As Ian Sees It

      It hasn't been easy being a patriot here in this corner of my home and native land for the last few years.  But that started changing last spring.  The upheaval came some time ago really.       The natural shelf life for a Canadian government is about 10 years.  So,  just about 10 years ago the Canadian voter decided it was time to move from our decade old Conservative Government to the Liberals.  We are a several party system however there are only two parties that ever formed a government.      After a decade, governments just get stale.  Every government has a plan.  And in truth most of them are good plans with the very best of intentions to serve the public.  Now they say every battle plan is thrown out the window when the first bullet is fired, but I don't believe that statement is all encompassing. Running a country is hard.  You can't control the weather.  You don't get to dictat...

     If you were to ask my grade four teacher she would tell you I was a day dreamer.  She was an honest sort and she wouldn't be telling a falsehood.  What ever the reason,  imagination,  Z.O.S.  ( Zone out syndrome), A.D.H.D.  or as Mrs. Ibbotson maintained to the day I met her some forty years later just plain lazy,  I confess my entire life I have been a dreamer.  In full disclosure this may not be a blog for everyone.        Daytime dreams take you away to somewhere freer, safer, prettier, and sometimes much much braver.  Night time dreams,  well  they aren't always as welcome as the day dream.  I have had as many dreams as times I have been asleep.  Some of them were wonderful.  Some of them were terrifying,  some of them were just plain stupid.  Stupid to the point that in the middle of my dream, my dreaming self has actual said something like "Aw that's just nuts." ...

       I know what today is:  It is the eleventh day of Christmas.  Tomorrow is the Epiphany.  Or the 12th day of Christmas and The end of the season in our house as well as many.  Our interior was dismantled and stored on January 2nd, but I do leave the exterior of the house decorated and lit up until January 7th.  I am first to admit I have trouble letting go of Christmas.  But life goes on and this Christmas was so good.  So wonderful.  It is time to move on.  And with that,  new developments internationally have garnered a good deal of my focus.         My politics are no secret.  And lord knows I have no head for business.  I do have some concerns about what we see happening in the world,  and perhaps equally disturbing,  at home: It's been better than a couple of days since America saved Venezuela and countless Americans from the horrific drug trade.  So why is it alm...

    It is just two weeks to the day and we are at Christmas Eve.  Tell you what,  I have always liked Christmas eve better than Christmas Day.  I think the peek of the anticipation comes then.  Christmas Eve?  You have arrived.  When she was five, my granddaughter told me I was nuts, Christmas day was way better cause Santa came and you could open presents.    A goodly number of Christmas traditions are practiced on Christmas Eve.  While I don't know about the European French culture,  I know in the French Canadian culture Christmas eve is the big celebration.   Tourtiere, meat pies and wine,  breads and cheese.  An evening of games and family that culminates in midnight Mass.   Growing up in my house,  there were treats and baking and shrimp rings and egg nog.  We would watch the 1951 movie SCROOGE which has been on t.v. Christmas eve as long as I can remember.     It was crazy in our ho...

 We got past Grey Cup and American Thanksgiving.  And far be it from me to pass over a chance to bring up that the Saskatchewan Roughriders are the Grey Cup Champions...... but I digress..... Tomorrow is December first.  There are no more hurdles or barriers between my favourite time of the year and me.   We are small town folk.  I grew up in Drayton Valley, Alberta. Population 4000 for almost the whole  time I was a resident.  My first posting was Pelly, Saskatchewan population 300.  There isn't even a detachment there anymore.  My better half was a city girl until we tied the knot.  Since then the largest place we lived was about 20,000.   When you're a kid in a small town, there is nothing better,  and I do mean nothing better than the big city department store toy department at Christmas.  The Bay, Simpson's Sears, Eatons.  All were huge four story department stores in downtown Edmonton.  The decorations were...

 Well it's been a while.  Almost half a year and for that I am truly sorry.  Truth is my blog seemed to go the way of the Bay.   There is a bevy of reasons that I haven't been keeping up on the blog front.  Well, excuses really.   But instead of giving a long long list, why don't I just try to do the honest thing and tell the truth.   When I started writing a blog, I basically did it pour moi.  I just liked to sit down and rant a little about the things in the world I loved, and didn't love so much.  To recognize some of the people in my life who have done great things large and small, famous and ignored.  To vent a little about the loneliness of being a liberal thinker in a solidly conservative environment.   It was therapy.   I discovered I loved writing and it gave me a safe place to do it.   What happened way back when was I somehow developed a following.   People actually read my stuff and I shamelessly began to ...