School Bells

How many of us live near a school, and we hear the school bells all the time. I understand that during the school year, the bells let the staff and students know what is happening at the various times. What I don’t understand is when the school is closed for summer vacation for two months, why the school’s bells continue to ring.

For the last few years, I have emailed our local school board asking that the bells be silenced while the school isn’t in session. Normally it happens quickly, and it means for a nice relaxing time sitting on the balcony or even in our apartment unit when we have the windows open. I wonder how loud the sound is for the people that live right next to the school because we can hear it without any problems as it is fairly loud. We don't live directly beside the school, as we have apartment complexes between us.

For those of you that don’t live near a school I would say to consider yourself lucky because when the weather is warm, and you want to ensure some fresh air coming into your home you really don’t want to listen to school bells all the time. I haven’t counted how many times the bells sound in a day, but I do know that even before 9 am I have heard 3 bells, so we probably hear a school bell ring at least 12 times a day and yes it gets to be a lot, especially when your windows are open.

So, to all those school boards out there, please remember that when the school is closed for a summer vacation, maybe turn off the bells. I don’t think the students want to be reminded about school every weekday while they are off, and the rest of us also don’t want to hear the school bells ring when the students are in attendance.

It is now time for me to try and get a bit more work done and yes, the alarm bells are still ringing, but hopefully by the time this blog is posted they will have been silenced for just over a week. Enjoy the summer and remember before long the school bells will be ringing again because the students will be back for another year.

 

Our air quality

Looking out the window lately has been a very interesting experience that we don’t normally have here in Toronto. We have been experiencing extremely high air quality numbers, which is something that we don’t normally get. In Ontario, we have a scale for our air quality of 0 – 11+ so that is something that most of us understand. Normally if we are having a bad air day the number is either a 5 or 6 during a summer.

This year and it is only the end of June as I am writing this, we have had air quality numbers of 11+ which is very bad. The 11+ was reached June 28^th and these numbers are being reached because of the forest fires in Northern Ontario and Quebec. Looking out my window during the day, I can see the change in the sky from it being clear to it getting very hazy looking. There are other days when you look out in the morning to a hazy day, and it just gets worse as the day goes on.

It has been interesting looking at the sunsets when the sky is filled with the smoke because everything has an orange hazy to it. I hope that they can get all the forest fires under control so that homes can be saved. I think there is some rain in the forecast here, but there are also risks of thunderstorms, so that doesn’t help to get forest fires under control. Hopefully, in the regions where there are the fires, they just get rain.

The forecast for this summer is the risk of more forest fires than usual, so that means that we may also be dealing with more poor air quality days than normal. For people with lung and other health issues, please be careful when the air is poor.

The picture that is included in this post was taken when we had an air quality of around 7 and yes the sky was that orange/brown.

 

Power outage - does and don'ts

 

After experiencing a power outage that lasted about 3 hours, there are things that I wanted to write about because of things I have seen and learned about after the power outage.

Living in an apartment building

• Once the power is out, the emergency generators will kick in so that there will be emergency lights in the halls and stairwells. The generator will also mean that there will be one elevator that is working, so if you don’t have to go out it’s a good idea just to stay home or, if possible, use the stairs.
• Make sure that you keep your refrigerator and freezer doors closed to keep the cold in these areas so that you can keep the food from going bad.
• Turn off any lights that you had on when the power went out, or at least try and remember which lights were turned on.
• Water is also going to be impacted, so remember that if you don’t need to flash the toilet, it’s a good idea not to. As soon as the water goes out, ensure that you at least fill up a glass with some water, as you will probably get thirsty at some point.
• Now, here is a major don’t do. Do not use the outlets in the hall for your personal use, as these outlets are using the emergency generator for their power. I did hear that in some apartment buildings, people were taking their microwaves out into the hall to make lunch. This is not good because you don’t know how long the power is going to be out, and you could be endangering the lives of others in your building, especially if the generator runs out of power.

Driving

• Remember that if the traffic lights are out, that means that the intersection is now a four way stop. Yes, that means that you must stop at the intersection and not just drive through the intersection. Again, this could result in an accident if all directions think they can just drive.

Pedestrians

• If you need to cross the road, remember that there are also cars trying to get around and some may not stop at the intersection, so be extremely careful.
  

Living in a house

• The biggest one for this is to make sure that you keep your refrigerator and freezer closed to ensure that you keep your food cold.
• Turn off any of the lights that you had on when the power went out.

Summary

Yes, a power outage can be a disruption and could mean that you are going to have to do things a little differently but remember you aren’t the only one dealing with the outage. Power outages aren’t something that anyone likes to deal with, but at least making sure that you do the right thing to help manage the situation, everything will be ok.