Tag Archives: goals

Working on images for my astronomy guide

PolyWogg.ca
February 22 2025

I wrote on my ThePolyblog.ca site about “needing” to write an astronomy guide, but not really being that thrilled about it. The issue is that there are a few fora that I participate in for astronomy, and I really don’t like the way people answer certain questions. It almost seems irresponsible to me to answer the questions like they do.

For example, if someone said to you, “I want to buy a vehicle”, would you say, “Oh, you should buy (this specific model)”? Probably not. You’d ask them what they want to use it for, how often they’ll be driving it, how many passengers, etc. The car they use to go shopping around town once a week is probably not the vehicle they need for hauling pigs, if they have pigs to haul. And a whole host of other variables, which is partly why there are so many cars on the market. They serve different market niches. But someone out there could probably just say “Get a Honda Civic”. The basis for their recommendation is relatively linear — a good all-around sedan, and if you don’t have any other details, maybe it’s as good a recommendation as any, probably better.

Yet, for astronomy, people frequently respond with:

  1. Just look up with your eyes — the equivalent of telling someone just to walk instead of buying a car;
  2. Buy binoculars — like saying to get a bus pass;
  3. Buy a Dobsonian — the Honda Civic of cars, a good all-around suggestion;
  4. Buy a large EQ mount with an expensive refractor and some good camera gear — the equivalent of telling someone they need off-roading capabilities so they can get all the way to the top of a nearby mountain because that is the biggest / hardest use to handle; or,
  5. Don’t buy (brand x)—this is the same as those who will tell you never to buy a Ford or Dodge or American or Japanese, whatever, because someone they once knew had a bad experience 40 years ago with a bicycle owned by someone who drove one of those vehicles one-time as a rental.
… Read the rest

#MoreJoy – Day 31 of 31 – NaNoWriMo

PolyWogg.ca
November 1 2021

For those of you not familiar with the acronym, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing in a Month. Ignoring the awkward construction of the title, the premise is simple. People around the world are encouraged to write, write, write every day for the month of November — binge-writing, if you will — to produce a 50,000-word manuscript.

There are LOTS of views about NaNoWriMo, ranging from “everybody just writes crap, it’s quality that counts” to “what a great way to just blast through and remember what’s fun about writing.” There is an equal number of views about HOW to do NaNoWriMo, including from those who plot and plan in advance (plotters/planners) or who write by the seat of their pants (panters).

But I really enjoy the premise. This isn’t a Hallmark commercial thing, the “organization” that came up with the idea is a not-for-profit. Sure, there are lots of commercial options out there tied to NaNoWriMo for trackers, notebooks, mugs, websites, webinars, writing groups, etc., but at its core? It’s writers talking to writers and encouraging them to do nothing more than put their butt in their seats and write. Maybe the 50K will never amount to anything more than the wordcount itself.… Read the rest

Playing with Scrivener

PolyWogg.ca
September 6 2021

As an aspiring writer, I confess there’s a certain degree of desire created in me when I see these flashy programs that are designed to help the new writer. Just as books about writing are great ways to procrastinate from actually writing, so too are these great tools ways to pretend you’re writing without actually writing.

Lawrence Block’s take on early writing mirrors some of my own experience. When you’re starting out, and finding the idea of a novel a bit daunting, it isn’t uncommon to turn to tips and tricks, and there is no more common myth in writing than that of the “correct way” to get organized. Whether it is a novel or a screenplay, there is a lot of advice out there that revolves around index cards.

Generally speaking, what this means is that you are going to do an outline of some sort for your novel or screenplay, prepare lots of little index cards around various scenes or perhaps character profiles, and as you go, you’ll likely want to put them on a bulletin board with pushpins so you can move them around at will until you’re gotten to a point where you say, “Eureka! That’s my story!”.… Read the rest

Astro Echoes – Sky and Telescope, 1941

PolyWogg.ca
August 20 2020

As part of my education on all things astronomy, I try to read a variety of modern sources of information including discussion forums on Facebook and Cloudy Nights, helpful tips from blogs, the big name astro books like Nightwatch, and the various monthly magazines like Astronomy, Sky News, and Sky and Telescope.

A couple of years ago, one of the members of our astronomy club, Paul, passed away and another member, Attilla, was helping his widow clean out some of the astronomy collection that he had accumulated. He had a collection of Sky and Telescope materials going back to 1966 to get rid of, and while some people might see that as merely an opportunity for hoarding, I saw it as an opportunity for learning. Could I read through some 50 years of astronomy articles aimed at backyard astronomers rather than scientists, and if I did read them, what would I glean? What sort of astronomy echoes would I hear from the old issues?

I took all of the magazines that they had, and I also decided to add to my paper collection and see what was available online for even farther back. The first thing to jump out at me was the starting year of the magazine.… Read the rest

Choosing a pair of astronomy binoculars for beginners

PolyWogg.ca
July 17 2020

I have traditionally NOT been a binoculars guy when it comes to astronomy. If I’m totally honest, I’m even a bit judgey for those who respond to newbies’ questions about what type of telescope to get with “get binos, great way to get started” advice. It’s a common refrain, by experienced amateurs, and I think it can be amongst the worst advice to give anyone given the learning curve, unsteady viewing if going hand-held, and low magnification. But it should probably be part of everyone’s toolkit, so who am I to argue?

So, I was thinking of getting a pair just as SkyNews for July/August 2020 arrived on my doorstep with an article from no less than famed Canadian astronomer Alan Dyer reviewing entry-level / beginner binoculars. Perfect, I could choose one from his list! His cut-off was $300 and generally available in Canada, which is a pretty good starting point.

Dyer covered 13 choices is his list, grouped under 5 headings. I confess I was a bit surprised right off the bat as the only thing I thought I really knew about quality was that Porro prism designs were supposedly the best, and that turns out to no longer be true.… Read the rest

#50by50ish #49d – Write a novel [#NaNoWriMo2019 Feast or Famine, Chapter 04 (4441 words)]

PolyWogg.ca
November 11 2019

* Editing notes: Chapter 3 -> reduce belt colour for Ninja Kit

** Personae dramatis

– Carleton “Cal” Clarke, lead investigator;
– Marilyn (maternity) and Phil (appendix), investigators on leave;
– Five legal beagles;
– Harrison Matthew James III, founder and senior partner in
– Lila Matthews, James’ assistant
– Haggerty (1950s), McCleod (1960s), other partners
– Maxwell Jennings, father, divorced
– Maria Jennings, mother, divorced
– William Clarke, Cal’s deceased father
– Melanie Jennings, daughter, deceased (car crash) and goddaughter to James
– Michael Jennings, son, missing
– Detective Daniel Moorcroft, detective, Bayport PD
– Jim Peterson, drunk boyfriend in car crash
– Chris “Kit” Markle, patrolwoman, Bayport PD

START CHAPTER 4:

Before I left the parking lot, I phoned a friend who works as an insurance investigator at Garrison Fidelity. His office is in New Jersey, but he travels around quite a bit. Today he was up in Boston. He’s a bit unconventional, and when I explained all I wanted was to get copies of unredacted police files, he said it didn’t even count as a favour. He took down the particulars and told me to check my email or he’d call me if there were any problems.

I was just about to head back to the office when I got a email alert from one of the senior associates at the firm.… Read the rest

Why I wrote 50,000 words about previous jobs

PolyWogg.ca
May 6 2017

I’m attempting a full-scale job search from scratch right now, something most of us in government don’t often do when we look for a job. Instead, most of us look for something that is just a bit different from what we have — a new area, or a new boss, or a new level, etc., but rarely do we step back and say, “Before I even look for a job, what do I want to find? What’s really important to me?”. By nature, employed people tend to be incrementalists.

So I wanted to look back at all my previous jobs — all the way back to being a paperboy — to see what I had learned in the jobs, and what I had liked about the positions. As I wrote, I found myself talking about experiences, not the “lessons learned” or even “what I learned about myself”, and I felt like I needed to get all that info out of my head and onto the page to allow myself the time to now look back at them and see what the outcomes and common elements were…in short, I wrote it all out so I could analyze it as if it was someone else.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 16

PolyWogg.ca
May 5 2017

This last post is a bit challenging to write as it is about my current job. And I don’t really have any distance or perspective from it yet, because I’m still doing it. But I’ll give it a go.

v. Manager, Planning and Accountability — One thing that frequently bugged me over the first six years was that we were fairly siloed in our division. There was a planning team, a reporting team, and my performance measurement team, but I really wanted them to mesh better together. We did what we could, but we were three separate teams with three separate managers. Sure, we reported to the same director, but we didn’t seem to be making much headway.

We merged with another division — horizontal policy — and another manager eventually left. We had no one to take those files, and I mentioned to the director in passing that if the planning manager wanted to shift things around, I was completely willing. I wanted to switch off the performance management file and on to the planning file, and I was either willing to shift completely or take it with me. I had zero interest though in the horizontal files. Been there, done that.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 15

PolyWogg.ca
May 3 2017

I was in need of rescuing at the end of the previous post…after 18 months of pushing string, and feeling like I not only had nothing to show for it but that the time had been a complete waste, I was spent. Literally. Figuratively. Mentally. Even physically. I had nothing left to give them. And to be honest, any self-confidence that I had previously was completely gone.

u. Manager, Performance Measurement, ESDC — I started working in the Skills and Employment Branch in May, and it was almost instantly a refreshing change. I wasn’t pushing string with abstract policy theory to combine social capital or human development, I was looking at concrete things like the Program Activity Architecture, performance metrics, indicators and logic models.

Things that were relatively straight-forward to me, particularly in comparison with the big ugly Integrated Policy Framework.

In addition, a lot of the work with the Branch was already done. They had consulted widely, a working group had given lots of info, and it was all in pretty good shape. Except for one thing. I didn’t think it was very strategic.

This was home to me, after having done the Sustainable Development Strategy + Gs&Cs + the Millennium Development Goals at CIDA, along with the traditional RPP, DPR and PAA stuff.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 14

PolyWogg.ca
May 2 2017

When I worked at DFAIT, and worked for a shouter, I thought I had pretty strong tolerance for bad behaviour. In fact, up until SDC, I was known for having worked for or with some people that others wouldn’t even consider. And honestly, I never had a problem with any of them. Until I worked for the DG that got fired in the last post. I needed a bit of a cleanse after that, and so I went to work with a Director that I had worked with previously.

t. Manager, Strategy and Integration, HRSDC — When I look back at this job, it is extremely difficult to separate the final result (bad) from the experience of working there (good). There are times afterwards that I felt like I wasted 18 months of my life. I didn’t, not really, but it sure felt like it at the end.

I was the manager in this group, and our team had three major deliverables — medium-term planning, an integrated policy framework, and the policy work to support creating HRSDC as a Centre of Excellence. MTP was with another manager, I was responsible for the other two. In actual fact, our team had more deliverables than just three, but these three were significant — they were three of the four commitments in the ADM’s performance agreement.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 13

PolyWogg.ca
May 1 2017

As I finished my previous post, I was finishing up what I had thought was going to be my best job ever — a senior policy advisor position in the Deputy Minister’s Office at CIDA. Instead, I was pushing too much paper. I also had another problem with my career — I was under-classified. While I was routinely offered, accepting and performing at ES-05, ES-06, PM-06 and even sometimes EX-01 levels, I was still an ES-04. I was in a competition back in Policy Branch to “regularize” my level with an ES-05 job, but I had my eye on a higher prize…the newly-created Social Development Canada ran a competition for their Manager of International Affairs position.

s. Manager, International Relations, SDC — HRDC had been through a big scandal at the end of the 1990s, most of which turned out to be more smoke than substance. But a new government direction was set in 2004/05, and the huge department split into two — Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Social Development Canada. SDC was headed by Minister Ken Dryden. Yes, that Ken Dryden. The Ken Dryden of hockey fame, who had stopped playing hockey early on and finished a law degree and then went back to hockey for a while.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 12

PolyWogg.ca
April 30 2017

Back when I was a PM-03 in Multilateral Branch, and just about to rotate to the Caribbean division, a job came available in the Cabinet Affairs office at CIDA. Different departments put these divisions in various parts of their structure…some put it in the Deputy Minister’s Office / Corporate Secretariat, and so they have a nice high-level “pull” function from the rest of the department. Some embed it in the policy branch as a policy coordination type-job. Others embed it in policy, but almost as a corporate job.

DFAIT had it in one of their policy branches, albeit in a corporate policy type role, and people fought for those jobs. Considering lots of DFAITers wanted to be Hill staffers, it’s not surprising to see those with and without political ambitions wanting to be “in the know” for what was going forward to Cabinet, even if DFAIT wasn’t often actively involved in the MCs. At CIDA? The group had to advertise, multiple times, to find people willing to do the job. Even going outside the Department. Unheard of, in certain departments.

I was interested when I was a PM-03, but they wanted Cs for french, and I only had Bs. I was encouraged to apply by the HR people, even with my profile, I went and had my discussion with them, in French, and they said, “All right, come work here.”… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 11

PolyWogg.ca
April 30 2017

My new job as an “economist/social scientist” analyst i.e. an ES was as great as I expected it to be. I liked the looks of the files, I knew some of the people, I was excited.

q. Analyst, Policy Branch, CIDA — The division had four main files, and I got to play on each of them over the years. I started in February 2002, and stayed until December 2004. Almost three complete years, but the ride was incredible.

Early on, I was assigned the OECD files, and we were gearing up to do the OECD Peer Review of Canada’s Aid Program. I was excited, it looked good, and more importantly, we had to write a huge memo covering the whole aid program. Horizontal work across the department, interdepartmental work, consultations, we were going big on this one. We recommended, and our recommendation was accepted, that the Minister be involved and attend the OECD management meeting in October. Most of a full year, flat out. The Director had hired a former VP to lead the project work, and informally as the OECD lead, I would lead him. Yeah right.

It was very clear at the start that he was a strong personality, and there were some people who had known him well who basically said, “Him?… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 10

PolyWogg.ca
April 30 2017

In the previous post (What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 9), I had accepted a rotation to the Caribbean division to manage trade projects, with a small option to be developed as an analyst. Of all the positions available, I got my first choice, but honestly, I was moving because it was good for my career, not because I wanted to leave multilateral.

p. Development Officer, Caribbean, CIDA — The job was new and different, and I liked my coworkers and my boss. It was a pretty big change, not the least of which is I now needed to know how to do project administration in SAP. Project structures, WBS elements, complicated menus, approving disbursements, it was all there.

I’m pretty good with computers, and even I found it somewhat confusing at times. We had a small fund set up to do trade micro-projects, plus a couple of larger trade projects with the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States and the CARICOM Secretariat in Guyana. Pretty straightforward, not particularly large projects.

I dove into the files. I had a pretty good handle on the two big projects within a week — mostly high-level projects to support them doing some horizontal work across the region to develop almost a regional perspective on certain WTO-related files.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 9

PolyWogg.ca
April 30 2017

At the end of the last post (What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 8), I had handed in my pass at DFAIT and was moving to CIDA. September 1997. I was now a full indeterminate employee. Life was good.

o. Development Officer, Multilateral, CIDA — It wasn’t great for pay, however. I had been an IS-03 (information officer level 3) at DFAIT on a term, but I was now a PM-01 (programme administration/project management, level 1) at CIDA. The difference in pay was about $15K. Not an easy pill to swallow, but I got a spoonful of sugar in the form of partial salary protection (they moved me to the top of the PM-01 band so I only dropped $9-10K or so).

I was assigned to the UN division. As I mentioned previously, I had requested it, and they had never had anyone ever request multilateral before. I don’t think they knew exactly what to do with me when I arrived, because normally they had brought in new officers fresh off the street, not from other departments. I arrived, desk officer ready, and they knew I was capable of some things more than a new recruit but not quite what yet.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 8

PolyWogg.ca
April 29 2017

This will not be a particularly easy post to write, not because of what happened at work during the time, but rather what happened in my personal life. I was about to experience grief, really for the first time in my life. I say this upfront as I talk about my dad, and while you might be here to read about work, and lessons learned, if you are dealing with other forms of grief right now, you may want to skip this one. Consider it fair warning, although it won’t be particularly maudlin.

m. Contractor, DFAIT — I was back at DFAIT and gearing up for the APEC summit that was taking place in Indonesia. There were a couple of other contractors working too, APEC was getting bigger and bigger and we needed more help sometimes, but they weren’t very good in my view. Great at talking about how great they were, but when the crunch came, they were too busy schmoozing to work. I began to see that like employees, not all contractors were created equal. There were some that were flashy, some that could write, and some that were workhorses. Flash got hired and paid well, workhorses got renewals.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 7

PolyWogg.ca
April 28 2017

At the end of my previous post, I had wrapped up all my contracts with DFAIT. And I was wondering what to do with my life. It was April, and I took a trip to the Bahamas. I enjoyed myself, but there was a small nagging worry. What was I going to do for work when I got back?

The answer turned out to be almost nothing. I couldn’t work at DFAIT, and I didn’t have many contacts that were hiring at other departments the way DFAIT did. I wasn’t one of the high-priced contractors that people hired at $500-$1000 a day but only 10-20 days at a time. I was basically an employee who couldn’t be hired as an employee given the freeze, and I didn’t have any contracts.

The obvious answer would have been, at least to some people, to return to school. I could have shown up in May, done a semester, and continued on with my schooling. Every four months since I started at DFAIT, I had sent an update to the school saying “Okay, stopping out another four months”. All I had to do was go back, and I could resume.

Except for one thing. I didn’t want to.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 6

PolyWogg.ca
April 27 2017

In my last two posts, I covered my first co-op at DFAIT and my transition from simply being a student worker to actually being eligible for / capable of / considered for staff jobs. Sure, it was a contract. Sure, I wasn’t sure what it all meant. But I knew it meant something.

The most important thing was that I had to figure out HOW to stay. I found a basement apartment near Carlingwood, a neighbourhood I was familiar with at least and didn’t think was full of crack houses or loitering prostitutes (see the previous post about Vanier). I negotiated a new salary — basically worked out how much I was earning as a student per day, and added $10 or 15, which brought it to $135-$140 a day which is what they were prepared to offer anyway (CIDA used to pay their consultants way more, but DFAIT used casuals like full-time staff). And I had to figure out what to do about school.

The law school had this “stop out” option, for up to 2 years. Technically it wasn’t really a law school option, it was a calculation within the B.C. law society that you had to finish your degree within 7 years of starting, and with my planned articling and MPA classes and co-ops, it would take almost five years.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 5 addendum

PolyWogg.ca
April 26 2017

In my last post (What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 5), I covered my eight-month co-op period at DFAIT, and what I experienced, but I left something out. The “what I learned” part. It seems odd to title the blog post about what I learned, and then leave it out, but I left it out because the important things weren’t learned during the actual eight months. It came afterwards when I had a chance to evaluate the experience.

As I mentioned in the post, I was not a policy wonk who lived and breathed the federal government policy world. Sure, I knew generally there was “Cabinet”, but I didn’t really know who was in it and which committees were full, etc. I didn’t even know if the PM was always there. I vaguely knew, but I wasn’t some Parliament Hill staffer-wannabe. Nor had I ever once thought I would want to be.

Yet the preparation of the deck for Cabinet was fast, challenging, exciting. And the PM saw my charts. That was pretty heady stuff for someone who was used to installing software on a secretary’s computer.

I also realized that I had different skills from other people.… Read the rest

What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 5

PolyWogg.ca
April 26 2017

The year was 1992. Fall. At this point in the tale of my “career”, I’ve graduated from entry-level jobs, part-time this, part-time that, volunteer this, etc., and I have three good work experiences under my belt — the library job at Trent University, the computer tech support jobs at the University of Victoria, and the law co-op job and subsequent contract job with the Ministry of Education in B.C.

My career path, as I said in the last post (What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 4), was relatively set. I would do six more semesters of school, five more semesters of co-op, graduate with two degrees, article for a year or so, and become a lawyer.

Except life wasn’t going that smoothly. I loved the law co-op job, I loved government, I had confirmed or validated my “career” choice. But I was still hating law school as I started into second-year. In second-year, most law students start to breathe a little easier in terms of knowing both how it all “works” (i.e. things like 100% finals) as well as having some say in the courses and electives to take. I was thinking potentially about tax law, thought it was a way to scratch both an accounting and a law itch, while still interacting with government.… Read the rest