Pic: “Help me! I’m stuck singing in a snow globe!” (I’ve never seen this before…)
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Andy
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Andy
Pic: Collage from Apex, Nunavut
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agnes wingfield
Andy this pic says it all you are an explorer.
Such memories thanks for sharing!!!
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Andy
@merrelloutside Fresh tracks this morning in my Merrell Trail Gloves.
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agnes wingfield
WELCOME HOME!!!!
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Andy
Pic: And the front door handle.
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agnes wingfield
Stay safe. We hope you can stay inside.
Nice to hear from you.Such adventure!!! -
Amanda
Terrific picture! I love how you can see the texture of the snow and almost feel how cold it is. Brrrrrrrrr. Great photography! Yes, stay warm
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Andy
Pic: The view from the front porch right now.
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Andy
Pic: Up until about an hour ago, the weather hasn’t been too bad in Iqaluit this week. That’s more like it!
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Andy
Pic: Beautiful run along the canal this morning!
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agnes wingfield
Dear Andy looks so beautiful!!!
So good for you when studying for exams.
this pic takes me back to younger days when you and Matt came cross country ski-ing in Wingham
on the conservation trail with trickles of bubbling brooks in the snow and oh so much sweat!!!
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Andy
Back to Iqaluit!
This picture was taken last year near the end of my stay up in Iqaluit, Nunavut. Due to some last minute cancellations and other sequences of events, the hospital in Iqaluit needed a Pediatric resident for a week from February 5-13. Since I really enjoyed my time up there last year, I decided to go for it! It will be the exact same time of year as last time, so I know what to expect from the weather. Pack the long johns!
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agnes wingfield
andy take your warm HAT!!!
Extremes Africa and now Iqaluit.
Keep the stories coming.
Stay safe!!
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Andy
Pic: Skate skiing in Gatineau Park yesterday.
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Andy
Pic: Skate skiing gear.
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agnes wingfield
Good fun. Enjoy Enjoy!!!
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Andy
Forward
When trying to come up with a title for this post, I considered Moving Forward, Forward Thinking and Forward Progress. All of them seemed to capture part of what I wanted to write about, so I settled on simply Forward and using the other titles as headings. As the word may suggest, this post will focus on the year that has just passed and a look ahead as I go forward.
Moving Forward
While Amanda and I enjoy many different physical activities, the one that has served as a common theme for the past few years has been our interest in running. 2011 was a particularly interesting, frustrating and rejuvenating year in running for me. Early on, I was running and just trying to stay warm in temperatures below -30 degrees Celsius while spending a month up in Iqaluit, Nunavut. When I returned, I got into training mode for the Ottawa Race Weekend where I completed my second marathon in a span of 7 months. Race day was a mixture of emotions. Of course, I was thrilled to have finished my second marathon and improved on my time. The frustration was that I was unsure if I had bilateral stress fractures in my feet, just sore overused muscles, or something more serious that may signal the end of my young running career.
After taking time off from pounding the pavement, I knew I would have to start slowly again and rebuild in order to avoid that feeling in my feet from coming back. After lots of rest, walking and stretching, it was time to attempt running again. It was also time for a bigger shake-up. All of the downtime led me to read even further into barefoot running. It seemed like as good a time as any to give it a shot since I would be having to “start over” again anyways. I was not willing to go “all the way barefoot”, so I settled on a pair of Merrell Trail Gloves to be my new minimalist barefoot shoes. It was great to have my feet truly feel the ground again and slow but steady, I have built back up to about 12 km over the summer. It was also a great way to see the streets of Gaborone, Botswana, and even a trail run in South Aftica. Definitely rejuvenating!
Moving Forward. In 2012, I hope to continue building on the new form I have learned over the past 6-7 months in the barefoot shoes. I plan to do more trail running, especially in the summer when we move back to Calgary. The plan now is also to keep slowly building my distance and run the half marathon at the end of May in Ottawa. There is also a trail half-marathon just outside of Calgary in July that I would like to try. Depending on how my feet are holding up, I’ll likely add a few more goals to close out the summer of 2012.
Forward Thinking
Amanda and I were extremely fortunate to travel as much as we did in 2011 and experience many different people and cultures. It also gave us a lot of time to think about our beliefs, values and what is truly important to us. I have written before about us trying to minimize the “stuff” in our lives, and I’ve recently discussed that people should be treated fairly for the work they do.
Forward Thinkng. Moving back to Calgary in July will give us a chance to rethink some of these things again. How big of a house do we really need? How much of our “stuff” do we really need to move? Should we buy things for the 1 or 2 times a year we might need them, or should we figure out how to get by with what we have or rent / borrow what we need in those rare instances? Perspective on these things changes when you see how little some people have as well as living out of a suit case for almost four months!
As part of the process of minimizing, we have already given away quite a few of our things to local charity. We have also started posting a number of things online for sale. Of the things we have given away or sold so far, I can’t say I’ve missed any of them yet!
Forward Progress
In some ways, the biggest thing happening in 2012 is something I don’t always talk about but will try and elaborate on a bit here. Three and a half years ago we moved to Ottawa for me to start my Pediatrics residency. As part of that program, I was fortunate to be able to spend 16 weeks working in the health care system in Botswana. It was very different than working in Canada, but kids are kids and I do love my job. There are frustrations working anywhere in the world when it comes to health care, but the kids don’t know any of this. They just want to get better and we do our small part to try and help them.
This year will mark the end of this time in Ottawa. In May, I have a series of exams to become a certified pediatrician in Canada. These exams are known to be quite difficult and will require me to put a focus on studying for the next four months. In July, the next chapter of my training begins as we move back to Calgary and I start a Pediatric Gastroenterolgy Subspecialty Fellowship training program. What’s another two or three years?!
I am reading a book right now about training for ultramarathons,1 Relentless Forward Progress. I think the title also sums up the fact that I am currently completing my fifteenth year of post-secondary education! Who needs a real job anyways!
All the best to everyone! Move forward and have a successful 2012!
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Not committing to anything, but maybe a potential long term running goal of mine. ↩
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Andy
Pic: The final result – wonderful turkey dinner!
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Andy
Pic: And all the trimmings brought over from the big kitchen!
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Andy
Pic: It smells even better than it looks!
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Andy
Pic: Eggnog. It must be Christmas Eve!
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Andy
Back it up!
As we head towards the holidays, lots of pictures will be taken and lots of memories made. This will be one of my boring blog posts, but as you will see, it is something I believe pretty strongly about. Think of it as and early gift for the holidays!
Many people have different ideas when they think about backing up their files. There are different levels of backup and I try and break it down to the following:
- If I accidentally delete a file, how easily can I get it back?
- If my hard drive fails, how long until I am back up and running?
- If my computer is lost, stolen or damaged, do I have a copy of all my files?
- In the most extreme circumstance, if my house were to burn down, would I lose all my photos? 1
If you can already manage each of those situations, then congratulations. You can stop reading now and be happy knowing that you are well backed up. For the rest of you, if you can hang in there a little longer, I hope to show you that it’s not that hard to be ready for each of the above scenarios.
Here is my complete backup strategy:
Mac OS X Lion – The latest edition of the Mac operating system includes a versioning system that lets you go back in time to older versions of files or retrieve filed that are accidentally deleted. It’s a good first step but most wouldn’t even consider it to be a true backup. All the files are stored on the same hard drive, so if your computer is lost or damaged, so are all the versions of the files.
Time Machine – The easiest routers to setup are the Airport Extreme and the Time Capsule. The Airport Extreme allows you to plug any hard drive into its USB port and use it as a Time Machine backup. The Time Capsule is even easier in that the hard drive is already built in. Once you set this up, every hour, any Mac on your network will automatically backup your hard drive to the Time Machine disk. You don’t need to remember to do anything, it just happens. This is the minimum amount of backup anyone should have since if you lose anything on our Mac, it’s on the Time Machine disk. If you get a new Mac, or your old one is lost or damaged, you can restore the new Mac using the information on the Time Machine disk. This restore takes time though, so I would suggest you take other precautions to be up and running even faster. Also, in the unlikely event that the Time Machine backup becomes corrupt at the exact same time as you need it for a restore, then you will be wishing you had another strategy in place.
Dropbox – You can get 2 GB of storage on Dropbox for free, and increase it based on referrals. 2 Or you can pay for more space. I usually suggest that people keep their “active files” on Dropbox. This means any folders with files you are currently working on or need access to on the go should be in Dropbox. For some people, this might be all files besides photos and music, for others it might be everything. It all depends on your workflow and how often you access old files. The advantage to this is that now your files are accessible from any computer over the web. If your computer becomes unusable, you can use another computer to continue working, especially if you are facing a deadline.
SuperDuper – This is a Mac only utility and I’m not sure if there is an equivalent for other systems. With SuperDuper, you make an exact clone of your hard drive that is bootable. What’s the difference between this and Time Machine? A bootable backup means you can plug the hard drive into any other Mac, boot off the external drive and you have your exact system back up and running. Some people run this every night, so if their hard drive is damaged, they can immediately be back to where they were the night before. And since you’re using Dropbox, any changes to your active files will also stay up to date. Since I store everything in Dropbox, I personally run SuperDuper every 3-4 weeks or after making big changes to my photo library. You need to decide how often to run SuperDuper based on your individual usage patterns.
Multiple Backups – Don’t just make one clone of your hard drive with SuperDuper. Buy two hard drives. Keep one at work, one at home and switch them every month. This way if your house burns down, there is an off-site copy that will never be more than a month behind. Obviously, you can keep theses drives up to date more often depending on your level of comfort and how much you are willing to lose. The key is whatever interval you pick, set a recurring alert in your calendar to remind you to do the backup on a regular basis. Also, try booting from your backup every once in a while to make sure they work.
Online backup – This is the final step, keeping your files safe from a natural disaster that simultaneously wipes out your backups at home and work. (You never know!) There are many services out there depending on your level of paranoia. Personally, I would recommend keeping as many files in Dropbox as you can. Then, for the other files, I would use a combination of Arq and iCloud.
Arq – This allows for a similar strategy to Time Machine as above, but the backup goes to Amazon’s S3 servers which provides redundant backup around the world. You can chose which folders get backed up to S3 and you pay only for the storage you use. I use S3 for all my photos, and pay around $3 per month. The latest pricing is about $0.14 per GB per month. The initial setup of S3 isn’t difficult, but it is not exactly Mac like. Setting up Arq on the other hand is extremely easy and well worth the one time cost of the application.
iCould – Until this past week, I did not have all my music backed up online. I simply had too much music and I didn’t think the time required to upload it all to S3 was worth the time or money to store it all. But, this week, Apple released iTunes Match in Canada. For $27.99 per year, all of my music is backed up to iCloud and accessible from all my devices. The advantage to iTunes Match is that it only uploads files that aren’t in the iTunes store, even if your original files aren’t from iTunes. For me, this meant that less than 20 per cent of my music actually had to be uploaded which is a huge savings in time and bandwidth compared to backing it all up to S3. For the convenience of accessing the music from all of my devices and knowing its all backed up online, it is worth the $27.99 per year.
iOS 5 – If you haven’t updated your iPhone or iPad to iOS 5, do it now. The latest operating system allows for automatic backup to iCloud each night when your device is plugged in. No thinking involved. If the device gets lost or stolen, you can restore your new device online and nothing is lost.
Thanks for hanging in to this point! So, now you might be thinking, it will cost money to by hard drives and it will take time to set all this up. But I think you just need to ask yourself one question: If you were to lose your computer today, and lost all your photos, how much time and money would you be willing to spend to get all your files and photos back? When put in that situation, it would probably be a lot more than the time and money it would take today to protect everything. Just a thought.
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Scott
Hi Andy,
Was the 27.99 you paid for iCloud a set amount, or was it tied to the volume you needed? Was that just for your iTunes Library (music / videos etc), or would it cover other mac digital purchases (iBook etc)?
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Andy
The $27.99 is just for iTunes Match and is just for songs not purchased through iTunes. Things purchased through iTunes (aside from movies) can already be re-downloaded to other devices or if lost. Hope that makes sense. The price is a set amount for the service so the size of your music library doesn’t matter.
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Andy
Taylor Lake, Gatineau Park
Photos: Taylor Lake
After all of our African adventures, it is easy to forget that there are many places right in our own backyard for more adventures!
This past weekend was Amanda’s birthday. I booked us a yurt at Taylor Lake in Gatineau Park. We had never hiked out and stayed overnight in Gatineau Park prior to this weekend, so we figured it was a very Ottawa thing to do.
The ground was lightly snow covered which meant it was better to move away from our barefoot shoes, and put on the hiking boots. There was some soggy parts on the trail, so we were both glad we made that choice. The hike was only 6-7 km before we reached Taylor Lake Yurt. Bunk beds, wood stove for heating, propane stove for cooking, candle light – what more could we ask for! I’m glad Amanda likes to do the same outdoor activities as I do. There were a few people at work that were glad I wasn’t getting them birthday presents!
Aside from one minor scare with the carbon monoxide detector going off 1, the hike and overnight stay were uneventful. Just a nice relaxing evening and a great way to celebrate Amanda’s birthday.
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There were warnings that leaving the wood stove door open could cause the carbon monoxide detector to go off. We didn’t think we had it opened for too long, but the detector didn’t agree. After we opened the doors for a couple of minutes and reset the alarm, there were no further issues or scares. ↩
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Andy
Artists should get paid
As many of you know, Amanda and I try to eat organic and fair trade as much as possible. Not only is it healthier, but it also raises personal awareness for what is going into our bodies as well as ensuring that the farming practices are safe for the workers. Most importantly though, fair trade means that workers are adequately paid for what they do.
So what does this have to do with artists? In a similar way, one could say that artists should be paid fairly for what they do. Artists can be writers, poets, musicians, film makers, actors, software developers, etc. By thinking about artists in terms of “fair trade” it raises some interesting issues. Many would argue that music has gotten worse over the years and maybe an album shouldn’t be worth $10 or a song shouldn’t be worth 99 cents. What music is “worth” is something we all need to consider. Instead of then illegally downloading those songs or albums, maybe we should ask if we really need that song in our music collection in the first place. After all, if we are saying that we wouldn’t even pay 99 cents for a song, it can’t really be worth keeping, can it?
The same argument can be made for movies. Many people say they download movies illegally because DVDs and Blu-ray discs are too expensive. If we really feel that buying the movie is too much money, and we don’t even want to spend the money to rent it on iTunes, perhaps the movie really isn’t worth watching.
To put this another way, if we were to start limiting downloading music, movies, books and television shows to legal downloads, where the artists get paid, it is true that we may have to become more selective in what we chose to download. For some, being selective would be a necessity, if only for financial reasons alone. But think about how much more time might be available to do other things by downloading less. Plus, those artists that you do chose to support become that much more special and you know you are supporting the artist to continue producing content that you are willing to buy.
Am I the poster child for what I just wrote? Absolutely not. I feel that I am part way there in that I do my best to support the musicians that I listen to the most or that are my current favorites. I also try to support these artists by attending their shows when they play locally. But there are many songs that I listen to often enough that should have been worth a 99 cent investment at some point.
Here are some suggestions to ensure artists get paid:
- Music – Buy music direct from the artist whenever possible. Musicians make more money if you buy from their websites directly. iTunes is a great choice as well, especially from a convenience stand point. If one of your favorite musicians is in town, buy a ticket to the show to support them even further.
- Movies – No more illegal downloads. I don’t have time to watch that many movies so when I do, I will use Netflix or iTunes to legally watch them and support everyone involved in making the movie. A great side effect of this is that if we stop supporting all the bad movies coming out of Hollywood, maybe they will stop making them!
- Television – We don’t currently subscribe to cable and in general, we only watch one or two shows at any given time. The big issue with television shows is there are some shows that are not available on iTunes or aren’t available in Canada. For shows like this, there is often no choice but to obtain them by other means. But I will try to look for shows on Netflix and iTunes first.
- Software – The majority of software I buy now is on my iPad or iPhone so the only way of installing it, without hacking the device, is through the legal App Store. The Mac App Store is also making installing legal software extremely easy.
- Books – iBooks and Kindle versions of books are readily available. Between the two choices, you would be hard pressed not to find what you are looking for.
If the reasons above aren’t encouraging enough to consider fair trade for entertainment, maybe taking a look at a recent story about a new site will provide a bit more incentive.
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Scott
Great post. I used to use alternative methods, but I omostly use iTunes and kindle. Same as you, some tv shows are hard to come by.
Scott
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Andy
VIDEO: What is the single best thing we can do for our health?
This video by Dr. Mike Evans is a short 9-minute watch with an easy tip as we head into the holiday season and the new year. Straight forward. Easy to understand. We can all do it!
(via Runblogger)
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Andy
Getting rid of “stuff”
Since Amanda and I have returned from Africa, one of the general themes we keep discussing is how much “stuff” people in North America tend to have – us included! I think that there are a lot of things that we thought we needed, but when you are away and don’t have those things, perspective can change. As we move into the season where people generally accumulate more “stuff”, I thought I would share some of the tips to de-clutter that Jason Robillard posted on his barefoot running website. He draws a lot of parallels between living a minimalist lifestyle and barefoot/minimalist running. You can expect more posts on similar themes in the future.
- Get rid of extra unused clothing. Go to your closet. Turn all hangers around so they’re facing the opposite direction (hook on the backside of the rail.) When you wear an article of clothing and wash it, return it to the rail normally. At the end of one month, you’ll know which clothes you’ve worn and which clothes you haven’t by the hanger position. Donate half of the clothes that were untouched.
- Do the “35 items” challenge. Each day for one week, select five items around your house that you do not use. Place them in a pile somewhere in your house. At the end of the week, donate the pile to a local charity.
- Do a week-long “zero growth” activity. If you buy anything during the week, you must get rid of something of approximately the same size and/or value. The goal is to stop accumulating new stuff.
Feel free to leave any other tips and ideas in the comments!
agnes wingfield 10:30 pm on 2/19/2012 Permalink
WE HAVE NOT EITHER!!!HOW WERE THE ACCOUSTICS?
I do believe you had a nice evening for both of you.
Love to hear it all!