WINDOWS 7 IS HERE, ARE YOU BUYING? NOT ME!

When I got my Toshiba Tecra laptop in the 90's it was a used one that came with Windows 95.  I didn't know  an operating system from a penalty shot.  I was happily buying and selling stuff on Ebay when a virus crashed my OS and ruined my hard drive.  Then I got lucky.   I was at a dinner party at a neighbour's house and  when I told him my tale of woe he said. "I don't use Microsoft, I use Linux".  I found out that viruses really only affect Windows operating systems which got me pissed off at Microsoft.  So I bought a new hard drive and Dan helped me install Linux RedHat on it.  Since that fortunate meeting with Starfish Systems I've never bought any Microsoft software as my little punishment for failing to fix the critical security issues that every subsequent OS sold by Microsoft has.  My latest computer is an IBM Thinkpad on which I'm running Linux SuSe 11.1. 
There are some simple and some complex reasons why I think it makes sense to stay away from Microsoft products not only for an individual with basic computer needs but also for business people who want to be practical with the technology budget. 
The first 3 reasons are 1) security 2)security 3)security. Microsoft OS's are vulnerable to security breaches and MS Office has them too I think.

The next one is  4)cost saving.  Windows is expensive and so is MS Office.  Also, the software is so massively memory hungry that hardware upgrades are often required.  Linux is free and much, much leaner so older computers with smaller hard drives and less RAM are fine.
Finally, reason 5) is more philosophical.  Linux is a community resource that grew up on the internet by contributions from users.  It's shareware.  The source code is open.  So when one needs technical assistance, it can be found free on the net.  But when someone needs a techie guy for hands on help, the money goes to a local independent technician rather than to a Microsoft pro and shareholders.  The nature of open source is for the technology to remain in the community and on the net rather than waiting for the next big corporate sales event.   There will never be a next big Linux sales event because it's always in the public domain and there's no advertising.  Yet Linux is bleeding edge technology that holds its own or beats the Windows software for virtually every application because so many developers worldwide are working on Linux without corporate control.  Try OpenOffice for example.
It's not actually my aim here to just bash Microsoft. Besides it doesn't matter anyway.  Microsoft has a strangle hold on the OS market and I think on office software as well.  But what this blog might do is to provide just a little more exposure for the open source community.
Microsoft is the empire and Linux is the resistance.  It can't win the war and never will.  Even Mac, isn't making any serious inroads into the Microsoft marketshare.  Ironically,  I no longer want Linux to be mainstream.  I like being in a local club.
I know that the latest versions of Windows are better...aren't they....Microsoft says they're great....but haven't they always said that?
Uh maybe I'll get a Mac when I get my inheritance.

I'll leave you with one more little warm and fuzzy note.
Virtually all new computers in the world come with Windows installed as a native operating system.  So Microsoft sells a version everytime a computer is sold unless it's a Mac, pretty much.   So there's a Windows "tax" built into every computer.  One has to pay for this even if one will never use it.  This $200 or whatever it is makes computers too expensive for most third world people.....Even a cheap computer with a $200 OS is out of reach for most.  But there's a better way!  Because Linux is free by nature of its GNU license, it can make computers affordable for poor people worldwide.   It's free on the net.  This makes it possible for someone earning $200 a month in Africa to own a new $99 computer because he doesn't have to buy Windows.  Any old computer will do....just add Linux and boom you're on the net and you're in business!  A whole village in Africa can share one computer and each person can have his own private user account.  And it's legitimate...no software piracy temptations.
One laptop for every child or destitute senior or small business person is a reality.

Migrating to a new computer environment is not easy and most never do it.  But it's pretty nice in here. 
Julian.

CLIMATE CHANGE ISN'T KILLING CANADA BUT WE STILL FEEL YOU KNOW....GUILTY

Those who say global warming is a long term trend caused by burnt fossil fuel emissions are saying collectively that the science is complete, that we know the facts, and now it's up to humans to stop burning fossil fuels so the planet can be saved....is that all there is to it?

Not so fast my fair weather, bicycle riding friend.

Most of us in my post WWII generations remember our childhood summers as warmer and the winters colder. Virtually all of the winters in southern Canada in the late twentieth century seemed warmer to me than in decades gone by. But is that impression or an indication of actual climate change in the form of global warming?

We'll get into the science here because it is important. But the main thrust of this writing is to expose and rant about the lemming mentality of the global warming, fear mongers who have an apocalyptic view about something they predict will occur several decades or centuries into the future.

Confucius say “forecasting can be difficult....especially the future”.

Scientific facts exist as we all know but many so called facts fall into the category of statistical data and we all what that means....lies , damned lies and statistics!

Dr Timothy Ball Phd. on anthropomorphic global warming.

"Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification."[6]

Of course no one knows exactly what the future will hold for us and our little green planet. Predicting what kind of cataclysmic events will occur several decades into the future makes for entertaining and harmless rhetoric.

The New York Times has reported that 4 major warming or cooling trends were occurring at different times in the last 100 years.

Several recent reports on global climate state that the world has been cooling for the past 8 years.

I think that overfishing the oceans is probably more dangerous to human health than the the risk of acidification of the seas from co2 in the atmosphere.
But even if the global warming fear mongers are right, what can we do about it as Canadians? Those of you who are wringing your hands, gnashing your teeth and crying in your beer about the Hummer driving, air conditioner buying, suburban dwelling commuter types should remember that if Canadians were to stop burning fossil fuel right now, virtually everyone in the country would freeze to death by springtime, and the rest would be be dead the next winter or when all the wood runs out.  A sobering thought isn't it?  Yes my friends, most Canadians don't live in Vancouver!...Most Canadians live in places where exposed skin freezes in 10 minutes.  We'd be burning the furniture in oil drums the first night without oil.

Al Gore and his “An Inconvenient Truth” scenario, as entertaining as it is, isn't truth either.

The future is uncertain and predicting it is fun and sometimes useful, but it is, at best, an inexact science. Doom and gloom sells but I'm not buyin' … I'm not drinking the Koolaid. Nothing is what it seems. Things are complex.

It's all part of the green shaft and this is a fun area of R&D as well

This doesn't mean that I'm not “green” my faithful reader. Yes I drive a diesel car, yes I ride a bicycle to work, yes I recycle my beer cans.....hey I'm so damn green I'm glowing green and it's not a recent fad, this is how I live. Of course we should all conserve fossil fuel. Not just to “save the planet", but to save money. In beautiful British Columbia we need to conserve electricity because it's crushingly expensive to build new dams.

Are we headed for hot desert conditions or is the next ice age nearly upon us. As a freezing Canadian, I'd welcome a little warming...it would certainly make life easier in many ways in this country. Maybe our red wines would improve! Perhaps we won't all look south for our winter vacations. Perhaps we'd burn less oil. But wait. Is that a good thing? We sell oil as a nation and we need the money. So now my friends, we are going to find out just how green we are in Canada. I say that oil gets cleaner as the need grows. The oil that one buys and burns gets cleaner depending how short the supply becomes! Seeing as how there's a reaction for every reaction, it's likely that warmer countries wouldn't welcome any increase in temperature. But I'm not nearly as concerned about other countries, although I wish them well, as I am about Canada. When tar sands synthetic crude is the only oil available, it'll be the cleanest oil in the world.

And since Canada is the new Saudi Arabia, and I feel as though I've won the lottery just being a Canadian, I'm definitely not going to ruin the moment by feeling guilty about burning and selling and investing in Canadian oil!

“Saudi Arabia!” you scoff.

That's right folks. Which country has the worlds 2^nd largest oil reserves? Which country is the world's largest supplier of fossil fuel to to the world's biggest customer, the USA? Yes my incredulous friends, the answer to these questions is us...Canada.

Despite the fact that it comes naturally...I'm not going to feel guilty about being oil rich.

Climate change isn't what's killing this planet. Back in the 70's I heard this expression. What's killing earth are the 3 c's cars, cows and chainsaws. Cars because of air pollution, cows because the rain forest is being cleared to raise them and chainsaws because that's the tool being used to clear the rain forest. It's catchy, and sort of true but more complicated than it needs to be. What's killing this planet can be summed up much more succinctly by a phrase that is the title of a forty something book, The Population Explosion.

Written in 1968, the same issues we're discussing now were on the table then.

Dr David Suzuki and my high school biology teacher were talking about the greenhouse effect in the 1970's!

Hey everyone needs money. A scientist first has to create or identify a problem and then lobby for money to research the solution...nice work if you can get it.

If the seas rise then many millions of people, tragically, will lose their homes. But since we're quoting, what about this. “The wise man builds his house upon the rock” Take this literally.

In Richmond, a city/suburb, neighbour to the south of Vancouver, there are no basements.

“Why? You ask.

Because the entire city is built on a peat bog/ delta/floodplain that is below sea level and therefore surrounded by a system of dikes. Its a mini Netherlands.

It used to be all great farmland but real estate demand has placed millions on land that would fill up like a giant bathtub just like New Orleans if the dikes couldn't hold back a rising sea.

In Bangladesh, if the sea rises one meter, 32 million people will be displaced....that's nearly the entire population of Canada.

Too many people living in too small a place is nothing new. But now the planet is really filling up. In order to make room for all those people more and more people are living on land that is less and less stable, and more and more money is being spent to create infrastructure to service these areas, all over the world, that are more or less vulnerable to flooding, over heating....or over cooling as maybe the case. To provide all this, more and more oil is being consumed.

I still say this is good for Canada, a place with lot's of oil, lot's of space and by world standards, almost no people!

JACK-O-LANTERN ART AT THE HOUSE OF BEER

When I was a boy living in England we carved turnips and hung them in the trees.  We called it bonfire night but I guess it was more formally Guy Fawkes day.   All Saints day,  Halloween,  whatever it's called the phenomenon is larger than life in many places.
Anyway last night at the world's best brewery, Dix on Beatty St., many pumpkins were sacrificed at the altar of vegetable art.
This is my blog so this is my jack-o-lantern. 
The strange thing about this stuff is that although the orange squash welcomes fine art sculptures.....simple shapes and unrefined compositions also look great.  It's a great form of folk art.

Some people were done in ten minutes but others took a long time to express themselves.

SHOULD I BUY A DIESEL CAR OR DRIVE THE MAIN ROAD IN A GAS BURNER?

Driving the road less traveled is where we are going with this comparison. If you buy a car with a diesel engine you are immediately going to join a very small group. So unless you are willing to make an alternative fashion statement with your car you should just buy a gas burner and drive on.

Diesel cars have never been popular in North America. Today, in North America, less than three percent of all the passenger cars on the road are diesels.   There's more than one reason for this and they are all good ones! The purpose of this article is not to prove that diesel cars are a better choice than a gas burning car. I'm going to come clean right now and let my new readers know that I'm an alternative guy.

I run Linux on my computers while Microsoft controls around 90% of the world's computers, I drink craft brewed real ale while 95% of the world drinks industrial lager.....And I drive a diesel Mercedes on the road with all my neighbours in their gas burning cars happily roaring along beside me.

But what fun is this? This forum is where I rant! What kind of rant doesn't rant? Am I just going to write a dry article that lays out a few facts and says there you go, have fun with your gas burning ,V6, silver minivan! I have to take a position! Alright, Alright. Diesels are better....uh... slightly and depending on where you live.

So, if so few of my good Canadian neighbours are driving diesel cars, why is it that virtually all commercial trucks are diesels and nearly half of all European cars are diesels?

Here's the short answer. Diesel engines get better fuel economy.

Is that it? 

Well sort of. As is the case with most things in life, nothing is what is seems.

What did you say? What's the long answer? Okay, you asked for it.

Diesel engines get better fuel economy because the nature of their compression ignition generates more power with less fuel and less refined fuel that costs less. That's it. Period, end of story.....Well sort of.

So if diesels use less and cheaper fuel why doesn't everyone buy one?

Well because they are more expensive to buy.

Oh.

But diesels are cheaper to maintain aren't they?

Well they can be if the owner maintains his diesel car religiously. But if you treat your diesel car the way most people treat their gas burning cars, repairs will occur that are more expensive than would be the case with a gasoline engine. Also since the repairs will occur later in the life of the machine, the decision of whether or not to spend lots of money on an old car becomes a difficult one. Especially since the owner paid more for the car to begin with. And people mostly don't want old cars. They don't want to spend thousands on their old cars, they want to buy new ones and change them after a while, not keep them for a lifetime. And that's where the car industry directs its advertising, to the fashion, lifestyle appeal and the status symbol of driving a late model car. On the other hand, fleet trucks get regular maintenance, especially oil changes. With top notch maintenance diesel engines last a long, long time. I mean a really long time...decades! So the businesses that operate the fleets can wring the last dollar out of their trucks. People generally don't want to do this and that, in a nutshell, is why virtually all commercial trucks are diesel and almost no private passenger cars are diesels. But people who are using their cars to commute long distances and have good maintenance habits and who aren't interested in buying new cars can save a lot of money with a diesel car.  

But what about emissions? Don't diesel cars smoke a lot and aren't they noisy?

First of all, yes, they are noisier than gasoline cars because the high compression required to burn diesel oil generates noisy explosions in the engine. However insulating the engine compartment can mask this noise well. Car makers go to more or less effort in this area. Mercedes cars are very quiet while tractors are loud, but the engines essentially generate the same amount of noise.

Now, about emissions. With low sulfur diesel fuel and good maintenance, high quality diesel engines don't smoke. But old engines with worn cylinders and glow plugs will smoke. Especially when cold and when accelerating. Which is why top notch maintenance is required for diesels. But while diesel smoke is what ordinary people see and therefore think is pollution, as usual, nothing is what it seems.

Even a worn and smoky, old diesel will not emit carbon monoxide at all, will emit less carbon dioxide, and only very slightly more nitrogen oxide than a similar sized gasoline engine. Diesel smoke is unburned fuel, particulate matter. It's ugly but not particularly (sorry) harmful.

And now that carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas, is being viewed as a pollutant, the diesel always wins this race simply because diesels burn less fuel therefore they emit less carbon dioxide. So, if everyone drove a diesel car, the world would cut carbon emissions from cars by about twenty percent...but there'd be more smoke around.

Oh.

Incongruously, with all of the green rhetoric being emitted into the air today, the misunderstood diesel car remains marginalized in the North American car market ,especially in the USA. Largely because people and their politicians continue with the mindset that diesels pollute more than gas burning cars. Now there's a bit of a buzz on with Volkswagen especially soapboxing about its new “clean diesels” as if there's some big revolution going on in diesel technology. Well the new technology is the urea additive that breaks down nitrogen oxide emissions and yes that does lower emissions slightly. And the direct fuel injection system helps a little, and the higher compression helps along with the precision of computer technology, but the real improvement isn't in the car engine at all...it's at the pump! Yes! It's ultra low sulfur diesel fuel that has lowered emissions for all diesels. Car makers didn't take the biggest step in improving fuel emissions, governments did by legislating that all fuel sold has to have less sulfur than was the case in decades gone by.

Mercedes still makes and sells diesel cars in North America and wades its way through the morass of red tape to get to the consumer who's willing to spend seventy-five thousand plus for a car. Currently, in Canada, the only diesel passenger car available for less than the fabulous Mercedes machines are Volkswagens .  Recently, for two years running, THE ONLY NEW, DIESEL,  PASSENGER CAR AVAILABLE IN CANADA WAS THE MERCEDES BENZ SEDAN! The exception was the diesel powered  Smart Car (Mercedes) which is well worth discussing but let's not go off on a tangent here!
Why don't the other car makers sell diesel cars?
The answer is they do! Virtually all the other car makers sell diesels in world markets, but not in North America. There are several reasons for this. The main one is that emission standards are different in North America than elsewhere. Politics are what mainly keeps the other automakers like Honda, Toyota, BMW and everyone else from offering diesel cars for sale in North America...read USA. Emission control standards are set by the American Fed, but the they are driven (sorry) by politicians and bureaucrats in California.  The attitude in California it seems is that nitrogen oxides and particulates are more harmful than carbon dioxide.  Because the standards for those emissions has been set so high that no car maker in the world can meet them at a reasonable price so they don't bother to sell diesels in the USA. (Mercedes cars are great and available and they meet the standards but the price isn't reasonable) So here my friends is the bizarre result of not allowing diesel cars for sale in the USA.  Firstly, The USA in its entirety, has missed the chance to reduce its passenger car related, carbon footprint by more than twenty percent by setting the emission standards in California TOO HIGH!. Plus, because the Canadian car market is comparatively small, since no one imports diesel cars to the USA, Canada doesn't get any either!....That's right! Since the USA isn't gettin' any, neither are we.   Life is absurd after all.
The second reason is the price of fuel. Fuel is relatively inexpensive in the USA and even in Canada. In areas where fuel is very expensive, because it's heavily taxed or just difficult to obtain, diesel cars thrive.

Where diesel cars are common, diesel mechanics are common so getting your diesel car fixed is easier. If you drive a diesel car in North America you will have to go to some trouble to find a competent diesel mechanic. Easily obtaining good maintenance and parts is important and this is difficult in North America, especially in the USA.

You don't have to buy a new diesel car to have a clean burning diesel.. A nice used Mercedes diesel however can be had for somewhere between three and nine thousand dollars depending on the age and condition of course. 2.5 lt. turbo diesels and 3.0 diesels are around and so are the economical Volkswagen Jettas Golfs and a few Beetles. All are excellent cars although the Mercedes cars are much more luxurious

Virtually all diesel cars on the road are old Mercedes and Volkswagen cars. They are all extraordinary cars and outlast their gas burning relatives by years...even decades.
But are diesel burning cars made differently than other cars or is it just the engine?
The short answer is that it's just the heavily built, precision made engine, but the long answer as we've seen is much more complicated. It involves who buys and drives new and used diesel cars, who makes them, and which governments allow them to be sold in which jurisdictions.

So should I buy a diesel car?

Well, if you're an alternative type like me, yes, you'll never look back. You'll find a nice, old, European mechanic who knows everything about your 1983 Mercedes, you'll go to truck stops for fuel.

You'll consider burning fryer oil in your car..( a subject for another rant). Some of your friends will think you're weird and others will admire your beautiful diesel Mercedes.

TO PRINT OR NOT TO PRINT THAT IS NOT THE ONLY QUESTION!

I've always been reluctant to spend big money on printers even though I really like having easy click access to hard copies.  It just seemed that  the ink cartridges are expensive and generally they don't last long.
In fact I've never actually bought a brand new printer.  I've always taken hand-me-downs and refilled the ink cartridges with a syringe type refill kit. So I've struggled at times to have a smoothly running printer system.
Running Linux hasn't made printing easier since the drivers are never supplied with the printers and if they are available at all, they need to be found on the web and often installed manually. Turboprint is a good source for drivers for mainstream printers but it isn't freeware.
Last year when my friend started working at Premier Salons, the company supplied her with a used HP 1000 laser printer.  But she already had a new Canon Pixma MP160 colour inkjet all in one photo printer/scanner installed and running and didn't want to change to a monochrome, basic printer so she lent it to me.  Since this particular printer is among the best selling printers of all time (HP sold 60 MILLION OF THEM!)  it was not too difficult to get it to run well on Redhat 9.0 and SuSe 11.1.  But then Karen moved on and the company took the printer back and I was faced with returning to using my Dad's ancient hand me down Canon BJ200 bubble jet or getting another printer.  I began researching and shopping for a steal on a printer. 
A couple of years ago I received an HP 325 compact colour photo printer as a birthday gift but while it works flawlessly with my Canon Powershot SD990 IS digital Elph camera,  it only prints the 4"X6" size so while I felt that I could forgo the expense of a colour and/or photo quality printer, I still had to have another printer.
Since there's already scanning and faxing capability in our house as well, I narrowed down my needs to a basic, monochrome printer but despite my frugal nature, having had the quiet, quick and fluid HP 1000 laser printer on my desk I decided that I would not return to the world of clattering inkjet printers and their seemingly always nearing empty ink cartridges.  Ink cartridges are like batteries....it seems they are always dying or dead. But laser toner cartridges last for thousands of copies.
So dear reader, this frugal journalist turned to the internet and Craigslist to find a laser printer.
A quick search turned up 185 printers for sale within reasonable distance of my office and then 22 laser printers, with 7 of those being colour.  I was down to 15.  4 of them stated that the toner was finished or almost finished and 2 had broken or missing parts. Now I was down to 9.  5 were either huge office types or located too far away to bother. Now there were 4 used, monochrome, laser printers with toner remaining.  The asking prices ran from $30 to $90 dollars.  A little research on the net told me that despite eco, and sales taxes a new laser printer could be had at Staples, Office Depot or Best Buy or Future Shop or for $75 dollars more or less.  Considering that toner refills also cost from $30 to $90 dollars locally, the obvious deduction is that used basic laser printers have zero dollar value unless they are full or nearly full of toner.  None of the remaining 4 printers seemed to be worth making appointments to see and buy so it seems that I was going to have to break down and buy my first BRAND NEW PRINTER!.
Next I turned to my favourite, local, computer store's website GreenNet to try and avoid the the big box retailers where the word Linux is never heard and lo and behold there was a Samsung 1640 compact, desktop, monochrome laser printer for $76 dollars, just a few blocks from my office.  GreenNet offered a one year "take it back to the store" type warranty as well.  Only one important detail remained before I whipped out my Airmiles credit card......will it work on my Linux SuSe 11.1 , X41 IBM Thinkpad?  
As I wrote in my previous entry, Neither Mac nor Linux, despite increasing popularity worldwide, is going to unseat Microsoft as the dominating force in home computers for the foreseeable future.  But Samsung included a Linux driver right on the installation disk....making the ML1640 laser printer almost plug n' play!  Way to go Samsung!  Thanks Greennet.

3 MAJOR WAYS TO A LOW COST, SECURE, COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

Microsoft's Windows operating systems control the vast majority of the worlds computers. Even Mac hasn't made any serious inroads into Microsoft's market share. But there is a better way... This isn't another of my rants.....well ok it is.

In earlier posts I've detailed my experiences using Linux as my operating system going back many years. One of the great things about using Linux is that it doesn't inherently promote hardware upgrades. Linux runs well on old computers with low speed processers and small hard drives and doesn't demand massive amounts of RAM either. Consequently, as a user and a not a rich one either, I used my NEC Versa LX laptop running RedHat 9.0 for years longer than I could have if I was an XP user for example.
But there comes a time.... I'm writing this entry on my IBM X41 Thinkpad which is running SuSe 11.1 seamlessly!

So the first two things a computer user needs to have for a great computing experience are a great operating system, and high quality hardware. The third and not the least is a technician/programmer who is knowledgeable about Linux....hey every user needs help once in a while!
If you have these three things at hand, you will be able to enjoy years of trouble free, secure and very low cost computing while staying right up to date with all the latest technology.

So what is SuSe?
The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell. Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, openSUSE.org provides free, easy access to the world's most usable Linux distribution, openSUSE. You'll find more information available in many languages on the project wiki.

Open SuSe is a free and Linux based operating system for your PC Laptop or server. You can surf the web, manage your emails, music, videos and photos, do office work.

Linux is a widely used Open Source Unix-like operating system. Linux was first
released by its inventor Linus Torvalds in 1991. There are versions of
Linux for almost every available type of computer hardware from desktop
machines to IBM mainframes. ...

My old computer runs RedHat 9.0

What is Redhat....Red Hat, Inc. is a company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor.

FINE SUMMER DINING ON THE WEST COAST....TRY MY PINK SALMON RECIPE

When I was growing up in England, back when the last of the dinosaurs still stalked the earth, the only salmon I ever tasted came in a tiny 85 gram tin that cost a pound or more. It was a rare treat that was usually extended with salad cream and spread thinly on sandwich bread and that was it. I read about people going salmon fishing in Scotland but these kind of holidays were only a dream to me. I simply assumed that salmon, all salmon, but especially fresh and smoked salmon were delicacies everyone loved but were only enjoyed regularly by rich folks.

But here on the west coast, in modern times, the salmon situation is quite different. The five species of Pacific salmon, Chinook (Spring, Tyee), Chum (Dog, Silverbright), Pink, Coho (Blackmouth, Blueback) and Sockeye are widely available as well as is farmed Atlantic salmon. Despite declining wild stocks, salmon are there in the local sea for catching the year round. And guess what....salmon is absolutely the cheapest fish that one can buy! Yes! Cheaper than cod. Cheaper than farmed tilapia.

I now buy tinned salmon smoked from The Fishery on Saltspring Island. It's a family owned business that offers all the species of salmon smoked in tins. Its only around $4.oo per tin.
Regular tinned salmon is cheap in the grocery stores as well. The 213 gm. tin of wild pacific sockeye is always available for about $2.00 and goes on sale in August for less at the Real Canadian Superstore.

I've discovered something else that continues to puzzle me after all these years. Guess what. Most people don't like salmon. Yes it's true. I used to think that people en masse don't eat salmon because it seems expensive. But that isn't the reason. Most folks simply prefer beef. The purpose of this writing is not to convert those folks, it's to help people who already like salmon to get the most from their dining experiences.
For some reason that escapes me, restaurants generally treat salmon as if it is expensive....which it isn't.
Salmon served in restaurants is served in undersized, overcooked, overpriced, little, fingersized portions. There are some exceptions and I apologize to you. Local Japanese restaurants offer nice portions under $10.00. Yes! If you haven't had salmon sashimi then you haven't completed your salmon culinary tour. Try The Eatery on W. Broadway.
Here's another thing that is cheap and fabulous. Next time you're hankering for fish n' chips, order salmon n' chips instead of cod or halibut. Cockney Kings does it well.
For BBQing, grilling, sashimi, smoking, frying, poaching and for the salmon deal of the year, here's the local secret, the bottom line, the best way to go.
Yesterday at the Real Canadian Superstore I bought fresh, wild, Pacific, Pink Salmon, head off and gutted, two small fish in a bag...are you ready for this... $3.90 A KILOGRAM! Yes....less than $2.00 per lb. The cost of my fish was $6.49.

Pink salmon gives and gets a raw deal locally compared to the bigger, redder, fattier species like Sockeye and Chinook, but when they are running in August nothing beats fresh, lean, delicate, fillets of wild, Pink Pacific salmon. Why is the little Pink so under appreciated? There are a couple of reasons. Because Pink salmon is mostly caught in huge numbers right when they begin the spawning run, the overwhelming majority of Pinks are tinned for sale. Pink salmon, like other lean species of fish doesn't tin well. The flavour is bland because the fish has to be grossly over heated in order to tin it. Species like Sockeye taste better from the tin because the high fat content of the fish helps the flavour survive the hyper boiling process. Tinned Pink salmon is half the price of tinned Sockeye so I think that many people having had both species tinned and having found the much cheaper Pink salmon to be inferior assume that it's an inferior fish in general. Many folks add fat to tinned Pink salmon in the form of mayonaise for sandwiches and salads but this is not the way to enjoy Pink salmon. Pink salmon should be carefully cooked when fresh.

Pink salmon spoils quickly. To get a truly unforgettable West Coast salmon dining experience you are going to have to either know someone who understands and loves his or her salmon or you are going to have to do it yourself. Here's how Julian does it.

1. Buy your Pink salmon small, fresh and whole (head off and gutted ok) in August and September and be prepared to eat it within one day.

2. Fillet the fish or cut it into steaks just a half or at the most three quarters of an inch thick, no more. If your fish is  big enough so that the fillets are thicker than an inch, carefully slice them horizontally. For steaks, roll the belly flaps up into the belly cavity and secure them with tooth picks. The fat in the belly flaps will be held against the leaner body flesh for the most flavourful steaks and the steaks won't fall apart. If you cut your salmon into pieces that are thicker than three quarters of an inch, the outside of the fish will dry and be overcooked before the middle flakes. This is a classic way to ruin Pink salmon. Ideally Pink salmon should be cooked very quickly in pieces sized like little sole fillets.

3. Preheat a nonstick or cast iron skillet over heat high enough to sizzle butter but not burn it. Put a knob of salted butter, a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley and little white pepper into the pan. Add the salmon and put the lid on, turn it after about a minute and cook for another minute or so until the salmon just flakes....as if you were cooking sole.

4. Since the Pink run is in late Summer, Pink salmon is often ruined on BBQ's. It gets overcooked in big chunks and this contributes to Pink salmon's reputation as being dry and unappetizing, not to mention that it's too delicate get off the grill. There really is only one way to conveniently BBQ fresh Pink salmon and that is to use a wire basket. These are cheap enough at the Dollar Store to buy and throw away if washing it afterwards is inconvenient. I like the ones that are square and flat for toast rather than the fish shaped ones as they are too big to hold the little salmon pieces. Prepare the salmon as above, except brush the salmon with melted butter. Cook it quickly over high heat so as not to dry it out. Alternatively, Pink salmon can be steamed on the grill in sealed foil with butter and a little wine....which is excellent, but of course there won't be any BBQ flavour.
DO NOT OVERCOOK IT and serve it immediately with Grey Monk Pinot Gris. Or get a growler of Derrick's Pilsner from Dix! Bon Appetit!