Greetings. It was a weird week personally for me, with turmoil and angst that turned to clarity and finally relief. 

Turmoil to Angst to Clarity to Relief
It was about this time in 2015 that I was interviewing for a volunteer position on the CKUA Board. The whole process took months, with the Board approving my nomination in October and then the CKUA Foundation ratifying that decision at the Annual General Meeting in January 2016. 

The little more than four-and-a-half years I spent on that Board have certainly taught me a lot. I understand financials better. I understand not-for-profits better. I have learned more about human motivations, both mine and for others. The most significant learning however has been about entitlement. My time on the CKUA Board came to an end this last week because I did not fully understand how much of a reaction our actions would cause to a small handful of entitled individuals. Do not get me wrong - we made mistakes, most notably in our communications to the Foundation members. But those mistakes could have been overcome with a more reasonably-minded and less entitled set of stakeholders. We executed a decision in June that was wildly unpopular with those stakeholders, and so began the turmoil. As we worked an unreasonable amount of hours to satisfy the stakeholders requests, the angst grew as it became clear we would never make them happy. 

In the end, my time on the Board came to an end as we realized on Wednesday what we had to do, and then resigned en masse on Thursday. The clarity turned to relief on Thursday as I hit send on the email to the Foundation members that included our resignation note. The relief was solely because we knew that we would no longer have to face those entitled stakeholders and hear their misleading comments. 

I am going to post a long form article on entitlement. I drafted most of it in late July at near the peak of the turmoil that I and the rest of the Board was going through. I will come back and edit this entry with a link once it is up. 

Reading Pile:
I found myself with more time this week than expected. Funny how that worked out. I finished one book that nearly was done in time for last week, read about one-third of a non-fiction book and about half of a murder mystery. 

Book #31 for 2020 was "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman. I came to this novel as a result of seeing it on my older daughter's bookshelf and then realizing that the HBO series "His Dark Materials" was based on the trilogy that Compass is the start of. 

I can definitely see why this novel would be an interesting basis for a television series. It has evocative characters with lots of imagery, wildly interesting twists on technology and magic, and a plot that twists and turns without becoming confusing or muddled. I am looking forward to watching the series, but I think I will read the next two books in the series first. 

If I had a opportunity to provide feedback to the book publishers, I would definitely suggest they update the cover art on the books. What I saw on the book cover and what I read are two different things. I knew it was a YA book, but the cover art made me think it was another "Polar Express", admittedly a fine book in its own right, but not a dark tale at all. Compare the book art with the publicity material for the television series and I think you will agree. 

Regardless of that bit of personal preference, I definitely recommend this book.

New Music:
It was a quiet week for new music, pun definitely intended. The only album that I added to my Music Finds playlist for this week was "Pleased to Meet Me" by The Replacements. The friend that recommended this album said that The Replacements were one of his "favorite snotty rock bands ever". You can tell my friend is a music fan based on how he can classify his favorites into sub-specialties as focused as that. 

I did enjoy the album and as I read a short bio for the band I noticed that lead singer Paul Westerberg had two songs on the soundtrack for "Singles". Singles was a huge movie and soundtrack for me in 1992 as I got ready to leave university and not be, you know, single. So while that soundtrack was not a music find for me this week, it was a nice nostalgia trip to get reacquainted with it from a link to a new-to-me artist and album.

New Beers:
There were a couple new beers this week, bringing my unique check-ins on Untappd up to 680. 

Check-in #679 was the Irish Red from Hell's Basement. Admittedly, I am not a fan of reds, but this one seemed to have a too-harsh taste to it. The Red was my fifth check-in from Hell's Basement and this is right at their average of 3.0 out of 5.  My overall average across my check-ins is around 3.3 so I have some definite evidence to indicate Hell's Basement is not a brewery I should personally seek out. 

Being on a personal quest to drink one of every beer in the world will eventually land you at a table in front of this beer. Check-in #680 was the River Valley Golden Lager from Big Rock and it scored the same as the Red at 3.0 out of 5. However, it was a pleasant surprise instead of a disappointment, especially since - or maybe as a direct result of - it was $1.75 a can. Nothing super mind you, but I have spent more on worse beers.

New Words:
A lot of new words this week. My readings are really disparate lately with a general theme of British influence, in particular Victorian-era Britain and technology. 

dipteran
[ˈdiptərən]
NOUN

1. an insect of the large order Diptera; a fly.

charry
ADJECTIVE
[ˈchärē]

1. forming or constituting charcoal
2. suggestive of charring or charcoal

curricle
[ˈkərək(ə)l]
NOUN

1. (historical) a light, open, two-wheeled carriage pulled by two horses side by side.

wroth
[rôTH]
ADJECTIVE

1. (archaic) angry.

autochthonous
[ôˈtäkTHənəs]
ADJECTIVE

1. (of an inhabitant of a place) indigenous rather than descended from migrants or colonists.

coxcomb
[ˈkäksˌkōm]
NOUN

1. (archaic) a vain and conceited man; a dandy.

popinjay
[ˈpäpənˌjā]
NOUN

1. (dated) a vain or conceited person, especially one who dresses or behaves extravagantly.

calumny
[ˈkaləmnē]
NOUN

1. the making of false and defamatory statements about someone in order to damage their reputation; slander.
   
2. a false and slanderous statement.

sark
[särk]
NOUN

1. (Scottish / Northern English) a shirt or chemise.

illimitable
[ˌi(l)ˈlimədəb(ə)l]
ADJECTIVE

1. without limits or an end.

solipsism
[ˈsäləpˌsizəm]
NOUN

1. the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.

abstemious
[əbˈstēmēəs]
ADJECTIVE

1. not self-indulgent, especially when eating and drinking.

garret
[ˈɡerət]
NOUN

1. a top-floor or attic room, especially a small dismal one (traditionally inhabited by an artist).

brougham
[ˈbro͞oəm, ˈbrōəm]
NOUN

1. (historical) a horse-drawn carriage with a roof, four wheels, and an open driver's seat in front.

You know it has been brutally cold when you comment that -24°C doesn't feel all that bad. That was yesterday and today it is -21 and climbing. Daily highs will be over the freezing mark which will feel like nirvana, but with snow. 

The last week was filled with work, reading, volunteering, a couple new beers, and a bit of a breakthrough with on the curation of my D&D group. Let's get on with it, shall we?

CKUA Annual General Meeting:
The CKUA Foundation AGM was yesterday, and I am grateful and humbled to have been reappointed to the CKUA Board for my third and final two-year term. This will be my fourth year serving as Vice Chair of the Board under and with the amazing leadership of our Chair, Cindy Andrew. The past few years have been filled with ups and downs, but happily with more ups than downs. 

CKUA is 92 years old, and my time on the Board will end just after the 94th birthday. Even though I won't be formally involved after January 2022, I already look forward to being involved with the organization as it approaches its Centennial in 2027. My thoughts for the future were echoed by former CKUA CEO Ken Regan in a nice tweet at the AGM, and I was able to capture a meta moment of Ken in action. 

DND OMG:
I commented back in December that I am looking to curate a D&D group, and this week I made some significant progress in that regard. I had thought about creating a post on something like Kijiji to announce that I was looking for a group of like-minded people to play with. It occurred to me that Meetup would be a much better choice for something like that and so I created a new Edmonton-based D&D group called "Casual but Committed". Casual but Committed will be focused on story and character over rules and stats. There have already been four people join the group and I am hopeful that the personalities will mesh and we will have a good time. I honestly have no idea what will happen if we get a dozen or more players who want to join, but I suppose that is a problem for another day. Now I just need to figure out how to bring that group of people together so that we can learn and start playing. ​

Reading Pile:
Most of my reading these days revolves around the year-long reading projects of "War and Peace" and "The Count of Monte Cristo". I did finish "Stuart Little" with the younger daughter this week, but that was the extent of my other reading. I know Stuart Little is considered a classic of children's literature, but I really could not get into it. Stuart is a bit of a knob, to be blunt. He runs off on a fool's errand, and has little to no ability to plan or control his emotions. I suppose he is just a child, but by today's standards in youth fiction Stuart is overly emotional and rash. Not exactly a role model, to the point where my daughter commented on what a "weird" story it was. So book #5 for 2020 is done and accounted for, but I was really hoping for more especially after the glowing affection showed for it by the characters in last week's book "The Tiny Hero of Ferny Creek Library". 

New Beers:
Three new beers this week, and two of them were pretty good. First up was the Een Paar Luilin Belgian Rye Dubbel collaboration between Common Crown and Dandy. I had a friend describe Common Crown as making really solid accessible beers, and Dandy as always pushing the envelope while being less worried about failing miserably. Pairing those two extremes in a collaboration is sure to bring out some interesting tastes in a tempered way, and that is what this beer was. Good stuff, solid flavor, nothing radical but definitely well put together. (3.5 / 5). The next one was the Before 9 Mint Chocolate Stout from Troubled Monk. That is a nice play on the After Eight mint chocolates working with the knowledge that mint and chocolate is a great pair, as is chocolate and stouts. But mint plus chocolate plus stout just did not work for me. (2.75 / 5). Last up was the Lupita Especial Kolsch brewed by Alley Kat for Tres Carnales Taqueria. This was a good beer, and while I don't think it was their Scona Gold Kolsch which I really like, it was still decent pairing with tacos. (3.25 / 5)

New Words:
Quite a few new words this week given the limited amount of reading. Some of them come from some podcasts I listened to but most come from The Count of Monte Cristo or War and Peace. 

capacious
[kəˈpāSHəs]
ADJECTIVE

1. having a lot of space inside; roomy.

felicity
[fəˈlisədē]
NOUN

1. intense happiness.
2. the ability to find appropriate expression for one's thoughts.

unction
[ˈəNG(k)SHən]
NOUN

1. the action of anointing someone with oil or ointment as a religious rite or as a symbol of investiture as a monarch.

cambric
[ˈkāmbrik]
NOUN

1. a lightweight, closely woven white linen or cotton fabric.

ecossaise
[ˌākōˈsāz]
NOUN

1. an energetic country dance in duple time in which couples form lines facing each other.

versify
[ˈvərsəˌfī]
VERB

1. turn into or express in verse.

inchoate
[inˈkōət, ˈinkəˌwāt]
ADJECTIVE

1. just begun and so not fully formed or developed; rudimentary.

limn
[lim]
VERB
limns (third person present)

1. depict or describe in painting or words.
2. suffuse or highlight (something) with a bright color or light

reticule
[ˈredəˌkyo͞ol]
NOUN

1. historical a woman's small handbag, originally netted and typically having a drawstring and decorated with embroidery or beading.

bilious
[ˈbilyəs]
ADJECTIVE

1. affected by or associated with nausea or vomiting.
2. (of a color) lurid or sickly.
3. spiteful; bad-tempered.

execrate
[ex·e·crate]
VERB

1. To execrate is to detest, or to express great hatred.