Technologicalities

Okay, so I am, right this very minute, trying (well the ol' lenovo notebook's a'chuggin along) to render a file into an mpeg, using Premiere Pro, so that I can upload it, to YouTube I suppose. This is all so complicated. There must be easier ways to do it. Anyway, once I've got the file rendered, I'll learn how to upload it to YouTube, which will probably mean another unsavoury technologicality - creating an account, or channel! I'll have to add yet another piece of myself to the web. Sigh. Why do these things bother me? Why just the other day I had to create a yahoo account in order to view something they offered. I think I've already forgotten my email address and password. How much of this me-ness is floating about out there? There are so many bits of you and me out there ... well I just don't know. Whatever the case, I'm off the see if I've successfully made an mpeg, and then to see how much of a hassle it is to make a YouTube account, and then to upload, hopefully, the mpeg, so that I can link it to here. As Bugs says, "What a maroon!"

Ride in         Temp 9'C Wind 40+ks NW (whew!)
Ride home   Temp 15'C Wind 20 ks NW (ahhhh!)

Postscript: Fail. No audio.

Sometimes in 30 minutes ...

... you can do more and do better than you did over a few months. Today I witnessed such a phenomenon. Renae and Andrea wanted more to do. To be accurate, they had more to do, but they wanted something different to do. They wondered about it. Maybe they could do something else, they asked. Maybe they could do more improv on Hamlet. Well, they had me because the improv work they'd done on Hamlet before was pretty fine. So I said yes. Then they needed a suggestion. Or rather, they wondered if I had one. I looked at them. I thought of Ophelia. I thought of Juliet. I wondered about Lady Macbeth. I suggested that they develop a short scene in which Ophelia meets one of these two Shakespearian women. They looked at each other. Smiled. Said that this idea sounded pretty decent, and headed out into the hallway to prepare. In about 30 minutes they came back into class and said they were ready. Ready? I said. Now? Yup, they said. So, All right, I said. But I said we'd need to record it in some way. For posterity. Well Renae had a camera with a video feature, and enough room on the memory card. So I took the camera and sat and recorded their three minute piece. A conversation between Ophelia and Juliet. If the video turned out, perhaps I'll post it here tomorrow (with their permission). If not, suffice it to say, that between Andrea and Renae, and Tobin's dramatic and flawless "Tis now the very witching hour ..." rendition, it was a class for the ages! Well, at least for the semester!

Ride in        Temp 12'C Wind SW 5 ks
Ride home  Temp 19'C Wind SSE 13 ks

Tryin' the other side of the boat

This will be necessarily brief (time keeps on tickin' tickin' tickin' into the future ...). The weekend unfolded as follows:
Saturday
- Leave COOP parking lot at 7 AM.
- Travel (thank the Lord for GPS, 'cause  I think everyone in the truck forgot how to read a map!) to Caribou Falls Lodge via Rosenfeld, Morris, St Pierre, Mitchell, Steinbach, St. Anne, Hadashville, Falcon Lake, West Hawk, Minaki (well, we drove past the turnoff). 4 hours.
- Unload and settle into the cabins.

- Get the gear out and ready in the boats while we wait for lunch.
- Eat a fish fry lunch in the Lodge.

- Get into the boats and fish (I catch 8: 2 jacks, 5 Walleyes,  1 Whitefish). I get the hang of feeling the bottom and jigging.

- Head back to the lodge for supper (coleslaw, pork ribs, wild rice, cauliflower with cheese).
- 6 guys head out to fish for another 2 hours; 3 guys (including me) hang around and chat.
- Poker (Kevin wins, Curwin second, Rick third).
- Sleep ... sort of.

Sunday
- Up at 6:30 AM for coffee.
- Breakfast at 7 AM - a full bacon and eggs and hash browns and Red River cereal and toast affair.
- Fish from 8 to 12 (I catch 11: 5 jacks, 6 Walleyes) - we each keep to Walleyes for the shore lunch.

- Shore lunch. WOW! Beer battered fish, beans, cubed potatoes, corn, beer. CaRbOhYdRaTeS! (and a good thing too, what with all that wind and sun and sitting, while the guides did EVERYTHING! - Like I mean netting and unhooking the fish, rebaiting your hook, or retying your jig ... everything! Crazy!)

- Fish from 2 to 5:30 (I catch: 3 jacks, 4 Walleyes, for a grand total of 26 fish - probably the lowest catch of the weekend ... some guys caught 50 or more! The biggest jack - 31 inches (Jim); The biggest Walleye - 27 inches (Curwin)).
- Pack up.


- Supper at 6:30 PM - Salad (the first one of the weekend!), turkey, cranberry sauce (the birthday boy just loves the stuff), potatoes and gravy, stuffing, and New York cheese cake for dessert. Whew.
- Head out before 8 PM.
- 15 minutes out, come across a car in the ditch (you should have seen this ditch!). We stop. We advise. We push. We push some more. We get out the tow rope. The truck pulls. The car's out.
- We drive along with the car to the next community, to make sure they make it home.
- This adds close to an hour to the trip, but we are better people for it ... right!??
- Drive. Get home at just after 1 AM.
- Unload. Brush teeth.
- Pack for work in the morning.
- Sleeping by 2 ish.

Today
- Soccer practice at 7:15 AM.
- Still need to shave.
- Drink a fair amount of coffee.
- Feel the heat rising off of my sunburnt nose.
- Still manage to enjoy the day.
- Thanks kids. You are the best.

Ride in         Temp 11'C Wind S 5 ks
Ride home   Temp 22'C Wind SE 10 ks

Gone fishin ...

So today I'm packin' up some gear (thanks Tobin!) to get ready to go on a fishin' trip with some boys tomorrow and Sunday. Sounds like a dream. Sounds like good times. Sounds like what it sounds like. As a man who generally hasn't found fishin' to be the most heart-thumpin' adrenalin-pumpin' activity, this weekend will test my zen practice. Ommmm. I'm gettin' ready. Mentally I mean. If I can just manage the sound and smell of a powerboat, I think I'll be okay.

When we (the family) head out for the lake we pack our gear and food into backpacks (big ones) and we tie our canoes onto the roof of the vehicle. After we drive, we paddle the canoes, hoist and portage the packs, pitch and sleep in tents, and enjoy the fatigue that comes after some good hard physical work. It's great to take your mind off of the buzz and gadgets of life and focus on the work of travel using your own body and brain as the primary source of energy and direction for the journey. But this coming weekend I will try to engage the wilderness with more, shall we say, technologized propulsion and direction-finding. As I say, I'm workin' on my zen ... Ommmm.

Ride in        Temp 10'C Wind SE 10 ks
Ride home  Temp 21'C Wind WNW 25 ks

Ditch digging

Some days a job comes upon you like a thief in the night. Or, in this case, like trench mouth. The pools on our yard, from the abundance of water from the skies over these past weeks forced me out onto the land, or rather, the swamp, with my trusty spade (the little one that Paul and Karl mocked - works for me). So I dug, I trenched, I hacked tree roots, and removed sod. From about the chicken coop to the ditch in front of the yard I excavated, and finally the water flowed. Here are a few pictures of my plowing. (Is my team ploughing? No, it was just me. No team this time, Mr. Housman.)

Of course, it was raining while I was digging, and when I finished, the rain stopped. Classic. Like washing the car. It probably won't rain tonight now either. My little trench dance will have warded off the rain spirits. All you farmers with wet fields out there, you can thank me if it doesn't rain for the next few days. For that matter, you can blame me if it does. We all need scapegoats. I'll take my turn.

Ride in        Temp 10'C Wind NW 10ks
Ride home  Temp 20'C Wind SE 20ks

Paper hearts burn easy

This sentimentalish mocku-docu-mentary about love, or one woman's disbelief in it, has moments, but on balance just never gets going. Charlyne Yi, a young comedian, doesn't believe in love. She doesn't really go into why, except that it's never really worked for her. Her friend Jake proposes to document a series of interviews in which she searches for "love" as other people have experienced it. These interviews are quirky and at times more than just cute. If this would have continued to be the centre of the film, with some editing and focus, they might have had something (Just keep it under 90 minutes please!).

However, along the way Charlyne bumps into Michael Cera at, what appears to be, an "everyday" party in LA. Charlyne claims to not really like him that first time, but you and I know immediately that this is going to turn into something. Why else would Cera be listed on the bill? Well it's not a complete bait and switch, but it's a disingenuous premise nontheless. Once Cera's on-screen, we're really only interested in the scenes that he's in, which isn't nearly all of them. Overall there are some funny exchanges between him and Charlyne, but really it feels like a high end, self-indulgent, extended YouTube video.

If this is supposed to be some sort of postmodern piece that is semi-critical of modern romance, and/or ambiguous about the "set-up" of acting and filming, and/or the intrusion of the camera into everyday life, well some might be interested. Not me. Of course love at first sight is possible, but unlikely. Of course everything we watch on screen is a set-up - it's "theatre" (thhhhee-Ah-TAh). Of course you can't have an intimate relationship with the camera's rolling 24/7. What kind of naivete does it take to even consider this as possible? Every celebrity marriage fails. There are celebrities who have lasting marriages, but that's always when one of them isn't continually in the media eye. So Charlyne, if you'd really loved Michael, you'd have stopped shooting the film, and done what you needed to do. As it is, you tried for both - a good film and some lovin' - and got neither. Hopefully, while doing it, you learned that you can't multi-task and do both things very well. Especially falling in love and making a film.

Ride in            Temp 12'C Wind SW 15ks
Ride home      Temp 21'C Wind NNW 10ks

Spring is in the air

Tonight was a grand ol' time in the ol' Buhler Hall - aka Johnny's Aud?itorium?? (The Aud Johnny?). The W.C. Miller Collegiate music students treated the full house to their repertoire of upbeat, Springy tunes. Highlights were: Zoot Suit Riot, Dizzy Fingers (DK!!), Take a Chance on Me (ABBA), Somebody to Love (Queen) (JF!!), Call Me (Blondie), Don't Stop Believin' (Journey) (LA!!), Orange-Coloured Sky (MH!!), & Superstition (Wonder). And there was so much more!

The evening was refreshingly secular. If you liked the popular music of the 20th Century, you'd have found something to love tonight. Thanks so much guys! I'm glad I spent the evening this way.