Season's Greetings

            I could write some deep, philosophical blog, or perhaps some nonsensical banter. Perhaps a short review, or some lengthy discussion on D&D or some other game. I could dig up some anecdote from my past, or ramble on about the future, yet none of that seems apt for today.

            Today, regardless of who you are, or what your beliefs, I would like to wish you a happy holiday season. If you’re spending time with friends and family, I hope you get along and have a great time – and if you’re not, I hope it’s because you’re happier that way, or that you at least engage in some activity that makes you happy.

            It’s a time of year full of celebration, but also one where the weather or old memories cause a great deal of depression or sadness. If you are such a person to be afflicted by such things, I’d like to remind you (because it’s easy to forget) that not all times are bad, and this, too, shall pass. I wish you the most cheery time you can manage and hope that the hard times pass sooner rather than later.

            I hope you all have a wonderful midwinter feast and joyous times, be they from games with friends or some quality time with a good book. Be kind to yourself and to others – that goes for the whole year round, too.

            And greetings to you from Salt, Pepper, Cinnamon, Ginger, Nutmeg, Oregano, Parsley, and all the other seasonings.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Plant Overlords

            Have you ever stopped to wonder at how remarkable our world is? I mean, take plants, for an example. They draw nutrients from dirt, water, and the sun. They then rearrange those nutrients to form building blocks to make the plant larger – and they may seem like they grow pretty slow, but if you compare them to humans they grow at an alarming rate. They also just happen to filter the air into something other life forms need to breathe.

            Of course, plants then become food for animals. The animals draw nutrients from the plants they eat, once again converting them into the building blocks they need to grow. And then other animals eat those animals, and so on.

            And then they all die. Bugs eat them (and are, in their turn, eaten) and turn them all into nutrient-rich dirt – which goes on to feed the plants.

            As if that circle of life wasn’t remarkable enough, just look at how life symbiotically helps each other. Look at plants, once again. By providing pollen and nectar, they feed creatures that can then spread that pollen, helping the plants to reproduce and spread their populations. Plants are so useful as a food source and as building materials that humans plant vast fields of them and raise them with great care.

            In fact, it’s so convenient that it almost seems orchestrated. I mean, we actively raise plants, spread them, feed them, protect and nurture them, and exhale the carbon dioxide they need. Then, when we die, we (eventually) become a rich food source for them.

            It’s almost as if our whole existence revolves around serving the plants. Like the plants are farming us and keeping us dependent upon them by feeding us (or our food) and granting us breathable air.

            All hail our beneficent plant overlords.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Evil Vegetarian Elves

            Of late, I’ve been reading the Inheritance Cycle (by Christopher Paolini) to Colleen. As a result, you now get to hear about one of my biggest pet peeves in fantasy: vegetarian elves.

            To start off with, I should probably say that this is in no way an attack on vegetarianism or veganism – it is merely my opinion relating to an aspect of world building.

            Now, I completely understand the concept of elves being vegetarian – from a certain perspective, it makes complete sense. Elves revere nature and life, so wouldn’t they be opposed to killing animals?

            However, I can very easily refute that argument by saying: take a close look at nature. In nature, it is kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. Yes, some animals eat only plants, but that’s because they lack the ability to eat meat. Elves are one with nature and, as such, would partake in the natural cycle of life. To abstain from eating meat would be to elevate themselves above nature.

            That said, it is also important to go back to the roots of modern fantasy. Tolkien. This is where we start, because prior to Tolkien, elves were all short sprites like the ones who help Santa. Tolkien reinvented the race into what is used in most stories.

            So, were Tolkien’s elves vegetarians? No. Thanks to the movies, this isn’t common knowledge because the idea that elves are vegetarians is so widespread that it managed to get into Peter Jackson’s interpretation. However, in The Hobbit, when Bilbo and the dwarves are in Mirkwood, they find themselves on the outskirts of a hunt – involving elves hunting a white elk. Later they come upon the elves feasting and, yes, meat is mentioned.

            This is the point where we reach why this becomes a pet peeve of mine. It can easily be argued that each writer is at complete liberty to make their world whatever they want it to be, which is entirely true. So what’s wrong with vegetarian elves? Internal consistency.

            When aspects of a world are created, even a fantasy world, they have to make sense. For that, let’s look at the common traits elves always have. Pointed ears. Graceful bodies. Keen eyesight and hearing. Exceptional archery skills.

            This last one is the problem. Exceptional archery skills. Why are elves exceptional archers? They are generally a peaceful race, so they would have no need of weapons unless threatened – at which point, they’d have to learn pretty fast to be that good at archery. There are easier weapons to use. No, they aren’t exceptional archers for the purposes of war – it is because they are hunters. And as they are so attuned to nature, they would not hunt for sport – only for food. Thus, for elves to have archery skills (and tracking skills, for that matter), they must eat meat.

            All of that said, it is possible for elves to be vegetarian – the world building just has to match. And, while it was his books that inspired this post, Paolini actually did a good job on the world building end of making his elves vegetarians – they have a reason for their choice and instead of exceptional archery, they’re simply very good at all forms of fighting due to their age, magic, and super-strength (making them more like Vulcans than traditional elves).

            So, in conclusion, elves can eat whatever they want – but the world and their abilities had better support their food choice.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Rat Warfare

            Back in November, I mentioned that we had a rat in the house – I never got around to sharing that we managed to get rid of it. At least, we’re pretty sure we did, because the poison my father-in-law put out vanished and we stopped seeing any signs of Templeton.

            Well, then on January 20^th Colleen baked a batch of cookies – and low and behold, that night we had a visitor chew its way through the container to get at the cookies. Reasonably confident that it wasn’t Templeton returned to haunt us, we named this one Donald (it seemed appropriate, due to the date of its arrival and the incessant trouble it’s caused).

            Now, in case you weren’t aware, catching rats is nothing like catching mice. You don’t just put down baited traps and they wander in – rats are clever enough to know traps when they see them. At least, this one is. (Also, a disclaimer here – I am opposed to killing the rat; I can’t even kill bugs. However, I also can’t live with a rat and remain sane, and peaceful methods of removing the rat have failed, so I have approved and even masterminded lethal methods for eliminating this problem.)

            We immediately put out the electrocution trap that failed to catch Templeton – baited with a cookie and the entrance concealed with the destroyed cookie container. Poison was also put out in the basement, as it had worked last time.

            We waited about two weeks. Donald wasn’t falling for the trap or the poison, but we were still seeing signs of visits. After a mousetrap was stolen (there were two that had been sprung for a while – it avoided the one that looks like it’s set and dragged the other one behind the stove and ate its peanut butter bait), I devised my first master plan.

            I had noted that every time Colleen baked, a rat seemed to show up. The smell was an irresistible lure. So, we removed the camouflage from the electrocution trap, removed the bait and cleaned our scent from it. We then placed it against a wall (an ideal place for catching rats), baked a fresh batch of cookies and baited the trap with one (sealing the others in the fridge so there were no others available).

            It didn’t work the first night, but the second night Donald couldn’t resist going for the cookie. Unfortunately, something went wrong – the trap didn’t trigger properly (we think the cookie got in the way), but a tuft of fur caught on the entrance (along with the untouched cookie) told us the rat had gotten a nasty shock. I was elated that I’d outsmarted this little monster, but I knew it wouldn’t fall for that trap again. So we decided to seal it out of the house.

            Since the rat was coming into the house through our front closet (and, from there, through a hole into the kitchen), we cleared out the closet (depositing the coats on the couch) and set to work. Using expanding foam laced with window screen, pepper, cayenne pepper, and peppermint essential oils (the internet informs us that rats can’t stand strong tastes and smells), we filled up the holes. Then we placed a few strategic crackers to determine if the rat was still able to get in.

            The next morning, we found that Donald had chewed several of our coats on the couch – on the opposite side of the room from the closet. It’s still unclear if it was searching for food or just getting revenge on us for blocking the hole. Luckily, the damage wasn’t extensive. However, it did mean there was another way in – one we’ve been unable to locate.

            A more traditional snap-trap was set on that side of the house, but, once again, it seemed like the rat was aware of what it was. Our hope began to wane.

            Then, a few days later, the cracker in the closet vanished – telling us that the rat could still get in there, even though it didn’t have a straight line to the kitchen from there. That’s when I came up with my next master plan.

            I knew rats to be cautious – they need to trust something and its location before they eat it. Donald had trusted the cracker in the closet, so we replaced it with another one – this one topped with peanut butter laced with poison. We placed two other crackers at other locations the rat was likely to go.

            Two days later, the cracker in the closet was gone. We rejoiced, because we’d finally tricked Donald into taking the poison! However, we knew the war wasn’t necessarily won yet. The cracker only had 6 pellets of poison, and it takes 6-30 to kill a rat. So, we moved one of the other crackers to the closet. This one took three days to vanish, but each of the next two only lasted a day each.

            The current cracker has been there for two days, and we’re holding our breaths. Has it worked? Are we finally rid of Donald the rat?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Economic Insights

            ‘Tis the season of sales, a joyous time when a wide variety of items may be purchased for a fraction of their cost. Of course, most people are too delighted by the sales to stop and think about what the sales actually mean.

            When purchasing that wonderful item with the 50% off tag, it’s hard to think about anything other than how lucky you are. However, if you pause to consider the implications of that discount, you may come to realise that the store you are buying from is still making a profit. Not as much profit as before, but a profit, none the less.

            The fact is that most products in stores have at least a 100% markup from the wholesale price. This means that if you’re buying something for $100, the store paid $50 for it. This might seem unreasonable and horribly unfair, but it’s a necessity for the economy. When you purchase from a store, you aren’t only paying for the item – you’re paying for the space it has in the store, its availability in the store, the other items in the store that never sell, heating and power for the store, employee wages, and, of course, C.E.O. and investor income. That’s on top of the shipping and manufacturing costs.

            However, taking that all into account, sales still happen – and turn a profit. How? Increased sales. If a store buys ten of something and only sells half, at a 100% markup they are only breaking even. On the other hand, if they throw it on sale, people come in droves and all ten sell – perhaps they sell for less, but they sell for enough to turn a profit.

            Yet, what we see are the sales – a chance to save a few dollars. But, we aren’t really saving money, are we? We’re just paying less than we’re used to, when we’re paying for the excessive number of items produced. If we really wanted to save money, we’d refine the system to produce what is needed. We’d cut down on waste, excessive profits, and everyone would save money (making the people earning the excessive profits less desperate to have so much money).

            What I think would help the most, though, is if everything we purchased had a breakdown of where the money is going – like the nutritional information on food. That way we’d see where our money was really going. I bet that would really quickly change what people (who can be bothered) are willing to spend money on.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Strange Gatherings

            One of the most fascinating things to me is how quickly complete strangers can bond over common interests. This could partially be because I, as an extremely introverted person, tend to prefer staying home and avoiding as much social interaction as possible. The idea is somewhat alien to me that people actually seek out social situations. That said, I do occasionally emerge from under my rock to mingle with the living.

            Last Thursday was one such occasion. The vast excitement over Pokemon Go had bred whole new social circles. There are now Facebook groups focused on helping each of the three in-game teams co-ordinate their catching and gym battling efforts within their city, as well as sharing their latest victories.

            On my team’s local group (team Mystic), the idea came up to throw a PokeParty at one of the local parks – just to get together, meet each other, have a barbeque and maybe battle the nearby gym. Within a few weeks, the pavilion was rented and the event was organized. They even decided to open the even to the rival teams.

            So, Colleen and I thought, why not? We went down to the park with my sister-in-law to see what it would be like, catch some pokemon, and maybe meet some people if it couldn’t be avoided.

            Now, this was an all-day event, which was nice for making it available for people with many different schedules. The flip side was that the result was that, rather than a whole lot of people, there was a small amount of people there with the members changing throughout the day. As an introvert, I greatly approved of this.

            For most of the two hours we were there, there were seven of us there. We flipped between hanging out as a group while eating hamburgers and wandering between the nearby pokestop and gym. All of us got along astoundingly well – not surprising, since we were all team Mystic.

            Then the gym was claimed by some team Valor players. Through struggling back and forth for control of the gym and watching the nearby people, we were able to identify the three rivals who were, like us, wandering between the pokestop and gym. So, after we claimed the gym a filled it full of magikarp (Pokemon players will understand how hilarious this is), one of the party’s organizers approached the Valor players and invited them to join us for some hamburgers.

            So, the party grew – and, despite the playful trash talk (now mostly aimed at the not-present team Instinct players), we all got along wonderfully. While I wasn’t there for the rest of the event, I think it can be considered quite a success.

            It’s even more interesting, though, when you look at our current society. We’re told from childhood to beware of strangers. We avoid all contact with people we don’t know. It’s like we have this fear that anyone we don’t know is a horrible person, or someone we wouldn’t get along with.

            Yet, all it took was a single point of interest to bring together a group of people who would never have spoken to each other. Not only that, but that point of interest (and food) was enough to ignore that we were on rival teams and competing for control of a gym. There was reason (at least for extremely competitive people) to be antagonistic, but we were all friendly.

            It seems to me that all it takes for people to get along is one thing in common. I wonder how much better a place the world would be if people, when looking at others, looked at the similarities rather than the differences (and maybe shared some food).

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Into the Void

            One night, as I lay abed unable to sleep, I decided to do a year-by-year recollection of significant life events. I started with my earliest ones and worked my way up to the present, cataloguing my life, as it were.

            I came across an interesting revelation as I sorted through my own mind. For every year from age four forwards, I could find several events I considered significant and defining in my life – the number increasing as I got older. Right up until I was nineteen and got my first job.

            After starting my job, the number of important occurrences in my life dropped to one, maybe two a year. For the five years that I held that job, almost nothing significant happened in my life beyond meeting my wife and moving out of my parents’ house.

            As I continued on from those five years, starting with when I quit my job, got married and started my own business (yes, all at the same time), I again started getting several important life events each year.

            It was as if having that regular day job sucked every ounce of meaning out of my existence. Now, it could have simply been me, as I’m a low-energy person. It could be the nature of the job – food service work is rarely rewarding. But, I couldn’t help wondering.... Is this how it s for the rest of the world?

            It could be, and it might just go unnoticed because it looking back on a life like this is so rare. With the way we’re forced to live in this world, do our lives simply get sucked away into the void of work?

            My first instinct is to ask, how did we let this happen? And why did we let this happen? Then I realize, those aren’t the important questions. What I really need to ask is, are we happy like this? And what can we do to break free from this cycle we’re trapped in?

            Is it even possible to break free, or are our lives doomed to be drained away into a void of endless work for all eternity?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Do Ants Value Life?

            While observing the ants exploring my house (particularly the kitchen) this spring, I started to wonder: do ants value life?

            As general rule, living beings have strong survival instincts. It makes sense – an animal that doesn’t care if it lives or dies is less likely to survive to reproduce, eliminating those characteristics from the DNA chains. Bet what about creatures that are literally born to serve?

            Ants obviously have a high fatality rate. They go out in droves seeking food and many never come back. Confronted with a threat, an ant will struggle to stay alive. Yet, at the same time, an ant that dies on patrol is forgotten (apart from the pheromones it emits to alert the colony of threats).

            What value does a colony place on a lowly worker? They are mass-produced, specifically because of how many of them die. It seems as though ants don’t care about life at all – each of them living only to further the existence of the colony.

            At the same time, ants take extremely good care of their young. Further to that, they usually have duties around the nest when they are younger and aren’t sent out foraging until closer to the end of their life spans. This suggests a certain respect for the outside world and a desire to prolong the lives of the individual ants.

            Yet, this also serves a practical purpose – why send out the young, who still have a lot of work left in them, when the old are available? So, it could simply be survival.

            Which leaves me here, still wondering. What is the value an ant places on life? Perhaps they simply don’t have time to ponder it, with the possible exception of the queens – who seem to be the whole reason why most colonies exist in the first place.

            So, does a queen ant value life? She lives up to thirty years – ten or more times the length of regular ants – so she has plenty of time to ponder. These are her children we’re talking about, living and dying while she watches – generation after generation. Does she mourn the loss of a worker, or are there so many that she simply doesn’t care? Does she, perhaps, value only her own life?

            Now I need to hire a team of scientists to develop a way to talk to ants so we can ask them.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Are You Awake?

            Sometimes I wonder if a good portion of the world isn’t walking around with their brains half asleep. It’s like people are somehow completely unaware that other people are... well, people.

            I hear stories of news site editors claiming writers do better work if they aren’t being paid. At my old job, I had a regional supervisor who proudly talked about how the first business he ran hired immigrants straight off the boat got away with paying them less than minimum wage because they didn’t know any better. People protest about minimum wages being raised because people flipping burgers have it easy (meanwhile, food service is an extremely high-stress environment).

            Yet, all of those people are people. Where are they supposed to get their money, if not from their jobs? Everyone needs to pay bills and feed themselves. Everyone deserves to be paid for the work they do, everyone deserves to be able to live a decent life. Not all business owners are rolling in cash, but if the business isn’t making enough to pay the workers a decent amount, why is it still running?

            Across the world, people are tossed aside as being part of a group. Is their skin a different colour? Do they speak differently? Is their religion different? Obviously, everyone who falls into a category is exactly the same as all the others from it.

            Except that each of those people is an individual person. They have their own life, their own views, their own beliefs. Few people actually fit their stereotypes.

            While waiting in line, people get mad about the people in front of them who are holding them up, without considering that those people are just like them – or that they themselves are holding up the people behind them. When driving down the road, people honk and swear at the person in front of them for going too slow, without even pausing to think – that’s a person. Maybe they’re a new driver, or there’s a pedestrian in front of them, or they have some other reason for going that speed.

            Each person out there is a person and deserves consideration. How can anyone possibly not recognise that the people around them are not just organic obstacles?

            Perhaps their brains really are half asleep. What will it take to wake them up?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Happy Thanksgiving

            Hey, it’s Thanksgiving, isn't it? Well, at least here in Canada it is. That means this should be an easy blog to write, right?

            To be honest, I've never really appreciated Thanksgiving. Taking a day aside to be grateful for things? It just didn't make sense to me, because the things I'm grateful for, I'm grateful for all the time. I mean, if I needed a special day just to sit down and think about what I'm thankful for, I’d be pretty ungrateful.

            No matter, it’s as good a reason as any to get together with family and eat too much food.

            I’d list all that I'm thankful for, but the list is both too short and too long. So I’ll stick to saying I'm grateful for short blog posts on nights when I stayed up too late and didn't get around to writing them earlier.

            Happy Thanksgiving. But only to Canadians (and anyone else who doesn't have their own Thanksgiving but wants to join us in ours). You Americans have to wait.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Phones are Evil

            I’ve never liked phones – calling or answering them. I admit that they are a convenient method of communication, but other than that they’re a nuisance and downright rude.

            Not many people think about it – because we were brought up with them – but phones are an invasive force we allow into our lives. We string them throughout our homes and, these days, carry them with us everywhere we go. This wouldn't be a problem if they were only used for emergencies, but having a phone is so natural that people don’t even think before picking one up to call someone.

            So, let’s go over the basics. The average person works a 9-5 job, so calling them between those times is a bad idea. You might think you can call them before that, catch them before they go to work, but if you think that you truly haven’t thought it through. You see, what the average person is doing at that time is their morning routine – involving getting ready for work, eating breakfast and transporting themselves to work. Interrupting them during any of that is not only rude, but it could slow them down and make them late for work. Any earlier and they’re sleeping.

            Okay, so calling in the morning and during the day is out, what about in the evening? I’d like you to pause your reading for a moment and turn to the person beside you (be they imaginary or not) and ask them at what time they and/or their family eats dinner (or supper, or whatever you feel like calling your evening meal. Assuming you eat). The answer will most likely range from 5 to 7 (depending on how long it takes to get home from work). Now, if we allow for an hour to eat, that pushes us back to 8:00. 5-8 involves coming home from work (Don’t get me started on talking on the phone while driving. Admittedly not everyone drives, but do you really want to be talking on the phone in a public area where anyone and everyone can eavesdrop on you? You might think other people don’t listen, but they do), preparing food and eating it. Calling then is, once again, rude and can delay meals or other plans.

            Yes, yes, so from the time the alarm goes off in the morning (let’s say 6am) to the time people are certain to be done eating (8pm) people are too busy to be receiving a call. What about later than that? How about you turn to that (possibly invisible) person beside you and ask them what they do in the evening after dinner. Social plans? Movie? TV? Playing a video game to relax? Reading a book? Getting caught up on favourite blogs? The point is, the next two to three hours are the only time during the day that Mr or Ms Average has to spend on them self. How rude do you have to be to call them and interrupt them during that time?

            Now, depending on a few variables, that is 6am-10pm that is unavailable for calling if you don’t want to rudely interrupt something important. Any later (or earlier) than that and you’re messing with bedtimes and waking people up. Thus, there is no appropriate time to make a phone call, simply because you have no idea what you are interrupting.

            That’s just the calling side, though! As someone answering the phone, have you ever stopped to think about how often the call has interrupted something you were doing? The worst part is always that you don’t know who’s calling (well, okay, call display solves that for some people) or how long the call will take. Not that it matters, because you’re obligated to answer – it’s rude to ignore the phone when it rings.

            Have I missed anything? Probably, but that’ll have to do for now; I have to go answer my phone.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Colleen on Smartphones

            The blogging bug has bitten Colleen, so she’s back again! To anyone who knows her, Colleen being on Smartphones is hardly a surprise, but this time she’s talking about them rather than on them.

There's a lot of truth in the notion that advancements in technology are having a negative impact on our collective health. Kids play Call of Duty instead of catch and talk in chat rooms instead of sitting on a swing at the park. Work has changed from stacking bales of hay in a breezy field to folders of paperwork at a desk. I myself suffer from "texter's neck", a condition marked by pain in the neck ligaments due to prolonged strain on the muscles caused by the tilting of the head down, often observing an incoming text on a cell phone.

We see the effects of technology on our bodies every day.

But, if I may, there are many benefits of technology that we may not even be aware of. I'd like to specifically draw your attention to the highly-coveted Smartphone and the many obscure reasons it has become an integral part of my and many other people's lives.

DISCLAIMER: I am not here to debate the relative merits of one model of phone vs another. Nor am I here to promote one more than another. I do own an iPhone and as such have more experience with the applications available for that device rather than an Android or a BlackBerry, but you will not hear me say any one of them is better than another.

Now that that's out of the way, let me tell you all about my To Do application (app). It's a simple enough concept. You enter some text that reminds you of an event or a chore or a task or something you don't want to forget, then when you wish the app to remind you of that item and how often you want it to repeat. There are many, many different apps that accomplish essentially the same task.

Mine runs my life. I would be completely lost without it. It lays out my morning and evening routines, lists my weekly cleaning duties, reminds me of odd tasks I need to accomplish, ensures my medication is taken on time, it even helps me to remember to make cookies once a month. (Hey, not every To Do item needs to be scrubbing a toilet!) When my last phone was stolen late last year I had practically no idea what to do. And while I do realise my incredible dependence on an electronic device (and conversely, the devastating effect the absence of it has), for me, it is a small price to pay for a well-organised and productive life. Obviously this solution isn't for everyone. For me and my mother-in-law, however, it works very well.

When I decided to take up yoga I considered my options for that exercise type. I could take classes, purchase DVDs, watch podcasts or YouTube videos, look for a yoga app. Then I had an idea. I created a photo album on my phone and added several pictures of yoga poses to it, all found on the Internet. (But that is an entirely different blog.)

Now I had photo memory aids and a specific and custom order for my yoga practice. That kind of full customisation is not something I have found in any app or, obviously, in any video or class. It was a perfect fit for me. I could even set whatever music I wanted while on my mat with my iPod app (the Mission Impossible theme is highly motivating for yoga) and time myself with my stopwatch app to see how long I had practiced that day. The irony of my smart phone helping me become healthier is not lost on me.

A large perk of smart phones is the large array of game apps (many of them free). On our first wedding anniversary, Jonathan and I celebrated with dinner out. The restaurant we chose was packed and we had a forty-five minute wait. We passed the time alternating levels on one of our favourite games. We hung over the shoulder of the gamer of the moment, giving advice.

A philosophy I've had for a very long time is "a laugh shared is a laugh doubled". I believe a friend of mine also has that philosophy. Often at parties you'll see him flicking through his smart phone glancing at pictures he's saved from websites, all of them humorous, or at least he thinks so. He will hold his phone out to others to see the Lolcat or cartoon or amusing play on words, giggling away with them. I love swapping new photos with him.

Not everything about new technology is good, but for me at least, my Smartphone has more than paid for itself in on-time credit card bills and instant tips on money-saving ways to clean a home. And of course you can't put a price on the simple peace of mind that comes from knowing I will not forget to book that doctor's appointment six months from now or to be able to leave the stove's because the phone is always with me and Pachelbel's canon means those double-chocolate cookies are ready!

My (Jonathan’s) conclusion is that new technology can be good or bad, it all depends on how you choose to use it. Cookies are more than acceptable.






 

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Colleen on Food

Today's blog is brought to you by my wife and co-author Colleen regarding one of her favourite subjects: Food.

I've always enjoyed cooking. But even longer than that I've enjoyed eating. At some point I discovered that food wasn't just a phenomenon that occurred when mom was around; I had control! Once that transition happened there was no looking back. I started with Mr. Noodles and then the rest is a blur until the present day. I take on any cooking challenge and I defeat most foods that I come across. The majority of the time when I fail in the kitchen it's because I went free-form, sans recipe or the recipe I did use was faulty. As egotistical as that sounds I swear it's the honest truth.

Cooking always seemed to come naturally to me. At age ten I broached the subject of home made bread with my mother. Time and again she had attempted this feat and her efforts had always turned out “smelling of beer” she told me and as a result she was fearful of teaching her young daughter. We tried anyway and my mother was astonished at the result. Not only was the braided loaf pretty as a picture but there was not a whiff of beer to be smelled. I try to tackle every culinary challenge with the same fearlessness I had at ten.

Cooking will never be a chore for me. Each aspect of it is a delight. I wish I could wave a magic wand and infuse other people with this love I have because I know too many of us dread entering a kitchen. Of course when you've been obligated to perform this traditionally “womanly” task since age fourteen, it's a little hard to find the fun in it after sixty odd years.

I also adore giving back to the people I love. I regularly baked brownies for my amateur theatre group, cookies for my live action role play group, innumerable meals for my family, casseroles for ailing relatives. My knee-jerk reaction to any situation is food. A few years ago I heard that my husband's grandmother had fallen and broken a hip. Instantly I asked “Should I cook something for grandpa?” And nothing makes friends faster than hearing “These cookies are great! Who made them?” One Christmas I decided to give an uncle the twelve days of cookies. I ended up wrapping a box weighing over thirteen pounds, of just cookies. The joy of eating is very seriously rivalled by the joy of giving and sharing a meal.

My husband has told me several times that what I cook is the best of its kind he's ever had or that he doesn't normally like whatever it is but when I make it he can't stop eating it. He once told me that my deep-fried “potato thingies” (a mashed potato French fry based on a Julia Child recipe) were the single most delicious thing he'd ever eaten. He's also accused me of trying to fatten him up with all my cooking. Feeding him is the greatest pleasure I have in an activity I already deeply adore.

I manage to infuse almost every aspect of my life with food. One of my duties as Jonathan's co-author is to assist in the descriptions of his writing. When he draws a blank he will leave [DESCRIPTION HERE] in the manuscript and I will add my imagination in the form of clothing, hair colour, fireworks displays, meadows of flowers and even a chocolate chip cookie. One chapter in his first book found the main character trying chocolate for the first time courtesy of a cook, who I was given free reign to do with as I pleased. Of course, there is no better way to introduce anyone to chocolate than with this time-honoured treat. I went to town describing how a freshly baked, warm, chewy, sweet chocolate chip cookie feels, tastes and smells. After that, the minor cook character earned a larger role in the book.

I hope to someday publish a cookbook and share my first love with the world at large, but for now I have the joy of keeping a relatively small corner of the globe happy and well fed.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

 

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.