Archives
Personal

allangeske.ca [Personal]

My father, Allan Geske, is a master printmaker.

Please explore his new website allangeske.ca:

Previous on Stungeye: Show + Tell - a group exhibition at the University of Winnipeg.


Don't Break The Chain [Personal]

Earlier this year ChefQuix told me about a technique used By Jerry Seinfeld to motivate himself to work on his comedy act everyday. With New Year’s Resolutions forming in our heads I thought you might enjoy this habit forming life hack:

  • Obtain a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall.
  • Get a big red magic marker.
  • Choose a daily task you wish to make a habit.
  • For each day that you accomplish your task put a big red X over that day on the wall calendar.

“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.” [via]

Print your own “chain-calendar”

Web-based tools

Similarly

The Druid's Tune [Personal]

“Life in the ‘peg seems to be steamrolling forward at a pace I once reserved for last minute projects.”

That is a sentence from an email I sent a friend after returning home from Australia in 2000. I had just started my first full-time job. The steamroller is back in gear.

Today the Free Press published a letter I wrote them:

Britney Spears @ MTV Awards 2007 I am disappointed with the Winnipeg Free Press. Here is a quote from the Arts & Life cover story about Britney Spears at the MTV Video Awards (Some comeback, Sept. 10.)

“(M)ost unforgivable given her once taut frame, (Britney Spears) looked embarrassingly out of shape.”

A glance at the image run alongside the article confirms that the author, Associated Press writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody, may have very high standards.

Increasingly, our society is struggling with problems related to body image. It is widely recognized that these problems are linked to the propagation (through the mass media) of unrealistic standards for a beautiful and healthy body.

By printing this article, the Winnipeg Free Press has lent credibility to a poisonous idea. Young girls and boys reading your paper may now be inclined to equate this image of Britney Spears with an out-of-shape body. At the same time, they are being told to exercise and stay in shape themselves. Do you feel comfortable with the standard you have helped set for them?

I did not submit the letter through the regular channels; I sent it to the acting editor in chief, the publisher, and the editor of the Art & Life section. Someone from the Free Press called yesterday to confirm the authorship, and to ask that I not send my future letters directly to the editorial staff. :)

* * *

Connect XII [Personal]

We’re driving across the praries for Connect XII. Mmmmmmmmmm resonance, the vibe.

Change [Personal]

Some News:

Starting in mid-August I will be a full-time instructor for Red River College in their computer programming department. This means I will soon be leaving my design engineering position with Norscan Instruments. I’ve worked for Norscan (on and off) for a total of five+ years, starting ten years ago as a summer student.

I’m going to miss my Norscan family. That said, I’m excited to start my new career, sharing my passion for programming (and all things nerdy) with the RRC student body.

wonder, surprise, or incredulity [Language]

dear dear,

“actually kyle…”
and i changed my mind

“actually…”
and i changed yours

actually,
kyle

Receipt Withheld [Meme Propagation]

This was recorded live, using only a multi-track sampler.

Other videos:

Links:

* * *

Too Exciting:

  • Starting next term I’ll be teaching an evening course at Red River College. The course is an introduction to the Java programming language.
  • I now have a space at my Dad’s printmaking studio in the Artspace building.

Chills Bells [Music]

Tomorrow is our winter Solstice (Northern Hemisphere).

Our tribal ancestors feasted on this shortest of days. They gave Thanks before the coming of the famine months.

Another cycle of the Wheel of the Year. You exist. Peace be the journey.

* * *

Erin pointed out this trippy wonder: SomaFM’s Christmas Lounge [Streaming Mp3].

Shaddai [Photo]

Mezuzah

I noticed this object nailed inside our front doorway when we first moved in. I soon forgot it as we don’t often use that door. It caught my eye again this past weekend, so I decided to query the collective conciousness.

Eight minutes later I had my answer:

It’s a Mezuzah, a Jewish house blessing and sign of devotion to God. Mezuzot contain small parchments inscribed with two sections from the Torah’s Book of Deuteronomy (6:4-9 and 11:13-21).

The symbol at the top of the object is the letter Shin, which stands for “Shaddai,” one of the Hebrew names of God. The letter Shin was also the inspiration for Spock’s Vulcan salute on the original Star Trek.

Thanks again AskMeFi.
Live long and prosper. ;)


An interesting aside:

This picture is now my most viewed image on Flickr with over 1600 views.


+/- ve [Personal]

First off, I’m on a mission to map those urban forests of Winnipeg that I have explored.

The letters to steven are coming along. They’ve inspired other letters:

* * *

Update (29 May 2006):

We have received our first reply from the Prime Minister’s Office: brief, automated, and bilingual.

Dandy Lions [Photo]

I’ve inherited a lawn-full of dandelions.

recipe [Personal]



Filled under ‘S’ for Story, in a recipe box I used to store alphabetized ideas.

Age 6 or 7.

dear future, [Personal]



Filled under ‘F’ for Future, in a recipe box I used to store alphabetized ideas.

Age 8.

Soda Pop [Personal]

Updates Abound:

Shan and I recently bought a house. We moved in over the weekend. After a week off work (to facilitate the move) I accepted a full-time position with Norscan. Tonight we bring home our new puppy.

(A house-warming party is in the works.)

***

no caps [Personal]

since feeling is first

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis

e.e. cummings

Congrats to my cousin Jody on his recent engagement to the lovely Karolina.

***

pieces of pieces [Personal]



My task for today.

Gloria [Personal]

“Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand? And then another hundred lives until we began to learn that there is such a thing as perfection, and another hundred again to get the idea that our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth. The same rule holds for us now, of course; we choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome…”

Peace to your pieces.

Losing Ground [Personal]

Shannon and I both found jobs, (with our ex-employers none the less). Until the new year we are living on the 3rd floor of my parent’s house. Soon, the old routines will be new again.

***

I recently watched the movie Primer. As described by Kottke, this movie is very indie, was made for around $7000 USD, and will (only?) appeal to nerds, engineers (aka nerds), and philosophers (aka nerds).

The movie deals with time-travel, and due to the branching time-lines explored, and the resultant paradoxes, it was a challenge to follow. Luckily the ‘net comes to the rescue:

***

The idea of building a time machine in your garage might seem far-fetched, but what about building a brainwave analyser? An EEG can be used to experiment with biofeedback, or potentially to control digital/electronic equipment with your mind.

***

With a 9-5 looming, I’ll have to follow Steve Pavlina time management advice if I wish to build an EEG in my spare time. His advice seems well tested: he graduated with two degrees in only three semesters, (holding a full-time job in the final semester).

***

During my brief job hunt I restructured my CV as a webpage using XHTML and CSS. I then attempted to replicate the design in Word for dead-tree printing. After ten minutes of Word-Wrestling, I returned to my XHTML version and created a printer friend stylesheet.

Related:

***

An orange HB pencil lounges on the desk near my monitor. [5 minutes elapse as I contemplate the pencil and its relation to the keyboard beneath my fingers: similar in function, foreign in form.]

Related: Pencil Revolution.

***

Philosophical & Religious findings:

***

Nearly three years ago, I linked to some images of fractals found in plants from the cabbage family. More recently, I stumbled across an essay on fractal food, Self-Similarity on the Supermarket Shelf.

Reabsorption [Personal]

The city is soaking us back into place.

Also:

Favourite Drug: [Personal]

Anticipation

Pieces of Eight [Travel]

Hi Mom,

No worries 'bout the 3 emails. Enjoyed your declaration of health.

The past few weeks have been very musical.

Highlights of the Oxegen festival were The Prodigy, and The Streets (UK hiphop). Green Day mainly played their slower, ballad-ish tunes. I enjoyed their faster, more rambunctious numbers. It was interesting how they played up to the anti-Americanism present in the Irish youth, denouncing Bush and whatnot to great cheers.

Camping with 10s of thousands of people was interesting - I think there were 70,000 during the day. The Irish kids were a friendly bunch, a bit too fond of the drink me thinks. ;) Were many pirates Irish, because the accent lends itself well to "argggg" and "matie"?

The Guinness tasted different, smoother.

The U2 concert was a powerful experience. When we arrived at the ArenA two long entry queues had already formed; we were 4 hours early. Our attempts to sneak into the line failed. ha! I'm surprised that we managed to get so close, considering our place in line. The Dutch crowd was very polite in the "pit," we stood near the front barricades and had room to jump, sway, and stretch.

Bono dedicated one song to Theo Van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn, and later called on the Dutch to lead the world in terms of Christian, Muslim and Jewish coexistence.

(Note that the Pim Fortuyn article on Wikipedia, like many others that mention Islam, is marked with a neutrality dispute.)

I'm off to AH for groceries.

Love,
K

To you and yours [Personal]

Smiles, hugs, and all that jazz.

Peace and Peaches,
WG

Countdown [Personal]

Five, four, three...

Before and After [Personal]

Shannon and I are now married.

I've posted some of our wedding pictures to a Flickr group.

Creative Commons License Valid CSS!