We lived in Montreal from 1968 to 1980. Winters in Montreal are truly horrific with temperatures dropping to -30C on a regular basis. I would walk Janet home after a date, then walk home from her house, a 45 minute jaunt through the balmy winter temperatures. I was dressed for the occasion and was never cold. Heavy winter coat, snowmobile boots, good gloves and so on.

We were in Swaziland in 1999. My father had just died and we were there for the funeral. We were going out one night. I was dressed in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. One of the locals looked at me and said I could not go out like that. I thought I was breaking some sort of local protocol. He explained that it was too cold. How cold is it? I asked. 10C, he says. I laughed. Call me when it gets to -20C. He thought about that for a moment then exclaimed that he had no idea what that would feel like.

Nahed Rushdy was at our house in Montreal for a visit. My mother always insisted that I drive everyone home. Too cold to have people wait for the bus. This evening was no different. We were all ready to leave when Nahed remarked about my lack of a winter coat. She insisted that a coat was in order, a sweater was just not warm enough. She even went so far as to remark that it was not more manly to behave the way I was. Fetneh came to my rescue. She sighed, he is not being manly, he is never cold. She sounded a bit exasperated, she was always cold.

I could not leave the house this past winter without a coat. It was not even a cold winter. Depressing. I have also lost my tolerance for heat. Cannot take a hot shower, drink hot beverages or food.

I have trouble adjusting to the slightest change in the condition of my stomach. I have a huge tolerance for foods, able to digest the most formidable of things. Indian food is back on the white list, as is Ethiopian food. The hot pepper sauce that some food joints love to add to your food is big on the no list. Mexican and middle east house are particularly partial to these sauces. Almost like adding Tabasco sauce to a meal. Every meal is becoming an adventure. I have yet to develop a concrete idea of what sends my stomach into a turmoil of activity. My tolerance for different foods changes all the time. Salads are good some days, and not on others.

I think, looking back, that my first inkling that my tolerances are changing should have taken place in the hospital. I was terrible at taking drugs, with my body reacting in totally unpredictable ways. Hardly the time to become conscious of tolerances, I must admit. As I said, looking back…

Every day since the operation has carried a relevance of sorts into what the body can tolerate. I looked at my naked body in a full length mirror the other day. It happened quite by accident. Came out of the bathroom in our hotel room in New York to find myself in front of the mirror. My body has gone through its fair share of changes over the years, from athletic to overweight to the sudden and unexpected battering that was the operation.

A bag, a scar, a port-a-cath. The bruises, the result of the new set of self administered injections. The bruises are expected, though hardly welcome. The body keeps absorbing the abuse that is heaped upon it. The visible signs surely point to the more extensive damage that was done internally, not just by the operation, but the myriad number of drugs it is forced to absorb.

Tolerances build up over time. Sometimes through ignorance of what is really going on. Other times though ignoring the many signs that are pointing in a very definite direction. The symptoms of my condition were there for a long time. I could no longer eat as much as I used to. Some foods had started disagreeing with me. I put it down to a changing constitution brought on by old age. At least older age. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I was sitting in La Guardia airport waiting for our flight home. Alarms went off. Soldiers came running. No guns were pulled. The soldiers stopped in front of a corridor and started chatting, then laughing, seemingly oblivious to the alarm itself. The public was not moved, no one reacted to the alarm. Another new normal.

Tolerance levels have changed.

I had lunch with my father in law the other day. I always enjoy his company (he may be reading this). We talked about the operation. I remember waking up and wondering when they were going to start. We are finished they said. I lost eight hours with those words. I have no words for what it feels like to lose eight hours out of your life. Almost a full day.

No recollections, no memories, nothing. Eight hours just went by and you have no idea what happened. You are alive, so it could not have been that bad. The lack of recollection is hard to forget or get over. My pa-in-law remarked that it is probably as close as we can get to death and come back to this life. Strange thought that. If that is what death is like, then I will have no recollection of that either. Except it may last a bit longer than eight hours.

I am seeing my oncologist this coming week, and my surgeon the week after. I might suggest we have champagne to celebrate. If only I drank. A number of my friends wanted to know if I was about to change my ways and start drinking.

On a separate note, I got a phone call from a telemarketer from the U.S.. She wanted to know if I wanted to move by business bank account to the TD Bank. I told her I was out of business. She went on to explain the benefits of making the move. I told her the company was closed. She went on again with her script. Again, I said, the company is closed. Oh, you are out of business? I told her that was a bit harsh and I still prefer to say that y company is closed. They can still provide me with some services, for instances coming up with a new business plan.

There was little point in continuing. She was very nice on the phone. Had a good way about her. I did not want to be rude and just hang up. I told her that I was not interested because I have cancer. She did not miss beat. Calcium is good for fighting cancer, she has read. A telemarketer is giving me cancer advice. Wonderful world is it not?

She mentioned that calcium creates an alkaline environment which is not favorable to cancer cells. She also suggested that I deprive the cancers cells of oxygen. I explained that while it was true that an alkaline environment is not favorable, I am not sure how much calcium you have to take for it be effective. It is highly probable that the amounts you have to take would damage your system. That is possible of course, but she had just read an article on calcium healing cancer. She was a nice lady.

I think every day of my friend who is about to go into palliative care. Her cancer has run its course, I accompanied her for her appointment with the department the other day. Strange to be there. I am glad I went.

Little value, that is, until someone else comes along and sees something in the research that warrants a further look. The research is taken to another level, until someone, somewhere, brings the research to a useful end.

There are more of these examples that we know about. PostIt notes are, supposedly the result of researching the solution to one problem and coming up with the notes that we all know and love today. A number of items we take for granted in the computer industry were invented and shelved. The inventors found little value in the objects. The mouse, Ethernet connectivity that the web runs on, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) used in all major operating systems, were invented at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) owned and operated by Xerox. The brilliant scientists and thinkers employed at PARC kept inventing, but no one commercialized their products.

It tool someone like Steve Jobs who borrowed their inventions, most notably the mouse and GUI to create the MAC. A bit of, are you using this? Do you mind if I take it? No please, go right ahead. It tool IBM to capitalize on the computer by taking it one step further. They commissioned their engineers to come up with a personal computer using off the shelf components. No new inventions. As expensive as they original PCs were, this kept the price down.

I was the Marketing manager at a hardware and software distributor called Ingram Micro. We are going back many years here, pre Web. We had a meeting with Seiko, a company that is much larger than meets the eye. After all was said and done, one of the engineers showed us a touch screen that would run on a MAC. You might take touch screens as a given, specially with the popularity of the iPhone. You have also all seen them used in restaurants and others locations. Touch screens were a rarity in those days. Their performance was spotty and people were just beginning to let their imaginations wander to see what they could do with these. We all looked at the yellow screen and thought it was cool and wonderful. It worked quite well. None of us could imagine what it could be used for. Nor could the engineers at Seiko. We have not heard of the product since.

You are all familiar, by now, with Bluetooth, the technology that allows you to connect your smart phone to the ear piece. Bluetooth was originally created to offer a secure wireless connection between two devices in close proximity to one another, no more than 7ft, about 2m. The technology now boasts a range of over 300ft, 100m. The rules for technologies such as Bluetooth are set by a consortium. These rules are updated on a regular basis. The Bluetooth consortium was revising their rules to upgrade the technology. They were approached by a manufacturer of chemicals who suggested that one of the proposals who get in the way of a device being used by the chemical company.

This came as a surprise to all in the room. What would a manufacturer of chemicals have to do with Bluetooth? This was a technology developed for computers. It turns out that the chemical company had developed these very small balls that contained a thermometer and a Bluetooth transmitter. They would drop these in the vats of chemicals and could tell what the core temperature of the vats were. Essential information when creating these mixes. Linear thinkers meet lateral thinkers.

I would theorize that linear thinkers are mostly doers, while lateral thinkers are, well mostly thinkers connecting disparate dots. There are always crossovers. People who have a leg in each camp.

One always starts wondering at some point how these stories will relate to what I am going through. Here goes.

I am now taking part in a clinical trial run by Dr Robert Buckman. This is being done with the blessing of Dr Hedley. I am the only colon cancer patient in the group. Everyone wants to know the names of the drugs i am taking. I showed the list to someone recently. They were surprised that none of the drugs are new. Dr Buckman has taken existing drugs and decided on an alternate use for them, changing doses and treatments. Meet Dr Buckman,the lateral thinker.

The success or failure of the idea is rarely the issue. Success of a medical clinical trial is obviously a desirable outcome. Time will tell on this one.

Date: 2007

Location: New York

Story: We were having a couple of drinks in the meat packing district. The district is going through a massive renovation and scaling up to the upper classes of society. Not sure why we were admitted. The restaurant was located on top of one of the building. This was one of the views. I was fascinated by the rooftops with so many plants of them. Just did not seem like our image of New York.

Our family went on vacation in the Yukon in 1994 or 1995. We stayed with some friends in Dawson City, a small town made famous during the gold rush of the twenties. We flew to Vancouver, connecting to Whitehorse. We rented a van to complete the drive to Dawson City. We were warned about speeding. The fact that we should avoid it. Cops, we asked coming from the big city? No, they said, bears and moose. Hit one of those and you are pretty much done. Specially the moose. They have long legs and roll over the hood of the car straight into the windshield crushing all who happen to be in the way.

This is not to mention the occasional forest fire that might impede your drive. And the lack of gas stations. The closest one is located about where you will run our of gas if you drive at the regular speed. Drive any faster, and you will be out of gas sooner, where there are no gas stations. And there might be bears. Got it, do not speed.

We saw a stunning lake and decided to pull over on the shoulder to enjoy the scenery, maybe take a picture or two. Pulling over is very safe. Not like there is a lot of traffic. Pull over we did. There was this sudden sinking feeling. We were not depressed. The car started sinking into the permafrost. A lot like driving in sand, or more appropriate with our experience, snow. Being the quick thinkers we are, we decided against stopping to ponder the situation, and instead kept driving at the same speed pulling ourselves out of danger.

The ice that covers the north melts in the short summer creating the permafrost. About 18 inches of very soft something that covers the ice beneath. It is soft and mushy and heavy with mosquitoes who refused to bite us for some reason. We walked on a lot of this stuff and never got bit. Safe to walk on, dangerous to drive.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. No bears, no moose, in fact, no wildlife of any kind. Only thing we saw was acres and acres of burnt out forest. Turns out they had a forest fire a week before. People slept in their trucks waiting to continue their drive. Always have a blanket and candles handy, and food.The forest on both sides of the highway was black, charred, heavy with the smell of burned wood. One giant bar-b-que. We noticed clumps of trees that had survived the fire. Almost as if the fire had swirled around them sparing their lives. The future of the forest guaranteed in their staying alive. A clump of green surrounded by the black. Could not stop to take pictures.

We purchased a Canon video camera for the trip. This was before the amazing handycams you can buy today. Even before digital cameras. I loved taking movies, hated the editing process. All the movies are still on tape somewhere in this house. I will find them one day and transcribe them to the hard drive. Prepare to be bored.

My forte was making people talk about themselves, lowering their barriers. One of the first jobs I had in Canada was with an outfit called Household Finance, HFC. They gave loans to people who were unappreciated by the banks. Rates of interest equal to that of credit cards. There was no shortage of demand. Most of the branches were in disadvantaged areas. They fired me after two years. Turns out I was an excellent lender, terrible at collecting.

In my first week, I was told to see a customer who was waiting in the consulting room. He wants a loan. Fill out the forms. No problem. I came back to the manager with a half filled form. What about the rest of the information, he asks. Are you kidding me? Way too personal questions. I could never ask those, and why would they answer. The manager was a big burly man who had been with the company for twenty years. Trained a whole bunch of people just like me. Go back, he says, fill out the rest. I think he found the whole thing a bit amusing.

Back I went, screwed up my courage and started asking the questions required to fill out the rest of the form. Much to my surprise, the applicant was more than happy to answer the questions. Volunteered more information. Ask, and you shall receive, And receive I did. I discovered over the next couple of years, that if asked with the proper tone, people will reveal all sorts of information about themselves. The success f Facebook is a testament to this.

This observation has been confirmed many times over the years. Open the door with the right question, and wait for the deluge of information.

So it was on our trip to the Yukon. Ask the right question, and people will talk. The stone carver was more than happy to reveal his secrets. Fill the gaps with more questions, and more answers pour out. No one else appeared to enjoy these moments as much as Janet and I did. They were way too long. I hate editing. The tapes are buried in the basement somewhere.

I find myself now, not in the position of the inquisitor, but of the one being questioned. I am the one who has to decide how much information to divulge. How much information does the person want? How to dissect the question? The latter is very important. I have found over the years, that people rarely ask you questions they want answers to. It is the inferred question that is important. People would ask me question about computers. Why did the computer do this? I discovered by looking at the glaze in people’s eyes, that the question was not asked properly. What they wanted to know was, did they cause the computer to crash or misbehave. The answer eventually became, you did not cause this to happen, and you cannot prevent it from happening again. Here is what you can do to protect yourself from its consequences.

The same principles apply now. Different people have different tolerances to information. Diana wants to know and see everything. She was the first to ask to see the bag. Most people do not know how to ask to see the bag. She, on the other hand, said, can I see it? We were in the hospital at the time. She saw the bag, and the staples. Wow. The action on her part help me get accustomed to my situation. She was not repulsed, or did she faint. She touched the staples and the conversation continued.

We were at Heather’s farm the other week. Heather and family were there. It was an altogether very pleasant weekend. A lot of conversation flowed, philosophies expounded upon. All the worlds problems were solved. I talked a fair bit, mostly about myself. Given the relationship, the conversation would very often go in other directions. I was very grateful for that. I am off the hook. We are talking about other things that have nothing to do with my condition.

I remember at one point sitting there thinking, why are we not talking about me? I was conflicted. On the one hand grateful that we were not talking about me, on the other wondering why there was no interest in talking about me. It was interesting to notice how much I have become accustomed to talk about myself and my condition.

Kali and I get together for lunch about every two weeks. Much appreciated. We talk about me for a brief bit, then continue talking about all sorts of other things. I have known Kali for the better part of fifteen year. We both feel that we have grown a lot closer since we have been having these lunches. All that talk has to lead to something.

Catherine has been home this summer. She has back problems. Collapsed or slipped discs. She comes over once in a while. More to the point, we pick her up. She comes to our house and lies on the couch. We talk a lot. We went swimming the other day. It is very amusing to have the two of us with our fair share of physical ailments conferring with one another. The conversation is easy. We both get tired easily, both need to lie down regularly, both laugh at ourselves a lot. There are a lot of similarities.

Fetneh will not leave me alone. We talk every couple of days. Thank God for Skype. We do not seem to run out of subject in spite of the frequency of our conversations. I always look forward to the call. I always answer the phone if I can. Doesn’t matter what condition I am in. I can always call her back when I am in better shape.

Conversations are what connects us to one another. What us able to live together, put up with the most bizarre idiosyncrasies. Conversations frustrate us. Some think quicker than others. Some like me, need a couple of days to assimilate information and come up with clear thoughts. Others like Janet, want to jump in and talk right away and get tot he bottom of things. She has never gotten used to my need for a couple of days to put my thoughts together.

Conversation. Keep them coming. Even if you are not talking about me. Though I would have to question you severely in those cases.

This post is prompted by an editorial that appeared in the Toronto Sun penned by John Snobelen. He was the Minister of Education in the Conservative government of Mike Harris. It was a very controversial government. The Toronto Sun is not one of the better papers, but its standard is elevated substantially by Mr Snobelen.

He wrote an editorial recently on the need for the City of Toronto to take care of its garbage in its own back yard. All cities suffer from the interference of a vocal group who insist on keeping everything out of their back yards. They all belong to a group called NIMBY as in Not in my Back Yard. Politicians often cave in to their demands. They are very vocal about what they do not want, but rarely offer alternative suggestions. Mr Snobelen suggested that the garbage issue be made a Provincial one, not a municipal one. This has a lot of merit.

We lived in Ethiopia between 1953 and 1963. We spent 7 years living in a compound that consisted of two buildings housing 8 families. These were not large facilites, but they were great for us, specially the children. We had a huge garden to play in, and the company of all the other kids in the buildings. We also had a land fill in our back yard. And I mean our back yard, close to the house. It serviced all the families and was covered by a wooden structure with a trap door in the middle through which we disposed of our garbage. No trucks required. The land fill never filled up in all the years we were there. Rats? Mice? The feral cats took care of those. Our garbage issue was as local as it gets. Times have changed.

But those were simpler times. No junk food, no packaging like we have today. No plastics. Just about everything was re-used. Made for very little garbage, mostly of the green variety.

Ask anyone what is the population of Toronto, and you will get answers varying in number up to 5.5 million (Ontario has a population of about 9 million). The city itself has a population of about 2.2 million. But once you add all the cities around us, the number jumps. This includes cities within a radius of about 50 to 60km. That is quite a wide net. It also shows that our garbage is generated, not just by us, but by all the commuters who come into the city every day. Our highways are clogged, as is our public transport system with the commuters. This makes the garbage issue a Provincial one.

No solution to anything does not have some side effects. The question is, how can you mitigate the side effects?

Technology has long been touted as the God of solving all our problems. Throw enough technology at anything and a solution will come up. I will add that politicians with vision and gumption is the second half of the equation. Second half. Without their approval, no amount of technology on the table will be applied. We have to start breaking out of our comfort zone, take a leap of faith and try some amazing solutions that are presenting themselves. Some are proven, some are on the books and have not had the pleasure of being tested in real life situations. But they are amazing solutions.

Put them together, and your garbage crisis disappears. I am willing to bet that landfills will be virtually empty in a very short amount of time.

The first way to reduce garbage is to reduce, reuse, and of course recycle. This is a lot easier said than done. The facilities to recycle have to be built. The plastic industry does not help. Only because they break their own rules. They came up with standards, those little unreadable numbers that is included in almost all plastics. Would it kill them to make the numbers larger? They then break their own standards by adding additional compounds to the plastics. So not all number 1 plastics are the same. This makes recycling plastics almost impossible. It forces the authorities to review every single plastic product made and make a case by case decision. This is silly. The first order of the day is for the plastics industry to revamp their standards, and the manufacturers to stick to the standards. Don’t care how many numbers they create.

Putting in place a number of technologies will help mitigate some of the more pressing issues. Can the trucks that dispose of our garbage generate electricity? Either through technologies built into roads, or by changing the types of trucks we use?

I understand that some technologies have to be tested before they are implemented. Many years ago, someone started using plastic bags along with asphalt to build roads. The plastic bags were turned into plastic pellets first, then used to make the road. These were supposed to last 10 times longer than traditional roads. The technology was being tested on one our busier highways. We have heard nothing about it since.

Every city has its own fair share of problems. I was visiting the Science Center in Toronto, on year. Yes, year. Do not go on a regular basis. There was a display that looked like a lot of bridges and their supporting structure. The man in charge proceeded to talk to me about the technologies involved in building a bridge in Toronto. Turns out that the bridges contract and expand up to seven times a year. That is the number of times the weather changes sufficiently to cause the expansion and contraction. He went on to explain the strain and damage this creates on our infrastructure. Roads cracking, water mains bursting and so on.

We lived in Iran between 1963 and 1965. I remember the roads were buckling under the 40 degree Celsius temperatures that pounded the city. Nothing could be done about it. The heat melted the asphalt. The evenings would could it down and it would harden. This would go on every day during the summer months. Different city, different climate, different problems.

We can surely still experiment with some of this stuff. One of the major irritants is the number of people who say to me that the solution will not help solve the problem. I get the distinct impression that people are looking for the one stop solution. I do not believe there is one. A bunch of smaller solutions will add up to make the solution easier to handle.

Links:

Converting waste to electricity

Burning garbage in Tokyo

Building roads using recycled plastics, Grade 10 project

Electricity from vibrations, BBC article

Solar powered roads, Treehugger article

Energy from cars driving on roads, New Energy Technologies, Inc.

Charging electric cars while driving, Ingenieurgesellschaft Auto und Verkehr (IAV)

Roadblocks to high speed trains in the US, The Wilson Quarterly

Date: May 2006

Location: Barcelona

Story: Not much to tell. At the foot of the Rambla stood this building, a youth hostel of sorts. Busy place in spite of the disrepair. I did not go inside to see what state the building was in. Barcelona renovates a lot of the old building, maintaining the facade, while erecting an new inside. An technique that has been perfected in Montreal.

Date: December 2008

Location: Mexico City

Story: We had a great time in Mexico City. By all accounts a very dangerous place to be. We were told umpteen times to not ever, under any circumstances to take flag down a taxi, Always, under all conditions, call the hotel to send you a car.

A car picked us up at the airport. A wonderful young man who spoke English drive us into town. We booked his services the next day. Cost us around $140. Worth every penny. The young man drove us from place to place, waiting patiently for us to return. Our shopping bags were put in the trunk. The camera was the only give away that we were not locals.

This picture was taken outside a cathedral in the core of the city. One of those pictures that appealed to me. The right amount of shade and shadows, light beaming in, and the very imposing structure.

We read and talk about people not knowing what to say, or how to behave, but I think there is more to it than that. Not sure what it is, have not read any studies on the subject. Maybe I should. Or not. There appears to be some opportunism or reverse opportunism in all of this.

A bit of – I have no use for this person any more. They have stopped being fun. Turned into a downer. All they talk about it their chronic condition. Not interested in watching sports any more. Not interested in shopping and all the other things that made you fun to be with. Why is the chronic person so quick tempered and angry all the time? Time for new friends, or more to the point, renewed friendships.

People rising to the occasion, visiting, talking, making their presence felt one way or another. Everyone catering to their strengths. Some just dropping by for a visit, companionship. Others making conversation, others lending you their cottages, or places to while away your time. Whether one takes advantage of the occasion, the offers, is hardly germane. One appreciates the sentiment, the offer, the gesture, the sentiment.

People are constantly telling me they might die any time as well. Avoiding the crisis. Death is hardly ever a pleasant conversation, nor is the specter of imminent death, whether speculated as something that is about to happen tomorrow or in ten years, a very pleasant thought to live with. Yet, here we are. Are people attempting to defuse the subject? Is there a benefit to telling the chronic person that there is competition to dying?

We would surely leads our lives differently if we believed truly that we could die at any minute, negating the doomsday scenario that prevails the chronic person. We live our lives the way we should, planning ahead, looking forward to watching in horror as our children grow up. Waiting patiently for the grand children, the travels, the parties, the friends.

Only a crisis provokes serious concerns about imminent death. The concerns soon evaporate as reality set in. We do not know when we will be lining up at the pearly gates. Even my friend who is dying and is seeing the palliative doctors has really no idea when the day will come. We just know that we have to be prepared for it in a way others don’t.

The crisis that is my condition has subsided somewhat. People have returned to their daily lives. This just a footnote to keep track of. So it should be. It is enough that it has disrupted the lives of one family, let alone a need for it to disrupt those of so many more.

Date: 2003

Location: Honduras

Story: We went out for dinner. I had a Sony Cybershot at the time. A whopping 2.1MP to take pictures with. It was a lot at the time. Shows how much we have progressed since. The camera was very slow which turned out to be a good thing. You could take trick shots. This is a bit harder now, but still possible.

These appear to be smoke rings defying all laws, just floating in mid air. This shot was taken at night, without a flash. This caused the shutter to remain open for a longer period than usual. Waving the camera around made sure that everything is out of focus, giving the picture an eerie look.