Sometimes too early

This morning while it was still dark the call of the gym rang loudly in my little mind. Yes time to get over there and sweat. It was a difficult shaving at 5:17 am but nothing like a fresh face to look at while getting your heart rate up to 156. Things were looking great when you make all 3 of the stoplights, whistling through on the greens. And so it begins -- another vigourous and healthy physical hour. But wait something is seriously wrong. The, well lets call her older women who you haven't seen in a few months, is at the different stations and the total weights she is pushing look to be quite a bit. Doesn't matter. I'll be over there in a few minutes and will crank it up -- wrong! I have to crank the weight total down. Humiliating. And from there it went downhill. About mid morning I felt awful. Just overdid it, again. Sometimes it is just too early.

Maybe I should take up smoking outside Irish bars like the guy in the picture. Not to worry there is always tomorrow, or the day after......

Turtles

The turtle face. A Mexican handicraft from Loreto made from a coconut shell. This little image sometimes speaks volumes on our lifestyles. Make sure the shell is secure and then retract. Whatever the pain, I am inside so leave me alone.

I found a book "Prayer and Modern Man" by Jacques Ellul which I had bought 30 years ago and had not read. He speaks of prayer in the following passages.

Commenting on why people do not pray - "We are concerned with ourselves, with the actual situation of contemporary man, in our technical, technicalized society, with the situation of the person who does not want to pray because nothing invites him to do so, for whom everything is a deterrent from it."

When speaking of Durer's Praying hands picture - "They express the cessation of activity, the composure of heart which goes with a morning of promise or an evening of work completed."

Speaking of prayer as some suggest "a telephone to heaven" - "Thus the device itself gives me assurance because a means is at hand and I can do something."

These are very powerful statements that speak to the culture we live in today. These were written before the advent of the personal computer. It is apparent that Ellul saw what technology, now maybe viewed in it's infancy, was and would become to the human condition. He says that everything is a deterrent from prayer. That our lives speak bluntly to that which we lack. That cessation of activity...when is that experienced these days? And doesn't a personal computer need an inscription stating that "it gives me assurance because a means is at hand and I can do something". Prophetic words to a silent and unlistening world.

Non-typical

It is getting a little scary right now with the weather. You know the rain is coming, you can expect to no longer see the sun for a few days or weeks and yet everyday it is just beautiful. This is so un-Vancouver like.

So the Omni people are going to produce a GTD program called OmniFocus.
Given the success of their programs OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle they will have a winner. GTD has really taken off and it has some defnite merits. The basic concepts of one in box, sorting into next actions and the 43 folders idea are very worthwhile. Has it helped get things done? Yes. Does it always work? No and anyone that says it does, well does anyone have that much self-discipline.

Sometimes you get an album, CD, whatever and play it a couple of dozen times and that is it. Memory bin. In April I picked up the new Calexico - Garden Ruin. I am still listening to it. My play count is double digits, possibly closing in on 3 digits. Absolutely a first class musical session with variations of Mexican-alternative-rock music. We saw them live a few months ago. High energy musicians that have the complete passion for good music.

Today I was downtown spending most of the day looking a a new banking system. Summit iSpectrum is a great product built right. The big question though is at what price$?

The picture is of Thornton Park and what used to be the CN train station. They were putting up some large stage platform there on Sunday. Looked like another movie shot was about to happen.

Normalcy

Seems that when one takes a longer holiday it also takes longer to get back into some sort of cycle that you are comfortable with. You expect it to just happen within a few days of work but you have gotten so used to holidays you can't escape that mode overnight. Why are we such creatures of habit?

Mac Powerbook shutdowns. There has been some information on these and it has been stated that it is the Intel MacPro but recently I have had a number of sudden shutdowns. The only way to start up again has been to disconnect the battery, push the start button to drain all power, insert the battery and startup. This would suggest an OS problem, right?

Jan Karsbjerg has some info on Wednesday's Weblogger Meetup. Always want to get to one but never can fit it in.

This is a picture of a small village just east of the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland. It is called Ballintoy. It is one of those wonderful small places, just off the beaten track, that make travelling in Europe such a surprise and a delight.

Home!

Home after one month. And is it good to be back. We spent time in Ireland, England, passed through Holland and Germany unexpectedly, and finally Denmark. Europe is changing, it is busy, and in some ways it is loosing its old magic. It is becoming more and more anglicized with ever more words creeping into its languages which originate from the larger Amercan culture.

This is a picture of a window at the train station in Hvalsø in Zealand, Denmark. We visited relatives here. It is a small town about 40 minutes from Copenhagen. There is not a lot to see in town as it is pretty small. The library has great internet access and there is a lot of choice of magazines and newspapers. We ate in a small pizza place. Interesting that as we ate the postman came in and proceeded to tell the owner that he tried to deliver items at noon but the place was closed. The owners comment was that they didn't open until 12:03 pm as they had a family emergency. But the postman had to continue to express his concern that this was the second time he had to come to this place to deliver mail. You could sense he was not pleased. We then watched him walk across the street to put his bags and bicycle in the shed. His day was over and he was heading home. And this second delivery must have cost him and extra 2 minutes. Maybe he wasn't happy that the owners of the pizza place were Danes. Yes the Janteloven is still alive and well!

Kinvara

After close to 1,300 km we arrived in Port Rush this afternoon. This is the town we left this morning, Kinvara, which was a total delight. There is a pub at the foot of this street, O'Connors, which we visited last night. The people were friendly and it had to be the ultimate place to talk and have a Smithwick. Wish we could have stayed here a few more days.

Ireland is a country of seemingly endless contrasts. It is unique and charming. Ulster definitely has the British influence which is noticeable. The south in contrast is growing, developing and hanging on to what Ireland was and is. I hope they can keep it but you can sense the changes and the erosions that will come. There is too much Western influence creeping in. But as one person we spoke with said "When we left school in the 80's the counselling was to get a ticket out of here if you wanted a job." That is no longer the case. Ireland needs people now. But it seems the housing market is the same as at home, too expensive for young people.

Only another few days left until we head off for London. Lots of pictures and great memories here.

Europa!

This is our Java programmer after hiting the ATM (man with a pocket full of money)---and we are all off to A.N.A.F. Unit #315 for a pizza and beer! Work is over and the holidays have begun. 5 weeks across the pond. Ireland, London, Denmark.

I haven't been back for 14 years so am really, really looking forward to this. We'll meetup with a cousin I've never met in Kilkenny, auto around Ireland, stay in London with Marjun's cousin and wife (a fellow Canadian), up to Norfolk to visit a favourite uncle & aunt, and then onto Denmark and our home for a number of years, Nakskov. Some old school friends are planning a get together so I get to see them in their family life instead of the student life. That should be interesting.

Everything is assembled to be packed. Now the proverbial 'change of mind' at the last minute. I figure for that going away for that long there is no way I can take what is planned and should just travel light knowing you are going to have to buy something you forgot.

I should be updating this blog whenever I can get internet access. At the same time some of the pictures will get uploaded to Flickr.

It is hot today. I've been in the basement most of the time and it hasn't cooled off yet. Upstairs is an oven. Gotta get to the store, the fridge is empty! It's ice cream time. At London Drugs today it was empty and the salesman said "The only thing we've done lately is answer the phone and tell people - Sorry we are sold out of airconditioners!"

Dentists, garagedoors and mechanics

Today I was back in the chair slated for a 60 minute session. Two inlays to put in and I'm out of there. But the temporaries wouldn't come out so easily, then the rubber dam (does anyone like those things?) and on and on. If something could go sideways today in that chair it did. That's when, all said and done, you need a good dentist you can trust. My dentist is the best. That's why it wasn't that bad.

Garage doors. Doorworks came out to look over this creaking, intermittent up an down double garage door we have. Complete overhaul. You have to appreciate craftsman who take time, do it right and explain everything to you. It works great now. You can hardly hear it.

And finally got the SUV tuned up. First major tuneup with a change of plugs in 3 years and 114,000 km. Everytime I thought it needed a tune-up our mechanic would say no way it is still good. Something to do with platinum plugs. Anyway the thing is ticking like a dream.

When your day gets filled with good people you can trust and do good work for you then I think it is a pretty good day. Because most of the time it is completely the opposite. The one thing that stands out with these guys --- they all have a lot of pride in what they do and they do it right the first time.

Old recipes

When my mother passed away a few years ago we were given all the cookbooks and recipes cut out from magazines and newspapers that she had. They were safely put away in the basement as we didn't have any other place to put them. When we built some shelving in the kitchen for cookbooks last year we got them out and placed them on the shelves. Over that last year we've found some real treasures.

In the early 50's when Kentucky Fried chicken started with Colonel Saunders, they opened a restaurant in Vancouver featuring this chicken. I remember my mom once saying that she met the Colonel and I never thought anything of it. In amongst all the recipes is a small booklet describing this "new" Kentucky Fried chicken. Neat. But then on the cover in very fine handwriting is a small note and signature of the Colonel. She must have met him to get his autograph.

Then there is the booklet on BC Home Canning put together by the sales agents of the BC Tree Fruits Ltd in Kelowna. This is filled with more information about canning fruit than anything I have ever seen. Jars, methods of canning, fruits with a chart of when they are available and their peak season, every fruit with varieties mentioned and then the recipes.

There is a book put out by the Daily Province (newspaper) called Cooking Clinc. On the last page it says "Just phone PA 4211 and we'll be pleased to send you The Province immediately." PA was the old Pacific exchange. Remember the other exchanges?

Then there is something put out by the B.C. Electric Home Service Centre at 970 Burrard Street. B.C. Electric and recipe books? That would now be B.C. Hydro and recipe books.

Amongst all of these pages is the occasional note about an adjusted measurement or "good recipe!" in my mother's handwriting. She would never have realized what these old recipes mean to us now.

CN, what's up?

There was a report of yet another derailment by CN, this time leaving two men dead and one in the hospital. Last year the Cheakamaus River was destroyed by a CN derailment. And there are others. I understand that after last year's mishap they were to keep the number of cars down to a minimum but subsequently applied to have that order lifted.

Now most of us are not train people. The closest we have come to operating a train is the HO gauge in our childhood bedroom. But it doesn't take an expert to realize something here. BC Rail when it operated the line didn't have this problem. Now with the new operator there has been nothing but problems. Why does it take the destruction of a river and people loosing their lives to make the authorities wake up? Is the company "too big" to regulate? Or maybe admonishment is the only course some care to choose.

This is not a political process we are talking about. This is the government, who are to be the public's watchdog in these circumstances, doing what most people would ask-- make those that are responsible accountable for their lack of proper judgement. Someone wake up and do something before more mayhem is inflicted.

Stuff

The Globe and Mail Business section had an article by Mathew Ingram on Web 2.0 applications. He mentioned dabble db, a Vancouver entry into this ever growing group of web applications.

PopChar has a new version out that seems to finally have made the grade. It is one of those products that never seems to quite make it. You can always find that one character some other way. This must be one of the oldest Mac utility programs around.

Comming home on the freeway tonight the line up into the city was backed up at 176th Avenue. The other side, going east, was packed with everyone getting a head start on the long weekend. Just when you are coming down the hill to the bridge you could see an accident on the other side. Some guy, with an older stationwagon, loaded up completely with travel stuff and pulling a trailer and boat on top, rear ended a Jeep. He was on the cell phone. The woman was in the passenger seat, hands folded, glaring out the window. "Well honey, there goes the holiday!"

Flickr

Today I upgraded my flickr account to pro. After spending some time with the menus and what you can do it definitely is worth it. IF you are into digital photography to any great degree this program will allow you to share those pictures that you think are shareable. With the bandwidth they give you there is ample space to fill their storage area with whatever you want. You can see the stuff I've downloaded at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinfoiling/

#9 Boundary

Had to go to the dentist today for a 2 hour session. To get there I take the Skytrain to Commercial Drive then the #9 along Broadway to MacDonald. Great route for seeing cosmopolitan Vancouver. This afternoon when coming back the bus was about half full. At Kingsway this fellow gets on with a liquor store bag and a backpack. You can see he is a roofer with dirt and sweat just caked all over him. He had a red bandanna on and looked like he had worked hard all day. So he sits down near the back. There is another guy next to me and a lady by the other window, all of us watching as he packs the 2 six packs of beer into the knapsack. When he is finished he looks up and says "one 6 pack for the game, the other 6 pack when the Oilers win!" Everybody at starts laughing and the conversations begin. I am pretty sure if the law allowed it there could have been a bunch of people at the back of that bus starting a pre-Stanley Cup party. The guy in the bandana was the type to pass around a few of those beers without any hesitation.

Peace Arch

This weekend we spent it down at the seaside retreat at White Rock. The weather was great and there was hardly anyone down there so it was quiet and peaceful. On Saturday we walked over to the Peace Arch and milled around the "Hands Across the Border" event. They say there was 12,000 people participating, mostly Girl Guides and Boy Scouts from the US and Canada. It was pretty neat to see so many young kids having fun. They have this event every year and this year they celebrated the Peace Arch's 85th year.

It was interesting to walk about and feel that you were no different than the citizens of this country you were in. In some ways it is amazing how at home you feel. And in other ways how different the two systems are.

Today the tide at noon was extremely low and we made it out to the 49th parallel marker in the bay. There were a lot of starfish and anemones surrounding the cement marker and an eaglet in a nest at the top. There were a bunch of people harvesting crabs and clams. Given the size of the buckets they were over their limits.

Yes down to the States both days without going through customs!

Google Reader

Just came across a very good link by Jason Toal on a screencast of Google Reader. This really points out some great benefits of using this tool. RRS feeds are best appreciated when you have a lot to read and only want to look a information without the noise.

Everywhere and everything

Seems that May is ending and most hadn't realized it just started. With the longer days of sunlight you just get busy with everything. It's like you have finally come out of hibernation.

Everything is set for our summer vacation. Marjun leaves the beginning of July for 2 months. She'll be in Denmark until the 25th were she will meet up with me in Dublin for the WOCCU conference. This is a 4 day conference with credit unions from all over the world. The last one we were at was Nashville, Tennessee and it was amazing to meet so many different people. The Irish will be putting out the red carpet to make this memorable. After the conference we tour Ireland by car for 5 days, then onto London and Norfolk to spend some time with relatives. The final weeks will be back in Denmark with family and old friends. There are a few old school mates that are planning to get together. I haven't been back for 14 years so there will be some changes for sure. One looks forward to seeing the people, tasting the food and seeing all of those familiar haunts as well as something new. What always intrigues me is the different fragrances. There are smells that just bring back a flood of memories that can only be found in some unique corner of the globe.

Today it's off to the passport office. That is a high priced product that seems to take longer to apply for, longer to get, and last a shorter time. If nothing changes why can't you just append your passport with a new photograph? or better yet just get your Flickr account updated with a few pictures so they can always see what you look like.

The Nikon D-50 continues to amaze me. The clarity of the images is the best I have seen in a digital camera. With a true SLR lens you begin to notice the lack of limitations in taking any photograph. We were over at a friends place last week and took some pictures outside at about 10:00 pm with the flash. Clear, brilliant and simple to take. The optics on the lens makes a huge difference. The picture below was taken in a gymnasium from the far side of the door in the background. Cropping out the noise brings in the focus of people milling about chatting and enjoying a school reunion.

It is fun taking pictures, again.

This new camera continues to amaze me with its functions and possibilities. Since using small "automatic" digitals that really didn't allow you to manage the variables to any great extent, you tend to just point and shoot. If you adjusted the aperture there was usually not enough light to take the picture you wanted. Not enough light meant the blinding flash would saturate your image with light creating those glaring shadows. With the return of the SLR controls you have to begin to "construct" your pictures thinking in terms of depth of field, control of the light, etc. With this camera you can bracket your white balancing, automatically. It only does that with JPGs not with the RAW files. Now the variances when you view what you have taken are just incredible. It seems like painting at times.

The biggest question to begin with is what type of file to take the picture in. RAW allows you to bring the file into an editing enviroment that gives you wonderful control. It really is like being in the darkroom again. But the files size! And because you can just click away , the total download is usually over 1G. You tend to become somewhat ruthless with trashing those images that are the least bit out of focus or no amount of cropping will help. It does bring some new excitement into an old hobby.

Season of meetings

Sooner than later this 'season of meetings' should be over. I don't know what has been happening in everyone elses life but for the last few months the calendar is full of meetings. Never ending meetings. Meetings with and meetings without purpose. What is it? The new way to make social contact? Sorry but sitting in a boring meeting is sometimes worse than a root canal. The root canal has a knowledgeable end. Meetings take on lives of their own and go on and on and on. Long live the simple freedom to sit by yourself and think!

My last purchase of a good camera (SLR) was in 1979 with a Canon A-1. It doesn't get used much anymore, is heavier than a kitchen sink, but was one of the best 35mm cameras made. It still feels good to hold and shoot. Last week after a number of months researching Lens and Shutter got a sale. I chose a Nikon digital D50 but not with the kit lens. I upgraded to the same lens as the D70s. And after hundreds of pictures this camera is impressive. It does everything the A-1 does with just new dimensions in taking pictures. It is fast, very fast. The RAW images are a joy to work with, and the ability to compensate with all the tools of the camera to take a good picture is at times unbelievable. I picked up the SB600 Speedlight flash which is a gem. No more flash picture with the black curtain ending the visual. Great bounce flash AND fast! I am sure there will be further comments about this apparatus in the future but the most striking thing about this camera is it's usability. If you have a medium knowledge of photography everything that makes up this camera is understandable and very usable. Just a joy to use with some great results (as you can see).

Old pictures

When I got home from work tonight my wife, daughter-in-law and a friend were doing scrapbooking at the kitchen table. They had a pile of old pictures strewn across the table, sorting them into little black boxes. This is a serious hobby. Why? Where else can you see a dozen different types of siscors, 50 types of gel pens, corner cutters, hole punchers of every shape and size, different types of papers and stickers, stickers, stickers. This is heavy duty. Nostalgia at its finest. Cut, paste, scribble, print. Sort of like grade one except you can't eat this glue.

So I went through a batch of old pictures. Amazing. There was one there of my wife when she was 20 years old. Funny how all those old first love memories come flooding back. We could even remember the day the picture was taken (she was mad at me for something). There is still a box of them to view, enough for a lifetime of memories to live again.

Cold April

Yesterday was at the University Golf Club for a golf tournament. It was supposed to rain and didn't even try. But man was it cold! It felt like a round in November. And then when you skull the ball the vibration up the shaft hits your hands and OUCH! The wind seemed to just go through you. We have all had cold rounds but most everyone agreed that was close to number one. All the suppliers had nice buckets of ice with water and pop. Sorry, wrong temperature. No one had a hot drink. Our foresome didn't do so bad but at the dinner and prize draw I came home with a red and yellow Taylormade golf bag. Very nice way to end a memorable day even if my better half has laid claim on the bag.

The story of the fridge

or "Men creating order out of chaos, women creating chaos out of order"

Men will always put items back in the fridge where they originally found them. It is much easier to find them then. But women sabotage us. They move stuff around. Then when we ask for help finding stuff they always say men can never find anything. They seem to want to prove their superiority by confusing us. And sometimes women think we are confused, which of course is not the case. If women would only put things back where they found them, the fridge would be a much happier place.

Conceptualizing

I am reading 'The Stewardship of Life in the Kingdom of Death' by Douglas John Hall. In it he writes:

'It is the same with our conceptualizing of the totality the whole of reality. We can give so much loyalty to our own intellectual-spritual pre-understanding of the world that the world as it acutually is has a hard time getting through to us. In fact, we use our ideas about the world to shield ourselves from the real world.'

This seems to be the normal behaviour of most. By our pre-defining the world, and to such a large extent as we grow older this pre-definition grows, we loose sight of what that real world is. Is that why when we encounter a 4 year old we are overwhelmed by the innocence and wonderful view of the world that they have to offer? That they have yet to define it and as such can just see the world through a fresh set of eyes? After reading this I can see the challenge of constant re-definitions or even getting to the point of existing at times without any definitions. We also seem to create ideas that perform their duty to keep reality at bay.

There is a word that is becoming popular these days - lenses. That says something about the way we view things.

Have a blessed Easter!

A hockey game

Tonight it is off to the hockey game against the Ducks. It seems they are going to have to win the next games in order to make the playoffs. When you have grown up here you take your sports seriously at times but tend not to go overboard. Why? Because Vancouver teams always tend to disappoint the fans (BC Lions, Grizzlies, need more be said?). Tonight could be a very good game with Burke and Carlyle there. The biggest surprise may be the grin on their faces if they win.

And Mikelson wins the Masters. Another point for us lefthanders. Someone I know had Mikelson's as their pick in a pool at their golf club. The win will probably be worth $800 for him. Mikelson wins $1.25 million or so.

I am reading Douglas Adams - The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Is this book funny. There is some unique humour here that just makes you laugh out loud. Imagine Thor the god of thunder being glued to the floor by his father Odin and asking a woman for help in removing the floor pieces from his back. See--- you really are going to have to read it to understand this plot.

Income tax filed. Refund coming back. Thought I would owe them money this year so hesitated doing the return. Was wrong. They have had my money and now it needs to come back. But if you do the return early and owe them money then you just stress out that they are owed more. In the final analysis if it has anything to do with taxes it just is going to be an annoyance you have to live with.

Choices

The Globe and Mail has some interesting letters concerning the women who does not want her child to receive a form that would allow her to receive a bible. It isn't the fact that she receives a bible it is only that she has a choice to receive a bible.

Now in this day and age when someone asks a question, you do have a choice. In most instances an elevated society would then state that the person questioned would then answer. It seems a bit backwards to ask someone not to ask the question, at all. I was wondering how advertising in schools is then viewed. There you don't get a chance, it just sits in your face. But then that is all about money which is always more important than theology. Money will always carry you through any of life's crises, right?

A full day...

I was out at Currency early this morning having a meeting about our upcoming campaign. As always they have come up with exactly the approach that fits perfectly with us. You get a sense when working on these things that there is a synergy that really moves ideas and thoughts exactly to the place they need to be. When we look back over the past few years at what we have had done and see where we are going it still all fits together with nothing out on the limb. I am pretty excited about this as once again we are going to be doing something that makes our difference a key element on what we do and how we are viewed. It took a few months to get there but creativity is not something you can turn on or off. It is like jello, it has to set a while.

What a difference an hour makes! I was out for a quick walk tonight. It was sunset. And everyone and everyone's dog was out for a walk. Kids were out with their basketballs, little kids in their designer buggies ( they must call these things something else and definitely not baby buggies) dogs leashed and unleashed and just that new vibrant green that seems to be oozing out everywhere. Spring has sprung!

Sunday, Sunday

Was out for a walk this afternoon. At 14 degrees it was actually warm. We don't have to have many reasons as to why we live here when you can see this everywhere.


This is a good one (from goddess spiral)
Book Meme
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 161.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of this sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.
As noted on goddess spiral my results from Douglas Adams' - the Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul was: "Huh?'
Things can never cease to amaze us huh?


Guy Kawasaki has a great write up on how to remain sane. We all need that! He also describes a blogger: Blogger. n. Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do.

Tomorrow is the last day of March and this weekend the time change to daylight savings time. This really puts spring at the forefront and tells me winter is over. Yes dear, the snowtires are off and stored in the garage. Now everyone should be coming out of their grey winter moods. I don’t know what it was this winter, maybe all the rain and lack of sunshine, but everyone seemed to either be overly tired or fighting the flu bug these last few months. We need some springtime jolt to get us going. Those long shadows of winter need to be made shorter.

Today, while having lunch, I had a great view of English Bay and out towards UBC. It was from the 9th floor of the BC Central Credit Union building. I had never noticed that Spanish Banks at low tide appears like a strip of land out into Burrard Inlet. It goes out quite a way looking from the Burrard Street Bridge. You can see the pylons and warning lights at Locarno Beach and west but it never seems that the stretch of sand at low tide really goes out that far. That view is a favourite with the north shore mountains looming over the mass of downtown buildings.

The Concerts in China

After moving books and CDs around in a number of bookcases, 2 CDs finally appeared; Joni Mitchell's - Both Sides Now (which is about 2 years overdue at the New Westminster Public Library) and Jean-Michel Jarre's - The Concerts in China. Joni's CD is going back immediately. I refused to pay the $27 they wanted as a replacement cost. Now I am wondering what the overdue fine will amount to. I will probably be banned for life from that library!

The Jarre CD is compilation of concerts that he gave in 1982. They were given in Peking and Shanghai (that line should date them immediately). They were the first performances of rock or contemporary music ever given in the People's Republic of China. There are no lyrics. It is a very interesting and melodic CD. Funny thing is that we bought it on the island of Crete and it still has this cryptic Greek music center tag on the front.

Too long between posts

This has been the longest time between posts. Why? Enough is happening at the moment to fill 1.5 lives.

Rob Cottingham had a very interesting post on March 16th. The summation is:

“Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn’t place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”

You can guess what the topic is. Great antimetabole.

More Web 2.0

After exploring even more Web 2.0 applications today my head finally hurts. There is an absolute ton of stuff out there. A good place to start is TechCrunch with their index. There are 441 different applications here. That doesn't mean everyone is different.

There are lots of Flickr type applications. But here are some very different & neat ones.



remember the milk. A great, simple to-do list application. What makes this one different? Its simplicity. You don't get lost, the concepts are understandable, everything works, and it has every feature you can use. There is not much "dreamware" here --stuff that look great that you would never use. It allows you to tag your entries!


Nuvvo. It may sound a little lame but this application allows you to construct a way to teach on the web. If you want to teach someone something, this is an interesting example of how you could do this. You devise all aspects about teaching any subject matter. Very interesting and you can begin to see the possibilities for groups and small businesses.



Squidoo. This has an "educational" flavour to it but is more a depository of references that allows you to use a number of built in modules in development. Let's say you love Chevelles. In fact you spend most of your non-working and waking hours with these cars. So with all that specialized knowledge that you want to share how would you do it? Voila! Just click on this link and you get the idea.

There will be some fallout with some of the sites. It doesn't seem possible that all will exist in a year from now. They all need enough of a following to make them continue. Some are possibly hoping for something to happen to them like Flickr--purchased for $30M+ by Yahoo. The important point is this shows what is happening with the internet technologies. The hardware and tools needed to put ideas into action is now possible for just about anyone. And there are enough users to view, use and critique whatever is put on the internet. 10 years ago you would only have been able to deliver the idea in a stand alone program, then you would have had to put it into enough peoples hands to get some idea on usefulness. Now the production and delivery are the same vehicle. Another barrier has been obliterated. Interesting that the technology got faster, and the people that have the ideas got a lot smarter.

Web 2.0 apps

There are some extremely interesting web applications that are surfacing daily. I have been trying ma.gnolia as a tagging process and find it a little different and maybe easier to use than del.icio.us. Ma.gnolia supports some applets that fit in with Camino which makes tagging a snap. Del.icio.us does the same thing on Safari.

Tagging is a concept that in simplest of terms is the next dimension for organizing. It goes beyond the classic bookmark idea. With tagging you can create a multi-dimensional view (mulitple tags) of any web page. And your tagging category name can be anything you choose. Ma.gnolia lets you use single words or phrases for tagging categories and you separate your tags by a comma. You could call tagging the web based concept for keywords. It then takes another step by allowing your to share your tags with others. These tags can then become part of a group which is just a networked method of sharing with others a common interested topic. You need to try it to appreciate how it works.

I can only guess at how this and other Web 2.0 applications will evolve. But the creativity that is being shown by so many sites is phenomonal.

Home offices

This weekend was spent getting the basement prepared for painting and moving everything down into this new area for my desk and stuff. Of course everyone has a good idea on what they want their home office to look like but in the end there is a lot of give and take. The advantage of this new space is that it is out of the way and well lit. And it should be much cooler in the summer. Looks like I will need another gallon (whoops 3.67 litres) of paint to finnish the other side of this room.

On Saturday Fleming and I attended a 6 hour workshop at Lee Valley Tools on the Leigh jig. This is a tool, when used with a router, that will produce beautiful dovetail joints. We spent some time learning about the setup and had a little project to complete. To my amazement the project turned out beautifully. Woodworking is pretty good therapy, nothing like making something with your hands. The smell of fresh cut wood also helps!

The Olympics

Haven't paid much attention other than the medal winnings of Canada. Funny that when we get a great womens hockey team that is head and shoulders above the competition, then someone wants to change the rules. Can anyone say summer Olympics - Mens basketball? The most interesting thing to date is the gold medal winner from Australia, mogul skier Dale Begg-Smith. One really can't disagree with the view on this site. And it is very humorous that the Globe & Mail this week published a front page photo of this guy. Given they are a business oriented newspapers he probably cost most of their company business readers a lot of time and money.

Once upon a time...

So Mr. Moore launches his lawsuit against Bertuzzi for $15 million plus. Right in the middle of the Olympics. Great for the game isn't it. Could have done it a few weeks earlier but waited for the last day. By doing this he sure makes a huge wave in the hockey world and we get to relive the moment once again. Though what TB did was wrong, when does this thing end? Maybe Moore is suing for so much because he would never have ever made close to that amount as a hockey player and this is his one shot at it. So when is enough enough. I remember attending that game and that pool of blood that was left on the ice is a pretty haunting memory. Before they started playing for the final minutes the referees were trying to scrape the blood colour out of the ice like the goalies do before the games starts. No matter how hard they tried it just didn't go away. Seems this event will just never go away for TB, Canuck fans and now all hockey fans.

Our view

I was reading the blog entry at Posthegemony for October 5, 2005 titled speed. He opens with the typical depiction of Latin America as a place of languor and lassitude and goes on to refute this perception. In fact it is exactly the opposite. But why have we viewed it so differently? What gives our culture such exclusivity that it can define any other culture in such absolute and sometimes senseless terms? What arrogance we maintain and the horror is that we don’t even view it as that. We in North America sometimes can only view the world through a T.V. set, no matter which channel is picked.

Northern Voice Day 2

A very different day than the first. Quieter and less energy maybe due to the difference in the attendees. There were more neophyte bloggers and a much larger crowd.

I thought Julie Leung's opening keynote was good. It was powerful and full of imagery. There was a full exploration of the theme "storytelling" which is essential to any good blog. It brought much of the human element into the sometimes purely technical world of blogs.

Dave Sifry and Tim Bray were good. Dave will really churn out ideas and has a passion for blogging and his business. Tim always has a unique point to bring forward. They would be great as a podcast team.

I thought Nancy White's - Snow White and the Seven Competencies of Online Interaction was the highlight presentation of the day. If you ever have a chance to see Nancy run, don't walk to her presentation. It was excellent and touched on some wonderful ideas and issues. She has posted the presentation on Flickr.

The afternoon sessions were much easier to fathom. You have to remember your brain can only work at 100% for only so long. Blogging in Education was very academic, Geek Out has some great tips and technology presentations and last but not least Five Ways Your Blog can Change the World with only Rob Cottingham (the other 3 presenters weren't there for various reasons) was pretty good considering. I felt sorry for Rob. Can you imagine being part of a group of 4 for an hour presentation and ending up doing the whole thing yourself. They did make a connection with a cell phone to one of the other presenters for some of the time.

Was it as good as last year? Yes but in a different fashion. Blogging has a bit more age and depth to it now. It is taking a different form that was not apparent before. And having moved into a maturer methodology/technology it becomes less vibrant for some. It hasn't lost it's excitement, it has just become more common. The venue is great even if it was crowded at times and it is close to some great eating spots for lunch. The people who put in on really do a fantastic job. Most of them get little time to attend the events making sure everything in the background is running smoothly. The big difference was seeing the people and meeting the individuals. For over a year now I have read numerous blogs and really started to understand various peoples points of view and events in their lives. You get to "know" people in a way that is really very different. (someone is going to have to come up with a word to describe that kind of relationship) And so when you finally get to meet them it is pretty special. Northern Voice really sets the stage to encounter the person behind the blog. I don't know how it does it but it works for me. And that is why I'll be there again next year.


PS Only one suggestion - have a quick closing with everyone gathered. It puts a proper closure to the event.

Northern Voice 2006 - 1st day

Just getting my head together after an event-full day at this blogging conference. Today was the MooseCamp. Excellent speakers and dialogue with not one dull moment. You have to prepare for an event like this by keeping your brain prepared for the plethora of ideas that are presented.

The DabbleDB demo with Avi Bryant and Andrew Catton was very good. This is going to be a very sought after web app by individuals and business. Simple and elegant. And definitely fills a need.

Michael Tippett spoke on NowPublic. Interesting how the real time reporting by anyone can also be an agent of change. Interesting question to ask-- Isn't anyones perception of any news event just as valid as anyone elses?

David Sifry gave a great presentation on Leadership Hacks with some thought provoking input by a lot of the attendees. This says a lot about how the conference has a strong sharing attitude by everyone.

More tomorrow.



Northern Voice 2006

Stoplights and accidents

Yesterday when we were moving the kids to their new place there was a power outage in the area of Costco in Burnaby. In fact Costco was closed when we drove by at noon. The stoplights in the area were out. Now if there is anything I remember when taking the driver's test it was the question on what to do when you come to an intersection with traffic lights that aren't working --- it becomes a four way stop. Simple. Takes time but works. Always a few that forget the rule but what the heck.
After a few trips back and forth we noticed that the first light off the Gaglardi exchange was not working and it was the most dangerous. Most of the traffic off the freeway was not stopping. They just drove right on through. We all were pretty sure that there was going to be an accident. Sure enough on our final trip home there was. Someone must have been cruising through just off the freeway and broadsided the car making a left hand turn. Ambulance, Fire Deparment, the whole works. It didn't look too good.
Once again the question to ask -- how do some of these people get their drivers licence? from a cereal package or what? Driving is a privilege not a right but it seems most don't even bother to think in those terms.

Northern Voice

Jan brings up a good point about coasting. Stepping out of the comfort zone and taking on new challenges. But after spending your daylight hours at work doing just that, how does one get the energy to do anything but coasting? In fact it isn't coasting that is the problem. Everyone needs a little coasting. It's habitual coasting---that is not a good thing. And of course in our lives we meet those that are perma-coasting. So indulge yourself a little, coasting in small doses isn't all that bad.

This Friday is Northern Voice. And I am even more excited than last year about going. There are quite a few people who were there last year so it should be fun meeting up with them again. When one reads what has been happening in various peoples lives over the year you really look forward to seeing them and having that one on one conversation. Bloggers are a very different group of people. Expressive, passionate, very quick, genuine, just a great bunch to be with for a few days. The credit union I work for is co-sponsoring this event (with 12 others) and though our budget doesn't allow us to give some expensive schwag I think what we are giving out will be different and appreciated.

Tomorrow is moving day for my son and daughter-in-law. There should be a lot of people helping and they don't have a mansion's worth of stuff to move so it should be more fun than work. It is a big step and one that you always know is coming when you have kids. It is just that you didn't expect it to be so bittersweet.

At the Art Show

Tonight my wife and I went to our son's one-man art show at the Downtown Eastside Gallery. This is a very small eclectic gallery whose sole reason is to show art in whatever fashion to those whose interest is art. Period. No politics or seeing what is in vogue or "in". It is a labour of love by 3 individuals who own the gallery and just want to see art and all of its benefits presented to the public at large. One of the co-owners said she pours money into it because to her it is important. When you meet people who are ardent in what they do and believe what they do is important you realize you have come to the right place.

Now who would attend a small gallery on the edge of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside on Powell and Victoria Drive? Young unpretenious people who make viewing art part of their social life. They want to be together and share. There is a vibrancy in what they see, in what they discuss and their lack of inhibition in discussing art. This is the new generation that is becoming part of the world of many. They are not leaving the culture we live in but in many way creating it in a fashion that at times is foreign to us who are children of the 60's. In some small way it does remind you of that time. But the war we saw and heard about (Vietnam) is now invisible and unknown. It is the quiet world of the powerful that they want to be different from. They show a concern for all and not a concern for a few. It was an interesting and refreshing experience.

Telephone banking...

This week we finally finnished installing the new telephone banking product. To the project team go all the thanks. They pulled it off without any major hitches. And the programmers at SmartSolution and TelTek were great. We just kept plowing through the bits and pieces that needed small fixes. The product is much easier to use and managing the system is simple with a lot of options.

The first option, and probably the most difficult, was implementing bill payments via voice. Once you get to that sub-menu of paying bills you can do everything via voice. No more buttons. It is really strange to pay Telus just by speaking to a telephone handset. The next step is to have all the menus activated by and chosen by voice.

And now we begin implementing a new internet banking system, compliments of Credit Union Central of B.C. We basically clone our current system and then work at developing various products and services i.e. electronic bill presentment with payment, delivery and archiving our monthly statements in PDF format, secure messaging, and the list goes on. Our major goal is to develop products that gives the user the ability to choose delivery and product variables through the internet banking product. For example if you don't want your statement mailed then you should be able to choose to turn that function off. You should be able to choose an electronic delivery method instead. And you should be able to do that anytime. Want to be notified when your payroll deposit comes into your account via e-mail or text messaging? (We have our MemberNote doing that now but just for ATM and Interac transactions). Again you should be able to choose that through an internet banking program. We hope in some small way we can begin to develop some creative ways of banking. And with today's technology, why not?

Election Day tomorrow

So we get out and vote tomorrow. And the question most of us have in our mind -- Who to vote for? Liberal - do they deserve a vote given the scandals. Conservative - who knows what Harper is going to do. NDP - they won't get elected in but are they to become the king makers. I haven't heard anything from any of them other than the typical election promises which in 6 months are so conveniently forgotten.
So we vote and wait. Maybe it will all be decided by the rest of Canada. The election could be over by 8:01 p.m. Monday night. So what else is new?

Rain?

Who really wants to be around for a new record of consecutive days raining? Only the locals!

Apple released there new Intel based powerbook this last week. Looks like a new cycle of upgrades for both software and hardware. The Classic operating system is unofficially dead.

Bad manners. It would seem to me that much of what we encounter on any given day can only be attributed to bad manners. If you try to figure out why a person has done something you can only end up confused. Never mind trying to understand their actions. In the final analysis it was just bad manners = rudeness.

Northern Voice published their speakers list. Julie Leung, Nancy White, Tim Bray will interview Technorati founder/CEO David Sifry, exploring the current state of the blogosphere and what might be next on the Net's agenda, etc. etc. Mt. Lehman Credit Union is one of the sponsors this year. The ideas and discussions at this blogging gathering are unbelievable.

Meetings uh?

Today I had to go to a meeting. It was a day off and there was a meeting to go to. Luckily it was raining, raining very hard.

It was a good meeting as meetings go. There was an agenda, someone was taking minutes, the coffee and cookies were pretty good and there was a time when the meeting should end. The discussions were pretty lively and we came to some conclusions by consensus.

But for the life of me I don't know what number the meeting would be if all meetings attended had been given a number. 2,500? more? So what is the deal with meetings anyway. Sometimes we have to realize that we are social animals. We live in the world of digital and analogue communications. Today the meeting was with real people and sometimes that is what we really need — seeing, communicating and laughing with a group of people. That is what life is about at times, not feeling alone and part of a group of people. Not a bad outcome of any meeting.

The order of interesting sites

CBC Radio3 - Very interesting radio. Just when you thought that there was no "new" music this radio broadcast starts bringing Canadian bands to light.

CBC Radio1 - From this site you can choose which part of the country you are in. Then listen. For everyone in Vancouver you can listen to programs up to 3 hours before they air here.

PigPog - An interesting site with the title line "PigPog is all about being creative - anywhere - and sharing what you create with others." It is filled with interesting links about something we can all use.

D*I*Y Planner - Paper, productivity & passion - A site dedicated to people who see the value of paper as a medium for planning, productivity, creative expression, and exploring ideas. This is the home of the D*I*Y Planner kit. It brings a fresh perspective into the question "Does everything have to be digital?"

Moleskinerie - One of my favourite sites. Everything and anything to do with the little journal called a Moleskine. If you aren't aware of these little books this will tell you a bit about them and what people are using them for.

To be continued...

New Years

So an end to another year. Does this mean another list of resolutions that have a feint hope of being realized? This year's list did not seem minished. Such a personal list rarely is shared and usually forgotten.
After resolutions we have the futurists who describe in some convoluted manner something either preposterous or something we already know. These are usually funny.
And finally the "previous year at a glance". This is sometimes photographs, always headline news stories, obituaries (which usually bring on the thought "I didn't know he/she died!") and the best of books/CDs/DVDs/whatever.
Years change but our process of closing a year and beginning a new one is usually the same.

Hey - have a happy new year!