This damned year is almost over. Merry Christmas!

Well folks, this year was a weird and troublesome one.

It started with my wife unemployed and me recovering from the brain-melting travesty that was the Alpha Course.

Work was busy and made needlessly complicated by numerous architects, government agencies, and architects working for government agencies, but I did manage to design several structures that are starting to be constructed in the local area. I haven't crushed anyone to death in a pile of steel and concrete. Yet.

My father-in-law suddenly passed away, leading to much hardship for my wife's family. This resulted in a horribly busy summer for me, filled with constant commuting back to my hometown to visit my wife, zero help around the house and less time to do it in, and a guargantuan overgrown garden out back.

In the fall, my wife was back so things resumed a bit of normality. Highlights of this time include a trip to Las Vegas, a trip to Pittsburgh, accidentally breaking a girl's nose in a rec league floorhockey game, and getting my fingernail crushed at another floorhockey game.

So things are starting to settle a bit as the year wraps up. Not only that, some good things are starting to happen: I just got a sweet raise, so I now make significantly more money than my brother again; he just defended his masters thesis, mostly successfully, so the end is in sight for a 3+ year nightmare of absentee profs and lack of money; I just won a nice door prize at the company Christmas potluck; and we just took the plunge and bought a Christmas tree.

Fake Tree. Pretty sweet - it's almost like we're real people now.

One thing I have noticed is that I'm getting older. It wasn't that long ago that what I wanted for Christmas were big fun things, like TVs, computers, video games, etc. My big list item this year: new bathroom faucets. And I'm damn excited about getting them, too.

Man, I am getting freakin' old.

So things are looking up, other than the "getting old" thing. However, the year ends with the prospect of further dread. My mother-in-law will be moving in with us for the next few months (that means no more walking around in my underwear). My wife's still unemployed. And that fingernail I mentioned earlier in this post is going to come off soon.

Gross.

So have a Merry Christmas and we'll talk in the new year, m'kay?

The Purpose Driven Life for my Wife

Given all the talk on Pharyngula and elsewhere right now, I had to reflect on Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life. Unfortunately, my life, purposeful or not, is not immune to his dreck. My wife has recently started working through the book with her sister. Both of them are currently unemployed and feeling listless right now so I guess they figured it's a good time to do it.

I've tried to stay out of it as much as possible - a year later and I'm still burned out from attending the Alpha Course with my wife. Any more immersion into the loony Christoworld and I fear my brain will collapse (and with it, any bridges I'm currently designing). So any analysis I have on TPDL will be superficial by necessity.

Based on simply the book cover, the damn thing is almost certainly preying on the boring housewife demographic. Purple background, gold accents, elegant flowing scripts, definitely for the "feeling" crowd. Then again, I'm very surprised it doesn't have the typical "photo of the author smiling in a suit" cover that most self-help books have. So kudos to Warren for that.

Overhearing my wife and her sister talking about it, it is certainly very God focused. You can't go a paragraph in it without encountering a bible verse or a statement about how God wants humans to behave and think.

Last year, another one of my wife's sisters read TPDL and for some damn reason she was telling me about it. So I asked her, having just finished the book, what the purpose of her life was. She said "It's a great book, it explains how God has a purpose for everybody." So I asked again, what God's purpose for her was, and she said "God has different plans for everybody and has gifted us with different skills and abilities to serve that purpose." Great, I said, and asked again what skills and purposes she has. She said "all these skills are what God wants us to do." This went on for a minute or two until I gave up. So my conclusion is a) my sister-in-law has terrible reading comprehension, b) Rick Warrens book is mainly religious fluff that doesn't actually address its topic beyond "do what God wants you to do", or c) a little of column (a) and a little of column (b).

If I hear anything else from my wife, I'll let you know, but just a warning, I'm not going to torture myself over this.

On Doubt

In the Alpha Course and weekend retreat, there was quite a bit of discussion on the role of doubt in Christianity (namely, there should be NONE, and any doubt is Satan trying to mess you up). I've tried many times to get Christians (including my wife) to understand the positive power of doubt. I've mainly failed, but it's worth a try.

Along those line, here is an excellent post by Akusai of Action Skeptics explaining exactly how important doubt is to a healthy human mind.

Lost in Pittsburgh with no place to stay

I just got back from a family trip to Pittsburgh with my wife, dad, and brother. We go on these trips fairly regularly to indulge in nerdly things (while my wife comes along to humour me). Points of interest this time we were specifically targeting were a Penguins game (because unfortunately it's just not possible to watch NHL hockey in Ontario anymore), the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the Andy Warhol Museum, and a place that sells rare replacement parts for Jaguars (the cars, not the animal, though that would be interesting if they sold prosthetic limbs and hip joint replacements for jaguars - really, my dad has three old Jags that are always breaking down so he needs the parts).

Because I'm lazy, I'll summarize interesting tidbits about the trip in no particular order:

- The Carnegie Museum of Natural History is much better than the ROM in most ways. Exhibits are more educational and interactive. For the most part, the dinosaur fossils are better (except for ceratopsians - the ROM has an excellent collection of triceratopses and the like). However, the Carnegie does not appear to have any aardvarks in its exhibit, while the ROM does. For shame.
- There is something inspirational about looking at a towering statue of rock and understanding that 66 million years ago this thing was a mighty living beast munching on some unfortunate and tasty critter.
- Photography is allowed in the museum but posting of photos in a public place is not, so while there was a mastodon butt, I sadly cannot post a picture of it here.
- The Warhol Museum did not just have Andy Warhol stuff. There was also a large number of works from some guy with an unhealthy obsession with Andre the Giant. We unanimously agreed that this was awesome.
- Tried hard to get tickets for Saturday's Pens game vs. Boston, but failed. Ended up with tickets for the game vs. Anaheim on Monday. The Anaheim game was ok. It was a sellout and the Penguins won so the place had a great atmosphere, but it wasn't a terribly exciting game since they put the game away early. Unlike the Saturday game which the Pens tied 5-5 with 0.4 seconds left on the clock to send the game to overtime, then won on a breathtaking goalie giveaway early in OT. Watching it on the tv in our hotel room, the play-by-play guy called it the most entertaining game he'd seen all year. Dammit.
- Speaking of the hotel, we didn't bother booking a hotel in advance because who the hell would go to Pittsburgh in November? Answer: when the Steelers play, the local university team plays, and the Pens play twice, all on the same weekend, just about half the state shows up. We had to stay in a hotel in Steubenville, Ohio.
- The road system in Pittsbrugh is even worse than in Quebec. In Quebec, the ramps from the highway appear without warning on either side of the road. In Pennsylvania they do the same, except there's very little highway and lots and lots of ramps. Arguably, once you're inside any town in the general Pittsburgh area, it's basically ALL RAMPS. And you cannot get yourself to where you want to go by pointing yourself in that direction and just driving there. Inevitably you will take a ramp that will spin you around in the opposite direction. Our GPS was frequently confounded by all the multi-level ramps and roads. It was a complete nightmare of driving frustration. We're really spoiled in Ontario.

"recalculating"

- I have to give kudos to the gift shop at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Fully half of the books in the store were entirely about evolution and not a Behe in sight. Unfortunately, that was about it for science books in the city. There were an awful lot of books about guns though.
- My brother lamented that we were far enough south that, other than hockey, the only Canadian culture we'd be likely to see would be Nickelback. To his surprise and delight, a guy in the Jaguar place was spotted with a Tim Hortons coffee. Apparently, there was one right down the street in Steubenville. Unfortunately, that was the last Canadian thing for the trip except for the inevitable Nickelback. Bleh.

Alpha Retreat Sermon 4: How Can I Make the Most of the Rest of My Life?

This was the last sermon of the Alpha Retreat and it's also the last sermon recap I'll post for my Alpha Course series. Short and sweet.

So, Mr. Gumbel, what should we do with the rest of our lives? Gumbel starts by saying that we should break with the past and make a new start. We do this by no longer conforming to the pattern of the world.

Specifically he says the first thing is to be nice to people and be positive. Strangely, though, the second most important thing he mentions (and the one he spends the greater amount of time on) is to follow biblical sexual morality. Gumbel said that he's never heard of anyone saying "I wish I hadn't waited for my wedding night."

Obviously, he's been talking to the wrong people.

So how do we make the change to being anti real world? According to Gumbel, it's an act of will that requires sacrifice. We need to turn our whole bodies (our eyes, ears, mouths, hands - not to mention our noses, throats, and pancreases) over to God. We have to give him our sexuality ('natch), our time, our ambitions, and our money ('natch).

We do this because God has planned for our future and he loves us and has done a tremendous amount of sacrificing for us and is merciful. Gumbel reiterates that God loves us even more than any parent loves their children. Which is of course why he wants our money. Damn freeloading uberparents.

And that's it. All purpose and meaning in life boils down to believing in God; following a combination of vague, anal, and nitpicky rules given to you by your clergy because you think that means loving God; and letting the Holy Spirit guide your actions and thoughts.

Of course, by this point you know my opinion of all this, as it's getting more and more obvious the more immersed I'm getting into the culture. This is the mental equivalent of putting on a blindfold and running at top speed into a forest full of trees.

The session ended with the church elder (yes, the one I had the fight with) leading a very emotionally draining and heartfelt prayer along the lines of what Gumbel mentioned about giving over control of everything in your life to God. He talked about how he lost much in his life (career, money, etc.) and his trust in God pulled him through. He lead the group in pledging that they would turn over everything to God, going into excruciating detail into the body parts being listing (I can't remember if he turned over his fingernails to God, but it wouldn't have surprised me - it was a detailed list). He also pledged his family, his work, his house, his hopes, etc. There were a lot of tightly closed eyes and lots and lots of tears from the congregation. I just sat and observed.

Alpha Course Day 11: What About the Church?

You know, one of the problems with being crazy busy at work is that you don't get a chance to finish up what you've been writing about on your blog. This leads to over half a year passing since the last post in the Alpha series. This leads to the unfortunate fact that I can't recall all the details anymore, and by this point when I was taking the classes my enthusiasm had dropped-off tremendously so I was taking less detailed notes. Apologies. I'll do my best.

This sermon was the last official session that we held. The last sermon in the course manual is "How Can I Make the Most of the Rest of My Life," which we did at the end of the Alpha Retreat. The final day of this fall's Alpha Course was the Christmas dinner, which had the same generic Christmas sermon that I've mentioned before.

Dinner: You know, I can't remember. Usually, I wrote down what dinner was. This day I neglected to do so.

Part 1: Sermon

I think this sermon wasn't so much a discussion or an argument for a particular point of view. Alpha is in large part a tune-up for Christians and a bootcamp for new Christians, so in that way, this sermon can be viewed as a briefing for leaving the course and joining the active Christian community, which, as Gumbel emphasizes at the beginning of this sermon, is what 'church' in the broader context means. Of course, he just can't come out and say that, he has to drone on for about 20 minutes to do so. (Actually, I might be being harsh on him for this. I went to a Catholic highschool and the point that 'church' was the whole community of people - not the building or the services or the clergy - was drilled into me incessantly, so this is old hat for me but might be new for some people.)

At least Gumbel started off with a good joke. A quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "If all the people who well asleep in church were laid-out end to end, they'd be a lot more comfortable."

Gumbel talked a bit about baptism, how it was "a visible mark of being a member of the church," though how a temporary activity can be a 'visible mark' is beyond me. He also said that baptism signifies "cleansing from sin," "incorporation into Christ's death," and "sealing of the Spirit," among other collections of words that don't really make any sense when strung together in sentence form.

He said that there were about 1.9 billion Christians in the world today (I don't know if he includes Mormons, Catholics, etc., and it's hard to tell what to do with people who pay lip-service to being Christian, but as far as I know the number is in the generally accepted ballpark). He mentioned how the church is growing in the developing world while in the civilized west it's shrinking. Told of 3 Ugandan missionaries who came to Gumbel's university (Cambridge) to convert the English heathens. Disappointingly, he did not address why large numbers of people in the civilized world were letting go of God. He just wanted us to be more like the Ugandans.

The middle of sermon just talked of trivial things like how the church provides local communities with small tight groups that provide support of people, or is the center of celebration services, or that the church is a mechanism for bonding the community into a 'family.'

Gumbel does mention in passing that there are a lot of denominations and sects. He calls this disunity 'absurd' as there is only "one spirit." "The church has split for every conceivable reason, and every inconceivable reason, too." Again, when a problem is encountered, he brings it up but just says something to the effect of "we really should be better," says something humourous and proceeds on his way, never caring about it again. Understandable given his goals, but disappointing from my perspective.

By this point, Gumbel was talking about how the church was "a Holy Temple, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus as the cornerstone and indwelt by God's Spirit." Which is another way for me to say that at this point I nodded-off for a while.

Then he said something creepy about the church being "the Bride of Christ" and I woke up. Seriously, what's with all these churchmen wanting to marry Jesus?

Part 2: Small Groups

Discussion time was cut short by a short talk from a "special guest," who had been much hyped before dinner. He turned out to be the church's small groups pastor. Which surprised absolutely no one. Especially since we had noticed him lurking outside in the hallway. He mainly talked about opportunities in the church, what services they provide, etc.

The real discussion just focused on the feelings of each person in our small group regarding what they learned/realized/found important in the course re: Christianity/the church/themselves. Surprisingly shallow actually, again all regarding feelings, or blanket statements about how important it was to love God and let him control your life. When pressed, I said I learned that Christians cry a lot. Seriously, that was the best thing I could say; everything else I learned was more negative than that.

I'm very glad the course is almost done.

Pessimism is a Winning Proposition

I won a 50/50 draw at the office this week! We had a guy running the New York marathon to fund raise for a charity in Africa. He organized a bunch of fundraising activities, such as mini putt, paper airplane competitions, and pizza days, and this draw was one of these activities. The objective was to guess his time, each guess was $1 with the winner getting half and the charity getting the other half.

Apparently he runs marathons frequently and he planned on doing a 4 hours 15 minutes. Me, being the pessimistic type, figured he would get a cramp or something. So I guessed 4 hours, 42 minutes, and 36 seconds. I was actually 26 seconds too optimistic, with our man running it in 4 hours, 43 minutes, 2 seconds.

Hooray for the powers of pessimism!

(ok, the prize wasn't all that it was cracked up to be - only $19 - but I generally don't win anything, so this is a huge deal for me.)

The Amazing Disappearing Geotechs

Obligatory preamble: long time no post, busy real life, kicking blog in nuts, etc.

The other day at work I sent some requests for quotes to three geotechnical consultants for a pedestrian bridge job we're doing. Sometimes we just send out the letters to the companies as a whole and start with "Dear Sir/Madam:" but that's always very unsatisfying and we hate doing that. So we went the extra mile and dug up our company contact lists and found the names of the person at each company who actually runs the geotechnical investigations (two men and a woman). Very nice job, I thought.

So I followed up with the contacts at the three geotech consultants two days later to make sure they received the letters and found that man #1 no longer works at his company. Great. So I have to track down the replacement new guy.

So I checked man #2 at the second consultant's office, and it turns out he's away from the office until the day before the quote is due. Fantastic timing, eh? So I have to pester some people until I find the name of the guy who'll be taking over for the job, some Bob guy (not his real name). So I send him an email saying, "Hey Bob, I hear you're taking over for man #2 while he's gone, etc..." I get a reply from him, and "Bob" is actually Dr. Bob, company president. Hmm, maybe a little more formal, respectful tone would have been helpful.

So on to woman #1 at the last consultant's office. Guess what: she's away from the office, too. Strangely, she's away also until exactly the day before the quote is due, just like man #2. Hmmm. I wonder, is there a secret cross-consultant illicit geotech affair going on? (Nah, probably just a geotech conference or coincidental vacations or something, but this is funnier.) Anyway, I had to track down yet another replacement person.

Geotech consultants aren't exactly making my life easy.

On the pros and cons of drinking

Wow, almost a month since my last post. Really doesn't feel that long. So what's up?

The other day I was at a friend's birthday party. After a long night of merry-making with ample beer, he discovered a Texas mickey of whisky. Like a sign from heaven it was, as I counted in my head that it was 10 years almost to the day (perhaps the day? I don't remember) since the first and last time I drank whisky from one of those behemoths. I decided to humour my friend and drink his whiskey. He pulled out three glasses for those who were partaking and proceeded to make us rye and Cokes. Don't get me wrong, I love rye and Coke, but this was the end of a birthday party and the implication was that we would be having WHISKY, not Coke. Drink it straight, like a man.¹ Of course, to rectify this, I quickly finished my rye and Coke to replace it with a full glass of the pure stuff.

So this goes on until 4:00 am. The next morning, my wife and I have to get up for the company golf day. Once there, I realize that not only am I really tired, I'm still quite drunk. Man, that little ball is hard to see, let alone hit.

After that, we went back to visit my wife's family in Kingston. Her house is right next to the university and really close to the street where they have that big street party for homecoming. Apparently, the school and the city are sick of having to deal with the illegal party so they cancelled homecoming but the party continues. We went to check it out, what with the big ruckus and police presence and all. There were hundreds of police with riot gear and horses and paddy wagons to control the drunk students that showed up to party.

Because trying to intimidate drunk teenagers is such a great idea.

Also a great idea: pushing to the ground and arresting a non-drunk, non-partying ~48 year old alumnus who was watching the event from the sidewalk across the street because he didn't clear out quickly enough when police told a group of standers by to clear the sidewalk. "Quickly enough" being 2 seconds.

Because the best way to disperse a drunken teenage party is to arrest an old guy who isn't part of it.

I'm not much of a partier (my friend's birthday being a rare exception) and I'm kind of meh on the idea of out of control street bashes, so I wouldn't mind the elimination of this unsanctioned event. But these certainly aren't the strategies and tactics I'd use. It'll probably work in the long run, as the party is gradually replaced with police confrontations, but for a generation of kids (and one old guy), opinions of police are probably worse than they need to be.

¹Incidentally, in residence I was given a nickname: King "Chasers are for white people" Aardvark. It was based on a supposed quote that I never actually said. And I'm half white anyway.

Ramble On

I'm getting the impression that some people don't think I should spend all my blogging complaining about my garden, which is truly kicking me in the nuts. I feel like I need to prove my plight. Recall that for the past two months I've had to fight this monster by myself, and I have no weekends to do it in:

My backyard, my bane of existance.

I was talking to my neighbour the other day. He was saying that it's not that bad. In all sincerity and benevolence, he said to "Just do a little weeding, rake up the dead leaves and branches, put in some decorative stones, and there you go. Easy."

To put his helpful suggestions in context, I'd like you to compare his backyard with mine:

A backyard full of shut the hell up, you stupid neighbour!

He's got zero plants out back and about six plants out front. Those six plants are new and small and his wife takes care of them.

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The garden is my enemy. It is invading my mind and ruining my life. I cannot find contentment at all; even if I have free time it's in my thoughts, reminding me that true freedom is impossible and I will never be happy.

I've decided on an appropriate allegory for my garden situation. It's dark and terrible and undeniable. Behold:

The Evil One is on my borders, watching and waiting...

There are definitely similarities. Like Gondor, the non-garden portion of my backyard is a safe haven. Battles are waged on its borders between the forces of light and darkness and, though bloodied, it continues to hold. Indeed, if it fails, the rest of Middle Earth (my house) is lost. We fight the good fight, but my forces are being worn down and slowly the influence of Mordor is spreading as weeds and plants start to overgrow and slow-growing, nice-looking trees are overwhelmed. All is not well. We are slowly losing this war of attrition.

Deep inside the garden is like Mordor. In Mordor it is dark and scary and if you're in there, you're likely to be attacked by orcs. My garden is exactly the same: it's dark and scary and if you're in there, you're likely to be attacked by orcs.

There are even geographical similarities:

Ephel Dúath, the impenetrable mountain range on the border of Mordor.

This rock is my entryway to the thick jungles of plants. I actually have a decent time controling the plants around this area. It's sort of my Black Gate:

The Black Gate. I half expect an army of orcs to come marching out.

Closer in, it's even scarier:

Holy Crap! Is that a mûmak?!

You can see the waves of death creeping over as some formerly healthy, happy trees are felled by the influence of evil, an overgrown towering and twisted tree/shrub I consider to be my Barad-dûr.

The tower of the Dark Lord spreads destruction...

Uh-oh, Sauron's freaky eye is about to look at me!

Ahhhh! It burns!