Friday, October 31, 2025

Hope for Canada

 From my favorite blogger:

…my hope for this world does not depend upon “Conservatives” or “Republicans”; but upon a revival of Christianity and of the Catholic Church; and, for instance, the forced retreat of the tribal “religions” that have been replacing her, with the decay of our intellectual and moral faculties. It is not good to know that we are going to Hell. Instead, let us affirm the truth: that salvation is through Christ.

Read it all here.

Someone is a Wheat Kings fan


 Happy he is to have a Wheaties hoodie.

Trick or Treating


 These trick or treaters will be seen in China.

Poppy Wearing Season


 I haven’t done this in over twenty years. I’ll be glad to participate in it again.

Cannabis


 I haven’t been here long enough to get over a curious sight this is.

Friday Mass


 Father John asked how could your acquaintances, friends, and family question why you go to church.  The Church, he says has the magnificent  liturgy and thousands of years of history.

Tim Horton’s on the Trans Canada

 


Buddy Ray and I had coffee at Tim Horton’s near the intersection of Brandon’s 18th street and the Trans Canada Highway.

The place was full of old retirees and Indian staff.





Friday 8:00 AM


 I hope the weather will be fine for trick and treating.

My anti-blog

It’s here! 

It’s a place where I put the things that occur to me.

My morning reading


 I read snatches of these books every day.

Friday 6:20 AM


 It feels cold. I don’t want to get out of bed.


I have extended my Duolingo streak and completed the daily challenges and uploaded this video:



Friday’s Video Upload


 A NGD quote video

Thursday, October 30, 2025

Momentary Panic at Sobey’s


 I indicated earlier that I was going to take my mother grocery shopping   We went to Obey SS — sorry, I mean Sobeys.

While there, I heard over the intercom that they couldn’t take debit cards because MTS was down and  thus the internet was down, which meant that they could only take cash at the tills. Mom had a shopping cart full of stuff as the announcement was made.  Putting our cash together, we may not have had enough to pay for the cart’s contents.  They then said that some credit cards were working so we could have used mine.

But then they said they were able to take debit cards again.  We retuned to filling the cart,

A local, when hearing from us about this, said this failure of the network was a periodic thing in the province of Manitoba, and that it was always best to have cash on hand.

My Video Uploading Regimen

 I upload my daily quote video to WeChat, Red Note and Rumble in the evening around 6:00.  They are thus available to China in the morning, their time.

I then upload the quote video to YouTube the next morning.  Whether this makes any difference, as far as view numbers go,  remains to be seen.

Coming soon to a YouTube channel near you


 I just recorded a bunch of quote videos.  After I edit and produce them, you will see this handsome fellow in a week or two’s time.

Thursday 1:53 PM: Off to

 


Off to grocery shopping with my Mom,

Friday will be Halloween



 

KFC & McDonald’s




 KFC is not as ubitiquous  as it is in China,

From a certain angle, the Golden Arches can be seen to loom over the KFC.  But not from where I took the above photo.  I’ll work on getting that image.

And there just happens to be a plus size store nearby.



Horse Trailers



 There must be a horse show at the Keystone Centre.

Thursday 8:33 AM: Waiting


 I’m waiting my son so I can drive him to school.

A Jose Maria Escriva Quote


 I do this everyday. I really do.

Summa


 A poem.  Why not?

Thursday 5:37 AM: No snow


 It doesn’t appeared to have snowed last night.

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

5:33 PM: Snow tonight!?!?


 My just said:  it may snow tonight!

My son’s and My reaction:  What!?!?

One of the reasons to come back to Canada was for my son to see lots of snow, but I don’t want to see justyet.  After another month or so would be better.

Especially since I raked leaves this afternoon 

Minus 3: I walk about the neighborhood


 I have three hours of online teaching and a job interview, but otherwise it’s a slow day.  So, I went for a walk in the cool crisp weather.

I had planned to walked to 18th street and back, but a black cat crossed the street ahead of me and I decided to change my route.  Peace of mind is something to be devoutly wished for.

I saw this:


An elaborate Halloween display.  A lot of homes are doing this.

I also pointed my camera up at this:


Stately elm, I can say?

Any who! The walk was invigorating. I enjoyed the cold sensation.

Wednesday 8:04 AM: Chesterton Quote

 


I have two books of daily GK Chesterton readings from which I gleamed the following quote:


The key part:  the permanent human temptation is the temptation to be mean.  I’ll admit it is a temptation I succumb to a lot, especially on social media and when contemplating politicians, bureaucrats and progressives.


Wednesday 7:46 AM: The Dawn


 Well, it seems more dawnish than the previous photo.

Wednesday 7:33 AM


 A nice view from my bedroom window.

BTW, I’ve extended my Duolingo streak to 2103 days.  It was supposed to be my Lou Gehrig milestone, but then I checked. Lou Gehrig’s streak was actually 2130 games.  So, I still have 27 days to go.

Listening to a Kunstlercast Podcast

He talks to Jeffrey Tucker of the Brownstone Institute

Nice dissident talk about the stupidity of the Covid response.

Wednesday 7:04 AM


 Feeling better now that I have been active.  I have done some planning, or should I say intentioning?

Planned classes I did.

Wednesday 6:00 AM


 I feel like crap this morning.  A feeling of what’s the point? has come over me: a dark time of the soul.

I’ll just have to keep plugging away.

This morning’s video upload


 A quote from Nicolás Gómez Dávila.

Moving to Brandon, nothing is currently commonplace for me.

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Seen while attending RCIA


 Mom says I was baptized at a Canadian Forces Church in Iserlohn, Germany. I will have to try and contact the Military Chaplain General in Ottawa for proof.

Tuesday 4:07 PM View


 Four hours of teaching so far. One more hour to go.

Loving the blue sky!

Tuesday 11:44 AM Blue Sky


 Blue sky is what I see!

Blu sky smiling at me!

I also see trees and clouds!

I got to spend more time outside in the vicinity of thr house

 I try to be on my toes as I live with my mother.  As she says, when I see something that needs to be done, I should do it.

Keeping in spirit with that admonition, I took out the  garbage  and recycling.  Exiting the house the slap of cool fresh air on my body was invigorating.

I got to spend more time in the vicinity of the house.

Last night’s 18 inning sportsball game

I listened to one inning of last night’s 18 inning World Series game: the ninth inning.

When the final batter of that inning was retired and extra time was certain, I decided not to continue following.  It was a good decision.


Tuesday 9:47 AM: Finished one class


 The sun rise while I was teaching two students; one of whom was in Nanjing, the other whom was in Chengdu,

Tuesday 7:42 AM


 The dark bit of cloud and the sunrise blue: nice to look at!

Two most recent video uploads


 

The first video is my reading of a Simon Weil quote.

The second video is a silly thing I did with A.I.  It has had over 1K views.

Eating in Restaurants

 In China, we’d eat out five or six times a week; in Canada, we eat out once a month.

Tuesday 6:03 AM: Today’s plan


 A 7:30 to 9:30 AM Ielts class.

A 12:00 to 14:00 Preply Class

A 17:00 to 18:00 Preply Class

18:30 RCIA Class.

Monday, October 27, 2025

Do I have a Manitoba accent?

 I wonder if I sound like a local to Brandonites.  I detect a Brandon accent when I talk to locals for sure.  So I wonder if the locals think I have an accent of someone from somewhere else.

Monday 8:36 PM


 Interesting photo of cloud.  At least, I think so.  I wonder what locals think.

My Wedding Anniversary is the 300th day of the year

 According to Chat Gpt:



According to Grok;


Grok is wrong. Alas!

The Day I Got Married


 

Power outage at my son’s school

 I drove my son to school and then had to pick him up soon after because there was a power outage.

I was informed of this via robo phone call.

In China, I am sure they would have carried on.

Parents in China would have been informed of any general emergencies via WeChat.

No umbrella bags at the Shoppers Mall

 At shopping malls in China, on rainy days, they put out long narrow bags at the entrances for shoppers to put their wet umbrellas in.  This is not done in Canada.

Why the difference?  I will speculate.  Canada having had a longer car culture has not the need for umbrellas that the Chinese of Jiangsu province still do.  That’s my guess.

A wet morning


 I wait for my son.





I wait for the bank to open so I can make a deposit.


Monday 8:23 AM


 I’ll drive my son Tony to school.

19 years ago in Nanjing, China


 

I had to be reminded.. 

Thursday of the Last Week of Christmas: 8:15 AM

 Or the third day of the Octave of the Epipihany. I’ll take view photos when the sun comes out. Today’s video upload: A Simone Weil quote.