Dear Family and Dear Friends

89 Fentiman Ave. Ottawa, Ontario K1S 0T7 December, 2006

Dear family and dear friends, Please accept the de rigueur apologies for the annual new- years’ letter, impersonal and broad-brushed as it inevitably is. But it is useful for me, at any rate, to take stock of 2006 - a year of explorations, adventures and transitions for the Vellino family – Ottawa branch. The (partial) photographic companion to this letter can be found at: http://web.ncf.ca/an386/photos/2006Pictures/ For the first half of this year, Brenda was still in her Sabbatical, which made many things possible that will not be possible for another 7 years. She worked hard, wrote papers, went to conferences (with and without her family) but also had some freedom about how to schedule her time. So we were able to take a few trips this year – most memorably to New York in April and to France in July. She also snuck in a conference in Scotland – highland castle and all – but without us, sadly. More about our travels shortly. Conversion But surely the most significant aspect of this greater flexibility with time was that it offered Brenda the opportunity to explore her deepest religious longings. After about 6 months of studying Judaism since June of 2005, the turning point (or tipping point, perhaps) came in February 2006, when she had to decide whether and when she would convert. Why exactly she wrestled with what (to me) had been a pretty clear desire to convert, perhaps we’ll never know – perhaps such decisions are never easy and effortless. And so it was that on June 23rd Brenda, Karuna and Sarah were born into a new faith and now our family is ¾ Jewish and ¼ Buddhist. If that isn’t an adventure and a transition, I don’t know what is! For me, the two major spirit-altering events were my reading of “The Weather Makers” by Tim Flannery (in April) and the establishment of the Tisarana Buddhist Monastery in Perth (October). Greening For the longest time, I have been a “reluctant environmentalist” – a believer in the overall environmental cause and “green-ish” in my general stance to life. But if truth be told, my primary motivation for becoming a consumer of Public Transit since the summer of 2005 was my complete inability to takes the steps necessary to purchase a second car. Coupled with my profound disgust with second-hand car dealers, the totaling of our Subaru Outback in 2005 brought me to the Ottawa bus system more by default than any green ideology. There was also the fact that the 25km ride to Entrust from Ottawa South was pretty easy (2 bus changes) and reasonably quick (1 hr) and afforded significant amounts of reading time. It was in those reading periods that I discovered Tim Flannery’s book “The Weather Makers” after reading a review of it in the Globe and Mail. For some people such a turning point in awareness might arise after watching “An Inconvenient Truth” (Al Gore’s movie about Global Warming), but for me, it was this book. The plain science of climate change described in it just speaks for itself, and the news is not good. In fact, I was quite depressed for several weeks. When the author came to the Ottawa Writer’s festival to promote the book, I was first in line for his autograph. I asked him “aren’t you depressed by our prospects for the future”, to which he replied something like – “I have been, but now I don’t have time – I’m too busy trying to do something about it.” It didn’t take long after that for me to join the Green Party. In part, of course, it was to ensure that David Chernushenko got elected as leader (he didn’t, but he is now the Deputy Leader, which is the next best thing.) Right now, I’m just a pragmatist about politics, and even though I support the Greens, I have great hopes for Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party. They may have “turned green” for cynical reasons, but I still harbour the hope that they might do something about the Alberta oil-sands. Of course, it’s already too late for a lot of things (such as the invasion of pine-beetles in the forests of BC, Alberta and soon Ontario and Quebec.) The strategy now has to be to learn to adapt and mitigate the damage. I think everyone agrees that the Party is over. At the same time, of course, one has to enjoy what life has to offer (perhaps all the more given the cataclysmic changes that are ahead for our planet) and appreciate it all at its fullest – which is a lot. Travels Visiting New York in April was a great re-discovery for me. I remember the last time I was there as a tourist was with my father in 1981. My, oh my, what a difference 25 years makes! The city is renewed in surprising ways. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous when Brenda told me that she had booked a B&B in Harlem. The last time I went through Harlem (in ’81) was in the subway system to go to Washington Heights. I think I started trembling at about the moment when the muscle guy in the silver-studded jacket started bashing his fist in his other hand while spitting on the floor of the subway train, while glancing angrily at me. So I think my apprehension about hanging out in Harlem for a long week-end were somewhat, if not entirely, justified. But what a surprise to see a 2006 Harlem, gentrified and restored to its former ’30s glory of the Harlem renaissance. Pride in community, friendly people, and beautiful streets. I know New York has its problems, but this visit almost made me want to live there. We also discovered the Nature in New York – the fabulous Bronx Zoo, the splendours of Central Park (wow – what an amazing place!) and even the Museum of Natural History, which, like most museums in New York make your jaw drop. The other big trip this year was to visit my family – both spiritual and genealogical – in France. Krystyna (my half- sister) Tony (her spouse – I wish they would just get married!) hosted us for a few days on our way to (and back from) Plum Village in Bordeau and we had visits from my step mother Lillemor – whom we hadn’t seen in 7 years. The fact that the jet fuel consumed for our family to cross the Atlantic is the CO2 equivalent of driving a car 25,000km for 10 years, was something I discovered only after we purchased the tickets. Sobering thought, though. Still, the cause was worthy – family visits are so rare and spiritual renewal is so rare too. Our trip to Plum Village was the first in 10 years! And my how it has changed too! Gentrified isn’t quite the term, but close. Large meditation halls, lots of busy activity. It sometimes felt a little bit like “Club Med(itation)”. Spiritual Tourism, perhaps. Which seemed little unfair, if not voyeuristic, even, for the Monks and Nuns who work so hard. In some ways, I think Plum Village is over-extending itself. Work In November ’06 I accepted a new position with the National Research Council’s Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information! For the past two years (to the day), I had been working for Entrust as an “applied computational linguist” developing better ways to deduce semantics from syntax in e- mail. I hadn’t had that much fun at work since the early days of the Computing Research Lab at BNR in the early 90’s. My colleagues were great, the subject matter was interesting, and my office even had a door (a rarity in Dilbert’s Cubicle Land!) But just as the interviews for the NRC position were being conducted, my group at Entrust was disintegrating as a result of ill-considered marketing decisions. When I discovered that I had won the NRC competition, there was no question in my mind about where I would be best at home. Eventually, my home page at CISTI will say something about what my research is going to be, but at the moment, this is a work in progress, so stay tuned.