Summer 2000 |
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| 30 Aug |
Strange as it may seem, people seem to want to hear what I have to say. I am going be making presentations at conferences in London (October) and Geneva (December). More immediately, we are off to Haliburton for the Labour Day weekend. Andrew and I hope to strike out for an overnight canoe trip. Should be fun. |
| 27 Aug |
   This summer, we seem to be making a habit of visiting beaches that were popular with hippies and other assorted counterculture types during the sixties. First it was Pinery, and now we went back to Tofino on Vancouver Island. Click on the thumbnails for more. George of the Jungle, had is trusty elephant Shep to keep him company. Barbara Gowdy wants us to identify with some rather more contemplative pachyderms in The White Bone. Read about it on my book page. |
| 22 Aug | It's official, the horse has bolted....time to close the barn door. By which I mean that the hard drive on my 18 month old iMac crashed and burned, taking with it my entire collection of digital information. It is time for me to get serious about backing up my files. |
| 1 Aug |
   We just got back from our usual week at the Pinery. Andrew finished his 5th year of the Junior Friend program, and got himself a darn fine hat. Colin acted as goodwill ambassador for the family. He has a unique technique for making friends. He stands on the road beside a campsite with kids, and calls out "Hi". Within 90 minutes of our arrival at the park this year, kids from neighbouring sites were coming looking for Colin to come and play. Click on the thumbnails above to see some of the best pictures. |
| 13 Jul | Just what the world needs. I have created another website. This one deals with my professional life; its called Volatility and it will be a series of links and comments relating to measuring and managing credit risk portfolios. |
| 5 Jul | Sacre blue. I posted a couple of new pictures from Paris. |
| 4 Jul | Woulda, coulda, shoulda... Way back in 1996, I first started toying around with web-pages. My first home page wasn't very fancy, but it was what it was. At the same time, I had an idea for a work related website. It was supposed to look something like this. Shortly after I made this, admittedly embryonic, mockup of the site I moved to a new job, and nothing ever became of the BankWIRED site. In retrospect, I should have pursued it. The simple description of my idea for a risk measurement and management website was clearly ahead of its time, and there are now many such sites. What's more, their creators are almost certain to have net worths considerably higher than mine. |
| 3 Jul | This is weird. By a strange coincidence, I rented "The Talented Mr. Ripley" this evening, and guess what....John Martyn sings over the closing credits. Problem is, he sounds terrible...its a treacley piece of claptrap and the slight slur in Martyn's vocals from 1973 has become a full scale mouth full of marbles. Oh if we only could turn back the clock. |
| 2 Jul |
Dot.com.reportage. I just finished reading "The Nudist on the Late Shift". My comments are on the book page, of course (where else would they be?) Get this. Back on 1973, a young folk singer named John Martyn recorded an album called "Solid Air". About 10 years later I bought a copy. With the transition to CD's that took place shortly thereafter, I forgot all about it...until a few days ago. I downloaded a couple of tracks (the title track "Solid Air" and "May You Never") and I just can't believe how fresh they sound today. |
| 28 Jun |
My Winter 2000 entries have been hived off to a separate page. Click here to see them. Belated happy solstice to everyone. There are a few topics that I want to write about, but don't really know how. The one that I think about most often, is Andrew. He is maturing at a rapid pace, and I am starting to worry that that it isn't going to be an easy process for him. He is not a confident boy, he becomes very self-conscious when he has to speak to almost anyone (sometimes even me). His soccer team hasn't won a game all year, and I sit on the sidelines and wonder how losing game after game affects his image of himself. We all need to be good enough to win at something, from time to time, and soccer is one of Andrew's few enduring interests. If he doesn't get positive feedback from his efforts (by winning a game now and then), how can he believe us when we tell him what a great job he is doing on the field? These thoughts are meandering. Like I said, I don't really know how to write about this. |