New Work, New Adventure!

As of December 2nd, I will no longer be working for the Griffin Centre.

This is sad for me because I really did love the crisis work with all its many facets. In the end, being able to concretely help people who were sometimes in dire and immediate need of help was a great way to keep my enthusiasm and focus strong. I really did love working with the people around me as well.

Unfortunately, for some mysterious combination of reasons: my clinical thinking skills were not quite adequate (roll eyes here), the budget for the coming year could not for some mysterious reason guarantee that my contract would get renewed. Mysteriously, I had been renewed the previous year, but this year Griffin was up against the two year deadline.

This deadline, by Griffin's own policy and procedures, means that if you renew a person's contract for two years then you must hire them for the third. This is where I was.

Nevermind. Change is progress even if it is backwards. Although it must be said that Durham Mental Health Services is no fly-by-night operation and I hope to learn a great deal working there as a case manager in the mental health sector.

Hmm, strange that they, a mental health agency, do not have any over-inflated notions of what clinical thinking really means in day-to-day work with their population.

MORE ON THIS NOTION OF THE "CLINICAL" IN FUTURE POSTS.

Lisa Wants to Know

My artist-friend in Montreal wants to know what my ultimate goal is with my "Trade-Up."

To be honest, the journey is the destination. I just want to see how far I can take this thing. So, e-mail me, offer me your brother's soccer ball or your mom's Phillips blender...I'm easy -- honest!

Trade-Up!

So there's this guy from Montreal -- Kyle MacDonald -- who started a website called "one red paper clip."

Yep! That paper clip. And he is determined to trade his way up from the paper clip to a house. So far he has gotten a wooden fish pen for the paper clip. In exchange for the wooden fish pen he got a hand made door knob. The door knob was then traded for a Coleman stove and now he has a red generator.

I first heard about this guy on CBC radio on November 10, 2005.

So, I figure, hey, if Kyle can do this....so can I.

I am willing to trade a fridge magnet in the shape of a hunk of cheese. I think its a promotional item produced by the Milk Board or whatever they call themselves...probably dairy something. The magnet is exactly the size of a single serving of cheese (50 g). This is not just a good trade, but potentially, the only magnet on your fridge which will help you become way healthier than you currently are....really!

I await your first trade...post your comments with an e-mail address and I will get back to you.

p.s. this offer is only open to people who are in Toronto or within a one hour driving radius of Toronto.

You can visit Kyle's website by clicking on the title of this post.

Mea Culpa...

Complicit -- adj., Associated with or participating in a questionable act or a crime.

***
Daily, I meet parents who have cared for their son or daughter for 20, 30 and 40 years. They have not abandoned their kids. As parents no one can expect any less from them. Would you walk away from your handicapped child? Neither do these parents. But there must be a limit to how many years of sacrifice, labour, residence and money one can realistically expect two people to provide to a child who is no longer a child.

There should be a limit past which society says, "You have done well -- beyond well, beyond all possible expectations. We as a society value not just people's lives, but the quality of people's lives. We value your lives as parents and the lives of your children."

Instead, we provide parents with token aids. Support payments and supplements. And then, when all else fails -- a crisis network which throws money on any given brushfire. This staunches the flow for a time. In reality, it is hush money. It is all hush money. Here you go...a few dollars to hold you for a month or two...and the problem goes away. The system is off the hook.

And the reason I do not strap a sandwich board on and ring a bell at the corner of Yonge and Bloor, is that I benefit from the system as well. Yep. I have mortgage payments to make, don't you know? And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my hush money. 40K keeps my mouth shut despite the overwhelming evidence of the injustice perpetrated in the name of a government which insists it is deeply concerned with 'people in need of services.'

This, I have decided, makes me complicit. I am the system.

* * *

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

-- Bishop Desmond Tutu

Good Bye and Good Night Rosa Parks

"I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day," Parks wrote. "I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was 42. No, the tired I was, was tired of giving in."

Piercings!

It's 4:45 p.m. as I sit at my desk. Phone rings. I pick up. Its my wife. Seth, our son, has used a single hole punch on his 6 month old sister's lip. Yes, LIP! Upper lip! Wife says, "she's bleeding a lot and it won't stop."

And the surgeon? Well, he promptly ran behind the curtains in the living room, all the while yelling, "I'm sorry mommy...I'm sorry."

The fun never stops in our household.

Oh, yeah. Tarah is fine and by the time I got home the bleeding had stopped. Whew.

Zoo Run

Marsh (a.k.a. my wife) at the Metro Zoo's 5 Kilometre run/walk. Look 'er go!!

Share a Secret

Once in a blue moon, while surfing you find a web site that blows you away -- and it doesn't involve naked people!!

Postsecret is one such site. The picture you see is one of many postcards sent in to this site's author. They are confessions of secrets people have never revealed to anyone, but have done so on this site -- anonymously.



Click on the title of this post to go to the postsecret web site.

Hard Science Fiction: Recommendations

It's been a long time since I have read any science fiction not connected with Frank Herbert's Dune series. In fact, aside from the Dune universe I had assumed that hard sci-fi had died a quiet death. For a short time, it seemed that book stores only carried science fantasy...with dragons and muscle bound heroes fighting on some wacky world.

But I was wrong. Yes, wrong! Hard to believe but true.

A case in point is a novel I only just (15 minutes ago) finished reading: Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross. Iron Sunrise was shortlisted for the best novel Hugo award in 2005. Need I say more? Then, as I am apt to do, I go to Stross' web site and find that Iron Sunrise is a sequel to Singularity Sky. The point: This book was great.

Visit Stross at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/index.html

Strangely I have also found yet another author of science fiction: Robert J. Sawyer -- A Canadian and a Nebula award winner. Stross sets his novel, Calculating God, in Toronto specifically at the ROM. A beautiful read, a little heavy on the message but nevertheless hard to put down.

Both these guys are relentless and I plan on hunting down more of their many novels tomorrow.

So what are you waiting for...run to the nearest library and read, dammit!

Pictures from the Party

Tarah at the Church


Lesley and Grandma Buchoon



Aunt Jacqui


Jannelle


Friends




Eric and Aunty Louise

The Christening

October 2, 2005: Tarah will get christened and following church there will be a party at the 486, ok, just the "86."
So be there or be square, Yo!

In other news, I am officially on the hunt for work as a case manager. So if you see something suitable please, please, please call.

Gotta go! Pictures from the party to follow.

Counter

I am adding a site meter to my blog. Keep your knarled fingers crossed and pray that this works.

Memoir: Mrs. Macrae (final)

One of my fondest memories of you is that of visiting an ice rink near the school. A few days before our class was to go ice skating, my father and I went to Canadian Tire and bought a pair of CCM skates. The next day I watched my friends lace-up their skates and imitated them the best I could. I got on the ice with your help. Somehow you coaxed me away from the sideboards and then I was skating.
You pulled me forward with both hands, as you skated backwards. I felt so special on the ice with you - my teacher. I did my best version of skating with your encouragement. This is one of my fondest memories of you.
If I had to pick out a time that stands out more than the skating lesson it would have to be your thank-you note to me. It was the end of the school year. I had a cold and stayed home on the last day. Unable to attend class, I sent you a beaded necklace through a fellow classmate. A necklace which was one of a number of gift items my parents brought with them to Canada. My intent at the time was a end-of-the-year thank you. Not an unusual thing for a student to do, especially in the primary grades.
In retrospect, I must admit that I was smitten, had a crush on you. I can only imagine that this is not so uncommon an occurrence. And the cold? Well, I did have a cold but I suspect that the necklace meant so much to me that I was simply too shy and scared to actually hand it to you in person.
True to form though, you accepted my gift, delivered by proxy and went one better: You sent me a thank-you note. A totally unexpected turn of events. It was a simple note; a thank-you for the necklace from 'a far away place.' But it meant a lot to me because the note was written by my first teacher, my first real contact with a Canadian and the object of my first crush.
Once again, through that note, you had made me feel special, and by-the-by way, taught me the appropriateness and importance of thank-you notes. Nearly 30 years after receiving that note, I still have it amongst my keepsakes and memorabilia.
This is all to say: Thank-you.
Thank you for being there for me, for being an educatorand an exemplar. Thank-you for taking time out for me, and no doubt, many other students. And know that even now you are thought of and remembered with the greatest respect and fondness.

The Sky is Falling!

"On the basis of research conducted since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has published a report concluding that there is a 62% probability of at least one magnitude 6.7 or greater quake, capable of causing widespread damage, striking the San Francisco Bay region before 2032. Thus, a major quake is about twice as likely to happen as not to happen in the next 30 years."

(The above material is lifted from the Association of Bay Area Governments' website. To visit the site, click on the title of this post.)

'If New Orleans is Sinking, Baby, I Don't Wanna Swim'

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.


-- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin