Cleaning Day

It is the basement cleaning day today (I am a day late this week but it still works!). I will begin later this morning as the day is a topsy-turvy one. 

Snow (light) is promised for today but has not yet appeared so may just be a thought rather than a reality. It is cold though at minus 5 degrees celsius. April tends to be like that though. All of this snow across Canada is a good thing though as the run off from snow is much slower than rain and the more we get the later the forest fires will begin. Hopefully not such a busy year with that as last year. We have had a lot of snow and rain and that is helpful. Most of our snow is gone but there are still patches and it was a slow runoff this year. 

Yesterday I worked on the beginning of the Blake Book; revising my Preface and my Acknowledgements got partially written as I had not yet done that. Principally the acknowledgement is to my grandfather as I would never have written it without his stories to me as a child. He was an interesting person in my life; always there when I was fairly young and then he moved to a small apartment when I was around six years of age as I recall but I used to visit him every Saturday and then he came back to our house to stay the night as I recall and we all went to Church on Sunday. My recollections are from a long time ago though and I can always be corrected. But he was always there for Sunday I remember. I missed him very much when he passed away. Although I clearly remember him in his coffin when I was eight years of age I still looked for him around me somewhat which was strange perhaps but a child of six has just so much comprehension and then dreaming and desire takes over I think. By eight years of age that changes somewhat but still the dreaming and the desire conflicts with what you know has actually happened. 

This book definitely acknowledges the stories of my grandfather as the prime driver in the writing of this book. Although many of the stories were repeated by my father in the years that followed my grandfather's death I always consider them to be his stories rather than my fathers. Sometimes my father would forget parts of a story and I would fill it with the memory of what grandpa had said. 

Perhaps this morning I will have a look at the Hinxman information that exists in the books and other records that I have and prepare them to send on to my correspondent in this family. This family line (Elenor Blake married Joseph Hinxman 10 Dec 1610 St Marys Andover) does not really add anything to my Blake line other than the often used forename Joseph which was carried by my 4x great grandfather Joseph Blake who was of Andover when he married Joanna King at All Saints Upper Clatford  8 Jun 1757. Both of these individuals (Joseph and Joanna) had mothers with the surname Carter and tracing them back gave me Edmond Carter and Ann (Monk) Carter (married 8 Sep 1700 St Marys Andover) as my 5x great grandparents and grandparents to Joseph Blake. Joanna's grandparents were John Carter and Jane (Woods) Carter (married 4 Aug 1701, St Marys Andover). The two Carter families do not appear to be related although both Carter marriages are at St Marys Andover with one in 1700 and the other in 1701. Interesting but I have not yet collected any information earlier than that. 

Comments on layoffs because of AI but I do wonder if part of the problem is the lack of training for young people. AI will need proper oversight and training to really be an effective addition to the workforce. It is unlikely in the long run that it will diminish the number of jobs overall as the requirements for managing AI will be considerably different from human input into the various jobs that are currently being considered for AI work. In order to have AI do the best job on the designated work one must have management and control (judgement) and security in place but it will be a gradual turnover if one is to have the best results from the implementation of AI. 

Schools must be more attentive to the students currently learning to assure that their management skills are probed and perfected as they will enter the workforce at a higher level of proficiency than currently (that is why language skills are so important even in four year old kindergarten and the students should all be at a similar level and if not those who can not work at that level need to be in remedial until they can). When I was substituting for absent teachers the going thought at that time was to have students work together which does encourage good co-operation but sadly doesn't teach management skills to all of the students that are in a group as they did not know how to do that so my process was to have each student manage the initial project at their desk and then work together to create the final product (that makes better use of their skill sets and eliminates ideas that are less effective much quicker). They didn't like it as much but their efforts were too slow to reach the stage where working together was effective; too much conversation and not enough productivity I did note at that time. But personally I did not care to teach particularly and only did substitute teaching to help out so did not attempt to create any thoughts on eliminating the idea of working together at initial stages but rather have each member of the group prepare for the bringing together to save wasted time on discussion which was too wide-ranging for the task at hand. Focus is definitely much more important than abstract ideas that take up too much time to bring to a point where they are useful. Better that the abstract idea is constructed singly and then either used or discarded. More effective I think. 

Must get some work done. Tea all drank and solitaire puzzles are next to sharpen the brain for the next stages of my work.  

 

 

The work week begins

 Beautiful sun today and a light snowfall just to remind us that winter has not yet left us behind. Snow into April is pretty common. Repotted the orchids and they are looking good. Still flowering and a couple of them are ten years old and more. 

Today not a lot going on just catching up on a few things. Exercises all done and need to do the solitaire puzzles.  

 

 

Happy glorious Easter! Christ is Risen, Alleluia

 The most important day in the Christian Church year, Easter Sunday, the day that fulfilled God's Promise that His Son would rise again from death. But God, His Son and the Holy Spirit are the Trinity that is so much a part of the Christian Church. It is the Miracle around which the Disciples of Christ elevated to Apostles found the will and strength to create the Christian Church which has existed through more than 2000 years of Homo sapiens existence. When one goes to St Paul Outside the Wall in Rome and gazes upon the pictures of the Popes that are all around the walls on the inside, one gets this sense of continuity although there were times when the Church was fractured but always came back together and stronger. Although the Anglican Church (Church of England) was long ago excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, yet they continue in dialogue even to this day. Will they ever be one again? I have no idea really but the roots of the Church of England lie in the Celtic Christian Church first noted in the historical records at the Council of Arles in 314 with three British Bishops attending. The council called by Constantine following the Edict of Milan (313)  when Christianity became a legal religion. Earlier information on the Christian Celtic Churches in the British Isles is mostly folklore handed down by word of mouth generation after generation. My grandfather greatly believed that Joseph of Arimathea brought Christianity to England  not long after the Resurrection of Our Lord and when we were at Glastonbury the stories that my grandfather told to me were once again brought to my attention and I was amazed at how the story that I had learned as a child was once again in pretty much the same words learned by me at that visit. The art of passing information through families in those ancient times and even up into the latter part of the 1800s was very efficient. 

Although the Anglican Church was long ago excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope remains in my mind and heart the head of the Christian Church on Earth. What God has wrought can not be put asunder - the Pope, to my mind, will always be the head of the Christian Church on Earth.  

It was in the Tomb that Joseph of Arimathea had built for himself that Jesus was buried.  Joseph was a wealthy Jew who regularly visited Cornwall to purchase tin. It is said that Joseph (said to be the uncle of Mary the mother of Jesus Christ) brought Christianity to Britain having been sent there by St Philip (Apostle and Disciples of Jesus Christ). He was also said to have brought the Holy Grail to England and hid it in a well at Glastonbury (the Chalice Well). All of this I learned as a child and as we wandered about on our tour the feeling of being on Holy Ground was very much in my mind to be honest. This trip, like my pilgrimage to Rome in 2001, was a fulfillment of a childhood desire to go and be there including my grandfather's home town of Upper Clatford which I also went to as well as the Church of All Saints also in Upper Clatford. Standing beside the font felt like a trip home to where my grandfather was baptized. 

Once I had done all of these things and the first two trips I made to Europe concluded that dream I must admit to losing the desire to continue going back but my husband found his wings across the ocean on that first trip to England with me and from then on it was he who led the way for all those trips later. Interesting really in retrospect. 

Church a little later and a few things to do first.  Prayers for the World as always; may peace come to our world. Prayers for Artemis II as they continue their path to the moon. 

Holy Saturday (Black Saturday when I was a child)

 The Easter weekend continues and it is Holy Saturday although when I was a child we called it Black Saturday. The Second World War perhaps gave more thought to calling it Black Saturday. It was a day of contemplation in silence mostly but we know the answer that on Sunday just 24 hours away we would celebrate as Christians have for two thousand years and more the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But on Saturday it is always a day of contemplation of waiting holding onto that promise that Jesus made that He would rise again from death's grip because it was God's promise.  Life changed between those two days more than two thousand years ago for a group of people in the Holy Land as they took on the mantle of Jesus Christ and built His Church still active around the world all these centuries later (our new Pope has given us his words of wisdom on this blessed weekend and there will be more tomorrow). Throughout my life though we have changed here and there accepting God's new commandments which will lead us to that peaceful uplifted plain where all are free and we are at peace taking care of this beautiful world and helping it to heal so that all the children's children's children can run on the soft sandy beaches and swim in the fresh or sea water just as we did as children. 

Yesterday was a busy day in some ways but also a quiet day; I did attend the Good Friday Service at my Church on YouTube. The music was, as always, quite beautiful. The symbolism unchanged and yet modern to my eyes and our minds are all moving forward to Easter slowly but surely coming in less than 24 hours now. My Anglicanism does not change very much through this 80 years; its consistency is its strength. This Church, my Church, which goes back into the deep deep past of the British Isles with its roots in the Celtic Churches of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Thank you God for being with us all these thousands and thousands of years. The dawn of DNA and all those testers show me that my roots are very very deep in the British Isles but we are all Homo sapiens.  

Next week I shall return to my work and complete the extraction of the matches. I need to have a look for Hinxman and its derivatives in my records and will set some time aside for that quest. I did not do a lot on Hinxman but did do some. It is a name that enters the Blake family way back in the early 1600s with the marriage of Elenor Blake to Joseph Hinxman at St Marys Andover. 

A lot got done this past couple of weeks - nice to have the new drapes and the old blinds gone. Much easier to handle (they all wash in the washing machine). Anything that cuts down on the work load in a good way is a bonus. Contemplating moving but it will be a while before that happens I suspect. Not a rush but will be nice to just have the one floor (and the basement). This house is actually small enough but feels large because it has two floors and a basement and every nook and cranny of the building is used for rooms (a good engineering feat for sure and we have enjoyed our 48 years here). I never wanted to move; I did not have close family here and the desire to have more entertainment area just never appealed to me and eventually Edward lost his desire to have a bigger house in favour of his garden that he loved. 

Prayers continuing for my eldest sister; I will send a letter every Sunday that her husband can read to her if he wishes. Life has become much smaller for her and we certainly just circled the wagons when Edward was no longer able to be part of anything larger than family.  Once we were seven siblings and now we are four siblings and that is how life flows; I remember my grandmother saying that as she too was one of seven siblings although two of them (twin boys died as infants) were so little when they left that family and the next to pass away was her mother when she was eleven and her father when she was fourteen. The five of them were quickly gathered up and taken to the Marston Green Cottages at Soho (Birmingham, Warwickshire, England) where they lived a short time and slowly sent to Canada between 1905 and 1908 (although by then she was 20 and paid her own way coming with one of the groups to Halifax where she took over the care of her second youngest sister) and they all traveled to London, Ontario where her (until then) unknown half-sister lived and she had consented to take the youngest child into her home. The others all adults by the standards of the time found jobs and a new life. My second oldest aunt was the first of the five to pass away in her mid 60s (a blue baby at birth who survived all those years) and grandma said once there were seven and now we are four but she too passed away twelve years later followed by the only brother (second eldest) who had survived the First World War in France living to be 84 years of age, followed by the third eldest sister who passed away three years later. My mother was worried about her last aunt, the youngest, and so we (Edward, our one year old and myself) traveled to visit with her in that same year (1975). She was very like my grandmother (the eldest and the youngest in that family) and she was fine and loved it that we had brought our nearly year old daughter as she had had three sons and no daughters and was living on her own at that time. She too said once we were seven and now there is just me left. She lived another ten years but her son came and took her home to be with him which was wonderful and her letters told me of her happy life with her grand daughter (I have corresponded with her). What stories they sometimes would tell me of their life and one day perhaps I will write a book about the Buller family of Bermondsey, Surrey and Birmingham, Warwickshire. But as a child I never thought about being old and that we would become a smaller and smaller group this set of seven siblings. Life is a continuous happening and it is an amazing gift of God to Homo sapiens that we need to appreciate and care for and help bring us to that uplifted plain of peace. Where all can live in peace and the children can sleep without fear. 

Another day for the trip around the moon and Jeffrey Hansen spoke this morning from the space capsule along with the rest of the crew. Canada's astronaut in Space; how marvelous that is. 

Tea all drank and must do my solitaire puzzles.  

 

Another busy day and this time shopping

This week has passed very quickly and today is Good Friday. A sad rainy day which befits this special day in Holy Week. As a child and as an adult I found this to be the day that I truly understood the loss of Jesus to the people of his time and place but what He left behind is the Christian Church and His eternal gifts to us that have passed to us down through the ages in our worship. Remembering always the two commandments which He brought to us - Love God with all our  heart, mind, soul and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. The word love transcends the earthly meaning but perhaps it captures it perfectly - respect, consideration and dedication to peace so that all who dwell in this earth can have peace. 

Yesterday was a food shopping day and all completed with three stops in all. We are ready for Easter Weekend. Sweet and sour chicken will be our dinner on Easter Sunday. Today we had pizza - a treat for a busy day along with a cabbage stir fry. 

My blood test results for the Ontario Health Study came in and match last years results of my annual medical exactly actually. That works in my favour as consistency at my age is a good thing. My yearly checkup will be soon actually. The year has passed very quickly. I am pleased to be in the Ontario Health Study. When I saw the writeup I thought what a perfect idea given the number of people who are over 70 years of age now in Ontario - a great study group for sure. This opportunity was created by the Baby Boomers following the Second World War and commenced with the beginning of 1946. I was actually part of a very small group born after the war ended and before the Baby Boomers. We were labelled the quiet generation and we have proceeded through life ahead of the Baby Boomers but watching this enormous group behind us as they altered life for all of us by their huge numbers - their effect on the system measurable. 

 The Good Friday Service will be on YouTube at 12 noon today and always memories of Good Friday Services past flash through my mind. But perhaps most in my mind is my first Good Friday Service at my Anglican Church after the Church Secretary hired to replace me (I was a volunteer secretary) at Edward's United Church. I did feel it was somewhat inappropriate for me to attend my Church during this time of volunteerism so did not but after I was replaced I went to the early service regularly for a number of years until we started going to Dominion Chalmers in the latter part of the mid 1990s. Although I went thinking it would be good for Edward (and it was the minister took a few minutes every week and chatted with him which was very meaningful for Edward) since his brother had just passed away and his mother was not well and they were all of his birth family that he had known all of his life; the sermons of this very knowledgeable United Church Minister on the early Christian Fathers of the Church were absolutely excellent. It was a perfect United Church for me for sure very like the one that my Uncle (and his wife my Aunt) and Grandmother attended in my home town. I felt very much at home in that Church although when that minister retired a few years later (we were actually just going to go for a few weeks during this special set of sermons) we moved on to my Church (Christ Church Cathedral (Anglican) Ottawa) as Edward wanted to thank me for attending his United Church for the nearly twenty years that I had gone with him there. That did surprise me actually although Edward still returned to the local United Church for special services and the Ladies Group there prepared lunches for his Gene-O-Rama days that he organized through the years. 

Going down memory lane is good for the soul I think as one sorts through one's life. The time to come is unknown but the time past is 80.5 years now and one needs to sort one's mind on occasion. I sort it best with my fingers on my keyboard as that is how I mostly speak. I am not a very communicable person in actual fact. 

Amazing sometimes that I worked for so many years but I was well trained to do such things. It is the training that is placed on our children that will fit them for life. That is the task of our teachers more than anything else to teach them how to be managers along with all the tools of education that are now at their fingertips to pass on to children. They will need those skills because entry level will be AI and the skill of managing AI is what they must obtain through their education. I continue with my thought that no child should be accepted into kindergarten (including junior kindergarten) unless they speak the language in the classroom at the level of the children that are there. No teacher should have to catch up children who do not speak the language - they should be in a class where the skill of the used language is taught until they are ready to attend regular school - they waste a teacher's time. It is the responsibility of parent's to ensure that their children can communicate effectively at their age level when it is time to go to regular school. 

AI becomes as effective as their managers and indeed one will not see a shrinking work force but rather a workforce which must manage an ever growing number of AI units in our lives. Children must see themselves as managers rather than as workers; AI will always need managers and as their duties increase so does the managerial level increase to ensure that all aspects of AI are controlled strictly and securely. People talking about a smaller workforce are scare mongers really and cause depression amongst our young people. The youth must continue to become as educated as they can manage so as to be that managerial level within our society that will be created by this entry level of AI into our lives. That is the way that AI can best be managed and the scare mongers need to contemplate what they are saying because they are not seeing the future as it will be where managers will have new jobs that we have never even thought about yet as this new methodology enters into the work force. If it isn't there then AI will be caught up in a very wasteful state as they will not be capable of intuitive and constructive thought but simply recall what is in their memory system (effective or ineffective) and they will not be capable of sorting and understanding the difference. One can sharpen this simply by learning but always the need for managerial level remains to keep the system efficient and prosperous especially so that AI is not caught up in a loop much like the loops of early programming in my day that cluttered up a computer program until it was located and fixed. Education is the key. 

Off my soapbox and on to the day. Tea all drank and now solitaire puzzles.