Martha Mihaly

Friendship is a word that we use casually to talk about relationships that we have…”Oh, she’s a friend from…”. Love has a closer more intimate meaning to people.  “oh, she’s a friend, I love her laugh…”

I’ve been watching Heather’s friends and family gather to support her in her battle with ALS and I can’t help but wonder have we told her, and each other how much we value the love and friendships that we have?  The friendships that grow stronger and deeper and more beautiful as each day goes by.

Happy Spring Everyone.  I am honoured to count you all as friends.

Martha

It’s been a heck of a winter for snow fall here in Central Canada.  Records have been broken.  We’ve had almost 300 cm of the fluffy stuff so far, and March isn’t yet over.  I can’t complain too much, we have a service that comes out anytime we get a single fall of over 15 cm, and I have managed to ski 32 days this year with another 6 coming a the end of the month at Jay Peak, VT.

It’s so bad that roofs are collapsing under the weight of snow.  A barn went down this week not far from our house.  Dozens of friends and neighbours helped to get the pigs out and relocated.  If you’ve never seen snow being shoveled off a roof you can watch a video of it here.  Basically, a roof isn’t designed to hold this much weight!

Throughout Quebec many school boards have closed schools (as they fear collapse) in order to shovel off the buildings.  Several people have died this winter in Quebec as roofs have collapsed.  If you’ve never seen snow removal in Quebec it is indeed impressive.  Here is a great video of it.  Basically a vacuum machine sucks up the snowbanks and blows the snow into giant tansport trucks that then truck the snow away.  Without snow removal, the streets narrow precariously and the snow banks become so high that they get unstable.

As much as I hate to admit it, it sometimes makes me laugh when other people’s luck runs in the same direction as mine.  It is a well known fact that our family has had a  big little black cloud tethered to it forever quite a while.  We like to think that if it weren’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have any luck at all!

Now, I am not talking life ending, debilitating bad luck.  Just car/house/job/life bad luck.  Nothing in the grand scheme of things (at least that’s what I tell myself after the first bottle of wine).

So, here’s to bad luck moving on to someone else.  And thanks  for taking over.

There is a very serious case going before the Ryerson University expulsion committee today.  It involves first year engineering student Chris Avenir. 

Chris started a facebook group called The Dungeon/Mastering Chemistry Solutions (that I couldn’t get to on FB) with the intention of swapping tips on chemistry homework questions.  146 of his ‘friends’ joined the group, and it appears that cheating may have followed.  Chris has been charged with academic misconduct for administering the group, and he’s been charged 146 more times for each classmate that used the site.

My question here, as is Chris’ and his Advocate Kim Neale’s, is how is this really any different than a library based study group, or a university sponsored one?  The students get together….the weaker ones benefit from the stronger ones, all benefit from not having to do the entire assignment alone.

I suppose that weeding out the ‘hangers on’, or the non-contributors becomes more difficult for the group, and sponging off the working members of the group becomes easier BUT I think that the university has chosen to handle this all wrong.  Instead of penalizing the student in such a severe manner, Ryerson should be looking at where their own infrastructure falls short.  Why has this (and presumably others) group been created?  Does Ryerson need to create online home work groups that are monitored by staff to support their students?

What are your thoughts on this? 

As usual when you aren’t looking for work the offers abound, and when you have the drive to work it dries up… oh well, I suppose that really is a sign of one of two things:

• I suck
• I should refocus on the home front

Since the first option is simply too depressing, I’ll embrace my inner home renovater and simply get on with the jobs on hand.  I have to repaint the laundry room, master bedroom, and then there is the master bathroom to tackle.  It needs painting but I can’t do that until I figure out what the heck I am going to do about my shower that leaks.  Tips on ripping out a shower and tiling anyone?

All of this should be done before gardening season begins but I think I can safely say that’s still a ways off given that we had 38 cm of snow in the last 30 hours.

So, I am sure that the minute I pry the lid off the cans of paint I will get an offer for some paid work!  Call me if you need a tech writer, blogger, or website host.  If I don’t answer the call it’s becuase I am plastering, painting or cleaning up a mess. 

Charlie Rose did a fantastic interview with Mike Arrington yesterday.  I was particularly interested with his comments about the problems with broadband access in rural America, and within the schools.

 Thanks to Mike for an outstanding interview.

It was Richard’s mantra…”Think about scalability, Martha“.  His words still echo in my head.

I have been thinking about scalability a lot lately, but not in the 2.0 context this time.  Rather it’s been in the party planning context. We are taking a party that we threw last year on a farm expecting a few hundred people (2000+ ended up coming) and turning it into a full blown ‘event’.  We hope to have at least as many people come, but with fewer logistical problems than we had.

We began the whole affair with a post-mortem of last year’s party.  We closely examined where things fell short, and where we exceeded expectations.  We then sat down and really thought hard about how to make things better.  I don’t think anyone has ever mentioned that “we got something wrong“.  Rather, we have focused on improvements to a process.  Frankly, I think that this group of people we have planning the event is absolutely top notch.  I think we could make a good living doing event planning, except for the fact the only reason we pull together so well, is for the end cause.   Organizing any big thing is a great exercise to go through and very enlightening on many levels.  We have the event, the process, the motivating forces, the process planning, and revenue generation and advertising all to consider. 

So perhaps I am wrong - this is like planning a social networking site.  We have a ‘hook’.  We need to attract the right people, with the right advertising, to the right venue, at the right time, and we hope not to lose money, or face.  It all needs to happen within an established  time line, and within the established budget.  

David Armano did a great piece on somthing not exactly related to this, but obviously it’s stuck in my head in terms of applicability.  He’s called it Thinking Through the 3 U’s and I’ve put his graphic below.  His piece is about marketing, and he asserts that “Any experience is useful when it’s meaningful and serves a purpose“.   I really like its application to the planning of various types of things that involve human interaction.

Annie Leonard has produced an intriguing 20 minute video called The Story of Stuff  about our consumer society, and the impact that we are having on the planet.  She tells the story with keen insight.

It is  reminiscent of Al Gore’s  An Inconvenient Truth that I think you likely are familiar with.  The Story of Stuff explains many of the linkages that people aren’t aware of.

It’s certainly gives food for thought.  Have a look and let me know what you think.  It appeals to the environmentalist in me.