Canada Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

O Canada Day music

Take Off

It’s Canada Day, and so I need some Canada Day music. And there’s a LOT of it. I came across this list of the Best Canadian Musicians: 25 Icons From The Great White North.

I’m eliminating anyone whose music I don’t own, which is not a knock on the artists. I don’t have any albums by Shawn Mendes, Drake, Ron Sexsmith, Blue Rodeo, Justin Bieber, Feist, Bryan Adams, Rush, or Rufus Wainwright (though I have music by each of his parents). And I was not familiar with Broken Social Scene, Joel Plaskett, or Al Tuck.

I do have Bob & Doug McKenzie with Geddy Lee from Rush doing Take Off.

That leaves:

Diana Krall. My wife and I have seen her live, though not simultaneously. Maybe a quarter century ago, I caught her open for Tony Bennett at Tanglewood. We have about a dozen and a half of her albums. She is one of my wife’s K girls, along with Alison Krauss. Popsicle Toes

Daniel Lanois. I LOVE his album Acadie. Of course, I have several albums he’s produced for others, including U2, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson, the Neville Brothers, Emmylou Harris, and Bob Dylan. The Maker

Gordon Lightfoot. I have a couple of his LPs. But this is the first song of his I ever heard. If You Could Read My Mind

Cowboy Junkies. I’ve opted for the last song on The Trinity Session. Walkin’ After Midnight

Arcade Fire. I have two of their CDs, which I’ve been playing every July 1 since. No Cars Go

The Guess Who. I have three of their LPs, plus the greatest hits on CD. The last song on the original GH. Hang On To Your Life with that ending from Psalm 22

Kathryn Dawn

k.d. lang. I have a LOT of her music, from her country roots to her more MOR material. She is one of the reasons I don’t organize my music by genre. Season Of Hollow Soul

The Tragically Hip. Road Apples is an album I play on July 1. Twist My Arm

Bruce Cockburn. I bought several used albums from my roomie Mark in the 1980s. I’ve already written about The Trouble With Normal. Lovers In A Dangerous Time

The Band. I loved the second (brown) album back in high school and then got all of their studio albums. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

Joni Mitchell. I’ve seen Joni twice, in 1974 in Saratoga Springs, NY, and in 1981 in Philadelphia. I bought her early albums on CD in 2022. People’s Parties/The Same Situation

Leonard Cohen. I had one LP years ago. I have songs of his covered by Judy Collins, Jennifer Warnes, and others, but in the past thirty years, I’ve come to appreciate him as a teller of his own tales. If you get a chance, see the 2022 movie about him. Almost Like The Blues

Neil Young. I have scads of Neil Young, from Buffalo Springfield to CSNY to at least 20 solo albums; here is the list from 2010, and I’ve gotten some since then. Mr. Soul from Trans, because why not?

What’s your favorite vacation?

two Olin reunions

That Greg Burgas, the scoundrel, asked What’s your favorite vacation?

Overthinking this, as usual, I don’t recall any vacations growing up. Oh, we would go camping, which I hated, and we might see some attractions. Day trips to Eldridge Park in Elmira, NY; Catskill (NY) Game Farm et al. Maybe the trip I took with dad to Lake George, NY was a vacation, though it was only a few days.

My family visited NYC several times, but it was partly to see my mom’s cousins. Going to the Empire State Building, Coney Island, or Jones Beach was a secondary consideration. Likewise, trips with my wife’s family to Massachusetts didn’t usually feel like vacay, mostly because it was often logistically or interpersonally… complicated. However, the trip to Newport, RI, in 2012 was far less stressful far than most.

My wife and I did take a trip to Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont at some point before the daughter was born; THAT was a vacation, as was the trip to Maine in 2003. My favorite was my trip to Portland, ME, with my soon-to-be wife in March 1999, when we got snowed in for a couple of days. And even the three of us going to Yorktown in 2008.

V-a-c-a-tion

But when I think of vacations, I think of three trips, or maybe four. There’s the one in 1998, which I wrote about while attempting to write about my 2011 vacation.

2011: the Olin international reunion in Peterborough, ON, Canada. We stopped at Niagara Falls (more ); Toronto (more, more, more); eating in Canada; reunion; Canton, NY

2016:the Olin international reunion in Ashtabula, OH. Corning (NY) Museum of Glass; Seneca Nation; Lucy-Desi Museum; Pro Football Hall of Fame; First Ladies National Historic Site; Rock And Roll Hall of Fame (more); reunion; traffic; Letchworth State Park. There was more, but I didn’t write about it until the following year.

Closer to Albany, NY, than San Diego

The fourth is our honeymoon in Barbados in May 1999. Considering it’s the only time I’ve ever been anywhere besides the US, Canada, and Mexico, I’ve written relatively little about it, in part because it predated this blog.

Truth to tell, it was just grand to go to any all-inclusive resort for six nights, especially as a prize for coming in second on JEOPARDY on my second episode. But arranging for the trip was terribly complicated, and it makes sense that the show has since opted for cash prizes for second and third place.

The ocean was gorgeous. My wife went snorkeling, but I opted out. There were three different places to eat dinner, and the food was fabulous. We bought a rum cake to take home; it was extraordinarily delicious. We enjoyed having tea at 4 p.m.

Everything was interesting to us, from the way the news was far more international to the wall-to-wall coverage of cricket. I must say that the cab ride from the airport to the resort was a white-knuckle affair, and there was a fatal automobile accident that very afternoon we arrived.

When we returned to the States, we needed to pay $13 apiece for the privilege. (If we didn’t have it, would that mean we could stay forever?) Somehow, we were bumped to first class on the five-hour flight home. Customs at the JFK airport, though, was chaotic, with the queue somehow turned into a figure eight.

Delta variant and other COVID news

Luciferian Globalists

By Harold Jessurun and Aníbal Quiñones, the prominent creators of the popular Pepito comic in Puerto Rico. Instagram had deleted the image on some sites, citing that it violated its Community Guidelines. https://www.latinorebels.com/2020/04/20/pepitocreatorsimage/

The Delta variant doesn’t give a flying #@$% if you’re tired of hearing about COVID-19.

From the Boston Globe: “This is not the worry-free summer many envisioned as recently as Memorial Day, full of long-awaited travel, family reunions, and evenings in favorite restaurants.

“Since July Fourth, there’s been a steady drumbeat of discouraging COVID-19 news: Infections are climbing across the country. Hospitalizations in several Southern and Western states are spiking, too. Vaccination rates have dwindled. And communities from Cambridge to Los Angeles County are advising or mandating a return to mask-wearing, even for vaccinated people.”

An old friend of one of my sisters has been sending me stuff such as how some doctor says there is no Delta variant of COVID. But the “logic”, alas, fails me. Then she sent me something about the Luciferian Globalists Implementing the New World Order. Er, no.

Speaking of which: In southwest Missouri, the coronavirus Delta variant and “freedom” collide. Our guest pastor made a credible link between American individualism in this crisis and sin.

Right-Wing Vaccine Lies Are Tearing the Country Apart.

My daughter asked me if I’d ever heard of Eric Clapton. Er, yeah. Apparently, he was trending on Twitter because of some reportedly racist thing he said in 1978; IDK why it was notable decades later. But then I came across this article from 2021 noting that he says he won’t play venues that require COVID-19 vaccinations. I find that… disappointing.

Masking up

Someone asked me, “Are you going to watch the Olympics?” And I was surprised that I answered, “I don’t know.” The COVID surge in Japan has taken away some of the luster from the games in my mind. Ken Levine hit on it.

Except for a few restaurant visits, I tend to wear my mask indoors, even though I’m fully vaccinated. So it’s not onerous for me if it’s mandated.

Oh, and it IS required on the local CDTA buses, as it is on most mass transportation. At a bus stop where I was getting on, two potential passengers were arguing about whether masks were required. I butted in and agreed with the one who said yes. Then the bus driver refused to allow the unmasked person on, so the other one declined to get on too. The two were still squabbling as the bus pulled away.

The Department of Justice decided not to probe COVID deaths in state-run nursing homes in four states, including New York. I can’t speak about the other states, but I was hoping for such a probe in my state. It’ll be investigated at the state level, but federal juice has more impact.

Canada to Open to Fully Vaccinated Americans on August 9.

I read that the morally bankrupt Congressman Madison Cawthorn, who lied about a major aspect of his biography, is bloviating that if the GOP retakes the House, it’ll be prosecuting Dr. Fauci to the “full extent” of the law.

Alphanumeric jumble: Canada

H0H 0H0

Canadian postal district — Creator:OnTheWorldMap.com
Information extracted from IPTC Photo Metadata; H is Montreal, N is Toronto

Meh. No US states, Canadian provinces, or territories starting with J. I could punt, but I decided to go arcane. Thus the alphanumeric jumble that is the Canadian postal codes.

When the US came up with ZIP Codes back in 1963, it made sense to me. Canada followed with postal codes in the early 1970s, which also exist in parts of Europe. The Canadian codes are “in the format A1A 1A1, where A is a letter and 1 is a digit, with a space separating the third and fourth characters.”

In the United States, large cities had zones for mail delivery as early as 1943. Chicago 9, Illinois was the location of the Spiegel catalog, I recall from many game shows. When ZIP Codes came into being, the third address line was: Chicago, IL 60609.

Likewise, large cities in Canada had zones, with Toronto starting way back in 1925, Montreal in 1944, and other cities in the 1960s. The powers that be started a three-digit code in Toronto in 1969, but then quickly abandoned it, inconveniencing businesses and residents alike.

In the Canadian system, the first three characters represent the forward sortation area. The FSA is “a geographical region in which all postal codes start with the same three characters. The first letter of an FSA code denotes a particular ‘postal district’, which, outside Quebec and Ontario, corresponds to an entire province or territory.”

The latter three characters represent the Local Delivery Unit.

“Postal codes do not include the letters D, F, I, O, Q or U.” I assume this is to avoid confusion, the D, O, Q, and U with a zero, F with E, and the I with a one.

I love the Santa Claus postal code, which is H0H 0H0. “The postal service responds each year to tens of thousands of children’s letters from around the world,” in the writers’ own language. The address, in case you need it:
SANTA CLAUS
NORTH POLE H0H 0H0
CANADA

or

PÈRE NOËL
PÔLE NORD H0H 0H0
CANADA

You DO see the significance of the postal code, yes/oui?

For J on ABC Wednesday

Eastern, other directions in US and Canada

is Alaska east or west?

Eastern US map
Since there are no US states, Canadian provinces, or territories start with the letter E, I thought I’d get a little directional: east, west, north, and south.

Time zones: both countries have Eastern time zones, as well as Central, Mountain, and Pacific. But the Eastern time zone is NOT the easternmost. That distinction goes to Newfoundland time in Canada. In the US, there are zones for Alaska and Hawaii-Aleutian, the latter the islands of Alaska.

Extreme points:

Northernmost point: Point Barrow, Alaska 71°23′ N, 156°29′ W
Easternmost point: West Quoddy Head, Maine 44°49′ N, 66°57′ W
Southernmost point: Ka Lae (South Cape), Hawaii 18°55′ N, 155°41′ W
Westernmost point: Cape Wrangell, Alaska (Attu Island) 52°55′ N, 172°27′ E

But there’s a big caveat here: These are measured from the geographic center of United States (including Alaska and Hawaii), west of Castle Rock, S.D., 44°58′ N, 103°46′ W. If measured from the prime meridian in Greenwich, England, Cape Wrangell, Attu Island, Alaska, would be the easternmost point, because Attu is on the other side of the International Date Line.

If you just count the contiguous 48 states:

Northernmost point: Northwest Angle Inlet in Lake of the Woods, Minnesota 49°23′04.1″N, 95°9′12.2″W – because of incomplete information at the time of the Treaty of Paris (1783) settling the American Revolutionary War.
Easternmost point: still West Quoddy Head, Maine 44°48′55.4″N, 66°56′59.2″W
Southernmost point: Western Dry Rocks, Florida 24°26.8′N 81°55.6′W, In the Florida Keys – occasionally above water at low tide; Ballast Key, Florida 24°31′15″N 81°57′49″W – continuously above water
Westernmost point: Cape Alava, Washington 48°9′51″N, 124°43′59″W

For Canada:

Northernmost point — Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut 83°6′41″N, 69°57′30″W
Southernmost point — South point of Middle Island, Ontario, in Lake Erie 41°40′53″N, 82°40′56″W
Easternmost point — Cape Spear, Newfoundland 47°31′25″N, 52°37′10″W
Westernmost point — Boundary Peak 187,[1] Yukon 60°18′23″N, 141°0′7″W

The Eastern United States can be defined as east of the Mississippi River. It is further delineated by the designations of the map, which are hardly standardized.

Eastern Canada is generally considered to be the region east of Manitoba, consisting of the following provinces: Newfoundland and Labrador New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec. Ontario and Quebec define Central Canada, while the other provinces constitute Atlantic Canada.

For ABC Wednesday