Hello again and thanks for reading, I had this whole post written and then as I was adding the last hyperlink when the computer froze… super frustrating but alas here I am again typing it all out, so I really hope you enjoy today’s post… in my head it counts as two posts…

 I’ve been on a string of nights and haven’t seen the sun or any sign of it for 4 days, I’m beginning to wonder if in fact the Earths gravitation forces are askew and were actually now hurtling towards deep space… what with the Researchers at CERN telling us about superluminal particles existing, my Einstienian worldview is challenged and anything is possible… if I lost you there fret not, the whole idea of superluminal particles is where my brain starts to frizzle and I get confused; it means time travel, special relativity  isn’t relative, and string theories just as confusing as it was before… (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal#FTL_communication_possibility) if you want some light reading, anyhow moving on…

Quite sad news as the world has lost a great thinker in the death of Christopher Hitchens, while I empathize with many of his convictions I didn’t agree with everything the man had to say, that said you have to respect someone who knows what he believes and will intellectually defend his Ideas.

Another news story recently that made me saddened was the official Canadian withdrawal from the Kyoto Accord, the conservatives in typical fashion blamed the liberals for their actions… I mean you’re the government… why not instead of saying were not on track and were going to have to pay costly fines do something great and go about making Canada a Global leader, aim to meet the targets or better yet exceed them… oh right, it’s the conservatives and they don’t care about the environment, silly me… when I heard Peter Kent make the announcement I was ashamed to be Canadian… I know that I shouldn’t rely on the government to dictate my environmental impact, as a global citizen the responsibility lies within.  It would be nice if they offered up some policy to push people/businesses/industry in the right direction but with the conservatives in power I’m not holding my breath.

On the same note of Environmental impact, I think everyone should watch “The Clean bin Project” a movie/documentary of a couple that challenges each other to produce no waste for 1 year. I’m now reading all of their blog (http://cleanbinproject.com/) and loving it. The movie which I saw at the Inuvik Community Greenhouse Film Festival this past fall is both motivational and entertaining. Because I live in the arctic my carbon footprint in enormous, resultantly, I have become a bit of a fanatic of late about waste reduction, hoarding recyclables, saving paper and boxboard for fire-starter, and composting as much as possible… I actually chided Andrea (my wife) for spitting cherry pits into the garbage instead of the compost bucket yesterday…. Furthermore, after realizing what I’d done, I was too stubborn to admit that cherry pits in the Inuvik landfill really won’t make a difference to anything… so I’ll use this as an apology, I’m sorry Andrea, I may get carried away sometimes.

Those of you that know me or are getting to know me will soon find out about my ever growing passion for photography, I’ve started a 365 project when I’m going to take a picture everyday for a year… I’ll be posting to my flickr account. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewhamilton1/)More and more I’m getting past photography of just “this is where I am”, “here’s a photo of people” or “this looks pretty” but trying to tell a story with pictures. Also featured in the clean bin project are some of the works of Chris Jordan. Everyone should see his works, his photography is raw and emotion evoking. I hope that you’ll look at his photos and art work and see the commentary about the consumerism culture that we live in. (http://chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#CF000313%2018x24)

To close, here’s a video that will let you know that it’s not all doom and gloom, I came across it and literally laughed out loud for a long time, I also now want a pet porcupine. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dnB3IapeAA)

Thanks for reading

Matt