Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival

The 22nd annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival is scheduled to begin October 15th. For more information go to its site at www.fliff.com. See you at the popcorn stand.

FEIST and 1234

This is really a cool song and it's backedup by some creative choreagraphy. Her name is Leslie Feist and she is Canadian. I saw this first on an ipod commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Z-DIAthbM

Peak Experiences

Peak experiences are described by Maslow as especially joyous and exciting moments in life, involving sudden feelings of intense happiness and well-being, wonder and awe, and possibly also involving an awareness of transcendental unity or knowledge of higher truth (as though viewing the world from a mountain peak). They usually come on suddenly and are often inspired by intense feelings of love, exposure to great art or music, or the overwhelming beauty of nature. The experience can also be triggered by intensely negative situations such as severe illness or confronting death.

Peak grabbing in the High Sierra. Especially, a snow climb up Mt. Morrison in knee deep snow. Most of the people in the group turned back before the half way point - it was very heavy going. Finally reached the top after about four hours. Beautiful view made all the effort worth while. Wearing wind pants and carrying an ice ax, I glisaded all the way down the mountain, using several self arrests to avoid going over the edge of a cliff or banging into rock piles. The descent was glorious and took approximately an hour.

Backpacking in the High Sierra with Sancha, a Black Labrador Retriever. She would run ahead up the switch backs, and then back down to me. By the time we made camp, she was exhausted. When I fed her, she ate lying down.

Making love in the cockpit of an O'Day 37' sailboat at night in Wolf Bay.

Cross country skiing in Newfoundland with Sancha.

Sailing at night from Tobermory, Ontario, to Port Huron, Michigan.

Surviving a lightning storm in the North Channel in a 36' Catalina sailboat.

Night sailboat crossings from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas on many occasions.

Sailing from Honey Harbour, Ontario to Parry Sound.

Sailing back from Gulf Shores, Alabama, to Mobile Bay in a heavy thunderstorm (I'll sail with you, she said, as long as we have good weather).

One week of sailing school from Ft. Lauderdale to Biscayne Bay.

Desert backpacking in Anza Borego. Up Rattlesnake Canyon following a ridge. From the top, looking East the Salton Sea; looking West the hanging valley sloping down to the desert floor of the park.

Nights with Lorraine in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Baltimore and Annapolis.

Driving my Porsche at 120 miles an hour.

Snow camping on San Jacinto - hot lemonade laced with rum.

Sailing in the Virgin Islands.

Running my first 10k in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Running a half-marathon through the hills of Birmingham, Alabama.

Fishing on the Wisconsin River near Rhinelander.

My first (and only) touchdown playing for John Marshall High School in Los Angeles.

Kayak touring in Newfoundland.

The Maine Photographic Workshop.

While driving home on Los Feliz Boulevard one night, I was listening to KFAC, a classical FM station in Los Angeles. They played Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which I had never heard before. I had to pull over and park to absorb all that intensity.

Running in the rain.

Flying in a five passenger single prop airplane from St. John's, Newfoundland, to St. Anthony.

Hearing Carmina Burana for the first time.

Oh! Canada?

Canadian content (abbreviated cancon or can-con) refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements that radio and television broadcasters (including cable/satellite specialty channels) must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from Canada. It also refers to that content itself, and, more generally, to cultural and creative content that is Canadian in nature.
Some other countries employ similar quota systems. For example, Australian broadcasters are required to broadcast a certain percentage of Australasian content alongside international content.
A major motivation is the fear that without a regulatory system, independent Canadian popular culture would be swallowed up by that of the neighboring United States. However, the policy has been criticized by other commentators as cultural protectionism.



Having lived in Newfoundland for seven years, I have had ample exposure to this concept. Even in Canadian football, teams are limited to the number of American players they can have. And the rules are changed from American football, just to be different. For example, a team can score by MISSING a field goal. CFL must have been drinking Screech (a unique style of Newfoundland rum) when they thought that one through.



Newfoundland (pronounced new fun LAND, with the accent on the last syllable. Actually the Province is really Newfoundland and LabraDOR, with Labrador being the Easternmost province attached to the Canadian mainland. Newfoundland and Labrador boast two nice breeds of hearty dogs named after them. Labrador Retrievers, and Newfoundland Dogs. They speak dog woof rather than Newfoundish or Newfie. The speech of native Newfoundlanders has a very distinct dialect, difficult to describe without hearing it. Many sentences end with a kind of sucking sound, as if the speaker is running out of breath or trying to finish before the next gust of wind hits. And man, it's some windy here bye.


Come by Chance, Seldom Come By, Dildo Run, Bumble Bee Bight, Witless Bay, Ha Ha Bay, Little Heart's Desire, Run-by-guess, Bleak Joke Cove, Misery Point, Bareneed, Savage Cove, Empy Basket, and Famish Gut, are a sample of the more colorful place names.

Newfoundlanders seldom think of themselves as Canadians, having just barely voted to join Canada in 1949. Canadians are mainlanders. Others, such as myself, are "come from aways".

I had some good times in Newfoundland though. Backpacking and kayaking (generally among vast swarms of black flies), cross country skiing, and walking up hill on ice without busting my ass.

The Eternal Truths

THE ETERNAL TRUTHS



1. This is it!
2. There are no hidden meanings.
3. You can’t go there from here, and besides, there’s no place to go to.
4. We are all dying, and we will be dead for a long time.
5. Nothing lasts.
6. There is no way of getting all you want.
7. You can’t have anything unless you let go of it.
8. You only get to keep what you give away.
9. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things.
10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off, and there is no compensation for misfortune.
11. You have the responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
12. It is a random universe to which we bring order.
13. You don’t really control anything.
14. You can’t make anybody love you.
15. No one is any stronger or weaker than anyone else.
16. There are no great men or women. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.
17. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends (yes, you too, and most certainly myself).
18. Progress is an illusion.
19. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems.
20. Yet it is necessary to keep on struggling toward a solution.
21. Each of us is ultimately alone.
22. We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge, and all important decisions are made on the basis of insufficient information.
23. But we are responsible for everything we do, for no excuses will be accepted; you can run but you cannot hide.
24. All significant battles are waged within the self.
25. You are free to do as you like. You need only face the consequences.


Source: Harrison, Colin. Break and Enter. New York, Avon Books, 1991.

Great Quotations

Michel Houllellebecq

Quotes from Platform

"Anything can happen in life, especially nothing."

"If we couldn’t have sex from time to time, what would life be?"

"Sometimes I turn on the air conditioning in the morning and turn it off at night, and between the two, absolutely nothing happens."



Samuel Beckett : explaining the paradox he faced as a writer



"The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, together with the obligation to express."

.

Philip Roth, Sabbath’s Theatre


“Bear and grin it”
“His days are counted”
“A roof under one’s head”
“The boy who cried woof”
“It takes a lifetime to discover what matters, and by then it’s not there anymore”

Soren Kierkegaard

Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.

In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known -- no wonder, then, that I return the love.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Blade Runner

Roy: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.

Deckard (voice-over): I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody's life, my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die.

Computer Experiences

My first professional position after library school was at the then new campus at UCSD. We used a batch processing system for checking in journals. Keeping accurate records of journal receipts was especially critical in the Biomedical Library where I worked as a cataloger. The system used punch cards which were batch fed into the system every night generating a serials holding list which included expected arrivals. An antique system now, but at the time it served us well.

Next, being part of the Reginal Medical Library Network of NLM, we did literature searches of the NLM database. These first searches were very clunky. No online stuff. Searchers filled out a form and mailed it to NLM. By the time I left UCSD however, onlin searching became available. Initially I remember using Texas Instrument terminals. They had a receptical that accepted a standard telephone handset and the first ones ran at 300 baud.

After Labor Day

A good college football kickoff weekend. UCLA wins big over Stanford. Notre Dame looses to Georgia Tech. Also, Michigan goes down to Appalachia State.