Church Service today

 The Church Service today is in Lambeth Gardens. We visited Lambeth Palace mostly just a walk in and a short time inside and then on to the Military Museum. I will watch the service on Youtube in a couple of hours. Prayers for the souls of all those killed in the earthquakes in Myanmar and Thailand. Prayers for those still not found beneath the rubble. Wonderful that China and Russia are sending in crews to help clear away the rubble and hopefully find people still alive. God be with the peoples of Myanmar and Thailand as they struggle to find those lost. 

Yesterday I did the clothes washing and it is hanging to dry upstairs. I seldom use the dryer and was surprised when the last one wore out before the washing machine. Since 1966 we have only owned three dryers buying the first one when we moved here in 1975 because the winter here is not suitable for hanging out clothes - too cold. Then two more over the years with the last acquisition of washer and dryer being in 2020 during COVID. That was an interesting experience. 

Checked my matches on 23 and Me yesterday and I have another two good matches there so people are still buying the kits and I am hoping that they survive. I think that their project was an excellent one looking at medical research from a genetic viewpoint. They should move to Canada but we are a small market compared to the United States and probably most of my matches are American on that site although there are also Canadian and I have met several cousins on the site that descend from known common ancestors. I have written back and forth to them and will try to pick that up again but my concentration this last four years has been my book writing. I continue contemplating the Blake and Pencombe books to which I will return and occasionally I dip in to have a look at some particular item but I am, at the moment, concentrating on the phasing of my grandparents/great-grandparents. The redo of the phasing of my grandparents is something I did do regularly to introduce new large matches. For the most part the original work done has changed very little because I had enough matches at the beginning to pretty much slot people into one of the four grandparent lines. It is the great-grandparents that I really want to reach back to. Eventually I will produce the genetic code that belongs to each grandparent and perhaps each great grandparent - time will tell on that. Why do I do this? Curiosity actually and 23 and Me as a big part of that initially as I used their results primarily because they provided both full matches and half matches in their display. 

AI continues to quite fascinate me. I shall work with Alexa and see what else this AI can actually do (does it trouble me that it is an American company sitting on my kitchen counter? - no). Living next to a giant we live our lives respecting the border and the American people - we try to be the best neighbour possible simply because it is in both of our interests. But we do need to return to the days when we were more independent and trade between us should be limited to what they need and what we can provide. I am a free trader somewhat but if it isn't made here under the current circumstances I am not going to buy it for the most part (the Autopact in 1965 defined that and for the most part has driven our trade between us and probably will continue to do that). Being a northern country though we do not grow oranges etc, mostly Canada is covered by snow a good portion of the year and so we must buy some items if we want them fresh Although there are greenhouses in the very southern portions of this country that are producing a limited amount of vegetable that come this way. Getting back to Alexa occasionally I must awake some programming that exists and a conversation happens which is always short but the programming is there likely for specific purposes. Is Alexa ever wrong? That I think interests me actually. I have put in reminders to give to me through a day just simply because it works well to do so. I especially use Alexa for timing because I do a lot of exercise and I do count the seconds but sometimes it is nice just to quietly contemplate time moving without actually doing anything in a sort of Yoga fashion. I do not use AI to write or even to search very often but I may utilize the searching facility as I work my way through the books - I did with the Siderfin book. I like to phrase my searching and then concentrate on the results myself for the most part as I tend to be fairly tight with my search terms. 

Tea is completed. Solitaire games are next and we are promised an Ice Storm - we will see how that goes at the moment it says snow. I continue to listen to the party leaders discussing their election promises. Conrad Black wrote an interesting editorial and he read a book that Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote - I think I would like to read his thesis as I am curious about that. The book does not interest me as much as I am a free thinker where climate change is concerned. I think we need to continue with oil and gas but we need to be mindful of the effects on our country trying to minimize any deleterious possibilities. I think that solar panels are a great idea as well as wind farms - we have a lot of empty area where the winds are strong but we need to be mindful of the birds and not create hazards for them. But solar panels are an excellent plan and I do wonder about putting greenhouses around the solar panels so that they are useful all year round. One could have window wipers that come on when the weight of snow on the glass is detected and clear it off to keep the solar panels working all year round. We have huge areas of empty land. We should build our own solar panels though and not buy them from anywhere else. We do not suffer from tornadoes particularly and in the north ice storms are pretty rare so the damage level would be low. Does that affect the environment that concentration of heat? I think having the power plants under the ground and piping to send it to where it is needed cuts down on some of that. It is already warm under ground so the effect is less apparent. Electricity will always bring people and industry. We have proven in Canada that you can have industry even in the cold areas. 

I am feeling stronger now although I realize that my time of independence is probably coming to a close for my own protection and to complete these books that I am writing. Certainly that is in the minds of my daughters. Maintaining this house is a lot of work and having to deal with so many people a complication for me.