Vicarious Life

My hydrogeologist friend Peter has a blog. It makes mine look very boring indeed. He stayed with my wife and me recently for a week, so hopefully he'll remember us when he's famous. I'm pretty sure he's going to win a Nobel prize for something.

The title

I had a hard time coming up with a title for my blog. One day I was fooling around with Google's language tools and tried typing 'Hoffmann' (the real German form of my last name) and translating it from German to English. I kind of liked the result, so that is my title.

This is hard

I never thought maintaining a blog would be this hard. I have all new respect for those bloggers I read daily, who manage to create something worth reading every day. Wow. I must soldier on - for the people. [I believe "the people" total about 3] The people demand more from me!

The hardest thing I find is that there are many interesting things going on in my life, but I don't really want to publish these things on the internet. I mean, I could talk about my job, but that would break several rules of confidentiality. I could gossip about all of my friends, but that wouldn't be good either. I could talk about my wife, but she would murder me if I did this. On top of all that, I'm not a real 'open book' type of person. I keep a lot of things to myself. I just finished reading a book by Donald Miller, and I can't believe how vulnerable he makes himself in terms of writing things that normally people wouldn't share. Why are we so careful to filter everything we say? Does anybody really talk to anybody anymore?

I was recently introduced to the term 'analysis paralysis'. I think I have a chronic case. If I think too much about what I'll write in my blog I'll never keep this up. I just need to start typing and see what comes out of my fingers.

I've missed you, CBC

I love the CBC.

Does that mean I love everything about the CBC? No. Sometimes it drives me crazy, and I often disagree with the views expressed.

Does that mean I love every show on CBC radio and television? No. I highly dislike many of them.

Does that mean I think it's fair that private broadcasters have to make it on their own, while the CBC gets millions in government funding? No, and I would vote against CBC funding in a referendum, under certain circumstances.

I love the CBC for three reasons.

1. Commercial-free radio with unique content
2. Excellent television news
3. The National Research Council 1:00 PM time signal

Note that Hockey Night in Canada is not on the list.

I've missed the CBC these many weeks during their labour dispute. I'm glad they're back.