Wanderlust and Words

I have been thinking about my father when he was in his 50s like me, wondering how much I resemble him and whether my struggles with abandoned dreams and self doubt parallel his. Then I read a friend’s blog about her craptacular year so I was in a receptive mood for an essay by Tim Kreider about humanity’s elusive search for happiness. He questions what we are really looking for. “Maybe we mistakenly think we want ‘happiness,’ which we tend to picture in very vague, soft-focus terms, when what we really crave is the harder-edged intensity of experience.” Certainly some of my clearest memories are not of “happy” moments. I wasn’t happy as I confronted complications following major surgery, but I was certainly fully alive. And I’m fully alive when I’m on holidays in a foreign country. Everything is new and unfamiliar; I can’t take anything for granted. Whether it’s sitting quietly watching pelicans flying low over the toppling waves in Nicaragua or getting lost in the sun-baked, cobble...

Just for fun, take this quiz to see what font best represents your personality. According to the quiz results, I'm Times New Roman - "a class act" - but, unfortunately, I hate Times New Roman and never use it. Maybe it's time to change my personality to match my font. With thanks to Presentation Zen for the link.

Some of my travel photographs are excellent examples of effective advertising. For example, the store in Nicaragua that has a picture of a machete, accompanied by the words - "cutting prices." Surely humour is effective when asking dog owners in Prague to clean up after their animals. And I'm tempted to drink sherry if it means that I too will lead a life of beauty, luxury and leisure.

“The primary objective of visual design is to present content to your readers in a manner that highlights what’s important, arranges it for clarity, and leads them through it in the sequence that tells the story best.” The two primary goals of tables and graphs are to present quantitative, numerical information and to point out patterns, trends and exceptions. In his book Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten (Analytics Press, 2004), Stephen Few points out that “very few of us have been trained to design tables and graphs effectively” so they tend to be hard to read and don’t provide sufficient information to help readers understand and make business decisions based on the numerical information. Few insists that writers and designers must not only pass on the information but also help readers to interpret it: “The right numbers have an important story to tell. They have to rely on you to give them a clear and convincing voice.” Show Me the Numbers is packed wi...

There was a chill in the air and deer in the field when I arrived at Beaver Creek. Ripe berries, goldenrod and blazingstar were splashes of bright colour on a green and yellow background. “ I thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes ” (ee cummings) Beaver Creek aug9 09 Note: The title is a quote from Grass, Sky, Song: promise and peril in the world of grassland birds by Trevor Herriot

When I started dreaming in French, I knew that I was finally absorbing the language on a subconscious as well as a conscious level. But I never thought that the people who speak different languages think differently. So I was fascinated to read an article by Lera Boroditsky explaining how language shapes the way we think. The Kuuk Thaayorre (an Aboriginal community in northern Australia) use cardinal directions to refer to space , for example, “There’s an ant on your southeast leg.” “The normal greeting in Kuuk Thaayorre is "Where are you going?" and the answer should be something like " Southsoutheast, in the middle distance." If you don't know which way you're facing, you can't even get past "Hello." Many languages have masculine and feminine words, and researchers have discovered that this shapes the way people think about those objects. "In one study, we asked German and Spanish speakers to describe objects having opposite gender assi...

Do you trust the federal government to make good decisions? Are you happy with the directions being taken by provincial or local politicians? I’m not, and I’m not alone. According to the Conference Board of Canada (October 2008), nearly 45% of eligible Canadians don’t bother to vote and only 41% of Canadians have a high level of trust in Parliament (compared to 70% in Norway and 22% in Japan). There has to be a better way to run this country or this city than by placing blind trust in a small group of politicians and public employees. As a result, I’ve been observing with considerable interest the development of open government projects in both Canada and the United States. “Techies” and “computer geeks” appear to be taking the lead in increasing transparency and public involvement. What is Open Government? Programmers have witnessed the development of open source software. Volunteers have been instrumental in developing Mozilla and LibraryThing and a huge range of other software p...

Charles de Lint and Iain Pears are long-standing authors who have written many books. But their most recent novels particularly interested me as they demonstrated how much these two men have developed and expanded their writing style. Charles de Lint initially wrote enjoyable but simple fantasies and fairy tales. In contrast, his latest book – The Mystery of Grace – is a powerful story that dares to explore some troubling concepts. Iain Pears’ first seven books were Italian art mysteries, relatively short and straightforward. In contrast, Stone’s Fall , published in 2009, is 900 pages spanning three generations, multiple locations and an amazingly convoluted plot. I found the book somewhat too long and complicated, but I was in awe at how Pears developed and maintained an incredibly complex plot interweaving a large set of characters. The two books set me to thinking about how some authors develop a successful writing formula – Dick Francis, J.D. Robb, Janet Evanovich. I enjoy all ...

My brother owns a software company and emphasizes the importance of providing good service in order to attract and retain customers. I was reminded of this when I was shopping this weekend. Saskatoon is prospering and is developing specialty food and drink stores. Cava Secreta is the city’s first specialty wine store, and two delicatessens have opened downtown this month. I visited Souleio on Friday. The store and restaurant are in a heritage building, and it’s a very attractive, high-ceilinged facility. But they serve food on disposable plates: neither attractive nor environmentally-friendly. But I was pleased to see that they had chocolate hazelnut cheesecake on display – just what I was looking for. But, when asked, the staff told me that they were only selling it as a whole cake – it was too much trouble to cut it and serve slices. I wasn’t impressed. Sous Chef has just opened a second downtown location. It’s a small deli with a more limited selection, but their staff were friendl...