I am Bonnie Offit

I am a bit late to the party with this but I feel I should contribute as well.

Anti-vaxers hate, and I mean really hate, Paul Offit.  The man is pure evil it seems.  Why?  Because he created a Rotavirus vaccine called RotaTeq and is a horrible meanie who must be a pharm shill.  He eats babies too.  I guess by extension they do not much care for his wife, Bonnie Offit because today the lovely Mr. JB Handley outed her as Sullivan from Left Brain Right Brain. Well, not really. Sullivan is not Bonnie Offit and the logic and evidence presented is pretty damn laughable. I will not get into how bad it is but Orac does a pretty good job summarizing it in his usual way.

I just thought I should do the Spartacus thing that is going around today and state that yes, I am Bonnie Offit.

First Snow

First snow
Falling
On the half-finished bridge.
--Matsuo Bash��

Go West, Young Man!

I have not been writing here very much lately but I have a few thoughts about possible posts.  Hopefully I will get to them soon.  But in the meanwhile I should have a few photos and adventures to write about as I am flying out to Vancouver in about 9 hours for a short vacation and to visit some friends I have not seen in far too long.

Hooray!

Racing Fools

I just found out that an friend of mine was killed Thursday night while waiting for a bus. According to this article a driver plowed through the bus stop he and his wife were waiting at killing him and seriously injuring his wife.  I did not know Paul extremely well having only met him fairly recently but we saw each other regularly when out and about.  We were hoping to get together for a beer tasting night in the near future, an event that sadly will not happen because of the actions of a stupid and selfish driver who thought it would be fun to race.

Fallingwater

Sadly I have not had time to write about neuropeptides and other fun things like I had hoped.  The last week has been pretty busy.  However I thought I would take a few minutes to share a link I came across yesterday.

New Brunswick is one of those provinces in Canada that most people do not seem to know a lot about.  When I do meet someone who has been to my home province the experience they often describe was of a drive through province as they are normally on their way to Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick just happened to be in the way.  But I would like to think there are a few reasons to stop and visit for a few days.  It is a beautiful place.  I think this gets overlooked quite often.  No, there are no mountains to speak of but there is a large amount of beautiful forested and nature areas to explore.  And waterfalls, apparently.

Of course I am familiar with the province's best known falls, Grand Falls, but to be honest I am not really well acquainted with any other falls in the province, so this site was a very nice find for me as well.  Some of those listed here are pretty small, they seem to barely qualify as a waterfall but I was surprised by how many sizable examples there were.

Anyway here are some of the examples I really liked from this site:
Penniac Falls - I grew up so close to this one.  Our house was down the road from it, just as you enter the city limits.  I never really thought of it as an example of a waterfall before.
Third Vault Falls
Lower Joslin Falls
Howland Falls
Silver Falls - I have no idea how many times I have seen these.  When I would walk to UNB I would often take a route that brought me past this.
Pinder Falls - As a lover of abandoned places I think this simply looks very cool.  This waterfall is created by an old dam that was used for a now nonexistent mill.

These are mainly located in York county but there are many more to look at and read about from all over the province.  And if you ever find yourself passing through perhaps you might want to take a little time to stop and look around.

Pulsate

I have not had much time to write anything this week but I hope to get around to it on the weekend.  But I thought I would share this little diversion in the meantime.  Pulsate is one of those ideas that seems so simple and obvious you have to wonder why you did not think of it.  All you have to do is click on the screen.  Every time you click a circle is created and begins to grow.  When they meet a tone is produced and they shrink again.  That is all there is to it, click, make relaxing music, and when you are tired of your creation just press space and start again.

Play with it here.

Actually, just look around the entire page.  There are a lot of fun sound tools to play with.

Goodbye Modernity

Yet another post about my walks throughout the city.  Whenever I walk through the experimental farm, or anywhere near it for that matter, I can see this large, modernist office block towering next to Dow's Lake.  But it was only last week that I actually walked closer to the building in order to investigate it and noticed this huge building is empty (well, there was a single car in the parking lot but I saw a security guard drive away in it).  It is a fairly eerie sight.

I think it also is a pretty wonderful place.  It has two big things going for it.  First, I really like modern architecture, I have a certain fondness for the concrete, for buildings that lack ornamentation (or perhaps I should say I like those buildings that are their own ornamentation), and for those things that others think are ugly.

Pre-cast concrete panels, sweet.

Second, the place is abandoned.  Yes, I said it was an eerie sight but I do not mean that as a bad thing.  Abandoned places are attractive for some reason.  Maybe it is just a shame to have a nice building sit empty.  But it is also nice to be alone with the building itself, without the hassle of being around all those nasty people things.

I did not have a lot of time so I just took a few photos was I walked through the grounds.  However I will have to come back and investigate soon.  And it will have to be soon as this building is apparently slated for demolition.  Some people wish to save this building and I can understand why, though I am not sure this building itself should be maintained.  But I do hope some examples of this style will remain.  We have made the mistake of forgetting about the importance of historical buildings in the past but many probably have a hard time seeing these as being special.  Yet, if we decide to remove all of these structures I think we shall regret it in the future in the same way people lament the destruction of other heritage buildings.

Well, I shall simply end this with a few more exterior photos.  Enjoy!

In all its glory