I can't believe that it's 2:30 AM and I'm sitting in front of the computer working on a consulting report that is due by midnight tomorrow. I haven't pulled an all nighter writing anything in almost 10 years. Serious sense of deja vu here... especially since there's a new radio station in town that plays all 80s music. Starting to lose track of when and where I am. I should really be asleep - even my cat finally fell asleep... Blah! I'm going to go grab another cup of tea and keep on writing.

All of the preparations for the Youth Employment Summit have made me think about jobs for young people... what we think is desirable employment. My gut feeling is that somehow most of us have been duped into thinking that the only jobs worth having are "service jobs" or "knowledge-based jobs". There's a lot of classism at play in terms of denigrating jobs in which you get your hands dirty or that take place in a more industrial setting.

But, it's crazy... there are so many amazing things to do in life that don't involve sitting at a desk in front of a computer. These jobs often require a lot of skill, experience and training - even though they often don't require a university degree. I've become much more aware of this in the last year since my partner Linda started working as an operations management trainee for CP Rail. They've got her travelling around the Canada for 1.5 years learning how a railroad is managed. Along the way, she's been learning from the front line guys driving the trains, repairing the tracks, and trying to coordinate the schedules so that products arrive at their destinations safely. Although she has a master's degree in industrial engineering, she's had to go back to school through their training programs to learn the specific skills needed in this field.

As she mentioned to me in her last email, "Most of the engineers were really patient and let me drive. There is more to it than you may think. Stopping a 14000 tonne train takes experience and timing; otherwise it pulls apart or you turn into an accordion. Neither experience is advisable or pleasant. To handle these trains you need to know the exact slope of each section of track and be able to imagine how conflicting forces will affect the handling of the train. So for example, if the front half of the train is going up a hill and the back half is coming down, you can expect to get kicked in the back (by the train) if you don’t know what you’re doing (not that this happened to me)."

So... I guess what I'm saying is - life is short. Think outside the box. Do what makes you happy. Don't let anyone else tell you what a good job is. And don't ever cut someone else's job down just because they didn't get a university degree to do it.

Does anyone know where I can get my hands on stories about the Egyptian folktale character Goha? My father-in-law (originally from Alexandria) was always telling Goha stories during our weekly Sunday family dinners... but, he's in Durban on sabbatical until July. I miss him and his stories.

I was really happy to see that one of my favourite artists finally has his new Web site up. Marc Tetro is originally from Ste-Anne, Manitoba - very near to Winnipeg, where I live. He's written and illustrated a couple of great children's books, although more people know him from mugs and posters of the RCMP. Marc is currently working on an animated TV series depicting the adventures of an Inuit boy in Canada's arctic regions.

If any students in Iowa are interested in meeting up, let me know. I will be presenting at the "Sustainable Futures for Iowa" program on Earth Day at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Right now, I'm discussing with the conference organizers about whether we can run this day-long workshop along the lines of Open Space Technologies whereby the participants determine the structure and topics for the day.

It's funny... after years of travelling around the world, I feel like I'm really going home on this trip. My parents' best friends, Jack and Linda Mackin, live in Clemons, Iowa (population = 200). The Mackins were always like a second set of parents to me. I spent a lot of vacations running around corn fields there and hanging out at the grain elevator. One of my earliest memories is being in the back of a pickup truck in Iowa with bison running along next to it. I was probably 4-5 years old - the bison were much larger than I was. But those memories prompted me to write many papers in university about sustainability in the tall grass prairie regions of the US. People see the book "Iowa's Wild Places" on the shelf at my house and start laughing... but I think it's one of the most beautiful places on earth.