Category Archives: Personal reminiscences

02/15/14

BL2: Resistance is futile


Borderlands 2I tried to resist. I really did. I avoided it for more than a year, skillfully averting my eyes from the store shelves where it sat, ignoring the emails with invitations, sales offers that dangled newly-released DLC packages before me. I looked the other way when ads popped on on websites.

I have more serious things to do, I’d tell myself. Getting too old for games, I’d mutter under my breath. I have better things to do with my time. Like reading. Studying. Developing website material. Learning music. Besides, I’m running out of hard disc space.

But then I saw the intro, below. And I succumbed. It just seemed way too much fun. And I love the theme song (it was also the theme for the excellent British action TV series, Flash Point). Watch it. Stick with it because it gets fun around the 1:50 mark.

I had seen the “Wimoweh” trailer, below, before I saw the one above, and it almost convinced me. It’s hard to resist such a call. And if you haven’t seen it either, give it a watch.

Late in 2013, Steam had Borderlands 2 on sale – the whole Game of The year package at one low price – and I gave in. GOTY was just too damned tempting.

Now I have a handful of characters scattered throughout Pandora in various stages of game completion, edging up their stats slowly as I learn and test each one’s style, weapons and special features. Finishing quests. Opening chests of loot. Gathering eridium. To be honest, I’ve played only three of the possible six characters so far, but I plan to try them all.

And I’m not alone. On many missions, I am accompanied by a friend in Nova Scotia who joins me for co-op play sessions. Two old farts playing edgy computer games. What a lark.

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02/8/14

Raisin and sourdough this week


raisin bread disasterWhile I haven’t tried to make a sourdough raisin bread yet, that idea occurred to me while I was making my latest breads, this week. I’m sure it would be a good mix, but I’ll have to build my levain up again, since I used all my countertop levain in yesterday’s bread (about 350g).

I still have a culture in the fridge, however, and will take some out to get it going in the warmer kitchen, today.

I made a medium-sized sourdough loaf, and two smaller raisin-cinnamon loaves, Friday. Somewhat ambitious of me, but with mixed results.

raisin bread disasterTwo? You ask. Yes, because my first loaf was a mess. It stuck in the pan and broke at the cinnamon-spread layer when I attempted to get it free of the pan. Very disappointing. I decided to try another while I still had the ingredients on the counter. I wanted to offer Susan a good-looking loaf, Saturday morning. Presentation matters.

I’m trying to determine the best way to make a raisin-cinnamon bread that combines the nicest combination of  texture, flavour and structure. I have the flavour down pretty well, and the texture is close, but in most of my efforts, the bread has de-laminated where the layers of cinnamon spread are rolled into the dough. Sometimes just a bit, sometimes more. An elegant structure eludes me somewhat.

raisin bread disaster

My first effort at raisin-cinnamon bread was a recipe from the 300 Best Canadian Bread Machine Recipes book. It combines everything in the machine, but used only a small amount of cinnamon (1 tsp). It didn’t make the bread very flavourful. While edible, it wasn’t spectacular.

I like more cinnamon, but because it’s a yeast inhibitor, I chose to put more (1 Tbsp) into a spread that could be used in a swirl in the bread itself.  I tried that in a bread a couple of weeks ago, with modest success. The idea works; the technique needs refinement.

I used molasses instead of sugar in the recipe, but otherwise used the book’s basic 1.5 lb. loaf recipe as presented for Friday’s loaves.

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02/3/14

Corn and other breads


Corn breadThe last loaf of January, 2014 was a machine-made corn bread, made using a recipe from Washburn’s & Butt’s 300 Best Canadian Bread Machine Recipes book that I’ve mentioned previously. It’s a good book for bread machine users.

Unlike my previous efforts to tinker with bread recipes, I used the basic, printed 1.5-lb. recipe without any alterations this time (not even in the salt). Medium crust setting, basic (white) bread menu selection. The results were good, if not spectacular.

The recipe calls for 1/3rd cup of cornmeal. I used a commonly-available, supermarket brand, the sort I often use for dusting pans, parchment paper and the pizza peel, to prevent sticking. However, it didn’t really give the bread a noticeable corn flavour or the mealy/gritty texture one expects in corn bread and muffins.

I later found a bag of Bob’s Red Mill medium grind cornmeal which is less refined and will likely impart more flavour next time I make this bread, and likely heighten the texture.

Bob’s Red Mill products are available at several local supermarkets. I don’t know what sort of cornmeal is available at the local Bulk Barn, but will check next time I’m there.

Corn breadThe bread came out with a nice, light and distinctly yellow crumb, consistent throughout the loaf and evenly cooked. It had a light top crust, but a bit crunchier side and bottom.

The flavour is pleasant – in part because the recipe called for an egg (and I had some free-range eggs on hand, which are always tasty), 1 tbsp honey, and 1/4 cup skim milk powder. These add to both the texture and taste.

We tried the bread with soup one day, and with beans-on-toast the next. The cornmeal makes for a crumb that doesn’t stay together as well as an all-wheat bread, so it has a tendency to break apart. It toasts well, however. This week we will likely finish the loaf with some four-bean chili (not, of course chili con carne, which is Texan, not a Mexican dish) one night for supper.

Next time I will try some variations with this bread, aside from using the better cornmeal. I will look up cornmeal recipes online, too, to see what amounts others recommend. I don’t know if 1/3rd cup is sufficient, or if additional cornmeal will make the crumb even more friable.

I may add some gluten flour to boost the stickiness; this may avoid the tendency for the bread to crumble. I may also try buttermilk instead of water and milk powder. I’d also like to try substituting agave syrup or even molasses for honey, and maybe even some Osprey bread flour (from the K2 mill in Beeton) for a portion of the unbleached white.
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01/29/14

Running for re-election in 2014


Earlier this month, I filed my nomination papers for municipal council. I am running for a fourth term as Collingwood councillor. I will post a new election website with updated information and campaign content later this winter.

I would appreciate your support, your trust and your vote. I believe I have earned them during my time on council, and will continue to do my best to serve the residents of Collingwood, and meet the needs of our growing community, when re-elected.

Until the new website is available, I want to let any eligible Collingwood voters who wish to contact me about issues, events and activities to feel free to do so. You can contact me by email. If you want to talk in person, please send me your phone number and a good time to call or to arrange a meeting.

I have a Facebook page where I will also post updates and related municipal content, as I always have done. I will launch a separate Twitter account for political campaigning this winter. Should you wish access to my personal Twitter feed (@iwchadwick – not used for political campaign content), please post a follower request on Twitter.

I stand on my experience, reputation, my integrity and the very positive results this council has accomplished this term. This has been the most productive, engaged, open and dedicated council I have served on, and reported on while I was reporter in the local media. I am proud to have been able to serve the town on this council; proud to have contributed to those accomplishments.

This term I have also been fortunate to share my political and media experiences with other politicians through articles and books published by Municipal World (three books and numerous magazine articles published, with a fourth book and new article due in 2014). I am passionate about municipal politics, about good governance, about public engagement, and I hope my writing expresses that.

I am also passionate about Collingwood. We live in the best community in Ontario: we have exceptional natural beauty; a stunning heritage downtown; low crime; lovely, walkable streetscapes; we have a solid workforce; many employment opportunities; we are centrally located in Ontario’s all-season playground and we have a good municipal staff at town hall to help council implement its strategic goals.

I love this town, and have been actively involved in it ever since we moved here, almost 25 years ago. I have been engaged as a volunteer on many boards and committees, and participated in service club activity. I believe in giving back to our community to help keep it the best place to live. Being on council has helped me give back in the best way possible.

If you would like to help my campaign or contribute, please contact me.

01/29/14

Reading Thucydides at last


BookshelfSomewhere on one of my bookshelves, is an old Penguin paperback copy of History of The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. It’s a bit worn, pages lightly yellowed, glue a little brittle. It’s been sitting on the shelf, stacked with many other paperbacks, piled two deep, floor to ceiling, for the past two decades and more.

It’s never been read, not completely. I read the introduction, maybe some small sections, back in my wargaming days, 30 or 35 years ago. Like many of its companions on that shelf, it’s a book I put aside for the days when I expected to have more time to read such works. My retirement. Insert canned laughter here.

Of course, when I bought it, in the 1970s, I hadn’t expected to be in politics, writing books and articles on municipal issues, blogging, playing the ukulele, and furiously baking in my “golden years.” How did I ever get so busy?

Nowadays, it seems these books may have to wait a little longer to be read. Some of them, anyway. The pile of books in progress beside the bed seems to get refreshed with new titles all too often, and few of the older ones make their way into it.

Thucydides sits on the shelf with similar Penguin editions of Herodotus, Xenophon, Josephus, Suetonius, Caesar – historians of ancient Greece and Rome. He shares shelf space with Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Hardy, Wolfe, Baudelaire, Austen and other great writers of fiction. Many of them were put aside for later, although others have been read.

There’s a whole collection of Latin American authors I picked up in the 70s; mostly read back then, but many deserve rereading. There are collections of classic Japanese and Chinese poets. Books by popular modern authors – Michener, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Burroughs (read most of those), Kerouac (ditto), Heller, Vonnegut. There are philosophers – Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire, Hobbes, Suzuki, Spinoza. Plays by Wilde, Shaw and Sophocles. Essays by Orwell and Voltaire.

Some days, I despair I’ll ever get to them. They deserve to be read, all of them. Each is a gateway to a whole world, a universe, even. Now and then I pick one up, read a chapter, maybe a poem or an essay, but it goes back on the shelf for years after that.

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01/26/14

The Mac celebrates 30 years


MacintoshA recent article on Gizmodo shows off some previously unseen (or perhaps just forgotten) footage of a young Steve Jobs unveiling the Macintosh computer, back on January 30, 1984.

Thirty years ago, this week.

Seems like forever ago. But I remember it, and reasonably well. I remember where I was living then, what I was working on, and who I was with (I’m still with her…)

The video clip also includes the famous Orwellian “1984″ TV ad Apple used to launch the Mac. That’s worth watching for itself. It was a really cheeky ad, and generated a lot of chatter about marketing at the time. The clip includes other Mac ads you should watch.

I had a Mac around then, bought, as I recall, in late 84 or early 85. I had had a Lisa – the Mac’s unsuccessful predecessor – on loan for a few months in 83 or early 84. I wasn’t impressed with the Lisa, but the Mac really captivated me.

I also had an IBM PC, from 82 or 83, and never quite understood the anti-IBM sentiments Jobs and Apple promoted among users. But then PC users fought back just as adamantly over the superiority of their platform.

As a computer geek from way back, I just loved having any – every – computer. When I started computing, I lived in a two-bedroom apartment; the second (the Iarger of the two, of necessity) bedroom became a workroom filled with computers, books, manuals, printers, modems, tools, chips, soldering irons, cables, and printers. As a technical and documentation writer, I always had extra hardware and software on loan from manufacturers and distributors. I once described my room as looking like a “NASA launch site.”

When we eventually bought our own house, I had a room for my books and computers, too, although they tended to escape and overrun the rest of the house. Same thing has happened here, although the amount of hardware is much reduced from the glory days (more ukuleles today than computers).

But ever since my first computer, I have not been a day without at least one computer in the house, usually several.

By the time the Mac was released, I had been computing for more than six years. I bought my first computer in the fall of 1977, a TRS-80, and soon had several machines (an Apple in 79, an Atari 400 in 1980 and then an 800 in 81). I belonged to user groups, subscribed to at least a dozen computer magazines, and wrote for several, including one of the earliest columns on computer gaming (in Moves magazine). I attended many computer fests and exhibitions in Canada and the USA – in fact, I helped organize a microcomputer fair in Toronto, at the International Centre, in the mid-80s.

As you read this, in 2014, I’ve been at it for almost 37 years.

So I take some umbrage when I read this condescending snippet on Gizmodo:

30 years ago the landscape of personal computing was vastly different. That is to say, it hardly existed.

Hogwash. It was alive and well – thriving in its entrepreneurial glory. Only poorly-informed journalists who have not done their research would make such a claim. Or perhaps they are too young to know of the rich history of personal computing prior to their own acquisition of a device.

By 1984, we had seen the TRS-80, Commodore Pet, Apple II, Kaypro, IBM PC, Atari 400, 800 and 1200, Sinclair, TI-99, the Acorn, Coleco Adam and many others. Apple’s own IIc would be released later in 1984.

We would soon see both the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST 16-bit computers launched. Of which I had them all, and a few others passed through my hands in that time, too.

In the 80s, CompuServe dominated the field of online services with millions of customers as it spread. I was a sysop on CompuServe for many of those years. I even operated my own BBS for a while.

CompuServe was challenged – aggressively, but not very successfully – by several competitors in that decade including The Source and Delphi (I was later a sysop on Delphi, too, before moving to Collingwood).

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