National Metal Day

National Metal Day

First celebrated 25 April 2020

This day was requested and organized by Rose and consisted of a week of fabulous activities for all.

Every day we were sent an automated message containing a link to a metal or similar genre song, we listened to it and sent in our votes to Rose.

Here is a list of the songs with links to YouTube so you can have a listen:

• Iron Maiden - Speed of Light
• Queens of the Stone Age - The Way You Used to Do
• Anthrax - Got the Time
• Fates Warning - Seven Stars
• Megadeth - Holy Wars... The Punishment Due

Tamsin and Sangchen joined in with this week from the UK (many thanks) and all was going well until Thursday night when Rose counted up the scores and realized that Queens of the Stone Age, who are not a metal band, were in the lead, hmm.  This caused some problems with the elements of our country to whom metal is serious business and a guest judge was called in at the last minute to rig the votes.  Thanks to Metin (AKA the Emissary of Satan) here are the final scores:

1. Megadeth - 7/10 average
2. Anthrax - 6.5/10 average
3. Iron Maiden and Queens of the Stone Age - 6/10 average
4. Fates Warning - 5.5 average

Note that average is the mean.  Mode and median were also discussed.

A further activity was to create a video of yourself playing air guitar to your favorite metal tune.  Not many people got around to this, I was too busy doing the catering, but here is Rose playing along to Slayer - Raining Blood:

I'd like to thank Sangchen for his excellent rendition of Europe - The Final Countdown.

And finally we had a celebratory meal of 'Pizza' (mind) for the Iron Maiden fans, bread 'drum' sticks with cheese fondue and a cake badly dressed up as a drum.

National Bird Watching Day

National Bird Watching Day

First Celebrated 18 April 2020

This first national day of our glorious country was a bit of a wash out.  The weather has been absolutely pants this April with really, I mean really cold temperatures and inappropriate precipitation.  This is the view from my bedroom window on 15 April:

April Showers?

We have recently seen quite a few birds on our feeder and Jacob in particular has been taking an interest.  Here's a list of what we might have seen on National Bird Watching day:

• Chickadee
• Dark eyed junco
• Chipping sparrow
• Goldfinch
• House sparrow
• White breasted nuthatch
• Downy woodpecker
• Hairy woodpecker
• Yellow bellied woodpecker
• Cardinal
• Robin
• Mourning dove
• American Crow

Here's what we actually saw all day:

• 2 Chickadees
• A few cold looking dark eyed juncos

A pathetic turnout, I think they maybe didn't get the message.  We might try again during Spring Watch.

We also celebrated with special food:

Spaghetti nests with meatball eggs.

Spaghetti nest

Bocconcini penguins.

Bocconcini penguins

Strawberry chicks in ice cream sundae nests.

Strawberry penguins

The UPP Quarantine Diaries - A Preamble

Good Day to you future citizens of Parkonia and visitors to our glorious land.

I hate writing introductory posts so I'll keep this short.  On the following pages you will find a brief history of how we spent our lock down months during the COVID19 outbreak of 2020.  I will start with a brief preamble of how we arrived at this point and introduce next 'week'.

In order to stop all the weeks of lock down from merging together and try to give our lives a little routine (and not least to stop me from accidentally opening a bottle of wine at 11 am on a Wednesday) 'we' (see definition of Parentocracy for 'we') decided on the need to celebrate something every week and the national day scheme was born.  In order for a 'National' day to be possible it was necessary to declare our independence and so from hence forth 78 Winding Way, Kitchener will be known as the United Parentocracy of Parkonia.  According to the 1993 convention on rights and duties we need 4 things:

• A permanent population - check
• A defined territory - check
• A government - check
• The capacity to enter into relations with other countries - working on that

We need to write to the UN and get them to recognize us - maybe we'll wait until this is over before we bother them.

We also have:

A system of governance:

We are a 'Parentocracy"

Definition: A form of Oligarchy where the state is ruled by 1 or 2 elite individuals with a senior(age) relationship to the proletariat.  Citizen's wishes are taken into consideration in the process of governance but not necessarily acted upon if they are not deemed to contribute to the common good or are just stupid.  Jacob has pointed out that it is ironic that the proletariat are the only people who don't work, might have to change the wording in the future.

A flag

Designed by Rose, overseen by Jacob.  Did you know that an expert in flags is called a vexillologist?  remember that for your next pub quiz.  Note that the colours, carefully selected by Jacob are:

• Amber
• Red
• Snavy blue
• Emerald

See what he did? (he's gifted you know) and also note that Rose got the order wrong!

UPP flag

A national anthem

The Wii me lounge music, listen here.  Protocol while listening; stand and bob about a bit, occasionally wave hands in the air and jump.

Independence Day

April 12 2020, to be celebrated each year on Easter Sunday with the consumption of Pizza and chocolate mousse.

We also have:

• A national dish - Pizza
• A national bird - Chickadee
• A national flower - cone flower of any colour
• A national slogan (not yet ratified) - Bottoms UPP

In the pages that follow we will record the national days, their dates and themes and a pictorial representation of how they were marked.

Enjoy

Footnote:

Actually, I won't introduce next week but this is an evolving situation as they keep telling us and as absolute ruler of this parentocracy I shall do as I please.

Holiday - Day Three

This morning we went for a walk at the Laurentian Conservation Area.  It was a glorious morning and a little spice was added to the walk by this sign in the car park.

No need for us to worry as the kids are so loud that there is never any wildlife within a 5 mile radius wherever we go.

The walk was more of a scramble with lots of rocks to climb over so no one complained about being bored for a change.  We went through a lovely stand of birch trees.

And I saw wild blueberries and something that definitely looked like bear scat.  No moose yet but the lake was really pretty and amazingly tranquil considering we were inside the city limits.

Holiday - Day Two

I'm not going to write much (again) as having such a relaxing holiday that am completely cream crackered.

Today we went to Science North.  We really, really went to Science North and were there for about 6 hours.  There were 4 floors of exhibits with live creatures, science demonstrations, movie presentations and all sorts.  Rose's favourite part was pressing a button that made a model of a man fart and Jacob liked the old fashioned typewriter (???).

Rose held a cockroach.

And Jacob was captured by Jabba the Hutt and frozen in carbonite.

I lay on a bed of nails, yes I really did and I was wearing a dress so no protective denim.  I also learned first hand that porcupines smell like armpits and that butterflies tickle when they land on your leg.  I saw a live (fat) beaver.

And a moose in a tutu.

And that's all I can remember right now.  Hope we have a less educational day tomorrow so I don't wipe out anymore memory cells.

Holiday Week - Day One

Guess, what?  We're in Sudbury for a short post house buying break.  

Yesterday we drove up to Parry Sound so we could do a cruise round the 30,000 Islands in Geogian Bay.  The scenery up here is unique and inspired many of the paintings of the Group of Seven and Tom Thompson, I think The Jack Pine may have been painted here.  If you are not familiar with these Canadian painters, particularly Tom Thompson you should look them up, we might do some interpretations in between packing next week.

So I'll stop rambling and put up a couple of pictures.

Not seen any moose or bears so far but it's early days.  Shall be sure to take a selfie if i do.

Pluto Day

I've been quite interested in the New Horizons mission out to Pluto so we had an impromptu space day.

We got out Jacob's solar system model and tried to explain about the planets to Rose, I think she got it but you never can tell.  We looked up how big Pluto is, did you know that it's diameter is less than half the size of Canada from east to west.  And I tried to look it up in The Wonders of the Solar System but it's not in, what's with that Brian? I've got to say I was disappointed.

So my big question is, what is the ginormous heart shaped thing that you can see on all the pictures they're putting out?  The most accepted answer at the moment seems to be the remains of a collision basin but as I thought that was a bit dull I challenged the kids to come up with another explanation together and present it.

They spent quite a while on this, came up with an illustrated story and made power point display animations.  As I can't upload them here I'm just putting in the pictures with captions.  Enjoy.

That was Rose's.  Here's Jacob's version.