Rain

For some reason I had decided that it wouldn't rain in Quebec City this summer.... Back when I lived in Montreal for the summer I don't remember it raining - ever so I assumed it was the same here. How wrong was I? This is the 3rd day in a row that it has down poured. Yesterday I was caught in the rain on the way home from MEC, today it was in the middle of my run, and the forecast looks the same for the entire week... very uncool Quebec! However, having said that I did enjoy the total soaking, it was actually quite funny. The group of us drenched and laughing hysterically must have been quite the sight. We were all reminiscing about last year in the field and how miserable we all were, cold, wet, stressed... oh the fun!

Anyways, our first week of course has been really interesting. I never did take accounting in high school or university so this is my first go at it. It doesn't seem too difficult (knock on wood!) but it can be tricky and requires some studying so thank goodness this weekend is a rainy disaster and I have an excuse not to want to be outside. Tonight though we are breaking the study-a-thon for the new Transformers movie - yay!

Running here has also been challenge - the humidity this week was much different than Victoria's levels.... well that and the fact that we are all masochists here in the Navy and enjoy things like what I call the stairs of death, the city's longest staircase, 398 steps of hell. This picture only shows a very small fraction of it, it kicks my butt every time I try it but a group of us on course have resolved to integrate it into our runs at least 4 times a week. Plus, when you arrive at the top you are greeted with such a spectacular view of the St. Lawrence, and of course you are standing on the Plains of Abraham so that isn't too bad either!

Tomorrow is the Défi des escaliers de Québec, a 15km run which hits every staircase in the old town, including my personal fav to the left.... my knee is a bit weird these days so I am not going to run it in the race but I've got the course map so I'll get going on it when I feel my knee can take the 2600 stairs!

Alright, I should get back to the accounting, à bientôt

Roomies

I arrived in QC yesterday with a handful of course mates that I met in the Toronto airport. It was a quick flight over here followed by a huge logistical organization blitz trying to get as many van taxis as we could to transport our menagerie of luggage to the Naval Complex - Good thing that's all of our specialties! After we all got our room assignments - no one had the other as a roommate sadly, which of course meant my roomie from last years BOTC (Munroe) was in a room two down from me. I unpacked my huge suitcases and was pleased to see almost everything in the suit bag was quite wrinkle free - thank god for that!

Dinner was at a pub in the old towne, the atmosphere was fantastic, the food was great, and I remembered why I love Quebec so much. My room itself is awesome, great views of the marina on the St. Lawrence, a nice bed, alcove for my desk, free internet courtesy of someone across the street in the condo complex, and a HUGE armoir! The boy's rooms are pretty ghetto (we joke that they live in the projects) but all the girls have offered an open invitation to visit anytime so hopefully they won't have to spend too much time in their rooms.

This morning Miss Monroe and I found a grocery store and dollar store to kit up with laundry detergent, hangers and a few snacks for our night time munchies and had a leisurely walk around the lower old towne. Afterwards we headed to the gym for a run cause it was threatening to rain and then off to lunch it was. I've heard horror stories from this galley - stuff like: The vegetarian option (quiche) had bacon in it, sometimes the only meal choice is Poutine or Pogos (corndogs). However the salad bar is pretty big and has protein options that work when the hot food is awful. The only complaint though is the desert bar... the Navy has a horrendous reputation for being desert gluttons and I see why - it is huge and has the yummiest looking deserts I've ever seen on a military base. I managed to escape lunch without desert and even got an afternoon stair climbing session in which I interpreted to mean I could have a small rice krispy square at dinner, this in going to be a once a week occurrence I've decided.

My roomie showed up an hour before dinner and I was excited to see she was uber positive and so nice. She is three months pregnant and gets to wear the cute prego uniforms to class, plus she is french so I can practice my french to my heart's content. This is handy because I made a goal for 2009 to take the forces french exam and get exempt on all the sections so I can add some umph to my personnel file. Everyone that is on this course so far is just wonderful - I am so excited to learn my actual trade and hang out with them all summer!

After dinner a large group of us zipped out to the Body Expo - an exposition where cadavers are show in various stages - muscles exposed, bones, nerves, tendons etc... it was very interesting and slightly weird but the fetus section really hit most of us quite hard.

Now, I'm just getting all my kit ready for tomorrow, the my high heels are laid out and shinned up, the skirt is pressed, my shirt is hanging up complete with rank insignia and name tag, and the sweater has been delinted... I love being in the military!

Road Trip

So I made it home in one piece from Victoria. Luckily, I managed to catch the first ferry off the island at 7 am and did my best to navigate through the mess that is Vancouver - what a huge city! Then it was onto the interior and through the mountains. I think I would have made pretty good time if it hadn't been for the minivans and tractor trailers meandering along at 70km/hr..... Nevertheless it was a nice drive, I had a great book on tape (or rather CD) to keep my mind busy and the weather was perfect - not too hot, not too cold, and no rain. The best part though was the fact that I only filled the car up in Victoria on the way to the ferry, and again in Salmon Arm, which translates to about 600km for 40L of gas. Apparently my car is pretty decent on gas and I couldn't be happier. The sad news is however that I am only in Calgary for 3 days...I leave again on Saturday. This time flying out so my car stays behind. Hopefully there is a drugstore near the residence in Quebec City otherwise this could be a taxi propelled summer.

Food for thought

Why Are Humans Different From All Other Apes? It’s the Cooking, Stupid

By DWIGHT GARNER

Published: May 26, 2009

Human beings are not obviously equipped to be nature’s gladiators. We have no claws, no armor. That we eat meat seems surprising, because we are not made for chewing it uncooked in the wild. Our jaws are weak; our teeth are blunt; our mouths are small. That thing below our noses? It truly is a pie hole.

I found this article and thought it was interesting... (the title is the link)

Ode to Vic

As of today I have pretty much 2 weeks left here in Vic. I'm not really working too much - with the exception of this very last night shift right now - basically my out-routine and packing, oh the packing... I recall slightly mentioning before that I wanted to be as minimalist as possible and clearly this has not panned out very well. Currently I have filled 3 large Rubbermaid tupperware type containers and still have some to pack in my suitcase for the car. Ugh, I'm trying to reason out what to keep from my wardrobe - am I going to have an office type job where a uniform isn't required? Not sure..... most likely not, but I do have to dress up to eat meals at the mess so keeping them is justified. I do think though that all my non clothing items should really be thinned out a bit, that will be tomorrow's chore.

As for missing things here, despite the fact that I live in the ghetto side of the city (and on base) it's been really great. I've been able to visit a lot of friends from BOTC, even the reservist guys from BOTC made it out before I left, and now I get to see the rest of them in Quebec City. Not too bad, plus Pete has been here since January and even though we share essentially a hotel room and work shift work with very random sleeping schedules, we haven't even begun to get on each other's nerves.

I will really miss being so close to a lot of my navy friends. They really made the year here and I am sad to say adios for the time being. I will also miss the yummy sushi here, I don't think I even made it to all the restuarants, and of course my car, I will miss having my car, although the gas prices here are getting pretty awful ($1.07!) I think one of the only things I will miss about my job here is the view. My office has a great view of the harbour and all the warships, very large and cool looking warships... and on a night like tonight where the sun is just setting and everything has a warm glow it is quite beautiful!

For the drive home we had originally decided to depart on the Saturday, overnight in Vancouver (all you can eat Sushi and Korean BBQ) and then again in Kelowna and then onto Calgary for a few days before we both head east. However, Pete has surgery scheduled for the 10th, and won't be out of hospital until the 14th or so, plus now the poor guy can't fly home from Calgary but has to train it from Edmonton..... Yep, almost 3 days on the train - yikes! Well this way his lung won't collapse again and he can have all sorts of crazy fun in Gagetown throwing grenades, and shelling stuff without worry.

Anyhoo, I should get back to the harbour and my paperwork. Night!

Tree hugger?

Being that I am in the new "Green Navy" and living in BC for the past year I feel a bit more in tune with environmentally friendly practices. Not to say that I wasn't like this in Calgary, I recycled as much as I could, but it is nice to read something like this... bravo Alberta, Green looks good on you.

On a completely unrelated note, I ran my first 1/2 marathon today. A month ago I ran my first 10 km therefore this was quite the leap. Originally I made a 2 hours 45 minute goal for myself and I am happy to report I made it in 2 hours, 30 minutes., give or take a few mins. It was awful, the two hills in the last km almost killed me but I did it and now feel a lot more motivated to run the 15km staircase challenge in Quebec City in a month, and even more so for the half marathon in September. Pete also kicked butt... he ran 1 hour 49 min, and on a newly repaired collapsed lung which prevented him form actually training for this thing... he is amazing and I'm uber proud of him - Good Job Pete!

I'm pretty sure, inspired by dooce also ran a race this weekend, and Heather has a sprint triathalon next weekend... so well done / good luck to the them!

Survey fun on a sunday night

4 goals I have in the next 5 years:
1. Make Lieutenant(Navy)
2. Own a house
3. Run a marathon
4. Become uber organized

4 places I will visit someday:
1. Scotland - to walk the Great Glen Way and research my roots
2. Russia - to see the history
3. India
4. Vietnam

2 interesting places I've been
1. Sahara Dessert
2. Turkey


4 of my favorite foods:
1. Indian anything
2. Afternoon Tea
3. Veggie Platters
4. Christmas Pudding (ala Nana)

4 jobs I've had:
1. Aupair - most spoiled and misbehaved children I've ever met
2. Optometric Assistant - it helped me get to Africa and paid
  for university
3. Teacher - grade 10 boys are awful
4. Anti-terrorism Officer of the Watch

2 places I've lived:
1. France
2. Montreal

2 places I'd like to live:
1. Ottawa
2. Anywhere else in Europe

4 things I'd do with my spare time, if I had any:
1. Learn another language - Arabic I think
2. Read more history books
3. Learn how to swim (or rather learn how to swim properly)
4. Perfect the art of conversation

Running

So since I last posted I've been getting into my running, mostly because Pete has encouraged me to sign up for races. Also because, for the moment, I live in Victoria and can run outside most days of the year.

I managed to get through the Times Colonist 10km run - after a night shift no less - which did make me feel pretty happy. Although running with 11,000 other people was awful, and all those people who started before me and walked from the beginning were frustrating to navigate around, I did feel like the run went well.
Fast forward a month and I am running my first 1/2 marathon. Not sure if this was the smartest move, having only a month of extra training in between the two but I have come up with a plan. I originally was going to run it as a 10km and then walk run the rest until I was finished, however now I think I'll do a 2km run then 1 km walk and see how that goes. Pete is also running this one, not beside me, but he will be on the route roughly around the same time. He is running on a newly repaired collapsed lung but I have no doubt he will be just fine, he lives for this stuff.

I have another race in the fall to train for which I assume I will be more prepared for. Plus I am spending the summer in Quebec City and one of my classmates has decided that we are going to be running this exciting race..... so who knows I might just do well.

How Many

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 books from this list. Copy the list into your own note. Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.Delete 'x' from any you have not read.

[ ] 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
[] 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
[ ] 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
[X] 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
[x] 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
[] 6 The Bible
[ ] 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
[X] 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
[ ] 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
[ X] 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
[] 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
[ ]12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
[ ] 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
[ ] 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
[ ] 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
[] 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
[ ] 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
[ X] 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinge
[ X] 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
[ ] 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
[ ] 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
[x] 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
[ ] 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
[ ] 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
[] 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
[ ] 26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
[ ] 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
[X ] 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
[X] 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
[x] 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
[ ] 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
[ ] 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
[x] 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
[ ] 34 Emma - Jane Austen
[ ] 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
[x] 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
[ ] 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
[ ] 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
[] 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
[X] 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
[x] 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
[x] 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
[ ] 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
[ ] 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
[ ] 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
[X ] 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
[ ] 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
[ ] 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
[X] 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
[ ] 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
[ ] 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
[ ] 52 Dune - Frank Herbert
[ ] 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
[ ] 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
[ ] 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
[ ] 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
[]57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
[ ] 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
[] 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
[ ] 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
[ X] 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
[ ] 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
[ ] 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
[ ] 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
[x] 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
[ ] 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
[ ] 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
[X] 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
[ ] 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
[ ] 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
[ ] 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
[ ] 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
[X ] 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
[x] 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
[ ] 75 Ulysses - James Joyce
[ ] 76 The Inferno - Dante
[ ] 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
[ ] 78 Germinal - Emile Zola
[ ] 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
[ ] 80 Possession - AS Byatt
[x] 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
[ ] 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
[ ] 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
[ ] 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
[ ] 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
[ X] 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
[X] 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
[ ] 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
[] 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
[ ] 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
[X] 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
[ X] 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery - In three languages!
[ ] 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
[ ] 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
[ ] 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
[] 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
[x] 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
[X] 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
[X] 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
[ ] 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


Uh oh, I only got 30 - better get reading!

500

Wow, so I completely failed to notice that my last post was actually my 500th. Quite the milestone, and I'm amazed that I didn't know it. Anyways, onto something else... I found these stats on the net, they are a few years old but I am certain that things haven't changed that drastically since their publication. I've always had a weird preoccupation with population rates and these rates come as a bit of a surprise to me, and I'm not sure why.

The latest data from the Population Reference Bureau shows that
there are twenty countries in the world with negative or zero
natural population growth.  This is unprecedented in history!
This negative or zero natural population growth means that these
countries have more deaths than births or an even number of
deaths and births; this figure does not include the impacts of
immigration or emigration. Even including immigration over
emigration, only one of the twenty countries (Austria) is expected
to grow between 2006 and 2050.  The country with the highest
decrease in the natural birth rate is Ukraine, with a natural
decrease of 0.8% each year. Ukraine is expected to lose 28% of
their population between now and 2050 (from 46.8 million now to
33.4 million in 2050). Russia and Belarus follow close behind at
a 0.6% natural decrease and Russia will lose 22% of their
population by 2050 - that is a loss of more than 30 million people
(from 142.3 million today to 110.3 million in 2050).  Japan is the
only non-European country in the list and it has a 0% natural birth
increase and is expected to lose 21% of its population by 2050
(shrinking from 127.8 million to a mere 100.6 million in 2050).
The streets of Tokyo won't be as crowded in a few decades as they
are today! Here's the list of the countries with negative natural
increase or zero negative increase in population... Ukraine: 0.8%
natural decrease annually; 28% total population decrease by 2050

Russia: -0.6%; -22%
Belarus -0.6%; -12%
Bulgaria -0.5%; -34%
Latvia -0.5%; -23%
Lithuania -0.4%; -15%
Hungary -0.3%; -11%
Romania -0.2%; -29%
Estonia -0.2%; -23%
Moldova -0.2%; -21%
Croatia -0.2%; -14%
Germany -0.2%; -9%
Czech Republic -0.1%; -8%
Japan 0%; -21%
Poland 0%; -17%
Slovakia 0%; -12%
Austria 0%; 8% increase
Italy 0%; -5%
Slovenia 0%; -5%
Greece 0%; -4%

It's been a while....

Yikes, so I guess I haven't been as diligent in my blogging as I would have liked to think but I am here now so lets get on with it shall we?

Happenings in the last few months have been sparse I work, I go to the gym, I eat meals, I visit with people... it's a nice way to live. But seriously, I'm not sure that I am really explaining how much I do enjoy it. When I do go to work (and I say that because military life affords quite a bit of vacation time, and paid vacation at that!) I get to deal with all sorts of problems and people and really get into the thick of it. My training has been so useful, and I do know that if I ever do leave the military, or put it to the side temporarily I can always use the experiences in civie street as they say.

In other ways it can be a bit tough living away, but they do try to help out with perks like extra money to help offset the cost of a plane ticket home - sadly as Calgary is so close my offset money is only $270 so it doesn't quite cover a ticket home at Christmas. This year my Christmas will actually be in Jan, and only for a week, but at least its something.

Last week the course catalogue came out for the reserves and it looks as though my LOG course will be in Quebec City 8 Jun - 31 July. This is great news as I can probably extend my contract here in Victoria to the end of April, or May, whatever I feel is necessary and then look for something in Sept or Aug... I love that the reserves lets me pick and choose what I do next. I might have the opportunity to come back to Victoria to help out with the Olympics in Feb 2010, or find a contract in Ottawa, or really wherever Pete and I end up. Just now its a toss up between the RCMP and the Ottawa Police... I might be persuaded to pick Ottawa Police but in reality the RCMP has phenomenal potential to be a great career and I can find military work almost anywhere in the country, plus I have a few more courses to go on and some French training and University courses to complete before promotions so anything will do really.

Pete was able to come out and visit for a week after his course in Quebec City. He left Thursday morning bound for Toronto and luckily the snow wasn't too bad at that point. It did get much worse though as the weekend came. Funny thing is that the island did get a lot of snow.. almost 3 feet in a week and for crazy islanders it was far too much. I was even having trouble driving as I did not bring my snow tires with me and my car is very little so i slid around a bit and had to dig it out a few times. Pete is due back next Monday, just in time for New Years and hopefully the snow will have melted a tad. We are due for some above zero temps for the next week so I am sure that the island will return to it's green state.

Well, I suppose I shall leave it at that for the time being. I will do my best to report back in a few days with any new happenings. In the meantime, stay warm and play nice in the snow!

Little Belgian Lad Salutes Canadian Troops

This is precious

Lest we Forget

Kids Zoned Out on Remembrance

I found this on the Military Network, originally published by the Calgary Sun - it's a story about how kids these days know nothing of the sacrifice that our War Vets and current Soldiers have made, it's rather disgusting actually....

Kids 'zoned out' on remembrance

Among hundreds of high school students invading the northeast food
court, only a handful of red poppies could be seen.

"It's because people don't like paying for them," said one Grade 10
teen.

If Remembrance Day's future isn't completely bleak, it's certainly
confused and disconnected.  Sure, it was only a small snapshot of
Remembrance Day's relevance to youth, but it turned out to be an
amazingly consistent glimpse of what they believe and don't know.
These students, who just happened to attend Lester B. Pearson high
school, all understood the gist of the occasion, that we enjoy our
freedoms through the sacrifice of soldiers.  And they say it shouldn't
be forgotten. But press them further and they don't know much about
what they've forgotten.

"Which war? Two, right?" said 15-year-old Tyson.

The words Vimy Ridge, Ortona, Dieppe, Kapyong, Medac Pocket,
 even Passchendaele whose name is now celluloid currency draws a
total blank, a universal F.

"Vimy's in Ottawa, it's a place where people go and remember -- it's
a guy, I think," says Gina, 17.

Uttering Stalingrad provoked mention of a Russian czar, a revolution
and other zany detours.

"Bloody Sunday -- wasn't that involved?" says Nathan, mistaking
Northern Ireland's 1970s troubles with a Second World War turning point.

Says Sequora, 17: "I remember learning about Vimy but I can't remember
 -- they do teach us but it just doesn't have as much of an impact."

In other words, they're just not that interested and increasingly distant
history doesn't resonate.

"We still do one minute of silence but I don't think it has as much of an
effect on us as it did on people before ... like the deceased," adds
Sequora.

Maybe 50% of her classmates "actually think about it, the rest are zoned
out,"  says Romeena, 16, who insists she's never "learned about Hitler
at all."

Some say they're aware of the Holocaust and 16-year-old Rhea recalled
what she'd been taught about the trenches, presumably those of the
First World War.

Jolene says she has military veterans in her family, but hasn't a clue what
they did or where.

Youths of south Asian or African backgrounds at the ethnically diverse
school are virtually identical to their European classmates in their responses
and attitudes.

The Afghan deployment of Canadian soldiers not much older than them
adds no contemporary relevance to Remembrance Day for these teens.

If anything, at least among the youths with an inkling of the Second World
War and nation-gobbling Nazi aggression, the West's occupation of Afghanistan
is completely
disconnected from Nov. 11.

They seem startled to hear the two sharing the same breath. It's easy to
see why.

"They're not saying they're going to come invade our country," says Melat,
16, of Canada's Afghan foes.

Not a single one interviewed in the food court supports the mission, though
a couple of them think Canadian troops are also helping to pacify Iraq.

"I don't think it's our deal to be in Afghanistan, it's not our problem,"
says Nathan.

Others say they believe Canadian troops in Afghanistan are being exploited
by the Americans -- hardly a Flanders Fields moment.

There's some awareness of Canada's peacekeeping heritage, which stands out
starkly in young minds from the more recent warmaking.

"I don't think our soldiers are making any peace -- they're dying," says Gina.

Regardless of the bravery of today's Canadian soldiers, we've come far from
one conventional army expelling another occupying one.

And the kids know it, even if they're hazy on the more distant history. 

That's History!

Wow, it's finally over, the votes have been tabulated and the winner declared. Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America. It's an amazing time in our lives and I truly do think that the next four years will be a better period of history for the Americans than the previous 8 years. His speech was both wonderful and inspirational and I am glad to have heard it - well done Mr. President...

It really is in you to give!

I was perusing the CBC website in search of my new Defense Minister (It's still Peter McKay by the way) I found this story

So there it is Canada - lets get out there and donate some blood... I did mine last week!

Finally, Some Recognition!

British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read (and a big THANK YOU to Ronnalie, she emailed me this wonderful article!)

HOW TRUE THIS IS

British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words... Sunday Telegraph Article From today's UK wires:
Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers, 'The Sunday Telegraph' LONDON :

Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region.

And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.. It seems that Canada 's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored.

Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped Glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.

That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States , and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts.

For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved.

Yet it's purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada 's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory as somehow or other the work of the 'British.'

The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone.

Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time.

Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British.

It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces.

Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.

Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular non-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.

So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan ?

Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.

Lest we forget.

Randomn thoughts on a saturday night

I'm currently sitting at my fancy desk on base, pulling the 4th night of my watch rotation. It's been a nice change from my day job and I can say quite honestly that it is a much slower pace. I'm grappling with the whole staying up until 6am bit though. And the fact that as of tomorrow morning I have to switch to a normal sleep at night schedule... that might be tough. Anyhoo, enough with the boring bits.

Last weekend I zipped off to Quebec City for Thanksgiving. I had never been east during the fall so it was really fantastic to see all the colours - and the red leaves to be exact. I've never seen a red maple leaf so this was a real treat for me. Well, that and the fact I got to see Pete which is always a good thing ;) . The flights there were quite crap, Victoria to Vancouver, Vancouver to Toronto, Toronto to Quebec city.... 9 hours in all.... but at least it as over night and I got to sleep a bit. The weekend itself was really laid back... we chilled mostly, walked a bit through the old towne and had a few nice meals. Our Thanksgiving dinner was at L'Astral which is the revolving restaurant at the top floor of our hotel. The restaurant itself was great, the food was tasty as well but somehow I as slightly disappointed in the fact that there was no Thanksgiving themed anything... not even pumpkin pie! As a person who adores Turkey Dinners you can imagine how crappy it was not to get the official Thanksgiving meal on Thanksgiving but I guess that means that all the pressure now rests on Christmas Dinner... Maybe I'll go and buy myself a box of stopetop and cook it up in the microwave to make myself feel better.

Living in the Big House on the Hill

Firstly, my apologies for the long wait - I've been awaiting my Internet to be installed chez moi and the Internet cafe was all the way downtown... and it's rather tough to park downtown sometimes. But enough of my excuses.

Here's the update: I moved back to Victoria as part of a contract with the Navy that was drawn up for me to help me fill time until I have a course in Quebec City. This wasn't quite what I had in mind, in fact most of us thought I would be back in Calgary working at the ship's office, but here I am. My current position involves Port Security and my tasking is to Coordinate the BASF or the Base Auxiliary Security Force - a daunting task for someone with only 6 months in, but I am trying to do my best.

Other than work I try to keep my time occupied with eating - mainly at the fancy dancy dining room downstairs - complete with white linen table cloths and silver cutlery... a rather posh place reserved for officers. It's nice, but a bit scary as I am usually the lowest rank in the room and are therefore very careful how I conduct myself. Not that I don't have any manners, but sitting in the same room as 5 different 4 bars (Navy Captains) is a bit scary at times. After the meals, which quite honestly are pretty tasty, I usually zip off to the gym on base. It's nice, and the cardio theatre is well equipped but I have yet to visit the weight room as it is filled with hulking Navy boys who although are most likely extremely sweet their muscles are larger than my head! My solution to this problem is to transfer my membership from my Calgary gym to one in Victoria - that will be a task for next week I think. The reason for my crazy workout regime is that I have somehow agreed to run a half marathon next May... another scary task but I have something like 36 weeks to prepare so hopefully the mild weather this winter will allow me to train outdoors for most of the season.

On the friends front, I have several buddies from basic who are still in town waiting on their next course to start as well - these peeps however are all reg force MARS officers (think the guys who drive the ships). Luckily for me they are all really awesome people and I love to spend time with them. On a timeline note I think I may be here until June, unless I can convince the CF to offer another Logistics course next year, keep your fingers crossed!

Alright, I'm getting sleepy and I have to be off to work tomorrow morning. I have a Sig Sauer shoot on Tuesday so I am sure that I will have some fun things to tell you then.
Good night!

Finally..

So I am all moved in in Victoria now... it was quite the wait but I've checked into my wardroom room - aka my hotel room, eaten my meals at my fancy dining room, checked in at work, got my desk, found out I am the Coordinator of a Emergency / High Profile Security Force... and have finished my "In-routine"... I feel rather like a real life Navy person now... saluting all the way from my room to my office and having people to coordinate.. it is all very scary though!

This poor blog has been quite neglected in the last few months but I have called Shaw and they are coming out to install my internet on Thursday. SO that means that I can start to regularly update you all on my life... yeah!