I first tried the “lifeboat exercise” as part of a business management planning session several years ago, and I found it so useful in helping me stay focused and run a small team that just do it continuously now.  I was surprised to see that this is not standard business practice for many managers so……

Read more.  Write more.  Golf more. Last January, I promised myself I would complete that trifecta of soul management during the year.  The first I completed – the other two I did not have much luck with. It turns out that reading more can be done by expanding your reading list to the point where……

  This makes me want to vomit.    FYI, the URL on the whaler in the story below http://www.icr.org is for this Japanese “research” organization who show a photo of themselves HARPOONING A WHALE on their own website. They were caught this month with a dead minke whale in spite of a worldwide moratorium on……

The first week of January has always been a “reset” time for me.  While it can be argued that January 1st is just an arbitrary date on the timeline and should not be considered some magic time to cast personal resolutions for change, the changing of the calendar is a great excuse to pause, take……

I could write yet another variation on Clement Clarke Moore’s famous poem and struggle yet again to find a rhyme for “Vixen”, but I won’t do that.  I could just post a nice classic picture of the Jolly old man with his Caribou friends and a sleigh full of toys. I won’t do that either. At……

Our mother left this world over two decades ago, but during her life she profoundly affected the lives of many, many people.  I consider myself extremely blessed to be her son. She taught me to be colour blind.  Skin colour was never part of a conversation in our house that I ever remember.  Looking back……

Hi.  My name is Tom and I am a writer.I went cold turkey about 11 months ago on some advice I read about managing your demons.  It was bad advise. My last post before this was December and I was closing out the year, reflecting and being philosophical. Shortly thereafter I read something somewhere about……

  Dawn. End of darkness. Creative thoughts start here.Creative thoughts percolating in my brain over night like an unwatched pot on the stove boiling over finally emerge here –  at dawn. It is New Years Eve,  December 31st 2014.  I look back over the past 364 days and try to compose a picture in my……

  I smell mincemeat tarts being made in the kitchen.  My teeth sink into a delicious home made Nanaimo Bar. The smell of Douglas Fir sap permeates the living room air.  These are my childhood Christmas memories.  When I close my eyes and drift back, these are the things that fill my mind. I worry……

I have taken my Sears/Kenmore/Frigidaire/Electrolux front load dryer apart a few times to fix it and thought that since so many people enjoyed my post on fixing my Keurig coffee maker (about 33000 page views so far), I would do the same with this project. Like my B60 Keurig coffee maker, I have a love-hate relationship……

On July 1st the Canadian Anti Spam Legislation act (CASL) will come into full effect and you are probably not aware it even exists. How appropriate that the world’s toughest legislation against unsolicited email would come into force on Canada Day. If you are not aware of the CASL project, here is a little light……

There is a notice on my fridge.  It is pinned there with a magnet right under the words “PARTS ARE NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE”.  It has been there for over a month and every day there is growing fear that my son’s 2007 Pontiac G5 could become a death sentence. The letter (posted in full below)……

I usually refrain from jumping on the common news bandwagon and just reposting already circulating ideas, but I think the “heartbleed” security flaw is an important enough exception.  It is really (really, really) important that people know what this is and how to protect themselves, so I may be repeating information you already knew here….…

The furnace guy was here yesterday.  Nice guy.  Fixed up a few things and did a tune up.  No worries.  Handed me a bill for $100 or so and all is good.Then he says “Your ohms are a little high.  I read 4.3 and we normally like to see that under 4”“… Um… ok… what……

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!! Ok, enough of that.  Lets get down to business. I am going to agree wholeheartedly with a number of my friends in asserting the sentiment “don’t just wish for a happy new year, make it happen”.  Be the change you want to see, proactively engage, change the universe from your small……

Yusef ben Ya’akov was a carpenter in Natz’rat near the sea of Galilee.  He was a good man and a fine carpenter.  He was working when he first heard the decree from Rome that all citizens were to return to their family home to be counted.  For Yusef, that meant traveling to Bet Leḥem, the……