I'm Not Boring You Am I?I'm Not Boring You Am I?Dr. Robert Runté on popular culture, education, and life. 
Articles
Expresso Book Machine
2009-06-08 19:32:00 Went up to visit my mom this weekend, and stopped into the UofA bookstore to have a look at the Expresso book machine.The UofA machine is a custom built model one (though you can't see 'em in this photo, it has four printers attached instead of the usual one) was installed Nov. 2007. Apparently the machine attracted a lot of publicity when it was installed, but living 500 k away in Lethbridge, I hadn't heard of it at the time. Having recently seen the video on the version 2, I sought the machine out and was surprised to find that the UofA had already been using theirs for a couple of years.I was extremely impressed by both the quality of the books being printed -- they were distinguishable from the regular pocket books or trade paperbacks on the nearby shelves only by the superior crispness of the Expresso's interior printing -- and by the passion of the woman in charge who clearly took pride in her work, and went out of her way to be helpful. The original version was just kind... More About: Machine , Book
Not one of my best moments...
2009-05-18 17:41:00 This is wrong on so many levels, but they say confession is good for the soul....Wednesday I had a couple of teeth on the upper right crowned, only one of them turned out to be past saving, and the dentist had to pull it instead. So getting a tooth pulled isn't great, and the extraction was 'complicated' -- which means it felt like they had to break my upper jaw/skull to get it out, but okay, what's done is done. They sent me home to take Advil and hope for the best. I have to say, getting massive amounts of Advil in there before the swelling started worked wonders for keeping the tooth pain down to mild background noise, though the bleeding did make me nauseous, and Advil doesn't agree with my stomach all that well. The hole in my upper jaw where the tooth used to be reminded me pretty fast if I forgot to take the next dose on time, or if a stray piece of pasta wandered over to the side of the mouth I wasn't eating on. But four days on, it's not exactly foreground.Enter my w... More About: Moments
origami
2009-04-22 21:37:00 This is pretty interesting: trailer for "Between the Folds". See also this great 18 minute TED talk on Origami . First rate, worth your time!
100th Birthday
2009-04-09 20:09:00 Sunday, April 5th, was my mother's 100th birthday. It was a small affair, attended only by myself, my wife, and our two daughters. There were several reasons we didn't want to make too big a deal out of it.First, my mom has good days and bad days, and I didn't much care for the idea of having a lot of people descend on my mom's nursing home if it turned out to be one of the bad days. In the event, she was mostly okay. (The nurse told me that mom hadn't wanted to get out of bed that morning, but that they had coaxed her into her wheel chair because they knew we were coming.) She was awake for most of the two hours we were there, and not in too much pain, and alert and in moderately good spirits, so we could have had more visitors, but you never know. Mom having a cup of tea as one of the nurses we really like joins us for the celebration.Tigana, Kasia (just peeking in over Tigana's shoulder), me, and Mary with my Mom on her 100th birthday. Mom is appreciatively cuddling with th... More About: Birthday
Rejection Letters
2009-04-09 03:07:00 Lorina Stephens, author of Shadow Song reviewed here previously, has posted to her blog the rejection letters she received from the mainstream press before turning to self-publishing. I found the letters -- the reasons she was given by various publishers for not publishing her historical cultural fantasy novel -- fascinating, both as someone who read and loved the book, and as an aspiring writer myself. I asked Lorina if I could reprint her column here; my own commentary on the letters follows: ======================== Every writer gets them, those dreaded letters, forms, slips of paper or, more currently, emails that either cryptically or in detail describe why it is their work won't be appearing on that publisher's list.Given the reviews and success I'm meeting as a self-published author, who grew weary with excuses and the ritual of the publishing world, I thought I'd post five of many rejections I received for my novel, Shadow Song. You may, or may not, find them of inter... More About: Letters , Rejection
April Fools
2009-04-02 02:04:00 Well, we did a couple of childish pranks on our kids. On our way to bed, at 12:01 AM, we woke Tigana up and told her it was time for school. "You're kidding," she protested, "it feels like I just got to sleep!" which is pretty accurate. She got as far as the bathroom for her morning shower before she spotted the clock. "Oh, you guys! I knew it all along!" Back to bed.So then we went around setting the clocks an hour ahead. We originally thought we'd get them up an hour early, driving them to school to find the doors still closed, but that would have meant us getting up an hour early, so we went with plan B. The alarm goes off, and mom jumps up shouting, "Oh no! We've overslept! You have to be at school in 20 minutes!" followed by much running around getting ready -- complicated somewhat by Tigana telling Kasia that today was Pajama Day as her prank on Kasia -- jumping into the car and racing off to school. We got about a block before Tigana spotted the car clock, and called us on... More About: April
Poetry
2009-03-31 17:40:00 This poem has been doing the rounds of writer's blogs/Facebook/Twitter this week, and is now my favorite new poem: http://torch.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/b ookofmyenemy.htmlWorks for academics as much as writers. More About: Poetry
Jackie Hurt
2009-03-18 05:46:00 So I came in from my walk last night and turned around to see this on Jackie 's hip. We phoned the vet immediately, even though it was after10:00 already; and then we tried to figure out what the hell had happened while we waited for the vet to call back.Mary and the kids had been playing with Jackie for an hour before I took Jackie out for her evening walk, and hadn't noticed anything, so it was pretty obvious it had to have happened on the walk. But I couldn't for the life of me figure out how she could have acquired such a wound while on a four foot leash without my noticing. I rewalked the route in my mind's eye, and while there is one fence on our usual route that has two nails sticking out of it, we always give it a wide birth; and while Jackie had had one of her freakouts barking at one of the neighbour dogs (most days she's okay with his barking from behind the fence, but every once in awhile he must bark something especially rude, because she pulls and jumps and goes nu... More About: Hurt
Self-Publishing and the Exception to the Rule
2009-03-16 21:13:00 It's easy to see that the publishing industry, like the music industry before it, is undergoing major changes where in future it may not be uncommon to see writers simply bypassing the publishers altogether to sell directly to their readers. The new print-on-demand publishers (like Lulu) make it extremely easy and economical for writers to self-publish, especially where these have immediate access to on-line distribution through Amazon or Chapters. This is good, because in cutting out the middleman (publishers, retailers) costs can be kept down, yet with a much higher return from the cover price going directly to the writer. But this is also very bad, because without a publisher acting as 'referee', the reader has almost no way of navigating through the storm of self-publishing that is threatening to overwhelm us. Self-publishing is often legitimate when dealing with small niche or regional markets. As small publishers have increasingly been bought out by larger national publ... More About: Publishing , Exception , Rule
Bad Dog!
2009-03-07 03:24:00 Mary and I are reluctant to kennel Jackie during the day. Jackie is great at voluntarily going into her kennel at night, often without even being asked, but flops onto the ground and has to be dragged to her kennel on the rare occasions when we've kenneled her during the day. So, if we intend to be away for brief periods, we have been letting her roam the house.In anticipation of Jackie being at home alone, we go around closing bedroom doors and so on, so she just has the run of the basement and the ground floor -- kitchen, dinning room, and front room. I'm fairly good at policing those areas to ensure there is nothing left out that Jackie can destroy, though Jackie has been steadily educating us on what constitutes "potential toy" to her. The electrical cord on the vacuum cleaner, for example, took me by surprise; luckily it wasn't plugged in at a time. But just like with baby-proofing the house when Tigana and Kasia were small, we now automatically lift everything chewable up ...
Dog Dreams
2009-02-22 21:14:00 So, I'm having a normal dream, something about waiting in the Green room just prior to addressing the Intergalactic Council (okay, I meant 'normal' for me) when suddenly my recently deceased dog, Pooka, shows up, barking like mad. It's the "Come quick, Jimmy's fallen down the well" kind of barking, so I cast about for the emergency. I become aware without quite knowing how, as you do in dreams, that the (I'm not quite clear who at this point) soul has left the body and we have to get it back in. So the background shifts, and I'm in the basement of my previous house (more or less) with Mary and Tigana all shouting at this free floating soul (which I half realize by now is Kasia) to go back to her body quickly before it's too late, and waving our arms as if to brush the soul back in the right direction on the air currents our fanning creates. Pooka is bouncing up and down and barking more frantically than any of us. Then I say, "I can't see it!" because, you know, souls are i... More About: Dreams
Training Jackie
2009-02-15 17:06:00 Dog training has been a slow process for us. Jackie is a hyperintelligent dog, so the problem, I know, lies largely with us.The first problem is that I started out talking to Jackie in "Dad mode", as if she were one of my kids. My natural tendency is to try to reason with Jackie and explain what I want, but of course, dogs don't have language, so what she hears is "Blah blah blah blah, Jackie, blah blah blah." which is probably not very helpful. And using my soft Dad voice meant that half the time she didn't even know I was talking to her. So the dog trainer told me, "Fix a mental picture in your head that you've come from the store and found that Jackie has trashed the inside of your car" and that seemed to help a lot. Now I bark at the dog, and at least she knows I'm talking to her.But that one was obvious, and sort of understandable. More troublesome was Jackie barking at other dogs on our walks. Even though she is a kind and gentle dog, she'd bark like crazy at certain oth... More About: Training
Treadmill
2009-02-04 17:15:00 Okay, this is pretty cool.Arthur Slade's article on writing novels while on a treadmill.I'm very tempted to try this....
On Air Travel
2009-01-19 17:14:00 Flew up to Edmonton to check on my Mom (I was worried about her having been relocated within the nursing home) and to check on the renovations done to Doug's place, and to arrange for renovations to begin on the next condo, and so on. On the plane up from Calgary the flight attendant asked if I would be willing to switch places with the guy sitting next to the emergency exit because he didn't want to be responsible for opening the door if it came to that. (He looked sick, so maybe he felt he was too weak to do the job.) "There's more leg room in that row" the Stewardess told me, by way of providing me with an incentive. I shrugged and moved rows because, what the hey. So she does her training spiel, which I've heard maybe 12 times this year, and on the Dashes, the emergency door really is not that complicated. But I'm feeling put out about having to go up to Edmonton in the first place, so when she asks if there are any questions, I reply by asking, "Is there a discount for si... More About: Travel , Air Travel
Grocery Lists
2009-01-14 05:30:00 I'm not sure what it says about the state of the world, but I'm often fascinated that there is no topic on which someone or other has not published. There are, for example, two books available on lost grocery lists:Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found (Hardcover)and the even more interesting A la Cart by performance artist Hilary Carlip.These are second only to "The Barbed Wire Collector Magazine" (the only remaining magazine on the topic, we are told, which suggests there used to be competitors) as most surprising demographic.... Who are the subscribers here? And what, after over 30 years and nearly 200 issues, is there left to say about Barbed Wire? More About: Popular Culture
Walking the Dog
2009-01-14 03:20:00 We love our new dog. Okay, we're a bit ticked that she ate our couch, three pairs of shoes, Tigana's prize hat, three Barbies, the electrical cord off the vacuum cleaner, four Christmas ornaments (why couldn't she have eaten the ugly ones?) a monopoly game -- indeed, everything within her surprisingly high reach -- except of course for her chew toys -- but one has to expect a 'settling in' period. We're good!But the other night, Mary came in a bit shaken up because, while out for their mid-evening walk, Jackie had gone completely nuts. She had slipped her collar and taken off after a woman in a yellow coat with two tiny dogs. Mary managed -if only just - to restrain Jackie by hugging her tightly until the others were gone, but was completely taken aback at this uncharacteristic behavior. Jackie mostly doesn't bark, and when she does, it is a polite greeting to other friendly dogs, or a warning growl at some wildly barking manic dog as we pass by their yard. Nothing out of th... More About: Walking
Back to Lethbridge, and Winter in Alberta
2009-01-11 04:04:00 We left Lethbridge in a week when it was -40, so we really appreciated Hawaii . Unfortunately, the return home was correspondingly traumatic. We went from this:Sunset at our condo on Mauito this:Our patio furniture in LethbridgeBut we quickly discovered that there is no sympathy available for "jet lag climate syndrome". "You had two weeks in Hawaii?! We were stuck here in 40 below and 3 feet of snow the whole time! I had to shovel for three hours to clear my driveway, and I still couldn't go anywhere because the streets weren't plowed." And so on. One of the worst winters in Lethbridge in a long time...so a good time for us to have been gone.But we've discovered that our kids don't really understand cold. In my generation (I'm old, so think two generations ago), kids walked to school. (Okay, okay, I lived across the street from my school, but other kids walked up to 15 blocks to school). Today, we drive our kids to school, even though Tigana's school is only two blocks away. A... More About: Winter , Home , Back , Alberta
Dolophins, Whales and Shrimp
2008-12-31 08:42:00 Went out Dolphin Watching this morning, and immediately saw several humpback Whales . Previous whale watching experiences were pretty much limited to the occasional spout and glimpse of a back, but today we got the full show -- blow, back, swimming around, tail up dive, all within maybe 100 yards. Very nice. Then Spinner Dolphins, a whole bay full, doing synchronized swimming for us, and leaping, and, yes, spinning. The naturalist on board (Pacific Whale Foundation tour)described spinner dolphin spins, but I didn't really believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. And I got to see a baby dolphin leap up just feet away from me -- very very cute, though I won't know if I caught it on film until I can download to the computer. Some of the dolphins swam close enough to almost touch. Astounding sight! Then, complete surprise to everyone, came into a crowd of spotted dolphins on the way back to shore, and several more humpbacks. A totally awesome morning!Lunch turned out to also be quit... More About: Hawaii , Shrimp
A Quiet Christmas Morning at Home....
2008-12-27 09:11:00 Last year, we spent the two weeks leading up to Christmas in Hawaii (partly at a conference, but still!) and have had a number of extra-ordinary trips this year, so we spent much of the last three months telling the girls that this year, we were going to have a nice quiet Christmas morning at home. The tradition in our house is that Christmas eve everyone opens new pajama's, Christmas morning the girls get up and open their Christmas stockings, followed by a special breakfast, and then open presents. It makes for a pleasant morning. Tigana especially was psyched up for this agreeing -- indeed insisting -- that she too wanted nothing more than a quiet Christmas at home this year. (Kasia was less convinced. Ever since we went to Hawaii last year, she has constantly asked at least once a week when we are going back; named her new webkin's pony she got for her Birthday in Nov "Hawaii", and made it clear that if she had a choice she would choose Hawaii over any day at home.)So.Christma... More About: Home , Morning
Chapters at Christmas
2008-12-18 16:19:00 Went to Chapters (our only bookstore in this town) this week with my tenyear old because we both love to browse books. But I forgot that in theChristmas pre-season, Chapters takes on extra staff, and browsing is nolonger possible. I sent my daughter to the 9-12 year old section, then headed to thewashroom. On my return trip from the washroom to the kid's section, I wasapproached 12 times (literally, no exaggeration) by Chapter's staff asking"Are you finding everything you want, sir?" Each time I crossed to a newcategory of books, a new clerk would emerge to ask the exact same questionphrased in the exact same way as I passed through their territory. When Ipaused in one section, my eye having been caught by a couple of titles, the same young man approached me threetimes in the space of about six minutes -- what, he didn't recognize me from30 seconds earlier? He thought that since I had been standing in the samespot for over 60 seconds I would now be prepared to admit that I was st...
Our new dog, Jackie
2008-12-07 20:05:00 Photo by WendyWe've been debating getting a dog ever since Pooka passed away in November, but have had a hard time believing we could ever get an animal as special as he was. But as it has become increasingly clear that the kids needed a dog in their lives, asap, so Mary has been tracking via their websites all the dogs that have come into various local shelters. (Mary wanted a "rescue' dog to partially pay back to dogdom how much our family had received from Pooka.) Several dogs seemed like possibilities but hadn't panned out for one reason or another -- one turned out to be fostered in Michigan, too far for us to meet; another couple were adopted before we found out about them; Mary took the kids to meet a very likely candidate, but Mary and Kasia suddenly started sneezing, which seemed like a bad sign; another was taken off the rescue market because the foster mom couldn't give the dog up. We tended to be fairly fatalistic about these developments, since we believed that we ... More About: Jackie
Theo Tams and Tigana
2008-11-30 06:50:00 Mary took Tigana to see Theo Tams and the other Canadian Idol finalists tonight as Tigana's Christmas present... and so naturally -- given the charmed life my daughter leads -- they were invited backstage for a meet and greet with all four performers.Back row: Theo Tams, Amberlee Thiesen, Mitch MacDonald, Drew Wright; Front: TiganaAlmost looks like the four Idol finalists are Tigana's backup singers in this shot... More About: Popular Culture
Shatner for Gov General
2008-11-20 22:30:00 Check out this group on Facebook that wants to push William Shatner for the next Governor General (2009).Not sure how serious Gingras is about this one, but it is an excellent example of Facebook (and similar social networking software) implications for grass roots political movements -- and how democracy really does mean "mob rule".
The Old New Romans
2008-11-05 17:28:00 Canadians have had a long history of comparing America to the Roman Empire (e.g., The New Romans , Hurtig, 1968.), so I couldn't help drawing a parallel between the election of the first black (well, he's a bit black anyway) President yesterday, and the election of Trajan as the first non-Roman emperor. Trajan revitalized the empire simply by being Emperor (though he was also a pretty good organizer, general, and etc. as it happens) because he proved that the extension of Roman citizenship to everyone in the Empire was authentic. You no longer had to be a Roman to work your way up to the seat of power. This immediately united the Empire because every general and governor stopped dreaming about rebelling and setting up their own little fiefdom, and instead took seriously the thought that one day they might get to be Emperor of the whole thing. Listening to CBC's The Current this morning interviewing social workers in Chicago and how, knowing that Obama had started as an activist in...
Pooka's last hour
2008-11-01 20:17:00 Depressed today about having to take Pooka, our 18 year old 'puppy' to the vet for the last time. He's had a long and rich doggie life, and he got six more months of good life than the vet had predicted when we first got the terminal diagnosis. but it's now come to the point where if we wait any longer he will likely start to suffer. So, however selfishly we would like to keep him around longer, it's time.Our other dog was, well, a dog. So while we loved and will miss Portia, it's not the same. Pooka was an old soul. He understood things dogs don't; he saved my wife's life on at least a couple of occasions, and it was he who told Mary to go with me. (Every other potential boyfriend had been barked out of the house, and on one memorable occasion, not allowed in the door; until me --Pooka sniffed me a couple of times, and jumped up into my lap. Mary's expression at that moment should have told me something, but it wasn't until he was my dog too that I came to understand and ... More About: Hour
Our House from Space
2008-10-20 03:51:00 Ours is the house on the lower left. I can actually pick out our garbage can (grey smudge, middle right margin). Interesting view, but little worried about privacy issues. Not that you can tell too much from our picture, but the looking at the larger picture (from which this was cropped) is the first time I knew the neighbour two doors down had a pool. More About: House , Space , Home
Edmonton and Cancer Run
2008-10-10 06:57:00 So for the last four weekends I've gone up to Edmonton to sort through Doug's stuff and get his condo(s) ready for sale. Counting the six hour trip each direction, I manage to put in three 18 hour days each time, so it is pretty exhausting. It is also kind of depressing disposing of all his stuff, much of it treasured family memories. But Doug had a lot of stuff, and neither my family nor my remaining brother have need or space for all this material, so in the end, most of it has to go. In keeping with what I am sure would be Doug's wishes, I tried to ensure as much as possible went to good homes. So the Provincial Museum took three boxes of stuff (they told me it is unusual for them to take even a single item from an estate, because they have only limited storage and so have to be pretty picky -- but Douglas had not only saved a lot of the everyday things most people through out, but had kept detailed written records of each purchase, giving them the providence for various suits... More About: Cancer
Podcasts
2008-10-09 19:20:00 I did a Harris online survey awhile back that asked about my ipod usage, and it was an excellent example of bad survey design, because after I answered that I had 29 days worth of material on my ipod, the survey asked me to identify what % of that was devoted to which genre of music, and the system crashed when I entered "0" for each category. Because at the moment, I have no music whatsoever on my ipod; it's all podcasting. Stupidly, the survey assumed ipod usage = music, and there was no "podcast" or "talk-radio" or even "other" option available. Good example of bad design: you have to know all the possible options before sending out a survey.One reason I have 29 days worth of material is that I seldom get a chance to listen: I'm either working my day job or looking after the kids; and even car time tends to be devoted to the kid's radio choices, rather than my own. So the one nice thing about spending all these weekends cleaning Doug's condos was the opportunity to listen t... More About: Podcasts
Private Library
More articles from this author:2008-09-26 06:46:00 This cool article from Wired Magazine brought to my attention by Randy Reichardt:http://www.wired.com/techbiz/pe ople/magazine/16-10/ff_walker?currentPage =allMy number 1 question on seeing this library is, "Do they have a writers-in- residence program? More About: Library , Private 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
|
 |
|
 |
