Did you know that Valentine’s Day was established in A.D. 496 by Pope Gelasius I to celebrate love and affection between intimate couples?  As you can see, it was initially a holiday that was not based in any sort of commercialism; that did not occur until the nineteenth century with the sending of cards.  The 1960′s brought on the sending of flowers, and the holiday is the second busiest of the year for the flower industry, second only to Mother’s Day.

Sometimes, the fact that you are “supposed” to get flowers or some sort of loving gift for your beloved bothers me.  Why should it be on this day that you have to profess your love for your significant other, and then follow it up with a gift of some sort?  Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy giving – but I don’t think that it should be on this particular day.  Make it a day that is significant to the both of you, or better yet – how about a random day?  Just show up with flowers, a box of chocolate, or anything else that might tickle your fancy.

In any event, that’s my rant pretty much any year.  Now – onto better news.

This year, my Valentine’s Day was the best one yet.  The details are private – but I had a great time with a bunch of people who are close to me.  We did the usual Valentine’s stuff, but we also had a great time shopping in Buffalo, and dining out at Quaker Steak and Famous Dave’s.

I’m sure everyone has heard about this clown by now.  Potentially tossing away his career because he decided that having weapons in the United States capital was the cool thing to do.

Good job, Gilbert.  The world marvels at your stupidity.  Arenas would rather store guns in his locker rather than in his house because he has children.  But I guess – making somewhere around 14 million dollars a year – he can’t afford a gun safe.

Maybe its the culture that he grew up in, I don’t know.  But the blame falls on his shoulders and nobody elses.

Why is it that you always see NBA and NFL stars in legal trouble?  Rarely do you see the same type of infractions with respect to players in MLB and the NHL.

The devastation in Haiti right now is terrible.  70,000 people (and counting) are dead, there is no water, no food, and very little in the way of safe shelter or medical support.  It is truly a sad thing, yet perhaps out of all this pain and suffering happiness can result.

Haiti has always been a poor country that was long ignored by the world.  The people suffered through the Duvalier regime and various unstable governments after the dictators were finally ousted.  Yet up until now nobody has ever given a damn about the Hatian people.  Ordinary people, celebrities, nor foreign government have ever taken up the Haitian cause.  It just wasn’t a cause celebre.

Hopefully the world can pitch in and not only rebuild Haiti, but invest in the country.  Put her citizens to work, train them.  Give them new skills by which they can be productive.  It’s the only way that the country has a hope of surviving.  Providing aid is a short term solution.  Investing in the country is a long term strategy that will eventually pay dividends.

Oftentimes, I sit back and wonder what the world is coming to.  Not necessarily from an “it’s all going to end” standpoint, but rather a “the more information that we have and the laws that we make” perspective.  Let me point out some examples grabbed from recent headlines.

Ok…airport scanners.  Full body airport scanners.  Shades of the movie “Total Recall” come to mind.  If you want to have some fun peel a big potato and put it in your pants.   But seriously, folks.  All it took was a lunatic with his underwear full of explosives.  I understand the need for airline security, and the scanners do not bother me.  It’s not like all the security people are going to be huddled around it looking at an x-ray of everyone.  The funny thing is that Isreal, a country that has a daily legitimate terrorist threat, has no plans to implement these machines in their airports.

It’s time for a little bit of history.  An Isreali airline has not been hijacked since 1972.  Since then, no attempts have been made.  You have to wonder why…and here is where we get a little politically incorrect.  Isreal is always under fire for racially profiling Arabs.  Sometimes it is justified, other times it is not.  Isreal has no issues singling out Arabs for extra scrutiny prior to boarding a plane (ironically, the hijacking in 1972 was by the Japanese Red Army).  They look at people, as much as the baggage.  People who are nervous, or uptight.  The security is very tight, and not often visible.  Over here, in Canada and the United States, were are trying to use technology to compensate for the fact that we do not wish to eyeball certain races a little more carefully than others.  Now – how to you not justify inconveniencing certain ethnic groups when it comes to saving lives?  To do otherwise in my humble opinion is downright foolish.

Speaking of airlines, Air Canada has been directed to offer “peanut-free zones” by the Canadian Transportation Agency, as people who have peanut-related allergies are now considered disabled.  In as much as I have sympathy for someone who has nut allergy, methinks that this is going a bit too far.  Does that mean that obese people are disabled too, and should be given two seats (for the price of one)?  Of course not – which means that the person sitting beside the abnormally large human is inconvenienced and uncomfortable throughout the entire flight.  What if two fat people somehow have side-by-side seats?  I can see where this is going.  In fifty years the airplane will be broken up into all these little sections for individuals with special needs, leaving no room for the people who do not have any problems.

Speaking of peanut allergies, when did these come to pass?  I don’t ever remember notifications of peanut zones when I was a child.  Eating peanuts in school was commonplace, and nobody had anaphylaxis or required an emergency injection of epinephrine.  I really think that the peanut allergies have been severely exaggerated by way of all the media sensationalism.  I have an allergy to Lysol.  It is not something that kills me when I breathe the air in which it has been sprayed, but my eyes water and my nose runs – both of which cause me discomfort.  Does that mean that when I fly I should insist on a Lysol-free zone in the airplane?  Of course not!  Maybe I’m being a little insensitive, but I have never been much of a fan of multiple special interest groups all looking out for their own narrow interests.

Up next is the story of a teenager in London Ontario who made a homemade bomb.  The story is sad.  He did not want to harm anyone but himself, and thankfully it was stopped before he managed to do himself any harm.  It took police a number of hours to deactivate the bomb, and for safety reasons they had to evacuate thirty homes.  The police chief is placing the blame on the Internet.

This is what bothers me.  If there was no Internet do you think that would have stopped the kid from trying to kill himself?  No!  He would have used a gun, or maybe he would have hung himself.  Using that same logic, does that mean that we can blame the Library of Congress because Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons and enriching uranium (It was in the library that Saddam’s scientists researched and copied (legally) the plans to build a calutron)?  If you want to blame someone (and I do not believe in this case there should be any blame spread around), look at the people around him.  Friends, teachers, family…nobody noticed anything strange?

Regardless, placing blame is something we as a society seem to do very well.  Everyone always wants to place the blame for any problem or situation on someone else.  It reminds me of a quotation out of the movie Rising Sun, a movie where Sean Connery plays John Connor, a world weary ex-cop deeply entrenched in Japanese culture.  The quote is “The Japanese have a saying, “Fix the problem, not the blame.  Find out what’s fucked up and fix it.”  Nobody gets blamed.  We’re always after who fucked up. Their way is better.”  Management 101 – It’s a very simple concept that is all too often not applied.

Wow…Almost a month between posts.  That was not supposed to happen, however I have been most busy and updating the personal blog sadly fell somewhat by the wayside.  It has been good, though.  For the most part, I’ve kept myself out of trouble and accomplished quite a bit, especially leading into Christmas.

Anyone and everyone who knows me understands well how much I enjoy the holiday season.  It is, despite the occasional storm, a wonderful time of the year.  Yes, there is a lot of commercialization (and a little note to Costco – September is much too early for Christmas gear to be on sale), but that goes hand in hand with the season.  You can choose not to participate in any sort of gift giving and still have a great time with your family and friends.

I however, choose to give out presents.  I like seeing the faces of people light up when they have a gift to open.  Especially children.  It warms my heart and is something that I truly look forward to.

One of the reasons that I have not updated recently is due to the fact that I have been putting in a lot of overtime at work.  I have been good about it; usually around 2-5 hours a night so that I do not burn myself out.  At my previous job I had that happen a couple of times and the effect is not at all pleasureable.  You walk around in a haze and you have a constant headache.  Furthermore, you are less effective once you pass the daily workload of eight hours (so studies say, and I would concur with them).  In order to have some extra time off at Christmas, with pay, the lieu time has to be put in.  My goal is to get enough time in so as to have a paid summer holiday as well.

Christmas shopping has taken up a decent amount of time too.  I enjoy it, but venturing out to stores, checking sales, and scouring the Internet take time.  I have found some great products at some great prices this year though, so I’m happy.  I always tend to overspend at Christmas, but such is life.  I like to find gifts that people will enjoy and appreciate as opposed to giving out cash, gift certificates, or something equally impersonal.

I came across something the other day that I found very inspirational.  Has anyone ever heard of a gentleman named Randy Pausch?  Randy was a tenured professor at Carnegie-Mellon University and pioneered some simply amazing software.  However, he was more known for his “Last Lecture.”  I will not spoil it for you, but I urge you to take the time to watch it.  The first video is the short version of the talk that he gave on “Oprah.”  The second video is the full speech that he gave at Carnegie-Mellon University.

I have to admit, this talk brought a tear to my eye.

In other news, Tiger Woods is the biggest item in the news right now.  It has been pretty much confirmed everywhere that Tiger was unfaithful to his wife on more than one occasion.  There is mystery surrounding his car crash, and exactly what has transpired.  Personally speaking, I don’t care.  The man is worth over a billion dollars, most of which are from endorsements.  What he does outside of golf makes for great tabloid fodder, especially in light of the fact that Tiger is not generally considered media-friendly.  As a result, the media probably has it out for him a bit.  I’m sure A-Rod, Barry Bonds, Mike Tyson, and all the other sports celebrities that do not have the best of reputations are silently saying a prayer of thanks to Tiger Woods for taking the heat off of them.

Tiger should have handled this the way David Letterman did.  Letterman had an affair, and is notoriously public shy.  Yet he handled it the right way.  He went on his show, spilled the beans, took a bit of flak, and poked some humor at himself.  Guess what happened?  His ratings went up, his public approval went up, and the media went away.

That’s about it for now…I’m sure I’ll think of more later though.

It’s been one year since I started this blog.  I have had blogs before, however the posts were all kept private.  Perhaps, if there is interest I will open up the archives and post some of the older entries.  I have had this domain for over ten years, but this past year has been the first that it has been aggressively promoted and used.

Initially, the beginnings were humble – to post my thoughts, opinions, and ideas about the things that interest me and are noteable in the world at large.  Keep the format simple and easy to read.  I have been tentatively sketching out plans to expand the domain somewhat.  I will keep them under my hat for now…but changes are coming.  Looking forward, my goal is to update somewhat more frequently than I have been (not that I have been doing a shabby job), as well as finish off my biography (which is more of a mood thing).  Furthermore, I would like to start adding some photos – and make the site somewhat more visually friendly.

Today is also Remembrance Day – please take some time and give thought to all those who fought for the rights and freedoms that we enjoy today.  Never forget the horror of war, and hope that you yourself never have to experience it.  It reminds me of a poem I once read by William Owen.  Most people my age are not familiar with it.  It was originally written as a letter to Jessie Pope (a pro-war poet) in 1917, describing the agony of the soldiers fighting in the First World War, and is famous primarily due to its horrifying imagery.  The title of the poem is Dulce et Decorum Est – a play on words of the famous pro-war poem of Horace.  I have copied it below:

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Happy belated Halloween!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  No, it’s not because I enjoy eating candy (although I do), but rather I like seeing the kids (and even the adults) get dressed up and have a good time.  I think its also good for community building, as it lets you meet your neighbors and be friendly with one another.  Despite the cold weather (as it was rather windy this year), people get out and have fun.  Last but not least, it’s great exercise.  It’s not often you can get me to walk around in the cold outside for three hours.

Despite my conspiracy-theorish thoughts that Halloween was a holiday invented by dentists to increase business, the holiday actually has its roots based in the Celtic festival of Samhain.  It was a celebration to mark the end of summer.  It was also a celebration to honour your ancestors and ward off evil spirits.  To ward off these spirits, one had to dress up as a harmful spirit in order to fool them to avoid being hurt.

The Celts used to carve out large turnips for their Halloween festivals.  The practice of carving out pumpkins did not take place until the mid-1800′s, as the gourds were in far more plentiful supply at the time (in addition, the tradition was associated with harvest time, not Halloween).

Today, Geocities was shut down.  Geocities was an institution.  Those of us who have been surfing the Internet for a long time remember it fondly.  If you wanted to publish a website, Geocities was where you went.  It was quick, it was easy, and did not require you to know much HTML or Javascripting.  Mind you, this was back in the day that HTML coding was done in Notepad or some other text editor.

While I never had a Geocities website (I have always published on my own domain, quite sporadically until about a year ago), I have surfed to probably hundreds, if not thousands of them.  I would jump from community to community, webring to webring.  These were the days before Wikipedia, or Flash.  The days of dialup…the early nineties…waiting for websites to appear…staying up until all hours of the night…the Internet was a collection of hobbyists…there was no commercialization, except for the porn sites…

We complain about the lack of speed now, but we were happy with 56k.  It was ok for a page to take 20 seconds to load.  Now our attention span has decreased that if that page takes more than 5 seconds to appear, we are gone.

Those were the days.

The Ontario Government is suing the large tobacco companies for fifty billion dollars.  They want to recoup the costs of healthcare for the past fifty years.  The government has accused the companies of misleading people about the health risks of the product.

Now – first and foremost – I have never been a big fan of smoking.  I can see absolutely no positive benefits of taking up this habit.  It makes people stink.  It’s addictive.  It’s unhealthy.  It’s expensive.  However, in so saying that, I also believe in an individuals right to choose.  If that person chooses to smoke and by doing so is not offending anyone else or subjecting them to any health risk, then by all means light up.

It does seem very hypocritical of the government, however.  They could just ban smoking outright, ridding themselves of the health care costs.  However, they choose to educate the people, restrict advertising, and otherwise legislate the industry.  They also collect taxes from the sale of cigarettes.  They do the same with alcohol, yet there is no lawsuit pending.  Why?  If you go after one industry, then why not all of them?

There is precedent, however.  All fifty U.S. States successfully sued the U.S. tobacco industry and won an out of court settlement for $247 billion dollars.  A significant amount of money, but you have to take into consideration that the United States has ten times the population of Canada.  Ontario represents about a quarter of the Canadian population.  Doing some quick math, Ontario could expect about six billion dollars if the case is settled out of court.

To ease the burden on the health care system, my solution would be to have smokers sign away their right to free health care for any medical issues resulting from their smoking.  As it should be their right to choose whether or not to light a cigarette, it should be our right to choose to not have to pay for the consequences of their actions.