Monologue

Feb, March, April, May, June, July August, September, October, November, December
Monitor problem notes start
World Trade Building Attack start
Bottom,

January 14
This is the beginning off an experimental new feature. I'll try to update it nearly daily. It's not quite a diary, but more the raw form of editorials and reviews. The idea is to get my thoughts down sort of mostly as they happen, and see what gets linked to what. The good bits could show up later in a more polished form. I may talk about books that don't make it into the review section; there's already been some of those. There may be connections between movies and books, or whatever comes together in my head.

I've been working on getting caught up on the movie reviews. These are still evolving in terms of what information will be included. I don't really see any point to including information that's already in the Internet Movie Database . So far the reviews talk about my reactions to the movie, and what format I watched it in. After all, watching the DVD with bonus tracks is a different experience that watching it without them, and different again from watching a video or seeing in a theatre.

We just came back from a talk and slide show that our friend Kim put together after her trips to the Mideast. Now I want to go to Egypt. And Istanbul, and Greece. She's putting on another slide show two weeks from tonight.

January 15
I got the Darwin Awards in an e-mail from a friend. It makes me shake my head at the sheer stupidity of some people. I just think of it as evolution in action, which might or might not be the case in a traffic accident we heard about at work today. A traffic camera taped the accident, and the mpeg was sent around as a reminder of the dangers of driving while talking on a cell phone. The car rear-ended a tow truck just as the load bed was coming level. You can see the back of the load bed skim up over the hood and crash into the base of the windshield. The driver, his wife, and their child died. It was reported that he was talking on a cellphone, and had been recently fined for the same offense.

January 20
That's the thing about trial versions of software; they expire. Sometimes the expiry date isn't exactly convenient compared to the rest of your life. I've been trying to sell a laser printer for about the cost of Dreamweaver, but I haven't had any nibbles so far. The local Mac computer club got first dibs, but it looks like it's time for the Bargain Finder or e-Bay. I finished installing a bought version of Dreamweaver, but didn't get a chance to play with it right away. We rented Cider House Rules, and wanted to watch it without staying up too late. My first impression is how lifelike the movie was. We see only a part of lots of stories, and it's obvious they carry on without us watching. It's also obvious there are no neat solutions or a happy ending for all concerned.

January 21
Book club meeting this afternoon at the Arden Diner. We were to talk about Deadheads by Reginald Hill, but not everybody had read it. I'm still amazed at what a wimp winter we are having so far. Here we are in mid-January, with temperatures well above zero. Our worry is that our garden will decide spring has come, then we'll get a cold snap. Such are the tribulations of gardening in Calgary.

January 22
Got the site synchronization figured out and set up. Sexy! Beats the heck out of Fetch! Finished up my Future series. Next step is to look at frames for the op-ed page.

January 24
Added the review for Leigh Clarke's crossing of the Empty Quarter. I'm a little disappointed that the link to the site doesn't work. I don't know if that's just a temporary problem or not. I really enjoyed the show, although I didn't pay much attention to it while it was happening. My attitude is much like what Clarke says of the Bedouins, "why make life any harder than it already is?" I couldn't really understand why they wanted to do the trip. After all, they can't claim to be the first. It's a challenge, yes, I can understand that, but I find day to day life here in Calgary sufficiently challenging most of the time. His show was very well put together, and he is an excellent speaker. He dealt really well with the kids, but didn't bore the adults.

Feb 1
Busy, busy, busy. I'm in the middle of selling my laser printer or figuring out how to get it to hook up to my G4. My friend James has been very helpful. So far it looks doable, though the exact details of the black box that connects ethernet hub/cabling to a parallel or serial port is still mysterious. I've had one call expressing interest in the printer. If we can come to a price I'll sell it. The network intricacies might be interesting, but are more likely to be frustrating. When I need a printer again I can choose from what's available then that will plug directly into my new computer. Lots and lots of e-mail traffic on one message board, very interesting. If you're a Pelican you'll know what I'm talking about.

Feb 7
Back from Whitecourt. Busy. Seems like I'm writing e-mail, working, dancing or sleeping. Thinking about the various facets of human genius.

Feb 14
The last couple weeks have been a storm of personal e-mail. There's been much excellent discussion on the SCA Pelican's list. Each time I'd sign on there'd be 3 times my usual volume of mail. It's interesting to see one person's name show up several times in a row, with the same topic heading. The one topic kind of mutated, and we didn't start sub-topic threads. This was one of the times I've been really eager to get to my mail. No flames, even though a number of people hold very different opinions. They even set up a chat line to discuss one proposal. I've never seen much point in the chat rooms, but this would have been interesting. Pity I had other obligations.

I was reading about the human genome project in the Globe yesterday. Very interesting implications.

Feb 16
Genome: implications? To public, medical establishment, insurance companies, business. Do we know the difference between a genetic outcome (this person will have red hair) and a possibility (this person is susceptible to certain kinds of cancer)? Does it matter if they pass an unwanted trait along, but do not have it themselves? Can we tell what a favourable or unfavourable trait is yet? Some have suggested that a potential for alcoholism is a genetic trait. So what if it is, and we can identify such a trait in a person. What do we do? Do we restrict their freedom by preventing them (somehow) from taking a drink? What about more serious issues? What about crime? Should the police be allowed to take a drop of blood or a hair clipping when you are a suspect in a crime? Should you be allowed to volunteer them to clear yourself? Should we keep a genetic library on all citizens? Then when a crime is committed and the criminal has left genetic material behind (semen, skin, hair) finding the id of the criminal is a matter of them looking up the person in the library. And what do we do with criminals who are smart enough to "salt" the crime scene with someone else's genetic material? Should genetic information be on our health care cards? On our identity documents? When should other people have access to our genetic information?

March 3
This transit strike has really affected my routines. I normally walk from the LRT station to home as a way of getting regular exercise. Having to make alternate transit arrangements has put the kibosh on that, and I've not really adjusted yet. It's thrown off my schedule in other things as well, so I haven't got as much writing done as I'd have liked. I think the city has come off really badly on this.

In other news, it looks like the Alberta PC's are going to walk away with the election. The liberals my wife talked to were utterly helpless when they tried to explain what they would do about the electrical deregulation problems.

Just finished a book about the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in the late 1800's. Much more interesting that I thought it would be. Now lets see if I can find some links for a book review.

March 14
The transit strike is still on. The Mayor and negotiators at the City of Calgary are being unbelievably stubborn and stupid. The Union is willing to go to binding arbitration, but the City says that is inappropriate. Tell me again how they just settled with another union using, guess what, binding arbitration. I've already sent a letter to my Alderman, who is in favour of going to binding arbitration.

The Alberta PC's did walk away from the election, and appear to have destroyed Nancy Macbeth's political career. Ralph gets more popular with each election, or so it seems.

March 17
Another article, this time in the Globe and Mail that uses incomplete or misleading numbers. The March 16 edition tried to relate education and net worth. The graph doesn't seem to take into account the age, location, or particular kind of degree. After all, some degrees are useless, and others are very marketable. Even people graduating with a good degree may not have much if any wealth accumulated until some time after they are out of school.

Spring appears to have arrived in Calgary, but March is often the cruelest month. Warm and balmy days can suddenly be replaced by several centimeters of wet snow. We worry about the plants in the boxes out front. They are the most likely to think it's time to wake up and head for the sunlight. So far they seem to have done ok, surviving frosts and snow, but still.

I read in the paper today that the Mayor of Calgary still has not decided if he's going to run for reelection. That means I have to send him a letter. My plan is to tell him that any chimp from the zoo could probably be doing a better job of dealing with the transit situation, and that there is no possibility of my voting for him. Just in case he was wondering.

March 18
I'm reading a really good book called The Playful World How technology is Transforming our Imagination, by Mark Pesce. He starts with Furby, moves to Lego Mindstorms, then to Sega Playstation 2. This prompted me to go look at the Lego web site; now I want to go look at the toys in person. Maybe, just maybe, I can come up with a robot that can chase my cats when they whine outside my bedroom door at 2am.

April 1
The transit strike is still on. Sigh. At least they are negotiating again, and supposedly a mediator is involved. Why couldn't they have done this a month ago? And Chretien! Why didn't he come clean a month ago? He lied every step along the way about every aspect of the issue. He only changed his story when he was forced to. The documents released hardly exonerate him. The handwritten document could have been done anytime, and has no witness signatures. All in all, I think Joe Clark has come out of this looking pretty good.

I've been busy on a couple of courses; one week out at Strathmore on a Safety 2000 course, and most of a week out at Joffre on a database course. It was good to get home for the weekend. I haven't spent as much time on this page as I would have liked to, but there are times when it's best to let things slide.

April 2
I think we've had more snow today than we've had on any one day all winter. It was snowing off and on throughout the day, but once the sun set the storm really picked up. At times it looked like a full scale blizzard out there. Between 6 and 9 pm about 10 cm fell, and it's still going on, still windy. I'm not looking forward to shoveling tomorrow morning. At least it isn't cold out.

April 8
Another snow storm just like last week is supposed to arrive today, and we've been getting brief flurries. Most of the snow from last week is gone. Although I should get out for a walk, it's very nice to be inside working on the novel a bit. I've started reading Kim, and a biography of Oscar Peterson.

April 12
Finished the bio of Oscar Peterson. Very interesting, see my review. I've also just finished reading the April edition of both Scientific American and Harper's. The SA wasn't as good as I had hoped, but Harper's was a wonderful read. My first impression is very favourable.

The transit strike is over at last!

April 15
More cool weather this weekend, with minor snow flurries coming through. Still steaming through Kim, though it's just graduated to the top of my reading list. I'm one of those people that usually have several books on the go at once. As I said, Kim just percolated to the top, since it's beside my comfy chair. What's tricky about reading Kipling is flipping back and forth between the text and the notes at the back. Vanity Fair is in my pack for reading on the LRT (now that it's running). The complete plays of Gilbert and Sullivan is on the table to read during breakfast. I'm not reading the whole thing, just HMS Pinafore. We saw Topsey-Turvey the other night. We enjoyed it, and though the director said that no knowledge of the G&S or Mikado is necessary, I'm quite sure that a fan will get much more out of it than we did. Brothers in Arms by LM Bujold is in the bathroom. I know that book well enough that I enjoy reading random snippets.

April 21
I watched some film clips of the Quebec Summit last night. You have to wonder about the protesters. Or some of them. Most of the protesters seem content to make noise and put on a display. If that's all that happened we wouldn't need a fence. But there are a small minority of people that feel compelled to disrupt proceedings any way they can. Those are the people for whom a fence was put up. Pity we can't sort them out from the other protesters.

It's amusing that the protesters always say that in any riot the police provoked the incident with their activities. I remember the World Petroleum Congress being held in Calgary. At most of the actual protests there were more cops than protesters. Was there any trouble? No, not the slightest. So much for the cops causing the problem. All they do is respond. During the Congress the fences were gradually moved further and further back, as the threat of violence diminished, but I doubt we'll see the same thing happening here.

April 29
Summer has arrived! At least you would believe it looking at the weather over the last couple of days. You couldn't ask for better. However, like love, weather is a fickle thing in Alberta, particularly Southern Alberta. We could still get lots of snow. I'm busy making lists of all the things to do around the house outside.

The books are going well. Kim is moving right along. I already know I want to buy it so I can read it again, but the trick is finding a decent copy. I found a hard cover for under $10, but it was a little battered, and didn't have any of the notes in the back that the library's Penguin version has. I had several books on hold come at the same time, and isn't that how the world works? I zipped through Stalking the Elephant, and realized at the time that I'll probably go back and reread at least portions of it. As well, for my more serious moments, I've just started Noble Frankland's Witness to a Century.

Just in the last little while I've fallen in love with music older than I am. I knew of Ella, of course, and liked the songs that I had heard. But I hadn't really listened to her voice, and the music, and the words. Her and Louis singing together? Wow. Then I found Nat Cole. I remember the lazy hazy crazy days of summer from my childhood, but I hadn't know who was sing, or what else he sang. A few albums later and I'm in love. As good as the album is that Natalie "recorded" with Nat, I prefer listening to his own work. Now I begin to understand why he was such a popular entertainer, and what a tragedy his premature death is.

May 24
For the very few of you reading that didn't know I was gone, I'm back. Whitecourt is a nice place to work for a few weeks, but that's about it. I was in my Calgary office long enough to file an expense account, a time sheet, and to send a particular report to Curtis. No more, and had to boot a couple people out of my cubicle to do it.

I've been on holiday since then, and about time too. One could argue this week off makes up for the weekends I worked, but that's OK I get paid for my overtime, and if I take a day off it doesn't matter if I call it a vacation day or a day off in lieu. Our plans for this week have been deliberately low key. In the past we've dashed off to various places for short trips, but we're just not into that anymore. I'm perfectly happy hanging out at home, eating and sleeping when I want, living on my own schedule.

I'll be getting caught on my web page over the next several days. Look for a review of My Little Saigon, and a local bakery, both in Whitecourt. I've had any number of meals at the Galaxy Diner, but haven't written about it. The BC Liberals (who aren't liberal as I understand the term) have cleaned up in the recent BC election, although the NDP were not wiped out as predicted. Mulroney is making headlines again. The Alliance is in trouble, but I didn't think the Conservatives were that desperate. I had been thinking about certain scenes from Total Recall so I rented it. Even sitting in a motel in Whitecourt wasn't incentive enough to finish Witness to a Century. The plodding style got to me, and when the alternative was watching a documentary on demolishing the Kingdome, or Junkyard wars, it's an easy choice. TLC actually has some good stuff on air, though the commercials just kill me. The media was well and truly in a feeding frenzy over the Alliance civil war, which I alluded to above. So there's lots of stuff to write about.

May 25
Synchronizing a palm pilot to a Mac is supposed to be easy. It was with my last Mac, and it is with the work PC. However, something is going very strange when I try to synch to my new Mac. It did once, with a few items getting dropped, but then it wouldn't synch again a few minutes later after I changed some stuff. I think something is wrong with the serial monitor, but I haven't been able to figure out exactly what. Very frustrating.

May 31
We're headlong into another office move. We would normally unpack Monday, but we have a full team meeting that day, with 4 field techs joining us. It should be very entertaining, trying to find the paperwork we'll need for the meeting.

June 3
A wonderful weekend. It's finally started raining. I can only hope that it's also raining out in farm country, where they desperately need it. As far as my accounts are concerned, the Canada Trust changeover to TD Canada Trust has gone smoothly. You can translate that as meaning the payroll deposit worked. I still need to sort out some RSP stuff, but I have no shortage of paperwork. They sent me 4, count them, 4 envelopes filled with bundles of fund portfolios. The only problem is that each of the 4 envelopes had the identical information. Better than than none at all, I suppose.

June 10
I brought the Palm cradle home for the weekend. With great trepidation I plugged it in and it worked! The only thing that is different between now and May 25 is that last Tuesday a screen popped up asking me to register with Palm. I've done so several times, and can only imagine what their database looks like. I did several updates, and it kept on working. There is some weirdness, of course. On the palm desktop I created a note for an existing appointment, then synched. The note showed up OK, but not attached to that appointment. It was just a note like all the other notes. When I created a note and attached it to that same appointment, then synched again, it showed up as attached to that appointment. So it works one way but not the other. I can live with it.

The office move at work was a nightmare for some people. Boxes got lost, and several laptops grew legs. One poor guy lost both his laptop and Palm pilot I've only had my Palm pilot since last August, and it's absolutely necessary for me. All my appointments, to do lists, contact info, and notes are in it. Fortunately, (and lets not tempt fate here) the information is backed up on two separate computers, with two separate operating systems.

June 16
I finally got caught up on the lawn. It's been raining here so much that I've been letting it grow. The soil is so dry, partial because we didn't have much snow this winter, and little rain through spring. Now, just like clockwork, the clouds roll in and the rain starts almost every afternoon.

The local Mac club put on a demonstration of OS X at the meeting, and I managed to get a demo disk. I haven't run it yet, but I've been reading reviews. I'm currently running OS 9.1, and have been contemplating upgrading. It's reassuring that there has been three minor upgrades so far, but I'm still undecided. So far there hasn't been any software that I want to run, let alone have to run, that only runs on X. I usually don't fix something that isn't broken, and 9.1 is just fine. Well, except for the sound and visuals being very slightly out of synch. I just installed the v2.7 of the DVD player, but haven't tested it yet.

Saw Tomb Raider with some friends today. Read my review, if you want. It also got me thinking about the moving going experience. They're going to have to work harder to get me to become a regular.

I'm experimenting with a hit counter, just for fun. Haven't seen it increment with just me pounding on it, but I don't know what the ISP settings are.

June 17
I stayed up way too late last night playing with the hit counter. So far, I don't like it. I can't get rid of the border, but that's just my ignorance.

June 20
Summer has arrived. It's a beautiful day out there. It's kind of a pity to be working in the office on days like this. Today at least, I was out of the office, driving up to our Ricinus plant. It was the first time I'd ever been through the town of Innisfail. It seems like a nice enough place. Going west from there gradually gives you better and better views of the Rockies, as you drive through farming and ranch country.

June 23
Lots of errands on a wonderful day. Almost by accident I was into the library and found Bad News by Donald Westlake. This is another Dortmunder novel, and so far, it's as good as all the rest. I'll be posting a review when I'm done.

June 29
Vacation, I'm on vacation at last! Today I'm watching a couple guys install windows. The front bay windows had a wood frame that was beginning to rot, and the back bay windows had lost their seal. This is another one of those jobs where watching people that know exactly what they are doing is infinitely preferable to doing it for oneself.

July 1
Happy Canada Day!

July 2
We had lots on the go yesterday, but as we were driving around I couldn't help but think what a fabulous country this is. Naturally, I think I live in the best part of it, but I know others would disagree. That's OK It was looking like we were going to have a very dry summer, but we got quite a bit of rain in June. Calgary is fairly green, and the crops just outside of town seem to be doing well. Yesterday was a perfect day for looking at the mountains. We drove down towards Millarville for breakfast at the start of a perfect summer day; clear, sunny, warm, but not too hot. As anyone who has done it knows, driving west on 22X gives you a great view. Rolling hills, fading into rugged mountains. I can see why people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for view lots, and to be honest, I would too if I had the money.

We also had lots of errands in town. As some of you may know, we are in the process of moving our library downstairs to make room for a relative who is coming to visit. It needed doing anyway, but it prompted us to do a lot of tidying and cleaning. The basement looks much more open because all the bookshelves have been arranged in a "C" shape around a carpet. Once I install some lighting (that was one of the errands) in the middle of the C it will be perfect. We got a great deal on those Rubbermaid tubs, and three are already full of our old SCA outfits. I was going through some stuff (and that's the only word for it) and found paperwork I haven't seen since 1988. Much of it was recycled, of course, but there are some bits that need to be looked at. It's amazing what you find.

The rest of the basement is much more open now. We actually have room. Imagine that! Over the years the open section of basement has been host to a modular boat under construction (no, not by me), vast amounts of storage boxes for a friend in need, most of our furniture while the upstairs was under renovation, and general stuff. Lots of it.

July 3
Our niece arrived last night, and I spent today showing her Calgary, and getting various errands done. She got offered a job at the third place she applied at, which made her very happy. I don't think she quite believed us when we told her what the job market was like here. Her old driver's license is exchanged for an Alberta one, and she's begun to navigate through the Byzantine admission processes at the U of C.

The bank was the worst part of the deal. We need more competition for them, not less. They are getting fat and arrogant on their extortionate fees, and offering poorer and poorer service. Now that TD has finished merging with Canada Trust, it's become clear they are pretty selective about the improvements in service to match Canada Trust. Only the branches that used to be Canada Trusts are open on Saturdays.

July 7
I watched part of the Calgary Stampede Parade on TV yesterday. They say about 300,000 people watched it in person, which is about a third of Calgary's population. They certainly had nice weather for it. We've been having beautifully clear skies in the morning and evening, with a little cloud cover during the afternoon heat. It isn't uncommon at all to get rain for an hour or so, and have brilliant sunshine right afterward. This leads to wonderful rainbows.

Vacation has been very nice. I'm one of those people that doesn't need to go somewhere to have a good time. I've spent part of the week helping my niece cope with getting settled in, and the rest just relaxing. I'm sure that relaxing is an important part of life, and helps you to better enjoy everything else that goes on in life.

July 14
The Olympics were awarded to China; is there anybody that is really surprised by that? The fix has been in for some time. In one way I'm happy about this. Somehow, somewhere along the line my taxes would end up paying for part of it, and I think the Olympics are one of the bigger boondoggles going. Toronto will be better off doing whatever development they want to do, and will be able to do what is right for the city and not just what is needed for the Olympics.

Some people say that giving the games to China will encourage them to reduce their human rights crimes. They are deluding themselves. China is a bloody, brutal dictatorship that will do anything to suppress their people. The events in Tianamon Square, and the repression of the Falun Gong sect prove that. The Communist regime in Soviet Russia collapsed for a number of reasons, but I'm not looking for the same thing to happen in China. The situation is different. China has had millennia of internal war after war, and have always had some form of dictatorship. Democracy is a much feebler flower, and the Chinese aristocrats in charge have much better control over what their people see and hear. At least for now.

July 16
The Calgary Stampede is over for another year. The midway has torn down and replaced with a hodgepodge of semi trailers. What you can see of the parking lot is covered in debris. No doubt it will all be cleaned up to its normal pristine self by the end of the week. This year the only Stampede event I did was a company BBQ. It was fun, even though it went from a very hot and sunny day, to cloudy, to a downpour with hail in the space of a half-hour or so. Calgary can party in the rain, and did so here; a good time was had by all.

July 18
I was playing on the internet and found a web site for the top 25 censored news stories of 2001. The very top one is about privatizing water, which is a bit of a hot button these days. Check it out here. On a related topic, there was an op-ed in the Globe and Mail today about President Bush wanting to pipe Canadian water to the American South West. My take on it is that they've used all the surface water they had available, and they overdrawn the aquifer so badly the land is slumping in places, and now they want our water. Forget it! Once they start sucking on our water, NAFTA ensures the demand will never stop. Regardless of how much money we think we can make from water, Canada shouldn't export bulk water. If the Americans want water they should learn to make do with what they already have, or learn to float icebergs to American ports.

July 20
I had a great ride through Fish Creek Park today. more

July 23
Now we know that the next G8 meeting will be held just outside Calgary. There's only one road in, so the crowd control should be off to a good start. I'd love to watch some of these so-called protesters hike in through the Canadian Rockies. Maybe they would get a better appreciation of the technology that makes their lives better. I can't help but think that these protests are taking on a life of their own. The majority of the protesters are peaceful, and for reasons of their own feel that such protest is an appropriate action. Much of the time I disagree, but we live in a free country. More power to them. I draw the line at the violent protesters. These people are anarchists and hooligans at best, and criminal thugs at worst. They are only there to try to provoke the police into taking action, then using that as an excuse to escalate the protest to street violence. They have no respect for the people around them, or the democratic meetings that they are protesting. After all, the heads of the G8 countries are democratically elected, and can legitimately speak for the citizens.

July 31
I've previously had periodic problems with my monitor abruptly going black. Most occasions, when there was a problem monitor didn't light up after start up, but lately it has periodically gone blank after being on for a few minutes. This is with the cabling sitting still, and nothing else on around the monitor except the computer. Most of the time a restart solved the problem, but recently it's been getting fussier. Once it goes it takes several restarts, and every now and then I have to unplug the monitor cable. Last night it did something new, going very dim with a dark reddish cast to the screen. It wouldn't recalibrate. Turning it off got me into a major bout of restarts. I called D. W. from the Calgary Mac Computer Club. He suggested that I talk to one of the authorized Mac dealers in town. I also checked the Mac service boards and it appears that other people have had this problem. Mine at least hasn't popped or buzzed loudly. I called JustMyMac, and they said they weren't allowed to do anything with the cube or the monitor, but suggested I could bring it in and they could check the video board. I called WestWorld. They suggested that I run the extended system test CD, and to try different colour and resolution settings. The system test didn't reveal any problems when I ran it the next day, and changing the settings didn't make any difference that I could see. More monitor notes.

August 1
I'm reading Why Things Bite Back, Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences,by Edward Tenner. It has been quite as good as I thought it would be, but not totally devoid of interest. I picked it up from the library almost by accident. His basic point is that the world is much more complex than we know, and that no matter how carefully we try to figure the consequences of our actions, we usually miss something. I thought it would be mostly about technological failures, but most of the book is spent on medicine, the environment, pests both animal and vegetable, and sport of all things. Only one section on computers was what I had expected. It wasn't a bad read, but it wasn't particularly compelling.

August 4 (evening)
The screen went dark red on me again only a minute after starting. This time I tried to recalibrate it, but it wouldn't, then it told me the monitor hadn't been calibrated. The contrast turned itself all the way down and wouldn't let me change it. Colour depth and resolutions didn't change anything. I did the software update check, and saw that I could install Cube firmware and coloursync stuff. Did so, then got into a long loop trying to get the monitor to work. Eventually did, and installed the firm ware. But when putting the cube upright, the monitor abruptly changed colours several times, going a green shade once. I could see where the cable was a little bent but nothing special. Screen went to normal. Tried playing with the cable extensively but no changes. Then the sound stopped working. Played around and finally got it going again, with one monitor failure in the mean time. Sigh. At least the monitor is still under warranty, but I don't want to have to ship it back to Apple and have them say there is nothing wrong. That's the trouble with an intermittent problem, it's hard to diagnose and fix. I guess I'm going to call WestWorld and see what the next step is. More monitor notes.

August 5
A quiet summer day. Lots of people are out of town. It's hot and breezy out, a perfect day for puttering around the house. Yesterday we had breakfast with our friends Gord and Gail. They went back home, while we headed south, through Turner Valley past the mothballed gas plant. We took a very scenic route to Black Diamond by heading south. Several times we had spectacular views of the mountains, rolling hills, forest, and farmland. In Black Diamond we visited one of our favourite shops, where Linda picked up a plain pottery bowl with a very nice shape, and a lovely pair of amber earrings. From there we went to a glider strip to see if we could book a ride for next weekend, but nobody was around. On the way out someone towing a glider trailer was headed back in, so we thought we might have been a little early.

In High River we drove past our favourite pottery shop, but nobody was in. They were busy selling at the Millarville Market. We visited a wonderful art store, and looked at a table for a long time. We don't really need a new dining room table, but this one was about the size of ours, and maybe a thousand times more beautiful. It was also more than a substantial fraction of my yearly gross income.

From there we drove to Nanton, and strolled through several antique stores, which is one of the things that Nanton is principally famous for. There's probably a dozen such stores, and they've organized themselves into an antique and art walk society to help promote their interests. The other well known attraction is the Nanton Air Museum where a full size Lancaster bomber is being restored. This is a must trip for anyone with even the faintest interest in W.W.II era aviation. We didn't go into the Air Museum this trip, though I've been to it before. The stores were really quite crowded, which is good for the merchants, but not so good if you want to browse.

From there we went back through High River and happened to find the pottery studio open as they unloaded their stuff. We bought a number of their pieces in the green and copper pattern. We still have one more batch of stuff we want to get in this pattern, but we hadn't brought the plates that we already have so we could match the new ones to the old. Although we have perfectly serviceable dinnerware, much of it dates from our wedding. We still like it, but it's nice to have some choice.

We continued to retrace our path by going back to the glider strip, but if anyone one was around, they were hiding. I very much like watching sailplanes fly, and was disappointed that nothing was happening. It looked like a beautiful day for flying, though there was a fairly stiff crosswind. We went home to unpack our goodies after leaving the glider strip.

I won't get into the frustrations later in the evening, since that's covered above under the 4th. Aside from those frustrations it was a perfectly wonderful day. Lots of our friends are driving out to Clinton BC for a popular SCA event, but simply aren't into SCA travel anymore. It's a mad dash to the event, and you usually have to set up in the dark. Until it's time to leave one can have a wonderful time, but then you have to find and pack everything, then endure the mad dash home again. But you still aren't done. You have to put all the stuff away, wash what needs it and put that away, and somehow get enough sleep to function at work the next day. When I was doing a lot of SCA travel my job wasn't the most intellectually stimulating, but most of the time these days my brain needs to be at least half way on. Making a mistake can create a lot of work, and I'd rather not. We've drifted away from the SCA in recent years, and taken up new interests. Interests that are a little closer to Calgary, and more suited to our current life goals.

Aug 6, Civic Holiday
No monitor problems on the 5th. It was on and off several times. I started the computer this morning to check my mail, and after about 15 minutes it went very dim. The contrast can't be adjusted, and the resolution and colour depth settings have no effect. I'll try rebuilding the desktop, which is clutching at straws. I'm not sure if the computer stores are open today, but I'll have to find out. The rebuild had no effect that I could see, and of course, the screen didn't light up after the restart. After one shutdown and fruitless restart, it becomes very difficult to get the computer off. Pressing the power button just puts the computer to sleep. Once I did get it off I tried to unplug the monitor to adjust the cable and to see if I could duplicate the colour changes I once saw. No luck there, but as soon as I unplugged the monitor from the cube, the computer started. I eventually had to unplug the cube power supply to get it to turn off. After tweaking the cable and plugging everything back in the computer started normally. However, I don't think that manipulating the cable really did anything. I wonder if somehow there is a slightly loose connection so that when the temperature and the mechanical vibration from the desk is just right, to say nothing of the gravitational influences from the Sun and moon, it's enough to break the connection. I don't know.

Aug 18
My monitor is in the shop getting fixed. My cube is running a 13 inch Magnavox that belongs to my niece. I don't think the monitor is very happy about it, since it only runs on the lowest resolution and refresh rates. It whines when I try anything else, but it's better than no monitor at all. That's why I haven't been updating my site lately.

September 9
I'm back home, and have a monitor again. I took the monitor and cube into WestWorld computers, and after a few days of testing they managed to replicate the problems I had been having. The monitor had to be sent away to Apple for repair or replacement. While I was working in Fox Creek they called to say that a new monitor had arrived as a replacement. On the way home I stopped at WestWorld to pick it up. It just barely fit into the rental car. For a few minutes I thought I was going to have to take it back into the shop and make another trip with the van. Once home I disconnected the VGA monitor I had been using, and hooked up the new one. A few minutes playing with settings and I was back in business. Yahoo!

I'm very pleased with my experience at the WestWorld service department. They kept me informed at every step of the way, and didn't mind at all that I couldn't come to get the new monitor for a week after calling to let me know it was available. They even tested the new monitor to make sure it wouldn't fail under the same circumstances as the other one. I'm not sure what the Apple database thinks of me registering two identical monitors within a year, but that's not my problem. The new 17 inch flat screen really tempted me, and had I been given a better price as a trade in I probably would have gone for it.

I'm taking a week of vacation R&R after working out of town for a couple of weeks. Things are really busy at work, but if I don't take some time I'll end up injuring myself. Traveling anywhere has limited appeal just now, so I'm looking forward to working on my web page and around the house, and trying to get some writing done. Work is doing yet another management reorg, so it's probably a good week to take off. I haven't decided if I want to write about the experience in Fox Creek.

September 11, 7:35pm Calgary time
For most of the day I've been watching the television coverage of the attack on the United States with horrified fascination. At this point nobody has made any estimates of the death toll, but it will have to number in the tens of thousands. Anything less is a miracle. The news people have just mentioned reports of people calling out of the World Trade buildings on their cell phones. This would indicate that people have survived, though one can't imagine it.

Nobody knows how it happened or who is behind it. Americans seem bewildered and shocked, but the mood is changing to anger. I only hope that they take the time to be sure of their intelligence before they react with force. One commentator has already mentioned the use of tactical nuclear weapons on network television. The thought of that horrifies me even more than the events of today. The US has made mistakes like this before, when they bombed the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, for example. I suspect that the legitimate leaders of various countries hostile to the US are very nervous about the possible reactions.

September 14
I was watching the American remembrance ceremonies today. It took a few bars of music to realize what they were singing. Now I know what the Battle Hymn of the Republic sounds like when it's sung by people who mean it. There wasn't just a sprinkling of military uniforms; many of the crowd wore them, and as far as this civilian could tell, all services and all ranks were represented. This is a country preparing for war in a way that the world hasn't seen for almost exactly 60 years.

The US has had various "wars". There have been wars on poverty, drugs, and various other internal enemies. Since W.W.II, the US has not exerted the full extent of its military muscle, and I think the world has forgotten what a powerful nation it is. The Gulf "War" was almost a sideshow, and Korea and Vietnam were hamstrung by politics. W.W.II was the real thing, and this will be too. Anybody that thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. I don't think this anger is a short term flash in the pan. Every time they see that hole in the skyline they will be reminded of what they have lost. Not just a building complex, but thousands of people from all parts of the world. Innocent people starting another day of work. Highly trained and skilled people going into a burning building to help those that needed help, and paid with their lives. America will not forget them.

I was particularly struck by the crowd milling around on the church steps afterward. It looked exactly like the small town church services I remember from my childhood, except that these are some of the most powerful people in the world. President Bush exchanged greetings with a few people, but was soon whisked off by the secret service. I particularly noted former president Clinton exchanging extended, and apparently cordial greetings with former president Bush. All the other former presidents, except Reagan, attended, and could be seen exchanging greetings. Petty politics have been forgotten in the face of a larger enemy.

This is why the United States will win this war. They can focus on what is important and leave behind everything else. They are now more united than at any time since the close of W.W.II Pearl Harbour slapped America across the face, and to quote the Japanese Admiral leading the raid "filled it with a terrible resolve." Pearl Harbour was an attack by military forces for military purposes on a military installation. In response Americans and America rolled up their sleeves and went to work to defeat that force. In four short years they went from being a comfortably strong nation, to an economic powerhouse that dominated the world both economically and militarily. They have coasted much of the time since then, especially since they landed men on the moon. They achieved the most audacious goal mankind had ever dreamed of, and did in less than 10 years. What's more, they did it in such a way that it looked routine. Now they have another dream.

The fall of the twin towers isn't a slap across the face. It's a kick in the nuts from behind. It will take them a short time to catch their breath, but then watch out. Nobody would call President Bush eloquent, but he has issued a call to arms that will not be denied. They haven't bombed anybody in the heat of their anger, which makes me think they will get it right this time. Some of the smartest, most results oriented people in the world live in the United States. I'm glad that Canada is with them, and not against them.

During W.W.I and W.W.II Canada was a respectable military power, but we have let ourselves slip, and have grown to depend on America. It is clear that Canada will aid America in the coming struggle. This is as it should be. Yet I hope that this crisis can inspire Canadians to decide what this country will be all about. Nobody here wants to see Canada become part of the US. We must work with the rest of the world on terrorism. Somehow, perhaps we can find ourselves again. More

September 16
This weekend Linda and I went to a display of wood art put on by SAWS. Art is the only word for it. All the objects were beautiful at the least, and most were practical if you could bear to risk damaging it by use. I think my favourite was a pear writing desk with some papers, stamps, a fountain pen, and ink blots, all with the appropriate shadows, all veneered into the writing surface. The two tables also were high on the list. The one made of bubinga had two slabs making up the top, and one had to look very carefully to see the join line. There were a number of exquisite turned pieces, of various woods. My hands itched to pick them up, to feel the joints and texture of the wood. There were three walking sticks of various woods, two of them with lifelike carved snakes writhing up the stick. One woman in the exhibit wrinkled up her nose and wouldn't come near them. She can't have thought they were real, but was none the less made nervous by them. A superb smallish chest had lifelike flowers veneered into panels on every surface. I could go on and on about them. You can see some photos here, but they don't really do the works justice. You have until September 29th to see them for yourself. The display is in the ground floor of Bow Valley Square 3, right opposite the Royal bank.

It's a beautiful summer day outside. I puttered around the house a little, cleaning windows and picking up garbage blown onto the yard. The day reminded me of spring, somehow, something in the warmth and smell of the day. The leaves are turning colour and falling, and the grass everywhere is brown and crackling under foot. No matter how nice the day nobody would believe it is spring. We've had little or no rain for some time now. Much as I love autumn, and much as it is Calgary's best season, I hope winter comes early, and we get lots of snow.

I've been trying not to think about the news of last week.

September 21
There are lots of things going through my mind lately. Brief bits for now, perhaps some of them will be worked into longer essays.

With each side in the current crises invoking God (in various names), I'm actually proud that the Canadian remembrance ceremony did not offer up prayers. If God exists at all, (of which I have no personal knowledge or particular faith) He, She, or It must be awfully busy right now. As has happened throughout history, it looks like there will be more atrocities offered up in God's name. But it isn't; it's being offered up in hatred. Save us from a God of hatred.

As of a few hours ago, the United States have not fired any guns in anger. Yet. This is a good thing. There have been any number of accounts in the newspapers and on the net about the experiences of the various powers that have tried to invade Afghanistan. Anyone with more than a few functioning brain cells has to realize that it would be very wise to proceed cautiously. A traditional military strike against Afghanistan is mostly likely only going to stir the rubble. Even the so-called special forces missions have a way of going sour. The US is going to have to be smarter than whatever enemies they find as a result of their investigations. The US will have to find out what their weak points are, and ruthlessly exploit them.

The number of names on the missing, and now presumed dead list is over 6,000. People are going to have to come to grips with the thought that most of the dead have been cremated already. It is clear that most of the people that work in the World Trade Centre either were not at their jobs, or managed to get out after the strikes and before the collapse. The vagaries of fate could easily have lead to a death toll many times larger. There are reports, if you believe them, that plans fell through to hijack several other aircraft beyond the four we know about. This comes from finding knives or box cutters in other aircraft. The US is good at finding such facts, but in the past has been less good at linking them and drawing the correct conclusions. I'm still keeping an open mind. Anyone depraved and smart enough to plan an such an event is also smart enough to realize the magnitude of the investigation to follow, and to lay false trails. After all, the Oklahoma bombing was done by a homegrown terrorist.

The United States has a historic opportunity to mend some fences here, and change the nature of it's relationships with other countries. There are opportunities here for platoons of statespeople to make their reputations. If only they can be smart enough to make the most of it. Now is not the time for the isolationism that has been all too common, now is the time for building and rebuilding relationships. The outcome could be a more tolerant global community. A more tolerant community that can clearly define what acts are beyond toleration.

What of Israel in all this? Can they continue on as they have in their relationship with the Palestinians? Clearly, each side in this is at fault for worsening a bad situation. The US has been trying to help them come to an agreement for decades now, with little success. How can they continue without either inflaming Arab opinion, or be seen as betraying Israel? How can they walk away?

Yet no matter what happens, the US cannot win with the people that hate. Were the US to withdraw from Saudi Arabia, would bin Laden suddenly stop? I very much doubt it. If the US were to (somehow) grant to the Palestinians everything they wanted and more, they would still hate the US because they would see it as paternalistic. As well, they would think it was weak for giving in, and would come up with further demands.

What the fanatics hate is a society that is not consumed with religion; a tolerant society that recognizes people of all faiths can worship without hatred. A society that doesn't live by rules laid out in the Middle Ages, or earlier. A free society where people can mostly say and do what they want. A society governed by laws that apply equally to the believer and nonbeliever, the rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless. A society that still has it's flaws, it's incidents of racism, and stupid mistakes by the powerful, but one that fundamentally means well and tries to do the right thing. A society that admits the mistakes it makes and tries to correct them and prevent them from happening again. A society that isn't ruled by people who hear voices in their heads, but one ruled by people who listen to the voices of the common people. More

September 24
I just finished reading the story of mathematics by Richard Mankiewicz. The title is really done in lower case. They also play games with the fonts throughout the book. Many chapters include a paragraph or two from the work of the person or people under discussion. The only problem is that the font is so difficult to read that I didn't bother. The rest of the text is mildly interesting, and some of the images are fascinating, but I'm sure glad I didn't pay £18.99 price indicated in the front cover.

The next book on the go is by Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. I've only just started but it looks like fun. Somehow or another I haven't read much Leacock, or if I've done so, I don't remember it as such. This is one of the reasons that I started writing reviews and talking informally about the books that I'm reading. After a while you pick up a book that looks familiar, and you aren't quite sure if you've read it or not. The publishers are devilishly clever about re-releasing new material in different forms.

The book club that I belong to met on the weekend, and sort of discussed Zadie Smith's White Teeth. I've just checked, and I can see that I've not written anything about it. Which is strange because I really enjoyed it. I'd been planning to browse over it again to refresh my memory before the meeting, since I read it near the beginning of the year. For one reason and another that didn't work out, but most of the other people hadn't read it all the way through either. The odd thing is that people do want to read it. All the bits they did read were fascinating.

September 25
I wonder how the increased border security is going to affect the people and drug smuggling? Such activities must be much more risky now. It will be interesting to see if the retail price of street drugs goes up as the supply falls. If it falls.

September 27
Here we are at the end of September, and it was more than 20°. The leaves are falling, but there isn't any nip of frost in the air. If anything it seems more like spring. It makes me wonder if we are going to get another warm winter. Last winter almost didn't deserve the name. However, we really need the snow to get some moisture in the ground. I know there are lots of people that argue about global warming, but it sure seems like it has already happened to Calgary.

What we've ended up with is a warm, sunny climate, albeit a little dry. This suits me just fine, but there are lots of other people who are having the weather get worse. To my mind it seems pretty clear the climate is changing; the big question is how much humans have had to do with the change, and if it's possible for us to warp the weather to our desires. Overall, I suspect not. After all, we can barely predict the weather more than a few days in advance over a small area. Trying to sort out global weather would be a sure source of conflict because someone would always be unhappy, and think that it's a plot.

September 29
It has been very interesting reading the papers lately. The war preparations are still in high gear and usually rate a headline, but the story is gradually slipping to the back pages. There have been many column-inches devoted to the difficulties of a conventional invasion, especially the terrain and mindset of the Afghan people. At least nobody is rushing into anything foolish. Winter is just starting there, and everything is always worse in the winter.

Even harder than the invasion is what to do afterward. The British and the Prussians succeeded in their initial invasions, but couldn't hold onto what they had. Foreign puppet governments have been a conspicuous failure so far. Supplying aid, then walking away as the United States did when the Russians were bogged down will have the same results now as it did then. I can't easily identify many choices between those two options.

At the same time the relief agencies are talking about a humanitarian crisis; that perhaps a million Afghans are in danger of starvation. This is still a no-win situation. If the western countries aid them, the religious fanatics will try to claim that this is an act of imperialism and an assault on Islam. They would claim we are using food as a weapon. Well, maybe so, but isn't that a finer choice than guns? I wonder if it's possible to point out that the enemies they despise have the means to feed them in addition to their own people, and that they can't even feed themselves. This in spite of the damage the terrorists did to the United States. If we don't feed them, it's still our fault. These rogue states need to be made to understand you can't have it both ways. A state that prefers to spend money on guns rather than food needs to face the consequences of that choice.

I was a big fan of isolating states that don't work and play well with others, but I have to admit it probably wouldn't work on Afghanistan. They are already isolated, and what's more, they like it that way. I don't think that even now, America and the rest of the world have the will to push the refugee Afghanis back into their country and let them starve.

October 14
I'm back from vacation. Just a quick note to get started. It's finally snowing in Calgary! It turns out to have been fairly brief, perhaps a front moving through, since it stopped before noon, and the rest of the day was quite nice.

We were busy with Thanksgiving dinner when the news announced that the United States had begun bombing Afghanistan. It's been going on for a week or so now, and I can't easily come up with a more monumental waste of time. Ten years of fighting off the Soviets, and several decades of civil war have left few targets worthy of the multi-million dollar cruise missiles. What few military targets remain are small and mobile. The Taliban are religious fanatics. No amount of material damage will change their minds about what they believe to be the correct course of action. They are also dropping food, which makes a whole lot more sense. Properly done, that could have been a public relations slam-dunk, and would have been more damaging to the Taliban than the bombs.

I'm still working on a couple essays that haven't been working out very well. The problem appears to be figuring out what I really want to say. More editing, or splitting the essays into several different essays. Watch the op-ed page for further developments.

October 26
Not much time to write in the last little while. The bombing is still going on, and with exactly the same results as before. That is, none to speak of. Stirring rubble, mostly. I read in the paper that the Taliban have been taking to hiding military equipment in mosques and other civilian buildings. So much for their faith. The United States is dropping bombs and food on the same country, and I can't be the only one that finds it strange. More

I finally posted my essay on religion. I'm not sure why that one took so long, but it did.

October 28
I'm currently reading several interesting books. The Arts & Crafts Home by Kitty Turgeon (review) and Robert Rust. Wheels, Clocks, and Rockets, a History of Technology by Donald Cardwell is just fascinating. Watch for my review when I finish. I'm just starting Nevile Shute's autobiography, Slide Rule.

October 29
I see in the paper that the United States has not ruled out the use of tactical nuclear weapons. As if there was a difference between them and any other kind of nuclear weapons. They can't find targets worthy of cruise missiles now, upon what target would they use an atomic bomb? There aren't any, unless they've decided they want to kill a lot of people. Civilians. Use of such weapons would be absolute madness. It would enrage nearly every Muslim on earth, and lots of non-Muslims. I can't think of a faster way to turn the United States into a pariah.

November 3
Yesterday was very strange. We were out shopping and getting various errands done, but I felt totally out of it. I couldn't find the phone bill, (it's around here somewhere) couldn't seem to hang on to my car keys, and kept banging into stuff around the house. I didn't seem to have a problem with the mechanics of driving, but it was one red light after another, and whatever lane I drove in had a bus or truck appear to slow things downs. Little bits of gridlock in parking lots. Emergency vehicles. Idiots with a cellphone glued to their ear doing stupid driving tricks.

I wandered through the A&B Sound in the NE, and felt like I was totally out of place. The staff were helpful, but not too helpful, if you know what I mean, but I just didn't get it. Normally I think of myself as technologically up on things. But the boom boxes startled me. There were a couple of them for sale that looked like a ray gun battery in a bad science fiction movie, all protruding tubes and glossy reflective surfaces.

The televisions weren't much better. Watching the curving wall for more than a few minutes actually disoriented me. They had a few big screen televisions outside the wall, and I watched them for a few minutes. Well, to be honest, I was watching Jennifer Lopez in a short dress doing a concert number in what looked like a ball park, with athletic looking people doing aerobic exercise in the background. I digress. The picture quality was excellent, as it ought to be for something costing a substantial fraction of my yearly net income, and they were giving away a DVD player with it as an incentive. I don't know how the pricing works anymore. Virtually identical sets varied by hundreds of dollars in price, and I couldn't tell why.

I suppose it's just as well that they didn't have the sound on. That way I could hear another customer talking to a sales rep about the merits of the various DVD players. He seemed to be having some difficulty deciding between the various models and I could tell the rep was getting a little bit exasperated. It's a good thing he wasn't trying to deal with me. The state I was in, they were all black boxes that played DVD's, and varied in price from surprisingly affordable to astonishingly expensive. I couldn't tell the difference between them. I used to lap up the various acronyms and numbering that manufacturers put on their products, but it was totally meaningless for me.

After a while I browsed through the CD and DVD collection. I bought the new Enya CD but didn't really see anything else that I just had to get. We have quite a varied CD collection, and we have lots of books. Yet we have fewer than a dozen video tapes (mostly made up of a boxed set of Miss Marple movies by the BBC), and only one DVD. I'd like to hear other people's reasoning on this. We read lots of books from the library, and have lots of books in the house. We buy books because we'll sometimes get the urge to reread them at odd times. We buy CD's because we like to listen to music, even though I hate supporting the rapacious music companies. When the music artists find a way to reliably support themselves selling CD quality material over the web, I'll be there. We can listen to music again and again, and for lots of the books we own, I can read them again and again. Yet we don't buy movie video's or DVD's. The cost is typically about 5 rentals, and for whatever reason, I just don't see it as worthwhile. If you buy videos or DVD's, do you actually watch them often enough to be cheaper than renting? Do you like to have them on as background? I could understand that for a musical, I guess, but Rambo? Do you watch a favourite bit, then get on with something else? Tell me.

I had a nap in the afternoon and felt quite a bit better. Later in the evening we watched David George present some of the photographs he took at a dig in Egypt last summer. They found a couple of large pieces, and some very interesting smaller ones. I'm not particularly interested in archeology, but it is fascinating what we can learn of earlier civilizations from what they left behind. I shudder to think what future generations will think of us.

November 4
I'm still working my way through,Wheels, Clocks, and Rockets, a History of Technology, it's my reading on the transit book. Except for the drooling on the photos, I'm done the The Arts & Crafts Home , (review) and I want want want some of the stuff, and some of those homes. There's something about that Arts and Craft ambiance. I'm still working on Slide Rule, but I've also just started last night The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll. Fabulous so far. I like having several books on the go at once. You may have noticed that they are all very different kinds of books, and that's normal too. Sometimes I even have an old favourite that I'll read while I'm eating breakfast.

I spent some time last night reviewing my web site here, and thinking about how I'll organize things for the new year. No firm decisions on what I'll do yet, but once I make up my mind I'll probably start changing things. This was set up to be a bare bones site, making you focus on the text because there wasn't much else. Little navigation beyond what the browser gives you, and not a lot of images. I still want to focus on the text, but a couple people have asked me to post other photos of glass work I've done. I have the photos in my computer, but I haven't done a page for them yet.

Overall I'm pretty pleased. I've had some very nice compliments so far (thank you very much), and it's still fun to work on. There are a few spelling mistakes here and there, and some grammar I'd tweak, but not bad. Well, crap. I just went through and actually spell checked this. Not bad for something usually written on the fly, but not particularly good either. Oh well, I console myself with the thought that most were typos, and the meaning was clear.

November 6
I'm really pleased and flattered that several people have asked permission to reprint my Pelican essay. A day after writing it I noticed a couple grammatical errors that bugged me, so I updated it. I've not done this for previous essays. I'd like to be able to look back and see what I did at one point in time, without any tweaking and tuning.

November 9
Notes for an essay. Inspiration: Nov 8 Globe and Mail column by Margaret Wente, entitled Manufacturing racism: a how-to guide. The most important sentence is "Although its stated goal is to eliminate racial discrimination, its real goal is to manufacture it." She is discussing Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

What other areas does something similar happen? Welfare? Employment Insurance? Equalization payments? Various corporate subsidies? Anybody that benefits from the current system is going to be motivated to have it continue. After all, handing out money to people that meet the criteria of your particular interest group, or being paid to look for problems have at least one thing in common. It's better than real work.

The BP office is being re-stacked yet again, and for once, I don't have to move. Yahoo! People spent much of Wednesday and Thursday packing up, and moving their little treasures into an office that isn't being moved. They will spend much of the beginning of next week getting unpacked and introducing themselves to their new neighbours.

November 11
What a fabulous weekend this has been! This would have been considered nice weather in August, but for November it's exceptional. It was shorts and T-shirt temperatures.

This years Remembrance Day ceremonies are a little poignant because we are in the beginning phases of a war in Afghanistan. Some people consider that the police and firefighters that died September 11th deserve to be recognized the same as those who fell on the battlefield. They won't get much argument from me. It seems clear that the World Trade Towers were the site of the opening battle in the first war of the 21st century. I just hope it's the only battle that takes place in North America, though that seems unlikely. Before the end of it I'm sure the Canadian military will have played some role.

My first memories of November 11 involve images of impossibly old men from WW I. There may be a few still alive, but the odds are they aren't much able to get out of the nursing home. Now the old people, who don't seem so impossibly old anymore, are from WW II. They passed their generation's test with flying colours, and have reaped the rich rewards of the post war era. The generation that fought in Vietnam ended up with mixed reviews.

Now it appears that the next test is coming around. How will my generation (I'm toward the tail end of the baby boom) deal with it? We have to deal with the oldies still clinging to power who want to fight the last war, and with an asymmetric war that is terrifying if you think about it too much. It seems the traditional ways to fight a war don't really apply anymore. Blockade doesn't work because Afghanistan essentially doesn't have an economy. They have to infrastructure to speak of, so dropping high explosive is futile. In spite of that, the military is applying the old rule, "if you don't get results get a bigger hammer". Lets hope they don't take that to the logical extreme.

November 13
I guess you never know what to expect in a war. For several weeks nothing happened, and now the Taliban are out of Kabul. What next? This only complicates things for the United States. They still want to find the terrorists, and yet now they have to cope with the difficulties of setting up a government.

We're still having shorts and T-shirt weather here. That could change suddenly, since you never know in Calgary, but I'll enjoy it while I can. Kind of a pity to be in the office during the day, though.

Ever since I got DSL service I've been looking at the movie trailers. The Lord of the Rings have been fabulous, and I can't wait. The Harry Potter movie looks to be worth going to see, and I'm one of the few people who hasn't read any of the books. Ice Age looks to be hysterically funny. Monsters Inc is out, but I haven't had a chance to go see it yet. Watch for reviews of all of these.

November 15
I came across a live writing link today. Robert Olen Butler is writing a short story and putting the whole thing on his web site. Not just the text of the story, but the actual process. The streaming broadcast has him talking about what he is thinking as he is writing, and you see him making changes to the text. I've watched just a little of it so far, and it's fascinating. Previous webcasts are archived, as is the state of the story at the end of each day. Butler won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

I finished reading The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll. It was very interesting, and I'll be posting a review of it a little later. Very different. I'm not convinced I understood what all was going after one reading.

November 20
Yesterday BP announced that they were planning to resize and restructure the organization (yet again) by mid-December, and warned us to expect staff cuts. I don't know if this will affect me or not, but it's already affecting day to day work. Lots of people are trying to use up their vacation allotment so there aren't many people around. I wonder how much work the rest of us are going to get done until the announcements.

Linda and I came back from Lethbridge early Sunday morning. We had hoped to get a good look at the Leonid meteor shower, but the sky was slightly overcast. There is an amazing amount of light around highway 2 between Fort Macleod and Calgary. We didn't find any dark spots until we drove down a sideroad for a few miles. I think it was still a little early, since we only saw a few streaks. Very pretty, but not what I had expected.

November 23
Light snow today. It isn't cold, and it's barely coming down fast enough to get the pavement wet. However it is supposed to continue for several days. Up to now we haven't really been able to tell the difference between what little snow we've had, and a heavy frost. Perhaps that will change today or tonight.

In yesterday's Globe and Mail, Ian Hunter penned a column that suggests that Osama bin Laden should be shot on sight, and not brought to trial even if the opportunity exists. This is an astonishing position for a supposed opponent of capital punishment. Further, Mr. Hunter is a professor emeritus in the law faculty at the University of Western Ontario.

Points. US is at war, which is not true. No formal declaration of war has been made. Locking up bin Laden will place innocent lives at risk, but no mention of how. "Presumption of innocence?" Doesn't count, this is the exception that tests the rule. Besides, bin Laden has admitted doing it. Even so, we've tried people who have confessed. It is customary after all to formally determine guilt, and assign a punishment. Having a trial would be difficult and inconvenient. So what? Such a trial would be "victor's justice" comparable, he says, to the Nuremberg trials that started in 1945. article.

November 25
Snow. Light and fluffy snow, except down at the bottom where it's heavy glop. Lots of snow all weekend. We have maybe 8 inches so far, and it's still snowing lightly.

I spent some time today reading the December Harpers. There are two ery interesting essays about the changes to the world since September 11th. Essentially Lewis Lapham and John Gray are musing about America transforming itself from a Republic to an Imperial power. They don't say it quite like that, of course. I'll be reading these more carefully and commenting on them.

November 26
Scientists have cloned a human embryo. They say itÕs to produce embryonic stem cells, rather than an actual human being. But throughout human history, technology has been used for purposes unrelated to the intial application.

The obvious application is to grow a clone of someone (for now at least, some very wealthy someone) and harvest whatever parts the original needs. Heart, liver, kidneys, and lungs come quickly to mind, but what about bone marrow, blood, skin, or dare I say it, brain? Right now we donÕt know for sure that we can produce a cloned human, but the first steps have been taken. This was pure science fiction only a short while ago. Now it is a brutal reality. Our society cannot agree on what rights a fetus has. What then are we to do about a cloned fetus? Last I looked, the ethical and moral issues involved in cloning humans were a quagmire.

HereÕs my cut at it. Feel free to disagree. Until yesterday, the only way to create a new human being was to start with human a sperm and egg cell. They normally joined inside the mother, and developed until birth. Then so called Ôtest tube babiesÕ came along, where the joined sperm and egg cells was implanted in a female (not necessarily the biological mother) for development until birth. Now, it seems, we can create that embryo without a sperm cell. IÕm just assuming that they would implant that cell in a female for development until birth. If they have developed an artificial womb, they havenÕt said so.

I think it is immaterial how the embryo is formed, they should all have identical rights during the various stages of development. So, essay-boy, what rights are those?

Well, I'm in the middle of a cold right now, and it's getting late. I'm going to think more about this, but look for an essay fairly soon.

November 30
I'm very pleased. First of all, a letter I had written to a columnist in The Times of India about the English and Hindi languages was published as a letter to the editor. Then a few days later, The Calgary Herald published a letter to the editor as well. Next, the Globe and Mail!

I've walked from work (2nd St and 4th Ave) all the way through downtown to the LRT stataion at 8th Street at 7th Ave and done it indoors. They have opened the +15 between Monenco Place and Place 800. It takes just over 10 minutes. What's more, I could take an entirely separate route if I wanted, though it would take longer. I think. I'll have to try it. Our building is not hooked up to the system yet, so I have to cross the street to get into it, but once in, you can walk to most of the buildings downtown and not go outside.

Some of you probably don't know what I'm talking about. Most of Calgary's downtown buildings are open on the second floor, and hooked together with a series of pedestrian bridges 15 feet above ground level. Some of the bridges are double decker, hence the term + 30, and a couple are triple deckers, hence the term +45. Here's a map, though it's a very large pdf, and even over a dsl line I had to wait for it. I had to blow it up to 50% to get it readable, but then you can't see the whole thing at once.

The whole system is fascinating. In some places it is wide open and inviting since it was designed into the building. Some other places it's been added on with a variety of results. There are all kinds of stairs and ramps to handle the minor changes in grade. Some of the add ons enclose what used to be outside, some go above the alleys, and other buildings are renovated. In some places it's just a hallway.

There are maps all over the place, but many of them are out of date. For instance, the map right beside the new bridge does not show the existance of that bridge, nor the renovations to the Sandman Hotel that join to it. Now that winter has arrived I like to walk places inside, even if it takes a little longer because you're often walking further. Then again, you don't have wait for the streetlights or worry about some idiot driver talking on the cellphone, while taking notes, smoking a cigarette and looking for a parking spot.

There are hundreds of shops directly on the system. I couldn't begin to count the number of coffee shops, fast food outlets, and convenience stores. Dentists, travel agents, copy shops, dry cleaning, and shoe shine stands are scattered through the system, and all this isn't even counting the formal stores in the malls hooked up to the system. I'm hard pressed to think of a service or good that you couldn't buy from someplace within a building on the system.

This isn't just sterile hallways. Most of the pedestrian bridges are glass, so you can see outside. Some people need that to orient themselves, since it is easy to get turned around, and some people like to sit and watch the outside world while drinking coffee with a friend. There are all kinds of artwork and displays. You'll walk past fountains, look down on or stroll through gardens, and enjoy open air patios. The Devonian Gardens take up an entire rooftop in TD square, and is a favourite place for lunch time strollers to gather. Here are some photo's of it, one, two, three, four, and from them you can continue on to some othere photos of various parts of the system.

December 2
I'm still recovering from a cold. It's surprising how difficult it is to think clearly when you are all stuffed up. I spent some time looking at my site and thinking more about the changes I want to make. Firstly, I'll break this monolouge into monthly chunks. Getting a year at once is too much. Next, I'll start a new review page for 2002 and archive 2001. I'll proabably do the same for the op end as well. I probably should dress things up a little with a set of navigataion buttons on each page. I should also look at putting some content on Apple's I-tools drive and see how that works.

December 6
Work gave me a cell phone the other day, and I'm not sure what to think of it. I've looked at getting a cell phone several times and have never thought it worthwhile for personal use. When Vince left work I carried his cell phone around during a turnaround. It was handy at times, and reassuring when on the road in the middle of the boonies. Chris left a while ago, and his phone finally made it's way back to the office. Rather than have it sitting in a drawer Ray gave it to me. I don't really need one for my job, or I'd have had one by now. But I do travel out of town occasionally, and that's when it's useful.

However, I dread the thought that I'll be using it sometime, and people will think I'm one of those cell phone jerks. More likely it will ring sometime and scare the daylights out of me. Hardly anyone knows the number, though if you work where I do it's trivial to find out. I suppose I'll leave it in the car most of the time, since that's when one of us is most likely to want to use it.

The interesting feature is that it has th 780 area code, which means it's a long distance call for almost any call. The thing is that nobody really understands how the company pays for cell phones. We assume there is a basic rate that covers a certain number of minutes, but nobody knows who pays it or how much it is. Presumably there is no difference in price for having it sit in a drawer, and having some small number of phone calls made on it. Should it turn out that I use it a lot (on what, he wondered?) I can get the number changed to a 403 area code. But maybe it would be easier to give it back to someone that needs a 780 phone, and get me a new one.

Work is nothing but rumour these days because of a restructuring announcement. They've said they will be laying off people, which has a lot of the new hires spooked. It's their first time around on this treadmill, but if they stick around they'll get used to it. In 6 years or so I've seen about 5 restructurings, plus a couple in previous jobs, but that doesn't even add up to an honourable mention. One fellow I know went to Crestar, which got bought by Gulf Canada, which got bought by Conoco, which got bought by Philips 66. All in the space of a few years. We have a town hall meeting on Monday that is supposed to set the rumours to rest, but it will only be the start of a new round.

December 23
I'm on vacation! It's been a long December and it's almost over. I'm thoroughly tired of the restructuring and the uncertainty. There are already rumours of having to move offices yet again. I haven't been doing much writing here, but I do have plans to updated the site and re-organize it over the holidays. Lots of social stuff on the go.