Tempus Fugit

Latin (tem-pu̇s-ˈfü-git): Time Flies

Category: Grab Bag

Stuff about stuff

  • Imperial still rules

    I’m reading the car section of the local paper where the writer is doing a year in review of the cars he’s tested in ’08. He’s driven quite a range of vehicles from a Mini E all the way to a Rolls Royce Phantom at $440,000. As with all good car reviews there are a lot of numbers used to measure the characteristics of the cars. Things like 6.2 litre, V8, 3,000 rpm, 375 hp, and then there is 96 km/h as in 3.9 seconds to reach 96 km/h (Cadillac CTS-V).

    What is with 96km/h? I’ve never seen a speed limit sign for 96; 90, 100, 120 but never 96! Those of you of a certain age, or with excellent mental math acuity will have realized that this is 60 mph. Actually, it’s 59.6516, but close enough. Even today, many years after we’ve supposedly made the shift to metric measurements in Canada the US Imperial measurement system still exerts it’s influence in some not so subtle ways. I guess extrapolating 0-60mph performance into 0-100km/h would be risky for a reviewer and I’d assume that the US manufacturer didn’t porvide this stat for the rest of the non-imperial world.

    Give me mpg any day after all what is L/100 km anyway?

  • Skiing home movies

  • Reverse Crop Circles


    Sandpaper Mystery
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

    I was doing some work around the house the other day, fitting one of the new doors, and I needed some sandpaper. So, fishing around in the shop for a piece I come across this. I certainly don’t remember doing it. A perfectly good full sheet of sandpaper with a very precise, yet irregular shape cut out. Hmmm, I think I’ll need to investigate for Shop Elves. There seems to be some mischief afoot.

  • Warming up where you are?

    It’s been pretty cold here in Winnipeg and across Canada this winter so far with lots of snow in unusual places like Victoria. The whole business of getting excited about what the weather is doing over the last couple of hundred years is a little hysterical in light of the last few thousand years, let alone how long the earth has been in existence. I seem to recall that right here in Winnipeg some large number of years ago, we were under several hundred feet of ice, perhaps that’s coming back now.

    2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved – Telegraph

    Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

  • Stored memories retrieved


    Photo Memories
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

    I’m taking some time off between Christmas and New Years so I’m spending some time around the house relaxing and getting some things done like replacing the interior doors and cleaning and organizing some areas of the house. Today was a cleaning and organizing day.

    We have a storage room, which frequently turns into a dumping ground for all that stuff you want to keep, but just don’t want to take the time to store properly, with some sort of hope of knowing where it is when you want to get it back. The other storage area is under the stairs, the place where memories are stored.

    OK, my memories are not really stored under the stairs, I haven’t totally lost it yet, but it is the place where we store some of the things that trigger powerful memories. You see, under the stairs there are several large boxes. These boxes contain photo albums. Not my photo albums, that’s another organizational story for another day, but the albums from my parents and grandparents. What will the digital generation do when it’s their turn to look through the “family album”? No technology problems here. Pictures from the ’20s and possibly older are ready to view at the flip of a page, and so many that I’d never seen before. Each picture a treasure and thankfully my Ama and Mom labeled and dated many of the photos so distant relatives, places and occasions can be identified. Photos of my Dad in England during the war, riding a motorcycle. I’d only heard a brief story of his encounter with a large pot hole which resulted in the end of his motorcycle riding career.

    One album has wedding pictures of all my mom’s brother and sisters, the births of cousins, and growing up photos. So many of these photos trigger wonderful memories. There was also a sequence of photos when my Ama and Granddad moved into a new house on Oak St. I spend many wonderful hours in that house and it was fun to see it when it was new. And that was in just a couple of the dozens of albums not to mention a lot of un-filed photos in a box.

    I think I may start to build a real photo album soon.

  • Santa drinks Coke, not Pepsi


    Coke Santa
    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

    Need I say more?

  • Blackberry Problem




    Blackberry Problem

    Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

    I tried to replace this holster for my Blackberry a while ago mainly because I’ve never liked the burgundy colour, but because the 8703e is now an obsolete model, the holster is no longer (easily) available.

    What to do? It seems like I’ll need to get a more current Blackberry to resolve this crisis. This is planned obsolescence to the max.

  • Decorations

    I’ve decorated my work cubicle for the Christmas Season.

    Red and green, get it? Yeah, I know, lame.

  • Retreat thoughts

    It’s Sunday morning and the camp is slowly waking up. Last night was much quieter as they read the riot act at breakfast yesterday. In fact I was the last guy in after watchig the late movie, Gladiator.
    The sessions have been good and thought provoking. The team sessions were good as well and I got to know some of the other volunteers. I was impressed by many of the young guys with their passion for the Lord, their knowledge of the Word and their insights into world events.
    I spent some time talking with the band and Darren S. a friend of Jon B., a very interesting guy.
    I wonder what today will bring?

  • First night at camp

    Well , it was an experience.
    The late night movie was Wall-e which I’d previously reported was Lam-e, so I opted for some reading time and turned in shortly after midnight. I was the only guy in the room. Shortly after settling in one of my roomies flys throught the room and asks on the way out “crashing so earlly?”. Not a good sign.
    There is the somewhat expected racket through the night and I drift in and out all night, at least untill about 3am. In a semi-consious state I’m hearing a rhythmic “thwak, thwak, thwak”. It sounds like somebody hitting a stapler on a hollow desk. Then the memories start coming back from college days. That sound is a fast and furious air hockey game in the rec room below our sleeping area.
    I’m up at 8 and pretty much alone and have the showers to myself. These young guys may be able to party all night but they are not so good about greeting the day. Breakfast is at 9 and I think about making a racket as I get going, but I don’t, let the lads sleep on. Soon enough they will be waking up at 5am and wishing they could sleep in forever llike they are today.