Mirror mirror that I've found,
How'd you fall onto the ground?
Were you quiet like the snow,
Or did you make a crashing sound?I've got some of the little bags in case it's crap. Click the image to enlarge it.
Today, the world over, memorials commemorate the war dead of every country, every conflict; soldiers and civilians alike.In Canada, Remembrance Day is a legal holiday. We pay our respects with two minutes of silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. The observance in Commonwealth countries officially began in 1919 after the end of the First World War in 1918. The two minutes of silence on the elevens symbolizes the armistice, effective at 11 a.m. on 11 November, 1918.
Next year the world will begin to mark all the centenaries of the First World War -- the terrible global conflict which took the lives of nearly 10 million soldiers and untold numbers of civilians, and, gave birth to some of the greatest political (read human) problems of the 20th Century.
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The owl-eyed will notice changes to the former investigative offices of the Vancouver Police.[/caption]
There's lots to see in the neighbourhood around the Go Green bottle depot at 7th Avenue and Ontario Street. But none of us customers are there to sight-see, we're there to return our bottles and get our money. While some of the other binners only give a hoot about taking their money and going downtown to get a hoot, once I've cashed in, I'm willing to look around.
One street south, on Ontario Street, there's the historic Anza Club, and across from the Anza is another interesting building, well it looks more like a fortress. and -- speaking of hoots, wouldn't you know it -- that's where the social media company HootSuite Media, Inc. has taken roost.
The owl-eyed will notice changes to the former investigative offices of the Vancouver Police.[/caption]There's lots to see in the neighbourhood around the Go Green bottle depot at 7th Avenue and Ontario Street. But none of us customers are there to sight-see, we're there to return our bottles and get our money. While some of the other binners only give a hoot about taking their money and going downtown to get a hoot, once I've cashed in, I'm willing to look around.
One street south, on Ontario Street, there's the historic Anza Club, and across from the Anza is another interesting building, well it looks more like a fortress. and -- speaking of hoots, wouldn't you know it -- that's where the social media company HootSuite Media, Inc. has taken roost.
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There are bottles all over Vancouver but not bottles depots.[/caption]
There are persistent rumours that the fellow who ran the now shuttered Westside Return-It bottle depot is looking at a location for a new Kitsilano bottle depot somewhere near 4th Avenue and Alma Street. This would be about eight blocks, or a kilometre -- depending how you walk it -- from the old location. Sounds too good to be true, but it is true that in the three months since his bottle depot on West Broadway and Blenheim closed it's doors at the end of July, Sam, the licence holder, has been looking for a new location.
Someone who spoke to him at a recent conference of bottle depot owners, said that he had chosen a location, but nothing was settled. Among other things, he would need the approval of the city, and I have no idea how long that process might take. I've been told he has one year to find a new location before Encorp, the industry stewardship group which oversees the Return-It bottle depot system, rescinds his licence to run a depot.
With no bottle depot in Kitsilano, most of the west side's collected beverage containers are being cashed in at two east Vancouver Return-It bottle depots: Go Green, at 7th and Ontario, and Regional Recycling, at 960 Evans Avenue, on the north side of the east end of Terminal Avenue. Go Green's business hasn't doubled but it's customer volume is up considerably. I don't go to Regional very often, but I'm told their volume has increased also.
In the case of Go Green, it's easy to single out the former Westside regulars; they're the ones who ask for a receipt or are surprised they don't get one. Westside used a computer system with touch screen input to record container types and total the returnable value. Go Green, has, for some 16 years done the counting and totaling manually. But they're in the process of installing two touch screen-driven computer systems. They tell me Encorp has been encouraging them to do this for years. Many of the folks coming from Kitsilano are ordinary binner types. There are also car binners, and residents. A few in this last group have caused memorable scenes, complaining about the smell, all but recoiling from the proximity of actual "street people" and, in one instance, asserting their right to special treatment by declaring: "I'm not a binner!"
The Westside depot was small -- somewhere between a third, to half the size of Go Green. Westside got their fair share of binners but, lots of Kitsilano residents also. The depot seemed full with five customers, so the residential-types could never be overwhelmed by street people-types. That's not the case with the much larger Go Green where you can have about 12 customers sorting bottles at one time.
Staff at Go Green told me of a recent telephone inquiry. A woman called the bottle depot to to say she wanted to bring in her bottles, and asked when was a good time to to come in when there weren't many homeless people. Unfortunately the staff lost the connection with the caller before a suitable answer could be formulated. Darn!
There are bottles all over Vancouver but not bottles depots.[/caption]There are persistent rumours that the fellow who ran the now shuttered Westside Return-It bottle depot is looking at a location for a new Kitsilano bottle depot somewhere near 4th Avenue and Alma Street. This would be about eight blocks, or a kilometre -- depending how you walk it -- from the old location. Sounds too good to be true, but it is true that in the three months since his bottle depot on West Broadway and Blenheim closed it's doors at the end of July, Sam, the licence holder, has been looking for a new location.
Someone who spoke to him at a recent conference of bottle depot owners, said that he had chosen a location, but nothing was settled. Among other things, he would need the approval of the city, and I have no idea how long that process might take. I've been told he has one year to find a new location before Encorp, the industry stewardship group which oversees the Return-It bottle depot system, rescinds his licence to run a depot.
The daily migration of bottles to East Vancouver
With no bottle depot in Kitsilano, most of the west side's collected beverage containers are being cashed in at two east Vancouver Return-It bottle depots: Go Green, at 7th and Ontario, and Regional Recycling, at 960 Evans Avenue, on the north side of the east end of Terminal Avenue. Go Green's business hasn't doubled but it's customer volume is up considerably. I don't go to Regional very often, but I'm told their volume has increased also.
When worlds collide
In the case of Go Green, it's easy to single out the former Westside regulars; they're the ones who ask for a receipt or are surprised they don't get one. Westside used a computer system with touch screen input to record container types and total the returnable value. Go Green, has, for some 16 years done the counting and totaling manually. But they're in the process of installing two touch screen-driven computer systems. They tell me Encorp has been encouraging them to do this for years. Many of the folks coming from Kitsilano are ordinary binner types. There are also car binners, and residents. A few in this last group have caused memorable scenes, complaining about the smell, all but recoiling from the proximity of actual "street people" and, in one instance, asserting their right to special treatment by declaring: "I'm not a binner!"
The Westside depot was small -- somewhere between a third, to half the size of Go Green. Westside got their fair share of binners but, lots of Kitsilano residents also. The depot seemed full with five customers, so the residential-types could never be overwhelmed by street people-types. That's not the case with the much larger Go Green where you can have about 12 customers sorting bottles at one time.
Hello. Hello?
Staff at Go Green told me of a recent telephone inquiry. A woman called the bottle depot to to say she wanted to bring in her bottles, and asked when was a good time to to come in when there weren't many homeless people. Unfortunately the staff lost the connection with the caller before a suitable answer could be formulated. Darn!
I don't mean to make any asparagus... I mean disparaging remarks about peoples' tastes, but clearly something is wrong when the the colour white can edge out metallic silver as the number one car colour. That's just mixer, eh, mixed-up. Silver has been the most popular vehicle colour for ten years, but this year white took the top spot. According to press reports, PPG Industries, the leading supplier of automotive paints, says 25 percent of the paint this year was white, up 3 percent from the prior year. Silver and black tied for second, with 18 percent each. That's baffling, white is so wishy-washy; abstract -- it's not even a real colour. Metallic silver is a concrete, real-world thing.
What or who could be causing this? Could it be... Apple! Darn right. As if to cement their reputation as a leading trend maker, analysts say the Cupertino computer maker's white stores and devices have made white fashionable. And before white, what was the dominant colour of Apple's devices? That would be metallic silver. Click the image to enlarge it.
Wow. That really puts us in our place. I don't believe anyone would offer a $900 reward for many of us homeless people unless, that is, we agreed to get lost. But damn, that is one beautiful cat! Click the image to enlarge it.
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Henry reflects on the Dell booting Ubuntu 12.04.3 off the USB stick. We used plain 12.04 to install though.[/caption]
My friend Henry is one of the worst things that can happen to a laptop. He can't explain it. They all break. The Acer Aspire One he spent an entire welfare cheque on -- broken. The enormous Toshiba he found beside a dumpster -- broken. And what about his latest dumpster find, the HP dv6000? Guess.
When he dove the dumpster that yielded the HP dv6000, he also fished out a Dell Inspiron 1525, with AC adapter. We got the HP up and working because, well, we could. The Dell had a password, and I didn't know the F-key to change the boot order on the Dell.
Well, Henry would rather have access to the Internet than not, so over breakfast two days ago at McDonald's I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on the Dell. After one little bobble, it went without a hitch. For the first time, Henry the binner and dumpster diver, and Windows user, would get to dive into Linux.
Henry reflects on the Dell booting Ubuntu 12.04.3 off the USB stick. We used plain 12.04 to install though.[/caption]My friend Henry is one of the worst things that can happen to a laptop. He can't explain it. They all break. The Acer Aspire One he spent an entire welfare cheque on -- broken. The enormous Toshiba he found beside a dumpster -- broken. And what about his latest dumpster find, the HP dv6000? Guess.
When he dove the dumpster that yielded the HP dv6000, he also fished out a Dell Inspiron 1525, with AC adapter. We got the HP up and working because, well, we could. The Dell had a password, and I didn't know the F-key to change the boot order on the Dell.
Well, Henry would rather have access to the Internet than not, so over breakfast two days ago at McDonald's I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on the Dell. After one little bobble, it went without a hitch. For the first time, Henry the binner and dumpster diver, and Windows user, would get to dive into Linux.
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