Glenn Kubish

If I had a happiness and gratitude sonar, these would be the three pings from last week.   Three Things, episode 140:                               1. Experts   Before social media and the democratization of knowledge made everyone an expert, there was a class of people called, well, for lack of a better term, experts. Newspaper editors. Doctors. Politicians. University professors. Civil servants.   It wasn’t necessarily the best of times. Many other voices weren’t heard, lots of experience was somehow ruled to be of no value.   I worked in newspapers as the hierarchy of knowledge came crashing down on some bewildered gatekeepers who I can still see walking out through the debris of fallen pillars as the influencers sashayed in. Those technocrats are not the experts I want back, but I do miss some experts. Or, at least, one specific category of expert. I miss the disc jockey. I still pref...

Here are three things from the week that was that left behind tracks of happiness and gratitude.  Three Things podcast, episode 134:                            1. Baseball   The pitch, the hit, the ground ball. The runner hoofs it to first base. The shortstop scoops up the ball and telegraphs it to first base—bang, bang, one out! With the ump’s signal, the crowd gets another proof that the thrown baseball eradicates space quicker than the running player. In miniature, the play at the Riverhawks game on Sunday was an episode from the history of communications technology. It was also a routine out. For the mathematical ones scoring the game, the play is symbolized universally and beautifully as 6-3: 6 for the shortstop’s position, 3 for the first baseman’s position. Not their uniform numbers or their names, but their slots numbered 1-9 in baseball’s defensive array. Not that I was scoring the game, and not tha...

Happy end of the week, friends! Here are three things that left behind tracks of happiness and gratitude. Three Things podcast, episode 129: 1. Double play I pedalled across the LRT tracks north of the ruins of the Coliseum and found a baseball diamond where I didn’t know one existed. I was on one of those lazy rides where I hope to see something new. The diamond was that. A real game of uniformed players was happening on it. I stopped and watched from a picnic table beyond the left field fence. A line drive was caught, but bobbled, and then dropped by the third baseman. I scored it an error—E-5. The base runner then moved to second on a single. My infield position in my corporate slo-pitch years was first base.That’s where I was safe. I preferred playing third, but our manager didn’t. Prefer me playing third base. I was okay fielding the ball on the hot corner, even the balls hit hard right at me, but throwing the ball on target to first base in real time, ...

Happy end of the week, friends! In review, three things that I noticed I noticed made me happy or grateful this week. Here's this week's podcast: 1. Tree of life I knew in my cranks that I was going to turn around and go back. I knew this even as I kept pedalling by the tree. I was tired and hungry, the clouds were spitting rain and there was one beer from Arcadia still in the fridge at home, off to the left on the second shelf. But back the handlebars turned because that tree could not be ignored. I rolled up, stopped, stood over my top bar and listened to the tree—to the birds in the tree. Fifty happy children on a newly waxed indoor basketball court with squeaky sneakers, that’s what that tree off the bike lane on 102 Avenue sounded like. It took me a few seconds to see into the lattice of the leaves. Wow, all the little birds with their little feet hopping from branch to branch, their heads a-tilt, the branches bobbing under the weight of their little bodies that power...

The Three Things podcast is an attempt at this time every week to stop, take a breath and make note of what I noticed that I noticed, with no help from the algorithm, no code from politicians, no prompt from the advertisers.  And then say it out loud. Here's Three Things podcast, episode 38:  Here are the three things:  1. A disappearing act A couple of blocks from home is my favorite no-name park. It’s not big enough to have a name. There’s no list of donors, no lines of verse inscribed anywhere. There’s no plaque. But somebody with the knowledge and command of autumn colours was behind that park. This is the time of year that that unknown planner or planter should receive a bouquet of thanks. Now, the little park is not a postcard view of Edmonton, and I’ve yet to see fine arts students there painting it, but, still, it is a kind of magic. It’s a slow-moving magic act, as the green leaf trees we’ve had our eyes on for a couple of months, and gotten used to, are transfor...