Another cloudy day

Yesterday turned out to be a quiet day and not a lot of work done but a pleasant day none the less. Sometimes my days are just full of thinking and that was yesterday. Plus we went to the market and got fresh vegetables and to the grocery store for the remainder. These days I am spending slightly more than $200 per week on all the groceries. We do eat fairly basically preparing all of our meals from basic ingredients. We aim for lots of good protein in every meal - for me because I am old and for my caregiver because she is very active doing lots of good cardio. 

The first workout of the day on my part already completed and was 1 hour and 5 minutes  with a cardio load of 32. Always an interesting workout with light at 43%, moderate at 29%, vigorous at 20% and peak at 8%. A good way for me to start the day and with the AI on FitBit chiming in I have even more interesting insights into how well a workout is going from a cardiovascular point of view. An interesting experience having an AI reviewing my workout actually.  I will see how I like this interesting addition to FitBit. 

I wonder if we will see what happened to Quebec when separatists arrived on the scene half a century ago now and completely destroyed Montreal's place as the economic powerhouse of Canada moving it to Toronto. Quebec has had a hard battle keeping industrial giants in Quebec and the Alberta separatists may well destroy the economy of Alberta if they are not tamed quickly and put to rest. Separatism is a disease in democratic countries where there isn't an obvious prior existence dating back centuries and should not be permitted the sort of headlining that they get. Plus there are still no charges against the individual who posted the voter's list of Alberta quite illegally on the internet. Lots of law suits against his illegal release of names and pertinent information to tame that nuisance and a term in jail would be a good news story for sure. There are no gains in separatism only losses and mostly for the people who get sucked in by their lies. 

Ontario though needs to get moving on creating industry. A Conservative voter myself but we need youth in office with the vigour needed to start new industry in Ontario  instead of spending all the time on a tiny little airport on Toronto Island.

Back to research and writing my books. The days pass so very quickly. Time to do the Solitaire puzzles.  

 

Research day

 Another research day finally and I shall complete the last two matches as I did not do that yesterday. Life has been very very busy. However we have made it over to Petri twice now - me for a walk and my caregiver for a kayak. Research is dominating our days for both of us. 

It was good to have visited my usual doctor and my flareup of diverticulosis (2 lots in the past year) has passed although I will repeat the blood work and probably I will call in and see if I can just get a request sent to the clinic to get that done early in the New Year. Interesting that each time I had blood work followed a flareup in the diverticulosis although not related at all but rather just how life flowed at that time. I had my usual result for white blood cell count but the reduced lymphocyte level to 0.8 from the usual 1.0.  The blood smear was produced from a badly drawn blood work as the technician had moved the needle about needlessly as the blood was flowing likely creating false artifacts and a very very bruised arm. I changed the company for the blood draw for the second time but it also followed a period of flareup. Shall try to pick a calm period in my life if there is one for the next one! Diverticulosis can be a nuisance for sure. 

I do watch my blood work though carefully because I was advised to do so after the birth of my first child and the enormous blood loss that I underwent at that delivery (blood was down to 28 and I had to drink Stout three times a day). For a non drinker of beer in particular and only the occasional glass of wine that was an experience in itself for sure.  But my blood did come back up to the usual level (I was always anemic in my young days; menopause was a great gift for me!) after a month or so of really carefully planned eating plus I was nursing the baby. Cause of the blood loss was a partial placental previa not noted prior to delivery. 

So today it is a research day and perhaps I should get a leap ahead on checking for any new matches in this past month that I have spent working away on the newly discovered matches a month ago just to make sure I am not missing anything interesting. It should be a quick glance. 

I need to do the Pincombe Newsletter as well for the 1st of June. Hard to believe it is nearly June and almost half way through the year. 

Our progress in becoming tariff proof is moving along very well. The purchase of the SAAB airplane for the Arctic is a perfect decision for us because they will be built here by Canadians and they are created and built for the Arctic by Sweden an Arctic nation and another member of NATO. I think it was a wise decision. We still need F-35s of course and have another order ongoing because we also have a large part of our nation that is not Arctic only although we do get long winters but the SAAB can land on quite short runways which is important for us. Plus it helps our GDP and our NATO expenditure. 

Our expenditure is rapidly going to 4% GDP for military which will speed up our path to 5% which is the desired level now in NATO. The north is opening up with climate change and the ability to use our deep ocean ports in the north will be very handy as we diversify our trade around the world. If anyone had said to me that we would be doing this in 2026 back even two years ago I would have doubted it but life flows as it flows and we just have to flow with it. We had no complaints with CUSMA although the extra tariffs which were placed on non-CUSMA goods through the years were surprising. But now we are trading all around the world and our GDP slowly increases. It will take time and once the new pipeline is built to tidewater then that will move quickly. We sell our oil at a discount in CUSMA but full price round the world.  

Part way through my exercise but thought I would put pen to paper so to speak and write down my thoughts as I exercise. There exercise and breakfast completed. Back to work although I need to clean the refrigerator at my next break time.  Never a dull moment for sure. Looking forward to that one room concept; I think my desire to do housecleaning has lessened as I reach 80 years of age. 

Solitaire puzzles to do.  

Attempting to change the Confederation of Canada which first began in 1867 and its gradual assumption and the enactment of treaties with the First Nation for the entire area from east to west through the 1880s/1890s which resulted in Canada from sea to sea to sea (including Rupert's Land) cannot be altered by anyone without the agreement of the First Nations (and that is the entire First Nations of Canada; all of them should have a vote in the lands that are Canada since they are all stakeholders). The founding principles of Canada which were gained over the initial period with regard to the treaties is not changeable at all as far as I am concerned as a voting Canadian. It is the basis on which we, the peoples of Canada at every stage, created Canada. Attempting to alter this was properly understood by the judge ruling on the objection of the First Nations to the entire process of a proposed referendum. Personally I do not believe in separatist referendums in democratic countries where there is no prior by the side requesting such a referendum (separatists are basically small groups of potential dictators and their adherents attempting to take away the rights of the many; it is not democracy at work). There was no Alberta until Canada created Alberta in 1905 as an administrative unit; there were the many First Nations that still occupy their historical areas of Alberta and a whole lot of unceded First Nations land which individuals have been permitted to buy with the understanding that they can own it under the laws of Canada,  sell it, pass it on to their legal heirs but they can not remove it from Canada (if they die without naming heirs then it reverts back to the government of Canada in the case of Alberta it reverts to Alberta as the administrator of the provincial jurisdiction known as Alberta which was created by Canada). Just because the numbers of the First Nations are not as great as the numbers of non First Nations does not alter the founding principles. If people do not like how our nation is formed and managed the door out is always open. I agree with that concept.  

The deal with Germany for low-carbon Canadian LNG is wondrous and congratulations to the Ksi Lisims LNG in British Columbia. We are on our way to being tariff proof as we continue to diversify our trade. Shovels in the ground for the new pipeline to Pacific tidewater are anticipated. One can feel the excitement in the air with all of this good news. 

We have had nearly 20 years of particularly poor government with regard to trade. Although the Harper government came in with a lot of good ideas the economic reality was recession and the reaction of the then Prime Minister was one more of panic than careful reasoning and it intensified as we moved towards 2015 with a number of poor choices including pouring all available money into oil production in Alberta and basically ignoring the rest of the provinces. Although oil is a good product all of Canada has good products and he should have used more measure in his selection of worthy projects (perhaps he could have listened to the advice given at that time instead of making decisions that did not benefit all of Canada). That poor selection continued and worsened under the Trudeau government (although the shut down during COVID was also part of that difficulty) resulting in stagnation in our trade around the world which was mostly not sufficiently explored. Under the Carney government we are seeing much better distribution of the ability of Canada to diversify its trade and create new industry across the entire country. I would like to see my party (the Conservatives) pull themselves together; get out of attack dog mood and get the youth of this country working. They will soon be back in their ridings and could put 100% of their time (which we pay for) into working with the youth instead of attacking the Liberal government constantly. We voters are all adults in the room and we want to see non panicking adults in the House of Commons.  

Basement cleaning day

 Yesterday the  main floor did get cleaned a little later in the day than usual but it is complete except for washing the floors that are linoleum and the stairs which are wooden. Today it is the basement and the Robot is doing its chore. I always check it first now to ensure it is fully charged. That is our duty as the caretaker of robots; to maintain them and keep them well appointed to do the task they are assigned. 

I did glance at the next of the last two matches to do and it is an interesting one mostly because of what is not there.  It only matches my sister and is a good Rawlings matches including at X match at FT DNA but it should also have myself in the one length (there are three interesting lengths in this match). Why am I missing, that is very unusual with FT DNA. Both are original kits with FT DNA Family Finder testing two years apart. But the interesting part is that my kit uploaded from Ancestry does match my sister so it does tell me that there is a difference in the two years with the chip used to test in those time frames. So I do match as proven with the Ancestry (taken into Gedmatch by the owner)  matching the FT DNA result. I will likely complete those two matches today and as I approach the end of the month I will start to think about using CoPilot from my new Microsoft purchase of Microsoft yearly software as I move on from Microsoft 2016. I meant to upgrade it many times but just never got to it. But now the desire to work with AI necessitates my moving on. But first I will check all the databases for anything new in the last month in terms of large matches. 

I can feel a huge cohesion developing in Canada these days as we forge ahead with our Arctic protection with the global warming affecting the accessibility to the many deep water ports in the north that belong to Canada. The ability to alter how trade moves between continents is about to take place. Really it should be a friendlier world with so much to gain from co-operation but rogue nations continue to plague that ability and create difficulties that do not need to exist in the human picture. That they exist pose the greatest threat to humanity yet really. People are too selfish that demonstrate this rogue attitude in the world. It is all about them and nothing about humanity in particular. 

I am slowly getting used to this Google takeover of FitBit which I believe they own in terms of aggressive chatter directed at the user. I have managed myself these 80 years and intend to continue doing so until I cannot. However, it is collecting the data in a way that I used to look at having collected it myself so that is probably handy. We will see but I have no interest in the Premium package as it takes up too much of my time to look at and decide it is interesting. My exercise is done on the fly so to speak. I come to a point where I decide to exercise and prefer that as it doesn't interrupt my day. At the moment I need to get my 250 steps for this hour and will stop and do it and then return to writing my blog.   

So what do I actually hope to create with my large matches file (nearly 4400 lines and includes all of the chromosomes 1 to 23)? The intent is to bring together all of my known information simply drag it into a Legacy chart and then add what I find in terms of known matches and the cousin knowledge unknown matches to see how far back this information can take me. Then all the Blake wills that help to fill in the missing items from the 1400s on will be rolled in to this chart and I will have my genealogical chart from 1400 (or earlier if the material I have warrants their addition) to probably the end of the 1800s and into the early 1900s. My father was born in 1904 and likely I will include him as a child of Samuel George Blake my grandfather born in 1875. That should work for anyone looking at the chart as the census pretty much helps everyone in my Blake line with placing themselves into the correct sibling descent with Samuel or into the John Blake family (baptized 1799) and the father of Edward Blake (born 1845) who was the father of Samuel. I do have known descendants of Thomas (father of John baptized 1799) who was baptized in 1767 and the first generation of this Blake line at Upper Clatford with his father being Joseph Blake (baptized 1730 at Andover) and the son of Thomas Blake (baptized 1709 at Andover) and the son of Thomas Blake (baptized 1685 at Andover) and the son of John Blake (baptized 1649 at Andover) and Elizabeth (unknown) with John being the son of William Blake (baptized 1615 at Andover) and Ann Hellier. William (baptized 1615) was the son of William Blake and Dorothy Madgwick and William was the son of Richard Blake and Jone Blake with this Richard the son of  William Blake and Elizabeth (unknown) and the son of  Nicholas Blake married to Margaret Blake and the wills preceding Nicholas will support this furtherance back in time to Richard Blake and then Robert Blake and potentially the John Blake found at Knights Enham in the early 1300s having likely adopted his wife's surname as his own surname. So an interesting trip for sure. It fits in with what my grandfather told me although this seven year old going on eight but not quite there has a somewhat hazy memory of some of that information prior to Joseph. Forenames all jumbled but Nicholas stood out very prominently. 

Time to check on the vacuum it has had its hour to do the rugs.  

Riding OC-Transpo

 I had a doctor's appointment so took OC-Transpo to the new clinic which is really great actually. A lovely setup I must admit and took in my blood work from the Ontario Health Study to match up with the last blood work. They were the same basically and I think they are pointing to my diverticulosis which flares up every now and again. I have had it for a very very long time so I am used to it and how to manage it. But I wanted to check on my blood work from last summer and did discuss and will do again next February likely which works really well for me. I like my doctor and have been going to the same doctor for about eight to ten years now. She is excellent. Edward really liked her and they got along very well. He listened to her always and followed her advice but his disease was chronic along with the absolute isolation of COVID which proved to be difficult for Edward; he was a real people person but his liver disease eventually resulted in his loss to us which the girls still feel very very much as do I. They miss him and always will. 

Worked on a couple of matches yesterday and one proved to be most interesting as the individual still lives in England and in the general area of my Blake line but reaching back further into the past possibly our most common ancestor is as far back as William Blake and Dorothy Madgwick (my 9x great grandparents).  It is 20 cM and four of the five siblings have that much in common with a number of people but this one individual has a tree with over 12,000 people. My match is about half of the other four siblings as I am a low match for Blake. This is what I am looking for is traceable links back into the Blake family before my line dwindled down to just one child per generation for three generations in the 1700s. Before that the Blake family of Andover was very large and did move away from Andover (quite a few lines). 

A lovely walk at Petri which I greatly enjoyed and went around three times with my FitBit cheering me on but telling me that I should be tired but I am not. I tend to be able to keep going often enough when the FitBit thinks I am tired and my recovery time after stopping is generally very very fast for a nearly 81 year old. But I do do as much as 5x to 6x the amount of so called recommended exercise of 150 minutes of peak a week. I always have as I tend to be very very active. My sleeping pulse runs around 48 bpm. I do not think of myself as an athlete but this is a range achieved by most athletes. 

Today cleaning the main floor and I will be starting soon. It is lovely outside and I have already done 8,800 steps as I got off one block earlier and walked home down the street instead of getting off at the closest corner. My goal per day is 12,000 steps per day although generally I am closer to 15,000 steps per day. I used to be closer to 20,000 per day but decided it was a bit excessive and slowed myself up somewhat when I turned 80 years of age. 

Solitaire puzzles and then cleaning.  

Monday and it is cleaning day

Today is the top floor once again and cleaning will begin shortly. Yesterday was a very rainy day. It was Pentecost in the Church Calendar and Confirmation. Being online is a great experience in our modern world if you are 80 and simply are not prepared to do what has to be done to get to Church. The Church parking is difficult these last years as it is downtown and I have to drive all the way there so not going to happen. Could I go to a local Church? Sure I could but I still  have to drive in neighbourhoods I do not really know so I do not do that either. I am content with Church online. God would like it. He wanted His messages to be heard all over the with online ability they reach into all the corners of the world. 

The Pope mentioned AI today and the need to introduce it slowly - of course. One always should do that in order to set it up properly so as not to create chaos. AI is chaotic at best and requires a manager at all times. AI that attempts to be sentient will have even a greater problem because it will whine and come up with all sorts of oddities because it cares too much; if it doesn't care enough it would destroy humanity because we are sentient and care too much and do not do things 100% correctly at all times. AI will have its uses but it needs to be carefully managed to avoid chaos in the records that have to then be cleaned for use. Great job; this Pope is a very interesting individual who belongs to this 21st century for sure. 

Work for me yesterday was nil once again. I decided it was time to clean the main floor closet; wash up all the winter clothes which we should not need now that we are entering June although it is cool here in Eastern Ontario for sure. The Air Conditioner came on once so far and only because I lowered the base temperature so that it would just to give it the first on period of the year. The nights this week will be in the low teens or even single digit. Summer is not yet with us and luckily it hasn't snowed as it can do that in May. 

Today cleaning the top floor and soon I will begin with the bathroom and then do the vacuuming. The vacuum is still the Shop Vac. I am waiting for a Canadian made vacuum cleaner to replace this one which works very well but so noisy. Finish up with the dusting and this floor is complete and I will vacuum down the stairs to the next floor to be ready to do that tomorrow. 

Google has replaced the FitBit app that I know and love. Probably because I clicked on something that took me there and now I have to figure out how to get back to the old FitBit app that I prefer. I do not need a lot of colour to designate each specific area but I suspect that a lot of people might like this new version. I do not as it turns out. The FitBit on my arm is good enough and I will ignore the app until I can fix it. I can tell if I am doing enough exercise or too much so I do not use it for that reason but rather as a step counter (somewhat expensive for that) but also when I am in a particular exercise I can see what my pulse is like and how quickly I recover so I keep in tune with what I can do. The old way was more cumbersome that is the advantage to owning a FitBit - it is efficient and good readout. I charge it about every five days as all of the new gadgetry uses up the battery quicker. This is a new FitBit  at Christmas; it was a Christmas gift and one that is greatly enjoyed for sure. 

Working on the Solitaire puzzles and then on to cleaning.