Letter to the Herald Editor re: Bow River Flow

• August 26, 2011

In response to this editorial in August 25’s Calgary Herald. All I can think about right now is, “I didn’t run it through my editing process.“ I won’t fix the “where cars were cars were” below. I began as a detractor to the Bow River Flow. I saw no purpose to it and thought it only an inconvenience on a Sunday afternoon. I am, however, a huge fan of the festivals and the amazing spirit formed within Calgary through them. Read More

My home. My community.

• August 23, 2011

I live in Albert Park. It’s on the east side of the city. “Oh, the scummy side near Forest Lawn.” No. It’s my community. It’s awesome over here. I have the best neighbours in the world. This very morning, they’ll be eating my saskatoon jam (it’s more a compote, but hey…) with their toast for breakfast. So will the neighbour one house over. Why? Because they’re great people. Decent people. People I like to be around. Read More

Implicit conversion vs. Explicit conversion

• August 22, 2011

I went through the DBA programme at SAIT. I’m rather proud of what I’ve accomplished, I only wish I got to use it a lot more. I really love Oracle, it sings to me for a whole bunch of reasons. The structure is beautiful. Laying out a tablespace across spindles is the sort of thing that makes my heart cry out with joy. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass. I particularly love the ORA-03113 error. Read More

Bow River Flow to Go

• August 20, 2011

I need a wee little tweak on my rear derailleur. It’s just enough off that upshifting takes a moment or two to catch. I think about it every time I ride home and I forget about it every time I stash my bike in the basement and head upstairs to start dinner. The next morning I grumble to myself as I shift my gears and wonder why I didn’t fix it. Read More

Distressed from the Disregard

• August 19, 2011

I love Twitter.com. No, really, I love it. A whole lot. I love the people I’ve met there. I love the ideas I’ve shared there. I love the things I learn and the links I dig up. The whole environment is exactly what I like. The only thing that will make me fall out of love with twitter is… Twitter itself. I tweet long and often. I retweet any time I read something interesting or like something or laugh at something. Read More

Smiling and waving and riding through.

• August 16, 2011

Here I go into another way-too-long post trying to get my thoughts established, but it bugs me and therefore I think it’s a worthwhile endeavour. The trigger for this is Tom Babin’s article here. Go take a little time to read it, it’s very worthwhile to go through. Even if you’ve read it, it’s worth scanning through again because I will doubtlessly refer to it. That is far from the only source I’m going to draw from, however. Read More

Mapping out the week

• August 16, 2011

There’s a danger when you’ve figured you’ve planned out the week step by step and it doesn’t turn out precisely as planned. It hasn’t been just me. The past two weeks have not went according to plan. The highs and the lows have both been extreme. In a world where my purpose is to find balance, it becomes critical to realize that it’s not merely*** balance*** that matters, but moderation as well. Read More

Compromise within politics and without.

• August 5, 2011

My mind has been spinning circles this past week. Topics have been very far ranging, and the connections have been very interesting to me. It’s been pretty hard for anyone to escape the news of the U.S. debt ceiling crisis. I can’t say I followed it closely at first, to me it was just another one of those hyper-partisan issues from the States where hyper-partisan seems to rule the day. Any problems the U. Read More

You do not think it means what I think it means.

• August 4, 2011

I once had a fellow tell me, “Mark, not everything fits into little boxes.“ He said it critically. He was not exactly wrong, but he was far from right, too. I believe that everything in life has a logical fit. Everything can be explained, everything goes together somehow. It’s not always boxes within boxes, but ultimately everything makes sense. The problem I have is that my history, my experiences, my opinions form my view of how the explanation fits together. Read More

A community. A garden.

• July 27, 2011

I took the day off today. Burned one of those holidays that keeps piling up on me. I’ve been planning the day for about six months. Having the day off meant everything. I was planning to get sweaty and dirty and sore. Mission accomplished. I was one of 80 people (okay, actually more than 80 people because we had extra volunteers come out) who took a swampy grassy area and built a garden. Read More