Radically Retired

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  • Happy 159th Birthday, Canada!!

    Happy 159th Birthday, Canada!!

    We’re still a very young country by global standards, yet in our short lifetime, we’ve made many important contributions to the world:

    Medicine and Health

    • Insulin: Discovered in 1921 by Frederick Banting and Charles Best at the University of Toronto, this breakthrough turned diabetes from a fatal diagnosis into a manageable condition, saving millions of lives globally. 
    • Stem Cell Research: Biologists James Till and Ernest McCulloch discovered stem cells at the University of Toronto in 1961, which revolutionized regenerative medicine. 
    • Cardiac Pacemaker: John A. Hopps, a National Research Council engineer, invented the first artificial cardiac pacemaker in 1950. National Research Council Canada
    • Breast Cancer Genetics: In 1989, researchers at the University of Toronto discovered the gene responsible for a hereditary form of breast cancer (BRCA1).

    🌌 Science and Technology

    • Canadarm: Developed by SPAR Aerospace, the robotic arm debuted on the Space Shuttle in 1981 and became a staple of NASA missions, inspiring the Canadarm2 currently used on the International Space Station. 
    • BlackBerry: The pioneering smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard and secure push email changed the trajectory of mobile enterprise communications.
    • Standard Time Zones: Sir Sandford Fleming, a Canadian railway engineer, proposed the system of worldwide standard time zones in 1876, which was formally adopted globally.
    • Electron Microscope: James Hillier, a Canadian-born scientist, co-invented the first high-resolution commercial electron microscope in 1938.
    • IMAX: Invented by Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, and Robert Kerr, this immersive high-resolution film format revolutionized the cinema experience worldwide.

    🏀 Sports and Culture

    • Basketball: Invented in 1891 by Canadian physical education instructor James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts.
    • Ice Hockey: Canada codified modern ice hockey in the 19th century and exported it globally.
    • The Goalie Mask: Montreal Canadiens goaltender Jacques Plante invented and first wore the modern fiberglass goalie mask in 1960. 

    🌍 Global Leadership and Peacekeeping

    • The Concept of Peacekeeping: Former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson is widely credited with inventing the modern concept of UN Peacekeeping during the 1956 Suez Crisis, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
    • Landmines Ban: Canada led the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, an international agreement to prohibit the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines. 

    🚜 Agriculture and Everyday Inventions

    • Canola: Scientists Keith Downey and Baldur Stefansson developed canola at the University of Manitoba in the 1970s, creating one of the world’s healthiest and most widely used cooking oils.
    • The Pager & Walkie-Talkie: Alfred J. Gross, a Canadian-American inventor, pioneered early wireless communication technology, including the walkie-talkie used in WWII.
    • Plexiglass: Chemist William Chalmers developed a method for producing transparent acrylic plastics (plexiglass) at McGill University in 1931.  (source: professor Google)

    OH CANADA ❤️ 🇨🇦 ❤️

  • Happiness Is … Giving

    Happiness Is … Giving

    Community Living is an organization in our province that collects gently used clothing and small household items that are re-sold in Value Village thrift stores. Proceeds go to support those in the community with intellectual disabilities.

    The Yellow Bin website explains:

    The clothing and small household items you donate go directly towards helping people with intellectual disabilities. We take the money raised by your donations and use it to help fund the programs offered by Inclusion Saskatchewan. Thanks to your donations, people with intellectual disabilities are provided the support they need to pay rent, buy food, find employment, and be included and valued members of society.  

    Whenever we hold a garage sale, we contact Community Living when the sale is over. They send someone to pick up everything that’s left. Besides not having leftover items go to the landfill, it’s a convenient service and an easy way to donate.

  • Friday Freestyling … My Best

    Friday Freestyling … My Best

    Since returning home from Texas, I’ve been struggling with my French macarons.

    A part of the problem was adjusting to my new oven.

    Good/OK: The first batch I baked, using the Swiss Method, looked OK, but the shells were so fragile that you couldn’t touch them without leaving a dent. The shells weren’t shiny and they sported a bumpy surface. Plain shells with vanilla bean ganache. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my Callebaut Belgian chocolate, so the filling was just as “iffy” as the shells.

    “Good” (OK)

    Better: Back to the drawing board for my next batch. This time, I adjusted the cook time, because I had a feeling that my new oven wasn’t holding stable temperatures.

    I used Swiss method again. This batch wasn’t as fragile. The shells were espresso flavoured and the filling was an espresso French buttercream. I tried some new edible glitter to decorate, but didn’t care for the end result. The surface, even without the glitter dust was shinier, but still too bumpy for my liking.

    “Better”

    Best: My feature photo was my third bake, with the troubleshooting adjustments I figured out along the way.

    I purchased a finer strainer for sifting the dry ingredients.

    I switched back to the French Method that I’d always had good success with.

    I increased the bake time by two minutes.

    My order for Callebaut Belgian chocolate finally arrived.

    These were almond flavoured shells coloured with a hint of pink gel food colouring. I used sanding sugar to decorate. The filling is a white chocolate strawberry ganache flavoured with freeze dried strawberry powder.

    These are the best this non-pastry chef can turn out and I’m happy with them.

  • Read My Sign – No Whining

    Read My Sign – No Whining

    In a roadside tavern near Donna, Texas

  • Happiness Is … A New E-reader

    Happiness Is … A New E-reader

    I’ve had an e-reader ever since the Amazon Kindle was first released in 2007.

    At that time, these amazing little gadgets weren’t offered in Canada, but I was able to get one because hubs was regularly driving to the USA and he could have mail sent to a hotel address where his company had overnight accommodations booked year round for their drivers. These originals even had a keyboard! (The iPad wasn’t released until 2010).

    My next e-reader was the Kindle Fire, released in 2011. I didn’t get mine until 2013. I still had to order to hubs’ USA address. The Fire tablet was in full colour.

    A few years later, I purchased a Kindle Paperwhite. Finally, I could purchase a Kindle in Canada! This e-reader felt good in hand, was close to the same size as most paperback books, and the backlit non glare screen was perfect for both bedtime and sunny outdoor reading. Unfortunately, my current reader was facing end of days and I wanted to be sure I didn’t lose any of my extensive e-library.

    Yesterday, my new Paperwhite arrived. The screen dimensions are a bit bigger (approximately 1/2” overall in each of width and length). Where the frame had a ridge before, it has none now. Overall, it feels and looks great.

    E-reader pros: To me, the biggest pros are space, convenience, and cleanliness. I have a huge library that takes up only a bit of real estate on my bedside table or on the little table by my armchair.

    When we travel, my entire library fits into my purse.

    I can have several books on the go at a time, without having a pile of them around my chair and each book is automatically bookmarked at the last page read. I can also hilight passages and look up the definitions of new-to-me words.

    For many, the tactile sense is the biggest reason for “real” book preference.

    That’s not an issue for me. Real books can be a pain in so many ways: torn pages and broken spines, too bright to read outside on a sunny day, the space they take up, the book mites that make me sneeze, if they accidentally get wet, they swell up or the pages glom together and they’re pretty much hooped, and the list goes on.

    I guess you could say that e-readers are a good fit for my ocd-ish personality.

  • Friday Freestyling … Directionally Challenged

    Friday Freestyling … Directionally Challenged

    On a recent morning walk, I decided to check out a route I hadn’t been on in almost two years.

    I was curious to see if a new walking path had been paved there.

    As you can see from my feature photo, that wasn’t the case.

    I decided to forge on ahead along the grassed and gravelled paths.

    I don’t love walking on gravel because it’s easy to hit a large stone and twist an ankle

    When I was there last, I turned left at the end of the gravel path above.

    This time, the left turn was blocked off, so I carried on ahead. The path had a few twists and turns, and before long, my sense of direction was gone completely.

    When I finally reached pavement again, I looked at a street sign when I reached a corner, and in my mind, it was all wrong.

    My entire life, I’ve been directionally challenged in big buildings, but seldom outdoors.

    I did see some familiar landmarks off in the distance, so I knew I wasn’t completely lost.

    Along my new and unplanned route, I did find our city school bus yard, which I didn’t even know existed.

    All in all, it was a nice long walk with some unplanned new scenery. I wasn’t at all panicked because I knew I’d eventually find my way home. We’re a small city and the people are friendly and helpful … once you find some people, of course.

  • Read My Sign … Rules are made …

    Read My Sign … Rules are made …

    Photo of a photo in a trucking album I made for hubs on his retirement.

  • Happiness Is … Brain Health

    Happiness Is … Brain Health

    I’m thankful that, at my age, I can play (and win) complex thinking games like bridge and mahjong.

    In the summer, female family members gather each Friday for a summer fam-jam mahjong league.

    We play four games and share lots of laughs and good-natured teasing.

    Three of our past players have dropped off for various reasons, one being that the game was too complex.

    Each week, we do “I’ll make you famous” photos of the winners. The photos are given this name, because the winners’ pics are posted to Facebook.

    If anyone wins more than one game, she holds up the number of fingers to indicate how many wins that day.

    This was a very good day for yours truly
  • Friday Freestyling … Pigsqueak?

    Friday Freestyling … Pigsqueak?

    When I’m out for my morning walks, I’m always on the lookout for something to photograph.

    These quick stops and then restarts at or above pre-stopping pace, create a form of HIIT.

    Recently, this flower in a yard I passed by, caught my attention.

    After I got home, I looked it up and was surprised at its many aliases:

    heart-leaved bergenia,heartleaf bergenia, leather bergenia, winter-blooming bergenia, elephant-ears, elephant’s ears, Korean elephant-ear, badan, pigsqueak, Siberian tea, and Mongolian tea.

    The one that made me smile and wonder why was “pigsqueak”.

  • Read My Sign

    Read My Sign

    As opposed to?