What's Behind Door Number...

I work in a building that's shaped like a giant staircase. A massive cube that has been diagonally cut on both sides with a clever little zigzag. It's fun. It's what happens when an enthusiastic Lego-Baby visits the Pyramids at an impressionable age, and then unlocks his subconscious years later during the design process. Its an Engineering Office for Engineers by Engineers full of Engineers; very appropriate. The best part about the building however is not its 'Led Zepplin Stairway to...' concept, it is the fact that the inner workings of the Staircase are flawed. Within this creative exterior, the building's rat-race maze hasn't been engineered properly. The irony is gold. I love it!

Being an Engineer myself, I understand the complexities of a working system such as an office building. It's a living organism that incorporates the strength of structural design, the power of it's mechanical parts, the flow of the electrical circulatory, the hide-and-seek plumbing game, the wiring of computer-windows into the virtual world, and the chaos and unpredictability of all the people that bounce around inside it. It's a beautiful thing. I understand how any number of critical design components, derived from the brains of the highly intelligent, can lack precision. How a small slip up, years before the red-tap is cut, can cause disaster. How years of planning which leads to months of construction need nothing short of perfection. I understand that turning nothing into a giant staircase building is difficult. I can handle the idea that the miracle of engineering-perfection can be out of reach every now and then. But what makes this little flaw so fun is that it has nothing to do with years of preparation, with a dozen semesters of post secondary education, with big decisions, or wise innovations, in fact it has nothing to do with the actual engineering of the building at all. This flaw is the mangled icing on the top of a perfect cake.

Almost all the doors inside this building have been put on backwards.

This wouldn't seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of it all; it's not like they accidentally forgot the doors entirely and just built four-walled enclosures that they couldn't escape from, or replaced all the doors with gaping holes in the floor that turned the hallways into a parkour course. However, backwards doors do just enough damage to slowly chip away at the sanity of everyone walking through them.

For the most part doors don't get involved in our lives. They don't try to get too rambunctious or excited or difficult, and with the exception of the odd fashion statement, doors keep to themselves and play their role. But every now and then you get some door that thinks it can be a Hero, some door that wants to be it's own beautiful and unique snowflake with it's own ideas of how to change the world. Idiot. These are the doors that are out to get us.

Here are a few rules of the Door World that apply to general door behaviour...
the following doors will open outward:
- Exterior-wall doors of Public buildings
- Public Room doors
- Storage Room doors
- Doors leading deeper into a building
the following doors will open inward:
- Exterior-wall doors of Residential buildings
- Private Room doors

This system is tried and true and not to be messed with, because the human brain can't handle it. The use of a door is one of many operations that the mind has created an autopilot function for. It's a simple task that we can handle executing from our subconscious, like walking, or spelling your name, or doing both while finessing out a left-cheek-sneak. It frees up space in our heads for the more complex and detailed things in life that require the serious brain power (such as investigating door dilemmas). The only problem with this approach is when change is introduced into our habit driven routines, and we are shocked out of our subconscious and forced to deal with relearning something that we had previously mastered. You don't know that you know it, but when you are walking towards a door, you know what the door knows, unless of course the door thinks it knows something new, then all you know is you're in trouble.

You might wonder why the misbehavior of a door should matter, or why we are generally accepting of the standard Door Playbook. It's because the Playbook isn't based on a whim. It's because these decisions are rooted in the primary functions of a door, and deep in our subconscious, where we store our autopilot functions, we already understand and respect this.

The top two Door priorities are 'access' and 'security', or 'versatility' and 'safety', or simply 'to open' and 'to close'.

Inward opening doors, such as the front door of a residential home, place their focus on security. The magic of the door's design is in its hinge, but this is also its devastating Achilles Heal when battling for security. Unless a costly, heavy-duty door is used with concealed or protected hinges, an outward opening door leaves it's precious hinges exposed to the outside world. Even with a couple heavy duty dead-bolts, access to a doors hinges, its jugular, makes for an easy answer to the Répondez-s'il-vous-plaît of the break-in invite. Therefore, in the case of private residential homes or smaller personal rooms where security is at a premium, an inward opening door is a more appropriate Door response.

Public buildings have the same security concerns, however they also have to consider the complexities of an emergency that is complete with a mass evacuation. When a hysteric brood of people need to exit a building quickly and easily during an emergency, it can be more than a little counterproductive to have a large mob piling up against a door that can't burst open. In fact, in many cases emergency exits will be equipped with Panic Bars instead of door knobs or handles in order to accommodate the idiocy that accompanies hysteria; don't worry about how to use the door, just run at it like a crazy person and the door will do the rest. Public buildings will take a hit and go with the more expensive option (giving the hinges their Tony Stark Iron Man suits) in order to balance security with safety.

This is where the giant Staircase drops the ball. Although the exterior-wall exits follow the rules like good little doors, the divided interior and corresponding hallways that flow towards the light of day are a complete guessing game. Each access way is equipped with it's own Rebel with a Cause attitude, wanting nothing more than to fool people as they try and push a Pull or stop and yank on a Push. Not only is this a fire hazard, and a massive safety oversight - I'm picturing hundreds of EngiNerds cutting the umbilical cord from their life giving computers for the first time in years only to push up against a backwards door, unable to Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump their way to safety - but it's a day-to-day irritation that is slowly contributing to a future massacre of Postal Worker proportions.

At first I thought I was losing it, I thought 'Door, it's not you, it's me', I thought I had reached a new level of uselessness where I couldn't figure out how to successfully walk through a door anymore. But then I noticed that it was only happening at work, and it was only happening once I was inside the giant Staircase's maze. In fact, eventually, I realized it was happening to people at work that weren't me. This was great. I was seeing people charging towards doors with that end-of-the-work-day kind of enthusiasm, only to awkwardly collide face-to-door and have to muscle passed the embarrassment of reenacting an America's Funniest Home Videos' classic. People were double pumping in frustration and resorting to two handed pulls as they tried to dig deeper into the building through Pushes disguising themselves as Pulls. They were quickly assuming 'access denied' instead of 'backwards door' in order to avoid getting caught failing to enter or exit in front of co-workers. They were being fooled by the Door day-in and day-out and they weren't terribly impressed.

And even after days or weeks of running head on into these doors with their radical ideas, people continue to struggle with navigating themselves through this mine field of embarrassment. All thanks to their clever autopilot programs. The same thing would happen if you got too creative with the height of a table or counter top, the placement of a sink's hot-cold faucets, the layout of a keyboard, or the arrangement of a number pad on a phone or calculator. There would be a nice sizable learning curve for any kind of Traffic Twist. Change the side of the road that people drive on; accident. And if you think there's safety in going by foot, even the pedestrians needing to look right-then-left not left-then-right when trying not to die as they cross the street-in-reverse. Switch the order of Gas and Break peddles, reverse the Lefty-Loosy-Righty-Tighty rule, put your watch on the other wrist, or toss the buttons over to the other side of the shirt, and you have to start re-programming yourself from scratch. It's tough to alter the autopilot, and tougher to admit that you are useless without it.

Now it's entirely possible that this backwards door routine isn't a mistake at all. In the fun and happy part of my mind I've wondered, maybe one day, after a pair of Glasses crashes into a Pull Door in a particularly loud and awkward fashion, if Ashton Kutcher might jump out from behind a decorative plant and announce the return of Punk'd for another season.

Why not assume Conspiracy? It might be the best way to explain the challenging Rise-Depth Ratio of the stairwells here, which is another complete disaster that plagues the giant Staircase with it's ironic danger - staircase up the sides of the building for show, check, staircase inside the Staircase for connecting floors, oops... I don't know if their was a horror film style death that occurred, or if a constant flow of falls has caused the concern, but the stairwells of the building look like the jacket of a Formula-1 Racer who's sponsored by Safety. Bright yellow grip tap mark up each step, large loud signs line the walls with 'Warning' and 'Danger' advertisements, caution tap covers the walls and railings like the entire collection of stairs is a crime scene, and notices against 'texting while walking', 'failing to use handrails', 'taking two steps at a time', 'following too close behind another person', and 'running, jogging, or jumping up or down stairs' are posted at each landing. If it wasn't for the fact that the company has a massive Civil-Structural department, I might offer up a knee slap or two, instead it's just ridiculous. Sad and just plain ridiculous.

If the doors and the stairwells weren't already enough, last week another leak sprung in this sinking ship of a building, and we had Al-Gore style, End-of-the-World kind of weather inside the Staircase. It was the opposite of Anthropogenic though and it didn't disappoint like Gore's Global Warming folk tales, this was nature laughing at our lack of control over our climate control, and it was delivering us a serious blow.

For the first part of the week, Calgary skipped over Spring and settled into Summer. A stale heat slow roasted the office until the only relief was the light breeze found during a brisk march in and around the cubicle farm (walk around with a piece of paper or a folder wearing a slight grimace or furled brow and you can get away with anything - people will just assume you're a working machine). Monday was bad, Tuesday was worse. After two days of working in the sweat box, I chose Wednesday's EngiNerd costume assuming my cubicle would once again become a sauna by 2pm; light pants, a short-sleeved shirt, a hydration pack... It was the only way to avoid heat stroke. It was nice.

By Thursday, Calgary's brief encounter with Summer had ended and it was back to Winter. This coincided with the introduction of the building's Central-Air. I don't know why it took three full days for the people making the big tough decisions to convince themselves that turning on the AC was a good idea, or why they left it on level 'Hurricane' for the rest of what became a miserably cold week, but they did, and we went very quickly from sauna to tundra. Maybe it's because I only have a month and a half of HVAC experience or because I'm two decades younger than everyone I work with that I just don't seem understand these complex issues yet.

It should be noted that HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation, Air-Conditioning, and that our company has one of the biggest HVAC departments in the city. It should also be noted that just like the backwards doors and the death-trap stairwells, no one has apologized to me for the Day After Tomorrow style temperature swings. Maybe I'm sensitive like that, but I feel like some one needs to step up and get a good old fashion stare-down until they say sorry to me and I consider forgiveness. In fact, just yesterday I got the opposite of an apology - I walked by a plaque in the main lobby of the building that said the following:

"1988 Building of the Year Award - awarded by the Building Owners & Managers Association of Calgary".

I waited. I actually looked around and waited for Kutcher and his hidden camera team, because this was too much, it was just too much. The fix was in. I guarantee that in the spring of '89, during the heat of the exciting awards season, some amazing creation was cleaning up on the Building red-carpet circuit only to feel the cold slap of rejection by the BOMA selection committee when the Giant Staircase stepped in for the upset. Hell, that plaque is probably a fake. I bet if I tried, I could get you a Building of the Year Award plaque, no problem. If Walter can get the Dude a toe by 3 o'clock, than I can definitely get you a plaque, believe me...

One final thought: if it wasn't for my obsession with saving my work (you only have to watch a computer screen go blank and eat your unsaved efforts once before you change your life as a writer), this article would not exist, because the power in the entire south end of the building just went out for a solid half hour. We're just lucky we didn't have to evacuate, cause the only thing worse than being known as the building full of HVAC engineers that can't figure out the Heating and Ventilation, is to be known as the building full of HVAC engineers piled up at the bottom of the stairwells of doom, trapped behind doors that don't open...

Still Lost...

‘Lost’ is not a pun, it is not a metaphor, it is not a literal mis-step. Lost is an Attitude. An Attitude that plagues so many with its destructive silence. Like its collection of characters, Lost mirrors the frustration of this Attitude by exposing it in its viewers. And it is in the exploration of this Attitude that your relationship with the show lies.

The rushed pursuit of a goal without pause for reflection is what allowed the show’s crippled heroes to disappear in the crowded chaos of a world that didn’t seem to care. Jack’s desire to fix people was clouded in obsession, Kate’s search for love, ignored with a front of strength, Sayid’s focus on the debilitating fear of his inner darkness, Hurley’s fixation on an ‘uncontrollable’ fate, Claire’s wavering fight against abandonment, Charlie’s comfort in his excuses to hide in the shadows, Jin and Sun’s self-imposed struggle to connect, Sawyer’s anger driven destructive therapy, Lock’s isolating need to prove his ability; the Island’s pull showcases the misery of distraction. They wanted the accomplishment, they wanted the destination, the satisfaction, the answer, they wanted to chase the next conquest. They always wanted what was just out of reach, and as they sacrificed to fight what surrounded them, the ‘reach’ tore them apart and became all that mattered.

This broken perspective that carried each character to Lost’s Island is the same driving force that blinds viewers into questioning the show’s execution. The poetry of the series is not in the words that told the story or in the magic that expanded an audience’s mind, it is in the ability of a show, seemingly contained behind the screen, to challenge its characters while manipulating the people who watched them to be challenged in the same way. Lost wasn’t about what was happening to the people on TV, it was about what was happening to the people who watched it.

Lost is a great show. This is not opinion. However you mix it, the formula creates one of the most well executed adventures to find television history:

Engaging – Intriguing and Mysterious Plot
Lost is a demanding show. It’s strange to talk about issues such as Commitment and Work Ethic with regards to a television series, but that is because most network friendly TV shows only explore the surface and never challenge the viewer to do anything other than show up. Active participation from the audience is a rare opportunity that most adventurous viewers have to dig deep below mass media to find. Both thought provoking and viral, the show was not limited to the confines of episodic structure, the haunting nature of Lost left for a week’s worth of discussion and decision between chapters.

Technically Perfect – a Collection of Quality Components
A major part of Lost’s personality is the powerful atmosphere that surrounded it. Without being a distraction the score, the setting, the camera, the playful lighting, the mind bending sound all contributed to an eerie feeling that at this point, even just the word ‘Lost’ evokes. The drifting title credit that red-carpeted the show’s arrival said as much as it said little, and that's a lot for us to handle.

Mix of Genres – Creating its Own Niche
The key is to push the limits. When it comes to fiction there is a special quality that lies in the fantastic. With a world like the one that Lost lives in, success is found on the brink of the unimaginable, as far from reality as the human mind will allow you to go without losing sight of what we can understand. If this world can take you to unexplored ideas while maintaining that life line, that link back to reality… that’s where evolution happens. The exercise is so good that dozens of ideas have worked to mimic the make-up of the show and join the club, only to come and go as a ‘nice try’. Lost’s connection to our lives is rooted in the guy-meets-girl, the adventure vs action, the dramatic suspense, and the comic relief, and by blurring the genre lines, they not only brought Lost to life, they gave it a life of its own.

Complexity – Well Developed Detail
Only once it is understood that there are no Red Herrings can the true extent of Lost’s ability be conceived. There are no attention diverting lies, there are only wandering elements of an intricate story. The layers of Lost make it so that information is forgotten and revelations that seem like questions are actually the answers to old unknowns. Along with cult classic references, hidden historical allusions, hints caught up in math and literature, intricate character connections, and an evolving stage complete with trap-doors, there are multiple storylines that crisscross through space and time linking episodes and ideas across seasons. The trick is to gaze a little wider and not restrict your mind to the present. Whether every element was part of the plan or the creators just Forrest Gump’d their way through this maze, it doesn’t matter, cause it works.

Approachable Themes – Common Topics with a Twist
Even with the intrigue of the unknown and the flair of the mystery, Lost revolved around universal issues of love, purpose, trust, betrayal, strength, fear, curiosity, good, evil and the in-between, and it addressed them all with a mix of unique creativity and traditional understanding. It was the same old, but with some new personality. No matter the mode of delivery, the message and subject were always as pure as the emotions that fueled them. This is what made the show accessible to such a diverse viewership, and this is one of the reasons it was about more than just a special Island.

Rich Characters – Some New and Some Old
The conflict between the complexity and the familiarity of the show’s players is what made Lost so compelling. Although many of the personalities that interacted within the story were foreign to prime time programming, the characters were real and recognizable and faulted in the same way as many who tuned in. The story dragged the crew of characters through dramatic events that broke them down, added to their history, changed their outlook, and massaged their core. From Flashback to Finale, each personality that lived in the show evolved, but managed to remain familiar at their foundation. The series could have unfolded in a hospital, or a school, or in the streets of London, and the journey of the characters would have brought them to a very similar place to where they are now. But Lost chose a different arena. And it was in this choice, this most peculiar of characters, that the benefit of uncertainty engaged the audience and made them participants in the Island’s games.

Extensively Entertaining – Boredom is not an Option
The show never stood still and never relied on formulaic certainty. From the surface level one-liners and Sawyer-style nicknames to the eerie suspense at the edge of the seat, the philosophically charged ideas to the conversations that dissected them, the unveiling of new discoveries to the tying of loose ends, the lovable friends to the dynamic villains, and the ever changing layout of the story’s telling, Lost was continually compelling and if nothing else, a fun ride.

Great argument and detailed discussion can’t alter the fact that these attributes are locked into the framework of the show. Over the course of six seasons these aspects have formed a personality that is unique to Lost. And although we contributed to its final shape, the heart of the show is beyond the reach of the arm-chair critic. Opinions and Comments quickly become Reviews and Criticism and Demands, and the majority of people put the show on trial. Nothing has changed though. There’s no need to continue to list off the specifications that map out Lost’s make-up, because these qualities aren’t a secret. The secret is that whether someone believes the show is good or bad is not a reflection on the show, but rather an expression of the reviewer. The viewer is the question mark. The viewer is the variable. There’s no need to defend Lost, or attack it, people need to investigate what it is within them that reacts with Lost if they want to figure things out.

Oceanic Flight 815 carried a microcosm of the world’s wandering issues, and as the flight crossed into prime time six years ago it brought with it an audience with the same diversity. There was a great collection of unique baggage, tightly packed with colourful backgrounds, an array of expectations based on nothing more than guesses and assumptions, different focal lengths used to see the world, and personalized approaches to life’s great game; and the characters in the show weren’t very different from these viewers either. When 815 piñata’d across the sky spilling out over the show’s start line, the experiment began. On both sides of the screen people were thrown into uncertainty, faced with extraordinary circumstance and a new landscape carved in questions. Viewers followed their Favourites, disagreed with decisions, placed themselves in hypotheticals, and as the mysteries revealed themselves so too did the theories. Very quickly the focus of the show became the island’s unknowns, and the battle of ideologies began – Faith vs Science.

The entire series revolves around that single simple question: Faith or Science? And the question isn’t being asked with respect to any of the Island’s riddles, it is a question that answers the state of mind. From the chaos of the broken beach in the first episode, to the Hatch, to the Others, to the Dharma Initiative, to the debate over what the Island is and why it is, the world of Lost was an arena of self discovery.

It wasn’t just Jack and Locke who were caught in the throes of belief. Every character found themselves rolling with the waves along the Faith-Science scale; ever changing, ever reevaluating, ever inquiring of themselves. The two philosophies are distinct and powerful. Science represents Logic, Analysis, Detail, Certainty, and Faith represents Patience, Trust, Wisdom, and Feeling. At various points during the journey, the show fueled frustration in the holders of both approaches. We saw this manifest itself not only in the conflict amongst the island’s castaways, but also in disagreement between couch castaways. Quite often Science can’t trust the imagination, and many viewers were unable to handle Lost’s mystery. Those viewers holding on to Science’s structure became aggravated and impatient with the growing complexity of a world layered in questions and tested by fantasy, and they walked away. But Faith was not always an easy path to take either. With trust comes expectation, and it wasn’t odd for Faith Fan viewers to become comfortable with what they believed Lost was telling them, only to feel abandoned by a new direction. Lost did not allow for predictability, or settle into a routine, Lost was constantly changing and forcing the audience to work to keep pace. Lost was a treatment for the Absolutes, if you needed it, and if you let it work its magic.


Oceanic Flight 815 and most of the other participants in the Island’s process needed this treatment, because Faith and Science didn’t begin when Jack woke up in the bamboo jungle. Before finding the Island, Lost’s characters were wavering with the question in their ‘normal’ lives and they were trying to answer it by avoidance in most cases. The Island was a special place whose rules offered an opportunity that people couldn’t find in the outside world. The Island was not a time for answers to be handed out or for questions to be understood, the Island was a time to figure out why the question was being asked at all.

The Lost Attitude is tied to the question of ‘Faith or Science’ in its pursuit of Absolutes. A need for understanding, a need for success, a need for answers, a need for it Now, all tend to compel people to quickly settle in certainty, no matter where they find it. But not everything is as simple as Yes vs No. These absolutes leave no room for growth, no room for evolution, no room for the dynamic. These absolutes are what drive the endless rush in life, nurture the disappointment and negativity in people. These absolutes tormented Jack, and Kate, and Locke, and Sawyer, put Lost out of the reach of many viewers, caused the faithful to question the finalé and the series as a whole. Without these absolutes Lost lives forever. Without these absolutes the show becomes more than its final episode.

The answer to ‘Faith or Science’ is the same as the answer to ‘Journey or Destination’. The answer is easy. The answer is both. And the Why associated with the asking of this question is both painfully simple and unapproachably expansive: your meaning of Life. If that’s enough for you than you’ve already Zen’d yourself into a peace far beyond most. If the ‘meaning of Life’ feels like an incomplete thought, it’s because it’s beyond a challenge to decide what balance of Faith and Science, Peace and War, Truth and Mystery is right for you. If we walked through a world of complete order, with every loose piece securely held in place, where around every corner there are more signs of ‘certainty’ and ‘understanding’ and ‘explanation’ waiting to ease our anxiety, we would be at the end. We would no longer need to live, or love, or explore. And the same goes for a world who has paved our path for us, where we simply open our eyes at the start of the day and take it all in while we get carried towards the conclusion. The excitement lies in the in-between, in that mind-set where adventure is found because not everything always fits every time. Where you are challenged to blend the logic of Science with the trust of Faith. It is in this special space that life is truly lived and that you go beyond just drifting by.

The show itself is almost as interesting as the way it affected people. Even weeks after ‘the End’ was aired, I am still revisiting the Island and exploring it’s secrets with help from hundreds and hundreds of enthusiasts. Anyone who can’t appreciate the genius in creating an immortal story and entertain their creativity with some imagination, is probably always miserable, and likely needs a little ‘Lost Island’ intervention of their own. The series is like the introduction of a young science in that it is covered in theory and skepticism. The art of it is that there is no right or wrong, there is just interpretation, extrapolation, assumption, and it’s not because it’s an incomplete story, it’s because the truth of the show is fluid and appears in different forms depending on who is looking at it. Interpretation is totally unique and personalized. The most important quality of the investigation though is a person’s entry point; Don’t fight the mysteries, have fun with them. The only way the shadows of Lost don’t make sense is if you never turn the lights on and close the door on curiosity.

My mind continually wanders through some of the best mysteries; the massive ones that envelop the entire series, the little details that tickle the sub-conscious, the unknowns I didn’t know I didn’t know until I started to know the unknowns they were hiding in. It’s putting the puzzle together now that all the pieces have been taken out of the box; the Island’s history in time and space, the continuity of the Flashbacks, -forwards, and -sideways, the Whispers in the Jungle, the connection between Jacob, the Smoke Monster, and the Others, the role of the 815 survivors, leaving the Island, finding the Island, understanding the Island. And although it’s not as easy as just snapping sections together, you shouldn’t want that kind of game, you shouldn’t want someone else to have all the fun while you stand and wait at the finish line for them. You should want to figure out the big picture even though some puzzle pieces are face down, others are piled on top of each other and partially hidden, others still may seem to look about right, but are actually upside down. It’s way too fun, and if it’s not, you need to figure out why.

Yeah it’s just a show, but then I guess clothes are just ‘what you wear’. It all tells a story. Even in not making a decision you’re telling the world about yourself. There are many television shows that do nothing more than colour silence with some grey background hum. They play one note, and they play it without any risk. There are suspense rides that let you peek out of your everyday comfort to feel a little extra, just like there are staged comedies that lob up juicy punch lines to give you a little tickle and a smile. This is the TV of Distraction, the TV of Fatigue, the TV of Passive-Escape. Lost is the TV of Provocation. It asks for engagement and it asks for contemplation and it asks for commentary. And since it does this from an aggressive stage, from the controversy of pushed boundaries, you need to reveal yourself to answer to the show. I learn more about a person from a quick cut at the show or a deep admiration for the character of Locke, than I do from a full fledged get-to-know-ya concerned with career and current events and hobbies. Lost is Lord of the Flies with a touch of the Dead Poets Society, it’s Memento and it’s Donnie Darko, it’s Fight Club’s lesson plan, it’s Inside Man’s IQ, it’s the 25th Hour’s struggle, it’s a love like Out of Sight with the edge of American Beauty, it’s Reservoir Dogs after the heist. Lost is just the beginning, because it now lives in your mind; it can change as you change, be rewatched and reunderstood, mean different things to you in different framework, bookmark your past self, and intrigue you at random. It’s that story that is reread differently every time, even if it’s never reread at all.

The series has come to an end, and now you have to decide where you stand. You have to decide if it worked for you. Did you find your way and join the Island’s disciples, ready to move on, with those who had found peace and understanding? Did you find balance? Did you discover and feel the effect of the Attitude? Did you step back, wait for patience, and find the reward of curiosity? Or do you need more time to explore your story, to explore the show, to find your understanding? Did you get it, or are you still Lost?

One of those Days...

Every now and then, I have a day where I am 1 part tired, 1 part enthusiastic, 1 part busy, 1 part anxious, and 1 part frustrated. The tired seems to hit me on a Tuesday or Wednesday, when the rest from the weekend has worn off and the rush of the work-week has caught up with me. The enthusiasm is usually based on a healthy to-do list that is full of Items of Choice, items that are smile worthy. However it is this same list of goods that makes up the 1-part-busy. Because of the fatigue I don’t have the energy to cope, and gradually the busy builds and counters the enthusiasm, until I am just one big ball of anxiety. As I worry and fall asleep and manage excitement with a lack of progress, the frustration sinks in. It’s not very serious though, it just makes for a mysterious and bizarre day that is beyond unpredictable. The good thing is it’s not a crippling formula, so I can bob and weave my way passed the punches and stay standing until the next round. I’ve discovered that the key to this ‘opportunity’ is identifying it and staying positive.

Today was one of those days, and it was a good one ;)

You've been, Strategified

Strategy. So it breaks down like this: it’s legal to create it, it’s legal to implement it, and if you’re the member of a hockey pool, it’s legal to argue it. It’s legal to change it, which doesn’t really matter ‘cause – get a load of this – if you win the Pool it’s illegal for them to question it. Questioning your Strategy is a right the NHL Poolies don’t have.

The post-season Pool I’m swimming around in is a warm soupy mess of mind games. The rules lull you into a peaceful and happy place where you ‘simply pick the winners’ and giggle at the flare and pizzazz conjured up by a clever little point-scoring scheme; on the surface the waters are calm.

Queue the behind the scenes coverage of my final round battle with the bracket. I’m in contention, but with only one series remaining I need to somehow pick the winner, pick a different team than the leader, and figure out a way to make both those question-marks coincide…

the Mind Map:
I want Chicago to win, and think that Chicago will win, but for the pool that doesn’t matter. If I have any hope of moving forward I need to pick for points, and pick away from the pack. So based on the assumption that the favoured team is Chicago, and that most people will think Chicago, I am going with Philadelphia... However, I am somewhat worried that everyone else is thinking the same thing, that this plan of mine isn’t so wily, and that I could ‘pick away’ from a group that’s picking away from themselves. I also realize that although no one in their right mind would consider Phili a Cup Contender, ‘right mind’ checked out of the game back when the Eastern Conference Finals cast seed 7 vs seed 8 in the starring roles. I need to pick opposite what I think everyone else thinks everyone else might pick. I’m pretty sure that instead of making the pull-move that everyone is anticipating, I don’t need to make the move at all, I just need to skate around everyone. I need Chicago. I’m going with Chicago to win the Stanley Cup.

Craziness accomplished. I submit my pick with crossed fingers and a few muttered regrets. A couple deep breaths later I gave my head a shake and realized that there was no way that anyone else was plugging that kind of brain power into this glorified guess. What was I thinking?! I’m not in a starring contest with Pierre McGuire here, I’m trying to outsmart an office full of EngiNerd Boys who can’t pronounce Toews. Chicago? Erroneous! Quit thinking Jack, all it does is get you into trouble.

Ten minutes later the official predictions were send out. Everyone picked Phili. Unbelievable! John Nash and I are laughing it up right now with the Goldblum and his Jurassic Park dinos – Game Theory versus the Butterflies, god the playoffs are a blast!

So we're back to the surface level fun:

- Chicago wins, I win, the world embrases my genius, and I let the tale get taller as I tell the story for years and years and years...

- Philadelphia wins, we never speak of this nonesense again, the blog post randomly disappears, and if the truth of my pick resurfaces, I kill the messanger, or I pretend I thought we were picking the loser...

Strategy. The key is to ignore your heart and listen to your big brain... then overthink it, then become your hearts biatch, then throw out all logic, then count to 10... then second guess your gut, hate yourself when you wake up at square-one, go back to the big brain, ignore it, question your heart, flip a coin, take a nap... then look at a blank piece of paper, turn it over, circle some things and scribble some arrows, pace like a lunatic, tell no one, then go back to your first decision, and pick the opposite... or something like that. If it works, tell everyone, if it doesn't, just say you didn't try, wink, and let a smile creep up one side of your face - people will just be confused and forget the whole thing.

Go Hawks, Own your crazy, and Good luck your your next big decision. Unleash your Strategification!

the Daily Safety Thought

So, at work we get these Daily Safety Thoughts. I like them. It’s a short email that wanders into my inbox every morning, quietly waiting for a moment when I can sneak away from the chaos of the ant farm and steal myself some know-how. The pocket-sized message covers a whole variety of subjects that touch on all aspects of life, leaving no hobby unexamined and no routine without analysis. The Safety Thought is a single serving of quick-and-easy that tricks me into passively investing into the Hi-Jacked! Bank O’ Knowledge; in striving to become a true Wisdom Warrior I’m a sucker for the Tid-Bit. Since this daily package of info doesn’t require hours of digging, or anything more than a single click of the mouse for that matter, it’s easy to mistaken what’s happening for ‘Fun’; when really it’s very much Fun’s estranged, pouty step-bro, Learning, trying to sneak into the party dressed like the cool kids - and the little guy's pulling it off. The Daily Safety Thought, best thing since sliced work-week (let the 3-day weekend revolution begin). Slowly but surely I am expanding my library’s selection of fun facts.

That’s not to say that I crack open the email and just let the sneaky b@sTerd set up shop in my mind without a little hey-how-are-ya first. I expect a working visa, some credentials, a reason to believe the message is more than just some sort of clever word pay – I expect quality. So when today’s Thought strolled into my inbox with its flashy swagger and its user-friendly buzz words, I called in the canines…

Is Television Bad For Your Health?

My daughter has a specific ailment with symptoms of hearing loss, inattention, and loss of mobility. You can talk to hear but when she has this condition, it’s like she isn’t really there. The good news is that it seems to occur during a specific activity. Watching her favorite television show.

Your mom may have been right about the dangers of television. In a recent publication provided by WorkCare, a study of over 8,800 adults found an 18 percent increase in the risk of heart disease for every hour of television watched per day. Study participants met the following criteria:

• Both healthy and unhealthy weight
• Exercised at least 30-45 minutes per day
• Had no history of heart disease

MESSAGE: Too much sitting is bad for your health. In addition to exercising regularly and eating healthy, avoid sitting for long periods of time.


So if I’m reading this right, and I like to think that I am, we have two options, ‘don’t watch TV and live’ or ‘Diiiiiiiiiiiiiie!’. Hmmm, well when you put it that way, I guess I better police-tap my TV room and trade Showtime for Booktime… REALLY?! TV kills? Is that the neatly wrapped gift of goodness that you’re selling? Come on. This game doesn’t work anymore, you can’t just hate on television because nobody likes you. Wake up and smell the cooking channel; La Restaurant de Télé is now serving 5-star delicacies from its made-to-measure menu. This has nothing to do with television and everything to do with you not having any friends.

First off, leave your daughter alone. She’s effing watching her favourite show! She doesn’t put herself between you and you’re needle-point during a mad creative outburst, so why are you nagging and trying to wreck her world during her special time. Just wait for a commercial, and then you can do all the interrupting you want with your Me-Me-Me episodes.

Second, are you actually sending me these lies while I sit, with my body slowly solidifying, at my desk? Really?! Really Safety Thought?! How about making things interesting, how about you call out the 9-to-5 virus that’s eating away at my situation. I am totally on board with Mobility. I’m not surprised that sitting for ridiculously long periods of time would cause our bodies to rebel. We weren’t built to statue-up, day after day, leaving us wondering why we need an elevator to avoid stairs and a limp to help us walk. But seriously, this is the platform that you’ve built to band-stand from, ‘TV is Bad’? I can only imagine what you would say if you knew that I had a TV in my bedroom, where I sleep, for extended periods of time. I wonder if too much lying down also increases heart disease?

Which brings me to point number three. You can’t just claim crazy things like ’18 percent increase in risk of heart disease for every hour of television watched per day’, regardless of your physical health, and not delve a little deeper. Is it specifically sitting while in front of colour projection, or am I at risk if I consider the Showtime-Booktime trade? Can I use this study as an excuse to never again have to sit through one of those long Uni lectures that have tried to suck my soul dry of its life essence? What if I hamster-it-up on a treadmill and chase down my TV show at a comfortable jog (that’s with a soft ‘j’)? What if I steal a TV, and instead of ride in the getaway I use the flatscreen as a sail and I hoof-it a la Trainspotting? What then Safety Topic, what then?

Too much? Did I go overboard on this one? I know it’s just my little friend the Daily Safety Topic, but I can’t help it, it’s Friday, I’m all hyped up and jazzed for the weekend. Plus I have no patience for that worn out ‘TV is the Devil’ argument anymore, even Ned Flanders grabs his gospel from the Tube these days. I will say this, Mobility is key. And whether it’s rolling as a desk jockey or potatoing on your couch (via TV, romance novel, gaming session, deep dedicated Zen), you need to get your move-and-groove on sooner than later.




I will also say this, the lesson to learn from this little exposé is do not mess with a Favourite TV Show. Unless I can hit the two-bars and pause the screen gems, I’m going to go with the Hi-Jacked!-is-out-of-order idea and set up the “ignore the Charlie-Brown drowning voice” autopilot nod. And that's my calm and happy approach to the Nag, we can always do things the hard ways. As you know I take my TV seriously...

and that is your Daily Safety Thought from Hi-Jacked!


for more on Mobility check out Mark's Daily Apple:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/?s=Joint+Mobility

Entourage Update: Audition Debrief

I’m still not entirely sure how it all happened, but the audition went really well. I was a good mix of Energized-Excitement and Nervous-Wreck, but I had no expectations of finding Greatness today. I actually had to gather myself before driving away from the casting, playing back the string of events to make sure it had all actually happened. Turns out, it did.

By the end of the first of two run-thrus I was a big mess of a crying baby… and that’s a good thing, the scene called for it. Rhonda (the casting agent and Queen of the audition auditorium) saw the raw emotion, let a little anticipation slip, and got the camera guy to quickly set up for another take. She told me to try the scene again while in this new head-space (aka all-crying-and-whatnot). The second reading was great. It was complex and driven. I fought to keep the emotion down while working through the scene, and then, between bouts of frustrated energy, I let the guilt and sadness and disappointment bubble back up to the surface. I could see the effect change Rhonda as she read for me, and that continued to pull me deeper into the exchange. By the end of the scene, when there was nothing left to hide behind, I had created a strong character that was totally broken and exhausted. The conflict within me was huge, and it made the ‘acting’ very natural.

Rhonda seemed to really love it. Having gone out and auditioned for her before, I know that she is not in the habit of performing much beyond the audition scene. So her reaction was the real deal. At this point I don’t even care if I get the part. Not only am I excited about having risen to the occasion, proving to myself that I can play the Game, but Rhonda does a lot of castings and auditions and having performed well for her will go a long way to making sure it’s not my last appearance in the casting room. Plus, wow, it feels gooooooood to create like that. It’s amazing that ‘make believe’ can make you feel so alive.

So it’s been another great Thursday so far. Who doesn’t like a lunch hour roller coaster ride from cubicle to water-works to cubicle again? The best part was that I actually Clark-Kent'd-it in the truck, spinning in and out of the EngiNerd costume, hiding my ‘by-day’ from my ‘by-night’. And the fun has just begun; plenty more of the engineering world left before I Fred Flintstone out of the 9-to-5, catch some NHL do-or-die, hit the soccer pitch, and prep for tomorrow’s introduction to the long weekend. I feel like the only thing I’m missing is a George Costanza sous-desk siesta, then again, the afternoon is still young.

As for the ways and workings of the performance, well, the key to any big scene is

Mele Kalikimaka

I've been embarrassed before. I've felt the boiling presence of humiliation flood my face. I've wanted to do magic to disappear, to erase memories, to turn back time (immediately being embarrassed about wanting to 'do magic'). I've intercepted a wave that wasn't mine to have. I’ve been worried about how to conceal an explosive sneeze only to have a fart slip out. I’ve started up a personal conversation and become gooey and vulnerable with a friend, then discovered that it wasn't him, it was his twin brother who I'd never met nor knew existed. I've found embarrassment in odd and wonderful places, places that don't expect the level of awkwardness I've managed to create. I've said stuff I've regretted, and regret stuff that I've done, and done stuff I don't want to say. I watched a season of the Hills, I own and still wear an Engineering T-shirt, I cried once, really hard, sobs and whatnot, when a girl made fun of my hair, my glasses are the same ones that Dwight Shrute and most pedophile-rapists hide behind, I once fell asleep at work during a one-on-one meeting, only a few months ago I spit beer all over my girlfriend's family at a wedding hours after meeting them for the first time, I got caught by a co-worker trying to practice holding my breath while alone in my cubicle, I've lied and got caught, stolen and got caught, cheated and got caught, one time I tried to kiss a girl and she faded back and laughed at me... and yet none of this compares to what happened on Monday, April 26th, 2010: Four days before the month of May, I took down the Christmas Lights.

We're not talking a string or two of white LEDs artfully highlighting a small tree. Or a few x-mas leftovers, hidden and out of the way. We're talking a Clark Griswold House-Constellation. Hundreds and hundreds of lights spread across the entire property like an infection enjoying a holiday outbreak. 28 Days Later wouldn’t be a problem, no, not that kind of tame little epidemic, this was its bad@ss sequel of an outbreak, 28 WEEKS later.

Why did I have to be so flashy in December? You can't ignore this kind of Pizzazz. I turned our modest little lot into a Whooville-style Grinch bullz-eye - all the hip new LEDs, the sparkling mini incandescents, the old school C7s and C9s, those heavy duty curtains, and the dancing icicles. Stupid icicle lights - the things are like Fisher Price ivy, tangling themselves up all over the house and ruining my world. But it didn't stop there, I went all la-dee-da with spot lights, and ribbons, and wreaths, and garlands galore. Sure, sure, this is all great in December, maybe even the first stretch of January. But this is when it’s okay to ‘spread the cheer’, when you’re allowed to be 'in the spirit', when people use the word ‘Jolly’ and smile and everything. But come April, there’s no smiling. You can’t talk about “Chestnuts roasting by the Open Fire…” or “Jack Frost nipping at your nose…”, because you will get effing knocked out. No one actually likes chestnuts, or Jack Frost for that matter (he is a big douche bag, unless it’s exactly December 24th and pretty little snowflakes are colouring the scene, then he’s an average douche bag). Have you ever listened to a Christmas Carol during the off-season? Worst songs ever! But that’s not the point, the point is that the last thing people want when it’s not Christmas is to be reminded that it’s not Christmas. So basically lights up in April is an act of war. It’s part of the rules of suburban engagement; if it’s Spring and you have a neighbor flashing the Red-and-Green, you can open up fire, like Scroog, Pre-Ghost-of-Christmas-Past style.

At this point, the point when you realize that birds are nesting on your oversized Santa figurine, since all the good ‘dog-at-my-homework’ style excuses are months passed their expiry date, what remains are the bad lies and the self-deprecation and the Truth. In response to the question ‘Why in the Eff is your house covered in Christmas?!’, you can select any of the following that apply (minimum of one must be selected, because remember, it is April, you still have lights up, you are not normal). You are:

- Lazy
- Not Living There
- Not Living at All
- A Red Neck
- Spreading Cheer Year-Round (aka Lazy AND a Jack@ss)
- Physically Disabled
- Afraid of Heights
- Afraid of the Outside World (aka Nerd / EngiNerd / Lost Cause)
- Afraid of Everything
- Allergic to Air, the Sun, or Responsibility (aka a Liar)
- Efficient with Your Christmas Set-up Energy (aka Lazy, but Witty)
- Had to Return some Videotapes (you are Patrick Bateman, you have bigger problems that Christmas Lights)
- Superhero (kinda busy)
- Building an Iron Man suite (kinda a Superhero)
- Still Building the IKEA Entertainment Unit you got for Christmas (kinda an Idiot – only ‘kinda’ though, because those IKEA Swedish Meatball are ‘kinda an Idiot’ too)
- A Crazy Person
- Not a Person

I was the very worst of these options: Lazy. You might think Red Neck or Crazy Person or maybe Dead would have been considered the 'worst' option, and yeah , they're up there, but out of all the other reasons why one might still have Christmas lights crawling all over their situation deep into Spring, Lazy is the only option that isn't a forced scenario or a conscious choice. Lazy is a Disaster. The Red Neck knows what's going on, Afraid-of-Heights is a big baby, climbing up on the roof to tangle up some strings isn't a high priority for someone who can’t walk, Mr. Efficient is getting creative, Mademoiselle Spreading-the-Cheer is delusional, Iron-Man-Suit guy is trying to save the world, Patrick Bateman has a full To-Do list, even the IKEA SuperFan has decided to devote his or her or it’s life to a Cause (defeating the Swedish Meatball). ‘Lazy’ just simply took 4 months to get around to it. ‘Lazy’ couldn’t even come up with a legitimate excuse like the ‘Allergic to Air’ Nerd. ‘Lazy’ is a complete and total Disaster.

So, back to the embarrassment. I walk outside, hiding behind sunglasses and a ball cap like I’m a celebrity ducking fame, and I start fighting with the first string. The freakin tree has grown leaves that have swallowed up all the lights, making the task tougher than taking candy from a baby, or from a fat person, or from me (have you actually ever tried to take candy from a baby, it’s not easy, forget the cliché, babies love candy and if they’re teething, they also love biting hands). It looks like I’m fishing and reenacting the Old Man and the Sea, but the sea is a tree and the old man is me and forget Hemingway’s heroic cause this humiliation’s free. Next thing you know people are opening their front doors, dogs are barking, cars are slow rolling passed the crazy guy who’s lassoed a tree, and I am fully aware of the attention. But whatever, who cares what people think right? Wrong! I am one of those people. I am one of those guys who sees something ridiculous and I lock-in to enjoy it. I don’t judge, because at that point you don’t need to judge, the judging is the answer to the rhetorical question, you just need to sit back and soak in the absurdity. I love watching stupidity unfold, and it’s a one way street, so I don’t want to be involved in creating it.

An hour and a half passes. That is an absurd amount of time to spend packing up Christmas, in APRIL!!! No one has said a word to me. Not a dog-walker, a mailman, a strolling couple, or a bike-riding child would even dare hold eye contact. There were a couple neighbors who pulled up and gave a wave as they headed inside, but they shut down the Mr. Rogers act and gave a smell-the-farts look as they tried to figure out the Christmas decorations.

By the time I had called it quits I looked like the wrong end of a chuteless sky-diving expedition. Those cute little tree branches had sliced up my arms, the treasures of a full eaves trough covered my clothes, I was sweaty, dirty, and exhausted. I stumbled into the house and my brother Kramer'd around the corner.

“Dude, where were you? You’ve been gone for like- Jesus, you look terrible…”

I tell him about as much of the story as you now know. He then does three things: Laughs, tells me he hates taking down Christmas lights and would never spend that much time doing it, turns around and walks away. The guy lives in the same house as me!

I’ve decided that this is a pattern that is quite common in my life. Going to work, spending money, staying up until 3am, eating a full bag of popcorn, going for long, exhausting, devastating runs, and putting up millions and millions of Christmas lights; the consequences are enough to scare me straight, but the shock of it fades in time for me to make the mistake all over again. Live and don’t learn. Most of the time I even go so far as to Swear that I will never do it again. I have a feeling that the only thing that will change next year is that I probably won’t blog about it, because one time is silly and kind of fun, but two time is just sad.



Alright, so are you ready for the embarrassing part? I didn’t finish. There are still Christmas lights hanging in our back yard. It is now the middle of May and we are still celebrating December 25th, 2009 at Hi-Jacked! Headquarters. I’m out of things to say. There’s no explanation that makes this anything other than what it is, an embarrassment. I guess on the plus side, at least I know that I’m a Disaster, and accepting that you have (or in this case Are) a problem is half the battle. So Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy May Long.

Now, with all that said, let’s say, just for arguments sake, that I was a Superhero, 'Lazy' would probably be my go-to cover up…