Listing calories

I was reading this article about outgoing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg when I was reminded of something I saw in New York that I really liked - calorie counts on the menu. It's not on every menu; I've since learned that it only applies to companies that have 15 or more branches nationwide. Which cleans up some of the confusion I had when I was there. Because I thought it was such an awesome idea I wondered why all of them weren't doing it.

I tried very hard when in New York not to eat at franchises. I wanted to experience unique food when in New York. But the reality was that sometimes I needed wifi and McDonald's has free wifi. That meant buying something to justify spending 30 or 40 minutes in there. I might have gone for a treat that turned out to be a caloritic bomb, but thanks to having the calorie count on the items, I always tried to find the cheapest, and fewest calories, thing on the menu.

This editorial I found from the Economist, which is about a year old, talks a bit about what some of the fallout has been since New York brought in the law. At first blush it doesn't look like it's changed too many habits. But apparently when you drill down a bit, you can see some changes, both in terms of people's behaviour and the businesses behaviour. They don't want to be seen as only offering unhealthy choices, so they expand the options on the menu.

There have always been ideas to get people to eat healthier. I know there's been talk for years about adding a junk food tax, which I never thought was going to work. People would grumble, but they would still pay the extra money. It was just going to be a tax grab rather than a way to get people to eat healthier. I haven't seen the amount of soft drinks consumed go down any with the recycling tax levee that most have these days. Trying to punish people for the choices they make doesn't seem to work all that often.

But informing them of the consequences of the choices they make? Now that could work. It'll take time, but it'll get there, I think. Smoking isn't dead yet, but decades of information campaigns and restrictive laws have done considerable damage. With sugar and obesity the next big health crisis to fight, what's wrong with giving people information on how many calories they're consuming when they have a Big Mac?

It's an idea that's going beyond New York. You'll start to see it across the United States next year, which I obviously think is a good idea. So Canada's next, right?

Nope.

One quick Google search to remind myself if I actually read that Health Minister (and Nunavut MP) Leona Aglukkaq opposed the idea pretty much confirmed it. Once you dig past the bafflegab, you'll read that no, the Government of Canada is not planning on doing this. Which shouldn't be that surprising, really. It's a government opposed to more regulations (see oil and gas, mining industries), that talks about it's concern for the food system and then cuts the budget for food inspectors. Also, the food industry in Canada doesn't want (I assume these were some of the same enlightened people who opposed banning smoking in bars and whatnot) and are talking vaguely about creating something "better" than what they have in the United States.

Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but it worked for me. Any time I look at a menu I'm normally trying to figure out which of about five different items I'm going to get. If I know what the calorie count is, it's going to influence my decision. Maybe I don't get the lowest calorie item, but maybe it persuades me to order something with fewer calories. Which is a good thing, right?

But back to Bloomberg for a moment. I'm sure if I was living in New York I'd have a more complicated view of the mayor. But I like this idea. I like the idea that he's taking on obesity. And I love the quote:

"If I finish my term in office … and have high approval ratings, then I wasted my last years in office. That high approval rating means you don’t upset anybody. High approval rating means you’re skiing down the slope and you never fall. Well, you’re skiing the baby slope, for goodness’ sakes. Go to a steeper slope. You always want to press, and you want to tackle the issues that are unpopular, that nobody else will go after."

Yeah, there are downsides to that attitude, but I still like the idea of it. I think he might have made an interesting president if he had ever taken the plunge.

Last Five

1. Love is a place - Metric

2. Long may your run - Neil Young*

3. Liar, cheater, loser - Colleen Power

4. The forty - Mark Bragg

5. Fantasize - Liz Phair

Housekeeping

1. So the last sealift boat of the season sailed out of town earlier this week. I've heard there was supposed to be one more, but that they cancelled the sailing. I don't have that confirmed, but I can only imagine how frustrating that must be if you had stuff coming up on that boat. Your only option at this point is to get it flown up, which is not exactly a cheap option.

However, if you left stuff until this late to get it up here, well, you were taking a pretty big risk. Yes, the bay has been freezing later in recent years. The last couple it didn't really happen until the end of December/early January. But that's not the norm. And this year has all the feel of being a more normal year. I've already seen some "glaze" on the bay out there. Cathy thinks all the ice we had lurking around this summer kept the water colder than normal, meaning things are more likely to freeze. As good a theory as any. Plus, I know the waters around Arctic Bay are already freezing up. So I suspect our bay will be frozen by early/mid-November at the latest.

2. Last weekend was the annual Cape Dorset Print Sale. This was the seventh one we've attended and we managed to get two prints in all those years. Cathy and I have a basic rule when it comes to these prints, and artwork around the house (with the exception of the comic book art in the office), we both have to like it. So that should tell you something, that in all those years, there have only been two pieces we've agreed upon. We really don't have similar taste in art.

However, this year we found two prints we agreed on, both by Tim Pitsiulak. A couple of really nice whale prints. We liked the third one he had at the show, but agreed it was just too large. We already have two bloody huge Dorset prints on our walls. There's just no room for a third.

The way the Dorset auction works is like this - you go in, say I want to take part and then put your name on one half of the ticket; they give you the other half. About 45 minutes after the start of the show, once everyone has had a chance to walk around and look at the pieces, they start drawing names out of a hat. That's when the moaning and groaning begins as everyone starts lamenting the loss of the piece they wanted.

This year, they had two copies of each piece of artwork, which was unusual. Didn't make any difference to us, though. My name was drawn 45th and the two whales were long since gone at that point. To add insult to injury, Cathy's name was drawn dead last, somewhere in the 60s.

We could put our name in on the wait list to see if any other copies become available, but judging by the number of people rushing to get their name on the list for the whales, we didn't even bother. Still, nice to see Tim's work so much in demand. Next to Ashevak's always stellar pieces, his was the best artwork in this year's collection.

3. It occurs to me the blog is a bit of a mess because of just general neglect so I'll be trying to tidy it up this weekend. A new header, perhaps a new layout, a proper link to the new Tumblr. As well, the Nunavut blogger roll is pretty desperately out of date. If you're a Nunavut blogger and want to be included in the roll, please drop me a line. I'm not slighting you, I promise. I've just gotten very far behind on my Northern blog reading to the point where I'm sure who is out there anymore.

Last Five
1. In the neighbourhood - Tom Waits
2. Hollywood - Jenn Grant*
3. Rich girl - Hall & Oates
4. Summertime kitchen ballad - Josh Rouse
5. Twisted hair - Robbie Robertson

Real estate weirdness

Real estate is one of those things that makes my head want to explode. I guess it's because I never really grew up with it. I remember moving from a basement apartment to a townhouse when I was five, and then move to another nearby house when I was seven. And then that was it. Our house on Drake Crescent is where I grew up and lived well into my 20s. Hell, I even made appearances there in my 30s (not exactly proud of that, but such is life). The rest of my time was spent in apartments. I (well, we) did not buy our first home until I was 39 years old.

Now, a chunk of that was simply not having any money. I remember when I was working in Clarenville and living in a damp basement apartment where the rent was $400 a month and I still needed a roommate to help with the bills. But even then, I recognized there was something fundamentally looney tunes about the real estate market.

People who really couldn't afford to buy houses were going out and getting 35-year-mortgages (see, US housing bubble crash of '08) or banks were throwing money at people who clearly shouldn't be getting money. Or people would be a giddy over how much their house was now valued at. Which is lovely and all, but if you have to sell it, doesn't that mean you have to buy another house to live in, which will probably be just as expensive?

People get weird around houses. Cathy had to twist my arm, put me in a headlock and threaten other forms of torture to convince me to buy our current house back in '09. I wanted nothing to do with it. I really liked our apartment; it was downtown, close to everything, a five minute walk to school for her and had a great view of the bay. Plus I was between jobs and I'm the anti-handyman when it comes to repairing stuff, which I understand you have to do when buying a house. So why buy one?

As it turns out, she was right to pressure me. It's nice to have our own space, to not worry about producing too much noise, or having to endure any manner of weirdness from neighbours. I like having a spare bedroom for guests and another one to convert into an office. We still have a nice view and Cathy, it turns out, is quite the handyperson which prevents me from being put into situations where I accidentally wreck the house. So yes, I am man enough to admit that my wife was right and I was wrong. Getting the house, as insane an idea as it was back at the time, was the right move in the long-term.

But I guess once you own a house, the crazy bug can happen from time to time. And it goes beyond interior decorations (note: let wife do pretty much whatever she wants as long as I have my office). We found out one of our neighbours was having an open house over the weekend. And seeing as how their house, from the outside, is nearly identical to ours, well, curiosity got the better of us. Well, Cathy. I went to the gym and tried to figure out what was going on with curling.

When I came back, Cathy was still in a mild state of shock. The conclusion: their house was slightly smaller than ours, probably not as well lit in the living room and master bedroom, but still a pretty nice house. And, oh yeah, they were asking $100,000+ more than what we paid for our house three years ago.

Now several thoughts go through the brain at a time like that. The first is "Are they nuts?" The second is "Has Iqaluit's real estate market seriously gone that crazy in the past three years?" and finally "How cow, are we now rich?"

The answers are: Possibly, Possibly and No.

I mean, I wouldn't have put our place on the market for that much. Apparently I would have been wrong, although it's one thing to ask the price, quite another to get it. If the previous owners of our house has been looking for that much, we wouldn't be living in our place right now and would still be in our apartment downtown. But there's been weird things going on with housing in town this past year. Even with houses springing up like weeds on the Plateau Subdivision and aggressive expansion planned up there over the next few years, people have been having a hard time finding a house to buy. I know a couple of that have been looking for about six months without much luck.

So maybe there is something to asking that much.

But as for us being rich, well, no. Look, it's nice to think that in some distant future if we decide to leave Iqaluit that we won't take a loss selling the house, but that's about all that number is worth to us right now. It's an easy enough path into loopiness when you start obsessing over house prices. All I need for it do for me right now is to keep me warm and dry, be a place to keep my stuff, and not be a money pit. It is doing all of those things very well. It does not need to be a lottery ticket.

Last Five
1. You hung the moon - Elvis Costello
2. Dead in the water - David Gray*
3. Jet lag - Brendan Benson
4. Across the river (live) - Peter Gabriel
5. Knocked up - Kings of Leon

NYCC recap

I've been back a few days now and I'm still kind of processing New York and the comic con in particular. I've been looking forward to that trip, and the con, for a long time and I'm kind of sad it's over. I may get to the one in San Diego next summer (although tickets sell out in mere hours), but I'm always going to have a soft spot for NYCC. It was my first con back in 2008 and it was a blast. I wasn't sure if this one could meet those expectation, but they did. I had just as much fun at this one, which I find hard to believe.

Oh sure, there were frustrations. The crowds, especially on Saturday, were insane. My feet were murdering me, the behaviour of some people (especially the diehards trying to make a buck) was occasionally maddening, but that kind of crap only gets you down if you let it. Any time I got frustrated by that I normally paused, took a look around, and the good mood returned.

What is it that makes a comic con so much fun? For me, it's a chance to come out of the closet. I haven't really been in the geek closet that much the last few years. Been pretty obvious for those who know me. But I've never forgotten what it's like to love something that others looked down on and mocked. I've never forgotten riding the bus home and reading some of the small stack of comics while others on the bus chuckled or mocked.

Even among my circle of friends, many of whom are geeks, I'm the one who tends to be the most knowledgeable about comic books. But at this kind of event, I am not the most knowledgeable. Not even close. And it's great. It's the people, the conversations and the happiness that people have wandering around. People don't tend to judge what you love, because odds are you love something just as weird.

So yeah, maybe you're an adult walking around in a My Little Pony costume, but if you're walking around in a Booster Gold outfit, or carrying a bag of anime figures, or a big stack of comic books for an author to sign, who are you to judge? And most don't? They're there to have fun and to hang out with people who love the stuff they love. It's honestly one of the most positive feeling events I've ever been to.

So what were some of the highlights?

1. Meeting Herb Trimpe, who drew the very first comic book I ever bought, an issue of Godzilla, and telling him how basically the last 35 years of my life is his fault. Which he laughed at and said if it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else. He also did a Godzilla sketch for me.

2. Meeting George Perez, one of the absolute legends of the comic industry and getting him to do a sketch for me. He drew the first super-hero comic I ever bought (Fantastic Four #186). He's also amazingly friendly and chats at length when drawing. However, he also poses for photos, which I forgot at the time. So naturally I had to go back and get another sketch and pose for a photo this time.

3. Artist Alley as a whole was just fantastic. You walk up and down the asile, look at all the artwork and comics being sold by some well-known creators and ones just starting. I had great conversations with artists like Russ Braun (who was mortified when I pointed out he had the artwork for the last pages of the last issue of The Boys on display at his table, which I hadn't read yet, which kind of spoiled things, but I just laughed and said I would have found out long before the next paperback collection came out anyway), Amanda Conner, Cully Hamner (he drew Red which became a movie about two years ago. We discussed the awesomeness of Helen Mirren), Katie Cook, Amy Mebberson, Aaron Lopresti, Terry Dodson and others. I could have spent all four days of the con there talking to people.

4. The random conversations you strike up with people. While waiting to get into Artist Alley I chatted with about a half dozen guys with similar goals to mine - get in and get commissions from favourite artists. We compared notes, showed off previous sketches, talked shop. It was great. I ran into a couple of them throughout the con and we compared what we had managed to pick-up, which was cool.

I also chatted with a dad who was just there for his 13 year old son. He wasn't into comics at all, although his son loved Thief of Thieves and desperately wanted to get his issues signed. Dad didn't get it, but his son loved it and that was enough for him. "I could have easily dropped $150 today on some crap. Instead I'm here and it makes my son happy, so that's good with me." I told him he was a good dad for doing that, which he seemed to really appreciate.

There was the guy who worked for CGC, a company that certifies and grades comics. I consider them the anti-christ of comics, but this guy was nice enough. His job was simply to go around that con with different collectors and witness that the signatures they were getting were from the actual creators. I thought it was a bizarre job. He agreed. "I have a job walking around this con and witnessing people signing books and then saying 'Yeah, that's their signature'. And they pay me for it. God Bless America," he said with a grin.

5. Yeah, the cosplay (costume play) was pretty spectacular to watch. Some of the costumes were astonishingly good, some were astonishing bad and some were just plain weird. But if you ever got bored or tired, you simply found a place to sit down and just watch the con walk by you. Odds are someone in an interesting costumes would walk past shortly. For a few terrifying moments on Saturday I thought I forgot my camera. Thankfully I didn't and got some of my best pics of the weekend that day.

6. Graphic novels priced 50% off US cover or better and they never charged tax. 'nuff said.

7. Just walking around the tables and seeing what people were selling. I picked up a couple of figures (an Aardman Batman and a Hallmark Dark Knight Christmas ornament), t-shirts (I really regret not buying the Dr. Who shirt that featured an owl coming out of the Tardis), posters, video games, and god knows what else. The exhibition floor was huge and I didn't see the last of the tables until Sunday morning. If you wanted to spend lots of money, NYCC had plenty of ways to part the money from your wallet.

8. Oh yeah, being front row centre for a Ben Folds Five concert on Thursday. I've always liked Ben Folds, even if he occasionally comes across as a bit of an asshole. But that was a hell of a good show he put off on Thursday.

9. VIP pass. Thank god for it. I spent an extra $100 for it and it was worth every cent. It was the envy of people whenever they noticed it. It let me skip the massive line-up to get in every day, got me onto the floor of the show about 30 minutes early each day and gave me access to a lounge where I could store my coat and bags for free, where there were couches and chairs, free water and snacks and an ATM if I wanted it. It was an island of calm when the con started to get overwhelming.

Are there things I regret? Sure. I wish I had managed to get to more panels. I kept promising to, but I always seemed to be stuck somewhere else and unable to get back in time. I wished I could have gotten in for the Firefly presentation, but the line for that was unreal. I wish I could have met Stan Lee, who was there, but the line for that was equally unreal. And there's always a book I should have bought or an artist who I wished I could have gotten something from (Amanda Conner broke my heart early by saying she just didn't have the time to do commissions this con, which I understand, but I would have loved something from her).

But that's minor stuff. Look, if you ever have a chance to do one of these comic cons, you absolutely should. Not all of them are going to be as epic as NYCC. I saw a site claim that attendance for the four days was 116,000 people. The last San Diego Comic Con, the largest in North America, was around 130,000. They're big bloody events and not everyone can handle the crowds. But there are plenty of smaller ones and they're really worth it. As long as they're well organized, they tend to be a lot of fun.

I've mentioned photos...I took a lot during my week in New York. About 350. I'm not putting them all up on the blog. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you can see most of them there. For the rest, I'm taking another shot at Tumblr. You can find me at towniebastard.tumblr.com. I've put some of the sketches I got at the con up there, and I'll be putting cosplay photos and some shots from around New York over the next few days. After that, the tumblr will be just a collection of photos I've taken up here, pics from people I like and various comic book art. There'll be no rhyme or reason to it, at least at the start.

Anyway, that's enough rambling for this evening. Next post will have nothing to do with New York or comics, I promise...

Last Five
1. Gilligan's Island Theme - Bowling For Soup
2. Follow - Repartee
3. Dark streets of London - The Pogues
4. Diamonds on the soles of her shoes - Paul Simon
5. Tell yer mama - Norah Jones

New York, Days 3-5

Been busy doing, you know, New York things the past few days, so no updates. But as my feet will start to openly revolt if I do anymore walking today, I'm heading back to the hotel shortly to slip into a coma. But before then, a few things from the past few days. Although I may be distracted in my recollections as I'm sitting in McDonald's listening to a bible group debating next to me.

1. Wednesday morning I decided to do my walk through Central Park as I'm not sure when I will next see green trees. May have overdone it as I entered the park at 107th Street and walked all the way to 59th. So 50 blocks of the park, while it was drizzling. Insane to you, perhaps, but glorious to me.

2. The plan after that was to go to MOMA. Their site says that although they open at 10:30, to avoid the crowds sometimes it's better to show up around 11:30. Which I did. Only to discover a line-up down the block...which was to get inside to get into the line to buy tickets. After that, there was the line for the coat and bag check. And finally, there was the line to get into the museum. So that plan went out the window.

3. Plan B was to hope on the subway and go down to the Village and wander around, which I did. Going to Canal Stree was probably a mistake, but if that's the only one I make this week, I'll be happy. And then I stumbled on a armer's market in Union Sqaure which made me very happy, even if I couldn't buy anything.

4. Thursday was the start of the con. Wasn't plannong on spending all day there, but I found a group of people all trying to rush to Artists' Alley like I was, so we hung out and chatted comics, which was fun. And shared tips, which artists were cool, which ones to avoid. And then there was the rush to get commissions. A lot of the artists get booked up quickly, so I was glad to get some of the people I wanted, even if a few (Amanda Conner and Terry Dodson), broke my heart by either saying they weren't doing commissions or by my not winning the lottery system set-up to determine who gets one of the 10 sketches being done.

5. The evening was a Ben Folds' Five concert at the con. Because of my pass (I have a VIP pass that I splurged on), I was literally front row centre. Which was kind of cool. Almost two hours of Ben Folds. The man can do a concert, even if I remain baffled so many women love his music ("Give me my money back, you bitch" is one of his songs, which the self-admitted "Worlds' biggest Ben Folds fan" standing next to me was belting out at the top of her lungs). Great show, though.

6. Today was about picking up some of the commissions and wandering the exhibition floor. The first day was relatively calm because only a few 4-day passes were old. Today it was crazy. Tomorrow will be total looney-tunes. Which is why I will only be getting a couple of books signed and then staying out of artists alley and the main hall. Because it will packed full of geeks losing their shit and all desperate to get the cool thing they want ahead of everyone else.

So that means I'll be hitting some panels and just wandering around outside with my camera, taking photos of people in costume. Much more fun and relaxing. I'll put photos either up on the blog or trying to resurrect my Tumblr.

7. But you know, it's a blast. Everyone should do a day at a comic con, even if you're not into comics. It's a fun vibe. Although I'm not sure if the number of scantily clad women I saw today was properly balanced by the number of topless guys who really should have been wearing more. Ah comic con, it giveth and it taketh away.

8. Right, I should go. The bible group is getting fiesty. Apparently someone was using her cell phone instead of listening to the Word.

New York, Day 2

Patton Oswalt does the comedy bit about New York, a city that he's not exactly in love with, that I'm quite fond of. Basically, he says that New York transforms is skull into a cage, his brain into a rat and New York is a bit stick poking the rat through the bars all day long.

For the record, he's not exactly wrong. And he lives in LA, not exactly a quiet city. Now imagine landing here after living in Iqaluit. Yeah, Day 2 did quite the job on the senses. Let's take a moment to consider:

1. Smell - Well, for good or ill, New York does a number on them. Whether it's the urine on the way down to the subway, the occasional bathing optional person you run into while riding the subway or the smells coming out of all the restaurants, there's no shortage of things to cause the nose to freak out.

2. Sight - Times Square should all I need to say, but there are dozens of things every hour that give you pause. Like the Japanese guy in a powder blue tuxedo riding a bike, the guy where a pink jacket, pink capri pant and diamond earings on the subway or any other thing.

3. Hearing -  There is no quiet place in New York...not even in Central Park. Although I did get to experience my first cabby screaming profanities out a car window while leaning on his horn (not at me, I might add). It was a special moment.

4. Taste - I'm not a foodie and I'm more concerned with eating cheaply than anything else. But today I had my first decent cappacino, a marvelous chocolate chip cookie and a small bowl of proper macaroni and cheese. The stuff with some crunch on top and not that liquidy crap (hello, Patricia) that some like. And it was a quiet moment of happiness.

5. Touch - Not so much with touching, although New York does make me wish I had web shooters like Spider-Man, but instead of web fluid, it shot out hand sanatizier.

Even with being over-whelmed, it was a good day. I got the non-comic shopping portion done. I managed to go to FAO Schwartz and not buy anything, so someone call the pope about that miracle. I discovered I now wear a size large shirt, which is nice and my waist size is a 36, which is probably still a touch to large, but compared to before, I'll take it.

It was a good day. Tomorrow, the Museum of Modern Art, I may go up a tall building and my first comic book related event.

New York, Day 1

I tried posting last night and the McDonald's wifi at the post. So an abbreviated version of yesterday's events.

1. I'm staying in a hotel in the Upper West Side which is exactly the kind of hotel you get when you're trying to stay in Manhattan on the cheap. But it's clean and safe, and I'm out most mornings by 8 am and not getting back until late, so who cares what it looks like.

2. Left the hotel yesterday and immediately came upon an elderly Jewish lady chastizing her dog for the way in which it was trying to pee. So it didn't take me long to feel like I was in New York.

3. Shortly afterwards, found a store that has more fresh fruit than you would find in Iqaluit in a month and a great little bakery. So that's snacks for the comic con taken care of.

4. Took the train to the Staten Island ferry, which is one of the best deals in New York. For free, you go over to the island. Along the way, you get views of lower Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Libery. So that was pretty awesome.

5. When to the visit the World Trade Center site. Couldn't get into the memorial area because I didn't realize you needed advanced tickets. Still, it was ncie to visit. When I was there last time, more than four years ago, it was a whole in the ground. Now it's the tallest thing on the island, even if it isn't finished. And it still feels...sort of sacred. Commercially sacred, you understand, because it's still New York and people will find a way to make a buck, but it has an interesting vibe.

6. If only there was some place to buy a "I (heart) NY" t-shirt. There's a lost marketing opportunity.

7. Picked up discount tickets to see the Spider-Man musical. Got a ticket in the middle, row N. Spectacular seats, 50% regular price. Not bad at all.

8. Promptly got lost trying to get to Union Square, but the nice thing about New York is that even getting lost, there's still lots to see while you try to figure out where you are.

9. Went to Strand Bookstore. Realized I was in serious trouble. Realized I only have a limited amount of space and I'm going to comic con in a few days. Got out before things escelated.

10. Headed up to the David Letterman. Was told it was vitally, desperately important that I laugh. Hinted the fate of the free world might depend on it. Suspected the seats had ejector launch devices to hurl me from the theatre if I didn't laugh. David was pretty good, and Jack Hanny was surprisingly entertaining. Not often you can say you've seen Siberian tigers in a theatre in New York. I was in the second last row in the balacony, but still had a decent view. Didn't make it on TV, alas.

11. The Spider-Man musical was surprisingly good. And no fatalities. So there's that. It starts slow, but kicks into gear once Peter becomes Spider-Man. As a musical, it's mixed. Some very good numbers, some very meh ones. But as a visual experience, it's astonishing.

12. Spent an hour or two after the show hanging out in Times Square. If you're going to go there, why go in the middle of the day. You go at night.

And that's the day. Now to do some shopping, I think.

Pre-debate night

I have to work tomorrow evening, and it's proving to be a touch frustrating. It's not the working in the evening thing that bothers me (although I'm going to lose a night at the gym because of it), but because I can't do my full geek out on the presidential debate Wednesday evening.

Seriously, I had plans for this. I had a few friends I was going to invite over, I might have splurged on some popcorn (I think the last time I had popcorn was when I saw Brave this past summer. I miss it), fire up the iPad, stalking Facebook and Twitter for reaction while watching Obama and Romney have a go at each other.

Look, I love US presidential politics. I freaked out some Americans on the cruise by stating how much I love it, that most Canadians do, because it's the best spectator sport in the world. Hockey? Please. American football. No. Regular football....not really.

For pure high stake, big money, intense drama and, literally, the fate of the world riding on the decision, it's hard to beat what the Americans put out every four years. And this hasn't even been a particularly good election cycle, what with Mitt Romney shooting himself in the foot every five minutes during the month of September. I mean, I though John McCain had a bad month in 2008, but I think Romney might have just topped it.

Like most Canadians I'm pretty much in the bag for Obama at this point. Although this is a bit unusual. I try to keep an open mind and listen to as many sides as I can in politics. I didn't make up my mind who to vote for in the last Canadian election until I walked into the voting booth. Of course, all the political party options were pretty awful, which contributed to some of the confusion.

But Christ, there really is no alternative in the United States this year. I understand the frustration some people have with Obama and the economy, but you'd think most could see that he inherited the mess, that these things don't turn around on a dime and that things are starting to get better. Oh, and that he's been dealing with absolutist lunatics in Congress.

Plus, Romney has been a disaster. You don't know what he stands for, because he doesn't know what he stands for, other than wanting to be president. I think you need to keep some flexibility in your views and be willing to admit you're wrong and shift your position in the face of a good argument or overwhelming fact. But you get the feeling that Romney shifts because he thinks it's politically expedient, even if it's a dumb idea. He's spent way too much time catering to a Republican base that are...disconcerting.

I try to avoid terms like "lunatics", but when you're:
1. Against women's rights on things like birth control. And make statements about "legitimate rape."
2. Think that cutting taxes, increasing defence spending and wanting a balanced budget are completely doable.
3. Wanting to get mixed up in another war in the middle east.
4. Think climate change is a myth.
4. Have a tendency to believe in every half-assed conspiracy theory involving Obama that's up on the internet.

Then there's something wrong with your base. Deeply wrong. I can't empathize with them at all. They're just so wrong on so many things.

So yeah, I'm hoping for Obama to do some serious ass-kicking Wednesday night. I don't think it's going to happen just because of how these debates are set-up and structured. But he needs to win. Because as I like to remind my friends who rant and foam at the mouth about Harper, any perceived damage he does over the next four years can be pretty easily altered by the next government. It's just the nature of Canadian democracy.

Four years of Romney and a Republican congress...not sure how the rest of us are going to survive that.

Last Five
1. The broad majestic Shannon - The Pogues*
2. Maybe we should just go home - Joel Plaskett Emergency
3. Box hat - Beck
4. Shenandoah - Bruce Springsteen
5. The trawlerman's song - Mark Knopfler

Resurrection

Wow, two months...not entirely sure how that happened.

It still might be dormant except for a couple of incidents in the last week or so. A couple of very nice emails from people, not asking what's happened to the blog, but just saying how much they like it. Like most bloggers, ego plays a role and nice comments (this isn't a fishing expedition for compliments, by the way) are always a happy treat.

The other one was a touch weird. I was at a course recently and the professor decided that the way for everyone to get to know each other was for us to interview one of our classmate. Somehow the guy interviewing me recognized me from the blog and then, when he was "introducing" me to the class, mentioned the blog. Half the class recognized the blog and the Moving to Iqaluit FAQ. A couple told me how valuable it was when they were in the process of moving up here. So that was kind of cool.

I tend to forget just how influential that blog post is. Although, curiously, I noticed this website is now up. Thankfully it doesn't seem to have robbed any of my content from this blog, so that's nice. I also remember that I was going to update that post and I haven't. I have a busy next couple of weeks, but I'll try and update it before the end of October.

So, what else is going on.

1. When last we checked in, I was doing a recap of our European adventures. However, shortly after I started that I was speaking with an editor who wants to serialize our trip into a feature series. It'll run next summer. Because of that, and that I'm being paid for it, it doesn't seem fair to put it up here for free. My apologies. If the stories make it online, I'll link to them as they run.

2. Cathy and I also went to Greenland over Labour Day Weekend. I'm afraid it falls under the category of "I'm being paid to write about it", so other than it was an amazing experience and I'm really happy we finally got to make it to Greenland after pining to do the trip for years, you'll have to wait for more details. But here's a couple of photos from Nuuk, Greenland. Just for a taste.

3. I mentioned a few months back I was trying to lose weight. Well, that continues along quite nicely. I'm now down 55 pounds in about 7.5 months. That puts me about 25 pounds short of my ultimate goal. Considering I was trying to lose all that weight over a two year period, I'm extraordinarily happy with how I'm doing. Even if I do grumble when I have a week like last week where I put on 0.8 pounds. And because I'm very proud of her, Cathy is down more than 40 pounds herself. So between the two of us we've lost the equivalent of a 12-year-old.

The only downside to the weight loss is the amazing amount of clothes we're giving to good will. Stuff we bought a year ago now looks like we're wearing tents. We dropped a fortune at Tilly the summer of 2011 for travel clothes...none of it fits anymore. And yes, it means we get to go shopping for new, smaller clothes. But I guess there's enough of my father in me, that winces at spending money, to give me pause.

4. Curling is coming up soon, so some of you might be subjected to that. We'll see how much I'm involved in it this year. Been feeling a bit burned out on it. Plus I've been really focussing on the gym. I have to give up a night at the gym to curl. And while it's a lovely sport and more exercise than you might think, it's not exactly the equivalent of one of my workouts. So we'll see. Although I am curious to see what impact the weight loss has on my delivery.

4. Quite enjoying my job these days, which is useful. I shan't say more about that as A. I have a longstanding rule about talking about work and B. I know for a fact my two immediate supervisors have read this blog. So there's that.

5. Next up is another trip - I'm off to New York next weekend for a week. Just me. Cathy has to work and she, bizarrely, hates New York. A few days of sightseeing and then four days of getting my geek on at the New York Comic Con. It is hilarious/scary how much I've been organizing my plan of attack for that con (there are certain artists I need to hit up for artwork before they get booked up for the weekend). I'll be sure to post up lots of pics of people wearing weird costumes when I come back.

And, as always, if you have any favourite things you've done in the past in New York, feel free to pass them along in the comments section. I only have three days and at least one of them is going to be spent mostly in MOMA, but I always like hearing things to do, or places to eat, that I might not have thought about.

So there you are...mostly caught up. And once again, I'll try and post more often than every couple of months. I actually liked writing this, and I haven't been doing nearly enough writing lately. Let's see if I can fix that.

Right. Off to the gym to do penance for that piece of chocolate chip cake with toffee icing I had last night at a get together...

Last Five
1. Set yourself on fire - Stars
2. Speak the word - Tracy Chapman
3. Train in vain (live) - The Clash*
4. Trying to throw your arms around the world - The Fray
5. How - Maroon 5

Ice bound

I wrote in my last post about shocks to the system when coming back to Iqaluit (I will get back to the European adventures, I promise). None more so than realizing the ice in the bay was still here. When we left at the end of June, the last gasp was going on. There was still ice there, but it was melting quickly. I figured it would be gone a few days after we left. I remember being in Ottawa a couple of days later and reading the first boat of the year had made it into Iqaluit. A bit later than in previous years, but it was the start of resupply season in Iqaluit.

Except the ice didn't go away. Not really.

When I came back on the 23rd I flew over Frobisher Bay and I could see plenty of ice out there. There was a sealift boat in the bay, but it didn't take long for me to hear that she had been damaged trying to get to Iqaluit. She had about a six-foot gash on her hull. Bad enough that she had to unload the rest of her cargo onto another ship before she headed back south for repairs. Then the CBC started reporting that two other sea lift boats were stuck at the mouth of the bay. They couldn't get through because of the ice and even ice breakers were having a hard go of it.

I hardly claim to be an expert on such things as I've only been in Iqaluit for seven years, but it's the first time I've seen ice like this at this time of the year. There's the real possibility the bay may not be ice free all summer. I took this photo last Friday and was cursing as the ice seemed to be drifting closer to shore.

Which I thought sucked. I didn't realize it could get worse until I opened the curtains this morning. It was raining then, so I didn't take any pictures, but it cleared up this evening. So this is what the bay looks like right now.

That is a shitload of ice. Aside from it being a touch depressing to see that much ice floating around the bay and knocking several degrees off the temperature, there is a more pressing problem. It effectively stops the sealift from continuing. You'll notice a boat in one of the pictures. She should be unloading material right now. She was yesterday. But when all the ice came in this close to shore, they can't run the barges back and forth. There were great big chunks of ice aground down by the beach this afternoon. It's not melting any time soon.

Sealift schedules are always part fantasy. We were told our order should arrive in late August. That roughly translates into mid-September at the earliest. We have orders arrive as much as two months behind schedule (that was our last one with NorthMart. We were done with them after that fiasco). So while I'm not waiting for stuff to come off that boat in the bay, it's a sure bet this ice is throwing that boat off schedule. And future boats off-schedule.

So yeah, getting a little worried about all of that ice out there. We bought a lot of stuff and we would actually like to get it at some point. We're not on the last boat, so there's no need to panic. But I promise you, there were not many happy faces looking out over the bay today.

Ah, the north...

Last Five
1. Long since gone - Matt Mays and El Torpedo
2. Sleep together - Garbage*
3. Fashion coat - The National
4. Elenor - Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies
5. Takes this waltz (live) - Leonard Cohen

Back in the routine

There's a problem with coming back from vacation for most people...I suspect that's slightly more the case when you're coming back to Iqaluit. For most of the month of July I was in places filled with greenery. Or in some of the major capitals of the world. I could drink good cappuccino on a daily basis (even in Scotland), get amazing food of any kind almost any time with nearly unlimited shopping and cultural activities.

And then...bang. Iqaluit.

I'm trying not to put down my home, because there are many virtues to the place. I'm just saying the first week back is always a bitch, and last week was no exception.

Although the hardest part of last week was getting back into my diet and exercise routines. I wrote a couple of months ago that I had managed to lose about 35 pounds. Well, prior to going on vacation I was down 43 pounds. Although my weight loss had slowed, I was still losing about 1.5 pounds per week, which is nothing to sneeze at. If I kept that pace up, I'd hit my goal of losing 80 pounds in the new year. Considering I was planning for that to take two years, I was quite pleased.

But there's nothing like a good vacation to screw up the best laid of plans. Actually, it seems to be cruises. Five years ago I was barrelling along on a novel, heading into the last quarter of the book when I went on a cruise. I've barely written a word since then. That's why I was so worried going on this trip...would the diet and exercise routine curl up and die afterwards?

It's been hard to get back into the swing of it. Part of the problem was that while I was pretty good with keeping active on vacation, the diet was locked in a closet and ignored for the entire time. Yes, I did plenty of walking around cities. Hell, I was even a good boy and managed to get to the gym on the cruise ship a half dozen times.

But the food? Forget it. The first morning back in Iqaluit when I had my usual breakfast of a bowl of Cheerios and a banana I could practically hear my body screaming at me: "What the fuck is this? Where's the chocolate chip pancakes, croissant, hash browns and 10 pieces of bacon?" Supper wasn't much better when it was just a stirfry and, most importantly, no dessert. Well, specifically, not four or five desserts, which is what I tended to do on the cruise ship.

What can I say? They had really good desserts and I simply had to try them all. I couldn't just choose between carrot cake, a cappuccino cake, fudge cake and a few other treats when they're saying I can have all of them and they might not be back the next night, meaning I would miss out. That's just wrong.

The fact I was only up 1.4 pounds after the end of the trip borders on the miraculous, it truly does.

So right now it's just fighting to get back into the routine. I'm managing, but it's hard. Last time I started working out because it was something I needed to do mentally. It actually made me feel better. This time the elliptical is just mean. Last time it took about three weeks or more to get used to the new diet routines. Now that the beast got a taste of life outside of the cage, it's been resisting going back in there. I've finished a perfectly normal supper and I'm still hungry.

I'm managing and I haven't cheated on the eating and I haven't skipped a day at the gym. But until I settle back into the pre-cruise routine, things are going to suck.

Last Five
1. Mambo swing - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
2. Capturing moods - Rilo Kiley
3. Let's get lost - Lloyd Cole
4. Eye candy - Ron Sexsmith
5. Tighten up - The Black Keys*

The Cruise: Copenhagen and Oslo

Copenhagen
I think if we made a mistake on this trip it was underestimating Copenhagen. I remember when doing the initial research and considering catching a ship for another port because, well, how exciting could Copenhagen be? We ended up pick it because the other ports added extra sea days to the trip. But still, I  figured 24 hours in town would be more than enough.

Not even close.

It's a really nice city, I have to say. It's got a great mix of old European style and a modern city. It's staggeringly clean, people bike everywhere (which freaked out Cathy because they don't seem to lock them up, and they all look like they were designed in the 1940s), they're exceptionally polite and just about everyone speaks English. I also got the feeling there was a lot going on (like a great photo exhibition that we sadly just didn't have the time to go and see). There was a nice energy, a nice...vibe, to the place. Something that was hard to put your finger on, but that you knew this was a city you could grow to love if you had more time there.

Because of my little medical...incident, we had even less time to see Copenhagen then we had planned. Through dumb luck I picked a hotel in Nyhavn. In fact, it was the old sailor's hostel. Basically they would show up, go out drinking and whoring (it's the former red light district) and then collapse back at the hotel. Attached next door is a church, so after a night of debauchery they could go and confess their sins.

I mean, the hotel was nothing great, but it was clean, in the middle of things and that's an awesome history. Plus, this was the view from our hotel room.

It was a great area to wander around. Sort of like St. John's, but with a different vibe. Lots of bars and restaurants, so I guess you could make the argument that this is Copenhagen's George Street, except it never felt tacky, which is how I feel about George Street.

After that we wandered. We found the main shopping district, so it was nice to do some European window shopping. Plus, there was a Lego store, so I was good there. In the evening, we walked along the waterside to head towards the Little Mermaid statue, which tour books warn (Rick Steves Guide to Scandinavia was invaluable on the trip) is highly overrated. And while it's not as epic as a lot of the statues you see around Europe, it's nice. Plus, it's nice to watch people's reaction to it. They really love that statue. And the fact it's not covered in fencing or protected by police or having to pay money to see it is pretty cool as well.

And to get to the statue we walked past a restaurant that was offering salsa dance lessons, an exhibition of sand castle art, a couple of massive fountains, a few huge churches and a lovely park. Not bad for a 40 minute walk along the water.

It's just a nice little city. We considered this a scouting trip, of sorts. Yes, we wanted to enjoy the cities we visited and get as much as we could out of them, but we also wanted to get an idea of what cities we'd like to come back and see more of. Copenhagen is definitely near the top of the list.

Oslo

Oslo got screwed because of the weather, I fear. It was misting and raining on and off in Copenhagen when we left. We then sailed north and took that weather with us. Except it managed to magnify during the trip, so it was pretty miserable most of the time we were in the city. Now, you can still have fun in a city where it's raining, but combine that with the fact you couldn't really see anything (heavy fog) and that Oslo is one of the more expensive cities in the world (which meant window shopping tended to give you a stroke) and we just never warmed up to the place.

Oh, there were still cool things. We went to their national art gallery and I got to see "The Scream" which was interesting. It produced one of those "never thought I'd actually get to have this experience in my life" moments. We walked the grounds of the royal palace and watched a changing of the guard where the soldiers (all in their early 20s) seemed to barely be able to keep a straight face. Scandinavians have very practical looking royal palaces. Not at all over the top like some of the other ones you see in other parts of Europe.

I think the highlight was probably going to the Nobel Peace Prize museum. Now that was a fascinating place. We could have spent hours there, but just didn't have the time. A fantastic photo exhibit on the first floor about Afghanistan, a section featuring this year's winners, then a room featuring previous winners on iPd like devices, followed by an interactive wall display of past winners, like this.

I'm not sure we'd consider going back, mainly because of the cost. But there's obviously a lot going on there and if we had hit it on a better day, we would have liked it more. As it stands, it was when we were leaving, when the weather finally cleared up, that we saw cool things. Like their new opera house, which looks like something from Star Trek.

And this wonderful church we sailed past as we were heading out. We past awfully close to it, as you can probably tell. A wedding was just concluding as we went by. That was pretty fun, with everyone waving...

We saw a lot of churches this trip, but that was one of my three favourites. Pity we couldn't get to go inside, but I don't think the docking facilities could handle our ship.

Next up, Aarhus and Berlin...

Last Five

1. Marathon - Heartless Bastards

2. Turn into - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

3. China - Tori Amos*

4. Hey porcupine - Josh Rouse

5. Reign of love - Coldplay

The Cruise, Part 1

Despite my best attempts at brain damage, I did manage to survive our vacation. I really did have plans to update more regularly, but my stubborn refusal to pay Princess Cruise Lines ridiculous internet charges (oh, and by the way, the speed was 1 MB/s at peak and they wanted upwards of 70 cents per minute for that. Christ preserve me) coupled with my desire to actually see the cities we were visiting as opposed to hunkering down in an internet cafe put an end to that idea. Oh well. There are worse things than not constantly being on the internet for weeks at a time. The break probably did me some good.

So how was the cruise? It was pretty good, I think. This was our second cruise and I think if you were comparing the vessels - The Carnival Miracle and The Emerald Princess - they are remarkably similar. They're pretty close to the same size, can handle about the same number of passengers (although our ship wasn't sold out. I suspect the accidents from earlier the year have affected many ships in the same way) and have many of the same things to do on board. That wasn't planned. I think if we had known going in how similar the two vessels were we would have been concerned because we were frequently bored when sailing the Miracle.

The problem with the Miracle was the number of sea days. We had four of them and then four at different ports. And most of the stuff on board wasn't of interest to us. I'm not a sit on the deck and let myself get irradiated by the sun for days on end. I don't like casinos nor am I a big drinker. Take those away and the options for entertainment on the Miracle, when she was at sea, were quite limited.

The benefit to the Emerald Princess was that of the 11 days we were on board, nine of them were spent in ports. The two days at sea worked because they were spend recovering from all the land activities. So lounging on our balcony reading a book as the Baltic Sea swept on past was actually quite relaxing. We aren't going to be rushing off to do another cruise any time soon, but at least we know we prefer the "destination" cruise as opposed to the more aimless wander through the Caribbean.

The thing that most people seem to care about on these cruises is how is the food. In our case it was fine. It was nothing spectacular, but it was certainly good enough. I wasn't looking for the meal of a lifetime on board. Although it was amusing that the one night we decided to splurge on one of the two "higher end" restaurants on board - an Italian one where you have to pay a cover charge - was the day of the choppiest seas of the cruise. And since the restaurant was on the back of the ship, well, it was entertaining at least.

There was certainly plenty to eat, which isn't great news if you're trying to lose weight (one of our waiters was quite insistent that he could bring us everything on the menu if we wanted). I found the deserts to be better than the main courses which, again, bad news if you're on a diet. And our one big gripe was that so many of the meals were seafood (Cathy's allergic) and the bad habit they had in the main dining rooms of having meals containing nuts and not mentioning that on the menu. Happened three or four times when Cathy would get something on her table and there they were. Seriously, who puts almonds on mashed potatoes?

The other secret to cruise ships is to have some will power. They have you on board, therefore they're constantly bombarding you with ways to spend your money. Especially since you don't have to use your credit card directly. You have a ship card that everything goes on. At the end of the cruise, you get your bill. We saw one lady have a six page bill printed off. Having learned from the previous cruise to watch our spending, our bill was quite reasonable. About half of it was simply the mandatory gratuity that gets charged every day to your account.

But yeah, they're trying to get you to spend. There's the gift shops and the constant reminders you should buy your stuff on the ship because if you want Baltic Amber or nesting dolls, you're taking a big risk buying them onshore because they're probably fakes (I mentioned that to a tour guide in St. Petersburg. I thought she was going to drive back to the boat and set it on fire she was so mad). Or the spa, which had some truly spectacularly expensive packages. And, of course, the booze.

The staff was also pretty good. You tend to hear a lot of nitpicking complaints on these ships, but honest to God, they're all insanely friendly, they all say hello to you or wish you a good morning or evening. They cater to your every reasonable whim. I'm not sure how much more some people are looking for.

I tended to look at the Emerald Princess this way...she was a very nice, high end ferry. I didn't need to spend a lot of time aboard of her...I just needed her to get me to the next city I wanted to see in a degree of comfort. And she did that just fine.

Next blog post, I'll talk about some of the cities we visited and how I will completely judge a place in the eight hours we normally got to spend there...

Last Five
1. I would die for you - Garbage*
2. Codes and keys - Death Cab For Cutie
3. Oh Carolina (live) - Elton John and Ryan Adams
4. Taste it - INXS
5. Sky blue and black (live) - Jackson Browne

Welcome to Copenhagen...

As a method of entering a new country, flat on your back lying on a stretcher certainly does have a dramatic flair, although I can't say I really recommend the experience. First of all, I'm fine. Second of all...oi, what a day. We're currently in Denmark getting ready to start the big leg of our vacation, which is a Baltic cruise. Copenhagen was only ever meant to be a 24 hour buffer, just in case something went wrong with flights, luggage or something else. Still, the more we read up on Copenhagen, the more I was kind of regretting not spending more time there, especially since we basically just killed a day doing nothin in Ottawa, having completed the sealift ahead of schedule. Our flight was Ottawa-Toronto-Copenhagen. The later leg is about 7.5 hours long, which is the longest stretch we've done by plane in about three years. Anything less than three hours, Cathy and I can do in our sleep. Still, I figured that since most of the flight would happen at night, we would just sleep it off, wake up the next morning and hit Copenhagen running. Yeah, not so much. The first problem was I couldn't get to sleep, which was weird. I could have slept on the Ottawa-Toronto flight, but I could not get comfortable or drift off. The second problem hit about an hour before landing when I began to feel....weird. And it was a weird I had a funny feeling I'd experienced before. Back in 1996 I flew to South Korea to teach English, including a hellish 14 hour Toronto-Seoul leg in which I quietly lost my mind wondering if this wasn't the stupidest thing I'd ever done in my life (I'd got a job offer to teach English in South Korea 10 days earlier). I ended up having a panic attack and passing out. The plane stewards, not quite knowing what to do with the white guy passed out in the bathroom, just brough me back to my seat and quietly ignore me for the next several hours. So yeah, I knew something weird was happening. I got up, tried to stetch, then went to the bathroom, but things got worse. I managed to make it out of the bathoom and sink to my knees. Someone asked if I needed help, I said yes and then it was light's out. Next thing I'm hearing is Cathy's voice, sounding frantic, and a group of people around me trying to figure out if I'm all right. Oh, and an elderly retired doctor who was travelling on the plane, trying to determine if I had a seizure or something (I didn't). What happened over the next few hours was really quite extraordinary. Air Canada's staff were fantasic. One of the stewards was also a fireman, so he had first aid training, and stayed with me until the plane landed. Even brought me a lovely tank of my very own oxygen. I kept insisting I was fine and tried to make jokes, but they made everyone on the plane wait until the paramedics came on board and took me off. Despite my protests, they carted me away to a hospital in the back of an ambulance, where they ran a bunch of tests. All came back negative. I'm pefectly fine (well, as fine as I was before all of this. Oh, and a scrape on my head from where I hit the floor). But we didn't get charged a thing. Some paperwork, but assurances there was no bill to settle up, which is amazing. We had to go back to the airport to get the bags, which was pretty straightforward. And we got reassurances that we were in the country legally, although our passport wasn't stamped. No one can figure out exactly why I passed out like that. I think the flow of blood to my brain was restricted because I was trying to get comfortable and I did something weird. Or sitting for 7.5 hours without getting up to stretch my legs or take a walk. I will be walking every 10 bloody minutes on the return flight, I can say that much. So anyway, a dramatic entrance to the country. But I'm fine. Once we got to our hotel, we actually spent several hours wandering around the city and even walked out to see the Litter Mermaid statue (it's a touch anti-climatic). So the worst seems to be over. Beautiful city, by the way. Just wished I had entered it properly....

Ah, our national airline

(This was supposed to go up on Canada Day, but the internet at the hotel collapsed before I could post it. So let's pretend it's still July 1, shall we?) So on this, our national holiday, let us consider a national instution and pastime - Air Canada. Because the airline is an institution and hating it as much a national pastime as watching hockey. And today we got to see the very thing that makes Air Canada something you want to punch in the face, but also kind of admire. And before you express concern over the admiration, keep in mind that surveys constantly rank Air Canada as one of the best airlines operating in North America. It baffles people, but really, you're not flying on enough American air carriers. Once you do, you kinda respect what Air Canada is doing a bit more. Today was supposed to be fairly straight forward - get Boo on a cargo plane. The plan was simple - get up around 6, have him at Air Canada Cargo around 6:30, he gets transported to the airport around 7, goes on a plane around 8 and then heads to St. John's where he summers with his grandparents. Things went off the rails around 6:31 when we arrived at Air Canada Cargo in Ottawa and there was no one there, even though the office hours state it opens at 5:30. The place was closed. Keep in mind we confirmed this flight a month ago, was told the offices would be open and it would be business as usual. Not so much. So after some waiting around, and discovering that no, they weren't running a little late, we managed to flag down someone in the warehouse. Seems he was the only one who came into work that day. The agent and office staff - no idea. And he couldn't book the dog because he didn't have the codes or training to do it. And as this was 7 am, on a Sunday, on Canada Day. No one was answering their phones. Thus began The Stress. Because the dog had to go out today. I let Cathy take to the lead when dealing with this, not because I'm not capable, but because a stressed out and pissed off Cathy is far scarier than I am. She made it pretty clear to the poor bastard at Cargo, then she wasn't happy and, what was worse, there was at least one more level she could go to, and it wasn't going to be pleasant if she had to go there. I've seen it. It's not pleasant. You don't want her to go there. Thus ensued many frantic phone calls. Cathy's parents were involved. The 8 am flight came and went. The Stress was building. A complete stranger who was dropping off mail from Canada Post offered to watch the dog for us for a few weeks if we couldn't get him out today. No reason, just wanted to help out obviously stressed people. Which is astonishing when you think about it. Finally, there was a resolution. I'm not going to get into the details because I'm fairly certain rules, and possibly laws, were broken. But Air Canada staff rallied at the last minute and Boo managed to get on a flight and made it back to St. John's today. Which is what makes Air Canada awesome and frustrating at the same time. The fact they had almost no staff at Cargo, nor could they find anymore for more than 90 minutes who could help makes you want to smack your head (or the senior managers at the local Cargo office's heads) against a brick wall. But when the crunch came, ordinary staff rallied, helped out, were extremely apologetic (and sided with us in our frustration) and managed to get the situation resolved. On a Sunday morning. On Canada Day. Ladies and gentlemen....your national airline. Much like the rest of Canada, it's frustrating and often doesn't work the way it ought to. But the ordinary people can still rally and surprise you. And because it was said to us many times today as we wandered around Ottawa and made me smile every time - Happy Canada Day.

Four things

1. I have no less than two draft posts saved on the fiasco that is the new Access to Information legislation which the government of Newfoundland and Labrador just passed, but I wasn't happy with either of them and put them away, figuring I would go back and make them better. Yeah, didn't happen and now it reads as awfully dated.

Not helping was the fact that there was already a lot of excellent commentary coming out on almost a daily basis ripping it apart. So rather than try to replicate what they produced, I instead recommend you go and read what Ed Hollett, Russell Wangersky and Geoff Meeker have to say about it. They pretty much smack it out of the park.

It's a bad piece of legislation and one that I think the government badly misjudged the level of opposition to. Will it sink them in three years time? Not on its own. But when they're listing the reasons this government lost, it'll be on the short list.

2. Meanwhile, back in Nunavut, it's a couple of days until Summer Solstice and the bay is finally starting to show signs of breaking up. They're have been no snowmobiles on the bay in a couple of weeks and there's now some open water showing. Granted, there's no way all this ice is going to be gone by the end of the month, so I'll get to go on vacation and be able to tell people there's still ice in the bay. That always manages to freak out southerners. The downside is it will soon start to throw off the sealift boat schedule, which is always a nuisance.

I'll post up a pic of what the bay looks like in a couple of days. I have an idea for a picture of the bay at sunset on the 21st. Just to give you an idea of what the first day of summer looks like in Iqaluit.

3. But in the meantime, here's another picture for you.

There's a fun group on Facebook called the Iqaluit Auction Bids, which is pretty much what it sounds like. They've cracked down on some of the junkier stuff recently, so pretty much everything there is northern crafts related. You can find some very nice stuff there. For example, if you happen to need a pair of polar bear pants (the seller promises they are very warm), well, you're in luck because there's a pair being auctioned right now.

I found the above on the site and managed to win the auction. What we have here is an ulu, which is the half moon shaped knife, and a men's carving knife. The knives are steel, the base is made from a caribou antler and the handles are made from muskox horn. It's the last detail that really caught my eye because muskox are not native to Baffin Island. They're both really nice and quite sharp. I almost feel bad that I have nothing to use them on right now. But who knows. Anyway, they're a nice addition.

Also, anybody can sign up for the auction site. A lot of people from Ontario have and tend to snap up kumiks (boots) to the point where insane price wars have broken out. Give it a look.

4. And finally, because I have been remiss, let's all leave a few nice comments for my lovely wife Cathy, who got her marks back yesterday and graduated with her Masters in Special Education. That alone would be enough, but she managed to do that while getting straight A's. It's a hell of an accomplishment and I'm insanely proud of her.

Last Five
1. Meeting across the river - Bruce Springsteen
2. Babylon - David Gray*
3. Rockville - REM
4. I didn't know that you care - Lloyd Cole
5. The charging sky - Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins

Virginia Park Condos?

So this story with CBC back in St. John's caught my eye. For those not clicking on the link, a building known as Virginia Park Plaza is giving notice to all its tenants to leave by the end of September because they're converting the building into condos.

So why is this worth mentioning in the blog? Because I grew up in Virginia Park. I remember when that plaza went up and spent more than my share of time hanging around there. Whether it was going to the Mary Browns for a Snackaroo or a Big Mary, slowly devouring most of the collection of kid's books at the library, or buying comic books from the convenience store I spent my share of days around that building. It's also possible I was beaten up once or twice behind the plaza as well. But I have less fond memories of those occasions.

I'm not exactly surprised they're getting rid of the building. Virginia Park has always been an...odd neighbourhood. When I was growing up half of it was middle class housing and the other half was social housing units. Let's say the dynamic was interesting. And straddling the line between that was the Plaza and the elementary school (our house was pretty near the middle line as well).

So yeah, a lot of things happened down there. I suspect the Plaza was a regular stop for the RNC for many, many years. I haven't lived in the area for many years, so I've no idea how bad it is now, although it wasn't in great shape last time I walked past there. Most of the storefronts were empty and there were plenty of signs of vandalism. That wasn't always the case. I remember when it first opened all the spaces were full. There used to be a bank and a Pipers department store there. Not so much now. Not for many years.

So no, I'm not shocked that they've decided to give up on the place and try something else with it. What I am shocked is that they're going to build condos there. Seriously? I understand building condos in downtown St. John's, out by the university, down by Quidi Vidi Lake or in a few other spots around town. But Virginia Park? They've had problems with vandalism and other incidents around there (pretty sure most of the woods behind the Plaza were cut down decades ago after a few sexual assaults happened) so it's not exactly what I would view as a dream area of town to build high end condos.

Let's put it this way, I grew up in the Park, I still have family and friends there, and if I was getting ready to drop a couple hundred thousand on a condo, this would not be my first choice.

So exactly how crazy is the housing/condo market in St. John's that this seems like a sound business idea?

Last Five
1. 505 - Arctic Monkeys
2. Still the same - Bob Seger
3. On - Bloc Party
4. Acid tongue - Jenny Lewis*
5. Back in your head - Tegan & Sara

Ah, to be in Iqaluit in June

Today at 5:23 pm...

Today at 6:57 pm...

Now, I believe the traditional responses to when it snows here at this time of the year and you complain are:
1. Suck it up, buttercup.
2. You live in the arctic, what else were you expecting?

To which I will point out that a mere two days ago it was 17C, sunny and people were wearing shorts and mini-skirts around town. So this is a bit of a jarring to the system. I will also add that my co-workers, many of whom are Inuit, were cursing a blue streak when this snow started to fall around 4 pm or so.

So I believe I will complain, just a little bit. And say that the clock to when my vacation officially starts kicked into overdrive today.

Last Five
1. Father Lucifer - Tori Amos
2. Up in flames - Coldplay
3. Hurricane drunk - Florence and the Machine*
4. Fred Jones, part 2 - Ben Folds
5. Every part of me - Sam Roberts

Sea lift preparations

Vacation planning is lovely and all, but flying out of Iqaluit is a two-stage affair. I did most of the planning for the fun stuff, which is running around Europe. Cathy handles the more practical aspects of the other stage of the trip - the sea lift.

I'm sure I've explained the sea lift a dozen times, but for those new to the these parts and who don't want to dig through the archives, it's basically this: Living in Iqaluit is not cheap, nor can you just wander down to the store and find everything you want. This isn't a sea lift item for us because it's perishable, but for example, I have walked into North Mart and not been able to find chicken. Or bell peppers. Stuff like that. So if you want to save a few dollars, and make sure that things you really like to have are at your fingertips, then the best way to go about doing this is to do a sea lift.

There are two ways to do this. The first way is to just do an order online (North Mart does it) and in a few months time the stuff you ordered will be delivered to your door once the cargo boats (sea lift boats as they're called here) start to come in. Or you can do what we do; we go down to Ottawa and do it ourselves.

A sea lift order can be a fun, scary, frustrating and intense few days. But before you even get that far, you need to start your planning. Cathy's already started. It involves taking the master list of what we ordered last year and then walking through our storage room and see what we ran out of, what we're running low on and what we clearly over ordered last year. Trying to figure out how much you're going to use of something from week to week can be an issue. Trying to do it for a year is something else.

For example, soft drinks are easy. We budget one can, per person, per day. Pretty straight forward number although it does get you some deeply odd looks when you're going up to the cash at Costco with two shopping carts full of soft drinks.

But the rest can be dicey. How much pasta do you order? How much rice? We actually appear to have slightly under-ordered the amount of toilet paper we need this year. And then there's the things you over-order, like toothpaste. When we first moved here in 2005, we did a sea lift. Complete shot in the dark so we were all over the place in terms of how much we needed of different items. And in no area were we further off than toothpaste. Nearly seven years after that sea lift crate landed on the beach in Iqaluit, we are finally on our last tube of toothpaste. We'll need to buy more, although I think we'll probably cut back on the order this time around.

So yes, trying to juggle what you need to order, what you might want to try, what you might want to drop...it's a tangily business. And that's just the non-perishable goods. We're also looking at buying a new box spring and mattress, a new dish washer, maybe a dryer, some more flooring and to replace a few power tools that have up and died.

So you make your master list, then prepare with military precision what places you need to hit, what you're going to buy there, and how long you're going to spend there. Oh, and in what order you're going to visit different stores. And you need to rent a vehicle large enough to carry most of this stuff because having things delivered can cause all sorts of problems. We had $800 worth of items go missing two years ago from the time we left Costco to the time our sea lift crate arrived in Iqaluit.

Now, once you start buying all of this stuff (and you can remember to start breathing once you see the bills. We dropped nearly two grand at Costco in less than three hours last year) you have to drop it off somewhere. In our case we use TSC who will take our purchases, package them properly, crate it up (and use more nails than you can imagine) and then send the whole works to Montreal. From there, it gets put on a boat which will eventually arrive in Iqaluit.

From the time we make our purchases to the time it arrives at our front door will take about two months.

It's not for everyone, obviously. You need the patience and organization to do all of the prep work and actual work. I may be...somewhat...lacking in those skills, but fortunately Cathy is quite good at it. You need to be able to mentally and financially handle how much money is coming flying out of your bank account in a short period of time, knowing that over the course of the year you will save money because you paid $2 for that jar of pasta sauce at Wal-Mart as opposed to $5 at North Mart when you need it in January. And we won't even get into how much you save on toilet paper. If you have a baby, the amount you can save on diapers, formula and other supplies can be truly staggering.

Oh, and one other quirk to the whole sea lift, again for the new people here, we have no wharf facilities in Iqaluit. So when our stuff arrives on the boat, it just sits there in the middle of the bay until a barge can reach it. From there the crates are loaded on the barge and then driven ashore on the beach at high tide (and only high tide. We get 10 metre tides here). Once it's loaded onto the beach, we have to wait until a local company gets to it, picks it up on a forklift, drive it through the community and then deposit it in front of our house. We then get to spend about two hours using cutters and a pry bar to open the crate, and then off-loading the works of it into our house.

The scary thing about all of this is that it can be kind of fun. Which goes to show you don't have to be nuts to live here, but it's certainly helpful.

Last Five
1. Cold, cold ground - Tom Waits*
2. Hold on loosely - .38 Special
3. Jefferson Jericho Blues - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
4. Glendora - Rilo Kiley
5. Creepin' in - Norah Jones and Dolly Parton

Going down

The other obsession over the last few months, which my friends on Facebook are undoubtedly tired of hearing me post about, is trying to get back in shape. Since mid-February I've managed to lose 35 pounds. Which, don't get me wrong, I'm quite pleased about. However, there are certain things that prevent me from getting too smug about this.

1. Having lost that much weight makes me realize in retrospect what a fat bastard I'd let myself become. I mean, it's genuinely appalling that managed to happen, or all the creative excuses you manage to come up with to overlook that fact. "Oh, I'm not fat in that picture, the wind was just blowing a certain way to make the shirt look puffy." (or you could just be fat). "Oh, I haven't put on any extra weight, I'm still wearing the same size pants" (Yes, conveniently ignoring that my dress pants had elastic built into the waist, covering a multitude of sins).
2. Having lost that much weight and looking better can make you feel cocky. Until I realize that I'm right around the weight I was when Cathy and I got married. And when I see those photos I realize I was still quite over weight even then. So there's obviously still a lot of work to do.

The weird thing is that once you start having some success people start looking to you as if you possess some magic and hidden knowledge. I really don't. I've tried many, many times before to lose weight and it always failed. This time, it clicked. Well, clicked so far. The possibility of relapse is still there.

The only thing I can offer is that I had a genuinely awful few weeks back in February and March. My friend's death hit me a lot harder than I thought and I'm pretty sure I was depressed. I've been down before, but I'm not sure the last time I felt something like that. And one day, I just got so frustrated feeling that way, that I went back to the gym, hoping some endorphins or something might work.

It did.

I felt better for most of the rest of the day. The next day, when I started feeling bad, I went back. And I've kept doing that. Five days a week, for at least one hour each time. Thirty minutes on an elliptical, 30 minutes on different weight machines. And then I started to change my diet. I only eat three meals a day. No snacks. I've reduced my portion size. I've tried to cut out a lot of processed foods and eat more fruits and vegetables.

But I think the most important thing is I've got myself in a routine and I've sufficiently scared the crap out of myself over the consequences of breaking that routine. I didn't go to the gym for two weeks in April between being in Florida (even though I walked at least 10 km a day on the beach) and a head cold (in which I nearly drove Cathy nuts over my anxiety about not being able to get to the gym). Any time I get hungry, I have a glass of water.

So even though I'm a bit hungry even as I write this, I've just started my second glass of water.

Because I am apparently a creature of routines. I've been told that I do not handle change well. Normally I think is a disadvantage, but I think in this one case, now that I've settled into this routine I'm glad I'm reluctant to change it.

I'm sure there are any number of dieticians or fitness experts that would say what I'm doing is wrong, but as long as it keeps working for me, I'm not going to mess with it. Thirty-five pounds in 15 weeks is nothing to sneeze at. The ultimate goal is 80 pounds, but I still have until February 2014 to get there, so I have time. And I'm not going completely nuts. I'm going to be on a cruise ship this summer. There will be food. I will eat the food. Plus I'm going to be in Denmark. If you think I'm not going to eat Danish there, you're nuts.

I imagine there will be some tweaks later in the summer. A friend has sworn that these are supposed to be really good for tracking activity, so I think I might invest in one. And if things keep going well, clearly new clothes are going to be needed. I have a depressing amount of money tied up in jeans that no longer fit. And a co-worker described one of my dress shirts this week as looking like a peasant blouse, which I'm assuming is bad.

I'm also setting up two rewards if I hit my goal...one I mentioned the other day...the big trip to Peru and the Galapagos . The other is a nice, hand tailored suit. Cathy doesn't get that as I don't wear suits and lord knows my job doesn't require it. But I think if I had a really nice suit, one that fit well (which I don't think I've ever owned), I'd wear it. Plus it would help me keep the weight off...no sense spending that much on a suit and then not being able to wear it.

So yes, the Secret to my Success is apparently temporarily losing my mind and acquiring a mild case of OCD. As I said, not sure I can recommend it. But hey, whatever works for you...

Last Five
1. Chocolate Jesus (live) - Tom Waits*
2. The Wanderer - U2
3. Sugar mountain - Neil Young
4. Mongrel heart - Broken Bells
5. Object of your rejection - Chely Wright

Travel planning

So what with it being a month and all since I last blogged...and what with me now having to endure some mocking from the peanut gallery, I guess it's time to do an update.

Basically the last few weeks have been consumed with two things...I'll talk about one this evening and the other over the weekend. The first thing has been trip planning.

I quite like trip planning. It's something I rarely got the chance to do before moving to Nunavut. The resources just weren't there. Now, a combination of having the resources and essentially spending money on nothing other than trips once you get past the usual necessities (Yes, I consider buying my graphic novels a necessity. Because if I don't buy them, I go crazy. Which makes things unpleasant for all concerned) we're able to do more travelling. And through a nice confluence of events, we're able to do more travelling than usual over the next six months.

I like trip planning. Perhaps the simple thing would be to go to a travel agent and get them to do all the work. But I like scouring websites looking for the best deals. I like reading travel journalism and books and finding cool things to do. I'm the type of person who is planning several years in advance for what the next trips are going to be.

As I said, a bit of luck this year, as we're able to go to Copenhagen for a few days, then hopping on a cruise ship where we're going to putter around the Baltic sea for 11 days, going to places like Oslo and Saint Petersburg (we'll have been to the one in Florida and Russia in the same year, which is kind of cool, now that I think about it). After the cruise we're stopping in Scotland to visit an old friend. And to buy a nice bottle of Scotch. Because if I'm in Scotland, I'm buying a nice bottle of Scotch. I'm currently thinking of an 18 year old bottle of Macallan, but other suggestions are welcome.

That alone would be a pretty good trip for the year, but as I said, we're getting lucky. For example, Air Greenland is starting flights into Iqaluit twice a week for this summer. Which might not seem like a big deal. After all, Greenland isn't that far away from Iqaluit. Except there hasn't been a direct flight between here and Nuuk, the capital, in 10 years. So if you wanted to get from here to there, you either had to hire a charter (let's say it's not cheap) or fly there via Copenhagen. It could take you two days or more to get to a place that is, realistically, a two hour flight away.

So there's a direct flight. This may be a one time thing if sales aren't great. So rather than take a chance, on Labour Day weekend we're going to pop over to Nuuk. Not entirely sure what we're going to do - I suspect there may be a tour of the fiords - as I've been focusing most of the last month on getting the Europe trip planned. I've also been told by people who have been there that, you know, there are limits on how much there is to do, especially with that much time. But we're going to Greenland.

I also have bragging rights. None of my university friends have ever been there. I get to be the first. This makes me happy in deeply petty ways, but I'm all right with that.

With some luck I might get to New York in October for the New York Comic Con. But I've thought that in 2010 and 2011 and it's always managed to fall through, so I'm not jinxing myself over that one yet. And it looks like we'll back back in Newfoundland for Christmas. Which I'm happy about, don't get me wrong, but steps will have to be taken to prevent us from losing our sanity and being completely exhausted at the end of it. Because that's what usually happens.

As for the future...I think we're about 90 per cent sure we're going back to California next summer. I'd like to go to Thailand the year after, but Cathy has serious dietary concerns (their tendency to cook a lot of their food in peanut oil which would kind of kill Cathy a lot). I think a trip to the Galapagos/Machu Picchu is in the mix as well. We've never been to South America. That seems like a good way to go about doing things. And then there are other trips that rattle around in my brain...the Canary Islands, Morocco, Egypt, Belize...

I'm always a touch reluctant to write about these plans. A couple of years ago I got chastised for talking about how much we buy/spend and it makes it sound like that's all we're focussed on. And it's not. But one of the big benefits of living where we do is that it offers us the opportunity to be able to do something we both love...which is travelling. None of this would be possible if we still lived in Newfoundland. I recall when we went to the Dominican in 2004 that the choice was literally we could go there, or we could make an RRSP payment, but not both. So we decided to hell with it, we can eat cat food for a few weeks when we're 90, but we wanted that trip.

So I hope no one is offended with what seems like bragging, but is honestly just excitement that we get to go and do a bunch of cool stuff over the next six months, but even more after that. I'm going to Talinn, Estonia this summer. I wouldn't have found that on a map when I was 16. Now I get to visit there. That's pretty awesome, any way you look at it...

Last Five
1. Mockingbird - Ryan Adams
2. Give me one reason - Tracy Chapman
3. Should I stay or should I go (live) - The Clash*
4. A little rain (live) - Tom Waits
5. Last of the American girls - Green Day