Man in Tweed dot Com

On Tuesday November 4, 2008 I got a call that officially marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life.

After gaining a Bachelors and Masters degree in English Literature and a Masters of Library and Information Science and spending over $45,000 on education I said screw it. I'm tired of the stress of having to constantly search for someone who will hire me. I'm tired of working hard for an organization and getting nothing back when it comes to job security. I'm tired of working contract after contract with no end in sight. The result? I became a construction worker, a commercial and industrial insulator to be specific.

This blog is now an attempt on my part to let those around me know what it is like to change a life so drastically. Can a man with three degrees successfully wear a hardhat? Let's find out.

That happy, tired feeling of contentment

This post was written by Mike

This afternoon I got off the GO train with weary legs and a glow of knowing that I, however little, helped to build something today. I truly do enjoy being an insulator even if it puts me three inches away from uninsulated, active steam lines. I can also say for certain that insulating said lines reduces the ambient temperature by a metric wheelbarrowful. It went from brutal to warm in a matter of minutes.

So if you will excuse me I’m going to sit on my couch, watch my favorite hockey team beat up on the team I picked to win the Stanley Cup, and hope to heaven that this aspirin kicks in real soon.

Hockey Predictions 2010

This post was written by Mike

Once again it is the great contest between the hockey knowledge of yours truly versus the pencil of fate wielded by my beloved wife. Those of you willing to risk the archives will discover I didn’t do half badly last year. I picked a Washington/Detroit final and it was a Pittsburgh/Detroit final. I remember being conflicted last year about who was coming from the East and I should have gone with my gut instinct. Lets see if I get a perfect score this year. How did the pencil of fate do? Let’s just say she’s better at football (although she did pick the Ducks to beat San Jose).

Eastern Conference

• Washington versus Montreal
  • I’m picking Washington. Kate is picking Montreal. Funny. I’m the fan of the Habs.
• New Jersey versus Philadelphia
  • No dear there is not a “none of the above.” No pencil here she hates New Jersey less. I just think the Devils are the better team.
• Buffalo versus Boston
  • We both pick Buffalo
• Pittsburgh versus Ottawa
  • I’m picking the defending champs. The pencil chose Canadian content. For yet another year. Weird.

So I break it down like this (re-seeding sucks for flowcharts):

• Washington versus Pittsburgh — If you want this in the conference finals Boston has to win. I’m torn. Again. I’m picking Washington. Again.
• New Jersey versus Buffalo — In the battle of goalies I’m going to go with the new kid. Buffalo to shockingly make it to the conference finals.
• Washington versus Buffalo — That is as far as they go. Washington to the Stanley Cup finals.

Kate’s Breakdown:

• New Jersey versus Montreal — One more of the Habs. Again. I’m the fan.
• Buffalo versus Ottawa — Canadian content yet again. This pencil likes the Great White North.
• Ottawa versus Montreal — The battle of the Battle of Canada East goes to the Canadians.

Western Conference

• San Jose versus Colorado
  • We both say San Jose doesn’t choke. Yet.
• Chicago versus Nashville
  • I’m calling upset with the Predators shocking the Blackhawks into some semblance of NOT PARTYING ALL THE TIME DUMBASSES. Or something like that. Oh yeah the pencil went to Chicago.
• Vancouver versus Los Angeles
  • I’m really torn with this one but I’m sticking with the Sedins. Vancouver in a 7 game showdown of death. Kate’s going Canadian again.
• Phoenix versus Detroit
  • I feel bad. I really do. They deserve better for all the work the put in. Detroit will win but I don’t think it will be as easy as everyone thinks. Kate has the desert dogs going forward.

My Breakdown:

• San Jose versus Nashville — I say they don’t choke yet.
• Vancouver versus Detroit — This is where the “upset” run ends. Vancouver to win.
• San Jose versus Vancouver — Suck it Sharks. Canucks to the finals.

Pencil of Fate:

• San Jose versus Phoenix — It picks the choke to happen here. Phoenix forward.
• Chicago versus Vancouver — Canadian content all the way.
• Phoenix versus Vancouver — I say again, Canadian content all the way.

Stanley Cup Finals

I have Washington versus Vancouver. Kate has the all-Canadian final of Montreal versus Vancouver. I think Alex O hoists the cup in the Capitol. Kate believes in Vancouver 2010 (see what I did there?)

Cat plays with an iPad

This post was written by Mike

8 Books, a Miss, and Random Thoughts for the Week

This post was written by Mike

Eight books? Over the span of a week or so? No problem. Why? Well that’s simple. I’m sitting on my rear waiting for the union hall to call and actually get working again. To make matters worse I’m out of EI so I have zero money coming in. What dose that mean? Depression attack. Thankfully I feel like I’m on the goes up side of the sine wave but it still meant that for the past while I’ve been absorbing myself in books as a way to escape reality. Having nice weather to work outside on the yard has helped as has getting over this damned persistent cold. Nevertheless I’ve been a less than ideal human for a bit but thankfully I’ve been productive and not sitting in a ball staring at the wall. That hasn’t happened for a while. The sine wave amplitude has shrunk it seems.

First, some random thoughts.

• Tiger Woods did not betray me. Tiger did not betray his fans or golf. I’m with the Penny Arcade guys on this one. He’s a super rich human being. If he wants to sleep with 3/4 of the female population then more power to him. He’s Tiger freaking Woods. He should not be ostracized for doing what most guys would (or pretend they would) do in this situation. He basically saw someone he wanted, pointed to her, and said “you’re turn.” And unlike a certain former President at least his choice in women is pretty decent. No butterfaces there.
• I can’t remember the last time I wore a t-shirt on my birthday and felt too warm.
• I’m watching more basketball than hockey. Does this make me un-Canadian?
• I might just be getting the hang of using charcoal.
• I’m almost at 40% of the 95 books. Crazy. I need to get some work soon.
• Finally finished God of War II (I gave up on the Zeus battle way back when, got distracted, and forgot I never finished). Fun times. I look forward to number the third.

Now to books.

In going through my files it appears I missed writing up #26. So before I get into the crazy amount of books I’ve devoured let us backtrack.

Book #26 The Inside Game: Race, Power, and Politics in the NBA by Wayne Embry with Mary Scmitt Boyer

This is an amazing tale of what happens behind the scenes in the executive world the of the NBA and what it is like to be Black in a place where that is a problem to some. It amazes me to think that we’re calling this world ‘post-racial’ when a testament to how people were treated just because of the colour of their skin is still alive. We are not a post-racial society. Not when I can be asked “would you let your wife walk past a group of blacks to go to the store” and see the look of stunned apprehension when I say yes. Read this book and find out how hard it is to be on the other side of the coin for a change. I thank Wayne for his honesty and courage in telling his tale.

Books #30, 31, 32 Engaging the Enemy, Command Decision, Victory Conditions by Elizabeth Moon

These books take the initial characters, which have been thoroughly fleshed out, and puts them fully into the space opera that is their lives. I appreciate the complexity of the universe, the fact that it takes forever and a day to get anywhere in the vast cosmos of space, and the fact that not everything goes completely according to plan. Rating: A

Book #33 The Blue-Haired Bombshell by John Zakour

Honestly, this is not my favorite book of the series. It reads more like an regular adventure novel than an absurd/zany adventure novel. That might be because there are just only so many crazy adventures one can get into with future technology and a holographic computer as a best friend. Rating: C+

Book #34 The Sapphire Sirens by John Zakour

It looks like the series is definitely in adventurer mode for good. At least this one was better. A false finish or two, with a standard mystery plot using sci/fi tropes established in the earlier novels. The finish itself felt a little flat to me. Still, it was good for a break. Rating: B-

Books #35, 36, 37 On Basilisk Station, The Honor of the Queen, The Short Victorious War by David Weber

It looks like I needed a good space war and anyone who can include a technical appendix on how missiles, hyperspace currents, and breakdown of the overall tonnage of the various warring navies can fill that need. It helps that David Weber creates a great character in Honor Harrington and the back-story revelations which show why she reacts certain ways (including one in the third novel) are not gratuitous or unbelievable. I even did an “oooh” to the one in the third novel but was not really surprised. You knew something else must have happened and this was completely consistent. How do I know? It didn’t have to be added but its addition was useful to the character development. You can tell it’s a well done war when a whole lot of people die and the survivors are left with the guilt. Rating: A

Tags: 95 Books, God of War II, Tiger Woods

A weekend of reading

This post was written by Mike

Ever get sucked into something and the next thing you know the entire day has past? Yeah. On Friday I played close to nine hours of Dragon Age so I switched gears and went a booking.

Book 27: Blood and Honor by Simon R. Green

My lovely wife put this on interlibrary loan a while back and was surprised when it came in. Back in 1993 Simon R. Green had an idea about a castle that could eat people. Seriously. One of the rooms turns into a stomach and digests someone. I’m sure this is just one of the ideas which later became the Nightside. But it was a fun little read with royal intrigue, absurdity, and what some would call horror. I don’t really see it as such but then again I laughed at weird things. Rating: B

Book 28: Shalador’s Lady by Anne Bishop

Rating: A

I love Anne Bishop’s Dark Jewels universe. It is dark, majestically laid out, and thoughtfully produced. By creating a secondary set of characters we can still see the main characters that we loved so much in the original trilogy (plus two) without having them face yet another crisis. This book picks up a week or so after The Shadow Queen and finishes a number of open questions and problems that exist in Dena Nehele. At 476 pages it is almost as big as the first two books in the series combined yet it still works as a fast read. There appears to even be a bit of a false finish halfway through that keeps you wondering just what will happen. Is it as dark as the original trilogy? Not by any means. It does, however, explore the depths of a number of the characters and lets us know what life is like in the rest of the world outside of Janelle’s court.

And like some books, which will remain not-so nameless in a moment, its ‘erotic’ moments aren’t filled with chapters of skippable sex scenes. We even get a few “the next morning” bits that let us know the sex was good. But we didn’t have to see it.

Which brings me to …

Book 29: Divine Misdemeanors by Laurell K. Hamilton

Sigh. Thankfully this is a Merry Gentry novel which means it is supposed to have sex scenes and, unlike the Anita Blake series, they follow a pattern of three or four sex moments to pass the time. Seriously. These people don’t watch tv. They screw.It gets humourous after a while but there are only so many ways to describe what they are up to and I get bored.

As I look at the book in front of me I admit to having no idea what the cover art has to do with the book. Merry is back in LA and working at her job as a private detective. Almost all of the original book’s characters are in it including Uther, one of my favorites. This is a Laurell Hamilton mystery. The culprit is somewhat obvious, a lot of weird things happen (that the characters find weird not the reader I should point out) and we are left with a new set of possible story directions. What else? Faerie is making them go “um, I didn’t know it could do that” which if you are a few millennia old can be a teensy bit worrisome, Cel’s former bodyguards are seriously traumatized (one of the few areas Hamilton excels at in this series is pointing out how horrifically the insanity that is the Unseelie Court affects people), and Merry has a few wtf moments about living with babies growing inside her. My own guess is that the twins will start growing at an exponential rate and be ready to pop out after two months. Why?  It wouldn’t surprise me. Especially if you know how she got knocked up.

I only had to skip a couple of the sex chapters, which is high praise in my mind for her work these days. I really wish Hamilton would write something other than “erotica” every now and then because there could be an amazing film noir/P.I. spin off with Rhys’ character. I still find it odd that her actual erotica series has more gore and political intrigue than the vampire series. But that’s the fey for you.

Decent mystery. Fun moments. A few laugh out louds. Bits you can skip are in chapter form making you less likely to miss something important. Rating: solid B

Tags: 95 Books

Reading and Tradesmen

This post was written by Mike

One of the common misconceptions about tradesmen is that they don’t read. It is a misconception that they happen to share. As one guy said to me once, “Books. I think I read one of those in high school.” Yet many of them sit down every day with a copy of the Toronto Sun. Some read it cover to cover. Some read just the sports section. They don’t just buy the paper to look at the Sunshine Girl or read the escort section. They can, and will, just look at their neighbour’s copy for that purpose. It is not even a case of wanting to keep up with the current issues of the day. Guys will happily reread week old entire papers that are still lying around the lunch trailer.

Why the discrepancy? To borrow a Pratchetism, although tradesmen read they don’t Read. They think it’s a great idea for their kids to read books for fun but don’t view it as an enjoyable past-time for themselves. They view Reading in much the same manner as someone who watches a different sport as a hobby, they get the idea but don’t understand the fascination. Reading the newspaper isn’t a hobby, it’s something to pass the time. For those who read the sports section, it is there to inform. They read the car ads. They will even discuss what they just read, usually starting with a “can you fucking believe this shit?” and get the response “yeah but it’s the fucking Sun, man. Half the time I swear they just make this shit up.”

But don’t ever call it Reading. That’s something different.

Tags: construction, reading, tradesmen

mild site issue

This post was written by Mike

I just noticed that individual pages (such as the link leading to the first day of my construction career) don’t have a “next/previous” button or gizmo. I’ll try and fix that sometime this week. If you want to read monthly it starts November 2008.

Religion, SciFi, War, and not much else

This post was written by Mike

Book 24

By Schism Rent Asunder by  David Weber

It is at this point that anyone following my rating system will sit up, look at what I give this book, and pronounce me a complete and utter moron. Why? Because unlike the huddled masses I happen to believe that religion is a vital part of the human condition. Even the decision to not have a religion is a religious decision in my mind. In Schism, David Weber actively tries to work out the problem of whether not you can have a religion based on a false assumption (i.e, that the religion itself is a lie meant to control humanity) and yet still believe in God. Anyone who has no desire to think about this problem will hate this book. I, on the other hand, love it. When the great revelation happens I found my mind getting distracted by my own theological thoughts and exploring those ideas  only to resume reading and find them stated, in one case almost word for word, by the characters. For example the characters have an awesome conversation that pretty much boils down to the religiously useful bit of Pascal’s Wager (i.e. I don’t know if there’s a God but if there isn’t and I’ve lived a Godly life then I’ve really lost nothing in the long run.)

I was going to quote extensively from the book and make a wonderful essay on scifi and religion but I can’t type on either my computer or Kate’s without inflicting some form of forearm/wrist pain on myself and I don’t feel like going downstairs, booting up the ‘writing computer’ (with Puppy Linux ftw) and using the sneaker net to form a blog post.

Book 25

By Heresies Distressed by David Weber

Once again if you like Space Opera you will probably enjoy this book. If not, you will do something horrible to your eyes. Or put the book down. Either way you won’t finish. Where the previous book dealt with religion this one deals with a war. As I enjoyed the first volume of the three volume set on the American Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression) for any readers from the Deep South) I rather liked this book. Basically this is what would happen if aliens (or humans from the future, er, or previously developed past) were involved in supporting one government over another. The ones being attacked would be demolished.

And there’s another sword battle. I like SciFi with swords.

Tags: 95 Books

Three more books

This post was written by Mike

Book 21: Off Armageddon Reef by  David Weber

This fills my sci-fi niche for the moment. Humanity is almost dead so we send out an ark to the other side of the galaxy and then enforce a limit to their technological growth through a created religion. Only the people making the religion kind of get caught up in it and, well, make themselves demi-powers. So the android body with a human (pre-ark) consciousness has to intervene. Two thoughts: 1. there are sailing ships and sword fights. Yay! 2. No one realizes how much you can do with water power until its far too late.  Rating: A

Book 22: Buddha Vol. 3: Devadatta by Osamu Tezuka

I read most of the series last year but this volume just now made it to the library. Weird. Tezuka is the man who created Astroboy for those who think he sounds familiar. I’ve been trying to think of a corollary. Mabye Neil Gaiman writes the story of Jesus? Anyways, this is the story of Buddha with a decided Mahayana bent. As most of my Buddhist knowledge is Theravandan in origin it is part eh? and part enlightening. Rating: A

Book 23: They Call Me Coach by  John Wooden
Another of the Doug Smith books. This is the autobiography of one of the most successful NCAA coaches of all time. He includes his life, his beliefs, and how to run a basketball team. He is (literally) old school. The team is the most important part of the game. No deviations. No personal actions that go outside that construct. That goes for clothing, hair, and vulgarity. An interesting read but put-downable at times. It took me a bit to get through it.  Rating: B

Tags: 95 Books

Reflections on Vancouver 2010

This post was written by Mike

As a Canadian, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games will forever be etched in my mind as something special. I make no claims that it has changed our nation or that we will henceforth be seen in a different light by the nations of the world. Moments are fleeting, memories fade, life returns to its cycles of boredom and excitement. But no matter how the world turns out, we will have stilled experienced something as a nation unlike anything else that has come before us. This was the perfect storm of nationalism, sporting pride, and media presence. We could, for the most part, watch whatever sport we wished to watch. For the more technologically oriented we could watch whatever sport we wished to watch whenever and wherever we wished to watch it.

Despite what happens next, despite the next few weeks of doldrums that come from a hangover, despite the comparative boredom that will be our lives as we return to our daily routine we have lived through something special.

The ever-bouncing Marianne St-Gelais will forever be Canada’s Sweetheart. Joannie Rochette will always be our heartbroken darling who’s sorrow touched us all. Alex Bilodeau will always be our kindhearted and amazing younger brother. Jon Montgomery will be our crazy friend who slides down a mountain headfirst, celebrates by chugging a pitcher of beer and wants to do it all again tomorrow. Sidney will always be our hero.

Aside from our national memories, there are personal ones I hope to recall in years to come:

• k.d. Lang coming out of relative obscurity (at least to me) to sing the most hauntingly beautiful rendition of the song ‘Hallelujah’ that I have ever heard.
• Watching every run of the men’s and women’s moguls to the point where I gasped at the very same moment as the television commentator when we realized the final skier missed his jump and Alex had won gold
• Marianne St-Gelais bouncing everywhere she went and the Chinese skater Meng Wang who won gold congratulating her with a hug
• Thinking the South Korean speed skater Lee Ho-Suk will be lucky to make it back to Korea without being flayed alive
• Hearing my wife say she would disqualify him for being a dick in the B finals just before the officials disqualified him for being a dick in the B finals
• Being glued to long-track speed skating as every moment surpassed the previous one as the most compelling moment thus far
• Rod Black, Jamie Salle and David Pelletier mocking the figure skating outfits
• Watching Simon Ammann winning double gold in ski-jumping for a second straight time

The final memory, however, I will take away is not The Goal, it is not the sense that we have finally found a way to express our inherent nationalism, it is not even that we showed the world that we are one big crazy party. My final memory is watching us make fun of the fact that our opening ceremony failed and then the unbelievable sense of pride while watching Catriona Lemay Doan get her chance to light the flame and share in the moment that was denied her. That, to me, was our enduring moment. We did not say “it’s just one of those things” and silently move on. We mocked ourselves, fixed it, and looked right in the eyes of everyone in the world who said we don’t know how to run things, that we made the Olympics a joke, that we failed as a county and a host and told the to fuck off.

Be happy Canada. We just showed the world how to run an Olympic Games. And we beat their ass doing it.