Sochi Games Winding Down/Rosling's Stats

Throughout the past week, I began some more intensive training with my running and skiing*, and I resumed walking to work, more to get my breathing and heart rate adjusted than anything else. Watching the Winter Olympics has been somewhat inspirational in making me continue with this stuff; it's also the only thing going on now that's making this bitter stretch of this wretched season tolerable. But now, I'm relegated to sit still and rest my back and bones from all the activity. I'm dividing my attention between the highlights at Sochi, and writing here. I'm being captivated in watching the finals** in both curling and hockey.

I'm happy to report that the final round in men's hockey for the gold medal will be between Canada and Sweden. It's unfortunate that we couldn't play the Russians for all the marbles in hockey for these Olympics, but this is the next best thing. If we are destined to win the gold medal . . . super. However, if we end up with silver, our loss would at least be to opponents from a nation of decent and honourable sportsmen, and there would be no shame in that. The upcoming game brings me to thinking about the work I've been following of another Swede, who is quickly becoming one of my favourite intellectual heroes. He is a statistician of all things. I'll get to talking about him in a minute.

On Monday of this week it was Family Day in this and other provinces. It's still a new enough holiday such that there really is no common socially established traditions for it yet. A holiday with the title of Family Day is just yet one more date for labeling, separating and isolating those who are alone without families, or with limited social networks; which follows close behind the other day of singles alienation called Valentine's Day, in the middle of the month where people are already at their wits end with dealing with winter here. With the subject of families in mind, and given that I'm in more of a global thinking state of mind as I watch the Olympics, I've been giving thought to the common factor of what all families globally are doing on this Earth: contributing to a human population growth in which this planet is becoming less and less capable of sustaining given the current rate and degree of our consumption and waste*** of energy, food, water, and the environmental destruction from it all. I could have found it easy to get even more depressed and pessimistic about the future when dwelling on all of this, but then I found out about the research of Professor Rosling.

I recently discovered Hans Rosling through the TED talks. He is a guy who has made statistics look like fun, if that's at all possible. He has also gives a bit of optimism in the presentations he makes in regards to what may come ahead as "peak child" as a result of improving global healthcare, and the ending of extreme poverty. The consequence of less poverty and more investment into health and education in developing countries is that we will be reaching a limit of where more humans are being put on this Earth.

What is even more impressive is his founding of the website Gapminder (www.gapminder.org)
and the interactivity of the informatics graphs that are there. The documentaries are interesting too. I could waste an entire week making cross-comparisons and correlations with these tools he provided. I think you'll like the TED video provided below. If this world had more teachers influencing governments like this magnificent Swedish professor I think the world would be a much better place.

*- I don`t think any of the classic cross-country skiers in Sochi have anything to worry about from me breaking any of their records
**- I just watched the Finns crush the Americans 5 to 0, playing for the bronze medal. For this round, I was cheering for Team Finland. Suomi! Suomi! Suomi! I'm doing so not so much to be spiteful to the USA, but more for the fact that I want to see something happen that will make some Finnish people actually get emotional and smile.
***- The exorbitant cost of 52 billion dollars used to create the lodgings, venues and to host these Winter Olympics triggered the thoughts of corrupt use of energy and resources, mismanaged funding, and wasteful inefficiency.

V-Day Melodies

A weird glimpse into my eclectic music collection, and a sloppy mix it is too: ranging from the sappy and romantic, to the depressing, to stuff that's just soothing and slow, to stuff that is more lyrically erotic. . .

My Playlist for this Valentine's Day

• Love Song - The Cure
• Don't Panic - Coldplay
• 9 Crimes - Damien Rice
• The Weight of the World - The Editors
• Sun Up Running for Home - Matthew Good
• Slow Burn - David Bowie
• Here Comes the Flood - Peter Gabriel
• In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel
• The Scientist - Coldplay
• Inflatable - Bush
• We Do What We Want To - O+S
• Fall at Your Feet - Jesse Cooke
• There Is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
• Never Had No One Ever - The Smiths
• Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me - The Smiths
• Unlovable - The Smiths
• The Drugs Don't Work - Ben Harper
• The Ground Beneath Her Feet - U2
• Perfect Circle - R.E.M.
• If You Wear That Velvet Dress - U2
• Sweet Jane - The Cowboy Junkies
• The First Cut Is the Deepest - Sheryl Crow
• Possession - Sarah McLaughlan
• Woman in Chains - Tears for Fears
• In Your Room - Depeche Mode*
• Stripped - Depeche Mode
• Higher Love - Depeche Mode*
• More - J. Englishman
• Chekannya - The Ukrainians**
• Vivir Sin Aire - Maná
• Como Dueles en los Labios - Maná
• La Puerta Azúl - Maná
• Con Te Partiro - Andea Bocelli
• Don't Dream It's Over - Crowded House
• Can't Do A Thing (to Stop Me) - Chris Isaak
• Wicked Game - Chris Isaak
• I'm Not In Love - Crystal Castles (featuring Robert Smith)
• These Foolish Things - Roxy Music
• Avalon - Roxy Music
• Only The Lonely - Roy Orbison
• This Aching Deal - Shocking Pinks
• Sight of You - Pale Saints
• In Too Deep - Genesis
• Black Hair in the Wind - Ottmar Liebert
• Blue Moon - The Mavericks***
• Dante's Prayer - Loreena McKennitt
• You and Me - Lifehouse
• Iris -The Goo Goo Dolls
• Name - The Goo Goo Dolls
• Sleepwalk - Amos Garrett
• The Book of Love - The Magnetic Fields
• Flaming Bed - Blue Rodeo
• What Is This Love (with Sarah McLaughlan) - Blue Rodeo
• My Funny Valentine - Frank Sinatra
• Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' - Journey

* - From the Songs of Faith and Devotion live concert recordings.
** - A cover of the Velvet Underground hit Venus in Furs, sung in Ukrainian and played with traditional instruments. Quite romantic really. Thanks again to the late Lou Reed.
*** - Holy cripes! This kind of sounds like country music. . . how did this get in here?!

To Build a Bridge to a Dream in 10 days

I started writing this on the last hours of the eve of Groundhog Day. I don't anticipate a positive report for tomorrow, but today begins a new month, and since January was such a depressing write-off, it's time to be firm and take steps to put some serious action and effort for more growth oriented projects. I put some time into establishing some metrics for the goals I set out to achieve, by reading back through some past entries, notes, and journals to winnow out what wasn't working out for me, and thinking about how to secure and engrain whatever is left that does.

While accounting for my time ahead, I'm discovering that it's one of those rare times when I have an approach-approach dilemma. As it approaches the end of the fiscal year, like every other year since I've worked where I am, I again have a sizeable chunk of unused vacation time remaining. I'm sitting here wondering if I'm just going to take it as a pay out, as with all the other years, or take the actual time off. Considering all the extra stress I'm going to be facing ahead with negotiations reopening, it might be a more prudent measure to take the time off. If I do book it all off in the right cycle, I'll have about 10 days off. There is nothing to make any stretch of time between mid-February/March look appealing around this territory; as we're only through 65-75 % of the way through winter. Travel was suggested by a friend at work; I wish I had her enthusiasm about the idea, but what I really have been missing most is a substantial sense of accomplishment from starting and completing a personal project that flows along a middle range timeline. Traveling somewhere won't give me that satisfaction*. With the time constraints that I have, I've only been stuck doing either very short term (within a day) projects, or tiny and slow progressive stages of very long ones. I've been trying to think about things that I could do that are radically life changing that could be done within the span of 7 - 10 days. The stuff that comes to mind of things that I've done in the past that fit such criteria are:

• Cramming the essential elements of another language (as in the case of me learning enough Spanish on an intermediate level that allowed me to travel abroad for six months). I know one person who I should try and find moments to Skype with to work on my German. I should also find someone to talk for improving my French, which I learned years ago but never found use for.
• Re/learning HTML and other programming tricks.
• Practicing some guitar, learning some new songs
• Assembling something to make some sort of functional gizmo.
• Building some furniture**
• Redecorating/painting my condo (too expensive to do now).
• Writing essays which I can get academic credits/certification for (which means I'd need a meaningful course to apply to, which is probably too late to register for now).
• Dating. Well . . . I lie, this is not truly a thing where I have found either success or satisfaction in doing, and it's doubtful that it will be a course I take ahead. The only radical thing in life that it has done for me was show me how few single women there are out there around my age who would take a liking to someone like me, and to show me just how petty, self-centred, immature, and/or just plain friggin' crazy people can be. It has come to where I am disillusioned to some point beyond just simply feeling flawed, jaded, and hopeless. I really just hate the indignity of it all. It's worse than trying to muddle through any job market. I'm coming to really wish that I lived in a place like Sweden, where one of my correspondents who lives there tells me that, in comparison to here, there really isn't any sort of ritualized form of dating, or at least there is less burdening of themselves and each other with gender roles, or pressure/expectations***, and men and women generally demonstrate more sexual equality, openness, and respect for each other.

It will be interesting to see what else I'll turn up when I peruse Instructables, or when I attack Google's search field with the words "10 day DIY projects", and if I do decide to book that time off.

*- Having the same stuck mind and taking it on a tour around a different place isn't really positive change.
**- I would need to borrow my father's workshop if I choose to do something like this, but it would take me two to three days alone just to de-clutter it and organize that place enough just to make it operational for my standards.
***- When I meet people around here, why is there some expectation for me be either some sort of business tycoon, or a professor, a dumbass redneck cowboy, or some sort of worthless macho/gangsta badass shithead with an inked-up hide?