The tradition for the long weekend in which us Canadians celebrate its establishment is to go camping. For those who know me and used “the great indoorsman” to describe my penchant for such an activity, I opted to take a more American route:

BBQ, beverages and party with my neighbours.

It’s a pretty neat country where, depending on where you are, can experience all four seasons in just one day, see the Northern lights, dip your foot into an ocean, say the words “double double” and have everyone know what you’re talking about, bump into someone and have them apologize to you, have access to a tremendous education and health system and yes… go camping just about anywhere.

While all of the above are reasons to be grateful, I will be toasting a country that gave my parents an opportunity to build an amazing life for themselves and their children.

Here’s to you, Canada.

Cheers and Happy Canada Day!

My mother used to drop me off at the library as a child so I could spend hours among the book stacks.

Aside from the obvious fact (looking back at it now) this was an opportunity for her to get rid of me guilt free for an extended period, it was also my time to explore and discover.

One time, although I had no interest in basketball, I picked up a copy of “Two Peach Baskets,” the story of James Naismith and the invention of the sport. I have no idea why I read it, but I did and enjoyed it.

Another time some random person offered me Terry Goodkind’s, “Wizard’s First Rule.” He said if I had any interest in fantasy (at the time, it was minuscule), this would be the book to read.  That book wound up as my gateway into being a huge fantasy lover.

My love of diverse reading came from just randomly walking among the stacks and plucking out books that seemed interesting. There was no rhyme or reason, just a natural curiosity about the world.

Up until my senior year high school, I had little taste in music. What I liked was pretty narrow and based on what was on the radio.

Then one day I got into my buddy’s car and he was listening to the hip-hop album, LiquidSwords. Me and hip-hop were far apart on the spectrum of understanding, but listening to that album brought us together.

Until I moved to Ottawa, I had no idea what a shawarma was or what good Asian cuisine tasted like. I even hated steak without realizing the reason was my parents overcooked it whenever they made it… and the prospect of asking for it anything other than well done frightened me (I’m a medium-rare kind of guy now).

I’ve recently made the jump from avid Religion scholar to pure Mathematics student and loving it.

On the note of Religion scholar, there have been a few popes (Benedict being the recent one) who were ultra-liberal until they witnessed an event that suddenly swung them the opposite way. It was, literally, an overnight change.

Converts to (or from) religion also act in this way.

An algorithm doesn’t want you to take risks. It can’t place you into the unknown and hope you will like what you find there.

All it can do is read a decision tree and offer a suggestion based on where you’ve been and where others like you have gone. It nudges you into something already familiar.

It can’t open you up to an experience of something different… something new… because it would fail in its duty. Its job is not to make you happy, but comfortable your next decision will be a safe one.

An algorithm denies you the pleasure of leaping into mystery and finding joy.

“When it comes to having kids, don’t worry about it. It’ll be a hopeless cause for you.”

These were the words of the specialist to me two years before I got married. I remember joking with my wife that if she ever got pregnant and it was a boy, we’d have to name him after St. Jude—the patron saint of hopeless causes.

After going through many routes, I’ll never forget the morning the stick turned blue.

Like any man who just found out he was going to be a dad, I got very excited… then panicked… then hyper-ventilated.

NOTHING can prepare you for being a parent.

After two days in labor, our hopeless cause arrived safely and healthy.

Then I learned “sleeping like a baby” meant waking up every 2-3 hours screaming about something.

We spent a lot of time going for car rides and very long walks. My coffee consumption went through the roof.

I also learned what every parent knows, but can’t explain. The love a parent has for their child is beyond words.

He amazes me with what he learns every day.

Someone told me with kids that the days were long, but the years were short.

My little Jude turns four today and I do wonder where the years went. I know that I’ll turn around tomorrow and he’ll be 14… then 24… and I’ll still remember the first moment I held him.

Your dad loves you very much.

Happy Birthday buddy!

It’s the quintessential day where both teachers and students celebrate.

It’s the anticipation of a summer of relaxation ahead, with a level of uncertainty about how it will shape up. As a young person, each summer stretches into eternity, every day flowing like an endless stream.

As an adult, especially a teacher, each summer seems to get shorter as you try to squeeze every moment you can out of it.

The last day of school represents a year of school done, but not education.

Education lasts beyond the final bell of the school year, beyond the final graduation ceremony and beyond the milestones of our lives.

It is with sincere hope we leave the school year not having learned something, but having the spirit of education sewn into us.

After all, we are all lifelong learners.

Happy summer to all students, teachers and support staff!

The array of social experiments being performed on the masses, via social media and targeted advertizing, is an attempt to make sense of the endless mining of personal data.

On a large scale, behaviour can be predicted (based on the data points) and even nudged in a certain direction. Facebook often takes heat from this by making its network an echo chamber of opinions, thereby further dividing people rather than uniting them.

For those who study the humanities, this amount of data on behaviour is a dream.

Unfortunately, these companies forget the “Mule.”

In Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, Hari Seldon develops a branch of science called psychohistory to use the law of large numbers to predict human behaviour. It is from this mathematical constant, he is able to predict all future events and guide people through the ages on how to deal with them.

However, he warns that a single person can completely negate his predictions if they don’t fall into line. The math only works on a large scale.

Enter the Mule in book two.

As a scholar of Religion, there have been many mules throughout history that have disrupted any of its established structures, often creating new ones.

Buddha was a mule to Hinduism, Jesus to Judaism, Martin Luther to the corrupted structure of Catholicism and all the others who sought new ways within established reigns. There’s always one (or one who is the voice of many) who wake up to the tyranny of conformity they have fallen under.

The corporations we have acquiesced to in our daily digital lives seem to forget the lessons of history. Perhaps they are unconcerned about a mule because they have become the gatekeepers to communication and information.

However, they are playing God under the guise of granting us freedom.

It’s only a matter of time before a mule appears.

It’s the hypnosis of looking out the window while driving along the highway.

There are endless trees flying by, waving to you as you make your way. You speculate about the stories happening in the cars you pass, or the cars that pass you.

In the city, there are countless stories of people. You wonder about them and you get the suspicion they’re wondering about you. Each creating a story about the other.

On a warm day that hasn’t hit stupid levels of hot, the windows are open allowing the wind to rush through. The breeze feels nice.

Endless thoughts enter into your mind. Ideas that were festering finally come to light and connections are made that get you excited.

Looking out the window gets you looking outside yourself, but in return, it becomes a reflection of what’s happening deep inside.

The invention of language was humanity’s conquering of time.

For the first time, we could communicate from one generation to the next and pass down our knowledge. We could teach the mistakes of the past and create a legacy for the future.

Writing turned this conquest into immortality. Words passed down through millennia about people that we still read today.

Photos and video appear to be the next step of this evolution, allowing those in the future to step into the past for moments, or brief periods.

When we speak of time travel, we’ve already learned its secrets.

What people crave is learning about our future in order to act on it today?

The answer is to watch our young people.

They’re our future.

“We cannot always build a future for our youth, but we can always build our youth for the future.”

Franklin Roosevelt

With thanks to Andrew of Impression1 for sending the quote