March 23 2021 - Today's Hottest Jobs

 

The jobs that came up for the hottest jobs were a sorry group - caregiver, nurses aide, and so on.  I was thinking more about careers that young people might aspire to, not minimum wage jobs.  So I eventually found the hot jobs in IT. Today a project in IT is managed by someone with a certificate in PMP, PMI or Scrum Master.   There's a title! What would I do as a Scrum Master? "As a Scrum Master, you’ll help your team perform at their highest level. As the expert of Scrum values, principles, and practices, the Scrum Master protects the team from both internal and external distractions. Scrum Masters tend to be people-oriented, have a high level of emotional intelligence, and a passion for helping their team members thrive." "In a nutshell, Scrum requires a Scrum Master to foster an environment where: A Product Owner orders the work for a complex problem into a Product Backlog. The Scrum Team turns a selection of the work into an Increment of value during a Sprint. The Scrum Team and its stakeholders inspect the results and adjust for the next Sprint. Repeat" Scrum brings to mind the dictionary definition - a place or situation of confusion and racket; hubbub. verb (used without object).  The Scrum approach is based on the rugby formation of players - locking arms, packed closely together with their heads down, attempting to gain possession of the ball.   Isn't this an obvious male athlete metaphor. It makes me think somehow this is attractive to engineers.  That's because I remember them at Imperial Oil talking about playing "toilet footfall" which they called a "scrum game".  The football is thrown high in the air and everyone piles towards and then onto the person it will land on or will catch it.  Hence the toilet reference as the person and football are buried far below the group.   Soon the first Daffodils will be blooming - not these, though, these are the last to bloom Poeticus, Poet's daffodil. Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Mar 17 2021 - How Many Shamrocks in a Collection?

 

Today is being celebrated everywhere - somehow St. Patrick's Day is very popular.  It isn't actually "somehow"  - it is because of the U.S. with its large Irish populations took on parades with gusto.  Turning things green encompasses more than beer: the Sydney Opera House took part in displaying green this year.   Its symbol, the Shamrock, is Oxalis regnellii and has the  clover-shaped leaves that have come to symbolize the good luck Shamrocks are known for.  Even though it is clover that is the three-leaved plant that St. Patrick picked to explain the Holy Trinity.  For four-leaf clovers, their luck has a history. Druids believed that the four leaves represented the four elements of alchemy: earth, fire, water, and air. They used them as charms against bad spirits. "Four-leaf-clover-collector record holder Edward Martin would also agree on its luck; he’s found 160,000. And anyone who’s knelt in a clover field to beat the 1-in-10,000 odds might also say it’s lucky. But historians, botanists, and Irish purists all agree on this: When you find one, don’t call it a shamrock." Guinness World Records says that he has a collection of 111,060 as of May 2007 and has been collecting since 1999.  What a lot of cataloguing!  How do you store them?   I went looking and found lots of possibilities. I don't think he's cast them in resin or on the inside of bottle caps, or made silver key chains out of them.   There is a blurry picture of his catalogue records - it is HERE.  Did you know there are records for the most number of leaves on a clover - 21-leaf clover and 56-leaf clover pictures show up on google images.   More diptychs today. Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

March 6 2021 - The River Nith

 

That is a Biblical name for a river.  It is near Brantford, and was the location where Wayne Gretzky's father, Walter grew up.  The original river is in Scotland, so I guess our southwestern Ontario river is named after it. Walter died yesterday at the age of 82.  He is known as Canada's hockey dad, as the world's hockey dad, and as the father of hockey's great one.  He had a big impact on the social fabric of hockey.  "Walter remained a blue-collar symbol of a devoted hockey parent in a country filled with them." From the Globe and Mail obituary: Wayne recalled crying after his first year of hockey when he didn’t receive a trophy at the end of the season. “Wayne, keep practicing and one day you’re going have so many trophies we’re not going to have room for them all,” his father said. In 2010, Walter Gretzky carried the Olympic torch before the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Games in Vancouver, where Wayne lit the Olympic flame. Walter answered a question: What’s it like being Wayne Gretzky’s dad? ”I say that mostly it’s been fantastic beyond my wildest dreams,” he wrote. ”It’s given me the chance to travel widely, meet amazing people and do things that I never would have had the opportunity to do otherwise. I love to tell stories, and believe me, these experiences have given me some good ones! It’s all been a great adventure, and I’ve been happy to share it with my family and friends.” In 2010, Walter carried the Olympic torch on the last day of the Olympic relay in the lead-up to the opening ceremonies in Vancouver, where Wayne lit the Olympic flame. My latest project is diptychs. Typically they are two panels, often rectangles.   The abstract comes from the bottom of a boat being worked on at the Port Dalhousie boat club.  This area has been closed for the last few years as they work on the pier at the lighthouse, making it safe again.   Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca