Pre-Vacation Vacation Photos

We'll have to see how this compares with a post-vacation vacation photo!


Also, I hope nothing comes flying off the car:

By the way, I'm sad that I'm not able to bring my bike. (I can rent one.) The kids has better ride theirs a lot!

2006 World Lacrosse Championships

The 2006 World Lacrosse Championships are being held July 13-22 in London, Ontario. (So close, and yet so far away.) I wish I could go. Actually, the same deal applies here as to most other events of this type. I'll go if you want to. I mean, I'm not going by myself, but if I can find someone to go with, I might find a way to go.

In what other international sport is there the potential to see a match between Bermuda and the Iroquois Nation?


(For now, I'll fight the temptation to scan and post some old photos.)

The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M. G. Vassanji

I was always under the impression that Kenya had its "act together" for the most part, at least compared to its region and continent. While such things are certainly relative, it is clear from The In-Between World of Vikram Lall that Kenya hasn't lived up to its promise. The book is a Giller Prize winner, so I had high expectations for it. How well did the book live up to its promise?

On the first page of the novel, we learn that Vikam Lall is presently secluding himself in a nice house on the shores of Lake Ontario. He is intentionally far away from his native Kenya, where he heads his country's "List of Shame", having been accused of bilking millions of dollars from the country's treasury. He claims to be an "ordinary", "moderate" man, and never had any intentions of embarking on the career he found himself on. The book tells Lall's story and how he found himself in his current situation.

He was born in Kenya in 1945, the grandson of a Punjabi who came to East Africa to work on the railroads and then stayed. (Vassanji, the author, was born in Tanzania.) Despite being a third-generation Kenyan, Lall always has a sense of not-belonging. His family, and his ethnic group, form a middle class between the "native" Kenyans and the British colonizers, fully belonging to neither group.

After the brief introduction, the year is 1953, the year of Elizabeth II's coronation, and Vikram is 8. Despite threats to security posed by groups such as the Mau Mau, many believe the country to be British, and to remain that way for a long time. Vikram's family life is explored, especially his relationship with his sister Deepa and their friend Njoroge, who is a member of the Kikuyu tribe.

Flash forward to 1965. Kenya is independent, Deepa, Njoroge, and Vikram are young adults, and the world holds nothing but promise for each of them and their country. As time goes on, we see how life doesn't always go as one would like, and how each deal with the situation that they find themselves in.

Vic finds himself involved higher and higher (or perhaps deeper and deeper) in the Kenyan government, eventually having the ear of none other than President Jomo Kenyatta himself. As the system is corrupt, Lall certainly takes his slice of the pie.

Ngoroge, too, becomes involved in the government. Their paths make for an interesting contrast.

As I mentioned, I had high expectations for this book. It was very interesting to read about life in Kenya, as well as to consider the people of Indian ancestry living there. However, as a personally trait, the main character was mostly lacking passion. That seemed to show up perhaps too well in the writing -- while there was nothing "wrong" with it, it seemed to lack a certain "spark". All-in-all, though, these things are relative. While I can't give it my highest rating, I still recommend it. Four stars out of five.

And, I'm tempted to deduct a star because M. G. Vassanji apparently never learned how to use a quotation mark, but I won't.

Just Two Guys Out Cutting the Grass

A Tale of Two Zooms

My new camera arrived today. (Yay!) Now, people can tell me, "My, what a big camera you have." I can tell I'll be getting stronger neck muscles, just carrying it around with the neck strap.

It will definitely take quite a while for me to learn all the options, but one thing I was interested in was the 12x optical zoom. Here are the first two photos I took with it (shrunken by Hello), which amounted to a zoom test. Both are out my back door, with everything on "automatic" mode, and are of the neighbour kids playing football.

The first one is a tough shot, as the camera has a lot of choices regarding what to focus on:


And here is a shot with everything still on "Auto", but zoomed in all the way:

Cool? Yep.
The neatest thing you ever saw in your life? Probably not.

This is Getting More and More Expensive!

This upcoming vacation is getting more and more expensive! Since we barely have enough space in the car for the family and luggage for a winter weekend at the in-laws, there is no way we'd be able to fit a week+'s worth of junk, games, clothing, food, stuff, children, etc., in our car. So, I ordered a rooftop storage solution: a "Thule 866 Escape II Roof-top Cargo Bag". (Here's a link to the product at amazon.com, though I didn't get it from there.)

I finalized lodging for the remaining nights tonight. We'll see how it goes. It's fun, but, compared to hanging around at home, family vacations always stress me out!

Photo From Recent Band Concert

Sorry about the quality, but here's a photo from a recent band concert.

(Also, more evidence that the times, they are a-changin': Back in my era, the flute was exclusively a female's instrument. The idea of a boy flute player was unthinkable!)

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Apologies to Andy Williams, but it's right now.

One question you sometimes get asked in "icebreaker" situations is, "What's your favourite season?" For much of my lifetime, I wouldn't really know how to answer that question. I liked them all for differing reasons. Then, after I got a motorcycle, I would say, "Summer, because motorcycle riding is better when it's warm."

However, my opinion has changed, and now I feel that it's right now, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. I now say that my favourite time of the year is late Spring to mid-summer, or approximately late May until late July. The reason? Well, there are two. The first is the ability to do things outside without typically worrying about being too cold, and the other is simple: Daylight!

I'm not a huge outdoorsperson, but I might be more of one if it were always this warm and it always stayed light so late. A few nights ago, I was out riding my bike until 8:50, since I had to pick my car up from the shop. (Whenever I go through biking shorts, it's a good season.) Tonight, I went running at 9:03 pm, and it wasn't dark when I got done.

As I said, it's the most wonderful time of the year!

Camera Decision

Well, it's not exactly what I was planning on doing a few days ago, but I ended up placing an order for a Canon Powershot S3 IS. While it is certainly more camera than I've ever had before, I was attracted to the possibilities made available with a 12x image stabilized optical zoom. According to the reviews I saw, this model also has a few more things to offer than some of its direct competitors. It had better. Add in a memory card and a case, and we're talking (in the vernacular) half a gee. (What's that these days? About 4.9 metres per second squared, right?)

I'm concerned that the larger size (and increased complexity) will make me less likely to carry it around and quickly take snapshots of the things that I'd like to. At the very least, it will give me the new hobby of figuring it out. I'm sure that there's a Digital Photography for the Very Stupid book out there. I should probably pick up a copy.

And, should I ever happen to find myself standing on the sideline of "mid-major" sporting events, even if I still won't look like I belong there, at least I'll be able to take some better photos.

Photography Tip and Camera Search

As a general photography tip, don't leave your camera on the roof of your car and then drive away.

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On an unrelated note, I am looking to buy a new camera. There are just so many choices and options that it is difficult to compare. My advisor in these matters, (not "The") KLF, simplifies things as follows:

• Optical Zoom: The more, the better.
• Megapixels: The more, the better.

Of course, there are also other things to consider, but those are the two main things. As of now, I'm leaning towards the Canon Powershot A620. (Here's an interesting review.) It's a bit larger than my dear departed Sony DSC-P92, but it looks cool otherwise. I'm going to sleep on the decision.

Ooooh... Pretty!!!

The above is a graph of this website as generated by a Java applet here. As a warning, it is CPU-intensive. (Maybe this site is overly complex?)

What do the colours mean?
blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

First seen at the blog of a friend of a friend of a friend.

Vanity Plate Tips

As I was biking today, I noticed a Porsche with a vanity license plate. The plate said "PORSCHE". Come on! You can do better than that! I mean, where's the imagination? Do you forget what kind of car you're driving and so need to put it on the license plate? If you want to use reverse psychology, what about "YUGO"? Or maybe something like "SCHNELL" would be more appropriate.

As another example of a good vanity plate, consider the woman whose plates read "BOO HOO". She drove a Saab.

A Last Visit From Daichi

Since he'll soon be flying back to Japan, we invited Daichi over for dinner. We told him dinner could be whatever he wanted, whatever he liked the best from the time he stayed with us. His choice: Greek carryout. (It's one of our favourites too!)

Here's a photo of Daichi with the kids:

High School Students Should Know How to What?

Over at Levy's Mom, Levy mentioned the following:

I do, however, believe that all high school students should have to learn how to use [a gun] in order to graduate.

That's interesting. I've always felt that high school students should be required to know how to swim in order to graduate. Maybe we could combine our two ideas and come up with a new summer Olympic sport that biathletes can compete in during the warmer months. Anyway, I'm digressing. The point of this post is to ask you to fill in the blank (by posting a comment):

In order to graduate, high school students should be required to know how to ___________.

My wife took what is in my opinion the easy way out and said, "read and write". I guess that's OK, but that's not exactly the kind of thing I had in mind. I'm asking you to think of something that usually isn't typically included in a school curriculum, but you would like to be. It should be something that could come in handy in more than a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances.

What do you think?

This Tastes Eggy

My Saturday morning routine lately has been to sleep as long as possible. Often, it's not possible to sleep all that long. When I wake up, for breakfast, I'll fry an egg so that the centre isn't runny, and put it on a toasted bagel or English muffin or something (with Vegemite, of course). Recently, I added some cheese and noticed that I tasted the cheese a lot more than the egg. Eventually, I got to thinking, "What do eggs taste like after all?" I came to the conclusion that they don't have much of a taste to them. Can you describe how eggs taste? The taste is there, but it's rather subtle.

This is distinct from the texture of an egg of course. Depending on the recipe, the texture can be quite noticeable. But, have you ever eaten anything and noticed a strong taste of egg? Have you ever said, "This tastes eggy?"

The Car Bust (A Long Time Ago)

In a recent post, DFV said...
> Love those stripey trousers! Feel free to fill me on the Car
> Bust story (if you haven't already).

Long story. As you know, I'm a big fan of Indian food. When I invited a co-worker to Udipi (a South Indian Vegetarian restaurant) for lunch, my South Indian Vegetarian co-worker said he couldn't resist, as it's his favourite restaurant. I drove, and on the way, we discussed car repair, since I had recently had the brakes done. The car now has more than 210,000 miles on it, and it's the one that I took to Louisiana in December. My friend mentioned that it was a brave thing to do, to take a car with that many miles on a trip of that distance. I had confidence in the car (unlike the Omni, which we still owned on December) and I commented that, should we have difficulties, it would just make the trip more "interesting".

Mike and I have been on several out-of-state overnight road trips (invariably planned around attending at least one sporting event). Before marriage, I can think of New York (with Doug), Chicago/Milwaukee, Chicago again (with Joe), and Boston/Montreal. Baltimore/Washington (with spouses) probably doesn't count, and neither would a Hamilton (Ontario - with Joe) trip that wasn't overnight. All of the trips have fun memories associated with them. One thing that happened on the Montreal/Boston trip is that, minutes after we got on the highway to drive home from Boston, the car ceased to move. Apparently, the engine seized, and we ceased to have transportation. To make a long story short, we ended up taking the bus home. For that trip, we wrote little signs on cardboard to put in the window of our car: "Montreal or Bust" and then "Boston or Bust". The last sign was "The Car Bust". I thought that there was a picture of me in front of the car holding the sign, but I couldn't find it. That's what the search was for on Saturday. Archivist Mike quickly found himself with "The Car Bust" sign and sent me a copy, but he couldn't find one of me holding the sign. Maybe it never existed or (more likely) I lost it.

Anyway, looking back on these road trips, they were all good. However, I think that the best one was Montreal/Boston, and it's probably memorable because The Car Bust.

So, basically, the fact that the station wagon ran well and the memory of the Montreal/Boston trip made me not worried about driving it to New Orleans.

Kicking the tire in mock frustration:


Waiting for the late-night bus out of town just outside Boston. I'm posting this photo as evidence that I wasn't the only one who wore short shorts back then. It was the style. I have underwear longer than that guy's shorts!

The New Writer

We pretty much have a new writer in our house. Someone whose command of the written form of the English language is now suffient to be able to write just about anything. And she has been trying out her new literacy. The spelling will come, I'm sure.

In a young script, our grocery list now ithe following:

• apricots
• Blue Bareeš
• Kaikc for Momš Brf Daey
• Ol The Stuf We Ned

Basically, I'm rather impressed. Until next time, here's wishing you Ol the stuf yuo ned!

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For Š and š, that is how they're written.

Another Trip Down Memory Lane

I wanted to find a specific old photo from many years ago. The problem is that, given the (lack of) organisation of my old photos, it was at least an hour-long undertaking. I never found the one I'm looking for, which I'll call "The Car Bust" photo. Maybe Mike has it, and maybe I took it out of the collection earlier and did something with it. While searching through the photos, the following were of some interest. Going backwards in time...

First, here is Mike at the Hôtel Karukera in Montréal, a few days before The Car Bust.


When showing this photo to my daughter and telling her it was an old photo of me, she asked if I was the head in the right foreground. No respect, I tell ya!


"One sock up, One sock down" was the trademark of my youth (if not my entire life).

Personal Curling Records

The curling season is finally over. What will I do with my Thursday and/or Saturday nights? I don't know. But (and this is yet another post that is more a "note to myself" than something of interest to the world) I thought that I would finally write down somewhere the won-loss records of my prior curling teams. This way I can have a record of it before I forget it all. Also, these are the teams' records -- it doesn't count games where I subbed for another team, and it does count the few times when I was absent.

I don't know why there is all that blank space below, at least on my browser.

Season	Skip	Wins	Losses
2004 Fall	Preston	3	7
2005 Winter	Green	9	1
2005 Fall	Clay	8	2
2006 Winter	Miller	6	4
2006 Spring Mini "1"	Kenney	2	3
Career Totals		28	17

Remember May 4, 1970

For as long as I can remember, for e-mail messages that I would send on or near the fourth of May, I would append the words "Remember May 4, 1970" to my signature. Of course, this is not really "for as long as I can remember", since I am old enough to remember the days when e-mail was not a common household occurrence. Anyway, I have had people ask me what happened on that date, like was there a baseball game or something? Probably, but that's not exactly what I had in mind. It's now been 36 years. 36 years before I was born was..., well, never mind.

For more information on what I'm talking about, here's the Wikipedia page. Gotta get down to it.

--
Remember May 4, 1970.