Photo Blog #14: Mani

Mani, originally uploaded by PJMixer.

Mani is #16 in my 100 Stranger project...click on the pic to read the full story - the hardest photo in the project so far.

Photo Blog #13: Acton meadow

Acton meadow, originally uploaded by PJMixer.

Simple rules of composition, well balanced colour and exposure seem to work well. New Flickr config allows me to now post to my blog a little more conveniently.

Happy Canada Day

These three people sum up what I love about Canada. They are caring, compassionate and loving. They like an adventure and discovering new things, but are firmly rooted in family traditions. They accept and enjoy our cosmopolitan cities and multicultural mosaic. They are interested in the world beyond our borders, but understand the beauty of Canada. They love the outdoors, but also like the simple joys of life inside (which is especially useful during winter). They are kind and polite to friends and neighbours and are fair to all.

I put together a quick Flickr photo set celebrating Canada in pictures. These pics are all quite recent, so along with the Ontario countryside and lakes, Toronto and Ottawa, I'd like to use photography as an excuse to revisit a few of my other favourite Canadian places: Whistler, Montreal and Halifax.

I'm listening to iTunes set to Canadian artists today and enjoying a little time on the deck with my dog Kooper before the weather turns. I was going to add a playlist on Finetune, but for some reason they've disabled the create playlist feature, so I'll just Blip Sam Roberts instead.

Happy Canada Day

The dog blog

Thursday, June 25th. We've had our new puppy Kooper for almost 2 weeks now. He is a 2 month Australian Shepherd. We had done quite a lot of research about the breed, visited with another Aussie owner and talked extensively with the breeder. We chose Kooper from the litter when he was just a month old based on what appeared to be his nice, calm nature and his beautiful colouring. However, since picking him up and bringing him home he is showing the true Aussie in him. That is, high energy, strength and intelligence, constant gnawing and chewing, frequent nipping and the occasional angry snarl and bite. It also appears that we have the potential for quite a large dog as opposed to the medium size more characteristic for the breed. At this time, I think he thinks he's the boss, perhaps enjoying his new role having come from more dominate pups at the breeders.

We had our first puppy training on Thursday night. I think it went quite well, no human or puppy was hurt, he didn't pee or poop on the floor and he wasn't barking uncontrollably. The little guy was so tired afterward though, all that play time and constant pulling on his leash. I could probably say Kooper was the most entertaining of the 7 dogs present. He definitely tried to assert himself, but was overpowered a few times by an older and larger labradoodle. Nice that he got a bit of a reality check. The one takeaway from the trainer on how to deal with his biting and nipping was consistently use food as reward for all good behaviour (playing nice, sitting and lying, waiting, leaving temptations alone etc).

Friday didn't end well. We tried some of the new ideas, but today it seems that every time we were playing with him it quickly came to an end when he began to bite. We even saw some true doggy aggression today with nasty growls and far from playful biting. We knew it would be difficult, but we didn't expect such a level of biting issues and aggression. We know its not his fault, and it must something we were doing wrong. We felt we are approaching his training as best we could, applying what we were reading and learning from other dog experts. We were putting a lot of energy, time and effort into his training and we seemed to be only making matters worse. My wife and I were very stressed out and I admitted that I was thinking that perhaps we'd made a mistake. It appears that Kooper felt the stress and sadness in the air and was very quiet in the evening.

One of his good traits is his nightime behaviour. He is quite easy to settle down now at night and there haven't been too many peeing accidents. Sometimes we'll sleep for a while beside his pen and we're testing the crate at bedtime on occasion as well.

We had a good Saturday, we probably gave half of his food today as treat rewards for obeying simple sit, wait and down tests and for leaving certain objects alone and listening to corrective instructions. We had family visitors in the evening and it went well with only occasional nipping.

I also had my second puppy driven stranger meeting in as many days on Saturday. On Friday, Kooper was the perfect chick magnate, attracting two attractive ladies over for a chat. And then on Saturday, I'm sitting with Kooper at the front of the house and one of our neighbours drives by and pulls his car into his driveway. Now this gentleman lives across the road and I've never met him. He always appears very serious, never noticing me or any of our family - quite an unfriendly fellow. He is however, a dog owner. On this day, he sees Kooper and I and as soon as he's parked his car, comes across the street to meet us. And what a nice man he is, I found out he's also from England and we talked about our dgos for a little while. Kooper lives up to being a true dog icebreaker.

It's Sunday morning now, the good news is that he lasted over 7 hours without needing to pee in the night. This morning's energy spurts were all fun and games but perhaps we let them go on a bit too long, so he's been getting rather nasty a few times this morning. He's having he morning nap now and the house is quiet. We'll pick up the new treat training when he wakes up and keep a close eye on his mood.

We are also starting to understand his daily moods, his eating and pee and poop timing and recognizing when he's over stimulated, when he needs some crazy time and when to just let him be. Hopefully, Kooper is starting to understand how we work too. We noticed that Friday was not a usual day as I worked from home and the kids were off school, so maybe that had some effect on his behaviour. Let's hope we don't have many more days like Friday.

Our new addition to our family is already changing our family in many ways. There are many challenges, but I can clearly see the positives and beginning to see the progress with his training. He has been part of our lives for just 2 weeks, but the emotional bond is already there. We love our Kooper.

Branded golf shirt

Without really thinking about it, I donned a bright green golf shirt this morning for work. I got it a while back from a charity golf tournament. The logo is simply the company name and not really recognizable outside the financial industry. It has a few snags and a splattering of chalky dog medicine from this morning, but it does the job.

This morning I'm going through my flagged inbox items, seeing if there was a follow up I'd missed or needed to try again. So I give this guy a call and finally reach him and get some updates. As we're talking I realize, hey, I'm wearing a shirt with this guy's company name on it !

So, I have a few logo'd shirts, not surprisingly some overlap with companies I do business with. However, to pick this day to call this one person (which I hadn't tried in quite a few months and only ever talked to once in about the last 5 years), the same day I pick the shirt (and a have a few different shirts), well that's a pretty interesting coincidence. Maybe wearing it and subconsciously seeing the logo made me seek out that old email ?

Sidenote - this financial services company recently purchased a software company, my contact was actually at their offices this morning. Without going through stacks of old business cards, I'm pretty sure the acquired company was one I'd targeted for a new job a long while ago ! Small world.

Role Models

I was in the waiting room of my physiotherapist's office and a father and son walked in from the elevator and the son was wearing a t-shirt with Role Model written on it. I couldn't see the logo or a clue to the inner meaning, but fair enough, maybe this kid really is a role model, say for other students at his school. Anyway, I was enjoying reading a novel called No Time for Goodbye as I'm waiting for my appointment, and a few pages after I see the kid, I read "I'm not the best role model". Which is rather an understatement coming from this criminal character in the book. Just as I'm writing this I remember a clever mass email I got around to reading today from my brother-in-law in Manitoba. It was entitled Who is your Role Model ? It goes something like this...

Each of us is the result of the influence of many people. However some individuals have played a significant role in our development, They are often called "role models" that we consciously or unconsciously imitate. Perhaps you know who that person is, or perhaps you don't. The world renowned Sir Trevoir Rigelsworth, Ph.D, has given us a simple way to determine our role model. It is easy and only takes a minute and it may surprise you.

WHO IS YOUR ROLE MODEL???*

Be sure not to peek! You don't want to skew your answer.
Try this - it's really neat ..
Don't look at the answers:

1) Pick your favourite number between 1-9

2) Multiply by 3 then

3) Add 3, then again Multiply by 3 (I'll wait while you get the Calculator....)

4) You'll get a 2 or 3 digit number....

5) Add the digits together


Now Scroll down ..............



With that number, see who your ROLE MODEL is from the list below:

1. Einstein
2. Oprah Winfrey
3. Mother Teresa
4. Randubius Raji
5. Bill Gates
6. Johann Von Stueckenberg
7. Brad Pitt
8. Babe Ruth
9. PJMixer
10. Barack Obama

I haven't done the math, but the simple logic is there somewhere, but these games are still a fun.

Loyalty ?

My wife was blogging and ranting about customer loyalty today (Bell vs Rogers). I stopped in at World's Biggest Bookstore (not sure if it truly is, but it is the closest bog book store to my office, and it is big and has a great selection) after work and the first book that caught my attention was Loyalty Management.

Off season football treat

Here's something to brighten up this rather dull, gray Thursday. First shot I've seen of one of the new stadiums for next year's World Cup in South Africa. This is in Johannesburg and will be the site of the final. The colours are amazing and immediately say Africa.

Construction (less pretty) pics.

Coincidence versus Fate

Woman who missed Flight 447 is killed in car crash

Unfortunate coincidences

We hear about car crashes all the time when we're dialed in to traffic reports, and over our lifetimes we are all involved in at least one car accident (I've had three I believe). But sometimes we forget how dangerous driving can really be.

This week, I talked with a customer who I hadn't heard of for a few weeks. It turns out he was involved in a serious accident with his family on the 401 and is suffering from back and neck pain. Today, I learned that the family of a work colleague in Ottawa were involved in a serious car accident yesterday and his daughter is in the hospital. My thoughts are with them.

I once heard that the car, most times, our comfortable and loyal "friend", can turn into your worst enemy in a blink of eye when things go wrong. Please drive safely, for yourself and fellow travelers on the road.

Downer start, but ending on the up

I played soccer tonight and I must say, apart from the good workout, it wasn't a lot of fun. I now have ice on my ankle and my jaw hurts from a full blast goalie clearance I took in the face. I think I may actually pack it in. My ankle, which in normal situations doesn't give me any trouble these days (after the break and surgery last year), is just not strong enough to make a convincing pass or worse, a threatening shot on goal. If you have access to my health file, you'll know about my "frozen shoulder" so I'm not playing my regular ultimate or golf this summer. I thought soccer may be a decent substitute but and I'm a little tentative on the soccer field too. Maybe someone is trying to tell me something ?

So, foot up and on ice, wondering whether to do some physio for my shoulder and if I need to treat my other problem (I'm still a little uncomfortable sharing the details, but let's just say, PA is forcing me to change my diet and is taking forever to cure). I'm actually saying screw it tonight and enjoying a beer as I feel sorry for myself.

So what else is keeping me busy these days ? Well from the business side, I'm enjoying having my evenings and weekends free until the next busy cycle hits. I'm probably spending the most time with photography and building a good collection of public content on Flickr and sharing personal photos via Picasa. Actually, I'm getting a lot more viewers and comments on Flickr than all my other online sharing these days. New music has fallen on the list, but I'm still downloading quite a bit of new stuff every month. I picked up the latest Q mag today and quickly found some interesting stuff, incl Canadian electronic act Junior Boys, the cool sounds of Camera Obscura (playing at Lees on June 27th), and the hard rocking new album from The Manic Street Preachers.

The other big news that is about to change my life is Kooper. Kooper is our new Australian Shepherd puppy who we're bringing home on Saturday. I'm sure he'll generate quite a bit of content here over the next few months. Still have some prep work to do, incl. installing some extra fencing in the back yard. We picked an Aussie because they are more of a medium sized dog, a super smart, athletic and very loyal.

Watching a little Derek Trucks in High Def (HDNet from the weekend) before heading to bed, hoping to log a few REM meets the sandman hours.

Photo Blog #12: Luminato Long Wave

This is one of the reasons I haven't been blogging much these days. I've been immersed in a couple of photography projects: 100 Strangers and capturing all the wonderful things to see at the Luminato Festival that is running thru next weekend here in Toronto.

Lightening strikes twice

I was having a great little drawing session with my daughter after work today and out of the miscellany of items we were drawing I asked if she knew how to draw lightening bolts. Then on Twitter shortly after I follow a link to art work on my sister-in-law's Flickr page - whatja know - lightening !

The Bike

I decided to ride my bike to work yesterday. Get the heart going (especially for the up hill return), be green, save $5 subway fare, all good. I haven't done this for years and probably only ever done it a couple of times. As it happens blogTO posted Sustainable Commuting: the Bicycle the same morning. I really like the soundtrack to the video, anyone got a helmet cam I can borrow for the next ride. BTW, I didn't walk my bike up my 25 stories.

Wrecked quiet moment

Unfortunately I don't have my camera with me otherwise this may have been a wrecked landscape photo. I'm having lunch and reading my photo mag at Ryerson's green space, nestled among college buildings in the heart of downtown Toronto. I've been here a couple of times and find it's a relatively quiet spot that is isn't very busy and close to my office. A little din can be heard from close by Yonge Street, the faint radio sound from a parked truck isn't so bad, and the occasional hospital helicopter I can take, but the high pitched, metallic grind of the work men cutting concrete is doing a marvelous job at ruining this quiet urban moment.

Photo project

Had to jot this idea down before going to bed. Felt that I might as well share it. I've had an idea about seeing the mess of a city in a different light. I added a new set in my Flickr account that is starting to capture some of the photos with this theme, although I haven't managed to capture the beauty yet, just document some wrecked landscapes.

So I was thinking, really what makes the city great ? It's partly its physical diversity and impressive structures, its neighbourhoods, but mostly, it must be its people. However, I'm a little too shy to simply walk up to people on the street and ask to take their photograph. I do it on occasion, but prefer to steal a candid shot. So I'm now thinking of trying to capture one of those one genuine expressions that you can't really pose for, laughter. But try and capture the moment and faces in amongst the less than pretty places on the street. Unsure of depth-of-field challenges with my 70-300, but I'll give it a try tomorrow (well, later today).

This is probably relevant, but I watched Slumdog Millionaire tonight. Still trying to put my thoughts into words, but I loved how "beautiful" the movie looked, slums and all.

UNICEF

I watched the Champion's League final this afternoon. Barcelona beat Manchester United 2-0. Barcelona have an unusual "sponsor" of UNICEF. I actually did a little googling and was pleased to see that Barcelona actually donate a minimum 1.5M euro per year to UNICEF. A nice story in times of greedy sports teams and players ! Anyway, on the dining room table there's a tax receipt from UNICEF. I didn't know my wife donated any money to UNICEF and today was the first time I saw the paperwork. No biggy, but nice.

Only Coincidence ?

As I've noted a few times in the past, I notice coincidences quite a lot
and I am very curious about their math and meaning.
So much so, that I've decided to blog them.
Announcing PJMixer's Only Coincidence ? Blog.

Kooper

We are about to get our first dog. We saw him this past weekend and we should be able to bring him home next month when he's about 8 weeks old. When our plans were solidifying last month, my daughter came up with the name Kooper. She liked the name from perhaps a past memory and it kind of went with kanga and roo (our puppy is an Australian Shepherd). It turns out that the puppy's mother's name is the same as my daughter's and she had previously had a puppy called Cooper.

I did a quick google on Kooper yesterday, just to see if anything weird popped up. Nothing really, a musician and a photographer etc. Then when I was browsing in Indigo after work yesterday I glanced at a book featured on one of the aisle displays - Blood Sins by Kay Hooper. I just went to her web site and what do you know - she's a dog lover and there's a picture of a dog on the site that looks pretty close to an Australian Shepherd.

Rosy and Grey

The other night my wife and I were talking about letting our friends know about possibly seeing a local band We Are The Take. The Next (random) song on iTunes starts and it's our friend's favourite (all time) track by The Lowest of the Low called Rosy and Grey.

Incredibles

The other evening my son was enthusiastic about The Incredibles, one of my favourite Pixar movies. When my wife is looking at Indigo.com a little later in the evening, there's a special Pixar ad on the landing page and Mr. Incredible is part of the graphic.

First Post - Pakistan and Journalists

I got around to watching A Mighty Heart last night, the true story of journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. Really well made, riveting actually, Jolie was barely recognizable and her acting was superb. Although the plot with its myriad of foreign named characters was very hard to follow, it didn't take away from the key messages and emotions of the movie.

Anyway, getting to the coincidence. I record The Hour every night and it usually takes me a while to catch up but I don't really have any rhyme or reason on which one I watch first. I had previewed a few intros and I do recall glimpsing something about dangerous jobs, and maybe I did hear "journalist" but I think I filed it away*. I've been watching a few this week and chose to watch another before going to bed after the movie. The first one I clicked on was from May 13th and it included a fascinating interview with Terry Gould, a journalist who's been working in some of the most dangerous places in the world.

I just finished a book and have been considering what to read next. My wife who is part of at least 2 book clubs recommended Three Cups of Tea. I knew a little about the story, but wasn't certain about the geography. I started it when I went up to bed. The story is set in Pakistan and is written by Greg Mortenson and journalist, David Oliver Relin. In the introduction, Relin talks about journalists being drawn into his [Mortenson's] orbit.

Perhaps just a common thread or only coincidence ?

*clue into one way coincidence happens
you observe something, but it doesn't sit in true memory,
but rests somewhere behind a curtain
and then is only revealed
when it connects to something else you observe at a later time

Photo Blog #11: 100 Minute Street scene

100 Minutes on (West) Queen West and a little Dundas too. I had rented a couple of high quality lenses for the weekend which I returned this morning. However after viewing the Contact Festival exhibition at Mocca after work I put my faith back in my 18-55mm kit lens and along with some new inspiration I took a long walk to see what angles and content I could capture. Originals and full set going on Flickr shortly along with weekend shots.

Twitter overflow

I haven't been twittering a lot recently and now I find I'm a bit behind. Engage Twitter overflow blog mode.

Even though I've had to work a little this weekend and my shoulder is still causing 4am wake times, I'm enjoying this long weekend.

We went to the Ontario Science Centre today. I've never been a big fan since I always feel it's very disorganized and many exhibits are not working properly. But, the interactive exhibitions always seem to be hit with the kids and it got their brains working hard for 3 hours.

Catching up on a few movies too this weekend, Forgetting Sarah Marshall was hilarious and we just watched Benjamin Button tonight, which was a little different to what I expected. Can't say I loved it was but a curious story well told. Hot music of late includes Pete(r) Doherty, White Lies and S&R just introduced us to Bash for Lashes after dinner last night.

I enjoyed shopping with the kids yesterday and especially liked my son's rare fashion sense kick in with a pair of white and red Ferrari logo'd Pumas, sweet !

I've been taking a ton of photos this weekend. I went to Vistek on Friday and rented a couple of lenses (Nikon 18-200mm VR and Nikon 50mm 1.4) and a Nikon SB-800 speedlight for the weekend (pretty good deal I think). Although I'm constantly trying new photographic techniques, camera settings and subjects, I think I'm gradually getting a little better, but adding some quality lenses hasn't produced instant wows. Probably a good thing considering the price tags.

Sports - keeping it brief, Arsenal put up a decent performance to hold ManU to a scoreless time at Old Trafford, which gave The Red Devils the point the needed to clinch the Premiership. It's been a difficult season for a Gunner fan, but I'm sticking with them and hopeful for next season if they can add a little muscle and height at the back. Sorry hockey fans, still haven't invested time into the NHL playoffs yet, I'll probably wait until the next round. F1 is looking interesting this year, big shake up with Brit boy Jenson Button leading the pack - worth watching some new faces get the time at the front !

My sports, unfortunately Ive had to cancel a number of golf tournament and my ultimate season due to this frozen shoulder injury. I think I've stabilized it a little, but it hurts like a bugger now and again and very uncomfortable at night (to say the least).

As some readers may know I like coincidences. In fact with a few recent events and a story from SEH I'm actually thinking of spinning up a new blog to log coincidences - I think there's enough to make you go hm.

And to finish, today is my 18th wedding anniversary. We're planning on spending the afternoon doing the West Queen West walk, taking in some galleries exhibiting during this month's Contact Photography Festival and having a nice cafe lunch. Can't end without saying she's the most amazing woman and perfect for me.

Status of the blog, Twitter and Facebook

As you may have seen, I'm neglecting my blog a little these days. I'm finding that Twitter is standing in for as-it-happens content, but is of course, limited to 140 characters. Therefore, for more in depth posts, pictures and embedded content I will continue to post here in my blog. As I was talking with friends last night, the 140 character limit becomes an interesting exercise in writing. The challenge is to summarize your thoughts and content in just a sentence or two. With the help of tinyurl and some abbrevs and TLA's, Twitter updates can become very efficient and potentially deliver a potent message. I have included my real-time feed of my Twitter updates in the right hand panel of this blog, in case you're wondering what's happening between blog posts.

If you don't get Twitter, let me try and explain it in 140 characters...Twitter allows you to instantly share what you are doing, what you find interesting and what you think with about 8 million people. For those familiar with Facebook, Twitter is just the status part!

There is tons of information about Twitter these days (including a new blog called Twitter Facts I just found) and you're probably hearing a lot more about it these days as celebrities, news sources and sports personalities start coming on board. Some interesting notes: only 35 people work at Twitter; I often hear news through Twitter, before I hear it through other online or traditional communication channels; for many celebrities, Twitter provides a way to disintermediate the paparazzi and junk tabloid press; and the limit of 140 characters stops the rants, rambling marketing BS, and wordy commentary - it just gets the point !

If you're wondering about the credibility of the Twitterer or their tweet, then my answer is the same for many online sources of information. The democratization of the internet, where everyone has a very easy way to provide feedback and comment to anyone and everything, creates a self-regulated internet information source. For instance, if someone nabs a celebrity's name and pretends to be them on Twitter, it will not take very long time for many people to discredit the fake source and educate people on where to find the real person.

However, not everything is rosy in Twitter world. There is an ugly side to Twitter in that it can open up unwanted online marketing channels. You'll notice this when you're happy tweeting away (say about your latest ultimate injury) and you get a notification that jennyhealthexpert has started following you. Now, jennyhealthexpert may be a friend with a weird alias, or someone that legitimately is interested in your health and condition, but more often than not, jennyhealthexpert wants you to follow her so she can tell you about her thoughts or perhaps advertise her services. You have of course, the choice not to follow jennyhealthexpert, and if you don't then she'll likely eventually unfollow you. But, it still feels a little uncomfortable, knowing people are just waiting for you to tweet on a topic that they want to use to market themselves to you !

The other thing that came up this week about Twitter was the use of real names versus aliases. For me, I think I still like to use my alias when publicly posting on my blog and Twitter. I keep my real name for Facebook where the community is better controlled. As a few people have said, it is a little surprising how open people are sharing personal and professional comments under their real name on Twitter. It's probably not that difficult to figure out my real name from my blog or Twitter, but why advertise it ! My friends know how to find me if they're interested in what I have to say, so I'll leave it like this. In case you're reading this or following me on Twitter, and also a friend of mine on Facebook, you may have noticed that I have fewer Facebook status updates these days. This is because the auto feed from Twitter to Facebook now is selective, I get to choose which Twitter updates go to Facebook. I do get quite a few people politely comment that I update my Facebook status much more often than other friends. Hopefully, I'm not clogging your news feed as much these days !

I also use my alias when sharing other things publicly, incl. Flickr and comments on other people's content. On that note, I'm pleased to say that one of my pictures was recently used on blogTO. I wonder how many people on the net are known more by their alias rather than their real name ?

I had contemplated posting "The Big Blog Weekend Update", but instead I'm just going to post individual pieces with titles and labels so readers can pick and choose. Plus I won't feel that I just need to add this one extra thing before I post the big update, so I'll actually get something out. Just remembered another reason I was going to do one big blog...so I could post just one link to Facebook rather than posting a lot of individual links, um.

Well, this little topic took a lot longer than planned this morning, blogs about soccer, Arshavin, Anfield song, ultimate, St George's day, health, money, Travis gig, other music, Contact and Luminato festivals, God poster and cars will have to wait for another day.

Ultimate - more than you think

Great article in blogTO about ultimate today. Fab video showing intense highlights below (although as one comment suggests, not really showing the nice, spirit-of-the-game side of our fabulous game). The video does its job of showing the sport really is extremely athletic and should dismiss those silly comments about it's just throwing a frisbee on the beach. Now if I could only cure this nagging arm injury, I'd be ready for the outdoor season next month.

Creative Grumpiness

I'm a little down these days. Maybe it's the cold weather delay of Spring, or my nagging arm injury (and concerns about sports in the upcoming months), or more dietary changes, or the lack of sleep and routine, or my Dad's health, or the economic woes effecting the globe. I guess it's all those things put together. Sidebar on health - maybe it's my age, but it seems that each successive issue I have these days has a much bigger impact on me than it used to do, I'm finding that just one ailment can easily effect me, combine a few and drag it on for weeks and months, and I'm not myself.

I've heard that musicians and maybe writers, find it therapeutic to channel their negativity through their art. We all know that there have been some great songs written my rejected lovers, or in memory of family deaths or reflecting on troubled times.

But what about photography (the art form I perhaps can partake in) ? Apart from the photo journalism reality of reporting on the nasty news of the day, I'm not one to look for depressing photographs. But maybe this is a neglected field.

Maybe I'll snap a few shots on the Blackberry at lunch or bring the DSLR out tomorrow and shoot some shots of road work, dirt and grime, ugly construction sites, garbage and litter. But how could that make me feel better ? I don't know, maybe I'll feel better with a few days of warmer weather, an extra hit of ibuprofen for my arm and a overdue pint.

Hope you're having a better day.

Photo Blog #10: DC Angles and Reflections

We recently had a fabulous visit to Washington DC. Lots of sites in all kinds of Spring weather. More shots on Flickr.

The Mac Experience

I bought a MacBook shortly after Christmas.

First, I must say that the simplicity of buying a computer that deliberately has few options is a joy. Saw a rare $100 off deal at Future Shop, went in and um'd and ar'd for a few token minutes, then said I'll have it. Some might say I'm crazy, but we turned down Future Shop's maintenance plan and haven't signed up for Mac's service program. Logic suggests serious problems happen within a year and I really only buy insurance for my life, my house and my car. I bought a Airport Express at the time of the purchase with thoughts of a replacement for my 'g' router plus I loved the wireless iTunes capability.

I got home and literally within minutes turned it on for the first time, answered some very basic configuration questions and connected to my existing wireless network. I was literally up and running on a brand new Mac computer in about 30 minutes.

Next task, was familiarizing myself with basic Mac applications and getting used to the new magical trackpad. Some Mac things immediately began to trip me up like missed home/end keys and the awkward Finder interface.

The Airport Express wasn't really a "silver bullet" as it doesn't have an ethernet cable input for my existing hard wired PC. So I configured it as a wireless client just to stream iTunes. I got it configured pretty quickly and it worked beautifully. However, it did trigger the next wave of networking decisions and since then, I have bought a Airport Extreme from a friend and almost got it perfect. Some gotchas on the networking front and still occasional interference problems and the odd drop. It's not perfect , but doing the job and pretty fast. Note that I had thought my PS3 had an 'n' wireless card, but it only has a 'g' card so I've decided to downgrade the network on occasion when I need PS3 network connectivity. Otherwise I'm going to try and keep the network as 'n' only and on 5ghz to hopefully reduce interference. The last configuration change was connecting my Seagate external USB drive to the Airport Extreme. I had to reformat the drive (using an included Seagate app) to be compatible with the Mac (I think that means FAT32, but haven't confirmed because the drive appears as something special to the PC and is now being used as a backup Mac Time Machine. This last little bit was a nice bonus. I spoke a little too soon - it just failed with a connection error.

And that little excursion may be a good example of the problem with Mac. When things go wrong, it's not always that obvious how to fix them. A few people have asked about my Mac experience and comparisons to PC's. I've quickly replied that I think Macs are great for the home, but I'm not sold on them being a good solution for a large business customer. The logic being that I haven't seen the granularity of control and configuration that is often needed to meet the high demands of enterprise information technology today. I've been very impressed by the simplicity of the Mac OS and its easy plug-and-play capabilities (especially with other Mac products like the Airport network components). However, on a few occasions I've been tripped up, merrily walking down the pleasant Mac boulevard, when gotcha, figure this one out !

I'm just getting around to finishing this post a few weeks later. I have seen Mac's hourglass equivalent - spinning colour wheel a few times and had to force quit on a few occasions, but I'm getting pretty comfortable with MacBook. Network instability is still a bit of a problem, but it's been on 'n' with 'g' compatibility for a little while and all the clients (PC, MacBook, Airport, PS3 and my work Windows laptop) seems happy. [Just as I finished typing this last sentence the Extreme router hiccuped and I lost the connection - connectivity up and down now - weird, it's like the Mac network knows I'm talking about it from a Windows laptop].

I actually gave it trying to finish this post last night, I finally got the network back after installing the Airport Utility on my PC and changing it to 'n' 5Ghz - again. This morning, the Extreme was reporting an error connecting to the internet - I really getting to dislike that little flashing orange light ! I'm seriously thinking of replacing the Airport Extreme if I can't get config a reliable setup. Any suggestions on specific settings appropriate for my mix of machines and adapters in a very (wireless) busy and close proximity neighbourhood would be appreciated.

Some miscellaneous items:

• antivirus - none installed, yes, none installed
• Firewall - basic Mac firewall included in OS - seems a little too basic
• fast user switching - beautiful and highly functional in a household with 4 users - but it's not ideal, because we have the "home" account streaming the music and then when someone is on their personal account, they're always being asked to skip to the next song; on a sidenote I did consider a remote control, but Apple told me it works on line-of-sight, so not great for me trying to DJ from the kitchen.
  
• USB/iPod connectivity good except the Seagate connection on the Extreme seems a little funky and disrupting Time Machine and manual PC backups
  
• Garage Band and Photo Booth lots of free fun
• I'm still loving the trackpad
• I'm not using many native Mac apps, Firefox runs great, and OpenOffice has nice compatibility when needed for office apps; I've moved all our music to the MacBook with iTunes, but for disk space reasons, source photos are still on the PC with Photoshop
  
• Battery power seems ok, but not great and it does run pretty hot
• The MacBook chasis is beautiful and strong - it's getting around the house on a regular basis
• The screen is pretty nice and feels bigger than it's most 13"
• Spaces seemed like a good feature to use initially, but not using it much these days
  

Final thoughts. I'm happy with the Mac OS, the beautiful styling and quality of Apple's products and I can overlook most of its shortcomings, although I have some doubts about Apple's networking products. Mac OS is more simple to configure and manage than Windows, in many situations it performs better is more stable than Windows. I'm pretty sure, my next desktop will be an iMac.

The result is in...being a vegan doens't help me

As you may recall, I recently became a vegan for 2 months in hopes of dramatically lowering my blood cholesterol levels, specifically my LDL.

I talked with my doctor a few weeks ago and my LDL number (the key measurement) only fell 15% from 2.9 to 2.48. As it happens, I've been told on a few occasions that the average person's dietary intake only accounts for 15% of their blood cholesterol. Decreasing it by 15% may be coincidentally convenient, but I'd like to think that I was in pretty good control of my dietary intake of bad fats before I became vegan (with the 2.9 measurement in January). There is in my mind, only one other factor that is in my control that may have some say in my blood cholesterol levels - alcohol. During my vegan months, I kept my alcohol intake normal (well, "normal" for me). One reason was to control the variables, and the other one is that there is no clear indication that alcohol consumption negatively affects blood cholesterol. And in fact, there have been quite a few studies that suggest regular drinks of wine and beer can help - I like those studies.

This week I got the final numbers: LDL 2.48, HDL 1.37 (which didn't go up as much as I'd hoped), total: 4.46, triglycerides 1.34 and Risk ratio: 3.3. Pretty good for a normal person, not good enough for someone in a high risk category like me.

So the good news/bad news. Bad news: I can't reduce my blood cholesterol levels enough through diet, therefore I've increased my dose of Lipitor to 40mg/day (but still a moderate dose). The good news: I can enjoy meat and fish once again, and perhaps even better, I don't have to feel guilty or have to second guess - I now know being a vegan doesn't help with my particular condition. However keep in mind that besides my personal biggest health threat, high blood cholesterol, there may be many other health benefits of limiting animal protein based foods.

The experiment did teach me one thing, I don't need to eat meat. Put into more socially acceptable terms, I don't need to eat meat as often. I have enjoyed many vegetarian and vegan meals over the last few months and will continue with many of them, but I'll enjoy eating fish (especially sushi) once again and be able to eat some red meat guilt free on occasions too.

Bon appetit

Measure your personal Earth Hour this Saturday

Hopefully, you're aware that this Saturday is Earth Hour. Last year, we did our part by using candles and playing a board game (although it was a little tricky to tell the difference between red and orange markings on the board!). One quick thing I just thought of was using your electric meter to measure the amount of electricity you use during that hour versus the following hour when you switch everything back on. I just checked mine, which is a new fangled digital one, but the kWh number should do the trick. This maybe difficult for apartment dwellers, but for anyone living in a house, you should have access to your electric meter. Happy Earth Hour.

Rogers (8300HD) PVR Extender

I feel I'm pretty up to date on technology. When I bought my HD TV about 2 years ago, I also started my love/hate relationship with my Rogers PVR. Note that in Canada we seem to use the acronym PVR (personal video recorder), whereas in the US I they use the term DVR (digital video recorder). We like to use "PVR" as we also have another component we call a DVR. It was our first hard drive recorder and we still use it regularly for overflow recording and archiving to DVD. It's a Pioneer DVR-633H-S. It did well, with std def, but the hard drive got messed up a few years back so we can't set it for timed recording any more, Pioneer do have newer versions, but I'm still bitter about their service, but that's another story.

Rogers use the Explorer 8300HD from Cisco (prev. Scientific Atlanta) which is widely used in North America. It's been around for years, seems to job relatively well, but I've never been happy with its very limited 160 GB capacity. That sounds like a lot of space, but not when you're hooked on HD. It's supposed to get 20 hours of HD programming, but from our experience it's more like 10 hours. We know this primarily because available disk space decreases by 10% for every one hour of HD programming we record.

With the convenience of daily and weekly programming, timeshifting and two tuners, our PVR is used very regularly and we have a constant struggle to keep free space available.

A little while ago, Bell introduced support for external hard drive extensions for its PVR. It allows you to connect any hard drive via USB to increase hard drive space, however I believe the solution required you to manually copy/move items from the onboard hard drive to the external unit (not sure if that's still the case). My wife wrote about Bell's External Storage for PVR last August and it's still one of her most read postings.

In the last month, Rogers have finally caught up. However, they are doing it a little differently. Their PVR Extender is a 500GB Seagate external drive which is connected to the PVR using a sSATA connection. This type of connection is more unusual than USB, but isn't rocket science. Consequently you can purchase your own cheaper hard drive instead of paying for the Rogers drive for $200. A quick look around shows you can get a 1.5TB Seagate eSATA hard drive at Tiger Direct for $250. All you need is a cable. I actually have a 500GB Seagate drive with the eSATA connector but it's loaded with a lot of my techie work stuff (e.g. massive VMware images), but I'll probably buy a new large one when I get approval from the HomeCFO. The other option is to use an internal hard drive and eSATA compatible enclosure, probably even cheaper. See this digital home forum for some more info on the options.

The other thing to watch out for is that the eSATA connection between the PVR and the external hard drive is rather sensitive. I've had a few chats with a very friendly and helpful chap at Future Sop that has tried this himself and by reading a few extra pieces online, there is definitely an issue if you disconnect the eSATA cable once the initial formatting has been done (local encryption key restrictions possibly). I'm not certain if there's still an issue when the units are completely powered down. As for brown outs and power cuts, I believe if they're connected, everything will continue to work ok. As for current recordings, I'm not certain if they'll still be available since the PVR begins to use the drive with the most amount of space once it recognizes the external drive. More testing and comments to hopefully come later.

If you google a little, you'll see that the discussion on extending the 8300 has been going on for some time. If I'd found this info earlier I probably would have jumped on this a while back, but like so many tech decisions, waiting a little sometimes helps. In this case, you can now easily buy 1.5 TB hard drives for very reasonable cost. That is almost 10x the capacity of the current PVR - now we're talking, bring on nightly HD recordings of The Hour and saving HDNet concerts and TMN HD movies for a little longer.

Sky Blues

Coventry City FC (The Sky Blues) were my home town football team growing up. I actually wasn't as big a fan of the game when I was younger (as I am now) but did manage to go to a few games, including accompanying my best friend Tommy who worked as an usher at Highfield Road. The team highlight that always remains very clear to me is their win over Spurs in the 1987 FA Cup. Many people have said that game was one of the best FA Cup finals ever.



For some reason, Cov City has had a good habit of progressing quite well in the FA Cup over the last few years. With Setanta sports at home, along with a few other soccer carrying stations, I've been lucky enough to see their 4th round game against Torquay United (a little worrying) and the the tie against Blackburn Rovers in the 5th round (strong performance). Unfortunately I didn't see Tuesday's 1-0 win over Blackburn in the replay at Ricoh Arena. But the fantastic picture above seems to sum it up well. Next up, the quarter final at home to Chelsea next weekend - I hope that one is on the tele.

Photo Blog #9 Gould and Yonge

A few shots taken at lunch yesterday. For those that know this corner, you'll be
saddened to hear that the first shot is taken across an empty lot that was once Sam's.

In the news

Some interesting articles in the bite size Metro this morning:

• Clement seeks more info on Chrysler's financial plan - good for him, I'd ask a lot of questions too if I was giving someone $3B.
• CUPE Israeli boycott sparks furor - wow, awkward mix of academics and politics and a union.
• Tory delay "infantile" - this has to do with more delays in the listeriosis investigation and a 4 month consultation about handwritten notes - odd that I can't find a link to this story anywhere, hm ! Do we need more examples of wasteful government bureaucracy ?
  

Thievery Corporation concert review

Absolutely brilliant show here in Toronto on Saturday night. It was much better than I anticipated and is one of the best shows I've seen in the last few years.

I was a little shocked about the ticket price when I initially heard about the date, but I must say it was worth every penny. The main men of TC, Rob Garza and Eric Hilton were stationed prime centre stage but raised and highlighted towards the back to let them DJ without the show just being about a couple of guys behind laptops. Front and centre and always on the move was the bass player, making the moves with the large rotation of singers (5 or 6 I believe, including 2 South American ladies, another lady from Tehran and 2 hip hop DC lads). They had two percussionists, a sitar player, and a wonderful trumpet and sax horns duo. Large screens showed a dazzling array of images and video.

The reviews have been a little hard to come by with the Toronto date being only #2 on the tour with Chicago being on Friday night (pics). The one review of the Toronto show wasn't that positive (mainly because of venue and sound issues), but it gives you a sense of the show. I think the Kool Haus is a decent venue for its size and sound is ok if you're familiar with the material. Towards the end of the 2 hour show they got about 20 groovy ladies from the audience up on stage to dance along with the band - quite the party ! Apparently, David Byrne jumped up on stage for one number in Chicago - wow, that would have been something to see. If you're a fan of their blend of electronica and world beats then I'm sure you'll love them live.

Highlights would be opening numbers Sound the Alarm and Madala from their latest album, Warning Shots "one" singalong, The Numbers Game, and of course Shadows of Ourselves.

The set list which I found on a cool little site called setlist.fm:

Links - main site, videos (incl. a good live montage - embedded below); myspace (tunes, dates etc)

Thievery Corporation concert review

Absolutely brilliant show here in Toronto on Saturday night. It was much better than I anticipated and is one of the best shows I've seen in the last few years.

I was a little shocked about the ticket price when I initially heard about the date, but I must say it was worth every penny. The main men of TC, Rob Garza and Eric Hilton were stationed prime centre stage but raised and highlighted towards the back to let them DJ without the show just being about a couple of guys behind laptops. Front and centre and always on the move was the bass player, making the moves with the large rotation of singers (5 or 6 I believe, including 2 South American ladies, another lady from Tehran and 2 hip hop DC lads). They had two percussionists, a sitar player, and a wonderful trumpet and sax horns duo. Large screens showed a dazzling array of images and video.

The reviews have been a little hard to come by with the Toronto date being only #2 on the tour with Chicago being on Friday night (pics). The one review of the Toronto show wasn't that positive (mainly because of venue and sound issues), but it gives you a sense of the show. I think the Kool Haus is a decent venue for its size and sound is ok if you're familiar with the material. Towards the end of the 2 hour show they got about 20 groovy ladies from the audience up on stage to dance along with the band - quite the party ! Apparently, David Byrne jumped up on stage for one number in Chicago - wow, that would have been something to see. If you're a fan of their blend of electronica and world beats then I'm sure you'll love them live.

Highlights would be opening numbers Sound the Alarm and Madala from their latest album, Warning Shots "one" singalong, The Numbers Game, and of course Shadows of Ourselves.

The set list which I found on a cool little site called setlist.fm:

Links - main site, videos (incl. a good live montage - embedded below); myspace (tunes, dates etc)

Oscar extras

For movie fans tuning in to the Oscars tonight I thought I'd collect some links and add a little game (inspired by 100 Books in Facebook) in case the proceedings are moving a little slow.

The main site - http://www.oscar.com/
Big winners and nominations - http://www.filmsite.org/oscars2.html
IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/features/poweroffilm/ - my movie bible.

Unfortunately I have seen very few of the nominated movies and performances this year. Having a quick look, I saw The Dark Knight (Ledger), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Cruz), Ironman (sound and FX) and Wanted (sound).

Past 25 Best Picture winners - seen 'em all. How many have you seen ? My faves with an *

1. 1983 Terms of Endearment
2. 1984 Amadeus*
3. 1985 Out of Africa
4. 1986 Platoon
5. 1987 The Last Emperor
6. 1988 Rain Man
7. 1989 Driving Miss Daisy
8. 1990 Dances with Wolves
9. 1991 Silence of the Lambs*
10. 1992 Unforgiven
11. 1993 Schindler's List*
12. 1994 Forest Gump
13. 1995 Braveheart
14. 1996 English Patient*
15. 1997 Titanic
16. 1998 Shakespeare in Love*
17. 1999 American Beauty*
18. 2000 Gladiator
19. 2001 Beautiful Mind*
20. 2002 Chicago
21. 2003 Lord of Rings - Return of the King
22. 2004 Million Dollar Baby
23. 2005 Crash**
24. 2006 The Departed*
25. 2007 No Country for Old Men

I do watch a ton of movies, all my reviews are on Facebook - Flixster.

My pics for tonight:

Actor: Rourke
Actress: Winslet
Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Supporting Actor: Ledger
Supporting Actress: Cruz

I'm suspicious about coincidence

My Facebook profile says that my religious view is "I'm suspicious about coincidence".

Coincidence continues to be something I notice a lot, maybe more than most people. The way I've said this is deliberate - I believe coincidences are happening all the time and the personal connection is simply a matter of noticing them. Coincidences may not really happen to people, they happen and people observe them.

I'm not a religious person (well not in the traditional, organized religion, sense), but in this week's episode of House, I heard a great requote of Einstein - "Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous". There seems to be a lot of links on this quote.

Don't laugh, but I'm actually trying to develop a more complete theory about coincidence. One element of the theory needs to consider the time element. How far apart in time do two events have to occur for them to be considered coincidental ?

I hope to write more on the subject in the future, but if you find some other interesting views on the topic or have your own comments I'd love to hear them.

Latest coincidence that sparked this entry: listening to a Beth Orton track that a friend reblipped and I in turn reblipped with the comment "The mood of this just kinda sums up this gray wet day". I then notice that the original Blip DJ provided "rainy day ohio" and "here's my perfect rainy day band" as comments to earlier tunes today. Weather may not be the largest of coincidences, but it's a nice feeling when a little coincidence make us feel connected to other people. Are we really strangers ?

Photo Blog #8: Downtown Snow Scenes

University Avenue - Canada Life and CN Tower

Snowy Train Tracks taken from Strachan Avenue crossing

University of Toronto

[By the way I'm still adding photos to my Flickr and personal Picasa web albums]