Yearly Archives: 2011

Think of the Children!

So there’s been a lot of talk about Rick Perry’s latest campaign ad. I’ll show it here just so we all have the same information:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAJNntoRgA]

My first reaction to this was pure and unbridled anger, then a friend on Facebook (with extremely different opinions politically and religiously) tells me that isn’t the point that Perry is trying to make, is that he thinks it’s absurd that kids can’t celebrate Christmas in school? Yes, Perry makes it abundantly clear he thinks the current administration has mounted an attack on his religion. OK fine, let’s run with that…

Here’s why I am still enraged: gays in the military and religion in school are mutually exclusive.

Issue #1: (His) Religion is Under Attack
If Mr. Perry thinks a public education system should force religious beliefs on children then that’s one thing but I personally witnessed 8 year old kids singing “Jesus is the reason for the season” at a “holiday pageant” and many of the kids looked sad and confused, and a couple very upset. I wonder what that would feel like? To be told to sing a song praising a god you didn’t believe in? I happen to think that this is a bigger atrocity than telling someone they can’t just wave their personal religious beliefs around in a public school system, especially when there’s separate religious schools for that and churches open every Sunday.

You can’t possibly accommodate every religion that’s represented in a public school, but since there are associations and communities outside of the schools that do (the aforementioned churches, plus mosques, and temples, …) you accommodate none, but you honour them all in the form of, oh I don’t know… EDUCATION! Which is what the schools are supposed to be for anyway, right?

Feel free to disagree. I know many people will and that’s all fine and good. Welcome to adulthood where people with strong opinions can disagree and welcome to Canada where you can have disagreements freely and not feel the need to kill anyone over it (most of the time. We do have our share of nut jobs).

So Rick Perry wants you to know that this offends him greatly and his country is so backwards because of this religious attack that at the very same time this is going on, gays are allowed to just walk around being gay while defending the country.

Wait a second, he lost me.

It’s a religious attack to allow people to defend, WITH THEIR LIVES, the rights and freedoms he wants so desperately to flaunt wherever and whenever he sees fit?

Holy shit, are you kidding me?

Issue #2: Gays Shouldn’t be in the Military
I thought this issue had pretty much been kicked to the curb but let’s face it, some people don’t like gays no matter what they’re doing (like defending the country or adopting a child who was kicked to the curb), but since when has being gay and serving in the military become a religious issue? There’s a lot of history with respect to gays and the church, but being amazingly patriotic while at the same time being gay is somehow an attack on Christianity? I’m not sure I understand the correlation.

Time for a thought experiment:
How about instead of the “gays in the military” comparison he uses “gays getting married”. Now there’s an issue that’s littered with conflict on how to define marriage, religiously versus legally, that many would actually argue is an attack on some beliefs. It’s an equally polarizing topic, so why not use that as the comparison in the campaign ad? It seems more relevant, does it not?

In my opinion it is more relevant, but it’s not quite polarized enough and it’s not quite broad enough. Gay marriage is only a “concern” in a few States and it’s not a federal issue. The military? Well, they’re everywhere and they’re the reason a surprisingly large number of small town kids end up getting jobs instead of becoming criminals. To over-simplify it, “gays in the military” reaches a broader audience – the audience that Republicans want to reach – so they picked that to use in the ad. Hell, they picked every single word so carefully it makes me wonder how much of a puppet Rick Perry actually is, and who’s actually pulling the strings.

My conspiracy theory: Republicans Bigger than Perry are Pulling the Strings
Rick Perry is pretty much a non contender in the race for the Republican nomination, but the fact that he is a non-contender is exactly why I think the other Republicans want him to do things like this. They win either way. On one hand the Rick Perry supporters get their chance to let themselves be known, and on the other it provides the Republicans an out by way of running someone more moderate and hopefully winning back those middle of the pack swing votes that crossed over to Obama.

If enough right wing religious nuts get on board, the extreme right drives the agenda. I don’t see this as very likely but it does offer up an interesting opportunity for the Republicans to say: Wait, wait, wait. Yes we strongly believe in these things but the Rick Perry’s of the country are too nuts, even for us, so here’s someone else a little less extreme to vote for. Someone a little more palatable. So, come back: Florida, Ohio, Indiana, New Mexico, and Colorado. Let me pour you some Kool Aid.

The sad part about all of this is that the issues that are really hurting everyone always seem to take a back seat to the issues that people are more passionate about. Hey, I have an idea! Let’s get people to make important decisions by ensuring they vote emotionally instead of rationally.

Yeah, how’s that working out?

Kids Make Great Teachers

My daughter’s first spoken word was “shit”. I’m not even remotely joking. She was doing something cute and my wife sent me running upstairs to get the camera. At the top of the stairs I hear from below, “Never mind, she stopped doing it.” I let the expletive slip out and within seconds of the word leaving my mouth from downstairs I hear this cute little baby voice say, “shit”. That pretty much spoiled my chances at the 2002 Parent of the Year award. Her next word a day or two later was “da da”, but it was too late, “shit” would have to go in the books as my first born child’s first word.

She was, of course, just mimicking what she heard me say, but as a parent something like this does make you suddenly very aware that those little ears hear and those little eyes see EVERYTHING. Offspring from all sorts of life learn from their parents. It’s how the world works for many things. You are born (or hatched) and your mom or dad (or both) teach you what you need to know to survive. You pick up a bunch of other stuff too, just by interacting with your environment in general, but you’ll get a ton from your parents whether you like it or not. Sometimes though, the kids will show the old folks a thing or two.

After the big earthquake and tsunami in Japan my daughter and her friends really wanted to help out. The outpouring of compassion they showed was on its own something to be really proud of, but they took it one step further. They started making beaded bracelets and selling them to their friends’ parents for a buck a piece. Some people started donating more than a dollar, and one even sold for $20 on its own. Before they knew it there were school lunch hours set aside for more kids to make more bracelets. They raised over $1000 that they sent to the Red Cross. Did I mention these kids were only 8 years old?

Lesson #1 that kids can teach adults:

You can make a difference. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you just get off your ass and do something about it. 

I was in the kitchen the other day and my second child (a 5 year old boy) was sitting at the breakfast bar waiting for me to get him going on his juice and cereal. I noticed that when I was preparing everything that his eyes were fixed on my every move. I had to open the new juice, pour it, open the vitamins and take one out, open a new box of cereal, open the inside bag, pour the cereal, close the box, and then put it all away. Not until everything was back in its place did he stop watching me and start eating breakfast. It dawned on me right at that moment that the little bugger was learning. Simply by paying attention he had just learned how to do something. My bet is he picked up a better way to open the box of cereal so he doesn’t rip the tab off every time or tear a giant hole in the inside bag spilling Corn Flakes everywhere.

Lesson #2 that kids can teach adults:
If you shut up and pay attention you just might learn something.

Unfortunately many adults are a lot harder to teach than most kids. Adults come with their own biases and agendas (hidden or otherwise) and tend to take a different approach as a result. Which is really too bad, because we are usually the ones who have the most to learn.

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An Evening Without Kevin Smith

Any company’s success lies in how obstacles are navigated and if you can maintain focus along the way. I have seen dot com triumphs and massive corporate failures. When growth occurs too quickly, things get complicated. Great ideas devolve into nonsense. Priorities are juggled. People get lost in the shuffle. Balls get dropped. And everyone is watching. A great example of this is a recent disappointment I had with the filmmaker Kevin Smith’s organization.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan and I’m not going to let one problem sully the image I have of Kevin and his work. Kevin makes even the loftiest goals appear within reach. Maybe it’s his self-deprecating style, or the fact that he’s clearly overachieved in the wife department, but something about this guy makes you think whatever your hope, achievement is possible. So when he announced that he would trade tickets to a Q&A and his new movie Red State in exchange for an original tune he could use in a SModcast intro, I was immediately on board.
I spent a couple weeks putting something together (no small feat considering I am not a musician and can’t even read music) and put it up on Twitter. He liked it enough to have me get in touch with Jordan Monsanto and work something out (Jordan handles this stuff for him.) A Twitter exchange and then an email exchange with Jordan resulted in nothing. There were no Canadian dates and even my suggestion that Kev just sign some stuff and send it to me went unnoticed.
Days passed, then weeks. I sent a polite last-ditch reminder email. Nothing came back. I had officially given up.
Then Kevin announced Canadian dates. I immediately sent an email asking if the Toronto gig could satisfy Kev’s end of the art swap. Days passed again with no response. I decided that rather than wait it out and see what happened, I would buy tickets anyway so at least I’d get to see the show. I whined about the lack of response to Rob, a Twitter friend, who sent Kevin a nag on my behalf. Within seconds Ming (Kev’s guy in Jersey) emailed and said Kev offered up tickets or swag. Problem was, tickets for Toronto were sold out. I looked at the swag but none of it was of interest. I’m not a collector of a lot of things except the odd book. I suggested that he could send me a couple of his SModcast books if we couldn’t work something out for tickets. No response.
Meanwhile, Jordan and Kev’s assistant Meghan emailed me, also telling me that the Toronto show was sold out but Kev would be back and maybe I could get tickets to a later show. In this email exchange I suggested that since I had tickets to the Toronto show, and I wasn’t really a swag guy, maybe I could just meet Kev before or after the show in Toronto. A few minutes of talk time with Kevin Smith would certainly make me a happy camper. No response.
I got to the show with Rob and I’m desperately trying to see if I can spot Meghan. She was my in. Rob points out that Kev usually watches the movie from the back and wouldn’t you know it? Four seats were reserved at the back and a couple right in front of those were wide open. We sat and waited. Sure enough, right before the movie started, Kevin and Meghan sat right behind me.
Just as I turned around to introduce myself to them and hopefully lay the groundwork for a possible meet afterwards, some crazy lady comes up to Kevin and starts gushing over how much she’s a fan and if she could just have a second…yip yip yip, yap yap yap. The movie started and she’s STILL talking. At this point I turned around and gave Kevin Smith the “shut the hell up, I’m trying to watch the movie” look – during his own movie! Classic.
Now this is not your run of the mill Kevin Smith movie. This is an excellent edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller. However, the theatre’s air conditioner was broken and I was still suffering post-concussion symptoms. The headache was worsening and I was hot as hell. As soon as it ended I stood up and thankfully they opened a door beside me and let in some fresh air. Meanwhile, people were lining up at the microphones for the Q&A. I tried to walk down but was still feeling less than stellar so I hung out in the fresh air to recuperate. After a few minutes I sat down in the aisle to see if I’d get a turn at the mic. I didn’t. Rob drove me home and I went to bed.
So what happened? I got lost in the shuffle. My art swap deal was (understandably) very low on the priority list and many people that weren’t Kevin Smith were running around trying to do the important stuff first. My item just bounced around until it fell to the ground. It’s not a big deal, but it highlights some of the challenges companies face when trying to bring out the best in their businesses.
It would have been nice to see a little more of Kevin Smith the person instead of Kevin Smith the corporation, but hey, even a good juggler will eventually drop a ball. That’s a given. What differentiates the good ones from the great ones, however, is what they do after they drop it.  

Special thanks to Rob Chute for his shameless nagging of Kevin Smith, his driving skills, his fine choice of Chinese food, and his remarkable ability to wordsmith. I now fully appreciate why writers have editors.


I’m (almost) Back!

The word is in and the word is good. My doctor (and the resident doctor working with her) determined that with the reduction in symptoms since my last visit two weeks ago that I would be cleared to work “1/4 to 1/2 days for the next two weeks”, at which point I will return for another evaluation. This pleases me. But what is different between the last visit and this one?

Well, about 10 days ago I noticed something strange. I didn’t have a headache. Having been struggling with various post-concussion symptoms for more than a month it was a wonderful moment. It was such a relief that ‘euphoric’ is the only word I can find that comes close to describing the feeling. In the days after that moment I was afraid I’d ruin it – but I didn’t – and here I am 10 days later and still no headache to speak of.

The headache was just one symptom though, and while I am really eager to get back to work my doctor cautioned against doing too much. I still have some symptoms, and it will be hard to tell if they are reminiscent of the concussion or if I’m back to my baseline.

For example: I’ve always been the guy who stands up quickly and gets a head rush. If I exert myself a little now and get the same feeling is that symptomatic of the concussion or just the way it was before?

Another example: I am still extremely tired, especially later in the day. It is a struggle for me to get through the afternoon without having to lie down. Now I wasn’t the best sleeper before (chronic insomniac) and I’m off my sleep medication for the first time in 18 months, so am I tired because I’m off my meds and still used to sleeping 12 hours a day, or is the tiredness still a symptom of the concussion?

In both examples my doctor suggests it’s still the concussion working its magic, and was reluctant to okay my return-to-work on a full time basis based on those examples and a few others like it. She explained that this would continue to be a long, slow, frustrating road back and that I should monitor myself for symptoms on a constant basis and listen to my body. Treat it like pain. If it hurts, stop, and for the love of all things great and small do not do anything that could result in another blow to the head.

So off I go tomorrow morning bright and early (and maybe driving with a helmet on), hopefully to work regularly without any further brain problems. I’m really looking forward to it, even if I am a bit nervous/anxious about the return, but I work with an amazing group of people and I’m certain the transition back will be just fine.

First, one last nap 🙂

Head Games

For the record, concussions suck. I’ve been trying to find an eloquent way to say it but I can’t. They suck –  big time – and it doesn’t take much to end up with one. So after more than a week off work, countless complaints and frustrations, a new mission, and a slew of people asking me questions I thought I’d share a bit about my mind jarring experience.

What happened?
A rather simple outing on a giant tube whist being pulled behind a speed boat took a rather nasty turn for the worse when I was flung off the tube after hitting the wake as I swung around the corner. The spotter tells me I was a good 3 feet above the water for around 20 feet before the tube hit the water, and when it did…. things got ugly.

I was on my stomach and when it hit the water again I bounced off the tube. Instinct told me to just release my grip and go limp. I’ve fallen enough times doing enough things to know that if you fight it you will seriously hurt yourself.

Unfortunately, the first thing to hit the water was the back of my head. I then folded over backwards (and as a note I am not accustomed to folding, let alone at a high rate of speed) and tumbled ass over tea kettle a few times before landing face down in the water.

Yes, I was wearing a life jacket.

Ouch. Did it hurt?
Yes. It hurt quite a bit. I remember the sound of my head hitting the water and the feeling like someone had just whacked me with a baseball bat in the back of the head. Once I got my senses, which was a few seconds and a good swallow of the lake later, everything hurt. Everything. My head felt like it had split open. I had cramps in my arms and legs, and I thought I was having a heart attack.

Then what?
The driver and spotter confirmed I had movement in my fingers and toes and pulled me into the boat. I felt dizzy, nauseous, disoriented, confused, and scared.

About a half hour after the accident I called my mother-in-law (she is a nurse). She told me to take it easy and look out for worsening symptoms and if I noticed any I should go to the hospital. A few minutes later I stood up to get some water and basically disappeared mentally for a few seconds. Off to the hospital. The doctor and asked me to do a barrage of mental and physical tests and confirmed that in his assessment I was concussed, with a mild case of whiplash as the cherry on top.

How long will it take to heal?
Another great question! Weeks. Maybe months. In the words of my family physician, “If we were in the middle of a hockey season you’d be done for the year”. Nice. On top of that she told me “Don’t hit your head again any time soon. I’m not even slightly joking. Another blow to the head and death becomes entirely plausible”.

So what’s it like living with a concussion?
It sucks. I’m not a happy camper at the moment. I can do everything but not anything. I can’t exert myself or jostle my head too much. I have to walk, not run. Take the elevator, not the stairs. Limit screen time and other visual stimuli. Even after 10 days of doing absolutely nothing but stare at the wall and check in with Twitter every couple of hours I was finding that it literally hurt to think.

I was told to expect to feel confused, disoriented, and distracted for weeks. I didn’t believe it. Then I tried to work. Rescheduling 5 meetings took me 30 minutes. I couldn’t focus – not in terms of eyesight, but in terms of targeting what I needed to do. Things that I used to just do would out of nowhere stump me and leave me staring at my computer, lost, and that would anger and frustrate me and just make it worse.

I can do things like write, but only for an hour or so before I start to get a headache. I am finding that am capable of more right-brained activities than I am left-brained. Using the left part of my brain right now is a challenge for some reason. I don’t know why that is. There’s no evidence I hit more on the left side than the right, but then again who knows, a bruised brain is a bruised brain and it’ll act however it damn well wants.

So what now?
I go on vacation. As my doc said, “Enjoy it. Force yourself to slow down and not think about anything. Just have a nice time and RELAX”. So that’s what I’m going to do. My brother is getting married in Germany and we’ve got an apartment for a week in Paris after that. The house/cat sitter is arranged. Work stuff is covered (thanks Jamie!) and I’ve got enough travel insurance to take care of any hiccup that might arise.

Is there anything I can do?
That’s very kind of you to ask. The answer is yes!

If you have 100 words stashed away in your head somewhere please consider lending them to me for my new project, “1000 Word Picture“. My goal is to raise money for brain injury prevention and people and families living with brain injuries.

Also, wear a helmet whenever you can, take care, and be safe.


Lend Me Your Words

Update!

A new site is up and running specifically for this project. You can find picture #2 along with the results from picture #1 here. Future pictures will be done through the other site in an effort to keep my personal work separate from the project.

Thanks,
Andrew


So while suffering from post-concussion syndrome I got this idea that would allow me to explore some creativity without me needing to be on the computer for too many minutes in a row (screen time hurts the head).

I wanted to put the adage “A picture is worth 1000 words” to the test. I posted an original photo of mine and asked the people of the internet (mostly Twitter, but also the blogosphere, Facebook, and Google+) to lend me 100 of their words in response to the picture.  Once I had received 1000 words I would then edit the submissions and post the completed work as a little bit of “flash fiction”.

The only rules were that people submit 100 words (or thereabouts) in the form of full sentences and that I would only rearrange full sentences and not just grab words here and there to create new text.

I am pleased to say that in less than 24 hours my post became the 2nd most visited page on my blog (next to the one Kevin Smith did a shout out for on Twitter – to 1.5 million of his followers) and I received just over 1000 words from 10 different people. I’m in the process of editing and I plan on having something complete soon.

At any rate, this has spawned a new idea for me that a couple friends think has some legs. I want to put a whole bunch of these 1000 Word Pictures together, a hundred words at a time, from anyone and everyone who wants to contribute (and hopefully some well-known / famous people) and publish the collection, or display it as an art exhibit, and use it to raise money and/or awareness for a worthwhile cause.

So what do you think? Do you have 100 (or so) words rattling around in your head just itching to get out? Do you know Margaret Atwood or Rick Mercer, and can you get them to spare some words? (please say yes, that would be SO cool). If so then please, email me at thousandwordpicture@gmail.com or comment directly to this post as I present to you the 1000 Word Picture (100 at a Time) #2:



I’ll Take “Words” for a 1000 Alex…

Another Update!


The final results from the first photo are in and can be found here (at the new site).
Thanks to everyone for participating. I look forward to seeing where this takes me…


Update!

This was a huge success. So much so that I’m going to continue with this project and eventually put a collection together to raise money/awareness for charity. I have started the 1000 Word Picture (100 Words at a Time) #2 here. Once I get roughly 1000 words submitted for that photo I’ll post another, and so on…

More information to come on the project as a whole and the charities / foundations it will help support.

Thank you everyone!


Out with a concussion and unable to string together more than a half hour on the computer (and having deplorable handwriting) I’m in a bit of a creative holding pattern. Then I got an idea… maybe it’s not even a new idea, but it’s new to me, so I’m running with it.  It is said that a picture is worth 1000 words and I’d like to put that to the test.

Here’s the picture (thanks to Instagram for the iPhone – and yes, that is me):

Now, I need 10 people out there to each lend me 100 words of their own based on what they see. I need exactly 100 words in the form of complete sentences. As few or as many sentences as it takes, but totaling precisely 100 words when you’re done.

Post them as a comment here or email them to me or Twitter DM them to me or whatever, so long as it’s electronically transmitted to me somehow and there are exactly 100 of them I’ll take it. I’d prefer if they were written in isolation, free from the influence of other responses (I must try to maintain some semblance of scientific control over this experiment, you know)

I will then rearrange the complete sentences as I see fit (without taking single words here and there) to put together the 1000 words that this picture is worth. Read my blog, go through my Twitter feed, send me an email asking questions… all good ideas to start the words flowing. All I need is 100 words from 10 people, and I’ll do the rest.

I’ll post the completed work here and then credit each contributor with a link to their original words in a footnote. Please let me know if you are not OK with that and I’ll omit you from the list.

Go!

Making Progress

In typical form this post started out as a bunch of randomly jotted down half sentences. Even as I typed this was not sure where it was going to end up. I’m considering the fact that words were typed at all as some kind of progress. In fact this is the first week I have instituted a word count target. Not necessarily daily targets but I have split them up into three categories: Blog, Novel, and Short Stories; each one with a modest target assigned per week along with a suggested breakdown of which one(s) get attention on which day(s). Monday’s (when this was written) would have normally been a “Novel” day for me but my head was not in the right space for it so the blog post won. 

It’s amazing what a little progress can do for a person’s motivation. I mentioned my word count targets to a friend (a non writer) and their response was, “If you have to meet a target, won’t that start to feel like work?” You see, I have a day job, a regular 9-to-5 if you will, and I am just doing this to fulfill a creative desire, and because writing is something I truly enjoy doing, it never feels like work. How does that saying go? Find something you love to do and you’ll never work a day in your life. Something like that. As you can see, I’m not so good at research.

Speaking of which, Albert Einstein has a great quote which I like to pull out for various occasions, this being one of them: “If we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be called research“. I usually pair it with another quote from my favourite scientist, Richard P. Feynman: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

I pretty much live my life according to these two quotes (along with another great one by Niel deGrasse Tyson, “When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.“) As modern, evolved humans, every day we challenge and interact and learn. Input. Observe. Change. Input. Observe. Change. If you don’t have some kind of end goal, if there’s no measuring stick in the ground, it’s easy to get lost, or worse, caught in a circle where it feels like all you’re doing is work but you’re not actually getting anywhere. There needs to be progress. 

In order to show progress you need to know where you are going and where you started. In order for that progress to have any meaning you need to know how to measure it, and what makes things really interesting is that as a society there are billions upon billions of individual goals all scattered about. Each one of us, knowingly or not, willingly or not, charting a path from Point A to Point B and often with very little regard for what impact our progress may have on the progress of others. When progress towards a goal doesn’t align with someone else’s progress towards a goal we end up with conflict, and any good storyteller will tell you that conflict makes for a good story. 

So go and do something right now. Create a goal, chart a path, interact with others, learn, adapt, change,  measure your progress, and above all else – challenge. If we had no way to measure progress, if no one was ever challenged, if there was never any conflict… I dare say that there wouldn’t be much to write about (and I’d already be behind on my word counts for the week.)

Tell Me a Story

The world is full of storytellers.

There are enough columnists, authors, bloggers, tweeters, and filmmakers to make your head spin, and they are all telling stories (and I am one of them). But what about true storytellers? These are the people who can stand in front of a group and spin a yarn without any props, dictionaries, thesauruses, slides, notes, drawings, scribbles, doodles, cheat sheets, or pictures (moving or otherwise).

There is something to be said for listening to a story unfold before your ears as its told by a skilled storyteller. I have to admit, it’s probably been a long time since I last heard someone tell a story that wasn’t some recounting of an event in an effort to relive the experience, or boast, or simply hear themselves talk. We all gather around the water cooler, or at the bar, or in the kitchen at someone’s house, and we tell tall tales about the one that got away (fish, girls, boys, all of the above), or the single greatest / funniest / scariest / offensive / interesting / cool thing to happen that week. But how many of us actually stand up and tell a story simply for the fun of it? For the sake of the story alone.

Well after heavily researching the history of storytelling (OK, I briefly skimmed this page on Wikipedia), I can say that storytelling is not completely gone, and there are many practicing storytellers – and even storytelling associations – today. That being said, I do have a concern that all this writing and multi-media and social media might be damaging this ancient art.

Everything today is documented, recorded for posterity, indexed, and completely searchable with a few clicks. The company that went on to become Open Text Corporation put the Oxford English Dictionary in an electronic format and at the time that was a major accomplishment. Just a few years later, all the information online surpassed that stored on paper, and a lot of that information includes transcription of previously existing text, as well as audio and video of just about everything to happen (and everything made up) since we figured out how to keep track.

Where would we be today if more than a handful of people could read and write back when Pontius Pilate was holding court? Jesus in the 21st century would have a webcam in his tomb and a billion people would be watching it 24/7 like those falcons in Alberta.

Some guy: “Did you hear about the crucifixion?
Some other guy: “Dude, some guy tweeted the whole thing from his basement and didn’t even know what was happening!

I guess what I’m getting at is that everything today is so traceable that it’s to the point where even someone telling a story is on YouTube. Part of me thinks that’s a little bit sad.

This kind of universal browser history allows us to track pieces of information back to their origins and then analyse the differences between versions of this and variations of that, and to compare and rank and +1 and re-tweet… and I get the sense that the phrase “word of mouth” might actually be losing its meaning.

Somewhere along the way we’ve forgotten what it’s like to just sit… and listen… and enjoy.

Thanks for reading 😉


Gut Feel

Once again the amazing Julia Rosien points me in the right direction (it’s like she knows what she’s doing or something…) She recently tweeted a link to a blog entry by Erika Nepoletano on listening to your gut. Now, I fancy myself as someone who tries to listen to his gut as often as possible. It’s usually right. Not always, but enough that I have learned to trust it. I love my gut. I feed it steak as often as possible.


After reading Erika’s wonderful story I thought about all the times my gut has come through (even after more than a few nights of treating my gut like a test kitchen and drowning it in alcohol and jalapeno nachos):

  • My first real kiss
  • My first real job
  • My first *ahem* time
  • Picking a University
  • Meeting my now wife for the first time (at University. See? I told you my gut was good)
And this one…

Back in 2009 my wife and 2 children had been living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada for almost 5 years. We were a good 5 hour drive from my family in Toronto and a good 6.5 hour drive from my wife’s family in Woodstock (only 60 minutes from Waterloo – where my wife and I first met).

On March 13, 2009 (my 35th birthday), while my wife and daughter were in the Dominican for a girls getaway, my father-in-law David called to tell me that my wife’s brother Ryan had died. Tragically, accidentally, and well before anyone should have to leave this earth, he was gone.

On June 24, 2009 I received a phone call from a headhunter about a job back in Waterloo with the interview to happen on July 2nd. I was going to be at the beach with my family and my wife’s parents on July 1st for Canada Day, and the cottage was less than 3 hours from the interview, so I was seriously considering it.

There was much discussion between my wife and I over the complication and risks associated with moving our quite comfortable life from Ottawa back to Southern Ontario, but in the end it was my gut that told me what to do. Even before I went to the interview and well before I had any decision to make, my gut was telling me, “DO IT”.

On Canada Day after all the festivities had wound down, David took me aside and wished me good luck on my job interview (he’s good people). At that moment I shook his hand and gave him a hug and I promised him that I would bring his daughter and his grandchildren back home. I guaranteed it.

After two and half hours of driving in July with no air conditioning (and in a suit), three and a half hours of interviews with 2 Managers, 2 Team Leads, and Human Resources, and another two and a half hour drive back to the cottage, I was sipping a nice Shiraz on the beach. A little thank you to my gut, who does enjoy the grape very much as it turns out.

On July 13, 2009 – exactly 4 months after my bother-in-law died – I received a letter of offer for the job in Waterloo.

Exactly two months after that, and exactly 5 months to the day after Ryan’s death, and on my wife’s birthday! (August 13) the Government of Canada created a new agency with an office in Kitchener a mere 17 minutes from my office in Waterloo.

On August 24th, 2009 – exactly 8 weeks after that first phone call from the headhunter – I was working my first day at my new job and had moved into a house in Cambridge (27 minutes from work, and 41 minutes from my wife’s family). 


In September my wife interviewed for a job (at her level even) at that government agency in Kitchener, and on November 2nd she had her first day on the job.

We’ve been here for almost 2 years, we’re both still at our jobs and loving it, and my wife and I and our two children get to see my wife’s family practically any time we want. Everyone is smiling, and I’m presently enjoying a nice Shiraz as I edit this post.

Trust your gut. It knows. You can thank it later.