Real Talk!

'Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

`I don't much care where--' said Alice.

`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

`So long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'

(From the Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll)

Kind of reminds me of the John Lennon lyrics “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.”

I used to think it was really important to be “goal-oriented”. It was intellect driven and full of thought and reason and usually it amounted to NOWT, nada, and diddlysquat. How is it that I bought into that age-old trap, calculating my future through an attribute of systems specified by a preferred future state or behaviour? Sounds a little unreal.

Can you really plan something definitively? Is anything that calculable? Must be, otherwise, people wouldn’t go around announcing they are resolved to one plan or another. It seems to me that people are very hard on themselves, setting unobtainable sights and resolutions are usually something that pinpoints a negative and that’s hardly the stuff to inspire.

It's like people always give up something really great at lent... why not give up something horrid. Instead of giving up ice-cream why don't they give up gossip or nose-picking... all this resolution stuff... Why do we do it?

George Eliot said, "It's never too late to be who you might have been."

Now that’s more like it….

New Year’s festivities go back to Ancient Babylon (doesn’t everything?) Only it was celebrated at the Vernal Equinox (first day of Spring) and lasted 11 days. Imagine that party! The Romans are the ones who switched the date over to January 1st.

Apparently, the early Catholic Church squelched the New Years partying as they felt it was a Pagan custom and it has only slid back into favour for about 400 years, now. However, the tradition of making a New Year’s resolution goes all the way back to those Babylonians- however, their resolutions were less about smoking or weight and more about returning borrowed items.

I’ve never announced a serious resolution and I don’t know if I can start now… but I have been giving it some serious thought…

so far I just keep thinking of George Eliot… and I try not to think about it too much, or I just start analyzing and intellectualizing the quote… trying to apply a context…

“It’s never too late to be who you might have been”…

could be really inspirational… on a visceral level it really is!

BUT (there's always a big BUT)... and that's a whole nuther resolution...

could be something quite different… when you stop and think about it... George Eliot being the pen name of Mary Anne Evans… oh well…

I could resolve to stop thinking about it.

Okay, so I spent about two hours this morning reading up on “predictions”. Yes, it’s that time of year again. It’s remarkable how many of us wonder, “What’s going to happen?”… And it’s not anything new. Since ancient times people have believed that it is possible to predict the future

In 10 A.D., Roman Engineer, Julius Sextus Frontinus said, “Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for future developments.” Ooops, tilt… so, we’ve known for a very long time that predictions are not necessarily correct.

Ancient Babylonians believed that studying planetary movements could help them predict the future and at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, a priestess presided over the most important oracle of ancient Greece, known as The Pythia. The Pythia is said to have given prophesies dating from the 8th century BCE. In both Old and New Testaments of the Bible we read of people whose dreams foretold the future and would influence the decisions of kings or pharaohs.

There are two theories about the history of the Chinese I Ching, one being mythological and the other more academic in nature. The I Ching is credited to the first Chinese Emperor, a rather mythic figure (half man and half dragon) who lived some 5000 years ago. In the 5th century Kung Fu-tze (Confucius) studied the work- known as Chou I and then it was incorporated into the Confucian cannon as the I Ching - the Book (or Classic) of Changes. Future Chinese emperors would consult the I Ching as a basis for their decrees.

The right honourable William Lyon Mackenzie King consulted his psychic advisors on serious decisions. President Abraham Lincoln held séances in the White House…. But I digress (as usual…)

Here are some of my favourite predictions that other people have made for 2007:

A major shipwreck will be discovered near India between March and May. It will contain a treasure trove of coins and jewels.

The Tri State area will suffer a 5.7 earthquake, profoundly affecting New York City and Long Island.

The Liberals, led by Dion will win a minority government.

Cell phones are the choice of technology and other mobile tech devices will spin-off, including more of the tracking devices. Podcasts will be popular.

Malware (computer virus and trackers etc) will become a very serious issue.

Computer prices will fall.

Corporations will take more social responsibility for content in their IT.

The Buffalo Sabres will win their 1st Stanley Cup.

A Comet will impact the Earth in February.

There will be mass disruption of services Europe.

A roller coaster of under sea earthquakes, in the North Pacific- new land will rise from the sea.

Tsunami activity will affect Papua New Guinea, Australia and Indonesia.

Earthquakes will rock Turkey, Afghanistan, China, Alaska and other parts of America. There will be three major earthquakes in the Tokyo area of Japan.

A new category of hurricane will devastate Florida.

More volcanic activity will occur simultaneously than ever recorded before.

Uranium prices will soar by mid-year and continue to rise.

Canadian Oil Sands predict average production of 260-270,000 barrels per day.

The Baltimore Ravens will win their second Super Bowl.

Great new inventions will emerge from the west coast of the U.S.

Serious flooding will affect northern areas in Russia and Canada.

Automakers will convert to more hybrid and alternative fuels.

It will be a better year for the Canadian economy and interests will stay low.

There will be a lot of accidents in mountain areas.

There will be increasing problems surrounding our burial practices.

One forecast, based totally on the I Ching provided these predictions:

It will be a good year for economic recovery.

Women will continue to overshadow men in power positions.

There will be opportunity for middle-aged women to climb corporate ladders.

Watch for worldwide wild fires.

Some pharmaceuticals that have long been accepted will be found to be seriously flawed and dangerous.

There will be monumental political changes globally.

Lots of accidents will occur involving height: i.e./ satellite malfunctions, space mishaps, bridge collapses, high-rise instability, and airplanes.

New illnesses will emerge connected to food. More illnesses will be connected to birds.

There will be an increase in the number of cult suicides.

There will be more marriages between older women and younger men.

A friend a mine predicts that Canada may see an NDP government… or a very near miss. Another friend predicts that we are being prepared for the truth about ETs, which very well could emerge in the next year.

My own predictions:

Peer-based mentoring will come back into fashion.

Shopping malls will experience another dramatic shift as consumers separate into two groups: those expecting a higher quality of products and services, generating a return to smaller, boutique-style providers- and those who are happy with one stop, low priced, mega-box super-stores.

It will be more desirable to live outside of large urban centers, but less convenient.

The truth will emerge about global climate changes and industry will provide new and significant elements essential to the remedy...

but then, I have to remember that Julius Sextus Frontinus once said, “Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for future developments.”

I read reports today on some significant, observable changes in the Canadian landscape.

Apparently, a giant ice shelf broke clear off the coast of Canada’s Ellesmere Island, some 800 kms from the North Pole, with such gusto that it registered on earthquake monitors some 250 kms away.

Scientists are pointing their fingers at global warming and suggesting that Canada is losing valuable ecosystems and microscopic organisms whose habitat is the 3000 year old ice.

Also mentioned was the fear that the island of ice boulders created by the release could drift, interfere with shipping lanes in the near future… and significant oil and gas development in the area would have to be monitored….

Another news story discussing Herschel Island, in the Yukon, blamed global warming for the rising seawater that threatens artifacts, historic buildings and gravesites. There is concern that the island could be completely obliterated in 50-100 years.

Yesterday, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Wednesday proposed listing polar bears as a "threatened" species on the government list. Recent studies describe a decline in the survival rate of polar bear cubs and a reduction in the size of adults. Citing rapid climate changes and global warming as the most significant cause of concern
(and also over-hunting and pollution), Kempthorne said a final decision is a year away.

The U.S. Interior Secretary also said that his department supports the ongoing coastal and offshore oil and gas exploration that has been strongly promoted by the Bush administration.

"It's very clear that the oil and gas activity in that area does not pose a threat to the polar bears," he said.

I have to mention that I recently saw pictures on t.v. showing very skinny polar bears, in the wild. It was horrible.

I just don't know if we can fix "global" problems in time.

I wondered why we haven't figured out how to make our own ice shelves... we have snow-making machines for ski hills. There must be other alternatives... like creating artificial ice floats. Something to stop the extinction before it is too late.

The world has gone crazy. Just this past ten days or so:

A tornado struck in the US state of Florida on Christmas Day, damaging at least 78 homes

A tornado hit the Maldives

Dukono Volcano on Halmahera, Indonesia, released a plume

Fears are growing that another typhoon is forming in the Philippines, which has been ravaged by four successive strong typhoons during the last three months.

A tornado struck the Atlantic islands of the Azores

The Seychelles Islands, North of Madagascar, were on alert for a very intense tropical cyclone

Storms lashed the Pacific coast of Japan for two days and a lightning strike has caused a nuclear reactor in Japan to shut down

Winds and rain have lashed across Turkey, causing massive travel disruption

A dust storm from Saudi Arabia crossed the Red Sea toward Sudan.

Parts of Tasmania have experienced their driest year since records began and bush fires have destroyed houses

Oregon and Washington State suffered the worst windstorm in a decade

Heavy snowfall has led to the closure of several roads in Spain
A powerful Pacific storm is moving towards the British Columbia coast

Electron 2MeV Integral Flux exceeded 1000pfu

A dust storm blew out of the Bodele Depression

Germany is reporting a large number of crop circles

Sheveluch Volcano, in Eastern Russia, released a plume

Dense fog hugged the ground around London...........

all very interesting, indeed... but then:

The hottest day in Shanghai was July 3, 1934, at 38.2 degrees centigrade.

December of 1934 was the only green Christmas in the 100-year weather record of Fairbanks, with all-time high temperatures in Anchorage and Nome.

During a wild April storm in 1934, a wind gust of 231 miles per hour (372 kilometers per hour) was measured at the summit of Mount Washington

The great storm of 1958 in Sussex produced the biggest hailstones experienced in Britain. (the size of cricket balls... which is not to be confused with entomology... it is a sport and in men's cricket, the ball must weigh between 5.5 and 5.75 ounces (155.9 and 163.0 g) and measure between 8 13/16 and 9 in (224 and 229 mm) in circumference.)

During the storm of June 1983 in Dorset, coal fell out of the sky.

During a thunderstorm in 1939 in Wiltshire, the heavens opened, spilling frogs.

In 1968, southern England was covered by a shower of red sand blown over 1,000 miles inside a massive high-pressure system from the Sahara desert in Africa.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not minimizing the threats we face from global warming…I believe it’s gone on long enough and now, clearly the planet is telling us that we’re on “thin ice”…. pardon the pun!

I think it might be interesting to look at military activity in relation to these strange occurrences. Has anyone measured how much pollution comes out of military aircraft? Ships? Imagine what it takes to maneuver an aircraft carrier? And how about all those firearms? Something to research for future blogs.

Hey, I hear they could hang Saddam Hussein as early as Saturday.

I have a wonder of the unusual. I admit it. I am drawn to strange stories. Weird news. I subscribe online to many of the polling companies; I like to read their studies. I AM an information junkie!

So, after yesterday’s ramblings, I thought I’d share some of my favourite stories and bits of useless trivia, from the most recent few years….

* a 65 year-old Dutch woman died next to her own grave. Yup. Doctors say the woman suffered a heart attack while visiting the family plot. Discovered laying beside a tombstone that bore her name, the woman’s purse contained a copy of her will in which all arrangements for her funeral had been made.

* a Miami home was invaded by 3 million bees that left 66lbs of honey behind.

* an Australian plumber was called to investigate a blocked septic and was greeted by a seven foot python peeking its head out of the toilet.

* women's ring fingers have shorter or same length as that of the index finger, while in men the ring finger is generally longer.

* Chinese law does not define an individual's sex life as a protected right… so discovered 31-year-old Wei Suying. She filed a suit in a Shanghai court because her husband, Zhang Chengxiang, stumbled and hit his genitals on the corner of some audio equipment while working in the shopping center in 2003 and she has not been able to enjoy her sexual life since.

This year, 37 year-old Dave Carter was named Britain’s top Avon Lady.

McDonald’s announced a modification in its McFlurry container: "The smaller aperture of the lid has been designed to prevent hedgehogs from entering the McFlurry container in the unfortunate incidence that a lid is littered and is then accessible to wildlife."

A ring engraved "Lisa Marie Certain, Class of '84" was found by fisherman Wayne Nickerson while he was collecting bait; in north-central Kentucky. The ring had been stolen in 1991 from a High School in Columbus.

A London artist collected mucus from his nose for two years and displayed the resulting ball at several art exhibitions then, the snot ball was offered for sale last year, at 10,000 British Pounds.

A couple of years ago, a 44 year old Missouri guy (formerly known as Andrew Wilson ) changed his name to “They” because of a family joke about "Who is the 'they' that people mean when they say 'They say this' and 'They say that?'"

Milwaukee is home to the Clown Hall of Fame.

The Zippo lighter company celebrated a milestone Sept. 3, 2003 when the 400 millionth lighter rolled off the assembly line.

Over 50% of Americans surveyed in 2003 named their cars. 48% thought their cars were female. 28% thought their cars were male. The remaining 24 % believed their cars genderless.

70 percent of married couples sleep in separate bedrooms and 15 percent of marriages break up- all because of snoring. Scientists believe snoring was considered a desirable trait in a mate back in pre-historic times, they expect that the racket kept animals away.

A spokesman for the Academy of General Dentistry says some seniors occasionally swallow their dentures during sleep, which is why its important to take out any removable teeth before going to bed.

Also from 2003- 49 percent of Americans spend at least 40 minutes a week just deleting spam -- and 14 percent spend at least 3.5 hours at their terminal terminating the unwanted e-mails. The average person deletes their spam about 30 times a week -- but are lucky to have sex two times every seven days. Sex-oriented spam only constitutes 27 percent of the messages, while 57 percent deal with credit counseling or refinancing.

A 2002 study of people under 35 years of age indicated that the average person falls in love when they are 9-and-a-half years old. By comparison, boomers between the ages of 35 and 44 said they didn't have their first crush until they were 10-and-a-half and the over 55-ers waited until they were 11 before falling in love. American Consumer Opinion (who conducted the research poll) felt that the reason people were falling in love earlier was that nobody was saying that they couldn’t.

Definition of an Arm’s Length Deal:

A transaction between two related or affiliated parties that is conducted as if they were unrelated, so that there is no question of a conflict of interest. Or sometimes, a transaction between two otherwise unrelated or affiliated parties.

The "arm's length principle" (ALP) is the condition or the fact that the parties to a transaction are independent and on an equal footing.

Okay, I thought I could write a serious blog today and I was inspired by this morning’s news item about an aquarium in North-East China that imported a herdsman from Mongolia to help them retrieve some foreign objects. Bao Xishun (the Mongolian), at 7’8” is currently listed as the world’s tallest man. With a 1.06m long arm, Mr Xishun was able to reach into the stomachs of two of the aquarium's ailing dolphins and recover pieces of the plastic that veterinarians had been unable to access.

Wow.

This then got me thinking about tall animals helping people. Giraffes are the world’s tallest animals,at an average of 5.49m or 18 ft. There is at least one organization that gives out Giraffe awards to people who have taken a significant risk for the common good. (aka- stuck out their necks). I didn't find any feel-good stories about Giraffe's getting stuff out of people's stomachs- thank goodness- but I did discover...

that the people of the Netherlands are considered the tallest people in the world, these days (the average Dutch man being 184cm, just over 6 feet and the average Dutch woman, 179.8 cms or just over 5’7”).

Okay... so anyway, this morning I googled a little (about arms) and found several articles about Jon Sanford, a guy who grew his arm hair to 4.1 inches, to achieve a Guiness record. His mother thought it was “gross”. No kidding. But then, it’s gross to think of dolphins snarfling down parts of their swimming pool and nearly dying!

In 1982, the Miami Seaquarium lost a perfoming dolphin to intestinal failure. A veterinary autopsy indicated that Poncho’s stomach contained: 2 deflated footballs (used in Poncho’s “act”), 31 coins, 21 stones, 1 Trainer’s whistle, 1 ten penny nail, 2 screws, 1 metal tag, 1 piece of wire, 1 metal staple and several other “unidentifiable objects”. YUCK. A former dolphin trainer explained the cause as: dolphins "get bored in captivity". REALLY?????

I suppose people eat weird stuff when they’re bored too…. Like “cheese food”… processed cheese… you have to wonder about stuff that they can’t call real cheese and have to tell you it's a "food".

In June of ’06, Australian officials arrested a woman at the Sydney Airport, she had 320 condoms of heroin in her stomach. Yummy.

Supposedly, in April of 1936 a shark was caught off the coast of Cuba and was discovered to be carrying a copy of Spanish novel, in its stomach.

Antron Singleton aka "Big Lurch," an up-and-coming rapper from Texas, was charged with murdering a Los Angeles woman in April of 2002, after medical examiners found flesh in Singleton's stomach that wasn't his own.

In March 2005, Trappers in Florida found the arm of a man reported missing for several days inside the stomach of a 2.7-metre alligator.

Villagers in Indonesia, just last week, found a crocodile with two human hands, a leg, a pair of shorts, strands of hair, and pieces of skull, in his belly.

Mmmm, cheese food is sounding better all the time!

I was recently in Toronto at the Sutton Place hotel for the Ontario Real Estate Political Action Committee sessions (PAC days). I wish I could use this an excuse for not blogging in forever, but I did have my laptop with me.

I find it is always a catch-22 to travel. Although I find the networking and information extremely useful in keeping me up-to-date in the industry, getting out my suitcase seems to be a cue for buyers to suddenly feel the urge to call in droves!

I am beginning to think that a suitcase is my lucky charm.

I’m not one for travel any more. These days, I prefer my own bed and the company of my pets. I don’t like loud, stuffy places and I’m not much of a social animal in my "off" time. The 2-3 hour drive from Bancroft is tiring, too.

I used to feel like I was going “home” when I went to Toronto. I don’t feel that way, anymore. It’s not that it isn’t familiar and it’s not that I dislike the city… it’s just that I’ve really become accustomed to the more civilized lifestyle we live in the country.

It feels strange to walk in the city, where hundreds of people scurry, seldom acknowledging each other and horns blaring seems the preferred mode of communication.

The city is darker than the country. Big buildings block the light and form wind tunnels that can make a warmish day feel downright bone chilling. The tallest building we have in Bancroft has 3 or 4 floors.

I think there are 2 elevators in town and this year; we did graduate from 2 traffic lights, to four. They do not make the sounds that the city lights make for the visually impaired- I’m not sure why.

Here, it’s movement and the changing sound of birds that send messages. It is amazing how much you learn from them. In the country, there are some seasons in which you can tell the time of day by frog-sounds.

Still, it’s always fascinating to spend time at a conference with Realtors ® from all over the province- these are usually the cream of the crop… I always find it inspiring to spend time among the most ethical, caring and honest in the profession…

and, in spite of the geographical & cultural differences, Realtors ® are Realtors ® - our success and our challenges; remarkably similar.