Where the line?

Have I created a busy life for myself, or am I engendering chaos?

My day-to-day work is stressful and full...and I often spend the day on the computer, wrenching my brain around concepts, rationales, and budgets.

In my private life

• I bowl on Wednesdays. **Update 2** I'm dedicated to finding us a sponsor for t-shirts this year!
  
• I chair a Board of Directors of the best event in town, the Okanagan International Children's Festival.
• I'm a member of the Board of the networking organization Penticton Women in Business.
• I'm going to be directing a short, one-act play for performance the first week of December.
• I'm helping to organize a local congregation's annual Walk to Bethlehem (a 3-day re-imagining of life in the Ancient Near East, complete with children's pageants and anachronisms).
• I periodically write book reviews.
• I (try to) have a social life.
• I'm presenting at BookCamp Vancouver on Friday.
• Oh, and I'm married, and trying to have a relationship that's more than coffee in the morning.
  

Where can I draw the line? What do I prioritize?

Then there are the things that I want to find time to do:

• Work on my book idea with my buddy who lives in Korea.
• Start work on a MBA.
• Catalogue my movies.
• Spend more time studying French.
• Blog more often.
• **Updated** Organize my photos, make albums even.
• **Updated** Learn to use Photoshop.
• **Update 2** I want to get a conversation salon started in town.
  

It has been an amazing Thanksgiving weekend, where my absolutely perfect turkey was consumed by a small group of close friends. I am grateful for the activities in my life, but I do wonder if I should pare them down.

I would welcome your thoughts and suggestions.

Lori

Cheating or Convenience?

Through the wonders of a Flickr-friend's holiday pictures, I've had an Aha! moment.

I must admit, this picture did not surprise me, instead it made me think: "Of course!!"


Of course there are professional teepee-makers. Why wouldn't there be?

My meeting-addled brain can't think of any parallels in other cultures at the moment...Please help below in the comments!

Lori

Random Questions

...arising from a roadtrip.

In this day'n'age, with the Internet always so there, able to be referenced at a moment's notice, you feel its absence when on the road, in a car. (No, I don't have an iPhone/Blackberry/what-have-you to do this on the road...plus we were traveling in areas without service!)

On our last road trip (this last weekend actually, the pictures are here), Metro and I had a number of questions/speculations. This time, we wrote them down. And now, I'm going to share them with you, because perhaps you'll enjoy them too.

Some were generated purely from the geography:

• Anarchist Mountain in BC's Boundary Country...were there really anarchists there? What's the story?
• Boundary Creek Provincial Park in Greenwood. Check it out. Looks nice.
• Why is the town of Salmo called Salmo? Was there a Mr. Salmo? What did he do?

Some were generated from roadside observations:

• No Tresspassing signs -- does putting one up an prerequisite for being able to actually shoo people from your land? If you don't have one up, can you still oust people you don't want?
• Roadside crosses -- there was an anthropological study done on these (at least one). Look it up. What a weird phenomenon. When/Where did the practice start?
• Fudge as a tourist attraction -- This one has always bothered me. Hell's Gate for years had nothing to do once you got over to the other side other than to buy and eat fudge. Is this just a Canadian tourist stop/trap phenomenon, or do other countries subject their tourists to it as well?

Others just arose from the depth of (mostly) Metro's brain:

• Are there such things as grasshopper breeders?
• What is the difference between an alpaca and a llama?
• What is the story behind the zuccamelon again?

More questions came up, but not when we had paper and pen available. C'est la vie!

We've not gotten around to looking any of these up, so feel free to offer up any resources. Or regale us with your own questions that niggle...

Lori

"Horseshoe Crabs Pile Up For Night Of Whoopee"

Well done, NPR! That's an enticing headline....

All Things Considered has this story today:

On the Delaware Bay shore, there's a swinging party that's been taking place for millions of years.

Those female crabs have this one night a year to, well, be mounted by up to 13 males:

If you're a female horseshoe crab, then it's your night. You'll swim to shore, meet a special someone and he'll clasp onto the back of your shell. You and he will crawl onto the beach together, where you'll spawn at high tide under the light of the full moon.

But the mate attached to your shell is not your only tryst. On this night, you will mate with up to 13 males, all at the same time. Thousands of horseshoe crabs will pile on top of one another, glistening shells covering the beach for miles.

Wow. The mind boggles.

Lori

Where, oh where, has credibility gone?!?

I apologize off the bat for the extraneous punctuation in the above sentence, but I'm trying to express my absolute disillusionment with...how shall I put this?

I'm disillusioned with the people in my workplace whose role it is to guide me...the people who are paid the big bucks to know more than I do. Do I covet their jobs? Good question. Up until today, not really. Oh, down the road maybe, but I'm happy with my responsibility load.

After today, I know I'll be applying to join their ranks the first chance I get.

"But," I hear you ask, "What happened today that changed your mind?"

One word, a neologism of this new Internet age actually, tucked glaringly in a sentence of official government guidance for me to refer to in my day-to-day work: "According to Wikipedia..."

Wikipedia!?!

Since when does a person who is paid to be a credible source of government policy guidance turn to Wikipedia for a definition of a word?

This is wrong in so many ways, I don't know where to begin...except to want to shout "Buy a dictionary!"

In frustration,

Lori

Cancer + Gambling = Feel Good Story

Okay, this does not happen every day:

A Buckinghamshire man diagnosed with terminal cancer is to collect a second winning payout of £5,000 after betting he would stay alive. (BBC News)

I don't really approve of gambling...and I sure as shootin' don't believe in cancer, but the two combined can make a great story.

As the spokesperson from the betting agents points out: "Never in 30 years in the business have I been so pleased to pay a winning client £10,000."

Jon, I hope you make it to next year, and your £100,000 payout.

Lori

Ah, the movies...

I follow a really great online comic strip, Multiplex -- about a group of people who work at a, you guessed it, Multiplex theatre. It's part geek tribute to great films, part on-going 20-something soap opera...usually amusing.

Today's strip just made me laugh aloud. Back story -- the characters always dress up as the characters of newly-opened, big films, like Watchmen.

(Click on the image to see it better.)

I love the look on the long-suffering supervisor's face. Take a look at the previous strip to understand just why he's so long-suffering this week.

And if you haven't seen Watchmen, go watch it. Yes, the book is better, as it always is, but the director was slavishly devoted to the look, the tone and the feel of the source material.

Ask me nice, I may lend you the graphic novel.

Lori