Life in progress

Category Archives: Adventures


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whereswilly.com – The $20 Blog Post

“Do you have change for a twenty?”

That’s how it started – with those words.

“I think so,” I replied, juggling gloves and newspapers to dig into my pocket. I pulled out a couple of receipts and a five dollar bill and then went into the other pocket. Just as I was about to give up, I found a ten.

“Yes!” I exclaimed.

All right, maybe I wasn’t quite that excited. I was just collecting for my paper route after all.

It was while I was walking back down my customer’s driveway, my gloves still tucked under my arm, that I saw the writing on the $20 bill.

“Yes!” I exclaimed, for real this time. “It’s a blog post!”

This is what I saw.

whereswilly

I couldn’t wait to get home to check it out.

When I googled whereswilly, I saw a Wikipedia entry for it, so I decided to go there first — in case it was some kind of hacking thing. It turns out it wasn’t.

According to Wiki, the “Willy” refers to Sir Wilfred Laurier, past Prime Minister of Canada. There are apparently close to 4,000,000 bills in circulation with this message, and you can, in fact, register on the website to see where the bill has been AND be emailed to find out where it goes. It’s based on a “Where’s George” site in the U.S., to track currency there, and has been used by researchers to track the movement of pandemics, such as SARS.

Isn’t that interesting?

I’m only the second person who has tracked this particular $20, but I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. According to the website, I can do this with any bill, any time.

You can check out the Wiki page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where%27s_Willy%3F

Have you heard of this before? Have you ever come across a bill with a website written on it? Do you want to start one? It’s so cool!


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Adventures on My Paper Route – Strange Formations and a Pretty Bird

Brave, hardy birds, cardinals are. Today was cold and crisp – a pleasant 9 degrees C, (16 degrees F). I heard him singing first – they have a very distinctive song.

cardinal2

But the thing which has puzzled me for the past few weeks is this odd way the icicles have been forming… or leaning after they’ve formed. It seems they only do this if they begin above a window, so the only reason I can fathom is it has something to do with the heat from inside.

lean2

lean

The first is an east-facing wall, and the second is a north-facing wall, so the sun has nothing to do with it.

Any ideas?


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JusJoJan 24 – Adventures on my Paper Route – Weather

In winter, it’s rare that walking around the block on my paper route isn’t an adventure. Between the ice, the slush, the snow, the temperatures that freeze my nostrils shut on contact, and days like to today when we have a miniature snow storm, there’s always something to make me rather stay in my pyjamas.

storm

It’s all part of being Canadian. Our weather is a source of national pride. It’s what we endure to live in a country as free as this one is; with all its faults, at least we’re able to say we weathered a storm or two and came out the other side with a smile. Most of the time, anyway.

And so it is with that same pride that I walk around the block, braving the elements to deliver the news.

As difficult as it can be, I do love this country.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!


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Thank you!

Greetings all!

Just a short note for now to say thank you so much to all of you for the well-wishes and the concern over my well-being these past few days. I seem to be on the road to recovery, and happily the road is no longer as slippery. Luckily I have insurance through the newspaper – I was delivering when I fell down a customer’s steps – and so after seeing a doctor and having the proper forms filled out, I don’t have to deliver the papers again until Friday. The concussion was mild.

I’d like to send out a very special thank you to the amazing Navigator for guest posting for me and helping out with Every Damn Day December, with his wonderfully amusing posts. If you haven’t already, you should go and visit him at http://navigator1965.wordpress.com/

He has written a fantastic book, The Mirror, Book One: Welcome to the Evil Sisterhood, due to launch in February, which you’ll definitely want to check out.

Thanks again everyone. I’ll be posting again later for EDDD and replying to all your kind comments as soon as I can.

Happy Christmas Eve to you!

ice


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Adventures on My Paper Route – Kindness

I was treated today with a surprise! I received a gift from one of the people on my route. Not even a regular customer, she is someone I deliver the bundle of flyers to every Thursday. I’d never met her before.

This is so neat, I thought I’d share it.

Hot White Chocolate

It’s white hot chocolate powder on the bottom, with a layer of dark chocolate drops in the middle, and mini marshmallows on top. Isn’t it cute?

You’ve got to love it when the neighbours spread their Christmas cheer!


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EDDD 9 – Adventures on my Paper Route – Effects of Global Warming?

footprints

I woke up to a fresh blanket of snow this morning. It’s to be expected – I live in Ontario, Canada.

Strange strange happenings are going on in the world, weather wise, however. In the south – in fact all the way to South America – the temperatures have dropped to past freezing.

And today, while I was delivering my newspapers here in Ontario, it began to rain. Upwards.

It didn’t matter how far I looked down, with the big hood on my winter coat over my head, I was getting rain in my face.

Strange strange weather…

Blog post of December 9th, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out!


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Adventures on my Paper Route – This is Incredible

Okay. I’m going to describe what happened to me today as best I can. I drew a diagram to help out.

So yesterday – I have to start there – I was on my paper route, waiting for cars to pass so I could cross the street. (That’s me, the stick figure. In real life I wear clothes when I deliver the paper.) To my right (near the red box) the mailman, who I rarely see, was waiting as well, to go back to his van (the poorly drawn grey thing with yellow windows and black wheels.) He waved and I waved back. So I got across and came down the adjacent street and met one of my customers who was getting into his (orange) car. We spoke for a moment – weather’s getting colder, that sort of thing. Before I could cross the street again, I had to wait for the blue pickup truck to pull into the driveway (as shown. Yes, that is supposed to be a pickup truck. I never claimed to be an artist.) I then proceeded on my merry way.

Coincidence

Here’s where it gets freaky.

Today, I’m standing in the exact same place, waiting to cross the street when the mailman pulls up and gets out of his van. I wave, he waves back. We sign (he’s Deaf) about the coincidence of having met in the same place two days in a row.  That was weird, I think to myself. So I go down the next street and there’s my customer is getting out of his car. We exchange pleasantries – it’s even colder today than yesterday, etc. etc. I cross the street and guess who is backing out of his driveway… the guy in the blue pickup. I go along my merry way, thinking, what the hell?

What is it, opposite day today? I’m sorta glad I didn’t win the lottery yesterday…


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Adventures on my Paper Route – Xs of Doom

One day last week, two of my neighbour’s trees were marked by the city with bright orange Xs.

X of doom

I’ve come to know these marks as the Xs of Doom. Within the next few weeks these trees will be drying in some lot, waiting to be bagged for firewood.

At least the one closest to the street is going out in a blaze of glory.


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Adventures on my Paper Route – All about living

Sometimes we have happy hour,

Dregs

and sometimes (apparently at 9pm especially) we have sad hour.

We all have to work, in some capacity, to feed ourselves

Bee and flower

but I’m reminded by my son that every once in a while we just have to stop

Smell the flowers

and smell the flowers.

(Preferably the ones without bees.)

Oh! Oh! Can I play?

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