Fossil Gears, by Flying Trilobite

Last week, Jodi and I hosted Glendon Mellow (a.k.a The Flying Trilobite) and his lovely family for an all-too-brief night right before the end of their road trip through the Maritimes. I was more than willing to put them up just for a chance to reunite with Glendon and to meet Michelle, their adorable son, and their nephew Christian, but they saw fit to gift us with this great piece of shale art as a thank-you.

Trilobite fossil painting, with clockwork gears, on shale

It was still wet in spots when he presented it to us. A personal gift like this means a hell of a lot to me. It will get a prominent place in our office, once it’s re-done. (The office is kind of in shambles at the moment.)

Thank you, Glendon. You know you didn’t have to.

Fossil Gears, by Flying Trilobite
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My cat Molly

Look. This is going to be a mushy post. About a cat. If you don’t like it, don’t read it, and especially don’t comment. I’m not particularly interested in your disapproval right now.

About eight years ago, I was living in Toronto in the basement of the mother of my boss. My roommate at the time had a cat, Casey, a big bruiser of a tom, but rescued another — a kitten she found at a shelter, who as it turns out was the runt of her litter.
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My cat Molly

CONvergence: Growing Up Online

The second of my three panels from SkepchickCON at CONvergence. I grew up online and was probably in the first generation that would have had the opportunity to spend all of my formative years on the internet (if you include that hairy period where the “internet” was a series of BBSs and the connections you made were over 300-baud modems).

This panel discusses the difference between “online” and “meatspace”, e.g. that there is no real difference, just that “online” is a sort of shadow-culture that evolves in parallel with “meatspace”. We also discuss flame wars and their genesis, which Stephanie posts about in greater detail.
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CONvergence: Growing Up Online

Congratulations to Rieux and his wife!

Good news — FtB commenter Rieux’s wife has delivered their expected baby.

Off-topic: at 8:17 this morning, it’s a boy. (Or at least AMAB, if that’s better stated.)

6 pounds 14 ounces, 19.25 inches, 22 hours of back labor by a mom who demonstrated unbelievable guts and stamina in 3 hours of grueling pushing. Then he wrecked the Apgar curve.

Now bedtime. Explaining how rape culture is nasty bullshit that all us XYs have a responsibility to resist will come soon enough.

(Not snark.)

Yeah. I’m spent and unable to get all the blogosphere things written that I want to write, and I just travelled. I just don’t have an experiential framework in which to empathize properly with how spent your family must be.

Congratulations to Rieux and his wife!

CONvergence: Doctor Who fan repairs his timeline

I’m going to try to write about a few of the thousands of little interactions I had while attending the SkepchickCON science/skepticism track at Minnesota’s annual CONvergence — the continent’s largest entirely fan-run sci-fi/fantasy/fandom convention. This year’s convention had just shy of six thousand attendees, and practically every panel in the Skepchick track, in convention rooms that seated ~125-150, was packed and in many cases standing-room-only.

During a convention of this size, you overhear lots of conversations about lots of different things, most mundane, but some truly interesting. During a group lunch, I learned the tale of a man who, eighteen years ago, missed a chance to meet Sophie Aldred — Ace, one of the Doctor Who companions of the 7th Doctor. He had gotten an aluminum baseball bat of the same style as Ace’s signature, and though he had it at a convention where Aldred was doing signings, was too shy to ask.
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CONvergence: Doctor Who fan repairs his timeline

Thoughts from on a plane travelling 504km/h

Air Canada, I have to say, has some snazzy planes. I have a live map of where I am in the flight, how long it will be til I get there, and to feed my OCD and need for more information than is actually necessary for any normal traveller, exactly how fast I’m travelling and at what altitude. All on an LCD panel that’s built into the seat in front of me. 1h 46 mins, touchdown at 10:02 am local Toronto time. This is definitely information overkill.
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Thoughts from on a plane travelling 504km/h

Vacation! Blog entering low-power mode now.

While I’ve spent other work vacations claiming to put the blog in low power mode, but still managing to keep blogging at my usual rate, there’s a good possibility that for the next two weeks my blogging activities will be significantly curtailed by all the preparation and socializing that accompanies attending CONvergence.

I am very likely presently in the air on my way to Minnesota right now, assuming nothing untoward has happened (planes delayed, pilots being Raptured away mid-flight, etc). I might have a thing or two to write while I’m in the air, but I also plan to try to finally read the beta copy of Kelly McCullough’s new book so I can tell him in person what I thought of it. Yeah, the harassment fight has been keeping me from other duties. I suspect he wouldn’t mind though, considering the nature of this all-consuming conflagration, and the frequency with which he attends conventions.

I will, as usual, attempt to keep some interesting stuff pumping into my blog, but the chances of hosting a knock-down-drag-out fight over some piece of my personal philosophy is significantly lower as a result of all the time I plan on spending catching up with friends and making new ones.

Once in Minnesota, I understand I have more beers to try. I didn’t quite get through all the beers on offer last time there. I should post my notes on the last set, so I clear my “beers I’ve tried and haven’t yet blogged about” queue. I’ll also probably rely pretty heavily on working my way through some of the blog fodder backlog from links people have been sending me. But all that aside, it’s well possible I may not pay as close attention to the blogosphere as I have recently. If you need me for something, those of you who really matter already know how to get a hold of me.

And if anyone needs to pass along hugs to Stephanie Zvan, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Yay vacation!!

Vacation! Blog entering low-power mode now.

Royal Thai Navy

I’m pretty much in desperate need of happy-making material at the moment. And yes, the film series in my previous post was quite replete with that (see especially Hugh and Gerald’s story of the First Pride Parade — their story about the police officer’s awe is great). But sometimes it takes a special sort of something to fix my doldrums.

Something like this nuclear bomb of adorableness.

Apparently the Royal Thai Navy’s efforts were instrumental in preserving the otherwise endangered hornbill sea turtles, and they’ve been doing it since 1950.

Royal Thai Navy

“An open letter to the woman who said I wasn’t skinny enough to have an eating disorder.”

[Trigger warning for people with eating disorders, obviously.]

Kate Donovan, who ordinarily blogs at a few different places around the intertubes, has written an open letter to someone she really cares about, who dismissed her very real anorexia as “playing victim”.

You saw me this summer, back home for the worst summer I’ve had. I have gone off therapy for these three months, because you see, my parents don’t use modern medicine, and I cannot trust them to care for me. I am dependent on the kindness of my university to have treatment in the first place. This summer, all I have are friends, and my own will to do anything to keep from slipping back into a hell of calorie counting and obsessive thoughts and the nightmare of reflective surfaces. I used to hate myself, you know. It still creeps up on me and strangles and pulls at loose skin, until all I can do is hold off from screaming and curl up in bed.

You don’t know this. I would have told you, had you asked. I speak about my cesspit of destructive behavior, because you can’t tell when you look at me. That is true of most eating disorders, and someone has to talk about it. I will be that person.

Read the rest here. Very poignant. Very worth reading.

And I put this under Privilege for my categories because, frankly, the woman dismissing Kate out of hand has obviously not experienced the evidently drastically life-altering disorder.

“An open letter to the woman who said I wasn’t skinny enough to have an eating disorder.”

The Apple Blossom Parade

The third largest continuous parade in Canada happens practically in our back yard. My wife took some great photos of the parade and posted them to her Flickr stream, but I wanted to show you a few highlights to give you an idea of how these parades usually go. I skipped out on this one to catch up on some sleep and housework, so I didn’t see it firsthand, but I’ve been to a few. I only regret missing the last picture, below the fold…

The RCMP usually play a big part in the parade -- who doesn't love a Mountie in uniform?

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The Apple Blossom Parade