It Warmed Up

Wasn't the warmer temperature that we just had in our area nice? Especially in January!

It felt so much better with the temperature above the freezing mark. For so many days, the temperature was quite far below making it difficult, for me anyway, to go outside even for a walk. It was just too cold to do so and, therefore, I did not do it. Instead, I stayed indoors and picked up a bit on the exercising I did to try to keep myself fit.

Sure it is only about the middle of January, but here I am dreaming about spring coming soon. I hope we have an early one with the temperature getting warmer and the flowers coming out a little bit sooner. That is a lot better than seeing so much snow as we have so far this year. I understand that the amount that we get is a lot less than the snow that falls in other areas. However, it must be remembered that we just don't have all of the staff and resources necessary to clean up quickly heavy snow falls.

I needed to do something other than walking outside for over an hour a day as I do in the end parts of spring, in summer and then in the early part in autumn.  Therefore, I decided that nothing would be better than for me to use my brains and keep them working by writing this article.

A UNIVERSITY STUDY

I see that the Cross Border Institute University is having a study done on the border by researchers at the University of Windsor and the Michigan State University: "Gordie Howe International Bridge Logistics and Transportation Study."

I received an invitation from Dr. Bill Anderson, Director, Cross-Border Institute, to complete the survey that was supposed to take about 15 minutes. I thought it might be interesting to see what they were trying to do so I entered the survey website. It worked very well until I was about 40% through the whole thing and then it collapsed, completely! It just would not go forward to the next page so that I could continue completing the project. I did try on a number of attempts to move forward to the next page but it did not do so.

I closed it down and then wrote to the person to whom one could send a note and told that person about the failure.  About an hour later, everything seemed to work properly because I was able to complete the entire survey. I did receive a note from the person involved but I have no idea if it was my note that helped fix up the system.

I am not going to discuss the details of this survey. I would suggest that those who also received the invitation should go out and complete it. 

I will just mention one thing that I found rather strange in some of the material I received. Read this from "LETTER OF INFORMATION FOR CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH:"

"The online survey will be available to respondents for a period of one month starting September 15, 2017…The online survey will approximately take 12-15 minutes to complete and will be available to you for one month until October 15, 2017. "

For some reason, nothing happened for me, and I assume other participants, until I received the invitation dated January 5, 2018. Moreover, it appeared that the time period for this project was now "active for a period of 6 weeks starting January 1, 2018."

Oh well, I can hardly wait until they finally finish their project so that we can judge its quality given its results based on the number of people who responded and who they were. PLUS, how they finally ran this project and how long it took to complete it.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT 2017 FOR WINDSOR

How wonderful of Windsor's Mayor, Drew Dilkens, to let his electorate know all of the wonderful things accomplished by elected representatives of the City, especially by those representatives who seemed to support him who were in the majority, in 2017 and then what might happen in 2018.

Of course, none of this is meant to be "electoral" material ---i.e. positive news to help people get re-elected--- because people are not nominated for the office they want until later in the year.

Again, dear reader, you ought to go here and read what he said to the reporter involved: "Mayor Drew Dilkens reflects on 2017 accomplishments, hopes for 2018." (Brian Cross, Windsor Star, January 7, 2018) 

Now, dear reader, I am not going to go into great detail about the story because you ought to go and read it yourself. However, this is what the Mayor thought was so wonderful for 2017, set out at the top of the story:

"It “was an exciting year because it was the city’s 125th birthday so we were able to celebrate that and Canada’s 150th birthday with the Great Canadian Flag project, another Open Streets, of course Bright Lights happening right now,” Dilkens said. “And back in the spring we were successful in hosting the MasterCard Memorial Cup and the outcome there (a Spitfires championship) was spectacular for the community.”

Really important stuff to make this City so prosperous, right. Of course not but that is just my opinion.

BORDER INACTION

I just don't get it yet. There is another story that just came out with respect noise at the border. No, it has nothing to do with the traffic at the Ambassador Bridge.

Yes, it is a story from CTV Windsor about the "Windsor Hum" about which we seem to know very little:

"Some residents in Windsor suggest the infamous ‘Windsor Hum’ is back with a vengeance.

“The Windsor Hum is back, some nights worse than others, but it is definitely back,” says Mark Steven, who lives along the Detroit River near the University." (CTV Windsor, January 10, 2018) 

We seem to know very little about what is the cause of this noise although we do know that it creates all kinds of difficulties for people who live near the river:

"It's an issue that first gained attention more than five years ago.

A 2014 study concluded the noise was coming from across the Detroit River on Zug Island."

It is amazing that, after all this time, we still have no idea what the problem is that is coming from the US or how to solve it.  I wonder why then we know so much about whatever some people think are difficulties from the Ambassador Bridge.

Of course we all know that nothing is going to change and that this noise will carry on in the future. At least, we will see the NDP once again making sure that everyone knows how unsuccessful they are in what they are trying to accomplish for people who live nearby.