Google has opened an office in Montreal (its address does not show up here yet, or in its search engines — ha ha), but there are some jobs available here. However, forget Montreal — I spotted this great job posting at Google, looking for engineers at their lunar hosting and research center.

No, it’s not April Fool’s (or los Santos Inocentes), but I guess people at the Big G have a sense of humour… I suppose having a sense of humour is part of not being evil.

Speaking of flying (and senses of humour), here’s exactly why I love to fly…strictly for the laughs!

Caution: this post may have come in contact with anaphylaxis-inducing sarcasm.

Perhaps here in Canada we don’t go as far as the good old U.S. of Eh? in being litigation-paranoid. But we still get some pretty goofy labels. Case in point — here’s one I spotted tonight…

On the inside, it reads in tiny print:

Dear peanut-loving (or -hating) customer,

We’re really very sorry for our lackadaisical process monitoring. But we thought you should know — it’s possible (the floor manager tells me it’s likely; I wouldn’t go so far) that your Salted Roasted Peanuts may have come in contact with peanuts and/or nuts. Sorry. We really are. We (probably) screwed up and we know it.

How could this happen, you ask? I am as shocked as you are, and am demanding answers from my subordinates, who so far have closed up about this. You can rest assured that when I find out, heads will roll (or tongues will loll). If you, faithful customer, do find any peanuts in this package, please return the entire container for a full refund. In future we’ll try harder to ensure your next pack of peanut-free peanuts meets your exacting standards. Then we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief.
    – Anna Filacks, Customer Regret Manager

I just came across the brand new RCI (Radio Canada International) site, which includes a Spanish-language portal (that is, besides English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Portuguese and Ukrainian). Even cooler are new radio shows, also available ¡en línea!

There are several emisiones (broadcasts), direct from Montreal — Reflejo Boreal (”Northern Reflections”) and El Castor Mensajero (”Beaver Messenger” — does Microsoft know about this? ;-) are weekly shows, and Canadá en las Américas is a daily one…

The show Canadá en las Américas is also available as a daily podcast. Fantastic — more daily Spanish listening practice, right from my own back yard!

Wow, here’s a story… With the new U.S. passport requirements (effective today) for all Canadians travelling there by air, many people who’ve never had a passport are suddenly applying for one. There are all kinds of backlogs at Passport Canada offices all over the country.

The weirdest stories are about the estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people who’ve lived in Canada for most of their lives and (surprise!) are now discovering they are actually not Canadian citizens. Or rather, they were but it vanished from under them. This is because of some weird Citizenship Act that was in place between 1947 and 1977, and said that if you were out of the country on your 24th birthday (and didn’t fill out a required form), you lost your citizenship.

I wonder if this leaves some people stranded, as citizens of no country… I never thought that was possible before (to be honest, I never thought about it much), but now I see that perhaps it could be possible (or could have been). Talk about feeling disconnected.

They say home is where you hang your hat.
 I hang my hat here.
They say home is where the heart is.
 My heart, the people that I love and love me, are here.
Home is where your passport is from.
 I tried to get a passport and can’t; they say I don’t belong here.
Home is…
 Nowhere?
[Gulp!]

I had fun this morning tracking more of my “consumption and expenditure”. In this case, the amount and quality of my food consumption and physical energy expenditure.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a detailed online tool to calculate your physical activity and also food intake. (choose “Check It Out” at the bottom to try without registering) Some other fun health-related calculators are here. In Canada, of course we have our old (1992) Food Guide, but no cool online tool like this… A new, “controversial”, updated version of the CFG is expected any day now. Hopefully the new Guide will offer a similar calculator (though perhaps it’s better for most people if they just “keep it simple”). We also have “Canada’s Physical Activity Guide to Healthy Active Living” (phew, that’s a mouthful), but again no online tool. Now that I think about “old Canadian health initiatives” — how I long for those innocent, optimistic days of ParticipACTION (”Get with the action”)!

Anyhow, I found I’m doing okay, food- and physical activity-wise (at least, according to the Americans…does that mean I should be concerned? ;-). My relatively inactive (or so I thought) life still scored a Physical Activity Score of “100″ (out of 100). The only trick, according to them, is to do at least 30 minutes of moderate activity or 20 minutes of vigorous activity every day (for an adult; children need twice as much). And “moderate” includes a brisk walk and serious house cleaning, so — how hard is that? Seems they set the bar pretty low. In the end, because I burned well over 500 calories in activities rating 3 “METs” (three times resting energy expenditure) or more, so they tell me I am a “very active person” who “will acquire…the health benefits of physical activity.” Hmm.

Of course, they didn’t factor in all those peanuts I eat… Food-wise, it turns out that (yesterday, at least) I didn’t eat enough vegetables (even though I had a salad for dinner) or milk products, but was okay on fruits, meat/beans (hello peanuts!), and borderline on grains. I did eat a tad too much fat (was surprised to see it mostly came from my handfuls of dry-roasted peanuts!). Still, I expended more calories than I consumed, so I’m doing okay…but no wonder I feel so hungry all of a sudden, as I type this! (-; Time for lunch…guess I’d better have a salad (with tuna and cheese and, of course, peanuts).

For old times’ sake, enjoy this (video and song here):

Don’t just think about it,
Do it, do it, do it!
Do it with a friend, you both can bend,
Do it for your muscles, it’ll make them hustle,
Do it for your feet, it’s kind of neat,
Do it with some action, ParticipACTION!
Don’t just think about it,
Do it, do it, do it!
PartcipACTION — get with the ACTION
Do it, do it, DO IT!

And finally…

If your girlfriend says: “Take a hike, Warren,” what flattery! You must look strong enough to climb hills in Canada’s outdoors, the greatest natural fitness facility in the world. “Here goes, chick!”

Today I saw a spectacular picture of Comet McNaught (mentioned in an earlier post, and now visible in the southern hemisphere), with its huge aurora-like tail sprawl. The picture was taken by…none other than Robert H. McNaught, its Scottish-Australian discoverer. (Note that he has discovered 12 other “lesser comets McNaught”, besides this one!)

My only suggestion (as a photographer) would have been to straighten the horizon before submitting the photo… Picky, picky. (-;

Yikes — CNN reported that a Continental Airlines pilot died just after take-off. The co-pilot landed the plane safely and the passengers continued on their way from George Bush Airport to Mexico after a new crew was found. The airline was quoted as saying that the pilot suffered a “serious medical problem”. Well, I should say so…

Tonight I was watching an old SCTV Network 90 episode (from 1981), and the musical guests were The Tubes. I had the strangest feeling, like I was watching Elvis singing…no, no Elvis Presley, but rather Elvis Stojko, the Canadian figure skating champion.

That’s right — call me crazy (you’ll not be the first) but I think a 31-year-old Fee Waybill looks an awful lot like Elvis Stojko. Even at Fee’s current age of 56, there is some similarity…no?

Anyhow, you gotta to see that old footage, then you’d believe me for sure.

UPDATE (Jan. 21): My timing was impeccable on this post, as “footprints” are really in the news right now. Just yesterday, this story (link) came out about Prince Charles, who cancelled a vacation after criticism, and who will publish his annual carbon footprint along with his usual “annual report”. I’m 99.44% sure he leaves “bigger footprints” than most of us — then again, you know what they say about guys with big ears…

I decided to check out what my carbon footprint was — that is, my annual greenhouse gas impact on our planet (not taking into account consumption of beans). A rough estimate, from this Canadian calculator, was just over 12 tonnes. I’m below the American average of 20 tonnes per person (!), but more or less at the Canadian average. Which is really not great… It helps that I have no car and have a small, inexpensive place to live. On the other hand, all my air travel is bad (more than half of my footprint is from that) and so is the fact that I’m living alone, so not dividing up the household impact over several people.

Oops, I had a fire in my fireplace tonight, so that probably wasn’t the best idea either…especially since I did it for sheer pleasure.

I tried another calculator (British), and it gave me almost 14 tonnes…mostly because it uses “average British” consumption rates for the “secondary impact”. (believe me, I’m not your “average British”! ;-)

Yet another calculator (this one from BP) gave me a lower reading, of about 7 tonnes. (hmm, that last sentence almost reads like a joke — punchline: “Really? A giant oil company said the greenhouse gas problem wasn’t as bad as you thought?”) This one does not seem to include things like food and public services and such. But you do need to factor in the fact that, for example, lots of the food we eat comes from far away, thus needing “costly” transport. That banana I ate for dessert didn’t come from “La Vergerie de l’Estrie”, that’s for sure…

Anyhow, it’s all very interesting (and, of course, bleak and a tad depressing). The Zerofootprint folks allow you (individuals and companies) to purchase “carbon credits” to offset your impact on the world…I know, this sounds like a scam, but I looked into it and it seems they are a pretty reputable bunch.

Meanwhile, it seems Canadians’ per capita greenhouse emissions may skyrocket (”by proxy”), especially if there is indeed a rapid fivefold expansion in Alberta oil sands production…you know, to help out our poor thirsty friends to the south… Good grief. C’mon people — remind me which part of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is spelled “Produce More”?

British adventure freak David Hempleman-Adams set another record on Friday, in the frigid wastelands of…my old stompin’ grounds of Alberta. He climbed to almost 10km above the earth (about 33,000 feet) in an open basket hot-air balloon, beating the previous record by almost 400m. A (very partial) list of what this guy has done:

• climbed the highest peaks on all “seven continents”
• been to the magnetic and geographic North Pole
• been to the magnetic and geographic South Pole
• crossed the Atlantic in an open balloon
• taken his teenage daughter with him (e.g. to the North Pole, across Baffin Island)

After his flight to the North Pole in balloon (in 2000), he was asked what his next adventure would be:

“At the moment I haven’t even gone home yet, so it’ll be nice just to go home and have a bath and then down the pub, I think that’ll be my next adventure.” — David Hempleman-Adams, from a BBC Q&A

…perhaps that’ll be my next adventure too, though I’ll “mix it up” a little and do the pub first, bath second. Just because — oh yes, that’s right — I’m feeling adventurous…