One of the first and one of the only times I’ve ever seen my dad cry was the day we lost our Chico. I was 14 or 15 and I drove with Dad

Governing an organization is a process of setting a target for the organization to head, and then codifying the way decisions get made to keep the organization headed that direction. Policy governance was

This is Part 3 of a 5 part series. To see the whole series, read the introductory post. Personal-family balance is a tricky subject. I specifically avoid the term work-life balance, because I

Positioning your project as the next logical step, consistent with prior commitments is one of the surest ways to getting your project approved. People have a general desire to be (and more importantly,

I’ve been spending time over the last few weeks digging into how I do things. How I negotiate proposals. How I set my rates. How I decide what to work on. What it

Today I attended my first Ismaili Funeral Ceremony. It was an experience to behold since it was, at first, completely foreign. I went to pay my last respects to a quiet, powerful woman

I read the wired article on the lateral move of Todd Park from US Government CTO to technology advisor to the whitehouse. It’s a fascinating deep dive into the mind set different between

Accomplishing something difficult is a roller-coaster of emotions. There are good times when the pixie dust just seems to working. There are bad times when nothing you do seems to make a difference.

Have you ever gone pee on an airplane? It’s a fair question, not everyone has. But if you have, you know the drill. You wait impatiently in your chair for the turbulence signs

GravityLight: lighting for the developing countries from Therefore on Vimeo. Have you ever sat around wondering what you want to be when you grow up? Have you ever come up with an answer?

Forming a habit is a hard thing. People talk a lot about breaking bad habits, but I think that forming new ones is just about as hard. I want to be a better

When you want a new bed for your son you pop out to your local shop and pick one up. Or at least that’s what any sane Dad would do. If you did,

Part of good governance is the process of stepping back and looking at what you’ve done over the past year to decide if what you’ve accomplished met your targets. Today I went through

I know. I shouldn’t have. There’s usually substance abuse involved. But I did. Just yesterday I was lamenting how hard it can be to settle in to relax when all your routines have

My parents are in the process of moving from their house of 34 years. This is a big change and I can’t imagine how difficult this is, both physically and emotionally. Overcoming the

How do you define an expert? A couple of hundred years ago, an expert was called a Master: a Master Mason, a Master Thatcher, a Master Weaver.  They got this designation by spending

We read every night to our kids.  They love books.  And because we’ve been reading to them since pretty much the day they were born, their comprehension is incredible.  As an example, we

There’s an expression familiar to those who’ve lived in Africa (or those that are married to someone who has), that says so little and yet means so much. TIA, This Is Africa, is

So as we recover from the mania that is Ironman, we are headed off on a coastal adventure. We’ll be spending the next four days on Saltspring Island. Our plan was to take

In a perfect world, I’d be writing a race report that told you about how magnificent I executed my race plan.  But this is not a perfect world. I survived. And then to

When you have a BHAG (Big Hairy … Audicious … Goal), it tends to be fairly all consuming.  You think about it and you work towards it for a very long time.  As

I run through some of the more interesting parts of the river neighbourhoods of Edmonton. As a result I get to see some of the rougher parts of an admittedly not very rough

Since I talk alot about being gluten free and specifically about gluten free brewing, I thought it might be good to go back to the start and talk a little bit about what

I was really fascinated to see an article published in wired this month on the fact that science has made a new discovery: dad’s brains change with children too.  We’ve long known that

So, I’m a week before race day.  I out doing one last short mini-tri to grease the wheels before we pack up and hit the road.  And then this happens: There are other

I’m a visual person. I think in pictures, I worry about the presentation as much as the content. I see recipes, songs, equations and conversations as images in my head. So it’s not

When you train, the goal, one supposes, is an increase in performance.  The reason that training has that effect is that our body has an incredible ability to repair itself.  Repair is key

Warning, there’s a fairly high nerd quotient to this one.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m old enough to remember great huge Atari and Commodore desktops with the new fangled tape drives

Every time I listen to Alanis Morissette’s Ironic I can’t help but think of Faye’s university french prof who famously observed that “there is nothing ironic about the things in this song, they

Every once in a while I do yoga.  For a pretty fit dude, yoga is hard and so I tend not to stick with it.  But on days like today I remember why

As part of preparing for Ironman, I use a lot of resources to help coach myself through the arduous journey.  One of those is the copious amount of material put out there by

One thing I’ve learned through writing every day is that you need space to think.  The day can get away from you with all the hustle and bustle.  And when 10pm rolls around

Shockingly, children grow up.  It seems like just yesterday that we were sitting around in the stifling heat of the beginning of July praying for the newest addition to our family to grace

Just for those really into the details, I thought I would post a quick summary of my self-made 70.3. As a summary it was a bit slow overall but a solid effort in

At least once before every Ironman event I like to do a “shorter” course. Typically that would be the Great White North triathlon, but this year none of the 70.3’s worked for my

I get asked this question a lot. But it was particularly poignant today because of how I’d approached the day in the first place. This year I’d added a lot of metrics to

So today is the last day of school.  The lure of long, hot summer days that has been tormenting the kids for weeks has finally arrived. The backpacks came home full of supplies.

For some reason, people separating, divorcing or otherwise just falling apart has been rampant in my life lately.  Well, for me rampant might be three couples, but because I’ve been blessed enough to

I met a friend and colleague for coffee today.  This is something that I do pretty much weekly.  It could probably be more.  Every time I go, I see many others discussing all

That title is a text from my son.  I know, I’ve heard it all.  You’re supposed to keep the blue-light radiation from their eyes and the EMF from their brains.  Kids brains are

When I walk out of the airport arrivals lounge I typically head to pick up my suitcase and then find my place in the long line for a cab ride home.  There is

I grew up with french all around me.  An old french town nestled in the Alberta prairies wrapped around a french immersion school with teachers and fellow students from Quebec.  I read, wrote

I attend a number of conferences every year.  Most conferences have a registration website, group rates at the hosting hotel, sessions to register for and events to attend.  Conferences ask that you pick

You don’t really realize the importance of routines until you break them.  I know, all you hear all the time is don’t get in a rut, constantly reinvent, find a new you.  But

In honour of the first day of the World Cup, I thought I would spend some time thinking about The Beautiful Game.  I listened to a long conversation today about soccer in Canada

I’ve long believed that the universe will bring you what you need, all you need to do is ask.  In some circles this is called voicing your intentions, in others it is actively

Have you ever thought about your senses?  How many do you have?  Here, the answer is usually 5.  But apparently that’s cultural.  There are many places in the world that don’t have the

I spent the most wonderful day yesterday volunteering at the dress rehearsal for my daughter’s final ballet performance.  I was a runner…taking classes of kids from the assembly area to their dressing room.

For the better part of the last 2 years, I have run in what most would call a minimalist shoe.  I don’t have the goofy toe-shoes that have cause all the controversy the

The world is often positioned as being made up of the haves and the have nots.  Those that have the power, money or influence to accomplish something versus those that lack those things.

There is a certain pride in dirty hands.  Dirty hands to me mean that I’ve done something tangible, something of substance, something that required 3 dimensional, creative thinking.  As someone with a relatively

2008 was what many analysts have called the greatest financial disaster in a generation, perhaps ever. The sub-prime debt collapsed, corruption at the highest level left many destitute, governments around the world had

One of the things I love about the summer is how noise carries through the air.  Noises seem to come from much further away, and yet they are somehow muted and soft.  I

This is my first year training with a power meter.  It is quite a change from just measuring speed or heart rate.  For one thing, all those books that talk about power all

I once had Maya Angelou explained to me as someone who just glows with quiet compassion.  I wish I’d known her better.  A quote that I have followed mentally for years, that I

Once every three or four years, we look at our house and move stuff around in the name of the future.  We adjust the colour palette.  We tidy, organize and purge.  We add

I once read a quote somewhere that said “Parenting is the art of slowly shifting the family dynamic from an autocracy to a democracy”.  When I first heard that quote, I thought to

Just breathe.  Full, fluid, strokes.  IF at .68 and falling: good.  Speed at 29.6 and climbing: good. Slight downhill, wind behind me: go go go.  47km in: still conserving. 5 minutes until fuel.

I’m not a friend_y person.  I’m a friend_ly person, to be sure, but I’m not very good at the work that is required to maintain and nurture a friendship.  And that’s why it’s all

Dulse. Medjool dates.  Maca.  Hemp.  If these are words that make you hungry, congratulations, you are a successful hippie.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m right in there with you…well, maybe not on

Ask anyone in Edmonton, likely Alberta, how they’re doing and you’re likely to get one answer: busy.  It’s what everyone says.  Try it.  And it’s very likely that it’s true: Alberta is booming

When my grandparents moved out of their house into assisted living I inherited a number of their household items.  None of the things that came my way were of any particular value, just

Family is a fascinating animal.  Maybe it’s cousins that don’t speak, siblings that bicker or friends that have been around too long.  Maybe it’s folks that know you better than you know yourself,

In the music industry, there is a term called phrasing that, at it simplest, encapsulates how a particular artist takes a song and makes it their own.  The true genius of gifted artists

I spent the better part of today wrestling to come to terms with the most frighteningly complex system.  It was like seeing those maps of yore and coming face to face with that

Maybe it’s the ever-present shift to 140 character sound bites. Maybe it’s an overall trend towards a me-centered culture. Maybe it’s just the ever-growing pressure to make things “more efficient” and just trimming

Take a look at this picture. Look at it. What jumps out at you? Credit: http://daddydoinwork.com/dreamin/Ya.  Me neither.  Looks like a dad doing his daughter’s hair.  Well apparently it caused quite the “outrage

In case you haven’t been around lately to hear my blather, a few months ago I bought myself a project car.  Yup, I’m venturing into the world of DIY automotive repair.  Why you

I was asked a really good interview question a few weeks ago that I wanted to think my way through here. The question was: What is your personal brilliance? How would you answer

For a while now, we’ve been doing what we call “screen-free” Sundays.  No TV, no phones, no iPads, no Computers…essentially, no technology.  The goal has always been to pull us away from the

If you’ve ever done any serious training, you’ll know there needs to be an off-season.  To put it bluntly, off-seasons suck.  We all recognize that we can’t be in peak performance all the

The title of this post comes from the excellent, ongoing series of Make Something Edmonton, by Todd Babiak.  In a recent post, he discusses métissage and the highlighting of native stories in the fabric of

Have you ever been working on a project in Visual Studio and wanted to have someone else test-drive it? Short of having them sit at your desk there wasn’t much option as the

I’ve been running Windows 8 (ironically on my Macbook Pro) for a few months now.  Fundamentally, I don’t think that there is that big a change in the overall functionality, but there are

A while ago, I made a mistake.  I know, I know: “That never happens!”.  Well, it did.  As you may know, we make this little online service www.DayhomeRegistry.com and the magic behind the curtain

I was browsing through Gartner the other day looking for EA metrics and I stumbled across this fantastic tidbit: A strong CIO who firmly controls organization-wide IT issues and who establishes clear strategies

Have you ever been on a project and heard the expression “managing expectations”? This is usually a phrase that is bandied about along with “pie in the sky” and “designing the Rolls Royce”. This

So at the beginning of October, Adam Rogers of Wired  published his manifesto Observation Deck: Designing Cities for People, Not Cars.  It is an interesting discussion of establishing parts of cities where people

If you haven’t been following the mayhem, Ironman Canada is dead, long live Ironman Canada.  At the end of the 30th anniversary Ironman Canada Penticton, the city of Penticton and the World Triathlon