Up to this point my voice has had no accent, because the voice in your head is accent free. It's that voice in your head you hear when you read these blogs. For you, it's the rest of the world that talks funny.

Up to this point I have no particular appearance. I'm only a background concept in your mind that is vaguely male, vaguely mature and I may bare some resemblance to the explorer icon I use.

You can leave things that way if you wish. Just don't click on the video below.

But if you don't mind having that image shattered, if you want my voice to become accented, my age and weight and height and appearance to become evident; if you want me to become someone in particular, if you want to come join me for a walk with Lindsay at the bottom of the Scarborough Bluffs, then just click on the video, take my hand, and prepare to experience the strong cold winds of late March and the waves crashing on the beach.

Just watch you don't trip on the logs left strewn about by the winter storms.



Through some strange alchemy, my youngest brother also decided to take a video of him walking his dog, at the same time I was walking Lindsay. Neither of us had spoken to each other about our plan so this is totally serendipitous. The videos were shot at roughly the same time only he was walking Jasper through their neighbourhood. Here you can see the accumulation of snow still left here in Toronto.

Down at the beach where I was walking the winds, waves and sun have melted all the snow away. Keith's home is about two kilometers from mine, call it a mile if you like.

Anyway, you can find Keith's video below.

To reduce our footprint on the earth, we went together, three families in one van. We also all went together because I'm Scottish and its cheaper. Have you seen the price of gas lately?

My daughter and her family, my wife's brother, and Linda and I left for my Niece's new farm outside Barrie Ontario to join 10 other families for an Earth Hour celebration. My youngest daughter and her family also came up from Guelph to join us.

In case you missed it, Earth Hour was the Green movement's plan to sweep the globe with a one-hour wave of darkness, yesterday, March 29th

Toronto was among a dozen other cities worldwide that participated in Earth Hour with City buildings, Commercial properties and humble folk such as ourselves turning off lights and appliances for an hour at 8pm to symbolize our commitment to tackling global warming. We even shut off Blogstream for the evening.

However, being just a tiny bit competitive, we did them one better, with eleven family homes shutting off lights, computers and appliances for the entire evening and gathering together for a pot luck dinner at Legacy Farm.

Of course one hour of darkness won't stop the globe from warming, but the event was designed to get people to stop and think about what is taken for granted – electricity – especially when it's generated by carbon-belching coal plants, one of the world's leading causes of climate change.

We also had an alternative reason for being there. My niece's 13 year old daughter had just returned from South Africa where her Canadian Mounted Team had placed first in the Botswana International Mounted Games. It was our first chance to welcome her home after her 33 hour flight back from Africa.

Mounted Games is a branch of equestrian sport in which very fast team races are performed by young people on ponies.

The Games require a high degree of athletic ability, good riding skills, hand-to-eye coordination, determination, cooperation, a willingness to help one another and a strong competitive spirit.

Mounted Games were the inspiration of H.R.H. Prince Philip back in 1957 and has now spread world wide.

At eight o'clock, we turned off the lights, candles were lit and, as if by magic, out came three guitars. We sang and laughed in the dark for an hour. After a while even the electronic game deprived teens stopped twitching and relaxed into the evening. At 9 o'clock we went out into the blackened night to view a sky alive with stars.

Filled with the huge variety of foods that always comes with a pot luck dinner, we left around ten o'clock to head back to Toronto. And when we stopped to fill the van on the way, my son-in-law refused to allow me to pay for the gas. Could life have been any better?

It's warm enough to think.

Lindsay and I climb down the bluffs at the bottom of Coronation Drive until we're standing on a beach of sand frozen into a form of concrete. The winter storms have lifted up a number of tree trunks from the depths of the lake and have stranded them along its length as far as the eye can see, like abandoned landing craft from "D" Day.

Lindsay loves the beach. She takes off across the hardened sand reveling in the freedom of movement, the joy of working muscles. Excited beyond reason by the sights and smells and sounds.

But my way is blocked. The beach is narrow here and some of the massive trees have barred my passing. To get around, I either have to climb over their slimy hulks or walk knee deep into the frigid waters of the lake.

Instead I sit.

This winter has taken its toll on me in more ways than one. For years I've been able to use these walks with my dog as exercise. I tell people that Lindsay is my Personal Fitness Instructor. She won't let me forget when the time for a walk comes along. She may not be able to read a clock but she knows when its time for a run.

Or used to.

This year our runs have been fragmented by the weather. Icy roads too slippery for walking, great storms dumping snow too deep for passage, temperatures dropping below the level skin freezes. Thick cloud cover deepening the dark of our mornings and nights. I've cut her walks short or have abandoned them altogether.

And its taken its toll on me. My blood pressure is up, my weight is up and the test results from my latest physical aren't even back yet. I've had the benefit of a body that refuses to gain weight no matter how much, or what, I eat. I seldom get ill and if I do it never lasts much more than a day.

So, of course I've abused it. Like being given a Ferrari and never changing the oil or taking it in for a tune up. I've been negligent.

So I can't blame everything on the weather, although that is what Canadians do. Our national pass time. Americans blame politicians, we blame the weather.

But I have to own my own neglect. I have a lot of learning to do about how to eat right. And I have to get back to exercising. My wife and I have parents in the same retirement home and I think about my last visit. I've always thought about them living in the past, but now realize they are the future that awaits me.

Which will come sooner rather than later, if I don't start to make some changes.

So I get up off the log and climb over it, which proves not to be an easy task. Lindsay is far up the beach, dancing in a swirl of seagulls. I begin to run, burdened by winter coat, heavy boots and sand the consistency of cement. I have none of her grace, none of her freedom of movement, none of her joy.

My running is not at all a pretty sight. But its a start.

Every year at this time we meet in mortal combat. Titans clashing and there will be blood lost, almost always my own.

He is devilishly clever and has an array of fiendish devices at his disposal. He seeks my weakest points with the unerring accuracy of Lindsay hunting squirrels.

Within minutes he has me naked and at his mercy, fingers probing deep within body cavities where no other man would dare to go. He has neither compassion nor modesty nor shame.

Oh, but he does have rare power, this one. He has the power over life and death itself. He seeks my vulnerability, probing, prodding with a terrifyingly calm dispassion, seeking for that one defenseless area that will mean my death.

Not an inch of my body misses his evil probing, including stabbing deep within me until I bleed.

I bleed, my very life's blood leaving my body.

But I have prepared for this battle for days. I have put aside my generally negligent lifestyle and have eaten my vegetables and have taken my daily multivitamin and have consumed my water. I have put aside Tim Horton's coffee (sob) for healthier beverages that will strengthen me for this life and death competition. I have exercised. I am prepared. I am The Man.

Do your best you swine, but I am ready and sweet victory will be mine.

I can see the defeat in his eyes as he rips off this gloves and tosses them angrily into the garbage. He knows I have won and his shoulders tremble with defeat. Or are they trembling with fiendish glee?

For he has saved something in reserve, this foul cad, this monster, this disgrace to humanity.

"Anexplorer, you are ten pounds heavier than last year and your blood pressure is up. I'm going to place you on a diet and I'd like you to make it your goal to loose 20 pounds before I see you again next year."

I am stunned. I am speechless. No, these are not words I want to hear. I look at the diet. It is filled with recommendations for all the foods I have been eating in preparation for todays contest. It is one thing to eat this way for a week, but to do it for a year!

Nooooooooo!

He isn't smiling, there is not the least trace of glee in his eyes. But I know, deep in his evil heart he dances the Irish jig. This time he has won.

"And the test results from your blood and urine samples should be back next week. Please book an appointment with the receptionist for us to review the results."

Having defeated me in physical combat, he is now looking forward to crushing me with his science.

I leave, a humbler man.

With a diet in his hand.

One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness ...

Amazed to find herself alive, Harvard Neuroanatomist Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank.

Today's video from TED (the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference) is one of the most moving experiences you will have this week (honestly it is). What she discovered about how our brains work, will amaze you.

Caution, it is twelve minutes in length, so don't begin unless you have the time available. If you don't have the time, please return when you do, this brilliant video contains contains some of the most powerful and important information you have ever heard. I promise, this is one video you will be thinking about and urging friends to watch for weeks to come.