the pod bay door

.: From Friday night to Saturday night, Edmonton received >18 cm (~7.1″) of snow, about 3 cm short of the record for March 18th. Edmonton had no permanent snow until Feb 21 or 22, so I can’t complain about this much snow so late in the winter. The only complaint is a typical one: the City of Edmonton never gets the roads cleared of snow with any speed whatsoever, and the side roads and residential streets are always ignored. Yesterday after shovelling my driveway, I got into my car and backed out onto the street, where the vehicle was stuck immediately, unable to move forward because of too much snow underneath the car. No one was around to help, and I spent 20 minutes digging myself out.

No worries: winter ends tomorrow morning!

.: 21 March 2006 update: apparently a record was set on Saturday, as just over 22 cm of snow fell that day.

.: Well, that didn’t last long, but it’s ok, the win over the American team is something that can never be taken away from the Canadians.

.: Whenever discussing All Things Pop Culture, the only constant is the number of hours in the day, and how one parcels out that time. In 2005, the number of movies I watched was way down from previous years, in fact it was the lowest number since the late 70s. Why was the number down? A combination of things: fewer quality movies made it to Edmonton, the cost of a movie ticket continued to rise, and the overall moviegoing experience continued to lose its appeal. Seeing a film in the theatre is a crapshoot. You never know who will be sitting behind, next to, or in front of you, and whether they will talk throughout the film, flip their cells phone open 10 times, or actually just watch the movie peacefully.

But the other reason is the ongoing increase in the quality of television, traceable back to the days of Hill Street Blues and St Elsewhere. HBO has raised the bar very high, with shows like The Sopranos, Oz, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Rome, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Larry Sanders Show, and many more. Last week, I watched two new network shows, and found myself pulled in almost immediately. The two shows are Sons & Daughters and The Unit. If I am able to keep up with both shows, I will essentially write off my Tuesday nights, which already includes Law & Order: SVU. There is always bit torrent files and video tapes to make it a bit easier. Rather than expound on the virtues of either show, read Tom Shales to learn more about why each is worth making the effort to watch.

.: And so, the World Baseball Classic is underway, and a team of Canadian underdogs, which include a handful of Canadian-born MLB players, and without Canadian MLB pitchers Eric Gagne (who won the 2003 Cy Young Award), Rich Harden, and Ryan Dempster, pulls off a major upset and defeats Team USA 8-6 today. Love it, love it a lot.

.: I leave for Atlanta on March 24th, to attend the ACS 231st Meeting. I’ve been struggling with creating a presentation for this session, and made some small progress today. I hope to have something ready in a few days. I’m fighting writer’s block, fear of presenting to the converted, and a general feeling of lethargy.

.: Connect2Canada is an interesting website from the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC.

On July 1, 2005, Ambassador Frank McKenna launched Connect2Canada.com, a virtual network for Canadians and friends of Canada who live in the United States. Since that announcement, thousands have signed up to receive information on subjects as diverse as our global troop deployments, updates on BSE, Canadian events in the US, and the latest on our efforts to help out the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Many Canadians have told us how proud they are to be a Canadian in the U.S. Many Americans with links to Canada have also signed up to be a part of this network. They are emblematic of the proud and deep history between the people of Canada and the United States.

Connect2Canada is a way to exchange news and ideas, and find out what is happening in the U.S. related to Canada. Members of the network can receive email notices on a range of topics of interest to them and can share their views with others. As the network grows, it will serve as a knowledge base and a ready resource for facts on the major issues in the United States and Canada today.

We invite you to sign up to the network, so that the next time the conversation turns to Canada, you can have key facts at your disposal, such as:

Canada, not Saudi Arabia, is America’s largest supplier of crude oil.
• Canada has put 15,000 troops through Afghanistan.
• None of the 9/11 terrorists came through Canada.
• Facts on why the US market needs tariff-free Canadian lumber.
• Canada-US trade, at more than $1.5 billion US per day, supports over five million jobs in the United States.

Please spread the word to anyone you think would be interested in joining this network. We are also interested in feedback on how this network can be useful to you. You can send us your thoughts when you sign up to the network.

An article in today’s Edmonton Journal suggests that one reason the website exists is to help dispel myths many Americans have about Canada, such as:

• Some of the 9-11 Hi-jackers entered through Canada: FALSE. This is simply not true. In fact, they had all been legally admitted to the United States, as has been confirmed by senior American officials.
• Canadians are all Hockey Players: FALSE. The most popular participation sport for Canadians over the age of 15 is Golf. In 2000, there were 730,000 registered soccer players in Canada, compared to 500,000 for hockey.
• Canada is all ‘way up North’: FALSE. Twenty-seven of the fifty U.S. states have land North of the Southern most point of Canada – Middle Island, Ontario.
• Canada caused the blackout on August 14, 2003: FALSE. The initial cause of the blackout began in Ohio.

It’s a good effort, but don’t expect the majority of Americans to ever change their views and impressions of Canada; it’s the nature of the beast down there.

.: The astonishing poem you are about to read was written by my first cousin (once removed!), Christina, who lives in Winnipeg. Christina is in Grade 9 at Windsor Park Collegiate, the same school I attended in Grades 11 and 12.  It is derived from and based on the poem, Ellie: An Inventory of Being, by Lea Wait. She wrote her version for an assignment, and received a mark of 20/20 for her efforts. Christina is an avid reader, and her love of the written word shines through in her poetry. When I read “Christina: An Inventory of Being” for the first time, I was astonished at the level of insight and creativity in her writing. With her blessing, please enjoy, and any comments received will be forwarded to her accordingly.

Christina: An Inventory of BeingI am Christina

I am fourteen years old.

I am a student, but only in school.
I am a young woman, but a girl at heart.

At my fullest height, I am 65 inches.
I have blue eyes, but they’re sometimes green.
My hair is light brown, but once it was brown.
Sometimes my hair is fancy.
But on other days it’s dull.

I’m one of two children.
Being the older one, I have more responsibilities.
I think.

I love to draw, but I don’t really share it.
I’ve drawn a couple pictures but am afraid to show them.
Yet, I adore art.

I love the outdoors.
But despise leaving home.
In the summer my house is empty.

I believe in God.
But sometimes I feel like he’s not there.
I go to Church,
But only on special occasions.

I’ve been called a nerd.
But then again I agree.
I love to read.
Some people hate it.
But they don’t know what they’re missing.
Reading is my life.
The air that I breathe are the words that I read.
I eat the chapters.
But paper doesn’t taste good.

My younger sister is sporty.
And I’m bookish.
My Dad said that she could run me into the ground.
And I said I could read her into the ground.
Touché.

People nowadays judge by appearance.
And think before they get to know.
I don’t care what people think.
Especially about me.

I’m a proud Italian.
Yet I don’t like spaghetti.
I’m a proud English.
And dying for the accent.

Fate.
Some people think it doesn’t happen.
But I think different.
One day it will happen.

My name is Christina and this is 2006.

I think my cousin Christina did an amazing job adapting Lea Wait’s poem to her life and its varying point of view, at the tender age (at the time) of 14.  Ms Wait notes on her website that she was thrilled to discover that her poem is used in creative writing classes over the years, and I hope that if she ever reads this one, she’ll be pleased with what Christina wrote in her own words.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs2.5 Canada License.

Of note is that Christina is already a published author – she had a short poem published in a Canadian anthology in 2005.

.: If this wasn’t on the BBC site, one would think it was written for The Onion: 21 people were rescued after they fell nine feet when a floor collapsed during a health and safety meeting at an educational supplies firm in Hyde in the UK.

.: February began with the trip to Toronto to present at the OLA Conference, followed by a few days in Winnipeg. Upon returning, I prepared and delivered five lectures to various engineering classes and started working at NINT half-days the same week. In the midst of all this, I was also rehearsing with Amelia for a concert we played today as part of the Music Wednesdays at Noon series, which went quite well, and was appreciated by all who attended. Now I can take a breath or two, and begin working on a presentation for the upcoming 231st American Chemical Society National Meeting in Atlanta. I am participating in the Social Software and Chemical Information program on Sunday, March 24th. While in Atlanta, I will spend some time hangin’ with my lawyer cousin, Adam. I was in Atlanta once before, in 1994.

I need sleep.

.: Steve Martin hosted SNL for the 14th time last weekend. The opening sequence, his monologue, and a later sketch all played off the new record, and featured Alec Baldwin in a couple of hilarious bits. Milk and Cookies has links to the sketches, all worth the time to watch them.

.: A good reason to avoid downloading and installing Google Desktop.

.: Tomorrow I begin my NINT stint, so to speak, and it coincides with the busiest week of my year, as I am teaching in four classes, and also rehearsing for a Feb 22 noon concert with Amelia. This weekend, I made it to the Y twice for 40-minute cycling workouts, a routine I need to reestablish right away.