Bay-jing

I thought the “j” was pronounced like the French “je”.

Annual Pilgrimage

We recently returned from our annual summer trip to Chicago. As with every trip, different thoughts and feelings swirled through my (our, actually) head(s).

First, I seemed to take a much more laid back approach this year. In past years, I had a laundry list packed with people we MUST see, things we MUST do, or foods we MUST eat. This year I still had people that I really really wanted to make a point of connecting with. But there were only a few places I wanted to see and I only tried to have my favorite foods when they were available. That said, we were still rushed at times (like on the first weekend) trying to fit things in, but since I wasn’t stressed to do stuff, things went more smoothly. Plus we’ve gotten into the rhythm of how things transpire during the trip and what to expect. It was our most enjoyable trip back yet.

The first couple days found my wife and I looking at each other and half-wondering why we left. It was a blast seeing all our friends and family. Plus seeing the city brought back many memories. I think we are both city people by nature and the rush of urban life with all it has to offer really invigorated both of us. But we had to take a step back. One of the reasons for the move was the major life change of having kids. Our lives would be even more hectic had we stayed. Still… seeing our friends with kids going through a quite similar set of circumstances added some perspective that maybe life would not be all that different between locales.

But as the trip progressed, another reality of life in the big(ger) city became apparent. Either everything costs more or you work hard and sacrifice to avoid those expenses. In our case, on vacation when your time is limited, we opted for the former. But if we were there full time, we would be doing the latter with some unavoidable expenses that come with big city living. $20 or more for parking almost anywhere you go. Daycare that costs four times as much. Not to mention the price of homes. We climbed out of rather serious debt when we left there, and I’d foresee moderate debt if we returned under our present circumstances.

During the second weekend, we were reminded how difficult traffic could be. Bumper to bumper traffic on a Sunday morning. Again, since we were on vacation it became a positive since we took locale roads we had not seen since leaving. It was fantastic to see all the various neighborhoods again. Some packed with memories. But in regular life that could be maddening. And it did really stress me out when we lived there.

It’s true that I’ve said (as much to myself) that our move to Montreal was permanent. And under our current circumstances that’s still true. But on the long 18 hour drive home, my wife and I batted around the idea of what it would take for us to return. As things are right now, I hate to say it but it would take a rather large boatload of money for us to return and live on our terms. And that’s not easy to say because the proximity to family and long-time friends is not something you can put a price on. But we’ve found a comfortable lifestyle here for our family free of major financial worries. Along with the pluses of living in Montreal.

So, it seems that the door that had been closed seems to have cracked open just a hair.

Flickr Meme

There has been a nasty Flickr meme going around lately. I was reluctant at first, but decided to participate.

For those unfamiliar with it, here are the questions. (click on the photo above to get to the answers.)

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favourite colour?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favourite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favourite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name.

It was fun to do. You should try it.

Return Trip Dilemma

One of the difficult parts about our return trips back to Chicago is determining who we will see and how many people we will try to see. The trips are always already jam packed trying to see family and do certain things or attend certain events. Last year I felt horrible because I didn’t see one side of my family and one of my best friends, but that was kinda how the cards fell.

Yes, if life permitted, I would see everyone. But we also have to consider that it IS supposed to be a vacation and we can’t spend the whole time running from appointment to appointment. Large groups is a good way of seeing alot of people at once, but you don’t necessarily get “quality time” with each person. So during the last few visits we dwindled down the people we MUST see and have had a good time catching up with each other. But now with all these different networking sites I’ve started reconnecting with many friends who I’ve thought of highly. It feels kinda cheap to reconnect on a virtual level, but not spend the time to meet up when we’re back in town.

And to complicate the mix, there are the people who I have come into contact with virtually and now communicate with fairly regularly. Last year I met up with a bunch of them and had a good time. So this year I’ve organized another get-together. In some ways it seems odd how the vast majority of my new friends are generated from the internet than from the real world. Though there is still that yearning to meet people in person to make them “real”.

In the end it just seems to be one of those things that comes with moving away. Scheduling the trip is kinda like life. You make sure all the big pieces are in place, then the medium size ones, then you try to fit in the rest as best you can. There will likely be parts left over that you still would have liked to fit in. Though unlike life, there will always be next year’s trip.

International Male

Westmount Square by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the International style of architecture.

A few weeks ago I was running errands during lunch when I realized I was only about a block away from these buildings by Mies. So I sauntered over and spent about 15 minutes taking shots. As I was taking one of my last shots, I saw a security guard coming toward me. I wasn’t sure if he was doing his rounds like the last one who passed by me or if he was actually coming over to chat. It turns out it was the latter and he quite nicely told me that if I wanted to take pictures I would need to get permission from the administration office. I thanked him and then proceeded to leave the premises since I had already taken all the pictures I was interested in taking (about two dozen).

At one point as I was looking for shots, I was disappointed to see this tube hanging out of the building since it ruined the purity of the facade. But then I thought I’d just make some lemonade out of it. And hence the title.

Midwest Flooding

Reading about the current flooding going on in the Midwest has brought back memories of our experience with the aftermath of the Great Flood of 1993. I find it kinda tough to read just because after those floods 15 years ago, there were so many recommendations and lessons to be learned that much of the devastation going on would have been avoided or at least expected.

Specifically I am talking about those areas in the river valleys. In 1993 we learned that the Army Corps of engineers had created a survey laying out the elevation that both the 100 year and 500 year flood would reach. The 100 year flood being a flood that would occur once every 100 years. Likewise for the 500 year flood. The floods in 1993 had about reached the 500 year flood mark and if memory serves correctly a 100 year flood had occured about a decade or two earlier. One of the recommendations or at least requirements made by FEMA was that those who were receiving aid for damage from the 1993 flood will not receive aid for future floods for any damage incurred below the 500 year flood mark. In other words, if you build below that line, you do so at your own risk.

One reason these 100 and 500 year floods are occuring with more frequency is due to the levees. Before these river valleys had become populated and were farmed due to the fertility of the river valley plain, the river would regularly overflow it’s banks. It kept the wetlands replenished and added sediment and nutrients to land that the farms now take advantage of. In order to protect the crops along with cities that have grown next to the rivers, levees were created to keep the flood waters out. The problem is that this has channelized the river leaving no where for the water to go except up. And as the water goes up, so do the levees. At some point, the levees have to give with all that accumulated water piling into the new space. So places that would have not been flooded otherwise are now under water.

What I remember from our time visiting the flooded areas in 1993 was that the property in the river valley was cheap due to the risk of flooding. The people who lived there are of meager means who likely could not afford to live elsewhere. Not necessarily people who can afford that kind of risk.

So it’s tough to hear that the people of the area are going through it again. They were told the previous flood was once in lifetime and although it was recommended to raise their residences, they didn’t have the means to take those measures. Or their place is now under water since pressure created by a levee able to stand it’s ground weakened their levee to failure.

But what exactly can be done. Do you just suggest that the residents live with their lot? Be better prepared for the next one? Give up fertile farmland that they can afford? Ask them to just deal with the possibility that they’ll completely lose a crop every decade or so? Tell them just to move out of there, someplace they may have called home all their life, in order to return the land to wetlands?

Our proposal for the city we studied was to relinquish those structures that were below the 500 year flood elevation and raise the waterfront to above that level. But seeing as how that elevation no longer seems realistic, would that just have to be done again in the next decade or two? At the time, it seemed like the easy answer, but the second time around it doesn’t look all that simple.

Lightplay

The Milwaukee Art Museum by Santiago Calatrava

My Dad

This past weekend, my father was fortunate to acquire tickets to the Formula One Grand Prix here in Montreal from a company he works with. He was also able to get a spare ticket for me for the Friday Practice session. So we spent the day together following the festivities. At around lunchtime, those in the Paddock Club are allowed to walk freely through the pit area and take a closer look at the cars. Our hosts even arranged that we would be able to go up to the door of the garage to get an even closer look and have our pictures taken with the cars. We did all of that, then had time to freely check out all the other garages along pit row. As is my habit of late, I spent the time trying to get interesting photos of everything. So my father was sauntering along ahead of me while I kept trying to take shots.

At one point I lost track of him and turned around to see this:

He had struck up a conversation with one of the firemen who was relaxing while activity on the racetrack had stopped for lunchtime. The guy was from Hamilton, Ontario and my father thought there might be some connection since he was stationed in front of Lewis Hamilton’s garage. But that’s my father. He’s the people person. While I tend to avoid social interaction, he seeks it out. Here was this guy sitting by himself while there were some of world’s highest performance vehicles across from him, and my father chose to talk to him and learn more about him. Or just have a light conversation.

No, the picture is not flattering. But what you purely see visually doesn’t even scratch the surface of what’s inside.

You can see the happiness in the guys smile. Smiles like that are common around my father. He came to New York City while I was there for a hockey tournament in March just so we could spend a day together. When we went down to have breakfast at the hotel restaurant, he started joking around with the waiter. He suggested that we were big rock stars in town for a gig. Everytime the waiter came around he played along with it and had a huge smile on his face. Then after we had stepped out of the restaurant he called after us, wished a good concert, and had a good laugh. It looked like it really made his day. He called after us again when we returned that evening.

But that’s my Dad.

He’s also the organizer. With others in the family he’s planning an extended family reunion this summer. People are coming from as far away as Florida, Toronto, and of course Montreal. He’s one of those people who spends the time to see friends and family members who are not as good about keeping up with him (Another thing I need to learn from). He calls me every week to see what is going on with us. He still volunteers at the Neighborhood Boys (and now Girls) Club that I attended years ago. He’s actually organizing a golf tournament at Cog Hill to raise money for it. He still keeps in contact with his elementary school that bordered on the projects. Even after my parents divorced, my father kept in contact with his former brothers-in-law and gets together with them at least once a year.

And he’s been a model for being a supportive parent. Whenever we come upon problems we have not encountered before, he helps us learn what is the correct course of action tapping on his years of experience. He’s done everything he can to help us when times get rough. I’ve realized how valuable that is after seeing how some parents pass along their neurosis instead of mentally supporting and guiding their offspring. He’s a role model that I’ve tried hard to follow.

So Happy Father’s Day, Dad. You are one of the most caring and charismatic people I know and have been an excellent father to my sister and I.

Passage

In Old Montreal

Come see how I saw it.

Five Years and Miscellany

I haven’t been posting much here lately. But from what I’ve noticed among my cohorts, it seems to be the norm. I’ve been kinda wondering if it’s because the novelty and interest have worn off or if it’s due to a collective occupation with the rest of our lives. Probably a bit of both. Although I haven’t written much, that does not mean that I haven’t had much to write about. It’s just a lack of time and/or interest/feeling of obligation to carry through other free time activities. For instance I feel obligated to post something from my pool of photos to Flickr each day. Even though I don’t have the time to respond to comments or to comment on other photos. I’ve also discovered mpegs and our mp3 player this past week. So I’ve been stuffing it with songs from our CD collection. But as I’ve said there are a bunch of items I’ve been wanting to post about. So instead of writing full blown posts, I’ll concisely cover them in one big one.

This past weekend marked the end of our fifth year here. I was going to write about how things are different since we arrived, but much of it was covered in last year’s anniversary post. This year I would have to say that there are two things of note. First, I’ve noticed that my language skills have quite noticably advanced. I’m much more comfortable having to speak in French and don’t get nervous before speaking even the most basic phrases in public like I did when we got here. I’ve finally started taking an organized French class and I really hope it will take it to the next level.

The second thing of note is that the honeymoon is over. Before moving here, the people that I had the most contact with tended to be less open to others outside their cultural group and only a handful of them were capable of speaking English. Now I knew that there was an anglophone community and that there were other cultural groups (and part of my decision/agreement to move up here was that they were present.) But my experience did not include either outside of a few shopping trips downtown. So I was very happy (ecstatic even) to find both a vibrant anglophone community along with an francophone community open to both the anglophones and the many cultures in the city. But I’ve come to realize that the differences between the people I knew before and those I’ve met after is largely due to the difference between those who live in the city and those in the outlying areas. It’s not a hard-fast rule with very notable exceptions, but it does follow those lines. And I think it’s definitely taken out some of the sparkle I had after moving here. Though considering how positive it was, it really only could go down. That said there are still many many positives.

Regarding the internet, there has been some waning of sparkle on that front also. And I suppose that’s another honeymoon ending. Though this internet malaise that I’ve had may have to do with the difficult spring (busy in addition to all that snow) we’ve endured. It may be a while before I can shake that funk. But what lead up to that uneasiness are three different things. First was the negative responses I was getting about that SUV post from random people chastising me for what I wrote. People who didn’t know me and hid behind anonymity. Second was seeing the commentary left on online newpaper articles. It seems that the vast majority of the comments are opinionated and disrespectful. They either add nothing to the conversation or if there is anything it’s wrapped in a negativity. I kinda wonder why newspapers continue adding comment sections. Is it purely for hit-counts? Lastly, I’ve been following a webpage thread (I can’t think of the correct term) about the new Calatrava skyscraper in Chicago. A project I could have likely been working on if we had stayed there since my old boss is working on it. But this thread which is over 5000 posts long is full of members chatting back and forth like they were in grade school. Someone asks a question about the project, then two or three members chastise and taunt them for asking the same question raised 4000 posts ago. I suppose it’s because I’m purely interested in the progress and some of the particulars of the project, but it all just seems so childish.

Now I know that these are really just parts of the underbelly of the internet due to the freedoms that anonymity affords. But I still don’t like it. I suppose it’s like driving. I love driving, but that means having to deal with the idiots that cut you off.

There’s so much more to write about. So I’ll have to start making more time for this. Maybe after I finish my European vacation.