‘Just Thinking’

Re-post: You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

May 23, 2013 Tags: critical thinking
Category: Just Thinking 2 Comments

Well that’s slightly depressing, or is it? It does feed into the fact that we all tend to think that we are better at many things we do than we really are, like driving. It’s an interesting read anyway.

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You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think
Dove’s viral video gets it wrong

By Ozgun Atasoy

On April 15, 2013 Dove launched a 3-minute video entitled “Dove Real Beauty Sketches.” The video achieved instant popularity and has been watched millions of times — a successful viral campaign which has been widely talked about. In the video, a small group of …

Balance, recycling, and the circles in life.

May 10, 2013 Tags: behaviour, family, friends, life's like that, memories, relationships
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

Recycle

May 10, 2013 – Beginnings, middles, and ends.

Sometimes they are orderly, and sometimes they aren’t.

Sometimes we read stories in books.

Sometimes we listen to stories.

Sometimes we live stories.

Sometimes we make stories up.

I used to read stories much more than I do now. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I have become busier. Maybe it’s because I just don’t make time for leisure as much these days. Or maybe it’s just because I really need to go and get proper glasses.

My Mom loved to read. She sent me books, and when she visited she …

Tears have many meanings

May 8, 2013 Tags: family, memories, random
Category: Just Thinking 18 Comments

May 8, 2013 – Today is my 46th birthday.

It wasn’t a normal birthday.

But then again, what is normal anyway.

The last two birthdays have been…challenging.

Last year we went out for dinner and when we came home we received the news that Kirk’s father had passed away.

May hasn’t been great for a couple of years.

Today was mostly filled with equal or greater sadness, punctuated with moments of laughter and many memories.

I am in Prince George.

Place of my birth.

Place of my mother’s death six months ago.

And in a few days her house becomes …

Chocolate or Vanilla?

April 24, 2013 Tags: food, photography, random, seasons
Category: Food Mood, Just Thinking 12 Comments

April 25, 2013 – Kirk came home with two boxes of Girl Guide Cookies. I know I love him, but I may also hate him. These darned cookies are my food weakness. I could devour an entire box in no time flat if given the opportunity. It takes incredible willpower for me to leave them alone.

Which do you prefer, chocolate or vanilla?

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Repost: The Best Definition of Success Is the One You Never Use

April 19, 2013 Tags: behaviour, happiness, life's like that
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

Happiness seems so elusive to some people. Have you ever met that person who never seems to be happy about anything they have, they always want more and seem to think more will make them happy? More money, more belongings, more time, more experiences…. They always seem to be looking outward rather than inwards. The following is an article that showed up in my LinkedIn newsfeed a while back and struck a note. Even though things could be a bit more balanced in my life, even though some things could be a bit more stable to be more comfortable, even …

Bruised and Bloodied

April 17, 2013 Tags: humour, random, writing
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

A cartoon strip I follow posted the comic below this morning. It resonated with me as I can recall how all of us used to ask each other how bloody a paper was when it was returned to us from our supervisor.

Phd041513s

I like to write, that much has to be fairly obvious. In writing we share our thoughts, our feelings, our views, our slants on the world. We also write to educate and to understand. Some people hate to write. I don’t know if it’s because they can’t find the words to express themselves, or if they are too …

Repost: How to piss off a Vancouverite

April 9, 2013 Tags: random, vancouver
Category: Just Thinking 4 Comments

How to piss off a Vancouverite

by KATE SIOBHAN HAVERCROFT on MARCH 19, 2013

Call us sore losers.

So, we have a history of rioting. You’re all thinking of losing the cup to Boston in 2011, when cars were flipped and lit aflame, and the downtown core looked like a scene from The Walking Dead. There were also incidents in 1972, 1994, and 2002. You know what? Inside scoop: Being the polite Canadian all the time is hard. And sometimes you just need to fuck some shit up.

Two points. #1, the majority of people involved came in from the …

The Secret Life of Plankton

April 7, 2013 Tags: fish, science, video
Category: Just Thinking, Worth Watching No Comments

When you buy a fish at the market, do you ever stop and take a moment to think about where it came from. I don’t men who grew it or caught it, and how they did that. I mean how did it’s life start. The ocean is a fascinating world, but our weak eyes and poor senses can only take in the largest things in it. I used to love sitting in a lab at Bamfield Marine Station and staring at the contents of a drop of seawater and seeing the microscopic world visible only through a microscope.

This is …

Repost: The Mental Shift That Can Change Everything…

April 4, 2013 Tags: behaviour, critical thinking
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

An interesting post that came up in my LinkedIn account the other day. Funny thing is, this is such a simple approach, it’s the same thing I was taught at UBC, and which I still use in my teaching – PBL: Problem Based Learning. Just ask questions. Make the learner explore the answers and figure out what they need to know, and how they need to acquire what it is they need to get to that point. It’s not rocket science, any idiot can do it, they just need to pause, step back, and ask simple questions of themselves. It’s …

Think Bike, Think Biker

April 1, 2013 Tags: behaviour, motorcycle, riding, video
Category: Just Thinking, Worth Watching No Comments

April 1, 2013 – Yesterday Kirk and I had to do some various chores so the new bike didn’t get as much riding as I wanted. But maybe that’s OK considering the drivers we encountered in our short outing. We only went as far as Horseshoe Bay on the old highway. It’s close and easy for us, but I familiarized myself with both my scooter and my first motorcycle on those curves and on the varying speed zones. So it seemed a good place to start to break in the new motor and scrub in the fresh rubber on the …

Repost: Dear Morons who drive in the wrong lane

March 26, 2013 Tags: critical thinking, life's like that, transportation
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

Andrew Clark is an award-winning journalist and screenwriter living in Toronto. His last book, ‘A Keen Soldier: The Execution of Second World War Private Harold Pringle’, was nominated for the Pearson Writers’ Trust Non-fiction Prize, Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize and the Governor General’s Award for Literary Non-fiction. He is a professor at Humber College and director of its Comedy Writing and Performance Program, has received two National Magazine Award nominations in the “Humour” category. He has been nominated three times before and won the Gold once. Clark has written for the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, The Globe and Mail and was …

The Letter

March 21, 2013 Tags: 113, 2013, family, memories, photography, relationships
Category: 113 Photographs in 2013, Just Thinking 13 Comments

March 21, 2013 – I had a post partially written last night, but then something unexpected happened that sort of related to what I had been thinking about.

There are so many wonderful quotes out there and social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are common landing grounds for many of them. Places where quotes are collected and shared according to the mood of the page owner. I’m no different, and sometimes a quote speaks to me, or irritates me. Yesterday I came across that old one “If you love someone set them free, if they come back to you …

Left Lane Bandits

March 20, 2013 Tags: transportation, video
Category: Just Thinking, Worth Watching No Comments

A pair of news videos aired on CTV a few weeks ago that reminds drivers that it is NOT OK to drive in the left lane. I wish more drivers got it and didn’t think it was their place to try and control traffic. Staying in the left lane when traffic wants to get around you doesn’t control the other drivers or teach them a lesson, it just raises blood pressures and encourages riskier and reckless behaviour. It’d be nice if BC police enforced this a bit more. Maybe road rage would decrease a little.

Here is part 1 - …

Sex in a Canoe – Have You Rocked the Boat?

February 12, 2013 Tags: boating, canada, humour, life's like that, random, relationships, silly
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

I was in a lingerie store on the weekend, waiting for a dressing room to try on something pretty. The sales girl didn’t have an empty room for me and kept going back to check. On one occasion she came out and shot the other woman a strange look and they had a somewhat hushed exchange.

Eventually a room opened up and I went in to try on my selection. A few moments later I heard a man’s voice speaking with the woman in the next room. Then I heard him say something to the effect of “I’m leaving now, …

Re-Post: So Many Hands to Hold in the Classroom

January 17, 2013 Tags: behaviour, critical thinking
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

A good post from the Chronicle of Higher Education and something I’ve found to be true over the past 18 years of teaching Distance Education courses at a University level. I want them to tell me what they think, not what they think I want them to think. Many of them complain bitterly about the fact.

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September 17, 2012

So Many Hands to Hold in the Classroom

By Lynda C. Lambert

Over the 17 years I’ve taught writing at the college level, I used to occasionally have a student who was afraid to choose a topic for an essay,

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How and Why Motorcycle Lane Splitting is Safe and Good

January 11, 2013 Tags: critical thinking, riding, video
Category: Just Thinking, Worth Watching No Comments

An interesting video posted by a Facebook friend and worth watching.

When we rent in Greece we don’t even think twice about lane splitting. If you don’t lane split and get ahead of the traffic at lights you end up the brunt of anger from drivers. It is not only legal, but it is expected and it it often safer to do so as it puts you at the front of the cars and in view.

It’s unfortunate that here we live in a nanny state full of drivers that are self centred in their thinking that if they are …

42 lessons for life…

January 6, 2013 Tags: balance, critical thinking, happiness
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

Just a little something a friend posted on Facebook and which I thought was worth keeping. It’s a good list of things to remember….

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short – enjoy it..

4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. Save for …

Merry Christmas

December 24, 2012 Tags: Christmas
Category: Just Thinking 1 Comment

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season and a healthy and fun filled 2013.

(A recycled Milo shot from a few years back and which graced the front of the Christmas cards I did manage to get out in hard copy. Poor guy, he tolerates things I do to him, for a few moments anyway)

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(353/366) The Spirit of Giving

December 18, 2012 Tags: 366, Christmas, giving, photography, postaday
Category: Just Thinking, Photo a Day - 2012 6 Comments

December 18, 2012 – I am not religious, so I choose to ignore that side of Christmas. I think religion segregates us and makes us care more about those who think the same way that we do, giving more to those who share our beliefs isn’t kindness, it isn’t truly charitable.

Christmas isn’t about receiving, it’s about giving. It’s about sharing. It’s about caring. It should be about compassion and companionship, for all, not a select few.

Most of us have too much already, so instead of giving gifts that no one needs, instead of asking for gifts that you …

Goodbye Mom

November 30, 2012 Tags: family, memories
Category: Just Thinking No Comments

Marg Ackerman

Born: Margaret Rose Schulz, September 12, 1939

Passed Away: November 21, 2012

Margaret Rose Schulz was born in Trail Hospital while her parents, Maud and Wilfred, were living in Fruitvale B.C. She spent many of her early years moving around rural British Columbia while her father worked at building Forestry roads. They resided in such places as Aleza Lake, Stone Creek, and Neskonlith Lake, eventually settling in Salmon Arm. When Marg was seven years old her sister Ilene was born and it was the start of many adventures shared by the two, both on and off the family …

Random views from a Canadian living & loving on the West Coast. Riding, boating, or just sitting still, always with a camera nearby. The lens focuses much more than just light.

The Philosophical Fish