Monday 18 March 2024

"Winter Fog" My Latest Painting


    Yesterday I completed “Winter Fog” my 71st painting.  I began painting “Winter Fog” last November and it took me 88 hours to complete.  Like all of my paintings, it is made up of individually painted squares, each subtly colored differently from its neighbors (see photo below).  In this painting is painting there are 108 squares, two inch by two inch.  It was done with acrylics on an 18 inch by 24 inch canvas.  

    The image is based on a photo I took in 2014 in the field beside the Fraser River, just below our house.  I liked the atmospheric feel of the photo and the challenge of trying to capture the scene (especially the trees in the fog) with paint.



You can view my other paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca and at davidmarchant.ca

 

Sunday 17 March 2024

Fingers Crossed For Integris Credit Union


    Our little Village of McBride has one bank.  The Bank of Nova Scotia, a big international financial corporation owns Scotia Bank, and it has decided to pack up and move out of McBride, in search of Big Money elsewhere.  Losing our only bank is devastating for the residents and businesses of our community.  The loss of our bank will not only leave us without the normal everyday banking services that we need, but also will leave us without the only cash machine in the whole big isolated area.

    Our only hope is that some other financial institution might move in to help us.  Integris, a credit union with a handful of branches around the Central Interior of British Columbia, seems to be our best hope.

    Yesterday we went to a meeting in Dunster where Dan Wingham, a spokesman for Integris from  Prince George, spoke and answered questions about a possible branch in McBride.  It was a very informative meeting, which answered some of my questions.  Here are some of the things I learned:

    I had assumed that maybe Integris could buy and move into the Scotia Bank building which is all set up for a bank, and take over business with the safe and all of the other banking hardware there. 

     How naive I was.  Dan told us that Scotia Bank would never allow that to happen.  They want all their present banking customers, to just move all of their money and banking services to a branch in Prince George, 220 km (135 miles away).  Fat chance that will happen, but Scotia Bank are not going to make it easy for another financial institution to set up in McBride.  They will certainly not allow Integris to buy their building, and will probably put a covenant on any sale of the building to prevent any other financial institution to be run from it.  I guess that means another empty building sitting in McBride.

    Dan said if the Integris Credit Union did set up in McBride, it would have to start very small, and have its banking services in another building, which would probably only be open 2 or 3 days a week, until the  customer base increased.  

    The decision to possibly open in McBride will be made by the Integris Board meeting in July.  

    If Robson Valley residents want Integris to serve the area, the best thing we could do would be open an account in the credit union, to indicate to the Board that there is real interest to have that happen.

    We will certainly be doing that,  the community really needs the banking services, and Integris, a credit union, is not run by far away corporate types, but by board members, elected by the members of the credit union, and being a member of the credit union is a requirement for using its services.

    I really like credit unions and since moving to Canada in 1973, we have had money in the VanCity Credit Union, (one of the biggest and community-minded financial institutions in BC) and we have been very pleased with how it operates.  I will certainly support and work toward getting Integris to set up in McBride.


View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca


 

Saturday 16 March 2024

Sometimes I Wish Kona Would Sleep Lengthwise in the Bed


    Do you see that small sliver of empty bed space just to the left of Kona’s tail?  That is my sleeping area.  Even though it is a double bed, every night I am left with about 30 inches (76 cm) of space to sleep in.  Kona insists on sleeping sideways in the bed, and if I even bump into her while she is sleeping, she emits a low growl of irritation.  

    During most of my childhood, my bed was a sturdy old wooden army cot.  Not one of those canvas fold-up jobs, but a regular  cot-size bed with mattress, so I am used to sleeping in a narrow space, but a little more room, would be nice.  

    My sleep is further restricted in the early hours of the morning when Lucifer our cat comes in to the room, jumps onto the bed (carefully avoiding Kona) and then snuggles up tightly to my side, in the tiny space between me and the edge of the bed.  

    You might wonder why I put up with this.  My upstairs bedroom is the only place for Kona to sleep where she won’t cause trouble.  If we leave her wandering around loose anywhere on the main floor of the house, she will hear or see wild critters outside and will erupt into loud, frantic, barking, that violently wakes everyone up.  Upstairs, she can’t see or hear anything, and just sleeps.

    Despite my feeling of sometimes feeling cramped at night, I know it is good for me.  It restricts me to sleeping on my right side, and when I do that I don’t wake up with back pain.  If I sleep on my left side, I wake up with a problematic back, so l guess in the long run, it is better with Kona’s butt sticking into my back, keeping me on the edge of the bed.


View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca



 

Friday 15 March 2024

Firewood, Not A Worry



 

    Normally, I spend a lot of time worrying about firewood.  During the winter I worry about not having enough, and running out.  As Spring approaches, I start worrying about where I am going to get more firewood for the next winter, and how much of an ordeal it will be to cut it up, haul it to our house, split it, and stack it.

    As I have blogged previously, this winter has been unusually warm, with a no snow Christmas and a unusually mild rest of winter.  All of those mild winter days meant that most of the time I didn’t have to build a fire in our wood stove, depending instead upon our electric baseboard heaters to keep our house warm.  Not using the wood stove, meant that I used just a fraction of all of the firewood that I had cut last year.

    The top photo shows the gap created by the firewood I did use over the winter.  Generally, this time of year, that whole row of firewood is gone, as well as most of the firewood you see in the lower photo.      

    It’s pretty unbelievable.  Getting, and preparing firewood usually takes up a good bit of my time in the spring.  This year, I won’t even have to do i,t because I already have enough leftover wood to get me through next winter.


View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Thursday 14 March 2024

Nature Seems to Think Spring is Coming



    After all of the unusual and unexpected weather we have been experiencing, I no longer know what to expect anymore.  However, it seems that nature thinks that spring is on the horizon, and is starting to show itself.  Above is a photo I took of daffodils starting to work their way through the ground beside the house, where the sun’s heat is trapped, warming the soil.  

    I also spotted a flock of Canada Geese, beside some open water of the Fraser River, so the bird migration seems to have begun.  A real surprise was hearing from a friend who has a pasture that goes down to the river, that she saw two Mountain Bluebirds.  I’m pretty sure they eat insects, and there are not any of them around that I have seen, so I am not sure what they are eating.



View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Wednesday 13 March 2024

MSG, Monosodium Glutamate


    MSG or Monosodium Glutamate, has been given a bad wrap which has caused many people to avoid it.  That’s too bad, because it is a perfectly safe flavor enhancer, that occurs naturally in things like tomatoes and cheese.  MSG is often used to intensify meaty and savory flavors in foods.  

    In the early 1900’s a man named Ikeda, a Japanese biochemist became curious about the delicious flavor in his wife’s soup, that contained kelp sea weed.  After a lot of research he isolated the flavor and was able to duplicate it chemically.  He called his product Monosodium Glutamate, and started to produce and sell it.  

    Because it made things tastier, it became very popular, especially in Asian food.  However in the 1960, a scientist in the US, wrote a letter to the editor of a science journal wondering if MSG was the cause of “headaches and discomfort” felt by some people after eating at Chinese restaurants.  Without any proof, this idea, became known as “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” and rapidly spread across the nation, and so many people believed it, that Asian food establishments really began to suffer economically.   You can still often see “No MSG added” signs in some Asian restaurants, as a result of the unsubstantiated idea.

    Like the anti-vaccination misinformation which exists today, despite so many scientific studies, the fear of MSG also remains, even though MSG has been scientifically studied more than most other food substances, and all of those studies have failed to link it to any negative reactions.  It takes five times as much MSG to kill a mouse, than regular table salt.

    Most people are aware of four basic flavors:  Sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, but a fifth flavor is now recognized and is called “umami” (delicious taste).  It is described as savory, characteristic of broth and cooked meats.    This taste has its own taste receptors on your tongue and other places in your mouth.  Monosodium glutamate is an additive that activates those receptors.  It can be described as a pleasant "brothy” or “meaty” taste with a long-lasting, mouthwatering and coating sensation over the tongue.

    MSG has an appearance similar to salt.  I like to sprinkle some on my popcorn and add it to my soups.  Sprinkle some of your foods before adding salt, and you will probably end up using less salt.  Low salt foods can maintain a good taste with the right amount of umami.  

    Surprisingly, studies have shown that the first encounter humans have of the umami taste comes from the breast milk. 


View my paintings:  davidmaarchant2.ca

    


 

Tuesday 12 March 2024

I Fell For A Phone Scam


    I am usually very careful about random calls on the phone.  I check the phone number of the caller (it comes up on our television screen) and if I pick up the phone, I count to three and if I haven’t heard a voice by then, I hang up, but they caught me last week.

    I was up taking a nap over the noon hour, when the phone rang.  I couldn’t make out the number of the incoming call on the phone because I didn’t have my glasses on.  I was expecting a call from my doctor and assumed it was her, so I waited a bit longer than my three count.  It was a heavily accented voice on the other end, who said he was from Telus, our home phone provider.  (This didn’t scare me off, because big companies like Telus often contract phone employees from India.)  He knew my name and said that because I was a longtime user of Telus and had a good record of payments, (both true), Telus was offering a new package for me with a reduced price.  As well, I could get a better price for our cell phones with less restrictions.

    I bit; hook, line and sinker.

    They sent me the email showing the offer (above)

    I called “Lisa” to get more details.  She also had a foreign accent, but not East Indian like the male that initially made the offer, but she sounded more like she was from the Philippines.  “Lisa”  kept calling me “Mr. David” and provided me with more details on the new plan, and like a fool I said I would take the landline and cell packages that were on offer.  I foolishly gave her my credit card number to start the transaction.

    Luckily, this week I got an alert from my credit card company that a questionable charge was put on my credit card, and did I recognize the transaction?

    The charge was like $248.13 from some fabric company in Pakistan.  That was followed by a charge of $252.17 to the same company the following day.  I told the credit card company that those two charges were fraudulent.   By that time, there was yet another charge from the crooks. 

    The credit card company denied payment, and the only problematic results to me was the hour and a half on the phone and I had to cut up my credit card and wait a week or so for a new one.  Once I get it, I will have to change many automatic payments from the old card to the new one.  Fortunately, I didn’t loose any money to the scammers.

    Just today on the banner headlines on the bottom of the television news channel was the statement that something like $52 Billion is lost every year to phone scams, and that 1 in 5 people in the US have lost money to them.  

    Unlike all of these phone scams, when someone robs you with a gun, at least there is some possibility (although slim) that the crook might sometimes be caught and prosecuted.

    


View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca