October, Movember and "holiday season"

so I've not posted in a long while...  sorry about that, I had written a long blog post but then thought I should edit it down and then just lost track of time, movember came round I was focused on my moustache efforts, I took a holiday to off the grid Cabin in whitehorse and now it seems were head long into christmas, hanukkah, and solstice celebrations... all of which are marginally skewed with the sun not actually crossing the horizon anymore...

first let me recap some of the lost blog posts...

Gaddafi's dead.... and the east is less stable then ever... super!
Little girl run over in China and no one cares... how empty does that make you feel.....
Desi my chow chow possibly has cancer... (hence prompting the trip to Whitehorse)... shitty...

and now to quote Andrea, my wife, "life is tough, more shit can happen. The good news is that shit fertilizes... beautiful things can sprout out of it, now its just a matter of focusing on the beautiful things..."

so with that lets look for the mushrooms...

Gaddafi's gone, less unjust persecution of the Libyan people, perhaps their is a civil war, but maybe good things will come of it.

a spotlight has been cast again on the chinese culture, maybe people will look at their own habits and value human life with greater dignity, maybe China will improve it's human rights record as a result of the increased media attention...

Maybe Desi doesn't have cancer... were still waiting for the pathology report, but I'd rather know and be able to make her comfortable then have her suffer and be unaware...

moving back to the present, I'd like to thank all the People that contributed to my fundraising Efforts,
(in alphabetical order)

Barb Ness
Trish Campney
Andrea Hamilton
Joshua Hamilton
Susanne Hamilton
Michael Marchant

and the staff at the Inuvik Regional Hospital for supporting the moustache cookie bake sale

now on to the solstice, Hanukkah and christmas for everyone south of the Arctic or north of the Antarctic the solstice is associated with being either the shortest or longest day of the year, however when the sun doesn't in fact come up it's a little different... I'd like to remind everyone that the solstice is in fact the point at which the earth observer notes that the suns northern or southern change in declination ceases.  it can also be referred to as the time of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator.

I know thats a mouthful but essentially days not any longer or shorter up here because the suns not up period. which brings me to hanukkah.. I wonder how jewish people celebrate up here because google tells me "Hanukkah begins at sunset on Tuesday, Dec 20, 2011, and Ends at sunset on Wednesday Dec 28, 2011." thats going to be hard because the sun went down on the 5th and it's not coming up till January....

and now to Christmas or "holiday season" for the politically correct christians out there...

I like being the shit disturber, someone in a Facebook chat message said "happy holidays" to me and I asked "oh which holidays are those?" the responded "like christmas, and new years...and those other religious ones" and I said "no which one's?" and they said "you know like the other religions version of christmas, when there Jesus guy was born....." my point proven that people that say happy holidays are just christians who don't want to offend....

anyway, I'm not a big fan of the season, I like the family get togethers and coming together of people, but the commercial aspect and fundamental religious undertones have always cause me grief... I'm an atheist thats not changed but i'm not going to be all scroogy this year... I'll wish a happy solstice on the 22nd and will say same to you if someone wishes me a merry christmas, happy hanukkah, or any other religious holiday.....

that I guess is all for now, I'll try and write more frequently