Any food, any time of year.

One of the issues surrounding climate change is the consumer belief that we can have any food item any time of the year.

This struck me on a snowy day in Vancouver as I was walking by a produce store.  There was an individual asking one of the workers if they had any grapes.

I think, "It is snowing, why would you expect grapes."

The only grapes would be coming from a much warmer part of the world, quite literally thousands of kilometers away.  Can we really expect to make any progress towards sustainability if we are constantly shipping foods thousands of kilometers to satisfy the culinary desires of everybody.

That's why this winter I avoided the consumption of mandarin oranges.  It is silly that this 'tradition' of eating oranges at Christmas time has become part of the way things are done in Vancouver.

Just a thought.  If we want things to get better, we all need to think a lot harder and act a lot smarter.

Mix tapes rule

Earlier in the year our trusty Toyota Echo was unfortunately in a motor vehicle accident and needed to go to rust bucket in the sky.

Fortunately, our friend was selling his old Honda Accord in order to contribute towards a mini-van for his growing family.

However, the vehicle was of a vintage when cassette tapes were still standard equipment for car stereos.  This was bad timing as when I was packing up to move, I decided that I no longer needed my cassette deck and various tapes and had sold all of this.

We got one of those cassette adapters but it has an annoying his and bit awkward to use with the funny cord hanging out.  I spread the word that I was in need of cassettes and several friends forwarded what they had which was cool.

However, it was only yesterday that re-aquired a cassette deck, just $20 on craigslist.

So, this morning I connected it up in "mission control" and got everything working.  My son and I then sat down to record some music.  It is very easy now with youtube as compared to 15 years ago with a stack of CDs.  We just think of a song, go to youtube and find it.

It was a good teaching moment too as I had to show my son how to use a pencil to wind the leader up to the start of the tape and then blanking the first part of the tape.  Then showed him how to set the level on the cassette deck so that all the songs would be roughly the same loudness, saving one from jumping to the volume control if a sound was too loud or soft.

There are some benefits to old technology and to be able to spend an hour quietly with my son was great because he's approaching his teens and by then hanging out with dad might not be on the top of his priorities.

If you're going to make your own, I like this set of rules.

Homeschooling, a brief word

I came across an article by Penelope Trunk who writes on many things, but what caught my interest was one of her entries on homeschooling in that is a how-to-live decision not a how-to-learn decision.

People ask me why I homeschool my son and it comes down to allowing my son to learn at his pace and not have his enthusiasm and energy restricted by a teacher that is struggling to keep control of over twenty kids at a time.

I also feel that you maybe have ten to twelve good years to be with your child, from the age of around two to their early teens before they go out into the world more on their own.  I figured that taking some time out of my life to build a strong relationship with my child isn't such a burden.  Really, if you're going to have kids you should be prepared to deal with the responsibility of kids.

Not everyone is in the position to homeschool but many who think they aren't really could do it if they committed themselves to the idea of being more involved with his/her child's education.  Our family has learned to live with less, and really we have a lot, in order to homeschool.

And to those who think homeschooled kids don't get enough social interaction, you're wrong.  Homeschool kids have sufficient opportunities for social interactions: sports teams, field trips, homeschool groups (we have a math group), classes for homeschoolers, and more are out there.  The cool thing is that it provides these children opportunities for interacting with not only children of their own age but children of all ages, instructors, teachers, other parents, grand parents, store owners, field trip guides and more.  Homeschool children aren't restricted to the four walls of a school and one teacher for the year.

I overheard a conversation between a regular school kid and a homeschooler.  "So when do you go to school?" the answer, "All the time."

Cool, Wade Davis joins UBC

Anthropologist and language preserver crusader Wade Davis has joined UBC and will be teaching undergraduate classes.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/BC/ID/2425189164/

I put up there with David Suzuki in drawing my awareness to the challenges we face to ensure that humankind will continue into the future.

Is it so wrong to be average?

I recall a story of a U.S Senator stating that half the doctors in the United States were below average and that action needed to be taken.  Not sure if this was urban legend but it represents a poor understanding of math.

However, what's wrong with not being average?  It has to be put into perspective.  A fourth line hockey player is below average for a professional hockey player but he could still outplay everyone on the ice in my Sunday night hockey group.

This comes up because I am reading The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor.  He teaches at Harvard where the students come in with high expectations because they have been groomed their entire lives to attend such a prestigious school.  However, once again after their first exam, many are shocked to be considered below average.

He also dismays his students by reminding them that 99% of them will not graduate at the top 1% of their class.  The students fail to recognize where they are relative to the rest of the world where the majority of people their age will never attend a university.

So, don't let being less than average stop you from doing something you love or make you feel less than adequate.  Never stopped me from playing goalie in ice hockey.