Do you dare wear short-shorts?

If you’re my age and can pull off short-shorts, all the power to you.

If you’re a young woman with long tanned legs you want to show off, all the power to you.

But please — let’s not dress our young girls in short-shorts.

{click here to see why I’m such a prude about short-shorts! It’s my new post on the Life As A Human e-zine}

In today’s Travel Section, I have two articles for your morning coffee:

#1: What a woman wants: how hotels can cater better to women business travellers and a list of hotels going all out to do so. Women entrepreneurs interviewed for this piece are Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist, Kelly Fallis of The Remote Sylist, and Ottawa’s own Annie Crombie of Re-Think Strategic Consulting.

#2. Five worth the drive for a March Break getaway: If you haven’t organized anything for March Break, fear not, it’s not too late. Here are five ideas for you that are easy to get to and offer lots of fun for the whole family. You’ll probably recognize some of the places immediately because I’ve blogged about visiting them recently (tried, tested and true!)

I don’t ever remember a time when I did not feel proud to be a Canadian. It’s similar in fierceness to the pride I’ve always felt for my family. It runs right to the core.

I drink my Double-double’s at Timmys, I buy my backpack from MEC and I bite my nails to the quick when Canada’s hockey team is in the Olympic finals. But these are just outward expressions of pride. They are not actually the things I am proud of.

What I’m actually proud of is Canada’s long-standing history as a peace-keeping nation, the enormous natural beauty found in each of our provinces, the multi-cultures that fill our streets and the respect granted for all human rights.

But Minister Kenney, you stepped on my Canadian pride when you stripped gay rights from the guides that Canada provides to its new immigrants. Gay rights cannot be taken for granted; gay rights need to be in this guide. In dozens of countries around the world, homosexuality is illegal. So criminal, in fact, that some countries enact the death penalty.

Don’t you think that a newcomer to Canada would like to know that Canada is a forerunner in the protection of gay rights? That homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969. That the Charter of Rights and Freedoms forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation. That same-sex marriage was legalized nationally in 2005.

Kind of important information, don’t you think? That here, in our country, it is not acceptable to discriminate based on race, gender, age, national origin, religion OR sexual orientation. Immigrants need to know their rights and the rights of their fellow citizens. It’s pretty basic, I would think.

And I would also think that without this information, the $400,000 spent on this guide will be a waste. Because if a guide to a new country doesn’t tell you what your basic human rights are, then it’s not much of a guide.

I’m not so much as disappointed about this arguably shameful waste of taxpayer money as I am disappointed that you stepped on my Canadian pride.

Sincerely,

Julie Harrison

So much so that when K.D. Lang launched into crooning her melancholy lyrics:

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Stella broke out in frustrated, over-tired tears: “MORE singing?!! Why are they doing more singing! Isn’t this a sporting event!”

Technical errors can happen to even the most well-planned event, but meticulously planning to bore the world with a series of extended songs by artists most people don’t recognize is inexcusable. (Oh, and scaring them to death with the demonic, over-tatooed fiddlers – that was a special touch.)

By the time poor, embarrassed Gretzy finished the lightening ceremony, I don’t think I was alone in sighing my own Hallelujah!

I got a heads-up from Ann Douglas’ blog at parentcentral.ca that it was coming and I was intrigued. In her review, Douglas concludes that this “hyper-parenting” phenomenon is largely a thing of the past:

The documentary is worth watching, if only as a reminder of where we’ve been and how far we’ve come in rejecting the consumerist parenting style that views parents as manufacturers and kids as products to be paraded before the neighbors and the relatives.

I’m not so sure, though. I think hyper-parenting is still highly pervasive in one form or another.

As example, I know a college professor who refuses to take calls from the parents of students — he finds it utterly ludicrous that he would need to speak to the parent of an adult. But apparently a lot of the parents don’t think so, because it keeps happening year after year.

I also know a senior high-school teacher who, although he loves his job, does admit to the frustration of dealing with “enabled” students and their parents. If a student, as example, does not hand-in their assignment and as a result is not allowed to progress to the next task, he can expect a parent call. And when the parent doesn’t get what they want from speaking to the teacher, they’ll move on up to the vice-principal. In a school system that barely allows students to be held accountable for their actions, parents like this only seem to compound the issue.

How these same young people will ever live as independent adults is anyone’s guess. Which is why the documentary was particularly fascinating when it focused on young adults that were not long out of the nest. Some were university students hobbled by anxiety. And then there was one young woman who seemed to epitomize the issue perfectly. She was bright, but seemingly clueless when it came to “real life” smarts. She cited being let go from a number of jobs due to attitude, lateness and disrespect for senior colleagues.

At the point when the documentary catches her, she’d chosen to leave a job that paid 90,000/year to start her own business. The business never took off and we see her prancing into an office to discuss bankruptcy with a designer bag, takeaway coffee and iPhone phone in hand. And what will happen to this helpless creature? Oh, mommy and daddy will surely take her back in. They’ve already been subsidizing her rent, after all.

Perhaps when Douglas suggests that hyper-parenting is no longer a common practice, she’s referring more to the over-indulgence of consumer goods upon children — the latest toys, video games and designer clothes — as grossly demonstrated in the documentary’s coverage of a $4,000 birthday party for a one-year-old. But even in this regard, I’m not so sure it’s a done deal either.

The documentary notes that hyper-parenting is found in the middle- to upper-classes. I live in a middle- to upper-class neighbourhood and I can attest that consumerism is still rampant in this neck of the woods! Kids wearing Lululemon, toting Nintendo DS players, heading out to multiple extra-curricular activities a week and returning home to their McMansions. Sure, it’s not everyone, but there’s enough to safely say that it exists.    

So, if this hyper-parenting does in fact exist in strong numbers, am I one of them? I don’t think so. But sometimes I actually have this irrational urge to be one.

What do I mean by that? Well, the documentary points to two driving factors behind hyper-parenting: fear (as suggested by the author Carl Honore) and peer pressure (as suggested by one of the parents).

Like all parents, I’m vulnerable to any suggestions of harm to my children. This innate desire to protect our children is used to sell newspapers, magazines, products and services everyday.

How? Okay, here’s one example: headlines shouting out that a child has been abducted by a stranger. It’s not that the media shouldn’t report on this — it is news, after all. It’s just that my intense desire to protect my child can overshadow the hard facts that stranger abductions are exceedingly rare. This parental fear is why few children ever walk to school or their bus stop unsupervised.

And despite my best efforts to shed this fear, I am one of those parents whose children are rarely unsupervised. So what’s the harm in this? The documentary draws a few interesting connections. The first is that when one isn’t allowed unsupervised play, then one ends up with structured play — like a team sport. Honore points out that team sports take all the control away from the child because the rules are made for them, the referree decides who is playing by the rules, etc. The documentary also points out that once you’ve been hovering around your child long enough, it starts to seem natural. Both parents and child get used to always having each other around and a co-dependence develops which makes eventual independence less likely.

The other driving factor that I mentioned above was peer pressure. As much as I hate to admit it, I feel the weight of peer pressure … that so-and-so is taking this class, perhaps my child should too? I actually feel embarrassed to admit that my children are enrolled in exactly zero extra-curricular activities at the moment. Rationally, I know that my children are getting exercise and stimulation through the more unstructured things we do as a family. But I still have this irrational response to the peer pressure to conform to what others are doing. I guess when it comes right down to it, this peer pressure brings me back in a circular swing to fear. The fear that maybe so-and-so is doing the best thing for their child and that I am depriving my child of something very important.

So what have I got to conclude from all of this? I guess:
1. That hyper-parenting is harmful to children
2. That hyper-parenting is a form of parental instinct, but magnified to excess
3. That I am vulnerable to fear and peer pressure

Nothing too ground-breaking in that list, is there? But still, the issue is deeply fascinating to me.

It really got me thinking about a lot of things — especially how much I dislike the use of fear-mongering to sell products and services to parents. It’s used to sell everything from books, to “green” products, to electronics and technology. (It also got Andrea Tomkins thinking about a lot of things too, which you can read here.)

And it really got me wondering if I have the potential to be a hyper-parent. I’ve concluded that I probably have the potential, but I’m just too darn tired to bother!

If you missed this documentary, you can read about it and view video clips here.

Today I started to notice some tweets about women having pelvic exams done to them while they are unconscious in the hospital. Like many bits of way too information that I let into my day, I let it go into my line of sight and then right back out – I easily dismissed it as something pulled from a trashy magazine or something. But the tweets on this kept coming, and then I saw Ann Douglas, a highly respected parenting author and social activist make a tweet on it. What the? Could it really be a real story?

I checked out one of these tweet links, which led me to The Bad Moms Club blog. And it turns out that this story is not only for real, but it’s from Canada. I was utterly stunned. Here is the article from today’s Globe & Mail for you to read for yourself. It begins like this:

Imagine that you are undergoing a fairly routine surgery – say, removal of uterine fibroids or hysterectomy. During or right after the procedure, while you are still under anesthesia, a group of medical students parades into the operating room and they perform gynecological exams (unrelated to the surgery) without your knowledge.

Do you consider this okay, or an outrageous violation of your rights?

Regardless of your feelings, you should be aware that this is standard procedure in many Canadian teaching hospitals.

I want to read the full source article that the Globe’s Andre Picard refers to. To date though, I’ve only found an abstract, which you can read here and which states in part:

Medical students need to undertake supervised pelvic examinations to achieve competence. This experience is freqently obtained by conducting pelvic examinations on anaesthetized patients who are undergoing gynaecological surgery.

I think you’ll agree that the very fact that the study was published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, published by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologist of Canada (SOGC) is really ruining my trashy magazine theory.

So, to get down to the nitty gritty on this … if I go in to the hospital to get my tonsils taken out, I’m not going to have a pelvic exam unknowingly done on me while I’m unconscious. But, if I go into the hospital to have a gynecological surgery of some sort, well, yeah, there’s a good chance that this could happen.

The actual SOGC Clinical Practice Guidelines on “Pelvic Examinations by Medical Trainees” is available in full here. It states:

For most pelvic surgeries, it is important for the members of the surgical team to examine the patient under anaesthesia to confirm the suspected patholody and the initial steps of the surgical approach. As part of the description of the surgical procedure, the surgeon should inform the patient that she may be examined by a trainee at the beginning of the surgery.

Okay, it’s getting a bit more clear for me now … If I go in for a gynecological surgery, chances are that I will require a pelvic exam as part of the surgical process. If the surgery is taking place in a teaching hospital, a medical trainee may be the one to actually do the pelvic exam. If a medical trainee is involved in my surgery, I will be informed in advance and my consent secured. I can refuse consent. Okay, I’m all good with that.

The pelvic examination is a component of the surgical procedure. Consent for a pelvic examination by medical trainees who are a part of the surgical team is therefore implicit [emphasis mine] when consent for participation in the surgical proceudre by medical trainees is obtained.

But here’s where it gets a bit gray: Do all gynecological surgeries require a pelvic exam? It seems not because later in these same clinical guidelines it states:

As pelvic examination under anaesthesia is a component of most [emphasis mine] pelvic surgeries, consent for pelvic examination by medical trainees is contained within content for a surgical procedure.

So from reading the above, it seems that a medical trainee may undertake a pelvic exam on a unconscious patient for “education purposes” — purposes that have nothing to do with the surgery. Yet, as the patient, I am completely unware that this is being done because consent is considered “implicit.”

Huh. Please tell me how consent — by its very definition — can ever be implicit? One cannot consent to something if one doesn’t know it’s happening!

I’d like to see these clinical guidelines changed to ensure that there is explicit consent, wouldn’t you?

An extra note: Not surprisingly, women are up in arms about this practice. Since last night, tons of new posts have gone up on this issue. You can add a comment to this post “Dear Nether-probers, we the undersigned, say STOP IT” in support of ending this practice.

The objective of this blog tour is to provide mothers in Ontario with reliable sources of information related to H1N1; it’s a joint initiative with Mom Central and the Ontario Ministry of Health. I agreed immediately to be part of this initiative because it is pretty shocking what some people will use as a source of information related to their health and that of their family. Some popular bloggers have been citing dubious sources like the Dr. Mercola website or even home-made You Tube videos as sources for health-related information.

I am a big believer in critically assessing information — not swallowing anything whole, and always checking the source. Sure, I’ll take an interest in a conspiracy theory here or there, but when it comes right down to it, I’m on the side of science. Rigorously researched, tested and proven — science.

I also come from a basic belief in Canada, and in our government. I’m not a huge fan of all things government. But yes, when it comes right down to it, I do believe that my government — that is, my fellow Canadian citizens who are the government – is working in my best interest.

I believe that Canada did an excellent job in quickly securing H1N1 vaccines for our population, despite the many flaws in communication and delivery at clinics. Overall, I think Dr. David Suzuki said it best, in response to backlash, “I’m just astounded at people. Do they think doctors, scientists, and government are out to poison them or something?”

Now that you know all of my bias, you won’t be surprised then to find that I am again referring you to government-related sites. (In the past, I’ve referred you to the World Health Organization, to the Public Health Agency of Canada and to an up-to-date list of Ottawa area clinics and wait times.)

Phew. That was a mighty big preamble for these latest tidbits: 

• Vaccine recall: Late last night, news hit that a lot of the H1N1 vaccine was being recalled by the manufacturer. The reason for recall was cited as a higher incidence of allergic reaction from this particular lot. Of note for Ontarians is that this lot (A80CA007A) has not been administered in Ontario, according to the Ontario Ministry of Health.
• Dosage for children: My last post reported WHO’s recommendation that children do not need two doses of the H1N1 vaccine. Canadian health officials have followed this recommendation as follows: for healthy children aged 3 years to 9 years = one 1/2 dose. For children with chronic health conditions, the dosage recommendation is still two 1/2 doses. 
• Eligibility for vaccine: Vaccine is now available to all Ontarians, not just the priority groups. All Ottawa clinics are now open again and wait times are updated regularly here. The wrist band system now being used at all Ottawa-area clinics is explained here.

And, last but not least, should a member of your family take ill, an assessment tool with guidelines for how to care for him/her is now available online here. I know a number of families who have been hit with influenza over the past couple of months — it’s not pretty, but thankfully they’ve all fared well.

I wish you and your family the good fortune to be spared from the flu. (And I also wish that I was a shareholder in Purell.)

*Disclosure note: Mom Central will be sending all 20 of the bloggers chosen for this blog tour a “Fight the Flu” gift pack as a thank you for taking the time to participate. I don’t actually know what’s in it, but I imagine it will contain a lot of Purell.

Edited on Nov 21st to add: I just read another blog tour post and realized that my disclosure note was not complete. In addition to the “Fight the Flu” pack, my name will also be entered into a draw to win an Acer Notebook Computer. And unlike other bloggers who have very high ethical standards and note that these kinds of incentives do not motivate them, you should know: I can be bought (for the right price). So if someone is reading this and wants to send my family on an all-expense-paid vacation to a beach — yes — I will happily blog about it for you!

In an effort to reduce public fear related to thimerosal in the H1N1 vaccine, some Canadian government authorities have been using what I call the “tuna argument.” An example of this is above.

I’ve given it its own little name now (with air quotes of course) because it is turning into a pet peeve of mine. Since its first use, media sources have picked up on it and it’s been repeated in several print and online articles. Add this to its repetition from people I meet in the grocery store to my facebook friends, and this argument for the safety of thimerosal in vaccines is now irking me.

Now, before I proceed. Let’s keep in mind that I have not stated whether I am pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine or neutral on the whole thing. That’s because REGARDLESS of your stance, you’ve got to admit this tuna argument smells fishy.

Here’s why:

• Tuna is digested, not injected directly into the blood stream.
• I would not feed my 16-month-old child a whole can of tuna.
• According to Health Canada guidelines, this same child should only consume a maximum of 75 g of canned tuna/week to limit mercury exposure. One can of tuna weights 170g net.
• And last but not least, the type of mercury found in a can of tuna is methyl mercury (an FDA explanation is available here.) Thimersol, on the other hand, contains ethyl mercury.

It’s this last point on the type of mercury that makes the whole tuna argument so annoying to me. The form of mercury (methyl) found in tuna is far more dangerous than the form of mercury found in thimerosal (ethyl). Not only does the use of the “tuna argument” to allay fears seem just plain silly, it also seems counter-intuitive to the goal here.

Why not skip the tuna argument altogether and and just explain the difference between ethyl and methyl mercury?

Wouldn’t that be simpler? More clear? I don’t know … maybe it’s no big deal. Maybe I just ate too much tuna for lunch and I’m getting worked up for nothing.

In case you want to read the difference between the two types of mercury, here is an overview.

New information from WHO was released today. Its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization has reviewed the current epidemiological situation of the pandemic worldwide.

On vaccine dosage for children under 10:

According to this Canadian Press article published today,  WHO is now advising that only one dose of the vaccine is required even for very young children (previous to this, mutiple doses were being recommended). For 10 years and older, one single dose of the vaccine is still recommended.

However, when I consulted the WHO website, its release reads “Data on immunogenicity in children older than 6 months and younger than 10 years are limited and more studies are needed. Where national authorities have made children a priority for early vaccination, SAGE [the expert advisory for WHO] recommended that priority be given to the administration of one dose of vaccine to as many children as possible.”

I’ll be interested to see what Canadian authorities decide. As of right now, the website for the Public Health Agency of Canada still has two 1/2 doses as its recommendation for children aged 6 months to 9 years. (Its Twitter account did post a notice for a media advisory update to take place this afternoon at 2 pm. We’ll see.)

On vaccine safety for pregnant women (you know, as opposed to pregnant men):

This same WHO release notes the following elevated risks for pregnant women:

Overall, from 7% to 10% of all hospitalized patients are pregnant women in their second or third trimester of pregnancy. Pregnant women are ten times more likely to need care in an intensive care unit when compared with the general population.

As for the safety of the vaccine during pregnancy:

Concerning vaccines for pregnant women, SAGE noted that studies in experimental animals using live attenuated vaccines and non-adjuvanted or adjuvanted inactivated vaccines found no evidence of direct or indirect harmful effects on fertility, pregnancy, development of the embryo or fetus, birthing, or post-natal development.

Note that these studies involved both the non-adjuvanted and the adjuvanted vaccines.

Other news:

Ontario suspends rollout of H1N1 vaccine (Globe & Mail): announced today, only high-risk groups will receive vaccine starting next week. In Ottawa, only high-risk groups were supposed to be receiving it anyhow … but I guess it was being liberally distributed. Not anymore. 

Today’s updates from the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Today’s updates from Canada Communicable Disease Report – “Flu watch”
 

Between pulling very long hours at work and doing night shifts comforting sick children, I  have the luxury of worrying about H1N1; the vaccine conundrum; having to carry my 40lb baby down our steep back steps and through my neighbours’ yards just to get out of my house due to the entire front street being dug up; getting the phone line ressurected after the crew mistakenly cuts through it on a weekly basis; worrying about my very pregnant friend and my very fit but fighting-cancer friend; and oh yeah, coyotes. Coyotes! I actually laughed out loud when my father warned me about that one. I mean, can you add anything more to the list? Now I need to worry about my pet or toddler being carried off by a wild creature.  

That paragraph above. Those are my flames. I’m engulfed.

This leaves my attention span a bit frayed. Too frayed for a heavy-duty novel. But I still need something beside my bed table. Something good.

And the great news is that I’ve found it:

When You Are Engulfed In Flames is Sedaris’ most recent collection of stories. And that’s exactly what these are – simply stories. It’s like sitting across from someone in your living room who can really tell a great story. It’s a rare gift — an art — that I really appreciate. And, boy, can he ever tell a story!

He is so damn hilarious, I have to control my laughter in the middle of the night. The topics covered are ridiculous (you can read a summary list of the bizarre topics here, under Contents). He just plucks out something from his life — past or present — and runs with it, including odd diversions and tangents along the way. There really is no rhyme or reason, but it is so refreshingly entertaining. (Kind of like reading blogs, come to think of it.)

So if you’re feeling like I am, try a bit of Sedaris. It’ll help.

And there are just so many darn decisions related to H1N1.

To school or not to school? The school has repeatedly asked parents not to send their children to school if they are sick. But how sick is sick? The most common symptoms of H1N1, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada, include fever, cough, fatigue, sore throat, decreased appetite, muscle aches, headache, and runny nose. I would have thought that a “flu” meant vomiting or diarrhea, but apparently these are only “sometimes” symptoms. If I am to use these common symptoms as my decision-marker as to going to school or not, my entire family would not have attended school or work for the past 2.5 weeks. Three out of four of us have been to the doctor during this time and no one tested us for H1N1. We were told that we have bad colds.  

To worry or not to worry? I’m having a hard time working out if I should even worry about it, actually. I don’t get in a panic about seasonal flu every winter. Sure, it’s awful to live through, but I don’t tend to fret about whether we’ll catch it or not. The H1N1 flu, however, is classified as “pandemic.” Yet, according to the National Post, “H1N1 has killed fewer people over the past six months than the seasonal flu kills every six days.” I’m confused, people.

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? This is the biggie. This means that I need to make a decision and act on it. When it comes to menengitis, polio — yes, please give my children vaccines. But the flu? Yikes, I just don’t know. Have I been touched by the anti-vaccine campaigns? Yes, I guess I have to a degree. Words like “vaccine-injury,” “thimerosol” and “Guillain-Barre Syndrome” make me twitchy.

I wish I knew what side of the fence to fall. But I just don’t know what to do about the flu.

The news that Sigg’s original liners had been made with BPA felt like a sneaky little trick had been played on me. Sure, I understand that the company says it never claimed its liners were not made of BPA, but rather that its liners didn’t leach BPA. (I wanted to provide you with the CEO’s exact words in explaining this issue, but it looks like his letter has been taken down from the site now – strange.)

I’ve since sent my old Sigg bottles back (we had four in our family) and requested ones with the new liner. This voluntary exchange program was likely a major logistical nightmare for the company, but to its credit, I did receive new bottles this week by courier and it was a pretty quick and easy process from my end.

But still … I don’t have the same warm & fuzzies for this brand like I used to. How about you?

I mean, really. Is it really necessary to instill a fear in children about their fellow community members when the facts show that child abduction is an extremely rare occurence? My child already has her own self-instilled fear of aliens, does she need this one too? 

So please, spare me the fear-mongering. Why? Because I worry enough as it is. That’s what Moms do best, afterall.

Let’s look at some facts on “stranger danger”:

• In 1999, 203,900 children were abducted in the U.S.A. by a family member seeking to interfere with a parent’s custody; 98% of the children were returned.
• In this same year, there were only 115 cases in the U.S.A. of the stereotypical variety, in which a stranger is the perpetrator and the child is kept overnight, held for ransom or killed; 60 percent were returned safely.
• That’s 115 cases of stranger abduction in a population of more than 320 million.

I know, I know … you don’t want to be in that group of unfortunate 115. I hear you.

But I also don’t want my child to grow up fearful of others — her very own community.

Remember when we were kids? You were let out the door to simply “go play outside.” Does anybody do that anymore? Cause it was really fun. 

I realized just how over-protective we’ve become as parents when I suggested to my 7-year-old that she “call on a friend.” She didn’t know what that meant. I was referring to that once familiar act of ringing the doorbell and asking “do you want to come out and play?” Soon it will have vanished from our communal lexicon altogether.

I really don’t think that people have changed that radically since we were young. I really don’t think that there are more pedophiles today than there were in the 1970s. I really don’t. And the stats back me up on it.

So let’s scratch this one worry off of our already long list of worries.  Instead, let’s encourage our kids to “call on a friend” to play.

And if we, as adults, have a lingering fear of “stranger danger” — let’s not share it with our children. Instead, let’s ask the other parents on the street to join with us and communally watch out for our children and let each other know if anything worrisome has cropped up.

Are you with me? (Or do you think I am naively deluded?)

Listen in: In 15 minutes (4 pm today), CBC’s All in A Day will be hitting this issue. Dani from Postcards from the Mothership and Lynn from Turtlehead will debate the issue. I can’t wait to hear what they have to say! 

It’s 40 years later, in 2009. Writers travelled from far and wide to attend Wordstock, at Ryerson University. They came to appreciate the wisdom and experience of amazing traditional and new media journalists. They drank lots of coffee. It was a good time.

So that’s where and why I was in Toronto on Saturday. I went to school and learned from the best of the best:

Robb Montgomery gave a two-hour opening seminar to all of us. I couldn’t take down notes fast enough! He had so much to share about new media and the tools to make it happen. Robb’s got a really nice way about him. You just want to catch up with him later and have a beer. If I start going on about Delicious, embedr, and bit.ly, you have him to blame.

Next, there were break-out sessions. I picked one with Don Gibb, a journalism veteran and retired Ryerson prof. He also acts as a writing coach to the Globe & Mail staff. This man was born to teach — he is just so good at getting everyone involved, and we all learned and shared a great deal about how to craft a feature article. A good one, that is.

Kim Pittaway was the presenter at my next chosen break-out session. She was slotted to give guidance on when and how to slip into first-person narrative. Truth be told, I really wasn’t so much interested in the topic as I was the speaker. When Kim was editor of Chatelaine, all sorts of stuff went down (which you can read about here and here), and to me she sounded very cool. So I went to see her. And she was cool.