Want a weekend get-away that will flex your artistic muscles while learning about the Bruce Peninsula Ecology and helping to ensure the survival of migratory birds? The Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory has just released their Summer Workshops schedule, with a roster from watercolors to quilting to geology and yes, even birdwatching ...

• Spring Migration - Hitting The Peak with Ted Cheskey (May 9 - 11)
• Sketching Wildflowers & Painting Orchids In Watercolour with Lin Souliere (May 30 - June 1)
• The Art Of Landscape Quilting with Bev White (September 19 - 21)
• Geology And Landforms Of The Bruce with Daryl Cowell (September 26 - 28)
• Photographing Nature - Developing A Photographic Style with Rob Cotton (October 3 - 5)

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Hold on to your hats. Reading this essay on re-evolutionary industrial organizational theory and practice on Future Positive, the thought, mind-blowing crazy as it is, occurred to me that our present stalemate council is perhaps the perfect incubator for setting the Dr Wilkins plan into action at the municipal level. We're nearly doing it anyway, only in a destructive spirit; formally adopting the Ortegrity method simply saves us the stigma of not doing it the old, broken way:

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AFTER 6 PM ON FRIDAY JUNE 6, 2008, PLACE UNWANTED BUT STILL USABLE ITEMS AT THE CURB FOR PICK UP

Swap Day is a fun, environmental program which allows people to recycle unwanted items.

Place unwanted items such as furniture, books, tools. Sporting goods, toys, etc. at the end of your driveway or the edge of your lawn. Tie a white plastic bag to one or more of the items to indicate that the items are meant for Swap Day.

The Town of South Bruce Peninsula does not assume liability for items which are lost, removed or damaged during Swap Day. Please do not pick up any items unless you are certain that they have been placed for pick up.

Remove leftover items from your driveway or lawn by 6:00 pm on June 7, 2008. There will be NO special municipal pick up of any items (but you can always just post them to osfreecycle@yahoogroups.com!)

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We come a long way, baby
Wow, has it really been five years already? Apparently ... and man oh man it's a trip to take a random shot at that list of 54 backpages down at the bottom of the front page and just jump in on the goings on at that point. Hot stuff, neat things, flash points, spills chills and thrills!

Interesting to say the least, but not unexepected, is the news on the wire that Switzerland has followed France, Russia, and quite a few like minded countries in switching to open source O/S's, and not only saving money in ridiculous licence fees, but allowing the savings to be put directly back into the school system.Do you think someone somewhere here will at least LOOK at the idea?? I wonder....
From the Geneva Tribune:
"Beginning from next term, all computers at schools in the Swiss canton of Geneva will be switched to Ubuntu Linux only.

Geneva newspaper Tribune de Geneve reports today that from September 2008 all computers at schools that currently are dual-boot MS Windows and Linux will have MS Windows removed and become FOSS (Free Open Source Software) only.

Besides lower costs for the administration, students will also profit from the use of Ubuntu, as they then will be able to use the same applications at home without additional cost.

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April 11th to May 3rd, 2008
6th ANNUAL JURIED EXHIBITION OF ART WORK
I know that Southampton isn't officially "Bruce Peninsula", but I have two pieces on display, so I thought I'd post it. The show will be on display at the Southampton Art School & Gallery and is being held in conjunction with a collection of food for the local food bank to assist community families in need. Opening Reception & Awards Ceremony held on Friday, April 11, 2008 from 7-9 pm. Everyone is welcome – please bring a non-perishable food item.

The countdown is on...and here we go..get ready, get out your brews, or your tea or even your vinyl record collection(ahem pay attention Lisa) because in just a few short days, it will be the fifth anniversary of this "lil" blog that grew. Brought on as an idea, as the new voice of SBP, with a lot of hard work and extra (unpaid) time by Gary, and May, to try and bring us together as a community and post our thoughts, photos, lives, and trials and tribulations.
Its been a long process, and sometimes it has meandered out of the way, but very rare has anyone been censored or banned, and it remains an open forum to all.I give credit to Gary and May for this, its like a large family, we all have our own ideas, but deep down we mostly want what we believe is best for us all.

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Internet tax filing is increasing each year, and the programs that you buy to do it are also increasing in price. Here are two options for you. One is called Studio tax available at http://www.studiotax.com ,a free fully loaded/functional tax program, that unfortunately is only available for windows( and you must use the microsoft .NET framework..which you can get free from microsoft) Another alternative is called Cute Tax.Available at http://www.cutetax.ca . If your income is below 25,000 you can use this for free, if above one return is 10.00 and up to 15 returns is 25.00 .Both programs are recognized by CRA's NETFILE system.Cute Tax, is completely compatible with linux/mac/unix and also with most browsers. So go ahead..save some money!!

From the Town website:

Are you afraid of the dark?

The Town of South Bruce Peninsula has recently decided to challenge surrounding municipalities to see who is afraid of the dark, or rather who is in support of reducing green house gas emissions.

An important global warming initiative Earth Hour will be taking place around the world on March 29, 2008.

At 8:00 p.m. on March 29, cities around the world will turn off their lights for one hour to show that it's possible to take action against global warming.

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