Fifteen years ago, a grassroots political movement with the slogan “The West wants in” suddenly appeared within the House of Commons. Sick of feeling that the politics of this country (Canada) were run by backroom deals among the ‘king-makers’ in Ontario and Quebec, often to the determent of Western Canada, the people formed a political party and sent them to Ottawa. But even winning 80% of the seats in Alberta and British Columbia wasn’t enough to grant the party Official Opposition status; no, that honour went to a party who’s raison d’être was best summed up by de Gaulle in 1967 when he proclaimed “Vive le Québec libre!” (Long live free Quebec!)

I read an article about a week ago describing it as a disgrace, how Bush has been treated by the American people and media. I sat back and realized it’s been a LONG time since I’ve heard anything nice about George W. Bush. Regardless of how good a job Bush did, or did not do, when the American media starts bad-mounthing the President, it implicitly gives everyone else permission to due the same.

So the item all over the news of late is the Olympics, which are being held as we speak in Beijing, and will go on for the next week or so. Giving the games to China has been the source of controversy since the decision was made in 2001 - while China suggested it was the chance to show itself off as an emerging world player, the critics argued that China’s record, particularly on human rights, made it an inappropriate host.

A couple weeks ago, I got that vibe — the one that says “Run away for 6 or 9 months, explore the world, and ‘find yourself’!” It didn’t take long for my practical side to kick in and tell me that I really couldn’t run away; I have work now and school starts up again in September. That said, I do graduate from school next April and it’s looking like I might have a little down time then, so why not run off? The question remaining then is, Where to go?

Allow me to indulge in a little self-aggrandization — I was in the paper last Monday! I guess a reporter at the Edmonton Sun found a bill in her pocket marked Where’s Willy.com, took a look at it, and found my contact information on that website. A phone interview, a quick photo shoot, and a day later, I found my picture in the paper!

I sit down at my computer with an idea that’s been running around in my head for a week or two and start typing. An hour later, I examine my handiwork — it’s beautiful! But as I look closer, I start asking myself “So what’s the point, anyway? Why would anyone else care?” What good is a piece if it is nothing more than me rambling? I want people to be able to take something away from my ramblings…. The next question is, What do I do? Do I scrape this piece? Or do I rewrite it? Neither option presents an easy solution. I’ve been down this road a couple times now…

Garrrr! Why does good writing have to be so hard?!?

I enjoy tinkering, but due to time constraints and what I have laying around, most of my tinkering involves either my website or my computer. However, the other day I read about how to turn a TI-83 into an intervalometer, connect it to a a camera, let it take pictures for a while, and then turn the stream of photos in a time lapse movie. Well, I had both the calculator and a camera at home, so I was off to the races! Check out my finished result - I’m pretty impressed with how it turned out.

I came across a very interesting “social science fiction” essay today at All About Cities, by Wendy Waters. What she proposes is that over the next 20 (!) or so years, American cities, burdened with the efforts of keeping up their infrastructure and their level of prosperity, will give up on trying to get the money needed out of the federal government, and so, starting with New York, will declare independence to take control of their financial house. Within a few years, most major cities in the States will follow suit, and Americans and their companies will flee Canada and these new city-states. Give it a few more years, and these cities states will band together to form a union à la European Union, with the end game of Canada and the United States become a common political union, built from a basis of these city-states. I was very impressed when I first read this, because it’s one of the few probable explanations of how Canada and the States could merge into a single political entity. However, I can’t help but poke a few holes in the logic.

What’s right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity — intellect and resources — to do some thing about them.

— Henry Ford

Oil is at an all-time high, and everything seems to be pointing to the price to keep going up. So what does that mean to you and I over the next few years?

Every so often I need a good laugh…and “Dilbert” by Scott Adams so often fits the bill. For those of you out of the loop, Dilbert is the engineer with the upturned tie who has a rather depressing social life and an imbecile of a boss. The humour, I suppose, comes from the fact the situations Dilbert has to deal with are far too common in cubicle-land.