As Ian Sees It

 Tomorrow is Burns.  I know that doesn't mean anything to a whole lot of you, but in our house it is something.   It will be Robert Burns birthday, (And Jim Mckillop's too, Happy birthday Jim!)   Now we are McLeans.  That is to say we are the Scottish MacLeans rather than the Irish McLeans,  but upon our arrival to North America our illiterate ancestors had the immigration or clergy fill out the forms for them and it was just assumed we spelled our name like the Irish Catholic McLeans who came before them.  But so much for the history lesson.......   Since I was a little kid Burns was something in our house.  My mom who was the real Scot ordered a Haggis and we ate it with tatties and neeps while Scottish country dance music and folk songs played on the stereo.  When I was in my forties, my sons and I joined a pipe band.  Burns was one of the big fund raisers for the pipe band in Swift Current Saskatchewan and every year we piped wh...

I left room for a picture up there.     And it worked on my iPad. Is it just me, or are we being manipulated constantly by the IT industry?  Hopefully I will be able to figure out what I have to do that doesn't involve updating my system .....AGAIN!  We now go through more computers than we do television sets in our house.  We used to laugh that our systems were obsolete before they were taken out of the box.  While this has never been more true, we aren't laughing anymore.  We have been made reliant on a system that changes constantly.  And it would be more manageable if the language that accompanies the changes did not change  as well.   Now I am not an idiot.  I see what is going on out there.  Facebook which has been all but completely abandoned by all but us boomers spends a great deal of cyber space sharing insults hurled towards young people.  They are all lazy.  They don't know how to communicate, or read a bo...

 If there is such a thing as the twelve days of Christmas, would they start now?  Twelve days from Christmas?  Or do they start at Christmas and run through to the Epiphany?  Perhaps Bob and Doug MacKenzie counted up the twelve days of Christmas best.  Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day,   The two weekends before and between,  and the three mystery days of Christmas.  (Add em up,  these guys were more than just another pretty face with a toque on top.)   Now I am not just another pretty face either.  In fact, I am not a pretty face at all.   But I do know a little bit about the Epiphany and I am going to freelance the definition without looking it up.  In Layman's terms (which means in words I can spell) the Epiphany was when the wisemen actually found Jesus.   When they determined that Jesus was actually the Messiah.   Then again,  I sat through a few years of midnight ma...

    It never ceases to amaze me what Christmas.....or the holiday season brings out in people.  It is no secret that I live the Holiday Season.  In America the Holiday Season begins with Thanksgiving.  In Canada, I have always considered the Holiday Season kickoff to be the Grey Cup.  Our Canadian football extravaganza that used to line up with the Americans Thanksgiving.   Back in the day the Grey Cup was something special.  To some of us, it still is.  It has been hurting since cable t.v. made the NFL available, but there remains a faint hint of national celebration that constitutes the kick off to the Holiday Season.   I don't always like what Christmas brings out in some people.  There are those who absolutely find Christmas to be nothing more than commercial hype.  A ridiculous expense.   Canned music,  unhealthy food,  too close quarters with relatives you love better from a distance.   Many think it s...

 Remembrance Day is a week away.  It is almost 80 years since the last world war, but we have exposed our service people to many conflicts since then.   There was that Korean War to which we referred as a police action.   Canadians were the bench mark for peace keeping and our men and women put themselves in harms way across the globe saving the lives of thousands of innocents who had the misfortune of being born in the wrong time and place.  .   Then there was the whole Afghanistan thing.  A war not of our own making but where we supported our neighbours.   As much as those in this corner of my home and native land will hate me for bringing it up, we were fortunate enough to have a sitting government with the insight to keep us out of Iraq.  But Canadians, like they always have, did the heavy lifting in Afghanistan.  And in defence of our neighbours we paid a very heavy toll.  It's what we do.  We have never asked for a whole ...

    Fully aware that there is no such thing as perfect, our autumn in this corner of my home and native land has been as close weather wise as one could hope for.  Weather out here is something one never takes for granted.  And as much as has gone on in our lives this fall, we have managed to steal some moments and just enjoy what has been given to us.  Now when I say "what has gone on" it isn't the typical exaggeration one would expect from the lips of a story teller.  And yet, I suspect it is the same s%#t in a different pile for most families.       I had some very stellar moments with some people who have been a great part of my life at different times, in different places, in different ways.  I had some great opportunities to say things to individuals that I haven't seen, or never met for a life time.  I had the chance to tell these people what I thought, or how they mattered.   And I tried.        So o...

      I grew up in the wild wild west, in the middle of a rain forrest back when this corner of my home and native land was still frontier.   And I was an odd duck in so many ways.  We know things now about people like me that we didn't know then.  I am dyslexic,  and very spectrumy.  ADHD I would suspect which I believe wasn't too rare in my chosen profession.  But in the 1960's my reaction to things was simply bad behaviour.  And in truth?  Well it was.   I have a couple of grand children who are also on the spectrum and truth be told their lives aren't real easy.  But there is some understanding about people like me these days which may at some point in time make their lives a little easier.       Back in the day, I basically grew up as an only child.....but not really.   I came as a surprise to my parents some eight years after my older sister.  Eight years.   She was born at the conclusio...