surewould

The Airplane is Not Normal

2007-11-15T21:01:00.000-05:00

The discussion in my brain first started with Geez of course, but it goes something like this:

Me: "Wow, we really are dependent on fossil fuels, it's going to be a death trap for our society."

Other me: "I'd really like to travel to France next summer."

Reader: "Wha?"

The more I think about the more I realize that it's true, we are going to have to get used to the fact that we will not be able to take long haul flights for granted. Geez: "The airplane is not normal. So re-adjust your sense of normal. You'll be in good company." And by that they mean 80% of the world, which will never fly - not once in their entire lives. And it seems it's not only Geez talking about it.

Now people will say: "Oh, but tourist travel is only 5% of the world's carbon emissions." I don't care if it's 1% folks, its the luxury of luxuries to fly for pleasure, that's the point. It seems so very wasteful. So it's time to de-motorize your soul.

And I mean de-motorize it.

Now people will say: "Oh, why don't we just take boats instead?"

Guess what? Boats are just as inefficient for transporting people as airplanes. At least right now they are. Until someone comes up with some new hydroplaning trans-atlantic superboat, I guess we're just stuck vacationing within driving or biking distance.

Gass Guzzling... mmm. Gas.

2007-09-17T22:16:00.000-04:00

After reading a random quote in Geez magazine about how one intercontinental flight uses up all of one's carbon emission quota for a lifetime, I thought I'd look into comparing energy efficiency in transportation. A somewhat disorganized wikipedia article helped direct me by way of a link to a somewhat hard to read website. What I found was quite interesting. I'll highlight it for you:

First of all, read his little lecture at the top of the page. I for one, agree.

Secondly read this:
"Passenger-mpg will vary dramatically based on vehicle occupancy, as vehicle efficiency generally varies little with passenger load but passenger-mpg is directly proportional to passenger load"
...which is to say, the more passengers you have in your vehicle, the more efficient it will be.

Diesel buses are not much more efficient than a Toyota Prius. However, once you put urban service transport on rails (i.e. a trolley bus or streetcar or subway, each with regenerative braking), it's more than triple the efficiency.

Using average occupancy, an airplane is only about 10% less efficient than a Prius. However, if you loaded up your Prius with 5 people and drove across the country instead of all of you flying, you'd be 4 times more efficient than if you all flew.¹

Again, using average occupancy, a high speed electric train is almost 4 times the efficiency of the Prius. And if you loaded the Prius and drove long distance, you'd be about 70% the efficiency of the train.¹ Too bad we don't even have high speed electric trains on this continent.

Mopeds and motorcycles are not nearly as efficient as I thought that they were. Especially when you consider that they can only transport one person (maybe two).²

All this points to the fact that not only is mass transit way better than individual transportation (when it's done right), but that in order for it to be better, it has to be used. Which means we have to encourage people to use it. Higher gas prices maybe?

And then there's the ultimate, the Ghandi of all forms of transportation: the bicycle. You can't find a more efficient way to get around. I guess it's time to get me one of those.

¹In both of these cases, I'm comparing to the bus and plane as if they are still at average occupancy - basically I'm assuming that you can't personally affect the occupancy of mass transit.
²Except if you live in a country like the Dominican or Indonesia, where for some reason you are allowed (if not encouraged) to pile your entire family and livestock and household belongings on to your 50cc moped.

I wish every band was this cool

2007-07-16T13:19:00.000-04:00

The White Stripes. I don't own any of their albums, but I think I just might go out and buy them all after reading this article. Not only are they mysterious, and write and perform great music with only two instruments, but they care about their fans. So awesome.

Note: You may need a subscription to view the article. If this is the case, put "Jack and Meg go back to school" into Google and try clicking on the second link (or the "Cached" link) .

Hey, so it's been a while

2007-07-11T17:30:00.000-04:00

As demonstrated by the above figure, I haven't been keeping up with this whole blogging thing lately. Someone mentioned in a comment recently that my lack of posting has brought into question my intelligence. I'd like to think that the two are disconnected enough that I don't have to quit my job and start selling ice cream or something because my engineering skills have diminished so far that I can't even remember how to calculate headloss through a pipe just because I haven't posted crap on the internet in a few months.

In all seriousness (or at least in a little more seriousness), I'd like to also think that my presence in the blogosphere hasn't disintegrated. Those of you with blogs that I follow know that I'm a regular commenter, as much as I can at least. Hopefully some of my comments have been mildly intelligent.

So enough about proving my intelligence.

I've discovered recently that I'm a major procrastinator. Okay, okay, so I haven't discovered this really, I've known all along. But with schoolwork it was always different. If I left stuff until the last minute, I would just bear down and work for like 24 hours straight until it got done. But now I am actually at a desk in some semblance of regularity, which forces me into work mode 7.5 hours a day (at least). Which means that I'm forced into non-work mode the remaining hours of the day. This is great on one hand, because it means that I'm free to do what I want with that non-work time. But it also means that I actually have to work for the those 7.5 hours a day. It is actually really hard for me to do that. Especially when the work I'm doing is boring.

Which brings me to this whole topic of boring work, which I'd like to break down into two main questions:

1. Should I really expect my career to be "fulfilling" and "rewarding" (and therefore not "boring"), or is it just reality to say that "work is work" and I should just get on with making money?

2. How much of what I define as boring is really just my perception of the work?

My own random comments regarding these questions:

I'd like to think that all my education hasn't been for nothing. If work is just "work" than why didn't I stick to fixing vacuum cleaners or finish carpentry?

I am realizing that I may be among a generation of people that are stuck with this "burden" of living up to our parents' expectations that the world is at our fingertips and our potential to find satisfying careers is limited only by our imagination and dreams. Holy crap. That's some kind of life to live up to.

I do find myself in a place of lack of motivation sometimes (as in motivation to get up in the morning, motivation to actually work while I'm at work, etc). But I realize that in most cases it is a matter of motivating myself first, and then once I get going on a task, I find myself more apt to continue to be motivated. Hence the perception question - work may seem more boring from the outside, but if you are a self-motivated person, you won't find that work boring once you are doing it. Problem is, I'm not a self-motivated person.

Let me know what you think. If you're still out there...

Water Water Water

2007-02-02T16:43:00.000-05:00

From a weird incident in California, to the ranting of David Suzuki, the world is going crazy over water.

I had heard that you can die from a water overdose, but I wasn't sure that you could do it without some heightened level of perspiration. A few marathon runners get sick from diluting their bloodstream at almost every major marathon, which is why a lot of marathon organizers are promoting sport drinks now.

Bottled water: the bane of every municipal environmental engineer. Several of my colleagues refuse bottled water, especially when they go to municipal meetings. I agree; it seems hypocritical to be served bottled water while at a meeting in a water treatment plant. Suzuki is right, our water is cleaner and safer to drink than it ever has been, especially after disasters like Walkerton and Milwaukee. The MOE and the EPA in the US have way more stringent limits for the controlled chemicals and bacteria that come out of your tap than the bottled water companies have to follow. As stated in this wikipedia article, a lot of bottled water is in fact municipal (tap) water that may or may not be further purified (Dasani, Aquafini and others are examples of "purified" tap water).

I really like the initiative that some municipalities have taken in selling their own bottled water to raise awareness. The level of purification that happens at the municipal level, and the amazing quality of water that you get out of your tap virtually for free, is taken for granted by most North Americans. I can't find any articles to show you, but the Region of Halton has a portable water bottling machine that they take around to community events in the summer. They hook it up to a fire hydrant, and bottle and sell the water for cost. I think it's like 4 cents a bottle.

Now that's not to say that the water out of your tap will taste perfect. There will almost always be minerals and organics in your water, some of it picked up along the distribution system of pipes that lead to your tap. And then there's chlorine. Without it, we'd be living in constant fear of disease. But some people don't like the taste or odour of it. So get a Brita filter. The activated carbon in your Brita will remove 99% of the chlorine in your water. Just remember to clean you Brita jug every once in a while, or at least rinse it with chlorinated tap water. Because without the chlorine, you're no longer getting that protection from viruses and pathogenic bacteria - who knows what might be growing in there after a couple months.

I enjoy knowing at least a small amount about drinking water as a result of my career. I'm just scratching the surface. Who knows what I'll have to say about all this in 5 or 10 years?

Footprint, MAH, Gold

2006-11-09T15:34:00.000-05:00

"Ah ha!" you exclaim as you read the rest of this post. "Nathan has finally gone crazy."

After preaching at my church, I had a friend forward me an article in The Toronto Star about the WWF's recent report on the ecological state of the earth. Canada ranks 4th in the world in terms of average "ecological footprint"; that magic rating system used to describe the relative amount of resources one consumes.

I decided to take the test myself:

CATEGORY	GLOBAL HECTARES
FOOD	2.6
MOBILITY	0.9
SHELTER	0.4
GOODS/SERVICES	1
TOTAL FOOTPRINT	4.9

IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 8.8 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 2.7 PLANETS.

As you can see, I need some work, especially on my food consumption. Almost all of the food I eat is pre-packaged and shipped from somewhere far away. However, to quote Nicholas Klassen formerly of Adbusters Magazine "I'm downright Ghandian by North American consumption standards." I think half the trick is to not consume more as life goes on, and the salaries bloat. We could do more. Buy local produce. Buy fresh baked bread. The ironic thing is that a lot of things that are probably good for the global ecology actually cost more. So much for spending less. Any other suggestions?

--

Speaking of spending less, I'm loving the amazing things that people like Adbusters and Make AFFLUENCE History are doing. www.makeaffluencehistory.org seems to be broken lately, so I googled and found http://globalaware.net/affluence/, which seems to be the same people. At any rate this is cool, if not funny.

--

I recently left my toque in a hotel in Ingersoll, and so I had to call them and ask them to ship it to me. On the Purolator slip it says "Full name: Nathan Smergold". I always thought that Smergold was a more common name than Sherwood.

Preachy

2006-10-28T17:19:00.000-04:00

I don't want to be preachy. Ever. But I was asked a few weeks ago if I would like to speak in church. So last Sunday (the 22nd) I got up in front of my church in St. Catharines, and I spoke on something that's been on my mind for a few months. Okay, okay, maybe more like a year.

Anyways, some background info can be found in two of my previous posts: one in January, and one in June. The articles found linked in the post in January are basically the basis for the first half of the sermon. The second half comes from my readings in Geez magazine. And from interactions with certain people over the last year.

So if you've got 45 plus minutes to burn, and you don't mind listening to a bad recording of my voice (I think it's like 16 kbps), check it out.

Nathan, Oct. 22 2006.

Follow along in my notes, they may or may not help. You'll notice I did a bit of additional thinking aloud in the audio.

Here's the slides I showed to the church; again, may or may not be helpful. In the notes you'll find highlighted parts - this is to denote the location of a slide.

Enjoy. And post a comment if you have one. Let me know if I was preachy. (I was, I know it.....)

Mix it up

2006-09-04T23:43:00.000-04:00

Fresh off the wires of the internet (or tubes if you prefer), is the first remix of One to Think About. Actually, it's more of a redux. Here's a quote from Steffon:

This is basically how I would have imagined the song as a whole band, re-recorded in a studio. Still the original version, just scrubbed with soap and add the whole backing band.

And here's the mp3:

One to think about (Maximillian Augustus, 2006)

I think it's great. Steff really shows that he has studio experience with this one. I've always thought that I had a good ear for what sounds good in terms of musical quality. And so I imagined (and still wish sometimes) that maybe someday I could be a producer or something. But technical experience and skills I lack. Steff, you've got both. Plus you know what sounds good. It's like you read my mind. Love it.

One point of contention. I think you set the guitar solo off by about half a measure (forward). Check it again I guess. I'm pretty sure if you strip it down to just the two guitar tracks you'll hear that Kale finishes the solo on a D, which coincides (in tempo) with the first chord of the "chorus."

Funny thing is that I did this exact same thing at first when I mixed it. It actually sounds really cool, and when you switch it back, it almost sounds plain. I'd leave it if I were you.

Looks like Peit is up next, with something crazy. Steff is also working on a remix-type remix - possibly Kaleb as well??? I'll get around to one eventually... the creative juices are flowing in other musical directions right now.

Googling Essays

2006-08-21T16:29:00.000-04:00

So I got a stat counter a few weeks ago - you can see the running total in the sidebar. It lets you check out cool graphs and running totals for a range of different visitor types. But the most interesting thing for me is finding out where people come from, and the paths they use to get to my site.

The best so far was someone trying to get a theme for an essay on The Broker by John Grisham. They googled "the broker" + grisham + theme + essay, then somehow decided to scroll through 70 or 80 sites before picking mine. The funny thing is, when I checked the link, I found that my site had jumped to 20th on the list. Now its back down to 71st. Weird.

Is being alone better without you?

2006-07-31T19:19:00.000-04:00

So I've been away from the blog for a while - I can make excuses if you like. But there is a reason. I've been spending my spare time with my face in my computer screen, making music. And now that I've found out that google gives me 100 megs of free web storage, I've decided to post some of the stuff I've been working on.

First out of the cutting room is a recording done on the old pentium 2 at my parent's house back in 1998 or 1999, I believe. Kaleb and I were up late one night loafing around, and we decided to write a song. I believe he had just bought a brand new microphone from Thorold Music, and we wanted to test it out. We fired up good old Windows 98 - I had this software called Musicator that my Uncle John had given to me. Musicator is an ancient program, I believe meant for midi creations, but it also could perform crude multi-track recording (crashing intermittently due to memory overloads). Recording was a sketchy procedure. When laying one track over another, the speakers would play the previously recorded tracks, but it was really quiet and fuzzy. Not only that, but when we listened to and mixed the tracks, all we had were these old crappy computer speakers.

I recall that this song writing experience was similar to most: Start with some chord progression - okay that's the verse. Now, how about a bridge, let's try this. Good, it works. Lyrics? Sure, lets write about past bad experiences with girls... doesn't everyone do that? Okay, now we need another chord progression... let's call it a chorus.

So we laid down the tracks, and decided that we needed piano during the bridge, so I (literally) banged out some chords. Backup vocals and guitar solos were added, (including some weird crazy one at the end.) And that was it. Done. All in a couple hours. Turned out pretty good, basically because of the decent mic.

Kale and I tried recreating that creative moment one other time that I can remember, like a year later, but it never worked out. It never works out.

Anyways, last year I decided that I'd better rescue the original wav files from our old beast of a computer. I transferred them onto my machine, and remix mania begun. So here it is.

One to Think About (Ragabrash, 1998)

Let me know what you think. I use Cool Edit Pro, and some Creative built-in software to convert wav to mp3. I added some effects to my vocals (to try and disguise the flatness), not much to anything else though, a bit of reverb and EQing and some panning. It's just a first shot, mostly just me screwing around - not meant to be perfect. Perfection is elusive, and I can work for hours and hours to get that last 10%. Instead, I'll give you what I got, and I can always go back later if it needs work.

More to come from the Surewould studio.

Job Title

2006-07-04T12:57:00.000-04:00

Question for all you readers of my blog: What should my official job title be?

Okay, so I'm trying to order business cards, and Tina tells me that I have to have a title. I'd rather not, since I don't really specialize in anything yet, and I bet that in 2 or 3 years, I'll be doing something completely different than I am now. But they insist.

I'll give you a little job description: I work for a engineering consulting company, in the Environmental Infrastructure division. Projects I'm working on right now have to do with irrigation, drinking water disinfection, and pipeline replacement.

I can't use the word "engineer" yet for legal reasons, however "Engineer in Training" is an option (however redundant if I include EIT after my name...) The other thing is that I don't want to use the words "environmental" or "infrastructure" since that would be redundant as well. Oh, and I have a degree in civil engineering, with a Water Resources option.

Currently my business card looks like this:

Nathan Sherwood, B.A.Sc, EIT
insert title here
Environmental Infrastructure

Stantec Consulting
address
phone numbers
email address
website

Let me know what you come up with. The best I've done is Water Resources Specialist.

Update: I tried posting the title table that we use here at Stantec but I don't know if you'll be able to download it off my yahoo account.

Update: I got a freewebs.com account, so now I fixed the above link to go to the right place.

Scameras

2006-06-29T16:01:00.000-04:00

I sent a letter to the editor of Car and Driver regarding this article. Read the letter below.

Bedard,

I agree, wholeheartedly. The last thing our roads need is a bigger moneymaking scam. I suppose that if the money was going straight to the government, then it might make sense to do it. But the fact that some greedy corporation is raking the benefits of our own stupidity, using our police forces like a whore, makes it all the more worse. And it doesn't decrease injuries to the public, as shown in Winnipeg. The cameras actually made things worse than what they were.

The thing is, you'll never sell that idea to the public. The greedy corporations are right - North Americans are going to buy into this like crazy. Basically because it makes perfect logical sense. When you add more automatic traffic fines, collisions will decrease . Why wouldn't they?

All we need to do is convince the public of a reason why Winnipeg failed. Then we can try telling them that when you add more automatic traffic fines, collisions will increase. Huh? What?! Why? The problem is that the reason is probably more complicated than the average person is willing to try to comprehend. What? People actually get in more accidents trying to avoid fines than if they just drove around normally? It's a battle we're not likely to win.

Nathan Sherwood
Kitchener, Ontario

The $10,000 Question

2006-06-20T14:42:00.000-04:00

A randomish gift from my mother-in-law came sometime in April. It's a magazine called Geez. There is an apprehensive excitement that I experience when someone gives me something to read, be it a book, an article or in this case a subscription. If it's from my Grandma Sherwood, I know it will be a good read, she has an eye for my taste. If it's from anyone else, I'm not so sure. Hit and miss.

Boy oh boy was this a hit.

I'll leave it up to you to check out the website and find out what Geez is all about. For now, I'd like to respond to a few things I read in the magazine that affected me greatly.

Geez sets up their issues with a particular theme, this one being asceticism. More with less (or less with less, as they aptly put it). After reading through several articles on the subject, this one hit the nail on the head for me. I really like how the guy just puts it straight. Plus I've always been a fan of the whole balance idea ("its all about balance..."), and after reading all the radical ideals set out in the rest of the issue, I find his view refreshing. The style is cool too. It conforms well to what editor Will Braun says about the writing in the mag: "It's like sitting around and talking about faith," he says, "but you're doing it on Saturday night, over drinks. Not on Sunday morning. You're having a good time talking about meaningful and deeply important matters with some chuckles in between."

Speaking of Will Braun, he writes a really challenging essay smack dab in the middle of the issue. He discusses in four parts the cultural shift of doing with less (read part four here). But he doesn't stop at presenting challenges without solutions, like a lot of contemporary liberal writing (and much of the rest of Geez, and Harpers for that matter). He doesn't even stop after giving us a solution. He goes all the way, and sticks his neck out.

The fifth part of his essay discusses his personal goal: to be among the 5 billion poorest people on earth. I'd like to know what his reference is for this, but he says that in order to drop from the 1 billion richest down to the join the 5 billion rest, your yearly income has to be around $10,000 (Canadian, I'm guessing). His reasoning? The 1 billion richest people apparently amass at least 60% of the world's income. So in order to join the majority (and leave the minority of richness behind) he has decided to cut his income down, try to reach $10,000, and hopefully go even beyond that.

(Note: I found this website which calculates your ranking based on 2003 World Bank numbers. However, trial and error for the 1 billionth richest spot required an income of $2306. So I don't know where Will Braun got his info, but whatever.)

Other things jumped out at me while I paged through the articles, like makeaffluencehistory.org and articles about getting rid of your car, and several anti air travel advocates. The ascetic argument cannot refer to cash alone, eco-friendliness is of course a concern. But for me, it's not so clear cut. The environment comes second in this whole "less with less" thing for me. I guess I'm partially humanist in my thinking, plus I tend to be a little skeptical of extreme environmentalist claims. Being an engineer doesn't help.... we think we can fix (and in my case, treat) any environmental problem with enough ingenuity and money.

Basically, this issue of the magazine has had a profound impact on how I think about money and how to go about the rest of my life as an affluent person. I've always been resistant to the social pressure - now that I have a job, it's time to buy a house, fill it with kids, and get a better car... and a second car.... and a big screen TV.... and a cottage on a lake in the Muskokas. So I've decided to see what I can do about cutting into my income. This is a long term project, my friends. It doesn't mean going out and getting a job that pays less... that would be silly. Being an engineer myself, and Rose heading into teaching, our gross income will get pretty ridiculous pretty fast. If we could bring our spending as low as say $20,000 a year, that's a fair chunk of extra money. So where does all that cash go? It starts with paying down the debt we owe, but my hope is that it continues throughout our lives. How little can we live with? Do we need to buy a house? If we do, hopefully the mortgage will be less than what we pay in rent right now (is that even possible??). It means my dream of owning an Acura TSX might have to be downgraded to dreaming of owning a Honda Fit (still dreaming, probably). It means that once the debt paying is done, the excess monies will have to go somewhere. How about here? Or here? Or here? Should be fun.

I feel that it's the big things we North Americans like to spend our money on that set us apart from the rest of the world. Those are the things I'd like to tackle. So next time you catch me buying a case of beer, don't bug me about how that 35 bucks could feed someone for a month. How about the $300, 000 average price for a home in Canada? That's a lot of months.

Picasa on the Web. Cool.

2006-06-14T10:34:00.000-04:00

For you Picasa users, here's something new and cool. I signed up already. Hopefully it won't take long for it to be released for public use. And for it to be integrated with Blogger.

Dominican Dream

2006-05-16T21:05:00.000-04:00

Flying on the jubilation of two freshly finished degrees (and possibly an airplane as well), Rose and I headed to the Dominican Republic for a 12 day endeavor into the hotness of beachy sand, sun, cigars and rum.

"12 days?" you say. "Isn't that an awful long time to lay around and do nothing?"

This was my only concern as I settled into a lounge chair on the beach, a Grisham novel in hand. Will I get sick of this? Will we get sick of each other? Will we get sick of the food, or even worse, sick from it?

Well, maybe one or two of those things happened, but that didn't keep us from having the most relaxing time of our lives. We chose to do the all-inclusive thing because we wanted to avoid the sort of vacation where you come home and you need a vacation from your vacation. And we went for the 12 day option because once you pay for a week, the second is like half price.

Glorious beachy hotness

So first I read The Broker, by John Grisham - pure entertainment. Then I dove into The Da Vinci Code, just because the whole world has been talking about for the last three years, and I wanted to see what all the kerfuffle was about. I also read most of 3 issues of Car and Driver, 4 issues of Harper's Magazine, and about 4 or 5 of a collection of Vinyl Cafe stories. Oh, and a short book called Letters from the Wingfield Farm. Hilarious. Same sort of humour as Vinyl Cafe.

Rose read Blink, and The Red Tent and Friend of My Youth (Alice Munro).

Our favourite reading spot

Oh, somewhere in between all that reading, we also went scuba diving. First we had a free 1 hour lesson in the pool. Then we headed on a bus over to the small town of Sosua, donned wetsuits, got all our gear, and headed with our trusty guide in a small boat out to the spot they called "Three Rocks." Don't ask me why they called it this, because there were 5 large rocks jutting out of the sand, about 4 to 10 meters deep, each with its array of coral and fish for our viewing pleasure.

So down we went with our tanks, regulators and masks and our instructions to depressurize your ears, and breathe full and regular breaths. We brought bananas tucked into our wetsuits, and our guide brought us to a spot where we could feed the fish. It was just like feeding ducks or pigeons in the park, and soon the fish swarm you like I've seen piranhas do on National Geographic. Even though I knew they couldn't hear me, I started yelling at them to give me some space. It seemed to work, until I brought the banana out again, and soon I could see nothing but a blur of fish surrounding me. So I gave up the banana and moved on to more amazing discoveries.

We saw one of those bottom feeding fish that swims on its side, and blends in with the sand. We saw this cool coral thingy that would hide when you made a noise like snapping your fingers. We saw sea urchins, and fish of all kinds. After 45 minutes of swimming around sort of weightless, it was time to head back up to the surface. Best 65 bucks I ever spent.

Us and our trusty guide

A really old castle we went to as part of the city tour

Some crazy bug

So that was the vacation. We layered on the sunscreen pretty thick, so our tans aren't as dark as you might think. No tan is worth the skin cancer, I say.

Don't even bother reading this

2006-04-06T12:23:00.000-04:00

This is how I feel about blogging right now. I think I'll go play my guitar for a while instead.

Or study.

Oh the lack of motivation. Weather is not helping right now.

Why did I post a link to that page? The irony piled upon irony is killing me.

Ah well.

The Post About Nothing

2006-02-28T11:35:00.000-05:00

So, under insurmountable pressure from the widespread blog community to "freakin post something already, we are sick of the stupid sink," I will succumb, and here goes.

So last week I got my Iron Ring. Wikipedia has informed me that the rumour I've been spreading that the rings were originally made from a collapsed bridge, is not true. Ah well, I will continue to spread it anyways.

So last week was also reading week. Or reading "two days" as us poor engineers have been forced to call it. Rose and I spent the week laying around doing nothing. It was great. Nothing included watching Olympics all day, and Seinfeld all night. The hockey team aside, it was very exciting to watch.

Speaking of the hockey team, well... everyone has their own opinion. Who shall we blame.... hmm let's see. Most people blame Gretzky, which apparently he is willing to take. The players however, blame themselves. Could blame the refereeing. Personally, I'd like to blame the system. We've all placed too much stock in this tournament. How can you expect the best team to prevail in a tournament of single game decisions? I mean, sure the World Cup of Soccer is a tournament of single game matchups, but then soccer is weird that way. And NFL and CFL, well they don't count. I mean, you only have a 16 game season anyways. But every other major sport (in North America) has some sort of "best of" series. So what am I saying here.... basically that I don't think the Olympic tournament is set up to properly assess the best team.

However, if Canada were have happened to win this time around.... we'd of course be the best. So in effect, I haven't really said anything.

There are so many other reasons that we lost that don't include bashing Gretzky, or Hockey Canada, or Todd Bertuzzi. If you care to add your opinion, feel free.

So back to nothing. Yeah, it was pretty nice to do nothing. I realized I have a complex, though. I did about 9.5 hours of work last week for Stantec, but I probably worried and thought about it for 37 hours. (Note-to-self: never be self-employed). I definitely didn't enjoy my "holy days" as much as I should've. Which makes me look forward to April, when Rose and I are going somewhere hot and beachy for 2 weeks when our last exams of our undergrad lives are done. Because then I will truly have nothing to do.

My Head Meets Mark's Bathroom Sink

2006-01-11T00:18:00.000-05:00

So a bunch of us went to Mark's house on Friday to watch a movie, and at some opportune moment (read: mushy scene) I got up to go to the bathroom. So I'm standing in front of the toilet (no, I was not peeing yet), and all of the sudden I feel a little dizzy. So naturally I reach my hand out to steady myself, but even before I reach anything, I black out. Next thing I know I'm on the floor waking up from what I thought was a dream, but I'm quickly realizing is not, due to the fact that I'm lying on the floor in the bathroom with my ears ringing, and the sound of people trying to get in is slowly replacing the ringing. To compound my confusion and bewilderment, I look up at the bathroom sink above my head and notice that half of it is missing - shattered in a few thousand pieces around me. Rose is finally able to enter the bathroom with me as I groggily move from blocking the door, and she notes that I am bleeding... however not too badly, from the back of my head. Turns out I fainted, fell straight backwards and bashed my head through -- not on, but straight through as if it was made of cheap plastic and not ceramic -- the bathroom sink.

Smashy Smashy!

According to the account of people in the next room, it sounded as though someone had picked up the toilet and smashed it onto the floor. Rose and Mark both got up and tried knocking on the door, with no response from the unconscious me. So Mark quickly bent a coat hanger to use to unlock the door, and by this time I was just coming to. Needless to say, I did not return to feeling very good right away, and I told Rose that they better call the paramedic, in case I black out again. Karl came in and prayed for me which seemed to help my stress level and nausea immediately. I lay back down as instructed by the 911 dispatch lady, until the paramedics arrived. They put a neck brace on me and helped me out to the stretcher, and I lay down on a spineboard. Strapped in, they brought me to the hospital.

I needed two stitches, and a tetanus shot. That's it. They took blood, did an electrocardiogram, and found nothing out of the ordinary. My blood pressure was fine all the way through. The doctor said he could not give me a diagnosis. I wasn't dehydrated, overheated, or malnourished in any way. Weird. I guess when you take a look at the sink, though, I'm glad to be alive. Which is more than I can say for the sink.

Mark with the artful photography, a la cellphone

Self-Obsessed Culture Finding its Way Into Christianity

2006-01-10T19:21:00.000-05:00

My Grandma has a subscription to Harper's Magazine, and I get her issues when she is done with them. Harper's is in my opinion a relatively liberal publication, but you can read what wikipedia has to say about them. They do not shy away from tackling big issues like abortion and cloning, and their writing is both scientific and pleasing to read (from an literary point of view).

I've been especially interested lately in the articles that have focused on Christianity in terms of US culture. Two articles I read in the summer dealt respectively with the Megachurch mentality in the states, and the issues that arise with dominionist Christians. These are very interesting articles, scary in some ways, but mostly striking because they are written by non-Christians. I must warn you that the articles are long, but worth it.

Soldiers of Christ I (Megachurches)

Soldiers of Christ II (Dominionists)

What I really want to talk about here is an article I read this week (published in September) about the self-professed American Christian nation, and it's apparent lack of understanding of real Christ-like values. The article is titled The Christian Paradox. America is daily moving towards being a more Christian state, in case you didn't know, and the article tries to show how the American mentality is one of self-obsession, and not one of self-giving, like Christ. I tend to agree that this is true not only of Americans, but of the North American church in general. How many sermons and Christian literature is there out there that has to do with self-help, self-improvement, and ultimately self-obsession?

There is of course some merit to self inquisition. Much of the letters of Paul are regarding self-improvement. And it is also true that there is a certain amount of selfishness that is inevitable in life. But don't you think we are missing something here? Isn't it time we moved from looking inward to looking outward? Where are the Poor? Where are the Sick? Where are the Imprisoned?

My church in St. Catharines has spent the last year plus on self, as a church. We are now branching out (timidly, I imagine at first) into a brave new venture outside ourselves. That's all we really know right now. Our city, our country, the world.... who knows. I'm excited to see where this goes, and where it will take me as an individual as well.

My hope is that as a church, as a kingdom of believers, we can be more counter-culture than we have been lately. Eliminating self-obsession is one way to show we can be different.

Spam cake?

2005-12-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

If you are a gmail user, read on:

Gmail has hit my funny bone yet again, this time with their new customizable web clips. If you have a gmail account, turn on your web clips (if you don't know how, click here) and go to your spam box. Check out what clips the gmail team has supplied for you. Hilarious.

More not so random posting coming soon...

Fun with Jello

2005-11-29T17:55:00.000-05:00

My informant at Grebel supplied me with these pictures of some hooligans performing a prank on the patio. Seems they were a little hungry, and needed a place to put their massive amount of Jello (sources say as much as 60 L).

Three Drunken Idiots

Drunk on Jello that is. Can you guess who??

My sources also tell me there were many other adventures to be had that night, such as driving through a massive snow storm to London to play poker with Art, only to have him take all our money, and then drive home through the aformentioned storm, with visibility down to inches at times, and road closures galore, some of which were driven on with more success than the open roads, and after a 1 hour trip turned into more like 4, the end result was of course the Jello Explosion of 2005.....

Fox News

2005-11-01T11:30:00.000-05:00

I don't know if any of you ever watch Fox News... we tend not to get much of it here in Canada. But this is still funny. Check it out. It's a site of photoshopped TV stills made to look like Fox was there during major historical events, warping the "news" to make it seem like Jesus died by accident, King was a terrorist, and the Spanish Inquisition was a surprise (a la Monty Python).

Satire that isn't far from the truth in America today.

Stuff and things

2005-10-25T19:52:00.000-04:00

Boy was I bored at work today. Too much time spent trying to figure out VB macros in Excel. Better get used to it I guess. However, it is a good thing I never went into programming.

One fruition of my boredom was this quote I found while trying to mix up the day a little:

Vere C. Chappell has suggested that the chief property which sets stuff apart from things is that a parcel of stuff can be combined with other parcels of the same kind so as to form one single parcel of that kind (Chappell 1970:71). A parcel of gold can be fused with other parcels of gold to form a single parcel of gold, but there is no way of putting a cat together with other cats to form a single cat.

- Thought, Language, and Ontology: Essays in Memory of Hector-Neri Castaneda
by William J Rapaport, Francesco Orilia, Hector-Neri C Neda

Therefore a cat is a thing whereas gold is stuff. I could spend an eternity searching the internet for and reading random crap. Too bad real life beckons at my door.

Once I went to a U2 concert

2005-10-21T16:16:00.000-04:00

And it was great. Unfortunately, as you may have already guessed, I have not the time or energy lately to write anything.

So I'm copping out and letting you all check out what Meg had to say about the concert.

I could've been a...

2005-10-06T20:13:00.000-04:00

Inspired by a question posted by my sister Maria, I decided to write a about a few thoughts I was having the other day on the subject.

Imagine you are an amazingly talented hockey player, but you don't know it. You've never touched a hockey stick in your life, so you've never had the chance to use your amazing skills. Now this may seem a little unbelievable, like probably if you were innately good at hockey, you'd be good at other sports, and you'd have picked up a stick at some point, and figured it out.

Let's take this one step further. (Or closer.) I have a cousin (Michelle) who is an Educational Assistant (EA). I had never heard of this job before in my life, and I was surprised to learn how she ended up in the field. Her mom was telling me that she was born for the job... even as a child in Grade 1 or 2 she would always be helping the more challenged kids and was very successful in filling the role of teacher translator. Often times teachers are disinterested or too overloaded to help difficult kids, and they need a buffer (like an EA) to get the message across to kids with learning disabilities. Apparently Michelle is absolutely amazing at this.

It got me thinking... It seems to me that it you could so easily go through life and never discover your full potential in a certain area. Like Michelle - I mean she might know that she is good with troubled kids, and she might even know that there is an obscure possibility of a job in that field, but to actually land herself in it, well it seems like an unlikely story. So she got lucky, right? Hmm, luck is a funny word...

I could've been a graphic artist instead of an engineer. If you don't know me well, you're probably laughing. I have some mediocre skills as an artist, but I never pursued them beyond high school. Seems I was better at physics (or so I thought). I still think I made the right choice, but who's to know for sure? I've never explored any other options, at least not thoroughly, and who knows... there could be a career out there waiting for me to find out that my aptitude lies perfectly with it, and I could be happy and successful and reach my full potential as a cow herder or a bush pilot, or a chicken sexer. I could be the best damn chicken sexer ever, and not even know it.

This is all BS, you know. I'm just trying to put things in perspective. You can't go through life just thinking about all the missed opportunities, or "could haves" or "should haves." You have to just live, and strive to do what you can in the place life has you right now.

However, to answer your actual question Maria, there are hindrances that keep us from excelling. Complacency, Fear, Anxiety, Apprehension, Self Doubt... As Rage Against the Machine put it in the best song they ever wrote, Know Your Enemy, "Compromise, Conformity, Assimilation, Submission, Ignorance, Hypocrisy, Brutality, The Elite..."
These are the things that keep ourselves locked up. We can't even begin to reach our potential unless we break free from these.

And where does God fit into all of this, you may be wondering? I think Maria put it best when she said that He's with us every step, from our brightest to our darkest. The important thing is to keep close to Him, and He will give you that wisdom and strength to make your way through the life of successes and failures you're bound to lead.

Distraught and out of money, or just homeless?

2005-09-15T21:33:00.000-04:00

An interesting thing happened to me yesterday which I felt immediately the need to write down, but had no time last night. I hope it is still fresh in my mind.

Walking out the doors of my office, I happened upon a man standing by the elevators in the parking garage.

"Hey, Boss," he said.

"Hello," I replied, hesitantly. I'm not an observant person, at least not visually, but I noticed two things at first. One, he looked quite tired, maybe a little dirty - and secondly he was very tall, maybe 6 foot 4.

"Are you from this city?"

"Yeah, sort of."

"I need some help. I'm not a bum, I can tell you that right now. Did you hear about that hit and run that happened 2 days ago?" He didn't let me answer, he just kept on talking. Really fast, almost like he couldn't stop to take a breath, or he might collapse on the spot. "Well, that was my son, and I'm from Kincardine, and so I came down to the hospital, and I haven't slept in about 2 days now, I just came from the hospital, and now I need to get back to my car, but as you can see--" he holds up a cell phone "--the batteries are in my phone are dead, and I've got 9 dollars to my name, like a five dollar bill--" he deftly pulls a folded up bill from his jacket pocket "--and two toonies, that's it, and I've been to every major establishment in this city and no one will listen to me, and I need some money for gas, that's all."

A million thoughts were pouring through my head at this point, and it didn't help that he was talking so fast. Wow, that really sucks about his son. Yeah he does have a phone, and what bum has a cell phone? Looks like he hasn't slept in a lifetime actually, just look at those sunken eyes, and pale skin. Talks so fast, too. Do I even have any cash on me?

"Um I dunno man, I don't even have my wallet with me today," I manage, which was true, I had left it at home.

"Uh, okay."

Silence. This moment lasted for a long time. I looked at the ground intensely, and the severity of the moment hit me. I can't really explain it - I guess I was in disbelief about the whole scene, like is this really happening?

"Well good luck to you," I say with the best sincerity I can muster. As I walk away I look back at the man who has hit me hard with pain and wonderment and confusion.

As I walked the rest of the way home several thoughts came to mind. Was he telling the truth? This is a possibility, however unlikely you may think, it's still possible. I'm sure homeless people come up with all sorts of stories about their lives for whatever end, be it money, or attention, or just plain too many drugs. So he could've made it up.

Why have I been trained to think of bums as things to be ignored? I was always told as a kid not to give money to homeless... my parents reasoning being that they just use it for drugs or alcohol or whatever their addiction may be. When traveling in Toronto or New York, Dad always said try not to make eye contact with "strange" people, they may take offense to it. It's true, I've been yelled at and threatened by weirdos on the streets of both those cities from time to time, even by people I haven't made eye contact with. Which reminds me of the "How's it going, you f***ing jerk?" story... I may tell that one later... and that was in front of my house here in Kitchener. Talk about weird... and scary. I think that's part of it. I'm scared for my own well being. It's human instinct to be afraid of something we don't know. And for good reason. Some weirdos are dangerous, and will take advantage of unwary prey. I think that's the reason behind the warnings I received as a child. Protective parents. It's only natural.

However I've been conditioned, now is the time to break away. I feel the need to become something else - something other than just scared and bewildered. If I went back to the guy outside my office now, what would I say? Would I be courageous and ask him to tell me where he got that cell phone? To show me his car? Could I maybe tell him the police station is just down the street, maybe they could help him with his son? Or would I be more compassionate, and get him to tell me more of his story? Maybe give him some of my time, since I don't have any money. Maybe give him some humanity, since he seems like he needs it.

Maybe I will, maybe I won't. God give me strength and a quick mind to listen to my heart. It's not easy.

Three Long Stories

2005-09-08T23:47:00.000-04:00

So we've been telling stories non-stop since we got back from Algonquin, it seems, and so I've decided to post a few of the stories here, so that people who aren't around to hear them can read them here instead. And so that instead of telling the stories again, I can just hand out my blog address to everyone that I will see this weekend.

First story: The flock of loons.

We canoed to our first campsite on Monday and were just setting up for supper when this pack of baby loons comes around the corner of the island we were on. Initial reactions from the two of us include things like "Oh how cute" and "What a big pack of loons" and "What a funny noise they're making."The pack of loons. I count 27 at least.

And while we're contemplating that funny noise, one of the loons notices us and decides that we are enough of a threat that it's going to dive. So under it goes. Of course one of it's buddies sees it go under, and in surprise, it realizes the danger that must be present, and follows. One by one, in succession, all 25 baby loons dive under the water like nothing I have seen before. Soon the water is calm again, and Rose and I hold our breath in anticipation of what comes next. Surely enough, one lonely little loon pops its buoyant body to the surface. A split second later, up comes another, right next to it. Then another. Soon there is a sound of rushing water as little baby loons are popping up faster than you could count. It's like popcorn popping. We watched this proceed several more times in front of our astounded eyes, as the loons made their way around our island, their ever-watchful parents in the distance.

Second story: The Moose

So, early on our second morning I awake to the sound of Rose whispering: "Nath, do you hear that noise?" I half sit up, shake the cobwebs out of my brain, and listen to what is unmistakably the sound of loud stamping feet, heavy breathing, and loud ripping. "It's a bear," I breathe. I thought it was a bear, because the noise seemed to be coming from where we hung our food pack in a tree. (At this point I'm picturing the bear trying to climb the tree and rip the pack down.) I hear it moving soon, and I'm relieved to notice that it's moving away from the pack, only to have my heart jump into my throat as I realize it's moving towards our tent. Too scared to think, I freeze. All our windows are closed, and neither of us are brave enough to dare open any of them to look. I can hear it chewing now, it's so close to the tent. I turn to look at Rose, but she has buried her face in her sleeping bag in fear. In my frozen state, logic breaks through: "The food pack is in the tree. There isn't any food in the tent. It won't find anything on our site, so it will just go away." This logic is beneficial for me at this point, since it allows me to stay frozen. Fortunately for us, it decides that we don't smell very good and starts trudging off into the dense underbrush on the other side of our tent. I can still hear it thrashing around in the forest, so I decide to try opening the window on that side of the tent. Instead of bravely doing this, I look over to Rose and tell her to look through the "pet" door of our tent, which was open, and happened to face the right direction. She somehow gains the courage to slide her face over to the opening, and being encouraged by this, I slowly unzip the window.

My first impression of the animal is its enormous size. "It's huge..." is all I can get out. It thrashes about some more, and turns its head towards us. My brain does a flip. Rose's apparently flips at the same time, for when she says, "It's not a bear..." I finish her sentence with: "... it's a moose." We both gain about 1000 levels of courage at this point, but then I exclaim, "There are two of them." We remain wary, since if the second is a calf, we could easily put ourselves in some danger. The second moose comes into view, and is smaller than the first, but is no calf by any standard. We watch for a while, and soon they thrash off into the forest, foraging in new domains.

While we can't see them anymore, we can still hear them a long way off. We lie there for a while, listening, and after a bit I get up to go pee. I see one of the moose standing in 2 feet of water, drinking and eating seaweed... he's about 20 yards from where I'm standing. I beckon for Rose and the camera, and we marvel for a bit, and I take a few shots... none of them good. I try to get closer, but the beast notices me and (reluctantly it seems) trudges off into the woods again, calling for it's friend as it goes. Another weird noise.

My terrible shot of the moose. Reminds me of some Bigfoot shots I've seen.

Story number three:

We were standing on the edge of a long sloping rock that went into the water at our campsite, eating granola bars and taking in the scenery. One of us noticed a school of about 50 trout minnow swimming back and forth at the water's edge. I threw in a piece of granola, just to see if they would eat it. To both our surprise, the fish went into a mad frenzy the instant the food hit the water. They were practically climbing over eachother to try and reach the spot where the food hit.

As the curiousness of this whole event was sinking in, new ideas were forming. "I wonder if they'll like my finger," I said to Rose, and promptly found out. Boy did they ever like it. It was like a bunch of sucking carp at the Mandarin, only smaller. Vicious, though. They sucked and sucked and came back for more sucking.

Later we found out the benefit of the sucking fish, when I went down to clean dishes in the water. The school was still there, and when I put a bowl with caked-on remains of oatmeal into the water, they instantly swarmed, and the bowl was clean within a minute. The fish stayed at our site as for the two days that we were there, and each time we went down to clean dishes, there were the fish, ready to help. We took to calling it the Fish Washing Machine.

Fish Washing Machine, sucking on my hand.
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September means change

2005-09-05T22:14:00.000-04:00

A quick post to ensure that you all know I haven't just given up on the whole blogging thing:

Here's what we've been up to for the last month:

Finished exams on the 12th.

Started working at Camp Cuckoo on the 14th, finished on the 19th and went straight to Vineland to stay at my Aunt Judi and Uncle Phil's for a week. Rose planned like crazy this whole week as part of her role in Kaley and Aaron's wedding on the 27th. "Matron of Honour" we called her, to her dismay.

Backwards day at camp

August 29th to September 1st we were in Algonquin park on an amazing self-planned canoe trip. An anniversary present to us from ourselves. (By the way Maria, it has been two years since we were married, not one. Time flies faster than you think.)

Us after a 2.4 km portage

Labour Day weekend found us camping at the Point yet again... a family reunion of sorts.

Sue and Karl hamming it up at the Point

Back to work at Stantec tomorrow... Rose starts school next week. September changes for the last time, maybe...

More to come.

Thrown into the Final Exam lottery

2005-08-10T12:22:00.000-04:00

A bunch of my books for this term.

Something I've wanted to get off my chest for a while: exam writing is a crapshoot.

I think our education system is flawed. For most people I'm sure that exam marks are mostly proportional to amount of studying (or knowledge of the subject). Exams are supposed to test your knowledge of the course material. Well guess what, since exams are timed, they also test your ability to perform. So your mark is now based on knowledge (a fixed value) plus performance (a variable). I have found that my performance varies greatly from day to day. Even while writing, my performance level can decrease significantly, say if I get stressed or frustrated, I'll work slower, or waste time. But sometimes, if I'm having a good exam writing day, I can be as frustrated or stressed as I'll ever be, and I'll still write a good exam. Then other factors get involved, like tiredness, alertness, ADD, dyslexia...

Like I said, a crapshoot. A lottery, a gamble, luck of the draw, a fluke.

So what to do? Well I don't think that because something is flawed that it should be dismantled or drastically changed. For me it's more about understanding that it's about performance. So I'll still pass, because I'm smart enough. I'm smart enough to be middle of the pack in my class. So the system works, the way it was designed. School is about taking a group of people, and making sure that they all learn relatively the same amount (i.e. make sure the class average is between 68-72%). At least that's how it works in Engineering at UW. So the hope for me, and I've already realized this, is that the working world measures my engineering ability based on something more than just my marks.

I am Arthur Dent

2005-08-03T13:21:00.000-04:00

Time for my weekly post. Once it happens three weeks in a row, it must be habitual. Really, it's just completely random.

I just finished the third book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy." Absolutely astounding and concisely hilarious. Right along the veins of Monty Python, with a sci-fi stabbing twist. I find it extra funny if you're sort of into physics like me. However, Rose has read it as well, and she agrees that it is quite good - she laughs harder than me while reading. So there ya go, a philosopher can like it too.

Ever read a book and realize that you identify with one of the characters so well, it's scary? I mean that's what makes a good typical story, one where the reader can relate to the protaganist in one way or another. I realized when I finished the third book, that I am Arthur Dent. I mean if I were put in the same situations he was, I would respond in rather the same way. I would fumble over my words, my friends wouldn't listen to what I had to say, and generally I would be quite overwhelmed by it all.

Example: I went up to the lake on the weekend (aka "The Point") with a bunch of my friends. We had mostly good weather, except on Monday when it was thunderstorming on and off all day. So between thunderstorms, we decided it would be a good idea for all eight of us to take out our pontoon boat out onto the lake. Good idea, normally, but unfortunately we only have one outboard motor up at The Point, and my brother and his girlfriend had already taken it out in another boat we have up there. So being stubborn, my friend Rob and I decided to push the pontoon boat out onto the lake "Huck Finn" style - using wooden poles.

Me and Rob "Huck Finning" it up. And the best shot I have of the boat.

So we make it out onto the lake alright, it's pretty shallow for pretty far out. We toss the anchor out once it gets too deep for us to reach bottom anymore, and the eight of us sit and play cards and just generally hang out. The wind picks up, and while we're ignoring it, starts blowing us parallel to the shore. The anchor tends to be useless in this lake once the wind blows more than a breeze. So we're drifting at a pretty good pace... away from shore. At some point thunder starts sounding in the distance again, and we all look up to see these black, almost purple clouds rolling in. Rachel mentions that maybe we should start heading in, to which I reply: "Maybe it'll just blow over." She persists, and I reveal my real concern which is: "Well we can't make it back anyways, it's too deep to reach bottom." Might as well just accept the impending doom. Rob and Luke start trying to push us, which is fruitless, but they believe they can do something about the situation. The storm is almost upon us now, and Rachel is freaking out... I continue to stand there staring at the black clouds and mutter about how we aren't going to make it back, why even try. Arthur Dent at his best.

I could name a few other examples of how I tend to be introspective, thoughtful at inopportune moments, sporadiacally impulsive, mouth slower than brain... all Arthur Dent traits. I'll leave it up to you to read the book and find out what I'm like.

Oh, you probably want to know what happened to us. Well Adam, my heroic younger brother, came with the aluminum boat to save the day and tow us back. We made it just in time to get completely soaked. Awesome.

Adam coming to save the day, with impending doom in the background.

People Watching

2005-07-27T18:29:00.000-04:00

Sparked from a conversation I had yesterday, I was thinking about how we as conscious beings have this innate need to explain things. Like when you people watch. People watching is such a interesting thing to do, and I think it mainly stems from this need to explain. For instance, if you see a girl with a guy, you automatically try to discover a reason why they are together. Brother and sister? Friends? Partners?

I was driving yesterday when this phenomenon came over me. I was stopped at a red light, and I found myself staring through my review mirror at the woman in the car behind me. She had this sort of frustrated look on her face, as if the light wasn't changing fast enough. But then her face would soften for a while, as she glanced around at her surroundings, but would harden again when her gaze crept back up to the light. The rapid change in her face was the most interesting part, coupled with the fact that this cycle of change repeated several times during the course of the red light. I thought: "She must have anger management issues. I bet she needs to keep diverting her focus away from the light when she's driving, or she'll go mad or something. She seems like she's pretty high strung."

This is the most innocent form of this explanation the mind automatically does. It's kind of like a first impression. This can be extended into trying to read people that you already know. Or trying to explain why repeated events occur; like why does a squirrel always jump in front of you when you turn a specific corner in your walk to work every day.

I begin to wonder how this "need to explain" extends into life. Or choices. Or religion. I heard a story the other day about a man who kept seeing the number 243 everywhere he went; once he even saw it written in the dust on the back of a transport truck. He wondered what this meant, and eventually made the connection that this number was a reminder from God that He was in control. Is this good? Has this guy gone beyond the boundaries of how far we should take our "need to explain?" Is there a boundary?

Like most things in life, I believe there is a balance here. You could drive yourself psycho trying to analyze and correlate everything you see. I once was like this in a way. I saw the "meaning" in everything. When this outlook failed me, I buried my "need to explain" deep down, so that it wouldn't hurt me again. But I'm realizing that maybe that's not such a good thing. Reaching equilibrium soon, hopefully not too cynically.

First Post

2005-07-20T14:17:00.000-04:00

So due to some minor prodding from a few friends (back a few months ago), I've decided to post for real. This may or may not be the beginning of a superb or crappy blogging creation. I'm so non-committal...

Speaking of blogs and creativity, I've found that the blog is a unique creative space. It doesn't matter if the person is right brained or left; natural creativity has nothing to do with it. To blog is to create - you can't escape the definition. Check out the blogger homepage (make sure you're signed out when you do this) and read: CREATE YOUR BLOG NOW. And if you have a blog, check out what it says when you post: Create.

Right now there are 4 blogs that I check regularly, and I've done some random blog exploration. My experience has been that people create blogs for different reasons, but mostly it's to write. There are the odd blogs that are discussion group/forums, but mostly it is about writing. Creative writing. I make it sound so schoolish, but that's what it is.

So here goes. Here starts my attempt at some creative writing. Should be fun.

2005-03-24T11:35:00.000-05:00

Me and Rose

Hi

2005-03-23T15:40:00.000-05:00