DeZines

Habitat for Humanity Touches Lives

2011-05-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

My name is Vanessa, and I would like to talk to you tonight about how Habitat for Humanity has touched lives, and how you can help Habitat for Humanity make a difference.

We are a non-profit organization that builds houses for those who are living below the poverty line, or have been made homeless by natural disasters. We do not work for free. We identify people who need safe, decent, quality housing the most, and we give them a hand up in achieving that goal; not a hand-out. Begun in 1976 by Millard Fuller, there are currently 72 branches in Canada, and over 2,300 active Habitat affiliates worldwide in more than 93 countries. What does a Habitat House cost? As I said, we do not work for free: a home costs a partner family 500 hours of sweat equity, and about $150,000.

I have been a part of this community for five years now this month, and let me tell you; it is a wonderful community to be a part of. Here is how we’ve helped effect Toronto for the better:

We Touch Lives:
By bringing people together under one common goal:
By we, you see, we don’t have to be only the people being paid to work for Habitat. We are the individual and group volunteers, the site supervisors, the Crew Leaders, the contractors, the Alternative school students, the Exchange students, the Build Blitz groups, the House Leaders, the sponsors, and especially the partner families. We are the community that makes up Habitat for Humanity.

We Touch Lives: By building teams:
One thing I hear time and time again during my work with corporate groups is how “I never knew so-and-so before,” or “I don’t want to go back to the office tomorrow”, and not because they are tired and sore, although that usually is a factor, but because “I haven’t worked with this part of my brain in such a long time; it’s so refreshing!” The Habitat experience brings professional groups outdoors, and gets them working together as a team in very different ways than they usually do.

We Touch Lives: By giving partner families a chance to be a part of something so much bigger than THEY are to build their own home:
Some of the partner family members who donate their sweat equity hours to onsite work sometimes feel overwhelmed with gratitude just being a part of a project this big, and being able to build their own home with the help of so many kind strangers!! I mean, that must be an incredible experience, to think “this is MY HOUSE!! I went from such sub-standard housing conditions, to being a part of my own house being built!” That’s incredible!

You can also touch lives. Here are some things that you can do:
There are so many ways to contribute to Habitat’s goals, that there is bound to be at least one way out there that is right for you. We bring families together with our Gingerbread Builds, and Father’s / Mother’s Day events each year. On the most awkward day of the year, we bring together singles and couples for a v.entertaining day of mostly non-building on v.Day (Feb 14). We have 4 Restores around Toronto, where you can buy used and donated pieces of homes for your home, or donate pieces yourself. If you like to travel for a cause, you can sign up for one of our Global Village Programs. As well as volunteering your time, there are also opportunities to make corporate donations, personal donations, and give gifts-in-kind.

So to summarize:
H4H has touched lives for over 35 years by building simple, decent homes for those most in need of them, and we will continue to seek to build homes for people around the world as long as we exist. It is a great organization to work for because it is such an open inclusive community, where everyone can contribute, and everyone feels like a part of the group. There are so many opportunities to get involved as well, so that everyone looking to help can find a way to make a difference that they feel comfortable with doing.

Happy Birthday to my Blog!

2011-05-02T14:30:00.000-07:00

This is my shoutout to my blog! Yeah me! And yeah blog!

Hockey’s place in Canada

2011-04-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

Hockey as we now know it may draw on many sources, but it was born, and it evolved here in Canada. Hockey is our game!

Madame Toastmaster, fellow Toastmasters, most welcome guests, and especially newcomers to this great country, let me introduce you to our game.

Timeline
The boys of hockey laced up their skates to play the first documented official hockey game in March of 1875, but the game only vaguely resembled what we see played today.

The Stanley Cup, named after Governor-General Frederick Stanley, who bought the first trophy – the silver bowl that sits on top of the cup today – is awarded each year to the winning team of the NHL Play-offs. The Cup was first awarded in the 1893-94 season by Mr. Stanley, to recognize this great game by awarding a prize to the best team in Canada each year.

In 1917, the NHL was created with an initial roster of 4 teams. It grew, then contracted through the depression, and stayed quite small through Second World War, but in 1942 the “Original Six” were born. These six teams; the Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs, were the only 6 teams in the league until 1967.

In 1923, Foster Hewitt appeared on the scene as the play-by-play announcer of the game, and remained the biggest voice in hockey until 1963. He was the first one to use the phrase “He shoots, He scores!”

In 1994, Hockey legally became the national winter sport of Canada … ironically, this was also the year of the hockey lockout, when people realized that salaries needed to be capped, and a major overhaul of some of the organization of the NHL was required.

Obviously, this lockout made the country realize that we desperately needed to do something to ensure that this game continued on in Canada, so we made it official.

A Canadian Icon
I’m going to take you with me on a very short journey. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and picture yourself at home, on a Saturday night. If you’re like countless thousands Canadians, you’ll be headed to the couch, with a beer in hand, or maybe even a cup of Tim Hortons coffee. You’re ready to settle down for the night, so you reach for the remote, and turn on the game. Now, open your eyes.

Ah, speaking of Tim Horton, there was a true Canadian. Everyone knows about the chain Tim Horton’s, and many people get their daily fix of coffee there, but how many people know how many Stanley Cups Timmy brought to Toronto?

Who was Tim Horton exactly? Well, he was born nine hours north of here, in Cochrane Ontario. He grew up playing hockey there. When he was 18, his family moved to Sudbury, and it was there that the Toronto Maple Leafs signed him on to their junior team. He donned a Leafs jersey in the fall of 1952 and remained a Leaf until 1970, winning four Stanley Cups over his career.

In 1964, Horton opened his first Tim Horton Doughnut Shop in Hamilton. That first one shop has grown to become today’s multi-million dollar chain boasting more than 3,000 locations across Canada and the United States. But enough about coffee. Back to hockey!

Why is hockey the most popular sport in Canada?
Well, as we’ve already seen, it’s steeped in tradition. But there’s more than just that.

Our country’s geography and climate lend themselves to the game, as most of the country is below 0 degrees from November to March, creating a lot of natural ice! Combine the 2500 listed ice rinks across the country, with all the unlisted ice surfaces in parks and backyards across the country, and you get an ice rink the size of British Columbia. That’s a lot of hockey!

The next proof of how much we love hockey is in the bottom line. Hockey, as an industry, generates a revenue of many millions of dollars a year, impacting more than one other industry.
There are: arena rentals, maintenance and construction, player registrations, equipment sales, training courses for everyone from age 3 to age 63, Tim Horton’s revenue, hotels accommodations for teams, families and fans, food and beverages for those hockey tournaments, BEER, transportation (from the family mini-van to the Maple Leaf’s bus), concessions at arenas, physiotherapy, chiropractors, gate revenue (ticket sales for the NHL), team merchandise revenue, property rights, cable fees, hockey pools, The list could go on for a very long time. Hockey in Canada has a huge impact on our economy.

Where else in the world would you watch a mini-series about a hockey player-turned coach-turned perhaps the most iconic hockey critic in the country? Love him or hate him, we’ve all heard of Don Cherry. Where else in the world would there be a “game show” based on hockey skaters teaming up with figure skaters, with all the winnings going to charity?

That’s right, only in Canada, where the temperatures really DO go down to -50 below, and where one night each week, houses across the country go crazy watching the game.

So whether you lace up skates yourself , or you just cheer on your own favourite team out on the ice, I invite you to celebrate the good old hockey game, and celebrate with me the country that started it all – to hockey, in Canada!

Million Dollar Dreams

2011-02-04T13:09:00.000-08:00

I read a story over the last year by Stuart McLean. McLean hosts the Vinyl Café on CBC Radio, and he has also written a collection of books under the same name detailing the life stories of one particular family headed by Dave and Morley, and they have two children; Sam and Stephanie.

The Extreme Vinyl Café is the name of this particular book, and “The Winning Lottery Ticket” is the story I speak of. This story is about the grandfather of Stephanie’s boyfriend, who keeps an unscratched lottery ticket, and always claims it to be “a winning ticket”. He would always ask his family: “Imagine. A million dollars. What would you do with a million dollars?” And then when whoever it was he was asking told him, he would listen carefully, and then respond: “Are you sure that’s what you would do? Is that your heart’s desire? And then the process would start all over again.” Ever since I read that story, I have put some thought into answering that grandfather’s question; what would I do if I won the lottery?

Like I do about almost everything, I started to research and analyze. And I tried to figure out what I would do with my money Logically. A very good article I read online explained things very well. It asked you, the reader, to think about the work you want to be doing, and the money you realistically think you would earn over your career. Then multiply that by the duration of your career.

I think my amount translated into something like $2.1M.
Okay! So, THAT’S my cap. That’s as much as I’d ever want to win. Having this cap allows you to stay grounded, envisioning your goals in a lifestyle that you are already working towards, with the added bonus of the lottery helping you get there right away.

Let’s get realistic about this here, I’m never going to win $2.1M. So Logically, let’s not even imagine that. 1M dollars! I’m going to win 1M dollars! What am I going to do with that? What would YOU do with $1M?

For me, that question was easy. First, I would be giving 10% of it away to charities; there are several different ones that have touched my life over the years, either directly or through the lives of family and friends. I would divide the money up, not send it to only one, and not all at once. But that’s only some of the money anyway!

I would pay off my Mother’s mortgage. I would give money to my sister, my Family, and my friends.

There is a reason I would do these things. I believe we all have so many connections, so many people to whom we owe our gratitude, and our time. We cannot begin to know in our lifetime how many people gave so many hours of their time to help out each and every one of us.

I am sure that we all hear our friends and family talk about different of their dreams, and that I’m sure we’d love to be able to help them out. But over time, we kind of turn ourselves off of that, because we know there’s “nothing we can do” and that’s just life. But there are so many ways we could help each other out, and a huge part of the joy of winning the lottery is being able to share it, and to give of yourself, and doing this becomes part of that dream!

So, after I have shared with others, what am I left with? About half my winnings. Okay! I would use the rest of it to buy a condo for myself, I would get a cat, use a room in my new condo for woodworking projects, and that’s about it.

The more I thought about winning that million dollars, and what I would do with it, the more I thought about the time it would buy me, and how I would invest that time into making myself a better person. I would work with a career coach, spend more time volunteering, take some courses on gourmet cooking and I’d even improve my communication skills!

Then I realized that this dream is not about winning the money … although I do admit, that would be nice … really, nice! Okay, so this dream is – at least in part – about winning the money!

*But before I get there, it’s about creating goals for the future that can only be attained by having that money, and then, in place of my winnings, figuring out what I can do to get myself towards those goals without having that spare cash. This comes in the form of helping others out in their lives, achieving personal and financial goals, and becoming a better person.

Who knows, WHEN I win this one million dollars, I will at least have … well … believed in this dream, & worked towards it; that silly little dream that’s just for fun. I will have let myself have a “heart’s desire”, and be a much better person for it.

After all, “Money? Well, money can cause no end of problems. It’s far better to stick with dreams.”

Diwali

2010-11-21T17:32:00.000-08:00

Joy of light
let it burn.
Earthenware love.

Madame Chair, Fellow Toastmasters, and welcome guests, I would like to invite you to share with me this most wonderful time of year; Diwali. Known by many as the “Festival of Lights”, Diwali is the biggest celebration in the Hindu calendar and Diwali celebrations are already underway, as tonight is the third of 5 nights. Diwali actually translates as “row of lamps” from Sanskrit; the written language of Hinduism. In The Festival of Lights, Diwalis and firecrackers are strong symbols, representing the victory of light over darkness. The strongest spiritual meaning is the awareness of the “inner light”; the personal triumph of light over dark. This light refers to our spirit, or our soul. The image of the inner light, or candle seems to transcend religion, and culture; it seems to be universal. With the realization of this inner light comes compassion, love, and the awareness of the oneness of all things.

Tonight I would like to share with you tonight the stories Diwali celebrates, a summary of how each of the 5 days of Diwali are celebrated today, and how we as a family celebrate this Festival of Light.

The first story Diwali celebrates is the return of a Great King and his wife; Rama and Sita, from 14 years of banishment from their Kingdom. During this time, they fought battles, and Rama conquered a great demon. Upon their return, their entire Kingdom lit up rows of lamps, or Diwali, to celebrate. Firecrackers are also lit to signify Rama killing the demon, and to celebrate his victories in battle. The second story of Diwali is the day Krishna, one of the major Gods, defeated Indra, the deity of thunder and rain.

The third story of Diwali, also centred around the lighting of lamps, worships Maha Lakshmi, one of the main Goddesses in Hinduism. She is the Goddess of wealth, prosperity, light, wisdom, generosity, and courage. Hindus pray to her to thank her for the harvest for this year, and also pray to her for success in the upcoming year’s harvest.

Just as Hindus honour the inner light at Diwali, every year Diwali lights up the skies and the streets with 5 nights of celebration shared between family and friends strengthening the bonds between us. It is the illumination of the New Year’s New Moon, the darkest night in the Hindu year. During these celebrations many Pujas - or Hindu worship services – take place to Krishna, and Maha Lakshmi.

On the first day of Diwali, doorways are decorated with flowers, and Rangolis, which are patterns made with powder or flowers just inside the front of your home. Diyas, which are clay pots, are also used like oil lamps. They are lit every night during Diwali to signify the triumph of light over darkness. Firecrackers are also lit to celebrate Rama’s victory in battle. On the second day of Diwali, you purchase new clothing, and metals. The metal you purchase can be as simple as a new metal bowl that you will use to make offerings in the Puja to Maha Lakshmi. The third day of Diwali is known as Govardhan Puja, and it is the night where Krishna’s defeat of Indra is celebrated. The fourth day of Diwali, the Lakshmi Puja marks the most important day of Diwali, where Hindus worship Maha Lakshmi. This is the night of the New Moon, (for those of you who weren’t aware, the New Moon is tomorrow night) and it marks a new year. The fifth day of Diwali is known as Bhaiduj, and it is the day when brothers and sisters meet to express love and affection for each other. This is the day where people visit their families to exchange gifts, sweets, and food.

In my family, we celebrate Diwali when we are invited by my Grandmother to a Puja to worship Maha Lakshmi, at her home. As her eldest son’s family, we sometimes arrive early and help with the decorations, and preparing for the Puja downstairs. After all the guests have arrived, and found a place to sit downstairs, the Puja begins.

A Puja is a prayer service, usually headed by a priest, in someone’s home. The priest opens the Puja by asking Maha Lakshmi to enter the house. We pray to her and make offerings to her. Once she is in the house and has been worshipped, the priest closes the prayer service. Then we enjoy a feast of good food, and as we are leaving the house at the end of the evening, we are each given small take-home bags with fruit and sweets inside.

Tonight, I have shared with you one of the most significant celebrations in Hinduism; what it means to Hindus, and how this Festival of Lights, or at least the element of the inner light, can be shared by everyone. Hindus celebrate Diwali by giving gifts, sweets, and spending time with their families. They celebrate the return of the Great King Rama and his wife, Sita, from their 14 years of banishment. They also celebrate many victories in battle of light over darkness, and they celebrate Maha Lakshmi, and thank her for the good harvest. All this they celebrate by lighting Diwalis, or “rows of diyas”, and firecrackers.

I would like to close in the same way I opened; with a verse from my Grandfather:

You always must offer
your heart with joy,
Lakshmi Mata guides your dreams as you pray.
I shall keep watch over you,
marking time,
Faithfully you will become part of me.

Postcards from Home

2010-09-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

“I went to Europe to paint the great cathedrals, but I couldn’t get our home out of my mind …” Amy March. Home, and family is the 1994 version of Little Women, for me.

- - - -

What makes a house a home? Well, your home is where your heart is, and that is unique to everyone. For some of us, it’s a place where we feel safe. For others, it’s based on who is waiting there for us when we get home each day, whether that is a pet, or other members of the family. And for others still it all has to do with the memories we take away from our homes, and carry with us throughout our lives.

For my first speech, Madame Chairperson, Fellow Toastmasters, and Valued Guests, I would like to discuss a little bit about my childhood memories of my family’s home, the family traditions we celebrated there, and the community that was our building when I was growing up.

Until I was 12 years old I lived at 170 Sentinel Road, in a corner apartment. This building was situated barely one minute west of Keele St, right in between Finch and Sheppard.

Let me take you into my apartment. I remember that my Mother always encouraged imagination and creativity, and gave my sister and I all the tools we needed to develop our imaginations and our ability to create stories.

My sister and I would often play out on the balcony in our giant Little Tykes Turtle Sandbox for Hours, or under a tent made out of a Carebear blanket and chairs. Under this tent we would often take different pieces of plastic “play food” and have our own picnic there listening to a nature soundtrack of a rainfall in a forest.

We also had Lego, Duplo, and PlayMobil, and we would set up entire towns all over the living room that would last for days, with a PlayMobil mansion we got from Santa one year, hospital equipment, a railway, a farm set, and a Duplo house among other things.

- - - -

Our house was also a place for many family gatherings. Easter and Hallowe’en were some of my favourites. We would wake up Easter morning to an apartment filled with chocolate eggs and bunnies that the Easter bunny left for my sister and I to gather up; lining the hallway from our bedroom to the living room, on the kitchen table, by the TV and radio – EVERYwhere!

On Hallowe’en, my cousins would come over, and the adults in the family would hide candy all over the apartment, and then we would search everywhere in the dark, using only flashlights, to try to find all the goodies that were hidden. Those were good times!

Another family tradition was Friday night. Every day of the week would bring health food to our table, but Friday night … we would use this little wooden yellow table, and we would have hot dogs, chips, orange pop, and we could watch any movie we wanted! Luxury is simple when you’re seven years old!

- - - -

Taking a step back for a moment, to see the bigger picture, this place that we lived in was more than “just” a building; it was a community. Our building was filled with young families, and very friendly people.

My Mother was friends with the superintendent’s family for years, so we always had a place to go and spend time with friends in our own building whenever we wanted; how grown-up that felt! They had sons that were a little older than us, and They had a Nintendo Super Mario game in their room; a HUGE attraction when you’re about seven years old.

I can remember playing with a lot of the kids in the building all year round. Our backyard was divided into a flat area large enough to get most of a baseball game onto, and along the far side was a strip of graded earth that started low and rose to over six feet at the far end, so that third base was about four feet higher than the rest of the baseball field. In the fall, we would pile leaves at the bottom of the hill, and roll or jump down the hill into the leaves, and all the kids would help to gather up the leaves for that purpose. In the winter, we would slide down the highest section of the hill, and our Father and cousins would make turns and ramps out of the snow and ice, and play the kind of game that all guys play, no matter what age, of who can get up to the fastest speed going down the hill.

Another favorite winter pastime for us was when the superintendent’s husband would plow the snow to the back end of the driveway, (back in the days when we … had snow in winter!), and our Father would take hours carving and shoveling out house or fort designs for us to play in, and they would last until another snowfall meant they needed to be plowed over, or they would melt.

- - - -

No matter what the time of year, there was always something going on at 170 Sentinel Road, always some adventure, or new game. It was a huge part of my childhood, and I have many fond memories of it. It also has also painted a picture in my mind of what I want my future home to be like, to feel like, and what memories the next generation might create for themselves there.

Thank you for allowing me the chance to share my own memories with you, here tonight.

My Football Report III

2010-06-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

Ha! The horns (Vuvuzelas), the beehive, as people are calling it, are making it sometimes difficult for the players that the noise-making fans are routing for to communicate to each other, and sometimes even to hear the whistle. Fans are noticing it over the TV too. “They ultimately decided against banning vuvuzelas at the 2010 World Cup due to the fact that they were such an integral part of South African culture.”

The children that join the players on the pitch before the game are called "matchday mascots". The word is that they could be representing friendship through football, or also different community campaigns from the home towns against violence, racism, or gangs. They might also be, in some cases, children of the football players themselves. They might also have won a competition. It is also potentially the different football clubs trying to bring families to the game (does that mean it's a fundraising initiative then for families who could not otherwise attend?)

But I can't seem to get any info on who organized that specific element of the event. Any leads?

I have also conducted research into the structure of the World Cup, and it looks like if you're just interested in getting down to the team eliminations, June 25th is just about the time to check back into this tournament!

My Football Report II

2010-06-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, it looks like three rows, 4 back, 2 middle, 3 forward, and a miscellaneous man who takes the centre kick position (a 4th forward?)

Still constant buzzing … maybe I should get my ears cleaned?

Ooops! Australia didn’t allow for more than 1 goal a game in the qualifying … and within the first 30mins Germany got 2 goals …

The offside rule is definitely different then in hockey. With no blue line equivalent, how is it decided? Sometimes it seems to even be called VERY close in to the “goalie crease” as well.

Today’s keeper kolours; Aus = red, Ger = green.

Wow, they use a lot more tape than hockey players do to keep their pads on!

It’s gorgeous how they set up a play so close to the sidelines when they get to the offensive zone, then drop a pass back and a team mate tries to score a goal. Beautiful!

Aaww! The hands-off policy. It looked like that one Australian DID touch a German player when they were both going after the ball, but then he raised his hands quickly. I guess to avoid touching him further and actually getting a penalty/yellow card. Then he helped the guy up. That was sweet!

What is the blue arm band for?

Added minute? What are minutes added for?

What do these mean, exactly?
Possession: Ger = 57%, Aus 43%
Fouls: Ger = 5, Aus = 10
Shots on Goal: Ger = 10, Aus = 2

So, it looks like the FIFA World Cup is the “Football Olympics”. Each team only gets about 2 months together, and is a different make-up then the usual clubs they play on. Am I getting this right?

When there are throw-ins, are other people allowed off the pitch? At one point there were two guys fighting each other outside the white lines.

I agree that red card call on Cahill was too strong. But 56 minutes? I thought you got a yellow card FIRST.

What are the rules around substitutions?

Sorry, who are the green and yellow fans in this white a blue jerseyed game? The Aussies, apparently.

I’m kind of enjoying watching this game. I don’t know everything that’s going on, and it isn’t hockey, but it’s okay!

Soccer-roos? Cute!

The commentators said at the beginning of Germany, being such a YOUNG team, that they have a lot of promise. They asked; can that promise deliver? It looks like it! They countered that with Australia being a much older team in general.

Football and hockey BOTH use passing back to their goalies.

Still not sure what it means Exactly to “bend it”

At least a third of these drops seem to be one player tripping over another players’ legs and anther third seems to be the trip-er player sliding down to make the kick.

They keep saying “Australia playing with 10 men” As in, including the goalie? Does that mean a red card is playing with one man down, like a hockey penalty, but only for something like Fifty-Six minutes?!? Wow.

How many soccer balls do they play with during a game?

Is Hockey more Dramatic in their injuries than Football? Let’s try and tally this up.
# Of drops: 44 Times the player stayed down & milked it: 4 “Booked for diving”: 2

So, with only 4 times when the guys who went down and stayed down and “cried”, and 2 times when the guys “faked it”; taking a dive when they didn’t have too, I’d say football is potentially LESS dramatic than hockey!
Notice I am NOT comparing the fighting aspect here, just putting the reputation of footballers going down all dramatic and in pain.

Then again, maybe the World Cup is like Olympic hockey as well; less dramatic falling / less fighting then the regular season football / NHL. Who knows?

Men becoming legends in football, and heroes in hockey. I don’t quite agree with that!

My Football Report

2010-06-12T13:30:00.001-07:00

Written by a die-hard year-round hockey fan.

I Love the slides! These guys get awesome mileage out of them!

If you got cut in hockey, you’d get yourself cleaned/stitched up right away – there would be no running around the pitch with a bleeding lip (or skating around the rink). And the guy STILL looks like he’s bleeding about 10 minutes later.

Holy bloody beehive! The fans just don’t run out of hot air!

Why in the world do the goalies not know what team they belong to? In hockey, the goalie is the most “decorated” player on the team … USA is orange, England is wearing green? In a sport so fatally and faithfully loyal to their team colours, football goalies just haven’t gotten the memo.

They ARE much better behaved; I’ll admit that. No penalty boxes, and once you’re wearing a bumble-bee cuff around your arm, you know the next bad things you do you’re out of the game. So play nice, boysss!

These guys have a rep for falling so dramatically and ALL the time, but maybe isn’t quite that bad (at least not this game).

First goal the USA has gotten against England outside of England since 1950? Is that what I heard?!? If only the US hockey teams played so … well … when they were playing in Canada!

I LOVE the fan colours! (at least they’re not wearing orange).

Joey Altidore leaving the pitch – what just happened? I don’t understand the substitutions …

Nail-biting, isn’t it? Ummm …

It looks like all just stand around when the ball will be thrown of kicked back onto the pitch. Please explain their positions!

91 minutes in, I finally here my first recognizable cheer!

Nice changing billboards!

I’d love to see the ball weigh 5 or 10 pounds more. It might be less of a tennis match then.

So that’s it? It’s over? no kick-out? No overtime? So do they have a way to determine who is the stronger team in the draw; who has more points going in?

… and how is your team supposed to win when you’ve got No World Cup beards!?!?!

All in all, I think I like hockey better.

If I’m still feeling sick tomorrow, I will watch the Germany game, and see if I understand anything any better then.

Each of the 24 days counting down to Christmas Deserves a cookie!

2009-12-07T16:35:00.000-08:00

And here's a link!
http://www.thestar.com/cookies#interactive

The simple things to do for fun in life

2009-05-31T12:33:00.000-07:00

Recreation, or "Fun", is the expenditure of time in a manner designed for therapeutic refreshment of one's body or mind. ~ Wikipedia.

This is a list of just random stuff that I would like to do for fun. I will write them down whenever I think of them, and I am at the computer to write them in. May this list forever grow, and may I be able to do everything on the list, and enjoy every minute of it!
For example, I LOVE the summer sun, and doing something as simple as sitting on the balcony at my place and soaking it up!

* Baking
* Eating crackers and cheese (or just cheese alone if it's smoked Gouda!)
* Going to see the documentary "My Playground"
* Loving beautiful typography
* Building a deck
* Go to Canada's Wonderland with friends
* Get a hot stone massage, or three!
* Browsing through magazines, and writing about articles on my blog
* Reading about the world around me
* Having a space to plant things ... inside my condo, on the balcony, in a garden ...
* Have a condo ... have candles in my condo
* Painting a mural in my condo! (That would be such an amazing project!)
* Have my own place to live, and decorate it!
* Visit the Elephant Sanctuary one day
* Eat grapefruit
* spend time out with friends
* Be culturally proactive - go see a musical performance, or a lecture
* Participate in a Women's Build ... !
* Jump down a waterfall (a small one! Maybe 20-30 feet)
* Bake perfectly soft, moist, cookies!
* Sit on the balcony, in the sun, reading Azure magazine, and not worrying about going anywhere!
* Have the time, facilities, and "company" to make furniture
* Go to a cottage with some sand, and make sand angels
* Go to see the Sunshine Coast, BC, Canada
* Go to see Gros Morne National Park, NFLD; and hike through it
* Hike through Toronto's trail (the one that passes through Edwards Gardens and Sunnybrook Park ... don't know the name of it)
* Spend time with cousins, (and their brand new babies!)
* Get a video camera (something that records picture and sound!) and start videotaping nature.
* Go swimming!
* Sitting with Karen on my balcony, her playing her guitar, and us laughing and chatting, etc.
* Reading literature.
* Brunch at Cora's!

That's it for now!
What would YOU add to the list?

* Stair Porn *

2009-05-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

This is a post about designed stairs.
If you like art, if you like architecture (and read architecture/design magazines for the pictures), if you like to, or would like to build stairs, if you like to hiking up stairs, if you like to store things, if you like to rethink the way things are built,

... then you will like this stair blog.

P.S. ... and I thought buildings were made by pouring the cement. This video proves me wrong!

Beatbox Chick

2009-05-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

If there's any chance for the proletariat to vote, babe - you got mine!
Julia Dales, age 17, is going head-to-head with the best of the beatbox artists from around the world to compete. And some people say girls can't do sound effects!

You can get more info on the event from their formal website. They have a live webcast tomorrow at 1400h. (2pm for those who operate in standard time) ...

Scratch that! It seems as though she has already won. Okay. This was an online battle ... and she took gold! Now next year we need to send her away to compete onstage!

|| Sisters in the Building Trades ||

2009-05-28T18:10:00.000-07:00

Women in construction.
That's right, sinking nails in 5 hits, framing, formwork, scaffolding, welding, operating heavy machinery, divers, highrise, steelworkers, plumbers, and residential. Here we ALL are.
Yes, this is a clip from an American site, but if you gave me enough time, I could put together one of Toronto's own clips, from Habitat, at least.

play the video, ladies, and enjoy!

Woman, Empowered.

2009-05-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

I need to take a moment to express this, because it is in honour of one of the stand-outs at the Women’s Build. Her name is Jenny T. Also known as “Jenny of the Block” … or something like that. She is an incredible woman. She took this Women’s Build and made it hers (in part ... at least I think so!). I don’t know what her official title on this project is (something to do with actually co-ordinating the project though), but I know she is a no-bull-sh!t kind of woman, who takes any crap that anyone throws at her, and turns it right around. She is capable of leading a project that many others, including, quite possibly myself, are not (yet) able to do.

I am so happy to see that Jenny has risen to the top of this project and is glowing. I absolutely admire her work, and how she conducts herself. She even wears her reputation on her sleeve, and I absolutely love that! LOVE IT!!! I get the idea that there are several people who do not like her way of doing things. Does she just absorb it? Hell no!! If they can’t cope with her way of doing things, I think she kind of enjoys calling them on their inability to cope with her particular leadership and less than fluffy and perfect conduct, and she has offered them, very politely and tactfully, a piece of their own cake. Here, if this is what you say about me, I will show the world that this is what you say about me, and let the world make a judgment call.

You know what? We will never know who called her some of her more “choice” nicknames, but she did mention some of those names in her speech one time. I think there are many women out there, me being one of them, who can relate to having to fight past those jerks and slothes who sit around passing judgment and making it harder for you, while they do nothing but give themselves the authority to judge. You need to push past the cynics, impress the people you should, and be value-based. And to everyone who just calls you names, well, you can make them into “nicknames” when people call you them, and then stand on the podium and publish those names later. Damn f^ck hun, but that felt as good and empowering to me as I hope it did to you! How do I become more like her? Not by just being around her, but by doing everything it takes to make and achieve my own goals, and not spending time crying about what other people do wrong. In fact, wearing what other people say to try to drag you down on your sleeve, and shining the light on the sh!t in such a way that they might just regret their actions, if they have the brain cells to do so.

They are not the ones who did all the hard work. They sat back and threw stones, wallowing in jealousy or bitterness, while Jenny pushed through, and “got’er done”, and continues to “get’er done” every single day of the build.

Who is the one who truly shines? Not any of those people who sat back in judgment, calling out names, but Jenny. She both chastises and compliments where each is due. She is confident; she is firm. She makes things happen. She makes decisions and enforces action. She is strict, and makes her statements and commands with confidence. These things are just a part of why I aspire to be more like her.

Here is the part I am personally truly grateful for. I saw her the second day I was at the build, first thing in the morning. She hadn’t had her coffee yet. I helped her, in my keener energy, to laugh through putting up caution tape. That same day, I worked with her at the very END of the day, when I think both of us were stumbling over our words a bit, and joked with her about that fact – gee, I’m seein’ you at your VERY BEST today hun, ain’t I!? Those were moments I am grateful for sharing with her. I am also grateful for her help, in allowing me to come back on Wednesday, and I kinda wish I could have come back Thursday, Friday and Saturday. But Saturday especially is the wedding, Friday we are taking women in our family out for dinner, and today I had to get some errands done for Mother’s Day, that considering all the other events of the upcoming weekend, I had to do today. I had a very good time at the Build though, and I am grateful for the powerhouse behind it all, that “got it all done.”

Kudos to you, Jenny, and your contribution to Canada’s First Women’s Build.

What a Seminar!

2009-04-30T14:49:00.001-07:00

Oh this is a laugh!
I am sure it will be a wonderful seminar, but I just read on DCN about an "Update on Mould Breakfast Seminar" happening on May 13th. Somehow I can just picture it; mould on the eggs, bananas, orange juice ... what an appetizing seminar!

That among the articles about another 61,000 construction jobs lost in March, mostly in the residential sector. Maybe commercial carpentry is a just fine place to be right now. Maybe after the recession (and my apprenticeship) I can head back into the field for more residential-based work.

Jane's Walk

2009-04-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

Whoa! I think I should create a post on Jane Jacobs … but because I also want to bake, make dinner, and read about framing (construction) I will limit this post to a simple summary and listing.

Jane’s Walk is a series of walking tours happening in different cities and communities across North America where local residents give guided tours of different areas, telling the stories and history (or herstory!) of each area as they see it. This is the second year Jane’s Walk has been held, and I would like to go this year.

To anyone who would like to join me, I can only go to walks on the Saturday, and only as time permits, but if you are interested, please cast your vote, and we can head off! And PLEASE, somebody has got to help me out here (like Dad, maybe?) research these walks, because I want to go on all of them that I have listed, but there is too much overlap! So I need to narrow it down to two, or maybe three walks total, but there are eight that I'm interested in!

More details for each of these walks, and a complete listing can be found on the Jane's Walk website.

This listing is not complete, but these are a few walks I am interested in:

Junction-High Park: West Bend Community Walk
* Duncan Farnan
* Saturday, May 2, 2009
* 9:45am
* Walk: 2 hours

Davenport: The Stairs Along Lake Iroquois
* Leehe Lev
* Saturday, May 2, 2009
* 10:00am
* Walk: 2 hours

Downtown Sculpture Walk
* Charles Campbell
* Saturday, May 2, 2009
* 10:30am
* Walk: 1.5 hours

King-Spadina: One of 'The Two Kings'
* Paul Bedford, Margie Zeidler
* Saturday, May 2, 2009
* 10:30am – 1:pm
* Walk: 2.5 hours

Fort York: 200 years of Lakefront Development
* Rene Malagon
* Saturday, May 2, 2009
* 1:00pm
* Walk: 1.5 hours

Jane-Finch Neighbourhood Tour
* The Spot Youth group of Jane/Finch Centre
* Saturday, May 2, 2009
* 1:00pm
* Walk: 2 hours

Victoria Village Adventure Walk
* Victoria Village Residents
* Saturday, May 2, 2009
* 1:15pm
* Walk: 1.5 hours

Dovercourt Village
* Lewis Poplak
* Saturday, May 2, 2009
* 1:00pm
* Walk: 1.5 hours

Jungle Jaunt: Lawrence Heights is Not What You Think
* Students of Sir Sanford Fleming Academy
* Saturday, May 2, 2009
* 2:00pm
* Walk: 1.5 hours

A tribute to Music

2009-04-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Song. It has passed on so many traditions. It is the music of the soul, and soul music. It can be the bridge to the divine. It is written for love, to mourn, to grieve, to celebrate, and just for the sake of music.

Music is a huge part of our emotional expression. The music we listen to, sing, and perform helps define who we are as people, for better or for worse. Choose your music wisely. Base it on quality of lyrics, and who you want to be. Choose your music to be something you are proud of sharing with others. There are different kinds of music that are incredibly demeaning to others, and that's the kind of music that is destructive. It's full of anger, it encourages racism and sexism, it encourages problem solving by violence. That kind of music defines you too, if that's what you listen to.

But there are so many wonderful kinds of music out there, and so many ways to express yourself through it. My sister plays in a band that plays some jazz and swing, a very good friend of mine is a piano accompanist for a choir, and she also plays in many concerts outside of that, I have an acquaintance who sings professionally(?), and a classmate of mine and I just sing in the car along with the radio.

One group that performs quality music is the Nylons. They have been around since 1979, when they started singing gigs in clubs across Toronto. Completely acappella, (well, ALMOST completely acappella - sometimes they use a tambourine, for example) they let their voices be the harmony and beat that instruments would otherwise provide. I was reminded of them, oddly enough, in a carpentry course I am currently taking, and the song was not "Chain Gang", although that would be fitting considering the kind of work we were doing, but "Up the Ladder to the Roof".

This kind of music is pretty much as close to pure music as possible: all you use is the sound of your own voice, as does the wind, the birds, and the sound of the rain. Sure your voice can make so many different sounds, as the rain makes a different sound for everything it hits, and we can play different instruments, but when all rain has is water, or all you have is your own voice, you can still make music.

And we shall let expression ring
Hear freedom in our singin' ...

Wish List

2009-04-18T13:21:00.000-07:00

* Tickets to the Nylons, performing at Markham Theatre on September 26th!!! OMGOMG!
* One of those tea strainer thingies: Yeah! I got one, thank you, Mom!
* Another Hot Stone Massage (or three!)
* Loose fitting Hoodie. Tastefully done of course! (Anything from Winnie the Pooh to ROOTS to SHERIDAN/GeorgeBrown/York ... it's all good, just as long as it's somethin'!
* Subscription to Dwell Magazine: Yeah! I got one, thank you, Mom!
* I just discovered my "Holst's Planets" CD that "Erica" burnt for me @ Sheridan is cracked ... don't know how that happened! But I will need another copy of it!
* Of course, charitable donations (Canadian Food for the Hungry Women's Sewing Class, or School Dues for a Year)
* More than "Anything Clothes" would be a shopping trip to Yorkdale. I go through there once a month and never buy anything ...
* On the concept of never buying anything ... I never buy chocolate bars for myself. I love the mint ones from Laura Secord, Coffee Crisp, and Caramilk ...
* Code White
*Iced - By Judith Alguire: I went through that book three times without stopping! Cover-cover-cover-cover-cover-cover!
* A sturdy bag for tools. Would have to be MINIMUM 24" long, as it will need to potentially accommodate a 24" level.

I want to own:
* Kung-Fu Panda
* Anna and the King (with Jodie Foster)
* Contact (with Jodie Foster)
* Paycheck
* Anne of Green Gables, original (and maybe sequel) in DVD
* Starwars 4/5/6 in DVD
* League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
* Pitch Black / Chronicles of Riddick
* When Night is Falling
* Better than Chocolate
* The Time Machine (2002 Release)
* The GridIron Gang
* Fire (Deepa Mehta)
* Born into Brothels
* The Chronicles of Narnia; Prince Caspian (the DVD with all the extra stuff!)
* The Golden Compass
* The Nativity Story
* Spirited Away

I want to watch:
* A Wrinkle in Time
* The Secret Life of Bees
* Slumdog Millionaire
* Lady in the Water
* Bride and Prejudice
* Daredevil
* Drumline
* Flushed Away
* The Last Mimzy
* Nim's Island
* No Reservations
* Over the Hedge
* Peter Pan (Directed by P.J. Hogan)
* Pixar Short Films Collection
* Rocky movie ... ?
* The Time Machine, released 2002
* The Spiderwick Chronicles
* Stardust
* Steamboy
* Howl's Moving Castle

The list will continue ...

An Avalanche of Days

2009-04-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

[start of quote] Then the tree actually did begin to shake. It whipped forward and back once, then splintered into pieces as the biggest avalanche in a hundred years roared down the side of Princess Margaret Mountain and smashed everything in its path.
Far uip on the mountain, on a cliff overlooking a particularly steep gully, a stone had fallen. It was a chunk about the size of a raven. When it plopped into the gully it sent a small force out into the surrounding snow. There was enormous power in that snow. Each flake was a crystal of latent energy, one among billions, poling up day after day, covering the slopes, filling the gullies, getting heavy, getting ready … As the stone hit, the interlocking flakes – just barely touching each other, all prickly and uncomfortable – started to slide.
The avalanche was small at first, quietly carrying the stone slowly down a single gully. But the slide began to move faster, as more and more snowflakes fell into step, until the gully was wall-to-wall with churning whiteness, snaking through the narrow places and flinging itself into the air as it bounced around the corners.
The slide overflowed the gully. Cracks ripped across the slopes on either side as the snowpack collapsed there, too. A gigantic slab comes as it broke loose, a mountainside of snow moving faster, so strong that when the blast hit the trees they snapped off. The snow carried the shattered wood and limbs and branches and needles farther, down and down with a noise like thunder …
The last of the slide reached the flats and stopped. A sprinkling of conifer needles settled over the huge heap. There, sitting on the surface, was the stone that had started it all.
The stone came to rest directly over Carrot Creek. In the spring it would melt out of the avalanche debris and drop into the stream, where it would be tugged, tumbled and rolled for centuries toward the Bow River, then on to the Saskatchewan River, the Nelson River and eventually the slat waster of Hudson Bay. “Gee,” the rock said to another stone, lying beside it in the snow, “the system works!” [end of quote]

This quote was taken from pages 143-144, of the novel “Raven’s End” by Ben Gadd. The passage was a bit out of character for the book, as it was the first time Gadd gave an inanimate object a voice. It was a kind of segue of sorts from the story line, a soliloquy. Maybe that’s why it stood out in my mind. Maybe he had written this passage as a poem, and just wanted to publish it somewhere, so he placed it in this story. I take this as a mini-story within the larger one, and I think it is worth quoting. The entire book is a wonderful read.

For me, this quote provides a good example of an avalanche of days. If you perform actions on one day, and repeat them for hundreds of days, with the end in mind of achieving a specific goal, those days will add up. Your action will become your habit, and your habit will become your character. Then all it will take is one symbolic stone, and when it drops all of everything you have worked so hard to achieve will finally be set in motion. Just as the stone did, you will finally see that everything really works. Sigh, I hope I can build up good habits, while I wait for my stone one day to drop!

The Bustling City of Port Colborne in April

2009-04-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

We went as a family today to Port Colborne. It was an Easter Weekend Family Event; one that my Dad chose. This would have been one of those days where “it’s the journey, not the destination that counts” would have described the day perfectly!
We all spent time together today; we did not interact with each other for every minute of the day, all day long, but we did spend quality family time together. Do I dare quote an RVing commercial … that we should “never confuse the devices that connect us, with the moments that keep us together”. It doesn’t quite fit, But spend moments that keep us together today.

So yes, Port Colborne was not very exciting, but there were a lot of wonderful moments in today. We got up by 6:30am. I uploaded the previous 200 pics from Mom’s camera onto her laptop. We were out of the house by about 8:30, and in 45 minutes, we stopped for a Tim Hortons. We read on the way; Raven’s End, the book we are currently reading right now as a group. I tried to sew the buttons on “my tubes!” (long story), didn’t work, not in the car.

When we got to Port Colborne, we had lunch at Walter’s … a restaurant on West St. Good food, and fast and friendly service. It was a nice place for lunch. We then did some browsing in a couple of the shops in the area; the all of two streets that had any craftsy type shops we found in the city. I got ideas from a 10,000 Villages on Mom’s stationary project that I may one day finish … and at a scrapbooking store – Damn those were some pretty creative crafts (I didn’t like the scrapbooking stuff, but they had other very creative ideas there). We then went for coffee, cookies, carrot cake and a latte at a corner Coffee Café (don’t remember the name), but it also had a nice atmosphere.

It felt like a quintessential small town; with a population of only 19,000 it had a close-knit community feeling, with notices for community issues all over the place. The two that we saw today were for Corporal Tyler Brooks; Port Colborne’s fallen hero, with everyone posting notices to say he will be remembered, and to honor him. He was one of the soldiers that Don Cherry honored a few weeks ago on either March 28th, or April 4th on Coaches Corner. It’s pretty amazing that notices in his memory were all over that city. Something else that was all over the city, just as much on people’s lawns as anywhere else, were notices pertaining to the Save Our Hospital Rally. We drove past their hospital, and it didn’t look in top notch shape, but it definitely deserves to be there.

It’s population is only 19,000. Sadly, it seemed a bit like there wasn’t much “get up and go” in this city. Maybe it’s still asleep for the most part. Maybe it really comes alive in late May, when the weather is good enough to start recreational boating. There were three beaches in this tiny city, and I think three marinas as well, but they were all mostly deserted. There were also several stores that were closed up, and even in the middle of the town areas, it looked like there were several places that could use at least a good power washing and a fresh coat of paint!

We then pretty much drive the entire city, going through all the side roads and residential streets, and if we had counted the houses, we could quite possibly have accounted for a good quarter of the population! I actually loved the houses there! The roofs were absolutely beautiful! I would love to actually build a cup roof like many of those houses had. Some of the houses were very plain, and some were absolutely gorgeous, but they were all relatively quiet. I have seen some houses in Azure and Dwell that are out of this world, so even the ones that had character and personality in Port Colborne were not quite as modern and edgy as some of the magazine homes, but they were still very beautiful. Where I wouldn’t chose to live in Port Colborne, many of those houses had me drooling, but not to live in, so much as to build!

When we were finished with Port Colborne, we headed home, but our day wasn’t over yet. On the ride home, we stopped at a Tim Horton’s in Oakville … for yet another coffee, yeah, more coffee. We had a small dinner at home, just leftovers, and now I am here writing Blog posts, my sister is organizing her sheet music, and my Mother is downstairs watching her Hockey Night in Canada, which I also watched a part of, albeit small tonight!

Lighting Up

2009-04-11T18:25:00.001-07:00

Some people are instantly addicted to nicotine like some cats love catnip. Some people become addicted to nicotine over time, and for others, the chemical addiction is never the issue. For some, it is purely a social activity. It becomes okay to talk, or to just stand around in silence, and “share” the smoking. It’s a reason to create a group that others cannot enter, and enjoy the power of peer pressure. It satisfies the need of belonging, and is the glue that binds a group together. It’s all about the aesthetic. For others, it’s all about doing something. When they are not busy their mind will wander, they may become nervous, or their brain becomes distracted, and like biting your nails, it becomes something to do absent-mindedly while your brain works.

If you are in the middle of the habit though, you only really see it from your own paradigm. You have your reasons for smoking, and smoking began as a way to solve a problem/issue/fill a void in your life, and over time became a habit. So rewind, and figure out what it was for you. Now for fear of losing my audience, I will try not to mention the reasons for not smoking. People know those already.

Maybe the more important thing about smoking is that it began for a reason; it really did solve a problem. Maybe that is the same with all addictions. Stopping smoking can be scary, it can result in the resurgence of the physical, social, and behavioral symptoms that you began to smoke in order to fix. So that brings you face to face with your own reality. Why did I start to smoke, and it’s not just quitting for some, but also now I have these problems back, and what am I going to do to fix these issues/problems? I’ll just reach for a … Umm, let me think about it. While I’m thinking, I’ll just go out for a … Crap. Okay, this isn’t working.

For some, it’s finding an image, and sticking with it. One guy I worked with at Canadian Tire was telling me one time the story of how he quit smoking. One of his duties was to clean up the parking lot, and it was through cleaning up the cigarette butts, and picturing putting all those cigarette butts, along with all the other garbage that he swept up, into his system, that made him quit. I applaud him for his strength, as that image alone was something he held onto to force himself to break his habit. He was a good guy; nice to talk to, and had some very interesting insights if you took the time to listen to him.

In another case, my instructor from SCAS is a perfect example of just finding something else, at least during the workday, to fill the void. You will always find something. He smoked only a few years ago. A lot has changed in his life over the past five years, including even taking the position as an instructor for the SCAS program in the first place. When he started that position, he still smoked. I don’t know who he was before, but right now I knew him to be someone who was a pretty good teacher, and who thoroughly enjoyed carpentry and renovations. He also loved joking around, and had so many stories to tell. He shared all these jokes with the class all the time, and I really learned a lot from him. I don’t know what exactly he put in the void of the cigarettes, but I know that he always had energy, and he didn’t have a minute in his day to spare. So he definitely filled his time with something. Maybe he just learned to do more of what he did before, and like pouring too much concrete into a form, or gaps in the footings between the form and the earth, his better habits, and his outgoing energetic personality just spilled over. Is he a good example? What, of a saint – no! But he is at least an example of someone who said “bugger this, I’m quitting, and I will bloody well survive just fine without smoking”, and he does.

Apparently he was all about the smoking before, even making benches in the “smoking hut” for him and his students who smoked. Now he is spending his time making shelves for his daughters instead. Pretty damn cool, I think. Proof that quitting is possible? Definitely.

Construction permits in Ontario

2009-04-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

Tighten up your toolbelts, guys, ‘cause times may be getting a bit thinner!
One of the best ways to cope through the upcoming few months may be with “all-salad diets”, as one of my previous classmates jokes about being on right now. He has worn two toolbelts at once in the past, but he may find that he has to tighten them both up in the times ahead. Well, he may be okay, actually, but the province, on the whole, isn’t doing quite so good right now.

Alex Carrick, the Chief Economist at REED Construction Data recently conducted a small interview on Daily Commercial News, where he stated that private, non-residential construction starts in Canada have sunk rapidly in first quarter this year. He also mentioned that with corporate profits declining, he sees very little improvement in new investments until the first quarter next year. As a closing comment, he passed the ball off to the public sector, suggesting that based on the lack of private sector profits, they won’t be in a hurry to invest until the economy, and their profits, pick up, even through they have received tax cuts to continue over the next 4 years. Through the entire year, Carrick states that there is only 54 million square feet of non-residential building starts forecasted for this year; the lowest start since 1970. It will be up to infrastructure spending plans to hold up the building economy, and how fast they can get their projects started.

Looking at StatCan, a recent survey (published on Monday, April 6th) shows that the value of building permits fell from $4.39 billion to $3.7 billion in February, with the largest decreases in the non-residential sector in Ontario, where the value of building permits fell from $2.3 billion to $1.6 billion. Looking at the chart StatCan provided in their article, last year February it was at about $5.6 billion, February 2007 AND 2006 it was at about $4.8 billion. So this year has definitely hit a trough, but what does long-term history look like (over the last quarter century?) Well, employment in general in Canada hasn’t gone very well either. October 2008 was our last peak, but since then, the country has seen job losses over 357,000 jobs. The article itself stated that this has been the largest decline in a five-month period since 1982. That would give us a good look at the fact that 25 years ago it was EXACTLY this bad.

Where has this decrease come from? Well, mostly in Ontario and Alberta all across the board, but this post is focusing on construction. (… one guy in my formwork course therefore may have traveled provinces straight from the frying pan right into the fire!) These decreases came specifically in the areas of medical buildings, and educational institutions where the permit value fell over 50% in February. The decrease for commercial permits was only 20%, coming from office and recreational buildings; both being areas that showed the greatest increase in B.C., and with the 2010 Olympic Games starting February 12th, it’s no wonder that B.C. is continuing to build happily.

The only increase in permit value in Ontario was a 14% increase in the industrial sector. This comes, however, right after a 50% decrease in January.

In the residential sector, things are mostly unchanged right now, with only a 0.3% decrease in the value of permits, largely due to a 10.6% increase in the permits for “multi-family dwellings”, meaning a structure or site that will house more than 5 families. Again, Ontario is one of the provinces that has shown a decline even in this area though, with B.C. again leading in this area. Toronto also has shown declines for all areas, across the board (commercial, residential, industrial, institutional, recreational … ALL components) with B.C. leading the way in pretty much all areas. Even so, looking across the value of building permits, across all areas, by city since October, none of the stats look incredibly good. Vancouver has gone down from $456 million in October to $330 million in February, and Toronto has gone down from $840 million in October to $569 million in February, but Toronto spiked to $1.09 billion in December.

Lessons in hammering, and correcting mistakes

2009-04-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, one comment I made in my blog yesterday was offensive. That comment has been removed. I have since been reminded, in a very strange way, about also correcting these kinds of mistakes; mistakes in my behavior. I am trying to correct myself, and yet still have off days, where I write with a biting edge. The one comment I made in my post was off, especially considering the topic my post was about, which is about the wonder of human life, the God-given blessing that we all are even to exist … and then I demean people who may read the post. That was pretty stupid, and inconsiderate. The papers on people’s walls do not define their intelligence. The way people say things also does not define their intelligence, but the choices they make every day define the quality of person they are, and how intelligent they are. I should be recognizing and celebrating everyone’s differences, and realizing that people are smarter than I am, and stronger than I am, but maybe just in other ways.

So, what is the classroom lesson today that sparked this perspective on this blog post? It was an instructor of mine critiquing my hammering technique, and mentioning to me that if your nail goes on an angle, then stop and correct it right away, don’t keep chasing the nail, hammering it at all angles, as though you mean it to do that. Correct mistakes, even if they aren’t yours (you didn’t hammer that nail off course on purpose, but you still did it!) Now you can look like an idiot and chase your actions as if you meant to do that, or you can correct it right away. And then if you keep missing the nail, don’t keep swinging randomly, re-set-up your angle and position if necessary, and start again. Take the time to be aware of your angle, your aim, your position, your strength, technique, the direction you are going in, and correct them right away if something is messed up. If I can learn these lessons well, and continue to put my full attention during class into carpentry, I will have corrected my bad aim, and will still continue to learn and make progress in the course.

I should not, however, take my blog opinions into the course, or my course opinions into my blog. They would not do well to be mixed. I do apologize for making that comment, and thinking that way. A lesson to be practiced tomorrow, as well as my hammering technique, and building from the bottom up and the framing in, is to celebrate the different intelligences of others, respect those people, and not shun them for being different than my own.

The Wonder of You

2009-04-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

I have heard of Deepak Chopra before, but never heard his words. I stumbled across them on YouTube today, and in these videos, he encompasses a broad range of topics. In one video he discusses our physical beginning, and the wonder of human cells and human life. In 20 replications, the single cell that began "you" divided into over a million cells, and in 50 replications, you had over a hundred trillion cells, and each of those cells does over 6 trillion things in a second. All these cells communicate with one another to know what all the neighboring cells are doing at all points in time. Now, throw in consciousness, which is a mirror of the "supreme genius of the universe". Try that on for size as being a special creation of God, and truly blessed!

Now, once we are about 20 or so, just to pick a random age, we should be able to acknowledge that we have responses to things; reactions. But between the stimulus and the reaction, there is a pure, non-judgmental "witness" in all of us. A part of us that JUST sees everything; it absorbs information and facts. To bring out the independent, non-evaluative, non-analytical, non-judgmental witness is one goal meditation seeks to achieve. (In my opinion, that is also living in the moment, and allowing ourselves to take in joy, sadness, pain, boredom, happiness, comfort, whatever is there in the moment). Then again, all those things I just mentioned are emotions, and therefore subjective, as opposed to objective reactions to a situation.

Chopra also speaks of disease in this video, and states that "fear-engendered responses" make us more susceptible to disease, and that we can help to go beyond these responses through meditation. That I believe. If you do not believe in anything above you, and are prone to fear and lack of trust, your stress level will surely increase, and you will become more prone to disease. But if you allow yourself to believe in something else out there, some energy, some life connectedness, and trust in that, things become a little easier for you. It's part of faith, and spirituality. I know, for example, that if I trust in God, and that if I do what I feel to be right, and if I do intelligent things that hold up my "end of the deal" to take care of myself and others, then it follows that I am, in return, taken care of.

Chopra speaks of intuition as that Third Eye Chakra, almost. He states that entering a state of meditation (restful response) ... I guess would almost be the same as being deep in prayer, would open up a channel between your spirit and a cosmic awareness. In the intuitive response, in that mode of awareness you achieved earlier, you have not only the ability to just objectively witness, but you can also ask questions. In the intuitive response, the message you put out, or the question you ask through that higher channel of communication will manifest itself as an answer. The answer will not always be what you want it to be, you have to be open and accepting to whatever the answer actually IS; how it presents itself. This answer is not as easy as direct cause and effect. It processes itself through many filters.

Chopra's explanation really puts more confidence in my ability to affect a positive difference in this world, not only through what I do, but also even just through prayer to help others, and meditation. Although that doesn't mean I give up on everything I DO, and will now just focus my life on prayer! No thanks! I would rather do as much as I think, if not more, and analyze less!

Chopra explains the next response as the creative response, stating that as a result of asking your question and stating your intention, that you will be able to create. The ability to create something that was not there before is a purely human attribute, as it was given to us by the Creator because we are created in the image of the Creator, and as such, we have the ability to create, and understand how to build things.

The last response Chopra discusses is the Sacred Response, and this response entails the ability to wonder, and to ask where all this creation is coming from. To seek to know the source of the creativity. The actual source of creation is beyond all interpretation. But the interpretation of the cosmic being(s) changes based on the time we live in. We at least need to realize that there is some sort of cosmic Being, or cosmic Force, and we are expressions of, and contained inside that Being. We are all parts of this "scheme of things". The human mind, which seeks to understand the Creator Mind, is a part of the cosmic mind, and in that way it is possible for human minds to connect.

The more you can understand your own mind you start to eavesdrop on the nature of that cosmic mind. The more you ask questions, the more you understand, the more you create, and the stronger your "Sacred Response" becomes as well.

Bear

2009-04-05T16:52:00.000-07:00

Nicknames are wonderful things. They can be used to describe people, in good or bad ways. they can be given to demean, as "pet names", or to bolster a person, and make them feel like they belong to a group.

My best friends and I are always calling each other nicknames. We have standard nicknames for each other, but sometimes we veer off from those. I have also looked on Helium, a writer's "forum" that I belong to, and found an article there titled Why People Choose Nicknames For Themselves. It was funny that she mentions people usually choose names that fit the named "to a T", and I had just written that myself.

One woman I know has a very easily pronounceable, albeit longer name. Her self-ascribed nickname is short, simple, sweet, but out of character for her, as far as I would understand, but she likes it, and it sticks! I works so well for her, and I wouldn't call her any other name. People don't even know her by her real name.

There is a person who I do not have "the right" to name, and I do not know that if I ever did give that name, that it would stick. I do not even really want to give that person that name until they "deserve" it. That is one thing about nicknaming ... the "recipient" needs to deserve the name. It's funny then, that the people I named Bulldog, Penny, Sparrow, Little John (Robin Hood character ... as in this guy was huge, but why he reminded me of Little John, I am not sure!) I have only known for one day, but they still deserved the name, and some people you have a name lined up for, but they just never "deserve" to be called by that name.

"Your name is important", this author says. It describes who you are, and what other people think of you. It also means to the person giving you the name that you mean something to them. Like my nickname for my sister, who finally allowed me to give her some kind of nickname. Now, the name has "stuck" for years, if not a decade. It has now also become a bit of a term of endearment that I use for others, but it is only the "Name" for one person; my sister.

So why have I chosen the name Bear? Well, in the middle of my affections, (which only lasted about a month, before that it was only a passing friendliness) I thought it described the proportions, and that was not a bad thing. In fact, that was a charming thing, I thought! I loved this person's stature and presence. In fact, they have proof in ink to support their nickname, which I found out after I had thought of the nickname, but seeing as I have NEVER called them that, there is no proof of this fact. So it is a perfect nickname for the person, but I still think they need to deserve it.

Nicknames can also be used to ascribe characteristics that are not inherently human, to people. "Honey", "muffin", and all those cutesy names "Popples", "Karebear", as well. Names can be short forms of actual names: "Vanny", "Nessa", "Ria" for example, of can be only between two people (like I used to call a friend way long time ago (in a galaxy far away) when we were both into Star Wars, and she had her own fan fiction site that she maintained, I called her "Master", and she called me "Padawan". Crazy names; we were young and dorky, but they were amazing good times!

So why Bear? It has nothing to do with shortening the name, but
the Panda Bear would be part of the reason, just as a cute animal, and the Grizzly Bear. Hmmm, interesting to think about. I will keep this info in my back pocket, ans let you know if the name is ever used. Never being able to use it would be a shame, and a waste of potential friendship, indeed.

Penny and Bulldog

2009-04-04T18:14:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a day! Today was amazing! There are a couple of highlights to my day personally, and also technical highlights to my day as well. The day of drywall mudding in the trusses has been unrivaled until today – today was its equal!

There was a time where I would say that whatever day was THE BEST DAY EVER!! I think I have been around too long now to get quite that excited about any one day anymore, but this was an amazing day. One reason that it rivaled that drywall mudding day was in terms of the intense spirit and positive energy of my crew, enough to get me “nicknaming” a lot of the people there; that gives people a heightened sense of belonging. I have noticed this through mostly construction experience though, and different of the guys in charge will give out nicknames, it doesn’t mean someone is a “favourite”, but often people respond well to those names, especially if they are given and received respectfully, and in good humour. For example, one of the guys today was Bulldog, from Fraser, to a T! Bloody absolutely PERFECT match, right down to the pitch and gruffness/gravel in his voice. So I mentioned that to him about halfway through the morning, and he thought that was pretty cool, and ran with it! One of the women in my crew informed me later that the name I picked was a good one, because this guy had a tattoo of a bulldog on the back of one of his shoulders! LOL, that worked! If that guy is ever onsite again, he is Bulldog, hands-down!

Another name I ran with was this guy who had “Penny” on a sticker above his name for the day, and when I met my crew in the morning I couldn’t read his actual name, but I could read “Penny” very clearly. So I looked at this guy and said “Penny?!?” The whole crew laughed, and so did he. But that name kind of stuck, although I did not push anyone’s nicknames too far. I called everyone by their real names, but also kept the nicknames going throughout the day. It’s hard enough to keep everyone excited, let alone remember 13+ names throughout the day, so you have to have jokes in your back pocket for when you inevitable mess up people’s names! He was also a good worker, he learned how to use the skill saw, and was someone I could depend on to get the job done. Some people will do that; they will allow themselves to take on a job early in the day, and then you can depend on them throughout the day to do their job and contribute their new skill to the work of the project. It also gave this guy his own way to belong to the group.

Another thing I did today was something I “re-learned” after last Saturday; break people up into small groups, and assign them projects, then instead of having to find work for, or follow up on, 13 different people, you only have to find work for/follow up on about 3 or 4 groups. That is a lot easier.

Sometimes I have to give people away. It is NOTHING personal usually. I had to do that with several people today, as my “boss” – as she had adopted the role of – needed people. One not so good thing about today though, is that there were too many people there, and I did not have the opportunity to train one of the people who, as Alison noted, was one of the quiet ones, who may have the most gumption. Hw was always hanging back, and acting like “it’s okay, I’ll just wait”, well then, he was just waiting all day. I felt bad because I didn’t have time to show him anything, so he always got the leftovers. He didn’t step up all day long to be the squeaky hinge, and get in on any of the building groups I had going. But he did get to work with a lot of different groups onsite, and do many different things. Maybe next time. Let’s see how much he puts out if someone takes the time to show him what to do, and recognizes and encourages him.

Women’s Build Aspirations

2009-04-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

I still maintain that this Women’s Build will be an absolutely amazing experience. Yes, we may not get an amazing amount done, but I have still met with several women who have already given me enough hope for my own goals that I am very interested in, and extremely excited about what people I will meet during this Build! In fact it’s “not only the destination, but the journey” that counts, and even if the Build is just stressful for me, the journey towards the Build has so far been well worth it!

I am developing a camaraderie with different of these women who will be participating in this build that I have had with other of the guys onsite, but what makes it even cooler is that we can connect on a higher level than just construction – we all share “being female” in common. It’s the kind of joking around with “the guys” that you get in these such boys clubs, that sometimes, if you fit in well enough with them, they will let you in on, but if they don’t let you in on it, you are SOL. But working with these women, there is no "boy's clubs"; in fact there are actually "girl's clubs" starting, where the girls who share renovation or construction in common are bonding together over the experience of being involved in residential construction from the ground up. We can do it just as well as "the boys" can, and we are bonding, and having a blast! It's amazing!

Once again, Habitat is one place where I can be myself and be accepted for being EXACTLY who I am on a daily basis, and not only that, but also be EXPECTED to be a leader, and be pushed to my full potential, and joke around and have fun doing it!

I met this woman today who will be a House Leader at the Women’s Build, and oh yes, is she ever cut out for it! A carpenter, and then I am assuming, a project manager in B.C., she doesn’t seem to take much BS. She is all I needed to keep me on track, and keep me doing what I am supposed to be doing. I really enjoyed working with her. She seemed to adopt me. It also seemed that she’s one tough cookie. When she was an apprentice, there would have been probably only one “her” in the entire program, and she would be the one!

First thing in the morning it was like a car driving along the side of a metal wall, screeching, paint-stripping friction, with me wondering what would be worse. But I think that even though there were a couple of instances where we collided the wrong way, but were BOTH determined to work together with each other, and respect and understand each other, and that determination had us working together really well by the end of the day. It was bloody gorgeous! Whenever I would go to teach someone something, she let me do that, but whenever I would go to “do work” – and she seemed to know the difference – it would be “what are you doing?! You have a day job; here you have labour; get THEM to do the work! You lead! You supervise, don’t work!” Holy crap! It was amazing! It was like she was on my back, but that’s the kind of yelling I respond to beautifully, there are no demeaning or derogatory elements to her commands, but she does issue commands. I am trained well enough that all I need is a little kick in the butt when I am veering off in the wrong direction, and she was kicking me, so I corrected. Another amazing thing was that I could share construction humour with her, and she actually got it … it took some prompting on one of the jokes … and she could share joking back with me. It was so cool to be able to do that with someone.

See, this woman that I met today, along with other women in Habitat, like Jenny, are pretty amazing to me, because they are proof that there are “tough chicks” out there, who have no problem at all with being that way, because it gets things done. And they have found their way to construction because of one of the exact reasons I am drawn to construction; it is an area that operates on the gears of respect, and being tough, and so you can BE yourself, and BE tough. It’s almost too good to be true, but yet these women are living proof that it is in fact possible.

Here’s Jenny saying a while ago that she gets these nicknames, and this reputation as a “nagger” @ Head Office, but does she give a f…damn? NO! And I think that’s bloody amazing! She gets the job done. She is a tough and confident woman, and other people are not used to that, and so they resist, and possibly try to send jibes her way, to cut her down, but these women are able to not let it phase them, and keep on going. THAT is exactly how I yearn to be. I would love to have the confidence, and the unshakable goals to be able to be like Jenny. I could follow some of these women around onsite just in awe of how they conduct themselves. (Although if I actually DID that, it might get to their heads, and I don’t want to inflate anyone’s egos here ;-P ) Although I would not be ashamed to say that I would be very willing to respect these different women, because I KNOW how they are acting, and I know some of the crap they went through that toughened them up. I hope I can come out of my own challenges as successfully as they have.

Speaking earlier of camaraderie, I am now comfortable enough with some of the women onsite, that I have started to bug them and joke around with them, like I joke around with Roger and Brian. It was gorgeous! I kept on bugging Jenny, and goin’ at her today, makin’ her lose her train of thought, just doing all the kinds of “being a brat” that Roger can do, but doing it in a way that it was received as fun, and joking. THOSE are the kinds of things that bond you. Is being able to goof off with someone else, and know that they can goof off with you right back.

There are other women there (Barb from Head Office, Kerry, and Kris) who are younger (30s I’d guess) who are not quite as tough as Jenny, but you know they are also confident women. This is the kind of thing that a young (male) apprentice would feel, if they felt that kind of stuff! Kind of like a warm, fuzzy feeling; a hope that they can achieve what these other guys they work for and learn from have achieved, and that they have the ultimate respect for these guys. I actually talked to one of Will’s students today, and I think he feels that way about Will.

Tricks of the Trades

2009-04-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

Don’t get me wrong. I have just written about the women from the trades that I have met (mostly through Habitat, although there are others) but there are guys I genuinely respect onsite too. Some of them, like Mike and Carlos, are continuing to adopt me. I have known of them for a while, but because I was not as “dedicated” to Habitat before … as in, I hadn’t yet based my CAREER direction on it … I had no reason to connect with them. Now I have found a couple of things, one being they respect me as an apprentice, and another thing; they can discipline me for not getting something right. They know how to do that respectfully. There are lots of other guys there that I respect, and enjoy learning from. I can take being yelled at, really I can. Being told I am worthless and essentially useless, no. That shows a lack of any class. But these guys don’t do that. Mike, Carlos, MikeBlake, Roger, Brian, Will, Dave, to name a few off the top of my head, are all pretty good guys to work for, to work with, and to learn from.

Speaking of learning, it’s time I moved on to the technical achievements of my day. I noticed that I worked with Carlos EXACTLY the way an apprentice works for a foreman, and the fact that he treats me in that way is pretty cool. I recognize how he is treating me, and how he is expecting me to behave, and I understand that he doesn’t do that kind of thing for “just anyone”. He is investing teaching in me, which is something that I am very receptive to. I am here, at Habitat, more importantly than anything else, to LEARN. I need to learn like I need air. I need to be given the opportunity to learn. I need to be given the responsibility to do things, a chance to f…mess up, and then to be told that I messed up, and helped to see what I can do better next time. That is one of the reasons why I appreciate Brian’s sites, and respect him so much; because he attracts teachers, and he believes in making Habitat a learning experience. I have learned not to take that for granted, because not everyone operates that way. I am grateful for all these opportunities, and I do not want to do anything that would jeopardize them. I understand how lucky I am to be able to participate in this kind of environment, and I love it! I am like a sponge, and it’s finally paying off! I am actually understanding how to do these things, and I am now more able to Crew Lead these projects on my own, although not without still messing up.

Today, Carlos was not so happy with a mistake I made … and I sort of made it twice. I was not on my Crew to remember a very important element of installing the joists, which was to make sure the double joists were flush … and again later with the braces. That was not my project, but Michael was (apparently!) my Crew Member, so when the braces were not flush with the top of the joists, it was my responsibility. Damn. So out came three or four small joists, and the joist hangers had to come out, etc. And watching someone like Carlos just take a skillsaw to your work is kind of shocking. I was a bit confused there, like WTF is going on here?! What did I do wrong? I didn’t understand at first. but the thing is, I COMPLETELY respected the way Carlos did that, because at no point in time did he demean ME, he just chastised the mistake I made, and told me to pay more attention next time, and not mess it up, because that was a bit of work that had to be redone. The thing is, a year ago that may have had me in tears. Today, I have been toughened up by several experiences like that, I don’t take it personally anymore. That is just a construction guy whacking an apprentice over the head and saying “You dork! Now, pay attention, and get it RIGHT the next time!” So this experience was a good one, because I learned here, and I kept all my dignity intact.

However, after that happened, I was kind of shocked, and just stood there for a while. After wanting to go off in a corner and whimper, something in my brain kicked in – Probably Susan or Jenny’s voice in the back of my head! – and said, “Come on girl, you’ve got a Crew to lead, and a mess to fix up – don’t just stand there, you know what you did wrong and what you have to do to fix it, now mobilize the forces and get back to work!” And so I did. Some switch in my brain flipped, and I came to life. People were standing around just staring, almost open-mouthed, at what had just happened, and that was no good. So I gave each of them a piece of wood, and told them to take the nails out. I told Bulldog to make sure he got the double joists flush, and “Penny” and one of the other guys to start cutting the new pieces we needed. I couldn’t believe it! I refused to be upset at messing up, and I went back at it, and look at what happened because of it – I remained my team’s leader, and I gained confidence. THAT was one of the times where the little voice inside of my head, after I had picked up the pieces and fixed things, said “atta girl, good stuff, you deserve a pat on the back.” And believe me, 90% of the time I am Waaay too hard on myself, and even after I have earned a pat on the back I still will not give myself one, but after today’s personal success I really did deserve that. That is a victory, and victory is sweeeet! The last thing that happened today was one of the best things. I shook hands with most of my Crew Members, and was going to just shake Alana's hand, and she just came forward and gave me a big hug! I felt like a million bucks! I felt so good! That was another way for someone to say that I have really made a difference. What a bloody tearjerker. Amazing. Yeah, I don't get paid money to work for Habitat, but that is one of the reasons that makes coming there completely worthwhile.

So for next week, I learned that (keep previous weeks in mind too) you need to watch out for keeping things flush.
* You need to watch every member of not only your original crew, but everyone under you, or working in your area. If you see anything that is wrong, don’t be afraid to tell them to take it out and start over again. Also, I was a bit tough on the guys for the braces, (but still not as tough as Carlos!) but I could be a little softer, maybe … as in, “it’s a mistake guys, it’s okay. It’s not a bad thing. You still are doing a good job, but you have to take out the pieces, and start again.” THEN I can go on with the, “okay, don’t just sit there, take out your mistakes!” kind of stuff! Enh! They’re big boys; they can handle bein’ talked to tough!
* Keep your crew divided into smaller bits.
* Understand the things you have to be aware of in completing your project correctly BEFORE you start.
* Don’t freeze because you messed up, keep moving!

There are other things … but I will need to remember them later. I think I am just about “brained-out” in terms of writing right now!

First Saturday @ WRP

2009-03-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

I think I am running out of firsts at WRP ... ummm, on second thought, I can think of a LOT of firsts I wouldn't mind happening there!

But for now, the was the first York University Day at WRP, but not the first York Day at Habitat. In fact, one of my first days as a Crew Leader, at 4200 Kingston Rd., was with York University students and alumni. I think I preferred the spirit of that group over the group this past Saturday, but then again, this group was also pretty amazing!

My Crew today consisted of about 7 women. Our job was to put up sill plates on Block A. I felt a bit like a brand new, never held a hammer before kid at some points during the day, because one guy loves to tell me that what I am doing is wrong, and say "why don't you do it this way; it's so much easier?" At every turn. Who's f*g crew is it? Mine, or yours? Sometimes his lack of ability to think through what he says has dumbfounded more than just me, and even the Site Super was at least able to recognize this guy's behaviour. The fact that he made a comment to that effect did not help me to necessarily look any better in front of my Crew today, but it helped me to definitely FEEL better. Even just to know that I DID actually know what I was talking about, and how to fix the problem, and that he was the boss, and not this tactless so-and-so. No, I didn't need to re-snap the chalkline, and stop being so anal about it. I am quite capable of, as Brian said, "eye" it, to make the minor adjustments needed. But I have worked around this guy for three years, and I know that he has people telling him that he does stuff wrong different times, and he seems to rail against being told that is not the way it will be done like his LIFE depends on it. Nor does he trust me with a skillsaw, or think I can teach others to use a chopsaw, etc etc. I had to ham it up with my girls just so that they would still listen to me.

Arrgh! I hope he is NOT there next Saturday, or at least that I do not work around him! I would like to work more with Mike O. and Carlos, though. Those guys are pretty amazing. I can at least defer to them when I don't know how to do something, and not be made to feel like sh*t, or have my task whipped from under my feet, and my Crew think I can't do my job or don't know what is going on.

Anyway. I actually DID manage to teach these women how to put down sill plates. You know what? I didn't go as fast as the fastest Crew, but there were a couple of young women there who are very interested in building, and want to return to the site. Some of the others were just "girly". Some of them took the opportunity to learn to use a chopsaw, use a drill and a spade bit, put down sill gasket and Tyvek, swing a hammer, and even toenail in Rimboard.

And one of the guys there recognized my "craft". My What? What, as in the way I swung a hammer? You can tell I am a budding carpenter, can you now?! LOL! Listen, whereas I will demand the respect that I give to others (to whatever degree I give it!) I also know that, as C+ says, I am at "the bottom of the pile". I know nowhere close to what Will or Carlos or Mike O. knows, I have nowhere near that level of confidence. Please do not try that kind of comment. I would tend to take it as sarcasm, or buttering me up to see how I react to that kind of B.S. I know I can hammer in a nail, and teach others to toenail, but don't assume I am a hammer "craftsperson"! B.S!

Well, there are some things I missed from today, but I also had quite a lot of fun, and learned some new things, as always, in the process.

Gratitude

2009-03-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

My sister is grateful, every day this Lent. For example, every morning, when she wakes up (to HER alarm, usually an hour after she is woken up by my alarm, and spends that hour cursing me ... sigh ...) she is grateful that she has functioning hearing to hear her alarm, and functioning sight to see her alarm. She is grateful that she lives in Canada, and has a job. She is grateful for freedom to choose what to do with her future, and I am sure she is grateful for her family, too.

I have spent the last few days fairly depressed, stressed, and doubtful, but there have been daily things for me to be grateful about, too. Maybe her idea is pretty good. So, yesterday I saw a cardinal, right there in front of me on a branch above the sidewalk. I am very grateful for that. He was beautiful! I am also grateful for spending the day with my Mother on Thursday.

I do not know that I am grateful for not having a job, but I am sure I could spin it that way for now, too, if I worked at it. I am grateful, at least, that I live at home, and my family is willing to help me out when I need it, but also that I have enough money for now from my savings that I can keep going on my own steam. So I am grateful that I am not a big spender at the best of times, so that in the not-so-good times I am still at least okay for cash.

First Fortnight @ WRP

2009-03-22T15:35:00.001-07:00

Well, it's now been two weeks that I have been working at the WRP site (known as Hainford, but I still call it WRP, because the "Women's Religious Project - the land for that entire site is owned by nuns - is what it started off as being called). Brian, Bethany, Caroline, Roger, David, and a few volunteers have been helping to renovate Brian's "office", not to mention Raymond (electrician). It now has trim, and new floor, the wall and door are back in, and it's all wired up and ready to go!

By now, all of the units on the west side, and most of the units on the east side have the foundation walls poured, and as of Friday this week, we were putting the sill plates on "Block E". The units are divided into 8 blocks; two units (left and right) each. Blocks A-D are on the west side, and Blocks E-H are on the east side. The west side blocks will be the women's build homes. Actually, at 100 women per day, we could easily work on all the homes ... that might actually be what is going on.

I have been working on building form footings, striping the forms back off the footings, and once again, shucking around hay and clay. This past week I have led groups of individuals; people who are on March Break, for the most part, but also some women. On this site, I assume that most women are either home owners, or training for the Women's Build Blitz (henceforth to be known on my blog as WB, or WBB!). Although I should not necessarily make that assumption. I have seen several new faces though, and most of them have been pretty cool.

First Day @ WRP

2009-03-10T14:32:00.000-07:00

I just started today on WRP - it's at Lawrence and Manse Road. I spent a good solid six hours taking nails out of wood, stripping the footing forms, getting rained on, and helping an with the excavation process. There are lots of things to do at Habitat right now if you are one of Habitat's "Dedicated Volunteers". I have started to read the blueprints for the site, but at 15 minutes at a time, really thoroughly digesting these blueprints will take me a little while!

There will be 8 blocks of two units each, divided into left and right. They will have two floors each and a basement. They will be constructed using SIPs (external), stick framing (internal), 2x8s (and are there any 2x10s?) as floor joists, and 5/8" T&G sub-flooring, and a mix of wood and steel beams and lintels. And that's about all I retained from the drawings today.

Two years ago; January 2007, I started volunteering at 4200. I didn't even know what a blueprint was. Today, Will was congratulating me on becoming part of the Union - something he just found out today. I can read residential blueprints, and am learning to hold my ground in reading commercial blueprints as well. None of these things are required by Habitat, but they are things that Habitat has influenced me to do with my life. I have come so far since the beginning of 4200. I hope to keep moving forward!

Some days I wonder if anything will ever piece together and I will ever figure out what I want to do and how I will do it, but on days like today those goals seem a little more attainable. I have options I can pursue, and opportunities in my future. there are a couple of things I need to get there: hardwork, smartwork, a positive attitude, self-confidence, and dogged determination ... not to mention faith and prayer. And THAT'S just in hot pursuit of the career I want!

Eons Since Habitat

2009-03-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

Wow.
September 15th, 2007. That is the last regular comment post on Habitat that I can see that I have written on my blog. That was 2.5 months into my position as Hardware Supervisor at CTCR store #654. June 27th, 2008 was my last day on that job. I have also enrolled in AND FINISHED a carpentry pre-apprenticeship course, and am now 800+ hours into my apprenticeship with Local 27; Carpenter's Union.

Since my last post, I have continued to volunteer with Habitat on a fairly regular basis, contributing about 36 days in 2008 (that averages to one day every week or every two weeks, spread out over the year). My time at Habitat is sometimes sporadic; based on what else is going on in my life, sometimes 8 days a month, sometimes 2 months without. I do what I can, when I can.

I have also experienced my first clashes with Habitat in a few ways since I last wrote, but I also think they are starting to work themselves through, if not out.

Brian (one of the site supers) is now a Proud Pappa - as of September 2nd, 2008, the VERY DAY I finished crocheting the baby blanket I had made to give him! Naomi __ Thornton ... can't remember her middle name. But that is one of the wonderful things that has happened. Soon she will be volunteering for Habitat, and building houses of her own! Although she will probably start off with just the Gingerbread Builds. We gotta start'em small!

There have also been two Volunteer Appreciation Nights since I last wrote a regular Habitat post. The 19th Anniversary was a little boring; although the winner of the youth volunteer award was very cute! (they were not a kid, but a young adult, relax people!) The 20th Anniversary, on the other hand, was amazing! It was very well done, and it was at the Steam Whistle Brewery, a place I suggest they host it at next year! The event was also very well-paced, with speeches interspersed between ample time to mix and mingle.

Whereas some people were taking advantage of the "Brewery" location, I just went C+ style; all out for the orange pop! Well, I hope that this year I am able to contribute more to my Habitat adventures. Whether or not I am ever able to retell all that I have missed reporting on, I will not push myself to do. Just as long as I try to keep up in my writing with my Habitat participation this year, is all I can hope to achieve.

She Plays Hard

2009-03-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

But she's here to have fun.

The month is Ocotber, 2007. Our team, then the Spartans, were thinking of getting some practice time, somewhere. Fast forward to June, 2008. Our team, this time around the Canadiens, were again thinking of getting some practice time somewhere … I began talking to Mandy Cole and Mandy Cronin about them starting a Women’s skills session, that our team could join. That fell through. Now again, move to October, 2008; our team manager mentions practices. A long-term advocate of them, I perk up. Practices? Do we need practices? Is there an actual opportunity? Yes, one of the league convenors said she was willing to coach us. Great! So I did research on the least expensive rink time, and the best location I could get.

Last of all, zoom to the present moment. We are now just ending this hockey season, and our team has managed 8 practices. At first, it was just our team, but we only had intermittent commitment from our ladies, and a poorly planned financial situation, leaving us in the red because of lack of commitment. For the latter half, we practiced with new recruits, broke well into the black, and were able to properly reward our practice coaches. For me personally, I wonder if it has been more stress than it was worth. Our team chemistry has changed. I feel responsible. I feel my attitude in part was also responsible. I was in the organizer position, and I ended up being “the young punk with attitude”, pawed aside by my “wiser and more experienced teammates and coaches”. If I was going to be the leader, maybe I should have been a more enthusiastic cheerleader. Or maybe I am just having delusions of grandeur, that I could have affected team chemistry that much. Maybe I am not THAT responsible for everything that has happened this year. Things just happened. But in a way, I am glad that they did. I am in this to improve myself, and eventually play more competitively.

I think only time will tell that. I learned that gathering team commitment for practices can be like herding cats, and am very grateful for the help and persuasive tactics of a team member who moonlights (when she’s not playing hockey, of course!) as a Senior Executive Marketing Officer … who helped out immensely. In the bigger picture, I know my attitude on the practice ice lately has been way too aloof socially, and to intense about my game. Every mistake has built up to be the end of the world. That’s not they way I used to see practices. Because I know this, I think I have some “getting back to a better attitude” to do here. I used to thoroughly LOVE her practices, and her energy that everyone on the ice adopted. I still remember her pushing us on the ice. I hope that is what things will be getting back to this Spring’s Skills and Drills. Or maybe it’s Cole and Cronin’s job to take on that position now. Who knows? Let’s see what their Spring practices are like.

There were also decisions that were made during this hockey season. I know my goal is to improve, personally, to the level where I am playing competitive women’s hockey at a B level, by the time I am 35. Attainable? I hope so. The biggest thing that has got to change, though, seems to be my attitude. Stubborn, stoic and determined don’t seem to be good enough qualities, although just potentially annoying ones. Enthusiasm, social graces, always having something good to say, not in any way ever even looking like you are trying to be NHL level (or any better than you are) … and not getting pissed off in any way if you miss, you can’t shoot, you’re not good enough at the drill, etc. It’s a shift from personal depreciation, which can bring everyone down, to team support.

Is there any such thing as “team attitude therapy?” I think we need some! I think it’s called “team building skills” and days, and events. Cassie Campbell talked extensively about what her team did to build team spirit, including training at bootcamp. Hmm, Maybe Cole and Cronin would be willing to put us through a week of hockey bootcamp … is that what we need? I personally would love that kind of test. But maybe that’s something a little more what I need to do with people my own age; people who have the ability to be pushed through grueling physical routines, and sometimes just keep going because they don’t know when to stop. THAT is the kind of thing that I would LOVE to push against. I love to push myself against that kind of test, I love succeeding, and I love failing and trying again. But I think I approach that too aggressively, and too turned in on myself, and what I am doing, and whether or not I succeed or fail.

Some team decisions Cassie’s team had to make were on the topic of those who refused to go even TRY the gauntlet that the rest of the team went through on the first day of bootcamp, where they witnessed military personnel going through this obstacle course first. Those women were the ones who, in the end, got cut. Not because they weren’t good enough physically, but because they didn’t even try out this test.

“There were three or four girls who, when called on, wouldn’t even try the course. This was when Davidson began to question these people, and their ability to be members of that team. I don’t think any of those girls made the Olympic team. As I mentioned earlier, Cassie honestly admitted that none of them finished the gauntlet, even though they were all trained athletes, but everyone who tried it was able to prove that day that they were committed to the team. If they failed, they would fail as a team, but at least they all tried. That boot camp was perhaps the bonding experience that united that team, the way Cassie described it at least. It would be too, they were treated like soldiers; their wake-up call would come early in the morning, (6 or 7, I believe) and they would fall back into their beds, exhausted, at about 10pm after seven training sessions each day.”

A little intense for our team? Yes. but I wouldn’t mind more pre-season team-spirit training. I wouldn’t mind a hard-assed, tough coach. I like playing to improve, just as long as we can all actively remember, including the coach, that we are playing to have fun. I think if I could speak for everyone, I would say that we all lose sight of that sometimes, and focus a little too closely on the carrot in front of our own nose. But I can only say that, with 100% accuracy, about myself. Why do I even have that goal? Because I am in control of its outcome, not the economy, not whether or not I have a job, not my family – although they DO support me, not even the ice itself, but just me.

Women's Build

2009-03-01T19:22:00.000-08:00

Habitat for Humanity Toronto is planning it’s own Women’s Build. Of course, there are many different opinions about having a Women’s Build. There are some people at the Habitat office who are behind it with all their hearts. That is truly wonderful. There are also people who have flatly and bluntly refused any participation in the event, either because they feel they have to spend so much time cleaning up after the scrambled eggs that they feel a “Blitz” is in general, or because they look with dread to the disaster that this Women’s Build will be, in their opinion. I believe that, for all its possible flaws, this Women’s Build is worth the effort, and should be extended throughout as much of the duration of the build of these 6 houses as possible.

* To clarify something here, this “Build Blitz” has been altered in name to just Women’s Build.

Those who are against this Women’s Build have cited that they believe that, inevitably, Blitzes are poorly organized, and only lead to repairs and set-backs in the progress of the project. That, I cannot COMPLETELY argue against. That is because I do not know enough of the aftermath of a Blitz to say whether or not it is worth it. But if that is that case, then why doesn’t Habitat Head Office figure out how to better organize themselves, and actually work with their Site Supers and Block Leaders to successfully execute a Build / Blitz, and not just rename it to avoid the negative stigma of a Blitz? Renaming is just a Band-Aid solution. I also know that there are possible setbacks in EVERY build, Habitat or "professional", and even the best intentioned of Block Leaders can sometimes glue and nail down a piece of sub-flooring, and then have it pointed out to them; "shouldn't the side that says THIS SIDE DOWN be placed facing down? ..." Oh well. We all make mistakes. Too late to fix it now.

For people who sit in judgment of this effort, and criticize the Women's Build, remember that Habitat is NOT Mattamy, or Monarch (even though we have finished homes on a Monarch build site!) Yes, I know how Habitat works. Maybe not as well as any of its employees, but I DO have my own perspective. Habitat exists NOT to follow the exact same behaviours as the profession of residential construction, but to provide homes for those who would otherwise live in conditions well below the poverty line, and there are disgusting places to live, even in Toronto.

Another thing the proponents of the failure of the Women’s Build seem to believe is that, at some level or another, women can’t build. Women believe this. More than that, Female volunteers, and Crew Members/Leaders at Habitat believe this, about other women. How sexist and self-depreciating is that? Or are they excusing themselves of this behaviour, and believing that the only women who will participate in this build (all the women involved, over a period of nine days) are Fashionista airheads and featherweights who don’t know one end of a hammer from another?

I have heard from different women, including more than one Biker, and one Bike Instructor with the Ministry of Transportation, that women approach learning and getting things done differently than men do. Some of her stories are quite entertaining! There have been male students, all impatient and ready to go Go GO! Speed, faster, harder! Let’s be manly and ride motorcycles! Bugger theory, who needs that, let’s get on these bikes and ride! And then she is legally responsible for licensing these people, and she cannot license these men, because they cannot handle a Bike properly. And yet, women tend to take riding more seriously. They LISTEN to the lesson, and incorporate strategy into their approach. They think things through. They focus on technique. Yes, there are also Fashionistas even there, who only want to learn how to ride a bike to go down to the States and ride in their bikinis … where a helmet isn’t mandatory and a bikini-ed body splattered all over the road is cool and fashionable, but there are also women out there with brains, who are serious about learning to ride; learning to build.

Women can take building seriously. They can be dedicated to the cause of Habitat and fundraising for it, learning to build, and building for it. I am looking forward to, I will admit, the Oh-Yei with a crowd of Women. I am also prepared for set-backs, conflict, and dealing with conflict, solving problems, thinking creatively, and working as teams. Just as much as anything else, I am looking forward to building on this site, and (I hope) having fun at this Women’s Build. I do not wholly disagree with these women who believe in the inevitable flaws of a Build/Blitz, or women building. But I am in this Women’s Build anyway. I am in it because I believe in the cause of giving women the opportunity to build; and my own story is a case in point. I believe that giving other women that opportunity to participate in building fits in perfectly with how Habitat works, and what it is supposed to be about.

Women Can’t Build

2009-02-27T19:59:00.000-08:00

Should there be a law against letting a woman lose with a hammer and a nail gun? Are there some things a woman should just not be allowed to do? Habitat for Humanity Toronto is Hostessing a Women’s Build. Will it ever be successful?! Gosh, I just don’t know, deary. Are women possibly qualified and up to the task? Are we all just good homemakers with dreams of sub-flooring, or is there any potential for Rosie the Riveters amongst us?

Let’s take a realistic look at this: I HAVE volunteered with Habitat for over two and a half years. I DO KNOW that there are Fashionista groups out there. But there are also dedicated groups of women (and co-ed groups) where there are women who are at least intelligent, if not also competent, and hardworking. I also know that even professional tradeswomen bring something men don’t to a jobsite. Some say that is common sense; some say that is good housekeepingp; some say that is good organizational skills. They are all right. I will now attempt give an example of the range of different types of women who may be at this build:

Just this past August, I Crew Led a group of women from the Head Office of a fairly reputable fashion company in Toronto. They could hardly bloody well put up ONE bloody section of party wall ALL DAY, and most of them “just weren’t getting it” in terms of crowning studs … ummm, I could comment there, but I won’t … There are crews like that. I am not even sure if they really wanted to be there. One of those corporate Fashionistas even had the “brains” to say, and I quote; “Oh my God, I’m sweating like a man!” as if this was the worst thing that could possibly happen to her. I was speechless. I was floored. After all my years as a girl and a woman playing hockey, for example, and I had no idea I was in fact “sweating like a man” out there. I never knew what it was like to be “sweating like a man”. What is it like, then to “sweat like a woman”? I couldn’t bloody well believe that stupidity, and the unproductiveness that was that day.

There are also well-intentioned women who have just never used a hammer before, but who are actively willing to learn; to not just giggle about their nails, but drive in 10d common nails instead. I have helped some of them, too. They may have their mind in the right place, and be determined, but it takes them over 60 swings to sink a nail flush to the wood. It takes me between 10-18 hits, depending on how awkward the angle and position of the nail is, and whether or not I am toe-nailing, too! So these women will take longer to get the work done, but they are still going to get the work done.

And THEN there are women like those in the TPS who will be gracing the Build with their presence. They have also been doing their own fundraising for the event. There are women who are damn serious about learning to read blueprints, and contributing to carpentry (even if they would rather do finish carpentry, and politely would rather refuse to have a hand in rough carpentry). There are women who I am intimidated by before I even walk onto the site; because I know that the teams they make will be so solid they will kick everyone’s ass out there, and this Build isn’t even about that. They will just do it without even trying, because when they focus on something, they WILL get it done. I have seen groups like that as well. Their power, strength and energy are dangerously wonderful to witness, and they have my respect and admiration!

I believe that there will be some Crews who will need “extra help” as it were, but I think we are enough up to the task to make some progress on building these 6 homes. After all, women aren’t called Home Makers for nothing, and we are capable of doing a little more around the house than washing dishes.

Hip Flasks and Shinny Nets

2009-02-08T18:08:00.000-08:00

Wowee! After doing personal research, I found that my involvement in TWOW Shinny Tournament 2009 began back on August 16th, with a message from a past (and future!) teammate of mine. It's interesting how long even the "simplest" of things can take to come to fruition sometimes. Just getting into a women's hockey tournament took, in a way, 6 months. My God you could be 2/3s of the way to having a CHILD in that same time! But that is not what this blog post is about ... because I want hockey, not children!

I am here to introduce you to The Women of Winter (TWOW). This group seems to be based around an annual hockey tournament, which started four years ago. I am not sure exactly what defined the parameters of TWOW back in 2006, but the tournament has grown to encompass more than just two days in winter. TWOW's Matriarch runs skating lessons, shinny hockey, a shinny hockey tournament (what the TWOW is known for) and fundraising for women's hockey at a more professional level.

I have not availed myself of very much that is involved in this organization, as it's a little too far south for me, although it's good that if I went, I wouldn't have to lug all my hockey stuff, because everything she does is shinny. However, I did participate in one skating lesson, the 2009 Tournament, and I went to THE Game, and brought a friend of mine and her family with me. She also encouraged people to buy an extra ticket in to allow inner city hockey kids to go see the game, and I did that. So I brought in a modest $30 for the event.

I will, now that I have participated in different activities this year, be on the watch for her stuff next year, and see how many people I can drag out with me, especially for the skating lessons. There are some people I know who could use skating lessons, and as the lessons are comfortably within my range (I was a little bored on the ice, so I had to make up extra things from the drills, and it may have looked like I was Showboating. Really I wasn't, I was just trying to keep myself occupied) BUT if I occupied myself teaching someone else how to skate there, then I could still be there, and be challenged.

The tournament itself was a little out of my comfort range; I am not used to playing such raw hockey ... which says that I am DEFINITELY NOT as good as I rated myself. That too, was humbling. Next year I put myself even below the lowest level, if at all possible, so I know I won't get creamed so badly on the ice, or drag my team down to a score of 29 to 2! Wow! Shinny hockey really is a very different game!

One thing is for sure though; the venue was gorgeous! A pot-bellied, wood burning stove stood proudly in the corner of the "dressing room" hardly a room, but a community space separated by a curtain. Under almost all the benches, cut wood was piled, ready to burn when necessary. The "snack bar" there was a constant blur of new, different kinds of homemade soup and cookies being carried from the little kitchen on the other side of the way. They used cutlery, and plastic cups and bowls, too, so there was hardly any garbage from their venture. Even the women's washroom had an article above the hand-dryer from 1938, about the women's hockey team (I don't know where from though) challenging the men's hockey team (maybe they were both from UofT) to a match. I didn't get to find out who won though, because my hands were dry before I finished reading the article! The whole place radiated a feeling of small, close-knit community. It was wonderful. It's something I am glad exists, and I wish I could partake in. It's good to come across these venues, and know that people have carved out these little alcoves of neighbourhood within our bustling city.

Onto the tournament, on Friday night it was good and cold, and the ice was good and hard. After the game Saturday night, I had been sitting beside a teammate of mine, and THW Woman of Winter herself came around with a hip flask. My word! That was not the last hip flask I saw at the tournament, but hers was the only one I drank from. And no wonder no-one batted an eye about drinking from that communal watering hole - whatever was in that flask was tough enough stuff to kill germs from anyone's lips that touched the rim of the flask" Holy fcuk was that stuff strong. Although many a participant in that tournament would probably have thought that was the soft stuff I'd wager!

Saturday morning; the ice was noticeably softer, and Saturday afternoon was another story altogether! For 2009, the headlines should be something like "Women's Shinny in +8 temperature, girl wears water wings to final match!" And she did, too! the skating surface was a swimming pool! Just the other day, (March 6th) a newscaster on CityTV News commented on the state of the ice that day at Nathan Phillips Square, asking "have you ever seen an ice surface like this?" To which I turned around from making dinner and replied "YES!! I have played hockey on one!!" And that was a month prior!

After the last game, we were all wringing out our socks out and soaking wet ... and as one woman said -- thank God that happened, or else we would have nothing else to talk about. We would be dropping cutlery just to hear the echo. Really, do you think so? I wondered what else she and her ilk thought about that particular tournament, but I didn't dwell on it for too long.

I have taken many interesting moments from this tournament, as well as a few bitterly cold ones. One woman (who plays at Chesswood, apparently) and started on our team, caught some airtime RIGHT OVER my teammate (my, she has quite the name of Tie Domi on the ice!) although that one was unintentional. I have only ever seen that happen in a fully padded NHL Game. So that woman from our team hit the hard cold ice, HARD, and with no padding but what she was born with, to boot! Ouch! She didn't come back for the rest of the tournament, and I don't blame her. But she DID finish that game.

I also enjoyed playing against these two inseparable women; wingers I guess, #11 and #61 - wearing a Sunohara jersey. They would come down the ice, over and over again, the exact same way, and I had a chance to make that a truly learning experience; one that I have carried through my playing since that game. #11 would come down the left side of the ice (my right) and #61 would be coming down the centre. #11 would always get off ... either a shot, or a pass to #61. (almost) Every time. Grumble grumble. I tried all sorts of strategies, and none of them worked, until something finally clicked, and I got the puck away from them once or twice. Hot damn I felt mighty FINE after pullin' that one off! Fcukin' Sweet! Although I didn't really know what to do with that little black thing after I had finally gotten it off of #11. Ooops! You can only learn one thing at a time, I guess.

I also tried something this tournament that I had never tried in any hockey game before, Ever, in my entire life. I tried to skate into a hornet's nest of hockey players, sticks and stingers ready, all by my lonesome. No-one to pass to, KNOWING that I would get creamed and that it was just a matter of time ... seconds maybe, before the puck was taken from me. Well, I did score a few goals that game, but that attempt was not one of them! However, I learned that I am capable of doing that. I skated full-tilt towards that fear, and although I didn't make it through, I skated into it anyway. It was one of those moments you remember with absolute clarity: 4 girls in box formation. Me skating with the puck towards the centre of the box. The girl in their lower right corner took it off me, and then things blur. But it was that decision I had made, that I have since had the opportunity to do again in a fully padded game, and I learned there that I could actually survive an actual break-away ... just me and their goalie. But I was unsuccessful in that venture as well. All that proves is that I AM a good skater; it's just my shots that need work. If I could perfect my shot, than I may actually be able to contribute something successful to a team on a regular basis!

Here is a quick run-down of previous tournaments:
2008 = "that meant shoveling snow and skating in the rain"
2007 = "January 12 and 13" and was apparently uneventful
2006 = "...and a light snow falling. (not so light later on) ... each team had to dig a little deeper (and I'm not talking the snow)"

With that being said, I am not sure if next year the time should be moved to a weekend in January, or if it should stay in February, with the hopes that next February global warming does not descend on Toronto for the week of our Tournament.

Happy Birthday to my Blog!

2009-02-05T18:28:00.000-08:00

Next year will be its fifth anniversary, and it will mark exactly one week before the 2010 Games start as well.

So I will definitely have to write a celebratory Olympic Post on my Blog's fifth anniversary. Four years, and I think that deserves a year full of blog posts to really make my Blog's fifth year worth the fireworks!

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

2009-01-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

I have had this post in the works since early February, but since it is not materializing as I hoped it would, for lack of time on my part, I will just post this whole thing at once, and go back and elaborate on each day’s tasks as time goes by (again, if I actually GET the time)!

Habitat for Humanity, to provide a definition, is a not-for-profit organization whose goal is to build decent homes for those living in poverty housing, with an emphasis on the fact that they are not a charity; they do not just give to the poor, but they teach them how to create their own communities, and work hand-in-hand with the recipients of these homes to give them the skills they need to take care of their homes, and truly feel a sense of pride, independence, and ownership for the places where they will live.

Habitat is an international organization which has been in operation since 1976, not only building houses throughout Canada and the U.S., but also creating communities abroad, providing people with the opportunity to learn about building houses anywhere from Africa to Alaska.

If you follow my blog, you would know that I volunteer for Habitat, and have done so since May 2006. As a volunteer with them, I have now worked at three buildsites in Toronto, (McLevin Woods, Lakeshore, and 4200 Kingston Rd) and find this experience truly rewarding, not only for the tasks I accomplish each time I go, but also for the specific group of crew leaders I worked for (and now, in effect, with) at these sites. I have happened to inadvertently follow them through the completion of McLevin Woods over to 4200 Kingston Road, and I am glad I have, as they continue to dedicate themselves whole-heartedly to their work, the homes, project management, the recipients and the volunteers.

Since January 26th, I have been working once a week (almost every week) at 4200 Kingston Rd, and I TRY to get there on time every day, which has gotten progressively earlier as the year has unfolded, from 10am the first day there this year, to the shocking time of 8:10am this week, in light of my recent ‘promotion’ to crew leader. It seems as though I was already able to become a crew leader, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the only thing holding me back was that the specific person (*ahem!) who doles out the orange shirts was waiting for me to get there at the time the crew leaders SHOULD be there in the morning. (grrr!) Although I do appreciate the recognition, and will do all I can to live up to, and learn up to my position in the orange-shirted ranks.

If you look back through my blog, you will find each day’s events posted as an entry, so that the text is broken up. To be taken directly to the posts, you can click on the months at the side, and find the post corresponding to the date. The posts will not be too hard to find, as I don’t write in this blog a lot.
Without further ado, here are the dates where you will find my Habitat postings:
January 26th
February 2nd
February 9th
February 16th
March 2nd
March 9th
March 16th
March 23rd
March 29th
April 13th
April 20th
May 4th
May 11th
May 18th
May25th
June 1st
June 8th

June 22nd
June 23rd
June 30th
July 7th

Dust if you must

2009-01-01T01:21:00.000-08:00

A poem my Mother just e-mailed me. It's short and sweet, and a good way to bring in the New Year. It was penned by Rose Milligan, and more than that, she made it up, too!
Enjoy!

Dust if you must,
but wouldn't it be better to
paint a picture or write a letter,
bake a cake or plant a seed,
ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there's not much time,
with rivers to swim and mountains to climb,
music to hear and books to read,
friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world's out
there with the sun in your eyes,
the wind in your hair, a flutter of snow,
a shower of rain.
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
old age will come and it's not kind.
And when you go -- and go you must --
you, yourself will make more dust!

Maybe it's not what you gather, but what you scatter
that tells what kind of life you have lived.

What is it "to learn"?

2008-12-30T20:11:00.000-08:00

To be a carpenter takes more than just owning tools and having a workshop; like any successful professional, being a carpenter takes passion and drive. It takes a commitment to learn and improve.

I was talking with a woman last night, and her story helped to explain this one. She started out as a neurologist in China, where, at the time she graduated, you worked in the hospitals. Medicine was considered a service, and you couldn’t make much money from it. She worked in a hospital in Beijing, and was talking about her experiences there.

She loved it – all the time there were new and different cases, not like in a private practice in Canada, where you see the same people every day, maybe a little cough, some common sicknesses – no. In this hospital, there were many different cases, some that not even the chief of the department had seen before. That’s what she liked about working there; you were always learning! The chief was a professor as well, and sometimes you get doctors from the United States coming in to give seminars, so you were always learning! She loved these challenges, much more than doing the same thing all the time. She loved learning new things, and bending her mind around new challenges.

Twenty years ago (in China at least, if not in medicine in general) neurology was NOT a big thing; most of the profession was focusing on the heart. She was focusing on the brain and the neurons. She emphasized that one of the key points in her learning and her positive experience in the hospital was her ability to be flexible. She was able to learn to think laterally to solve problems, and that helped her to learn a lot.

It was an environment there of learning, yes, but the stakes were high. She made a point of discussing the importance of residency before you could open a practice. If you don’t have the residency, you don’t have the experience; you can’t think in your own way, and you can’t solve problems. You can’t always just translate from the textbook. To highlight the importance of experience, and being able to solve problems outside of the textbook, she used a very potent example. One time a patient came in while she was still learning, and she diagnosed him as having bleeding in the brain. He had lost consciousness, as she said, it was deep. So she went “the textbook route”. She did a spinal tap to get some blood, to see if it was dirty or clean. Se was also doing emergency treatment … but he died before she could finish. What the chief of the department said to her afterwards (he came in after the spinal tap, but before he died) was that you did everything you were supposed to do – you did everything right. The only thing is that if there is bleeding in the brain the pressure will be so great that to remove blood from the bottom of the spinal cord will reduce pressure in the spinal cord, and the greater pressure in the skull will kill the person.

She was so upset by this whole situation – it was a human life at stake, and no-one told her to do things that way, she did things by the textbook way, but the lesson she learned there was that the textbook way is not always the way to do things. She learned right there that there is no substitute for experience; no substitute for someone more experienced than you are looking over everything you do, correcting you, guiding you. You need that interaction in the beginning, or you may not learn very important lessons, not just cased based, but in how to solve problems, and how to think.

Someone comes into the hospital with a condition that no-one knows. As the resident, you do the best you can to diagnose the patient. The Chief of the department can go in and look at the patient too, they will check all the tests you did, and look at the patient, and give their opinion. It still may not be right, but they will still have more experience than you. They will have seen many more iterations of different diseases and conditions, and may be able to diagnose them better than you can.

Being a carpenter, like being a doctor … or more accurately being an apprentice, like being a resident, takes a constant yearning to learn and challenge yourself more to reach for new things and new experiences, new chances to grow. Once you stop learning in any particular job, it’s time to move on.

Garbage in, Garbage out

2008-11-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

I am interested in health food, and eating healthy. There are a few contributors to this interest, and I have written on this subject before. The SPECIFIC spark to this blog entry comes from a young woman discussing a media-diagnosed disease; orthorexia, and her reaction to it.

I may never be as healthy as this woman (and people like her may hang their heads and say "that's a shame" but read the whole entry first!), but I am interested in that kind of diet, and I am behind not only her health-conscious eating decisions, but also her reaction to society's diagnosis.

If I may contribute to one of her comments, convenience food has been a huge contributor to the malnutrition of our society. One factor I know about is our magnesium deficiency. Far be it for me to not at least look something up before I blog it, I found a book "The Magnesium Factor" by Mildred S. Seelig and Andrea Rosanoff which talks about magnesium being refined out of our foods, and not being added back in in the remixing (yet another reason why processed foods are not good for you!) Magnesium deficiency means that you are more stressed, your muscles are not relaxed, you are at a higher risk for things like heart disease, and potentially even obesity.

When you eat foods out you can almost guarantee that they were made using refined flours and sugars; even the "healthy, whole wheat stuff". If it's not a specific organic/vegetarian/health food venue, their health food is mostly just advertising.

Now to the media, tell me that all your health food advertising isn't a "trend". Tell me that this explosion of awareness of health isn't purely a product of your marketing departments; the same departments that will advertise whole wheat on Tuesday, will advertise a cereal on Wednesday that, with 2-3% more sugar, could not be legally called cereal, but would instead need to be called candy.

Is it any wonder then that there are intelligent, health conscious people out there, who, even if they do not conduct the research themselves, and re invested in the research that takes place, and are interested in making more actively healthy decisions in the ways that they eat.

This week, I ate out a few times, actually more than I normally do. So let's go through that, so I a)don't pretend to be perfect, and b)prove that I am aware of myself and my eating habits. On Monday night I went for the first time to Live - at Spadina and Dupont. The food there was so good that it WILL be a repeat. And was that alcohol on the menu? Wow, if I wasn't going to class afterwards, I would have probably indulged, as the company was as good as the food!

On Thursday night, I went out to the Bombay Bhel, which has a fairly healthy menu, but it's not vegan, and no doubt they use white flour to make their naan.

On Friday for lunch and dinner I went out. On Friday, I was cornered into a meal, but I did not say no to it. I can't even write it down here, but needless to say, it was one of the corporate pimps of the food industry.

Ahem. On Friday night, I had broccoli and chicken, with some sort of sauce, and sticky rice at Spring Rolls, and a glass of wine.

So, I ranged from Live vegan valhalla, to food prostitution in a week. What a range!
Well before we met my stepdad, my Mother had cut beef and pork out of our diet. That was a health decision; not a religious one, but one day I had a hamburger, and shortly after threw up. It wasn't even worth it. It wasn't good. So, I do not eat beef ever, and I only ever eat pig on my pizza. But I do enjoy seafood and poultry, alcohol and coffee, chocolate and ice cream, but all in moderation. It's good to monitor what you eat. But then again, it would also be good if I had more walnuts and water! Oh well, nobody's perfect!

Tomboys should be banned ... WTF? Another Stupid element of Islam ...

2008-10-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

Another comment I thought to post on my own blog ... with of course the reference to the original article that was written. This article condemns girls who "act like boys" as violators of the tenets of Islam, and fit to be banned from the religion. As the article points out later, they didn't offer guidelines on what behaviour is masculine. Why not? why not offer those guidelines. Offer guidelines too, on what is feminine. Prosecute both genders for ever stepping to either side of the line. It's ridiculous! It's ludicrous! More than that, it is dangerous, and life threatening to some innocent girl who is just having fun playing with her friends. It perpetuates the veil of fear that Islam sheathes their women in, and confines them to. This edict could take girls who are very "Tomboy" in nature, and thoroughly destroy them, psychologically and spiritually break them, and when you do that, or course they will think it's okay and good to where the veil, because you have taken away the higher functions of their humanity; ones we take for granted.

Islam takes gender way too far. It is against the laws of their religion to have any deviations from the strict gender rules and roles. It is not natural, it is not innate for human beings to know gender roles! We act however comes naturally to us. Gender roles occur largely because of social conditioning in today's society. Some people even believe that these roles were set from the very beginning, which they weren't. There have always been more than just "deviations" but entire cultures that just did not see gender roles in that way. Picts? Woad? Women from the 6th century, fighting right alongside the men, everyone clad in very little BUT the woad. There are many other examples, I am sure. Tomboy? Would you say that Islam would NOT condemn those women?

Women should not be punished for doing things that come naturally to them, not as a woman, but as a human being. THIS is the result of male beings hardly fit to be called human using their constructed gender binary as a power struggle, to be the ones perpetually on top.

What do these Islamic jackasses get out of oppressing women; out of regulating their behaviour to the point of forbidding anything less than female? Do they do this with men, too? How much suffering takes place in Muslim society as a whole, how many people are ousted by such a religion? The more and more people they oust, the more the religion will become a power-hungry, self-consuming, inbred, puritan piece of guano, and the more and more sure will become its decline.

What scares me is the fact that this religion may yet find a resurgence in North America, and gather up new followers in men who want to have power over their women, let's even say in Canada. A religion that violently forces power away from women is the last thing we need, and any woman who takes the rights and privileges we have for granted should be made aware of these practices occurring elsewhere around the world, practices that would have women banned or killed for a fraction of the behaviour, exhibited even once in Malaysia, that we exhibit in Canada almost every day.

What ifs ...

2008-09-17T17:08:00.000-07:00

What if ... someone I liked / liked actually found me as attractive as I found them, as a person, a spirit, a mind, a body, and a soul?
What if ... I had a full-time job in graphic design, loved what I was doing, and was damn good at what I did?
What if ... I had a big, genuine heart?
What if ... I could actually be feminine?
What if ... I could lose my pride, and be humble?
What if ... I could lose my selfishness, and do things for other people?
What if ... I was an optimist?
What if ... I had my own place to live?
What if ... I knew how to drive?
What if ... I went to the gym all the time, and pushed myself to really develop my muscles?
What if ... someone could cuddle with me?
What if ... I fit in and was accepted somewhere - would I feel more trusting, and less need to be thorny?
What if ... people stopped implying names "at" me, and I could walk away from all that mess?
What if ... I was able to change those situations, and take the names people implied and be stronger than that?

What if ... There are so many "what if's" in life, and sometimes it is so hard to be grateful for what you have, and want what you have, and live in the moment. Sometimes I want things more than what I have. Sometimes I look at what other people have, or seem to have, and say that I want what they have. I am jealous that I am not "feminine enough" or not "employable enough" or ... etc. I would love a "comfortable" job. I would love to be a "comfortable" person. But I am not.

I love what I do when I am building things, and doing things with my hands. Not just as in "I knit for a living", but "I build for a living", or would like to. But that is difficult to get someone who is willing to accept that I woman wants to, and is (anywhere from okay to actually damn) good at building. I wouldn't mind finding someone (other than any "girly" or at least female friends I have) who lets me feel "girly", even a little. Who maybe even encourages it, not in "you SHOULD be more demure", but yeah, I kinda like that you can be pretty tough, and I RESPECT who you are (ha! Who knows what respect is in my generation?!) but I am also okay with you being "cutesy" and girly sometimes. Thing is, I won't let my "toughness" down, my guard down, until I know I can be that way with someone, and everyday there is something that prevents me from letting go.

"Come on get out, from under, that heavy, heavy coat.
Just admit, that it's life and you don't (always) think that you can cope.
'Cause there are women, from history, that are living underneath you skin,
and they are waiting, for you to let go, and finally give in ...
No-one really cares how many skeletons are in your closet.
We will help you, open up the windows, open up your heart flow and let in fresh air...
I'm throwin' you a rope my friend, climb up, climb up it ..."
~Melissa Ferrick

These words are helpful and hopeful, especially if I could trust them ... and wonder why life can't be like that, and why we have to accept that we need to go through sh*t in life. But then again, we don't have to take sh*t from other people, just because there are tough things in life, doesn't mean we have to be anyone's doormat. I will be stronger for the challenges I successfully go through. I can only pray that sometime I will work hard enough, or I will get something right, or I will "pass whatever tests" I need to in order to earn . deserve a reward of good relationships, and good company.

These are selfish behaviours. They should probably be avoided. I do get chances to do things. Some of them I mess up. Some of them I am good at. I am not good enough at being the kind of person who thanks, not thinks.

Haverstock - living a rich life

2008-02-05T14:28:00.000-08:00

Lynda Haverstock

Haverstock left school around 1965, when she became pregnant at age 15. She decided to marry the father, and keep the child; a rare choice in those days; most girls, as she says, “disappeared, and returned home without a child”. Haverstock decided to live through her tough decisions, and raise that girl. At age 18, her husband left her when she actually DID return to school, and since then he has never been seen. (One of my questions would be why did that jackass leave her if she decided to return to school – what f...messed up views of the world, and women, did he have, although they were unfortunately probably quite normal views to have those days. Her parents also supported her, but they were tough on her decision too. They stated that if she made the choice to be an adult, they would treat her like one. She was invited to leave the house. But her father also treated her like an equal from that day on; as an adult.

Since then, Haverstock’s daughter became her pivot point for everything. (I would like to challenge those who do not continue their schooling and make up lame excuses for it with Haverstock’s story). She was 18, she went back and finished her highschool, still living on her own with her daughter, and working. She raised her daughter on her own, and never even went on welfare; she found other ways to get by, like collecting pop cans in alleys with her daughter to make money for milk.

Haverstock was a fiercely independent woman; she refused to move back with her parents, and she even refused welfare. Later in life, she chose a doctoral program that she felt would allow her the ability to “make a life for [her]self, be independent, and call the shots”.

From what she has said in the small 3 page article, I can take inspiration from. She never let the pain in her life be an excuse or a roadblock to her goals, and she did that with the tough love of her parents. She had things to do, and she wasn’t about to let dependence on other people let her fall short of her goals, and she wasn’t about to use any disadvantages life presented her with as a crutch, either.

It makes me look at my own life, and say “why am I not brave enough to do everything I want to do, to create goals, and force myself to stick by them?” “why do I sit at home without a job and live off my parents?” “why am I okay with going to school, but to lazy/scared to translate anything into a job?”

Haverstock’s mother never moved in to help her out. Instead, she handed her a broom when she got home from being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis that had her confined to a wheelchair, the doctors said, for life, and said “isn’t it grand; there’s nothing wrong with your arms”. That is pretty amazing. That is someone who won’t even start to take any bullsh!t, even before you start to issue it (just in case you were going to issue it).

Another thing that sticks out in my mind right now is one comment a woman on my hockey team once made in the dressing room about how sick it is that some parents/people “reward mediocrity as excellence”. If your kid isn’t the best, or isn’t tough enough, you don’t pat them on the head and tell them they’re beautiful anyway; you f…bloody well get them to work harder.

That is what Haverstock’s mother did with her; just pushed her harder; never stopped pushing, even all throughout Haverstock’s adult life (which started when she was pregnant and 15 years old). To be kicked out, to live on your own, to know without a doubt that you could survive; you could do it, to have confidence in yourself and the world, that must be an amazing thing. To not be cloistered at home for God knows what reason, while ALL your friends left home to try out the living in residence experience. Is "letting" your child live at home during post-secondary "spoiling" your child? Or not being tough ENOUGH and REAL ENOUGH on them? Maybe because your parents used finances and their fear/lack of trust in the rest of the world as a way to pin you down and cloister you up at home, when really, home was where you ended up getting fucked up (down, and sideways) anyways.

Haverstock also said that telling people who have just graduated that “I wish you a life of health and happiness”, are off the mark. Haverstock wishes people “a rich, full life. You’re going to have joy, and you’re going to have pain – that’s what living a full life means. I wouldn’t want to keep people from the hurtful lessons, because I believe they enrich our lives and define who we are.”

A Habitat Comment

2007-12-09T14:54:00.001-08:00

Here is a comment I just posted to my Mother's blog, and seeing how my blog has been tending towards lately, I thought I would post that same post on my own blog. Her post, and her blog; aka alias, is also a very good blog, much better than my own.

It is quite simple to volunteer for Habitat, whether for just a day, or a day every week unto forever. Some of the most common questions I get asked as a Crew Leader for Habitat are "do I need previous building experience?" often asked with a mixture of hope and trepidation, and "how long of a commitment is required?"

You do not need any previous experience. Take it from a Crew Leader who had never previously picked up a hammer in her life, to becoming a Crew Leader in 11, arguably 9 months.

The other question, you can give one day, all the way up to every day, and there is every combination you can think of in between. Some people give two straight weeks one summer, some people give one day a week for one month, some people give 3 days a week for three years ... there really is no limit. It's a great place to be, and I would recommend spending some time there. Get to know the Block Leaders, the Site Supervisor, the Volunteer Co-ordinators, and the other volunteers on-site. You really can make some great connections.

There are so many ways to get involved, as well as those posted, you can volunteer at a Restore, you can also get involved in the gingerbread builds, or for hardcore builders and travelers, there is even Global Village, an affiliate of Habitat, that will allow volunteers (whether with Habitat or not) to raise some money, then go and travel to build homes. It's a great way to travel, especially if you don't really like the touristy thing.

Causes?!?

2007-10-07T19:42:00.000-07:00

Causes? There is a cause for being a tomboy? Is there a cure? Should we run for it? How much do you think we could raise? I just read this article from Wikipedia, something I came across after wandering through rainbow searches and villages across North America, and in search of ways to better understand who I am and how I fit into the world, I cam across a term I have often taken pride in referring to myself as; a tomboy. I was involved in hockey, karate, and baseball as a girl, and attended my first Womyn's day March when I was 8 years old, with my mother.

Then I came across this definition in wikipedia:
There is little study of the causality of the phenomenon, since it has been considered, first and foremost, to be a phase one might go through in early years of life. One theory of a possible cause is that a girl who spends her childhood and/or adolescence in an environment where the male presence predominates, she simply lacks any feminine role models. However, this hypothesis has been challenged by one report from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children which suggests that the state is heavily influenced by genetic and prenatal factors.

My mother's side of the family is full of strong female figures, even the ones with attitude problems are still (99% of them at least) strong women.

The poor girls, they simply lack any feminine role models because "the male presence predominates" and they don't learn to how be feminine. But with the proper teaching, any of them can be trained in becoming a proper woman. Being a tomboy to me, even if the girl scores higher on the "feminine scales" is too much a part of my existence to ever ignore.

Women's Conference: The Power Within, Part I

2007-10-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

This is a Woman’s Conference, and it’s called The Power Within. It was held in the Convention Centre (North, I believe) in Toronto, and it was a day that my family agreed was so good, so brilliant, that it was much too intense – all the information the speakers imparted on the audience, and the fact that so many brilliant speakers were packed into only eight hours made it off-paced. It could have been a little slower-paced, augmented with workshops and panels; I agree with that completely. But I also thoroughly enjoyed the day, and because I took notes I am able to appreciate the day more. These have helped to bring back other pertinent points in the conference. They can also bring the audience back to being there; everything that they sensed and remembered about the day.

Without further ado, let’s begin at my beginning.
Cassie Campbell gave the keynote speech, and because I am working on my hockey again, she was the biggest speaker of the day for me personally. They were all absolutely brilliant, it’s just that because my challenges to prevail over as a woman all lie in breakthroughs with physical strength and ability, and those are areas Cassie excels in, as well as team (sports-related) leadership, she would be the woman of the whole group that I would choose as a personal role model. Cassie addressed aloud in her speech what she was asked to talk about at the Conference; the Power Within. What is the Power Within, what feeds it, what it is made from … and she admitted throughout her speech that she couldn’t define it; she wasn’t able to pin-point it and hold it in her hands, but she made such a speech that it didn’t really matter. She illustrated that the power within, for her, came from teamwork, commitment, courage, and the ability to keep playing against all odds; to believe in your team.

She talked about everyday hockey challenges, and that you need to face these kinds of things everyday to become a better person, and a better player. She cited her successes and failures, both as a player, and on behalf of her team. With her unique perspective, she was able to do her part to bring her team together. She never really said very many things that she did personally as a team captain, but instead told the story of her team.

She talked about her team’s 1998 failure in Nagano, and how there was a lot of finger-pointing then, and how the team was on the edge. But that was the loss that drove them to improve their hockey and team player skills. That loss forced them to re-examine their perspective, and question, on an individual basis, why they were there at the Olympics.

Cassie talked about one of the predominant factors in their success being that they were constantly told they couldn’t achieve this next win, and that opposition gave them something to push against, and they pushed wisely. They pushed in the direction of their values. They trained incessantly. If they were accepted onto the Olympic Women’s Hockey team, they had to quite their jobs and train 3 times a day. They had another loss along the way as well, at the 2005 World Championships, which proved to them that facing their everyday hockey challenges was simply not enough, they needed to change their mentality from focusing on individual effort and finger pointing, to focusing on working as a team. From then forward, they adopted the slogan WAR – we are responsible; we are accountable for our actions on and off the ice; we are responsible for taking care of ourselves, and developing the team. They became responsible. THAT was their first step to becoming unstoppable.

However, their flight to the top was no easy ride. Cassie attributes the team’s pulling together and changing their attitude as brought about in part by Davidson’s influence.
Melody Davidson was already working for the team as an assistant coach for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, and by the 2006 Olympics in Torino, she had become Head Coach. She took the team through rigorous training, not to mention took them to boot camp.

During this camp, they had the opportunity to witness a group of soldiers in full gear go through a grueling gauntlet, this was not just a jump-through-the-tires obstacle course, but involved climbing walls, crawling under barbed wires with all their gear on, etc. All the ladies on the team were then told to go through the same course, and NONE of them finished it. The key factor in this course, however, was not so much a test of skill as set out by Davidson, but a test of courage, team commitment, and the ability of those girls to step up to the plate and do something for the team. There were three or four girls who, when called on, wouldn’t even try the course. This was when Davidson began to question these people, and their ability to be members of that team. I don’t think any of those girls made the Olympic team. As I mentioned earlier, Cassie honestly admitted that none of them finished the gauntlet, even though they were all trained athletes, but everyone who tried it was able to prove that day that they were committed to the team. If they failed, they would fail as a team, but at least they all tried. That boot camp was perhaps the bonding experience that united that team, the way Cassie described it at least. It would be too, they were treated like soldiers; their wake-up call would come early in the morning, (6 or 7, I believe) and they would fall back into their beds, exhausted, at about 10pm after seven training sessions each day.

I think that boot camp would bond just about any team, but that’s not the only thing that Cassie cited as a factor in their success. She took into consideration something I believe that many women can understand; that teamwork for women is unique. It involves so much more than just being out on the ice together – that is not enough. Being a true team for women means that you really do eat, sleep and breathe “team”. You need to build up a trust with your team members. Cassie discussed this “dressing room dynamic” as being a critical part of a female team. She made a good point, saying that in women’s teams, the social aspect is huge, and even then, it can be extremely difficult to get right. You need to be able to communicate, or you don’t have a team. She asked us how many times you have been in an argument with a girl friend, or been angry, and someone asks you what is wrong and you say “nothing”. So you don’t talk, the other person doesn’t talk, and everyone can sense something is brewing.

Cassie said that kind of thing happened occasionally on the team, but that the most important piece of advice she would have for that situation is to address any issues you have with the person you have them with immediately. Don’t wait for it to come to a boil, don’t tell another group of people, and then let the other person know by committee, just take them aside, privately, and tell them straight out. That is risky business, even though it’s the best thing to do. Believe me, I’ve tried. You need to know what you are feeling, and that you have tried your best to change, first. You also need to know that this is something you need to tell the other person, and it is directly related to you, not just something you feel the other person needs to change about themselves. It is a tricky rope to walk, but Cassie is right, you need to keep the lines of communication open. If done properly, this can be a huge proponent in gaining the other girl’s trust.

You need to build up experiences together outside of hockey. You need to have some fun together, get to know each other, not as best friends, but at least to build a trust in one another. By sharing, by bonding. You need to go out with your team members and make sure you are in constant communication with them. You can take them out to coffee, lunch, beer, anything as long as you talk.

Cassie talked about playing roles on and off the ice, and said that the biggest thing you can do to support your team is to let everyone know that they are making a contribution, and that their efforts are recognized. That was something she was called on to do by one of her team members, who felt that the defense wasn’t being recognized well enough – a valid issue, as the big thing in hockey is points, and defense usually are not a big part of the point system in the game. Yes, it would be nice to invent a point system for the defense, or some way to recognize them, but Cassie didn’t have that choice. She asked her teammate what she wanted her to do. “I don’t know” was her response “you are the team captain; it’s up to you to think of something.” Cassie was then faced with a unique problem; how to acknowledge these behind the scenes players so that they feel equal members of the team? The answer lay in a t-shirt. A simple t-shirt, decorated with symbols that meant a lot to the defensive team, presented to them in the dressing room and explained to them, every symbol on each shirt a tribute to the girl’s connection to the team, their own personal contributions, and their contributions as a defensive unit made all the difference in the world. Never underestimate the power of making someone feel like they are making a contribution to the team.

To wrap-up her experiences with her team, Cassie brought us back to the beginning and showed us how far her team had come; they had set a standard that the entire world could not beat, and continued to set it, holding up a challenge to the rest of the world and saying that if you want to be the best, this is what you have to do. You have to eat, sleep and breathe team. You have to be responsible. You have to train three times a day, every day. You have to do more than face the everyday challenges; you have to go out and make challenges of your own, and when you have achieved all of those, you need to reach even higher, and achieve even more.

The Power Within, for Cassie, was not just about her team, but also about the whole Olympic experience. She illustrated that through a couple of video clips full of people winning and losing. Of people making it through to the top of the podium, and people who fell along the way. The emotions at the Olympics, whether positive or negative, are overwhelming and crushing. They are bigger than any person there and every person there, and it takes a certain type of power, once you are at the Olympics, to perform at the top of the world. Those videos were very powerful. I remember the crying and the injuries most of all, because those were the people whose bobsleds were upended and became bowling pins to their own high-speed bowling ball, or missed a jump and were thrown down the rest of the hill, or slipped on their speed skates and went crashing into the boards, sobbing, not because of their specific injury, but because in a split second everything they had trained for was gone. That takes power to endure.

There is so much out there that Cassie has contributed, and this post doesn’t even cover her entire speech, but here is a snippet of some of Cassie’s experiences directly with Torino: http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/athletes/diaries/campbell/entry5.shtml

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

2007-09-15T20:57:00.001-07:00

Today was another great day at Habitat. My crew worked on putting up insulation (R-12, R-20, and Roxul) in units 9 and 8. Today was not the best crew I have ever had in the world (I still say that was the Markham church group, and I have all the signatures to prove it!) but they were a very good crew. I also really appreciate Brian’s taking the time lately to follow-up with me at the end of every day. I take the time to make sure I let him know how my progress has gone on whatever project, and in turn, he takes the time to come around to my units and do the walkthrough with me, talking about things like I missed filling a couple of gaps, or that the foam needed to be cut back in order to properly seal the cut made in the SIP to accommodate for the electrical wire. (Now I can start to wonder if the wires are 18/3, or 14/2, or what! And read up on products, etc! This is going to be so cool!)

Today I learned the finer details of insulation, how things should be done, and how they should not be done, and my success is a testament, once again, to C+’s amazing way with teaching. She made the lesson very clear to me, and how I was able to interpret it, and field any questions using common sense + her teaching allowed the day to go very smoothly.

I think that’s about it that I have to report today. Kudos to my crew for doing such a good job, following instructions, working well independently, and taking initiative to solve problems. They mostly worked in pairs, with my foaming/caulking/AcoustiSeal team member the only one going solo, and I am surprised and pleased that she had enough work to do even though her day was filled with these smaller projects. She was there with her daughter, and though her daughter was more interested in easier work than challenges, I still feel that she was a good addition to the team. She was also the youngest there, and one of my youngest crew members. She pulled her weight, and really worked well with her partner, who really enjoyed the challenge of doing some of the measuring and more difficult projects. At the end of the day, another one of my crew members, who was taking her lead from her partner (who wants to become a crew leader himself) surprised me. When I complemented her work to Brian, she gave me a huge hug, like that was the best thing anyone had said to her all week! THAT right there is a perfect example of why I go to H4H. She will live there, so she owes H4H that work; it’s part of her sweat equity – but it's still really nice to be complemented and recognized for her work, and I am really glad she got so much out of the day today. She was great, and her energy was really high all day. After Habitat she was going to her real job. Wow, what a day she puts in. I respect her for that alone! She was a very good worker, and I think that it’s wonderful she has a home here.

Lastly, I received open teasing today about being “Miss Canadian Tire”. I assume this is just all in good fun, and must admit that especially if it is, I enjoy that recognition from H4H people of my new job at CTC, although sometimes I wonder … maybe someone is even a little jealous that I am a supervisor there now?

A good question some of the staff of Habitat for Humanity of Toronto should answer

2007-09-09T16:39:00.001-07:00

A fellow Habitat volunteer asked a question yesterday, it was rhetorical; just repeating a question someone else had put to her, or she had put to herself, as if to challenge her reasons for being at Habitat: why was she (still) there? She doesn’t get paid, she doesn’t even get appreciated as much as she would like … I understand that. Most volunteers come up against that feeling at least once when they are volunteering; staff of many NGOs tend to take their volunteers for granted, and even I have found that Habitat for Humanity Toronto is no exception. They are paid, and do not seem to realize that we are not. Habitat owes me personally at least $8000 by now for all the work I have done for them.

Since March, I have whole-heartedly upheld their promise to make sure the volunteers (as if I am not one … haha, fork over the cash then!) have a good time! I will continue to do it until the staff prove to me that they don’t appreciate me, but until then … why do I continue to work there?

Hmmmm, I work at Habitat because I feel alive there. I am thrilled to be a part of a project so much bigger than I am, and so much bigger than I ever dreamed I could be. I am there because I have earned the respect at least, if not a bit of a warm spot in the hearts / hearths? of the permanent people / fixtures onsite. I feel like I belong there. I have taken ownership of my work there. I have made some good friends there. I continue to meet interesting, quality people there; people who enrich my life. It is a chance for me to be good at doing something. It is there that I reaffirm my leadership skills; I am a good leader, and my crews reward me every week by reaffirming that fact, no matter what type of people I get. I have led them all. But they at least all share the fact that they want to learn, they want to volunteer, and want to be a part of something bigger than they are. They want to put up vapor barrier, or SIPs, or do drywall mudding, or even just do clean-up. They understand that no job is too menial or tedious when, by doing that job, you are helping to build a new life for someone who currently doesn’t have much in the way of this high standard of living that Canada is known for. In return, I understand that no job is below me, and that I can participate and lead crews to do any job assigned to me, and that we can all have fun doing it.

I have fulfilled my promise to Habitat. Will Habitat fulfill its promise to their people in orange? Will they recognize everything we do for them? We do not ask for money, I definitely do NOT want any books, or anything with the Habitat logo on it (except for my shirt, which I already own). All I ask for is training, investment of their time and organization, an opportunity to be listened to by the staff, and for the people who DO get paid to realize that I am as valuable to Habitat as they are, and to take my advice.

Please Habitat, this is my letter to you. Take seriously the input from the people in orange. Take your own dang notes on the advice they suggest you follow, and prove that you appreciate us by following our advice. THAT would be orange appreciation. Prove that you are committed to us. Meet us half-way. Or else we will leave.
If you want to know what our suggestions are, ask us. You have people volunteering for you who are more quality than you will ever know. You have something magic in your court – don’t lose it because you fail to appreciate it.

“The best prize life can offer, is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing.”
~ Teddy Roosevelt

A City of Two Tales, or, Grand Design

2007-08-04T01:16:00.000-07:00

Here's an indicator that everything goes exactly the way it was supposed to go. Ms. Gordon mentioned she was staying at the Sandman. Well, not Sunday night, but Monday night I ventured out on my own. My circuit took me through Stanley Park, where I met an grey-haired man who seemed to know more than his eyes saw. He asked me if he could help me find anything, while I was there at the information booth (which was closed) and getting myself a map. I decided to go for it. Yes, I am looking for food! He recommended the Fish House to me, but more than that. He took the time to recommend the restaurants to me, and let me choose the Fish House. He took the time to repeat the directions to me, painting a very clear picture to me of where to go. He discussed Davie Street with me, and advertised it as another good option for food. He then talked to me about the fireworks competition. It was almost as though he was painting a picture for me of everything I could do while I was there, but at the same time, he didn't try to sell me on anything; he just held the door open. It was also as though he could sense I was kind of afraid - I was nervous venturing out, esp. since I was alone on the trip, but getting very quickly lost by the time I reached that booth.

So, I trusted his guidance, and off I went. First the Fish House, then I walked along the seawall, and then, as if he was some sort of seer, I found myself at Davie Street. I walked it's entire length, and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery! ;-P By the time I got to the end though, I was once again thoroughly lost. I wandered along Pacific Road(?), and eventually made it to, by way of some strange luck, the neon green sign - The Sandman. How Neil Gaiman! So on my journey into believing that everything happens for a reason, I gratefully took the opportunity to stop by and get directions. When I saw that sign, I knew I was close to my hotel based on the tour guide's instructions from Sunday evening.

What a night, what a journey, and what a story that makes for!

Leonore Gordon

2007-08-02T00:18:00.001-07:00

I am currently enjoying an adventurous week off of everything I usually do in a week (Habitat, Hockey, and CTR) and spending some time in Vancouver, taking a course in Print Production. The first day in Vancouver; Sunday, I went on a tour of Capilano Suspension Bridge and Grouse Mountain. On that trip, I met two women from New Zealand who were kind enough to share the trip with me, by the names of Leslie and Christine.

I also met two womyn from Brooklyn; Amina, and Leonore Gordon. It is the latter of the two that I would like to spend a couple of minutes discussing here. Sometimes you meet someone by chance, and when you meet them you have no idea “who they are”, and though you are grateful to have met them, you just part ways at the end of the conversation and that is the end of knowing them.

Leonore seemed to have a personality that was too determined and focused to just pass by, however. After talking with her for a few moments, she had already given me a set of instructions and her business card; I was to find out about cell phone antennas and her current petition to stop these antennas from going up onto roofs in residential areas, as the radiation they emit has been linked to brain cancer. Fair enough. I believe that any cause that can help to change lives for the better in any way is a cause worth pursuing. (See the next posting)

As well as an anti-antennae activist, Leonore is a poet, an author, a teacher, a mother, and a psychotherapist. Many of the causes she advocates are very personal to her, not least of which is Parkinson’s - a condition she has. I do not know if I will ever meet her again, apart from the few minutes I spent with her on the tour, but if I can pick a cause of hers (or all of her causes!) and continue to send out ripples, then I have helped her make a difference.

Leonore has taught poetry and writing in schools for almost three decades, with a focus on integrating this poetry and creative writing with other aspects of the student’s culture, such as African drumming or Native American dance and drumming lessons. Some of the things she has taught, and the approach she seems to take in her poetry, and creative writing remind me of my own Mother’s approach; studying similes and personification, use of vocabulary and sensory details, and integrating all these things into a curriculum that looks to empower students with cultural awareness, through putting on plays and performances, both projects my Mother has embarked on as well.

She seems to be an incredible woman. A few minutes of internet research have revealed more than enough proof of her accomplishments, of which I am sure there are many more than I have found out so far. I hope she is able to continue to teach, provide psychotherapy services, and continue to be an activist until well after her son graduates from high school, and perhaps even university. The world continues to need more strong women like her. Hopefully she can serve to be a living example of strength for many young women.

Anti-Antennae Activism

2007-08-02T00:11:00.000-07:00

Leonore continues to advocate against antenna sitings, especially microcells, which are not covered in legislation that regulates the installation of antenna sitings around the states, and I assume Canada as well. In order to install one of these antennas in a residential area, there is no legislation that requires the company, such as T-mobile or Cingular, to inform the residents of the building that the cell phone microcell is being installed on their building, yet there is a chance that these antennas will bring a lovely little present to residents of these buildings, such as cancer or leukemia.

This begs the question brought up in the title of this article; Does the Wi-fi revolution directly endanger our health? To further that, is the laptop I am using now going to increase my risk of ovarian cancer? What is involved in this radiation?

Cell phone use may contribute to brain cancer. Why then, are these carcinogens allowed to pervade our daily lives, everything from cell phone antennas on apartment buildings, to the phones themselves, to other devices that use Wi-fi such as laptops(?)

Alright, there is a long and complicated process to follow to try to get an antenna off your roof, or prevent one from being installed there, but if there are any petitions going around in your neighbourhood to ban the installation of these devices, then by all means, sign it! I do not know what the procedure would be for eliminating these antennae in Canada, but if you are interested in pursuing the project, check out this link.

No Man's Woman

2007-06-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

I don't wanna be no man's woman
It don't make me happy this mantrolling
Thing that you got for me so I become
No man's woman
I don't wanna be no man's woman
I've other work I want to get done
I haven't traveled this far to become
No man's woman
No Man's woman
Cuz I'm tired of it
And I'm not scared of it
That I'll never trust again
Cuz a man could fake you
Take your soul and make you
Miserable in so much pain
My friends think I'm alone but I've got secrets
I don't tell everything about the love I get
I got a lovin man but he's a spirit
He never does me harm never treats me bad
He never takes away all the love he has
And I forgive him a million times
I'm never tired of it
And I'm not scared of it
Cuz it doesn't cause me pain
Like a man could fake you
Take your soul and make you
Never be yourself again
I never wanna be no man's woman
I only wanna be my own woman
I haven't traveled this far to become
No man's woman

Habitat gift wrap

2007-06-22T00:55:00.000-07:00

This was a big week for Habitaters; because on Thurday a true all-star team came in, including Darcy Tucker and Wendel Clarke. This was to be my last Friday on-site before moving to Saturdays. The day started out by a group cleaning of the back of the houses, including a magnet sweep. I kept my area clean by going through and cleaning once in the morning, and then later in the afternoon, and one of the guys from the ACC seems obsessed with leaving the plane clearn for us. He did such a good job I should have hired him solely for clean up!

On to the day, today consisted of prepping the window frames along the back for a process called blue skinning, and then skinning them. Blue skinning is a roll of rubber that has an incredibly sticky tar-like surface on the one side. Blue skinning is used to provide a watertight seal around the window, to prevent water from getting in through the window as it runs down the house. There can be no water that penetrates through to the wood, as the wood will then begin to rot.

Today I split up the eight people in my group to work on different goals: the first group was responsible for measuring all the windows, and cutting Blue skinning strips to the proper dimensions. Once they got a system going, they were able to carry through the entire day, from the first to the second floor. The second group consisted of 2 pairs of two blue skinners each, and they worked on putting up all the tape, bottom up. The third group went across first to make sure all the shims were properly nailed in, and broken down flush with the window edge. They then continued throughout the day to do smaller jobs, but if was very good that they did them without complaining, and seeing as Tom is a professional contractor, without even asking questions. Tom also did the side window with Hung, his group member for the day, and single handedly repaired some Tyvek that had ripped free with the air, and was threatening to take more of the Tyvek with it. This involved going up onto an extension ladder much more precarious than I ever would have, but his work had him up on ladders like this quite frequently.

In the afternoon, we had to do the second floor windows, which meant that the teams split up further into one person doing the ladder and the skinning, and the other person holding it steady on the ground. By this date, they had cleared out the ground for the second lot of homes, and they piled all the dust and dirt beside the first block of homes. Add a little wind, and this meant that we had the opportunity to eat that sand all afternoon. It got in everything – it was like being in a sandstorm almost, but my team were real troopers, and continued to work despite the sand getting everywhere. That was even more fun up on the ladder. I swear I got a temporary sand tan that day it was so bad!

Sisters in Strength

2007-06-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

Any opportunity I have for contact with C+ I take, especially the ones that she initiates. I don’t know, but for all I say I am a very physical person; I seem to feel incredibly uncomfortable with contact.

Some people I feel comfortable with contact, and sometimes these people show up in strange places. Claudia is a given, as she is Colombian and friend of the family for years. She is very affectionate and very confident in being physical and affectionate. She is a very open and loving person, and that is part of what makes you feel like someone is wrapping you up in a warm security blanket when Claudia gives you a hug.

Sometimes, I want to make contact with the person, but it just feels uncomfortable. Sometimes, even with the same person, contact just happens, maybe even by mistake, but it still just feels natural.

That happened for a while with C+, but then we kind of drifted for a while, and now, for the most part, contact is uncomfortable. For example in March we would interact as if we were one mind in two bodies. THAT was comfortable. She would pass something for me to hold, I would take it without missing a beat and vise versa. We worked together in very close quarters putting up and foaming SIPs one day, and were both so natural about it; it was like working with Bernadette (my sister) on something.
I miss that feeling, and I know that we both operate based on a very concrete kind of trust, so without that interaction almost seems a bit like something has been lost in translation. However, she still will ask me to do things for her, and I will never say no.

When I set my heart to achieving a friendship, it seems to happen, and I am honoured that this friendship seems to be working, as I hold C+ in very high regard. She feels to me like a little sister, (Bernadette technically being my ‘big’ sister!), like a kid who has so much pure energy and enthusiasm, and honours me by taking the time to share her stories with me. Being the audience to one of C+’s conversations is a wonderful and energizing feeling. I could say this in so many ways, and it would never quite fully express or captivate the feeling I feel inside. The song ‘the whole of the moon’ helps describe it, though!

I would like to think of our interactions as a friendship, however, with my tendency to analyze I am sometimes very worried that she does not return that friendship. C+ is a very wonderful person. I have whole-heartedly adopted her into my ‘family circle’, which, given my real family circle, isn’t very big. It is reserved for a chosen few … you can call them best friends, or you can call them cousins. This circle includes Bernadette, Tina, Serafima, AT, Mom, C+, Claudia, Mrs. Hannon, and a few others I hold dear to my heart. These are the people who I would love to – and feel COMFORTABLE with – sharing my most pure and childlike joyful moments in my life.

drywall mudding, day3

2007-06-08T00:54:00.000-07:00

This was an absolutely amazing day! DST took the opportunity to celebrate a client appreciation day by taking their clients to Habiat. That is, as far as I can tell, one of the best ways to appreciate your clients; give them a feeling that they are giving back to the world, and can be given a feeling that nothing else in the world can provide.

My crew today was drywall taping up in the trusses. This meant that about half my crew was in harness wondering up in the rafters. You know how much I would have LOVED to have participated in that event? I have never even been in harness, so I was grateful that the two Andrews on my team knew how to harness up.

But I had to stay at ground level and supervise my crew. I had between 10-12 people strong. There was a Mother-Daughter-Son team within this group; one of the A’s being the son who works in construction, currently working on the plumbing on a new wing for SunnyBrook hospital. The other Andrew I dubbed “Little John” at the beginning of the day and the name stuck so strongly that I just called him John for the whole day, and he was fine with it. I think he was flattered by the joviality, I enjoyed the lightheartedness as well; that was a GREAT crew! They were all amazing.

There was also one gentleman on my crew who I showed how to make a drywall taping rig, and after he knew how to do it, he went off and made four! His initiative was very impressive, and I appreciated it very much.

We were required to tape every seam in the front five units where the firewall touched firewall, and where firewall touched wood. The team used scrap sheets of OSB along the bottom of the trusses to create a platform to walk across, putting in a couple of nails for stability.

Andrew and Spiro seemed to work very well together, and Andrew had a nickname for Spiro; Sparrow. Such a day for nicknames! So I just started calling him by that name. That’s the kind of camaraderie I live for onsite; being able to witness, and be part of a team, in all its forms and levels. It’s refreshing and inspires confidence.

The heat that day was brutal, and Andrew and Sparrow were absolutely drenched in sweat by the afternoon, as they weren’t using an OSB platform, but just hooking up to any perpendicular beams and climbing through the trusses like a jungle gym. They were by far my superstar team that day, which is not something I make a big deal out of; to me a superstar team means that you teach them well, and leave them to do the work on their own for the rest of the day, confident that they can do the job put to them while you ensure the rest of the process runs smoothly, and those who need more help, get it. Andrew’s Mom and Sister were unwilling to go up into the rafters, so they were the tape ladies for that day, and by then I had the drywall tape mudding process down to an art, so their job was very smooth. We ended up going through 3 boxes of CGC that day; it was a VERY productive day.

Speaking of someone who needed a bit more help at the beginning, there was a woman there by the name of Maria, who switched out of her initial crew to learn how to drywall up in the rafters. She is a very good student and learns very quickly, so she only needed about 10-15 minutes of help and she was also fine. If need be she would ask me questions, but she also came up with solutions. She has since worked on my crew, and continued to uphold her high standards. She would learn as she needed to know things, and use her creativity to fill in the missing holes.

Little John, Andrew, and someone else became sub-crew leaders that day, so that they were the only ones talking to me. This was good seeing as I had so many people on my crew. At one point Little John had a question for me, and in my answer I included the fact that what we were doing was in fact just a re-do, based on very bad taping done previously. *sigh, such is Habitat.

This was also the last day for Ross, Mo, and the rest of Mike’s kids. They did a little photo, and Steph was there to congratulate them officially and see them off. It didn’t hit me until that day that I wish I could have gotten to know those kids better; a lot of them were very amazing kids, and I think I wouldn’t mind working with them again in the future. I will (and have) missed their presence around the site. I also miss Sean; I hope he comes back maybe in the fall to keep working on the next block of houses. I worked with him several times, and I enjoyed his energy and sense of humour.

window installation

2007-06-01T00:53:00.000-07:00

Crewleader training, and window installation this week. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to C+ during the Crew Leader training, and especially the window installation; I always do. I enjoy her stories, and the energy she brings to any project she embarks on. She was talking to me today about her career dreams. This was a very wonderful conversation, I am glad we had it, and I would like to have it again in further depth.
The following notes are extensive instructions on window installation. The only thing missing from the experience is having actually HAD the experience!
Without further ado; window installation:

You will need
• Level
• Screw gun (Dewalt drill)
• Robertson bit
• Drill bits – 3/16”, 3/8”
• Measuring tape and pencil
• Shims (2+ dozen per window)
• Exterior Foam
• Exterior caulking
• Interior (latex) caulking
• 2 1/2” screws
• Cat’s paw

The Process
1. Before the window even goes in, you will need to measure 4 1/2” from the front edge of the frame to mark out the front edge of the window. For 2 x 6 sill frame and brick exterior, you need 1 ½” of the window on the outside of the frame. If a 2 x 6 is 5 ½”, then you set window 4” back from interior edge of sill. You can use a 2x4 4” block to ensure that the window is set back from the edge in a uniform manner (rather than measuring out along the edge).
* To prevent the window from falling out, you will need to have people on ladders holding the window in place before you can fasten it properly, or a 2x4 held in place on either side of the window using screws.
2. Holes need to be drilled 6” from the top and bottom of the window, and 6” from the sides. After that, there needs to be a hole every 2’ along the width. First mark out the holes on the window casement. Then drill with a 1/16” drill bit, going all the way through. The second hole will be drilled using a 3/8” bit, and will only go about a ½” through the casement.
3. Now it’s time to set the window in place, making sure that the inside of the window is flush with the marks on the 2x6.
4. Once the window is in place, you can drive in a couple of screws to hold the window in temporarily, to prevent it from moving forward while you drill the holes in the casement.
5. The next step is to shim up the bottom of the window, making sure that it is 3/8 from the frame, and then checking that it is still level across the length, adjusting the shims until the distance is correct, and the window is level. You will need a cat’s claw (flat end) to lift the end of the window, or the claw of your hammer will suffice. Note: The windows we will be installing are actually two windows set side by side in one piece of casement, so each side of the window needs two shims, making four all together across the bottom.
6. The next and most important step is to make sure that the window is level and square within the frame. This is where the biggest mistakes are made, so double check before drilling in your screws. To check if the window is level place your level vertically along the surface of the glass, so your shoulder has to be touching the window to read the level. If the window is not level, just adjust the window by pulling it forward or pushing it backwards a little. To check if the window is square, you need to measure across the diagonal, from one corner to the other. If the measurements are the same, the window is square. If not …
7. Now that the window is level and square, the screws can be drilled through the window casement and into the wood.
* Take a break to check that the window is in the right way up, and opens properly. Don’t laugh. It could happen. This is Habitat.
8. The sides and top of the window can now be shimmed, and once this process is complete, double check that the window is square, and adjust shims if necessary. On the sides, the shims are put in place just above the screws.
* Only shim ends (of top) if necessary – but not over centre of header – just foam that gap.
9. When putting the centre screw in the bottom, you need to first coat the lower half with exterior caulking. This is important because the windows will let some rain water in from the outer screen, and they have a system built into the window itself to drain out the water. If the screw in the centre at the bottom is NOT sealed properly, water will seep out of the hole and into the wood, where mold and mildew will begin, and could lead to later water damage.
10. Once the shims are firmly in place, and the window is level and square, use the foam to fill the gaps around the window, stopping wherever there is a shim. The foam needs to be heavy enough that it is opaque. You will notice as you are going along that there are still areas you can see light through; there is not enough foam there yet.
11. The last step, not shown in the diagram, would be to cut off the ends of the shims, and cover them over with a LATEX caulking (as opposed to exterior caulking, which will eat through the foam) touching the foam on either side, to create a good seal.
12. Ta-da! You are done! Congrats, now go and get some water.

Tidbit Break
Going home w C+ until Pape we talked about ounces (weight) of hammers, and the type of hammer heads there are. Lighter the hammer, the “weaker” it will be. Framing hammers with their waffle effect even grip the nail! To continue this tidbit, At Canadian Tire I have had the chance to wield a few hammers as we are putting them up on the shelves, and I am finding that the heavier ones really do have a noticeably smoother swing, and pack more of a punch then their lighter counterparts. I have recently been able to get a feel for the swing of a hammer and their different weights from merchandising them at CTR (Lakeshore and Leslie) where I work.

Women's Conference; The Power Within, Part I

2007-05-28T21:44:00.000-07:00

This is a Woman’s Conference, and it’s called The Power Within. It was held in the Convention Centre (North, I believe) in Toronto, and it was a day that my family agreed was so good, so brilliant, that it was much too intense – all the information the speakers imparted on the audience, and the fact that so many brilliant speakers were packed into only eight hours made it off-paced. It could have been a little slower-paced, augmented with workshops and panels; I agree with that completely. But I also thoroughly enjoyed the day, and because I took notes I am able to appreciate the day more. These have helped to bring back other pertinent points in the conference. They can also bring the audience back to being there; everything that they sensed and remembered about the day.

Without further ado, let’s begin at my beginning.
Cassie Campbell gave the keynote speech, and because I am working on my hockey again, she was the biggest speaker of the day for me personally. They were all absolutely brilliant, it’s just that because my challenges to prevail over as a woman all lie in breakthroughs with physical strength and ability, and those are areas Cassie excels in, as well as team (sports-related) leadership, she would be the woman of the whole group that I would choose as a personal role model. Cassie addressed aloud in her speech what she was asked to talk about at the Conference; the Power Within. What is the Power Within, what feeds it, what it is made from … and she admitted throughout her speech that she couldn’t define it; she wasn’t able to pin-point it and hold it in her hands, but she made such a speech that it didn’t really matter. She illustrated that the power within, for her, came from teamwork, commitment, courage, and the ability to keep playing against all odds; to believe in your team.

She talked about everyday hockey challenges, and that you need to face these kinds of things everyday to become a better person, and a better player. She cited her successes and failures, both as a player, and on behalf of her team. With her unique perspective, she was able to do her part to bring her team together. She never really said very many things that she did personally as a team captain, but instead told the story of her team.

She talked about her team’s 1998 failure in Nagano, and how there was a lot of finger-pointing then, and how the team was on the edge. But that was the loss that drove them to improve their hockey and team player skills. That loss forced them to re-examine their perspective, and question, on an individual basis, why they were there at the Olympics.

Cassie talked about one of the predominant factors in their success being that they were constantly told they couldn’t achieve this next win, and that opposition gave them something to push against, and they pushed wisely. They pushed in the direction of their values. They trained incessantly. If they were accepted onto the Olympic Women’s Hockey team, they had to quite their jobs and train 3 times a day. They had another loss along the way as well, at the 2005 World Championships, which proved to them that facing their everyday hockey challenges was simply not enough, they needed to change their mentality from focusing on individual effort and finger pointing, to focusing on working as a team. From then forward, they adopted the slogan WAR – we are responsible; we are accountable for our actions on and off the ice; we are responsible for taking care of ourselves, and developing the team. They became responsible. THAT was their first step to becoming unstoppable.

However, their flight to the top was no easy ride. Cassie attributes the team’s pulling together and changing their attitude as brought about in part by Davidson’s influence. Melody Davidson was already working for the team as an assistant coach for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, and by the 2006 Olympics in Torino, she had become Head Coach. She took the team through rigorous training, not to mention took them to boot camp.

During this camp, they had the opportunity to witness a group of soldiers in full gear go through a grueling gauntlet, this was not just a jump-through-the-tires obstacle course, but involved climbing walls, crawling under barbed wires with all their gear on, etc. All the ladies on the team were then told to go through the same course, and NONE of them finished it. The key factor in this course, however, was not so much a test of skill as set out by Davidson, but a test of courage, team commitment, and the ability of those girls to step up to the plate and do something for the team. There were three or four girls who, when called on, wouldn’t even try the course. This was when Davidson began to question these people, and their ability to be members of that team. I don’t think any of those girls made the Olympic team. As I mentioned earlier, Cassie honestly admitted that none of them finished the gauntlet, even though they were all trained athletes, but everyone who tried it was able to prove that day that they were committed to the team. If they failed, they would fail as a team, but at least they all tried. That boot camp was perhaps the bonding experience that united that team, the way Cassie described it at least. It would be too, they were treated like soldiers; their wake-up call would come early in the morning, (6 or 7, I believe) and they would fall back into their beds, exhausted, at about 10pm after seven training sessions each day.

I think that boot camp would bond just about any team, but that’s not the only thing that Cassie cited as a factor in their success. She took into consideration something I believe that many women can understand; that teamwork for women is unique. It involves so much more than just being out on the ice together – that is not enough. Being a true team for women means that you really do eat, sleep and breathe “team”. You need to build up a trust with your team members. Cassie discussed this “dressing room dynamic” as being a critical part of a female team. She made a good point, saying that in women’s teams, the social aspect is huge, and even then, it can be extremely difficult to get right. You need to be able to communicate, or you don’t have a team. She asked us how many times you have been in an argument with a girl friend, or been angry, and someone asks you what is wrong and you say “nothing”. So you don’t talk, the other person doesn’t talk, and everyone can sense something is brewing.

Cassie said that kind of thing happened occasionally on the team, but that the most important piece of advice she would have for that situation is to address any issues you have with the person you have them with immediately. Don’t wait for it to come to a boil, don’t tell another group of people, and then let the other person know by committee, just take them aside, privately, and tell them straight out. That is risky business, even though it’s the best thing to do. Believe me, I’ve tried. You need to know what you are feeling, and that you have tried your best to change, first. You also need to know that this is something you need to tell the other person, and it is directly related to you, not just something you feel the other person needs to change about themselves. It is a tricky rope to walk, but Cassie is right, you need to keep the lines of communication open. If done properly, this can be a huge proponent in gaining the other girl’s trust.

You need to build up experiences together outside of hockey. You need to have some fun together, get to know each other, not as best friends, but at least to build a trust in one another. By sharing, by bonding. You need to go out with your team members and make sure you are in constant communication with them. You can take them out to coffee, lunch, beer, anything as long as you talk.

Cassie talked about playing roles on and off the ice, and said that the biggest thing you can do to support your team is to let everyone know that they are making a contribution, and that their efforts are recognized. That was something she was called on to do by one of her team members, who felt that the defense wasn’t being recognized well enough – a valid issue, as the big thing in hockey is points, and defense usually are not a big part of the point system in the game. Yes, it would be nice to invent a point system for the defense, or some way to recognize them, but Cassie didn’t have that choice. She asked her teammate what she wanted her to do. “I don’t know” was her response “you are the team captain; it’s up to you to think of something.” Cassie was then faced with a unique problem; how to acknowledge these behind the scenes players so that they feel equal members of the team? The answer lay in a t-shirt. A simple t-shirt, decorated with symbols that meant a lot to the defensive team, presented to them in the dressing room and explained to them, every symbol on each shirt a tribute to the girl’s connection to the team, their own personal contributions, and their contributions as a defensive unit made all the difference in the world. Never underestimate the power of making someone feel like they are making a contribution to the team.

To wrap-up her experiences with her team, Cassie brought us back to the beginning and showed us how far her team had come; they had set a standard that the entire world could not beat, and continued to set it, holding up a challenge to the rest of the world and saying that if you want to be the best, this is what you have to do. You have to eat, sleep and breathe team. You have to be responsible. You have to train three times a day, every day. You have to do more than face the everyday challenges; you have to go out and make challenges of your own, and when you have achieved all of those, you need to reach even higher, and achieve even more.

The Power Within, for Cassie, was not just about her team, but also about the whole Olympic experience. She illustrated that through a couple of video clips full of people winning and losing. Of people making it through to the top of the podium, and people who fell along the way. The emotions at the Olympics, whether positive or negative, are overwhelming and crushing. They are bigger than any person there and every person there, and it takes a certain type of power, once you are at the Olympics, to perform at the top of the world. Those videos were very powerful. I remember the crying and the injuries most of all, because those were the people whose bobsleds were upended and became bowling pins to their own high-speed bowling ball, or missed a jump and were thrown down the rest of the hill, or slipped on their speed skates and went crashing into the boards, sobbing, not because of their specific injury, but because in a split second everything they had trained for was gone. That takes power to endure.

There is so much out there that Cassie has contributed, and this post doesn’t even cover her entire speech, but here is a snippet of some of Cassie’s experiences directly with Torino: http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/athletes/diaries/campbell/entry5.shtml

drywall mudding, day2

2007-05-25T00:52:00.000-07:00

Today we were working with a school group, and these were the type of people who did not, for the most part, want to be at Habitat. There was one young woman, however, who was the same caliber of learner as Maria, as one instruction was all she needed to do an absolutely gorgeous job. She also had her own system going, and began to build up her own habits, which would allow her to do quality work at a very good speed.

Most of the group needed a large amount of babysitting, and were still more interested in continuing their own backstabbing arguments during the day then getting work done. It was very disgustingly dramatic. I also had the opportunity to show Barb how to do drywall taping so that she would be able to take half the team, as that group was about 4 hands-full!

drywall mudding, day1

2007-05-18T00:16:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day (of what would be three) doing drywall taping. I had a corporate group today, which was good because I needed people who could bring their own initiative and intelligence to the project. I am good at teaching, but I would prefer to move forward and make progress then deal with people who have no skills, no desire to be there, and who are little troublemakers.

This day also started off a little slower, but it continued to go well as the day went on. Within this group there was a group of sisters. One of them (the older of the two) asked me who she thought was older. I would have said her sister, but then I looked at what was really there. Look at their height, look at the look in their eyes, look at who they ARE, not what they look like stereotypically on the first glance, or because of their height. And I got it right.

Happy Mother’s Day!

2007-05-13T07:17:00.001-07:00

My Mother is an amazing person. She is a wonderful storyteller, she is passionate, she is committed to promoting education, and helping others. Everything she does touches someone, positively, in some way.

She has taken a world where she may have had very little positive happy light, and created a world where there is positive in everything. That is the world that she brought my sister and I into, and that is the world she brought us up in. One example of how she puts everything in s positive light is in her presentation of my paternal Grandmother. She passed away a few years ago, but while she was around, Mom would tell me stories about her, about how she loved the birds, about how she loved going for walks, especially in the North York Cemetary, because she just found that place very peaceful. She also told me about how Grandma was a very strong woman; she signed herself into a hospital, and took herself off an open-ended prescription for Valium that some doctor gave her after her husband died.

Most importantly about this example, is that it was through my Mother that I came to love my Grandma. My Mother’s view of Grandma made her a wonderful person. I realised this the first time I was walking to work and heard a cardinal, just a couple of months ago, and thought of Grandma, but what got to me was that it wasn’t Grandma who taught me about the cardinal, it was Mom. It’s Mom’s voice that I hear saying: “when you hear that call ‘bir-dee, bir-dee, bir-dee!’ THAT is a cardinal. That’s what Grandma told me.” I remember loving Grandma so much, but that is because of Mom.

So, thank you Mom. When I do something good in this world, when I see people, especially women, for their beauty and their strength, it’s because of you. When I recognize the strength of a woman’s love, or a mother’s love, or recognize the accomplishments of women in this world, and can find love, respect and compassion (even 4 Nana sometimes!) it is ALL because of the person you are, and have taught me to be.

Thank you for giving me this world, thank you for all your help, and your hope, and your strength. Thank you for teaching me how to see the good things in this world, and showing me how to be strong. These are lessons that, although I may stray from, will always give me strength, and allow me to know that I am capable of having faith, and being good in this world.
I love you.
Happy Mother’s Day.

Recognition

2007-05-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

Recognition is not like attention, as attention is usually given as the result of something either negative about a person or situation, or just something that “is”. For example, if a person IS blind, and they receive attention for it, they are not being given that attention based on qualities they have honed, good things they have done, their accomplishments, their compassion, or any other thing that they are as a person, but just for a fact that they had no control over. Recognition on the other hand carries a very prestigious quality to it. Recognition is something that is handed down, and is not only rewarding for the one receiving it, but for the one giving it as well. It is a quality in and of itself if you are qualified to give it to someone else. It says that either you are able to truly recognize the talents in someone else even if you do not share them (in this way akin to empathy) or from another point of view that you have earned this recognition yourself, and are able to now pass it down to the next generation of hard workers who you recognize as going through the same struggles as you did and having the same potential as you (in this way, it shows qualities of self-awareness, as well as openness and willingness to pass information and training down to the next generation).

Recognition seems to be part of a cycle. You behave properly, live up to a standard, go through the appropriate hoops, and reach a certain level of achievement. In turn, others who have already reached those standards or that level of achievement acknowledge your accomplishments, and encourage your behaviour with positive feedback. This can be the most difficult element in dealing with others, especially if they seem to need it to move forwards. But we ALL need it, and we ALL need to bestow it on others. When we share encouragement and recognition of each other, we create the external cycle of progress in production, and a successful system. When this cycle is broken, power struggles, lack of motivation, decreased standards, and conflict usually ensues.

There is also an internal cycle of recognition, which is just as important as the external cycle, and cannot exist in isolation. In this cycle, each person needs to realize when she/he does things that are aligned with their goals, and reward themselves for that behaviour. They need to encourage wanted behaviour in themselves, and recognize that there is a growth process, one that includes making mistakes along the way, in achieving their goals. Every success should be recognized from within, and every unnecessary fear should be something they just let go.

These two cycles of recognition need to work in tandem in order for motivation and positive production to result. If a person recognizes themselves internally, but receives no outward recognition, they will most likely slow down, and lose motivation. They may simply be dealing with no outward recognition, or they may even be dealing with a system that, however subtly or outright, degrades their position and denies them status. On the other hand, if a person receives recognition, but denies themselves the right to it; tells themselves that they in fact do NOT deserve it and that those bestowing the recognition (if it is genuine) are too stupid to see reality they are engaging in an equally destructive process.

External recognition is especially important if someone is just learning a new process, and cannot be expected to know whether or not they are doing the right thing. But it can’t end there. Recognition needs to be constant, and there are even whole courses of study that examine the different forms recognition can take. The point is that recognition is necessary, and it is a positive and productive path towards growth, one that invariably rewards all parties involved.

Crew Leader; Day three

2007-05-11T00:44:00.000-07:00

On my third day as a Crew Leader my job was to starting prepping the back of the units, and gift-wrap the block with Tyvek; a weatherization vinyl, which helps to keep moisture away from the wood, and exterior air away from interior air. This group consisted of a highschool group, one of their teachers (Brian II) and Andrew Chau, who finally had the time to come out and join the crew … MY crew this time. Andrew and I had just worked the entire previous week on creating an information design poster about Sustainable Architecture, which failed miserably as per the contest judges, but at least we had a lot of fun doing the project, we did it on our own, and now have a solid portfolio piece.

The first item of business that day was to work on sealing the pieces of OSB with Acoustiseal – nasty sticky black tar, essentially. The weather was hot today, so that stuff came out easily, but was very difficult to use without getting everywhere. Another problem were the cages. One of them was missing a plate, so the bolt kept punching through the bottom end of the tube of caulking, and under the pressure the Acoustiseal would come out the back – disgusting number one. We fixed that with a piece of wood to act as a substitute for the metal plate on the gun. Once that was working, we went through two more guns through technical difficulties. I brought them out to C+, and her and I tried to fix them … meanwhile, I had left my crew to their jobs, and need to get back to them. I used a plastic bag over my hand to try to fix the cage, but C+ just used her hands, so they were getting all black and sticky.

I eventually left when Andrew came around to get me, and C+ finished fixing the guns for me. When she was done, I took off her wrist braces and we used grade (stones) as a pumice along with a water bucket to clean our hands. Once all the seams of OSB were sealed we moved on to begin putting up the Tyvek using staple guns. Everything we could do without using a zoom boom we did, and we got the entire back of the house wrapped.

The final element of the day was to get nails into the SIPs along the side of the house, as Brian mentioned that they hadn’t been nailed in yet. So out with the ladders, and my entire team was working on hammering for the last hour or so of the day. At least all the girls got to learn how to hammer.

Today I also “let one of my crew members go” as they were being disrespectful and just a general pain in the butt, so in the early afternoon I had apparently inherited another crew member, and when I saw that guy at the back, dripping with ego and attitude, I faced off with him. And I won. I kept it joking around, but told him that he was welcome to find another crew if he didn’t like this one, and so he took off. I got in no trouble, because nothing “wrong” happened, he just wasn’t right for the job he was working on, and needed to change crews. Sean was also in my crew, and I miss him. He’s supposed to be doing construction project management next year at George Brown, but in the meantime he’s off working on his family cottage.

Crew Leader; Day two

2007-05-04T00:43:00.000-07:00

On my second day as a Crew Leader I didn’t do anything much again … well, it was still important; clean-up will always be important! Today was a major clean-up of sawdust, spare wood, nails, etc across all 10 units, second and third floor. The exciting part in today was that we were constrained by time; the wood recycling was there at about 10:30am. The wood recycling will take the scrap wood and use it to make many things, including woodchips and fertilizer. Here’s a nice bit for all you vegans / vegetarians; chicken guts are used in the process to make fertilizer, as well as wood. That then enriches the soil and feeds the plants. So are you really eating chicken vegan salad? ;-)

Tidbit break!
Yesterday, I was not able to answer the question of what Tyvek does. Since I forgot to ask Bruce or Brian, I found out online. Tyvek “is used to increase air and water resistance, helping to lower heating and cooling costs in buildings and providing better protection against water and moisture intrusion. The unique qualities of Tyvek help stop air flow through wall cavities; help hold out bulk water and wind-driven rain; and allow moisture vapor to escape from inside walls. The result is a more comfortable, energy-efficient building with far fewer chances for damage from degradation effects.”

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

2007-04-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

April 20th
This was my first day as a crew leader. My big presentation came in the morning behind the first block of houses. It was very informal, and had no frills or big announcement. To me, recognition is more important than anything else. I don’t like big “to-dos”. So it was one of the best moments at Habitat by far; Bruce gave me an orange shirt with my assignment that day.

My big assignment? Wait for it ... taking nails out of wood and digging two 6’ holes (they weren't planning to bury, anyone, were they?) BUT it was with the York University Alumni group and I am a Alumna, so that made it all better!

For my first crew ever, I lead about 7 volunteers through these tasks. The first, as I mentioned, was to take apart the railings out behind the first block, and sort the wood into the wood that can be kept, and the wood that would go to wood recycling later. My second task to manage was to dig two holes to try to determine which unit had the broken water pipe in front of it. Although we tried to rotate the job of digging throughout the day, I must give credit where credit is due, in that James Allen and Paul carried out most of the work in getting these 6’ deep holes dug. I can also sincerely say that my whole crew enjoyed their day, as did I. There were a lot of laughs, we were very productive, and we all had the fascinating experience of digging a hole (something I have never done before, and despite its reputation, thoroughly enjoyed) and taking nails out of wood. The thing is, the project was genuinely fun, and the team dynamic made it that way. It was also buoyed by the York University connection we all shared.

Habitat for Humanity: Friday April 13th! Oh no!

2007-04-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

Today I worked with Sean directly, and Ken I believe. This was to be my last day as a non-Crew Leader. The day started off with Brian explaining to Sean what to do. I came along not too much later, and asked what was going on with this group (only the three of us) Sean told me, and continued on with his work.

Now I am stuck not knowing a term. (what's new?) What we were working on is not a TGI beam (which I have now heard called LBL ... ack!), but the beam that looks like several layers of plywood fused together, and has a furniture-style finish to it. They are the heaviest pieces in the structure of the house, and the only pieces that are left uninterrupted to run the length of the structure.

Anyway, our task was to drill a hole all the way through, and a pilot hole to sink the bolt. We needed a washer and bolt to secure them in place, and we needed to sink the bolt where this board would face out onto a stairwell, because drywall would eventually end up having to sit there. We encountered a great many challenges, but throughout the day I also found myself taking on a crew leader role; assigning tasks, creating a system to getting things done and following-up with my team members. It was only at the end of the day that I realized Brian might have wanted Sean to crew-lead that day, but in the end, I don’t think Sean really minded.

Some of our challenges were as follows:
1. Not drilling pilot holes at first, and bolting the bolts onto the board, then having to take them off and redo them with the 1 1/8” pilot hole included
• Solution: don’t be a dork; pay attn to instructions the first time around!
2. Measuring no more than 14” apart of the bolts, but still making sure that the holes we drilled were far enough away from the joist hangers that we could get the bolt and washer in there
• Solution: some creative measuring on my part, and then passing that off to Sean so he could complete the measurements all the way down the length of the board.
3a) Drilling a pilot hole too far
3b) Running out of bolts
• Solution: Using a shorter bolt where we had drilled the pilot hole too far!
4. The drill bit not extending far enough to drill through the board
• Solution: At first we just switched sides so we could complete the hole, but then I went to Dave with the problem, and he cut the Flathead off a 1” flat head drill bit, so that we had a 1” extension bit, which was all we needed to be able to drive the hole right through the board.

In the afternoon, I was working on drilling the holes right through the board, and Sean and Ken were working on finishing the holes, bolting, and drilling the pilot holes where needed (in the stairwell only). At one point I was standing on a ladder, and using the hammer drill (with the 5/8” spade bit) to drill through the wood and because of the amount of force I had to put behind the drill, combined with the fact that the ladders would “walk” if they were not perfectly steady, resulted in the ladder at one point just deciding it wanted to dump me off. So it tilted fatally to one side, and I was left with no reliable ladder under me. Reacting fast, I grabbed onto the TGI beams I was standing in the middle of, just barely managing to keep hold of the drill (the brand new hammer drill Dave took out of the box just for me) and I swore. Then I yelled at one of Mike’s kids to grab the ladder. I was very grateful for that kid’s fast reaction time.

So that was my Friday the 13th adventure.

Outside

2007-04-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

This year has been very beautiful so far. I guess it’s part because not having to meet school deadlines for the first time is very liberating. I am free to go out for walks whenever I please; it's only a half hour or forty-five minutes extra out of my day. Lately I have been taking advantage of this opportunity by walking to and from the gym (two 45 minute walks), or, like today, walking to work from the station, and back home from another station (two 30 minute walks). Mind you, building a walk to/from the gym makes for two solid hours of exercise.

It’s so lovely to cut short the TTC ride home, or to work, and walk to my destination from the closest subway station. I was able to put a 30min walk from the station to work today, and despite the cold (or perhaps in part BECAUSE of the cold) the walk was lovely. I find the houses there so quaint and inviting, they all face out into the street and are all so beautiful, and they are SMALLER homes. Quite expensive, no doubt, because of the area, but they are all well loved, and they all have their own character. None of them are the same brick boxes, like the Markham houses all too often seem to be.

I have areas like that around my home as well, and both areas have their own bits of nature. On the way to work, the lawns are very beautiful, and in the summer the gardens and landscaping are picturesque. On the way home, the backyards are facing the street, but the "public" lawns are lined with trees; so these areas make for really beautiful walks. I have tried to get out on regular walks all throughout the winter, my tolerance for the weather tempered by my participation at Habitat, no matter what the clime.

I thought I would just post this little message, as I have a few spare minutes to reflect on the small joys of life right now, the small spaces that I make for myself to think. It’s a shame more people feel they are “too busy” in Toronto to take these walks. If you make the time, there are simple beautiful bits of nature all around you, even in Toronto. I personally enjoy the cold. It presents a challenge that many other people don’t like. It’s fun to get bundled up, and get a giggle out of the fashion ppl who freeze in their cute coats, while I walk around warm and happy, and completely comfortable being bundled up. I am not as comfortable in summer fashions as I am in a nice fuzzy coat. Nature seems so much more beautiful when the air is frigid.

Well, just randomly blogging, but I think I will enjoy going out walking this spring! Hope to see you out there!

The Proper Woman

2007-04-03T17:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it’s difficult to NOT feel that I am lacking as a proper woman. I feel that I need to be happier, I need to be kinder, I need to stand up less for myself and fit in to being “a woman” better. A proper woman. Someone who never says to someone outright that they don’t like them; they keep that kind of statement inside, or someone who will make anyone feel important by laughing at all their jokes, being super sweet with them even if they hate the person. I’m not saying this because I in any way do not like people who are like that, but just because it is an example of something I don’t think I could do. However, I consider that is the good thing to do. When people say that I can’t use other standards of good and bad, or should eliminate those concepts from my vocabulary altogether, I sometimes find even that difficult, as it seems to be a way of saying, here’s what not to do; do not see good and bad. But I won’t tell you what is good replacement system for that system, which they are essentially saying is bad. Ack! They continues on to say that you need to find out the systems out there that exist in the first place, for yourself, and practice them, and then you come back to me with the answers you’ve found for yourself.

Well, I sometimes feel that I need some sort of good/bad system to work by, to steer myself in the right direction. Not the ‘easy’ way of just insulting or judging things you don’t like, but by creating a system of standards to strive towards. Those are the levels of compassion. There are also differences in the way compassion is labeled. As a male, you could dominate conversations across the board, but still be considered compassionate, and a wonderful person, even if you never let a woman get a word in edgewise. However, if a woman is that same type of person, her compassion is not recognized as much as is her “outwardly aggressive behaviour”. Yes, that still happens even today.

People say it’s okay, it’s not good or bad, it’s just a personality difference … and one person will try to get the other person to talk, while another type of person wants to be encouraged to talk. Is THIS part of the example of the “modern”, clinging feminine/masculine traits? The male should be the one to dominate in the conversation, and the “other” should just listen, and encourage them to talk? What about the female who does not actually play to that role; who won’t be the student? Who won’t be the dutiful listener? Who takes the initiative to talk unabashedly even if it is “out of turn” or expresses the “wrong” opinion? Especially if they expect the person they are talking with to sit back and obediently listen to them for a while, instead? (Enter Tick Tock, a book by Jay Ingram, and his analysis of male/female conversations that happen even today).

To put it another way, I am finding it difficult to measure my own progress towards my goals in terms of values. Being compassionate takes work, but I am capable of doing it. I also continue to speak my emotions, to have strong opinions, to speak my mind, even if that means starting a conflict. Some people really do not like this kind of behaviour, and hold it up in a bad light, whether because they disagree with my point of view (think I am wrong) or disagree with me expressing a point of view. But I would feel very uncomfortable not expressing my opinions, or emotions; constricted, claustrophobic, ignored. I feel comfortable in the presence of strong women; women who speak their mind – this is a kind of woman of whom I know several.

These women will actually behave in ways some may find “aggressive”. For example, they will unabashedly say they don’t like someone, and may be nice to them, but will speak out against that person and make sure their opinions are heard. They won’t sit back and choke on their opinions just to be nice. They are often not stereotypically feminine either. They might be unmarried and perhaps living with siblings, they might be married and not have children, they might be an entirely independent university professor, (notice I have people in mind, I am just not saying names!) I consider these women to be “good”, and more importantly, I see them as being happy people. Perhaps I am searching for (role models) some women who I feel are mirrors of me, who reflect my personality, and who have also come through with their own lives and are successfully living the same kind of lifestyle I see myself in, whether married, or single.

Even expressing and exploring the qualities I wish to develop gives me confidence. It re-enforces my goals and how I envision my lifestyle. It helps me to define more clearly what I want and what I don’t want in my dealings with other people; not just women, but men as well. Knowing what qualities I want to develop will help me to realize when I am on or off track with my goals, and recognizing these qualities in others, in order to emulate them.

It also allows me to recognize that there are women who behave appropriately feminine, whether an element of sexism, personality, or a mix of both, which result in more acceptance by the mainstream, and potentially easier success in life. I can accept these people, and refuse to allow ‘masculine’, ‘feminine’, ‘non-feminine’, ‘sexist’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, to be the defining words of whether or not I accept people.

I realize that I need to accept people based on what I feel, as far as I can understand as a person, is acting based on morals – being proactive, being kind, being honest, being truthful, being unafraid to express themselves but not to ends that are destructive to others, to not be afraid to assert themselves, to take care of themselves and others; these are all qualities I look for in a successful person. I have my own personal goals as to what I want to achieve as a woman, and I am capable, as exemplified by other role models in my life, of achieving these goals without having to sacrifice a feeling of happiness along the way. I am not the first one to feel that they do not fit in to the mainstream definition of female, nor will I be the first one to find that through time, I will be able to find the person who I want to become, already within myself.

Ten things they never taught in design school, and one thing they did

2007-03-31T10:37:00.000-07:00

I recently read a post by Michael McDonough called the “Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School”, and previous post by McDonough called “Graphic Design and the New Certainties”, as well as its follow-up comments.

In his most recent posting, he seems to be looking back on his education, and pointing out the real-world lessons that are lacking in design school, and in the previous posting he speculates about secret cravings of designers, and their definitions of design. In the follow-up to that posting, a set of questions are posted by a certain Michael B., who wonders why designers spend so much time scratching out their purpose in life, and while they are doing that, not productively designing.

I think that kind of philosophy is one thing we DID learn in design school, or if not, at least innately carry around with us. But then again, it’s all just part of our career, and the type of people we are. To pick up on one responder to Michael’s comment, Rick Poyner states, that “Design's professional uncertainties are unusual, though. Do dentists agonise about their calling like this? Do hotel managers? Do bus drivers? One essential difference with design is that it's a form of public communication, and that takes us into questions of identity, representation, the public good and, yes, even politics.”

Designers come in all sorts, some are much more business focused, and some are very creative, but I think many designers still tend to look in at themselves and question the jobs we do just to make sure that we uphold our values. We have the ability, in fact it is our job to communicate, and even though we just design someone else’s product, and then leave, we become as much an owner of the product as the client, because we have invested our aesthetic abilities and our best efforts into the work. A dentist’s questions might include the tools, techniques, and methods for carrying out root canals. A designer’s questions are usually deeper, and more personal than that, regarding our own identities and roles in the communication of information. But relative to our respective fields of work, the questions are the same.

It is a question asked of all design students, some from art backgrounds, and some even “muggle-born” designers before entering the real world. We were asked to define design and our role in it to ourselves and to the world. For students, it’s a way of aligning ourselves with the personalities who we will be working with for the rest of our lives, especially if we work in studios. It’s not something that is tested or questioned officially in any course, although it acts as the first opportunity for us to put to words what we have learned over the last four years and create a mission statement of sorts, a set of goals and values that we can look back on in five years and either correct according to reality, find we need to re-align ourselves with, or satisfactorily find that we have lived out thus far.

I think that for a profession comprised of so many creative, value centred individuals, this set of questions is not a bad set of tools to carry around in our back pockets, along with our USB keys and graphite pencils, useful especially when starting a new project, or faced with communicating new, and possibly controversial set of issues to design of in our career.

For further reading, here are the things we weren’t taught in design school!

Crowning studs and party walls

2007-03-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

Tidbit Break
Crowning a stud. To crown a stud, you sight along the length of it, and if it curves along the length of the board, you want it to “frown” when using it in a frame, so that the act of nailing it into the frame will attempt to straighten the board. A crown itself is the upward bow, curve or rise along the length of a board.

Today we put up a party wall on the third floor, and I discovered that there’s always room for improvement in my math skills! I was building again with Lorraine today (I love her energy and bubbly personality!) and just like last week with the bay window project, Lorraine and I were both taking the initiative to try to figure out what the procedure to the project was, so today we both knew we were building a party wall; we were in the middle of the project, and after lunch we still both went up and tried to measure out the length for the party wall and act as though we were going to build it on our own.

We talked through how many pieces of wood we would need based on a frame built with studs 12” on centre. To do both sides of the party wall, we concluded we would need 26 studs; 13 on each frame. However, when Roger came back up and we were discussing things with him, I said we would need 26 studs for the one side. Lorraine agreed with me. That didn’t sound right to Roger, and so he was measuring things, and we were remeasuring things, and he came up with the number 13! Well of course it’s 13, Roger, I was just trying to see if you were paying attention! We wouldn’t want you to miscount anything now, would we!? (oops!)

I learned a lot that day though. It was probably my most productive framing day ever. It started off with finishing putting the OSB on another bay window, and putting that window into place. I wanted to help lift the window, but Bruce made me Level Girl, so I had to run around with the level and tell people where to put the window and when we could put in the brace.

Then I moved on to putting up a party wall. That project involved building four frames, each about 156” long, spaced at least ¾” apart to accommodate for the drywall that will go in between the walls. We had to crown the studs first. Building the frame itself is fairly simple, so it was a very rewarding project, because you can put most of your effort into the strategy of the project, and the actual process is fairly repetitive, and in that way, almost calming.

I also made use of this opportunity to really cut down on the time it took me to drive a nail. Speaking of hammers … there was this one kid there today who had the most awesome hammer I have ever seen; the only thing you need to have is impeccable aim, and it does the rest of the work – it’s even a “self setting” hammer! I need one of those for framing! It has a nail-shaped indent along the top, and a magnet to hold the nail in place while you set it with one strike, then you can drive it in with about three more strikes. Bloody awesome!

Lunch that day was also nice – it was just warm enough to not need coats at lunch time, and C+ was taking a nap, while Lorraine, Corey and I talked, with C+ joining in occasionally. We talked about everything from carpenter’s unions, to working in Vancouver to stickers on your hard hat / helmet and whether or not they were allowed. It was just a very relaxing lunch; one of those times when I felt just comfortable to be there, and like that was where I belonged.

Framing a Bay Window

2007-03-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

Wow am I ever behind on my blogs! It is July 7th today and I am just doing this blog now! This was the day we put up the bay window frame. I was working with Lorraine and Jim to do this, as well as Mike, Bruce, maybe Roger, etc. The most entertaining part of today by far was when I was hammering in part of the frame and Jim makes a comment about the intensity of my concentration … something connected with PMS … ? Well, I ignored that comment, but Gerhard was there and pipes up “what is PMS?” I couldn’t resist. Laughing, I looked straight at Jim and said “Okay go ahead; explain it!” He has never made a comment like that again. Thank you Gerhard!
That made him very aware of what he had just said, and that he would have to take ownership of his comment. He got cold feet, and couldn’t explain himself!

But I digress. At this point in time, I am still un-orange-shirted. Today, I will teach the world how to build a Bay Window in 6 easy steps! Try this at home - go ahead ... it won't work, but you can try it anyway!
1. To build a bay window, you start the same as you would with any section of frame; you toe-nail in your baseplate to the edge of the wall, making sure you are 3.5” in from the edge. (I vaguely remember something about Tyvek and PL Acoustiseal before you do that, but as I said, I am writing this July 7th for March 23rd, so the brain’s a little foggy on the details!)
2. You mark out your studs, jacks and cripples and build your frame. I believe the bay window we were building was 60”-h by 85”-w.
3. After you build your first frame you attach a 12” piece to each of the outside corners of the window, and start to build your next frame around those extensions. This frame is much smaller though, so it’s like that baby’s toy with all the coloured rings on the white pylon, each one smaller than the previous. Think of that toy in square form.
4. Once we got the second level of the bay window frame constructed, we covered the entire outer surface of the frame with OSB.
5. once that was on, we were able to erect that frame, all 700lbs of it (or at least it felt that way!)
6. Once it is up, you make sure it’s level, put your braces in place, and tada! Bay window!

Post-secondary Financial Advice

2007-03-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

I am no financial guru, but I do have a bank account, and my own experiences financially. I am also in a very tricky situation at the moment. But rather than let my current financial experiences go to waste, I would like to share them with those post-secondary blog readers out there who may benefit from my experiences.

Let me introduce myself. I would like a credit card. I have no credit history, and since I have just graduated from University last year I have also started my own business. Since the end of last year, I have been self-employed. However, within the fiscal year of 2006, I have been employed for 11 out of 12 months. For the past 7-8 years I have been part-time employed and a full-time student, who has never taken out OSAP, not because of “Mommy and Daddy” paying for me, but because I have earned enough money to pay for my own education, and not spent a penny of it recklessly; always keeping education goals in mind. My one mistake (I will reveal the official “a-ha” moment later) was that I ignored the credit card pitches lining the halls of my University's retail area. I had done this with the goal of wise spending in mind, and doggedly avoiding the overspending and credit-card carry-overs that so often ensue such plastic ownership. I am chiding myself now for such false wisdom, lack of trust in myself, and ignorance.

Since November or December last year I began to approach banks for their services as a post-secondary graduate. As a sign of their understanding, compassionate nature, they do not acknowledge the existence of people between graduation and their first full year of work as eligible for loans or credit cards, especially those with no credit history. Graduation, by the way, is usually in the summer months of the year (so June or July), which would give you 6 months of job search time. Heaven forbid you choose to open your own business, because anyone who is self-employed and does not have a credit card is also not considered “secure enough” financial to receive one. To re-iterate that last statement, people who are self-disciplined enough to work on their own time, willing to risk failure in business, manage their own money, and manage their very own financial department are not considered feasible investments. On the other hand, banks support hundreds of customers who have gone into overdraft at the bank, had their card previously revoked, and simply make enough money, despite their proven inability to manage their finances.
Think about that.

Banks will not accept anything but current employment in their current credit policy. But what do they define as "current" as on their form, the "current employment" section is defined as the 2006 fiscal year. So I have been employed for 11 months of the current fiscal (tax?) year, and have made a fair deal from those earnings, but once I go solo, the banks are no longer interested.

Because I have not been out of school for a full year, and have not earned my first $35,000 of Bank-acknowledged, officially employed salary, I have found it difficult to put my annual earnings down on any credit-card application. I have tried at my own bank. I have now tried at one other bank – which will remain un-named – and was turned down, and just today at a third bank; the most hopeful and helpful one I have encountered yet.

Today’s account manager was willing to listen to me, acknowledge my choices, no credit card so far, and work with me to gather the information she needed to create a credit card account for me. She suggested solutions to me that showed evidence of thinking outside the box, such as the Secured Visa, based on a term deposit: should you ever carry a balance, they will dip into your term deposit to pay it, and should you be clean, you will build up a credit history AND have your shiny term deposit to prove you really were a good girl all along! To re-iterate that statement, she put effort into learning about me, she showed interest in my case, and she approached me as if I was her only client, and that my situation meant something to her, that she would work for me, and try to solve my problems. Even if she is not able to do that, I will not fault her for trying. It is her obvious effort and interest that would inspire me to work with her, and has given me the energy to work with renewed energy at getting a credit card. It was when she asked why I hadn’t taken one of those deals that was offered to me in the halls of my post-secondary institution that my mistake hit home. She was willing to work with me, and for once I wanted to have something I could present to her to give her a foot-hold (wow, someone inspired to Help their banker in a fuzzy kind of way!) but because I had refused these offers, I had nothing to give.

Contrast that with my stubborn willingness to hold on to my current decisions that my own bank’s account manager inspired in me through her cold-hearted aloofness, coated with fake happiness and helpfulness. The account manager there has refused me a loan because I have no credit history, then, as opposed to recognizing that I have been a customer for a decade and trying to help me, she suggested I try to get a retail card, like Sears. She also failed to suggest to me services that her bank might provide that would act as a work-around for me; something that would be beneficial both to me and to them. However, she has accepted her own version of a brain-washed attitude that seems to forgo any creative thought, any customer-focused problem solving, and any positive attitude.

Well, I tried Pier One, and they refused me for the same reason my own account manager has - in my 6 months after graduation, I have not made enough money. I can understand that situation with a bank or retail enterprise that does not know me, but to receive such ignorance and narrow-mindedness from my own bank is inexcusable. So, watching my account build for a decade means nothing to you, woman? At another bank I am greeted by someone willing to hear all my information and work with me to put together my case receive a secured line of credit, and you just dismissively say to me “try Sears and come back to us in six months honey”. This is my banks’ customer service. Bugger that.

So my lesson that I hope I can impart on anyone reading this is that banks are very peculiar. Even though they have clients who cost them hundreds of thousands every year in credit card balances and debt, they can take NO risks. So if you are in post-secondary, and you are given the opportunity to get a credit card - TAKE IT. Even if you have only four months before you graduate, four months of credit history makes a mountainous difference over none at all. You will now be recognized by a credit bureau. They will have an account on you. I am almost willing to go back to school simply to receive a credit card, because at least as a student, the banks can once again see me.

My search for a credit card and a bank who is willing to work with me (because saying who will love me is too much to ask for) continues, and maybe tomorrow I will be told that I have been given a credit card, and that my exceptional case has been accepted by the bank. That they are willing to meet me half-way, if I agree to a term deposit, and that they will give me the chance to get a credit history.

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

2007-03-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

Tidbit break!
Toenailing is when you drive a nail on an angle through one piece of wood and into a second perpendicular piece. In framing, this is useful to secure the bottom plate of a frame in place temporarily while you build the length of the frame and the top plate around it. When the piece of frame is complete you can still lift it into place, what will happen is that since the nails holding the bottom plate in place were driven in at such an angle, the weight of the frame has increased, and the force needed to left the frame is great enough, the nails will just lift right out.

March 16th
This week’s tasks came on a gray, windy day during the highschooler’s March break, where we had a bunch of them drop by to put in some of their volunteering hours. I began my day by bugging Bruce about crew leading. His response was somewhere along the lines of: So you want to be a crew leader, you’ve got the urge to be a crew leader, you’ve got the nerve to be a crew leader – so go ahead and be a crew leader. Take these kids, and put nails into these pieces of wood.
No problem, right? Wrong. That was the worst crew leading experience I ever had, and the end result – I was fired from being a crew leader that day, and sent off to work with Mike, to put up a frame that would be a door, and essentially learn how to properly drive in a nail. Ouch. This re-assignment came after a ‘general’ lesson that Bruce gave to everyone, all the while looking right at me, almost chiding me for my nailing skills. He ended it with “lesson learned”. You’re not kidding! It’s a lesson I will never forget!
So, off to build a piece of frame with Mike, to learn about how to drive in a nail, what K, J, and X/C meant (thank you Brian later on for your addition of Q to the mix … Quota? Queen? Haha, very funny, we think we are SO SMART, don’t we?)
Later on that day I learned another lesson. When building a frame, make sure you get your measurement for the bottom plate right first thing, and then toenail the bottom plate to the floor. This will prevent you from realizing later on that you cut your bottom plate about 6” short of the mark, and need to build an extra 6” of frame. Oh, that was NOT fun, either. But at least I learned the basics of framing and nailing!

Tidbit break!
My signatures: that day Caroline was quite insistent that I sign somewhere onsite, even though I told her I didn’t really want to, so I scrawled my initials; VMK on the wall. Caroline mad a big stink about the illegibility of that bit of chicken wire, so I drew it all nice and pretty for her, and explained what it stood for. Then I put the date mm over dd over yy to create a Braille cell arrangement of numbers beside my initials. Since then, I have evolved a tradition out of what Caroline MADE ME do, writing a descriptive sentence under each one. It would almost be a game now to try to find them all, but some are buried under things, like the bottom plate of a bay window frame on the second floor.

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

2007-03-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

Tidbit break!
Making fun of each other seems to come as part of the rapport between regulars (people who volunteer on a regular basis) on-site, to the point where putting up with, and participating in this is almost a pre-requisite to becoming part of the team. Bruce’s most recent remarks to me, as a new crew leader, seem to indicate the fact that I do not know enough vocabulary. When I have been talking to him of late, if I don’t know the term (or at least the term he uses) I will either use a term I used from my days at RONA, or just say ‘thingy’ – the universal technical term. So lately, he has been helping me out. When I am stalling for words, drawing diagrams to him in the air, or just describing what I am doing when I don’t know the actual tool I am using, he helps me out by filling me in with the universal term. I usually leave it at that, satisfied that he knows exactly what thingy I am talking about, and we continue happily along with our conversation, the both of us arguing about terms all along the way!

March 9th
SIP Panels on 2nd floor: This day I DO remember. I learned about using the heat-knife thingy to melt off a layer of Styrofoam from the middle of the SIPs, which is the process that produces an interesting smell, and a lot of ‘snow’. The rest of the snow comes from cutting the pieces down. I wasn’t able to learn the whole process from one day, but I did experience some of it. Think of a SIP as a giant ice cream sandwich, consisting of two pieces of particle board (the 4’x8’ panel that looks like it’s made out of a bunch of wood chips compressed together, which, in fact, it is), that surround a Styrofoam centre.
1. First off, you need to know what size to cut these 4’x8’ panels down to, so that they fit according to the floor plan, like where a window or door would go.
2. The first step is again laying down plates, which only involves a 2x4 this time, (with the required Acoustiseal) as the flooring provides a perfectly straight and smooth surface.
3. When putting the first piece of SIP in (I’m thinking moving out from the concrete wall that splits the townhouses in half, where I was working that day) you also need to make sure that there is a piece of 2x4 bolted directly to the concrete.
4. Once you are ready to put the SIP up, (yes, I skipped steps in here, insert flurries of snow, checking measurements, and checking to your sketch of the floorplan) you align the SIP on either side of the plates, and sledgehammer it down.
5. I am a little fuzzy on this bit, but I remember it being quite an issue to Caroline that the SIP be level. Hmm, that wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the SIP was the initial wall and structure the next level would be built on, would it? So we set up a brace, and when we were sure that the SIP was level, we would secure the brace in place.
6. Putting up the next SIP required that we affix a piece of 2x4 between the boards on the open end of the panel we just put up, securing the connection with nails, using expanding foam to fill in the gaps between the Styrofoam and the piece of wood. This 2x4 would extend out from between the edges of the SIP by about an inch, creating the Duplo block effect that Caroline used as an example to explain how the pieces would fit together. (LOL, I didn’t get that explanation myself until just now as I am trying to envision the process to write it down! I guess while I was in the middle of things there was just too much snow in my brain!
7. Repeat steps 4 and 5, traveling around the back and unit 10 side of the entire block of houses.
8. Ta-da! There you have it. SIPs in a nutshell. Now come on, Caroline, that wasn’t so hard, was it? ;-P
N.B. That day marked the realization (and ensuing embarrassment) with the fact that I couldn’t hammer in a nail for my life. Trying to nail down a brace that day took me 36 hits, and yes, pretty much every single stroke was a hit, to put in one nail. By the time I got to my second nail, the whole crew had left, and Caroline took over either in impatience, or in an attempt to spare me any last shred of dignity I had left!

Putting up the SIPs involved over a month of work, and so it’s understandable that Caroline wanted to take on the job, and train a hand-picked crew to do the work, so that she would not have to re-train the people every time. I think in the end I am glad I was not one of them, as her crew came out of every single day thoroughly snowed on, even though they learned everything there was to know about putting up SIPs, and picked up some other useful skills besides, like the ability to sink a nail in 6 hits. I was also able to build up my knowledge and round out my skills by not doing the same thing every time I was there, and I think that helped me in being able to get my orange shirt in the end.

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

2007-03-07T21:11:00.000-08:00

Tidbit break!
Flooring panels have black lines drawn on one side, and usually tongue-and-groove edges. These differentiate them from “wall panels” OSB (?) which have their gridlines inked on in green, and have green edging. One of their other key differences; the wall panels are thinner.

March 2nd
Flooring: what a day! I was helping Caroline hang(?) TGI beams from joist hangers (does the verb I’m using make sense?) in the morning, until circumstances changed, and there wasn’t quite room for me in that group any more. So I moved up to the second floor, and bugged Bruce and Roger until they got me helping to lay down the floor panels. (BTW, it’s still 3+ layer and coat weather out). The highlight of the day came when, in his efforts to get the tongue and groove matching on one the floor panels and the corresponding panel it fit into, Bruce was instructing us to turn it this way and that, flip it, etc. When we finally put it down, put the sealant on (was it Lumber Lock?) and nailed it down, we stepped back to inspect our work on that panel. “Uh, Bruce? Should I be able to read the words that say ‘this side down’? Tell me again why we flipped this panel over?”

The Human Machine

2007-03-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

This particular entry is one that I have taken the time to copy straight from a book I love; The Human Machine, by George B. Bridgeman. It was originally published in 1932, and it is a brilliant little book using 200+ illustrations to explain the musculo-skeletal marvel that is the
human body. His illustration style is absolutely beautiful, and presents the human form in its ideal. I use this book as an inspiration for my art (my sketches, when I draw!) and also for my own personal fitness, as his description of the human system allows me to focus perfectly on the muscle I am currently working, what effect that particular exercise is achieving, and how the muscle itself operates in relation to the tendons and bones. It works with any muscle from those tiny ones in your fingers, all the way up to the difficult to work (in my opinion) obliques at your core. Without any further ado, here is the exerpt:

IT APPEARS to be a fixed law that the contraction of a muscle shall
be towards its centre, therefore, the subject for mechanism on each
occasion is so to modify the figure, and adjust the position of the
muscle as to produce the motion required agreeably with this law.
This can only be done by giving to different muscles a diversity of
configuration suited to their several offices and to their situation with
respect to the work which they have to perform. On which account
we find them under a multiplicity of forms and altitudes; sometimes
sometimes with one tendon to several muscles; at other times with
muscle to several tendons. The shape of the organ is susceptible
of an incalculable variety, while the original property of the muscle.
The law and line of its contraction remains the same and is simple.
Herein the muscular system may be said to bear a perfect resemblance
to our woks of art. An artist does not alter the native quality of his
materials or their laws of action. He takes these as he finds them.
His skill and ingenuity are employed in turning them such as they
are, to his account by giving to the parts of his machine a form and
relation in which these unalterable properties may operate to the
production of the effects intended.

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

2007-02-16T21:10:00.000-08:00

February 16th
Today I was busy putting up SIPs (Structurally insulated panels) on the concrete foundations, or so I say here. Frankly, I have no memory of any such event. But while I’m at it, I DO remember Bruce (block super) showing me how to, I think he called it “cut in” when painting (way back when at McLevin Woods) which is when you create an angle with your paintbrush so that you are very carefully touching the joint between the ceiling and the wall, but not actually getting paint onto the ceiling. If done properly, this line that you draw along that connection will allow you to create a beautiful seam, and require no taping off, whatsoever. Too bad I didn’t do that when I was working with the paint rollers another day, when Roger (crew leader), being the incredibly encouraging person that he is, felt the need to badger me about that ALL day!

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

2007-02-09T21:10:00.000-08:00

February 9th
Plates on concrete foundations: Now I know why I learned so much the previous week. I wandered over to the end unit, where I was told Caroline (block super) was working. There were two others there, one young woman and a man. So, I start talking to them to see what was going on during the day. Okay, putting plates (2x6, then 2x4) on the concrete foundations, to create a ledge for the first floor level of SIPs (Structurally Insulated Panels) to sit. I already knew what I was doing there. (watch the magic; this is the first day I was given any ability to be a crew leader!) After discussing the task briefly with Caroline, and telling her that I knew what I was doing as I worked on it the previous week, she announced that I knew what I was doing, and just sort of let me get started. I don’t remember all the details, but that’s approximately what happened to start.

To start us off, Caroline made sure we were measuring things right, and in the process told us about her “you won’t get it right unless you learn what NOT to do from the experience of screwing it up” philosophy. I beat it by listening very carefully the first time around. I’ll be damned if I can remember the exact details of what she told us to do that time, though! All I know is that it was something to do with measuring how far in the plates went, based on the fact that you need to measure back from the line, instead of from the edge of the concrete, as the concrete itself wasn’t even. Now, regardless of the fact that I got her instructions right the first time, and she even approved of everything we had done, we still had to do some fixing in the end.

What happened was that we used a line to make sure that we were putting the plates on perfectly straight, as we needed a straight line to measure from because the edge of the concrete foundation was not straight. However, the line was not completely above the concrete, and no-one had realized this. When Brian (site super) came along at the end of the day to inspect the job he pointed this out to us, and in order to fix this problem, Caroline and I stayed “late” to move the plates over ever so slightly (involving undoing the bolts, chiseling the holes over a little, getting everything aligned perfectly and fastening it back on again).

How to put plates on the concrete foundations (sorry I can’t remember the details, so don’t try following my instructions when building the foundations for your new home!):
1. The foundations have rods embedded in them at intervals. The first step I remember is to measure the distance in from the line to the centre of the rod, and mark that appropriately on the 2x6, indicating the middle of the hole you will drill.
2. Once all the rod locations are marked on the 2x6, drill the holes, then set your piece down over the rods, making sure you are putting it on the right side up, and that it is flush with the line.
3. You then use a washer and bolt to secure the 2x6 to the concrete foundation.
4. To prepare the 2x4, you need to follow the same measuring guidelines, and drill your holes in with enough leeway to accommodate the bolt and rod extending up from the 2x6.
5. To affix the 2x4 onto the 2x6 all you need are two lines of Acoustiseal – a bloody b*tch to work with in negative temperatures!
6. There! Now double check that everything is perfect, get pissed off and fix it when you find out that it’s slightly off, and you’re finished! That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Pretty impressive memory for something I did 3.5 months ago out in the freezing cold! I guess I learn fairly well when I’m interested in the task at hand … !

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

2007-02-02T21:09:00.000-08:00

February 2nd
Plates on concrete foundations: let’s just say this; I spent the day in the presence of someone who had a lot to teach me, but couldn’t seem to find that there was anything I was actually qualified to do despite the fact that I ensured him that I had worked for Habitat since last May, and also by the end of it had proven that I knew what I was talking about. Oh well. All things happen for a good reason, right?

Habitat for Humanity, 4200 Kingston Rd.

2007-01-26T21:09:00.000-08:00

January 26th
Leveling grade: frickin’ freezing out, and nothing to do but load scaffolding onto a truck, then get out the shovels and level the grade (little stones) in each unit, which at that point in time consisted of a concrete foundation. That’s it, that’s all.

Reminiscing

2007-01-21T13:11:00.000-08:00

My own interest in building first began when I began working for RONA, it was a summer job, (three-summer job, actually) in one of the smallest RONA stores in Toronto, converted to RONA from Lansing build-all the first year I worked there. It was situated in a house owned by Mr. Kitchen, a gentleman who owned a fair bit of land in that area of Willowdale for quite some time. Elements of its history remain, as the storage area behind the building looks remarkably like a barn, on the inside and out. Where I lost out on that job was that I did not take the initiative to create a system to manage inventory on a store-wide scale. My unyielding attention to my education also hindered that focus on hardware. Oh well.

On to the next chapter, I have begun to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, where I have basked in the opportunity to experience first hand many elements of building a house on-site. These experiences range from installing sub-flooring in washrooms, to creating bulkheads for washrooms, installing stair landings (yeah pneumatic nailers!), framing windows, and, inevitably, painting.

These experiences, as well as my interaction with a few architects through university, has sparked my interest in architecture, ranging from spec drawings, to framing, to painting and tile installation, and it’s interesting to be a part of building houses from different angles, and to continue to learn about architecture.

Fabprefab

2007-01-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

WIRED has begun to take an interest in architecture of late. Beginning in January 2006, it began to feature a section based on architecture, and in this issue, they introduce Prefab housing. This was begun decades ago, but Michelle Kaufman, a 37 year-old architect from San Francisco started to take it in a new direction less than a decade ago. Prefab housing refers to houses built on the assembly line and transported on-site to be assembled into their finished state. One of these houses, custom made, costs about of $200 a square foot, which is less expensive then the $3-400 per square foot you would pay for some homes in LA. They are also more energy efficient, and do in fact adhere to all building codes, perhaps even exceed them, as the sections need to survive the trip to the site, already fully produced.

What is now being transformed into custom made housing for the elite has roots that go back decades. One of its predecessors consisted of housing units that were brought along the railways and set up as temporary homes for miners and other workers in the heart of nature in the Rockies, where the only way to house the workers was to bring the homes in on the train. Some of these “communities” still stand, and can be seen along the Sea to Sky Highway on the way to Whistler from Vancouver. In their first article on the topic, WIRED cites that as early as “1906, the Aladdin Company was dropping factory-made Readi-Cut house kits in the US mail.”

Kaufman took this housing in a more elite direction when she built the first “Glidehouse” for herself in 2002, which would give her the green features and “modern aesthetic” that the million dollar mansions lacked. She approached Britco, a company who already manufactured these units en masse to ship to housing developments, and proposed the first custom made house to them. They accepted the challenge of creating this style of housing for the elite; clients who can afford, and actually request, these houses to be built for them. They are beginning to appear along the West Coast from California up to Canada, and in various other states. Prefab housing in its traditional assembly line style is also used, like Britco’s current project, as temporary housing units set-up for oil riggers in the tar sands region of Alberta, or other communities that attract workers to temporarily live long enough to complete their jobs. They are also more ecological in their production process; pieces can be ordered in bulk, and excess material from one unit is simply taken off the line of one second, and put back on when it comes to the next piece.

If this type of housing is so much easier to build why has this always been the lowest end solution? Why have our communities been filled with brick and mortar homes, when better, more sustainable “point and click” solutions also existed? In the late 1940s, there were already over 200,000 in the US alone, so states WIRED. One dead weight in the industry seems to be the negative connotation of prefab housing. This type of housing has traditionally been used in poor areas and trailer parks, and built using what Kaufman calls “substandard code”. Even stronger than that is the stigma that this housing faces from those in the position of building the homes. Some municipal governments zone against it, and many contractors hold their trades in very high regard, and feel it would be insulting to leave behind their trades to work on a factory line. That would be one element of traditional housing I thoroughly agree with. If the US had embraced this kind of housing a century ago, those people would not exist today. They would be of a completely different mindset, and may still have found their niche in construction, but just from a slightly different angle. If the government had endorsed prefab much earlier, we may be advanced enough be now to create prefab buildings and condos, as well.

Architects, Bauhaus founders, and professors alike have all endorsed this method of housing, including Walter Gropius, who would have no doubt pushed it as a functional, practical design solution, pared down to the very basics. Frank Gehry was Kaufman’s inspiration for her work, as she trained with Gehry for half a decade before beginning to emphasize quality and “designability” of this kind of housing. Avi Friedman, an architecture professor at McGill, has also spotted this trend, and is promoting it with positive predictions for future use in the housing industry. Kaufman promotes this style of housing to the elite as giving the owner the ability to customize their house piece-by-piece, an empowering alternative to the choice of “would you like a chrome, maple, or marble kitchen with that? And what kind of molding?

Prefab housing is beginning to look better and better. About 5-10% of future housing in the US will be built using this style of construction, and about 10% of that market will be of the custom-made elite style. The early tides of devotees are now opening up to a larger audience, interested in the green features and economics of this type of housing as much as anything else. From their style and customization, to their financial and environmental costs, Prefab housing looks like the perfect designer model for building homes in the future.

For more details on this type of housing, visit www.Fabprefab.com.

I believe in Love, 1978

2007-01-20T18:13:00.000-08:00

Don't believe the devil
I don't believe his book
But the truth is not the same
Without the lies he made up

Don't believe in excess
Success is to give
Don't believe in riches
But you should see where I live
I...I believe in love

Don't believe in forced entry
Don't believe in rape
But every time she passes by
Wild thoughts escape
I don't believe in death row
Skid row or the gangs
Don't believe in the Uzi
It just went off in my hand
I...I believe in love

Don't believe in cocaine
Got a speed-ball in my head
I could cut and crack you open
Do you hear what I said
Don't believe them when they tell me
There ain't no cure
The rich stay healthy
The sick stay poor
I...I believe in love

Don't believe in Goldman
His type like a curse
Instant karma's going to get him
If I don't get him first
Don't believe in rock 'n' roll
Can really change the world
As it spins in revolution
It spirals and turns
I...I believe in love

Don't believe in the 60's
The golden age of pop
You glorify the past
When the future dries up
Heard a singer on the radio late last night
He says he's gonna kick the darkness
'til it bleeds daylight
I...I believe in love

I feel like I'm falling
Like I'm spinning on a wheel
It always stops beside of me
With a presence I can feel
I...I believe in love

Nelly’s world

2007-01-06T17:15:00.000-08:00

Let me talk to you for a little while about Nelly Furtado’s world. In the world she lives in, promiscuity is empowering. To her, that word means “she’s not faithful to one musical style”. She should tell that to her child out of wedlock; Nevis. Only some people think that promiscuous refers to “the practice of making relatively casual and indiscriminate choices. The term is most commonly applied to sexual behavior, where it refers to a person who does not limit their sex life to the cultural norm, typically one partner, or to the framework of a long term monogamous sexual relationship”. Seeing as that was defined by the masses, and the masses have had the opportunity to refine that definition to perfection, using the web standard of wikipedia, I think it’s safe to say that Nelly was a bit confused when she thought promiscuity refered to music.

To the teenage girls in her audience though, it might just mean “being cool”. See how many different definitions there are? The entire article in the January issue of Reader’s Digest proves Nelly’s stupidity, and the stupidity of the culture that supports her. Nelly says that “As we grow older, we become more confident in our womanhood”. Well, who is ‘we’, to begin with, and how does she define ‘confidence’? I’m sorry, I think I might be being a bit picky, but confidence does not equate promiscuity. I know many women who are confident, and none of them would define themselves that way. Does Nelly think those two words are interchangeable?

Nelly continues throughout this article to spell it out – she’s bought into “sex sells”, plain and simple. I feel sorry for her, her view of the world, and her child. “Since I’ve had a baby, I love my body, I love my curves … the worst thing you can do is not love yourself. And I do now—I think that happens when you have a child”. Here I would hesitate again. Does that mean that women (and even men) can only love themselves when they have a child? What about the poor people who choose not to have children? Does that mean that going multi-platinum and publicly professing your relatively casual choices has nothing to do with loving yourself? That’s good to know! Does that also mean that your partner has learned to love himself, because now he has a child? What about – to throw in a non-sequitor – all those women in China who threw out their female children with the trash? Wow, that’s a lot of self-loving people out there!

I think I have learned through this article what newly converted sell-outs say to justify their choices. It’s an insight into how the mind tries to cope with what they’re doing in this pop-capitalist culture of ours. They will turn their worlds inside out, and say that they have found themselves and are a better, self-loving person now because of it. Are they really?

It seems as though many women in pop media go through this stage at some time or another. Sometimes I guess I could feel sorry for them; the pressure they are under must be intense. Just looking at the evidence; “promiscuous” women, from the sex kitten of the 20’s, to the slut of the 2000’s, portrayed as ‘art’ is enough to break the weak-minded, and so, she breaks. She’s endured the wringer of photoshoots, prescribed beauty and self-love, and a guided tour along the narrow path to lipstick and attention. She was never provided with the Necessary Dreams girls need to thrive in this world. No wonder she finds it easier to just go this way after she’s lived such a hard life.

At one point in the article, Nelly mentions that THE downside of being an artist is that “you get intrigued by many people, it keeps you moving” as the explanation for leaving her partner of four years. I’m not sure about that one, either. She forgot to mention other downsides of being an artist, although not as common as the one she just sighted: does she know about the painter who cut off his ear? Or the singers who have overdosed on drugs to their own deaths? Suddenly her “celebrity common” reason of leaving her partner, and the freedom her child has bought her seem like good alternatives to self-love after all. I’m glad she can love herself. After some people do “promiscuous” things (like write a multi-platinum record, changing from light music to hip-hop) they find they have fallen from grace, and are ashamed. But her experiences have allowed her to rise to new heights, and become a moral person. I pity where she was before.

But I apologize, this shouldn’t be about Nelly; this should be about the standards of society that led such things to happen on a daily basis. I think people need to choose, on a much more regular basis, the standards of learning, advocacy, personal challenges, self-discipline, etiquette, will(& won’t) power, and a social conscience over selling out and selling sex.

I do, however, agree with one of the closing lines of this article, where Nelly states that “I’ve always followed my instincts, and now I’m waiting for lightning to strike because I’m so happy!”

Aren’t we all.

Memorable Touch

2006-11-13T20:20:00.000-08:00

I've been working at Habitat for Humanity this summer, and have gained plenty of memories from that experience. Here's one of them that touches on a previous post of mine. I've just copied it over from my other blog.

The last Thursday in August, I had quite an experience. I volunteer at Habitat for Humanity, (construction work, building homes). When there, we had to put up some latticework this week around the veranda. Being the “smallest” of the group, I volunteered to keep going underneath the veranda to fix and hold up bits of the latticework.

There are some pipes there (venting, ducts, etc) that make the crawl space MINIMAL. At the end of the day, on the last section of latticework, I could feel it going in; the space was too small. So, I got my job done, and then I say to the guys on the other side that I'm getting out. To get out, I need to shuffle backwards because there's no way to turn around. I get to one piece of venting that’s only about 10 inches to a foot off the ground, and suddenly I panic.

My face was two inches from the ground. Just above me was almost filled with cobwebs, even though it was all new. (Those spiders work fast.) There was just barely enough room for me to move, but I froze anyway.

It felt like my heart and stomach were in my throat & I couldn't breathe. I was trying to move backwards, but I felt pinned.

It was then that the block leader starts to crawl under the latticework and grabs my boot.

He starts talking to me, and talks me out of under that crawlspace. He doesn't let go of my boot until I'm out. It felt like it took forever. Afterwards, it just felt embarrassing, but while it happened, it was one of the freakiest situations I had ever been in.

That guy was amazing. He just kept saying "keep your head / shoulders / whatever down, and keep moving back. You're doing fine, just keep moving. Take deep breaths." You have no idea how much that contact was worth to get me out of there.

Whenever / IF ever you need to "rescue" someone, or really help them when they are panicking or in shock - TOUCH THEM! Even if it's just through a leather steel-toed boot, they will be able to be so much calmer and more focused. And don't stop talking to them.

THAT’S the power of touch. I don’t think I will forget that touch for a while. When you’re panicking, and need a way out, you tend to have a much clearer focus on certain details. Even today, three days later, that touch is still piercingly clear. It stands out of the whole situation. It was the divide between being alone & not able to breathe, and “everything is going to be okay.”

The Science of Time's Eye

2006-11-13T20:16:00.000-08:00

This is a sample of a book I have just finished reading; Time's Eye, by Arthur C. Clarke And Stephen Baxter. It is a fiction novel, and it's beautifully written. See if you're interested based on this mini-section of a couple of pages worth:

The temple chamber was a rat’s nest of cables and wires and bits of kit from the crashed chopper, some of them scarred where they had been crudely cut from the wreck, or even scorched by the fires that had followed the crash. This tangle enclosed the Eye, as if Bisesa had been seeking to trap it, not study it. But she knew that Abdikadir thought it was she who had become trapped.

“The Discontinuity was a physical event,” Bisesa said firmly. “No matter how mighty the power behind it. Physical, not magical or supernatural. And so it’s explainable in terms of physics.”

“But,” said Abdikadir, “no necessarily our physics.”

She glanced vaguely about the temple chamber, wishing she still had the phone to help her explain.

Abdikadir, and a wide-eyed, scared-looking Josh, had settled down in a corner of the chamber. She knew Josh hated this place-not just for the awesome presence of the Eye, but because it had taken her away from him. Now Josh cracked a flask of hot tea with milk, English –style, as Bisesa tried to explain her current theories about eh Eye, and the Disconinuity.

Bisesa said, “Space and time were ruptured during the Discontinuity-ruptured and put back together again. We know that much, and in a way we can understand it. Space and time are in some senses real. You can bend space-time, for instance, with a strong enough gravity field. It’s as stiff as steel, but you can do it …

“But if space-time is stuff, what’s it made of? If you look really closely-or it you subject it to enough bending and folding-well, you can see the grain. Our best idea is that space and time are a kind of tapestry. The fundamental strings vibrate-and the modes of the vibration , the tones of the strings, are the particles and energy fields we observe, and their properties, such as their masses. There are many ways the strings can vibrate-many notes they can play-but some of them, the highest energy modes, have not been seen sine the birth of the universe.

“All right. Now, the strings need a space to vibrate in-not our own space-time, which is the music of the strings, but a kind of abstraction, a stratum. In many dimensions.”

Josh frowned, visibly struggling to keep up. “Go on.”

“The way the stratum is set up, its topology, governs the way the strings behave. It’s like the sounding board of a violin. It’s a beautiful image if you think about it. The topology is a property of the universe on the largest scale, but it determines the behaviour ot matter on the very smallest scales.

“But imagine you cut a hole in the sounding board-make a change to the structure of the underlying stratum. Then you would get a transition in the way the string vibrate.”

Abdikadir said, “And the effect of such a transition in the world we observe-“

“The strings’ vibrations govern the existence of the particles and fields that make up our world, and their properties. So if you go through a transition, those properties change.” She shrugged. “The speed of light might change, for instance.” She described her measurements of Doppler shifts in the reflections from the Eye of Marduk; perhaps that was something to do with stratum-level transitions.

Josh leaned forward, his small face serious. “But Bisesa-what about causality? You have the Buddhist monk, who Koyla described, living with his own younger self! Now, what if that old man were to strangle the boy-would the lama pop out of existence? And then there is poor Ruddy-dead, now, and so forever incapable of writing the novels and poems tat you claimed, Bisesa, to have stored in your phone! What does you physics of strings and sounding-boards say about that?”

She sighed and rubbed her face. “We’re talking about a ripped-apart space-time. The rules are different. Josh, do you know what a black hole is? … Imagine a star collapsing, becoming so dense that its gravity field deepens hugely-in the end, not even the most powerful rocket could escape from its grasp-in the end, even light itself can’t escape. Josh, a black hole is a tear in the orderly tapestry of space-time. And it eats information. If I throw an object into a black hole – the last copy of the complete works of Shakespeare, it doesn’t matter-almost all the information about it is lost, beyond retrieval, nothing but its mass, charge, and spin.

“Now, the interfaces between the chunks of Mir, drawn from different eras, were surely not like the event horizons of black holes. But they were space-time rips. And perhaps information is lost in the same way. And that’s why causality is broken down. I think our new reality, here on Mir, is-knitting up. New causal chains are forming. But the new chains are part of this world, this reality, and have nothing to do with the old …” She rubbed tired eyes. “That’s the best I can do. Depressing, isn’t it? Our most advanced physics offers us nothing but metaphors.

Josh said, “We are talking of the how of the Discontinuity. I am no closer to understanding the why.”

“Oh, there was a purpose,” said Bisesa. She glared up at the Eye resentfully. “We just haven’t figured It out yet. But they are up there, somewhere-beyond the Eye, beyond all the Eyes-watching us.”

“Bisesa.” Josh took her hands in his. “You believe the Eye is the key to everything that is happening. Well, so do I. But you are letting the work destroy you. And what good will that do?”

She looked at him and Abdikadir, alarmed. “What are you two cooking up?”

Abdikadir told her about Alexander’s planned European expedition. “Come away with us, Bisesa. What an adventure!?

“But the Eye-“

“Will still be here when you get back,” Josh said. You can delegate somebody else to continue your monitoring.

“Casey.”

“What?”

“Caseys’s got to run this shop. Not some Macedonian. And not some British, who would be worse, because he’d think he understands.”

Abdikadir and Josh exchanged a glance. “As long as I don’t tell him he’s got to do it,” said Josh quickly.

Bisesa glared up at the Eye. “I’ll be back, you bastards. And be nice to Casey. Remember I know more about you that I’ve told them yet …”

Abdikadir Frowned. “Bisesa? What do you mean by that?

That I might know a way home. But she couldn’t tell then that, not yet. She stood up. “When do we leave?”
317-321 Time’s Eye. 332-334

The Girl

2006-09-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

She is the most complete picture in my class. I have set hyr every (clothed) element to memory, including her hair, on the back of her neck, bordered by red beret and red hoodie. She has "a large apartment", as well as space to create hyr woks of art; mostly industrial/product design, and now carpentry. She has dreams to build green, and she dwells on them. She has onn'a them there impish smiles I've only seen on Theresa - it'll suck out your heart, and you won't even notice, but then it belongs to hyr. Once again, the conversation seems slow ... it either doesn't work, or one (or both) of us is just not open yet. She has now opened up contact, and I want to push it farther. I don't really know what I'm doing, and I'll be the first to admit it. And I'm nervous. I have had unconventional relationships before, but it always makes me nervous to feel a person out - always wondering whether they like me, and what they will expect me to do. For now, I just wait. 3 months left. Not quite half over yet. Still time to go out for dinner, teach hyr to skate (then giver a hockey stick!) and ... well, maybe spend some time doing other things too. Wow. Here's praying.

Opinions

2006-09-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

Oral Sex.
*Note: I have buried this deep in my blog. The date is totally incorrect. But I had to post this somehow.
A kid talked about this in class today. Trying to get this kid who is as white and naive as all get out to talk about anything less than the purest vanilla. It's almost disgusting how sheltered this kid is. To think I was once that way. Some people though, are so pure and goody-goody that they will never get out of that phase though. Probably like him.
Anyway.
Even though I wasn't asked the question, I'm gonna answer it anyway, as if I was the one asked it. "What do you think of oral sex?" It depends on the taste. And gender. And who does who. And what happens before and afterwards. As long as your partner is very clean (I'm talking about good hygiene here), free of disease, and you practice safe (oral) sex, it's all good!

Taste: if your partner's taste is not to your liking, use a lube or flavored condom ... lube is good for the grrls and the guys. Usually heavy meat eaters are much more salty tasting, and vegans ... well, they just taste better!

Gender: having been with males and (a) femyle, there are different complications and situations that arise. I prefer womyn; to celebrate one is much better and more rewarding, to me at least.

Who does who: Never been in a 69; it's always been consecutive, but for that specifically, I prefer giving to receiving. Maybe I just haven't yet met a talented enough tongue!

B4 & After: If everything is mutual, great! If only one person gets to cum, not good, unless, of course, that is okay with the person not cumming. I prefer oral as one element of a routine!

Free of Disease: the reason is a given, but how do you find out? Ask to see a doctor's record? Just "trust" them? I don't know.

Safe Sex: on guys, that would be a condom, on grrls, latex gloves and potentially sran wrap over the area in question is usually good, as far as I know.

Last of all, what do I think about it? Well, given that it has to be in a relationship, (I need onna them things first, I don't do one-nighters) bring it on! I'd love more!

Family Matters

2005-10-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, one of the largest, and most dealt with issues of the world. Family. How do you deal with them? The black sheep, the money obsessed so&so, the angel, the devil, all the normal people just trying to hash out a living on the sidelines, etc.

I was thinking today, if everyone in families liked each other, or was at least mature enought to get along, can you imagine how much more of a peaceful world this would be? So much of the world's human to human violence comes through in families.

People giving up, growing cold, chasing after money like they don't have enough, blaming others, and DON'T even get me started on all those who decide to pass judgement based on who someone else in the family falls in love with! -- I mean "control freaks" NEone?

Maybe I shouldn't cast the first stone until I can ensure I am, and ever will be, guilt-free myself. Maybe I should forgive and turn the other cheek. Or maybe I can just call a spade a spade. Cause there's rarely any water more full of iron than blood, or nothing spills thicker than blood, or something. What's that cliche saying again? ;)

You get my point.

Racism: Alive and Well

2005-10-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

One thing I do know is true.
Words can start wars. Civil wars.
Like Bill Bennet postulating on a radio show with over one million listeners about the fact that if all black children were aborted, American crime rate would go down.

So, has America found a scapegoat now? They can just blame the blacks for America's crime rate; and if their children were all aborted, the crime rate would go down. The whites like Bennet in America simply believe that they are perfect beings, and America is perfect. "Oh what's that?" they ask us; "you're starting to find fault in America, and who we are and what we do? Okay. We will deflect that bad image on those of our citizens who we believe to be inferior, and we as white Americans will still be perfect!"

This is disgusting! Bennet has just made a huge pro-Aryan comment; a huge statement that he believes the blacks are responsible for the crime rate in America. Think about what you just said, Bennet! Do you think, no matter what you meant, that this comment will go unnoticed? NO!! You're going to now have hundreds of people from all cultures demanding your head on a platter! How dare you?

Civil war.
If the American system of world domination and oppression was overthrown, that would be akin to opening a casket that is no longer guarded, and finding it full of poisionous, toxic cockroaches. Let's expose America to the world. Let the world judge America, and let humanity deal out its justice.

Who keeps you in Check, America? When you are at the top of the world, no-one has the power to tell you that you are doing something wrong. You are becoming a monopoly. You are becoming a hot-bed for hatred. The world is slowly turning against you, as you are festering in your own hatred, and passing on judgements against entire cultures, entire populations within your country.
Bill Bennet is just another voice in your choir.

BENNETT: ... one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --
CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.
BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

The Media Matters website has the entire conversation in context.

Bonjour Qwee-beck?

2005-09-16T19:16:00.000-07:00

I now have permission to not go to school on Oct. 7th, so we can go to Qwee-beck. That should be fun. I am looking forward to going, very much so. It will take 5-8 hours to get there. Maybe we can even peruse Mon-reAL. cool.
St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal Botanical Garden, the Subway there (oCooloCool!)
The St. Lawrence River at Lac Saint-Pierre; an ocean mammel summer hang-out, and through downtown Montreal in Lachine, where it becomes quite rapide! We could also go on a cruise, go shopping downtown, or view some of the many art galleries there.

There's even a "Festival de la canneberge" (Oct 5-9) in Villeroy. We can visit some of the cafés, restaurants, and art galleries of Trois-Rivières, which is in the Lanaudière region, just North East of Montreal. There are many hiking trails there just at the banks of the St. Lawrence River. Lots of water fowl, and picnicing space too.

There is also the Canadian Centre for Architecture;
"The CCA's dynamic and provocative exhibition program addresses themes that are of interest to a broad and varied public. Focusing on the CCA collection, exhibitions engage fundamental issues like the nature of the city, the relationship of architecture to landscape, the interplay between architecture, art, science, and the media, and its impact on political, social, and economic conditions. Exhibitions and related publications draw out contemporary issues inherent in historical debates and invite new critical inquiry on these fundamental themes."

Of course, that's all very vague so far, but if I do a little research each week, I might even know a thing or two about our neighbouring province!

America the Poor

2005-09-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

On this day of prayer, I did pray. I am also writing a blog on this article; entitled "Why I won't open my wallet for Katrina" by Susan G. Cole of NOW magazine. "Why wouldn't I extend some help to these victems of deep poverty and America's history of slavery?" Some of Susan's friends ask her. In times of such trial, the affected city/state/area looks just as bad as any poverty stricken tsunami stricken part of the world. Those people there are suffering tremendously. And I have every faith that America the rich will be able to care for it's own people. America the kind and gentle and caring, America the "we have such generous purses from the abundance of money we have, and we are very willing to share them with our own people".

America has called soldiers back from places around the world to help out on home soil. "WalMart President Sam Walton has already pledged $23 million to the effort, more than twice as much as the Clinton/Bush team generated for Tsunami refugees." As Susan says, "keep it coming guys, we know the dough is there."

This reaction has, in part, to do with every country being able to take care of itself. Even if every country can't take care of itself, one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world definit-the-hell-ly can. I believe that each country has the ability to recognize discrimination within its own walls, and put forth an effort to solve these problems, and show its true kindness and humanity in the face of a disaster. I just think America is too self-absorbed to believe it can open its wallet to really help anyone, including itself, unless it gets a huge tax break.

Susan is right. Nature can't be planned. Look back into history and check out what nature can do to things. It just sweeps right on through eliminating everything in its path. Its mercilessness can also teach us lessons if we are willing to hear them; look around you, think and act locally when the call comes, and you will earn brownie points where ever you are going next in life.

David Mack's Kabuki

2005-09-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Now I am going to discuss David Mack and his work with Kabuki with you. Volume four in his seven volume series is entitled Skin Deep. After reading its description on his website I have a feeling I haven’t read the entire volume, but I do have a snippet of it, and even before I read his bio, which proves him to be a very creative storyteller, I was in awe. This was over a year ago, maybe even two. Now it’s my turn. Back to my “Beginnings” blog, I have done an incredible amount of research since, both on the topic of the content of my book, and how to create and present a story in such a way that it captivates my audience. I like well-designed books, and picture books besides. I want reading to be an interactive experience, with several layers of information and discussion. That’s what makes me want to pick up a book and read it.

In order to design a book -- if you play both the role of author and designer -- you need to consider not only the existence of your characters or topic, but the book itself as a sentient being. For me personally, David Mack’s work, or the sample I have of it, would be one of my best practice case studies. There are others, but this is the example I have currently chosen.

This is a very interesting story. On the first spread, there are only 64 words in the conventional comic book font. Some writing looks like it was written using the left hand suggesting a child’s mind at work. Some writing is done in a much more mature hand, like Akemi’s “letter”, and some “writing” is very visually oriented, like doodling.
There are so many levels of information in this story; symbols, visuals, words, and the design layout itself, that are repeated and re-used.
The grid system is sometimes seamless between reality and Akemi’s diary and cartoons. Sometimes the grid system is used to reveal things; it acts as a logical classifying system with strict vertical and horizontal lines as Akemi talks about the doctor classifying and deconstructing her. It is also used to portray progression; shadow puppets, a conversation, an origami creation. On one page, the grid system is used as a plane for conversation; a 2D representation of an abstract phenomena that can only occur in the spaces of the 3D world. Here, time is separated into tiny squares with faces and speech/thought bubbles. On another spread, the subject; the dream of the dancers, is drawn in the background, behind the conversation, taking over as the writer engulfs you in the dream, and eventually the conversation becomes invisible.
On yet another level, further in the background, the story unfolds, oblivious to the characters who are telling the story. There is no narration. The story is up to the readers to figure out, and so it left me with a puzzle of how to put together the pieces.
That’s one inspiration for how I want to build my story. It won’t be as fascinating as David’s but his style is pretty incredible!

The Power of Touch

2005-09-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

I was discussing touch today. I don't know exactly how the topic of it came up, and I do know that for some people it is a painful topic. For others, it is a wonderful topic. Yet for more, at a conscious level, it's neither here nor there.

I went and did mini-research on the topic, and came across Sandra Blanton's paper to satisfy the requirements of her doctorate degree in Philosophy. It is well-written, and brings up some interesting points. And that was just in the beginning.

Did you know that for a 150lb (73-ish kg) person there is 20ft square of skin? Here's a quote:
"Skin is the most important organ in the sense of touch. Through the skin we differentiate warmth, cold, pain and touch. A touch, a kiss and an embrace causes friction to produce electric currents which are transmitted to the brain by millions of nerve endings of the skin. On our skin are produced major electrical storms in the electricity of love (daSilva, 1984).
...
Why the need for touch? There is a need for positive solutions for countering the effects of the growing depersonalization of our times. To all of us with bodies, in an increasingly disembodied world, we need a passionate reminder that touch is essential to health and happiness. We need documentation that the terrain of our touch-starved culture gives concrete suggestions on how to be more in touch with ourselves, and therefore with others. Survival is based on our receiving affection. Only then can we develop, love, survive and thrive. Learning about our need for touch could bring unusual insight and wisdom to understanding the nature of human ... love ... Can we agree that touch is not just for lovers? What is the comparison between sensual touching and healing touch? Why does bonding matter to human babies who are born helpless? This is an area which requires more investigation in order to answer our need for conducting this Meta analysis."

And so she continues to unfold her study.
So I start thinking; touch has seemed to be a more "feminine" thing. Y/N?
Can you make a list of the kinds of touch physical you are aware of between humans, and the range of emotions they represent?
I guess so.
I could go on forever, but here are a few:

Touching fingertips, fingers, brushing a hand or arm ...
Mother/Daughter hug or kiss
Son/Mother hug
Son/Father hug
A comforting embrace for someone going through an emotionally difficult time
Giving a hug in greeting/parting
Giving an Italian, English, or "Eskimo" kiss
Fighting for the ball in soccer, rugby, football, etc
Scrimmage in front of the net in hockey
The victory pile-on in any sport
Contact martial arts
Boxing
Fists-only bar fights
Fully sober fist fights

The list is endless, but above is an example of how touch can exhibit a range of emotions, and each example makes the situation "memorable", as in, whether good or bad, you remember the situation better based on that touch.
Touch can be a stand-alone phenomena, but often it is also surrounded by other issues, such as respect. How do you handle touch as a subject. If someone touches you, or reminisces on times when contact has been made, how do you react? Or does touch stand as a private language on its own, requiring no interpretation? I think touch is a confusing and personal enough topic that it is extremely beneficial to bridge the topic of touch in communication verbally, as well as just in silence. That doesn't mean talk to your bestest friend about why you hug "hi", but to invest in building a strong bond or relationship with those you are in contact with, for the purpose of bringing that relationship of touch to a higher level, all-round. This goes for bf/gf, to Mother/Daughter, to Husband/Wife, to sports relationships. Each relationship needs to include a communication level that goes above the physical level. Look around your world. How does touch affect you?

Angkor Falls

2005-09-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

My book design research marches ever onward, and the story, I hope, continues to weave itself together, under the guidance of my pen. Since my brain is tuned onto the Cambodian channel, this article caught my eye. It is about the fall of Angkor Wat, and why it fell. However, the article is very short, so I am left with everal questions, including; "It fell? Oh! When?!?!"

Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire way back when (9th to 16th centuries) fell in the 16th century. In it's place, or should I say, surrounding Angkor is now Cambodia, the capital of which is Phnom Penh. Archaeologists are now attempting to reconstruct that city, not in actuality, but through satellite images. How big was Angkor? Why did it fall? How big is it now? How big were / are its temples? What are its current and past population?

To answer one of the questions, archaeologists believe Angkor fell because it deforested the north in order to accomodate rice farming, and because of this deforestation, soil erosion wore away at the land's ability to support the crop. Also, their extensive irrigation system, designed to store the water during the rainy season for the dry season, may have become too extensive and complicated, to the point where irrigation was no longer possible ...(?) I don't understand that, and the article in the Discover magazine is quite short, but still very interesting.

I do know a bit about their irrigation system, and their rainy season. I would like to tie this in with my research, and my knowledge of Buddhism's Lent. More to come on that later.

Sharia, Unacceptable in Ontario

2005-09-12T23:44:00.000-07:00

Sharia, or Shariat Law is Islamic rule. It is practiced in countries like Pakistan and Afganistan, where State and Religion are together. In Ontario, it was officially declared today that State and Religion will continue to remain separate. It made the front page of the Toronto Star.

That makes today a day to celebrate. Many people have come to Ontario from places like Pakistan from their freedom from fundamentalist Islam and the Sharia Law, so to allow it to be used here at any level as a form of acceptable governance would be to say to those people: our government is not the democratic place you moved to, but it aspires to be a fundamentalist Islamic state; a place that accepts the Sharia Law.

If Ontario accepted the Sharia Law, then two things may take place; if a woman, child, or even "lower status" man is punished under that law, our government may not be able to punish those who executed that "justice". This may be part of the problem in countries like Pakistan, where people are fighting to separate State and Religion.

Thank God McGuinty has refused to let this law be accepted in Ontario! And I hope that the people who live here and oppose it are never killed by Islamic Fundamentalists for our beliefs. This is not your province; this is our province. We have the ability to protect our citizens, and keep all of us safe from phsyical harm. There are many people here who desire to raise the standards of living in this province for everyone who lives here, and make this a province of equality. We also all have to deal with being able to adopt here. No one culture can have an absolute rule, because we all must work together. There are many different cultures here in Ontario, and no one fundamentalist group will be allowed to sway the law in such a way that puts in peril the lives of others who live here.

I am glad that today that decision was made, and I am sure many people who left Pakistan to embrace a culture and a government that are distinctly separate from Religion and Religious Law are equally glad. Today is a day from us to celebrate the protection our government has afforded us.

Analyse That!

2005-09-09T16:20:00.000-07:00

I think I remember seeing an article or two in a Business Week or WIRED magazine somewhere about Anger Management. Too bad I didn't stop to read them thoroughly. Those kind of articles also tend to discuss anger management around the workplace, and how happy many people are with their bosses. There's also a funky website where you get to rate your boss, and other elements of your workplace, and you get these little icons that show you your average facial expression, from "yeah!", to "meh!", to "blecky-yucky!" I wish I could remember the URL! NEway, the point is that there are many cases in Canada where people are OK where they are working, but something is making them stuck in whatever position or situation even though they are angry. For me personally, I sometimes feel intimidated there. Sometimes I feel as though it's some sort of fraternity where I am the only honest worker (and cleaning lady). Now, I know that's not a blanket statement; there are a couple good guys and women there, but sometimes the slackers and fluffbrains piss me off.

There is a magazine article that I DID read in a women's health magazine, that, although not the same business oriented viewpoint on the topic, is still worth noting. The specific article; Go Ahead, Get Mad was written by Dorothy Foltz-Gray, who is a freelancer who writes primarily about health issues. Some links in that google search (click on her name) bring up other articles that look at anger tendancies and ways to manage our anger. It was also interesting to find out that those who suppress their anger seem to suffer the same kind of affects, and from the same health conditions, as those who express it in engraged outbursts. Okay, that can be me on both sides of the coin. So, back to Foltz-Gray, who looks at women specifically, she addresses those of us who are spitfires, and those who would rather flight then fight, and ways of expressing that anger in a productive manner.

"Aiding us in all this subterfuge is confusion about anger itself. "Many women think anger is a bad thing, and if they are angry, something is wrong with them," says psychiatrist Jean Baker Miller, MD, director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Stone Center in Wellesley, MA, where she researches women and anger. "But anger is an emotional reaction indicating that something is wrong and that something needs to be done." " Good point. The "wrong" isn't to go hand-in-hand with blame. Not your boss, and especially not you. Do not internalize that anger, like so many women tend to do so they do not need to deal with the situation. That makes you what she calls and internalizer. Possible become more of an objectifier.

Put the situation out where you, and everyone, can see it: into words. Objectify it like a picture you study in art class, or a bottle of Sprite. Suggest a general solution involving everyone, what you can contribute to it, and what they can contribute to the situation as well. Let them know that you have been disrespected, and that you have a right to be respected. Make sure you also treat others with respect. Sometimes, you may have to deal with someone else who has a temper at work, but you need to remember that they are not in control of your actions. Also, if you are able to learn how to control AND EXPRESS your anger productively, AND maintain your respect and morals at work, then you have every right if the situation gets out of hand to go to higher levels to get the respect you deserve. EVERYONE, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, DESERVES RESPECT. We have all gotten angry, and some of us have a temper that we've used sometimes, so that is reason to give people some room for human error and anger expression of their own, but everyone has an equal right to demand AND RECEIVE respect.

On a last note, back to staying stuck, if you find that you are staying stuck in an "abusive" situation at work, and you have tried everything that you possibly know, including googling stuff like "getting out of abusive work situations", or phoning the police or a help line, (they won't arrest you or anyone else just for phoning them to ask for advice and help) then leave that situation. You are in control of your own destiny, and can find a better one!

NEway, cheers, and remember, read these articles and google stuff, and get out there to express your anger productively! :D

Curves

2005-09-08T19:38:00.000-07:00

I go to a now family, used-to-be women's gym. The addition of men was disappointing. But that's not what I'm here for. Right now, I want to discuss health. Health is not just something you are, or have, but something you need to work for, and maintain your entire life. It's an attitude, a state of mind, and a life-long goal. I am blessed to be surrounded by an abundance of people who "practice" health. My Mother, for one, has gone to the gym for years now. She has always had weights and a rowing machine in the house; every house we ever lived in. I remember using that rowing machine since I was little. She used to take my sister and I out on walks every day, little did I know then, that we were walking to the University I would one day attend, and then back home. Every day ... 6:30am-ish, with a banana before-hand and a bowl of porridge afterwards. And we are a healthy family in terms of eating habits. More carrots and zuchini and pasta (Atkins be damned) through the years than burgers, that's for sure! And sports; baseball, sports camp for years, girls' hockey for at least 1/2 a decade, skating, skiing, walking, now gym memberships ... sigh. The adventure is on-going, and supplemented by extensive reading and healthy recipes.

There are also those I know who have quit things or changed the way they are to regain health. I know - and commend - several young women, peers, actually, who have had the strength to quit smoking, either on their own, or through the support of their peers, and one extremely beautiful woman who has lost significant weight through changing her eating patterns, joining weight watchers and Curves, going to her doctor and a nutritionist, etc. This woman is incredible. I love the way she has learned to love herself.

There is one thing, however, that continues to bother me. The affects of smaller things, like picking your lips, biting your nails, picking at cuticles, etc. These, albeit bad habits in and of themselves, are possibly signs of health that are less examined in this society, where physical health is being emphasized. In most cases, this is wonderful! In some cases, could it be more a sign of work better, achieve moremoremore, than an active approach of treat your body with love and respect, for it is the vessel that carries your soul? I don't know. My Mother, I would say, has learned to love her body, and learn to listen to it, but she had a horrible problem with her nails when she was younger. With my sister, it was biting her nails for a decade; me, my cuticles. Nervousness? Anxiety? Lack of confidence?

How does one lose the weight of such problems, and regain their outlook on a healthy life?