“Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers — and as a counterpoint Tivo, which (until a recent court victory that tripled its stock price) appeared to be struggling.”

A very worthwhile talk that’s worth 18 minutes of your time.

You’ve got to admire the innovation here – with my North American mentality, I find it almost impossible to conceive of living in such a tiny amount of space, but I really admire the clever way in which this guys has re-imagined his living environment. Slick!

“The Story of Bottled Water, released on March 22, 2010 (World Water Day) employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand—how you get Americans to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. Over five minutes, the film explores the bottled water industry’s attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. The film concludes with a call to take back the tap, not only by making a personal commitment to avoid bottled water, but by supporting investments in clean, available tap water for all.”

People who know me understand that I’m not a hyper-environmentalist, but I do believe that we are stewards of this planet and need to honour the gifts that it gives us. This video is extremely well done and cements what I’ve thought for a long time about bottled water: except in rare circumstances, it’s something best avoided. Well worth watching the video!

“The current trend of over-parenting began in the early 1980′s when baby boomers – who ended up having fewer children, later in life – started having kids, and it has continued down the line. At first, Baby on Board signs in car windows proudly announced “precious cargo” inside. Today, however, it is not enough to wait until the baby is born. While pregnant, parents start their single-minded search for ways to create an über child – and there is no shortage of products to help them, including ‘prenatal education systems’ that claim to give Junior an intellectual, social, creative and emotional advantage. Once the baby is born, the race to keep him or her ahead of the pack intensifies – with baby videos, baby ballet, gymnastics before they can walk, and parents’ near-fanatic devotion to finding the right pre-school.”

I really like documentaries – though I don’t watch as many as them as I’d like – and when I find one that impacts me, I feel compelled to share it with others. This is one such documentary – it’s called Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids. Years before we had Logan, I’d feel a sense of bafflement watching the extremes that some parents would go to in order to get the very best for their kids. Sure, you love your kids, but does it really make sense to financially strain yourself to the point of breaking in order to get your kid a marginally better education or a vocal coach for what amounts to a hobby? Or how about spending $4000 on a birthday party for a one year old, as shown in the photo above? And thinking that turning one is, in the words of the mother, a “milestone achievement”? Talk about a warped perception of reality – making it to one year old isn’t an achievement in our modern world, it’s an inevitability. Aging is a biological certainty, not an accomplishment worthy of lavish praise. Celebration, yes. Praise for something that happened without effort or sacrifice? No. There’s a big difference between the two.

Now that I’m a parent, I understand more keenly the desire to provide the best options for your child, but I still think there are limits to how far parents should go…and when it comes to letting your kids go through the bumps and bruises of life to learn independence, I’m in complete agreement. As a parent, I want to make a big deal when Logan accomplishes something – but making it to age one isn’t one of those things. I love my son unconditionally, and will tell him so every day, but I won’t lie to him and puff up his ego to the point where he feels like he’s the Chosen One every day of his life.

Anyway, if you’re a parent of a young child, or one day plan on being a parent, I’d highly encourage you to set aside 45 minutes to watch this documentary. It’s truly fascinating because it shows the impact that this style of parenting has on the kids as they grow into stressed out, needy, dysfunctional young adults who can’t cope with life on their own after being conditioned for decades that they’re special, wonderful, and great at everything they try. If you like the documentary, or this post, share it with others.

UPDATE: Apparently the geniuses at CBC don’t allow the documentary to stream outside Canada, so if you live outside Canada and want to watch the documentary, contact me and I just might have a solution for you…

There she is, our new 2009 GMC Acadia. A few people have been asking about what it looks like, partially because the Acadia is only in its third year, so I thought I’d post a pictures of it. We did a huge amount of research before selecting this vehicle, so at some point I’ll do a write-up about that process. Our short list consisted of the Subaru Tribeca, the Mazda CX-9, and the GMC Acadia. We purchased it from Northland Pontiac Buick GMC, and our salesperson – who was excellent to deal with – was Dave Sommerfeld. It was a near-perfect buying experience, one that I’ll write about later. The Acadia was our final selection from the three vehicles, and here she is…

Ruby red – isn’t she pretty?

Keiko had to come check out the new car – she’ll be travelling in it of course…

I never saw myself owning a GMC vehicle, or an SUV for that matter, but here we are…

We’ll be keeping the Mazda Protege 5 – and selling the Mini Cooper – but I thought it was funny to see how much bigger the Acadia is than the Protege…and the Protege is our “big” car compared to the Mini Cooper.

We took the mid-level package and did almost every upgrade. This car had every option we wanted on it except for the 110 volt power – the car with that feature was in Saskatchewan, and the dealer there refused to send it our way unless our dealer here would send them a truck…and with the GMC truck factory not churning out any new trucks until August, that wasn’t going to happen. So we ended up getting one from Edmonton that lacked the 110 volt power, but had a trailer tow package (which we didn’t care about very much, but the next owner might).

We got the all-wheel drive version. Dig the quad-exhaust…I think that looks cool!

She’s a big beast! I call her the Land Tank. We’re breaking form and not getting a vanity plate.

The inside is furnished nicely. Not quite as high-end as the twin model from Buick, but who wants wood paneling anyway? Not us. Definitely a technologically advanced vehicle – and pairing the audio system to my smartphone over Bluetooth was shocking easy to do. Yes, something involving Bluetooth that was easy. Who knew such a thing was possible!

That’s my Zune 120 connected to the auxillary audio input – the only Zune big enough to hold our entire music collection at once. I’m glad it has that input, but I’m very disappointed with GMC for putting it in such a stupid place – having it inside the console, and having the cigarette lighter inside the console to provide power, or better yet a USB port, is the right way to do it. As it stands now, I’m looking for a Zune cigarette power adaptor that will charge the Zune and hold it aloft…I’ve seen one for the iPod like that, but I have to find one for the Zune.

Here’s the thing about me: I’m really not a “handyman” fix-it type of guy. I am with technology, and most types of electronics, but when it comes to yard work or home maintenance, I really don’t enjoy it, nor am I very experienced at it. So that’s my excuse for the incredibly poor shape the back deck on our house was in as of a few months ago. We’ve been in this house for seven years, and good old Bay West Homes decided that painting our wood was better than staining it – so guess what paint does over time? Yeah, it peels and looks ugly.

If I would have known better, I would have insisted asked that they stain the wood instead. Last year I bought some paint and a brush to attempt to tackle the problem, but I did it too late in the season so I had to wait until this year to start. After the snow thawed this year, the wood on the deck looked 200% worse than it did the previous year – this seemed to be the tipping point for peeling. Wittness the horror…

I was going to sand and paint it, but my father in law recommended a process whereby someone (usually a siding company) wraps the wood in aluminum. It took a few phone calls, and a few poor explanations of what I wanted, before I learned that the process was called “cladding”. I found a Calgary-based company called Edge Xteriors who did the process, and they were fairly affordable compared to the quote I received from another company. Check out how good my deck looked after the cladding process:

I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner! If you’ve got a peeling paint problem, and want a maintenance-free way of fixing the issue, cladding is your answer. (more…)

So is it totally crazy of Ashley and I to hold onto the Mini Cooper until the spring of 2009, when we can purchase a 2010 Chevy Camaro? This car looks so completely bad-ass, and since I never achieved my dream of buying a Mustang at age 25 (it just didn’t quite work out), this car looks like it might fit the bill of a “fun car”. It’s so bizarre for me to be seriously considering a car that I’ve never driven, but daaaaamn does it look hot!

Hats off to the people at the local Canadian Blood Services in Calgary – Ashley and I went down there this past Saturday to be first-time blood donors, and it was a really great experience. Donating blood is something I’ve “wanted” to do for years. I put wanted in quotes because it seems for most people, and I’m sadly often in this group, they’ll “want” to do things but always find excuses to not do it. Every year I get old I try to push myself to higher levels of integrity – where when I say I’m going to do something, I do it.

This time around I had a one-two punch to the jaw: last week my friend Crystal (she’s the one I’ve been taking a lot of pictures for lately) went into the hospital with an extremely low hemoglobin count. She needed an immediate blood transfusion – it saved her life. That was punch number one. A day later, I received an email from Canadian Blood Services (using an email address I used for a one-time online contest) saying that they were in desperate need of blood donors – they had only a three-day supply of blood available. Punch number two. Some days I’m a bit slow, but I’m not that dense, so I told Ashley we should really get down there and donate blood.

We went in on Saturday at noon, and it was a great experience – yes, even though we got poked in the arm with a needle. The process was fairly quick – the worst part was the paperwork…well, that and the finger-pick to test my blood for iron levels. That little clicker thing hurt more than the horse-needle they put in my arm! After answering the questions about where I’ve been in the past three years, and the ones that might make some people blush (“Have you ever been paid money or drugs for sex?”) and them checking my arms for needle tracks, it was off to the comfy chairs. Ashley and I brought paperback books because we thought the drawing blood process took 30 minutes – it didn’t. The very skilled nurse put the needle in my arm with almost no pain, and my heart slammed out 0.5 litres (1 pint) of the red juicy stuff in 6 minutes 8 seconds. Ashley took a bit over 8 minutes – apparently women are typically slower. Maybe men were made to bleed faster because we’re the ones usually starting the wars.

After the donation I spent a few minutes sipping Apple juice and eating cookies, then we left. We’ve already booked our appointment for October – you can only donate every 56 days – and we both felt great about having donated blood. My only regret? That it took me this long to get around to doing it. If you can donate blood, you should - they need it. Besides, what else are you going to do with it?

Wow. In the span of 20 minutes, my 72″ Toshiba DLP TV was delivered, two new Dell 24″ LCD monitors arrived, and my repaired/replaced (not sure which yet) Shuttle SD11G5 was also returned. My geek head is spinning – I’m not sure which one to set up first.