June 14th! 5 months after The Event. Which is not, apparently “The Event”

The next person who looks at me with all-knowing sanctimony and says, dryly:

“Are you STILL limping?”

…will be offered two choices if applicable”:

Choice A:  Be fired (if applicable)

Choice B: Get punched in the face.

Encore…

Gee – it’s been a while…

A year and a half on, and life trundles by…

I’m going to try to get back in here… I kind of enjoy reading my own rubbish in a truly narcissistic way and so many things just buzz around upstairs that it’s probably healthy to get them out and gain perspective.

stuff like:

• home/work/family/personal goals balance – that old chestnut
• The always intruding guilty sense of failure in some area of life. (and I’m not even Catholic or Jewish – go figure)
• The awesomeness of fatherhood
• Projects, dreams and  inspiration
• The phrase “We’re doing the best we can”
• Re-preparing for new arrivals

I’ll start with a small anecdote about Jack.

Last week I was sick. SICK SICK SICK. I had stayed home and tried to work from home when I finally called it quits and hit the hay at around 3pm. It was the kind of sick when you know you really are because you give in to sleep at that hour without so much as a hiccup.

Jen came to see how I was doing at around 5:30 and I stirred and told her that I’d be down shortly, only to fall asleep again…

At around 8:00pm I woke up to the pitter patter of tiny feet around the bed, and a giggling child stroking my face telling me that everything was going to be OK.

I told him I was feeling lousy and so he climbed up onto the bed (as only kids do with flailing arms and legs and bums in the air and he lay on top of me for a moment just giving me a hug.

Then he ordered his mother to go fetch a book so that he could read to me, and I was treated to a Thomas the Tank Engine story: ” A Crack in the Track” – a tale which deals with the challenges of things which temporarily break down, but with the right amount of teamwork and patience will get back on track. As if he knew that this analogy would somehow be fitting.

As soon as he was done, he put the book down and gave me kiss and told me to get better and “boing-boinged” off to bed. (it’s a routine thing)

My 2.5 year old son.

So I hold that thought for the days when I’m far from home or  I’m walking home through the pouring rain or he’s overtired and targeting my solar plexus…

Part one of many of “The awesomeness of fatherhood” series.

The Mosaic

…nabbed from the mighty Lambic…

Here’s how you play:

Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search
using only the first page. Choose an image.

Copy and paste each of the URLs into the mosaic maker at FD’s image maker

The questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favourite colour?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favourite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favourite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name.

More to follow about the hoose and the wee man’s 1st birthday shortly…

Suburbanite!

Finally the entry about the hoose!

So this past January, J, wee J and I were sitting in our lovely downtown condo, remarking about what a great space it was for a double income family, sans famille.

Jack’s toys were strewn over what used to be our living room and his bouncy truck, swing, high chair, mats etc were a part of the scenery and a challenge to getting to the sofa…

We all looked at the space, or lack thereof, back at each other, back at the space and started the discussion about how nice it would be to be somewhere slightly bigger…

As the depths of winter subsided and allowed us all to venture outdoors, we realised that there was no discernable green space for Jack to enjoy around our inner city ghetto, neighbourhood.

So we began to have a look at The Gazette’s “Home Front” on a Saturday, and trawling through the mls.ca website.

We talked about a two year plan to get us there…

Hell – we even went to some open houses in neighbourhoods we thought we’d like.

In hindsight that was the beginning of the end.

Well hello, masses…

Hello Survivor fans!

There’s a good chance that you arrived here because I posted an entry a couple of seasons ago making predictions for the Fiji season.

As a result, I get record breaking hits at every season finale – yesterday peaking at 800+…

In hindsight, on that season, I was right, predicting that Rocky would do badly, and that Yau Man and Earl would the superstars.

So to answer a couple of questions you may have had and to make a few observations:

1. Yes, Parvati did indeed win $1,000,000 for being an outrageous flirt.
2. She probably deserved it.
3. I don’t know if Amanda and Ozzie went all the way on a buggy beach or not.
4. I don’t want to know
5. James won $100,000 for having watchable abs.
6. Yes, Jeff Probst dyed his hair just a little too dark for the reunion show.
7. I don’t know what Natalie had been smoking when asking her questions to the final two.
8. Erik, although trying to mask his naivety with ‘humanity’, will be tough to beat as ‘Dumbest. Survivor. Ever’.
9. If I ever receive a hidden immunity idol or immunity necklace, I will play it at the first opportunity and never give it up. Never.
10. We’re going back to Africa (Gabon) for the next season.
11. I too am hoping that one day the producers will look outside of the USA for contestants. I think a team USA versus the world would make for an intriguing show…
12. Yes. This was the most interesting season in a VERY long time.
13. Not as interesting as it would be given point 11.

Your tribe has spoken.

Into the Wild

so… yes… we bought a house.

More on that in a bit…

I just finished reading “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer – an account and commentary of the short life of Chris McCandless, recently dramatized in a movie of the same name.

To cut a long story short, McCandless was the kid of 22 years old who, after fulfilling the wishes of his parents by seeing out his undergraduate degree in Atlanta took himself on a two year trans-American adventure without money or provisions to prove to himself that he could live a meager and self fulfilling existence without the luxuries… actually – more than that – his odyssey was to live an existence without in order to cleanse himself.

He was found, dead, in Alaska two and half years after he left, apparently starved…

…breaking news…

Cristobal Huet is gone!

To Washington…

Now I can’t say, whilst watching hockey on RDS… “Mon Christ……… obal Huet” It won’t be relevant!

In other news: We got the house.

We move in May!

Details to follow… 

and just like that…

… we put an offer in on a house.

A freakin’ HOUSE!

Your wee P is all grown up – and suddenly feeling very little and very vulnerable…

We’ll know within the next 36 hours.

On my own professional ego…

*start rant*

I never used to think I had a big, professional ego…

For the most part, I have always found it relatively easy to articulate my thoughts and to influence with relative ease… or at least have my opinions respected. Especially about things I kow and am passionate about.

Recently, however, and for reasons which I can’t seem to fathom, this has been getting more and more difficult.

There are few things that rile me more than the sense that I’m not being listened to. Or that my opinions count for nothing because the person I am talking to assumes they know better. I can see it happening, in the recipient’s body language and see the begin to unfocus. The teacher in me was trained to recognize these signs and to adjust accordingly by asking checking and verification questions…

And while I try REALLY hard not to revert back to some kind of childish impudence, I’m getting closer to tantrums than I think most realise. And, of course, when I get close to that the red mist descends and clear, articulate thoughts are gone.

I took quite a large slice of humble pie to come work here: I had previously held management positions in all previous companies and had prided myself on the quality of work I undertook to make that grade and become a positive, professional leader and I empowered others to be and do the same. For a while here, mine was a new ‘fresh’ approach which seemed to be embraced by most people I dealt with, and I didn’t feel confined by the position I held which, given the steps forward I had made in my professional life, I worried meant I was taking a step backward.

It seems that your working life accumulates equity, in the same way that a house does when held onto: As you create experience and maturity you develop your worth. Unfortunately, a ‘step back, might be considered a salf imposed recession, and as such impacts your worth.

All that said, I have never looked at the professional side of my life to be the be-all-and-end-all of my existence. It is a means to an end – to support my family and provide a lifestyle that we can enjoy…

But we all need to have that sense of worth and of recognition and of accomplishment.

Here, there are a whole bunch of barriers to that: A ‘class system’, based on seniority, a lack of vision at a Management level, which means that most creativity is plagiarised by those managers who are lucky enough to have good, creative team-members, selfish personal agendas and zero recognition.

Which, perhaps I should just accept.

But I’m realising it fits less and less with my M.O., and makes me bitter as hell, which impacts my work habits and will doubtless put me further back down the chain that I was when I started.

That is, of course, completely up to me (do you adapt to your company or does your company adapt to you), but how many barriers and patronising insults do you hit head-on before you realise it hurts your head. Or your ego.

Perhaps the biggest question I’m asking myself is if I’m learning anything? Am I becoming a better worker? The answer is that I’m not sure I am.

Maslow’s heirarchy of needs is largely based on the overall human motivation, but can be remodeled to the workplace. I feel at present that I’m stuck in one of the lower levels and while trying to ascend, am being stifled down so that others can reach the top levels at the expense of people like me.

Ugh, even reading my own words makes me feel weak and kind of pathetic.

The good news is that I know I’m in control of my own path. I have choices. Taking this job as very definately a case fo “sometimes you have to do what you have to do in order to put food on the table”, and it goes without saying that I know there are people who are a hell of a lot more needing than me.

But this is about me and my own state of mind.

So being in control means I have choices:

1) Run this course, adjust, and be silent and bitter – not good for anyone.
2) Run this course, adjust and try to effect positive change – the challenging option
3) Jump ship and target environments which match my style – not impossible, but lengthy change
4) Stop whining and get an attitude change. You do it because you have to – most likely immediate change!

As usual, I probably haven’t articulated myself well – I don’t when I feel down or pissy or negative.

*end rant*

The STM come…good?

Wierd.

I can’t figure out if it’s just me, or if the STM (Montreal’s public transport system) have been feeding the monkeys employees some happy-juice lately.

Every day for the last 7 days, I have been greeted on the bus or at the metro gate by a smiling person, who has actually looked me in the eye and said “Bonjour!”

What the hell?

I have long been an un-admirer of the STM’s attitude towards its patrons – especially to those tourists who visit the fair province of Quebec with no french language skills…

I have long been annoyed by their over-paid, surly, unionized workers who appeared to constantly want more at the expense of the city’s residents and travellers, whilst never investing in some of the more humanitarian service elements to, well, make the public transport experience a little more pleasant.

And yet… something appears to have changed… in just seven days…

I wonder if they know… that we know… that they know…

I use the STM because I have to, and because it’s a greener alternative to the car, and for the past seven days, it’s been, well, OK. Less annoying. A more ‘human’ experience.

It’s quite disconcerting…

Is it just me?

Oh.

…and, for the record, I think I might just BURST if I don’t see ‘LOST’ tonight… It’s been a long year without Kate…

..alas I have my first mid-term exam tonight… THIS is where PVR’s (TVO) come in handy.