It was a school holiday last Friday and on my way out the door to the office Oliver asked me what he should do all day.

“Do some research on volcanoes,” I said.

And a few hours later in my email box arrived a collection of images and links on volcanoes and earthquakes.

So on Sunday we went into iCal on Oliver’s computer and set up a Research Calendar for him, with a topic for every day. Here’s what this week looks like so far:

• Saturday: iPad
• Sunday: Family History
• Monday: Estonia
• Tuesday: Lions
• Wednesday: Van Gogh

Last night, in anticipation of today’s “Lions” topic, Oliver suggested to me that lions can navigate using the stars – I think he got this idea from The Lion King, but I’m not sure. I initially dismissed the idea – lions can’t use sextants, after all – but some quick web research revealed that animals use all manner of methods to find their way in the world, so who knows. More study needed.

This morning on the way to school we talked about how dogs are “canines” and cats are “felines” and we wondered what lions are. So Oliver’s going to look for an English to Latin translator when he gets home from school.

We welcome suggestions for future topics.

It’s interesting to read this press release from Camper regarding “articles in the greatest international publications” about Casa Camper Berlin in light of the fact that my own review of the property is the 8th search result on Google for a Casa Camper Berlin search and the 2nd search result for a Casa Camper Berlin review search.

None of the articles in the “greatest international publications” cited in the release appear anywhere in the first five pages of Google search results.

I point at this not as proof of my own greatness, but simply to suggest that if I was a hotel spending public relations dollars, I’d have to wonder whether it might be time to stop courting the same old “greatest” and consider courting the attention of less great, but perhaps more prominent, real people relating real travel experiences.

That said, in the 48 days since I published my Casa Camper Review, it’s received a grand total of 156 pageviews, including just 34 visits from Google. So maybe “greatness” shouldn’t be measured in terms of Google Pagerank.

When we first moved to Charlottetown in 1993 if you asked someone on the street where the nearest sushi place was they’d be as likely to punch you in the face as point you the right way. Seventeen years later, not a week goes by without an “opening soon” sign going up on a new sushi place, and I’d hazard a guess that it will soon be easier to get a California Roll than it will be to get a Shawarma.

For the record, here’s the list of places where you can get sushi in Charlottetown, open now and opening soon:

• Formosa Tea House, 186 Prince Street
• Monsoon, 79 University Avenue
• Tai Chi Gardens, 119 Pownal Street
• Café So-Ban, Charlottetown Mall
• Zen Sushi, 62 Queen Street
• Sushi Express, 193 Kent Street (opening soon)
• Ta-Ke Sushi, 92 Queen Street (opening soon)
• Sushu Jeju, 260 Grafton Street (opening soon)

The Robertson Library at UPEI is getting one of these snazzy robotic book scanners (see it in action in this video) and one of these snazzy robotic book-making machines (video) under the aegis of the IslandArchives.ca project. The mind boggles with possibilities.

Once Saturday morning at the Charlottetown Farmers’ Market – I think it was the spring of 2001 – I was seconded by Perry Williams and Doug Millington to sing the Vogue Optical jingle as part of an advertising campaign for the company that Perry’s Virtual Studios was filming. This is the result. Oliver, needless to say, was younger then. And, for the record, the glasses I’m wearing in the commercial were from Boyles Optical.

A few days ago my father sent me a note asking whether Prince Edward Islanders are friendly or not. He’d been talking to someone in Ontario, and they’d mentioned to him that while people in Nova Scotia are genuinely friendly, people in Prince Edward Island are only friendly when tourist money is involved.

On first reading I dismissed his comment; I’ve been here 17 years and I’ve always thought of Islanders, if not overtly gregarious, as having a underlying bedrock of friendliness.

Then I ran it by some colleagues, all raised here, and without exception they agreed: Islanders, they told me, are not friendly.

Apparently this is a well-known fact.

And then yesterday came Rude Patients, a blog post from Charlottetown doctor Robert Coull. In his post Dr. Coull starts by relating some of his experiences before he arrived on Prince Edward Island:

I’ve been threatened with a knife, threatened with a gun, had tables thrown at me, been chased round a hospital by a patient trying to flatten me with a chair, been shouted at regularly, been punched, had a cigarette stubbed out on my arm, had a patient try to strangle me in the back of an ambulance, and I’ve been kicked in the privates.  I’ve seen running battles in the street between knife wielding gangs.   I’ve had to wrestle violent people to the ground, I’ve had a patient I was treating in the street attacked by a gang intent on beating him up and had to use violence to help drag them off.

And since he moved his practice to Charlottetown?

So you would think that being a GP (Family Physician) on the Gentle Island of Anne of Green Gables would be a delight.

You’d be wrong.

It’s come as quite a shock to find out that lovely PEI appears to be infested with a significant minority of people who are bitter, rude, and - to be quite frank - horrible.

They make snide comments, are undermining, negative, and behave in a highly passive aggressive way.  Although less dramatic than the hostile aggressive behaviour of their Scottish ancestors, their behaviour is far, far more damaging.  Not least, it is far less honest.

Is this true? Are Islanders really a hostile, standoffish, unfriendly lot?

What do you think.

Corner of Kent and Queen.

Waiting for the “Don’t Walk” to turn to “Walk.”

An older woman comes up to me: “You wouldn’t have a loonie, would you?”

I reach into my pocket: I do. I hand her the loonie.

She says “Thanks” and walks on.