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Sibbald Point Photos

Lisa Funny!

Just thought I would share this exchange of mail between Lisa and her friend Karen:

Lisa W (Vancouver, BC) wrote at 10:18am on July 25th, 2007
Ah...what is a TaqMan probe. Sounds like it might be uncomfortable.

Karen (Montreal, QC) wrote at 9:58pm on July 25th, 2007
Hey get your mind out of the gutter, girl! It's a small, very expensive oligonucleotide that is fluorescently labeled. I am hoping it is specific to the bacteria I am working on for the qPCR project we are doing. Does that clear it up ?? :)

Lisa (Vancouver, BC) wrote at 3:07pm on July 26th, 2007
Yes. That entirely clears it up for me. I almost bought a handbag designed by oligonucleotide. Sadly it was too pricey for me. I think i'll check Google and see if they are having any sales.

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What Am I Reading?

Currently reading The Stowaway by Torontonian native, Robert Hough. A great read from the first word. The story follows a Romanian stowaway who was protected by the Filipino crew of a cargo ship.

His publisher's bio on Hough puts it thusly, "The Stowaway began as a non-fiction book project. After following the story of the Maersk Dubai in the news, Hough contacted the Filipino crewmen who courageously protected the life of a Romanian stowaway."

Bookclubs.ca says, "Hough was widely praised for the deft way in which he mixes fact and fiction in The Stowaway. The critics were also unanimous in their admiration for the novel’s ability to seduce with suspense while at the same time posing profound issues for the reader to ponder. “This is a powerful novel that artfully combines the vivid, breathless pacing of the best adventure stories with the moral and metaphysical depth of the best literary fiction,” said Quill & Quire.

Camp Prep, etc.

Went out today with a list of camping necessities: flashlight, large tarps(2), 50' rope, duct tape, can opener, rubbermaid carry boxes, anti-itch lotion, folding table, sierra mix, masking tape, large skillet, inflatable pool, insect repellant. Found virtually everything at that lying behemoth of consumerism -- Wal-Mart. AND, how exciting is this? Found a large beach umbrella (sorry Rihana, can't share this with you) for a mere $9.96.

Hey, how come Wal-Mart is always rolling back the prices on no particular items? How many ad campaigns have you seen where that smiley-face is "rolling back" the prices? But the prices are always the same...sometimes cheaper than the competition, sometimes not. Now there's a new ad campaign that insists that Wal-Mart is rolling back their prices even further!! On what? Not a damn thing in particular.

I'm not one of these people that thinks that Wal-Mart is the anti-christ but, geez, can't they come up with a better ad campaign than an animated smiley-face rolling-back on non-existent items. I go to Wal-Mart because it's conveniently close to home, has a large selection and lastly, and sometimes, has good deals on some items.

So I googled the Wal-Mart smiley face and apparently, word on the street is, that the smiley face may have whistled it's last tune.

Smoking

So some smart-ass at work points out to me that the Smoke-O-Meter is not entirely accurate in it's count.

So let me explain: I STOPPED smoking, this is true. I have had 4 instances when I have thrown good sense out the window. Two months into my non-smoking I did what customarily happens to people after their initial success with cessation: That is, they get over confident and stop using the strategies that have worked thus far. So, I stopped carrying water with me and muching on this and that, and giving myself license to have one too many chocolate bars (hmmmm...chocolate...sorry).

Altogether, I think I have had about 12 cigarettes in the 71 days since I stopped. Normally, I would have had about 700 cigarettes in about 70 days, maybe a little more. That would be 35 packs of cigarettes, costing about $315.

So, yes, mea culpa. But me-a-not-doing-too-badly, either.

Sibbald Point

I'm looking forward to going camping next week.

It will be the first time we will be going camping as a "complete" family. That is, the wife, son and young Tarah will be along. Tarah is deathly afraid of insects. This includes fruit flies, any piece of string or fluff on the carpet, any other insects she can't identify and calls "dragonfly." We have been encouraging her to 'just say shoo bug,' but I'm not sure this will work so well with more than one mosquito wanting to spear her skin and suck blood out of her. Thank God she doesn't know that this is exactly what some insects do to soft-skins like us.

We went to Sibbald Point two years ago and got rained out on the first day there. Marsh (my wife) and my son (who was 4 at the time) left while I stayed behind to enjoy the experience. Since then, we have not gone camping and I'm hoping this experience will be better for both the kids and Marsh.

We will be camping in the woods, near our car and running water and showers. The beach will be our daily destination, with a little fishing and maybe hiking. We have a kitchen tent as well as a good 6 "man" tent.

Photo Source: Cyclingelf

My Last 3 Weeks On Earth

Ladybug posted her answer to the following question: "If you were given three weeks to live, what would you do with your last remaining days on this earth....and you only had the money available to you now?"

Doh! Okay, not a lot of money. And, assuming that my family-- see pictures previously posted at this blog -- were taken care of, I would do the following, in exactly in this order:

1. Swear my head off, yell and scream, shit, F&%$#, son of a bitch, mo-fo, etc., etc.;
2. Talk to my wife and then the kids and make sure they understood that daddy is a dead man;
3. Tell my extended family and friends how much they mean to me -- not all that much really.
4. Clean out the current bank account (making sure not to take any of the retirement or house money) and go have a Big Mac combo all by myself. Nay, two Big Mac combos. Later, buy a pack of smokes (God, I miss cigarettes) and have a big friggin' glass of ice cold Coke.
5. Go back home and take a nap...all that Big Mac sauce usually makes me sleepy;
6. Oh yeah, sex...with pretty much anyone kind enough to listen to my sad tale of woe (definately female and preferably Julia Roberts like), not forgetting to hold a little back for the wife (I do love her so...but I am also gonna die, right?-- so shoot me, Marsh! I had sex with some other woman!! Big deal!! Ima gonna die!!!! Die, dammit!!!
7. Smoke break....ahhh.
8. Apply for instant credit card with a high limit.
9. Take a trip to India to see Bombay, uhh, Mumbai and then on to Tanzania (I was born there, don't you know)...paid with my new credit card.
10. Come back to Canada and take a canoe trip to Algonquin Park with the family.
11. Come back to Toronto and spend the rest of my days with the wife and kids. Long, luxurious days, full of food and drink and wrestling with the kids on the living room floor and swimming and camping in the backyard and making caves out of bedsheets and eating while sitting on the floor in front of the TV.

Post-script: Six weeks later my credit card bill arrives, I have left instructions with the wife to shred the damn thing as I will be 6 feet under and 3 weeks gone.

Leave a comment with your nifty ideas for your last days on this earth...or better yet, leave a link to your own post on this question on your blog.

My Son Sleeps With A Book In His Hand

My Eulogy (2)*

The culmination of his achievements in high school was a medal for the highest overall average for his graduating class in high school. Zahir’s love of the written word, his sense of humour, his inward, reticent nature would have been apparent to all at this age. And above all was his need to do something meaningful with his life.

It was this need to “do something meaningful” that was to be the overriding hallmark, the overarching theme, the overbearing and preponderant thrust, the sine qua non and raison d’etre, the…but I digress. He liked to do good.

Not knowing exactly what to do in his post-high school years, Zahir joined a youth volunteer organization (Katimavik) for a nine-month stint in three provinces across Canada.

* See My Eulogy (1)

"Are you talkin' to me?"

Source: GeorgieR

Names I Love

There have always been certain names that have always captured my imagination. Names that make me think, "Wow, that name has a certain ring to it."

Names like: Jhumpa Lahiri, Anjali Holstein, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Koyalee Chanda (Emmy award winning director of Blue's Clues) Jurgen Goth and Jian Gomeshi.

I'm not quite sure why some names just stick with me like old friends. Does anyone else have these same associations with names of people that you know of, but don't really know?

And the best name of all? Why, Tarah (Star) Noor (Light) Paryani!

Bedouin Boy Wearing Cartridge Belt ca. 1898-1914

Public Domain. Suggested credit: Library of Congress via pingnews. Additional information from source:
TITLE: Bedouin boy wearing cartridge belt.

CALL NUMBER: LC-M36- 615-C[P&P]

REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-DIG-matpc-06829 (digital file from original photo)
LC-M361-615C? (b&w film copy negative)
No known restrictions on publication.

Our Trip to Warkworth

This Canada Day weekend, Marsh, the kiddies and I went back to Gore's Landing on Rice Lake. We drove (quickly) past the Victoria Inn (site of our honeymoon) and visited Marsh's friend's cottage. Had a nice lunch at a small restaurant in Gore's Landing called pitchers. The second photo speaks for itself, nevertheless: Tarah, Marsh and Seth inside the restaurant.

Later, we drove to Warkworth, a small town, nay, a village which was described (and only today) by the National Post as "the gayest village in Ontario." Who would have known: With a population of about 700, there are about 130 gay couples in this village. Mostly emigres from Toronto.

Anyways, we went to Warkworth to re-visit a wonderful pottery factory known as Frantic Farms. Monica Johnston owns this little store and workshop where she and her husband make beautiful glass and pottery artifacts. Some of them looking utilitarian but always too beautiful to use...other works such as this glass crab are delicate and meant clearly for display purposes. Later still, we went to a small park by a river in town and let the kids work off some energy before the ride back home.

Calm Conflict, Save Your Breath, Don't Stress, It's All Small Stuff

Just came across a post at Diary of a Pointy Hat in which an Australian editor/blogger gives a 7 point plan for easing your life a little by minimizing conflict and getting on with living. Click on the above link for an explanation of each of the seven points.

The Points:
1. How much of this situation is my fault?
2. People are NOT psychic
3. People are NOT bad American movies
4. Write out the argument
5. What can I give up to make this better?
6. Don't try to 'win'
7. You can't work with crazy people

Miss D's seven points remind me of David Burns' Feeling Good Handbook. The basic premise of this book is if you want to feel better, you must realize that your thoughts and attitudes – not external events – create your feelings. Distorted thinking results in bad feelings...recognizing your cognitive distortions can lead to better feelings.

The cognitive distortions as outlined in the Feeling Good Handbook and can be found here:

1. All-or-nothing thinking: You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

2. Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

3. Mental filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.

4. Disqualifying the positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. You maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

5. Jumping to conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

6. Mind reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you and don't bother to check it out.

7. The Fortune Teller Error: You anticipate that things will turn out badly and feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.

8. Magnification (catastrophizing) or minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the "binocular trick."

9. Emotional reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true."

10. Should statements: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.

11. Labeling and mislabeling: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him, "He's a damn louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.

12. Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event for which, in fact, you were not primarily responsible.

On Michael Moore's Sicko

Saw Sicko yesterday with my niece. It's a good movie, a little too long and wee bit over the top when it comes to portraying how other coutries, like Canada, France and Britain, have such a happy citizenry due to their system of socialized medicine. Wait for the DVD.