Canadians

On a radio program I'm listening to this morning, they are discussing us, Canadians. A little descriptive "joke" came out of the discussions, which I just love.

Question:
How do you get 20 Canadians out of a swimming pool?

Answer:
You say "Please get out of the swimming pool"

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas blogland, and all of you whom I know. Best wishes for hope and happiness.

What a difference a couple of years make! I found the past few Christmas's, in all honesty, a bit depressing. Maybe, perhaps, as it was always a time for me to kick back, enjoy the family, and after it all fell apart, Christmas just served as a reminder of the failure, of the collapse. I don't feel that way anymore.

I took lots of time off this year. Some of which I will spend with my family. My kids, my siblings and my parents. Some of which I will spend with friends. Friends I made over the past year. Friends I found again over the same period.

Tonight, Christmas eve thought, I'm happy just to spend it alone. Yes, alone. yes happy. It's been a busy few weeks, and a busy past few days. Spent today volunteering at a mens shelter, which I found very rewarding. Perhaps I should work more volunteer work into my daily life. Tonight I'll make myself some food, pour a glass of wine, and do whatever I like. I think I'll watch "It's a Wonderful Life", mostly as I've never seen it, or at least, the whole thing, something people find is appalling, however I have lived this long with no ill effects. Basically, I'll just relax. Something I'm really looking forward to. Wrap gifts to be ready for my kids on boxing day and just enjoy the evening.

I did want to take a moment and wish all of you all the best. Remember what is really important, embrace it, and don't look back.

Merry Christmas everyone.

A blog to check out

postcards from miss igorota.


Neat.

Priceless

First off, I have to admit I wasn't going to put up a Christmas tree or any other decorations this year. Wasn't feeling it. Seemed like a bother and it's only me here, and I really don't need them

However, just like that, tonight, I reconsidered.


Why?


Well, for starters, I'm a lot more rested and feeling way more energetic than I have for a couple of weeks. The last couple of weeks were busy. A whirlwind! Plus, I'm happy. Happy for many reasons and just happy. Happy to see a friend ecstatic her daughters home from overseas for the holidays. Happy to see another friend find her voice again. Happy another found friends and love, although she thought neither were meant for her. Happy my son has decided to pursue his schooling.

Happy to be me.

Plus, I have the best, most fantastic, Christmas tree on the entire planet. How could I not put it up? A couple years ago, after my ex wife and I separated, Christmas came along. That year, my daughters had asked if I was going to put up a tree. I said no. A couple weeks later, when they came over, they brought with them a little tree they had dug out of the crawl space at home. They had decorated it all up, complete with an angel with crazy hair up top, and told me it was my tree for my place. So it has been since. This year will be no exception. Who could ask for a better tree than that?

So, without further ado:




Isn't it great? This Christmas tree is a Christmas tree for all the right reasons. I hope it inspires us all to remember what truly counts!

The Price of Vanity

In my travels of late, one hotel had a puzzling little kit in the washroom. A vanity kit.



Curiosity did get the better of me, and I did need to see what vanity looked like. Apparently like two cotton balls, two Q-tips and a little file.



There you have it. Vanity's cheap!

Saying Thanks (very belatedly)

I didn't start this blog for awards, don't write for them, am terrible at passing them along, other than in thoughts and words in the comments, but I do get them - Awards. That said, I do appreciate them, and definitely could be saying some thank yous.

Which I will do here, for a couple recent ones.

First up, thank you Petra for the Promimidade Award. It is much appreciated. For those of you who like movies and would like to read a weekly movie script, fresh out of the mind of an author, be sure to check her other blog very creative blog Whose Role is it Anyway Not that the Sunday is for Poetry feature of her petra michelle blog isn't creative enough.

Second up, a very, very, very, very, very - well you get the idea - belated thank you to Poetikat, or Kat, of Poetikat's Invisible Keepsakes, for the I've Fallen for your Blog Award. To rewind yourself in time, check out one of her other blogs, Poetikat's Blasts from the Past.

Of course, I'm now trying to think if there were any others, and if so, how many "very's" would proceed the word belated. If this is the case, I do thank you and yes, you can drop me a line and remind me.

Whitehorse

Just back from a road trip for work. Vancouver and Whitehorse. I'll share a few of the pics I took.

Vancouver: Rained the whole time I was there, but here's a nice shot from the airport the morning I left:



Then it was up to Whitehorse. A city of approx 30,000 people. 1/4 of the population of the entire territory it is in. Yes, not many people live in the northern half of Canada.



Drove up above town on Saturday morning before I left. Cold morning. Around -30 C. Here's looking back toward town:



And here's a shot of the snow beside where I took that picture from. At least I wasn't alone up there:



In town there's the log skyscraper:



Log church:



Dawn:



Sunrise (at around 10:30 am):



It's good to stay in the center of the road:



Mist off the water:



Mountains outside of town:



And a shot of the rocky mountains, from the plane:

And now for something completely different....

http://www.flashfunpages.com/couple.swf

Outside the Frame

Attending to routine type errands first thing this morning. Little things of the utmost importance, such as getting a coffee, and some minor things, like getting the minivan in for an oil change. A song popped into my head. Starting thinking about the lyrics in the first verse, as they are kind of neat. The song is called "Go With the Flow" and it's by a band called Queens of the Stone Age. The lyrics in my head were:

She said "I'll throw myself away,
They're just photos after all"
I can't make you hang around.
I can't wash you off my skin.
Outside the frame, is what we're leaving out

I was thinking of the photos as being the snapshots, the memories in ones head. Things as we remember them, frozen in time. All the little details and maybe sometimes even the next frame, the things we've forgotten about the memory, as the stuff outside the frame. The stuff we're leaving out.

I'm not sure if one can toss out memories though, but one can store them and remember what they are, the past. Snippets of information to assist, as they may, in future decisions. Things to smile or reflect on from time to time as they pop into one's mind.

I wouldn't toss out my memories, in any case. It's taken me my lifetime to collect them, and I still have room for some more.

Progress

Keeping this in mind:

Holding the election this year breaks Mr Harper's own fixed-date election law, something he had said was necessary to prevent prime ministers calling elections when polls indicated they were in a favourable position.

(from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7602864.stm)

I see no better way to wrap up my last post (other than noting that the job loss figures released yesterday indicate that we were not, in fact, "well ahead of the curve" but instead, that we had crashed through the guard rail and were flying over the cliff)than trying to quote the Royal Canadian Air Farce (a comedy troupe) from their last show, as best as I can remember them putting it in their Friday night headlines:

"Four months ago, despite his own law, Stephen Harper called an election stating that parliament was dysfunctional.

Good progress on that issue."

Soap Opera Politics

I wonder if Canadian politics has ever been so entertaining?

First, you have the nation's biggest separatist (my opinion after the past few days, I'll explain), Steven Harper, who I'm starting to think is driven entirely by ego, telling everyone what exactly they think. On the other hand, you have the opposition, who try as they may, just can't get their ducks in a row. Then you have the governor general, who finally had to do something, and...well...oh well, so much for the governor general, in my opinion. Or maybe, if I was privy to all she was privy to, I'd just be resigning my post.

WOW.

For those outside of Canada, let me try to explain. For the last three years we've had a Conservative (Stephen Harper and the Tories...no the Progressive Conservatives...no wait, the Conservatives...no wait, the old Reform Party...a Western party...Alberta really) minority government, who had this thing in place that they would govern with that minority as long as they could and wouldn't call an election. But they really wanted an election, and kept making every little thing in parliament a matter of confidence. This meant that if the opposition parties (made up of the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois) voted the motion down, parliament would be dissolved and an election would be called. The opposition, despite themselves I'm sure, never voted one of these down, and in the fall of this year, the Conservative government went against their own and called an unnecessary election themselves.

They didn't win this election with a majority as they thought they would, but ended up instead, with another minority government (due mostly to the people of Quebec and the Bloc Quebecois, who took too many seats away from the Conservatives).

Fast forward (but only 7 weeks). Conservatives table an update on their plans, and again, although entirely unnecessary, make it a matter of confidence in the house. Nothing in this package re worries about the economy (and quite frankly, more of a majority type thing than a minority type government thing). The opposition parties, having endured three years of the same behavior to avoid an election that happened anyway have had enough and call them. They form a coalition and decide they will vote non-confidence.

Fast forward (in hours and days). Things are really heated up now. Harpers's spewing about the fact a coalition government can take his place as undemocratic, but at the same time has convinced our governor general to suspend parliament and thus avoid the non-confidence vote. How democratic is that? He and his party then buy TV and Radio adds where he's telling us Canadians it's not democratic as we voted for the conservatives to lead. Mr. Harper, come, come. For an economist, that's very bad math. The fact is that 62% of us Canadians voted for "those other guys", which is why you have a minority government. MINORITY. The vote was just spread around and your party had the biggest share of 100%, but not a majority, hence a minority, thus you need to play nice.

So, here we are. Economy of the world in trouble. A prime minister who has told us both that we are so far ahead of the curve and that his party dealt with this proactively so no need to worry, and has told us this is no way to act (regarding the opposition parties) during a economic crisis....(huh? Can't have it both ways). Our parliament is done until January 26th. A governor general who, ah, what the hell - what was she thinking? The government themselves make something unnecessarily a matter of confidence, then come crying that the others have ganged up on them and... - this should have gone to a vote in parliament. What is she thinking will happen Jan 26th on the budget itself?

So, as you see. Canadian politics have been very entertaining. I'll add the last twist.

I think Stephan Harper might be a separatist. Harsh words, but he's really lambasted this coalition government idea as the Bloc (his buddies over the past 3 years, I might add) would be part of the coalition. He's been calling them separatist ever since with very strong language. No words minced. Bloc = Separatist= bad = all those people in Quebec who voted those Bloc folks in are bad...
Co-incidentally, Quebec is on the eve of a provincial election. Dec 8th I believe. Of course, the provincial Conservative party is trying to win, but after all this slamming of the Bloc by the federal Conservative party...well...folks are not happy. Likely boosting and fueling the separatist support, I'd suspect. After that outburst, if they weren't separatist, well, who'd blame them...

Which is why I think Mr. Harper is really a separatist. Not about Quebec though. Alberta's all up in arms about, well, I'm not sure they know why exactly, but they've been told this is not democratic and this is the east trying to run the show, so they are up in arms.....with Mr Harper, the Reform...er Conservative party leader at the helm. I think Mr. Harper wants to leave Canada, and take Alberta with him. Maybe? Who knows? Looks fishy to me though, but yes, just an opinion.

or maybe it's just that ego thing. He didn't get that "in the bag" majority, mostly due to the Bloc, so slam them now.....

As for the opposition, I really don't know what to say about them. Hire a PR person? There were two televised messages last night. One from Mr. Harper and the Conservatives, then other from the "coalition", namely the Liberals. The "coalition" need to learn to tape their message with something other than a cell phone (hey, that's what it looks like) and to maybe get it to the TV studios in time...and I've been told if you see the books behind Stephan Dion, there is one called Hot Air...people, people, people...This coalition looks like it wouldn't last 6 months.....

Really. Maybe we should give Elizabeth May and the Green Party a shot. They may not have won any seats, but at least they sound grounded, sane and CANADIAN. Canadian. Sounds nice doesn't it?

Canadian politics. Entertaining at any rate. But don't worry, we are so far ahead of the curve this global economic downturn won't affect us.....immune we are...... :)

Star Wars vs. Star Trek

And in the small things amuse small minds category, I found this entertaining.....

http://gizmodo.com/5099748/star-trek-vs-star-wars-the-final-battle