Life Without Practice

We all live lives without practice - you only live once, and this ain't no rehersal. Life is what happens along the road. Plan as we might, things sometimes take another path. This is an on-going diatribe from my perspective. Don't live like it's a rehearsal!

Friday, September 29, 2006

Return from Hiatus

A few days away from the blog, but enjoyable ones. Did some serious work on P4, walking and outdoors experience. Got away in the afternoon a couple of days ago for a hike and to camp out overnight in an isolated park. Roadwork along the way was annoying, and delayed my transit. But finally got out and had a beautiful hike in the very autumnal environment. I've been to this park many times before, but hadn't been to this one corner yet. The landscape is very nice. There's almost nobody else in this wild backwoods park during the week in the autumn, and even fewer in the winter. Last winter I found I was the only one there the night I camped over.

Out in the Wilds
All the camping areas are hike in for a few km at least. Since I arrived late I made for one of the nearer sites - only about a 4 or 5 km hike, but it was very nice. It was windy and I was expecting rain - and prepared for it. Sun is setting early these days - just before 7pm. I got my little tent up quickly and also strung up a tarp as wind/rain barrier. The only thing I forgot to bring was some tea -argh. It makes the fireside much more enjoyable.

Anyway, the night was very loud with the wind. It was mostly up at tree-top level and would periodically die to nothing, but then rise to a crescendo of white noise, and my tarp would occasionally flap around, though securely tied. Finally a few drops of rain near early morning, but otherwise a dry night, in spite of the forecast.

There was off and on drizzle while I made breakfast. Again, no tea, but I improvised. I had a small store of my usual high-end chocolate 71% Cocoa Camino stuff, and still had a 200cc milk supply and so heated up the milk, threw in the cocolate plus a bit of extra sugar and had a nice hot cup of HC instead of my morning tea. On the way out the drizzle picked up, but in shorts and a polyshirt I was comfortable still.

When hiking there's the trade-off. When do you don a coat in the rain. If you wait too long, you're already wet and so you just keep the rain off your now wet clothes. If you go too soon, you're too warm. I was lamenting that I had carried the extras but the rain forecast had never shown. It started heavier then, and I parked for a moment under a tree and put on my coat, and stretched my purpose-packed black garbage bag over my pack, but skipped the rain pants. It really picked up then, but I was quite comfortable like that and never bothered with the pants. It was only about an hour and a quarter's hike out. I felt quite energetic, and enjoyed the scenery immensely.

All in all a nice trip. The drive home was quicker, as I took a back route to avoid the construction. The rain was heavy all the way, but the traffic light.

Queries
Things seem to be slightly picking up on P1 and P2. I had a call from an embassy about a visiting delegation, and so the consulting side of my biz is engaging. On the permanent career exploration, I had a call back from a CEO who found my resume engaging and so I have followed up with soft resume as requested.

It's still a small sample size, but the personal resume drop off seems to be a bit more effective. I suppose it's easy to skip a resume on your screen, but one on your desk gets in the way, and is likely fairly rare these days.

I still wonder if there is some latent racism too, as my name, though northern European, has the look of an Iranian or Turkish name as well. So I wonder if that turns off the brain of some reviewers, given the activity in that part of the world - even though all my experience and life is Canadian experience.

Oh well - let's hope the pickup in activity is sustained.

Wrap
So back in the routine now anyway, and today is Friday. Oh well, a short blogging week. Given it's the cusp of the weekend, and given my nice walk in the outdoors, your immediate assignment for today is a simple one - find a tree (an outdoor one) and touch it. Feel the bark and leaves/needles if you can. Think for a moment what it must be like to live totally surrounded by those your entire life. How different would that have been. Let me know what you think!

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Okay

This weekend involves a brief zip over to Toronto. Not the best place in the world to spend your time on a weekend, but there should be suitable distractions for a few hours. Could potentially pop in on my sister & her family, but it's a bit of a short visit, and frankly I'm feeling weary about family lately. Not sure why - but I think we're all a bit dysfunctional. Of course, you always feel like the only sane one, and are likely the same as all others, but well, ya.

Returned some lousy CD-R's today and got some more, which are equally spotty. One good, two bad. Might be my CD burner. Not too impressive. The verifies always fail, perhaps I'll shut down and try it again with a reasonably cold machine. If it's age and shifting tolerances on components and mechanicals, that might make a difference.

Just trying to do backups. I need a new computer but I also need a new roof - so what are you going to do? Been thinking about the roof lately, and wondering if it will make it through the winter. I might be able to do some remedial work on the first row of shingles and... oh hell. we should just bite the bullet and get it done. No doubt it will be a big slab oh cash. Okay, I admit defeat. Better start selling stocks to raise some moolah.

Summer
So this is the last full day of summer - it ends in the evening tomorrow and we're on to autumn. It already feels like it as I noted earlier. I'm having trouble letting go of shorts and bare feet and only grudgingly put on socks if I need to. With only 4C for a low last night, I guess I need to. Furnace has been cutting in as well, so the season is certainly upon us. Probably a big flood of callers to the roofing companies. But really, they have another 6-8 weeks of good roofing weather.

This summer was pretty nice. I sure got to enjoy a lot of it. I would have enjoyed more camping -like I've been trying to do for a couple of weeks. But I spent a lot of time outside and feel like I experienced it at least. I've been thinking a lot and generally have been rather happy. I'm ready for the next career step, but that's slow in coming. I see the stats today show growth in jobs after a drop in July, but no growth in Management and senior positions. That pretty much jives with my experience so far.

Autumn
Things I enjoy doing in cooler weather. Baking more; camping more; walking without sweating as much; less gardening; Knowing lots of mosquitos are dying

See - it's not all bad when the summer ends.

Wrap
Thats all for now. Likely no blogging until next week. So we'll sign off with an assignment as usual. I've had a hankering for licorice lately - the salty Dutch stuff. So you must experience this if you haven't. Go to your nearest candy store and look for the double or triple salted licorice - dopple zoot (look for DZ on the candy piece). Try a piece and see what you think.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

Sitting too much today, but being plugged in seems to predicate that situation. Got away for a late lunch around 2:00 and walked over to drop off a letter in the mail, and walked further for a shawarma. It was pretty good, but not as good as the other place I go sometimes. Weird how we never know the names of some restaurants - you just go and eat and the name doesn't come up. I went to the Richmond one, and the Carling one is better is what I'm saying.

Listening to the news and Canada's New Reactionary Government is being more annoying. It's bad enough that they were telling civil servants to call themselves "Canada's New Government" I mean, that violates the fundamental separation of political office and civil service that has been basic to our system for decades. I think people should call them Canada's New Assholes or something. Anyway, in the wake of a shooting rampage, they react to a weak gun-control law (the registry) not by making the registry stronger, but by cancelling it all together - duh. Way to go idiots.

Big block of ranting removed - I was going to go on about the idiots in power, but I don't want to go there.

In fact, I think I'll keep this short today. Other than getting out for some walking time, I just spent my time on P1, P2, P4 and P13. That and some household chores, and now it's supper time.

Oh well.

Wrap
Your assignment for today is to go to bed early! Get a bit more sleep, it's mid week and you can probably use it!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Autumnal Drab

Well it's not quite autumn yet, still a few more days, but the weather is beating the calendar. Grey and rainy again. Yikes, and I have to go out for a meeting downtown in this. On rainy days everyone drives and the parking is tough, so I take the bus, but the rain might make that icky too.

Didn't blog yesterday, as other projects (2,3) were keeping me busy. I upgraded the pump yet again (on my pond) and did some tweaking to increase the noise generation. Twice as much water flow - about 1000gal/hr now, and I have a gurgle where the water enters the pond as well as where it escapes the top overflow bowl area. That added to a bit more movement among the stream stones means it's a little better for noise. Might have to resort to a fountain next year as well... but that starts to diverge from a natural looking environment toward a las vegas show... so perhaps I'll avoid that.

A bit of a lingering migraine today too - I think tipped off by a nice glass of scotch yesterday after so much bend-over work with P3. I also planted all the shrubs, and moved a few day lillies from the big growth areas around the yard into the berm. I spread some more cedar mulch, but still need to spread another couple of bags.

The pond was low on water, but, thinking ahead, I left it for the rain to top up, and it's worked well. Looks like it's within a couple of cm of the top now.

Did some P2 resume circulating today. Targetting a few interesting places within walking distance which would be nice. It would be a 20min walk, but that's fine for nice days. An easy bike ride too. Would be a nice work situation, even if the companies are probably marginal. One makes some crappy software, the other some hardware with limited market share. It would be fun to help make them bigger successes.

Outdoors
Had some great (P4) hiking on the weekend. A group of us got out into the little known back end of a nearby park and had a nice exploration, including lunch on a rocky plateau. We went further on in search of a tiny lake seen from satellite pics and this time found it. Last time hiking here, without compass or GPS, we explored around without finding anything. Turns out we just missed a trail turnoff.

What an explosion of mushrooms and lichen since the last hike out that way. What a difference some heavy rain makes. Quite spectacular some of the colonies.

Wanted to go camping last week, and put it off due to heavy rain. Might be an opportunity mid-week this week, but hard to say. Everythings going to be quite damp though.

Multilingus Maximus
Worked on P13 - japanese yesterday too. Discovered that furigana is likely the key to my success. I was learning Kanji with no sense of which of the dozens of bits of info associated with each symbol I should try to remember. Furigana shows me how the characters are used in everyday usage, so I can start to memorize some of that stuff and see how it goes from there. My kana are pretty strong, but I still have a difficult time with Katakana's "so" versus "n". "Tsu" versus "Shi" are a little more obvious - but here's how the culprits look:

so: ソ
n: ン

So you can see my challenge. I guess "so" is a bit more curvey, but from font to font and in handwritten script it's more difficult to tell when your vocabularly is weak. Maybe that's another hint at next steps.

Oh yeah, here's tsu and shi: ツ シ 
They are a little easier, because you can remember tsu has the ticks on the Top, and shi has the ticks on the side: t-top, s-side. Not too bad, but sometimes hard to read quickly without stopping to think.

Writing
Project P10 is partly sated with this blog, but there are a few fiction projects on the go. I've got a roughly 100kword story that needs an overhaul still. More recently I've got some fiction in blog form going that I'm quite enjoying. Taking it a bit at a time, but it flows easily. Should do more on that when I get a chance this week.

The flip side of writing is of course reading. Plato's The Republic is pretty entertaining just now (P5). He's outlining screwed up societies and political systems. The descriptions of timarchy are quite entertaining as they encourage one to cast their eyes south. I wasn't familiar with timarchy before. I see it as a variant of oligarchy though, but where just being a monied elite isn't the main criteria, but rather some sense of honour among the clique is most important. Of course, I think that almost goes naturally with the money and ownership part of oligarchs. But it's particularly a propos when you think of the neo-con structure with the religious-right overtones. There you have a structure of perceived "honour" which gives participents entrée into the ruling elite class.

There's a particularly great passage where Plato describes the timarchic society. Lets see if I can find the passage online (to save me the typing)....
Here we go - look at this great passage describing who would succeed in such a society:
What, then, is the man that corresponds to this constitution? What is his origin and what his nature?"
“...He will have to be somewhat self-willed and lacking in culture, yet a lover of music and fond of listening to talk and speeches, though by no means himself a rhetorician; and to slaves such a one would be harsh, not scorning them as the really educated do, but he would be gentle with the freeborn and very submissive to officials, a lover of office and of honor, not basing his claim to office on ability to speak or anything of that sort but on his exploits in war or preparation for war, and he would be a devotee of gymnastics and hunting."

Ha! Hunting perhaps with a shotgun and not being a very good shot when acquaintances walk into range? An perhaps submissive to officials might include the Veep who calls the shots?

That was pretty entertaining. But it will be interesting to read the next chunk as we get into his analysis of democracy. I'd heard that Plato was not too fond of democracy as a system, so I wonder where he's see fault.

Just to pre-empt him, my issue with democracy lately has been how it doesn't stand up well when you get a two party system and the votes start getting split 49-51 or there abouts. Then you have a polarized society with 45-49% of the population strongly opposed to the rulers. If you also take into account that an unhappy person is more active than a marginally happy person, you probably have a situation where 60% or 70% of vocal people are against the government. That doesn't bode well for successful government.

It's even worse if the government wins under circumstances where they may actually have LESS than 50% of the vote.

We're lucky (so far) in Canada that we still have 3 reasonably strong parties, and a fourth emerging and growing stronger (at the federal level). Seeing our crappy leading (albeit minority) party blindly emulating the mess to the south is a bit disconcerting though, especially when they start removing elements of the structure of government, like normal media access, and crossing the line with civil servants, ordaining that they should refer to their employer as "The new government". That's scary stuff.

Well, some more reading there - probably about 20% of the book left to read. It's been more readable than I suspected it would be.

Wrap
So on to my meeting I guess. Hey - your assignment for today is to go to a katakana table and find out how to spell your last name with katakana characters, which the Japanese use for foreign names. If you are Japanese, then you've probably already got that figured out, huh?

You can find a table http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifhere. The table shows how sounds combine. So for example, the character at the intersection of "s" and "o" is the character pronounced "so". The one at "k" and "i" is pronounced "ki" (like key). And so on. Write out your name and admire your multilingual handiwork.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Schmooz

I guess this coming weekend is the last of the summer - based on calendar and all that. Autumn rolling in. Yikes, I hope there are still apples left on the trees. I'm bad with growing seasons, but I'd like to get out and pick some. You can tell I'm a Northerner, it still seems miraculous that you can pick apples off of a tree. That time in Portugal when I saw ripe lemons on a tree was just nuts - it looked so fake, I couldn't help but think how much work it must be to glue all those fake plastic lemons onto a tree as a joke. Saw oranges that trip too - must have been a February visit, I guess. Fresh fruit in the winter is cool when you come from a land of snow with a short growing season. Then again, my Mom up North manages to grow apples now. Global warming combined with an insanely green thumb works wonders.

Oh yeah - so I was working up to say last weekend of the official summer, and I at least spent several hours on a restaurant patio this afternoon and evening with a big group of friends and vague acquaintences from a previous workplace. It was fun to see some faces I haven't seen for a either several months to a year or two or three. Some potential leads on projects 1 or 2 as well - as always happens when you meet up with old work colleagues. Also saw one guy, who is a nice enough person, but a dysfunctional employee, who is out of work currently. That was kind of good to see. I wish him all the best, and know it's tough for a guy, older than me too, who is looking for work. But he was both a poor manager and had abrasive, empire-building practices in the company... so good that there's a bit of comeuppance out there.

Have I ranted on that point yet? Not likely. I've been thinking, as I read Plato's Republic as well, I might add, that there is a substantial dirth of comeuppance in the world these days. Hell nobody even uses the word much these days it seems, so even the sense that it should be doled out seems to be waning. Well, let me go on record as saying comeuppance is due, DUE, I tell you.

What does The Republic have to do with it? Well, Plato, writing as Socrates, only thinly veils his disdane for the society around him as he works through the elements of his ideal society. He gets a bit foam-at-the-mouth here and there as he describes how people should be and more particularly rulers should be. I get the sense that Plato was a real fan of comeuppance.

Who's Due?
Who deserves it? Two groups of people come to mind - but no doubt I'll think of a few more as I get into a full swing rant.

The first group that comes to mind are all these people living beyond their means. You know them, they are in their early twenties, have a mediocre job at best, and are moving into big houses, with brand new furniture throughout, driving sport-utes everywhere, and going on expensive vacations. They wear logo's as a standard thing - and the guys have goattees and wear sunglasses above their ball-caps. It's the new sweater over the shoulders from 1982, for 2006.

So they are mortgaged and line-of-creditted to the hilt to pay for all this stuff, no doubt. They are saving nothing, and living in better standard than people who have lived less ostentatious lifestyles for 50 years.

So when all the credit comes crashing down and they have to declare bankruptcy - what happens? I haven't ever heard anecdotally of someone having to sell the vehicles, get a bus-pass, and move into a cheap one bedroom apartment because they were living beyond their means. I get the sense that they can declare bankruptcy, get all their bills cancelled, while keeping their house, furniture and vehicles, and start all over again. Oh maybe one vehicle is repo'd but that's it.

Where's the comeuppance?

Okay, the other group I have a problem with are the second generation egotists. There's a whole raft of these guys and girls, who are usually the second generation, sometimes third in a famous family who seem to have everything handed to them on a silver platter. The worst thing is seeing them succeed not because they have any talent, but because their last name is the same as someone who went before them.

First of all, I should declare some bias, in some of those cases - I have trouble with anyeone who goes into the same field as their parent. That just seems so LAME and pathetic. What's a matter, you wanna be your daddy? Can't think of your own friggin career? Does your mommy pick your vocation for you? Okay - that's out, so there's already a jeering point against those that pick the same vocation.

But then to see some yahoo at 22 suddenly on national television because of a famous last name, when there are much more capable 20 year olds, or 35 year olds who have paid their dues and worked their way up from the crummy jobs based on talent - that must really suck.

Okay - lets slam some actual people. Ben Mulroney. (Sorry non-Canadians this part will be a little obscure to you, but google any of these people and you'll see what I mean. I'm sure there are parellels in your country - email me and tell me about them!) In my house, when that twit shoes up on the TV there is an instant scream and we dive for the remote to get him out of our view. Besides looking like some freakish Mila in male drag, or George Hamilton Jr, he's a pompous egotist who is propped up by flunkeys because his father was PM. There are oodles of more talented folk. I haven't been able to watch any Canadian Idol since inception because he's such a symbol of undeserved sycophantic culture in the media.

Then there are Mordecai Richler's kids. Morty old boy, what have you done! Alas, the talented author known to some extent around the world is no longer with us, but he's got these pompous kids with an annoying affectation. I assume they went to some sort of private school and picked up this bizarre fake pseudo British accent that sounds like a cross between - well, I won't go there. But CBC One, our beloved national radio channel, gave one of them - Noah, I think that might be his name? - a show which seemed a total mess of him blathering on in his pompous, overly flamboyant speeches in inane 'listen to me talk about the little people' flurries of observations. And the other of the sons, Daniel used to have a TV show or news bits or something on topics literary which were similarly eyeball rolling. Thankfully I haven't seen much of him lately. No doubt some publisher is churning books out for these guys, when real authors are struggling to get any attention.

Where do they get the support? I guess there are people out there who either owed their parents something big from way-back, or are just genetically sycophantic.

Another few that come to mind are the kids of Stephen Lewis, as son and daughter. Meddling, holier than thou pompous types trying to do international 'look at me save the little foriegners from the big corporations' stuff through lopsided high-school-girl-political documentaries. Their father Stephen is an amazing guy, whom I've followed since I was a kid, and he was what, the leader of the Ontario NDP party I think - but more recently is a selfless crusader of a UN representative championing the plight of victims of Aids in Africa. I guess these annoying offspring in this case are 3rd Generation, as Steven's father David was also a strong politician. But seeing those kids on TV - man the arrogance just exudes from their pores. And I recall expecting them to be fantastic coming from such a strong family. I tried hard to think positively of them, but they quickly eroded any positive regard I felt.

There are other examples and they make me wonder about what causes both the pomposity of the child and the sycophantic support. It appears to be some combination of our times and the difficulty of raising kids in a wealthy environment.

I wonder if it can be done successfully? It seems the best and the brightest are always brought up in hardship. I suppose it's a microcosm of the cliff ecosystem thing I've read about - where challenging environments (e.g. cold climates) produce more resilient people, better tool development, more technology than in southern climates, where there is less struggle. The cliff ecosystem is the model in nature that has similar impacts for like populations of the same animal. As a parent, how do you successfully raise kids, if you've made something substantial of your life? Are they doomed to failure? How do you add challenges and make them gain the perspective of being poor that might have driven you to be a success?

Oh well - I'll leave that there, without getting into the Trudeau kids. So far Joe Clark's daughter appears to have struck out with an attempt at some vacuous local cable access show on something inane. Never saw it, but I'm sure it was glam. I'm surprised she wasn't vaulted immediately to national television at the earliest whisp of interest.

Well, I'll abandon that rant there - I think I've suitably addressed that in this forum where there are likely none who know any of those folk. If any of you 2nd generation egotists google your name (as you must on a daily basis) and find this - why not get a job somewhere where you can succeed on your merits rather than riding your parent's coat tails? And Richler kids - lose the pompous accent. You're from Montreal dammit. You're like the kid on the school bus who gets beat up because he insists on wearing a cape to schoole or something. You don't need to conform like an automaton, but hell, lose the cape at least.

Wrap
Well it's late and technically getting into tomorrow. Yikes, I'm almost missing the deadline for a blog entry per weekday. Oh well.

Here's your assignment for this session. If you live in or near a suitably large town - look in your yellow pages, or google "used book shops" for your town, and note where one is conveniently located. Now go buy a book to read in the genre of your choice. Only pick something that you wouldn't normally read, and see how it goes. As always, I love to hear from lurkers and regulars to the Life Without Practice Blog

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Life's Little Moments

An uneventful day. Brief moments here and there of calm, serene happiness. We should remember those sometimes. Too often we focus on our discomforts, disappointments and other dis's. It's little moments. When you are moving calmly through your actions, confident in yourself, comfortable with who you are and where you are, that you can feel pretty good.

It's nice to recognize those. Particularly today it was at a mundane moment. I had been to an early morning business meeting. A series of presentations - one of which was really lousy. A company I was peripherally interested in, and with whom I had made some contact, was presenting. They have a new CEO and the guy is a total asshole. What a presentation - full of things that any basically capable company would have excised from his slides. Biggoted remarks, some offensive violent images shown in support of selling his product. We don't need people like that.

So I wasn't too happy with that element of my day. But I got home and changed to casual stuff and did some work on the computer. My printer moved into that insanely slow printing mode - a brief tick of a motion every 10 seconds or thereabouts. I'd had this happen once before and it was cartidge related. This time it indicated the black cartridge being an issue. I checked it's ink with a syringe, and it was well topped up. I had refilled it for the 7th or 8th time about a month ago, and it had been printing reasonably. But I figured after so many refills, I'd splurge and get a new one.

So off to the store and picked up a new one - $38 for an HP new one, or $31 for a 'remanufactured' Staples labelled one. So I went for the latter. Hopefully it's only been remanufactured once - cause I gonna be putting more ink up inside that puppy for the next several years. I extracted 2 and a half syringes of ink from the old one, and bottled it for later reuse. The new one prints very nicely, so I'm glad to save the $7 now and more later. Hey - they even threw in a pack of 94/24 paper. What a bonus. That's another $7.50 value.

On the way home, I picked up some catfood, and some stuff for supper. Snowpeas and broccoli. I wanted some fruit but that frickin' Loblaws - why do they carry so little Canadian produce!? I'm not expecting guavas and coconuts. I mean some nectarines stuff. They had Canadian peaches and some apples. That's it. I don't go for peaches - that fuzz makes my skin crawl. And I want to go pick apples - probably this weekend. But I picked up some bananas and oranges anyway. Where are all the Saskatchewan bananas and Nunavut oranges I expect in a store?

Had a nice supper of snow peas, potatoes (Canadian) and ginger-soya chicken as per my throw it in a pan recipe. Always works out well. So I enjoyed that. Drank some of that crappy wine I made for cooking. Why do I drink that stuff - I should have bought a nice bottle while my SO is gone, to nurse over several nights.

But it was in the midst of those shopping trips. I knew where I was going, what I was doing. I had no rush, no deadlines. Nobody to worry about what I was up to. Just do my thing and ignore the time. Little moments of happiness.

It's good to live in the moment sometimes. Forget about the cash flow, the challenges of career and the lousy weather that nixed my camping plans. Just think - I'm feeling healthy, no pain, no worries just at this moment. That's good. And then on to the next thing.

Wrap
So that's probably not too exciting - but it's an okay day.

Your assignment, for immediate execution, is to grab a piece of paper and rip it in half. On one side you must write five things you are not happy about (no boundaries - just five things, in your life, your work, the world, what ever you want). And then on the other paper write five things you are happy about.

Now read through the 5 sad things and think about them for a moment. Resolve to try and make them better and then rip them up that sheet into super tiny pieces.

Now read through your list of 5 happy things. Smile as you do it. Now fold it up and put it in your pocket and carry it with you for the rest of the day.

Do it! No excuses. It takes no time, just do it now. Let me know how you felt about it. lwopractice at yahoo.ca

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

This is Only a Test

Rain all day, just as forecasted. So no planting on project 3. Did some project 2 work though, and forwarded around some resumes. Seems futile sometimes, but will persevere.

Went for a walk afterwards in the pouring rain, with my rain gear on. Had gotten a new rainjacket, so a good test. Seems to work okay. The bottom pair of pockets seemed to be a little wet inside. Seems almost like they got wetter after I zippered them up. But it could have been just run-off off my hands too.

Otherwise I was super dry. I always think about shoe covers of some sort when I walk in the rain. That's the weak spot. I don't want waterproof boots, because you get too warm. I want to merely stop the drips and run-off from my legs from making my shoes wet. There are covers for cycling shoes, but nothing for hikers. There are total overshoes but just a top cover of some sort, perhaps that would clip onto the laces would be good. I don't expect any protection from stepping in a puddle, just from falling water, and the toe-flip-up water that happens with every stride. The water flips from the toe area on the sole over the top of the shoe to land on the top side.

Oh well - perhaps I'll have to design it myself.... or just bring some duct tape with me... That might actually work, come to think of it, a couple of strips over the top of the shoe.

The whole point was in aid of a potential hike/camp tomorrow, but if the rain isn't going to let up, I might skip it. I don't mind hiking in the rain, but after 48 hours of rain there will be no dry firewood and the trails will be mucky, so I'll let it go for a week I guess.

Mundane Days
So a pretty non-thrilling day I guess. I made an ordinary supper and kicked myself for not having some interesting veg with my porkchop. It's harvest season, you dolt, why are you eating ancient carrots from the fridge. EVERYTHING else is in season. Will do some shopping tomorrow. Need a few other things too.

Got an early breakfast meeting too - on P1. Gotta get some clothes together.

Plato
Making some good progress on The Republic Got to the cave analogy. The translator suggests that a cinema analogy might be better, but I think it's not nearly as appropriate as the cave shadows. Someone who's only seen movies is very different from someone who's only seen shadows in their space. The complexity and engaging and self-explanatory nature of a movie is so different than the cryptic unexplained shapes of the passing shadows and associated noises. It's a good analogy though analogies can be dangerous if they're applied too rigidly.

It seems parallel to the wine bracket analogy that I think of often. If you drink crappy wine, and then get exposed to decent wine, it moves you up a notch and you can't go back to crappy wine easily. The TV show "Corner Gas" did a great exploration of the concept where characters were purposely exposing each other to "bracket-crossings" in revenge. Pretty good exploration actually.

Wrap
Well, clothes prep for tomorrow, read a bit and to sleep. Ugh what to wear. Oh well, it's a networking thing, so a pseudo casual suit thing should work.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is related. Find someone in your day today that's wearing something nice and compliment them on it. That's all. See if they react differenlty to you over the next 48 hours. Let me know how it goes.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Water Day

Another 200lbs of flagstone - let that be a lesson to you. If you make a pond, buy more flagstone than you expect to need. Also picked up some cedar mulch. In the area around the stream, where I was trying a few riverstones, I will substitute cedar mulch perhaps. Should keep the weeds down too.

But I applied the water. Some tuning required, to keep the edges of the liner high enough here and there. It'll probably need some more tweaking, but it's fairly stable now.

It's full of murky water. Would have been good to wash each boulder and pebble, but that doesn't seem practical. I assume alot of the cloudy particulate matter will settle out. Of course, the pumb might stir it up again. Perhaps some will settle to the base of the stream too.

Not the loudest stream around. I decided the pump was too small, so moved from the medium pump to the large pump. Not too bad - hardly a torrent, but at $180, that's about as much as I want to spend on a pump, so perhaps will stop there. Got it up from gurgling to babbling on the universal stream chart. I'd love to get it to rushing. Perhaps I'll get some chunks of plastic to catch the water and make it splash into the pond itself at some point. More turbulence is needed.

But it's fairly nice now. Perhaps a fountain? Might be too tacky. I could use a basin under the liner for the top pond, and create more of a drop. That would make more noise then too.

Didn't get any plantings into the ground, nor the cedar mulch down, and it's supposed to be a couple of rainy days. Hope the berm holds up okay. The sooner I can get roots in there the better. Some decorative grass would be good too. I wonder if there's enough time left in the year to get it going - I'd suspect so.

Days Are Longer When You're Alone
My SO is down in Florida on biz, and so the days are longer. Their more longer from boredom if I don't keep busy, and they are longer with chores when I am keeping busy, leaving me super snoozy at the end of the day. That's how I feel now, ready to drop into bed. I don't know that Mr. Plato will be able to share much more than a sentence with me when I hit the hay.

He's gotten a bit rabid in one section, where he's talking about the making of philosophers and how to do it right. The really fascist sounding bit is where he talks about people getting a better education than they deserve, and how their thoughts and ideas are wrong when they get through it. Bizzare to think of children getting more education than they deserve. Not a reasonable perspective in a modern world. Presumably everyone is deserving of an education... except maybe my sister - man is that going to her 49 year old head. Each thing she learns she thinks is a wonderous discovery, which is fine on it's own, but man, some of it is super obvious stuff that she then preaches to the rest of the world like they are little people. You want to tell her "what - you didn't know that!?" to counter the condescending tone, but of course you can't. So the ego builds up as she learns obvious things that just a few years of open minded normal human life would teach you. Whew, that's going to be one annoying prof if she perseveres to that stage.

But back to Plato. It's commendable that anyone thought so much about this topic, but it's moved from a blueprint of the ultimate society, to a rant against the people who pissed him off in his society. Some wacky views of the world. Seems like he wanted people to agree with him, so what better approach that to write a book in the first person, with someone interjecting "Yes" and "You're right," and "Of course" after every point you make.

Oh well, in spite of my here and there reading time, I'm about 3/4 through it. I'll be glad to bring it to a conclusion and move on to something else.

Wrap
Well, my eyes are growing heavy and so I should wrap up. In light of that, here's your assignment for today. For a change it's not a 'right this minute' assignment, but it MUST be done today! When you go to bed tonight, your head will hit the pillow, and your assignment then kicks in. Close your eyes, and imagine, in real time - don't speed it up - imagine getting out of bed, putting on each piece of clothing, going to your front door, getting your shoes (and coat if necessary today) and unlocking your door, opening it and step by step walking around your block, back to your house and back to bed. Try and imagine every single step of the way.

Let me know tomorrow - did you do it? You fell asleep, right? How far did you get? It's a good exercise if you have trouble sleeping (never any of that with me! - though I do wake easy).

Monday, September 11, 2006

Get Back, Get Back Get back to where...

Oi, my back is a bit sore from loading up flagstones on P3 work. Did a fair bit today on that, getting the cushioning layer in (using cast off carpet from the neighbour - good timing in chatting one day during the summer when she mentioned getting rid of it) and then putting down the liner. The liner size has worked about right, with the main pond lined, then a strip removed which takes care of the top pond plus the stream bed.

But now that things are going down, I get a much better view of the hard stuff required. And, I need a pile of more flagstone, and some more larger sized boulders. So I've got 300lbs of flag in my trunk to unload still, and two more bags of boulder sized river stone.

But my back is sore from weighing and loading the flagstone, so I'm taking a breather. It's looking pretty nice, but I'll have a bit of tuning to get the stream right.

Week Ahead
I wanted to get out for an overnight camping hike, but the weather in mid week is looking rough. If the forecase is for spotty showers I'll still go, but if rain, I'll have to pass. My SO is off to a conference in the southern US, and I've got a networking event, that is in aid of P1 goals, during the week. So a few things going on.

Been working on my Kanji a bit - how did I not get this project recorded!? Well, P13 I guess, learning languages. I've got all the Katakana and Hiragana committed to memory, and am about 50 or 60 Kanji's in to the couple of thousand you need to survive. There's a long process of copying them down, making flash cards, and studying. Plus I have to keep up on my kana and try to expand my vocabulary somewhat as well.

All this and no opportunity to practice speaking, as the class I wanted to do is not offered this fall. Just as well to keep the cash in my pocketo.

Sept 11
Yes, it's a monday, just like it was on the other 9-11. That day I was working on renovating a basement stairway and outside wall. Insulating, drywalling etc. I stepped on a nail, well a small tack, around then too I remember. But it was a dramatic and surreal day on the media channels that's for sure. I think most of all I learned how thin the veneer of civilization is. The evolution of western culture was wrapped up there as well. With the big split the US population, it shows a big weakness in democracy that opens up like a rift when there's a roughly even split in sentiment. So that 50/50 split (probably really a 60/40 split for the left of centre folk if their system recorded it better) gets incorporated into everything. Especially the re-rise of McCarthy-era witch hunts and manipulation of the masses.

I keep thinking that this must be what it was like to live next door to Germany in the 30's as crazy ideas start to get accepted by the population, and they're too close to the problem to see what they're doing to themselves. The erosion of things they claim their country stands for, in defence of those same things. Weird irony there - there's this was this groundswell of pressure against dissenting views, presumably motivated by people who wanted to protect the American freedoms of things like speech and political beleif. How wacko is that!?

Well, I perceive that things might be cresting somewhat. It's a question of whether the strange mix of ignorance about the world outside, religion and lack of basic freedoms will get another foothold and drive their culture down another notch. Hope it doesn't happen. I get the sense sometimes that the Daily Show is one of the bastions of real journalistic freedom left down there. Then again I dropped the cable a while back, and have greatly removed the amount of US news I have to endure, which is great. The internet based stuff is much easier to filter.

Wrap
Oh I'm eager to move onto unloading the trunk, if my back can take it. So I'll stop my political rant and do so now.

Your assignment for today is an easy one. Go get a cup of tea or coffee and chat with someone you haven't talked to much, for about 5 minutes. If you're alone, pick up the phone or dash off an email. Have no goal in the conversation other than to chat (ie don't ask for anything). Let me know how it goes as usual. You can always reach the bitPlayer at lwopractice yahoo.ca

Friday, September 08, 2006

Rumblings

What a nice day - sunny and warm. But just now a big noisy, flashy thunderstorm has come through. Bam - there was a blue flash and an almost instant crack. Sounds like a real kick-ass static discharge, as, of course, it is. You can really tell though when it's near like that. I wonder where it hit. Hopefully one of the pretentious monster houses that have sprung up in my neighbourhood, obliterating old houses to build something that towers over the neighbours, and has big ostentatious windows without curtains. I'd like to see a seriously charred corner on one of those puppies.

Cleaned up some stuff online and then went to buy some black earth (P3). That's not particularly what I wanted - just ordinary soil would be better. Everythings goes on and on about having peat moss or bone meal in it - I just want dirt, but I only need probably a 'quarter of a yard' of it, in landscapers' parlance.

But black earth it was, and on sale for $2 a bag too, so it looked pretty attractive. Also bought a bag of peat moss while I was there, so we can do the light-weight cement experiment at some point, maybe making a rock or something.

Also bought some pipe fittings - hard to find what I wanted at the big Despot. Ended up with metal fittings that will fit my threads. The pond pump says use 1/2" tubing, but it has a threaded outflow. Dufuses. So it's a 1/4" thread, not half an inch. I'm not sure if I'll be able to use this pump anyway, might need the more expensive higher flow version. Must remember to keep my receipts. I have fittings now to turn the 1/4" male thread into a 3/4" barb for my existing hosage.

Did more hole shaping, and further built up the berm for the stream. The loamy earth is certainly not the best medium for this - I should plant some grasses to get some rootball action. I'm thinking I might even plant some barley, it won't come back in the spring, but the roots will mesh up the little hillock pretty well to hold it in place over winter. And I've got tons of barley.

Launched another writing project (P10). Fairly innovative structure, hope it turns out okay and I can keep my enthusiasm up.

Weekend
The weekend cometh. Probably some more landscapey stuff tomorrow morning as the SO has a volunteer thing in the AM. Or perhaps a leisureley breakfast. Would be nice to wrap up the current phase of project 3 though.

Wrap
Well the SO is home and supper is on my mind.

Here's your assignment for this entry - drop everything and do this right now. Go get a nice stiff drink. Try something you haven't had before. Do you drink scotch? Try a nice Lagavulin. If you don't drink scotch, try a Glenmorangie. Where do you get it? Find a pub-like place and you'll probably be able to get set up there.

Have just one. Okay, two if you wish, but don't over do it! No point drinking the good stuff if you're going to get blitzed and not enjoy it!

Tell me what you think! lwopractice at yahoo.ca

Thursday, September 07, 2006

September Summer

With the whole back-to-school thing filling the media, and changes in radio hosts and such, you get the sense of a new season starting. But sometimes you forget, that summer is still around for a while yet. The cooler weather also heightens that sense.

But today was a nice temperature, enough that some landscaping work (P3) was able to easily work up a sweat. It's September summer.

My biggest challenge there now is that I don't think I have enough dirt. I could use some topsoil, and so might have to drum some up. I'd hoped that digging the pond would provide enough, but no such luck. I'm pretty close to enough though. probably just a yard or so would be fine. Plus with so much clay in the soil, it would be nice to add some more viable soil on top to support any plantings etc. Sounds like more money and waiting.

Went out for lunch today with an old colleague. Nice to tune into the corporate world again. News of layoffs of tech middle-management in town doesn't do much for the market.

My SO is off to an evening event with friends, and so I whipped up pasta for one, and dug up some wine from the basement cooking batch. Marginal stuff (home-made) but I managed to quaff a glass anyway. Sure makes you appreciate real stuff. Cuvee crappy basement swill... Chateau Swill.

Tested out a little solar panel assembly, and getting about 1Volt in direct sunlight. Enough to do something with perhaps. A voltage doubler would help - perhaps a boost converter circuit would be a good idea. Enough current there to turn a little motor - that was fun.

I've lost some enthusiasm for my home product exploration work, because of the scope of work to be done alone, and the isolation of doing it. Plus, having managed a team to do stuff like this, I can see the horrible contrast of how slow it is to do everything yourself. Ugh.

Made a nice batch of cinnamon buns. Whole lot of sugar and butter there, but they are tasty. Don't make sweet stuff like this, well, ever - so it's a nice treat. Froze half for later.

All in all a nice day - some manual labour, some meeting with friends, a little pursuit of P1 and P2 and some tech exploration. Punctuate that with some quiet time reading with some tea and a sticky-bun, and who could ask for more. I'm sure P2 will kick in sometime in the coming weeks, and I'll look back on this time with relish.

Plato Plods Along
Still working on The Republic when I get a chance. It seems to be half a dozen pages late in the afternoon, or a couple of pages in bed, before the eyes get heavy. But it's a fun read. Some elements of his process of constructing the future society are laughable, others uncannily relevant today, and others downright scary (e.g. infanticide for managing births and breeding). The style is quite tired, quite fsst. It's a treatise, I don't know why he tries to make it a conversation.

It's funny that there was no understanding of the nurture side of development at all - or at least in his circle. The idea of children not being aloud to know their parents and vice versa, along with state-run child rearing is very Orwellian. Then again, so is all the news coming out of the US - secret prisons, itemized we won't do these torture things anymore lists from generals etc. Sure makes 10 years ago seem like simpler times.

But like all 'simpler times' claims, it just means that things were simpler because we weren't exposed to what was going on. In general I think complexity in the world is not usually a degradation - usually ugly stuff comes out into the open because as the first step in raising outrage to fix the problems that were otherwise hidden before. I hope that's what's happening now.

Wrap
Oh well, too much there to explore, and the evening is too heavily setting around me. So I'll wrap up here and assign your task.

Your drop everything, Life-without-practice assignment for today is a bit more work this time. For the next 24 hours, eat way less than normal. Cut your meals in half, and if you feel hungry, just see what it's like to live with that for a while. No snacks, just three small sized meals. It's just 24 hours out of your entire life, it's not going to kill you.

Think about how weird it is that you are hesitant to do this. If you do follow through, think about how you NEVER experience this. This, one day - not even going without food, just having small portions!! Think about how this HUGE inconvenience would be an opulent luxury for so many millions. You don't need to do anything else about it - just experiencing that is enough. Maybe it will have an impact on you down the road. C'mon, do it. Can you not just try this, with a measily 24 hours of your life? Look at your plate, think about how to make it smaller - put half that sandwich back, or put some away for tomorrow, just to experience this.

Let me know what you decide, and how it goes.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Grey Day

It's a grey day, and that's holding me back from doing some P3 work on the landscaping. Need to do more digging, and place a few more blocks. I should also go buy some more flagstone in preparation for putting down the liner. Then there's the pump installation.

Oh well, otherwise, just wasting the day it seems. Some experimentation going on, mounting some solar cells and doing a bit of circuit planning. Thinking of solar powered remote radio options, and hoping I can trickle charge a battery faster than it depletes.

Great Outdoors
Need to take some time out for getting on the trails and doing some camping. Just an overnight perhaps, with an 8-10km hike attached.

Wrap
Well, I'll stop here briefly, perhaps an elaboration later on. But for now let's get on with other projects. The Camino browser is bugging me lately, as it has a big problem with an offset from the cursor position. As I type the characters show up 2cm below where they should, wiping out random other graphics.

Your drop everything assignment for you, as you reach the end of this entry on the LWoP blog, is to find a piece of scrap paper and make a paper airplane. Better yet, try a design you haven't folded up before -just google "paper airplane" and see what you can find. Let me know how it works out!

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Mmm Coconut Bun

Do you spend much time in your city's Asian area? Ottawa is pretty good that way, and the city in it's amazing inability to make the most of a good thing, seems to ignore it. But we've got a good 8 or 10 blocks of Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian businesses in one stretch of town, and within the restaurants and stores are a few places that bake Chinese pastries. My favourite are the coconut buns. Soft, sweet dough with sweet coconut filling inside and sesame sees on the outside. I'm enjoying one now that I picked up yesterday at the Kowloon Market. Another good source is down Booth Street at the St. Honaire Bakery.

Anyways, a nice afternoon snack is good to cheer me up after a bit of project 2 driving. Dropping off some resumes really sucks, as the roles are so disparate. A mailroom guy or security guard assumes the role of chief potentate over the lowly job seeker. It's all subtleties in body language, but it's there. Years of leading edge research and honours are nothing when you're job hunting. You're just another slug on the street.

It reminds me of my house hunting as a poor student - looking for an apartment that isn't a flea-bag, but not opulently expensive. You'd pound the pavement for days, and soon look at passers-by and think, 'all these people have somewhere to live, and I don't'. Funny that perspective comes back. As I make up my mind to switch from contractor to employee, suddenly the world takes on that perspective again. 'All these people have jobs and desks and paycheques'

Oh well, that will soon change. I tend to think back to various accolades received during my career and remind myself that my work has been highly valued and I've stood out in the crowd. Hopefully that occurs again as I make a return foray into the fire.

After the Deluge
We had a lot of rain during the Labour day weekend. Not so much heavy stuff as predicted for the remnants of the hurricane after zipping along the east coast, but a persistent drizzle anyway. The landscaping (P3) is awaiting me, but I thought I'd let everything dry out for a day. Managed to buy a liner and pump over the weekend. A hardware store on the outskirts had a bit more stock remaining than did the other 4 stores in the big orange chain, and so it worked out okay.

Hoping for a hiking/camping trip this week. Would be nice to get away - but I have a lunch planned for Thursday, so I'll either go after that, or go next week. But at least the kids are all back in school, so the demand at the parks during the week should be considerably lower.

This weekend I did make a P9 effort, and baked 6 loaves of whole wheat bread. With whole wheat flower, oats and oat bran, and molasses and olive oil. A nice result. One was a bit deflated, but the others all formed up nicely. Good rising and all look baked to perfection. Should provide many breakfasts and lunches for the coming weeks. Nice to get a bit cooler weather to use the oven again.

Wrap Up Well, it's a pseudo-Monday today but at least the weeks off to a good start. Got a few things done and there are lots of projects in the offing for the week. The Shuttle launch on Wednesday looks promising still, which will be an interesting event in the news to watch for.
And the stock market is pretty hot today, with lots of nice jumps across the board.

Your "drop everything and do this" assignment for this entry (whenever you're reading it) is to think about your day so far, and remember someone who you thanked for helping you in the last 24 hours. Now hunt them down and say "Thanks again for the xyz" whatever the xyz was that they did for you. Why bother? They will feel very positive after that. We rarely have a brief interaction out of the blue that is purely positive and not resulting in more work. You'll go up a notch in their eyes, and they will feel good, if only for a bit. But a bit more happiness is a good thing.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Buy it Again for the first Time

There's nothing like rummaging around in Cohen's scrap and recycling store/yard. Went to get some stone for the landscaping work (P3) and couldn't resist a walk around the building to see what's new. Saw a big box full of "Canada's Cutest Baby" mugs, plus about a thousand stainless steel containers with small stainless steel cups inside. Must be reject stock from some manufacturer in India. Not sure how they'll move that stuff. But all the usual fireplaces, doors, and random things from defunct companies. Always fun. Hope they never switch to eBay to move the stuff. It would be fun to list all the wacky stuff here on the Life Without Practice Blog (LWoP) but it's better if you just go take a look - oh yeah, they're only in Ottawa, so sorry Aussie friends, or my European fan club, it's a bit pricey for a window-shopping trip. There are likely similar places in your town though - have you been there? What did you see?

But got flagstones, river stone etc. - about 500lbs worth of haulage, and a bit more sweating even though I'd already worked up a sweat shoveling earlier and showered and cleaned up since then. Drat. It's one of those multi-shower days.

Buried the pipe for the pumped water to make the streamy bit - hey not often you can say you laid some pipe, and not intend any double entendre's! It's getting late in the season for shopping, and stores will soon switch over to Christmas or something and leave me stuck. But I still have to get a liner and a pump, and do lots of dirt piling. Basically, I need to make the thing deep enough to generate enough dirt to make the berm the appropriate size. I also need to make a top-level spill pond. Couldnt' find much in the way of usable things, so I figure wood, caulking, and a whole lot of roof repair-type tarry stuff will make a decent water-holding thingy.

Upcoming Travel
Looks like there's lots of flitting about soon (P6). The SO is going to Miami in the midst of hurricane season, and staying in a hotel on a tiny spit of land in the Ocean - this is a work related trip. Should be interesting. Hmmm, I wonder if we'll be into the M or N range my then.

If she survives, we're off to Toronto for a weekend get-together. She has the get together, I'll wander around town a bit perhaps. Could visit siblings in the area I guess.

Then shortly after, we're off to Boston for a longer weekend. Got flights and rooms and tickets to the Ignobel awards lined up.

Funny Things at Bad Times
With the anniversary of 9/11 coming up we'll surely be innundated with bad-taste rehashes, and our poor American neighbours will be snowed over with wacky twisted logic justifying the whole Iraq thing via 9/11 which makes no sense what-so-ever. It seems so bizzare, from this vantage point anyway, that given a fundamentalist terrorist movement attack, a response would be to go and destabilize an unrelated area. Wouldn't you expect that to create more angry fundamentalists who were once indifferent, but now are motivated to extremeism by their collaterally damaged family? Wouldn't you want to go chase the guy who perpetrated the thing with most of your available resources? Just the sort of wacky logic you'd expect from those neo-con folk. Okay - I'm real off topic here. I guess that too is kind of a funny (funny-strange, not funny ha-ha) thing that happened at a bad time.

Anyway, the two funny (ha-ha) things that happened at bad times are one following 9/11 and one after the Swiss Air plane crash.

Just after the plane crash, there was an official with a US federal transport group of some kind giving a news conference. He was giving out preliminary information, and was concerned that the media run with the info. Now you'd think someone in that field might have used the word "preliminary" before. Perhaps it was even written down on the papers in front of him. But it seems he'd never connected the writing of the word with the proper pronunciation. Not only that, but he never thought about the irony of emphasize a word when you personally don't know the proper pronunciation. So he says in front of all the cameras and microphones:
"Now I want to remind you that this information is puh-liminary. I repeat PUH - liminary"

The big emphasis on the "puh" was hilarious... It would be like Bush saying "We are concerned about Nucular weapons, I repeat, New QUE lar!" And, for Daily Show fans, he'd have to add "Heh, heh, heh."

Okay, and my other favourite funny thing at a bad time, is actually related to ol' King George II of America. Just after 9/11, Bush is in the big pit talking to a crowd, and a bunch of cameras. He's got a megaphone in his hand, and he's standing beside and elderly looking fire chief, who is on his left. He's panning the megaphone about as he talks, and must finally think to himself- 'Hey there's all them folk on the left of me who can't hear...' So he pans the megaphone to his left. But wait, there's an old fire chief guy in the way - no problem, George just keeps on talking, with this megaphone almost in contact with this poor guy's ear! He panned around a few times. The poor old guy must have been blasted. He should sue for hearing loss. To his credit... or rather not to his credit, he must be nuts, he didn't move a muscle. He should have dropped to his knees and yelled, "What the hell are you doing you idiot!" But that wouldn't have played well I guess.

So those are my two favourite funny things that happened at bad times. I'd love to see some footage of that again, but never have. I hadn't discovered the "Daily Show" back then, so always wondered if they had noted it in their coverage.

Wrap Up
Well, that covers another item of my must-cover list. So now to think about supper(P9,8), maybe get a few pages of Plato's Republic out of the way (P5) and maybe a cup of tea.

Oh yeah - something you have to do, right this minute, dear reader. (If I'm a blogger, does that make you a bloggee?). Drop everything and find the nearest window. Stand there and enjoy the view for a few minutes. Try and see if there are any animals about - pigeons, squirrels, dogs, spiders anything. Is your view devoid of wildlife or is your neighbourhood teeming with it? I wanna know!