My Wonderful Crazy Good News

I have wonderful news to report... I'm officially a permanent resident of Canada now.

I've absolutely fallen in love with Canada, British Columbia, and Vancouver. If you've never been, it's one of the most beautiful places on this planet - especially if you like hiking, mountain climbing, or pretty much any outdoor activity. Those are the kind of things I live for, so for me, it's a perfect fit.

When I first came to Vancouver, I'd never been to Canada before and I honestly didn't know what to expect. The 2010 Olympics had just wrapped up, and this city had a glow around it that felt great. Being an American, I wondered how different it would be from the United States. On one hand, it's not that different. On the other hand, there are thousands of small differences that amount to something you can't help but see.

For me, Vancouver is the first city that feels like home. When I was a kid, I always wanted to move to New York, or Boston, or even Europe. I never really had any interest in California or the west coast. In fact, L.A. has the distinction of being my least favourite major city in America, mostly because I hate driving and that city is basically a big suburb. But fate eventually brought me back to the west coast - the north west coast, and it's a good thing too because there is so much that I love about this city.

I love how Vancouver maintains its urban density while protecting its mountain views. I love how people are passionate about the environment and community development. I love how people have a sense of social responsibility as well as individual responsibility. I love how people take the time to enjoy nature. I love how calm the atmosphere is here. I love how multicultural the city is and how we attract people from around the world. I love how people can disagree without being disagreeable. I love how people don't tolerate racism, homophobia, or sexism. I love that people care about their health and well being. And after three years, I even love sitting in a coffee shop when it rains for months at a time.

It's not hard for me to say goodbye to America because I always feel like that will be a part of my identity. Whenever the topic of America comes up in discussion, I always try to point out that America is a really big country, and while Americans have some things in common, they have a lot of differences from region to region. Everybody likes to think their beliefs and actions are a result of their own independent thinking. I don't tend to believe that entirely. Where you are born, where you live, and who you associate with - those things matter, and to some degree they define who you are as a person.

And now, after a grueling three years process, Canada (and more specifically Vancouver) gets its chance to shape me and I get my chance to shape it. The best part? In three more years, I'm eligible for citizenship.

A Few Thoughts On...

I don't have anything specific I want to blog about, but I've decided to try something new out on my much neglected blog - I'm not going to have a specific topic for each blog. It's going to be a little more random. I'm also disabling comments, which I've always considered to be a blogging faux pas in the past. I probably still do. Oh well.

So here are some thoughts on a few things...

Google Reader is ending and I find this sad. Granted the obvious, that RSS was never user friendly enough for widespread consumption. Tack on to that the fact that Twitter dramatically improves on many aspects of RSS. And the deal breaker itself, Google Reader was never going to make the one thing companies care about - money. By ending the service, they may even drive some traffic to Google +, which at least has the potential of becoming profitable. Of course, none of this changes the reality that I used Google Reader every day and I found it to be an incredibly useful precise tool (Precision being the one thing every other social network replacement lacks). Sure I can switch over to another RSS program (probably going to switch to Flipboard, which I already use for some stuff), but I can't help but think this is the beginning of the end for RSS, in all it's simplistic glory.

In other news, I'm reading The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. It's the current selection of the Huffington Post book club (#HPBookClub), which has picked some good books in the past. To be honest, I don't know that much about the book besides the fact that the title comes from a line in Shakespeare. I enjoy the whole online book club thing though and highly recommend the experience.

Did you hear the news? We have a new Pope. To be honest I don't care. It's hard for me to get excited about an organization that is medieval in thought and practice. Perhaps things will change with new leadership, perhaps not. Whenever I watch the news on the subject, I can't help but wonder where all the woman are. You would at least think they would catch up to that point in history. Perhaps the one glimmer of hope is that the Church will start to focus on actually helping the poor and stop waging wars against evolution, birth control, and gay marriage - or as I like to say, reality. Who knows, they may just get around to properly dealing with the sex abuse scandals that continues to tarnish their image.

Speaking of a tarnished image, CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference)  is going on now. I come from a family that has always talked politics the way many people talk sports. Although to be honest, American politics reminds me more of a bad comedy. I find most of the modern conservative heavy hitters to be off the wall nuts. It's going to be interesting to watch and see if Republicans can shake off their demographic albatross and start appealing to younger generations, minorities, and perhaps even woman in large enough numbers to be relevant outside traditional red states. If I had to give them one piece of advice I'd tell them to look north. Canadian conservatives (for all their evil glory) could teach them a thing or two.

On a lighter note, I've been playing around with Tumblr. The thing with all these social networks is figuring out two things. First, do you need them? And second, what do you want to do with them? My idea for Tumblr is to focus more on Vancouver and travel - maybe make it a bit more personal, which is something I've avoided in the past.

So I covered technology, my bookclub, the forbidden topics of religion and politics, and my social media stumbles... I guess I'm done.

Skipping the Now, Reading About it Later - My Rant on the iPhone-ization of Culture

Many people are excited about the latest iPhone. I’m somebody who likes gadgets – and while I’m not going to be updating my iPhone anytime soon, I do thoroughly enjoy (and rely on) my smartphone.

Back in the states, I finally talked my parents into getting iPhones. They aren’t the most tech savvy folk out there (up until a few years ago, they were still using a rotary phone), but smartphone costs have gone down in price, and dramatically improved in quality over the last few years. The main benefit for me is being able to text for free with them (via iMessage). Even calling is free (via Skype or Viber).

They’ve had their phones for a week or so now, and we’ve had more than a few Skype lessons over the computer that went like this…

Me: Click on the icon in the lower left corner.

Mom: I don’t see it.

Me: It’s in the lower left corner.

Mom: It’s not there.

Me: It’s there – lower left corner.

Mom: Oh, there it is.

I asked them yesterday what they thought of their new phones. The response: “I love it. I'm spending so much time on it.” Now I know I’m completely addicted to my phone, and as I look at the people around me, I can’t help but think they are too.

Nowadays, we’ve become reliant on smartphones (or more precisely, our desire to stay connected). Sometimes my reliance on technology bothers me. Whether it’s for work, or my personal life, or my writing, I spend a lot of time on my laptop, on my phone, in front of a television (and I don’t even have cable). Even at night, I read books on my phone or e-reader. All day it seems like I’m staring at nothing but a screen.

It’s not that I don’t get outside, I feel confident saying that I’m outside more than the average person. I hike almost every weekend, I paddleboard, I run, I bike, I walk aimlessly around the city. I do many of these things on a daily basis. But I will say through all of that – I have my phone with me.

It’s not necessary to explain the benefits of staying connected through technology. The benefits in my opinion do outweigh the price. But there is a price we pay – and I think it comes in the form of our experiences.

Our experiences make us who we are. To me, experience is the essence of identity. Perhaps the main benefit to social media is this: It’s easy to share our experiences. That though is also the problem (at least for me). I tend to think the need to share somehow changes the experience.

It changes what we experience, it changes why we have the experiences we do, and it changes how we experience things. Part of this taps into human nature. We all like attention and social media is attention. It also provides a nice illusion to drape over those times you feel lonely. It’s comfort food for an awkward situation.

If you’ve gone to a concert in the last few years, you’ll see everyone with their hand up recording the whole thing on their phone – that’s just pure obnoxiousness to me. You are there in the here and now – and you are sacrificing that for what? To share the experience? To get attention? To forgo actually experiencing something real, in favour of watching it later on a screen. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Sometimes it seems like we are skipping the here and now because we want to read about it later. That is my problem with this need to constantly stay connected.

I don’t have what it takes to live completely off the grid, but I will say this about the new iPhone update, it has a do not disturb option built in (besides the obvious off switch). I think that’s a brilliant idea. I just hope people use it from time to time. Now forgive me as I check in on Foursquare and Instagram my breakfast.

My Day at the Beach with Kurt Vonnegut

I spent the day at the beach (yes, that pasty lanky character is me) with a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box, uncollected short fiction he wrote in the 50's. In it, he wrote 8 rules for writing short fiction, which I enjoyed a great deal. I'm pretty sure I've read the rules before on some blog, but I'll re-post them on the off chance you haven't seen them yet.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things - reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them - in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

I'm particularly fond of Rule 2, 3, and 4. And like many rules I can't imagine following them always.

My Library Used Bookstore Finds

I got all these books for $12.00

What a find, eh?

Three Books Worth Reading, Says Me To You

I spent the last week cycling around and read three interesting books. I recommend all three.

1. The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal:  If you can write a bestselling book about homosexuality in 1948 that doesn't fall back on stereotypes and age old prejudices, then you've got my attention. The fact that the book is actually good, if not great, makes it all the better. I can't say this is the type of book I'd normally read. I've always thought sexuality in general is one of the most boring topics out there. Minus the politics of the matter (which I do care about), the subject has always been sort of irrelevant to me - not something I'm all that interested in reading about. But I've developed a mini Gore Vidal obsession this year after reading a few of his essays - and this did seem like one of his best known novels. At 207 pages, it's a quick read, and a powerful novel at that.

2. The Shack by William P. Young:  I read this book because other people told me they loved it. I didn't know anything about it and for some reason thought it was some sort of atheist or agnostic novel about God. It's not - It's definitely Christian fiction, which is fine by me too. I think it takes some real guts to make God a character in your book (And to make one aspect of God a boisterous black woman even more so). The book is about reconciling God with the great tragedies of life. Some of the metaphors and similes were a bit much for me, but whatever - I've never thought of religion as something that is logical, but instead I've tried to approach the subject in terms of faith and emotion. On those two aspects, this novel passed muster. I didn't find the book to be as "edgy" or "life altering" as some people suggest - but hey, to each their own.

3. East of Eden by John Steinbeck: I'm about halfway through this book and it's amazing. Everything I've ever read by Steinbeck is such a pleasure - he's got a dark humour about him that I find appealing. This book tells the history of two families in the Salinas Valley - which in itself doesn't sound all that interesting. But it is - The characters, the writing, and the story are all fantastic. I actually woke up early this morning to read the book and I'm hoping to get a quarter more done tonight.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman - My Review

I’ll start off by saying that Coraline is a children’s book, and like many children’s books, it can easily be enjoyed by all ages.

The story is about a young girl, Coraline, who discovers a doorway into an alternative universe inhabited by her “other mother and father.”

It’s a simple, yet beautifully written book. It’s a little dark and scary (but not too much), and it’s got some memorable characters (my favourite was the cat). For a book that was written less than a decade ago, I think it’s safe to say this book will be a classic. It’s got that feel to it – the same one I get reading The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis – although it’s also safe to say this book stands on its own (even with the similar plot device of being transported to a magical land).

A lot of the story is about not getting enough attention – something most children can relate to. It just goes to prove that sometimes the best stories are the simple ones. If you have young kids (or are young at heart like me), I’d recommend the book. Plus it’s short (maybe a two hour read). What more can you ask for?