Here's to 1000 more years!

I've been using the moniker RealGrouchy online since at least 2003, and I didn't get the gmail account until 2005, but I consider the real RealGrouchy epoch to be when I started contributing to the interweboscape. This would be when I started contributing on Wikipedia, and that first contribution was on February 6, 2004, exactly eight years ago.

Eight years is scary. XKCD comic 647 scary:

Back then, Wikipedia only had a quarter million articles in English, whereas now it's approaching four million.

I first learned about Wikipedia from an article in the Ottawa Citizen the day before. The article talks about how user-generated content engenders community, and other fine stuff that made me think "wow, this is cool! I want to do this!"

I distinctly remember reading a similar article in the Citizen's Technology section a few months later that inspired me to start blogging, though I can't find it. I remember it talking about the "local blogging community", and I remember trying to find this "local blogging community". In what looks mighty foolish in retrospect, I did this by looking for other Blogger accounts that mentioned "Ottawa" in their location in the profile, and following their blogs. There was nothing particularly interesting.

I'd been writing Letters to the Editor in the Citizen for a few years, but over time the number of things printed in the paper that I wanted to write in and bitch about grew to a point where I knew most of them wouldn't be printed in order to leave space for others. Still wanting to share these opinions, I started my blog intending to publish my objections there instead.

I don't think that worked so well, because the first few years of my blog posts were mostly about how little I was doing. Some were specifically empty, because I didn't realize at the time that you could back-date posts (or maybe you couldn't yet... I remember tagging didn't come along for another couple of years) and I wanted to have a few entries I could write over for more reference-style posts (which I never bothered to do, and now "pages" lets you do that, which I haven't used either).

I know it sounds ironic, a person with the handle RealGrouchy going out in search of community, but there are rationalizations that I'll leave you to hypothesize. I'd picked the name some time prior as a handle for some online game, since RealGrouchy was one that was easily available (who would ever want to call themselves that!?).

Through it all, I have written primarily for myself, in what I can imagine is sometimes agonizing detail for my readers (but details I nevertheless want to record for my own reference). When I have written for others, it is primarily so they can see how wonderfully awesome I am. I have also written about other year-increment milestones, such as my McDonald's Fiveniversary (still going strong), and my annual holiday posts on topics like Earth Hour and National Grouch Day.

I've gotten a lot more busy in meatspace, doing things that I prefer to keep separate from here. But around me has grown a local blogging community, and some weeks I write more in the comments of others' blogs than I do in posts on my own. The persona of RealGrouchy grew, largely in the few years I spent on the XKCD forums, starting as user number 48 on the forums, becoming a moderator, and gaining celebrity—and, following my retirement, legendary—status on a site that has had nearly 300,000 user registrations.

But the more things change, the more things stay the same: I don't write so much about local issues as I'd originally planned, and instead write about stuff I've done or made with little reference to the outside world. I do still bitch about stuff, though I've developed a more subtle way of doing it. Not to mention more socially productive ways. I've also thought up many large projects that I never finished, and some I never even started.

I'm proud that I did all this—with a couple rare exceptions that I try not to acknowledge—anonymously. I wanted to link to a blog post picking apart Ken Gray's assault on anonymous bloggers, but I see that I never finished and published it. The gist of it is that he's a bigger coward despite using his real name than I am because I use a pseudonym. I've accomplished all this, made friends (many of whom I've subsequently met), been appointed to positions of power, and earned respect for my opinions, all without most of those people knowing what my name is. They know who I am, insofar as I present myself as RealGrouchy, and the identity of RealGrouchy is as strong as if I'd used my own name (and perhaps even stronger).

I knew from the start that I wanted to be anonymous. I didn't have any particular reason to do so at the time, but I knew that if a good reason were to come along, I'd be unable to put the cat back in the bag. However, it has worked well. It is great at making you think twice before putting something in writing, because you have to think about whether a particular detail will give you away, or if you'll be unable to say something with your real name after you say it with the pseudonym. The challenge of walking this line can be fun.

At the same time that writing under a pseudonym helps with restraint, it is also liberating, because I can say things that would be out of character for me, but are entirely in character for RealGrouchy. There are plenty of people who know RealGrouchy and have met the man behind him (and I thank them for keeping them separate). But for others, when you write as "RealGrouchy," they expect you to sound angry, and don't react as harshly when you are. After enough correspondence that people get to know RealGrouchy, it's nice to hear people say "you're not all that grouchy after all," because generally, mentally healthy people aren't all that grouchy.

So there you have it. Eight years of RealGrouchy. Here's to the next binary millenium!

- RG>

Grammar Nazi's Triumph

Kettleman's Bagels has had a couple of unfortunate connections to stories in the media. There was the time that I caught them with taxi hands, and more recently, some of their product was recalled due to insufficient labeling. Of course, I still go there, because the bagels taste good.

But the thing that gets me most about Kettleman's is the motley signage. Lots of notes are scribbled in permanent marker on white paper, taped to various surfaces. And they all have apostrophes galore where they don't belong.

They renovated their store this past fall, and redesigned their garbage bin to have a hole for recycling. A nice new container, with modern stylings.

Then they slapped this onto it:

"Recycle only / glass + can's please."

Now, I'm easily perturbed by such miscarriages of punctuation as this. I also like a good challenge. The easy thing to do (aside from ignoring it) would be to scratch out the apostrophe, but that would just draw more attention to it and make it look uglier. It'd be sufficiently passive-aggresive, but clumsy. Also, not much of a challenge.

I could also point out the typo to a staffperson, but nobody likes to feel patronized by being called out that way. (The store has a few signs where apostrophes were clearly added after the fact, so getting them to make a new handwritten sign would likely have little long-term effect). Generally with this type of thing you want to give the offender an 'out' so they learn what their error was while still saving face, pretending that they knew all along how it was supposed to be.

I figured if I was going to fix this, I was going to fix it completely. No leaving the Kettleman's sign-scribblers to solving it halfway. I am a perfectionist, when I have the patience to see something through.

My solution? I made this sign, with Kettleman's trademark red and yellow colours (mimicking the arched text of the word "BAGEL" on their outdoor sign). As an added flourish, I used the whitespace for a not-so-subtle plea for an end to apostrophe abuse:

This isn't just a piece of paper, it's a big sticker. You see, when I took the picture of the sign in the first picture, what I was really after was the hole, using the pop can for scale. From there I could tell how big a curve I needed for a sign to fit neatly in.

I've got a little device designed for cutting circles in paper (functionally equivalent to a compass with an X-Acto knife at the end), with which I scored the arced bottom edge of the sticker, and I used a straight edge and knife to score the sides.

As for delivery, again, subtlety and minimalism is the rule of the day.

Sure I could go there, tear off the taped sign and stick this thing on, but there are enough staff in the store that I'd probably get some questions. And the whole point of this exercise is to avoid directly confronting them about their bad grammar and terrible sense of signage style.

So I did what any psychology-conscious trickster would do: I brought in a newspaper, read it during my visit, and left it there. Underneath the newspaper on the counter was the sign. Odds are, I gambled, that a staff person would be the one to put the newspaper away, and would see the sign.

I told a few people about this plan, with various responses. One person was particularly incredulous that the plan would succeed, and suggested I should have just put the sticker on myself. But the next time I visited, lo and behold:

Now that's satisfying. The best part, aside from the perfect size and design, is that the plan involves the intervention of the target. That's the key to any successful practical joke. The requirement for conscious thought on the part of the mark changes things from a mere object to a message.

And try to imagine what would be going through someone's mind: somebody, somewhere, went to the trouble of making this very specific sign for this very specific purpose, and just left it here. Who would have done that? What was their motivation? On its own, it's such an innocent sign that you can't deduce any reasoning from it.

Unless they thought that some other manager had left it there, I'd like to believe that after a certain amount of head-scratching they gave up, shrugged, and thought to themselves, God thinks it's Friday.

The only kink in the plan--a very minor one--was that the offending sign had already been replaced with another paper-and-marker sign, sans erroneous mark of possession. Obviously someone had gotten the message through to them, making my little "stop abusing apostrophes" message redundant. In the interests of minimalism, I pulled that part of the sticker off, leaving just the "Recycling" sign. This left it with even less context, adding to the psychological aspect.

This isn't the first time I pulled this kind of thing. One of these days I'll tell you about the prank I pulled at Bridgehead.

Oh, and I should give a shout-out to Rob Cockerham of Cockeyed.com, who does a lot of this kind of stuff (like the McDonald's drive-thru menu prank and the TGI Friday's Menu Prank).

Also, a shout-out to Elmaks (RIP), whose swap boxes helped me realize that anything we can touch, we have the power to change.

- RG>

Whoring myself out some more

Despite being on Twitter now (as @RealGrouchy, of course), I still have very few followers, and don't really have much going on there.

I guess that's really a success, since I don't particularly care for being social.

Nevertheless, I am self-conscious--and to an extent, competitive--and having so few followers doesn't jive with my business plan:

1. Get lots of Twitter followers
2. ???
3. Profit

With so few followers on Twitter, I feel I need to do something to compensate.

So I've put a Twitter feed in the sidebar of the blog.

Watch me be a twit.

- RG>

RealGrouchy upgrades again

(Yes, the timestamp is accurate. I've been somewhat awake since I started the previous post at 6am on the 25th) After I finished the previous post, I read it aloud to myself and liked how it flowed. I wanted to podcast it.

The resulting efforts have resulted in the biggest change since in 2006, when I rebranded the blog. (Which is to say that the template is still the same old off-the-shelf one I picked in 2004, and a couple of details here and there were tweaked.)

After some digging around discovered I'd need some hosting space of my own for podcasts, and of course a domain. With RealGrouchy.com being taken by some squatter in Virginia, I registered RealGrouchy.ca. I used hostpapa.ca which I've had experience with and I know their services are versatile. That said, I just looked at configuring it so that Blogger publishes on RealGrouchy.ca and it looks too complicated, so I just set it to redirect to the ol' Blogger blog.

I also set up a RealGrouchy WordPress account, to make it easier to subscribe by e-mail to comments on people's WordPress-based blogs. It used to be that you just click the checkbox. Then you had to click a link in a confirmation e-mail (missing out on any comments that were posted before you next checked your inbox). Now, and for the last few months, it has required you to follow a link in an e-mail, then click a confirmation button on the other side of that link.

I also set up a GRAvatar (globally-recognizable avatar, IIRC) with my usual RealGrouchy icon (though it wanted me to crop the photo down, chopping off the top and bottom; it wouldn't let me expand the box, so that took more time, making the avatar square in GIMP). Creepily, WordPress automatically associated all my old comments with my new WordPress account and added in my new GRAvatar and blog link.

That's better than LiveJournal, I guess. A couple years ago, I went to register the RealGrouchy handle on LiveJournal to comment on the OC Transpo livejournal, only to find that http://realgrouchy.livejournal.com was publishing a carbon copy of my blog, without my permission, using what they call a "syndicated account". They promptly deleted this copied blog, but told me that syndicated accounts can't be converted to regular personal accounts. Instead, they can delete the account, I can create a new one under a different username, then get them to move the RealGrouchy username for a $30 fee. How nice of them to charge me $30 for stealing my content. I declined, and it's probably just as well that I don't waste time trying to talk sense in the OC Transpo LiveJournal forum.

As for the podcasts, I didn't really have time today to prepare a podcast, much less preparing a podcast and setting up all this hosting stuff.

But the next time I feel the urge to podcast, I'm already a third of the way there (step 1: get web space, step 2: figure out how to podcast, step 3: record and edit the actual podcast for posting).

- RG>

Another swap box at Elgin Bridgehead, another repair by RG

[Edit: added photo of hook to close swap box at end.]

Heading out from Bridgehead last night, I was thrilled to find a new one of el maks' trademark Swap Boxes on the post which formerly held this box, which helped save a life. Here 'tis:

Unfortunately, on opening it, I found it to be very empty. There was about $0.13 in change, and a gambling chip I had just put in (I always have a trinket with me In Case Of Swap Box*). While the box was large, it was shallow, making it hard for anything to stay inside. I took this photo with a ruler so I could fashion something of the right size help hold things in. I was thinking along the lines of a panel of clear plastic packaging stapled across the front.

(*title for your next book, Maks?)

Getting home, I looked at my inventory of paraphernalia and found a Ferrero Rocher box my dad gave me at Christmas (a tradition. I was very disappointed the year he gave me Toblerone instead of Ferrero Rocher for Christmas, though I would have accepted Toblerone and Ferrero Rocher). The box was exactly the right width, it just needed to be opened on one end. Here it is trimmed, taped on the sharp cut edge, with some of the cutting tools I employed to try to cut it to the right size. (The laziest, easiest way I found was scoring it with a knife and/or glass-cutting tool, then clipping it with wire clippers carefully. It will not be a clean cut on the discard side).

I had also pre-drilled some holes in the plastic for small screws to hold it in, making sure not to put the holes too close to the edge, lest my hand and the mini-screwdriver not fit in the gap. I then installed it in situ tonight, first marking the holes, then pre-screwing the screws to make the holes, undoing them, then putting them back in with the plastic piece in place. Worked like a charm (and I only measured once!). El Maks approves! See comments.

Then I populated the box with some new stuff I had brought, "swapping" out the gambling chip I had put in the night before (it had been so long since I'd seen a swap box, I had gotten used to this thing in my pocket) and most of the useless goddamn pennies. The extra benefit of this Ferrero Rocher box is that there is a bevelled edge, making it easier to pull things out of the box.

Unfortunately, maks painted the wooden box over its smooth finish, and the paint is chipping off in the cold. Nothing we can do about that.

Also, because of the way the box is attached to the post, the door doesn't close very well.

I fashioned a simple hook out of a piece of wire just now and will install it next time I'm down there, so that the box's contents will be protected from the elements. [Edit: done. See below.]

I'm grateful to Maks for making (and installing?) the box. It's been so long since we've had one in Centretown since he moved to Montreal. It's up to us to make sure it's well used and well kept!

- RG>

Thought of the [undefined period of time] #12

Tidying the house isn't so much about putting things away as it is about moving things one step closer to where they belong.

Previous undefined period of time: 1 month, 17 days, 17h24

- RG>

RG's Workshop: The 90-minute glove rack

(note: I have added the label "Workshop" to the previous posts about stuff I've built, in addition to the "Treasure" label for discarded stuff I've found)

Last night, I got creative again. Like the pieces that became the "Three Hole Punch" that I talked about last December, gloves have outgrown my little basket for them and are in overabundance on my kitchen table. They could use a proper nesting place. At 10pm, it was already a bit late for woodworking projects, but I figured I could manage a quickie.

I'd already worked out roughly how I wanted to arrange them, and like the Three Hole Punch, it would be vertically, on the wall. I didn't have any spare dowelling (or broomstick, the trusty dowel substitute) handy, but I did have a bunch of narrow pieces of wood, which would actually work better for gloves, since they'd hold the gloves in the right orientation.

The first step was seeing how much wood I'd need. To do this, mount various gloves onto a scrap piece of similarly-sized wood and mark how far in it goes. This leather one didn't go in very far, but a couple others went further down on it.

The wood I use is from a the slats of a popular IKEA bedframe called "Lade", which I presume is pronounced "Lay-deh". This Lade is a queen. You can find these Lade slats on the curb often enough because the frames that hold them break, or the owner upgrades their bed.

As shown in the diagram on the label above, and in the photo below, the slats come strung together on a ribbon. It's not very difficult to remove the ribbon if you have the right tools. You might want to do it gently and slowly, but I prefer a more rough and vigorous approach, because it's faster and more satisfying.

Once the ribbon is removed, you can put the Lade slats on a rack and arrange them nice and tidily. Lade slats come in a variety of sizes, though the slats are the same size within each set. This stack has slats from two different size Lade sets, and the one in the previous picture was a third size somewhere between these two.

Finally at 10:25pm I began cutting. I ended up being able to get six 5" handles out of each 30" Lade board. Fitting the wood snugly in a mitre box, I first cut it into three 10" pieces with a 90 degree cut, then cut each of those into two with a 22.5 degree cut so that they would stick up slightly.

I next gauged the screws I would be using, by lining up the backboard and the handles to see how I should arrange the pieces to safely penetrate the Lade bits.

I used the wider Lade for the backboard and mounted pieces from the smaller Lade on top. I started with two in order to test the angle and separation with gloves on, and got them on at 10:40. I pre-drilled the holes through the backboard to avoid splitting, but just pushed into the bare wood for the handles with brute force.

The wider Lade was long enough to allow eight glove mounts, each three inches apart. Since I could only get six mounts from the smaller Lade, I had to get a second one to finish the job. I got all the pieces ready for screwing at 11:00pm. The square ends needed to be sanded vigorously to ensure a smooth insertion into the glove.

Finally, at 11:23pm, I got all the pieces assembled. The angle in this photo makes some of the slats look a bit crooked. (Yes, the camera angle...) I intentionally used a warped piece of wood for the mounts because I knew with the gloves on, nobody would be able to see how warped it is.

I have yet to decide on a mounting mechanism to get this glove rack on the wall (hence one hand in this picture), but that's a job for another day. I also have to stain it, but I need to be careful not to use a cheap stain--that's no way to treat a Lade.

Anyway, here it is, with the gloves on. Wave hello!

This rack only carries four pairs of gloves/mitts. I have many more for various purposes. I also carry a couple spare pairs in my bike bags to prepare for changes in weather when I'm out on the road, and I have a couple of backup pairs of gloves (like the lobster winter cycling gloves) at home for when my primary pair is misplaced, dirty, or wet. And of course I keep different sets of gloves handy for different seasons. Considering how easy it was to build this one, I think I'll build a second rack for my off-season gloves, too.

- RG>

RG the master Lego architect

This is the Falkirk Wheel. I helped design it.

Photograph of the Falkirk Wheel, 2004, by Sean McClean, who likes to save photos in a license that requires me to write his name here

At least, according to the Wikipedia article on the Falkirk Wheel.

Of course, it doesn't say that directly, and I've never been to the UK (especially not as far back as 1994), but then again...

After the above image was featured on Wikipedia's main page a few years ago, I read up on the Falkirk Wheel, and scratched my head a bit while I figured out how the caissons (the water-filled containers that hold the boats) stay level.

I eventually figured it out, but discovered that I wasn't the only one. In January of 2007, I wrote up an explanation of how these gears work on my user talk page, from first principles, using Lego Technic gears. Someone then added a link to this explanation to the Falkirk Wheel article.

Photograph of a Lego model of the Falkirk Wheel, 2007, by RealGrouchy, an awesome guy who marks all the photos he uploads to Wikipedia with a Public Domain license so as not to have to bother himself or others with copyright issues (but who retains copyright on his other photos in order to reserve his right to be a prick to those who reproduce them without his permission).

Fast forward three years to February of 2007, when some wank at the BBC writes a fluff piece about Lego, writing erroneously (as newspeople often do) that the designer of the Falkirk Wheel used Lego in the design process. The offending bit has since been removed from the article, and apparently there was also a video (presumably the one on which the article is based, if the BBC works like the CBC) which either was removed or just isn't playing on my browser.

Anyway, that article was then referenced by this guy as a source when he added to the Wikipedia article the claim that "Lego was utilised in the design process to establish how to keep the caissons level whilst the wheel is turning."

Since, as Stephen Colbert tells us, reality is what the wiki says it is, the Falkirk Wheel was designed using Lego, and since I created the Lego model in question, therefore, I must have designed the Falkirk Wheel.

Nice work, if I say so myself.

- RG>

A RealSherlock in the making

Sitting at Bridgehead this evening, I noticed something a little...different.

Working on a hunch, I texted my friend:

RG: "Did Umi close or something?? There's all sorts of hippies in my coffeeshop today."

My friend, who lives near Umi Café, promptly confirmed that the worker collective-operated coffeeshop at Somerset and Percy had been "bought out" by the Korean restaurant next door. As of yet they haven't updated their website.

Be on the look out for drum circles as Umi's clientele disperses throughout the city. (That link courtesy of today being National Grouch Day)

In related news, Exile Infoshop also closed their permanent location recently, after a three-year run. They're still active, just without a physical space (which took a lot of their time, energy and money to keep open).

- RG>

Only for hip, urban, planners

I'd heard the term "forced road" used in City Hall transportation meetings before. Since it was in the context of "Goulbourn forced road"--i.e. someplace I didn't expect to find myself anywhere soon--I didn't pay the term too much attention.

Then the other day I heard a more recent--and local--reference to the term regarding Richmond Road. I looked it up, and didn't find it in any online dictionary.

I did a google search and had to dig around. Apparently it's primarily a Canadian/Ontario term.

I was quite pleased with myself when the definition I provided was accepted by Urban Dictionary.

I was even more amused by the mugs, t-shirts, coasters and other "forced road" souvenirs you can buy. They have an interesting software that displays the word and definition on the product as though it were a picture, with the text curving with the folds.

Not sure what a forced road actually is? Duh, look it up!

- RG>

I'm poor again (but not for long!)

I recently got a new job, which pays considerably more than my old one (I wanted to link to the comment I left on someone's blog sometime about all the things that were good about my previous job, but I can't find it). The main downside is that it's full-time, whereas the old one was flexible part-time.

The upshot is that by making more money, I'm no longer poor, at least until the term is up at the end of next July. I'll have lots of time to save up between now and then.

I'm not entirely sure exactly what the after-tax income will be, as I haven't yet had a complete pay period. I do know that It's a lot more than what I was making before, which was nearly enough to live comfortably. Being unable to budget for a new high-falutin' lifestyle, I've kept to my old, miserly ways.

Except for the laptop I just ordered online.

I figured it was time, since my laptop is breaking again (the sound is going and I don't feel like taking it apart and re-soldering it again, the replacement battery I bought isn't hold its charge as long as it used to, and the SD card reader remains broken). I had also wanted to buy a spare AC adapter, keyboard/mouse, and replace the battery again, and since I'd been planning on getting a new laptop soon anyway, now was as good a time as any. This one has served me well enough, and this way I can give it to a friend who has had to computer-surf (using other people's computers, as in couchsurfing) since her computer died.

The outgoing laptop's a Dell Vostro 1000 that I bought in September 2007. I chose once again to go with Dell--this time a Latitude E5500--because I like:

• The many ways Dell lets you customize your machine (choose the "small business" option ALWAYS!)


• I can still get it with Windows XP


• I've been able to buy replacement parts for my old laptop at reasonable prices (this time I've gone for 3-year full hardware support since I can afford it upfront)


• The online repair documentation is thorough


• Many of Dell's business laptops have minimal amounts of crapware/bloatware (this was the advertised feature that first attracted me to the Vostro, is what turned me off this time to the XPS, and appears to still apply to the Latitude)


• it comes with 4 USB slots, not two like so many other laptops (or only one, like the MacBook Air!), plus an SD card slot


• the new laptop will come with a clit mouse. I haven't had one of those since my old IBM ThinkPad, three laptops ago.

Not all the after-market money I spent on the Vostro is lost, either: I had bought a 500GB hard drive to replace the 120GB one that came with it and filled with photos (did you know that computer stores can copy the drive's content to a new drive, so you don't have to reinstall Windows and all your programs? So convenient!). I can swap the 120GB drive back and use the 500GB in my new lappy.

Since I haven't been spending much more than I did before the new job, this purchase will delay my plans to pad up my savings. On the bright side, it also means no more impulse buys for at least a couple pay periods. Which means I'm poor again, but not for long!

- RG>

RG's Workshop: How can you mend a broken Swap Box?

A month or so ago, I was talking to one of the folks at the Bytown Museum, who was telling me about their upcoming exhibit, Evocative Objects. It's loosely tied to the Capital Neighbourhoods project, and involves everyday-type objects that have a lot of story in them.

I immediately thought that a swap box would fit right in to this concept, and I knew exactly where to get my hands on one. The museum folks were interested.

For those who prefer to read books or text while walking blindly around the city, a swap box is a form of interactive public art, a box placed in a public location just below eye level, from which you are encouraged to take something from it, and leave something in return. Not only are they fun, but they save lives, too.

Anyway, this one was broken. After getting it from Woodsy, I needed to fix it. Wouldn't be my first time fixing one.

Here's the patient. Found torn from its roost, broken in half, with only one nail holding its front on.

It would need to be glued together, which means it would need to be held together while the glue sets. I don't have any clamps big enough for that, so I'd better figure that out first. Right up there with Swiss Army knives, duct tape, and binder clips in terms of utility are used inner tubes. I tied one around the box:

Looked pretty good. Closed the seam up pretty well, without completely hiding it (satisfying Woodsy's primary condition of letting me fix it)

Unfortunately, it didn't hold the back side together too well; the crack was being pulled open on the backside. Time for more troubleshooting.

My next attempt was definitely a longer shot. These pegs are from my mitre box, and I had drilled holes in a piece of two-by-three to peg them into. Unfortunately, I also didn't have the right diameter drill bit, and the holes were too big and the pegs didn't stick out straight. I then tried holding the top ends of the pegs together with the piece of innertube, also unsuccessfully.

Perturbed but not defeated, I tried again, and realized I could drill the holes all the way through the wood and thread the innertube through it.

A bit of a two-steps-forward-one-step-back approach, but it worked. Both the front and back were straight and tight when I tied off the innertube behind the block. The tapered edges of the swap box allowed me to tighten or loosen the makeshift clamp by moving it up or down the box.

I then applied glue, nailed the box part of it together, and re-clamped it.

The wood block held the back side straight.

The next morning, it was nice and sturdy, especially with the box nailed back together. I sent it off to the museum with some goodies to 'seed' the swap box with. The binder clips were just obligatory. Shit, I should have taken a second look at that golf pencil before tossing it in; it was from a hotel I stayed at in Beijing.

Mounting it was difficult because the upper screw holes were broken off. At the same time, you can't just loosely hang a swap box on a wall, because people are going to be poking around in it. The museum staff did an excellent job of mounting it, right across from the Evocative Objects exhibition on the second floor. And in true Swap Box form, it was mounted without any identifying plaque--people have to discover it for themselves.

The Bytown Museum is funded mostly by the City of Ottawa, yet a significant majority of its patrons are from out of town. More locals need to visit; it's a great trove of Ottawa's history.

This means you!

New kid on the blog

The other day I met up with a friend (who is a fan of the blog) to show her the ropes on blogging.

Give a big Ottawa Blogger welcome to Sweet Willow Organic Community Garden at sweetwillowgarden.blogspot.com!

- RG>

Clown therapy

I'd like to talk about the Parable of the High Note, from the book of Seinfeld, chapter 9, verse 16. In that episode, Jerry counsels George to apply the Vegas showmanship trick of "walking off on a high note" after making a well-received joke in a meeting.

I have known and used this principle for a long time. Through high school, I was the one in music class (when it wasn't the teacher) to make every and any possible (often terrible) pun. The theory was, and still is, even if you have a whole string of bad and unfunny (yet theoretically clever) jokes, eventually you'll hit a really good one--a high note. As with games of chance, you hang around with the odds around 50/50, and when you get a statistically inevitable blip in your favour, quit the game and collect your winnings.

For a class clown, the 'winnings' are laughs at a particularly good joke (or groans at a very bad one).

Tonight I realized that this principle applies to practical things, beyond gambling and tomfoolery.

A friend of mine was having some emotional issues, and like me, she considers emotions to be those things that get in the way of logic. She had discussed her problem with various friends, and even some therapists, to no avail, but tonight she told me about it.

Now, I enjoy helping people and making them genuinely feel better (instead of just placating them, as some people do, until the person seeking advice just damn pretends to feel better in order to stop being placated). I also think I have a bit of a knack for it, and, to be honest, I never feel better than when I help a good friend turn from miserable to cheerful. (I also thoroughly appreciate my friends who can do the same for me.)

When someone comes to you to feel better, they're not really looking for you to say things (even if they're asking you 'for advice'), they need you to shut up and listen to them. Often the person feels better by mere virtue of having put it into words.

Of course I said things I thought would make my friend feel better, but most of the time it was stuff she'd heard already from other friends, or therapists or considered herself, or otherwise didn't help. She and I were both patient, we continued to talk, and eventually, I managed to say the right thing, in the right way, to make her feel better. And then we changed subjects.

So the important aspect in both the class-clowning and the advice-giving, is persistence and patience on both parts. Eventually, the Right Thing will be said. When it is, leave it on that high note.

- RG>

Swap Box Testimonial

On Friday night, I wrote the post Swap Boxes Save Lives! immediately after meeting Andy Williams.

That night, Andy e-mailed me with photos and his story, entitled How a piece of garbage saved me from trashing my life (or a serendipidous story of how salvage saved my life) (reprinted with permission). It speaks for itself.

- RG>

Dear Grouchy,

Firstly, I must say that your name is misleading. I do not find you grouchy at all, and I think its a shame that your parents chose that name.

It was nice meeting you tonight, although we met briefly about a year ago when you overheard me talking to a staff member at Bridgehead about an orange rubber band bracelet that someone "threw away". You were in the cafe typing on your laptop ("coffee culture" is intriguing in how people like to be alone together), and when I asked the staff member if it had been his, you seemed surprised and interrupted the conversation telling me it was your bracelet that I claimed as my treasure. Little did I know that your refuse would be my refuge. That rubber band would not only
change my life, but save it at least once.

My sister was visiting from near Almonte and I wanted to show her a neat little thing called a "Swap Box". Nailed to the side of a telephone pole by Bridgehead at MacLaren and Elgin was a wooden box adorned with paisley type groovy letters drawn on with marker, indicating, "Swap Box". It was a repository of refuge for some and treasures for other. The concept was that you would take something you need, and leave something you don't. I proudly displayed it to visitors to my sector of Centretown, each time they would visit, and, held it up as an example of "where community met creativity".

On that fateful day I opened the Swap Box I saw an orange elastic bracelet, similar in style to the Yellow Livestrong bracelets worn to commemorate cancer survivors. Engraved in the orange rubber were the words, "I count". Words are only words unless we breathe life into them. Still, the words attracted me. I rubbed my thumb over the letters as I thought of all the times I had been unfaithful towards myself and irresponsible towards myself at the expense of accommodating others, and, a demanding profession. Did I count? I had not been acting as if I did.

As I placed the bracelet on my wrist, I thought particularly about my health. Why was it so hard to commit to my health? At 41 I needed to get serious about exercise. It was no longer optional. I had begun smoking 3 years earlier and was ashamed of that. I resolved to make a change. I had been diagnosed diabetic, a disease shared by a sister and my mother. I would use that bracelet as a reminder to commit to myself the time and energy I needed to be healthy.

Immediately I quit smoking. I sold my car and I bought a bicycle. I began running. I felt defeated each time I went out to run, but I reminded myself to be gentle towards myself. Every time I wanted to tell myself I was "too tired" or "didn't feel like it", I rubbed my thumb over those words "I count", and got up and did what I needed to do. My energy increased. My lung capacity increased greatly. I could breath easier. I could run further and faster.

A few months later disaster struck. My intestine burst from something called Diverticultis. I had severe blood poisoning and periontinitis. I had to have emergency surgery and a cholostomy. The emergency surgery was rough. After surgery, the surgeon told my sisters that the following 48 hours would be crucial in determining as to whether I would live, and, that I would likely need to be put on artificial respiration if my breathing didn't hold up, which was tenuous. Needless to say, I believe that recommitment to my health and the constant reminder with the physical presence of that rubber band saved my life. In some ways my recovery was quick and in some ways it was slow. I made it though. And I keep wearing that bracelet to this day. And each day in all the decisions I made--especially the ones about exercise--I reminded myself that "I count" with that visible flourescent orange band on my wrist.

I joined 2 baseball leagues and I bought a bicycle. I continued running. This fall I won a prize on my baseball league for being the fastest runner. I bicycle from Parliament to Carp and surrounding communities to Ottawa on a regular basis on weekends. The cholostomy was reversed and the health of my intestine recovered. The diabetes reversed and my blood sugars returned to normal levels.


This winter I am playing floor hockey and taking swimming lessons and I am going to keep on running. My goal is to complete my first triathlon next summer. I know I can do it. I am showing myself the same dedication and loyalty that I have shown so many others all my life, because at the age of 42 I have finally finally come to understand that I really do count.

Grouchy, I'm not sure if I asked you this but, I felt that when someone put that bracelet in there they did so with a wish and that I was the benefactor of the wish. I always wondered did I make that up in my head, or, did someone really make a wish when they put that bracelet in the Swap Box?...

I believe humanity is interconnected. We never know what impact our actions might have. When a stone is thrown in a pond, the impact is made not only where the stone lands but across the pond. Regardless of whether you made a wish or not, when you put that rubber-band bracelet in the Swap Box, you "threw a stone in the pond", and the impact of a stone on water if felt in ripples through the pond. This month, my work takes "across the pond" to The Hague, Switzerland and Italy, and I hope the ripples keep going on and on...I am grateful for how a seemingly meaningless act by a total stranger has contributed to a profound impact in my life. The adage says that one person's trash is another one's treasure. I have come to treasure my life.

Grouchy, I wishing you the deepest successes in life, however it is that you may define success, and, whether or not you become more or less grouchy.

Yours very truly,

Andy Williams
Ottawa

Swap Boxes Save Lives!

UPDATE: Read the story in Andy's words on this subsequent post

Last September, I blogged about a swap box story: after repairing a swap box on Elgin street (a box which I would repair again), I had met a man at Bridgehead whose life had been touched by a cheap silicon bracelet I'd left in a swapbox.

We happened to meet again tonight (coincidentally sitting at adjacent tables), and thirteen months later, Andy Williams is still wearing his bracelet:

We talked for a bit, and he reiterated his story: he used to weigh 290 pounds, and the bracelet helped motivate him to lose the weight. Whenever he felt like cutting short an exercise regime, he'd look at the bracelet and remember that "hey, I count!"

He used to have a few medical issues that were either caused or complicated by his weight, which are now under control or gone. He's involved in a host of different sports and physical activities, and he's the fastest runner on his baseball team.

I have difficulty appreciating many forms of art (for one, you can't take photos in most galleries), but swap boxes are a form of interactive art that leaves you with a free souvenir. Like tweenbots, swap boxes are out in the open, vulnerable, depending on the trust of passersby to not only not destroy it, but also to help fulfill its function. A swap box that survives for months is a source of community pride. As Andy's story shows, the interactive element provides an opportunity for the unexpected to occur, for someone's life to be touched. That's not just art, that's a public service.

Now that El Maks is in Montreal, there aren't so many swap boxes in Ottawa. It's time the rest of us pick up the slack!

- RG>

PS: Dachau is in Germany

Mental blocks, emotional dams, and projections

Just over a month ago, I decided I wanted an LCD projector.

I had calculated the amount of spending money I'd have left from my tax rebate. After padding my savings buffer, I was left with $600, much less than I had hoped before starting calculations.

Still, I discovered that $600 should be about enough to buy a projector.

Why a projector?

Well, a few months ago, I was in a meeting at City Hall where the projector had been left out by the previous users. We used it to put the agenda on the wall, which was very useful for all in attendance. Ever since then, I'd wanted a projector to help facilitate such meetings.

Of course, I'd be able to use it for sharing my photography, for presentations, and to lend/rent to my friends, family and colleagues for their miscellaneous uses. (bolo?) But the meeting thing was a concrete function that I know would get used. [How much of a geek do you have to be to buy a multimedia projector for volunteer meetings?!?]

I don't like to shop for yogourt.

After deciding I wanted a projector, I trotted off to the computer store and asked what projectors they carried. This is how I shop: I go to a place, look at what they have in store, see what best fits my needs, and buy it.

"We don't carry any projectors in stock," said the clerk, after scoffing at me for asking for the salesperson I'd been in contact with by e-mail (let's call him Victor) after 5pm. "Realistically, we can order anything out there."

This is not how I like to shop. A completely open-ended selection gives me no place to start. Not being able to see the thing before buying it makes the decision even harder.

A projector-owning friend of mine pointed me to this US company, whose website lists a wide selection and good product details and reviews. He also gave me a few things to look for. In addition to my own requirements for portability, price, andbrightness, my friend recommended a wide viewing angle for use in small rooms, and lauded the high resolution of his Hitachi.

A choice is made

I settled on this baby, listed for US$669 on the US site. I like the Hitachi CPX5 because it's small, versatile, and has a USB port to plug in a flash drive, so you don't even need a computer. On June first I e-mailed Victor with my selection.

He said it would come to just under $1200 (plus tax), and because it's a special order, a minimum ETA of 7-14 days. I consulted a CDW catalogue I had on hand to confirm this was a reasonable price for a projector in Canada, and chalked the price difference up to the border, the dollar, and the website's volume.

But still, yikes.

After a closer analysis of my budget, I could manage $900, and borrow the remaining $300 from my savings, to be replenished after Bluesfest.

I bit my tongue and told Victor to order it. The order was delayed until I placed a deposit the next day. Sigh. I'm supporting local business, I told myself. Victor would call his supplier the next day to get a more precise ETA than 7-14 days. Hopefully, I'd get it in time for the next meeting on June 16th.

Finally, on June 10th, he said the projector should arrive on June 18th(!). Like Eric Cartman in the South Park episode Go God Go, I had some waitin' to do.

Waiting for Hitachi; steady as she goes

Later that morning, Victor e-mailed again to say that the June 18th ETA was wrong, and that he's still working to get a correct date from Hitachi. So not only was I waiting, but I was waiting for an undetermined length of time.

On the 15th, he e-mailed me to say that (paraphrased) the Hitachi people were being total jackasses with him, and he suggested I find a different projector as a plan B. Hitachi later told him that this was a US model, and it would be a further 10-14 business days for one to get "released" to Canada. (I assume this model was bred at the Hitachi International Wildlife Preserve.)

If I ordered a different model, as Victor suggested, it would arrive in the same 7-14 day timeframe as the Hitachi, namely, during Bluesfest, when I won't have time to play with it. So time was no longer an issue. Stay the course, I said.

To which he replied (my emphasis):

To be honest, we usually sell NEC, Samsung and Viewsonic projectors. Those
are generally stocked at their Canadian warehouses. Looking at the specs on
your Hitachi, you'd be paying a lot more to get the same from either of
those companies.

I'll leave the order open then. Thanks for your patience!

The time delay I could handle, but wasting my time AND my money was infuriating. Why didn't he tell me this before? Maybe he didn't want me to think he was second-guessing me. I was quite tempted to ask for (nay, demand) my deposit back, but that dishonours the sacred notion of the deposit. Hell, I was even considering abandoning the deposit and going elsewhere.

I told him I didn't want to go on another wild goose chase looking for another projector from one of those companies, only to risk getting the runaround again, and I instead asked him to find one with similar specs with a lower price, as he suggested was available.

He responded in two separate messages, one suggesting this behemoth, and the other asking "is size and weight *that* important?"

Meltdown

So far I've only talked about the technical details of this transaction. But during this rigmarole, a lot was going on in my life. On the week of the 15th, I had meetings after work just about every night. On top of that, I had stuff on Saturday and Sunday very early in the morning (including the LRT forum). These last drained what little spirit I had left in me, and I became very tired, unmotivated, and unable to get anything done. In short, I burned out.

I had felt this drained last year after pushing myself too far during Bluesfest, and it took me until the end of August to get back together. Here, I was still half a month away from Bluesfest, and I would need to be back in top form to last it.

On top of this, we had our annual audit at work from the 25th to the 29th of June, and because of our small office, my desk would be needed for the auditors. As much as I tried to frame it as time off, I couldn't forget that it was unpaid time off, right when I needed to shore up my reserves for Bluesfest.

What's worse, the company I work for is having trouble getting funding for my position for this year. My boss told me that these days off would "buy me more days later in the Summer." (A fourth way of seeing these days became 'time to work on my resume')

So the week after the one from hell, I decreed that I wasn't going to any meetings. I met some friends, took some time to myself, dined with family, went to the coffeeshop.

Yet I still felt a malaise the whole time. I literally felt sick (possibly also food poisoning.) All this time off, yet I still couldn't bring myself to so much as clean my apartment, cook a meal, or tend to my pressing to-dos.

I didn't quite realise it, but I think a lot of it had to do with the uncertainty about the projector. It was driving me mad: not only did I not have control of the situation, but I didn't even know where things were at. I was a slave to a timeline of unknown scope and duration.

At least I had the Daily Show and the Colbert Report to keep me from going completely insane. It always sucks when they're on vacation.

Victor admits defeat

On June 26, the second day in a five-day weekend, I had dinner with an old friend. We had Ethiopian food at a place I'd often passed many times but never gone in. It was my first time trying Ethiopian food, and hopefully my last. I had decided not to check my e-mail before meeting my friend, as part of the whole "I'm on vacation" mentality.

After dinner, I found a mid-afternoon e-mail from Victor. He was admitting defeat with Hitachi, who was basically telling him "they'll ship when they ship." He said he'll no longer sell anything from Hitachi to a customer unless his supplier has something in stock. Victor offered me my deposit back.

I thanked him for his persistence with Hitachi, and agreed it would be best to cancel the order and refund the deposit.

CDW saves the day

At some point during the long wait, my boss mentioned that CDW has much more selection on their website than in their print catalogue.

So on Friday night, after e-mailing Victor, I went on their site and found the Hitachi CPX2 for $926.99. In addition to having everything the CPX5 had, it also had an SD card slot. Très cool.

With tax and shipping, the total came to $1086.99. It would ship within 3-6 business days and arrive the following day. So I might get a day or two use out of it before Bluesfest. Wicked.

On Monday morning (June 29), the fifth and last day off, I got a phone message from Alicia at CDW, who wanted to confirm my order. Fair enough, I thought; it's a big enough purchase to warrant double-checking with the customer.

When I phoned her back, though, she told me that this projector was no longer available. Frankly, after the hoopla Victor had with Hitachi, this didn't surprise me.

She pointed me to the ViewSonic PJL3211, which has very similar specifications, including "USB Input". The 4.5 kg weight in the technical specifications is a typo; it's actually 4.1 lbs.

Despite the ViewSonic being $60 more, Alicia said she'd give it to me at the same price as the Hitachi. I confirmed with her that I wouldn't get any catalogues or anything in the mail from CDW, and that was that.

Later in the day, while blowing away on bike accessories the money I'd saved with the cheaper projector, someone else from CDW called me to confirm before running my credit card through. It would go out on June 30th, to arrive on the following business day, July 2nd.

Lifting the weight

On June 30, my life was starting to get back together. I was back in the office, getting my regular dose of workahol, and this projector, which I had been trying to buy for over a month, was finally on its way. I had also taken a bunch of vitamins in the morning, and had a sizeable lunch, in the event that malnutrition was a contributor to my doldrums.

After my work was done, I stayed in the office to get a bunch of my agenda items off my plate. I was finally productive again.

And just in time, as I was working on Wellington Street all day on Canada Day, from 10am to midnight, plus the following day for a few hours, and I'd need a healthy dose of stamina.

This morning, July 2nd, I got a call from a colleague at 9am to let me know my projector had arrived. Very shortly thereafter, I got another call from CDW's Alicia asking to confirm that I had received it. Cleanup after Canada Day took less time than expected, and I was done at 11:30am. I stopped by the office to pick up my projector, ran a couple errands, then went home and set it up.

Unfortunately, "USB Input" on this device's spec sheet means I could plug it in to my computer with a USB cable; it doesn't have a USB drive slot, nor an SD card slot, for independent projection. But my laptop has dual-monitor capabilities, so this isn't a big setback.

Epilogue.

After a post-Canada day nap, I felt my élan has returned. I was able to get those repairs done on my bike, eat stuff, and work through my e-mail inbox. I am, as they say, "back, baby."

But what a whirlwind. Something that had started out as a quick ego-pleasing toy purchase turned into an emotional saga of stress and uncertainty. It was only when the pressure was lifted that I realized how much weight I had ascribed to this one simple goal.

Now, with the dam burst, I have the energy to attack Bluesfest on all cannons, and to get back to my usual routine (of putting off important tasks by blogging voluminously).

More importantly, I can blog on the wall, old school. Take that, Facebook!

- RG>

Street Art Rescue #3 - Elgin Flower Box Rebuild

Swap box season seems to be upon us. Woodsy has posted a blog entry about a damaged swap box she found discarded, and there's a new swap box by the Bridgehead on Elgin.

For those not in the know, a Swap Box is a piece of participatory public guerrilla art where you can leave or take a trinket in its little container. They originate here in Ottawa by an artist known by the pseudonym El Maks, who has also recently started up a "Swap Box Project" blog. See also other posts on my blog with the label "swapbox".

But swap boxes aren't the only form of street art. Maks also makes other public displays, which often refer to current events and political figures. One example is this "A Very Bailout Christmas" diorama posted on Slater near Bank in late December '08 (Kudos to zoom! for the tip on this one)

And other people make street art, too, such as this beautiful flower box on Elgin that went up in late August. [Edit Aug 2009: It's a Super Mario reference] It was initially installed with a nice red rose:

By early October, the plants had been replaced, but didn't keep too well.

After the flowers died, I was actually surprised that it stayed up for as long as it did. I guess the dark colouring kept it out of sight for anyone who would do harm to it. At some point in the winter, I put a fake rose on a piece of coat hanger wire and tried to stick it in the soil but I forgot about the part where freezing cold temperatures makes soil very stiff, so I bent the coat hanger wire and loosely propped it in the box. It was gone very shortly after, and I never got a photo of this.

The box survived on the hydro pole until February 17th. I was walking up Elgin when I saw that the box had been broken off:

Luckily, the rest of it was lying on the ground, and all of the pieces were there. Unlike my previous swap box rescues on Elgin and on Gladstone, an on-the-spot repair wouldn't do the trick, so I put the pieces in a bag and brought it home to my workshop to repair.

As a frequent visitor to Woodgears.ca and Cockeyed.com, I made sure to take photos of the construction process.

Fixing the box would be easy. But replacing a broken empty box with a repaired empty box wouldn't be very interesting. I'm not patient enough to try to plant some seeds in there and wait for something to grow, so I made my own flowers.

The petals are made from the slats of some horizontal blinds that someone had thrown out a couple years ago which I had trimmed to fit my window. I made two completely different middle bits for the two flowers. One is from a Kinder Surprise egg with some slivers of black plastic shaved melted in for stamen (the plastic came from a spare bike accessory part that I was probably never going to need).

The other is a knob off a cupboard or dresser or something I would have picked up on garbage night. I have boxes of fixtures of all kinds--hinges, handles, knobs--that I remove from old dressers that people are discarding (and which are too far gone for anyone to want to take home).

With my soldering iron, I poked some holes in the black plastic knob, and little lips formed around the holes (which I sliced off... I suppose I could have left them there). The lips looked like miniature unused condoms, especially when you click on the photo to see it close up.

I then decided the holes weren't interesting enough, so I tried melting some metallic pink glass beads into the holes, but they didn't stay. I then tried filling the holes little globs of (lead-free) solder, and it worked quite well. Below you can see a freshly-added glob in the middle, which is still shiny. The globs quickly lost their sheen as they cooled.

I attached them to coat hanger wire (with hooked bottom ends to keep them firmly planted) and wrapped the wire with green painter's tape to bulk and pretty them up. I then coated the stems with glue for protection.

I repaired the box, which didn't involve much special. I used glue and new screws, simply because I had them around for miscellaneous projects like this, and because they'd be stronger than the nails that failed to keep it together the first time. (Also because using used screws would mean drilling different-size holes and using different bits to screw in the different heads.)

With the box back in one piece, next came decorating.

I had some little label holders from a box that was with my great-grandfather's lathe (which is looking for a good home with a rich collector, by the way!). I fashioned a label out of another metal blind slat, inscribed something on it with a nail (I settled on the word "LIVE". Tip: clamp the nail in some vice grips for better control), crimped the edges so the label wouldn't fall out, then attached it to the box.

I then attached a bow (made from a piece of ribbon I had lying around. I actually had tied the bow quite a while ago and kept it because I hadn't expected to make such a nice bow on the first try) with an industrial staple that was in my containers. I probably pulled out of an old box spring at some point. Actually no, wait--it was from an IKEA Läde. (I know, that's no way to treat a Läde!)

Next I planted the flowers. Not "planted"--I actually had to plant them, with potting soil (and glue, for good measure).

Anyway, short story long, here's the finished product:

Remembering how hard it had been to stick the rose in the frozen soil, I put the box in the freezer overnight to help the soil freeze and the glue set (also so that the soil wouldn't shake all around in my bag during delivery). This would help prevent tampering.

I signed the repaired box and returned it to its former home, good as new.

Installé!

It's actually depressing that, even with the flowers, most people don't even notice it. Their loss, I suppose.

Oh, and here's a shot of El Maks' lovely new swap box on Elgin:

Help keep street art alive--support your local swap box!

- RG>