Blair's Blog

There has been lot’s of fixin’ going on around here this month – some of it fairly routine and some not so much. On the long weekend, I helped my brother Scott replace headlight bulbs on his Mazda 6. Now, you might think that a simple bulb swap hardly makes for a good story – even on this blog. But no, to replace a burnt out headlight on a Mazda 6 requires complete removal of the front bumper, the grill and the headlight assembly. It takes about and hour or so, plus time to run to the parts store after figuring out what bulbs are needed. Scott & I had to do this about 2½ years ago (after he got a $200 quote from a mechanic…) so at least we were familiar with the process. With the cold weather though, we got my other brother, Brian, to organize access to the warehouse where he works so we could work in a heated space. While Scott and I took the bumper off, Brian tested and then replaced the battery – since his work is selling car batteries that went quite well. The cost for the whole thing (6 bulbs, car battery and Frosty’s from Wendy’s) was a lot less than the mechanic wanted.

A couple of weeks earlier we were up to Rocky Mountain House for a visit with Barry and Breana and we took the Behemoth (GMC 2500 HD) and once again the heater blower wasn’t working on all 5 speeds. This was a pretty familiar problem from about 4 years ago. This time though, I figured that I should get right after the problem before the wiring harness started to burn up (again). So while we were in Rocky, I picked up a new resistor – unfortunately there are two styles of mounting. It wasn’t clear if I needed the 2-hole or 4-hole mounting style and, of course, I guessed wrong. So when Barry and I went to swap the parts the mounting holes didn’t line up. At least the resistor fit and there was room to run a couple of drywall screws right into the blower box. If the truck lasts as long as this resistor, maybe I’ll get it right next time…

So, those were the routine fixes. The one that was more challenging started when Brenda flicked the lights on over the kitchen island one evening last week and there was sparking and sputtering and a little cascade of molten metal from one of the light fixtures. Oops. Not exactly something that you can leave for another day to figure out. So, while Brenda started in on dinner prep in the gloom. I stood on the counter and took the light fixture down and then apart. The wires had somehow been damaged/pinched just above the lamp-holder socket (probably a manufacturing issue) and had eventually shorted – the arcing melted the wiring and the threaded rod coupling the lamp-holder to the shade. I had to go buy a new lamp-holder but was able to raid my parts bucket for a new bit of threaded rod. I cut out about 10 inches of scorched wire and then rebuilt the whole socket structure and re-installed the fixture. No sparks, no excitement. Nobody wants light fixtures to be exciting if that means spewing lava into the sink…

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I try not to comment on politics too much on this blog, because the capacity for our elected leaders to be a disappointment is just too discouraging. After all, who would have ever predicted that the Mexican president would wind up being the most capable and respectable of the three North American leaders? And that Trudeau(!) would be the runner-up?

Anyway, that was perilously close to editorial opinion. Best let Shaw Cable Systems do the dirty work.

Yes, the video and the audio was just fine; the picture wasn’t frozen or pixellated, the sound was clear. But, just as Shaw warned, there was no content…

After CNN moved on to other topics, the warning went away. Hmmm

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Today I found out that Google Earth has added a huge amount of satellite imagery data allowing pretty near any place on earth to be viewed over a time range of about 1984 to 2016. The resolution is not so great in the earlier years of the range, but certainly good enough to see the extent of the change over time. Even better, you can run the images as a timelapse at different speeds. The functionality is available in Google Earth, but if you don’t have that you can also use Google Earth’s Time Lapse website.

Here is the timelapse for Chestermere, where we used to live. We moved there in 1998 when the population was a little under 2000. The town grew to about 20,000 by the time we left in 2014. Here is the timelapse:

For reference our street is circled in red in this 2014 screen grab:

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At breakfast on Saturday with the kids, the conversation turned to the “olden days”. Yep, the time before the internet. None of our three kids have never known a time without the web, google or smartphones – the whole of the “information superhighway” exists in their pockets. Remember the information superhighway? Even that term sounds trite and dated now.

Life without a computer with high-speed, always connected wifi is basically a concept that is as foreign to my kids as the idea of having a television is to my generation. Or access to a telephone to my parent’s generation. Today, my kids have phones with them wherever they go, but never call and talk to anyone. They have a television in the house, but have no concept of having to wait until Tuesday at 8:00pm to catch the latest episode of their favourite show.

The world wide web had been developed about 4 years before Steven was born, having begun with CERN creating the first webpage in 1991 and then releasing it as open-source software to the public in 1993. I had a webpage up and running in 1996 – exactly what it looked like is pretty much lost now, as I made periodic edits and the various versions are lost to history. However, this is what that same page looked like in 1999 when I updated it after Mark was born:

As the breakfast conversation continued, we got to talking about the early computers that Brenda and I worked with. Brenda’s first use of a computer was in Grade 11 writing simple Basic programs on a Commodore PET with no disk storage – only cassette tapes.  My experience was similar – the first computer that I used was an Apple II in about Grade 8 – I actually entered a coding competition with a friend in about 1977.  That was long before such advanced technology as the 5.25 inch floppy drive was available!

The first computer in our family, though, was a spectacularly expensive Gateway2000 486DX-33 that we purchased in 1992:

That’s $2700 in US dollars – back in 1992 the exchange rate was about $0.84 Canadian per USD so that was actually about $3225.  To put that in perspective, adjusted for inflation to 2016 that is just shy of $5000.  And what did we get for that princely sum?  Here are a few highlights from the packing list:

• 486 DX CPU running at a staggering 33 MHz
• Gemini motherboard
• 1 Mb of 70ns memory (SIMM packaging)
• ATI Ultra VGA video card
• 120 Mb Western Digital IDE hard drive
• Both kinds of floppy drive
• “Crystal Scan” 15″ VGA monitor
• DOS 5 (Gateway version)
• Windows 3.1
• Software: MS Works, Money, Publisher and Entertainment

These images are of the packing slip that came with the system – the images are big and I had to really bump the contrast and brightness because they were “Printed with SOY INK” which, sadly, has not withstood the test of time very well. 

The day that cow-spotted Gateway box arrived was a pretty exciting one and we toted that computer around through a number of moves – from the house in Cold Lake to the apartment, then to Thetis Island, Australia and back to Chestermere.  I don’t know exactly when we retired it – probably some time in 1999.  By that time we had a second computer (a Compaq laptop purchased in Australia) and it was certainly showing its age after 7 years.  The only pictures that I can find with it are from our time at Capernwray in the summer of 1996:

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