The Collector

I've collected things since I was a small kid. I think a lot of people have collections and I've had quite a number over the years. I used to collect badges from police departments, POG, beer bottles from different breweries and stamps. 

Some of those collections I've gotten rid of over the years. The beer bottles were recycled; the POG were sold for $50. The stamp collection is still n a shelf in the corner. 

I also have a number of practical collections, things that I use like my guitars and kazoos, or my collection of tools. Even my music collection like my CDs and records are as much archival and research as they are just a collection. 

The music collection in particular has been wrought with disaster. As the digital age moved in through the '90s and early 2000s, I found myself not wanting to carry these collections around with me through life and many of them were sold or found the curb. It was mostly the practical stuff that stayed. My beat up CDs and tapes from my youth found landfills in this time. The records seem to stick around, at first it was really cheap to get them because I'd get them at garage sales. I do still have a small box full of CDs and an even smaller box of cassettes but mostly my record collection is actual records or online. 

The Navigator has made the wise and correct choice to leave Spotify for less fascist pastures. I on the other hand haven't been able to make that switch just yet. It is part of my master plan I spoke of to diversify and change my digital footprint over the coming year. And it occurs to me that I kind of want to go back to having tangible music and a few tangible things. 

I've got five or six albums from this year that I really like and for the most part my listening has been to those albums. I would totally be able to afford say a couple dozen albums a year over buying my music from Spotify and having access to all this stuff I don't need. I also think I would have a closer attachment and a closer relationship with that music. 

But at the same time I don't have a CD player in my car or a portable tape deck I can use in the garage. Everything's Bluetooth. So I'm going to have to find a balance and find a new way to consume music as part of that larger project. At the same time, one of my favourite albums this year, "Looking for People to Unfollow" by Ecca Vandal didn't even see a physical release until the last few weeks. It's been digital only since the spring. 

I've also had this thought in my head over the last few weeks about collecting all of the mainline Zelda games. I think it was seeing all of the switch Zelda games that I have together on one pile that sort of triggered the idea. I don't own basically all of the consoles that they would be played on, but it would be really cool to be able to hold on to each game and play them. I also think this is just a reaction to the recent debate, discussion and movement in the game industry where you don't own a game, you just rent it until the studio decides they're done with it.

I dunno. I don't particularly want to sort and store more stuff in life. I think we have plenty. But the way the world is going, it sure feels nice to have something tangible in hand sometimes. Maybe there's a balance point. 

Magic Expectations

Last Tuesday, I went to see the Queens of the Stone Age and the Foo Fighters live at Mosaic Stadium. I had to use all of my fingers and toes, and borrow a few from Rhonda to figure out it's been nearly 30 years since I last saw the Foo Fighters. We were scheduled to have them here in 2022, but the passing of Taylor Hawkins cancelled that tour. For QOTSA, it's only been 3 years as I saw them in Saskatoon. Interestingly, also the last time I consumed alcohol in any appreciable amount. 

Overall, it was a great show and pretty much exactly what you would expect of a stadium show like that. Plenty of hit songs, a tight band and great visuals. But at the same time, it kinda fell flat. I've listened to the Foo Fighters since their first album and many of these songs are as ingrained in my musical lexicon as anything by the Beatles or Queen. With my location being on the opposite side of the stadium from the stage, I was mostly watching the fun through the big screens. I could barely make out the band at all. 

I felt the same way after seeing Paul McCartney at the old Taylor Field. I was far too removed from the action to really feel connected. I think at the end of the day, I would have been happier with a 2 hour performance of the hits in a heated arena than a 3 hour performance full of filler on a cold prairie night in an open roof stadium. 

In some respects, I'd almost rather go to a small local show with a band playing something I've never heard before. Without an expectation being set, it's easier to impress me and expand my mind a bit. This happened this past weekend at Tiny Fest, a small local scene festival. I saw the duo Worlds Collide and had my mind completely blown by how original and beautiful their music was. 

Queens of the Stone Ago delivered a bit more. It was still a stadium performance and I was still a quarter mile away, but they brought a little more spice to the equation. For example, during "No One Knows" they started to sort of drag and slow around the bridge part. The bass started playing solo and things just started melting. Like I even commented how the song was melting. Then the visuals on the screens started glitching and showing tracers. I wasn't on mushrooms, but they did a great job of reproducing that experience. 

Maybe little surprise from a band that talented but also known for being loose handed and stoner rock. It was like watching the musical version of "The Legend of the Drunken Master". 

But you start to realize that all of this is about expectation. I didn't expect Worlds Collide so it was easy for them to impress. My familiarity with "No One Knows" set me up with an expectation of the song sounding one way, and the change made it magical. And maybe I expected the Foo Fighters to transcend what I've heard from them for 35 years and they just couldn't exceed those expectations. 

My ponderings on expectations were well and truly capped off yesterday when I watched an episode of Neil Degrasse Tyson's podcast "Star Talk" where he talked to Teller of Penn and Teller fame (apparently Ray Teller?) where they talked about how a lot of what magicians do is play with our expectations and when they can exceed or circumvent them, that's where the magic happens. Bending a spoon with your mind is amazing because we don't often go around bending spoons at all, let alone with our brains. It would actually be less interesting to make a car roll down the street with your mind. 

They did discuss how musicians use music to affect people's emotions just as magicians use illusion to have the same effect, but they didn't talk about how musicians can do the same thing by playing with people's expectations. I first noticed this watching Tool play live. Maynard will often sing the harmony part of a vocal and in your head you can hear the two part harmony even though there is no one signing the root part, nor is a recording being played. Your familiarity is so strong that the brain fills it in on it's own. 

Of course, this is nothing new. Victor Borge was using expectation and familiarity long before any of us were even born to produce delight and humour. 

I was pondering this weekend how I can use expectation to my own benefit in the music I make. It's easy for an established act like QOTSA or Tool to use familiarity to create a new experience for audiences. My audience is not that entrenched - to be sure. In some respects, I've been able to use covers to subvert expectation, but I don't have nearly the talent Borge did. 

But, this weekend exceeded my expectations through an act of kindness. Tiny, the organizer of Tiny Fest approached me on Saturday and asked if I'd be willing to bring the kazoo out of hiatus and play a couple of songs on Sunday. So for the first time in a couple of months, I strapped on the kazoo and guitar for a couple of songs. And the delight in the faces of the people there when, despite their expectations, a guy played the kazoo and sang some funny songs, told me that I've been using expectation to entertain for a while now. 

All that to say, manipulating expectation is something I imagine few people think of, but clearly can be used to affect how you feel or experience the world. 

Can you think of a time that someone else playing with your expectations led to a change in how you felt or saw something. What are some negative ways that this kind of power could be used? 

I'm Leaving

There is a concept in investment and insurance called "spreading risk". Most people know this more colloquially as "putting all your eggs in one basket." In short, the idea is that putting a great deal of your resources (or all of it!) in one place, no matter how attractive or safe it seems, puts you at great risk of losing everything if that one system fails. Insurance companies manage this risk by insuring a wide swath of risks in many geographic, economic and commercial areas. For investing, you invest in many different companies in many different industries so that if there is a failure in one, your loss is less. 

I have a particular concentration of risk in my digital world, namely my dependence on the Google ecosystem. I mentioned this dependency about a year and a half ago in a blog post musing on ways that Canadians can disconnect themselves from the proverbial American teat. My opinion on Google has changed a little bit since then, but not drastically. I've been a happy paying customer for decades with Google. Their storage of my data has been dependable and their services are world-class. In fact that last part is why leaving Google is such a challenge - there is no one else that does it quite that well. 

But as mentioned in the intro, it means the vast majority of my digital life is concentrated in my Google account. So if we were to lose access to Google, say from the fall of the American Empire or simply as a result of the current trade war with the US, I'd be out a lot. Like a LOT a lot. And that risk is being shared with the rest of Canada - our dependency on US data infrastructure puts us all at extremely high risk. And announcements from Prime Minister Carney today show that not only is this risk recognized, there is also some momentum to change that on a national level. 

So how do I go about this?

I've admittedly made only a few minor steps in the right direction since my post last March. I've gone to the effort to back-up my Google data locally and just in the last month I've switched browsers from Chrome and changed my data sharing settings to try and hedge off my personal information a bit. Because there's more risk than loss here. If we're in an antagonistic relationship with an America that seems to be increasingly fascist, then my data is also at risk of being misused. 

In fact, the challenge is much bigger than I'd initially thought. I've had this particular post on the backburner for about 6 weeks because I couldn't really wrap my head around how to proceed. Overall, I've decided that it took me about 25 years to get this intrenched in this system, so it's going to take a year or two to get myself out. 

Let's define the problem

I've started by listing out all of the Google services that I use and will need to be replaced. Trying to list these out off the top of my head was overwhelming but if you click the grid of 9 squares in the top right corner of any Google service page, it will give you a dropdown of Google services that you can use to trigger your memory of what you use. If you're trying to do the same exercise for Apple or Microsoft, I don't have that info yet. Those challenges are for future me! 

Here's what I've come up with. I'm listing both the Google service name and a more generic name for that service in an attempt to get my head around what replacement needs to look like. 

• Email - Gmail
• Calendar
• Cloud storage/Google Drive
• Search
• Maps
• YouTube/Entertainment/Infotainment
• Photos
• News/News aggregation
• Translate
• Documents/Sheets/Presentation - Office suite
• Smartphone/Android/App store
• Chat
• Password vault
• Google Authenticator/2 factor authentication assistants
• Blogger/Blog
• Google Wallet/Tickets/cards
• Contacts
• Texting/SMS
• Keyboard (on mobile)

Oof. A lot, I know. I expect there are a few others that I'll discover on the way too. Stuff like the SMS app and Keyboard that aren't necessarily services but ways that Google can watch what I'm doing. 

In addition to this, I'm also considering some other American-tech connections I have. 

• DNS hosting - with GoDaddy - I should have left this company long ago
• Microsoft - Operating system, some Office Suite stuff and games
• Apple - iPad and a few photos and things with them
• Grammarly - sees everything I write and sends it to the US
• Social media - Meta especially
• AI - I'm not quite a luddite, but I'm pretty cautious about AI. At the same time, it seems to be the way of the future. This one will need less of changing over as it will necessitate care with how I proceed with AI. 

And finally, I host my music website with a company called Webador. I thought they were Canadian when I signed up, but they're based in the Netherlands. That doesn't actually bother me much (the DUTCH), but the service hasn't been exemplary and as long as I'm rearranging my digital presence, I'm going to look at changing this as well. 

Where to begin?

As mentioned previously, this is a big problem that I won't be fixing overnight. Simply updating my emails and passwords to new services is going to take months. But at the same time, I've done the work of updating all of my passwords in the past. It's difficult but it's responsible online presence maintenance. 

The Beatles put it best, "I get by with a little help from my friends."

Just posting this article might be enough to illicit a few suggestions and ideas. Discussion will help illuminate some paths. I've also been following Canadian commentator and activist Tod Maffin. Tod posts videos about Canadian identity and history and comments on the current beef with the US. But more than just commenting, Tod and his wife, Jocelyn are doing something about it. They have a website called Mainstreet Canada a database of Canadian companies you can buy Christmas gifts from to support them. Or rude Canadian Snack Foods - so you can junk out like a real Canuck. 

Most valuable to my undertaking is Unplug America, a database of Canadian or non-American tech services to replace American tech. I both love and hate this site. Love it because it's such a volume of information in one place. Hate it because they've done their homework and this really highlights how hard this project is going to be. It's why this article has been sitting in my drafts for 6 weeks. 

Order of Operations

Now is the time I need to divide this up a bit. 

Quick wins - there are a few things here I can do right away. I've already replaced my browser and search with Duck Duck Go. I don't know if this is the perfect solution but a week in, it's going ok. I can also update my SMS app and keyboard apps on Android this week. My contacts lists might go with them. Contacts is hard because I use it across SMS, Phone, Email and a few other places. 

Half steps - I'm not sure that replacing Google Maps outright will be possible based on what I've seen, but I can install Open Street Map and use that instead of Google Maps occasionally. It will help wean me off at least until other services get better. My main concern is having good transit information and directions in strange places. Like Saskatoon. 

Buy some service - I already pay a couple of hundred dollars a year on DNS, web hosting and Google Cloud. I'm currently on the hunt for a Saskatchewan based hosting service that can take over all of these services and also include email. If I get the right service, I might also be able to move this blog, my contacts, calendar, document services and photo storage over. Lots to be done here and it's going to be one of the more challenging steps in the project. Moving this blog is likely to be a disaster, it's probably coming last. I self-link in this thing so much, I don't know how I'll fix it. 

I may need to subscribe to a new aggregation service, like Ground News, as an alternative to Google News. But again, need to find a non-American option. I think finding an alternative to Grammarly might fit here as well. 

Moving accounts - Once I have my emails and contacts squared away, I'll look into my passwords and security and will go from account to account moving everything over. Changing my email, updating my passwords, getting new security setups in place. This step will be incredibly labour intensive, but it's not one I'm too worried about. I've done a project like this a couple of time before, I can do it again. 

Problems without an answer - there are a few things I just don't know about yet. YouTube is kinda my jam. There are a myriad of other options, including Canadian ones, but they don't all have what I want. I will probably look to move my own content to a different site, but my consumption will take some work. 

I don't know what the alternative to my Google Wallet will be yet. And security Authentication apps all seem to be American so I don't know where that path will take me. 

Figure it out when I get there - Google Chat/Meet and Translate are services I use off the cuff a lot. There are obviously better choices, I just need to find them when I go to use those services. As mentioned previously, I'll approach my use of AI with this mentality too. 

Just quit it - Social media and my Meta-life aren't really as essential as they used to seem. I've even started accounts with other services like Bluesky and I just don't use them. I don't need them that bad. I do use Instagram a lot for my music promotion, so I'll need to contemplate that. And Facebook Marketplace is my jam for used crap. But I can find other ways too. 

My Apple account and probably fall in this category too. 

Longer term things - I'll almost certainly want to switchmy operating systems in time. I've flip-flopped to and from Linux distros for years and they do get better every time. But music/audio work has always been a challenge. 

On the subject of audio work, my current favourite is Reaper, a decidedly American product. But the company seems very cool and ethical. There are other options but I'm going to stick with this for the medium-term future. 

I'm also a bit worried about my mobile operating system. There are Linux options but I worry about app availability and stability. 

The unsolvable - As I move through this, I know there are a few things I simply won't be able to fix. My work ecosystem doesn't have a lot of wiggle room. I have to use an iPhone, my operating systems are set, our cloud service is Microsoft and that's just going to be the way it is. I just need to separate my personal from professional as much as possible. 

It's kinda exciting

As overwhelming as this whole project seems, there's something exciting about it all. I daresay, it's almost been fun.

I was an early adopter and user of the internet. Those early years were not only exciting because the internet was new but because there were so many cool options and you could Lego them together in whatever way you wanted to. In fact, Pilot's World started from that approach. I'm excited to try some new tools and rebuild my online presence in my own image a bit. Google is very useful, it's also very bland. And risky. 

How about YOU?

Have you contemplated or even taken some steps to remove yourself from the American tech system? What do you think of my plan? Will I make it? Am I being overly paranoid? Is this worth the effort I'll put in? Have I missed anything that I should be considering in this?

Live Long and Proper

Today is the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of the television show Star Trek. Owing to my young age I never did watch Star Trek in those first few years. But I was a massive fan of the next generation when it came out in the late '80s.

You see despite the fact that I never watched the original Star Trek, mom sure did. And I remember distinctly when the Next Generation was coming out, how she encouraged me to watch it because she enjoyed the original show so much. In fact, we watched it together. 

I've been asked over the years whether I'm more a Star Trek fan or a Star Wars fan. And like enjoying Metallica or Megadeth. I'm not sure why I need to pick just one. I can enjoy both. 

But I do like them both for different reasons . 

For Star Trek I've always enjoyed the ships and the space battles. For Star Wars. I never liked the space battles. I was more into the Jedi stuff and the things that happened on the planets. I guess I like the space opera part of Star Wars. 

I never could fully articulate what I like most about the ships and the battles in Star Trek until the series Picard came out and I was watching some post analysis videos. It was often pointed out that the Enterprise is as much a character as Data, Riker or even Picard. I love the Enterprise and there are few ships that I would more like to have a model of hanging from my ceiling or sitting on my desk. 

And I always idolized Commander Riker. Was never as much into Picard. He's cool and a great Captain but Riker was a swashbuckler and very cool. I played trombone because he played it. Even my beard is based on the classic. William Riker beard. 

And of course, as I got older and more familiar with Star Trek, I did learn to love some of the stuff from the original series. In particular, the movies were were a ton of fun. I really loved Star Trek IV where they go back in time to steal a whale. And Star Trek 6 was a big favorite in late junior high - early high school. I even had a copy of the novel that I read to bits. 

Star Trek has always been held up as a mirror to what's happening in the modern world as well as an oracle into what the future could look like. Of course, if we let Trump keep doing his bullshit, we probably won't reach that future. No matter how many Starfleet academies he tries to build.

So happy birthday to Star Trek. Thanks for bringing so much entertainment to my life and for giving me just one more thing to be a complete utter nerd about. Thank you for bringing me the Borg to terrify me at night. And for bringing me Deanna Troy. For other things at night.

An update I guess

September is dawning, and I'm still navigating my nerve issue and hoping that things start returning to normal. I think there's some progress happening - in fact, I occasionally think "maybe this is going away" - only to be ripped back to reality by doing a little bit of work or sitting in a car. 

I finally got in to see my family doctor yesterday, and he's prescribed me some new medication and ordered some X-rays in addition to more new exercises. I'd complain about more exercise, but at this point, I'll do whatever is needed to return to some sense of normal. I've also finally got an appointment with a sports doctor next Tuesday, so hopefully I'll be able to get some advice that moves this shit show along.

Honestly, I do think things are improving. I've been able to sleep in my own bed the last couple of nights, which is huge, and the medication the doctor gave me yesterday is supposed to help with that even more. Plus more exercise to wear me out. 

I've been so bored and impatient with this whole process the last few weeks that the burst of activity over the past couple of days is actually a bit overwhelming. I had to wait 2.5 hours past my scheduled appointment to see the doctor yesterday and ended up putting off getting the X-ray until today; I was so worn out by it. It's going to be a bit of an uphill battle to get back to work. I've tried setting myself some goals on guitar, but I really can't play for more than 5 minutes before my arm lights on fire. 

But I am typing today's blog, which is good. Last week's was typed too, albeit much slower. And I don't know that I'd be able to type for a whole day at this point. But progress is progress, and I'll do what I can to recognize it. 

Being in chronic pain sucks, being uncertain sucks and being bored sucks. I'll be glad to put this whole ordeal behind me to be sure. 

Gordon

The first Barenaked Ladies album was named Gordon. You only need to read the acknowledgements of the album to understand that this is a reference to the seeming plethora of Gordons in the Canadian music scene. Gordon Lightfoot,  Gord Johnston (Big Sugar) and the band with the most Gordons of all - The Tragically Hip with Gord Downie and Gordon Sinclair. 

Of course, Gordon is a pretty common name for that generation. My neighbour to the South is named Gordon, as is my father-in-law. 

While I have been listening to a bit of Mr. Lightfoot over the last few weeks, it's the Gordons from the Hip that possessed me this weekend. 

Saturday marked the 10th anniversary of the final Hip show by rebroadcasting the final concert, "The Tragicall Hip: A National Celebration." I had not seen the concert in the last decade since it happened and had never seen the whole thing. We were in Winnipeg that night, and I was able to watch much of it in a crowd at The Forks. I remember it being an emotional and monumental moment. It was a very Canadian night. A friend texted me on Saturday during the show, and we discussed how timely the rebroadcast of this uniting moment was, considering the fact that Canada pulled out of trade negotiations with the USA on Friday. 

Watching it again was very different. First, it had that Titanic feel to it. We didn't know for sure then, but Gord Downie would die about a year later. This wasn't the last time we'd hear him; his solo album "Secret Path" would tell the residential school story like we had never heard it before he left, and he left us a double album as well. We also got to hear the Hip once more with Leslie Feist singing. But this was the last time we would ever see them together. 

It's a sad document to be sure. Fiddler's Green got me, like it always does. Fireworks had me in tears to my surprise, but my band used to cover it in high school, so I think there was a strong bit of nostalgia there. And of course that final farewell of Ahead by a Century is also devastating. 

Also surprising was how much Gord called out then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to help the First Nations. We know now, a decade later, that Mr. Trudeau failed in that challenge. And perhaps that's why he wasn't featured in the opening documentary, but our current PM, Mr. Carney, was. 

It motivated me to finally watch "The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal", a comprehensive documentary about the band produced by Gord's brother Mike Downie. It's a fascinating look at the band, their history and their struggles. It really is a good warts-and-all document, and the final part talking about Gord's final years is as sad as watching that final concert. Seeing the chaotic and wise voice of my Canadian musical youth reduced to weak whispers of  "I love you" is hard to watch, but it's lovely to know he was surrounded by his family and his friends. It's good to know that he was cared for and that he cared for others. \

Canada has come a long way since we said goodbye to The Hip. Maybe some of the people mentioned in these documents didn't, but the country has. We've walked further down the path of reconciliation, navigated a pandemic, looked our sovereignty in the face and staked our claim to our place in the world. I'm inclined to wish we had Gord and The Hip here to guide us through, but at the same time, we did it. We took the identity they showed us and the unity they created, and we've forged on. The Hip were important and something we should celebrate, but they were merely a spotlight on a people and a land I am becoming more and more proud to be a part of. 

Oh and fuck Donald Trump. Just fuck that guy. 

Three long breaths

I'm coming up on 4 weeks with this shoulder pain, and unfortunately things aren't really that much better. There's been a bit of improvement, but I'm still stuck in my Lazy Boy most of the day and up most of the night. Really disappointed in my body's ability to heal. 

I finally saw a physiotherapist yesterday and received a personalized exercise plan. Perhaps more positively, though, is that she doesn't think this is a major injury and that it should clear up with time. But that time might be a while. I hope it's not too long. My short-term disability expires in September. 

One of the interesting outcomes of this is applying a bit of meditation practice that I was working on while camping in the week before the injury showed up. 

Whether you're looking at insomnia, anxiety or just meditation, breathing exercises seem to be an important practice to help calm your body and get yourself through hard times. I've found breathing exercises to be very valuable through this shoulder injury.

I was practicing the breathing exercises while camping, just as a meditation practice. Breathe in slowly. Hold your breath for a few seconds. Breathe out slowly. It's amazing how hard it can be just to take three good breaths like that without getting distracted. 

Moving into the early days of this injury, I was using those same breathing practices just to get through some of the pain pangs that I was getting. Just try to relax the muscles so that I could feel a little less pain. 

Now, moving into the exercise and recovery part, that same long breath and hold and out is about 10 seconds long. So I'm using that to measure some of my exercises and stretches that need to last for 30 seconds. Instead of sitting there counting 1 one thousand, 2 one thousand… I just calmly take those three deep breaths with the holds. It counts about the same amount of time, and it makes the stretch a little more relaxed and calm, and I can end on a breath. 

I know it's not as glorious as designing my own crown, but slow, careful breaths have been an important part of my life over the past few weeks, and probably for the next few as well.

I wish this thing would just leave me alone already. I'd like to get back to my life now.

My Crown

This week's post is a counterpoint to a few previous posts by the Navigator. Namely, his post from last week about taking some indigenous history courses and learning about colonialism. And secondly, a post from a while back about making your own coat of arms. 

Being stuck in my Lazy Boy for the last few weeks has allowed me to delve into a few deep internet rabbit holes, as you can imagine. One of those rabbit holes has been watching videos about Crown jewels. But not just the British Crown jewels. The crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, the Vatican and other European countries. In fact, I've also learned that many of the trappings of crowns come from Arabic sources.

And so to that end, today's post is me setting out my requirements for my crown. Because the way I've been sitting around in my chair lately, I feel like a king on his throne. Plus all the gout. 

Modernity

One of the things you learn about crowns is that while many of them are ancient and have deep, deep history, a lot of them are made brand new for the coronation of the new Regent. And other Royals get crowns too. Maybe one of the best illustrations of this is the Coronet of Prince Charles, which was designed in the '60s when Charles was crowned Prince of Wales. When King Edward VIII went into exile after abdicating the throne, he took the traditional Coronet used to Crown the Prince of Wales with him. So it necessitated a new Coronet to be made. If you go check out pictures of the Coronet of Prince Charles, you'll see how very 1960s it is. It's undeniable.

So to that end, I want my own Crown to be very modern. I know by the time of Futurama, rings are very retro, but maybe they aren't quite so retro now and could be part of my crown. The papal tiara famously has three crowns on it. To upstage everyone else, I want four rings on my crown. 

Base materials. 

Of course, crowns have been traditionally made with gold and occasionally with silver. The state Crown of the United Kingdom also includes platinum, as does the Coronet of Charles. But we are living in the 2020s, so I need even more spectacular and rare metals in my crown, like titanium or purple gold. 

There are also a lot of modern metal treatments that could look really cool on the crown. You can anodize aluminum to almost any colour these days, which would also keep the crown light. I've also watched a little bit about bluing steel, which looks gorgeous when done correctly. So maybe some elements of blued steel or anodized aluminum could make the crown really pop.

The stones

One of the most famous parts of any crown and one of the greatest contributors to the weight of a crown is the stones placed in the crown. 

The stones in any crown, of course, are beautiful but often have stories as well. It's not like they just dug up a bunch of new stones to make a new Crown. They're handed down. They are stolen, and sometimes they are gifted, such as the Star of Africa stones in the state Crown of the UK. So here are some of the stones that I would like in my crown. 

Lab-grown scientific stones. Sticking with the theme of modernity, I would like to have some of the spectacular lab-grown stones used to create gems for lasers included in my crown. Some of them are fabulously fluorescent and gorgeous. I would like to include a good number of these in my crown. 

Black opal. I have a minor obsession with opals. It came from another internet deep dive sometime in the past. Not this most recent round of illness. But they are the most spectacular stones, reflecting the entire rainbow. But black opals are just a step above. They're so gorgeous. In fact, some are black opal with just purple and blue colouring in them, and I would love several very large opals set in my Crown. 

Stolen stones. Of course, no Crown is complete without something stolen from someone else. I'm not sure whom I'm going to steal a stone from, but with technocrats being the real power holders of today, perhaps I could steal a stone from Jeff Bezos or steal from Drake. But usually they're stolen from someone of lesser caste. So maybe I need to steal it from some hippie chick with a crystal shop.

Gift stones. Many crowns also include stones gifted by other Royals, by the parliament or by the people (mostly rich people) to the Regent. Since this blog only has one reader, it is falling to that reader to provide me with that gift stone. Better get saving, Andrew. 

Other elements 

Relics 

Famously, the crown of the Holy Roman Empire includes a steel ring on the inside that is storied to have been wrought from one of the nails used to hang Christ on the cross. I don't have access to any Holy relics of that type, but once I ascend to the crown, I'm sure that some of these relics will become available. For my part, I believe that I would like a part wrought from a fork used to try and eat the Flying Spaghetti Monster as part of the relics of my crown.

Fur

Many crowns are trimmed with fur along the bottom to make them more comfortable, and I would say even more stylish. It looks like ermine is the animal usually used to trim crowns. But I don't think that's going to do it for me. Now. This isn't a statement on veganism. I'm not saying that it should be faux fur. No, not at all. 

It's been revealed recently that scientists are very close to being able to clone a woolly mammoth from DNA found in rocks or other fossils. I don't know how soft a woolly mammoth is, but lining my crown with mammoth fur would be pretty spectacular. Or maybe there is another extinct animal that we can bring back from extinction that has much softer fur. Or hell. It's 2026. Maybe we can just make our own DNA for our own new animal with the softest fur ever, kill that bastard and line my crown with his fur.

Step it up a bit 

As long as we're leaning into modernity, why do we have to stick with precious metals and precious stones to make up the crown? This thing could be fully lit up and even have a smoke machine built in using modern techniques. 

Obviously we're going to want to include some LEDs in this. But I'm not trying to be garish. I don't want some RGB rainbow pattern coming off the top of my head. This isn't a gaming keyboard. No, no, we're going to be a little more classy than that. Maybe we can mount some LEDs behind the gems so that they shine out. 

And would it kill you to include a few lasers? As soon as I'm crowned, I want 400,000 lumens of laser light blasting off the top of my head. 

Considerations

There are a few things to consider when creating the crown to discuss as well.

Weight 

Crowns are famously quite heavy. It's not just the gold and the silver. The stones themselves are, well, stones, so crowns can be very heavy, and it's even been said you can't even look down without the crown pulling your head down. With my recent shoulder and neck issues. This is going to be of Paramount concern. Hence why I think we need to consider the use of some aluminum in this and maybe some lighter stones.

Payment 

I don't know how to pay for this thing. It seems in the past that the royal families would order this using their own wealth, which is typically very significant or by conning the parliament or government that they work with to pay for it. Again, I don't have access to a parliament or vast familial wealth, so I'll have to steal it from a technocrat. It's fine. They have plenty.

So there you have it, the requirements for my crown. Of course, this doesn't make up a full set of crown jewels. There's no sceptre or sword. No fancy Crown clothing. But I need to start somewhere, and I think I should start with a crown. Because that's a totally reasonable thing to want. I should maybe have my medicine reviewed with my doctor sometime soon.

What Crown Jewel would you like? What would you put in your crown?

Walk Back Technology or Perish

This week's blog doesn't find me very much further along in my healing Journey than last week's did. Still feeling pretty awful and still haven't been back to work. But let's focus on more of a thought piece instead of my screaming shoulder.

There is a group of people in Regina who like to protest for the sake of protest. Or at least it seems that way. They usually set up shop on the corner of Albert Street and Victoria Avenue. There's signs about contrails and technology. I like to call them the "climate scientists". Never really sure what they're protesting about but they sure are pissed and sure love neon paper. 

Which makes it a little uncomfortable to talk sometimes about what it would be like if maybe we walked back technology a little bit. 

In a recent video by YouTuber Alec Steele where he went to an ancient Italian blacksmith that was powered by water. The hammer, the Bellows for the forge, even the welder were all run off of the energy from some falling water. Yes are running like it still operates today. It wasn't even a large or fast flowing amount of water. It was mostly just a stored pond above the blacksmith.

It got me wondering how we could still in the modern-day directly power some of our machinery and technology without having to go through a power grid that strips efficiency from our energy production.

A prime example here in Saskatchewan would be grinding wheat using wind power. It's actually incredibly ancient technology using windmills to grind wheat and other grains. Why couldn't we be doing that here today? Why are we paying a power company to burn coal hundreds of miles away to run grinders for wheat all over the province. A few windmills and we could be grinding wheat a lot closer to where it's produced into flower. It's not like flower needs to be run 24/7 all the time. Anyway, you make flour while the wind blows and I think we'd be able to supply a lot without burning coal or otherwise using a power grid. And I'm talking direct drive technology here. Not electric windmills powering electric motors for the grinders. Like just attach a belt from the windmill to the grinder and get to work. It's all circular motion.

I think we could also use it on our infrastructure, particularly in place of pumps. We could we could use wind powered pumps to put water into stored energy and stored water areas like reservoirs and water towers.

In some ways we see this being done now already. I see plenty of street signs and construction signs that are powered by solar power. Not to mention parking meters like those seen in Saskatoon.

I actually think modern design and engineering has got 90% of the way there lately with USB charging. It's this consistent 5 Volt supply. The biggest problem is that they've designed everything with integrated batteries. If they had made it so that we can replace those 5 volt rechargeable batteries then we could leave a set of batteries at home on a solar charger everyday and switch them out every night for a fresh one leaving our dead one to charge the next day. You could have a few spares for cloudy days or charge it off the grid if it's really bad. It would be great. And if you were on the road and you needed to charge up you can still plug into the wall and charge up like normal. 

But I mean at the same time they can power steel mills with solar energy. So I think people are just making excuses at this point.

It was something I noticed when I was buying a lot of tools for my garage. When I was trying to get into woodworking. It was very clear that everything was just a spinning motor with a different attachment on it. The table saw the chop. Saw the drill, the sander. They were all just spinning motors with something different attached to them. I just wanted to buy one spinning motor and change the attachments. I think we could be doing that with wind energy quite a bit. Just switch out what is on the other end of the belt from the windmill. Instead of converting it into electricity and sending it into a grid. 

What are some ways of using old technology or even rethinking how we will you solar and batteries to produce our energy the you can think of? I think we get so caught up in the fact that renewables can't replace everything that we don't consider how how renewables could replace a lot of things, leaving more fossil fuels for the future and less pollution in the air.

The Hot Shoulder

It's a bit of a cliché that every time you hit a major milestone in aging, your body decides it's going to stop working in one way or another. For example, when you turn 30, it seems you get hurt when you never would have been hurt before. Then you turn 40, and nothing heals anymore. You just cut yourself peeling an orange, get sepsis and die. 

Last year, at 44, I got a little bit philosophical and talked about how I wasn't going to let things bother me and was just going to go with the flow. Take things a little bit easier and maybe enjoy life a bit. 44 was pretty good. I enjoyed being 44. But a week and a bit ago I turned 45, and this is the beginning of the end.  

The problem first started coming back from camping when I noticed that my shoulder was a little bit sore. This is nothing new. It's sort of in that same 30- to 40-year-old aging thing. You take a little bit of time doing physical labour and the next thing you know, you're a little bit sore and hurt. But that soreness was not getting better. 

So on the Tuesday, I asked Rhonda if she'd mind giving me a little bit of a back rub and help to loosen things up a little bit. She was very generous and did exactly that. The back half felt great. A good massage was starting to loosen things up. Was hoping that maybe I could enjoy the rest of my time off. 

Then she said, "Turn over. Let's get the front half." And so began (so far) over a week of agonizing pain, hospital visits and really no end in sight as far as pain and shoulder injury is concerned. 

Wednesday morning, I ended up in Urgent Care in so much pain. I could barely see. They took some X-rays, poked at it, prescribed a few medications for me and sent me on my way. That night, the pain was so extreme and so unmanageable. I found myself in the Pasqua Hospital emergency room.

No shade on the nurse practitioner who saw me at Urgent Care, but there was a lot more going on there than just a little bit of shoulder injury. The doctor at the emergency room diagnosed me with a serious form of tendonitis and took me off work for at least a week. Gave me some very strong drugs and stuck me full of needles and things to try and get things under control. 

 Why is this tube full of air?

It actually took about 8 hours for them to get the pain under control, and if I'm honest, it only lasted about 6 hours before I was back to where I was. But at least now I've got some idea of why I can barely even see straight. 

So yeah, that really is my life right now. Just constant fucking pain. Even this blog is being dictated because the idea of sitting with my shoulders up typing right now is too much to bear. I'll just be happy to dictate today's post to you. But I'm sitting in the sun, and that's kind of nice. Makes me warm. 

Holding it together with hockey tape like my ancestors did.

I'm going to say I'm really impressed and want to vigourously applaud the staff in the two emergency rooms that I interacted with, both at Urgent Care and at the emergency room at the Pasqua. They were patient, good communicators, and they were very compassionate. I got a lot of help and a lot of comfort from them. Bravo to each and every one of those men and women who helped me out. They were great people. 

But the government of Saskatchewan can go fuck itself. I'm not impressed. That wait times I now need to navigate are unacceptable. And to be sure this is painful - but it's not life threatening. God help those people who are waiting on the government to let them die. 

I was given a referral for an ultrasound so we can see what's going on and develop some kind of treatment or intervention to make this better. The very soonest that I can see a radiologist to get an ultrasound is the end of November this year. So, foreseeably, I have to wait at least 4 months to even get a test to tell me what is actually happening in my shoulder so that I can start doing the exercises and treatment I need.

I was also given a referral to a physiotherapist. It's a week later and have not heard or seen a fucking word from any of them. So here I am trying to self-diagnose and self-treat using YouTube and the internet. I hear complaints from people in the medical field about how people self-diagnose and self-treat using the internet and using YouTube, but what the fuck else am I supposed to do? Honestly, what am I supposed to do? I have no access to effective treatment. I might just start bloodletting because what other options am I being given?

And of course there's the mental health part of all of this too that I've got to contend with. I took 2 weeks off of work. One week was going to be camping and the second week was going to be getting some things done. Get someone to come quote a new door in the back, do some work on the lawn, maybe see about getting the car fixed. You know, make some plans and get shit done. A lot is falling apart in my house, and a lot of things need to be taken care of, and I had a plan to do that. Until my fucking shoulder went out on me, and now what? Just let it fall apart, I guess; let it all fall apart because I can't get timely medical help and my body won't let me take care of the places around me until I do.

It also extends to some of the fun stuff. I wanted to maybe do a little bit of recording, sit down and do some multi-track demos. I wrote a song while I was out camping that I'd like to demo out, but I'm in too much pain. I can't even focus right now. If it wasn't for voice-to-text, you wouldn't even be getting a blog this week cuz I just can't do it. 

All that to say, 45 fucking sucks. I wish I was 44 again, and I'm not looking forward to 46. Just hoping I can make it through the next few weeks.