I spent this past weekend at a wedding in Kelowna (pinned above), where I enjoyed the company of seldom seen friends, and spent inordinately large sums of money on leisurely pursuits. In short, it was a fantastic weekend. The weather was sunny, if a bit cool, and the company was great. Over the years, many friends have moved on, gotten married, and followed their dreams to other cities and continents. It’s starting to be the case that the only time I see many old friends are at weddings. There’s not too many of those left, only one of that sizeable group has not married, and as nearly everyone reminds me lately, myself.

Now I am busy trying to figure out a way to get out on one weekend camping trip before the season closes. Septembers in the Great White North are unpredictable and fickle in nature, so planning any sort of activity that relies on the temperament of Mother Nature is always a dangerous endeavour. Nevertheless, circumstances have conspired against me this summer, and if I am do some camping, it will have to be in September. This weekend looks promising, and it’s a long weekend too. And hey, camping in the snow just provides a greater excuse for a bonfire.

It’s odd to walk out of the door on a fine summer morning and gag, because it feels like you’ve fallen into an ashtray. I have never seen anything quite like it, and it’s bizarre because of how fast normal disturbances blow through the area. Edmonton is, after all, on the prairies and normally has unobstructed wind flow. It’s now starting to get better, but at one point it was strong enough to  bring on a decent headache. It’s hard to fathom the size of a fire that could push that much smoke hundreds of kilometres into another province (BC, which is having the worst forest fires in a decade). The chief medical officer actually had to issue a health advisory due to the high amount of particular matter in the air.

I am trying to figure out how best to enjoy the waning weeks of the summer, and I still really want to squeeze in a camping trip. I suppose I have at least one smashing way to end the summer — a trip to the Okanagan in BC. Get a chance to swim in the lakes, do some hiking, and see some old friends. Probably can’t ask for much more than that. I just hope there isn’t a fire.

I have never actually attended a music festival, much less the Edmonton Folk Festival, which is somewhat surprising, as they’re relatively popular in Alberta, and I love music. Nevertheless, I think that I started on a great note. The festival had some great performances, and I put a lot of hours in there. I roughly figure between 25 – 26 hours of solid music for the 4-day weekend event, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. It was also a chance to sample some good food and hang out with friends.

I made what is called a “tarp run” on Saturday morning. The festival is all first-come first-served for the purposes of seating, and because they don’t wish to disturb the neighbourhood with all-night line-ups, they do a lottery. You arrive at 6:45 AM and they pass out a band name and a number once you’ve show a ticket or wristband for the day. At 7:30, they randomly pick a band, and that’s who gets to go in and place their tarps first, and so on and so forth. The obvious way to get a good seat is to show up with twenty people, and try to collect that many band names with no duplicates. We did that, and we had 17 names on Saturday morning, which gave the group 1^st,3^rd,4^th,5^th and 6^th choices. I showed up for the name, and then I took the bus back to my condo to go back to bed. It did get us a good location, however, and I really enjoyed it later that night when we listened to Brandi Carlile.

I can’t remember a rainier July in Edmonton, really. There’s been a nightly thunderstorm more often than not, and so I think Edmonton has received its full quotient of rainfall for the summer. At least, it sure seems like it should have at the moment. Thankfully, most of the rain has occurred during nightly thunderstorms, leaving the days (usually) fairly sunny. As muggy as it has often been, I have welcomed the shower in the evening to move off some heat. And it’s been somewhat incredible to see the massive flashes of lightning on the horizon.

Being at the Tomb of the Apostle is something of an experience. It’s hard to imagine that Peter himself was buried at this spot, and harder still to fathom the absolutely massive basilica that was built over it. One really wonders what the poor fisherman from Galilee would have thought of the edifice and of the empire that was built out of his Apostolic authority. It is the largest Christian church in the world, holding around 60,000 people, and I really felt that wandering around in there. It is also unbelievably ornate, with statues everywhere carved out of marble, including Michelangelo's Pietà.

That statue is an absolute masterpiece, showing the artist’s truly impressive understanding of the human body and expression. It’s a shame that I could only take a picture of it behind glass because some nutter went at it with a bat in the ‘70s.

My appreciation of the artistic genius of Michelangelo was only realized through this most recent trip. Before, my thoughts on his work barely extended past a simple compendium of his more famous works, and that he was worthy enough to be made a Ninja Turtle. But it is quite another matter entirely to see these works in person where they are truly life-size and where the intricacies of the work become plainly apparent, particularly compared to the work of his contemporaries and predecessors. The Sistine Chapel left me particularly in awe. It’s hard to fathom that the artist completed that singularly massive and intricate work without assistance over a several year period.

My only disappointment was the regrettably short time that I had to look around and appreciate the sights before me. There’s just so much ground to cover, and so little time with which to accomplish it. Hopefully someday I’ll get a chance to see it again.

Wonderful National Park Close to Barcelona

It’s hard to overstate the beauty of Montserrat and the mountain monastery and cathedral that were built at the top. It’s truly a stunning geological formation that is really nothing like anything else I have ever seen before. I felt immensely privileged just to be there, which is something of an experience. Besides the obvious trans-Atlantic flight, the monastery is located at a rather high altitude and requires either a rack-line train or a cable car to reach it. For the curious, a rack-line train basically has an extra rail that the train uses for grip. I would up taking the train up there, largely because I had a discount for that method. It’s quite something heading up such a grade, winding around the mountains.

I actually missed the children’s choir (possibly the oldest in Europe), by about 15 minutes. I really didn’t have the money for tickets anyway, but I was rather intrigued. Instead, I wandered around for a bit to get a lay of the land and then bought a bottle of water and headed for the highest point in Montserrat — a place called Sant Jeroni at 1236 m above sea level. The actual altitude is not nearly so impressive as the near vertical drop off of that point to the plain below. It’s awe-inspiring and not for the faint of heart. Altitudes are of course all relative, and this point is really higher than anything else in the region. Looking north, there is a fairly good view of the Pyrenées and of course the surrounding shorter mountains.

The area is also known for a large number of hermitages and religious sites that have been inhabited for hundreds of years. The actual monastery is still in use, but the majority of the sites are now abandoned. Still, it’s amazing to see these truly sites and realize that either hermits or small monastic communities were there for hundreds of years. Indeed, in one case, a community had cut out a living space directly into the side of the cliff and a baptismal font was still there, complete with water. I doubt it has been used in quite some time, but it’s surreal to think that people carved out an existence there. It’s not a very wide walkway and it’s quite a fall to the rock below. I spent the day hiking between a large number of those structures and sites and while I was rather exhausted towards the end of the day, I firmly believe it was one of the highlights of my trip.

For my part, at risk of horrifying my grandparents, I support with serious hesitation the passage of the bill for a laundry list of reasons. Healthcare has long been a slow moving train wreck in American politics, with overwhelming costs beginning to cause negative ripples throughout the rest of the economy. Simply put, the status quo is far from satisfactory, and that much became abundantly obvious upon leaving the country for some time. I am extraordinarily skeptical of a free market solution to a classic situation, in economic terms, of perfectly inelastic demand, a serious knowledge gap, and an ethical morass. In other terms, a person faced with pain or dysfunction that he does not understand will and must pay any price in order to sustain his life and stop the pain, and society cannot ethically leave him without recourse to achieve this. Markets, which were designed to provision goods and services most efficiently according to their supply and demand are extremely ill-equipped to handle such a scenario. And the US is perhaps demonstrating this failure with aplomb. Consumers, businesses, and politicians are increasingly dissatisfied with a system that continues to consume a greater percentage of real income.

When it comes down to it, Otto von Bismarck was correct, laws really are like sausages, a bloody, exhaustive, and disgusting grindstone that leaves everyone frustrated and in some cases enraged. But some of the vitriol has been impressively melodramatic and paranoid. In this case, I think the law came together somewhat predictably, all things considered. The Republicans ultimately refused to be involved on any level both because of the distasteful compromises, but also because their best chances for increased number of seats lies in demonising the current majority as being hapless and ineffectual in the face of crisis. The Democrats, for their part, composed of an extraordinarily diverse ideological group born of the limited two party system currently in place, was forced to pass a bill that did not please anyone, in part because they realized that they would be made to look helpless if they were unsuccessful with a major portion of their electoral platform and a debate that dragged on for more than a year.

It is my hope, that having now gotten the something of a bill on the table, that it can be further revised and amended to make something that provides something workable in the long run. But it provides a start, offering to those that are poor, sick, unemployed, or otherwise unable what has become a pillar of modern society.

I have spend an extended amount of time over the last month in Excel® both for personal and professional purposes, and I do believe I run the risk of becoming permanently cross-eyed in the future. Not that I am not grateful to have them, indeed, I cannot even fathom a reversion to banging out repetitive calculations on a Casio scientific calculator. In fact, I have made somewhat of a point of beefing up my skill set when it comes to that venerable office staple. It really is a fantastic way to crunch a lot of data in a very short time span, once you have mastered its formula and macro system.

More specifically, I have been crunching a bewildering array of mortgage and budget calculations in an attempt to reach a harmonious compromise between my desire to be done with the instability inherent in renting and the desire to continue my indulgent lifestyle that relies on a high volume of discretionary income. I have reviewed copious amounts of data for the local housing market, the price/income ratios, the price/rent ratio, general economic indicators, interest rates, and potential for income increase over the next five years, and my likely use of such residence along a broad variety of criteria. It is certainly the most highly leveraged investment I will ever make, and so due diligence is absolutely imperative. That said, it’s easy to get lost in a mountain of figures and projections.

The bottom line (apropos in an accounting discussion) is that the decision to buy is laden with risk, regardless of much forethought is given. That said, the deliberative, methodical approach at least allows one to examine a multitude of scenarios and manage risks accordingly. And there’s the rub, I can manage downside risks, and buffer accordingly, but if the housing market tanks, everybody is going to take a bath, regardless of how well and responsibly they planned. The lesson of the US housing market was not lost on me — a raging mob of greedy and short-sighted investors, buyers, and brokers managed to destabilize and crater an entire market.

Maybe I should just be homeless.

I have been somewhat more disappointed, however, with some of the pregame antics that have been going on for this set of games. It was announced today in the press that Canadians were highly unlikely to achieve the stated goals of ­“Own the Podium”, the wildly over-optimistic program intended to make sure Canadian athletes dominated the 2010 games. To this effect, they spent $117 million dollars on research and training for a goal that nobody in their right mind would have believed attainable. I actually think that spending a bit of money on developing athletics in Canada is a reasonable use of taxpayer resources. However, using that ill-conceived goal to stop other athletes from having a chance at making some practice runs down the ski hill earns my ire.

Winning in the Olympics, as illusory and shifting a concept as that is, should be about training and athleticism, not necessarily who can spend the most and connive their way to the top. I don’t think Canada needs to cheat or twist their advantage to win the games; our athletes are dedicated enough to stand on their own merits. I think it cheapens the achievement when we win by unfair tactics.

I’d like to see in the future, and for the rest of the games, more about the effort and the skill displayed, and less about how Canada has somewhat let down expectations. To my mind, we have great reason to be proud of the performance of our athletes thus far, and we should celebrate their efforts and accomplishments.

Looking out over the admittedly bleak landscape is rather awe-inspiring if you can withstand the icy blasts of wind that shoot across the plains. Looking now at the vast expanse of snowy farmland, it’s hard to believe that once endless herds of bison met a grisly death as they paraded off the ledge featured above in an incredibly elaborate and developed Blackfoot tradition. They called it a Pik’Sun, which translates directly according to the museum that my cousin and I visited, “Deep Kettle of Blood.” Quite.

In the intervening decades, the tribes occasionally would return to the jump, when the conditions were appropriate to prepare for the ritual that would ensure food and clothing for the difficult month ahead. As I contemplate a move perhaps professionally and certainly personally within in the next couple of months, I come back to this chilling image of bygone bones resting eternally in the valley below. It’s a powerful reminder that sometimes the ugliest of displays of gore result in a fresh and creative beginning for all those that are willing to work at it.

Because at the end of the hunt, the carcasses were carefully plundered, bones carefully fashioned into tools, meat prepared for storage, and hides tanned for clothing. What could be a tenuous existence in a harsh and sometimes barren land was sustained by what must have been unpleasant work in that killing field. In a very real sense, their lives were made out of that buffalo jump.

Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that that is the best that can often be taken away from a difficult experience. I have in my time run a great many of my own personal bison off a cliff, and I I think the best that you can do is to use what’s left to create something new. The process is never pretty, and what you’re left with is something completely different than you started with — the tools and the food for growth.

It is on some level difficult to believe that it’s already 2010. Which also of course means that it’s January again. It’s hard to disguise a a certain amount of distaste for a month that is punctuated by bouts of bone-chilling cold, incessant darkness, and a certain level of tedium. It’s hard not to spend a certain, more than minimal amount of time, fantasizing about warmer climes. Tahiti sounds like a fantastic place to spend January.

It is a brand new decade. Seems like just yesterday that we were collectively terrified about Y2K and waiting with anticipation the dawn of another thousand years. And perhaps more importantly, it’s been a decade, a critically important decade, of my life. I want to say that it’s been a momentous one. And to some extent, so that I can plan for the next one, it’s wise to take stock of the previous one. I completed high school, travelled to Central America, South America, completed my degree, obtained fulltime professional employment, and moved to another country in another region. I certainly would like to continue on that pace going forward, which I think is going to be a bit more difficult to maintain. Certainly, a part of that is due to some of the unpleasantness endured to achieve those milestones.

In any case, I enter this decade with healthy amount of hope and anticipation for the future. I have think I have answered for myself some of the major existential conflicts that so afflict youth, and I have a lot more confidence in handling the challenges of the years to come.

In its most innocuous form it bedazzles us, blinds us to the consequences of our actions, tricks us into believing the convenient lie of the one-time occurrence, and leads us into perdition. It’s so easy to believe, to want to believe, in in the minor justification, the temporary slip that becomes ever so permanent. As appropriately postmodern children, we believe in the total existentialist worldview of our father Sartre, in which all decisions are mutually exclusive of the next, that the rules of causality are bent by mere force of will and desire. After all, they teach it on Oprah, it even has a pseudo-scientific name — the Law of Attraction! You can read all about it in modern spiritual tome, The Secret.

The unfortunate, inconvenient truth, is that our lives are the summation of the individual choices that we make of the decades of our life that are in the end, the ultimate formative factor in our lives. They are the product of the the daily rituals, avowals, and liturgies in which we steep ourselves in to reinforce and strengthen our worldview and interpretive actions. The world then, is ‘literally’ in many senses, exactly what we make of it.  Literally in the sense, that, we are the narratives, and understand ourselves in the narrative context, that we create for ourselves in our expressions of our lives and how we make sense of the chaos in which we live and interact. These narratives are all-consuming, and encompass fully our first Fall from Grace, and each subsequent reinforcing act. Succumbing to temptation, therefore, acts as a splitting mechanism against the narrative, and can only be reconciled in one of two ways — incorporation in the self-narrative or the creation of self-deception. Neither of these can be construed as a positive event.

It seems crucial then to note, in light of the prior observations, that the biggest battle for the person lies in the way they deal with the daily, smaller transgressions, that create the greater framework that almost absolutely dictates how the larger dilemmas of life are engaged and answered. In this, I think most often of Mandelbrot’s fractals, the beautiful mathematic models created by the scientist a quarter century ago. This is when the concept of self-similarity came into vogue, that the same patterns that exist in the smallest of domains re-express themselves in the largest. I think our lives in many senses follow this model, the way we live in the smallest ways is echoed in the way we live in the entirety of our lives.

And thus… the temptation of the moment is thus also the temptation of our life.

Gifts

I got started on the subject of temptation because of the sudden and unexpected appearance of the boxes pictured above in my life. I received a buzz from UPS who wanted to deliver a package I was not expecting. It was, indeed, my name on the package, so I took the parcel and sliced the tape open suspecting that I had forgotten something ordered a while back. Inside, I found the blue boxes, and what is going to vex me until Christmas.

Based on the size of the package, its relative heft, and the suggestively worded caption on the gift tag, I suspect a popular, literary reading device made popular by a famous online retailer. It’s going to take all of my willpower to wait until Christmas to open a package that I suspect contains an item I have not ever even seen in person, much less used.

I went this evening to watch the University of Alberta’s annual production of “9 Lessons and Carols,” which is always a treat. The handbells are particularly spectacular, especially given that this is nearly the only opportunity in the year that I have to witness such a display. They do a set of scripture readings and performances with the mixed chorus of many classical Christmas tunes, sometimes in Latin and others in English. The audience at times is invited to sing certain carols, making it a rather nice prelude to Advent. And this time, I actually surprisingly ran into my cousin, who was there to see a friend perform. It’s quite a small world after all, I guess.

It’s been quite interesting listening to the health care debate that is currently occurring in the US. It continually fascinates me how differently different groups of people will report on and interpret the same or similar sets of data. I am surprised that so many people are convinced that the satus quo is somehow acceptable. Still, with so many deeply vested interests and stakeholders involved in the US health system, it stretches the bounds of my optimism to assume that something meaningful is going to emerge from this soup of a conundrum they find themselves in. Reminds me of the weather, without the promise of an eventual spring thaw…

My other big coup for October was installing the release version of Windows 7. After my computer crashed at the beginning of September, I held off on installing anything else, because I figured that I would have Windows 7 soon, but it’s been frustrating having my main computer in limbo. I haven’t played a single game on it in months. And listening to music has been a little awkward as well. It is nice to get the new OS finally. I have to say, it has a nice feeling to it and it at least seems a bit faster and more streamlined than Vista. I haven’t entirely adjusted to the new taskbar yet, but it seems more like the Dock in a few ways from OS X.

Other than that, I give two thumbs up for Zombieland, which while having a bit too much for gore, turned our to be a fantastic move, really funny. I also enjoyed watching U2 on Youtube. They’re an amazing band.

It's been a challenging few months as I come out of the summer and look into the bleak darkness that is the beginning of winter here in the Great White North. As something of a last hurrah, a friend of mine and I would up going down to Kananaskis Country to camp for the weekend. It was a fantastic weekend; wonderful to get out of the city for a while and look at actual stars. There were a number of campfires, great views, and an excellent hike. It was also cold and rainy for part of it, but that is the risk you run with off-season camping. The upside is that the fire is appreciated all that much more, and you really cut down on the crowds.

Strangely, this fall I am fairly busy, back in classes that I am taking for work. it feels a little strange to be back in the classroom, but only a little. It is good to stay up-to-date and active in learning. I think it's always a mistake to be professionally or personally complacent. One always has to push on, because life will take you unawares otherwise. It is busy though and it's odd to come home from a full day at the office to several hours worth of homework and reading.

Tags: camping, summer, Kananaskis