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There once was a small town in the hills where people made their homes. The land was beautiful, the rock was soft and easy to shape, and for many years families grew and lived happily.

Except for an odd illness. Strangely, the people of this town tended to get severe lung illnesses, which would kill them within 12 to 18 months. Nobody knew why the number of cases were higher there, or what caused the illness.

Then one day a doctor, about 50 years old, came to town and started to investigate. He studied the evidence. He compared it to known diseases. He figured out why tuberculosis treatments weren't working.

The answer? It was the land and the rock itself. There was a mineral in the rock that, when inhaled, became worse than asbestos. The only solution was to leave town.

At such news, the housing prices took a bit of a hit. Tourism started to decline a little as it became known as a 'cancer town'. Some people didn't believe him, and wanted him to go away. Why let him affect their livelihoods with his theories?

Thirty years passed by, and the rates of illness remained as high as they ever were. Some people wanted to leave, but they were poor, and believed that they were trapped by economic circumstances.

What if you were stuck in such a town? Would you leave everything and start fresh, without any money or home, in a new town, based on one doctor's evidence? Would you wait 30 years, and raise a family first, and hope that perhaps a government program would come along to help?

I don't know what I'd do, but in retrospect, it would seem like a tragedy if there were people who got sick needlessly just because they felt trapped.

As you might have guessed, this is a true story. I heard it on CBC radio on my way home from work. What a story: good and bad news all wrapped into one. Finally, the answer why people were dying, but that answer basically took away everything they had. And such consequences for disbelief.

You can read more about this town here.

The Bible is right when it tells us to "Prove all things" (1 Thes. 5:21). I'm sure the doctor would have been happy to show people the scientific evidence and prove that it really was the rock dust that was killing them. According to the CBC radio report, he's in his 80's now, and he's still trying to get people to move and leave the town deserted.

Paul Nijjar has once again written an excellent article on his blog. The latest one is concerning the $20 Food Challenge where people attempt to live on $20 per week on food expenses.

Instead of merely showing the impossibility of it, Paul goes into great detail on how you would actually accomplish this. And not just for one week, not just for a month, but for as long as you need. He includes details on stores to visit in the Kitchener Downtown area, and how to bootstrap your menu if you actually have nothing in the cupboard to begin with.

I just read Paul Graham's latest blog entry, entitled The Top Idea In Your Mind.

What a brilliant observation, and I believe that this is a truth that applies to more than just programming or business.

"The selfishness of turning the other cheek..." I never looked at it that way before, but I like the idea.

While surfing the internet watching YouTube videos, I stumbled across the video of Nicholas White, who got stuck in an elevator for 41 hours back in October 1999.

You can watch the video here and read the somewhat long-winded New Yorker article here.

The short version is that he went for a smoke on Friday night, and wasn't rescued until Sunday afternoon. He went through various stages in his ordeal, from patiently waiting for help, to trying to signal someone, to trying to escape, to anger and looking for someone to blame.

It was an express elevator that only served floors #39 and above. According to the article, it stopped around level #13, and when he finally did try to open the doors, all he got was a brick wall.

There was a button for an alarm, but while the alarm rang on top of the elevator car itself, obviously nobody heard it. When he tried to get out through the hatch at the top, he found that it was locked. In fact, it was locked by law, from the outside, for operators to get in, not for passengers to get out. The theory is that it is much more dangerous outside an elevator, riding on top, than inside.

When he was discovered, someone was suspiciously wondering what he was doing in that car. But after talking with the maintenance team through the intercom, he was given a series of button commands that got the car moving again, back to the lobby floor.

I would love to know those commands, and whether they work on most elevators. I guess it pays to have your cell phone with you whenever you're in an elevator. Has anyone checked their cell phone radio range while riding?

One thing thst struck me while watching the video is that... hey, there's a camera! If by chance, any security guard or elevator maintenance person looks at the monitors, what are they looking for? Isn't it a normal thing to see a person inside? Therefore, the best way to signal for help via the video system is to make things look unnatural, or to put a written sign in front of the camera, if you can find it. And to keep the sign there for as long as you are there, since you never know when someone might look at the monitor. Make sure the sign has good lighting as well.

Here are a few links to other pages I found with tips for escaping a stuck elevator.

The saddest part of Nicholas White's story is the end. Although dehydrated, he was rescued, and lived. But sadly, he became a bit of a hermit, working more on the lawsuit than returning to his job. According to the article, he lost his job, got a fairly small settlement, lost contact with his former colleagues, lost his apartment, and remained mostly unemployed when the article was written in 2008. In the end, it took much longer to escape the elevator than just 41 hours.

I was unable to find much news about Nicholas White since, but I sure hope that his life has improved by now.

I was chatting with an elderly couple in the doctor's waiting room this afternoon, talking about the weather, the warmth, and the upcoming maple syrup festival.

I mentioned that the festival day was earlier this year, and they agreed. It's usually near the beginning of April.

The gentleman mentioned (conversation paraphrased), "as long as they don't postpone it."

"Oh, they do that sometimes?"

"Oh yes, if the weather's bad."

"When was the last time they postponed it?"

The man thought a while and then turned to his wife: "When did they postpone it last?"

She replied, "oh.... when did Adrianne move?"

She thought a little while, and then said, "maybe 78? 79?"

This was a surprise to me. 1979! No wonder I hadn't remembered any such thing.

A number of thoughts occurred to me. Isn't it amazing how certain dates seem like yesterday to us, even though time still keeps marching on? The year 1990 still seems like recent history to me, but it is 20 years ago. Surely, the year 1978 must have seemed like recent history to this couple.

And second: I can just imagine the shock of taking the time and trouble of going to the maple syrup festival, in bad weather no less, only to find that it had been postponed. Assuming that had happened to this couple, I can understand why such a memory would not be soon forgotten!

Moral of the story: keep your party dates fixed, and remember to live in the present.

"We're so plugged into the consumer entertainment industry that we don't know what's going on in the world. We know all about Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie and U2 and The Family Guy, but we don't know the laws that are being passed in our countries. We don't know about the injustices of our social systems. We don't know where our food comes from, or the suffering required to get food onto our table. We don't know about the people in our neighbourhoods who are writing books and making movies and putting on plays and singing in choirs and running garage bands. Just like the citizens of The Matrix, we are mostly oblivious to reality, in part because somebody has convinced us that consuming entertainment is a worthwhile pursuit."

- Paul Nijjar, Adjacency Matrix