There are some usability problems with PEIauto.com, but it appears to be the first automobile sales website on the Island to have attracted a critical mass of dealers.

The Bedeque Bay Environmental Management Association, BBEMA to its familiars, is an organization worthy of support from every Islander.

Today I had the pleasure of taking a tour of the Maple Plains Agro-Environmental Demonstration Project, a joint venture of BBEMA and farmer George Webster.

The Big Idea at Maple Plains is research and education surrounding sustainable agriculture: in other words, figuring out how we can adjust the way we grow our food so that we make less of an impact on the land.

Maple Plains is an actual working farm, where actual real potatoes and other crops are grown. And there’s actual real research going on there: research on run-off, filter strips, buffer zones, strip cropping and more. There’s a weather station and a significant educational effort involving tours, and outreach into the schools.

In short, BBEMA and their partners are doing the kind of stuff that a lot of people are saying we need to do before the agricultural bubble bursts; they’re laying the groundwork for the kind of sustainable farming that will inevitably become common practice if we’re going to continue growing food here and not completely screw the place up.

The BBEMA people impressed me with the degree to which they are firmly rooted in the practical: they understand how the world works, how to make projects happen, and how to preach the sustainable gospel without coming off as whacked out weirdo hippie freaks.

You can join or make a donation. Given that a donation is an investment in the long-term health of our province, I would encourage all readers to make a donation to the extent that they are able; feel free to drop a note in the Discuss This box when your cheque is in the mail.

Something happens to me about three times a week: I’m composing an email message to someone in Microsoft Outlook and, while happily typing away, I mistakenly hit some combination of keys and send the email out before I’m finished. I think the keys I hit are CONTROL and ENTER, but of course I’m not paying attention at the time, so I can’t say for sure.

I think this points out a deep failure in our current approach to using computers which is that, at any given point in time it’s far more possible to do the wrong (or at least unintended) thing than it is to do the right thing.

While I’m typing in this note, for example, there are innumerable things I could do with my keyboard or mouse that would cause problems: close the program, erase what I’m typing, turn off the computer. For example, one of the most common technical support calls I get from friends and family is the problem of people hitting CONTROL and A (which is the shortcut for Select All in Windows) instead of SHIFT and A. When they do this, and then blindly keep typing, their entire document gets erased. This can happen so easily, and so quickly, that it’s hard not to thing that your computer is broken.

And that’s only one example.

If you think of successful common everyday devices, the really useful ones are those that don’t have this problem. A push-button phone, for example: pick it up, press the buttons. You can mistakenly press the wrong button, but it’s usually pretty obvious that you’re doing that. It’s hard to accidentally call Hong Kong unless you want to, and there’s really not much you can do with a phone by accident that will make it disappear.

I wonder if it’s possible to create a different computing environment, one where it’s easier to do the right thing at any given time than it is to cause havoc.

I’m not sure if such a system would have to be really, really complex, or really, really simple.

Ten years ago I pulled a rental van up to my new rental house Peterborough, Ontario. I’d been told that a woman named Catherine, who lived in the house next door, had the key. And, sure enough, she did. I seem to remember that we flirted a little on that first meeting, but I might be making that up.

I moved in next door, and, over the course of the summer, Catherine and I got to know each other. I was working insane hours at the Peterborough Examiner, Catherine was working as a disability rights advocate, artisan, collector of hubcaps, and hostess for a motley collection of rabblerousers who would ramble in and around our two houses to play guitars, drink beer, and generally enjoy the summer. I’m not sure I knew quite what to make of her.

Over the course of that summer we gradually got to know one and other, spurred on partly by the subtle matchmaking of our friends.

That fall, on October 5, my little brothers turned 19 and I invited them, and our grandmother Nettie, up to Peterborough for the weekend and threw a birthday party in their honour. The party ranks as one of the more surreal experiences of my life: Johnny and Steve were presumably off somewhere enjoying the pleasures of legal alcohol, our extended network of friends and hangers on were everpresent, and Nettie, who’d brought her mandolin, started playing duets with our friend Irene, who’d brought her accordion.

At the tail end of the evening Irene needed a ride home and, on the spur of the moment, I invited Catherine to come along for the ride. In the heady surreal atmosphere of that night, after dropping Irene off at her house, we shared our first kiss (Catherine’s idea; I happily agreed). Ten years later, we are still together.

When you are living in sin over an extended period of time like we are, you need to come up with a somewhat arbitrary date for the start of your relationship, and we have choosen that night, October 5, 1991, as ours.

So, happy anniversary Catherine. Thank you for 10 wonderful years.

Oh, and happy birthday Johnny and Steve! And Nettie, up in heaven, I hope you’ll strum a chord or two on God’s mandolin for us all.

I spent yesterday morning getting a tour of the Atlantic Wind Test Site and the new North Cape Wind Power Plant at North Cape.

You cannot possibly imagine the size of the beautiful new wind turbines being installed at the site. By the end of the year there will be 8 of the turbines pictured here. To get some idea of the scale of the photo, the rectangular bit at the top of the tower is about the size of a Range Rover and the blades would not fit comfortably in your house (unless you have a very big house).

The entire assembly at the top comes overseas from Denmark in a standard shipping container (the blades come in a slightly longer container). Apparently there is about 2 inches of clearance on either side of the gear once the container is loaded.

No news yet on the ability to purchase green power from Maritime Electric, but apparently things are in the works.

So far the NYC horrors have claimed two large corporate victims: Swissair has stopped flying and Mademoiselle has stopped publishing.

The CBC spent millions, using an American company, to create a new visual identity for CBC Television, unveiled this week. Unfortunately they forgot to update their website to match, so their new “unified identity” leaves them more visually fractured than when they started.

While I was growing up, just north of Hamilton, Ontario, my local hardware store — the place my Dad would take us on Saturday mornings to buy WD-40 or window putty or large carriage bolts — was Weeks Home Hardware. Back in those days their store was housed in a rambling collection of hundred-year-old stone buildings on the banks of Grindstone Creek.

Sometimes, if you needed to buy something extra special, like window screens or copper pipe or glass, you had to go down into their basement workshop; this was at once facsinating and terrifying. From my wee eyes, it appeared that you could buy anything at Weeks. And I’m sure that was almost true.

When I was in grade 9, I won the “Weeks Shield” — for “proficiency,” whatever that meant — and the prize itself was an illustrated dictionary signed by one of the Weeks brothers. For me, this was like a sporty kid getting a prize autographed by Cal Ripken Jr. I still have the dictionary sitting on the shelf beside me.

A couple of years after I left home, Weeks opened a brand new store, the size of a Canadian Tire, up and around the corner from their original location. Their atmosphere plumetted when the did this — hard to recreate that “old time hardware store” feel in a big box — but all reports are that they still have the selection, and the expert staff, and are doing quite well.

Still from Moses Media-produced commerical.

Which brings me to mention Southport Home Hardware, just across the river from us in Stratford. Owned by the APM Group, a sort of Island-style conglomerate that certainly has its detractors, this hardware store — and it’s really more of an appliance, building supply, housewares, lumber and hardware store — comes about as close to Weeks as I’ve ever seen. They have great, helpful staff, excellent selection of just about anything you would ever want, and, as of last year, a bright new large location that somehow manages to feel small and neighbourhood like.

If you live in or around Charlottetown, and you need nails or motor oil or a new oven, I’d suggest you drop in for a visit.

The important thing to know about Irene is that she likes to kiss pretty well just about anything. Well, not anything. But lots of things. Or at least this is the story from her parents.

Irene is 14 months old. We met Irene and her parents, who are vacationing on Prince Edward Island from the Netherlands, while walking on the floating boardwalk at Greenwich yesterday. They had left home just 9 days after the world went all to hell. They’re brave travellers (both for daring to travel now, and for travelling with Irene, who has just learned to walk).

Anyway, yesterday, there on the boardwalk, wee Oliver, who turns one year old on Monday, received his first kiss from a girl his own age. Somehow this made the world seem a little less crazy-mixed-up.

I’ve decided to invent a new concept.

If you’re like me, you often find yourself doing what we used to call procrastinating. Let’s say, for example, that you’ve got a Big Report due on Friday morning and you know you’re going to have a busy Thursday: what’s the best thing to do on Wednesday night?

Watch Seinfeld until 12:35 a.m., of course! And then busily work to finish said report deep into Thursday night.

I’ve been a proponent of this approach to work for many years now.

When I was a student of classical history at Trent University in the early 1980s, I could usually be found, in the 5 or 6 hours leading up to an essay deadline, rushing to get thoughts to paper and paper to Professor’s door before the clock struck midnight.

I pay the mortgage the day before it’s due at the bank. I get my car inspected only once the sticker is just about to expire.

And some of my best programming work is done in the compressed few hours the night before all hell will break loose if one project or another remains uncompleted.

This habit comes with attendant guilt, of course. You walk up the stairs, bleary eyed after watching the same Seinfeld episode you’ve seen 33 times before, damning yourself for not having had to sense and discipline to Be Prepared in advance.

I’m happy to report, however, that my New Concept does away with this problem and, indeed, all of the other problems associated with we used to call procrastinating. Not only that, but this new concept turns what used to be a negative into a positive.

My new concept? Just-in-time Living.

This new concept is closely related to the Just-in-time Manufacturing system that’s become popular in recent years in the auto industry. Just look what a recent book says:

With its proven capacity to streamline the manufacturing process, lower inventory, and improve product quality and ROI, JIT may be the basis for a renaissance in American manufacturing.

One of the central principles of Just-in-time Manufacturing is Lead Time Reduction. What does this mean? Well, one consultant says:

Reducing lead times doesn’t involve speeding up equipment to cut the cycle times or getting plant personnel to work faster. What is does involve is the rapid fulfillment of customer orders and the rapid transformation of raw materials into quality products in the shortest amount of time possible.

So the next time I’m sitting on the couch watching that same episode of Seinfeld (for the 35th time), I will take comfort in the fact that I am actually deep in the practise of Rapid-Response Manufacturing, just a small part of my Just-in-time Life.

I’m available for consultation if you’ve like to learn more about how to apply this New Concept to your own life.