Elucidate

Our worst nightmare…

2006-06-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

So our worst nightmare has happened - two US soldiers have been captured by al-Qaeda. Let's hope that they're treated with respect, as required under the Geneva Convention. Let's hope they're not sexually humiliated, terrorized by dogs, subject to water-boarding or any other forms of torture. Let's hope al-Qaeda isn't that depraved.

National Tartan Day

2006-04-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

Today is National Tartan Day according to the United States House of Representatives Resolution 41. Which is fitting as Dad arrived early this morning. So we're celebrating in true Scottish style - with shock and horror.

Alan Black over at Salon has an amusing take on it:

Being Scottish, I am easily insulted. Scotland was recently selected by a group of so-called European experts as "the worst small country to live in." It's top of the charts for manic depression, alcoholism, lung cancer, stomach cancer, colon cancer, heart disease and yellow, plaque-infected teeth.

At least the they didn't call it "National Plaid Day".

Stumping

2006-03-29T15:39:00.000-08:00

Maia saw two men dressed in business suits riding on bicycles today, and she said, "Why are those presidents riding bikes? They look so silly."

We're not so far removed

2006-03-08T21:05:00.000-08:00

In his fascinating book, The Moral Animal, Robert Wright states (on the subject of female choosiness),

… male turkeys will avidly court a stuffed replica of a female turkey. In fact, a replica of a female turkey's head suspended fifteen inches from the ground will generally do the trick. The male circles the head, does its ritual displays, and then (confident, presumably, that its performance has been impressive) rises into the air and comes down in the proximity of the female's backside, which turns out not to exist. The more virile males will show such interest even when a wooden head is used, and a few can summon lust for a wooden head with no eyes or beak.

Food for thought when you check out the Shock Absorber's bounce-ometer.

Vely nice

2006-03-08T21:03:00.000-08:00

Found in my fortune cookie:

A kind world will warm someone's heart.

It's a knee-jerk reaction for them

2006-02-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

After hearing Dr. Andrew Weil say on Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me! that dark chocolate is so good for you that you can eat as much of it as you wish, I decided that my one New Year's Resolution would be to acquire a taste for it, and kick the habit I have for milk chocolate, (hereafter to be referred to derisively as simply "candy").

Last year I kept so much candy in my desk that I gained a reputation as the go-to guy if you were jonesing for a snack. But I've cleared out my desk, although people still occasionally come sniffing for treats, as Lee did yesterday.

He thought I was holding out on him and to my surprise I did find a stash in my bottom drawer of M&Ms, left over from Halloween. I grabbed a handful (hey, I'm not completely cured), and gave him the rest of the 52oz bag for his pod, far away from me.

Within five minutes I'd received an iChat from Bryan.

Bryan: did you leave that bag of M&Ms? you chocolately trickster?
John: I told Lee to take it to your pod and get it away from me
Bryan: *sigh*
John: you are very welcome
Bryan: It's in retaliation for the teriyaki sticks, isn't it
John: well, now that you say it…
Bryan: this could mean war

Not that I'm particularly worried. I've seen how lousy Americans are at waging war, so I fully expect to find they've retaliated with a box of Ghirardelli Squares.

Jas, Political Operative

2006-01-31T15:15:00.000-08:00

One of my colleagues became a BMOC* on Monday, when his uncle became a Canadian MP.

Sukh Dhaliwal is the Liberal Party's newest Member of Parliament for the riding of Newton-North Delta in British Columbia. Sukh is the second Dhaliwal to have entered Canadian politics, as he follows Herb Dhaliwal, the former Liberal MP for the riding of Vancouver South-Burnaby, who was the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (during the Chrétien era).

Now when Jas opens a bank account here he gets to answer yes to the question, "Are you a senior foreign political figure or a family member or associate of a senior foreign political figure?"

I've always thought it would be kind of cool to be able to say yes to that question, but so far my relatives have let me down. (Although not from a lack of trying.)

*Big Man on Campus

Having second thoughts

2006-01-31T14:55:00.000-08:00

While Julie was reveiwing the details of our freshly minted Will she commented, "So you're giving Anne Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care?"

"You know she will so pull that plug."

Julie's reading Memoirs of a Geisha…

2006-01-29T22:19:00.000-08:00

… and I think I can be forgiven for doing a double-take when I walked into the bedroom this evening.

Just shoot us now, please

2006-01-29T19:36:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness the vet arrives in April.

Teddy Tucker

2006-01-25T22:30:00.000-08:00

I got a package from Dad in the mail yesterday with a 2006 wall calendar produced by the St. David's Island Historical Society. It contains many pictures of Hamilton and St. David's during the 1930 & 40's. It's great to see the pictures of Bermuda before motor cars, when bicycles were a common form of transport and railway tracks ran down the center of Front Street.

However the real treat was the DVD he'd also included.

Teddy Tucker, Adventure Is My Life is the fascinating history of a Bermudian "born at the right time, in the right place," as the narrator so accurately points out at the very beginning.

For this is the story of a life blessed by good fortune. Good fortune to be born with a fascination of shipwrecks on an island whose waters are infested with shipwrecks, good fortune to be working at the Aquarium at a time when recreational diving was in its infancy and they were experimenting with taking tourists helmet diving (this predated scuba), and good fortune to be able to make a living doing what he loved most - salvaging and surveying shipwrecks.

He is also a talented watercolourist of old sailing ships and indeed it was his interest in preserving and annotating the wrecks he found that first brought him to the attention of scholars and scientists. What really made him famous though was his discovery in 1955 of the Tucker Cross. This earned him an article in Life magazine and working relationships with archaeologists around the world.

His friendship with Peter Benchley (begun before Jaws had been written and Benchley was a lowly hack working for the New England Aquarium), has only helped to magnify his fame.

My favourite line in this biopic is when Benchley asks him if he remembers his first meeting with Robert Shaw, the actor who played the part of the seadog Romer Treece in The Deep, a part based upon Tucker himself.

"Well," he drawled in his Bermudian slang, "course he was full hot at the time. Oh yes, he was a real rummy." He paused for just a second, then continued, "I recognized a fellow traveller."

Anne was here

2006-01-18T20:39:00.000-08:00

After Anne left Aiden walked around the house for an entire week saying, "Say no to yayas!"

And recently, after Julie had apologised to Maia for making her late for school (thus causing her to miss an eagerly anticipated event), Maia said, "That's ok. I'll cut you some slack."

A yaya is a pacifier in Aiden-speak.

Putting your life on the line

2006-01-18T09:10:00.000-08:00

The first time I parachuted I was extremely nervous. I must have visited the bathroom 10 times in the five minutes before we piled into the Cessna, and my heart was in my mouth during the entire climb to altitude. I was sitting backwards on the floor (in jump aircraft the only person to get a seat is the pilot), next to the exit so the instructor had to lean across me to open the door, which flew open very dramatically to reveal a stunning view an inch to the left and 3,500 feet below the bare white knuckles of my left hand. The noise of the rushing wind was deafening. The instructor spent a few moments peering over my lap at the ground, then called to the pilot to cut back the engine and signaled me to climb out.

That jump and every one of the 49 that followed were exhilarating, even though the first jump of the day always griped me with apprehension. But I learned to overcome my fear and handled myself pretty well during the two malfunctions I experienced (an AAD misfire under a good main at 2,000 feet and a horseshoe at 10,000 feet).

Pretty intense stuff, but in the past. My last jump was the day I found out I was going to be a dad.

But I'd do it again in a heartbeat before doing a Keynote with Steve. I got sweaty palms just reading the article.

Every Computer Crashes, Because Every OS Sucks

2006-01-02T10:01:00.000-08:00

Three Dead Trolls have a great little song.

The Onion Has Landed

2005-12-22T08:27:00.000-08:00

Anne arrived last night, rolling in from the airport a little after midnight, so she was pretty tired (her internal clock being 4 hours ahead of that).

The trip over flyover country was uneventful except for one small inconvenience - American Airlines have lost her luggage again! They did this to her the last time she visited, so I think this will be her last trip out here (or so she threatens).

It's good to see her, and I know she feels the same as she actually stopped in mid-dash (through the house to see her sleeping nieces) long enough to give me a kiss on the cheek.

I hope her bags arrive today as we're all going to The Nutcracker tonight and her ball gown is in one of them.

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-20T20:56:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas Letter this year marks a first for us, as we've put it online* here. And when I say "our" I mean it rhetorically. It's 98% Julie's effort this year.

I think she did a fine job, don't you?

*This way we can truthfully claim that the letter went out before Christmas, even if the hard copy hasn't hit the post office yet.

Diving with Tiger Sharks

2005-12-16T17:23:00.000-08:00

My friend Neil Burnie is at it again - this time diving with Tiger sharks off Bermuda.

"It's a different world under there," added Dr. Burnie, who has surfed a giant whale shark, and watched flying fish, manta-rays and barracuda in a feeding frenzy underneath his fishing boat.

They didn't mention that he also drove an open fishing boat, powered by two outboard engines, to Bermuda from the East Coast. (That's a trip of some 700 miles, and I think he did it in 2 days.)

I remember when I first met Neil. He was a pale, pasty-faced little Englishman then, newly arrived on the island to work for Dad as his locum. Now the shoe's on the other foot, and I'm the one who's pale and pasty-faced.

Sacred Bull?

2005-12-13T16:47:00.000-08:00

They need to get a new censor at the Royal Gazette. The one they have now doesn't know good four letter words from bad.

Crown counsel Nicole Smith told Magistrates' Court yesterday the defendant said to them: “This is f***ing b***shit.” He was warned twice to calm down but when two other officers arrived DeSilva continued his outburst.

And what school child can't fill in the blanks?
Around the Courts

Southpaw?

2005-12-08T17:16:00.000-08:00

One day over Thanksgiving Aiden was served her breakfast cereal by her grandfather, who put her spoon on the left side of the bowl. Without missing a beat she simply picked up the spoon with her nearest hand and started to serve herself.

After I commented on this Ed allowed that while he was right-handed, he held a baseball bat left-handed, and kicked a football (an American football) with this left foot.

Could our little peanut be left-handed? Or perhaps even ambidexterous? Time will tell.

Patience is a virtue

2005-11-27T14:25:00.000-08:00

Over breakfast this morning we spent some time compiling our lists for Santa. I put a sweater, new car stereo and a leather jacket on my list.

Later, while we were driving to the mall, I said to Julie, "I'd like to look at leather jackets while we're here."

Maia immediately piped up from the backseat, "No, you have to wait. That's on your list for Santa."

"But it's pretty cold out. I think I'd like one before Christmas," I explained.

To which bossy-boots scolded, "I want a Barbie Pegasus Head right now but I can't have it. You wait 'til Christmas."

Now here's a reason to emigrate

2005-11-23T07:12:00.000-08:00

I'm reading Jared Diamond's Collapse. (Something I love about holidays is all the reading time.) The description of the collapse of Easter Island society describes a tragedy that unfolded over a few hundred years, precipitated by the islander's destruction of their environment. (The island was originally covered by a dense forest and claimed the largest seabird colony in the entire Polynesian Archipelago.)

As things went from bad to worse the inhabitant's diet was reduced from porpoise and seabird to rat and eventually each other. The following passage stands out,

In case you're squeamish and consider rats inedible, I still recall, from my years of living in England in the late 1950s, recipes for creamed laboratory rat that my British biologist friends who kept them for experiments also used to supplement their diet during their years of wartime food rationing.

Dad got his MRCVS from the Royal Dick in 1955. No wonder he buggered off to New Zealand at his earliest opportunity.

Old Mesilla

2005-11-22T08:54:00.000-08:00

We picked up Auntie Joann yesterday and visitied Old Mesilla. It lies about 40 miles southwest of El Paso, and although I've been to this general area several times, and Julie and Joann grew up here, this is the first time any of us had seen this particular little town.

It enjoys a small place in the history of the area, having been for a brief time the capitol of New Mexico, as well as where Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced to death. They roll the sidewalks up on Mondays so many of the shops were closed, but this was a blessing in disguise, since there were many fewer tourists than normal. (El Paso has the nation's largest Harley Davidson store, so I can just imagine the hordes of bikers that must descend upon the place during a normal business day.)

The place is an artist's community and has a distinctly up-market feel, in contrast to gritty El Paso. The few shops that remained open were generally upscale, with interesting and attractive art. We had lunch at the Double Eagle restaurant, situated in an old adobe building. As you walk in you pass through the Carlota Salon and into a (now glassed in) courtyard. The southwestern fare was quite good (and the margarita excellent) but the place wasn't very child friendly. Still, this is a type of archetecture that we find quite attractive and it is easy to see how the area has become a location for various films.

All in all a very pleasant day trip.

Nose holes

2005-11-16T08:45:00.000-08:00

My Dutch uncle, Gerhard (he's Canadian) speaks english perfectly well. But occassionally, when he's at a loss for the correct word, he'll insert a substitute that's just not quite right. An example is "nose hole" (for which he earned Margaret's scorn).

Turns out he's not the only one to use that term.

Malahack

2005-11-15T14:35:00.000-08:00

This was the word-of-the-day recently in my Forgotten English desktop calendar.

A word ludicrously fabricated which means to cut or carve in an awkward and slovenly manner.
- Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830

Feast Day of St. Martin, for whom geese served as both nemesis and symbol. Martin hid in a barn to avoid being made a bishop but was exposed by a honking goose. He died in 400, reportedly from eating goose. Since then, that fowl has traditionally been eaten on his feast day.
In pre-industrial Britain, specific verbs were employed for carving particular types of game and poultry, and in some circles use of the wrong term was viewed with a contempt similar to that shown a modern speaker of the word ain't. In his [Medical] Receipts (1696), William Salmon offered some examples, including: "rear that goose; spoil that hen; fract that chicken; sauce that capon; unbrace that mallard; unlace that coney; dismember that heron; disfigure that peacock; display that crane; untach that curlew; unjoin that bittern; allay that pheasant; wing that quail [or partridge]; mince that plover; thigh that pigeon; break that hare."

Some of these terms make me queasy. Spoil? Disfigure? Display? These are Ripperesque terms, the sort of language that might have been used to describe his victims.

But others conjure up more lighthearted thoughts. "Fract that chicken," for instance. When I worked at the Bank of Bermuda one of my staff (Shawn, Cicely's son), would say, "I'm going to fock up a chicken," on his way out to KFC. That's similar, no?

The trouble with eff

2005-11-13T10:31:00.000-08:00

Aiden can't pronounce the letter 'F'. Phone is 'pone', fish is 'pish' and so on. I worked with her on this problem yesterday because she finds it extremely frustrating when she is misunderstood, or simply unable to get even a glimmer of understanding on our desperately blank faces.

Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful (for now). She just can't form the sound, despite forcing her lips and tongue through some impressive, serpentine contortions. (When the time comes she'll have no trouble tying a cherry stem in knots. I swear I saw her form the shape of a clover leaf with her tongue. Oh, the drinking game championships that girl has in her future.)

In unrelated news, I'm trying to discourage her from riding on my shoulders. I'm getting tired of her putting a part in my hair.