Even Still.

I’m not the only one on a Manitoba kick. Even the New York Times has the province down as number 30 in The 31 Places to Go This Summer. This is in response to gas being $4.00+ in the States; comparatively, it’s almost $5.40 in Canada.

Related, my parents tell me that there is a commercial printer in New Jersey who is working overtime creating the number “4” for outdoor gas station signs.

Jacksoned.

Living in the relatively white North where hockey is serious stuff, I found this somewhat inspired.

My American Dollar.

Unless you’ve not been paying attention the financial news of late, the U.S. economy is not very strong, at least compared to most other countries. In Canada, the exchange rate between the Canadian and U.S. dollars has been inching towards parity. Today’s rate is almost exactly at 1.00, whereas even two years ago when we moved to Canada, the rate was .85. In other words, I could go to the bank here, and with my USD 1.00, buy about CAD 1.15. That was nice, for me.

Today, I went to the bank and bought USD 1,500.00 worth of Canadian dollars. You know what I got? I received from the teller $1,475.50. That’s right, for the first time, for me, I received less for my U.S. greenback at the bank; in fact, I lost about $25.00, enough for a dinner out, a couple of movies, or a good book about the future of the United States in the global economy.

Postscript: Here’s the press release.

Go.

Yesterday I was in Fargo, North Dakota.

This Canada.

Back to The North, a category on this blog that I've ignored for a few weeks.

It's hard to believe that I've now lived in Canada for a year and a half. I'm slightly incredulous because I'm still geographically disenfranchised, my family is back East, and I'm unable to articulate the phrase "eh," despite my best attempts. More interestingly, I've come to the mild conclusion that Canada embodies, in some ways, a better, more holistic vision of Western culture and capitalism than the United States. More to the point, I now think Canada is the relatively happy step-sister to the United States, which is riddled with Ritalin, war, and religion. By no means is life in Canada utopian (as many of my left-leaning friends in the States would like to think), but, in speaking with people here, I've learned that, while American complaints and anxieties are real and very massive, Canadian counterparts are real and more minor.

I probably need to give an example, and a personal one would be best. Living in New York, even before 9/11, I was constantly worried about random gun violence, trains falling off the track, car accidents, nuclear terrorism, environmental degradation, and potential loss of healthcare. Don't get me wrong; living in New York for 11 years was phenomenal in every sense of the word. I wouldn't have given it up for anything. But there wasn't a day that went by in which one of these worries didn't enter my consciousness and some days, sadly, all of them would coalesce to battle out a win for keeping me up at night. I sought help and got it and there's no doubt that my own internal and wired neuroses traveled on the same airplane to Canada as I did.

However, the rapidity of these worries, while still extant, is much less pronounced. I'll occasionally get a tinge of anxiety about personal income, terrorism, financial collapse, poor road conditions, or some other lovely thing but the intensity just isn't there. I can only attribute this, in some part, to environmental effects. Canada, or the place I live in Canada, has modified my complaints. Weakend them, in fact.

In TO.

We visited Toronto this past weekend. We had a great time, mostly seeing old friends and seeing a few sites. I had a few thoughts on the city that I thought I might get off my hairy chest:

• People in the Canadian West, including Winnipeg, put down Torontonians for their surliness. I found that there was some truth to this among the few shop owners we visited and among the citizens we ran into. But the reality is that Toronto is a big city and is getting bigger. People in large cities are typically less warm and friendly and thoughtful because they either can't afford to be, they don't know how to be, or they're afraid to be so.
• Toronto is diverse. I've read, somewhere, that the city is the most diverse city in North America and/or The World. I somewhat believe it.
• The city is relatively expensive. It ain't Brooklyn, by any stretch, as we could probably still afford a small house within one of the city's neighborhoods. But I give it just a few years and real estate will be as affordable to most Canadians as Brooklyn is to most Americans.
• It's seedy. My wife disagrees (and so does my Toronto-born friend R.B.), but I think the city has a bit of an edge to it that places like, well, much of Brooklyn, lacks. There was a definitely a feeling, in many parts of the city, that you had to kind of watch your back. Not every second, but every few seconds.
• Marketing works. Here in Winnipeg, advertising is relatively minimal; there aren't billboards everywhere, busses often market government (rather than commercial) services, and it's all rather residential. Buildings are pretty low to the ground, not allowing for huge adverts for clothing, cars and travel. The highways stretch for miles and aren't central to the city. And, in Winnipeg, people are frugal and notoriously stubborn buyers. Not so, in Toronto. Ads are everywhere—along all stretches of building, road, highway, and byway. And it works. In Toronto, I wanted to spend more. I could feel the urge to empty my wallet and I more easily noticed all of the niceties of modern urban existence, from better cars to newer phones to nicer clothes. (Then again, it could have been I was on vacation.)
• Winnipeg is pretty fricking far from Toronto. Man, it's far. 2.5 hours by plane. Sure, we're in neighboring provinces. Sure, there are lots of familial and cultural connections between the two cities. But, let's face, I live far, far away from Toronto: 941 miles or 1514 kilometers, or approximately the same distance from here to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Posted by Andrew at 8:46 AM

Snow Boarding.

A few days ago, my five year old daughter told me that she was snowboarding at school with her friend I. I told her that was neat. I know that she and her friends take their sleds (called toboggans in Canada, I learned the hard way*) up a small hill, built by a parent equipped with a light-duty snow pusher, and then slide down. How would she possibly know about snowboarding, an exercise in craziness where adults slide down hills standing up?

Apparently, I. was shown how by a friend of hers how to snowboard on kids' toboggans and then I. showed my daughter how to do it. Today, at a hill near her future school, Maeve stood up on her plastic purple toboggan, put her feet perpendicular to the path, shuffled herself forward, grabbed the rope at the front and slid down the hill, balancing herself all the way until the end when she fell and, on cue, laughed! I literally could not believe me eyes. She was snowboarding, comfortably, balanced on her tobaggan, straight down the hill. No fear. One year ago, this was not possible. Six months ago, this was not possible. It was beautiful.

* A few years ago, upon my initial intro to Canadian culture with my friend M.M., I was shown a tobaggan chute in a Winnipeg park where every kid in the area tobaggans. I was amazed because, in the States, a tobaggan chute is generally the property of competitive bobsledders, who speed down hills at 75 miles per hour without brakes on their sleds. In my naivite, I asked M.M. "Have you ever tobogganed?"

It Feels Like -53.

But the actual temperature in Winnipeg right now is actually -33 F.

In the past year and a half, I don't remember it being this cold here. My laptop, made of alumnium, is freezing. And the walls are actually bleeding cold right now. Don't get me wrong: the house is warm. But everything without blood is not.

The Hour.

There are not a lot of US-based shows I miss in Canada these days and the ones I like are typically broadcast here on PBS affiliate stations. But there are a few Canadian television shows that I've been really enjoying of late, including one especially, The Hour, a CBC news/talk show. The show, hosted by none other than a semi-fit/semi-pudgy guy (just like me) named George Stroumboulopoulos (not to be confused with George Stephanopoulos), is a one-hour-long riff on politics, entertainment, grotesqueries and general news with a generally liberal slant that feels uniquely Canadian.

Geared toward the 20- and 30-somethings throughout Canada, recent guests are one or two cuts above the usual hoi poloi shedding panties and whatnot. Mr. Stroumboulopoulos has interviewed Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens, the moustacioed head of the Canadian NDP (Jack Layton), and even Deepak Chopra. Unlike US-based shows like that of Jon Stewart, Stroumboulopoulos' is eager and unironic and often sarcastic with a strong focus on the bizarre but not, importantly, the inane. Interestingly to me, the show somewhat represents the very best features of Canadian identity that I've experienced—humble but knowledgable, optimistic but insecure, humorous but realistic.

I don't know how well this "alt news" show is doing, though I read that it was struggling a few months ago. I wish it very well.

Postscript: Macleans had a good piece about Stroumboulopoulos and his savior-like status at the CBC. Of note, in terms of audience, "the highest proportion are aged 35 to 49," a demographic I strongly and happily fit.

It's 0.

It's 0 F degrees here with a "RealFeel" of -22 F. It's 55 F with a "RealFeel" of 55 F in New York.

Here's what's weird: I like it this way.

We Got Snow.

It's probably not hard to believe, but I looked out the window today and saw those first few snow flakes fleeing from the sky onto half-leaved trees. It was lovely. The snow won't stick, according to neighbors. It will soon. The air outside has a bite to it and the clouds are sometimes low. It's usual that, around Hallow's Eve, the snow comes and stays for five or so months. Environment Canada predicts a more mild winter for the nation generally, which means the areas largely to the north of us.

The polar bears are in trouble.

So is the ice shelf.

So are we all.

In other news, a friend of mine, who recently survived breast cancer, made some fine t-shirts that are funny in a serious kind of way. Advertised as being "for tough cookies with black humor," some of the shirts are "form fitting," which seems as fitting as anything. They're truly unique and very bold.

More locally, Dan Messing of Stunt Software (a software design firm in Winnipeg), released its new version of Overflow, a nice little application that does one thing nicely—allow Mac users to categorize their increasing lot of good applications like Overflow and provide space for the lot. It's even been picked up by one of my favorite bloggers, John Gruber, at Daring Fireball. Congratulations, Dan.

Labor Day, The North.

It's Labor Day here in Canada (and it's not cold). (Here's an inside tip: Canadians don't think it's funny when Americans ask, "Man, is it cold there?" during August or September.)

In fact, no one is working. Oh sure, the police and the firefighters and the hospital workers and a skeleton staff at the 7-11. We even got a package from the States today. (I learned yesterday that postal workers in Canada make very good dime.)

But everything else is closed. Safeway, Home Depot, every restaurant worth its salt and pepper, bookstores, sex shops, everything. All closed. Labor Day—time off. For everyone. But I really wish I could go shoe shopping for the Fall.

Vancouver to China.

I'm back from a solid week's vacation in gorgeous Vancouver. The place quietly whispers "natural beauty" in your ear almost whereever you are. The mountains pretty much surround you and the waters follow you. To the left are pine trees that climb 40 meters into the sky. To the right are swishing waters, receding because it's low tide while birds come in to peck the mollusks clean. Above is, usually, blue sky, mild clouds and simple winds.

There is little air conditioning. Sure, it exists, if you want it and you're, perhaps, old or sick. But you open a window and the air conditions your home. Lovely. We stayed in Coquitlam, which is about 45 minutes outside of the city. Indeed, it's the suburbs, but nice suburbs, the kind of democratically okay suburbs that you might actually want to partake in. Tremendous diversity: I could identify lots of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Iranian and Hispanic cultures throughout that part of the town. Old and young. Some are retired. Some are superrich. Actually, a lot of people seem superrich. Having come from Winnipeg, where nice cars are hard to keep and maintain, the shiny metal skins being driven by people in Vancouver were surprising and even alarming.

Money flows in Vancouver. It's said, or it was to me, that the money is fully Chinese. And I believe it. We went to an Asian mall at one end of Vancouver. It was huge and completely dedicated to Asian needs: every commodity and service was in Chinese, or occasionally, Japanese. 95% of the visitors were Asian and the parking lot was packed. Called Aberdeen Centre, the mall has about 80 stores and also hosts a range of traditionally Western coffee, banking and other fare.

If I could see the future, it is here. There's little doubt in my mind that Vancouver, the West Coast, and the West generally, will become an Asian-focused economy over the next 50 years. The sheer number of people, the strength of their culture and attitudes, the prestige they so obviously attribute to being in Western Canada/The West is palpable.

I don't mean this in any alarmist way. Cultures move like water, first to deeper pockets and then to shallower land. I expect that there will be a mall like that of Aberdeen Centre in Winnipeg in the next 20 years. But I assume there will be one in every city on the West Coast in 10.

Driving.

On the East Coast, driving is mostly a matter of minding one's own business, keeping one's eyes on the road ahead and listening to music or radio. You pass large signs along the way which advertise various nicities like BMWs or trips to London or Sesame Place. You drive, sometimes with one finger on the wheel. You have a coffee or a Coke. Sometimes you even smoke. And you talk on the phone, though in New York State, you must wear a headset of some kind, which seems only fair because if you're going to talk while driving and listening to music and smoking and having a coffee all at the same time, you certainly don't want to get in an accident. Some people, and especially those in Acuras, even watch where they are driving virtually through a GPS video monitoring system that details their exact location on the mapped landscape. Most of thes scenery is pretty sparse and unbeautiful and there are concrete barriers lining the road to the left and right. You can go 65 miles per hour and sometimes 95 on emptier roads but mostly you go about 65 or 75, or whatever is 10 miles an hour more than the posted speed limit. On many highways, one will find light posts every 100 yards to show you the way and there are little yellow reflective bumpy things in the middle of the lines to make sure you stay on the damn road when you're not drinking coffee. It's all rather easy. Even when you're stuck in traffic in Staten Island or Connecticut, the biggest worry you have is that you will run out of gas, which is unlikely. You turn the radio or the air conditioner on or off and hope that the traffic starts moving again and then you make a phone call and you go back to being frustrated behind the wheel. Hopefully, you don't have a screaming child or spouse in the car with you, or, if you do, maybe they're screaming at each other. It's not always fun but it is straightforward. Signs are generally kind of clear, except when you're in New Jersey and the whole of driving is rather determined by a combination of private and public definitions, constraints, legalities and allowances.

On the West Coast, it's somewhat similar except people have guns in their cars. Pretty uncomplicated.

Here in Manitoba, it's plain old scary ass on the road. Roads are long and flat and signs are few and far between. The signs aren't bad; in fact, they're downright fine, telling drives whether they're going North, South, East or West, which is all that really matters in a huge Canadian province among other huge provinces and American states. You drive, and unless you're in small car like ours and the wind blows you backward and forward and left and right and you don't know what kind of tires you got even though you know they're new and supposedly stable and there aren't any problems with the struts or shocks or wheel axles, you're totally fine. But once outside of a city, you look around you and to the left and to the right are endless open spaces filled with gently looming green or yellow or purple crops. And the clouds hang low near you and the trees dot the occasional field and the road gets straighter and straighter and the remaining barriers in the road disappear and the next thing you know you're driving down a highway in which the only thing separating you from other vehicles going in the other direction is a thin, worn yellow dashed line. If you really look around you you'll probably see a truck in front of you and one heading towards you in the other direction and the sun could be bright enough to make oasis-like waves on the asphalt and the road gets a little hazy as you hope to dear G-d that the truck with dim lights on doesn't smack your vehicle. Then there's another truck behind you and because you're going only 85 kilometers per hour at this point (although the signs say 100), he's passing you at 110 and you hope to dear G-d that he doesn't railroad you from behind as another truck comes full throttle in front of you. Or worse yet, if it's in winter, and the temperature is minus 10 or minus 20 Celsius, you could be driving on black ice, which is ice on black asphalt and you have no idea when the wind is going to pick up and push your car 3 feet to the right, thus sending your steering wheel to the left and your back sheers to the far right and your car into a full-out circle. And if it's dark out and it's winter, then you have to hope that you're staying on the road the whole time. Meanwhile, you probably don't have the radio on at this point and your cellphone doesn't work and it's darker than you can imagine outside and even the interior of your car is hard to see except for the dimly lit dash. Or, even worse than that, you could be driving along in winter and nighttime and it's snowing out and your visibility is about 3 feet in front of you and the only thing your headlights are doing is shining on the snow falling before your car and the air outside is whipping around your tires, making you feel like you are starting to lift off, defying gravity itself because of new laws written just for the prairies. All this time, your little heart is beating because you know there's no one else around for a few miles and it's cold enough outside to give you frostbite in a matter of minutes and death in about 45 minutes. Worse, if you stop your car because you're totally freaked out, the likelihood of another vehicle smacking yours on the highway is about 97 percent and, if you're anywhere near your vehicle at that point, you just have to hope. Well, I think my point is that with driving in Manitoba, you just have to hope anyway. People here laugh when I tell them I want to get me an F150 or a new Ford Five Hundred but I'm dead serious.

Between Canada and Independence.

It's the midpoint now between Canada Day and Independence Day. As a new permanent resident from the U.S. in Canada, it's as strange a midway as one could have, given that this is the first Canada Day I celebrated in Canada. I have now celebrated one Canada Day and approximately 35 Independence Days.

Here are some (albeit superficial) differences between the two holidays:

• Canada Day happens on July 1st whilst Independence Day happens on July 4.
• Both holidays have fireworks celebrations. But I can't figure out why Canada does; in the U.S., the works are seen as a celebration of war against the Brits.
• Independence Day has a truly nationalist flavor to it. Flags are everywhere, the news is fully dedicated to the subjects of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You get the sense that America is truly great because it knows it is, and it does.
• Canada Day is much more reflective than reflexive. It has a relaxed, very questioning feel about it. You see some patriotism in the media, but it seems mostly filled with mild surprise and amusement that Canada is even allowed to be a country. I think the country, on this day, breathes a collective sigh of relief that it's not been devoured by the States and that its ways and means are based on reality rather than ideology.
• Canada is, rightly, very proud of its current status in the world. It has no real deficits, universal healthcare, military missions that are focused on humanitarian aid, and very democratic political culture. The Globe and Mail had a very moving editorial today that was less self-congratulatory than taking stock. I'll try to find a non-paying link to it later.
• Independence Day is truly celebratory. It's the one day during the year that Americans celebrate collectively national heritage. There is not a lot of history taught on this day but it can be moving to see veterans of World War II commemorate their work.
• Both holidays, for some reason, celebrate by burning animal flesh outdoors on metal grills.
• Nathan's Hotdogs are not devoured voraciously in Canada.

Manitoba Rebrands.

I never heard of Manitoba until 2000. That was when I met my incredible wife and learned about Canada, Canadian culture and politics, and a place called Winnipeg. Actually, I had known about Winnipeg because I had been a huge of Guy Maddin since 1995. (He was and still is my favorite director, believe it or not.)And when I saw the first show of Marcel Dzama's work in New York at David Zwirner, I saw Winnipeg on the map again. (Dzama became and still is one of my favorite artists, believe it or not.)

Manitoba generally, and Winnipeg specifically, to me, has a tendancy to breed unusual characters, kind travelers, and a spiritually committed group of people.

Two days ago, the province revealed its new brand identity, a process which took two years and $2.1 million. Needless to say, the naysayers are out with their knives sharpened. In just one day, letter writers and columnists have said that the branding was alternately a waste of money, a process in futiliy, an act against the province of Manitoba, a slap in the face to design firms in Manitoba (the branding was provided by Interbrand's offices in Toronto and New York). Others say that the brand, consisting of a complicated and flowing type treatment, bright colors and references to native symbology, should have a bison in it.

I'll cut to the chase. I like the logo. I like the branding work that Interbrand did in conjunction with the Economic Advisory Council, organized by the premiere here. I like the way the beautiful type flows from one letter to the next, like the rivers connecting the various parts of the province. I like the weight of the text, which is blocky and bold but unpretentious and pretty. I like the way that different colors and patterns are shown behind the knocked out text and provide a sparkle, an energy that is like that of water meeting land. I like the tagline: "Spirited Energy" or, en francais, "Vibrant d'Energie." Not all energy is spirited; most visible energy that we see these days is either generated by artificiality or is spent on the unnecessary. Spirited energy, to me, calls forth a feeling of bounty, brevity, clarity, and friendliness and these are all of the things that I would like to associate with this province, Manitoba.

KidsFest.

We spent the weekend at KidsFest, a.k.a. The 2006 Winnipeg International Children's Festival (presented by Tim Horton's). It was glorious. The days were filled with adventurous performers alternately juggling swords and bats, honking clothing-laden bicycle horns, involving kids in various escapades and general face- and hair-painting and other kinds of kindly despoiling. We particularly reveled (twice) in the Silk Road Acrobats. I forced my daughter to get their MC's autograph; I now have Fesso's signature on my bookshelf forever.

Healthcare.

A neighbor yesterday told me, in no uncertain words, that Canada has the best healthcare system in the world. He said this without hubris or, in my mind, any feeling of patriotism, though I'm sure that must be an inherent part of his comment. I have no reason to disbelieve him. My experience in the States, with its private and superb doctors and practioners has always left me incredibly impressed. Doctors that I've had and nurses I've encountered have been, by and large, incredibly talented, committed, and thoughtful. I'm lucky. I realize that 40 million Americans, perhaps more, have no access or have had no access to healthcare.

Coming back to my neighbor's comment, I believe he knows of what he speaks. He's a healthcare provider in the province and provides specialized care in a hospital here. He's traveled and I'm sure he's read stories about care in the U.S. and elsewhere. I continually confess to people around here my completely naivite and ignorance about Canadian culture and social programs (as well as street names and locations of cities). But this is where my true lack of knowledge bumps up against reality. Are Candians, who genuinely seem happy with their healthcare, better off than Americans? Are they actually healthier, as a recent Harvard Medical School study indicates? Do Americans, who often disparage the Canadian healthcare system, really know anything about it? Is the American media, and its pharmaceutical advertisers, a reliable advocate for American health? Can a bankrupted but excellent American healthcare system really be compared to the Canadian one?

Ultimately, much of this is academic. The Canadian healthcare system, for all of its flaws (e.g. long wait times in some provinces for major surgery, a dearth of good physicians because of a brain drain to the States, problematic differences in quality among different provinces), is inherently democratic and fundamentally cheaper. Only the United States, among industrialized countries, threatens its own, poorest citizens with a lack of healthcare.

I love the U.S. It's the place where I was made once, healed often, and helped untold times. But the blatant and continued segregation of the country into healthcare haves and have-nots cannot last or stand.

.ca

I recently purchased the domain name manoverboard.ca.

The whole process was very uninteresting, except that, during checkout at my online registrar, I had to check off one box from the following list so that the Canadian authorities could ensure that my ownership of a national domain is legitimate.

Corporation (Canada or Canadian province or territory)
Canadian Citizen
Permanent Resident of Canada
Government or government entity in Canada
Canadian Educational Institution
Canadian Unincorporated Association
Canadian Hospital
Partnership Registered in Canada
Trade-mark registered in Canada (by a non-Canadian owner)
Canadian Trade Union
Canadian Political Party
Canadian Library, Archive or Museum
Trust established in Canada
Aboriginal Peoples (individuals or groups) indigenous to Canada
Indian Band recognized by the Indian Act of Canada
Legal Representative of a Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident
Official mark registered in Canada
Her Majesty the Queen

This list says more about contemporary Canada than most books out there on the subject.

Curlin.

On Saturday night, we went curling. It's a fine old sport. Granted, Canadians are awfully good at it and deserve the credit for keeping this originally Scottish activity alive and well.

We went to a rink called "Heather" here in Winnipeg. Heather was nice. There were about 6 courts. Well, they're called "rinks" but I prefer to think of them as courts because they look, to my jaded American eyes, like shuffleboard courts, despite the fact that ice covers them.

I did pretty well. That is, I stank. But I was able to get the rock (I mean, "stone") to the other side. And my form was pretty good, despite the fact that I fell once on one knee, hard. Then I fell on my chest and arm. And I then fell on my side and knee again, which is pretty black and blue but looks, according to my daughter, like a lightening rod.

The stone itself is very easy to push across the ice. The hard part is pushing it across the ice so that it doesn't either fly to the other side. That combined with not knocking your own team's rock too hard.

And sweeping the ice in front of the stone is a pretty odd endeavor. I tried hard to sweep when requested ("hard" when screamed means "sweep hard") but the skeptic in me kept thinking that sweeping in front of the rocks to make it go further was pointless. Was my brush-pushing actually doing anything at all? It was hard to tell but I'm a good sport.

Mostly, it was just good fun for eight people to get together, throw some rocks (sorry, "stones") and see what the sport is all about. I would definitely to it again in a few months, though I doubt I'd get a membership at a local curling club. It is tempting, though. Curling does strike me (no pun) as a sport where no conversations can be had and friends can be made. I have a huge new respect for the sport because, man, it's hard!

Manitoba's first settlers, in 1812, made curling stones from oak blocks. Curling exploded in the west, turning Winnipeg into the center of curling, with more clubs in Manitoba than in Quebec and Ontario combined. The Manitoba Branch of the Royal Caledonian was established in 1888 and curlers from all parts of Canada and the U.S.A. flocked to the Winnipeg Curling Club, with 62 rinks participating in the bonspiel that year.

- Gleaned from icing.org.

Manitoba, the province in which I reside, has a very strong Curling Association. There must be a few hundred clubs listed. I, however, quite liked Heather.

After the game, the eight of us went upstairs to drink beer and talk about our curling.

Today, there were 78 comments on a post called "The Greatest Curling Shot Ever" on Metafilter. I don't know enough, yet, to say the video there is really the greatest but it's an inspired bit of play.

A good friend of a good friend of mine made a movie about curling that is as hilariously informative as it is beautiful. It's called History of the Hogline.

Skin on Metal.

I actually couldn't write about this last week.

Sometime on Thursday morning, it was minus 53 degree Fahrenheit here (wind chill factor). I sh*t you not. I wrote it correctly, but just to be sure (and just so I'm sure): It was -53 F.

The temperature reading in the car on the day before (which is pretty much my thermometer because, when I went to Home Depot to look for outdoor thermometers, every single one of them were butt-ugly), said -25 C, which amounts to -13 F.

I listen to WNYC.org pretty much every day of the week and on weekends whenever I can. I found it thrilling and sordid that the radio announcer was telling its New York audience (of which I used to be a very happy member) to button up.

On Thursday, I took out the garbage. When I came back, momentarily sans gloves, I brilliantly put my hand on the steel metal door handle. It went red.

It was the coldest day of my life.

Orchestral.

Tonight, I had the opportunity to be totally immersed in some really beautiful and original music performed by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. This week, and all week, is their New Music Festival, which features new symphonic works by international composers. (Tickets to all seven concerts can be had for $69.00.) Tonight I heard an incredibly moving piece, "Rhythms of the Earth," by Ural-based Olga Victorova and then was treated to another contemporary composition by Jim Hiscott called "North Wind." Victorova, youngish at 45, hails from my grandmother's motherland. The soloist for the latter work was a flutist from China, now living here, named Xiao Nan and his virtuosity during the entire performance made my hair rise.

I've been here six months. It's not that long. I have to continue to remind myself to remember that six months is about the amount of time it takes to learn where the corner deli is and that's about it. To have found the WSO tonight, housed in a majestic and modernist building downtown (about 15 minutes drive from this computer), was stellar, surprising, and, in that surprise, a tremendous humility.

Okay, it's cold.

I've been in tremendous denial during the month of January about the weather, which I generally take very lightly. I'm of the old school that believes very strongly that there's nothing you can do about the outdoor temperature so get dressed and go outside.

It turns out that January was the warmest month on record in Winnipeg - at least since 1944, which wasn't a very good year, afterall. I told people around here that I didn't actually believe them that it got cold, that they were a bunch of exagerators and that I really liked the weather here.

Well, that's changed.

A Shovel

The snows arrived.

It took about 2 weeks longer than usual. But they're here. To misquote James Joyce, "Snow is general all over Winnipeg."

I just went out to the 7-11, three doors down from our house, to get a few staples and there was plenty of milk on the shelves. And, surpisingly, staples.

The house is ready. We had the furnace checked a few weeks ago. It hadn't been looked after in about, maybe, 6 years, perhaps more. The service repairman could tell by the way the doors were sealed around the boiler. They used to use some kind of concrete sealant around the doors to keep the heat in. Today, he explained, they use a kind of silicon sealant. It's red and kind of pretty, like blood, and it was nicely applied all around the small doors of the furnace. Apparently, it's the original one that was installed when the house was built in 1922. Back then, the owners would rake coal into the thing. Probably in the 1950s, it was converted to oil heat and then, perhaps in the 1970s or 1980s, it was converted again. This time it was gas. Natural gas.

The eavestroughs probably should have been cleaned. I mean the gutters. They should have been cleaned.

The house didn't have all of its storm windows installed outside so a few of the windows in the house are directly exposed to the outside air, wind, cold, water. Not a tragedy but it's something that we'll have to attend to in the Spring.

But it's Winter here. It looks like we're going to get about 10 centimeters of snow. And, according to a long-time resident with whom I walked home today, once it snows at this time of year, it's on the ground. It's not likely to melt. The snow sitting on the ground right now, as I write, will be on the ground until March, perhaps later. It's the same snow I'll be walking upon for weeks, months. The same snow compacted by sister layers and feet and the occasional warm rays of the sun. The same snow, concretized and homogenized, compressed and repressed. Tonight's layer will is the foundation for future slicks, for future falls and collisions, for the light reflected back up to the big sky here.

Tonight's snow is one from Calgary, they tell me. Not a Northeaster, which is what I'm used to, as a Northeaster. But a Northwester, I guess, has come.

The quality of the snow seems like a lot of snows I've seen before. It's powdery with a bit of wetness around the edges. It piles. And it doesn't smell the way it does back home, in New York.

Over the weekend, we went to a Johnny Cash tribute party that was something like I imagined it and nothing like I could have imagined. I had waited pretty much two years for this event, held at our friends' house. There were at least a hundred people there, sitting on the floor, on chairs, on stairs. J.C. himself made an apperance in the guise of one of our friends and he played beautifully. Petty Cash, Johnny's little badass sister, also performed a song called "A Girl Named Poo." And, just to keep the scatology going, a duo called the Ass Juice Trio crooned to lots of avail. It was great.

The snows and the cold are known to have this effect on people here. Being indoors means things get done and those things are often creative by nature. I love this.

I love this house, too. I wish I had a shovel, though.

Redo

I haven't written in a while because I'm trying to redo everything:

I'm redoing MANOVERBOARD.com.
I'm redoing this website and moving it to a more robust and capable server.
I'm redoing TAB, slowy and surely.
I've canceled my cell phone service. I'm redoing mobility.
I'm redoing exercise or at least rethinking about redoing it.
I'm redoing my office, re-organizing files both on the computer and in the meatworld (I hate that term).
I'm going to start trying to cook dinner every night and redo pings of culinary laziness.
I'm rethinking my own personal geography and place in the world and how I relate to others here, there and elsewhere.
I want to redo my business model slightly in order to focus on application design.

Gratitude

I have written a few times since my move to Winnipeg about how wonderful it all is but I think I owe it to my stately readers a few lines about the problematic aspects of life here that I've found frightfully odd, disjointed, or otherwise simply silly:

• While Canadians all have access to good, if not excellent, healthcare, almost everyone I've met does not visit a doctor regularly. Some folks haven't been to a regular physician in 8 years and they don't seem to mind. In the U.S., people who have health insurance typically visit their doctor once per annum, just for that check-up. Part of the problem, perhaps at least in Winnipeg, is that there are not enough doctors to have a person relationship with and, therefore, why would you?
• I got used to really, really good organic milk in New York. Horizon brand comes to mind. It was everywhere, in almost every store and it tasted really fresh and clean and wholesome - the way milk never tasted when I was growing up. Back then, it was pretty typical for my parents to make us drink powdered milk. You poured a foil-lined package of white stuff into a plastic container, added cold water, shook and then didn't drink. Anyway, I don't miss powdered milk but I do miss the organic stuff.
• It's looking pretty good on the permanent residence front. I don't want to give the whole thing a ken-a-herra but so far so good. However, every time I turn around the government here requires a huge dose of application fees from my dwindling bank account. I'm sure the U.S. is the same if not worse.
• I'm having email problems. I don't know why. A few clients and a few friends are not able to send me email. I can't tell where the problem is - at Shaw, my ISP, or my host, or somewhere in between. I hate not knowing whether emails are not getting to me. I know it's a bit like worrying about the next disaster except that there is "supposedly" something you can do about it. Well, maybe if "you" are an email consultant.
• Things are expensive here. It's not the 7% GST and 7% PST that gets attached to almost every purchase - yes, that is 14%. It's the duties or tariffs or somethings that gets tacked onto nearly everything. I wanted to buy Newsweek the other day and it was like going out to dinner.
• Amazon.ca is stinky. I don't like it. It's interface seems a pale reference to Amazon.com and, while it still kind of knows who I am, it just doesn't offer the range, variety, and sheer value of its big American sister. For instance, I want to buy Dan Cederholm's new book Bulletproof Web Design because it looks like a nice read. The price is CDN$39.19. List price is $55.99. The same book at Amazon in the States $26.39. List is $39.99. Free shipping applies to both. And I believe that GST will apply whereas in the States, nada on the tax front. This means that Dan's books would cost me exactly CND$41.93. Sorry, Dan. On the other hand, perhaps U.S. citizens should all be paying an added 7% tax to help out the families in Louisiana.

New Good Things

Here's what I got in the past few days, all of 'em good and shiny and nice and sassy:

• A New A List Apart.
• Relatedly, a fine new hosting service.
• Finally, a seemingly reliable Pantone to RGB (and back) online tool [I ain't vouching for its accuracy].
• Three new clients for MANOVERBOARD, one of whom is in Texas!
• A shiny new bank card at Royal Bank of Canada, which will gladly take my immigrant money.
• A sharp-looking and amazingly easy-to-get Winnipeg Public Library card.
• A sweet two-pronged Panasonic Telephone for the office, put on my credit card.
• A new and kind of average-printing Epson printer [no thanks to our van lines, I'm without a printer and Epson gave me $40.00 to buy theirs at an oddly named Canadian store called FutureShop.
• Hopefully, some Vonage.
• Plain envelopes
• A renewed subscription to ol' MacWorld.
• Great comments to a piece called "Content Stripped Bare" that I wrote in the recent Design in Flight and comments on comments on that piece in Design in Flight.
• Clothes from Old Navy, hopefully billed to our lovely van line [projected (or supposed) delivery date is now: September 2, 2005].

Housing

It's taken three weeks but we moved into our new old house this morning. Laptop got upgraded thanks to the good folks at Winnipeg's finest Mac shop.

I've been thinking much about design lately and have come across few very good sites recently. But it seems to me that design for the Web has taken a new turn and a new life the past few months. Much of this is thanks to Web standards and the undaunted promoters of good markup and clean styling. A few notes:

• Usability is in. Small fonts are out.
• Identities on websites have become smaller, more obscure, and perhaps more risk averse. Clean, clear (almost Web safe) colors are important and technologically sophisticated look is relatively important.
• Blogs are overblown. There is a recent article in Macleans [ed: Oh, he's so Canadian, now] this week noting that 99% of blogs receive 10 or fewer hits per day. Perhaps Deckchairs is on its way to fantastic obscurity right now.
• Concomittantly, RSS is overblown as a reading mechanism. Contextual design is still very important to online visitors who want to get a sense of the writer and his or her place within an information hierarchy and in relation to the site being published. While a good many people are slightly aghast that Google is talking about patenting its advertising RSS feeds, those good many probably amount to a city the size of Schenectday. And I like Schenectady!
• There are a few examples of talented Web designers who recently built sites that don't cut it in terms of good design. To wit, CapGemini was redesigned by Douglas Bowman and it's very average. Subnavigation is, oddly, on the right side of the site. I showed the site to one client and she couldn't even find the subnavigation until I pointed it out to her.
• Underlined links are, rightly, coming back but I think this is a trend and not a solid sign of better usability becoming of import. I hope I am incorrect.
• Navigation generally has become a more naturalized (or standardized) component of good Web design. We no longer see, much, repeated navigation at the bottom of a site. There are fewer drop-down menus. There's less Flash menuing, which is often used to obscure the navigation itself. And larger typefaces are being used to pull in all those aging boomers. Still a lot of new sites stink.
• Photography is playing a more important role on almost every website, often too much. There are now so many bad stock photography sites that any old designer can find something that seems cool (a picture of an outlet with lightning rods coming out of it or an image of a girl screaming excitedly into her cell phone to a friend) that stock has become immature rather than mature. Oops, here comes a plug.
• Companies like 37Signals and Firewheel are doing the design world justice by making applications that are useful, pretty, fast, functional and serious.

Now I can go to sleep.

Stores.ca

Mostly the past few days we've been spending money as if the colorful stuff is the paper of Monopoly. Toyota took a good chunk of our change today. The house is gobbling up all kinds of funds thanks to Home Depot, Canadian Tire, EQ4, HomeConnections, AutoPac, HomeSpace, Sears, and a host of other oddly named franchises. I must say that most of the goods we've purchased so far have been of a slightly shoddier or equal quality than those in the U.S. I don't know why this would be the case and I wonder if this is just cultural pre-conditioning affecting my (perhaps poor) judgment but the final quality of the good we're purchasing does seem to be of the lesser sort.

One other thing - I need RAM for my Mac. For the life of me, it's very hard to find a store (online or otherwise) that is willing to sell me big ol' RAM for my laptop. If you know of someone who vends the stuff that is not Apple, please let me know. Thanks for keeping the credit cards thin!

Pluggin'

Here I am, pluggin' away on my laptop in a brightly colored red and brown basement in the middle of the continent in a city in Canada. It's all become rather strange and unworldly today and if it wasn't for the very bright sunlight, the cloudless sky, the footsteps upstairs, the bag of pretzels and cats at my feet, and the whir of my BlackBerry, I would think that the flourescent lightbulbs above my head (which shall be soon replaced by something else) would drive me nuts.

The reality is that things in Winnipeg, Canada are oddly fine, relaxing, even wondrous at times. I won't try to put a positive spin on events like most irregular bloggers but I will make a list of things I've found that are potentiallly of import:

• While NYC blogs like Gothamist are only one click away, I miss their relevance very much. In fact, I miss the daily horror of gossip and NYC transit news and the mindless shuffle of papers on anchors' desks on NYC channels 2, 5, and 7. Yes, 5!
• I'm working very happily from a 15" laptop, dragging the heavy thing from one place to another in the frantic hope of gathering enough time and connectivity to continue my work and make clients generally happy.
• I found that the Globe and Mail is the paper of record for people of my ilk. I'm looking forward to subscribing to it.
• The moving company is doing its utmost to be a pain in the arse. The goods have not arrived yet but to be fair, they did say "August 15." I'll name names when and if it's necessary.
• Painting, working, cleaning, cooking, commuting in August without your personal effects is a bit like living in on the Starship Enterprise. It's all-out limbo right now but it's limbo with the full knowledge that it won't last forever, at least according to our moving company.
• The Web has become boring of late and I think it's just because the real world is actually pretty this time of year.
• Going to the DMV a few days ago was a walk in the park. Almost literally. I walked across a freshly mowed lawn, presented my old New York State drivers license and my US passport and told them I wanted to register for a new license. It took all of 20 minutes for them to fill out the forms for me, take my photo, charge me CND$50.00, hand me the new (2-part) license, and send me packing. In Brooklyn, this project would have involved a morning wait, questioning by the authorities, re-waiting in line, surly service and I'd probably make a friend in the process.

I do miss Brooklyn.

Middle

Today I mowed the lawn. I used a push mower and it was hard to push because of the number of branches laying on the damp ground. The grass was about 4 inches high, lush, superbly green, and buttery as the machine went over it. My strength turned a fly-wheel in the mower to double or even triple (or more) the power of the mower as it haircutted the beautiful patch of refined earth.

I loved it.

The Arrival and Borders

We made it. I'm happily ensconsced in Canada, living among the Northerners as an immigrant. It's an odd place to be still, only five days after arrival, but there are many initial observations, despite our current lack of a permanent home, a permanent peace, furniture, wireless connectivity, and general daily stability.

I crossed the border at Winnipeg International Airport, currently under renovation like much of the city, and the immigration security there were both extremely efficient and friendly, just as I had hoped. We had done an incredible amount of "strategic planning" in order to get to that point with the help of our lawyer and this was a big payoff.

Being only two hours from the U.S. border is odd. I immediately started to look at the labels on packages throughout the house we're staying in and most of the labels say "Made in Canada." This is not surprising. But it's interesting that these products are made for the artificial container of the Canadian nation and made for cost effective and duty-free distribution within the country in order to ensure appropriate tariffing and transactions. The border, as everyone knows, is a fluid thing, a contrivance that is both porous and structured and yet the products made and distributed here are a subset of the Canadian nation. WHat does this mean? It means that I've found it fascinating to recognize that national ideologies and tropes are really separate entities from the commercial ones we've come to accept. But they're also intimately connected - Canadian goods are not unlike U.S. goods but they are captured under a differently organized national infrastructure.

Maybe I need a better example. Many of our friends here are traveling throughout Canada right now to see their friends and family. They think nothing of traveling 1000 or 2500 miles to do so. Canadians, from my superbly limited observation time, don't mind making long treks across their country to visit one another. One city is not like the other but they all operate within a nationalism that is not like that of the U.S. Here, nationalism seems to include a feeling of comradery among citizens among cities and places. In the U.S., nationalism is more exclusive, based on states, localities, regions, and dialects (not to mention the more permeating issues of race, class, culture, etc.) In other words, I'm fascinated by the fact that Canadians are taking these next few weeks to travel around Canada and to visit their fellow citizens via automobile. Not once in our conversations did I hear about gas being expensive or about traffic being a worry or about finding enough time to see everyone and having to sit in the car - all things that seem to predominate U.S. travelers' conversations.

In any case, I was able to attend the last night of Winnipeg's Fringe Festival and saw a play called "The Big Funk," an unfortunate name for a good performance by young and very talented actors about the possibility or improbability of transcending one's mind.