Time machines
August. I know, I know. I’m not original when I ask, “What the H E double ears of local corn happened to the summer?” But here we are, and the first week of August is behind us. We’re bombarded by back-to-school- days advertising in every flyer that gets dropped on our front step. I don’t […]
Oh, Robot
Over a month last year, an adorable science project became the first robot to complete the great Canadian road trip. Geared up with a pair of red Wellington boots and a computerized smile, hitchBOT hitchhiked from Halifax to Victoria. The robot was a co-creation of Frauke Zeller from Ryerson University in Toronto and David Harris […]
No dog days for these guys
The Toronto Blue Jays came north this past Spring with the intention that they would win the World Series. In fact, all Major League baseball teams have the same intent when they break camp. As the season wears on, through May and June, teams begin to realize that they either have the right stuff, or […]
Chinese reds
Sand dunes in the Gobi rival those of the Sahara in size and majesty. They are responsible for sandstorms in Beijing that have become more and more frequent. So both Mongolia and China’s autonomous region of Inner Mongolia have embarked on a reclamation program of tree, shrub and grass plantings in the region. The government […]
The clothingoptional option
With all of the hot weather we’ve been having recently, I can’t get the subject of nudity out of my mind. To tell the truth, it came to mind mostly by mistake. I was checking out a couple of naturalist organizations on the Web and stumbled— honestly, it was an honest mistake— across the website […]
Making it right
I am addicted to home repair and renovation television shows. Bet you didn’t know that about me. When I was a kid, my grandfather loved to watch wrestling on television. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if he was caught up with the wrestling or just the magic of television. Hard to […]
Desert wines
You can see on a globe that the wine regions of Bordeaux, Sonoma County and Napa Valley share latitudes with the Gobi wine region of China. However, the comparison ends there, since this new wine region requires the ultimate in TLC. Vineyards in the Gobi of Inner Mongolia are subject to extremes similar to our […]
The conclusion of the Games
As an avid fan of international sports contests and games, I was intrigued when an announcer mentioned that there were tickets remaining for the closing ceremonies of the Pan American Games in Toronto. I had not seen any of the events, but caught some of the action on TV. I watched the conclusion of the […]
Musings on Albert
There are days when I wish to be a seagull. I mean, more likely perhaps that there could be moments when we could trade shoes, or webbed feet—the seagull and I that is— something like a kid’s transformer character who could move from person to feathered being and back again. The back-again part would have […]
10 excuses for 37 million people
Websites get hacked all the time, data gets stolen and people get indignant. But what if the hacked site has 37 million users, and every one of them is registered for the purpose of conducting some business he or she wishes to keep secret from someone else? That is the dilemma now facing Avid Life […]