Making It Up As I Go Along #706

The Procession

She was at the rear
Flip flop flapping
Head bowed
To the iPhone god
It sat balanced upon the carriage handle.

Only assumption shows a baby
Engulfed amongst the folds
Of the Smart Car sized contraption
A Royal carriage
Meant for the shoulders of slaves.

Five feet in front he strode
With Terminator fixation
Scolding at his own phone
Thumbing through his world
As birds sang under the summer blue.

And powering the procession
The dog
Tongue lolling away the heat
The only one to see me pass
He smiles as only a dog can
saying…

“Hey man, isn’t today just the best!”

Making It Up As I Go Along #704

Christmas really comes early for some.  Out for a walk today and I saw through the windows of four or five houses where you could see lit Christmas trees in their living rooms.  That’s way to early for me but it still starts the holiday feelings.  I’m less than two weeks away from some time off and about three weeks away from having parents in town yet again.  Once they arrive, the Christmas shopping and movies and games will soon be in order.  It has a chance to be one of our quietest Christmases.  Perhaps just the three of us for Christmas Day and Boxing Day.  Having more family around would be nice but I’m also looking forward to a fairly quiet holiday season.  To sitting around with movies and some Christmas goodies.  Maybe with a trip to Upper Canada Village to see the lights.  It feels like a pleasant time to come.

Speaking of movies, I recently signed on to Amazon Prime and have been taking advantage of the video aspect of that.  Lots of solid TV series and lots of B grade movies.  But I must say, the cheesy movies have been fun.  It somehow reminds me of the days of going out to the video store to rent something for the weekend.  Not knowing anything about half the movies on the shelves.  Just making a selection based on the cover art/scene and the actors listed.  Some good laughs and a nod to simpler times as I watched the likes of Deathstalker and Zombeavers.

I actually find that the world of Trump leaves me craving the simple pleasures.  For instance.  I still have an old style tube TV in my computer room.  It was my main TV when living in St. John’s on Hayward Ave.  I recently decided that I rarely watch this TV and therefore don’t really need the old PVR hooked up to it.  But it would be fun to hook my Atari Flashback system to that TV rather than the big HD TV in the basement.  So my computer room has become an Atari room.  Playing the games on the old style TV makes it all the more enjoyable.  A depressing news day is beaten back with a few rounds of Asteroids, Space Invaders, Centipede, Yars Revenge, Frogger, and… the best of the bunch… Jungle Hunt.


They Remain

I’ve wondered
With acres of wood
Chopped and minced
How many of the animals remain?

Winter’s carpet proclaims
Broadcasting tracks
Through remaining woods
Trails of mouse and shrew
Paths of rabbit and squirrel
But most interesting
The Lonely jaunts of the coyote.

I assumed housing work
Would drive him out
Force the coyote to run
As monsterous machines
Shredded his turf.

The tracks could be mistaken for dog.
A German Sheppard out for a walk
But no human prints accompany
And worn snow paths show the back and forth
Of the patrolling coyote.

The time he went unseen.
But I’ll spot him before long.
Me on a snowshoe trek
And he out for a supper hunt

I’ll stop my travels in a hello nod
And he’ll scamper through the brush
Off to wait out my intrusion
From the safety of saplings and high grass

I continue on pleased
Knowing the suburb building machines
Weren’t able to drive out
The lingering bits of wild.

Making It Up As I Go Along #703

Winter is coming.  I can now see traffic through the woods across the street again (the camouflage of leaves is no more).  There’s a small layer of snow on the ground.  And today I put the fleece sheets on the bed.

Another interesting thing about this time of year is the hidden parts of summer begin to show themselves.  Walks will show bird nests in the crooks of tree limbs.  And yesterday I saw a rugby ball sized wasp nest hanging twenty feet up from a branch near the ponds.  I look for these things in the summer but they always seem to be so hidden in the canopy.

River otters are here.  In my nearly seven years at Trailsedge, I’ve seen muskrat and beaver in the ponds across the street.  This week, I saw river otters.  A family of four have taken over last years beaver lodge.  When I’ve been around, the lead otter has kept a close eye on me.  Diving for a fish every minute or so, then coming up to bob in the water, huffing at me.  Not sure how they’ll do.  I read that an adult will eat up to a few kilograms of fish a day.  I don’t think there’s enough little minnows out there for a family of four to get through the winter.  Unless there’s more fish in those ponds than I expect.

Mom and dad are booked and coming.  About five weeks away from having parents nearby again.  Winters are much more family oriented again.

I find I am slowly veering more towards streaming tv rather than the cable.  Last month I got Amazon Prime and now have access to their video service as well as Netflix.  It seems, since baseball season ended, I spend more nights on either Netflix or Amazon Video watching a show or movie there than surfing the channels.  Sports, news, nature programs and movies still draw my attention on cable.  But most of the TV shows I watch are now being streamed.  Perhaps the day will come when I just load up on my internet data and cut the cable entirely.  Who knows.

Not much else in mind to share.  Trump is a psychopath and possibly evil… like truly evil… but I just don’t want to waste my energy even getting into it.

Canadian hockey coverage is so incredibly Toronto biased that, even when you have a family history of cheering for that team, I find myself secretly wishing them to fail.  It really is to a point where there is no more Canadian national hockey coverage.  There is Leaf coverage nationally… and then regional broadcasts of every other Canadian team.  But the Jets are probably a better team than Toronto… it’s largely ignored.  Montreal has been very entertaining this season… ignored.  Vancouver has some good young players… worth a thirty second clip.  The best offensive player in the game is being forgotten in Edmonton.  Calgary is doing well but is completely forgotten.  In fact, the second most covered Canadian team is likely Ottawa… and that’s entirely due to the train wreck factor.  National hockey coverage is basically 75% Leafs… 15% How Ottawa is embarrassing themselves… 5% McDavid… 3% Petterson in Vancouver… 2% everything else.

I’ll aim for something more creative next week.  That’s it for now.

 

Making It Up As I Go Along #702

Back on schedule.

Winter may be here… or knocking on the door anyway.  Walked today with gloves and hat needed and a windchill below freezing.  Autumn goes by the fastest of all the seasons.

Baseball is my favourite sport but even I’d say it’s becoming pretty unwatchable.  3.5 to 4 hour games with not enough fielding… too many strike outs… too many pitching changes and too many batters stepping out and calling time.  My two greatest baseball wishes… a limit on the number of pitchers on a roster… and restrictions on the shift.  I’d love to see no more than eleven pitchers on a 25 man roster.  Do away with the one batter specialist.  Make it so relievers need to be able to go multiple innings and, with a reduced pitcher roster, a team can’t afford to use three pitchers in order to get three outs in a late inning.  And I wouldn’t outlaw the shift entirely, but I think the shortstop and 3rd baseman need to both stay on the left field side of 2nd base while the 2nd baseman and 1st baseman stay on the right field side.

Anyway, I still pay attention to the World Series but I’m generally not starting to watch until the 3rd inning or so… and that still gives me a good 2.5 hours of game to watch.

Memory foam mattresses promote hibernation.  Last night I was in bed for eleven hours (slept about nine of that).  It’s just too comfortable!  There’s no desire to get out of bed!

I found the Beachcombers coming on my TV each week.  Started PVRing it and now that show is part of my pre nap routine.  Watch an episode… then off to bed for my afternoon nap before night shift.  It’s a kind of corny show to look back on but is a nice memory of simpler times.  I’d much rather go to bed thinking about Nick and Relic boating around for logs than thinking about the stupidity coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

They’re Leaving
They’re leaving.
Once plowed fields
Black speckled
With hoards
Southbound travellers
Passing through
Pausing here
Preparing for the journey
As bordering trees
Bronze the horizon

But as bronze fades to bare
Wooden skeletal fingers
Reaching for that vanishing sun
They leave.

The leaving is gradual.
One flock departs
Replaced by a new wave
One family stopping
For leftovers of airborne cousins

But it nears its end.
A departure now leaves empty fields
We’ve reached that point
With small V’s of stragglers
Honking through the cold evening sky
Too late to land
They flap towards the southern glow.
Afraid to be overtaken
By the black northern cold

Making It Up As I Go Along #701

Haven’t posted in ages.  Haven’t had much interest to post in ages actually.  Got to post #700 and then just set it aside.

I think part of the lack of interest is in rebellion of social media.  We live in an age where it is so easy to share ourselves to the world.  We can exclaim our uniqueness to the world like no time ever before.  Yet, more and more, I see more of the same.

It got me to wondering.  Perhaps we don’t really want to show our individuality after all.  It’s in our brain that that’s what we’re doing.  You keep hearing celebrities urging us all to “just be you”.  But I wonder if really, we’re hard wired to simply try to fit in?  Find a “club” and become a “member”.  Maybe that’s why we see so many posts of gselfies.  To proclaim “this is the club I belong to.” And gain of sense of satisfaction when others click the “like” of acceptance.

I mean it’s a world of social media clubs now.  The middle aged wine guzzling lady.  The dyed black bearded muscle guy.  The look what my kid is doing now parent.  The 5k runner.  The traveler.  The drama hounds.  The right wing political junkies.  The left wing political junkies.  The Praise Be religious people.  The Science is everything people.  There are so many different categories out there but social media seems to lure us in to one of them.  And once we’re there, pictures and posts are largely geared towards acceptance from that group you’ve joined.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with these clubs.  Anyone not identifying with some club or another are likely societies outcasts.  But we’re likely fooling ourselves to think we’re showing our uniqueness or individuality.

All this said, I find that, in my social media world, I don’t identify very much with those I’m connected to.  And rather than try to post selfies of myself sitting at a ball game, I just watch the ball game.  I have no hair style left to change and show off.  I mean, really… “Behold! Still bald!”  I’ve no dog to boast about.  No child to show off.  Running kills my knees and politics simply turns to shouting matches.

So I don’t post.  Perhaps my silence is my club.  The social media invisible.  I still exist… but am now easily forgotten.  A memory of a News Feed.

Anyway.  That’s that.

A few thoughts over the last little while…

News anchors need to stop telling us they have reporters on the ground.  We’re all on the ground.  99% of the world’s population is on the ground at any one time.  Just say “There in Israel” or “We now go to Bob, in Cleveland.”  We don’t need to know that Bob is on the ground, in Cleveland.

News people and politicians all need to stop calling everybody “folks”.  “Folks in New York are voting Democrat.”  “Folks are asking what’s next?”  “I tell folks I meet that I believe in free health care.”

Seriously, what is wrong with calling people “people”?

Speaking of people and the news… I wish natural disasters were covered simply as a natural disaster.  Every hurricane aftermath leaves a town “like a war zone.”  A tornado goes through a neighbourhood and it was “like a bomb went off.”  Can’t we just say it looks like a tornado went through the neighbourhood?

With that,

A Squirrel Morning

Bounding across the branches and twigs
Tree la la tree la la
Bounding across the branches and twigs
Tree la la in the morning

Snatch a seed and grab a nut
Tree la la tree la la
Chew chew chew and down in my gut
Tree la la in the morning

Scream out loud and a flurry of chatter
Tree la la tree la la
Cause bunny and bird to tuck tail and scatter
Tree la la in the morning

Curl my tail and have a sit
Tree la la tree la la
Built a leaf nest and snooze for a bit
Tree la la in the morning.

Making It Up As I Go Along #700

Been a long time since I’ve done the blog.  Long enough that I thought I’d share it to Facebook again this time… so that people know I’m still doing it.  And this is post number 700.  I’ve been weeks thinking how it’s kind of funny to just stop right before a milestone… but there you go.

I generally have found a lack of interest to share anywhere lately.  The whole world seems to be about sharing every little thing these days… and I haven’t been dying to be a part of that.  What I had for supper?  Who cares?  A selfie while stopped at an intersection?  Really?  And I have no kids to boast about after they’ve lost a tooth or finished in fifth place in a race, but at least had fun doing it.

And the world of politics?  Oh goodness no.  There is simply no agreement in that world anymore.  You’re either conservative and think all liberal minded people are “snowflakes” who live in a dream world.  Or you’re a liberal who thinks all conservatives are the devil.  Donald Trump and his lackies go off on Trudeau and there are people on twitter blaming Trudeau for provoking Donald, followed by a horrifying “I wish he was my leader.”

So I’ve been living the quiet life.  Mom and dad are back in Newfoundland and I’m left back doing my own thing in Ottawa.  I do love having no plans during my four days off.  In fact, I love it so much that, back in June, I took a block off work and had twelve days of no plans.  It is the heights of relaxation.  To get up when you see fit.  Go for a 45 minute to 1 hour long walk.  Take a drive to the grocery store.  Go to a movie.  And go on to bed whenever you feel like it, at the end of the day.

Oddly, I guess I blame it on aging, these days now have me getting up and going to bed earlier.  Extended vacation used to mean staying up until 2:00 or 3:00 AM and waking up around 10:00 the next morning.  But I’m not more likely to be in bed around or before midnight.  And up somewhere around 7:00 in the mornings.

Another thing I’ve been doing quite of a bit of during my time away from the blog.  Gardening.  My parents have a garden plot at the condo common space.  And, with them away, it’s for me to tend to.

I generally haven’t minded it.  It’s become part of my days off routine.  Walk over with a couple of grocery bags… check their mail on the way there… pull weeds and deposit them into one of the bags… tear off some pieces of lettuce for the other bag… check on the condo… water the garden… and head home again to deposit the weeds in my green bin and clean the lettuce for my salads.  Lots of salads this summer.  There’s a constant supply of lettuce and the little roadside market supplies all the rest of the ingredients.  It’s been a nice enough thing to do that I may set up a bit of a garden in my yard too, next year… though with mom and dad in Newfoundland during the growing season, I don’t know what I’d do with more lettuce.

I’m booked for a trip home.  I’ll be there for a few weeks from the end of August to the middle of September.  It’ll be my first time home in a year.  One of the downsides of parents spending half the year in Ottawa… less reason to head home for a visit.  On the positive side, it has probably saved me between $1000 and $1200 this year.  With mom and dad in Newfoundland year round, I was heading home three times a year, instead of the one.

I enjoy being home in September.  The tourist season is pretty much over and trips to Fogo Island and surrounding areas are usually fairly quiet as compared to heading there in July or August.  It seems, though, that the second part of my traditional September trip home is becoming a trip of a less enjoyable kind… a trip to the attic.  Last September mom drove me up there.  “Size up what’s still up there? And maybe we can clean it up!”  Twenty minutes brought buckets of sweat and aches in my feed and legs as I balanced my way upon the narrow beams, careful not to fall through the ceilings below, and in a constant hunch in an attempt to avoid clocking my head off the boards above.  Well, this year, mom seems to want what’s up there gone.  Which probably means any of my St. John’s friends would be wise to avoid picking up the phone or responding to my texts during the September days… I may be looking to put you to work.

After a pretty crumby spring, this summer has been fairly dry and hot.  Canada Day’s humidex hit 48.  The hottest ever measured in Ottawa.  We had a full week of humidex readings in the 40s.  And even though that is now broken, most days remain sunny and into the high 20s or low 30s.  There’s been so little rain through all this that lawns all over are becoming vast stretches of low lying hay.  Daily watering keeps my back yard green and my front yard greenish.  There is so little shade in the front that I think I’d need to water twice daily in order to keep all the brown at bay.

So that’s about it, for now.  A general look at what I’ve been up to since last posting.  I’ll try to post more regularly again now but I still think I’ll keep most of my posts off of Facebook.  Every time I use facebook I feel a little dirty for doing it.  And I don’t want to be promoting myself to the Russian bots.  They may steal one of my pictures of a beaver or turtle and use it to reelect Trump somehow.

Making It Up As I Go Along #699

This has been the longest I’ve gone between blog posts since a started blogging.  No good reason to give for it really.  I’d often get busy with other stuff on the day I was supposed to post something.  Sometimes I was just tired and not feeling creative.  And sometimes it just felt good to not think so much about stuff and just “be”.

It’s been a winter of family again.  The first extended time with family since I’ve been to Ottawa really.  Ruby and Lee were here when I first arrived.  I lived with them a while and then, even when I was in my own space, would pop by for suppers.  But they were gone fairly quickly after I came.  Spending a winter in the States and then retiring back to Nova Scotia soon after that.

But this winter was my first with mom and dad living in the condo.  They came for good in mid November and now will be heading back to Newfoundland within the next couple of weeks.  It’s been nice having them close by again.  I always felt visits were hectic and rushed.  Even in times when I may have gone home and intentionally planned not to do anything, we’d still be running down the checklist of things to do.  A trip to Bidgoods.  Cape Spear.  A bit of shopping downtown.  Certain meals to make sure we have before I go back.  That kind of thing.

But with them in a condo for months on end, we returned to casual stuff.  The occasional pop by.  A movie night.  A home cooked meal with no planned activity afterwards because laundry awaited back home.  A return to daily life with family has been a good thing.  And I’m sure the summer will feel strange with me on my own again.  Though there likely won’t be a very large continuous time apart.  A quick trip back to the condo for them in July.  A Newfoundland trip for me sometime in August or September.  And then the Fall will come again soon after, and the condo will be a home again.  And next Fall won’t be nearly as hectic as this past one.  The setting up of the condo took lots of time and energy, but now it has very much become  another part of home for mom, dad and me.

One negative of mom and dad living here part of the year… my trips home have really been cut down.  Most years, I head home three times (Christmas, late spring, fall).  The last time I’ve been home was last September.  And that was a fairly short visit as well.  It’s a savings on airfare no doubt.  And a reduction of my carbon footprint.  Perhaps it means I’ll have to book a longer trip home than normal this summer/fall.  Combine a trip to central Newfoundland with some time around town without being run off my feet doing it all.

Anyway, it will be strange dropping over to the condo a couple of times a week and not have dad sat in his reading chair or mom calling out from the kitchen while I take off my boots.  It’s a space that I’m not used to seeing quiet and still.  But it will make the anticipation of Fall greater.  With home cooked meals waiting after a long days work and quiet evenings sitting together as the first snows drift outside the living room window.

Making It Up As I Go Along #698

Not much worth talking about from the last few weeks.  I did take some time off in February.  Just down time… no trip or planned out schedule.  Those are the most relaxing times.  Sleep in, stay up late, work on an expert Lego set (a Mini Cooper car), movies and some shopping.  And it occurred during the Olympics, so I could watch some of that too.  In all, a nice time off.

I am missing the Florida trip though.  This winter hasn’t been horrible.  But even still, when I see a Spring training game on TV… and see the fans out in the sun in shorts and t-shirts… and the green of the fields with palm trees swaying in the breeze… it does call to me for certain.

Regardless, at least baseball is back.  Regular season games only being a few weeks away now.  You can taste summer getting near.

Seated Under the Clock
Ticks tocking the time today.
Achingly ambling an aging afternoon.
Seconds slowly slink seductively.
Measuring minutes meticulously.
Hour hand hints haziness.
Nudging knowingly nightward.
Darkness descends delicately.
While we wonderingly wait.

Making It Up As I Go Along #697

Skipped a week on the writing.  Last week came down to taking the time to blog or going snowshoeing.  No need to say which won.

The Olympics are here and I generally don’t care.  I have watched a little already and was happy enough to see two Canadians on the podium of one of the snowboarding events.  But the time difference means either lots of early morning watching or tape delayed stuff and that doesn’t work well on either front.  Also, I’m simply not buying the way they’re selling the hockey.  It’s almost coming across like we, the viewer, are so lucky to no longer have the worlds best players competing.  Now we get to hear “stories”.  This is how they’re selling it on TV.  Hear the story of this 32 year old who has been playing hockey in the German league the last five years.  The fact is, when you go about twenty years of best on best competition, going back away from that is a let down.  And the tournament is delegitimized. No matter who wins, people will be able to argue that “if only (insert names) were there”.

There’s a very busy beaver across the street from me.  Virtually every day, I see him on the edge of the ice or venturing up to the woods for sticks.  Why he is so active during the day, I do not know.  Yesterday I got several close pictures of him walking along the trail I was using.

I’m really getting tired of seeing actual news getting discussed on social media.  It’s just too simple a platform that allows emotions to run wild over facts.  When it comes to newsworthy events, social media is a den of anger.  It’s just too easy a platform for sharing.  For objectivity, you’d really need to read at least three or four differing articles from reputable agencies.  So then, if you wanted to share on Facebook, you’d have to link to each of these articles… and hope others are also willing to read each source.

Instead, we’re in a world where some person posts an opinion that tugs at the emotions of another… and they share it… and others share it… and so on and so on.

You’d think seeing Donald Trump win an election based on this method of getting news would sway people away from the practice.  But it’s the society we live in.  When it comes to social media, people aren’t interested in objective facts and understanding.  We’re interested in outrage.  We crave it.  We want to be able to pick up a phone or tablet, read something short that gets our blood boiling, and click “share”… to show our friends and followers that we’re with them.  A part of the outrage club.  In depth understanding be damned.

The internet really is an amazing tool though.  This week I watched a sci-fi, horror movie where, in one scene, a person was shot out of the airlock of a space ship and we last see them floating off into the vastness of space.

And I’m wondering “wouldn’t a person without the proper suit blow up in space?”  A quick google search brings back several articles explaining the effects of space on an unprotected human body.  Within ten minutes of seeing that scene I questioned, I had the answer.  And the movie got it pretty much right.  As a teenager, I’d have had to make my way to a library and likely ask the librarian for help in finding periodicals that cover such questions.  Now, I get the answer in ten minutes and never get up from the couch to do it.  

I am a pack rat.  I now live, alone, in a three bedroom townhouse.  And there is no empty space for stuff.  My storage room is full.  Each room has plenty of things in it and any thought of buying any new piece of furniture would more or less mean an already present piece would have to go.  Oh well, who said coziness has to be sparse?


 

Making It Up As I Go Along #696

Read an article, this week, that questioned the long term viability of Facebook.  I’ve always been torn about Facebook.  I keep up with some people primarily through it.  But I must admit that there was a touch of excitement within me to think of Facebook’s demise.  The only thing I’d miss about the platform is the dozens of photo albums I have on there.  All those pictures are saved elsewhere as well.  But they’re neat and tidy and easy to share sitting there on my profile.

Everything else? Burn it to the ground.  I’d much prefer to keep up with friends goings on via email.  It’s personal.  It’s advertisement free.  It’s more or less secure.  Facebook is a community newspaper of advertising.  Maybe, within the thirty pages of community paper analogy, by page sixteen I see something interesting about someone I care to know about.  But from pages one through fifteen, I’ve been flipping through suggested purchases, fictional news and pictures of dinner plates.

I’ve already almost completely ditched Instagram.  Yes it’s still on my devices.  But I go weeks… sometimes months… without looking at it.  For me, Instagram died when they removed your ability to simply view the things you follow chronologically.  I don’t need some algorithm deciding for me that I’d rather see someone’s selfie from three weeks ago before seeing what someone shared an hour ago.

Snapchat? Please.  I don’t need to add bunny ears or a dog nose to my picture.  Nor do I have any interest to see someone else do it to there’s

Twitter gets a bad name.  And it amazes me that news organizations are quoting world leader’s tweets.  But I find Twitter can become what you want it to be.  If someone is posting too much about something that doesn’t interest you, unfollow them and it goes away.  And if you search out and find interesting and smart people, your twitter feed becomes interesting and smart.  Or if you suddenly see several people tweeting about the same thing, you get a good hint to go google what they’re talking about and you can find all kinds of stories about it.

That all said, I’m often tempted to subscribe and pay for my news.  I’ve already done it with sports… subscribing to the Athletic.  I get commercial free articles from people who know what they’re talking about.  Now I think about doing it for news.  Facebook can’t be trusted to give you an actual view of the real world.  And news websites are usually bombarded with advertising.

Who knows, I may end up buying newspapers at this rate.  The internet is the greatest invention of my time, and here I’m considering going back to newspapers.  It’s a shame that the greatest invention of my time has been wasted on self indulgence and personal point of view spin.

I guess what it boils down to is I need to read more.  It’s a strange world I live in from a reading point of view.  I have many books currently sitting in my house, or on my iPad, all ready to read.  I want to read each of them and am interested in what they’ll say.  But I have very little reading time in my typical week.  It’s largely the fault of shift work.  My four days of working, there’s no time to read.  I’m at work for twelve hours, in bed asleep… or trying to sleep… for another six to eight hours.  That leaves me with four to six hours for driving to and from work, eating, and just relaxing.  Then, for my four days off, I’m too foggy to read and retain anything on day one.  And my focus is more about trying to get outside hiking or snowshoeing while also doing errands or work around the house during the other three days.  Plus there’s the new curse of the memory foam mattress.  Over the last several weeks, it’s not uncommon for me to be in bed either sleeping or being very lazy on the iPad for ten to twelve hours of my days off.

The answer will have to be scheduled reading days.  Maybe my third day off will be a minimal TV day.  Something like that, where I know I am not to go get distracted by other things.  I’m also looking forward to taking some time off in February.  It’ll be nothing time off.  No work needing to get done around the house.  No hopping a plane to someplace else.  Just twelve days of battery resetting.  Puzzles… snowshoeing… reading… all free to do for a while in the middle of winter.  Who knows… maybe I’ll have newspapers to sift through then too.

Making It Up As I Go Along #695

Times are busy and tiring.  Working alone for a few blocks and catching up on sleep during my days off.  Two of my last four days off, I was in bed for between 11 and 12 hours.  Not asleep for the entire time.  But likely sleeping 7-9 hours and surfing the ipad for the rest of the time.

Second snowshoe of the season is under my belt.  It was better than the first from a fitness point of view.  Was out for an hour rather than forty minutes and able to go harder at it.  Likely went twice the distance in that extra twenty minutes of time.  The type of snow helped too.  First time out was soft and fluffy and, despite having snowshoes on, I sank halfway up my shins.  Today, the snow was harder.  For most of the time, I sank no further than ankle deep.

The nice thing about nature in the winter.  You are more able to get hints of the animals than in summer.  Wasp and bird’s nests appear from their leafy hiding.  Mouse and vole tracks can be seen in their little territories of shrubs and ground.  Coyote and fox patrol routes come into view.  You’re left with a real hint of their lives… even when they are out of sight.

For the first time, I was able to view a beaver from my front window.  Looked out one day this week and saw the beaver on the edge of the nearest pond.  Even got an ok shot of him with the camera zoom lens.  He climbs up the bank at night and grabs a small tree from the edge of the forest.  Then slides back down to the hole he’s made in the ice and pulls the sapling down under with him.  Good ol’ Beaver.


What Will They Think?
What will they think in vole town?
To pop out of their crisp grass burrows
And see their interrupted pathways.

The soft network of voley footprints
Barely disturbing the softly fallen fluff.
Now invaded by the crunch of snowshoes.

My giant stomps cratering the virgin white
As a four lane highway
Blasting across their peaceful country path.

I turn back to examine their tracks.
Seeing how they lead this way and that.
But always returning to that small gap in the brown field grass.

Like a cowardly parking lot dinger of doors,
I decide to scurry away before they come out.
Hoping they won’t notice the paradise damage
Until I’m miles away.

Making It Up As I Go Along #694

Another long layoff from the blog.  Lots of goings on that distracted from the writing habit… or left me too tired to want to try.

The first Christmas ever with the seven closest family members.  The last time Edena and family were included in Christmas, Claire (about to turn 19) was not yet born.

It was a nice time but frigid cold during the sister’s visit.  Not a great deal going on outside with temperatures pretty well staying at or below -20.  Many days had a windchill below -30.

Mom and dad’s condo is finally under control and feels like a home.  It’s nice having them nearby.  There’s quite a difference between visits and meals with family when you live in the same place as compared to week or two long visits.  The visits are never leaving room for ordinary life.  Everything is a scheduled event fit in to the timeline of the visit.  This is more casual and natural.  Perhaps Edena and Duff will have to retire east one of these days.

I’m not sure where to put the snow.  December was both cold and snowy and my driveway is already bursting at the seems with snow clearing.  My lawn is already a four foot mound of snow and we still haven’t gotten half way through January.  With 30 to 40 cm of snow due this weekend, I’m actually wondering if I’ll have to leave the car out of the garage and no longer worry about clearing the snow from in front of there.  I’ve never had to consider this kind of thing in the six years I’ve been living here.  I guess we’ll see.

You know you’re getting tired of the constant fight and insults of social media when your two favourite twitter feeds are one that shows images of the covers of space Lego sets from the 1970s to 1990s… and, a bear.  That’s right, I follow a bear on twitter.  And the space Lego memories often bring a smile to my face.

Mom and dad have a great view of nature from their condo.  A large cedar bush wall sits outside their windows.  Juncos, chickadees, a pair of cardinals and three rabbits all call the area home.  They’ve got a 55 inch 4K TV in the living room, and I’m often back on to it hoping to get a good look at a cardinal… or watching the goings on of the rabbit clan.

With that, it’s time to catch up on the other thing I’ve done much less of lately… going out for a walk in the woods.  Perhaps this will be the first time with the snowshoes this year.  Time to explore wildlife tracks in the snow.  Rabbits, coyotes, birds, squirrels and smaller rodents… I should be able to get a glimpse of their daily activity.  The great benefit of lots of snow.
 

Making It Up As I Go Along #693

The blog is back after my longest layoff.  Been too busy to get in a writing frame of mind.  Even now my mind isn’t really into it simply because I’m still not back to the normal routine.  Mom and dad have been in Ottawa for about a month now… and six of the last eight weeks.  It’s starting to setting down but there were weeks of running around shopping for their condo.  So four days of work would be followed by four days of shopping… before returning to work once again.  But they’re pretty well straightened out now.  Appliances, furniture, household goods, a car.  Three or four IKEA trips… four or five Home Depot trips… the hell that is Walmart.  Throw in some Christmas shopping and it’s been a busy time.

Looks like it’ll be a white Christmas.  Been cold and snowy this December.

The woods around me took another hit a few weeks ago.  The stuff directly in front of me remains intact.  But about half, or maybe even two thirds of the woods beyond the farthest pond has been removed.  And the woods that’s around the corner from me is also gone.  I can now go to my driveway and look at the playground that was once shrouded by forest.

Soon, that area will be built up with houses and a road.  But right now it’s a scar.  I’ll miss the coziness that I felt from having it there.  I’d stand in my backyard, with he BBQ going, and look beyond my fence at the green of the summer trees where birds would dart in and out of safety.  Next summer it’ll be a construction zone.  The summer after that, I’ll be looking at townhouses over there.

I still like the neighbourhood.  I’m sitting now, writing and looking out my front window at the forest across the street.  And I realize that where I live was also once a forested piece of land.  But I hate seeing that scar where once a forest stood.

Six days from now, the hope is that it’ll be family Christmas time.  Edena and crew due in at that time.  Of course, there’s currently a forecast of 15-20 cm of snow the day they arrive.  So here’s hoping flights make it ok.  It also likely means I’ll have another extended blog break after this post.  The crew are due to leave New Years Day.  I likely won’t write again until a few days past that.

The First Snow Walk
It comes each year.
Between fall hikes
And Winter snowshoed treks
A few weeks,
Of Snow Walks.

The first workout.
Working rusty muscles.
Unstable and sliding.
As a walk in a child’s ball pit.
Tire spinning feet
Burning muscles and lungs.

Soon the muscles tighten.
Regain the memories of past years.
And the lungs will catch up too.
But on this first,
It’s as a mountain expedition.
Training for Everest on a twenty foot slope
As tufts of grass peek out
From the fresh white snow.

Making It Up As I Go Along #692

Been a while since the last post.  Two weeks of mom and dad here was very busy.  Running around shopping and organizing for their condo.  And lots accomplished.  And I was back to work the day after they left… so not much time to sit and post.

The darkness across the street is not as dark as it once was.  Looking across at the woods, at night, has been a time of mystery.  I’d always be left to wonder what the darkness hid.  Working beavers? Patrolling coyotes? Fox? Deer? Moose?  Or, on those nights where spookiness is in the mind… ghosts… or demons?  Sometimes I’d look out expecting to see the red glow of evil eyes peering back.

The woods remain, but they’ve been substantially thinned since I moved in.  A hundred yards through a section of the woods now bring you to a road.  And with the leaves having dropped south for the winter, glimpses of street lights break through the birch and maple.  Perhaps I’ll sometimes see the lights as extra terrestrial orbs… but, for now, the mystery has been broken.

I’ve slept my last on the only mattress I’ve known in Ontario.  It’s bagged up and ready to go.  Delivery people will be here this afternoon… bringing memory foam into my room.  It’s odd to be nostalgic over a fourteen year old mattress… and I’m sure I won’t much miss it in the long run… but bagging it up, this morning, felt like a form of abandonment.

I am done with the concept of “thoughts and prayers”.  America seems to have a mass shooting every few weeks now… at least a newsworthy one.  And each time it’s the same old reaction.  Shock… statements of there’s nothing that could be done… and “thoughts and prayers.”  It’s a routine now for an event that should never be accepted as routine.  Thoughts and prayers are completely useless and meaningless.  Especially when given by politicians who have the power to actually do something concrete that would curb such violence.  But, instead, they take their NRA money and offer up thoughts and prayers.  I’d rather they say nothing and own the decisions they’ve made to get our southern neighbours to this point.  “Thoughts and prayers” are a mock solution to a problem that could actually be solved if the desire was really there.  It isn’t that complicated.  Ban civilian access to assault rifles that were developed for use by soldiers in war zones.  Mandatory background checks.  Register the weapons that are legally purchased.  And, in the wake of the Vegas shooting, once a civilian has purchased his tenth firearm, perform a more thorough investigation.  I mean, honestly, any person who owns forty or fifty firearms should likely be checked in on from time to time.  But America doesn’t really care.  It’s freedom this and 2nd amendment that.  And if people die, that’s the price of freedom.

A stat I heard the last few days that really strikes home.  Columbine, the shooting that was so shocking to the world when it occurred, is no longer in America’s top ten biggest mass shootings.  God help America when laser guns are developed and civilians will be able to vaporize a stadium of people within three seconds.  Cause seriously, when the 2nd amendment was created, semi-automatic assault rifles would be as much science fiction then as laser guns are to us now.

As a society, we are too addicted to the economy.  Sometimes it feels like we’ve been brainwashed to think we were put on this earth simply to buy stuff.  One can’t get away from the advertising.  Turn on the TV… every 8 minutes you’ll get 4 minutes of advertising.  Radio is a constant barrage of advertising that’s occasionally interrupted by a few minutes of music or programming.  Newspapers are blocked full of ads.  Sports facilities are named after corporations and the playing surface is painted full of business logos.  The internet got so full of advertising that I often skip articles on certain sites because I know I’m going to have pop ups to work around.  I actually took to “the Athletic”… a pay sports site… so that I can read about hockey and baseball without being overwhelmed with the advertising.  I constantly get a community newspaper delivered to my front door.  I used to be nice about it… emailing the company and asking them to remind their carrier to skip by my house.  But every few months it starts up again.  Now my emails are much less friendly.  And my dream is to find out where that carrier lives so I can bring that advertised rag right back and leave it on their front doorstep.  And now, today… the car parked quietly in my driveway got a flyer for windshield water repellant tucked under the wiper.  It’s all just too much.

But the sun is out… The bare forest is still and I’m a week away from once again living in the same town as my parents (at least for approximately half of the year).  So life isn’t too bad.

Making It Up As I Go Along #691

A busy last little while.  Home for a trip that included lots of cleaning up during the day and many evenings out.  Then pretty much straight back to work after getting back.

The trail is finally being developed along the tree line across from my place.  Once done, it’ll sure beat the ditch that has been sitting there the last year or two.

Went to the far woods a few days ago trying to size up winter walking and snowshoes.  It was kind of depressing to see.  Many acres of the woods is now gone over there… soon to be developed.  And an orange fence cuts straight through a large chunk of the remaining forest.  I guess they want to keep people back away from the work that’s coming.  But having a trail cut off by those plastic orange fences just leaves you feeling down.

For the first time ever, I got snow tires put on the car on a day that I’m wearing shorts and sandals.  But many of the nights are already slipping into single digit temperatures and the first snow and frost isn’t far away.

Micky has come back.  The greatest stuffed toy I ever had… Mickey Mouse bought from Disney during our family vacation in Florida around 35 years ago… is back in my possession.  He spent the last fifteen plus years sitting in mom and dad’s attic.  I’m not sure how he got up there.  Other stuffed toys made the trip to Ontario.  But the king of all stuffed toys… the one worn with love… that I literally could not sleep without having in the bed for at least five or six years (even going as far as stowing him away in my sleeping bag when going to friends houses for sleepovers)… he found his way into the attic… until now.  Mickey is back in my room, looking towards my bed from the comfort of a nearby bookshelf.

The best of the hockey cards has returned.  When I packed to leave Newfoundland, I put all of my best and most prized cards together in a box separated from all the rest.  And upon reaching Ontario, fourteen years ago, they were gone.  I sifted through every box over and over again… but there was no sign of them anywhere.

And when I moved from Avalon to Trailsedge, five or six years ago, I thought maybe the cards will reappear during that move.  That they will give up a secret hiding spot from the old home and join me in the new.  But, again, nothing.

I hoped they were in my friend’s basement with boxes I stored there… they weren’t.  I hoped they were tucked in a remaining box in mom and dad’s place… no sign.  I was left to assume that the movers that brought my stuff to Ontario had a go of them… or that maybe the box they were in was assumed to be garbage in mid move, and they’d be gone for good.

But this trip home brought them out of hiding.  While cleaning out mom and dad’s basement… with hockey cards totally out of mind… a small box was tucked along a shelving unit.

The writing said “Hockey Card & photos and dart board”.  But was it old writing from a former use? Probably so.  Still, I opened the box out of curiosity.  And there on top… my table top dart board.

I had actually completely forgotten the dart board.  The sight of it floods me with memories of Hayward Ave living.  And lifting it, I see a few pictures.  Including one I’d always wondered about.  A lost shot that had vanished with my cards.  Me in the backyard… full head of hair… toddler Fraser sat next to me… and Schokee in the grass below us, enjoying the sun of a summer day.

This is actually the last picture of Schokee.  Our last family dog died a few months after this picture was taken.

So once I saw the dart board and this picture, the thought of hockey cards crept back into mind.  And I bring the box to the sofa and sit to give it a good going through.

A few more photographs are glanced at… both with nostalgia and a growing anticipation of what may lie beneath… and then, with the lift of a last photograph… they appear.

It begins with the youthful face of a Peter Forsberg rookie card peering up at me.  This isn’t one of the ultimate treasures… but it’s telling me they’re here.  Forsberg was a favourite player of mine and I would have included this card with the others.  And added digging confirms it.  An old Larry Robinson card… the last card of Gordie Howe… a birthday gift of a pair of Patrick Roy cards under glass.  And then the favourites appear.  The Roy rookie card… his goalie mask card… the Mario rookie… Gretzky rookie… Bobby Hull autographed… and Vladislav Tretiak autographed cards all come back.  Like a child at Christmas I call out… “This is THE cards.”  Mom knows right away what this means… and she shares in the joy.

There is still one that remains among the missing.  A birthday gift from friends… an autographed Larry Bird card, in a wooden frame was not packed along with these.  It’s too bad… I wish it was… but after fourteen years of thinking they were all gone, it’s a small price to pay.

I think the two of these cards that mean the most aren’t even overly valuable.  There is the Tretiak autographed card.  In a random bit of oddness, he happened to be in St. John’s one day, signing autographs at Leon’s Furniture.  You were supposed to by 8x10 pictures to autograph but I had a “goalies” card from the commemorative set from the 1972 series.  Dryden and Esposito on one side of the card… Tretiak on the other.  So I brought it to him… as he sat there on a sofa next to his backup goaltender from ’72 and St. John’s Maple Leaf, Andrew McKim.

Upon seeing the card, Tretiak asked me where I got it.  In a not very clever response, I think I said “I got it in a pack of cards I bought.”  Tretiak than showed the card to his backup goalie, speaking about it in Russian.  McKim looked at me and asked what they’re talking about.  All I could do was shrug.  But then after a moment, Tretiak signed the card and gave it back to me.

The other is the Roy goalie mask card.  It was a special card randomly inserted among packs of Pro Set hockey cards.  Roy was my favourite player and I always loved his Montreal mask.

On a summer trip to Nova Scotia, dad took me to a card store and bought me a complete set of baseball cards and a box of unopened Pro Set cards.  I remember being so surprised that he was willing to spend this much on cards for me.  I went hoping for perhaps $25 worth of cards… and we probably spent around $100.

Back in Inverness… where we stayed at my uncle’s family farm… I began opening the hockey cards… pack by pack… tearing in and sorting through the cards.  Hoping for a Roy Mask card.

Memory makes facts cloudy.  My memory says I was down to the final pack in the box, and still no Mask.  Perhaps reality is that I had three packs left to open.  Perhaps six.  I know it was most certainly near the end… and I’m pretty sure it was literally the last pack.  Either way, as I sorted through, there it was.  A simple hockey card.  A picture of the Mask.  And I jumped around the farmhouse in glee.  The satisfaction of reuniting with that card again… fourteen years since I last saw it… and twenty-five years after that original opening… Even with a book value of around $3.00 today, that card is a treasure of memories.

Making It Up As I Go Along #690

The backyard is getting overrun by wasps in this late summer time.  I’m not 100% sure but I don’t think there’s a nest on my property.  Either they’re next door at the pigsty or they’ve got a nest in the nearby woods and, in either case, they come around my yard because of the direct sun and heat.  My backyard gets lots of sun and the whole back side of the house is in direct sun most of the day.  But yesterday there were several dozen wasps buzzing around the yard and back of the house.  They haven’t had a go at me… but it’s still a bit unnerving to see them patrolling around.

With all the hurricane footage on TV, I’m just on reporter-being-blown-across-creation-for-our-amusement overload.  They treat it as if it’s a duty.  But at the same time, they act all amazed when they see other people walking around out there.  They’ll run up and stick a microphone in someone’s face and say “don’t you know you shouldn’t be out here!”  Practice what you preach news reporters.  We can understand the severity of a storm without watching you attempt to talk into a microphone in 100 mph winds.  It’s just dumb, and becoming cliché.  Every weather event that occurs, you just know we’re hours away from water-soaked newscasters getting blown down the street.

I’m not sure what kind of sports fan this makes me, and I saw someone write about this just today as well… but I’m kind of enjoying the fact that the Blue Jays are currently not playing meaningful baseball.  I can watch a game more relaxed.  And I enjoy when they’re playing a few of the younger players that were just called up.

It annoys me how we always have to keep on top of billion dollar companies to not rip us off.  After two years of an acceptable fee I had to pay Rogers for my phone, TV and internet, my discount came to an end and my bill shot up by almost 40%.  Luckily, Bell sent an offer in the mail which I could quote to Rogers with the threat of leaving.  When it was all said and done, I basically have everything I wanted from Rogers (losing a few channels I never watched anyway) and I’m now paying $5 a month less than when I was on the previous discount.  So… do nothing, and get charged an extra 40%.  Or basically haggle with them to keep it at a reasonable amount.  I don’t think I should have to haggle with billion dollar companies.  But I guess this business model is why they are, in fact, billion dollar companies in the first place.

Of course, then there’s the other kind of business model.  Like, yesterday, with the wasps at their peak, I called a pest control company.  I pushed the right number for wasps and explained my situation to the woman on the other end of the line.  Happily, she says “oh let me transfer you to our expert on wasps.”  I get voicemail… leave a message… and never hear from them again (this being 24 hours later).  You’d think, if the person was away on vacation or something, they’d not transfer me to her.  And if she’s not on vacation, I appear to be a low priority.  Or perhaps the wasps have taken over the city… and I’m number six thousand on the message list.  God help us all.

Evil Legs
Evil legs dangle
As they haphazardly meander
Carefree flying
Through the sky

No fear of us giants
If situated within their flight path
Even your face
An obstacle they expect will move

A yell from me
Drives great bears away
Panicking through the woods
Out of fear of being seen

But yelling at them
Little evil sky marauders
Brings on boredom
As they veer towards your nose

Nature’s thugs
Running the neighbourhood
An invading gang
Going as they please

I cower in fear
I hold up within my house
Fearing a waspy shiv
As evil dangly legs meander by my window

Making It Up As I Go Along #689

Sometimes I think the world is too kid friendly.  Or at least little kid friendly.  This past week, I had a nice visit with friends from back home.  This had me playing tourist for a few days and included a tour of parliament’s centre block.

Our group had at least a half dozen kids who would have all been under the age of ten.  Many of them likely less than six.  

It made our group what I began to call a World of Squirm.  They just can’t sit still and know no personal boundaries.  If they wanted to get from point A to point B and your legs were an obstacle, they’re climbing through.  

And the worst part of the Squirm tour was that, twice, while the tour guide gathered people in a circle to discuss the history of rooms we were standing in… toddler fart drifted through the air.

Perhaps the rule should be that if you’re too young to understand to hold it in, you’re too young to join the tour.

Fall is quickly coming.  Leaves are beginning to turn… rain is picking up again after a few weeks of dry… and nighttime temperatures are sliding to single digits.  It got down to 5 degrees one night last week.  It’s funny because Fall is now my favourite season, and I’m looking forward to aspects of it… but I’m still dreading how quickly summer is leaving.  I think it’s the knowledge that winter is indeed coming.

It’s funny, actually.  Each of the four seasons is the same length but winter and summer always feel much longer than spring and fall.  I guess spring and fall are transitions to the two extremes (the hottest time of year versus the coldest).  This leaves parts of spring and fall feel like winter or summer.  But even though fall is my favourite season, it always only feels like it’s a month long.

TV commercials for drugs that are supposed to help treat such issues as dry skin and stomach disorders are simply bizarre.  They all start talking about your symptoms as if you may soon be shunned from society.  Then they switch to the glory of the drug and how life will become bliss.  And the finish is the soothing voice of a woman explaining the possible side effects of the drug.

And the side effects always seem worse than any good that may come.  Increased risk of cancers, trouble breathing, nausea, diarrhea… in rare cases, death.  Surely the dry skin is better to deal with than those possible side effects.  I’d rather avoid foods that may inflame an irritable bowel than be able to eat mom’s spicy chilli in peace while risking my ability to breathe.  I can’t imagine any of these commercials bringing some great swell of sales for these drugs.

Trump

Trumpeting Trump is trumping

Trumping around the room

Trumpeting Trumpy trumpisms

Just like a simple fool

Making It Up As I Go Along #588

First blog post not being shared to Facebook.  Makes me feel like I’m likely now only writing to my parents… but that’s fine, I suppose.

I’m now at that age where you can have to deal with aches and pains through the act of doing nothing.  Sleep can cause it… apparently.  I now have a tender spot on my hip.  It doesn’t affect walking but if I push in that area, it aches… and if I sit funny on the sofa, it barks at me pretty good.

And now my left shoulder is acting up.  Several years ago I injured my right one fairly badly.  Right now the left feels kind of like the right did in the week prior to blowing out.  And all I can put to it is sleeping on that side.  I suppose I could have done something to it while mowing the lawn or vacuuming the house, but the sleep seems like the most likely answer.  Perhaps it’s time to invest in a better mattress.

In some ways I feel like I’m becoming a bigger fan of the Dunedin Blue Jays than the Toronto team.  I follow them on twitter and keep an eye on how the team does.  And I find myself wanting to make a summer trip there to catch some of their games.  For the last three years I’ve gone and seen Spring Training Blue Jay games in Dunedin.  But I’ve always been curious about how it would be to watch the minor league team during their regular season.  It’s an amazing difference in fan support between the big leaguers Spring games and the minor leaguers regular season ones.  Almost 6,000 there, selling out during the spring.  Barely 1,000 there during the summer.  And through it all, there’s more temptation to jet down to Dunedin for a few games there than to pop down to Toronto for games in the Dome.

Backyard Bunny
My yard is his oasis
Stretching out
The occasional grassy snack
He lounges against my hammock frame

Twice of witnessed
A glance out my back door
And he just sits
Ears attentive to danger

He isn’t the first
Melting snow shows pellets
Hints of a garden toilet
On snowy winter nights

But it’s the first I’ve watched
Comfortable enough for daylight hours
Nibbling his supper
In the early evening shade

Spotted during TV breaks
When I go for a snack
And glance out the door
Freezing in double take as he sits

Has me glued to windows
Snapping pictures
And simply observing his life
As my TV goes unwatched

Making It Up As I Go Along #687

Not much to say this go ‘round.  I could complain about Trump but simply have no desire to devote any energy to him when I’d simply be saying the same thing over and over again.  I did see several people calling for Twitter to suspend his account.  And then read, in the news, that his tweet storms actually make twitter somewhere in the vicinity of $2 billion.  So I suspect there will be no suspension of accounts if that’s the reality.

Has anyone on America’s Got Talent ever done anything beyond getting on that show?  I admit I’ve never watched it, but it seems Rogers thinks Blue Jay fans are into the show, cause it’s constantly advertised during a Jays game.  And in those ads, I see clips of an audience going wild and judges proclaiming how they’ve never seen anything as spectacular as ‘you’… and then, as best as I can tell, the contestant disappears back into the rest of society.  If that’s all it’s supposed to be, that’s fine and good I suppose.  It’s just felt to me like this show is supposed to find the next big star or something… and that never happens.  Either way, I don’t care.  I’ve never watched it and have no plans to.

Walking yesterday, a went by a house where a man in his fifties or sixties is sitting outside, blasting Guns & Roses ‘Welcome to the Jungle”.  The world has gone full circle.  When that music was new, people in their fifties and sixties proclaimed it to be ‘noise’ and they ordered younger people to turn it down.  Now the younger generation play lots of soft music where you wouldn’t be able to find a drum or guitar anywhere in sight at a live show… and their grandparents are sitting around, relaxing to their hard rock music.

I know a few people who either got off Facebook or never even got on there in the first place.  And, I must say, I kind of envy those people.  I have to admit I don’t get much enjoyment from the world of Facebook.  The format is pretty ad filled and cluttered.  And much of what shows up in my news feed… well… it’s basically there to be scrolled by.  But I stay in the Facebook world in order to have some semblance of an idea of what’s going on in the lives of some family and friends that I rarely see or hear from otherwise.  So it seems the choice is either to endure that which needs enduring or to completely lose touch with a group of family and friends.  So I endure.  But, with that said, I think I am going to stop linking my blog to Facebook.  I can’t say I’ll never link it there again, but at this point in time, I think I won’t bother doing so.  I’ll keep up with the blog.  So if you’re interested in checking it out, maybe the best thing to do is bookmark it on your web browser and check in every week or so.

I think that’s about it for this week.  With so much of the news dominated by racism, politics and terrorism I just don’t feel like writing about any of that stuff.  And it doesn’t feel like the proper time to write about turtles, frogs, trees, or any other part of nature.

Doxing

I’m writing this not to inflame or prolong a debate but to finish my part of one. As well, I know I’m a social media light weight. So anyone who doesn’t agree with my thoughts are welcome to simply ignore me. I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind. And I’m not even writing this to tell someone else that they are wrong to feel the way they do. It would be arrogant of me to think I wield that kind of power. But I also know too many people whose lives have been, and continue to be, in the field of law enforcement, to simply sit quietly at the suggestion that our law enforcement agencies can’t be trusted.

I write this all in relation to the subject of doxing people via social media. This has most recently come up in the white supremacist march last weekend. And, to be clear, I have no sympathy for any white supremacist. Those individuals sicken me and I don’t believe they have earned any place in a civilized society.

My concern through all this is the idea of the general public sharing screen grabs of these individuals with the goal of publicly sharing their personal information for all to see. And again, that concern isn’t based on any feelings of sympathy for the racist people being called out. The concern is for the misidentifications that can, and have, occur. Innocent lives can potentially be ruined or, in a worst case scenario, ended, all based on a similar appearance to an individual from a screen grab. My thought was, and remains, if you think you know one of these people, inform law enforcement, and let them investigate the matter further… privately… out of the public eye.

I’ve previously shared that concern and, in a civil Facebook discussion, I’ve had several people disagree with my thoughts. Fair enough, I’m alright with that. But the troubling part of it all, for me, is hearing others saying they can not trust the police to do the right thing in regards to these potential hate crimes. That people are better off outing these individuals via twitter than informing the police that they may know a potential suspect of said hate crimes.  And I’m concerned with the thought that if a few people happen to be misidentified, well that’s the price to pay for the greater good and their lives won’t be drastically affected anyway (an idea that none of us actually know to be true).

And it is this lack of trust in law enforcement that bothers me the most from these discussions. The fact is, I work directly with law enforcement. I’m not a police officer but I work with many. I’m related to several police officers. I consider several more officers to be friends. And in my work, I interact directly with dozens of police officers from many different police agencies throughout North America.

By no means am I saying law enforcement in North America is a perfect thing. I understand and believe that there is work to be done in both the United States and Canada to better the relationship between police and racial minorities.

But I can say with confidence, due to fourteen years of experience working with many of these people, if my goal is to get it right. To not make the mistake of misidentifying an innocent person and to be part of a just society, I would trust sharing information regarding potential criminals with the police 100% over sharing the same information with the multitude via twitter.

The great majority of those working in law enforcement are good people. They’re trying to help society and are trained specifically in order to keep us safe.  They have resources at their disposal that far surpasses the world of Twitter and they are trained to use them. And, bottom line, they have willingly put themselves in harms way, willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.  These people deserve our respect.

That’s it, I don’t hold any ill will towards those who feel differently during our discussion. A difference of opinion is okay and, when given respectfully, as has been my experience these last few days, these differences are good and make us consider and think more completely about complex issues.  Plus these are disagreements among people on the same side of the bigger issue. None of us support these racial supremacists.

I just felt that, if I said nothing, I’d be doing a disservice to dozens of people I have worked with, as well as several people I consider my friends and several others who are part of my family.