Almost two years ago I installed solar collectors on our Edmonton home and garage. Neither location was perfect- one facing WSW rather than South and one partially covered with shadow from trees an a neighbouring house. Nonetheless, I was able to install 20, 385 watt panels for a total capacity (under full sun) of 7.7KW. […]
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Category: Personal
Most Eco Solstice Tree
In the perennial seasonal debate about the best kind of Solstice/Christmas tree we have been around the choices labyrinth. From the trees we harvested on our own land near Joussard, to ones we’ve purchased at the local Kinsman lot, to cheap ones from IKEA, through to a few years with a rummage-sale artificial tree – […]
Sorry, Riverdale is Full
The Economist USA – April 20, 2019, has an article on urban development that gives an interesting analysis that can usefully be applied to my home community of Riverdale. The article Sorry, We’re full looks at the context of San Fransisco – one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in the world, but with striking similarities […]
Our Guatemalan Adventure
Our long time friends Ted and Joanne Koopmans invited us to come along and house-sit a house that a friend of theirs had made available for 4 weeks in February. The prospect (and reality) of -30 weather in Edmonton in February, was but one reason we accepted their invitation. We also hoped we would learn […]
An encounter with the Chinese health sys...
You can tell when a blogger is getting old by the percentage of their posts relating to health issues- and especially their own. This is one of that genre. About three months ago a painful bump appeared on my heel, and after a couple of weeks of denying its existence, Susan talked me into going to […]
Classical Chinese Dance and Music Concer...
Did I ever tell you about the time I starred in a Classical Chinese Dance and Music presentation? Last night my host here at Jiangnan University invited to go with her to the annual performance of the students in the classical fine arts program here at the University. We got great seats in the campus performance […]
Teaching at Jiangnan University, Wuxi Ch...
My 4 week trip to China is a week done, and I thought I would document the trip to date (you know us old guys have trouble remembering the details!). Four years I received a request to host and sponsor a PhD student from Bejing Normal School. Zhijun Wang soon worked her way into our […]
Our trip to Italy – April 2017
Note: What follows is a 6 page account of the 24 days that Susan and I spent as tourists in Italy in April 2017. Hopefully it can be used by ourselves to recall those names and dates we too easily forget and for others to help plan similar vacations. Introduction: Despite the numerous personal and […]
Our Spanish adventure
Unlike most of our voyages, this month I was accompanying my wife Susan on a trip to her conference. She registered in the 16 European Symposium on Suicide Prevention that took place this month in Oviedo, Spain. We took the opportunity to rent a car and bought a GPS with European maps (thank god!) and travelled […]
1st Birthday – Riverdale’s Little Free L
My Little Free Library celebrated its birthday with a party for its patrons on Saturday. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t terrific, but the rain held off long enough for cake, music and wine! The only challenge is that the party goers each bought books and the Library is already FULL! I had to open Riverdale Little Free […]