BendGovernment

 
 

You can see some of the fire on the larger pieces on the left but the flash tends to wash it out. The fire in the red pieces fail to show here, yet they are the most firey of the whole group. I'll have to do some close ups with natural light before the fire will show as it does in personal viewing.

 

These shots taken on the fly at the kiosk, others looking on. Better - later.
The flash snapshot fails to do these works justice. I shall do some natural light close-up photos later where the flash will not wipe out the fire and the highlights. 

 
 

Epoxy sealing of the gem backs takes time, yet all pieces are sealed properly.
Sealing prevents heat / cold stress cracks and contamination from washing soaps or shampoos. Better safe than sorry. Quality comes first.

= Gems Craftsman =

Today I met an Old-World gems craftsman who had set up a one day Kiosk at our local mall. His work and design was remarkably beyond average.

I know this because I have been in lapidary and semi-precious stones myself. Years ago when I lived in Vancouver B.C. I used to have big rubber polishing drums going day and night. Setting cabochons in silver for pendants and bolos was my thing back then.

This very nice old fellow is in it for the design and creativity. He said *I love working with gems, but I just hate doing any selling.*

I said, I had a couple of web sites, I would be proud to show these magnificent designs and workmanship on my sites anytime.

Another thing about this quiet and kind of shy craftsman, he’s not greedy.
His prices are well below the usual retail, but everything is top quality.

There is beautiful fire opal, Australian milk opal, Lab grown opal and all have great fire, none of this half-dead stuff you see in the big box stores. The pendant cabs of all variety semi-precious types are …..well words are useless. I have to get some pictures.

I bought some cabs of emperor moon jade and I know I could turn them over for a profit right now, but no way. I’m holding them as an investment but they are just too nice for words.

I gave one to a gal and she is thrilled with it. Not just the cab, but the excellent silver work finding it’s set in and the lovely design of the silver chain. Ghad! Why go to a high overhead store?

Yes I’ll be proud to show his work on my web sites and I hope to get pictures very soon. So before you spend big dollars for ho-hum jewellery, be sure to keep this excellent craftsman’s work in mind.

There will be no wheeling and dealing with me. I am no middle-man.
I will show his work here and you will deal with him directly.

He’s an old-world man of his word and if I do send business to him, he will probably give me a piece of his work from time to time.

I am not the least concerned about that. Just being associated with these beautiful works of art is really the main fun for me in this. Besides knowing where to get fabulous works in gems cheap, that is. Check back. Photos soon. TG

Lady D, at:
http://My.Opera.com/tanski/
Musician / Manager etc. Allowed me to post her fox & cat story.

Seeing as all of these little foxes are visiting me I will tell you a true story about a fox. When I lived in Prince Edward Island as a child, I lived on a finger of a road that ran out into the ocean. Not very far from Souris PEI.

Our little house was the last house on the road. It was a wooden farm house with kitchen windows low to the ground. Every evening our cat Boston Blackie, a huge black and white tom with no tail, insisted loudly to go out. When Boston asked to go out there was no resisting his loud, hoarse meow and so out he went.

THis was a nightly ritual and we would not see him until the next morning. One day our neighbor up the road told me that he saw my cat chasing a fox out in the potatoe field in the moonlight and almost shot him to protect the fox. (He liked foxes I guess.) But then he realized that the chase had switched and the fox was now chasing the cat! Back and forth went the game until our neighbor got bored and came back in.

Several weeks later, I got up around dawn to get a drink of water which sat in an ice cold bucket in the pantry off the kitchen. We had no running water or electricity. While drinking my water I wandered over to the window to look out to see if I could see my newly planted tulips through the early morning haze. Instead my eyes were met with a marvelous scene just below the window. There sat Boston with a beautiful red fox right beside him.

Both calmly stared up at me. The fox's gaze was curious and probling while Boston's was calm and somewhat bored as his pupils narrowed as the dawn's light grew.We stared at each other for several minutes in peace and slowly as the sun started to rise, the fox got up, stretched, rubbed noses with Boston and strode away with total equanimity. Not the least afraid or nervous of me. Boston then came to the door to be let in and gave me his growly purr as he rubbed up against my legs to say good morning.

It became common knowledge all over the road that Boston had a fox for a friend and the neighbors reported several sightings after that. Of course, in my childhood imagination, I was envisioning babies that would be half fox and half Boston and everytime I walked in the woods I kept a lookout to see if I could find them. I never did of course but I like to believe that it could have been possible.

Comment by Tanski - Friday, 21. October 2005, 16:57:46
Should have been a post on http://My.Opera.Com/tanski/blog

The foxes Lady D was referring to are at a great UK. site:
http://WWW.PERMUTED.ORG.uk/PAUL2.HTM
lIVE CLOSE UP BACK YARD INTIMATE DRAMA, SECOND TO NONE.

 
 

This reliable boiler plate sure gets a person around ok. Still looks respectable enough. Not quite as peppy as it once was. Going on 240,000 km or so, but if you put those kms on with an easy gas pedal, then it will just keep jogging along. Other preferred vehicle is the V6 '89 Regency Oldsmobile 98. But it's a low slung smoothie, best suited to paved freeway and smoth city roads. TG

Does Whistle+Blower seem like a boring topic to you?
As Johnny Carsen used to say * Think again, oh martini breath.*

Looking at just the first few thumbnails after entering Whistle+Blower at

http://www.Technorati.com

You find the most interesting topic points:
Able Danger for example. What an eye opener. CIA leak , Nurses protected , Games software firm *Blizzard* sneaking invasive spy ware.

Judy Miller, reporter, Israeli Nuclear Tech, Best damn interview ever, Rove & Libby , FBI whistle blower threatened & fired , George W Bush, Able Danger again, smearing Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a whistle blower.

Not so boring now… eh?
You are bound to be surprised that there are some 3,922 entry returns.

WB protection is not only an essential in government, but in fact it reaches into every sector of our lives.

WB law is hated and resisted in both the US and Canadian Governments. The obvious reason is that it would severely limit the * * borrowing * of public funds for *special projects*.

The United Nations , [ they are all too honest to ever be concerned about WB law]., Oil for food , millions re-directed, children dying. That couldn’t possibly be related to the UN , could it?

There are even suggestions that Whistle-blowers be paid for their trouble and risk - taking. Especially where they expose and protect millions of our national revenues wealth.

Our Government, hanging on to power with white knuckle desperation, is in a vunerable position and our WB Bill C-11 is moving ever so slowly ahead. Hopefully the bill will have penalties severe enough to deter Tin-pot bosses from firing employees who expose corruption. 73s TG
Canadian Whistle-Blower info at: http://BendGovt.blog.ca

First of all thanks for the invite to post! Here's a little something I found interesting. It's at my blog but I'm putting it here too.

Guité also worked for a string of advertising agencies, which had received large contracts under the sponsorship program. His clients included Compass, Lafleur Communications Marketing, Palmer and Jarvis, Vickers and Benson, Coffin Communications, and Walding International, the firm of former Public Works minister David Dingwall.

As you might remember Walding International turned out to be a fake company, with only three employees, including Dingwall as president of the firm. Yet, this firm is included in the adscam. Now, I'm assuming that this firm was used to pass money under the table. It would seem then that he not only steals money for himself, but for his liberal pals as well. Must be nice to have all that pirated money plus a large government pension. Then again he might be spending it all on gum.

-As a side note, I've been looking for the Walding website but haven't been able to find one. Is there one? I thought it'd be interesting to look at, but then again do fake companies have websites?

TGsPlace, the new Graphics and Photo leanings Blogsite, has been fun setting up. That coat of Arms is sure colourful and the Antique Cars, flags, native sculpture and art work is just the beginning, Lots more good graphics to upload.

http://My.Opera.com/T-G/

Someone suggested I may not be allowed to use Canada’s official insgnia, but I thought it was for display, so I’ll use it until the copyright holder complains. TG

Firstly, thanks Tony, for the invite to post here.
------------------------------------------------------------------
I just read a post on "CBC Watch" that mentioned how it's our dime funding the dysfunctional CBC. When the term "our dime" is used, I interpret that as telling the feds that we don't like what you are doing with our hard earned money.

Trying to get rid of this waste is largely a waste of your time. The liberal party of Canada believes that all wealth in Canada belongs to them and we get to keep some of what we work for ... sort of an allowance. The rest rightfully is theirs to do what they know is in our best interest ... because we don't know what's best for us or our families. Since many of us were educated in government schools over the past twenty-five years, they may be right. We are a far dumber nation than we used to be.

So, you are dealing with a powerful organization that has no concern for your opinion, they believe they are so much wiser and superior to the average tax-paying bumpkin that absolutely nothing you can say will matter to them. Plus, Pravda er I mean the CBC serves them so well, especially at election time.

Why bother trying? Because it makes you feel better. You can say you did your best to bring about change. You are one person who cares and that's about it. The sad fact is that unless you are a large voting block that can fired them, there is no point. There is only one large block of this type and it's called Toronto.

You do better to either drop out of the game and participate in some underground economy like literally millions of Canadians already have to one extent or another, or you can start blowing stuff up like terrorists do.

Either extreme will also make you feel better (if you don't get caught). In the first case, you will have more money to call your own. In the second case you will really shake thing up and definitely cause some kind of change to occur. Quebecers did this some thirty odd years ago and the federal money has been pouring in ever since.

Now, there is yet another CBC-trained Quebecer in the Governor Generals office, Most of Canada's prime ministers have been from Quebec. If you count only the ones that held the office for more than eight months, you can say all of them are from Quebec at least in the last 60 or so years. Same goes for most of the civil service in Ottawa.

The deck has been so stacked in recent years that Canada, like the CBC has become a very expensive, wasteful, dysfunctional excuse of a country whose claim to fame is that we are better than Americans and we care about everything. No one has done more to propagate that myth than that East Coast Idiot, Rick Mercer, who is on one knee praying to a transsexual god (if there is one at all in his world) to save his job. However, that transsexual god is the federal government. That's the problem.

And if you do anything drastic and get caught, don't worry there is an army of judges and counsellors and federal helping elves with high incomes to make sure you are rehabilitated, fed, re-educated and maybe even awarded a nice government job or perhaps a grant to start your own business. That too is the problem.

Endless layers of really smelly crap ..... all on our dime.