We Survived

Well, we survived...two weeks in Walt Disney World!

Overall I was surprised and a little impressed - I had expected WDW to be a large tourist trap, and even though it really is it sure didn't feel like it. Being in the various parks was a pleasant experience, modestly priced meals and souvenirs, very clean, friendly well trained staff that seemed genuinely happy to be there. Even the photographers were more of a service than any kind of hassle - we had to ask them to take pictures - the antithesis of pushy. The attractions were fun and very very well presented, at one point I had a Disney employee mention that they don't have roller coasters or rides, they have attractions, and he was right - the line up areas for the attractions are all in character, as are all the staff at each ride. No 'staff t-shirt' shorts and flip-fops here, each ride and every 'cast member' had a 'costume' that contributed to the look and feel of the park - in fact they were hardly ever 'out of character'

I would not count this as a restful vacation - S, Kiddo and our other relations seemed to have a great time but it was too much go and do and not a enough rest and recharge for my likes - there were several nights that we'd come home and I'd be out by 9pm having read only a page of my book - waking up at 6 to get everything done and be off to the park again to be there for gate opening.

Sigh I'll be off to the Scout Jamboree in Northern Quebec in a few weeks, maybe that will be more relaxing.

For now,

Evan

Vacation

S. and I will shortly be embarking on the standard 'Family Vacation'. In this case our destination is that haven of peace and serenity - Disney World...ok so yes the sinus meds are affecting my brain.

S. is over the moon about going, and while I find it mildly interesting (I am looking forward to Epcot), the potential negatives keep coming to mind - we're going to be traveling with an almost two year old, who loves to run around like mad wherever he is. That just can't happen on a plane, so we're going to get to hold him in our laps - unless miracle of miracles they seat us with an empty seat, apparently they do try and do that. Nice thing is it doesn't cost us anything for his flight and he doesn't need a ticket for Disney. But all of that doesn't help on the flights (there are two, totaling 4 hours, each way) will be at all fun.

We've had some other parent's suggest that we get him to rest while we fly (apparently kid's Gravol (Dramamine) is a good idea...not sure about that.

After traveling we get to spend 14 days in the deep south US - home of Guns, guns and more guns. (Believe it or not the Governor of Texas was on the radio the other day saying that the recent shootings in the US wouldn't have happened if everyone was properly armed while they were walking around on the school campus! This is the place I'm taking my son to? On top of the obvious risks (both from weapons and from psychological proximity to these people). There are going to be many many businesses that are intent on removing as much of our money as fast as they can while returning to us as little as possible and what they do give us will be made of plastic or other 'cheapness' and will actually have been made in China.

Oh what fun.

Now, we're actually going to be staying in a house that we've rented for the two weeks, its going to be just as expensive (or maybe a little less) to stay there as it would be in a hotel considering that it's actually S. Myself, Kiddo, S's mom and another cousin that I'll call Min. The house idea is great more space, our own bedroom and so on. The fact that I'll get to clean, do dishes, and other domestic chores down there just as much as I do at home (I do try and pull my fair share) not so much.

I'm going to spend 14 days in Tamaracouta Quebec this summer with 6800 Scouts, in comparison, that sounds relaxing.

I'll write something if / when we get back alive...

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pastorjason/239574951/

New Tech..Still

I've commented before about people who vigorously resist getting email. But I'm beginning find several friends and acquaintances who, although they use email, fail to 'extend' their grasp of technology. I've recently started sharing documents online via the Google Docs and Spreadsheets system with a couple of my friends. My hope was that they would be able to see what I had done and collaborate with me online - easy for me and easy for them right? Nope. Instead they all asked if I could send them a word document or if I could put it directly into and email. Email is something that they all understand and are comfortable with. (I even suspect that a couple of them still print every email and deal with it as paper)

My problems start with the need to work to combine the edits of potentially four people that individually email me back, each with their own edits and changes. This will actually create much more work for me in the end than if they had only taken the 20 minutes to work at understanding the great systems being offered, for free.

One observation is that some people seem to have reached 'max load' they really can't take much more, they understand the web in general - i.e. the original static information provider sites (circa 1995) and they understand email but that is the extend of it. In the last 5-10 years the web has become so much more. Online collaboration, personal and social sites, software as services and much much more. Now, I'm not sure if this is a 'design issue' or a 'human issue' i.e is this something that the web site designers need to look at or have we just reached the maximum limit of some people to adapt?

A small percentage, mostly older and those that really never got connected in the first place seem to still expect (or maybe hope) that this whole Internet thing will 'go away' or end or 'get simpler' somehow. I'm convinced (and admittedly I have a reasons to be it's my lively-hood) that we're going to be on the Internet and using technology like this from now on, please - help those of us out here on the front edge a little bit...spend ten to thirty minutes each week expanding your technical knowledge - read the Globe and Mail technology columns, learn about and subscribe to RSS feeds that discuss your other hobbies, in general work at becoming more 'web literate'. Besides, in the end the time you save will be your own.

Evan

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/people/jintan/

most powerful clip i have seen

Very good and telling video about what we teach our kids...

Customer Service - NOT

I wanted to tell you about an experience I had recently at the local UPS depot - now it's important to note this was the corporate depot not a franchise!
I had arranged to pick up a package at the depot (rather than having it delivered to our home where we wouldn't be anyway) First problem occurred when I couldn't find a place to park. There was a dedicated customer parking area but it was full. I went into the office after parking in a staff parking spot (in violation of the posted sign...) I go into the dingy little cubby and there is only one person at the counter. (Why is the parking area full?) I wait a few minutes while the person in front of me completes paying for his COD package and I help him through the door.
I speak to the 19 year old kid in the grey sweatshirt and sideways baseball cap - we discuss the parking problem, he commiserates with me, I suggest that maybe towing someone would solve their problem (mostly in jest actually). Baseball cap kid goes in the back for my package leaving the door open to the back area of the loading bay so I can see the five people lounging around, with maybe one or two actually moving packages into trucks. Then a PA announcement comes over from the manager asking employees to move their vehicles out of customer parking. So far so good - while the kid in the sweatshirt and cap looks shoddy - he's done good work, got my package quickly and talked to management about my problem. Then the kicker - the meatheads in the back yell back at the PA to "Shut Up". I'm still standing in the dingy little entry way and can see and hear all of this - I almost yelled at them - I was angry. I left the place and placed a twenty minute complaint call to the UPS 1-800 number (asked for a supervisor first.)
What a colossal customer service failure - I can't park, I'm served by a kid who looks like he should be out on his skateboard not behind a business counter, the counter itself looks like something out of the 70's. Then the rampant disrespect shown by the employees to the management.
Why on earth would I ever do business with UPS? Now they have an annoyed customer who is blogging on their faults...it's easy to think that 10+ people will read this ... a PR disaster. (The standard PR rule I was taught in school was that a happy customer tells 1 person unhappy customers tell 10)

Here's what should have happened:
1) The customer parking area should have been open to park in.
2) The kid should have been in uniform - (not that he did a bad job really)
3) The gentleman in front of me should have been helped by UPS staff out to his vehicle with his large box - easy and cheap improvement in customer experience.
4) The counter space should have been clean, modern, well painted in corporate colours with corporate logo
5) The door to the shipping area should have automatically been closed as my package was retrieved.

It's the year 2007, thousands of customer service books have been written and published in the last decade - and companies still can't get the basics right???

Evan

Photo Credit: wok http://www.flickr.com/photos/mworrell/266180687/

Spring Thaw - St. Vital Park, Winnipeg

Spring Thaw - St. Vital Park, Winnipeg
Originally uploaded by Tuktoyaktuk.

I almost feel as if the world is waking up, with only a few warm days it's amazing how much the snow has melted. I can now go to work without my boots!

I can see many of the plants in our garden, and my mind is increasingly turning to our yard tasks ahead - sod and retaining stone to purchase, path to repair and cleanup, seeds to start (they're in the kitchen greenhouse) There might even be compost to pull out and get ready for the garden (it's had 2 years now)

The basement, though 'DONE' needs a good cleaning (as does the rest of the house - can you say 'Spring Cleaning'! Maybe we can start that this weekend...

I'm finally sleeping better and 'House Management' (the just living each day stuff - remember we have a 21 month old ) has been much easier recently. I've been trying to really move myself actively toward the 8 - action vs. my tendency toward a built in delay to 'gather more information' . I'm beginning to 'live' (not just know) the fact that the delays actually make things worse. It's still not all right (I missed processing some forms for a Scouting issue and also missed a phone call to another Scouting contact that I should have done last week. But it's not so much of a panic each morning as it once was.

I'm looking forward to spring this year. Much to do and clean and grow, maybe even myself!

Take Care!

CBC DRM Junk

Tod Maffin indicates on the Inside the CBC Blog that CBC intends to post clips of some of their shows online, which is great! Problem is that they are going to encode them in the DivX format and shackle them with DRM.

If they don't want people to share their videos then they shouldn't make them available! To believe that anything that is web posted can be contained or controlled is simply silly these days. The only thing the DRM does is make it more difficult for legitimate users to use. Those who want the images bad enough will grab them anyway - and will repost them onto better formats like YouTube.

I for one will NOT use or buy ANY web content in any form that has been infected with DRM it’s just too risky after the viral software distributed on SONY music CDs in 2005.

A number of high profile Canadian artists have come out against DRM (Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies amongst others) see http://www.musiccreators.ca/wp These are the performers and industry that CBC purports to promote!

A more progressive and community supportive stance would have been for the CBC to license their material under a Creative Commons license so that fans like me could share and promote their material freely but they would retain the right to prevent commercial use and disallow modification of it’s content. (see http://creativecommons.org/ )

Evan Young

Winter Is Almost Over

Winter Is Almost Over
Originally uploaded by Big Grey Mare.

I was searching for a photo for a 'winter is still hanging on' blog but this was a nice picture...We've had a little more snow in the last couple of days but the temps have been nice.

Winter is almost over, you can almost hear people chanting it over and over to themselves like a mantra.

Need to go out and shovel some more snow...maybe not - my bed warmer is on and it's time to go back to bed and hide for the night!

Have a good Sleep!

Evan

100 Years

Some of you may know that this is the 100th anniversary year of Scouting - here's a great video that tells you a little about the founder of the worlds largest and most successful youth movement.

Morning Drive

Ever have one of those morning drives?

Today was one of those, the garbage truck came early (I usually take the garbage out to the curb just as I'm leaving for work but since the city contracted out the garbage service to a private company they've gotten all efficient on me and consistently come early) So I'm getting kiddo dressed inside and...garbage truck goes buy - oh well it's winter and the garbage will keep, got the recyclables out anyway. On the way to the office after dropping off Kiddo and I come very quickly to a halt - that's when the traffic report comes on saying that the street I'm on is all backed up...OK quick turn around, and take my alternate route. That's jammed up as well so a 15 minute drive became a 40 minute one. Then I get to the office and the strap on my pack gets itself wedged in the door as I come in stopping me like a dog on a leash. Not a problem you say just reach down and open the door and let the strap out...well it's a security door - magnetic lock...I'm trapped, had to undo my pack and reach over and hit the 'exit button' to get myself out - thank goodness there were no witnesses.

Now it's only noon and I'm waiting for the next shoe...

Evan

Postscript: actually survived the day - no second shoe - yet...

Photo Credit: Sheila Steele

Winter 'blahs'

The winter 'blahs' have got me - I've been exhausted, bored and 1/2 sick since the middle of January. I go to bed at ten and sleep hard for eight hours until I get up at six. I wake up groggy and it takes me half an hour to finish waking up, and even when I do I'm still not what I would call 'rested'.

In past years I haven't had this problem but it's been -40c (with windchill) for the last couple of weeks and spending any time outside without a serious amount of clothing isn't really viable. I've been stuck inside in 'routine mode' <you can skip to the next para if you want it's just my daily routine> up, breakfast, get kiddo up, feed kiddo, wake up S, Shave/Shower/Dress, say goodbye to S., Dress Kiddo, Pack up my pack and kiddo's bag, dress kiddo for outside, load kiddo, drop kiddo off, go to work, park in parkade, walk to work, work, lunch, work, drive home, clean up, have dinner made by S., read email, put kiddo to bed, clean up basement/other volunteer work, bed - repeat.

Not that I'm complaining, lots of people wish they had it so good, I guess I just have some 'work to do' over the next few weeks. Funny thing is that when I begin to try and do somethings different, people get all weird, like I was 'changing on them'. I had a candle lit by the computer the other day (after kiddo was in bed), just trying to 'center' a little bit I guess. And all I heard from my friends / S. was; 'what's the candle for? you never do that' or 'you know you need to burn that for three hours right?' (it was 9pm, bed is at 10 remember...).

I guess I haven't had much 'recharge time' - today's the first Saturday I've had to myself in a long time, and I need that break - S. just goes to bed when she needs to recharge. I need quiet time with myself - I don't even mind if S. an kiddo are around doing their own thing just so long as I can do mine.

Ah well, best to make the best of Kiddo's nap time - got to connect the power lines I was working on the other day and see if the lights blow up - Take care!

Evan

Photo Credit: hansi linderoth

Shared Items

I've added a new feature! On the right side of this page is a Google Widget called 'Evan's Shared Items' it lists some news stories, downloads and other goodies that I spot while reading the news in Google Reader. As I read my RSS feeds daily this should be updating almost every day!

No guarantees what these will be, if you find what I add use full I'd like to know!

Evan

Photo Credit: cyberslayer

No More Plastic

Picture taken by Flickr user Sembazuru

I think I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to buy anything more made out of plastic. As part of my 'year in review' (see 28 Dec 07 ) I made note of the junk that has been accumulated at our house and much of the junk is made of plastic. I/we have purchased many things over the years from Wall-Mart and other 'regular consumer stores' and they are made of various sorts of plastic, or particle board with laminate (plastic) vernier with fake metal handles etc. In the end all of these things seem to fail or we stop using them because they never quite worked in the first place. They are not really something we can repair or 'maintain' they are designed to meet the 'bare minimum' and no more.

So, I've come to the conclusion that I'd like to purchase things, when they are needed, from 'real' materials. I.e. furniture should be made from real wood, cases, backpacks etc. should be heavy duty man made or leather. I need desk drawer dividers for my new desk and I've decided they should be wood not plastic. It's simply too easy to go to some regular consumer store and pay $129 for a chair that is going to last for 4 years when I could pay $350-$550 and have it for most of the rest of my working life. What that means is I'll have to do without some things while I save up for better quality - maybe that's a good thing.

This Epiphany was echoed by some other items on the Lifehacker blog (I think): I use a Moleskine notebook for my 'analog pda' it's my 'everything but work items' notebook, for all my meetings (I volunteer with Scouts, the Church, etc.) and I prefer to use a fountain pen with the notebook. Turns out that I am not alone in this, there are others in the world that use this setup (good notebook and expensive pen) and it too costs a little bit more (small moleskine notebooks are about $14 rather than $7 for a cheap Hilroy). My moleskine is built better, comes with an elastic band to hold it shut and a place marker. Best of all it will 'lie flat' for writing, making the entire page more useful, so for those few extra dollars I get a much better experience overall, I'm going to try and apply this philosophy to everything I buy, we'll see how it comes out.

Evan

P.s. I wonder if my moleskine/pen thing is particularly five-ish?

EOS Amon Hen

EOS Amon Hen
Originally uploaded by roger_taylor_85.

Another Flickr pick...found by doing a search for 'shire' as in Tolkien.
For those that have read the books...doesn't this one just make you want to walk up the steps to see if there is a seat at the top of the hill (or look around worried about Orks?)

Evan

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...

They're back!!!

Finally CBC is back on the air - yea! As odd as it seams my fall has been disrupted, for the last few weeks I have gotten up in the morning to lousy radio and I feel disconnected in the mornings. I can't hear Terry on the radio, find out what's going on in the city and in the world and going to work means a constant switch back and forth trying to find something to listen to. Most of the radio in the city is written to be too fluffy light like Q94 and BOB or serious over non-issues like CJOB. They can't find a balance of fun but not stupid like CBC can.

I will be interesting to hear if anything has changed - they were out for a long time and there is bound to be some bad blood between management and staff. When I was a young my father was out of work with CBC for some weeks. It hurt us financially quite badly. I've come to the conclusion that there is very little to be really gained by either strikes or lockouts, both sides loose.

Evan

CBC Lockout...Letter to the Editor

Maybe CBC isn't worth its cost, MP says

BILL CURRY Globe and Mail, 8 September 2005

A few years ago I had a pin on my winter jacket- a small 'I (heart) CBC'. I had loads of people approach me and mention it and the most common statement was 'You mean CBC Radio right?' which I had to concede was exactly what I meant. I just couldn’t find a 'I Love CBC Radio' Pin.

CBC Radio is by far the best radio on the air - terrific morning wake up program that is intelligent and fun. Not written so the announcers sound vapid or degrading, the women announcers written as badly stereotyped. The annoying thing is it doesn't matter what channel you're on they’re all the same!

My wife and I are missing our fun afternoons on The Roundup with Tetsuro and getting up with Terry in Winnipeg. Excellent journalism on 'As it Happens', stories by Stuart on Sundays after church from the Vinyl Cafe. These are people we know and love hearing every day. We time our morning by who's on when - sports at 25 past the hour, news on the half. And all of that with NO commercials!

I don't much care about CBC TV; they don't carry much I like really. They might be better off moving to a commercial free, membership based model. Or include them in basic cable - I already pay for a couple of useless channels that I can't get rid of so it's not much different.

Its past time for CBC management to FIX THIS, find a compromise, make it happen - unlock the doors and get CBC back on the air. If you stay off too long, if the tide turns, and politicians can get more public credit for killing the CBC than keeping it alive as a station of BBC re-runs you're finished.

Missing My Radio in Winnipeg
Evan

New arrival!!! Part 2

Ok,

We were in our own room and setting in, S. was able to use the shower,tub etc. Several times over the next hours and that helped - she didn't want to thow up when in there.

By 6pm S. was exhausted, dehydrated just 'tired of this' and the Dr. Suggested some drugs - we weren't exactly clear it seems on what they would do - they knocked her flat - she slept for 3 hours (I did too actually, in the pull out chair for an hour and a half). By 9 pm we were awake again S. was much farther along and had over a liter of fluid on-board (I had snuck out and found my first real meal in 17 hours as well)

It took 4 hours more but by 12:40 NB was here! Yea - the only thing that was a real surprise was that the umbilical cord broke! (Yes they can break) The cord was around NB's neck - a not unusual situation - and the Dr usually flips it over the head and all is OK - worst case he can clamp it and cut it quick and he was all set for that. Well he pulled on it two or three times and it broke, right close to the belly button. It goes off like a gunshot (it's under high pressure apparently) - blood flashes everywhere, across the Dr., me, S., the room etc. The Dr. had to pinch off what was left as a stub and then clamp off the cord. (He was so embarrassed the next day) After all of that it came out well

Now here's an intriguing series of co-incidences (or not) - I had been moving around the hospital a bit, once to go and get a coke / vending machine stuff and the 2nd time to go and get dinner. Who do I meet each time, but friends - the first one an older gentlemen from our home parish who I like and respect very much who recognized me, encouraged me, shook my hand and sent me back to my laboring wife. The 2nd time a close friend of S. and mine who would be becoming an Anglican deacon two days after NB was born and who will be his godmother. This very logical 5 is going to take both of these as a vote of confidence and 'extra support when needed' in answer to a few prayers!

Living 5 life the the fullest!

New arrival!!!

Wow it's hard to believe that a month has gone buy already and I'm back to work (I took 3 weeks off plus my company gives 3 days automatically. )

Little info on how things went:
We woke up at about 1:30 in the morning with S. Having a contraction - they were about 10-15 minutes apart and we figured we'd have time for a cup of tea and finding out what was on late-night TV.

By 2:00 we were at 2 minutes apart - that was a little quick - we called the Dr. and he said to go into the hospital - we had an interesting run in (including coming up to the railway crossing at 2:45 in the morning with the gates coming down...it was like a bad movie - especially since it was only an engine (no cars) my guess was they wanted coffee at the Tim Hortons next to the tracks. Thankfully they saw us and did whatever they needed to do to get the gates up.

We got to triage and were assessed and not getting very far - S. Was having serial contractions now one on top of the other. Thankfully we had a couple of great nurses helping us, as well we took part in a study that gave us one-on-one access to a nurse for two hours much better. By 6am we were making progress nicely and could stay in the hospital - (if you haven't progressed much they send you home) we get to do the 2nd part of the study in a week (a paper follow-up questionnaire) and see how things went. I've requested a copy of the study when it's published - hey they offered.

Now here's an interesting observation; S. and I thought we were pretty relaxed, comfortable with what was coming - I had read and studied lots and was prepared for a long run myself. Relaxation during labour is very very subtle, while emotionally calm it turns out that physically calm is something else - we had to learn what that meant all over again. The big part of what the nurses helped us with was to learn to relax into the contraction, it's not easy or intuitive. Word of advice - be prepared to ditch what doesn't work, the idea of a 'cleansing breath' at the beginning of the contraction didn't work for us at all, though it had ben emphasized during the classes.

The only thing that was really an ongoing annoyance was nausea - S. was sick every time she did anything but sit in bed, walking, birth ball,standing etc. all made her throw up - no morning sickness during the entire pregnancy and now this.

So we sat around - and by 11am were moved to the LDRP (labor, Delivery, Recover, Postpartum) ward. Neat facility we got our own room, with our own bathroom, nice TV, bed and lots of space.

More to come...

B-8 and Holding...

Waiting isn't my strong suit - I can usually occupy my time with something else but waiting for New Being to appear is getting a little much. S. is in occasional pain and frequent discomfort - that I can do little about, other than massage and cups of tea. The nursery is ready, with all the furniture put together. I've even pre-washed all of the clothing that we had for him (and yes it's a him) and organized the various 'bins' that we have on the shelves.

Now we're just on-hold waiting to go ahead. Sorry no pearls of wisdom, no great predictions just a hope that this process will 'get on with it already'. (due warning - a bored Evan is a dangerous Evan - who knows what project I might become interested in - furnace cleaning - roof fixing (in the rain etc. )

B-8 and counting, guidance is internal...

Ev

[FUALI-DOT-COM] - Video Game Addict Test

I am 31% Video Game Addict.

I may play video games but they don’t rule my life. Good for me. But I should be careful not to fall in the grasp of the loving glow of the TV or monitor.

Take the
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@ FualiDotCom

Just for Fun!

Re: Children don't need life's bruises, Globe and Mail Andre Picard 2 June 05

See Mr. Picard's article in the Globe and mail at (you might need a subscription...?)
The Globe and Mail: Andr� Picard

Mr Picard, I'm afraid misses the point of his source letter, I agree with the letter writer, kids needs bumps, scrapes and colds, and a little mud and grime never hurt. I'm about to become a parent but S. and I are going to try and allow our kids to get some of those things (at least we're not going to freak out about scraped knees!)

Do we want them seriously hurt? NO, not even close. But I've taught axe and knife safety to Scouts (boys and girls 11-14) for years, no matter what I do, at some point Billy is going to cut his finger, not seriously - I've never had one requiring stitches - but he's going to do it. We teach them to work away from themselves, to carefully sharpen their knives so that they are safely sharp and not unsafely dull and all of the other things we're supposed to do and he's still going to do it. There is no way to make every activity risk free - as a matter of fact I want a little risk there, I want Sally to respect the tool she's working with, to know that it can hurt her and if she's not very carefully, to get a little knick as a life reminder - they rarely do it twice!

I'm not opposed to safe play structures and I insist on helmets for everyone on bikes, kids and adults included. When we're at camp no one goes in the water without a PFD - and I don't care how well you can swim. But, ('nother Scout example) Sally and Timmy will still flip their canoe one day on the lake - they are going to be cold and wet and scared - I can train them in canoe over canoe rescue (which is very difficult indeed in the middle of a windy lake, with your heavy clothes on and your PFD jammed up around your ears) I'll tell them to lash all of their equipment into the canoe and we'll stay together in a group and have an emergency plan. In the end, it's going to happen, and all of the kids who work together to pull Sally and Timmy out of the water, get a fire going quickly, setup their tents and get them dried out will take home life skills that cannot be taught any other way than being at risk - just a little bit.

The stories told around the campfire aren't the happy happy joy joy stories. The ones where we shared a little discomfort and came through. Ten years later we'll still tell the story of getting these two out of the water, how the rain came down and we fought to get the tents up and get everyone dried out and fed.

Evan

New Being Problems

Well,

It's been an interesting few of months. At the end of December last year I told you about our New Being - our first kid...Well now things have really changed.

This note catches up a lot of time... NB is going to have club feet (feet turned inwards at the ankles) and maybe some affect to his hands. This was discovered during the routine ultrasound checks that everyone goes through.

Needless to say, this was a great shock. We didn't really know how bad things might be (this could have been bad enough to end the pregnancy) or if this was relatively contained and truthful. A horrible place for a 5 to be in as well - I had no knowledge of what was going on, no ability to really find out (though we've been through a battery of tests over the last several months. I was able to access reasonable information off of the web quickly and was rapidly able to become more informed on this specific condition than our GP (Not to put him down, he has been great) besides, I had a mission and a library to work in...

As of now NB remains on schedule for arrival next month, the room is painted, all of his stuff bought (or ordered) and S and I are much more comfortable with the prospect of a little one with casts on both feet and splints on his writs.

Oh and yes, NB is a boy - you wouldn't believe how many people ask you what it is.

More about our wacky pre-natal classes to come.

Ev

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Page Numbers � Solar Flare: Science Fiction News Blog

Ok I may be a geek (computer, Scouting, wargames (table-top and computer) etc. ) but this is just silly, I admire single minded dedication to a topic of study and I really like Harry Potter books but come on folks - isn't worrying about the number of pages / chapters in a book grasping at straws. 'We can't find out anything else about the plot so we'll make the number of pages news?' The book will come out when it comes out.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Page Numbers � Solar Flare: Science Fiction News Blog

Sheesh

The Globe and Mail: Craig Chandler

The Globe and Mail: Craig Chandler

My Letter to the Editor in response to Mr Chandler's article.


Dear Editor;

Increasingly I'm torn, where do people like me who are socially very liberal turn? For example, I have no problem with early term abortion, distribution of and information on birth control or same-sex marriage. I support immigration to Canada and I am actively and personally concerned about the environment.

On the other hand I'm generally financially conservative for example I support gun control in principal but the gun registry is a waste of money. The amount of money paid to Quebec advertising companies apalls me and the waste canceling and re-issuing the helicopter contract is beyond words. This continues with submarines that leak, or burn.

In the middle of all this I support a strong war-ready military, not a peacekeeper force, though I'm proud of our continued success as peacekeepers. Our soldiers need decent pay, good uniforms and boots - not leaky submarines that waste taxpayers money. (It's tough to lend aid to a foreign country with a submarine) We need to be able to move those soldiers and their equipment anywhere in the world they are needed when they are needed - not two weeks later.

One third of what I make is taken by the government but I think that I've shown that most of that is squandered. We've paid down the deficit and we're working on the debt but I still haven't seen any real tax help.

If I support the Liberals I support further waste. If I support the Conservatives I pick up a set of baggage that I don't want. I'm an active Christian (Anglican) and the growth in the Evangelical movement scares me. I think that Bush is both scary and Nuts, and we were right to stay out of missile defense. I support a strong West - I think that a disproportionate amount of taxpayer money is spent keeping Quebecers 'happy' when in fact they are probably doing just fine really and would most likely be happier if we stopped interfering.

Where do 'middle of the roaders' like me actually turn? I won't support the unions by supporting the NDP and while the Green Party is getting there they aren't yet ready for prime time, but I'm listening to them.

I would suggest that many of my positions more closely resemble the opinions of the majority Canadians than Mr Chandler's article does but no party truly represents me very closely at all.

Let's not follow the American example of polarization to blue and red camps - let's follow the Canadian tradition of attempting to find a socially sensitive middle road.

Evan, Winnipeg

Friday Afternoon

Ever have one of those months? I was supposed to go camping this weekend and I'm not going to make it - not because I didn't have time it's just that frankly I don't want to - I have a bunch of stuff to do at home (not even New Being (NB) related actually) and other items that I'd 'like to get to' if I can.

One of the big ones is painting the master bedroom - we've been at that one for a week+ we have one wall and the bathroom left to get done, I've been beat most nights this week (with no real reason to be).

Tonight we're hosting a Murder (no, nothing criminal) a dinner party where guests play the part of characters in the story and together they try and solve the plot. That doesn't start until 7:30 and won't clear up until midnight at least.

Tomorrow I want to try and make an early start - paint the room and hope it has time to dry before I move the furniture back and try and move back in. Then we can clean up the spare bedroom.

All seems horribly mundane doesn't it? It's been a long time since I was able to devote serious consistent time to gaming or other relaxing pursuits, and with NB on the way I doubt that I will anytime soon...

Currently - finishing lunch, writing a new report for my current client, listening to the beeping of the students working on their forklift certification in the room where I'm programming - whew propane exhaust... sheesh.

Hey 'New Being' enroute

On Christmas day, during the Prayers of the People at church S. and I inserted the announcement that a 'New Being' is enroute to our home - and actually has been for some 90+ days. We felt that it was important for the prayers to have some positive news in them - too often we are pray only for sick or the dead - this seemed like just the thing to add to the joy of the evening.

So wish us luck - I'm in serious Data Acquisition Mode - Full 5 here - 2 books down for the count and I've already made 2 hunting trips to the bookstore and my amazon wish list has even more. I started The Big Red Book of Baby Planning (not a book, but my hardcopy planning, shopping and note-taking journal) and am ready to take notes and clip ads and articles with wild abandon! Now it's not exactly a fair comparison because S. has no choice but to be the carrying end of this team but that's ok - I have a basement to finish and a nursery to build.

Merry Christmas - may the spirits alive around the world this night bring you peace and joy.

Christmas Rundown

Recently a church where I live had the Christmas lights stolen off their building. The parish had gotten together and raised $400 to pay for new low energy LED lights (which are just becoming widely available in Canada) and spent a fair amount of time getting them all up for the coming Sunday.

That Saturday night someone stole the lights off of the church (you know - the old punishment for desecration a church was hanging!). It's Christmas time and you steal lights off of a church -somewhere along the way we've seriously missed the boat here - when Christmas becomes more about what you have hanging off of your house than it does being kind and generous with strangers, friends and family then we are in real trouble.

Sigh...

Hockey Smockey - I want my newspaper back!

If you're a hockey fan you're not going to like this, I'd skip to the next post...

In the interests of full disclosure - I don't play hockey, watch hockey (never been to a game), skate, wack frozen bits of rubber on ice or out front on the street, hip check people (except when attempting to dance), drink beer, or subscribe to any sports TV channel or web site (the concept of 'sports reporter' is a joke, I don't even read the section of the paper that says sports) - the only reason that I'm commenting on this at all is because this nonsense is invading the front page of my newspaper and my websites - that makes it fair game.

The NHL players recently offered a 24% pay cut for their players. Now let's understand some statistics; for a player making 17 million in 5 years that reduces their income from 3.4 million to 2.58 million dollars per year.

And now a couple of questions: a) why does any one doing anything need to make that much b) The 2002 average Canadian income for a two parent double income family with kids is $67,700 (2002 dollars Source: Statistics Canada) that means that this player makes 38 Times as much and he (note that this is a male-only sport at this level) gets to do what he loves to do - play hockey.

And they are offering a 24% cut - humm this is a little like the sales at Canadian Tire, Sears etc. An item comes in and sells for 59.99 - eventually it drops to $19.99 (or less) on sale. As these companies avoid (not absolutely but generally) selling anything at a net loss that means that the wholesale price was under $19.99 to begin with and they started at a 200% markup.

I wonder - if players make 3.4 million, and they've put themselves on sale for 2.58 maybe we should just wait a while and they will eventually drop to a level that makes more sense - maybe in the 200K range.

Please everyone that is worried about Hockey - get a life - go to the library, buy a book, build something, play soccer (most of the rest of the world does), play Quidditch (if you read you'd know what that is) , take a trip someplace warm (without hockey) the world will NOT end if you don't see Don Cherry (don't even get me started on him)

Sigh...

Open House Round-up

Well, the open house has come and gone and was a great success. We had lots of friends, good food and fun for hours on Saturday, some 30+ visitors actually.

It's interesting the differences in what we use from year to year - last year we had lots of left over mulled wine, this year we used 1 1/2 batches (we use 30 cup coffee perks to make it) .

It's great to catch up with everyone and see them getting to know each other - a New-Old friend of mine (long story maybe for another post) turns out to have gone to school with our next door neighbor's. We had a chance to visit with our SouthSide neighbor's more than we have in the weeks since freeze up)

Spook (the cat) was so tired by the end of the day - he'd been so scritched, hugged and entertained that he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer - it's funny to see a cat try and stay awake just as he fades out.

S. was at a volunteer meeting in the morning and came home at about 1, we were opening our door at 3 so that left it to me to do much of the final cleaning and finishing off the tree. Apparently the Ladies at the meeting were surprised that her husband would do this - I'm continually surprised by this - isn't the idea of being married include splitting up the work even doing stuff you wouldn't normally do if needs require?

Humm - more to think about on that one later - for now I have Christmas shopping to do!

In the 2nd week of Advent 2004 - this is 5Life

Open House To Be

So, the Synod is over and our Open House is rapidly coming up! This annual event takes place in our home every year. I get into baking up a storm, shortbread, butter tarts, cookies and whatever else I can come up with, if anyone knows a recipe for Rice Krispiee cake that doesn't turn as hard a rock in a day or so I'd like to know!).

We've sent out an evite using (www.evite.com) to make it easier and cheaper for people to be invited and to send RSVP's

This weekend we'll take out the decorations, clean up the house and generally try and get ready as much ahead of time as possible!

We need to order glasses (we always rent them - it's not too expensive and is much less work than washing and cleaning everything. )

Then there is the desk in the kitchen to attack - unfortunately we don't use it much as a desk and more of a dumping ground - maybe we need a better chair, in order to make it more usable - it's counter top height so a regular office chair isn't going to work - maybe IKEA has something that will work there.

TTFN

Well I survived the Funeral

Well we survived, it was as long or longer than I had ever hoped was possible. We began by leaving home at noon and arriving in SmallTown USA some 2 Hours later. We stopped by the widow's home (where many grandkids and parents were staging for the trip to the funeral home.)

We then changed and left to go to the Funeral Home at 4 for family prayers - unfortunately I had it in my head that this would be 20-30 minutes long (this was my previous experience) then we could leave and come back at 7 for the memorial service - no such luck. We had family prayers from 4 to 5 then it seemed like the whole population of SmallTown showed up (they had to finally close the funeral home doors) between 5 and 7 to pay their respects. S. and I finally snuck out at 6 to go and get water, gum and hard candies. Then we had a nice 20 minute memorial service.

As a note to those running funerals in the future - take care of the living! Water, tea, coffee and some small nibbles are really a blessing especially for family that has to be there for 3 1/2 hours.

This isn't happy happy joy joy...

Here's an interesting contrast, Wonderful Wife and I are going to have to travel out of province for a day to attend a family function. The contrast comes in when you compare how Wonderful Wife and I approach this situation - I'm not happy, this will involve two days of people I don't know well, dinners, gatherings etc. that will require continued personal interaction - i.e. talking. On top of all of that we're staying with relatives, so there's no escape (not that the relatives are not nice people, they are) the issue here is energy - I see this kind of situation as energy draining, with little or no ability to recover. On the other hand Wonderful Wife sees this as an opportunity to meet with family - generally an energy + evolution.

While it's true that I don't know this branch of the family well, it's also true that I find any large unlimited gathering like this as draining.

I wonder if other 5s find this kind of situation draining as well...hummm

Evan

It just isn't meant to be...

Ever have one of those weeks (months) when things just don't work out... I've been involved in a major project at work for the past several weeks, the initial work I did was horribly tedious and detailed. Requiring very small manual changes to the code that creates printable labels, now that that is all done I've finally been able to go to the client and score a success with good test result.

Now, S. and I need to go off to a family funeral - it's out of province so we'll be away overnight. We need to go, not really an option not to, and of course, one of the days we're going to be away was the day this was to be installed. I doubt that I'll even get mentioned in the 'ataboy' email...

Sigh

Ok so now it's a Deck

Well, we finally have a deck, got the platform up in a day thankfully, glad to have that project completed - now we can close up outside and get ready for the winter. Those of you who don't live in Winnipeg should realize - snow by Halloween is not uncommon - so we're just about out of time.

The Garage is much less full of 'stuff' (extra lumber and other items - much much better than it was before! I was thinking of going for a hike with the Scouts tomorrow but may stay home and clean the garage enough so that we can get the cars in - that would be nice! Then there is the Christmas lights to clean up, the roof to fix a shingle on and a couple of other 'outside' chores that need my attention - oh well and here I thought I was done...

Maybe next week (if it doesn't snow)

Evan

It's a Shed Jim...

We took delivery of our new shed this weekend. Now, this is a wooden kit - not metal. Pre-made trusses etc. kit comes complete with all the nails, shingles, door hardware etc. and (most importantly) instructions. Now here's where we get interesting. being the 5 that I am I'm happy with instructions - I like them - I'll read them a half a dozen times before we even begin to work. The kit got dropped off at about 1 on Sunday and I would have been happy to move the kit pieces to the back yard and then spend the next hour reading 4 pages of instructions. S. on the other hand was happy to go to the backyard and read them as we went along...The compromise was a quick lunch and reading them as we munched. Only got part way yesterday - more to come today.

 

So we can add work working to our summer of Brick...yea....

 

 

 

Mind like a Library

I often think of thinking (which is a 5 thing). I often describe my brain as a big, dusty library, with old librarians moving slowly around pulling old tomes and putting them away after blowing the dust off of them, or sitting in big chairs by the many fireplaces and reading (and falling asleep) sounds like an old tv show actually - The House of Freightenstein - probably where I got the image. There are rooms along the walls that house laboratories etc. (with the occasional kaboom for good measure) but on the whole the place is busy but old, dark and sedate.

S's mind on the other hand could be described as a modern book store, full of life, light, many new books and magazines and CD's and DVD's and giftwear and other stuff, it has a coffee shop for that caffeine hit. Very busy, somewhat disorderly and fun. Interesting contrast no?

I'm shuffling ahead laying the patio in our back yard now, one brick at a time, tap tap tap, level, tap tap tap, level, ok , tap tap tap level the other way, tap tap tap, ok (you get the picture) I'm holding my hammer at the top, near the head and letting it's weight do the work - too much more and I break the brick. S. starts working on brick - she holds a hammer like you should - at the end, and tap tap snunk (the brick has a rather distinctive sound change when it breaks. ) 5 times in a row - which is (of course) annoying for hear and dangerous for me to be around.

I'm going to be ever so happy to be finished this project - both to be finished with the tap tap tap than to be around a happy S again...Sigh tap tap tap...

Bye from the brickyard...