richard cleaver

New Year Resolutions

January 10, 2012

At the end of each year, I go through a process of revisiting my long-term goals and objectives within the context of my personal values. I first put these values together back in 1989:

I love God with all my heart, mind and strength
I seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. I show my love for the Lord by living his laws. I pray often, expressing my appreciation and love for all that the Lord has given to me. I demonstrate my love by the life I lead and by my untiring effort to serve Him in whatever capacity I am called.

I love my neighbour as myself
I recognize and accept the fact that all men and women are equal in the sight of God. I never do anything in any way to harm or destroy the self-worth of another human being. As far as I am able, I aid all people in their needs.

I am an outstanding husband and father
I love my family and I build a close relationship with my wife and children by showing care, respect and kindness. I take sufficient time to help each realize his or her maximum potential and self-fulfillment. I help my wife and children in their spiritual, intellectual, social, professional and financial needs.

I foster intellectual growth
I develop myself with a depth and breadth of reading and thought. I read regularly each day. I select my reading from the best books and articles of the day. I develop my musical skills in guitar, bass, percussion and my audio engineering skills.

I am honest in all things
I am honest with myself first recognizing that to be honest with other people requires that I first be honest with myself. I listen to my conscience on all decisions.

I maintain a strong and healthy body
I eat, sleep and exercise in such a manner as to maintain a high level of energy.

I value my time
I manage my time to gain control of the events in my life. I manage what I do according to my values.

I am financially independent
I have developed an income that will be present whether I am capable of working or not. My family’s needs are taken care of in such a way that they will never be without food, shelter, transportation or education.

I listen well
I listen carefully to all input, both positive and negative, weigh it and then respond with respect and love.

I have order in my life at all times
I maintain a sense of order in all aspects of my life. My physical surroundings are always clean, organized and structured so that they bring calm into my life.

The new year provides me an opportunity to think about what is truly important in life against my personal values. And it also affords me an opportunity to do a reality check on how well I am doing against these values. In other words: what should I be doing differently, or better, in the new year.

My goals are broken out into six broad categories:

Family Goals
Spiritual Goals
Intellectual Goals
Physical Goals
Financial Goals
Career Goals

When I initially thought about the new year in 2012, I looked at the easy goals. The ones that can be measured and achieved without too much effort. Savings and investments, exercise, reading lists, work. Those goals will come easily to me. The harder ones involve family and faith.

I love my family. And, being a Dad, I tend to think I am doing my job by providing for my family. By making time for my family. But lately I have come to realize that I am not doing enough to show my family how much I love them by caring for them. And by caring I mean being always patient, always understanding and always kind. Helping them to achieve their potential.

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Nous Partons

January 6, 2012

We make our way back home this morning. We enjoyed a wonderful break in Quebec — both in Montreal and Quebec City. Yesterday we did the long walk around the old city. The weather had warmed up to a relatively mild -10C. Warm enough that we could walk for several hours. Here are a few shots from the day.

We followed a walkway that led us up to the Citadel. Wonderful views of the St. Lawrence.

The Citadel itself is quite the encampment. I like this shot because it captures the sense of cold and isolation within a large and vibrant city.

We made our way over to the National Assembly. Lorraine and Matthew pose at the gates to the old city.

And here is a shot of the National Assembly.

The weather was warm enough to encourage passengers to try the carriages — although still too cold “pour moi”.

And a few shots from the old city.

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Vieux-Quebec

January 5, 2012

To shoot outside and at night provided some interesting challenges. After a few outings, I thought about just shooting indoor shots — like the one above taken in the hotel lobby.

Obviously the first challenge in shooting outdoors in the freezing cold was how to dress.

In Kingston, we do not get the minus 30 Celsius wind chills. At least not very often. In this area, the cold is quite brutal. And I have hiked in the far north in very cold conditions.

I had a merino sweater. A Merrell outerwear jacket specially designed for hiking in cold environments. Insulated gloves and headwear. In short, every possible technology to endure the harsh winter climate. Even with all of that I could only stay outside for about an hour or so before things started to get difficult — primarily the fingers. Here is what yours truly looked like before heading outside.

And here are a few shots from the evening. First up is the hotel itself. The Chateau Frontenac.

Some street shots in the old city.

Lots of interesting architectural details in the historic buildings.

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Patiner

January 5, 2012

Nous sommes alles patiner hier a les galeries de la capitale et c’etait tres amusant!

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Le Petit Chateau

January 4, 2012

Matthew has had no choice but to jump in to the Quebec culture.

Although it was much easier to appreciate the food particularly when we arrived for lunch at Le Petit Chateau.

Chocolat chaud, soupe aux pois et les crepes. Crepes filled with maple butter. Incroyable!

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Quebec City

January 4, 2012

We arrived at the Chateau Frontenac in the old city of Quebec. The city is beautiful and cold. Very, very cold.

The wind chill was hovering around -30C. Which made using a camera a particularly challenging task. During the daylight hours I kept the camera on a classic setting — f/8 and be there — as I was having a lot of difficulty rotating the command wheel to adjust my aperture setting. At night, I found a way to apply sufficient pressure to get the wheel moving. At these temperatures, I was not removing my gloves.

Here are a few shots from the day.

The Chateau Frontenac is a huge and imposing hotel.

Well appointed main areas like this one.

And this one.

There were no passengers on the carriages.

Numerous shops line the old city and each one is quite unique.

Even the inside of some of the shops show a bewildering array of product.

And a few night shots. Did I mention that it was cold? Really, really cold?

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Unplugged

January 3, 2012

With Xplornet, we are accustomed to frequent interruptions of service — generally an Internet experience that can best be described as slow, unreliable and expensive. I continue to hope that one day we will have an alternative in our rural area.

On Friday of last week, Lorraine told me that the Internet was down again. Not uncommon. Usually it is just symptomatic of an oversubscribed tower and, with everyone home for the holidays, I just assumed that the service would come back.

It did not.

We have been unplugged since then. After spending a few hours with Xplornet’s support line — I loved the greeting message: “please note that we are experiencing higher than normal volume of service calls” — we have to wait for an onsite service call. As we are traveling, it means no Internet for at least a couple of weeks. At least not from home. And my oldest son, who is back at home, is not too happy about the lack of Internet access.

I am in Montreal right now — in the lobby of the Loews Hotel Vogue — jacked into Loews free WiFi service. I will try to make arrangements for the onsite visit to happen as soon as possible.

Frankly, I am a bit surprised as to how dependent we have become on being connected. As we are traveling to Montreal and then on to Quebec city, even the most simple of tasks, like booking and confirming hotels, online banking, managing investments, all become somewhat more challenging when there is not an Internet connection.

Fortunately, we will be back online later today once we arrive in Quebec city. We’ll be frozen as the temperatures have dipped into the Arctic zone but if my fingers can still function, I will have an Internet browser back up in the hotel room.

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