North of 45

Great blog - "We Move To Canada"

dyork — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:38:30 GMT

While I no longer update this "North of 45" blog any more, I happened to stumble upon the blog "We Move To Canada" which chronicles the adventures of two people who decided back to leave New York City and move to Canada (scroll to the bottom to see how it all began). I haven't read much of the blog, but what I did read seemed to give a entertaining view of the process of moving to Canada... as well as the American perspective of living in Canada. Well worth a read, in my opinion.

UPDATE: Laura Kaminker, the author of the blog I mention here (and that is now known simply as "wmtc"), contacted me to let me know they had actually decided to move to Canada back in 2003 and started the process then. July 2004 was when she started the blog.

How to talk like a Canadian - a 12-step program

dyork — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:11:23 GMT

Back in June 2007, a podcaster I know expressed interest in attending a conference in Canada, but said his "Canadian was a bit rusty" on a mailing list of podcasters. It was the next day at 5:15am when I read this, and wrote the following post. Other podcasters in Canada enjoyed it, added their tips, and then asked when I was going to blog it. It's been on my list for a while and I just figured this was something fun to post before the Labo(u)r Day holiday. I'll post my 12-step program first, along with a summary of initial comments from some Canadians after that. Please feel free to leave your own.

On 6/6/07, <name> <snip> wrote:

Sounds like a fun event. I'd love to go but my Canadian is a bit rusty

To help, I'll provide a basic recipe for how to talk like a Canadian (from the perspective of an American working for a Canadian company):

1. End every 4th or 5th sentence with the very fast question "eh?", as in "That sounds like a good plan, eh?" (And yes, even after leaving Canada 2 years ago, my ~5 years there infected me and you will still here this occasionally in my FIR reports or my own podcast.)

2. Practice a slightly different intonation of vowels and emphasis on different syllables. The oft-cited and extreme case is where "abOUT" becomes more like "abOOT". One I run into all the time is where the American "praw-CESS" become "PRO-cess" (with stronger emphasis on first).

3. Never say "I went to college" as that implies a lower-level, more trade-type school. Say instead "I went to university" even if the school you went to was, in fact, called a College.

4. Drop out "the" in certain key phrases like "the accident victim was sent to hospital" versus "to the hospital". You won't really have any idea where you should drop out the "the", so just do it randomly.

5. Realize that the capital of Canada is, in fact, Ottawa, despite the opinions of those who live within the greater Toronto area.

6. They have a "Prime Minister" instead of a President. Their current one is Stephen Harper who is basically a more polite version of George Bush with nicer hair. He probably won't last long - and they at least have a system where they can bring down governments they don't like.

7. Learn about hockey, as it will factor into many if not most conversations. As a point of reference, despite the fact that it is June and 80 degrees out, the Ottawa Senators were just now playing the Anaheim (yes, as in Disneyland and California) Ducks (formerly "Mighty Ducks") in this little contest they call the "Stanley Cup". The Ducks just won last night, so be prepared for intense hand-wringing and concern that an American team won (even though all NHL teams are pretty much just a different group of Canadian, Czechs, Finns and Russians with a few token Americans thrown in) and of course the view from the Torontonians that the Maple Leafs would have done better. Realize, too, that all the discussion will shift to analysis of the games and of the season and then into preparations for the next season which will start in a month or two. Also realize that while most Americans might be playing baseball, football or soccer right now, many Canadians are playing "ball hockey" which is essentially hockey without the ice... this helps them prepare for hockey season which will start in a month or two as soon as everyone returns from their summer "cottages".

8. Obsess about the US and what Americans think about Canada and the latest Canadian political moves. (Even though 99% of Americans generally don't think about Canada at all and would be hard-pressed to provided any information whatsoever about Canadian politics or who is in charge.)

9. Remind any American who uses the term "American" that the term is arrogant and forgets the fact that "the Americas" also includes Canada, Mexico and a host of other countries.

10. Complain about the health care system. Everyone has a story of their great aunt Millie who had to wait eight months to get an MRI scan. (Don't point out that they could just buy more MRI machines - and whatever you do, don't bring up the massive spreadsheets you have to maintain under the US system to ensure adequate reimbursement, the large out-of-pocket expenses you have to spend or the massive gaps in coverage... let them continue to suffer under the delusion that its better down here.)

11. Get and use your Facebook account. If you are Canadian, you have to have one. (http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2398302130 )

12. Be polite. Be very polite. (Unless, of course, you are engaged in a televised political debate or are getting into an argument about hockey.)

If you follow this 12-step program, you should have little problem talking and interacting with Canadians.

A couple of Canadian podcasters indicated that the list should also include these facts:

Canadians don't talk about guns because they don't have/carry/need guns.
Canadians have real beer.
Canadians generally don't talk about murder or drugs because those generally aren't issues.
Many Canadians will nod their heads and be polite to US colleagues, but once they're out of earshot they will say things like "could that guy be any more of a Yank?"
Canadian money comes in multiple colo(u)rs, not just all green. They also have a $1 coin ("loonie") and a $2 coin ("toonie").
When you go into a restaurant in Canada, never ask for the check (which they spell "cheque"). A check means you're getting money. Ask for the "bill".

Finally, once podcaster suggested that you weren't a true Canadian until you could understand the sentence: "Please pass me a serviette. I've spilled poutine on the chesterfield." (The scary aspect, of course, is that the sentence made perfect sense to me.

In any event, I hope you've enjoyed this little trip through the common language that divides our two nations and that it might help you should you ever journey to the great white north.

Comments and additional examples are certainly welcome. Please just do the Canadian thing and be polite, eh?

Missing Rona...

dyork — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 10:12:49 GMT

One of the more subtle things we have found ourselves missing upon our return to the US is, well, Rona. It is somewhat wired into our nature that we are always working on different projects around the house and so we naturally wind up at home improvement stores. Of course, we have Home Depot (as we did in Canada) but it's just not the same.

On the surface, both stores are very similar, but we found Rona better in a number of ways. On a base level, Rona seemed to usually be cheaper. But more than that, they seemed to have a wider range of selections. If Home Depot had 10 types of door knobs, for instance, Rona would have 20 with better colors. The setup of the Rona store also seemed a bit friendlier. We just found the shopping "experience" much more pleasant than Home Depot. Now, however, we no longer have that choice.... and we do miss it!

Northern border disputes...

dyork — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 11:43:36 GMT

Entertaining to see that Canada has border disputes, too... although it's over a piece of rock in the high Arctic...

Leaving the Great White North.... eh?

dyork — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 14:03:52 GMT

As I recently discussed in my main weblog, we are moving back into the old USA again... leaving the land we have come to so enjoy. I'll keep posting here from time to time as I still have many thoughts to record. I also know that as we move back to the US, we'll be seeing differences from the opposite angle, and so that may be interesting for those who read this. Anyway, it's been a great place to be and I would encourage anyone to visit Ottawa.

Now, a new chapter begins...

You just gotta love Ottawa...

dyork — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 18:28:53 GMT

You have to love a place where you learn that a colleague sent an e-mail like this:

"i'm out for the day, another farmer protest in downtown ottawa, gotta drive my tractor to support them."

Ahhhh, Ottawa.... the nation's capital... but yet you drive 10 minutes out of downtown and you are surrounded by farms....

Watching a government slowly fall...

dyork — Tue, 10 May 2005 04:11:50 GMT

When I was a bit younger, I used to help maintain the land around several cabins in northern New Hampshire and would occasionally fell large trees. With a very tall and straight tree, there is a moment after you have made the final upper cut when the tree just sort of hangs there for a second. It has nothing left to keep it upright and in a few seconds it succumbs to gravity and begins its descent. But for those few seconds, time enters an extreme slow-motion state as all observers hold their breath and watch the fall begin (hoping of course, that it falls in the desired direction).

In large part this seems to be the current state of the Canadian government. As a political junkie, it has been absolutely fascinating to watch the slow death spiral of the current Canadian government. There is talk now of an election as early as next month. All the four major political parties are sharpening their claws (and tongues) and preparing to do battle. The end of the current government could come in a no-confidence vote in the next few days - or in the next weeks.

Whatever transpires, it is something completely foreign to someone from the US. While there have been numerous times when many of us would like to get rid of the US government in power, it just cannot (easily, anyway) happen within our system. Yes, on very rare occasions there have been attempts to remove the leader (i.e. the attempted impeachment of President Clinton), but even if the leader were removed, the party in power would continue to govern (albeit perhaps less effectively). This whole concept of "bringing down the government" that is possible within a parliamentary system of government is just so different from that which we know.

It does make for interesting political theatre, though...

The taxman cometh... and cometh again...

dyork — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 19:32:30 GMT

Tomorrow is "Tax Day" for the tax man in the grand old USA. Canada's equivalent gets their day in the sun on April 30th. Straddling both worlds means, of course, that you have to fill out forms for both governments.

Every time I hear a Canadian complain about their tax forms I have to laugh. The Canadian tax forms are not quite as simple as some jokesters would have it... but almost. Look at it this way: you have already paid a very sizable whack of your income to the CCRA throughout the year. You cannot deduct hardly anything outside of what you have put in to RRSPs (Canadian equivalents of IRAs), a percentage of your charitable donations and various other odd things.

At the end of the day, it's really a very simple calculation. You have made X. You have already paid taxes of Y. You had a few measley deductions of Z and therefore should really have only paid Y-W, so here is W back to you. Thank you for playing. By paying the gov't throughout the year you have enabled them to continue paying various advertising agencies large sums of money. Thank you and have a nice day.

Compare that to US tax forms which seem to merely be an accretion of more and more crazy different laws with each year and government adding more to the insanity. I swear that each year the TurboTax interview gets longer and longer with even more legislation and forms that I have never even heard of. Do you want to claim the xxxxxxx exemption? Are you eligible for the yyyyyyy credit? Do you bicycle one-handed on Tuesdays when the moon is blue? If so, add the value of line 34 on form 2543 to the value of line 403 on form 1554 then divide by line 32a on form 1043 and insert into line 34 on form 1040 unless of course you like to eat broccoli in which case you need to insert the value into line 45 on form 1041.

You have to wonder if the US Congress is getting kickbacks from Intuit, H&R Block and the rest of the tax preparation industry just to make the process more difficult.

The kicker for us (and pretty much every other American in Canada), of course, is that we usually do not owe any US taxes! Between the foreign income exclusion, the exchange rate, and the fact that we have already paid a huge amount of taxes to the Canadian government, the end result is that you would have to be making an extremely large amount of money in Canada (or the exchange rate would have to keep firing higher) to even start remotely worrying about US taxes. (I have heard the same thing from folks living in European countries with high tax rates.)

But still, each year, we have to fill out our 73 pieces of paperwork and mail the whole thing back to the US government. (And no, you can't e-file it because one of the forms you have to file for your foreign income can't work over the e-file mechanism.)

Fun, fun, fun.... (well, not really)

It's "the American thing" in action...

dyork — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 03:40:17 GMT

It is morning. I put my bag down in my cube, get my computer out, plug it in and start getting ready for the day. Over the top of the cubicle walls I see two colleagues walking toward my aisle heading, I know, down to the cafeteria to get a morning cup of coffee. As they came by my cube opening I nodded to them and mumbled a quick "Hey" as I turned back to getting my notebook out of my bag.

They stopped. Turned to me. Stared at me expectantly.

I suddenly noticed this. Looked from side-to-side with the "deer caught in the headlights" look - thinking to myself "What do they want?"

Then I realized and said to them "Oh, sorry... it's just the 'American' thing." Which then started an interesting discussion of cultural differences.

You see, my experience here in Ottawa is that when two people pass each other in a hallway, on a bike path, walkway or any other place, they might nod to each other or maybe perhaps flash a quick wave or hand gesture. But say something? Verbalize that greeting? Nope. (Of course there are exceptions, but in general this seems to be true.)

Now contrast that to the USA - or at least to New England where I grew up. In my experience people may certainly nod or wave but they are just as apt to do that in conjunction with saying something... often an abbreviated version of "Hey" (which I know folks for whom it is an extremely fast greeting that sounds almost like "Heyp") or something like a fast "Hello" or " 'lo" (which I've heard a "p" on the end as well). Or a time-related saying like "morning" or "morn" or "evening" or "good day".

The key point is that the greeting is purely a verbalization of the nod. It's not a request for attention. It's not intended to interrupt what the other person is doing. It's just a verbal wave/nod/acknowledgement. It's a friendly acknowledgement of the other's existence that is just said in passing without meaning anything else than just that. Typically in the States you might just verbally acknowledge back (or not) and just go on.

Up here. though, I've found that this does mark me as an American. Perhaps it is all about respect of others' spaces. I'm not sure. But if a Canadian says something to you in passing, it is usually because they want to ask you something.

I have a vague memory from early days here in Canada of this behaviour really irritating someone with whom I worked. I honestly don't recall who it was (and if I did I probably wouldn't write it here!) but I do recall winding up having a conversation around the issue and finding out that everytime I walked by their cube my verbal greeting would interrupt their train of thought. It did make me much more sensitive to the behaviour and I recall trying to reduce my verbal greetings a bit. Obviously that didn't stick.

Ah, the little things that are so different.

The Nanaimo Bar is now in Wikipedia...

dyork — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 17:40:15 GMT

Nice to see that the Nanaimo Bar now has an entry in Wikipedia. When I wrote my posting on unique Canadian cuisine (or the lack thereof) back in November, there was not yet an entry. Good to see.

On that same topic, I do see that there is an entry for poutine (which I note that mendel has assisted with editing). I also went tonight and created a page for a BeaverTail that was separate from the Fried dough page, primarily because I thought BeaverTails should have their own page and also because it would then show up on the Canadian cusine category page under the separate name.

I would note, however, that for the Wikipedia-inclined folks who wish to promote Canadian cuisine, some of the suggestions made in comments to my original post still do not seem to have Wikipedia pages. (for instance, tourtiere) Creating those is left as an exercise for others who have more time than I do...

Pondering the Paucity of Police Presence

dyork — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 17:16:16 GMT

On a recent trip down into Vermont we were struck again by a basic fundamental difference between the US and Canada (or at least Ontario). Namely... police. Or more specifically the lack thereof up here. You see, I grew up in New England and picked up most of my... um... driving "habits" from 10+ years working in the corporate world around Boston. Which is to say that you think nothing of seeing someone flying by at 80 miles per hour and proceeding to sail across four lanes of traffic to get off at the exit that is right there... all the while talking on their cell phone. Now, I think part of this is to make up for the fact that they just spent an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-93 South until traffic split off on 128... and part of it is just because by and large the area is a bit of the high stress, Type-A kind of world. Needless to say, the driving habits you absorb will not necessarily be good for your long-term health.

But they do make you extremely watchful for police. Because they are always out there. Watching. Waiting. And catching people for speeding. Every day. All the time. It's not just Boston... it's on all the highways in all the states. "Speed traps" on the norm. Even in all the little towns. It's part of the modern American psyche that has generated imnumerable movies (do I date myself if I mention "Smokey and the Bandit"?), songs (there's a remake of "Convoy" on the airwaves lately) and countless other things. Travelling in the US you just expect that there will be police on the highways.

And then you travel North... and find that, well, police just aren't around on the highways[1]. In 4.5 years of travelling back and forth from Ottawa to the US, I can probably count on a single hand the number of times I have seen a police officer stopping cars on the 417. Neither the OPP... nor the RCMP... (I think the OPP actually have jurisdiction on the highways.)

A good part of it may simply be the vast distances and the sheer lack of people (in the sense of population density). Perhaps it is the lack of resources for the OPP. Perhaps it is the lack of necessity (let's go back to the 'polite Canadian' stereotype). I can honestly say that I haven't felt that the roads have been unsafe living up here. I don't see people sailing by like they do on the Autobahn (or in Boston). Overall people do seem to stay around the speed limits. I don't know why precisely, but it is definitely an interesting difference to note.

[1] I will say that the Ottawa Police have had a strong presence on some local roads on my commute to/from work lately, but that's a relatively recent development.

No Easter Egg hunt in the backyard this year!

dyork — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 14:39:53 GMT

Last year, when Easter was a few weeks later, we had great fun hiding eggs all over our backyard and watching Chloe run around finding them.

Not this year! Had we tried, it would have been blindingly easy given that the color would have shown immediately against the white snow. She probably wouldn't have been running either, given that there is still 4-6 inches of snow on the ground... and the coats and boots would have made it certainly not as much fun. So, no, this year it was inside.

However, this was a banner week for us here... we saw the ground cover on our front lawn! Not the grass yet, but at least the ground cover in the flower beds... we are having a bit of rain today, though, and the temperatures are warmer so it should be soon... very soon. The weather has actually been quite nice, i.e. above freezing! A few days we actually went out in... gasp.. spring coats!

Ahhh... fun in what is definitely this year the Great White North!

The closing of the Rideau Canal... a sign of the ending of winter...

dyork — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 20:02:23 GMT

The NCC announced that the Rideau Canal Skateway would close for the season earlier this week. For those not aware, a read of that web site is well worth it (hey, there's even a virtual tour that is entertaining). Ottawa is home to what is declared the world's longest outdoor skating rink. Essentially they freeze the water in the canal that flows through the heart of Ottawa and turn it into a giant winter playground. On any given day, it is filled with people skating.. for fun... for exercise... just to get outdoors. When my company had an office downtown, a colleague would skate to work each day! They rent skates there, of course, as well as sleds. On weekends they have concerts down on the ice... and there are small food stands (selling, for instance BeaverTails and hot chocolate) as well as souvenir shops. All in all, it's quite a fun thing to do.

We'll see the grass someday...

dyork — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 19:51:40 GMT

We had to laugh about the fact that some of the stores now have the good old paper "yard waste" bags available for purchase. The idea being, of course, that you can pick up all the leaves that you didn't get to pick up in the fall and put them in the bags for curb-side pick up by the city crews.

Which is all well and good except for this minor little detail that we still have a foot of snow on the ground! Yes, indeed, white stuff everywhere and snowbanks piled high along every road. Now, the weather has been above freezing this week and we actually have had some melting. This weekend the weather here in Ottawa is supposed to be nice with temperatures above 0 (Celsius) all weekend. (Of course, the current temp is -4C (~28F).) That should help. Most folks here are at this point quite ready for the snow to go away!

Watching the giants play...

dyork — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 19:41:37 GMT

One could only watch the final game in sheer awe of both the capability and also the confidence of the Alberta team skipped by Randy Ferbey. I mean - here they are, tied 4-4 against what is quite obviously a powerful opponent in the form of the Nova Scotia rink. It is the ninth end and final four rocks. Alberta has one rock in the rings and Nova Scotia has a corner guard up in front of the house. In a move that will be forever debated, Randy Ferbey calls for Dave Nedohin to remove his own team's rock. Daring. Gutsy. Ball-sie. There will be numerous other names for it. Dave, of course, does. Nova Scotia puts one in the house. Randy calls for the peel to blank the end. Dave, of course, does.

Lesser teams would not have even remotely dreamed of this. You are tied going into the ninth end of the final game in the championship series. Whoever wins is the champion of men's curling in Canada and goes on to represent Canada in the world championships (as well as the Olympics). You have the potential to perhaps score two points, but then give your opponent the hammer going into the last end. That would be the safe way. But instead you blank the end so that you retain hammer going home! It takes guts. And it takes supreme confidence in the ability of you and your team to deliver.

Going into the tenth, the Alberta front end basically said to Dave Nedohin that they would "keep the four-foot open", meaning that they would make it so that all he had to do was draw to the four-foot to win. In the end, that is what it came down to... the final rock in the final end of the final game..... Alberta did keep the four-foot open. Nova Scotia skip Shawn Adams threw his final rock which wound up just slightly behind the four-foot but on the side. Dave Nedohin had to draw down just right to the four-foot... and did not have any real backing in the event that he threw too hard. Everything the team had worked for all year... all the games they had played... all the playoffs... everything... it all came down to one last final draw to the four foot. It had to be a perfect shot without a whole lot of room for error. Dave, of course, made the shot.

The crowds went wild. The Ferbey Foursome scored their fourth Brier championship as a team. (Ferbey himself has now won six.) It was truly an amazing game to watch!

500,000 .ca domains...

dyork — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 21:11:55 GMT

Interesting to read in Mark Evans blog that there are now over 500,000 domain names registered in ".ca". Registration is handled by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority and did originally have some pretty limited rules (which have now been relaxed).

The hockey season is (yawn) cancelled... or is it?

dyork — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 13:35:44 GMT

For those of you watching your flowers come up and otherwise thinking about warmer things, you may or may not have noticed that the NHL hockey season was cancelled. For those of us up here, of course, this was pretty much a foregone conclusion for everyone but still the definitive word made headlines. The Ottawa Citizen ran a full front page picture of the actual Stanley Cup with the headline "Nobody Wins". And yes, the picture occupied the entire front page. (Reminder... this is hockey country!)

Personally, I think the news was greeted by most folks with yawns. At this point pretty much everyone expected the season to be cancelled and, you know what? I think most people didn't really care. You see, I think the reality that the NHL and the players underestimated was the fact that there were so many other ways to get hockey. I mean, the Ottawa 67's have been doing fantastically here and selling out their stadium. They even played a few times at the Corel Centre where the Ottawa Senators normally play. Add in all the other leagues at all sorts of levels as well as all the cable channels and, well, it is possible for a hockey fan to get their fix without the NHL.

I think the players, especially, underestimated fan reaction. I think they thought the fans would rise up and put pressure on the owners. Sorry, boys, but it is awfully hard for anyone to get very upset for "athletes" with multi-million-dollar salaries whining about how they need to be paid more! I mean, come on... have the players lost all touch with reality? Especially when the ticket prices keep on climbing and climbing? How is the "average" person supposed to attend the games? And why, then, should they rise to the defense of players who are making so much money? I think they took a gamble... and now have clearly lost.

Of course, the latest news is that there is yet another round of meetings, hoping, I guess, to somehow salvage a short season beginning March 1. As if anyone will care. Personally, I hope that if a short season is held, no one attends the games. That would send a very nice message, in my opinion. But, no, in this hockey-crazy world, the crowds probably will flock back. We'll see.

Do you want your toast white or brown? (or wheat?)

dyork — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:07:12 GMT

On a recent trip down into the US, we had breakfast at a nice little diner in the heart of Woodstock, VT. While there, I was reminded of one of the simple phrases that I grew up with - that now sounds so completely foreign:

Would you like white or wheat toast?

I've been asked that question a zillion times in my life in all the various restaurants I've been to across the US. (And I inevitably answer "wheat" as that is my preference.)

But think about that for a moment.... by asking if the customer wants "wheat" bread, are you then implying that "white" bread does not contain wheat? (Which, actually, may be the case with some brands... it just doesn't look real!) I mean, white bread contains flour which is, after all, wheat (just ask Wikipedia). I realize that "wheat" is undoubtedly the shortened form of "whole wheat" and with typical American linguistic style we have just whacked the "whole" off the front of it.

I have come, though, to appreciate the Canadian variation on that question. It is simply:

Would you like white or brown toast?

It was quite strange for us to get used to this, but soon it made sense. Both are wheat, all that is different is the color. (excuse me, the "colour")

Tracking Canadian telecom...

dyork — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:46:08 GMT

For those of you interested in high tech and telecom, I recently noticed a blog by Mark Evans that provides his view on that scene here in Canada... good to see!

Aerial photo maps of Ottawa

dyork — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:09:47 GMT

Was pointed today to a very interesting website of aerial maps of Ottawa. The photos are from 1999... and it's very interesting to see how it looked then... but it's still a pretty good view of the city. Neat to see.

Re-reading "An American's Guide to Canada" and linking to such sites...

dyork — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 18:55:28 GMT

In catching up on some reading of friend's entries, I saw that mendel mentioned a guide to important cultural differences in a recent entry. This made me wonder about one of the guides I had read sometime after moving up here and I found that yes indeed, the site is still online and even bigger. Having lived here for four years now, the most amusing thing to me as I look through that guide is how much I have become assimilated. Many things are no longer unusual to me. (although I have yet to run into any mention of Thrills gum... I am referring to the other things on that page)

I must confess to loving the line on the main page:

We'll explain the appeal of curling to you if you explain the appeal of the National Rifle Association to us.
Andy Barrie, host of CBC's Metro Morning, to an American

but then again, hey, I've been completely caught up with the allure of curling....

I decided to start linking to other sites like this, so you will see that site now added to the list at the top of the page. If you know of other sites in a similar vein, please feel free to leave them as comments here.

Responding to the tsunami so far away... and yet so close...

dyork — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 11:04:24 GMT

While we were travelling in the US for much of the holiday break we saw news footage of the horrible tsunami tragedy and heard pieces of the US response. However, it was only when we returned to Ottawa and got a chance to read through the papers and listen to events here that I could not help but be very impressed by the Canadian response. Here is a country of its size pledging now $80 billion CAD to assist in aid. (Which works out to around $65 million USD.) This does put it pretty high up in the list of countries contributing (which I note hasn't been updated with the new numbers). To put it in another perspective, the US has around roughly 300 million people and is contributing $350 million USD. Canada has roughly 30 million people and is giving $65 million USD. You do the math. :-)

What is perhaps more interesting is the Canadian government's commitment to match 1-for-1 all private donations. Now, to be fair, that match is coming out of the $80 million CAD mentioned above (which was previously $40 million CAD). Still, it certainly a high motivating factor.... and Canadians are certainly responding, including one donor of $500,000! Given what we have seen of Canadians in the past four years living here, I'm very sure people here would have donated like this even without the government matching program, but the program certainly provides an additional factor.

To add even more of an incentive, the government announced yesterday that any donations made to tsunami relief efforts before January 11th will be eligible to count for the 2004 tax year. So for folks who didn't make large charitable contributions before Dec 31, here's another chance. The government also has a comprehensive web page of info including pointers to relief agencies.

(BTW, there is nothing in the documents that indicate that all contributions to these orgs have to be from Canadians... so if any of you reading this from outside Canada want to help the Canadian government spend its money, please feel free to donate to the Canadian charities listed there!)

All in all, very cool to see.

Turning eastern Ontario into a giant skating rink...

dyork — Fri, 24 Dec 2004 17:43:59 GMT

As a follow-up to the last entry, I'll note that over the past few days the temperature rose to be +2 C (35-ish F) and we had rain pretty much all day on Thursday.... with the ground being frozen and covered with snow, the water had no where to go and so it just accumulated... and then, of course, it froze... turning pretty much all of Ottawa into a giant skating rink. It's back down below freezing now and will be through the weekend... but a neighbour said it will be getting up to +10 C (40ish F) next week. Fun, fun, fun...

Entering the "Oh-my--it-is-so-freaking-cold" stage...

dyork — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 05:04:49 GMT

When I opened the door this morning to get the paper, I could tell it was cold. But I didn't realize how cold until I looked at the thermometer. I actually had to read the thermometer several times and then go and check the other thermometer on the other side of the house. They did say on the radio that a cold front was coming through... but -28 C?? (Translation for those south of the border = -18 F) Pick your scale, C or F, in either case, it is just way, way, WAY too cold!

This is the temperature when almost as soon as you go outside, your breath starts to stop and your brain goes into the "Oh-my-God-I-can't-believe-it-is-this-cold-and-why-the-hell-did-I-move-here-and-why-didn't-I-plan-that-trip-to-the-Dominican-for-the-entire-winter?" state of mind. At least this first time this weather hits. But true to Canadian form, we will just bundle up a bit more and go down to Timmie's to get coffee and tea. And in a month or so we will just be inured to it all... and then in another month the deep cold will thankfully be all over.

We have been a bit spoiled in the runup to this winter. It was quite warm all through October and November. When family in New Hampshire and Connecticut talked about cold and snow in late October and November, we gloated "Oh, come on up to Canada where it is warm and we have no snow!" We have been paying for those remarks, though, ever since December 1 when the weather changed abruptly and the snow started coming... we now have about 10 inches of snow on the ground with more on the way this week.

So we may be due for the cold... but it's still a total shock to the system when you first go out into it. In all my life, I've never used an engine block heater, but I did plug ours in this morning... it is that cold!

An icon of Canadian computing

dyork — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:58:35 GMT

I learned a bit about Canadian computing history today. A number of the guys were chatting in our "virtual water cooler" (an internal Jabber chatroom) about the ICON computer and reminiscing fondly about various antics and activities related to it. Now, having started working with PCs really with the Apple II back in 1977 and having used pretty much nearly every different type of operating system and computer since that time, I was a bit perplexed. An ICON? What in the world was that?

It turns out that the ICON was a Canadian thing... specifically a computer created for the Ontario education ministry. I won't repeat the story on that well-written wiki page, but it's definitely worth a read. Sounds pretty interesting.... I have to wonder if Ontario had one of the largest deployments of ARCNET with all these computers around in the various schools.

There is another site with pictures of ICON computers (be warned that there are popups -which your browser should prevent if you are using a real browser). All in all, it sounds like quite an interesting chapter in the history of computing... and one of which I think it's fair to say we have absolutely no clue about south of the border.