Women who camp in Minivans!

The first time I ran across one it was in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in 2014. Next to us at Corney Brooke camping one night was a woman alone who camped in a minivan.Yes... She camped in her Minivan, not in a tent!  I thought it was a fluke or an aberration. I've been camping since my late teens and had never run across a single woman camping, with the rare exception of the all sporty girl that is as equipped as her male counterpart.

This particular woman also looked like she was maybe escaping a relationship fight or a bad situation. She had everything in her minivan, even some crappy wood to make herself a fire, which she did with no issues. She had brought herself a steak which she cooked on the fire with lots of smoke and she even came over to apologize for being smelly and noisy. [Which gave me feeling she wasn't used to being outdoors camping at the time, but perhaps it was just her personality]

She spent the evening by her campfire, and then before bed put everything back in her truck and slept in the back of her minivan. By the time we got up the next morning she was gone.

I've run across a 2nd woman who camped in her minivan at Charleston Lake Provincial Park, but she was visibly not someone who was running away but someone who had planned her trip and who visibly spent some time travelling alone. I noticed her because she was staring at us when we arrived. That's when I noticed she was a lone woman in a minivan, and EVERYTHING was in her minivan. She didn't even build a fire, but spent hours sitting in her chair on her site reading a book.  She stayed one night and was gone by morning.

Now I'm thinking women who camp in minivans, can be avid campers, who don't feel need to buy camping equipment to go camping. She seemed quite equipped together, and didn't even get phased out by the outhouse. Some women really don't like outhouses...

Googling this morning I found an article about women who camp in MiniVans! The article even promotes safety by giving tips to be inconspicuous..There's also a nice article about nomads in Minivans :)

A woman after my own heart!

My first encounter with any kind of computer was at Trafalgar in 1979 and it was a PDP-7 located in Quebec city, that we connected to using a teletype.  Basically a typewriter with paper.

It was a love-hate relationship from the get go. I'd type a command, and it would either understand or tell me some generic line like "Bad command or file name", and I'd reply "FUCK YOU" to which it would reply again "Bad command or file name".

What's sad is that girls like me were given access to computers fairly early on, but it's still a field completely dominated by men. ANd then you read Margaret Hamilton's story.

She would have inspired me if I'd read her at a young age. I still think she could inspire my grand daughters if I have any!!!

Cliteracy

It's unfortunate that most women, don't know what a clit really looks like. We are all taught in biology that it's the little knob that sticks out. That it's the female penis because it does get erect when stimulated.

But that was all I knew for many years. I didn't know that the clit is much like an iceberg and all you see is the tip. As well. from what I've read, the G-spot, is not actually a particular spot at all but also part of the clit.

Most of us can recognize a penis and testicles from a shadow drawing. Most people, including women, don't know what a clit really looks like. That included me until a few months ago. Now am clitorate.

It's sad, even men who know how to please a woman using her clit wouldn't recognize it's depiction at all.

Today everyone who reads my blog will know what a clit looks like and since half the population has one, this is not a bad thing!

Severe lack of Women in some professions!

When I went to Concordia in Computer Science back in the 1980's I was in the 5-10% of women in that program.

The sad thing is, things really haven't changed much. Some engineering programs may have from 15-20% women, but that's the most they might have.  There are now more women in computer science especially in black box programming... maybe 40%

And then I read an article that there was a BOYS ONLY robotics program offerered in an Ontario public library. I get that many girls might not be interested but to make it boys only?????  I was so unimpressed.

Well thankfully one little girl and her mom started a petition and now girls can join. BUT WTF? I would have fought to make that program gender free no matter what!!!!

Women and Islam.

This woman is very articulate and explains why as a feminist she converted to Islam. People seem to find it ludicrous that a western woman would convert to Islam but she makes a good case for it.

I'm not looking for a new religion, and my research into Islam was done back the summer of 2006. However I had concluded back then that Islam was not the issue when it came to women's rights or treatment.

I've met articulate intelligent independent women who embrace Islam, both here in Montreal and in my travels in the middle-east.  

Yep have often been labelled all sorts of things

I've also been told that my feelings weren't relevant, or that they were misplaced. Interesting blog entry here. 

I have been known to say that the women who chase after me are crazy, and I don't mean it in the same way as in the above article. The ones that I've had problems with have had bi-polar disorder and borderline personality disorder. 

Why are we still blaming the victim's behaviour?

A statement made by a female advice columnist to young women was basically "don't drink if you don't want to get raped". By that logic, I'm surprised she didn't suggest young women also stay home and don't date.  I'm surprised she didn't call for a curfew on all young women to make sure women were home safely!

I remember reading that when Golda Meir was asked to put a curfew on women following a series of rapes suggested that it is the men that should be under curfew as they were the ones committing the rapes.  Yet Golda Meir is supposed to be no friend of women, despite having been a woman in power.  But she got it, to not blame the victim but the attacker.

I never told my daughters not to drink, but I did tell them if they got really intoxicated they could always call home to ask for a lift because people will take advantage of a drunk person. That we wouldn't lecture them about drinking, we'd just pick em up no questions asked. 

Ultimately why are women still blaming the victim?  I was raped and I wasn't drunk or intoxicated enough to not know what was happening. I was VERY AWARE I was being raped. I chose not to fight because I didn't want to have broken bones on top of sexual violence.  I don't remember drinking that night, but if I did it was one or 2 beers, nothing to make me lose control or not know what was happening.  I didn't really start to drink or do drugs to excess until AFTER I was raped.

I've rarely seen campaigns aimed at men saying "NO MEANS NO" and "Rape is bad". No often when a woman reports a rape, we get told, "You were originally willing, now you changed your mind".  What amazes me the most is women who still blame the victim? Or people who will tell me not to divulge I've been raped because it makes me damaged goods!    Right. Would you say that to someone who was beaten up in an alley to get his wallet stolen?

People don't even take no for simple things. I remember having a huge confrontation with a door to door salesmen who would not take no for an answer and sadly had managed to corner me in the hallway leading to my apartment. Trust me if I had been in the apartment I would not have answered to his knocks.  He was selling long distance telephone plans. From the minute he talked to me I told him I was not interested. He kept insisting. When I finally got into my apartment I slammed the door, locked it and yelled "NO MEANS NO MEANS NO". ANd I heard him yell back in the hallway "STUPID BITCH". Yes.. I'm a stupid bitch because you could not bully me into signing a long distance phone contract I did not need and could not afford. But I'm the bitch!!!!  And most people would see it as me being out of control, because I stood my ground and did not let a jerk bully me.

Rape education should be aimed at men.   You shouldn't be turned on by an unwilling participant!!!! 

Sales people must think we're dumb or something

Yesterday during lunch time we went to Canada computers and Microbytes to check out laptops as my friend was hoping to see the laptop she wants to buy to get a feel for it. 

They didn't have the laptop she wanted to see at Canada computers so we went to Microbytes. She's sweet on a particular Lenovo laptop. As you may know I'm pretty fond of my Thinkpad Edge laptop. Best laptop I've ever had.  Even though it runs hot now. It's still far more stable then any other laptop I've had and handles playing video files really well.

Anyways, my friend saw MSI laptops for the first time, as MSI hasn't been in the laptop market for that long. When we got to Microbytes, the sales manager probably saw she was sweet on Lenovo and he tells us, that it's not worth buying Lenovo anymore, that they were bought out by Acer and since then the quality has gone down and they get a lot of Lenovo returns now.

I found it hard to believe. I work in a technology company. I hear about who buys out who usually when it happens. I would have heard. Well as it goes apparently Acer helps in the assembly process of Lenovo laptops. That doesn't make it owned by Acer or their laptops designed by Acer.  No Lenovo is still it's own entity. Used to be known as Legend, until their rebranding to have a unique name world wide. They bought IBM's workstation and end user computer lines and while the systems keep a distinctive "IBM" feel  to them, Lenovo has done very well.

I've always been an IBM fan. Their PC's generally worked differently then Dell's or HP's and find lots of bugs for me.  They used to be bigger and clunkier but indestructible too.  I was always one of the few at work who actually liked the machines.  I'm currently the only one who has Lenovo systems in my team at work. I have quite the collection, the Workstations include the S20, D20, S30, D30, and then I have the ThinkCenters, including the M52, A57, M58, M78, M90, M91,  and M92. The M78 is my newest Lenovo and is AMD based. Sweet little machine so far. Even considering it for home, though only 2 hard disk bays and I tend to keep adding hard disks in my systems.

To get back to the salesman, shame on you to try to push my friend to buy MSI by telling us Lenovo is sucking monkey balls and being taken over by Acer. Way to misrepresent the truth.  I rarely trust what salesmen says anyways, but I still find it irritating when they think you're that dumb. Just because we dress girly does  not mean we are PC illiterate or clueless.

Happy New Year or is it?

I started the new year sick as a dog. I was bedridden from the 1st to the 5th, and then wasn't so hot until I had to go to work on the 7th. Gotta love how I often spend half of my Christmas vacations sick.

I really hope that having started 2013 sick isn't a sign of what's to come.  I've been pretty upset with the rape in India and the stupid comments to come out of it. The lawyer representing some of the 5 men who gang raped and killed a woman, says she was responsible for her rape.

It amazes me that in 2013, women are still considered like furniture with no rights. I mean it seems in India they treat cows better then they treat female humans. And what woman asks to be raped to the point where her intestines get ripped to shreds with a metal bar? I mean seriously? Rape her with a metal object and that's ok because she's sub human  It blows the mind!!!!  I'd like someone to shove a metal bar up the ass of all those men, and then ask them how it felt?

Canadian women - built tough!!!!