I’ve been on a real kick of reading anything to do with father and son relationships since Pace was born – from sentimental stuff like Tim Russert’s “Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons” (which collects a bunch of responses his bestseller about his own dad, “Big Russ and Me” received) to more cutting edge stuff like David Sheff’s “Beautiful Boy” which details his son’s descent into crystal meth addiction (and is somewhat unique in that the son has also written a book on these events from his own perspective, titled “Tweak” which was released around the same time and which I’ve also read.)
Today my dad has a birthday (as does Ryan Meili apparently – there – the real truth is out about why I’m a Meili supporter!) although dad’s just a bit older.
We had a surprise supper for my dad last week so for a gift – since I’ve never been a meth addict myself – I thought I’d go the safe route and buy him a copy of “Wisdom of Our Fathers.” I’d read it in hardcover but the paperback version the bookstore had in stock had an added chapter where readers had submitted lists of the reasons they loved their dads.
I thought this might help make the gift extra special, especially for such an important milestone birthday, so decided to write the same type of list for my dad. I wrote up the first few things that came into my head (it’s not an exhaustive list by any stretch) then tucked it into the back of the book – not sure if he’d see it or not.
It turns out he didn’t find it until later, after the party had ended and we’d come back to Regina. That’s probably just as well as the Hammond men tend to get pretty sentimental at the best of times (you could add “I love you because you get emotional when you sell a car” to the list of reasons I love my dad that I’ve posted below – although to be fair, I show the same characteristic – except it wasn’t cars but taking a bunch of old computers, going back to 1997, to Sarcan to be recycled today that got me all choked up. Yep, I’m a true nerd!)
The list below is probably more suited for the private journal rather than the public blog so if public displays of affection make you uncomfortable (or nauseous), you’ll probably want to skip today’s entry and come back tomorrow.
Oh, and like the paperback version of the Russert book, I took the liberty of adding a few extra items that weren’t on the original list and clarifying a couple others.
Some reasons…
I love you because you and mom took us on trips to Florida and Hawaii and BC and La Ronge and many other places when we were growing up which has given me a love of travel, a love of learning and a love of risk and adventure.
I love you because you took me out to walk the property lines at the farm so I’d know where our land began and ended and also so I’d know a bit more about our family history. [Small explanatory note: Our land is along the top of a valley that runs sort of NW to SE so our property lines aren’t a nice square like the farms in most other parts of the province.]
I love you because you’d play “double or nothing” cards with me as a kid until I won.
I love you because you came to pick me up at the gas station in Fort Qu’Appelle when I ran out of gas at 5am coming home from Yorkton one night as a teenager. As you topped up my tank from your gerry can, you told me a story about how your dad had to do the exact same thing for you once.
I love you because you came to all of my hockey games when I was a kid and usually drove the other kids when we had out-of-town games.
I love you because you often bought some of the kids who didn’t have a lot of money a hamburger, fries and drink after the games. You probably don’t realise how big of an impression that made on me.
I love you because of your go-to toe truck joke. [“What do you do if your big toe falls off?” “Call a toe truck.”]
I love you because you always say “And what else?” when the conversation lags.
I love you because you always say “I wonder what the poor people are doing?” whenever you’re having a particularly good time.
I love you because you know one trick that’s guaranteed to always make kids laugh.
I love you because you never pressured me to be a farmer and supported me whatever my choices were.
I love you because you came to pick me up at the airport after I made a very expensive mistake at a time when I could least afford it. When I said I was worried what people would say, you said, “who cares what they say? That’s their problem. Plus where have they gone and what have they tried in their lives?”
I love you because you always help maintain and/or fix my vehicles.
I love you because you always help maintain and/or fix my house.
I love you because you used to leave work five minutes early when I
got out of school at 11:50am and walked to the car dealership where you
were working during the winters so I could get a ride home with you for lunch.
I love you because you chose to live in a small town which means I got all the advantages of growing up in a small town.
I love you because you chose to farm which means I got all the advantages of having grown up in a farming family even if I was never going to be a farmer myself.
I love you because you did a wild & crazy trip with a bunch of your friends when you were young and only when I was older did I realise that there probably wasn’t much that I got up to that you didn’t at least have some clue about.
I love you because you used to let me abuse your garage doors while playing basketball, hockey, soccer, tennis, etc. etc. when other families on the block wouldn’t let the same thing happen on their driveways.
I love you because your story about your dad always giving you the last dollar out of his wallet. I know that’s how you live your life and that’s how I try to live mine too.
I love you because you got to be my best man at my wedding in Mexico.
I love you because you married mom instead of somebody else who wouldn’t have complemented you so well.
I love you because you and mom walked that awkward tightrope of being an “adult” and being “cool” with my friends in high school better than anybody else’s parents did.
I love you because of how you play with Pace and how he lights up when he sees “Poppa!” coming up to the house.
I love you because you’re one of the friendliest, most giving people I know.
The Free Music Archive is a social music website built around
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I missed posting yesterday but that means I get to post this today. There have been lots of great shootout goals since they brought the new rule into the NHL but usually players don't get too creative because they're still playing for points. But perhaps because the season's almost over and Dallas and Colorado are already both eliminated from the playoffs, you get this beaut…
(Oh, and since I'm discussing highlight reel goals, this is also a good place to mention that my rec hockey team's season ended a couple weeks ago and I scored the game-winning goal in our final game which we won 12-10. My goal wasn't quite to the level of the clip below but it was close. Okay, not really – goal mouth scramble, puck ends up on my stick, I manage to roof it without a) shooting into the sprawled out goalie, b) the teammate standing right in front of me c) the plexiglass behind the net. Pretty good way to end the season anyhow. We do have a couple young guys on our team who regularly do moves like this during games though. Pretty crazy just to be on the ice with guys who can dangle like that. Actually, it's amazing just to be on the ice with guys who aren't winded skating up the ice one time. Okay, enough self-effacing humour…time for the real show…)
Rarely do I read an article where I just keep going “yes, yes, yes!” (well, not in a mainstream publication anyhow! ) But that was my reaction after reading “The Facebook Generation vs. The Fortune 500”, a Wall Street Journal article which outlines the 12 differences between the Facebook generation (aka Generation Y aka Millennials aka Digital Natives aka “Anyone Born Between (Roughly) 1980 and 2000) and conventional workplace behaviour and expectations.
Before I copy the list, an anecdote…my boss at my last job and I were talking about something, possibly the idea of creating an electronic branch for our region, and he goes “You know what? You're a Gen X'er but you act and think like a Millennial.” “Is that a compliment or a criticism?” I asked. “Neither. Just an observation.”
I don't know – I like my entitled apathy as a Gen X'er but I guess there's probably a fair bit of truth to that statement – especially based on my reaction to this list.
Here's the list of expectations for the next generation (er, my generation?) when they enter the workplace, having grown up in a digital world:
1. All Ideas Compete On Equal Footing 2. Contribution Counts More Than Credentials 3. Hierarchies Are Natural, Not Prescribed 4. Leaders Serve Rather Than Preside 5. Tasks Are Chosen, Not Assigned 6. Groups Are Self-Defining and Self-Organizing 7. Resources Get Attracted, Not Allocated 8. Power Comes From Sharing Information, Not Hoarding It 9. Opinions Compound and Decisions Are Peer-Reviewed 10. Users Can Veto Most Policy Decisions 11. Intrinsic Rewards Matter Most 12. Hackers Are Heroes
Time to break out the long-neglected “CLA Conference” tag. Just got word today that I was approved to go to this year's CLA conference in Montreal at the end of May!
I'm especially happy about this because I'd had a feeler extended to see if I'd be coming to the conference and available to sit in on a panel that the Emerging Technologies interest group is doing. So now I'll be able to participate in that as part of my conference experience too.
I know this song was written in response to the Ecole Polytechnique shootings but I'm posting it as my Music Monday clip mainly because the title's relevant (well, the presumed title – the Tragically Hip never officially released this song so it was usually identified as “Montreal” (or occasionally “Don't You Worry”) in tape trader circles back in the day)…
In the morning, finger plays. In the afternoon, just play!
Kevin MacKenzie is awesome and if you're near Regina, you should try to attend this workshop. In fact, you should consider planning a special trip to the Queen City just to check it out!
One of my most visited sites, Reddit, has a section similar to another of my favourite online stops, Ask Metafilter and it occasionally has really interesting questions and answers – especially since they don't frown on the “ChatFilter” questions like AskMetafilter does.
Tonight is the first in a series of province-wide forums among the NDP leadership candidates in Moose Jaw. (At least I think it is – the official NDP site I just linked to doesn't list this event – though the candidates' sites do. Who knows?)
Anyhow, I'm pretty sure it is the first forum tonight and that's a good excuse to touch on something I mentioned in passing in a recent post. I said “[Lingenfelter's Google Map mash-up is a] great use of technology, very interactive, very cool way to represent
that Lingenfelter is running a province-wide campaign and trying to
reach out to all parts of the province (of course, this also subtly
hints at his apparent ability to set the rules he wants the other candidates to follow – but that's a different post.)”
That last line was a reference to Lingenfelter's announcement that he was “concerned
that the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party has decided to ignore the
Far North in its series of Leadership Candidate Public Forums next
month, and says he has decided to organize his own public forum in the
region and invite the other leadership candidates to take part.”
I think I know what he was trying to do with this move – in one fell swoop, he could show himself as representing the whole province, as someone who's concerned with First Nations issues and acting like a leader should. Except that (to me at least), it smacked of John McCain's “suspending his campaign” when the financial crisis hit – as much about political grandstanding as the other points.
To me, there's also a fair bit of arrogance in how he unilaterally announced this – arrogance not only towards the other candidates but to the hard working staff and volunteers of the party he's trying to lead. Why call them out publicly like that? What purpose does that serve?
There was one other little detail that indicates to me that this was more about political grandstanding than honest concern about the needs of the people in northern Saskatchewan. He scheduled his forum for April 26, two days after the deadline day for selling NDP memberships!
So, in a welcome show of unity (that perhaps reflects the generational shift better than anything else I've seen in this leadership contest – Lingenfelter's top-down, “I'm the boss (already)” move versus a joint announcement from Meili & Pedersen, the two youngest candidates that they were organizing their own northern candidates' forum *before* the deadline for selling memberships to give the people of northern Saskatchewan a real opportunity to have their concerns heard.)
“Pedersen and Meili agree that a public forum before the April 24
deadline offers Northerners full participation in the democratic
process, rather than what could be seen as merely token consultation.”
In that last link, the Accidental Jurist speculates on how the two senior candidates – Lingenfelter and Higgins – would react to this development. But recently, he posted an update that his sources were saying Deb Higgins is planning to accept the invitation to the alternate forum leaving Lingenfelter out in the cold. As they say in Internet circles – pwned!
