Blackout lessons for all

When the lights went out across most of Ontario back in 2003 I was at work putting out our regular Friday newspapers. Obviously the blackout changed what I was going to put on my front page and thanks to a back-up generator the papers went to press, a little late but they got out.

Fast-forward to Dec. 22, 2013 the lights went out a second time and where was I? At work again! You see a trend happening here. Obviously I like to work in the dark!

Ice hangs from a tree out front of my home.

The recent blackout though was far more dangerous for two reasons -- first, it was the dead of winter and when the power goes out so does your furnace. Second, the ice storm that caused the whole mess left felled trees and broken tree limbs hanging precariously over streets, hydro lines, driveways etc. It truly wasn't safe inside or out.

As I write this blog post the power is still out in many parts of Toronto, Peel Region and even here in Durham Region. Tonight there is high winds expected and you can be certain more trees and tree branches will come toppling down. I just pray the birch tree in my front yard stays up. It's bending right now in a completely unnatural way.

Unlike last week though I am slightly better prepared for any more power outages. This time I have propane, a new flashlight, a new set of lighters and food in the freezer. Cash also becomes king in the event of a blackout so for a change I am carrying bills in my wallet. It feels a bit nostalgic but I think I'll get used to it because in the event of a power outage debit and credit cards don't work.

Last week Heather went to our local No Frills to stock up for Christmas and while the power had just  come back on a few hours earlier the debit machines were offline. You wouldn't believe the number of people screaming at the poor manager.

Losing your power at any time of the year sucks but I'd take a summer outage anytime over a winter one.

Stay safe out there people.

Getting flashed at night not always a good thing

I left my iPhone on my nightstand the other night. It's a bad habit of mine but since I got rid of the home phone I still want people to be able to reach me in case of an emergency and I'm not convinced leaving it in the kitchen would catch my attention like the home phone used to.

The beauty of the old home phone was was its simplicity. If somebody called you it rang. If you didn't answer, the caller would be connected to your voicemail. Simple.

The iPhone will also ring. But have you noticed what else it will do when somebody calls your number? Mine flashes and vibrates. I have it set to vibrate but there's nothing I can do about the flashing, it just does that on its own.

I can appreciate these noises, flashes and vibrations are meant to catch your attention. If the phone's in a pocket or nearby the vibration is perfect when the ringer is off. During the course of the day the flash will also tune you in to your phone's status when you're on the go.

However, at 3 o'clock in the morning I've discovered the flashes in particular can be really distracting because they not only occur when somebody's calling you but also when one of your friends updates their Facebook status or follows you on Twitter.

I say the flashes can be really distracting not because they bother me per-se but rather they wake up  my wife. While I have no difficulty falling back to sleep Heather cannot shut down again. If she's up, she's up for the day and if that happens during the wee hours of the morning that will mean I won't see a lot of her bright, cheerful smile as often as I'd like.

The other night the phone flashed lighting up the whole bedroom for a split second.  I froze just expecting Heather's frenzied reaction. She must have been facing the other way or had the pillow over her head because she didn't stir. I breathed a sigh of relief and said a little prayer of thanks as I reached over to check who could have possibly updated their status at that hour of the morning. It wasn't any of my Facebook friends, rather a new follower on Twitter. The time on my phone read 2:25 a.m.

Two questions popped into my sleepy mind at that point. First, who would be Tweeting at that hour and second, what would make that person want to follow me? Then I noticed the guy was following 23K people. Obviously I was one of the few people in this world who he wasn't following until precisely 2:25 a.m. that very day!

For many social media savvy people the more Twitter followers the better. I appreciate anyone who wants to follow what few Tweets I send out into the world. But when a new follower poses a threat to my wife's sleep, that's where I have to draw the line.

Without thinking I put the phone in my nightstand drawer. As I laid there staring at the ceiling I wondered why I hadn't thought of that in the first place? It could flash all it wanted in there and nobody would lose a wink of sleep. And if some random person felt like following me on Twitter at some ungodly hour of the morning he could follow away and nobody would know until the sun rose.

A simple telecommunications solution to my rather dull but complicated life!

Taking fair play and respect out of the game

(Warning: This blog post uses explicit language. Reader discretion is advised.)

I've heard of crazy hockey parents. Those are the people who lose control of any rational thoughts while in a hockey arena watching a game and they scream obscenities at the referees. It changes nothing but makes everyone around them uncomfortable.

My guess is these crazy hockey parents also frequent lacrosse, soccer and baseball games in the summer. I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting any of these parents until Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. I hope I never meet them again. Let me explain...

Tuesday night I was coaching the Pee Wee Pirates down at Lakeview Park. We were playing the Giants and it was a close game. The Pirates held a narrow lead heading into the fifth inning when the Giants coach got into a dust-up with the umpire about a game ball. I didn't hear what was said from my dugout but it must have been nasty because the coach got ejected. Off he goes to the parking lot and his assistant steps in.

Two pitches later the assistant starts encouraging his players to scream at our pitcher while he's in his windup. The base umpire gives him a warning it's against the rules and he's to control his team. He argues his players are only cheering. The next pitch his players continue what their coach was encouraging them to do and the umpire stops the game. The two go nose-to-nose and before you know it the assistant coach gets ejected from the game. At this point the fans are getting lippy so the plate umpire asks the one remaining Giants coach and myself to get control of our fans or else the game will be called.

I saw three guys sitting on our side of the field and they were yelling a lot of obscenities at the umpire so I went up to them and asked them to cut it out or else the umpire would call the game.

The guy with the biggest mouth turns to me and says, "Why don't you shut up you four-eyed little faggot before I come over there and beat the shit out of you." He stands up and with him is a giant rottweiler dog. I shrugged my shoulders, turned around and walked back to the dugout. Obviously this meat head was not one of our fans.

As I'm standing there waiting for the game to re-start this guy walks up behind me on the other side of the fence and starts making baby sounds trying to get under my skin. A parent of one of our kids says, "Buddy just go sit down."

"You going to fucking make me. I'll lay you out too," meat head says.

He stood there waiting to be challenged but we didn't engage him so he and his dog went back to their place in the stands. I fully expected him to wait for me after the game but he sauntered off with his kids and only glared at me as I walked back to my car.

That was my first experience with a nut-job. The next night I was at my daughter's soccer game with my parents watching Connaught play Glen Stewart. No referee showed up so a parent familiar with the rules of the game volunteered to officiate.

Everything was going fine until about the three-quarter mark of the game when two players got into an altercation. The referee told both girls to head to the sidelines to cool off. They weren't being ejected from the game, they were just being given time to compose themselves.

This big lug of a father on my right starts dropping f-bombs at the poor parent/referee telling him to pull his "head out of his ass" because it was the Glen Stewart player who was in the wrong. A Glen Stewart father to my left yells at the guy to shut his mouth and let the kids play. The big lug stands up and says, "You want to fucking go?" A woman yells at him to sit down and to that he replies, "I'll take you on too lady."

I hadn't heard anybody challenge somebody else to a fight since I was a teenager. That's what happens with teenagers because they're young and stupid and figure disputes can be settled by beating one another up. It's not how the real world works but don't try telling those nut-job sports fans I met. Apparently they felt beating the snot out of me or another parent would solve the disputes on the field. Unbelievable.

Clowns like those two should be banned from viewing any kids sporting events. I don't care if their kids are on the teams, they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the playing fields. Threatening physical violence and bullying coaches teaches EVERYONE the exact opposite of what is supposed to be encouraged on house league sporting fields -- respect and sportsmanship.

What happened this week was a poor display by a few parents that left a bad impression with a lot of kids. And that's wrong.

Enjoying time in our field of dreams

Last winter my son Tavish said he wanted to play baseball this summer. He's played softball for four years but with all the hype about the Toronto Blue Jays and the fact he participated in a baseball camp last year convinced him baseball was the way to go.

I warned him I didn't know how to coach baseball. My game has always been softball. Tav didn't care. He wanted to switch and so I told him I'd help out the coach as much as I could.

I pictured a carefree summer where all I had to do was drop my son off at the ball diamond and help the coach out if he or she needed it. No lineups, no practice planning, no scorekeeping, no dealing with vacations, call ups or arguing with umpires. It was going to be the summer of Ian!

Why not coach? Well I told myself I wanted to get to know Baseball Oshawa, I wanted to see how the league ran, I wanted to see how different it was to coach baseball. I grew up playing softball but I never played baseball as a kid and I certainly had never coached the game. Would it be radically different? No. But I wanted to test the waters, dip my toe in to see how cold it was if you know what I mean.

Then I got the call. The league needed coaches or the kids wouldn't be able to play. So much for the summer of Ian!

But as it turns out taking the coaching plunge with Baseball Oshawa hasn't been the worst thing to happen to me. The field dimensions may be different but the game is as fun to coach as softball. I told my team (The Pee Wee Pirates) at our first practice I wanted to accomplish one thing this summer, to have fun. If we won a few games that would be great but even if we didn't we'd learn a lot (them and me) and we'd get to spend some time together out in our field of dreams.

One of my players was sitting with me on the bench the other night and he said he played for another coach last season and all that coach did was yell.

"It didn't make me want to play that hard for him, you know?" he said. "But you don't yell, you make it fun. You're a good coach."

Hearing that from one of my players was a better feeling for me than winning a championship. And given we've only recorded one victory this season a championship is a long ways off! Don't get me wrong, I'd love to win a few more games but there's more to baseball than wins and losses. Together we're building character, we're learning teamwork and we've developed new friendships. It's a great game and I've got some great kids.

This has turned out to be the summer of Ian after all!

Men, we're not looking good

In the book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by relationship counsellor and American author John Gray states the two sexes could not be more different. The most common relationship problems between the sexes are a result of fundamental psychological differences between the genders.

Having been married 18 years to the same beautiful woman I understand where the author is coming from (That woman by the way is Heather McMillan and according to Gray's book this single line of text should give me a point in my wife's mind). I see and do things radically different than my wife and sometimes we have the ability to drive one another crazy. We're no different than any other couple anywhere else in the world.

But lately I've found myself in situations that no man should ever be in. I've become the 'fly on the wall' so to speak overhearing conversations I shouldn't be hearing. And men, we're not looking good.

A few weeks ago I was at the grocery store with Heather. We do this mundane task together because it gets us out of the house alone where we can talk unedited, no worries of teenagers overhearing what we say or complain about. It's not a date, it's just an excuse to be together and we like it.

As we were standing in the checkout line the woman in front of us looked up at me while she was bagging her groceries.

"How did you get him out of the house?" she asked Heather. "It's hard enough to get my husband to do anything let alone drag him out to the grocery store."

"Oh he doesn't mind," Heather said looking at me with a smile.

"I'm glad my husband doesn't come with me," said the woman standing behind us. "If he helped we'd end up spending twice as much."

I kept my head down for one simple reason -- I didn't want to get involved in the conversation because clearly I was outnumbered. And glancing around I didn't see very many men I could reach out to for help if I got into trouble!

When we got back to the car I turned to Heather and asked, "What was that about?"

"Clearly they're not happy with their husbands," she said.

"And me?" I asked.

"You're doing fine," she said.

A few days later I walked into the lunchroom at work where three female colleagues were sitting. I was heating up some soup when the women started talking about lunches and their husbands. The men in their lives apparently do nothing to help out and that included making lunches. One husband that very morning dropped a light bulb on the kitchen floor and rather than clean it up he left a Post-it note on the refrigerator door warning his wife to watch her bare feet.

"Yup, you could put a different head on the same stupid body," one of them said. Turning around she saw me standing there patiently waiting for the microwave to heat up my soup and said, "We're talking about our husbands, not you Ian."

 Now I realize in both these situations I was not the men these women were complaining about. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wasn't meant to hear those complaints but I did.

So what do I do with this information? Well first off I learn from it. I do help with the groceries but I have to admit Heather makes the lunches. But I'm not a stranger to brown bagging it. I have pitched in and made my fair share of sandwiches. I've even made my own lunch from time to time (GASP!).

What I can't do with this information is change any other husbands' attitudes. If you're married to a dumbass who does nothing to help out around the house he's your problem. Talk to him, convince him it's not a good idea to leave broken glass on the kitchen floor despite the fact he warned you about it with a Post-it note!

Maybe if more husbands heard their wives complaining about them in public like I did on these two occasions they'd smarten up, help out, put a smile on their lovely wives' faces.

Or maybe they'd shrug, crack open another beer and continue watching the ball game.

We may behave like we come from two different planets but at the end of the day it's up to us to all get along on Planet Earth.

Or get divorced.

Now I wonder where my wife keeps the bread?!?

Killing us with personal responsibility

Most Canadians know the dangers of consuming too much salt. But how many hands shoot forward at your dinner table in search of the salt shaker?

I've never been a big salt guy. I trace it back to my childhood when a friend of mine used to always lick salt he'd picked up off the road in the wintertime. I wasn't yet 10 years old but even then I knew what he was doing couldn't be good for you.

So when I sat down to watch The Great Salt Shakedown last week on Marketplace I didn't think I'd be one of the regular Canadians overloading on salt. I was wrong.

Host Tom Harrington gave 80 Canadians containers to urinate into for one day. These people ranged in age from teenage hockey players, school kids, a senior's swimming club and other middle-aged Canadians. At the end of the day all the containers were collected to measure the amount of sodium each individual had consumed. The results were startling.

The daily maximum amount of salt you should have in your diet per day is 2,300 mg. Almost everyone tested was far higher than 2,300 mg. One of the teenage hockey players registered an astonishing 7,000 mg of sodium in a day. He attributed it to some Chicken McNuggets and pizza he'd consumed.

So how come the majority of these people tested registered high levels of sodium? It's in the food they eat. And it's not just the boxed processed foods that are high in sodium -- it's practically everything.

A number of years ago Health Canada went after food manufacturers to reduce the amount of trans fats they put into their products. Similar legislation was passed in the U.S.A. But no such rules were enacted concerning sodium which plays just as much a role, if not more in heart and stroke.

Mr. Harrington attempted to get an interview with our Health Minister Aglukkaq to pepper her with his sodium questions but she refused. Instead her Parliamentary Assistant Colin Carrie stood in her place. I took note because he's also my MP. When Mr. Carrie wasn't looking like a deer caught in the headlights he said his government believes it's a personal responsibility to limit your intake of salt.

The next morning I went grocery shopping to exercise my personal responsibility. I spent twice as much time shopping because I looked at every label and couldn't believe how much sodium is in everything outside the produce aisle. In order to consume under 2,300 mg of sodium per day you practically have to starve yourself! Don't believe me? Take the test using Marketplace's sodium calculator. It's not an exact science like the lab tests on the show were but it will give you a ballpark figure. Visit http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/sodium-calculator/index.html I took the test and my sodium count was 2,501 for a day. Scary.

Health Canada has raised a red flag over the amount of sodium in each and everyone of our diets but nobody on Parliament Hill is listening. If we keep this up you can count on the number of heart and stroke deaths to spike, especially among Boomers.

I understand that salt enhances the taste of food but I'd trade a bit of taste for a longer life any day. It's difficult to exercise personal responsibility when food manufacturers are allowed to pile sodium into everything (Even orange juice has sodium in it!). We wouldn't want to inconvenience big business would we? Put the blame on the consumer, how convenient.

I don't add salt to anything and as I found out from watching Marketplace I don't have to. Food manufacturers are doing that for us.

 

Hollywood in the classroom

 I love to watch a good movie. And if I can get out of the house with my wife and watch it at an actual movie theatre even better. If not, watching a flick at home is also an enjoyable experience. 

My children are no different than me when it comes to movies. Their cinematic tastes clash with my own most times but the other weekend we watched a teenage show that wreaked of the 1980s -- The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It was 90 minutes well spent and it provided another opportunity for me to reflect upon my youth.

It's nice to sit down and enjoy a movie. But there's a time and a place for enjoying these things and those times shouldn't be between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday during the school year. You may be asking yourselves, "Movies at school? Who watches movies at school?" To that I only have one answer -- your kids if indeed you have kids. Hollywood has taken over the classrooms in Durham Region.

I recall viewing ancient documentary films in grade school during history classes. No big name actors in those films, no special effects. Just dull, historical material that complemented the course curriculum we were studying.

These days DVDs are played in the classrooms for pure entertainment in my kids' classes. Last spring the students in the primary and junior grades actually went to the movie theatre to watch Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. The senior students saw The Hunger Games. I asked my kids if they were studying anything remotely associated with either of those movies. They weren't.

Apparently many schools got special deals to view these highly anticipated movies. So learning was out, entertainment was in. Hollywood 1, Education 0.

I thought once my eldest daughter Rebekah got to high school the movies would end. Not so. Two weeks ago she got to view the movie Top Gun in french class. No, it wasn't the french version!

Since September she has viewed in class the movies Babe, 1408, The Day After Tomorrow, Emperor's New Groove (a movie my 6 year old would enjoy), Babar, Mean Girls. Only one movie had any educational value and that was a documentary on water played in geography class. It's also the only movie Rebekah couldn't remember the title of, great!

Rebekah is in the academic stream, what in my day was called 'advanced'. If the course curriculum allows students the time to view this many movies in a semester and a half there's a problem.

My wife Heather called Rebekah's school to ask the principal what's going on? So far he hasn't returned her call. It will be interesting to hear his response.

The goal of all educators should be to educate our students and prepare them for their futures. Teach them, talk to them, question them, engage them. Don't pop in a DVD and ignore them. Viewing this many Hollywood movies during class times tells me the system is failing our kids, at least the system here in Durham Region.

There should be a ban on viewing movies in the classroom unless it has something, anything to do with what students are studying. If not, keep Hollywood out of our classrooms.