Feeling Festive

I am happy to report that I have officially given up on accomplishing anything this week before heading home. The Christmas spirit is just too infectious to not take advantage of. All the bad environmental news today is even having a hard time swaying me from the pure bliss of listening to Michael Bublé croon out some Christmas carols and "helping" my girlfriend bake cookies.

The life of a university student often doesn't lend itself to fully enjoying December. Even the stubbornly young at heart, a group that most assuredly includes me, have a hard time feeling festive when there are exams to be studied for and papers to be written. And real, full-fledged grown ups? Forget about it. Most adults are so overwhelmed by stress that they don't have time to get swept up in Yuletide cheer. I was fortunate this year in that the people in charge of my program were merciful and let us all be done our work and free of academic commitments as of December 5th.

In the time since then I have slowly fallen back into the mindset I took for granted as a child. The care-free, present anticipating, sugar ingesting, ornament hanging, carol singing state that filled me with the courage to tear fearlessly down steep toboggan slopes and truly enjoy the holidays. I have really missed it and I'm glad I have been able to find my way back. As much I would like to believe that its possible to feel this way all year, the fact is there is something special about the month of December. Maybe its the Christmas lights, maybe its the hustle and bustle of the shopping malls, maybe its the clichéd Christmas movies that are on perpetual repeat; but if you open your mind up to being a kid again, its an easy goal to accomplish.

And why shouldn't we all take advantage of that? Its very rare that the society we live in invites us to let go of our worries for a few weeks and really enjoy everything we have. If you are reading this blog you are part of a very small segment of people who are lucky enough to have their needs met in such a way that they have time to relax. Its very easy to forget that when you're bogged down with work, and bills, and meetings. The ubiquitous joy and spirit of giving that are at the heart of the holidays are a great way to escape the madness.

So this December, try to get caught up in it. Take a couple weeks for yourself. Stop worrying about the woes of the world and the obstacles you face in your own life and spend time with family and friends like it is the most important thing you have to do. The whole reason we all work so hard is so we can have some happiness in our lives. We would be foolish not step back and enjoy it when we are being bombarded with it from every angle.

I love Christmas. I always have. I always will. I understand that it is hard for some of us to get into the holiday spirit, but it should be a priority. Go out and find it if you have to. Don't be stubborn. Because when you finally find that you are able to view the world through a set of rose-coloured glasses, if only for a short while, all the bad things in life seem not to matter as much.

Happy holidays/Merry Christmas!

-Steve

Image courtesy of http://www.brothersoft.com/winter-wonderland-theme-201583.html

Rediscovery

I've been a nerd since long before it was cool. When I was ten years old we didn't have shows like Big Bang Theory and Numb3rs that exposed dorks to the wider world in a friendly and idolistic way. No, all we had were the shows that fostered our nerd-dom while keeping us firmly separated from popular culture. But man, did I love those shows. I can't tell you how many evenings of my childhood were spent watching Discovery Channel Special Presentations or National Geographic Explorer presentations. They made me the man I am today, and I truly miss them.

Unfortunately, I've had to watch as the Discovery Channel slowly became less about visually captivating documentaries and more about people doing physical labour in extreme situations or how matches are made. Occasionally though, they still hit the mark, and tonight was one of those nights. I saw an online advertisement a few days ago for a special entitled Drain the Great Lakes. This caught my interest for a few reasons. First off, I am a Southern Ontario boy, born and raised. I may have spent the past few months fulfilling a lifelong dream of living among the mountains, but the Great Lakes and the vast stretches of Boreal forest that make up my home will always hold a special place in my heart. Second, with a title like that, and a deep-running love for disaster movies, how could I not watch?

I'm happy to report that the show managed to exceed my expectations and took me back to the glory days of educational TV. I spent the hour learning about ancient fluctuations in lake levels that exposed cliffs hundreds of feet high. I learned how some of North America's first inhabitants hunted caribou along the now submerged escarpments. I listened intently to the story of undetected earthquakes of the shoreline of Toronto that have created geologic "pop-ups" up to three meters high and how these represent the astounding tectonic forces squeezing an area that many people think of as relatively stable. I even learned about the mysterious circular feature that is nearly two kilometers in diameter and could be one of the best preserved meteor craters on the planet, albeit under a few hundred feet of Lake Ontario waves.

I'm glad to see that, every once in a while, an eye catching documentary still comes along. It gives me hope for young nerds who are growing up in a time without Bill Nye the Science Guy or Popular Mechanics for Kids. Hopefully these fledgeling scientists are satisfying their curiosity in some other way. Possibly with the vast supply of BBC docs on YouTube or by way of some great education show that I am totally unaware of. 

Either way, one of the great things about being a kid is how all the fun facts that us grown people take for granted can still inspire awe. I remember, a while back, I was trying to explain the seasons to my little brother so I turned out all the lights in his bedroom, grabbed a globe and gave him a flashlight. The look on his face when he saw how the angle of the Earth effects the way that light hits its surface reminded me of the wonder I used to be able to find so easily. Now I have to dig a little deeper to learn interesting facts, but that dorky kid who dreamed of being a herpetologist is definitely alive and well inside me.

Until next time, stay curious; because the world is just awesome.

-Steve 

Photo courtesy of www.discoverychannel.ca

Alarmed and Disappointed

Recently I have taken to watching YouTube videos in a series called "What You Ought to Know." Most of the videos are delightful little quips about common misunderstandings that attempt to inform the general public about interesting bits of information using humour and a likeable, sarcastic host. Basically its right up my alley. Most of the videos are like this:

Fun, right? Well, yes. That video is a great example of why I grew to like these short information sessions and I will invite anyone who doesn't want me to burst their bubble to stop reading now. Because I'm about to tear this guy a new one...

Okay, well now that its just you scorn-loving readers and I, I'll get into the reason for this blog. As many of you know, yesterday I was watching some Rick Perry campaign ads and I ended up writing about why they are homophobic and wrong. As a consequence of yesterday's viewing, today when I logged on to YouTube one of my recommended videos was a "What You Ought to Know" rant called "Gay Marriage." I opened the video and watched in horror as the guy I had come to see as a bringer of fun facts explained why he voted yes on California's Proposition 8 - a bill that ultimately banned gay marriage in one of the most progressive states in the union. However, his arguments were based on what constitutes the proper avenue to change legal definitions and he made some decent points while remaining fairly even minded. So I cut him some slack.

The video that came next crossed a line, though. I'll share it will you now:

Yeah, he just broke my heart a little. He had so much potential. So well spoken. So charismatic. So sarcastic. But the house of cards has fallen and now I'm pissed. This video is taking people with a healthy curiosity about the world down a grossly misinformed path. First of all, he quotes Richard Dawkins from an interview given in Ben Stein's laughably ignorant documentery "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." Dawkins has publically reprimanded Stein time and time again for the nature of the film and how he was misled about its message before agreeing to do the interview. All of that is besides the point, though.

What really pisses me off is the perpetuation of misinformation. "If evolution ever happened, it isn't happening now"? "We have never seen evolution take place"? What? For a guy who comes off as being well-read and well-informed, he must not have looked very hard for evidence in favour of the accepted scientific fact that is evolution. I'll let Dawkins do the rebutting by using examples from his book "The Greatest Show on Earth: The evidence for evolution." These examples, fittingly enough, are from a chapter titled "Before Our Very Eyes," its almost as if he saw this video coming:

1) The Lizards of Pod Mrcaru: A population of lizards was caught on a piece of driftwood and transported to an island they had not previously inhabited. Within a period of 25 years the lizards, because of a modified diet based on plants rather than insects, had developed much stronger jaw muscles and an entirely unique digestive tract. Given enough time, this population will surely diverge far enough to prevent breeding with the original population. That, by the way, is what defines speciation, its not arbitrary with living animals like our friend in the video suggests.

2) Dr. Richard Lenski's Long-Term Evolution Experiment: Researchers in Michigan have been tracking the evolution of E. coli using rigorous methods to avoid contamination for over 20 years. That totals to over 45,000 generations of bacteria. Over that time, certain populations of bacteria taken from an origin sample have evolved the ability to exploit entirely novel food sources based their environment. This has led to a dramatically improved ability to reproduce only in those populations. If the separate experimental groups were mixed back together the forms that could more efficiently feed and breed would undoubtedly outcompete their cousins and wipe them out. That's natural selection driven by evolution.

3) Guppies: Basically the same story as with the lizards, but over a period of a little over a decade scientists have monitored adaptations to guppy populations based on their specific environments and based on what predators are present. This demonstrates how animals can drive each other's evolution. There is even a fascinating side-bar about sexual selection on the far of the female guppies, but you'll have to read the book to get that.

To sum up, if the guy in the video could think as well as he could speak, we might have a formidable debater on our hands. Unfortunately he has fallen victim either to laziness in his research, willful ignorance, or a desire to mislead people because of some vested interest in denying evolution. Its amazing that people still need to stress this point but: Darwin was right. Evolution happens. There is ample evidence of it from genetics, fossils, geology, and yes even from experiments that have taken place in the span of one human lifetime. Saying that new species aren't evolving right now is to demonstrate how little you actually understand how speciation happens. I've lost a lot of respect for the people in charge of "What You Ought to Know" and if I watch any of their videos in the future, it won't be with the same sense of solidarity... and that's a shame.

This whole example just goes to show how important discussion is. Even when you think something is common knowledge, it might not be to everyone. Talk about what you know. Have intelligent conversations. Be curious about the world and question things. All that is necessary for ignorance to triumph, is for informed people to be silent.

Cheers,

Steve

Bigotry, Misdirection, and Other Political Tactics

Politics are a funny business. When you get elected to represent a huge number of people you take on a lot of responsibility. Not only are you charged with representing the views of the electorate in the formation of laws and allocation of tax dollars, but you are also forced to make decisions that are in the best interests of people regarding issues that they may not understand in enough detail to know what is best. In a very real way, you take on the role of a parent for the people who elected you. It is your job to guide them to success in the future and ensure their happiness in the present.

At least that is how its supposed to be. I would even like to believe that that is how it once was. I'm fairly confident that the first couple Prime Ministers and Presidents had the legitimate best interests of people at heart when they were forming the foundations of Canada and America. Whether that is true or not, things have fallen a long way from the ideal state they are supposed to represent. Modern politicians often lack even the most basic respect for their constituents. They try to scare us with appeals to nationalism, saying that the Canadian or American way of life is in jeopardy and that we must act to restore things to the way they used to be.

Some of the rhetoric can even sound appealing until you stop to think about it for five seconds. Hell, who wouldn't want to live in an idyllic "Wonder Years" fairy tale that never actually existed anyway. But alas, many of us are cursed with the ability to think for ourselves and realize that "traditional values" and "The Canadian/American dream" are not at all what is at stake as our countries move forward; we are being presented with scare tactics meant to freeze us in our tracks and vote for the guy who promises to do the same for the country.

Times change and laws need to keep up in order to avoid stagnation. Think of where we would be if women couldn't vote, if we didn't have a constitution that guaranteed racial equality, if the government could declare martial law whenever it wanted. Progress is a good thing and it in no way threatens societal morals and future prosperity. That is why I get so angry when I see ads like this one:

A classic example of how modern day "conservativism" is so far removed from what it is supposed to be that most people can't even begin to relate to it. The priorities of conservatives have shifted from decentralized government to extremist propaganda. Rick Perry might not explicitly blame gay people for the "war on Christmas" but he comes outrageously close.

I may not be American, but the trends that I see in Canadian political ads aren't much better. I'm sick of being treated like an ignorant, bigoted child. The worst thing of all is that the guys who are running for president don't even care about gay marriage. Its all smoke and mirrors meant to distract people from the things they really do care about. Namely, perpetuating inequality by failing to tax the wealthy, degrading the environment as they attempt to put more money into the hands of "the 1%", and taking money away from scientific research that continues to point out how screwed we will be if they are able to fulfill their first two objectives.

It really scares me that in 2011 an ad like that can make it to air. It shows a huge amount of disrespect for the average American and promotes ignorance and intolerance on a level that is full-on disgusting. Its encouraging that the YouTube tally stands at nearly 300,000 dislikes to 6,000 likes, but that still means 6,000 people are buying what Perry is selling.

The tide is beginning to turn and people are tolerating less and less of this nonsense. In the last Canadian Federal election, the only party that didn't resort to using attack ads was the NDP and their support grew to the point that they are now the official opposition. I'm proud to be alive at a time when the average person is once again thinking for themselves and slowly bringing about the changes that need to happen. The fact that we have a Conservative majority government and that the House of Commons is broken beyond repair tend to wash out a lot of my optimism, though.

I guess I'm just left with hope that, next November, reason will once again trump fear and that Obama will become a 2-term president. I'll be biting my nails until then.

-Steve

Among the Stars

My mind is at odds regarding what I should write about today. On one hand, I've finished a book and started another so a book review blog is seemingly in order. On the other hand, I've got a long way to go in everything I'm currently reading so there is no risk of falling behind. So I think I'll opt for some exciting science news to liven up this lazy Saturday morning.

The news is actually from a couple days ago, and the initial discovery is from way back in February, but none of that makes it any less enticing. Some of you more keen science enthusiasts might recall back in the early weeks of 2011 when NASA scientists used the new Kepler space telescope to balloon the number of known planets in the galaxy from a paltry few dozen to a thrilling 1,235 - or maybe you don't remember since the popular media has a way of glossing over extraordinary moments in the history of science - but regardless of all that, work is now being done to narrow in on which of these planets might be the homes of super-intelligent alien life forms... or pond slime.

Either way, it's pretty exciting stuff and a new study in the journal Astrobiology has proposed two scales on which planets can be ranked with regards to their ability to support life. First there is the Earth Similarity Index (ESI) which measures exactly what the name suggests, and secondly, we have the Planet Habitability Index (PHI) which evaluates conditions that might be suitable for life. Both indexes work on a zero to 1 scale with Earth having a value of 1.00 for the ESI and 0.96 for the PHI.

None of that is in and of itself exciting until you read the results from other worlds. The planet "Gliese 581G" (not exactly a pithy name, I know) orbiting a star some 20 light years from Earth has an ESI of 0.89, and Titan (one of Saturn's moons) has a PHI of 0.64. Considering what we know about the versatility of life on Earth, 0.64 is a big number. If bacteria can thrive on the waters of an arsenic rich lake in California, we might find them in the hyrdo-carbon lakes of Titan as well.

Science never ceases to amaze me. It has gotten to the point where what we are able to detect is so incredible and so far beyond our ability to experience that it just becomes frustrating. In a decade or so, we might know with virtual certainty that planets we can see with our most powerful telescopes are fully forested with vibrant oceans, even though we are nowhere near having the capability of ever getting to these places. In one sense its infuriatingly humbling; but, looking at it in another way, it might be nice to know that there exist ecosystems that are totally safe from human hands.

The universe is awesome.

-Steve

Image courtesy of http://madmikesamerica.com/2010/11/alien-planet-discovered-in-milky-way/

Throw Away Your Television

Modern living brings along with it many conveniences that we can't imagine life without. Cell phones, iPods, tablets, ereaders, the list of technologies that make our lives "easier" or "simpler" goes on and on. I'm not the first person to be skeptical of this notion so I won't pretend that I've had any great revelation; but, sometimes it's just too much.

Since we settled here in BC a few months ago, my girlfriend and I have developed a routine that we sink into on most evenings. One of us will make dinner, we will eat, the other with do the dishes and then we will migrate onto the couch for an evening of relaxation. The only problem is we don't relax. More often than not we each have a laptop open, a conversation going on between us, a conversation happening online, and the TV chattering mundanely in the background.

That is the modern age. We are constantly doing ten things at once and we think we are more efficient because of it. Even as I write this blog I am fighting the urge to flip over to the Facebook tab and talk to one of my friends. I suppose it's a consequence of our curious and social nature as a species, but we have taken things to far. We are getting less done, having less fun, and are all worse off because of it.

Strong words, I know. Even slightly hypocritical since I have no intention of joining a monastery any time soon, but that doesn't mean I have to sit back and let my brain turn to mush. I can take at least one step toward simplify my life; and all I need to do is press a single button on the remote. By turning off the TV and enjoying some silence I can free myself from some of the confusion that I throw at my brain each day.

Sometimes I feel bad for my poor old neo-cortex, I ask a lot of it. Read this book. Text this person. Get a graduate degree. Learn this recipe. If any person asked me to do as much as I require of my brain I would swiftly swipe them from my rolodex (if I, or anyone, still had a rolodex). From my brain's point of view, I'm a slave-driver. This train of thought has at least partly been inspired by an A.J. Jacobs article I recently read in which the author seeks to become a unitasker for one month. Trying to devote his full and complete attention to each task that he undertakes.

I'm not saying we all need to go that far, but there is something to be said for slowing things down. Having the TV on in the background while I do general chores is slightly comforting, but that is only because a TV has been on in the background for a good portion of my life. Thanksgivings, birthdays... It's kind of sad but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true for a lot of people. Over the past few days, though, I've noticed that a blank screen is somewhat serene.

Tonight, instead of having the TV on while we ate, my girlfriend and I enjoyed some music and conversation. There is something so much less taxing about music. Is doesn't demand your attention in the same way TV does and it allows you to talk over it without feeling like you'll miss something. And yes, TV does that to us, even if it's not entirely conscious.

Thanks to our experiment at dinner we had a better meal than usual. There was more goofing around and even a little bit of dancing post-meal... Behind closed doors we are kind of a sickening couple, but that's besides the point. I love having the TV off and I plan to continue leaving it off into the foreseeable future. I will resist the reflex to collapse on the couch at the end of a long day and tune out. I have too many books I want to read to be doing that anyway.

I welcome you all to do the same. You don't have to take my title (which I stole from a Red Hot Chili Peppers Song) literally, you can enjoy a program every now and then, but you don't have to be the slave to it that many of us are. It would do us all a measure of good to try and live like people in the 1940's did. You may lose some of the instant gratification that our society has become dependent on, but the things to find will enrich your life.

Cheers,

-Steve

Image courtesy of: http://expressionofsolitude.blogspot.com/2011/07/television-turning-doers-into-watchers.html

This Week in Literature - November 23, 2011

I've been meaning to write something for the past few days but I've been burdened with school and things of a scholastic nature so I haven't gotten around to it. My mindset this week has also led to a classic case of "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all..." Just seems like all the news I've come across has been at least a little depressing. Not that depressing news isn't worth sharing. In fact, it is often the most important news to share; but, if I were to write something about the lack of government aid being sent to James Bay or the number of sharks that are being killed brutally for their fins, I might go off the deep end.

With that in mind, I think today's posting calls for another book review. Reading makes us all feel better about the world, right?

To conclude my review of "Adrift", I will just say that the book managed to hold my interest in spite of taking place almost entirely in a rubber life raft. You would think that 200 pages of drifting would get boring, but Steven Callahan does a great job with gripping prose. It doesn't hurt that a plethora of increasingly complex survival problems arose during his 76 days in at the mercy of North Atlantic currents. Failing solar stills, crafty fish, deteriorating equipment, spearing his own raft. Adrift delivers what it promises and had me looking forward to reading a bit more each night. I'll give it 4 out of 5 ridiculously inadequate life rafts. The only thing it really lacked was suspense, but that is par for the course when you're reading a true story of a life or death situation written by the guy who's life is at risk.

I also have a few books that I've just started so I'll give a rough outline without offering too much in the way of opinions until I've finished them. First up, "The Guinea Pig Diaries: My life as an experiment" has kept me up past my bedtime for the past few nights reading about the hilarious misadventures of Esquire editor A.J. Jacobs. Each chapter tells a tale in participatory journalism as Jacobs poses as a beautiful woman, outsources his life, or tries to overcome unconscious biases and live in a Vulcan-esque bubble of rationality. There have been more than a few laugh out loud moments and I look forward to reading about his further experiments.

Finally, this week on the iPod, I'm listening to "The Emperor of all Maladies: A biography of cancer" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. This one made its way into the rotation for no real reason other than that it keeps popping up in my recommended reading list on Amazon and its frequently on the Science Non-Fiction shelf at the book stores that I frequent. It also didn't hurt that the reviews have been amazing, though. So far, the audiobook is a gripping account of the author's encounters with cancer patients in his role as oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The stories grab your attention and tear your heart out. In all honesty, it's been tough to listen too so far but you are left with an irresistible urge to listen more. The introduction promises to get into the scientific specifics of cancers, the history of the disease, and the possibility of finding an overarching cure within our lifetime, but I'm sure it won't  be any less heart-wrenching. Don't read this one if you're a hypochondriac. 

Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Happy reading!

-Steve

Healthy Hearts and Pizza as a Vegetable

It's a strange world we live in. Never have scientists better understood the way the human body works, and never has agricultural science been able to better provide a rich diversity of food for people in developed countries. I realize I'm ignoring vast global inequalities and that that first sentence probably should have read "It's a strange continent we live on," but that has so much less impact. Anyway, the state of affairs is strange because, in spite of a high level of understanding and an unlimited supply of basically all types of food, there is a trend towards bad health in the western world in the forms of obesity and heart disease.

Things have gotten so bad that the current generation of children being born might be the first in history to have a shorter life expectancy than those of their parents... So what gives?

What I think is a major contributing factor to the paradox of North American living can be summed up in three pieces of news that I stumbled across today in my perusing of the internet. First, researchers at John Hopkins University released a study this week confirming something that has long been suspected. It turns out that a diet high in unsaturated fats is better for your heart than a diet that is high in protein or carbohydrates. Might not exactly be an Earth-shattering revelation, but its good to know that guacamoli, almonds, and vegetables cooked in olive oil are doing me some good.

Secondly, and seemingly unrelatedly, the city of Vancouver has won its bid to force members of the Occupy movement to dismantle their tent city. I guess even the greenest of cities can't be unconditionally sympathetic to people who are trying to improve the state of the world.

Now you might be asking yourself, "Where is he going with this?" and to you, avid reader I have a reply. See, the founding principle of the Occupy movement is getting money out of politics because it corrupts thought and benefits only the richest 1% of people. That ideal is not limited to the distribution of wealth, it also applies to policy making and how information is presented to the public. Which brings me to article number three.

It seems that Republicans in the US congress are up in arms this week because, believe it or not, they want cheese pizza being served in school cafeterias to be classified as a vegetable. And, even more interestingly, this is a DEFENSIVE move. As it stands right now, cheese pizza is treated as a vegetable by the companies that provide lunches to American schools. Now why, you might ask, are apparently educated people arguing such an obviously ludicrous point? The answer lies in the fact that the Republicans who are causing a fuss are under strong pressure from food industry lobbyists to maintain the absurdity.

Lobbyists are hired by corporations and given huge amounts of money. Politicians have lots of influence and need money to get re-elected and to buy mansions. Consequently, with enough distributable money, lobbyists  become politicians.

So there you have it. Today, in spite of clear, scientifically supported evidence for what kinds of foods are healthy, two of the most developed countries in the world combined to classify pizza as a vegetable and obstruct an organization that is fighting for a more intelligent method of doing business...

My brain hurts.

-Steve

Stubbornly Irresponsible

Today someone in one of my classes said something interesting. A group had just finished giving a presentation about the Occupy movement and we were having a class discussion about the Facebook poll the group had asked us to fill out the day before. One of the girls in my class pointed out that she was unfamiliar with the entire movement and felt ostracized regarding the poll because she did not have Facebook. She went on to say that she doesn't read the newspaper or watch TV and that anything that isn't about marine biology isn't worth her time.

Keep in mind, this is a graduate level class in a program with an interdisciplinary focus on preserving natural resources. It seems to me that a big part of managing resources is understanding the state of the world in which those resources are being allocated.

I couldn't help but get a little annoyed. When Facebook first became popular I could understand people not wanting to jump on the bandwagon and share their personal information with the masses. However, times have changed. Facebook is now a ubiquitous, not to mention effective, means of communicating with a large number of people; sharing news; sharing ideas; and organizing events. If you are over 20 years old in 2011 and don't have a Facebook account, you are a freethinking, autonomous individual in the same way that the Amish are.

Granted social networking has its problems, mostly in the form of privacy issues, but you don't have to create a complete profile with your likes and dislikes and the names of everyone in your family in order to make effective use of the communication aspects. Hell, you don't even have to post a picture of yourself. Though this would make it a lot tougher to know if you are the Jane Doe I am trying to add, and seriously? You don't have ONE picture of yourself that it's all right to show people?

We are social animals and we live in a social world. You can make your life as hard as you want it to be by denying the fact that people use Facebook for practical purposes, but why would you? At a certain point, living in a self-imposed media blackout not only makes you difficult to work with, it damages your credibility when discussing current affairs.

The Occupy movement is a revolutionary and important idea that embodies what, until recently, our generation was seriously lacking, passion. It is inexcusable to remain voluntarily ignorant about global economic and political movements, especially if you expect to be one of the leaders of tomorrow.

-Steve

Cross Water of the Global 'To Do' List...

I know I already posted something today but this is too good to resist:

The world needs more people like Michael Pritchard. There is no shortage of problems, lets take the solvable ones off the table so we can devote our energy to the tough ones. The key is not letting greed take control.

This guy is awesome.

-Steve

Suddenly Delirious

I can't explain when it happened but at some point today I rapidly went from having a ton of energy to just needing a nap. A presentation that went well this morning left me feeling great and ready to seize the day but after a few hours of grocery shopping and cleaning the apartment, I have collapsed on the couch and suddenly feel very drained.

It's incredibly tempting to just close my eyes and drift off for a few hours but I know if I do that I will feel like I forfeited a good portion of a nice day because of a fleeting low-energy state. Fortunately, one of the things I have left to do today will help. I need to hit the gym and run for 30 minutes or so. If I don't, I will stiffen up overnight and be locomotively challenged all day tomorrow. This is due to the fact that I went slightly overboard yesterday setting a new personal best distance for one hour of treadmill running.

Since I got back from the Yukon I have really come to enjoy the time I spend running. It's fun and challenging and easy to keep track of whether or not I'm getting any better. Also, ever since I completely adopted barefoot-style running I haven't had to worry about any serious injury. 

With the temperature falling and the weather getting generally worse on the west coast I have been forced to seek refuge with the other fitness enthusiasts in the gym complex on campus. Its great having an apartment that is a 30 second walk from the fitness centre so I have been taking full advantage. Even the treadmills are a good time. They face the football field so you get the feeling of being outside without having to worry about contracting pneumonia or frost bite on your toes.

That being said, I think I will cut this entry off at the nice, manageable length that it is and go zen out for a half hour while getting in shape. Consider the take-home message from this post to be that the days when you feel least like exercising are the ones when you not only need it more to stay motivated in the long run, but will also let you reap immediate energy-boosting benefits.

Cheers,

Steve

Current and Recent Reading

As part of this blog I thought it would be a good idea to keep a running log of what I am reading or what has caught my attention in the literary world. In spite of the fact that I am in school and constantly trying to keep track of papers, projects, and people I still try to find at least a few minutes each day to read something that interests me. Increasingly, my fix has been satisfied by audiobooks on my iPod as I walk between classes so don't be surprised if a good portion of my reviews are qualified based on that.

Without further adieu, I am currently reading:

Adrift by Steven Callahan

I started this book a few days ago on the recommendation of a good friend who graciously lent it to me and so far it has been cutting into the hours I normally set aside for sleep. Adrift tells the true story of the 76 days the author spent in a rubber life raft after his racing yacht sank somewhere in the vastness of the North Atlantic. The language so far has been a little romanticized for my liking, but the inevitable tangents into the wonder of the sea and the beauty of life don't detract from the adventure the way they sometimes can in other books.

Callahan does a great job illustrating (often literally) what life in the raft was really like and the types of challenges he faced from hammerhead shark attacks, to uncooperative solar stills, to dorados (large fish) attacking the underside of the floor and preventing him from sleeping. The survival element is what attracted me to the book and it really doesn't disappoint. The introduction is brief, interesting, and before you know it his ship is sunk and you're along for the ride. I will write a concluding review once I finish the book but so far I definitely recommend it to anyone with an inclination to adventure stories.

This week on the iPod:

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Between hard copies and the audiobook this is either the third or fourth time I have gotten caught up in this book. I started it out of laziness on my way home from the gym the other day because I hadn't preloaded anything new and I was in the mood for something fun, but that should immediately tell you something. I absolutely adore this book. It might be the best, easiest to read, funniest, most accessible book ever written about science. 

There are two versions of the audiobook, both unabridged. One is read by British voice actor Richard Matthews and the other is read by Bill Bryson himself. If you have never heard a Bill Bryson audiobook as read by the author, I strongly recommend checking it out. There is something so calming, patient, and jovial about Bill Bryson's narration that it often feels like you are listening to your grandfather read you a bedtime story. Bryson is also one of the few great authors who continues to narrate many of his own books so it's an itch that is very easy to scratch.

The version I have is read by Richard Matthews and, to take nothing away from the author-narrated version, it is incredible. The gravitas in Matthews' voice does a great job of holding the reader's ear and it's kind of funny to hear him deliver Bryson's pithy one-liners in a highly proper and respectable British accent.

The book itself delivers what the title suggests, explaining the history of scientific discovery and what we have learned through anecdotes about famous researchers as well as from the author's point of view as he travels around in search of answers to his "endless parade of stupid questions." I don't care who you are, if you like reading, you will love this book.

The Magic of Reality: How we know what's really true, by Richard Dawkins

Finally, a couple weeks ago I loaded the audiobook version of Richard Dawkins' latest offering onto my iPod. I was really excited for this book because Dawkins' previous endeavour The Greatest Show on Earth: The evidence for evolution was so outstanding. The Magic of Reality: How we know what's really true is admittedly aimed at a different audience. The book is written for a younger or less knowledgeable crowd and necessarily fills the niche of a book that thoroughly explains complex ideas in simple and understandable ways. Dawkins' previous work in The Blind Watchmaker, and Climbing Mount Improbable does a great job of this, but he can get a little technical.

It may have been the intended audience, it may have been the fact that I've been experiencing some Dawkins burnout from having read and reread a few of his books over the summer, it might have been a combination of the two, but I didn't love Magic. There is nothing explicitly wrong with it, but it covers a lot of the same examples from his previous books in a way that I felt was a little dumbed down after putting in so much effort to understand what the hell his earlier books were talking about. He's a really smart guy, so I often struggle.

I would still recommend this book for anyone who has never read about evolution and wants to ease into some technical elements of it, but it wasn't for me. When I finished this book I went back and reread The Blind Watchmaker to reacquaint myself with Dawkins at his best. The book would be good for young adults as well but it's not the most G-rated expose available on evolution. There is a lot of talk about sex and selfishness in Magic that you won't find in A Short History of Nearly Everything. If you want to educate kids and hold their interest, take the latter, let them find the former on their own time.

Anyway, that's what I have been reading recently. Enjoy yourselves and feel free to offer any recommendations. I'm always looking for my next obsession.

Cheers,

-Steve

Dedication

My elementary school days were not indicative of any great future success. In fact, I can only remember two instances in which my work stood out in any way. The first was when I was seven. I wrote a story story called 'The Mud Man' that told the tale of an average guy who gets transformed into a mud-mutant and is tormented by ravenous worms. Granted, it was a decent effort for a seven-year-old but it wasn't exactly a literary dynamo.

My second, and more influential, success came when I was eleven or twelve. Each year all the students at our school who were old enough to know how wrote speeches and presented them within our classes. The best speech from each class went on to the school finals and the winner usually got a plaque to hang on their wall until the end of time. I assume that this was so, years later, when bitter divorces, firings, and custody battles were wreaking havoc on their self esteem, winners could look at the wall and remember better days. Regardless, it was a prestigious event and each passing year meant one less chance to gain St. Mike's immortality.

It didn't help that my closest friends were all keeners that had swept the school finals from grade four through grade seven leaving me with only one chance to pull even. By the time the grade eight speech competition rolled around I had put added pressure on myself to perform by not reading The Outsiders, our assigned book for the term, and failing the subsequent test. In short, my English mark hung in the balance.

Needless to say, I procrastinated on writing the speech until the last possible night. Lord knows how I filled my days back then but, from what I can recall, it involved a lot of Discovery Channel and Animorphs books. I may have been a slacker at school, but I was definitely a pure bred nerd. When it came time to sit down and draft what I would say, I could think of nothing better than combining what I had learned from hours of TV watching and pleasure reading; my topic would be animal intelligence.

I remember sitting in front of the computer but I don't recall doing any actual research. The speech was mostly a mosaic of facts that I could remember from shows that had interested me. When it was all said and done, I had something I felt comfortable presenting, even it it wasn't the masterpiece that would win be a plaque.

The following week my class presented our speeches one by one until finally my turn arrived, late in the week. Each day that my name hadn't been drawn gave me a slight advantage. Back in those days, by younger brother and I fought in the manner that all brothers do and we frequently ended up in our rooms for large chunks of each night. Out of either fear for my grade or nervousness about speaking in front of my class, I spent that week motivated to learn my speech backwards and forwards. I spent hours in front of the mirror going through the pages line by line trying with every fibre of my being to get through it without screwing up.

By the time I stood up to deliver what I had written, the cue cards I had crafted were meaningless. I straightened up, took a deep breath, set the cue cards on the podium and recited my speech word for word from memory.

I don't know if my classmates were impressed. In all likelihood I lost their attention a few lines in because, let's face facts, you really can't expect a bunch of eleven year old kids to listen to anything without bright colours and a talking dinosaur for more than 30 seconds. Luckily, whether or not my peers were entertained didn't matter; the only person of influence in the whole thing was my teacher, Mr. Folia, and somewhere between Alex the super smart parrot and Koko the signing gorilla I had won him over.

At the end of the day he took me aside and, for what might have been the first time in my academic career, congratulated me on a job well done. From there things were a blur. I was elected to go to the school finals and made it into the top 3. My main competition was from the other grade eight class. One of the popular girls had written what was, by all accounts, a tear jerker about teen suicide. My friends from the other class basically told me not to get my hopes up and that she was a shoe in. We were a supportive bunch in those days.

I don't necessarily believe in fate but what transpired around the speech finals at St. Mike's that day back in 2001 comes as close as anything I've experienced to evidence in favour of it. I stood in front of the school and, in the manner of someone who has done time in the trenches of rote memorization, delivered my speech exactly as I had given it to my class. I sat down and watched as the girl who would surely hand my ass to me stood up too approach the microphone. She rose from her chair, took a step forward, and proceeded to drop her stack of cue cards, shuffling her self right out of contention. Score one for being grounded daily.

Her speech was still amazing but fumbling her delivery because of nerves and lack of total memorization landed her in second place. I had won. Unfortunately, plaques were just outside the school's budget that year so all I got was a certificate that has since been lost to the ravages of time. I did get another sort of trophy though. Before we were sent home that day, Mr. Folia took me aside once again. He told me how proud he was of me and said that I had a real gift. I can't recall the exact words but the sentiment stays with me to this day.

In addition to a pat on the back he handed me a book. I must have really impressed him because it wasn't the sort of book an adult usually hands to an eleven year old. There were no pictures, the font was small, and the story, though gripping, was not exactly age appropriate. The book was 'Into Thin Air' by Jon Krakauer. I took it home and, over the next several weeks, ignored my school work, devouring every word.

Before I read that book it hadn't even occurred to me that people could spend their lives climbing mountains. I'd never even seen a mountain so my idea of what one was might not have completely formed. Since then one of the major drivers in my life has since become a strong drive to climb mountains and live a life of adventure. I'm very much aware that this is probably not what my teacher intended, but that's the way the cards landed.

Fortunately, there was another effect that the book had on me that has since failed to fade. I have come to very much enjoy writing. This blog will hopefully serve as a testament to that and will allow me to develop skills that will help me out as I pursue whatever opportunities life throws at me. For those of you who have made it through this post (which ended up being far longer than I anticipated), I welcome you along for the ride. Feel free to share comments (positive or negative) and suggestions for future topics. I hope I can improve in my writing so that you may enjoy reading these posts as much as I know I will enjoy writing them.

In the mean time, I would just like to give my thanks to Mr. Folia, wherever he may be. I dedicate my musings to him and to all teachers who have ever inspired their pupils.

-Steve