Kim Siever’s Blog

One of the great things about living in Lethbridge is the variable weather. A common saying in Southern Alberta is, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes”. While that may be hyperbolic, it does aptly illustrate our very volatile weather pattern.

What this means is that we get a variety of weather; it never stays the same too long. We don’t get a lot of rain, our summers aren’t too hot, and our winters aren’t too cold.

While we do get cold weather in winter, it doesn’t last more than a week or two before we get a reprieve.

That being said, I love winter in Lethbridge. I love the hoarfrost; I love sledding in the Sugar Bowl; I love walking through the river valley on my way to work. Winter here makes for some unique photos.

Here are a few I took:

You can see more of my winter shots here.

Continuing from last week’s article on my 1 million photos on Flickr, I thought I would post about another online project I worked on that gave me a sense of accomplishment.

In March of 2004, I made my first edit ever on Wikipedia, and it was at the Lethbridge article. All I did was update the population amount. Over the following few months, I contributed a few more times, as well as to a handful of other articles.

Over April and May of 2005,  several editors completely rewrote the content. When the 2005 municipal census was released at the end of May, I went to the Lethbridge article again to edit the population.

I noticed the article had changed substantially, and I saw the potential of it. I spent the next two years working on the article: adding new content, finding sources for claims already in the content, editing for grammar and clarity, and so on.

In February 2007, after following several internal Wikipedia conventions for good articles, I submitted it for peer review. The results of the review was that it was not good article material, but the reviewer left several suggestions for imporvement. I implemented those, and it was resubmitted and subsequently approved three days later for Good Article status.

GA status is the second highest status an article can get on Wikipedia, and it made me very proud, but it would’t last long. Only 6 months later, after making several more changes, I felt it was nearly ready for peer review under the assumption it would eventually be submitted for Featured Article status.

I received a lot of feedback from the peer review process, and implemented it. Three months later, I submitted it for Featured Article status, and on 28 November 2007, it was featured on the front page of Wikipedia.

That made me happy.

Last week, I posted about trying to figure out what my passion is. I want to figure what it is I love doing, would love to do for the rest of my life, and could realistically get paid to do.

What I did last week was put together a list of interests and hobbies, hoping it would spur me into more thinking.

I did think of a few things (opening a camping store, becoming a chef, and so on), but none of it got me genuinely excited.

While doing my swim this morning, I thought of what I could do for the next stage of the process to discover my passion. I am going to post about some of the things I have done in the past that have left me with a real sense of accomplishment.

First to the bat is the “1 Million Photos” project I did in the summer of 2006.

Basically, I managed to convince 6,000 Flickr members to add all the photos they had into a pool that’s only purpose was to be the first pool with 1,000,000 photos on Flickr. And we did it in 2 months.

Only one other group has reached that same number, but it took about a year.

That project took a lot of hard work, but it was truly the most successful grass roots, viral campaign I have ever been a part of, let alone initiated and orchestrated.

There was a lot of cold calling and a lot of follow-up. As well, I provided tools to make it as easy as possible for members to share the excitement with their friends.

Looking back, it was likely the most exciting project I have ever been a part of.

If there is one thing I got out of reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s book Crush It, is that I really need to have a passion. Something I could love doing for the rest of my life.

My problem is that I have no idea what that is.

I love my family. If I could somehow stay home and make enough money to give my family a comfortable life, I would totally do it. I love spending time with my family. I just don’t see how spending more time with my family will make me more money.

I am committed to my religion. Given how much time I spend each week doing something related to my religion, I better be. Again, I am not sure how I could make a career out of living my religion, particularly one that relies on volunteerism and a lay ministry. I suppose I could start a Mormon bookstore. That just seems kind of weird, and having cheap thrifty Mormons as one’s clients just opens up a whole different can of worms.

Beyond those two things, I am not sure what else there is.

After a discussion during the most recent Lethbridge tweetup, I was thinking more about the idea of discovering my passion. One thing I thought might kick start this is to list out some of my interests and favourite pastimes.

• Pastimes
  • Cooking
  • Yardwork
  • Camping
  • Public speaking
  • Writing poetry
  • Being underwater (swimming, scuba diving, snorkelling)
  • Volunteering
  • Cooking over wood-fuelled fire
  • Taking photographs
• Interests
  • City planning
  • Technology
  • Maps
  • Organization

I am sure someone who knows me will mention something about grammar. I don’t know if that is something I enjoy as much as it is hating seeing/hearing bad grammar.

Now to think about this some more.

This summer, we travelled to Ponteix, Saskatchewan, for a family reunion on my mother’s side of the family. It was 100 years the Cloutiers had been on the family farm.

I brought my camera along becase I felt going to my mum’s hometown would present some nice photo opportunities.

One of the photos I took was after Regan and Aisling had been playing on a playground near our hotel. They wanted to check out the creek that runs through the city, and we had to cross the train tracks to get there.

While we were on the tracks, I saw the elevators off to the east, and the gorgeous colours the setting sun produced. I had the children sit on the tracks, and snapped a few photos.

I was pleased with how this one turned out. So were others, and I had multiple suggestions to submit it to a photo contest.

So I did, albeit nonchalantly.

Today, I received a package in the mail from Tourism Saskatchewan saying this photo was given an honourable mention in the “people” category of their Great Saskatchewan Photo Contest. I received a 2010 calendar as a consolation prize.

I thought that was kind of neat. Winners should be posted on their site next week.

Posted via web from hotpepper’s posterous

Seen at Grammar Girl:

Other than maintaining formality, there are two valid reasons you might want to use “which” instead of “where.” Many times, you can add a preposition before the relative pronoun “which” to make your sentence quite precise. For example, “The house at which I saw you” has a slightly different meaning from “The house in which I saw you.” If you use “where,” you lose the subtle distinction: “The house where I saw you.”

Read the original post.

A lot of people have the idea I am some sort of environmentalist or hippie. After all, I compost, take the bus to work, live in a 798 sq ft house with my family of six, use a reel mower, have a tankless water heater, use grocery bins instead of plastic bags, and recycle. The list goes on.

The funny thing is, however, that none of that has anything to do with the environment.

You see, I’m Scottish. And Dutch. Which means I’m cheap.

I compost and recycle because it means I don’t have to buy as many garbage bags. I use a reel mower because I don’t have to buy more gas or spend more on electricity.

I take the bus to work because I don’t have to buy another car, which means a car payment, more insurance, and more gas.

My family of six lives in a 798 sq ft house because we bought it for $75,000, reducing our monthly housing costs at the time by $150. I use a tankless water heater because it saves money on gas usage, and we don’t run out of hot water.

I use grocery bins instead of plastic bags because I can pack them faster in the store, and my store charges for plastic bags.

I don’t hate environmentalists. Some of my best friends are environmentalists. Just realize that most of my seemingly green choices are generally just simple practical choices.

Yesterday, I received a copy of “Crush It!” by Gary Vaynerchuk.

I won it in an online contest held by the Three Dudes and a Mic podcast. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but everyone I know who has read it can’t stop talking about it.

I am looking forward to reading it, but I have to finish The Amber Spyglass first. Earlier this year, a meme spread across Facebook that claimed the BBC ran a list of 100 books and said most people will have read no more than 6. The list ended up being published by The Guardian, and I had read 13 of the books.

After reading how far behind I was compared to the numbers my friends had read, I decided to read all 100 books. The His Dark Materials trilogy, of which The Amber Spyglass is the final installment, is 9th on the list.