⊕ That leaves me much latitude ⊗

I took some time off today to answer a question in my mind. What is a the same latitude as my new home around the world ? I picked places that are known, for it is obvious there are many places too small for me to even think of, though the same could be said of here from other doing this exercise...

First Westmount precisely!


In Europe, Saint.�tienne in France, Milano Italy.


Crimea on the Black Sea, of all places. Right in the middle.


Hokkaïdö Island in Japan, where more than 10 ft./3m of snow fell down this week whereas we are in such warmth and water around here.


Across the Pacific, surprisingly, Portland, Oregon.


Then the Twin Cities St.Paul/Minneapolis, in Minnesota.


And lastly, Gatineau, just north of the Ottawa river and Ottawa.

212 + 257 = 360

^{At the crossroad of the village by night
View it full size and use the F11 key to see it full screen.}

Not that it is so exciting, but one night before Christmas, I decided to photograph the crossroads that are part of my daily life these days. That is where the 212 arriving west from Cookshire (and Sherbrooke) heading east toward N D des Bois and Mount Megantic park meets the 257 which from the south starts at the Third Connecticut Lake at the border of New Hampshire and goes north toward Scotstown.
Thus on the strip of photograph, we first see the 257 heading north to Scotstown with the D�panneur in the background. Then the 212 heading east to N D des Bois. In between you see Bar La Patrie with its gaz station. Follows the 257 heading toward the USA, the COOP/Bonichoix supermarket, my bike, a house fully decorated. The hill is the 212 going westwardly to Cookshire, the hardware store, the caisse pop (credit union) and H�tel La Patrie with its bar and its big Christmas tree... and back is the 257. In the meantime two trucks would have passed by without you noticing.
The first time I went by that crossroad, I said: "Wow, this looks great! The place seems cool." I would still say so. The 212/257 crossroad is not the most ecological in the world, but it invites you to drop by.

A little party to warm up the winter a bit

^{Moonrise over Mount Megantic, December 15 with sunset. The astronomical Observatory is located on the middle summit in the photo. - Open up in a different window for full size.}

It was party time last night @ Notre Dame des Bois. We were celebrating the Capricorns among us.
Interestingly enough there were villagers, real locals, and "strangers" like me who've been living around here from 2 to 20 years. Among the Villagers, women of a certain age outnumbered their male counterparts. On the "strangers" side of things, people of different walk of life came in, especially people involved in different forms of what we cal "alternative" living and doing.
Not much is happening in the big ring surrounding Mount Megantic and such a happening deserves notice. Maude thought the whole thing, Frances joined her and the message was carried all over.
One had the feeling that most people needed to fill up a whole in socialisation, a fix of some sort, 'cause they are rarely gatherings of this type just for fun.
The day before, Maude and Frances celebrated their X birthday and in the coming days, some of the participants would do so as well.
I am not a capricorn but it's my ascendant! So was I told. Never checked that out.
There were painters with exhitions in bars, carpenters, councellor of all types, homemakers, B&B owners, part-time professionals by choice so they can devote more to projects they cherish. All interesting people.
So we drank, chitchatted and danced till 2:30am. Even the villagers stayed well pass midnight. I guess it meant it was cool enough.
At the end of a little speech, Maude asked around how everyone would feel about renewing this , say, once a month... Well, people clapped enthusiastically about the idea. And the caf� is rather OK to gather for a multitask night, eating, drinking, dancing, talking. After all, in the dead of winter it is so therapeutic to get together just to show up and realize only the wall are not talking back.

^{Interior of La bonne Etoile cafe @ NDB.}

A fruitful breaktime

^{Modified front page of a famous newspaper the day after a huge attack happened in a big city. The main title is not the original of course. It is taken with permission from a note written by a NewYorker who was living in Lower Manhattan. The Masthead is also fictious.}

With no other reason than it was my breaktime, I decided to go check The Globe And Mail. Then I went to stroll along and stopped at NOW, the Toronto equivalent of, say, The Village Voice, as if I was physically in TO.
There wasn't anything much, except the archives kept inviting me to go and take a look. So I did. Looking at the titles for each week I stumbled upon an issue with an interview of Art Spiegelman, author of Maus I and II. Glad I did. I did not know he published a book on "9-11". I should have guessed perhaps.
In the interview as well as in the book he speaks vehemently against Bush and the news media which all crawled beneath the chesterfield after September 11, 2001. He found himself rather alone and ostracized even by the New Yorker which employed him for 10 years prior. A must read...

^{From In the Shadow of no Towers by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon), 42 pages, $27.95}

"A Night". Starring the sky !

^{Drawing by gymnastperf10 on the PBS Kids site}

The sky achieved a rare clearness last night. I would have loved to take a photograph. It would have required a good one minute exposure @ f4, except the result would have been impressive.
It is the first time I got scrary looking at the sky, so much the spectacle was unreal.
It is also the first time I notice the relative movement of the stars in the celestial space. Stars are not now where they were, say, in July.
That much I knew and have known for many a night. Yet I've rarely been on the same spot so long (6 months) to observe this movement, out of a city that is, for as a kid, although I would look up, I wouldn't know those changes et no one around me seems to care enough to teach me.
On my star map, we read the months on the outer ring, thus allowing us to vaguely figure celestial bodies positions over us. Except that to see it for real is something way more impressive.
For a moment, I had the feeling of being on another planet, not because the stars were unfamiliar, but more like the limpidity was new to me.
In my next home, I will undoubtedly have a skylight - even a glass roof - where in the winter time I will observe the sky as long as I wish to, without freezing in the tenacious coldness that forbids long stays outside, motionless.


* * *
Don't be blindfolded by the starry sky, have you Googles on.

^{Google logo for the day, birthday of Louis Braille}
In another matter and though it looks like stars, the people at Google have decided to pay respect to the conceptor of brail, Louis Braille, born in 1809.
Once more, people at Google are showing their dynamic presence on the web while other seem to be laid back and static.

α Nikolas Tesla, inventor of the radio and a thousand other things ω

^{Nikolas Tesla experimenting with neon tubes.}

150 years ago was born one of the most influential individual in our lives: Nikolas Tesla.
Born in the Balkans in 1856, he grew up in a family where the father was an orthodox priest, a writer and a poet. His mother was inventing devices to help families on the farms and in the houses. His mother would have a great influence on him.
We owe to Tesla so many concepts and devices that are part of our lives without our knowledge. After inventing alternative current, Tesla went on conceiving and constructing the Niagara Fall hydro-electrical power plant for George Westinghouse.
He is also the father of television, radar, MRI concepts to name a few. Over the years he filed for 112 patents at the US Patent Office. He is also the inventor of radio. Such is the conclusion of the Supreme Court thus conceding that Tesla filed his patent before Marconi.
I started to be interested by Tesla in 1973, after I read about him somewhere and realizing that one of his closest friend and assistant was living not far from my home, near Lac Beauport, Quebec.
Thus very often in the winter 1973-1974, I would go on my snowshoes from my place to Arthur H. Matthews' house, next to Le Ralai ski center. Matthews, then 80, was working for the government on a scheme to build a tidal generated power plant linking Beauport and Ile d'Orleans at Quebec City.
Tesla and Matthews had known each other since the beginning of the century at a time when Matthews was still a youngster living on St. Joachim street in Quebec City, just behind what is now the Congress Centre.
Matthews followed Tesla around 1910 for some long distance radio experiment between Tadoussac on the north shore of the St.Lawrence river and Riviere du Loup, on the south shore.
Throughout the years Tesla became a central figure and many of his concepts and inventions are still studied nowadays.
One of the most intriguing et enigmatic concept and experiment deals with the wireless transmission of electricity. It is one of the topic on which I would like to study and experiment with in the coming years.
Among the other ideas of Tesla, there is the one dealing with lightning. He had this idea that if we would link all parts of the planet with lightning rod and extracting the electricity to be distributed in a world grid, we would have a powerful and constant source of energy, for at any time it is said there are over 30 000 thunder storms going on.
I am not to write a biography of Tesla here. Others have already done so. Many aspects of Tesla's life still remain enigmatic. For those of you wishing to know more about this man and his achievement, just type his name on any search engine. ;)

^{Mark Twain in Tesla's lab, 35 South Fifth Avenue, New York, 1895.}

Fiction

^{Poker game in the cabin last night
Painting on wood by Terran Ambrosone}

When I got home last night the cats were playing poker. Totally flabbergasted by the scene, I said: "Hey, what's going on here ?". Bacchus who was back to me, replied without even turning around, "we're betting on you". I said:"What for ?". Betty said:"On whether we're keeping you or not. We figured that since you're not here too often now that you have your 'office' downtown, we might as well throw you out".
"Wow', I replied, "I must say I'm kinda surprised at this attitude, though I understand. I feel guilty a bit leaving you alone all day long, but I never thought you would go as far as organising a coup to get rid of me!". "Who's gonna feed you anyway and you're not even paying a rent here, you guys". To that latest statement of mine, Mona replied:"Neither do you, and since we could be a majority depending on the result of this game, you might as well start packing." "You! Mona, of all of them, I am quite surprise to hear this tone of voice." "Well, she replied, as for the feeding, don't worry, we'll manage".
"What happened to all of you", I asked in shock. "Where did you get all this negative attitude all of a sudden, after more than a decade together?".
"It's a joke!", said Hugo, "we're just killing time here. I hope you're not too hype. Just calm down and have a seat, man... and Happy New Year to you as well!"

The year of the Dragon...oops out of sync

^{Out of sync and halfway there, except in my cabin}

I blew a big candle at midnight. In fact I ignited a dragon! In the situation I am in, it did not feel right to trigger anything else, such as a party or any celebration. I left my "office" at a few minutes after 11:00pm. Didn't wanna hear the NY's commotion.
Earlier in the day, I asked a friend if we could go right now and buy this propane furnace on special at CT. Earlier in the week she had seen it on sale in the weekly folder of CT and offered to buy it on her credit card and let me pay back later.
It is blowing between 15k and 25k BTU which is more than enough to burn my shack down! My little parabolic camping heater was giving more than signs of fatigue lately: it had stopped all together. In fact it is the valve that got clogged by whatever, inducing the gas to stay in the hose and kinda pressurised. Not much safe. As I arrived one night the place was rather cold and the cats were all packed and trying to keep up their warmth together. Misery has its nice sides. Solidarity grows, for cats are usually pretty individualistic beasts. I had to improvised something to heat the place fairly.
The only thing I had handy was my welding torch beek. I decided to remove the camping heater unworking valve and coupled my torch to the heater pipe with tape...
It sure worked but it certainly does not perform as well as the valve which was obviously designed to work in there. Instead of transforming the little heating grid in the middle of that parabolic funnel into a red hot device, the flame came out noisily and blueishly as well as yellow. Hmmm. Well, I thought, that will do it for the time being, since I did not have much other choice. Mind you I could have gotten back to the "office" and organise a makeshift bed but I did not want to leave the cats alone in the cold.
The heat came out. No problem. In fact it got rather hot in there, around 85-90�F, though not without polluting my environment. I consider the emanations as nasty stuff. Since you are supposed to breath to clean up your blood, an exposure to more pollution than what you are supposed to clean make the life expectancy shorter for you. That solution then really had to be very temporary and in an emergency. I really underwent worsening body conditions that I directly link to my little device. Anyhow, two nights in a row I simply shut down the heat in the cabin, for it was way too hot to sleep. Thus, all in all, I only used it one night.
Knowing this friend had said she would come over yesterday and bring some goodies and wishing to have lunch with me, I asked her if we could go to CT to get the beast.
So we did. It is no small trip I consider: 65 miles back & forth. Hey, we're in the country and things are pretty distant around here. Anyhow, on the way back we stopped at the cabin, unloaded the beast and carried on the journey back to my "office".
Thus last night as I arrived and finding the place not too cold (I had left the oil lamps with the homemade convector on top burning all day) I started to install the device though not before reading first the exceptional amount of warnings on the labels, leaflets, etc. So I was kinda aware of the danger of using this.

^{There's the beast! It is impressive on pic but rather small in actual size.}
Thus at midnight sharp I finally triggered the gas. It came out like a dragon blowing his nose. Gees! Well, well, well. If this does not heat the place I don't know what will. Within 10 minutes it went from the freezing point to a balmy 90�F in there.
So I had to stop the monster quick and start to reflect on the use of it for the rest of the winter because, unlike the little camping heater, it is absolutely out of question to leave that one on for the duration of my absence. Neither the cabin, nor the cats would be there to let me know how appreciative they are of my initiative!
I fear not the fire, leaving my oil lamps burning their midday oil while I am away. And the cats do not require 90� to be OK. Even if it is only 32� or so in there, there are comfortably installed in the bed and keeping their heat. They haven't done much activity anyway since the winter started. Only one cat really goes out in the snow. The others are not interested at all.