Edmonton writer and columnist, Todd Babiak, has just posted the last in a year-long series of columns about his family's sabbatical in France.
Having gone with his wife and two young girls, some of his thoughts on the experiences we (try to) give our children were particularly resonate for me (though I have no one year sabbaticals on the horizon…unfortunately!) The full series of columns is available on his Edmonton Journal page.
I'm not sure how often we take can & bottle recycling but it's usually once we get about 4-5 bags. This time, we had more like a dozen!
(We also love when the local soccer/hockey team comes by on bottle drives as they often feel like they've hit the jackpot when they hit our house – we usually just give them whatever we've had built up!)
I posted this three years ago (!) but the question recently popped back into my head and since I find the answer truly awe-inspiring in that “how many stars are there in the galaxy?” kinda way, I'm going to post it again.
I suspect the process has remained essentially the same in those intervening three years but is even better because of advances in hardware, software and web technologies as well as ongoing, constant refinements by the Google team.
Having a birthday in mid-summer has its advantages. One is that Shea and I have a tradition of going to one of the big summer blockbuster as one of my presents. (Well, usually we do anyhow. But the first year we did a birthday movie, I wanted to go to “Jurassic Park 3” but Shea thought it might be too scary or stupid – I can't remember which – so we went to “Cats & Dogs” instead…which turned out to be both scary and stupid! 
)
But since then, I've usually gotten the movie of my choice – Batman, Spiderman, Star Wars and the like. Last night, we went to “Inception” which was this year's pick but a little different than the typical Hollywood whiz-banger. I won't talk about it too much since it's one of those “you pretty much can't say anything about till you've seen it” but I will say that it was pretty cool. Not as confusing as I heard, didn't blow me away as the best film in the history of history like it did for some others.
I guess the coolest thing about it is the whole sub-culture that immediately developed to analyze, speculate and consider the film which has so many different levels and ways to interpret it plus so many questions to argue about.
Reddit has a whole sub-Reddit dedicated to the film with tons of posts which lead to infographics which try to explain the film visually, all sorts of analysis of the characters from Jungian archetypes to my favourite explanation of what they might symbolize and of course, a variety of explanations of the ending which all basically come down to: was it or wasn't it?
Recurring feature alert! I've done this before where I do five quick hits on my five most common topics on this blog and why not, let's do it again.
Here's a few quick hits on my most popular topics…
Hockey
Uhm, it's July 28. This does not bode well for this aspect of the Pop Topics recurring feature. Luckily the Reddit hockey sub-reddit has lots of posts to keep a fan interested. Here's one on “The Ten Ugliest Hockey Players of All-Time” and I'm proud to say I picked #1 before clicking the link! 
Libraryland
“Libraries get a mall make-over” highlights a trend for locating public libraries in malls and I've gotta say, RPL has been on this trend for fifteen years when we first put a library in a local mall. (Er, that date may not be exactly right. I wasn't around then…
) Plus we're doing the co-locating thing all over the place – we've got one branch from the same era in a city facility that also has an indoor pool, we've just broken ground on a re-located branch that will become part of an inner-city community centre and another will be part of a shared facility that has a wide range of community organizations in it including public health, police, schools and more.
Pace Cuteness
Let's see…this wasn't Pace directly but we thought it was funny when he came home with some art from daycare labeled “Paste” by a casual worker they had in that day. We knew “Pace” was a fairly unique name but never expected it to be mis-heard like that! This probably doesn't count as “cute” either but when we were heading out of town last weekend, Pace immediately recognized McDonald's, thought Superstore was Wal-Mart and today, saw a Domino's logo on top of a car and happily exclaimed, “Pizza delivery car.” His brand awareness probably provides way too much insight into the crap we do as consumers!
Politics
I love this take-down of the Tea Baggers. They don't get mad at some of the most outrageous acts in the history of their nation but try to offer people the ability to go to a doctor when they need to and look out!
Random Link(s) Somehow Relating to Popular Social Media Site
“What did it take you a surprisingly long time in life to figure out you were doing wrong?” and “Five Minute Lesson” – both from AskMetafilter seem somewhat related to me.
Google Lit Trips is a pretty cool site where users can submit their own mash-ups combining Google Earth files with the places visited in famous novels. Although it's aimed mostly at teachers looking to teach literature in a different way, this site can be enjoyed by any book lovers.
(via MetaFilter)
I remember watching this performance live when it was first broadcast – I think on MuchMusic back in the day.
At the time the song “Nautical Disaster” hadn't yet been released and was only a rant in the middle of “New Orleans Is Sinking”. I didn't realise this and thought Gord Downie was being his usual quirky self introducing the song “New Orleans Is Sinking” as “Nautical Disaster” – which was/is actually quite fitting.
The reconstruction used many of the same stones and materials from the original structure although with a few added touches to keep with modern building codes (the original had neither plumbing or electricity.)
It did however have many firsts and significant accomplishments including the first phone system ever operated in Saskatchewan. This was how the founder, Major Bell, kept in touch with the twenty-seven cottages where his foremen lived and worked across this 53 000 acre farm – a farm so large that that passing trains would often stop so passengers could have a gander!
Hopefully one of the areas original tourist attractions can once again regain that mantle. If you're in the area, I encourage you to check it out.
Bookstore Bingo is apparently a new trend on Twitter where people post some of the silliest things they overhear at bookstores (and libraries?) HuffPost has collected some of the best ones.
I agree with this article that a public library is a perfect setting for an ensemble TV dramedy or a reality show. (And in the comments, someone says that Brad Pitt's production company has optioned the book “Quiet Please! Dispatches from the Public Library” for a movie as well.)
We definitely have all the stereotypes characters of any good TV show – the anal retentive cataloguer, the wacky children's librarian, the geeky IT folks the hard-nosed uhm, is there anybody hard-nosed in the library?
(via MetaFilter)
