An update is even more overdue

Tags

adobe, ancient grain, article, audience, august, australia, baking, band, banjo, birthday, blender, blog, book, brandy, bread, buns, business, camera, cancer, care, carols, chemotherapy, christmas, cinnamon, co-op job, coach, coloured, community, concussion, cornet, daughter, decadent, deep cove old time jazz band, delivered, designer, devouring, dinosaur, dream, dynamics, edit, editing, editor, energy, engineering, experience, family, feedback, flour, flyer, focus, friday, fun, future, gig, glenn, graphics, grind, hair, haircut, hairdresser, helmet, hot jazz club, human, instruction, jazz, june, keyword, life, malcolm, mechatronics, michelle, momentum, music, new years eve, news, newsletter, open source, paper, party, pasta, patient, pen, personal trainer, photo, photography, pilot, pizza, practice, printing, ramble, reader, reading, reduce, retirement, risk, shopping, sin-o-man, software, studying, summer, target, task, technojungle, technology, time, todo, training, trombone, tunes, unmanageable, version, vitamix, wife, write, writing

Time—that slippery conduit through which we pass—has eluded me once again; at least where this blog is concerned. I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll simply start to ramble, as usual, I suppose.

Fir

The first thing that is coming to mind is my hair. Yeah, I know, we sort of got over all that hair business way back in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Well, my hair was never really that long in those days. Last summer, my hair was getting a little long, so my wife said, “If you want to have your hair a long, I’m going to take you to my hairdresser for your 60th birthday present.” I have the sort of hair that I can have shortish and longish which allows me to go a few months between haircuts. My wife likes my hair both ways.

So, off we went and had this very nice girl, Brandy, tidy-up my hair. I looked on the floor and said, “Not bad hair for 60.” Then came the reply that just simply caught me, “If you had a foot of it, you could donate it to cancer patients going through chemotherapy.”

What an idea! I could try my hair long and then do something good with it. Great! That was in mid-August and I am getting there slowly—very slowly, it seems. Perhaps it has slowed down a bit. It has been pretty unmanageable. Having long hair for a while is a neat idea, but getting there is not as easy as I thought it would be. Anyway, I am still working on it.

Writing (& book)

In case someone might actually be following my blog and might just be having some remote thoughts about my book, it is still underway. I have discovered, actually I’m sure I sort of knew, that the writing part is far easier and takes less time than editing. Most books are severely under-edited. I’m not ready to employ and professional editor to pour over my work through several versions, so I am recruiting people I know to be reader/editors.

I began by printing each of the three sections of the book and inserting them into three binders. Each reader/editor would get a coloured pen and an instruction/feedback sheet along with other information, such as target audience. The first person got section one. When they finished, I gave them section two and gave section one to the second reader/editor. It worked rather well and I got plenty of great edits and feedback. I have done this a couple of times as well as working through it with my writing coach.

I now have a couple of copies of the entire book out to do the same sort of process. This takes a long time. Busy people are doing this in their spare time and so am I. As the editing moves slowly along, it is difficult to maintain momentum and keep the energy up. It is interesting when I talk to people about my book. I only have to get started and everybody has something to say regarding their own experiences with technology. I remind them that my book is about being human and that we need to focus on that in the midst of the Technojungle that is devouring us.

Music

Here is an area of my life that has suddenly gained tremendous momentum and energy. Music was eluding me for years. I didn’t know what to do, or how to get started. Then an opportunity came up to play some Christmas carols just over a year ago now. Then I got invited to join a small band called The Deep Cove Old Time Jazz Band and play in retirement and care homes. I had done this over 25 years ago and had not played since. It was tough to get going again.

In June we played our last gig. So I asked the fellow learning to play banjo in the band if he would like to get together to play some tunes over the summer. I didn’t want to lose what I was beginning to gain. He said that he would. Then I wondered if the trombone player might like to join us. We had known each other some 35 years prior at the Hot Jazz Club. He said he would. He also said he knew of a couple of other fellows who might like to join in. Thus began an all summer long task of trying to get a group together. Everyone was going away at various times.

By mid to late August we were getting close to beginning to practice. I was amazed at how many tunes I know and can play. Soon another banjo player came who I also knew back in the Hot Jazz days. We practiced weekly until he went to play down under for a couple of months. We took Christmas off and are now having causal practices to get up to speed again.

I have some amazing news about my a cornet. I think it deserves a special entry, so look for a separate article about my cornet dream of a dream cornet.

Photography

Photography is an area that I have not done much with for a long time. I guess I am sort of waiting to see how my life goes. I do have a lot of photos I have just started to do something with and I do have two blogs about photography that I would like to work on. That is enough to keep me busy. I suppose I am concerned a bit about the age of my camera. It would be nice to get to the point where I could get or even need a new camera. I have one in mind, but it is expensive to keep up on technology.

Graphics

It has been a lot of years since I did any graphics work. Actually, I worked in training people around 15 years ago. I never considered myself a designer.

Last year, my friend Glenn, said he wanted to start a newsletter business. I didn’t know what to think, since printed flyers seem to be going the way of the dinosaurs. Nevertheless, I said I would help do a pilot. I found some open source software and struggled along with it.

Suddenly one day, the newsletter gained a companion flyer for a local shopping centre. We completed both on high quality paper and hand delivered them to the community. Since then, we have done three more and two or three are in the works. I have had to switch software a few times and gained some inexpensive yet powerful software. It is amazing what is out there now since Adobe started to rent their software and many users simply don’t want to follow that model. I have had some great compliments, done some photography (getting paid for the first time in over 45 years of holding a camera) and I have been amazed at how much I enjoy the work and even have fun. I have had to do some late nights though.

Baking

I continue to do my regular baking of pizza shells for Friday night pizza night, buns, bread, pasta and a few other things. Usually, I still grind ancient grains into flour in our Vitamix blender. For New Years Eve, we had another party and Glenn and I made the decadent Sin-O-Man (cinnamon) buns. They were amazing again.

Family

Well, my daughter, Michelle, came home from living a year in Australia and jumped right in to training to become a personal trainer. She is now working in this field everyday for long hours. Malcolm did a co-op job working on some helmet technology that can reduce the risk of concussions. It was very timely, since this sort of problems has been in the news a lot. He even made it to the news. He is now back in class studying Mechatronics Engineering. We are all living together in our home and having normal family dynamics.

Enough

That should be enough for now. I have continued to write a bit everyday, not always for an hour as I did to complete my book, but I have managed to amass a plethora of articles that I could put on this blog or my Technojungle blog. I just seem to be a bit short on time and I will be getting busier in the near future. Yet, many people do say that to get something done, one should give it to a busy person. We shall see. I have had doing this writing you are reading and a couple of other related tasks on my todo list for a couple of weeks, I think. We shall see. I still need to edit this and keyword it before I can upload it.

Happy Easter 2015

Tags

BBQ, book, breakfast, buns, choir, church, cornet, Easter, edit, eggs, flour, fruit salad, good friday, hike, malcolm, patti, relaxing, rotisserie, sang, spelt, sunny, turkey

Here we go with Easter. On Good Friday, we went to church and I played my cornet again with the choir and Patti sang. Today we were up early and had friends over to share eggs, fruit salad and my Easter buns made with my home ground spelt flour. It was a great breakfast. It is a warm sunny day so Malcolm went for a hike and the rest of us headed off to church where, once again, I played my cornet and Patti sang. That was a great way to do Easter church.

We hung around for a while and now are home and have put a nice turkey on the BBQ rotisserie. I get to write stuff, edit my book and work away on things as I check the turkey.

This is turning out to be a relaxing day.

A bit of silence

Tags

alarmist, blog, book photography, boomer, bread, change, critically think, dehumanization, dilemma, dilemmas, flour, future, human, humanity, ideas, leisure, machine, pizza, promise, shocking, sidebar, silence, solution, technojungle, technological, technology, vitamix, written

Perhaps you have noticed that there has been a bit of silence around here. No, I have not given up on my blogs. In fact, I will have more to come as teasers for the book I am working on that is turning out to be a lot of work. I am also working toward determining if I have enough stunning photography to do some sort of exhibit. As I paw through them, I shall certainly have some to post on my photography blogs.

What is the book you ask? It has been mentioned over on the left in the sidebar for months now, however, here is a more detailed explanation:

My first book, tentatively, The technology dilemmas—how we can strengthen our humanity and live in the technojungle. I am looking at technological change and dehumanization as a boomer who grew up hearing about all the promises that technology would bring us in the future. The dilemma, the future never arrives. At least not as promised. We don’t have leisure time created by machines doing our work. Quite the opposite. The more I delve into this, the more concerned I have become. The horse is running wild, we truly do need to take ahold of the reins, or we shall be thrown.

My views, as I have discovered after grabbing a few books from the library, are not the lonely shouts of an alarmist, others have been ringing the bell for years. Some have written some nearly shocking ideas that seem to make sense according to my observations.

My goal is to have an easy to read book that will appeal to a broad audience, although boomers are my target, and provide some general observations that will give the book some shelf-life. Through short chapters, I clearly define the foundations of what I mean by ideas like, what does it mean to be human, and what is technology. Then I look at major technological trends from my observations, provide a few insights, and then turn toward beginning the journey of looking for some solutions to the dilemmas and how we can maintain our humanity. I ask my readers to join me in the journey, as I tell a few personal stories along the way, and learn to critically think through the technology dilemmas we all face and to discover ways to strengthen our humanity so we can all live in (what I call) the Technojungle.

Note: I have changed the name of the book to ‘The future never arrive: at least not as expected and it brings baggage.’ I am also thinking of splitting the content into more than one book. Stay tuned for more changes and this project evolves. — Fall 2014

Yes, I am still grinding flour in our Vitamix and making bread, pizza, etc. I am trying to find time to get a few pots of edibles growing for the summer.

Yup, I’m busy, but the blogs are not lost. Stay tuned.

Cooling off

Tags

5200, absorb, accident, automatic, bacterial, bandage, BBQ, beverage, bike, body, boil, bone, bread, burst, canada, commercial, compress, computer, concoction, costco, creative writing, crushing, degree, dessert, digest, drumstick, electrical, empty nest, engineering, experiment, flour, fluffy, food, freezer, frozen, gauze, gnawing, golden seal, graduate, greens, grinder, heal, health, healthy, ice, infection, ingredient, kale, kelowna, kitchen aid, machine, malcolm, mechanical, mechatronics, michelle, micro, mixer, monster, month, mountain, nutrients, nutritious, october, okanagan, oozing, organic, pain, pimple, plant, porridge, preset, pressure, project, publishing, pulverized, raw, relief, remembrance day, research, rotisserie, scrounge, sfu, simon fraser university, smoothie, soup, starbucks, steel cut oats, summer, summertime, surrey, syndrome, tea, tea tree oil, textbook, thanksgiving, thawed, thigh, turkey, u.s., ubco, university of british columbia, vile, vitamin blender, week, wife, wifey, winter, wry neck

I see that I have been silent since the summertime and now things are cooling off as winter comes. I have stated many times over the years, it is not unusual for me to drift away from projects for weeks, even months. Often, during non-blog times, I think of things to write about here, but seem to have difficulty getting entries to the publishing stage. I do have a couple that I started on and a couple that I was planning to write.

So, why am I writing this now. Well, I suppose one reason might be a health issue. Many weeks ago, I acquired what looked like a large pimple on the inside of my thigh. It bothered me for quite some time and then, with the help of some tea tree oil, it seemed to begin to heal. Then one day, it popped up again and continued to get worse than before. Soon, it was black and dark purple and was giving me severe pain. Last night was the worst time. I spent Remembrance Day treating it with hot compresses and tea tree oil. I made the gauze compresses as hot as I could and stayed up late to spend extra time doing the compresses. The boil simply had to burst, it seemed to be under such pressure and causing such pain that I could not wait. I read that the release brings great relief. I bandaged it up with a gauze pad and tea tree oil and went to bed.

In the morning, when I looked under the bandage, I saw what I was expecting. The pain had subsided and the gauze was full of, well, I won’t get too detailed here. It has been oozing all day and I have had to take an extra day to tend to it and to rest. My wife has been treating any possible internal infection by feeding me golden seal tea—a very vile concoction, to say the least. This sort of bacterial infection can leave one feeling drained and ill. It is, however, a great relief to be over the pain. If it is not not getting markedly better by tomorrow, I will go to the doctor.

Summer ended with Malcolm heading off to Simon Fraser University (SFU) to begin his journey for his degree in Mechatronics engineering. He has to travel to the Surrey campus, a trip that takes him over an hour each way. This rather new field of engineering merges mechanical, electrical and computer engineering into one massive program that involves six courses per term and the textbooks for the first term were $1089. Michelle is continuing her quest for her Creative Writing degree at the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO) in Kelowna. She will graduate next summer.

Thus, we are preparing ourselves for the empty nest syndrome, looking toward some short years down the road when the young-ins are out on their own.

We have past Thanksgiving when I did another turkey on the BBQ rotisserie. We were unsuccessful in finding guests, so there was plenty left over, in fact, tonight we are gnawing on the drumsticks that have been thawed from the freezer. Last week, the bones were thawed and boiled into soup.

Several weeks ago, we picked up the VitaMix super blender. In case you haven’t got one, or heard of this, you might have seen the commercial version used to make a smoothie for you at a place like Starbucks. This thing is a monster. Crushing ice, no problem. It is so powerful that if you leave it running for five to seven minutes, it will cook. That’s right, it makes soup. What a difference this has made in the smoothies my wife makes everyday. They used to be mashed up greens done with a hand mixer, which didn’t come near to making a smooth smoothie. Now they are fluffy and smooth. We have made ice desserts and soups. The great thing is that whatever goes into a smoothie gets really pulverized so that the micro nutrients are ready to be absorbed into the body. In the case of a soup, hot beverage or, unless you pre-cook something, it only gets hot. Thus, you are getting raw healthy food that is easily digested. Tonight, my wife invented her own soup. It was good.

We researched this machine for a couple years, I’d say, and the best deal is at Costco. At our Costcos in Canada, we can only get the 5200 model in white. My wife wanted the red one that just happens to match our Kitchen Aid mixer. I also found out, on one of our trips to the U.S., that there is a new model with automatic presets for the most common items made—smoothies, frozen desserts and soups. Just toss everything in, set the dial, turn it on and wait for it to stop. Last week, the VitaMix roadshow was at our Costco and we decided to get the dry grinder to make flour.

After we got the VitaMix, I decided to try to grow some greens to put in the smoothies. I heard a gardening expert taking calls on CBC radio and he mentioned that it was a good time (October) to plant kale, one of the most nutritious foods and a main ingredient in our smoothies. I had a couple of pots I had scrounged and I scrounged one more. Then, I got some baby plants, spending just over $20 for the experiment. They are off to the races and are two to three times the size they were when I got them. If this works, we can pick what is ready leaving the other leaves to grow. I may even plant more.

If you read my entry back in the summer, you know that I had a bike accident that took me out of commission for a while. I just finished getting over a wry neck and back for two weeks, an now I have this terrible boil. I hope that is it.

I can’t think of anything else to write about, except that my wifey has joined me in eating porridge every morning. We went and bought a huge bag of organic steel cut oats. So, she makes the smoothie and I make the porridge. Soon, I will get back to bread making. We plan to get the whole berries to grind into flour with the VitaMix. I can’t wait. Since the weather is cooling off and the local mountains are preparing to open, it will be nice to have some nice warm bread.

Refs. for further reading:
SFU
Mechatronics
VitaMix