Christina Lake Camping

Christina Lake BC is quite far (8-9 hours from Calgary) but it's beautiful, quiet, and hot.

The beach is awesome and Beverly Hills campground was great. Owners great, very well run, big playground for the kids.

Camping in Turner Valley

Clean, well-kept, no-reservation campsite outside of Turner Valley. I'd go back.

Baby deer in our front yard

One of the many reasons I love our neighbourhood... these guys were in our front yard but walked away when I grabbed the camera.

Camping in Jasper

Jasper is amazing. Like the way that Banff used to be. Not very commercial, very laid back and fun.

Wabasso is a great campground -- stay at D29/30 when going with friends again!

Quiet, river nearby, very clean and laid back.

Drumheller Camping - Kokopelli

Drumheller's a fun place to bring the kids... Tyrell museum is top notch, the scenery is interesting, water park is good for the kids.

But won't stay in Kokopelli campground just south of Drumheller again. Decent family campground, but no privacy, lots of traffic noise, and most of all the people run the place like it's a prison. Signs everywhere telling you what to do. You can't have music on. You can't play a DVD for the kids inside your trailer if you can hear it outside at all. Our neighbor's dog barked for about 10 seconds and they were yelled at.

But kids can run around yelling and screaming until 10:00PM. Weird.

H. Upmann Cigars

Decent cigar gifted to me by my workmate Tim. Mellow, sweet, hint of chocolate. Difficult to pull though.

Kawahara Sensei's Passing

Kawahara sensei, my Aikido teacher for almost 20 years and head instructor for Aikido in Canada passed away in Victoria last night. He has been ill for some time so it’s not a surprise but his absence will be felt across the world today. He started his training in Osaka at the age of 17 in 1957 and trained and taught continuously since then. He has been teaching in Canada since 1975.

I had the honor of receiving his technique while he demonstrated a joint lock for the class in Edmonton a month ago. Although he was very ill and unable to finish the class his strength and skill were still unmatched. Unfortunately this turned out to be one of the last times he taught.

What the CEO wants you to know

Very dry, dull book with some basic financial info like ROI and cash flow. Not a lot here.

Four Hour Body

A very fun and interesting book. Not worth the hype though; tried the slo-carb diet for almost a month and lost about 5 pounds. I think it's not from the lack of carbs as much as the reduction in eating -- if you're not eating carbs chances are you're not snacking.

Will try some of the other ideas potentially, but aside from some interesting ideas not sure it actually works.

Planets 3

A very fun compilation of 3 short stories from the 1950's golden era of pulp sci-fi. Great fun to read!

Acting Director Gig Over Today

Whew... it's been a hell of a couple months. What did I learn from in the director role?

• having 200+ reports and being responsible for $100M+ in budget is hard. Fun, but hard.
• your peers and leaders expect you to have all the details for every project, issue, and person at hand at any moment. Keeping track of 136 in-flight projects in your head is tough.
• it's a hellava lotta fun helping build a quarter of a billion dollar IS budget for one of Canada's biggest companies.
• politics isn't everything, it's the only thing. Keep your head on a swivel at all times.
• protect your time like it's gold -- everybody wants a piece. Note to self: raise leaders that know how to manage their time.
• all-day meetings suck. Really, really suck. Note to self: when in the role permanently get rid of these.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Great book on how to create a high functioning, interactive, and engaged team. A must read.

Decoding reality

A difficult and ultimately unconvincing look at the notion that reality is ultimately defined by information.
The key points:
1. Quantum theory is defined by information.
2. Entropy (information) can start from nothing and can always be locally created even though the total entropy of a system is zero.
3. Time's arrow can be defined by entropy.
4. Information is created by the boundary between objects.
5. Hence the universe can be defined by information.

The missing chapter is, "so what?"

This isn't helped by the authors rambling first half of the book or the stilted obviously eastern European difficult narrative structure. Spelling an grammar mistakes are found throughout the work which is a distraction. Whole paragraphs needed to be re-read because they didn't make sense.

An interesting theory which may be true but a disappointing read.

New Puppy

We got a puppy last weekend. He's an 8 week old golden doodle -- a lab/poodle cross. He's an awesome little pup!

Rework

Absolutely brilliant book. It's a series of very small chapters, one to two pages framed by a simple sketch to introduce the idea.
Some examples:
Embrace constraints
Don't copy
Pick a fight
Illusions of agreement
ASAP is poison

Key ideas:
1. Plans are harmful. They're an illusion that you can predict the future. Respond better to reality.
2. Ignore the competition. You'll end up copying their ideas if you don't rather than developing your own.
3. You don't need to waste time in meetings or paperwork. 90% of this will go away on it's own.
4. Most business functions are excuses. Do it yourself.

Another Aikido Seminar Come and Gone

It's always weird going back to the old dojo for a seminar. Great to see Sensei and the guys but I always have the oddest feeling walking back through those doors.

I wish that things could have been different. And that we knew what we were getting into when we put the place together. So many people, so much time. I remember sanding the wood floor by hand twice by myself.

But after everything, everyone was still great to me which is more than I can expect. And Sensei was great even though his health was starting to degrade.

One sad part: a couple of the guys I've trained with for years have loved ones in Japan in the areas affected by the earthquake and had been having trouble getting in touch with them. Turns out everyone's OK but there were some scary moments.

Hitmen Game

We got to go to a fun Calgary Hitmen game last weekend, and the kids got to go down to the ice level after the game to meet one of the players, sit on zambonis, and touch the ice. Great fun!

The 80/20 Principle

If you haven't heard of this, read this book. If you have, read it anyway. Pareto's principle changed my career and my outlook on much of my life. Simply put, redirect your attention and energy towards the 20% of effort that yields 80% of the results. Doubling this effort yields a 160% output on only 40% of the effort. Sally forth and kick ass, my friends.

Hacking work

Decent enough book. Contradicted itself in several places and didn't appeal as much as simpler work. By the core ideas were strong:
1. Corporate work is profoundly stupid because it's an aggregate of rules put in place to keep the lowest common denominator safe.
2. Most execs don't follow the stupid rules.
3. You have a 2% chance of getting fired for not following th unimportant rules (mostly IT).
4. Give yourself the freedom to break the rules to get the job done.

Couldnt agree with this more. My job didn't exist until my boss and I broke the rules and made it up as we went along. Now I have the best job I could have; because I made it up for myself.

Vegas for my 40th Birthday

Hiyat and I had a great time in Vegas for my 40th. Went out with Leanne and Joe. We had fun going to clubs, eating great food, and I got to shoot some WWII vintage machine guns. Great fun!

Maya's lost her first tooth

Maya lost her first tooth today. It's been wiggling for weeks and she's been afraid to have us pull it out. Then out of the blue she pulled it out herself when her cousins came buy today! Always a surprise that princess of mine.

Got A Mac

After 5-ish years of running a Linux PC at home for the kids I finally threw in the towel and got an iMac.
Reasons:
- tired of twiddling with the linux box.
- iPod support comes and goes
- eternal sound system problems (it's 2011 for crying out loud and we haven't figured out sound?)
- having to choose between the glossy and futuristic KDE desktop and the 1999 looking Gnome
- On and on of fiddling with the command line to white list kid's web sites
- Really stupid errors like having distribution list support disappear in kmail
- Openoffice still looks like shit
- Flash is really, really, slow

The iMac is great. So easy that Gabe set it up himself, just needed the wi-fi password. iWork is good, iPhoto and iMovie are just amazing. Edited a movie and started an upload to youtube in about 2 min.

With three kids, a wife, aikido, etc. I've just had enough of wasting my time farting around in what is in essence a hobbyist system.

Another long week

Man let me tell you it's been a killer long week at work. But I think I've finally hammered things down to consolidate and execute what needs to be done. The further I go in my career the more I'm stunned by seeing smart people do foolish things, spend a lot of money and make a huge mess in the process.

Gabe and I at the Flames Game

Gabe and I had a great time at the Flames game tonight against St. Lois. We didn't stay for the whole game because it was a late start and a school night, but the seats were killer -- right behind the bench.
Our kids are spoiled for games! When they're not in a box they're down by the ice.
Glad to have a boys night with my son.

Daemon/Freedom

Very well written, fast paced, and credible techno thrillers from IT guy Daniel Suarez. A worthy successor to Neil Stephenson (who's great but gone off the deep end). A must read for any techie.

Tron Legacy

Awesome movie and a faithful sequel to Tron. Saw this opening weekend with Gabe who loved it too. Amazing special effects in a completely different way than most movies -- it wasn't supposed to be realistic. Thoughtful storyline that doesn't get in the way. Lots of inside jokes and references to the original. Well worth seeing!

Sweet

Want to know what the definition of sweet is? Maya went to the dentist today, got a needle, and got a filling for 45 minutes. They gave her two toys for being so good: a big one and and a small one. The small one she picked for herself (a small bear) and the big one she picked not for herself, but for her little brother Zach. How sweet is that?

William Gibson's Zero History

William Gibson is one of my favorite authors, and he doesn't disappoint with Zero History. While far from his best work this book is still a hell of a lot of fun, thoughtful, and it's remarkable that guys like Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling and Douglas Coupland helped out. Loved it.

Hull Zero Three

This is a very fun short novel from Greg Bear, the author of Eon and Forge of God -- two books that I love.

Hull Zero Three isn't without it's flaws. It's confusing, strange, the first third is very fast paced while the last two thirds aren't... but it's a lot of fun and very creative. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend for a quick read.