Tough day at work. Some internal stuff happened that needed fixing so most people stayed until 9 last night. Everyone was a wee bit tired today, not their usual fresh selves. And of course the new printer was jamming with the smaller paper. Every printer or photocopier seems to have a character all its own. You seem to be able to coax the best out of the older ones with the newer ones just not taking any direction. And it doesn’t matter what type of printer — paper always gets jammed in the most remote and inaccessible areas of the print mechanism. Went to lunch too late today. You know you should have gotten there earlier when all the staff are sitting around eating and you are just finishing up. The only people left are you, the staff and those customers that don’t need to get back to a job right away. Work is such a joy. It really is a culture unto itself.

Today I finally broke 90 on the golf course. Shot a 48 – 40 at Surrey GC. One of the fellows I was golfing with commented that my drive didn’t have the tempo that the previous drive had. With that I began to think. These little rituals that you use sometimes are really important as they seemingly get you into a tempo. So those few rituals that I had started but used only occassionaly became important for the next holes. The shots started coming together, the drives (though not always perfect) were long with only one slice. The second shots were straight and the putting, well it was never better.

So was there a lesson to learn today? When golfing keep those silly rituals you have, don’t deviate from them, and it does seem to help. By the way the course is going through some changes with the widening of the Fraser Highway. It was in good shape and the greens were good, not being tremendously fast. At the beginning of the game the smoke from the Burns Bog was irritating but by the turn the wind has come up a little and it was clearer.

Kelowna this last weeked was raining and raining. Just like the coast. In fact from Friday night to Sunday afternoon I saw little if any sunshine in Kelowna. Was I in Kelowna or Prince Rupert?

Hurricane Katrina is going to bring a massive amount of introspective. Just what type of society do we live in? Have we bought so far into the power of individuals that we have forgotten about our neighbours and the people we live with? Some of the news clippings on TV just devastate the soul. And what is the prime topic for discussion — the increase in gasoline prices! Yes, this is the “me” society. We are all vicitims of ourselves.

When you view what has taken place in New Orleans these last few days you begin to realize the horror of the situation. It is hard to image that a whole city, or most of it, is underwater. The most affected are the poor and those that did not have the means to leave when notified. Nature can sometimes only be viewed from a distance.

At this time of the year I am always reminded of the Doors song about summer being almost gone. Suddenly you realize that school is starting and the regular grind of everyday life is just around the corner. Of course we enjoy the habitual routines don’t we? Life would get very boring without some diversity. Yet at the same time every summer is different, no too being exactly alike. This Saturday one of my old schoolmates holds a BBQ and most of the old gang gets together. That BBQ really shows how much each of us has aged as not everyone shows up each year. Somewhat depressing.

And why this picture of wood? Someone has been making a bed in the garage for the past 6 months and these are the parts that soon will be assembled. The garage is filled with the beautiful scent of cut and sanded wood. That and the smell of fresh baked bread…some of lifes simple pleasures.

I had an e-mail from a distant family member in New Zealand. She had been searching the internet and came across my blog. That was a nice surprise. Sure makes the world a little smaller.

Went to Osoyoos this last weekend for a great golf tournament held by Osoyoos Credit Union. 3 of us have been going for a few years now and enjoy the people who put it on and the course. This year we managed to get onto Fairview Mountain for a round of golf on Monday. We had arrived at the 10th tee when 3 deer strode out onto the green. Sometimes it just can’t get any better.

If you miss CBC check out CBC Unplugged. There is a podcast there that was on the SFU radio station this morning. They had a number of CBC radio and TV types being interviewed and their impressions of the lockout. It was interesting to hear what they had to say because these points are not being made in the the mainstream media. I wonder why?

Was out at Burnaby Mountain today and shot a better round than Sunday’s but still it was bad. How can you shoot a par at one hole and get a triple bogey the next? It doesn’t seem natural. And why does one keep trying to hit the ball a mile knowing that if you just slowed down to a very controlled swing you would hit it straight and probably be only shorter by 20 yards? Maybe that is the difference between a good golfer and the rest of us, they relax and don’t allow the testosterone to take over.

Gapingvoid has got one of the funniest “cards” I have ever seen.

We drove up to Powell River and then took the ferry across to Texada Island. It was the first time for me but Marjun and my mother-in-law had spent the summer there in 1957. The first thing they noticed was the paved roads. It certainly is not your typical Gulf Island. Large and not a lot of people. You sometimes feel that Saltspring, Gibsons, Sechelt, and other vacation spots really bring out the Coney Island feel in the summer. Texada is just laid back and natural. We spent the night at The Retreat just south of Gillies Bay. It was plain, simple and just what we wanted. We saw more small deer that cats or dogs. The Tree Frog restaurant at Gillies Bay is excellent, as good as any place I’ve eaten recently. We went fishing at Bob’s Lake after getting a little lost the day before trying to find it and end up at Shingle Beach. If you want a quiet, rustic and not-a-lot-of-people type holiday this is the place. We certainly think it was worth the ferry rides and drive.

There is a ongoing discussion on Darren’s site on pleats. Seems most don’t like them. Must be the times we live in because everyone’s kids will probably like them. Style always seems to go in a cycle. The problem is that the style that you first grew up with was usually made much better. My grade 2 teacher always said it didn’t matter what anyone wore as long as it was clean. Everyone needs a good mechanic, a good dentist, a good barber, and a good tailor.

After a phone call to the US Consulate to find out what my mother-in-law (Danish) and my wife (also Danish but a landed immigrant here in Canada) needed to spend 3 days in Washington state, we decided it wasn’t worth the headache to visit the land of the free. I have never heard of supplying a bank statement and a day by day intinerary of your visit to name a few of the conditions. Boy it is getting a little strange. What was that Door’s song – Strange Days? Just the melody speaks of how you feel after you hear of their conditions for a visit. Anyway we decided to head up to Powell River and take the trip over to Texada Island. Never been there so it will be more like an adventure. I mean how can you get lost when the only way back is by ferry?

Got home Friday from the beach. The solitude for 3 days was refreshing. It is very interesting when you are completely by yourself and your days evolve to eating when you are hungry, sleeping when you are tired, reading and writing when you feel like it and spending time with your feet in the saltwater listening to the surf roll in. There is just something about salt water, tides and the clean fresh air.

I am just finnishing a book by Don Watson called Gobbledygook. This should be required ready for anybody in management or going to school to earn a business degree. Amazingly Margaret Wente wrote a column in Saturday’s Globe & Mail about the book in which I had to agree with her (probably the first time). Here’s an interesting quote from the book:

Businesses can be forgiven their neologisms, but not their technocratic sludge. If they can find the means to downsize, prioritize, and implement quality function deployment they can find better words to describe what they are doing. Their failure becomes most acute when they try to bend the language into an instrument of persuasion. The fact is, of course, it can’t be bent. It is incapable of carrying mood or emotion. It can neither admonish or praise.

Yup, sometimes spin is spin and the shit of a bull is just that, bullshit. (please pardon the unsophisticated term but it does carry the mood).

This should have been my view today but there always seems a ton of stuff to get done. Canadian Tire, the Library, fill up the propane tanks, and before you know it the day is done. Tomorrow at this time I will be enjoying this view.

The plants outside needed a huge watering today. The leaves on a number of trees are turning yellow and falling off. It does look like the heat is taking its toll.

The news about the Cheakamaus River and the recent chemical spill by a railway car is probably the sickest news I have heard in a long time. They say 95% of the fish stock in the river was killed. This month the Pinks were to come back and there were signs that the run was just starting. If the river hasn’t cleaned itself enough what will happen to that run? If there is a time that someone should pay, be it CN or some other corporate environmental misfit it is now. If a private citizen lets a litre of bleach spill into a fish bearing creek the repercussions are serious. The same must hold true of corporations that create similar problems but in a much larger scale. What is this going to cost us? What damage will be done that cannot be repaired? What ever happened to a watchful eye on the commons that belong to us all?

This morning on the way to work I was considering exactly what a blog is and what types there are and why they are being read. There are various categories (here we go–the development of a program to categorize all the blogs out there!) that you tend to read regularily. I have about 15 technical web pages/blogs that are read each day, then a group of blogs from bloggers that I have met or have contact with from Northern Voice, then a group that are GTD specific, then the last large group of various bloggers who are interesting. Some of these I may have met at Gnomedex. All the groups are setup as tabbled bookmarks in Safari.

A blogger doesn’t have to blog everyday. There are some that are so interesting that you go back for a few months even if they haven’t updated. At about the 3rd month I move them over to a inactive blog list. The key ingredients for a readable blog seem to be pertinent information and/or a personable writing style that is honest and usually insightful. I may not agree with them but I understand their position.

A good blog is like a good letter to the editor. Our household reads the Globe and Mails letters to the editors everyday and they make up some interesting dinner table discussions. A good blog seems to follow the same idea.

Some blogs are not that great. They should defined as linklists. Lots of links to other places but no opinion about what the link is or what they really think of it. You know the kind:

Here is a great site you cant miss…lots of neat stuff.

There is usually about 10 of these neat sites listed. You gotta think what is THIS all about?

Blog lists are cconstantly being edited with more added and a few being culled. There isn’t much you can’t find now with the likes of Technorati. But everyone knew that already, right?

Yesterday we were down at the “cottage” to have a small get together with 3 old friends. All of us have known each other since 1966 (at least) so that is close to 40 years. As soon as we got together it was catch up time with old names and places, then just ramblings about everything such as old sayings, great movies, sports, and well, just about everything under the sun. We had a quick soccer game which showed us our diminished athletic ability. At one point in a conversation Skinny and I came to the conclusion that friends and family were the most inmportant things in life and that we had striven for so much else 20 and 30 years ago.
This morning I thought of two people who weren’t there and imagined how their personalities would have added to our get together. But as you get older you tend to only be able to remember those you no longer can be with. Death is the final separation. That seems to add to how important life right now really is.

Finally, just about a week of very good weather and today in the mid 20’s.

I just finnished reading James Crumley’s “The Mexican Tree Duck“. It wasn’t as good as his latest book and you could tell it was an earlier writing. What is interesting is to think if it ever became a movie who the cast would be. The main character would have to be Bruce Willis. Now most people can quickly see what kind of book it is.

This year for Mother’s Day I bought my wife 3 hanging baskets from Tangelbank Nurseries in Abbotsford. These things are unreal. I have never seen hanging baskets that keep growing with the amount of flowering. One is in the sunlight and the other two are in the shade. All three are thriving which is a rarity in our household. Besides the bees the hummingbirds seems to like them.

There seems to be more and more talk about blogging these days and the startup numbers are unreal. Anyone who reads blogs probably does so for a variety of reasons. I have 4 sets of blogs I look at daily.
1. The first group is about technlogy and Macs. It includes some websites and the blogs really add the personal expressions that you need to round out some of the company hype (or as Dan Watson puts it “management talk”).
2. The 2nd set are a group of blogs from people I met or heard at the Northern Voice conference. It is interesting to see what they are doing and you do get to keep the contact up.
3. The 3rd set are blogs from here, there, and everywhere. This group gets gleaned on occassion.
4. The last set has anything to do with GTD.
It is interesting that you tend to go back to these sites for long periods of time even if they are not updated because you enjoy reading the blog. That seems to be the key for me–the enjoyment of the writing and the perspective the person brings.

Yesterday I attended a meeting close to Granville Island. It was an all day event, dry at times but interesting. At lunch the surprise was a BBQ on the patio of the 9th floor of the building. The landscape picture above doesn’t really give the view it’s full reward. It was incredible! When you have lived here for a lot of years you pretty well have seen everything and it gets a bit boring. This view was totally unique. It is made up of 3 separate pictures put together. Yaletown, the Burrard Street Bridge, Granville Island and the full Granville Street Bridge all in one view. Then the fishing boats and pleasure craft. Personally all of these have a number of stories attached to them. Granville Island was were my mother and aunt worked during World War II. There was a dry cleaning shop on Granville Island underneath where the new bridge is now. (Everyone does know that there was an old bridge at ground level at one time, right?) An older fellow who used to work with them would say someday there is going to be a huge bridge above where the shop was and all of these buildings will disappear. Mom said they always laughed at him and thought him crazy. Most visionairies are considered crazy in their time though. I believe the name of the dry cleaning company was Granville Bros.

Here is an interesting concept. Put the cigarette ashtray at the exit door. That way people can smoke in the building and make sure they put it out when they get outside. Or could it be that to disuade smokers you put their ashtray at a doorway they can’t get back in? Why are smokers being treated with such disregard? Recently in Seattle I was in a restaurant eating and suddenly smelt tobbaco smoke. Just like old times. And have you noticed no one carries matches anymore? I haven’t seen a packet a paper matches for ages.

While down in the area of Granville Island today I noticed this train signal light on Fir Street just north of Broadway. Looks pretty standard, same as most others. So what train comes through there? If you look at the tracks it looks like the last train left Clarksville a long time ago. You can’t see the tracks for the overgrowth. Someone should put up a for sale sign on this set track alarm lights.

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This is the office that I reside in most of the hours of the week. Those plants are the only living things that seem to appreciate my infrequent waterings. After close to 6 years they are hanging in there. Maybe something with a little colour would help. Though you can’t see it, the window at the top of the image has an unbelievable view of Mt. Baker. It is definitely best in winter—no smog.

We are making some remarkable headway with our IT setup at work. We have installed Java on the banking server which has allowed us to further install some interesting backup software. This software will mirror certain files on a production machine that will allow us real time (well a 3 minute window) SQL queries. Besides queries to the banking system we can also query the Sybase products database which includes binaries (graphics). With a few more completed paths to finalize the reporting system we have talked about for a few years will be available. We will move from combining datum from various reports and dbs to calling for a completed report with any type of information from a variety of sources. In any business the quicker you can retrieve specific information that you need to make a decision the better your business can be. The problem has always been how to accumulate this information so that various workgroups can garner the information they need without having to wade through moutains of peripheral information. It has been a long time coming but then it is just a regular day at the office.

Some people have stated that iTunes is clunky with a difficult interface to use. Maybe it isn’t the easiest program to operate but if you have used it for any length of time you can move around it pretty quickly. There aren’t too many features that are a surprise. It works pretty good.

The search feature is very good. It is quick and allows you to find the song that is so often rumbling inside your head. When you have a sizeable number of songs it is very easy to assemble a decent playlist. Right now I typed in ‘summer’ and have 23 songs for 1.8 hours in the play list. Everything from Lisa Brokop to the Young gods. Why summer? Well have you looked outside lately?

Here’s the list:

Summer Rain – Alphaville
Summer In The Circus – Bourne And MacLeod
The Last Rose of Summer – British Columbia Boys Choir
Summer Of ’69 – Bryan Adams
Red Summer Sun – Bryan Potvin
Thirty Summers – Cowboy Junkies
Sleep All Summer – Crooked Fingers
The Boys of Summer – Don Henley
Indian Summer – The Doors
Summertime Blues – Eddie Cochran
Summertime Rolls – Jane’s Addiction
Summertime – Jane’s Addiction
That Summer – Lisa Brokop
Die In The Summertime – Manic Street Preachers
A Night in Summer Long Ago – Mark Knopfler
Starless Summer Sky – Marshall Crenshaw
The Last Rose Of Summer – Nina Simone
The Last Rose Of Summer – Nina Simone
In The Summertime (You Don’t Want My Love) – Prairie Oyster
High Summer – Van Morrison
Summertime – Will Smith
Action- Streetheart Summer Dock Party
Summer Eyes – The Young Gods

There really isn’t anything so inexpensive that changes one’s living space so much as a fresh coat of paint. I have officially given up on white and moved to any other colour but white. Our living room is now a two colour room, one large wall of a strong yellow and the rest a reddish brown. I forget what colour the yellow was (its too strong for Canary and more like Amber Light or Canadian Draft) but the brown is called Georgian Brick. You have to love the names of some of these colours. Our kitchen is light green – Pistachio. As painting doesn’t rank as the all time favourite of pastimes anything to make it easier helps. Here buying the best really helps. We have been using Benjamin Moore and though it is costs a bit more it just rolls on so nicely and you don’t get that roller spray. A good brush is important. When you are cutting those tight corners a brush that has all its bristles together is nice. Now I can sit back in this “new” room and count the little mistakes that no one except my painting friends will ever know.

Here is a question but no bets please – has summer finally arrived here in the Lower Mainland?

Nothing is more relaxing than spending your Sunday afternoon on your deck, good book and all, with the cacophony of the Sunday power washers. Their undying mantra – “must clean, must clean” is spoken throughout the neighbourhood. Suburbia at its finest. Now if tomorrow morning at about 6:36 a.m. I start to play Bach’s Christmas Cantata “Sehet, welch eine Liebe” at about 150 decibels do you think they will understand?

Summer seems to have arrived in Vancouver. “Seems” is the key word here as the weatherman has been fooled on numerous occasions recently. This next few weeks look like scorchers. Great time to be ending your holidays huh. It should change back to a normal wet summer in three weeks when I begin my next batch of non-working days.

Something interesting occurs when you begin to write, be it blogs, letters, books or whatever. You sense the power of language and all of its interesting attributes. But there is a language that is used by many that is devoid of human expression and feelings — the languge of business, the PR language, the language that we hear so often that leaves us confused as to what is it that is really being expressed. This is the dead language that seems to continue in our society. Toni Morrison describes a dead language as “…a dead language is not only one no longer spoken or written, it is unyielding language content to admire its own paralysis.” How can expressions like “bottom line, change drivers, strategic implementation, empowered…” be considered anything other than words that seemingly are written and spoken to admire themselves? They have a shine of saying something but with further exploration their meanings are conceptually lacking any human experience. But their constant use tends to make us look upon them as key to understanding some remote concept. They are like a plastic veneer. Maybe we should use the minds God gave us and express what we really mean, in 25 words or less.