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Personalized Plates
2008-07-20 13:22:00
Liked this personalized plate, spotted in Costco parking lot:

Late again
2008-07-19 18:27:00
Tigana and I were in Fort MacLeod yesterday for her drama camp, and Mary and Kasia were driving out to join us for supper and Tigana's performance at the Empress Theater that evening. At 5:07 PM Mary phoned that she had been delayed leaving because Kasia was having 'a fashion emergency'. It can be incredibly frustrating having a four year old sometimes, because things that seem of life and death importance to them --like pausing to change into a fairy princess costume --may not seem as crucial to us; and vice versa. While Tigana and I were hanging around waiting, a storm blew up from nowhere. One second we were standing in the sunshine, the next we were running for shelter as a terrible wind swept in. I thought it was raining for a second because the wind was hurling water from the sprinklers across the park to where we were standing. Once safely inside a store, we watched the clerk frantically trying to close the doors that kept blowing open. As the intensity of the storm increa...
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Hawaiian Shirts, wasps, and the wet chair
2008-07-19 12:23:00
Our trip to Hawaii being one of the few bright spots in an otherwise downbeat year, I have taken to wearing Hawaiian shirts as my summer default. They're comfortable, longer than most other shirts, and distinctly non-academic.But yesterday when I went out to supervise the kids in the backyard, I found myself surrounded by wasps the moment I plunked myself down in the patio chair. After several minutes of coping with hysterical kids screaming "wasps! wasps!" I got them to calm down by pointing out that the wasps were not following them, but sticking pretty close to me. "It's your shirt," Tigana suggested. "They think those are real flowers!"At about the same time I realized the chair I was sitting in had just been through one of the several freakish hail storms that have been plaguing our region, and the seat cushion was soaked through. Dripping from my now soaked pants, I retreated with the kinds back into the house to change clothes, leaving the wasps behind. The next evening, t...
More About: Home , Shirts , Chair , Wasps

Polaroid-a-day-Project
2008-06-19 11:13:00
Well, I'm getting on this bandwagon fairly late, but if you haven't already come across Hugh Crawford's and Betsy Reid's website with Jamie Livingstone's photo project, it's worth a look. Livingstone took 1 Polaroid everyday from March 1979 to the day he died, Nov 25, 1997. The thumbnail reprinted here is one of the most reviewed photos: it shows his wedding ring with his bride blurred out in the background, two weeks before he died. Rules for the Polaroid a day project were fairly simple: a day Polaroid a day, every day; one only; no retakes. It was basically Livingstone's diary, each image recalling the day or moment for him years later. But as Chris Higgins, the blogger who broke the story on this, points out, even if you do something very simple, if you keep doing it over and over and over for years, it eventually becomes something very different. Fascinating visual record of a man's life and times.(And on a completely different level, it is interesting to note how Chri...
More About: Project , Popular Culture

The Fridge
2008-06-04 09:14:00
Doug's condo was undergoing renovations for several months before he passed away, which has further complicated cleaning his place up. As the men came to put in the new flooring, they had to move the fridge out of the kitchen, which meant I had to show up and move the stuff out of the freezer compartment for the day. Fortunately, Doug had a second condo, so I simply moved all the meat from his freezer (he had a couple months supply laid in) to the freezer compartment of his other place. I fully intended to move the meat back at the end of day, but the flooring crew made a terrible job of it -- six inch gash in the middle of the kitchen floor, flooring over shims under the stove, and so on. Apparently their attitude was 'the guy's dead, so who cares?" But of course we care, and who ever ends up buying the place cares, so the contractor overseeing the repairs for the building insisted they do the job over. So besides my having to stick around for a few more days to supervise, I dec...
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Last Will and Testament
2008-06-04 07:12:00
Working through the probate following Doug's death has been incredibly frustrating, time consuming, and not a little depressing. Mary and I have already devoted hundreds of hours trying to get a handle on Doug's financial affairs, and we're still only scratching the surface. Although I was fortunate enough to find his will within hours of my arrival in Edmonton, and although his will was extremely simple, the rest of the paperwork has been incredibly complicated.There are two factors here: First, Doug's finances are hopelessly confusing -- he had dozens of accounts with different banks and stock brokers -- I'm not sure we have still found them all. He originally kept fairly good records of what stocks he bought and sold, but that record system seems to have broken down in the late 1990s; now we just have piles of receipts and cancelled checks, all piled in apparently random boxes scattered around the apartment. No doubt there was some system known to Doug, but I haven't been a...
More About: Testament

Kasia's Field Trip
2008-06-03 08:36:00
Kasia on the far rightKasia's Montessori preschool/kindergarten made a field trip today to the city's Nikka Yuko Japanese Gardens. I tagged along as a parent volunteer. Highlights included ringing the friendship bell -- the guide explained that whatever couple rang the bell stayed friends forever, so the kids lined by two by two to ring the bell with their BFFs. I rang the bell with Kasia, so one of the teachers said, "Now Kasia, you'll be best friends with your dad forever." To which I replied, "Is this guaranteed to get us through her teenage years?" The other memorable moment (not exactly a highlight) was when kids lined up at the wishing well to make their wishes. Kasia turned to me and quietly said, "I wished that everyone who died would be alive again." (No doubt in reference to Portia, GrandDad and Uncle Doug.) *sigh* It's been a very sad year.
More About: Trip , Field

It takes six weeks to get there.
2008-06-02 08:50:00
Another brief trip to Edmonton to feed mom. Of interest here was that Douglas has now joined the circle of deceased relatives sitting with her. We haven't told mom about Doug -- there is no point since she wouldn't be able to remember for more than a few minutes, and we and the majority of the staff at the home felt it would just be cruel. (One staff member and one neighbour thought we ought to tell her, but they seemed to be projecting their own 'need to know' onto Mom.) The first few days Mom asked after Douglas, and I would just reply that he wasn't here today, that I had come instead. After that Douglas became confused in her mind with her long dead brothers, especially Tom, when talking to me; or she would say her "son was coming" to the staff, and they'd simply answer in terms of when I would be there next. But suddenly this week, for the first time, she was including Doug in her conversation with those from beyond the veil. As in: "Evie, why don't you have another cup ...
More About: Weeks

Pooka, and Kasia Sings the Blues #2
2008-05-19 23:36:00
We took our dog, Pooka, to the vet on Friday because he hadn't been eating. The vet ran blood work and confirmed that Pooka had an acute infection, for which she gave us antibiotics, but also told us he was experiencing kidney failure and had the first signs of cancer. She told us if he didn't start eating again normally by Tuesday, we should sit down as a family and have 'the talk'. But we are hopeful that with the antibiotics he will have a while longer with us. The vet conceded that he didn't seem to be in any pain as yet, though he was probably feeling nauseous. But even at 18, Pooka is surprisingly spry, and seems to enjoy that part of his day he is awake, and bounds along more like a puppy than an ancient. But the vet made it clear that the best we could hope for is a couple of months.Tigana was with us when we got the news, and this time Mom made a point of telling Kasia before Tigana could. (Regular readers will recall that Tigana's discussion of what happened to Porti...
More About: Blues , Sings

Mother Part I
2008-05-11 07:10:00
With the passing of my brother, Doug, the care and feeding of our mother has fallen to me. Doug went to the nursing home every day, summer and winter, blizzard or rain, to feed mother supper. He only missed four days in four years, right up until he fell ill himself. Blind and with no memory, she could neither see her supper nor remember it was there without his patiently spooning it out for her. Mother was always a slow eater, and now at 99, it routinely takes three hours to get her supper in. Her meals are all pureed, but she still has to compulsively chew each mouthful to liquid. There are frequent pauses to reheat the current course in the microwave, since the meal obviously gets cold over three hours, and reheating the food significantly increases not only her enjoyment of the meal, but also the chances of her actually eating. It all looks like baby food to me, but it is clear from looking at the trays of the other residents, most of whom do not require pureeing, that the food ...
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Mother Part II
2008-05-11 07:09:00
Good Days and Bad DaysI've been fortunate that most of the days I've been visiting mom have been good days. Once or twice she's known who I am, remembered my daughters and wife, and been able to hold a normal conversation. Most days she's been talkative and upbeat, but 'confused'. A couple of days have been bad, with mom either being too sleepy to eat, or too grumpy."Confused" is not really a fair description. The doctor diagnosed "Alzheimer's", but I do not believe that to be entirely accurate. The real problem is that mom has lost her memory, and is blind, an unfortunate combination. Being blind, Mom has no basis on which to distinguish between dreaming and waking. Ever had that experience of waking up in a hotel or at a relative's and taking a second or two to remember that it's not your own bed? Or just that that was a dream, and now you're awake? Where the rest of us can open our eyes and look around to orient ourselves each morning, Mom has no access to accurate upda...
More About: Mother , Part

Mother Part III
2008-05-11 07:07:00
A Bad DayThe worst visit to Mom's nursing home for me this week was so bad that it's the stuff of black comedy. As I arrived, the woman from the adjoining room waved me over. I hadn't seen her on this trip so far, but she had in the past often given me very helpful updates on my Mom. "Hello, [name deleted]," I said. "Hello," she greeted me with her raspy voice. "Could you help me?""Of course," I said, "What can I do for you?""I'd like to die, now. Could you kill me?""Ah...""You have to hurry, though, before the staff come back."The evening went steadily downhill from there...The aid who brought my mother's supper tray told me that Mom hadn't eaten or drunk anything all day. The pressure was therefore on for me to get something into her.Mom took two sips of soup, and then carefully held out the cup at arm's length. Thinking that she was aiming for her tray table, though way off the mark, I attempted to intercept it. This provokes a very hostile reaction. "What do you think yo...
More About: Mother , Part

Douglas
2008-03-25 06:55:00
I'm still reeling from the death of my brother, Douglas . I had tried phoning him Thursday evening, and when I was sent immediately to voice mail, thought he must be on the phone to our other brother. But when I still hadn't heard from him Friday I started to worry, but assumed there was some innocent explanation. He often took awhile to respond to phone messages because he often went days without using the phone and therefore without hearing that he had messages waiting. But when I still hadn't heard Saturday, I called the nursing home where my mother is and asked if he was there -- he fed mother supper every evening without fail. When he wasn't there and hadn't called to say he was away sick, I phoned his building and had the caretaker break into his suite. She found him dead.This weekend was Tigana's 10th birthday, so we had taken her out of town to Kananaskis for the weekend to celebrate. We decided not to tell her until after the weekend, not only so as not to ruin her bir...

Garfield
2008-03-17 21:38:00
Okay, here's one from Central Ganglion: The Garfield minus Garfield comic."Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let?s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb."Deeply disturbing in a very funny way.
More About: Popular Culture

Personal Genotyping
2008-03-17 21:02:00
Okay, this is pretty cool, in a "The Future is Now", and a "I have a bad feeling about this" kind of way.Check out this blog by Mike Spear, publicist for Genome Alberta. Spear's blog talks about buying a home genotyping kit at Best Buy, and two rather more expensive kits from the Internet, to examine his personal genome. He did the swabs today, and has sent the sealed test tube(s) off to the lab(s), and in due course will be told his genetic medial history. He'll then record in his blog how the process went, which kit gives the best results, and so on. His hope is not merely to compare the three services, but to have the scientists and ethicists he works with comment on the whole process to help work through the implications of all this.In a CBC radio interview this morning, Spear's raised a few of the more obvious issues: if the results come back that he has a genetic predisposition for prostate cancer or memory loss, will he then become obsessive about looking for symptoms? Or...
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Father-in-Law
2008-03-15 16:40:00
My wife got a phone call as she was putting the finishing touches on her keynote address for a conference in Tokyo: Her brother told her that her Dad had taken ill and was not expected to live through the day. Mary booked the next flight up, but her father passed before she could reach his side.Fortunately, we had been up to see him only a couple of weeks before. Although at that point he had been expected to live for a couple of years, he had declined considerably since our previous visit. When Mary had first seen him on that trip, she had doubled over as if punched in the stomach, he had become so skeletal. And, it being one of his 'bad days', he was essentially unable to speak, simply mumbling incomprehensibly. The next day he was a little better, and could speak clearly, but his mind was still confused. I asked him what he had done that day, and he told me that he had spent the whole day here in jail, but that no charges had been laid yet, and they wouldn't tell him what he w...
More About: Father

Book Covers
2008-03-02 15:30:00
A package arrived with two review copies of SF books from a small press publisher. I often review SF for NeoOpsis Magazine. so this is fairly routine, but on this occasion, I happened to be opening the package in front of my wife. Who looked over at the books and said, "Oh my god, those covers are terrible!" I had to agree. Both looked amateurish, and did not encourage me to read the books within. Indeed, I decided these would have to be restricted to nigh time reading because I didn't want to be seen carrying these around in public. My wife spent a minute or two analyzing why the covers were so bad --"They're both awful," she said, "but for different reasons". I had to agree, and expressed some disappointment with the publisher, who generally had better covers then this.Having drawn my wife's attention to the publisher, she looked at the logo and recognized it. "This isn't one of the publishers you were thinking of sending your novel to is it?" I allowed that they were in fact ...
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Kasia Bedtime
2008-03-02 06:26:00
Bedtimes remain contested territory with 4-year old Kasia in spite at our attempts at consistency, firmness etc. Lately, I have been emphasizing that her daily protests and tantrums over having to go to bed -- and no, we're not going to read just one more book, and no, you may not get one more drink of water, etc. etc. etc. -- are a waste of her energy and unproductive because 8:00 o'clock is bedtime and nothing she says or does can change that. Look, I say pointing, it is coming up on 8:00 o'clock so you might as well accept gracefully that you are going to have to go pee and get into your PJs and go to bed, rather than make all this pointless fuss that is frankly unpleasant for everyone.So tonight, after a particularly grumpy session, I again say that her saying all those mean things to me is, well, mean.And she responds, "I am only doing that because you're being so mean to me!"To which I naturally, and now somewhat routinely respond, "Don't get mad at me because it is 8:00 ...

Edward Willett Interview, Part 4
2008-02-09 18:47:00
Robert: So the next obvious question is how do you ensure "characters who are as much like real people as you can?" Are they based on people you know? (and do they know they are those characters?) or are they composites of people you know? Or do you just draw them from your head but try hard to work out the details in a consistent way?Edward : I've never knowingly based a character on a real person (although I do borrow people's last names without shame). In a sense, though, I'd say all characters are composites of people we know, because what else do we have to draw on when it comes to portraying how real people think and talk and react?I usually worry about whether my characters are acting consistently or not. I'm glad you think they turned out okay!Robert: They're not only consistent, but the product of their histories.... So who do you read? Which writers inspire you? Influence your writing?Edward: I suspect the most influential books on my writing aren't recent ones, but ...
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Edward Willett Interview, Part 3
2008-02-07 07:09:00
Robert: I'm always interested in a writer's process. Some writers write by just sitting down at the keyboard and letting things develop as they may; at the other end of the continuum are those that don't set pen to paper until they have a completed outline, a white board filled with timelines and thematic analysis, and a stack of index cards detailing each character, his/her growth, and their interaction with every other character. You've mentioned that Marseguro grew out of a scene you developed in a workshop, but that it was also the first time you sold the synopsis before writing the actual book. So where does your process normally fall on that continuum, and /or can you talk a bit more about how you wrote Marseguro.Edward : The fact I sold Marseguro from a synopsis didn't really change my process too much. I always sit down and do a rough outline, just so I know where the plot is going to go before I start. I'll usually make quite a lot of notes about the world and the char...
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Edward Willett Interview, Part 2
2008-02-05 07:10:00
Robert: One of the things I liked about Marseguro was the complexity of the main, and even a few of the secondary, characters. (This is in sharp contrast with a lot of SF where the viewpoint character is essentially flawless Hero, or at best a Peter Parker flawless Hero-with-angst.) Your viewpoint characters are either slightly damaged individuals or ordinary people (well, aside from the whole gill thing) who have to try to rise to the occasion. And every time they succeed, you keep raising the bar on them for the next task. This makes for very engaging characterizations. So my question is this: if you were casting for the movie version of Marseguro, who would you have playing which roles?Edward : Now there's a question I've never considered.Hmmm. Richad Hansen...how about Nicolas Cage? Seems like an ordinary guy but can do extraordinary things when he has to.Emily Wood...Catherine Zeta-Jones comes to mind, except she's too old. Someone like that, though. I don't see enough movie...
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Edward Willett Interview, Part 1
2008-02-05 03:17:00
Edward Willett, author of Marseguro and Lost in TranslationRobert: In my review of Marseguro for Neo-Opsis Magazine, I said that "As the stakes continually rise, the protagonists have to constantly up their game to overcome yet greater obstacles and confront yet more profound ethical issues...As in Lost in Translation the characters have to confront their prejudices, overcome their justifiable hatreds, examine their loyalties and -- even more clearly in this book ? Willett seems to suggest that triumph ultimately belongs to the characters who able to experience the most growth. The winners are those who are able to place others over self, whereas the losers are undone by their core selfishness. In Willett's universe, karma counts..." So I have to ask -- did I get that right? Do you believe in Karma? Was that a conscious theme of Marseguro?Edward: I guess I would say I believe in karma as a good organizational principle for storytelling. Certainly I don't see much evidence of it i...
More About: Interview , Part , Edward

Interview with Edward Willett
2008-02-05 03:03:00
I'm doing an interview with author Edward Willett on Facebook for the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy group (moderated by BC author, Donna Farley) to coincide with today's official release of Marseguro, Ed's second mass market SF novel. I'll reprint my questions and Ed's answers here when it's done, but if you'd like to add your own Q and A to the process, join us any time between now and Thursday Feb 7 on Facebook.You can also read the first two chapters of the book at Ed's site and view the book trailer. My review of Marsguro is in the current issue of Neo-Opsis or you can read the positive bits excerpted on Ed's blog Ed's Blog.
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New SF Imprint
2008-01-31 20:08:00
Not the sort of SF I write -- or usually read -- but nevertheless an interesting announcement:University of Ottawa Press Announces Speculative Fiction Imprint The University of Ottawa Press is very pleased to announce its new speculative fiction imprint, Cangrande. The imprint will include books of ?science-based fiction,? novels which draw heavily on current scientific research. In the tradition of Francis Bacon, Mary Shelley, and Aldous Huxley, Cangrande books will emphasize the social and ethical challenges technological innovation poses to human existence, and explore the utopian vision of the future promised by science and materialism. ?We are very excited about this new imprint,? says UOP Marketing Manager Jessica Clark. ?It signals an important shift in our publishing program towards trade books. We also feel that Cangrande?s editorial mandate fits perfectly within our scholarly list. Though these books use the novel form to dramatize scientific progress and the ethical issue...

50 movies in 50 days
2008-01-27 23:56:00
I've been catching up with John Herbert's blog, Shlock and Yawn and was very impressed with his current series, 50 movies in 50 days, in which he reviews old SF movies, most of which no one has ever heard of...or wished that they hadn't heard of them! Highly entertaining.
More About: Movies , Days , Popular Culture

Hawaii Aftermath
2008-01-27 17:16:00
The wind was over 100K Friday, the temperature cold enough to freeze even the hardiest Canadian, so the combination was not pleasant. Indeed, Kasia flatly refused to go out into the already dark afternoon following Ballet class, even though we had no alternative to walking across the windswept parking lot to the car if we were to get home. But in the end, cries of "I'm not going out there" could only be overcome by my physically picking her up and carrying her to the car. Which turned out to be damned difficult in the face of gusts up to 120K, which, with her added weight and a thick layer of ice on the ground, stopped me cold in my tracks. But we eventually made it across the cold dark vast expanse of the otherwise empty university parking lot (her ballet class is Friday afternoon, so all the university students and faculty were long gone) and I got her buckled into her car seat. As I started the freezing cold car and drove out of the lot, I once again heard a little voice from t...
More About: Caribbean , Alaska , Hawaii , Florida , Cruise

Hawaii: Left over photo
2008-01-01 06:58:00
As an aside on the trip, I find it fascinating how digital has changed how kids deal with photography, scenery, and trips. When I was a kid, I didn't get a camera until about 12 or 13, and then just enough film and flashbulbs to take maybe 12 pictures. And you waited a couple of months to find out how your pictures came out because you couldn't see the first ones until you took the last picture on the roll, and then another couple of weeks for processing. (Admittedly, I'm old, and things had improved a bit by the time digital was phasing out film.) But today, Kasia can have a cheap digital camera at age 4; her camera shows her what she took immediately, and she can take about 5000 photos with the memory chip I got her without any further investment in film or processing. Tigana, at age nine, has developed quite an interest in architecture because she has been photographing it since she was six. We first loaned Tigana a digital camera when touring Casa Loma years ago, on what was ...
More About: Photo , Hawaii , Left , Cruise

Hawaii: Sunsets and Rainbows
2007-12-31 20:12:00
The licence plates say, "rainbow state" and it's no exaggeration. I don't think that there was a single day that went by that we didn't see one or more spectacular rainbows. But they could also have called it the sunset state (though I suppose some of the connotations there are not quite as good!) because every night had a spectacular sunset too.
More About: Hawaii , Sunsets , Rainbows , Rainbo

Kasia's Song
2007-12-28 20:12:00
"Anywhere you go,Anywhere you go,Anywhere you go,There you are!"She sings this one a lot. So I asked her about it and she said, "You'll have to talk to my people." "Your people" I asked.She pointed to her shelf of 'My Little Ponies'. "Those are my people. You need to check with them." So I'm thinking maybe we have spoilt the kids a little with these vacations in Hawaii and staying in conference hotels etc, that they are starting to think of themselves as upper class. So I said to Mary we have to take our kids camping for the next vacation, or maybe a Motel 6 kind of level. "Let's do the camping," Mary replied. "At least then the bugs belong there...."
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Cruise: Other Passengers
2007-12-24 05:27:00
One of the things I found intriguing about the cruise was studying the other passengers. There were any number of middle class businessmen and their families as one would expect, but I also noted some others who seemed, um... well, to have more colorful careers. I am sure the two Russian families and the Colombians were probably insurance agents or some such, but the two bikers wearing full colors were, well, bikers. And I couldn't help noticing that the bikers were exceedingly polite to the Russian and Colombian families. Made you wonder, you know?And then there was the very muscular black guy who never smiled and had a tattoo of a seal on his arm -- navy seal maybe? He had the build and the security guy look, and we are talking Hawaii with its major naval bases, so not entirely implausible. But this guy kept looking this way and that like someone doing a threat assessment, but he's, you know, in a hot tub on a cruise ship, not guarding the president. And did I mention he never ...
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