Posts by: adrian
This ol’ blog deserves way more attention from me, but with so much that is blogworthy happening, there’s just no time to write it down. Which is a shame, because that’s why I started it back in 2001. Maybe I will make a better habit of it in the new year? I know I want to.
Anyway, Marjorie and I are Xmassing in Vancouver with the Phillips clan, and then to the island on Boxing Day with the Taverners Senior. Lots to post about. There’s often some opportunity for quiet introspection out in Qualicum Beach. Stay tuned?
Merry Xmas to all. And thank you for checking in. I’m thinking of you, too.
As a sign of how rarely I post, and I suppose of how tiny my readership is now (hi Davin! hi Mom!) I have been participating in Movember since, well, Movember 1st, and I’m only getting around to posting something about it now – Movember 25th. Happy Thanksgiving, Americaland! Happy Black Friday!
Movember is all about men’s health issues. To put it simply, most guys, being guys, would put off going to a doctor until the tumor is riding sidesaddle. We need help not just in spreading awareness that we do, in fact, have health issues, but a little self-awareness – the occasional check up is no bad thing. A little camaraderie and social encouragement is just what the doctor ordered.
If you’d like to learn more, check out the info page here. Please consider helping out my Movember fund raising effort – here’s where you do that. On behalf of your junk, thank you.
Done. Your turn.
Because I overheard a lady say she had no respect for OWS protestors because they had cellphones, and therefore couldn’t be that hard done by:
Imagine that there were no regulation of Vegas casinos. Clever souls still game the system, and still get caught, and still go to prison, but the casinos don’t have the same risk. Just under the radar they shamelessly rake in the cash, and they gleefully come up with new ways of gouging their customers. Some people have an uneasy feeling that they’re being ripped off, but the casinos bring up the excellent point that it’s gambling, right? Sometimes you lose. Fair enough. But then some sharp-eyed observer notes that there doesn’t actually seem to be a way to win. Is she somehow a more reliable observer if she doesn’t own a cell phone?
What?
I worry that the cause of Occupy Wall Street has no convenient sound bite and is thus doomed to failure. I worry that the message is lost on the great majority of the people they are representing (the great majority). I worry that the standard obfuscating tactics of the economic and political right will persist.
In a democratic society, we presumably have the right to choose our leaders. In the US, this comes down to two parties. One side mandates small government and freedom for everyone. The other side mandates freedom for everyone, but not at someone else’s expense. The former gets our votes by convincing us of something called Trickle Down Theory, which says that the rich will take care of you so long as you stay out of their way. The latter gets our votes by convincing us that We’re All In This Together, and that by everyone pitching in for things like education and medicine, the country as a whole becomes stronger. The former wants you to have these things too, but only as much as you’re willing to pay for yourself.
It is because of the former that Americans pay $500 per month for health insurance that may or may not pay out. It is because of the latter that some Canadians pay a quarter of that (most pay nothing at all) and are completely secure in their coverage and quality of care.
It is because of the former that a handful of men were able to game the Securities and Investment system and almost shatter the global economy. It is up to the latter to reign in the economic elite.
I think whether or not I own a cell phone is largely irrelevant, don’t you?
Work-wise, I just wrapped the 4th shoot in three weeks, the app graphics are nearly done, and we have at least one new client. There have been no real days off since M & I got back from our gorgeous (and top-speed) honeymoon in Italy. This, on top of a neighbourhood completely over run with not just Occupy Wall Street and their omnipresent flock of New York’s Finest, but also a legion of trucks, show cars, tents and crew for the next Batman movie. Spoiler: something big goes down on Wall Street. Possibly several somethings. And it snowed yesterday. A lot. Summer, I suspect, has left the building.
Anyway, I have yet to sit in one place long enough to tackle any wedding or honeymoon pictures. We’re only just able to get back to the thank you cards tonight! Speaking of which, back to it I go. Hopefully I’ll get some pics done this week?
There are thousands of pictures from the wedding and our Italian honeymoon, and I will get to them, but I needed to share this one first. I am rich beyond my dreams. Thank you, Marjorie.
I’m married! To Marjorie! We’re in Venice! Last night we laughed, wondering where exactly this whole thing appears on each of our Top 5000 Things Least Likely To Happen about 5 years ago. Two years ago, of course, I had already decided. Oh yes. Done deal.
I promise stories. And more pictures. You can see the first few from the wedding at Marjorie And Adrian under the Photos drop down menu. Wi-Fi is easy enough to find in Italy so far, but time… not so much. We have to go catch a train for Florence. That’s Firenze to the locals.
Wish I had time for a proper update. But I don’t. More later!
Is anyone seriously considering the current roster of Republican contenders? For anything besides comedy? Seriously? Anyone?
Not to take anything away from the thousands of people along the Eastern seaboard who have suffered major damage to their homes (and still are, farther up the coast), but us folk here in Manhattan are feeling a little ripped off. We’re in what was recently the eye of Irene, Category 1 Hurricane, the size of Europe, and is now the empty butt of Irene, Tropical Storm. No big deal. From our perspective in the Flatiron district, it was a rainy night like any other we’ve had this August.
What’s funniest to me is the mob of TV viewers who are upset with the news people. “Much ado about nothing.” I have to imagine that these are the people who won’t bother to pack up and evacuate next time, and they are the ones who will drown in eleven feet of storm surge.
Yep, Manhattan got lucky. I was hoping for a lot more photo opportunity. But I will still pack up just as carefully next time. It’s one thing to be disappointed by an under-performing force of nature, but it’s another thing entirely to ignore the media (and the government) the next time they spend a fortune in resources trying to keep us all alive. Come on guys, just appreciate your good fortune and get on with being mad at the city for dragging ass getting transit back online. Somehow, we have to find a cab to take us home at the same time as 350,000 other New Yorkers.
