies smell our wet skin and target our arms for their own chunks of lunch: we laugh about how funny we look trying to eat and swat flies at the same time. The wind picks up and brings fresh green scents of the surrounding boreal forest to compete with notes of briny ocean.
Jamie notes that the sky is clouding over and that the wind is turning up whitecaps that we will have to paddle against on our return trip. The ocean is now milky grey, hiding secrets under opaque waves. We load back into the kayak and luckily Jamie doesn’t ask to have a turn at stern: we need my expertise to steer with the foot paddles while paddling to maintain direction against the waves. Jamie cannot see any jellyfish at the surface, so I tell him they must have descended deeper to avoid the churn. This seems to be the case, and I am grateful, because his strength is necessary to paddle against the waves to make any headway.
We drive against the wind and waves all the way back to the Marine Interpretation Centre, burning up every last lunch calorie. Exhausted but exhilarated, we haul the kayak onto the beach and unload our gear. Jamie takes a well deserved stretch, grins widely and says, “It was so cool to see the jellies!” We are on an interesting journey through time as mother and son: sometimes the balance shifts, but the truth is we need each other.
I love the different signs you see when traveling. They give you a sense of the community you are visiting and the different communication techniques used to get a message across.
This one is from the ferry terminal cafe at Quathiaski Cove, Quadra Island. It reminds me of Kathy Buckworth’s humour. She is the author of the new book The BlackBerry Diaries: Adventures in Modern Motherhood and tweets regularly about funny parenting trials and tribulations.
Further down the road at the south end of Quadra Island is a handmade sign beside a mailbox that says “Trespassers will be invited for tea”. Love it.
The High Tech Barometer at Mount Washington should be required technology for any meteorologist that has trouble with accurate forecasts. The text is hard to read in the photo, so here it is:
“Watch the rock and observe the following in order to forecast the weather.
And finally, the sign for a little glass and mirror store in Coromandel Town, New Zealand. I think they’re counting on a lot of repeat business.
A bit more than a month ago, I stuck my toe into the social network Twitter. What a fascinating journey it’s been so far.
The upside
Tweeps in the writer, editor, and journalist groups are a welcoming, sharing bunch. Much more than tweeting what they’re working on at any given moment, they usually comment on a shared link to headline news, offer helpful resources, or draw attention to important issues like copyright, and the impact of the internet on media content. There are informative 3 hour-long hashtag chats which function as online workshops to discuss a key issue. Tweeps in this crowd also maintain their own blog and web site. Oh, and they write too.
Twitter has enabled camaraderie and connection with lots of folks I would not have a chance to communicate with otherwise: journalists, writers and editors in Canada, the US and beyond. These tweeps commiserate, share a joke, their own comics, and blog entries, like co-workers taking a break around a virtual water cooler.
Headlines move at the speed of tweets around the world, faster than media broadcasts fixed in time like television news or the morning paper or radio. If you’re a news junkie, this can save time catching up in other media later. Much has been written about how quickly news goes viral on Twitter, like the recent horrible events in Iran, celebrity deaths or political gaffes on both sides of the Canadian/US border.
Having a bad day? Reread your favourite tweets, chuckle, repeat if necessary. My favourites range from someone lamenting why there was a whole news cycle on whether Stephen Harper ate Jesus or merely pocketed him, to another tweet which contemplated if spontaneous combustion would happen if Fahrenheit 451 was removed from a Kindle.
The downside
The networking river is as wide and deep as you want to make it. Referred to by one prolific tweeter, a technology internet lawyer, as “the gateway drug to social media”, Twitter is very addictive. You will find yourself dipping back in more and more often to see what’s going on, especially if you’re a news junkie.
Getting Twitter started takes work. I find it rather humourous that I bought Joel Comm’s book Twitter Power to learn how to set up a home page, background pic, install Tweetdeck and understand the syntax and protocol of tweeting. Finding the right WordPress plugin for Twitter for this blog’s sidebar is still a work in progress (as you can see!) and someday when I’m not so busy (yeah, when pigs fly…) I’ll find a way to add the Twitter link to my main site. Getting Twitter going has certainly slowed my blogging frequency considerably but I have set a new #writegoal to get that in motion.
Twitter’s bastardization of the written word slays me as it feels counterintuitive to maintaining excellent writing skills. I am horrified to learn that ”favorite”is a verb (US spelling, double ugh) . It is somewhat disturbing that I now know what it means to “disemvowel” a tweet and why it’s necessary. There are a whole slew of short forms and acronyms that are mystifying at first but make more sense over time, especially if you know some texting shorthand, IMHO.
Every new technology seems to come with its own bunch of spammers. Enter just one word the Twit-spammers are auto-searching for, like “funny video” or “starcraft” and they jump right on it with a retweet and an attempt to follow. Vigilance to block is a necessity, but that’s the same for email, so c’est la vie. It would be great if Twitter would come up with some kind if spam blocker, like WordPress’ Akismet plugin.
Bottom Line
I’m hooked. The social networking is well worth the plunge into the river, I just have to remember when to step out and dry off from time to time and get back to work.
Okay, so PowerStream Ontario installed a new smart meter last week so they can vary electricity billing by usage over different time periods in response to the provincial government’s mandate to migrate customers to a new pricing system by the end of 2010. I get the variable reinforcement schedule. There’s no need for Pavlov to ring his little bell. The brochure outlines the big electricity users in my home, but I already knew, thanks.
The meter will enable variable pricing for electricity costs, depending on Time Of Use (TOU). When TOU billing starts in a few months, usage will cost more during peak usage times, i.e. homeowners will pay a bit more than twice as much to use electricity during convenient times compared to the middle of the night, when they might otherwise be doing things like sleeping.
Well, I hate to break the news, but I won’t be doing laundry between 10pm and 7am. Not happening. For sure. I already do my part with a high efficiency furnace and air conditioner, air-tight windows, CFL lightbulbs, using off-switches and unplugging things. Gee, I haven’t plugged the treadmill in for months! How nice that from now on, weekends and holidays are considered off-peak, so if I have nowhere better to be, I can always do chores all weekend and not feel guilty about the electricity I’m using.
And no thanks to the an additional offer for something called a “peaksaver” programmable thermostat that will allow the power company to remotely turn air conditioners on and off during heat waves. I guess this comes as a surprise, but I already manage my own programmable thermostat, all by myself, keep it set at a respectable 25C and even then, only turn it on during a heat wave. Otherwise, fresh air seems to work just fine. And surely they are kidding to think that it’s a benefit for homeowners to control their thermostat remotely via the internet. Perhaps this is an exciting option for those who are too challenged to program their thermostat on the wall in the first place?!
Rather than chase homeowners who already try to be energy efficient, I think it would be far better for the electricity company the Ontario Energy Board to implement variable billing for businesses like grocery stores with open freezer sections, or movie theatres that are so cold you need to dress in layers to see a movie during a heat advisory. The chill hits you like a wall just entering those places.
Perhaps the new Smart Meters will instill a bit of a learning curve by penalizing the pocketbook of neighbours who think it’s okay to roar their air conditioners 24/7 all summer with open windows. But for the most part, I think the average homeowner has more common sense. Only time will tell if the new rates will translate to price gouging from those who are already trying to be reasonable in their power consumption.
Thanks to web designer Ed Merritt and a lively discussion board, I have updated this blog to a new, hopefully more professional looking theme. After weeks of trying to learn css via W3schools, reviewing code for my previous theme to see if I could just hack it to make it do what I want, and trying to see if I could simply just arrange a wedding or perhaps just a brief fling between Dreamweaver and WordPress to sync, or something, I happened upon Ocean Mist while surfing and decided to give it a whirl.
Some kind of learning curve is finally kicking in - I successfully changed the header image and took out some extra sidebar code I didn’t want. But what happened to my Share This plugin? Evaporated into the ether even though it still shows as an active plugin on the WP admin? More homework….
By the way, the header photo is a female merganser, braced against the morning wind in Bruce National Park. Love that zoom lens…
I find the best time to photograph things in the garden is just after the rain. The overcast light is consistent with no distracting shadows. The raindrops clinging to the flowers and foliage add a lush look impossible to capture on a brighter, sunbaked day.
Colours look more intense and vibrant in the shade. Even better, this tulip has more graphic appeal closed. When it is open in the bright sunshine, the petals are open and flopping about willy-nilly. Closed up, the delicate red edging provides a nice highlight.
