the pod bay door

:: Siding with the NHLPA in the current hockey lockout? Listening to this might change your mind.

:: I tend to feel like this on Monday morning, and this on Friday afternoon.

:: These things happened:

• Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head;
• Called Amelia about picking up music charts and CDs for upcoming April performances;
• Ate bowl of Cheerios with blueberries and strawberries and Bran Buds in skim milk with a dash of Splenda;
• Read the paper;
• Crawled back into bed for 15 minutes;
• Renewed That Dog CD, on loan from EPL;
• Showered, dressed, left house;
• Drove to AMA to buy five Platinum Plus movie passes, was immediately smitten with Tammy, the woman helping me, who was tall and beautiful and friendly and helpful and had deep brown eyes and a great smile;
• Drove to Amelia’s to pick up music;
• While leaving Amelia’s, was forced to stop in the middle of a street, waiting for the car in front of me to move; honking horn didn’t help; honking a second time resulted in her slowly moving so I could leave Amelia’s neighbourhood; note to self – there are still oblivious, moronic, shyte-for-brains people allowed to drive in this country, so watch out for them when you are on the road;
• Bought shoelaces at The Shoe Company, almost exciting as buying pants, but not quite;
• Had tazo chai latte at Indigo’s while reading Vanity Fair;
• Bought two copies of the SI Bathing Suit issue and a discount card before leaving Indigo’s;
• Drove home, and spent the afternoon working on project to clean and purge my kitchen; finished weeding and cleaning one bookshelf;
• Interrupted project a couple times to view short segments of stuff I had recorded years ago on video; this included a hilarious segment from Letterman’s last show on NBC with Tom Hanks, describing the time he tried to stuff Slappy White‘s golf clubs in the trunk of White’s car; the opening theme to Murder One, and the Larry Sanders episode with Gene Siskel, Warren Zevon and John Ritter;
• Drove to Sobey’s for groceries;
• Upon returning home, fired up the natural gas bbq and cooked a teriyaki-flavoured chicken breast; boiled a red potato and steamed some broccoli; smothered the broccoli and potatoes in no-fat sour cream, ate dinner with an Orange Crush on ice while watching Battlestar Galactica;
• Drove to Ceili’s, a pub and diner downtown, to join Debbie and Steve and friends in a get-together before they leave for a three-month trip to South America; enjoyed meeting some new people, including two of her amazing friends, Marni and Sherry – all four of us are from Windsor Park in St Boniface, part of Winnipeg, and we went to the same high school, albeir some 20 years apart; the incredible Lauren was there with Glen at another table, she saw me, came over and after a wonderful hug, we compared notes and visited for 20 minutes;
• Nachos arrived, but with jalapenos, which I asked not to be included, so a new batch was made, and Debbie and Marni and Sherry and Sona and I chowed down;
• Said my goodbyes, and drove home, and wrote this;

Life is sweet, it was a good day, and my friends are feckin’ amazing people.

:: It was a sombre mood on my campus today. One week ago on March 3rd, 2005, four young constables of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were gunned down by a deranged loner outside of Mayerthorpe, a small town west 130 km northwest of Edmonton. A national memorial service was held today in Edmonton, at the Butterdome Universiade Pavilion at the University of Alberta, where I work. Thousands of RCMP officers, and police from across Canada and the United States attended the service. Dignitaries included the Prime Minister on Canada, Premier of Alberta, and the Governor-General of Canada.

There was a massive police march on the west side of campus before the memorial service. It was apparently quite something to see. Along with two colleagues, we left our office to watch it, only to discover we were late, led to believe it began at 11:30, the time given in the local papers; in fact, it was over by 11:00 o’clock. I did not attend the service, which ran from 1:00-3:00 pm, but walked about the Butterdome area before and afterwards. Classes were still in session, and chances of getting a seat inside the dome were remote at best. I snapped a few pictures with my new digital camera along the way. I spoke with a few officers, includings ones from Victoria, and Ontario. The officer from Victoria said that he was amazed at the glorious weather, noting that it was warmer here than in Victoria. It is still winter, yet the sun was bright and very warm. The average high is -1C, but the temperature was in the low teens. Perhaps a higher power was at work today. In the past 72 hours, most of the snow in the city has melted.

The death of four officers at once was the largest loss of life in the history of the RCMP, and has devastated my country. Having happened so close to where I live makes it seem all the more real. One constable’s wife is expecting their second child, and another was engaged to be married. I watched some of the service on television this evening, and the eulogies delivered for each of the four officers were very moving. We can only hope that their families are able to find some comfort and solace from the support they have received from across the continent, and within their own communities.

:: Checking the CBC site for information on the aforementioned service, I see this headline: “Jetsgo ceases operations; travellers stranded“. Well, this blows chunks. I have a flight booked on Jetsgo to fly to Toronto in June to attend a conference.

:: Deadwood, the brilliant Western frontier drama set in Deadwood, South Dakota in 1877, is back on HBO, and in Canada, on Movie Central. I was going to write about it, but then noticed Tony’s post, so I will defer to his equally brilliant review

:: I exhausted from doing what seems to be nothing at work but writing. A letter to support a colleague’s upcoming tenure, a column on RSS for Engineering Information, revisions to the chapter I am writing on the literature of petroleum engineering and refining. For one who does not consider himself a writer by any stretch of the imagination (I surround myself with friends who do it much better than I ever will), what I’m learning is that writing takes a lot of time, and a lot of energy, and can be simulateously very rewarding and mentally draining.

:: Deb and Steve Feisst are about to take a three-month trip to South America, leaving March 12, and returning June 12. Deb is a library colleague and kindred spirit. They will document their trip at aventura de suramérica.

Peter Binkley, colleague at the U of Alberta, has started writing at his new site, Quædam cuiusdam, aptly titled given his background as a medieval historian, in addition to being the Digital Initiatives Technology Librarian on campus. (Watch out, Peter! Michael Gorman just tossed a book at you!)

I met Diane de Rooy at the Steely Dan concert at The Gorge in Washington State, in 2000 and again at the SD concert there in 2003. Her blog is Big Thinker, Small Town: “My motivation behind this blog is to contribute something to the way people think, hoping they will become more aware of facts, and ultimately, they will become motivated to do one or two small things about issues that need attention.” Sounds good to me.

Stuart Bayens has created Last Link on the Left:”The aim of The Last Link on the Left is to provide entertainment, education and observations of modern culture as reflected on the internet and in other forms of communication.” Wow. Good luck sorting through that quagmire!

Meanwhile, Tony is writing up a storm at A Sea of Flowers. Good God, man, where are you finding the time? 😉

:: As my friend Tony Dalmyn noted, I didn’t include a link to Michael Gorman’s original column in the LA Times, Google and God’s Mind, in the previous post about his Library Journal column about blogs, so there it is. I mention this because I want to draw your attention to a new blog, Quædam cuiusdam by esteemed colleague Peter Binkley, Digital Initiatives Project Librarian at the University of Alberta, in which he offers an insightful, informed and educated response to Gorman’s take on the Google project. Peter works on Peel’s Prairie Provinces, a major digitization project to enhance and improve access to the history of the Canadian prairie provinces:

Peel’s Prairie Provinces is a resource dedicated to assisting scholars, students, and researchers of all types in their exploration of the history and culture of the Canadian Prairies. The site contains both an online bibliography of books, pamphlets, and other materials related to the development of the Prairies and a fully searchable collection of the full texts of many of these items. As of September 2004, the Peel bibliographic database holds some 7,200 titles, approximately 2,500 of which have already been rendered in digital form and mounted on the Web site. These materials are extremely varied in terms of their content and provide an extraordinarily diverse picture of the Prairie experience. These items date back to the earliest days of exploration in the region and include a vast range of material dealing with every aspect of the settlement and development of the Canadian West. These sources are also highly diverse in regard to the cultural experiences that they reflect. Although English-language titles predominate, the databases contain a very substantial body of materials in French, Ukrainian, and numerous other languages.

Read more »