An Endorsement from Silas White

Posted on June 30, 2008
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I can’t contain my excitement that Steve Tannock is running for the Vancouver Park Board. I’ve known Steve for many years as someone who listens (a rare commodity in politics!), yet is also so well-rounded and well-informed himself that he brings a tremendous skill set and perspective to the table. He’s the kind of forward-thinking, personable and reasoned representative needed by not only our generation, but also all of Vancouver.

—Silas White, Chair of the Sunshine Coast Board of Education, Publisher of Nightwood Editions

Disposable Water Bottles in the City

Posted on June 26, 2008
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I attended the Park Board meeting this past Monday out at the Trout Lake Community Centre, mostly to keep an ear to what’s going on, in my ongoing need to be more-well-informed about the issues confronting Park Board Commissioners, as well as what topics the public are thinking about. There were several topics of interest that I’ll post about later, but what really struck me was that each of the Commissioners (Spencer Herbert excepted) and all off the city staff had not 1, but 2 Dasani water bottles in front of them. There was a little bottle, and then the “normal”-sized disposable bottles - 500ml, I think?

It strikes me, on several counts, that having these bottles is inexcusable:

  1. Disposable water bottles are incredibly wasteful. At virtually every step of their lifecycle too, from the production of the plastic, to the shipping, to their use, to their disposal, small-sized water bottles are inefficient. If various school boards are considering banning the sale of water bottles (via Stepan Vdovine), shouldn’t the Park Board be lock-step with them on this?
  2. Two water bottles? Were both really necessary? When I left, I do believe that everyone was still on their first bottle. Hopefully, they keep and re-use any unopened ones, but what about bottles that are opened but barely touched? Those can’t be re-used later, for hygienic reasons. I’ll assume they’re being recycled and not thrown out, but still…
  3. The message it sends. Leah told me that when she worked for the GVRD they had a strict policy to not have or use private-water services in the office. If the GVRD won’t drink the city’s water, how they can expect everyone else to do so? I feel the Park Board and city staff have the same responsibility to use and promote the quality of Vancouver’s own water.

It seems, potentially, a small issue, but would it be that hard to pass a motion for the Park Board Commissioners, at the very least, to not use bottled water at meetings? If they can get set-up to be fully wired for sound at a community-outreach meeting, I’m sure someone can bring some pitchers of water as well. The next step is then to examine the use of water bottles in all city properties, and ideally, remove them from there as well. If the parks board has a deal with Coke, that may be problematic (much as the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school board is looking into), but surely, surely this can be done.

Should I be elected, I will work to eliminate disposable water bottles from the Parks board office & properties across Vancouver. In the interim, I’ll look into the City’s current stance on the use & sale of disposable water bottles on city property, to see what’s happened so far.

UPDATE: Councilor Tim Stephenson requested a memorandum about bottled water in the city back in October 2006 (jump to page 13, #5), so hopefully he’ll be able to help me out on this one.

The Mayoral Nomination Race

Posted on May 7, 2008
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I’m still undecided as to whom I will support in the upcoming Mayoral nomination vote (June 15th! It’s on your calendar, right?) but I’m beginning to worry about it’s all shaping up, organizationally.

There are 3 candidates - alphabetically, they are Al DeGenova, Raymond Louie and Gregor Robertson. In terms of momentum, from watching the media and talking to random people, Al seems likely to have the most new members out at the nomination meeting - but again, not terribly surprising, as I believe he’s the least “insider” of the three. Raymond’s an existing Vision councillor, Gregor’s an NDP MLA, but Al is a former NPA caucus member, and current Parks Board commissioner. While I’m not convinced that’s entirely fair, there appears to be some worry that if Al wins the party will be quite different than what it currently is.

My gut tells me that the supporter break down is like this: Gregor gets Yuppie/west side votes. Al gets business + youth votes, Raymond gets east/south-east votes. I doubt any of the 3 will get enough votes the first time to win outright in a 50+1% scenario. If there’s a run-off, my suspicion is that it will be between Al and then one of either Raymond or Gregor, simply because they seem the most likely to split the vote, and it seems quite likely that Al will have signed up more members than either Raymond or Gregor.

Now what happens at this point worries me - Primaries and these meetings are incredibly dull, even for fanatics like myself. The vast majority of people who come to this are not going to be hardcore politicos - they’re going to be drop-ins who’re there to support their mayor, and won’t want to spend 8 hours of their day at the meeting. They’re going to want to come in, vote, and then leave. If there’s a second vote, that’s going to take some serious time, and I suspect that could be problematic, as people will leave. I feel that it is critical that Vision come through this process looking strong, competent and united. This process, which could be hugely problematic if the vote is truly split, could damage the party if it takes too long, or people come out of it demoralized or even just confused. But I think there’s a pretty plain way to avoid this.

I’m hopeful that Vision will use something like the Supplamentary Voting system, like what is used in London’s mayoral Elections (to which I was just recently witness). Wikipedia explains it thus:

Under the Supplementary Vote voters express a first and second choice of candidate only, and if no candidate receives an absolute majority of first choice votes on the first count, all but the two leading candidates are eliminated and their votes redistributed according to the second choice vote to help determine a winner in a second and final round.

This system seems eminently fair for any single-seat election, and has the advantage of not requiring multiple ballots from the attendees to the nomination meeting. Which means that for the non-hardcore politicos, they can come, learn the system, probably listen to some speeches, then cast their votes and leave. They don’t need to stick around in case they have to vote again, because their preference is already stated. This should shorten the meeting for the vast majority of the attendees, which I think should be a clear goal for the Vision executive in this process - make it pain-free as possible for the party membership.

In the Vision nomination meeting, this would work as follows: After the first vote, one of the three candidates will be eliminated. At that point, the second-preference votes from the eliminated candidate would be added to the first place votes for the remaining candidates, and a winner will be declared.

And who will I vote for? I’m not sure. But I’m hopeful that I’ll find out more at the Nominee debate on May 21st. Which, annoyingly, is on Liam’s birthday, so I may have to miss it. Or not, as it will likely be held mostly after he’s gone to bed.

Vision Spring Gala

Posted on April 11, 2008
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I attended Vision’s Spring Gala, a fund raising dinner for the party at the Wall centre. The evening started off rough. This won’t be a surprise for anyone who knows me, but I don’t really own a variety of dress clothes. So 20 minutes before I was supposed to be there, Leah was helping me dress (I must say: poor lighting + color-blindness makes getting dressed quite stressful), choosing from amongst my one pair of dress pants, three ties and five dress shirts (note to self: buy more dress clothes so I’m not always wearing the same things at these events!).

But I got out of the house in good time, looking ironed, combed, clean, all the good stuff and headed down. To quell my fears of the public at large (hi public at large! You intimidate me, and yet, I’m going to be spending lots of time speaking to you, at you, and all things going as planned, for you!), I listened to a select few tunes on my ride down, and was then calm once again upon arrival at the Wall Centre (If you’ve never been to the Wall Centre, it’s a maze. I started in one building, then had to leave that one, cross a courtyard, enter another building, go down one escalator, do a 180-degree turn, and then I was at the function. Or rather, and the registration. There was yet another corner and yet another escalator to reach the function itself).

The evening went well. I think I mingled semi-successfully, although I still need to work on the “Hi, I’m Steve Tannock & I’m running for Parks Board” bit, as it wasn’t always smooth. But I mingled with those I knew and said hi to a few others. I’m proud of myself for deftly avoiding picking sides in the upcoming nomination race by lauding each candidate in turn and explaining my angst over picking between them, despite several attempts by supporters of Gregor and Raymond to get me to wear a button for them. Perhaps I should’ve worn both? But then the dinner itself was to begin and we were ushered into the large dining room, with it’s maze of tables.

I sat at Table 28, aka “Vision Supporters Table 3″, along with all sorts of nice people, which was great, and settled in, only to find, to my surprise and delight (despite Kurt’s earlier hints) that I was summoned to the front and the stage along with the other to-date-declared nominees for School Board, Parks Board, Council and Mayor to be gazed upon and clapped at. It was a really invigorating moment for me, peering out into the silhouettes of hundreds of excited supporters cheering us on. At the same time, I couldn’t help thinking “My fellow nominees are really short!” (aside: am I a nominee? A proto-nominee, given that I’m seeking nomination?) Only Gregor stands about my height of all those currently announced. Hopefully I looked good up there.

Post dinner, there was some minor speechery. First by Larry Campbell, whom I’ve always enjoyed listening to, and tonight was no different. He somehow manages to be both laid back and incredibly engaging at the same time. Then there was a presentation to Jim Green for all his work, at which point I was summoned to the stage again along with all the executive and nominees, which was nice, although a little chaotic and perhaps slightly counter-productive to the presentation. Jim gave a short speech, which I admit to have not heard entirely, as there was much jostling around up there, and then the night was more or less done.

Except! right! How could I forget!? there was an improv troupe! called…”Rock Paper Scissors” I believe, who may well have been good, but due to the poor acoustics and timing, went over like a lead balloon, more or less, which is too bad. I think post food and post speeches, people just wanted to leave.

After connecting with the other candidates briefly, as I’m sure I’ll be seeing them, if not working with them, frequently over the next few months, I headed home.

Conflicted, again

Posted on March 23, 2008
Filed Under Random Thoughts | 1 Comment

Every holiday, birthday or even the occasional weekend, I find myself again conflicted over the a) the celebration of a religious holiday, no matter how distorted and b) why everything seems to be celebrated by buying something for Liam.

Don’t get me wrong - I love buying things for Liam - the way his face just lights up when he realizes that he’s received a gift; the way he says “thank you” - all hurried and hushed as if he doesn’t say it fast enough, it’ll all be taken away; the unadulterated joy of watching a child play and explore something new. But then I’m immediately, glancing around the apartment at all the stuff we have, and all the stuff he has, and I feel guilty for how lucky I am, at how materialistic we are. I have a sneaking suspicion that, should I have a mid-life crisis, it might involve the shedding of possessions - even without, I sometimes have fits of wanting to throw everything away save for a laptop, a single book & my music, and go walkabout.

And holidays such as Easter & Christmas exacerbate this for me. For Leah, who grew up without a lot, these were occasions to actually celebrate, and her family made sure that there were (little) presents at these occasions, and her family made a big deal of it - which she, quite rightly, wants to continue with her family now. For myself, growing up, Easter wasn’t a big deal at all. When I was younger, we did the semi-mandatory Easter-egg hunt, but that was about it. Christmas was certainly celebrated, with presents and the like, but with less fervour. I suspect my own parents had very similar conflicting feelings. As we kids have become adults, Christmas has switched to be an occasion were we’ll all be able to take some holiday to actually see each other, spread as we are across 2 continents and several timezones - which I like.

To compound this issue further, I always feel vaguely quite hypocritical when taking advantage of any religious holiday. I’m not relgious in the slightest, so why should I celebrate? And I realize that it is because in part, these holidays have become quite secular, or rather, quite commercial, and so have successfully divorced themselves from religious significance. I don’t know where they do come from (I suspect, somewhat ironically, that both may have pagan origins), but neither the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus feature in any biblical text that I know. But they do feature strongly in commercials wherein they bring gifts to people!

Even Liam’s birthday is a time for this guilt for me - I was recently at another toddler’s second birthday, and it was an orgy of presents! So much that the kid was overwhelmed, I suspect, and won’t really even notice many of the presents for days or weeks to come. Which isn’t great for the giver, for we always want our gifts to be appreciated and toddler’s just don’t have the capacity to process so much. I want so much for Liam’s birthday to be good for him, and good for those who attend, and if I must place, good ‘for the world’. I do well enough that Liam’s not really wanting for much now. There’s nothing in particular that he needs that we could ask our friends and family to get for him. But I think my friends and family would like to buy something for him, as opposed to contributing to his college fund (which would be great!) or donating to Oxfam or some other well-deserving charity on his behalf. I have hopes that we’ll be able to work with him to instill the desire to help others, and maybe, follow the examples I’ve read on parenting blogs of their kids wanting to have guests donate to a cause. Of course, the flip side of these is that they’re nearly always related to some very personal tragedy - cancer, mental illness, etc -and I certainly don’t want Liam to have to experience that sort of sadness.

I don’t have a solution for this. I have some ideas that we’ll put into practice over the next little while. I’m even considering, when Liam’s old enough to understand, taking Liam to church for these holidays, or at the very least, trying to teach him the origins of why these holidays exist, so that while we’re blatantly disregarding them, he might be able to understand why I’ve disregarded them - or he might decide that the religious aspect is meaningful to him (the very idea of that, I’ll admit, terrifies me). Who knows. But maybe if he can understand my ambivalence, he’ll, in childhood innocence, suggest a clear path through.

returning soon, retooling

Posted on March 2, 2008
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So this site has been really dead for the last 4 months - this is about to change. Expect a relaunch and re-dedication in mid-March, 2008.

Web Directions North

Posted on November 29, 2007
Filed Under Web Development | 1 Comment

So Web Directions North is coming up fast again (indeed, I believe early-bird pricing ends tomorrow), and I thought I’d get in on this whole affiliate system this year. Why? Well, I’m hoping to get at least 4 people to register through this so I can give the last ticket to someone who’d love to go but can’t afford it. I know a few people already, but if/when I get 4 people to sign-up, I’ll update this site, so if you want the free ticket, please let me know in the comments.

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Go ahead, register already!

This so totally resonates

Posted on November 21, 2007
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Wide vs. Deep

A few years ago, the company I work for decided that I was such a good programmer that I had to stop doing it immediately. I was now to tell other programmers what to do, using all the social delicacy and interpersonal self-confidence I’d built up over two decades sitting in a dark room and staring at a monitor. I was being promoted into management.

Now obviously, I sort of self-promoted myself to managing. But I constantly find myself battling the wide vs. deep divide. I want to look at one thing deeply, but my role demands that I look at lots of things narrowly (actually, worse, I think my role really demands I look at lots of things deeply, but let’s not go there).

Bad Massage Luck

Posted on November 5, 2007
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So, wow! this place has been long-dormant. Mostly because life & work have been nothing less than insane, but also because I have a slowly percolating idea to re-tool this site. Only I haven’t figured out exactly how, or what I want. Which leads to much nothing going on. But why not return to the issue at hand: massage therapy

Working as I do, at a computer all day (and all to frequently, all night too), I tend to get really stiff arms/shoulders. When I work crazy, crazy hours, this leads to some carpel-tunnel-like symptoms as well. Massage Therapy does absolute wonders for this. I really enjoy massage therapy. The steady pummeling of my body, while not exactly enjoyable during the process, rejuvenates me significantly, and I generally feel better for days, if not weeks afterwards.

But I can’t seem to hold on to a massage therapist. Going back nearly 6 years now, I’ve never seen a single MT for more than 6 sessions. And remember, I try and do this every 6-8 weeks. Why? I don’t know. There have been several who’ve moved out of Vancouver, another who went to medical school, one just magically disappeared, with their phone number suddenly being someone else’s. I believe the most recent departure may have been fired - polite inquiries as to what happened to him, so I could continue to see him elsewhere were politely redirected. And the new guy at my chiropractor is fine, but I wasn’t that impressed. Tellingly, I didn’t immediately want to book another appointment. And, then, if I try someone else at the same place, there’s the awkward ‘So, I didn’t like you, I want to try someone else’ potential conversation should I run in to him while at another appointment.

I do have a preference for male MTs. Mostly because of hand-size - I’m quite ticklish and in my experience, female MTs have smaller hands and are more likely to tickle me. Also, I do really want to be pummelled - while not enjoyable, the deep-tissue massage does wonders to stop my wrists from being sore, my neck from hurting, etc.

And the point of all this? If you have a Vancouver-based MT who you love and are willing to share, could you please let me know?

Not entirely as I’d planned it

Posted on September 2, 2007
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I needed to buy a new desk, and so Leah, Liam and I hopped into the car and headed out to Coquitlam (the Richmod Ikea is apparently closed for renovations or some such). Everything was going ok. We got there, and Leah and Liam headed to the restaurant while I went to the “Work Ikea” section to find, select and buy a desk. I did that, then went to pay, standing in line for a long time, being ever-so-slowly horrified at the mass consumption on display with at least a dozen lines full of people buying huge amounts of furniture. And while I go to Ikea less than once a year, think that lines are like that virtually every day. And every item is wrapped in cardboard, paper or plastic. And think that all of that just ends up in recycling if we’re lucky, but more likely is just in landfill. And that’s just one store.

So after paying I head over to the even-longer Home Delivery line (a Yaris is not the best car to go to Ikea in). While I’m waiting in line, a older oriental man is wheeling a large mattress on a cart when it tips over. Myself and another man go to help him right it. While the other guy helps with the mattress end, I bend down to get the cart righted at the same time. Unfortunately, my thumb got squeezed between the cart rail and the basket (more of a grille, as it was flat), that the mattress was one. The edge of the grille that was pinching my thumb was sharp enough, and the weight on it was large enough, that I was really quite worried that it would sever my thumb. I yelled “STOP STOP STOP!” and the other two did, so I was able to extract my thumb, and we got the cart righted. I shook my thumb a couple of times because it was really hurting, and went back to stand in line. I felt momentarily light-headed, but that passed.

Next thing I knew, the ceiling was coming slowly into focus, and there were sharp pins and needles going all across my arms, shoulders and chest. From what I’ve since been told, I passed out, fell to the floor with a very loud “Boom”. I was out for 2 or 3 minutes, and apparently displayed some “seizure-like activity”. So of course, the paramedics were called, and I was put in a hard neck-brace and a clamshell stretcher and taken away to Royal Columbian Hospital, where a whole bunch more waiting would take place. And let me tell you, waiting, immobile on your back, staring up at bright flourescent lights when you have a splitting headache is absolutely no fun at all.

I actually got a bed rather quickly, and after a nurse hooked me up to a monitoring machine, Leah and I were left alone. As it was way past Liam’s nap-time, I told her to take him home, and find someone to sit with him so she could come back. So off they went, and I was left staring at the ceiling again. Slowly, kind of creeping up on me so I didn’t realize until it was too late, a sharp pain was developing at the back of my skull, probably where my head hit the floor. It was just starting to become intolerable when the doctor showed up to examine me. In about 30 seconds, he had determined that nothing was broken in my neck, removed the hard collar and let me sit up. Then I had to wait to get a CT scan. During which time I was getting really cold, but a nice orderly brought me some heated blankets. Getting a CT scan wasn’t much fun, but the tech let me look at the picture of my brain afterwards, which I have to admit, was really cool. More waiting later, I was brought back to my bed, where Leah had now returned.

We were told that I could go home, but first they gave me a tetanus shot, and thankfully, finally I got some tylenol. And home we went.

This morning, I feel more or less like I have a brutal hangover. whenever I move my head, the world spins a little, and I have contrails in my vision, and all the lights seem just a little too bright. I now only have pins and needles in my chest, but I ache all over my upper body. So, a lot better than it could have been, I suppose.

An interesting note: The paramedics were very concerned at the cause of my collapse, whereas the doctors were only concerned with the outcome of my collapse, which means that on Tuesday, I get to follow up with my local doctor with things such as why I collapsed in the first place. Which, given my history, probably had a lot more to do with the fact I was dehydrated and hungry, rather than the pain - I suspect that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were.

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