Wandering Flames of the Olympiad
The Olympic Flame is taking a torturous journey across our great land. It’s painful watching the Flame wander aimlessly through Canada. Sports networks update it’s progress, showing it’s travels by a map and it’s a simple shame to see the networks taunt it so... as it obviously has no idea how to get to Vancouver.
The Flame spends a few days seemingly going the right way. You think “good ol’ Flame, he knows where he’s going... he’ll be there soon”. This is when the Flame is actually traveling west across the country. You see where the highway is, you figure the Flame will stay the course and all will be well.
But either the Flame has ADD, or is a pushover for a friendly small town hospitality, or maybe it just has a real bad sense of direction and is wandering helplessly like a blindfolded fan at a hockey intermission, hoping the fans in the stands will guide it to the prize by way of cheers when he’s pointed in the right direction.
Well if this last one is the case, Canada hasn’t been cheering, cause the Flame has been all over the place.
It seems it shot through Atlantic Canada with not too much delay. And Quebec seemed fairly co-operative in sending it in the right direction too.
But once it reached Ontario, oh my... it seems as though the Canadian people had some Flame fun and pointed it all over the place.
I’ll admit that I tried my best to ignore the Flame. So maybe I’m partially to blame... having not pointed it in the right direction... but wow. The thing was zig zagging up and down, west and east, backtracking and, some days, only seeming to go a couple of dozen kilometres before holding up somewhere for the night.
And people began taking advantage of the Flame. Some were so drawn to it’s warm glow of love and peace among men, that they jumped out of the crowd and tackled those who were kind enough to try to send it on it’s way. I can only assume the tacklers wanted the Flame to stay a while longer.
Others wandered out from the crowd to beg the hand of the Flame’s carrier in marriage. The poor Flame had to sit there while the couple hugged and bystanders applauded. The cross country journey was becoming ever the longer... the Flame would be invited to the wedding.
And these carriers. The bearers of the Flame. Well it was my understanding that these people were supposed to be athletic and they’d actually run with the thing. After all, Canada’s a big country and the Flame has to be at the other end of it in a fairly short time span. But the people have taken the Flame hostage. Slow walks and movements that kind of impersonate a run... as if done in severe slow motion... would take the Flame a few hundred meters before the hand off would occur.
It was once considered a special honor to carry the Flame. Now you’re more unique if you’re one of the ones who never got your hands on it. The Flame has become as popularly trendy in it’s uniqueness, that it’s the same as a tattoo of Chinese symbols on white people. In both cases, it’s embraced by people who have no idea what the real significance is... but it looks cool and gives the appearance of something special.
The Flame made it to British Columbia. But the people there, who are sick of all that the Flame brings, messed with it. With Vancouver in the southwest corner of the province, the people pointed north. And off to Prince George and beyond the Flame did go.
But it seems as though it’s in the home stretch. The Flame has a pretty good idea where to go from here. But there’s still time for more wedding invitations, tackles, and sloth walking poses. I just wait for the day, not far from now, when the Flame gets pied by a protestor. And, after making 98% of the journey, from Olympia to British Columbia, the Flame will be stopped. And the Olympic caldron will be ignited by a smoker’s Bic.
MONDAY...
— Evenings with Scott, Frankie, Nicole. It’s a pretty good evening of AFIS work.
TUESDAY...
— Not much work. I go out for drinks and supper with Laura and Cara Lea. Nice, as always, to meet up with L-Mac.
— After food, I go to the office for a little more than 2.5 hours of work. Then off to the movies with Karl. Goldeneye on big screen is fun times. Famke Janssen is the best Bond villainess of all time.
— By the time the movie is over, it’s too late to plan a return to work. So I’ll make up for some lost time in the next few days (work 10 hour days instead of 8) and some of my vacation time is to get used.
WEDNESDAY...
— Ten hour day at work. Scott gives some pointers for certification and I have my best stats night doing it... maybe I’ll stay out of trouble... thanks to Scott.
THURSDAY...
— Starts the day not too cold but goes nuts as the day goes on and the temp drops from something around -5 early on to about -27 with the wind at night.
— Albums have arrived. Amazon sends Neutral Milk Hotel and Wilco’s “Being There” in vinyl. Good times.
— Pizza at work makes for a pretty good night.
FRIDAY...
— Work a bit. Hockey pool first... drop two and add two... I get the two switches I want but still will likely not catch up.
— After a few hours work, I head out for movie night with the gang. Legion is likely the worst movie I’ve ever paid money to watch... simply awful. To the point of being nearly fun to watch so that you can laugh at it... almost.
SATURDAY...
— First time with friends over in a year or two. Hockey Day in Canada is the reason. Not a tonne show from the list that were invited but it’s a fun evening with Jamie there a while, Sheila, Melissa, Nick, Dusty and Dave all there.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #400
Searching for Substance
My four hundredth Making It Up and I’m not really sure what I think of that. I actually probably felt better about my blog two hundred updates ago than I do today. And the first year or two felt much more exhilarating than now as well. My first few years of blog writing, well, at the time the first few years were group e-mails... but in those first few years, I felt a connection with people. People wrote to chat after my update. I reconnected with some cousins and got a different perspective of the lives of some of my uncles, aunts, and friends.
Family gatherings can often become scripted. With the same shared smiles and same shared conversations... none of which seems one hundred percent authentic. My first few years of writing and sharing what I wrote seemed to bring some more honesty and openness. Not just from me... but given to me. I learned things about cousins, uncles and aunts that I never before knew. Family barbeques often get overshadowed by the weather and job interview style questioning... “Are you seeing anyone?”... “Do you like your job?”... “Do you watch American Idol?” There is too much distraction with the size of the gathering to get into anything of more substance than these one off question and answer periods. “Are you seeing anyone?” can become a substantial conversation. But when there are a dozen people preparing supper, no one topic gains anymore than about three minutes of back and forth.
With my original writing, I’d often have a half dozen e-mails back and forth with someone. It may cover several days and there’d actually be learning about each other coming from it. By the end of the e-mails, the conversation may have nothing to do with what I had written about. But my writing seemed to act as a starting point. And the learning grew from there.
I started to reconnect with cousins who I see a couple of times a decade. Much of that has gone by the wayside. Same goes with friends. Where once I felt like my writing kept me connected to several friends living far from me... I feel like that connection has faded and, in some cases, is gone entirely.
So it’s not that I necessarily crave praise or a feeling of importance from my writing. But I do want to feel like it matters on some level. And getting to know people... what they’re really like... underneath the facebook facades and 140 character twitter style proclamations... that brought meaning to me.
Today, I am pretty sure there are some posts I’ve made that have been read by fewer than five people. And I get a meaningful response about a half dozen times a year. Not that I’m begging for a forced response now. I’m just explaining why I felt better about my blog two hundred updates ago than I do now.
And having mentioned facebook earlier. It’s a community I grow ever more tired of. Where I have mentioned here that I miss the meaningful connection where you actually get to know what a person is like... Facebook is the anti-meaningful connection community. Let’s make the world as superficial as possible. Cryptic status updates that, if you try hard enough to solve the hidden meaning, you often find that the hidden meaning wasn’t worth trying to solve in the first place.
And then it goes to the other extreme. Where, in one instance, you get to learn how your facebook friend loves shoes, an hour later they may post intimate feelings and secrets for all to see. Gone is the personal, deep conversation. Replaced by a wall post that screams for sympathy and huggy emoticons.
I enjoy facebook on many levels. I get to see pictures of certain friends and family. I get to play a few games. And I get to see a general point of view of several people that I’d probably never see otherwise.
But I hate facebook on many other levels. Getting to see the shallowness... pettiness... and silliness of people that, in the same manner as with the positive levels, I’d probably never have seen otherwise. Those general points of view you get to see from several people... well... thanks to facebook... that’s all you see of those people. Facebook has become such a major form of connection that many people are making real life connections that have about as much substance as facebook. While others use it as a public means of psychiatric help.
There is very little healthy middle ground in facebook. Superficial strangers... or deep end lunacy. That’s 98% of facebook.
So with so much disconnect. Or, in some cases, wishing for disconnect. This week, I reconnected. With the past.
My final part of Christmas came yesterday. My main gift from mom and dad... and old style radio/record player now sits in my living room. And I reconnect with the warmth and intimacy of music by way of vinyl.
I remember being a kid, laying on the living room floor with album sleeves in front of me and liner notes pulled out next to them as music engulfed the room in a blended form that is lost when coming via CD.
The sleeve and liner notes would take on the importance of charts and maps for a sea faring captain, plotting his course. The sleeve’s art work... something to be studied and memorized along with the music. Every minute detail examined. Often times a favourite corner of the sleeve would coincide with a favourite lyric on the album. Something discovered at just the moment that those lyrics are played. And it stays with you.
And other times, when you’re reading the lyrics as they’re sung to you. Reading them as if they were a discovered parchment that help you clarify meaning. You’ve heard the song a thousand times... but sometimes, reading the lyrics on liner notes, there on the living room floor, opens your eyes to a whole new world.
Downloading a song on iTunes just doesn’t offer this. If the history of music only consisted of iTunes, there would never have been a Dylan, Lennon or Young. They’d have been musical prophets preaching to emptiness.
Good, meaningful music can not be absorbed through the rush of iTunes. Hearing a bit of a song on the radio, and then searching it out for download only brings a bit of the musical experience to the listener.
Musical poets have to be absorbed. And there’s no better way to absorb music, than on a vinyl album while you lay on the floor, studying lyrics and artwork.
Christmas ran long this year... and ended in a musical bang.
MONDAY...
— On my new team at work. Went alright tonight with Christine, Anne-Maire, Mark and I... plus Roz.
TUESDAY...
— Tough day at work. Slow and tiring.
WEDNESDAY...
— Computer troubles continue and I’m bringing it to Atlas for a look. A new computer purchase may be in store.
THURSDAY...
— Get the computer back. Atlas gave it a good cleaning (lots of dust inside, stopping air flow). It’s so much more quiet now. The fan not having to rev hard. Hopefully that’ll do the trick.
— Buy some records before work. Go to Value Village and get three albums for $7. Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen are on board, awaiting the record player to arrive.
FRIDAY...
— Pretty quiet day. I’m not feeling the best. My stomach is a bit out of wack and headaches. So I stay home and lay low.
— Computer is working fine. I think Atlas did it.
SATURDAY...
— Record player is here. Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” is the first record to break it in. Really nice to hear that old sound again.
— Lovely Bones with Sarah and Phil tonight... goes ok for a while and then a few stupid things make it a 2 of 5... maybe 2.5.
— Montreal beats up the Rangers and Vancouver looks good against Chicago. A good hockey night. I do the Vancouver game on PVR... nice being able to go out and still catch the game.
My four hundredth Making It Up and I’m not really sure what I think of that. I actually probably felt better about my blog two hundred updates ago than I do today. And the first year or two felt much more exhilarating than now as well. My first few years of blog writing, well, at the time the first few years were group e-mails... but in those first few years, I felt a connection with people. People wrote to chat after my update. I reconnected with some cousins and got a different perspective of the lives of some of my uncles, aunts, and friends.
Family gatherings can often become scripted. With the same shared smiles and same shared conversations... none of which seems one hundred percent authentic. My first few years of writing and sharing what I wrote seemed to bring some more honesty and openness. Not just from me... but given to me. I learned things about cousins, uncles and aunts that I never before knew. Family barbeques often get overshadowed by the weather and job interview style questioning... “Are you seeing anyone?”... “Do you like your job?”... “Do you watch American Idol?” There is too much distraction with the size of the gathering to get into anything of more substance than these one off question and answer periods. “Are you seeing anyone?” can become a substantial conversation. But when there are a dozen people preparing supper, no one topic gains anymore than about three minutes of back and forth.
With my original writing, I’d often have a half dozen e-mails back and forth with someone. It may cover several days and there’d actually be learning about each other coming from it. By the end of the e-mails, the conversation may have nothing to do with what I had written about. But my writing seemed to act as a starting point. And the learning grew from there.
I started to reconnect with cousins who I see a couple of times a decade. Much of that has gone by the wayside. Same goes with friends. Where once I felt like my writing kept me connected to several friends living far from me... I feel like that connection has faded and, in some cases, is gone entirely.
So it’s not that I necessarily crave praise or a feeling of importance from my writing. But I do want to feel like it matters on some level. And getting to know people... what they’re really like... underneath the facebook facades and 140 character twitter style proclamations... that brought meaning to me.
Today, I am pretty sure there are some posts I’ve made that have been read by fewer than five people. And I get a meaningful response about a half dozen times a year. Not that I’m begging for a forced response now. I’m just explaining why I felt better about my blog two hundred updates ago than I do now.
And having mentioned facebook earlier. It’s a community I grow ever more tired of. Where I have mentioned here that I miss the meaningful connection where you actually get to know what a person is like... Facebook is the anti-meaningful connection community. Let’s make the world as superficial as possible. Cryptic status updates that, if you try hard enough to solve the hidden meaning, you often find that the hidden meaning wasn’t worth trying to solve in the first place.
And then it goes to the other extreme. Where, in one instance, you get to learn how your facebook friend loves shoes, an hour later they may post intimate feelings and secrets for all to see. Gone is the personal, deep conversation. Replaced by a wall post that screams for sympathy and huggy emoticons.
I enjoy facebook on many levels. I get to see pictures of certain friends and family. I get to play a few games. And I get to see a general point of view of several people that I’d probably never see otherwise.
But I hate facebook on many other levels. Getting to see the shallowness... pettiness... and silliness of people that, in the same manner as with the positive levels, I’d probably never have seen otherwise. Those general points of view you get to see from several people... well... thanks to facebook... that’s all you see of those people. Facebook has become such a major form of connection that many people are making real life connections that have about as much substance as facebook. While others use it as a public means of psychiatric help.
There is very little healthy middle ground in facebook. Superficial strangers... or deep end lunacy. That’s 98% of facebook.
So with so much disconnect. Or, in some cases, wishing for disconnect. This week, I reconnected. With the past.
My final part of Christmas came yesterday. My main gift from mom and dad... and old style radio/record player now sits in my living room. And I reconnect with the warmth and intimacy of music by way of vinyl.
I remember being a kid, laying on the living room floor with album sleeves in front of me and liner notes pulled out next to them as music engulfed the room in a blended form that is lost when coming via CD.
The sleeve and liner notes would take on the importance of charts and maps for a sea faring captain, plotting his course. The sleeve’s art work... something to be studied and memorized along with the music. Every minute detail examined. Often times a favourite corner of the sleeve would coincide with a favourite lyric on the album. Something discovered at just the moment that those lyrics are played. And it stays with you.
And other times, when you’re reading the lyrics as they’re sung to you. Reading them as if they were a discovered parchment that help you clarify meaning. You’ve heard the song a thousand times... but sometimes, reading the lyrics on liner notes, there on the living room floor, opens your eyes to a whole new world.
Downloading a song on iTunes just doesn’t offer this. If the history of music only consisted of iTunes, there would never have been a Dylan, Lennon or Young. They’d have been musical prophets preaching to emptiness.
Good, meaningful music can not be absorbed through the rush of iTunes. Hearing a bit of a song on the radio, and then searching it out for download only brings a bit of the musical experience to the listener.
Musical poets have to be absorbed. And there’s no better way to absorb music, than on a vinyl album while you lay on the floor, studying lyrics and artwork.
Christmas ran long this year... and ended in a musical bang.
MONDAY...
— On my new team at work. Went alright tonight with Christine, Anne-Maire, Mark and I... plus Roz.
TUESDAY...
— Tough day at work. Slow and tiring.
WEDNESDAY...
— Computer troubles continue and I’m bringing it to Atlas for a look. A new computer purchase may be in store.
THURSDAY...
— Get the computer back. Atlas gave it a good cleaning (lots of dust inside, stopping air flow). It’s so much more quiet now. The fan not having to rev hard. Hopefully that’ll do the trick.
— Buy some records before work. Go to Value Village and get three albums for $7. Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen are on board, awaiting the record player to arrive.
FRIDAY...
— Pretty quiet day. I’m not feeling the best. My stomach is a bit out of wack and headaches. So I stay home and lay low.
— Computer is working fine. I think Atlas did it.
SATURDAY...
— Record player is here. Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” is the first record to break it in. Really nice to hear that old sound again.
— Lovely Bones with Sarah and Phil tonight... goes ok for a while and then a few stupid things make it a 2 of 5... maybe 2.5.
— Montreal beats up the Rangers and Vancouver looks good against Chicago. A good hockey night. I do the Vancouver game on PVR... nice being able to go out and still catch the game.
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