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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.  Indicative book cover art (right), and promotional material for the television series (left).  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
charry ADJECTIVE [ˈchärē]
curricle [ˈkərək(ə)l] NOUN
wroth [rôTH] ADJECTIVE
autochthonous [ôˈtäkTHənəs] ADJECTIVE
coxcomb [ˈkäksˌkōm] NOUN
popinjay [ˈpäpənˌjā] NOUN
calumny [ˈkaləmnē] NOUN
sark [särk] NOUN
illimitable [ˌi(l)ˈlimədəb(ə)l] ADJECTIVE
solipsism [ˈsäləpˌsizəm] NOUN
abstemious [əbˈstēmēəs] ADJECTIVE
garret [ˈɡerət] NOUN
brougham [ˈbro͞oəm, ˈbrōəm] NOUN
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