insert witty title here

Life takes some odd twists and turns. You start out in one direction on July 11th and 38 days later, your life is something else entirely. You can spend months and months trying to come to terms with it, alternating between sleeplessness and nightmares, between moving on and spinning your wheels. Between living and merely existing.

In the final analysis, however, acceptance is inevitable. Because life goes on. It's in our nature to go forward rather than backward. To pick up the pieces of our broken lives and broken hearts and try to make them whole again. There's no point in anger, or bitterness. Of living in the past or in dwelling on what might have been. Life is what it is and all I can do is learn from it and be the best Christopher I can be.

So here's a song for Heather:


I wish you love
And happiness
I guess I wish you
All the best
I wish you don't
Do like I do
And ever fall in love with
Someone like you
Cause if you fell
Just like I did
You'd probably walk around the block
Like a little kid.
But kids don't know
They can only guess
How hard it is
To wish you happiness

I guess that love
Is like a Christmas card
You decorate a tree
You throw it in the yard
It decays and dies
And the snowmen melt
Well I once knew love
I knew how love felt
Yeah I knew love
Love knew me
And when I walked
Love walked with me
And I got no hate
And I got no pride
Well I got so much love
That I cannot hide

Say you drive a Chevy
Say you drive a Ford
You say you drive around the town
Till you just get bored
Then you change your mind
For something else to do
And your heart gets bored with your mind
And it changes you
Well it's a doggone shame
And it's an awful mess
I wish you love
I wish you happiness
I wish you love
I wish you happiness
I guess I wish you
All the best

©John Prine


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Speaking of dentists, I'm off to see mine at 9:30.

I've been fortunate over the years to have never had a cavity - a result I think that is owed more to Montreal's flouridated water system than to outstanding dental care. When I was twenty-two years old, I had my wisdom teeth removed (and apparently much of my wisdom along with them). They were all wonky (a highly technical dental term) and growing in damn-near sideways, so the surgeon had to remove chunks of jawbone to dig them out.

In the aftermath, all four sutures became infected and began oozing pus - which was nasty enough - but a week after the surgery, when I got punched in the jaw during an altercation, I swore off dentistry for about five years.

I've long since gotten over my reluctance to see a dentist regularly and go in every nine months for a cleaning, a checkup and a free toothbrush. Those free toothbrushes are nice to have, but I've been using Radius Toothbrushes for years now and simply love 'em.



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Yesterday afternoon I spent with my movie star daughter, swimmimng at the local pool and enjoying some quality time together. Afterwards I bought her a chocolate shake at McDonalds. It's been years since i had one so I took a quick sip and Holy Mother of Bob are those things sweet! I mean like sugar cubes soaked in maple syrup sweet. No wonder dentists are driving Porsches.

Last night I watched The Core. This movie has the distinction of being voted The Worst Physics Movie Ever by Intuitor.

I have to agree with 'em.



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It's time for a Preening Parent moment:

Son #2 and my little girl are both cast as extras in the new science fiction series, Eureka which is being filmed (in part) here in Chilliwack.




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Congratulations goes to fellow blogger Cassie-B, who was visitor number 50,000 to my humble little weblog.

Fifty thousand visits in three years. That's a little hard to believe. If only each visitor left me a dollar! Mind you, subtract the number of visits just from me and it's probably down to about 300 hundred.

As visitor number 50,000, Cassie has won an all expenses paid postcard from sunny Chilliwack, currently the global headquarters of Insert Witty Title Here.

Congratulations again!


Just let me know where to mail the postcard to...



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For those of you south of the border, the following news story has been the latest topic of discussion here in Canada:


Pissing on the Dead

Ottawa police are looking for three Canada Day revellers photographed urinating on the National War Memorial.

Police have asked anyone with information about the three to come forward.
Det. Mike Walker said police have contacted the photographer, retired Canadian Armed Forces Maj. Michael Pilon, and will ensure charges are laid.

Pilon's picture, taken around 11 p.m. on July 1 after a fireworks display ended, has prompted outrage.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper called an Ottawa radio station and said the action was "thoughtless," but "it doesn't represent the views of any segment of Canadian society, we all strongly honour our vets."

Police said they could lay charges of mischief, being drunk in a public place and performing an indecent act in a public place.

The incident has renewed calls by veterans groups for better security to protect the memorial, located in the centre of Ottawa. It honours the country's war dead and holds the remains of The Unknown Soldier, returned to Canada from France in 2000.

"We've asked for people to be stationed here so that it can be stopped. And we'll be pressing for that in the future, and I must say that we'll be pressing much harder from now on," Royal Canadian Legion's Bob Butt said.

Pilon said he saw drunken revellers pouring beer on the site in 2005, and he's written to politicians and various government agencies in the past to ask that the monument be kept off limits on Canada Day, but without success.

This time, however, he's got pictures to support his pleas.

"I just happened to have my camera, and there they were. Quite eager to pose, I may add. I guess that's just one of the symptoms of having one beer too many."

The incidents came hours after Harper and Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean hosted a huge ceremony at the site.

The Canadian National War Memorial is our tribute to the 60,000 Canadians who served and died in World War One and for the 56,000 Canadian soldiers who have served and died for their country since then. It's also the Tomb for Canada's Unknown Soldier.

What disturbs me the most isn't the three idiots pissing on the Memorial, it's the alleged crowd of onlookers who laughed and cheered as they did. Because that suggests to me a deeper issue than one of drunken hooliganism...it suggests to me that the people of this country have lost the values of altruism, sacrifice and honor.
























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Reminder to self: when robbing a bank, remember to bring my brain along...



idiot robs bank

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) - Police investigating a bank robbery didn't have to work hard to find their suspect: she lived at the address that was on the back of the note announcing the holdup.

"I don't think anyone realized what was on the other side," Riverhead police Detective Sgt. Joseph Loggia said Friday morning.

Charmaine Williams Stein, 30, of Riverhead, was arraigned Thursday in Suffolk County Court on one count of grand larceny, accused of holding up the Chase Bank on Main Street on June 10 and making off with $22,000.

Detectives determined that the bank teller, John Mueller, 20, was an accomplice of Stein's, Loggia said. Mueller gave her the money and didn't hit the alarm until she was out of the building, police said. Mueller, of Coram, was charged with grand larceny earlier this month.

The note demanding money was on a bulk mail advertisement that had Stein's address on the back, the detective said. Stein, who was believed to have been out of town for several weeks, was arrested at her home on Wednesday night.

She was being held on $20,000 bail.

Happy Fourth of July to y'all "across the line"



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Here's an interesting American debate:

political correctness or common courtesy?

CHICAGO -- Is it OK for doctors and parents to tell children and teens they're fat? That seems to be at the heart of a debate over whether to replace the fuzzy language favored by the U.S. government with the painful truth - telling kids if they're obese or overweight.

Labeling a child obese might "run the risk of making them angry, making the family angry," but it addresses a serious issue head-on, said Dr. Reginald Washington, a Denver pediatrician and co-chair of an American Academy of Pediatrics obesity task force.

"If that same person came into your office and had cancer, or was anemic, or had an ear infection, would we be having the same conversation? There are a thousand reasons why this obesity epidemic is so out of control, and one of them is no one wants to talk about it."

The diplomatic approach adopted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and used by many doctors avoids the word "obese" because of the stigma. The CDC also calls overweight kids "at risk of overweight."

Those favoring a change say the current terms encourage denial of a problem affecting increasing numbers of U.S. youngsters.

Under a proposal studied by a committee of the American Medical Association, the CDC and others, fat children would get the same labels as adults - overweight or obese.

The change "would certainly make sense. It would bring the U.S. in line with the rest of the world," said Tim Cole, a professor of medical statistics at the University College London's Institute of Child Health.

The existing categories are convoluted and "rather ironic, since the U.S. leads the world in terms of obesity," Cole said. "There must be an element of political correctness."

The debate illustrates just how touchy the nation is about its weight problem.

Obese "sounds mean. It doesn't sound good," said Trisha Leu, 17, who thinks the proposed change is a bad idea.

The Wheeling, Ill., teen has lost 60 pounds since March as part of an adolescent obesity surgery study at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"When you're young, you don't understand what obese means," Leu said. "I still don't understand it."

The CDC adopted the current terms in 1998, using weight-to-height ratios and growth charts from a generation of children much slimmer than today's.

Children are said to be "at risk for overweight" if their body-mass index is between the 85th and 94th percentiles. They're "overweight" if their body-mass index is in the 95th percentile or higher - or greater than at least 95 percent of youngsters the same age and gender.

Many pediatricians understand the first category to mean "overweight" and the second one to mean "obese," said the CDC's Dr. William Dietz. He said the word "obese" was purposely avoided because of negative connotations but conceded that many pediatricians find the current language confusing.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that about 17 percent of U.S. children are in the highest category, and that almost 34 percent are in the second-highest category. That sounds like a mathematical impossibility, but it's because the percentiles are based on growth charts from the 1960s and 1970s, when far fewer kids were too fat.

In children, determining excess weight is tricky, partly because of rapid growth - especially in adolescence - that can sometimes temporarily result in a high body-mass index.

For children in at least the 95th percentile, high BMI "is almost invariably excess fat," Dietz said. But there's less certainty about those in the second-highest category. So to avoid mislabeling and "traumatizing" kids, the CDC chose to be diplomatic, Dietz said...

...Maria Bailey of Pompano Beach, Fla., whose 12-year-old daughter, Madison, is self-consciously overweight, opposes the proposed change. She said their pediatrician has told her daughter to exercise more and see a nutritionist, but "hasn't told her that she's in a (weight) category."

"We're already raising a generation of teenagers who have eating disorders," Bailey said. "I think it would just perpetuate that."

Paola Fernandez Rana of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has a 9-year old daughter who at 40 pounds overweight is considered obese. Rana said doctors "refer to it as the 'o-word' " in front of her daughter "in an effort not to upset her."

"They very clearly told me she was obese," Rana said. But she said she agreed with the term and thinks that at some point it should be used with her daughter, too.

"Obviously I don't want my daughter to be overweight, but ... in order to change the situation, she is ultimately going to need to hear it," Rana said.

Dr. Michael Wasserman, a pediatrician with the Ochsner Clinic in Metairie, La., agreed. Using the term "at risk for overweight" is misleading, creating the perception "that I'm only at risk for it now, so I don't have to deal with it now," said Wasserman, who is not on the committee.

"There's a tremendous amount of denial by parents and children," he said.

Chicago pediatrician Rebecca Unger, also not a committee member, said she likes using the term "at risk for overweight" because it gives patients hope that "we can do something about it."

Based on what I've observed of human nature in my 43 years, I'm with Dr. Wasserman: Using the term "at risk for overweight" is misleading, creating the perception "that I'm only at risk for it now, so I don't have to deal with it now".

In my experience, people don't deal with a problem until they admit that there is a problem.


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Happy Canada Day!


In Days of yore,
From Britain's shore
Wolfe the dauntless hero came
And planted firm Britannia's flag
On Canada's fair domain.
Here may it wave,
Our boast, our pride
And joined in love together,
The thistle, shamrock, rose entwined,
The Maple Leaf Forever.

The Maple Leaf
Our Emblem Dear,
The Maple Leaf Forever.
God save our Queen and heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf Forever.

At Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane
Our brave fathers side by side
For freedom's home and loved ones dear,
Firmly stood and nobly died.
And so their rights which they maintained,
We swear to yeild them never.
Our watchword ever more shall be
The Maple Leaf Forever

The Maple Leaf
Our Emblem Dear,
The Maple Leaf Forever.
God save our Queen and heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf Forever.

Our fair Dominion now extends
From Cape Race to Nootka Sound
May peace forever be our lot
And plenty a store abound
And may those ties of love be ours
Which discord cannot sever
And flourish green for freedom's home
The Maple Leaf Forever

The Maple Leaf
Our Emblem Dear,
The Maple Leaf Forever.
God save our Queen and heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf Forever.


















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