Slots and Solar Oven

A Day At the Races and Slots, Solar Oven Experiment

By John Taylor; 24 July, 2005

Two days I have missed writing you, dear reader of the Badi list. On
day one of my break, Friday, I visited my non-Baha'i, philosopher's
cafe and chess friend Stu. In his new car he showed me the trailer he
owns in Sherkston Shores, a vacation beach resort near Fort Erie, then
we drove to Fort Erie and he showed me around its "Race Track and
Slots." Marie likes horses and wants to visit this establishment and
so I asked him to show me how to get there and get around. I had never
been to a race track or a gambling establishment, so it was a totally
new experience.

They were not racing that day and everything was as empty as it gets.
The stands were windswept and ghostly, but immaculate. Above were
sparsely peopled lounges with walls papered with television screens
depicting races going on in other parts of North America. If you must
bet, you can still put your money on these pari-mutuels, anytime,
anywhere. I walked in and a muscled young man came up to me and asked
how you place a bet. "You are definitely talking to the wrong person,"
I replied.

The "slots," it turned out, was a huge slot machine emporium next to
the stadium, about the size of an airplane hanger or football field.
It was nowhere near full but still there must have been two or three
hundred seniors betting away there, filling the one-armed bandits with
their chips and quarters, most smoking away contentedly. Smokers are
banished from most public places now but not here; one vice cancels
out another, I guess. The bright lights mesmerized but after a while
the sight went from sad to depressing. A great many older folk
inhabited the place, a mere handful of middle aged, the rest ranging
from their fifties to their eighties; the real losers in the long run,
I suppose, would be not themselves so much as their heirs and
families. I stopped to ask a security guard if I was allowed to take
photos -- I have learned to do that since I was accosted by a guard in
Toys-R-Us, of all places, for taking pictures on "private property."
No way, was the guard's reply, unless you win a jackpot, in which case
they take your picture for you.

Though a sign warned that the place was monitored by video cameras, I
was well aware that by crossing that threshold I was being
photographed, my image was being checked by facial recognition
software and that this data was being shared instantaneously with
every other casino across the province, and who knows what other
institutions, legal or otherwise. Yes, my curiosity eroded my privacy
rights that afternoon just a little bit more than before. If I had
pulled out Silvie's little digicam just them, which I carry in my
shirt pocket, I would have made myself instant persona non grata in
every gambling establishment across the nation. Not that that is a
concern.

The place was so big that Stu and I got lost and could not find the
exit for a time. Many slot machines, I noticed, were themed around
television shows of the Sixties and Seventies, like Bewitched, Hogan's
Heroes, and so forth. I really wished I could have taken photos of the
clientele, they looked so sad and pathetic. You hear the usual jokes
about gamblers, the quip came to mind that lotteries and gambling
amount to nothing less than voluntary taxes on the mathematically
challenged, but to see the victims in all their squalid glory there
before me was truly heart rending.

I am sure that on the face of it the casinos justify stomping on
people's privacy rights with their hidden cameras in order to prevent
cheating, but I felt certain that the underlying reason is that they
do not want it to be generally known how decrepit and exploited these
aged gamblers look. Is that all the wisdom these codgers have gained
over their lifetime, to spend their time in an utterly futile and
selfish quest of somehow beating the odds? No wonder they are so
determined that only the smiling winners are photographed and get into
the papers, that the hunched over majority remain as invisible as
possible. And since the government is the biggest gambling addict,
they see that the newspapers cooperate in this flow of information,
that headlines always read, "So and so wins," and, "So and so beats
the odds," and not, "Millions of losers lose out on their life
savings."

As we drove back to Port (as locals call Port Colbourne) we drove by a
battlefield museum devoted to an engagement during the war of 1812,
and I thought, here is a place I'd rather take the kids to see though
it probably does not have the horses that would satisfy the wife. That
kind of thing is much more edifying than a gambling hole, however
shiny and well equipped. Then after we loaded my old computer into my
car and I drove back home alone from Port to Dunnville, somebody on
the radio quoted this passage from the Bible:

"For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly,
saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace." (Jer 8:11, KJV)

A cry of false peace is all you expect from an addicted government,
lies instead of truth, cynicism rather than plans or hope for a cure;
excuses and crippled rights rather than real justice; a semblance of
order, not law. Just keep things going enough to keep the organism
alive and the flow of exploitation continuing apace.

Then yesterday, Saturday, I cooked my first solar barbeque. Here is
how it happened. On Thursday I had to drive to Hamilton to return a
long overdue library book. When I entered the library I found that the
lights were out. It was a conservation measure; they were doing their
part to prevent the rolling blackouts that Ontario Hydro is
threatening if we do not cut back on power consumption. Since I had
forgotten my reading glasses that combined with the darkness prevented
my actually reading in this Glanbrook Library. Sitting in the dark
with a magazine on my knee, unable to read it, well that set me to
thinking. I should do my part too by getting a solar oven going. I was
on a "solar and independent living" Internet mailing group a few years
ago where most of the participants were sharing recipes for their
solar ovens. I collected plans for solar ovens but never did anything
about it. It was almost too easy for me; you can make such an oven out
of a cardboard box and a piece of glass.

On the way home I stopped off at "Triple M Demolition," a huge lot
near the one store town of Canfield (its general store is called,
simply, "The Store.") that is jammed with industrial castoffs stored
in old streetcars, buses and derelict truck containers. I had not
visited Triple M for several years. I took pictures as I walked
through (here is a moral dictum for me from now on, never go anywhere
that does not allow you to take photos freely), and if I have the
gumption I will include some shots in the finished version of this
letter. One object on a corner that fascinated me was a black, rounded
steel outhouse-like structure that the guy at the gate called a
"darkroom." Indeed, when you slide the curved door shut around you,
you find yourself in pitch darkness; I positively drooled at what a
perfect camera obscura this tiny out-building would make. Put it on
the roof of a building on a street corner, or on Hamilton's mountain
brow, and you would have a wonderful observation post.

Going through the grounds I picked up about five items that I thought
might be good for a solar oven, and when I went to inquire about
prices the gatekeeper upon seeing them said simply, "Ten bucks for all
of it." The pile included what looked like a microwave carousel
platter, made of glass, smooth on the outside and knobby on the
inside, except that it was dome-like, circular and concave. There was
a broken plastic lamp fixture that he said came out of a big box
store, perhaps a Wal-Mart or Canadian Tire. Combined with an old
lidless crock pot that I got from a free garage sale, I thought that
this might make an efficient solar oven that would, most important of
all, be very easy to put together. As for the ten bucks, I realized
that I needed to spend something in order to force a commitment to
actually completing this long delayed project; so after my usual
stewing and dawdling I shelled out for it on the spot.

Laziness still probably would have won out over initiative had I not
blabbed about my solar oven plan at the dinner table. This got the
curiosity of the children primed and the next day, even though it was
raining all morning, what I heard from them when I got back from Fort
Erie was not hello we missed you but,

"Why did you not do the solar barbeque today? We want to see what it is like!"

So the next day, Saturday, I was pushed into finally putting my dream
into action. I was still sitting here around 10 AM writing away when
Thomas rushed in and asked about the barbeque. I answered,

"Yes, now is the time I should put it out, thank you for reminding me."

I kissed my essay for that day goodbye and collected two beets, some
carrots, an onion and a yam, put them on tinfoil in the crock pot, and
covered it with one item in the ten buck solar oven kit, a round, flat
piece of glass that may well have been the porthole on a submarine for
all I know, and on top of that I placed the broken plastic light
fixture. This is shaped like a megaphone, a half-cone, and it directed
the light onto the top of the crock pot. It looked quite impressive;
turn it upside down and it would make the model for a pretty good
looking Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, certainly better than that horrible thing
going up in Santiago, Chile, I must say.

After about an hour, at noon, the oven was hot enough to have fogged
over on the inside, with many beads of water obscuring the view of the
veggies inside. Every once in a while Thomas would come running in
complaining about how long it was taking. I took pictures of the oven,
which inspired Silvie to include it in her daily drama, this one being
called, "Bea and Blakey." She took many pictures of her own (it is her
camera, after all), some with Thomas standing by the new oven with the
two stuffed animals in his arms.

The oven got direct radiation until about four in the afternoon, when
a neighbor's huge tree started to overshadow it. I figured all I had
to do was retain the heat that was already in there for the next hour,
so I added the dome shaped microwave platter onto the flat surface of
the submarine porthole, with the fanned out reflector on top of both.
With this added warm air layer insulating the oven, the lighting
fixture kept the underneath layers hot to the touch until 5 PM,
suppertime. With great drama and fanfare I carried the meal into the
dining room in a triumphal procession. To my surprise, the oven
actually worked. The yam was cooked through, as was the onion and even
one of the beets. The other beet and the carrots on the bottom needed
another minute in the microwave. That was cheating of course but on
the whole I was very pleased with this first meal direct from the star
Sol. Experienced solar cooks can do a large meal even on overcast
winter days. I still have the option of covering the outside of the
plastic fixture with aluminum foil, which should increase its
reflectivity to the point where I might manage as well as any of the
members of the Solar and Independent Living list.

If you want to see some gallows humor in reaction to the London
bombings, check out:

<http://youblewmeupyoubastard.com/>

This is almost as good an idea as my proposed "Warning Labels Dot
Com." Now that I am cut off from television the atmosphere of
widespread fear caused by terrorist acts seems strangely distant and
muted. When I first heard the news my father rushed up the stairs
saying breathlessly, "They blew up the underground in London." I
imagined that the whole subway system had been destroyed and the city
was near collapse. When I finally got to a newspaper a day later I was
relieved to read that it was not nearly as bad as I had feared. Fear
is the fruit and the fertilizer of the politics of terror. Jeremiah
had something to say about that, too.

"For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear,
and not of peace." (Jeremiah 30:5, KJV)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com