Happy New Year

Happy New Year, Taipei 101
Originally uploaded by Coolmitch.

Hope it's a fun time where you're at, Winnipeg got 30+cm of fresh new snow today so it's been a 'fun' day today.

God's blessings on all of us - around the world - in Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi 2007

(I know Anno Domini... it's not politically correct it's supposed to be CE but ... sheesh)

Evan

End of the Year Review and Ideas for Next Year

Classic Cheescake@Secret Recipe Originally uploaded by Jasemaine.

Well Christmas is over, we had a great family dinner made most of our items from scratch (as opposed to prepackaged). We made an absolutely sin-full new-york style cheesecake. We had Fillet Minion instead of 'Traditional Turkey' and it appeared to be very much enjoyed by everyone.

Santa gave us the 5-6 player expansions for Settlers of Catan and Cities and Nights of Catan so we played a game of that after dinner. Now, this is in contrast to what my family did when we were growing up - apparently at some time in the past 50 years mom had a bad experience with board games so had sworn off of them forever so she didn't play and dad thought the whole thing looked very complex. This is one of those 'family differences' S's family frequently would have dinner at 2 or 3 in the afternoon followed by an afternoon of games then a light supper at 7-8 before everyone left. My family would have 'Formal English Turkey-Carved-At-The-Table-by-Dad, Veggies-Served-by-Mom-at-the-Other-End' dinner. Needless to say there has been some 'style friction over the years'

Didn't Work
Outside / Yard Construction

This continues to take us 'FOREVER' just can't get the cycles together to get what is now just a little work to be done NEED to GET THIS FINISHED!

Garage / Craft Room Organization

We have way too much junk, and desperately need to dump stuff and paper, right now our garage is full of crap that isn't in the basement (because we were working on that) and the craft room is full of the junk that we couldn't move outside.

Personal Organization / Tasks

While I'm not missing meetings, I'm not getting to them prepared, i.e. having read the minutes from the previous meeting just as the new meeting starts (if at all) and catching the 'To Do's' that I might have for the meeting by the skin of my teeth. I use Gmail for email but I think I'm in desperate need of an organizer system.

Did Work
Basement

Surprisingly, the basement came together quite quickly once we hired a friend to help us out with the drywalling, we were able to get the ceiling up fairly easily and we're just about done the 'finish electrical'

Work - Programming

My skills at programming are slowly improving, I'm able to not only 'get the work done' but to do it a little faster and it's not so much a struggle, I made good progress learning ASP.net 2.0

Kiddo

Being a dad has been more fun than I had ever hoped it would be - I actually was not looking forward to the first couple of years (what I had previously though of as the 'the poop factory phase i.e. food in poop out not much else going on), K. is terrific fun to be around, he's a happy kid, busy learning and exploring his world and taking me with him on his journey - great fun

To Do
Improve Personal Organization

I've read in Lifehacker about the Getting Things Done system and may check that out next year

Personal Studies

I need to 'pick a topic' with a goal and devote some time to it - another certification from Microsoft or a Programming field of interest or something.

Finish Basement

Need to bring this to a conclusion so that we can begin working on sorting through the crap

That's about it, now if I can only get rid of the cold / flu that I've had since the end of Boxing day that would be great

Have a great new year!

Evan

The second candle burns!

the second candle burns!
Originally uploaded by rotraud_17.

It's actually the 3rd week of Advent but I liked this picture...we're in 'quick clean up the house' mode now, we're winding down our shopping, we've decided on what to serve for dinner and I think I know what I'll pick up for S.

Went to take kiddo's picture with Santa last night and he 'freaked' sat there and held his arms out and screamed...'get me away from the big man...' now he's only 18 months and can't actually talk yet but that was what he was saying - no doubt!

Oh well - have a great Christmas - even if you aren't actively Christian, this week offers time in our culture to attempt to relax, re-energise, spend time with family and friends and 're-centre' for the next few months, I'm certainly going to try and take a break!

Ev

loneliness

loneliness
Originally uploaded by requiemm.

I'm not lonely (I have a wonderful wife and an 18 month old, NOT Lonely) but this picture was really good I thought.

Evan

Street...Life?

Man in the Street
Originally uploaded by scribeoflight.

I was driving home from a client site the other day and happened to be in my city's downtown area - right along the main drag when I see someone poking into one of those cement garbage cans. This may be a 'can collector' I remember thinking - they're pretty common. While I'm sad that it's necessary for them to collect cans at least they are doing something active to make a buck, sort of like squeegee kids, not the best but at least it's working. This fellow on the other hand wasn't looking for cans. As it turns out he was looking for something to sit on, and he found a scrap of cardboard. He moved over to the beside the building put the cardboard down and sat down on it, to beg. At this moment I saw that his left hand was missing, the stump covered in recent bandages. Now, it was -23c (that's -10f for you Americans) that's COLD the windchill probably brought it down to -30c or more (-22f).

I don't know his name, I don't know his history, though he was native. I don't know if he would (or could) accept help if it was offered. I don't know if he has mental or other physical issues but quite frankly I almost cried at this site - we live in a fabulously rich country (by comparison to most other people on the planet) and here is a man out in the cold begging for his life. We're debating weather or not to let a pork processing plant that would bring 500 jobs to the city be built. We're debating weather or not to allow a huge housing suburb called Waverly West be built, our federal government is debating same sex marriage again (it was decided last year the Conservatives brought it back) and we can't find time or money to house or feed this man in decency. He deserves a soft bed and a cup of something warm, no not a big handouts. Now, I still believe that you should work for the best in life. But someplace to sleep and rest and heal in safety is only decent, only Christian. Until we can do that, maybe we need to put a moratorium on new development. Maintain what we have sure but you can't build new expensive (in the cash and environmental sense) housing until everyone down in our city's core has a bed. Maybe that would make a difference...maybe.

It's 18 days to Christmas, the 1st week of Advent...where will he be on Christmas Day?

And no, I'm just as guilty as the rest, I went on my way when the light turned green...

Quebec is a 'Nation'

Flag of Quebec
Originally uploaded by van+s.

So the Quebecois are a 'nation', at least our Parliament has said they are. Problem is that what most Canadians and (I believe members of Parliament believe) is that the term Quebecois refers to the 'People of Quebec'. I don't believe that Duceppe and the Block Quebecois hold the same definition - his definition is those people in Quebec that speak French, are catholic, white and come from historical families.
Now it's not that he hates others - he's not actively racist - just that he feels that 'his people' would be best served by separation from 'those people'. If we allow this, we let Canada break up into various ethnic groups, polish, French, German, native we would prove nothing to ourselves, or to the world.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebecois

One Laptop Per Child

One Laptop Per Child :

"The mission of this non-profit association is to develop a low-cost laptop—the "$100 Laptop"—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. Our goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves."

What a great idea, see the OLPC Wiki for more info - I hope we'll get the opportunity to purchase these for kids overseas, just as we sponsor them with books we can sponsor the technology that will free them to expand their society into the future

Portage Ave. at Night

Portage Ave.
Originally uploaded by camd.

Here you go, portage at night with all it's lights.

Portage Ave

Portage Ave
Originally uploaded by gnar.vision.

For those that are interested, here's a shot of Portage Ave. in Winnipeg (my home town) recently, see gnar.vision's Flickr page for more!

This weekend they'll light up the Christmas Lights and it looks fantastic at night!

Warning Signs - a photoset on Flickr

OK you've got to see these - I they're great!

BTW: If you haven't browsed Flickr yet it's wonderful fun but a time suck...

Warning Signs - a photoset on Flickr

Does anybody actually read this stuff?

We had occasion to have Kiddo in the hospital for a couple of days recently. Nothing really serious, an intestinal bug dehydrated him, scary for us as parents and very frustrating especially as S. and I were recovering from the same bug at exactly the same time that we were taking him in.

After the third visit to emergency and a visit to our own Dr. it became apparent that although everyone was making copious notes, no-one was actually reading the notes made by anyone else. We repeated the same answers to the same questions, apparently asked by rote with no care for previous answers. From a systems point of view this is a disaster - data entered repeatedly by different users in 'free form' entry styles - this is an error waiting to happen.

On top of all of that it became abundantly clear that none of the users actually read the details given by previous personnel, even between shift changes staff would boil Kiddo's condition down to 'intestinal bug' and read just the orders given by medical staff - we would then be asked the same series of questions (again) and we would re-tell the story in brief (again). At one point we actually stopped a procedure begin carried out and questioned the necessity of the procedure (we understood that it had been performed previously) and who issued the order. After the nurse actually went back and did some proper reading it was determined that the procedure had been done and the test results from it had been misfiled. Had we not been on hand and actively advocating for K. it would have been repeated.

Medical treatment in a hospital like this in Canada costs us nothing directly no co-payments no direct premiums nothing (It's paid for from every one's taxes). I'm coming to the conclusion that without a proper profit motive there is little or no incentive for structures like this to be improved. I don't want a direct pay system but if we had a private delivery public funded system of some sort (similar to the Swedish model) at least we would introduce an incentive to remove this kind of inefficiency.

Oh and by the way, everybody is back home and feeling much better!

Ev

My Official Seal

OK this is just tooo much fun! You too can have your own personal seal... http://www.says-it.com/seal/index.php

Humm Seems like Fall

I was on the way out to the car this morning with kiddo in arms and it struck me that it 'smelt' or 'felt' like fall was on the way for the first time. We have so much left to do around the house I don't' want to think about having to clean up everything already. Path to finish, sod to lay, garden to harvest, herbs to dry, we're hoping to do some preserves for over the winter and we have a bed to finish staining and moving into our room.

Where does all the time over the summer go.

Ev

What's your hurry...

Sheesh - I'm coming home from a client site yesterday, I'm doing just over 100 klicks (you know, not 110 but not 100 notched just over the posted and I have a truck (not the semi pictured, a pickup) riding my bumper... I'm in the left lane passing a semi and have no place else to go and this truck runs up and 'sits there' then when I get past the semi and move over to the right he floors it and zooms up to the next car and sits there - talk about an accident waiting to happen. Come on people do you NOT have anything else to do? Is the time remaining in the life of the sun way shorter than I was led to believe, there just can't be anything that terribly important 100km away from any place much that is that critical that you have to hazard yourself and, more importantly, ME!

Yeesh

Jaw Dropping Discovery

Posted to the Globe and Mail 1 Aug 06 as comment to the article A jaw-dropping discovery in earth's oceans by ANNE MCILROY

I think #24 got it right - that science and religion/spirituality can exist together. There are many people in the world, scientists and priests amongst them, that support this position. Every time I hear about something like this - a 'wow' moment - I'm left to smile. It's a good reminder that we don't and probably never will (or should) understand everything.

Remember that people that are biblical literalists (the creationist in posting #1 for example) - take the bible as literal truth, and can accept no part of it being wrong, because if one part is the rest might be as well - their model 'falls apart'. Other more liberal Christian denominations don't take this position and are involved in deep analysis, contemplation, review, debate and discussion of the bible and the history of the world and it's people when and since it was written. The world began when God said 'let their be light' and there was a big bang...maybe?

Perfect Example

The other night S. and I were tucked in getting ready to get some sleep, we routinely discuss our days, plans etc. together at this time and a 'bug' of some kind caught our attention as it moved from place to place on the ceiling of our room, with both of us catching up with it at the same time. I was considering the many ramifications of how I was going to get the bug off of the ceiling without squashing it into the stipple and making a black mark (considering cup w. playing card, water spray etc.) when S. hucks a slipper up at the ceiling, scaring bug away. I thought that this might be a perfect example of the differences between 5 and 7, or at least the differences between us :)

Evan

My Sesame St. Character

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Artist who should paint me...

Who Should Paint You: Gustav Klimt

Sensual and gorgeous, you would inspire an enchanting portrait.. With just enough classic appeal to be hung in any museum!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

Morning Quiet

It's 6:30 am and I'm just up and still groggy. S is out at her morning exercises (4:15 buzzer!) and Kiddo hasn't woken up yet (he had a bad night, woke up crying a couple of times.

I'm checking my email and various news sites that I watch, the TV and Radio's are off and even the cat is quiet. My day is about to become quite noisy and busy so this time is some of my best time of the day - the only sound I have to listen to is my typing.

oops - Kiddo's awake time to start the day...

Ev

Just about there.

 
Finally Finally - This is all that remains of the brick path outside - about 2 meters - that and a few cuts on one corner.

After that we can set our minds to getting ready for sod - trouble is that it's been 30+ for several days now with no rain. Putting sod down now would be silly.

Oh well, Just About There!!!

Ev 

IE 7 Review

Thought I’d post some notes on the IE 7 Beta that I’ve been using at home on my desktop machine recently.

IE has always been a little behind the curve compared to other browsers, their power has always been in the fact that it’s ‘EVERYWHERE’. Now they are trying to catch up. IE 7 adds tabbed browsing, a cleaner user interface and improved security.
They get some things right, the improved security seems to be better at catching pop ups etc. than before and in general the tabbed browsing works as it should. They do have major problems (so far) with the rendering engine, page scales are off and it doesn’t handle outlook web access or MSDN Help text pages properly yet. It’s worth trying out but I really hope there will be a 3rd beta before the release version. If you want to try it out hit http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx

Take Care,

Ev

Summers Finally Here

Summer’s Finally Here Yeaa!

We’re finally making some progress in and around the house; our roses are in front of the house. S and I have finally selected a mailbox that we both like, though I have to mount it outside yet. For those reading that don’t live in Canada many places (especially in new developments) have central mail boxes so a box on hour house really isn’t required in order to receive your mail. Our composters turned out some really good black gold to work into the garden and it’s warmed up enough to seed the front flower gardens and put the herbs outside for some sun.
K will be a year old soon and is creating a fantastic mess in the house, as expected, overall a good month.

Evan

Volunteers

Volunteers

<rant>

S and I volunteer with our church, youth organizations and others.  As a matter of fact, we organize some of our home setup around that work – we have a home office not to work at home from our jobs but to support our volunteer work this is a large portion of our lives. We’re both very busy but would miss this work if we couldn’t do it.

That makes working with other volunteers difficult some times, we’re both dedicated to the organizations that we work with but I find it frustrating sometimes working with others in our organizations. I hear complaints that communication in a volunteer organization isn’t working but then they aren’t attending the meetings that are being held.

Sigh…

One other observation, much of the communications that we do between volunteers is by email and I have run into people that ‘just don’t have email’ which is ok, but I’ve also run into people that don’t have email and throw that back at you as a challenge. They’re almost proud of it…?  Now, readers that aren’t in Canada should understand that 70%+ of Canadians have access to email either at home or at work and that percentage continues to grow every year.

I wonder if people that are not on email understand – I can send an email to five people at once, rather than making five phone calls over the course of two days, leaving messages, getting call backs etc. With services like GMail with its excellent conversation tracking it’s even easy to track multiple conversations over several days.

Double Sigh…

Ev

</rant>

Podcasting

Podcasting – I’m hooked

I’ve gotten into podcasting – well listening to them anyway. I’m currently working on a client site where I don’t have internet access. Normally when I’m at the office I log onto one of a couple of streaming music sites (yahoo music and Pandora being most common) and listen to the music they send me.

However, at this site I don’t have internet connectivity and I was getting a little twitchy with nothing to listen to so I downloaded ITunes from Apple and went hunting for podcasts. Now, for those of you who might not know…a podcast is a serialized audio, or potentially video, program. These can be done by Hank and Earl in their basement using a $10 microphone or by very serious internet casters like Todd Maffin who works for the CBC. He has a personal podcast called todbits.com that I really enjoy and is done to professional radio broadcast standard.

One of the interesting things is this fantastic variety – people of all skills and interests make podcasts, I would say it’s a little like the shareware or freeware software interest groups – people who are programming just for the fun of it and hope that people enjoy their work. Now, there are a few corporations that are jumping on the podcast bandwagon, CBC is apparently getting ready to move into Podcasting in a bigger way (they already podcast Quirks and Quarks) and several popular TV programs have producer/director podcasts that support the series.

If you’re interested, first download the free ITunes software then use the podcast directory in ITunes to go hunting for what interests you. Also, check out iloveradio.org for a good site, run by Todd Maffin as well, that provides a good selection as well. The ITunes application will download a list of all of the available episodes and the most recent one as well, you can select additional episodes off of the list to be downloaded to your hard drive. One thing to note, I have just a few podcasts and my catalog is up to 600mb – even though I have ITunes set to keep only the three most recent episodes for each podcasts.  

Enjoy!

Peacekeepers or not?

Sigh - It is past time that Canadians - as a people - give up the comfortable notion that we are a 'Nation of Peacekeepers' that was untrue before and is not true now. In fact I believe that this belief was fostered by various political parties as justification for reduced military spending. We cannot return to the blue beret days of previous times, sorry folks that time is gone. We need a fully equipped fighting force that will meet aggression with brutal violence and friendship with an open hand and ready comfort and support. Our armed forces cannot be a half effort. I've stated my support for this mission on Globe and Mail boards previously and I reiterate it again. Young men and women from Canada have died and will no doubt continue to die in this conflict but in the end - a decade or more from now. We just might have a safe, sane, stable country in Afghanistan and it will be because Canada and other countries did what was required. If we expect to have an international voice then we must have a real international presence and for good or ill that means we must have a military force capable of being active around the world.

Posted as comment to Globe and Mail 31 Mar 06

Afghan man faces death for turning to Christianity

Posted in response to 'Afghan man faces death for turning to Christianity'
by TIM ALBONE Globe and Mail website - 21 Mar 06

Are we looking for an excuse to come home, because every time I turn around it seems like we are...I felt that we needed to go in and 'take steps' against the Taliban prior to 9/11 and I still feel that that was the right decision. This is an educational and cultural problem, it is not and won't be a 'quick fix'! Canada is a small minority in the world, our culture is very mixed, with a tradition (maybe survival skill) of tolerance, for different languages, races, religions and lifestyles. It's taken us 50+ years to get to the point of allowing same sex marriage - that would have been just as unthinkable at the beginning of our parents lives as the Afghan judge thinks this is now. I think that Mr. Murphy (above) is correct, Afghanistan is very much in a different 'time' than we are. They need to grow, to become part of the rest of the world - their own way. It will probably be the children of the children in school right now who really finish that process. Maybe there will still be a Canadian presence there then, maybe not, but if we can be of help I would hope we would be - it's up to the Afghanis, all of them, as a people, to say 'thanks, you can go home now, we've got it from here...'

Male vs. Female in Parliament

Yesterday was international women's day and once again I kept hearing (in a couple of radio pieces) that women should make up half of the members of the House. The general argument given supporting this position is that the house should be representative of the people of Canada so it should be 50% (or 52% if you are being accurate) female. This would appear to be very reasonable, and in fact I can't really argue with the sentiment.

I can, however, lay out a position against the particular argument, that the house should be representative of all of the people it represents. The problem with the argument becomes apparent if you take it a few steps further - if 52% of Canada is female then the house should be 52% female. If (for example) 20% of the Canadian population is Native Canadian then the house should be 20% Native Canadian. That would be 20% of the males and 20% of the females we just added. This also seems reasonable and I'm sure the natives would be happier and better off if it were true. Now, what happens to the 10% of homosexual males in Canada? Do you take the 50% of the house that are male and then designate x number of seats to be occupied by gay men? What happens to the 10% who are black, the 10% who are Asian, the 30% under the age of 30 the 40% over the age of 50, the % who are disabled etc.

At some point in that chain you may have said to yourself that I was just being silly or even ridiculous, and in fact I am. This is a logical argument, I have taken what is on it's face is reasonable and extended it, rationally, to a ridiculous conclusion. The Latin term is Reductio ad absurdum. What this means is that if the argument results in something absurd when taken to it's reasonable conclusion then the entire argument, all of it, is absurd. So, while I don't disagree with what was intentioned - they need to find a better way of justifying it, what they're saying just doesn't work.

I'm open to someone pointing out where I'm wrong on this, but frankly I don't think I am.

Sigh...

Want to be an Ambassador?

Microsoft has opened the Microsoft Home Ambassadors program - Find out more at:

P.S. Canadians Only for this one!

Deserter or Conscientious Objector - Article Comment

Interesting Globe and Mail Article by Terry Weber 8 Feb 06

My Comment:
Does a soldier have a choice about who they are going to fight or not? That's the fundamental question. It doesn't matter what the details of this particular conflict are. Do they have a choice? The traditional answer is no. Details of it being a 'just war' or not don't really play into this I'm afraid. A civilian can have that discussion and so can civilian governments, soldiers can't. As a matter of fact that's the point, the military is directed by civilians, they make decisions about right and wrong for the army. The Americans as a people can 'decide' the war is wrong at the ballot box at the next election. This soldier needs to be sent home to face courts martial. As much as we might sympathise with him over fear of being killed and the collosally stupid waste of life this conflict is. In the end he's a soldier in the army of an ally, unlawfully absent from his unit. Being a soldier is about fighting who you are told to fight, when you are told to fight, where you are told to fight and when necessary giving up your life at the direction of others. If you can't deal with that truth don't volunteer.

Are we in a Crusade?

I'm beginning to think that the American conflict in Iraq is a 'Crusade'. Now, it's not being officially called that by any government but I'm beginning to think that that's what we're involved in. For a background on what a Crusade is see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade .

It seems like much of what has been going on is similar, misinformation is used to rally assistance to an 'aggrieved' party and to have others join in on attacking someone else - particularly Arab / Muslim peoples for the betterment of all of the aggrieved parties friends.

Now, you might be tempted to say that a Crusade requires a religious component, and I'm beginning to think that for President Bush - it does. The 'evil ones' are the terrorists, they are everywhere and anywhere, they don't believe in 'freedom' or 'democracy' and they should, the world would be a better place if they all believed etc.

At the time of the crusades the Pope was the focus of much power in Europe, today it's the American King, and if you don't do what he wants he'll excommunicate you - throw you out of the community of nations, mark you as a rogue nation etc.

Now, I'm no peace nick- I think Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is important, horrible things were being done there in the name of religion, and I hope that the difference between Afghanistan and Iraq is religion - we're not there to change the Afgani people (though some of that will happen) our primary mission is to bring peace. In Iraq and the rest of the middle east - the Americans are engaged in wholesale 'nation building' to bring their 'religion' to the ignorant undemocratic peoples of the middle east.

My big concern is that the crusades lasted from the 11th to the 13th centuries, 200+ years...