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.

Oddly, one of the biggest costs is paying back $187K annually to the Municipality of Saanich (who also operate the golf course) to pay for a $2M irrigation system, installed in 2006. (Here, I’ll make the math easy for you: costly irrigation installed in 2006. In the red since 2007. Hmmmm.) [source, see last bullet point.] A big part of the deficit for the restaurant is projected repairs;  but rather than raise food prices (a grilled cheese with fries will cost you only $8 right now) and/or court more use of its banquet room, the knee-jerk reaction is to close the community hangout, popular with seniors.

For seniors, staying active is critical and golf is a popular activity. There’s easily 600 to 700 hectares dedicated to golf courses in the region — this is dwarfed by the 11,500 hectares of parks and trails managed by the CRD alone (municipal, provincial and national parks add even more to the total) and yet golf courses do require an abundance of irrigation and other maintenance, far more than the average park or trail. We also have many recreation centres and other sporting facilities, and a climate that allows for year-round outdoor activity — including, but not limited to golf.

There’s lots of reasons that people pick on golf courses though. They are single-purpose large tracts of land that eschew native vegetation for invasive grasses; they tend toward the elitist (see above dress code link); and they take up some valuable real estate in a market where housing is stupidly expensive.

However, the Cedar Hill Golf Course in particular is special to me.

My grandfather, after retirement, golfed a round there every morning. It was the last thing he did before he had the aneurysm that would put him in hospital and ultimately end his life. The course and its clubhouse/restaurant were his community.

There’s no easy fix for a bill this big. Saanich Municipality is going to have to find a way out of it and unless they have access to a windfall, or some anonymous donors (the membership and monthly fees of just 26 members of the Victoria Golf course would erase Cedar Hill’s deficit), or a Time Lord willing to sort things out, they are going to have to make some tough choices and I doubt they will be popular.

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.

Recently, a friend announced she would be learning how to slaughter chickens because “feeding ourselves as naturally and in as few industrial steps as possible” is a priority for her and her family. I reacted almost vicerally — just reading it made my stomach lurch as I thought back to my childhood. We had backyard chickens for many years when I was a kid but after successive raccoon attacks the remainder were stressed and no longer producing so my father slaughtered them. I watched from what I thought was a safe distance but the image of the legendary headless chicken is etched permanently on my brain.

Of course, I didn’t have the option of choosing to be a vegetarian, like my daughter has — as a kid, we ate what was in front of us or we didn’t eat. It’s been frustrating at times to accomodate Kiddo’s choice because while she is unwilling to eat meat, she looks the other way with things like gravy and soup stock. She is also picky about vegetables and legumes so she ends up with a lot more soy in her diet than I’d like. At least she eats fish… but not with heads attached.

***

¹ See City of Victoria ByLaw 11-044: Animal Control; while it does not specifically outlaw slaughtering, it requires care and veterinary intervention where necessary. I have heard from several urban chicken keepers that they take their chickens to other municipalities when it is time for them to be killed.

² This suggestion deserves it’s own retort in a separate post.

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.

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.

Once I look at it through the visual I just painted, I can’t believe I get anything done, and yet I do. Here’s how:

1. Goals. — again, I come back to the Purpose Party. Once I set some long-term Big Goals, prioritizing got a little easier; saying “no” to stuff that wasn’t going to get me closer to my goal also got easier. If I find myself making excuses, I have to examine whether the task/event is important. My motto has become, “If it’s important, you’ll find a way. If it isn’t, you’ll find an excuse.”

2. Calendar(s) — I use Google Calendar but separate my events into multiple calendar feeds: one for personal stuff, one for Those DeWolfes Creative stuff, one for Kiddo’s events/appointments. I also import my UVic appointments, and committed Meetup.com events. Mike has access to add events, too. Knowing what’s on the horizon makes it easier to manage what-happens-next.

3. Automation — sometimes, tech can be an amazing help. From setting the dishwasher to run overnight to scheduling social media and blog posts, when timing matters, it’s nice to have some microchips at one’s beck and call.

4. Productive Procrastination — sometimes, I can’t (for whatever reason) focus on the task at hand, I will go do something else and about 70% of the time, it is something else on The List — whether that’s filing papers, washing dishes, writing a future blog post or article, or knitting a few rows of a project. Anything on The List is keeping the balls, chainsaws and cats in the air.

5. Balance — while tricky, I have been aiming for a better balance between the mental and the physical and also between the solitary and the social. As an introvert, I do struggle with the social engagements but being mindful of the need for balance keeps me “honest.” Gardening and walking help me balance the physical with the mental, as does crafting. I may not break out in a sweat when I knit but it exercises different muscles and different parts of my brain.

6. Support — I cannot stress enough how important it is that Mike knows and supports my goals, reminds me as deadlines approach or when my balance is significantly off, and doesn’t give me (too much) grief when I procrastinate, productively or otherwise.

That’s how I get things done but sometimes things go off the rails, thanks to those bricks, and fumbled chainsaws. Trying to schedule more than a couple of people (cats!) is usually a good way to throw things off; and that’s when one more thing can be of use:

7. Flexibility — I still need a lot of work with this one, but it is a big part of what has been helping to get stuff done in the last year; being able to change direction, roll with it, pick up the fumbled chainsaw and get the balls back in the air.

¹Read Mike’s thoughts on the situation – they’re not far from my own — or read an early CTV news account.

What do you want to read today?

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!!

In order to prepare for WordCamp, where I am talking about “Multimedia Plugins, adding sizzle to the steak,” I have decided to build a new WordPress site. However, I didn’t want to just plop down a test site, so built another offshoot of InnerHarbour.com (which apparently  has been left hanging in redesign hell for a few months. Oops.) So if you do pop over there, beware that I will be madly moving furniture around for the next few days as I test a few plugins that are new to me before settling on a “best of.”

Aaaanyway.

Around.innerharbour.com will be a companion to my Unofficial Guide to Victoria (Victoria.innerharbour.com) where I hope to put local history, architectural studies, video clips, photo galleries and maybe even an occasional podcast. I also hope to be able to tie it in to the Victoria Grid Project (the site for which I’d like to upgrade and redesign this year — but not in January!)  – maybe that could be the monthly podcast topic? Food for thought.

So if I am blogging less this month, that’s why. You can always check-in at Those DeWolfes Creative to see what tech things we are blogging and podcasting about and of course find me lurking about the usual social media water coolers, trying to sort out which of the questionable choices for Presidential candidate the Republicans will field.

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!

I cannot emphasize enough how much the Purpose Party changed things for me (and for the DeWolfe Household in general). Through what we learned and practiced I’ve identified my Big Goals (writing & teaching) and moved much, much closer to both. Heck, I am already doing both, but in the new year I will be doing both more, and my Biggest Goal is to be doing a combination of the two pretty much full time (ideally by the end of 2012, but there’s a number of ducks that need to be aligned) so I can stop sheepwalking.

Among the ducks needing alignment was my putting Those DeWolfes Creative higher on the priority list. I think I’ve done that in the past few months and I think I can keep it up. (If you want to hear about the first year of Those DeWolfes Creative, check out Podcast Episode 15) — our most recent news though was too fresh for that podcast. As of today, we can officially talk about our arrangement with DTI Computers. Starting in January, we will be offering training sessions through their storefronts. (See? Training = Big Goal!)

We saw some inspiring and informative speakers this year at WordCamp, Pecha Kucha, Awesome Shit Club, FreelanceCamp and other gatherings but  the highlight was Brian Greene — most notably because Kiddo stood up at the mic and asked him the $65K question.

My garden had ups and downs but what started off as a dud year for vegetables turned into a bumper year for fruit. I still have a cold-room full of fruit and preserves and a basket of apples yet to be eaten on the back deck. I was proud to call myself an urban homesteader.

Other things that happened this year…

• I turned 42.
• I got sort of hooked on Pinterest
• I went on a road trip through the Rockies with Mike & Kiddo.
• I wrote about 23,ooo words during November for NaNoWriMo.
• I helped to wage war on our game console.
• I threatened to leave Facebook… but didn’t.
• I voted, and told the world about it.
• I watched disasters unfold in other parts of the world and finally got off my butt to put together our kit.
• I represented my local at CUPE National Convention.
• I considered taking up the cello, but haven’t yet.

Thanks for joining me through the fun trip that 2011 has been — here’s hoping 2012 is even better.

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: