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!

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Last Day of August!

Sending around a few feelers on proj 2. Not many interesting places out there. I recognize myself in so many of them. I see people from a similar past with an idea and trying to execute on it. The difference is that some of them have sunk a lot more cash into it and seem no better off on there venture than we were on mine. Just as well we didn't drag it out for 5 years with no income. At least I've been able to scrounge up some work here and there that expands my horizons a bit.

But a rather low energy day to some extent. Then again, I did go for a 6km walk (P4) after a snacky-lunch. My pedometer and map my run seem to agree on the distance. That's reassuring. That's a good website, but I wish you could tell it not to re-centre when you click a point. I'd rather set the window to a nice position and then click, click, click quickly. Not click, wait for redraw, click, wait again, etc...

Exercise & Energy Stuff

Walking is nice this time of year. In fact, down to about 0C, it's quite comfortable without much of a coat it seems. It's a 23C high today, and while it's comfortable, when you get inside you realize you're a bit sweaty. For the long hikey walks with a pack and some serious weight, I've been interested in the carbo-gel pack stuff. It's supposed to provide some carb's, protein and electrolyte stuff which your body can draw on without having to stop and take in a pile of food. You still need the water though.

Looking on the web, I found a recipe someone had put together to recreate his own, rather than buy a bunch of packets, or a bottle of it for $22. So his recipe uses protein powder, electrolyte powder, some brown rice syrup and cashew butter. Those last two for carbs and fat respectively. But whoa, the smallest jug of protein power is about $20 and the electrolyte stuff is about $30 for a small pack too - so I'd have to be scorfing a lot before this would be worth my while.

There's a good food analysis site that gives a breakdown of foods - a good resource to plan your own mix. The carb boom brand of gel has mostly carbs, a bit of sugars, and sodium and potassium. Ratio is 27g, 3g, 50mg, 50mg

Something like honey has high carbs, but it's mostly sugars. Rice is high in carbs, hence the brown rice syrup. I couldn't find it at the one place I went - I'll have to check another.

A good resource is looking at all the work done on "oral rehydration therapy" or ORT. This is based on lots of field work in developing countries where dehydrated people are given the magic mixture of a salt, sucrose and potassium and are almost instantly cured and able to walk again. They suggest either sucrose or starch actually. So the rice based stuff works there too.

The world health organization and others seem to suggest a mixture of about:

8 tsp of sugar and 1 tsp table salt mixed in 1 liter of water.
A half cup of orange juice or half of a mashed banana for each liter both to add potassium

Interesting that they also say "If commercial solutions are used, true rehydration solutions should be used and sports drinks should be avoided (especially in younger children) as these solutions contain too much sugar and not enough electrolytes. at this source

So if it's good enough for dehydrated African kids, it must be a decent mix for a sports drink. With carbs added for more energy, I'd think it makes a pretty good, cheap solution to use:

Brown Rice Syrup
Crushed banana
8tsp of honey
1tsp salt

That will probably taste like crap, but with a bit of water to make it squeeze-out-able, and chugging lots of water to wash it down... it should be cheap and provide a good balance. Substitute orange juice or dehydrated potato flakes perhaps for other potatssium sources. Perhaps some cocoa powder would make a good flavour, or some instant coffee. A caffeine version I suppose. Screw the expensive stuff.


Wrap
Keeping it fairly rant free today. Thanks for the messages - Whew! What a deluge. Gosh, just swamped here. This is me below the sea of mhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifessage bytes.

Anyway, the much-awaited assignment for you right now, whenever it is you are reading this - is to drop everything and go to a news website, scan the headlines, and actually read start to finish the most UN-interesting story you can find on the front page. Something you would never read normally. See what you learn and tell me.

Here are a few good news sits, for those of you who need hints. Google News, or The Independent, or else, try: LA Times.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

On Course

The project 3 work yesterday went okay. Got 3 courses of blocks up and the foundation is level in most dimensions. The next steps involve spending more hard-earned savings for a pond liner, pump and plumbing pieces, plus some natural stone (flag, pea, river) to make all the surfaces appropriate. Probably upwards of $400 to do all that. Eesh.

I suppose I could leave some of it for next year. Have to think what an appropriate pause state would be. Perhaps, the plumbing pipe in place, and the basin on top of the berm, with some of the rock and plantings, and leaving the big hole in the ground plus the liner for next year. I could put a box in place for now, and fill the hole, or just let rainwater collect for more of a swampy muck pit approach to landscaping.

Lunch Logistics
So a busy morning on other areas as well, so I"m typing with lunch. My meal today consists of three mini-pita sandwiches of ham and cheddar, a few olives and a morsel of pickled herring. I've noted that if you buy your ham from the deli counter in a block rather than sliced, you reduce the surface area, which helps with avoiding spoilage. But also, even better, if you toss it in the freezer, it freezes, but it's not rock-hard, and you can take it out and slice several slices off for a sandwich or two and put it back in the freezer. Avoides the green slimy ham in the fridge if you end up missing lunch at home for a few days, or if other leftovers arise suggesting they should be consumed first.

We have leftovers from a good meal last night at the Northern Han - a small chinese restaurant with a difference in Chinatown. I notice the owner/server folk speak Mandarin. I can pick up a word or two here and there. Reminds me of a recent biz-trip to Taiwan, and made me want to go back to Asia. The food at this place is quite different than the usual places. Seems a lot more inland originating food. I assume the name refers to the origin of the owner,cuisine or both. But there's a lot of lamb, as well as pork, beef and chicken.

We had a dish with lamb and cumin that the server recommended. It was quite good, but quite spicy. She claimed it was from the cumin - which was a new one on me. I cook with cumin all the time and have never seen cumin that added a chili-like burn to the dish. Must be a Chinese variant of cumin that we don't know here.

This restaurant is also known for it's dumpings. They have a wide variety, and you get a lot for the money, even in a small order. Plus you can get take-away frozen ones too. We had pork and chives - also very tasty with the dark wine-vinegar dipping sauce.

Too bad about the wacky air-conditioner that ruins one table at the restaurant. You see people sit and move right away. They need to get an up-facing grille for the vent outflow! Would be more efficient for AC anyway.

So the leftovers will be suitable for dinner tonight if I supplement them with some more content, and fresh rice.

Languages
This gets me on to a topic I wanted to blog about (see my coming-soon rant list at left). In studying a bit of Mandarin - I realized how difficult it is to learn that language. I listened to some tapes before going to Taiwan, which helped a bit, but I'm not too confident in my tonal control. It's very difficult to avoid a western up-lift on questions and other tonal perversions for emphasis, all of which mess with the word meeting.

So I'm pretty much relegated to Sheshe's and Zaijen's when it comes to Mandarin unless I put more time into it.

But Japanese has been my focus for a few months. Even though I took two levels over a decade back (where I met my SO as well!) I needed to take another first level this summer to get back into the swing of it. It comes pretty easy. It's a great language from a structure point of view. If you only took one other non-English language, and it was Japanese, you'd have a pretty skewed opinion of how hard it is to learn another language. I've also learned some French, German and Russian and they're all a lot tougher. Verb conjugation is quite nice in Japanese, and tenses are nicely split between past and non-past.

Then comes the written language. Oy! So, since the class I've pretty easily learned the Hiragana and Katakana sets. I can even type them on my computer: セい はお いて イゼ 

Okay, that's pretty lame - but it just transliterates to "See how it is"

Now the tough part is learning Kanji - the character set borrowed from the Chinese eons ago, and slightly modified, just enough so that you don't get any benefit when you try to learn Chinese characters. The tough part is that each character can be pronounced sometimes four different ways, and might mean something on it's own like "man" or "forest" but could also be used as a single sound like "he" or "o". All this wrapped up in a single character. So when you're making flash cards and studying, each card you flip would mean ten minutes of reciting what the symbol means. Whew.

I suppose the easiest approach for the first stage is to just learn the symbol’s stand-alone meaning like for 人 I would say "hito - man or Human" or for 五 I would say "go - five."

Have you learned Kanji? How did you do it? Any suggestions for memorization techniques or flashcards? I guess I'd best not get too buried in characters and remember to not forget my grammar and build my vocabulary.

Lots of learning ahead of me still. This international keyboard palette on the Mac is pretty useful - though it's doing some strange stuff just now, and I'm not sure if it will all come through on Blogger. Hope they support mixed character sets.

So far so good - did a trial publish and it's all looking good.

Wrap
So best get on with the afternoon. This morning was all proj 1 related website and client/partner meetings and such. Now I've had lunch and even managed do a bit of blogging, so the day can't be too bad. It's also a nice cool sunny late summer day, so outdoor stuff would be nice.

You're immediate drop everything assignment for today is just to send me an email to tell me you exist and what you had for lunch or something. It should not use the vowels "o" or "u" anywhere in the body of the email however. Send it to "lwopractice (a) yahoo.ca " Of course, use the "@" symbol in that address.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Scape that Land

Picture it, summer turns from sweltering to low-mid 20's C. So with a bevy of projects circling overhead, I decide I'd best put another one to bed, or at least take a dose of de-crastination to combat my occasional bout of procrastination (Proj12) and make some baby steps toward knocking off the bigger landscaping projects I've commited myself to doing (P3).

Just to recap, on the landscaping front, I have some backyard stuff to take care of - making a larger stone patio, a small pond and stream thing to creat a bit of ambient noise. Also, there's an underlying element to Project 3 which is to gradually eliminate as much grass as possible. In my front yard, I needed a walkway improvement increment over some work done last year, as well as a n across-the-lawn walkway to avoid the silly walk straight out, down the sidewalk 3 metres and back up the driveway thing. Especially in the winter it's annoying.

So, I have made some progress. The patio is almost twice as big, the cross-lawn thoroughfare is in place and holding up well.

Well, yesterday with the cooler, rainless weather, I finally thought - well, don't need to do the whole water feature quite yet, but at least increment the thing. The first stage is to dig a cross garden channel to hold the pipe through which the pump will send water into a shallow basin on top of a berm. That needs to cut through the existing garden, starting from the depth of the pond, and going to the shallowest level that will still get me under the garden edging and a stone retaining wall to support the berm behind the garden.

I did well at advancing that, but was pretty wiped. I dug the hole, and trench, removing copious bulbs along the way for later replanting. Then I cut a piece of ABS 3" pipe to go under the foundation of the soon-to-exist retaining wall. I bought 4 bags of 1/2" gravel, and the first 20 blocks. I compacted some earth around the pipe (stuffed with old gravel bags)and then leveled it and added the stone. I levelled that and then put down some stone dust. I did a trial placement of the first course of blocks. They're pretty good - need some more stone dust to further level them at the one end. Plus, need some levelling in the other axis.

So today, I need some stone dust, and more blocks - probably 20-25 of them.

The Wacky Story
In the spirit of some interesting exercises I've heard about in the past (e.g. the book without the letter 'e'), I was working on a micro-story of my own with another quirk. Actally, I was exploring this certain quirk, when I realized it was a similar project ot the e-less story. Anyway - chicken, egg, whatever.

Here's the story. You will note a bit of awkwardness perhaps. Actually, I thought it had a bit of a Ulysses feel to it. See what you think. If you don't notice the quirk right away, do this exercise. Either on a real keyboard, or on a ghost keyboard on your lap, type a copy of the story. I think it's a pretty cool effect.


We get dressed. Greg sat, reads. Afterward, a red car...Daves Stewart,Bette..."Greg, best scat!"

Stewart wears dreads, beads. Dave a weave, a faded TV act. Bette, a stewardess, sees Greg's cat. A sweet face Bette, dresses great. We ate seated, Daves a great beast! We were a sad crew.

Afterward, Dave was wasted, gassed. Stewart vexed Dave. We traded barbs. Sad bastard. Dave retreats, swears, fades, stews.

Bette dated Dave. Afterward tears, a bad case. A Cafe afterwards, Stewart, Dave... Greg?

I look up. Lynn, John limp in.

"You look jolly in pink, Lynn"
"No, I look... oh - loopy!"
"John - join in."
"Huh? Oh, Lynn umm, ok."
"You ok?
"I, uh.. No"


Ooo - a cliff hanger there! So, what do you think? Fascinating story huh? Got you on the edge of your seat. Hope you caught the quirk. Let me know what you think. Not the easiest thing to write - Have to emphasize my copyright on that story!

Wanted to share that after plugging away at it for a few months now and then. A very limiting rule set there.

Wrap
Well, on to my project 3 work. There's some shopping for additional blocks and stone dust, some lunch and then another day of back straining work.

Your immediate assignment for today is tougher than it might seem. Sit comfortably, close your eyes and count calmly and silently to two hundred. It should obviously take less than three minutes, but if you can't get all the way there, it might say something about your ability to take three minutes out of your day for relaxing. Can you make it all the way through right now without an interruption? How did it feel. Could you maintian focus, or did you lose count? Let me know - email address at the left sidebar.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Klicks on Legs

When it's the weekend, and you know the summer is waning, and you also know that Sunday is going to be rainy, it's good encouragement to get out and do something. So off to the Gatineau hills for a hike.

Now, the problem with the Gatineaus, is that you can get there pretty quickly and so the roads are packed with cyclists who want to own the road, plus the hiking trails are full of hikers and bikers. Luckily, on the back side of the park there are some nice, little used trails that don't show up on the trail maps. The vistas are great and the trails are clearly not used much, as brittle branches on deadfalls remail over the path, rendering them rather impaling for cyclists and snap-off-able for hikers.

So we can spend a good 4 or 5 hours getting a real workout, and lounging on big granite cliffs overlooking the valley without being disturbed by other folk, dogs, bikes, screaming kids etc.

Thus we did, and even bushwacked off into the back of the park, exploring remnants of old paths and hints of century old roads. It was good progress on project 4. It also spurs me on to make a trip back to the National Archives when I get the chance to do some more research (proj 11). Eager to read more about Philemon Wright who settled the area in 1830-ish. The trees are all second growth. The rocky soil stops them from growing too fast, but there are lots of stunted oaks everywhere. Since wright started a squared timber business in the mid-19th century, I assume he took a lot of oak out of the area. Quite a shame it's all gone.

There is a decent forested area, and we found a ravine back behind our usual lunch spot that I hadn't seen before. Tall pines create the typical boreal aura around needle covered forest floor and pink granite outcroppings. Also saw a nice cliff face I hadn't come across before. Will have to make my way back out with my climbing gear (proj 12) which doesn't get much use these days.

Food Then and Now
We had a nice snack of mini-pitas, turkey-kolbassa, cheddar cheese, and an orange, as well as some orange juice to drink. We were going to have a cup of tea while lounging about, but decided to do a more agressive hike. While packing the stuff back up, I noticed that we didn't have the stove-fuel with us anyway, so it was just as well I didn't try to whip up some tea.

This evening it's time for some Morroccan Food. We've got an agreeable spot that we'll go again with some friends. The olive salad is a regular favourite, and the tajines with tender lamb chunks and couscous are also a good draw. Should be nice.

Wrap
We'll sleep well tonight, no doubt. Your assignment to do write this minute, should you choose to accept it, is to go to wikipedia and look up your town, and then based on the 'history' section, think up a place in your town to go and visit tomorrow. Even if it's a 5 minute drop-by, go take a look and think about how things have changed since those days. Let me know what you learned if you saw something interesting, then I'll learn about your town too...

Friday, August 25, 2006

Blogger Bogged Down

Well, an inauspicious start to the day as I try to get a blog entry going and find that blogger is bogger now. The last few sessions I've noticed a sluggish behaviour and often publish attempts fail, and I have to try again. The good thing is that the failures are pretty well behaved, and I haven't lost any text yet. I'd hate to type ferociously away and hit "Publish/Post" and have it throw away everything.

Then again, maybe it would be good for the readers?! Ha, what am I saying. There probably are none of those, as search and browsing capabilities for blogs are still almost useless. I have blogs which I've had for months on other, very specific topics and I can't get a hit when I search for my own stuff.

Anyways, Friday's a decent day. Didn't get on to blog yesterday. I'm endeavoring not to miss a day other than occasionally on the weekend... but project 1 had me busy yesterday. The consultant's life is a wacky one. You work wildly away on a topic without getting a cent, other times you work wildly away on something and get a big bag of money. I think I prefer the latter.

Today has also been seeing some work on project 2. Finally identified a company for whom I'd be very interested to work. An exploratory company with an interesting semiconductor related product, just in the early stages, with about 7 employees. Went over and button-holed the president, and there were a few good connections on my resume to his team's activites. I'm not too enthusiastic, as these things rarely go anywhere, but I've only once before made the effort to go drop off a resume rather than the usual email thing, and it was a good connection that turned into a long discussion.

My biggest priority right this minute is to get up and get a cup of tea! I've been trying to do that for about 2 hours, but without any luck. There's always one more thing to check, one more thing to type. Hey - I'm doing it again. Help me, will you? Let's both go get a cup of Java or something... Here'we go!

Back With Beverages
Well, that was ironic. As I tried to save the blog, the system crapped out again, and I had to copy all the text to the clipboard, and try again after I got my tea, and started a big roast marinating. Luckily though, Blogger is working again. Not too impressive. Perhaps late on Friday afternoon is a popular blogging time.

Critical Shortages
We have a desperate lack of cookies. I could find no snackable options at all. I stared at some beef jerky I made a few weeks ago. Oh sure, it's tasty, but not a good complement to tea. So I'm snackless, I repeat, snackless.

But my tea is in one of my favourite cups - a bone-white fiestaware cup. It's not huge, but it has is very good dimensionally and functionally. I got it cheap at an antique shop, where they seemed to have many, I suspect they were factory seconds. The glaze is a tiny bit imperfect where the circular handle joins the body. But for me to enjoy tea or coffee, I really prefer a cup that has the characteristics of an old diner cup. So thick, white (inside at least) and smooth lines. The lip should be rounded to (this will sound weird) match the roundness of the flavour. Perhaps it's a strange synesthesia thing, but I associate a very hot tea or coffee, with a roundness and fullness of flavour that matches a perferred shape.

I've seen some lousy cups out there. A sharp, thin edged cup - even if white has it's appeal. Not sure what I'd want to drink from it. Perhaps if it's a classic squat, victorian tea cup with a saucer. That's not too bad. Fine, thin, fragile china. But still I like the thick heavy cup that says "it's raining out there, and cold but I'm inside in this middle-of-nowhere diner and I've got a hot cup of coffee and a big bowl of soup. That's a reall mug. So cuppy it's muggy.

Okay, probably too much on cups - I'll wrap by saying the worst cups to drink from are clear glass ones, and black ones. I don't mind a black cup with a white inside, but I need to see some contrast between my drink and the cup - I'm sorry. That's a requirement.

What do you drink out of? Lemme know.

Ottawa Media Rant Update
Readers of the Life Without Practice Blog (LWoP) will know I've ranted about local Ottawa Canadian Broadcasting Corporation programming and personalities before. There are some updates to their lineup that deserve comment (and supplemental ranting). But first let me say, I have to remain faithful as there is no other commercial free radio when I'm away from my computer, unless I make the effort to hook up my mini FM transmitter and retransmit an internet feed from BBC or Aus Broadcasting... or occasionally NPR.

But I always come back to CBC (as long as it's not at lunch time, and I know that Neal guy is on the air.)

Well, changes are afoot. I knew the brain-numbing Alan Neal was moving away from the lunch time show. Thank go, I will finally be able to listen to some radio with my sandwich again - rather than occasionally discovering a stand-in is working. But other moves are afoot!

So I have to right off the weekend music shows, where Mr. Sarcastic Wheeze-Laugher is headed. No problem. I'll miss out on some interesting music, but I can find that on the web anyway. BUT the other changes. The morning show long-time stand-in chick Lucy Van Oldenbarnveld (good name fun for the titles guy on TV) is leaving, as has long been expected. She did side-kick duty for a while, but took over hosting for big swathes of time while the searched for someone else. She'll take over for the evening TV news chip, whom I'll get to in a second.

Well someone new starts soon, and I'm eager to see what the replacement will be like. Another woman - I hope it's a decent morning voice. The noon show is being taken over by my old nemesis, who is now doing evening TV news. The former morning sidekick chick Giggles! (Aka Rita Celli). She used to be the woman ont he street sidekick, and had a huge inferiority complex as well as an incessant giggle. She could giggle her way through any interchange. And anytime someone referred to her as a 'sidekick' or something less than a co-host (she certainly wasn't that), she seemed to really get her back up in a hurry.

Finally they retooled the morning show a few years back and Giggles was somehow picked for the evening TV news spot. She brought her usual irrational giggle approach to Television and somehow held on to it. It's been moderately entertaining to watch, as you can't figure out when she's going to laugh innappropriately. The weather guy Ian Black looked for ages like he despised her, as she would launch an inane, giggling question to him during the 'witty banter handover' and he would not respond for an awkwardly long time, but rather make a strained look at the camera, and mumble a response. There seemed to be a seething, dismissive element to his demeanor. Someone must have given him a talking too though, as finally he tried to get more personable with her.

When she's not giggling uncontrollably, she seems to have to concentrate way too much while reading the teleprompter. A super concentrating expressionless look on her face and trying to get through, often pausing at the wrong spots on syllables in the middle of a word.

Sorry, Rita, I'm sure you're a fabulous person, but you should either explore a non-audience facing role, or take some serious giggle suppressants. Anyway, she'll be giggling her way back into radio. Perhaps they were getting marginal feedback from others who shared my view.

The drive home radio guy - on right now - is Adrian Harewood (sp?) and he ssems to be still doing a capable job, but utterly humourlessly, and without any interpersonal connection. There used to be witty banter with newsreaders or regular guests, but there seems to be a real distance there now.

CBC National news at supper time has some very sharp and talented staff. Gloria Makarenko is sharp as a tack, or at least comes across that way. Professional and poised. As is her alternate Ian Hanomansing (the ladies call him 'handsome man thing'). He can read and seems coherent and in control of his faculties. A strong newsreader. Though, I think some of the public comment from women on his looks and such would be career-ending sexual harassment if we heard a male making the same comments about a female news anchor. Whoa, Wendy Mesley, mmmm. Actually Wendy is probably past her prime a bit now - she was fine around 1989, oh yeah.

The Competition
The alternative for local television is Mr. Creepy Max Keeping, on the local CTV affiliate, CJOH. Imagine a 60 year old, effeminite guy with about a gallon of bourbon in him, trying to struggle through sentence. Slap an uncomfortable smile on him and you're all set. I won't even pursue the other stuff I'd like to say about the guy. (Ah, sweet anonimity).

But, I hear he's super-popular with the shut-in crowd, and somehow he seems to be the owner of the station or something, so nobody can drop him.

I won't get into that freak-job guy they have doing the late news. Big Leigh Chapple has also been hosting late night, and I think she's decent. She's probably had a hard time in her personal life with a wildly swinging body weight problem. That can't be easy for anyone, let alone someone on the news every night. She does a capable job of reading the news, and I won't fault anyone for their looks or problems like that. But that whack-job that hosts sometimes, man - oh forget it. I won't get into that.

Ah, radio and television information programming... So challenging to find good people, it seems. One of my favourites is Anna-Maria Tremonte. She's a real pro, and you get the added bonus of listening to hear what her interviewee's call her. She gets everything - Annie, Anna, Ann, Ann-Marie, Marie, Mary - but almost never Anna-Maria. It's great fun.

Am I Alone on this? Do you have strong opinions about the people on your local media sources, or national media? Give me a piece of your mind, let me know what you think about these talented folk. Slam me for being a judgemental cad (hey they chose a public career, I know I'd be lousy myself, that's why I stick to blogging. Rita would probably be an awesome blogger tee hee hee).

She should talk with an internet accent. She could say "In other news, el-oh-el, Saudi Arabian foreign minister, el-oh-el, said today, el-oh-el..." and so on. That would be more interesting.

Cooking and Eating
Well I thought I was going to make a short posting today, but I realized I had a lot of pent up comments on the shifting of the local media. I've got a big roast I've thawed out and am marinating a bit in some home made red wine. Yes - you read correctly. Home made. But you might have notice me claim gourmand status, and wine afficiando status earlier? Well, I purposely went and made a batch of cabernet purely for cooking purposes. Like all other home-made wines I've tasted from any source - it's swill. But it works well for cooking.

I'm also contemplating some yorkshire puddings. I haven't made those in a decade or more, and the severe cookie shortage mentioned earlier is pushing me towards making an extra tastey supper. Best get down there and start.

Wrap Up
Hmmm - for readers in the bitPlayer's timezone, it's nearing 5:30, and so an appropriate assignment for you today is to stop what you're doing now and GO HOME (if you're working). If you are reading this later and want something creative to do, go and google the phrase "Downward Dog" and surf the links until you find a step-by-step picture set. Then do one. Tell me what you think? Have you done that before? Try doing 5 a day for a week and see if you feel more chipper after a week.

PS. Ensure the adult filter is on in google preferences - I have no idea what might come up if it's not!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Lifes A Bunch of Projects

I've been trying to get some time on project 1 & 2 this week, and had some success in doing so today. Though an impending trip is also stealing time. Writing a white paper for my consulting biz. Resurrecting some interesting research done several years ago, which I'm updating now. It's interesting stuff related to green technology and such. So we'll see how that wraps up, but at least I blasted through a first draft today and it's already sounding pretty good.

On project 2 I've gone with a one page resume. Had a 3 page one for a while, but it's always a balance of brevity versus getting lots of keywords into the thing. As someone who has done lots of hiring in the past, I know brevity is a good thing. I still remember being impressed with a guys resume about 6 years ago as he had lots of credentials and experience, but managed to create a 1 page summary of it all. Every word has to count.

However, I still worry that given most HR departments pull resumes into databases and do keyword searching on them, I worry about having a balance between buzzwords and readable content.

So I've gone back to a one pager in preparation for doing some old fashioned banging on doors. Too often it's been my experience that there's a disconnect between HR departments and the people doing the hiring. It's super tough at the senior level, 'cause first level managers don't hire senior staff - that's done by exec's. Getting face time with them when' you're trying to break into their company is tough. So hopefully a one pager will make those seconds count a bit better.

Plus, I know there are still lots of senior staff who aren't exactly whizzes at email, so a paper might help a bit. But I think I'll still follow up with an eCopy.

I've got experience at almost every area of the technology world, from design and manufacturing of products (both in depth HW and SW development) as well as many years of managing development teams. I've also got the unusual experience of having pulled product from concept through industrial design, prototyping, manufacturing and delivery to the customer all by myself at high speed. Then layer on top of that years of business experience, competitive analysis, business plan writing and proposals, customer facing stuff, marketing collateral and and market studies. Not many people can say that. I've personally never met someone with all those skills.

A rare portfolio. But still, it's strangely difficult to get attention if you are looking for anything above an entry level these days. I guess there's a glut of senior people, and limited jobs. My resume just hasn't been punching through the noise... though I've been a bit more focussed on other projects lately rather than circulating it. Oh well, with the summer wrapping up I'll turn on the steam.

Any Rants Today?
Can't thing of too much to rant about. The media isn't overly annoying today. I do a regular parade through some international titles, like The Independent, NY Times, The Globe and Mail, CNN, Mainichi News Japan (hey they've got MSN all over them now. What gives?!)Sydney Herald and a few tech sites.

There's a good smattering of interesting stuff that caught my attention. No big complaints. The annoying side of CBC local radio has been avoided successfully today. Amazing how one station can be ruined by their obsession with one personality. I keep it off so much now, as the annoying Alan Neal voice shows up when you least expect it. They even have the whiny, sarcastic bastard doing promos.

Some good stuff on Australia public radio though, as well as BBC world service. Their "world have your say" is an interesting approach to a call in show, with overlapping callers. Haven't seen anyone else do that yet. Sometimes it makes me cringe. Heard one great comment a while back when some element of religion came up, and a caller responded that he didn't "put a lot of stock in the ideas of bronze age beleif systems." A great quote if ever there was one. Why people feel compelled to follow bronze age metaphysical ideas in modern times is beyond me. "Well they did write it in a book, so it has to be true!"

Wrap
Best get onto another project or two before the end of the afternoon.

Your immediate assignment today is to right now say to a co-worker "Hey, I'm getting a cup of tea/coffee, can I get you a refill?" and see what happens.

Let me know!! lwopractice[at]yahoo.ca

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Low Energy Day

Funk - strange word. Why it would have two diametrically opposed meanings I don't know. It's an infectious, groove based musical style, or a low energy, don't-want-to-do-much mental state.

We all have low energy days occasionally. You pick up the phone and chat with a friend or surf the net,(read a blog?!) or answer personal emails when you should be working. I should work on a few projects (no. 1 or 2 probably) but I'm leaning more towards taking a long walk. I need to get outside and get a bit of exercise - oh yeah - that's project 4. See - it's a great scheme to manage your unpracticed life. You aren't loafing, you're accomplishing a goal. Go for a walk. Working on project 4.

That's a bit typical for this unscripted life of mine too. I feel like I'm slacking off and doing nothing because I've been idle for about 45 minutes. It seems like I've wasted a whole day already. Well, it is a threatening looking day outside. Checking the weather report, it says " 40 percent chance of showers this morning and early this afternoon with the risk of a thunderstorm." But following that up with a look at the weather radar shows squat - not a spec of moisture in the air for 200km. So what gives? I assume that means I'm safe for a foray into the outdoors.

Depressed with Humans
Listening to a bit of radio this morning (after turning CBC radio back on an hour or so post-annoying guy), I heard an interview with David Horowitz. He's a slightly crazed - okay, generally rabid - guy who is billed as a former 60's activist who's now extremely right wing. He had some good observations, many of which he seems to interpret wrongly. Also annoying was that, since he was talking to Canadian Radio, he would tack Canada into every sentence, assuming it must apply. Like, "A big problem is that America, and Canada is the same, is doing X,Y,Z..." and almost every time he did that, he was wrong. He constantly assumes - oh, Canada's just the same as us. The same things are going on there as here. But it's oh so different to be out of the forest and see the trees.

A case in point. He was answering why he posted some white-supremist guy's stuff on his website. And he rebutted that very well. He said he's done that twice. Once was to answer an attack this guy made against him, the other was because this guy had collected some stats on crimes committed in Louisiana during the Katrina aftermath. In the latter case, he introduced the article as written by a racist and a bigot, and was making a point that in "American culture, and Canada is the same" some things can't be reported because of the radical left agenda. I don't see that here at all. I'd worry more, if I were him, that the bulk of the US mainstream media didn't question anything their government was doing for years. Sure, we've got Global TV - but they are just Fox lite. We still have some strong journalism in our main networks, and some of our papers.

Anyway, he had a good point, that there is also an inability of US media to report on some negative things among a predominantly black population. But I think the reason for this is that the bulk of the US population appears so obsessed by race that they themselves recognize that they would be unable to report it without weaving all sorts of bigotry into the coverage, so they stay away from it. They would be unable to refer to the purpetrators as poor people, the race would have to be highlighted.

In our house we often comment how, on American television, the instant there is a black person in a scene on a TV show - the topic of him/her being black comes up. Even if it's an all black people scene/show, it seems they will (the writers) have some topic related to being black. Rarely do you see characters that just happen to be black, and talk about other stuff. Same as black stand-up comics, and not to mention Saturday Night Live.

I've noticed this in business trips to the US as well. If you are having a drink or lunch with a group of people, and one of them is black - the topic of being black comes up. Whether in a self deprecating joke, or "you don't have to worry about the sun today he, he" or something like that. I have never seen that in Canada. I've worked with black co-workers, and it's like working with a brown haired co-worker. We don't constantly have conversations about Tom's brown hair. It's irrelevant to the bulk of what we're talking about. Occasionally it's relevant in the news or something, and even then it's not - "Hey, what is your black perspective on this Bob?" Rather people talk about the issue in a normal dialog.

I do remember a particular lunch in Dallas, Texas where we were a number of Canadians and a local black technician. He found some reason to bring up being black, and must have noted the confused looks around him that seemed to say "where the hell did that come from." I've forgotten the topic, but remember that he concluded with a comment that "I like that Canadians seem to be more colour blind than people here." That was one a proud Canadian moment.

There is of course racism here as there. But it is so ingrained in the US culture, that Horowitz's comment is true - but I don't think he understands why, as he is too close to the problem.

That was just one issue. And Horowitz had several interesting comments that had a lot of truth to them. He was quite scary as he got into a more froth-at-the-mouth phase, where he describes the 'war' going on in the US (and he tacks on Canadian) culture. And how the left are godless and so think they have to fix the world, while the truth is that the world is naturally evil and screwed up, and god fearing folk would understand this and they have the afterlife to look forward to anyway (I'm paraphrasing of course). I couldn't help but think how this, among other things I hear these days, seems to suggest this crazy breakdown and polarization of US society. He's able to write off huge swaths of the US population as leftists. His willingness to create a "the other" sense about them that you see in the rise of genocidal dictatorships. Mix in with that a smattering of right-wing religious perspective and you've got a "Let's destroy the world and prepare for the next" perspective that is pretty scary.

It's a shame as he's got some good perspectives. Like that one-dimensional view of the Viet-Nam war that isn't recognized (and is probably soon to be true for Iraq). There's the huge mistakes about precipitating the conflicts in the first place, and all the deaths caused through accident, omission and deliberate acts. But, in VN there's also the many deaths caused after pulling out and leaving a vacuum behind them.

But as usual, Horowitz throws in the over-simplification, neocon code phrase "cut and run" which that group loves so much. He's guilty of the same tactics he criticizes.

If only there was a better embracing of the peace-keeping concepts, and open dialog between disputing sides, some of that might have been avoided. If even a few deaths could have been avoided it would have been worth it. Reading Paris 1919 gives a great perspective on how diplomacy fails and precipitates huge elements of the last centuries wars and conflict, largely due to racist superiority perspectives on behalf of western leaders.

I remember that our Prime Minister gave Bush II a copy of Paris 1919 on their first meeting. I thought it was a gutsy move. No doubt he didn't read it - perhaps he would have learned something. I wonder if our own pseudo-prime minister (Bush II.5 wannabe) has read it.

Anyway, to wrap up this rant - this constant categorizing and pigeon holing, and stereotyping of people is the root of so much evil. I've noticed one truism over my years on the planet. Whenever you find yourself listening to an argument that seems to be and "A' vs. "B" argument, it's always true that the truth is in between.

Oh, that reminds me of another thing I've noted - in any public discourse, the side that starts receiving death threats is always the one that is closest to the right answer.

Hey, perhaps I need another list.

Oh here's another one - you can always identify the marginalized culture in any country by staying in a nice hotel, and seeing who cleans the rooms. In the US it's hispanic people, in Eastern Canada it's French-Canadians, in Western Canada it's Aboriginal people. In Europe I've noticed that in the past decade or so it's changed to East-Europeans - Poles, Balkan state folk.

Hmmm, how to wrap this up. Here's a suggestion. Next time you're in a hotel, say hi to the cleaning staff. Smile and actually mean it.

Wrap Up
Well this has wasted some time. I guess I can't say I've been idle at least. And it's sunny out. On to another project.

Your immediate assignment for today is to grab a sheet of paper and make a full-page sized smiley face and post it on a wall or office divider with no explanation. Make it a really happy one! Let me know how it goes, or send me a scan of it tomorrow if it survives.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Music In A Park

Saturday's weather was great music festival weather. I think everyone had the same idea - no doubt it is sparse there today, with continual rain much of the day. My SO and I got day passes and packed up a picnic lunch and a blanket and cycled over. First time on the bikes this year - we've been doing lots of walking for our exercise instead. Not as sweaty when it's warm.

But it reminded me again of my former life of continual biking all summer long. Particularly the discomfort of the saddle when you're butt hasn't toughened up yet. A nice ride though, nonetheless.

We saw Amy Millan and Ron Sexsmith. The former is the lead from Stars, whose music I've quite enjoyed. Ron's stuff we've been enjoying for several years. We saw him at the same festival many years back (maybe 5?) and enjoyed seeing someone so talented in such a casual setting.

Before that session, we saw an array of obscure artists in a tribute to Rasputins - a local folk music bar/performance space. It was overly "oh look at us we're all name dropping insiders" on my ass. I guess there are many years of local folky performance associated with the spot, but the constant references to random people as if we all know who they are was tiresome. Commendably, there was a guy there who seemed rather non-plussed with the experience, or perhaps uncomfortable with the crowd. Quietly, almost sleepily waiting his turn, with a deadpan (depressed?) countenance. Looking him up here on the program he is Rick Hayes.

When Rick sang I was very impressed with his voice. The song was decent and I'd like to hear it again, but the tonal quality to the voice, and the comfortable style makes me want to do some searching to learn more about him. A quick search and I've found his site. It's a bit sparse (not a bad thing). Sounds like he's pretty early in his career. Could use a manager/mentor I suspect. The voice is pretty unique and could go somewhere with the right songs.

But anyway, the next session was the Millan/Sexsmith/Otherguy set. It's surprising that Sexsmith is still doing this festival, I thought - he must enjoy it. I can't imagine it's superbly lucrative. He's been doing well lately, and I would have assumed he'd just do the big mainstage stuff and that's all. But we're lucky enough to see him in the small venue again. At least the first show.

This session with Amy Millan and they new guy named Mike Evin who plays quirky stuff on a little piano. Ron's casual confident proficiency makes for an enjoyable performance. His voice with just his guitar accompaniement is quite enjoyable. Amy's solo stuff was competent and interesting. Very different than the heavily produced Stars work I also like, but a whole other vibe. She has a more rootsy new CD from a couple of years ago coming out it appears.

Ron had an interesting comment about Bob Dillan playing one of his songs on his radio show - I imagine that is Satellite radio. His lyrical composition and catchy music both foster high regard from international music icons, which is nice to see.

We went to an Appalachian set after the Sexsmith one. It was interesting to hear a couple of Toronto born acts playing hillbillie music. They didn't go overboard with working southern accents into their vocals, I was glad to say. There was also a 4 piece group from North Carolina who had a good sound. It was Riley Baugus with the Dirk Powell Band. They had a hand in the "Cold Mountain" movie which I haven't seen, so I'll suspend comment there. Their stuff lacked a bit of the infectious melodic simplicity that won so many people over when the soundtrack to "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" was popular, but it was still decent. The energy was low, perhaps partly because of acoustic spill-over from another stage not too far away.

Slipping back over to the stage where Ron Sexsmith was to do another session called "Songwriter's Songwriters" with Farron and ?? Well, what a trio that was. The crowd was very packed in for this session. There seemed to be more than the usual ratio of large, greyhaired butchy ladies with short-cropped hair present. I suspect that was for the Farron chick whom I'd never heard of before, except for a brief interview on the radio that very morning. The MC - a Chicago radio host and XM satellite host as well, mentions that he's followed her since the 70's, and she looks like she's been around that long.

I found her music a bit over the top. Best summary would be Indigo Girls, with a bigger thesaurus, trying to do something really deep but sounding a bit like their trying too hard. The other lady with a guitar was a bit more melodic in her songs, but they really went on and on compared to Ron's concise, crisp offerings. I was so happy that he started with "Lebanon, Tennessee!" What a treat to see it in person. He also did "God Loves Everyone" which is an interesting song that jives well with the lesbacious tastes of the crowd (not that there's anything wrong with that).

But we were really jammed in there, and those stereotypical earth-mother songs were really dragging, so we skipped out when it appeared Ron's last song of the hour had been sung.

We wandered about, but that was the extent of our music, other than a brief wander by the "Open Mic" stage which was good for a laugh. Some software guy singing about cheese. How apropos.

The bike back was a good sweat - with a few rain drops in the air, but beautiful along the river.

Brief CBC Radio Rant
The session with Milan/Sexsmith was hosted by Bill Stunt of CBC radio. He could have learned from the other sessions of the day where the MC's basically introduce the musicians and leave them to play music. We really don't need a lot of host chat. But Bill seems like a decent guy. He tipped off this bit of my diatribe by mentioning that a CBC live music show called "Fuse" (he's a producer now on the show) was losing it's host. A partially good and bad outcome is that they are moving my nemisis Alan Neal into the host spot.

What a twit this guy is. Worst of all , he was there. I have a tremendous loathing of that guy's voice. But more than that, his demeanor is just enough to drive you nuts. He cannot get through a single sentence without making a feigned sarcastic quip. He has an effeminite, bitchy tonal quality to his voice which doesn't add anything to the experience. He's happy to just go on and on. (Can you tell I don't care for him?) He hosts a noon show, from 12:00 to 2:00 which is a real drag for me, as I often like a bit of radio with my lunch. But I have to leave it off, unless I get wind of the fact that a guest host has taken over for a few weeks - then all is right with my world again.

The good side is that I listen to a lot more internation radio, and rebroadcast it to my kitchen radio to avoid the annoyance factor.

I have a regular morning routine driven by this louse. They insist on having him pulled in during the morning show to ostensibly tell what his show is going to be about today, but basically he thinks he has free rein (more like rain) on the Ottawa airwaves, as he jumps in before he's introduced to make snide, snickers and wheezing laughs during other chatty bits. So I turn off the radio just after the 8:00 am news to avoid hearing that voice. I can go for weeks without hearing him - but sometimes I'm slow on the off button.

So anyway, he's leaving the noon show (alas has CBC woken up to the broad hatred that must exist out there for this guy's hosting [in]ability) and moving onto Fuse. Little does he know that you can't talk continually during a show on music - but I'm sure he'll try. Lots of sarcastic comments and wheezing laugh opportunities I'm sure. That show will be easier to avoid though. Try as I might, I miss more episodes that I hear - so I'll be happy to keep that up.

Anyway - that's my biggest issue with CBC TV/radio right now. The other issue I'll leave for now is the incessant bad writing that plagues their local news. Tons of ambiguous sentences, inappropriate segues from chuckles to death and destruction stories. Real amateur stuff - must mean a band of 20-something writers with salaries matching their age. More on that later.

Wrap
So a bit more relaxing on this rainy day, a few chores and out for supper with friends. Turkish food I suspect. Then tomorrow back to the weekday routine, and many projects that await.

Your immediate assignment to do right this minute is to find someone, anyone and give them a compliment. No matter how small. "Hey Bob, I like your shoes" or anything. No body-part compliments please (unless it's your spouse!). Let me know how it goes lwopractice[at]yahoo.ca

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Walk This Way

Okay, it's a minor thing in the world, but so is my existance. A new walkway is in place. This phase of Proj3 is complete, but I'm sure there will be more soon. I finished all the paver cutting yesterday. A dusty, dirty job in 30 degree heat (sorry US friends that's what, about 86F). Nice to be finished, but one doesn't spend a lot of time squatting and kneeling in a regular day, so I was pretty joint-sore and hunchy feeling by the end of the day. Not even enough energy to post to the LWoP blog!

Went out for some Indian food at a place that's been mostly just okay for decades "Light of India" in the Glebe area of Ottawa. We had Lamb Passanda, Bindi Bhaji, a pile of lime pickles, some nan and pulao rice. It was all very good! A nice suprise. I was expecting merely adequate.

Folk Me!
Today's the Ottawa Folk Fest and so we're going to pack a nice picnic lunch, load up the bikes and cycle on over for a loungy afternoon. Hope the festival is as good as it's been in past years. We skipped last year, mostly because they had booked the Canadian Idol kid to perform - what a joke, I stayed away on principal. Why not just have a Britney Spears look-a-like and make a full day of it - oh, hey - that Mulroney goof (the second one) could host -then it would be a perfect shallow, smarm-fest.

Anyway, hopefully the organizers were royally abused and ridiculed last year, and they are sticking to the festival's roots this year.

Wrap it up
Gotta get some breakfast and feed the cats! Weekend is here - yahoo. Oh wait a minute - it's always the weekend for me!

Your immediate assignment for today. Do this right this minute! Go get yourself a cup of coffee or tea - but make it something you haven't had before, or for a long time. Get the super mocha-choka-half-caf, or root around in your tea shelf for the last ceylon-chai-extra rich teabag. Let me know how it works out! Email addr at the left.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

The Path Less Travelled

It's the path untravelled so far. It's an amalgam of pavers with a bunch of holes awaiting the next step. It's a good analogy for mid-life, looking down at the pavers (3). There's definite structure, and a firm placement of a substantial portion of the whole. The tougher parts are still ahead, though the work so far was not trivial either.

Clearly if we rehearsed our lives before we lived them I would have found a way to create a paved walkway without sweating so much, or putting so many km on my car. But today I had selected the colour of pavers I wanted and picked them up, along with some extra substrate material (stone dust and 1/2" gravel). Too much detail? Oh well such is life. It's a lot of detail and none of it too exciting. I'd work on a better plot than this if it wasn't the LWoP blog.

So a nicely packed and leveled foundation and then the stone went in. I'm got most of it down, and just have to do the cutting tomorrow. But the sun swings around to make it quite warm to work in the direct glare of mid-day. So though I started before 9:00, I was ready to call it quits by about 4:00, and have had a cooling shower and a brief read through good ol Plato before a 10 minute powernap.

Cats
We've got a pair of cats who will go un-named on the blog. One is named after a fine single-malt scotch, cause he's so smooth and complex. The other is named in honour of hike to the top of a Scottish mountain. After we bagged that, we gave a similar name to our first feline. Let's call them M and B. B is currently running rabidly around the house, screaming from each window. He's a black and white, with a dash of white on his nose, and three of his feet. Quite a personality. He's never nipped at us during the roughest play, and only slowly got used to the overwhelming experience of being outside on his leash. Now he loves it.

M, the older one (about 8 yrs now) loves to be outside, a testament to the fact that she was a stray as a kitten. She's happy to try and nip your knuckles while playing. Swears at B all the time, and does her own yelling, but mostly after we've gone to bed. She's a dilute calico - kind of a greyed out version of the traditional calico. Quite attractive.

A striking difference between the two is that B is bigger and totally motivated by food. That's what he's shouting out the windows right now. "I want food." "They don't give me food, call the cops." "What the Hell are you doing - I'm sure it's suppertime!" M just lazes around on the hammock I built for her years ago. It's an "X-frame" structure with two levels of hammock. She's owner of the top. B used the bottom to curl up a few times when it was knew, but now it's largely just a canopy to sleep under occasionally. M is likely down there curled up right now, looking out the backdoor at the yard where she'd rather be out wandering around. She gets an hour or so out on her leash occasionally too.

Topics List
I started building a list of topics to cover at the left sidebar, you might notice. Those will continue to grow, though I don't think I feel like tackling anything that works up too much of a froth today. Listening to the news, I realize that I want to add the Middle East situation on to there - so I'll do that. I fear where things are headed, and can see a scenario that I'm hoping won't come about. I'll expound on the currrent Israeli/Hezboullah situation when I feel like typing ferociously. Suffice to say that I can't see how this current cease-fire can last, but hope it does.

I also feel compelled to rant on the US media's ability to continually play to the lowest common denominator as tabloid stories fill their press again. I hesitate to mention the story 'cause I don't want to get hits from people searching for commentary on that particular freakish, sordid case, and the senseless obsession of the media with fixating on it. I did just hear some very canny and intelligent comment on the media by a Toronto Star media columnist, who I'll identify in a second and link her here....

...Ah, here she is: Antonia Zerbisias Heard an interview with her today on CBC with Adrian Harewood. I really liked her candour. I felt like I could agree with everything she had to say on the subject, and it was refreshing to hear someone talk about how insane the obsession with that particular story of a murdered young girl in a freak-show family was. (BTW, this Harewood fella is doing a decent job - though he's a bit humourless).

But there's more to be said on the media generally, and you can get the BitPlayer perspective in a future LWoP blog posting.

Wrap Up
Not much else to add there today. My fingers are sore from gripping paving stones (muscle sore, not abrasively - I know enough to wear gloves. If you're doing any masonry on paving work, don't skimp on the gloves!). Hence, typing is a bit sore.

Oh, but I haven't introduced any of my other crazy projects! Well okay, I'll introduce one - I'm writing a short story (very, very short) with an interesting characteristic. I'll leave you hanging, but will share it with you sometime soon. Stay tuned. This is a wacky project (Proj10)

Finally, of course - your immediate, gotta do it right now, assignment for today is to go to a quotation database site (e.g. QuoteWorld) and search for a pithy quote. Then write it in your handwriting on a scrap of paper and put it on your wall. Let me know what you found! One I just found realted to Life Without Practice is....

"A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but without even any hope of doing it well."

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Sweatin' to the Same Ol' Tune

Welcome to the LifeWithoutPractice blog on this nice weather day. (LWoP!) Scattered cloud today means it's not too bad for working outside, but when the sun's out one sure does get a mean sweat going. Wasn't I doing this last week? Whew. The sweaty bitPlayer dug the path as part of project 3, moving sod to a spot along a hedge that I'd like to raise a bit. I guess this is part of my life I've had a bit of practice for, as I've done several similar paving projects, yet someone every one is different. In this one, just getting the pavers is the big challenge!

But a wacky good-luck thing happened... Picture this. You're using a spade to lift sod off your lawn. I first cut the pattern I'm going to remove, following my strings and stakes. I lift a section at a time. It's hard work cutting and slicing the roots with the shovel, then rolling up that bit, and putting it in the wheelbarrow to finally move a bunch of chunks across the yard.

On my second trip emptying the sod into the destination spot, I saw something shiny in the bottom of the wheelbarrow. What is it? It's my SO's silver ring that she lost earlier in the year! How better to find stuff than to literally turn the lawn upside down and shake!

Anyway, that will be a nice surprise for her.

My surprise of the day is still the proj3 crap with matching old pavers. Went to 'special order' the paver bricks I need, and it turns out the charcoal colour is discontinued. So now I've got to decide, do I use light grey and red, or light grey with beige? I'll have to go through the existing walk and remove the charcoal ones and replace with beige or red. Or I could just go all light (concrete-shade) grey, but that would be a bit boring. The roof shingles are red, but I'm a bit marginal on the red. The reds are a bit dark. Oh what to do? I'm burning more gas driving all over the place looking for pavers than on the stone itself!

No work on project 1 or 2 lately, as 3 is consuming my brain.

The Republic


Started to feel more positive about the republic. This contant "Blah, blah, blah." "yes" "Blah, blah, blah." "Of course." "Blah, blah, blah." "I suppose." is a bit much. I'd be happier without it having to be so conversational, but I guess the intention was to make it more friendly to readers expecting a story, rather than a philosophical treatise. But it's moved away from the leaps of questionable bronze-age reasoning, and into the structure of a model society. The intention is to come back to justice based on this foundation, but I'm finding this discussion quite enjoyable so far. I'll keep you LWoP readers up to date on the progress. Hell, go get a copy at your used bookstore and read along. I'd like to hear your perspective, as long as you don't get ahead of me too far!

Future Projects


We're gradually piecing together some travel plans for Boston in October(Proj6). The intent is to attend an event that happens in early October. Should be fun. I think we've got flights in place, just need to buy tickets, and line up accomodations. We'll meet friends there and should have a nice few days. Hope it's not too rainy then, as it often is. It's near enough that we could drive, but a quick flight is even better. I'll update the LWoP blog as it comes together.

Nearer at hand is the Folk Festival. That's been fun in past years. A chance to lay about on the grass and visit a variety of stages. Sounds like a saturday pass would work out nicely, so we'll bike over and hopefully see som Ron Sexsmith stuff and maybe discover a few other notables. I hope RS is doing some small stage stuff. He's awesome with just a guitar and his quirky voice. His lyrical structure and melodies are very strong, no wonder he commmands such a following of big international types. Hope he's not too popular for the small stages now though. I guess I should put a new project around the ongoing pursuit of culture (Proj7). I don't get out as much as I'd like lately. The last thing was probably chamber music attendance three weeks back or so.

I'll post a note about the performers we see there on this Life Without Practice site. Hopefully the performers have practiced a bit.

Cooking and Food


For me, cooking is more than just creating something to eat. I'm pretty good at it, but am always learning. Now eating - there's somewhere I'm prepared to claim excellence. In all my fields of endeavor, this one is notable.

I can without boastfulness identify myself as a gourmand - a foody if you prefer. I come across a lot of people who claim those robes as well, but who do not understand the philosophy of the creme brulée's simplicity or cannot appreciate the uniqueness of a proper molé. Many people have a limited range of experience tasting cuisine from across the planet, which I don't hold against anyone per se - but if you don't have a drive to experience foods from all cultures, I have trouble accepting your assay of fine cuisine.

Also - it's not cheap, nor can you claim a discerning palate if you're 18 years old. It takes decades of experience, and loads of cash, and you're never done. I've spent a goodly portion of my career's income on food, and I think I know from whence I speak how elements like texture, presentation, mouth-feel and the kalaidascope of component flavours create a fine dish.

Wine fits well into that same range of experiential expertise. I guess any 18 year old can go to their local community college and get a Somellier's certificate in 6 months and call themselves an expert. But without decades of tasting, it is a bit of a stretch. And to claim expert status across the spectrum of varietals is a bit of a joke without the decades and the empties to prove it!

This diatribe is only by way of introducing another life-long project (Proj8) eating the best stuff, and (proj9) cooking good stuff. Again, I'm no show-stopper in the latter category, but I occasionally pull off something substantial.

The Cake
Yesterday, I whipped up a cake on a whim, just before supper. But I wanted to craft more of a Mexican feel to this project - so I called it a Mayan Chocolate cake. I found a decent scratch recipe, and cut back on the sugar a bit. I used olive oil instead of butter for a more earthy taste (and better healthiness). I also added cinnamon, chili powder and pepper to the recipe, and used cocoa powder rather than melting chocolate. Shazaam. It worked out very nicely. As a frequent baker of bread, I was particularly happy with the texture of the crumb. Oh yeah, I used my breadmaking technique of substituting yoghurt for the milk, which always seems to give a nice moist crumb. There's just a hint of the spice lingering in the aftertaste that is quite pleasant. Have a taste! If you want the recipe drop me a line at lwopractice [at] yahoo[dot]ca and I'll be happy to share it.

Eat Greek
Last weekend we went to the Greek festival, our annual Helenic celebration here in Ottawa. Greek food is quite good when made well, and the festival is usually a source of very good examples. I think it's all the old mama's that volunteer. This year, however, I was rather disappointed. The pita - the Greek style is probably my favourite flatbreads of the world, was poor this year. Usually it's so good. Not cooked at the right temperature I'd speculate, so it wasn't well enough cooked before it browned. The taramasalata wasn't fesh tasting, and the moussaka was a bit runny, though tasty enough. A shame as everything is usually so good.

It's still on for a while, and perhaps giving it a try during the week when it's not so busy might be a good idea. I've been expecting the festival to go downhill some year, as we've found it good every year for over a decade. Sure hope it's not this year! Life is too short for lousy food, and you'll notice that will be theme. This is my life lived without practice, but not without standards!


Wrap Up
Evening is approaching, and I will take it easy rather than get more pavers. I can discuss colours with my SO and see if I sway more towards red/black or beige to supplement the grey. I think I'm leaning towards the former, as I may need fewer that way.

Your immediate drop everything assignment is to find a spot where you can whistle without bugging anyone, and whistle an entire song from start to end. If anyone asks what you're doing, tell them you have no choice and send them to me at withoutpractice.blogspot.com Let me know what happens! See my email address at the left sidebar.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Driven Through Distractions

The afternoon has mostly been a car thing. I was trying to find two other locations for this big hardware store in the area, one in the extreme west, the other extreme east. I should have did a google map of each before leaving, but instead I just headed out and figured I knew roughly where they were.

Of course, after I found them, their locations were familiar. However I drove widely in the wrong direction, while listening to some CBC2 radio about Andre Previn's composing, his Jazz work (did some stuff with Ray Brown recently apparently). It was interesting, except for the bit from his Opera of Street Car Named Desire. Sheesh, should be called Shreikcar Named Desire, at least the aria they played. The bit of jazz I heard was okay. One bit had a weird vocal that sounded like a guy doing a fake monty-python woman's voice. I don't know where CBC finds these vocalist selections.

Anyway, some good music, a bit of interesting interview. A pretty impressive basist whose name escapes me - I can probably google him up as he won some sort of International Protege award in Toronto. Aha - that was easy - he is Roman Patkoló. Nice work.

So an interesting mix of paving stone shopping, directionless driving and serious music. And I came home with 100 pavers, though I'll need to scare up another 60 of the darker variety for the project(3).

Reading


So at home with a cup of hot tea and a couple of squares of Cocoa Camino, and I jump back into Plato's The Republic (Proj5), which I've been picking away at. I've read very little of Plato's stuff before, and I must say I'm not too impressed. The stuff that passes for logical argument is a bit much. Perhaps they just weren't very sophisticated back then, or the translators job is extra difficult to capture the nuance of the words, but I have problems with some of the logical arguments.

Okay, for example... Wait a minute. If you haven't read his stuff before, he's got this formulaic approach. He's writing from the POV of Socrates, and he'll say something like "You want me to prove that death is bad? Well, are cupcakes not creamy?" And the reply from his adversary is "Yes." "And thus we can say that a creamy cupcake is a typical cupcake?" "Yes, I'll agree to that," is the reply. "And are Wednesdays not in the middle of the week?" .... and on it goes, until he concludes, "Therefore, you'll agree that death is bad." "Gee, yes Socrates. You the man."

I like logical, deductive reasoning, and a well structured argument. Plato would have you beleive that this was a common pastime, when they weren't out torturing various foriegners and half starved exotic animals. But my issue is that some of the logic is a huge stretch. I'll read along, going, okay that's reasonable, so is that, and YIKES that's not even close!.

Okay, so for an example, after going on in that plodding fashion about things having their functions and if they don't do their functions they are bad, we get this exchange:

"It follows therefore that a good mind will perform the functions of control and attention well, a bad mind badly."
"It follows."
"And we agreed, did we not, that justice was the peculiar excellence of the mind and injustice its defect?"
"We did."
"So the just mind and the just man will have a good life, and the unjust a bad life?"
"So it appears from your argument."
"But the man who has a good life is prosperous and happy, and his opposite the reverse?"
"Of course."
"So the just man is happy, and the unjust man miserable?"
"I grant that."
"So it never pays to be miserable, but to be happy, we can say, my dear Thrasymachus, that justice pays better than injustice"

And hence I think, huh? How many leaps of logic are in there!? There is a constant issue of definition of terms, but also total ignoring of any randomness in the world. Just the definition of "happy" alone could fill up a volume. But to assume suddenly that if someone acts with justice they will be happy is silly. And to further go on and deduce that it never pays to be miserable, and that being good makes you prosperous (and they are talking literally in terms of remuneration). That's nuts.

You can do some interesting philosophical stuff with elmeents of that though. I mean again defining prosperous in other terms, without monetary elements, perhaps one is prosperous in knowing they have done the right, just thing and has no regrets from situations they've been in. But even in Plato's world. If his buddies are suggesting it's good to be put youself first, and screw the justice, there would be a lot of good, just people getting screwed over. I'm sure they weren't happy or prosperous as a result.

Anyway, interesting reading to plow on through The Republic but I'm not seeing a lot of life-changing insights here. It is cool that people were talking at a somewhat nuanced level about this stuff over 2430 years ago anyway.

So a bit more of this and maybe a patented 20min power-nap to wrap up my afternoon.

Try Again

I suppose you could entitle any day with that tag line "Try Again." Yesterday I was going to get some pavers to continue the landscaping project(3). It didn't work out as one might expect.

Note the little technorati logo on the sidebar and a micropost for them as well - sounds like a potentially useful service to let people (whuh?!) actually find my blog. We'll see if it actually works at all. But then again, the WithoutPractice blog isn't about me. Oh hang on it's all about me. No, more generally, it's about life as extraordinarily un-notable person, and how we're all in this without any practice, just winging it.

Today's Projects



So another day with projects galore to address. I guess I've successfully met the challenge of at least posting a blog note today, so the days not a total write off.

On landscaping(3) wouldn't you know it, they don't carry those pavers anymore. Too convenient for customers to buy more of them I guess. Sounds like I can special order them though. Oh, and just for my convenience, they've made them half an inch thinner now, so mixing them with existing work - not going to be possible. How nice for me. I might need to mix and match from a few sources - but a consistent thickness will be crucial.

So I've got that on my plate. Plus, I want to do a bit more toward career advancement(2). I think I'll do a drive through techno-town and see if any logo's catch my interest. I've got a big network of people from my years in the machine. As someone who's hired engineers, managers and various other technoSerfs for years, I know that contacts are the best path to a job. But I'm still holding my breath that some consulting work will show-up in spite of my lack of soliciting during the summer. That's where contacts have typically come in handy.

I don't want to do a lot of milking acquaintences for job leads currently. I'll continue to play the game and see if I can drum up something through other channels for now. An income path would be attractive at some point, as would a work environment with other humans, and long term projects.

Other projects worth addressing today are walking (Proj4) - trying to keep my activity up. I've had big 15-20km days over the last couple of weeks, so keeping that up would be nice. It's a very peaceful and envigourating way to spend an hour or two without a glowing screen in front of your face.

Technorati Profile

Monday, August 14, 2006

It's all a bunch of projects!

Following up on my kickoff note for this blog, I'm in the middle of an average day. I've got the wide open freedom of nothing I have to do, so I live my life in a series of projects that fight each other for my attention. It's a bloodbath.

'How is that possible?' you might ask. No, I am not a rich person (though compared to most of the world, perhaps you and I both are - Ack! I'll leave political perspectives out for now, but just wait, baby, there's a lot coming on that front!)

I have worked for many years and lived a good quality of living, while taking a pass on the stereotypical 'life plan' (ie living an automaton's existance of marriage, house, car, babies, retirement and death). Truth is the 'life plan' that most people fall for out there is no plan at all, but following a script handed to us by society. For me, that rejection means that I'm in a stable, long term relationship, have a decent roof over my head, and savings enough to go on doing squat if I wanted to for years to come. More on that stuff later on.

Now the downside - I've got a personality that allows me to sit still for about 2 minutes. I can't do lie-on-a-beach vacations. Doing nothing for me is a very busy endeavour. The closest I can get is doing nothing constructive. Even that means flitting between eleven different projects none of which get completed, but that's as close to idle time as I can get.

I think things through fairly well. I'm pragmatic and realistic. This blog, for example is going to give me a means to vent the proverbial spleen on many different subjects that I've avoided in other blogs. Watch for the project numbers for updates on the multi-faceted mess that is my life. I've thought it through carefully. I know that it will likely go on breifly then flare out and sit here until about 2011 when I'll look back and rememeber that I didn't keep it up. But then again, knowing that most people go through that process may help me to persevere.

And I'll number all the on-going things I'm engaged on, and not bother with the whims that show up. Sometimes new whims might become a project, but I actively avoid letting that happen where I can. (Another of my societal peeves is that average people seem to actually have no interests, goals or pastimes - a good topic for a future rant) This will be interesting to see how many other things pop up, and whether I be efficient at keeping my new projects to a minimum.

So, thought I, let's number them in order of appearance. The numbers are by no means an indicator of priority or origination. The numbers may perhaps indicate something about where they rank on my worry-list, but that would take some sort of analysis to say for certain.

Right now, for instance, I am ostensibly employed as a consultant (Proj1). I have a bunch of experience (measured in way-beyond-single-digit years) in management, technology business, consumer electronics, software, science and marketing. I've successfully engaged several clients, and have successfully delivered their contracted goals. That's good, huh? But currently it's summer and I'm between contracts, and not in a big push to sign up more and occupy the nice-weather days.

I think I'm leaning more towards finding a full-time job again (Proj2). I enjoy being part of an organization. I've worked in huge multi-nationals and tiny start-ups. I think I like the latter better, thought the resources of the former are certainly nice.

So, as I waste a bit of my passing afternoon, I want to wrap this up to get onto the other project that is occupying my mind today - the completion of an expanded front walk-way (Proj3).

I just recently finished adding an expanded back paving-stone patio, and this is an attempt to do a bit more landscaping. Let's say that Proj3 is the whole, ongoing, landscaping hell that is my life. I've currently got lots of facets of that project burning a whole in my head. The walkway, a side patio, a pond/berm/waterfall monstrosity and various maintenance things like hedges and grass. I live to eliminate grass from my life, but that's just another one of those things that seems to be a life-long goal. So much for Proj3.

I'll endeavour to maybe make a running tally on the identified projects at some point. Uh oh, sounds almost like another project. Hell, each project could easily turn into a bunch of subprojects. Hopefully this is where my pragmatism will save my ass.

Ugh - Life's all a bunch of projects! I'll enlighten you, dear reader, when spare moments are to be had, to let you know how it's going. Perhaps a few pictures to further my project descriptions here and there.

So, off to the shop to buy some stone!

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Walking Out

This the part of the blog where the guy walks out onto the stage for the first time. "You realize, of course, that I'm not going to be here very long," he says. He (I) goes on to explain that the whole play goes by pretty fast, and it's very likely that it won't wrap up satisfactorily.

The other big issue is that most of the people who step out onto the stage start off with a "Big Idea" and don't carry it through. Many of us have stages all over the place. Many have no audience, some have a few people that waited around for a bit, but the stage left bare for so long meant that they got up and left.

We are, most of us, too lazy to continue our performance, to stretch the analogy too long, perhaps. These blogs are a great forum for sharing thoughts, but almost impossible to find, even if someone is looking for something just like this. The search tools are lousy, stragely. Even though Google runs this blogspot part of the blogosphere, you can run a blog for months and search or unique elements of your content in Google, and it will never show up.

So it's got elements of a little stage, built out in the forest. The audience is slim because nobody knows it's there, let alone shows interest.

Then again, most people also don't like to read, so staring at a block of text shuts them down quickly. I've got dozens of blogs on various subjects. Some are running note-pads more than anything else. A sorted (sordid?) place to store lists and ideas for a period of time. A couple have a decent audience as they are well encapsulated - covering a trip, or a particular element of WWII science history (of all things), which briefly engaged me.

So if you are one of the few who read this, and stick around to see what else shows up - enjoy. I'll mostly be spewing thoughts that will otherwise whither on the vine. If they provide entertainment to you, then I'm glad that they have had their brief flare of existance outside my head.

We only have the one life, and we do it all without practice. We're all flying solo to a certain extent, so illustrating mine with a few notes will commence here, and run until I'm sufficiently bored.