Ending 2012

There are less than one and a half hours left of the year 2012 as I write this. I just returned from work a few moments ago. I didn't have any plans or parties to go to, nor am I particularly interested in drinking much at all. It hasn't been until now that I've finally felt any relief from a persistent, and excruciating, headache that has been bothering me throughout most of this day. I'm not much interested in inviting it to return after a few pints or shots. Instead, I opted to stay home. I lit up a few birch blocks in the fireplace, and confined myself to my four square meter kingdom for what is the remainder of this year. . . in reflective solitude.

I was trying to think of the little things that helped me to suffer less throughout the year. Out of these moments, I came up with these things to list:

Best purchase(s) of 2012: My hybrid bicycle, X-country skis, and iPhone

Best lifestyle decision of 2012: Getting rid of my TV service, it feels like I woke up a few dormant brain cells because of this action alone.

Best non-fiction book of 2012: The 4 Hour Chef, by Tim Ferriss

Best fiction book of 2012: Carte Blanche, by Jeffery Deaver

Best movie of 2012: Skyfall

Best food creation/innovation of 2012: Tropical Sunrise (a dessert)

Best new local merchant of 2012: Slavianka Eastern European Foods (for the kvas, sausage, and pickles)

Album of the year : Mylo Xyloto, Coldplay

Best App of 2012: Lift®

Fifteen minutes left of the year, So Happy New Year.
Next entry, some resolutions for 2013.

The 2012 Wrap Up, The Year Ahead

The Christmas holiday is ending with this Boxing Day evening with a frigidly cold, -40 degree windchill outside. I've cocooned myself inside since I returned from visiting my family. The flickering flames in my fireplace tonight have kept me in a hypnotic trance for too long now it seems, and I had to reboot my mind again with some writing. I'm actually glad that it is this cold: all the more to dissuade me from getting involved in the Boxing Day sales hype and madness happening earlier today. I had only enough energy to drive back from visiting my folks, and that was it. All the excess feasting has rendered me a bit sluggish. I don't just feel like I ate like a pig; I feel like some python that just swallowed a whole pig that ate like a pig.

I'm realizing that the year is quickly winding down; I'm opting not to waste too much time reflecting on it as I did like last year. Successes were achieved, but not really significantly glorious ones; there weren't any hugely glaring, abysmal failures though either (on my part of the grand scheme of things). My highlights were generally pretty much the personal bests I have recorded already in previous entries regarding my fitness goals. My low points were my failure to find the right mix of time/energy and dedication to follow through with my learning/career enhancement challenges, and not getting to build a better network of more positive and like-minded people. For the past couple of beginnings of the new year, I've been stricken with bad luck in the realm of health problems. I hope the lack of them now will be a signal for a better year for me coming ahead.

For the year ahead, the focus will be on continuing to implement efficiency, and to pick up on those things that I started learning, but lost track of midway through last fall. The key elements are:

• trying to limiting it more to things that accord with the 80/20 principle (learning/mastering the 20% of the things that control 80% of the whole system I'm learning, or operating with)
• being more mindful to formulate things as a recipe: finding and stationing the right set of tools, establish the variables, and then commit to procedure(s)
• using creative shortcuts with mnemonics
• meta-learning (un-learning, and then re-learning how to learn), and a low-info diet (there is too much useless stuff in the junk drawer of my brain as it is): to break bad habits and acquire better ones
• having sounder worse case scenario strategies/contingency plans when it comes to taking bigger risks

The things I want to accomplish in 2013* are:

• Completing a full-marathon distance (either through training or racing)
• Keeping on top of staying fit for it
• Getting away for an actual vacation for once
• To implement the stuff I've been studying into a major career shift
• Catching up on those things I didn't get to do/complete last year

Special thanks to authors Tim Ferriss, and David Allen, and especially my friend MJ who has been so supportive so far in with my current life improvements and ambitions. I'll be sticking close to all of you for your advice, tips and suggestions to help guide me through 2013.

Cheers to all of you!

*-Sorry. Ambitions in regards to matters of money, love/sex/relationships, and spirituality are matters too private for me to mention here.

My Christmas Lists

I'm very much secure in knowing that the dummies who believe in the Mayan Calendar Doomsday thing are quite mistaken.* So, it's time to lighten up a bit and to start having a few happy thoughts for this holiday. Maybe going into a trance and doing a bit of free-association in writing out these lists would help me get into the spirit of the holiday more, and eventually spur me on to finish my Christmas shopping. Anyhow, here it goes:

Top 10 Favourite Christmas Foods

1. Buttertarts
2. Cabbage Rolls
3. Buttertarts
4. Turkey with Stuffing and Gravy
5. Buttertarts
6. Wild Mushrooms in Cream Sauce
7. Buttertarts
8. Shortbread Cookies
9. Tangerines
10. You guessed it. . . more Buttertarts

Top 10 Favourite Christmas Drinks (to suit my ever-fluctuating sways between the vulgar and the sophisticated)

1. Rye and Coke
2. Big Rock Wart Hog Ale
3. Spiced Rum and Coke
4. Clamato Juice/Virgin Cæsars (Otherwise, this stuff being dumped in beer, or mixed with vodka is ruined for me)
5. Gin and Tonic
6. Red Wine (Merlot, Shiraz, Cabinet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Malbec)
7. Big Rock Traditional Ale
8. Bristol Cream Sherry/Port Wine
9. Cranberry Punch
10. White Wine (Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Chablis, Pinot Grigio)

The 7 Stores I Actually Like Going to in Saskatoon during Christmas Time**

1. McQuarries' Teas and Coffees (great assortments and gift baskets of coffees, teas, and hot chocolate)
2. Bulk Cheese Warehouse (cheese/sausage/deli food to me are like what candy is for everyone else)
3. Saskatchewan Liquor Stores (for samples and free magazines, and of course, booze)
4. Bill's House of Flowers (the smell in there instantly cures the winter blues)
5. McNally Robinson (Canadian owned bookstore, the problem is that I have more in mind as what to get for me rather than shopping for my loved ones)
6. Early's (Close by, locally owned, pet friendly, lots of stuff there for the gardeners/pet lovers)
7. Lee Valley (Canadian owned, lots of stuff there for woodcrafters/hobbyists and gardeners)

Top 10 Playthings That Would Delight Me To Get As Gifts (Even Now as An Adult)***

1. Chess Set
2. Scrabble^®
3. Go (Igo in Japanese) board
4. Risk^®
5. Wood Block/Jigsaw puzzles
6. Domino Set
7. Mah Jong Tiles
8. Mancala Board
9. Dart Board
10. Chinese Checkers

Top 10 Other Significant Gifts That Would Be Cool to Get

1. The Remastered Release of the CD, 2112, by Rush (Release date Dec 21/12, same day as the Mayan Calendar Apocalypse thing) to compensate for their concert I missed here earlier in September)
2. Cross Country Ski Pants (Salomon)
3. Mandolin style slicer/shredder (for my kitchen)
4. Windows 8 Upgrade
5. Djembe Drum (I may risk annoying the hell out of my neighbours, but had so much fun with one of these at my last convention)
6. Ledge planters (for growing more stuff on my deck while conserving space)
7. Bamboo Steamer (for my wok, the old one fell apart, two tiers plus lid)
8. Gift card from Pier One or HomeSense (I need to spruce the place up a bit)
9. Gift card from anyplace that sells f*$^%ing shoes that fit me
10. Actual time to enjoy this stuff (or more time to enjoy the cool stuff I already have, and be with the people I like)

Some Songs/Albums That Aren't Christmas Specific, but Fit The Season Well

1. Imagine - John Lennon
2. Winter - Tori Amos
3. Ring Out Solstice Bells - Jethro Tull
4. Gregorian Chants Album
5. The Coldest Night of the Year - Bruce Cockburn

*- It's pretty stupid to put credence into some apocalyptic predictions of a culture's religious calendar , when the same said people couldn't even predict their own civilization's demise.
**- During the holidays, I try to support my local merchants/retailers stores whenever I can.
***- Oddly and surprisingly, even after all this time, I still don't have any of these games around my own home. I'd like quality crafted classic board games, not a cheap plastic facsimile. The lack of knowing more people around interested in playing such things, and having so little time at home to play them are the reasons/excuses. The sad thing about the preponderance of video games is that the simple fun and social pleasures of a board or card game are getting phased out, getting replaced by too much simulated violence.

Entry 100

I'm surprised that this will be the one hundredth entry in this space, so I thought I had better make this one especially meaningful.

In light of what recently happened through this past week, I've been struggling hard trying to figure out and focus on what good is left in this world. I need not add extra commentary about the recent events in Connecticut. The news services are over-broadcasting the story and surrounding issues of it enough as it is, and consequently overwhelming us with more fear and sorrow during a season when we are trying to seek comfort and joy.

Above is a picture of a little baby boy; he's not just any baby boy. Currently, he is one that I have the greatest responsibility of caring for, and the one I am trying hardest to not get any further estranged from. I keep this picture of him with the rest of my family photos on a table in my bedroom, so he is amongst one of the first things I see when I wake up, and one of the last things I see when I go to sleep: as a reminder to stay strong enough to keep on nurturing him.

There were/are a lot of challenges in raising this particular human being for his particular needs, but I generally summarize them all to the following matters:

1. Not doing anything stupid that would lead to injury, or the death of this human being.
2. Not letting him waste his time being too long exposed around senseless, shallow, spiteful, obnoxious, ignorant, arrogant, negative, deluded, destructive people.
3. Trying even harder to not allow him to become like the aforementioned types of people when confronted by such beings.
4. Doing whatever gives him a sense of wonder and value about life, and making allowances to educate him, and allow him to grow for the better.
5. Making sure he wakes up each day with some sense of purpose, or at the very least a productive/mind-stimulating interest.
6. Helping him find valuable moments to laugh, be creative, relax, explore, and play.
7. Making sure he intends and acts in such ways that (ultimately) do more good than harm for himself and others.
8. Keeping him aware that it is ultimately he himself who is responsible for his own happiness and welfare.*
9. Reminding him to be thankful and appreciative when he finds people nice enough to provide acts of kindness for him and the sake of his happiness and welfare.

Those are the basic elements that I would say are essential to keep an individual within the realm of  sanity and mindful of personal responsibility. I'm not saying that I'm terrifically successful, in word or deed, at providing/teaching any one of those things to this fellow. I'm especially bad at teaching him points 2, 3, 6, and 8. However, I haven't found a day yet when all these things were absent from the board.

I suppose most of you who know me are wondering now who that child is, so let me introduce him to you. His name is Brian. That is a photo of me taken when I was 10 weeks old. The point I'm trying to make here is that we all have at least one child, no matter who we are, in our life to take care of. The skill sets that I mentioned apply not only to looking after a newborn life; they apply to taking care of our own grown adult selves as well. It all comes down to the question(s), "How could you ever even dare to harm this (little) person?", or "How do I want to help make this little guy or girl grow up right?" Once we do that, and then realize that we all were once that small, weak, innocent, and vulnerable, we (perhaps) empathize more, become a lot more mindful to do more things to nurture ourselves and others better, and to protect ourselves and others from our own craziness and stupidity, and be less prone to developing into some sort of soulless monster. All homes should have at least one baby picture in them, and they should be meditated on frequently: especially if the baby in the picture is all grown up, living alone and independently, and responsible for (and having some unique stressors for) being one's own sole provider of one's household and livelihood.

Some of you may roll your eyes and laugh and scoff at what I just wrote, but I can't help but to wonder if rampage killers of the likes of Marc Lépine (the Dec 6th, 1989, Montreal École Polytechnique shooter), the teenage psychos who shot up Columbine High School in 1999, James Eagen Holmes (the 2012 Aurora Theatre shootings), Anders Behring Breivik (2011 Oslo bombings/Utøya Island shootings, Norway), and most recently, Adam Lanza (the Sandy Hill Elementary School shooter) could have done what they did had they looked at themselves as children in a photo a little more often and asked themselves those same questions.

*- I have more than enough examples for this child of how a woman/girlfriend/wife isn't a static solution, the pretentiousness involved with success/status/fame aren't solutions, and of how money can't buy your way out of some problems. You will be doomed if you are constantly and desperately relying on any or all of these things for your happiness and welfare.

12/12/12

Other than coincidental order of the date numerals for this day, of this month, of this year, there is nothing especially notable about it, except for feeling perhaps the onset of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) coming on strongly within this past week: given the temperatures falling below -20 C, the wind, and cloudy snowy skies. I'm more de-energized than cold really. Walking to and from work, the bare minimum of exercise that I feel I need to do in a given day, only serves to drain me instead of invigorating and helping me to focus like it usually does. Nothing of significance at home seems to give me interest anymore, or I just can't seem to put my mind into whatever I'm doing: organizing and doing the simplest of tasks are just giving me constant headaches and overwhelming me. I'm totally unmotivated to even leave home, and knowing that I still have holiday shopping to do isn't helping me either. My appetite is gone, and when I do eat, I'm tending to fail to do so mindfully. I'm going to stop the complaining now, before the other myriad reasons, bad news, and negativity in work and life that are bringing me down get subjected to more examination, and start anchoring themselves in my head.

The latest thing I've been researching, since I got into skiing this winter, is Nordic pole walking. I've noted that the skiing has been improving my posture a bit, and I think it's due to strengthening my core muscles by using the poles. I'm hoping that the poles may help to normalize my stance while trying to walk on the icy streets outside may help in curing my sciatic pain. Hunching over, and staring at the feet constantly while trying to avoid slipping I'm sure is doing me no favours beyond fall prevention. Hunching over is also the stance of depression/non-confidence, and I'm desperate enough to try a remove the symptoms/remove the disease kind of logic. Re-posturing myself with this exercise may help reverse some of the psychological symptoms of depression as well.

I wish 12/12/12 would be something really special, since it's the only date that will appear in this form in my lifetime, but as it is, I'm just wishing that it were something else than it is now, or what I'm expecting it to be.

We Wish You a Nerdy Christmas (or Some Historically Plausible Facsimile Thereof)

Today turned out better than I thought it would be weather-wise: it was warmer than expected. I managed to get a little skiing in. More importantly, I found a very close by source for some well-seasoned birch firewood, which lit up very nicely. All that, plus a lovely beer, made for the most relaxing winter nap I've ever had this year so far. I woke up feeling a lot less Scroogey.

Also, I just finished putting up my Christmas tree tonight. . . Yes, I still call it a CHRISTMAS tree, not a friggin' "holiday tree", not a "winter season arboreal home decorum addition". . . it's a Christmas tree! I'm sure I'd be insulting some Jewish friends during Hanukkah, and looking like some kind of idiot, if I started calling their menorah a "festival candlestick". I'm pretty sure I'd be pissing off more than a few Muslims by constantly referring to the Kaaba in Mecca with some more neutralized term like a "geolithic shrine object". One way we can start showing mutual respect for the respective cultural holiday customs, traditions and practices of everyone else is to call them the names they have been given by that culture; not by whatever other stupidly contrived term that has been assigned for the sake of some ridiculous notion of "political correctness" to placate the whims of the few sanctimonious, ethno-centric, bigoted, idiots out there from some other cultures or religions who actively try to find anything to be offended about. This dumbing down and neutralizing of language only breeds more ignorance and intolerance, and alienates us even more from learning and understanding from each other. If you're so touchy and uncomfortable with the thought of some tradition encroaching on your beliefs, and too ready to affix blame and shame on someone else, it's generally a sign, even while jacked up and pious on your own beloved form of religion, that you aren't very secure somehow within the very core of yourself.

To be honest, I'm quite sure that even if Christmas didn't exist here; if the patterns and forces of colonization had been different both in Europe and this part of North America, and if the social and political history were such that Canada didn't become a primarily Christian cultured country, there most certainly would be some other lengthy celebration, involving some form of sharing, warmth, feasting, cheer, lights, and decoration to counter the depths of the coldness, darkness, and bleakness near or around the winter solstice of the year to make living in this region tolerable.

The Vikings and Norse traders were the first European settlers on the continent of North America. The pre-Christian Norse people had the tradition of Jul (Yule), which fostered a practical tradition of burning huge logs and keeping fires alight for a long time, being close together in fellowship, sharing and gift-giving, and feasting on the abundance of harvested food, and drinking and merry-making to while away the darkest, coldest and harshest part of winter (like Christmas here). Had the Norsemen settled in a more strategically advantageous spot, expanded more, and had their influence remained here long enough to become established, I'm sure that Jul would have been our practice. The pagan Celts and Anglo-Saxons had their own mid-winter celebrations, like Candlemass, and Modraniht (Mothers' night). The aboriginal people here already had their own celebrations for this season before Europeans came. If the Romans managed to totally snuff out Christianity, and had they remained in control over of the majority of Europe, aggressively expanding over the Atlantic, Saturnalia would have been the holiday here for this season, which involved lots of feasting and drinking.

Speaking of gluttony and intoxication, my favourite Christmas related anthropological theory is that of how possibly the legend of Santa's flying reindeer entered into our folklore. I was watching a documentary once about this: it seems that the shamans of the Sami (Saami) tribes, the reindeer-herding, nomadic indigenous people of Lapland, in Northern Scandinavia, had a strange and unique way of communing with their spirit world. While their reindeer herds grazed on lichens and such in the tundra, the odd one would dig up and occasionally consume an Anamita muscaria fungus, better known as the Fly Agaric mushroom. The mushroom itself is quite toxic, but also very psychoactive and hallucinogenic in diluted form. The shamans would collect and drink the urine from these intoxicated reindeer, and would go on some kind of "vision quest" with the wild dreams and sensations that resulted from its use, one of which was a sensation of flying, which was probably intensified as they rode around in their reindeer drawn sleighs with this altered state of consciousness.

Just think of that the next time you are reading T'was the Night Before Christmas to some kids, knowing that some of it is based on a pagan ritual of a piss drinking shroom high.

The Four Square Meter Kingdom: My Wintertime Happy Place

I spent more time than I wanted to with kitchen work and cleaning my place up this weekend, which follows with trying a little bit to make it more festive looking for Christmas whilst I had the momentum. I don’t know how it gets in such disarray when it feels like I’m rarely here anymore. It made me pause for thought about how much of my space, or the things in it, that I’m honestly satisfied with having.

With the rate at which technology is shrinking, and access and interface with it is getting more and more user-friendly, I’m coming to realize that the actual physical space we need to make ourselves feel physically comfortable should be reduced as well; or I’m getting more puzzled, or failing more to understand, as to why we think that we should have more expensive real estate than is necessary to claim as “living” space given this trend.*  Perhaps this belief comes out of ignorance, since it seems like I’m rarely home enough to actually “live” in my own place anymore. Maybe it’s because I’ve just lived independently alone for so long, and I’m the one solely responsible for my home’s upkeep; I would find the prospect of living in a large spacious house a kind of hell. Having the mindset of a single occupant, it doesn’t appeal to me at all knowing that there would be even more precious time and utility cost wasted keeping such a place tidy, functional, and in order.
 

Author Tim Ferriss likes to promote life enhancements that can be done in four hours ( The 4 Hour Workweek, The 4 Hour Body, The 4 Hour Chef). I'd like to promote what can be life-enhancing that can be kept within 4 square meters. I figured out all the necessary space, and things in it, that I’d need to satisfy the conditions that could easily keep me comfortably entertained for an entire cold winter's day**. It all can be compacted into an area of about 4.2 m².  If I eliminated the books and papers, it would shrink further still. I took some time to map out my snuggery in the following photo (sorry if you have to squint to see the number labels).

1. Fireplace
2. Firewood (preferably birch)
3. An absolutely hideous, yet super-cozy comforter, which also doubles as a makeshift bed for Ella for her fireside napping
4. Backgammon board (for the odd non-solitude moments)
5. Free weekend newspaper (for reading a couple of articles, perusing want ads, doing the crossword/sudoku puzzle, and the rest is used for starting fire in 1.
6. Non-fiction book(s)
7. Fiction book(s)
8. E-reader for everything else of random reading interest and trivia
9. Wii Controller
10. Deck of cards (used more for mnemonic testing than playing games)
11. Puzzle books (sudoku and logic problems)
12. Tea (or beer/wine/spirit later in the evening)
13. Snacky things (in this case, it just literally happens to be soup to nuts)
14. Laptop computer
15. iTouch (music, podcasts, news, calculator)
16. Earphones (to share peace with my neighbours)
17. Blu-Ray remote
18. Firm floor cushion (meditation, sitting closer to fire)
19. TV (not-visible, but would still fit in the four square meter zone)
20. Blu-ray player (also not visible, I don't even actually need disks, I can use it to tune into You  Tube and Sony's free channels)
21. Wii Consule (not visible, used more for news clips than gaming)  

Missing from the picture is a pen and notebook/sketchpad (22), my currently rather uncooperative and unphotogenic dog (23), and another opponent to play games with me (24). It all at first glance looks quite ordinary and boring. However, if I ever found myself getting extremely bored given any of this, I would think that there would be something really very wrong with me if I couldn't occupy myself with any of these 24 options during 16 waking hours of a day of inclement weather being stranded at home. I actually look forward to the night during some really bad coldsnap, to really keep it simple: by throwing number 2 in number 1, perching on 18, wrapped up in 3, scratching number 23's head while she sleeps by my feet, while drinking the wine option of 12. Having a 24 join me is about as complicated as I'd allow the scene to get.

I write and post this for the benefit of some people I've been watching lately, who have more space than this to use (who are cluttering up their precious space with more junk they aren't really using), with more access to more toys, gadgets, and other material than presented in my picture, who yet don't use it to get any smarter or to feel or gain any deeper sense of solace; who have lately been driving their other cohorts, and those who assist them, bonkers: getting up each others' asses for no reason with their own spells of being stir crazy. Winter has only really just begun, and it hasn't even gotten that cold yet! What are they going to be like when it does start getting more bitter outside? It's really time to reassess yourselves people (you know who you are).

*- Stereos and CD collections are being reduced to MP3 format and their respective players. Entire shelves of hundreds of bulky, physical books can be eliminated by using a single e-reader. Interactive video screens and game consoles are attracting more sensory attention than the remaining ambience of a room. I would term this trend of relating with digital media more than using physical space, while avoiding the outside world as “micro-cocooning”.

**- When it becomes cold enough to result in having to warm up my car’s engine for longer than the actual time it will spend on the road, or when the dog has the sense to not want to walk two steps outside booted and fully bundled: that’s the kind of day I’m talking about around here. That point is usually around, or below, -30 Celsius (not including some horrific wind chill factor). It's not worth the trouble trying to get around, and it's a day when I want to expend as little energy as possible on unnecessary movement, inside or outside. 

Five Questions, Five Answers: My Kitchen

Q1: What inspired this entry?

My Kitchen's Knife Rack
My Personal Kitchen Maxim:
"Nothing makes a kitchen like state of the art weaponry."

A1: I recently acquired a copy of the eagerly anticipated book, The 4 Hour Chef, by Tim Ferriss. It's not just a book about operating in a kitchen with greater skills and efficiency, it's a great "life-hacking", and learning-how-to-learn manual for realms beyond the culinary. Along with tricks for making a party dish pretty, to properly eviscerating big game, it veers off at times in pleasant ways to the interesting subjects of improving physical performance, outdoor survival, and language acquisition.Tim is all about getting as much accomplished with as little time and effort as needed, which accords well with my philosophy. For gentleman bachelors, this is the mother lode of golden wisdom for guys who want to go from amateur at pro in leaps and bounds. Ladies, if you are looking for a book to make your guy experiment in the kitchen more, and to inspire him to be less of a couch potato, this would be an ideal Christmas gift.

Q2: One question in the book was something like, "What ten herbs and spices would you have to have if you were stranded on a desert island?" What would your choices be?

A2: They would most likely be (preferably fresh):

1. Basil
2. Thyme
3. Black Peppercorns (Maple smoked as an option)
4. Oregano
5. Cayenne Pepper
6. Rosemary
7. Montreal Steak Spice
8. Chives
9. Dill
10. Cinnamon

Q3: What would be the greatest challenge you could ever give yourself in the kitchen?

A3: The real test of my gourmet aptitude would be making something like Beef Wellington, or any kind of other meat dish wrapped up in flaky pastry. I'm not opposed to trying it once; but I'd need a whole day to do it, and a kind of day when I'd be more forgiving to myself for ruining an expensive cut of meat if I failed.

Q4: Again, related to one of the concepts in this and other of Tim's books: what 80/20 principle(s)* would you say apply in your kitchen?

A4: Before taking some corrective action, only around twenty percent of the ingredients listed on my weekly grocery bill made eighty percent of my meals (lots of expense went into stocking my pantry with exotic things I only used once or twice in a month). I'm endeavoring to not be so wasteful with space and money.

Q5: What are the things that you wish were better in your kitchen/cooking environment?

A5: That my condo regulations could relax and allow for the use of charcoal barbeques (me sir likes da fire!) A dedicated bar space would be a nice classy bachelor pad feature, one with a CO₂ and tap system to allow me to draw my homebrewed beer from a draught keg. Generally, I'd like a bigger counter space. Since I have no workshop/garage space, my kitchen and my office are the only other two creative spaces I have left around here. It's important for me to keep them in good functional order.

*The 80/20 Principle, otherwise known as the Pareto Principle, postulates that in many realms of natural/social sciences, economics, and other fields, eighty percent of one phenomenon in a given set of things is controlled or affected largely by twenty percent of the subjects within that population, e.g. eighty percent of the global wealth is controlled by twenty percent of the people on this planet.

Black Friday/Buy Nothing Day

Today was payday, and a day off. A typical kind of day where I devote a bit of my morning to tabulate my budget and pay my bills. Just for shits and giggles; just to force myself to think outside the box a bit, I performed the whole operation with one of my desk toys: a Chinese abacus. I sometimes use it for place holding numbers when I don't have a pen handy.* Most of the time though, it's just a fidgeting toy that I use when I'm lost in contemplation, like some sort of more scientific form of rosary beads. I suppose I keep it around as a reminder that sometimes solutions to majorly complicated problems can be found by using and focusing on the simplest of things.

An interesting bit of math trivia: if you used an average of one
 second to move the counters, non-stop, on a 13 column abacus,
like this one, to represent each and all of the total possible counter
 positions, just once, it would take 659,839,939 years to do it.
(. . . and no, I didn't calculate all that using this thing.)

Noting what today was, I couldn't help but to assume that budgeting and bill paying are the complete opposite things of what many of the Americans are doing right now, that is going overboard and getting deeper in debt with manic episodes of shopping. That is, today is also Black Friday, the day when the neighbours to the south go berserk and stampede into shopping malls in a greed driven frenzy. Reading an article about it in a complimentary issue of today's issue of The Globe and Mail prompted me a little more to look into this phenomenon, of how the cross-border shopping is impacting Canadian retailers. To be honest: either probably because I'm that disinterested in shopping, or I'm that indifferent or oblivious to the traditions of American holidays, I never even heard of the phenomenon of Black Friday until relatively recently in my life, probably about five years ago. That seems to be when Canadian news media started to shine more of a spotlight on this insanity. Now, there are even Black Friday sales here in Canada at this week of the year, despite the fact that our Thanksgiving Day is in October.** I notice "Cyber Monday" is becoming a bigger hyped-up deal here each year, to get supposedly big savings, with an adequate window of processing/shipping time before Christmas for online purchases of material items made at some domestic and US vendors. I've included this Wikipedia link about it, which better explains the how and why Canada's burgeoning involvement with this retail world wildness. What floors me about the figures in the table lower on this page, just before the references, is just the ever rising Total Billions Spent after the year of the big American financial crisis. All the news during the years of record high home foreclosures, and personal bankruptcies, and the consequences of being overburdened with debt didn't apparently sink in with the American consumers around holiday time. 

 

It's a ridiculous time of year when I hear the odd story about how many people got trampled to death down there when crowds charge at the doors when the malls and stores open for it. I'm sure I'll hear the other odd report about how many morons died of exposure because they had a tent pitched and camped outside a store two days in advance of its opening. I'm not at all sympathetic to such people. If they are that idiotic to allow themselves to forsake their own safety to get a discount iPad or a cheap pair of designer shoes, and willingly be at the wrong place at the wrong time, I say screw'em. That's just Darwinism doing its thing. I really won't shed any tears about there being a few less idiots, and greedy shitheads walking the face of this Earth. The topic of Black Friday only jolted some interest and concern in me because my parents are on a holiday tour in the United States right now. I'm hoping that they, and their tour group, had some good sense to steer clear of the insanity in their shopping malls down there today. Businesses and corporations control most of the mainstream news of course, so sure there is a lot of media hype about Black Friday on the business perspective to make the year end sound positive, but we sure as hell don't hear much about the following reality of "In-the-Red January" from the consumer end of the deal in the news.

 

My fourth Friday (or whole weekend) of November tradition is coming to be "Buy Nothing Day", an idea promoted by Adbusters magazine, to use it for anything else besides shopping and needless consumption, and to stop business/corporate control of the holidays. I'm also not keen on being part of the hyped up madness of Boxing Day sales: the Canadian equivalent to Black Friday. That leads to the question, what can one do to get into the spirit of the season, without spending money on anything? I thought of these things as answers to give:

 

• Make an appointment to donate blood/platelets: A way to be charitable without giving money. Go to your Canadian Blood Services clinic(or your nation's respective agency clinic for blood donations). If you never have done it before, at least get tested for eligibility. Everyone has it, everyone needs it. The best gift you may be able to provide is to help someone else survive to see another Christmas.***
• Sort through closets/drawers; donate clothing and other articles to good will charities and agencies: The thought of irony that really disgusts me is knowing that there were probably some Americans, perhaps during some moment in prayer with their families, who were stating how thankful they were for whatever type of abundance they have during their Thanksgiving dinner; who now a day later, some of these same people became part of the stampeding hordes of assholes who would trample over someone else to get through a WalMart entrance somewhere to buy more shit to hoard. That seems pretty insincere to me. If you are really that fortunate and secure with your so-called abundance, you wouldn't need to walk over somebody's face to get some cheap piece of crap made in a sweatshop. How greedy can you get? Abundance means you don't have to charge out anywhere to fetch something in near panic mode. Abundance means having more than you actually need. Sort through your crap to know just how much you do really have; if you've outgrown it or neglected it too often, just give it away.
• Turn off your TV, or else make an effort to watch commercials conscientiously: If you choose to watch TV, take a count of exactly how many commercials you viewed, note what the products are, think about how much money you would have to spend that day if you absolutely had to buy each and every one of those products that was pitched to you. Think about how many hours of work and financing that it would really require to both acquire and maintain the product. Ask yourself, "Is this thing really going to make me a better person?", and "What can I do/use instead of that is cheaper, costs nothing?" The outcome of this exercise should hopefully make you angry with allowing yourself to be a tool, and for being dazzled by so much magic in advertising, and this meme-warfare that you are being subjected to every day.
• Walk/Run/Move Your Ass: Start making an effort to take off more pounds during the season than the ones you'll be gaining with all the treats and parties between now and the end of the year. Move around six days a week, binge a bit on the seventh. I didn't say that you can't enjoy the parties, you'd just have to work for them. If you do a well enough job keeping the lard off before New Year's Day, you should have an easier time committing to your resolution after Jan 1st. Don't you think that one reason people are buying clothing so often, is because of exponential weight gains due to inactivity and overeating. Take measures to make it less likely to happen.
• Sit down and make a budget: Make a plan to pay off bills and any other debts you may already have, and live within your means. You don't have get too crazy by using an abacus to do it. Small steps are better than no steps, or totally veering off wildly in the opposite direction.

 “The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket.”- Kim Hubbard

All this stuff that I mentioned could easily keep me occupied throughout the course of Buy Nothing Day. Happy non-shopping everyone!

*- Which is surprisingly often. I use a pen so seldom in my office now that when I do find one, usually while I'm on the phone, more often than not, the ink is dried up in it. An abacus needs no power, and no ink refills.

**- Better now than in October. Out of respect to the veterans, I absolutely refuse to put up Christmas decorations, or even consider holiday shopping before/during Remembrance Day.

***-Another thing that peeves me: hearing a person who talks about, or has actually endured, being poked enough with a needle to be decorated with tattoos and piercings, but admits to me that they would never attempt to donate blood. That's a true sign of a person being shamelessly selfish.

   

 

Skiing Weekend, Envisioning the Future of Education

Whew! I'm sure glad and relieved that the
city has this menace under control at this
time of the year along the ski trails.

It has been a delightful weekend so far with the perfect conditions for cross-country skiing. I went out Friday for about 40 minutes; I stretched out yesterday's excursion for about an hour. I would have liked to have gone longer, but my new boots have been neither broken in, nor have they been morphed to my unique feet/orthotics yet (or vice versa), so I didn't want to push myself into a new foot/leg/joint injury, especially knowing that my back hasn't healed 100% yet. Thus, I had to use a bit of discipline and restraint: like any new form of motion and exercise, it's something I believe that one has to phase in slowly, like for marathon training. Going overboard with it too soon, consequently becoming too sore and injured afterward, causes one to only end up being initiated into hating the activity*. I went again today, earlier this morning, before the weather became too warm, softening the snow too much for my liking. I went at a faster pace, but limited my time to 35 minutes. I then went to the gym to use the treadmill for a while (icky-poo) to re-adjust my leg and back muscles, and then did some core exercises. Since I started Nordic skiing this winter, I've only fallen twice. Currently, my fall count versus distance is averaging one fall per 7.5 km of skiing. Honestly, not too bad considering the long lapse I've had. Of course, I'll endeavor to improve that ratio. However, if I were on downhill skis, that figure would jump toward something like one fall per 7.5 meters.

During this weekend my mind has not only been tuned into noticing weird signs for the season, like the picture I took of the one above, but I've also been thinking a lot about signs of changes happening now and how they are going to shape and influence things coming around the corner in the near future, especially in regards to what course the future of education is going to take. Life long learn has now become the rule, not an exception. If I can't make a move to any other field without some sort of certification, it's important to figure how and where one has to devote one's time and energy. Everyone bitches and complains about the ever-rising price of fuel, but the rising cost of tuition in the past few years in comparison makes the jump of fuel prices look like chicken feed. The other concern is the validity of a degree or certificate with the risk of ever rising rate of obsolescence in education programs, and the fact that there are so many holes being poked into the system by evolving social media, used to either outpace someone else legitimately or otherwise. It all makes for more fierce and competitive students, many more who are willing to lower themselves to resort to cheating. I suppose what really spurred those thoughts was a documentary on CBC Newsworld that I saw last Thursday on Doc Zone called Faking the Grade**, about the ridiculous epidemic of high-tech academic cheating that's going on, in colleges and universities, how pervasive the problem is, the wild repercussions it's having, and the most likely demographic group that is most likely to do it.

*- As with my first (and last) experience with downhill skiing. Please. . . Don't ask! . . . I'm still trying to forget it.
**- Sorry, for some reason the direct link to the actual documentary footage failed, perhaps it will be available in the future. Perhaps CBC hired a tech-head who cheated through the Web Page Development exam.

Den Skandinaviske Eftermiddag, Less Old Fogey-Dodging

I woke up this morning and assessed how much new snow had fallen since yesterday. It was about 15 centimeters, and was still coming down. I was almost ready to cocoon myself in for the rest of the day and keep it uneventful, but the craving for movement and fresh clean air was too great. I was easily prompted to walk all the way to Broadway for a friendly rendezvous for coffee. I didn't plan for it, but the rest of the day spun around such that I ended up snagging a ride with my cohort who was doing some sports apparel shopping, and before I knew it, I ended up spontaneously purchasing a brand new set of Nordic skis, poles and boots. I haven't been cross-country skiing in ages, and I'm excited to start doing it again. It's a lower impact exercise than running (I may get a chance to heal right), and it's a fully body workout, which means I don't have to do it as long to get the same results. I'm itching so badly to start cutting some new trails by the river, and through Diefenbacher Park.

There was a lot of deep snow to trudge through coming back home, but I was so happy with the terrific bargain I got on my gear, I felt like I was scurrying along on air. The only setback in the deal is having to wait until my bindings get set and fitted. This dump of snow was transformed from a miserable curse, that it was in the morning, to a beautiful phenomenon I eagerly welcomed. I wish I had the sense to capture a few photos by the river, with the snow being this fresh. It was more scenic there this winter than I ever remember it being. When I came back home after the eight kilometers of tramping through the drifts, banks, and flurries, I jumped into the sauna a while, and relaxed with a couple shots of Aquavit (the only vodka/schnapps-like potable I had in my liquor cabinet) after the shower. It all helped to have me drift into a peaceful nap; dreaming pleasantly, for the first time in ages it seemed. If I had one word to use to summarize how this Saturday afternoon was, I'd have to say that it was very. . . Scandinavian. If indeed a long sauna session, drinking some spirits, and a light nap and reading in peace is the common ritual in Norway, Sweden, or Finland after tramping around (or skiing) outside on a snowy winter's weekend like today, I could get used to adopting such a lifestyle to endure a longer than usual winter like this one is turning out to be.

The ski equipment wasn't a cost I was prepared for, but I thought about how much more refreshing it would be than using the crowded indoor track during the winter. It amounts to free space and fresh air. The lousy situation for training for running through winter is that since my work hours are more skewed than others', the only usual convenient times when the track is available for me mid-week are times when it tends to be over-populated with retirees and seniors groups*. Sure, they have a right to exercise, but many (if not most) of the seniors' groups are usually there for rehabilitation purposes. It's hard to relax and keep a steady even pace there when one has to be on guard for slowly staggering, spatial-awareness challenged hemiplegic stroke victims, half-deaf/half-blind with cataracts old men and women, or others stunned and stricken with dementia or Alzeimer's, who absent-mindedly, suddenly, and dangerously veer and wander into the designated lane that the runners use. I've come close to more than just one or two hazardous collisions due to this. There seems to be a real shortage of fresh air at the track when the old-timers start circuiting around there en masse. A little bit of sweat smell can be expected and is even tolerable, but I seem to have a hard limit when exercising and respiring heavily around the wafting stench from the miasma of medication-infused, old person BO and flatulence**, which they seem to liberally express when they exert themselves a little more than younger folk. Cripes, it's like slamming into a wall of it some days while running over there. Knowing that these extremes of bodily odours are so easily smelled and consequently inhaled, it then only is a reminder of how easy it is to contract the flu virus in an indoor fitness facility, thus the inclination to cruise around the track in winter loses even more appeal. I'm not going to continue ranting too sourly about them. After all, they, especially the stroke victims, serve as examples as to why one should be active to begin with while one has younger years to use to one's advantage.  My own back pain, and the slower recovery time from aches, pains, and sickness is a reminder that I'll probably be like them some day. Some of those old folks are veterans, and sacrificed and spent their time as younger people fighting in some way for the oppressed in other nations, and the freedom of this great land. Let's be thankful that they got lucky and had a chance to 'get old'. Rememberance Day is tomorrow. Let us be mindful, and give them due respect.

Treadmills are the other unfavourable option, but I'll devote another entry to complain about using them some other time.

But let's return to the happy place now. Through my course of adventure sports shopping today, I was also giving some thought about saving up for a kayak for summer. My greatest issue around here though would be storage. Trying to stow a three meter long kayak in any room around in this place would be trying to park a Hummer in an elevator. Using the ceiling space on my deck may be an option, but it would be very tight. Getting a kayak might not be such a crazy idea, especially if the snow is going to accumulate this massively over this winter on a more frequent and regular basis. The spring flooding risk has been rising each year. If the snow keeps coming like this, next spring may come to be an all time record high if that is so. The kayak might be my new street transportation. I might have to check out YouTube and learn how to parallel park the thing.

*- Sadly, no fit LuluLemon clad women closer to my age. Given my appetite now, I think I'd prefer them being Nordic.
**- Or at least I hope it's just flatulence. . .one also has to be mindful to check the track to see if something didn't . . . shall we say "slip down the leg".

Money Still Votes in the U.S. Election

I was at a training workshop today at the Union office. I really do appreciate such sessions, and come out of them with a little more confidence, and a clearer sense of how help others, and how I'd like to see myself become better organized in general, but the amount of information to process does become very overwhelming to me. I really don't like immersing my mind too deeply into politics (especially American politics), or writing about them to any great extent, but with the finale of this long drawn out, hyped up, election of our neighbours down south that has just passed, it becomes unavoidable.

My opinion of the result of it is that I'm relieved that a more right wing party isn't in power in America.  However, I don't think that another four-year term of a Democrat government down there is long enough to correct problems that were caused by the aftermath of the Bush years. I'm just happy that all this hype is over with. I'm sick of their political smear ads permeating into our media.

I heard that the dollar amount for running campaigns for this election (on both sides), ran into the billions*. . . how utterly obscene, outrageous, and shameful! What a disgraceful and inefficient use of resources! Much of those billions of dollars were collective flat-out contributions made by very wealthy people, essentially gambling really, to see one man (figurehead) or the other, get into power of their nation; yet if those same rich people were asked to contribute that same money (or any) in tax dollars to directly fund the improvement of some other public amenities for the common good of everyone, regardless of political leanings, those same bastards would probably use every slick trick in the book to keep that money under wraps and sheltered from their IRS. So long as this kind of big money is involved in their elections, to finance their excessively long meme-war to push influence one way or another, America then is still very much an oligarchy, or a competitive corporate aristocracy; not a true democracy. I'm sure that it's a safe bet, and a sickening actuality, that the funding for whatever promoting/support, or attack/smear campaign ads by the American politicians for this election far exceeds the annual budget for the education and health care expenditures combined of several other nations*.

If the underlying issue is voter apathy, and it's that big of a problem there (especially if starts costing billions of dollars to prime people up to coax them to vote) perhaps then they should consider doing what the Australians did: by legislating it such that it would be illegal not to vote; making non-participation an offense punishable by a monetary fine. Hell, their government would probably even start making billions if that was enacted. It might do us well here in Canada also to do the same thing, and make us take a more serious interest as to how we choose to be governed. One way in which I think that Canada is correctly going, in terms of the right direction for disallowing more big money to influence/corrupt political campaigns, is with using the recent Federal Accountability Act, by restricting individual contributions to political parties a maximum of $1000 (down from $5000). I'm thankful at least that when a federal election happens here, the political campaigning only carries on for a fraction of the time as it seems to happen down there.

I'm not spiteful towards Americans so much as to be wishing anything worse for them. As I look more at the dynamics of their political system, I realize that they have their own special ways of being victims of it, just as others from any other nation do with their respective governments. I listened to CBC 2 radio on the drive back home this afternoon, which announced the results of a survey was that was taken in other nations outside the United States as to who the people would vote for if they could. Right now, I'm listening to what the rest of the world would be comfortable with so as to, at the very least, keep the peace globally. Of the many nations that were sampled for the survey, the results were overwhelmingly pro-Obama. We, as a global community, seem to think more that Obama is the answer for the USA, and the for the rest of the world. No exception here. The Canadian responses of those sampled were in concordance with the remaining global results. I just hope that whatever resulted yesterday, and whatever transpires during the next four years down there, won't effect us too negatively over here.



* - I found a news report (Vancouver Sun) that an estimated whopping combined total of six billion dollars was used by Obama and Ronmey for campaigning: the most money ever used in fighting away for the US presidency. Twice the amount that was used to put on the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, 3.4 times (in today's US$) the cost of the Apollo 11 mission. Apparently today, it costs almost three and half times more for the Americans to put a man in the White House than it did to put one on the moon in 1969. Go figure that out. The only satisfaction I get in reviewing this factoid is that somewhere out there in the USA, there are a few tax-avoiding, greedy, rich pricks, and crazy right-wing special interest lobbyists who became a little poorer, some losing millions, by betting on the wrong horse in this race. The Democrat rich pricks and that other bands of idiot lobbyists who supported Obama, still have yet to see if they'll be getting their money's worth.
**- With this kind of stupidity and greed and lust for power, it's probably one reason/factor as to why there is no system of universal health care in the United States, and why there is no one educated enough to figure out how to make it happen. It would be even more disturbing, or else quite laughable, to discover any other nation's government, working within that kind of budget restriction ($6 B), that still is able to provide a quality free education and health care to their citizens of their respective country (I wish I had more time research this)

Stranded Alone with Couch Thoughts

“Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Don’t worry; you will survive, and you will have a lot of fun.”  

– Paulo Coelho (taken from the book Veronika Decides to Die)

I woke up in the morning a couple days ago to see everything blanketed by about 10 centimeters of new snow. There was a slick sheet of frozen rain under all that snow, so walking and driving was somewhat treacherous for the past couple days. I'm pretty sure, even though the weather reports are predicting plus six Celsius daytime temperatures later this week, that most of this stuff will be staying on through until next spring. What I'm most thankful for right now, with the way my back is now, that I don't have to be responsible for shoveling and clearing any sidewalks.

I'm a little better than I was before Halloween. I can at least sit down and stand up more comfortably, and I think I might be able to put my shoes on today without feeling an urge to scream.

This past spell of forced immobility to avoid extra pain wasn't all bad, it didn't tax my wits and sanity as much as I thought it would. In fact, it was a bit enlightening in some ways.

Firstly, my limited movement made me think with a little more empathy about the people I serve. Secondly, I became very grateful (and very overwhelmed even), as to how many possible things I still have the ability to do (that involve no extra cost), even while confined to a bed or couch to help to keep making my life an actively enriched and engaged one. I'm not saying that I'd be any better than anyone else at adapting, or adjusting, to a situation involving temporary or permanent physical disability. I'm saying that, left to my devices, I'm a little more reassured that it would even be harder to completely bore myself. I'm realizing though, with great frustration, that injuries seem to occur during days that are my scheduled time off (times like now, and my last entire summer vacation) after long stints of activity, and I seem recover just in time for my scheduled work days. What a bloody waste! No wonder it feels like I'm burnt out half the time. Perhaps the stage was already being set for me being rendered useless by my own clumsiness, which was caused by exhaustion, fatigue, and unrest, and thus an accident like this was coming inevitably.

I could have chosen to wallow in bitterness and self-pity, or to do as much as I could within my restrictive limits. I chose the latter. The extra forced stillness gave me more focus for taking personal inventory, and examining motives; mentally scratching the math/home economics itch again for making some optimizations, and playing around with some recreational calculations. Reviewing my interests and consumption habits, I've been figuring out things like*:

• The number of varieties of the kinds of homemade pizzas I could make using the kinds of dough, sauces, cheeses, plus a choice of any three from the list of the other toppings, that I like (1.797 x 10¹⁰).
• My estimated personal annual coffee consumption. I buy and use about 5.2 kg of (whole) coffee beans per year for home use; I'd like to reduce that to 4.0 kg or under.
• The amount of paper I have moving into my suite per month taking up space (flyers, free newspapers, junk mail, packing material, etc.) I figured averages about 4.7 lbs (2.14 kg) per month. Is it really worth having that kind of mass to sift through for the two or three slips of general purpose coupons that I use? (economy of space vs. economy of savings)
• Is it a cost effective measure to make my own kvas at home? Unfortunately, the answer is no: considering the rarity of the kind of rye bread I'd need, the amount and cost of sugar needed, and the energy/time to make it from scratch, even in bulk production to reduce overhead costs, it's just cheaper to get the genuine, quality assured, Ukrainian or Russian kvas from the East European import store, $4.50/imported 2 L bottle vs. $7.70/homemade 2 L bottle. If this stuff was taxed like regular alcohol (retail beer/wine/spirits), it then might be worth the trouble. 
• The cost per serving of the Coconut Pumpkin Soup recipe I recently made and shared with a friend ($0.48)

Even with just lying still on my chesterfield and thinking about all those unique and lovely flavours I thought, the savings, the abundance of possibilities, and potential for future experimentation with these simple things put me in a much more content mood, even despite the inclemency outside. My back even relaxed more and hurt less. Sometimes you have to peer into the crazy side of things to have a contrasting context to create a realm that serves your own sanity. I'm happier with thinking and preparing for things, with a few crazy twists, to avoid and prevent creating waste of time and money, and detriment to one's health, sanity, and environment. I find it is ten times more progressive, gratifying, and entertaining, than getting lost in and surrendering to impulsiveness, instant gratification fantasies, and dreaming of some get rich quick schemes. So long as one can reel oneself back into reality from the daydreaming, back into the present moment, there is no harm in it. It's a hell of a cheap way to spend a bit of an afternoon to relax at the very least.

On the world stage, with final thoughts on reckless impulsiveness and being unprepared for loss. I have to note the kind of idiocy I've been witnessing on the news about what has been happening in New York, with the storms and power outages there. It's beyond ridiculous and shameful that one of the "richest" cities in the world would have the kind of society where people would instantly lower themselves to resort to looting stores in an event as minor as a power outage, like the end of the world was coming to them. That makes me also mindful of the comparatively far worse disaster of the tsunami/nuclear reactor breach in Fukushima, Japan last year; seeing people on the news, some of whom having lost everything in that destructive event, yet astonishingly remaining for the most part calm, and still being civilized and orderly enough while queuing up for water, food rations, and other aid. Proof again of the power of calmness, in a place where perhaps it was due to a Zen ethic being more pronounced and established.

*- All costs calculated in Canadian dollars.

Demon, Get Out of My Spine!

I’m writing this while I’m in the foulest of moods. I’m stricken with stabbing pains in my lower back, so much so that I’ve been rendered mostly immobile since yesterday afternoon. The occurrence of this was so freakish and ironic. Despite all the chances to acquire this by walking and slipping on ice within the past few days, it didn’t happen that way. Instead, it happened in the gym. Between the track and treadmill, I did 7.7 km of running activity, and then decided to do some core training: with special focus and intent to ‘strengthen my back’. The stupid bench that I sat on wasn’t secured properly. The wild scene that resulted was me losing balance, twisting sharply, and abruptly flipping backwards onto the floor. I think that the effort in trying to correct myself in “mid-flight” did more harm to me than the actual damned fall itself. So now, I’m stuck at home, using ice compresses, and gobbling up Ibuprofin and anti-inflammatory pills like they were Halloween candy. I went to the office at work today to attend to a duty there briefly; even that brief visit there became too excruciating, and it feels like I’m drained from anymore activity for the rest of today. So, I’m retreating into writing: to do something that forces me to sit still, and to drain myself of this negativity, which hopefully will result in also easing some tension in my strained back muscles.

Speaking of Halloween candy, if I’m getting trick-or-treaters coming by tomorrow knocking periodically, I’ll definitely be in no comfortable shape even to get up and off the chesterfield to answer the door if the pain keeps on persisting, like the way it is now, on through to tomorrow. If I did dress up, the only option I feel like I have now is to be Quasimodo.

Before my lucidity becomes too compromised by pain, or by the junk I’m using to stop it, I thought it would be fitting to share what is really scary to me about this Halloween. It’s the realization about how aged I’m feeling, and how old I’m probably starting to appear. It started when I peered through the TV listings this weekend, and noticed that The Exorcist was playing on one of the movie channels, along with the other scary movies for this season. I remember that this was the first horror movie that I ever saw as a kid, and because I was a kid, and perhaps because all this crazy possession business was happening in a kid, this movies was the one that freaked me out the most for a long time, so I researched it a bit. I looked back at the casting through IMDb, and noted the stats in the biography of Max Von Sydow, the actor who played the character of the frail, old priest, Father Merrin. It turns out that Von Sydow was only in his mid-forties when he was cast as the old priest . . . around to the same friggin’ age I am now. Jesus Christ! When did this bullshit start happening? I know that life expectancy was a bit shorter in the early seventies (when this film was made), but regarding people in their forties as old is ridiculous. Maybe I’m over-reacting, and this is just a revelation of either the brilliant acting skill of Von Sydow to play a character who looked thirty years older than he actually was, or a glimpse of just how badly Von Sydow was a victim to pre-mature aging (even worse than I am), if he didn’t use that much make-up for the role. Whether it's the one case or the other, it's still disheartening to know that I'm at that age where I could probably appear as, or play, the role of an aged senior so convincingly as well.

I’m trying hard not to be a victim of my age number. In fact, I must admit that the reason I went back to the gym (before this miserable outcome happened) was that I was (re)inspired by another guy, around my age, who’s a movie star. Daniel Craig is at it again, playing James Bond, Agent 007, in the upcoming movie Skyfall. It is coming to cinemas here soon, and I can’t wait to see it on big screen. Daniel Craig was the guy who served as a fitness model for me, and got me directing myself into getting into fitness mode, at a time when I thought I was doing more decaying than thriving health-wise. If Daniel Craig played the old priest in The Exorcist, he would have made that demon his bitch within a minute. Once I recover though, I have to make it a point to not be so zealous in trying to get back into Bond-form.

I feel like I need yet another role model, this time for the sake of my learning objectives and personal standards of productivity and efficiency. The meds and muscle relaxants are kicking in now; maybe I’ll have a vision as to who that might be, in a dream as I drift. . .off to . . .sleee. . .zzzzzzzz.

Early Snow, Combo-Abundance, and the Hell of Clothes Shopping

As I mentioned in one of my postings, I'm finding it a bit of a downer after the dump of snow we received a couple days ago; knowing that if it remained until spring thaw, we would be having nine more weeks of snow coverage compared to last winter, when we didn't get a lasting snow until sometime between Christmas and New Year's Day. Of course last year was an abnormal winter in its lateness, just as this year is abnormal in its earliness. Nature, I guess, is just balancing itself out. Normally, for this region in Canada, the snow that lasts through all the winter season arrives in mid-November, and remains until around the end of March. There is a small chance that this recent snowfall might still disappear, but with the temperatures predicted to drop to minus 15 ºC overnight this weekend, I highly doubt that it will.

The coming of this early snow is prompting me to think and do several things that work interdependently and consequentially with each other:

1. I dig through my closets to switch over my clothing for the season (also see point #10).
2. I pitch out, or put aside to donate, clothes which are overworn, or which don't fit or suit me anymore.
3. I'll be taking my clothes to one of local thrift stores, which would be having a higher business volume now due to Hallowe'en coming next the week.
4. While there, along with contemplating the irrationality of having a traditional observance in the year where we celebrate the supernatural, superstitions, and stuff that scares us, I calculate the degree of waste occurring when we buy 'ceremonial' clothing or costumes that we only use one day within a year (or in our lifetime) to wear. 
5. After donating my old stuff, I'll be forcing myself into the arduous task of shopping for the list of clothes and winter gear that I may lack.
6. I think about how much of a pain in the ass it is for me to shop for clothing (leading to point #9)
7. With the coming of the snow, it triggers me to wonder how close to Christmas it actually is (exactly two months from today I realize), and hence make it a point to try to procure some extra savings for the holiday.
8. I monkey around with figures more to avoid depriving myself before and after the Chistmas holiday.
9. I'll willingly opt to stay inside more, giving more attention to my home environment (convergence at point #12).
10. After digging through my closets, and knowing running outside isn't very safe anymore, I pull out my home gym equipment, and try it out (more to ease my guilt about buying this stuff, and yet not using it on a more regular basis). Also serves as a reminder to not let myself balloon out of the few well fitting pants I have because of more physical idleness during winter.
11. Thinking back to point #7, I spend more time thinking about what practical things I could use around here which I could get on the Boxing Day sales. Skip to next point.
12. Being inside my place more leads to more tinkering with things and cooking (as home economics projects to save some money, point #7), and playing around with more puzzles and number games to quell boredom. I also resolved to use this winter to read more, and re-learn things about science and advanced mathematics (and making practical use of them, as the case through exploring and answering point #14).  
13. Thoughts of avoiding a sense of deprivation (point #8), rummaging through my closets and drawers (point #1 & #10), clothes shopping (point # 5), messing around with recreational mathematics (point #12), add to that the ridiculous manner of consumption and hoarding I have been witnessing a few people partake in, leads me to think about the last point as a open ended question about other psycho-social problems regarding greed and coveting things:
14. Why can't people use more common sense, arithmetic, and logic to determine:
1. The possibilities and abundance they already have through the application of probability and statistics?
2. How much is 'enough' before wasting more time, money and energy on items that become insanely superfluous and turn into a ridiculous collected/hoarded surplus?
3. The most efficient way to shop for stuff, and how to sense better about which things are 'wants' and which are 'needs', especially if one is already the sort that is on a fixed income*?

Let me provide an example, especially relating to 14.1 and 14.2. Suppose all your clothing vanished from your closets except for eight of each garment of your basic essentials**: in this case (thinking as a guy), they would be eight pairs of shoes, eight pairs of socks, eight pairs of undergarments, eight pairs of bottoms (trousers/jeans), eight belts, eight T-shirts, eight overshirts, and eight outerwear garments. Let's also suppose you have the right style going for yourself with each garment (i.e. each pair of pants will suit well with all the shirts you have, all socks go with the all the shirts and shoes you own, etc.). Thus, you would then already have 8⁸ ,or 16,777,216*** different possible permutations to wear as ensembles out of just this bunch of clothes alone. Supposing even that you eliminated choices by a wearing fresh ensemble of each kind of clothes item each day of the week, after randomly picking out your first outfit (as per the conditions of the ** footnote), within those seven days you still have 7,907,396 possible ensembles to choose from through the whole week(7,907,395 choices technically, since you would be reduced down to one pair of shoes, one, pants, one belt, one shirt, etc., by the last day so you would really have no choice left to make to dress yourself) even as you eliminated options by tossing each ensemble set in the hamper/not using them for the rest of the week after you wore them for a day.**** Knowing this now, how could you ever feel deprived if you stopped and looked at your closet with even more stuff in it than what I just gave as an example? The fashion police, compulsive clothes shoppers (whose delusions I just torched), and a few teenage daughters, are still already probably plotting to put a price on my head for mentioning this. Mugatu has probably already selected and trained the assassin to do it. I'll probably be strangled with a piano key necktie in my sleep (see Zoolander, hilarious movie).

If this is what's possible with just eight shirts, eight pants, eight pairs of underthingles, etc., can you imagine what goes through a mind like mine when I'm faced with the challenge of gazing at racks loaded with clothes in a store, and having to pick out something? Option paralysis takes over, and that's why I need the assistance of a female friend with a keener sense of my sartorial style than I have, to help me with colours, cuts, patterns and whatnot; to at least help pick out one item out for me and to provide a foundation to shop around, or else I'd be forever wearing jeans and plain T-shirts.

For regular day to day affairs, so long as what I have on fits right, feels and smells clean, and doesn't brand me as being some sort of friggin' redneck/cowboy or any other kind of hoodlum, I could care less about what I'm wearing, or having matching tags, or comparing my wardrobe to what someone else has on. To be honest, the famous people I have most respect for are those who coincidentally use the equivalent of plain brown wrappers as garb. Billionaire Warren Buffet, the Wizard of Wall Street, being as rich as he is, got away with wearing unpretentious simple cotton shirts, slacks and a blazer for a long time before finally being pressured by some cohorts into "looking respectable" by moving up to wearing $1,500.00, off the rack, Zegna Italian suits to work. Steve Jobs' business attire was a black turtleneck, jeans, and Nike runners. Mahatma Gandhi got by with even less. Their wisdom overshadows any flaws in dress and appearance they may have had. People who constantly have to overdress*****, to me, are doing their damnedest to try to shield some insecurity, or other major defect in their personality. I sure as hell won't trust some guy wearing gold jewelry, or a $3,000.00 suit, who is begging for money for a ministry, that allegedly preaches the words of wisdom of a Jewish carpenter who did his mission by wearing only a simple robe and sandals.

*- Like those reckless spenders I've been watching.
**- By essentials, I mean the kind of clothing that you walk out of your house looking presentable and feeling comfortable in 95% of the time. I'm being generous here with the number eight, that's one of each item to wear each day of the week, plus one extra to have on stand by should you have to change once midday if you slop something up, or to have something to wear while you are using one of the days in the week to launder your other outfits (unless you do your laundry naked, but that's your business). For the sake of a little more simplicity, I eliminated null options (going without a jacket, sockless, beltless, or going commando), or else there would be nine options for each respective clothing article.
***- Another way of looking at this: if each and every day you tried to wear each one of those different combinations of that given set of clothes, without repeating any one ensemble exactly, you'd have to live roughly 45,933.5 years (leap years accounted for) to do it.
****- [number of choices for each item]^{(number of items in ensemble)}, therefore adding the remaining possiblities made by each elimination for each day throughout the week, ( 7⁸ + 6⁸ . . . +1⁸ ), yields the remaining possible permutations. I was totally wrong earlier with a posted answer using a factorial analysis. This entry may yet need corrections. This is exactly the point of my wanting and trying to learn advanced math. I know do well enough that the answer is a hell of a lot larger than 23. It's a number still large enough to challenge the status quo about how one can have tremendous outcomes with relatively few options.
*****- This includes overdoing it with the makeup for women.

Running Harder, but Standing Still

I finally did something yesterday that involved straying off to someplace different than work or home within this past week. I bit of browsing at McNally Robinson and enjoyed a light lunch with my friend; sadly it was all the energy I had in me for that day. Browsing wasn't as enjoyable as it usually is for me. As much as I wished to do more reading, my eyes have been too fatigued and sore for it, plus I've been stricken with recurring headaches. It's probably due to too much extra time used staring at screens, processing code and formulae throughout the week, and monitoring the FX charts before the start, and after the end, of each day of a string workdays 10 hours long. I'm sure that typing this is will even become challenging shortly.

The title of this entry is a bit of a misnomer. By running harder, I mean it seems to take more energy and a higher pain threshold to commit to doing it at this time of the year. I didn't run all week: the damp coldness has been giving my knees grief. The lack of doing it is making my metabolism level head south, as indicated by my tightening waistbands on my pants. I resolved to at least get out today, no matter what, but I wonder if the resulting shock and pain to lose an extra couple pounds would make it worth doing. I plodded along at some distance over 5 kilometers this morning: better than nothing I suppose. I went outside, absent-mindedly wearing my running shorts and light jacket. I honestly didn't sense how cold it actually was until near the end of my run when I visually noticed that the shoulders of my black jacket were coated with white frost from my condensed expired breath. My knees didn't suffer that badly thankfully.

There is a treadmill in my building's rec room to use, but I discovered recently that the damn thing is busted. So much for that option for winter training. I can't really stand treadmills anyway. It seems that I need some perception and sensation of moving through physical space and traversing an actual distance to make it feel like running is benefiting me. There is the indoor track at the local Field House, but I'm trying to avoid paying a mint to use it. Walking and cycling, at least for now, are still viable. There have been still good results. I'm noting that yesterday, even during this time of the year, was the first time I used my car in a week. The most heartbreaking thing to see along my trips by the river this week has been the unceremonious demolition of the Victoria Street Bridge.


The hope of getting to use this bridge deck to jog on is officially extinguished.

I'm struggling to figure out where to apply myself today, the second day of a three day weekend. I find I almost dread having unstructured time off, because it seems that I waste half of that precious time, and even more energy, which I don't feel like I have, trying to structure it. Blogging now, in it's own way, serves to help me piece that together.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”
-Alvin Toffler

One thing I did do, in keeping with my riding the wave of decluttering and living more frugally, was clearing away some books I found, which someone in the building gave away as freebies as they were moving. So, I took them to my favourite local used bookstore to exchange them for something more meaningful for me*. I was in non-fiction mood, craving something in the realms of finance, math or science: things I definately don't hear sensible conversations about when I'm at work. One cheap book I found that I was willing to re-read was Innumeracy: mathematical illiteracy and its consequences, by John Allen Paulos. This edition I bartered for is from 1990, but the truth in it is as valid now as it was back then. Now that I find myself playing around with numbers more, I thought it would be prudent to detect and extinquish those remaining numerical fallacies and statistical errors I myself still succumb to. The sad and dangerous thing though is that the more educated I get about such stuff by reading this book, the more likely I am to detect just how much more stupid people around me will seem when they are trying to argue opinions around me and are trying to stick in figures they don't understand into the mix. Thus, my respect for them begins to quickly retract (to put it lightly), and I just fear more for the future of humanity in general once such people somehow gain more power.

*- I spent no actual money, I made a tidy little profit in terms of store credit, I gave old books new life, it helps to save a tree or two, plus by buying through this kind of discount I have the satisfaction of sticking it to the man by avoiding the rip off of paying an average 12% higher listed Canadian price for a book (even in e-book format) when the looney is close to parity with the US dollar. I feel it's all good karma for me.

Mid-October Fizzle Down, Time Puzzles

This weekend has been so lovely, and too short. It didn't help that I spent most of my time commiting myself to starting and finishing a few home economics projects instead of using more time to spend outside. I needed to bottle some beer, and then found some great other discounts and used the opportunity to make some pickles and sausage*. With all the sausage, beer, and sour pickles in my kitchen, it was like a one-man Oktoberfest around this place.

Running has been a bit of a pain lately, both figuratively and literally. My watch stopped tracking for the last couple of runs, including today's. My leg is starting to stiffen again, perhaps because of it losing its muscle memory due to more infrequent trials, and my failure to give it the stretching it probably needs. I've been resorting to doing more walking instead. Ella is definately happier, because of her extra inclusion, and getting to tour around more and sniff out the remaining smells of autumn that she finds lovely before the weather gets worse.



Mega-Eyeballs (Ella) greeting Super-Schnozz (Chance)

I thought I'd test my wits with FOREX trading again, and I'm trying to relax right now in this early afternoon Sunday before the currency markets re-open in Oceania and East Asia (it's an hour away from Monday morning in Sydney). This time discrepancy, the Toronto Waterfront Marathon**, messing around with time equations in Excel, and noticing my typical current waking hour falling close to an hour ahead sunrise at this time of the year as the daylight hours shorten more and more as we approach winter solstice made me think about all sorts of puzzles related to time, and realizing how much of our own language is a barrier as to why it's so damn difficult to formulate a sensible equation that a computer can process, and now much more difficult it's becoming to process happenings in a global ecomony in a world that functions 24/7. Questions that boggle my mind are things like:

• How far into the "future" does this "present" moment exist? That is, what is the limit of the farthest extended reading of time that the current moment can be expressed as a future time compared to your own timezone. The answer to this, of course, is whatever the current time is in the UTC +13 timezone, 19 hours ahead from my timezone, which would be the one west of the International Date Line. This time is being experienced along the meridian that intersects some rock out in the mid-Pacific somewhere. How far would you have to go if you jumped off that rock and started swimming until you technically reached "yesterday"?*** That answer would depend on how far north or south this rock was from the Equator. This leads me to wonder. . .
• If I were directly on the geographic North (or South) pole: the points on Earth where all time zones converge, which one do I use? If I took 5 paces northward from the South Pole, turned 90 degrees right and ran in circles, keeping a constant radius from the pole, would I be prematurely aging myself by days at a time? Theoretically, moving through all timezones so fast, I could pass through a week or so after a couple hundred meter circuit. Is it possible to stop your aging by running the other way around?****
• Supposing one had a regular diurnal cirradian rhythm, what would be the most optimal time to fly, and which flightpath must one take from one's timezone of origin, to the opposite side of the Earth (12 hours) that would most proactively reduce, or entirely eliminate, jetlag?
• If someone made a virus by some innocent botch in a financial program where a calculation was being made by using "negative time", could that person effectively use the resulting "negative interest" to pay off their credit card, and even make money?
• If I had to pay a capital gains tax here in Canada on an investment I made at a Hong Kong brokerage house, which had a massive fluctuation in profit (or losses) between 23:59:59, Dec 31st my time, and 23:59:59, Dec 31st  Hong Kong time, which quarterly report is used?

Some of those things are silly thoughts, others are asked out of genuine curiousity. The other prompt for this weird fascination with timezone play is a quirky European film called Night on Earth, a film about the lives of taxi drivers around the globe at one particular evening. 

I only other thing to add here is a little maxim my late uncle frequently said: "Today is the yesterday of our tomorrow."


*- A bit disappointed with my savings yield with the pickle and sausage making. I figured that I considering the quantity I produced and the time I used, I only saved between $65.00 and $75.00. I'm sure I could do even better than that. The sausages are bitchin' awesome by the way. I can't report on the pickles for another couple of weeks.

**- A friend of mine is participating in it; thinking about how she dislikes traveling into different time zones and wondering how her subjective experience of the run (effected by jetlag) was compared to her actual performance.
***- The opposing question is: how late into the "past" is this present moment being registered? I hence would presume GMT -12. Don't ask me how daylight savings would would play on this. I'm from Saskatchewan for Crissakes, and in a timezone where we don't have to mess with that shit.
****- There is a natural phenomenon by which a prolonged stay on Antarctica, a place where -82 C temperatures occur, and 50 kpm windspeed is common, that will induce a greatly delayed cellular decay, and all chonological aging stops. . .it's called FREEZING TO DEATH!