Of Green Fees and Grilled Cheese.

Posted on February 1, 2012 by

In the Victoria area there are more than a dozen easily accesible golf courses — a few more if you broaden the search to the entire CRD. They range from the ridiculously affordable (and relatively un-challenging) Henderson 9-hole course — just $8.50 for 9 holes, $14.60 if you want to do two rounds as your 18 — to the rather pricey Royal Colwood course where 18 holes will set you back $165 in peak season. I was actually stunned by the range in green fees but that’s nothing compared to club membership, required at about half the local courses. Membership at the world-famous Victoria Golf Club (thanks in part to Bob Hope) will run you $35K plus monthly dues around $250 — and don’t imagine that price earns you the right to wear what’s comfortable.

So it’s no surprise that regulars are up in arms about the Cedar Hill Golf Course scaling back operations in the restaurant. There’s no talk yet of green fee changes but I would suspect that is under consideration (they were dropped for 2011-2012, from $40 to $35 for 18 holes).  If you missed the news (or aren’t local), the Cedar Hill Golf Course & Restaurant are collectively running a huge deficit  (and have been since 2007); in 2012, they are expected to hit $1M in the red. Continue reading →

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Complexity of Meat

Posted on January 28, 2012 by

The next step in the current urban homesteading trend is raising animals for meat. Several cities and towns have started to look at bylaws surrounding the issue as urban farmers want to step up from eggs to something more — whether chickens, geese, rabbits, goats, or other smaller food animals. Locally, one former city counsellor expressed an interest in amending our bylaws to include a provision for keeping goats for dairy, but not food. It is still illegal to slaughter any animal in the City of Victoria1.

A recent Slate article, “Farmer Groupies and Chicken Coddlers,” that frames urban homesteading as a nostalgia-inspired movement2, has an interesting take on slaughtering those animals,

These unsettled DIYers are operating in a particularly weird moral environment, caught between ideal and reality. On the one hand, there’s the locavore lust for authenticity that promises that slaughtering your own food will be an adventure in self-discovery. On the other hand, we have developed a complex ethical and emotional connection with animals that makes us really uncomfortable with their pain, even if we tell ourselves it’s less than if the animal had spent its life in a factory farm.

That “weird moral environment” is why I’ve said flat out to Mike that in the post-apocalyptic world, I will be a vegetarian because I cannot imagine killing, let alone preparing the animal for food. Even now, I can’t eat food that has a face (e.g. fish with the head still attached) or even resembles its original form too closely (e.g. cornish game hens).  I also have trouble getting past the cultural bias against insects/larvae and similar. Other than that, I’m much more flexible than I was as a child. I would say without hesitation that among family (parents & sibling) I have the broadest palate but it pales in comparison to Mike’s. Still, I consider myself an omnivore. Plus I really like meat. Continue reading →

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The Writer’s Ego

Posted on January 21, 2012 by

Ego can be a fragile thing, as easily built up as it is crushed, often with just a few words or these days a few clicks of a social media button. Being a writer and putting one’s words out there — be they fiction or fact — requires a certain amount of ego protection — a thick outer skin.

words-on-the-page

In a world where anyone who has access to a computer can publish their work, stories of feuds with critics have become all too common. In part because in this same world, the recommendation engine needs to be constantly stoked by new critics and everyone’s a critic. Moreover, critics and creators are separated only by bandwidth; there is no built-in buffer between publication of a review and a letter written to the reviewer; and with the popularity of self-publishing, there is no editor to talk a writer down before he or she says something they will regret later.

On the flip side, the easier it is to publish, the harder it becomes to find an audience. Even finding someone willing to critique works is a challenge in this flooded market. Readers have more choice than ever but writers need to fight for eyes more than ever.

This does nothing for the fragile ego of the writer. While it can be a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t predicament, it is almost always worth getting work critiqued. In the past, that was the job of the editor, now we have to brand ourselves and rely on our fans, friends & family, and hope for an honest review.

Other options? Writers’ groups (which one friend recently referred to bluntly as “public masturbation”), content-for-comment (where a free copy is given to a blogger willing to promote or review it), or hustle-hustle-hustle and hope for some starred reviews on your bookseller page.

So, if you know a writer and are willing and able to offer some feedback, talk to them. Most writers are happy to offer free reading copies and if you get into the game early enough, you may find your own name in print in the acknowledgements or even the dedication.

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Juggling Cats and Chainsaws

Posted on January 15, 2012 by

Time management and its big brother Project Management are key to any business but they also apply to families and other groups too. Directly related to both, scheduling has become a four letter word in our house.

juggling In any week we may have to juggle: meetings with clients, meetings with other freelancers, medical appointments, birthday parties, gaming sessions, Purpose Party check-ins, vehicle maintenance, business mixers, parent-teacher consultations, classes, plus the usual household management tasks (cooking/laundry/housework).

This past week we’ve had the added circus of dealing with financial institutions and credit agencies after my employer, thanks to a lack of both physical security and also data encryption, put the personal and financial information of approximately 11,000 people into the hands of thieves following a break-in.1

People ask me, “How do you do so much?” My answer is almost always a variation on, “Juggling; I keep several balls in the air at any given time.”

In reality, they aren’t all nice standard juggling balls with even weight and the same texture. Instead, some manifest as cats (who really don’t like to be thrown) and some as chainsaws (that have to be caught just so, in order to avoid injury). Others morph while in the air, presenting suddenly as bricks that require the juggler to adjust their balance or as feathers that simply blow off course and disappear. Once in a while a ball gets out of sync and either falls/drops or must be batted away.

Continue reading →

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Fun with Flowcharts

Posted on January 11, 2012 by

Found via Scribd

What do you want to read today?

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New and notable

Posted on January 8, 2012 by

While I am getting ready for WordCamp and trying to keep all the other balls in the air, I have been trying to procrastinate in a creative way — still producing stuff that is useful. Here’s what I did while avoiding other stuff this weekend:

After watching Hobo with a Shotgun late Friday night, I was reminded of Machine Girl which we found thanks to Netflix last fall. I wrote a combined review for both, since they fall into the same category of “splatter films”

Where do you go when over the top isn’t far enough? I’m not sure, but when you get there, you’ll find the team behind the 2011 Canadian grindcore/splatter film, Hobo with a Shotgun. [Read full review at the MediaNook]

Today, as part of the preparation for WordCamp and after my musing last week, I started a new podcast: Grid Memories. The first episode is up now.

“Beginnings” looks back on the first five years of the Victoria Grid Project, a community photography project documenting Victoria, BC one square kilometre at a time. Cheryl DeWolfe is one of the photographers who has been on board since the first month; here she looks back at where the project came from and where it’s going. [Read the rest or download the audio over on Around InnerHarbour]

Now, back to Prezi so I can get the presentation ready for Saturday!!

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Deadlines-HO!

Posted on January 4, 2012 by

January has suddenly become deadline month for Those DeWolfes Creative. We have several contracts in the air, writing work, and WordCamp (in ten days!!!), plus we plan to offer the first of our ongoing training sessions in partnership with DTI Computers this month.

Continue reading →

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New Year Memo – Kindle Edition

Posted on January 1, 2012 by

I went to bed late on December 30th and had trouble sleeping — an idea for a story was brewing and wouldn’t let me rest. At 2:30 a.m. I got up and banged out a couple hundred words that would serve as the skeleton. Yesterday, I got up and started filling out the story. By 2:00 p.m., after several passes it was done — I’d written nearly 1900 words without much of a thought or a fight; the story was just there.

The New Year Memo is a very dark story; I’ve filed it under “fiction: occult & supernatural” because it boils down to Death holding a grudge.

Mike and I have been talking about selling on Amazon for a while but I hadn’t really considered it a place for short stories until another friend started promoting his own work there.  The process for building a .mobi file is not the most straightforward, especially for Mac users, but I had it figured out and completed inside about 90 minutes. This morning, I awoke to find an email confirming that the file had been crunched and assessed and was ready for sale as a Kindle Edition for just 99 cents. (BTW, you don’t need a Kindle to read it; there are Kindle apps for most mobile devices and operating systems.)

The whole story is a little over 4 pages (standard 8×11 single spaced) long so it’s not going to take a lot of your time to read. Here’s an excerpt:

It was New Year’s Day and the work was stacked up as it always was following a night of revelry. There was nothing to do but start with the first assignment. A smart phone with a cracked screen in a zip-close bag was at the top of the stack. The instructions said “play voice memo” and Richard Tan always followed instructions. What he heard would surely inform what he had to do next so he sat down at his desk and pressed play.

“Last year, I lost everything,” it started. His pen was poised above a yellow memo pad to take notes but something in the woman’s voice held his attention so closely that he forgot to write a single word.

If you do buy it, and read it, I’d love for you to leave a review. Thanks, and Happy New Year!

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It’s been a good year

Posted on December 31, 2011 by

CreativeTools.se - PackshotCreator - Champagne bottleThe year started out quietly with a determination to pull some projects off the back burner and finish them, one at a time. This was my grand 11-for-11 plan. Result? One project finished: Home Staging in a Hurry. That was the key project, the rest were less important. Their lack of importance was underscored by the Purpose Party. Continue reading →

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Steve Martin, Supergenius.

Posted on December 27, 2011 by

(NOTE: You have to say “Supergenius” the way Wile E. Coyote does in Operation Rabbit, his first speaking appearance alongside Bugs Bunny, for the word to have its intended impact.)

Many years ago, while in San Francisco, Mike and I got tickets to a performance of Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a play written by Steve Martin. Since seeing that performance, I’ve been a bit in awe of Martin’s range of talent and convinced of his supergenius status. I went back to watch his earlier films and saw them in a new light then sought out his essays and other films. The man has impecable comic timing, a fine grasp of the absurd, an understanding of art and music that is better than many graduate students and he can write really well. I began to suspect that he may also have been the inspiration for The Man in Black/Dread Pirate Roberts.

I cannot forgive him for reviving the Pink Panther franchise, however.

Flash forward to this past November when I visited the public library with the goal of finding some more instrumental music I could draw on as a writing soundtrack for NaNoWriMo. One of the CDs I found on the shelf was Steve Martin’s 2009 album of banjo music, The Crow. I know what you’re thinking, “Banjo music? Not likely!” and normally, I’d be right there with a “Pfft.” and crossed arms beside you.

And yet… every time one of the tracks pops up in my iTunes shuffle, I smile. Even the sad tunes sound happier when expertly plucked by Martin. All but one track on the album were composed by Martin over decades of his life (as early as the 1960s) and often as not on film sets. He pulls in favours for vocals on some tracks and accompaniment on others and the result is one of my favourite albums in recent years. Tin Roof (embedded below) is my favourite track, followed closely by the title track, The Crow, and also Hoedown at Alice’s. If you have any interest in banjo music or bluegrass, I highly recommend this album.

Here, I’ve made it easy to buy my favourite Steve Martin stuff:

Posted in media, movies, music, popculture, reading | Tagged | 2 Comments