'Dog. Saw. Man.'

This is what George labelled this picture when he sent it to Courtney from his iPhone. It was taken up at the Walker's cottage in Coboconk, home of WCONK - Conk Radio. The town opted for 'Coby' as a nickname - I still go with 'The Conk.' I think it's much more powerful.

Atticus doesn't like it when people he feels should be inside with him are outside, or when he is kept inside when he would rather be outside, especially when he can see those people through the sliding glass door.

I was building a cat tree for the kittens and didn't want to saw indoors with a giant puppy at my heels. There's no emergency vet in Coboconk.

I'm back in Toronto, as well. I took an early train back home. Ottawa got stale - rrreeeaaalll fast.

Suzuki Style: Check It!

So I was at LAC going through the 1977-1978 Annual Report of the now defunct Science Council of Canada, and they always have a list of that years members at the beginning of it so people can put names to faces. Who do I come across?

BAM! SUZUKI! Surrounded by the whitest of white males, and a few whiter than white females, there's this long-haired, goateed, wire-rim glassed, non-white male in what appears to be ... not a business suit, of all things. How 'bout that?

And when everyone else is looking like Mr. Harold L. Snyder from St. John's, Nfld, you tend to notice a guy like David a whole lot faster than usual. Also, I didn't even realize that 'Quirks and Quarks' had been around that long!

So here's to sticking out in a crowd, and the good work that Suzuki does, despite being a bit of an arrogant dick these days.  

Newfoundland Wedding!

I would like to thank Ms. Janice Molloy and Mr. John Crosby not only for getting married next year, and not only for generally being awesome Newfoundlanders, and not so much for getting married in November in the freezing cold, but mostly for invitin' me! So Congrats not only to Janice and John, but mostly to me for after having been invited!

Newfoundland weddings, pictured above, are known for their general good times, and I am greatly looking forward to November 12th, 2010. But not looking forward as much to getting there - in winter - around highway Moose and snow squalls. At least all the tree's in Newfoundland will provide some wind cover, right? All those tree's in Newfoundland?

And special thanks to Janice for being on the ball - and in Ottawa this past Monday night - so that we could catch up. We had a great time! I hadn't seen that girl in five years, and now she's getting married. They grow up so fast...

(P.S. Janice is the one dancing in the photo, and I think John is the burley man rockin' grey flannel on grey cotton checkin' her out. I'm the contemplative man in white flannel fastidiously studying her dance moves. Courtney may or may not be playing the accordion: or that could be Kurt Vonnegut's ghost, I don't know. Anything can happen in Newfoundland - it's Canada's Las Vegas! Good Newfoundland times. Can't wait!)

In Honour of the Namesake

Sir Robert Laird Borden: 8th Prime Minister of Canada, founder of Borden House, and one hell of a guy. (Note: only one of the aforementioned facts about Robert Borden is unquestionably true. The other's are heresay and estimations.) 

His statue is on the west side of the West Block of Parliament, facing the Supreme Court of Canada. I passed by it on the way to meet Farish for dinner and thought I would snap a picture or two to commemorate the man who our old street was named after and who, very indirectly, is responsible for the glorious blog you are currently enjoying. So don't thank me: thank this cast-iron likeness of a Conservative Prime Minister ranked #7th overall of Canadian PM's up to Jean Chretien. 

Strangely enough, as if assuming they would remain bitter opponents well into the afterlife, the designers of Parliament Hill placed the statue of Wilfrid Laurier on the east side of the East Block facing the Chateau Laurier, the exact opposite positioning of Borden's statue. If Laurier was unable to forget his loss to Borden in the 1911 'Reciprocity' election, their statue's will guarantee their legendary animosity continues well into a time when people have stopped knowing who either Prime Minister was, what they did, how they matter, or why we should give a good God damn.  

To Borden -  je mais souviens, brother; even when no one else does. 

Back to the Grind

So with Courtney come and gone, it's back to the LAC grind. The CAG starts up tomorrow at Carleton, so I'd like to get everything done at the Archives today if I can, so that if the conference is riveting (though how often is that ever the case?) I can stick around there most of the time. And since it's only around the corner from my place, it will be easy to get back and forth if need be. It's about a 5 minute bike ride.

In case anyone out there was wondering what exactly I was doing at LAC, here's an example. So far, I have snapped about 268 pictures just like this one, and I have a stack of books in my locker at the LAC which will probably total another 200 or so photos. Keep in mind that is most cases, each photo represents two pages. And after I take all these photos, then I have to actually READ them all at some as yet undetermined point in time.

So I got that going for me, right?

(Also, there is a video of an amazing 3-D simulation of how the human heart works for medical students on YouTube. It's pretty good. And the heart is kinda gross.)

"You Can Never Go Home Again - But You Can Shop There"

Now I have a greater sense about what John Cusack was talking about in Grosse Pointe Blank when his old home in Grosse Point, MI, has been torn down and replaced with a convenience store. He had the above witicism to share with Alan Arkin, who played his shrink.

When Courtney and I drove to Quebec City on Friday, I thought it might be fun to take a detour along the Ottawa River and go through Rockland, ON, where I spent a week shy of three months of my life back when I was 18 on Katimavik. I navigated my way through dimly (and sadly) familiar streets and found that our old Victorian house had been torn down, and the property sold to developers who had put up cookie-cutter box homes and a low-rise apartment unit. Annie had told me a few years ago that the house had been torn down, but I had to see it to believe it. And Christ was it a sad sight. And to be clear, the only reason why it was sad is because the only good thing about my stay in Rockland regarding Katimavik was the house itself: a giant, six bedroom, three floor Victorian-era house that seemingly had no end. It was beautiful. And now it's gone.

Not to say that I had fond memories of Rockland, ON, but damn: I will never willingly pull my car over and stop in Rockland unless I have a flat. And even then, I would just as soon ride on the rim until I get to the next, equally depressing town. And speaking of the town, a leopard cannot change its spots, which is a polite way of saying that Rockland, ON, once a dump, WILL NEVER, EVER, BE ANYTHING BUT A DUMP. Given one word  to sum up her Rockland experience, Courtney opted for "bleak" or "soul-crushing." I allowed for a tie.

So while I can never go home again to Rockland, ON, or shop there, I can opt for a sad photo of the space where my house used to be, and a passive aggressive rant about a pathetically small-minded and awful town that the government forced me to live in for a while back in '03.

Oddest Double Bill EVER!

It's official - if Mayfair Theatre was a dude, I would be totally gay for it. 100%. Without fail. Fo' sho'. But someone let the ball drop this week with a double bill featuring One Week with Joshua Jackson followed by Kung Fu Hustle. I spoke with a Mayfair staffer after the shows were out, and even she was left asking waada g'wan was up with the choice in features. So it wasn't just me.

One Week - I'll be brief. While definitely not as bad as I was expecting for a movie that uses Roll Up The Rim To Win as a plot device (thank you, Court), the movie relied much too heavily upon factors external to the actual writing of the movie. For instance, too much was invested in the Canadian landscape, the talent of Canadian musicians (not only for their music, but for their willingness to give cameo's in the movie, including Gord Downie smoking the sticky green and Joel Plaskett busking in T.O.'s financial district), and the knowledge that ladies would swoon at Jackson again, and again, and again as he stared off into the distant sunset pondering his fate. Without the music (which never stopped) and the beautiful Canadian panorama, there was a moderately interesting story behind driven by the scenery. Looks good on Canada, but not so good on the movie. 

Being away from home, the shots of Toronto and the fact that the movie was unashamedly Canadian did score points with me, in addition to the fact that it didn't give you everything that your sappy heart wanted that your logical mind was calling shenanigans on. 

Kung Fu Hustle was Kung Fu Hustle. What can I say? Ridiculous, amazing, funny, impressive: if I would recommend you see One Week on TV if its On Demand, Kung Fu Hustle would be worth paying for. Many times. It was my pleasure to see on the big screen for $5. An older man in his 60's was making his way out of Kung Fu Hustle and he turned to me smiling, and said: "What a great way to end the day!"

Needless to say, I agreed.

Unrelated but funny P.S.: I was stuck waiting in line today at LAC for an archivist to be available, and I was in line behind this Rastafarian guy with the big hat and the long beard. We must have waited in line, just the two of us, for about 15-20 minutes while these two douchebags in the office just kept blathering away. We were both getting really tired of waiting, and without thinking, in my post-Grand Theft Auto IV days, I muttered "waada g'wan" without thinking that I was waiting behind an honest-to-God Rastfarian. He kinda looked back, but didn't say anything. Dodged that one...

 

No - Thank YOU International Museum Day 2009!

I thought Erika was full of crap the other day when she mentioned that we all should hit up some Ottawa museums because Monday, in addition to being Victoria Day, was also International Museum Day. It sounded too made up to be something that people would actually have lobbied to have recognized as a real day. Live and learn, I guess. This years theme: Museums and Tourism, though an explanation as to what this means, exactly, was hard to come by.

So while this could also be BOG Pt. II, it's not titled as such, but is labeled accordingly. I set out on my bike without eating to make sure I had enough time to check everything out. I had destinations, but the route was undetermined. So I headed out towards the new Canadian War Museum (pictured above in artists rendition mode) and the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull - and saved over $20 by going today, thankyouverymuch. Both of them were jam-packed, the Civilization Museum especially. The new war museum was really interesting and well done, but I can't help but feel that they wanted to pander to children a little too much. (A funny example - they had a '24 - CTU' board game in the gift shop. WHY?) They managed to incorporate all the large vehicles they had in storage at Vimy House into their new museum building in the Le Breton Gallery which was neat. Also, the veterans puttering around with canes and scooters talking with visitors and providing personal stories to accompany the artifacts was a nice touch. 

I did leave a note at their suggestion box saying that their effort to address the Dresden bombing controversy by claiming that "this was a source of ongoing controversy" was not quite good enough, and that while ample time was spent describing the heroism of the pilots (which I dont doubt for a minute), no time was spent talking about the consequences and those then and now who have condemned the acts of fire-bombing demanded by Allied Bombing Command.

The Civilization Museum was nice, too. Very well done, but maybe a free day on a holiday Monday was not the best time to hit these places up if I had qualms about crowds. And screaming children...

The Killing & Paths of Glory Double Bill

First off, and I wont say much - lotta dudes at a Stanley Kubrick double bill of The Killing and Paths of Glory on a Sunday afternoon; whole lotta dudes. I wont say it was a single guy sausage-fest, but I will say this: 17 people in the audience for The Killing - - zero chicks. You do the math.

Second, double bills are tiring, but the movies were good. I hadn't seen The Killing, but as far as late-in-life film noir goes, it was pretty good. Wouldn't write home about it, but I would kill time between movies and dinner writing on my blog about it. But that's different.

I saw Paths of Glory when I was 15 I think, and while I would say that I got it, as a movie message, it was great seeing it on the big screen. And Kirk Douglas is Kirk Douglas: amazing, but always in a hokey kinda way. Like he's trying too hard, all the time, to be Kirk Douglas, actor.

Still - two movies for $5 aint bad. And I might be wrong, but one scene in the movie with Kirk Douglas and George Mcready as Gen. Mireau looked familiar, like it was shown as the memorial image at the Oscars after the actor died and they wanted to commemorate them. BUT - after having looking it up on imdb.com, Geogre Mcready died in July 1973, largely on account of having been born in 1899. So the odds of me seeing his Oscar tribute montage a few months ago are pretty slim. And since Kirk Douglas is still alive and kicking, it wasn't him. 

Huh... That's gonna bug me...

Sir Sam Hughes and I

My answer to Marley and Me.

I had to break one of the rules of our relationship that I wouldn't abuse my power and pick him up, but dammit - as I said to Court, I knew this picture would be too good to pass up. So now I've got to win back Sir Sam Hughes trust. 

And I've only got two weeks left to do it.

Christ, I've still got two weeks left here? Damn...

CAG Double Take?

So apparently - even though Emily told me forever ago, I'm only now seeing it to be true - I am presenting twice at the Canadian Association of Geographers conference at Carleton. I have one on Wednesday with a group called 'Water and Environmental Policy' and on Thursday with The Political Spaces cluster of U of T people. I could call and ask them them to drop me from the Wednesday group, but at least I'm with other water people, which would be a first. 

There's also a field trip to the Diefenbunker on Friday the 29th which I'm definitely hitting up. Waad'a Gwan, Diefenbunk? Waad'a Gwan?

24 City @ Mayfair Theatre

I'll admit - I've been really bored and trapped inside for most of the day due to rain, and now that it has stopped, I'm looking for something - ANYTHING - to get me out of the house. Since my attempt at interaction with Star/Wendy today failed horribly, I'm getting out.  I told her that her brownies were burning in the oven and then tried to make joke with her when she wanted to throw the whole pan out. Strangest thing was that  she never said a word to me throughout the entire interaction, even when I asked her a question: "Do you think any of them can be saved?" She just made a small noise and awkwardly walked away. So that happened...

And the only place close by is Mayfair Theatre, so I'm going to check out 24 City by Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke. It's 8:29 - the movie starts in 31 minutes, and I'll let you know how it when when I get home! To tide you over until I return, here is a link to the trailer on YouTube. 

- - - - - - - 

And I'm back. It's 11:19, and I just got in. First and foremost, the Mayfair Theatre is beautiful for an old theatre from the 1930's - as I said to Court, it makes the Bloor Cinema in T.O. look like a pile of dilapidated puke in comparison. So that's a good start. 

24 City was very enjoyable, even though three people right in front of me walked out about 25 minutes into it. It was very slow and methodical in its telling of a very sad daily history of Chinese workers of various generations and the experiences they had when their aeronautical factory known as '420' moves to a city in the south-west of China called Chengdu in 1958. Recently, the factory is torn down to make way for a condo community known as '24 City' - kind of like that condo development near the SkyDome and Front Street which will have its own schools, parks, and grocery stores by the time its completed - and they interview/film people with connections to '420' and the city to better understand the impact that the factory had on their lives, their parents lives, and their children's lives. 

There are - very - rare moments of humour, but overall it's filled with very sad stories of loss and missed opportunities, harsh realities and often harsher self-realizations. I was left with a feeling at the end of every scene that something was about to happen, as if the movie was about set-ups without conclusions. And while this could have been very frustrating and unsatisfying, strangely it wasn't. The set-ups were so well done and beautifully shot, that this was often enough, even without clear or well-stated resolutions. 

Director Jia Zhang-Ke is quoted as likening the movie to the history of Chinese human and social development in the past 50 years. It's a good way of putting it. And 24 City, however slow and occasionally plodding it comes across to viewers - including those who walked out tonight - is well worth seeing. 

Bike-O-Geography I: Tulip Fest Edition

This should actually be Part II of what I am calling "Bike-O-Geography" - BOG, hereafter to save time and space - (a play on the infinitely more comprehensible and recognizable Psychogeography), since I actually went on my first BOG last night. 

Last night I set out at 6:25 and ended up back home at 8:10 after having ridden from my place north along the Canal to Rideau Hall before turning around. Along the way I saw the PM's Motorcade going into 24 Sussex Drive, a flock of Red-Wing Blackbirds fight off a crow coming close to one of their nests, two Canada Geese couples with nine gooslings among them feeding, a really nice stranger with a four month old Golden Retriever puppy named Tammy, some decommissioned WWII-era 25 lb. artillery pieces, old people on boats along the canal, lovers lying on the grass, waterfalls from the Rideau River into the Ottawa, to name a few things along the way. But without an iPhone, Blackberry, or camera at the ready, this is all I can report.

Today, however, I had a camera handy, which is why this is BOG Pt. 1. So while I have set up a flickr account to store most of them, there are a couple handy to give you the idea. I ended up at the International Pavillion of Tulip Fest 2009 on my way home by accident, and wandered around different countries hocking their cultural wares and food stuffs. A volunteer gave me directions to the actual flowers, which are only a few minutes from my house.

Along Queen Elizabeth Drive which winds around Dow's Lake there are over 350,000 tulips from Holland which bloom every year in just about every colour imaginable. Even though its getting late in the season for tulips, most of them are still out and going strong, though with an expected heat wave this weekend, their days might be numbered (sorry Court!) It was as neat wandering among the people looking at the flowers as it was seeing the tulips themselves: young an old, 

families with newborns and strollers, cyclists (like me), immigrant families, tourists (also like me), all jostling to get the best picture, and all lining up for $4 Beaver Tails. (I resisted, but I might go back this weekend for one.) I rode back along the Dow's Lake/Canal trail, and headed home.

And dinner wasn't so disappointing tonight either, so I got that going for me, right?

Reever, in the Study, with the Tripod

Chances are, if the LAC were a game of Clue, and some poor LAC or Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) employee were to be found dead tomorrow - sorry, the LAC is actually closed until Tuesday the 19th because of Victoria Day on Monday - the above would probably be the winning formula. 

I was getting help from this very sweet French Canadian Librarian (Sophie) in trying to understand why documents in the paper indices were not actually located on the online database (only 30-40% of their documents are listed online, I later found out) and I turned to Sophie and had to say: "It seems to me that the Archives doesn't actually want you to find anything, pretty much ever." She laughed, and said "Yeah." Just - "yeah." 

No refuting on her end, because she knows - she knows how they operate, and the meta-hoops within hoops within microscopic hoops you need to jump through. All just to find out that the document you need, when you find it after 50 minutes of help from a staff member, is Restricted Code 32, and will take 4-6 weeks to be released to you, if it is at all. And you've only got two weeks left.

At least my view from the Study where I murdered that ATIP staffer is pretty. And Karen wont be getting her Tripod back - it's in lock-up. And I need bail money...

Dinner Fail

So I left the house for the first time today at 4:05 pm - it had just stopped raining, and I figured I didn't want to spend 30 hours in a 12' X 12'  room or I might start thinking I can run along the tops of the trees outside my window a la Twilight. 

So I went to the library down the road to read there, figuring a change of scenery never hurt anyone. But I spent the entire time thinking about how amazing it would be to make a Shepherd's Pie type concoction for dinner. I had all the ingredients, and all the know-how, so what's stopping me?

Gauging from the picture (which was the final product), something clearly stopped me. And it was the kitchen. What do I miss most about my home in Toronto? Aside from Courtney - no obligation needed, I really do miss her - it would have to be my kitchen. We have done an excellent job - Court, mostly - at amassing a huge volume of kitchen gadgets and utensils, some more useless than others. And you begin to take them for granted. 

I.e. - when I go to make my Shepherd's Pie (which in my mind looks idyllic), and I find there is no potato peeler, no ceramic dish to bake it in the oven, no potato masher, and I've bought no butter, milk, or maple syrup to put in the potato's, the whole idea kinda falls to pieces. Sweet potato's never mash the same as Yukon Gold, full veggie pieces dont blend as well as pea or corn kernals, and veggie ground-round is never quite as moist as real ground beef. So maybe I didn't have all the right ingredients, after all...

I made due - a dull knife substituted for the peeler, a spatula for a masher after I boiled the piss out of the sweet potato's, no baking was possible since we had no dish, pan, or convection over, and the potato's remained without dressing. (It's a hard life, I know!) And what you see in the picture is what I am left with. Tasty enough, but not quite what I had in mind.

So maybe the tag line for this post is a little harsh: perhaps it was less a fail, than a disappointing monstrosity containing all the ingredients of a Shepherd's Pie, with none of the finesse. 

Sir Sam Hughes, Bunny.

This is Sir Sam Hughes. 

He went Ape Stuff last night around midnight and knocked down his water cylinder with the ball-bearing at the end of it, and his one toy in a fit of rage. He looks at me like he wants out of this cage so badly, but I dont know if I should, and his owner (I dont know who that is, exactly) is never to be seen. So instead I walk past him down the stairs and let him sniff my arm.

If nothing else, I am a new smell in the life of Sir Sam Hughes, Bunny. Mom would be so proud...

Paris 1919 @ LAC

So first off - it was a bit strange to have a mixture between original documentary footage spliced with century old photos, and then throw in paid actors playing Clemenceau, Wilson, Lloyd George, and the Italian PM who did dick, in addition to a smattering of other Europeans, Arabs, Jews, civil servants, and mapmakers who round off the cast. The director did as good a job with it as he could, but I always felt as if George Clemenceau's larger-than-life 'stache (see below) was always about to fall off his face because they didn't have it in the budget for the good facial hair adhesive.

Second of all, not only would it be near impossible to convey something of this scope and significance in any medium (save an HBO mini-series with $9 million an episode behind it), but Margaret MacMillan's book was already so near perfection that anything they did with it under her title would seem, somehow, less than what the book as able to accomplish. In addition, the director (who also wrote and produced it, I think) outlines for himself in a Globe and Mail article all the aspects of the film that he wanted to explore more of, but based on serious limitations (only 10 days shooting in Paris, the limited budget of an NFB co-production, etc) he achieved whatever he could with this movie that, apparently, has been in the works for nearly a decade.

Keeping that all in mind, what about the actual movie? I liked it, but it might have been because its about an era I find very fascinating, and because it was based on a fabulous book about a truly remarkable screw-up in human history, though there are, arguably, many to choose from. This one, unlike many of its competitors, still manages to have wide-reaching ramifications that we, in the 21st Century, still cannot shake ourselves of. This is our shame now as it was the post-war leaders' shame then. 

It all comes down to scale (spoken like a true geographer!), and the movie was not up to the task of representing something of this magnitude in such a small scale fashion. It was as if the film was conscious of its small size from the beginning: a boy in his father's clothes, convincing others that he can pull it off. And at moment's Paris: 1919 could, but it fell short of its overall objective of conveying the total magnitude of the events in question. Yet to be fair to the director, Paul Cohen, I dont know if he could have.

I could have stayed for the Q & A after the movie ended and asked him that myself, but as anyone who has been to a conference with me knows: I hate Q & A's. They are masturbatory circle-jerks, typically moreso for the audience participants than the director, and I have nothing to do with them. Call me rude, I dont care: point out that if I was the one at the podium I would feel a little differently, and I would tell you you're probably right - - but that at my core I know that if I was in the crowd, I'd be thinking about getting the hell out of Dodge myself. If I wanted to hear old people bleed on about how they feel and try and pose it like a question, I would visit old folk's homes and convince them I'm their lost grandchild, or attend City Council meetings.

But I dont - so I dont...

So on a scale of 1 (I Love You, Man) to 10 (Chinatown), Paris: 1919 gets a 6, unlike Courtney who is a 'solid 7!'

First Day @ LAC

LAC is the short form for the Library and Archives of Canada, by the way.

So I forgot my camera to start the day, which was a bad way to begin. Everyone had camera's, and the scanner I brought is good, but loud: and the room I'm in is as quiet as a crypt. So a whirling and buzzing scanner seemed more like an annoyance to those around me than a fantastic study aid.

All went well - I've got more stuff ordered for tomorrow, two lockers with boxes in them full of text documents that I'll photograph tomorrow afternoon, and a list of what needles in those boxes of needles I need to pay attention to. Which is key. Had an expensive lunch at the Cafeteria at LAC, so I'll be packing a lunch tomorrow fo' sho'. 

I realized as well that the Cafeteria was really familiar in a shabby kind of way, and then I remembered that when I was in Katimavik, stationed in Rockland, ON, just outside of Ottawa, that we came into the Archives one day for a volunteering thing to package together ten commemorative hockey cards into a plastic bag that LAC was giving out at an event. They needed something like 10,000 of these packs, and our asshole Project Leader signed us up for it. And we spent the entire day in that same Cafeteria packing hockey cards for the reward of...? You guessed it - a pack or two of our very own to take home with us.

I'm gonna check out Paris: 1919 the Documentary by the NFB tonight for free at the Archives. It's only other showing for the next while is at Cannes, Hot Docs, and a film festival in Tel Aviv. And since it's free, and the book was amazing, I guess I kinda have to check it out.

I'll let you all ('cause I know there are oh-so-many out there) how it is...

Ottawa and the LAC

So I am in Ottawa until the end of May for Archival Research at the the National Archives. I've also got a double shot at the Canadian Association of Geographers Conference at Carleton where I'm presenting with the Political Spaces cluster from U of T Geography. Hopefully this will go a little better than my presentation at the AAG in Vegas, but who knows. It's the same speech, but hopefully a different crowd. 

I'm at the house that I'm subletting and all is well enough. The room is nice, the neighbourhood is great. I have one other housemate that I know of - a timid Chinese undergrad from Carleton whose name is Star of all things (I guess her parents had a lot of friends who had already named their little girls 'Wendy') and after giving me the keys and Internet code, she disappeared into her room and closed the door. Not another word from her for the rest of the day. So chances are, I will have a am three weeks of getting a lot of work done without people to talk to or TV to waste my time with. This has its ups and downs...

Star/Wendy has a rabbit that has no name. I find this as bizarre as I do kinda sad, or at least unimaginative. In light of his incessant sniffing and the crazy glean in his eyes when he looks at my as I walk down the stairs, I have decided to name it Sir Sam Hughes, in honour of Canada's first Minister of Militia during World War One. Hughes is the happy looking fellow in the image: in the right light, Hughes has his own rabbit-esq resemblance. This rabbit, like Hughes himself, was kinda crazy (he issued shovels to WWI soldiers that had a giant hole in the middle of it, arguing that it was good for both digging and cover from enemy bullets, tasks which it failed admirably at, no doubt at the cost of many thousands of Canadian soldiers lives before the shovels were removed from the battlefield) and trapped in a theoretical cage of his own making. Both will live rather ignominious lives, I am sure of that.

First day at the Archives tomorrow. Let's see how we do. No doubt better than Sir Sam did at his job...

Until then...