July 2004 Archives

Winnipeg has built itself at the junctions of the Assiniboine, the Seine, the LaSalle Rivers and other tributary streams and creeks with the Red River of the North. It sits at the bottom of prehistoric Lake Agassiz, at the low point of a flood plain. This contributes to the fertility of the soil, and to the presence of hundreds of thousands of sloughs, dips, melt ponds and other bodies of standing water which nurture the reproductive capability of the mosquito.

When the warm breezes of summer warm the breeding ponds of insect world, Winnipeg resorts to spraying the insecticide Malathion. When the spray trucks roll, the Greens start to write letters to the editor, to caucus, and ultimately to blockade. Last year it was a few streets. This year, it was the City yards where the trucks are loaded. Last year it was impromtu drama. This year it was civil disobedience and organized protest, resolved by arrests and criminal charges.

Movable Type has released version 3.01 which is a bug fix on 3.0D. The notes at MT's web site said just download and unzip a file which contains upgraded files - no scripts. Just unzip and upload to the server.

Problem 1: which file? The download box gives you two options - full version or "upgrade". Which one is the bug fix? Is "upgrade" a new set of files for people who installed 3.0 by upgrading from an older version or is it the bug fix for everyone running 3.0? Why is there a full version option on a page for downloading the bug fix??? Then Problem 2 - uploading. Remember the original installation? I have operating files in /cgi-bin/mt/ and I have a separate /mt-static/ container, which is the recommended configuration. Some of the files go to /mt-static/ and some of those files should be ftp'd in binary. There is no documentation in the upgrade zip archive. There is no warning or reminder on the SixApart web site. They assume you know or remember.

On the first try, I managed to overwrite mt.cfg, and loaded everything to /cgi-bin/mt/. I broke my blogging tool. After careful study, I reloaded the 3.01 files into the right containers on the server, and edited mt.cfg repeatedly until the whole thing started working again.

It came back in stages, like my colon coming back from my colostomy. Such great pleasure from such a modest accomplishment. This is not for the faint of heart. I feel like an Internet Red Green - pass me the duct tape, Harold.

I spent a long time reading, summarizing and reviewing Sleeping with Aliens. I posted a review on the Blogcritics site, and a long commentary on this site. It isn't kind to the New Age.

Wendy Kaminer's book, Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials, The Rise of Irrationalism and the Perils of Piety is interesting. She says that her objective is to write against irrationalism but I see her book more as an examination of how the New Age is becoming, in effect, a minority religion in America.

(On July 19, 2004 I posted a review of this book at the Blogcritics site. This post is a longer and more detailed version of the review).

I posted a number of book reviews in this log over the last few months. I joined the Blogcritics site. At first I simply republished book reviews from this site there, and then I tried to publish the same material on my site and the Blogcritics site concurrently.

I don't need to publish the same post twice (although I will keep copies of the Blogcritics version of the reviews as text files, as backup and publish those again sometime if Blogcritics ceases to publish them).

So for now, if I publish something offsite I won't necessarily duplicate the material here. I will try to post a short note with the Permalink to the published review.

Mike and Steve both passed 2000 kilometers this past week or weekend, counting back to March. As I write this, Mike has logged 2057 after July 17, and he rode 80 kilometers on our trip to St. Francis on Sunday July 18.

I haven't been tracking my mileage. I am probably 150 to 200 less than Mike at this point. He put in a century ride with Steve last weekend (July 11) when I was at the folk festival, and a series if short rides to work and with his neighbour. That still means I am approaching 2000 K if I haven't also reached it.

The weather has been cool this spring, and we have cancelled planned rides due to rain. We began to get hot summer mornings a few weeks ago. It was hot and humid on Sunday July 18 and we turned around at St. Francis. We had found a favourable wind after we reached the White Horse at the intersection of Highway 26 and the Transcanada and were tempted to push on but we knew we would then have to deal with the wind all the way back to the Transcanada, and then with a cross wind most of the way home.

We weren't sure how we might feel if we did the extra mileage for a century in the heat.

We seem to be in better shape this year. We aren't necessarily riding greater distances although we have started getting 100 K days when we used to regard 60 to 75 K as a long ride. Mainly we are riding harder and faster. We find that a wind or 15 to 25 K is normal for prairie riding and we try to ride into the wind on the outbound leg of the journey. We are finding that our average speeds as calculated by our cycling computers are in the twenties instead of the teens. Those averages include low speeds at intersections. On the open road we seem to sustain speeds of 24-27 kph with crosswinds and moderate adverse winds, and 30 K with light favourable winds.

It isn't the speed that the riders on the Tour de France are getting but we don't see too many guys our age passing us any more.

Over the last week or so, I fiddled with the design and content of the Web pages. I think I have it organized properly for now. I have some "about me" information and a links list on the Web pages, and I have links in the blog pointing back to those pages. I have a few ideas for getting some pictures and images, and to dress it up but I am going to try to leave it alone.

I closed my Typepad account which means that the old versions of the Web log will be erased.

I have started to receive comment spam. There hasn't been much and I erased it. However one post seemed to have come from an automated source and I am concerned about getting more that that, and I took a few steps to make it harder for spammers to post to my site although I haven't taken all the countermeasures discussed in the comment spam articles at the Elise site.

I made some changes to comment configuration. I have enabled comment registration. Once I approve a commenter, that person can post comments. I will hold and review comments from unregistered commenters which should take out the spam comments.

Don't hesitate to comment.

My wife first asked me for a divorce on April 29, 2003. She changed her mind and stayed for a near year before she told me, in March 2004, that she had decided to leave. Through that year, I faced the question of what was wrong with me, to make my wife, Jan, want to leave. While more delicate writers might speak of our discomfort with one another, she explicitly said there was something wrong with me.

I knew that I had become uncomfortable with her family and I had started to realize that she was needy, but I loved her. When I found out what she thought of me, I realized that I had to get away from her and get on with my life.

My experience as a Folk Festival volunteer was good. It takes a lot of people to run this event - I heard that there were 1750 volunteers involved this year.

The volunteers are treated well. Perhaps I should say that we take care our ourselves and each other. A volunteer gets a free festival pass, meals, water/juice/coffee/tea etc, and backstage access. There are sections of the festival devoted to the care of the volunteers - a large backstage kitchen for instance to provide the beverages and meals.

I read and enjoyed "The Enemy," the newest novel in the Jack Reacher series of adventure/mystery novels by Lee Child.

My review is posted at the Blogcritics.org site.

The fourth day of the 2004 Winnipeg Folk Festival was sunny and hot with moderate breezes. There was rain, but it arrived overnight long after the Finale.

I arrived in time to sit in the shade outside of the Shady Grove, apply sunscreen, have a cup of coffee, and listen to a workshop with Utah Phillips, Ember Swift, Paul Thorn and Joel Kroeker.

The rain stayed away. It was sunny, and it was humid at first. A reasonably steady breeze kept things moderately cool as the temperature climbed into the higher 20's.

The ground outside and through the main gate was well trampled and starting to smell of rotten things, and there were some wet spots in the parking lot but the site stayed in good condition.

The rain stopped, the clouds broke up and the sun came out by about 1:00 PM. There was a steady breeze. The sunshine and wind helped to dry out the festival site, which returned to a pretty good condition. There were some areas of the parking lot, including the area leading to the main gate that were wet and muddy but the working site was good.

My volunteer assignment was fence patrol at Site West, which involved watching sunbathers, kite-flyers, and frisbee players. I was able to get some of the music at Big Bluestem and the Green Ash Hollow. There were a variety of workshops at Big Bluestem. The Winnipeg bands the Duhks and the Mammals had a good crowd and good energy level. There was a workshop called Tortiere et Gumbo with Quebecois and Cajun music from Les Batinses, Genticorum and Granger & Dugas.

Forecasts and opinion polls seem to be pretty much equally unreliable.

It was cloudy when the gates opened and when the Winnipeg Festival started, but a light rain started around 7:30 PM and kept up all evening. The ground began to get wet, although I did not see any accumulations of standing water in my travels. The site supervisor responded by shutting down the carts and ATVS. No vehicular traffic. It was a sensible strategy. The mild impressions made by vehicles passing over dry ground in the preceding days became visible in the wet grass, and more traffic under wet conditions would have created ruts, puddles and mudholes.

The countdown is over. It's Thursday. I've read my manuals and practiced radio speak and I'm ready to face life as blue vest volunteer at 8:00 PM.

The campground opened yesterday, the main gate opens today and the opening night mainstage concert starts at 6:00 PM with the Perpetrators followed by Spirt of the West, Tegan and Sara and Taj Mahal. The idea seems to be to give each performer a generous opportunity. Taj Mahal is scheduled for around 10:30. I should be able to see almost everything, as my floating security crew is assigned to support the mainstage tonight from 8:00 to midnight.

The weather forecast has changed for the better. The forecast for rain on Thursday has been changed to mixed sun and clouds, high of 24. It will probably be cool later in the evening, but a dry day guarantees that the site will not be turned to mud on the first night. The forecast for Friday has changed to mixed sun and clouds, high 28, with a risk of showers. The mosquito situation has improved in Winnipeg. The number of mosquitos in the City entomologist's traps has fallen drastically after very cool nights on the past weekend. The City has been fogging, but that isn't why the bugs are gone. I live in an unfogged neighbourhood, and bugs are gone here too. The media have not reported the explanation for the drop. It hasn't been cool enough to kill them, and there is a suggestion that many bugs have gone dormant with the cool temps and haven't come back yet. I'd like to think that many bugs have died off and that larvicide programs have abated the new hatch, but I don't know.

Two more days to the Winnipeg Folk Festival.

On June 21, I spent a couple of hours being oriented and instructed in the duties of the Site Security volunteer crew. On June 30 I went to the T-shirt meeting to get my volunteer's pass, T-shirt and Festival program.

The weather has been reasonable. There has been a little more rain over the last few weeks but nothing to adversely affect site conditions. The forecast for the next couple of days and the weekend is reasonably good. Friday and Saturday are forecast as sunny with temperatures in the mid-twenties (C) which is good. It will be warm enough but not deadly hot, although the steady sunshine will still require people to take care to avoid sunburn and overheating.

There is a forecast of clouds with a chance of rain on Thursday. Rain on opening night has been known to turn the main stage area into a bog that endures for the whole weekend. If the festival site is spared and the rest of the forecast comes to pass, the conditions should be very good.

There have been a few changes to the site. It would seem from the map that there is a large new shelter or tent in the area previously used as Stage 2, and that this area has become the children's tent by day, now named the Chickadee Big Top. This area doubles as nighttime cabaret called the Firefly Palace, which is a new idea. The stage near the First Aid tent, which was the Children's stage last year, has reverted to being a regular performance stage.

Most of the stages, formerly known as Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4 and the Children's stage or Family area, have been renamed Bur Oak, Big Bluestem, Snowberry Field, Green Ash and Chickadee Big Top.

Since I call my Web site and this blog "A Sea of Flowers" I should applaud naming a stage "Big Bluestem" for one of the grasses of the tall grass prairie, but a couple of the names are just too cute for my taste.

I wrote a review of "Resistance" by Barry Lopez for the Winnipeg Free Press, which was published on Sunday July 4, 2004. This post is a longer version of the same review.

Barry Lopez was honoured for his nature writing with an American National Book Award for "Arctic Dreams" in 1986 and a nomination for "Of Wolves and Men". His talent and power are undisputable. He captures nature scenes with visual and sensory precision, and sheer beauty. His essays, collected in books like "About This Life," explore the beauty and complexity of living in the natural world.