Essay Published

Remember my posts from the beginning of this year about having my paper on Cesarean Section rates published in the undergrate Journal of Sociology at McGill University? Well, I'm now experimenting with how to post large documents to my blog without it taking up tons and tons of space and am using this as my first test (it was more than 25 pages, including the bibliography). Some of you have expressed interest in reading it before so I hope you enjoy. Click here to read the essay.

Merry Christmas

This has been such a special for Christmas for Sarah and I. This is our first Christmas together and a wonderful chance to establish traditions for our new family. Some highlights include: making sugar cookies with our friend Lee, caroling to new friends in french, setting up a tree, leaving cookies and milk out for Santa, reading the Christmas story of both continents in 3 Nephi 1 and Luke 2 and waking up early to open presents. The funniest Christmas moment happened last week as volunteered to gift wrap at the mall, with proceeds going to charity. Things "unraveled" pretty quickly when the group we were with had to leave after only one hour, and no one else showed up to help us for another two hours. In other words, we were alone at the gift wrapping booth for two hours during the busiest hours of the day! It was insane and certainly was a great opportunity for us to work on communication skills. But by the end of evening we felt great about having raised a couple hundred dollars for people with disabilities. That's what it's all about right? Christmas is also about drawing close as a family, and it's been great. I've never felt closer to Sarah and as I wrote in my card to her, it's humbling to have married someone I admire and look up to so much. But when it gets down to it, Christmas is about Christ, right? Here's a great talk by a modern day Apostle about why Christ's life was so important and how it can help us all, regardless of how overwhelming our problems seem.

Team of Rivals

What was just a 2 paragraph story buried deep the NY Times was major news up here. The Liberal Party of Canada just selected Stephane Dion of Montreal as their new leader. This means that in the next election (which could be as soon as next Spring), he will go against Stephen Harper to become Prime Minister. While I've been working for Harper's party lately and genuinely think Harper is a good leader, and that Dion's struggles in English will make it tough for him to win Western Canada, I kinda like him. I haven't spoken to him or met him, but have been around him on a few ocassions. His office was just down the hall from Rob's, where I interned this fall, so I got to see him interact with his staff a lot. I've also stood by him during media scrums (impromtu press conferences) and enjoy his charisma. Harper is right to say he shouldn't be underestimated, though I won't venture to make any predictions on the outcome yet.

He won the position in dramatic fashion, on the 4th ballot of an old-school politcal convention. If I remember right, he was in fourth place on the first ballot, but gained delegates as other canidates dropped out, until he passed the leader to get more than 50%. Interestingly enough, he just named that opponent, former Harvard Prof. Michael Ignatieff, to be his deputy (kind of like his running mate). He's given prominent roles to almost all of the people he just beat, reminiscent of Abraham Lincoln naming each of his principal opponents to his cabinets. If you haven't read Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about this, then you should ask for it for Christmas, it's that good.

One of these opponents was Bob Rae, former Premier of Ontario. Remember my post from Nov 2005 about hearing him speak at a McGill Law School lecture? He was actually college roomates with Ignatieff and switched into this party to run for its leadership, making him a great storyline (he finished in a very respectable third). As for the photo, this should be one of those that Rick Mercer posts on his blog, challenging people to come up with the funniest caption or photoshop version they can.

On my mind...

One of the nice things about having a blog is I get to write about what's on my mind with the assumption that someone cares. You get three things today: Christmas, Petitte and Finland. Well, Finland hasn't actually been on my mind that much except that I just happened upon this great photo essay of the day the Helsinki Finland Temple was dedicated (Oct 22). As for Christmas, our ward (congregation) just had its annual Christmas party, and it was a blast. I really like our ward and enjoy my role. I'm the Ward Mission Leader, meaning I work closely with the full time missionaries to help them teach people interested in our Church. The woman holding the baby was baptized in November and has become a good friend of ours, and the kid in front (with the bunny ears) is the son of a woman who was baptized last Sunday. I also feel privileged to work so closely with these missionaries who seem to be the perfect combo for Sarah and I. One is from Idaho, the other from France. Finally, I couldn't be happier that Andy Petitte just signed to come back to the Yankees. What was he thinking going to Houston! I totally forgive him for going since it was to be closer to his family, but I'm so glad he's back. I'm convinced we wouldn't have caved to Boston and might even have won the World Series in 04 had he still been a Yankee. As long as he can stay healthy, he'll plug a big hole in our rotation. He might even convince Roger to come back next season (never thought I'd be hoping for that!)

Changes

As you can see, the blog looks quite a bit different now. I have upgraded to the Blogger Beta version and am quite excited by how easy it is to work with. There were some causalties in the process of transferring over however. As you can see, it got rid of the clock announcing how long Sarah and I have been married. It also got rid of the counter at the bottom, telling me how many hits the blog was getting. The biggest change is that Sarah and I have created a new blog, a blog to chronicle our family events. As we talked about creating a Christmas letter with all our recent news, we thought it would be much easier and more fun to begin a blog together. We hope this will fill much of the same role my blog has played recently, to update our family on everything that's going on. I will still keep my blog and there will probably be some overlap, but this will be my venue for political and social commentary, as well as the occassional proseltying message about my Church, the Yankees or Phish. I hope you'll bookmark both, or follow the links we have on the side, and check them often. Enjoy the changes! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Canadian National Gallery of Art

The other night Sarah and I took advantage of the fact that museums are free on Thursday evenings and went to the National Gallery of Art. We had a wonderful experience and were deeply impressed by the unique building which itself is a work of art. It includes two or three wonderful atriums like the one pictured above, including one with a fountain on glass, so that you can stand underneath it from one floor below. You can also see the stories high Christmas tree they had in the entryway. But the highlight for me was the giant baby's head in the entrance of the contemporary art section. I still can't get over how cool this thing was in person! Maybe I'll post a video of it so you can get a better perspective on what it looks like.

Barack Obama on Monday Night Football

Have you been hearing all the hype about Barak Obama lately? I've been following him closely for the last year, listening to his weekly podcasts, etc and I am really impressed. He is extremely intelligent and straight forward. A lot of people are hoping he's going to run for President in 2008 and he gets questions about it all the time. There was even an editorial in the Washington Post this week by George Will, encouraging him to run. As this video demonstrates, he also has a sense of humor.

Spectacle

On Tuesday night I played a gig with Dylan Morgan on bass guitar. We had a lot of fun preparing for this event. It was a cool feeling to see our names in the paper in the upcoming events section, to drive up to the venue and see the board out front, as well as a little poster advertising our show. How was the music? Well...I've decided to stick with health policy! The title of this post is a play on the french word meaning "concert." Many thanks to Sarah for her wonderful support, she's the best.

Christmas Staff Dinner

One of the reasons I pushed so hard to get from NYC early this week was so I could make it back in time for my staff Christmas dinner. Rob Merrifield, the Member of Parliament I've been interning with since September was nice enough to take the three of us and our spouses out to dinner at the Parliamentary Restaurant. It's a pretty swank place on the 6th floor of Parliament. You need to be staff or a member to eat there, but the prices are quite reasonable ($15 for a phenomenal filet mignon). We had a great time and it meant a lot to me that Sarah and I were included. Before dinner we met in his office to take pictures and exchange gifts. The staff gave Rob a copy of the most recent Canadian Bill of Rights signed by the Prime Minister at the time (it was fairly recent, 20th century). They all gave Sarah and I a beautiful portrait of the Parliament Building, a beautiful coffee-table dish and coasters that were from the floor of the original library of parliament! If you remember my October post about how amazing the Library is then you'll know how cool a gift this is. My internship will end next week and I feel so grateful for the experience I've had working with Rob and becoming friends with Michael and Ranelle. I have learned a ton about politics and legislating, and my love for Canada has deepened considerably (especially since they keep letting me back in the country!)

DC Photos

Over the weekend I took a bus down to Washington DC so I could spend some time with my mom, who was there for a conference. She was in meetings during the day Saturday, so I had a great time sight-seeing. If you've seen my last DC post, from June 2005, then I can't use my joke about all the good real estate being taken. If you haven't, then you should explore the archives a little. The top picture is of the Capital Building from Pennsylvania Ave. The 2nd picture is the inside of the beautiful dome. It's so high that if you took the Statue of Liberty off her pedestal, she could stand up in there and still not touch the top! The third is the room where the House of Reps used to sit back when Abraham Lincoln was a Congressman. The acoustics in there are crazy, such that you can't whisper without everyone hearing every word you say. Terrible for politicians! In the basement of the Capital is the old Supreme Court chambers, which is still only lit by oil lamps. Of course the room isn't used for anything now, but it's fun to imagine how dark it must've been for those judges. As for the White House photo, you should have seen the protesters out front. There is one guy who beats a drum constantly, and apparently has a 24 hour vigil going with a couple other people. There was another guy dressed up as Pres Bush, but with horns and other devilish apparel. I don't like Pres. Bush's policies, but that might be a little over the top!

The Intrepid

It's funny how quickly things change. I was in NYC all last week, and just 2 days ago rode past the intrepid in a cab on my way to the bus station. If you've never been to the Intrepid, it's a former World War II battleship which has been turned into a museum. It's really pretty cool to sit inside one of the planes or imagine what it was like to live on the ship. It's been sitting at its home in the west 50's in Manhattan that it was so stuck in the mud they couldn't get it out! Apparently they finally suceeded yesterday, and there were some great pictures on the NY Times website of its trip to Bayonne, NJ where it is going to be cleaned up. I love this image of the skyline and can't believe I've said goodbye to it again. Truth be told, however, I am so happy to be up in Canada where even though temperatures are already below freezing and our car is covered in snow, I am eveloped by the warmth of my wife's love!

NYC?

You'll never guess where I am right now... at work in downtown Manhattan! It's been so wierd to be home, and although I've had a great time, I really look to being back in Canada with Sarah. I came down a week ago so that I could get a study permit to take a graduate level seminar in Canadian Health Policy at the Univ of Ottawa. But wasn't I already in Canada you ask? True, but it's actually much more difficult to apply for a Canadian study permit from within Canada. Because I'm from the States, I can just do it at the border when I come up on the bus. Since being down I've been staying at my father's apt and have enjoyed spending time with him. My mom was in Washington D.C. for a conference, so I took the bus down Friday night and spent the weekend with her. It was great, I toured the Capital Building, walked around the White House and had dinner in Georgetown. In all honesty, this was hardly a vacation though. I've been home in NewYork City for 5 days, the first was spent recovering from an overnight bus trip. The other four weekdays were all spent working down at my old summer job, as a Temp in the Tax deparment for Legg Mason's Mutual Fund Accounting. It's so surreal to be back, but I'm very grateful to have a job where I can call up on Monday and essentially say, "Well, I thought it was good-bye when I left in July, but I'm going to be in the city this week and I'm hoping to start working on Wednesday," and for them to say "ok, great, come get as many hours as you want." Tonight I catch the 9:30 bus back north, crossing the border around 4am, but not getting into Ottawa until 9am. Ahh, I'm so happy I'll have 12 hours on the bus to look forward to tonight! I promise to post pictures soon.