I saw this idea today here.  Simple, We can’t find the page you’re looking for, maybe you can find one of these kids we are looking for.  Absolutely brilliant and I have to echo the thoughts of some of the commenters there; It’s a shame we didn’t think of it sooner.

An example of a temporary implementation on my site is here: http://smooshspace.com/foobar which is just a lift of the code from the site linked above stored in a PHP page on my server.  Then I inserted an iframe into my wordpress theme’s 404.php template.

I would very much like to make this geo-aware, but it’s not working at the moment.  I’ve also considered finding a good canadian source of this data that is easily readable by a php script, but I cannot find any RSS or XML feeds with the data for Canada.

If you are reading from the US, there is a great resource at missingkids.com that has feeds on a state by state basis.

I’m going to keep an eye on any development around this myself and perhaps put my own hat into the ring if I get a chance to do some coding.

The worst part of this is that through all the testing of this today I’ve had to stare at the faces of missing children afternoon.  Very sad. 

If you maintain a site, I think it would be great if you were to jump on the bandwagon and get those faces seen!

A list of Canadian missing children can be found here.

Driving home yesterday I experienced a strange and profound feeling, somewhat out of the blue.

My mind was wandering through it’s random strings of thought, drifting from events of the day to events of the future when suddenly it landed squarely on a very disturbing string.

Death.  However not the fairly benign and rather intangible thought of death in general.  Not even the more disturbing concept of the loss of friends and family.  Rather, my mind quite unexpectedly and and vividly focused in on the thought that I will cease to exist at some point.

The thought was not that I will become a ghost or angel, or even spend my days in hell.  The thought was that I will one day be completely non existent and everything I have ever seen, said, loved and experienced will become complete and utter void.  Even darkness was not considered in this thought because the darkness is a  somewhat quantifiable state.  Void.  I briefly began to feel the absolute void that my life would become.

The thought was a completely selfish thought.  My current mindset tells me that I have left a legacy in the memories and lives I have touched.  In my void there was no legacy because I was nothing.  The continuity of reality beyond my death was meaningless because I was no longer able to give it meaning.  What is reality to any living being aside from a subjective interpretation of information?  Without being able to interpret it the information is useless; any concept I can conceive including the existence of reality beyond my death is rendered null when I become void.

I felt myself sinking…despair until despair lost meaning…a siphoning away of everything I cared for in the realization that without me, the meaning was irrelevant.  Selfish.

Then as fast as it came my mind built a wall.  I snapped out of it and lost touch with the mental construct (de-construct?) of the void that briefly existed in me.  Part of me tried to recover it despite it’s disturbing nature in order to search for some sort of meaning but my mind would have nothing of it.  Even now I struggle to retain enough of the feeling to provide an accurate description of it to convey.  I think my mind threw up the wall as a protective measure.  To exist with such a pure concept of the end of personal existence readily accessible to my conscious mind would quite likely drive me mad with thoughts of futility.

Today, I feel no worse for wear.  I just feel like I have been witness to a rare moment of clarity in my visualization of a rather elusive concept.  That being the concept of absolute non existence.  It has left me with one more thing however…It has left me with the hope that upon my death there will be something.  Anything.  Even a single tangible atom that my consciousness can latch onto to stave off the emptiness in the void.

So a week of my new life as a gym-goer has passed by.  What have I learned?

• I can run 5 kilometers in 30 minutes, and not go into cardiac arrest.  This is quite a surprise to me.
• The gym is not full of extremely healthy and pretty people, who look down upon the out of shape newbies in disgust.  In fact, most everyone I have encountered has been quite nice.  This used to be one of my excuses not to go to the gym.  I assume it’s quite common for one to feel self conscious about putting your self out there on display as a sweaty, somewhat jiggly mess.  But after a couple days, I realized that I’m not the only one.
• The pain that comes the morning after the first couple days of running dissipates quickly when you just keep at it.  This same pain that has stopped me in my tracks on previous start up attempts is surprisingly short lived in reality.  On the morning of my third day I almost didn’t want to go to work because the thought of walking up the stairs to the second floor was unbearable.  But I did go, and I muscled through it.  And better yet, I still went to the gym that night.  The pain was still there in my legs, but after about 5 minutes of running it was gone entirely.  In fact, I ran further and harder than the previous days, because I didn’t relish the thought of the aches coming back when I stopped.  Much to my surprise, it didn’t come back with anywhere near the intensity of the morning, and got progressively better through the week.  It seems the key was just to suck it up, and work through it.
• I have just added some light weight training to my routine.  Nothing crazy mind you, but something with high repetitions to build some foundations to work with.  I’ve only done this once so far, and it hurts the next day!  However, the running taught me a lesson, and tomorrow I will be back to muscle through it.
• I have also learned that I do in fact have time to go to the gym.  This was always a big excuse.  But after taking an hour out of each day to go to the gym, I don’t feel like I’ve fallen behind on anything.  I’m not getting any less done in the day.  It seems that the only thing I have left behind is the idle time I generally spend randomly clicking on things on the hyper global mega net…

Week one, complete, the rest of my life to go.

One of my fondest memories as a kid was from when I was about 13 years old. I remember being by myself behind the grade school that was just a 2 minute walk down the road from our house. I was standing at one set of goal posts on the soccer field with the other set firmly in my view. A couple of deep breaths, then “BANG!” The starting gun in my mind went off and I exploded into a full run. About a quarter of the way down the field I hit my stride. My feet barely seemed to be touching ground, they were just every so often brushing it to keep me afloat and moving forward. It was one of those moments where everything else seems to have faded away and it was just me and the wind, coming as close to flying as a land bound kid can come.

I used to love running. Sprinting in track and field, cross country, or just sprinting around the house in a rain storm. Something about the body shaking rhythm, hypnotic in its regularity, quiets my generally overactive mind. It lets me focus on just one important thing; taking the next step.

Somewhere in time I lost touch with this. It was about the same time I realized my new found the love of sitting in front of the computer, and it was continued by the lure of intoxication and the killing of braincells with my friends a few years later.

Soon smoking entered the mix, and before I realized what I had done to myself I was incapable of recapturing that feeling I remembered so fondly. Any attempts at fitness ended with frustration and disappointment with myself because I couldn’t do much of anything without bringing on a smokers coughing fit. The memory was just a memory that I felt like I would never be able to recapture.

Flash forward to the present day…

I am no longer a smoker, but I have not come much closer to reliving the dream. This time, my excuse is simply laziness. It took a while to even come to admitting that truth. Years of a sedentary lifestyle have left me with extra pounds and a cache of excuses that have been weighing me down, keeping me motionless. The most running I have done in the past few years has been with the WASD keys on the keyboard as I navigate virtual worlds. Hardly a substitute.

However, as previously mentioned in Part 1, I have found my motivation. I’ve tossed out my excuses (Some of which I will discuss in Part 3), and I have started to run toward one of my fondest memories.

3 workouts down, the rest of my life to go.
I’m sore, but at least it’s not from bearing the burden of my excuses.

I’m 33 years old.
I have been inside a gym exactly 3 times, all in the last week. Once with the intent to sign up, twice with the intent to work out.
I think what finally made me decide to try and make a concerted effort to work out is my yearly physical. I have had two, in the last 33 years. During the span of 1 year between the first and the second physical, I gained a total of about 4.5kg. (10 pounds for the non-metric minority) That shocked me pretty significantly. I wasn’t creeping, I was running toward the obesity line at an alarming rate. Tack onto that the fact that my blood pressure was mildly elevated, and it was enough to make really think about where I would be if I continued on this course for even another 5 years.
An obese nerd with high blood pressure, well on track to heart disease, and well on track to leaving Lily without a dad, and Laura a widow.
That’s the part that truly rocked my world view. I might be able to let myself turn into a sweaty, hard breathing mess who can’t walk up a flight of stairs without taking a break, if I was the only one in the equation. But I couldn’t possibly do that to them. No way. I have too much to see and do with these ladies, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave them without a fight.
So…
The epic begins. The guy who has not worked out…well, almost ever, is hitting the treadmill, the stair master, and who knows, maybe even the weights…
Trip two is down, only the rest of my life to go….and if this all works out as planned, that will be a very long time. For me and my ladies…
More to come…

I think upon inspection you would find that those most worried about privacy and the peering eye of big brother, are the same people who would be the most upset to find out that no one actually cares.

6:40am, I’m awake and waiting to go to work.

The strangest part is that now Lily will be spending all of about 3 – 4 waking hours in a day with her parents.

I really have to find a way to work from home or not at all or something.

Being a stay at home dad felt quite right to me, it was a very good fit. Unfortunately the pay is not so good in terms of money.  In terms of everything else, it’s the most rewarding job going…

Well Bug,

After almost a year of one of your parents taking care of you every day, it’s time to take the next step into the realms of daycare.

It’s a tough thing for us to do, and if we had the financial means to stay home with you every single day, we certainly would.  But alas, it is not to be.  (Though I fully intend on playing the lottery from this day forward)

I dropped you off this morning for your first trial day, you reached out for me as I left, and I broke a little.  Leaving you with  a stranger (Though we have done our homework, we didn’t just find her at a bus station) is very unnatural feeling.  But I know you will have fun, meet other kids (I hope you’re not beating them up, bruiser), and learn a lot.

It’s only a half day today, so I will be there promply at 12:59 to pick you up.  I expect a big smile and a hug when I see you.

You have an afternoon and a full day this week, and then next week is the big one, 5 days in a row while we go to work.

Come on Lucky numbers, we’re counting on you.

Love you sweety…

Dad

Dear Lily,

Wow.  You’re walking more than crawling these days.  This is a very exciting time for all of us, but I have to admit, you look like a little prize fighter.  

With all this walking comes a lot of falling.  In the last week you’ve ended up with a fat lip, a goose egg on you forehead, and now a black eye.  Add the the list a couple of little scratches that you manage to give yourself with your razor sharp little fingernails, and your general state of dirtiness from eating and playing in the back yard, and you look like a little street urchin who talks with her fists.

Actually, the black eye wasn’t from falling, it was the discovery that if you set your little pull along toy on the table, then violently yank the leash, it will by the grace of gravity fall and hit you in the face.

Bumping into things is one of the most important parts of your early learning process though.  And that pain does teach you a lot in these days where words are few and are primarily a novelty used to make your mom and I clap and grin like fools.

Despite that, I’m still a little reluctant to take you out on the town, lest an overzealous and overprotective parent (You know, the kind that put helmets on their 7 year olds while they eat dinner to ward of deadly spoon or Jello accidents) think that we are roughing you up!  

You certainly keep us on our toes.  In fact while writing this I had to go grab you off your little plastic bike because you sometimes like to stand up on it instead of sitting on it…

I won’t be surprised if you become an extreme athelete when you grow up.  The though of which will likely put your mom and I into early gravesl, but hey…you have to be you…

Love Dad

It’s been a bit too long since I’ve posted an update.

I should really do something about that.

Deal Lily,

Sit outside in your garage, or on your patio one night, as severe thunder storms are rolling in.

Have with you, your favourite drink.  I’ve choosen a moderately good scotch.

Set up a comfy chair in the middle of your venue and quietly watch it happen.

Play some music.  I suggest on an AM/FM radio, if something like that still exists.  The interference caused by the nearby lightening can often be interesting.  Listen to the rain hitting the ground, and the trees crying out with the rustling of their leaves.

Feel the thunder as it washes over you, and through you on the particularly close strikes.

Watch the imposing and perhaps agressive clouds marching forward.  So removed from their sunny day cousins.  They bear no particular malice, just the need to release their pent up energy in an blaze of power and sound.

Sit through the lulls and the peaks.  There are often moments of peace among the torrents.  Enjoy them for what they are.  Life in many shades.

Resist the urge to run when it seems overwhelming, and feel your heart beat as your fleeing insticts float near the surface of your conciousness, ready to strike.

Yell back at it if you like.  Yell with the trees and the clouds and throw your energy to the swirling mass.  Tonight I have chosen not to, on another night I will.  Tonight I’ll let it recharge me.

Write a letter if you are so inclined, and see what happens.  It will be different from what you would write if you were sitting inside.  It won’t likely be as rushed.

Do all this my dear, and you will know me slightly better.

I hope one day to do it together.

Love, Dad

Dear Lily,

I’m sitting outside, in the warm humid air after a summer rain, staring at our backyard.  A Corona to my left and a yellow finch to my right.  He’s chattering away, excited that you and he will be spending the summer together.

You’ve just left for a two day adventure with your mom to a cabin near Minden, Ontario.

This adventure precedes another adventure involving the two of us, “Lily and Daddy: The Summer of Awe”

6 weeks of you and me hanging out in the summer, discovering.  The thought of it leaves me somewhat staggered as it is truly a sentence of epic proportions. 6 weeks of you and me hanging out in the summer, discovering…it needed to be said twice.

I don’t know what will come of us on our many splendid adventures to come.  But I assure you…you will be significantly awed by the things we will see and do together.  Why, there are no less that a bajillion things you can find in our backyard alone.  The sights, the sounds, the life…

Even now I’m surrounded by a finch, chatting to a cardinal, about the dove over by the giant monster tomato plant that shelters the small and brave pepper plant from the wind and the elements.  We’ve got a lot to see young lady and I cannot wait to see it with you and be your guide.

I’m hoping to teach you that the world is an absolutely wonderful place, when you know where to look. Over the coming years I want to teach you that you should never stop looking.  Never stop searching for a new flower, a new bug to befriend, or a new way to walk to the park.

I watch you discovering the world. I see the way you intricately pick up that dehydrated mystery pea…cautiously lick it, tap it on the floor, perhaps wonder for a moment the origin of the pea, then place it ever so gently on the top of your head… I see that and l am reminded that if we never stop looking for new ways of doing things we will never be bored.

You are asleep now, heading northbound on an adventure with mom.

I’m sure you two will learn a lot from each other up there.  Always listen to her, she is a very wonderful person and you will learn a lot from her.  Please do have a lot of fun and come home soon and safe.

We are in for a lot of adventure this summer young miss.
Hold on tight, we have worlds to see.

Love Dad

I’m struggling with my blogging lately.

Very little jumps to mind as being worthy to write home about in itself.  There have been lots of little things.

Lily Update:

• Lily is nearly walking, and is generally on a path of destruction.  She managed to destroy my computer speakers and basically set them on fire.  Don’t ask me how.  But she was well away before the smoke started pouring out of the subwoofer.

• She has 2 or 3 more teeth coming in.
• She is sleeping in her crib without much fuss.  5 minutes and she is out at night.  Now we can sleep.
• She’s nearly 10 months old.
• I still miss her when I’m at work.

Nerd Update:

• using Unison to backup my Ubuntu home directory to a separate physical drive.  Works well, yet I am having trouble getting it to run as a cron job.  I do not yet know why.
  Update:FIXED
  I needed to provide the absolute path to unison in my backup script.
  So instead of:
  unison Main -silent
  I needed to use:
  /usr/bin/unison Main -silent
• Still liking Ubuntu, though I am wishing I could get EQ2 running properly in wine, so that I can hook up with the old gaming clan for the odd night out in the virtual worlds.
• I don’t particularly need an iPhone.  I’ve got a free Blackberry.
• I do however need new speakers.

Work Update:

• Same old.  Work, program, make things efficient.
• People still baffle me with their approaches to problems and life.  I don’t know how some survive breakfast, let alone make it to work daily.
• Taking some Project management courses in August.

Life Update:

• Weekend BBQ was a success.  Family came over, ate and drank, then went home.  What more can you ask?
• Leaving Lily with my sister Saturday night while we go out to a wedding.  It’s getting admittedly easier to leave her behind from time to time.  But not for too long…
• Summer is good, and too short.

Fun Link:

• Holophonic Haircut (Headphones Required!)

Its been a while since I’ve gone solo to a movie, but today it will be ironman.
I rather enjoy the sunday matinee experience. There is a certain filter of people that appeals to me.
The punk teens are still just dragging themselves out of bed. Some volume is decreased by the absence of sunday churchgoers. What’s left is a rather peaceful moviegoing experience where one has their choice of seat, the popcorn is fresh and the movie can be enjoyed with minimal murmur and distraction.

I do enjoy a night out at the movies with friends, but the solo sunday noon show is a more personal moviegoing experience that’s all about me. And really, isn’t that what it’s all about?