Speaking of miracles. Just a quick congratulations to Jason and Shea, who are now expecting their first child.
I'm putting my vote in for the name Heironymous if it is a boy. My second pick is Dunstan.
Cheers
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
It's a miracle
Yesterday the kids and I were hanging out in the back yard. When we were going inside -- the kids ran ahead as usual -- out of the corner of my eye I saw something fall from the sky and bounce off the driveway onto the lawn.
A fish fell from the sky. I mean straight down, from the top of my peripherial vision.
Earlier we had seen a hawk or eagle (don't know what they have out here) fly overhead. It was just above the tree-tops, so we could see the mottled brown feathers on its head. I told the kids that it must have seen them (they have excellent vision) and thought that they were good kids and deserved a gift. This tickled them immensely.
I tend to trust that the universe will provide. I take opportunities as they arise even if they are risky (my Master's, moving to Halifax, etc.). But I decided that it would be pushing my luck to clean and eat a fish that probably came from the ocean within 50km of the Halifax Harbour.
Easy come, easy go.
Speaking of the harbour, we took a walk down at the harbour after I picked Cate up from school and there was a pod of dolphins playing out in the middle of the cove. There were dozens of dorsal fins breaking the surface and the occasional spray from a blow-hole. They were probably more than 500 metres away, but that's the closest I've ever been to wild dolphons. It was conceptually cool, if not visually impressive.
A local passer-by told us that they don't usually come this deep into the cove so it wasn't just the folks from away who were stopping to gawk. That made me feel even better about it. There's nothing worse than giving yourself up to the wonder of nature only to have a jaded local make you seem foolish for being in awe. I usually curse them (or myself, when I do it) for taking it for granted. Luckily not this time, though.
Cheers
PS Kudos to the generous raptor.
A fish fell from the sky. I mean straight down, from the top of my peripherial vision.
Earlier we had seen a hawk or eagle (don't know what they have out here) fly overhead. It was just above the tree-tops, so we could see the mottled brown feathers on its head. I told the kids that it must have seen them (they have excellent vision) and thought that they were good kids and deserved a gift. This tickled them immensely.
I tend to trust that the universe will provide. I take opportunities as they arise even if they are risky (my Master's, moving to Halifax, etc.). But I decided that it would be pushing my luck to clean and eat a fish that probably came from the ocean within 50km of the Halifax Harbour.
Easy come, easy go.
Speaking of the harbour, we took a walk down at the harbour after I picked Cate up from school and there was a pod of dolphins playing out in the middle of the cove. There were dozens of dorsal fins breaking the surface and the occasional spray from a blow-hole. They were probably more than 500 metres away, but that's the closest I've ever been to wild dolphons. It was conceptually cool, if not visually impressive.
A local passer-by told us that they don't usually come this deep into the cove so it wasn't just the folks from away who were stopping to gawk. That made me feel even better about it. There's nothing worse than giving yourself up to the wonder of nature only to have a jaded local make you seem foolish for being in awe. I usually curse them (or myself, when I do it) for taking it for granted. Luckily not this time, though.
Cheers
PS Kudos to the generous raptor.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Hockey Barns
So Connor and Mika started ringette on Sunday. For those of you that don't know, it is a spin-off from hockey that is essentially the same except that you play with a ring instead of a puck. The sticks don't have a blade and you poke the end in the middle of the ring. There are other differences, but those are the obvious ones. Passing is harder, stickhandling is easier. Seems a bit redundant to me, but Cate's been playing since Christ was a carpenter (and Harrison Ford, come to think of it) -- back when girls played ringette and boys played hockey.
So Connor was one of only a handful of boys at the first practice and he's at the upper age limit for the level, so they had to pull him aside to assess his skills. So the registrar went down to the bench and sent a helper to bring Connor over. This was a portion of the exchange that took place.
Helper1: Bring him over here for the assessment.
Helper2: She's a girl.
H1: He's a boy.
H2: She's a girl.
H1: He's a boy.
H2: She's a girl.
H1: He's a boy.
H2: She's a girl.
Registrar: [Calling down from the stands] He's a boy.
[Pause]
Registrar: They're not from around here.
Granted with all of the equipment and his long hair, I can understand the confusion. Perhaps they could have asked him his name?
Cheers
So Connor was one of only a handful of boys at the first practice and he's at the upper age limit for the level, so they had to pull him aside to assess his skills. So the registrar went down to the bench and sent a helper to bring Connor over. This was a portion of the exchange that took place.
Helper1: Bring him over here for the assessment.
Helper2: She's a girl.
H1: He's a boy.
H2: She's a girl.
H1: He's a boy.
H2: She's a girl.
H1: He's a boy.
H2: She's a girl.
Registrar: [Calling down from the stands] He's a boy.
[Pause]
Registrar: They're not from around here.
Granted with all of the equipment and his long hair, I can understand the confusion. Perhaps they could have asked him his name?
Cheers
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Home
A recent email from a school-chum has got me thinking more immediately about home. She noticed that in one year London has become the "home" that she misses most immediately. Even after living elsewhere for much more of her life.
For the first month I've been here (more or less) when people ask me where I'm from I say "Ottawa". If the conversation progresses beyond small talk and the subject comes up again, I tell them that I've actually been living in London, Ontario, for the past year. (Does a quick tabulation... I've been in Ottawa about 60 of the past 390 days).
A few days ago, it struck me that I won't be back there for more than a few days for another year. That will make two years living away from Ottawa. And it doesn't completely feel like home anymore. But not completely not-home, either.
I definitely missed my family while I was away, no doubt about that. In that way home is wherever they are -- and even better now that we're all together again. And I miss my oldest friends, who mostly ended up living in Ottawa (Brad, I'm looking at you.) I miss going to the local with Ivan, who actually moved away around the same time I did. But those are relationships that happen to be in Ottawa.
I miss my friends from library school as well, though. But most of them aren't in London anymore (Trixie's even in Ottawa, ironically). And there's the rub. I definitely don't miss London as a place. I miss it as a social network, a thing other than geographic; a space that can't be mapped; relationships between points that defy the mathematics of mercator projections.
Or maybe they don't. Maybe like a mercator projection the relationships are not independent of physical distance but they are not to a uniform scale. Some people that are far away -- Ottawa, Montreal,London, Fort St. James, China -- mean more to me than people next door.
That's all very reassuring in so many ways. But I still miss all of my friends and family and I miss Ottawa less and less. Then again, I'm not a maritimer either. I don't even know if Halifaxians consider themselves maritimers or maritimer's urban cousins. But here, physically, is as much home as anywhere right now.
So, er, come and visit any time. :)
Cheers
For the first month I've been here (more or less) when people ask me where I'm from I say "Ottawa". If the conversation progresses beyond small talk and the subject comes up again, I tell them that I've actually been living in London, Ontario, for the past year. (Does a quick tabulation... I've been in Ottawa about 60 of the past 390 days).
A few days ago, it struck me that I won't be back there for more than a few days for another year. That will make two years living away from Ottawa. And it doesn't completely feel like home anymore. But not completely not-home, either.
I definitely missed my family while I was away, no doubt about that. In that way home is wherever they are -- and even better now that we're all together again. And I miss my oldest friends, who mostly ended up living in Ottawa (Brad, I'm looking at you.) I miss going to the local with Ivan, who actually moved away around the same time I did. But those are relationships that happen to be in Ottawa.
I miss my friends from library school as well, though. But most of them aren't in London anymore (Trixie's even in Ottawa, ironically). And there's the rub. I definitely don't miss London as a place. I miss it as a social network, a thing other than geographic; a space that can't be mapped; relationships between points that defy the mathematics of mercator projections.
Or maybe they don't. Maybe like a mercator projection the relationships are not independent of physical distance but they are not to a uniform scale. Some people that are far away -- Ottawa, Montreal,London, Fort St. James, China -- mean more to me than people next door.
That's all very reassuring in so many ways. But I still miss all of my friends and family and I miss Ottawa less and less. Then again, I'm not a maritimer either. I don't even know if Halifaxians consider themselves maritimers or maritimer's urban cousins. But here, physically, is as much home as anywhere right now.
So, er, come and visit any time. :)
Cheers
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
A mellowness of surfers
I've never been very much attracted to surfing or surfers. Recently I've come to appreciate the genius of peak-performance Beach Boys but wondering at the layers and loops of God Only Knows or Wouldn't It Be Nice never really made me want to pick up a surf board and head to California or Hawaii.
But I realized this weekend that if the stars had aligned just right, I'd be sleeping on a beach and talking funny instead of surfing the web and, well, talking funny in a different way.
Backing up a bit. The last time we were in Nova Scotia we rented a cottage on Hell Bay, half-way down the South Shore. It was well named, actually. I swam in the surf at high tide and it was the most exhilerating experience I've had. Really. Not like Spaulding Gray's "perfect moment" in the rip-tide in South-East Asia (cf. Swimming to Cambodia) -- I never felt seriously in danger at any time. But I was being buffeted around by the forces of nature in a way that I've never been before or since. There were no intermediaries just water picking me up and throwing me around. Being alive feels more fragile and more powerful after that.
Last Sunday, on a whim, we took a ride over to Lawrencetown and Mauritius (I think) beaches. We were actually going somewhere else and changed our minds en route. That seems to be the way we operate. We drove over a hill and about 3km of Lawrencetown beach was laid out in front of us. The shore was packed with bathers and the water was speckled with surfers waiting for the next big wave. We walked the beach and got soaked (no swimsuits), but it looked like a lot of fun. I'm old enough that I don't mind an intermediary or two.
We had dinner at a chip stand down the road (off the road, in the bush, really) called Happy Dude's Fish and Chips. The bus was painted all funky and the fish was local, fresh and fried to within an inch of our lives. The fries were salted to suit the tastes of people who had been swallowing sea-water all day. I liked it, Cate not so much.
A surfer-guy, who was on a first name basis with the staff, sat down with us and started shooting the shit. His name was Buck. He's from Vancouver, but his family has a house in Hawaii. He's been surfing since he was young. Normally the constant references to "the Beach-House in Hawaii" would bug the crap out of me, but he just seemed so otherwise good-natured that it didn't put up my defences. I'm still not sure if he was bragging or appologizing. Nova-Scotia's short surfing season and relatively small waves might be some sort of penance.
Then we moved on to the next beach. It was after dinner and starting to chill out, but this beach still had surfers. One group left the water and started bedding down for the night. Some doing their evening yoga others just wrapping up in blankets and sleeping bags. It just seemed so mellow and nice.
When I was in my late teens, I might have easily fallen in with that sort of crowd. I'm not sure how mellow I was, but the surfing might have worn me out enough or gave me a bit of perspective so that I would have been more laid back.
Last Sunday was probably the last decent swimming weekend of the year. Next summer, I might rent a boogie board or something and try out the smaller waves. Cate wants to sign the kids up for Surfing Camp next year. Connor would probably think that it's "tight". He can't help but dance when his feet are in the Ocean. I can see him growing up to be a surfer. He won't really be able to brag about a beach-house in Hawaii, though.
Cheers
EDIT: Then again, Mika might be the surfer. On Monday she was bragging to her friends about how many times the waves knocked her over. She likes to be in the thick of things.
Oh, and I should probably hoard these so I can offer a new and improved Twisted Site of the Week on a regular basis, just like the old days. But I can't sit on this one:
Concept aside, the stunned looking kids don't give me much faith that the armor is working.
http://www.armorofgodpjs.com/
Again, thanks to Xine -- whose kids will thank her for surfing the web so much while she's on maternity leave.
-- The Management
But I realized this weekend that if the stars had aligned just right, I'd be sleeping on a beach and talking funny instead of surfing the web and, well, talking funny in a different way.
Backing up a bit. The last time we were in Nova Scotia we rented a cottage on Hell Bay, half-way down the South Shore. It was well named, actually. I swam in the surf at high tide and it was the most exhilerating experience I've had. Really. Not like Spaulding Gray's "perfect moment" in the rip-tide in South-East Asia (cf. Swimming to Cambodia) -- I never felt seriously in danger at any time. But I was being buffeted around by the forces of nature in a way that I've never been before or since. There were no intermediaries just water picking me up and throwing me around. Being alive feels more fragile and more powerful after that.
Last Sunday, on a whim, we took a ride over to Lawrencetown and Mauritius (I think) beaches. We were actually going somewhere else and changed our minds en route. That seems to be the way we operate. We drove over a hill and about 3km of Lawrencetown beach was laid out in front of us. The shore was packed with bathers and the water was speckled with surfers waiting for the next big wave. We walked the beach and got soaked (no swimsuits), but it looked like a lot of fun. I'm old enough that I don't mind an intermediary or two.
We had dinner at a chip stand down the road (off the road, in the bush, really) called Happy Dude's Fish and Chips. The bus was painted all funky and the fish was local, fresh and fried to within an inch of our lives. The fries were salted to suit the tastes of people who had been swallowing sea-water all day. I liked it, Cate not so much.
A surfer-guy, who was on a first name basis with the staff, sat down with us and started shooting the shit. His name was Buck. He's from Vancouver, but his family has a house in Hawaii. He's been surfing since he was young. Normally the constant references to "the Beach-House in Hawaii" would bug the crap out of me, but he just seemed so otherwise good-natured that it didn't put up my defences. I'm still not sure if he was bragging or appologizing. Nova-Scotia's short surfing season and relatively small waves might be some sort of penance.
Then we moved on to the next beach. It was after dinner and starting to chill out, but this beach still had surfers. One group left the water and started bedding down for the night. Some doing their evening yoga others just wrapping up in blankets and sleeping bags. It just seemed so mellow and nice.
When I was in my late teens, I might have easily fallen in with that sort of crowd. I'm not sure how mellow I was, but the surfing might have worn me out enough or gave me a bit of perspective so that I would have been more laid back.
Last Sunday was probably the last decent swimming weekend of the year. Next summer, I might rent a boogie board or something and try out the smaller waves. Cate wants to sign the kids up for Surfing Camp next year. Connor would probably think that it's "tight". He can't help but dance when his feet are in the Ocean. I can see him growing up to be a surfer. He won't really be able to brag about a beach-house in Hawaii, though.
Cheers
EDIT: Then again, Mika might be the surfer. On Monday she was bragging to her friends about how many times the waves knocked her over. She likes to be in the thick of things.
Oh, and I should probably hoard these so I can offer a new and improved Twisted Site of the Week on a regular basis, just like the old days. But I can't sit on this one:
Concept aside, the stunned looking kids don't give me much faith that the armor is working.
http://www.armorofgodpjs.com/
Again, thanks to Xine -- whose kids will thank her for surfing the web so much while she's on maternity leave.
-- The Management
Friday, September 15, 2006
A chirpy post for a change
I realized yesterday that my first two posts were rather negative. I really do love it here. Really.
I actually think that once I'm used to it, I'll really be proud of living in a city where the streets change names 2-4 times within a kilometer stretch. Cate and I laughed and laughed yesterday when we got lost because Dutch Village Rd. is called Titus St. for exactly one intersection before it changes again to Lacewood. Guess which intersection we were driving through when we were looking to turn right onto Dutch Village? Yeah. Hillarious, eh?
Okay, so in the interest of lighting up the mood of this blog, I present you with kittens!!!
http://www.stuffonmycat.com/
Everyone loves kittens.
Cheers
PS Kudos to Xine for the link.
I actually think that once I'm used to it, I'll really be proud of living in a city where the streets change names 2-4 times within a kilometer stretch. Cate and I laughed and laughed yesterday when we got lost because Dutch Village Rd. is called Titus St. for exactly one intersection before it changes again to Lacewood. Guess which intersection we were driving through when we were looking to turn right onto Dutch Village? Yeah. Hillarious, eh?
Okay, so in the interest of lighting up the mood of this blog, I present you with kittens!!!
http://www.stuffonmycat.com/
Everyone loves kittens.
Cheers
PS Kudos to Xine for the link.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Sexist Halifax School Board
Okay, I know that's a rather contentious post-title. I trust you, gentle reader, to decide for yourself, of course.
So on the first day of school, I'm hanging out with our Aussie neighbour whose kids are in classes with my kids and we're discussing the differences between Canadian and Australian schools. This and that. The he says "It's sort of inconvenient that you have to pick them up every day at lunch."
Eh?
Yep. Whereas in Ottawa you have to fill out a dozen forms if your child is going to be off school property at all between 9:00 and 3:30, here they not only assume, but they insist that you pick up your kids for lunch. There is a program run by the YMCA for $100 ($90 for each additional child) and they'll look after your kids for the 90 minute lunch period -- food not included. There are only 24 spots for the entire school, though, and they were filled up long before we even considered coming to Halifax.
If we lived accross the street it wouldn't be too bad, but we have a 10 minute drive (through the dreaded Rotary) to the school. That is 4 round-trips per day -- 1 hour and 20 minutes of driving -- every day, to the school.
Have I mentioned that intend to find a job soon? If I work a 9:00-5:00 job, I will have to take 2 hours off in the middle of each day to get the kids for lunch. Then have to pick them up at 3:00. Hmmn. I'm now looking for a job that is either part-time, lots of evenings and weekends, or so well emunerated that I can hire a chauffeur for the tots.
The whole system seems to assume that mom is staying home with the kids. If mom does need to escape an abusive relationship and find a job to support her independence (or some less dramatic, but valid and realistic, scenario) she had better have supportive friends, family or neighbours.
Our neighbors are in the same boat, so for now we are switching off the pick-up/drop off until the schedule gets messed up by Claire and me becoming employed.
I think that the economy would see instant benefits in productivity if the schools would just let the kids eat their lunches in the school.
A tyranny of pedestrians
I have no real emotional attachment to driving. I do it when I have to, and walk or bike when I can. I have political and social reasons for wishing that cities were more pedestrian/bicycle friendly.
But this is crazy.
Okay, I've only been here a week or two and it might not seem that bad once I get used to it. But there are crosswalks on almost every street corner, most of which do not have amber lights, just signs and painted lines. Not only do you have to be aware of the usual hazards and concerns when you are driving in the city, but you have to watch out for pedestrians that might dart out in front of you without looking. I'm a good driver, or at least a cautious one, but the erratic behavior of these very manoeverable pedestrians is much harder to read and react to than the erratic behavior of motorists. The key-difference, ideally, is that if a car-driver screws up a bit (everyone makes mistakes) the result is a fender-bender but if a pedestrian dekes me out, he's going to the infirmary. But it doesn't appear that the pedestrians around here understand nor care about that and give new life to the Anglo-Saxon term "willy-nilly".
I feel like I'm being held hostage to the whims of pedestrians.
Ideally, no one would be held hostage to anyone else. It just bugs me, I guess, when any group feels entitled and has that entitlement enforced by law. That's the death of civility, if not actual civilisation.
Cheers
Edit: Okay, so my first real post has some overlap with Cate's blog. I reserve the right to elaborate on points she touches on. She has more ideas than me, so I get to beat the few I have into the ground.
Thank you,
-- The Management
But this is crazy.
Okay, I've only been here a week or two and it might not seem that bad once I get used to it. But there are crosswalks on almost every street corner, most of which do not have amber lights, just signs and painted lines. Not only do you have to be aware of the usual hazards and concerns when you are driving in the city, but you have to watch out for pedestrians that might dart out in front of you without looking. I'm a good driver, or at least a cautious one, but the erratic behavior of these very manoeverable pedestrians is much harder to read and react to than the erratic behavior of motorists. The key-difference, ideally, is that if a car-driver screws up a bit (everyone makes mistakes) the result is a fender-bender but if a pedestrian dekes me out, he's going to the infirmary. But it doesn't appear that the pedestrians around here understand nor care about that and give new life to the Anglo-Saxon term "willy-nilly".
I feel like I'm being held hostage to the whims of pedestrians.
Ideally, no one would be held hostage to anyone else. It just bugs me, I guess, when any group feels entitled and has that entitlement enforced by law. That's the death of civility, if not actual civilisation.
Cheers
Edit: Okay, so my first real post has some overlap with Cate's blog. I reserve the right to elaborate on points she touches on. She has more ideas than me, so I get to beat the few I have into the ground.
Thank you,
-- The Management
Non-Competition Agreement
Good morning everyone,
I've decided to try my hand at this blogging thing. Don't expect daily updates, or a lot of pictures (Cate has the pics on her computer), but I'll try to post here regularly. This blog is meant to compliment Cate's, so there won't be a lot of overlap. If you've bookmarked hers keep reading there.
I'm also going to remind infrequent blog readers that if it doesn't look like there has been an update hither or yon for a while hit reload when you're looking at the page. The browsers often cache the pages when you bookmark them, so you get the same version when you next visit.
Cheers
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