the friday

 

I woke up around 8 am  I think, then just stayed in bed till around 10, that was nice.  Got up, made an omelet thingy (2 eggs, peppers, cheese and of course some hot sauce) and then watched some bad TV, scoured some interesting online news stories, sat in the sun for a while, listened/edited/posted some work tapes from last night, did the shower, washed some clothes (our dryer sucks so I ‘outsource’ my drying at the local laundry mat) and finally made a run to McDonalds in case I thought I wasn’t eating there enough.  Got home just after 2, ate, went over (on my bass) some of the tunes from yesterday (while they’re still in my head otherwise I’ll forget them), did some half-assed bone playing, started in on another tune – which although sounds nice, is sounding a little too similar to another oldie ..but I guess they all kinda do.  A few more snacks, some more internetting and then grabbed my equipment to head over to the local latin club to soundcheck …at about 6 pm.

Of course I’m the only guy to show up on time, which has something to do with a thing called ‘Latin Time’, me not being a latino and me still not getting wise to it all.  I ditch my stuff on stage, meet the new resident soundguy, then head to Subway for a 6 inch turkey breast on whole wheat with cheese, toasted, lettuce, cucumbers, green peppers, onions, banana peppers, italian dressing (a bit) and then salt and pepper.  Mmmm.  Get back, don’t even bother with a ‘check’ because not everyone is going to be there, then bugger off with Jonny our sax player to hunt down some ear plugs …which of course I forgot in my haste to get to the soundcheck on time.

Get back again, hang around for an hour or so before we start playing, and then the festivities begin!

What was interesting (or rather funny) about this night was that Tilo didn’t bring his kit because Mario brought his.  Mario is going to play drums tomorrow for us, Tilo played today …and used Mario’s kit.  I guess I’m about to describe something that is a little too hard to describe.  It’s one of those ‘you had to be there’ things.  Anyway, Mario’s kit includes this throw back to the 80’s Roland drum pad/trigger …commonly known as an ‘octapad‘ because of its 8 sections that separate the computer/midi drum sounds.  Mario only uses it for a snare sound and the odd tom – and more importantly, does so sparingly.  Tilo on the other hand, usually has 3 toms, 2-3 cymbals, snare, timbales, 2-3 cowbells and some other crap …what I’m trying to say is that he likes to play many things.  So, when he got to Mario’s kit which only had timbales, cowbells and a cymbal, he naturally needed something to ‘cut loose’ on when the time came …and you knew that it did!  So he had his way with the octapad …and it was funny.  It’s this little rubber surfaced square with all these cheesy drums sounds from the 80/90’s …the kinda stuff that made Miami Vice famous, and he used everything in everything …to the point that most of us had a hard time playing or singing cause we were laughing too hard.  You really had to be there …and I regret that I didn’t bring my recorder this night.  I did take a pic though

Three sets later, an appreciative crowd that asked for an encore (for which we played Mi Tierra …how stylistically fitting!) and a bag of nibs in the collective guts of all onstage and I was home shortly after 2am to snack on the roomies leftover crazy bread and then finally get this post up.  Yep …looking forward to some sleep again.

Tilo ...pre-hilarity.

 

the thursday

 

I was up at a few different parts of the night but I think I had a good sleep.  I had some funny dreams too …one was with my friend Car – we were walking back through this flooded walkway and when we got to her attached garage there was this big guy who followed us in and tried selling machinery from a large trailer.  I guess I knew what he did cause I tried explaining to him that I didn’t need anything but that it was helpful that he came by ..maybe next time!  He didn’t leave of course, and started showing me more and more stuff, and stupid stuff too …like bows (lol) and then I realized that he wasn’t really selling just one thing so I started to get upset with him.  For some reason he had changed into this tall, skinny guy and then pulled a long 2 foot knife out of Car’s dishwasher.  It was dirty and he started to clean it (some sort of giant seeds were stuck to it) and it was then that I figured out that A) he wasn’t leaving and B) he might do something with it the knife!  I was patiently waiting for an opportunity to rush his hands and save the day, but then I awoke.  I went back to sleep of course, but then had a dream about me missing my alarm clock and having to think about why I did.  It too was weird.  I had another dream at the start too, but forgot it.  Eventually I got up, felt rested, ate some cereal, and got to the shop at 7:55.

The Man is never in on Thursdays so it’s typically me who opens the store, however ‘D’ was in early today …and he beat me by a few minutes.  After getting my smattering of horns ready, I command started the Van (this is nice in -28 Cel temps) and eventually left by 8:40.  It was a slack day and I was wide awake while driving too (unlike some mornings) and everything was just great.  It was then that I realized I did have a good sleep …what a difference that makes.  At ‘J’s’ school I was warmly greeted as “Hey, it’s Mr. Fix-it” (the kids love me there) and then it was a short hop over to the Fort for a few more stops.  That was it.  I did stop along side of the highway coming back and took some pictures of the PetroCan Refinery.  What got my attention was the northerly flow of the smoke from the plant …which means a south wind …which means it’s going to get warmer.  Nice.  I also brought the van back to the tire place …the bastages didn’t set the bead properly on the Driver’s rear.  Got home at 11:45.

The Petro-Canada Refinery in all its finery

 

It was a sunny day, so I took a little time to prop myself up in a chair and bask in the kitchen window sunlight.  It was nice.  I think I miss that warm sun.  I played about an hour of trombone too, in the sun of course, so that was fun.  Yep, I said fun.  After I play for a while it always happens that I start to suck …but if I put the horn down for an hour or so and come back to it, my chops seem way better …and that happened today.  I snacked a little of course too, then off to the gym at around 3:30.  It was back and triceps and I also put in about 2.5 miles of jogging/sprint stuff.  The quads are sore now so it must have been good.  After getting back at around 5 pm, I cooked up some steak-ums with green beans and followed it all with a protein shake.  That made for a lot of protein I think.

At 7 I had a rehearsal with a new little project that my buddy Leo got me into.  Him and James are working on a demo of original tunes …the songs are not so bad, perhaps a bit ‘heavy’ compared to my current tastes, but then I did like this style when I was younger.  Some of my older material in the Music (Old) page is along the same vein – so it’s not too much of a stretch for me.  Speaking of which, I AM going to organize that page into something chronological …and soon too.  I’ve been meaning to do that since it went up but keep thinking of excuses not to.  But anyway, him and James are going to record pretty quickly, so when we get something done I’ll try to post it for you.  I’m doing the bass thing …and hopefully I’ll be somewhat more confident with my parts when I eventually get the tunes into my head.  Hopefully.  I got home at 11:30.

Some more internetting, a piece of cheese toast, some rough ideas for future posts scribbled down as well as finishing this off, and I’m calling it a done day at about 1 am.  I’ll take the 3:11 min. microwaved Magic Bag and see you tomorrow!

I get to sleep in tomorrow too …yea me

the wednesday

 

*groan*  - I got to sleep at around 2:30 am and was up at 6:55.  I either missed my alarm clock or shut it off and didn’t realize it.  Anyway, after some peanut butter toast, some teeth brushing, some interneting and finally some pant putting oning, I left the house early and got to the shop at around 7:50.  I think I may have still been a little ‘happy’ from the night before …the reason I say this is because I was a little extra chatting with the ‘Man’ this morning.  Even after I got in my van (on the road by 8:45) I was quickly talking to myself.  Lol, depending on my mood of course, I usually have a great time on my own …but it just seemed like I had an earlier start to it this morning.

It was a long day too.  Of course I hit a 7-11 (one of my favorite ones with that exotic looking girl at the till …I even initiated a conversation with her!  …crazy me) for my slurp (which I have to seriously start cutting out or down on) and a snickers bar with almonds.  Mmmm.  There were a lot of school stops today too.  ‘M’ gave me a pat on the shoulder, the receptionist at this one place was finally nice to me for a change, ‘D’ was good, Mr. ‘M’ was peachy, ‘C’ was playing games with her kids while I tried to resurrect a dead baritone for her (it was too far gone though …nothing I could do for it there), ‘C’ (a different C) was glad I carried extra clarinet mouthpieces, ‘K’ was AWOL, Linds was fine …working away on her mac ‘lappy‘ and explaining to me the sorrows of a recently fallen bari sax, ‘P’, and this is a funny story, was working away in his class when I came in.  I let him talk for a bit and then made the remark “Hey, you’ve got some kinda grease or something on your forehead.”  I thought this was a good thing to bring up so that he wouldn’t have to walk around the school all day with kids laughing at him …however, it seems it was ‘Ash Wednesday’ ..which somehow means it’s ok to have ash on your head.  Perhaps I need some old fashioned religious culture to smarten me up?  The rest of the day was usual …I got back to the shop at around 1:30, the ‘Daudry’ showed up for a bit, and I eventually left at 2:30.  That was a long day for the ‘Man’ by my standards.  Or maybe it was just the small hangoverish headache that kinda lingered with me through it all.  Who knows.

Getting home around 3, I snacked and then did some of that internet stuff again.  ‘Internet stuff’ is somewhat ambigious I think.  Not only do I include being on the internet in this description, but working on my computer as well.  For example, as I photoshopped through a bunch of pics from the last few days (some taken on travels and some from gigs), I’d often launch the browser and within 5 min., take a peek around at all my general personal pages …including facebook, yahoo/hotmail accounts, reading any of my Newsfire feeds (for blogs), forums, news interests etc.  At the same time photo editing, garageband/reason editing or other potential blog posts will get worked on.  It’s a big mess of things, and when I find myself on the computer for over an hour, it’s not that I’m mindlessly surfing the web, but rather catching up on all sorts of things …that just happen to be connected to my computer.  Does that makes sense?  Anyway, 2 hours of ‘internet’ later I’m getting a little sleepy.  Internetting does that to you …as well as only sleeping 4 hours the night before.  It’s then shower time.

The shower was nice …so I took a nap.  Lol, it was another one of those longish naps, and I woke a few hours later.  Then I vacuumed the house (the roomie and I have a pretty consistent cleaning schedule that we’ve been following for many, many years, which forces us to clean the place every week regardless of its condition), ate some KD cause it’s fast, then worked on a few music/’internet’ things and decided to go to bed around 10pm.  I know I’m not going to sleep right away …and as much as I wanted to NOT sleep earlier, I knew that if I held it off, it wouldn’t necessarily translate into a sound nights sleep.  I don’t know why that is with me …that staying awake during the day means I can’t sleep at night, but it’s usually the case.  Tomorrow is my ’short day’ for the Man (which can at times be only 3 hours long!) …so here’s to hoping

Finally, here’s a neat pic from today.  I am toying with the idea of using it for a new ‘header’.  Maybe.

the tuesday

 

Didn’t get the sleep I was hoping for.  Finally nodded off after 1 am and was up by 6 am again.  Alarm went off as usual …jogged out in the -18Cel temps to plug the car in for  bit.  Did the cereal again (vector) then a quick check of the internets and off by 7:45 ..a little later than normal but what the heck.  The snow made the drive a little longer, but I still got in just before 8am.  The ‘Man’ was in good spirits as usual.  He always says ‘Hello?” when I come in (he’s behind a wall but close to the doorway) and rightfully assumes that it’s me coming in …we’re not open till 8:30 and I’m the only guy who’s there at 8.  Anyway, I gave him a different voice on my reply and was convincing enough to get him up from his crossword to take a look at who was here.  I’m so sneaky.

After checking my routes, making a few select phone calls (checking the road conditions as well), pull my instruments, writing crap up and stuff I finally left the shop at about 9 …a little later than normal but I had some extra things to bill out.  Today is all highway stuff …small town schools, and the roads are not a s bad as people made them out to be.  I got to my first stop at 9:25 and had a nice visit with ‘C’ – we talked about his trip to Germany …his class (the stage band) played for a crowd of over 5000 peeps as some major festival over there.  Plans are now in the works for some of them to come here.  Yea cultural exchange.  Lol, anyway, I was off again and finally finished my travels by 12:30 pm.  Got back to the shop, prepped my Wed. stuff, and then came home …another day done at 1  …nice.  Snacked away on some chocolate covered raisins (I did have McDonalds for lunch today …and I think I’m going to make a conscious effort to ween myself off that stuff.  It’s not that it’s ‘bad’ for you per se, it’s just that I’m getting tired of eating the same thing all the time.  Poor little chickens!) and did some internets yet again.

The ska band (KM) has a gig tonight for the Louisiana Purchase.  It’s a Mardi Gras gig (that we’ve done 3 or 4 times in the past) and is always a good time.  So, I packed my stuff, learned/went over a few songs and then headed out for soundcheck at around 2:50.  Pat and I set up the PA and seeing as it’s such a small club …actually a restaurant and we’re the once a year special attraction, we figured we’ll balance things out once we start playing.  Simple set-up anyway …mostly vocals and horns in the system so it should balance itself.  Home by 4:30 pm.

A few more internets, some song tweaking on that new thing that I figured isn’t going to finish itself, a shower, a change of clothes that’ll get me through the night, a little trombone wankery, a tasty omelette and then head out for my rehearsal with the big band.  These are the guys that the food is for, and seeing as everything is all set (although I have been sneaking into the pringles a little too often) I can just grab my crap and go.  Leave the house at about 6:50.

The rehearsal was short and sweet …more shorter than sweet though (!) and we finally had a keyboard player and singer at the same time …although that was kinda interesting for all the wrong reasons.  Anyway, after an hour or so I left (Ali and I left …she’s the KM sax player as well) for our Mardi Gras gig.  This thing was at Edmonton’s Louisiana Purchase (did I say that already?) – which is a small, cozy taste of New Orleans style flavor right here in town, and we arrived right at the start of the Burlesque Show part of the evening.  It was nice.  Lol, after that, it was on to the usual festivities.  I guess they call it Fat Tuesday, and I guess it’s all about the beads and scantily clad and/or revealing girls and guys.  To be honest I’m not too hip to the cultural significance (although M has a post that might help you understand some of the nuances of the city itself – click here) …but it is a great party none-the-less!

We pulled out a so-called classic titled ‘Mardi Gras’ by Professor Longhair as well as a more popular classic called Mustang Sally for one of the regulars in attendance.  Everyone seemed to have a great time …myself included, and to be honest, I got a little bit tipsy.  Three glasses of red kinda does that to a guy who doesn’t drink a lot.  Luckily I got a good part of this write-up done a little earlier today!  We decided to go out for some snack afterwards which I think was a great alcohol absorbing idea.  So …here I am …2 am in the morning, trying to rush the rest of this post and then get to bed so I can get up in 4 hours or so.  Somehow I don’t think it’s gonna be a pleasant morning.

But the night was fun

Amber ...she sings. Allen ...he owns the place!

 

the monday

Got up around 6 am and then laid in bed till the alarm goes off at 6:43.  I think I put it there to get myself an extra 2 min. of day …sneaky?  Then up and to the bathroom.  I noticed it was snowing outside …and wasn’t too disappointed with it.  Then I grabbed a coat and ran out to plug my car in for about 40 min. before I leave to work.  I then ate some cereal (raisin bran) while watching tv (the news …and I have to either watch or read something while I’m eating) then I moseyed back to the bedroom and woke the compy to check out what’s going on.  Usually mail first, then FB, blog crap and finally google news and the current weather conditions through my dashboard widget.  That’s about it.  I get dressed, brush the teeth, grab some fruit for lunch and then head out to the ‘jungle’ at around 7:35.

After my 10-20 min. commute (of which I really can’t complain) I get to work, socialize with ‘the Man’ for a bit, and then get my day/routine organized.  Then I’ll pull the crap I need to deliver, write up my invoices, load my van (which got 4 new tires, new rear brake pads/rotors and an alignment over the weekend!) and then head out into the snowy wilderness at around 8:50.  After hitting a few school in town I eventually make my way to the highway.  The tires are a big improvement …I didn’t know the others were so worn but I think today I only engaged the anti-locks once.  That’s rare …especially in fresh snow.

Hit the highway around 9:40 and eventually stopped for gas at one of my favorite 7-11/Esso stops.  You see, the man’s gas card is Esso, so whenever I can hit a gas station that’s combined with a 7-11 …well, that’s convenience.  Of course I bought a slurpee, along with some licorice (black nibs – and this ‘get’ was on the man -hee hee) then I was back on the road.  By the time I got to the city again it was around 11:30 am, then I hit a few westend schools and pulled into the shop at around 12:40.  I then unloaded my crap, tagged it, took a peek at what was on the agenda for tomorrow and left the shop at 1 pm.  A 5 hour day …sweet!

On the way home I stopped in at Safeway to get some crap for tomorrow’s rehearsal (we have to alternate bringing snacks and stuff for this one band) and I end up buying way more than I need.  I get home around 1:40, throw some stuff in the fridge, start snacking on other stuff, and then check the internets.  Not long after I started to feel a little tired ….I was awake on and off last night …plus I was up too early today as well, so I laid down for a little rest.  I fell asleep …woke up at about 3, nodded off again, and then was up at 4.  Wow …I guess I was tired.  Then another quick check of the internets, returned one phone call, then started to cut up vegetables and crap for tomorrows reh ….snacking again as I go.

After that, I spent a little bit of time running some bass lines for this new group that I may have gotten myself involved with, spent some more time messing with some pictures from yesterday’s reh., (maybe I rehearse too much!), caught up on some blogs I seem to follow, avoided listening to a new song that I should be finishing up because I just wasn’t in the mood to hear it, and now I’m about ready …although kinda hungry as I didn’t really eat any ‘meal’ yet today, to head out to the gym for some racketball/short workout/short run and hopefully get home around 10 pm to finish up with this filler post.

I’m back.  The gym was actually good …I tweaked the back ever so slightly a few nights ago but it seemed to be fine.  Did some racketball, ran a few miles and did a short chest/bi routine.  I was able to crank out 5 reps of 70 pound dumb-bells for my incline chest which was better than expected …and it seems I’ve almost hit the 155lb mark with my weight …yea me!  I finished all that and got home at 10:20pm, had a quick protein shake, some carrots, checked the internets once again and then a shower.  I usually have a shower a night …is that weird?  If you shower at night, you’re still clean in the morning …right?  If you don’t shower at night, then you go to bed with all that dirtiness from the day still with you.  That’s why I don’t get morning shower people.  Anyway, Dave-o had a funny post that I thought I’d share the link (embedding was disabled …so click here).  It’s from the Conan show with Louis CK as his guest.  My hair seems just about dry, so I think I’ll post this all and hit the sack …at about 11:50.  Technically, that’s shaping up to be 7 hours of sleep.  That’s not bad.

I thought I…

I thought I
might have
something to
declare.
I thought I
might convey
in words some
captive thought.
I thought I
might share with
you some
important idea
that has survived
in some hidden
recess deep between
synapses, neurons -
within cells and lobes
- that dreams of
its release as a
convict an appeal.
But sleep, like a
thief, has stolen
these from me.

An inside job in a
criminal mind.

done

true unbelievers

The following quote is from the article ‘True Unbelievers’ by Jocelyn Bell, The United Church Observer…

“I can no more denounce my faith in God than I can denounce my faith in love, art, nature, science, beauty or humanity. If aliens land on Earth next week, explain everything to us and then inform us that the world is ending, God will still be the best way to describe all my experiences of kindness and compassion and my inner sense that I’m connected to everything on this planet and in the universe. It’s my reason to orient my life toward good, however limited and faulty my idea of “good” may be.”

I love this. I don’t love it because I’m religious, believe in God or consider myself spiritual in the popular sense, but I love it because it parallels my own view toward life. If Jocelyn were to exchange the word ‘God’ with the word ‘Life’, ‘Self’, ‘Mankind’ or ‘Being Human’ then her well put thoughts would completely resonate with me. Actually, the words that I’ve suggested are wholly inadequate, and it may be the case that the word ‘God’, as she uses it, is the best description possible. 

Perhaps this is why I often fail to see profound differences between religious and non-religious people. Life itself brings us both to the same conclusions …we simply structure it in a way that makes sense to us.

=================================

To dig a little deeper; “to denounce my faith in God” might equate to ‘revoke my trust in human kindness’.  It’s not to any external deity to which I consign my hopes, but instead to my primary belief in the inherent kindness of us as human beings.  Our unkindness however, is a matter of perspective and situation.

“aliens land on Earth next week, explain everything to us…”  This also would not change my perception.  It’s almost as if having an established belief prevents us from any wholesale change in it.  Yes, we would no doubt modify our thinking and our views on life, but we’d only do so in a way that would still work or function with what we already understand.  You can’t comprehend anything new without first referencing it to something you already know, and it’s this referencing/relating to our pre-existing beliefs that doesn’t allow us a complete change.

“connected to everything on the planet and in the universe”  The same material of which we’re made is the same material of which the universe is made.  In that sense, we’re physically connected to everything else.  We have no conscious/unconscious understanding of this (we often project one however!) but the basic idea that everything in the world is connected to everything else is part of what propels my idea of a basic human condition to which we all relate.  We ‘feel’ that we’re all the same, and from this point we develop that basic trust.

“reason to orient my life toward good, however limited and faulty my idea of ‘good’ may be.”  Our idea of good is relative.  Our idea of good is subject to change.  Good is to what we all endeavor, and although we have our own way of getting to it and are completely convinced that our actions are both true and noble, simply knowing that others may perceive us in a different way is part of what makes/keeps us humble.  Part of what makes us better as a person.

research …of sorts

“Almost 1/5th of childhood injuries occur at school (…) say researchers who suggest more adult supervision may be needed to better safeguard children’s health.”

That’s a quote from a CTV article that I just came across (click here). 1/5th huh. Hummm, let me try some quick math.

If kids go to school from 9 am till 3 pm, then that would equal about 6 hours. Let’s give a child 1 hour of morning time (before school) then maybe from 3 pm till 11 pm as non-school time …which works out to 9 hours in total. Recap …school time: 6 hours, non-school time: 9 hours. Ok, so the average child who attends school for 6 hours and is then involved in non-school (home) activities for 9 hours has, according to this statement, 1/5th of his injuries during the 6 hour period …and presumably the remaining 4/5ths of his injuries in the 9 hour non-school period.

Wouldn’t this mean that school time is safer than non-school time?

Technically though, let’s look at the actual time that a kid at school might be susceptible to injuries. The travel to and from school (saying 20 min. each way) would be a great time for kids to horse around and get injured …so let’s say 40 min. in total. Then you’ve got two recesses of 20 min. each …totaling another 40 min., and finally an hour for lunch. Also, add in the typical gym time at school (say 30 min. a day on average) …which brings the activity-time at school to around 2 hours and 40 min. As for home activity-time, let’s assume the kid is more susceptible to injuries from the time he gets home (3:30 pm) to supper time …say 6 pm – that’s 2 hours and 30 min. Then, add the after supper time activity from 7 pm till around 9:30 pm (another 2.5 hours) and the total activity-time during non-school is around 5 hours.

Now, to finally bring our numbers into proper position, we need to factor in the weekend. To make things simple, I’m going to suggest that kids get around 9 hours of activity per non-school day …multiply this by Saturday and Sunday and you get 18 hours. So, for the week then, it seems we have a total of 43 hours of non-school activity-time (5 hours/day X 5 days + 18 hours for the weekend) and 12 hours of activity-time at school.

Of course these are estimates …and of course not all kids are going to be active all the time, but still, generally, my estimates suggest that 12 hours of activity time per week at school compared to 43 hours of activity time per week at non-school is still less than 1/5th! If you don’t like fractions, let’s move into percents…

Summing up …the reasearchers’ statement that 1/5th (20%) of childhood injuries take place in school logically means that 4/5ths (80%) of childhood injuries take place in non-school. And if 20% of their injuries come from a place where they only spend 28% of their time – why is this a problem? If anything, we should be happy that kids are only hurting themselves 20% of the time at school!

But then maybe I suck at math.

Aside from my interesting math, the article does go on to provide some amazing information about kids injuries. Prepare yourself for these revelations…

“…children who fall off monkey bars or a slide onto a soft surface are less likely to be seriously hurt than those who drop onto a hard surface; a child who trips or runs into a plastic or cushioned goalpost would suffer less harm than one who smacked into a metal post…”

“Boys were hurt more often than girls (about 60 per cent versus 40 per cent)…”

“When a mom or a dad sends their child off to school in the morning, they kind of expect them to come home healthy and in one piece. It’s a bit of a surprise to have them end up in the emergency department when they’re going to school, which is what children do every day.”

Fascinating

I wish I was done my rant, but I’ve got one more bone to pick …it revolves around this statement…

“We are not saying that children shouldn’t run or fall or play or be active,” Macpherson said. “It’s really critical to children’s development to do all of those things.” “What we’re saying is they should do it in the most environmentally safe context that’s possible and reasonable.”

What the heck does ‘environmentally safe context’ mean in regard to child injuries? Are they playing some sort of environment card? Are kids’ injuries somehow a result of society not being environmentally friendly? Do iron monkey bars pose more of an environmental threat than foam/plastic coated bars? Does cement and hard gravel pose a larger environmental hazard than rubber tires and polyurethane? Personally, I’d guess they’re using the phrase to associate the study with environmental activism – you know, associate their research (which I find highly suspect) with the whole environmental craze we’re currently caught up in.

I’m not meaning to diminish the importance of child safety when it comes to schoolyard activities. Schools need to be as safe as we can make them, and any effort to reduce school related injuries must be made …this includes changing, tweaking, revamping or perhaps completely redesigning playground equipment, or paying extra attention to children during lunchtime activities and transportation to and from school grounds. Kids will be kids as always, and even though our best efforts to keep them from harm will most likely be circumvented in pursuit of a ‘fun time’, we shouldn’t step back from our efforts, and we should always look for ways to better protect them. As corny as it sounds, they are our future.

But this research, or at least the presentation of it, really, really sucks. It almost seems like someone had some money to spend and decided to create a ‘make work’ project. There’s nothing here to report …nothing at all that needs to be brought to the attention of anyone that can’t put 2 and 2 together themselves. It’s like saying “Hey, lets do a study on the benefits of breathing!” …or almost that ridiculous. The goal of the association is to “promote the health, well-being and safety of children.” …surely they can find more effective ways of advancing their agenda without being so painfully obvious.

It’s certainly worth it.

Image from lodinews.com, © Dan Evans/News-Sentinel

old age brings…

rewriting

“The textbooks have said there is less diversity at the poles than the tropics but we found astonishing richness of marine life in the Antarctic and Arctic oceans,” said Victoria Wadley, a researcher from the Australian Antarctic Division who took part in the Antarctic survey. “We are rewriting the textbooks.”

“We think of the Arctic and Antarctic as similar habitats but they are separated by great distances,” said University of Alaska Fairbanks plankton ecologist Russ Hopcroft, who took part in the Arctic survey. “So finding species at both ends of the Earth — some of which don’t have a known connection in between — raises a whole bunch of evolutionary questions,” he said.

I borrowed these comments from an Associated Press article that discussed a newly released marine census reporting on the biodiversity in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. What I like about these statements is that they demonstrate how the scientific process changes preconceived ideas but still adheres to the process itself. It’s self-correcting in a way. Science, admittedly, doesn’t know the answers, but depends instead on its process to make sense of that which it explores. The process in science includes the possibility of revision as a product of its assertion.

Science can move with our changing perspectives …and books get rewritten.

Image from 'Census of Antarctic Marine Life'