Die Hard Three

In my previous post I demonstrated how UFO sightings of the future will be more lobe and less probe. It’s one of the unintended (but positive) consequences of America’s drone war on terror. Humans will end up adopting a more scientifically accurate understanding of extraterrestrials because they will be required to explain why a given UFO sighting is not simply a toy airplane.

In a similar vein, I’m hoping that camera phones will help disprove the existence of ghosts. But unfortunately for humanity, this one has a much lower probability of success. Belief in ghosts (both noisy and quite) is an ancient one and it is interwoven with the human condition making it difficult to break free.

Belief in aliens, not the other hand, is a relatively new phenomena, and because of its young age it is forced to co-exist with newer, more-verifiable ideas. Aliens also happen to be from in a place (space) that humans regularly visit and study. Ghosts remain elusive because no one has yet been able to take a high-resolution photograph of where they live.

And I’m *not* talking about the ancient abandoned indian burial ground and pet cemetery.

This is my understanding of how ghosts work: when people or their beloved pets die, their non-physical components (whatever that is) leave this world and go to a non-physical place but sometimes this non-physical part comes back to the physical world. We don’t know exactly where they will appear but we do know where they will *not* show up – well-lit, nationally televised, broadcast-in-high-def, live, sporting events / award shows / high-profile weddings / political rallies / surgical procedures.

With that in mind, all ghost encounters fall into two broad categories:

• I heard something that I can’t explain.
• I saw something (not in the sky) that I can’t explain.

The category one claims (sound) can be dismissed outright. There are huge missteps in logic for someone to hear a strange voice and jump straight to “dead grandmother” skipping over radio, tooth radio, voice in head, person just out of view, and meddling kids. In a debate, it should be no contest – there are just too many plausible readily-available explanations for unknown sounds.

The category twos (visual), are a different beast all together. This is because the effect of actually seeing something with ones own eyes is so much more powerful than simply hearing it. In the past people had to use eyewitness testimony (which is notoriously unreliable and compelling) to verify claims of ghosts and ghost-like activity.

But now, almost everyone has a camera with them twenty-four seven. Instant, high-resolution evidence of mysterious apparitions should be easy to come by. If you can see it with your eyes, you can take a picture of it. The exact same principals apply to cameras and human eyeballs. Look it up. If it doesn’t show up in your instagram, it’s a hallucination.

Or you don’t know how to operate the camera.

Eventually people will get tired of hearing excuses about why the witness was unable to snap a photo with her iPhone. But even with all this I think belief in ghosts will survive because acknowledging their non-existence means facing our own mortality – something humans have been just terrible at.

Last Friday afternoon I was driving with two friends along the Ottawa River Parkway. We had just passed Island Park Drive when I noticed a shiny silver object in the sky in front of us. From our vantage point it didn’t look too large and we estimated it was about a couple of kilometres away (that’s a little over a mile for my American reader). Pointy with reflective properties, it was just hanging there minding its own business. We discussed what it could be for about twenty seconds before our ADD-addled attention spans were distracted by another shiny object (this one turned out to be a strip of reflective tape on the shoe of a human female running enthusiast).

I find it fascinating that, less than a decade ago, a sighting like this one (the sky thing, not the shoe) would have instantly sent us on a mad race, flying across the city in a desperate attempt to get a closer look at this Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). Reckless, high-speed, gasoline-consuming, putting-in-danger the life and limb of ourselves and pedestrian alike. When the stakes are high enough, behaviour like this is completely justified. I mean, no one wants to make *second* contact.

It’s first or nothing.

So what happened during the past ten years that sparked such a radical shift in human behaviour? Drones is what happened. Low-cost, commercially-available, fun-to-fly, non-military-applicationable, camera-equipped, drones. Witness the content of last Friday’s twenty-second-long debate concerning the origins of our “UFO”:

Jason Hey look, what’s that?

Dave It could be a kite, it’s pretty windy out.

Michael Maybe it’s a drone.

Jason Whoa! Check out the shoes on that jogger!

Michael Man, I wish I was running right now…

All it took for this change to happen was for there to exist a well-known and plausible explanation for the unknown phenomena. This unintended consequence of America’s drone program is one of the things you won’t be reading about in Glenn Greenwald’s column over at the Guardian. And why would you? The primary focus of his writing is security and liberty.

So what’s the fallout from all of this? What I predict is, that over the next few years, we’re going to see a huge decrease in the number of humans who yell “alien!” every time they see something up in the sky that they don’t instantly recognize. These people will have been shamed and ridiculed into logic by those of us who have up-to-date information on the current state of the remote-controlled model aircraft industry.

Just to be clear, I’m not discounting the possibility that extraterrestrial aliens or predators do exist. In fact, ever since I was a little boy I’ve dreamed about going toe-to-toe with an alien. It’s just that from my current understanding of how the universe works, if we do encounter evidence for the existence of aliens, it will more resemble a radio signal (like in Contact) and not the Vulcans detecting the signature of our warp engines (like in First Contact).

I want to believe. But most likely it’s just the lights on the wingtip of the airplane. International aviation regulations require that all aircraft have visible beacons for navigating in low-light conditions.

On Saturday I went white water rafting (for the first time) with a bunch of friends, friends of friends, and random people and it was a blast. No, wait. Back up. That’s not strong enough. It was the best time of my life ever (except for that one other time). Everything about this past weekend was amazing: the weather, the resort, the rush, the adrenaline, the adventure, the beautiful Ottawa river, the post-rafting game of frisbee, all of it.

But in spite of how amazing it was, all I’ve been thinking about since I got back home on Saturday was, “why had no one ever told me how awesome white water rafting is?” And for the answer to this burning question I’m looking squarely at you: people who communicate with me.

I think the reason this is bothering me so much is because of the discrepancy between how fun rafting is (top two experiences of all-time) and how much you’ve talked about it (almost not at all). One would think that an activity this fantastic would generate a considerable amount of conversation but this has not been the case.

Some of you are going to hide behind the fact that you’ve never gone rafting before – but this is no excuse (well, not a legitimate one anyway). Everyone knows at least one person who has gone rafting and spoken about the experience. Firsthand participation is not a prerequisite for endorsement. Shame on all of you.*

At this time it is unclear to me what exactly it is that that prevents people from talking about this amazing activity so I am going to do everything in my power (which is, admittedly, not very much) to break this conspiracy of silence. So here is my review of my trip to the River Run Rafting & Wilderness Resort on the Ottawa River June 14-15, 2013.

First up, the facilities were top quality – they even had a pub on site. There was lots of space for camping and they had cabins available for rent. The food was great – there was an awesome breakfast and the post-rafting lunch was delicious. They had plenty of activities ranging from volleyball and basketball in the day to campfires and ghost stories at night.

The staff were outstanding. I can’t stress this enough. Knowledgeable, athletic, tall, physically attractive, able to pull my water-logged body from the icy water. One could not ask for more.

The Ottawa river is both mighty and powerful with a high rate of water flow and a bedrock made of bedrock. One of the things that makes for such good rafting is that there are many different courses one can take down the river depending on the water conditions. Most of the other rivers in the known world are too polluted or remote to make for good white water rafting but the Ottawa has all the right characteristics that put it in the top five in the world!

The rafting was incredible. It is a well documented fact that your average white-collar worker will wish for death several times during any given day as an escape from office boredom. Well, rafting is the perfect antidote for this. When you’re out on the white water, you find yourself repeatedly wishing to not die from excitement. See – problem solved.

I do have one piece of constructive feedback for the resort people: I wasn’t too keen on the idea that I had to paddle the boat with the other rafters. I have a strict no exercise policy while on vacation so I was disappointed when I found out that I would have to “work” during my rest time. I talked for about an hour with one of the guides about starting up a new course where the rafters (they should be called paddlers cause that’s what they are) could simply use the current to float down the river. He said this was a terrible idea and gave several reasons why, but none of them were very good.

But other than that everything else was perfect. I’m going to be organizing a followup trip in the near future, so keep watching the skies!

I approve of this event.

And to conclude my review, I would like to pass on a big “suck it” to the authors of and contributors to this “award”. In Ottawa we got world-class white water rafting an hour from downtown. You? An hour of driving in Toronto gets you to Markham. Vancouver: you’re still in Vancouver (ugh). Montreal commuters: I hope you like overpass repair – cause you’re going to be seeing a lot of it for the next sixty years.

Jason – Monday June 17, 2013

*Except Steve.

Sometimes I have difficulty explaining to people my experiment in lifestyle design – both what it is and why I’m doing it. This is probably as much my fault as it is theirs. Because both sides of the conversation are operating from different baselines, there is bound to be some confusion. So for future discussions, please consider this post to be my starting point.

I’m a firm believer that everyone wants the same thing. On the surface, this statement appears to be untrue – if you ask a million people what they want they’ll tell you a million different things. But there’s one thing that is underlies all of their answers. And this is at the core of my experiment in lifestyle design.

I believe that, at the bottom, people want the ability to spend their time in a meaningful way.

After much reflection, I’ve come to realize that this is what I seek. It lies at the foundation of all the other things I want to do.

I’m sure this concept isn’t groundbreaking. There’s got to be some Greek guy who figured this whole thing out a long time ago but his primitive blogging software prevented him from reaching a wider audience.

And he was writing in Greek.

The reason I think it’s important to remember this concept is because it increases the likelihood that any proposed solutions will attempt to solve the underlying problem. At a minimum it will ensure that any life situations you encounter will get looked at from a different perspective.

There’s a whole other part of this equation that I haven’t discussed and that is, “how does one determine what is “meaningful?” but I think I’m going to save this for a later post. I can’t solve all the world’s problems in one day. That would be unfair to the problems.

The cafe where I blog is perfect except for one thing – the only way to determine if the washrooms are occupied is to try the door. In the past two hours, customers have have tried to open the locked doors on at least twenty different occasions. It’s a nightmare for everyone involved.

As the patrons who need to use the facilities turn the corner to where the washrooms are located, they are confronted by two closed doors (out of politeness the previous occupant usually does not leave the door open even a bit). Some customers just fearlessly try the knob like it’s any old door (who are these people?) but the majority treat the situation with the utmost caution.

It’s obvious they are uncomfortable because the signs are all there. Upon seeing the closed door they usually wait a few seconds, scanning for some visual or audible sign that will indicate if the room is occupied or not. Then after processing the available information they slowly reach for the handle, fully aware that there could be someone in there. Maybe they’re just washing their hands but maybe they’re in the middle of a really bad, away-bathroom experience. The washrooms are in a corner, but as they are single-occupant, there’s no partitions preventing line-of-sight view from the main part of the restaurant. From where I usually sit I’m protected, but some tables are not so lucky.

So what we end up with is a situation where the person in the washroom is interrupted by the attempted door opening and the person waiting is now acutely aware of the unnecessary pressure he’s placed on the occupant. This is all compounded by the fear that the door has not locked properly and the mere act of turning the knob will expose the activities therein to everyone else in the cafe. And worst of all, I have to sit here and be subjected to this Sisyphean ordeal that could be solved by the most basic of technologies. Here’s a picture of the German solution to the problem.

Unlocked

Locked

I doubt if the people that work there even know this problem exists. So my question for you, my readers is: how do I get this fixed? There are several options.

1. Tell the owner / manager and let them take care of it.
2. Do a detailed study to quantify the extent of the problem, research the solution, provide a plan on how to implement the fix, and then offer to do the work.
3. Bring my tools in and just fix it myself (pretending to be the repair guy – I’ll need to do this in disguise).
4. Inform the media.
5. Have the Ontario Building Code modified to require the owners of commercial establishments to install occupancy indicators on all their bathroom doors.

Help me out here. And I’m not switching tables, it really is the perfect place except for this one thing.

I’m looking forward to never having to buy clothing ever again. To live a sustainable lifestyle one has to rid oneself of all unnecessary possessions and cease all nonessential activities. Shopping for clothes falls neatly into both categories and that’s why it’s a good place to start – you get two for the price of one.

Now, this isn’t something you should dive into unprepared. Implementing a moratorium on clothing purchases at some arbitrary moment in time is not recommended. You’re likely to find yourself wearing some old Hallowe’en costume to your cousin’s wedding – not cool.

Or super cool. It really depends on the costume.

I’m not there yet, but I will be soon. I plan on making a single $400.00 purchase sometime in the next few months and these will be my clothes for the next twenty or thirty years. Here (in instructional form) is how I plan on proceeding.

I already have a favourite shirt – I’m halfway there!

Before anything, you need to realize that no one cares what you’re wearing. Remember this. Ask any of your co-workers what you were wearing on a given day the previous week and they won’t be able to tell you.

And if they can tell you, you should file a complaint with HR straightaway.

The first step is find a brand that fits you and stick with it. You may not know this but every clothing company has a pair of hu-mon models (one male one female) off of whom they baseline all their clothing. All of the different garment sizes for a given manufacturer are scaled to the measurements of these two perfect individuals. Because they use different models, clothing of the same size from the different companies will fit you differently. Find the good one.

Second, pick a motif or colour scheme that works for you. The nice people in the cosmetics section of your local department store will tell you your season. For these of you who don’t know, each person is a season that corresponds with the colours that go best with his / her complexion, eye colour, hair colour, and Myers-Briggs results. Make sure each piece fits your season but it also has to match with all the other articles. This will eliminate any analysis by paralysis situations when trying to decide what to wear.

I’m an introverted rainy autumn at dusk.

Next you need to figure the rate at which your clothing wears out. You’re on your own for this one – inspect the conditions of your current favourites, try and remember when you bought them, determine how long you plan to live, and then do the math. Don’t forget to account for the different seasons if your country has them.

The hard part is acquiring the clothes but your large purchase will allow you to negotiate a special price. You can also fly overseas to buy direct from the factory. Sound crazy? Do some research into the markup on retail clothing and the cost of flights to Asia. Don’t travel in high season.

In addition, an investment like this is a good motivation to eat well and exercise regularly. You gotta keep the same shape or all this work will have been for nought. Also if you have no space in your apartment, you can store all this stuff at your parent’s place.

So that’s my blueprint on how I’m going to proceed – I’ll be sure to keep you posted. And one final suggestion, if you find yourself in an environment where the idiom “the clothing makes the man” has some measure of value, get the hell out of there. Do you really want to be spending all your time hanging around people who judge you by what you wear? Sure it would be fun at the beginning but I bet it would get pretty tiresome after a while.

An important part of my experiment in lifestyle design is to see if I can live better with less income. As I mentioned previously, for many people “life” is simply a series of tradeoffs between time and money. I find this fascinating. My current situation is forcing me to take a hard look at my spending habits and I’m planning to evaluate my financial decisions by writing a whole series of articles in the first person describing my experiences with this money / time concept. Who knows, maybe I’ll even be able to come up with a clever way for regular folk to save their hard-earned cash.

Take this for example: because I’ve got lots of free time, I don’t need to race all over the place when I’m driving a motor vehicle (I don’t own one but I have regular access to several cars). When one drives faster it costs more in fuel. So what I’ve done is I’ve implemented a system where I drive 90% of the posted speed limit (I’ve been doing this for about a month now). For the math challenged among you, here it is in convenient tabular form.

In my version of the movie Speed, the bus can’t go above 45.

And I have to say, the results have been nothing short of spectacular. As expected my fuel costs have dropped dramatically but what I wasn’t expecting was the degree of support I’ve received from my fellow motorists. I think deep down people recognize we have to start economizing in non-traditional areas if we’re going to avoid some of the problems faced by society. And not to inflate its importance but I think I might be starting something big here. Witness this:

At least four times in the past month many of the vehicles following me on single-lane highways have demonstrated their support by repeatedly honking their horns (similar to how they would behave when driving past a picket line of striking workers with whom they sympathize). I can’t even describe the feeling. These complete strangers are willing to violate several sections of the Ontario Highway Traffic Act by recklessly and unnecessarily sounding their horns to support my fuel saving decision / cause. On more than one occasion I found myself welling up.

Emotionality aside, I do understand this is not for everyone. I’m not one to judge – some people just need to drive a little faster, but even the speeders are beginning to understand. They’ll follow me on the highway for a couple of kilometres in a show of solidarity and when they eventually pass they make sure to look me right in the eye. And I look right back at them. No words are exchanged, but the message is clear: “We’re with you Jason. Not at this exact moment because we’re late for Junior’s piano recital. But you have our support.”

I know it’s a little early to call this experiment a success. But if it continues like this there’s going to be a revolution of sorts. Just remember who started it all when it comes time to erect the statue.

By far the best aspect of increased free time is the free time. Case in point: for the past ten years I’ve been talking about building a balcony off the top floor of my house but I could never find the time. Well last week I found the time and you’ll never guess where it was: right there in the middle of the day, hiding behind my former job.

So I did it. I built a massive, three-story balcony. It was paralyzing work being so high up with all those power tools and no safety harness. I’m afraid of heights and while working on the top platform (before the railing was installed) I crapped my pants in terror several times each day. But other than that it was an incredibly rewarding experience. Now each morning when I wake up I can walk outside to check the weather without having to go downstairs.

And my roommates have a whole bunch of new nicknames for me. Normally this would be of concern but they’re all in Latvian – it’s a dead language.

Now there have been some downsides to the free time and they are mostly related to the absence of money coming in to my coffer. For example, the other day I wanted to buy beer. The old salaried me would have bought a four-pack of my favourite brand (Beau’s) and enjoyed all of them over several hours.

It’s pronounced Bose

But Beau’s is a premium beer with premium packaging and premium cost. In my current fiduciary predicament I need to stretch my savings so I now have a new favourite beer.

I have to make this purchase last for several weeks. Does anyone know if beer goes bad after it’s opened or do I have to drink each can in one sitting?

Greetings blog readers, Facebook friends, and Internet search engine web crawlers. Since my last article I have received several out-of-band messages indicating that some of you were expecting more blog posts from me during my journey of self discovery and home renovation. Apologies for that, I’ve been quite busy. One would think that the absence of a nine-to-five job would result in more free time but the truth is, I’ve been busier than ever. In today’s post I want to share with you my initial observations on my time liberation experiment.

But first I want to thank everyone who came out to my Career Change Event on the seventeenth. I hope you all had a lovely time. From what I can remember, it didn’t rain very much.

One thing I’ve noticed since I quit the nine-to-five routine is that during working hours the city undergoes a transformation of sorts. On weekdays during the hours of 09:00-11:30 and 13:00-15:30, when most of the population is locked away in their offices and cubicles, things slow down considerably from their usual frantic pace. And those who are fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of these periods enjoy a more leisurely existence. The stores are less busy, the roads have less traffic, and the people one encounters are more relaxed (probably because the roads and stores are mostly empty).

“I’m not locked anywhere” you say? Really? Then just walk away. Just walk away.

Once you join the ranks of the Abnormals, it’s only then that you notice them going about their day-to-day exchanging silent, Fight Club-style nods as they pass each other on the street. They think that knowledge of this parallel existence needs to be kept on the downlow because if the Normals find out about it, it will be ruined somehow.

By posting this article I’m probably going to end up ostracized (you’ll never guess what the Abnormals’ first rule is) but I don’t care. The reason I don’t care is because as the most recent one to make the transition, I understand better than anyone that their concerns are unfounded. Fresh in my mind are all the conversations I had with other Normals about the pitfalls of my experiment – and there were many. I can say without reservation that it is impossible for this to go mainstream. Fear is keeping the existing systems in line. Society is just not ready.