- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 659
And, because I looked once I've been inundated with clips from "Adventures with Purpose" videos, which is about a couple of divers who go into the waterways of the US and locate missing people in their cars.
They have a pretty good track record, finding where they were last seen, diving with drones, magnets, pulling the plates off cars, laying to rest family & friends concerns of "what became of so-and-so...".
Closure is important.
It's a good thing that's done by people in their spare time because law enforcement is "too busy".
These clips, on Facebook, they're rarely more than random talking, blurry underwater photos, ending when the car is pulled out of the water, rarely do they tell you or show you the conclusion, by their nature, by design, unsatisfactory. I'm not so into it that I want to spend hours on YouTube watching videos, but it's surprising how often people disappear under a mile or so from home in a place so obvious nobody ever thought to look.
It makes you think of all those people (and there's a few instances in Canada, and Canada, being much bigger, I'm thinking of a case maybe 20 years where someone left Lethbridge, was seen gassing up in Cochrane, then disappeared) - and how far they might have been going, the chance of being found drops astronomically the further the distance, the possibilities - of wrong turns, bodies of water - and in BC, cliffs - multiplies until there's no hope of finding them by design.
Reddit User AlexSong has compiled an interactive map of people that have vanished in their cars here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1rCur3KaoWv-jKAJBkZBwgtDRtfL6MVPz&ll=35.71693210069297%2C-103.11449025000002&z=4
***
The other one that Facebook thinks I'm going to be interested in is Brandi Passante from Storage Wars. "You won't believe what she's up to now!!!"
Now, from the photos that invariably accompany this I'm guessing 2 things: Breast Enlargements and/or Only Fans.
It doesn't matter, she was never my favourite character, but never trust Facebook to leave a point alone, they'll keep trying until I click...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 579
SO I'd heard that the DnD (CnS) had sold, new owners, finally, although, having heard that a dozen times I'll be frank I didn't hold my breath.
But, Thursday, again, into the restaurant a customer, by herself, she's eating the Korean Fried Chicken, undeniable waves of positivity coming off of her and when she's done her meal we set to talking and ...
... it turns out that she is the new owner of the DnD.
This is amazing, and I have a hundred questions - easily - how much (1.8 Million, they had been asking for $3. Million for over 7 years), what does it include, etc, etc, - and - par for the course, a completely slow day where this conversation should have been able to run it's course a table should walk in and I'm distracted...
But she leaves with me an idea of when they'll be open and "Let us know if you know of any staff...".
I'm now texting the Mother in Law and letting her know the particulars - as many as I know, and for once I have the information. Her information was rarely accurate, mine, however, is.
The same evening the new owner and her partner show up at **** where Cathy works, and she gets to check them out as well.
Celebrating, probably, but the Mother in Law is suspicious, seems strange they should buy the restaurant and then "accidentally" find me at my job, they might have spoken to some locals, were advised to track me down.
Possible, and flattering if so, and I have to think about this - that place was a gold mine, more money made per day in the summer than I make here in a week, and I need a jeep...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 432
Increasingly the news is taken over with ridiculous clickbait headlines.
One, recently, I would post a photo but at the moment my website needs some tinkering, some sort of behind-the-scenes PHP update has broken it and I need a few hours to undertake the repair, but you can take my word for it, scroll through your own news feed and you'll probably find a dozen such.
Lead for the article, followed by "$1,500,000,000,000,000 worth of Lithium found...". Which is of course a staggering large deposit of Lithium. I'm not making this up, I counted 14 "Zeros" in the improbably large number quoted. The news article - by "Unilad", I don't know why I get this nonsense in my feed, my typical news sources include CBC, BBC, CNN, ApNews, Reuters, AlJazeera, why the algorithm thinks that I credit "People" and "Unilad" and "Yahoo News" as credible news sources rather shakes the tree of "AI Is Out to Get You...."
Only this doesn't make sense. What number is this? Past a billion, past a trillion, jillion, quajillion? It doesn't matter, this is such an improbably large number that it devalues the very product itself, no longer is it worth 1.5 quajillion, this is more money than exists in the world itself at this very moment, it's absurd, garbage, clickbait nonsense.
The next article assures me that Elon Musk is the owner of said resource..., but this time with only 11 zeros.
Bullshit, bullshit, keep them confused and run for the finish line.
This is like those articles that assure you that near-earth astroids contain X Kabillion Quatrillion $$ worth of Platinum, precious metals, etc, etc, until you realize that possession of said asteroid naturally devalues the commodity itself. And given the clusterfuck of governance we're currently undergoing to even attempt to haul it into orbit so it could be comfortably mined is to risk another hole in the earth the size of the Yucatan Extinction Event.
Not that anyone would care, the prospect of profit makes this a justifiable risk...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 454
So, downsizing, trying to get through the mountains of stuff the boy dragged into the house.
Stuff to the Antique shop. This week, candlesticks, an antique typewriter. There will be more, lots more.
Then there were the letters. First of all the paper material the kids acquired in their school years, achievements, diaries. These are not mine, I cannot get rid of them, so I open an old suitcase and find it filled with hundreds of letters. Quite literally hundreds. Postcards, old photos, people I'd long forgot, people I can't - despite me, remember.
I thought I had destroyed all these letters, a long time a go when I dated a certain Lorna who would stay at home reading letters from an ex and getting crazy and making me crazy as well. But I only destroyed the letters from her and life went on and more friendships were made and hundreds of other letters were sent and received.
Somewhere or another I lost touch with all of them, I look at all the addresses I had, London, several, Prague, - one, and a landlady that stole the mail so she could censure it, she was nosy, trying to sabotage any friendships I might have kept up...
Then Calgary, and the half dozen or so addresses there.
I look at the letters briefly, ex girlfriends, from Anna who has immaculate cursive writing, that of the student getting her fingers rapped by nuns, there was Kirk - squatmate, Sean-Planter, Sneh-co-worker in Calgary, Maeve - Planter, Iskra - Flatmate in London, Mary, Co-worker London, Brian, Co-worker London, Jennifer, a dozen others....
I looks some of them up. Dinah, an old co-worker who maintained a fine flirtation when I travelled abroad, find her online and MY GOD I RECOGNIZE HER! She looks - virtually the same. Age, yes, but not unkind. Kirk, I find him, a voiceover actor, campaigner for men's mental health. Iskra, blacked out now on Facebook, some movie credits, Sean, a Therapist based out of Kelowna, Debbie, (had forgotten) - now a molecular biologist/scientist in Israel, quite high up, Dana - and who, exactly, is Dana, and I read the letter, can't place how I knew her, where we met...
Others I can find nothing on. Vanished, in the days of the internet and Facebook and somehow they found a way to slip through a crack and vanish from the earth...
It makes me happy to see that these people from your past have done well. Of course, you don't know, but I suspect most of them have. They look well in their fields and their photos.
The people you know, have letters from, have never seen again, somewhere in the mid 90’s letters stopped, a move too far, change of address with no forwarding address or perhaps the relationships had run their course
Postcards from Kirk in Jakarta, erotic letters from ex's, (before sexting was a thing you had to commit it to paper), an invitation to an ex's wedding which I missed because I was living abroad...photographs, negatives, postcards, Valentines, etc, etc, all these to be gone through and sorted, destroyed, one wants to somewhat curate one's past, life.
The days, these days of late, cloaked in rain and mist.
This will be a gold mind, there's inspiration aplenty, to rework and shape and reorder the meaning and - while it's trauma going back through it it is also - well, I like mixed media, the stamps, air-mail envelopes, cards, there are infinite possibilities and I have a few ideas....
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 478
This morning, up early, trip to the dentist and I'm winded. My chest heavy and I'm coughing up sputum and I'm wondering if the Pneumonia really did go away.
It could be allergies, though, and so that's the thinking I use to get through the day.
The dentist, 2 hours in the chair, cleaning, fluoride, etc, when they tip me back up past level it takes me a few minutes to gain my equilibrium. The dentist, drills, jets, it's all a zen activity in being somewhere else, just checked out enough I don't know what's happening...
The rest of the day, tired, winded with trifling activities and it feels as if my blood has congealed to molasses. But evening and I'm a little better, time to give up on the latest movies/miniseries, mostly if not largely all shit, and get back to my books. Better company there by far.