DanOCan

I remember 1990 when the book “Dave Barry Turns 40” was published.  I hadn’t even reached my 18^th birthday yet, I was in the transition from high school to university, and I was just getting ready to start living life on my own for the first time.  Turning forty seemed to be several lifetimes away.  

In 2002 I reached 30.  I remember thinking how my life was progressing just as one would expect.  I had been married for five years, I owned a home, I had established myself in a job that was going to one day provide me with a good pension to retire on.  Set the cruise control and let ‘er ride.  While turning forty was no longer nearly as distant as it once seemed, my biggest concern was “40?  Hmm, that’s when they start making you get your prostate examined, isn’t it?  Good thing that’s a long way away!”

Now, here we are in 2012 and it’s time for another one of those birthdays that end in a zero – the ones that force us to take stock of where we are and where we have been.  Yes, indeed, the unthinkable has happened — DanOCan turns  40.

I am surprised at how I still don’t act the way I think a 40-year-old should.  All the time I was growing up, people in their 40’s were old and mature.  They certainly didn’t spend their evenings playing video games, they certainly didn’t enjoy the occasional beer with friends and they certainly never laughed.  When will I start acting like a mature grown-up?  I certainly don’t see it happening anytime soon.  With each milestoneage that passes, you realize the stereotypes you’ve had in your head were really just ghosts – they might have appeared real but upon closer inspection there is no substance and they just disappear.  I know it sounds so cliché but it is very true – your age doesn’t define you; you define your age.

So, what defines DanOCan at 40?  Everything in my life is undergoing a major metamorphosis.  Reinvention.

My marriage collapsed after fifteen years.  By most definitions those fifteen years would be considered happy, right up to the hour it ended.  I even have a hard time considering it a “failed” marriage – it simply “ended”.   We never fought or argued and we shared many happy memories together over those years.    There are a lot of people who stay married much longer who will never experience the success I had in my marriage.  My decision to end it has baffled many people, I’m sure.  Frankly, I don’t expect anyone besides me to understand and that’s OK.  You know that saying that if you love something you have to let it go?  Unfortunately, it’s true.  Reinvention.

My employer may be the same, but the job certainly has changed.  I’ve been in this current role for a little more than a year and sometimes I still feel like I am just faking it.  There are still days when I expect someone to come along and tap me on the shoulder, explain that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding and ask me to move back to my old job.  Managing people instead of technology constantly presents me with new challenges and experiences and takes me out of my comfort zone.  Reinvention.

In my personal life I am starting a brand new relationship with a tremendous woman.  We have plenty of challenges ahead of us (divorces, and immigration spring to mind) before we can be together, but we’re willing to accept that adventure and start the journey.  My future has turned on a dime.  My future no longer includes being a DINK (double income no kids) but instead is now focused on becoming Ward Cleaver – going out and being the breadwinner while my loving wife stays at home and raises the kids while wearing dresses and pearls.  Things that I thought would never happen to me – first days of school, teaching the kids to drive, high school graduations, weddings, grandkids – are suddenly real possibilities.  Emily is an amazing woman and I cannot wait to start the second half of my life with her at my side. 

A few months ago I owned an RV, four vehicles, and a house loaded with material objects.  I was a man with a spending problem.  Today I am down to a single vehicle, no RV, and the material possessions in the house are now less than they have been at any time since I got my first apartment and I was using a cardboard box as a TV stand.  DanOCan at forty no longer values material items.  That man with a spending problem?  He has now been replaced by someone with a near-maniacal need to balance the budget.  Reinvention.

So, with all this reinvention taking place, who really is DanOCan at forty?  With half his life gone, there must be some established foundation there, right?  Some parts of him that have been formed and molded and remain intact after all this upheaval?

DanOCan stills finds happiness in sitting on the deck, drinking a beer and watching wisps of smoke rise from his BBQ.  He still revels at getting up at 3am to check on the pork butt that has been smoking for hours.   He finds great satisfaction in the smells of a good BBQ rub or sauce and the aroma of applewood chunks combusting.

He still enjoys going for long walks in the woods with his dog.  He enjoys the quietness of nature and the peaceful ness that comes from being outdoors and away from the bustle of the city.  He still enjoys pushing his body to its limits with strenuous hikes.  He still loves breaking ground through freshly fallen snow in his snowshoes. 

DanOCan still thinks if hiking in the mountains is “soul cleansing” then driving dusty backroads is “soul liberating”.  He thinks wasting fossil fuels exploring the desolate parts of the prairies is a great way to spend a weekend.  He still conjures up stories of forgotten souls while standing at the doorway of an abandoned house.  He still revels in the feeling that comes from finding a long-forgotten place and capturing for future generations with his camera.

He still believes in earning what you take.  He believes the human spirit will always find a way to rise from the ashes.  He knows that a second marriage will involve more work than his first because he can’t get lazy and take things for granted.  He knows love will conquer all, including the distance from Calgary to Chicago.

He knows that life is never guaranteed and we must cherish every day and the gifts it presents. 

There is a certain freedom that comes with knowing, if it all were to end tomorrow, that in my forty years I have already experienced more good times, good fortune, great friends and family, and more love than many people see in an entire lifetime.   For that, I thank you.

I was wrong about Windows 8.  There, I said it.

I have been playing with Windows 8 on a variety of hardware since the “Consumer Preview” was released.  Initially I hated it – a lot.  Looking back I can now admit many of those issues were related to the bug-filled nature of the early Beta product.   Apps would crash or not launch at all, many parts of that early release were simply not complete enough for daily use.  Hey, it was a Beta and I knew what I was signing up for when I installed it.

Fast forward a few months to the point where I was ready to make the leap and install Windows 8 on my work laptop.  This is the machine I count on every day to be productive in my office life.  Is that a wise decision?  Probably not, but despite my move into management I still can’t resist something new with a higher version number than what I am currently using.  Besides, working in a post-secondary institution means I need to eat the same dog food as our clients.  People are going to be showing up on campus with computers loaded with Windows 8 so I better have some idea as to how it interfaces with our systems.

I was immediately struck by how much more polished the final release was compared to the Beta. 

I joined the machine to the domain at work, but rather than signing in with my domain credentials, I used my Microsoft account.  I did this to gain the benefit of sharing my experience across all my Windows desktops and, I imagine at some point in the future, my XBox.

The Desktop Seems Familiar

When you are operating at the Windows desktop the experience is very familiar – it looks and feels like Windows 7.  The real noticeable difference is the Start button is missing.  However, when you move your cursor over to the corner where you expect that familiar “Start” to be you get a small pop-up.  Clicking on it takes you to the “Modern UI” or what everyone still calls “Metro” interface.  It’s the start button that has been with us since Windows 95 re-imagined in some exciting ways.

This is Not Your Father’s Start Menu

The big thing is that the Start screen is alive rather than being a bunch of static icons.  Mail shows me how many unread messages I have as well as a preview of the text contained within.  Calendar is showing me the current date as well as the details of my next meeting.  Messaging shows a preview of any unread IMs that have come in.  Weather shows me the current temperature as well as a brief forecast.  Photos is showing me a slideshow of my pictures.  You get the idea.

The more I use Windows 8 the more time I spend at the Start screen.  It is my dashboard, my at-a-glance view of the key things I need to know.  It’s only when I need to actually do something – such as send an email — do I need to launch the app itself.

And, herein lies the power of Windows 8 – you can add your accounts from a wide range of services, not just Microsoft properties.  Yes, Mail and Calendar nicely tied into our corporate Exchange system but they also are connected to my Gmail accounts and even my Hotmail account.  

Messaging not only took the place of the soon-to-be-killed-off Windows Live Messenger, but it also connected to my Facebook chat.  Now it doesn’t matter whether I get a Facebook message from my fiancée or a MSN message from a co-worker, they appear in the same place.

The People app needed a little tweaking to make it work for me.   I connected it to my Microsoft account, Gmail, Skype, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, as well as Exchange.  I was very impressed with the number of services I was able to consolidate into a single place.  However, that broad range of services is why it needed to be tweaked.

I use each of those services in a different way and trying to use a single app to connect to them didn’t work well.  I follow a lot of people on Twitter I don’t know and I didn’t necessarily need to see every tweet one of them posted showing up on the live tile on my Start screen.  I was able to tweak the settings to not include Twitter updates but it seemed to take a while before they stopped showing.  Now it works quite nicely for me.

Photos is also very powerful.  Now, not only do I have access to the photos stored on my local harddrive, but it also connects me to the images I have saved on my SkyDrive, my Flickr account, my Facebook page and – this blew me away – my home desktop.  Yes, when I installed Windows 8 at home I choose to share my Pictures library and since I sign in with the same Microsoft account on both machines those images are available from my work laptop.

It was that level of integration that really showed me how much I love this new Windows 8 ecosystem.  Before if I had wanted a copy of a picture that was on my home desktop machine I would have had to either email it to myself or Remote Desktop back to home (Windows Live Mesh was so great for that!) and retrieve it that way.  Now, if I want a picture I can just go the picture app and find it there – regardless of where it lives.

I know Microsoft had promised us this sort of integration with Windows 8, but I had just assumed it would only work if you lived in the Microsoft world – Hotmail, SkyDrive, Windows Live Messenger, etc.  Luckily Microsoft decided not to live in a walled garden and instead embraced the concept of openness – hey, we don’t care what cloud services you’re using, connect to it via us.  It’s a lesson that fruit-based tech company needs to learn. 

Don’t be fooled.  There is a learning curve to Windows 8.  You will need to adapt to a new way of doing things and you will need to go in with an open mind.  You will struggle to find where to go to configure certain familiar things.  I had a heck of a time learning how to print an email, for example.  But give it a couple of weeks and really give it a fair shake and I think you’ll find the new system really shines for those living in a “one user, many devices” world.

Friends,

I know it has been a long time since I posted anything.  Sometimes, even in this crazy world of Facebook and Twitter where we broadcast every mundane moment of our lives, there are experiences and events that are too deep and profound to share with the world.  Yes, sometimes we need to step back and take a break and let ourselves simply experience life without documenting it.

It has been a crazy whirlwind these last few months.  There have been many changes and much upheaval.  While there is much destruction and heartbreak left in the aftermath of these last few months, I can assure you what has risen in place of my old life is indeed a great thing, just like a forest fire brings new life to the woods. 

Sometimes in order to build we must first destroy.

Stay tuned for a new posting coming this Sunday.

It’s done.  Last day of vacation.  Tomorrow morning I will be waking to an alarm clock, adding my work email account back onto my phone, and start paying attention to the text messages telling me when services are down.  It’s back to endless meetings, dealing with some projects that don’t go anywhere and other projects that come straight out of left field and into production.  I even took a quick peek at my calendar to discover I have a budget meeting, scheduled after my normal quitting time no less.

For the last four weeks none of that has mattered.

The bulk of vacation was spent on the road.  Windshield time.  Countless miles.  Landscapes that varied from breathtaking to mind-numbing.  Endlessly scanning the radio for something that will help pass the time.  (How many years have I promised myself to get an iPod connection in the truck???)

“If I describe hiking in the mountains as ‘soul cleansing’ then driving dusty backroads is ‘soul liberating’.” 

It’s one of my favourite quotes.  It should be considering I said it.  There is another variation of driving that has an impact on the soul that also needs to be considered — the marathon.  Those times when the destination is the goal, not the journey.  When you are putting in hours and hours between stops.  When all you can do is make mental notes about the places you see whipping past at 110km/h hoping you can remember them long enough to file them away for future trips.

The difference between walking and hiking is simple:  When you walk, your mind wanders from subject to subject whereas when you hike your mind starts to narrow its focus to whatever is most important at that moment.  That focus gets sharper and sharper the longer you go.  Go long enough and eventually you end up focusing on the most basic instinct — survival itself.

Driving is similar.  Country road driving liberates the soul — it is allowed to go wherever it pleases.  You dream, you laugh, you explore everything “out there”.  But marathon driving isn’t about “out there”, it’s about “in here”.  Deep inside of you.  What matters to you at your very core.  It’s all about introspection not speculation.

I was very fortunate that in between bouts of marathon driving there was lots of time for other things, including some absolutely fantastic exploration time in Wisconsin.  I guess if I ever became eligible to work in the U.S. I think Oregon has some competition in terms of where I would live.  Easy access to the ocean might be great, but the land of Cheeseheads did something to me. 

This trip was about friends and family.  Chris is Shaunavon, the in-laws in Regina, Dale and Helen in Manitoba, Emily in Illinois.  Catching up with Graham and Maureen, our former Priddis neighbors now living in B.C., in Indiana. 

The trip was about rust and moss.  Lichen and stone.  Ticks.  Abandoned railcars on side tracks.  Concrete silos and the inability to find an ice cream shop in Baraboo on a Sunday.  The Forevertron, which today I can’t adequately describe other than to say “The normal rules don’t apply there — time seemed to lose all meaning.”  Rick’s White Light Diner — never seen the cook put his feet up on the counter and bring out a baseball bat to illustrate how he threatened a priest once.  From classic landmarks like Mount Rushmore to tacky roadside attractions like Carhenge.  Dirt roads to Interstates.

The trip was learning that commerical radio in Montana consists of both kinds of music:  country AND western.  (Nod to the Blues Brothers fans in the audience.) 

Three provinces, twelve states.  Hundreds of photos.  Memories and friendships to last a lifetime.  A renewed DanOCan who is more ready to experience life now than ever before.

Where do we go from here?  Only the road knows…

Wind at my back and the sun on my shoulders
Pushing me moving me a little bit closer
Sometime a little trust is just enough to take you there

I love this feeling of freedom running through my veins
Been too long at the crossroads waiting for the light to change
Even if it takes forever and I never find out where it goes
Heaven knows
I love this road

— “I Love this Road”, Emerson Drive (2009)

Dorothy and Cecil never knew each other but their lives are forever linked.  I don’t know the story of Dorothy and Cecil but I can certainly imagine it. 

What remains of Dorothy and Cecil are two child-sized graves sitting on the forlorn Saskatchewan prairie.  Cecil was born first, coming into the world in June of 1943.  He would only live for three shorts days before leaving this world forever.  One can only imagine that in those days, in this place, he didn’t get to see much of the world he was leaving behind.  Before his loving parents would have even had a chance to really know him, Cecil was gone.

Dorothy wouldn’t come along until a couple of years later, just a couple of weeks after Japan had surrendered in World War II.  Just as the world was entering a period of cautious optimism, I can imagine so were Dorothy’s parents.  Undoubtedly the death of Cecil would have planted seeds of doubt in their mind but they would have welcomed their new daughter with all the love a baby could want.

Sadly, it was not to be.  Just three weeks later Dorothy was gone as well.  Two babies in a little more than two years.

As I sit on the ground near these markers to take my photo, it isn’t hard to imagine the family gathering around this spot to put little Dorothy to rest,  The memories of Cecil would flood back to their minds as they clustered near his grave, just steps away. 

Cecil, who would have been the protective older brother in life is instead tasked with the responsibility of shepherding his little sister into the afterlife.  Their markers have stood beside each other for nearly seventy years.  They never knew met, they never knew the other existed, yet here they remain – linked together forever.

I don’t know the full story of Dorothy and Cecil.  As the years pass, the living memory of them grows ever more dim.  Are any of those who stood on this spot all those years ago still around to tell us?  Sitting here under the vast Saskatchewan sky, it’s almost as if the Shaw babies are able to tell their tale for themselves.