Buck Rogers

A long time ago, I wrote about an episode of Buck Rogers that I’d watched, where they encounter a Vorvon. And when I wrote that, I said this:

Similarly, during any of the scenes with the vampire, Erin [Gray] was doing this weird, shuddery style breathing. For me, that will always represent what a person should sound like, when s/he is scared of a vampire. (So you should probably try and find a copy of this episode, and watch it, just in case you ever happen to encounter one. You don’t want to be unprepared.)

Which was really stupid. I should have just gone to YouTube, and found a clip for you. Like this.

But while I was playing around on YouTube, I found some other Buck Rogers clips. And most interesting of all, I found the intro from the pilot.

To get the full effect, first watch the intro from the series:

That’s what the intro was for the TV show. Now, when you’re ready for your mind to be blown, take a gander at the intro from the original pilot/movie.

My first thought, after seeing it: What the hell was that?!? What’s with all of the women rolling around on the ground? (And why for so long?)

But you know what’s the most embarrassing part? A few years ago, I did a guitar solo for a Jehovah Shalom song called Even More—you can listen to it here—and parts of that solo sound a lot like the music for this Buck Rogers intro. Is it possible that I’ve seen this before, and when I was coming up with my guitar solo, it popped out of my subconscious? I hope not. Of all of the things to rip off, I’d prefer if it wasn’t this…

Another Facebook Article

What, another one? Yes, another one. How Facebook Exposed Us All as Freaks, from Wired.

Another kidney update. (Although, really, it’s not about the kidneys anymore.)

When you get tired of hearing about my innards, let me know. (And I’ll ignore you, and keep writing about it.)

I went to the urologist yesterday. He confirmed, based on the effectiveness of the antibiotics I’ve been taking, that my symptoms were probably being caused by an infection of some kind. So I’ll finish the antibiotics, and then my symptoms should be gone.

I was also happy that he doesn’t seem worried about my kidneys at all. That’s the part of my body I was most worried about.

Unfortunately, he does want to have a look at my bladder. (Note: another detail about serna’s internal organs will be coming up in the next sentence.) Because it doesn’t seem to be fully emptying, when I urinate, he’s wondering if there might be some scar tissue in there, from the operation I had when I was younger. (That operation is mentioned in this post.) That scar tissue might be preventing it from emptying fully, and may also be what caused my infection in the first place.

Now, what do I mean when I say that he wants to “take a look at it”? Unfortunately, I mean just that. He wants to get a camera in there, and take a look around. And how does one get a camera into someone’s bladder? I can think of two ways:

1. One could cut the person open, and put the camera in that way. This is a bad idea, because you’d cause more damage getting the camera in than you’d fix by getting the camera’s results.
2. One could get a long tube, and stick it into the bladder, via the penis. This is also a bad idea, because it involves sticking a TUBE into the person’s PENIS. The penis is not meant to be a conduit for cameras.

Unfortunately for me, these are the only two choices, so it’s option 2 for me. (I believe this procedure is called a cystoscopy.) I’ve actually had this done, before, when I was much younger. I don’t have any real memories of the experience, except that it was… ahem… not pleasant. It’s probably not a good sign that my mind has blocked out any concrete memories of the experience, eh? My urologist assured me that they use fiber optics, these days, which makes the tubes narrower, so it won’t be as bad as it was when I was a child. On the other hand, he also says that I won’t be “getting in line to have it done again” either.

America owns the world

I found a couple of articles from Noam Chomsky today. They’re both along the same lines.

• Chomsky on World Ownership—This is an interview conducted by Michael Shank, for Foreign Policy in Focus
• We Own The World—This is an actual article, written by Chomsky, along the same theme as the interview above.

The article is longer than the interview, so if you only have a few minutes to spare, read the interview, but if you have time to think about this a bit more deeply, I recommend the article.

I should point out that the title of this post is intentionally ironic—I don’t really believe that America owns the world. (Regardless of what they believe.)

South Park trailers

These are both pretty old, but I was thinking about them on the ride in this morning, so I thought I’d put them here.

First, South Park Star Wars:

Next, South Park—Matrix:

Kidney Update

So here’s the deal:

A few weeks ago, I noticed some strange symptoms. They were all… well, let’s just say they all had to do with urine, and leave it at that. You can thank me at your leisure, for sparing you the details. I figured it was probably a bladder infection.

I went to the doctor, but he didn’t concur. He thought it was probably kidney stones, instead. We did some tests—including a urine test, some x-rays, and an ultrasound—and the tests didn’t really show anything. The urine test didn’t show any bacteria—at least, not anything that was out of the ordinary—and neither did the x-rays or ultrasound show any “big” stones, all of which was normal. So he assured me that the stone would just pass on its own. (He made it sound like a pretty innocuous process; “one day you’ll be going to the bathroom, the flow will suddenly be interrupted, and then you’ll hear a little ‘ping’ when the stone hits the toilet.” He didn’t mention the excruciating pain that most people think of, when they think of kidney stones.) So I went home, content that I knew what the problem was, and mentally preparing myself for a world of pain.

And then nothing happened. And then my symptoms seemingly started to get better. So I went back to him again, to find out if he was sure it was a kidney stone. And he said, based on the symptoms, that he was still sure, and that the stone had probably passed. (Which I wrote about, because I was overjoyed that I’d been spared the pain.) He told me that the stones will cause some minor damage to your insides, so the symptoms I still had would eventually pass. We also talked about an operation I’d had on my kidneys, when I was 2½. He wanted me to get some more information about the nature of that operation, and come and see him in another week, and confirm if my symptoms were gone. While I was there, he also checked my prostate, and confirmed that it was fine, too.

But the symptoms didn’t go away. In fact, soon after I spent another sleepless night, running back and forth to the toilet every couple of minutes. So I went back to him again. (Actually, this time I just called him.) He promised to get me a referral to a urologist, and I don’t remember the exact wording, but he said he’d try and do it quickly. This was a Monday.

I called his office again on Tuesday, to find out if the appointment was made. But I found out that there is only one nurse who does referrals, and she was out sick. Was there nobody else who could do it, in her absence? No. No there was not. So finally, on Friday, she came in, and faxed the referral to the specialist. Which meant another few days for the specialist to get back to her, for her to get back to me. But I found out on the following Wednesday—that’s a week and a half after I’d been promised to get my appointment quickly—that they’d made my appointment. For March.

So I’ve gone back to my doctor again, and asked him if there is anything he can do in the meantime. I’m worried because if this is a problem with my kidneys, I don’t want it to linger—I want to find out soon, and get it fixed. So we’ve decided, for the time being, to treat it as an infection. (Whether bladder infection, kidney infection, or prostititis, which is some kind of infection of the prostate, doesn’t matter. You treat them all the same: with antibiotics.) If it turns out that it is an infection, and the antibiotics work, then all the better. Personally—and I think my doctor agrees with me on this—I’d be much happier if my original urine test had showed some bacteria, to indicate that it was an infection.

So now I’m waiting for the antibiotics to work (if they will). In the meantime, I’m getting dehydrated, because I’m urinating so much that any fluids I drink are just going right through me. I’m also sick of cranberry juice. (I think I wrote that before.) I’m also missing coffee. (I think I wrote that before, too.) But I’ve decided to start coming back to the office, when I can. When I wake up, and it’s a “good day”, I’ll come in, but if it’s a “bad day”, I’ll work from home. And that’s the frustrating thing about my symptoms: Even if I feel really good, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, because a few hours later I could be peeing like crazy again.

Waffles

For Christmas, my parents got Andrea and I a George Foreman Grill, which has removable plates. (The plates are actually dishwasher safe, which is great.) One set of plates is for making waffles, and we were keen to try them out. So I went online on the weekend, and found a waffle recipe that looked good, and decided to give it a try.

I’d never made waffles before, so I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. Unfortunately, it turned out badly. The waffles were sticking to the plates, so when you’d open the grill up, you’d end up with the top sticking to the top half, the bottom sticking to the bottom half, and the in-between parts not really cooked properly. It was awful. And the second batch was even worse than the first batch; Andrea and I spent a good ten minutes trying to scrape the gunk off of the grill plates.

But I did some research, and I found three things that I’d done wrong:

• I didn’t spray the grill with cooking spray. I didn’t figure I’d have to, because they’re supposed to be non-stick plates, but I think I should have anyway.
• I stirred the mix too much. I found out after (from my mom) that for waffles, and also for pancakes, you’re not supposed to stir the mix too much; you just get it mixed, and then leave it. Whereas I was stirring it for a long time, and then, when I was waiting for the waffles to cook, I’d keep stirring it, from time to time. Whoops.
• I took them out too soon. The George Foreman Grill instructions said that you should cook waffles for about 3–5 minutes, whereas I cooked mine for 10–15. But when I took them off the grill, they were still steaming, and instructions I found later say that you should wait until they’re done steaming, before you take them off the waffle iron.

That last point is pretty reflective of all of the cooking that I do. If I find a recipe for salmon, and it says that the fish will take ten minutes to cook, I can be guaranteed that it will take at least forty. Which is odd, because my oven is actually hotter than it indicates, so I always have to turn it to a slightly lower temperature than instructions tell me. (Pizzas always take less time to cook than the box indicates.) And the instructions for the George Foreman Grill are like that too; anything that I’ve cooked has taken at least twice as long as what the instructions say it will.

Anyway, back to the point. Last night I tried again, using the same recipe, but spraying the grill plates with cooking spray, not stirring the mix too much, and leaving them in until they finished steaming. (They were actually still steaming a bit, but not much. I didn’t want them to burn.) And they came out great.

In the future, we might start making waffles for a treat, instead of pancakes, which is what we’ve been using for our “fun” dinners.

Still under the weather

Here, let me show you something:

You know what that is? It’s a coffee grinder. You put coffee beans in it, and it grinds them down for you, so that you can put the coffee in your coffee maker. Do you see the beans at the top? I put those there just after Christmas. And then I got sick, and decided that I shouldn’t be drinking coffee. So the beans are still sitting there. Lonely. Wishing they could be ground up, and have hot water poured over them, to make coffee. But they can’t.

You want to see something else? Here:


Do you know what that is? Of course you do. It’s a carton of Egg Nog. I bought that just after Christmas, too. And then I got sick, and, just like the coffee, I decided that I probably shouldn’t be drinking it, if I’m having urinary issues. (You probably can’t make out the expiry date, from that picture, but it expired 11 days before I wrote this post.) It’s too bad, because I love egg nog, and always have. But they only sell it around the Christmas/New Year timeframe.

Actually, it’s doubly bad, because I discovered, during the Christmas holidays, that if you combine the two—coffee using egg nog instead of cream/milk—it tastes really good. I was very much enjoying this holiday treat. Until I got sick.

This post sounds very pathetic, like I’m feeling sorry for myself, but I’m not. My symptoms are still very mild, and I don’t have any pain. I just wish I could get an appointment with the specialist, so that I could find out what’s wrong with me.

How Email Brings You Closer to the Guy in the Next Cubicle

I read an interesting article on Wired today, with the title given above. As someone who works from home on a regular basis—especially when he’s got physical problems which are probably not kidney stones, but must be something—I found it very interesting.

Speaking only for myself, I agree with the article. For myself, even if I were working from home 100% of the time, I’d still want to live in Toronto. If I were to move anywhere, it would be downtown, which would bring me closer to work.

Kidney stones redux

Or maybe I spoke too soon. Based on the fact that my symptoms aren’t going away as quickly as we’d like, my doctor is making an appointment for me with a urologist. (A pee doctor—although I bet they hate being called that.)

Maybe I never had a kidney stone at all. Maybe there’s something completely different wrong with me. (Or maybe there’s nothing wrong with me at all, and my urinary system is just a rebel, that doesn’t play by the rules. Don’t try to tell me how to evacuate liquids, old man! Don’t lay your “urine shouldn’t be cloudy” trip on me!)

The kidney stone(s)

Well, I have good news, and I have abso-friggin-wonderful news. The good news is that the kidney stone seems to have passed. The wondertastic news is that there was no pain. I either had a very, very small stone, that didn’t do too much damage, or the stone broke apart before passing. Either way, it’s a better outcome than I ever could have hoped for.

(Especially after all of the horror stories I’ve heard about how painful kidney stones are. And if you want an idea why, take a look around for pictures of the things; they’re nasty looking. I’d be nervous holding one in my hand, for fear of cutting myself, let alone having it wander around in my innards…)

I still have some of the urinary symptoms—the doctor says that it can take a while for them to go away—but everything seems good. I’m going to go back and see him this week, for a checkup, and just to set everyone’s mind at rest that all really is well. While I was there, he even checked my prostate—the “procedure” isn’t as bad as people say (although I wouldn’t recommend it)—and all is well there, too.

There is one potential cloud on the horizon, though: When I was young (about two and a half), I had an operation on my kidneys, and he wants to get more details about that. I talked to my mom, and apparently the urethras weren’t at the right angle, or something, and they had to be reconnected. So I may or may not have to get more tests done, just to be sure that nothing else is wrong. The doctor says that he wants to avoid such tests, if necessary, because they can be “invasive”. (Why do I get the feeling that I might not be out of the woods quite yet? Perhaps the celebrations are a bit premature…)

The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry

This isn’t really a post, per se, so much as a link to an article on Wired that I found interesting.

Enjoy.

“I’m tired of the waiting game! Let’s play Hungry, Hungry Hippos!”

Our trip to the States was pleasant, but uneventful, so I don’t have much to write about it. Except that we visited the International Spy Museum, which was interesting. (Not $18US worth of interesting, but interesting.) We also went to Washington D.C. and looked around. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera; can you tell that these pictures are of the capital and the Washington Monument? Neither can I.

(Well, I guess you can tell which one’s the Washington Monument. It’s pretty recognizable.)

We didn’t bother stopping by the White House, or doing any other site-seeing. We just took the Metro, which dropped us off in the middle of the Mall, and that’s where I took those pictures from; if you look one way, you see the capital, and the other way, you see the monument. Most of our time was spent in the Smithsonian, which is free. Unlike the Spy Museum, which is not.

We also got to play with a GPS navigation system, which was fun. So fun that we’re going to buy one. (One of Andrea’s American cousins can hook us up with a good one, for cheap.)

And then I got home, and for some reason, I noticed that I was peeing an awful lot. And there were some other symptoms, which I won’t bore you with, that led me to think that it might be a bladder infection. So I finally broke down and went to the doctor’s, and found out that it’s probably not. It’s probably kidney stones. (Luckily, my doctor had a better idea of what my symptoms meant than I did.) What does one do about kidney stones? Well, in most cases, one simply waits for the stones to pass. One spends most of one’s day in front of the toilet, because one’s bladder is so desperate to get rid of the foreign object that it’s making one urinate constantly, and waits for the stone to come out. One also drinks so much cranberry juice that one is sick to death of the sight, smell, and taste of it.

(Have you ever had cranberry juice? I’m not talking crantinis, or cranberry cocktail, or some kind of fruit juice that has cranberry juice in it; I’m talking about cranberry juice. Organic, unsweetened, juice from cranberries. It’s bitter, foul-tasting stuff. I’m drinking a mixture that’s about 80% water, and 20% juice, and it’s still nasty.)

I’m led to believe that passing this stone is going to be one of the more painful experiences in my life. I can’t wait to write about it.

Christmas

Fortunately for me—and unfortunately for you—nothing too exciting happened at Christmas. That’s fortunate for me, because “exciting” usually equates to “bad”. (It’s unfortunate for you, because I have nothing to write about.)

I’m heading to the States shortly, to visit relatives, so I probably won’t be writing for a while. (Not that I’ll be gone that long.) Of course, along the lines I’ve already stated, I’m hoping I won’t have much to write about. Maybe a quick post saying “I’m back from the States, and it was a lovely trip” would be nice.

Shovelling

I thought I was done shovelling snow. I shovelled three times on Sunday: once when I first got up, again when we got back from church, and a final time around 7:00 or 8:00, after the snow stopped falling.

Unfortunately, we went to a friend’s house for dinner last night. (Well, the fact that we went to her house wasn’t unfortunate. The unfortunate part is coming up.) She lives downtown, in the Bloor and Ossington area. An area where they haven’t really done a thorough job of plowing the snow. (Are you starting to get a hint of the unfortunate part that’s going to be coming? Or are you still in suspense?) In fact, there is a block of streets, off Ossington, that don’t look like they’ve been plowed at all. You drive down the street and there are two little tracks in the snow, from the left and right tires of cars that have come before me, and people have dug out little trenches for themselves, to park in. So we weren’t able to park on her street, nor the adjoining street; we had to park a block away, on another street. Again, the street hadn’t been plowed, and people had dug out little spots where they could park, but I found an empty spot. It looked like the snow was pretty deep, but I was able to take a running start at it, and I got the car in there. (Hint: The unfortunateness springs from this event.)

Just out of curiosity, once I got the car parked, I tried pulling forward and pulling back a couple of times, and realized the car wasn’t going anywhere. But I didn’t try too hard, so I figured that when it was time to leave, we’d actually be able to get out.

We had a lovely dinner—good food, good company, what could be better, etc. etc. Except that every once in a while I would think about the car, and wonder if we were going to be able to get out. On our way out, our friend asked us to bring down the shovel she had borrowed from her landlord, which we did, and put in his lobby.

When we got back to the car, we realized pretty quickly that my fears had been valid; we couldn’t get the car out. I was able to reverse pretty well, but there was a very deep patch of snow right in front of the car, and no matter how much of a running start I took at it, we couldn’t get through it.

So we went back to our friend’s house, and happened to get there just as the landlord was coming home. We told him we were friends of his tenant, and that we’d got our car stuck, and asked if we could borrow his shovel. Luckily, he didn’t mind. There were actually two shovels, which was good, because it meant that both Andrea and I were able to do some shovelling.

So I ended up having to shovel a fourth time, from our snow storm, to get our car out of its parking spot. (If you’re still in suspense, this is the unfortunate part. But, really, you should have been able to figure it out by now.)

Movie Review: Babel

We saw Babel on the weekend. It’s been on the PVR for a long time, and we finally got around to watching it. And I’m not really sure if I liked it or not.

I won’t bother to recount the plot, except to say that there are three separate stories going on, that turn out to be connected. And I think that was one thing that people didn’t like about the movie; according to a quick glance at Rotten Tomatoes—on which the movie only got 68%—it sounds like people are getting tired of movies with a lot of seemingly disconnected threads, that turn out to come together by the end of the movie.

Andrea did a bit more research—I think we were both trying to decide if we liked the movie or not—and one of her favourite reviewers talked about the fact that the movie is very much about fate, rather than about peoples’ actions. Looking back on the movie, everything that happened really happened to the people, and they had to simply react; it wasn’t like people were suffering the consequences of their actions, for the most part, they were just… well, suffering. Which I have to admit, I liked. We don’t always have control over our surroundings.

I do have to say, though, that I think it was silly for them to put Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in it. Then again, maybe all of the actors in the movie were “big name” actors, from their respective countries; it could have been a star-studded cast, and I just didn’t know about it.

So all in all, I think I liked the movie. It’s not an unqualified “I loved it”, but I liked it.

Typing

I"ve written before that my typing skills used to be very good--my fingers used to FLY across the keyboard--but when I wrote a book, my typing skills got much worse, instead of better. At the time, i wrote that it was online chatting that had made my typing so much better.

unfrotunately, my typing has gottne even worse, and ironically, it's chatting that has nmade it worse. I'll explian:

When youy're chatting, there is a school of thought that you're not supposed to correct your mistakes. the point is to get the messages across quickly, so tht the flow of the conversation isn't interrupted. HOwever, I never followed that school of thought; i DID correct my mistakes, and my messages in ICQ or MSN Messenger were always properly spelled, and grammatical. (When I did make spelling mistakes, it was because I didn't know how to spell the words properly, not because I'd mis-typed them ina hurry.) I even used proper capitalization.

But lately, for some unexplainable reason, I've changed, and started getting more lackadaisical in my chatting. I"m not overly careful about capitalization, and I'm not correcting my typos unless it's critical. (i.e. if what I wrote isn't understandable; if I write "teh" instead of "the" I don't bother to correct it, because everyone knows waht it was supposed to be.) And that's all well and good for chatting, but it's spilling over into other areas, too; when I type emails, or Word documents, or blog posts, my spelling is also terrible. I spend as much time correcting myself as I do typing.

My fingers still fly across the keyboard. (People who can hear me (but not see me) are impressed at the sound of my typihg.) They're just producing garbage, instead of words.

Trip to Québec

I took a trip to Québec City this week. It was eventful and boring all at the same time.

I had to get up at 5:00 Monday morning, in order to catch my plane, which means that the week started off very badly. Nobody likes being awake at that time, especially me. The cab was scheduled to pick me up at 6:00, and when I looked out my window at 5:55, I realized that it had snowed, and the driveway and sidewalk were covered in snow. I wish I had looked out sooner; I would have shovelled and salted, but by the time I noticed, it was too late.

The cab was a couple of minutes late, but getting to the airport, checking in, and going through security, were all a breeze. The plane was very nice, too; it was a CRJ-705, which has a personal entertainment system, with movies/TV on demand, in every seat. So I watched the first 30 minutes or so of the Bourne Ultimatum. (I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it, but I’d already seen it, so I wasn’t worried about it. Also, there was a chance I might get to see the rest on the flight back.) Unfortunately, although I’d chosen to see the movie in English, it had Japanese subtitles. (I think it was Japanese. It looked like Kanji, to my untrained eye, but I’m very ignorant about Asian languages, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I were wrong.) I tried and tried to switch languages, and get rid of the subtitles, but I couldn’t figure out how.

Most of the day Monday was uneventful. I didn’t have access to my email for most of the day, which was very good—it meant I could concentrate on what I was there to talk about, instead of getting interrupted by the many, many problems back at the office in Toronto. (Many.)

We went out for lunch to a nice steak place. One of my colleagues wanted to order veal, but the waitress warned him that it wasn’t really veal, it was horse. As a slight aside, I found it interesting that people were so mortified that they’d have horse on the menu—especially since it was replacing veal, which many people find cruel in its own right. But the person involved decided against eating horse, because his daughter used to have a horse, and he figured she’d never forgive him if he ate it.

The afternoon was still uneventful, and then we went out for dinner. There were four of us—two Québecers and two Torontonians—and we took two cars. The drive was a bit unnerving, though, because when we left the parking lot, it was impossible to see out the windshields. There was so much ice, inside the windows and out, that you couldn’t see. But our hosts were used to it, I guess, and they didn’t have a problem. We had an excellent dinner, with a waitress who had a deep, raspy, smoker’s voice. (Just like the waitress I had last time I went to Québec!)

We then went for a drive, and one of my Québecer colleagues showed us the town. Which is, I must say, beautiful. It’s the oldest city in Canada—this year will be their 400^th anniversary—so there were a lot of very beautiful buildings to see. I’d like to go back some time in the summer, and see the city when it’s not covered in snow.

When we got back to the hotel, I arranged with my colleague to meet at 8:30 the next morning, and we’d go and grab some breakfast, before going to the office. The room had complimentary wireless internet access, so I did a quick check of my email, before setting my alarm for 7:00. (Because that would give me enough time to meet my colleague for 8:00.)

My hotel was the Hotel Pur. It’s a very nice hotel, although a bit more “ultra modern” than I usually like. Unfortunately, it was impossible to keep my room warm. I had to turn the temperature up to approximately the temperature of the surface of the sun, so that the room would get boiling hot, and then the heat would turn off—and the room would immediately become ice cold. Until the next time the heat would kick in, and raise it to the temperature of the core of the Earth, and then turn off and start the cycle over again.

I got up at 7:00 Tuesday morning, and could barely get out of bed. In fact, for some reason, I had more trouble getting up than I had Monday, when I had to get up at 5:00. Who can explain the mysteries of the human body? (And/Or mind…) Because of the cold, I had a terrible shower, because the bathroom was frigid. (And I had one of those showers that are either boiling or freezing, but never warm.) But I managed to get ready, get packed, and get to my colleague’s door for 8:00. Now, if you’ve been reading closely, you may have noticed that I arranged with my colleague to meet him at 8:30, not 8. Which he pointed out with gentle good humour. Luckily, he was ready to go anyway, so we were able to have a nice leisurely breakfast, before showing up at the office.

Tuesday was also pretty uneventful, during the day. We worked, and we got a lot done. We had a good lunch, at a Thai place. I felt bad when I couldn’t understand the waitress, but then one of my French colleagues assured me that he couldn’t, either. I took a chance, when she asked me about the soup, and decided to get it spicy, but my gamble paid off; it was excellent. (If you like spicy food, it probably wouldn’t have been spicy enough for you, but it was just right for me.)

We weren’t sure when to leave the office, to get to the airport in time to catch our flight. As it turned out, we got there much earlier than we needed to. (Better safe than sorry, and all that.) I called Andrea, to let her know that I was coming home, and I made the mistake of asking her what the weather was like:

• INT: the airport
• serna remembers, at the last minute, that he needs to call Andrea before the plane leaves. He pulls out his cell phone.
• serna
• Hey there.
• Andrea
• Hey. How was the trip?
• They have more small talk.
• serna
• So how’s the weather there?
• Andrea
• It’s terrrible!
• serna
• (with trepidation)
• Oh no. What do you mean?
• Andrea
• Freezing rain.
• serna
• (hangs his head)
• Crap. That’s exactly the wrong answer. If there’s any weather that will cause them to delay or cancel the flight, it’s that.
• Okay, well, I’ll keep you updated, and if the flight gets delayed, I’ll let you know.

Luckily, however, the flight was not delayed. I wasn’t sure if we’d get another jet with the personal entertainment, but we did, so I was quite pleased. Unfortunately, when I went looking for The Bourne Ultimatum, they didn’t have it. So I ended up watching much of Live Free or Die Hard, instead. And, as luck would have it, again, I ended up with Japanese subtitles. I kept glancing at my colleague’s screen, to see if he had the same problem, but he didn’t. I don’t know what I could have possibly been doing wrong, but I’m convinced that it was me, not the TV. It’s just too much of a coincidence that I’d get two TVs with the same weird anomaly.

And that was my trip.

Privilege

I was at an event Thursday night, put on by METRAC, commemorating the anniversary of December 6^th. It was a good event, with spoken word performances from various people. (Some of the performers work with METRAC, in the ReAct program.)

During the night my mind started to wander, as is often the case—especially when it comes to spoken word, which I can appreciate, but don’t really enjoy that much—and I started to ask myself: What’s the difference between me and the people who are performing here tonight? And there were some obvious differences: I’m older than most (or all) of them; I’m white, and most of them were youth of colour; I came from the country, and most of them came from the city; I have money, and most of them don’t. But none of those things, even though they were true, really felt like the real difference.

And then it hit me. What my subconscious had been working on in the background came to the front: I’d had encouragement. My whole life, from the time that I was a kid right up until the present day, I’ve always had encouragement.

In school, I always got fairly bad grades. But did my teachers ever tell me that I shouldn’t bother going to college or university, because I wasn’t smart enough? Did they suggest that I just give up, and go get a job pumping gas or something? Quite the opposite. Almost every report card I ever received had a note on it from my teachers, saying something to the effect that I could do better, if I would just apply myself. I was smarter than the grades I was getting, I just didn’t try, they were telling me. (In fact, it’s quite possible that I got better grades than I should have, from teachers pushing me through.) But from what I know of the kids in my Youth Group, that’s not true for youth of colour in the city schools. They have been told that they shouldn’t bother applying to college or university. They have been told that they should just give up, and go out and get menial jobs.

When they do get praise, it’s usually a guarded form of praise. People will say “wow, she’s a very good spoken word artist!” and you can almost hear, on the end of the statement, “…for a street kid.” As if living in the poor areas of Toronto, with all the lack of food and clothing and proper shelter that comes with it, also brings a lack of intelligence, or a lack of talent. We talk of “street smarts” and “book smarts” as if they’re mutually exclusive; you can either learn how to live on the streets, or you can become an engineer. But they’re both forms of being smart; they’re both ways to apply your intelligence. Who’s to say that someone with street smarts wouldn’t make a great engineer, with the right opportunities? We should never be surprised when someone who’s not so well off is intelligent, or talented. (And, of course, we shouldn’t make the opposite assumption, either, which is equally demeaning: “Oh, she’s from the streets! I bet she’s a good rapper!”)

Even to this day, when I get praise for doing a good job at work, it’s just that: straight up praise. “That was very good work you did, serna.” But people who haven’t had my advantages, who happen to be on the wrong side of the line between rich and poor, or who have the wrong colour of skin, seldom receive “pure” praise in this culture. They get qualified praise. What’s expected of me gets treated as miraculous from them.

I really think praise needs to be doled out equally. The kids in my Youth Group, some of whom are really smart and some of whom aren’t, just like the kids I grew up with, need to be encouraged. They’ll never have the advantages I did—even a poor white kid in the country is still better off than an inner-city kid—but they already know that. What they don’t know, because it’s been kept secret from them, is that they can accomplish something in this life. Some of them will even accomplish beyond their means.

Apologies for the lack of cohesion in this post. I know it’s all over the map. There were too many thing I was trying to say, and too many of them were not so well thought through.

Hybrid Gas Comparison (Long)

When I first bought my hybrid—or even ahead of time, when I was just thinking about it—a lot of people told me that they’d heard hybrids don’t actually save that much on gas. That the fuel consumption was pretty much the same as a normal Civic. Well, luckily for me, I was able to look back in my bank account, and see how much money I’d spent on gas with the previous car, for the last 90 days that I had it. And then I tracked how much I spent on gas for the new car, for the first 90 days.

And to all of the naysayers out there, I have only this to say: You were right. I only saved 23%, which is much less than I’d been hoping.

But before I continue, and get to the list of numbers that you’re all dying to see, let me just get this out of the way: I don’t regret buying the new car. In fact, I still love it. It’s a great car to drive, and it does still save me money, even if it’s not as much money as I was hoping. Sure, some of the lustre has come off, since I’m not saving as much as I’d hoped, but still, I love the car.

Now back to the numbers. First off, I guess I should share the money I spent on the two cars. Unfortunately, there is no way to find out how many kilometres I drove for the 90 days in question, in the previous car, so this isn’t really a pure “apples to apples” comparison; it’s just how much money I spent on each car, on gas. That being said, I’m fairly sure the number of kilometres for each car is probably comparable.

Cavalier			Civic Hybrid
Date	Gas	# Days	Date	Gas	# Days
May 14	$53.69		August 12
May 15			August 13
May 16			August 14
May 17			August 15
May 18			August 16
May 19			August 17
May 20			August 18
May 21			August 19
May 22			August 20
May 23	$49.47	9	August 21
May 24			August 22	$32.29	11
May 25			August 23
May 26			August 24
May 27			August 25
May 28			August 26
May 29			August 27	$29.22	5
May 30			August 28
May 31			August 29	$28.01	2
June 1			August 30
June 2			August 31
June 3			September 1
June 4			September 2	$35.07	4
June 5			September 3
June 6			September 4
June 7	$47.48	15	September 5
June 8			September 6
June 9			September 7
June 10			September 8
June 11			September 9
June 12			September 10
June 13	$50.88	6	September 11
June 14			September 12	$35.74	10
June 15			September 13
June 16			September 14
June 17			September 15
June 18			September 16
June 19			September 17
June 20			September 18
June 21			September 19
June 22			September 20	$37.12	8
June 23			September 21
June 24			September 22
June 25	$52.03	12	September 23
June 26			September 24
June 27			September 25
June 28			September 26
June 29			September 27
June 30			September 28	$34.41	8
July 1			September 29
July 2			September 30
July 3	$46.33	8	October 1
July 4			October 2
July 5			October 3
July 6			October 4
July 7			October 5	$33.80	7
July 8			October 6
July 9	$47.09	6	October 7	$33.11	2
July 10			October 8
July 11			October 9
July 12			October 10
July 13			October 11	$30.02	4
July 14			October 12
July 15			October 13
July 16	$33.64	7	October 14
July 17			October 15
July 18	$48.01	2	October 16
July 19			October 17
July 20			October 18
July 21			October 19
July 22			October 20
July 23			October 21
July 24			October 22
July 25			October 23	$34.27	12
July 26			October 24
July 27			October 25
July 28			October 26
July 29			October 27
July 30			October 28
July 31			October 29
August 1	$49.18	14	October 30
August 2			October 31	$35.26	8
August 3			November 1
August 4			November 2
August 5			November 3
August 6			November 4
August 7			November 5
August 8			November 6
August 9	$43.21	8	November 7
August 10			November 8	$35.48	8
August 11	$44.23	2	November 9

The “# Days” columns are how many days it was between fillups.

So how do those compare? Let’s take a look:

Cavalier		Civic
Total:	$565.24	Total:	$433.80
Average Fillup:	$47.10	Average Fillup:	$33.37
Average Days Between Fillups:	8.09	Average Days Between Fillups:	6.85
Savings:			23%

I tried very hard to come up with a good graph, that could compare these numbers. (I know how much my blog readers love graphs.) The best I could come up with was this, where the red line represents gas spent on the Hybrid, and the blue line represents gas spent on the Cavalier:Or maybe this works better, where again, the red area represents the Hybrid, and the blue area represents the Cavalier:What you’ll notice, if you look at the numbers, is that I’m filling up the hybrid every 7 or 8 days, on average, except for some occasions where I’m filling up after only 2 or 3. This is because the mileage is much better in the city than on the highway; when I had to take long trips, that involved a lot of highway driving, I didn’t save as much on gas. For example, the weekend that I spent driving back and forth between Toronto, London, and Chatham. On that weekend, I had a fillup after only two days, and then another fillup four days later. (The car has a much smaller gas tank than my old car, which is why I had to fill up so frequently on these trips. I think the mileage would still be comparable to the old car—not less, but comparable.)

Why is the mileage so much better for city driving than highway driving? Well, here are some quick points on how the Honda hybrids work:

• As opposed to some other hybrids, the gas motor is always on, for the Hondas. (See below for the exception to this rule.) When you accelerate—at any speed, not just at lower speeds—the electric engine kicks in, and helps the car accelerate. This way, the gas motor isn’t working as hard.
• When the car slows down, it uses kinetic energy to charge the electric motor’s battery. This means that the car never has to be plugged in.
• When you come to a stop, the gas motor shuts off, so that the car isn’t idling. When you take your foot off the brake, the gas motor comes back on, and by the time you’re ready to push your foot on the gas, the engine is ready to go.

That’s why the hybrid gets so much better mileage in the city than on the highway. With all of the stop and go, including the acceleration, and the fact that the engine can shut off, when you come to a stop, the hybrid technologies shine. When you’re on the highway, and maintaining a relatively stable speed, there isn’t much for the electric motor to do.

So, with this in mind, I decided to play with the numbers in the spreadsheet a bit. What would happen if I had only done city driving, and not taken any trips that involved a lot of highway driving? Then the numbers might have looked a bit more like this:

Civic Hybrid
Date	Gas	# Days
August 12
August 13
August 14
August 15
August 16
August 17
August 18
August 19
August 20
August 21
August 22	$32.29	11
August 23
August 24
August 25
August 26
August 27
August 28
August 29	$28.01	7
August 30
August 31
September 1
September 2
September 3
September 4
September 5	$35.07	7
September 6
September 7
September 8
September 9
September 10
September 11
September 12	$35.74	7
September 13
September 14
September 15
September 16
September 17
September 18
September 19
September 20	$37.12	8
September 21
September 22
September 23
September 24
September 25
September 26
September 27
September 28	$34.41	8
September 29
September 30
October 1
October 2
October 3
October 4
October 5	$33.80	7
October 6
October 7
October 8
October 9
October 10
October 11	$30.02	6
October 12
October 13
October 14
October 15
October 16
October 17
October 18
October 19
October 20
October 21
October 22
October 23	$34.27	12
October 24
October 25
October 26
October 27
October 28
October 29
October 30
October 31	$35.26	8
November 1
November 2
November 3
November 4
November 5
November 6
November 7
November 8	$35.48	8
November 9

(All I did was remove some of the fill ups, that were close to others, and then adjust the number of days accordingly. It’s not by any means scientific, just a “what if” scenario.)

Using these numbers, the comparison works out so that I would have saved about 34% on gas.

Cavalier		Civic
Total:	$565.24	Total:	$371.47
Average Fillup:	$47.10	Average Fillup:	$33.77
Average Days Between Fillups:	8.09	Average Days Between Fillups:	8.09
Savings:			34%

It’s only a coincidence that the average days between fillups ended up exactly 8.09, the same as for the Cavalier.

Still not the 50% that I would have hoped for, but better than I get with a lot of highway driving. If you’d like to see the graphic versions…So that’s how the cars compare. 23%. I only saved 23% on gas.

While I’m posting about the Hybrid, I should mention how the cold affects it. A friend of mine was curious, so I’ll satisfy his curiosity. Remember the three points I mentioned about how the hybrid works? Well in the cold…

• Acceleration is unaffected. As soon as you turn the car on, and start driving, the electric motor kicks in, and starts helping out when you accelerate.
• When it comes to charging the electric motor’s battery, the car has to warm up a bit, before it will start charging. So when you start the car, in the cold, you’ll just be using up juice from the battery, and not replenishing any, for the first little while. (That being said, for any significant trip, the battery will get back to its fully charged state after a while.)
• In terms of shutting off the gas engine, when at a complete stop, this doesn’t happen until the car gets fully warmed up. And even then, sometimes you get a “false stop” when the car is almost warmed up; that is, you’ll come to a stop, and you’ll feel the engine shut off for a second, and then it suddenly turns back on. It’s like the engine is saying, “Can I shut off? Yep. No wait! Not yet!”

Just to round off the post, here are some things about this car, that I’m noticing after driving it for a while:

• The climate control system is great. It has an “auto” feature, where you simply put it to the temperature that you want, and it will take care of deciding when to turn the fan on, and how much, whether the air conditioning should be on or not, whether the air should come out at the windshield, or at your feet, or wherever, etc. It also tries to monitor the humidity in the car, and keep the A/C on when it gets too humid, so that the windows won’t fog up—although I notice that it doesn’t do this quite as well in the winter, so I have to override the “auto” setting and put the air pointing to the windshield, sometimes.
• I’m absolutely loving the fact that the stereo plays MP3 CDs. That’s a very nice feature. (I’m sure all cars have that, these days.)
• It took me a while to get used to the digital readout, for the speedometer, rather than the analogue gauge. (I’d still prefer the analogue gauge, I just got used to the digital readout.)
• I didn’t notice it at first, but the Civic has a lot more room in the back seat than the Cavalier did. This is partly because the Civic doesn’t have the bump on the floor, where the middle passenger would sit. (I’m sure one of my gear-head readers will leave a comment and tell me what that lump is there for, on most cars, but the point is, it’s not there on mine, and my back seat passengers get more leg room because of it.)