Tag: Me and Mine

Dreamy Yuffs

Some days it’s hard to find a story that will please and inform Hans. For all I know, he’s on vacation or in a white painted ward somewhere for people with internet addiction but my role here is clear: make sure Hans gets a story a day. But the dog days of summer can be tough in terms of fodder if you are not going to go on and on about something or other. So seeing as the well is pretty much dry, let’s looks at yuff today. Here is one example – some guy working at a job a week:

With many more jobs to go, he said he’s trying to help his generation deal with how to reconcile their views on personal success with their dreams of making a difference. “We’re more aware of how we impact others. It’s looking for a career situation that in which we can be happy and be passionate about, but also how we are contributing to something bigger than ourselves,” he said. “It’s totally cheesy. But I think cliches become cliches for a reason.”

“We’re more aware…” That statement is made every year by some guy doing something vaguely familiarly nutty, some difference-maker-in-training who will end up owning a business, hiring, firing and chalking it all up to “passion.” Dandy. Fabulous even. The world and developers of houses on slightly larger than normal up-scaleish suburbs need them. I was more aware once. Then I got older and blogging started. [You know who was aware as a youth? Harry Patch. Having a little too much awareness is not an impossibility.]

So, I was in the grocery store the other day and had a weird yuff related deja vu of sorts. Some Hall and Oates song was playing as I looked for some goat cheese or another bag of coffee beans. I am still unsure why the 2 am dance bar pick up music from when I was 19 is now the 11 am dairy aisle music of my forties. Anyway, I was thinking about what I was going to put together for supper and thought “I wonder what Bruce is drinking tonight” – whammo – in a total time shifted second I was in 1982 undergrad moment – not a reflection but a real mental blip – planning for a BBQ at 44 transformed in an instant to planning a party at 19. Very creepy. And then I thought it was creepy. There was something immersive in the moment that brought me back to the smell of a dorm, drifty anxiety, the perfect generation assuming it’s on the cusp of something we-are-more-aware-ish. Who needs that? I shook my head and the moment was gone. Whatever Bruce was drinking back then it was crap and there was far too much of it.

Which is all to say good luck to you, job a week kid, as some guy now dead or retired wished me good luck a quarter century ago. You will make something of yourself as most do. And, even better, good times and fine goat cheese and decent lawn chairs are just a couple of decades ahead, too.

August Road Trip

So we finally settled on a five day zip around Lake Ontario. I had been thinking Lake Erie but I think the land of the weck and Wegmans needs further examination. I have to do some heavy negotiations to qualify for the garbage plate. Plenty of consideration of ales and lagers, however, with Finger Lake Beverages, Beers of the World and Premier Gourmet en route. But also a tacky-fest in Niagara Falls as well as a hike in Letchworth State Park, the most highly recommended destination from the western New Yorkers consulted.

Any other places I should visit in western New York?

Chitchattery Fridayesque

Another week is gone. It was a good one except for the Red Sox starting their August collapse a little early. In other sporting news, apparently there was a move to press gang the Chilean U20 soccer team for the Hudson Bay fleet last evening. And I play vintage base ball this weekend in another country. Who knew? Sunday sees me and the other member of the Kingston St. Lawrence Base Ball team taking on Sackets Harbor, NY in a game that will use rules somewhere between 1860 and 1875. Gary may even be seen tomorrow but we are still uncertain as to what the day will bring. I may, too, be in a canoe. What a wonderful week. Here is the linkfest:

  • Constitutional Update: Where is the balance of powers when one branch asserts autonomy?

    • Update: The Flea guides us to the new enemy – New Victorians.

  • I caught a good story from Reuters about a journalist embedded with Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.
  • I haven’t read any Harry Potter and boycott the movies due to the lack of claymation so I see not reason to give a hoot about spoilers and the release of a page or two early. Doesn’t there seems to be an over-enlistment of the authorities in the propping up of a franchise?
  • Are we entirely over 9/11? It appears that travel has hit a high but are we forgetful or confident. Americans are staying home we assume due to the dollar…but is that it? Why does no one come to Canada?

    Americans are coming to Canada much less than they used to…”Canada needs to add more fun and adventure to its image,” the report, released by Deloitte and the tourism association, said. “We need the right product — the right active tours and adventure experiences. And most importantly, we need to promote them.”

    Soon lighters will return.

  • It has been announced that a father and son team of metal detecting nerds hit the motherload with a Viking treasure trove being announced in England this week. Did you know that metal detection is really cool? That you can get a Bill Wyman model metal detector? I wish I metal detected.
  • Acquitted conduct. I was listening to CBC Ottawa last evening on the drive home and there was a “sentencing consultant” from the US being interviewed who said that Conrad Black faces the prospect of facts relating to the charges he was acquitted upon being still included in the sentencing on the charges he was found guilty. That makes no sense and I am sure, ten years past any criminal work, that it is entirely unknown in Canada. Wow. I actually feel a little bad for Connie this morning.

That is all for now. I wish I were in England where I could spend some time watching for ocean-going rubber floaty toys. I bet I’d meet up with Bill Wyman if I only spent more time doing things like that.

A Bat In The Basement

Dozing off at the end of the evening, I dreamed that there was something flitting in the blue glow of the TV light. Then I realized there was no dream as I wasn’t sleeping. We had a bat trapped in the house and it was down here in the basement. So here are my bat removal tips gleaned from seven minutes of experience:

  • Turn on the lights where you do not want the bat to go. They will flit in those rooms but will exit again.
  • Bats are quite cheery when there is just one of them and one of you.
  • A table cloth held up as a screen works as a good corralling device.
  • Keep it moving.
  • At least one bat in the world has a hard time seeing the wall above a door and will whap into it over and over.
  • Bats tire after ten minutes of swooping and wall whapping.
  • Once tired, bats are happy to land and be gathered up in a table cloth and taken outside.
  • Our cat is not a bat attacker.

One more thing. Human reactions can range from terror to fascination in these moments.

Snooty Facebook

Seeing as I never did anything with MySpace (or Twitter, or Orkut, or Friendster….) I wonder if the fact that Facebook works for me and my undergrad pals says something about us:

The research suggests those using Facebook come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college. By contrast, MySpace users tend to get a job after finishing high school rather than continue their education.

What to make of that? I don’t know why there is so much buy-in from the people I know but it is as accessible as email in many ways keeping the participation threshold down. The lack of skins or visual personalization works in its favour as well. But the communal scrapbook thing is what I think works very well. Obsessing over who is that person in a photo from 23 years ago and tagging the separate people within them creates a pattern of continuity that expresses your own time line as well as branches out to do the same for people you know. So the illusion of a community gets some backing up compared to the post and reply of blogs or the thoughts of the day. It is a different thing to claim, having an actual mutual past – as opposed to a supposed present interest.

A Second Career In The Military

An interesting article in The Globe this morning on the recruitment of older folk, in large part established professionals, for the Canadian military:

“In the last two years, our strategic intake plan has been heavily dominated by the combat arms,” says Captain Holly-Ann Brown, a spokeswoman for Canadian Forces Recruiting. “Are there people over 25 applying for combat arms? Sure. But, typically, the person coming to the military looking for a career in combat tends to be out of high school.” As a result, the average age fell to about 24 last year – still closer to 30 than the minimum entry age of 17 for full-time service. Older service men and women can be costly in terms of benefits, and there is also the dicey issue of whether they can hold their own with the young and spry. Yet military data indicate that nearly one-quarter of the 2,596 troops currently serving in Afghanistan are older than 40. More than a third are younger than 29.

That is quite the thing. I thought when I heard of Trevor Greene‘s decision to serve and subsequent injuries that his enlistment was maybe a rare thing. But recently learning of another Kingsman of my era, Stephen Murray, being out there building roads and other good things in the reconstruction team gave me some inkling that there were more than you might assume.

What The Heck Have I Done?

What indeed? I am chaperoning a trip fo grade three kids to the zoo. I thought my life would be chaperoning exempt. The zoo is 200 km or more to the east which means there is five hours in a bus involved. Not a yellow bus, God be praised, but I am told a comfy one. I am still bringing ear plugs. But I am not bringing mace or anything like that so I am being a proper parent.

For your reading and commenting pleasure today, while I endure the screams of eight year olds as I am encased with them in a small steel cage on wheels hurtling down the highway, please visit the Flea where you can see Ms. Hilton defended and accused, ignored for what she is and praised for what she is not – sometimes all by the same person. A sense of fashion collides with a grasp of the law – but no one has lost an eye yet.

My Day Off With The Roofers

Having roofed before, as with laying large amounts of sod, I do not do it any more. As you might be aware, I am what is known as not handy half by choice. It is not because I am lazy or fabulously wealthy but when (not if) I made a mistake I would likely leave it and then would hate that mistake for decades as I looked at the house. I know this is what I am like and I freely admit it. I console myself with other strengths, like my sense of indignity at bad BBQ and a passing understanding of a large range of athletic endeavors.

Plus it is very tippy up there. I am quite sure of that.