On the Road... Again

Hey hey, there's an Android app for Blogger. I have submitted an image of yesterday's dinner for inspection.

Working in Calgary is really lame right now. Unseasonably cold weather and problems with the project make it seem like I will be here forever.

I am starting to think most people's interest in some sports is rooted in not having anything else to do. With hockey on at virtually every restaurant I've been to in the past eight weeks I am actually slightly interested in the playoffs... yikes.

On the other hand, I genuinely enjoy watching curling every now and then so I am probably just not wired right for hockey and the like.

Anyone have any tips for things to do after dinner in Calgary on weeknights? I've already exhausted walking through the nearby malls and the current movies that interest me at the theatre.

Choir

So this will be a bit of a departure from my normal posts about travel and random bits of the internet, but I think it will, at least, be interesting.

Most people may not know this, but I am a big fan of choral music.  I sing in a large chorus and direct a rather small (but fun) one.  Recently I have become somewhat obsessed with choral music on YouTube.  In specific, The King's Singers and Eric Whitacre.  So I've decided to devote this post to talking about some of my favourites that I've found.

The King's Singers
The King's Singers are a British group formed in the late 1960s by a group of choral scholars from King's College in Cambridge.  Since then, there have been a few changes in membership but they have always remained supremely British in styling.  Their tone is generally pure with only a hint of vibrato as a colour rather than a staple.  They also make fantastic use of a very uniquely British tongue-in-cheek sense of humour.

Their repertoire is impressively wide and varied.  The core of this repertoire has always been madrigals, mostly French and English.  The French madrigal Il Est Bel et Bon by Pierre Passereau best shows off the incredible skill and flexibility that this group possesses.  For those not familiar with choral works, singing that quickly and accurately is extremely difficult.  Contrasting the traditional madrigals, the King's Singers are also big fans of modern and pop music.  This ranges from their love of the Beatles (such as Blackbird) to more "untraditional" choir repertoire such as Duke Ellington's Creole Love Call which has no actual words but simply sounds mimicking a jazz ensemble.

However, my two favourite pieces (as far as I've discovered) are Masterpiece and Spem In Alium.  These two pieces could not be any more unique from each other but both manage to highlight the King's Singers' immense talent.

Masterpiece is a rather recent piece by Paul Drayton in which each section is devoted to a composer or period of music throughout the history of western classical music.  Each composer's distinctive style is cleverly, accurately, and humourously imitated producing a very interesting look at the last 400 years of music history.

Spem in Alium is a motet composed by the English composer Thomas Tallis in the 1570s.  The unique part of it is that it was written for a total of 40 voices in 8 choirs of 5.  To accomplish this, the King's Singers' "perform" the piece in a recording studio and use a technique called multitracking to layer their own voices on top of each other producing a uniquely thick and warm texture.

The King's Singers have also recently published two full concerts to YouTube.  This includes 2006's From Byrd to The Beatles and their 2008 Live at the BBC Proms celebrating their 40th anniversary.  The first is especially interesting to me as it includes some behind-the-scenes information on Spem In Alium.

Eric Whitacre
Eric Whitacre is an American choral composer who focuses on very dense pan-diatonic chords which produce a unique sound and style.  However, the more interesting thing about Whitacre is his new concept of the virtual choir.  He will publish a video of himself conducting one of his pieces and requests people from around the world to submit a video recording of them singing one or more parts.  Not only is this notable for the fact that he essentially gives away the music for this purpose, it produces choirs which are uniquely diverse and massive.

The first virtual choir was put together in 2010 and featured Whitacre's Lux Aurumque.  Over 200 videos were submitted by 185 people in 12 countries.  It was an immense success with over 2.5 million views to date.  In the light of that success, another virtual choir was put together this year using Sleep.  The response was impressive.  Over 2000 voices from 58 countries submitted themselves.  This included several full choirs who recorded the piece together.  The result is beyond impressive.  Having 2000 choristers sing together in a single physical location would be nearly impossible, but through the magic of the internet, we can hear what that might sound like.

Soon...

I just finished a barrage of road trips totalling over 4,000km in the last 10 days. Thus, I am going to be skipping out this week again on posting.

Perhaps one of the others can grace us with a slice of wit this week.

Home Pwnership

For those of you who aren't gamers, 'Pwnership' is intentional.

First, before reading any further, please read this brief article from the Financial Post.

Then, read this part again:

Of the 24.5 million returns filed, 18 million Canadians reported total income of $50,000 or less. That’s not a typo. In other words, ignoring individuals who don’t file returns such as children, nearly 75% of tax-filing Canadians earned under $50,000 in total income in 2009.


Add another 5 million Canadians who reported total income of between $50,000 and $100,000 and you conclude that about 95% of individuals have income below $100,000 annually.

Let that settle for a minute and you will start to see why current consumer behavior and real estate prices in Canada should be so concerning.

Let's take the $50,000 total annual income level as a benchmark and run some quick math.

Total Federal and Provincial income tax payable is in the region of $9,000 for an Albertan (though, this ranges from $6,725 in Nunavut to $10,654 in Nova Scotia -- if anyone wants to pay a low rate of income tax, live and work in a territory...).

That leaves us with about $41,000 of net income left to play with.

Now, before going any further with things like cost of living and such, let's recall a previous post I made, where I talked about the kind of money one needs to set aside to even consider retirement at age 55.

I'm going to make an assumption here that the same, above-average, $41,000 net annual income Canadian is going to want to retire and do at least a few of those things the big banks' television commercials show the withered and decrepit engaging in.

This person, therefore, contributes his or her maximum RRSP amount each year, which is 18%, or $9,000.

This generates a tax return of $2,900, which is more than half of that person's annual TFSA contribution room, and we will assume they will top that off with an additional $2,100, to equal the current $5,000 maximum.

We are now left with $41,000 - $9,000 - $2,100 = $29,900 in remaining coin, and we have generated a fairly sizable retirement lump sum of $817,000 after 30 years of employment (calculated in the same way as the previous post).  We will certainly be a little bit above my $2,000 per month comfort level, as discussed previously, and even more so if the person works a bit longer.

Now, let's go onto the fun of living costs.

Rent or buy, this person is going to be looking at negative cash flow of at least $1,000 a month, assuming they plan to live alone.  $29,900 - $12,000 = $17,900.  We will assume utilities and taxes to be included here, to save on some math, though this is highly forgiving.

He or she will need to eat, so let's call that $300/month (average is in the range of 10% of gross, so we are undershooting this): $17,900 - $3,600 = $14,300.

We also need a car, because this example takes place in Alberta, and for a pretty basic 2011 Corolla and fuel, insurance, etc., this will come out to about $310/month = $3,720 + $2,000 in annual fuel (24,000km @ 7.5L/100km @ $1.10/L) + $250 in maintenance + $1400 in insurance, totalling $7,370.  No consideration for depreciation right now.

Average transportation cost is in the range of 12-14% of gross, so we are in range here.

Even so, $14,300 - $7,370 = $6,930.

We haven't done anything at this point besides pay for somewhere to live, food, something to get us around, and ensure the possibility of a dignified retirement, and we have less than 7 grand left for the entire year.

A smartphone with a decent data plan is going to run around $1,200 a year, and high speed internet about half of that.

Now we are down to $6,930 - $1,200 - $600 = $5,130.

At this rate, it should seem clear why banks need to offer cash back mortgages in this country to keep business going.

Even at a level of income greater than 75% of all Canadians, it would take that person over three and a half years just to save up the 5% minimum down payment for the average $366,000 Canadian home, much less 20% (assuming they plan to both own a home and retire, and not one or the other as the case certainly is right now).

And that's with no budgeted provision for hookers and blow on the weekends, yearly winter pilgrimages to climates with sun and cheap booze, or the daily $5 latte at Starbucks.

Granted, you can make the argument that perhaps my retirement outlay is too high, or that dual incomes change the picture, but my response would be that I have been extremely conservative on the cost of living side of the equation as it is.

Children, furniture, clothing, healthcare, recreation, education, gifts, tobacco & alcohol.


Those all cost more than zero, and I'm certain that whatever amount you pull out of the retirement amount would quickly disappear into the above.

All I'm trying to illustrate is that since the majority of new $450,000 Calgary subdivisions are not filled with houses full of people singing Kumbaya with the lights turned off and their single Toyota Corolla tucked away in the garage, we certainly aren't going to gallop into the sunset together with our chariots full of gold (well, I will...).