ABC: I do not Excel at this.

For the past three weeks (well, two since I really got at it) I have been working on a consulting project, updating a report I wrote 10 years ago.  It concerns the agricultural situation in a country, narrowed down to one specific province and  a couple of counties.  What has changed in the past ten years and why and what are the implications for the future?

In one sense it is much easier, with Google.  Also the country has an excellent free statistics site with massive amounts of data that can be queried 16 ways to breakfast.  I have an in-country contact to help me find stuff I can't Google.  Google Translate does a fair enough job for my needs.  What could be simpler?

Did you know that European and North American numbering formats are different?  Exact opposites in fact?  I knew that but was not prepoared for how much fun it was going to cause.  My computer is set to NA default.  Thousands are separated by commas, decimals by periods.  ALL the data I am downloading is European, with thousands separated by periods and decimals delineated by commas. Guess what my computer thinks?

I was not going to change the default on my computer as I have no idea how much problems that will cause with the millions of spreadsheets I have on file.  I tried changing it for each spreadsheet.  You can do that if you are entering the numbers yourself but if you are downloading spreadsheets it doesn't work.  I Googled for help and learned a few tricks, some of which actually worked.  Using Remove (the "."/Replace (with a blank i.e. nothing) eliminates the thousands separator.  BUT if the number is 19.000 or 2.130 Excel has already lopped off the extraneous 0s so you have to do those by hand IF you catch them.

Now I have had lots of fun learning how to make new charts.  Tables of thousands of numbers are useless.  Pictures show information.  Organizing numbers to make pretty pictures is one thing.  Making Excel draw the charts I want is another.  Google to the rescue again.  I can now make two kinds of charts which are not on the Wizard. Column charts with primary and secondary Y axis.  Stacking column charts with several columns over one point on the X axis.

Be impressed, OK.

This suggests some things I need to check further

This told me nothing new and I had to make a different chart before I learned something - cows milked and milk production are NOT real data, they are formula based.  Damn.

Gift Suggestions for those who have everything

Chartreuse says she has a family that is hard to buy Christmas gifts for because they have everything.  Here are some suggestions:

For the man who has everything - Penicillin
For the family who has everything - Help with the payments

If the family has small children - tools, drums or bagpipes are popular.  Or see ideas below.

Donations to charities are becoming quite common.

If the family is Republican - A donation in their name to the NAACP
If the family is Democrat - A donation in their name to the Westboro Baptist Church
If the family is Conservative - A donation in their name to Greenpeace
If the family is New Democrat - A donation in their name to the Canadian Nuclear Association

Speaking of donations to charities, long ago I made a list of excuses to replace the "I gave at the office" which is old, lame and no one believes anyway. The only one I can remember is this one: Alzheimer's Association - I forgot.

If any of my readers have other suggestions for other associations, I'd be pleased to hear from you.

Care Packages

Tanya mailed New Year's gifts to Siberia yesterday.  Gifts for her sister, Luda, her niece and nephew, Ksenia and Slavik, her grand niece Uliana and even something for her cousin's 3 year old grandson, little Tolik.  I wanted to send Tolik a set of wrenches and screwdrivers which for him would be an even better gift than drums or bagpipes but Tanya thought not as I would never be able to go there again.  (At age two, Tolik loosened the wheels on his great grandmother's wheelchair so they fell off and dumped her..."Get up, Babushka...")

Tanya took three bags of stuff to the Post Office.  All unwrapped, as the Post Office has to inspect and approve anything that it ships in country or internationally.  They provide the packaging as part of the cost of shipping.  About $50 worth of gifts and $30 worth of postage but it was ever thus.

One year I mailed $10 worth of Turkish tea (1 kg net) to a friend on Vancouver Island.  The packaging the tea was in put me 50 grams over the 1 kg limit and it cost me $25.  If I had known I would have grabbed 100 grams of tea for my own use.  Too soon oldt und too late schmardt.

We got our own care package from Canada last night.  Meest (bridge) Corporation Inc is an awesome package delivery service from USA and Canada to the FSU.  It was started as a way for people in NA to ship care packages to relatives in Ukraine and grew from there. (That link doesn't seem to want to work in English language but Meest America Inc is in English).

There is a lady in Regina who collects boxes for Ukraine.  I am sure there would be a contact person in every community of any size with a Ukrainian diaspora. The boxes are trucked to Montreal (I think) where they are loaded in a container and shipped to Ukraine.  It takes six to eight weeks. We have made use of this many times in the past 6 years. Cost is about $2.75 per kg plus insurance and delivery.  Max weight is 30 kg and runs about $125 delivered to our door in Mar'yaniv'ka.

Tanya has gone to Krivii Rih today with Andrei and Tania so I am making chili for myself for lunch.  It is not exactly Screaming Sphincter Chili but it is hotter than she likes it and tomato sauce disagrees with her.

Vase dat you say?

We drove Masha home at 6:00 pm Sunday night. Masha and Tanya made greeting cards all Saturday evening and Sunday morning. In the afternoon they went outside and raked and burned leaves.  Kids seem to love fires.  Tanya sorted the apples we had stored in an outside shed and I hauled them into the summer kitchen where they will stay until it gets really cold.  Three laundry sized baskets will last a while.

Masha went with me to walk the dogs.  For a long while we walked hand-in-hand.  Her idea.  I guess I am a pretty good step-dedushka and it feels good.  We stopped by the river on our way home and the dogs immediately bailed in off the edge of the road and swam out and back.  That water had to be cold!  Then they chased each other through the grass and tall reeds until they dried off while Masha skipped stones in the water. Throwing rocks into water is something else that all kids seem to love.

Tanya was dead beat tired by evening.  One-on-one with a 9 year old for a day and a half can wear you out.  She was too tired to sleep so she watched movies on the internet until 4:00 am and then fell asleep upstairs so she wouldn't wake me coming to bed.

Kuchma had decided not to go prowling at 10 pm as usual.  He was sleeping on his couch blanket (dirty feet) when I went to bed and at 5:00 am, I heard him go upstairs looking for someone to let him out.  He makes more noise going up and down stairs than I do. I blindly stumbled out of bed and bumped the bureau, tipping over an ancient 75 cm red glass decorator vase.  It fell gracefully but landed hard.

When I told Tanya in the morning, she was not impressed.  Said I needed a bedroom with only a bed in it.  Reminds me of an Australia joke about a kangaroo but we won't go there.  And for someone who stubs her foot against the bed as often as she, I didn't think she had much room to talk about me but of course one does not say that.  And she didn't break any vases.

Dance Band on the Titanic

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada.  The Armistice,  ending the Great War, was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.  What does Dance Band on the Titanic have to do with remembering and honouring those who fought in wars past?  Listen and I expect you will figure it out.

"Dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

Mama stood cryin' at the dockside
Sayin' "Please son, don't take this trip"
I said "Mama, sweet Mama, don't you worry none"
"Even God couldn't sink this ship"

Well, the whistle blew and they turned the screws
It turned the water into foam
Destination sweet salvation
Goodbye home sweet home

I'm in the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

There was a trombone and a saxophone
The bass and drums were cookin' up the bandstand
And I was strummin' in the middle with this dude on the fiddle
And we were three days out from land

And now the foghorn's jammed and moanin'
Hear it groanin' through the misty night
I heard the lookout shout down "There's icebergs around"
"But still everything's all right"

Oh, the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

They were burnin' all the flares for candles
In the banquet they were throwin' in first class
And we were blowin' waltzes in the barroom
When the universe went CRASH!

"There's no way that this could happen"
I could hear the old captain curse
He ordered lifeboats away, that's when I heard the chaplain say
"Women and children and chaplains first"

Well, they soon used up all of the lifeboats
But there were a lot of us left on board
I heard the drummer sayin' "Boys, just keep playin'"
"Now we're doin' this gig for the Lord"

I heard the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

There's a wild-eyed boy in the radio shack
He's the last remaining guest
He was tappin' in a Morse code frenzy
Tappin' "Please God, S.O.S."

Jesus Christ can walk on the water
But a music man will drown
They say that Nero fiddled while Rome burned up
Well, I was strummin' as the ship go down

I'm in the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

Dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

Dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me"

To heir is human; to sleep, divan

Masha is here for the night, so I guess I get the couch again.  I picked her up after her English class.  She was all packed and ready, loaded with hobby stuff.  Two classes in greeting card making turned her into a pretty good little crafty-type.  I've seen some of her cards and they are quite good for a nine year old.

Babushka has caught the bug, being quite artsy in her own right.  We are going to Dnipro next week so she can go to a big craft store there and buy "stuff".  She has been twice to a small shop here in town so the two of them are now scattered knee-deep across the living room.  We had been running short of little pieces of paper but I think we will be OK now.

We'd been in town earlier in the day for groceries.  We got about three blocks from home when Tanya realized she had forgotten her wallet.  She has a lot of things to remember to keep us organized so her wallet or mobile phone or list often get missed.  I just have to remember where I left the car last.  As to the essentials, I simply cross myself (spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch) and away we go.

Velika Kshenia (Big Spoon in Ukrainian) has their Christmas  New Year's stuff out. This year we are going to look for outdoor lights.  Maybe when we are in Dnipro. We have not seen them in previous years.

There are a couple of light arrangements I would like to try but am not sure they would be appreciated.

Lighthearted Furriness