Living Organically

I've been experimenting with a new way of life. One that has been gradually evolving over the past few years, even though I didn't know it was happening.

It's about letting life evolve naturally, trusting my intuition, believing that things are going to get done without having to resort to timetables, to-do lists and day planners.

Back when I first started working totally independently, I would structure my day to begin at 9 am, stop for lunch precisely at 12 .. you get the idea. It was like I needed to punch my own time clock in order to stay on track.

A lot of this was born from the need to get things done and be "productive". How I measured productivity was by the number of words written, number of phone calls made, number of minutes of sound and documentaries composed. You get the idea. That's the way I used to define productivity.

Well, in the last couple of years in particular, I have not been able to define myself strictly by that criteria. My life had changed in a way that I was needing to define myself by other values. And ya, it was a struggle (and still is) to redefine myself in a way that doesn't rely on the merely quantifiable or definable to determine what has and hasn't been a successful day.

These days, I get up when I want to get up. I eat when I am hungry. I go for a walk when I want to. I play the piano. I go to the computer to send out emails when I want to and I "work" when I want to.

And do you know what? Things get done. The money has come in, I have food on the table and everything I need.

I still have a hard time trusting that following my own schedule and intuition will get me to a really good place. I want to fall back on that old tendency to run headfirst into my work with singleminded determination to achieve "results". The concept of "surrender" is something I still have a great deal of trouble with, yet when I run headlong into something, it has often turned out to be a wall (ouch). And I usually don't have a helmet on, either.

It's not that I haven't been "working" lately. Far from it -- in many ways, these past few years have been some of the hardest work of my life. Getting to the place where I am now has required great amounts of focus, trust and a firm idea of what I want. I don't even know if I even should use the term "work" .. it just doesn't seem to apply to the way I do things anymore.

And where am I right now? I am in a place and in a space I am really liking to be, doing things that really resonate with my soul. I am becoming the person I want to be, rather than the person I thought everybody else wanted. It's not been easy getting here, and I am sometimes (often, even now) really sad at what I've had to surrender up to be where I am now.

Yes, it's been hard work. But yet, the good things in my life haven't happened through any great design of my own ... I've often said to my friends that I've been living my life most recently on grace, luck and skill ... in that order. And much of the time it hasn't felt like my success has had very much to do with my skill, either. Things just evolved and took their own time. And no, I sure didn't often trust that I was headed in the right direction.

Still don't sometimes. I still want to fall back on my To-Do list and plan everything within a minute of next week. But the thing I've learned that is more powerful is that if we trust ourselves, trust the people around us, trust the universe, god, goddess or whoever, our To-Do list will take care of itself.

And there will be much more rich things when we review what we've accomplished than if we'd written everything done and done everything on the list in our usual singular, too-focussed compulsive way.

Because many of the best things that happen to us won't even appear on our list at all ...

Oh My God! It's the God Truck!

I remember saying to a friend before I came out here, "But is the God Truck still around?". And today I found it.

This one is probably more accurately called Son of God-Truck. Because it's not exactly the same. The old God-Truck was like a .. say, probably a three ton truck. The signs on it were made of wood and it was mounted on the bed of the truck like an A-frame. It looked like a cross between a sandwich board and an evangelistic little camper. You could take it into the rainforest and sleep in it when you're done proselytizing.

Son of God Truck looks like a camper van from one angle, and a monster truck from another (puny little monster truck, but the monster truck all the same). Stylistically the two are very similar -- if it's not the God Truck guy himself with an updated image, it might be his kid. To paraphrase a friend of mine .. "this is not indeed the God-Truck, but the God-Truckness cannot be denied".

The message has changed. No words about Jesus Christ coming to earth. Lots of political rambles, including the question "are you a sheeple?" Much railing about the evil media, evil oil, evil George Bush and a quote by (I forget his first name) Wolfewitz.

Guess these days he figures we don't have to talk directly about Satan ...

Good to see that quirky expression still exists in Vancouver. And that the spirit of the God-Truck is still alive and travellin' around.

Hangin' Out at the Beach

Just got back from spending a few days in the Okanagan Valley with my in-laws. The first picture is me, of course, about to dunk because the rock I was standing on was slippery.

The other picture is Crystal, Tyler and Kathy. Kathy is Barry's sister and Tyler and Crystal are her two kids (who aren't really kids anymore. Crystal is an ol' married lady now who just found out she's pregnant, which will make me a GREAT-aunt. I told her I wasn't old enough. And certainly her mother, who is only a few months older than me is not old enough to be a grandmother. Scary for those of us who aren't old enough, but real nice for Crystal and her husband Joel who are really excited).

I had a really wonderful time, possibly one of the nicest times I've ever had with all of them. As usual, Barry's mom and I were a (good) bad influence on each other, eating chocolate for breakfast, spending too much money, talking about all the relatives (especially Barry).

What was wonderful is how the whole Rueger clan have made a big effort to make sure I stick around. They have all gone out of their way to keep in touch and make sure I stay a member of the family, even if Barry and I aren't together anymore. Makes me feel really appreciated.

It was fun. And boy, was it hot. The water was wonderful. And so was the whole trip in general (saw a bald eagle on the way back home. Bonus. This is such gorgeous country.)

Ah, Vancouver Part 2

I always liked those sulphur piles. Don't know much about them or why they're there, but they always looked really dramatic against the blue of the water, the gray of the mountains and the blue of the sky.

I took this picture while crossing the Burrard Inlet on the Seabus. Nice little 12 minute trip from the City of Vancouver to North Vancouver. I've been doing a lot of exploring and re-exploring over the past week since I arrived. A lot of the places that I used to haunt are still around .. including the old apartment building where Barry and I lived for five years. It's only ten blocks or so from where I am staying. It's a very old building with a very large green space behind it, which is why I am surprised that it is still there. The owner could make a lot more money by tearing down and building up.

Still, for the sake of my memories I'm glad it's still there.

It is a very exciting city, though, and I am glad to be here even if it's only for the summer. I am finding more energy in myself than I have for a lot of years. I am now exactly twice the age I was when I moved out here the first time -- and I've got to say that of all the different incarnations that I have gone through, my time in Vancouver was the part of my life when I liked myself the most.

And a lot of that same energy has come back to me. It's like my younger self met me at the airport. She and I (younger Victoria and older Victoria) been having a really good time connecting with each other again.

I am also gradually reconnecting with friends of olde .. there are quite a few of them still around, so it will be really good to connect with them.

I've got all summer. That's real good.

Thank you for listening to me

It is now day 3 of the World Urban Forum. So far I've done 2 interviews with another one scheduled for later this afternoon.

The interviews have been good, but the most value is learning a lot more about all the issues I'll be covering with Green Planet Monitor. Specifically, I've been to several sessions about post-tsunami reconstruction and I think I have a better handle on what needs to be covered as part of this very huge story.

One of the big things I am learning has nothing to do with issues, though. It has more to do with how the first and the third world relate to each other. A phrase comes up continuously at the end of panel discussions -- "thank you for listening to me". Granted, first world people also usually end their talks with the obligatory thank you as well. But there's something different about the way it's phrased when .. for lack of a better term ... we Anglos say it.

For us, it's more a matter of formality. I get the impression that there's no real heart in it ... I'm sure it's meant on some level but it seems to be more like a habit.

The people I have heard from the third world have a gentler way of saying it. "Thank you for listening to me". As though they are surprised. There's also a real expression of gratitude .. like they have no expectation that being listened to is a right and are really happy for the chance.

From now on, I am going to try to say "thank you for listening to me" more often. Because, in this world, we are given a gift when people listen to us. And by saying thank you I am acknowledging the gift.

I also believe that being listened to is also a right .. but if we all said thank you to each other we wouldn't have to demand our rights. We would give AND receive the gratitude we all need.

Voiceless in Radioland

I have my voice back again. I got a really nasty bout of almost bronchitis and had to really concentrate on not losing my voice so I could speak at the National Campus and Community Radio Conference yesterday. Tough work, being at a radio conference and trying not to talk.

As most of you probably figured out, I didn't totally manage to be mute all week. But I did cut back on the use of my vocal chords and the two workshops and soundwalk I did yesterday went really well.

I am in Ottawa, by the way, in case you've lost track (I lose track of myself on a daily basis, so quite understandable if you do too).

I really like this city. If I was going to live anywhere in Ontario, this would be it. Having a really good time getting together with friends I haven't seen since I lived here five or six years ago. This city is so pretty. And so polite ... not much Windsorness or Hamilton-ness to it at all (though I do appreciate the realness of both those cities -- Ottawa has a lot of smoke and mirrors -- there is a lot of pretending done here)


There is an upside to living out of a backpack and not needing to be any place at any particular time.

Keep in touch, y'all ... FYI - I am back in Hamilton on Tuesday and Wednesday, heading Toronto way on Thursday, then flying out to Vancouver on Friday (the 16th). Yee haw.

Not a career option

It always helps to know where you stand when a chance for a job comes up .. do I apply or not? Would I be happy doing this kind of work?

Here is a no-brainer. I got an email from the "Defense Talent Network" inviting me (and likely hundreds of thousands of others) to apply for a job as a proposal writer. Ya, a job I could do, but is "Defense Talent Network" what I think it is.

Sure enough. How anybody managed to get me on a list to imvite to do work involving missile defence systems and ICBMs is a question .. obviously they don't know anything about the people they're spamming. Because if they did any research at all, they sure wouldn't ask ME.

fyi -- still on the road, heading up to Ottawa for a week. Back to Hamilton/T.O. on June 12, out to Vancouver on the 16th.

The Sound of One Train Colliding

It was an eventful trip. I caught the Northlander for South River this morning.

I was sitting in the first car behind the engines. This particular engineer blew his whistle a lot. Thinking that I could use a good train whistle in my sound collection, I took out my mike and stood in the vestibule between the engine and the first car.

I had been recording for about 3 minutes when the train came to a stop. In retrospect, I can remember bracing myself just a bit .. the train must have put its brakes on quickly, but it was still a very smooth stop. I kept recording until the train came to a complete stop and got the thumping of one car on another and (I think) some squealy brake sounds.

I went back to my seat. A minute or so later, one of the crew came on the P.A. and said we would be delayed because there had been an accident. That was a little spooky -- the only five minutes I recorded on the train would have captured the changing sounds of the train as the impact was happening.

I haven't listened back to the recording yet -- I am wondering if the engineer was blowing the whistle even more than usual in that space and time. I wonder if I can detect the moment of impact.

I am also wondering if I will be able to listen to that bit of recording and use it in sound pieces without conjuring up the associations of having been in an accident. I'm sure it will sound different to me than it will to anyone else listening .. I know the larger context and they don't. (Which is true of any recording we make -- for the person who created the recording, there are many different associations which wouldn't be there for other people.)

And then of course I went into journalistic mode, and got the story from the train crew. Seems that the person in the car is okay -- the train either clipped the front or the back of the car, sending it flipping over. But he's alive. Good thing his timing wasn't a split section off or he would have been right in the path of the train. And the story wouldn't have had a happy ending.

It was a long train trip. The crew was all shook up so in addition to waiting while the police investigated at the scene of the accident, we had to wait in Bracebridge while Ontario Northland brought in a new crew from North Bay. The new conductor told me that there is always a crew change as soon as possible after an accident. This is a good thing .. I can't imagine what it must be like to be an engineer and know you're going to hit a car. And not being able to do anything about it.

I'm glad everybody's alright.

The technological universe expands!

This is my first audioblog post. Had to try it out to see if it works. So if you want to hear my voice, just hit the Play arrow.

Now I have to think of creative audio I can post over the telephone. Maybe I'll read a poem next time.

The Birds

Hi friends -- I am in Toronto this week. Had a good though challenging time in Hamilton last week .. in the end, the good times outweighed the challenges.

This week I am in Toronto doing a guest Radio Art deejay stint at the Radio without Boundaries conference. This morning I was at my sister Di's place and went for a walk in High Park. A couple of people along the edge of the pond warned me to watch out for the red-winged blackbirds because they were dive-bombing people. The guess is that this is a critical day in nesting season and they are trying to warn us away. What they'd do is swoop down on people's heads, grazing their hair as they did it. One came after me but I was able to duck.

And speaking of ducks, I saw eight adorable little ducklings. It was a good day for birdwatching. I didn't have my camera with me so couldn't take any pictures but I will try to upload some visuals when I am in South River next week. The Blackfly festival has started .. oh joy. Oh well, it's still awfully nice up there, blackflies notwithstanding.

Packing and Unpacking

Well, time for the official "on the road" part of my blog to come back. I tell all my friends, this is the best way to keep up with where I'm going to be when. And I can also refer back to it myself when I find myself asking "so where am I going today?" Or even "where I am I right now?"

I have left Windsor. Might be going back .. they'd like me to teach 2 courses next January. Radio Broadcasting and also Sound Design. Which is cool -- sound design means I get to teach some composition, which is the whole artistic side of things. but that's not until January and there are a lot of miles to go before I get to that point.

I am at my friend Ellen's in Hamilton until Friday. Ellen is a poet and has also graciously allowed me to keep my stuff in her attic. So every time I come to visit Ellen, I get to visit my stuff.

And also unload more of my stuff that I just can't carry around. I'm taking off for Toronto, South River, Ottawa for brief visits and then for Vancouver for the next few months. I am living out of a backpack -- and the backpack is still too full.

So I'm trying to figure out what I really need, rather than what would just be nice. Do I really need to bring all of my long dresses ... sorry, the hats will get crushed ... two pair of jeans really are necessary because what if I fall in the water .. that cute little black dress can come with me because it's little and very versatile. A couple of pair of earrings don't take up much space and they dress things up. Three week supply of underwear is a little excessive. And I've recently started wearing makeup again .. I am starting to acquire enough face paint to be a supermodel. I'm in radio, I remind myself. This is not necessary.

There's an art to travelling light in this world .. I'm still getting the hang of it.

Write to me! Helps keep me company on the road!

The Second Cull

Once again begins the ritual which is becoming all too familiar.

Last August it was the garage sale, where I watched as accumulated possessions from 21 years of marriage went to new homes. You know, it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I look at it now as a redistribution of wealth. We gave away a lot of our stuff. And now it's a wonderful thing to go to friends' places and see bits of my past life in their house. It's not hard any more. It's comforting.

When it comes right down to it, I did keep a lot of stuff for that faroff day when I might have something resembling a home again. My favourite pieces of furniture are at my sister's place until I need them. And I kept about 30 boxes of my favourite things -- mostly books, CDs, my pottery, favourite dishes and kitchen things. And artworks of course.

I brought a carload of stuff down with me to Windsor. Now I'm going through all that stuff again (and the few bits that I've acquired) to see what I really want to keep and what I don't.

Through it all, I am always thinking about stuff .. what we need, what we don't. What we have that enhances our life and how much we have that bogs us down. And even though I enjoy what I have, I do think about how much easier it would be if I could just throw everything in a backpack and get on the plane.

Many times in my life, I have sold just about everything and done that. And just as many times, I've packed up more than I needed and moved it many more miles than it needed to go. Only to look at some of it and ask "why did I move that 2,000 miles"? (I'm travelling a bit lighter now, having sold the baby grand piano that moved all the way from Vancouver to Toronto with us in 1987. Beautiful instrument. I sold it in 1990 after deciding it was too heavy a load to carry. I miss it, but don't miss having to have it moved)

In material terms, I have lost a lot this past year. In moments when I am tempted to yell like Job, "what more do you want from me?" I wonder if I'm headed for the cloister to pray and make cheese or something. I don't think so .. I wouldn't fit in well in a religious setting ... Even the Moonies didn't want me because I was too independent a thinker. They didn't tell me to shut up in indoctrination classes but I could tell they wished I would.

Nonetheless, renunciation has its good points too. Makes it easier to let go. And it's easier to see things clearly without all that clutter.

See you in the cloister.

Delaurier House

Further to my previous post, this is what Delaurier House looks like. The front part isn't historically accurate -- Ed Delaurier, who died in the 1960's, loved plants. So he built a greenhouse on the front.

If you look at the house from the back, half of it is log cabin and the other half is board and batten. I think the front is all board and batten -- don't know why the back half is different than the front.

My grandmother's books say that it was also an inn at one point. Looked awfully small to me to be an inn, but I guess houses were smaller in those days. The family also ran a tavern and general store at the turn of the 20th century next to the house pictured above.

My great grandfather Fred Delaurier also ran a saloon in Leamington 'round about the same time. My aunt says that when my grandfather died, my grandmother gathered the whole family and made them uncork and drain every bottle of whisky. Except for one bottle which was saved for the christening of the first grandson.

Hmm.. lots of stories there ...

Looking for Grandmere et Grandpere Delaurier

On Easter Monday, Lori (my sister), Elizabeth and Emily (my nieces) and I went to Point Pelee. I had told Emily and Elizabeth that there was a museum at the Point which was the original home of our great-great-great-great (?) grandparents, John Baptiste Delaurier and his wife Julia Hazel Delaurier.

I had not been there in many, many years. I can remember going there with my grandmother, Madeline Delaurier Wallace, to visit her great uncle Ed. I was six, great-great (?) Uncle Ed looked like he was 251. I can remember being just a little spooked by the place.

My grandmother had said in her memoirs that she tried to get Uncle Ed to leave the house to Park (as in Point Pelee National Park) when he was alive. No go, Uncle Ed said. Well, somebody changed their mind because the home is now a museum.

And it's still spooky. The museum wasn't open, but we looked in the windows. The house was as I remembered it -- really dark. It's still dark, only now they have mannequins of three of the Delaurier family in the living room. One is sitting on a rocking chair with a fiddle on his knee. The other has a sheet over him and is hunched over the stove (they were fishermen by trade, so he probably just got in from the Lake). And right beside the window, there was a person in bed.

Emily and Elizabeth though it was, on one hand, pretty scary. On the other hand, to have a museum named after someone from your family, and have other people come see it, is pretty neat.

Our trip inspired me to do some digging, to remind myself who all these people were. My grandmother has written many volumes, all typewritten, of the history of the area. Our own family tree has been well documented but I didn't remember much of it. Here's what I found out:

The Delaurier homestead was built in 1839, by John Baptiste Delaurier (it is interesting that all the history books refer to him as John, rather than Jean)
He and Julia had ten children. The girls were sent away to be educated in a convent in Amherstburg.
My great-great grandfather was their youngest son Gilbert. He moved to Leamington and had two wives. Seventeen children altogether. Most of them moved back to the U.S.
My great-grandfather, Fred, stayed in Leamington and was a fisherman. He married Euphemia Foster. My grandmother was their daughter, Madeline Delaurier Wallace.

I read an interview in the library that was done with my grandmother about ten years before she died. She says they didn't get out to the Point much because Leamington was ten miles away and you didn't go that far in those days.

I'm glad to be reading the information that my grandmother worked so hard putting together for forty years of her life. And it's been really good to be back here where our roots run so deep -- every branch of our family has been in this county since 1830.

In a sense, it's home even if I don't plan to put down any more roots here myself .. I guess I don't have to because my roots are already here.

Inauspicious Addresses

Well, things in the clans Fenner/White are still sad, but we're starting to get our senses of humour back .. at least a little bit.

I am consoling myself by thinking about Nova Scotia and getting back there again and opening up my arts retreat/media institute. And giving Cindy a job working with me. Tony's studying Library Science and we're going to need a media librarian too. And we're going to raise chickens and puppies. And a horse or two. (No rabbits, though. They're pretty dumb. So are chickens but eggs are good.)

Got it all figured out how we're going to have a happy future. So I've been doing what I usually do every day, which is combing www.mls.ca (the online real estate site). There are some funny things to be found there.

Like, how's "0 Victory Road" for an address?

Don't think I'll move there. Or Lake Despair either (actually that's one in Northern Ontario -- Barry and I encountered that one when we were in a big 25 foot yellow Ryder truck with all of our possessions in the back. Right about the time we were convinced we were lost in the bush. That was the same trip we went 20 miles offroad in Manitoba, also in our 25 foot big yellow truck, because somebody told us there were buffalo back there.)

Ah, the sadness of life is oft offset by the absurdity ...

Our Baby From the Sea - in Memorium

As quickly he came into our lives, he left us.

Less than a month ago, my sister Cindy phoned from Nova Scotia to say that she and her partner Tony were having a baby. Surprised, yes we were. So were they. And as initial shock turned into happy anticipation, she came home to Ontario to have the baby here.

He didn't even breathe his first breath. His name is William Adam Fenner White. He was born and died early in the morning on April 6, 2006. A fully formed, beautiful little boy.

Before now, I had no idea how intensely someone who isn't even in this world can grip a heart so tightly. And to think of those tiny fingers that will never grip his mother's hand, or mine either for that matter .. is too heartbreaking for words.

Goodbye, sweet Adam. The baby I knew and didn't know ...


****************************

A couple of days later, after the shock has dulled .. but only a bit. A lot of going back and forth .. Tony was in Nova Scotia. He's now here. The baby will be buried at Bow's Cemetery on the shore of Eagle Lake. We can see the cemetery from across the lake.

The best I can do at time like this is write. So I wrote this for Adam

You were conceived of salt water
ripening Annapolis shiny red apples,
from fertile farmland
stretching to the bay,
Of lobster claws and sea shells,
seaweed and fine sand

The rough salt breeze
absorbed into your mother's skin
Your mother danced on the beach
Your father watched, he knows.
he understands the breath of the sea.

You were born not there, not on the ocean.
You were born in your mother's water-world,
the scent of pine trees,
no smell of salt ..
rather, the fresh water aroma of algae and hidden trout
a tiny protected lake
ever filling up from eternal underground springs

Sweet baby,
We will sing you to sleep on the shore.

We will bring you both of your worlds
two worlds that live in your bones, your eyes, your feet

Here by this fresh water shore,
we will bring you scallop shells,
we will pour salt sea water
mixed with salt water tears
onto your tiny place
protected by the rock and shield.
You are home here.

Sweet Adam,
the scent of the pine trees
travels on the winds
all the way to your other home
To the tall pine tree outside your grandfather's house.

and the Maritime breath
of your grandparents, cousins,
aunts and uncles
will travel on the wind to the place you sleep

Sleep gently, sleep peacefully
In the arms of our love
In the arms of the earth

Our baby from the sea, our baby of the lake.



Cyndy and Tony say goodbye ..

Moths to Flames

This from my friend Roxanne --

"a writer is a device for turning alcohol into words."

How true -- some days more than others. Reminds me of yet another quote from my friends Sarah and Kevin in the upcoming podcast, upon reflecting that most of their songs contain references to alcohol, because they say "alcohol contains the best metaphors". It's like moth to the flame, they say, and the piper always needs to be paid.

Maybe I like these ideas because I want to identify with Dorothy Parker.

Curious.

Gathering No Moss

Well, time to move on again. It's been a very good winter .. got some new things under my belt -- teaching university, modelling for art classes (which I'm almost out the door to do today), some new radio programs and sound pieces, lots of reading, lots of blogging, connecting with old friends ... it's been a full few months.

And now I'm starting to pack up and move out of Windsor ... boxing up things to take back to store at my friend Ellen's place in Hamilton. I'll be back and forth a few times in April and May. Come mid-June I'll be going out to housesit for my friends Hildi and Peter in Vancouver.

Two months on the Pacific coast ... those glorious mountains and salt sea breezes off of English Bay. Takes me back to my mid-twenties, arriving with practically no money and waiting and waiting and waiting for my UI cheques. And every day walking to the UI office to see if my money has arrived, frustrated, yet looking up at those mountains and saying to myself, thank god I'm here.

And ya, it's bound to hurt that this is where Barry lived the first part of our lives together. But I'd been there for a while before I met him, and there was a me out there that was not him. There have been very few places since where I can honestly say I've experienced my separate self and been so happy with her.

And I've got lots of friends to visit in really wonderful places all up and down the coast. And then in the fall, over to India, Sri Lanka and Thailand for an undetermined amount of time. I don't have to be anywhere at any particular time.

You know, my life would be darn near perfect right now if my heart wasn't still so sore. You think you're getting over it, and then it comes back to land another punch in the gut yet one more time.

To put it in some kind of perspective -- my friends Sarah and Kevin have this song that Kevin wrote (I'm working on a podcast right now with a conversation with them and five of their really great songs ... the CD will be out in the summer.)

The chorus of this song goes:

And the preacher is preaching salvation
And the judge and the hangman agree
But the point of this whole sad narration
Is the pain that will set us all free

And then there's the Epilogue, which sums it all up

And the preacher is playing piano
And the hangman is drinking the gin
And the judge is in bed with a barmaid named Fred
Too busy to save us from sin

So ultimately I guess that means we can experience our pain without fear of judgement ... because everybody's all wrapped in their own lives. There's something good in that.

You really have to hear the whole song, and all the others. Great album. (I'll let you know when the podcast is posted) Inspires me to start writing songs again too. I'll have a piano all summer in Vancouver. It really is all good.

Even the painful stuff -- it will set us all free.

Happy Birthday Dad

Seventy three years. He was born in 1934. Thankfully, too late to get shipped off to World War 2 -- he was too young. And early enough to enjoy the southern Ontario booming economy -- after many long years of a secure job (balanced with running a 124 acre farm), both he and my mom have a good pension and have a wonderful life living on the shores of Eagle Lake near South River, Ontario.

On April 9th, mom and dad .. Helen 'n Bill .. will be celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary. There are five of us in the next generation .. Marianne, Dianne, me, Lori and Cindy (yup, five girls). Two grandchildren so far, Emily and Elizabeth (yup, two more girls) and another one on the way the end of June (surprise!)-- THIS JUST IN -- IT'S NOT THE END OF JUNE. IT'S THE END OF APRIL.

One night, Barry and I were having a bottle of wine with my mom looking out over the lake late at night in the old cottage (the one where they spent summers before the new house was built). And I asked my mom what attracted her to him way back when. And what has kept them together all these years.

"Because a nicer man never walked the face of the earth" was her response. Amen to that.

The Next Digital Frontier - part 1

I went out and bought an MP3 player yesterday. I figured I'd better get some personal experience with this method of content delivery to expand my knowledge of podcast and internet audio delivery.

I am discovering a whole new world in the process. And yes, I am looking/listening to my work much differently just in the 24 hours that I've owned this little gadget. It's a whole new world out there. There's a lot I could say about the medium being the message and how I need to change the way I work to adapt to the new universe. But let's start with the practicalities and discuss buying an MP3 player.

First discoveries: There are so many players available with so many features that it's hard to choose. And there's a big difference in models, probably based on price point, I would guess. First of all, I chose the RCA Lyra because it had a line-in jack. Which I hoped was compatible with a condenser mike (they sometimes are, but not always, worth a try) so I could hopefully use it as a recording device too. Well, no, got it home and found out that the line in jack is not a standard line in jack. So it will only work with the cable they provide. (Which works fine for some applications, but what happens if you lose the special little cable?) I was thinking about keeping it anyway, but I figure it's not a good thing that it seized up many times and I needed to remove the battery to reset it. Nope, not good.

And no manual. I am starting to make a lot of purchasing decisions based on whether or not there's a manual included. In this case, I had to go to a website, use up a whole bunch of paper and ink to print it out, and now I have a manual I don't need.

So I took it back, and got an IRiver. Which I like. I had to make the difficult choice between a model without a radio, but which had a line-in jack (right size this time). They didn't have a model with both. Since I already have a bunch of recording devices I chose the 1 GB T10 Model.

I'm glad I exchanged the Lyra for the IRiver. The difference in sound quality is truly amazing. Truly a pleasure to listen to. And it came with a manual. And it's heftier and sportier -- a pretty blue and it comes with handy things like an armband so you can wear it. You can also look at photos on it (if you really need to look at a postage-stamp sized picture).

Downside -- no line-in. I really wanted that line-in. And it is so tiny that the controls are hard to work with adult sized hands. But that's true of all of them. Cramped hand muscles are the price we pay for the tiny size of the thing. And it was about $40 more than the Lyra, but worth it for the improved quality.

Oh, the other downside. IRiver is solidly in bed with Microsoft, so the only software that will synch to it is Windows Media Player. More about software tomorrow after I accept the reality that WMP is what it's going to be -- I wouldn't mind so much if the software was as easy to use as the software that came with the Lyra. And WMP has a lot of built in features that constantly link to the internet to sell me music I don't want. It's very intrusive.

More about that tomorrow ...