The price of gasoline

Gas prices hit the $1.00 per liter mark up here a couple of weeks ago. With the current exchange rate, that's just above $3 US per gallon. Several of the stations are too cheap to buy new signs, and the signs they have won't display the extra digit. They either put up 10.2 or 02.1 and expected people to understand that it meant 102.1 cents per liter. I figured if they're too cheap to spring for a new sign, then they should give the gas to us for 2.1 cents. I think the poor guy working there had heard that only about eight hundred times that day, as he didn't look very amused when I suggested it :-) .

But wait, it gets worse. This morning, before I even opened my eyes, the alarm on my stereo turned on. They were talking about gas prices. I was awakened by the news that the price jumped from $1.00 to $1.20 per liter OVERNIGHT!!! This is insane.

The stations all have friendly little stickers on their pumps telling us all about the evil taxes we're paying on the fuel we're buying. It's all a very good point, but it's also a thinly disguised propaganda technique designed to divert anger away from the oil companies and towards the government. I hate the extreme taxes as much as anyone, but let me tell you something: gas tax sure as hell did not increase 20% last night.

I really feel for the guys over in Europe, they're getting gouged much worse than we are. Fortunately they have trains and buses that work for them. I wish we had the kind of public transportation infrastructure where I could actually put it to practical use. I figured it out once, it would take me four buses, one train, and about two and a half hours to replace my 25 minute commute. Do the words "not an option" mean anything to these people? The public transportation system is designed to cater to anyone who works right in the core of downtown Toronto, anyone else is SOL. And then the idiot politicians in charge of it get on the news and whine and moan about how nobody uses it. It couldn't possibly be because THE SYSTEM SUCKS, now could it???

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the situation. I seriously don't think I can afford to shell out $1.20 per liter for gasoline just to drive to work every day. That's like $75 every week. I'm looking at either carpooling, or trading the Dakota for some fuel efficient piece of crap tinfoil car. I really don't want to get rid of this truck. I have a certain emotional attachment to it, which I know is irrational, but there it is. Norah and I met because of our two '95 Dakotas, and since hers was totalled, this is the only one we have left. Besides, I feel much safer driving something made in Detroit out of steel than I would driving something made in Korea out of recycled Coke cans.

Something has to give somewhere, I'm just not sure where. The small amount of good news is that by the time I came home from work, most stations had gone back down to $1.045 per liter. Was the $1.20 thing just psychological warfare designed to make us feel good about paying $1.00?

Here's some more information for you to consider.

The Propaganda:
These are the stations I deal with locally:
Petro-Canada's helpful guide to understanding gas prices
All about Shell's gasoline prices
Esso's information about gasoline pricing

The Reality:
ABC News: Record Prices Mean Record Profits for Oil Companies

I'm sure I'll be able to find more, but it's getting late and I'm getting tired of searching.

It's too bright in here...

Did you know hornets eat duct tape?

So I was out in the back yard the other night with the dog, and happened to look over at the kitchen window where we have the air conditioner installed. As the A/C doesn't fit exactly in the window, I used some pieces of styrofoam to fill in the space around it, and sealed up the gaps with duct tape.

Apparently we have another hornet nest in the cracks in the house. What surprised me was that one of these stupid hornets was sitting on the edge of the duct tape, eating it! I ran to get my camera and tried to get a picture of this behavior, but the stupid things wouldn't cooperate. This was the best I could get:



Or, in case you can't make it out:












This sounds like a job for (cue drum roll)...
















Oh, sorry. I always get the stupid French side first. Like I was saying, this sounds like a job for (re-cue drum roll)...

Yet another difficult day :-(

Today just pain sucked. I think I did ok on the test, but won’t know until probably next week. We learned a lot about essential fatty acids, fats, and oils today. Some of which pretty much blew my mind. I think I’ll be throwing out all the cooking oil we have in the house and just buy a small portion of Extra Virgin Olive Oil that has been cold pressed. After learning about how the other oils are processed and how toxic they can be, especially if not stored in the fridge or exposed to light really opened my eyes. I’ll try to post about it when I have more time.

We were given yet another assignment which I will have to present on August 31st. Eeeek… another presentation that has to be around 30 minutes on vitamins. We were each assigned a vitamin or mineral to talk about. I lucked out and got Magnesium. This is one mineral that I happen to know a lot about as I’ve researched the heck out of it. Magnesium is one of the reasons my Fibromyalgia is in remission. Well, I don’t really think it’s in remission right now though.

All the stresses lately have really got me hurting a lot. After class I had an appointment with the Chiropractor. After my adjustments to my neck and lower back, he worked on my bad left leg. The muscles in this leg have gone into total spasm yet again. I thought we had this all working pretty well, until this Monday. The Osteopath worked on it for 50 minutes and finally got it to release, but it only lasted one day. Today the Chiropractor decided to really get this to release and with manipulation and extreme/painful pressure, got it to let go of the spasm in about 10 minutes.

This was horribly painful, but at least I can walk relatively normal again. This lopsided crap just has to go. His orders for me were to go home, ice the muscle, do my stretches and ice it again. Ok… there goes my homework time again, as this process takes about an hour. Instead of coming straight home, I had to pick up some supplies for my 2 assignments, and then I got home and did what I was told to.

Tomorrow is clinic day so I won’t have to worry about doing any of the class homework, but I do have to be ready to give 2 Aromatherapy treatments. Man, I hope my back holds out for this, right now it’s not very happy. I’ll have to remember to put the back support on for the clinic day tomorrow and to use the massager on my back tonight before I go to sleep.

Today’s depression hit a little harder. I found myself wanting to cry for no reason at all. I don’t want to go back on prescription drugs for this as the side effects are not something my health wants to deal with (weight gain, sugar cravings, etc.) I’m already taking 5-HTP, which is a natural anti-depressant that also helps with Fibromyalgia and I don’t want to stop taking it. I’ll have to research it and find out if I can up the dosage or not. Wish me luck.

Reflexology

Yesterday was such a busy day; I pretty much collapsed when I got home. My first appointment was with the Chiropractor at 8:00am, which meant leaving the house much earlier than I’m used to. Reflexology class started today and it’s quite intense. One of the prerequisites for this class is Anatomy & Physiology, which I don’t start until October. My brain was totally fried by the time class was over at 4pm but I still had appointments to run to.

I had an appointment for massage therapy from 5pm to 6pm, then the Osteopath from 6pm until 7pm. I didn’t get home until 7:30 and still had all the regular chores to take care of along with my school homework and homework from the Osteopath and the Chiropractor. Needless to say, school homework lost out in the equation. There just isn’t enough time in the day to accomplish everything that needs to be done. I did however manage to get some studying done for the test in Nutrition on Wednesday.

Reflexology is amazing and so fascinating. I really love it. I hope I do well in this. This class requires 60 case studies to be done before taking the final and board exams. 30 of them have to be done outside of the classroom environment. I sure hope I can find 30 willing pairs of feet.

By the time I got home from school, I could tell that my mood isn’t right. I’ve been noticing a steady increase in depression over the last 2 weeks. I think I’m putting too much pressure on myself worrying about doing well in school, whether or not I can make a career out of this, and being able to pull in enough money to put some kind of dent in our financial debt. I worry so much about Jason as I know how much he is worrying and not telling me.

Today was day 2 of Reflexology and we actually got to practice some of the techniques on each other. It’s feels so absolutely wonderful. Only problem is that we each got only one foot done so we were all feeling a little lop-sided. I have an assignment due next Tuesday on the Digestive System. It has to be a presentation… eeek. I hate standing up and doing this kind of thing. Oh well, I better just get over it.

After school today, I managed to get all the daily chores done, now I will crash. My brain has switched off for the day. I need to be sharp for this test tomorrow.

I have a Dodge logo birthmark!

I was looking at my arm the other day for no particular reason other than the fact that I was at work and bored as usual. I have a birthmark on the inside of my right elbow that's sort of triangular in shape. It suddenly occurred to me that this looks vaguely like the logo that Dodge used on their cars back in the 70's.

Specifically, quoted from Allpar:
"The three-delta Dodge emblem used from 1962-1976 is called a 'fratzog'. This is believed to be a name made up by a designer who was told it had to be called something."

For those who don't know what this logo looks like, I've been trying to find a good picture of it on the net. So far, the best I can find is this eBay auction:
eBay Motors: Dodge Air Caps-1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 Charger SE (item 7991864139 end time Aug-13-05 16:13:33 PDT)

I'll keep looking. I've also been trying to get a picture of my birth mark, but the digital camera isn't cooperating. I'll keep trying.

This was the current Dodge logo the year I was born. Apparently I've been a Dodge boy since day one :-).

New Chiropractor & Update

What an interesting day. Jason and I were given a referral from Steve (the owner of the clinic where we have massage and osteopathy) to his long-time friend who happens to be a very successful Chiropractor. Kim telephoned over and got us both appointments and because we were referred, we got a special rate.

When I walked into the wellness center that is owned and operated by this man, I was amazed. Once you open the door, on the left there is a weeping wall (waterfall) that was gorgeous. Upon going through the next door to the main reception, there is this extremely long reception area/desk with all these glass plaques on the wall behind them. Each plaque has a word on it, such as: Health, Peace, Tranquility, Body, Mind, Spirit, Growth, Spirituality, etc. It was beautiful. This is just what I’m looking for. Someone who finally gets what Alternative Health Care is all about.

The clinic has 3 full time chiropractors, holistic nutritionist, acupuncture, & massage therapy. As I’m studying holistic nutrition, I won’t need that service, as for acupuncture, I don’t really use it much at the moment, and I’ll keep my massages with Steve’s clinic and use Bonnie and Kim for that service as I have been for the last year with great success.

The clinic was huge and very impressive. Dr. Will (owner of the clinic) sat down with me and his first impression by just looking at me that there was a serious problem with my neck. He asked if I had been in a car accident before even looking at my medical history form. So far, I’m very impressed.

After x-rays that he took of my neck and the qazillion more I had done at the Radiologist and he scheduled me for his orientation class on Wednesday which was amazing. He spent 2 hours with all the new patients, explaining what chiropractic was all about, showing us examples of x-rays and teaching us what we were looking at.

Basically, there are 5 stages of deterioration. There is normal, Phase 1 is slightly out of whack, Phase 2 has lost the curve in the neck, Phase 3 has the beginnings of the joints fusing, and Phase 4 is completely fused and there is no way to reverse the process. He explained everything so very well and how the spinal cord affects disease in the body. He also mentioned a lot of things that we’re already learning in school.

After the orientation, he took me back to his office and displayed my x-rays. Before he said a word, I got scared. I could see without him saying a word, that my neck was indeed in trouble. There was no curve whatsoever, some of the joints lost their spaces in between, and there was this spur like thing sticking out of the base of my neck.

He then explained that I was in between stages 2 & 3 and that it was a good thing that I came in when I did. This probably explains all of the headaches I’ve been having. He looked at the x-rays that I brought in with me and showed me that my pelvis is out and tilted, that my spine after the cervical area shifts to the left instead of going straight down the body, but the curve in the lower spine is good.

The radiologist’s report showed that my left femer is 8mm. longer than the right and the right tibia is 3mm. longer than the left. I’ve complained for months to the other chiropractor that my left leg felt longer than right and nothing was ever done about it. With regular treatments Will can get the curve in my neck back, adjust my pelvis so it’s not tilting to the left and adjust my left knee so that in time, things will level out a bit more.

I really feel like we’ve found the right guy. My treatment plan is going to take 18 months to get “back on track”, which so happens to be the name of his clinic. He recommended that I stop all weight training for the next 6 weeks while the adjustment process begins. Oh shucks, I’ll have to stop seeing Amy the personal trainer from hell for a while… hehehehe. No weight training, but I can do treadmill, exercise bike and all my stretches. He just doesn’t want the weight training to interfere with the adjustment process and basically retraining my neck to sit properly and get the curve back. I’ll have tons of homework to do at home for this as well.

What really bothers me is this was never caught earlier. No x-rays were ever taken or even recommended at Ed’s clinic. In fact, I should have had treatment for this back in 1998 after the accident and then it wouldn’t have gotten to this state. I can honestly say I’m a bit angry right now that this was never addressed in the last 7 years since the accident. GRRRRRRR!!! Our healthcare system just pain SUCKS!!!

Jason has some work to do as well, he’ll find out next week what needs to be done, but it’s obvious that his posture isn’t quite right and I’ve seen how he sits in front of the computer. It just looks wrong to me. I would be in so much pain if I sat like that… but then again, my issues are just different. We each have our own issues in life to deal with. More updates next week when we find out what Jason needs to have done.

We survived another DML BBQ

Josh has an album of the pictures available here:
Shenanigans :: DML BBQ 2005

Our pictures aren't there yet, but I'm hoping to get them uploaded soon.