Urgence de santé publique à Toronto, parce qu'un chiot acheté dans un marché aux puces est mort de la rage. Une vingtaine de personnes qui auraient pu avoir contact avec les chiots doivent contacter la santé publique pour évaluer s'ils devraient se faire vacciner contre la rage.
L'histoire se lit en anglais ici.
Je n'ai qu'une seule question : qui achète un CHIOT dans un marché aux PUCES?
25 January 2008
12 January 2008
A Little Shuffle
I thought I would take some time to rearrange my links today (and to draw attention to them, I suppose). I've noticed that this is often something that people don't talk about in their blogs, but I think it's worth a word or two.
I have removed a couple of links for blogs that have stopped posting, or post so little so seldom that even I get frustrated going to them and seeing the same stuff come up … again! Not that I am the King of the posters, but I do expect more content in the stuff I go to see regularly than a random photo of a cute boy every six or eight weeks. Label me exigeant.
But speaking of the cute boy pictures, I thought I would make a whole other section for links to places I like to go to window shop. Maybe just to prove to myself that, yes, I still have my membership card, even if I haven't been digging it out of my wallet lately. That's what Pretty Things is all about. (One of these will stand out as having more content than just the pretty things, but he has also announced that he won't be posting for a while. It's still worth looking back through the older posts for some breathtaking photos, and some lovely scenery, too.)
Back to the main list, I have also included a few links to blogs posting gay cinema (no, not that kind of cinema — those links are still confined to my favourites and not listed here), usually in multiple parts needing to be reassembled after downloading. Being a recovering lawyer (like alcoholism, it really never leaves one's system), I would surely never advocate any kind of blatant or surreptitious copyright violation — it's just a lovely sampler to help people figure out what they need to purchase from original sources.
One of the ways I have discovered new blogs is by clicking on the "Next Blog" button at the top of Blogger blogs. All kinds of kooky random stuff comes up, which, for a person without a personal life like me, is very rewarding. Another way has been to explore the links from the blogs I like to read, so I hope my little list will lead you (eventually) to some other things that you might not have discovered otherwise.
Last but not least, I would ask you to recall that song "New York New York" put out by Nina Hagen decades ago. I read an interview with her once in which she explained how she arrived at the list of nightclubs mentioned in the song — they were all the places that let her in for free. So my other source of blogs I link to is from those who have ever left comments on my blog. And lest we think that is shallow, I would add that these are also triaged to include those whose content also responds to my other expectations: funny, interesting, and/or messages and experiences that are worth sharing.
I have removed a couple of links for blogs that have stopped posting, or post so little so seldom that even I get frustrated going to them and seeing the same stuff come up … again! Not that I am the King of the posters, but I do expect more content in the stuff I go to see regularly than a random photo of a cute boy every six or eight weeks. Label me exigeant.
But speaking of the cute boy pictures, I thought I would make a whole other section for links to places I like to go to window shop. Maybe just to prove to myself that, yes, I still have my membership card, even if I haven't been digging it out of my wallet lately. That's what Pretty Things is all about. (One of these will stand out as having more content than just the pretty things, but he has also announced that he won't be posting for a while. It's still worth looking back through the older posts for some breathtaking photos, and some lovely scenery, too.)
Back to the main list, I have also included a few links to blogs posting gay cinema (no, not that kind of cinema — those links are still confined to my favourites and not listed here), usually in multiple parts needing to be reassembled after downloading. Being a recovering lawyer (like alcoholism, it really never leaves one's system), I would surely never advocate any kind of blatant or surreptitious copyright violation — it's just a lovely sampler to help people figure out what they need to purchase from original sources.
One of the ways I have discovered new blogs is by clicking on the "Next Blog" button at the top of Blogger blogs. All kinds of kooky random stuff comes up, which, for a person without a personal life like me, is very rewarding. Another way has been to explore the links from the blogs I like to read, so I hope my little list will lead you (eventually) to some other things that you might not have discovered otherwise.
Last but not least, I would ask you to recall that song "New York New York" put out by Nina Hagen decades ago. I read an interview with her once in which she explained how she arrived at the list of nightclubs mentioned in the song — they were all the places that let her in for free. So my other source of blogs I link to is from those who have ever left comments on my blog. And lest we think that is shallow, I would add that these are also triaged to include those whose content also responds to my other expectations: funny, interesting, and/or messages and experiences that are worth sharing.
01 January 2008
An Eventful Trip: Mum & Dad's House
Okay, not like the falling-down shed at the end of the previous post. This is a little glimpse at my parents' house, which my Dad built over the course of several years, lots of this alone and much of it by hand.
First from the outside, the view coming up the driveway:
…and the view at the back of the house:
We also like to tease Dad that he has enough wood for the heaters and stoves to last until 2010 (this is only one woodpile area; there are at least two that I know of):
It is a lovely log house on three levels (DON'T call it a cabin: it is quite large!). The basement is at ground level in the front and the next floor is at ground level in the back. From the basement through the roof is a giant chimney that accommodates two fireplaces, a wood heater (in the basement) and a wood stove (in the kitchen). Dad built this chimney carrying rocks (collected from all over the place) and mortar on his back up a ladder. Here is a view of the chimney and another of the wood stove (actually a heater) in the kitchen:
Dad lifted the logs into place using a hand winch, lifting them up the hill and into place atop the basement. I only took a few pictures from different perspectives, so here is the living room (with my sister Syd in pain on the couch — see the Exploding Appendix entry — and my sister-in-law Linda in the chair):
On the other side of the chimney on that level are the kitchen and dining room (with my brother Mike at the table):
…and the same rooms seen from above, from the loft-style bedroom upstairs:
Off of the loft is a little plant room featuring a stained glass window made by my little sister Syd and also showing one of the five skylights (the others: two in the living room, one in the kitchen, one in the dining room):
And how does one navigate the space between floors? On this lovely two-storey spiral staircase welded by my brother-in-law John:
Isn't it lovely?!
First from the outside, the view coming up the driveway:
…and the view at the back of the house:
We also like to tease Dad that he has enough wood for the heaters and stoves to last until 2010 (this is only one woodpile area; there are at least two that I know of):
It is a lovely log house on three levels (DON'T call it a cabin: it is quite large!). The basement is at ground level in the front and the next floor is at ground level in the back. From the basement through the roof is a giant chimney that accommodates two fireplaces, a wood heater (in the basement) and a wood stove (in the kitchen). Dad built this chimney carrying rocks (collected from all over the place) and mortar on his back up a ladder. Here is a view of the chimney and another of the wood stove (actually a heater) in the kitchen:
Dad lifted the logs into place using a hand winch, lifting them up the hill and into place atop the basement. I only took a few pictures from different perspectives, so here is the living room (with my sister Syd in pain on the couch — see the Exploding Appendix entry — and my sister-in-law Linda in the chair):
On the other side of the chimney on that level are the kitchen and dining room (with my brother Mike at the table):
…and the same rooms seen from above, from the loft-style bedroom upstairs:
Off of the loft is a little plant room featuring a stained glass window made by my little sister Syd and also showing one of the five skylights (the others: two in the living room, one in the kitchen, one in the dining room):
And how does one navigate the space between floors? On this lovely two-storey spiral staircase welded by my brother-in-law John:
Isn't it lovely?!
An Eventful Trip: Countryside
This should be a winner: photos taken from cars speeding along the highway. I'm putting that right out front to explain the blurriness of some of the photos, not to mention the occasional reflection of the side mirror in the window through which these photos were taken. I think I still managed to take some photos that will show what I want to talk about.
The first striking thing is the damage that was done to the countryside just north of Kamloops by forest fires in 2003. At the time, the highway and even the railway were closed for some time, as the fires raged and crisscrossed the valley. My parents, who live about an hour's drive north of the furthest extent of the fires, were affected by losing their telephone and electricity for close to two weeks, which had all of the rest of us quite scared as they barbecued breakfast, lunch and dinner. They remained cut off from the City of Kamloops, which is where the larger hospital and shops and such are located.
Below are three shots of hillsides with the burned skeletons of the trees that used to cover them until four and a half years ago.
The other big impact of the fires was that they were interface fires, meaning that they encroached on the towns dotted through the valley. Many homes were burned and, perhaps more devastatingly, businesses, including a couple of sawmills that have not since been rebuilt, meaning that those jobs are lost and the towns even further devastated. Below is what is left of one of these sawmills. The scene used to include a number of buildings housing machinery for cutting and planning lumber as well as stacks of lumber and of logs over that vast expanse that is now a large empty field.
The next striking thing is the other great destroyer of the forests in the area: the pine beetle (pictured below).
Here are a couple of pictures of beetle-killed trees (they are the red ones). The other aspect of this is a proliferation of woodpeckers, which love to eat the beetles. The woodpecker action on trees that have already been killed also serves to strip the bark from the trees, as you can see a bit in the second picture.
My Dad and my little sister, who know much more about these things than I do, have told me a little about the various insects attacking the forests. Pine beetles are not the only ones: there are spruce and fir beetles, too, but the difference is that those two kinds can often be 'trapped' by setting up a deck of fallen trees, which can then be taken away and destroyed. The pine beetles only invade upright, living trees.
To end on a more humorous note, let me include this picture of a broken-down looking shed in the Cariboo region. My family has a game we always played when we drove anywhere, looking for falling-down buildings and rusting cars and attributing them to our parents and siblings. In that spirit, here is my sister Brandy's house:
Ha Ha!
The first striking thing is the damage that was done to the countryside just north of Kamloops by forest fires in 2003. At the time, the highway and even the railway were closed for some time, as the fires raged and crisscrossed the valley. My parents, who live about an hour's drive north of the furthest extent of the fires, were affected by losing their telephone and electricity for close to two weeks, which had all of the rest of us quite scared as they barbecued breakfast, lunch and dinner. They remained cut off from the City of Kamloops, which is where the larger hospital and shops and such are located.
Below are three shots of hillsides with the burned skeletons of the trees that used to cover them until four and a half years ago.
The other big impact of the fires was that they were interface fires, meaning that they encroached on the towns dotted through the valley. Many homes were burned and, perhaps more devastatingly, businesses, including a couple of sawmills that have not since been rebuilt, meaning that those jobs are lost and the towns even further devastated. Below is what is left of one of these sawmills. The scene used to include a number of buildings housing machinery for cutting and planning lumber as well as stacks of lumber and of logs over that vast expanse that is now a large empty field.
The next striking thing is the other great destroyer of the forests in the area: the pine beetle (pictured below).
These things are very tiny and have been killing trees in BC for quite a long time. With warmer winters, they are not being killed off by sudden and long periods of cold as they once were, so they are spreading uncontrollably. (Apparently, when the cold arrives slowly, they are able to adapt by producing a kind of anti-freeze that protects them from the cold; a quick cold snap that lasts long enough might actually halt their spread, but this hasn't been happening very much lately. The other scary thing about them is their mode of travel. A cloud of them blew into Kamloops in a storm a couple of years ago and now almost every pine tree in town has been infested and killed.
Here are a couple of pictures of beetle-killed trees (they are the red ones). The other aspect of this is a proliferation of woodpeckers, which love to eat the beetles. The woodpecker action on trees that have already been killed also serves to strip the bark from the trees, as you can see a bit in the second picture.
My Dad and my little sister, who know much more about these things than I do, have told me a little about the various insects attacking the forests. Pine beetles are not the only ones: there are spruce and fir beetles, too, but the difference is that those two kinds can often be 'trapped' by setting up a deck of fallen trees, which can then be taken away and destroyed. The pine beetles only invade upright, living trees.
To end on a more humorous note, let me include this picture of a broken-down looking shed in the Cariboo region. My family has a game we always played when we drove anywhere, looking for falling-down buildings and rusting cars and attributing them to our parents and siblings. In that spirit, here is my sister Brandy's house:
Ha Ha!
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