The Sound of One Hand Blogging

On Monday, I fell and injured my wrist. After a few hours at the hospital to get checked out, I returned home with a splint on just like countless others who had similar injuries that day. Waiting in the hospital Emergency Room at any time is never fun. Thankfully, I had my phone to capture some notes.

Typing on an iPhone with your dominant hand is a tolerable experience at best. Typing with your non-dominant hand is even worse. The number of mistakes I keep making really slow this process down. Thankfully, the predictive text is working fairly well. I’m really enjoying the fact that Scratch gives me quick access to common functions, like making a list, which allows me to type out thoughts quickly.

It has been a while since I’ve stepped into Kelowna General Hospital. I made several trips here when my daughter was born, and another trip when my ex had some pain in her mouth. This was the first time going into the new wing.

Walking in the ER entrance, first two thoughts that cross my mind:
1. You can definitely tell it is new.
2. You can definitely tell it is a hospital.

Maybe the process is the same in other Canadian hospitals, but you check in with a volunteer who takes your information and then passes it to a clerk. The clerk checks your blood pressure, allergies, etc. then passes you off to another admin person. They check you into the hospital, giving you an ID wristband, and putting you into the queue. It’s quite the process, made worse when the student volunteer is not even aware of what he is doing. Having to explain I injured my wrist twice within a few minutes? Not exactly right.

After sitting down- I should say first that the ER was busy so it took a moment to find a seat- you do the automatic scan of the room to see how you compare to the others. It’s almost a game: Who Has It Worst? Seems like an ideal show for Colin Mochrie to host since his other Who’s Line Is It Anyway are hosting game shows.

Right away, I can tell I’m nowhere near enough pain to be here. When people are slumped up against others’ shoulders or are holding a bowl in case they throw up, I’ve certainly in better shape. Anyone who is using a phone in the room is automatically disqualified too. One woman had an iPad with her, which seems both incredibly smart and stupid at the same time. I’m not sure whether I would bring such an expensive device like that here (ignoring the fact that an iPhone 5 costs more than an iPad.)

Second, I tend to look at who is making the boldest fashion statement. Hospitals at this hour usually have at least a few people that stand out for one reason or another. There’s a woman in tights, talking to someone on the phone, bawling her eyes out and yelling a bit, then when she hangs up, she is smiling while texting. Odd. I’ll forgive the people who are sweatpants, and give a pass for people who seem to be showing off too much muffin top. The real winner is the lady wearing a baggy tie-dyed shirt and matching pants. I haven’t seen an outfit like that since probably the Dawson City Music Festival. Bit blinding.

Moving on.

The staff at the hospital are incredibly patient with people. With the length of time it takes for people to get processed, no one openly complains and staff are in good spirits. Turns out, it was the shift change. People were happy leaving, others had nothing to complain about yet.

Time seems to move very slowly in the hospital. I have always wondered why when we want something to happen, it takes forever, but when we want something to last (a date, party) it goes by quickly. After nearly an hour, I move on to the minor treatment room. More waiting, but there is more movement.

Down the hall I’m sent to visit the x-ray technician. When I get there, more waiting is to be found and no seats. There’s a young family there. The oldest injured her wrist. The two younger ones under 8 are ready to pass out at this hour. The mother of the oldest (who is the aunt for the other two) has come to ER three weeks in a row. I consider myself lucky that I only have one daughter who could bring me down there.

A few others going ahead of me are rolled in on stretchers. They seem real old and in bad shape. I start thinking about how strange it is that they get priority over the young girl. Before they are rolled in, they end up waiting around the corner with no one with them. A lonely experience. Another older mother is in a wheelchair and has a rather hyper teenager with her. The teen is too focused on playing her DSi and not aware enough to move her mom out of the way when the people on beds are rolled in.

After all the X-ray, walking back into the second waiting room, I hear a lot of noise. It’s practically a party with close to eight people waiting for one person, who looks like they got hit with a baseball bat in the face. After a short wait, I am called in to get the splint on. Ahead of the little girl again. Hospitals prioritize in strange ways for me.

After nearly three hours at the hospital, I was on my way home to face the other challenges: how to undress and dress with one useable hand, how to prepare meals, and keep myself occupied during the day. Using a mouse was impossible with my right hand, and couldn’t use the keyboard at all.

The second day out of the hospital has found me in better spirits and with the patience to try something different. This post and the others this week have been typed and edited on my iPhone, using solely my left hand. Scratch was used for writing, Byword to edit the links (using the markdown language) and format, then Poster for images and publishing. A trio of apps that have worked incredibly well.

One hand blogging does have the ability to produce sound.

Best iPhone 5 Case: Moshi iGlaze

When I was sitting down for a meeting over coffee, my friend asked to see my iPhone. She was curious to compare the status of our batteries, but also exclaimed, “You don’t have a case for your phone?!”

It was true. I had been using my phone without one since I received it[1] mostly because I wasn’t too thrilled with the cases I saw available at Telus or Best Buy. I also wanted to see how it fared in terms of scratches through regular use since I had heard complaints about how much the black phones scratched. I went with a white model, partly for a different aesthetic in my black computing world, and also for resale value. I figured the black model would be ordered more than the white one making it more difficult in 2–4 years when I upgrade.

I had, however, done other research for iPhone cases and came across a brand that seemed appealing to me. I had seen them on earlier models of the iPhone and decided to go for it. I checked online for local retailers and on a whim checked eBay. They were being sold cheaply, but were being shipped from China.

I ordered one in late November; it arrived on Monday.[2]

The main reason why I went with this case is because of how slim it was. The second reason is because of its texture when handing it. The iPhone 5 is a bit slick in your hands and can easily be dropped if you weren’t careful. I only seem to have dropped it when in the bedroom, so I consider myself lucky. The slimness of the case is perfect. I don’t notice a weight difference with the case on or off.

On top of all that, the case does not interfere with any of the functions of the phone. All the buttons are open to touch, and the mute button even has enough space to be fully functional. The front face and bottom is open, so there are no problems with the front facing camera or the speakers at the bottom, plus the ports. The back has plenty of surrounding the camera and I have had zero problems with reflections with the flash bouncing off of it. It may even help with the purple flare problem that is widely reported.

Moshi has several styles available for their cases, including one with a kickstand. There is a metallic one, or a silicone one. I’m using the silicone version, the Moshi iGlaze.

You can find them for sale on Amazon and eBay.

  1. Which reminds me, when I first wanted to order the iPhone 5, I went to a Telus Store. I was put on a waiting list since this was the first week they were on sale. I ordered one online the same day instead and received it a month later. I still have yet to receive a call from Telus saying the phone has arrived. Unreal.  ↩
  2. Ironically, the same day I took that big spill on the roadway.  ↩

Winter in Kelowna


In all the places I have lived in my lifetime or visited in December or January, the winter season is either brutal (below –20 C nearly daily from November to March) or non-existent (a few snowfalls but melts right away). Winters in Kelowna are very different and confusing to me. There is a winter culture here with a major ski hill located outside of the city, outdoor ice rink downtown and a successful junior hockey team that sees capacity crowds of over 5,000 each game. There is a constant reminder that it is winter with white glistening in the hills and mountains from late fall to the spring.

On the flip side, it is hardly cold here and the snow is minimal.

When Kelowna received a dump of snow (15–20 cms or over 6 inches) over Sunday night, I scrambled to get out and experience it by walking down the Mission Creek Greenway. The snow, still fresh in the area and lacking noticeable footprints, clung to the trees and would not last long. A perfect time to capture some photographs of the winter wonderland before it was disturbed by sunlight or people.

The temperature on the ground hovered just above freezing. The roads were slick with ice as the cars drove over to pack the snow down. I was soon to discover how dangerous they really were. Crossing the street, I was nearly to the other side when my foot gave way and had me fall hard into my wrist. Not wanting to miss out on this little slice of winter, I picked myself and pressed on.


Turning onto the trail, I paused momentarily to both stuff snow down my glove to control the eventual swelling and to take in the serene paradise that existed mere steps from the cars screeching and sliding around. A quiet trail, full of snow on either side and untouched apart from the city plow running clearing the snow off. A few steps onto the clear path made me realize how slick that was, so I stuck to the sides.

The creeks in Kelowna that flow into the lake (which remains clear of ice) are a bit strange for me to see. They are nearly void of ice, apart from when the flow of water slows to a standstill. Coming from the Yukon where even the mighty Yukon River freezes over,[1] seeing not only clear water flowing but ducks feeding there is a scene from a different world. I’m not useful to seeing birds of any sort being around in winter time. The only ones I would expect to see were ravens in the north or crows on the prairies.

Venturing down the trail, it was mainly undisturbed. Not another soul was in sight, not even a squirrel. The only thing that remained was the gentle sounds of water hitting the rocky edges or the crunching of snow underfoot. In the summer and fall during the Kokanee salmon run, a lack of people is strange, yet a rewarding experience.

Walking in an area surrounded by homes and ranches, not having people around makes you feel like you’re the first to discover something new. A hidden secret that few will have the chance to come across. Indeed, after passing a few people walking the other way, seeing their foot prints on the trail spoils the sense that it is a new experience.

The only way to recover that sense of new is to venture off the trail. I was not dressed for an excursion off the trail, and probably should not have given that I had already taken one spill already, but down the hill. Nearly a foot high snow drifts led me first down to the creek. A thin layer of ice stretching out to the open water created a convenient spot for ducks to take a nap without being disturbed. It was a wonder that they didn’t break through the crystal clear ice into the cold water.

Further down the trail is a viewing station that allows for a clear sight down the creek in both directions. It is one of the few spots where you can look either way and not see houses, a ranch or a bridge. Definitely worth walking through the deep drifts to reach.

By the time I turned around to head home and nurse from wrist, more people and their dogs were venturing down the path. The adventure was brief, offering more than I could expect or want with the fall on my wrist. But this is what winter is like in Kelowna. Short periods of time to experience a bit of an adventure or the unexpected. Playing in the snow in the backyard is not a daily occurrence like it was in Whitehorse. Huge snow forts like they have in Regina are an impossibility here.

When it snows in Kelowna, you have to take advantage of it. As I sit here writing this on Wednesday, ice on my wrist and typing with my left hand, the snow is melting. The roadway that I slipped on is completely bare. The trees that held snow creating a white wonderland are now naked.

The only reminder for me of what was are the photographs I captured and the splint on my wrist.

What was, still is.

  1. Then again, what doesn’t freeze over at –40C? It’s no wonder that Sam McGee preferred sitting in the boiler of a frozen ship then venture outside. ↩

2013: New Year, New Approach

New Year’s Eve is meant to be a time to connect with friends and family. Not so for me. I have been at home cleaning up my office, doing dishes, and settling down on my couch to catch up on some reading that has been collecting. Reading about what people are up to on Facebook/Twitter, and starting to see some of the drunken shenanigans on Instagram makes me wish I was out enjoying myself like in years past.

But not entirely. You always read about how you have to be happy with yourself before you can be happy with someone in a relationship. That’s true, but it’s also important when wanting to be around others. At least for me, it is. I always find I enjoy myself better when I’m out and about and not having to worry about some other problems going on in my life.

There are moments when it is appropriate to sit down over coffee and get things off your chest, try to make sense of what is happening around you. Times of celebrations are not really a good time to be talking about your problems – inevitably, they seem to happen towards the end of the night with someone sitting on the toilet crying with a few people trying to comfort them and the rest wanting that person to move out of the way. I know by now that if I go out somewhere, I am never going to fully enjoy myself because my mind will always think about everything but that moment I am experiencing.

Leading up to the end of the year, I started to explore more about the Zen Buddhist way of life and have a better understanding of the philosophy. I am going to have to destroy a lot of my way of thinking to understand it completely. For now, it has been a good guide in developing a new approach for the coming year. Becoming a bit more empty in my mind and being more present with who I am with and where I am, living life without expectations.

The thoughts and ideas I have throughout the day need to be refocused into positive energy within me, not the negative pulses of wants/needs/what-ifs that are pushed through my mind currently. Instead of the ideas being bottled up in my mind, I need to get them out. Writing here helps, but I am starting to wonder if I need to find some other outlets for my creative energies.

Merlin Mann was talking a bit about this in one of the recent episodes of Back to Work where he says that people need to stop saying they aren’t an artist. Everyone is and can be an artist once they discover their medium to work in and communicate their ideas. The photography I capture (apart from the pictures of my daughter) is a synthesis of my mindset at the moment and where I am. I need to practice photography on a regular basis and perhaps capture some words at the same time to visualize my ideas better. I need to discover a better way to show the story of my life, whether here, Instagram or Tumblr.

That is becoming a little more evident to me as I rekindle a love for comic books. I was never a die-hard comic lover growing up. It was too expensive to follow along with all the story lines being split up between multiple series with the same characters. They were also almost exclusively about super heroes. Series like The Walking Dead didn’t show up until I was in University – no way was I going to spend my precious dollars on comics then.

With my iPad, that world has reopened itself to me through the ComiXology app. Subscribing and downloading digital copies, archiving them and letting you discover new series to follow easily is incredible. Merlin Mann[1] has been raving about this one series, Saga, a lot so I thought it would make a good choice to explore. The first issue was free, the others only a few dollars. After the first issue, I bought the second to see what happens, and then again, and…

So far, it is a compelling story and highly recommended, and I will write more about it, but it made me start thinking about story and how we share it with people. Everyone has a story to share, thoughts that need to be communicated. Reading through Saga has given me a better example of what happens when words and graphics come together. It is completely opposite of the responses I have when I see a lot of the inspirational graphics that flood the Twitter and Facebook. The artwork and words compliment each other rather than a random image being pulled to correspond with the words. Those graphics politicize the images, in my opinion, changing our emotional response to the image through the words rather than building a stronger argument together.

I want to avoid that.

I want to discover myself by practicing Buddhism. And through those discoveries, I want to develop my own style to express myself and the stories I want to share.

A new year, a new approach.

Reading List

For those interested in the books I am reading about Buddhism and trying to find direction in my life:

Through explorations of the three pillars of Zen–teaching, practice, and enlightenment–Roshi Philip Kapleau presents a comprehensive overview of the history and discipline of Zen Buddhism. An established classic, this 35th anniversary edition features new illustrations and photographs, as well as a new afterword by Sensei Bodhin Kjolhede, who has succeeded Philip Kapleau as spiritual director of the Rochester Zen Center, one of the oldest and most influential Zen centers in the United States.

– Three Pillars of Zen, by Philip Kapleau

In the forty years since its original publication, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind has become one of the great modern spiritual classics, much beloved, much reread, and much recommended as the best first book to read on Zen. Suzuki Roshi presents the basics—from the details of posture and breathing in zazen to the perception of nonduality—in a way that is not only remarkably clear, but that also resonates with the joy of insight from the first to the last page.

– Zen Mind, Beginners Mind – by Shunryu Suzuki

In this book, Jack Kornfield presents the heart of Buddhist practice as taught by twelve highly respected masters from Southeast Asia. These renowned teachers offer a rich variety of meditation techniques: the practices include traditional instructions for dissolving the solid sense of self, for awakening insight, for realizing Nirvana, and for cultivating compassion for all beings.

– Living Dharma – by Jack Kornfield

  1. Seriously, if you are into productivity, geek life, and want something entertaining and useful, go subscribe to his shows: Back to Work, Roderick on the Line, or You Look Nice Today  ↩

Renewal

Every now and then, I feel the need to expand on my level of knowledge or experiences to create a change in myself, whether major or minor. The easiest way for me to do this is by reading an article, blog, or book that I normally wouldn’t find myself reading, but I also enjoy going somewhere that I haven’t been yet. When I do this, I set off a mind bomb and become more aware of myself and my surroundings.

As the year draws to a close, I am having a difficult time focusing on my needs and wanting to set out New Year resolutions.

After the tragic events in Newtown, CT a few weeks ago, I have found myself following the white rabbit down the hole wanting to read and understand the policies in play. It has been a terrifying experience in many regards to discover what “the other side” believes, and read more about the history of the gun control laws and their impact in countries. The worst part for me has been reading some of the thoughts from “the other side” and find myself nodding my head. I’m a pacifist at heart, I don’t think I have ever hit someone in my life even (maybe my little brother, but does that really count?), so to find myself nodding along to some of the arguments for more guns makes me want to smack myself around.

I could never really get into this topic completely because I don’t have a complete understanding of it. Unless you have been living and breathing these topics for your life, I don’t think it is ever fully possible to understand the full scope of things. Everything is complicated these days. The economic impact, the social impact, the political impact. I continually feel buried under the weight of all the information being presented to me.

After each article I seem to read, the only thing that becomes more clear to me is how ridiculously fucked the United States is. They are fighting an impossible fight (much like they are with terrorism). If gun control legislation was passed tomorrow, there is no way they could get their systems in place in time to save another school shooting or other mass murder. And with the amount of drug trafficking that happens in the United States, one could only assume that the amount of guns being trafficked in are of an equal concern. Same goes for controlling the bullets being released into the public.

If someone is set in their mind about causing harm, they will find a way and will work around the rules in order to make it happen. There are too many examples in recent history to point at, from mail bombs (Unabomber) to truck bombs (Timothy McVeigh) to complex plans (World Trade Center bombing and 9/11). The only clear solution (to me) is to get a better handle on the mental health situation in the United States.

Even then, I’m not sure if that will solve anything.

Mark Ames wrote a piece in NSFW Corp, Three Heads, We Lose: Gun Control without Equality Means More Massacres, Not Fewer that does an excellent job of describing the situation in the United States.

There are two take-away paragraphs for me:

… When Clinton signed a federal law banning 19 assault weapons. Not only did employee workplace massacres — a new type of mass-murder crime that first appeared in the late 1980s — continue unabated after Clinton’s ban, but they spread a few years later to another setting once thought safe: middle America’s schoolyards. A few years after Clinton’s assault weapons ban, school kids — mostly white, mostly middle-class — were massacring their fellow students, most famously in Columbine.

And this one from an article in Businessweek, We’re Back to Serfs and Royalty published in 2001:

’The huge disparity between the compensation of CEOs and the people who really make most companies function is starting to raise questions of fairness. For instance, look at how CEO pay has skyrocketed – by 434% since 1991, according to BusinessWeek’s annual survey of executive compensation. Meantime, the paycheck of the typical worker grew only 34%.”

Maybe it is because I matured in the Bush era (having graduated high school in 1998) that I associate the higher wages of CEOs stemming from Bush, not Clinton, but it appears Clinton put in place policies that made income inequality worse than ever before. The inquality between the workers and the managers makes for a dangerous social situation when work is steady and the economy is growing, but toss in some recessions and things become much more tense. Here is another paragraph from Ames’ story that scares me:

Studies prove the obvious: that greater inequality leads to higher rates of mental illness. Psychiatric drug prescriptions for children and adults have been soaring over the past few decades — between 1987 and 1996, prescriptions doubled for children; and from 1996 to 2006, psychiatric drug prescriptions for children jumped another 50% (while prescriptions for adults soared 73% in that same 1996–2006 period). Meanwhile, the adolescent suicide rate soared 400% from the 1950s through 1999.

I would think income inequality isn’t the main reason for the jump in drug prescriptions jumping so much[1], regardless, it is a frightening statistic.

Let me step back a bit and back to the purpose of me writing.

Had I not been subject to the darkness, I could not have seen the light.

  • Midrash (translated from Hebrew)

I wrote that quote last December, at the end of the year, when I was thinking more about what I wanted to change with myself. Those words are more meaningful to me now than they were then. They relate perfectly to how I have been approaching the Newtown massacre – exploring the darker side of thinking about the massacre and the full story behind it all[2] . Only after being exposed to the tragedy was I and countless others able to fully understand the problem the United States is facing. I can only hope that this was the last straw for everyone and they can work on developing some real solutions to fix the myriad of problems in the country.

Newtown was also a wake-up call for myself.

For whatever reason, November and December have been a few dark months for me. My writing on here basically stopped – before this week, it had been over a month since I last wrote. I stopped working out, because I ended up injuring one of my elbows. Having it fully extended or contracted hurt, so I limited its motion and stress placed upon it. My diet has also been non-existent, having returned to where I was several years ago. The combination of all these things has pushed me into a slight depression – not full blown depression since I was still active with my daughter and functioning during the day – and knocked me off course. I feel like I have gained twenty pounds in the past few months- not muscle gain, either.

After watching the events of Newtown unfold, it made me stop and realize who I was at the moment: nobody. I am not in a good position to be protecting my own daughter, nor to find and take care of a partner. That needs to be fixed.

In the coming year, I need to do a mind and body cleanse, get working out harder than ever, and really push to become somebody rather than rot away doing nothing meaningful in my life. Outside being a good/great father to my girl, I don’t feel like I have accomplished much. Hopefully, after a year of giving myself a reboot, I hope to keep that going for years to come. Neither myself, nor my daughter, should ever have to face that darkness again.

On to 2013.

Appendix

Here is a short list of articles I came across that have helped me understand this situation better:

  1. Poor dietary trends would have to be right up there, which is influenced by income but there are plenty of middle-class people with poor nutrition habits, as well.  ↩
  2. Including the history of the NRA and the company behind the Bushmaster assault weapon used in the attack in Newtown.  ↩

Happy Birthday to My Girl: The Big 3

The end of the year brings about a time for a lot of personal reflection for people. It is doubly important for me as December 31st happens to be the birthday for my daughter. Today, she turns 3. A number that seems insignifiant for someone like myself that is 33 now, but rather significant for her considering the amount of changes she is going through.

Watching my daughter over the past year has been a wake-up call to me with how much a person can truly change within a year, whether naturally or through conscientious actions to make improvements. I witness one of my grandmothers (nearly 90 years old) go through major changes herself in the past year and cannot help but think of time as an inverse parabola. At the beginning and at the ends of our life, each day is far more significant than within the middle years.

In the case of my daughter, there have been huge changes even within the past few months. At this time last year, she was still mastering her ability to go up and down stairs standing up, climbing up walls and breaking through her fear of heights to go down slides. She didn’t fully grasp the concept that a box in wrapping paper contained something good. Building a vocabulary of words and understanding them was just beginning. Heck, she was still in diapers and more comfortable sleeping in a bed with me than alone.

Now, she is completely different.

Last year, she was more like a walking baby; today, she’s a mini-person walking around full of personality that really shines through with her smile. While she has always studied people, now she has a better understanding of what is happening. She can laugh at something on television before I do, can tell when someone is upset or happy, knows when to approach people and when not to. It’s simply amazing to watch someone grow to understand society and want to be apart of it. She will stand outside of the elevator and point at someone down the hallway, waiting before they are by her to press the button and enter the elevator. She waves bye to strangers, says please and thank you. She is a perfect citizen.[1]

Her mastery of numbers and spelling is frightening to me. Being able to pick out and place the numbers 1–12 with no help always catches me off guard. She’s slowly understanding the concept that those numbers hold value, as well. “Bring one baby doll,” actually means one baby doll to her, and she will put the other ones back in their place. Knowing the sounds of words (e.g. “sh,” “ck,” “ah,” etc.) is making her ability to say words even more easily than first imagined. She still is not talking much directly to us, but in the privacy of a room without someone around, I catch her speaking short sentences to her play phone or to The Backyardians show playing on the iPad.

Oh, and her ability to navigate the iPad/iPhone is insane. She knows what to expect when pressing a button, so when something doesn’t happen the way she knows it should, I always get to hear, “Dada,” or “Uh ohs.”[2] I would hestitate to guess she could use either devices better than the average consumer just picking up a phone in a store.

The best part of the past year has been watching her get excited over seeing something or experiencing a new taste, music, and so forth. Last year, it was slowly sinking into her what things were and trying to understand everything around her. Now, she can see the sky brightening up in the morning and know it is time to go outside, or we can tell her that we are going someplace and she gets excited because she knows what will happen there. It is much more fun making a snake out of Play Doh and having react because she knows it is silly, rather than staring at it and not knowing what is so special about it.

It is also much more fun having her help with doing things. She understands what she can and can’t do without getting too upset when I tell her it is too hot to touch or dangerous. She is almost at the point where she could cook me scrambled eggs – she knows where the pans are, how to grease it with butter, how to crack the eggs, and mix it all up. Even knows that you need to season the eggs after they’ve cooked, and how to make coffee using an Aeropress.

Hopefully, she slows down a bit and is a kid for a while.

The past year has been an incredible journey for us both. Full of changes and growth, watching her become her own person and watching me slowly adapt to life with a mini-partner-in-crime. I can’t wait for the next year of changes to happen as she enters her pre-school program, has a better understanding of English with a slow introduction to French, and builds up a larger social circle of friends.

Happy birthday, my little girl, and may the coming year be full of life and surprises for us both.

And, her favourite song of the year, Carly Rae Jepsen “Call Me Maybe” (of course):

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWNaR-rxAic&version=3&hl=en_US]
  1. Knock on wood. Several times.  ↩
  2. For the record, that’s the cutest saying ev-ar.  ↩

Last Minute Christmas Ideas (for yourself)

Christmas is a time of giving. I generally focus more on giving gifts to others than I am about crafting my own “wish list.” Just ask any of my family members. It’s next to impossible to shop for me.

But Christmas is also a time of where there are plenty of deals happening, whether they are sales in retail stores or coupons for products online. It’s the perfect time to purchase some of those extra apps or ebooks that you have been putting off buying and would be a bit awkward to put on a wish list, e.g. a $4.00 app that is on sale for $1.00 – do you really need someone to purchase you a dollar app?

I have been monitoring my feeds for some good deals, and here there are:

Frictionless Freelancing – Aaron Mahnke

Promo Code: Christmas20

Frictionless Freelancing is a book by Aaron Mahnke geared towards people wanting to break through with their freelancing career. Aaron is a freelance graphic designer by trade, but also hosts the excellent Home Work podcast. The book is full of practical advice for anyone who ends up having to do client work of any kind. It deals with productivity friction, client friction, financial friction and personal friction.

The manifesto is available for free on the website, the eBook bundle with some extra resources used for planning/tracking is priced at $19. Using the code listed above the price drops to $15. The book is also available as a paperback for $25.00 on Amazon

Paperless – David Sparks

Paperless was recently named to the Best of 2012 by the iBookstore. As you can guess by its name, Paperless is all about transforming your workflow from dealing with paper to handling as much as possible through your digital devices. It outliness processes to help you capture, organize, and use your files. He also shows you his workflow and the applications he uses through video and screencasts. It is Mac-centric (along with iPad and iPhone) but a lot of his tips can easily be migrated to other operating systems.

In conjunction with it being named to the Best of 2012 list, David has dropped the price down from $10 to $7 through to December 31st. It is available as a PDF on his website or through the iBook Store. It is not available at Amazon, but his other books, Mac at Work and iPad at Work are.

Marked – Brett Terpstra

Marked is an app for Mac that is incredibly useful for writers of all breeds, and most likely coders. It is a live preview window for Markdown text syntax with a lot more punch behind it. Link verifying, multi-file documents being viewed as one, Scrivener support and more. It works with any text editor (working beautifully with my preferred app, Byword and looks incredible.

It is available on the Mac App Store for the discounted price of $0.99 through to the end of December (normally $4.00). Here’s a video (in German) will show you how it will look with your favourite editor, but check out the website for more information:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed-1BNo-zAs&version=3&hl=en_US]

Tonx

Tonx is a coffee roaster that ships out the beans to you every other week. It goes beyond just sending you the same kind of bean each shipment though. It basically curates a selection of the best beans of the world and sends them to you. The beans they send are always freshly roasted shortly after they have been harvested during their peak cycles. The beans aren’t sitting on a store shelf for a month waiting for you to purchase them.

Additionally, you may or may not receive the same roast twice in a given period, which can be torture if you find a roast you love. I think of it more as expanding your taste buds in a safe manner, because you are almost guaranteed to love the roasts. It isn’t the same kind of crapshoot that you find when visiting a grocery store and choosing from the 30 different blends.

The best part about Tonx is that they are available in Canada, as well as the US. People in the US can request a free trial. You can also gift subscriptions to people and share your love for coffee with others.

Right now, you can also ask for a booster pack of coffee for $7 to share with your friends – maybe. My roasts have been so good I only let my parents smell the beans, not taste a cup of coffee. I am that greedy.[1]

Sketchnote Handbook- Mike Rohde

Sketchnote Handbook teaches you how to capture the ideas in your head and transfer them onto the page. It helps you organize your thoughts or the thoughts of others (e.g. while listening to a lecture) in a way that will help you remember the key points. There isn’t a special deal on the book right now, but it is that time of year where people start planning their goals for the following year. One of mine has been wanting to pick up drawing again, so the Sketchnote Handbook seems like a good starting point for me.

Mike Rohde is the designer behind the sketches in Rework (by 37 Signals) and The $100 Startup (by Chris Guillebeau). You can purchase the book at Amazon or the other dealers listed on the site. Take a look at the video below to get a better idea of the book or visit his site.

[vimeo 48892571 w=500 h=281]

Others to Consider

It’s useful to look through your junk mail folders to discover if renewal deals have gone missed. Most services are offering 20–50% off right now, which can cut down on your business costs tremendously. Here is a quick hit list of services to take advantage of and some other recommendations as a treat for yourself :

  • Hostgator – webhosting, 20% off.
  • Outright – business accounting, 50% off, December 23rd only.
  • Freshbooks – online invoicing and time tracking.
  • NSFW Corp – excellent daily dispatches about world events. $3 per month.
  • The Magazine – bi-weekly magazine published to the iPad. $2 a month. Awesome featured writers.
  1. And love the coffee that much.  ↩

Skyfall: A Play in Shadows

Let the sky fall, when it crumbles

We will stand tall

And face it all together

At Skyfall

When Adele’s smokey voice starts singing the title song for Skyfall, I felt chills run down my spine. It is such a perfect song to introduce the Bond story we were all about to witness, both in terms of its lyrics and its melody. The way her voice rises and then falls to disappear echoes the mood of the movie: a play with shadows.

Writing about a film less than six hours after seeing it is usually not advised. Critics generally want the film to settle into their minds, contemplating it, swirling it around in their mouth to savour everything they had just witnessed. I could not resist, however, as my mind was racing even while sitting in the theater. When I exited the theater, I tapped out a quick note to myself to remind myself of what I wanted to write about:

Skyfall. Shadows, silhouettes. Play with light. Tennyson.

A short, simple note, much like the 23rd installment of the Bond saga. Some of the criticisms of the most recent Bond film, Quantam Solace, was how visually incoherent it was. It’s a criticism of most modern action films, either the visuals are difficult to follow, or the story line has several failures. Thankfully, Skyfall provides a solid storyline with well-paced action sequences that I could follow. I would almost go as far as saying I could close my eyes for 30 seconds, open them and could understand how they got to the new point of action. That’s something I couldn’t really say with some of the Bourne movies, for example.

The use of light was brilliant in this film. Perhaps it is my background as a lighting designer that paid more attention to it, but it really is difficult to miss. Fight scenes in shadows, silhouettes in the right times, rising and setting sun or moon. Sometimes, I find the usage of light to be more of a gimic in some films, but not in Skyfall. The director, Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Jarhead), and cinematographer, Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men, Shawshank Redemption, A Beautiful Mind, and other great films), really out did themselves with composing the mise-en-scène of the film.

Mise-en-scène refers to the composition of the image on screen, the set, lighting, costumes, and camera shot in film. Every time the scene shifted to a new location, the establishing shots took my breath away with their composition. There was always a variety in the usage of light, as well (i.e. sometimes the source was off to a side, others behind, in front, etc.)

Apart from the use of light (which would be far easier to explain with a wider selection of screen shots to use), the storyline also follows along with contrasting tones in humour and seriousness. M (Dame Judi Dench) refers often to shadows throughout the movie. Talking about how strong of a metaphor this really is will have to wait until a later time once more people have seen the movie. It is definitely something to watch for if you have the chance to see it.

The Tennyson quote I referred to balances the lyrics Adele sings of, bookending the film and this post. Its meaning will be much more apparent while watching the film, which I do suggest you go see. It is one of the better Bond films made, but also a very enjoyable film that mostlly everyone will like. If you have seen the film, reading the words of Tennyson again may help strengthen your opinoin about the movie.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Ulysses, Lord Alfred Tennyson. October 20th, 1833.

If you are a Bond fan, be sure to take advantage of this deal on Amazon in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Bond:

Bond 50: The Complete 22 Film Collection [Blu-ray]


Skyfall – ADELE

iPhone 5: Two Weeks In

The dots have not been connecting for me lately, which is one of the main reasons why I am switching to using an iPhone 5.

Over a month ago, I wrote up my thoughts on Why I am Switching to iPhone from Android, and two weeks ago, I finally received my iPhone 5. I don’t want to write a review of the device, simply because there are others who have done so previously.1 Instead, I want to focus on the reasons why I switched and whether my initial problems3 have been resolved.

In my post, I did not outline a laundry list of problems, but instead grouped them into one area: the ecosystem, the system of flow from my mind to phone to iPad/laptop. The short answer is this has gone much better than I first expected.

My biggest problem was the disconnect I was having between my phone and my laptop or iPad. Basically, I wanted what was on my phone to be transported to my laptop easily, and for the files on my laptop to be brough to my phone easily. While some may have had issues with iCloud, I have not. It has been working out extremely well for me, syncing photos immediately, syncing my writing files quickly, and able to wireless sync iTunes. I suspected this would work as advertised, since I had been seeing it work with Byword between my Mac and iPad.

There are a few apps I want to highlight that have been making life easier for me, but first I want to mention something that was an after-thought before now: the home screen.

After I read Ben Brooks Organizing an iPhone 5 Homescreen, my initial thought was, “It can’t matter that much, can it?” Of course, once I started downloading a lot more apps and swiping around the various home screens, I realized it was a problem. To simply Ben Brooks approach, he gave each spot on the home screen a number to signify its priority and accessibility. Using his original number structure, I started to shift my apps around into the slots, putting the ones I access the most on the sides instead of in a linear line from left-to-right.2

Scratch

Scratch is one of those indispensable apps for me right now. It allows you to write out quick notes, save them quickly and them access them afterwards without having to worry about how to organize them or tag them. They are just there as a list. It also supports Markdown, with a quick access menu for commonly used functions (i.e. #Headers, lists, > and *). Apart from copying and pasting the text into a different app, you can also use the share menu to send it to Byword or Poster (my favourite WordPress editor). I’m starting to jot down a lot of future post ideas in Scratch, developing them a little bit before doing most of the work in Poster or Byword on my iPad or Mac.

It solves a problem that I had with my Android phone. I could find lots of to-do list apps, but never a good, basic notepad app that would allow me to get the text into my blog editor easily on my Mac. Copying and pasting it into an email, then copying and pasting from that email into a different editor is too many steps. With Scratch, I write, then hit share, and it’s in the blog editor ready to go either on the iPhone, iPad or Mac. Simple.

Tweetbot

If you had told me last year that I would be purchasing an app to use for Twitter, I would have said you were nuts. After many rave reviews when it first came out, I knew I had to try it out when I received my iPad, and then when I got the iPhone 5. It is rather strange to say this, but Tweetbot is one of those apps I love picking up and using. Even if I’m not all that interested in seeing what has been updated lately, I want to use the app. It reminded me when I first purchased my Mac and wrote about marketing the Mac: it’s fun to use.

It is also awesome to use, too. Easy to navigate between the Timeline, direct messages, lists, mentions, etc. One of the best features is the mute button. Finding someone who is tweeting too much, or a hashtag showing up way too frequently? Mute it. You will never see it show up in your timeline or lists (you will in mentions, however). I am pretty sure I have been using Twitter far more often once I downloaded it earlier in the year, and definitely more on my iPhone now (not sure if this is a good thing or not, of course).

I am sure I will discover and share new apps I come across that I find useful. I am exploring some of the fitness tracking apps right now (Runkeeper is my preferred one) and still searching for some more productivity apps. If you have any suggestions of apps I should check out, let me know in the comments.

  1. iPhone 5 reviews: Daring Fireball, MG Siegler ↩
  2. I would do something similar on the iPad, except my daughter enjoys moving around the icons too much. I gave up on organizing it and rely mostly on the “swipe left and search” approach.  ↩
  3. The problems with the iPhone 5 have been so minimal, I am going to bury them here. Notifications drive me crazy, lack of a good Gmail App (Sparrow comes close), and difficult to have a true silence (no ring, no vibration) without multiple taps.  ↩

33 : The Unknowables

It seems strange to me now to think about how I have to unlearn how I lived in my 20s to really live now.

33

As cool as it would have been turning 33 on 11/11/11, I suppose it will be just as meaningful happening on 11/11/12. I was re-reading through last year’s birthday post earlier in the week, reflecting on what I would like to write this year. Oddly, I didn’t write on my birthdays before last year, so this is a new trend that is starting.

The cliche thing to do would be to write about “33 Things You Don’t Know About Me” or “33 Life Lessons I Have Learned Through the Year,” but I am never one to fit in with the popular trends. While thinking more about how I have been unlearning things about life to enjoy life more the past few years, I came to the realization of how much more meaningful it is to have those mysteries in life, those things you simply can’t know about.

Growing up, I devoured books to learn as much as I could. Now, it’s devouring things on the internet through searches, watching YouTube videos, and constantly consuming. Even with as much information I have been swallowing up, there are still things I will never know about and now I never want to know about them.

The 33 Unknowables
 

1. The thoughts and emotions that went through my ancestors’ minds when they boarded ships to leave Europe for the United States.
2. What it feels like to fall from space and surpass the speed of sound.
3. What the view is like from the tallest peaks of the world.
4. What the horses down the road think about when they gaze out at me and my daughter walking past.
5. Which man was responsible for putting hot dogs within pizza crust.
6. Whether the current generation of pre-teenagers are going to think of Justin Bieber as their generation’s Kurt Cobain.
7. What the woman posing for Leonardo da Vinci was thinking when he painted the Mona Lisa.
8. What the great minds of the past would think of life today.
9. What normal person today is going to have their journals and writing discovered 100+ years from now and become well-known.
10. What life would have been like if I never left Regina for Syracuse, or stayed in Syracuse another year.
11. What is going on in our minds when we are first born.
12. What Steve Jobs was experiencing when his final words were, “Wow.”
13. Why it is so difficult to let things go from the past.
14. How many hearts my daughter will break with her glances and smiles down the road.
15. What stories I am missing by not keeping in touch with friends and family like I wish I could.
16. How inspirational the classics truly are or all the books lining my shelves.
17. Knowing what it’s like to see a ball game in some of the historical fields of the past (Polo Grounds, Tiger Stadium, Comiskey).
18. What it’s like to hit a home run, hit a hole in one, swim in the Olympics or run an ultra marathon.
19. What technological advances will happen at the end of my daughter’s life and her children’s.
20. Whether Shakespeare felt love in different ways than the rest and how he showed it to his wife.
21. What our world was really like before populations exploded and the amount of life was depleted.
22. Who the original bitch was (the person on the receiving end of the phrase) and what they did to deserve it.
23. What my life would be like if I stayed in theatre.
24. What my life would be like without an easy source to write (i.e. before writing was general knowledge).
25. What percentage of the world’s population find themselves laying in bed at night thinking about life.
26. How many delicacies of the world I’m missing out on now and will never get to taste.
27. Whether my insatiable curiosity is nurtured from birth or whether it is there at birth.
28. How many people read this site and enjoy it.
29. What my daughter will think 20-30 years from now when she reads the archives or whether she will be able to.
30. What people far in the future will think of us sharing images of cats, images with huge captions written across them, or people dancing to Gangnam Style.
31. Whether I will look through the thousands of pictures I have in the future and remember the details as clearly as my grandparents do now while in their 80s.
32. Why my daughter refuses to sleep during the times I want her to but finds a way to doze off when I don’t want her to.
33. What my daughter is thinking when she is smiling at me.

A lengthy list. One that will surely grow as I grow older and give up trying to learn/experience everything that I can.

To finish off, one of my favourite tracks right now:


Bingo Players

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