I.e. south of the 43 parallel
I need to remind myself that you will be unaware of Canadian trends and economy. While it is true that for the most part we are American as a result of constant bombardment from media , in many respects we are different. The words - slow and conservative - are probably the most oft used.
I know ( from our Fla experiences ) how little news you get esp. financial. In the Tampa Bay Times , 1 column a week is maximum for Canadian news. None of it positive.
The TSX or our biggie stock exchange , was off 6 % approx a week ago. I know , I bought 200 shares of big bank stock and they were down 2 - 3 % 2 days running. To put things in perspective , the big 5 banks and trusts have had a long run up.
Over the last 3 - 4 yrs CIBC ( bank of Commerce ) has or had doubled in value. So , the drop was miniscule in the overall picture.
meanwhile the dividend has remained in the 4 - 5 % range. The 2 banks that I now own , also produce a dividend of 4 - 6 %. The value , of course , has always been the dividend yield.
The TSX is anchored by financials but rises and falls based on commodities / resources. Friday , the TSX had a bump up b/c the price of gold stocks rose.
The Canadian dollar and the TSX to some extent , rises and falls w/ oil prices. Gas prices have been steady to low for about 4 months and that parallels our TSX.
The stock purchases were an attempt to shift my investments away from pure mutual funds and bulk up on Exchange Traded Funds and stocks. both the latter , get more favourable tax treatment. I'm still 90 - 95 % mutual fund heavy but for the last 3 yrs , the portfolio has been fairly productive.
House prices have levelled out and modest gains are expected. modest b/c up til this past quarter , S.ON experienced yr over yr increases of 6 - 10 % in house prices , for about 6 yrs.
OK. Health. The blistering is a thing of by-gone ages.
The root canal situation. Still on Amox ( antibiotic ) and those doozer ibuprofen orange guys. I'm about to eliminate the orange guys , they're too hard on my stomach.
I don't do well on medication. If you read the warning labels on the pill bottle , thats what happens to me. I told my doctor , how I reacted to one prescription , his comment ' you're pharmaceutically naive '. M likes to think that the line refers to other aspects of my life as well.
I took one more 600 mg orange doozie but thats it. I'm switching to reg strength ibuprofen this aft.
Weather , the air is still and the birds are chirping - they're always chirping - are they ever sad ?
very humid but coolish - 66 F - and rain is very likely. Weatherboy is all ready w/ his brolley and there is an arrow down.
We turned off the A/C to give it a rest , its been running for 5 days straight. Actually , it didn't run last night but its shut off now. We'll adjust to ambient temperature for the morning and see how it goes.
Our house doesn't air out well. The windows do not line up and flow is suspect. We have a crank skylight in the kitchen and at least thats good at shifting hot air.
I read somewhere that North American homes were never designed for air flow. The layouts do not favour natural ventilation. European homes tend to large ( floor to ceiling windows ) and straight line air flow patterns. I suppose here , in the GWN , heat conservation is a bigger concern rather than air flow patterns.
Local news and I mean local. The tree on our border w/ the east side neighbour is coming down. The tree is a Manitoba maple , the tree is huge , maybe 5 ft around and 60 ft tall but Manitoba maples are considered adventitious - they're weeds. The tree is dirty ,dropping all kinds of veggy crap on our roofs and clogging the gutters. the dirty business is why next door is getting rid of the tree.
Our by-laws , do not allow the removal of big trees w/out permits and inspection. the Manitoba qualifies for removal b/c of its mainly weed status. They are not strong trees and this helps in the permit department evaluation.
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