Smoking or non-smoking?

I’m not a smoker, and I despise the scent of cigarette smoke. Indeed, possibly the only thing I loathe more than the stench of cigarettes is the bilious aroma of pot, which if you live in Vancouver, as I do, is unavoidable in certain parts of town.

I want to be crystal clear on the following point: if I were king for a day, I would ban all smoking, period. I don’t care how “medicinal” your pot is; I don’t care how addicted you are to nicotine; I don’t care how nice your pipe smells or how tasty your Cuban cigar is with that glass of port – if I’m king for a day, boom, gone. Never to be seen again.

While I have little sympathy for either smokers or tobacco companies, I nevertheless feel bothered by yesterdays Supreme Court decision that allows provinces to sue tobacco companies for smoking-related healthcare costs.

Let’s be clear – the Supreme Court was only speaking to the constitutionality of the law, not, and let me emphasize this again, not about whether or not said attempts to sue will be successful; but I have a problem with is the galling hypocrisy of the provinces suing tobacco companies for smoking-related healthcare costs.

This might seem to be a paradoxical position, but for at least twenty years, and possibly longer but I’m only going by my own personal experience, cigarette companies have been telling people “hey, our product is poisonous and might kill you!” That it was government regulation that required these warning labels is beside the point – the labels have been there! Let’s also not forget the millions of dollars that the federal government has spent on ads and education initiatives to tell people (and especially teens) that smoking is bad for you. Endless studies have shown the potential and real harm that result from smoking.

So, there is no excuse for any individual to claim ignorance of the risks – smoking is bad for you. Not might be, will be, or could be – IS! It costs our healthcare system a lot of money to treat people’s smoking-related illnesses.

But wait a minute. Governments at both the federal and provincial level have been complicit with the continued sale of tobacco. They collect huge amounts of taxes from cigarettes – billions of dollars annually. Some pundits claim that the amount we spend on healthcare for smoking-related illness is actually pretty close to the amount of taxes we already collect on tobacco.

Furthermore, cigarettes are trivial to get. Compared to beer, wine, and spirits, which are only available at government operated liquor stores or specialty private shops, cigarettes are available almost everywhere – corner stores, gas stations, grocery stores, … The list is almost endless. If the provincial government made cigarettes as difficult to buy as booze, I might have more sympathy with their attempts to sue.

I don’t like the tobacco companies and I wish smoking would go away, but this is hypocrisy writ large.

The Monkeys Are On Trial Again

In the United States, the ugly debate over evolution has erupted again. Parents in Pennsylvania have taken the Dover school district to court over their insertion of intelligent design into the science (specifically biology) curriculum.

The parents claim it's an attempt to reintroduce religion into the schools contrary to the US Supreme Court ruling on separation of church and state.

Proponents of intelligent design (ID) claim that it is simply a “competing scientific theory” of life on earth and therefore is perfectly valid to teach.

Many people make the assumption that evolution means Darwin, but he was only the beginning. Darwin himself admitted that his theory had problems, but we have accumulated a lot of supporting evidence in the century plus since his book On the Origin of the Species was first published.

My intent is not to take up the debate between ID and the theory of evolution. While I will hereby declare up front that I'm firmly in the evolution camp, my intent is to show that ID does not belong in science class. My thanks in advance to the Great Spaghetti Monster for His divine providence and assistance.

The word theory in science has a very specific meaning. It means that someone had a hypothesis, a set of reasoned and logical assumptions that can be tested. A hypothesis can fail testing. A hypothesis becomes a theory when it is tested and the test can be repeated with the same result.

All scientific theories are also open to revision if new data comes along. This has happened countless times in the course of human history. More importantly, it is an open process; the validity of a theory is not shrouded by secrecy, hand waving, a magician’s black box, or smoke and mirrors. If you don’t think a theory is valid, you can go and test it. You are even free to use work that has come before to see how the theory evolved (there’s that nasty loaded word again!)

Therefore, the theory of evolution firmly belongs, right along with the theories of gravity or Newtonian physics say, in science class.

ID on the other hand is a notion immune to empirical study and falsification, a word that in this context means the ability to disprove it. We are simply supposed to accept that some creator waved its noodly appendage and set the world in motion.

That is not science. This is the presentation of an alternative that is de facto immune to empirical study and falsification and trying to get it wedged into the science curriculum.

The theory of evolution does not attempt to explain how the world was created, but rather the mechanism by which change takes place. ID proponents are exhibiting the classic logical fallacy known as the straw man argument, namely "evolution does not adequately explain how the world was created, and we know that the creator waved his noodly appendage and set the world in motion!" That's nice. Evolution isn't about how the world was created.

Science does not claim or attempt to prove or disprove the existence of God or a creator, noodly appendages or no. Therefore, we shouldn’t undermine an entire system of inquiry that serves us well in our human and secular attempts to understand how the world works.

Ideas about how the world came to be belongs firmly in philosophy class where ideas, rhetoric (in the classic rather than pejorative sense), logic, and open debate can be freely exchanged.

Children should be taught about the gaps in evolutionary theory. This might spark intellectual curiosity on their part and perhaps lead some to become scientists who develop satisfactory explanations for those gaps. Maybe some of those gaps cannot be filled with our current level of technology and understanding. There are many things we now know and take for granted that had a mystical belief or explanation in the past.

Either way, students should not be taught it is acceptable science to fill those gaps with mystical supposition.

ID is not a scientific theory, and therefore has no place in a science class.

Frackmusik

The date was the 31^st of December 1999. I was in a melancholy mood, being alone and also officially on call just in case for the great Y2K non-event. I rented a movie and bought a bottle of Asti. The Asti was cold, refreshing, and delicious. The movie was The Harmonists.

I’ve been smitten with the music of the Comedian Harmonists ever since hearing it that fateful night. Larger than life, they were arguably the world’s greatest musical act of their time. Formed in depression era Germany, they took the world by storm into the 1930’s until the Reichskulturkammer banned them from performing; in part it was that half of them were Jewish. In part it was that the prevailing artistic climate was, shall we say, not kindly inclined toward that kind of music – it wasn’t epic or patriotic enough. Ahem.

Nevertheless, the group split in two. The three who left Germany continued their performances in prewar Europe, Australia and the United States usually under the banner of the Comedy Harmonists, while those who remained and performed in Germany became known as the Meistersextett, the name Comedian Harmonists having been forbidden along with the three Jewish members. The former lost popularity with the outbreak of World War II, while the latter were simply eventually banned outright.

Since that night, I’ve managed to collect quite an assortment of their music, which I’ve recently learned is often known as Frackmusik; frack, in English, means “evening dress”, specifically the tux jacket with tails and all that implies.

Through Internet happenstance, I stumbled across Ensemble Six, who have revived the genre and have a large number of Comedian Harmonists songs in their repertoire. Andreas Wellen, one of the Ensemble Six tenors, has a project to collect all 179 78rpm recordings of the Comedian Harmonists and put them out on CD. The first set of CD’s was printed last year; the rest of the project is temporarily on hold.

I made the rather silly assumption that the Comedian Harmonists were the example, singular, of the genre, never mind that The Revelers from the United States were one of their big inspirations. They just happen to have history on their side; after all, there is a lot of material available about them, including many CD’s of their music.

While there were many groups that were their contemporaries, who themselves had good songs, you won’t likely get to hear any of it unless you buy the modern Ensemble Six renditions on their recent CD, Zieh Dich Wieder An, Wir Gehn Ins Bett, (translated: Put Your Clothes Back On, We’re Going to Bed!) It is a collection of songs by 1930’s Frackmusik groups that are all quite amusing and entertaining in their own right. I particularly like Mein Bruder Macht Beim Tonfilm die Geräusche (translated: My Brother Makes the Sounds for the Movies, although the reactions to "My Brother is a Foley Artist" are more fun).

I’m both happy and thrilled that Ensemble Six are around, and I hope they produce more CD’s for my collection. To them I say, “Viel Glück und viel Erfolg!”

Cycle Paths

Vancouver’s a city where you’re expected to have the right gear for whatever sporting activity you participate in. If you’re a cyclist, you’re supposed to have the look – the de rigueur gortex jacket, full coverage lycra cycling pants (or cycling shorts), the right shoes – cleats optional for mountain bikes, and oh so fashionable wraparound (e.g. Oakley) sunglasses. This informs the casual observer that you own a bicycle and might occasionally ride it.

I live on one of the designated cycle paths in Vancouver and after my daughter was born, seeing as going to the gym as often as I used to was not going to be in the cards, I bought a bicycle. Of course, it was six weeks before I actually finally rode it, but I have used it ever since. I admit up front that I don’t want to ride in the rain or the freezing cold or the dark – in part it’s because I don’t want to invest in all the gear. In part it’s because I do have a membership at the YWCA, and they have ample facilities to meet my fitness needs in the “it’s not fun to be outside anymore” season.

I love my bicycle, and in the two years I've owned it, I’ve been using it more and more for mundane things like picking up take out on the Drive (I managed to get from my place to Memphis Blues, pick up the platter I’d ordered, and get back in under 15 minutes – I can’t even drive there and back that fast).

But the thing I enjoy the most is Sunday morning rides around Stanley Park – it almost exactly 30km round trip from my front door, around the sea wall, and back.

On my ride yesterday, I noticed my back tire was kind of mushy just as I got to the tourist info area at Coal Harbour. I looked back and my tire was definitely low, so I stopped, pulled out the tire pump and … pssssshhtt! … goes the tire. Fortunately I had a spare innertube and patch kit (best $6 I've spent). I’ve never replaced one before, but it only took about 15 minutes, and replaced innertube securely in place and inflated, I decided to head home instead of around the sea wall.

Good thing too, because just as I was riding past Provence Marinaside in Yaletown, the back tire went flat again! This time I notice a puncture in the tire, and hear the air hissing out. Merde.

I walked the bike to the Stadium skytrain station and took the skytrain home.

But I still got a good workout!

This Sunday was probably my final ride for the season. I got a late start this year, but after getting the bicycle a spring “tune up” and installing the bike computer I got for Christmas, up to yesterday I managed to get about 335km in (thank you bike computer odometer).

Singing in Italian

Opera was invented in Italy near the end of the 16th century to recreate the classic Greek drama experience, as it was believed that the parts of the Chorus were sung.

Indeed, most of the Greek tragedies that we know and love included a chorus, and some manuscripts include some form of musical notation. Unfortunately, the meaning of these notations are lost to history, and nobody knows how to interpret them. There's no Rosetta Stone for the music.

Since the Italians invented opera, it's not a big surprise that they were all, at least originally, written in Italian. However, as opera naturally evolved and changed over time, the language stopped being exclusively Italian. French composers started using French librettos, British composers started using English librettos, and German composers ... kept using Italian librettos.

Why did German composers like Mozart continue writing their operas in Italian?

The answer, oddly enough, is that Italian is easy to sing. Italian has no dipthongs in the language whatsoever, and the vowel set only uses one primary pronunciation. Note that in making this statement, I am using "proper" Italian as the basis; no doubt there are regional accents and exceptions, as there are to any linguistic rule one cares to name. With German on the other hand, dipthongs abound and there are numerous ways of interpreting the vowels with every sound from long to short to umlauts possible.

Mozart didn't exclusively write Italian operas of course, but the three he is most famous for, namely The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi Fan Tutti all are.

Barbecue Sauce

In the kitchen, I like to know how to make things so I don't have to buy them. For instance, I routinely make my own salad dressing; I haven't bought bottled premade salad dressing in years.

On the other hand, many condiments I just buy. Take mayonnaise for example. I know how to make it, I have made it on occasion, but generally I find it more convenient to put a jar into the shopping cart. I've never made mustard or ketchup, and while they're easy enough, they fall into the same laziness category as mayo.

One condiment that I love is barbecue sauce. There are a few I like out there, but on the whole, commercially made barbecue sauces aren't all that great. For the past few years I've been experimenting with my own recipe. Lest anyone think I've devoted huge amounts of time to this enterprise, my consumption of barbecue sauce is quite small, and a 1 litre batch lasts me quite a long time. That disclaimer aside, I've dabbled with barbecue sauce making about half a dozen times.

I needed some earlier this week, and I decided not only to make a batch, but to be bold and experimental and just wing it.

Well, hot damn, if I didn't make the best barbecue sauce I've ever made. I wrote the recipe down in my kitchen journal and it's now my official canonical barbecue sauce. Sweet yet spicy with just the right amount tang and smoke (and for the record, I didn't use any liquid smoke), and best of all, the right consistency. Previous sauces were on the runny side. This stuff is perfect.

No, I'm not going to post the recipe. :-)

Zut Alors!

Well, my intended travel plans for a study-travel in Scotland towards my MA have been alas been cancelled.

There are many reasons... but the main one is money.

The course, three weeks in Scotland, is $3,800 per person. This was only a little bit more than I expected (I was expecting in the realm of $3,200-3,400 for the whole thing, but the $3,800 figure would have included a rental car at my family's disposal so my wife and daughter could do something off-tour).

The $3,800 includes the following: all travel within Scotland, all accomodations, all breakfasts and dinners, most lunches (but the places we would have stayed in had kitchenette facilities), and admissions to all the various sites on the itinerary. Not bad value for the money! I must hasten to add that SFU travel study is run on a cost-recovery basis - that is, there's no "profit" margin built into that price. If I went out to replicate the itinerary day for day, I would probably even end up paying more since I wouldn't be getting any group rates.

But outside the base price, the costs started to escalate. Airfare, what's currently available for the dates in question, was going to add about $3,400 to the mix. I know that you can get $600-700 flights to Glasgow from Vancouver right now at flightcentre.ca, but that's for travel in the very near future. Come May, those fares might still hold, but I'm not willing to take the risk.

Then there's the unfortunate surprise that in order to get course credit for it, I would have to pay the tuition equivalent to one course, which, factoring in textbooks, adds another $1,000. I should have expected the need to pay tuition above and beyond, but still...

A $12,000 commitment before even buying one dram of whisky in a Scottish pub.

$12,000 is "trip of a lifetime" money.

I'm sure Scotland is a beautiful country (and my wife assures me it is), but it's not a trip of a lifetime destination.

So no travel study this year. As I won't be done my MA until 2008, there's always the summer of 2007's travel study trip, wherever it might be. Last year's trip was four weeks in Italy and Switzerland; this year is the Scottish trip; next year's is yet to be announced, but will undoubtedly be somewhere in Europe again.

Teacher Teacher, What Can You Teach Me?

There has been a lot in the news lately about the possibility of a teacher strike here in BC.

Indeed, from the newpaper headline hyperbole level and the shrieking harpies on radio call in shows, you'd think they were already on strike when they haven't even had the vote yet; a strike vote is being held by the BC Teachers Federation BCTF starting today, we should know the results by the end of the week.

The only thing missing is parents on the human interest segment of the evening news wailing "Think of the children! Oh, won't somebody please think of the children!"

I've been following this story a little more closely than I might have in the past since my daughter would be starting school around the time the next contract would theoretically be due to expire, assuming they have a three year deal in place like most public contracts tend to be.

Some facts first. For over a decade now, there has not been a negotiated settlement between the BCTF and the Public School Employers Association (PSEA). Every single contract has been legislated by the provincial government. Yesterday, the government appointed a "fact finder" to hopefully find some middle ground, as the PSEA has said they and the BCTF are at an irreconcilable impasse.

The PSEA is offering 0%, 0%, and, no drum roll required, 0%. A friend and classmate in my grad program is a teacher in Burnaby and she said that she has not had a raise in 5 years. I'm not going to dig into the details to see if there were some benefits improvement in that time, but I think that this fits my recollection of the past few teacher deals. The PSEA claims the BCTF is demanding over 35% in wages and benefits increases.

The BCTF for its part says that the figure is both ridiculous and contrived, seeing as they haven't even tabled their demands. They did say yesterday that they are looking to get a cost of living increase and also some level of parity with Alberta and Saskatchewan, both of whom pay a fair bit more than BC does.

I know it's popular to bash the public sector as both lazy and greedy, but a 0-0-0 offer sucks. I got a 2% raise last year, and about the same the year before that, and will probably get something along the same lines next year. If I can get a 2% raise, then why can't they? Oh, right, I forgot, these are lazy greedy public trough feeders. Never mind that it would probably mean fewer opportunities for the government to give tax cuts to the rich.

Those who are facing the possibility of a strike from the student side of the equation are trotting out the same tired old arguments: teachers shouldn't be allowed to strike because they're an essential service (like nurses I guess - someone might die!); the burden on families who suddenly have to take care of the kids because there's no school (and what did you do this summer?); and the best one I've heard, "there are no other options, the school system is a monopoly!"

The last one is no joke, I heard that one this morning on my way in to work from none other than the parents association (what was once called the PTA, but I don't recall offhand what the acronym is these days). They should know better - with the number of home-schooled children on a steady rise and the availability of private schools (albeit for those who can afford it), it's a bald faced lie; it gets good headlines though.

I also love the statements you often hear that teachers don't work that many hours and have all those vacation days in the summer. I'm not a teacher myself, but I know several people who are or have been, and they work harder and put in more hours than I do. Another argument that's been popular, especially on the facile yes-no radio call in shows is that if the teachers don't like it, they should quit and get another job.

You know what? The best, brightest, most creative, and most talented teachers have been doing just that. They're leaving because they've had enough and they're smart and talented enough to get something else. Some might even have stayed in teaching in a private school, but most will have left the profession entirely.

Great! The best and brightest are leaving because they can, leaving the average ones, the truly dedicated ones, the fresh from university ones, and the ones too close to retirement to quit. Need we mention the thankfully small minority who might love to leave but can't because they aren't one of the best and brightest?

This isn't the system I want for my daughter, or for the people who will be teaching her. We pay a lot of lip service to how important teachers are, and how important our kids are for the future. I guess lip service will have to do since there doesn't appear to be any cash coming.

Arr Me Mateys!

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Everybody should do their part and Y'arr!

If you need help getting into the mood, head over to fidius.org and get your Pirate name.

I'm Dirty Roger Kidd. Y'arr!!! My daughter's Iron Ethel Flint, and my wife's Mad Dog Flint. Flint's they may be, but they're part of the Kidd clan now, y'arrrrr!!!

Advanced Education Redux

While I wrote here yesterday about the UCFV press release, one thing I did not mention is that I wrote to the UCFV communications office. In my email to them, I said essentially what I wrote here yesterday – that they could have phrased things a little better.

Jane Jacobs in her book Dark Age Ahead writes about what I’ll dub credential creep; what used to be elite education (a university degree) has increasingly become mass education. With the societal push for everyone to become a certified whatever, the piece of paper has almost become more relevant than the skill it’s supposed to certify.

It’s only reasonable that universities (and university colleges, and community colleges, and anyone who can hang out a sign saying “get a certificate in …”) are trying to get a piece of the action.

I won’t reproduce the entire UCFV response here, but I will highlight a few passages.

“The evolution of universities from university-colleges is not unprecedented. UBC was once a university-college under the auspices of McGill University; UVic was once a university-college under the auspices of UBC. …. We believe that this natural development will increase the credibility of our degrees, including those that have gone before.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what how I feel they should have said it in the first place.

One other excerpt:

“Over the years we have had to verify the value of our degrees to various places that did not know what a university college is. For example, President Bassford has written to graduate schools explaining that we are full members of AUCC, that we are a public BC institution and that our programs are all vetted and approved by the province's ministry of advanced education. There simply is a tendency for many people to rate a credential more highly if it has the "university" name attached to it. This is truly unfortunate, because the situation is one of perception rather than reality.”

I wish them success in their campaign. Hopefully they'll come up with a suitable name - anything except Fraser University!

Advanced Education

My Alma Mater, the University College of the Fraser Valley (UCFV) had a press release today stating they wish to ascend to full university status, much like the former University College of the Cariboo is now Thompson River University. The full text of the press release is here.

There is one part of the press release that irked me, namely the statement from Skip Bassford, president of UCFV, that “changing the name would increase the credibility of degrees earned by our graduates, [emphasis mine] enhance our reputation nationally and internationally, and simply make it easier for people to understand what we do.”

Now hang on a minute. What exactly is being said here? Is the implication that somehow I wasted my tuition money and school time by not going to a “real” university? Good thing I’m getting a masters degree at Simon Fraser University! Who knows what would have happened to my education if I’d attended a school that wasn’t “credible”.

Ok, I am engaging in a bit of hyperbole here, but the point remains. I went to UCFV for many reasons, not the least of which being that they were a degree granting institution covered under the University Act. The importance in attending a recognized institution is to ensure yourself and others that you didn’t get involved with some fly-by-night organization that may not give you a worthwhile education.

A Ministry of Education website says, “Students in British Columbia have many institutions and programs to choose from. Whether you decide on a public institution or a private institution, it is your responsibility as a student to ensure the program and institution you choose is a good fit with your educational priorities and expectations.” [emphasis mine]

I agree wholeheartedly with this. Apart from getting the education you want in the first place, I don’t see why college vs. university-college vs. university should be a make or break issue.

A former professor of mine at UCFV also puts this spin on it, “While I do think that there is modest attention paid to the place in which one studies, in my opinion, the real value in becoming a degreed person in our society has more to do with the qualities of the person one becomes through the process, than does the name of the institution that one attended, or, for that matter, with whom one studies. It is not that these latter things are of no consequence. But attending a 'recognized' institution or program is often a 'sufficient' condition for one's future, but a more 'necessary' condition is the judgment about who that person became through the process. Some of you who have been with me in class may recognize my distinction between ‘getting a degree’ and ‘becoming degreed’.” [emphasis mine]

Of course, I’m probably getting irked for nothing. UCFV is trying to become a full-fledged university with all its attendant trappings. The comment that somehow this will make their degree more “credible” is just marketing spin, plain and simple. Still, they could have at least tried to spin it without demeaning the alumni and the institution!

UCFV is a great place, really. I enjoyed my time there even if the commute from Vancouver was sometimes tedious, and the quality of instruction was fabulous. I wish them every success in continuing to serve the needs of BC students.

Lamb

By good fortune, my winemaking friend knows people up the valley (the Fraser Valley) that raise sheep, pigs, and chickens. The critters are well cared for and free range, and the quality of the meat is excellent. At the start of the "growing season" I put in order for a whole lamb, a side of pork, and some chickens (turns out I'll be getting four).

I was told today my lamb is at the butcher's, and that I'd be getting a call soon for cutting instructions.

The cutting's being done by Davis Meats on Mt. Lehman Road in Abbotsford and they are splendid. They know their meats, they know their cuts, and if you want the "offal", namely the liver and bones and all that, they're more than happy to package it all up for you (unlike many places).

$3.49 for whole lamb, top quality, cut the way I like. YUM!

I can hardly wait for my side of pork, coming next month!

The Sweet Smell of ... Smoke?

I can’t abide cigarette smoke (although pot is far far worse on my scale of unpleasant scents), yet I generally like the smell of pipe smoke and a very small selection of cigars. In general, I find smoky hazy places uncomfortable and unpleasant.

I mention this in passing because Burns Bog is on fire and a pall of smoke haze and a gentle rain of ash is settling over the lower mainland. It has irritated the asthma of several people I know, and has been quite irritating to those colleagues of mine who live in the vicinity of the bog.

Still, when I went out at lunch yesterday I couldn’t help thinking the aroma, while cloying, was not unpleasant. Indeed, there was certain sweetness in it, and I found myself smacking my lips a little and thinking food thoughts.

It wasn’t until last night that it struck me – of course! Single malt! The sweet peaty aroma reminded me of scotch.

Figures. Most people find the smoke from the fire annoying, and here I am finding something pleasant about it.

Into the culinary realm, I like many smoked foods, from pretty much everything available at the JN&Z Deli, to my dad’s smoked salmon, locally available apple wood smoked cheddar, and I’ve even made tea smoked chicken. On my list of things to build, buy, or find is a smoker I can use in my back yard.

Maybe I can sneak some peat and test it out on a batch of sausages.

Singing All Day

Singing all day, singing 'bout nothing,
Singing all day, singing 'bout nothing,
Singing all day, singing 'bout nothing,
Oh, my, my, my, oh, my, my, my.

Jethro Tull, “Singing All Day”,
from the album Living in the Past

Last night was the first class of my Opera in Context course, and it was a lot of fun. The professor, Rodney, is absolutely passionate about music and it’s a joy and a pleasure to listen to him. It’s going to be a great semester.

One thing we talked about, tangential to opera per se, but relevant even so was – when and why do we sing? After all, in opera, there is a lot of singing (and dialogue, and melodrama, and recitative)

If you think about it, we seldom sing at all anymore. We sing to children (although Rodney mentioned on his last trip to Toronto, he saw advertisements for a course for new mothers to learn how to sing to their children). We sing “Happy Birthday”. We might sometimes sing at a funeral or a wake or similar situation.

But in our quotidian lives, we hardly ever sing.

For myself, I like singing, even though I have no training and possibly sing off key – still, I don’t see why I shouldn’t indulge in such a simple pleasure. Maybe more of us should!

"New Orleans is sinking man and I don't wanna swim"

With a nod of appreciation to the Tragically Hip for the title of this post.

One of the nice things about my summer vacation was that I missed most of the news, had no internet access until I got home, and only was peripherally aware of what was going on in the world.

The hurricane that has simply become known as the disaster named Katrina did a lot of damage, including to the levies that protected New Orleans.

New Orleans was once a beautiful city. It's too bad that I didn't have the opportunity to visit before its essential destruction.

But here a comment; to the mayor of New Orleans, the governor of Louisiana, and the US feds, who have all said "we will rebuild!", don't.

Don't dig out the mud and toxic sludge that was once a city. There are times to wipe the slate clean and start again, and this is one of them. The New Orleans of old is gone. The French Quarter is destroyed, rebuild it above sea level.

It won't cost any more to build anew than to rebuild, and it will be better. Let the sea wash away what's left and build on higher ground.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Ah, summer vacation. It’s a time when you get to flee the city and the domestica that commands your time even when you're not actually working. In theory, you get to decompress and enjoy yourself.

We were all more than ready for a break. It had been far too long since we'd fled the confines of the city and home and we started our trip with several days in Logan Lake.

Logan Lake is a small town about half an hour from Kamloops. It was originally built to house the workers at the Ashcroft mine, but nowadays only 10% of the residents work at the mine. Many people are starting to flee the rising real estate prices in Kamloops and looking to Logan Lake a bedroom community. What might have been a $150K home as little ago as March would now sell in the $200K range, although that's still cheap by Vancovuer standards.

We went to visit my friend D, who retired there from Victoria and is really enjoying the rural life. It's close enough to the "big city" (Kamloops being the 3rd largest city in BC after Vancouver and Victoria) for all the amenities one might need, and far enough away that two or three cars is a lot of traffic. It's also higher up in the hills so even though it can get almost as hot as Kamloops during the day, it cools off quite nicely at night. Even so, it seldom snows in winter and doesn't get much below -10C.

It's really a nice small town, and I hope that by the time I want to retire and flee the large city for something a little quieter, that I end up in a place like that.

There are several provincial parks in the area, including many lakes, and the amount of wildlife to be seen is quite lovely. I had some fun trying out "quadding" for the first time ever - riding one of those 4WD ATV's. They have a lot of torque and can take you over some amazing terrain, and they don't behave one bit like motorcycles...

On the subject of provincial parks, there are several of them between Vancouver and Kamloops off the Coquihalla highway, but there are no signs! We had thought it would be nice to stop for lunch in one of them along the way to visit Logan Lake. Perhaps some of the tolls could be rolled into some signage? Hello!

My good friend is working on a travel photography book, and I think he's eminently qualified – he’s been shooting between 125-150 rolls of film a year for about 40 years now, and if anyone has an opinion about photos and their relative quality, it'll be him.

He's broken down and purchased a digital camera, a Canon D20, which he considers, compared to his Leica film cameras, a piece of junk. However, he knows that just like VHS won over Beta, digital photography has won over film. Indeed, he is finding it difficult to get film processed these days; it’s very quickly becoming a niche market. Many of the premium films have vanished, B&W film is becoming hard to find; in short, an era is passing (if not already gone).

My good friend C, who was best man at my wedding, is also a shutterbug. He says that every time he spends a few days with me, he has an overwhelming urge to cook for about two weeks afterwards. I take it as a great compliment. Similarly, D has the same effect on me with respect to photography. I sometimes regret not buying that used Leica he had for sale.

Having recovered from city life in the country, we spent a pleasant half-day traveling to Summerland on Lake Okanagan. My daughter had a delightful time at the beach, and we bought some “eat now!” plums and pears, more than we could possibly eat, for only $1 per bag.

We only stayed one night in Summerland and then headed south to Oliver, with a shopping stop in Penticton on the way. Penticton is home to the best used bookstore in BC in my opinion. I haven’t encountered any other shops with as much selection as they do. I bought a biography of Orwell, the complete works of Oscar Wilde, and a book called The Turk about a mechanical chess playing machine from the early 1800’s.

Oliver is a beautiful small town; we’ve stayed there several times on getaways. It bills itself as the wine capital of Canada, and given the plethora of vineyards in the area, it would be hard to argue with them.

The treat of the entire trip was staying at the guesthouse at the Tinhorn Creek Winery. We had a gift certificate for a two night stay there – a good friend gave it to us because she doesn’t drink wine, but I think had she known she might not have cared. The house was beautiful! Expansive views of the valley, nestled right among the vines (Syrah was closest to the house), a pool, and more square feet than our place in Vancouver, even though it was a one bedroom. Just to make things complete, our names were on the sign as you entered the winery tasting room, “Tinhorn welcomes its special guests…” If that weren’t enough, there were two bottle of wine for us in the house – their pinot noir, which is good, and a chardonnay.

Now, I’m not a huge chardonnay fan; indeed, as a rule I avoid it. Tinhorn’s was very drinkable though and I daresay I liked it! One of the few chardonnays I like.

Tinhorn does make my favourite BC Gewürztraminer, and their reds are also very nice. I particularly liked the Oldfield Collection Merlot and bought some for the cellar. I signed up for their “Crush Club”, which means I get a 15% discount on all their wines (and any merchandise with their logo) and twice a year I’ll be getting six bottle of wine delivered to my house – whites in spring, reds in fall.

Dinner, with a gorgeous view, was accompanied by the pinot. The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast (with a gorgeous view!), we spent the day in Osoyoos at the beach. It was a delight to let my little gal play in the sand, and the water, and then the sand again, and then the water. She’s a real delight.

That evening, we went for a walk among the vines along the trail that runs through the winery and encountered two of the dogs who live there. Zoe, a friendly border collie, accompanied us up and down the hill and at one point wandered on ahead, went into the vines and started barking. She then scampered back to us and stood beside us as a black face popped out among the rows of syrah – a bear! A cute fuzzy, um, wild, black bear. It was pretty small and given there was a notice that a bear and her cub had been spotted along the trail, it was a good bet this was the cub.

The bear didn’t like our singing so went off into the vines and Zoe walked us back to the house (good dog!). It was splendid.

We also saw other wildlife including a brown and green praying mantis, a pileated woodpecker, quails by the dozen, and many other birds.

The second morning we had pancakes and bacon for breakfast on the deck with a gorgeous view.

Did I mention the view? Spectacular.

We found out during our sojourn that the guesthouse is not available for rent. The absentee owners use it when they’re in town, and they also make it available to folks in the wine trade (by invitation only). Sometimes, they give a gift certificate for a stay to a charity auction – that’s what we had. Maybe they’ll invite us back.

The trip back was uneventful. We stopped at the always interesting Grist Mill museum in Keremeos and had a chance to enjoy a nice picnic lunch and see the latest discoveries on the site. The grist mill was on the Klondike gold rush route and is a mill constructed with belt and pulley systems instead of gears. It was all for the sake of expediency! It's truly a worth a visit if you're in the area. My one disappointment is that they no longer sell the flour they mill there - instead they have flour from ... Chilliwack!

We spent the weekend at my parents place and let them get their fill of playing with their granddaughter. She pulled out all the stops and was her delightful charming best.

We arrived back in Vancouver on Sunday, late in the afternoon, and unpacked an astounding amount of stuff from the car. Who knew you could pack so much into a small car?

Now if only I had more vacation time. Another 48 weeks would suit me fine!