Picture My World

Being there when your baby daughter wakes up. She opens her eyes, sees your face… and smiles.

The election’s over and we have a Liberal minority government, the first such parliament in my memory (I wasn’t paying attention during 1979). Should be interesting, but I’m not looking forward to another election any time soon. I suppose the Liberals and NDP will form a coalition. The NDP has barely enough seats (or do they?! It’s very close now!) to give the Liberals a majority and I can’t see the Grits working with the Bloc, who vocally put Quebec’s concerns ahead of Canada’s.

The weekend paper had a summary of each party’s policies and promises. They are all depressingly similar to each other. I think the only point of regular elections is to keep the ruling party on their toes so they attempt to act honestly during their tenure. It doesn’t matter so much who wins.

This minority government will give the country a small insight into what proportional representation may bring. Some sort of government reform is part of most of the partys’ policies (except the governing party, interestingly enough) and is also being discussed in other forums. The huge downfall of such systems is the never-ending minority governments and frequent elections as coalitions fall apart (witness Israel). On the other hand, smaller parties would finally get a representative or two in the house.

I’m all for trying out a new system, but can we switch back if it doesn’t work out?

The federal election is in 3 days and I realize now that if you want to be an informed voter, you have to do a lot of foot work. This is work I haven’t had time to do.

As for the candidates, they haven’t gone out of their way to contact me. However, there are 115,000 of us to each one of them. Let’s take a closer look at this, though. Each candidate must have staff and volunteers that call around. If each major candidate has an average of 15 callers working per day, that’s 45 callers. Say they can make 6 calls per hour and work 2 hours a day. That’s 540 calls a day. If they worked 30 days prior to the election, they can reach 16,200 people, or 14% of the electorate.

I guess it’s no surprise I haven’t been contacted. But, the fact is I was contacted, but by the candidate from the wrong riding who had us at some other address.

I’ve also been looking for polling results from my riding, but my brief google search turned up nothing except last election’s results.

I sent a question to both Liberal and Conservative candidates in my riding.

The email to Jesse Johl at his posted address, info@jessejohl.com bounced. Twice.

Not impressed.

It looks like Misty Harris’ Father’s Day article appeared in at least 4 Canadian papers. Here’s the bit that contains my quotes:

Jay Zipursky, a 32-year-old father from Vancouver, says his wife is already giving him the “coolest gift” a new dad could ever want: a night out at the movies.

“When you have a two-month-old, that’s a pretty big thing,” he says.

Not to mention the fact Zipursky finds most of the items in the charity auction to be “too American” for his taste. But he admits that one item in particular made him sit up and take notice.

“I can’t imagine many fathers with wives who would be happy for them getting to meet Miss Universe,” he says dryly. “I find that hilarious.”

“Hilarious” is one of my most favourite words and I always say it deadpan, which she captured nicely. I’m glad it made it into print.

Steven Den Beste has a post about some surveys he’s received recently. I think it’s a sarcastic post, but I can’t tell for sure as he seems overly serious in the majority of his writing.

Anyway, he has some comments about surveys and survey methods. I’ve read a bit about surveys after experiencing a disaster at work a little while ago. He seems to have two main points:

1) The surveyors could have answered most of their questions by examining the site themselves.

He writes:

It strike me that if an academic wants to learn about blogs, then the best approach is field work: read a bunch of ‘em. You can observe them in their native habitat without leaving the comfort of your desk, as long as you have a net connection.

Of course they could, but how would that be efficient? I suspect they are trying to collect data from more than one blogger. (Or is Steven’s ego that big?)

They are also asking questions that can’t be answered by reading someone’s blog. They probably think that they will get more truthful answers from a survey than reading possibly fictitious blogs. I can think of other reasons for a survey that probably complements “field work”.

2) The surveyors have preconceptions and a hypothesis they are trying to prove.

Again — of course. He says the surveyors are academics, so it’s not surprising they are trying to prove a hypothesis. What else do academics do and why is it wrong to gather research data via a survey?

The fact that Steven doesn’t seem to fit in the box the surveys are attempting to draw around him either means he is an outlier or, more likely, the survey is poorly constructed. It’s simply challenging to create a good survey. You have to decide on closed vs open questions, get the wording of the questions right, the order correct, keep it a reasonable length, and more. Then, you have to test it and pick an appropriate sample set.

One of the tips to good survey building is to be up-front about the purpose of the survey. As Steven writes, “What in the heck is this person trying to learn?” Since the surveyor wasn’t very clear about that, everyone who answers the questions will do so from a different context. The collection of responses will be impossible to compare meaningfully.

But, the real lesson from his post is that the recipient does not have to respond to, let alone read, the survey. And even if he does, he probably shouldn’t write about it. Not that I’d tell Steven what to write about!

I couldn’t get an invititation inside, but I could take the “classic” White House shot. Too bad it was overcast.

This is really how close you can get.

I was also able to get to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum today. That was pretty cool, but I didn’t have time to see it all or see it very thoroughly. Afterwards, I walked down the Mall. I saw the new WWII memorial fountain and I wasn’t impressed. Charles Krauthammer wrote an opinion piece slamming it and points out many of its underwhelming features.

After passing the reflecting pool and checking our Mr. Lincoln, I turned to the Vietnam Memorial. Unfortunately, it was under renovation and only a very short section was visible. The humidity had returned today and by this time I was a sweaty wreck, so I taxied it back to the hotel. That concludes my Washington tour.

Yeah, baby. My blog’s on Google now and I didn’t even register it with them. Even better, it’s #3 in the search for Jesse Johl which means I could become a local political pundit if I so choose. Of course, I don’t know what I’m talking about with regard to him or politics… on second thought, that never stopped anyone.

I was very cheesed to find out that the Smithsonian Museum keeps banker’s hours, so it looks like I will not get a chance to see any of them during this trip.

On my way to check out the museums, I discovered that Washington is quite a large city. Big streets, big city. The Mall is longer than it looks in pictures and the White House much further away. But the most amazing thing is the number of people out and about in the parks (in the Mall and around it). I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people playing various sports — including kickball! — or walking or jogging. DC must have the most fit population of any American city.

Well, first trip since the baby was born.

This is a first I could do without. It was harder than I thought leaving her, even for this short time. I’m going to miss days of development and, at this age, that’s a significant chunk of her short life. Is she going to miss me? Or, remember who I am when I return? I’m not sure babies even recognize individuals at 2 months of age.

Anyway, I’m toast after a red-eye flight and little sleep in the last 48 hours. Time to sleep and leave the analysis of my feelings or the coincidence that today is Father’s day for later. (I know you’re disappointed.)

It’s a day of firsts. A reporter with the Edmonton Journal stumbled upon my blog (via BlogsCanada) and emailed about a Fathers Day story she’s writing. The article is focused on an eBay auction for the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

Anyway, she’s calling up a few fathers around the country and asking them about father day gifts, which of the auction items most appeals, and what we thought of the auction items.

The auction items are pretty funny. You can meet beautiful women, American sports stars (where are the hockey players?!), movie celebrities, a rock star, or a trip to Hong Kong. Only the trip appealed to me.

She asked me what my ideal gift would be and I told her about my upcoming birthday/fathers day present of time to see a movie.

We shall see what gets published in the article and where. In addition to the Edmonton Journal, it may also run in one of the Vancouver papers.

Shula grabbed her first toy today! She looked pretty impressed with herself, but her biggest effort seemed to be in figuring out how to let go.

Wow. Shula fell asleep at 9 pm tonight after a fairly grumpy evening. Her grumpiness was mildly entertaining, though, as it was punctuated by moments (sometimes very brief moments) of giddiness. Babies are very strange.

So, I got 45 minutes of work done along with a few household chores after I got home from work and before baby duty. Pretty good for a night’s work.

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Future fathers – pay attention as this story is a glimpse at what you have to look forward to. My wife told me my birthday present this year. She’s going to invite my friends over for brunch and then I can go to see a movie. In a theater. Without the baby. I think it’s the best birthday present I’ve received in a very long time.

I will, most likely, choose a disappointing flick with few redeeming features except for some very expensive special effects. I will, however, enjoy it!

Picture My Commute Home

As usual, I am downstairs on the couch with our little one. We’re working on getting our bedroom’s skylight covered but, until that happens, the dawn light starts to wake Shula up, so we move her downstairs. She’s in one of her fairly typical wake up cycles that involves a lot of thrashing, straining, and occasional screaming. You’d almost think it was a nightmare except that the periodic farts confirm it’s just gas.

She just woke up fully and gave me a sweet smile. That makes up for the punches in the face when she started waking.

With my blog title as it is, there are not enough photos here. So, here’s another one. Picture My World at First Beach on English Bay looking towards Stanley Park.

The Conservative candidate in my riding is a young entrepeneur named Jesse Johl. He has no government experience.

The Liberal candidate is David Emerson, parachuted into the riding by Paul Martin. He’s an established business man with governmental experience who is clearly headed for a cabinet post if elected to a Liberal majority.

I won’t even consider the NDP candidate due to the party’s stance on Israel.

So, do I vote Liberal for the chance of having an influencial MP representing me? Or, do I vote Conservative in an effort to un-elect the ruling party? Governments aren’t voted in, they are voted out. I feel like I should do my part.

There’s still a week and a half to decide.

…politicians.

I caught a bit of the debate last night on the radio on my way home. I don’t know why they bother wasting our time with this rubbish. Most of what I heard I couldn’t understand because the candidates were talking over each other. When they weren’t doing that, they were evading each other’s questions. I’m not sure how this was supposed to influence my vote. One thing is clear, though, without a clear grasp of the issues, it’s hard to critique each party’s platform. Listening to them argue about it only confuses things more — especially when you can’t even hear the entire answer!

On CBC radio this morning, some analyst (specializing in “spin” of all things) quoted a poll from the previous election’s debate. It asked respondents if they thought there was a clear winner from the debate. They then asked if the respondents saw or heard the debate. 48% of those that answered the first question definitely said that they had not seen the debate. How does the media influence our lives again?

I’m still debating how I will vote this time. In Canada’s non-proportional system it comes down to deciding to vote for a party or your representative and don’t vote too fringe or your vote will simply be lost on some nobody that doesn’t stand a chance. In my riding (currently Liberal), that means deciding on Liberal vs. Conservative, assuming it even makes a difference.

Update: Hey! They shifted my riding! My old riding is now just over a block away and I’m in Vancouver-Kingsway… a less afluent area, but still Liberal.

Check out Ben MacNeill’s blog The Trixie Update. (I found this link on frum dad). The most impressive part is the “Trixie Tracker” telemetry at the top of the page. I love it. Ben’s commercializing it as we speak, too.

My only question is: Where does he get the time?!

Once again, I am awake when I’d rather be asleep. Shula has shifted her schedule and is wide awake at 11 pm. She used to be asleep by 10:30, but something has changed. The trip to Manning probably did it.

So, I took her for a 45 minute walk and she’s still asleep 20 minutes after getting back, but it’s a shallow sleep. I think she could wake any minute.

We’re not sure how to get her back to her old routine. You’d think that maybe cutting her naps back during the day would make her fall asleep earlier in the evening. But that would be too easy. One of our baby sleep books says they sleep better if they have good naps. The bottom line is that it is a mystery and you just have to deal with it — which has to be easier than trying to schedule a 2 month old.

Otherwise she’s been an incredibly happy baby the last few days. Smiles almost all the time which are a continuous joy to behold.

Oh my, I just noticed comments were restricted to registered users. I know you hoards want to voice your opinions — now you can.