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I bought a new camera as part of my COVID Coping Strategy and discoverd birds. Little did I know I would accumulate thousands of bird photos. Now Terry has posted a new challenge to prompt me to curate my bird … Continue reading
A new study reveals that greater bird biodiversity brings greater joy to people, according to recent findings from the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research. In fact, scientists concluded that conservation is just as important for human well-being as financial security.
— Read on www.ecowatch.com/birds-happiness-study-2649413979.html
Birding
Costa Rica Birding, The Top Costa Rica Birds – Lodges Custom
I have been doing all kinds of artwork for the past 
20 years and hoped I would do more once I retired. I have some examples on my website and some resources for beginners. I have recently started experimenting with alcohol inks which allows for much freeer process. I occasionally sell my work at shows.
In Aug 2018 the Hornby Island school burned down. So far the provincial government has not committed to replacing the full size gym that was used for many activities on the Island. There is a meeting on Hornby on June 20 with the School Board so we need to forward as many letters as possible before then. Are you willing to write letters or emails? A draft letter is attached below. Emails and/or letters can be sent to:
Scott Fraser MLA: scott.fraser.MLA@leg.bc.ca Mail: Scott Fraser, Room 323 Parliament Buildings, Victoria, BC V8V 1X4Rob Fleming, Minister of Education: educ.minister@gov.bc.ca Mail: Room 124 Parliament Buildings, Victoria, BC V8V 1X4
John Horgan, Premier: Premier@gov.bc.ca Mail: P.O. Box 9041 Stn Prov Govt, Victoria, BC V8W 9E1
Please cc all emails to: HornbySchoolBuild@gmail.com
Dear Minister Fleming, MLA Scott Fraser and Premier John Horgan;
I am writing you to request your support for the replacement of the destroyed gym on Hornby Island with a full sized gym.
Hornby Island community suffered a devastating blow when the school was destroyed by fire in August 2018. I understand the Ministry of Education is the final stages of finalizing funding levels for the new school. The school was relocated to the Community Hall from Sept-Dec and currently functions out of 4 portables. It has come to my attention that the insurance for the gym replacement is only adequate to cover the cost of a gym the quarter of the size of the original full size gym. Hornby is apparently just below the threshold to qualify for full replacement funding. Hornby is a remote island with no alternate community recreation facilities. The existing buildings are often booked with other activities, do not have enough space or are in need of repairs or replacement of equipment. The one facility with some modest fitness equipment has just put out a call for donations of exercise bikes, treadmills etc.
The gym is the center for all in-school sports and after school programming, summer sports activity, emergency preparedness training, toddler and preschool gym, seniors exercise, all ages badminton, teen night, basketball, pickle ball, indoor soccer, tennis, plays and fairs.
There is evidence that people in rural areas have higher BMI compared to urban dwellers which has been a recent trend. (1). Forty percent of the population on Hornby is over 65 and needing regular physical activity all year round including facilities that are handicapped accessible. Regular physical activity helps prevent dementia, (2–5) (6), obesity (7), diabetes(8,9), hypertension, (10) cardiovascular disease(11–13), falls (14), cancer (15) and progression of osteoarthritis. (16) Physical activity also improves pregnancy outcomes (17) and helps maintain social networks. Strong evidence demonstrated that physical activity reduces the risk of fall-related injuries by 32% to 40%, including severe falls requiring medical care or hospitalization. (14). For every increase of 2000 steps per day over baseline, there was an 8% yearly reduction in cardiovascular event rate in individuals with impaired glucose tolerance. (18) In fact, the gym might be even more important for the rest of the population than the school kids. The gym also offered many special events that drew tourists and supported the local economy.
In addition to the gym, a small Natural History Centre was lost. The Centre was an interactive museum that offered learning opportunities for everyone in the community. In addition, it was an important summer tourist attraction that contributed to the sustainability of the economy.
I would appreciate your recommendation to the Ministry of Education for the full replacement of the gym and Natural History Center to their original size and function. The island has done considerable fundraising for a new art center and the appetite for additional fundraising is dwindling.
Your truly
As it turned out.. the school board had already done some scenarios about funding that includes enough sq. ft. to include a full size gym space. The Ministry of Education has a funding envelope that includes funding for emergencies which is going to be used to fund the replacement of the school. Lesson learned: don’t believe everything you hear or read on Facebook.
One of my favourite watercolour painters
via Margaret Atwood Teaches Creative Writing | MasterClass
There is a two for one offer until Nov 29.
http://blog.oxfordseminars.ca/our-grad-talks-about-tattooing-and-teaching-english-in-china/
For anyone thinking about a new career teaching English as a second language with low barriers to entry and opportunities for travel, this article tells you how to do it.
The abundance of information on the internet can feel overwhelming at times. There is a tendency to spend a lot of time surfing the net and/or downloading files, editing files etc. once you are on-line As a result people can shut down from going online or else feel that it is too complex to use, especially if they have not gotten used to it over the years. This may be true for some older people but many older people are very computer savvy. I have one friend who is 68 and is a guru with Garage Band, a program that generates music scores on a computer screen and generates print outs of scores in different keys for different instruments.
I just love my Ipad. I have the Ipad mini which severed me well in my trip to Mexico. There are now Ipads that are cellular enabled so you don’t need to take an Iphone with you. However that is just wishfully thinking as the phone is easier to carry around. The new Ipad pro comes with a stylus for drawing programs which in on my wish list.
I can only speak about my iphones which I have been using since the Iphone4. I will list the useful apps I have on my phone and I pad and what they do. I especially like the transit apps for Translink in Vancouver and Google Maps.
Here is the highest rated phone on Amazon.
| function | name of app | ipad | iphone | purpose | frequency of use |
| 3 = daily, 2 = weekly, 1 < weekly | |||||
| entertainment | scrabble | x | x | play on line | 3 |
| entertainment | CBC radio | x | listen on line | 1 | |
| entertainment | x | x | read on line | 3 | |
| entertainment | Facetime | x | x | talk on line | 1 |
| entertainment | skype | x | x | talk on line | 1 |
| entertainment | Vancouver Public Library | x | read on line | 1 | |
| entertainment | overdrive | x | download from library, read on line | 3 | |
| entertainment | brainHQ | x | play on line | 2 | |
| entertainment | clarient tuner | x | x | play on line | 1 |
| entertainment | Itunes | x | download | 1 | |
| entertainment | optik TV | x | TV guide telus | 3 | |
| entertainment | x | x | read on line | 3 | |
| finances | Inverstorline BMO | x | x | read on line | 1 |
| finances | Vectorvest stock advisory (paid) | x | x | read on line | 1 |
| health | pacer | x | track steps | 3 | |
| health | my ehealth | x | x | view lab tests on line | 1 |
| travel | pay by phone | x | pay on line | 2 | |
| travel | BMO account access | x | x | read on line | 2 |
| travel | Hangtag | x | read on line | 1 | |
| travel | transit360 | x | way finding | 2 | |
| travel | findmycar | x | way finding | 1 | |
| travel | airline apps | x | x | pay on line | 1 |
| travel | google maps | x | x | way finding | 2 |
| utilities | roboform | x | x | keeps passwords | 2 |
| utilities | weathernetwork | x | x | weather | 3 |
| utilities | x | x | read on line | 3 | |
| utilities | drop box | x | x | save files | 1 |
| utilities | daily notes | x | x | keeps notes | 1 |
| utilities | flashlight | x | view things in the dark | 1 | |
| utilities | magnifier 30x | x | enlarge print | 1 | |
| utilities | google drive | x | x | safe files | 1 |
| utilities | wordpress | x | x | post to blog | 1 |
| seldom used | |||||
| youtube | |||||
| linked in | |||||
| kindle |
The chief value of the ipod that I can listen to music, the radio or pod casts and the battery doesn’t run down as fast as the battery in the iphone so you can listed for a couple of hours.
| Site | functions | value |
|---|---|---|
| Set up your account. personal site created by you, open to viewing by your friends by adding them. You can upload pictures or links to other sites. | 5/5 Good way to stay connected with friends and family or special interest groups. Easy to use. | |
| Set up your account.
Brief news feeds from selected organizations or individuals. |
3/5. Kind of a time waster but fascinating none-the-less. Nothing required of you unless you want to retweet a feed to your followers. Easy to use. | |
| Download to Iphone to post pictures. Need to set up an account | 1/5 It seems popular with younger people. It could work as a photo album. You can share with selected people. | |
| Skype | Download the program to computer, tables or phone. You can talk over the internet with a webcam and it is free to chat with people everywhere for free or minimal cost. | 4/5 Very useful for staying in touch with friends and family. |
| Facetime | Like Skype but for MACs and IPads and Ipods | 5/5 Easier to use than Skype. |
| A web site with a lot of eye candy, especially food, fashion and pets. You can post and view others posts. | 1/5 Popular with a certain demographic but not very useful. The recipe pictures are several clicks away from the recipes. Very annoying | |
| YouTube | view short videos about many things, including music, how to videos including many videos about computer instructions. You can save videos if you set up and account. | 3/5 Entertainment, some self help. I don’t use this more than once a week. |
If you want to have music or the spoken word while you walk or run, you will want to download files from your computer and/or from Itunes and upload it to your phone or ipod. You need your Apple ID and password to download. You can also download audio books and podcasts. The Itunes app will need to be installed on your computer and Iphone and and is free to use. However downloading music from Itunes costs about $ 1.00 per tune downloaded. You have to set up an Itunes account if you want to buy files to download. Itunes used to be easy to use but over the past couple of years it seems to be less user friendly. Apple is moving to a paid music subscription service call Spotify which is $10.00 a month so you can download as much music as you want. Once you download files to your computer into the Itunes program, the music will synch with your iphone and ipod by plugging the iphone or ipod into the computer USB port. You can also synch files on your computer via wifi or download files to your iphone directly from the Itunes app on your iphone.
There are many packages for uploading photos and some are more complex than others. The easiest way is to install Icloud on your PC and IPhone. This takes about 5 minutes. You need your Apple ID and password to download the software from the Apple Store. Once it is set up on your PC you can choose what kind of files you want synched across your devices. Having you email and bookmarks synched on all your devices is a must have. I give Icloud a 4/5 but sometimes it stops working and you have to sign out and sign in again or restart or computer.
My favourite software for saving passwords is RoboForm. I have used it for over 5 years and it is free. It saves all your passwords on your PC, your IPhone and Ipad and synchs them all. It is quick and easy to install. When you log into a site it presents you with the option to automatically save the password if it has not been previously saved. And if the password has been saved you click on the name of the password and it will automatically fill in the password. The whole system can be password protected. This software gets a 5/5 from me.
Ok lets start by reading about it.
Here is a list of books recommended by another blogger Pat Doyle. You can click on the link to open the link in Amazon.com or other sites where I found the book.
Designing Your Life.by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans., 4 star. Based on the Design Thinking approach but geared more towards finding your right career. It can be reapplied to retirement life as it’s actually very similar to how I approached new life design in retirement, being a product designer myself! I also liked this book as did the Retirement Wisdom reviewers. When the book finally arrived after about a month I found I liked it the best of all the books I read. ♥♥♥♥♥
Don’t Retire, Rewire! by Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners. ♥♥♥♥♥ A “how-to” on defining satisfaction drivers , separating skills and strengths (with examples), examples of others “accomplishments”, and a how-to guide for working through what in your work life was satisfied by your drivers and how to brainstorm possibilities. Introduces interesting concept of 4 types of work: work for a wage, work for a fee, work for free, work for me. I also liked this book. I liked the categories of what you get out of work and how you can replicate the same “hierarchy of needs” outside of the work environment. However I would add a Fun Factor to their list. Right, many people don’t have fun at work so there are some value adds to retirement that you don’t get out of work.
The Joy of Retirement 
by David C. Borchard. 5 star – Lots of how-to for defining who you want to be in retirement and the lifestyle that will help you be that person. Big sections on roles, talents, and values in defining your vision statement. Love the fact he does not assume where you will be on the continuum of working versus traditional leisure-based retirement. Combines easy to use tools as well as insightful examples of practical next steps. Pat says she wishes she had read it sooner in her journey. Borchard also offers his assessments on-line for $ 35 US. I think the tests are included in the books so it would be cheaper to buy the book. I tired the tests and found they were targeted at career planning more than retirement planning. According to the tests my Passion Distribution is Right Brain Creator and Left Brain Organizer which explains why I am doing a blog. I didn’t find the book or the tests as helpful as some of the books below.♥♥♥♥♥
I ran out of interest in reading about retirement after 3 books so the remaining books are as reviewed by Pat.
How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free. by Ernie J Zelinski . 5 star – An easy-to-read conversational style. Introduces the possibilities “get a life tree”; real people case studies (as opposed to all professional, CEO types), focus on “leisure” (not work) so unique in that!♥♥♥♥♥
65 Things to Do When You Retire
What Color Is Your Parachute? for Retirement, Second Edition: Planning a Prosperous, Healthy, and Happy Future
Now What? Know who you are , Get what you want. By Laura Berman Fortgang. Easy style, how-to-process! Focus is on second career or what did you always want to do so you will be happy, but process can be reapplied to new retirement life situation (or even divorce) Lots of exercises done as answering questions, but good, insightful questions versus generic “how do you feel about this?”♥♥♥♥
Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide
Second-Act Careers: 50+ Ways to Profit from Your Passions During Semi-Retirement
The Couple’s Retirement Puzzle: 10 Must-Have Conversations for Creating an Amazing New Life Together
Here is another highly recommended book by Ken Blanchard and Morton Shaevitz Refire! Don’t Retire: Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life
TheUnRetired.life 