i caught the late train today, my hockey game last night was pretty late (10:45 pm) – so days following that i’m usually pretty sluggish. i’m taking the train because, well, tired. last night as i was gearing down after the game i was thinking of taking the train today, then i was plagued with all the things i was supposed to do.. i need to take my car in for it’s 30k checkup, oil change, rotate the tires etc. i’m about 150 miles past it and ‘have been meaning’ to get it in for a while. so now i’m thinking of my ‘to-do’ list and all that entails, and i don’t even really know all that it entails, because there’s dozens, possibly hundreds of things that i’m sure i’ve said ‘sure, i’ll put that on my to-do list’ and then promptly forgotten.

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taking the train today made me think of some of the many differences between urban and unurbanized areas, and even many of the differences between cities. my first thoughts were of the sprawl, a la william gibson’s vision of the near future. for those of you not familiar with gibson’s works (shame on you) such as neuromancer and mona lisa overdrive, he writes of bama, the boston-atlanta metropolitan axis, where the entire east coast has become a thousand mile urban sprawl, inseparable into smaller towns, cities or boroughs, except on a map. as i stood on the platform at the capitol lr station, i can look out over two hills, both of which show new subdivisions and also more housing under construction. one section of new housing, built within the last 18 months is built in the same style as sf housing, units that are only ~25 feet wide, but very deep, and 3-4 split levels, so as to maximize the use of available space. i actually like the shape and look of that housing, i find it quite aesthetically pleasing. then, as i viewed how far san jose is spread out, i started looking at it in a different way… it is quite ugly, when i stop to think about it. poorly planned, a huge, sprawling, choking mass, with very little going for it, except that someone thought it would be a good idea to cut down orange and cherry orchards and build stark, cold, gleaming tech buildings that will no doubt continue to be empty for the foreseeable future. san francisco is quite small, from an area point of view. (i don’t know exactly, but if the city itself comprises more than a dozen or two square miles, i’d be shocked). and nearly eight hundred thousand people live there. that’s about 20-25% less people than live in sj, but when you look at sj, i’m sure that it probably takes up 10 times the amount of area. why? why the waste of space? so then we get to my next thought, and the rambling (even more so than already) will begin. i stood waiting for the train, and wondered what changes there would be if transportation modes had never gotten to the personal level? like if we had transit on large scale (busses, trucks, train, airplanes), but not individual cars? i understand that it would make living in more remote areas difficult, but my main focus was how would our cities, towns and living places differ? no garages needed to store them, so would houses be generally bigger? would our roads be much smaller? i don’t know, i’m just in a wondering mood. i was raised almost entirely in small towns. i’m very much a small town person at heart, and i think to where my parents live. i remember that one time we went away on vacation, and my dad locked the door (probably the first time he locked it since we had moved in) and when we got back, we didn’t have a key to open it. (who needs a key when you leave the door unlocked all the time?) that image to me symbolizes life in a time past, when things were simpler and kindlier, and exemplifies life in a small town to me (however unrealistic this vision might be j) and i definitely yearn for that again. i sincerely hope that when i am ready to move on again in my life (for whatever reason – family, job, etc) that the opportunity is there not just to move to a small town, but to move back east somewhere, because i also miss the leaves turning in the fall, and the smell of a summer storm, and the snow on the trees, and it’s not easy to get those things living in san jose.

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i am a canadian. i remember when i saw that ad the first time. i laughed pretty hard, reflected on it a bit, and filed it away. i’m kind of in the mood for some reflections on it so i figured: “hey, i’m on the train, got some time, might as well.”; i am, in fact a canadian. i actually have dual citizenship in both ca and the us, but i most definitely consider myself a canuck. you can infer what you want from it, but i must say that i am pretty darn proud to be a canadian. when having this discussion with people, it often goes like this:

them: “so what’s different about here(us) and there(canada)?”

me:”well, the biggest difference is that americans are very serious about it.”

them: “serious about what?!?”

me: “about being american.”

which is definitely not to say that canadians aren’t serious about patriotism, etc etc, just that we don’t take it to the extreme that, honestly, i find americans do. i’ve been told by several people that they have, occasionally, felt like the canadians make fun of the us. i must say that i was shocked, shocked at this revelation. of course the canadians are making fun of the us. the whole world is, why not us? ;) what people don’t realize is that the people that canadians make fun of most, is the canadians. it’s just that when you have such an easy target available… i know that some people are going to be outraged and annoyed, probably my wife is too (hi honey!) but that kind of proves my point. first of all, get down off your high horse, because life is too silly to take everything personally. next, take a step back. tell me that just about everything doesn’t have an element of humour in it. if you can’t find your sense of humour, well, then rage away. flames will be redirected to /dev/null, and you’ll have a heart attack and die at age 31 anyway. so as for me, i’m going to put on my mukluks & my toque, grab a slab of back bacon and some labatts, and go watch the hockey game. take off eh!

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wondered whatever became of me, i’m livin on the air in cincinnati, cincinnati, wkrp.

i was thinking earlier this week about pivotal points in life. like you’re faced with a decision and you make a choice and you wonder what would have happened had you gone the other way.. i remember one choice like that.. if you’re not a geek or gamer, very little of this will make sense to you. in college & for a few years after i was a big gamer. my main obsession was magic, the gathering. a bit of background: mtg is owned by wizards of the coast, the people who now own d&d and just about every game under the sun. they have a yearly professional tour circuit, which is invitation only. in order to win an invitation to a pro-tour, you compete in qualifier tournaments. a friend of mine, steve spisak was going to ann arbour, michigan for one of these qualifier tournaments, and although i had never played in one before, i thought, what the heck, i got nothing better to do. so we picked up a couple others, eric tam and paul mccabe, and made the drive down to michigan (from hamilton, ontario). eric berates the chaff deck i’ve made and builds me one he got from somewhere, and i manage to fight my way through 8 rounds into the top-8 (as does steve, and our host, fish ). my first round i play someone who i played in the swiss rounds and i know his deck, and know how to beat it, which i do handily in the first game. the second game we get into a battle for one of his cards, and although i can win the battle, i choose to let it go and save some of my firepower for later, which proves to be a mistake, since he uses the card in a way that i didn’t expect, and kills me. same thing third game, although i didn’t have the power to stop him then. i’ve looked back at that often and wondered what would have happened, had i chose to win that battle. would i have won the tournament and started making the rounds on the tour? world travel? fame & fortune (well, you know.. geek fame…). i don’t know, but it’s one of those moments that i think about.

at the time it didn’t seem like one of those pivotal moments, but since then i’ve come to think of it as such. i look at people that i used to hang out with at the time. some of the most noted are gary wise (still a pro-tour competitor) and jeff donais, who went on to work for wizards. they’re doing well for themselves, but i can easily see how my life could have paralleled theirs instead of diverging to where it is now.. married, working a 9-5, 1.5 kids & the house in suburbia. that’s not to say that i’m unhappy with my life, quite the opposite. i just wonder.. what if.

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my dad had throat cancer and had his voice box removed in the summer of 2000. he had radiation therapy and managed an almost complete recovery. that was 3 years ago.
now he’s been diagnosed again, and i wonder what kind of struggle he will have to go through to fight it again. he’s almost 70, but one of the most solid people i’ve ever met. i realize he probably has a tough battle to go through, possibly including surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, which i wouldn’t wish on anyone, and in the long run, some people might think is it worth it?
is it worth the pain and suffering and operations and drugs just to get one or two more years? well, in the last three years, there have been so many things happen, just in our own family, such as

watching two children get married

the birth of his first grandchild

seeing three children graduate university

and if he were to live 3 or 5 more years, how much more could he see? just looking at that list, i think that any one of them would be worth fighting for.
then that brought me to another thought. i am a father, and a husband. when i made the decision to get married, and further, when my wife and i made the decision to have children, my life suddenly was no longer my own. not that i am unable to make decisions concerning my life, but now i must consider their impact on my family.
so that brings me to my question. does my dad have an obligation to my mom, my sisters and brothers, and to me, and my wife and daughter to try to spend as many more years, months, or even days with us as he can? is it ethical for him to decide not to undergo surgery or chemo or any therapy that might prolong his life?
please understand that i’m not making any judgements or engaging any moral imperatives here, i’m just raising the question. never having been in a similar situation, i can’t possibly imagine the mindset, or the different flood of thoughts, feelings, and emotions that must go into such a decision.
the other thing that i know must be thought about, with regards to the ‘is it worth it’ argument, is will it have any effect? it’s possible to have all the operations and therapy in the world and it have little or no effect. the other side of the coin, of course, are the survivors. the people who beat it once, twice, or many times.
when i was about 12 or 13, a friend of my mom’s was found to have cancer, all through her. her doctor performed a double masectomy, removed her uterus and she was told that with aggressive chemo and radiation, she could live another 4 to six months. she went through hell for 4 months, the most debilitating therapy that anyone could go through. that was 16 years ago, and she is fully healthy today, no recurrences, and is as strong a sign that this can be overcome as you could want. i know that things don’t always turn out that way, but for now, that’s a hope that i can cling to.

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