North of 49

Well I thought this would be unlikely if not impossible but it seems I have the same blog title as some else on here. Now what to do? I am going to think of a new name and search it. Just keep on doing this till I find a no results message. Or go to the help section and see if there is an easier way. Maybe it doesn't matter? Oh why was I born in the late 50's and lived long enough to become a computer dolt!

My sister pulled up in a rented Dodge and off we went south to Lethbridge. Not too much to say about the trip down except we listened to Cheryl Crow for most of the trip and we took the secondary highway through Vulcan (not the planet on Star Trek)to get there. I had told the xwife and kid that we would arrive at 1:30pm so I knew our timing would be tight. If I were driving, which I couldn't because of my broken foot, we would have made it in time. It was at my suggestion that we take the secondary road because I know from experience that it is devoid of hiway patrol. The RCMP concentrate on the main hiways. Unfortunately my Sister is a stickler for details such as speed limits so we chugged along at 110kmh. The trip at that speed is about 2 hrs, my best time has been 1 hour and 15 mins, we were at the 2 hr mark when we passed the town of Barrons. At 2 hrs 20 mins we pulled into Lethbridge or as it is sometimes called the "Bridge" both as a shortened name and it fits with...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcolman/441030585/ Good day eh. That phrase denotes my country of origin to anyone in North America. The subtle and not so subtle nuances of language keep the Canadian and American cultures just short of a hug away from each other. So what the heck is a Canadian doing waving an American flag? Funny enough the inspiration for this short piece comes from a conversation last night at a bar in Canada with a man from Poland talking about America. His question was this "Why is it that we love to hate the USA?" His query related directly to my changing views on the behemoth to the South. I have always had a black cold spot in my heart for my yankee cousins the bravado of the USA has always offended my Canadian Goodness and from there it is a slippery slope to HATE. I want never to be a hater and it is an inner struggle that I am dealing with to keep that darkness out of my heart. So in the spirit of being unbiased and to the process of looking at the who...

I am going down to Lethbridge today to visit my daughters, the darlings are pictured above. Of course they are much older than the picture here, sorry girls for implying that you are in anyway old. My middle daughter Taya (the one pictured on the left) is in a band with her Mom and they wondered if I would come down to work sound for the band, as if I would say no. I get to meet with my good friend Harlan, see the band, visit the Daughters and take in the small town ambiance of Lethbridge. I have fallen in love with that place the affair started long before they were born. For some reason I have had a connection with the place even before I had met my exwife. It is strange because I had visited the town but once yet it was in my dreams. As I was getting to know this woman named Donna Donnelly, who later became my Wife, I had a very vivid dream in which I was at a bar and we were at opposite ends of the room. I was on stage and she was at the back I motioned for her to come up and she s...

This is the start of another song, sometimes the tune comes first sometimes the words, a tune for this will come later. Later as in I don't know when. So many people with so many views they all say they've got the good news Every is one different yet all the same All of em want to give nature some other name Once you get through the doctrine, judgement and lies You see they all have heaven in their eyes They argue, yell and kill for the right To tell you exactly how to live in the light All of them believe that they're truly blessed they put up thier flags to create a big fuckin mess When you get through the doctrine, judgement and lies you really see they've got heaven in their eyes They are all rightous, good, pious and kind but when you want truth they all lose their mind To most the holy of holies is a copy of man the power that binds us seems few understand Once you get through the doctrine, judgement and lies You see they all have heaven in their eyes I am a man w...

Photo from the Vancouver Sun The 2010 Winter Olympics are for the most part over. The medals are all but won and the memories are both wonderful and provocative. An Olympic event that had the amazing come from behind wins the front runners losses and performance over immeasurable personal tragedy. In 1988 I worked for the CTV host network at the broadcast center and even though I was not even close to any of the action and normally got to work and left for home long before and after the daily action I still found the air in Calgary rarefied with the excitement of the Olympic Games. The office from which I was working had no fewer than 20 TV sets on the wall all showing the grand spectacle this visual overload along with my general disinterest in sports led to a very blase attitude toward the games yet I could feel the spirit of those games when walking down the street, when going into the walking mall downtown and seeing these people from all over the world here for this unifying expe...

All of this gear I would record with but never figured out how to mixdown and have my songs ready to listen to except through the project file on my computer.  Not that I am stupid I just never took enough time to read the manual. Always living a face paced life with work (yeech) being of paramount importance. So for years, 4 to be precise, I would put all the tracks down for a tune and never be able to properly share them. To explain would take a while but I will say that I found ways around my ignorance or maybe more accurate my stubornance and still had other peoples stuff put to cd. Never properly mixed but at least I had a signal go to disc. If I used an analogy it would be like a painter never having a finished piece to show. He would go into a room and paint a masterpiece and the only place he could show others this great work would be in that room and the possibility of it being slightly to very different each time would be great. This was depressing and made...

Web Threat http://www.e-clecticism.com/ Today's post may not seem to be terribly exciting at first glance, but it is in fact extremely important and extremely worrying. Google today issued a statement, via their official blog, regarding a court case that has taken place in Italy. I have reproduced it in full below. As they say, the repercussions of this verdict (if not overturned) could mark the beginning of the end of the web as we know it. Certainly in Europe. The protection of a hosting platform has long been debated. Even back to my days on Fidonet it was a contentious issue but one that has remained unchanged thus guaranteeing the success of both networks. I'll be waiting for further news with bated breath. In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We al...

I do love this site with the amount of truly creative people whose stuff I can read and view. As I read posts it occurs to me that perhaps I should stop because of the incidence of common experience. Damn Jung and his synchronicity thing, wow I spelled that correctly. I am finding that the younger people of America are truly literate and engaging of course this opinion comes from a very slight sample of the population but I still have been given the ammo to fire back at the critics of this electronic medium and its host the WWW. I must be somewhat of an anomoly for a guy my age, I never had a love for nor a disdain for the computer or the internet. OK I did feel the net was sort of lame back in the 80's and frankly it was hard to find certain bits of info unless it had something to do with naked women or the selling of cheap electronics the result of finding failings in it drove me away from the net until 2005. Yeah I know you were 3 years old then. I forget my age and this leads m...

Today the new rules demanding transparency in the Credit Card business take effect. I can't believe that these dicks had 9 months to jack rates! Of course in the spirit of equality it didn't matter who you are or your credit rating you got charged somewhere. Be it an interest increase or service fees that are from the stories I have seen OUTRAGEOUS. So why do I like livin in Canada? Besides the health care system? Is it having more than two political parties? Maybe it's because you can actually get a buzz from less than a case of beer? It's all of the above plus I am not having my balls busted by a loan shark er credit card company. You folks down south are getting jerked around by these poor impoverished companies of course you all deserve it or so these jack asses say. What would be real interesting would be a credit revolt. Of course it would never happen but if everyone who has a card cut it up and sent it back to Bank of America or Citibank or whoever with a polite...

There is not what I would call a debate on this subject. It seems that it would be more a war of attrition. Keep sending the same message and wait for the other to die or accept the others viewpoint. The creationists have no real data to back the claim of divine creation, just a book and their faith laid out for all is to convince us that we are chosen by a divine being to watch over the earth and it's creatures. The point that they make is this....we were put here on earth complete as homo sapiens, no evolution occurred, we did not come from a simpler species and developed to the grand animal that we now are. The evolutionists are of course convinced that as a species we developed from a lower order and now here we are the dominant biped. They have what seems clearly to be irrefutable evidence of evolution with some gaps in the data when applied to us humans. My thoughts are this: One is that proving one or the other as correct has little bearing on our immediate physical being. I...

Zoroastrianism By what I have read it is likely the first religion that gave rise to the idea of a single God that was not of Earth and did not control nature. It promoted the idea of equality of the sexes and was around at least 500 years before Christianity. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil originates from Him. Thus, in Zoroastrianism good and evil have distinct sources, with evil (druj) trying to destroy the creation of Mazda (asha), and good trying to sustain it. Mazda is not immanent in the world, and His creation is represented by the Amesha Spentas and the host of other Yazatas, through whom the works of God are evident to humanity, and through whom worship of Mazda is ultimately directed. The most important texts of the religion are those of the Avesta, of which a significant portion has been lost, and mostly only the liturgies of which have survived. The lost portions are known of only through references and ...

It is probably "bad form" to follow your own blog. I'll leave it for now I'm sure it won't screw anything up it'll just look slightly narcissistic

It boggles my mind to see so many of our institutions that have not fully embraced the communication technology of today. From political parties that have half baked websites to our basic institutions not being linked. This is a long post sorry....no I am not sorry for its length as I have edited it down already. It's length corresponds directly to my level of frustration. Here are three examples of how poorly the information highway is being riden by who we think are people in the know: January 28th 2010 Saskatoon Saskatchewan. I am working out of my home province of Alberta in Saskatchewan for a company based out of Ontario. I am contracted to work at a Home Depot for three days actually nights. The final hours of the job has a young fellow and myself disposing of old cabinets. Without going into more detail through an avoidable accident I ended up fracturing my heel. Fast forward to February 2nd, I am back in Alberta sitting in my GP's office and he is telling me that he do...

I don't want to direct anyone away from this blog by seeming to be too one dimensional. I have an interest in society in general. Art to me is a mirror of society and art is specific to the age it is created in, in this time we live art is being created by more people with more access with more media than ever before. I will confess here by saying I am not a geek so bear with me as I will find how to relay to you the things I see, hear and feel. I just don't know how to do all of that yet. There are help pages which I am sure will help and people here who may be able to direct me to the tools I will need in to bring alive the doings of people I know. Well look at that there are little buttons right up there ^ to help with adding pics and video. It is very early in the morning so my experimenting should come to an end for now.

Hi all: So I have recently fractured my heel so I have a lot of time to spend in front of this machine. I decided to find out more about the many different religions in the world. This is not an introduction to the experience of faith or of organized religion I have had some very strong personal experiences with, for want of a better word, spirituality. I have some questions to answer. The main one being this. If you have a transcendent experience is it attributable to the faith that you have grown up with or is it universal among the faiths. The second is how much does a religion have in the way of dogma. Along with these questions my investigation will look at how involved will the faith allow itself to be political. Also the history of some of them. Not super interesting and not funny but a log of a person who is searching not for truth really but at least some sense of how we have come to where we are. I decided to go to some of the oldest but currently practised faiths.