The individual who came and fixed my eavestrough that had pulled away and was looking to come down in early April today cleaned out the eavestrough and made repairs that were needed. He did a great job I must say and very quick and efficient. My husband always took great care of the house and could make minor repairs to anything really so I did not know a lot of people who did repair work and cleaning. But the house insurance company (and car) have a company that does pretty much anything that needs fixing around the house. It is a great addition especially for a person like me. My daughters can do a lot but repair and such is too much of their time and my son in law is also very busy.
Summer has come and soon out kayaking. The parking pass is ready to go in the car making going kayaking really easy - parking passes are great and really the cost quite minimal for the summer as we tend to go most days. I walk and my daughter kayaks and that works very well. I need the walking outside where it is uneven because the floors are all level where I do most of my walking through the winter months.
Some work on the matches and now down to just seven to assign to the various data bases and review the trees if there are any. I now have Microsoft 365 as my old version was Microsoft 2016 and I have meant to subscribe for awhile now but I want to use copilot as my AI working on my databases. It really looks just the same Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Access and all the files easily come across from the 2016 version to the 365. I think there will be interesting combinations using AI to work on the great grandparent phasing. For many of the kits I have extracted the matches in common plus I have my set of chromosome charts that shown the known cousins and also the dataset that goes with that. I am ready to begin the Genealogical Charting although will produce it in Legacy and can drag the various lines into the chart as I create it to save on a lot of typing. Although I must admit I continue being able to type at 100 or better words per minute.
I noted that the tariff on mushrooms is 3% which did surprise me and is kinder to the Americans who buy them for sure. I think it may be unrealistic to think anything particularly will be tariff free under this new idea of how to conduct business between countries being showcased by the United States. A much larger economy which imports from other countries does have quite a sway in controlling trade and the tariffs that they place on incoming goods particularly when they want to regrow industries in their own country (we have been tariffed by pretty much every President in the United States for quite a while for various items particularly though softwood lumber). The same goes for us really as a middle economic unit country in the world although I like the idea of free trade although tend to think of it as buying items that I cannot buy produced in my own country. We also need to get back to making items like toasters (this one I bought is okay but cheap in quality and will not last for a long period). If I pay $60 for a toaster I expect it to last longer but given the fragility of the product that is unlikely although I will try to be gentle with it. But I like toast and eat at least one slice a day or more so it gets used a lot. My vacuum wore out after thirty years so now I am using the washed up Shop Vac as I wait for a vacuum to be made in my country. I am determined on that issue. It sounds like a rocket taking off but I will keep using it as it will probably last forever; it is a very basic construction with no bells and whistles. Long life is likely its way and will probably outlive me! It is made to do hard work and pick up just about anything. We simply do not make enough small engine/motor items in this country as all of these industries were either out competed or bought out by American companies who then took the production of these items offshore from their own workers crippling their own economy and making just a few people rich instead of benefiting their own people.
Do rich people think of countries anymore though or do they only think of themselves as an independent unit running around the world in private airplanes polluting the air and creating havoc in airports with their demands to land when and where they want. No ideas on that particularly other than they should pay huge landing fees and rental fees for storing their airplanes. They are in the way of transportation for the many and should consider that when they use an airport. The many is more important than the few although AI is endangering that principle. They also should pay huge taxes as they cause us to have more policing and more airports and more security and the list is endless. As the economy produces less money for people in countries there will be less spent obviously and eventually people will stop traveling and stop spending but making more items themselves and repairing more items themselves. What goes around comes around eventually for those who have caused this havoc in our world by going offshore with production because they did not want to pay their workmen/workwomen a living wage. But wanted more and more for themselves. The world is no longer a kind place with some countries creating terrorists that they fling on the world everywhere and why - they think it supports some sort of a religious statement. They are the most dangerous people in the world really or the people who are tribalists like the present Russian hierarchy who believe that they can take over anything that has a Russian living in it (they could just go back to Russia if they are so determined to be Russian)! We will see how the tides flow in the years to come; I may not but the young will. My father used to say that tribalism would destroy our world faster than anything.
Looking forward to high speed rail actually as that will eliminate this need for huge airports for internal transport of people in their own country. Plus you can hook a few cars on the back and provide rapid delivery of items - a train car can carry tons of material compared to an airplane.
On the other hand AI will free up people to do work that isn't being done now because of lack of workers. The trades are desperate for tradesmen. The individual who worked on my eavestrough is very knowledgeable on his craft and that is important. The finished product lovely and will last because he took the pains to do all the steps that need doing in order to produce a good finished product. I appreciate that attention to one's particular craft. Trades offer such a variety of experience and talent and the use of one's abilities to create wonderful items and always improving on what has been. There is lots of space in the trades for innovation and creation of new and better items. Really I see that as a purpose for our members of parliament whom we pay huge amounts of money to get out with the youth in their community and encourage them to find work that is needed and you may find your heart's desire is fulfilled by that find. The economy is now glutted with university graduates and it is time to look at the trades for a good future and a healthier one. Sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day is unhealthy and unimaginative. All of the interesting work of creating methods of working on a computer have been done although there are always improvements I grant you that but 95% of the people who work on computers have no idea of how it functions or how to create new and useful programs.
Cleaning day and will soon begin the main floor is next and I think I will do the same as yesterday and do the bathroom first and scrub those floors and then vacuum the main floor and then dust. That should see me done around 1ish. I just had my breakfast as I was late today so no rush on that.
First Solitaire puzzles to waken up the thinking part of the brain.
