August Civic Holiday/Vacation 2018 (Lagom, Hygge, and Kalsarikännit)

As usual, as glorious as it can be, this summer in Saskatoon is passing too quickly. This one seems to be flickering past me even more rapidly than others. It may be because I have been overall happier. The inclusion of endearing forces in my life are doing me good. The absence of some other tyrannical, narcissistic forces, and whiney nagging people has allowed me to climb still further out of a hole of negativity. I’m enjoying the reprieve from that thus far. I feel strong enough to be a supportive friend again, and to be there for those who matter. 

It’s the beginning of another stretch of holidays for me, and yet I honestly haven’t been that eager to formulate some grandiose, concrete plan for a getaway for it; perhaps because it’s the first time after the longest time that I finally feel like there is nothing I really need to escape from. The most off-kilter thing I done throughout this time around was daring to play a clandestine poker game in a meat locker with a bunch of Russian gangsters*. My brain has been switched on to entertaining myself with puzzles and games again, on top of digesting some literature. It’s a personal barometer that indicates good things for me. It’s a peaceful retreat for this time, even when the annual ruckus of the Ex appears once again in the neighbourhood. My internal clock is already shifting itself now, by default, to waking up even earlier, and trying to nap a few hours during the heat of the day to compensate for the rest I won’t be getting at night. Yet, despite all that, I can retreat into my own head now more easily with a greater sense of clarity and contentment, without any great interference; and to seek such a thing from someplace else right now seems like a needless and futile squandering of energies. With temperatures rising as high as 40 degrees near week’s end, I’m even more disinclined to be too active. By then, the thought of playing games in an actual meat locker might really be appealing. Even more desirable would be an upgrade to a walk-in beer cooler.

I did give myself a few moments to wonder about and reassess my own personal reasons as to why I would travel. I did so because I was probed with such questions by my sweetheart about what I’d like to do for my upcoming birthday. The thrill of travel isn’t planting my ass on the sand of some beach, nor is it even visiting museums or festivals, though they’d be interesting enough I’m sure. Neither does much for me in exploring or understanding the vibe of the place, which I think is the whole jest of traveling to begin with. With this gaming mentality going on for me now, I realize that the thrill of travel for me is just to get a whole new perspective on other lifestyles and challenging myself to interact with them successfully. That’s like a game in and of itself. It includes the challenge of using and interacting with another language and finding avenues to do so for sake of just getting around and taking care of your basal needs of eating, lodging, and moving from spot to spot. It’s strange for me to see people who have traveled far more than I have, and yet who are totally scared shitless at the thought of daring to depart from their all-English-speaking tour group from their isolated resort. They say that they like to tour around; and at the same time are totally xenophobic. As introverted as I am I still like taking the more immersive and anthropological approach to traveling and touring by vagabonding.

This gaming/puzzling phase I’m in has made me both reflect and fantasize about the scenes I liked and would like to retreat to. I got nostalgic thinking about watching the citizens playing spirited games of dominoes in the outdoors taverns when I was doing life in Valencia many years ago. In past summers at some lake with family, when we were not cooling off in the water, or fishing, or eating, or listening to stories and gossip around a campfire at night, we were spending time playing Kaiser**, Meadow Lake Rummy**, or other card games in the campsite or cabin. I thought about how content I’d be and how cool it would be just chill out in a café nearby a souk in Istanbul playing backgammon with some locals, or perhaps learning mah-jong in a park in Shanghai or Hong Kong. I think about this because apart from the need to buy and consume, use math and logic, and listening to music; entertaining oneself with gaming is another thing that can transcend language, or at least be another avenue to learn about language and culture by this other amusing and informal vehicle.

Speaking of language and culture, that has been the subject of my non-fiction reading during this time off. It once again is a study into the Nordic/Scandinavian lifestyle, and being a nerd for linguistics. I should diversify into studying other cultural viewpoints, but once again, I can’t help but to be attracted to the subject of Scandinavia, as it always intrigues, interests, and impresses me. It is partly because despite with me not being immersed in such a culture, I yet somehow already live by, learned through my upbringing, or have adopted similar such equivalent ideas and ethics***; I just now have discovered new words for some of these memes by some strange synchronicity, which aren’t conveniently packaged into the English vocabulary for me to describe my own personal modus operandi. It’s the whole Law of Jante (Wikipedia source) thing they got going on over there - that I can deeply appreciate, which is sort of a Scandinavian societal modality that serves to curb things like vanity, greed, undo pride, pretentiousness, and a false sense of entitlement. The book I’ve been reading is called Lagom: the Swedish Art of Balanced Living, by Linnea Dunne. A guide for balanced living seems to be an appropriate thing to read while spending some holiday time alone. I touched on the subject of Lagom in a past entry, but I didn’t do it any justice in trying to elaborate on it.

The best new concept words I learned from this book that I can appreciate are:

·         Köpstopp – (pronounced sort of like “short stop”, switching the “rt” with "p") It’s the discipline of applying a spending cap for a given amount of time: a voluntary moratorium on shopping for anything beyond essentials for living. I experimented with this at the beginning of the year, I just didn’t have this concise name for this behaviour. A way to tame mindless consumption.

·         Panta – a recycling fee for your cans and bottles. The Swedish form of what would be the equivalent of a Sarcan refund here. A monetary incentive is always a good thing to encourage a cleaner environment.

·         Plastbanta – The banning of toxin plastic products in your household, and opting for wood/bamboo, stainless steel. I was already shifting towards this trend; again, I just didn’t have a concise name for it before.

·         Lördagsgodis- Not everything falls under the self-regulatory restrictiveness of the Laws of Jante, or the discipline of Lagom in Sweden. There are memes for unfettered indulgence, like this one meaning “Saturday goodies/candies” basically meaning going whole hog on sweets and snacks, but just for once a week. It coincides and accords with my cheat days whenever I have the hair-brain schemes of dieting, and whenever I entreat myself to something weird and exotic to experiment with in my kitchen, as the rhythm for that typically falls on Saturday.

·         Fredagsmys – Another once a week institution. This time meaning roughly “Friday coziness”, relaxing and retreating in your own home with nothing but your snacks at the ready and other creature comforts, and no other obligations to do anything else but veg out. Being that they neighbour as countries, I imagine there may be some correlation with the Finnish meme of kalsarikännit at this time of the week (read on further).   

·         Pyttipanna- A general cooking method of creatively making the most out of the leftovers in your fridge and pantry. Something I do all the time as a personal principle, because being wasteful disgusts me.

·         Loppis – A word meaning to tour flea markets, yard sales, and other places for gently used goods. Loppisrunda means making an entire day’s event of it. Another movement towards frugality, and waste-reduction, repurposing, and giving second hand items a new home and life.

The other Nordic memes I’d like to look into more, study, and explore are the concepts of hygge (Danish) – something akin to “coziness” but I’m led to believe and understand that it is something more divine and intricate than that, and the Finnish institution of kalsarikännit – I apologize that the translation is not too succinct: it roughly means “underwear drunk” but it actually essentially means succumbing to the urge to get intoxicated at home alone in your underwear after a bad day, with no intention of going out and socializing. That’s perhaps the perfect one to test out on a smoky, smouldering, 40 degree August afternoon, like what’s coming ahead.

*- Not for reals; in the Xbox game Prominence Poker. It’s the fact that I’m playing video games to begin with, instead of immersing myself in some other strange little project: that’s what is off-kilter for me, but it beats frying in the merciless heat for now.

** - Two very regional games unique to the area where I was raised here in Saskatchewan. 

*** - Perhaps it’s all mysteriously inherited and instinctual, seeing now that 25% of genome is Scandinavian after a DNA test. Nature versus nurture arguments will be for some other time.

5Q5A: Winterlude

Again, this is mostly for the benefit of my non-Canadian audience. 

I’m not trying to react too negatively about it, but It’s back, and being that I should be better prepared for its coming is neither here nor there. Of course, I’m talking about winter: and no matter how well prepared I am for the physical and logistical rigours of the season, like any savvy Canadian should be, ultimately, I am never prepared for it psychologically, despite having lived here all my life. Things like the extra darkness, the featureless snowscape, the extra work shoveling and blowing away accumulations, the treacherous driving from idiots who aren’t adapting to slick road conditions, and the augmented stretches of isolation and being penned indoors are already getting to me, and we are only four days into the season since the snow came. Knowing that there is 32 times that of a duration yet to endure until spring isn’t making me any more cheerful. I don’t feel anymore thankful or blessed in knowing that Halloween was snow free, and it could have come much sooner by one or two weeks, which is not uncommon in these parts to expect. It’s just here, and I have no will to deal with it. It’s going to be hard to find pleasure in this one. The title above is more of a note of sarcasm than anything.   

Q1. How is this going to be an even more challenging winter?

A1. What’s even more foreboding about it is that now that I’m a member of the Condo board, I’ve been bestowed some responsibility of assuring snow removal around the building on days like these; dealing with the gray areas of how responsibly the owners and the people contracted to remove it for us are going to interact. To do one home is enough, to be responsible an entire building complex is another thing. Plus, along with dealing with some residents and board members, some of whom are bickering with each other, and being caught between their petty conflicts, doesn’t make me enthused to pursue this endeavor. It makes me a little regretful that I’ve yupped myself into this.
As usual, the missing of like-minded intimate female companionship is at its worst when enduring this phase of the year*.

Q2. What do you tolerate best about winter?

A2. Strangely enough, the cold really doesn’t bother me much physically. Genetically, I suppose I just turned out to be a very warm-blooded person. It’s just an element that one dresses right for. I don’t give it a second thought or complaint about those instances, like this morning, where I’ll march out in -30 C wind chill to help relieve the dog. The whining and complaining everyone else does about it, and its resulting negativity, is more what gets to me when it’s overplayed. I get grumbly when I have to remove snow, or be forced to travel by foot or vehicle over ice, but cold temperature itself isn’t the bothersome factor to me directly, just what results in its influence in other things beyond me. I get pissed off at the failures and foibles of some mechanical and technical things like cars, cell phones, and other devices that aren’t as resilient as I am when the temperature plummets, but not with the cold itself. Personally, I find brisk, cold air cleansing and purifying. I’m one of those weirdos who favours an extremely cold day over an extremely hot one. I can dress better for a really cold day; I can’t undress further for an extremely hot one. If I ever find it too cold for my personal liking, it’s just a good excuse to have a hot bath, or use the sauna, or enjoy some tea or soup.

Q3. What are your personal betterment projects going to be for the season?

A3. I’ve sorted things out to the following.

1.       Language project – Learning (some) Russian. What more appropriate language is there to learn in the harshest and most bitter of seasons such as this? I’ll expound more on the reasons why and my progress in future entry.

2.       Cooking – Becoming a better saucier. To take ordinary cuts of meat and vegetables and elevate them to another level of amazing with a simple formulation of a sauce seems to be worthwhile doing. I’m reckoning on learning about 20 – 30 different sauces, dips, and glazes during the season.

3.       Studying – I have a big, stupid hoop to jump through with some required courses. It’s actually a form of hell and punishment to me, and a reminder of collective ineptitudes which, unfairly, other parties aren’t being held accountable for. But, I’m challenging myself in creating some weird and wild mnemonic systems to help me remember this stuff, which I can hopefully transfer and apply to other things more meaningful and valuable to me.

4.       Writing better  – I’m considering workshops for it.

5.       Continued involvement with my Union

Q4. What fitness and leisure are you going to try to pursue more of?

A4. Things like:

1.      X Country Skiing – If there is an ideal weekend for it. I might travel up to Elk Point to experience the trails there. Otherwise, I’ll try to keep regenerating my lung tissues with the circuits here locally. Running on icy streets and sidewalks is too much of a risk given that I need non-sprained ankles and unbroken legs for work.

2.      More sauna time – and with that, to pass the time better while sweating out toxicity in there without boredom, it seems fitting to read . . .

3.      More Scandinavian crime fiction – I built up a rather large extensive syllabus of books by Nordic writers. After reading a few, I totally get why people have commented that I think more like a Northern European than a Canadian.

4.      Shooting Nazis – Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, a video game, has been released. I really don’t want to offend my German friends after saying this. Please remember that I’m shooting at Nazis, not the good Germans. The first-person shooter gameplay for this series is awesome, and I’m sure I’ll need some form of quasi-destructive cathartic release of anger towards something representing oppressive evil sometime throughout this season. I wish I knew more people who like to play board games and cards; I would welcome that too. As for now, the dog is lousy at dealing cards, and doesn’t really have a grasp on how to play chess or backgammon.

5.      Designing and building furniture – mostly shelving and table options (solutions).

6.      Cocktail Bar Development – gradually accumulating the essential ingredients for a fuller and varied personal mixology lab experience. If I can’t have quantity, I at least want quality on the minimal level.

Q5. Let’s end with being positive, what are the better or favourite sensations of winter that you enjoy?

A5. Sensations, as in what appeals to the five senses, could be summarized thusly:

1.      Sounds – or rather the absence of it when the first snow comes. Walking outside in the darkness on the morning of the first snowfall of winter, where the light snow absorbs all acoustical aberrations. On the opposite side is listening to blizzard blowing outside whilst being with a warm beside warm, crackling from the fireplace. It’s the winter equivalent of listening to thunderstorm for me, which I also find pacifying. The only time I really appreciate classical music is during winter. Ella snoring by my feet after a long cold walk, either her effort to warm up, or to warm me up.

2.      Textures – the mass of a super heavy quilt draped over me. This is only appreciated on the super cold days of course.

3.      Smells – Birch firewood burning, conifer trees (the only non-dormant plants during the season; a good whiff of pine sap is intoxicating), fresh bread baking and soup cooking, any incense that masks months’ worth of smells of kitchen grease, other malodorous stenches and other volatile organic compounds (from not just my suite, but others’) that get trapped inside because you can’t really open the goddamned windows for fresh air for the risk of freezing the pipes.

4.      Sights – Hoarfrost, like everything outside gets encrusted with diamonds after a good freezing fog. Christmas lights, or any extra light that brightens the evenings before and after solstice.

5.      Tastes – For some weird reason, I tolerate red wine better during winter than at all other times of the year. As forms of alcohol go, ordinarily red wine seems like it is to me like what Kryptonite is to Superman. Anything fat and sugary is more pleasurable on an exponential degree during winter. If the only feast I had for Christmas was Butter Tarts, I’d be happy with that. I drink more coffee and tea during winter as well, perhaps to trick my brain into making the cycle of daylight longer than it really is.

*- I’m not going to be prideful, or be feeling ashamed, or hiding anymore about the fact that at times I get terrible spells of feeling weaker and vulnerable about being very lonely. Winter here is the worst for experiencing that, but some how I endure.

Sub Minus Forty*

The sweeter days of the El Niño part of this winter seemed to have slipped away, and allowed for something more aggressive to move in and establish itself here in their stead. The wind chill was -44 this morning. I don’t really wish to belabour the point that today is not just cold, but frigidly cold. We expect these cold snaps to arrive here every January, we plan for this coming, we try our best to adapt to it around here, but we never really cease the bitching and complaining we do about it; questioning why we live here, and wishing we were somewhere else. My chosen course of dealing with it, for at least today, is to try to focus on being productively active with cleaning, fixing gizmos, and other house work, plus doing some weights and cardio exercise to raise my metabolism a bit.

With some sheepish embarrassment, I confess that I’m probably entering a state of denial about having to cope with this weather. For example, this morning after I brought in some firewood from the outside cradle on my balcony, I realized that I made the extra effort to shut the bug screen behind me as I was closing my deck windows after re-entering. Why? Like the place was going to be invaded by an onslaught of fucking mosquitoes right now? It could have been just a force of habit, maybe it stemmed from an unconscious wish that it would be so warm such that there would have been a need to do that. Whatever the case, it seemed like one of those odd stupid moments that just make me shake my head at myself.

I don’t write this for my Canadian audience, nor for those who know full well the rigours involved with enduring the season here at this time of the year. This is for the benefit of the readers of the rest of this planet’s population who don’t know, and are perhaps blissfully ignorant of what living in a what I would call a hard core winter zone is like. ** It sobers my senses when I do the calculations in my head when considering the geographical distribution of the world’s human population. The reality is that actually only about less than 3% of the planet’s people live in such zones, even with a very generous guess as to how many people live inside places like Siberia, Iceland/Greenland, Arctic Eurasia/North America, the Northern half of the Scandinavian peninsula, and Antarctica***. That makes 97% of you from everywhere else not very well acquainted with coping with these extremes in cold temperatures. Even here in Canada, because of the higher number of urban population centres situated near the southern border, less than 30% of this nation’s population qualify as living in my idea of a hard core winter zone. Sure, every Canadian knows what winter is, but when it comes to temperatures, more than 60% of our population can live and die without having ever experienced its greatest extremes. Now that I`ve crunched the numbers, it’s strange and shocking for me to realize now that there are that many people on Earth who have never actually experienced living through a day with a temperature below -20 Celsius. It is no wonder then that the rest of these people, the by far greater majority of this planet, think that we are crazy to be living in places like here. We definitely are the oddballs to them. It was hilarious to see the expressions of shock and bewilderment after going to a tropical country, and explaining to these people the truth about the reality of living through winter in Saskatchewan, when the coldest they`ve ever experienced in their lives is only something like plus 20 degrees Celsius. It was also intimidating to be looked at as some kind of freaky lunatic afterward once this reality about my life back at home was revealed to them.

Sure, there is lots to dislike on days like these: vehicle engines being stressed and uncooperative, cellphone batteries blanking out, eyeglasses frosting up, dry skin, frozen extremities, the wind feeling like it's trying to peel the skin off your exposed face with icy daggers are just a few things I can think of instantly off the top of my head. However, there are things I can appreciate about days like these too, especially when I don’t have go to work (like today).

So with the questions of why do I accept living here during winter, and how I can even appreciate days like these in mind, here are some of my easy answers for that:

• It rarely snows more when it gets this cold (and at least it's a dry cold).
• Between dealing with light and powdery snowfall we get here versus clearing the wet heavy snow or having the ice storms they get by the Great Lakes and in the Atlantic provinces, I'll take our stuff any day.
• There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.
• It makes you appreciate having a home to stay warm in more.
• The pleasure factor of stuff like soup, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and blood-warming hard liquor increases tenfold after you’ve been accosted a bit by a frosty chill.
• It becomes easier to justify eating and enjoying delicious fatty food.
• It becomes perfectly alright to accept surrendering to a nap under a warm quilt, or losing yourself in a good story on page or screen.
• Solitude in general seems more acceptable. As the elements aren't making it easy for people to gather anyway, through reason, you feel like less of a weirdo for being alone.
• If you are fortunate enough to have intimate company, cuddling becomes more acceptable, maybe even necessary (it can feel gross on a hot summer/tropical day, no matter how much you love your partner).
• A good excuse to light a fire in the fireplace: it stirs some kind of primal comfort in us.

That’s all I have for now. Unlike for a lot of other people, even this weather doesn’t have me yearning for tropical climates. I suppose I’m weird that way. To be strong-willed and resourceful enough to find ways to be happy where you are, no matter what the weather is like outside, and to find people around who are cheerful despite inclemency is enough. Tropical holidays spent being corralled with tour groups, or confined to resorts, surrounded by idiotic people who are complaining about things “being not like they have it at home”, is my idea of hell. I’ll take the peace of an afternoon nap, or an evening by a fire, on a cold day instead.

*- For easy reference: -40 is the equal in coldness for both Celsius and Fahrenheit.

** - By “hard core” winter zone, I mean in a region which has 20 or more days of a year where winter temperatures can hover around -20 degrees Celsius, or lower. This part of Saskatchewan definitely meets that criteria.

***- The degree of error in my estimate isn’t just dependent on cold weather latitudes, but also on varying pockets of Alpine regions of higher elevations.

Siesta Fiesta (Part 1)

The weather has taken a despicable turn, with the arrival of an awful 20 centimeter dump of wet snow for the weekend that is plastering up everything. Even though the radical change in the scenery outside makes it look like a perfect weekend for people to want to start decorating their own necks with tight nooses, it has not deterred me from starting a project related to anticipating and enjoying a warmer and more temperate season. . . if it ever comes. My place is getting festooned with stray wood chips and sawdust anyway, so the remaining spring cleaning can wait.

On my first attempt at it (an exercise of futility in retrospect) a week ago, I began poking through some forgotten corners of my storage nooks in my home, and then dared to check outside though the chaotic mess in one spot of my deck space where other bulky and dirty random stuff is stowed. Another past eight months of neglect over the winter didn't make it look any prettier. There is over 1.5 hectoliters* of nutrient depleted, possibly blight and mold spore contaminated potting soil and peat moss to get rid of, along with various other miscellaneous useless implements. It's all stuff that no longer serves me well here. Four consecutive seasons of attempting container gardening up here, all of them yielding disappointing and fruitless results, is enough. Ridding myself of the clutter would free up between three and four cubic meters of space. Now, I'm just trying to figure out what to keep and possibly re-purpose, and what to pitch out as trash.

This is my favorite frame design I found on Pintrest so far:
I wish I were so talented to carve a ship's figurehead like this
one. Once I finish mine, I believe I shall christen it . . .
The S.S. Lazy Ass . . .  S.S. as in "siesta sling" 

What I did recover from probing around in my inside storage was the nice handcrafted hammock that I bought over 15 years ago when I traveled in South America. I almost forgot I still had this. For all this time, I never had the right living space nor found the time to hang it up right and use it. The trees in the back yard of my last dwelling were too far apart for a rope rigged system, and I never troubled myself to find or make a decent frame for it. Now, I decided not to let this fine hammock go to waste; so after a bit of cleaning up and space reclamation, I thought I might actually be able to set it up outside on my deck now. I can't get ready for the siesta just yet. There is some work to do. I just need a proper frame for it; hence my new carpentry project. Because of my particular spatial constraints and limitations, it has to be custom built. Pinterest and other sites gave me ideas, but nothing I found was 100% satisfactory for my needs. I have the following considerations to abide by, plus some other objectives that I want to aim for:

• It can neither be physically mounted onto the exterior of the building, nor to the support beams of the deck above me (condominium regulations)
• It has to be portable and as compact as physically possible, such that when disassembled all the components could easily fit into the trunk of my car, or stored in my closet over winter.
• Easy to (dis)assemble at a moment's notice, simply with just a couple of taps of a hammer if possible; thus . . .
• No fasteners like nails, screws, nuts, or bolts**: instead I'll opt to creatively use mortises and tenons, notching and other special tricks with custom joinery.
• The use of the principle of dMass***: the most minimal use of material that achieves an optimal amount of support to hold the weight of me (and the dog)
• Usage of tensegrity***, i.e. the dispersion of stress put on one part of the system, that can be used to provide support within it. So in theory, adding more weight to the hammock would actually make the frame structurally stronger (aside from the strain of what the weakest points of the material used can handle).
• Using local Canadian homegrown lumber, and other such material
• Just as an added special challenge, to stay within a budget of . . . $40.00 ****

It also has to be feasible to make with the tools I already have, which are all hand tools. I have

The only tools I've needed thus far.

nothing against using power tools; I just don't covet them. Hand tools are cheaper, they are relatively easier to control. They are more compact; lending to less bulkiness to store. Plus, they work everywhere, whereas power tools are useless when working in a spot without an electrical outlet (or a bulky, fuel-slurping generator). I see no sense or justification in spending extra hundreds of dollars on things that rob me of more of my space, and when I only have enough time to commit to one or two small projects in a year. My respect for hand tool craftsmanship goes back to the days of working as a cataloguer in a museum, and seeing specimens and the variety of examples of antique furniture made long before the advent of electricity and power tools; things that can be accomplished and produced with the mindful use of just a simple hand saw, a square, a plane, and a hammer and chisel. Another thing that I'm utterly enthralled with is the craft of traditional Japanese carpentry: more specifically, their discipline and techniques of forming joinery. It has a splendid geometrical precision; yet isn't

My best hand-crafted mortis and tenon so far using soft wood,
I don't think I could have done this well by using power tools. 

primarily based on taking numeral measurements. It stems more from following and forming on the character of the wood being worked with itself. Carpenters of their tradition have fashioned some of the oldest wooden structures still in existence, some temples and other historical buildings being over a thousand years old, lasting in a country with a high frequency of earthquakes; their support structures all built without using nails or other metal fasteners.

I took a long enough break to examine and rethink my process. More to come later. . .

*- That's 150 liters, or 5.3 cubic feet for the benefit of you non-metric Neanderthals.
** - Actually, I lied. I'll need a couple of eye screws, along with a couple of quick release carabiners for each mast point. I could do the same job with rope or heavy cord, but the carabiners would allow me to pack things up quickly if it starts raining instead of wasting time untying fancy hitches and knots. This weekend's snow was the prompt for this decision.
***- Do yourself a favour: read up on the work of the visionary, R. Buckminster Fuller.
****- Just because it is a sum of money I already saved as change from my SARCAN returns since the beginning of spring. It was $30.00 initially, but I included allowing myself ten bucks to spare to buy some extra "boo-boo boards", just because I know I'll have a high likelihood of having a mishap or making a mistake. Watching a passive collection of waste getting transformed into an energy-event/resource of exploitable value is a beautiful thing to see happen.

Bloody Valentines

I have expressed often enough in previous entries my great loathing for Valentine's Day. I make no secret and don't deny at all that I am to Valentine's Day what the Grinch is to Christmas. I've been single through most of them, and the additional spitefulness towards the day comes from living in a region where 80% of the Valentine's Days during my lifetime have been blasted with winter storms, not unlike the one arriving today (more than 15 cm of blowing snow coming). I was initially going to travel out of town earlier, but I wised up to the advisories considering what my trip back home would be like. I've already been harshly greeted and woken up with a cruel icy bitch slap of a face-shredding wind outside this morning while walking the dog (-37 wind chill), and it doesn't help much knowing that the worst is yet to come. I work this evening, and I'm debating whether I should risk driving there and getting stuck, or try walking there in near white-out conditions. It's pretty much assured that given the weather that we'll be short-staffed. It's a day of anomie and isolation for singles that occurs when one is already in, and enduring, the deepest trough of mid-winter depression. For this province, in this climate, there couldn't possibly be a more poorly-placed, or more idiotically contrived occasion in the year to celebrate and glorify romantic love than today. My apologies to those who have already done so, but if you live around here, and chose today to propose marriage to your sweetheart, just because it's an easy date to remember, on this sort of miserable day, you ought to be automatically and officially classified as some sort of retard.

For me, I just had to find some way to keep myself busy. For the morning of this most wretched of all observances of the year for me, I ceremoniously grabbed my sharpest knife and cleaver and applied them to disarticulating joints, cracking bones, slashing up and peeling away skin, and hacking at, grinding, and macerating raw dead flesh. 

It's OK, relax! Don't over-react, I haven't gone off the deep end! It's not like I was in Halifax* . . . I was just processing and trimming some bulk pork for making my own homemade sausages. It's my way of rebelling against eating the industry-processed food. I at least know what's going into my own stuff. Sure, it's a dorky and weird thing to opt to do on Valentine's Day, but for me it's perhaps appropriate. Like the old European cheese, wine and beer-making traditions, sausage-making seems to be one of those food crafts best-suited for the monastic sorts**. I might as well call myself a monk, since it's another Valentine's Day with no one to share it with. Making tubular meat-filled phallic symbols all morning was as good as it got for me today. To be honest, it felt right to do, or it was at least chopping, cutting, and slashing at some inert fleshy mass was a more benign way to be cathartic, but what would have been perhaps even more fitting for me to do was to take the actual heart of the same poor beast and use it as an additional ingredient to pass through the meat grinder, thoroughly disintegrating it: an act truly demonstrative of my contempt for this damn stupid, inclement, ridiculous, alienating day. Thankfully, there are limits to both my appetite for destruction and gratuitous expressions of spite. That extra step would have just probably only edged me further toward a darker place. However, my focus wasn't tainted by too much bitterness. I concentrated on making my knife work flawlessly. I managed to take some gross-looking stuff and make it more delicious and aesthetically pleasing. My execution of this project was reasonably quick, efficient, inventive, well-contained, and clean, with no indication or evidence afterward that some orgy of blood, greasy lard, and raw pork had ever graced my kitchen. I think that Hannibal Lecter*** himself would have been impressed with my methods. As usual, nothing was wasted. Today's renderings were: three kilograms of Cajun style cured sausage, three kilos of Hungarian style smoked paprika and garlic sausage, three liters of Vietnamese Pho broth made from that noble hog's baked bones, marrow, tendons, and trimmings. For the finale, I fashioned a sort of a chichorón cassoulet made with the rest of that marvelous skin (to be served with some fava beans and a fine Chianti . . . slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp . . .). Through reviewing some recipes online, it seems like it's only the English, the Spanish/Mexicans, the Filipinos, and myself who can appreciate how delicious pork cracklings can be.

So, what of the other aspect of that main element of Valentine's Day: the LOVE part. Sorry. Love is a topic that I don't touch on here in this blog, or with any other company. I come nowhere close to being an authority with any wisdom on such a thing. It's too irrational, and too conditional to allow me to figure it out. I've heard of this myth of unconditional love; I live each day never seeing it really happening. I only know that I've witnessed and endured too many examples of what it isn't (in my mind anyway). To say I'm a bit jaded about the subject is perhaps an understatement. I could expose my thoughts about it, but it would be at the risk of sounding like a cold-hearted bastard, like I was once indoctrinated by the Khmer Rouge, or had once been some sort of feral child that was raised by a troop of rabid badgers. I'll limit myself by saying the following things about it and be done with the subject from here on in.

In regards to love and entering romantic relationships:

• In the history of literature, Dante Alighieri, writer of The Divine Comedy, foolishly forgot to include "dating after the age of 40" as another one of the circles of Hell****.
• I'm absolutely powerless to "make" someone love me back. Whenever love felt real to me, it has only turned back against to me and disappointed me and made me suffer by being unrequited. It has happened too often; so much so that one can't help but to feel isolated and to give up hope.
• Too many instances and too much exposure to what I would call "50 Shades of Crazy" has no doubt left me somewhat gun shy.
• It's far better to be alone than being around someone who does nothing but argue, nag, belittle, and accost you with other forms of negativity. So far, I've met more people who are like that than those who are not. The ones who don't sadly are either adults who are a just few too many years my junior and wouldn't be interested in me, or else too many years my senior.
• It's most often the case that, given this age, any women who are interesting enough for me are usually already partnered.
• The women I've found most endearing to me now all live afar. Life is unfair

I don't know why, but I do hold out for the chance for when, like the Grinch, my heart somehow grows three sizes larger someday upon crossing paths and meeting that most wonderful person. Right now though, it feels like a mostly useless and unwanted thing: one that has been passed through a meat grinder again and again; weakening and disintegrating more and more, feeling like less and less.
 
Just one positive Valentine's Day in my life is all that I humbly ask for. I guess I just have to somehow stay strong and survive through this one to see if that will ever happen. Today, however, is just another wretched winter day here, made all the more challenging and difficult by having to fumble around through it in knee-deep snow and wind to acquire the more basal elements of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, never mind trying to attain that which approaches a higher love, intimate contact and connection, and acceptance.

*- I just heard on the news about some sociopathic misfit loser punks who were planning a murder rampage in a Halifax mall. As a much as a downer this bit of writing is, nothing tops that sort of unfettered anger and contempt. Thankfully, that was thwarted by the police there today.
 
**- Sausage trivia - I learned that the name of the type of delicacy we Anglophones call "summer" sausage has nothing to do with the season, and is actually a corruption of the words "seminary sausage", i.e. sausage that was traditionally made in a monastery. I can't guess as to why; maybe it changed to "summer" because the word "seminary" perhaps sounded too unnervingly close to the word "semen", which would undoubtedly be an obvious PR nightmare for the church, especially if it was construed that "semen sausage" was prepared by some monks . . . Ew, nasty! That, as I say, is a whole other weekend of entertainment. Anyway, more seriously, before the days of scientific thinking, having something wonderfully appetizing rendered from something like spoiling curdled milk, souring grapes, musty grain, or something formed from the less appealing bits and pieces of an animal was really thought to be miraculous and an act of divine intervention. Thus, such processes of fermentation and controlled decay and denaturation were left under the auspices of chaste and holy men who were charged to be in good standing with the Lord almighty. Speaking of holy men, it still baffles me as to how Valentine's Day, a day originally commemorating the execution and martyrdom of a priest, got deviated into what it is today.
 
***- An interesting, yet creepy,Valentine's Day bit of movie trivia: The Silence of the Lambs was released in theatres on February 14^th back in 1991. I wonder: how many rejected marriage proposals happened that day after such a movie date? So, today's bloody activity thus seemed to be a bit of the homage of sorts. As dark, disturbing, shocking and graphic as it is, it still remains on my Top 10 all-time favourite movies list, and worthy of all the Oscars it won. More interesting facts about this film from this Mental Floss link
 
****- He should have added "February in Saskatchewan" as a circle as well.

Sabbatical Ending/National Holidays/Luggage Flags

Canada Day came and passed rather uneventfully. I worked that day, and I didn't partake in any of the local festivities. I arrived home in time in the evening to watch the dog dash under the furniture with fright once the fireworks stared blasting from close by Diefenbacher Park. The park bustled with a lot more noise and people than usual for the occasion due to the fact that the holiday fell midweek this year, limiting time for most folks to head up to cabin country or camp at the northern lakes. Travel out of town to places south and east of here was made difficult and limited due to the flooding disaster there, so more people were compelled to stay in town and gathered around here. It's Friday today, and I've noticed people packing up their picnic coolers and camping gear to escape the city for the weekend. Since Canada Day is also the official start of the next six months of the year, it's also a day where some reflection and reckoning is done, and a mark to use as a reset point whenever I feel I veered too far away from some ambitions and other things that I had resolved to do back in January.

Fitness climbs back into place as the number one priority. I've been noting that I'm probably at least seven kilograms* heavier than I was at this same time in the season last year. I was also noticing from glancing in the mirror how sickly I'm looking. The rainy month of June has left my legs and torso, which are usually fully tanned by late April or early May, looking too freakishly white, like I was rolling around in flour. The lack of vitamin D for so long would also explain why it has been so hard to bounce back from my lack of resilience lately. So, I decided to end my sabbatical from running. It has been five weeks since I last ran. I probably would have ended it sooner had it not been for the fact that I gibbled up my knee a while ago. Maybe it's still a bit premature to get back into it considering that, but I'm desperate. I picked the wrong day, and time of the day, to hit the trails too. It reached up to a 36 degree humidex reading by the time I got back in from doing it today. I somehow survived the almost 6 km trot. Today's sweaty spell in the heat and humidity maybe did a lot to finally reset my metabolism closer to its normal summertime mode. Today was the first time I actually used the air conditioner in my suite for the year. I'm now indulging in the long lost simple pleasures of listening to music, and of course, writing. I don't have any energy left for much else.
I've also been dwelling on the East Coast weather for the whole continent, as I have a couple of cousins who live in the path of Hurricane Arthur in their respective regions. Between that, and the recent flooding southeast of here, any complaint I have about the humidity earlier today here is trivial in comparison. After following a thread from the one living in North Carolina, who is experiencing the American Fourth of July holiday, her comments about it made me pause for thought about how different each of the cultures are about celebrating nationhood. It's a bit helpful for giving me a base for an explanation to my foreign reader(s) who put forth the question to me as to what I thought were the differences between Americans and Canadians. Since our respective national holidays are so close together, I thought I would entertain the question. I still don't know if I could comment fairly, but I'll try. 

Of all my wishes to travel, the curiosity to go to the states and see what was involved in a Fourth of July celebration has never really been there. I'm very uncomfortable being around and amid rallies where brazen displays of patriotism are everywhere, like the way the Americans seem to prefer to do it. It seems like there is more noise and spectacle involved to try to sell the idea to people that America is such a great place to live in. It's just not done the same way here in Canada, or it is at least not done here to the same degree. Here, you are permitted to just quiet down and be more reflective and appreciative of what you have and who you are for living in this nation. More people here tend to opt for being around someplace peaceful, like a park or around nature for that; not marching around in a noisy parade down Main Street. It's just a general opinion of mine, without an intent to stereotype. There are probably a lot of Americans who do prefer a quieter and more low-key holiday.

Just because I'm not appreciative of the American manner of celebrating nationhood doesn't automatically mean that I'm completely spiteful toward Americans, but it brings to light the whole issue regarding national pride that makes me mindful of the kinds of Americans that I really do dislike, and how they offend me as a Canadian. One example is in regards to "flag abuse". It's when those "proud Americans" who travel abroad**, the kind of really overly-patriotic ones who aggressively and obnoxiously tout how great and wonderful their country is while belittling the other cultures they are visiting, the ones who even go out of their way to do their own bit of Canada-bashing, but yet have no qualms about usurping the Canadian flag to sew and tag on their luggage in hopes to avoid getting swindled, assaulted, insulted, and ignored for service. Goddamned hypocrites! One minute, such people are ready to verbally piss on our heads, and then the next they are willing to use our flag like some sort a get-out-of-jail-free card in Monopoly when shit hits the fan. Sadly, such people usually do inevitably attract a lot of negative attention. When they use our flag, and yet continue to behave boorishly, arrogantly, and ignorantly to other people of other nations, that is a problem for me. It's like a less-criminal, but just as disrespectful, form of identity theft; it's because they actively misrepresent what Canada really is, all because of our flag being on some stupid and rude American's backpack. I'll admit that we as Canadians aren't all 100% polite and worldly people, but we certainly don't need to be giving the rest of the world the impression that we are actively adopting more of these sorts as our own, as if we have some sort of commitment or obligation to fill our national "asshole per capita" quota for the tourism industry. If I ever get on with pursuing any future dreams of traveling abroad, I really hope that I'll arrive at places serving North American tourists that have enough savvy for distinguishing the difference between the real Canadian tourists and the posers. I really wish and hope that I won't need to play the game of having to wear my nation's flag on my gear just to be treated respectfully. It shouldn't have to come down to all of that when you make an effort to behave with civility to begin with.

*- I'm noticing that when I gain weight I tend to use metric, and then switch to pounds when I start shedding it. Probably because the number for the gain is then smaller than that of the pounds lost. One of the more creative ways I choose to delude myself.
** - Again, not to generalize. Not all Americans are "bad" tourists. I feel sorry for the "good" ones who are automatically cast into this stereotype and preyed upon.

Leaf Cutters and Bitcoin. . .WTF!

It's only two days away from the solstice, and it aches my spirits knowing that so far almost every day off I've had since the first week of May, including today, has been either too cloudy/gloomy, or chilly, or rainy. The downpour this morning prompted the dog and I to go out only far enough for some of her relief essentials during her walk before she quickly dragged me back in; so she could then burrow and crawl back under my bed sheets to find that token warm spot she left. It was tempting for me to do the same thing, and just swear today off as another wasted, lazy, unenjoyable day for this season. Any day during the summer season when I can't start it by enjoying my breakfast and coffee on my balcony in the fresh air and sunshine seems like the beginning of a lousy day. I could have followed the dog's idea, but I have too much on my mind to allow me to rest. I decided to divert myself and escape from all that mental clutter and noise by writing here.

I sense now more than ever, after being so cooped up because of the dreariness and rain, how desperately I'm missing and being estranged from traveling, and just freely being able to walk around in nature and being bedazzled by brand new places. I realize that it's been more than a year since I just simply went fishing. I spent much of my evening last night in my armchair exploring destinations and favourable lodgings in Bing Travel and AirBnB. I also studied and tried to make sense of some literature on Bitcoin* and other digital crypto-currency movements that are happening, and all the unique options, securities, and freedoms they are allegedly supposed to allow when booking online and traveling abroad. More comments about that down the page.

With the setting being so gloomy and dreary for this time of the year, outside it seems almost too green. Normally, that wouldn't ever be a complaint from me around here (It's certainly better than when it gets too grey and white around here), but with the absence of sun, there has also been a sparseness of any flowers and blooms, making it look barren in another special way. Walking down the street under the canopy of thickly-leaved elms in the gloom and rain, I was struck with a special memory: of the insect nature, of all things.
 
More specifically, the verdant trees and the early day gloom triggered and took my wanderlust stricken mind back to a time when I was trekking through the rain forest, along some jungle trail that cut through some foothills near the coast when I spent time in South America**. On that excursion, something caught my eye on the trail. At the first flashing glance I had of the movement, it struck me that there was a little reddish-brown and green snake crossing the path slowly. However, on closer inspection with a clearer view, I discovered that it was really a dense column of ants carrying bits of fresh leaves on their backs. They looked like little surfers heading towards some beach carrying along their little green longboards, all in unison at a perfectly synchronized rate of marching in one direction to make them all look like one organism. This was my first encounter with leaf-cutter ants.
 
As strangely interesting and fascinating as they were to me at the time, I still didn't hold them in any special regard in the grander scheme of things that were happening in and beyond that jungle. I had enough of my own challenges I was going through in trying to adapt to that environment and the social scene of the nation I was in back then. However, later on I did gain some perspective of this creature's role in the interdependent symbiosis of that particular ecosystem. It turns out that this seemingly insignificant ant and its bizarre behaviour is greatly responsible for being a balancing component for keeping an entire forest system alive.

Most of us, who appreciate biology, are already familiar with the intricate role of honeybees, who work symbiotically as nature's reproductive postal workers/surrogate penises for flowering plants. The leaf-cutter ants are just as critical as an element of a life support system in a rain forest. The leaf-cutter ants act as a soil conservationist, habitat builder, gardener, and farmer. The leaf-cutters trim the leaves from select trees in the upper parts of the forest canopy. The consequence of billions of them trimming away these leaves is that it allows more sunlight to penetrate onto the forest floor so other smaller species of plants below can then photosynthesize and survive, and hence introducing more food and habitat, allowing more animal species to thrive in the middle and lower parts of the forest matrix. The ants take the fresh leaves back to their colony, where they are used not to directly feed the ants, but to nourish a specific type of fungus which is grown on the cut leaves. The fungi consuming the leaves is actually what the ants and their larvae feed on. The fungi also work in a copacetic union with other microbes to then accelerate the decomposition of the leaves which greatly helps to replenish nutrients and minerals the rapidly depleted/leeched topsoil on the rain forest floor. It's an intricate and sensitive system that has cycled for millions of years. Even though the ants have an important and integral role in it, they are not its most dominant force nor its weakest link. The system they interact in, without any one dominating power, is self-sustaining, interdependent and completely de-centralized. I reviewed this process, because it was supposedly important to know before I could try to get the gist of what the Bitcoin author was trying to explain.

By coincidence, the author of this Bitcoin book was trying to explain its workings by trying to use the life dynamics of these particular ants as an example. I was eager at first for the comparison, since I was indeed awestruck by them when I first saw them working, and I thought the author could actually somehow use these very same creatures as a relatable, comprehensible, and meaningful example to me to posit his analogy to the workings of Bitcoin. His leaf-cutter ant metaphor involved the establishing and creating a functional new digital currency, where there is no real direct intervention or regulation by any one national government authority on settling on what the value and potential transaction opportunities/limits can be for this type of crypto-currency, and the actual bottom-of-the-pyramid users generate and control this self-sustaining transaction system instead. Did you understand any of that? Who knew that social insect behaviour and digital currency macro-economics were so much alike? I sure didn't, and do you know what . . . I STILL F*&^%ING DON'T!!! I feel like my time was wasted now for reviewing something so bizarre, and I failed to anchor any of this crap to a workable concept that's meaningful to me. I confess that I'm no stranger to at least trying to study and attempt to understand some pretty wild esoteric ideas in a lot of fields, but the one that makes me want to gouge out my own eyes when I glance upon it is the subject of economics, and the words of people who think they have all the answers about it, and can't produce an intelligible and tangible example to explain so abstract. I don't know what qualifications you need to write a textbook explaining economics which now include more abstract computer coding for transactions and more esoteric tech-lingo, but after reading this stuff, I think it involves going to whatever school it was that Nostradamus went to, or whatever one the crazy old bastard who wrote the book Revelation did. I only got to wondering afterward about what it was, and much of it that he had actually smoked from some bong while he wrote that stuff. I don't intend to bash the guy who wrote this book too harshly: he did openly declare that it was his raw, unfinished copy, meant for more editing. I'll give him some great credit for daring to do his best to make describable a technical phenomenon that is itself changing very quickly in leaps and bounds as app development for it gets enhanced. It's still all gobbledegook to me. The comparison to Nature's ecology with human economics doesn't help me much either. I tend to think that Nature didn't account for human stupidity and human greed in her design, which the real workings of human economics is full of. Look how she is suffering now because of it. As a result, his example became nullified for me. Trying to follow any economic trend or related news just disturbs me, I can even see the result of doing it reflected by the quality of my own writing now. Rambling and discordant; lacking of a real central theme: just as I find regular discussions about the dynamics, theories, and policies in this field.

Between the two subjects of the ants and crypto-currency economic practice and theory, one had me a bit enthralled and interested; the other put me to sleep in my armchair. Hint: I didn't wake up with drool rolling down my chin, as if coming out of a coma, after reading about the ants. The subject of economics, especially as it is today, is all too cryptic, complicated, boring and nonsensical for me. It's all loaded with a bunch of cold and prickly theories which have more to do with making hyper-competitive businesses and corruptive governments flourish, and less to do with satisfying the real and current needs of the human condition. Google defines it as: the branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth. It sounds sweet and simple, but it's a little too general, and it also has too much wiggle room to allow for doing perverse, greedy, and unethical things as options to gain wealth. My personal simplest, yet exact, definition of economics (or at least as to how I try to apply it in my own life) is: the knowledge, practice, and study of managing and transferring given resources, assets, energy and time in a responsible, practical, effective, efficient, and ethical manner. The inclusion of the words "responsible" and "ethical" alone to the definition of economics shows you just how screwed up this world is when brought to light in the way we are living in under today's current actual economic system realities (or I should say tyrannies). My idea of what economics should mean doesn't jibe well with that used by most of the rest of the world. Maybe that's why I've been a poor student of it, or maybe I'm just pragmatic, and don't want to really waste time learning any more about a convention that really hasn't been working well for us to begin with. 

When it comes to Bitcoin, I can see now how those in power in institutions that are too archaic to readily adapt to this (like most governments) being really scared of it, along with those who are without technical savvy. Black market activity is not as easy to do with Bitcoin as people think it is, so those who are trying to sidestep accountability and transparency will have even more difficulty doing it as the technology evolves. Those digits still leave trails. I wonder what other propaganda wars/changes will ensue as it becomes more established. Boning up on some knowledge of Bitcoin is something not I'm really doing out of real interest; I'm just regarding as a necessary labour/evil because I might someday be forced to use it and comply with its terms; plus I may at the very least need to learn how to avoid being screwed over by it.

If we already avail ourselves to use some sort shopper's card for collecting 'points' for discounts and freebies from our favourite retailers, a casino card, or some means for collecting Air Miles® or any facsimile thereof, we are already resorting to de facto alternative forms of digital currency with an arbitrarily assigned value. So, why should we really be surprised, or feel so threatened that such a thing is Bitcoin has come along? We already seem to not mind too much about blindly feeding our personal information and data about our shopping and consumption habits for the fungus that is the market researcher to gather and exploit whenever we use such points cards. Using Bitcoin may actually lessen some of this sort of intrusion. The threatening thing I suppose is that it's a lot more abstract and more technical than other forms of payment that we use, but that's the way money has already been constantly evolving through the decades and centuries. Money, in any form, will always be used in corruptive ways so long as greed, waste, and stupidity in people exist. People might actually have to try to be a little less ignorant, and make an effort to actually tune into markets, and learn how to read candlestick charts and conversion tables to protect their interests as this digital convergence with money happens. I can see how that is intimidating for some, especially those who just want simple. All I know is that: a. there will be a huge powershift that will arise from this, and b. that for now I'll be studying the degree of convenience, security, and volatility of the Bitcoin system a little more before I commit to changing my dollars to binary digits in a QR code.
    
*-The weird and seemingly unrelated imagery on one of the EPUB books I was reading about Bitcoin also no doubt compounded the thought-triggering (it was a picture of a leaf-cutter ant).
**- Cue in me mimicking David Attenborough's voice and accent here . . .
 

In Like a Pride of Lions/ Re-Evaluating Education

As happy as I am to see the wretched month of February pass, I can't say that I'm any more relieved that March has finally arrived. "In like a lion . . ." just isn't a sufficient enough of a simile to describe the coming of this month in this province. Yesterday was the coldest March 1st on record for many places in Saskatchewan, including here*. The extreme cold has been twisting a real crappy beginning into my string of days off in the weirdest and unexpected of ways. It is yet another proven case of the fates conspiring against me whenever I yup myself into doing any part of a night shift, or to try make some extra coin. I was already short of a lot of sleep as I worked overtime prior to the last night of my last evening shift. Hoping to just collapse into bed and go into some sort of coma, I instead was pestered all night by false alarms from the fire detection system. I don't take blaring fire alarms lightly, especially since after the building just across the street went up in flames last fall. For the first time, the residents evacuated and were forced outside to stand in the wicked -42 below temperature. It's suspected that the sensors downstairs were being buggered up and triggered by the super-condensed, car exhaust-laden cold air drafts coming in from the lower parkade entrance. Whatever the case, the alarm bells were set off several times over night, and for the day after; with cumulative loss of a night and a half of sleep, I was completely dead to the world throughout most of yesterday. I just got to be thankful that there was no actual fire emergency to contend with.

The exhaustion and the miserable frigidity outside didn't make me feel compelled to do much of anything; but I did make the effort to escape the place in late morning to avoid the noise from the service repair and system testing that they were following up with after that night's incident. I used that time to volunteer some help for my friend get some electrical supplies for a home improvement project. I thought the trip might give me some inspiration for doing similar stuff around my own home, but I was too brain dead to be ignited with any ideas for such things. My back and legs were stiffening up too much to do the running that I should have been doing as part of my training program. I could only handle absolute stillness and silence. It ended up being a wasted day for me.

Today, I've been trying to compensate for yesterday's lethargy. I occupied myself all morning with laundry, housecleaning, filing and taming of paperwork, and noting all my stock shortages to shop for later. Now that the slate has been cleared of that stuff, I'm now exploring options for the remaining week or so I have to be absent from work. It began with taking my head offline** to allow my brain to reboot itself. The insomnia left me stricken with a massive headache anyway, and my eyes were too sore for reading or viewing screens after I came back home.

Now that I'm re-invigorated, I'm going to share what I'll be doing this during frozen time off. If I can't physically go anywhere, I have to do different things with my brain to take it to different states and places. I've been thinking more about I feel I need more formal education to do any meaningful shifting of career, moreover, I've been wondering where in the hell am I going to find the time and money for it. I become very sickened and bitter when I start thinking about the current paradigm of post-secondary and polytechnic education for so many reasons: too many to list here. I predict a disaster coming ahead socially and economically if the universities and tech school administrations in this province don't pull their heads out of their asses soon enough, and start designing curricula and programmes that reflect the times coming ahead, i.e. considering the rate in which technology is changing things.***

For now on my personal time with no TV to distract me, I'm sticking to the fundamentals of staying sharp mentally for what ever is to come.

• memory (re)training/logic puzzles
• programming/language learning
• increasing my own general teachability index
• learning more life hacks/template creation for efficiency
• using Creative Commons and other free open source online university programmes 
• finding other projects and useful and demonstrable applications for them, and to make a recognizable portfolio in lieu of a certificate

How ironic it is that the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs: the richest and greatest technical innovators of our time, were college drop outs. Warren Buffet, one of the richest men on Earth, says "The best education you can get is investing in yourself. But this doesn’t always mean college or university".

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-trashes-higher-education-says-its-not-for-everyone-2012-5#ixzz2uxmqKzWu
He sent none of his three children to college. Even though he has formal university degrees, the only certificate he has on display is one for the Dale Carnegie Public Speaking Course, which only cost him $100.

*- With the wind chill accounted for, it was -52° Celsius here in this town.
** - I was strictly audio. No computer, no books, and no TV; I turned my cable service off for spring and summer.
***- Have you ever just looked at the apps on your smart phone and wondered how many human jobs these things have eliminated?

Blue Monday/Another Weird Cycle (and trying to break it)

According to researchers, after reviewing and monitoring tweets and other social media postings, today has been determined statistically to be "the most miserable day of the year", or "Blue Monday". It's when the holiday cheer slips behind us, people return to their regular work schedules, and the reality of the aftermath of those expenses comes along with facing winter at its worst. It seems that I couldn't escape this day unscathed either.

I've been rendered flu-stricken. I have been so since Sunday morning. I'm being tormented with a fever, being drenched in cold sweat, headaches, muscle cramps and weakness, and other respiratory issues. It couldn't have happened at a worse time because it sets me up in an approach-avoidance dilemma. I have used my New Year's stat holiday (which now looks like a pretty much wasted deal) for a challenge coming up tomorrow in which I'll need 100% of my brain's capacity to have instantaneous memory recall, mental focus, and a quick reaction time. The critical factor is whether or not to use symptom relief. If I don't use it, I'd continue suffering and weakening from the sleeplessness and appetite loss that follows; a brain made useless through fatigue. If I do use the stuff, I might be more physically settled and able to eat and sleep, but then I risk reducing my brain into a useless fog-filled mush through their side effects that may not subside on time. It's like there's a no win situation. I feel like my chances for any success tomorrow have been sabotaged, no matter what course I take. I hope I'm wrong.

This paragraph comes three hours after the last one. My effort to rest was futile and I caved. I had to get out and find healthful food and remedies. I knew it was getting bad for me, but I didn't realize as to how really rough shape I was in until a stranger approached me and asked if I was alright as I shivered and staggered around the grocery store. I'm frustrated even more about realizing how much this year is starting to unfold as another close-to-identical cycle of the crap I faced last year in terms of illness and weather, as indicated by the entry Cooking with a Head full of  Neo C. However, this time I sure as hell have no mood nor energy to cook. I am going to be practical; pace my doses, closely monitor my states of alertness between them, and adjust the timing appropriately for tomorrow. I'm writing right now more as a means of performance feedback, to see how the process is going for me. It's probably a good moment to be mindful to do something, anything, for the sake of betterment that is radically different to break this cycle.

Firstly, let's try to look on the bright side of things. It's 20 degrees warmer than it was yesterday (it's still -31 C in the wind). . . well, it's a small start. The rest I left to exploring sites on how to escape the mid-winter blues. For all the other fellow Blue Monday sufferers and resolution makers, here's a link on Wikihow .for you to use.

My 13 Counted Christmas Blessings for 2013

Considering what is going on nationally and worldwide right now as I watch the news, for this Christmas I'm happy and grateful for:

1. Having more wits and lucidity after this past night shift than I thought I would have had
2. The weather changing and taming down from something viciously Arctic, into something in which I can walk around outside without gloves, wearing just a bunnyhug* for outerwear 
3. Light, power, and heat: things that tens of thousands of people in Ontario, Quebec, and now the Maritimes are still struggling without
4. Clean fresh air; unlike some of the idiots out east who are killing themselves with carbon monoxide poisoning from using generators and barbeques inside their homes to warm themselves.
5. A clear travel corridor, something that a lot of people using the airlines in some cities in this nation didn't have during the storms
6. Dry feet: something that people in England and northern Europe don't have right now as they wade through their homes and streets due to all the flooding occurring there
7. A schedule which flowed such that I actually had the holidays off
8. Getting a bit fatter - it means that I've been eating well, even learning how to bake some dainties. It beats starving and missing out on the abundance.
9. Drinking and playing cards and backgammon with the 80 year old, baby Jesus (Happy Birthday Dad!)
10. Peace: something that ain't happening in places like South Sudan at this very moment
11. The diversity of people that I work for/with, and learn from
12. Being lucky enough to not be so desperate as to need to rely on others' charity and generosity, like from a food bank or crisis shelter.
13. Knowing that if it came to pass that I was forced not to travel due to inclement weather, and had a power outage, I'd still feel comfortable at home with my fireplace and candles, and be resourceful enough to make it a comfortable Christmas with even just warm thoughts of my friends and family.

Merry Christmas everyone . . . Take Care!

*- That's an unlined hooded jersey to you non-Saskatchewan people

Hibernation Musings

I was happy and grateful that this Friday was an actual Friday for me: no work this weekend. I'm too stiff and sore, and I just want to be still and heal. I had no initial plan for this weekend except for destination hibernation, since this Saturday morning's temperature has plummeted down to -44 with the wind chill accounted for; it's senseless to wander too far from home. But sleep continues to elude me. Ella has crawled under my covers, curling up beside me and exploiting me for the extra heat in the bed, happily snoring like a buzz saw. I wish I were so comfortable; I just lie here envying her peace of mind to do that. My own mind has been stricken and mass attacked with too many other problems and concerns to think about, as I'm stuck here in bed, now two hours before sunrise. There seems to be no convenient, easy, or safe way to vent the stuff, and I have been letting these negative things fester in me and consume me. Thus comes this exercise of trying rid these demons through writing. As cold as the bloody weather has been as of late, I at least know how to use self-discipline/persuasion, common sense, and logic to adapt to it. It's a whole other matter and issue when dealing with the cold-heartedness of other people.

The last paragraph seemed to serve me well enough to let me throw enough mental baggage on a shelf to allow me to catch another hour of sleep. It's now close to sun up. We only stuck our heads outside long enough for a brief relief constitutional for Ella's sake. To force myself to sit still and convalesce, I continue writing. Part of my soreness comes from something that I've been doing to lead people who have been watching me to question my sanity. I'm getting more mindful to stay in shape. I've been willingly choosing to walk to and from work on these colder days. Why do I do it? Apart from economy, for the following reasons:

• My own body is a far more reliable machine in this kind of frigid cold than any other kind of vehicle I've ever owned
• A longer bout of low impact exercise (walking) on a frigid cold day yields the same result (or greater) rather than running the same distance on a hot day; minus the sweat, and minus the risk of breaking bones if you attempt to run on ice.
• BAT (brown adipose tissue) is activated in cold weather, which in turn activates your metabolism to burn more regular adipose tissue, that your body uses as energy to heat it.
• Somehow my immune system improves; I get sick less. I'm giving my body a break from inhaling virus-laden indoor air, which I'd be sucking air if I was using a public fitness facility. The winter when I never got sick was the one when I walked outside most frequently. 

I might as well admit another weird truth about me as I sit here writing on the subject of the frigid days of winter around here. As much as I've done my fair share of grumbling about the arrival of winter year after year; no matter how cold it becomes, I really don't find myself fantasizing about taking a tropical holiday anywhere. Seriously. If anything, I'd find that after dropping in for a brief two week sojourn at some beach resort like in Mexico or Cuba, only to be whooshed back and plunged into these friggin' freezing environs to endure the remaining couple of months of cold again, it would only serve to make me even more miserable about the season. It doesn't add up to a reasonable sum total for the expense of pursuing pleasure and warmth in my books. I'll be patient and wait for summer to come.* Perhaps I just think of it bitterly now because I have no one to really share such a holiday with. If I ever went anywhere for a winter holiday, it damn well better be for the entire duration of the season (which currently isn't really practical or sustainable for me).

At this time of the year, if I do dream about far away places, I tend to think more about the other peoples and cultures that live around this same latitude, and I wonder what they do differently than us to adapt, endure, and even somehow befriend this season. I think of people like the Norwegians, the Swedes, the Finns, and the Russians: people who actually might have a sense of what it's like to live in a climate like this. They seem to deal with winter more positively than us in comparison. It's almost becoming second nature now for this time of the year to copy some of their habits. For instance, I recently learned some cuisine techniques from a Swedish chef (I said a Swedish chef, not the Swedish Chef)**. I'd be using the sauna downstairs today if I could (like the Finns would) if a Christmas party wasn't being set up in the neighbouring rec room right now. This is my second winter of Nordic skiing, inspired by the Norwegians. I'm getting more open-minded to allow myself to listen and relax to more classical music, like perhaps some Russian would, on cold days like this. My living space tends to shrink and get cozier and condensed with more cerebral activity; I retreat to my four square meter kingdom. This is what I do more now in solitude to gain comfort, rather than hanging around and listening to the negative bitching and complaining other people do about weather that none of us have the power to control.

The social media network throughout this nation has made winter time seem even stranger, as we get less ignorant of our own regions, and peek more into those around other parts of the country. There are a lot of clashing perspectives in a nation as large as ours is of what a relatively cold day is***. My co-worker and I were laughing at her friends in Vancouver who were on Facebook describing the temperature lingering around zero degrees there recently as being something like "soul-crushing". What a bunch of goddamned pussies! People would be dancing out in the street here if the temperature even managed to climb up to minus five during this time of year. Sadly though, as more immigrants come here from warmer climates, and more urbanization happens, it appears that we as Canadians are becoming soft in attitude about adapting to winter. I miss the more rural attitude from my own upbringing that people had during wintertime. You just dealt with having to tramp out there each day to protect your livelihood no matter how cold it got; there was more resilience and a lot less drama about it, and yet we somehow lived through it all. Hell, we used to play outside as kids when it was 30 below, but now it's made to look like some sort of crime for allowing children to do that. With people becoming more urbanized and listening in to the status of the climate on a broader national level, which really hasn't changed much in intensity over the years season after season, the reports seem to be so much more dramatic and apocalyptic now. Now, it's some newscaster reporting on the weather network, who probably has never been out of Toronto their whole life, who's always looking freaked out when they start reporting on the weather conditions in the north, or here in the prairie provinces; making what has always normally happened each year look somehow dangerously unnatural and extreme.

Well, my soup is almost done, and it's time for lunch. Maybe, just for a hoot, I'll tune into a Vancouver stations and feeds to see what kind of havoc the dreadful "zero degree weather" has wrought over there.
 

*- Having lived in the tropics for half a year once, and comparing that to a nicer summer season here in Canada: Canadian summer has more tolerable heat extremes, longer daylight hours, potable tap water, more reliable infrastructure, sanitation, and civic services, less crime and poverty, much fewer people in street traffic leaning on car horns, and no disgusting lizards and cockroaches invading your dwelling, which perhaps have earlier on in the day, frolicked around in humid fermenting piles of garbage containing an abundance of discarded human-excrement-caked toilet tissue.

**- Those watching me operate in a kitchen might easily assume that my cooking inspiration and mentor is the Mr. Börk Börk Börk Swedish chef from The Muppet Show, but the actual person I'm referring to in this case is Magnus Nillson, who authored the book Fäviken. It is about his restaurant lodge somewhere in the Jämtland county in Sweden, which is currently considered one of the top 50 best restaurants in the world. What is incredible about his place is how relatively remote and isolated that this restaurant seems to be, leaning close to the Arctic Circle, and most of the dishes prepared there are made from what is farmed, hunted, and foraged within the immediate vicinity of the establishment. The book is an amazing compendium about self-sufficiency, and how to cook gourmet dishes with even the most rustic natural in-season regional ingredients. If it is an ambition of someone to have a 100 mile diet, eat with environmental consciousness, or eat as much locally produced food as possible, this book is a treasure-trove of ideas for proving that elegant abundance can be found anywhere.

*** - Addendum: My idea of when it gets extremely cold, or my where my personal limit begins when cold weather makes me want give up and scream "Uncle!" and I'm no longer willing to go outdoors, is when the temperature is at -40 or lower. It's a temperature reading that equally spells "BRRRR" on both the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales; it becomes troublesome to run anything mechanical outside, and that makes even those tougher folks living north of the 60th parallel start to wish for something warmer.