Random Thoughts

As the year comes to an end, the various media folks out there are compiling lists of things that happened during the year and during the last decade. I guess we all started 2000 wondering about this scary Y2K thing. I remember people saying that the lights would go out and the VCRs would awaken and try and kill us all... But that seems like such a long ago. I remember I had a cellphone then. But not even in my dreams did I think that there would be a phone that plays music and videos and allow for emails to fly through the air and what not. A decade can make such a huge difference! One of the political countdowns had a picture of Arafat and Bill Clinton hanging out with Ehud Barak trying to make peace before the second intifada started. Seems like such heady times then. Since then, Arafat made an exit (permanently), Clinton went his own way, some lunatic bastards got on some planes and flew into buildings, George Bush started all sorts of wars and even he's disappeared from the fa

As I sit here on Boxing Day , I thought I would look back at 2009. My main inspiration for such a compilation comes from an entry of a similar vein from someone I have learned a lot from... so why not apply what we learn eh? So, what happened in 2009? A lot of things happened. For much of the early year, I was, like many around the world (and most in the DC area and the United States) engrossed in the impending swearing in of the first non-White President of the United States. If I could use but one word to describe it, that word would be spectacular. I don't think I have ever been in a crowd that large and I will certainly not forget the sense of happiness and pride those people had. I know a lot of democracies cry about the disconnect between the voters and their government and the level of apathy that takes over the populace but the time leading up to the inauguration was indeed marked by the opposite. February and March seemed to creep by far too slowly. Most of it was filled

This year, I kept track of every hike I made up the Grouse Grind. I think I've blogged about the grind before: its a really good hike up a local mountain in Vancouver. People call it nature's stair master and they're not kidding. My best time ever up the mountain was about 55 minutes. Sadly, I was nowhere near that time for this (shortened) season. Here's what my hike times looked like for 2009: The graph is courtesy of Google spreadsheets (part of Google docs). I wish the graph itself was more than just an image, I wish it was dynamic. I am sure Google will make that happen one day. In other news, I headed out skiing for the very fist time (ever) to Cypress Mountain (close to Grouse Mountain) today in the pouring rain. I have to say skiing is quite a bit different than snowboarding. The mountain was not busy on account of the weather and we had to drive through some wicked fog to get to the parking lot. I like that you can park the car, walk a bit and get on the chair

I have been a (relatively) silent spectator to the various goings on of these much hyped climate talks in Copenhagen recently. But now that the circus is over, I thought I would jot down my thoughts on the issues raised there. There are still sceptics in this world who question whether climate change exists and whether it is a man-made phenomenon or something that occurs naturally. There are also people out there that question whether one Charles Darwin was high on some really good crack when he came up with the idea of evolution. But we will leave Mr. Darwin out of this one. Let me say that I believe that climate change is happening and that it is man-made. That is not to say that I completely understand the science behind it all, but I can say that I trust the people who say that change exists and I believe they are credible and worth listening to. In case you're wondering what I am not sure about, or interested in finding out about, I am curious to know how they measure green h