How much is worth to be a Canadian?

The Offer

If someone paid you $1,000,000 tax-free US dollars to renounce your citizenship, would you do it? (You really should read the link or the rest of this entry won't make any sense.)

From a strictly short-term personal financial perspective, it makes sense. I'd be a million dollars richer. I could do a lot of things with a million dollars. I'd have to be an idiot to turn down an offer like that, right?

And yet... I would reject an American offer to buy my citizenship.  

Why would I reject such an astounding offer and why would I discourage others from taking the deal?

1. $1,000,000 isn't worth very much when everybody else has $1,000,000.  Want to see inflation go crazy?  Give half of the Canadian population $1,000,000.
2. Those Canadian dollars that you already have?  Watch the value of those dry up instantly. 
3. Want to see your friends (at least the ones who weren't able to take the offer) get very, very poor?  What a slime ball I would be if I did that to a friend or neighbour.
   
4. As similar as Canada and the US are, there are a lot of differences between the two countries:
• Socialized medicare?  Love it.  So what if I could afford the health insurance?  The peace of mind of not having to deal with an insurance company when you're dealing with a health crisis is priceless.
• Our Employment Insurance system?  It's great.  While I've paid a lot more money into it than I've ever gotten out of it (and plan to keep it that way, though I appreciated the $314 I got for one week of unemployment), the fact that the safety net exists comforts me.  I actually sleep better for it (not that I'm eligible now as a self-employed person).  The fact that it's there for others also comforts me.  Yes, there are a few abusers, but there are far more non-abusers and I think our Employment Insurance system will go a long way to keeping our economy out of more-dire economic straits.
• Attitudes towards multi-culturalism.  I love that I don't live in a cultural melting pot.  Diversity rules!
• Speaking of diversity, I'm not gay, but if I were, I would darn well want the right to a civil union (aka "marriage") and I would want my children to also have that right.
• Although I have my issues with the party system, I'm pretty confident the Canadian government system represents my interests as a citizen a whole lot better than the American government system can (then again, with a million dollars, I could afford to make a few political campaign contributions...).
• As poor a job as we Canadians do taking care of our natural spaces, we'd do an even worse job under an American government.  "What?  1,500+ ducks died in a toxic pond?  Did it affect our oil supply?  Is anybody suing us? No?  So what's the big deal?"   Actually, it would probably be "What? 1,500+ ducks died in a toxic pond?  Let's sue the environmental groups for being negligent in their care of the ducks!  Those terrorists.  We've got to stop them before they stop us!"
• Speaking of suing, as someone who likely would have been sued a dozen times by now (I don't know why, but under the American legal system, does it really matter?), I really like Canada's less-litigious legal system.
• Although our foreign policy hasn't been as good as it once was, I appreciate that I can go to most foreign countries and not be instantly despised (rightly or wrongly).
• Um, guns make you safer?!?  Riiiiiiight.
• It would cost me more than a million dollars just to send my kids to college if Canada became America.  So much for that million bucks!
5. Based on some of the things I've mentioned in #3, the offer essentially amounts to a purchase of my values.  Sorry, but those aren't for sale.  Everybody has their price, you say?  Never been true.  Sometimes, people just don't feel like buying what you're selling.  Come to think of it, I find the offer downright insulting.
6. Besides, other than $1,000,000, what has America got to offer me?  To make my life better than it is now?  To make my childrens' lives better than they are in Canada?  Don't get me wrong, I'm not an America hater, but if I thought America was a better country for me and my kids, I'd already live there.

Counteroffer

The "offer" has given me an idea, however.  The American economy is going down the drain faster than an AIG executive accepts a bail-out bonus.  More and more Americans will be losing their jobs and their houses and they sure as heck won't be able to afford health insurance and they have America and its government to thank for that.

Why not give America the opportunity to buy into Canada and the Canadian system of government?  Yes, I know America severed ties with "the monarchy" a few centuries ago, but think of the advantage for Americans:

• Canada has a federal government that (for the most part) knows how to balance a budget and (until recently) pay down its national debt!
  
• Other than buying up a few mortgages, our government hasn't had to bail out any of our banks because they're well regulated!
• Universal health care for all citizens.  It makes life easier for everyone (except for those who would otherwise profit from health insurance sales and over-priced medical services).
• Instant corporate and personal liability protection from excessive and frivolous lawsuits.
• Election campaign contributions from corporations are severely limited.  Professional lobbyists have to join a registry.  Comparatively, it's government by the people, for the people!
• It's easier to sing our national anthem (except for the French part if you don't speak French).  It's also easier to draw the Canadian flag.  Who has the time to draw all those stars and stripes?
• International travel will become much more comfortable and Americans will no longer be living a lie when they stitch Canadian flags onto their backpacks.
• With our lower dollar, Americans will suddenly find themselves much wealthier (thereby stimulating the economy).

Now, I'm not going to be so radical as to suggest that the entire US of A buy into Canada all at once.  No, that would be far too much change to handle all at once.  America is a union of states, after all, so I'm going to propose that it be done on a state-by-state basis for only $250 billion per state (which amounts to $12 trillion - the amount that was already offered).  

Alaska can buy into Canada first (because Alaska just looks like it should be part of Canada and,  since Alaskans and Yukon-Canadians are already pretty chummy, it'll be an easy transition). 

In fact, America, act now and we'll let Alaska become part of Canada for FREE!  That's right, I said FREE!  This is a limited-time offer, so call today!  For just 51 easy payments of $250 billion, you can become a part of Canada and a part of Canadian history. Easy payment plans are available on approved credit.  Call now! 

Don't let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity pass you by!  What have you got to lose?

Better than a punch in the shoulder...

Remember that lame schoolyard joke, where someone would hurt their finger and some moron would say, "Want me to make your finger feel better?" - and then punch the poor person in the shoulder?

This evening, I had a splitting headache. It was likely from going to bed too late and then waking up at 3:30 and again from 5:30 onwards with Little Miss Twitchy.

I dragged my aching head outside to give the dog a walk. Before we went, I wanted to check on something on the second floor of the shed (yes, my shed has two stories - it's a big shed). The steps were icy from the recent melt and subsequent freeze - something that I forgot about on my way back down. I slipped and landed hard on my left arm. Pain shot through my elbow and shoulder and I wondered for a moment if I broke something. I stood up, made sure that everything was working - and realised that my headache was gone. Completely gone.

My arm feels fine, too.

Weird.

A useless post...

I've decided that I really don't like Twitter and I don't see what all the fuss is about. I get the occasional kick out of Facebook status updates, though. I like the conversations that sometimes ensue. Like this one, for example:

Meandering Michael is posting a useless status update.
15:25

Anthony at 15:58 on 27 March
I am posting a useless comment in response.

Clare at 16:01 on 27 March
I'd post a useless comment also, but what's the point.

Catherine at 16:43 on 27 March
I think it is quite useless to even enter this discussion.

Meandering Michael at 18:14 on 27 March
Thereby making it quite useless for me to even respond.

The power of cute...

During our recent trip to Vancouver, there was an evening where I got very, very frustrated with Jade. She kept spitting out her food or squirreling it away in her cheek. With any other kid, I wouldn't care, but Jade is on a strict diet that helps to control her seizures. After a day of fasting, she needed to eat something, and it needed to be in the right proportion.

I was fuming. I was so frustrated and so angry. A fire was burning inside me and I felt like I wanted to explode. I hated feeling that way, but I knew that if she didn't eat, her seizures would get worse. I was ready to hand her to someone else and say, "Keep her. Forever" I had to do something before I completely lost it.

Instead, I just gave up, fed her a big glob of coconut oil to make sure she'd get enough fat (which she spat out all over the floor), re-fed her the big glob of coconut oil, and then told her to take off her clothes so I could put her pajamas on.

Still steaming, I marched off to collect something from the kitchen. I was still steaming upon my return, but that all changed when I opened the door to the room and saw the predicament Jade had gotten herself into.

With her right arm still in the sleeve of her shirt, she had pulled her left arm out of the neck. Somehow, she had managed to stick her left leg down the left arm of the shirt. She was lying on the floor, still trying to take her shirt off, saying "Stuck. Stuck. Stuck."

I burst out laughing and all of the anger I felt before drained away in an instant.  I still haven't been able to figure out how she managed to get her leg down that sleeve and chuckle every time I think about it.

And that's why they make kids cute: it's a survival mechanism - for them and for us.

Nothing sucks like an Electrolux...

I always knew, deep down, that cleaning the house was dangerous work and could be harmful to my health. If it's not corrosive cleaners or bacteria-laden sponges, it's exploding vacuum cleaners. They say that "Nothing Sucks Like an Electrolux". Apparently, nothing blows like one, either.

It's not a car that flies...

... it's a plane that drives.

Oh, how quick and amazing my work and pleasure trips would be if I could just hop from airport to airport, no longer confined to the highway, able to see the amazing views on the other side of the mountains...



Alas, my hopes were shattered when I learned that these puppies wouldn't be available in Canada because we don't have a "light sport aircraft" category and the plane is too heavy to be considered an "Advanced Ultralight Aircraft". Maybe one day.

Maybe one day...

Back on the saddle and back in the 'horse...

The Neurology Team at BC Children's Hospital is fantastic, and they really are a team. The doctors, nurses, and dietician all work together and we had seamless and caring treatment, no matter which member of the team we were dealing with. We still don't know what caused the downward slide, but we managed to get Jade back on track (she's still having seizures, but a fraction of what she was having before we went down) by fasting her for a day and completely weaning her from one of her medications. Over the course of a week, we had daily in-person and over-the-phone check-ins. We discussed what we would do if something like this were to happen again and we discussed further treatments for Jade down the road.

My brother- and sister-in-law, as always, came to my rescue, making sure that I was fed and giving me a chance to have conversations with someone capable of using sentences longer than three words. I feel bad for my brother-in-law when he comes out to visit us at Easter Seal House because he always becomes the unwilling participant in one-sided conversations with other guests who insist on telling him the finer details of their entire medical histories. Poor guy.

Easter Seal House is paradise, compared to staying at the hospital. Jade enjoyed playing in the toy room, especially when other kids joined her. She's a very social kid, even immediately after has a drop seizure and gets carpet burn on her nose. Nothing like that is going to hold her back from having fun.

We got out to see some of the kid-friendly Vancouver sights, too. My sister-in-law and Jade and I went to Science World, which was jam-packed with spring breakers. We spent half of our visit trying to feed Jade and the other half mopping up blood from when she banged her mouth during a drop seizure. That didn't stop Jade from having fun, though!

We also went to Stanley Park. Our original plan was to go to the petting zoo, but it was closed by the time we got there. Instead, we went to the playground. Jade had a drop seizure and face-planted herself on the hard, gravelly sand. Because of the seizure, she fell with her eyes and mouth open. We spent most of our visit mopping up blood and trying to flush sand out of her eyes. That didn't stop Jade from having fun, though! We left the playground and walked to one of the ponds where a lady was feeding a swan. She was a volunteer with the park, taking care of a swan with an old neck injury. When the swan was done feeding, the volunteer let Jade feed the ducks. Who needs a petting zoo when you can feed ducks - even if your eyes are full of gravel?


Successfully weaned off her medication, seizures reduced, and face healing from drop seizures, we're back in Whitehorse where the snow is melting. To be honest, I'm not really looking forward to the melt. The snow makes a pretty effective cushion when Jade has a drop seizure. Not that it ever stops her from having fun.

Dispatches from the 5-star hospital resort...

In spite of the hospital's best efforts, Jade is improving.

But maybe I should step back and explain how we got here.

A Disturbing Trend
We're not sure, exactly, what went wrong. After an amazing beginning to the month where she had a bunch of seizure-free days, Jade started moving in the wrong direction. She got lethargic and was having lots of absence seizures and myoclonic jerks. She was gagging on her food. There were no indications that she was fighting a cold or flu. She had no fever. There was nothing obvious to explain why her seizures were getting worse.

The lethargy and staring and twitching started lasting longer and longer - almost exponentially. If you saw her lying on the couch, watching a movie, you would think that she was quite relaxed - except that she NEVER makes it through one whole movie before leaping off the couch to play, let alone two movies.

Through our telephone conversations, the neurology folks were afraid that she was going into "non-convulsive status epilepticcus" which means that they were afraid she was slipping into a permanent state of seizure that doesn't come with any of the body jerking that most people associate with seizures. Have you ever been using a computer when the screen just froze? When everything looked fine, but the mouse wouldn't work and the keyboard wouldn't work? When there were no blue screens or notification messages - just a frozen, pretty-looking screen that looked exactly as you left it, while the hard drive churned and churned and churned away? That's pretty much what non-convulsive status epilepticcus is.

Talking back and forth with the neurology team, and after getting some blood taken at the hospital in Whitehorse (where she got stuck in the arms five times before the nurses called the blood lab for the sixth, successful, stabbing), the decision was made to fly her down to Vancouver.

Flying on short notice
Jade had perked up a bit at the hospital in Whitehorse, but fell asleep on the couch the second we got home. Fawn and I had 45 minutes to pack and prepare keto-meals for Jade (we couldn't trust that they would have any for her at the hospital when we arrived, and we couldn't exactly say, "Oh, no biggie! She can have a cheeseburger tonight!"). I packed and Fawn zipped around the kitchen, focused on making as many meals as possible before our flight. Fawn was an amazing sight to behold as she zigzagged around the kitchen in a flurry of weighing and cooking and labeling. The phone rang incessantly as arrangements were made for the flight. I shoved a couple of pieces of pizza down my throat (ordering pizza the night before turned out to be a brilliant bit of unintentional foresight). Fawn stayed home with Halia, who, by then, was having a pay-attention-to-me-gosh-darn-it breakdown while Karyn drove Jade and me down to the airport.

The flight consisted of Jade trying to nap, having occasional bursts of playfulness, and trying to nap again. When we got to Vancouver, we took a taxi to the hospital and walked into Emergency at 17:00, where they were expecting us.

Emergency
At this particular hospital's Emergency ward, they have an interesting admittance and triage system. First, you go to Booth #1 where you're asked the reason for your visit. If you're lucky, like me, they'll have a note from Neurology that says they're to be phoned as soon as you arrive. Then, you're directed to Booth #2, where you're registered. Then, you're told to go sit down and wait. Later, you're brought back to Booth #1, where you're weighed and your vitals are taken. Then, you're told to go sit down and wait again. If, after almost two hours of waiting, you let them know that your kid gets worse seizures from sleep deprivation and that she'll need to go to bed soon, they will inform you that their one-and-only ER doctor must see you before the neurologists that were expecting you (and who had left a message for the emergency desk to call them right when you arrived - I know because I saw it) can see you. If, like me, you think that having to see a doctor that you don't need to see before you see the doctors that were expecting to see you can see you is stupid, you call your wife in Whitehorse, tell her the situation, and have her call Neurology. Later, your wife calls you back, informs you that Neurology received the call a half-hour ago - several hours after they were supposed to be called - and that the Neurologist is at the ER now and will see you shortly. Not long after that, the Neurologist will arrive, but it won't be just any Neurologist, it will be a Resident Neurologist, which is a fancy title for someone whose real title should be "A doctor-in-training who's going to ask you the patient's complete history for the millionth time before they take it to the Neurologist-on-Call who already knows the patient's complete history to see what, if anything, they should do about it." When the Resident Neurologist finally gets back to you, you will be informed that you will be staying in the hospital and that a room is all ready - but that it will take a little while to process the paper work...

Thank goodness for my brother- and sister-in-law who brought me food. Thank goodness that I had Jade's food with me.

Jade finally fell asleep at 23:00, four hours after her normal bed time. Other than "some bloodwork and an EEG first thing in the morning", I didn't know what was in store for her.

Our Hospital Room
Our room was the lap of luxury.

Not.

When I was five-years-old, or so, I met a kid with a hunched back for the first time. I wondered how his back got that way. He must have slept in the same pull-out chair that I had to sleep in.

The room was a private room in the sense that there was a curtain between us and family on the other side. Unfortunately, it was not a very effective noise-blocking curtain and the family on the other side was loud. The washroom was a shared washroom without a shower. When you're staying at a hospital for an indefinite period with only a few changes of clothes (and one pair of pants), showers a good things for everyone. The door for the washroom was right beside Jade's bed and one of our bathroom mates had urinary problems (and screamed every time he peed, poor kid). The nurses really, really, really wanted to check Jade's vitals every hour, but I wouldn't let them. Let's just say that conditions in the hospital room weren't very good for a kid whose seizures get worse from sleep deprivation.

There was no food for me (which is not exactly true, because there were crackers in the kitchen area and my brother- and sister-in-law brought me some snacks). All of the play rooms were quarantined because of a Norwalk outbreak (so there was nothing for Jade - or any of the kids - to play with).

Let's just say that, on the whole, Jade was probably in more danger of having her seizures worsen at the hospital than she would had we been staying somewhere near the hospital.

(Oh, and if you're one of those parents who takes both of your kids to the hospital because they're coughing and have a mild fever - but are still well enough to run around and play with all the toys - and you're coughing and have a mild fever and your spouse is coughing and has a mild fever, DON'T GO TO THE HOSPITAL! You'll all got a virus. You'll get over it! Don't give it to everyone else!)

Relief Comes When It's Least Expected

In spite of the situation, Jade's seizures improved somewhat. She had her EEG, which went well, and she had her blood work, which also went well (even after all that poking the day before, she still didn't flinch). Her food went down without complaint. She was a little overtired and didn't go down well for her nap (on account of the noise in the room "next to ours"), but was doing fairly well when she awoke.

They wanted a urine sample from her and, since she's not yet potty trained, I had to stick a pee bag to her. The pee bags are nothing more than a plastic bag with a sticky end that covers the parts that eject the pee. I figured that she'd go shortly after waking from her nap, so I picked her up and put her on my lap, that way, she'd be sitting upright during her pee. Unfortunately, the pee bags don't seal things perfectly and I knew it would leak all over the place if she were lying down.

As I said, the pee bags don't seal things perfectly. When she peed, sitting on my lap, it leaked out onto the bed, but also onto me and my only pair of pants.

With the help of a nurse (all of the nurses were very nice), I located the laundry room, which is basically a closet with a coin-operated washer and dryer. Just as I was entering the laundry closet, a guy called me by my name.

"Jade's dad?" he asked.

After a brief introduction, I now found myself standing in the closet-sized laundry room with Jade and the hospital's other neurologist who specializes in the ketogenic diet (our regular neurologist is out of town). I thought it seemed like a weird way to meet with a patient; standing there in pee-soaked pants in a closet-sized laundry room, but judging the doctor's comfort with the situation, this was a preferred way to meet with his patients.

We talked about a plan of action for getting Jade's seizures under control. And by "under control", he meant "eliminated completely". He explained that, with Jade's type of epilepsy, there is a good chance that we can get rid of the seizures altogether. That was the fist time I've ever heard that and it was invigorating to hear it from someone who has so much experience in the field.

I also liked his, "let's do what makes sense and not what's dictated by policy" approach. He listened to my concerns about Jade's poor sleep in the hospital and we worked out a way to keep an eye on her while implementing a day of fasting (to bolster the effects of the ketogenic diet) and doing a medicine wean.

There was a smile on my face when I packed our bags and left the hospital for a nice, quiet room, kitchenette, playroom and shower at Easter Seal House.

Jade slept very well.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

More updates to follow when I can get to them...

The secret to a good marriage...

...is teamwork. We don't always agree, and we don't always work as a team, but when the chips are down, we always come together and do what needs to be done. 

One of the benefits of having a good teammate comes at the end of an exhausting day, when you realize that your teammate has already taken care of something that you were feeling too tired t do.  Thanks, Fawn, for posting this update.

If I feel up to it tomorrow, I'll post more about our latest hospital experience.

Discovering the secret to potty training...

After more than a year of futile attempts to potty train Jade (efforts that were hindered, in part, by seizures that caused her to lose control of her bowels), the secret to potty training Jade has finally been revealed.

Want to know what it is? It's surprisingly simple. I'm surprised I didn't think of it before. The secret is to...

Leave her alone.

By alone, I mean "leave her at another house in the neighborhood with a potty where she'll go pee all by herself." By alone, I mean "leave her alone upstairs so that when you go back upstairs she can tell you about the poo she put into the potty."

So what if I couldn't give her a high-five because she also got poo all over her hands? She pooed in the potty!

I'm going to have to leave my kid to her own devices more often...

"Looking out the Window"

Other than a few things that friends with epilepsy have told me about the auras before their seizures, I really don't know what having a seizure is like. One of the most frustrating things about Jade's seizures is that I can't identify with what she's going through. A cut finger? Sure. I've had lots of those. A bump on the noggin? Sure, I've had LOTS of those. A siezure? Not a clue, and Jade's doesn't yet have the vocabulary to articulate what she experiences.

It's frustrating. It's even more frustrating when I take her for an EEG. I can't help but wince every time I see a storm of electrical activity. They're surprisingly (and frighteningly) frequent, even if we don't see anything on the outside.

On the bright side, we are seeing improvements (on the outside, at least) thanks to adjustments to her ketogenic diet. She had a rough couple of days, but we think we know why, and by rough, I mean "Now with 99.99% less roughness than mid-October!!!" I have to admit though, after a few seizure-free days, it felt exceptionally craptacular to see clusters of seizures like that. It's all about incremental improvements right now, though, and we're incrementally improving in the right direction, at least.

Back to what it's like to have seizures; I still don't have a clue.   But that didn't stop me from writing a poem about it on one of my favouritest blogs ever, Every Photo Tells a Story. I don't know what it was about today's image prompt, but I felt compelled to write a poem in dedication to Jade and other children who are dealing with epilepsy.  It's called "Looking out the Window".

(The lines and squiggles are supposed to represent an EEG.)

~~~~~~~^^^^Colours and lightening^^^^^~~~
And feelings of~~~~~^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^~~~~~~frightening~~~~~~^^~~^~~
~~^^^~~^^^~~^~^^^~^^^^~~And noises and static~~~^^^~^~^~^~^~^~~^~^~^~~~

- My focus erratic -

~^^^^^Quickening^^^^^~~~
^^^/\/\/\/\Deafening/\/\/\^^^^~~~~~
~/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Storming/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Advancing/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Blazes of white\/\/\/\/\^^^^^/\/\/\/^^~~
~~~^^^/\/\/\/Undesired\/\/\/\\/\/\/\^^^^^^^^
/\/\/\/\\/\/\/\^^^/\/\^/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^^/\/\\^
/\/\/\/^^^^\/^\/\^~~~But entrancing~/\/\/\/^^
^^^/\/\/\/\~~\/\^/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^^^^/\/\/\^^/\/\/\/^^^/\/\/\/\\/\/^^^^^^^\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Closing the window, it's trapped in my brain/\/\/\/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\^^And I am trapped, too/\/\/\/\/\/^^\/\/\/
\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/^^^^^^^'Till the storm starts to wane^^^^^^^^^^~~
~^^^~~~When the colours and lights^^~~^~^~^~^^^~~~
^^~~~Fade away~~^^~~
^~~~Fade away~~~^~
~~~Then the window will open~~~
~~~And I can go play~~~~~~~~~~~

A family resemblance...

There are times when I look at Halia and can't help but notice that she looks a lot like my dad (her grandfather) - especially when she's smiling. I don't have a good pic of her smiling, off-hand, so these pictures will have to do for comparison...




See what I mean?

The Group Sex on Facebook

For various reasons, I've started a few Facebook groups. Today, I'm going to tell you about two of them.

The Modified HireMICHAELforHamiltonIsland.com Facebook Group

The HireMICHAELforHamiltonIsland.com facebook group was my most recent Facebook group creation.  I started it as part of my campaign to get "The Best Job in the World".

When I didn't get shortlisted for the job, the group no longer had a reason to exist.  I decided to revamp it and it became the official Michael's Meanderings Facebook Group.  

I messaged all 375 members to let them know that I didn't get shortlisted and that I had changed the name and purpose of the group. I watched and waited for the mass exodus.  As I expected, people started leaving the group.   Well, eight of them did, anyway. Then, something unexpected happened - four more people joined!  As of this entry, there are only three fewer members than when the HireMICHAELforHamiltonIsland campaign was on.

I feel loved.

The Group "Sex" on Facebook

Speaking of love, I love to mess with the auto-sentence features on websites and software applications.  Auto-text is clever, but it's also pretty stupid.  What could be more fun then, than being cleverer and stupider than auto-text?

Early on in my Facebooking days, I noticed that the mini-feeds could be manipulated in interesting and, sometimes, humourous ways.

I decided that stunning pronouncements in my mini-feed like "Joe Blow joined the group YOUR IN ENGLAND NOW... SO SPEAK FRIGGIN ENGLISH!!!¹" or "Joe Blow joined the group I Like to Pick My Nose" would be much more entertaining if they read "Joe Blow joined the group sex."

And so, I started a group called, simply, "sex".

It's members come and go, but there have been about 35 members who have been engaged in the group sex for well over a year now².

If you're looking for a little bit of good, clean, fun and want to give your friends a chuckle when they see in their mini-feed that you "joined the group sex", then join the group sex today!  While you're there, invite all of your friends to join you!

As these things go, the more the merrier!

¹Yes, that really is how the group's name is spelled...

²No, those puns weren't intentional. Not at all...

The National!

OK, so I guess there's one more blog entry before my big HireMICHAELforHamiltonIsland.com "Thank-you" entry.

When I was in Penticton yesterday, I got an e-mail from CBC. They wanted to film me while I checked to see if I made the Top 50 for the Island Caretaker position. Unfortunately, I was going to be on the road when the fifty finalists were announced. It's just as well, because I did not make it as a finalist. While I question about a fifth of their selection ("That was better than mine? Really?"), I can't help but think that I should have used my extra 16 seconds to talk about the Great Barrier Reef and maybe score higher in their selection criteria. Oh, well!

As a consolation prize, I was on CBC's The National last night as "This guy from Whitehorse actually took a dip in sub-zero water". While that may be scientifically incorrect, it's also pretty neat to have been on The National (and CBC Newsworld, again).

A state of stunned (and hopeful) disbelief.

In mid-February, I took Jade down to BC Childrens Hospital for an EEG. It was a little over three months since we started her on the ketogenic diet and it was time for a check-up.

We know that the ketogenic diet is helping to control her seizures, but the EEG showed that her sub-clinical seizures (the ones that stay in her brain and don't manifest themselves through jerking, staring, drops, etc.) were worse. It wasn't cause for concern, though, because she never had an EEG when her seizures were at their worst, the latest EEG may be worse relative to her previous EEG, but it's likely an improvement over where she was before she went on the diet.

The keto team decided that there was still room for improvement, so they wanted to increase Jade's ratio so that 95% of her calories come from fat (instead of 90%). Fawn and I were dreading the change but it went quite well.

And it helped.

Yesterday, for the first time since September, Jade had no seizures (that we could see). It's a little hard to believe. You almost come to expect the seizures the same way you might expect squirrels at your bird feeder or ravens in your garbage - you don't want them there, but there they are, making an appearance and causing trouble!

Today, she had a short little drop at breakfast but, overall, that's still an amazing improvement. Before the increase, she was having eight to twelve full drops a day.

Now, she's running around like a three-year-old should. She's using new words and word combination like crazy. She's a little chatter box! I don't care if she climbs up on the furniture, because I'm not worried that she's going to have a seizure and fall! If she falls it's because she doing normal, adventurous, three-year-old stuff!

We've come so far since those nightmarish days in October when it seemed like my daughter was disappearing inside her own shell.

We have our child back! Let's hope things stay that way!

(As you might expect, Fawn is pretty happy about it, too.)

I'm sure it's quite lovely...

I'm in Penticton, BC right now. I wish I could say that I'm enjoying the scenery of the Okanagan Valley, but we didn't see anything during our late-night drive from Vancouver (in which we experienced just about every kind of weather and road conditions imaginable - except for sunshine, of course - and delays due to construction - after midnight, no less!) Today, it's foggy and I can't even see the nearby mountains. In other words, I'm in Penticton, but I have yet to see any of it. I'm sure it's quite lovely...

I'm here for a band festival. I play early this afternoon and then it's back in the rental for the return drive to Vancouver. It's too bad, because some of the other band members were telling me about their tour of the observatory yesterday and it sounded amazing (they left for Penticton earlier and are staying longer).

Perhaps it's just as well, though. The slogan on the Penticton website is "A Place to Stay Forever". Being tied to one place forever? That would be torture for me!

I'll try take some pictures if the weather improves...