Todd's Old Blog

Mostly Ignored

  • Best Beatles Songs Not Written By The Beatles

    (That is, songs that capture their distinct style) Just a few off the top of my head… Look What You’ve Done – Jet Live Forever – Oasis (and a bunch of others for that matter — to their credit they totally cop to Beatles inspiration). Get a Job – The Offspring Sowing the Seeds Of…

  • We Miss You, Murph

    It was one year ago today that our beloved Golden Retriever passed away from cancer.  We still think of her often…  Several times a week —  sometimes even daily — her antics and indelible personality are an element of  our conversation.  While her presence is still greatly missed, thankfully we are now able to focus…

  • Clerk Edits GCPEDIA – Public Servants Rejoice

    Note: This post contains links only accessible within the Government of Canada network. On my administrative rounds this morning I was pleased to read a familiar name in GCPEDIA’s recent changes log: Wayne Wouters, Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet. I was already aware of Mr. Wouter’s support of GCPEDIA, having…

  • I can be led, so lead me.

    I’ve lost count of the number of times over the last decade that I’ve watched presentations that make reference to the generational differences in workplace motivation between the Baby Boomers and the younger generations of X (~1961 to ~1981) and Y (~1982 to ~1999). For the most part, they all tend to focus on the…

  • On Parental Leave

    When my wife became pregnant with our third child, I’d just ‘officially’ graduated with my Master’s degree and was working on casual contract for the Government of Canada.  A few months later, I became a permanent (‘indeterminate’) and among the benefits I was eligible to receive was Parental Leave Without Pay.  Admittedly, this sounds like…

  • Quit Following Me

    Yesterday afternoon on the bus ride home, I watched from the window as a flock of birds circled and dived around the roof of a high-rise apartment complex. One bird had a slight lead, several others were a length behind, while another three dozen or so were clustered in pursuit. I turned in my seat…

  • New year, new OS?

    So far it’s shaping up to be a year of changes.  Some milestone birthdays, the family website on a content management system (at long last), and now, a change of operating system. After about 3 years of running Kubuntu on the family desktop, I’ve switched to openSUSE.  Not a huge change I guess, switching from…

  • The site, reborn

    It was a ten years ago today… Well no, not really. More like nine years actually. And not today. (Start again.) It was November 9, 2000, when I originally reserved this domain, long before MTV’s Total Request Live… Okay, fine… it was sometime after MTV’s TRL, not that I’d actually heard of it at the…

  • On Free Culture

    I love free.  I blog about it; I tweet about it; I consume it; I produce it. Free Culture is a difficult concept for some to understand, primarily because we have been born and raised in a capitalist society where few things in life are truly free, both in terms of their monetary cost and…