10Sep 2024 by R&O No Comments
The Guilty Taxpayers

The Guilty Taxpayers

Crime, Economy, Life, Life in Vancouver, Observations, Politics, Rants
While making my way to work in 2011 along Powell Street in downtown Vancouver I was given a pamphlet while waiting at a traffic light. The guy who approached me as I sat at the light mumbled something about 'Save the downtown Eastside' as he presented his informative missive. The title read 'BOYCOTT! Pantages/Sequel 138 - Condo$ are Destroying Our Low-Income Community'. This is asking the working, contributing taxpayer to support their quest to maintain the tattered, depressing hell-hole that is our downtown Eastside. Let's save the slums, the misery, the abject poverty and the legions of drug-addled, homeless people wandering into traffic. Vancouver's downtown Eastside eats the city from within, spreading its filth and drug addiction through violence and crime, affecting the lives of all that live and work…
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01Sep 2020 by R&O No Comments
The Sedation Vacation

The Sedation Vacation

Life, Observations, Silly Stuff
Travelling, though obviously extremely rewarding and educational, can be challenging in this terrorism and COVID-19 world. Simply getting on a plane and flying to a destination anywhere in the world involves a lot of waiting, security checks, more waiting, cramped seats, bad food, even more waiting and transportation to and from the airport to your chosen hotel, Airbnb or cabin in the wilderness. All of which sacrifices the first and last days of your trip to the rigours of modern travel and leave you exhausted and irritable upon arrival at your destination. As a frequent traveller, I've given this some thought and have a practical and simple solution I like to call the Sedation Vacation. Picture this: On the day of your departure the SV (Sedation Vacation) technicians appear at…
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03Jul 2020 by R&O No Comments
My little mixer

My little mixer

Life, Music
Way back in 1983, my brother and I discovered the Realistic 32-1200B Stereo Mixing Console, a relatively cheap little mixer available only at our local Radio Shack store. It was a revelation as it allowed us to produce quality mixed tapes for ourselves, each other and friends using two turntables and copious amounts of time. These were the days before digital audio, streaming services and Amazon Alexa. Mixing music was time consuming and required a certain amount of skill and those that were blessed with our quality mixed tapes were appreciative and usually requested more. The price was an issue. The 1983 price of USD $119.95 (as shows in the US catalogue below) converted to 2020 dollars is $308.78 and then converted to 2020 CDN dollars is $418.80. That would…
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13Jul 2019 by R&O No Comments
My Bitcoin Rollercoaster Ride

My Bitcoin Rollercoaster Ride

Bitcoin, Economy, Finance, Internet, Life, Technology
It's been 9 years since my first tentative experiments with Bitcoin and the ride is just as exhilarating as ever, even more so as the price has begun skyrocketing once again. After reading about the technology way back in 2013 and setting up my old windows computer with software to mine coins, realizing my hard drive was too small to store the blockchain ledger and my computer too slow and clunky to process transactions, I gave up before receiving any coins. But I realized that it was something important and I needed to learn everything I could about it and understand how it worked and more importantly, how to participate. Cut to mid 2019, almost 2 years after the crazy December 17, 2017 peak of USD $19,783.21 per coin and…
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