Category: Just Rambling

My Week Ending 2022-10-02

by dougpete, posted in Just Rambling

Here’s a summary of some of the things I learned and published this week.

Readings 

You can follow my daily readings as they happen here.  Below are a selected few, with commentary, from the past week. They’re posted to the blog daily under the title OTR Links.

Sunday

  • Where I went to university – Kitchener and Waterloo are fabulous places to visit in the fall and not just for Oktoberfest
  • A really disturbing report about vaping in a Scarborough school and I’ve heard that it’s the same thing around here

Monday

  • Insights about the interesting Google Dino Game – Simpson’s style
  • This is an interesting thought about innovation – you don’t always have to start from scratch

Tuesday

  • The price of housing in Toronto is just crazy
  • Now, we’ll find out how good the Toronto Blue Jays really are when the border restrictions are removed

Wednesday

  • What happens when teaching doesn’t get easier over time?
  • This has been a week all about hurricanes – here’s a thought about Ian

Thursday

  • If there ever was a question that Google is everywhere, you need to check this out
  • Supposedly another article about the new events in the Windows 11 update – I can’t get excited about this. Could we just have the ability to move the taskbar to the left side of teh screen?

Friday

  • When hackers get student information, we should be worried and I hope all school boards are investigating their security procedures
  • The Jetson’s actually had a number of appliances that we use today and they predicted them so long ago

Saturday

  • If this story doesn’t warm your heart, I don’t know what will
  • What Windsor and Essex County schools did for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Blog Posts on
doug — off the record

My daily contributions to this blog are linked below. If you’re looking for a week in review for doug–off the record, you came to the right place.

#FollowFriday – September 30, 2022

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

https://wakelet.com/wake/KqBe1oC4Kar2tN7AGVrJ_

voicEd Radio

This Week in Ontario Edublogs is a blog post/show/podcast that features great writing from Ontario Edubloggers. Stephen Hurley and I use their writing as the basis for a conversation.

Featured Bloggers:

  • Amanda Hardy
  • Will Gourley – @WillGourley
  • Diana Maliszewski – @MzMollyTL
  • Deanna McLennan – @McLennan1977
  • Doug McDowall – @dougzone2_1
  • Lisa Anne Floyd – @lisaannefloyd
  • Steven Floyd – @stevenpfloyd
  • Diane Kim

This week’s voicEd Radio show:

Technology Troubleshooting

Yesterday was an interesting experience. As I’m sure we all have done, I’ve accumulated quite a collection of cables over the years. My wife keeps bugging me to throw them away but I just know that I’ll need one some day.

It turns out that yesterday was the day.

I was positive that I had the cable I needed but I searched everywhere and somehow I didn’t.

I’m visiting The Boy later today so hopefully can steal one from him.

Video of the Week

This has been happening in Point Pelee this past week.

Photo of the Week

My date and I for a wedding on Saturday.


Thanks for reading.

Please join me daily for something new and, hopefully, interesting for you. I honestly and truthfully appreciate your few moments reading my thoughts. Time willing, this summary appears every Sunday afternoon.

Be safe.

dp

This blog post was originally posted at:

https://dougpete.wordpress.com/

My Week Ending 2022-09-25

by dougpete, posted in Just Rambling

Here’s a summary of some of the things I learned and published this week.

Readings 

You can follow my daily readings as they happen here.  Below are a selected few, with commentary, from the past week. They’re posted to the blog daily under the title OTR Links.

Sunday

  • For those who use Google Sheets, you might find this tutorial about creating Gantt charts helpful
  • From a principal’s perspective, ways to create a culture of belonging in your school

Monday

  • A cat ringing a doorbell? Sounds intriguing and click bait to me and I fell for it
  • For social studies teachers, Richard Byrne shares 10 resources

Tuesday

  • With the crazy home selling and buying situation, many are avoiding home inspections that that could get expensive
  • Forget the bad guys, maybe it’s your browser that’s going nuts and sharing your passwords. Gulp

Wednesday

  • The article talks about four tools that you should use – I’ll check but I’m happy with what I have
  • Will all of this stuff with Trump ever be resolved in our lifetime?

Thursday

  • I agree that Toronto Pearson Airport is a bad experience but with its size, does it even stand a chance? Detroit Metro is awesome but then, it’s it’s really well laid out and not land locked as far as I can see
  • I’ve never worked on a Microsoft Surface but I am intrigued by the price and how well they stand up to being thrown at football games

Friday

  • I never got terribly efficient with C or C+ and now Microsoft wants to deprecate them
  • Check out the rings of Neptune – yes, I said Neptune

Saturday

Blog Posts on
doug — off the record

My daily contributions to this blog are linked below. If you’re looking for a week in review for doug–off the record, you came to the right place.

#FollowFriday – September 23, 2022

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

https://wke.lt/w/s/x4qUpl

voicEd Radio

This Week in Ontario Edublogs is a blog post/show/podcast that features great writing from Ontario Edubloggers. Stephen Hurley and I use their writing as the basis for a conversation.

Featured Bloggers:

  • EduGals – @Edugals
  • Marie Snyder – @MarieSnyder27
  • Tim King – @tk1ng
  • Aviva Dunsiger – @avivaloca
  • Matthew Morris – @callmemrmorris
  • Paul McGuire – @mcguirp
  • Bonnie Stewart – @bonstewart

This week’s voicEd Radio show:

Technology Troubleshooting

Writing this blog post turns out to be a double check / proofreading thing for me. It’s a rainy Saturday morning as I type this and will finish it off tomorrow morning when the blog post and OTR links go live.

If you check above, I always, always do a Wakelet of the #FollowFriday messages and just copy the link here.

For some reason, I forgot to do that yesterday so quickly had to do it.

I tell you, folks, your blogger here is losing it.

Look what I made

With all the Wordle craze, I of course blogged about it earlier but also created a Wakelet of all the Wordle clones I could find. Once created, I’ve been adding to it daily, it seems. I guess it’s presumptuous to think I could do it all in one session. It certainly has taken the online world by storm.

My collection is available here: https://wke.lt/w/s/BuvP40

Update – July 31: Up to 72 entries.

Video of the Week

Most definitely worth the trip to visit.

Photo of the Week

Forget beautiful sunsets. We took off along Lake Erie for a morning drive and I caught this picture in Wheatley.

Thanks for reading.

Please join me daily for something new and, hopefully, interesting for you. I honestly and truthfully appreciate your few moments reading my thoughts. Time willing, this summary appears every Sunday afternoon.

Be safe.

dp

This blog post was originally posted at:

https://dougpete.wordpress.com/

Power

by dougpete, posted in Just Rambling

It was an exciting day for me yesterday. I got a free opportunity to cook whatever I wanted for supper. I didn’t have to go to the fridge and see what I could cobble together. We were actually at the end of our regular food buying routine. There wasn’t much.

I headed off into town to go to our favourite butcher perchance to dream. Of course, my cheapness would have to come into play but I had an urge for chicken cordon bleu.

I pulled into the public parking lot by the library and started across the road to see a couple waving at me saying “They’re closed”. That was strange. It was a Tuesday early afternoon. Then, I noticed it. There wasn’t a single light on in the store.

So, I got back in the car and figured I’d head to a grocery store when I noticed it. As I drove up and down the street, nothing was open. Not only was nothing open but there were very few cars around. That’s probably a good thing because the gas station had no lights on either.

It turns out the power had gone out.

It only came on back later on in the afternoon. In the meantime, I started to think of what I could make with some eggs and half a loaf of bread.

We just rely so much on electricity. I was tempted to drive to Harrow and a store there but maybe they had troubles too.

That got me thinking back to August 14 of 2003. I was at an OSAPAC retreat and we went into Owen Sound to celebrate a birthday supper with friends. When we got there, there was no electricity there. Or anywhere in Ontario, if you remember!

Blackout 2003: How Ontario went dark

We ended up having spaghetti cooked on the BBQ.

The ride back to the retreat was strange. No streetlights or anything at all. The sky was black and the stars were beautiful. We went over the last hill and saw our destination. It was brilliantly lit up; it turns out that they had the ability to make their own electricity!

All of this came back to mind yesterday as I drove down those empty streets. We’re still so vulnerable to scenarios like this.

For the curious, we had egg sandwiches – our power wasn’t affected – and when we took the dog into town after supper for a walk at the Navy Yard, the power had been restored.

And yet, for that brief while, my plans were scuttled.

City nicknames and slogans

by dougpete, posted in Just Rambling

I shared this story recently

Canadians Have No Idea Why Toronto Is Called The 6ix, According To Google

and my friend Alfred Thompson replied that he had no idea. Maybe he knows it as the other nickname – Hogtown.

It’s excusable that he doesn’t know; he doesn’t live there and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have Drake on any of his playlists.

Of course, that got me going thinking of a fun blog post so here goes. Hopefully, this will be helpful for Alfred as he plans vacations up here over the border. Also, I’m betting that readers of this blog might learn a bit too. Obviously, tourism is big with the slogans but it still gives added value as you look.

Here goes: (Fresh in my mind since I’ve been to them all recently)

I had to include this one in case Sheila Stewart reads this post. I haven’t been there in a long time.

Thunder Bay “Superior By Nature”

Ontario itself has a slogan. It used to be “Yours To Discover” but is now “A Place To Grow”.

Of course, my list is not inclusive. Here’s a short article.

How about adding your community and slogan/nickname in the comments below?

My Week Ending 2022-09-18

by dougpete, posted in Just Rambling

Here’s a summary of some of the things I learned and published this week.

Readings 

You can follow my daily readings as they happen here.  Below are a selected few, with commentary, from the past week. They’re posted to the blog daily under the title OTR Links.

Sunday

  • How can you lose if you do a Cinnabon wedding?
  • I’ll be honest; I always thought that “frosh” was an American term. I’ve never used it personally but some find it offensive

Monday

  • I’m a real fan of cartoonists and here’s a wonderful collection of the Queen depicted in cartoons
  • Brain fog is a reality around here. Here’s maybe why

Tuesday

  • At least, the DDSB is tracking kids who are sick from Covic. Every one should
  • It only makes sense that our Windsor pays tribute to the Queen – here’s what’s happening

Wednesday

  • I’m on the waiting list to try this new functionality from Canva
  • More functionality comes to Microsoft Windows PowerToys – a tool that every Windows user should have.

Thursday

  • An interesting theory about why Atlantic provinces get a holiday on Monday and Ontario doesn’t
  • A bit of satire inspiration for those who don’t get a holiday in Ontario on Monday

Friday

  • Absolutely guaranteed to start an argument but here’s one person attempt at naming the most Canadian of Canadian lakes
  • A report on the number of emergency rooms that were closed this summer in Ontario

Saturday

  • Fact-checking things surrounding the Queen’s death
  • This was my submission to songs that you’d heard the cover long before hearing the origin and like it better.

Blog Posts on
doug — off the record

My daily contributions to this blog are linked below. If you’re looking for a week in review for doug–off the record, you came to the right place.

#FollowFriday – September 16, 2022

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

https://wke.lt/w/s/Fc8kZg

voicEd Radio

This Week in Ontario Edublogs is a blog post/show/podcast that features great writing from Ontario Edubloggers. Stephen Hurley and I use their writing as the basis for a conversation.

Featured Bloggers:

  • Cameron Steltman – @MrSteltman
  • Amanda Potts – @Ahpotts
  • Alexandra Woods – @XanWoods
  • Elizabeth Lyons – @mrslyonslibrary
  • David Garlick – @dgarlick13
  • Paul Gauchi – @PCMalteseFalcon
  • Melanie White – @WhiteRoomRadio

This week’s voicEd Radio show:

Technology Troubleshooting

We finally got a chance to take a break from babysitting and dogsitting to get away for a weekend so we went to Goderich. Our goal was to find something that we didn’t know about since we both lived just minutes from there. Sadly, the Goderich Tourish kiosk was closed but they did have great resources online so thanks for that.

I also wanted to listen to local radio and was pleasantly surprised that Cool Radio had a station in Wingham. So, I was streaming it here and listening to the advertisements and great music. We do have a local affiliate here but bizarrely, the signal doesn’t reach far enough for a good signal when out in the car.

Now, here comes the troubleshooting part. The Chatham affiliate does reach here so we can listen to it while on the road. Both Windsor and Chatham appear to broadcast the same shows.

Look what I made

With all the Wordle craze, I of course blogged about it earlier but also created a Wakelet of all the Wordle clones I could find. Once created, I’ve been adding to it daily, it seems. I guess it’s presumptuous to think I could do it all in one session. It certainly has taken the online world by storm.

My collection is available here: https://wke.lt/w/s/BuvP40

Update – July 31: Up to 72 entries.

Video of the Week

I really do like this cover of the Dr Hook song.

Photo of the Week

Our local bookstore has an octopus or something in its top floor.

Thanks for reading.

Please join me daily for something new and, hopefully, interesting for you. I honestly and truthfully appreciate your few moments reading my thoughts. Time willing, this summary appears every Sunday afternoon.

Be safe.

dp

This blog post was originally posted at:

https://dougpete.wordpress.com/