MY4PLANTS Autumn

 October 1st.

The summer is long gone and I'll be harvesting all my plants soon.  Despite the stretch of long hot days, the yield in total is not as big as last year's cool summer yield.  I will have a couple of dried ounces I guess.   MY 4 PLANTS is quite a lot of nurturing and work even when some systems like watering are in place.   But I've celebrated the end of prohibition in a great way,  not just by smoking pot but by growing MY 4 PLANTS from seed to maturity!

Harvest time has finally arrived.  MY4PLANTS is a moderate success.  I've been dehydrating some in my Ninja Foodi.  There wasn't enough warmth left in the sun and cabin to do it naturally.

MY4PLANTS Late Summer

 August 1st 2021

The tall Betty Warp is inching towards the roof but growth has slowed since the flowers began sprouting of course..  

August 3rd 2021

The 3 male plants that were banished to my neighbour's greenhouse have thrived and fully flowered.  The female that joined them has not fared so well.  The transplant didn't help and while it's alive and has small flowers, it isn't thriving.  I'm still hopeful for some seeds however.  

The biggest Betty Warp plant is thriving, is covered in young flowers and will be the major success of the whole crop.  The California-orange plants haven't flowered yet but are healthy and growing slowly.

August 14th

There haven't been big changes during the past week.  Just general slow maturation of the plants which are at different stages entirely.  Two Betty Warp plants will be  harvested before the end of August and the California orange plants haven't even flowered yet. 

August 16th

The smallest of the 3 California-Orange plants came out as male finally.  I whacked it and am down to 5 plants now.

August 21st 20201

2 Betty Warp plants have flowers with noticeable brown pistils and many yellow leaves.  So they could be harvested anytime.  There's a month left of summer.  These early ripening varieties are my favourites now.  The idea that some wouldn't be ready until the end of October isn't appealing.

September 1st

My impatience continues while my 4 plants slowly mature.  Although this is only my second season, I'm starting to realize that autoflowering plants don't really mature in 10 weeks when they're outside.  Two of my plants are getting very close to harvest time with quite a few brown pistils and a lot of dead leaves.  But they're still a week or two away which actually puts them into the 5 month growing time and that's longer than last year!  A long hot summer with good watering and the same general growing conditions hasn't hastened nor improved the yield one bit compared to the cool damp summer last year!

The California orange plants are mostly unchanged for a month......they are very slowly becoming more bushy but not bigger and very little signs of flowering.

The biggest Betty Warp plant remains the star of the 20 seed lot.

Although the flowers are immature, if they ripen in the normal way there'll be more pot on this plant than the rest combined.  However, at the moment that's only the 2 other Betty Warp plants.  With only a month or so remaining in the season, the 2 California Orange plants may not yield anything.

Either the seeds were not very good quality or these plants aren't suitable for my growing conditions.

September 7th 2021

Heeding some online advice about beginning the harvest as soon as possible, I clipped several of the ripest looking buds and dried them on a Chinette plate on the counter.  They dried out noticeably with a fresh grassy scent.  

September 13th 2021

With some city business looming and the first rainstorm forecast by the end of the week, I decided to harvest the remainder of the two plants and take them with me to Vancouver.   I have a Ninja Foodi with a dehydrator function and a 5 tray rack.  I dried the pot at the lowest setting of 105F for 3 sessions of 6 hours each.  It dried out nicely and yielded a full sandwich baggy.  A test smoke proved fine potency!  After 6 months I've smoked the first of the season.  The yield is disappointingly small at less than 1/2 an ounce for each plant, but the potency is very good.  This isn't 1 toke dope but 3 tokes got me very stoned! 

September 17th 2021

The remaining plants are flowering well but are 2 weeks away from harvest time I estimate.  The largest and remaining bettywarp plant might yield another full ounce and maybe the 2 california orange plants another ounce between them.

Why did only 1 plant reach its full potential and why did they all take so long to mature despite being sold as autoflowering varieties?

This is the second year that I've used a dehydrator.  It's worked very well and inspite of online posters warning about harsh smoke and decreased potency as a result, this isn't my experience.   This is an excellent way to dry all manner of herbs and fruit and vegetables and it works well for pot too.  The only reason I can suggest that one wouldn't do it is if the crop is too big for a home dehydrator and one has a suitable place to air dry it.  This is no small thing in the PNW where cold, wet conditions are normal in October.  

MY4PLANTS Summer 2021

 July 17th 2021

Well I got tired of waiting for the remaining 3 Cali-Orange plants to come out and wanted to be as sure of getting seeds as I am of harvesting sensimilla.  So I dug out the smallest female and put it in with the 3 males and gave it a shower of pollen.  Most of the pollen sacs have opened but a noticeable amount of pollen rained down.

This is an interesting part of the MY 4 PLANTS project.  I'm glad I saved some male plants for this.  They're thriving and are fulfilling their raison d'être.  

My early season stressing over the repotting and fear of pollination has passed now, even though I still have 3 plants of questionable gender.  Of course it's statistically unlikely that they're all male.  So I'll be raising MY 4 PLANTS as planned.  It's a surprising amount of rigmarole.  However this is only my second season and my systems are undeveloped.  Some articles say the early maturing, autoflowering varieties can and should be started in their final pots.  This is what I want to do.  Let's say I have 15-2 gallon pots.  I plant in April again.... 12 germinate, 10 survive, 5 are males and thus are easily removed. 

I've seen that these plants don't grow very big and can be raised in much smaller pots than my 7 gallon pots.  The chore and more frequent watering required will be taken care of by the drip system.  The smaller pots can line the perimeter of the greenhouse. No daily watering....ease of being away for a week or more ....no repotting and no digging out males.  Problems with this system are A:. These plants are too small for a decent harvest with only MY 4 PLANTS. I'd really need 10 or 12 mature  plants to get only 4 or 5 ounces of dried bud.  This is the ridiculous part of the new legality.  Obviously the people who've maid the laws have never grown any pot.  Reading the predictions of yield for the various varieties seems like a huge harvest but I'm sure these are for fresh buds not dried.  It takes a lot of fresh buds to get a dried ounce.  The guys selling seeds and stating harvest weights are like weed narcs telling reporters how much they've seized and burned!  My entire harvest of last year dried out to only a couple ounces of bud......a moisture loss of maybe 80% by weight.

Current provincial law allows 1 kilo to be kept in residence.....I would certainly like to accomplish this AND I'd like to do while growing MY 4 PLANTS.  Of course this would require each plant to yield 250gms of dried bud.  A tall order indeed for little plants such as I'm growing.  Sigh.  To achieve this I'd need to grow some mighty big plants......not autoflowering and started early and harvested late.  Based on my experience I don't want to tend my4plants from March to October. It's been a learning experience of the type that I've done many times in my life.  It's been interesting and rewarding but Id like a 3 to 4 month season.

July 24th 2021

I needn't have been concerned about labelling my plants for variety and gender since it's plain to see now.  The BettyWarp plants are well into the flowering stage and the 3 remaining Cali-Orange plants are looking healthy with still no sign of gender. One of those is only 2' tall.  All plants are branching out and getting bushy and stems are thickening. 

July 25th 2021

One Cali-Orange plant showed a wispy white pistil today under a magnifying glass.  It's not 100% but that's the first strong sign that it's female.

 There are hundreds of buds on the Betty Warp plants.  The tallest one is within a foot of the greenhouse peak.  One plant is growing a cola at its top.  It appears that harvest will begin at the end of August as described, for these seeds. But the later maturing Cali-Orange seem to be developing as predicted as well.  Given as much as two months more growing time, albeit late season, will they yield big buds???

July 28th 2021

The long warm dry summer is continuing and so growing conditions are ideal.The plants are filling the 4x8 greenhouse slowly but surely.  There a lot of yellow fan leaves on 2 of the 3 BettyWarp plants These are probably about the size of MY 4 PLANTS when I harvested at the end of September last year.

The biggest plant is now quite impressive at 55" tall and nearly 4' wide. It's very healthy looking and is just beginning to form flowers.   I wish my4plants were all like it.  The Cali-Orange plants are thriving but are much smaller and still not flowering yet.  I really like the idea that I'll be harvesting at the end of August, not in October!  Will I beat last year's harvest size?  I think so.  The buds are many but are still small overall   I got only about 2 ounces of dried bud last year and all things considered, I'm expecting a little more.

Comparing now to last year at this time is strangely difficult because the plants are so different and so were the start times and the weather.    The one Texada Timewarp I got last year in the middle of June was 18" tall, was  root bound in a 2 liter milk carton and was very thin and pale.  It had been topped and ultimately produced two nice colas but it was stunted.  The others were 3" clones I got in late May.  These Pink Kush plants were quite beautiful and were bushy, compact, dark green plants.   I don't know whether they were autoflowering or not.  They grew beautifully but only to about 3'.  

Hopefully things continue like this!

MY4PLANTS Spring 2021

 I've grew up during marijuana prohibition and now, a lifetime later, Justin and the Liberals finally and surprisingly legalized recreational pot.  Yes it's complicated and typically Canadian with silly differences between provinces but the bottom line is, here in British Columbia, I'm allowed to grow MY 4 PLANTS!

Virus Days forced me to mail order seeds.....all stores were closed.  I got 11 BettyWarp but  I dropped one and lost it.  I also bought 10 California Orange seeds. Both are sold as regular, autoflowering seeds.

$115 by mail its an outrageous price for a few pot seeds.....I guess I paid some tax somewhere in there but it wasn't listed on the receipt.

After asking friends for seeds, several said yes but none ultimately came through and by that time in March, I could not buy feminized seeds in a timely and affordable way.  So I ordered these from Vancouver Seed Bank.

I planted them in egg cartons in garden soil.

4 are Betty Warp

6 are Cali Orange

1st batch seeds planted April 18th

Second batch April 27th

The Betty Warp seeds took longer and are smaller......most germinated but 1/2 didn't make it....I think I overheated a couple too early in the sunny window.

4 of 10 seeds in the 1st batch are up and transplanted into small pots for sexing later.

Several of the 2nd batch have germinated.

May 10th

I cut the egg cartons into single cups and planted them in 4.3" pots full of garden soil and covered loosely with plastic wrap.

I bought an LED plant lamp with me and a small heat pad  but the weather has been warm and sunny for days so I haven't used either.

I've been carefully watering and watching but a couple more are very stunted and one seems to have died after barely germinating.

So of my original 21 seeds I have 13 that look strong.

May 19th.

I've gotten the seedlings under watering spikes in their own pots buried in the big pots...two more have died. The 11 are generally thriving in the 4 or 5 inch range.  If I can accurately identify the males and separate them I feel fairly confident that I'll end up with 4 strong female plants.

It's a drag having had to pay over a hundred bucks and plant 21 seeds to get 4 good plants by summer but the MY 4 PLANTS project is underway!

Although I wish I'd gotten feminized seeds, the cost is so high that I hope to have lots of seeds of my own for next spring.  But do I really want to wait until summer to see which plants I'm keeping?  No!...I do not.  Still, I intend to farm out my male plants to neighbours along with a female if I can spare it, to try and get some seeds.   I may not want to grow regular seeds but as we've seen, getting femenized seeds is expensive and can be tricky.  I don't want to grow regular seeds again next season but to grow MY 4 PLANTS next season without spending any money is VERY tempting....but lets not get ahead of ourselves.  All told I've spent hundreds of dollars over the last two years on MY 4 PLANTS  (including the greenhouse)  To have cost free future seasons is a fine idea, especially since I neither sell nor (hardly) smoke marijuana!

May 3rd.

The plants are thriving but for one stunted.   The problem is that they've outgrown the 4.3" pots already.

Luckily I scored some 1 gallon pots at the IGA so can transplant again and wait for them to show their sexes. But it's a real pain, especially because it'll have to be done again in a couple of weeks.... 

I've decided to plant them all in the big pots and just dig out the males later.  Maybe this compromises my yield somehow.....like damaging roots when digging or shading each other but it seems like the best way to get just female plants into the big pots ultimately. I want to just water them mostly, from now on.

I'm using CIL 20-20-20 plant food in the water. A kilo was $10 bucks at Home Depot.  I've been careful not to over do it.  I remember years ago when I worked at a sod farm that we used 19-19-19 all the time and it was powerful.... wherever some got spilled it burned a brown patch.  

The online articles that write about fertilizing recommend everything from bat shit to pee to secret organic blends to specialty store proprietary brand plant food, the cost of the latter would  likely exceed the value of my crop.   Some online commenters has stated that they use ordinary plant food successfully.   Are pot plant's needs much different than other plants?  There's a lot of folklore, hearsay and selling of products.

If 4-7 females survive to bud then we have a good season.

They all seem nonetheworseforwear except one that is droopy.

May 31.  

This morning all the plants look vigorous after yesterday's transplanting into the big pots. The Betty Warp seeds were smallest and took longest to germinate but now they have significantly outgrown the California Orange plants.

I have spent many hours over the past 2 years studying online and actively gardening and harvesting MY 4 PLANTS.  The greenhouse project took many hours over a couple of years and there are still details unfinished as usual.  Last year was a complete success despite my inexperience, a cool damp summer and slightly frantic efforts to attach scrap plexiglass to the frame so that the seedlings which arrived unexpectedly could be protected.

But this season the greenhouse is  nicely enclosed and vented. And, I have watering spikes and pots.  So I've been able to manage the nuisance of rearing many plants in order to finally harvest only MY 4 PLANTS.

 with tea, in the morning watching my view and MY 4 PLANTS.   The design and location of the greenhouse seems good and it's maintenance free.  The plexiglass is attached with stainless screws, the frame and deck are painted on all sides and connected with deck screws.  So I expect it to last indefinitely .....the sun has just reached the plants at 9:15am

My reading says 6 hours of direct sun will suffice for my4plants along more hours of light.

Betty Warp apparently is an early maturing type that is ripe in late August +/-.   But the California Orange is a 1980's variety that traditionally isn't ready until late October.  These are both advertised as hybridized, autoflowering types so who knows?

They're mostly at the point where most posts say I can and should top MY 4 PLANTS.  But boiling down the mass of online recommendations into usable instructions is tricky.  Some posts are for indoor grows, some outside, some for other climates, hydroponics, and some for containers, greenhouses different varieties and whatever.

One site says that autoflowering plants shouldn't be topped, that they are bred to be short and bushy, and that topping sets the plants back from it's maturation date by at least a week or more.

Although I'm planning to increase my harvest over last year, I don't need nor want more than MY 4 PLANTS.  I don't have floor space to spare in my 4'x8' greenhouse, nor low hanging lights.  But I have 7 feet of height.....I want tall plants.  B. warp is expected in the 42" range......C.Orange much taller.  

Last year's Texada Time Warp was topped when I received it and that made 2 main stalks with big buds but MY 4 PLANTS are not old 1970's strains like that.   So for now I'm going to simply let my4plants grow for the next few weeks.

I never thought I'd live to see the day, in Canada, when I could brew my own beer, drink it in city parks, grow my own pot and smoke it, all legally AND TAX FREE!. Ya live long enough you'll see everything I guess.  I mean, obviously governments want me to do it or else they'd tax it right?.  I'm such a good little Canadian.

Three weeks until the summer solstice.  Virus Days seem to be ending, albeit rather slowly.  I have definitely been with the trends of home brewing and home growing  pot.

Here on the coast, most of the fish are gone and the rest of the fishing is tightly regulated.......so I'm growing MY 4 PLANTS instead of fishing..

June 3rd

A full dose of fertilizer yesterday in a few liters of water and they all look fine today.

June 5th

The weather turned cool and cloudy...it seems impossible that the plants will be big. But the greenhouse has already proved to be very successful.  It's warm and dry and bright inside on cool wet days and the plants are thriving.  

The weather forecast is like that for the next 10 days.......

June 9th

 Unsettled weather for the last week has deprived MY 4 PLANTS of sun but the greenhouse has done its job through the squalls and all plants are thriving.

Even the runty seedling while undersized has grown to about 5"

The biggest is 20+"

I've added the full recommended dose of fertilizer to the water the last two applications.  All plants seems perfectly fine.  The biggest B. Warp plant remains the one that sprouted first.  The others in its group are nearly as tall but not so bushy.

I feel happy about the prospect of this season's crop despite the early season struggles and the late germination date.  

As some online posts warned, more than  one plant per pot will find roots very tangled and of course I'll have to sacrifice males to avoid damaging females.

It remains to be seen how well I identify and separate the males and nurture them offsite.  If I produce lots of seeds, my natural frugality will pressure me to plant them.  But for about $60 buck I can save myself not only lots of work, but risk of pollination as well.  So not to get ahead of myself but I'll try to do it the easy way next year.

I've examined MY 4 PLANTS with a magnifying glass but there isn't any sign of gender yet as far as I can tell.

June 11th.

 The oldest and biggest Betty Warps are showing their genders. One female and one male are developed enough for me to be certain.  So I dug out the male, put it in a 2 gallon pot and it's been banished to Glyn's greenhouse.  It's the 2nd biggest.  The root ball wasn't big so the plan is working so far.  I topped up the soil in all pots, watered and fertilized and I now have a ready 5 gallon bucket I can use in case I end up with 3 or 4 females in one pot.   There is no sign at all of any other males yet.

The weather remains cool and windy and mostly overcast.  It's beautifully comfortable inside the greenhouse but I fear it's not enough sun for my4plants to grow BIG.  The largest one is 22" and it's noticeably larger than the rest as it has been since germination with a thicker stalk and longer branches. Hopefully it's female.

June 13th.

As unlikely as it seems I'm starting to think that most of my plants are female since none have shown to be male except one.  Only one continues to show the characteristic wispy white pistils. The rest show tiny green leaf like points. Because the largest plant is 2' tall I'm starting to believe that some size is possible..... we're a week from summer if we get some sun......4' will be likely.

July 5th.

Already 3 weeks + have gone by since the last report.  3 male plants have been banished to Glyn'greenhouse where they have already dropped some pollen.  They remain small plants however..... under 3'.

I will give them a female but only 4 of the remaining ones are certainly female .... I still cannot definitively identify the remaining 5.

The tallest plants are over 3'.....the other BW plants have almost caught up to the biggest one but the others remain noticeably smaller.  Although the sunshine has been plentiful and the have received regular water and fertilizer, I don't see even the tallest plants as being impressively large yet.

July 12 2021

I've cut down another Betty Warp male that was 40" high.  Of my remaining 7 plants, 3 stubbornly refuse to reveal their genders.  The other 4 are females in flower.  The tallest is 42". They're becoming bushy but haven't grown taller in a week.

At first I had difficulty cutting down my male plants, wanting to rear them seperately.   But there are too many and I really want to just grow MY 4 PLANTS so the the last 2 males have been quickly whacked.

Even though all plants have been equally watered from the same container one plant has significant leaf browning and another a little bit.  The others seem fine although one has a lot of big pale green leaves. One plant is actively flowering and its leaves are striped light and dark green.

I'm still waiting for another plant to identify itself.   Also I want to know there aren't anymore males.  One article I read says it could be as late as the 3rd week in July.  

However, in general, my4plants have entered the flowering stage and this blog is long enough.  So the flowering stage will be in the next blog.

Gold is Money Again

Central banks around the world bought 651 tonnes of gold in 2019.  That's an astonishing thing for a myriad of reasons beyond just the staggering amount.  Here's how much gold that is pictures.

Gold is enjoying a bull market in recent years but who and what is driving the price?
In March of 2019 the Bank of International Settlements(BIS) in Basel Switzerland re-classified gold from a tier 3 class of assets to a tier 1 asset.  Tier 1 is the same as cash.  This move is a bank accounting change that allows banks to value their gold reserves as if they were cash.  Before hand, gold reserves could only be valued at 50% of cash.  This obscure change in central bank policy has not made many headlines but it may be the main factor driving the price of gold over $1500.00 USD per ounce in the months following the change.  Central banks had been on a shopping spree prior to March of 2019 for other reasons but central bank gold acquisitions in 2019 were double those of 2017 and the same as in 2018
The Basel III change has re-monetized gold for central banks.
Of course this doesn't matter to central banks that don't own any gold.  And one of those banks is the Bank of Canada which liquidated its gold in 2016.  Canada, as a signatory has adopted the new policy.
 "this new system is already in place in Canada, as confirmed by Canada’s top financial regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI). Under the previous rules, gold was rated as a Tier 3 asset (there are now only two tiers), and had a 50% Risk Weighting Assessment (RWA)."

Another central bank without gold is the Bank of England which sold all of its tons of gold in 1999 at $300 USD per ounce. It seems unbelievable.   Known as Brown's Bottom,  it must be seen as colossal gaff in public policy.   Those that don't view gold as cash but only as an archaic commodity will likely defend these moves to this day.  But virtually every financial advisor continues to recommend holding 10%-15% gold in portfolios as a hedge against inflation and a traditional source of wealth.  Apparently this isn't good enough for the finance ministers who executed those sales.
That advice is good for individuals and especially for Canadians.  In general, the Canadian federal government does not store wealth.   All of the net income the government receives is returned to Canadians in the form of benefits.  (Plus a few billion that the government borrows.)  While gold is not handed over to Canadians in the same way as tax deductions, the Royal Canadian Mint provides an opportunity to acquire gold (and silver) at near spot prices.  This is 9999% Canadian gold.,  This is fine gold.  This is coin of the realm,  legal tender.  Most Canadians have the same attitude towards holding gold as the finance minister who sold all The  Bank of Canada's gold. We can all walk into a bullion dealer and buy gold maple leaf coins with our cash.  Around the world, acquiring gold is not nearly so easy and affordable and legal.  Gold can be held in an RRSP and a TFSA although this is not recommended for all one's gold, it is a way of making gold tax deductible.  But for larger amounts, for those who cannot safely store their gold at home or who don't want to, this can be a good option.  Some gold should be held in physical form and in fractional sizes for use in post apocalyptic times.
For a long time, especially in western countries, gold has been treated largely as a commodity by governments and investors, even though globally it has always been and is money.  The $USD remains the reserve currency of the world despite efforts by China and to a lesser extent Russia to get out from underneath the thumb of Uncle Sam. The move by the Bank of International Settlements to re-monetize gold has allowed central banks to significantly reduce the proportion of USD$ in their reserves and many banks have done that to some extent.  No fiat currency in history has ever outlasted gold.  It would be prudent to heed history's lessons in good times in case of hard times, especially when the opportunity is so accessible for Canadians.
The buying of gold en masse by central banks has notably impacted annual mined supply in recent years.  It seems that despite this absorption of supply, gold prices have not reacted accordingly yet. Some predicted that the Basel III policy change would cause a big spike in gold prices but a year later, we have only witnessed steady increases.
The USA sovereign debt has reached 22 trillion dollars.... Canada's sovereign debt recently reached the 1 trillion dollar milestone.   While this leverage of money has added near crippling interest costs to governments, ordinary citizens have and can still benefit from the chance to convert some of  this unprecedented cash flow into tangible and physical, precious metal assets such as gold. Not only can gold holdings be tax deductible,  Its sale is tax free.  Governments encourage Canadians to take advantage of this resource. Those who have held gold in their portfolios and purchased gold regularly through the years are now in a position  to profit from the sale of some of that gold now and convert it into other needed assets.
Canada is the 5th largest gold producing nation in the world.  Based on the incomes of Canadians,  buying gold is relatively affordable compared to the majority of people living in the top gold producing countries.  While $2000 .00 CND is real money,  most working folks in China, the world's top producer, would likely have a lot of difficulty raising that much investment capital. 

Best Smartphone and Best Mobile Phone Company in Canada

The Nexus 6 is the biggest, fastest, and most expensive Nexus phone to date. It has all the top-tier specs users come to expect, rather than slightly undercutting the competition and offering a lower price. It’s on par with the Note 4, Galaxy S5, and all other manufactures this year., The Nexus 6 specs are available now,  and Google says it will be available in early November. But all things considered, IS IT THE BEST SMARTPHONE?

I started shopping for a phablet 2 years ago when they were first offered. The only way for me to get one was to order it sight unseen from abroad.  I hate doing this but in a country like Canada that almost never gets cutting edge devices until they aren't cutting edge any more, this is the only way.  I bought the very first internet tablet from NCIX back in 2007 ....My Nokia N800 still works flawlessly!...I then went on to acquire the N900, with difficulty.  But anyway, I almost bought the cutting edge Asus FonePad but I would have had to order it from Hong Kong and since it was going to be my phone I was unsure about the large size. 

I went to WindMobile to handle the Huawei Ascend Mate when was first offered a year and a half ago.  This was the first phablet offered in Canada and I wanted one!...But when I held it I found that it was bigger than I liked for constant carrying.   I know that the high end phablets like the ones listed above are a little thinner and a little lighter but not much! and they are a LOT more expensive.  So I went for a 7" Kindle Fire HD. It was less than 1/2 the retail price of the Ascend and it does have top end specs.   Now I can carry  both devices when it's convenient or just my small phone when it's not.   Based on size only, I think I'd rather have the Nexus 5...but if I didn't have my Kindle I'd likely buy a phablet, likely the Huawei Ascend Mate 2.   It doesn't have top end specs but they're very good, the device is available for $149 bucks on Wind Tab!  Also, if I lose it or break it I won't cry as much as if it was a $1000+ iphone 6 ..One needs insurance on that thing...seriously!

It looks as though local prices of Craigslisted Nexus 5's have come down about 50 bucks to about $275 ....I still don't want to pay that much to an unkown seller for a device that retails for $349 but a lot of people are willing since most new or flawless Nexus 5's that are listed for less than $300 bucks sell with a day or so.  And why not?  this is one of the best smartphones available and its about 1/2 the price of an iphone. 

But I delayed the need to buy a new phone by acquiring my Kindle Fire HD.  With an limited data plan offered by WindMobile I don't need to be concerned about my usage.  I tether it with my old LG Optimus 2X.  that still works almost flawlessly.  I've dropped on the floor, drowned it in the river....It does everything up to date smartphones do but of course the specs aren't up to date.  I like it especially for its swappable battery and its micro SD card slot.  Newer devices often omit these conveniences and build in an expensive battery and memory...There's no need for this in my view.  I can carry a spare $10 battery or a $25 32GB SD card.   I don't need to a pay exorbitant amounts to have these things built in, not to mention the fact that I never need to worry about running out of power with a little battery in my pocket.   It was way ahead of its time.   I had not foreseen that it would be software not hardware that would nudge me towards a new device.  Typically for Canada, LG has not offered an OS update for my phone...its stalled at Android 2.2 Froyo.  In other countries  4.1 is offered.  WHY NOT CANADA?

I don't understand why phablets are so much more expensive than tablets,   The Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7 for example are every bit as good as the top tier phablets that cost hundreds of dollars more.....I can't believe that building full telephony, functionality into a small tablet costs upwards of 400 bucks!  But, for whatever reason...a Nexus 7" wifi is $200,  with 4G...its $400....but a Nexus 6 is well over $700 bucks retail!
Why do I have to be like this??  Why can't I  just drift into the Rogers Gouge Me store, sign the papers,  pick up my whatever phone and walk out????  Because I want to save money and I want you to as well.   So what is the very best deal on the best microcomputer/smartphone/tablet out there?   Hands down the Google Nexus 5.  Will it work on the best priced mobile phone network in Canada? Yes it's a pentaband phone, it runs on the AWS 1700./2100 WindMobile frequencies.

THE NEW RCM $20 SILVER COIN. WHEN IS A TWENTY A TWENTY?

The Royal Canadian Mint has begun issuing $20 silver coins that are exchangeable for bills or coin money at face value...It's a small reversal of a decades old trend that has seen all currencies world wide become tokens with no intrinsic value...All our money is now made of polymer and steel for example whereas our coins were sterling silver and 80% silver along with copper and nickel at different points in Canadian history. The silver $20 coins can be ordered online where mailing costs are incurred but one can also walk into the RCM retail store at 752 Granville, and other RCM shops around Canada, hand over a $20 bill  (or steel coins) and receive a solid, 9999 silver, $20 coin! The limited issue coin won't be sufficient to transfer wealth from the fed to the trouser pockets of the nation en masse but this is a rare and valuable chance to take silver out of government coffers with no premium....I don't know of anywhere else in the world where this is currently possible. http://www.mint.ca/store/product/coin_exchange.jsp?itemId=prod1660011&sp_rid=MjgxNDM1MTM1NgS2&sp_mid=5827421&spMailingID=5827421&spUserID=MjgxNDM1MTM1NgS2&spJobID=69260611&spReportId=NjkyNjA2MTES1

The silver coin thing is a strange thing when one is trying to attach value for the holder. 

The $20 silver coin that the mint is issuing weighs about 1/4 of an ounce.  On the spot market (that is the wholesale price of silver via the commodities market today) that's about  $7 bucks worth of silver...So why would anyone pay $20 bucks for that much silver?..Well because you aren't buying silver, you are buying Canadian money.  The second reason is because the retail price of silver which is the price that you and I can pay for  a small amount at a store is much higher.......But still not not $20 bucks for a 1/4 ounce ...So why would anyone...?...Well because the mint says it's worth $20 bucks that's why and the mint has the hammer.   When we are talking about money, the mint calls the shots....The mint says that a piece of paper or polymer is worth $20 bucks and there's no silver in those bills at all.   But wait you say, if I can buy more silver for less money at a coin dealer's retail store such as J&M  then why would I pay $20 bucks for a coin with only a 1/4 ounce silver.   Which amounts to $80 bucks an ounce, when I can buy full ounce of silver for $35 bucks at a retail store?   Well because the 1 ounce silver maple leaf coin has a face value of only $5 bucks.  Even though it's legal tender, it's not designed for circulation as money because no one would spend a full ounce of silver to get $5 bucks worth of stuff at a store.   But we would be much more likely to spend a 1/4 silver coin that has a legal tender value of $20 bucks because we are only giving up a little silver.  But the seller would still be happy because he'd rather have silver than paper or polymer.

So it's still clear as mud right?..Yep....There's more.  A big reason why folks hold silver is because it's international currency...It's transportable wealth....The problem with holding debased currency ,especially coins that are made of little or no silver or gold, is that the world runs on paper money.  Coins generally can't be used at an international money exchange, can't be used at an ATM and if they have  intrinsic silver or gold value then one will likely have to go to a precious metals/coin dealer to get full value.  What does this all mean?  Well what it means is that we still need paper and polymer $20's.  But when the mint offers a silver $20 coin for paper $20....We should jump on that chance.  The coin will always have purchasing power of $20 in Canada plus we are getting a 1/4 ounce of silver in the bargain.  These coins have the backing of the Canadian Fed as legal tender AND the backing of the silver market for as far into the future as anyone can look.  If the price of silver goes down to a $1 an ounce one can always spend the coin and receive $20 bucks worth of gas or bread and anyone will exchange it for a paper $20.   If the price of silver goes to $80 bucks an ounce then the coin can be sold for 4 paper or polymer $20's!  That said, if you want to invest in silver because you believe the price will rise or because you want to create a doomsday fund then you should buy 1 ounce silver maple leaf coins because you get more silver for your money. You could still spend them if you had to and if the price of silver went to $1 an ounce they'd still be worth $5 bucks each.  The bottom line is.....Trade some of that paper cheque or that direct deposit or some of those paper $20's for silver and gold coins.  The future is uncertain but I'm not being apocalyptic.....Just look at what has occurred in Cypress these last few days.  The jury is still out on who will have his/her money seized by the state and how much.....The banks have been closed to prevent people from withdrawing their money.  This situation is a perfect example of why people should hold their own money in precious metals outside the bank or any other institution....Because when we need our money most of all, the bank will likely be closed TO STOP US FROM GETTING AT OUR MONEY!  And Cyprus is a Euro-zone country!  There are no guarantees in life as we all know.  We all like to think that this kind of thing won't happen in Canada but even if it doesn't there are good reasons for diversifying some of our wealth into precious metal coins.The coincidental occurrences of the Cyprus banking crisis and issuance by the RCM of the $20 silver coins can serve as a reminder.
  There are those who lament the move away from the gold standard that governments around the world have made in the 20th century.   Perhaps using cash that's made of gold and silver doesn't make sense in the modern economy. But for those of us who simply want our money to be made of traditional gold and silver instead of some sort of polyester resin like Mylar, Canadians are living in one of the very few countries in the world where this still is done.