Both academics and administrators love to argue about the value (impact) of their academic work. The old adage of “Publish or Perish” still has currency. Despite the many distribution opportunities besides and beyond publishing in scholarly journals, the bean counters (myself included) love citation indexes. The basic idea is that the more your work is […]
Our Guatemalan Adventure
Our long time friends Ted and Joanne Koopmans invited us to come along and house-sit a house that a friend of theirs had made available for 4 weeks in February. The prospect (and reality) of -30 weather in Edmonton in February, was but one reason we accepted their invitation. We also hoped we would learn […]
Finished building my 2nd hammer dulcimer
Although I’m still quite liking the current dulcimer I am playing that I bought off Ebay, I was curious how much time and effort is required to build one from a kit. As a previous post notes, I crafted a 16/15 dulcimer from ‘scratch’ a couple of years ago, but found that although it sounds […]
My Secular talk for our local Unitarian ...
I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about Humanism and participating in our FreeThinker Book Club, and especially its role in the Unitarian movement. Thus, I took the opportunity this year to do a talk and focussed on the 10th anniversary of religious Humanism. I’ve come to learn (thanks to John Dewey) that religious humanism […]
An attempt at a North Country Fair His...
Hi folks This coming year marks the 40th North Country Fair – the Annual Solstice Celebration held in Northern Alberta. A very long time ago, I had the idea of turning our annual community celebration of the Solstice into a more public and BETTER celebration. The vibrant community of “back-to-the landers” in the Lesser Slave […]
Detailed account and Lessons from a Seni...
During September 2017, my brothers Dennis and Craig, and I (-all over 65 years old) spent 10 days hiking on the Tour de Mt. Blanc (TMB). The Mount Blanc Massif is a series of adjoining peaks, one off which is the highest in the Alps. The massive valleys and glaciers flow down – in the […]
Final days in China
I’ve had a great time here in Wuxi, learned lots, met new friends and hopefully helped a class of grad students enlarge their research perspective using design-based research. I also did two presentations here at Jiangnan University for faculty and students. The first was on Publishing in International Academic Journals and the second on MOOC […]
A trip to Nanjing
Last weekend I accepted an invitation to visit and present a talk at the Jiangsu Open University in Nanjing. Nanjing is one of China’s larger cities strategically located on the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River delta was the centre of both economic power and political power for many hundreds of years and was the first capital […]
An encounter with the Chinese health sys...
You can tell when a blogger is getting old by the percentage of their posts relating to health issues- and especially their own. This is one of that genre. About three months ago a painful bump appeared on my heel, and after a couple of weeks of denying its existence, Susan talked me into going to […]
Classical Chinese Dance and Music Concer...
Did I ever tell you about the time I starred in a Classical Chinese Dance and Music presentation? Last night my host here at Jiangnan University invited to go with her to the annual performance of the students in the classical fine arts program here at the University. We got great seats in the campus performance […]