I was mentioning this to a co-worker, a very nice Black woman who knitted a sweater for my daughter when I became pregnant. “What a gentleman!” my colleague exclaimed about Sam.

So I felt compelled to tell her this story. I recounted how once when I went to dinner at the apartment of a Lebanese man I was dating I made the main meal (Italian pasta with homemade tomato sauce, I remember). Afterward, he told me with a smile to wash the dishes, which I proceeded to do.

Now I brought up the story first of all to illustrate how primitive and uncultured such behaviour was (inviting someone else to your home and having them do the dishes, especially when THEY have made the effort to prepare the meal) but mostly for the laughs, to show how a dog could actually be more of a gentleman than a human male. Well, she didn’t laugh; she got enraged. “I hope you didn’t do the dishes!” she said angrily. I looked a little sheepish and said yes, I did, which made her even more upset. At this point I started laughing, not at the story but at her and the fact she got so angry.

So all in all, going back to the Sam-Sandy story, is it fair to say this “gentleman” I was seeing was lower than a dog?

Nursing has always held a special place in my mind because two of my aunts were nurses, Evelyn and Catherine, the sisters of my maternal grandmother and grandfather respectively. Both of them studied nursing in the 1930s in the city of Madison , Wisconsin . (Note: while I am Canadian, my mother’s entire family is American.) In those days nurses didn’t go to university or community college but trained directly in the hospital, with classrooms provided in the building for the theoretical work. So most of their education consisted literally of hands-on experience.

After graduation they both began working. Catherine was employed as a psychiatric nurse and eventually obtained a key administrative position at a mental institute just outside of Madison . Besides the doctors, she was basically head of the hospital. She married a physician herself – though I have always taken exception to the statement that girls go into nursing solely for the purpose of meeting a doctor! Ironically, despite a lifetime of caring for others, not only her patients but a stepdaughter with Down syndrome, Catherine died prematurely in her early sixties of heart disease.

Evelyn’s professional life also took a number of interesting turns. She served as a nurse in the American military in World War II and was stationed in England and France . On her return to the United States she became a nurse practitioner, a nurse with advanced training who is able to diagnose patients and carry out many of the functions physicians normally perform. Her career continued past retirement age until a few years before her death in her seventies. I like to think she was so good at what she did that her co-workers didn’t want to let her go!

I personally came into close contact with the nursing profession just over two years ago when I gave birth to my daughter Gabriella Michelle at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto . While the performance of one particular nurse there left much to be desired, the other nurses displayed both practical competence and personal compassion. I have to marvel at their great patience with some of my rather inane questions. For example, two days after the delivery I asked one of the night nurses whether my milk would come in (note: when a woman first gives birth she doesn’t produce actual milk but a yellowish substance called colostrum that provides the baby with immunities). The nurse smiled and said yes, it would, and sure enough, my breasts started making genuine milk the very next day. Looking back I laugh at the silliness of my inquiry – after all, having grown up on a farm I know that a cow will always produce milk after having a calf, so why should human females be any different? But the nurse was understanding of my fears as a first-time mother and didn’t try to belittle or dismiss me.

So please remember the nurses on National Nursing Week. RIP Evelyn and Catherine.

That still doesn’t excuse this (courtesy of the protests in near the 2008 RNC):

Lesson #1: Know your message before proudly stating it

Quite often, the best music is discovered by accident. Local artist and longtime friend Aia asked me to videotape a concert he was promoting at the Drake Hotel. Aia was opening for Tycho, a California-based graphics artist and music producer well respected in IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) circles. IDM is a highly experimental genre that can be difficult on the untrained ear; however, Tycho’s audio-visual performance was both accessible and inspiring. The artist’s website describes his music as follows:

Tycho is the music project of San Francisco based artist and producer Scott Hansen. As Tycho, Hansen blends swirling melodies into vaguely triumphant arcs that crisscross between stuttering beats and vocal samples, creating rolling sonic landscapes that extend off into the horizon.

To my ear, Tycho manages an impressive feat in layering lush, hyper-melodic sounds capes over throttling beats without crowding the frequency spectrum. Often, the beats evolve along with the melodies and at times embrace the boom sound associated with early-90′s hip hop – yet the melodies remain intricate and soothing enough to be “chill-out” music. At times Tycho’s retro-warbling is reminiscent of Scottish outfit Boards of Canada, while other times resembling the Japanese electronica featured heavily in anime. The sum of the parts is nonetheless original.

I entered the evening not knowing of Tycho and exited a huge fan. If you like what you hear, check out his website:

http://tychomusic.com/

Technical Notes: Video segment features live performance of “PBS” by Tycho (who presumably owns all the copyrights therein). Recorded April 20, 2008 at the Drake Hotel (Toronto, Ontario) on a Sony HC3 HD Camera. First half of the video shot using night mode. Video cleaned up and edited using Sony Vegas and VirtualDub. Of course, YouTube totally decimated the output but if you would like the video posted to a different site let me know.

The Story

Video released by Canadian authorities of the last moments of a Polish immigrant’s life shows police using a Taser stun gun on him after confronting him at the Vancouver airport.
Robert Dziekanski, 40, of Pieszyce, Poland, arrived at the airport 10 hours earlier on Oct. 14 – his first airplane flight to begin a new life with his mother in western Canada.
Dziekanski, who did not speak English, began acting erratically after not seeing his mother in the baggage area, a secure area she could not enter.

About 25 seconds after police enter the secure area where he is, there is a loud crack that sounds like a Taser shot, followed by Dziekanski screaming and convulsing as he stumbles and falls to the floor.
Another loud crack can be heard as an officer appears to fire one more Taser shot into Dziekanski.
As the officers kneel on top of Dziekanski and handcuff him, he continues to scream and convulse on the floor.
One officer is heard to say, “Hit him again. Hit him again,” and there is another loud cracking sound.
Police have said only two Taser shots were fired, but a witness said she heard up to four Taser shots.

Comment:

It is a apparent (and I mean that in the purest sense of the word) that the police used excess force with little attempt to interact with Dziekanski. However, public attention should be directed toward the airport more so than the cops. It’s a poor commentary that they let a distraught man who was not fortunate enough to speak English/French stew in an airport for 10 hours with NO HELP. Dziekanski’s outbursts seemed to be him doing anything he could just to get someone’s attention. If Vancouver considers itself a world class city then it needs to be a little more responsive to the incoming world. Good luck to the first athlete who gets lost during the 2010 Olympics!

Direct Link @ Blip TV

Direct Link @ DivX.com (w/ Full Quality Download!)

North America’s largest street festival turned 40 this year. Over 1 million revelers from Canada, the USA and the Caribbean jammed into Toronto’s lakefront for the annual Caribana parade.The vibe was positive and festive as always, with people of all sizes, shapes and cultures jumping up to the Soca sounds pulsing from speaker-laden floats. The skimpy outfits provided eye candy to both sexes, though every body type and body age was wining to the beats.

See Also: Caribana 2007 – The Pictures

(click pictures to enlarge)

The vibe was positive and festive as always, with people of all sizes, shapes and cultures jumping up to the Soca sounds pulsing from speaker-laden floats. The skimpy outfits provided eye candy to both sexes, though every body type and body age was wining to the beats.

2007 must not have been a great year for music at the master Trinidad Carnival, as a good % of the music played on the floats were featured on the 2006 playlist. Regardless, the crowd enthusiastically jumped up to aging classics like Destra Garcia’s “Max it Up” and Russell Cadogan’s “Big Bottom Gal”.

The only negative –and it will always be a problem- was the traffic. Attempting to catch a streetcar on Queen or Bathurst street was a fruitless exercise – our group managed to walk east along Queen Street from Bathurst to University without seeing a single street car. Driving in the periphery of the CNE was vehicular suicide but didn’t stop thousands of drivers from slinking around at 10km/h, fruitlessly honking the horn at passing revelers.

Since half the Caribana-related Google searches that reach this site concern crime and violence, let me tell you that I didn’t see any at all. The police were standing around -mostly at ease- giving directions more often than tickets.

As usual, security was good but not flawless, allowing a handful of aggressive onlookers to breach the security fence and get some up-close pictures (*ahem*). Enjoy these photos (shot by someone in my entourage) and keep checking the site for the upcoming YouTube video.

Also See: Caribana 2007 – The Video

For young men, the first major turn of events in life is usually when they finish high school and head off to college or to some sort of on-the-job-training. It is a special time, the twenties, when life seems more carefree (even as the student loans stack up) and you don’t have to think about settling down. Your time is spent with classes, studying and party time – and not necessarily in that order. Then, before you know it, that event is over and you have to find a job to support yourself. Yet, even at that point, you rarely think about settling down. You just enjoy working at the new job during the day and taking in the club scene during the night.

However, as thirty approaches, something happens. You discover that the night scene doesn’t have the same interest it used to have. You know that because, when you walk into a club now, you discover that not every woman there is interested in you (even if they weren’t before, you deluded yourself they might be) and, anyway, you find you would rather be sitting in a quiet lounge somewhere, where you can hear what you and your date are saying.

As well, somewhere through the twenties, you see your friends and co-workers getting married and rather than office chatter about sex and how drunk they were on the weekend, they start talking about kids and mortgages.

And, judging by the uncharacteristic moping and Charlie-Brown-esque self pity of my older male friends and their strange dating adventures, it seems that if a guy decides to marry and settle down around the time he is turning 30, it is not a day too soon.

Yes, fellow bloggers and readers, you have probably guessed by now, I am talking about myself.

Cynapse, the ultimate cynic, is getting married in two month’s time, a day after I turn that magical settling down age of 30.

Perhaps it might explain why I have been so busy lately and why so few posts have seen the light of day. In addition to a heavy work load – as Jack at JN says, growing my career — there have also been all the things that go with meeting family and making plans.

It is, without a doubt, a major turn of events for me and my wife-to-be, and we both intend to enjoy ourselves. It is interesting that, in the past, like so many young men, I thought of marriage as a fun-crusher. Now, it seems like a natural progression.

The photo shots and video were taken during the spring, but the autumn is when the sky gains seriously rich and varied colour. For the time being, the beachfront is relatively uncluttered – few things are as relaxing as a walk along the Port Elgin beach or the Shoreline Road.

Saugeen Shores is located in Southwestern Ontario along shores of Lake Huron. Bruce Power is the major employer in the region. The amalgamated municipality (which includes Port Elgin and Southampton) has a population of approximately 12,000. Tourist attractions include MacGregor Point Provincial Park, The Annual Pumpkinfest and of course the beaches.