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Torrington - Garage Sale
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 1789
And, across from the Museum in Torrington, a garage sale. A pretty big one, nothing I wanted, initially, piles of Scuba Gear, Tools, Tanks, Sporting goods, man stuff, it took me a few tours to spot the skis, masterpieces, a hair over 8' tall, barely fit into the jeep, no prices on anything, I offered $10, he took it, he was just clearing everything out, wanted it gone, an estate sale of sorts, and given the high quality of the rest of his stuff I should have made an offer, run ads on Kijiji to sell it off, could have made a couple of hundred bucks at least, but I keep reminding myself I'm not a dealer, I only buy what I love or I can find a home for...
Money's tight, I gotta change my thinking...
The Value of a Human Life
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2015
And this is one take on the value of a human life:
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Uncomfortable, this measuring of one's worth with dollars and cents, but it's something that companies do all the time. Think Union Carbide in Bhopal, or The Ford Pinto, both of which saw companies cheerfully put a dollar value on Human Lives. We do it all the time as well, Xenophobia sees us raise the value of lives in our own country VS lives of those in other countries, sees us raise money for the rich (think Fort MacMurray, no lives lost (well, one, in a traffic accident fleeing the fire)), yet in Alberta more money was raised to support the victims of insured inconvenience and homelessness than was donated to victims of the Lac Megantic rail disaster in Quebec. Clearly Albertan property and industry is far more valuable than Quebec lives. Think of the welfare allocated to a single mother VS the amount of money it takes to incarcerate a sex offender - several times more money is "invested" - to questionable return - in the sex offender. Insurance companies assign your life a value based on your ability to pay them and the probability of them having to pay out. And I could continue. The video only lightly touches on some important questions that we, as a society, need to revisit...
The Gopher Hole Museum - Torrington
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 2180
And another day off, with the Italian Waiter, he's only another 7 or 8 weeks before returning for good to Italy, and in those brief days off I'm trying to show him the country...
The Sunday before last, still deaf, off to Torrington to see the Gopher Hole Museum. I've been a couple of times, small, maybe 20 minutes, but it's cheap (2$) and a perfectly eccentric roadside attraction, anthropomorphic gophers posed in Dioramas, after Walter Potter or Ferenc Mere.
After this, a few moments prospecting, some finds of potch, or not-precious opal, no diamonds. The Bleriot Ferry, The Horsethief Canyon Viewpoint, lunch at the hotel in Wayne, then back to the Orkney Viewpoint and to Calgary. A fine day for sightseeing, not so much for prospecting, but this is something I gotta do on my own, nobody seems to share my enthusiasm (although if ever I find something they will, oh, they will...).
Anyways, some hasty and not-so-good photos of the Gopher Hole Museum, a curious bit of Alberta, if you live here you should really make the trip and see it in person...
(I showed these pictures to the Italian Salad Girl at work, and she asked me: "But are they embalmed?"..."No, No..." I reassured her..."They're trained actors...I should have made a video for you...")
The Cost of Urban Sprawl
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2211
An interesting look and breakdown at the cost of Urban Sprawl in the United States. While the conclusions are both predictable and obvious it's good that someone crunched the math. I'm guessing that they've underestimated it greatly, Calgary's sprawl alone must account for several billion dollars squandered annually...
Link: http://www.citylab.com/design/2016/06/cost-of-sprawl-us-commuters/486170/
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