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That is right people, LOST has restarted its regular scheduled programing .. Finally !!

For those of you who don't like this program ... well ... you can just stop reading now because I happen to love it and it is currently the only program I watch (Aside from all the educational Baby Einstein DVD with Gaven of course).

Are those of you who watch this program, how did you enjoy this years premier? What are your thoughts surrounding the recent plot development of "time shifting", or all the interrelatedness of all the characters. This to me is the most interesting development as in the later part of season three we began seeing that some of our characters had interdependency's, and had met each other in some fashion (although not realizing it) before even coming to the Island. We even learned that a few of the key characters are siblings and had not been aware of this at all (Jack and Claire).

I for one am really enjoying this season so far, and appreciate the amount of work that the directors have put into script writing and plot development over all the years that are just now bearing fruit and showing real value to the overall storyline. I commend them for sometimes keeping things in the programing that may even confuse viewers in the present, but all the time knowing this will make sense and come together in the end.

Artisan Water

This morning while I was sipping on my Fiji artisan water I began to think about its origins. Was this water really from Fiji Island? Was this beverage truly from volcanic pools rich in minerals? My mind had a sudden shift or realization, call it a guilty conscience if you will ... I wondered where the profits for this drink were being used.

For those of you who may not know, the Fiji Government is currently being run by the Military that was ceased during the countries last Coup held in 2006. The public has been calling for a democratic vote for some time after this took place and order was restored. The country has had a long history of Military Coups ousting governments that the public has deemed unfit to rule but would not leave. They have staged Coups in 1977, 1987, 2000, and the last in 2006. So my thoughts began wondering if all the money made from this product I was consuming were going toward supporting a Military that is holding a country hostage for all intents and purposes.

What does your social conscience tell you to do in these situations; do you feel that your actions can amount to anything that would make a difference? Do you feel that the populous of the planet have any to help the people of Fiji, should the United Nations step in to aid in these types of issues? Or has the world learned a lesson of from the way that other nations have tried to oppose their will upon others. Is it truly ever the right of a people to intervene in situation that they may not fully understand?

I find my thoughts to be extremely divided on this type of issue, I struggle daily with thoughts surrounding how and when societies should engage in helping abroad. With so many ongoing wars, viewpoints, and differing world opinions, when is it right to act?

Retirement

As I am aware of a good number of my readers ages, and most are at least at 30 or above I thought I might ask some questions about retirement plans. Recently at dinner with friends I was shocked to find many of them had not begun this journey of saving for retirement. Is everyone turning a blind eye to this simply hoping it will work out?

FINANCIAL ... So I know my portfolio is a fairly aggressive one with a selections of Stocks, Bonds, RRSP's, Pension Funds and of course my various Real Estate dealings, but how does everyone else balance this out? Take for example your pension funds ... how do they spread (Balanced Funds, Canadian Equity funds, Fixed Income funds, Foreign Equity Funds). I am always interested in knowing how people are putting their hard earned wages to use .. especially around the world. I find that as I talk to people across the globe, there are vast and differing approaches on HOW to save for retirement.


WHAT TO DO ... this is actually one of the more important parts I found in planning my retirement and obviously more fun as well. The first section about finance is important, but can not be effectively done if you do not know the 5 W's of your retirement. What type of life do you want to leed, where do you want to live, what kind of activities do you want to do daily. All of these factors will lend to a dollar figure that you will need to plan and budget for in the finance section above.

So for those of you who have planned for retirement, what is your magic number? What age are you planning to turn in your work close for island cabana wear? I know mine is planned for 50 as I wanted to be young enough to start my ski/mountain bike B&B in British Columbia. What are your dreams, hopes and ambitions?

Inaguration

Yesterday January 20th 2009 was a special day… Not one but two people were promoted into office. What do I mean exactly? Well some of you close to me may have been aware that I was interviewing for a new management position here at CPPIB (Canada Pension Plan Investment Board http://www.cppib.ca/). Recently they posted the position of Manager Infrastructure Operations.

So while the US was swearing in there first African American President, I was also being sworn into my office and new role. I am extremely excited with all the new challenges and opportunities this will career path will provide, and am positive this is the natural progression for me.

While I had no rock bands or sweeping crowds to inaugurate my new arrival into this position, I did get a plethora of praise and warm sentiments from my team mates and co-workers. This is was all I could ask for, and made me feel at home in my newly appointed role as the Manager Infrastructure Operations.

A quick thanks to all in my life who supported me, mentored me, or even coached me through tough decision in my life. It is the sum of all these activities that have lead me to where I am today, so thank you.

It is a big week for our neighbors to the south and I would like to send congratulations to all my American friends living in the US. First off Happy Presidents day (Feb 18th) which is always a good day to celebrate two of Americans greatest leaders (George Washington and Abraham Lincoln). Why is the day posted as Feb 18th many always ask me, the answer is quite simple … It is the date picked between their respective birthdates (GW Feb 22, and AL Feb 12).

This week also marks the inauguration of Barack Obama happening tomorrow January the 20th, and is sure to be a huge occasion around many parts of the US. Not only does this end 8 continuous years of Republican rule, but it also marks the very first time in US history that an African American person was elected as the President of the United States of America.

3 Million People are expected out to see this incredible time in history transpire. Can you imagine the weight of that sitting squarely on your shoulders? Imagine an entire nation awaiting you as the solution to all that ales a failing American economy and way of life?
So this brings me to how all of this might affect us lonely Canadian living in the firiidgid north? What does this new president mean for us and our economy? We would be foolish not to review this … not to study and try to predict what might happen as the US try to strengthen their economy.

Take for example the means by which a tradition “protectionist” Democratic party like we now have coming into the US might try to stabilize the homeland. Would it not make sense for them to try to keep some of the industry such as oil (think Alberta oil sands projects) auto industry (such as all our car assembly or parts plants in Ontario), or even pulp and paper mill (such as the huge export to the US that Quebec provides)? What are the greater effects on us Canadian if the American President decides to pull these industries back to home soil and begin protecting their best interest?

I hope that the fact that Barack Obama has chosen Canada and Ottawa as his first out of country visit bodes well for us. I hope that they Americans understand the delicate balance of import/export that helps the entire economy as a whole circulate and grow. My hopes are that everything will remain as is, and we all stride together to help our economy out of this crisis through solid planning and execution of a debt inhalation program. That we as the general populous learn how to control spending effectively, and live within our means resisting the temptation to simply spend our way into poverty.

Acceleration

So my boy Gaven is now officially 9 months old as of the 11th, and I have noticed him changing in leaps and bounds. It appears to me as if he is learning at an exponential rate, and picks up something new every day. He has just started crawling, which was a monumental change on its own and already he has begun balancing on his knees and pulling himself upright on tables to peer around. It is for certain that he will figure out from here that he can simple walk place quicker. A funny note that he has learned this at 9 months and the coincidence is that at 9 months I was walking as well. Ever wonder if any of these types of things could be genetic?

He has recently learned he can call things by name starting with me! That is right I have a new name “Dada” and could not be prouder. At first everything was dada, but we quickly played some reference games like tickling dada and tickling Gaven ...poof he now understands “Dada” is me. Makes parents hearts warm when they can recognize this.

Gaven is now also doing an adorable thing when you say hello to him. He will begin waving and saying “Hiya”. He kind of clumsily flaps his one arm like a bird ... and the Hiya is distorted... but you can tell by the instant smile on his face that he is ecstatic to communicate with you.

Gaven also popped his first tooth and accordingly always has his fingers in his mouth now feeling it, almost like he is feeling to make sure it is still there. I can watch him put all his food onto that side as if he understands that the tooth will help. He is now eating real “people” foods and loves some of the same things that I do like Salmon!

One of the things that absolutely astonishes me is the understanding of photographs, or rather when a photograph is being taken. If you turn the camera on him and begin to focus, as soon as he sees that telltale orange light the camera uses to autofocus with.... he begins smiling and posing! I find it hard to believe that he understands that this is normal practice, and can only attribute this to him watching what others do when the camera is turned on them.

All of these things truly amaze me, and somehow refuel my beliefs in humanity. To all those parents out there reading this... what are some of the things you can recall your child doing that simply astounded you?

I want to take a quick moment and apologize to all the readers for the lack of posting. I have had some fairly substantial items in my personal life taking precedence and eating up some extra time lately. They have all wrapped up, and nothing but good news will come from it :-)

I will find some time in the morning and write something worth reading ;-)
Till then... sleep tight all

Diversity of Readership

Recently I installed a analytics tool to help me better understand the traffic flows to and from this site. Special thanks goes out to Shannon Smith of http://shannonesmith.blogspot.com/ for helping me with this, much appreciated.

I wanted to quickly share the diversity of the readers locations with you, letting you know who your fellow blog readers are. It is quite a wide ranging group, spanning several Continents, Country's as well as many Cities and Towns.

As I spent many years traveling the globe in my past jobs, I have made great friends all over the world. I will be sending out invitations to my blog in hopes of having them join in our discussions, and providing a global perspective. Here are the places we have to date visiting the site ( at least since I installed the tool) I invite you to pass the blog link along to others you might feel would enjoy reading. My hopes are that with a larger group of readers, we will stimulate an environment for great conversation, discussion and even debate. This will help us all understand global perspectives with greater ease.

http://kristiankataila.blogspot.com/

Country's
Canada
United States
Thailand
British Virgin Islands
United Kingdom
Australia

Cities

Oakville
New York
Georgetown
Burlington
Etobicoke
Ballwin
Denton
Phuket
Washington
Tampa
Brooklyn
Owensboro
Anaheim
Chorley
Woburn
Richmond
Brampton
St Paul
Honolulu
Mississauga
London
Kenner
Mountain View
Hamilton
Sydney
Addison
Burnaby

Monthly on the first day of each month I will be posting the cities list to watch how we grow :)

Science and the Economy

Alright, be forewarned I am going to touch on a sore subject that I have seen cause many arguments over the holidays. And no I did not bring the subject up, but did see this happen many times so I figured I would get your opinions on the matter.

So here we are in the midst of a complete global economic meltdown. The price of commodities is dropping uncontrollably, usual benchmarks like oil, precious metals, even currencies are all over the map, switching from record highs to rock bottom lows. This has brought many hedge funds, pension funds, amongst other index's to drop drastically in value as people loose faith in there ability. The end result..... people hard earned money has simply "disappeared" overnight.


Half a world away is one of the worlds largest joint scientific project LHC — short for Large Hadron Collider. How large is large ? This continuous loop is 16 miles underground of complex scientific equipment designed to accelerate sub-atomic particles to the absolute brink of know speeds, and then have them collide.This incredible project has taken over 20 years and 8 Billion dollars to complete. So when it fired up in September of this year and failed almost instantly, you can guess people were disappointed.

http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/

So here is the question I heard everyone get so angered about. In times like these when the world is suffering through a recession or even worse a depression, should we continue to spend on scientific projects?

Now ... I am going to avoid all temptation to spill my guts onto this page (believe me that is extremely hard to do) as I really want to know your thoughts. I want to understand what you think about the situation, and more importantly why. I love to understand others points of views, so I will bite my tongue in hopes of hearing some of your thoughts out there.

Please click the comment section and simply jot down your thoughts for me and others to peruse. I know we have lots of readers here, with over 330 page hits, and 40 unique visitors !

First Dip

Today was a another first for my little guy Gaven, his very first swim. We went to the local pool and prepared for what was to be baby's first dip into water (except bath time of course)

You never know what you are going to get from the little guys when you get them into the water, some cry, some scream and kick frantically, while others just seem to not care at all. Gaven certainly fell into that later category. We got him into the water, he just looked around studying it and all his surroundings, not seeming to mind at all.

As Gaven gets older I notice that he is a curious little fellow. Old work friends from Thermadyne mentioned it in his first photos I had sent back to them that he is always more interested in the camera, or rather trying to figure out how it works then anything else. He seems to be a "studier" or inquisitive baby ... always trying to figure out how everything works. I suppose this means that he will take everything apart like I did as a child frustrating my parents :-) (Man the universe has a sick sense of ironic humor )

International Year of astonomy

Okay .. I am a geek ... yes I said it a GEEK.

I know, I know .. most of you already know this, but for some of you that might not have known me for years it might not have quite sunk in yet. I admit it and am almost proud of the fact that I love geeky things. For years I would spend countless hours outdoors with my scope taking photographs of the night sky (all before i got married and had kids of course)

So this is officially the international year of astronomy and I wanted to help spread the word to all of those out there that might not be aware. I am a believer of understanding our place in this vast universe, and how everything surrounding us works in ever so intricate ways. I feel that the sheer beauty of astronomical event, celestrial bodies, and vast nebulae are unrivaled amongst anything in nature.

Yes, I have even been brought to tears, full blow tears peering through my telescope at the sheer awe and beauty of things like the rings of Saturn. For those of you who have never actually witnessed these things first hand, this is your year. Get out to a local astronomy club, I guarantee people will be willing to allow you to use the scope and see these things first hand yourself. This is something I feel everyone should experience once in their lifetime.

Please take some time and read through some of these sites, find events near you, get outside and stare up at the wonders that lay above us each night. Take your friends, your family, your loved ones and enjoy the night sky.

http://www.astronomy2009.org/

http://toronto.rasc.ca/content/TorontoAstroFestival09.shtml

Okay ... here we go ... rant time.

I have a problem, a small problem with how some auto manufacturers are presenting, wait ... falsely presenting the next generation of automobiles. Not only do I have a problem with how the manufactures are presenting this, but I have an even larger problem with how eagerly and blindly the general populous is accepting these new truths. What am I talking about... Interested yet ?? Today’s rant is about the electric car.

Enter GM (General Motors) and the newly appointed “Volt”. This vehicle is slated for release in 2010, and has been highly touted as the “solution” to the petroleum propelled vehicles that have dominated the markets for the past 100 years or more. This car will run off 100 % electric power, no gasoline or diesel, just electricity. Sounds great right? The solution to all our oil problems plaguing the world right?

The other day I was on the train, listening to people talk about the new car and the advertisement they had recently seen. These two individuals seem so assured, so positive, so enamoured with the concept of this car that it was to end the world dependency on oil. That we were finally going to have a “zero carbon footprint” automobile available for purchase and we could all be part of the solution. I bit my tongue for a while during the conversation, but then finally gave in and had to discuss with them.

First I had to ask, where did you hear the term “zero carbon footprint”? It was so outlandish t me that I had to explain what this term meant, and how falsely misleading this was. First off I asked where this electricity comes from. And then proceeded to explain how our power consumption nationally breaks down. Over 1/3 of the power in our country is from fossil fuels... the very thing that the automobile was supposed to avoid right?

Nuclear FleetGenerating Capacity: 6,606 MWStations: 32007 Output: 44.2 TWh
Currently Generating:
6216 MW

Hydroelectric FleetGenerating Capacity: 6,972 MWStations: 642007 Output: 31.9 TWh
Currently Generating:
4754 MW

Fossil-Fuelled FleetGenerating Capacity: 8,577 MWStations: 52007 Output: 29.0 TWh
Currently Generating:
3080 MW

Next consider all the other non renewable sources that are in the automobile, rubber, plastics, chemicals, paints. Or how about all the infrastructure that is used to either store or transport the electricity to your home? Where am I going with all of this rant? It is simple; I truly wish that the auto manufactures would stay clear of terms like “zero carbon footprint” when this is so false. There is a HUGE carbon footprint for the vehicle, and all the power used by the driver.

Please do not take this rant to mean that I am against electric cars like the volt, rather the opposite; I fell they are a great step forward. I do wish however that the marketing guru’s would figure out another way to sell the products rather than using “buzz words” to fool the consumer sheep into making a noble choice.

~ Hocky night in canada~

Sorry about the lack of posting over the last few days ... but something more meaningful will have to wait until tomorrow.

I am heading to the Toronto Mapleleafs game this eve, and wont have time to post
:-)

Come on back tomorrow, I will have something worth while ... promise

Humans and Music

How is it no matter what human culture you study in any period of time have music as a central part of their being? Evolution of tribal rituals, chants, drums sessions ... all the way to modern day rock or techno for that matter. Music is a singularity we all share in some form as humans.

Take for example my sons smile when he learned how to clap his hands and find simple rhythms in his nursery rhymes. I believe this searching of pleasing patterns is something that is a gift from within. Something we are all born with, and some learn to externalize it better than others becoming musicians.

I wish more people would treat others in their lives as we do amateur musicians. We never scorn them for missing a note, or perhaps hitting one incorrectly. We rather encourage them to try again, seek out improvement from the last passing. Why is it we cannot do the same in our day to day lives? If someone makes a mistake, encourage them to try again and improve upon the last attempt? So, as we’d forgive the amateur musician and encourage their growth, we should forgive our fellow humans’ actions.

We all hit wrong notes ... we are only human

The polar bear experience

First off let me welcome everyone to the year 2009. I hope it is as great as you want, and can make it

Since returning to Canada from my time in Texas, I have been known to complain or even periodically bitch about the extreme cold here in Canada. This comes as a shock to people who remember me as a ski instructor who would spend days outdoors in the -30 weather teaching.
Well since my time in the south, man do I ever miss the south sometimes, my blood had thinned and I am unable to adjust back to the colder climate. So what is one to do? How does one overcome this? I decided to take an extremist approach to the matter and take a plunge. What type of plunge you might ask … the polar bear plunge.





While most of you were sleeping off new year’s hangovers, or relaxing under your down filled covers, I got up early, and silently headed out for a dip in lake Ontario with hundreds of other “crazy” individuals. I did not tell anyone I was doing it, not family, not friends. This was intentional as I did not want to hear any negativity that might convince me otherwise from doing this.

The polar bears club get up each new year’s morning, head down to the icy waters of lake Ontario, and that it right, take off their clothing run into the water, and dance around frantically trying to pretend that it is not cold. They get pledges to raise money for a charity of choice; this year was a clean water fund for Rwanda.

http://www.polarbeardip.ca/

The experience … well let’s just say I will never do it again. I neither found it exhilarating nor refreshing as people had described. Simply cold, bitterly bone chilling cold. Too look on the bright side however; I did achieve two greater goals by doing this. One, helped out a good cause and got a new year’s resolution out of the way early this year. Two, now the mornings do not seem quite as cold and I am better prepared to fight the cold Canadian winter months.

Edit -- blog just hit 200 visits :) thanks for reading