Phil’s Sabbatical Blogs

I have shared before my love of going to the dump.  It is one of life’s true joys, at least for me it is. There is nothing like tossing things over that metal rail and hearing them crash into the bins below.   And today the dump did not disappoint when...

Someone today said to me “Inshallah”.  Specifically they said, “I will be there, inshallah”.  I had to look it up.  It is an Arabic expression that means, “if God wills it.”  I always want to be careful about co-opting another’s language or...

The word “sabbatical” comes the Hebrew word “shabbat” which means “to rest”.  The word is first found in the biblical book of Genesis when we read in the account of Creation that God set aside a day to rest after six days of doing the hard work of creating all...

I didn’t watch the Coronation of King Charles III live (much to my mother’s chagrin) but I did catch the highlights later on Saturday afternoon.  It was a quite an affair! The colours, music, and pageantry had the power to snatch the breath away of even the...

An article was released a couple of days ago that ranked all of the cities in Canada on a Happiness Scale.  Barrie was ranked as the 10th unhappiest city in the country.  We are slightly happier than the folks in Saint John New Brunswick, but not quite as...

I have to buy a couch.  This may not seem like a big deal to you, but for me, it’s huge.  I’m 54 years old and I have never bought a piece of furniture by myself.  I wasn’t sure where to start, so I decide to go to Bad Boy.  After all, if you can’t...

Day 4:  What Is Truth? People quit their jobs every day for all kinds of reasons, but few do so because they worry that their work threatens to dismantle society and hurry the demise of humankind. This week Geoffrey Hinton quit his job for that reason....

Someone called me “stoic” today.  It was a nurse who was commenting on the fact that I didn’t flinch when she put a needle in my arm.  I took it as a compliment and quietly patted myself on the back for keeping a poker face when I really wanted to scream...

Years ago, (another time, another galaxy), I played the drums in a band called “Whiteroom”.  We practiced in Tim’s basement.  Tim, as well as myself and my other bandmates, were students at Carleton University in Ottawa.  In other words, music wasn’t our full time gig...