very Christmas Eve, I am brought back to being home and being so excited for Christmas. Growing up my family was never rich, but my parents always seemed to get me something that I really wanted. My mom and dad were great at giving us really useful stuff…clothes, games, etc and after all of our presents were done, my dad would always ask us “So, did you get everything you wanted?” Of course we knew that there was a big present coming. Not so much big as in monetary value, but big in the sense that it was something we really wanted.

There are 4 gifts which really stand out:

One year I really wanted a remote controlled tractor trailer. My dad surprised me with it by driving it into the family room after we were done wrapping presents. I just about lost it cuz I was so excited to get it haha.

Another year I really wanted a sled for sliding and my dad got my sister and I matching sleds. I love the picture which really captures the moment:

Then there was the year that I wanted a CYV Peewee AAA Panthers jacket, which my mom and dad bought for me and had hanging up in the work room with the other jackets. I actually went in there earlier to get a screwdriver for one of Margo’s presents but didn’t see it. So, after the presents were done, my dad told me to go check there for my present lol. I was sooo excited to get that jacket.

Finally, and this is probably the one I remember the best, was the year I wanted the Lego pirate ship. After we were done doing presents, I sat there for 4 hours and put the entire thing together…my back was soo sore but I was so excited to have the pirate ship. That was probably the best christmas present I ever got.

And this year, as I wake up, call my grandmother/uncle/aunt, aunt/uncle/cousins, dad/sister, cousins and other family members, I can’t help but remember all the good memories. As a kid sure I enjoyed getting presents, but it was always about seeing grandpa and grandma and playing cards and games with my family. Playing hockey and playing in the snow. Eating turkey dinner with family. It’s never been about presents. Always has been about family and taking the time to spend it with them.

And, as I sit here alone on Christmas morning, I encourage everyone to take some time to reflect on that. Whether or not you’re with family, remember the good times, remember the times that you have now and be excited for having your own family and making your own memories. I’m having Christmas dinner with the Salomons and the Matwies later on today and I’m excited I have family out here that gives me the opportunity to spend time with them. I don’t see them very often; normally at holidays, but they are my family and they mean a lot to me. At times they do feel like strangers since I see/talk to many friends more than some family, but they are still family and I love them for that. I’ve known them my whole life after all.

So today, as we celebrate Christmas in our own way, take the time to realize what it means to you and make the most of it. Life is short and it’s good to remember the good times, celebrate the now and look forward to the future.

Merry Christmas to everyone near and far and all the best during this holiday season

Best,
Rob

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So we’ve all heard this line from friends/someone we’re interested in:

I’d really like to do something this week but I’m just too busy…

And then you hear that over and over again. Well, I call bullshit. Obviously. If someone is so busy that they can’t make time for you (which they can) then it means they really don’t want to. So forget about that person and move on.

When people complain that they’re so busy that they don’t have time to see family or friends, then really how much does seeing those family and friends mean to that person?

When we live close to our friends or family (the ones that will always be there for us) we tend to see them less than if they lived far away from us. If our family lives a flight away, it takes more of an effort and more planning and so it’s more important to make that effor to see them. However, when they live close to us, we figure that we can see them whenever we want so we don’t have to try as hard and many times, many weeks or months will go by without seeing them. Many people do this. It’s nothing new.

But I think what is important is that we realize who is important in our lives and make more of an effort to include them in our regular life plan. Make an effort to see them every few weeks. Make an effort to call them. When our short term friends have all left our lives, our best friends and family will still be by our side.

Think about it. And instead of telling someone you’re too busy…be honest with them. Tell them that the relationship isn’t going anywhere and you don’t want to spend any more time or effort on it. Unless you both want to be friends in which case make an effort to include them in your regular life plan. It’s not hard. It’s best to be honest. Some feelings may be hurt yes. But honesty is the best policy.

Caveat to that:

One could consider it being honest when someone says that they are “too busy” to hang out. Busy doing other things that don’t involve you. So don’t take it personally. Really it’s better when someone tells you early on that they’re aren’t interested in you like that. Saves you both a lot of time, effort and money. Enough of this playing games bullshit. If you’re not into someone and they can’t figure it out, save them the pain and tell them. Don’t lead them on just because you can. That’s what maturity is all about.

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When it’s -29 degrees outside…and -13 is a nice, warm day.

When you eat far more than you should but you do it because you want to get a taste for everything (cranberry sauce, dressing, turkey, potatoes, peas, corn, beets, pickles, squash, dessert, etc………). And then take a nap.

When you scrape enough of your windshield so you can see what’s in front of you so you can drive to work.

When you go outside and your hair, still wet from the shower, instantly freezes.

When you go to bed with long johns, socks, a hoodie and gloves on, and you’re still cold

When it’s better to be warm then it is to look cool…but people still try and look cool…which really means…cold.

When most streets are lined with cars that haven’t moved in a week and are not only covered in snow but also have a snowbank on 3 sides of the car and have no chance of driving away without some serious snow shoveling.

Add your own………..

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As the title alludes to, today is World Philosophy Day. For those of you who know me really well you’ll know that I like those questions that really make your brain hurt. The questions relating to the universe, the What If questions and the questions that may seem silly but really are tough to answer (What would chairs look like if our knees bent the other way?). I love these kind of questions. I took a philosophy course last year and our prof asked us some really tough ones. Several of which I still haven’t been able to come up with an answer to for which I’m happy with. On that note, the BBC provides 4 philosophical questions to make your brain hurt:

1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?

Suppose Bill is a healthy man without family or loved ones. Would it be ok painlessly to kill him if his organs would save five people, one of whom needs a heart, another a kidney, and so on? If not, why not?

Consider another case: you and six others are kidnapped, and the kidnapper somehow persuades you that if you shoot dead one of the other hostages, he will set the remaining five free, whereas if you do not, he will shoot all six. (Either way, he’ll release you.)

If in this case you should kill one to save five, why not in the previous, organs case? If in this case too you have qualms, consider yet another: you’re in the cab of a runaway tram and see five people tied to the track ahead. You have the option of sending the tram on to the track forking off to the left, on which only one person is tied. Surely you should send the tram left, killing one to save five.

But then why not kill Bill?

2. ARE YOU THE SAME PERSON WHO STARTED READING THIS ARTICLE?

Consider a photo of someone you think is you eight years ago. What makes that person you? You might say he she was composed of the same cells as you now. But most of your cells are replaced every seven years. You might instead say you’re an organism, a particular human being, and that organisms can survive cell replacement – this oak being the same tree as the sapling I planted last year.

But are you really an entire human being? If surgeons swapped George Bush’s brain for yours, surely the Bush look-alike, recovering from the operation in the White House, would be you. Hence it is tempting to say that you are a human brain, not a human being.

But why the brain and not the spleen? Presumably because the brain supports your mental states, eg your hopes, fears, beliefs, values, and memories. But then it looks like it’s actually those mental states that count, not the brain supporting them. So the view is that even if the surgeons didn’t implant your brain in Bush’s skull, but merely scanned it, wiped it, and then imprinted its states on to Bush’s pre-wiped brain, the Bush look-alike recovering in the White House would again be you.

But the view faces a problem: what if surgeons imprinted your mental states on two pre-wiped brains: George Bush’s and Gordon Brown’s? Would you be in the White House or in Downing Street? There’s nothing on which to base a sensible choice. Yet one person cannot be in two places at once.

In the end, then, no attempt to make sense of your continued existence over time works. You are not the person who started reading this article.

3. IS THAT REALLY A COMPUTER SCREEN IN FRONT OF YOU?

What reason do you have to believe there’s a computer screen in front of you? Presumably that you see it, or seem to. But our senses occasionally mislead us. A straight stick half-submerged in water sometimes look bent; two equally long lines sometimes look different lengths.

But this, you might reply, doesn’t show that the senses cannot provide good reasons for beliefs about the world. By analogy, even an imperfect barometer can give you good reason to believe it’s about to rain.

Before relying on the barometer, after all, you might independently check it by going outside to see whether it tends to rain when the barometer indicates that it will. You establish that the barometer is right 99% of the time. After that, surely, its readings can be good reasons to believe it will rain.

Perhaps so, but the analogy fails. For you cannot independently check your senses. You cannot jump outside of the experiences they provide to check they’re generally reliable. So your senses give you no reason at all to believe that there is a computer screen in front of you.”

4. DID YOU REALLY CHOOSE TO READ THIS ARTICLE?

Suppose that Fred existed shortly after the Big Bang. He had unlimited intelligence and memory, and knew all the scientific laws governing the universe and all the properties of every particle that then existed. Thus equipped, billions of years ago, he could have worked out that, eventually, planet Earth would come to exist, that you would too, and that right now you would be reading this article.

After all, even back then he could have worked out all the facts about the location and state of every particle that now exists.

And once those facts are fixed, so is the fact that you are now reading this article. No one’s denying you chose to read this. But your choice had causes (certain events in your brain, for example), which in turn had causes, and so on right back to the Big Bang. So your reading this was predictable by Fred long before you existed. Once you came along, it was already far too late for you to do anything about it.

Now, of course, Fred didn’t really exist, so he didn’t really predict your every move. But the point is: he could have. You might object that modern physics tells us that there is a certain amount of fundamental randomness in the universe, and that this would have upset Fred’s predictions. But is this reassuring? Notice that, in ordinary life, it is precisely when people act unpredictably that we sometimes question whether they have acted freely and responsibly. So freewill begins to look incompatible both with causal determination and with randomness. None of us, then, ever do anything freely and responsibly.”

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This is a notice that was posted in the newspaper when my grandfather, John Thomas MacLeod’s plane was shot down during the 2nd World War:

Could you imagine being a parent in the 1930’s with no internet and barely any phones? Parents might not know their son/daughter is dead/alive for days/weeks/months.

Writing from memory and being brief, my grandfather was a figher pilot in the 2nd World War. He was shot down by enemy gunfire and in order ot survive, he had to climb out onto his wing and parachute to safety. However, when he landed safely on the ground, he was captured by German soldiers and taken as a captive. He told me that he was a captive for roughly 40 days and during that time was required to sleep in a closet standing up, was fed water and bread and saw his fellow comrades executed in front of him by gunshots. He was lucky to survive and later became the father of 5 children, one of them being my mom, in my eyes, the most amazing person that I will ever know.

He passed away in April of this year and I unfortunately was not able to fly home to attend his funeral. I was in the middle of exams and my grandmother told me to stay here and study and be a good student.

I talked to my grandmother on the phone last night and it was great to hear that she is doing ok. She told me that on Sunday in church they read a brief summary of grandpa’s time in the war in a moment of remembrance for him and what he did.

Margo is up visiting grandma and in addition to visiting grandpa and mom’s gravesites, I think they are going to be attending the remembrance day ceremonies at the cenotaph. That is a cereomony I wish I was there for. Maybe next November 11.

In any case, no matter where you are or what you are doing on November 11 at 11:11am, please take a few moments and remember those who have fallen, those who are serving us and think about how different our lives would be had it not been for them.

RIP John T.

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Tuesday, November 11 is Remembrance Day in Canada. In case you forget why we take 2 minutes of silence to remember those who have died, watch this video and read the lyrics. The video/song is called A Pittance of Time, by Terry Kelly.

A Pittance Of Time 4:43
Written by Terry Kelly © Jefter Publishing – SOCAN

They fought and some died for their homeland.
They fought and some died, now it’s our land.
Look at his little child; there’s no fear in her eyes.
Could he not show respect for other dads who have died?

Take two minutes, would you mind?
It’s a pittance of time,
For the boys and the girls who went over.
In peace may they rest, may we never
forget why they died.
It’s a pittance of time.

God forgive me for wanting to strike him.
Give me strength so as not to be like him.
My heart pounds in my breast, fingers pressed to my lips,
My throat wants to bawl out, my tongue barely resists.

But two minutes I will bide.
It’s a pittance of time,
For the boys and the girls who went over.
In peace may they rest.
May we never forget why they died.
It’s a pittance of time.

Read the letters and poems of the heroes at home.
They have casualties, battles, and fears of their own.
There’s a price to be paid if you go, if you stay.
Freedom’s fought for and won in numerous ways.

Take two minutes, would you mind?
It’s a pittance of time,
For the boys and the girls all over.
May we never forget, our young become vets.
At the end of the line,
It’s a pittance of time.

It takes courage to fight in your own war.
It takes courage to fight someone else’s war.
Our peacekeepers tell of their own living hell.
They bring hope to foreign lands that hate mongers can’t kill.

Take two minutes, would you mind?
It’s a pittance of time,
For the boys and the girls who go over.
In peacetime our best still don battle dress
And lay their lives on the line.
It’s a pittance of time

In peace may they rest,
Lest we forget why they died.
Take a pittance of time.

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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

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For the month of November, I will be growing a mustache and raising money for a charity called Movember that promotes the awareness of prostate cancer. Some fast facts about prostate cancer:

• Every year around 24,700 Canadian men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 4,300 die of the disease, making it the number one cancer threat to Canadian men.
• 1 in 7 men will develop prostate cancer in their lifetime.
• All men over the age of 40 are potentially at risk and should talk to their doctor about the disease and early detection. Prostate cancer is 95% curable if detected and treated early.

Help me out by clicking the donate button and do your part in helping to save lives! I will be taking pictures of my mustache growth everyday and posting them here to show that I’m commited to the cause. I appreciate your support!

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At the suggestion of a friend, I decided to write about sand. What about sand? Well, I decided to search the internet for some quotes that had a sand theme. Below are 4 of my favourites. They are from the website Think Exist and they carry some good meaning. Basically for me, sand is a substance that can create so much, can destroy so much and can nurture so much. It can be used in a variety of processes, such as glass making, sand castle building, fields (sport) development and art.

In any case, I wanted to speak directly to the following quotes. They touched me in different ways and hopefully you too will find special meaning in them.

“Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble”

Basically when something bad happens we cannot dwell on it. Know that it happened for a reason but also know that in getting through the experience we will be stronger for it and will eventually move past it. But, when something good happens to you, it’s great to remember that experience and cherish it and live your life to have more of those. I know from experience that when something bad happens it hurts and it’s not easy to get through. But when you find something good, it will make you so happy that you’ve gone through all of those bad things.

“Time is like a handful of sand- the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers”

There is no rush to do anything or get anything done in life. Rather, there shouldn’t be. Everything we choose to do is just that – a choice. It’s something that we have conscious control over and if we choose those things that make us happy, why try and rush through it? Why not take the time to enjoy it and savour every moment? The next time you’re doing something you’re not particularly happy doing, think to yourself: do I really have to do this? What happens if I don’t? Is there something I could be doing instead? What good can I get from this?

“All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand.”

This one I’ve struggled to grasp. I do believe in love at first sight. But so far all of my relationships that have been built on this haven’t been forever. I also believe that sometimes you meet people that are destined to only be friends. And that’s great. But I absolutely agree with this quote. I think that while it’s great to be with someone from the word ‘go’, a friendship is absolutely imperative and so as long as that is developed then the relationship will be strong and will last. I also think that the person that you want to be with should be one of your best friends for sure. We all would like to find that; hopefully we all can.

“An ostrich with its head in the sand is just as blind to opportunity as to disaster”

We cannot be afraid to fail. We cannot not try something for fear of failing. We can’t be afraid to love someone for fear of being heart broken. In the face of failure comes the opportunity for amazing successes. And we will only find those successes if we put out whole heart and soul into everything that we do. ‘We cannot steal second base while keeping one foot on first.’

It’s quite amazing how everyday concrete objects can hold so much meaning. I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the above quotes, or hear some of your favourites; relating to sand or otherwise.

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As I mentioned earlier, today would have been my mom’s 53rd birthday. She passed away 7.5 years ago from a heart attack.

I still get messages from friends and family telling me how much they miss mom and how amazing she was. She truly was. I feel that, and have been told that, I embody many of her wonderful qualities. One of those qualities is her emotional IQ. I tend to become much more emotionally involved in everything I do – many would call that “wearing your heart on your sleeve”. It’s true and since she passed, I have loved more than I ever thought possible, but I have also hurt and cried more than I ever thought possible. I am just like everyone else; I want to be with someone who loves me for who I am and as much as I love them. I know that we all make mistakes and that we all have our flaws but that is what makes us human and what makes us so amazing. I wouldn’t change a thing that I’ve done or that has happened to me. It’s all been a learning experience. One thing that makes me sad is how some things I’ve done, people make them seem like a bigger deal than they actually are. For example, we all have our little annoyances (chewing with our mouth open, the way we brush our teeth, shaving our back in the kitchen), but I say that we should embrace those. In a different light, they are cute. They are what makes us each an individual. I know my mom was the most accepting person I have ever known.

And I leave you with some words that she wrote me during my first year of university when I was away from home in Edmonton (and which I read at her funeral):

It is easy to sit back and do nothing as then you can’t make mistakes, can’t be sad or happy for the things that are thrown your way. It’s not easy to take that step forward but you will learn so much every time you do take a step. Just like the day you learned to walk, it started opening up your world in a new way from when you could crawl. Oh yes there were falls along the way, When you first started walking you fell more than you walked. You got your share of brusies and bumps. But you kept trying and eventually you did it. Sure it would have been easier to stay crawling as you knew what to expect, but look at what you would have missed if you hadn’t started walking. This is an illustration. One of so many in your life so far. No matter what you decide to do you will stumble and make some mistakes but YOU WILL LEARN. The failures are learning too because they teach us how to do things differently. NO one is perfect or has all the answers.

Your dreams must come from your heart’s deepest desires. Only then will the barriers come down before you. To know your heart, you must know yourself. You are who you decide to be, not who other people decide for you to be. You were created and intended for greatness. Be noble Stand on the higher ground.

Mom, I love you so much and miss you every day.

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