So yea, I saw an Orca this morning while biking along the sea wall in Stanley Park. It was quite a wonderful moment. I was clipping along with the wind at my back when I saw a black dorsal fin break the surface of the water under Lions Gate Bridge. Immediately and inelegantly, I stopped and got off my bike. Without consciously deciding, I just started walking back the direction I’d come from, to try and keep up with this whale. I was barely even aware of the fact that I was wearing my dorky bike shoes that are nearly impossible to walk in.
After walking alongside the whale for…. I don’t know how far exactly… maybe 60 metres, this lovely creature dove deeper and disappeared. A woman who had the presence of mind to record a video, said ‘He must be going to get some breakfast.’
As I clip clop walked back toward my bike, I was thinking about this happy connected feeling, and how it was strange that I felt so connected to this creature that I’m pretty sure had no idea I was appreciating it.
It was quite the magic moment.
On Orca just east of Lions Gate Bridge, heading into the inner harbour.
Update (9 June 2021): I reported my sighting to Ocean Wise Research, and they put a detailed post on Instagram.
I learned recently that my great grandparents were buried in a cemetery above West Vancouver (CapilanoView) But like any fact gleaned from the internet I felt I needed to see it to believe it.
So today, I struck out by bike, over Lions Gate Bridge to see if this was true. The ride was easier and shorter than I’d expected, although it felt like the last leg was straight up hill.
When I arrived at the cemetery, I was struck by feelings of calm and tranquility. I headed to the office, and was initially dismayed to see a ‘Office Closed due to Covid’ sign out front. After a moment of imagining myself searching through the many rows of headstones, I realized there were people in the office and the office phone number was included on the ‘Closed’ sign.
As I began fumbling to take out my phone, an employee came out of the office with a smile and said ‘Let me save you a phone call.’ I laughed a grateful laugh, and then told him ‘I think my great grandparents are buried here’. He took down their names and went back into the office. Before disappearing into the office, he asked me my name, and told me his was Clayton.
Moments later, he came back out with a clip board and said ‘Good news, your relatives are resting here.’
I liked his choice of word (resting) more than my crude choice. (buried)
He showed me the sheet on his clipboard that seemed to be a grid of random numbers. They weren’t in any discernible order, but he put his finger on the square marked ’25’.
He explained each square represented 4 (or was it 8?) plots and so we first needed to go 8 rows in. I didn’t really understand, but followed him as he started walking across the grass covered in orderly rows of head stones. I was momentarily mortified as I’d always thought you were not supposed to walk on graves. But if Clayton could do it so could I. Onwards!
After getting to the 8th row, Clayton again consulted his grid of random squares and appeared ready to start the next phase of the search. ‘Now it should be somewhere in this row…oh it’s right here.’
Sure enough right at our feet was the head stone of Thomas and Catherine R. Deas. It included the requisite dates, as well as their respective places of birth. Also, bookending the family name Deas, at the top of the stone were two Scottish thistles. I immediately thought of my grandfather Jack (their eldest son) and his favourite mock admonishment. ‘You’re being a bit of a thistle!’
At this point I wasn’t sure what to do. Clayton had left me. I first brushed a few pieces of grass from the headstone. I then ran through an internal slide show of the various pictures I’d seen of these two people. I then thought of all the wonderful people I knew who had descended from them. In the end, I felt grateful to be part of the tree of descendants of these two people.
Most of the Deas family and an unknown guest. From left to right, Catherine, Mystery Woman, Margaret, Catherine, Tom. I suspect this picture was taken by Jack Deas. I have no idea where this picture was taken. I further suspect it would have been taken in the early 1930’s.The aforementioned headstone.Irises @ Capilano View Cemetery
I’ve already mentioned my affinity for making zentangles however I often struggle with choosing which tangles to include. I always fear I’ll get in a rut and repeatedly pick the same tangles, and miss out on others that would feel good to draw. However the only thing worse than inadvertently ignoring an old favourite would be spending a lot of time and energy diligently making sure my picking was fair.
To this end, I want to build an app that will keep track of all the tangles, and which ones I’ve used most, and also allow me to pick some of my favourites. Also (not sure how useful this will be) it’d be nice to present a set of suggestions that include different types of patterns.
All this to say, I’ve been working on an app that uses the CloudKit framework to store both the immutable and the mutable tangle details. I’ve come across a few interesting technical challenges along the way. My plan is to create some posts to describe some of these challenges and things I’ve learned about CloudKit.
possible topics:
turning a swiftUI Image into a Navigation Link and it turns blue
connecting an enum to a swiftUI Picker
the value of being able to set recordId’s (and don’t forget to include the prefix)
challenges I’ve found when using iCloud dashboard (save needs to be clicked twice, adding index loses recent edits)
SettingsView, userDefaults
tabBar via model
navViews in a tabBar seem to reset (or get confused if you switch tabs and come back
This is a framework created by the author/researcher Gretchen Rubin that explores our relationships with commitments and expectations.
The four tendencies are:
Upholder
Obliger
Questioner
Rebel
So what are they mean? Things will become clearer with a summary of the tendencies.
Upholder
Upholders regularly meet both inner and outer expectations. For example, if you ask an upholder to do you a favour and they say they will, then they do. Also, if an upholder makes a new years resolution to give up carbs, they will mostly likely meet their goal.
Upholders do not like breaking the rules and tend to get defensive when blamed for something they don’t think is their fault.
Obliger
Obligers regularly meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet inner expectations. Similar to Upholders, they tend to keep the commitments they make to others, however expectations that don’t have external accountability are difficult for Obligers. A good hack for Obligers is to use external accountability to help meet an internal goals. For example if you want to exercise more, get a Fitbit and organize a group of friends to share how many steps you are getting each day.
Beware Obliger rebellion. This is what happens when and were the obliger finally snaps and says ‘to hell with these external obligations, I quit!’
Obliger is the most common tendency in the general population.
Questioner
Questioners meet internal and external obligations if they understand the reasoning behind the obligation. They tend not to succeed at arbitrary or inefficient tasks. Once you can answer their questions justifying why a particular course of action makes sense, they will be more likely to buy into it. Questioners are usually the people who will email you links to research/data to reinforce a topic you have recently discussed with them.
Ironically (this is anecdotal and from Gretchin’s observations) many questioners don’t like being questioned.
Rebels
Rebels struggle to meet both internal and external obligations. Telling them they have to do something won’t work. They can’t even get themselves to do things this way. Rebels are motivated by their sense of identity. So, for example when they see themselves as fit and health conscious they will exercise and eat healthily. However if you tell them they need to exercise at a specific time on a specific day, or bend their knees more, or not drink alcohol, you will be more likely to have them do the opposite.
Apparently Rebel is the least common tendency in the general population.
The purpose of the framework is not to judge the tendencies, but rather to understand your tendencies and the tendencies of the people around you. Instead of feeling bad when you or others don’t meet expectations, view it as an opportunity. It might be an opportunity to better understand your tendencies, or the tendencies of others.
I recently read Kleptopia by Tom Burgis. While being primarily about the corruption of the financial elite in Kazakhstan, it reached into Africa, London, Moscow, and ever so briefly into the United States including a surprisingly tiny Trump cameo appearance.
I was left with the impression that the safeguards in the financial world, to detect ill-gotten capital and prevent it from gaining legitimacy, are completely ineffective. Further any time a motivated crusader tries to provide effective oversight into corrupt practices, they are very quickly fired, or worse.
When I started reading this book, I wasn’t aware it was so focussed on Kazakhstan. It is a country I know very little about, however it has always been my metaphorical place I could go with my bike and just hide from the world. I’m not yet sure if learning about the corruption of its leaders has removed some of the shine this country has had for me.
Perhaps money can not buy happiness, but if you’re an oligarch, it appears to be able to buy pretty well everything else.
I quite enjoy taking photos of flowers. In the beginning, I was using extension tubes on a film SLR, to take extreme closeups. (self reminder to digitize some of my early macro photos.)
These days, I’m much less ambitious, but I’m still always on the lookout for beautiful light falling on interesting colourful flowers. Irises are my favourite flowers, so I’m enjoying the fact that we are currently smack dab in the middle of Iris season.
Here are a couple of Iris photos I took today.
Siberian Irises in our backyardIrises beside the Arbutus Greenway
I’ve recently become interested in my great grandmother. Grandma Deas was my mom’s dad’s mother. Her and I only overlapped briefly on this planet, she died when I was three. I don’t have any memories of her, but according to my mom I spent a fair bit of time with Grandma Deas.
Starting out, I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the aspects of her life that I’d like to write about:
the general arc of her life
the house in West Vancouver where she lived for 40 plus years
her siblings
her various stages of motherhood
For now, I think I’m going to start with Hydrangeas. My mom has a thriving Hydrangea behind her house. She recently told me that it came from a cutting from Grandma Deas’ garden. I’ve made a couple of attempts at starting some cuttings, but so far no success. Perhaps third time’s the charm!
While I’ve been disappointed at my failed attempts at transplanting this hydrangea, I’m looking forward to the day when I’ll be able to look out in my backyard and see a plant that is a direct descendent something that was grown and tended by my great grandmother.
Insert catchy sign-off phrase here!
Catherine Deas, with Jack (on the left) and Jeannie (on her lap)
I’ve dabbled in meditation over the past few years. While I feel embarrassed to admit it, I enjoy meditating. I started by reading a book called Mindfulness by Mark Williams that I’m still using. Recently, I’ve also enjoying using an app called Balance.
I get the sense that meditation can be very complex topic, however the essence of it is to try to sit still and keep your brain quiet. I don’t think the goal is to actually have your brain be quiet (“woohoo, my brain is quiet, I just qualified for the meditation Olympics!”) I see the goal of meditation as the never ending process of noticing that your brain is not being quiet, and acknowledging your current thought, and go back to just noticing… your breath, or the tingling in your foot, or the gurgling in your stomach, or… (“oh, I need to buy apples today. I wonder if I can get the car in for an oil change this week.”) And so it goes…
I think most people’s brains are very persistent in this regard. They can offer up all kinds of tempting things for you to think about. The trick is to not get mad or frustrated, but instead, just recognize it all as thoughts, and go back to noticing your breath.
To that point, there are a number of techniques you help you focus on your breath. A common technique is to count your breaths. Some people suggest noticing where in your body you feel your breath. Others suggest labelling your breath with something like “Breath coming in”, “Breath going out.” I enjoy hopping around among these techniques.
Recently, while I was labelling my breath ‘in’ and ‘out’ I tried switching the labels, so as my lungs filled up, I was thinking ‘out’. As the air was being pushed out of my lungs, I was thinking ‘in.’
I started doing this, as a silly game. I’m not entirely sure the serious mindfulness crowd would approve of this, but I was enjoying it. I have reached a point where it feels natural to be thinking ‘in’ as I breathe out, and vice versa.
At one point while I was doing this reverse labelling, I started imagining (sorry, this even sounds flaky to me!) I could turn myself inside out. Instead of my consciousness occupying my body, it was instead occupying everything outside my body. From this perspective when air was leaving the universe and going into my body, it was as if the universe was breathing out. When air was being pushed out of my body, it was actually being received by the universe. In.
What started as a playful game in my monkey mind ended up showing me a different way to visualize my breath and my place in the universe.
It all reminds me of a great (and recent) xkcd comic.
Two years ago, approximately, I was browsing drawing and sketching books at the lib. I picked up and checked out one that described a form of doodling called zentangles. I started following the exercises in the book. It was one part ceremony. (eg. it suggested you should feel gratitude for the paper, and your pens and pencils), one part rigorous rules, and one part ‘go with the flow’.
So far the ceremony parts haven’t really stuck, however, I really enjoy the balance between ‘go with the flow’ and process. It seems to have the right amount of random for me. I have recently found the discipline to do them on a regular basis. I’m not prepared to say they are meditative, however I do quite enjoy the ritual of them.
I’m in the process of starting, learning how to make a word press website. This would be to scratch a few itches. First and most likely foremost, I want a place where I can keep links for apps that I’m making. A close second, I just want to understand what it means to build a WordPress website. I go through the world and assume everybody who codes knows how to make a WordPress website. That may not be true, but I certainly feel vulnerable and exposed not being WP illiterate.
I do feel like I’ve reached the point where I could at least have cocktail party discussion about the pieces and the architecture.
One thing I had not considered is blogging. Over the years, I have used blogs to capture family events. I have also dabbled with writing posts about technical issues. I have also used a keyboard to do diary type writing.
It turns out (who knew?) WordPress is first and foremost a platform to support blogging web sites. I’m pretty sure it’s possible to turn off blog support, but that feels like ordering a hamburger, and asking your server to not include a patty.
All that do say, how do I feel about blogging? My first thought is something along the lines of: SELF INDULGENT! (Images of Larry Mullen Jr. dance through my head)
But competing with that another quote:
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
Kurt Vonnegut
So for the time being, I’m going to imagine myself a blogger. A hacky, rambling blogger, to be sure, but a blogger none-the-less.
