Tim Moen

A couple weeks ago I wanted to let my family and friends know what was going on in my life and I tweeted that I was going to be filming with Neil Young and Daryl Hannah in Fort McMurray. I was not prepared for the reaction. My phone was immediately blowing up with media requests to find out what was going on. Reaction from people commenting on social media in the community ranged from concern to rage over how Fort McMcMurray would be portrayed by these people who have a clear environmental agenda. I refrained from commenting in the media ahead of time because I wasn't sure how much publicity they wanted and I didn't want to ruin my chances of working with these people. I agreed to an interview with Wallis Snowden at Mix 103.7 after filming was over and she presented a fair and brief synopsis of our interview to the listeners. I'd like to offer my readers a more detailed account of what transpired. Background I was contacted a few weeks ago by Neil's produc...

My wife called me today while I was downtown and asked me to pick up a Texas Instruments TI-83 graphing calculator for my daughter who is in grade 11 math. I asked why she couldn't use a free app on her iPhone instead of buying $130 piece of 1970's technology. Apparently they aren't allowed to use new technology...it's considered cheating. I remember running into the same line of reasoning when I was a kid with regards to using a calculator. Its cheating. I was required to memorize times-tables up to 12 and spend inordinate amounts of time doing equations by hand that could be rapidly figured with a calculator. Never mind that in the real world we have access to technology, the internet, and all sorts of apps and information that can help us rapidly solve problems. The job of school it seems isn't to prepare kids to problem solve but rather to be tested and ranked on their ability to memorize, regurgitate, and obey. The lesson here kids is that problems are solv...