I suffer from exhaustion. In the last few weeks, I had to resign from a few hats I wore. I resigned as union treasurer and I resigned as chair of the IT M.Sc. degree. Today, I stood up my friend Yuhong on a lunch date. Too much to do, too little time. I have reached a breaking point.

Kamel is back from Madeira (Portugual) where he presented our paper Collaborative OLAP with Tag Clouds: Web 2.0 OLAP Formalism and Experimental Evaluation. Madeira is too far from Montreal when you are old and decrepit like me. But he took some great pictures of the place.

I was there last year and it was great:

We have a nice mix of white and black tulips. They really stand out:

I also have a nice rhododendron. I never water it or care for it in any way, and here is how it rewards me:

Since I moved to the Montreal suburbs, I have become an active gardener. I used to apply generous amounts of fertilizers. I also got into serious trouble. My lawn died. Not because I burned it, but because I got a bad case of grubs. Several of my perennials died also or fail to come back healthy after the winter. I learned the hard way that most perennials are better off without any (chemical) fertilizer.

It turns out that in most cases, chemical fertilizers are overrated. As a rule, you should not use them.

• Fertilizers may contain toxic material which stays in your soil and your vegetables.
• Fertilizers may increase the acidity of the soil, which is bad for most plants.
• Fertilizers make your soil poorer, not richer over time.
• Fertilizers tend to kill the microorganisms in your soil, rendering natural composting difficult.
• Fertilizers make your plants less resilient to disease and drought: artificially sustained growth is not always a great idea. Are you really in a hurry or do you want more robust plants?

My wife, before and after losing 35 pounds. Note that she had two kids in the process.

I think that the pictures are sufficiently impressive, I do not need to tell her how impressed I am.

We went to the Botanical Garden today. What a great day it was.

First, my favorite picture of the day… I caught my son Lohan as he was running:

This is Louka, being funny as usual (his left eye is all swollen):

My beautiful wife is, well, beautiful:

Finally, Lohan with Anne-Sophie:

I’m far behind in sorting out my pictures, but here are two good ones. First, my wife and my son Lohan:

This is my youngest son, Louka:

I’m the luckiest man in the world!