Challenge!

My wife and blogger extraordinaire has issued a lovely photograph-challenge to her fellow bloggers, as per this challenge from Hostel Bookers 7 Super Shots. I love a challenge, so I accepted this one without a foggy clue what I was going to do. So the challenge is this:

1. Choose 7 of your own photos, one for each of the following categories:
    A photo that…takes my breath away
    A photo that…makes me laugh or smile
    A photo that…makes me dream
    A photo that…makes me think
    A photo that…makes my mouth water
    A photo that…tells a story
    A photo that…I am most proud of (aka my worthy of National Geographic shot)
2. Write a short description for each image.
3. Write somewhere in your blog post: ‘I am taking part in HostelBookers 7 Super Shots‘.
4. Tell us you have participated and tweet the hashtag #7SuperShots
5. Nominate 5 other bloggers by including a link to their blog in your post.

We will be retweeting and sharing the best posts from participating bloggers.

A photo that takes my breath away:

I love this shot, out on the bay of Quinte in January. Gorgeous. Water and air and sunlight.

A photo that makes me smile or laugh (or two photos):

Ah, Daisy. She makes me smile, and laugh. She's such a clown. Or, as it were, a pelican. Chacun son gout.

A photo that makes me dream:

I have dreams about operating cranes all the time. I miss it. There's a kind of motive poetry to getting it right, as if the universe falls into place, and things make sense. Lord knows I'm missing that lately too.

A photo that makes me think:

Where are we going with all this noise and confusion and building and driving?

A photo that makes my mouth water:

Mmmm ... steak...


A photo that tells a story:

In all the journeys we've been on together, I never thought Owen would be so active and happy. That, in itself, is a story of success.


A photo that I am most proud of (aka my worthy of National Geographic shot):

I am also cheating on this nomination, as my wife did, as I don't know many bloggers well enough to pull them into a tangled web of photos and lost time at the computer, but I will say I have known Schmutzie a very long time, and would love to see her entries!

 My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake

And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
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For those reading Seven Gates

I just realized that instead of sending these maps to everyone who's reading the novel, and then re-sending if they get lost or whatever, that posting them on my blog would probably be the best way to make them accessible for anyone to look up at will. So, here they are.

This is the 'Fertile Crescent, aka modern Iraq, Syria, and the Levant, with Iran at right., Saudi Arabia at bottom.

This is the close up shown in the box above.

My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:

Cleverly Disguised as Cake

And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:

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You can fool all of the bugs some of the time...

So here's the Canadian dilemma. You want to go camping in your regular old van, or you want to go to the drive-in theatre, and you have a choice. You leave the windows closed on those hot, muggy nights, and you boil, or you open them and all the bugs come in to eat you alive. We used to bring mosquito netting, to try to drape, or we'd all hide in the trailer, crammed in while the van was useless, or at the drive-in, we'd put up with cracked windows, and the inevitable critters that found their way in.

Not any more. Here is how you bug-proof a van, or at least how we did it chez Sprung this year for our trip to the Mustang Drive-in of Prince Edward County fame.

First, I scrounged around, and found an old play tent that the kids trashed last year, and for which there were no poles. I took two relatively hole-free sections of the netting part of the tent, and cut them to fit both the back cargo door, and the front passenger side. What we're aiming for here is a flow-through. You don't have to do every window, or even opposing windows, just the ones that let you catch a breeze on opposite ends of the van.

Next, a Canadian must-have .... duct tape. This is the only tape that will stick well to those inside portions of the van without leaving residue, and also will not let go part way through the movie.

For the front passenger door, we use the duct-tape to tack the netting in place. For the upper and side 'door portions' of the net, as we close the door, the door seals those portions.

For the bottom and side, once it's tacked, we use packing tape to seal the whole edge. The packing tape is only there to sit against the upholstery. Why? Well, using duct tape all across makes it impossible to re-use on the next outing, and if any bugs do get through on the inside and bottom portions of the window, it's such a tight fit that they will stick to the packing tape before squeezing their way through.

Then we close the door, and, voila, the front door is done.

Next I cut the zipper portion of the tent, and fitted it to the cargo door of the van. (That way, if there's an emergency washroom exit required, we can still use the zipper to get in and out.)

The rear section is not sealed the whole way around, but folded around the entry, and tacked with duct tape. With this, we want to use tension to keep the netting folded over the edges of the opening. That's why it's important to make it somewhat tight through those sections.  Keep in mind it's not a perfect seal, so it won't work if kids are bumping against it, or if a very strong breeze blows up. With limited duct-tape, I didn't seal the whole thing, but under good conditions that's not necessary anyway.

Voila. Sealed front and rear entry, and done in a way that you don't have to fiddle with it. You close it up, drive where you're going, pop the door, open the window, and you're ready to eat popcorn and enjoy the show, or the snooze, whichever it may be.


The website for the Mustang is here.

May 24, 2012

As an addendum, I thought you would all like to know how well it went. In a word: Awesome! It's too bad we only stayed for the kid's feature, as that took them too late into the night, but perhaps Jenn and I will get a babysitter sometime soon and do the all-nighter!

As it was, we were cool, comfortable, and not 'bugged' at all. Many strangers came by to tell us what a great idea it was, and there were even a few who said we should patent the idea! (Sorry, it's been done, there is a company that will custom-fit to your vehicle....)

My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake

And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
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Communication

Whether or not we participate in the online world, social media is in the process of revolutionizing the way we communicate. People now can follow up-to-the-second tweets of the debates in Queens Park or the
House of Commons, from their Unions, from companies, and marketing campaigns or can input their ideas about marketing or history to those most interested to read them. We now get news before the news agencies, and media before it is released.

One of the successes of the online world is that it is easy to participate in forums. Barriers everywhere are being broken down. This gives us all have a great responsibility as moderators of these forums. The task can sometimes seem gargantuan for institutions just bringing themselves online, just as it is difficult for individuals taking their first steps on the Internet. Where once government, policing, and medicine seemed removed, and people's voices small, now we are being invited to input our experiences, ideas, and beliefs.

Just by creating a forum in which we have so many opinions and ideas being expressed, we are inviting conflict. I think one of the great successes of the Internet, which could very well end up being its great failing, is the way in which we deal with the conflict we inevitably run into. 'Trolling' is as important online as bullying is in our schools, and sometimes the two are intertwined.

How do we, as a society, ensure that the lessons we learn from conflict lead to success? As I learned in customer service many years ago, behind every yelling customer is an opportunity to improve. I learned to be willing to listen to difficult people, and that attitude has served me ever since. If, in any industry, we are to open communication with the public who use our services, then we must understand that the information we glean is worthless unless we can change the way we think about our systems. If it means listening to, or reading a rant about why we have failed someone, then we should do so with an eye for their motivation. If we can muse about the reasons that suggestions and comments are made, we all benefit, while fostering an entire culture of fanatical self-improvement, no matter how trollish it may be voiced.

It goes both ways. As users of the system, any system whether it be Government, Union, or corporate, we have to know that institutions cannot embrace every change. It's not about pointing out fault, but about finding better ways to do what is right. We have to be understanding of the challenges of those who receive our input.

In soliciting from the public, whether we work in a hospital, in  government, for a Union, or in a business, we all have to be willing to accept that social media may, and well should, change our system in ways that we do not anticipate. We are not relinquishing control, but instead empowering a type of 'cloud thinking', in which, instead of waiting for that big break idea that solves every problem in one fell swoop, we rely on the accumulated brain power of many minds and many different sets of eyes approaching any problem as a whole, each one doing as much as they can so we can all benefit.

For this to work, as end users we have to know that our ideas may not be implemented for any number of logistical reasons. That rejection, should it happen, cannot be the root of hard feelings, which I believe are the roots of trolling. The communication model should instead be a stepping stone to a better understanding of the challenges that Governments, Institutions, and Professionals face every day, so that we can be more involved with giving them a helping hand, or mind, in very difficult situations.

My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake

And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
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Open letter to the labor movement.

Brothers and Sisters,

I have noticed in the media recently that the argument for globalization is 'fait accompli', understood to benefit every country in the world. I was recently told that protectionism is a remnant of our xenophobic past. So I pose the question here, to you. Is globalization a good thing, helping spread human rights through increased trade and wealth, or is it as the occupy movement has suggested, simply a ploy for multinationals to dodge human rights, while enjoying the insanely marked up profits on their products?

We see the effects of globalization locally in our own culture every day. Plant closures, cheaper products being made overseas and shipped here, while we max ourselves out on credit, and our middle class disappears. We see that wages in North America have stagnated since 1979, but the profits of the corporations have grown exponentially since then. In 2010, of the wealth that was generated in our economy, a full 98% went to the top five percent of income earners. The rest of us got nothing.

Yet, there are rumblings from the countries where these products are produced. One New York Times report about factories in Shenzhen, China talked of worker conditions of those producing Foxconn chips for Apple products. Their findings included “evidence of a high number of suicides, overworked and underage  employees, and a pattern of safety lapses. One problem involved a repeated failure to control aluminum dust, which resulted in multiple explosions that killed or injured dozens of workers.”

This is just one example in which workers have no say in their hours of work, conditions of work, including safety from chemicals and hazards, nor in their rates of pay.

How long can we pretend that these people are the problem, and not part of the solution? These are not people who want to join existing unions, who own two cars, three televisions, and a duplex in the suburbs. They live in dormitories ten or fifteen workers to a room, with fifty people sharing one bathroom, with their days and nights ruled by the factory clock. During the genesis of Communism, Unions were among the first institutions to be banned, their supporters killed. Unions are not even a distant memory for most workers, average people in a situation they cannot palate, thinking of a way out. For many that way out is suicide. Does that sound like an enemy, or someone who needs a helping hand? We have to stop identifying them as the threat, and place the blame where it really lies.

Many of us in North America have forgotten the roots of our Unions. The men and women of my great grandfather’s generation did not have these rights we enjoy, and they put their lives on the line for them. In the Cripple Creek Miner's strike in Colorado of 1894, Pinkerton agents fired bullets into the tents where the families of the striking miners slept. The strikers were beaten, their families beaten, and many killed, and there was no protection. Still they fought on. This fight is not new, and it is far from over.


Yet I have hope that as we progress, the power of corporations over people is simply a trend. In a worst case scenario, even if we lose this in North America, and Unions are outright disbanded, let's say even globally, which is the ultimate aim of the Corporate world, there is still much hope. Why? Because the Unions are not in the legislation that protects them. They are not in the bricks and paperwork, nor in the Agreements they sign with companies. No, we are the Unions, not their executives, or the bylaws, or the constitutions. We are people who care about others. To completely get rid of Unions, governments would have to break the will of people to better their lives and the lives of their fellows.

It is human nature that people band together to fight for rights. We should take heart that there is a greater trend toward democratization, because the protection and chartering, and creation of Unions is, in essence, the democratization of that very basic genesis of workers banding together. Democracy is the wave that Unions ride. Someone else, in the future would take up this cause, just as is happening in other countries.

China is going to be the next battleground for labour rights. It already has a multi-billion dollar smartphone and tablet PC market, major industrial capacity, and the largest construction sector in the world. However, they are not alone. India is the fastest growing economy in the world, and with near one billion people, is struggling to institute its own universal health care system and to clean up its Parliament from its dictatorial past.

Because of globalization, what we do here, on our own little island, is not enough. We are part of a global economy that gives the multinationals many safe havens. In every country that has no Unions, and no Labour laws, they are free to do what they like, to pile up profits that they can then use as leverage to push 'right to work' legislation. Their pockets, lined with the money that is stolen from these workers in other nations, are deeper than you can imagine. The money that should be going to these workers is instead being used to buy off politicians worldwide. The profits will not dry up unless we are willing to break this cycle, and if we do not break this cycle, we will end up with corporations dictating our fate.

So to answer the first question, I don't believe globalization is in itself a bad thing. It is a trend, a natural progression. How can that be bad? It just is. No, the real question that should be asked about our future is this:
Will we let multinational corporations use globalization to their advantage, to dismantle our rights and regress us to another form of worldwide slavery, or will we make it work for us?

I challenge you to take this fight to them. If they think they can hide in Indonesia, let us then go to Indonesia to help our brothers and sisters there to improve their conditions. In China, let's break through the great firewall. Let us avoid no country. Where there is no Labour law allowing collective bargaining, let's help them lobby for one. Where there is no health and safety act, let's help them write one. Where there is no unity, let's help them unite.

We will need to identify countries who have Labour Laws, and Unions, to open the dialogue and share resources. We need to reach out to the countries where existing movements struggle, to allow them to see what we’ve accomplished in over a century in our own struggle. It will give them a roadmap, and a goal.

In countries where there are no Unions, we have to open a dialogue with those politicians who will listen to their workers about labour law. We have to contact the workers themselves, and the families of workers to educate them about the risks, to show them what is possible to achieve.

For us, it will remind us of our difficult roots, to see how others in less tolerant nations are under threat, not just their livelihoods, but sometimes for their lives. We are in this together, and nothing will get better for us here in North America until it gets better for everyone. We need this. If the global economy does not support the trend of Unionization, then we are spinning our wheels. The labor markets and efficiencies of sweatshops will only grow, and we, and our skills, will be left behind. We must take away the ability for corporations to ship jobs elsewhere, where rights don't matter. In doing so we may finally create a global environment where rights matter everywhere, and they will no longer be able to dismantle our social democracies for their profits.

If there is any time in history when we should be putting our resources to help our brothers and sisters in other countries, it is now. In doing so, we may end up saving the Union movement on our own continent.


A sample of my new novel can be found here.

My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake

And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
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Custom pens.

I recently was admiring my friend Duncan's handiwork on the internet, as he makes pens. I looked over some of the gorgeous pens he was building in his shop. He makes pens out of Zebra wood, Buffalo horn, Bird's Eye Maple, Acetate, and other materials. (As an aside, I'm going to try to find him a nice piece of soapstone from our property soon if I can find a block that is good enough quality.)

First I was intrigued in his materials supplier, as at the time I had a friend who was building guitars. This led to a conversation in which I asked him if he could build pens with any size nib. The motivation was that seldom do I find a fine nib that I like, as most manufacturers make a 'fine' nib that is more akin to a 'medium', and a true 'fine' or what some call an 'ultra-fine', is nearly impossible to find. That said, the sizing is not universal, and I have many different nibs that I like to write with for different purposes and different reasons.

Zebra wood (left), and Buffalo horn (right)

I wanted a larger 1940's style pen, an American rather than European style design, with weight to it. Something that was not going to break if dropped, and could take a bit of wear and tear (I am hard on pens) ... and Duncan obliged in taking up my challenge.

Several weeks later, I received in the mail two gorgeous pens, having faith that they would be replacements for the ones I use for my novel writing. They did not disappoint. First of all, they are beautiful. I chose wood that Duncan suggested, as it had sat in a bog in England for four thousand five hundred years. Yes, the wood in them is twenty-five hundred years older than Jesus. It is dark, with a gorgeous grain, and a real old feel to it.

What I also love about these pens is that they are designed and built with writers in mind. Well, actually, with THIS writer in mind. The thickness of the casing makes them heavy in the hand, and helps with my wrists because it gives me much more control than the elegant Waterman or Sheaffer. Elegance I believe comes at a price. These are one of a kind, custom ordered to exactly what I want out of a pen. I specified a larger 1940's style head, which is easy to clean, one trimmed in gold electroplate, and one trimmed in titanium, because Duncan suggested the colour scheme is 'sexy'.

These pens are not just beautiful, but practical, with their easily unscrewed ends, (called, for the purist, a 'blind cap') They are a breeze to refill, without having to remove the outer casing. Just like so:

Why this is important to me is I tend to go through a lot of ink on a project. On a 'normal' pen, like this Sheaffer I use for my red ink editing, the entire casing has to be taken off to refill the ink, which is where the majority of spills happen. With the new reservoir that I bought for the Cross, I discovered its annoying little habit of using a spring in the casing to unscrew the reservoir and release all the ink when you unscrew it to fill it. It was to be my daily lug around and take damage pen, but it was definitely not designed by a writer.

In filling the reservoirs, you need some ink left so that when you unscrew the plunger, to expell the air, you hold the ink at the bottom. Then, when you then flip it to draw the new ink in, it has no air left and the reservoir becomes completely full.

I also love that the caps screw on, instead of just clipping on. When they are this portable, having a screw on cap is a bonus for many obvious reasons.

I took a look into a Mont-Blanc shop in Orlando, where were weren't allowed to take photos. I spied a pen made with a ceramic casing that was about the same size and weight. The price tag? $2800. For that price, it had better damn well clean up the ink and wash my hands afterwards. There is no way on God's green earth that I believe that mechanism is $2700 better than any that I've written with. They are simply bilking people who want them as a status symbol.

At any rate, Duncan has a website, and if you want something unique, and built with care, that will be special and last a lifetime, I suggest you contact him. He doesn't bite, and he's super excited about bringing back real craftsmanship to everday objects, something that we have lost in our modern throwaway world. If you need a list of reasons to convert over to fountain pens from regular pens, there are too many reasons to list here, not simply the elegance and the way they are so good to the environment.

A sample of my new novel can be found here.


My earlier post about pens can be found here.
Fountain of Couth.

My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake

This, also, is a site I stumbled upon about fountain pens, and I find it very useful for understanding their care, construction, repair, and any questions I need answering. Richard's.

And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
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The difference a word makes...

Progressive. "favouring or promoting political or social reform through government action, or even revolution, to improve the lot of the majority."

Of course, there are other definitions to the word Progressive, but I thought I would focus on this one, simply because it has so much relevance to Canada. I remember when the Tories in this country WERE progressive, when the average Conservative worked toward the improvement of life for the average person.

Let me clarify something right off the start here. When I use the term the 'average Conservative', I don't mean the trolls we all call the 'blogging Tories', for whom Steve could do no wrong, nor those whose single hotbutton issue is gun control, or abortion, damn the torpedoes, because it's our only chance at getting this passed. I mean the people who used to support the Conservative party because it WAS Progressive. 

Progressive, at one time, wasn't just in the name, but in the way that the party approached the house of commons and actually worked towards solutions. I think specifically of the 'Port Hopefuls', trying to resurrect the Conservative party after yet another humiliating defeat to the Liberals, who actually put forward a charter that not only held a core belief in free enterprise, but also goals such as full-employment, low-cost housing, trade union rights, as well as a whole range of social security measures, including a government financed medicare system. The Conservatives used to be on board with such ideas, and actively pursuing them.

Shocking as it may seem to a present day Unionist watching the Lisa Raitt steamroller approach to bargaining, and Stephen Harper floating balloons to see how feasable it is to dismantle our Health Care system, Conservatism and Unionism are not mutually exclusive. Nor does conservatism mean government has to get out of the business of running a social welfare state. The last thirty years of Conservatives sharpening their knives in the name of big business profit have made it so. It seems, in the past decades, Libertarian ideals have taken over the agenda of the Centre-Right.

With a drop in the polls from 41% to near 31%, former supporters of the party number in the thousands. They can only face so much criticism before they start to question who they voted for. They cringe and weather the scandals as heavy-hearted as the most stalwart Liberals. It is painful to watch them go from defending the party six months ago, to now, where law after law, scandal after scandal, and having used closure more than any other government in Canada's history, they shrug their shoulders and blow past the subject each time their 'majority' brings in the political club to silence debate. The sheer numbers of voters last election shows a greater interest not because more people were interested in politics, but because more people saw a chance of their pet issue seeing movement. The problem is that with the hot-button issues solved, casual supporters are now looking at the party as a whole.

With two counts of contempt of Parliament, a guilty plea on the 'in and out' scandal, where they violated election spending laws, a robocall crisis blooming out of control, where all indicators point toward their orchestrated involvement, the F-35 crisis narrowly averted by a last minute blink by Julian Fantino, a casual supporter would be hard pressed to find much hope in their party's future.

But they are in power. In addition, a core group will always vote Conservative no matter what, and in that respect they will always exist as a party. How is there no hope in that? This government and its power are an anomaly, a momentary well-timed blip that put them just over the 40% threshold to give them that coveted majority, which then melted away, leaving them the seats without the support. Now, even their number of seats is in question, and with it, the question of whether or not those seats were ill-gotten. At the Canadian polling booth, any whiff of disrespect for fair-play can be the death of a party. It has happened before, where majorities were reduced to single-digit numbers of seats after a scandal, and with little warning in the polls.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that their present support, now, today, would give them a weak minority, but how long will that support last? Especially with 'robocalls' set to explode. If the very means by which they got their seats is put into question, we could be looking at an election within the year. A look at the history of the Conservative Party, and their times in power, gives us few heroes. What it does give us is managers, people who could take the issues and agglomerate them, just as Harper has done. This is why they do not hold majorities, because they do not, at heart, hold the same values as the majority of Canadians. Even now, it is important I think, to point out that even in their majority Parliament, 59% of the country voted against them. Harper would be wise to govern with that in mind.

However at this point the momentum seems to be going all downhill, and it is taking our political system, and more importantly the faith of the people in our political system, with it. Harper is unable to make Parliament work, except for rubber stamping everything and hoping much will stick after the next round of government gets in. This is the worst wheel-spinning that could happen. Instead of working to move forward, and agreeing on laws, we will end up with Parliament after Parliament using their first year to invoke closure to undo what the previous party did, then doing what they want for three years. If that's how they want Parliament to work, the Liberals will end up being much better at it. Sheer number of years in majority will come to bear, and it won't be pretty for the Conservatives.

I feel for the average conservative voter. Who else do they have to vote for? Their eggs are all in one basket. There is only one Center-Right party that is now looking more Libertarian than the Libertarians. In the Republican Party south of the border, there are many factions to the party, just as there are many breed of conservative there. They have designations for these internal divisions, and all are vying for power within the party, to then have their hopeful move on to secure the nomination and challenge the President. If this seems clunky, it is out of necessity, as, by the numbers, the majority of Americans are Social Democrats. Their pact is necessary to have ANY political power.

That is why the Conservative party seems somewhat schizophrenic (i.e. staying out of controlling laws like gun control, then turning to pass another that spies on people's internet habits, both ostensibly out of 'safety') That is because there are so many factions within, it has become impossible to impose one will for very long. 

Within the Conservative party itself, here in Canada, we see former Reformers, who watched their 'movement' become slowly hijacked, Libertarians, including many in Parliament right now, who come from the 'leave us alone' Albertan grassroots movement, big money Cons, who put up the whole show to have a stake in the power politics, and finally the working people and professionals who drive the party forward with their votes. The money put in at the top by the big business fuels the production of votes through advertising. This is why the party is having such a hard time with limits to campaign spending. If they can't convince the little guy to vote for them, the whole gig will soon be up. The problem is, with only so many hot button issues, how do they keep the interest of the little guy while doing what the 'money' wants?

In the first year of a majority, each vying interest group pushed their own agendas, without looking at the long term effects of the overall political landscape. With their hot-button issues out of the way, they have no direction. Another ill side effect for them is that they have burned more bridges than General Patton, and in doing so have left the average Conservative supporter wondering what they actually voted for. This ship is not rudderless. No, on the HMCS Harper, there are one-hundred-sixty-odd rudders, and many of them pointing in different directions.

Without an ax to grind, the 'Harper Conservatives' will not have the support of the little guy who still believes the Liberals are mythologically "out of touch" or the party "of privilege", and it will only take the breaking down of that myth before the other parties win over the the people who put Harper in power. In my humble opinion, conservatism is confronting a real crisis of vision and focus running into the next decade, where it has to ask whether its rag-tag agglomeration of issues can really propel it forward, or if conservatives need to start defining their core values.

And poor Steve can't seem to find the compass.

Isn't it time that Conservatives showed Steve that the word Progressive still belongs in the party?



A sample of my new novel can be found here.

My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake

And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
eBook, pdf, mobi, epub, rtf, lrf, palm, txt
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Kindle Germany