How to Make Extra Work for Myself through Procrastination

There are some days where I could just kick myself. I see something that I need to do but I don't "feel" like it right now... so I don't do it and then... I end up making a tonne more work for myself. I don't know why I continue to do this... but I do. So I must a little mole hill ahead of me and at some point, it hits a magic threshold and POOF!... it turns into a mountain.

Here's the most recent example... We have an Airbnb in our basement and we ask all of the guests to please put their recycling into the blue box in the carport.

We don't want them to put it in the big blue curbside bin in the driveway because... our recycling system is complicated and most guests have absolutely no idea as to what can be recycled or not. They go by what works in their city or town. And even though we have diagrams on the fridge outlining what can and can not be recycled, inevitably, they make mistakes.

You see, our recycle (and garbage and green) bins get picked up by a huge truck with a big mechanical arm, that picks it up and then empties it into the top of the truck. And as it gets dumped out, a camera scans the items to see if there are "non-recyclable" items - like glass jars and styrofoam and filmy plastic. These are all huge no-no's as they can contaminate an entire load of recycling which then ups the rejection rate at the recycling plant for our city trucks which means that the city gets charged more and... our property taxes go up.

On top of that... you might get an emailed notice from the city saying that you had rejected items in your blue bin and to please do better. So far, we have been clean but... I don't want to start getting notices!

And so... we ask the guests to put their recyclables into the blue box in the carport. I then sort through that and place items in the appropriate bins. Some people are very optimistic as to what can get recycled... like price tags made out of cardstock. No... really too small. Anyhow, the system works for us. And for things like glass, styrofoam and filmy plastic, I bundle that up with ours and then take it to the local recycling depot. Because while they can't go into the truck... they can go into designated bins at the depot. Like I said... complicated.

Anyhow... there I am last week, and I see that the blue box in the carport is getting full and I think... I really need to sort through that... but I didn't "feel" like it. I'll do it "tomorrow". Yeah. Right. And that evening, I'm sitting in my office, with it's window overlooking the driveway and I hear cans and glass bottles hitting the bottom of a plastic bin. Noooooo.....!!!! Yesssssss... I see our current guest standing by the blue bin dumping the indoor recycling bin AND the blue box into the curbside blue bin. Nooooo... 

I guess they had more recycling in the suite and the blue box was too full for them and they... decided to just dump it all. I utter several suitable swear words. Now... I've got a bigger problem on my hands. The curbside blue bin is deep, like 3.5 feet deep and getting stuff out of there is a hassle. and it's all in a big schmoz and... bummer.

So... on a Sunday afternoon, when the guests were out... I spent a good 20 minutes rummaging through the bin, dumping stuff out on the driveway and pulling out all sorts of non-recyclables... glass jars, filmy and crispy plastic overwrap, styrofoam trays and an inordinate amount of Tim Horton's cups. While the cups are recyclable in the curbside bin, they need to be washed otherwise they contaminate the paper stuff in the bin. Same with the little yogurt containers and the margarine container and... on it goes.

Now, I would have had to pull all of those things out of the carport blue box when I sorted that... which is maybe why I procrastinated on sorting it then. Because we took all that stuff inside and ended up washing it. A lot of people would have just tossed it into the garbage bin but... we are somehow eco-nerds and sooo... we washed a good 2 dozen Timmies cups and various other plastics.

And then my partner came up with a bright idea... we have now put a large, clear, plastic garbage bag into the blue carport box as a liner. If ever the box is close to full but I don't feel like sorting it... I can just yank the bag out, toss it in the backyard and put a new bag into the box.

Hopefully one small step now avoids a much larger step later!

And perhaps I will learn the life lesson that... procrastination does NOT make the task easier or less onerous. In most cases it makes it harder and bigger and more icky! Lesson learned??? Only time will tell!

PS - We came out one morning after the recycling bin had been cleared out on collection day. There were several more unsorted, unwashed items in the bin. I pulled them out and decided to temporarily put them in the carport blue box. We then happily placed all sorts of recycling into the blue bin. And then... yesterday, a Saturday... I found that they had dumped their blue box into the blue bin AGAIN! Even though the blue box wasn't even close to being full. So... all those items that I took out... are back in there again. So much for solving procrastination!

PPS - The latest iteration of my procrastination habit saw me watching weeds grow in the front yard, thinking... "I need to go and stab those out". We are in the thick of summer, so the lawn really doesn't need mowing, the weeds needs removal. I procrastinated for a couple of weeks and when I finally did it... half of the weeds had gone to seed puffs and the job was so much harder and took much longer than if I had done it when they were small! Ugh!

Cukes - better shrink-wrapped or naked?

Have you seen those triple packs of cukes in Superstore? Maybe only if you shop there. Well, let me tell you about them.

They come wrapped in plastic shrinkwrap, all three of them bundled together. It's a way better price than buying 3 single cucumbers (also separately wrapped in plastic). But the kicker with the triple pack is... the cucumbers inside the triple packaging area ALSO shrinkwrapped! What the heck??

Isn't that double packaging and incredibly bad for the environment? Yes it is! And Superstore got that memo and now those triple-packaged cucmbers are naked inside the packaging. Which is good.

Or is it. I just learned that cucumbers dehydrate three times as fast when they are naked. So the shrink-wrap actually serves a very useful function. A naked cucumber will last 2 days... a shrink-wrapped one will last 7 days. If we want cucumbers in February... then we should be grateful for shrink-wrapped produce... because they can be transported farther and still arrive in good shape.

Sooo... I'm actually kind of missing the individually shrink-wrapped cukes. You see... we bought at triple pack last week and ate one cucumber quite quickly in our salads. And then we ran out of greens for the salad and couldn't get to the store and... now those 2 naked cucumbers are off - going slimy and mouldy. Had they been individually shrink-wrapped, they might have lasted longer.

Now that we know that, however... we can take some steps to clothe our naked cucumbers. Put them in a big ziploc bag and squish out as much air as possible. 

Because... which is worse... some excess plastic wrap or... two wasted cucumber and all of the wasted water and gas and labour and... everything went into producing them and transporting them and storing them and selling them?

Now... having said that... there is no excuse for shrink wrapped bananas! Oh, the Brits...

Another Sugar Detox... Amongst Other Things

Tofu

I know. I've been here before. At least 3 times in the last year. And I'm back at it again. This time with more insight and motivation. Hopefully that will lead to success.

Those who follow the ramblings of this blog will know that I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's - an auto-immune thyroid condition that leads to hypothyroidism - not enough thyroid hormone. It means I need to take a synthetic thyroid hormone to keep my thyroid levels within range. But it's been a bit of a roller coaster trying to keep the numbers within range. Which is frustrating and annoying.

Right now, I'm struggling again with low energy levels, sluggishness, achy joints and anxiety. Fun, eh? Not. I've been doing a lot of reading and researching and... I've learned that these sorts of things often start in your gut. There are some foods that are just not good for auto-immune conditions, but it's hard to pin down because it differs from one person to another. One person might be good with eggs but for the other person, it sends them into a Hashi flare.

Some practitioners recommend something called the Auto-Immune Protocol which, among other things, recommends that you avoid "suspect" foods and focus on "good" foods. So... cutting out things like gluten, soy, legumes, nuts, eggs, dairy, nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant), sugar, high-glycemic fruits. It leave a lot of greens and meat to eat. It's a bit extreme... but maybe it's time to bite the bullet.

But then... in reading the list of foods to avoid... I had a bit of an epiphany. I went back to my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) lab results and discovered something intriguing. Just to clarify, the TSH is a hormone produced by the pituitary gland when thyroid levels are too low. So when the TSH goes up... it means there isn't enough thyroid horomone. Kind of counter-intuitive.

TSH Labs

Let's take a look at my TSH labs - going from 2014 to 2023. I had always put my thyroid issue down to the stress of taking care of my Dad towards the end of his life - 2016-2019. But those labs are all happily within range. There's a bit of up and down, but it's all relatively good.

Where things start to take off is in January 2020 when my partner and I decided to get rid of meat, dairy, and eggs from our diet. We were going whole foods and plant-based. We introduced a lot more legumes into our diet as well as tofu and tempeh (both soy products).

And then... in March 2021, we both went to see a naturopath. I was actually feeling pretty good, but given our vegan diet, she decided to put me on a heavy course of Vitamin D (like 10,000 IU/day - recommended is 600-800 IU) because she thought I might be low in Vitamin D given the vegan diet. She also recommended fish oil (liquid stuff). She told me to avoid gluten but said sourdough bread was fine. 

I pigged out on sourdough bread from Cobs Bakery and... well... you see what my TSH did. Turns out Cobs Bakery doesn't do the "right" type of sourdough bread! With increasing doses of synthroid, however, my numbers came back down but then there are these weird blips where it goes up again. That was usually because I slid backwards and thought... I can have "some" gluten! And we continued on our vegan diet.

I eventually ditched the naturopath because I developed other issues - things like oral lichen planus (raw spots inside my mouth). The naturopath thought that was weird and told me to stop taking all of the supplements she had put me on. She said that when I came to her, I was basically healthy and she wondered about all the stuff she had put me on. Brilliant. Paid $$ to get put on supplements and then paid more $$ to be told to get off of them. No more naturopaths.

Personally... I thought it was the fish oil... so I stopped taking that and added salmon into my diet. And my mouth cleared up. Interesting.

Taking Charge

So here we are... my thyroid is screwed up and when I look back at the history of this... I am faced with the dietary change from a regular diet to a vegan diet. Got rid of meat and fish and added soy and legumes and lots of whole grains (most were wheat based - things like farro). If you recall from above, soy and legumes are two of the things on the "avoid" list, along with gluten. Is soy the issue? Is it just the gluten?

I don't know but I've started an experiment. We have agreed to add meat back into our diet - ethically sourced, local chickens and bison. We're already eating eggs and salmon, so we'll continue with that. We are eliminating tofu and tempeh from our diet. And sugar. Sigh. And I'm getting rigid on the gluten. No more chocolate brownies. No more Timmies bagels. Nope. Done. For 3 months. I'm writing this on June 17, so we're looking at end of September.

What will my TSH do? How will my energy levels do? I don't know but it's worth it. Right now, I'm on 100 mcg of Synthroid right now. I'm at the point where I'm tempted to increase the dosage just to feel better but... maybe these dietary changes will do the trick.

I've read enough stories about people taking charge of their dietary eating plans and seeing a reversal in their thyroid labs to know... this is possible. Will it work for me... we shall see. Small steps.

So, every time I go into Starbucks, I think... no brownie (despite it's siren call). It's not worth the rest of it. Just. Not. Worth. It. Period.

When My Day Turns into a Chronic Hiccuper

 There are just some days where everything goes sideways. Wake up early, Starbucks not open, Wifi not working, Bluetooth mouse not connecting, brain not working properly, can't log-in to a website, co-worker complaining about something... ugh!

It seems like the whole day is "recalculating... recalculating... recalculating...". I try to go with the flow and pivot and adapt and reformulate and regroup and refocus and readjust and... eventually it's just a bit too much. I just want something to go right!!!

Sooo... deep breathing. Pause. Slow down. Maybe it's time to stop. Just stop. Another deep breath. Given what is happening to this day... what are my priorities. Not what I hoped to get done. What do I actually NEED to get done. I have all sorts of plans and ideas and tasks for the day but... maybe it's time to let them go and reassess my day. Which is a hard thing for me. I just want everything to go smoothly! Why can't it just go smoothly every single day!

Which is really a useless, pointless question. There's always little hiccups that happen in a day and on this particular day, it seems like the hiccups are endless. So, given that it's a Day of Hiccups... how can I adjust my perception, my attitude about this day. Rather than getting frustrated... it's to recognize that this day is just not off to a great start. Really, anything that I get done today is a bonus.

And... rather than struggling upstream, frantically trying to make things happen in the face of a slew of hiccups... just go with the flow. Maybe today is not the day to write a blog. Maybe today is not the day to figure out why the Service Canada website is rejecting my login (it is a Saturday after all). Maybe today is not the day to work on anything at all. Maybe it's a day to rest. The workshop I've been helping with had its last session this morning. There is nothing urgent on my plate. I can actually stop.

My temptation though is to get a whole bunch of other things done today, stuff that has been snow-ploughed all week, as the workshop work took up my time and energy. I figured that once the session was done today, I could dive in and get a whole host of things checked off on my to-do list. Maybe not.

So perhaps it's time to stop... maybe even back-up and reassess this day. What do I NEED to get done today. Maybe I NEED to rest and relax for a while. That is a hard thing for me to admit. But that's what this is all about... reflecting on what is happening and seeing what is required. It's a small step on the road to self-care.. but at least it's a step!

Writing the Blank Page

There are days where I sit down to write this blog and I have zero topics lined up and zero ideas percolating in my brain. I scroll through the news looking for a spark of inspiration and... nothing.

I could really get hard on myself and beat myself up for coming up with nothing. I could also end up worried that people are going to think I'm weird for writing about nothing. And that would then stop me from writing which... is not the purpose of this whole process. The purpose of these blogs is for me to write. Period. With a theme that vaguely centers around "small steps".

Perhaps that is the link. Writing with a theme in mind is relatively easy. But writing without a theme... it means that I have to just start writing, one word, one sentence at a time, and see what comes out of the fingers. It's the small steps in action again. I might not have a whole blog in mind... or even a paragraph, but if I just start, then something will take form.

It's really a gift when I have a topic in mind... it makes it soooo much easier! It's all about parking downhill so things are easier. Obviously, I did not park downhill on this blog! And so I am slogging away uphill, which is hard work. I am hoping that if I get enough momentum going here, it will get easier, but sometimes that just doesn't happen.

Several years ago, I came across a blog post that talked about being a creator rather than a consumer. Those words inspired me. I wanted to become a creator... someone who writes things that other people might read and find helpful. I didn't just want to mindlessly (or intentionally) consume things without giving back.

I chose writing as my creative option, but there are many other different creative outlets out there - costume design, painting, drawing, music, calligraphy, art, gardening, photography... so many different options. And all of them have a secret... you need to do them all the time. In order to get better, in order to create... something needs to happen every day. It's the only way we get better. It's the only way we live up to our dream of being creators rather than just consumers.

And sometimes... we don't feel like it. We aren't inspired. We don't have a topic in mind. We don't feel the music in our blood. And those are the moments where we need to just start... no matter what we are feeling, just sit down (or stand up) and start. Pick up the brush, the pen, the instrument, shovel, whatever... sit down at the keyboard, the easel, the desk... and do what we do.

That small step of starting leads to other small steps which will ultimately produce something. Whether it is good enough to work with and share... only time will tell. But at least we have done what we needed to do. One small step at a time.

The Tick Bite that Results in an Allergy to Red Meat

We've all (likely) heard of Lyme Disease, caused by a bite from the black-legged tick. We know (or ought to know) that we should wear long pants, tuck in our socks and inspect ourselves (and our pets) for attached ticks when we hike in high-tick risk areas.

Lyme Disease Risk Areas in Canada

Lyme disease (caused by a bacteria) can be nasty, causing all sorts of symptoms like rashes, joint pain, facial palsy, etc... sometimes months after the tick bite. The repercussions of untreated tick bites are long-lasting and scary.

But now... down in the southeastern United States... there's a new tick-borne illness. Some people, who get bitten by the lone star tick (it has a white spot on its back) develop a permanent allergy to all mammalian meat and things like dairy. Yep. You heard that right. The lone star tick can carry can carry a substance called alpha-gal that, after a bite, triggers a delayed allergic reaction to red meat in the poor human who got bitten. It's called Alpha-gal syndrome and there's no cure. But what the heck is Alpha-gal??

Alpha-gal is a sugar molecule that humans don’t have in their system, but a lot of animals do. This includes many mammalian animals such as cows, bison, rabbit, goats, deer, pigs, sheep, and lambs. And their products... like milk, cheese, other dairy products and gelatin. If a person is bitten by a lone star tick and it transmits the alpha-gal molecule, then the person may develop an antibody reaction to the alpha-gal molecule. In other words, they could develop an allergy. This means the next time the person eats red meat such as beef or venison, or something made with beef gelatin, or drinks a glass of milk, or eats ice cream, they could break out in hives or have a more serious allergic reaction.

Black-legged tick (left) vector for Lyme Disease
Lone Star Tick (right) vector for Alpha-Gal Syndrome

Well... that shouldn't really matter to us in Canada, right? I mean... the lone star tick is down in the southeast United States. Well... yes and no. It used to limited to the SE US but now... with climate change, and warming temperatures, the tick can survive farther and farther north. It's recently been spotted in the northeastern United States. And... in 2022 and 2023... some have been found in Ontario and Quebec.

Soooo... if we allow climate change to continue to run rampant... we can expect a future in which the lone star tick will colonize higher latitudes... eventually scrambling over the Rocky Mountains and heading for the Pacific Coast. The cynic in me foresees a future in which the majority of North Americans have been bitten by the lone-star tick and are forced to readjust their eating habits. We might not make the switch to less meat now... voluntarily... but there may come a time when nature makes the choice for us.

More Reading

CTV News - Tick bites: Meat allergy caused by tick spit more common now

CNN - Alpha-gal: Meat allergy passed by ticks may affect hundreds of thousands in US, CDC estimates

CTV News - Another tick that causes meat allergy spotted in Canada

BeefResearch Site - The Red Meat Allergy: A Canadian Perspective

Virtual Camino Update

I am still inching my way along the virtual camino managing about 3 km a day with our mid-day walk. I passed the 60% mark a month or so ago (screenshot is from July 13).

When I first started this virtual Camino via The Conqueror Challenge... I had had high hopes of managing 10 km or so a day with several walks but... that was overly ambitious! Unlike on the real Camino, where all you need to do is focus on walking... here at home, real life sticks its busy nose into everything!

And it's OK... I need to cut myself some slack which I'm not always good at. But this is good practice in just letting things be and not getting my knickers tied up in a knot about how I am "failing". 

I am just inching along... and inchworms do eventually get places. It just takes a bit longer. This is not a race, nor is it urgent. 

So chill... relax... enjoy the ride and let the pressure go. I tend to have super high standards but the self-induced pressure can turn unhealthy very quickly.

As I write this in mid-July, I'm heading over to Vancouver next week and am hoping that I'll get a bunch of longer walks in there. So I might make a few jack-rabbit bursts towards my goal!

I did receive another virtual postcard a while back when I hit the 50% mark. It was from a monastery turned Hotel, in Carrión de los Condes. I had a look online, and the monastery cloisters look like something straight out of Harry Potter.

And... when I hit the 60% mark, they planted another tree for me! That's 2 trees so far... I hope the little guys are doing OK and will actually grow to maturity.

Is My To-Do List a Task List or a Wishful Thinking List?

 

I love lists. I make lists at the drop of a hat.

What's our meal plan for the week? Let's make a list.
What errands do I need to run on Friday? It's on a list.
What garden projects are still waiting for me? Check the list.

But... I am starting to realize that I am not the greatest to-do list maker. I always seem to have more things on my to-do list for the day than I can ever hope to accomplish. A lot of these things don't have a firm, fixed deadline. Nor are they overly urgent. They just need to get done within the next month or so. At least, I think they do.

What I tend to do is look at my overwhelming daily to-do list with all of these extra tasks, and I will re-schedule some tasks and kick them down the road to next week, or next month or 3 months from now. And when next week arrives, I find myself doubly overwhelmed because of these kicked tasks that now drop into my day with a thud.

You see... I don't actually know that I have a "To-Do" list. Such a list has tasks with concrete deadlines and actionable tasks that I can sink my teeth into. My lists, on the other hand, tend to be "Wishful Thinking" lists. Or Hopeful lists. Or Possibility lists. Or Maybe-This-Week lists.

I think that I can get these tasks done next week. So I just kick them into next week and hope that next week looks better than this week and I'll actually get around to them. Or some of the tasks/projects have been hanging around for a few months and I think... "I really need to get to that... my not this week, I'll boot it to next week and maybe it will get done'.

Yeah. Exciting, eh? Not.

When these Maybe/Hopefully/Possibly-Today tasks show up on a specific day, I generally look at them and think... "Nope, not today... maybe tomorrow" and punt them into the future. "I don't feel like it"... "I don't have the energy for this"... "Other things are more important"... Ad nauseum...

I know how to make lists. I even know how to make to-do lists. (Or at least I think I do). I have a great to-do list app that manages all my tasks. But when this overwhelm happens and I see the same pattern of behaviour (shoveling tasks into the future)... I think I need a new system. I need a new app!!! I've gone through a lot of to-do list apps and I know that is not the answer. The one I have right now is perfectly fine. Although... maybe it needs an AI integration to help me manage things? That would be cool!! (New shiny object distracting me from actually getting things done). But I don't think it's there yet... at least not this month.

In the meantime, I need to comb through my to-do list and get real. I know that I have gotten a bit sloppy with some of my tasks and that they are too broad (more like a project than a task). So it is to drill down and identify the next actionable task for these things that I keep booting into the future.

A Dream Cruise is a Carbon Nightmare

Well... there goes that little dream. Sigh. It's always sad when you come up with a bright light bulb idea and it burns out so fast.

My partner and I had come up with this brilliant idea of taking a cruise vacation. It seemed to tick a lot of boxes... affordable, easy travel out of Vancouver, see new places, all inclusive and easy for partner who has trouble on long-haul flights. What's not to love!

Just pop over to Vancouver, board a cruise ship and see the world! Enjoy the delicious food, check out the entertainment and soak up some sun around the pool. No flight. No airports. Just kick back and relax.

Sounds dreamy, yes?

Well... no.

I discovered, much to my chagrin, that cruise ships are essentially massive carbon producing monsters. They have these massive engines that run 24/7, even when the ship is in port. These engines use heavy fuel oil, a tar-like substance which is incredibly toxic and a residual of the petroleum industry. Basically it's the crud nobody else wants and is incredibly dirty.

Even though a new cruise ship costs $1,000,000,000 (that's a billion)... they can't afford to spend a piddly $1,000,000 (that's a million) to install emission abatement systems.

They've done tests on cruise ships and the emissions that the passengers breathe are 20 times worse than the pollution on a main road... in Beijing.

Soooo... what is the carbon footprint of a cruise ship? Well... brace yourself. They produce the same particulate emissions as 1,000,000 (a million) cars. Every. Single. Day.

Some cruise ships emit up to 150 tonnes of carbon. Every. Single. Day.

And no... even though the cruise ship companies claim they are clean & green... it's not true. At least not for the majority of them. Check out the Cruise Ship Report card by Friends of the Earth.

Oh... and if that's not enough... some cruise ship companies have been caught dumping dumping trash, raw sewage, and fuel into the ocean. Looking at your Carnival and Royal Caribbean. 

Cruise Ship Rankings for
Environmental Protection Measures
by NABU

My head is hurting. I did find a carbon footprint calculator for a cruise and... for a 5 day cruise with 2 days in port... it was 1.5 tonnes of CO2 per person. That's a lot of carbon... for 5 days. Our little car uses emits just under 5 tonnes of CO2 per year.

And then that got me thinking... what about our ferries??? They run off of diesel... I think. Well... ferries generally aren't as bad, mostly because of the short distances... and they're not dumping sewage and stuff into the ocean... And they are waaaaayyyy better than short haul flight! Here's a breakdown of CO2 emissions per km.

In case you're squinting... top of the list is Cruise, then short haul flights (less than 600 km), then flights more than 3700 km, car, flight (600-3700 km), ferry by car, motorbike, Ferry with car (4p), Car with 4 people, Train local, Touring car, Ferry (foot passenger), International Eurostar Train.

Right then... may have to rethink the cruise vacation idea. At least for a while. Some cruise companies are starting to make changes. And Hurtigruten, a Norwegian line, is miles ahead of the others. But we'd need to fly to Norway to take a cruise from them... which spews CO2 hither and yon.

Hydrogen fuel seems to be the wave of the future... maybe. Although, right now... hydrogen fuel cells in a cruise ship are used for in-port power and slow steaming. Other than that, they're still running off petroleum sludge.

I'm hoping that there will be some major progress by 2030 but... in the meantime... should we avoid cruise ships? I'm not here to say yay or nay. But if we do take a cruise... don't bring disposable garbage onboard, turn off your lights when you leave the cabin and limit the amount of grey water you produce (short or less frequent showers).

On a happier note... the Vancouver cruise ship terminal does have shore power so cruise ships can plug in and turn off their diesel power. That's 50 less tonnes of CO2 emissions per port call. Yay. Small steps...

More Reading

CBC - As it Happens - Cruise Ship Emissions are the Same as 1 Million Cars

Popular Science - Care about the Planet? Skip the Cruise, for Now.

Friends of the Earth - Cruise Ships' Environmental Impact

Friends of the Earth - Cruise Ship Report Card

My Climate - Carbon Footprint Calculator for a Cruise Ship

NABU - German Research Group - 2022 Cruise Ship Rankings

BC Ferries - Clean Futures Plan 2022

Ferry GoGo - Ferry Emissions - is UK site but probably ballpark for our ferries

Disposable Solar Lights

Every couple of years, I go to Home Depot and buy another box of 6 solar landscape lights to put along our driveway.

The first year, they work perfectly fine. The second year, less so. And by Year 3, I'm back at Home Depot buying another box.

And the old ones? Well... into the trash they go. And it annoys the heck out of me. Why do they die so quickly?

I've tried putting new batteries into them. Nope... makes no difference. The battery chamber often has bugs in it and the battery terminals are sometimes corroded.

The solar panel on top of the lights also gets all cloudy and even with a new battery, it's just not sucking up the solar power they way it should.

Now $20 for 6 solar lights isn't the end of the world but... there must be a better way? I know the Dollar Store has cheap little ones for $1 or $2. But that just contributes to our disposable lifestyle.

I've thought about getting wired driveway lights put in and I guess that is an option but it seems like an expensive one. And sooooo... I just pay $20 every 2 years for a new box of crappy battery operated ones. Which irks me to no end.

Could we do without the driveway lights? Probably not. Our basement suite is an Airbnb and at nighttime... it's nice to have the edge of the driveway lit up for them. But does that mean that "nice" is essential? I would say "yes".

Ugh... if anyone out there has a better suggestion than crappy disposable solar lights from Home Depot... please let me know!

What is Normal?

 I was cleaning out my email inbox and saw a headline go by... "What is Normal?" and it got me thinking. What... exactly... is... normal? And more importantly, who decides "what is normal"?

What immediately popped into my mind was.. the infamous Bell Curve... which is a "graph depicting the normal distribution". Most of the thingies are in the middle, with the mean, mode and median in there... along with the "standard deviation" (that's the bottom). So in this graph 68.2% of the thingies are within 1 standard deviation... and 95.4% are within 2 standard deviations.

I know... I know... are your eyes crossed yet? Yep... mine too. I vaguely remember some of this from high school math class. But the point is... this seems to be the root case of "normal".

If you have a car in North America, you are probably "normal"... in that, you fall within that middle dark blue bit.  See... it's a bit skewed but you can see the bell curve hump that most households in the USA fall within that 1 to 2 car range.

So if you are one of the outliers... either no car or more than 4 or 5 cars... you are not "normal".

But it's generally a numbers game... you need a scale along the bottom. So you could ask... how many body piercings do women have? And you'd get numbers along the bottom from 0 to 10+... same as with the cars. And in the piercings bell curve, you would find out where "normal" is... maybe 2 or 3 piercings.

But if you just ask, how many women have piercings, you'll get one number... 70% of women have piercings. So in this case... the majority of women have piercings... so they are "normal"...

Do you see where that goes? It becomes a "who has the most votes" game. Most women have long hair. Most men have short hair. You could probably even get a bell curve for hair length... with very few women having super-short hair... or super long hair. And the middle of the pack is "normal".

But while "normal" might have some usefulness in the world of geometry, where we also talk about means and medians and modes and standard deviations... it has also become a kicker of a word out in the real world.

Because if you are not "normal"... then you are "weird". And not in a good way. You are an outlier, a rogue, someone out on the fringes of "normality".

But what if we considered the entire bell curve is "normal". There will always be outliers and that is part of "normal" distribution. It's part of nature. If you had a bell curve where everything was just in one category... it would no longer be a bell curve. Everyone would be the same. And that would not be a "normal distribution".

Let's look at... oh, let's say deer antlers... see... bell curve.

That is a "normal distribution". Some deer have higher antler scores (inches), some have lower scores... but most of them are in the middle. And that's normal. But it doesn't mean that the ones with scores between 110-150 are "normal" deer. Does it? Or average? Or above average?

Geez... we really do like to measure things but maybe we take it too far. We take statistical probability language and turn around and apply it to living, breathing human beings.

• If you don't look like "most" women... then you are not normal.
• If you don't eat meat, like "most" people... then you are not normal.
• If you are not hetero, like "most" people... then you are not normal.
• If you weigh more than "most" people... then you are not normal.

Yeah. Normal is over-rated and misapplied. We take a statistical term and slap it on people who do not fit into our narrow (68.2%) worldview.

It's probably time to retire the word "normal"... unless you are a statistician and actually know how to use it properly. Most of us don't have a license to know how to use the word properly!