Cradle of a nation

Lesley and I are going to Boston tomorrow. I will attempt to keep some sort of written record, but I have promised not to bring a laptop so when I say a written record, I really mean a written record. Provided I do remember to take some notes I will provide details, with pictures I hope on my return in 2008!

On Commercialism

Maybe as a born Jew, devote atheist and married to a Buddhist I should not comment on these things but I have to ask. Am I the only person out there who really is not keen on Christmas?

Between popularized versions of songs, some of which really should not be sung ever blaring out from every supermarket and shopping mall. The incredible pressure to spend spend spend. Using the elbow grease and some pretty aggressive driving at the shopping mall car park, the fight for the last PS3 or whatever the must have toy of the year is, the insanity at the checkout line and then crash and bang some more in the mall car park. Finally return to an unhappy family more interested in the boxing day sales than items that are due for return no earlier than January 3.

If this is the season of peace, little wonder America always seems to be at war with someone.

I realise I must sound like a curmudgeonly nasty old fart, but for heavens sakes what's the point? If Christmas is supposed to be about family I honestly don't see the connection and if Christmas is about commercialism then lets call a spade a spade and call it the late December shopping bonanza. We know its got nothing to do with the birth of anyone, so lets put an end to Christmas commercialism, buy the kids nicer gifts for their Birthday, take a few days off for a nice vacation and maybe do something useful, get out a pair of ice skates or cross country skis and burn some fat while spending quality time with the family. Anyway I'm just glad I'm not Christian.

On Classic Hollywood

Tonight we watched It's a Wonderful Life it seemed fitting in honour of the day of the year. (Here is an unrelated aside, speaking of December 25, what day was Joshua son of Joseph - aka Jesus Christ - actually born? Answer: sometime in April or May most likely probably sometime between the year 6BCE and 4BCE. The date, December 25 was chosen to coincide with the Pagan Holiday of Saturnalia, a period of merriment and gift exchanging. I am not entirely sure why the early Christians selected the year they did to mark the start of their calendar, but I'd be willing to bet it was more than some trivial accounting error.)

As the movie progressed (it was the first time I had ever seen it) I became more and more frustrated watching. I kept thinking to our own current financial system and the disaster it is in. The problem the writers of It's a Wonderful Life brushed aside to trivially is money. You see the movie is premised on a good and decent guy who runs a small mortgage company that is perpetually near bankrupt. The mortgage company remains liquid despite the efforts of a mean old bank owner who has all the money in town. And thus the problem I have with the entire movie.

You see its not the rich mean old people who have all the money, its the pension funds and the insurance policies, that is where all the money is. Now think about this, when banks lend money to people who cannot afford to pay the bill what happens? Well the banks have a cash crisis as the short term debt dries up the cost of lending goes up, interest rates are driven up and the economy goes to hell in a hand basket. Meanwhile pension funds find themselves writing off loans and potentially people's retirement savings end up in the Ken Lay trust fund and insurance companies find themselves short for cash when claims start rolling in so insurance premiums skyrocket and claims adjusters find themselves in the lucky position of being ordered to reduce payouts.

Most people who were recipients of these, lets call them subprime loans, used the money not for something lasting, like a home renovation or a new home, but rather the money was used for a new car, or perhaps to pay off a mountain of Visa debt, or the subprime loan might have been a Visa debt in the first place.

In Its a Wonderful Life the loans buy homes and when people have a vested interest in the property they take care of it. Which is true, but in the automobile powered America of today we have urban sprawl (interestingly in Wonderful Life Bailey Park represents an early example of urban sprawl) and all the problems in sprawl, including dependency on oil much of it from abroad, ok a lot is from Canada right now, but don't forget the third largest supply of Oil to the United States is also the World's largest exporter in 9/11 terrorists, Saudi Arabia. As well there is the mass production of green house gasses, the paving over of first rate farm land, the excessive use of natural resources for heating detached homes as well as supplying water, electricity and roads to greater distances.

One final shot at the movie, the protagonist lives in a "drafty old home", he really should get a vapour barrier up and some decent insulation. He's wasting tones of energy heating the outside, someone send in Mike Holmes!

Where we are going

Over the past few days I've done quite about of speculating as to why humanity seems so much less optimistic than we once were. My OAC English Teacher, Mr. Coombs once told us that the defining event of the 20'th Century was World War I, prior to that horror humanity, generally, had faith in our own abilities to shape and control our destiny. When it became apparent after the outbreak of war that not only could we not control the natural or accidental (see my comments on the sinking of the RMS Titanic) but on some occasions our plans could run so far out of control, like the Von Schlieffen Plan, that we are left fighting from the trenches machine gunning our former friends at the rate of hundreds of thousands a day. World War I represents the industrial revolutions true arrival into the field of battle, we had industrialised killing people.

Today however I would like to consider some reasons to hope. Right now attached to my laptop is a USB hard drive that I am formatting, it warehouses not billions but hundreds of billions of characters of information. My laptop is old, it is only running at just over one and a half billion instructions per second with a billion characters of memory. Combined weight of the two devices? Under 5kg. Now here's an entertaining comparison, anyone old enough no doubt remembers Neil Armstong's famous One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind remark from the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969. It was a remarkable achievement, the computer used by Armstong and Aldrin to actually land on the moon? The Apollo Guidance Computer or AGC, weighed in at 30kg, had 74 thousand characters of storage of which about 4 thousand characters were memory. It cost one hundred fifty thousand dollars at time when the average American was paid under $5 thousand per year. Perhaps a more portable option for Armstong and Aldrin would be my Blackberry, I don't even know what kind of processor is in it, I know older models used to have a Pentium chip, my unit has about 60 million characters of memory and the battery will not last from a journey from the Earth to the Moon and back, but with one recharge on route (or an extra charged batter left to float around somewhere) and it should be good to go. An added bonus, my Blackberry has a nice colour screen, so when the astronauts are bored, they can look at some nice high resolution images of their destination.

What about average Americans? In the 1960s an American could expect to live to about 65 or 70, in other words there was a very reasonable chance that an average American would die before retiring. Now Americans can expect to live upwards of 70 to 75 years.

In the 1960s vast numbers of people around the world went hungry every day, although still true, thanks to the green revolution it is possible - if distribution systems were improved - to feed every human being on Earth the UN standard of 2500 calories of food energy a day.

We live in a world of new vaccines and new antibiotics, we live in a world of new understandings and new communications.

The World we live in is by no means perfect but there is reason to hope, if nothing else, we are an inventive species good at finding new ways out of old problems.

Random thoughts

Today was Lesley's birthday. I took her to dinner at a Restaurant that I am sure has some odd English name but in Chinese it's called Xin Tian Di, named after a very pleasant little car free area of Shanghai.

If I can just step off topic for a second, Xin Tian Di in Shanghai is one place where a very modest effort was put towards preserving old Shanghai. Too much of that city's culture and history has been swept aside and replaced with new high rise condominiums. Gone now are the 5RMB (less than $1 cdn) pan fried dumplings and noodle soup available right at the side of the road, now you have to pay 30 or 40RMB at an upscale restaurant with fine silverware and food without flavour. (And little brass notices on the wall saying not to take pictures as the walls are patented - honest to goodness, they really have notices just like that in some upscale restaurants in Shanghai.) Of course at Xin Tian Di in Shanghai there are no street vendors, just very posh, very expensive restaurants, but the architecture isn't soaring to nose bleed altitudes.


At dinner Lesley informed me that I am married to someone who is exotic because she is a woman (surprise there) and East Asian. Now I replied that as there are literally billions (yes with a B) Asians more than there are Westerners if anyone was exotic it was (as my friend from America calls me) "Mike the Canadian" as there are only about 15 million male Canadians so if there is anyone who ought to be exotic it should be us Canadians. Surprisingly despite what I feel is a more logically rigorous argument Lesley felt she was right and therefore she was. (One day I want someone to explain that to me!)

While on the subject of the exotic it turns out the Royal Family have started a U-Tube channel. I must admit one thing that I find surprising is that other people would be surprised that HRH Queen Elizabeth would use technology to engage her subjects. For heavens sakes people she's been doing that since she was crowned, in 1957 when many families we just buying their first T.V. set the Queen broadcast her Christmas day message. In 1996 she personally typed and sent an email, making it a proper photo op by having a class of 8 or 10 year-old's helping her to send it. Say what you will about the monarchy this one has tried to keep herself relevant.

One day I probably ought to wax on my thoughts on the Royal Family but it occurs to me that I really don't want to waste the intellectual effort, having a symbolic head-of-state (who my taxes hardly even finance) is probably better than say, the Prime Minister being the head of state. For heavens sakes you know how embarrassed I'd be if Stephen Harper were not only the leader of the government but also on Canada's money? Or worse yet, Brian Mulroney will now be on the stamps! (The joke about Americans being unable to decide which side of the Nixon stamp to spit on could be made Canadian then!)

Earlier I lamented the loss of optimism not only my own but in the public realm as well. As I watched the Queen's Christmas message of 1957 it dawned on me. We have become a much more informed society. When, in 1953 the elected Premier Mohammed Mossadeq of Iran was overthrown, anyone who saw the events reported on the news, by the well trusted news reporters of the day, would have believed that this was a purely internal Iranian matter that happened to play out very well for Anglo American interests. Today we know our governments lie and deceive all the time, just reading that last sentence "that happened to play out very well for..." screams: CIA, CIA, CIA!!

Who would have thought that agencies of the United States Government would go into narcotics trafficking in America's cities in order to finance a war in Central America? Well in the early 1980s that is exactly what happened. Or how about training Muslim fundamentalists on how to commit acts of guerrilla warfare (that's terrorism against solders, not to be confused with the entirely similar terrorism against civilians)? Maybe giving Osama Bin Laden training on how to use modern military hardware and tactics wasn't the wisest expenditure of CIA money, but at least the Soviets got driven out of Afghanistan. We made a deal with the devil to get rid of a comparatively harmless troll. Ooops!

Thanks to You Tube, Google, Wikipedia, Blogs, anyone and everyone can find out about it. Perhaps ignorance is bliss?

My bad

Yesterday I screwed up.

Those people involved in and hurt by my mistake know what and how I did what I did.

Mea Culpa!

Swallowing pride and apologizing is not something I am particularly inexperienced with. I actually know a great deal about it, having done it many times (I am only human and very error prone at that). But it still sucks.

I would like nothing more than to go back in time and undo the mistakes I made that lead up to the huge error for which I now make a very public apology, or would make a public apology, but to do so would injure the already injured parties even more.

But I cannot undo the errors I have made. I can only move forward and try, despite my many failings, not to make the same mistakes again.

My apologies to readers who have no idea what I am talking about. But I just don't feel up to blogging, right now I just feel profoundly awful, bad enough certainly that I just can't be bothered to write something new and exciting.

On Optimism

Yesterday I lamented the loss of optimism and wondered if it would ever return. I wondered why I felt, in 2001, that things were improving but today they seem to be on such a wrong course. Perhaps because prior to the decline of the Pax Americana we could delude ourselves into believing that the End of History was just a matter of time. Could it possibly be that thanks to bad work of the current presidential administration we find ourselves in a world where optimism is dead? I am not big fan of Mr. Bush, but it seems unlikely to me, despite all of his failings, that the work of one man, or even one administration, could be responsible for the depressed state of world affairs. But could the One - Two punch of Bush and Bin Laden have done the dirty deed? I doubt it.

I suspect in the days to come I will spend much effort exploring why optimism is dead and if in fact it was ever really alive. I hope, that in this exploration I can find a new optimism, for without hope I suspect my blog might become a particularly dreary place.

On a totally unrelated note, while I was working on this blog, Kilu the cat, of his own accord, jumped up into my lap and has now firmly planted himself over my writs, forcing me to type continuously. For one should never disturb a cat that has decided your lap is an acceptable place to rest, especially if the cat is purring up a storm. Ironically as I typed that, Kilu got up and walked away, but I must admit, it is nice whenever a person gets attention, not matter if it's their cat or the company of another human being, we all need to feel loved.

Urban Art

I originally wrote the following article in April 2001, it was published in mathNEWS at that time. I've always liked this article and although reposting it here represents no new burst of creativity its still a good read (I hope) for anyone who took the trouble of coming to my blog today.

For anyone looking for new creativity look to the end of the article, where I pass judgment on my own writing.

"Toronto is a good city to mind your own business in."

- Writer and U of T English Professor, Northrope Fry

Just off the North end of the Eaton Centre, near Sweet Rosie's Cookies, in the Dundas Subway Station is a mural entitled "Cross Section". Made by William McElcheran.

I still remember when I was just five years old my baby-sitter used to take me to the Eaton Centre to enjoy that positively exciting experience for a five year old, clothes shopping. I remember seeing all the construction then and not paying close attention to the mural dated May of 1984. [That statement is false, by the time the mural went up I was no longer making the daily treks downtown to Eatons, but the construction I can still recall, now more than 20 years after the fact. The mural must have gone up after the construction stopped.]

Now that I am a little older I notice things that at one time were far less exciting than the toy department of a now defunct department store.

Cross Section is like a photograph of people in the Dundas Subway station at rush hour.

The men in their long trench coats clutching their satchels hurriedly off to meet some appointment with eternity.

The gorgeous lady down at the path level with her husband (or boyfriend?) listening to the guitar playing hippy. The male with her is in a rush to get away, he has a look of total disdain.

The boys a short escalator ride up must be in the middle of a fist fight.

There is a man with a long beard mouth open wide, wearing robes. I can almost hear him saying "believe in the lord Jesus, Satan is upon us". Well its been 17 years and no sign of Satan yet, US presidential elections notwithstanding.

There is a father scolding his son, it looks like the child, perhaps five or six years old dropped a parcel on the ground.

A lot of the people are still dressed as if it were the late 1960s and not the early 80's. But just as the dog, a husky, near the North bound platform never changes his fir coat, the actions, the emotions, have not changed, I'll bet, since that subway station first opened more than thirty years ago. [Actually when I wrote this column the Dundas subway station was already well past forty years of age.]

People still have places to go, people to see. The music changes, the way we get from A to B changes. But the thesis that North America is a society more concerned with getting from A to B than with A or B is very much in evidence in Cross Section.

I love watching the people hurriedly rush off to do their daily business. There is, arguably nothing as fun as sitting at a sidewalk cafe, like the Second Cup over by John and Queen, or The Now Cafe on Parliament just North of Carlton watching the people go about their daily business.

To be sure there are those who don't seem to appreciate the rhythm in a city. The movie makers who take up every parking space on a one lane side street. The federal or provincial politician who can't seem to do anything other than cut services while they hike taxes. The suburbanite who complains about the bad traffic or the dirty subway system - ironically their low density housing could never pay for wide streets. It takes Toronto income tax dollars to extend the 404. In the end, though, everyone is part of the city.

All this talk brings me to that immortal question what is a city all about. Is it tax revenue for Ontario or Canada? Is it a place for farmers to sell their produce?

I believe a city is more than that. There is something amazing, specular even, that three million people can live and work within twenty kilometres of each other. Consuming tons of produce and raw materials and generating so much, arts, letters, learning. (As well as manufactured goods.)

Human beings have congregated for all of our recorded history and then some. Cities are institutions that predate nations, states, even politics as we know it today. A poor, but relevant example, Canada celebrated her 125'th birthday in 1992. Toronto celebrated its 150'th birthday in 1984, but even before 1834 there were people living where the Don River meets Lake Ontario.

Toronto, the word comes from a First Nations word for "Meeting Place". And as I type this little column I am in fact sitting on the 27'th floor of a smaller office tower in the same downtown core where over a million people are right now meeting, talking, doing business and improving the quality of life, intentionally or unintentionally, for everyone.

One may not like city life, but it is nearly impossible to escape it. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, were, are and will be, the heart of Canada. To think otherwise is a mark of the short-sighted.

And thus ends my thesis that humanity is an ever improving species. Ironic, that just 5 months after this article was published the very institution that received my praise the city would be attacked in a manner that would force, I hope, all of us to reevaluate our our manner of living and interacting.

I particularly like this line: meeting, talking, doing business and improving the quality of life, intentionally or unintentionally, for everyone I read it now and the corny poorly constructed lameness of that line astounds me, to say nothing, in this post of the ABCP market of depleted oil stocks and poisoned air. And it was not as if the writing wasn't in the sand in April 2001, I already knew about the Green House Effect, Hubbert Curve, commercial paper was not something I had heard of but I knew that lenders were too willing to part with their money and the dot com bubble was already deep into its burst.

I did predict the disastrous consequences of the Bush administration with a totally unsurprising accuracy. But it seems so ironic, this was an old tirade against Mike Harris and yet it still screams of an optimism of that I have not felt for some time. I wonder, will that optimism ever return?

More on Flying

I am going to rant on aviation security for a little while. I could discuss the snow, but a lot has melted, its black, its brown, its slush, its disgusting.

There was a time when flying was magical, or so I'm told, I was born in a world where Hijackings and metal detectors were already a fact of life. But there was a time when my dad could kick his friend in the shin at the customs line up and say don't forget to declare your marijuana. The customs agent laughed and waved dad's friend through.

But sometime in the period between Orville and Wilbur's first four trips on December 17, 1903, and the present time we as a society lost our collective minds when it comes to airline security.

Honestly I understand there is a need stop the terrorists, but does anyone really believe they are gonna try shoe bombing again? It didn't work the first time! And hijacking with box cutters, come on, after September 11 if the guy in the seat next to me pulls out a box cutter I'm gonna beat the shit out of him before he unlocks the blade! You can bet your knickers that everyone on the food chain from Bin Never Gonna Find Him Laden on down to the lowliest henchman knows that. They are gonna keep trying until we present the Muslim World with better options than the crap we've been feeding them since the 1920s!

Sorry but between our thirst for oil and the growth of an Imperial American army that has fortifications almost everywhere, from Okinawa to Seoul Fallujah did we honestly expect the citizens of the World to sit back and just take it? Of course they resorted to the best weapons they have, remarkable has been the passivity of those (like the Chileans) that have not.

Even more remarkable has been the lunacy of our own society for putting up with this crap. I thought we lived under a representative system of government. You know, a government where the leaders do what they think the people want. Well evidently I'm completely out to lunch, as Chalmers Johnson points out there are over 700 US military bases abroad, in around 130 countries around the World, the United States is the only country in the World to have a full sized Aircraft Carrier, there were 13 in 2004, another is due to be commissioned sometime very soon (possibly already was).

Yet apparently American's as a people don't want to be the World's cop? Don't want to be an imperial power? Perhaps someone can explain to me then how Congress can in full consciousness spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined!

This rant was supposed to be on the idiocy of airport security, about how turning on and off laptops and taking off shoes, belts, and pocket change were not going to stop the next September 11. This rant was supposed to explore how a couple boys in England who never even got close to their final objective were able to put an end to bottled water and the iPod as a reasonable piece of carry on luggage. (Speaking of which, it seems to me that if a couple boys in England can get us so petrified that we'll submit not only to loosing the water and the iPod but to Orange -whatever the hell that means - alerts, and the degradation of granny being busted by the airport police for too many breath mints, then perhaps we ought to face the obvious truth, the terrorists won. We as a people are terrorized!)

But I guess I should have realized, you can't rant about airport security for long without coming back to the same damned issue every time. The solution is not better airport security, the solution is something that we all have to take a part in. We have to recognize the self evident truth, that standing armies are something to be protected against (Thomas Jefferson to James Madison 1787) not protected by. As long as we allow our petty desires for lousy fuel economy and insane defense expenditures to rule be they Conservative, Liberal, Republican, Democrat, Labour or Tory, we might as well toss aside our fundamental rights and responsibilities and call it what it is an Empire of Oppression.

Cole Airlines is Born... and Flops!

From my desk on the 27’th floor of a downtown office tower Winter remains, for the time being a reasonably pretty season. From the sidewalk it is an entirely different story, slush, black snow, yellow and most dreaded of all, brown snow, making walking in a downtown street an adventure in a mind field.

It is with those cheery thoughts that my mind turns to events that transpired over the Victoria Day long weekend of 2000.

There was a long period between 1995 and 2004 when I stopped skating and took to biking in a big way. Biking has a few big advantages over skating, its considerably faster, you can change gears, rough ground, grass, even dirt are all potentially passable (depending on the type of bike and tires). Of course bikes are a lot more expensive than skates and they are often stolen if not locked up properly. So both methods of getting around have their advantages and disadvantages.

But back to May of 2000 when one day I was biking along the Martin Goodman Trail. I remember I was so frustrated by the crowds that kept obstructing my path that when I finally got a nice clear section of trail I, well for lack of a better term, floored it.

Technically the Martin Goodman Trail is a 20 km/h zone. Thanks to my GPS I know that I am routinely busting that barrier but in skates but I usually don’t get much past 25 km/h except with a downhill or a good strong tail wind. On a bike that 20 km/h speed limit is actually a real limiting factor if you choose to obey it. One day in May of 2000 I choose, with more than a small amount of contempt to ignore the speed limit. I put pedal to the metal and was probably doing something past 35 km/h when a young boy, perhaps 5 or 6 years old decided that right in front of me would be an outstanding place to plant his bike at a perpendicular to the direction of flow of the traffic. I still remember, his very protective parents made sure he had a big white shiny mushroom helmet, they just neglected that useful rule, look both ways before you cross the (bike path) street.

I remember very clearly slamming on the breaks just as hard as I could. Which I suppose is a reasonable thing to do in most circumstances, except, when you are in a bike, and you don't have a seatbelt certain rules of physics come into play which well in my case rather hurt. Imagine if you will a bike going a steady, lets say 30 km/h. Now on that bike is a cyclist, who is connected to said bike by gravity, our cyclist plants his rear end on the saddle and his feet on the pedals, both of which are pulled down by none other than Newton's apple force. Now let us suppose, just for a moment, that our cyclist slams on the breaks just has hard as he (in this case) can. The bike's motion is arrested by the breaks, the cyclists motion is arrested too, by the pavement rubbing up close and personal on his face, after our cyclist flys face first over the handle bars.

Anyone ever tell you a human being cannot fly is full of it, I have flown, for about a tenth of a second at Kew Beach on the Martin Goodman trail I was airborne, me and an Airbus A380 had something in common. Only the A380 has some pretty impressive landing gear (and flight control surfaces come to think of it), I must have been asleep during the particular physics 121 class where they taught how to build your own airplane.

At the end of my flight I landed, as described above, on runway, oh roughly 9 right (might have been 8 or 10 right, I didn't have my compass that day). But roughly was a very good description of my landing. The fact that my face did the majority of the breaking was not lost on my co-workers the Tuesday after the long weekend.

I recall my parents taking me round to dinner after Cole air flight 001 and the waitress at the restaurant almost fainted when she saw me, her opening words were oh my god, look at your face. To which I responded I know, would you happen to have a table? The following working day the receptionist came by my desk and cleared her throat, I turned around and her response was: Oh my god, I just wanted to see your face! Clearly while Cole Air was not a viable business plan over the long term, I attribute the non-viability to the decline in passenger air travel in the wake of 9/11; however, Cole Air did improve the overall fame (infamy?) of my face.

There is a moral tale to my little flight, always wear your helmet when biking and skating. There is another moral, look both ways before you cross the street.

Journaling

Yesterday I was frightfully busy and did not have a chance to make an entry. Sorry for that. A remarkable amount of snow fell on Toronto over the course of the day on Sunday, something in the neighbourhood of 20 cm in 20 hours, which I am sure people across Canada are snickering about, but here's my rant, they are snickering cause in truth they are jealous and this is a thoroughly Canadian way of winning an argument. (Consider what we do when the subject turns to the health uninsured Americans.)

Rather than belittling Americans lets accept the fact that up until the reign of Son-of-A-Bush the United States was the most creative, productive, industrious society the World had ever seen. Similarly although once every decade or so Toronto gets a pretty bad wallop from the snow, it is a cultural and financial capital of the country, to say nothing of the most open and diverse city south of The North Pole.

Anyway one day after the snow fell life was pretty much back to normal, except for the Go Train which does not function when it rains, so it stands to reason that the province will have to buy them a new locomotive or an elastic band I guess.

Anyway yesterday besides it being International Laundry Day it was also grocery shopping day. Our car may be expensive but I must confess Audi Quattro drive system is a good thing in the snow. Audi timing belts, serpentine belts, clutches, water pumps, are all over-priced, but damn Quattro is nice. It was amusing, and a little scary to watch other cars struggle up the hills. Even in all season tires all wheel drive works well.

Sunday evening Sigrid (see the Blog Roll on the right) celebrated her birthday, which is actually today. She invited us all to Ferro Bar and Cafe many of the people in the Blog Roll came to eat the fine Italian food there. Former Astronaut Al Bean is reported to have once said something to the effect of, in a journey it doesn't matter if its a trip to the corner store or to the moon, what matters is the company you keep as you make the journey. Given that Al Bean is one of the very few, very lucky people to have ever kicked moon dust I will defer to his expert opinion and say the company was very much worthwhile.

This morning, Monday, I walked to work in thick snow. As long as the snow is fresh and white the city looks like its got a freshly laundered blanket on. Sadly we all know what is going to happen to that blanket for the next few days. They used to say in the Soviet Union that Winter was the good season because the snow hid all the grime, I think it safe to say that in The West Winter is the ugliest season.

On a final note, I found the following blog which some may find interesting to read.

Random thoughts

Regular readers will not doubt be curious as to why I described the sinking of the RMS Titanic yesterday in the context of the decline of Edwardian society. I have been accused by Lesley of not providing a satisfactory image of whatever I am describing. That conversation somehow evolved, as these things happen to a discussion of the dance band on the Titanic. Lesley pronounced my description of the events of that awful night worthy and that I should put them in my blog. Apparently this description did not measure up. At some later date I might try again, focusing less on the historical background and implications and more on the actual people on the ill fated ship.

In the spirit of journaling however I would like to briefly summarize the past few days events.

I went to a company Christmas party on Friday, this time it was my employer, no spouses allowed. As this relates directly to my employer I feel it would be improper for me to describe it, suffice it to say I had to leave early to deal with vendor issues, I was not as upset about this as I might have been in other years.


Friday night Lesley and I went to Second City and watched Facebook of Revelations. An entertaining evening to be sure, but the audience was a far cry from the usual live entertainment set. Alright I am going to be an original type of elitist here but when you go to the theater for live entertainment there are some really basic rules that the plebeian mobs just don't seem able to cope with. As follows:

1. Shut the fuck up! If I wanted to here your idiotic running commentary I'd pay you and not the theater to see the show. As it is, I pay the theater company because, news flash, I came to watch and listen to the actors, not the audience.
2. Sit down and refrain from moving for the duration of the show. You are allowed to get up for the washroom, but don't get up for kicks. You are in fact blocking someones view. If you do take a washroom break, don't go back to your seat until the end of the scene.
   
3. If it is dinner theater, just because I'm captive does not mean my wallet is. If you want to be cheap, the food prices should be cheap, if you want to charge a lot for food I don't expect watered down pop and according to Lesley a bad cocktail. Next time Lesley and I go The Second City, if we ever do go back, (it was a good, not great, but not bad, play after all) expect me to bring in a couple cans of coke in my jacket pocket and maybe some French Fries in Lesley's purse.

You know I read these rules and it dawns on me, I'm not being elitist at all, I'm being rational. Well maybe I should toss some cheap shots at Mississauga or something?

On an unrelated note, I was recently directed to this article on sports drinks it would seem Gatorade isn't all its cracked up to be, it would probably be a worthwhile exercise for everyone to read that at some point, before your next workout.

Engineering Arrogance

Today I would like to consider a cold night on a Sunday in April of 1912 and the events that late up to that night to remember.

Entering the Nineteenth Century a new wave of thought swept over much of Europe. Partly inspired by events in the newly united colonies, now States, in America, partly as a result of the break down in the old order, France was torn apart by revolution and the idea of democratic reform took to one of Western Europe's oldest nations with the abandon of an alcoholic in a brewery. After the chaos and confusion that was The Terror a man of short stature but great military stratagem took to leading the Estates of France and spread the notions in La Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen (Literal: The Declaration of Man and of the Citizen) to the farthest reaches of Europe.

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars a congress was convened of the European powers to establish a new order that would ensure the peace throughout the continent. The English as the great victors had one chance to gain nearly total dominance of Europe and in so doing inflict what would surely be centuries of resentment. Instead at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the English displayed true foresight and established an order that would hold a virtually uninterrupted peace for nearly one hundred years. (Some historian's take a slightly different opinion of the Congress, but I feel that given that the only break in the peace in Europe was a number of separate domestic uprisings in 1848 I would be inclined to call the Congress a smashing success.)

By the turn of the century Europeans had much to be proud of. Among them, the English, had the finest Navy and most expansive Empire in the history of the World. The new chemical sciences from Germany were creating fertilizers that might one day feed the entire planets starving masses. Whereas in 1577 Sir Francis Drake needed nearly three years to circumnavigate the globe, new steam ships and steam engines permitted Jules Verne to envision a journey around the world in 80 days. The telegraph, an American invention, allowed near instantaneous communication across land and Marconi's invention of the wireless transmitter would permit communication across the sea and through the air.

The Harland and Wolff ship building company proposed building three ships to be sailed by the White Star Line, these ships would be the last word in luxury allowing for reliable timely return service between Great Britain and the United States. These ships would allow the White Star Line to better compete with Cunard Line. The first ship to sale The Royal Mail Steamer Olympic first sailed on 14 June, 1911. The Olympic weighed over 45 thousand tons when she first sailed and measured nearly 883 feet long and 92 and one half feet wide.

The maiden voyage of the second of these Olympic class ships to sale was hailed as a great achievement of man's dominance over nature. Labeled unsinkable, this second ship of the line was about one thousand tons heavier than the Olympic and promised to be even more lavish in its luxury. On her maiden voyage some of the finest of European society boarded for what promised to be floating opulence. Equipped with a swimming pool, squash court, gymnasium, libraries, Turkish baths, an elevator, Marconi radio sets, electric lighting, this was truly an achievement for the ages.

The great ship first sailed from Southampton England on Wednesday, April 10, 1912, she stopped briefly in Cherbourg France on Thursday the 11'th where many of the first-class passengers boarded, her final stop before making the crossing was in Queenstown Ireland on Friday the 12'th where most of the third-class passengers boarded. It was expected that the great ship would arrive in New York no later than Wednesday April 17, one week to the day after her initial departure from Southampton.

Sunday April 14, 1912 Commodore Edward John Smith lead morning mass for the first class passengers while the ship steamed West at something very close to her top rated speed, around 21 or 22 knots. The Managing Director of the White Star Line, J. Bruce Ismay urged Commodore Smith ever faster, he wanted the second ship to out perform the Olympic's speedy journey to New York, he wanted people to believe each new ship would be better and faster than its older sister ships.

Over the course of the day passengers no doubt enjoyed the many luxuries dreamed up for this fabulous ship including the novel ability to send messages to loved ones back in Europe or America with the new wireless telegraph. Sending all these wireless messages were two young men, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride. As the two men frantically tried to keep up with the tide of telegraph messages periodic warnings of Arctic ice in the sea lanes would arrive. Phillips and Bride would dutifully repeat the message to ships further away and sometimes took the trouble to deliver them to the bridge, but this ship was unsinkable and was under the command of the great Captain Smith, due to retire at the end of this voyage, a fitting cap-stone to an outstanding career.

Late in the evening as Phillips worked frantically to catch up on the huge pile of telegraph messages one ice warning came in from the California, a ship at such proximity that the wireless signal had barely weakened. Frazzled, Phillips replied, shut up, shut up, I'm busy, the seventh ice warning that day never made it to the bridge.

It was a cold clear night, without the moon the stars must have been a specular sight, one first class passenger described it as a night that made one glad to be alive. On the forward lookout deck the ship's forward speed of 22 knots and the lack of moon light made spotting a berg particularly difficult.

On the bridge at 11:40 the evening of Sunday April 12, 1912, the bell rang signaling a message from the forward lookout. Iceberg right ahead. Orders were given, left full rudder, full reverse. From the lookout it appeared this second Olympic class ship would just miss the berg, but The Titanic was too big, too heavy, she scraped by the berg and struck. Rivets snapped and water rushed into the forward boiler rooms. For the stokers the blast of icy Atlantic water must have shocked them. For the passengers the sudden stopping of the engine was, for the initial period, the only point of concern. On the forward deck third class passengers played football with bits of ice that broke off the berg when the Titanic struck.

The ship's builder Tomas Andrews and Captain Smith made a rapid tour of the ship to inspect the damage. Andrews already knew, flood any five of the 16 water tight compartments and the ship sinks, simple as that. Five compartments were flooded and the sixth was starting to take on water. Captain Smith ordered the lowering of the lifeboats as the band struck tune to raise the moral on the promenade deck. There were lifeboats for considerably less than half the passengers and crew and even so most passengers were so convinced of the invincibility of the great ship that they were unwilling to board the first life boats, besides, the party was on the deck, the band was playing music! Who would want to board a small lifeboat. The first lifeboats had less than a quarter of their rated capacity.

The situation started to deteriorate, the Titanic started listing to the bow, the lights started to dim as the boilers submerged and stopped generating electricity. Emergency flares and transmission of the new maritime distress call, SOS, failed to get a response from any ship closer than the Carpathia, 58 miles away. By the time the last lifeboat was lowered away crowds had to be kept away at gun point. The band played on, there was nothing else they could do. Phillips and Bride continued desperately to transmit distress calls for five minutes after the captain had told them, it is every man for himself, they finally stopped when they could hear the water gurgling in the hallway.

The Titanic went under around twenty minutes after two on Monday April 15 1912, she was about 400 miles East of Newfoundland, just beyond The Grand banks.

European society was aghast, this was not supposed to happen. The greatness of European culture in the post 1815 World was called into question for the first time. Just two years later the assassination of the Arch Duke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Ferdinand, would cause a breakdown of all civility as Europe plunged headlong into the most horrendous war in the history of the World, the great European Civil war of 1914-1945. (Often called World War I and II.) But it was the sinking of the Titanic that was the event that started the demise of the old order and brought about our new chaotic age.

It was the sinking of the Titanic that first brought into question the notion that technology is not the solution to all of man's problems.

On Puppy Love

The first time I felt really strongly for a girl I was the tender age of 13. (Actually I was just a couple months shy of my 14’th birthday.) It was the October of 1991, the trees looked like they were on fire with their gold and crimson leaves changing colours in the autumn cold.

I recall one day, at lunch my friends and I were sitting in the grass, still rich green but cold when I saw her walk by. I don’t know what it was about her that I was attracted to but while I may have seen her a hundred times before, it was that time that I noticed her.

She was Liese Smart and even now, more than 16 years later my heart still skips a beat when I say (or type) that name. It is a funny thing the male condition, never able to completely let go of things long past.

With nothing in common (in grade 8 not sharing classes meant there were no commonalities) the prospect of ever talking to Liese let alone befriending her was such a marginal prospect that I was left in a profoundly melancholy state. One day at my guitar lessons my teacher sensing this melancholy suggested (I will never forget this): Why don’t you get her a rose, it works for me.

On the advice of my guitar teacher I went to Floral Fair on Yonge Street, I paid $4.94 for a single long stem red which I would soon discover I could not fit inside my locker. No matter, long stem becomes broken stem in my efforts to make it short stem.

I wrote a love a poem and asked my friend Philip who did have a class with Liese to give her the rose and poem.

I wish this story had a happy ending, well I guess it does, I am married today, but not to Liese.

The day Phillip gave Liese the rose was the day of the Halloween dance, and that was the day Liese told Phillip she would never talk to me.

Some months later I found out that at 13 years herself Liese did not know how to handle my affections and did what another 13-year-old friend of hers told her to do. Ironically I established a reputation with my single act of being the resident grade 8 poet, a fact which I foolishly failed to consider as a romantic stepping stone, but I was a lot younger.

To those of us happily married or in love cherish and enjoy it. To the single readers I may have engaged, I wish you luck and I sympathise.

More thoughts

A number of thoughts have crossed my mind since I made my last post. Cor of Road Rash Chronicles (see the Blog Roll on the right) had a couple interesting points. Cor’s remarks can be read without deep contemplation and simply taken at face value, or being that I am the contemplative person I can summarily attach more significance to each word Cor wrote than he may have intended.

For example, Cor has a good point that discussion of politics has no place in a journal (or Blog) unless it directly effects me. This is true, but on the other hand, I like to write, I like to contemplate, and I like politics, is it unreasonable for me to become angry/sad/disgusted (rarely happy) with the decisions of our leaders and then express an opinion? (Alright, rant.) By the standard of, ‘your blog should be about you’ the World would be full of, frankly, boring Blogs.

I’m sorry if this upsets anyone, but it is true, for the most part life is very repetitive, we all acknowledge it when we call the commute to work the “rat race” and honestly, when was the last time any of us did anything exciting? I rather much doubt it was since the last posting to a Blog. More to the point, according to the Wikipedia definiton of a blog: Several broadly popular American blogs emerged in 2001: Andrew Sullivan's AndrewSullivan.com, Ron Gunzburger's Politics1.com, Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit, Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs, and Jerome Armstrong's MyDD — all blogging primarily on politics (two earlier popular American political blogs were Bob Somerby's Daily Howler launched in 1998 and Mickey Kaus' Kausfiles launched in 1999). The Wikipedia entry goes on to point out that it was Blogers who forced Senator Trent Lott to step down as senate majority leader. Granted, I highly doubt I will be cognizant to such information that would force a US Senator to give up a position of power, mind you that would be a remarkable achievement for little me. But is it not part of the rational of personal journaling to track the evolution of one’s thoughts? (And since so many of my thoughts involve politics it stands to reason this Blog will be consumed from time to time with matters political in nature.)

Anyway clearly much contemplation on my part is still required. But I don’t believe by changing, slightly the focus of my Blog I will be taking away from those readers who simply want to hear about skating. If your sole interest is skating, skip the parts that do not interest you. Use the Internet Explorer or FireFox find tool and look for the regular expression ‘skat’ as in skating or skate. You will still get occasional reports, but now they will be more significant than: I did badly today, I just didn’t have my heart in practice. Which describes in twelve words what far too many of my postings really are saying using far too many words.

In any case, today I would like to consider proper behaviour in polite society. You see I know someone who does not fail to express his opinion even when it is inappropriate. It is very easy to skip a blog, or even a paragraph when reading, but consider the following example:

Some time ago I organized a skate bearing cleaning, (for lack of a better term) party. The idea was, bearing cleaning is a hated activity, its boring, tedious and you have to repeat it at least 16 times (two caged sets of bearings per wheel, four wheels per skate, two skates per person, 2 x 4 x 2 = 16). Well since I had to clean my bearings I thought I could make it a little more entertaining by inviting a bunch of friends over to join in the fun. I figured we all have our pet theories on how to clean bearings, and at least we could entertain ourselves by being overly pushy in promoting our preferred technique. It was not to be. Too many people begged off, although I can not really say I blame them much, given the choice between cleaning bearings and I don't know, picking belly button lint? I'll have to take the lint Pat.

One person though, who shall remain nameless, did not beg off. Rather he wrote and explained to me that I am wrong. There is no need to clean bearings, just spray them with WD-40. I pointed out, as I have in other places, that WD-40 is not a cleaning agent, its very initials stand for Water Displacement, 40'th attempt. He replied that I should pay attention to what other people do at the 24 Hour marathon in Montreal. I wish I had the original email thread, the very tone from our antagonist was so condescending that, well, I deleted the emails in disgust.

What is interesting is that in Montreal it was pouring rain, around 2am when my shift started it was coming down so hard I could hardly see 10m in front of me. (The lack of sun light did not help the situation.) Under such circumstances WD-40 makes excellent sense, the adhesive nature of WD-40 although bad under any conditions will be an acceptable trade-off given that keeping water away from bearings is key. (As well, with all the rain, the water will wash any dirt the WD-40 picks up.)

But the events in Montreal are unusual, and writing to someone to say, 'what you are trying to organize is silly and anyone who joins you is stupid', well forgive me but I find that sort of sentiment rather offensive.

It strikes me that my mother was right, if you've got nothing good to say, do not say anything at all. It seems to me that more people ought to heed my mother's advice.

Thoughts

I spent a great deal of time at work, well working frankly, but I also read a few blogs about skating and you know it occurs to me, many of those blogs are incredibly boring! I'm not saying that any in the Blog Roll are bad it is just honestly, who cares what other people have achieved in practice? Its one thing to say, well I won Duluth in a time of 56:32 beating the previous, Chad Hendrick's, record by almost a minute! But if the Blog post is simply I did well today, or I did bad today, and I'm actually referring to my own post here, then my god what a boring read!

When I started this blog I had two goals:

1. Make regular (ideally daily posts)
2. Write quality stuff that people would want to read even if they don't skate, but try to focus on skating.

I realise now that the two points are nearly contradictory, I am not sufficiently focused on inline skating that I can write interesting stuff right through winter and I don't do ice. Even if I did do ice, or it was summer, I suspect it is impossible to write stuff every day that people will find interesting.

So what to do? Do I give up on the notion that Skater Dreams will focus on skating or do I stay true to the name and sacrifice a major goal of mine. Given my preference for writing and my love of the written word I think I would sooner eat stones then write badly intentionally. I am not saying my writing is always good, or that it is even ever good. Rather I am saying, if I can write well, I'll be damned if I am going to write badly just to stay true to some arbitrary name.

The subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures. - Junius

So the one piece of news I would like to report on today: a friend of mine, my buddy in Rochester specifically, has asked me to help him start a regular pod cast. Ironically I find myself in the same position with the spoken word as I am with the written word. What to write?

It shall be my intention in the days to follow to occasionally write about skating, if there is something worthy or print, but mostly I plan to make this blog what a blog ought to be, an exploration of self in a public domain. I shall lay bare my inards to anyone who dares to read in the hope that by studying my own entrails I will be not only a better writer but perhaps find topics worthy of the vox populi. Vox populi, vox dei.

Not the best vacation ever

Today was a day off. You wouldn't know it from my flippin' Crackberry, I had emails from Vendors, co-ops, managers. Basically in the history of Monday's taken off this one was hands down not the best ever. (My favorite has to be the co-op who wrote, Yes this is your day off, but please be a bit more helpful as this is an urgent issue [sic.] to be fixed. No, it was not urgent, the co-op thought it was urgent, but here's a news flash, it really can wait, like anything of such modest importance that we can let the co-op take responsibility for.)

Other than that, I made a pasta sauce today, I used:

• 1 can tomato paste
• diced celery stalk
• 3 diced carrots
• some broccoli crowns (to taste)
• 5 fried sausages (sliced)
• 2 green peppers
• large bunch of scallions (green onions) sliced
• large white or Spanish onion diced
• crushed garlic clove
• lots of Kosher salt (you can use Ionic or Sea salt but Kosher is stronger)
• lots of ground black pepper
• Basile
• Oregano
• A BfC (Big Cauldron)

Add everything together in the BfC and leave to simmer for a long time. Serve with penne (or something else, I'm a penne person myself).

This sauce has lots of vitamins, minerals, protean, and other good stuff, like starch in the penne. Its good stuff to eat before a marathon or before bed for dinner.

One final note, it has come to my attention that the following quotation is worthy of consideration by some of my readers, Young people should turn on politics or politics will turn on them. - Ralph Nader. Actually, I am sure Mr. Nader would agree with me, All people should turn on politics. Yes it may not be exciting for everyone, but the price of not paying attention to what our leaders do, is plainly obvious in the United States today.

A little something on Music

On Friday evening Lesley's company had a Christmas party. Some of this was written on the Crackberry during the dancing.

Lesley's employer is having their annual Christmas party and I am writing a Blog entry. I'll be honest, I can't dance without incurring Lesley's wrath, I'm that bad at dancing, and one day I want someone to explain to me why DJs need to jack the volume up past a million decibels when there aren't 40 people on the hardwood. Guys I'm sitting in the next room, a hundred meters from the nearest speaker and this is not the slightest exaggeration, I can feel my gut vibrating in sync with the sub woofer.

While Lesley loves to dance I value my hearing too much, especially since I know I just do not have the ears I had just a few years ago. Getting older is starting to mean getting less functional and I know my hearing is a lot worse than it once was, that is really upsetting for me. I like Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, I like Beethoven's 14'th Piano Sonata (even if it is cliched), I like a lot of more current stuff too, but my point is, I don't want to end up like Beethoven, unable to even appreciate his 9'th Symphony. Beethoven was so deaf that by the time he got to his 5'th Symphony he had the legs of his Piano cut off and he would compose while lying on the floor so he could feel the music with his chest. By Beethoven's 9'th he was completely deaf, according to Wikipiedia: there is a well-attested story that, at the end of the premiere of [Beethoven's] Ninth Symphony, he had to be turned around to see the tumultuous applause of the audience; hearing nothing, he began to weep. I suppose Mozart had it even worse, although he started composing at an incredibly young age, he died, ironically while composing a Requiem Mass just shy of his 36'th birthday.

I figure I still have a lot to listen to and I don't want my ears totally ruined by badly DJd Reggae. In truth I'm not really a big fan of Reggae even at a reasonable volume, its not bad or anything, I just don't like it that much.

The party, (remember what started all this?) was at the Boulevard Club which I had always thought to be some high end country club in the city. As it turns out, well it may be an expensive place, that I would not know, but it is rather run down on the inside. That place had annoyed me for some time, chiefly because the people driving in and out would cut across my favorite bike trail with a certain reckless abandon not appropriate for someone driving across one of the busiest bike trails in the city. The fact that someone, possibly the city, or perhaps the Boulevard Club, had placed numerous barriers to slow us cyclists and skaters down as we approached the driveway did nothing to increase my opinion of that establishment. Now that I have been inside, I don't hate it so much, I feel more sympathy for all the sorry loosers who paid what I am sure is an astronomical initiation fee and now they get to finance some pretty hefty renovations, I just wish they would learn how to drive.

Yesterday, Saturday the 8'th my friend from Rochester came in, as promised he brought me a complete DVD Set of the HBO TV Special, From the Earth to the Moon. Inside was a coupon to a free admission to any IMAX show expires December 31, 2005, oh well! Also to arrive was fresh cat litter, yes I have to import my cat litter from America, the stuff we have in Canada doesn't meet the standard my boys, excuse me, cats, require. (Actually I have an electronic litter cleaner that requires fine grained crystal litter and I just can't find it here in Canada.) Well there I've just devoted too many sentences to cat poop!

My friend, Lesley and I went to see our new house and the doors were locked which was a shame, last time I was inside they were tiling the kitchen and bathrooms. I think this place will be really nice, I just need someone who wants to rent the extra bed rooms. (If you're interested give me a call, or post a response here with a hotmail or some other free mail address and I'll write you back, its about $350~450/month, room includes personal washroom and free high speed Internet, utilities to be split in thirds. Location is Queen and Woodbine.) Of course the place is still under construction and we don't get to close until the end of March, but given how lousy the weather's been lately its probably for the best.

This morning I went to Scooters after all, Sigrid (see Sigrid Ziegler on the blog roll at the right) asked if I could drive her. Up to that point I was sort on the fence about going to Scooters, but I decided it would be nice, since the drive is a lot more pleasant if there is someone to talk to on the way there. I spent the majority of the practice on the inside working on cross overs and turning. Ironically that was probably one of the most productive practices I have ever had. Perhaps because I am just such a lovable kinda guy, or perhaps in return for the ride, actually probably just because it was a decent thing to do Sigrid gave me some really helpful coaching on doing turns. After Sigrid's advice Georg (no blog or web site to my knowledge) commented on the improvement in my technique. So this paragraph is a big shout out to Sigrid.

NASA has scrubbed the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS 122) until January 2 at the earliest. I wonder what will happens to the astronauts up in the space station. Aren't some of them supposed to return with this Atlantis mission? For all the joys of space travel it must get rather dull being confined to what is little larger than a small apartment for months at a time.

Blogging about not blogging

Sorry but a friend of mine from the Dilapidated States of America is in town so I won't have time to write for the next day or so. (It should tell you something that I am writing Friday's post on Saturday at 3am.) But I am already thinking of ideas for my next post which will be either late Saturday or Sunday.

In the mean time, have a good weekend.

Space Travel and Politics

NASA was supposed to launch the Space Shuttle Atlantis this afternoon. Mission STS-122 was originally scheduled for December 6, 2007 at 16:31 EST. It has been rescheduled to 16:09 on December 7. This was disappointing, I love watching shuttle launches, even if only from my laptop monitor in the office. One day I'd like to take a long vacation and go down to Cape Kennedy and watch a launch in reality, actually feel the wind and the heat. The truth comes out, Michael's a space nut, here's another dirty little secret, I always has been a total space nut.

Truth be told, if I could have any job in the World, it would be a rocket scientist at the Marshall Space Flight centre, or maybe JPL. I wouldn't mind working at Houston either for that matter. I don't care that besides the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in sunny Pasadena California, Marshall and Houston are both in bible thumping hard right Red states. The thing is, I just love to dream of travel to far away places.

Actually one thing I think will be really exciting is the Ares I and Ares V launch vehicles. These mammoth rockets are intended to do something that has not been done since late 1971, land people on the moon and return them safely to the Earth, more than that, the Constellation project (what the Ares are part of) is the start of a permanent settlement of human beings on the lunar surface. I find it hard to believe that even if this in no way relates to the dreams of skaters anywhere, it doesn't sound at least a little inspiring?

If it were up to me, NASA funding would be hundreds of billions of dollars a year and the Pentagon would have to make do on NASAs current real budget. Of course if that were the case I suspect Osama Bin Laden wouldn't care so much about the United States. Then a modest Pentagon budget would be even easier to justify. But I rant, even if I am correct, uselessly.

I finished the book Fast Food Nation. What an unsettling read, the reason for all the outbreaks of E. Coli in beef? Fecal matter in the meat, in other, blunter, words, there's cow shit in your hamburger! Think McDonald's French (Freedom?) Fries tasted better in the 1980s? Well they used to deep fry them in beef tallow, now they deep fry them in Canola Oil and use "natural" flavours. Pop quiz, what does natural flavour have in common with things derived directly from nature? Answer: not very much. And don't get me started on what McDoos has done to the American work force, slave labour pool. You have to love these huge companies who so enjoy expending their marketing budget bemoaning government regulation but heaven help the sorry congressman or senator who would dare to oppose farm subsidies or any other corporate welfare that the US Fast Food Industry makes such profitable use of.

Sorry I'm ranting, but I just watched Who Killed the Electric Car while on the Elliptical Trainer and I guess I am becoming an exceedingly angry socialist. Oh well I've got a lot to be angry about if I am at all liberal. My government (no I didn't vote for these idiots, I voted for the Wimpy Ultra Liberals instead of the Ultra Wimpy Liberals, not to be confused with the current crop of Want to be Ultra Conservative But Are in Fact Pandering Inarticulate Thugs) is making my country into the embarrassment of the World at the Bali Climate Summit.

Here's one I just discovered while looking up the links for the three major English language political parties, take a look at the Liberal, NDP and Conservative party web pages. Now when I said I voted for NDP last time it was because the local Liberal Candidate supported the Toronto Port Authority. No way could I bring myself to vote for he who must not be named. But really look at the web pages, both the Liberals and NDP describe what their vision for Canada is, agree with it, don't agree with it, they have a vision. As for the Conservatives, their web page is a cheap mockery of Stephan Dion. Today they are ranting about how Mr. Dion thinks, like just about every economist with a pulse, that the GST should be hiked and income taxes cut. They show the income from a GST hike $16 Billion, and don't mention the income tax cut. Stephan Dion is a smart man, I am told that so is Stephen Harper, looking over the two web sites, I can believe Mr. Dion is pretty bright, or at least has some good people, but the Prime Minister, he is employing a real hack on the web site, good job sir, you represent me and I have never been more embarrassed about the current government!

Argh! Why do we have to put up with these ninnies? Oh well, tomorrow I promise I won't rant on politics in Canada.

On searching for substrings.

I was reading over some Blog’s today, Lesley (my wife) had told me that Kevin (see Finding the Dream on the Blog Roll at right) had made a number of allusions to me. On closer inspection I could only find one direct reference to me, so I used Internet Explorer’s ‘Find (on this page)’ feature. Now I’d like to point out, that the Find tool is really just a pattern matching algorithm, probably Boyer-Moore or the Knuth-Morris-Pratt (KMP) algorithm.

Now I want to stress, both Boyer-Moore and KMP are very old, very well studied algorithms and they work, they work really reliably, in fact, they have been mathematically proven to work every single time. So I want someone to explain to me why when I type ‘Michael Cole’ in ‘Find (on this page)’ Internet Explorer comes back blank, yet I know for a fact that there is at least one instance of ‘Michael Cole’ on the page, heck I even put the cursor a couple words in front of my name and ran the blasted search. Good work Microsoft, bang up job there, sort of like Edlin, you guys never fail to disappoint.

Why do we nurse expectations of greatness from Microsoft? Lets face it, they are never going to deliver. Unless you want to call Vista "delivery".

Thanks to Eric (see EGCSkates on the right) I may decide to start swimming again. Second thought, hauling home from the pool with wet hair in the winter... nah, but I may take up cycling in the spring and summer. One thing I always liked about riding, almost every street in the city is safe for a cyclist - well car drivers are still criminally insane, but hills and rough road surface is not a problem, street car tracks, can be a problem, but not as much. Best of all, when I skate full out I can crack out 30 km/h, maybe 40~45km/h with a really strong tail wind. But when I ride, 30 km/h is a moderate resting speed.

Well enough of dreaming of an open road. I have cat litter to clean and exercises to perform. To all my friends at TISC, I will not be at Scooters this weekend, a friend of mine is coming from out of town and spending the weekend. But like General MacArthur said, I shall return.

News you can loose

So my friend Peter Doucet of Speed Skate World (see the Blog Roll on the right) has once again been published on the Inline Planet. Well done Peter, and the day before my birthday, coincidence? I think so! But Peter since when has cooking been a hobby? If that's the case, what does our speed skating chef specialize in? I hope not Kilgogi.

Lesley, my wife, has decided that she wants to learn how to skate. I cannot describe the elation I felt at that announcement, sk8ette dreams perhaps? Oddly she wants to learn to skate so she can play hockey. This may go down as the strangest marriage in Canada. For the record, my Chinese born wife grew up in tropical Hong Kong and just slightly north of the tropics Shanghai. Now she wants to engage in that most Canadian of sports, the good ole' Hockey game. (Meanwhile her fourth or is it fifth? generation Canadian husband wants to... well frankly move to Australia, I hate this cold.)

I had a chance to read through Sigrid's Blog (see the Blog Roll on the right) today. One thing that I noticed Sigrid said is that sometimes your ability in one sport improves by doing a different activity. Its true, sometimes in the summer I think I concentrate too much on skating better, further, faster. I should probably take it easy, then again, that's really what winter is for, unless of course, I start ice skating.

For my birthday my parents bought me a lottery ticket (frankly if that was all they bought me I would say they spent too much, but of course there was more). Anyway the reason for the ticket, when I was younger and had no mortgage I used to tell my dad the $2.00 a week he spent on tickets would be more wisely spent on belly button lint, which is true. Now that I am in debt up to my ears I joke about what I would do if I won. Naturally I'll never win, I don't piss away my money on lottery tickets, so I think my dad's perverse sense of humor kicks in when he gives me a Super7 ticket and I have to figure out if I actually won anything. Turns out I did, a free Super7 ticket! Fate, it seems, is not without a good strong sense of irony.

On a networking related note, if there are any network architects out there, getting an Autonomous System number from the American Registry of Internet Numbers is ludicrously easier than I was lead to believe. It is probably for the best if I do not go into detail, suffice it to say, not everything in computing is as hard as you are told.

Cat on the lap

So today was supposed to be a vacation day, you wouldn't know it from the way my Crackberry buzzed nonstop.

Anyway a depressing thought for all of us Canadians, it seems we aren't the immigrant friendly nation many of us would like to think we are. Being that my wife is a landed immigrant (permanent resident) and not yet a citizen I was already well aware of some of the issues faced by new immigrants but it is not a happy thought, send us your physicists, doctors your innovative yearning to drive taxis! Apologies to Emma Lazarus.

So today Kilu spent much of the afternoon and evening on my lap, he decided to plant himself there and I was not allowed to get up from the couch for the rest of the day. Mind you its a lot better when he does that then when he plants his rear end right in the article I am about to read in the morning paper. Cats have an unusual ability to know, daddy is reading this article, so that is where I am going to lie down. (Can't they lie on one of the advertisements?)

Oh I've been watching old episodes of Connections on YouTube. If you like European history and have a technical or engineering frame of mind do a search for "Connections Episode 1 Part 1 of 5". There were a total of 10 Episodes and one thing I like about this particular T.V. show is it actually stimulates some intellect, even if it is vintage mid to late 1970s T.V.

The Boys

First a thanks to Eric Gee (see EGCSkates on the right) for clearing up a little skate history. I was pretty sure that I had heard somewhere that 5x84 was not as old as 5x80, I guess the big question, when 5 wheel skates first came out where they 80s, 76s, or something else entirely? That must have been quite a long time ago, I remember just after I got my first pair of inlines, Rollerblade Lightnings (4x76) in 1991 I saw a pair of Rollerblade "Racerblades" that had 5 wheels that were the same as the wheels on my Lightnings. I remember thinking, cleaning and maintaining skates like that must be a big pain. I know there are 5 wheel skates that older than the Racerblade, I've just never seen such an animal.

There is actually a pair of Racerblades on Ebay right now, my god do those things look awful, the hard exterior, crummy wheels, I'd like to think that a good skater on a modern pair of rec skates could do better than the same person on the Racerblades.

Anyway today I did not go to Scooters, at 7am I got to the car, and drove an entire city block, well actually I changed my mind about half a block from the driveway. The road conditions were awful, it would have been more sensible for me to cross-country-ski to Scooters. When I heard on the radio that there were multiple car accidents on the highway I turned around and hightailed for home, nearly getting firmly embedded in a snowdrift on the way.

Today was a day for sleeping in and catching up on my back issues of Scientific American. Speaking of which, there is an article online that discusses a Biodiesel Jet airplane, very cool, although it emits green house gases, a mix of 20% Biodiesel and 80% diesel produces 50% less green house gas than 100% petroleum diesel, except almost all modern aircraft (even helicopters) use Kerosene not diesel, so that was not as promising as it looked on first read. Common guys, use hydrogen! (Useless trivia for you, the fuel used by the first German jet engine? Hydrogen, using Kerosene is a step in the wrong direction.)

At the behest of senior management I wanted to discuss my cats today. One of them already has a picture embed here in the blog. Here is a really old image of the other guy:

Now his name is Kalubee and when we adopted him he was skin and bone, his tail has a bend in it, probably broken bones that did not set properly and he had some insects living in his ears that kicked up black stuff into his outer ear, it was really gross. Since then he's put on at least 10 pounds (about 5kg) the insects were taken care of with medicine from the vet and the tail well, that will always have the bend at the end. But it makes me feel a lot better to know that between my wife and I this fellow is in much better shape than if we had not taken him.

Its not say its been a bed or roses, about a year ago Kalubee got really nasty Gingivitis and ultimately the vet had to remove almost every single tooth in Kalubee's mouth. Fortunately the vet explained cats often swallow their food without actually chewing on it, which is why the uber expensive dental food we were giving Kalubee at the time didn't do a damn thing. Actually now that the problem teeth are removed Kalubee's been a much happier guy, except when we go to cut his nails, he does not like that. (We believe declawing a cat is cruel, its sort of like surgically riping a person's finger nails off. Yum Yum.)

Then there is Kilu, he's a very social guy. Whereas Kalubee likes his routines and does not much like to hang out with other people Kilu demands a great deal of attention, usually by rolling around in front of me. If that does not work he will walk up beside me and rub himself on my legs, yes I have nearly tripped on him many times while walking around the house. If Kilu does not get his required attention he will cry. I sometimes think my cats are more human than some of the people I have crossed paths with, certainly more dignified.

Every morning as I get ready for work Kilu comes downstairs to wish me well and every evening Kilu waits at the front door for my return. (Kalubee prefers to wait at the top of the stairs and supervise the entire exercise.) I can tell the mood of both guys by the type of sound, the meow or the pur have several unique variations, that they make. If the defining trait of humanity is our emotions, I am quite confident that cats are as human as we are.

Another decade

It seems appropriate that today I reflect on the past 3652 days. Its hard to believe, but when my parents were my age they had a saying, don't trust anyone over 30.

Well lets see, 1997, that was the year Tony Blair was elected Prime Minister of England, for the first time, the country had not been run by Labour for almost 20 years previously. Jean Chretien had just been re-elected, Bill Clinton was inaugurated for a second time, the economy of East Asia made a massive swan dive into the toilet. In the developed World things were really doing well, George Walker Bush was busy mismanaging Texas and had yet to get a chance to screw the entire country over. Donald Rumsfield and Dick Cheney were both working in the private sector when they were not busy starting the Project for the New American Century.

The Internet was starting to make serious inroads into daily life. If you had a PC, in 1997 it was almost certainly running Windows 95, I was triple-booting 95, NT 4.0 and Linux, I think Kernel 2.0.something. The web browser of choice for me in early 97 was almost certainly Netscape, but by the end of 97 it was probably IE 3 or 4. Remember Justice Thomas Penfield Jackson? The Microsoft Antitrust trial wouldn't start for another year.

I was an avid cyclist in those days, I had a brief foray into inlines several years earlier but decided that it was too dangerous a method to get to school. State of the art inline speed skates back in those days had five 84mm wheels, or were they 80mm? On ice the clap skate was around for a while but it wasn't until 1996 or 1997 that it really started to get noticed.

Personally, 1997 was the year I went from Grade 13 to first year Math at Waterloo.

Since then, lets see, well I've got a Bachelors in Math (Honours) Co-op, major in Computer Science from Waterloo. I've also got a Masters Computer Engineering, Ryerson. I went from earning about $10/hour as a swim instructor lifeguard to... well I won't say what I earn today, but an awful lot more than I was making in 97. I've got a wife, two cats, house and mortgage.

The Son-of-a-Bush, massively overreacted to the attacks of September 11 and persuaded the entire country to involve itself in an entirely foolish and senseless war. (Question, what war truly is anything other than foolish and senseless? And no, World War II should never have happened, the French could have stopped Hitler in 1936, but that's a rant for another day.)

It became apparent sometime between 1997 and now that Democrats have no balls and Republicans have no heart. In Canada it was revealed that Reformers have no more integrity than any other political party and the Liberals are, I think, the best of a really bad multiple choice quiz.

My inlines have 110mm wheels, I think 120mm are a hoax but I've already written about that. I've pretty much given up on cycling, its too simple, I need something more mentally stimulating, hence the skating.

Finally as we all know, history has not ended, despite claims to the contrary.