Well colour me disappointed in myself. Here it is, Halloween night, and I haven’t written anything new and original to share and scare.

Oh well, can’t let my favourite night of the year go by without getting on my little cyber-soapbox. Here’s a little piece of flash fiction I wrote in 2009 that I was kinda proud of (even if I’m still not crazy about the ending).

Always wear comfortable shoes when driving at night

Run.

Keep running. Run faster.

Don’t stop. For anything.

Run.

RUN!

…

Turn right. Down that alley.

NO!!

BACK TO THE STREET!

Right. Go. Stay in the streetlights.

Why are all the houses dark? Why isn’t anybody home?

Where is everybody?

…

I don’t know where I am. I don’t recognize anything, no buildings or street names.

I don’t know where I left my truck. I don’t know what I hit. Hard enough to crush the steel bumper and snap off a wheel.

I know there wasn’t anything there when I got out to look.

…

I don’t know what’s chasing me.

…

Can’t scream anymore. Hard enough to breathe.

Tried calling for help. No answer.

Tried pounding on doors. No answer. Not a light or sound from any of these houses.

Haven’t seen a single other car drive by, or person out for a walk, or even a stray cat or squirrel.

Just row after row of the same three models of some developer’s idea of suburban paradise.

…

Have to keep running.

I can hear them. Chasing me. No idea how many.

Can’t see them, but I can hear them.

They’re getting closer.

Keep running.

…

Left. Wait. Haven’t I already been down there?

Every street here looks the same.

There has to be a way out. A way back to the main road. With other cars, other people.

Just keep running. Left. Go. GO!

…

Is that a light? Is that a light on in that house?? It is!

HEY! HEY!! HELP!!

THERE’S SOMETHING CHASING ME!

PLEASE! HELP!

…

…

The light’s out.

…

I can’t hear anything. They’re gone?

No.

They’re here. They’re h

I’M SORRY I’M SORRY IT WAS AN ACCIDENT I DIDN’T SEE YOU I’M SORRY IT WAS AN ACCID

Happy hunting my little demons. May candies feed your bellies and fantasies feed your nightmares for weeks to come.

Cross-post from Rebuilding the Mountain

TL;DR – Tore up my back last year, MRI just came back clean, tracking my recovery here.

Forever ago I was born.

Decades ago I grew up tall and I grew up fast (not so quick or mean; wrong name). 6′ 4″ by 12 years old.

Something I was surprised to learn at that age: not everything in your body grows at the same time or rate. Things like your bones, muscles, tendons… when you go through a series of crazy rapid growth spurts they don’t all keep up with each other.

Flash forward through many wonderful years of high activity and bodily destruction. My doctor told me to think of it like an old elastic band, stretched to it’s maximum and held for years. It wasn’t that I did anything huge and dramatic, just lifting some decently heavy (for me) weights, and my form slipped a little. And like the proverbial camel’s back, those elastic bands snapped (metaphor inception FTW!). One of my vertebrae slipped, tearing ligaments in my lower back and impacting against some kind of important nerves.

(Could have been much worse. The nerves that got tweaked just caused some weird shooting pain down my leg. If the disc had slipped another direction and hit a different set of nerves I could have been dealing with really nasty problems like bowel control and impotence!)

This was September 2010. Not realizing the extent of the damage, I went home, threw on an ice pack, and proceeded to try and stretch it out. For the next week, I twisted and pulled and bent and did everything to try and work out what I thought was just a pulled muscle. Finally went to see a doctor (walk-in clinic), and without even examining me he said the same thing I thought: just a pulled muscle, suck it up. So for the next three months, I just kept working it, stretching hard, going to yoga, even seeing a chiropractor on a friend’s recommendation (never before and likely never again, but that’s a discussion for a different time). All this time I was making the injury even worse, re-tearing the tissues over and over again. Not sleeping, couldn’t sit at my desk, just feeling horrible.

It was actually the chrio who finally asked me what my x-rays said. “What x-rays?” He went white. He had been working on me under the assumption that the first doctor actually knew what the F$%& he was talking about when he told me it was “just a pulled muscle”. Stop everything, go see a real doctor, get your x-rays. This was December.

Saw doc, got x-rays. Doc said I had done so much damage in the last few months trying to “fix” things, that he couldn’t tell what the original injury was or if/how it was healing. So new orders: do nothing. Nothing. No lifting, no bending, don’t walk or stand for more than 20 minutes. No sexy fun-time. For a month.

January 2011, I’m back to see my doctor, and he confirms that I’ve torn the hell out of my lower back. The only thing I can do is rest and wait. “It’s like a broken bone, you can’t work through it or stretch it better, it just has to heal.” Timeline? “At least a year before you’re at 90%.” Can I get ANY exercise? “Walk. Best thing for your back, and pretty much the only thing that won’t strain the area and make your recovery even longer.”

Depressed, bored, weak, I sit and watch as my beloved Rocky Mountains break every snowfall record on the books and have their greatest ski/snowboard season in history. While I sit. Walk around the track at the YMCA in the mornings for 20 minutes. Weeks. Months. I actually start to feel a bit more normal, not in constant pain, able to sleep most of the night. And I forget just how vulnerable I am.

March, I borrowed my dad’s snowblower. Doesn’t weigh that much, I’ll just throw it in the back of my truck. Sure it’s a bit awkward, but it’s nothing…

Seven months since the original injury and I’m back at square one. Fuck. Me.

Since then I’ve been back doing nothing, going for the occasional walk. Eating and drinking like I didn’t give a crap, because I didn’t. Never felt worse in my life. Combine that with the total inactivity, and of course I’ve put on a bunch of fat, gained probably 4 inches around my gut, and lost what muscle I had.

Follow-up MRI in July, reviewed results with Doc yesterday. Good news: no permanent nerve damage, tears have healed (though still extremely weak). Got the official go-ahead to start exercising again.

Hence this.

I will be using this blog to track my progress, record stats, talk about the recovery process. Most of it will be pretty boring to anyone not me: what I ate, how long I rode my bike, etc. Like I say in the description, this blog’s for me. If it can help someone else, great, but really all I’m looking for is a place to review my work and use the shame of public failure as motivation. So on that note, thanks for reading and please feel free to send any advice or questions you have my way.

1. Pick a exotic, interesting country, somewhere not unknown to Western travellers but not over-touristy either. The kind of place fun people go backpacking in groups.



2. Pack one black suit/white shirt and dress shoes with good grip. Be willing to lose them.
3. Find a group of younger (20s) travellers. Hang out, socialize, get to know one guy (specifically a male, doesn’t work with a female, best if he’s a movie or comic fan), find out his name, home town, etc. Give them a fake name, background, etc. If he’s got a background or family in government, military, or law-enforcement, pick someone else.
4. Casually find out where they’re staying, how long, where they’re going next. Give wrong info for your hotel/hostel (i.e., don’t be easily findable).
5. One night, be “accidentally” spotted wearing your suit. Don’t talk, run.
6. Find a web café, get pics and details of target (Facebook, etc.), info on where they’re staying, where they’ve been and are going if possible. Delete web history/cache/etc.
7. Print as much stuff as you can, build loose “dossier” in a large envelope. No fingerprints.
8. The day before you leave: trash the suit, rough yourself up, make it look like you’ve been attacked and beaten up badly. Has to look real.
9. Late at night show up at the target’s room, out of breath, near panic.
10. Act like you’re in trouble, don’t say who or why. Give him the envelope, tell him NOT to open it.



11. Tell him he has to deliver the envelope to a specific trash can (in a market or church or other high-traffic location) tomorrow before midnight.
12. If you can get a convincingly realistic prop gun, take it out. Tell him to keep the lights off, give a dramatic farewell, and run off into the night.
13. Get cleaned up, ditch clothes (and prop gun), head to the airport or bus station. If you know their next stop, send postcard with a cryptic message about everything being “safe” now.

If he does what you ask (not open the envelope, throw it in the garbage), you’ll be a topic of conversation, an interesting story with a question-mark ending.

If he opens the envelope… he will freak the hell out, and probably come looking for you (which is why you used a fake name, location, hotel, and left the country. Also why you avoided fingerprints, in case he’s extra motivated). The mystery will only grow as everything you told him ends up being false. Every James Bond, spy or assassin movie he’s ever seen will resonate in his mind for days, weeks, years. And even though nothing will happen to him, and even though he’ll get a postcard saying everything’s “safe”, he’ll wonder for the rest of his life who you were and why you were interested in him.

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there’s no good reason to go into space–each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

The hover-text in Monday’s xkcd hit me just right.

Required something a touch more personal than a mention on Twitter or Facebook. I need to remember things like this.

Maybe that’s what this thing is now.

Holy crap has it really been nearly three months since I was on here? I need to start trying to form coherent thoughts that take more than 140 characters to elucidate.

There’s a thought that’s been rattling around in my head for a while and I need to get it out. I don’t want to, because it’s depressing and unhealthy and generally something on which I don’t like focusing, but at this point it’s become like holding in a fart on a crowded bus.

I’m 33 as I write this. Let’s say, for the sake of simple math, I live to be 93. As well, for simplicity’s sake and a touch of optimism, let us assume I am able to travel and function and enjoy my faculties right up to the end. That gives me 60 years. 720 months. A little less than 22,000 days. Most people would say that sounds like a lot. To me, it is a terrifyingly, infinitesimally small amount of time.

There is something like 195 countries in the world. I used to consider myself fairly well-traveled, fortunate enough to grow up in a family with the means and desire to see the world. But when I really think about it, I’ve maybe visited 8 actual different independent nations (E.g., Canada, USA) . Some for only a day, which can hardly be considered a true experience of the culture. That leaves 187 countries in which I’ve never set foot. If I want to see them all, that means I need to average just over 3 new countries a year, for the rest of my life. This year, our big travel plans are Vancouver. Maybe, if we have a really good year, Mexico in the winter. Those will be great trips, but I still haven’t eaten a-ping in Cambodia or wrestled a zebu in Madagascar. It is a 100% impossibility for any one person to experience every culture the world has to offer, or will offer. And some days it genuinely pisses me off.

Here is Wikipedia’s list of best-selling books.

Here’s Time’s ALL TIME 100 best English-language novels.

Here are 100 Must-Read Books for the Essential Man’s Library.

Here are the 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written.

Here are 1001 books you MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE.

I love to read. Most books take me a long time to get through; I usually only read a few pages at a time before going to sleep. Let’s say I read 6 books a year (which is probably optimistic). That means I will likely read approximately 360 more books before I die. Even if I double, or triple my reading rate, how many books is that? If I just decide to read all 1001 books (BEFORE I DIE), I’ll need to average about 16 a year. More than one per month. Just for those “classics” that “everyone” “should” read. No room for small-time, self-published books that I might love, that I might connect with on a deep personal level. No cult-y, off-beat stuff that no critic would ever consider essential reading, but that I might thoroughly enjoy. Comics? I’ve read Watchmen, the only one that ever seems to show up on these lists. I just finished re-reading the whole Transmetropolitan series; one of my absolute favourite stories and characters from any media. Which “best” novel must I give up so I can finish reading The Walking Dead? Or the next Dark Tower novel? Again, it is a 100% impossibility for any one person to experience every piece of literature the world has to offer, or will offer. And some days it genuinely pisses me off.

(This is becoming a very negative post, and I apologize for that, but for some reason these thoughts of mortality and lost experiences have been stuck in my head for a while, and I’m really hoping that this will exercise those demons.)

I often share this personal maxim with friends: “You haven’t had your favourite meal yet.” I mean it in the sense of “You don’t know if you’ll like it until you try it.” I believe that in a broad sense, also more literally there is so much food out there to try in the world, that (statistically speaking), you probably never will get to try what would be your favourite meal. That upsets me. There is more music and movies and games and art that has been created and will be created than can ever be heard or watched or played or experienced. That upsets me. But it also motivates me.

I crave new experiences. When I visit a new restaurant, and there is something on the menu that I don’t already know what it will taste like, I have to try it. If I’m going somewhere new, I’m going to seek out things unique to that place, experiences to have that I haven’t had before, or won’t be able to have elsewhere. This is a vital part of my life. At least I want it to be. But like so many people, so much of my life is safe and sedate, rote and routine. This is a conscious and accepted choice; I want financial and familial success, stability at the core of my life, and a future certain enough for me to take greater risks along the fringes. I live where I live and work where I work because I believe it likely to lead me to a place of financial means and flexible time enough to do many of those adventures that I crave, and to do them with people I love and a family to grow with. There are people who make different choices, and I am grateful to know of them. I may not be able to experience everything the world has to offer, but I can experience so much more vicariously through the sharing of others’.

OK, thank you Internet, for letting me get this off my chest. Writing it did what I hoped it would: get me to break the mental feedback loop of focusing on all the things I won’t get to enjoy in this world, and instead fire me up once again about all the things that I will! One final extra-nerdy thought: we level up by gaining EXPERIENCE; don’t let your life become a grind.

(TL;DR – Try the special.)

Dr. Michael Geist, Canadian copyright watchdog, mentioned on his blog that the public may still have one more chance to have their opinions heard regarding Bill C-32, the new Copyright Act:

In order for briefs on Bill C-32 to be considered by the Committee in a timely fashion, the document should be submitted to the Committee’s mailbox at CC32@parl.gc.ca by the end of January, 2011. A brief which is longer than 5 pages should be accompanied by a 1 page executive summary and in any event should not exceed 10 pages in length.

I’ve spoken endlessly about this before, both in digital and (exhaustive, just ask my girlfriend) verbal arenas. Bottom line: this act, as currently written, puts locks first, rights second. In other words, it will be illegal to break any lock (i.e., digital security measure), even if you are doing so for completely legal reasons (such as ripping a Blu-Ray movie to your computer, or playing a clip from a CBC news story to your class).

As apoplectic as I get when ranting about this to friends and family, I try my best to be as eloquent and concise as possible when discussing the matter in more formal situations, or in a context such that may actually reach someone of knowledge or influence on the subject. Even rational opinions, when expressed with extremist sensibilities, are easily dismissed as only belonging to the extremists. Most Christians do not agree with Fred Phelps and his “ministry”. Most marijuana smokers are nothing like the scrawny, dread-locked, unwashed, half-conscious deadbeat sleeping under his “420″ placard. And the vast majority of those that believe in fair dealing with copyright are not Bond-villain-esque uber-hackers bent on the destruction of society, capitalism, and the entire entertainment complex!

And so, in the spirit of honest and constructive dialog, here is the email I sent to the Bill C-32 Legislative Committee (cc’d to my MP James Rajotte):

to: CC32@parl.gc.ca
cc: Rajotte.J@parl.gc.ca
date: Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 1:56 PM
subject: Bill C-32

To the members of the Bill C-32 Legislative Committee;

As per your news release: “STUDY OF BILL C-32, AN ACT TO AMEND THE COPYRIGHT ACT” of December 06, 2010, I would like to add my support to the advocacy of maintaining a fair approach to copyright that does not result in digital locks trumping consumer rights and that advances fair dealing for the benefit of creators, consumers, education, and business.

I feel that Dr. Michael Geist has done an acceptable job of defining certain beliefs about Bill C-32 that I share, and so in an effort to maintain clarity I will quote his words as they match my opinions:

• I agree that Bill C-32 “…must retain legal protection for digital locks…”, but must also “…ensure that digital locks do not trump all other copyright rights by preserving fair dealing and consumer rights.” I believe that Bill C-32 must clarify “…that it is only a violation to circumvent a digital lock where the underlying purpose is to infringe copyright. This approach – which has been adopted by countries such as New Zealand and Switzerland – would ensure that the law could be used to target clear cases of commercial piracy but that individual consumer and user rights are preserved.” (emphasis mine)
• With regards to defining “Fair Dealing”, the Copyright Act should codify the six-part fairness text as identified by The Supreme Court of Canada:
  • “The Supreme Court of Canada has identified six non-exhaustive factors to assist a court’s fairness inquiry: (1) the purpose of the dealing; (2) the character of the dealing; (3) the amount of the dealing; (4) alternatives to the dealing; (5) the nature of the work; and (6) the effect of the dealing on the work.”

I strongly believe that these two issues form the heart of what both the proponents of Bill C-32 believe needs to be addressed, and of which opponents of the Bill are most concerned with the consequences. I strongly believe that no one in this committee or administration wishes to see the abuse of copyright that takes place when unquestionably fair, non-damaging (or even beneficial) use of a piece of work is prevented, punished, or even “chilled” due to a rights-holder taking advantage of poorly-written legislation. All that needs to happen to guarantee that the rights of Canadian users and institutions are held in priority is to enshrine “Fair Dealing” as the defining concept behind any claims of wrong-doing, regardless of the method or means of the wrong-doing.Please listen to Canadians. Thank you.

/Michael Lawton
Edmonton, Alberta

The unfortunate reality of these sort of highly technical issues is that there tends to be few parties with a full grasp of the situation and potential consequences. Unfortunate because there is often a significant disparity between the level of access and influence these parties have to those entrusted to make decisions. This results in a situation where only one side is being heard, the other marginalized, and major legislative decisions being made without all the facts. The marginalized side screams “BIAS” and “BRIBERY” and “SELLOUT” while the general population dismisses them as a bunch of paranoid geeks and petty thieves… until 5 or 10 years down the road when everyone starts to feel the results and wonders how such horrible and obviously harmful laws ever came to pass.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is the US’s copyright legislation that much of Bill C-32 (and even more of it’s predecessor’s) is based on. It was passed unanimously in 1996, and took almost 10 years before enough of a public outcry over the endless lawsuits, overly punitive damages, impeded competition, stifled speech, and frivolous abuse that the government began discussing reforms.

If the people could have seen how harmful and unproductive those parts of the DMCA would be, it never would have passed in it’s form. Right now Canadians are looking at our own DMCA, with egregious oversights and corporate/foreign priorities just as dangerous as those passed in the US 15 years ago. We can look South and see just how bad the consequences will be. There is still a chance to make your voice heard. Don’t wish you had, do it.

… or maybe just winter in Alberta.

I love this snow. Light, fluffy, fun. Yes the responsibilities of an adult world can make appreciation of this spectacle somewhat more difficult, but even amidst all the shoveling and snowblowing and driving and cleaning and plowing and parking and digging and everything else that comes with our messed-up society trying to pretend that we don’t have to care about what’s happening outside our windows, I hope there’s a tiny glimmer of snow-day delight in your heart when you look out over a beautiful blanket of white.

I really think we need to stop trying to force “business-as-usual” regardless of the weather. How much more relaxed and happy would we all be if the city just declared “snow day” and told everyone to stay home, take your time, clear your own walks, move your cars so we can plow the streets, go out and roll around in the snow for a while, play with your kids/pets/whatever. I know not everyone can just take the day off (plow drivers for example; maybe doctors), but if 90% of the city just stayed home for a day or two while we got everything cleaned up not only would there be FAR fewer accidents and other vehicle problems, but in general people would be happy about the snow! And maybe go out and enjoy it a little, like when we were kids.

Well, that was a year…

Top Music in 2010

(play count of the last 12 months according to last.fm)

Artists

Tracks

Twitter

I see "mountain", "awesome", and "happy". Good sign.

Facebook

"awesome", "beer", "happy"... "hurts"

Top words (in order) were awesome, happy, may (?), time, morning, hurts, weekend, snow, halloween, facebook, find, mountain, anyone, room, really, mountains (plural should count together IMO). Not sure if the word cloud or that list includes captions on posted links/pics/videos, comments, or just straight status updates.

Bookmark Tags

I tag a lot of videos

Not feeling like writing a heck of a lot right now, so I’ll just end with a sentiment I agree with whole-heartedly:

I just finished writing a short end-of-year/happy-holidays type message for my work blog (The Financial Benefits Group), and I’m kind of proud of it. So I’m going to re-post it here.

Tonight we will have the first full lunar eclipse to take place on the Winter Solstice in nearly 400 years. It will be another four centuries before it happens again.

The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year (less than 7.5 hours of sunlight for Edmonton!), and holds great significance for nearly every culture, religion, and community in the world. For us in the Northern hemisphere, it marks the turning point when days start getting longer again. When we start getting more sun, more light, when we can start looking forward to Spring.

This is a time of year for optimism and hope, for being grateful for everything and everyone we have around us, and for looking forward to the future. This is a time to make plans, and get excited about the new year.

Tonight we can watch the Earth’s shadow fall across the Moon. Literal cosmic events. People around the world will look up and watch this happen. This transcends any man-made borders, geographical or philosophical.

Some people would look at an eclipse and see how small and insignificant they are. Some would look at the longest night of the year and see only darkness and cold. I would offer instead togetherness, community, family: “We’re all in this together.” Be grateful that we have made it this far and look with confidence and excitement at the future ahead. The sun will come up tomorrow, the world will keep turning, it’s up to us to make the most of the ride.

All the best from our team and families to you and yours; may you have a warm, safe, and happy Winter, and a joyful and prosperous 2011. We’re looking forward to it.

If I can add a more personal lesson: Be happy in your life. Work for it. Fight for it. Don’t depend on things or circumstances or people to make you happy. Make joy in your own life, and get change or be rid of anything that is taking it from you. Good luck.

So I’m sitting here in my office, studying changes in income tax legislation and other thrilling topics, listening to some lovely classical music on our proud national radio station: the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). A song comes on that pulls me from my reading; a catchy, somewhat familiar tune but with a light, folksy bent.

I take a look at the iTunes window: “a rural holiday”, from an album called “Snake Fence Country”. Cool name. I summon Google.

Cool name, and local too!

It’s from the CBC Records label… hey sweet! Edmonton Wind Ensemble! My home town. I think I would like to give them money in exchange for my own copy of this album to enjoy at my leisure! Back to iTunes. Search for: “Snake Fence Country”

D’oh. Disappointing, but not everything is in iTunes. Back to Google. First link is Classics Online: Your Classical Music Download Source. Sounds promising… but then I see:

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

Not available in my country? It’s from my country! My city! The label is our national media company! This can’t be right. Trying somewhere else. Amazon.ca:

A HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE… ok, ok. It’s obviously out of production, fairly obscure, not completely unreasonable that the CD would be unavailable. What about Amazon.com:

Ah-ha! So it is out there somewhere! That gives me an idea. Back to iTunes, change the store to U.S…

What the hell!?

How can an album made in Canada, by Canadians, and released by a national Canadian government funded organization not be available to Canadians!?

Stupid, ignorant, hateful, petty… who wins here? Tell me. What possible benefit is this situation to anyone involved in or interested in this music? How the hell did the CBC allow this to take place? Since the CBC is publicly funded, which means that Canadian tax dollars were involved in the production of this album, how is it that the rights have become locked up by a foreign entity that can block Canadians from purchasing it??

This is everything that’s wrong with our intellectual property legislation today. Pointless and ridiculous interference that doesn’t help anyone. Well, except for the ignorant politicians that get bribed into passing this bullshit and the soulless corporations that seem to exist only to drain money away from the people who actually care about music.

Unfortunately this particular album is obscure enough that I can’t seem to find it on any of my usual torrent search sites, otherwise I’d be freely enjoying it while writing this diatribe (“free” being a key word there). I do have my fake US iTunes account that I set up last time I ran into this stupidity. But honestly, as much as I enjoyed that one song, and I’m sure I would love the rest, I have my doubts as to whether any of the money would actually get to the artists if I were to purchase it this way. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find the CD in a second-hand music store somewhere. More likely I’ll just never hear it again, and no one will have got any of the money that I was happy to spend. Lose-lose.