To get you up to date

About a year ago, my mom was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. At the time, her back was in a lot of pain (which we later found was caused by the cancerous tumours). They started chemotherapy treatment soon thereafter, eventually going through 8 treatments total.

After the 8th treatment, the doctors performed a CT scan to see how things were progressing. They were happy to report that the tumours had shrunk considerably, and that they may be able to remove all of it by removing her right lung. It was a risky proposition, but the alternative was to do nothing and maybe have another 6 months.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, the surgery that had been scheduled was cancelled on the spot after my mom’s arm went numb during the application of the epidural. While the family thought this was caused by the epidural (she has had history with them in the past), it turned out to be low blood flow due to a narrow vein in her neck that had been constricted.

After a couple more weeks of waiting, the surgery was rescheduled for yesterday.

Yesterday

Yesterday, my mom went to the hospital for her rescheduled surgery to have her right lung removed. The epidural went in well, which was a great sign. After several hours I had not heard anything, which I took to mean things were going as planned. However, at around 3:30 my dad returned home with bad news:

When the surgeon opened my mom up, they discovered that the tumours had spread to the muscles, which they could not remove the cancer from. This made removing the lung a pointless procedure, as it wasn’t worth doing if all the cancer wouldn’t be removed (the recovery time from losing a lung is very long and arduous). After 3 hours, they closed my mom up and brought her back to the recovery room.

The best the doctors can do now is treat my mom with radiation, which should reduce the pain she is experiencing considerably, which will at least allow her the mobility she has lacked over the past several months. They are impressed at how well she has been doing over the past year, and therefore weren’t willing to give an estimate on how long she has.

So, that’s what I know. I won’t get into the emotions I’m feeling, because emotions won’t help the situation. All we can live by are the facts, and we don’t have them all yet. I will do my best to keep you updated when I know more.

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I love my iPad 2. It’s the first iPad I’ve owned, purchased after a year of struggling to stay away from the Apple store for fear of falling to temptation. Now that I’ve owned it for a couple of months, I can say with certainty that it is everything I hoped for and more.

The Smart Cover, however, is a piece of shit.

When I purchased my iPad, I knew I was going to buy a Smart Cover. I had read article after article about how great it was, how clever Apple was for designing it right alongside the iPad 2, and how it was one of the top selling features of the iPad 2. I had settled on the leather cover simply because the pastel colours of the polyurethane didn’t match my personal taste. Though it was a pretty large investment for a cover, I justified it in my mind with the argument that it would be protecting my new expensive toy.

And, protect it it has. I feel much more comfortable laying my iPad on a table or desk than my naked iPhone. The stand functionality is incredible; I will stand it up next to my computer for Facetime calls, in my bed for watching Netflix, and prop it up to type emails or browse the internet while eating breakfast.

However, having owned the Smart Cover now for only 2 months, I have to say that the build structure is absolutely abysmal. Here is why:

1. The use of magnets in the Smart Cover is a brilliant design idea. They serve so many great purposes, from turning the iPad on and off when opening the cover, to giving the cover a solid structure to stand the iPad up. However, 90% of the time I hold my iPad with my left hand, which ultimately leaves the cover flopping around behind the iPad. Could they not have used magnets just a bit stronger so it would stick to the back of the iPad? Seems like a very obvious oversight.

2. The leather feels incredibly cheap. For a cover that costs as much as this one, I expected the leather to feel good in my hands. Instead, the leather is very flimsy. It feels cheap. For a company that prides itself on its build quality, this seems like a huge mistake.

3. Since the first day I had my iPad, I noticed that around the hinges of the Smart Cover was starting to show signs of wear. Or, that’s what I thought, until I grazed my finger along it and the substance rubbed off. Ever since then, both my iPad and the Smart Cover seem to have this continuous build-up of what I believe to be some oil-based substance. This is probably my number one complaint against the Smart Cover.

1. Lastly, after less than two months of use, my Smart Cover is already seeing wear and tear. This is shocking to me, given that I maybe use my iPad an hour a day.

I just can’t fathom how Apple could be proud of the Smart Cover. It reminds me of the MobileMe fiasco: a great idea executed very poorly.

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I had expected to be here this evening writing that the surgery my mom was scheduled for today went well, that the doctors were able to successfully remove her right lung and that she was resting peacefully in the hospital recovery ward.

That’s what I expected.

The surgery was scheduled for 12pm and was to last for 6 hours. When I returned home from a meeting at one, my sister informed me that Mom’s surgery had been canceled. I stood in shock.

The plan had been to give my mom an epidural to alleviate the pain after the operation. My mom has had three children, and each time has not been able to receive an epidural. When my sister was born, the top anesthesiologist at the hospital—a man who for a long time had simply led his team rather than practiced directly—couldn’t give my mom an epidural. When my mom was discussing this operation with her surgeon and anesthesiologist, she told them it wouldn’t work.

It didn’t work.

In fact, during the application of the epidural my mom’s arm went numb. We were told she may have had a mini stroke (this, we were later told, was not the case). After a CT scan and some confusion about finding a room to admit her to, my mom finally found herself back in the same room she stayed in last year when this all started.

The plan now is to conduct some more tests and see what they can do about going through with the surgery, but no one is sure when that will now happen. It’s been a very frustrating experience for me and my family, having worked ourselves up to being ready for this day and to have it all suddenly fall apart. Plans have a way of doing that, sometimes.

I will be visit Mom tomorrow for a while. I’ll be showing her the amazing support my friends on Twitter and Facebook have shown, as well as share the stories of friends who have sent emails and text messages. You guys have made this day a whole lot more bearable. I am so incredibly thankful.

As soon as I know something more, I’ll be keeping you updated.

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Tuesday, 12pm.

I was in grade 8 and I had, once again, forgotten a project that was due at home. I didn’t live within walking distance, so I had to call my mom to bring it to the school. A stay-at-home mom for most of my life, I had come to rely on Mom for moments just like this—a forgotten lunch, a doctor’s appointment, a sporting event—moments where I knew my mom would pull through and be there for me. Though I could sense a hint of frustration in her voice, Mom was willing to bring my project to the school for me. Again. She probably deserved as much credit for whatever academic success I had growing up as I did. The late marks she saved me from would have probably kept me back for years.

Tuesday, 12pm.

I woke up and I couldn’t move. I could the night before. I had probably spent the evening wrestling with my brother or getting up to some other sort of mischief as anyone new to the -teen suffix age range is apt to get up to. Yet this morning I couldn’t sit up. After my brain fought with my muscles for a few minutes it finally convinced my body to roll over onto the floor where my arms would be able to take over. My body hit the floor with a THUD, but my arms couldn’t outmatch my back. I wasn’t paralyzed—I could feel my feet and move my legs—but I’d be lying if I said the thought that at some point during my 7 hours of sleep my back had broken itself didn’t cross my worried mind. Before I could finish the thought, my mom had raced upstairs to see what the commotion was. After explaining that “Mom, I can’t MOVE,” she came around and lifted me back into my bed. My mom assured me that everything would be ok and she’d take care of me and she brought me breakfast and set up a TV for me to watch because we had no idea how long I’d be stuck in bed and then she brought me lunch and juice and then dinner and by the end of the day I still couldn’t get up on my own and I was still wearing my pyjamas from the night before. The next day was much the same, until the afternoon when leaning on my mom’s shoulder I was able to more or less fall down the stairs to watch TV on the big family room TV. My mom still brought me lunch and juice and dinner that day.

My mom and I finally made it to the chiropractor and were told my back muscles had spasmed from all the minor injuries attained playing competitive hockey; my mom was suddenly on the hook for taking me to the chiropractor a few times a week then once a week then once a month until my treatment was complete.

Tuesday, 12pm.

We were in love. She had moved to Manitoba for school, but we spoke on the phone every night for hours catching each other up on what had transpired in the 21 hours since the last time we spoke. We didn’t think we could make it work—days before her late-August flight we had discussed it and concluded that breaking up was the appropriate thing to do (mind you, it was raining that day, indicating that perhaps we were simply falling victim to pre-mature pathetic fallacy)—but after several months of trying to forget each other we couldn’t and decided, on MSN, that our love was true. That didn’t fix the distance problem. No, that was solved by a birthday present from my parents: a plane ticket to Winnipeg for the weekend before reading week. Mom, who hates driving in traffic, braved the crowded 401 and then the busy airport so I could get to my flight. Then she drove home, presumably so she could get back in time to pick up my siblings from school and make dinner for the family and finish whatever chores this anxiety-ridden excursion was distracting her from. A year later my girlfriend and I broke up, and my mom comforted me.

Tuesday, 12pm.

When friends try to make plans with me, I recommend they email me the details. If it’s not written down, I won’t remember. I get this from my dad. Growing up, our home was riddled with notes taped to the TV, coffee pot, fridge, or car dashboard where it would be seen and remembered. I keep to-do lists, write appointments in my calendar, and leave notes for myself because I have a terrible memory. Tuesday at 12pm isn’t written down anywhere. We don’t need to write it down. It was burned in our minds when the hospital called last Friday to schedule the surgery.

Tuesday, 12pm

I’ll have just finished enjoying an Americano from Starbucks with someone from my business networking group. I won’t get to be at the hospital. There will be nothing for me to do. All I can do is wait the allotted 6 hours until the operation is complete.

I likely won’t get to see her until the next day. I doubt she’ll have much energy, so I’ll help her readjust her pillows when her back feels strained, let her lean on me if she needs to get up for anything, get her juice from the bar fridge sitting on top of the counter. I won’t be able to be there all day every day, but I will be there every chance I have. The next week she will hopefully come home, and for at least a couple of months it will be the responsibility of those she has cared for all these years to look after her.

Tuesday, 12pm

I am scared. I am hopeful. The doctors seem very optimistic. I want so badly for this to work. After a year of fighting, I just want to see my mom get better.

I love you, Mom, and we’re all in this with you.

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A totally pointless post about a totally pointless subject, because it’s 10:11pm and I’m not quite tired enough to go to bed.

Here goes:

⌘ + Space	Trigger LaunchBar
⌘ + \	Show LaunchBar Clipboard
⌘ + ⌥ + Space	Create Task in Things.app
⌘ + ⌥ + CTRL + Space	Create Task in Things.app and autofill note with selection
CTRL + Space	Show/Hide Twitterrific
⌘ + ⌥ + ⇧ + D	Shorten selected link in Droplr
⌘ + ⌥ + CTRL + L	Open vertical split in Coda

That’s it. Seven keyboard shortcuts. There are quite a few others that serve multiple purposes depending on what app you’re in (⌘ + ⌥ + P opens the “Document Settings” in InDesign and Illustrator), and there are the other obvious ones that are system wide (⌘ + Q, ⌘ + W, ⌘ + S, ⌘ + N).

The command that is most ingrained in my muscle memory is CTRL + Space to show/hide Twitterrific. I find myself hitting this combination even when Twitterrific is closed. I often wonder how I could capture the number of times I hit that shortcut in a day, to see how often I’m looking to escape from whatever I’m doing to participate in the Statusphere.

I can’t do it in my current state of mind, but I would love to work out exactly how many keyboard shortcuts I know. I imagine I use upwards of a couple dozen through the day without thinking of them. The ones listed here are simply the ones I hold dearest to my fingertips.

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I woke up this morning to snow. Inches and inches of snow. If this were February I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But today is March 23, two days into Spring. In fact, where I live in Ontario, Canada, we’ve been pretty much snow-free for almost a week and a half now.

So I was a bit surprised to find snow on the ground. I was more surprised to find that the power in my house had gone down. Thankfully I set my alarm on my iPhone to wake me up, but everything else had turned off overnight, including the heat.

The situation I found myself in was merely an inconvenience. I wasn’t able to start work a little bit later, and breakfast had to wait until the electric stove could be used again, but it was hardly a problem worth worrying about.

I’ve never woken up to find my whole world turned upside down.

In the afternoon of March 11, an earthquake that measured 8.9/9.0 in magnitude hit the northeastern coast of Japan. The next morning, the people of Japan up to a different world. The images we saw at the time and in the days that followed . While Japan is one of the best prepared nations to face such a catastrophe, there are still plenty of reasons why the rest of the world should think about helping.

And so, that’s what I plan to do.

Last week I had the idea of designing a poster to sell, with the funds going towards the relief effort. After some further thought, the idea of including others in the process came to mind. I wanted to have people draw hearts, which would then be put together in a poster to symbolize our heart for Japan.

I approached my new friend Mike Precious, an amazing designer from Brantford, Ontario, about the idea. He offered to take on the challenge of designing the website to promote the idea and gather the drawing submissions. As he was designing the site, I was teaching myself some CodeIgniter to handle the file uploads. A few days and one very late night later, and it was all ready to go.

Today, I am pleased to announce the launch of Love for Japan. The goal is simple: to raise awareness and funds for the relief effort in Japan.

However, I also have a secondary goal. I hope to communicate just how closely knit we all are. Our hearts are intertwined with another. When one brother or sister suffers, we all suffer. My hope is that Love for Japan will be a reminder that regardless of where we live, we truly are neighbours.

So pull out your sketchbook, grab a pen and share your heart. Then pre-order a poster so you can see just how full of love this world really is.

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When the Mac App Store was released, I downloaded one and only one app through it: Twitter for Mac. It was the only way to upgrade from Tweetie, and from all accounts was worth the upgrade.

Since then, I haven’t opened the Mac App Store, mostly so I wouldn’t have to face the temptation on a constant basis. I even removed it from my dock — as they say, “out of sight, out of mind.”

Until I went to download my second Mac App Store app (ironically enough, it was to purchase a license for Twitterrific). As the Mac App Store opened, I noticed an update was available for the one app I had downloaded previously. I clicked to see the details, and was absolutely shocked by what I found:

I had never been made aware that there was an update available for Twitter for Mac (and I usually am pretty good at staying on top of this type of thing). So, for almost two months I’ve been running an outdated version of the software, which could potentially be full of security holes or other issues.

Now, the updates for the app seem to be more related to UI issues, but what if that wasn’t the case? What if one of the problems this update fixed was “stops crazy hackers from scooping up all of your personal data”? I would have left myself open to over two months of possible attack.

I get that up until the Mac App Store was launched, Application downloading and installing could be a little confusing for the average user. But, once the application was installed more often than not the application used some sort of internal updating system to notify you when new versions were available.

This makes me very nervous about using the Mac App Store for purchasing any more software from it. I’ll be buying Twitterrific right from the Icon Factory’s website instead. As for apps which can only be bought from the MAS, I’ll be very hesitant to do so without carefully considering the value and stability of the applications I look to buy.

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The Mill Pond, which is located on the Dorchester Creek and runs into the Thames River, is an exquisite place. The 3.5 km trail is my all-time favourite places to run, and my childhood memories are full of hockey games and bike rides on and around the pond. It is the first place I recognized as something related to “the environment,” and was often the location of school trips.

As amazing as the pond is, I hate this bridge. Not because the bridge itself is bad. It’s well built, sturdy, and is wide enough for people to pass on both sides. No, my issue is that it brings to mind my one negative memory of the Mill Pond: the day I couldn’t draw a Blue Heron.

It was grade 4, and we took one of our usual field trips to the pond, this time with pencils and sketchbooks in hand, with the goal of sketching either a scene or object we found interesting. When we went down there, there was a beautiful blue heron sitting at the bottom of the waterfall just below this bridge. Even with 30+ students running around, the bird stood completely still. I decided I would try my hand at drawing this beautiful creature, found a rock close by to sit, opened my sketchbook to the first empty sheet (which was the first sheet in the book), and froze.

I couldn’t draw.

I trace my finger in the air along the circumference of the blue heron’s head, down its side, around its beak and back up again. I tried to copy that pattern on the paper, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do it. The lines didn’t look right. The proportions were all off. I couldn’t see a bird in my blob of lead.

So, I gave up. Once in a while I’d give it another shot, even pick up a book at the library to see if I could figure it out, but I’ve I’ve never successfully drawn anything other than stick figures and maps. I was so dumbfounded by inability to draw that while approaching the end of school and trying to decide what career path to take, I vowed I would never do anything in art or design. I clearly wasn’t capable.

Fast forward 17 years from that fateful day at the pond, and I’m nearing my first year anniversary of working as a freelance designer. No, I’m still not drawing anything, but I have decided I won’t let that stop me from being the best designer I can be.

Maybe you’ve got a limitation that, no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to get through. My advice to you is to give up, not because giving up is the goal, but because there are so many other things you can latch your time and talent onto that struggling endlessly on a single skill just doesn’t make sense. Instead, find something you do seem to have a bit of talent in, even if it’s basic and unrefined. Work at refining and polishing and perfecting that talent until it becomes a skill, or even a strength. Don’t let something you can’t do discourage you from doing something you were quite possible made to do.

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Since my introduction to the world of online publishing, I’ve tried my best to be as genuine as possible, sometimes to a fault. I’ve been very transparent on some of my past blogs, talking openly about some of my personal struggles and my victories. On several occasions people have commented that perhaps I’m a bit too transparent online, that maybe I need to tone it down a little.

The topic has come up again as it relates to my use of Twitter. For me, Twitter isn’t a marketing channel or a brand management solution. When people ask, I tell them that who I am on Twitter is the real me. However, it also isn’t the whole me. It’s who I am when I’m in a specific subset of moods, when I have something to say that can be compacted into 140 characters. Of any of my online writing separate from my professional writing, it is really my least personal display of who I am.

In real life, I am almost never terse. I think internally well before I speak out loud. I listen, intently, to what those around me are saying. In a conversation, I soak up every word being spoken to me, and do my best to seek a better understanding if I’m confused about something. I admit that most of the time, I’m wrong about whatever it is I think I know.

I find it very difficult to do any of these things on Twitter. Terseness is championed, listening to everything that’s being said is next to impossible, seeking understanding is even less so, and no matter how much I try, I simply cannot communicate clearly enough that what I say isn’t set in stone. It’s bits and bytes.

I am not trying to say that who I am on Twitter isn’t really me. It is. If I seem like a dick on Twitter, it’s because I’m a dick in real life. If I seem insightful on Twitter, it’s because I’m insightful in real life. If I seem pushy, self-important, humble, caring, compassionate, egotistical, fanatical, abrasive, persuasive, passionate, dissonant, intelligent, mischievous, or stupid on Twitter, it’s because I am. In over 16,000 tweets, I have been all these things. Yet, I am still more. I’ve got 228,338.8 hours under this belt (not to mention about 60 lbs of weight I need to get rid of). There’s simply no way the entirety of my character and personality can be revealed in just a few thousand sound bites.

I promise, I will never judge you based on a few misguided tweets. Leave a stupid comment on a blog somewhere, and I’m sure I can look past it. At the end of the day we’re all just a bunch of humans trying to swim our way through a series of tubes that will hopefully lead us to a deeper level of connection with each other and ourselves.

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Probably close to five years ago, a friend bought me a copy of “On The Road” by Jack Kerouac. We had been talking about the idea of just packing a carry-on sized bag and seeing the world, and this book was our way of promising we’d embark on that journey.

Five years later and that promise has yet to be fulfilled. That’s not to say my life has been void of adventure; from day-long drives to play concerts to a dozen people in a church in Ohio to spending nights gazing at the stars in panoramic vision in a field in Apsley, Ontario, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to discover the world around me.

Of all the things I’ve experienced in my first 26 years of life, my most cherished memories are the people I’ve met along the way. I’ve had the incredible opportunity to meet amazing people, people of passion, people who are challenging the world around them, people who simply give themselves to others every day. I sometimes struggle to express to these people just how profound an impact they have had on me. Perhaps not fully an introvert, but certainly not an extrovert, I am seemingly unable to get past my inhibition to simply tell someone “who you are and what you do means a lot to me.”

These people are the yellow roman candles in this world, the ones who burn, burn, burn and bring light to a dark world. While I may be temporarily unable to travel the world, I can certainly bask in the light of these people who I find in my own community. And maybe, just maybe, a little spark will find its way to my soul and re-ignite the fire in me.

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