Broken Area

Isabelle is back from her trip to Montreal and Quebec City.  She was pretty much on the road most of the time, visiting different people.

Yesterday was my birthday.  Isabelle made a great dinner and we had a couple of people over.  She really rocked it.

It is also St. Jean Baptiste Day.  So there's that.

What the heck happened to Dow Beer?

Why does liquor have to be sold by a government agency?  I'm curious what the arguments are.  Oh you can now buy beer in our grocery store.

My brother went to see U2, as the guest of Larry Mullen Jr.  So that's a thing.

It's a special Tuesday edition of Monday Night Football!

Isabelle had a bunch of her student art collection (her work and her student colleagues' work that is throughout our house) on display this past weekend as it was a convocation open house thing.  It was great to see all of it, but now we had to remove it and take it home.  Sorta felt like we were Ocean's 11.

Isabelle is off to Montreal and Quebec City tomorrow, so we did a quick grocery shopping trip today to pick up a few things.

I paid entirely with points!

I wonder how you get people to realize that they need festivals and art and such in a town?  We figure it has something to do with #awareness.  Indeed, often people don't know they need or want something until you point it out to them.

Have a great trip Isabelle!

So, we went shopping a day early as I have convocation tomorrow and Isabelle has a thing. 

isabelle is going to be juror for the Ontario arts Council which is pretty great.  Congratulations to her. 

We had a friend over tonight, so we made pasta, it was a first for us.  Sorta kinda worked out.

Oh Jon came along on this one, and even chose one of the songs.  It is getting close to the end of the school year, so they have a lot of oh let's call them 'empty days' so Jon took the day off.  Yup, we got a box at the LCBO.

Pretty good title right?

So Isabelle has a print in a provincial competition.  Or, maybe it is four of them, anyway, it is awesome and wonderful.  It is a blind juried show, which is also great.  I'm really proud of her.  She however cannot take compliments and makes various noises when complimented.

Yesterday was the ninth anniversary of my Dad's death.  On facebook I posted a series of stories about him as I do every year.  I'm not sure how many there are, but this year was the most.  Isabelle thinks I ought to publish them.

Newspapers are not long for this world, though news organizations seem to be ok.  They're moving to the web exclusively.  Isabelle wants a semi curated news feed to show up in her facebook feed, which would be nice.  

Oh, I have a friend in Russia, he seems really cool.  He's also a psychologist.  We talk all of the time.

Enjoy.

No, that is not an albino joke, listen and you'll get the title.

So, I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Toronto for the Council of Ontario Universities.  It was pretty good, and it is a great group of people.  I also went for a beer or two with Brent with an E, which was nice.

A special hello to everyone in Kingston celebrating Bob and PAB.

Isabelle is still painting, and still working on grants.

Boy it is getting warm.

Hey, they have a bathroom in the LCBO!

Another fine day for shopping.  Spring is inching its way up north it seems

Isabelle was at a thing, well a class really, yesterday where she helped out stretching cow and deer hides to make drums.  Wow.  That's something I wouldn't do.  I figure it is gross, from all that I have heard.  Especially the smell.  Seemed like a lot of work.

Isabelle likes perennials, not annuals.

Apparently Greg David also had to clean Christmas tree needles out of the car.

Lawns should be replaced with mint.  You mow your lawn, you smell like gum, that'd be great.

Isabelle would paint cows all over the car if she could.

We have several trips coming up, should be hectic.

I know I keep mentioning the weather, but it really finally is spring.  Fourteen degrees!

The dandelions are back.  There seem to be more each year, though that is probably because you can't use pesticides any more.  Though the emergence of influence of Native culture probably plays a role too.  Either way, apparently the dandelions are good for the bees.

So, I hate lawns, lawns are dumb.

Pickup truck guy (not the one in this pic, another one) made it so Isabelle couldn't see when we left the liquor store.

We got gas today, so four segments!

Isabelle is losing track of time.

So, writing this before we go.

Look, I think I have a title already.  It is my hope anyway.  More on that when we get back.

It's spring, really!

The nice weather means that Cow Quest 2017 has begun!  Isabelle went cow painting yesterday, and had a good time doing so.

I had a lot of meetings yesterday.  I invited Isabelle to come to a university Senate meeting, she declined....

The title refers to the Pop Shoppe, a Canadian institution for a while, that just disappeared.   It is back, and it's selling alcoholic pop!  So, yeah, I got some....

We then had some audio issues in the third segment, so we recorded a bit at home.  Looks like Isabelle will be entering some prints in a competition.  You can see them in the pic on this post.

Jon joined us for a bit as well.  Have a good week, see you next Saturday.

First off, sorry for the audio quality last week, I thin kI have the issue resolved.

Back to our normal routine.  Saturday shopping.

Isabelle is involved in a cool project where people from all over the place fill in sketch books, crowd sourced art sorta.

Remember those inter office memo envelopes?  Who makes those now?  Is that company out of business?  Do people read stuff less now than they used to because stuff is quicker?  I dunno.

Isabelle continues her grant writing.

The LCBO might go on strike.  This concerns me.

So, I just got back from the Conference on Comparative Cognition, which explains the odd release day for the podcast.

At left you can see how generally evil the Orlando airport is.

The trip was good.  Maddie gave a great talk, and generally the conference itself was great, as it always is.  This year there was the Space Coast March For Science which many conference goers attended.  Maddie included.  I did not, as it umm, well, is in the Florida sun.

That said, many went, and here's a cool video of it.

Debit and credit machines were down at the grocery store, people had to pay with, CASH.  It felt so 1996.  Then again, in the States you still sign for your credit card purchases rather than use a chip card because FREEDOM!!!