Years ago, I remember Chris, Neil and Sascha telling me about how they ended up in the middle of a gypsy clan war when they were hitching through Ireland. As I recall the story -- and please correct me if my memory is tricking me -- but they were in a pub and, as if on cue, everyone else in the pub had started pounding on each other. So they grabbed their pints and snuck out through the kitchen. When they got onto the street they found that fights were spilling out of all of the pubs in sight. Vendors in the market square were prepared and were already defending their stalls against any stray ruffians who might think to add vandalism to the mayhem. One of these vendors informed them that it was a gypsy clan war.
Now, in the present day, one of my new colleagues is also my next-door neighbor. I didn't know this when I got the job. Small world. They were having a bonfire/skating party (the lake is frozen) the other night and I stopped by with the family before we went to bed and we got to chatting about Ireland, where she's from. When I mentioned this anecdote she said, "Oh, I bet that happened in September." Apparently there is a big pagan festival somewhere (she told me where, I didn't recognize the name) in Ireland in late August and old scabs are picked between the Walsh's and the McDonough's. By September there's Hell to pay.
These two clans lost their land during the potato famine and have been "rovers" ever since. The locals call them gypsies, and generally call the Roma by their own name. It's not political correctness, as far as I can tell, it's just that the Walsh's and McDonough's are considered to be more deserving of an epithet than the wandering folk who keep to themselves...
Present company excepted, I'm sure.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Pond Skating
Apparently there were a few people skating out on the lake yesterday afternoon and the kids are sort of eager to go -- me too, to be honest. So I was looking up information on the ice conditions but HRM hasn't started measuring ice depth yet, due to the warm weatherso I moved on to ice safety. Maybe there are some reliable ways to guage the safety of the ice without going out and buying an auger. Probably not.
I got a kick out of the advice found in Safe Sport.co.uk. As far as I can tell it is either some sort of NGO, or a bored parent. Apparently their experience with water is rather limited.
If a friend falls through the ice when pond-skating, do not go out on the ice to help. Instead, you should, "Provide the victim with something to hold onto such as an emptied plastic milk jug or soda pop bottle to keep them afloat. Once safely afloat, toss the person rope or a branch."
Call this a general disclaimer, if you will. If I ever fall through the ice I will not consider you negligent if you skip Step One and jump right into Step Two. If you do happen to have an empty plastic milk jug in your hand (you know who you are) feel free to toss it to me, but don't wait until I am "safely afloat" before proceeding to Step Two. Finally, an "emptied plastic milk jug or soda pop bottle" cannot under any circumstances be substituted with beer, wine or liquor bottles regardless of whether it is in your hand or not.
Play safe, kids!
I got a kick out of the advice found in Safe Sport.co.uk. As far as I can tell it is either some sort of NGO, or a bored parent. Apparently their experience with water is rather limited.
If a friend falls through the ice when pond-skating, do not go out on the ice to help. Instead, you should, "Provide the victim with something to hold onto such as an emptied plastic milk jug or soda pop bottle to keep them afloat. Once safely afloat, toss the person rope or a branch."
Call this a general disclaimer, if you will. If I ever fall through the ice I will not consider you negligent if you skip Step One and jump right into Step Two. If you do happen to have an empty plastic milk jug in your hand (you know who you are) feel free to toss it to me, but don't wait until I am "safely afloat" before proceeding to Step Two. Finally, an "emptied plastic milk jug or soda pop bottle" cannot under any circumstances be substituted with beer, wine or liquor bottles regardless of whether it is in your hand or not.
Play safe, kids!
Stuffy offices
So when I was interviewing for my current job, I was also interviewing for another job (not to be named). On paper the other job was the obvious choice: longer contract, slightly higher pay, etc. But everything was still in the same ball-park as what they were proposing here. But a big part of me was hoping that I wouldn't be offered the other job so I wouldn't have to choose.
You see, during the interview the librarians at this particular firm went on at length about how much that they liked to work hard and put in long hours even on evenings and weekends. They genuinely seemed happy at the thought of 60 hour weeks for 40 hours worth of pay and disapointed that they don't get that opportunity all the time. When I interviewed for this records management position the same sort of story was told: not enough resources, high demands, work hard, sometimes long hours. The difference was that the interviewer didn't sound like he liked that part of the job and wasn't trying to sell me on the position based on how hard I would be allowed to work.
So the culture seemed like a better fit here and I got lucky and they didn't offer me the other job.
My suspicions were confirmed on my first day on the job. The fridge in the lunch room has those random word-magnets for constructing poetry. On my first day it read:
"I worship the darkness
and am consumed with desire
You want me."
Today when I was looking at the in-house coffee options, I noticed that the last line had been changed to:
"Me want you"
A bit more informal and puckish than most offices.
Cheers
You see, during the interview the librarians at this particular firm went on at length about how much that they liked to work hard and put in long hours even on evenings and weekends. They genuinely seemed happy at the thought of 60 hour weeks for 40 hours worth of pay and disapointed that they don't get that opportunity all the time. When I interviewed for this records management position the same sort of story was told: not enough resources, high demands, work hard, sometimes long hours. The difference was that the interviewer didn't sound like he liked that part of the job and wasn't trying to sell me on the position based on how hard I would be allowed to work.
So the culture seemed like a better fit here and I got lucky and they didn't offer me the other job.
My suspicions were confirmed on my first day on the job. The fridge in the lunch room has those random word-magnets for constructing poetry. On my first day it read:
"I worship the darkness
and am consumed with desire
You want me."
Today when I was looking at the in-house coffee options, I noticed that the last line had been changed to:
"Me want you"
A bit more informal and puckish than most offices.
Cheers
Monday, January 22, 2007
Rory Fitzpatrick redux
[Apologies for semi-cross-posting this. It was mostly written as a response to a post over at Jason's Blog.]
There have been recent allegations that the NHL has stuffed it's own ballot box to ensure that Rory Fitzpatrick wasn't voted onto the All Star Game's starting lineup. It's a long story, really, and either you are interested and you know it already or you aren't interested and you don't. In my opinion the ballot stuffing angle is beside the point. Sure some of Rory's fans must have used bots to boost his ballot numbers, but I'm not so naive as to think that fans of Lidstrom and Neidermayer, the two defensemen who ultimately beat out Rory, or even Sakic (what's up with him making the starting line, he hasn't been one of the top 3 forwards for years). So if the NHL did think that they were correcting a systemic injustice by jacking the votes they were probably mistaken. It was just a matter of Rory getting enough support to attract more and better bots than the others.
More to the point, though, the NHL missed out on a glorious marketing opportunity. From the beginning they were spinning the Vote for Rory campaign as an oddity. Gretz said it made the league look like a joke, and Don Cherry (Why doesn't anyone call him Grapes anymore?) said he thought that the campaign for Rory was having fun at his expense -- laughing at him rather than with him. I think that this impression is partly the fault of the league.
I think that the campaign could have been spun as an homage to the grinders and journeymen who will never go to the all star game based on their statistics, but who are essential to the league and to even the most successful teams. In 2004, I was hoping that my Sens would pick up Chris Simon at the trade deadline to add some physicality and passion to an already skilled team. Instead they got Peter Bondra (if I recall correctly) and tanked out in the early rounds of the playoffs. Calgary picked up Simon and made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.
Simon and others will never be in an All Star Game, but I almost voted for Rory because I think that it is classy to have that sort of player represented rather than just the puck-hogs. This sort of happened in 1993 when the league still felt obliged to send one or two players from every team to the All Star Game. The Sens were setting a new standard of dreadful in their first year in the league and there wasn't much to choose from. So they appointed Brad Marsh (originally of London, ON) to represent Ottawa at the game. He was a classy and respected veteran defenseman who managed to score only 23 goals in over 1,000 NHL games and was probably one of the worst skaters ever to play in the NHL. Granted he stuck around for over 1,000 games so he must have been doing something right, he just wasn't the sort of player that put up a lot of numbers and he didn't look too stylish doing it.
Ottawa fans loved him in the same way that the Buffalo fan who started the Vote for Rory campaign loves Rory Fitzpatrick -- not for his grace, skill or pinache, but because he worked hard and was humble without apologizing for his success. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
The only goal that Brad Marsh scored in the 1992-93 season was during the All Star Game. 'Nuff said.
Cheers
PS I could only find one image of Brad Marsh in a Sens sweater, but it was too small. Oh yeah, and the league sent Sens goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz to the 1993 All Star Game as well. He really wasn't that good, but he was the best player on the team.
There have been recent allegations that the NHL has stuffed it's own ballot box to ensure that Rory Fitzpatrick wasn't voted onto the All Star Game's starting lineup. It's a long story, really, and either you are interested and you know it already or you aren't interested and you don't. In my opinion the ballot stuffing angle is beside the point. Sure some of Rory's fans must have used bots to boost his ballot numbers, but I'm not so naive as to think that fans of Lidstrom and Neidermayer, the two defensemen who ultimately beat out Rory, or even Sakic (what's up with him making the starting line, he hasn't been one of the top 3 forwards for years). So if the NHL did think that they were correcting a systemic injustice by jacking the votes they were probably mistaken. It was just a matter of Rory getting enough support to attract more and better bots than the others.
More to the point, though, the NHL missed out on a glorious marketing opportunity. From the beginning they were spinning the Vote for Rory campaign as an oddity. Gretz said it made the league look like a joke, and Don Cherry (Why doesn't anyone call him Grapes anymore?) said he thought that the campaign for Rory was having fun at his expense -- laughing at him rather than with him. I think that this impression is partly the fault of the league.
I think that the campaign could have been spun as an homage to the grinders and journeymen who will never go to the all star game based on their statistics, but who are essential to the league and to even the most successful teams. In 2004, I was hoping that my Sens would pick up Chris Simon at the trade deadline to add some physicality and passion to an already skilled team. Instead they got Peter Bondra (if I recall correctly) and tanked out in the early rounds of the playoffs. Calgary picked up Simon and made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.
Simon and others will never be in an All Star Game, but I almost voted for Rory because I think that it is classy to have that sort of player represented rather than just the puck-hogs. This sort of happened in 1993 when the league still felt obliged to send one or two players from every team to the All Star Game. The Sens were setting a new standard of dreadful in their first year in the league and there wasn't much to choose from. So they appointed Brad Marsh (originally of London, ON) to represent Ottawa at the game. He was a classy and respected veteran defenseman who managed to score only 23 goals in over 1,000 NHL games and was probably one of the worst skaters ever to play in the NHL. Granted he stuck around for over 1,000 games so he must have been doing something right, he just wasn't the sort of player that put up a lot of numbers and he didn't look too stylish doing it.
Ottawa fans loved him in the same way that the Buffalo fan who started the Vote for Rory campaign loves Rory Fitzpatrick -- not for his grace, skill or pinache, but because he worked hard and was humble without apologizing for his success. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
The only goal that Brad Marsh scored in the 1992-93 season was during the All Star Game. 'Nuff said.
Cheers
PS I could only find one image of Brad Marsh in a Sens sweater, but it was too small. Oh yeah, and the league sent Sens goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz to the 1993 All Star Game as well. He really wasn't that good, but he was the best player on the team.
Budding Superstars?
Connor and Mika had their first real ringette game yesterday. They played down the South Shore a bit near Upper Tantallon. That's not too far from Peggy's Cove, if you need an iconic landmark, and out here you never seem to be too far from an iconic landmark.
Connor started in goal and Mika was a roving forward -- at that age all of the skaters are roving forwards, really. Mika really threw herself into it and battled for the puck, er, ring on every shift. She's a bit smaller than most of the others so she didn't win any of the battles really. The league that she's in covers 5-7 years olds with a few 8 year olds thrown in. So I was proud of her that she could keep up with the flow of play. The fact that she touched the ring at all was a success.
Connor loves playing nets but has only been practicing with the big pads for a couple weeks now. He seems to understand the position well enough for his age -- he doesn't flop around in the crease, but will dive or butterfly at more or less the right times. He has to work on staying at the top of his crease, though. There are a lot of breakaways and two-on-no-one breaks at this age and he tends to back up when someone is breaking in on him alone from the blue line.
He lost the game 3-2, and doesn't really like losing but I told him before the game that he was playing a good team (rumour had it that they actually new their positions, and they did) and that if he only let in 3 or 4 goals he would have done his job. I would estimate that 80% of the game was played in his zone and he made more than half a dozen really good saves. So he wasn't taking it too hard, but still felt motivated to get better at it.
The next teams that played finished with final scores of 7-3 and 8-2, so his stats were good despite the loss.
Connor started in goal and Mika was a roving forward -- at that age all of the skaters are roving forwards, really. Mika really threw herself into it and battled for the puck, er, ring on every shift. She's a bit smaller than most of the others so she didn't win any of the battles really. The league that she's in covers 5-7 years olds with a few 8 year olds thrown in. So I was proud of her that she could keep up with the flow of play. The fact that she touched the ring at all was a success.
Connor loves playing nets but has only been practicing with the big pads for a couple weeks now. He seems to understand the position well enough for his age -- he doesn't flop around in the crease, but will dive or butterfly at more or less the right times. He has to work on staying at the top of his crease, though. There are a lot of breakaways and two-on-no-one breaks at this age and he tends to back up when someone is breaking in on him alone from the blue line.
He lost the game 3-2, and doesn't really like losing but I told him before the game that he was playing a good team (rumour had it that they actually new their positions, and they did) and that if he only let in 3 or 4 goals he would have done his job. I would estimate that 80% of the game was played in his zone and he made more than half a dozen really good saves. So he wasn't taking it too hard, but still felt motivated to get better at it.
The next teams that played finished with final scores of 7-3 and 8-2, so his stats were good despite the loss.
Gainfully Employed
Hi all, sorry for the lack of posts. I started working at the Nova Scotia provincial NDP caucus last week and have been a bit busier than usual. Not that I haven't had time to post a short note here and there, but I haven't had much to say. Life has pretty much settled into a busy (and messy) version of leafy-suburban bliss. In other words, fun enough but not much that anyone else would find interesting to read about.
My job is a 3-4 month contract, so I'm still looking for work (send leads, please) but it is pretty interesting and I've been clear right from the interview that the amount of work they want done probably can't be accomplished in that time-frame. Having no experience in records management - and having been neglecting the system for nearly a decade - they had good reason to believe me. In a nutshell, I'm revamping their records management system and it is as much of a mess as they thought. I've already recommended that they tear it down and start from scratch, then buy some software to help them out. It always surprises me how organizations that deal exclusively with information put so little thought/time/resources into managing that information.
So it feels good to be working. It feels even better to be working in a place that recognizes me as the expert I am. Now if only I could jerry-rig a self-cleaning kitchen, all would be perfect.
Cheers
My job is a 3-4 month contract, so I'm still looking for work (send leads, please) but it is pretty interesting and I've been clear right from the interview that the amount of work they want done probably can't be accomplished in that time-frame. Having no experience in records management - and having been neglecting the system for nearly a decade - they had good reason to believe me. In a nutshell, I'm revamping their records management system and it is as much of a mess as they thought. I've already recommended that they tear it down and start from scratch, then buy some software to help them out. It always surprises me how organizations that deal exclusively with information put so little thought/time/resources into managing that information.
So it feels good to be working. It feels even better to be working in a place that recognizes me as the expert I am. Now if only I could jerry-rig a self-cleaning kitchen, all would be perfect.
Cheers
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
The Hinterland of Violence
Cate used to joke about how the first time she visited my home town it seemed like every landmark I pointed out was significant because of a murder that took place there. I'd always considered Smiths Falls to be a tough town compared to Merrickville or Perth (but not Kemptville) but not extraordinarily so. Sort of started to seem that way, though.
When I was in Smiths Falls earlier this week, I stopped by the library (an old Carnegie Library that has been recently renovated) and found a very comprehensive book on the town's history: Glenn J. Lockwood's Smiths Falls: a social history [...], 1794-1994. One chapter is titled, "The Hinterland of Violence" and it turns out that this reputation for violence is niether new, nor entirely unfounded.
During the early 19th century, when the village sprung up based on the building of the Rideau Canal and the railways, "The village on the Rideau acquired a notorious reputation for rowdiness, lawlessness and crime that was largely based on fact." (p. 214)
"[An] inhabitant complained in 1860 that most young men in Smith's Falls gathered together in a thieves' convention at the combined locks every Sabbath where 'grown up youths bathe and expose themselves' and where during 'Divine Service the devils work is planned and executed.'" The devil's work included "[t]heiving, swearing, yankee slang, shouting and unearthly screeches."
Various gruesome fights are mentioned, including "an assault by one man on another with a broken-bladed jack-knife during a quarrel while 'playing cards and drinking at a low groggery' in 1864." Apparently he was not, however, a member of of the gang of ruffians that the the Ottawa and Perth newspapers incorrectly refered to as the "Slashers". Everyone at the time knew they were called the "Thrashers".
120 years later, when I lived here not much had changed really. The town has grown much larger so there isn't really a mono-culture of crime, just a sub-culture, and it has mostly shifted away from the canal to the neighborhoods near the rail-yards (i.e. the other side of the tracks). But the young men, toothless and tattoo'd, still hang out on the corner of Beckwith and Main swearing, shouting and using Yankee slang, and the fights spill out of the bars on a regular basis.
Not really much point to this rambling either, just something I thought might be of interest to my friends who grew up there.
Cheers
PS Is "low groggery" British or "yankee slang"?
When I was in Smiths Falls earlier this week, I stopped by the library (an old Carnegie Library that has been recently renovated) and found a very comprehensive book on the town's history: Glenn J. Lockwood's Smiths Falls: a social history [...], 1794-1994. One chapter is titled, "The Hinterland of Violence" and it turns out that this reputation for violence is niether new, nor entirely unfounded.
During the early 19th century, when the village sprung up based on the building of the Rideau Canal and the railways, "The village on the Rideau acquired a notorious reputation for rowdiness, lawlessness and crime that was largely based on fact." (p. 214)
"[An] inhabitant complained in 1860 that most young men in Smith's Falls gathered together in a thieves' convention at the combined locks every Sabbath where 'grown up youths bathe and expose themselves' and where during 'Divine Service the devils work is planned and executed.'" The devil's work included "[t]heiving, swearing, yankee slang, shouting and unearthly screeches."
Various gruesome fights are mentioned, including "an assault by one man on another with a broken-bladed jack-knife during a quarrel while 'playing cards and drinking at a low groggery' in 1864." Apparently he was not, however, a member of of the gang of ruffians that the the Ottawa and Perth newspapers incorrectly refered to as the "Slashers". Everyone at the time knew they were called the "Thrashers".
120 years later, when I lived here not much had changed really. The town has grown much larger so there isn't really a mono-culture of crime, just a sub-culture, and it has mostly shifted away from the canal to the neighborhoods near the rail-yards (i.e. the other side of the tracks). But the young men, toothless and tattoo'd, still hang out on the corner of Beckwith and Main swearing, shouting and using Yankee slang, and the fights spill out of the bars on a regular basis.
Not really much point to this rambling either, just something I thought might be of interest to my friends who grew up there.
Cheers
PS Is "low groggery" British or "yankee slang"?
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