Woohoo!

 

(posted from my iPhone)

ETA: Wow, what a show! The best I've seen in years!

More photos:

I danced my ass off and sang and yelled until I was hoarse. Awesome stuff.

Podcath Part II

It's been about 18 months since I made my first forays into the world of podcasts, and I am officially hooked! Thanks to some excellent suggestions in the comments of my last podcast post, some recommendations from my hilarious new sister-in-law, and some finds I've made on my own, I have more podcasts than I have time to listen to, and I love it! I listen to music podcasts all day at work, and spoken word while I'm getting ready in the morning, stretching, exercising (it happens occasionally), cooking, cleaning, and when I'm on the bus or SkyTrain.

There have been a couple of times recently when a friend (most recently Alyssa) has asked for new music recommendations, and I've referred them to podcasts rather than bands. This is how I find most of my new music now - if I like something I hear on a podcast, I write it down (sometimes rather cryptically) and look it up on iTunes later. (Given that I listen to a lot of unsigned band podcasts the songs I like aren't always available in the store, but I'll try again every few months). So I thought I'd list my favourite podcasts here for easy reference! I'm still listening to all the podcasts I mentioned last time, but for this post I'll focus on the new stuff.

I'm too lazy to find all the links, but I'm sure my readers are perfectly capable of looking things up in iTunes or wherever else you get your podcasts from!

My favourite podcast in each category is in blue.

Music - single song podcasts

• Current Song of the Day - Minnesota Public Radio
• Indiefeed - I subscribe to the Alternative/Modern Rock, Blues, Dance, Electronica, Hip Hop and Indie Pop channels. I <3 Indiefeed!
• KEXP Song of the Day
• NPR: Second Stage
• Triple J (recommended by Professor in Training and Mermaid)

Music - multisong podcasts

• Bands Under the Radar - excellent tunes, but the length (~2 hours) can sometimes be a bit much.
• CBC Radio 3 - an online-only radio station that plays exclusively Canadian music, all genres, live and studio recorded. I subscribe to the combined feed to get all their podcasts. There's so much more to Canadian music than Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Nickelback and Justin Bieber! 
• Coverville - a new find. The shows alternate between sets of covers of / by a specific artist, and "who did it better?" episodes featuring two or three versions of the same song by different artists, with an online poll so you can vote for your favourite.
• Mad Decent Worldwide Radio - more uptempo and clubby than anything else I listen to. Good for a late afternoon energy boost.
• NPR: Live Concerts - great if you like the band they're featuring, but some of the longer live shows can be a drag if you're not into the band; I end up skipping about a third of them. They also have a habit of not updating for ages and then dumping eight 90 minute shows into the feed at once, which causes problems for those of us with limited space on our 8GB iPhones!
• The Sound Culture - again more clubby than the others, but less so than Mad Decent. I really like this one.
• Triple J: New Unearthed Music - unsigned Aussie bands. (Recommended by Professor in Training and Mermaid)

Music - Blues
At one point I downloaded the entire back catalogue of the Indiefeed Blues podcast, and listened to ten tracks a day for a couple of weeks. I quickly realised that blues is the perfect music to work to; I don't know why, but something just gels. True aficionados will be horrified by this, but the specific band or song don't seem to matter - the whole genre works for me!

• BluzNdaBlood
• Friday Night Blues - a bit more high energy than the others.
• Murphy's Saloon - the host sounds grumpy is a prince among men, the soul of patience, and tells a bad joke on each episode, but and the music's great :) <-- see comments :)
• Nothing but the Blues - the only UK-based blues podcast on my list, although the tracks are international, and the only one that plays some old (sometimes really, really old) recordings mixed in with the more modern stuff.
• Texas Blues Cafe

Moving on to spoken word...


Canadiana

• The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos (video) - George (aka Canada's Boyfriend) is a Canadian institution, but you don't have to be Canadian to appreciate the sheer awesomeness of his guests. Current episodes on my phone include Slash, Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton, and (d'oh!) Nickelback. The interviews are always interesting!
• Today in Canadian History - daily short (~8 minute) snippets about recent and (relatively) ancient history - everything from Captain Vancouver's voyages up the west coast to sport to politics to space exploration. The shows feature interviews with some very interesting people (an astronaut today!) including academics, politicians, and lots of others.
• Vinyl Cafe Stories - OMG I LOVE this show! The host, Stuart McLean, has a true gift as a story teller and as someone who can find extraordinary pleasure in the most ordinary things. He once spent ten minutes praising mandarin oranges and it was fantastic. It took me a little while to get into the stories he tells of a fictitious family - you have to get to know the characters - but it's been totally worth it. Sometimes very, very funny, sometimes very, very sad, but you always get a lovely warm-and-fuzzy feeling. The live shows also feature music and readers' own stories. My all-time favourite podcast. (Recommended by Alyssa and Wayfarer Scientista. Thank you!)

Comedy

• The Moth - live recordings of people standing up and telling a true story from their life, without notes. Not all of the stories are funny, but almost all of them are interesting and well worth listening to. 
• NPR: Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - comedy news quiz. Great stuff, especially once you get to know the panellists! (Recommended by EcoGeoFemme)
• Zeitgeist (video) - short snippets of silly news stories presented by a host with a really dry sense of humour.

News/current events/other

• The bike podcast - from the Guardian. UK-oriented, but great listening for all the cyclists (recreational, race, and/or commuter) out there.
• From Our Own Correspondent - from the BBC. Each episode features several short reports on current events (or just cultural observations) from foreign correspondents based all over the world, mostly serious but with one more light-hearted story at the end. Extremely high quality journalism.
• Savage Love - I LOVE Dan Savage, having been introduced to his weekly column (syndicated in our awesome free weekly  indie paper, the Georgia Straight) by a labmate during my first month in Vancouver. This show is not for the squeamish as some of the sexual problems people call in with are rather weird and wonderful, but his advice is (usually) great and I think he's really doing some important work on this podcast and in his column. Check out his "it gets better" video campaign, which aims to bring hope to gay teens being bullied at school by describing to them the life as happy, well adjusted gay adults that they can't imagine having for themselves while stuck in small-town high school life.
• This American Life - two or three stories on a given theme per episode. Again, the quality of the journalism is great and they find some amazing stories. Sometimes funny, mostly serious. (Recommended by Wayfarer Scientista and EcoGeoFemme)
• WNYC's Radiolab - similar to This American Life, but with scientific themes. The shows are really well done and appeal strongly to me (a scientist) and Mr E Man (not a scientist, but interested in Stuff In General). THIS is how you bring science to the public!

Great, now the next time anyone asks for new music recommendations, I can just give them a link! And if anyone has any new suggestions, bring it on! Maybe I can do a Part III in another 18 months.

I might review my favourite iPhone apps (mostly games) next, if anyone's interested!

A walk in the woods: choose wisely

Which path would you choose?

Would the adjacent sign affect your decision?

 (Shmeegs?)

Would you consider the relative scariness and likelihood of this...

...compared to this?

(Photo source).

Would the sight of vultures circling overhead affect your decision making?

 (is there a fresh bear kill in the woods, or are they waiting for the siren dinner bell?)

This was our final choice.

It seemed to be a good one.

This was our Sunday lunchtime cool-down during The Big Time Out, a music festival in Cumberland on Vancouver Island. The record-breaking heat (something like 36C on Saturday - that's 97F) may have affected my opinion somewhat, but I have to say that while it was a fun weekend and an amazing setting,

the line-up was a bit of a disappointment. Lots of "this is OK" or "oh, these guys have some decent stuff", not much "WOW, these guys are AWESOME!"

Saturday was especially meh - the opening act was the best one all day, and while the headliners (Broken Social Scene) were also very good, the penultimate band had managed to suck most of the energy out of the crowd by the time they came on, so it was all a bit muted.

Sunday was better - the dip in the river was better preparation for the day than sweating in the tiny patch of shade thrown by our hastily rigged tarp had been the day before. But while the headliner K'naan rocked the house as usual, he didn't have any new songs; it was essentially the same set we saw him do in Vancouver in March 2009. I guess a whole year spent on the World Cup music tour precludes much writing of new material. But still, great set, and he and a couple of other bands we saw over the two days (Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees, Vitaminsforyou, Mutaytor, Kim Churchill, and especially Tambura Rasa) inspired some happy "dancing barefoot on the grass" moments in me. And as this was a very small festival, there was a really nice friendly atmosphere with lots of happy people and little kids running around all over the place. All very different to my previous music festival experiences - all in Scotland, at massive events with two stages, multiple gig tents, fairgrounds, and drunken Scots everywhere!

Overall though, my main impression of the event was of overwhelming, baking heat. Oh, except at night, when it was freezing! There was about an hour of comfortable temperature in the morning, and maybe a couple of hours in the evening, but the rest of the time was spent either sweating buckets and trying not to move, or shivering in all the clothes I'd brought. The festival and adjacent campsite were in an open field, with very little shade. We got lucky and bagged a spot next to the fence, so we pooled resources (tarps and blankets) with one of our neighbours to set up a small patch of (still baking hot) shade between the fence and our tents. The poor people who arrived later and camped in the middle of the field had no shade at all though. It's rained at every single other music festival I've ever been to - on one memorable occasion at T in the Park in Scotland it got so muddy that some of the tents in the sloping campsite started to slide downhill - and that's always miserable and muddy and nasty, but surely there's a happy medium somewhere!

In these circumstances, we declared this frozen mango impaled on a stick

to be the best thing ever invented in the history of humanity. I literally felt new energy flooding back into my poor heat-sensitive Celtic body as I ate it.

Mmmmmm, mangogasm.

There was also the usual lack of sleep that you get at festivals. The tents were all packed in like sardines, and some of our other neighbours were the loudest, douchiest, most obnoxious people on the site. Their conversation kept everyone in the vicinity awake from 1 - 5:30 am on the first night as one guy shared tales of all his sexual conquests in quite an aggressive, nasty way (and repeated everything at least once to make sure he'd been heard). At one point I whispered to Mr E Man "wow, that guy must have a really, really small penis", and after that we referred to him as Douchebag McTinydick, which made us feel better - as did the news Mr E Man overheard on Monday morning that the whole group had been so hungover and tired after that night that they fell asleep in their camp chairs and missed K'naan on the Sunday!

Karma - don't you just love it?!

Like I say though, overall it was a good weekend, with the swim in the river being the highlight. Oh, and we saw dolphins from the ferry on the way back, which was awesome! We might go back to The Big Time Out in the future, depending on the line-up (and the weather forecast), but our shade-sharing neighbour also gave us lots of tips about other small festivals she's been to around BC that are apparently much better. There's a jazz / world music festival in Kaslo (a nine hour drive from Vancouver) where the stage floats on a lake, and the crowd can wade in the lake up to their waists while listening.

Watch this space... Summer 2011... maybe!

Springing back

I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow!

Really exciting news, eh?

Well, it is to me! I haven't had a hair cut for months, because I just haven't had the time. Literally every weekend since the beginning of the Olympics has been jammed; I've been double or even triple booked almost every day of every weekend, and plenty of weekday evenings too.

It sounds incredibly whiny to complain (and I do apologise for said complaining), because it's all been really fun stuff and it's been a privilege to experience it. I loved the Olympics, I loved having my friends and then my parents here (for a total of seven weeks in just over two months). I even enjoyed most of my training for the Vancouver-Seattle ride; I just seriously underestimated how much of my time it would take up, especially in combination with hosting visitors. I've had to turn down lots of invitations to fun events this year, and I feel like I've neglected many of my friends.

I've also neglected myself. I find that I need some down-time at least every second weekend; time spent just hanging out, either by myself or with just Mr E Man. Time spent reading, writing, playing my guitar, playing card and board games with Mr E Man, or online Monopoly when I'm feeling really burned out - that kind of thing. But I haven't had any real down-time for such a long time (hosting jet-lagged UK visitors eliminates even my early morning pre-work pseudodown-time), and I've been feeling it, both mentally and physically. In fact I've been feeling much the same way my hair looks - as it gets longer, its own weight starts to pull the curls out of it, and when it's not being limp and flat it gets fuzzy and annoying instead.

Last weekend, I had my first real down-time in months. It was heaven. I didn't do ANYthing (except watch football) on Saturday, then on Sunday I actually had the time to go clothes shopping to replace the literally falling-apart clothes I've been walking around in. I just got some jeans and capris and t-shirts, but it's so nice to have more than three outfits composed of intact items of clothing again!

I've also started to be able to plan things again. Things that are selfishly all about ME ME ME (well, and Mr E Man too. But mostly ME). Last weekend I bought tickets for a music festival on Vancouver Island, and booked a week off work for a kayaking trip (destination TBD). I also signed up for the MS Society 60 km bike ride, a really fun event that I did a couple of years ago - 60km is a piece of cake now, and I could afford to cover the minimum donation amount myself without having to bug any of my friends. I feel like I've got my life back, and the summer can finally begin!

And tomorrow I get to break free from the last of the dead weight! My curls will spring back - and hopefully, so will I!

Birthday greetings, bottle of wine

My Dad turns 64 today!

Instead of "Happy Birthday To You", we're going to sing this in the restaurant tonight:



My Dad said last night that 64 seemed impossibly old when he first heard this song!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

What will happen if you take your parents to a gig

In chronological order:

• Your parents will finally announce the start and end dates of their much-discussed five week trip to Vancouver
• You will dutifully add the dates to your calendar
• A few weeks later, you will find out that Delhi 2 Dublin are playing the Commodore on May 7th, and you finally have a chance to see them after missing out twice in the last couple of years
• You will check your calendar and realise that the gig will take place while your parents are in town
• You will swear
• You will ask your parents via Skype if they would like to go to see a Celtic-bhangra fusion band
• They will say "we're up for anything!"
• You will buy four tickets to said concert
• Your sister will say "erm... seriously? HAHAHAHA!"
• When your parents arrive, you will remind them that you have tickets for a gig on May 7th
• They will have forgotten, and will look slightly dubious about the concept of Celtic-bhangra fusion music
• The Canucks will end up playing Game 4 of their second round playoff series on the same night
• Your husband will threaten not to come to the concert
• You will call the Commodore, and they will tell you that they do not show hockey games on night when there's a band on
• You will swear
• You will decide to watch the game at home and then jump in a cab and head downtown as soon as it ends
• You will hope there is no overtime
• The Canucks will suck
• You will drink faster than normal during the game because of the tension and frustration of it all 
• You will realise that overtime is a laughably over-optimistic objective for this game
• Everyone will swear
• And again
• And then some more
• Your husband will call a cab just as the game ends
• No-one will be ready to leave as he makes the call, but your husband will confidently say "plenty of time, it's going to take bloody ages to get a cab tonight"
• The cab will arrive immediately
• Everyone will swear and run around the house in a mad panic
• You will pop to the loo before leaving
• When you come out, everyone will be outside chasing your cat, who escaped through the front door during the chaos
• You will swear
• Everyone will swear
• The taxi driver will laugh at you all
• You will be mad at everybody for letting the cat out
• The cat will evade all attempts at recapture and disappear down the back alley
• You will swear some more
• You will get into the cab and go to the gig anyway, although you will be really worried about the cat, who has never been outside at night before and there are raccoons and coyotes and she doesn't even have her sister with her for backup
• Everyone will be grumpy in the cab, because of the stoopid cat and the even stoopider Canucks
• You will tip the driver well for not driving away in disgust during the chaos 
• You will cheer up a bit when you get IDed at the venue
• Your Dad will be astonished (and delighted) that beer is available for purchase
• He will say "do they sell beer at gigs in England?"
• You will ask him when he last went to a gig*
• He will admit that he doesn't remember, but it was probably in the 60s and might have been the Hollies
• You will drink faster than normal because you're worried about your cat and mad that no-one was paying attention while she escaped, but don't want to get into an argument about it at this precise moment
• There will be several techno DJs as support acts
• They will mostly suck
• Your parents will look a bit lost and confused and uncomfortable
• They will enjoy the break dancers though
• Your husband will ease the tension by asking your Mum what her favourite song was so far
• You will gradually lighten up and start to enjoy yourself 
• You will get into a debate with your Dad about which is worse: to have never seen your team (Newcastle United) win anything in your whole lifetime (me), or to have seen them win something when you were seven and then suffer through a much longer lifetime of disappointment and failure after that (him)
• You will approach a guy in a Newcastle shirt to ask him to settle the dispute
• When you get close, you will realise that it's actually a Juventus shirt
• You will realise that you are drunk
• Delhi 2 Dublin will finally come on at about 11:30pm
• They will rock
• Everyone will get up and dance
• Your Dad will astonish you by shouting "I know this song!"
• You will drag him onto the dance floor
• You will realise that you are really drunk, but that's OK because so is your Dad
• And your husband
• Everyone will have an awesome time and buy CDs as souvenirs
• You will get home to find one freaked-out cat with a big bloody scratch on her nose cowering by the back door
• She will be completely fine after a big cuddle
• You will declare the evening a huge success
• You will be very hungover the next day

Next up: what will happen if you take your parents to a Canucks game! Yay Canucks for winning Game 5 after Mr E Man had secured tickets for Game 6! WOOOOOOOOOO!

---------------------------

*as opposed to a sit-down concert. They go to lots of those

Scottish tree hybridisers

My parents are here!

They arrived on Saturday, on the same flight as my boss's inlaws¹ and the woman who Gordon Brown called a bigot². And now I have five weeks of chatting to my Dad about football  before work! Oh, and endless comments of the "do you always have that kind of thing for breakfast?" variety. At least my Mum has finally given up trying to stop me (and my sister, when they visit her) from leaving the house with wet hair.

Yesterday morning was spent in the VanDusen Botanical Garden, which is in full and splendid bloom at the moment.

A non-blooming part of the garden. Oops!

My Dad's sense of humour has been documented here previously, but one thing I didn't mention was that every trip has to have a theme. He'll find something that amuses him, then create a whole set of jokes, stories, and banter around it. For example, after meeting someone on his flight once who had an annoying voice and rather unusual opinions on several issues, everything that happened on that trip had to be commented on and re-told as if by that person. It's always very funny for the first week, less so the second, and gets gradually more annoying through constant repetition. By the end of five weeks we'll be begging him to stop, but my poor Mum will have to live with it for at least another month after they get home.

Mr E Man's Scottish heritage is a recurring theme of my Dad's banter, and he happened to be wearing his Scotland rugby shirt yesterday. So when my Dad spotted a mention of a "famous Scottish tree hybridiser" on one of the Garden's plaques, it quickly became apparent that the theme for this trip was set.

"You Scotsmen will shag anything!" was the opening salvo. (Mr E Man did point out that this is not a very nice thing to say to the man who married your daughter).

There was much more banter along these lines as we made our way around the garden, and the puns and jokes continued over lunch. I know I shouldn't encourage my Dad in his efforts, but "Robert the Spruce" popped into my head and was too good not to share. My Dad then inquired whether Mr E Man's ancestors came from the Outer or Inner Hybridise³, and it's all been downhill since then.

Sigh.

Ah well, it's lovely to see them, and we have lots planned for the next few weeks. Luckily, both my parents seem happy to watch lots of hockey (Go Canucks Go! WOOOOOOO!). We're also taking them to see Delhi 2 Dublin (we've told my Dad that the venue will be serving curried Guiness), and to visit Mr E Man's mum and then one of his sisters. Oh, and we're going to Whistler so the boys can play golf and the girls can go to the spa. So if you don't see me round the blogosphere as much as usual, this is why... so much to do! Although we will have a temporary return to normality next week when my parents leave for their week-long Alaskan cruise, and they might also go down to Seattle for a couple of days at some point.

Oh, and the cats are being excellent ambassadors for their species; if this continues, my Mum should be able to persuade my Dad to get another cat (the last one died seven years ago), if/when she decides that she would like one. She's always been a pet person, but my Dad most definitely isn't, and he agreed to get the last cat only after much begging and crying by my sister and me. The cat turned out to be a vicious little bugger who'd rather scratch you than snuggle with you; Google and Saba are the opposite, and have already slept on his lap several times. Nice work, kitties!

-------------------

1) I ran into him and his family in the arrivals area. We had a long wait as there was a problem with the baggage carousel; my parents got one suitcase immediately, but had to wait an hour before the second one showed up.


2) Apparently she was very embarrassed to be recognised! I wonder if it was a pre-planned trip or if she suddenly felt the need to flee the country...


3) Link for those of you not au fait with Scottish geography

We're gonna need a montage! MONTAGE!

I was planning to update the hockey pool, but Blogger is borked and I can't upload any new images. Some of the old ones aren't showing up either, including my lovely "kayaks at sunset" banner image. I feel so naked without it! Hopefully it'll be back soon.

To compensate, here's a photo and video montage I put together of Olympic and Paralympic fun and games (hopefully I can still haz videos). The song is "Oh... Canada" by Classified, which was released during the first week of the games; fittingly enough, I first heard it on one of the CBC Radio 3 podcasts, and bought it on iTunes a few days later, 'cos I'm cheesy like that. And yes, I promise that this will be the absolutely last and final Olympic video*.

Enjoy! I'll keep trying with the hockey pool images...



*Probably.

Resoluquinox 2010

I am continuing my new tradition of making my resolutions at the Spring equinox, rather than at the deepest darkest time of winter. (I'm a day late, but let's pretend we didn't notice).

Most of my resolutions are the same as last year's, so I've combined my 2009-2010 progress summaries with the new / revised resolutions (the blue headings). One thing I've learned is that I do better with specific targets than with vague "do more of X and less of Y" resolutions, so I've tried to set goals for each resolution this year.

A) CAREER

2009-2010 progress:


i) do everything I can to make sure I get to stay on in my job after my original two year contract expires in November.

DONE! My funding source, and therefore my job description, changed a bit and I'm working with a different (but overlapping) set of PIs now, but I'm still employed and still enjoying it (on the macro level, at least. On the micro level, some tasks are more fun than others! I'm looking at you, CV formatting days).

ii) stop procrastinating and develop my freelance writing

I got my first freelance writing income this year - the first (and so far only) royalties for an online high school textbook section that I wrote and project managed with some former colleagues back in 2007 - and also my first byline, hopefully the first of many articles for the MS Society. That gig puts the free in freelancing, but it's a great start to my portfolio (and also an improvement on how I've volunteered for them in the past; standing in the freezing rain in Stanley Park for a few hours during their annual fundraising walk. Kinda fun, but I prefer writing, and they seem to agree that it's a better use of my time and training :) ). I've also worked on a couple of side projects for a PI who I know from my day job, on projects that aren't really in my job description but for which the PI has funding to hire me for a few hours here and there. And I also worked with my former colleagues this year to update the textbook content and change the format for another market, which will hopefully bring in some more money. Other than landing the MS Society gig I haven't been terribly proactive though, i.e. I haven't submitted any queries or articles anywhere.

2010-2011 goals:

i) be more organised and proactive at work

The deadline-driven nature of my work means that I go through peaks and troughs of urgency, with periods of panic followed by calmer weeks spent trying to deal with the fall-out from the panic (e.g. inbox chaos, trying to catch up on non-deadlined tasks before the next deadline hits). I also tend to get overwhelmed by the regular floods of new tasks that all hit me in the same week. (They always, always, cluster). So here are the initial goals, although I may add more and / or modify these ones depending on how they work.

a) Check work email only three times a day (first thing in the morning, at lunch time, and then at about 4pm). Turn off email auto-alerts. Answer every single email within one work day. File all emails weekly. (The first two points do not apply during deadline weeks!)

b) Have a daily and a monthly to-do list, as well as a weekly one

c) Have a list of non-urgent, non-deadlined tasks, organised by how long each task will take, so that I can easily pick one if I have a spare 20 minutes / hour / afternoon. These tasks tend to get neglected otherwise.

d) Get a Mobile Me subscription and have ALL events on ONE calendar.

e) Try again to negotiate a day a week working from home (I get horribly distracted in the open-plan office).

ii) do more extracurricular writing

I've modified this title category from last year, as I want to include blogging as well as freelance writing.

When it comes to the latter, I'm much less sure than I was last year that freelancing is my ideal long-term job. I've been reading / listening to a lot of books, blogs and podcasts by and for freelancers, and have gained a much more realistic appreciation of how hard it is to earn a living in this way. Although I still think I'd love freelancing, given our current mortgage there's just no way that it'll be a viable career for me any time in the next ten years.

In addition, Bean-Mom's recent post about her own writing really hit home (I haven't commented yet because I'm still mulling it over). I have similar issues with discipline; I really knuckled down for the projects I mentioned above, especially the textbook project, but that took up every weekend and evening (and some mornings before work) for several months, and when it was done I just wanted to veg out. I spent Boxing Day 2007 locked in the computer room alone while my in-laws hung out with Mr E Man, eating turkey and bacon sandwiches and playing fun board games with lots of laughter (they'd all come over for Christmas Day and got snowed in), leading to my niece saying "I thought your name was Auntie Cath, not Antisocial". I also had to work for 14 hours on New Year's Day 2008, when I'd much rather have been under a blanket on the sofa with Mr E Man, eating pizza and watching movies all day like a normal person. In other words, freelancing is a very, very hard thing to do, especially when you're also working full time in a demanding job.

However, I still really enjoy writing, and there's no reason why it can't still be a fun hobby that brings in a little money here and there. And given the soft-money nature of my salary support, it's always good to have a back-up plan (although if my funding ends, I will have to make finding another full-time job my top priority). So with that in mind, my specific goals are mostly aimed at providing motivation to write in ways that I find enjoyable and productive, with half an eye on developing my portfolio and keeping my eyes and ears open for paying opportunities.

a) write at least one "research blogging" style blog post per month (on my other blog). I've been reading over my blog archives recently, and I'm really proud of how some of those early posts turned out, even if they barely attracted any comments. I'd like to get back into this style of blogging as I have "lazy blogger" tendencies otherwise :)

b) develop a portfolio website. Mostly just for the experience, but then I'll have something ready to go in case I spot an interesting opportunity.

c) I'm reluctant to even mention this, but... I have an idea for a pop-sci book. In a way this appeals more than taking on a larger number of small projects, but I'm extremely ambivalent about it given my comments above about locking myself in a room to write while other people have fun. I honestly don't know if I have it in me to do this, although I would love to have a book published (I have no illusions about making a ton of money and quitting my day job; I know people are interested in this subject, but it's still a very small niche, and I'm aware that only a tiny percentage of authors make enough money for it to be their sole profession). It would be a HUGE, multi-year commitment; many, many holidays would be spent in the same way as Boxing Day 2007. I've read some excellent posts recently about how to develop a book proposal (a must in the non-fiction market), so at the very least I will take the first couple of steps (defining exactly what would be in this hypothetical book; the scope is potentially huge and I would need to whittle it down to a much more focused subset of the subject matter). I may be contacting a couple of fellow bloggers for feedback!

B) HEALTH

2009-2010 progress:


i) exercise more

I did really well for the first 8 months of the year. I went to the gym more, I swam every week until my swimming partner had her baby in July, and I started running for the first time in my life. I started out with 30 second running / 1 minute walking intervals over a 7.5 minute run, and built up to running 33 minutes (3 x 10 minute intervals interspersed with 1 minute walks) twice or thrice a week. However, everything went to pot when I got swine flu in November. I was still recovering when we left for two weeks in Cuba, still had a cough when we returned... and by the time I was feeling completely better, it was the darkest, coldest, and rainiest time of year and I was just out of the habit. Good habits are so much easier to break than to form! I have done some exercise since, just... not much.

ii) stretch more


For me, stretching tends to go hand in hand with running. So, see above for how I started well but ended poorly...

iii) improve my diet

I did OK here, but not great. I've cut down further on the amount of meat I eat, especially red meat, and Mr E Man and I are both doing better at going out of our way to buy organic free range meat rather than the other stuff that's available at our closest three grocery stores. But I need to do better at eating locally. I have had some good long streaks of making my own lunch, but one forgetful / rushed day tends to lead to a skipped week or even longer. When I do buy lunch I try to get something vegetarian, but the best veggie lunches are a longer walk, and grant deadlines and nasty weather make me lazy.

2010-2011 goals: (I'm going to be really, really unoriginal here!)

i) exercise more

My upcoming bike ride from Vancouver to Seattle (sponsor me! It's for cancer research!) is an excellent motivation here.

a) On weekdays, I will do one weights session and at least one cardio session per week. At least one cardio session MUST be on a bike (real or static).

b) On weekends when I'm in town, I will do at least one long bike ride per weekend until the ride, and thereafter at least one run OR a long bike ride OR some other form of cardio (kayaking, hiking etc).

c) I will stretch before every session.

ii) improve my diet

a) No more meat at lunch, unless it's leftovers from a previous dinner, or unless I go out for lunch (this only happens about once a month and I often go for the veggie option anyway, depending on the restaurant).

b) Red meat no more than once a week, unless I'm served red meat at someone's house and I've already had some that week. But in that case I won't have any red meat the following week.

c) Go to the farmer's market every summer weekend when I'm in town. Eat more local produce in general.

d) Drink more water: at least a litre a day at work on top of my usual cups of tea, and also alternate alcoholic drinks with a glass of water when I'm out.


C) MISCELLANEOUS

2009-2010 progress:

i) play my guitar more 

As with making lunches, I'm streaky. I came back from Cuba with masses of inspiration, but being away for two weeks over Christmas and New Year broke that good habit (I played a LOT of Beatles Rock Band while I was away, but I don't think that counts). 


ii) don't neglect the garden so much

Another one that started well, but ended with a chaos of weeds... 

2010-2011 goals: (Again, same old same old, but with more specific goals)

i) play my guitar more

At least one hour per week

ii) don't neglect the garden so much

a) Plant a hedge

b) Replace the shrubby thing that died last year

c) Replace the fern that died last year

d) Fix the outside tap and buy a hose so that I don't stop watering the plants when I realise that going up and down the stairs into the kitchen with a watering can ten times per night during a heatwave is not really all that much fun

e) Weed for at least five minutes a day on weekdays, and as needed on weekends (subject to weather conditions, of course)

iii) Finances

Persuade Mr E Man that we need to see a financial planner. Relying on the house to fund our retirement is probably not all that smart, even in Vancouver.

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Phew! It's going to be another busy year. And I just spent 90 minutes writing this blog post. It's just as well I got up extra early... gotta go, things to do!

Post hockey therefore proper rockin'

After the huge post-hockey party on Sunday night, Mr E Man and a friend who lives nearby shared a taxi home from downtown. Mr E Man told me the next morning that the 15 minute ride had been really fun - the driver was flying Canadian car flags and playing bhangra music, and was happy to crank it up to 11 when asked by his passengers, who were equally happy to keep the party going as they headed home, dancing in the back seat with all the windows open, shouting "YEAH!!!!" at pedestrians.

We heard last night that after Mr E Man got dropped off, the party continued even further...

Our friend was having such an awesome time that he asked the driver to take him back downtown for a drive around Stanley Park.

Halfway around the park, the driver was having such an awesome time that he switched off the meter.

An hour later, when our friend finally made it home, the driver gave him the CD of bhangra music as a parting gift.

For me, that story sums up the atmosphere in the city over the last couple of weeks.

Note to self: leave better notes to self

I'm currently (intermittently, half-heartedly) tidying my inbox and desk after the latest round of grant applications. In the process, I uncovered a note in my own handwriting on the pad of post-its that I use for jotting down phone messages:

Louise Golbey

Same old same old

Hmmm, I thought.

Who the hell is Louise Golbey? And why did I react that way to her phone message? "Same old same old" implies that we were having a conversation that I found boringly familiar... but I just can't place that name. Did the grant-inspired adrenaline rush and/or the two-week Olympic party seriously addle my brains that much?!

I searched my email folders for her name - nothing.

I searched a couple of institutional contact lists - nothing.

But Google had the answer: she's a musician who was recently profiled on the "BBC Introducing" podcast, to which I subscribe.

She has a song called "Same Old, Same Old".

I keep a list of artists I've heard on podcasts who I want to investigate further, but it's usually as a note in my iPhone.Using the telephone message post-its instead probably saved me a couple of minutes on a busy day, but cost me much more than that in solving the mystery (and then blogging about it - d'oh!) today.

Anyway, you should check her out. I don't write that many names down in a given month, so her music obviously stands out, even if her name didn't!

Good morning!

How 'bout a little relaxing music to ease you into the week?



This video (found via the Best of YouTube podcast) reminds me of seeing the percussion band Stomp in Glasgow. Being impoverished grad students we bought tickets in the cheapest section of the theatre, way up in the Gods. When we arrived, we found that they'd only sold about a quarter of the tickets and were seating everyone in the stalls to help build the atmosphere. It was an amazing show, highly recommended. It's just incredible what you can create using brooms and assorted other household items.  There was a group of about twelve developmentally disabled kids right in front of us, and they got so excited and started yelling and hollering and jumping up and down and stamping their feet. The adults with them tried to get them to sit down and be quiet, but the performers made a point of saying to the adults, "let them join in! We love it when people join in! You should too!"

I can imagine a clear line of descent from primitive humans banging sticks together around a camp fire, to Stomp, to Techno Jeep.

Music and human ingenuity make me happy.

No, nay, never, no more

No responses to my letters yet, but my MP, Don Davies, did have an article criticising prorogation in the Georgia Straight (our weekly free paper), and I gather from Facebook that he'll be attending the rally (now set for 1pm on Saturday January 23rd at the Vancouver art gallery).

Merry Fucking Christmas!

Right, I'm off - just a five hour drive through treacherous snowy mountain passes, and we'll be at my sister-in-law's place for a festive family get-together (six adults, four kids (aged seven, seven, nine and fifteen), and three cats (not ours, they're spending Christmas with our tenant).). There will be good food; lots of wine; drunken games of Cranium, Twister and Beatles Rock Band; and of course skiing. Very little internet though!

I hope all my awesome readers have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, or other holidays as applicable. Here's my all-time favourite Christmas song, especially for you.



And here's another contender. WARNING: this one is from South Park, and is offensive to, well, pretty much everyone. Watch at your own risk!



Merry Fucking Christmas, everyone! See you in 2010!

Cuba: Chan Chan and other songs

This is the song "Chan Chan", from the Buena Vista Social Club album.



It's good, eh?

This is just as well, because we heard it an average of twice a day on our two week trip.

The music was one of the things I was most looking forward to before we flew to Cuba, and I was not disappointed. Music was everywhere - you couldn't step into a cafe, bar, museum, rest stop or onto a beach without there being at least one live band.

And almost every single one - literally, every band we saw except for maybe four - played Chan Chan.

They each had their own version, of course, and different instrumentation, ranging from the standard guitar + mini guitar + drums to full seven piece bands with a stand up bass and a trumpet. And Chan Chan was the only song that they all had in common - we heard a wide variety of other songs from a multitude of genres, from rock to salsa to rumba to jazz. The quality of the musicianship was outstanding - even when the genre wasn't really what I wanted to hear (e.g. the band at a rooftop bar overlooking the Caribbean, who played covers of old-school Western rock songs), the musicians were wonderful.

It would have been nice to enjoy this Caribbean sunset to the sound of Cuban jazz, rather than "Back in the USSR".

Well, with one exception.

The music scene in Cienfuegos was not exactly hopping on a Sunday or Monday night, but we did manage to find one bar with a stage and speakers set up.  We grabbed a table and some mojitos, and waited expectantly.

The first people onto the stage were dancers. Four women, two in dresses and two dressed as male matadors, painted-on mustaches and all. Some pop music started to blare from the speakers, and they began their dance.

Now, I'm no dance expert. But to my eye, the four dancers were reasonably competent - as individuals. But their coordination with each other? Off by miles.

As the music switched to a flamenco pastiche featuring a drum machine and synth, the dancers effected a hasty costume change into flamenco dresses (the mustaches remained intact), and were suddenly joined by a singer.

He wore a garish purple tracksuit, and had a mullet.

What he lacked in musical talent (and that was a lot), he made up for in showmanship. Grand sweeping arm movements aplenty were proffered to the adoring crowd of his friends and family at the front, and at the climax of the first song, he sank to his knees as he belted out the final words like a drunken Glaswegian at karaoke.

Our new German friend turned to us and said, "we have come to the most musical country in the world. But we have found the worst musician in Cuba".

Mullet Man aside, though, the music was the thing I missed the most when we came back home to rainy grey Vancouver. On my first day back at work, I went to my favourite sandwich shop, and was quite perturbed when there was no band to serenade me.

Luckily, we came back home with several new CDs in our luggage. Every band sells their own discs, and we traded CDs for either cash or the packs of guitar strings we'd taken with us (a tip from a friend who's a musician and had visited Cuba before). Strings being hard to come by in Cuba, this went down very well indeed. One musician in Trinidad, a troubador named Israel Moreno, asked Mr E Man if he'd brought the strings because he played guitar himself. "No, but my wife does", replied that traitor. So Israel handed me his beaten up guitar, with rusty strings and every fret scooped out by years of playing, and asked me to play.

Like, in front of people!

I did very, very badly.

Mr E Man was very, very amused. (And got in lots of trouble, I can assure you).

Israel Moreno and the guitar I tried to play. He was very encouraging and said I just need to practice more. I agree.

But I came back with more than CDs. My experience in Cuba has inspired to pick up my poor neglected guitar much more often than I have in the last couple of years.

Guitar strings: $9.99 a set.
Tips: 1 Convertible Peso per band
Inspiration: priceless.

Day tripper: El Nicho

When we first started planning our trip, Mr E Man did a lot of online research, and picked Baracoa as his first choice destination. However, its location on the far Eastern tip of the island meant that we would have lost too many days to travelling, and we decided to defer the delights of mountains, pine forests, and waterfalls to our next trip instead.

Intent on swimming by a waterfall anyway, Mr E Man then picked El Nicho, near Cienfuegos. As with our trip to Habana, we chose an organised tour - but in this case, it really was the only option as we were repeatedly told that most Cuban cars can't handle the road in, which is winding, steep, and in poor condition. Our brand new, Chinese-built minibus had enough problems, creaking and groaning its way up and down the steep grades. As it turns out though, the tour was great. We chatted to the other people on the bus (a mother and son from Ontario, two guys from Israel, and one German), to our wonderfully smiley guide, and to the musicians we picked up en route (no meal or other experience in Cuba is complete without a live band, and this was no exception).

The drive was amazing. On the bus down from Varadero we'd seen how lush and green the countryside is - and much wilder, less intensively farmed than I'd imagined. But this drive into the mountains was something else, and the driver stopped a few times for photo opportunities.

Upon arriving at El Nicho, our guide led us into the woods on a nature walk. She was an encyclopedic source of knowledge about the local plants and their medicinal uses, and local folklore about the plants and birds we saw. We ate fresh berries from the coffee plants growing wild in the reserve, and heard wondrous stories about the delicious fruit of the mamey tree:

"It is the most delicious fruit in the world. Everybody in Cuba loves it, we are so happy when the mameys ripen. It looks good, it smells good, and it tastes so very, very good. But it is not in season, so you can't have any".

Our new German friend said "do, please, keep telling us how amazing this wonderful fruit is that we can't have", and she waxed lyrical for another minute or two, laughing heartily at our jealous faces!

Luckily, the main attraction of El Nicho soon came into view, taking our minds off delicious forbidden fruit:

 

There's a series of pools, and we lost no time getting into the biggest, bluest, most waterfall-y of the group. Having told several Cubans where we were going, we expected the water to be extremely cold. Everyone had told us how beautiful it was, but said it was "muy frío" even in August, when most Cubans visit. To go in November? You Canadians are crazy! We were warned repeatedly by our hostess Esther and her daughter, and started to take the advice to heart. 

But really? For Canadians? It barely even counted as "refreshing" (well, until you swam under the waterfall). Our German companion agreed with us, but our two new Israeli friends were significantly slower to get in!

 Mr E Man took this photo of me taking a photo of the mother and son from Ontario

Our guide said that for those who can stand the cold (she couldn't get past her ankles), this was actually the best time of year to visit - during the rainy season, and for a few months afterwards, the pools are full of mud, vegetation, and other debris washed down by the rain. But we were treated to beautifully clear water.

 

We went from pool to pool for around an hour, before being summoned for lunch at the reserve's one and only restaurant. We sat in the sunshine and had a delicious meal of pork, potatoes, and salad, to the sound of a band playing that wonderful Cuban music, before getting back into the bus for a picturesque ride back to Cienfuegos. After dinner we met up with the German and Israelis for beers and more music.

The only low point in the whole day was the sorry sight of a female dog in the restaurant, obviously nursing, who was a pathetic mess of skin and bones. Every single one of us in the group took pity on her and fed her large chunks of meat. There was another nursing female too, less skinny than the other but not in good condition. She got some smaller pieces of meat and a couple of potatoes. There was also a happy, healthy, bright-eyed bushy-tailed male, who we thought looked rather pleased with himself.

We didn't give him anything.

More K'naan for you

From NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series. The second song, Fatima, breaks my heart. I well up every single time I hear it.



K'naan's touring right now, so keep an eye out for concerts near you. We saw him in March, and it was the stand-out concert of the year (yes - better than U2), and also made it into my top five gigs of all time.

Home is where the kettle is

Cuba was awesome. I highly recommend it to those of you who are able to visit (sorry, American blog buddies!) I'm sure I'll bore you all to tears with my planned series of upcoming posts and photos*, but I'll try to intersperse them with other random ramblings intelligent insights.

First, though, I have to deal with a logjam of digital information that is threatening to unleash a flood of epic proportions upon my poor jetlagged** head:

>250 work emails to read / file / answer / delete
>350 grant opportunity announcements and work-related Google alerts to pick through
>400 "proper" blog posts to read (not including LOLcats etc)
>1000 journal article alerts to browse (in Google Reader - I recently switched all my TOC alerts from email to RSS, which makes things sooooo much easier to manage).

I hate feeling like I'm missing out on anything, so if there have been any major announcements, developments, or fights in our little corner of the blogosphere, I'd appreciate a wee linkie to take me to the action! I'll do my best to catch up on everyone's news over the next couple of weeks or so, but until then:

• why is it so fucking dark and cold?
• why did the local sandwich shop not have a band playing when I went to get my lunch?
• why did no-one try to sell me cigars or lead me to their brother's restaurant on the walk there and back?
• why have I not had a single drink yet today? It's, like, after five!

Mind you, I've been back for only 27 hours and I've already done lots of wonderful things that weren't an option in Cuba:

• watched hockey
• arsed about on the internet
• had a really good cup of tea (actually, three)
• eaten sushi
• drunk wonderful, tasty, refreshing tapwater
• snuggled under a blankie in a cold room
• rubbed Saba's belly and Google's chin
• slagged off the government

Home. There's no place like it.

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*um. Our new "waterproof" camera did great on its first field test - we got some great shots on, in, and under the nice calm water - but it turned out only to be waterproof if you don't take it into crashing Atlantic surf that picks you up and smacks you back down into the water. It might just be a shorted-out battery. The photos on the card might be salvagable. Luckily, we'd taken our old camera (literally held together with duct tape and an elastic band) with us, with the aim of giving it away to a school or university, so we used that for the second week (dodgy Cuban batteries allowing - I'd forgotten to recharge the ones in it). But the awesome photos we took on the most beautiful beach either of us has ever seen, and in gloriously photogenic Habana, might not be recoverable. Boooooooooooo.

**Doesn't it seem like three hours shouldn't be enough to bother you? And yet, every time I visit the East coast, it gets me.

Good week

I met Nina on Tuesday!

She's in town on a family trip, and took some time out to meet up with me for some yummy pasta, local wine, decadent chocolate cake, a jazz band playing just for us, and a really fun conversation! As I know I've said before, meeting a blogger is like a first date with an old friend - you know some of their stories and personality, but have to ask basic questions like "so what exactly do you do?"! Anyway, I hope I've inspired Nina to meet up with some more bloggers who live just a leeeeetle bit closer to Freiburg!

And then, on Wednesday...

What's this?

It's part of a mega-cool stage set that barely fit into BC Place, that's what it is:

But who's it for?

U2!!!!!!

I've seen them before, and was very happy to see them again! I agree with some of the local reviews I've read; while I do like the new album (MUCH more than the one before), I would have liked to hear more of their classics. But they have such an immense repertoire that they're never going to be able to play everyone's favourite songs, and all in all it was a great show. I would post my videos, but the camera is blatantly moving to the music in a rather embarrassing manner.

Hallowe'en party at the weekend! w00t!

Don't stop till you get enough (bandwidth)

This explains a lot!

I had four applications going into the same competition yesterday, with a 4pm deadline. The funding agency's website, and my internet access in general, slowed to a crawl and I barely got the last one submitted. I suspected that it might have had something to do with Michael Jackson as this was a local competition without enough last-minute applicant activity to crash the BBC and Nature Network! The global effects were probably amplified locally, as all our traffic routes through a portal on the main UBC campus and is known to bottleneck from time to time. No streaming video or radio for me at work!