Sunday, May 10, 2009


Lately Fran has been hinting her pallet has a hankering for chines food.
In past years I did knock up quite a bit of the oriental dishes, that was when we traveled more and I was able to pick up some of the ingredients required to do the dishes justice. My larder of horded exotic ingredients has been empty for some time, hence no Chinese.
I know what has prompted these hints, Northern has all sorts of frozen processed meals, near the check out there is a whole freezer full on Chinese meals all ready to put into the micro wave or oven.
They ooze mono sodium glutamate or whatever the hell is in them; artificial color makes them look just plain yucky.
Then in the food warmer there are some times cabbage rolls and some other rice and sweet and sour chicken ball dishes. After succumbing to the temptation and trying their chicken and chip meal there is now way I’m going to waste money on the Chinese stuff.

We had some left over pork roast so last night I knocked up a pork, noodle, vegetable, egg foo-young my style.
Not too bad, no leftovers for Siutik so something must have worked.

Weather continues to be squirrelly, light wet snow and in winds. With the roads being in transition it is very dodgy getting around on foot, or even on machines. We did a lot of ouching and using the f word [that was me] yesterday, hard to see and the fresh snow covers all the frozen ruts and the deep pot hole like water traps.

I think there is a good argument to be made for some transport be made available for getting the elderly /infirmed /handicapped around it these conditions. People have to get to medial appointments, to the airstrip if they have to go out for medical reasons, and even to the store to buy food.

Actually that topic is on my list of cons at the NG information session last Wednesday evening. The lack of transport for the above mentioned was raised, not for the first time.

The politicians gave it nary any response. The bureaucratic response was; there is funding [from the feds] for transport at the Goose Bay end for to and from the hospital and airport but nothing available for the communities.

I think the friendship Centre runs a seniors bus there too, picks people up to go to the shops and for medical appointments.

Nunatsiavut claims it has the people at heart and that they are a self governing body, how about some self governing then.

4 comments:

Shammickite said...

If you need any Chinese spices, I can send you whatever you need.... the area where I live is heavily populated with Chinese, and there are many Chinese grocery stores selling all sorts of interesting stuff!

dannytoro1 said...

I'll weigh in again Brian. I could be 100% wrong, since I am a bazillion miles away from there. But it's true, the NG government does seem extremely passive and overly cautious. I just can't put my finger on why. I do not know if it's from being new, having poorly defined roles, are in awe and dumbstruck in their new jobs? Everyone I've managed to converse with were most polite, and very intelligent. But you always seem to get a shuffle. You've never quite reached the correct party if you know what I mean. It could also be a defensive measure built up by dealing with a constant supply of hucksters and dream merchants too. But it leaves you wondering if anyone can put their foot into solving issues. Sometimes a little brash leadership pays off. But then again, I live in the South and that's how they do it here. For better or worse. Get it done.

Brian said...

Thanks for the offer Sham, get back to you later on that, has the caribou herd arrived that way yet?

Well Pathfinder, you have hit the nail on the head, very perceptive of you and from such a distance too.
I do not think it is the newness; the people involved with decisions have been around for donkey’s years prior to NG formation. There is a small clique that makes all final decisions hence you do get the run around when looking for something to happen NOW. Then usually it is the wait and see what other governments think. This comes with not having your hands directly on the funding; most of the funding comes from feds and a little from province.
So for me the bottom line is, looking after there high paid jobs first then what is good for NG second and the people’s well being runs a distant third.

dannytoro1 said...

See, here's an example of how a bit of spontaneity would help the people of the NG out. Right now you can go out and buy some Capstone Micro turbine 60KW or 200kw generators for half price. They are practically brand spanking new. They are all returns from universities studying them. Get three or four of them. Your talking 70k each for 200kw units, or 28k for 60kw . Figure 70% for installation due to the location costs. If you went with three 60kw units, running two with a back up standby, you've got $144k invested,installed and staff trained. You can run them off of practically any combustible fuel. The Germans ran them off of straight Canola and rapeseed oil. But any oil,gas or diesel will due. Due to the high heat, they also make wonderful steam generators while making power. Hence you can run a plant, or say an apartment for the elderly and provide plenty of steam heat. Giving you 85% efficiency.

Now we have people in HV-GB who want jobs. We also have an NL Ag department desperately wanting a local market for their product. Gee, get some of the NG folk into farming plant oils to run in the generators. NG folk pay Ng folks to make power for NG folks running off fuel made by NG folks. I dunno, am I crazy for thinking like this?

But alas this would be studied and glad handed to death and die a horrible death of massive cost overruns in the system in place. Pffffffffffft..............Sorry, just had to vent