Boys will be boys.

Wallace is 11 days old. He's eating, breathing, and growing like a champion! He can't get enough food or air :)

I'm taking too many pictures. I get very excited when he makes a cool hand signal. I'm trying to catch him using setting signals we used on the Queen's volleyball team back in the day. So far he is asking for a lot of 'back quicks'...

.... and the occasional 'metre ball'.

... which makes me think he might be asking to play right side, but it's hard to tell this early. In any case, I think he should start with high sets out to the stick like a proper beginner before we speed up the tempo and get all fancy. But before all that... 'no pass no play' little guy :)

This next one is not a volleyball signal. Mum is looking a bit annoyed at Wally's hint that he might also like to 'rock out'. I'm not surprised. What young mother would want a drum kit or a huge amp in the house?

And here's the lil'champ chillin with pops.

And I'll leave you with our first of many 'fist bumps'. Nicely done Wallaby!

More to come

Wallace

Thank you for the outpouring of congratulations and support after my email announcement last week. There were many requests for updates and pictures and I will try to use this forum to update our friends and extended family about our little boy. Unlike Kate, who already plays a big part in Wallace’s growth and health, I just drive her around, take pictures, and worry. I will now add this to my routine and maybe it will displace some worry.

Kate and I have become part of a mysterious and secretive world that few think about and nobody ever wishes to join. In Brisbane, this world consists of an entire floor of a massive hospital, with 80 tiny beds. It is where infants go if they are born too early, born sick, or both. Fear of infection restricts access almost exclusively to parents, doctors, and a team of remarkable nurses who are the closest thing to angels that I have ever seen.

Pregnancies are meant to last 40 weeks. The prognosis for a child born at 31 weeks and 3 days gestation is, to a surprising degree, still a mystery. Survival rates are very high but so many other questions are unanswered. Some babies born at 26 (or even earlier) weeks can grow quickly become healthy and happy with just a bit of help and go on to live wonderfully ordinary lives, others born at 35 week (or later) can be very sick with life-long troubles of all sorts. Doctors do not know until the minutes, hours, and days after birth what the consequences of prematurity may be and what interventions will be needed to help a baby survive.

Wallace Kenneth Magolan was born on March 19, 2010 – about two months ahead of schedule and at just 1.415 kg. For Kate and I, the experience was unbearable. Wally was not supposed to eat or breathe until the middle of May and we were asking him to step up and do it in March.

Because our lungs are among the final organs to mature in the womb, pre-mature babies often have breathing troubles. When I was told, hours before the birth of my first son, that near the top of the list of many potential problems for which to prepare was ‘possible severe respiratory disease’, I did not hear word ‘possible’ – just the other three.

But the difficult moments leading up to delivery are behind us now - and as many of you already know, since Wally’s birth we have heard good news and more good news. After about a day of assistance he was asked to try breathing on his own for a little while (without little nose ‘scuba gear’ called CPAP). So he did – and to everyone’s surprise the ‘scuba gear’ was never again required. Next he was asked to eat on his own instead of through an IV drip. So he did. A few drops of mother’s milk through a tube into his belly. When he showed the doctors that he could digest it they gave him more, and more, and more… and by day four he was downing 20 mL of milk every two hours and the IV (with supplemental calories) was removed from his little arm because he no longer needed that either. By day six they were adding a calorie enhancing powder to mom’s milk to help him grow even faster. The temperature of his little incubator home was slowly decreased from 37 to 32 degrees during his first week as he showed everyone that he wanted to try contributing a bit to keeping himself warm.

Today he is 8 days old, growing and looking wonderful. The medical strategy I see being employed - offering Wally challenge after challenge without a chance to get comfortable with ‘assisted-living’ – seems so natural and right to me. But my eyes water whenever I think of the fight that his little body must endure before he is ready to come home with us.

Wallace is taken out of his incubator twice daily and placed on his mom’s chest for a couple of hours - a process called skin-to-skin-care or kangaroo-care. The name has little to do with Australia but everything to do with kangaroos. This skin-to-skin time has been shown to ‘magically’ help pre-mature babies grow faster, resist infection, and develop well.

The hospital keeps him breathing but Kate gives him a reason to breathe. It's beautiful.

More to come.

The making of a Canadian Legend

As Canadian hockey fans go, I’m barely an amateur. I don’t gamble on sport, I don’t even have a ‘team’ I support or know much about. But I do appreciate the game itself. The pace and skill at the highest level is astonishing. I like being impressed. I don't care if it is individal genius, or brilliant team work - I just like seeing impressive sport.

But the most impressive thing about hockey (like any other of the world’s top sports played at the highest level) is not the tremendously high sustained skill level - it is the occasional rare ‘moment’ that surpasses all expectation - a moment that borders on magic, and stays in your thoughts for weeks, or months, or a lifetime. These moments require pressure. International contests fit the bill because they come with the pressure generated by the weight of entire nations - millions of passionate people. I think human beings feel a natural admiration, and appreciation for ‘excellence under such pressure’ just as we do about ‘courage under fire’. It is a deep appreciation. These rare moments are the reason that sport holds such a prominent place in our world – why the World Cup, the Superbowl, the Olympics draw more interest from humanity than so many more ‘serious’ things. It's not just a game. Sport can tug on a deep, deep, nerve and dish out a sense of joy and satisfaction unlike any other entertainment that I know of. And for someone who lives only briefly, and just once, like you, or me, these moments beat the heck out of math class.

Here's one such moment that you already know about:

Yesterday, team USA was a few heartbeats away from all but certain defeat with twenty-something seconds remaining in the Olympic gold medal men’s hockey final when they scored to tie the game at 2:2. Already this had been one of the fastest paced, most exciting hockey games in anyone’s memory – it would soon become the most memorable game ever witnessed by an entire generation of Canadians. A tied score meant an extra 20 minutes of overtime played four-on-four. That’s two fewer bodies in play than normal – ‘freedom on ice’ – making defence more difficult and a goal more likely.

About seven thrilling ‘hockey minutes’ later – a 22 year old Canadian kid from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia brought the puck into the US zone squeezing a stick between two American defencemen, flicking the puck to his left and following it into the side boards. This kid, Sidney Crosby, had no way of knowing just then that he was only few short breaths away from becoming a Legend. He was already famous, recognized by many even as the best player in the world today, a Stanley Cup winner a just a few months earlier – but not a Legend – not yet - not for a few more seconds.

Along the boards, Crosby flicked the puck to his right, into the corner for Jerome Iginla who was followed in to the corner by an American skater. Then Crosby, free of the puck, turned to his right, and for the slightest split second he shot a calm glance at the US defenceman in front of him. This is what it looked like:

The red-dressed fans behind the glass, inches from Crosby, had no way to see what was coming so soon. They were just seconds from being the happiest members of a nation overwhelmed with joy. For the remainder of their lives, these eye witnesses will recall with great emotion the story of their fortunate proximity to the moment that was about to occur.

With a sudden burst of acceleration, Crosby was gone – just like that - headed for the net.

I’m not a hockey coach but ‘pass the puck and head for the net’ sounds like something that Sidney Crosby probably learned long before he learned much else. It was a lesson that now put him alone, and free, in front of the US net in Olympic Gold Medal overtime. Now he just needed that puck back. And Jerome Iginla, in the corner fighting for the puck (and certainly no stranger to this role in the time-tested give-and-go) did not disappoint. Despite the best efforts of two US players, the puck was delivered – back onto Crosby’s stick.

And there it was... a heartbeat, a shot, a brief moment forever stamped onto Canadian culture.

For Sidney Crosby, it was probably fast and natural - and not what he expected becoming a ‘Legend’ might feel like. Later he would say that it didn’t feel real. I suspect that might be the way these things usually go down. Reality is overwhelming; paralysing. But talent makes these moments ‘instinctive’. Crosby was skilled and strong enough ‘not to feel it’ and not to be overwhelmed by the significance of the whole thing before the job was done.

The fans behind the glass in that picture could see the moment materializing right in front of them too. With them, a anxious nation of red-dressed television viewers, along with a good chunk of the rest of the industrialized world all suddenly become aware too - all together, all at once. Canadians in Brisbane Australia saw it live: Crosby, puck, net... a breath held for an instant, and it was over.

The puck slipped under the pads of superstar goalkeeper Ryan Miller - and we were Olympic Champions.

An instant later, with Crosby rounding net, the moment was behind us – gone. And as good as the memories, pictures, replays are - it will never feel the same again. It will never have the pressure and the uncertainty of the real thing. But it was special enough to warrant one heck of a celebration.

After his goal, Crosby tossed his stick and jumped in the air and an entire country jumped with him. NBC should sell a poster of this jump - from this angle - with his stick flying through the air. This image is not really about Sidney Crosby anymore - his job was finished a second or two earlier - this image is about the sea of red behind the glass, the nation represented.

My mother told me on the phone today that in the 25 years since she immigrated to Canada from Poland she had never, ever, seen Canadians act so united and openly happy, on television, in the streets, at work, everybody, everywhere. A lid had been flipped off the top of a calm and reserved nation – we had briefly become Brazilian-like.

And here come two of his gold-medal winning team mates. Thanks Crosby – you’re a legend.

Canada now stands alone with 8 Olympic men’s hockey gold medals, one more than the second best Soviet Union. We also totalled 14 gold medals in Vancouver, the most of any nation in Winter Olympics history. Not bad eh?

As for these images – yes I obviously pinched them from NBC video, with appreciation if not permission, and I hope that because I won’t make any money from them and NBC is getting free advertising, it's all good. In fact, 'thank you', and 'you’re welcome' NBC.

Academia

I apologise, my dear blog reader for the months of silence. Been busy :) Here's a snap of lil'bro and I in Vancouver a few weeks ago. I visited the busy city just before the Olympics started.

You know I love 'da sport' and I would love to chat at length about the great white games but I'll save that for another day. The Vancouver visit was a welcome side trip squeezed between a job interview and a conference in the North Western States.

The interview was for a faculty position in the Chemistry Department of the University of Idaho - 'Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry'. Few people know much about the mysterious world of 'academia' so I thought I would write about it today. Many of us think of university professors as essentially 'advanced level teachers' but that is not really true. There is teaching of course, but considerably less than a high school teacher would have. And most of the job is research and supervision of grad students.

I'll start from the beginning - an entry level faculty position at a University in North America is usually called 'Assistant Professor' but this title is misleading - Assistant Professors do not actually assist anyone with anything. In most cases an academic faculty member, from day one, is hired both as a teacher and as CEO of his or her own little research corporation. In both roles, there is instant independence and tremendous freedom. This is not the case in Europe where Assistant Professors usually work for (and answer to) a senior 'Full Professor'.

The job in Idaho consists of teaching undergraduate classes for a few hours a week and managing the 'research corporation' for the rest of the time. Generally speaking, the goal of 'science' is straightforward - to improve our understanding of the world and, where possible, to solve problems and make 'things' better. Sounds noble doesn't it? :) More specifically, the task of the 'reserach corp.' under the direction of a typical faculty member is to produce short little publications describing original research that are accepted by peer-reviewed journals. That's it. That's how the game is played - that's how we contribute to 'bettering' the world. Most faculty members crank out anywhere from 2 or 3 right up to into the 20's of these publications per year depending on amount of funding, research lab space, and size the 'workforce' under one's supervision.

Sadly, the publications are 'readable' by other experts and pretty much meaningless to the average person. Carl Sagan once wrote: 'We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements - transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting - profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology.". But that's for another blog post.

Another major responsibility is obtaining research funding. In my field, a supervisor easily spends fifty to several hundred thousand dollars yearly on student and post-doc salaries and other research expenses. In some fields of biology and health research, this can run well into the millions. The question of where that money comes from is a tricky one. First, academic journals do not pay researchers for their published work so any analogy to the real 'corporations' world must stop here. Also, the university does not pay for research but rather asks that researchers obtain 'external' funding. This means applications to funding agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the States, or NSERC in Canada, or ARC or NHMRC in Australia. We propose projects and hope that these agencies want to pay for them. These are taxpayer dollars and governments do this because investment in research has a pretty good historical track record of being 'worthwhile'. Often private industries also offer grants and donations, as do charities (often for disease specific medical research). That's pretty much the whole ballgame.

An Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry in Idaho begins a career with a pretty modest salary and lab and office space for a 'group' of graduate students which must be recruited, assembled, and trained like a varsity sports team. In fact, because of the five-year nature of graduate programs, there are countless similarities between a productive research group and a winning varsity volleyball team. But that's for another day too. The university also offers 'start-up funds' which is a hefty chunk of one-time-only-must-spend-quickly cash for lab equipment. Career advancement is fairly standardized and simple in academia: successfull 'Assistant Professors' become promoted to 'Associate Professors' and granted tenure usually after five or six years and eventually, in the long term, obtain the title of 'Full Professors', start wearing elbow patches, smoking a pipe, and walking with a cane. The 'tenure' process is pretty cool and probably deserves its own post another day too.

That concludes your 'academia' education for today. I'll stick with this theme for a few posts I think... I'm happy to say I was offered the job and we are headed for Idaho in August :) Maybe next week I'll write a bit about U of I and this guy.


The Brizzy Days will be winding down this year. As I've said many times to many people - Brisbane is all pros and no cons. This city, the QLD, Sssssssstralia, and the friends we have made here have all been very good to Kate and I. I have loved every minute of it and we have made more than just good memories here. I'm sure we'll see this place again many times as visitors - but a very different adventure is in store for us now. I'm thinking about calling it 'The Huckleberry Days'...

Lewis Thomas on Termites

This Christmas break I've taken some time to read. We don't 'holiday' enough, you and I, do we? We have too few opportunities in our busy lives to steal several days in a row for something truly enjoyable - in no hurry - perhaps even something utterly unproductive.

When given the rare chance, some of us prefer to rest in solitude while others like to pair up. Perhaps your ideal holiday is with a group of friends or maybe a crowd of strangers. Personally, I dislike crowds and traffic and even excessive small talk so I guess that gives me away. My ideal holiday is some place quiet. And reading fits the bill pretty nicely. Several years ago I rented an X-box during my December holiday and proceeded to sit motionless with my feet up for the better part of four days. It was wonderful. A few years later - another Christmas - I watched three seasons of a brilliant TV series back to back to back for upwards of 40 hours instead of sleeping. This was also absolutely wonderful. Naturally, Kate was far from impressed with me but I like to think that my examples of compulsive behaviour are both rare and fairly amateur. I would expect that many people can do much better.

This year I've channelled my compulsive-holiday-energy into something more valuable. I'm reading.

We all appreciate a 'well written' book but even more satisfying is a topic that is interesting, true, and 'well written about'. I believe that quality content should always comes before quality writing but the latter is a much needed follower. I like history books, biographies, and above all else good popular science books. I've stayed away from fiction for a few years now and I don't plan to go back. I like complicated topics decribed by insightful people who know how to simplify them. I love when an author is able to recognize something remarkable underneath a seemingly boring surface.

I also love clarity and despise the obscurity and needless complexity of some science writing - the twisting and wrapping up of ideas until they have to be re-read three times and deciphered like a code. I imagine that most people must agree with me here and I can only hope that most scientists feel the same. A famous biologist named Peter Medawar once wrote "...no one who has something original or important to say will willingly run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief." I'm not suggesting that all science can be made simple. There's a lot of complexity in the world around us - a lot of math - countless interactions of limitless puzzle pieces. And I am sincerely curious about all of it but I want to learn it from someone who actually wants to teach me, not from someone who is happy just to demonstrate that a subject is out of my reach. I don't like to pay for a book and be given little from the author aside from evidence of a pompous arrogance that overshadows intellect.

Thankfully, there are many very talented science writers who write for us, and not for themselves. My favourite book to date is still 'Faster' by James Gleick.

Good science writing is like a good meal - nutritious content wrapped in delicious style. Indulge me for a moment and imagine that an encyclopedia or a textbook is like a raw piece of chicken breast. Not easily edible. Now picture a well written fiction novel as I do: a bag of bread crumbs. It's better than raw chicken, I suppose, but I need something more from a book than just soft unsatisfying crumbs. I hope you can already see where I'm headed with this... a good science book is chicken schnitzel. Or as they say in Aussie Land... Chicken Schnitty! Delicious.

Here I'll illustrate:


Allow me to offer an delicious example: The late Lewis Thomas was a physician, researcher, and Dean of Yale Medical School among many other roles. He also did a lot of writing and one day had this to say about termites:

"...it is not the single insect that is the Wonder, it is the collectivity. There is nothing at all wonderful about a single, solitary termite, indeed there is really no such creature, functionally speaking, as a lone termite, any more than we can imagine a genuinely solitary human being; no such thing. Two or three termites gathered together on a dish are not much better; they may move about and touch each other nervously, but nothing happens. But keep adding more termites until they reach a critical mass, and then the miracle begins. As though they had suddenly received a piece of extraordinary news, they organize in platoons and begin stacking up pellets to precisely the right height, then turning the arches to connect the columns, constructing the cathedral and its chambers in which the colony will live out its life for the decades ahead, air-conditioned and humidity-controlled, following the chemical blue print coded in their genes, flawlessly, stoneblind. They are not the dense mass of individual insects they appear to be; they are an organism, a thoughtful, meditative brain on a million legs. All we really know about this new thing is that it does its architecture and engineering by a complex system of chemical signals."

How can one not be impressed by a line like... 'a thoughtful, meditative brain on a million legs'. That's the kind of writing I would like to be capable of one day. Lewis is referring to a concept known as 'swarm intelligence' observable not just in termites but all throughout nature.

In the unimaginably small world of biochemistry - there are plenty of mysteries left to write about and every new answer still reveals more questions. Unfortunately, most of us are unable to appreciate these mysteries because they are best described in the mysterious and unfriendly three dimensional language of 'organic chemistry'. You know... 'all those hexagons'. The reason that so few people speak OC is that high school teachers barely touch it, and universities generally chose not to 'teach' introductory ORGO but rather use the course as an IQ test to identify medical students. Because of the obvious potential to twist and turn organic compounds in 3-dimensions an instructor can easily lose students and offer them an immense intellectual challenge without really asking them to 'learn' or 'remember' anything. And consequently ORGO is frightening. You will either avoid it entirely like most people or learn it for all the wrong reasons like the rest of us. There is, of course, a right reason to learn organic chemistry - a remarkably simple and persuasive reason that everybody seems to miss: organic chemistry it is the language of life - and there is nothing more remarkable than life.

I'll leave you with some termite mounds :)

How to make a pregnant gal happy

Gentlemen, for those among us who have had (or will have) trouble keeping a smile on the pretty face of a rapidly-growing, hormone-fluctuating, not-what-she-wants-knowing, lovely little woman. I thought I would document one strategy that has worked for me.

Cheers

Belly bumps in Oz

Anyone reading my stuff on a regular basis will know that I occasionally like to rant about pretty 'serious' topics (as in the last post) but I mostly try to share some of our Aussie adventures with friends and family. That's why I started this foolishness in the first place although I haven't done a very regular job of it. I'm safe in the comfort of knowing that nobody reads this anyways :)

It's more of a writing project for me than a reading project for anyone else.

As far as Aussie adventures go, Kate and I are about 17 weeks into an adventure right now. Kate is pregnant and we will have a Australian born baby sometime in late May. Our first - and a first grandchild for all of our parents. As they say here... we're excited azzzz. This was always in the cards but now that it's real - it's more 'real' than I expected, if that make's any sense.

When I think of effective parenting, some ideas do spring to mind, but strangely enough none of them include a baby. Gimme a kid I can speak to who will respond. Gimme one I can teach chess, math, world capitals, and sports. Who wants a baby? So that's my position as of right now. Thankfully Kate will be a spectacular mother. She's almost too responsible, if that's possible, and I'm sure it is. And she has that dry British humour that the kid will inevitably pick up... and I'll just laugh all day at both of them for years and years.

Kate and I agree that we should let 'team sports' do some of our parenting for us. We were both athletes. Mainly it give you something to do - a reason to avoid trouble. And you get all of that stuff that you don't realize you're getting until it's too late... a bit of confidence, perseverance, some experience with losing and winning, some hard work, some concentration, some quality social interaction, some great friends, some goals... and I don't mean 'goals'... but those too. Mainly, you get the pride associated with acquiring a skill - any skill would do it I suppose - it could be basket weaving or it could be basketball. Competitive basket weaving would be sweet. There's a frightening amount of value in sport. You can only teach what you know right :)

It turns out that I not only have at least 'one' reader of this blog. I have now also received my first request :) For Amanda and Jason - my pretty lil'wife and her belly:

If you look closely, you might also notice the black eye. Funny story that one. There are not many reasons why a grown woman would have a black eye. Kate scratched her itchy eye one night until it was bruised. But that's obviously not what people assume when she and I are in public. I've received some pretty terrible looks from strangers - and some awkward confused ones from friends. But what's a brother to do? "I don't beat my wife" is exactly what someone who does beat their wife would say. So I just have to accept the assumptions. And beg Kate to take care and not put me through it again.

It's hot in the QLD now. Very hot. We spent a weekend on the beach recently. Here are our friends Ghyda and Cassie offering moral 'bump' support to Kate.

Cheers

Christmas Gone Wrong

This will be one of those 'you know you're getting older when....' kind of posts. Prior to this morning, it had been a long while since I had stepped into a large shopping mall. Apparently not long enough. Kate had our camera in her purse and I just could not resist taking a few pictures of this year's Christmas fashions. Generally speaking, a dude like me won't raise much of an objection to the occasional slutty outfit on display for the ladies, but why oh why did jolly St. Nick have to get involved in this foolishness? Is this normal in Canada too this year??

Maybe I'm a bit hypersensitive because I'm going to be a father in a few months and I don't know yet whether it'll be a boy or a girl. Surely it must be easier to raise a boy in a world where a young woman has these fashion options. Here's Kate reluctantly humouring me by showing off another gem of a tank top.

And based on everything you and I have ever been told about the issue - isn't this last one just plain false?!

Windmills and polar bears

Kate and I went for a hike in the woods today. We saw big lizards and turtles and managed to avoid snakes. I don’t like walking but I love forests. Here's Kate, she likes them too.

And check this out. I think there might be something scary behind this tree.

I’ve got a lot to do these days but I try stay up to date on ‘environmental-stuff’ when I can. I now hear that all of the ice on the top half of the world will be gone in ten years. Polar bears will be out of luck I suppose. At the very least, they will be uncomfortable. I mean… it's not like they eat ice. They probably do a little, I don’t know if I could survive without ice cream.

There’s a new book called Superfreakonomics that sequels one of my favourites from a few years ago (Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner). The reviews are really, really bad. Apparently, in one chapter the authors express skepticism about human causes of global warming and argue that emissions trading schemes and CO2 reduction goals set at the international meetings like Kyoto wouldn’t be useful anyway. Best of luck with that one gentlemen. You’re out on a lonely ledge now and you should appreciate the support you receive from the coal and oil lobby because you won’t get much from the rest of us.

I saw Al Gore do his thing and I’ve read We Are the Weather Makers by Tim Flannery – and I’m sold on the fact that the experts are united on this one: you and I, dear blog reader, are tossing a lot of carbon up there and we are changing global climate. I doubt a few pages in Superfreakonomics will change many minds about that fact but who really cares in light of the fact that we can’t stop changing the climate anyway. Knowing about it, or believing it, makes little difference unless you happen to have six hundred thousand windmills and a million square miles of solar panels lying around somewhere that you're not using.

Do you ever wonder if the future climate will be better or worse for humanity? You can correct me if you want, but I don’t believe there is anyone qualified to answer that question. Most people, once they reach a certain age, are pretty frightened of change. It’s not natural. We like the comfort and security of repetition. But Earth’s land is mostly in the northern hemisphere and much of it is too cold for farming. Perhaps, in a few hundred years, useful land gained due to warming will outweigh land lost due to warming. And who knows what countries will benefit and where future borders will be drawn, they have certainly changed a lot in the last few hundred yeas. There's also the spooky possibility of a sudden shift to a human-induced ice-age. The climate is kind of 'complicated' and a bit unpredictable you see, and we don't get a practice try. An ice-age would be very, very bad for everybody.

But why speculate about temperature and the unknown future when we can consider energy consumption and the unknown present? I would love to know just how much total energy we use on Earth yearly? Just one simple number please - I like numbers. And how much of that energy comes from non-renewable sources? Transportation, electricity, heat - oil, coal, natural gas, uranium - right? Some places use a lot of hydroelectricity and wind. But our little home-rock will run out of oil, coal, natural gas, and even uranium at some point. And then we’re on our own aren’t we? I wonder what that world will be like. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear an educated forecast about whether there is even enough ‘potential’ energy available from wind, solar, geothermal etc. to theoretically sustain a decent standard of living for 8 or 9 billion people (or whatever we max out at) once we have drained our planet of carbon fuel. Now that’s a question worth answering.

And by ‘decent standard of living’ I mean worse than Donald Trump but better than today’s Bangladesh average. ‘Decent’ to me means that you can work and earn enough to eat well, sleep comfortably, travel a little bit, and get some enjoyment and experiences in life. I know much of the world is well below this standard today, but I wonder if it is even feasible, in some distant future, for everyone to live above it in a world that isn’t relying on 'temporary' fuel? In the long run, we can’t avoid learning the answer to that question. Actually I’m setting you up here - I’m happy to tell you that someone has already answered it - there is an AWESOME BOOK by David MacKay called ‘Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air’. I’d give him a prize just for the witty title - well done! And apparently the author doesn’t need money because he has made the book available online and has granted permission for anyone to use or reproduce all of the amazing figures and schemes wherever we want. Take a look (www.withouthotair.com). It’s not the kind of thing you will want to read in detail front to back, but I skimmed the whole thing in one sitting… I just couldn’t stop.

The format is so simple. He stacks up our energy consumption compares it with a stack of conceivable sustainable energy production. The result looks something like this:

I recommend this book big time.

In any case, the transition away form carbon fuel is ongoing and will continue throughout my life and much longer. Wind farms and solar panels are going up in many countries, bio-ethanol production technology is improving, efficient and electric vehicles and energy efficient homes and products are starting to pop up at a good rate. I find all of this very cool. It is one of the few aspects of the world today (and in recent history) that I think we can all be proud of. Obviously it’s not happening fast enough, and the transition will suck for many people… but I still think there is reason for optimism.

'Road' Trip

To put this post into context: I was using Google Maps to check the driving distance between our parent's homes and a few US cities in which I am applying for academic positions and - don't ask me why - I happened to ask my favourite website to 'plot a course' from Brisbane to Grimsby Ontario. GoogleMaps gave me the option to either 'walk' or 'drive'. Naturally I chose to drive because I can't walk on water. My proposed trip was determined in a split second:

I will travel 25, 146 km and it will take 'about 55 days and 20 hours'. As always, Google provided a wonderful list of 150 'driving' directions taking me across Australia and then to Japan and Hawaii before a pleasant drive across the American mainland and across the Niagara border to Grimsby. The absolute highlight of the trip will be the kayaking. I'll quote some directions in red.

41. Turn left to stay on Myilly Tce, about 1 min, 0.3 km

42. Kayak across the Pacific Ocean, Entering Japan, about 17 days and 8 hours, 5404 km

43. Turn right, about 5 min, 0.6 km (It's wonderful to get a heads up about the right turn straight out of my kayak in Japan. I don't speak the language so getting local directions might have proven difficult - there are about 60 twists and turns while we cross Japan before reaching the Pacific Ocean again).

105. Kayak across the Pacific Ocean, Entering United States (Hawaii), about 20 days 0 hours, 6243 km (I'm assuming Kate comes with me of course because that's a lot of paddling. - after quick drive through Hawaii, hopefully some dinner and obviously a kayak re-supply - GoogleMaps directs us back to the Pacific.).

119. Kayak across the Pacific Ocean, Entering Washington, 14 days 5 hours

120.Sharp right at N North Lake Way, 1.6 km

I just can't read the phrase: 'kayak across the pacific ocean' enough. I love the whole concept. And I really think that this final kayak trip will be a breeze compared to the first two; assuming that the weather holds up. Plus we're kayaking to and from the USA so maybe we can avoid customs somehow,. Again I appreciate the courtesy of a heads up about the 'sharp right turn' when we hit land in Washington. Sounds like it could be treacherous. And regarding the 'ocean weather' I should mention that Google's directions are '... for planning purposes only... construction projects, traffic, weather or other events may cause conditions to differ from the map results'. Good point G! But assuming the weather is good, we should finish with a wonderful drive across the states. And they even suggest some 'Grimsby Hotel' options on arrival which we obviously wouldn't need.

Okay. To be honest, when I first glanced at these directions I thought the drive-kayak-drive-kayak-drive-kayak-drive combination was a bit ridiculous. My main concern naturally was the obvious absence of a car at the end of first drive-kayak part. I mean, realistically I would need some sort of kayak-car-machine, a paddle-boat-with-wheels, something out of a Bond film. But since Google suggested it - and Google is pretty awesome - I gave them the benefit of the doubt and I typed 'kayak on wheels' into their image search. Wouldn't you know it - Jeep makes just the thing:

I will have fun out there! Thank you. But the skeptic inside of me noticed something suspicious here. With all of the potential ocean-crossing options for intercontinental travellers these days, it seems like an odd coincidence for Google to suggest the drive-kayak-combo and for Jeep to just happen to offer an an appropriate vehicle. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Google and Jeep were secretly owned by by the same person.

In all honesty I really do love both Google (and Jeep ;). And I would love to meet the software people behind my 'proposed ocean crossings' - you can't tell me that they don't enjoy their jobs.