January Merry-Go-Round of Life

Song of the week: K'naan - Take a minute
And any man who knows a thing knows He knows not a damn, damn thing at all And every time I felt the hurt And I felt the givin' gettin' me up off the wall

Movie of the week: My life without me
[Ann writes in journal] Ann: THINGS TO DO BEFORE I DIE. Ann: 1. Tell my daughters I love them several times. Ann: 2. Find Don a new wife who the girls like. Ann: 3. Record birthday messages for the girls for every year until they're 18. Ann: 4. Go to Whalebay Beach together and have a big picnic. Ann: 5. Smoke and drink as much as I want. Ann: 6. Say what I'm thinking. Ann: 7. Make love with other men to see what it's like. Ann: 8. Make someone fall in love with me. Ann: 9. Go and see Dad in Jail. Ann: 10. Get false nails. And do something with my hair.

Food of the week: Fried chicken drumsticks with sauteed onions, spinach and olives

Book of the week: After the Ecstasy, the Laundry - Jack Kornfield

"For minds obsessed by compulsive thinking and grasping, you simplify your meditation practices to just two words-'let go'-rather than try to develop this practice, and then develop that, achieve this and go into that [...] Instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism and being invited to great international conferences, why not just 'let go', 'let go', 'let go'? [...] So I'm making it very simple for you, to save you from getting caught in an incredible amount of suffering. There's nothing more sorrowful than having to attend international Buddhist conferences."

Show of the week: House MD

Boyd: "God says you look for excuses to be alone." House: "See, that is exactly the kind of brilliance that sounds deep, but you could say it about any person who doesn't pine for the social approval of everyone he meets - which you were cleverly able to deduce about me by not being a moron. Next time, tell God to be more specific."

Waking up

Last night I had a dream where I saw myself as a child, waking up in the morning, standing on the bed and stretching my arms up and wide.

I thank my mind for the reminder!

Are you a/do you have hyper-parents?

Here is an interesting documentary and food for thought about the past, present and future of our families and society.

Hyper parent check list:

- Do you see your child's first birthday as an achievement?
- Do you consider yourself your children's best friend?
- Are you competing with other parents for the biggest number of activities/attention for your children?
- Are your children in college/university giving you their username/password so you can check their schedules/grades/email?
- Will you give them a wake-up call so they don't miss a class in university?
- Will you try to negotiate the salary with your children's employer in their new job?

Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids. A CBC documentary.

In memoriam, Mario Benedetti

There was a poet who was for me like the grandparents I never met. He had in his words, the advice needed to navigate those years of my youth, when the usual concerns about love, women and life could make the brightest day obscure.

He was Mario Benedetti and he died last Sunday, May the 17h, 2009.

"... don't save yourself

now or ever ..."

No te salves



No te quedes inmóvil
al borde del camino
no congeles el júbilo
no quieras con desgana
no te salves ahora
ni nunca
no te salves

no te llenes de calma

no reserves del mundo
sólo un rincón tranquilo
no dejes caer los párpados
pesados como juicios

no te quedes sin labios
no te duermas sin sueño
no te pienses sin sangre
no te juzgues sin tiempo

pero si
pese a todo
no puedes evitarlo
y congelas el júbilo
y quieres con desgana

y te salvas ahora
y te llenas de calma
y reservas del mundo
sólo un rincón tranquilo
y dejas caer los párpados
pesados como juicios
y te secas sin labios
y te duermes sin sueño
y te piensas sin sangre
y te juzgas sin tiempo
y te quedas inmóvil
al borde del camino
y te salvas
entonces
no te quedes conmigo

Mario Benedetti (September 14, 1920 – May 17, 2009)

August Sky

Aug. 13, 2008 A Perseid Meteor Shower was happening in the sky since the last night. I sighted more than 10 in a half an hour period. Unfortunately I only could capture the slight trace of a meteor on camera and the quality of the uploaded movie is not as good as to show it. Nevertheless, try to see (imagine!?) it in the centre between 00:21s and 00:27s.

Sakura

Yuki interpreting Sakura in a night of love and goodbyes =)

Cold, alcohol, agave and life's water

originally uploaded by Garas.

Yesterday night, with temperatures of -28 C, which felt like -36C with the wind chill, my bike's lock froze and refused to open. Fortunately, a friend's bottle of Isopropyl alcohol (freezes around -89 C when it's highly concentrated) saved my night. No, I didn't drink it ... we just poured it into the lock's keyhole to ease the frozen pins inside. However, the occasion brought to me the memory of wanting to write some of mine and other's wonderings about alcoholic liquors. So here are these fragments of information... enjoy, and stay warm this season.

A note by Ryan Thomas about the differences between Tequila and Mezcal...

"Few understand the difference between tequila and mezcal, and many don’t even know there is a difference. While traditionally, all tequilas were known as a type of mezcal. Today, they are distinct products, differentiated by the production process and taste, much the same way rye whisky differs from Scotch whiskey. Most mezcal is made today in the state of Oaxaca, although some is also made in Guerrero and other states. Tequila comes from the northwestern state of Jalisco (and a few nearby areas). They both derive from varieties of the Agave plant, known to the natives as mexcalmetl. Tequila is made from only agave tequilana Weber, blue variety. Mezcal, on the other hand, can be made from five different varieties of agave. Tequila is double distilled and a few brands even boast triple distillation. Mezcal is often only distilled once.

"To make mezcal, the sugar-rich heart of the agave called the piña, is baked in a rock-lined pit oven over charcoal, and covered with layers of palm-fiber mats and earth, giving mezcal a strong, smoky flavor. Tequila piñas are baked or steamed in aboveground ovens or autoclaves.

"Tequila and mezcal share a similar amount of alcohol in the bottle (around 38-40%), although mezcals tend to be a little stronger."

Some scattered notes about Whisky (Whiskey) from Wikipedia...

It is always Scotch and Canadian whisky (plural: whiskies), but Irish and American whiskey (whiskeys).

Different grains are used for different varieties, including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and maize (corn).

Malting is a process applied to cereal grains, in which the grains are made to germinate by soaking in water and are then quickly halted from germinating further by drying/heating with hot air.

Malted grain is used to make beer, whisky, malted shakes, malt vinegar, and some baked goods, such as bagels. Malting grains develops the enzymes that are required to modify the grain's starches into sugars, including monosaccharides (glucose, fructose, etc.) and disaccharides (sucrose, etc.). It also develops other enzymes, such as proteases which break down the proteins in the grain into forms which can be utilized by yeast. Barley is the most commonly malted grain in part because of its high diastatic power or enzyme content.

Yeasts are eukaryotic microorganisms classified in the kingdom Fungi.

Barley (cebada in Spanish) (Hordeum vulgare) is an annual cereal grain, which serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food.

Rye (centeno in Spanish) (Secale cereale) is a grass grown extensively as a grain and forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe (Triticeae) and is closely related to barley and wheat. Rye grain is used for flour, rye bread, rye beer, some whiskies, some vodkas, and animal fodder. It can also be eaten whole, either as boiled rye berries, or by being rolled, similar to rolled oats.

Notes aside:

Baker's yeast is the common name for the strains of yeast commonly used as a leavening agent in baking bread and related products, where it converts the fermentable sugars present in the dough into carbon dioxide and ethanol.

Vodka is a distilled beverage. It is a clear liquid which consists of mostly water and ethanol purified by distillation — often multiple distillation — from a fermented substance, such as grain (usually rye or wheat), potatoes or sugar beet molasses, and an insignificant amount of other substances such as flavorings or unintended impurities.

A bird's eye view of Canada

Flying from Toronto to Edmonton.

January 2008