Theater Of Cruelty

The Internet Is Not Your Doctor

2012-02-07T15:24:00.001-05:00

I'm already a sad disappointment, but there's no reason that you have to be like me. It's really quite simple: If you see me doing something wrong, then you must do the opposite. A case-in-point is what happened this past weekend. Let me set this up for you: My work week did not end in its usual fashion - last-minute bad news pouncing onto Friday afternoon and bedeviling my weekend psyche. Add to that a weekend with no real planned structure and I was in a very happy place. I looked forward to the weekend and it, apparently, was happy to see me, too.

Now the only possible obstacle on my weekend runway was a minor physical ailment. I spent all day Friday with mild stomach pains - really, just sore muscles - that I attributed to an overzealous visit to the gym the night before. By dinnertime the pains had localized and (slightly) intensified in my lower right abdomen, but I was still under the impression that Age + Exercise = Soreness.

Remember this for it is a key point in the story.

Pains aside, my wife, my son, and I made a trip to local cineplex that evening to take in a showing of Tintin. The movie was quite a lot better than I expected and the theater was completely free of anyone chatting or texting during the movie. This good fortune was tempered by those stomach pains - now growing intense enough that concentrating on Tintin took some doing.

By the time we arrived back home that evening, I was pretty convinced that I was dealing with something more than sore stomach muscles. It was painful to simply walk and breathe. Finding a comfortable sitting position was proving elusive. My happy weekend was becoming compromised so, being a good geek, it was time to consult the Internet.

I'm pretty good at Internet research. When I need answers, I try to find as many different sources as I can, suss out the zeitgeist and, behold, there are my answers. So let me net this out: when the Internet considered my lower right abdominal pain along with a few secondary (imagined?) symptoms, it became all pretty clear that I had appendicitis. And when I say 'pretty clear' I actually mean 'fairly certain'. And, of course, I made sure I understood all of the surgical techniques and recovery details that I would need for the inevitable trip to the hospital.

I did not immediately share the Internet's diagnosis with my wife, offering her only the assurance that I had cramps and they would go away with a Tylenol-3 and a good night's sleep. While the pill took some of the edge off, I still laid sleepless in bed the entire night trying to find a comfortable position while mulling over the idea that someone would have to cut into my guts to remove the pain.

With that much time and worry to consider, the mind fixates. I began to imagine what the coming days had in store. I wondered how many needles I'd get (I hate needles). I wondered who would get to shave the incision area (likely the oldest, scariest nurse they could find). I wondered how many weeks I'd get to miss work while recuperating (2 to 3, says the Internet).

Saturday morning came. I was no better off and a lot more fatigued. The day was one long out-of-focus camp-out in front of the TV - alternating between restless catnaps and reality programming. I ate nothing and drank only water. My wife offered time and time again to take me to a clinic while I resisted (time and time again). I checked and re-checked my medical research. All signs continued to point to the appendix. The Internet was only too happy to determine how long I could stall before the risk of peritonitus was too high (42 to 78 hours from on-set, give or take).

As Saturday morning became afternoon and then evening, I sat in my chair and gave in to the notion that I would need to be cut open - and soon. There was no hiding from it. But the wimp in me decided it would wait until Sunday. I would get up and have my wife drive me somewhere - maybe straight to the hospital. I drifted off into another uneasy catnap while, outside, the skies debated how many grey clouds it needed to match my mood.

By dinnertime Saturday, things changed. A few hours of actual sleep had done something wonderful. I was rested and, miracle of miracles, my lower right abdomen was somewhat less painful! It wasn't the imaginings of a man avoiding the chance to be sliced apart by science. It was actual recovery! As evening turned into nighttime, my stomach ailments all but disappeared. I didn't wish to jinx my luck by saying the Internet had been wrong, but the thought, incomprehensibly, was there in the back of my mind.

Sunday morning brought almost a full recovery, albeit a tender one. I could only think of myself doing some kind of Ebenezer Scrooge panto: flinging open the window and shouting my miracles to first unlucky soul who came along. Since I'm not typically given to such displays, I could only give my wife reassurances and resolve that I would live each day as though it were my last. Starting with Sunday, it would be Me 2.0.

The Internet wasn't done with me yet. Me 2.0 had planned to spend quality time with my PC to do a bit of video editing. My PC, having other plans, decided to chew up a hard drive and swallow all of my in-progress video bits. Back to the Internet, I spent hours chasing rumours and lies about how I could rescue my videos and maybe triage my hard drive. Like phantom appendicitis, all I ended up with was too many lost hours and vague memories of happier times. And suddenly, the weekend, my happy weekend, was dead and gone - buried in scores of URLs and questionable advice from total strangers.

So the Internet is not my Doctor, nor is it yours. But we both know that next time we feel a twinge in our joints, the next time we need to know if a certain hotel is vermin free, the next time we need advice about the important decisions in our lives, the Internet will there waiting for us. And we'll be there, too.

Skin Deep

2012-01-23T21:23:00.000-05:00

The Caribbean highlight reel continues: At the island of St. Thomas, we decided we should try a little open-water snorkeling, which is a tourist staple, of course. The idea here is that you pays your money and you get ferried a few miles out to sea where your (hopefully) expert Captain outfits you with fins, a mask, a snorkel, and a lifetime of experience before throwing you overboard to meet some fish.

As often happens in my family, there was disagreement in selecting an appropriate excursion - the majority of these involving a leisurely half-day on a catamaran with complimentary rum and sunburns. This is where my wife and daughter wanted to spend their time. My son and I felt the need for speed and were more interested in the Captain Nautica rock'n'roll powerboat snorkeling excursion.

So, we split up for the day - the ladies reclining on their catamaran while the The Boy and I signed on to Captain Nautica's crew. In the end, I think my son and I made the better decision. We started early in the morning and, since we were taking a very fast powerboat, we were able to make the 18-mile journey to Turtle Bay, Buck Island long before any other snorklers. As a result, we had some ocean and Green Sea Turtles all to ourselves.


Our boat disgorging snorklers (The Boy is furthest on the left).


Swimming over some curious turtles.

Curiouser yet.

The Boy, his turtle friend, and a bad re-enactment of 'Free Willy'.

After 45 minutes or so in the water with these creatures, we dragged ourselves back into the boat to make a second stop on the opposite side of Buck Island where there was a sheltered bay. There we attracted various smaler fish with bits of melon rind, saw a shipwreck, and even got Barry the Barracuda to pose for pictures.

The Boy summons his horde.

Gliding over a shipwreck.

Clever Barry waits under the hull of our boat.

In contrast, the ladies barely saw just one turtle and only got to snorkel in one location. That said, they got all the rum they could drink. And that ain't bad.

Sell You Pictures, I Can

2012-01-18T18:54:00.001-05:00

You need to read the title above in your very best Yoda voice. Practice it a few times before you read any further. Be patient - this will all make sense in a moment or two.

So I've been away, chasing warmer breezes somewhere south with my family. We spent a few days at DisneyWorld and then floated towards a Caribbean New Year's Eve on the Disney Magic. In the past, I would have written a post for each day of such a journey, but not this time. I think we're going to go with a highlight reel - in no particular order - of things done and seen that might be half-ways interesting.

Let's start on the island of St. Maarten. Like pretty much every Caribbean island, St. Maarten caters to the cruise crowd's affinity for shopping. And that means a shopping district just steps away from the gangplank where vitamin-D deprived North Americans and Europeans can pick up high-end jewellery on the cheap. I don't why this is or how it started, but I'm talking about entire streets where jewellery stores stand shoulder to shoulder, selling diamonds and gold at prices that are (apparently) very reasonable.

I'm not a shopper, let alone a shopper interested in jewellery, but after we had finished our family trek down a rainforest trail that morning, my son and I dutifully followed my wife and daughter down such a shopping street. While the ladies poked around in store after store, us menfolk simply shifted our butts from one shady bench to the next, passing the time by sweating and looking for free wifi.

Positive that there was nothing on that street that spoke to our manly interests, we spied something very much out of context:


This picture is stolen from the Web. It's better than the one I took!

We found Yoda Guy. On a Caribbean island, in a shopping oasis full of diamonds and gold, we found Yoda Guy. Perplexed and slightly dizzy from the heat, we had to check out this Yoda Guy.

You can read Yoda Guy's story here, but the short version is this: Nick Maley was part of the creative crew that built the Yoda puppets for the Star Wars movies. At some point in his career as a movie artist, he, along with his wife Gloria, ended up on the island of St. Maarten. There they run Planet Paradise, selling movie memorabilia and Maley's artwork, along with running a movie museum in the same building.

My family and I had to check this out, of course. We're geeks. Walking in the front door, we found a winding staircase lined with photos and explanations of Maley's movie work - mostly Star Wars related stuff. At each step leading up to their store, we grew a little more excited at the prospect of maybe, just maybe, taking home a little piece of Star Wars and maybe, just maybe, hearing a really juicy Carrie Fisher anecdote from Yoda Guy. See what I mean:

Just inside the front door.

Further front door clarifications.

I cannot disagree with this.

Up the final flight of stairs towards the gallery.

It was at the top of the stairs that things got weird(er) and any visual evidence got lost. We first encountered a full Stormtrooper costume in a glass display case. There was a sign on the case that read something like this:

If you'd like to have your picture taken with the Stormtrooper,
we'd be happy to open the case for $7.

Unsettling, we thought. Were they really charging a fee for a picture with this costume? And how did they arrive at $7? Why not $5. Or maybe $10?

Further down the hallway we entered the store proper. It was more or less a small art gallery with a display case in the center of the room and a sales counter in the corner. In that display case was a life-sized statue of Yoda and, again, we encountered a helpful sign:

Photography is reserved for Customers!

I put my camera away at this point. I got the fact that cameras in an art gallery might not be a good thing, but the sign added to my 'unsettled' feeling about the place. From the counter behind us there was a "Welcome" from Gloria Maley. Friendly enough, she launched into a pitch that I'm sure she has given hundreds of times. The upshot was this: there was all kinds of stuff for sale in the store and the price was not carved in stone. Since we were tourists from a cruise ship, we could get an additional discount. Now, if we spent $39 or more as a family, we could go into the museum for free. If we didn't spend $39 or more, we could still make a $15 'donation' and go through the museum anyways.

The word 'donation' seemed interesting, so I asked her about it. Their goal, said Gloria, was to raise enough money to be able to buy the building next door and turn it into a re-creation of the Mos Eisley cantina from Star Wars. It was unclear to me what they would do with a cantina, although I supposed it would involve a fee. I just chuckled and assured Gloria that theirs was a noble goal.

Free to peruse Planet Paradise, here's what I noticed:

We were the only people in the store
From what I could see, the memorabilia amounted to framed, photocopied pages out of a Star Wars script, autographed by Nick
There were the odd bits of Star Wars trading cards and comic books
There were pencil drawings of Tauntauns and the like, all done by Nick
There were some pieces of original art done by Nick, all Caribbean themed
Nothing had a price tag that I could see
The museum entrance was a rather dark doorway off the side of the store, which suggested that the museum was likely quite smallish
Pictures from inside the museum suggested it was pretty much a collection of costumes from Star Wars and a number of other movies

It wasn't too long - like 45 seconds or so - before Han Solo's words were in my head, "I've got a bad feeling about this." There seemed to be no actual memorabilia to be had - at least none that interested me. The vibe in the place felt a little bit grasping. I realize that people need to make a living, but the requests for money felt a little icky (although I'm open to better words here).

I decided that we needed to leave (nothing to see, move along...). Being the only people in the store, and under the watchful eye of Gloria, we would need to use a subtle bit of shuffling towards the door before making our break for daylight. But there was a problem. My kids were on the other side of the gallery and, as I strolled over to whisper a few words to them, Yoda Guy himself emerged from the back room.

Now, I found Nick to be a very nice chap, but his first few words after "Hello" were basically a repeat of the instructions we had just received from Gloria. When I mentioned the fund-raising plans for the next-door cantina, Nick chuckled a bit and called the whole thing 'his folly'. I searched my brain for a Star Wars question to fill the oncoming conversational void, but Nick had already wandered off to confer with Gloria. It was our opening! The four of us quickly, but coolly, made our way back down the stairs and out the door.

I admit feeling a a bit disappointed with myself afterwards, like maybe I should have bought a little something. Nick and Gloria Maley seemed like nice-enough people trying to make a living for themselves on a lovely little island. Maybe I shouldn't have been so turned-off by the fact they were so very up-front about 'money for something'. But in the end, it was all very off-putting. I wish them well and I hope they build their cantina someday (all without a visit from a LucasArts lawyer). And if "Nick's folly" ever becomes reality, I'd like to pay a visit and hear that juicy Carrie Fisher story over a cold mug of Jawa Beer.

Found Wandering

2012-01-10T21:44:00.000-05:00

I've been elsewhere doing other things without the decency to leave a note so you wouldn't worry. I'm back - sort of. The majority of elsewhere and other things has been a long-ass vacation in warmer, Disneyfied environs. I'll share a few stories about all that real soon. Just to be a tease, those stories will include Segways, sea turtles, and tropical Yoda - all wonderous and sometimes bizarre.

The vacation is over now, but I'm still AWOL on a working trip to Canada's capital city. There are no stories to tell here beyond the despair of hotel bachelor living.

Watch this space!

Fine. You Asked.

2011-12-20T20:34:00.000-05:00

Well, no you didn't ask, but it's about that time again - time for a GameCube Portable update. Actually, quite a bit has happened since the last installment, all to get us back to where we used to be.

When last we last looked in on our plucky GameCube modders...

All indications were that the latest problem with The Goddamn Right Trigger (TGRT) was that we had repaired it using an electronic gizmo - a potentiometer or 'pots' - from a third-party, non-Nintendo controller. With nothing to lose but a few more dollars, I started making the rounds on eBay and Kijiji looking for a genuine Nintendo GameCube controller that we could harvest (rip apart) for parts.

eBay had tons of controllers, still new in their packaging, but nothing under $50. Kijiji, however, is the flea market of the Internet and we found a few complete GameCube systems for $40 or less. It was a no-brainer when we encountered one young lady selling a GameCube with 4(!!!) controllers for $40. Just to add a bit of icing, the GameCube just happened to be the same DOL-101 engineering version that we used for our project - a handy bonus in the unlikely(?) situation where we needed a new motherboard or somesuch.

Kijiji Lady and I exchanged about a dozen emails before JediBoy and I made the trek to her place on the other side of town - our $40 in hand. When we got to her front door, she greeted us with a smile and an apology. Apparently she had sent one last email that we had not seen. It turned out that her GameCube - after sitting in a box for almost a year - would not play games.

She had tested it for us and it refused to read a game disk. She also found that one of the controllers was not functional. Although annoyed that she didn't think to test it before she placed a Kijij ad, it didn't matter that much to us. We had money and she had product. We told her everything was alright and drove off into the rainy night with our parts.

As if this story has not gone on long enough, the new part - the genuine Nintendo part - did the trick. TGRT was made functional once more as we silently prayed. I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't surprised. Logically, it was supposed to work. Emotionally, well, I'm surprised when anything works.

Gently, we re-installed the TGRT back into the case, this time using epoxy putty for a cleaner, safer job versus using hot glue or liquid epoxy. At every stage of the process we tested and tested again. The results are below:

Now we are ready (again and again) to finish the rest of the assembly. JediBoy was hoping to have it wrapped up by Boxing Day, but I'm pretty sure we're going to find some way to screw this up by then.

Lights for Baby Jesus - Part 2

2011-12-14T19:11:00.001-05:00

The pause between Part 1 and Part 2 was solely for dramatic effect and in no way symptomatic of falling back into old too-lazy-to-post behaviours. Got that?

So! Wreath, ladder, painful injuries - that's where we left off. Before we continue our Christmas tale, here are some fun statistics:

35 Canadians die each year from falling off a ladder
1 Costa Rican dies each year from falling off a ladder
62 Canadians die each year from falling out of bed
1 Costa Rican dies each year from falling out of bed
Canadians often decorate their homes with Christmas lights hung from their roof
Costa Ricans often decorate their homes with flowers in pots and animal statues in the yard

Clearly, Christmas in Costa Rica is a safer, more fragrant experience. I also understand there's no snow there and the coffee grows on trees. We have a lot to learn from our friends in Central America.

I considered that a Costa Rican person would be a useful resource to help decorate my home for Christmas, given their emphasis on simplicity and safety (statistics don't lie!). But there aren't any such neighbours on our big happy cul-de-sac, and I'm pretty sure an ad on Kijiji would have taken too long to pay-off. I decided I had to tough it out myself using just my wits and my residential-grade extension ladder (aka The Widowmaker).

Unfortunately, there's not much to the story. I got my ladder out of the garage and extended it to the exact length where it will usually not flex like a bow against by body, the arrow. I was able to hang the wreath I almost made by myself. I hung a few smaller wreaths on either side of the garage door. And I finished off by replacing the outside lights with festive green bulbs (I would have used red bulbs, but I hear they attract the wrong sorts of new friends).

The only touch-and-go moments:

My neighbour shuffled up my driveway to have a chat just as I was leaning my ladder against the house, so I was obliged to use my valuable Christmas-decorating time to shoot the breeze with him.
Because I lost my valuable time chatting with my neighbour, it was darker and colder outside by the time my work got underway. I laugh at the Elements and I don't mind dermabrasion from cold ladder aluminum, however.
There was a moment of uncertainty when the brick clips I was using first took the weight of the wreath I almost made by myself. Fortunately, everything held (until the first windstorm, anyways).

True grit won the day, of course, and my house is now a Wonderland. The downside of this is that I think I did too good a job. No neighbour has come by to congratulate me, so I can only assume they are over-awed and cowered behind their curtains. Looking at the picture of my handiwork below, I think you'll understand:

Lights for Baby Jesus - Part 1

2011-12-08T12:06:00.000-05:00

I live in what passes for the suburbs in my town. Better yet, I live on a cul-de-sac in a great, big happy circle of neighbourly friendliness and holiday pride. The Christmas season here always starts in November with one of my neighbours dragging out a ladder and 5 miles of lights to hang on the house. This, and the fear of weather turning cold, has a domino effect on my other neighbours and, before you can sing the Hallelujah Chorus, our happy circle is awash in a Christmas glow that would put Las Vegas to shame.

I refuse to play nice, mostly because I'm lazy and not very creative about Christmas lighting. I eschew using the last warm days of November thinking about Christmas, telling all who'll listen that no tinsel shall set foot on my property until December 1. It also helps that, unlike many of my neighbours, I no longer have small kids in my house to cajole and whine about the lack of red-green-gaudiness in the front yard.

So December 1 has come and gone and, still, no Christmas lights illuminate my driveway. Having given up risking my health by hanging lights off the roof, I now put my lack of creativity to work on what I call 'the ground display' - various lighted and air-filled doodads that make the front yard look like a squatter's camp on the Island of Misfit Toys.

In my heart, I want to be good at this stuff. But what I would love to be able to do...

...is very much beyond what I'm capable of doing.

This year, however, I thought I'd try an upgrade.

I've always been underwhelmed by our lighted wire-frame wreath that hangs over the garage door. This year, I decided we should replace it with a very large artificial wreath. It would look good during the day and, once the Sun set, it would be lit with many white pin-lights woven into the wreath material. This was my simple dream.

It took a few days to find my wreath - a 4-footer that was the last one in the store. When I took it home I found out why it was an orphan. The wreath material had pulled away from the backing frame in spots. No problem, I could fix it with a handful of small zip-ties. But then I decided it looked pretty boring. It needed pizzazz. So I spent some time affixing plastic Christmas ornaments - a selection of gold-coloured balls - all around the wreath. After an of hour or so of effort, I was pretty impressed with myself, being all creative and stuff.

The plan was to hang my new wreath yesterday (and put out some other ground display doodads) to let my neighbours know that I'm no Scrooge. I imagined them making a point to knock on my door and complement my new wreath. I'd smile awkwardly and casually mention how I had just about made that wreath myself. And they'd be all impressed and basically consider me Christmas King of the Cul-de-sac.

Of course, it didn't work out.

True to form, my garage door broke a few evenings ago. With the door stuck in the 'closed' position, there was no way to get my ladder out to hang my wreath. Sure, I could have borrowed a ladder from a neighbour, but that would sort of jeopardize my plan to become Christmas King.

As of last night door is fixed - at least in a temporary fashion until new springs can be ordered and installed. So tonight it happens. Tonight the brand new wreath I almost made by myself will be hung over the garage door. I haven't quite worked out the details for how it will hang, but I'm pretty sure it'll get figured out. Right?

Vomit On The Finish Line

2011-12-06T14:01:00.003-05:00

Leave to this guy to point out a sad truth:

So now you just stop? Now that you have me jonesing for a fix of daily blogging fun, you just turn off the faucet.

Harsh, dude. Harsh.

As this lone, brave Reader suggests, I fell a little short of 30 Days of Awesome. I took 'er right up to the finish line and, just 2 days away from the end-zone, I fell down on all fours and heaved up way too much Gatorade.

Seriously, could this end any other way? Constantly a few days behind in posting, I think we all knew the 30-day experiment was headed for the ditch on Day 1. It's not like the well ran (too) dry on ideas, however. I just procrastinated until there was no reasonable chance of saving face by finishing the job.

Something else will show up in this spot. That's a promise.

There have been some developments on the GameCube project. We're (surprise!) about 3 weeks away from sailing the ocean with these guys, provided we can get past some drama involving our cat. I continue to be delighted at the wide variety of ass-kickings that are mine for the asking in Skyrim. And my Christmas readiness is pretty much focused on the viability of finding and securing a very large wreath onto the front of my house - 'cause that's what the baby Jesus would expect, right?

So, yes, there's stuff to talk about here.

Nov 28 - Be Careful What You Wish For

2011-11-30T10:48:00.002-05:00

Our local rag recently ran the following article - Go train: Are we next? You can read the it for yourself, but the upshot of the article is that residents of Kitchener-Waterloo will soon be able to use the GO Transit rail service into Toronto. The story then goes on to provide some sad analysis on what this means for London's chances of getting similar GO commuter service someday. I use the word 'sad' because it's a painful intellectual stretch to bring a local connection to this story. It's very unlikely that London will ever justify or need the slow-moving GO rail service.

The paper solicited the Usual Suspects for their opinions on the matter. The following quote from Gerry Macartney, manager of the London District Chamber of Commerce, caught my eye:

"Should we be making a pitch for it? If there is a business case for it, the answer is yes. Anything we can do to improve our economic plight, make our workforce more mobile and have more access to Toronto."

While Gerry knows a lot more about business stuff that I, it seems to me there are a couple of errors in his perspective. First off, there will never be a proper business case for Go rail service in London. The service is heavily subsidized by provincial taxpayers - aimed at providing lower-cost fares to commuters in the GTA. In financial terms, it's a money-loser that is basically a subsidy to GTA businesses who need access to workers (who live in outlying communities because economics make it necessary).

So if the balance sheet doesn't provide a business case, you need to look at the potential user-base and impacts on commuter traffic between London and the GTA. Again, the numbers are not there. There just isn't the mass of London residents who need to commute into the GTA on a regular basis. And for those London workers who do need to travel into Toronto from time to time, my guess is that a 3-hour commute (one-way) is not going to be very compelling (the Kitchener-Waterloo commute time into Toronto is estimated to be 2 hours).

My second problem with Macartney's quote is the idea that we need access to Toronto for our mobile workforce. A Toronto-centric workforce is exactly what London does not need right now (I know because I live that dream). Let's go back a decade or so when London was home to two local giants: Canada Trust and London Life. These corporations were bought out by larger giants in other places. The fact that these companies still have some corporate presence in London is due, in part, to a local, skilled workforce who could keep these operations running.

Over the years, both operations have been subsumed to some degree by their masters in other places. They do not have the local presence they once did. Their more skilled local workers are more and more forced to work part-time in other cities, providing business for Via and WestJet on a regular basis. In some cases, those local workers have simply given up and relocated closer to head office. I'm convinced, however, that easy and cheap commuter service to Toronto - be it GO Transit or the forever-mythical high-speed rail link - would all-but-eliminate the need for some companies to have a local presence. Instead, they would get access to local skilled workers without the nuisance of local bricks-and-mortar (and likely a healthy chunk of taxpayer subsidy to keep the commuter lines viable).

Maybe I'm living in the past. Maybe the days of big companies with a local presence are past us. But I think any manner of GTA-centric commuter service will only add to the hollowing-out of London, and further cement a service-based economy as the norm. We do have a skilled workforce in London. We do have the educational institutions to refresh and replenish our skilled workforce. In my mind, it's a far better business case to make the jobs come to Us, rather than sending Us to the jobs.

Nov 27 - Enough Already

2011-11-29T13:28:00.003-05:00

Today I tackled the GameCube Portable problems once more. While JediBoy was off doing other things, I spent a few quality hours with a soldering iron trying to sort out the mess that we call The Goddamn Right Trigger (TGRT).

In the last episode, we suspected the problem with TGRT was either the controller board or the potentiometer ('pots' for short). So, I spent some time de-soldering the old controller board and installing our spare in its place. The problem with this approach, of course, is that it can cause more problems than it solves.

I got to the point where the spare board was in place and the Left Trigger was attached. It all worked, so I was at least back to where we were 90 minutes before. I then wired up TGRT and.... failure - as in: no change from before.

This points to a pots problem since it's unlikely that 2 controller boards would have the same issue with Right Trigger support. This also confirmed something I thought I saw a few days before. Just for fun, I attached a multimeter to the Left Trigger pots and tried to measure the range of resistance. I then did the same with TGRT pots. I didn't really know what I was doing, of course, but the ranges I saw were quite different between the 2 triggers.

This difference could be explained by the fact that the Left Trigger pots came from a Nintendo controller while TGRT pots came from an OEM controller. Same style of pots components, different resistance ranges, different controller boards.

As the dust settles around me and that vein in my forehead throbs, it seems like the best course of action is to get another Nintendo controller and rebuild TGRT using genuine Nintendo parts. In hindsight, this all seems commonsense, even if we took a few weeks' detour to get here. So, to Kijiji and eBay we go!

Nov 26 - A Fish, A Barrel, A Smoking Gun

2011-11-28T11:34:00.007-05:00

I did 2 bad things recently, but Saturday morning wiped the slate clean. That means I win.

Bad Thing #1 - Our subscription to the London Free Press lapsed and I did nothing to stop it. My wife and I have debated this for years. I always opt to keep paying for the Freeps so that I have some amount of local news to read every morning. My wife has wanted to kill it because it's generally a pretty crappy paper anymore. She's right, of course, so I just never bothered to pay the bill. Sure enough, we got a final warning and then one day there was no morning paper.

Bad Thing #2 - After missing just one day of Freeps delivery, I called their offices and re-activated my account. The Globe and Mail was the first choice, but I'm too cheap to pay their subscription rates and I still wanted some amount of crappy local news. I felt dirty, but there you go.

Now for wiping the slate clean: Today's edition of the Freeps brought glorious opportunities for mockery, which means I can fill up some space here without too much effort. Observe the following letter to the editor:

Don't use taxes for porn

Regarding the article Porn filters up for review (Nov. 24).

What is the London Public Library board’s problem?

What makes them think it’s OK for taxpayer money to be wasted on public access to pornography? Am I wrong in thinking libraries were born of the need for an inexpensive access to books, so children and adults could be exposed to literature (not porn) they otherwise wouldn’t have an opportunity to have?

As a taxpayer, I am appalled a portion of my money is being used for free access to porn. I do not want my money being spent on access to porn for anyone. Period. No freedom of this or that. If a person has the desire to access porn, then let it be on their own dime in the privacy of their own home — not in a publicy funded public space.
What if the libraries were told all public money would be withheld until the free access to porn is halted? Would that make them sit up and take notice? And who exactly on the library board is supporting this? They must be out of touch with the average family.

Carol Vincent

Carol really makes me wish there was someone down at the Freeps newsroom who could answer these letters in print. I'd even volunteer to do it. It would be fun to point out to Carol that, in fact, the library is not providing free access to porn. They're simply saying that information should be freely available. That's kind of an ethical foundation for a good library.

I'd also point out that one simply cannot withhold dollars from the library system until they cry 'Uncle'. At the very least, it's bad governance - and one reason why the library board is arms-length from City Hall.

I think I'd also want to ask Carol if she'd like to apply her finely-tuned sense of propriety to, perhaps, the books in the library's collection. I'll bet Carol could free up tons of space on the shelves for the Carol-approved literature that an average family so desperately craves to fight the good fight against all this taxpayer porn.

But my favourite Carol Quote^TM is "No freedom of this or that". That's gold, man. Pure gold. No freedom for anyone, except for half-wits like Carol who would decide on which freedoms are okay. She must be fun to hang around with.

So, indeed, my two wrongs turned out alright (at least for today).

Nov 25 - Rinse, Repeat

2011-11-26T15:54:00.000-05:00

Okay, let's go back to the GameCube Portable. I know you're tired of this, but it'll just take a sec, okay? Picking up from a few days ago, JediBoy rebuilt the trigger today. We tested as best as we could using a multimeter, and the everything looked good. The next step was to test the trigger with an actual game (Link, come on down!) and see if the repairs fixed the problem.

I actually wasn't very hopeful it would work. When everything went wrong (again), it seemed to me that there were multiple problems. The trigger mechanism, itself, was definitely a bit buggered. But I strongly suspected the controller daughterboard was screwed up somehow.

Today's test confirmed my fears, I think. The repaired trigger should have worked, but failed to make Link smash things with his shield. There's a slight possibility that the trigger's potentiometer is malfunctioning - and we'll check that out first - but my suspicion is that the controller daugghtboard is no longer processing any input from the right trigger.

We have the necessary spare parts for either problem. I'm hoping that we find the potiometer at fault since it's the easiest fix. But we'll leave it alone for now and, instead, go out for dinner and think of something else. I'm lying, of course. We will dwell on these problems until we fix them.

Nov 24 - Thursday Needs a Song, Too

2011-11-26T15:38:00.000-05:00

I don't know why it is, but Thursday has become my new Friday. There is a certain ebb-and-flo, a certain zeitgeist, to the daily pace where I work. From Monday to Thursday, things feel unrelenting, unstoppable. When you think you've found some equilibrium between what's urgent and what's not, you can be sure that something new will emerge from the ether, demanding that you pay attention.

And then Friday rolls in, wearing faded jeans and having no particular plan for the day, and you can feel a palpable 'sigh' whispering down hallways, floating the week's worries from your shoulders. Friday frowns on working lunches. Friday insists on actual coffee breaks.

So while the calendar said Thursday today, my inner-compass said otherwise. I just needed to get to the end of the day in one piece and I knew the Sun would be shining on the other side. Now we just need to do something about that crabby bastard Wednesday.

Nov 23 - What Would Oscar Wilde Say?

2011-11-25T12:26:00.000-05:00

The 'cultures' found in the Facebook and Twitter communities fascinate me, but I don't feel like I fit in very well in either place. Wittier humans that I have tread this ground, of course, and the differences between these communities have, themselves, become their own memes. It seems to break down like this:

Your Mom uses Facebook. Your Friends use Twitter.

That's not true, of course. But it's the rule-of-thumb I keep in mind when I pass through those places - and I suspect I'm not alone here. To consider the evidence, I made a graph:

Science and Math prove that my main purposes for these popular social media tools are to share pictures of my cat and lure people to this very site (under the pretense of entertainment). So let's just wrap this up by giving people what they want:

Nov 22 - Crash Course

2011-11-24T15:19:00.001-05:00

Let's switch things up today and not talk about the GameCube Portable project. We can do that because we didn't work on it today. Well, maybe it got worked on a bit - mostly JediBoy staring at the disassembled trigger, heaving heavy sighs.

The highlight of the day, I suppose, was JediBoy's commitment to take his written driver's test on December 16 - a completely arbitrary date, by the way. He turned 16 back in October and, really, we expected him to be all over the driver's license thing. This is the kid who broke down in tears at the age of 6 because he had to wait 10 more YEARS before he could drive. This is the kid who, for most of his childhood, has looked forward to driving something, anything.

By the time he turned 16, the itch seemed to have healed. Getting his license became one of those things that would happen 'someday' (in the same list as 'comfortable retirement' and 'climbing Machu Pichu'). So we had a talk this evening and agreed he should at least take the written test and get his G1 class - which is basically a license to learn to drive. Come Springtime, he could take some driver training, get his G2 class license, and get some independence *cough*drive-to-a-part-time-job*cough*

In related news, my Insurance Agent was reportedly seen chuckling and rubbing his hands together.

Nov 21 - Sometimes We Feel Like This

2011-11-23T12:43:00.001-05:00

My lord but we're all sick and tired of hearing about the GameCube Portable project! It's become a sort of Foreign Legion Deathmarch with a climb up Mt. Everest as a cool-down. It is taking forever to make progress, and it doesn't help that we keeping taking 9 steps back every time we take 1 step forward.

But we are in too deep to stop. We've stopped counting the money we've spent on parts and supplies. We've never counted the hours we've spent on false starts and mistakes. Quite simply, we've come too far to quit.

After refreshing my memory about how to calculate resistance on a circuit, I tried wiring up a new LED and the required resistors (I never did visit the store for new supplies, but just used stuff we had lying around the workshop). Obviously I was screwing things up because I couldn't seem to make it work. Either an LED would blow out from too much voltage or it would not glow at all because there was too much resistance. I quickly came to realize I was getting too confused to make this work.

Luck came calling (likely She was on her somewhere else and took a shortcut through our workshop) when I magically found the original (broken) LED and resistor sitting on the workbench - in exactly the placed we looked yesterday. While the LED was still viable, I had no idea if the resistor would work. It was a tad scorched and the lead wire on one end had broken off.

With a strong magnifying glass and a shaky right hand, I soldered a new wire onto the end of the resistor. I expected nothing and had nothing to lose, but the multimeter show that (1) the part still worked and (2) my calculations for a replacement resistor were way off! Afterwards I was able to solder in the LED and add the whole mess back into the motherboard. As expected, everything was back to normal and we had solve one problem!

It was good progress and I was happy to call JediBoy to come have a look. Flushed with success, we decided to have a look-see at the broken trigger. Step 1 would be to somehow remove the mechanism from its epoxy tomb inside the case. This proved easier than we thought. Using a Dremel and some dental picks, we removed enough epoxy to gingerly pull the trigger free and open its mechanism.

We decided that was enough progress for one evening. There would be plenty of time in the coming days to screw things up again. For now, we would feel good about the project.

Nov 20 - Death Spirals

2011-11-23T12:00:00.000-05:00

Sunday was all about ends and beginnings, I guess. Our game of brinksmanship with November came to a head as we resigned ourselves that cold wind and snow will come sooner rather than later. With a familiar sadness, we closed down the pond for the season, silencing the waterfall until Spring. The deck and patio furniture was stored Teris-like in the shed and the last bits of garden pruning were brought to the curb. Like the man said, Winter is coming.

JediBoy and I dragged ourselves into the workshop to assess the GameCube Portable's state of affairs. We highlighted 3 areas that needed focus:

An LED and accompanying resistor needed to be repaired or replaced. This was not a major functional problem (we assumed) - more of a cosmetic issue in that the LED only serves as a 'power on' indicator. Since the case already had a hole drilled out for an LED, so we wanted to make this work again.
The right-hand trigger mechanism (already epoxied into the case) needed repairs. At first blush, the 'tact' switch seemed to have slipped out of place, so that would need to be corrected. There might also be an issue with the potentiometer, but further testing would be needed.
The board containing the battery recharge circuitry might not be working properly based on a potential short-circuit. We'd either need to install a spare (not sure if the spare works) or source a replacement.

We decided to tackle the LED problem first since it was the simplest. Avoiding the gory details, we somehow misplaced the broken parts and we found we were lacking the necessary replacement parts. After a few hours of looking at all this carnage, we put off any action until I could visit The Source for some new resistors and LEDs.

Somewhere, the dragons of Skyrim were calling, but I could not answer. Not today.

Nov 19 - A Rebuttal

2011-11-21T13:01:00.000-05:00

In his comments on a recent post, friend of Cruelty and all-round Red Lantern, Jim Dandy, lobbed the following incendiary over the wall:

I assume you posted this bit of "feel goodishness" to distract us from the unveiling of the Gamecube Portable, which was, I assume, supposed to be unveiled in celebration of the 10th birthday of the Gamecube.

Mr. Dandy trucks in language, so it's hard to tell whether he's anxious to see the unveiling of the GameCube Portable or if he's skeptical that it will amount to anything more than a series of skillful Photoshopped forgeries. To his credit, Jim Dandy pulls back on the joystick with some further commentary:

I sarcastically offer the European launch date (May 3) as your next target as I couldn't meet any date for a project of this kind no matter how far in advance.

So now I think he's actually suggesting that the GameCube portable is entirely feasible, but it's going to take many more months of effort before he can hold it in his hands. In this, as in all things that matter, Mr. Dandy is right on the money.

In hindsight, I have no clear picture in my head of what happened. At Noon today, all signs pointed to making some major progress in getting the GameCube Portable assembled. We dry-fitted the motherboard, batteries, and fan, all to get a sense of where things needed to be. Out of that exercise, we decided that a number of wires could be made much shorter, just to keep the guts of the device as clean as possible.

It should have been simple. Simply clip a middle section out of some wires, twist the ends together, and finish off with a little solder and protective tubing. But everything went to Hell, somehow. A resistor and LED broke away from too much handing. A trigger (yea, that trigger) suddenly stopped working. While triaging those problems, some wires came into contact in a bad way and we may (or may not) have fried the power-recharging circuit-board.

By dinner-time, the project was in dire straits despite my best efforts at cursing it into obedience. JediBoy kept a cool head, of course, and talked me down off the ledge.

"Leave it alone, Dad", he said. "Let's sleep on this and see how it looks in the morning.".

Damn his voice of reason! But he's right. It's time to step away for a few hours.

Nov 18 - Perseverance

2011-11-20T11:38:00.000-05:00

For all the moaning and moping I do on this blog, I'm a pretty lucky guy in the grand scheme of things. I'm reasonably healthy, as are my wife and kids. I don't worry too much about the basics - a roof over my head and food on my table. I get to take vacations to nice places. No two ways about it - I'm a lucky guy.

Others are not as lucky as me. They have to work harder for less. They don't get to take things for granted the way I do. This was driven home tonight (in spades) in an unlikely place - my local gym.

I go to the gym about 3 times a week. I may not look it, but that's the honest truth. It's hard and it hurts and I sweat a lot. I'm not even sure I could keep it up if not for the gentle prodding from my family and the long list of podcasts that keep me distracted while I lift, squat, and lunge. I don't always like going to the gym, but I like what it does for my health.

There's another fellow I see at the gym from time to time. I don't know his name or anything much about him. All I can tell you is that he's younger than me, and he lives his life in a wheelchair. And if that weren't enough, he has some manner of motor impairment - a severe palsy shake that reminds me of an serious stage of Parkinson's or the like.

Whenever I see him there, he's hoisted himself from his chair onto a treadmill, where he wills his legs to walk in their herky-jerky fashion while the rest of his shuddering body wants to do otherwise. His face is always the first thing I notice - lips pulled back over gritted teeth, eyes just fixed on something I can't see. He is pure effort and concentration, all to keep his muscles from the atrophy that his condition seems to prefer.

Back to last night. I was mid-way through my workout when I noticed him on his treadmill. As usual, his presence was a gentle nudge to my conscience that I could, indeed, finish my weight routine even if I was tired and sore. As is my habit after finishing my circuit, I went to the reclining bikes to do 10 or 15 minutes of cool-down pedalling before hitting the showers.

Immersed in in my podcast, I paid little attention at first to the movement beside me. Then I noticed it was That Guy, still sweating from the treadmill and now trying to pull himself from wheelchair to bike. I tried not to notice him and yet I was fascinated by his efforts. Blind willpower seemed to be the only thing propelling him onto the bike seat. All the while, every part of his body, every limb, trying like hell to launch into random orbits around him.

Somehow he made it onto the seat, with his next goal to aim his toes under the straps on the bike pedals. Again, severe palsied shudders tried to make the task impossible and, again, somehow he did it with almost infinite patience. I remember thinking that he must perceive time differenly than me, just because every movement was such a deliberate, lengthy negotiation with his muscles.

His right foot in place, his left foot defied the straps at first, but after a few tries he seemed to have it. And then the left strap gave way. The fellow lost concentration as his left leg shot forward, then backward, again and again. He uttered a cry of frustration that I could hear even through the drone of my iPod.

I noticed the problem and paused a second as I wondered if I should help, or maybe that would be taken as a patronizing gesture. The split-second argument in my brain ended the moment I realized I wouldn't think twice about helping someone without a disability. To keep the idiocy momentum in my brain, I quickly pulled out my earbuds and started gesturing to the fellow that I could help - like somehow he was foreign and wouldn't understand me speaking English.

He knew exactly what I was asking him. Even though he had trouble speaking himself, of course he could understand me. So I asked him again, one guy to another, if he wanted me to help. He nodded wildly and gestured towards his left leg. So I knelt and helped him put his foot on the pedal as I snapped the strap back into place. Once he let me know that it was tightened enough, I got back on my bike and finished my ride.

I watched him some more while the remaining minutes of my routine ticked towards zero. He willed his legs to pedal while his hands, fingers tense and twisted, pawed at the controls so that he could set the time and speed of his ride. He talked some more as he tried to hit the correct series of buttons. Truth be told, I couldn't understand his words, but I imagined he was just barking orders at his unruly hands as they negotiated the control panel before him.

A few minutes later I was done and getting off my bike. I silently cursed myself for not introducing myself, getting his name. Would I have done any differently for someone else? (Probably not). I thought about him for the rest of the evening. I imaginied every small task requring Herculean effort. I imagined the grim reality of knowing that, for all the hours spent sweating on a treadmill, it might never make a difference.

I will wave at him next time I see him. Or maybe just nod my head the way guys do. But he'll probably never know that he inspires me a little bit every time I walk into the gym. And that's kind of a shame.

Nov 17 - Windmill Tilting

2011-11-19T20:28:00.000-05:00

Nothing happened today. I went to work, closed the door, got stuff done with the requisite levels of stress and anger, and then emerged for the mad dash home. It's more and more like that everyday - just a brain in a bottle.

But already I've lied. Something almost happened today. Our local chapter of the Occupy movement had planned a protest march for this afternoon, and the building in which I which I toil for money was going to be one of their targets. Rather than face their wrath, I left the office early and finished my work at home.

I wasn't really nervous about some kind of face-off. It was just a good excuse to work from home, where the coffee is free and the clothing is optional. But I was pretty curious about the outcome of thw Occupy march. I won't opine too much about the movement, but our local version is rather small and the inevitable splintering into factions has already begun. It was a good bet that the march would only involve a couple of dozen disenfranchised souls. Then again, maybe they could muster a couple of hundred people to brave the cold wind blowing the first snowflurries of Winter down the main drag.

The evening news confirmed the probable. The protest started much later than planned and only managed to draw 30 or so die-hard Occupiers. By the time they made their way to my office building, darkness had fallen and most workers had gone home for the day. It was a sad picture in my mind - poor, sad souls chanting their anger at nothing and everything, and no one around to see their desperate faces in the half-light.

Like I say, something almost happened today.

Nov 16 - Getting Sticky

2011-11-18T15:38:00.000-05:00

Wednesday should have involved going to the gym, but my ass was lazy and I had promised JediBoy that we'd work on the dreaded GameCube Portable. With the triggers rebuilt and seemingly functional, the next step was to finally glue them into place within the case. And when I say 'glue them into place' you know I really mean 'glue them into place only to find a problem afterwards'.

It was fussy work. Being commitment-phobic men, we seemed to spend forever finding the exact spot to place the trigger mechanism. The triggers, themselves, needed to poke out the appropriate openings in the case to be reachable by vidya-gaming geek fingers. They also needed enough travel space to be fully depressed.

On the inside of the case, the underlying trigger mechanisms needed to lay as flat and as low in the case as possible. This to keep them out of the way of other components and give us lots of surface area for the epoxy that would fix the triggers to their sticking places.

With a wee bit of trimming here and there, we found our spots. First came a few dabs of hot glue, just to hold the mechanisms in their places. Next, we hooked up some wires and gingerly tested the triggers (Link's shield did all the proper trigger tricks). The final step was to slather on the epoxy to ensure the triggers stayed put.

With all the stress and screwing around, getting the triggers installed was major step forward in getting to 'Done' on the project. It was also a major relief to JediBoy and I - a bit of a mental respite until the next hangnail is discovered.

Nov 15 - There Be Dragons

2011-11-18T14:07:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, Tuesday... lemme see, what can I say about Tuesday?

Work was, once and always, something I do in lieu of being wealthy. The evening was spent playing some Skyrim with JediBoy, all the while arguing over the definition of 'back-seat driver'. The late evening was spent playing pickup hockey with a beer/Tylenol chaser.

I did my best to avoid it, but I know my subconscious was churning over the GameCube Portable - imagining all of the other scenarios that could go very, very wrong.

So, the usual.

Nov 14 - Wanna Shoot The Whole Day Down

2011-11-18T12:51:00.002-05:00

Kee-riste I'm sucking at keeping up with a daily dose of ennui here.

So today was a Monday and, like the girl said, I don't like Mondays. I had a full day of meetings, which is not cool. After dinner was a trip to the gym where I discovered the podcast I wanted to hear was not loaded on my iPod, which is definitely not cool. The highlight of the evening may or may not have involved watching an imported British television show, which actually was cool.

Since the 'not cool' outnumber the 'cool' by a 2:1 margin, here's this:

Nov 13 - Two Days Time-Travel

2011-11-16T09:23:00.000-05:00

Sunday did not get any better. Yesterday's issue with the GameCube Portable project was still staring us in the face (no Shoemaker's Elves appeared overnight to fix our problems). So I did what I always do when I'm trying to ignore a difficult problem, I looked for easier problems to solve. Freud might suggest this approach gives me an artificial sense of accomplishment while I avoid the real issues in my life. And he'd be right.

But what Freud doesn't understand is that avoiding the GameCube Portable problems means that a squeaky light-switch is no longer annoying the laundry room, cold air is no longer blowing under the front door, and the lights in the upstairs bathroom are no longer humming. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, right Sigmund?

But it wasn't all about shirking on a Sunday. I did try to fix the GameCube's offending potentiometer thingamajig. While I got it working a little better, it was definitely not going to do the job. So on my trip to Lowes for weatherstripping and light-switches, I stopped in at EB Games on the off chance they might have some old GameCube controllers gathering dust with the rest of Nintendo's current product line.

Luckily, they had a couple of cheap-ass third-party controllers on the shelf. Not really knowing if these knockoffs would have the right kind of parts, I bought one anyways. The clerk behind the cash register was only mildly interested in the fact that I needed the controller for parts. While he thought the GameCube Portable project sounded cool, there was no huzzah from the surprisingly large Sunday-shopping crowd in the store. This disappointed my Ego.

At home, we ripped open the controller and found that we got lucky - the controller had the exact type of potentiometer we needed. From there it was simply an exercise in being very, very careful in rebuilding the broken trigger. Once the solder and glue was dry, we tested everything with the help of our buddy Link.

Success!

And after two days of worrying and rebuilding, we were back to where we thought we were two days ago.

Nov 12 - What Did I Say About Saturdays?

2011-11-13T20:49:00.000-05:00

Oh, that's right, I said Saturdays made sense. You may as well know that I was high (or worse) when I said that, because this particular Saturday made no sense. If I were to make a list of everything that went right, it would look like this:

I went to the gym and worked out for an hour

Now, if I were to make a list of everything that went wrong, it would look something like this:

I broke one of the triggers we built for the GameCube Portable

To the naked eye, these lists look to be equal equal length. But in reality, the Gone Wrong list is much, much longer. The trigger was sort of already broken, and when we actually noticed the problem, I took the lead and broke it some more while try to fix it.

In itself, this is bad enough. Context is everything, however - we noticed the problem at the exact moment we started to (finally) assemble the finished GameCube Portable. Our assembly step was over before it even began. And just to pile on the pain, we have no spares for the part that broke. Know why? We broke our 2 spares while trying to build the original trigger mechanism.

So, we need to repair the trigger somehow before we can proceed with assembly. And to repair the trigger, we'll need to find a new/used GameCube controller that we can rip apart - all to find a potentiometer thingamajig about the size of a fingernail:

Can't wait for tomorrow!

Nov 11 - And There You Go

2011-11-13T20:29:00.000-05:00

The planets aligned so nicely for an enjoyable Nov 11: Skyrim goes g/a and the kids have school. My wife would normally be at work, but she opted to take a vacation day - all the while acknowledging that, you know, Skyrim does go g/a.

I joined a small gaggle of geeks as the doors to Future Shop opened at 10am, and we formed an orderly mob all looking for their copy of Skyrim. I paid for my purchase and went straight home to pop it in the Xbox.

Glorious!

All the time in the world to goof off with my new video game, but such dreams were dashed on the rocky shores of Responsibility. We needed groceries, we needed cat food, my wife needed some help with other errands - from these tasks I could not shirk.

Don't get me wrong, I did get a few hours of slack-jawed goofiness running my Dark Elf through the mountains of Tamriel. But a family needs to eat, right?

Nov 10 - One More Day

2011-11-13T20:02:00.013-05:00

Even though it was only Thursday, I treated the day like it was a Friday - complete with blue jeans for office attire and the attitude that anything requiring effort can bloody well wait for Monday. Truth is, I have Friday (Nov 11) off work, so Nov 10 was the end of the work week.

I have plans. They're very simple plans. I'm going to buy a new video game - Skyrim - first thing in the morning and then I'm going to spend a lot of time playing that game. There'll be no kids around with whom I have to share. My wife will be home, but she understands my simple plans.

Are these selfish plans? Yessiree they are, because Nov 11 is always my selfish day.

Somehow, of course, these plans will not work out.

Nov 9 - Pity The Cat

2011-11-12T14:52:00.000-05:00

With my lovely wife on the road this week, I've been in full Mr. Mom mode on the homefront. This, of course, meant my kids and I ordered junk food for dinner this evening and then watched cartoons as we ate our way into early, plus-sized graves.

It's a funny thing being a sometimes-single parent. This has been our norm, off and on, for about 10 years or so. My wife takes regular-ish work trips out of town and I hold down the fort. Back when this all first began, my brats' ages spanned 5-ish to 8-ish. With kids that young, it took effort to be the single Dad: getting up early to get myself and my kids ready for the day, dropoffs/pickups at the sitter's place, planning dinner, playing with the kids until bedtime, etc. etc. etc. By the end of the day, I was be too exhausted to do much more than stare at the television before falling asleep.

I always imagined that as the kids got older and could do more for themselves, the parenting effort would get more manageable. But I was wrong - the effort simply changes. Where there used to be 'doing things' for small people, there is now getting less-small people to 'do things' for themselves (through effective nagging). Where evenings were spent simply hanging out with the toys, now there is pretending to be helpful with homework that is often incomprehensible. In all this, the end of my day still trends towards staring at the television and praying for sleep.

I'm just struck at how quickly the world changes in a few short years. While my wife and I would mostly prefer that she didn't have to travel for her job, I love - and always have loved - the time I get to spend with my kids during her absences. It gives me the opportunity to be better parent, even if I don't always seize the chance. Trite as it may sound, it keeps me grounded. But the hard reality is this phase of parenthood is coming to an end fairly quickly. In the next couple of years, it's quite likely that the kids will be out of the house, hopefully pursuing whatever education they think they need for whatever it is they want to do with their lives.

And when that time comes, I'll be able to focus my parental attention on the cat with laser intensity. Her fur will never be so well brushed, I fear.

Nov 8 - Stumped!

2011-11-10T21:52:00.000-05:00

Eight days into 30 Days of Awesome, two days behind in posting, and I'm already feeling stumped. Well, maybe not so much stumped, but vaguely repetitive. Nevertheless, these were the highlights of the day:

JediBoy and I worked a little bit more on the GameCube Portable project. Basically, we needed to settle on the exact placement of the optical drive on the back of case. This was important because there's only so much real estate back there, and the drive needs to be well clear of the trigger controls while still allowing for a removeable drive cover to be installed at some point. Long short short, it took almost an hour to figure out where to drill 4 bolt-holes and trim away some plastic to let the drive motor move freely. Baby steps, every one 'em.

Tuesday night is my pickup hockey night, and I got injured. I wish I had a great story involving heroic goal-scoring with a breathtaking disregard for my personal safety. But the fact is I cut my finger pretty good while taking off my helmet between shifts. My finger got pinched in the face-cage. I did manage a little bravado using my bloodied finger to stain a few spots on my (white) hockey jersey . Alas, no one noticed.

So, how many more days do I have to do this?

Nov 7 - This Exists

2011-11-09T16:19:00.000-05:00

There are a handful of websites I mean to check out more often. In the Non-Porn category, the Internet Archive (home of the legendary Wayback Machine) is one of those places I mean to spend time but never really do. The reason, perhaps subconsciously, is that it's the epitome of 'time suck'. Here's why.

Founded in 1996, the Archive has a very simple mission: universal access to all knowledge. It's a lofty goal that takes its inspiration from the ancient Library of Alexandria, and these guys aren't screwing around. If something can be digitized (and, really, what can't?), then it's fair game for the Archive.

Divided into roughly 9 major collections, the Archive includes Internet history, moving images, still images, text, audio - a whole world to fill up your days with endless clicking. Poking down obscure hallways of the Archive often leads to vast and unexpected warehouses of history.

Looking for old newsreels or classic cartoons? You're in luck. Need to dig up a Microsoft manual from 1998? It might be there! Maybe you need 10 reviews of a classic video game. There's a great chance it's there. Say! What did the Canadian Tire website look like in 1998? They got that, too.

So in case you have yet to be infected by curiosity, here's a piece of history from a dusty drawer found in the Archive. It's yours to enjoy, before you do click away.

Nov 6 - How To Ruin a Perfectly Reasonable Day

2011-11-08T20:27:00.000-05:00

I had to go to a benefit concert tonight. It's a yearly event to raise money in aid of a particular African country. I'm not sure if each person in said country gets a cut, but I like to think they do. The cause is worthwhile but, truthfully, we probably wouldn't go (or even know about the event) if it weren't for the fact that at least one of my kids is always in a choir that participates in the concert.

The way it works is this: there are musical performances and speeches all leading toward the passing of the collection plate. But it's all above-board. We know the organizers will try and tug at our heartstrings and they know that we'll all donate a few bucks. And in between, we get to hear some pretty great choir performances and listen to some well-known Canadian say a few words on some subject related to the evening.

But every year, part of me dreads the event because of one particular musical performer. I won't use her name here and I've resisted a link to YouTube, but she's kind of a local celebrity - a professional singer - and has been deeply involved in this particular charity for as a long as I can remember. I'm sure she's a perfectly nice person and I'm sure we'd get along just grand. But I cannot stand her singing voice. In my head, she's a terrible singer and the idea of spending an entire evening listening to her particular song stylings is a lot to bear. This year was no different, other than she sang a lot more than previous years and I had to dig just a little deeper inside myself to find my Happy Place.

Like I say, it's a lot bear. But bear it I do - for Africa.

Nov 5 - Saturdays Make Sense

2011-11-07T20:07:00.000-05:00

Saturday is the perfect day of the week - safely tucked between the work week just ended and the next one just ahead. While Friday is all about reaching the shore and Sunday is spent dreading the on-coming storm, Saturday is a safe harbour where one can remain warm and dry for the moment.

I make the most of my Saturdays. A morning that started with errands gave way to an early afternoon respite with coffee, friends, and conversation. This was all just prelude to an afternoon spent on nudging the GameCube Portable project just a little closer to 'done'.

The electronic guts complete, recent weeks have been focused on the case design (for which we've had many false starts and deadends). But now the case is all-but-complete. The pieces have been glued together and holes have been cut drilled - after which there were alternating phases of Bondo and sanding. Three coats of black paint have been applied to, in part, hide any imperfections in our bodywork.

Before the case can be clear-coated for a protective shine, there is one last detail to tackle: labels. There are signs and letters that need to be added to the case to denote which sockets will accept headphones and power cords. The 'Z' button needs to be set apart from the 'brightness' and 'volume' controls. But how to do this?

A first step was to create the various symbols and labels so that they could be printed out somehow. My son, JediBoy selected the font (Amiga!) and determined the sizing. With a little help from the Internet, Photoshop, and Gimp, we created the needed symbols and logo. Now that we had the right content, the next step would be figuring out how to add them to the outside of the case.

Our idea was to (InkJet) print everything onto thin plastic sheets. Everything would be carefully cut out and affixed to the case. It would be held into place with a few coats of clear acrylic sealer. In principle, it should have worked. But in practise, it did not. The fundamental issue stemed from the choice of a black case. We just could not print anything bright enough on plastic that show up well against the black paint. Yellow, the lightest colour possible (one cannot print 'white' on an Inkjet), was simply too washed out when printed on plastic.

Instead, we would need to print our labels onto something with white backing to get enough contrast against the black case. This is where we entered the wonderful world of water-slide decals. Anyone who has ever built a plastic model kit will know all about these kinds of decals. You cut them out, soak them in water, and then slide the thin film images onto the model where they dry into place.

After a lot of time spent in Internet forums for model-makers, we learned that we could make your own custom decals! At a local hobby shop we were able to purchase blank decal paper suitable for running through an Inkjet printer. We opted to use 'white backed' decal paper to get the right contrast. After some trial and error (and some label re-design), it all worked. Add a could sprays of clearcoat, and the results look pretty good!

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, eh?

Nov 4 - Always With the Cat Food

2011-11-07T09:57:00.000-05:00

After a week spent drinking Irish Whiskey in the evening and taking long lunches in the afternoon, Friday was a bloody let-down. Here are the highlights:

I got a spare key made for the new car because....well, just because...
I bought a cargo net for the back of the new car because it seemed like we should have a cargo net
I went to the pet store and bought cat food. This got the cat excited and I felt validated as a human.
I looked at old photos with my wife, during which time we went Full Fogey and wondered how the kids grew up so fast (while we did not)
I experimented with making decals for The Boy's portable GameCube project (more to come)
I watched TV with The Boy when I really should have been putting in the effort to read my book

Maybe it was a result of the old photos, or maybe it was just the beer and codeine, but the evening hours brought on a the unmistakable melancholy of time passing too quickly - connections to friends and family stranded in the wake of cat food and cargo nets. Thankfully, The Boy and I had an episode of Parks and Rec waiting for us on the PVR, and all perception of passing time was obliterated in the TV's LCD glow.

Nov 3 - No More Constant

2011-11-05T20:01:00.001-04:00

I dreaded this day. It had been coming for months - ample time to prepare. But I still still dreaded this day because things were going to change and the change was going to remind me that Time can be a right old bastard.

This story really starts in June 1988 when I began my employment at the place where I toil to this very day (forgive my Dickensian flourishes). While I was somewhat experienced in my craft, I was still young with plenty of space between my ears to fill up with experience and knowledge. There I met Charles, already a veteran of the Firm and one of the smartest computer geeks I had ever met (or ever would meet, as it turns out). Charles needed a programmer to work with him on a bit of a research project and I was the kid assigned to write the code for him.

What was supposed to be a 3-week engagement turned into a 23-year partnership of sorts. Inside the office: he was often my mentor, we worked together on countless projects, we travelled the continent on behalf of the Firm, and we somehow survived the brutality that is life inside a mega-corp. Outside the office: we played in the same D&D group, knew each other's families well enough, shared similar hobbies, and considered ourselves friends.

Through the years, I think we always just assumed we'd always be at our desks, always a shout away. No matter what changes Time would impose on the Firm, at least we'd still be around to chat about how great things used to be. But in the back of my mind, I knew Charles - 15 years my senior - would not be at desk someday.

And so I dreaded November 3, 2011, because that was the day Charles was leaving the desk just across the hall from mine. It had happened gradually, I suppose. We seldom worked together on the same projects anymore. Charles' work took him out of the city more and more, and while we kept in touch almost daily, his desk was often abandoned. I got used to it.

I had expected Charles to retire. He kept promising he would, but it was always 'just a couple more years'. So we were surprised when he announced that, rather than retire, he was moving (reluctantly) to another city to be closer to his current work assignment and closer to where his grown children (and grandson) now live. Again, retirement was going to be 'just a couple more years' away.

Houses were bought and sold, and Charles set a date to leave the local office for good. We couldn't let the day pass uncelebrated, so myself and another co-worker spent the afternoon with Charles taking a long, expensive lunch break and then retiring to a lounge with comfortable chairs where we could talk about the old days while a waitress kept our glasses full.

At the end of the day, I helped Charles carry the last of his office possessions to his car. A sunny day turned grey with clouds and the wind grew cooler. We stood there, just the two of us, by his car.

"Well, buddy. This is it, I guess", he said, extending his hand. His voice cracked.

I shook his hand and mumbled something about keeping in touch. And then we hugged in that awkward way men hug. Both remarked at how surreal it all was, and then I wandered off into the darkening afternoon.

We will keep in touch, of course. Our work lives will intersect from time to time. And Charles will likely need to visit the local office now and then. I'm guessing we'll even get to take one of our usual lunchtime walks on some of those occasions.

But everything has changed. Time has seen to that. What has been constant for 23 years has disappeared, simply because it must make way for new constants. But that doesn't make Time any less a right old bastard.

Nov 2 - Big Whiskey

2011-11-03T23:27:00.002-04:00

Seeing as how it's Wednesday, I don't remember much. If you cast your mind back to the beginning of 30 Days of Awesome, you'll recall that I play hockey on Tuesday nights as an excuse to drink beer and pass out in my bed, under the bluish glow of my TV-come-nightlight. If there's a moral in any of this nonsense, it's this: do not fuck with me on Wednesday mornings. Just don't. I'm tired. I'm sore. I have a heachache. I do not want to be your friend.

So this is why November 2 is more-or-less blurry, except for a few hazy highlights that shone through my codeine haze.

My new vehicle (3 months old) went into the garage to have something fixed. It was a small item, covered by warranty, but it was a nuisance all the same. There's something about the inside of a car dealership that just makes me feel.... dirty.

Work sucked in that special way that makes me truly ponder whether I need to earn money to survive. People were calling me - on the phone! - and asking me for things. They were doing this on a Wednesday.

But I had a lunch date with a group of co-workers and that was pretty okay by me. While it was a sad occasion - saying farewell to a colleague moving on to less-brown pastures - I at least got a nice meal, a bottle of beer, some reasonable conversation, and the afternoon mellowness that only a full belly can provide.

The evening was dinner and conversation with my visiting In-laws. They're nice people (even for a Wednesday). As is the evening tradition when visiting with my father-in-law, there were beverages. And on this particular evening it was 2 rather large glasses of Irish Whiskey - a souvenir gift from my In-laws' recent vacation in Ireland. This provided sufficient lubrication for watching the late-evening news on TV, which is another tradition under these circumstances.

So that's November 2nd - yet another Wednesday where I resisted the urge to kill.

30 Days of Bland

2011-11-02T14:06:00.000-04:00

Sometimes blogging can be a little like flossing your teeth - we all have the best intentions, but it doesn't take much to let things slide once in awhile. Rest assured that I have, indeed, done some flossing in the last couple of months, which is more than I can say about posting anything in this sad, dusty corner of the Interwebs.

So here's what I'm thinking: I'll force myself to post something everyday for the month of November - 30 days, 30 posts. The highlight may well be some horrific, gonzo reportage of a particularly bloody engagement with dental floss, but there will be content.

Now you're probably noticing the date here is November 2. And you're also thinking you've been ripped off - that I've tripped right out of the 30 Day starting gate. Fact is, I thought of this idea on October 31 just before the Witching Hour. So, it counts. And you'll get your November 2 post, too.

So what is the premiere post for this 30 Days of Awesome? It must be something compelling, something to grab you and keep you coming back day after empty day, right?

Not really. November 1 was nothing much special. I got up at 6am and drove my son to band practise. Then I went to work and dreamed of lottery wins that never will be. I went home again where my visiting In-laws were waiting (they're nice people, so no story there). We had dinner and I remember why I kind of dislike crockpots. I Googled a particular brand of shoes for my father-in-law. I helped my son a little bit with his physics project (assembling a model rocket). I went to play pickup hockey and drink beer. And then finally closed my eyes again about 1:30am.

See? It's kind of boring and yet jam-packed. But you're wondering if we're going to build on something. You're wondering what could possibly top November 1. And you'll back. You may even hate yourself for admitting it, but you'll be back.

Not Another 9/11 Story

2011-09-12T19:08:00.000-04:00

I thought about posting this yesterday, September 11, 2011, but it felt a little 'Me Too' for a day that probably doesn't need more stories to tell. This is not so much a story about 9/11, but more a recollection of that day - how personal connections manifest in the most unexpected ways.

At 9am on September 11, 2001 I was sitting at my kitchen table scanning the 'want ads' and wondering why I had voluntarily left a job just a few days before (another story). The TV in the next room was tuned to 'Regis and Kelly' just for the background noise (I swear!). As I sat there feeling a little bit worried for myself, the first reports started to trickle in as Regis announced that a small plane may have flown into one of the WTC towers.

Obviously, the rest is history.

For the remainder of that day and the days after, I was sucking up every bit of news like everyone else - trying to make sense of things that made little sense. We started to learn the names of the victims and that's where the story got a little more personal. For when the Canadian victims became known, I recognized one of the names.

I'll just call him Ken (and Google can provide the rest of the details if you need them). Ken was not my close friend and it had been a few years since I'd even thought about him. He was, at one time, a professional associate of mine. I was working for a large company looking to buy some technology and Ken was working for a smaller company looking to sell some technology.

I spent many months working on a project to implement the technology that Ken was providing to us. He was 'the sales guy' and we saw Ken a lot during those months. When we had a problem, when we needed something, Ken was the go-to guy. Like I say, we only had a professional relationship, although we did socialize from time-to-time over an expense-account steak dinner or maybe a round of golf (something at which Ken excelled while most of us IT guys did not).

When his name popped up in those 9/11 news reports, it stopped me cold. This was a connection, a human connection, to a tragedy so far removed from my everyday world. In the following days I would talk to my network of colleagues and get a little more context for this sad story. Ken had moved into a new job at a new company. He was having a breakfast meeting with his new management team - a meeting being held on the 106th floor of the North Tower of the WTC. It was the first tower to be hit by an aircraft that day, an aircraft travelling hundred of miles per hour when it struck the building just 10 stories below Ken. We learned that he managed to make at least one phone call while the smoke engulfed the top of the tower, and Ken knew he likely wouldn't be finding a way out.

Again, the rest is history.

So when the topic of 9/11 arises, as it has on this 10th anniversary of that destruction, I think about where I was when it happened and I think about Ken. I think about the man I once knew and I think about what his last minutes must have been like. I try to put myself in his place and imagine the terror and sorrow of knowing true inevitability. And I think about his family - his wife, his son, his daughter - and the grief they must carry every day.

In the end, I think about the connections we make in life and how they can surprise us in so many ways. And I remind myself that life really is too unpredictable and too short to be simply taken for granted, so we better make the very best of it while we're here.

A Haunting in Ottawa

2011-08-22T19:08:00.000-04:00

Ed. Note: I warned you all there would be more.

If anyone ever tells you that Ottawa, Ontario, Canada - our Nation's Capital - has a night life, they are either liars or their idea of 'night life' is vomiting outside the faux-Irish pubs in the Byward Market. Rest assured, Ottawa's sidewalks really do roll up once the Peace Tower clock strikes 6pm.

So there we were - myself, my wife, and my youngest kid - in Ottawa on a July evening wondering what we could do to pass the time once the Sun disappeared. By chance, I spied a brochure in our hotel's lobby that provided the answer: Ghost Walk!

For the timid and the uninitiated, a Ghost Walk is a basically an escorted night-time walking tour through an old neighbourhood. Along the way, your escort (typically clad in a black cape and carrying a candle-lantern) will stop from time to time to act out a spooky tale ripped from the pages of the town's history. I've noticed these things popping up in many old Canadian cities: Ottawa, Quebec City, Halifax, Kingston - even here in my sleepy London, Ontario environs.

I'd actually done one of these Walks several years ago in Quebec City with my oldest kid in tow. It was a foggy night in one Canada's oldest towns and we had a blast (that's another story), so I figured that shuffling down the dark alleys of our Nation's Capital should be good for a fright or two (beyond seeing one of those Byward Market dandies hurling up their Guinness).

I made the necessary reservations for our chosen evening with Haunted Walks. It turned out they were offering 2 different tours: one that was a standard walking tour and one called 'Ghosts and the Gallows' that would concentrate more on Death Row in the historical Old Carleton County Jail. The decision to take the Gallows tour was easy - it had a disclaimer that it was not suitable for young children. That said to us that the joint would be full of ghosts!

Because luck is always on our side, the horrific rainstorm that swept through Ottawa that day blew itself out early enough that our Gallows tour was still a go. We met our guide, Maura, at the appointed place shortly before 9pm. While there were literally dozens of people who'd shown up for their Ghost Walk, it turned out that they were all there for the 'standard' Walk - creampuffs all. In contrast, the Gallows tour would only include 7 brave souls, including ourselves. Luckier yet, 4 of those souls (another family) ended up cancelling at the last minute (creampuffs perhaps?), so Maura would be giving the Crazylegs-Clan-Minus-One a private tour!

During our short jouney from the shadow of the Parliament Buildings to the Carleton Jail, Maura stopped a few times to spin a spooky story. While she gave it her all, it was a little bit of an odd experience. Number one, she was performing for an audience of 3, and I felt the weight of responsibility to 'ooh' and 'ahh' with a little extra gusto. Number 2, for all of its age and significance, Ottawa has a lot of modern buildings and they just don't provide the right atmosphere (compared to someplace like Quebec City).

Maura leads the way to the Other Side.

Awkwardness aside, walking up to the big doors of the Carleton Jail provided ample atmosphere and the promise of spooks inside. By reputation, the Jail is supposed to be one of the most haunted buildings in North America. I'm guessing there are many old buildings with the same designation, however. While the Jail actually serves as a youth hostel these days, the upper floor containing the jails has been preserved as-is and is off-limits to guests according to some rather impressive padlocks.

Up the stairs we went, where Maura produced a ring of keys to let us into the off-limits jails. Our first stop was the jail cells, where Maura would relay a number of ghost stories - many of them involving Hostel guests attempting to spend the night in the cells and losing their nerve before dawn. The best story - and I hope it's true - involves a few German guests who, upon complaining to Hostel attendant about the lack of ghostly goings-on, were treated to a coin mysteriously levitating in front of their eyes for a solid 5 minutes before falling to the floor.

Inside the Carleton Jail front doors...

...and up the dimly-lit back stairs.

The first thing that struck me about the jails, besides the obvious fact that they are extremely cramped, was the silence. With the 4 of us standing at the end of the cell block, the silence seemed like it should be anything but silent. It was the kind of hissing silence that played tricks on your ears and made you think you heard the whispers of the poor bastards that might have called the place 'home' for awhile.

Maura left us alone for a moment while she went to unlock the doors that would later take us to Death Row. We tried to take a few touristy pictures inside the cells, but the lighting was too dim for the camera to properly focus. After a few nervous giggles about our photographic skills, Maura called us to come through the door. I lingered behind for a few moments longer, running my camcorder with an embarrassed hope that maybe I'd capture something from the Other Side - just like on the ridiculous 'ghost hunting' shows that populate the 3-digit channels on my TV. I will admit that the hairs on the back of my neck did stand on end and I was quick to re-join our little band of ghostbusters down the hall.

Alone in the cells awaiting my Casper encounter.

Death Row is a handful of cells apart from the main cellblock and separated at one time by a set of 2 heavy iron doors. I say 'at one time' because the doors have since been removed by Hostel staff. The story goes that the doors were notorious for slamming shut on their own, often with people dangerously close to being hurt. The final straw came when a Ghost Walk escort had her finger crushed in the doors, which prompted the doors to be removed. Adjacent to Death Row is a plain wooden door that hides what is today a storage room but, back in the day, was where the executioner would emerge when the Gallows were in use. Maura told stories of mysterious noises - talking, thudding, etc. - eminating from the behind the doors. We heard nothing, of course.

Death Row!

The executioner's door.

Having seen the cells, we made our way to the Gallows. I'm not sure what I expected, but the Gallows are easy to miss. It is basically a closet-sized room tacked onto the side of the building. There is a noose, a lever, and a trapdoor that opens 3 stories above terra firma. Maura's story at this stop involved the hanging of a fellow who protested his innosence and spoke a curse to the ground below his noose. According to Maura, there are dozens of instances of Walk guests who, when standing on the ground below the Gallows, have endured spontaneous nose-bleeds - not quite a pox on their houses, but a curse nonetheless. In case anyone is wondering, we had no such affliction.

As a post-script to the Gallows, Maura pointed out a more informal gallows in the same stairwell, where it is thought (but not proven) that the old-time jail guards may have carried out their own sentences out of sight of the offical Gallows. We were told that, sometimes, Walk guests get an irrationally uneasy feeling when passing this way.

The Gallows awaits another deserving crimnal.

A more informal place to string a rope.

By 10:30pm we had seen what Maura wanted us to see and followed her back to the Byward Market, which Haunted Walks' office calls home. Predictably, they have a small gift shop and, predictably, my son bought a book. We bid our good-byes and thanks, and picked our way through the street people and the tipsy revellers that populated the streets between Maura and our hotel.

As a post-script to the story, I was quick to inspect my video footage on our return home to London a few days later. While my rational brain knew there would be no extraordinary audio whispers or unexplained balls of light chasing through the cells, my more imaginative grey matter hoped otherwise. Alas, there was nothing, not even a technicolour puddle of Guinness for shock value.

"You're Gone!"

2011-08-13T23:00:00.004-04:00

Too often I forget about the inter-connectedness of things in this world of ours. Today was one of those times when it really hit home. Ted Tevan died.

You might not know who Ted Tevan is/was, but there are many of us who do. Ted was a legend in the Montreal radio scene back in the 1970's. Generally considered a Canadian pioneer in sports/talk radio, Ted's late night open-line radio show, Sports Rap, was an institution back in the day. It was a few hours almost every night where anything could happen - and usually did. Ted had his own style, his own way of doing things, and we couldn't get enough of it.

I was just a West Island kid in those days, so I'd risk the wrath of my Mother by sneaking a radio under my pillow to catch Ted's antics into the wee hours. It didn't matter that I wasn't a huge sports fan - I just wanted to hear Ted cut off some hapless caller with his usual "You're gone!".

But Ted was a little more than all that. You see, back in those days, he was also part of my Dad's circle of friends. They were a weird collection of Montreal car salesman, radio jocks, and pro athletes who all liked to drink beer at the same West Island haunts. How they got together is a tale I wish I knew..

So the story goes that my Dad had this running gag with Ted (likely made funnier by a beverage or two). My Dad would cajole Ted to "put him on the air" as co-host of Sports Rap. This was always funny to me because (1) my Dad was a car salesman, not a radio guy and (2) he knew very little about sports. Ted would, of course, tell my Dad to bugger off and buy another round. And then my Dad would feign his disappointment and anger - presumabley to gales of laughter from the rest of the bar.

Around and around went this schtick. Months passed, until one day Ted Tevan called my Dad's bluff. Instead of the usual "bugger off", Ted said "yes". He offered my Dad - who you'll remember had no radio experience - a weekly guest commentary spot on Sports Rap. All my Dad had to do was fill 5 minutes every week or so with 'something controversial'. And like that, the persona of 'O.J. Godin' was born - my Dad's not-clever morphing of his actual initals, E.J., into something more sports-like.

In months to come, I'd make sure to listen in on Wednesday nights sometime after 11pm to hear my Dad try to be controversial and get the station's phone lines lit up. Sometimes it worked (he managed to tick off Ken Dryden once) and sometimes it didn't. I never cared how good my Dad sounded, because he was still my Dad. And Ted was always the consumate pro in filling in the rough spots, anyways.

But my other memory of that time was Ted Tevan, himself. I remember him being such a kind fellow to me and my siblings - all of us always a little star-struck in Ted's presence. I used to love being the guy who answered the phone when Ted called our house. Ted would recognize my voice on the line and, without fail, would use his bestest, deepest radio voice, "Do you know who this is, young man?". And I'd rely back, "It's Ted Tevan and you're gone!".

It's been over 35 years since I last talked to Ted. And I really hadn't thought about him since my Dad passed away almost 4 years ago. Hearing today of Ted's passing saddens me, of course, but it also brought an unexpected smile to my face thinking about a time when Ted and my Dad, O.J., ruled the airwaves - at least under my pillow.

Underwhelming GCp Update

2011-08-13T12:35:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile since I've posted an update about the GameCube Portable (GCp) project. As you'll recall, this is my son JediBoy's project in which we are attempting to turn a Nintendo GameCube into a handheld ganing device. A spin-off benefit is that we get to spend a little together-time learning about really effective swear words to hurl at inanimate objects when they seem to misbehave.

So, where are we? We've pretty much figured out the electronics. Since the last update, we've a done some simplifications to the power circuits so that we can safely play the device off battery or A/C and still ensure that the recharging circuit takes care of the battery properly. After those changes, we kind of took a break to disguise our trepidation about tackling the actual case design.

We've had a general idea about the case for months now, but there have been some specifics that we have elected to ignore since they are tricky. Number 1 on that list of tricky bits: What do we do about triggers?

Anyone who ever picked up a GameCube controller knows that there are left and right triggers on the underside of the controller unit - placed so they can be comfortably reached with your Index fingers while enabling your Thumbs to find the buttons and sticks on the topside of the controller.

We have the same considerations with the GCp case. We plan to use a GameCube controller motherboard mounted just under the top of the GCp case so that we can easily(?) mount and support all the required buttons and sticks. But the triggers present a problem. Avoiding the gross details, the trigger controls on the controller motherboard cannot be used as-is because they were not designed for the dimensions of our GCp case.

To solve the problem, we have to construct a new mechanical trigger mechanisms that can be mounted on the underside of the GCp case and still be wired into the controller motherboard. We basicaly cribbed a solution that a few other Modders have used. It involves:

trigger mechanisms from an old Quantum Fighter Pad ($2 on eBay)
trigger ends from an old Dreamcast controller ($5 on eBay)
re-use of trigger potentiometers from a GameCube controller motherboard
Tact(ile) switches ($0.50 from DigeKey)

It's been fussy work putting this all together, but so far they seem to function properly in testing. The photo below shows our 2 new Frankenstein triggers. The one in the foreground is complete while the one in the background is just waiting for some epoxy to harden the trigger end onto the rest of the mechanism (hence the shims holding things in place).

Once this step is declared 'complete' we'll begin more serious efforts towards putting the case together. It feels like we're in the home stretch, but I suspect we'll encounter some 'gotchas', yet.

30 Days of Fallout

2011-07-31T23:42:00.000-04:00

Ed. Note: My family and I recently spent a few days on mini-vacation in our nation's capital of Ottawa. What lies below is a shameless exploitation of that trip - largely intended to fill space here for a few posts. This is the lowest form of blogging, of course: the sharing of vacation stories and pictures. You've been warned, etc.

If Ottawa is the town that fun forgot, then Carp, Ontario is the town that history (almost) forgot. Nestled outside Ottawa's city limits sits the unfortunately-named Carp, and outside Carp's boundaries, in the guts of what was once a gravel quarry, sits a remarkable piece of Canadiana lovingly called The Deifenbunker.

The Internet can provide you with all all sorts of facts and figures about this love-letter to the Cold War, but the Deifenbunker's salient facts are these: At the height of the Cold War, Canada's Prime Minister, John Deifenbaker, commissioned a nuclear fallout shelter to be built at CFS Carp near the nation's captial (other, smaller facilities were built across Canada). Dubbed 'The Deifenbunker', the Carp facility was built to withstand a near-miss nuclear explosion and safely house 500+ staff (including the government of the day) for a period of 30 days. It was (wrongly) believed that 30 days would provide sufficient time for the threat of nuclear fallout to dissipate to safe levels, allowing the bunker's occupants to emerge into a Brave, New World.

Operating for decades with an average contingent of 200 staff, the bunker was decommissioned as an active military base in 1994. By 1995 (or thereabouts) it re-opened its doors as a not-for-profit museum dedicated to the history of the Cold War. And in July 2011, with my wife and son in tow, I took a trip through the blast doors into the dimly-lit tunnel where 1963 would be waiting.

The entrance to the place is noteworthy insofar as a heli-pad might be noteworthy. Beyond this piece of tarmac, there sits a modest garage building large enough for a single truck to park inside and unload without prying eyes watching from the outside. But once inside that garage, things get ominous. Behind a large double-door lies the blast-tunnel - the only way in and out of the facility. And at the end of the tunnel sits the heavy metal doors that mark the portal back to a time when 'duck and cover' was a familiar phrase.

A chain-link fence and a heli-pad?

A non-descript garage, or is it?

Into the blast tunnel!

And down we go...

Through the blast doors we entered what could have been any circa-1963 government building - hallways painted in neutral colours, function--but-boring furniture, signage that meant nothng to the unbureaucratic mind. The only hints that something else was going on was the lack of windows and the unavoidable showers that awaited all who stepped through the blast doors.

Once inside, the Deifenbunker is a essentially a small town built as a 4-level office building underground. There's a fully functional hospital, communications rooms, meeting rooms, offices, personal quarters - all designed to keep government running and all vaguely based on the lessons of submarine layouts. Every piece of furniture, every piece of equipment, every well-labelled room - functional, non-personal. The place spoke in steady, measured tones that it had a purpose and that purpose would be met.

Everything non-descript.

The hospital could handle any medical need except heart or brain surgery.

The 'war room' keeping time where time passes quietly.

The Prime Minister's office (never used, of course).

There were a few features that I did not expect to see (and yet made abundant sense when I saw them). The cafeteria and common room was specifically designed to help ease the stress of the 24x7 rotating shifts within the Bunker. The walls have a bit of colour. There are tables and chairs for playing cards, etc. A billiard table sits near a small library. And on one wall is a photo-mural of some generic Rocky Mountain vista - intended as a reminder to everyone in the room what they were working to preserve.

Canada's own CBC Radio has a small studio 'down there' - intended as a conduit between the government-in-hiding and whoever was left on the surface (provided they still had radios). The final oddity; down at the lowest levels of the Bunker sits a Bank of Canada vault where, presumably, a little bit of seed money would be stored to keep the country financially solvent.

There's more to see down there, of course. And I was surprised at how freely one could roam the lonely hallways on all 4 levels. While guided tours are free and available in both official languages, one can also simply grab a map and audio guide and poke around at a personal pace. Oddly, the Bunker offers children's birthday packages and even runs a Summer day-camp.

So if you ever find yourself rolling through Carp, Ontario and feel the ground start to rumble while mushroom clouds lazily rise into the heavens, you'll know where to go.

Ever Your Servant

2011-06-26T14:58:00.002-04:00

About a week-and-a-half ago I get a few IMs from this guy at my office. Let's call this guy "Ike". Everyone knows someone who knows someone just like Ike: fascinated by vampyres, knows the best way to outrun a Shambling Zombie, will argue passionately why Gundams are not like Mechas - you get the picture.

So Ike IMs me all cryptic-like and says he's got a surprise for me. In my world, Good Surprises travel arm-in-arm with Father Christmas, winning lottery tickets, and my birthday cake. At any other time, it's only Bad Surprises running amok and generally throwing buckets of sand in your gears.

So knowing Ike and Surpises like I do, I fully expected his news had something to do with one of his many (disturbing) story ideas. Perhaps it would be a tale involving a lonely death-by-freezing on a derelict star-freighter. Maybe it would be a children's story where the hero learns the importance of manners from a tense and bloody encounter with Baba Jaga. The mind reels.

Screwing my courage to the sticking place, I met Ike for coffee and prepared for whatever weirdness had recently sprung from his fevered dreams. But all reasonable rules have exceptions, especially in MY world. This would be one of them. Rather than stories of blue-skinned lizard-men or giant, sentient honey-bees, Ike had an bona fide Good Surprise for me.

As we met at the coffee shop, Ike pressed a book into my hands - a signed copy of Ever Your Servant by local author K.A. Corlett. I was positively tickled by this for a few reasons:

I like books. Free books are even better.
I like signed books. An author's signature and a bit of a comment adds gravitas to any book - makes it that much more precious and personal.
I like gifts. Gifts unencumbered by the rules of Christmas and birthdays are the best gifts.

Mea culpa time: I had met the author, K.A. Corlett, on exactly one occasion. It was a social situation (of Ike's doing) and we exchanged a few pleasantries - likely over the cracker-and-cheese plate. For this fact, I found myself with a one-way ticket to Dilema Town, population: Me. Because the author was now an official aquaintence, I felt a sense of dread and duty about reading this book.

If I read it and didn't like it, what half-truths might I someday need to concoct? Would I need to find something good to say since saying nothing at all would be worse? Would I exhibit some tell-tale twitchiness every time I changed the subject away from 'the book'?

Fate would conspire (and quickly!) to make me face those fears and read the damn book. It's another story for another time, but within days of Ike's Surprise, I found myself with several hours to kill in a hospital waiting room and Ever Your Servant was in my hands to keep me company.

Lest the ticking clock on the wall convince me that time would have no meaning for the next few hours, I opened to Chapter 1, and my fears subsided. The knots in my shoulders settled back into their more-familar positions. That creative part of my brain that tells not-so-convincing lies took a nap. The book was going to be good - very good.

I cannot and will not spoil the plot for anyone. The back cover blurb reads "Imagine Anne Rice being trampled by the cast of Are You being Served?" That's pretty apropos, in itself - vampires and comedy. But what really compelled me to keep the pages turning was the dialogue, especially between the main characters Joelle and Max. Smart, snappy, tense, sad, even sexually charged at times, I loved watching these characters. Behind them, a supporting cast that is equally well-drawn and fun to watch. And while there are plenty of light moments, there is a darker, sadder plotline that unfolds through every chapter.

Ever Your Servant is a refreshing spin on the vampire genre (sans the sparkly angst that has damned modern-day vampire lore) . It's a fun ride full of great characters and, for me, great characters and great dialogue always, always makes for a great book. Now, I realize that not everyone is lucky enough to have their own 'Ike' bearing gifts. And, normally, I'd let you borrow my copy of Ever Your Servant. But since my copy is signed and has gravitas, etc., you will understand why I'm reluctant to let it leave my bookshelf.

So here's how you can get your very own copy. I think you'll be glad you did.

And as for Ike, I guess I owe him my thanks for being an exception to the Rule of Surprises.

Alive! It's Alive!

2011-05-29T12:38:00.004-04:00

If there's any excuse for not posting very much in the last few months, here it is. Those that know me in meat-space and the hundreds of loyal listeners of the now-dormant cult podcast, All Your Basecast, know that I've been working on a Very Special Project these past few months. But I've not blogged about it before because it's really not my project. I'm just a volunteer - an extra pair of hands when the need arises.

The Project: dismantle a Nintendo GameCube and turn it into a usable, handheld portable. Essentially, the goal is to create a GameBoy out of a GameCube - the GameCube Portable or 'GCp' for short. For this project, the GameCube will be stuffed inside the case from an old toy. It will be mated with an old PSOne screen, some batteries, and a few other doodads to make it a handheld gaming device (we hope).

The Owner: my son - aka JediBoy aka The Quiet Legend. A number of months back, he encountered a cabal of hobbyists on the Innertubes who make it their goal to transform all manner of video-game consoles into portable devices. It's one of those endeavours that One does 'just because'. JediBoy has spent hours working on this project - it's all his. My role (other than bragging) is to help with design ideas and lend a hand when things seem to be going the wrong way.

I won't go on (too much) about the audacity of it all. Taking on a GCp project requires all sorts of skills that JediBoy and I don't really have in large supply. But with a LOT of patience, a decent soldering iron, some Bondo, and a very patient Internet community of helpful geeks, we've made some progress.

The GCp effort really has 2 parts: the case and the mechanism. Each part has it's own difficulties, but we decided to tackle the mechanism first. That is, we have built up all the circuitry, the screen, the controls, etc. as one big mess laid out on a workbench to prove that the GCp would, at least, 'work'. With a working GCp, the next step would be to stuff it all inside an attractive and functional case.

We've had our share of false starts and failures, which I'll share in a later post. But today I want to unveil what I think is a significant milestone on what has been (and will yet be) a long road. We have 90% of the mechanism completed and working! While we still need to install the batteries and associated circuitry, we've at least proven that our GCp is functional!

Follow the pictures and prepare to be surprised (I know I was).

The whole mess laid out on a table and waiting for lightening to strike.

Mainboard wih heat-sink. To the left is a bundle

of wires that lead to the controller mechanisms.

Wiring to the dissambled controller. Pieces of the original

controller casing will (hopefully) be integrated into the

GCp case for a comfortable gaming experience.

GameCube disk player and daughterboard. The ribbon cables on

each side of the player were extended (originals are quite short)

in order to give us flexibility in where the player is placed inside

the GCp case (likely to be on the underside of the GCp).

The screen: a re-purposed PSOne screen with integrated

speakers. This will also give us a screen brightness control,

speaker volume control, and headphone jack wiring.

But now for the best part so far - The Test.

Why My Children Should Fear Genetics

2011-04-06T22:12:00.005-04:00

From time to time, my job demands that I leave the comfort of my home in The Shire and make the perilous journey to Mordor where I attempt to do business with all manner of Orcs and Nazgul. It was on one such trip, recently, that I found my return train-ride home becoming tiresome. Not in the mood for reading my book or making small-talk with fellow travelers, I decided that I should use my portable technology to create a near-real-time photo-essay of my travels to share with my children. And by that I mean that I took pictures and emailed them to my kids (thanks free Wifi!) along with some descriptive text to 'show them what Daddy does all day'.

I must confess that my kids are in their mid-to-late teens and refuse to call me Daddy. But I try for them. Dammit, I try.

Not content with my daughter's summary judgement that there's something seriously wrong in my head, I offer a reproduction of my complete 14-part photo-essay for The World to judge for itself. If there is something wrong with my head, I shall accept the verdict and weep for my offspring's crushing genetic burden.

Email #1:

Walking back to the train station, I took a picture of the CN Tower and CBC Headquarters.

Email #2:

And here I am getting closer to the train station. Aren't those buildings tall? That gold-coloured building is the Royal Bank head office. That's real gold mixed into the windows to cut down on sunlight. Know why? It's because sunlight makes bankers sick!

Email #3:

This is inside Union Station where the trains live! That's such a BIG window! I'm glad I don't have to clean it. If someone at Union Station ever asked me to do that, I'd just say, "I don't do windows, man!". Ha! Sucker!

Email #4:

Here is my train and I am inside it! There aren't many people here in First Class. Do you think they'd be my First Class Friends? I do!

Email #5:

Baseball statues! I don't understand.

Email #6:

That guy just gave me Gin and Tonic for FREE! Ha ha! He has an accent, so I shall call him Julio. That's Spanish for HOO-lee-oh! But his name tag says Frank, so he probably borrowed it from someone. Maybe Frank is sick and Julio is helping out. I just hope Frank doesn't find out Julio is giving away free drinks!

Email #7:

Julio also gave me pretzels for FREE! There were 9 of them in the little bag. I'm stuffed! Hope I have room for dinner!

Email #8:

Hey! Julio and his friend Marg just brought me sushi for an appetizer! And they also gave me red wine, a roll, and some desert! The First Class Friends agree: Julio and Marg are doing an awesome job today! Bon apetite to me!

Email #9:

Here is one of the First Class Friends. I don't know him yet, but I've decided his name is Big Jim and he is head of train car security. But he's wearing a red shirt and, according to Star Trek rules, 'red shirts' always get killed if there is trouble. Poor Big Jim! I hope things don't get out of hand!

Email #10:

Oh no! I think Julio is trying to kill the First Class Friends! Look what he brought us for dinner. Brown stuff with green stuff! I think Big Jim is going to have to fight Julio now and save the First Class Friends! Poor Julio! Poor Big Jim!

Email #11:

Good news! There's no fighting on the train! It's against the rules! So Big Jim just went and had a nap. And Julio brought all the First Class Friends a great, big chocolate to eat with our coffee. Yay! Julio saved the day!

Email #12:

We are in Woodstock now. Just 20 minutes and our train ride is over! The First Class Friends are sad. And they're afraid because no one wants to wake Big Jim and get him mad! Do you think Julio will wake Big Jim? I bet he doesn't. I bet he makes Marg do it! Oh that Julio!

Email #13:

Ha ha! There is a bathroom on this train. But it is hard to use it! They both look like sinks! What do I do??

Email #14:

It's the end of the line for the First Class Friends. Goodbye train. Goodbye Julio. Goodbye Marg. Goodbye Big Jim. I will miss you all. But maybe NEXT time we will see COWS out the train window! That would be something!

So....yeah. Probably thinking I shouldn't drink on the train, right?

There Be Zombies...

2011-02-20T11:03:00.001-05:00

People think Zombies aren't real, but they are. I see them every morning when I'm lined up for my Tim's Large Double-Double, all pasty-white with angry faces. They must really hate weekends to end - judging from the number of them I see in line for their coffee (Monday mornings in particular). I used to wonder why Zombies don't go on a rampage rather than wait in a coffee line. It would seem like a pretty easy buffet for them. And I'm sure that people like me have too much fight in us before that first Double-Double of the day. Even the slowest Shambling Zombie could do pretty well for himself (herself? itself?) if they got in line before 6am.

Conclusion #1: We give Zombies too much credit. They're dumb. Very dumb. And their eyesight is suspect, too. If you look like a Zombie - and who doesn't before that 6am Double-Double? - then you're safe. If you're hanging out with a crowd in a well-lit space - have you ever seen the line-ups at Tim's for that 6am coffee? - then you're safe.

Conclusion #2: If you want to keep on the good side of Zombies, heed Conclusion #1. That is to say: don't go places late in the day where Zombies might be hanging out.

So all this build-up is to point out a massive safety concern with the process used by London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) to provide patients with MRI scans. My daughter has been having a bit of knee trouble. Nothing life-threatening - likely a result of years of horse-back riding and the odd 'bum fight' to earn a few extra dollars. Nevertheless, her doctor ordered an MRI just to see what's going in in there and she was put on the LHSC MRI waiting list.

Now everyone knows someone who knows someone else who had to wait 10 months for an MRI when, dammit, Americans living just a few hours a way can buy an MRI with just 10 minutes notice and the option of taking one home on rental. But if you're willing to take an appointment on short notice and/or attend an appointment after-hours, the wait is more manageable - at least here in LHSC-land. And so it was that we waited just a couple of weeks to get in for that MRI scan - provided we were cool with an appointment at 11pm on a Sunday night, which we were.

The thing they don't tell you in the brochure is that the area of the hospital where they keep their massive MRI machines is actually deserted at 11pm on a wintery Sunday night. From the all-but-empty parking lot, we entered Block C of the hospital to find a lonely security guard - all of 12 years old - sitting behind a makeshift desk where she pretended to 'check us in'. That was kind of cute, actually.

From there we followed the arrows taped to the floor down a semi-dark hallway, turning left, then right, then left to the elevators. Up one floor, we followed more darkened, deserted hallways until we found (quite by chance) the MRI waiting room - also devoid of people but with better lighting.

Now I ask you: is this setting not a open invitation for Zombies? I've played enough video games and seen enough movies over the years to recognize this particular recipe for the Apocalypse. Dark hallways in a deserted hospital, people wandering about on their own, one lone security guard with inadequate firepower - it's open season on brains if you ask me.

This part is true: in the empty waiting room there was a table supporting a telephone and a small sign that instructed us to call a certain phone number to let someone know we were there. After following these instructions and wondering how much Zombie-proof glass was surrounding the disembodied voice at the other end of the phone-line, we simply waited 20 minutes for the inevitable Zombie-attack. Thankfully, it was not a Zombie that come to collect my daughter for her MRI, but don't think I wasn't worried. Letting my mind wander back to the Ninja training I always regretted not taking, I bided my time while my daughter's screams were muffled by the gigantic MRI magnets somewhere down the hall. An hour after we entered Block C, we were running for the safety of our minivan and then home.

And don't think my wife and I didn't inpect our child for bites and scratches. You can't be too careful, right?

Sharp Edged Colours

2011-01-14T20:19:00.001-05:00

This post has only one purpose: showing off. If you're expecting big laughs and small sarcasm (think I got that backwards), then I recommend you let your eyes gently sweep to the right side of this page where you'll find a lovely selection of other Blogs that will suit your needs.

So, back to showing off. My wife, Dee, has taken an interest in learning to make things out of stained glass. While I expected her night courses to produce an abundance of ashtrays and coffee mugs (those are made from stained glass or something, right?), she aimed much higher.

Drawing inspiration from a recent trip to Moab, Utah where we hiked to Delicate Arch, she turned this vacation photo...

...into a piece of glassy artistry:

Pretty cool, huh?

And because I know it's on your mind, the answer is 'yes'. That's me in the picture sweating from the hike while Dee is pretending not to.

Kodak Invents Time Travel

2010-12-26T16:02:00.000-05:00

Earlier in 2010, my wife's grandmother passed away. She was likely the closest example of a 'pioneer woman' I'll ever meet: a bloody hard worker, found her joy in simple things, and had that suffer-no-fools attitude that I seem to run across in folks who hail from north of the French River.

Until shortly before died, she had spent the better part of her life in a thoroughly uncharming 100 year-old house on a side street in Parry Sound, Ontario. A solidly built structure, it was decorated in whatever struck the homeowner's fancy at any given time - a mish-mash of shag carpets and linoleum spanning several decades, all under the abundant, watchful photographic gaze of former pets and family. Repairs and renovations over the years were solidly executed, but favoured function over form without hesitation.

And so it was that we found ourselves in Vera's home sorting out the post-funeral details of her life. There were decades worth of showboxes and photo albums to investigate, catalogue, and pass along to other generations. In an ancient hutch we came across two rolls of unprocessed camera film - the cartridge styles suggesting something from the late 1960's and early 1970's. The geek inside me was just a little bit elated since it would inevitably fall to me to see about extracting any images of the past from these rolls.

This is where the story begins, I suppose. Over the next few weeks I would spend a few hours researching how I might get these old films developed and printed, assuming they were even salvagable. And I would come to the inevitable conclusion that no - and I mean almost no one - deals in still film processing anymore, with the possible exception of 35mm format.

Then I found a someone - an organization that goes by the name of Film Rescue International - who claim to specialize in processing of old films from still, disc, and movie cameras. They operate totally by mail order and Internet, and their process is simple. You send them your old films, which they process and put the proofs on a website for you to inspect. You then have the option of selecting which prints you'd like developed and/or copied to digital media and sent to you.

It seemed exactly what I wanted, although I was very, very leery at the prospect of putting Vera's films into an envelope and crossing my fingers. Without alternatives, however, that's just what I did - and it was the right decision. The folks at FRI are awesome, and everything is working as designed.

This past week, I got an email pointing to the FRI website where we can inspect our photo images. As I expected, time had been a bit cruel to the old film cartridges. Out of the 33 images that were lifted, only 15 or so are half-ways legible, amd even those are low-quality. But we've gone ahead and ordered our prints and CDs, anyways, and the folks at FRI will try to apply a little Photoshop magic along the way.

It's funny to me that the pictures look about right in how they show a small, Northern Ontario town of 35 years ago. Things should look like grainy black-and-white - everything so simple, so unremarkable. No one being pestered by the Internet, the cellphone, and the sticky produce of the paparazzi. There's a lot to like about these modern times, of course, and I'm sure those grainy black-and-white people wondered their fair share about the future. But looking at that old photograph above, a little part of me wouldn't mind playing a bit dirt-lot baseball now and again.

A Face for Radio

2010-12-19T17:08:00.000-05:00

Pardon the dust - it's been awhile since the cleaning lady has come by. Most of the time, my days and weeks fly along with a pretty constant signal-to-noise ratio. Going to work, doing the home-things that need doing, remembering who goes where on any given night - it all whizzes by, the Remarkable made Unremarkable by time and speed.

But last week was different. Through the good and generous graces of my friend, Sean Twist, I was afforded the singular experience of becoming a radio personality for just a few minutes on busy Thursday night. While he's the linch-pin of the cult-classic podcast, All Your Basecast, Sean also graces the radio airwaves of London, Ontario every Thursday at 4:40pm on CJBK radio headlining a segment called Geek Corner - highlighting the latest in video games, comics, movies, and other concerns of geekdom.

Here's how it all came down:

Monday Night: Sean mentions to myself and AYB co-conspirator, Brian, that the three of us might have a chance to do a year-end, extended version of Geek Corner. We're game, of course, since it all sounds a bit abstract.

Wednesday Afternoon: The abstract becomes concrete as Sean emails/Twitters that the year-end Geek Corner show is going to happen the following afternoon. The time and duration are TBD, but Sean has a show outline that Brian and I need to plan around. Phone calls and emails are exchanged. Commitments are made. I have the sweats. Podcasting for a small number of listeners is one thing, yammering live on the radio for real people listening in real-time is something else.

Thursday Morning: I start cobbling together my thoughts according to Sean's outline: best game of 2010, biggest gaming surprise of 2010, and the like. I feel better about pulling this off, and then it dawns on me that I need to tell people to listen: my family, some co-workers, some friends. The sweats return and they bring their friends, the fanged butterflies, to gnaw at my guts for a bit.

Thursday Afternoon: Sean gives us the official showtime: starting at 4:20pm, ending around 5:00pm, be at the studio by 4:00pm. I send updates to all those people I told to listen in and begin my deep breathing exercises. I'm on the road to the studio by 3:30pm, fighting traffic all the way to arrive by 4:00pm, only to discover I'm the first to arrive. To my relief, Brian pulls into the parking lot behind me. Sean is tied up in traffic and arrives just as we head into the studio.

Showtime: After some introductions and waiting around a bit, the three of us are sitting on one side of the studio while Mike and Al, the radio pros who run the CJBK afternoon show, occupy the other side of the studio. Mike and Al are obviously in charge - just great guys who keep everything running smooth-as-glass while making sure us amateurs are fitting in properly. Mike does the intros, Sean sets the stage, and then we're off. Some 40 minutes later, we're outside the studio shaking hands with our hosts and talking about Epic Mickey.

The first 10 minutes of Geek Corner were slightly terrifying. I'm glad I made notes for myself because it was altogether too easy to go blank or get tongue-tied - problems I never seem to have when sitting in a bar with friends. Go figure. But Mike and Al (as well as Sean and Brian) are just so good about keeping things moving and keeping things lively. By the end of the segment, I was having a blast and would love to have kept things going.

Upon arriving home that night, I discovered no adoring crowds waiting in my driveway nor was a salutory telegram from The Mayor sitting in my mailbox. I did get a few phone calls and emails from surprised friends and family - all saying we sounded great.

My son, ever the realist, was disappointed that no one talked about the upcoming Nintendo 3DS and cautioned that my voice sounded a little weak at times. But he dutifully recorded Geek Corner for me so that I might store it away in my scrapbook. Against my better judgement, I listened to that recording and, predictably, I thought of approximately 1,000 things I could have done better. That's par for the course.

It's now Sunday and my 15 Warholian minutes have just about counted down to zero. Monday night we'll be recording another episode of All Your Basecast, and we're bound to re-hash our Geek Corner experiences. I may also get a few extended seconds come Tuesday night when I waltz into the dressing room over at Kinsman Arena and lace on my skates for another clash between Team White and Team Black. I'll suffer some good-natured barbs as I tell this story again. Somebody might even buy me a beer.

But soon it will be just a cool memory - something Remarkable that rises above that daily thrum of being a guy from the 'burbs who drives a beige minivan. My sincere thanks go to Sean, Brian, Mike, and Al. Thanks for allowing me to have so much fun and for adding a pretty interesting page into my mental scrapbook. Maybe same time next year, eh?

Rainy Day Fun

2010-11-30T09:37:00.004-05:00

On rainy days like today, I like to look over the City

from my dreary office window and think to myself...

Then he waited, marshalling his thoughts

and brooding over his still untested powers.

For though he was master of the world,

he was not quite sure what to do next.

But he would think of something.

SWS Day 8 - Happy Trails!

2010-11-15T20:02:00.004-05:00

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - Like the kids said, now it's time to say Good-Bye. As directed by our Guides, the luggage was outside the door before 8am so that the Disney Elves could whisk it away once more. After one last gorgeous RCL breakfast-by-the-River, the Group shuffled onto Dan's coach for the 9am call-time. Next came a few words of 'safe journey' from RCL's General Manager, and then we were rolling down scenic highway 128 enroute to Grand Junction, Colorado - just across the Utah/Colorado border. It was there that we'd catch our flights back to our normal, non-cowboy lives.

As always, the scenery was outstanding as rocky cliffs gave way to rolling hills where one could possibly play whack-a-mole with the dozens of Prarie Dogs that always seemed to be watching the traffic roll by. A scant 90 minutes later, we were at the (very small) airport saying our good-byes to our new/old ABD friends. Two of the families had flights leaving within the hour. For the rest of us (including our Guides), we had a solid 4 hours to kill before taking to the skies.

We had considered taking a shuttle bus into the town of Grand Junction for a look-see, but the bus schedules were not very convenient and we'd have spent more time waiting around than we would have spent poking around. Instead, we all built a nest of sorts in the airport 'lounge' to pass the time together. Without exaggeration, I can say we all had a great time sharing stories, laughing a lot, and just acting like old friends. The time flew by, but it was going to be that much harder to say final farewells, I thought.

With the exception of Guide Mike (headed to Florida), we were all booked on the same connector that would take us to Salt Lake City as a jumping off point to lands beyond. So it was there, in the bosom of Donny Osmond country, that we would say our final good-byes as Guide Chris headed to the West coast, the Other Family headed to the East coast, and my family headed for Detroit. It was hard not to get a little choked up.

We had very little time in Salt Lake - just enough to grab sandwiches for our 3.5 hour flight to Detroit. From there, we had another 2.5 hours or so before we'd see London, Ontario through our van's windshield. In between was a border crossing that would be less than uneventful (thankfully!). And if I had any doubts that our vacation adventure was truly over, nothing says 'welcome home' like dragging the trash to the curb at 2:30am.

In the following days and weeks (and months!), it was the usual vicarious thrill of organizaing hundreds of pictures, editting hours of video, and mustering the trip report muse - all for the chance to relive those wonderful Southwest Splendor days. It's mid-November right now, and I can scarcely believe it's been 2.5 months since we saw that sliver of Old West.

Oh what I wouldn't give for some dry heat right about now...

SWS Day 7 - Gather 'Round the Campfire

2010-11-13T20:58:00.000-05:00

Monday, August 30, 2010 - Another magnificent RCL breakfast experience and another half-day of free-time to channel our inner cowpokes. The morning would be spent on horseback - surveying the scenery in the environs of Red Cliffs Lodge. We headed over to the RCL stables around 8:30am and found a few familar ABD faces mixed in with the faces of other RCL guests. In total, we were a posse of 16 Guests and 3 Guides.

After signing the obligatory if-you-die-no-one-gets-sued waivers, we were each issued a saddlebag to hold our water bottles and cameras while on the trail. Those who wanted one were free to select a helmet, also. One of our Guides (Jill) used some mystical combination of the rider's size and temperment to match each person to a specific horse. In all, the entire process took (maybe) 20 minutes to complete.

Once everyone was mounted up, we all received a quick lesson on how to ride a trail horse. It's at this point where I should come clean: my expectations for the morning were pretty low. First off, my experience with trail horses was such that I fully expected to fall asleep somewhere on the trail. Secondly, my kids both ride horses regularly - one of my brats being a competition show-jumper. So my fear was that they would not have a thrilling experience on the RCL 'back forty'. Remember this.

Off we went, single file, down the trail that these horses knew so very well (my steed, Rebel, included). Within 10 minutes, 3 things became apparent. One, the scenery around the RCL spread was absolutely stunning to a SW Ontario boy like me. Second, the horses would require some amount of rider control. And third, the trail was actually much more challenging than I had even hoped for.

A gentle part of the trail.

For 2 hours we followed the rocky, twisting trail. Up the hills and down the hills we went - sometimes steep and slightly thrilling, sometimes gentlly rolling. The horse knew the way, of course, but that did not prevent the occasional stumble and slip on the rocky terrain - just to keep things dangerous for teh tourists. All along the way, our Guides kept everyone safe and entertained with stories, jokes, and genuine interest in their charges.

Cowboys and Cowgirls need to rest, too!

It was a pretty great morning, and I was sad to find the creek we were following (in the water, that is) would lead us back to the stables. We brought our horses into the corral where the Guides instructed (and assisted) everyone in the delicate dance that is 'dismounting a horse'. I bid so long to Jill (slyly palming her a tip) and we shuffled back to our room to clean up before heading to the RCL BBQ area for lunch.

The afternoon took us back onto the ABD agenda: rafting on the Colorado River! Dan and his coach drove us all down to the put-in spot up-river from RCL. There we were met by our rafting Guides who helped us all find the proper sized life-jacket (no helmets needed that day). We split our small group between 2 large rafts - each with one ABD Guide and one rafting Guide.

Being late in the season, that stretch of the Colorado was pretty shallow and devoid of white-water (late Spring/early Summer are better times). That, coupled with very strong headwinds, meant we would all be doing a lot of paddling through the afternoon. Lest anyone feel sorry for the likes of me, our rafting Guide (Malaya) had the hardest job of all: manning 2 long oars from a perch on the stern of our raft.

Water warfare on the mighty Colorado River.

Over the span of a few hours, we paddled a bit, rested a bit, looked at stunning vistas, and took a lot of pictures. As is rafting tradition, we tried to make life difficult for the other raft by splashing and catcalling when the opportunity arose. A few paddlers even braved the chilly water - some, like Guide Chris, even trying a backflip off the bow! But eventually the fun had to come to an end, and there was the put-out spot with towels and a coach waiting for us. It was back to the RCL - and time enough to prepare for the evening's ABD Farewell Dinner.

White-water?

Since we had a few hours of downtime, our small ABD group had an impromptu party on one of the room's patio. We had all made purchases at the RCL Winery (in addition to wine they sell various cheeses and crackers) and so we pooled our goodies for all to enjoy. We tried to coax Guides Mike and Chris to join in the fun, but there are rules about drinking with Guests and so they had to politely (and reluctantly) decline to join our party. Nevertheless, we all had a great time (the wine didn't hurt) chatting, laughing, and watching the kids do the same.

Come 7pm, we all filtered over to the Dinner being held in the main lodge. There was a buffet of sorts, with steaks cooked to order for each Guest. The laughter continued (as did the wine) as we sat down at the long table that had been prepared for us. We even had old-tyme country music supplied by the RCL owner's son, Devon Dixon, and his guitar!

Kids eat first in the Old West, I guess.

After dinner (and a few speeches), we all moved to the adjacent banquet room where a screen and projector had been setup. At our Guides' urging, each family shared a few personal thoughts about the trip we shared. It was a remarkably poignant time for some of us. We were a small group and had gotten to know each other pretty well because of that. And for some people in our group, the trip had been a once-in-a-lifetime (or maybe first-in-a-lifetime) experience. Whatever the reason, it was a moment I'll not forget.

Afterwards, the obligatory 'end of tour' slideshow was played for us - with lots of "ooohs" and "ahhhs" from the audience. It was beginning to feel like the trip was over. The evening, however, was not!

We all moved outside to an awaiting campfire - complete with all the fixin's for s'mores. Also waiting was Devon (and his guitar), who seranaded us with a medley of countrified Disney songs. We ate, we sang songs, we looked at the sugary-starred night sky, and I wanted to stay there for a very long time...

Devon Dixon in the dark.

By 10pm, the group broke up as people drifted back to their rooms for what would be serious packing for the day ahead - the day we would all go home.

SWS Day 6 - Nature's Fault

2010-10-30T15:54:00.001-04:00

Sunday, August 29, 2010 - There are many perfect breakfast settings, and Red Cliffs Lodge on this specific morning is on that list. Sitting beside the lazy Colorado River, framed by red cliffs and quiet, warm breezes - it was a damn fine way to enjoy my family and my eggs.

Breakfast by the Colorado!

Still feeling the vibe from our early-morning breakfast, we donned our hiking boots, slathered on some sunscreen, and steeled ourselves for the impending hike to Delicate Arch. On our coach journey to Arches National Park we picked up our local guide, Preston - a born and bred Moab local with a fact and a story for every rock on the horizon and every bend in the road. I was especially rapt during his stories about the movies shot in and around the area because, in many cases, he had a personal anecdote to share (e.g. a friendship with The Duke and some horses for Indiana Jones).

After a quick stop at Balanced Rock, Dan dropped us at the Visitor's Center where our hike would begin. Those not interested in the hike stayed on the coach with Preston, who would take them on an alternate tour of numerous arches in the Park. My family, of course, was ready for walking the 1.5 miles over slick rock trails to Delicate Arch. The hike was not too strenuous and had just one section that was (sort of) steep and one other section that was (sort of) narrow. It was an altogether unwordly experience walking on the vast, flat fields of wind-polished sandstone. My inner geek kept thinking: Tatooine!

The steep part of the trail.

Our family portrait under Delicate Arch.

After 45 minutes of hiking (with rest stops) we closed in on the Arch - it being perched on the edge of what I can only describe as a sandstone 'bowl'. My words will not describe the scene, so I will let the pictures do it for me. Needless to say, the 30+ minutes (and bazillion photos) we spent there were not long enough. But eventually we had to make our way back down the trail to Dan, Preston, and the one family who opted for Preston's tour.

The coach drove us all into Moab for a few hours of free-time for lunch and exploring. The town is small and quiet, although it seems to do a decent business catering to the extreme sprots crowd (judging from some of the local shops). We opted for lunch at Pasta Jay's, which serve a pretty decent meatball sandwich along with cold beer. After our meal, we explored the shops a bit in search of a waterproof, disposable camera we could use later in the week (only to find that the RCL gift shop carries these, too).

Moab caters to a certain clientele.

We met Dan at the appointed time and made our way back to Red Cliffs Lodge for our afternoon of free-time. For my family and a few other ABDers, we arranged (through RCL) for an ATV tour of the backcountry! No sooner had we cleaned up from hiking when our ATV guides, Cody and Dan, rolled up to the front door in vans pulling trailers packed with ATVs! We piled into their vans and we all drove out to Onion Creek (just down the road from RCL) where we would ride the dusty/muddy trails. At the load-out spot, we were all fitted with helmets, goggles, and gloves before being assigned our ATVs. My wife and I would be driving with each of us taking one kid on the back of our vehicle.

We received a driving lesson - starting, stopping, turning - before heading off with one guide up-front and one at the rear. An ATV is similar to driving a snowmobile. Being Canadians (eh!), we soon got the hang of things, although I will admit that my Northern Ontario spouse was a more adept driver than I. For the first half of the tour, we stuck to groomed trails with easy turns and minimal rocks to navigate. Earlier rains kept the dust at bay, which meant we could enjoy the scenery as we snaked through canyons at speeds of up to 35mph. Still, we were glad for the jeans and light shirts we wore since our trail criss-crossed through Onion Creek numerous times, whipping mud and water up our legs.

ATVing was the coolest thing EVAR!

The halfway point meant a little rest, a little water, and a few group photos. Because our small group was able to handle the ATVs at such high speeds, our guides elected to take us down some more challenging trails for the second half of the tour. They were rocky, twisting, dusty, and bi-sected by deeper areas of the Creek. There were a few points where I scared myself (and my son riding on the back) by fishtailing too hard or cornering a little too late. But the breaktaking view around us was something alien-looking, and it distracted us from any lingering nervousness about my driving.

Along the way we spotted deer, lizards, and even Indian cliff-dwellings that were long-ago abandoned. And before we were ready for it, the tour was over. We put everything away in the vans and trailers before Cody drove us back to RCL.

We spent some time getting ourselves presentable for the evening - amazed by how much red dust one can carry on their body. Everyone was in good spirits since the evening would be the obligatory Adult Dinner/Junior Adventurer Night. At 14 (almost 15) years of age, my son was a little torn about what he would do, but the promise of pizza and the company of an ABD friend of similar age made his decision to be a Junior Adventurer a little easier. My 17 year-old daughter, of course, opted for the adult's table in the RCL dining room.
With my son off in another part of the Lodge, we met the other adults in the lounge for a few drinks before all 7 of us moved to the dining room. It was just a lovely, lovely evening with new friends - sharing stories, sharing appetizers, and laughing a lot. While the pickup time for the JAs was supposed to be 8:30pm, our dinner ran rather long and, by 9:30pm, the kids were 'released' into the dining room to collect their parents. We were slightly chagrined in our hopes that Guides Mike and Chris were not (too) upset with the parents!

The remainder of our evening was spent laundering the clothes we had made filthy by hiking and riding ATVs. We all needed clean jeans for the next day's equine activities!

SWS Day 5 - Western Monuments

2010-10-17T11:27:00.002-04:00

Saturday, August 28, 2010 - Sometime much too close to 2am, my subconsicous - spurred on by the sound of running water - tapped my bladder on the shoulder and said, "Yo! You know what you need to do." And the only thing better than awakening to that sound at 2am is the chance to quietly repair a toilet's flapper valve - the source of that sound. At some point during someone's pre-bed ritual, the chain had disconnected from the handle, leaving the toilet in a permanent state of 'flush'. It was a simple operation, and I kind of giggled (in a totally macho way) at this weird tablaeu - late night plumbing work with the Grand Canyon looking on from just a few hundred feet away.

A few hours of shut-eye later, my wife, Dee, and I were doing our 6:30am breakfast run with our sleepy teenagers 30 minutes behind us. Nearing the end of our meal, Guide Chris shouted from the door that a few elk had been spotted outside. Cutlerly clanging, 8 of us raced out the door and slowly pursued two massive elk as they sauntered across railway tracks and into the surrounding green-spaces. While the animals were wary of our quiet camera crew, they still deigned to provide a number of photo-ops for us tourists.

Some elk hold a debate outside Thunderbird Lodge.

Our coach left the Thunderbird Lodge by 7:30am on what would be the longest travel-day of the tour - Grand Canyon to Moab, Utah by way of Monument Valley. While a DVD played to help pass the time, the real show was outside the coach windows. The rolling hills gave way to frequent sightings of colourful buttes and mesas as we grew closer to the Utah border. At the 3-hour mark, we stopped at Goulding's Lodge, located withing the Navajo reserve that surrounds Monument Valley.

As we de-coached, we were met by Mike, a local Navajo guide who be taking us for a tour of Monument Valley. Mike's conveyance was an open-air truck (of sorts) with padded benches and clear, retractable coverings acting as protection from the clouds of red dust that dominated the landscape from time to time. We found our seats and Mike - via his PA system - narrated the short drive down the highway as we made our way into the Valley. At first I found the plastic windows a bit of a nuisance for getting a clear look at the outside scenery, but as we descended down the dusty hills into the Park it became obvious why we needed protection from the elements. Fine red clouds of dust found its way into everything: clothes, cameras, hair, etc. and etc.

Our tour coach awaits.

Once onto the Valley floor, the winds died down and Mike began naming off Monuments left and right (the kids especially liked the Left Mitten and Right Mitten). We soon stopped at a look-out where, conveniently, local Navajo merchants had tables with local jewelry and crafts for sale. It was at this stop where Mike rolled up the plastic windows on our truck so as to afford us an unobstructed view. Back on the bus, we toured the Valley some more and stopped a second time at John Ford Point. The view was amazing and it was obvious why so many Hollywood Westerns had been filmed in the area. Again, local Navajo merchants had tables setup and this time we bought a few items (at very reasonable prices). We toured some more, making one final stop where Guide Chris had our Group yell out in unison - all to experience the unique echo qualities of the rocks surrounding us.

Mittens, Left and Right.

Mike took us all back to Goulding's and, along the way, serenaded us with his renditions of Navajo songs. While I'm sure it was part of his normal tour itinerary, there was a poingnancy in the experience - staring out at the landscape and hearing Mike singing his songs through scratchy speakers.

Back at Goulding's, it was time for lunch and I can heartily recommend their Navajo Tacos. There were a few minutes for pictures (check out the John Wayne cutout) and gift shop exploration before we began the final 3-hour leg of the day's journey. We passed through Moab and followed the Colorado River via Highway 128 (one of America's most scenic drives) to take us to our destination: Red Cliffs Lodge.

There we were greeted by attentive and friendly Lodge staff who bid us welcome and directed us to glasses of lemonade. In no time we had room keys and directions towards the outbuildings where we would be staying. It was clear that RCL was going to be a very special place - everything you might imagine a Western horse-ranch to be and more. After a few nights at the modest Thunderbird Lodge, RCL was positively palatial: oh-so-spacious split-level rooms, kitchenette, a large patio overlooking a creek and horse pastures. This would suit us quite nicely for our 3-night stay!

Red Cliffs Lodge main entrance.

With a hour of cleaning up behind us, we met the Group for a (very good) taco dinner in the main lodge. Guides Mike and Chris gave us instructions for the following day - a hike in Arches National Park, a few hours to explore Moab, and a free afternoon at the RCL (and more!). We broke for the night after lots of leisurely dinner conversation (and maybe some wine or beer). Many of the kids dragged their parents to the pool for a nighttime swim. Dee and I elected to do laundry (facilities also by the pool) to get rid of some of the red dust we'd accumulated. And by 11pm, laundry had been folded and lights were out...

SWS Day 4 - Grand Discovery

2010-10-12T11:54:00.002-04:00

Ed. Note: These posts having been mighty slooooow in coming. Honestly, I've been focused on getting many hours of video edited, scored, titled, and burned (my home movies are sometimes too elaborate). Now that the film is in the can, I'm hoping to finish up these trip report posts asap!

Friday, August 27, 2010 -While the previous day entailed just a skirmish with the Grand Canyon, today would be an all-out assault! As everyone knows, an army travels on its belly, so with that in mind we hit up the breakfast buffet at 6:40am. We left the kids behind, of course, because teenagers would only slow us down. In all, it was a lovely time as we gazed out over the Canyon and swapped ABD Costa Rica stories with our Guide, Chris.

By 8am the entire Group was boarding our coach out front of Bright Angel Lodge. Joining us for the morning South Rim tour was a local National Parks guide, Robin - who I can only describe as having the vague appearence of a backwoods hermit coupled with encyclopedic Canyon knowledge and a sardonic sense of humour. Naturally, I liked the man.

As the coach made its way towards Grandview Point, Robin gave us a detailed rundown on local geography, the village of Grand Canyon, and the logisitics for the seasonal Park staff. Grandview afforded us a very different perspective on the Canyon. In addition to the elevation, the Rim is dotted with large boulders and rock columns - all perfect for unusual 'floating in air' pictures of your Loved Ones. The best/worst was a column that required the Subject to step (jump?) across a small chasm that seemed to separate the column from the Canyon Rim, itself. Once across, you are presented with a 7-foot platform of rock surrounded by, well, the Grand Canyon. My son was onboard with this photo-spot, so he and Guide Mike made the leap. My wife and daughter were totally not interested, while I eventually relented and hoped my heart would not pick this point in time to fail.

The Boy and The Guide defy death as the

Grim Reaper (not pictured) checks his watch.

After Grandview, we travelled on to The Watchtower - an iconic (and slightly touristy) part of the South Rim affording amazing views of the Colorado River. Robin was kind enough to escort a few us around the building to point out various features of its design and the Native wall-paintings on the inside that depict the Creation Story. We all then went up top for more of Robin's lessons about the Canyon and the River. Interesting note about context: from the top of the Tower I might guess the River below to be approximately 30 feet across when, in fact, it is closer to 300 feet between shores!

Looking inside the Watchtower at Native paintings.

By 11:30am we were back at the Lodge where we started the day's tour. Since the daily tourist train was set to arrive soon, we opted to grab a quick lunch at the nearby Maswik Lodge (cafeteria-style, but good food). I made sure to load up on the carbs because the free-time afternoon was going to involve hiking down into the Canyon!

My daughter, who has knee problems, elected to stay behind and explore the gift shops. My wife, son, and I hit the Bright Angel Trail under (thankfully) cloudy skies for a hike to the 1.5 mile rest station checkpoint. As instructed, we brought a few bottles of water for each of us and lots of salty snacks - all to ward off the surprising effects of dehydration for the 2 - 4 hour round-trip. Seriously, do not ignore the warnings about dehydration!

The trip down was a fast 45 minutes during which we descended 1,100 feet into the Canyon (it's much faster if you don't use the trail, I'm told). The trail alternated between rocky and fine sand. The scenery along the switchbacks was simply stunning, but the majesty of the Canyon was slightly dulled by the dead-eyed red faces of the hikers coming back up the trail. This is what was in store for us later in the day, I feared.

I will own this (ranked easiest part of) Bright Angel Trail!

By 2pm we had reached the rest station, where we....ummm....rested. Now was the time to screw our courage to the sticking place and face the climb back up. While I prayed my hockey-ravaged knees would withstand theclimb, my larger concern was for my son, who was obviously hot and tired. My wife was/is the strongest of us all, and I'm guessing she could likely carry us top-side on her back!

Well, we climbed and we sweated and we breathed raggedy breaths up the steady, unrelenting incline. In those areas that were steep, we found rough stairs constructed of rock and logs. We made frequent rest stops for snacks and water where we would spend our moments shooing away the greedy (and fearless) Canyon squirrels looking for handouts.

The view from the Trail.

But by 3:15pm we had made it to the top - all of us seemingly intact. As luck would have it, our arrival coincided with the daily 'condor talk' presented by the Park Rangers. So we spent some time learning about condors while secretly looking forward to the showers waiting for us back in our room.

We elected to have dinner at the more upscale El Tovar Lodge next door to the Thunderbird. Built in 1905, it's the one remaining log-constructed building in the area. Walking into the lobby is reminiscent of walking into DisneyWorld's Wilderness Lodge (or perhaps it's the other way around). Regardless, I was happy that my wife had made reservations the day before, because even at our 7:30pm dining time the Lounge was doing a steady business. The food and service was all very good - not the very best I'd ever experience, but still very good. What made the experience memorable for me was the feeling of being transported to another time and place. It's just something one must experience for themself, I suppose.

After 90 minutes of enjoying the El Tovar, we strolled back to our rooms where we prepared our luggage for the next morning's 6:30am pick up. This was out final chance to say good-bye to the silvery moonlit cliffs of the South Rim. Tomorrow... Utah!

SWS Day 3 - The Mighty Canyon

2010-10-02T11:19:00.004-04:00

Thursday, August 26, 2010 - Dee and I awoke early (again!) and quickly stole away from our comatose teens to watch the Sedona sunrise. Taking a set of outside stairs beside the Amara's spa building, we found a secluded observation deck that placed us above the treetops for a perfect view of the surrounding red cliffs. The morning air bordered on frigid, but we forgot about all that as we watched the red cliffs (near and far) suddenly light up from the first rays of the Sun. It was an amazing show - colours ever-changing as the Sun rose higher to, finally, make an appearance over the distant cliffs.

Dee greets the dawn.

By 7:30am we needed to have our luggage ready for unseen Disney elves to load up on the coach - a process that would happen while we were distracted by a final Amara breakfast. And by 8:00am Dan was driving us out of Sedona towards the day's destination - The Grand Canyon! We made a quick pit-stop on the outskirts of Sedona at a place called Airport Mesa. This is the location of one of Sedona's (in)famous 'energy vortexs' - a source of spiritual or psychic energy. I can't say that I felt anything unusual, but an inspiration for a lottery number would not have been unwelcome.

As we made our way North-ish towards the Canyon, we made a brief stop in Williams - a little town trying to build a tourist trade on the fact that the original Route 66 runs down its main street. We poked our heads into a few shops selling slightly-tacky tourist swag. We also had time to visit their 'train museum', which is fundamentally a preserved steam engine from times gone by.

The Boy gets his kicks on Route 66

Back on the road we went until lunchtime, when we stopped just short of the Canyon in a little town called Tusayan. Our lunch destination: a small restaurant called We Cook Pizza. The staff were all ready for us with a meal of pizza, salad, chicken wings, and deserts. It was nothing fancy, mind you, just a modest eatery offering decent food.

Next stop was, of course, the Grannd Canyon! We first hit up the Visitor's Centre near Mather Point. Dan parked the coach and we more-or-less made a beeline to the Canyon's edge. I found I was not prepared for two important facts. Number one: the Canyon is LARGE - much larger than I ever imagined. Number two: there are no railings preventing you from climbing over the edge (which only makes sense given the hundreds of miles of Canyon edge).

The Girl has her first Grand Canyon encounter.

We walked the trail along the South Rim, taking picture after picture. Around every bend, rock, and scrubby tree was a new vista worthy of a new photo. Some of us got brave and ventured out onto rock ledges for a more 'extreme' vacation memory. At one point we were even lucky enough to spot a Condor! Our stroll went as far as Yavapai Point, at which point our few hours were coming to an an end, and so we made the trip back to the Visitor's Centere to board our coach.

Our next stop was to check-in to our hotel - Thunderbird Lodge. The Lodge is close to the village of Grand Canyon and perched on the rim of the Canyon, itself. And when I say perched, I mean that one could stand in their hotel room and quite easily throw a baseball into the Canyon. Needless to say, the Canyon-facing rooms (which are standard on the ABD tour) have an amazing view. Now I know that Thunderbird Lodge gets a bit of bad rap as being low-scale in comparison to ABD's typically up-scale accomodations. As an ABD (and general travel) veteran, I will agree that's true. The rooms are small and the amenities are very simple. But I will also add that the Lodge is clean and well-maintained - and the real point of it all is its proximity to the Canyon rim. For my family, the Lodge did not disappoint in the slightest.

After some free time to rest and explore a bit, our group met for a 6:30pm dinner in a private room on the second floor of the Lodge. And, of course, there was that view again! Dinner included barbequed steak and chicken (cooked however we prefered) and a buffet with choices of potato salad, garden salads, and the like. There was even locally-produced beer (and wine) to wash down our (quite delicious) dinner. While various large tables had been set up bistro-style, our small group (who had gotten quite chummy over the past few days) elected to push all the tables together for a more family-style atmosphere. It might have been too much food, too many refreshments, or too little sleep, but I enjoyed my myself immensely!

As if the day had not been full enough, a trio of local Native Americans provided after-dinner entertainment for us all. They sang, they danced, they told stories about their culture. The highlight for me was a young fellow who did a traditional Hoop Dance - a truly incredible sight. And for the finale, our group was invited into a circle with with the performers where we learned to do a Friendship Dance. Now, I will openly admit that public displays of awkwardness - dancing included - are something I avoid, but I had a heckuva good time dancing in that circle - even if my feet may not have been totally in sync!

Native dances require a lot of feathers.

After the performers and the last of the desert had left the building, everyone drifted off to their rooms or, perhaps, a moonlight stroll along the Canyon rim. We decided to check out the Bright Angel Lodge (the Thunderbird's next-door neighbour). Even at 9:00pm-ish the gift shop was packed. But the more interesting sight (besides the Canyon) was the hotel lobby - packed to the rafters with electronic gadgets attached to spastic thumbs who, themselves, were attached to intensely focused guests all taking advantage of the free wifi. I will, also, admit to pulling out my iTouch and taking a quick spin on the Information Highway.

Walking back to the Thunderbird, we were struck at how beautiful the Canyon looks under a moonlit sky. The rocky cliffs and fearless trees all took on a million shades of silver. Standing there like that, I could imagine losing myself in that silvery vista and shuffling to my doom over the pitch-black rim. But rather than succumbing to that weird temptation, I followed my family back to our room. I was tired, and I knew the next day would require energetic legs.

SWS Day 2 - Hit The Trail

2010-09-25T17:38:00.003-04:00

Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - The 3-hour timezone change demanded I awake at 3:30am and then drift in half-light ether until 6:30am. But I didn't mind, the Sun was brightening and the sky was bluer than blue. It was going to be a great day in the dry Arizona heat. True to form for our family, we were the first to arrive in the private dining room setup for the 7:30am ABD breakfast buffet. The food was nothing fancy - the standard hot and cold buffet offerings - but it tasted excellent. The view from the 2nd-floor terrace towards towering red rock against the sky helped immensely, I'll admit.

After eating and visiting with new friends, we all assembled on the Amara lawn to meet, Darryl, a local nature expert with his mini-menagerie of local wildlife. In between Darryl's lectures about mountain lions and other AZ critters, he produced a tarantula and snake for us to meet. The less timid in the group were invited to hold Darryl's friends for pictures and bragging rights. I was surprised at just how delicate a tarantula really is, and how squeamish my own kids could be (although my son did opt to hold the Gopher snake later on).

Dee and her new friend

We bid so long to Darryl and Friends after an hour or so and convened at the front of the hotel to meet our jeep caravan. With our fully decked-out cowboy chauffeurs at the ready, we divided ourselves amongst 3 open-air jeeps that would take us on a backroad tour of Boynton Canyon. To be fair, we would be following actual roads for our trip to the backcountry, but the word 'roads' can be a slippery one to precisely define. The Canyon roads were more-or-less trails on which the larger rocks were pushed to the side.

Our cowboy guide Lynn was short in stature but 10 feet tall in terms of bad jokes, expert driving, and deep knowledge of the outdoors.The trip was definitely an E-Ticket ride - like Big Thunder Mountain done in jeep with NASA-designed suspension. The scenery was simply breathtaking: red rock buttes and mesas, foreign-looking plant-life, and always that blue sky. On the twisting, bumpy roads we went, listening to Lynn's commentary punctuated with the occasional "Yee HAH!". At the halfway point we stopped for pictures and water before coming back the way we came. It was just a great time with some really great cowboy guides!

On the road in Boynton Canyon

By this point it was lunchtime, and our jeeps brought us all to a local cafe/restaurant in Sedona where a private room at been readied for us. Buffet-style, lunch was a spicy Tex-Mex affair washed down with lots and lots of lemonade to clear the red dust from our throats. How we'd get that dust off our clothes and cameras was a different problem. After our meal, we wandered out to the cafe's walled garden where one of our cowboy guides gave hands-on lessons in the fine art of calf-roping (complete with a practise target). For the creative, there was an opportunity to create beaded jewelry (I made a lovely pull-chain for the zipper on my camera bag).

After an hour or so of relaxing post-lunch activities, Dan brought the bus to whisk us all back to the Amara where we would have the afternoon and evening to do as we pleased. Our plans were to do a bit of hiking and a bit of shopping in Sedona. Approximately 1.5 miles from the Amara is the the trail-head for the Jordan Trail - our target for a few hours of hiking through red rocks. With a map to guide us and 2 water bottles for each of us, we set off in the 100F heat.

There is the old saw about 'dry heat' being much more tolerable than 'not-dry heat', and I'd say it's true. But let me assure you, Dear Reader, that 100F is still freakin' hot no matter how much water you're carrying. Add to that the rocky, hilly terrain of the Jordan Trail and you will have a hike to remember! Despite the discomfort and gentle whines from my teenagers, the hike was worthwhile. We rose higher and higher above Sedona and at every turn we found the view more and more impressive. We even met a lady and her horse on the trail, and I could not imagine how a horse could negotiate the rocky paths.

Jordan Trail vista

After a little over a mile on the Trail (seemed like more!), we stopped for pictures and then made our way back towards town. Downhill was much easier going than uphill, and the steady, gentle Arizona breeze kept us reasonably energetic in the heat. As we arrived back in civilization, we replenished our drinks and strolled the main drag of Sedona's shops. Our actual target was The Black Cow Cafe - recommended to us for its ice cream made from the fruit of the Prickly Pear Cactus (sans prickles). I highly recommend this treat, too. It was absolutely delicious!

By that time, our precious teenaged spawn had run out of steam and so they shuffled the short walk to the Amara where they would lower their body temperatures in the pool. My wife, Dee, and I opted to catch the free Trolley to the nearby shopping area known as Tlaquepaque. It is a lovely enclosed village of sorts - filled with varied and upscale shops. While delightful to look at, the place was devoid of people. Where Sedona's main street was teeming with tourists, Tlaquepaque looked like a creepy, creepy ghost town. We still managed to visit a few shops and spend some money, but I could never shake the feeling that the place was haunted.

Back on the Trolley, back to the Amara - it was time for showering and rest. It seemed like no matter how much I scrubbed my skin, there was always more red dust to be found. I elected to consider it a souvenir. Before long, our stomachs decided it was time for dinner - even if our weary legs seemed incapable of getting us there. Off we went in search of food. Rather than tackle the steep hill-climb from the Amara up to the main street, we had a kindly hotel staffer take us topside in an electric cart. I highly recommend that experience at the end of a long day.

While our ABD Guides has a long list of recommendations for Sedona restaurants, we took our chances at The Cowboy Club, a local eatery of some renown. Because we were toursusts, we decided to go native with their cactus fries, rattlesnake, buffalo, and antelope samplers. It was all quite good, but not exactly a vegetarian experience. For the adults, we took the edge off with Prickly Pear Margaritas. All in all, the food was fine. The service was so-so (friendly but slowish), but the ambiance of the place was kind of fun. It was not a bad choice at all, really.

As we walked back to the Amara, we took a moment to admire the Sedona night sky - an almost-full Moon and a billion stars shining bright. One could almost smell the cowboy campfire and hear the muffled melody of the harmonica. We lingered a bit longer and then strolled into the darkness - our thoughts turning to the next day's adventure awaiting us at the Grand Canyon.

SWS Day 1 - Red Rock Welcome

2010-09-14T21:29:00.004-04:00

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - Today was D-for-Disney Day. Our 8:50am flight from Detroit would land in Phoenix by mid-morning local time (2 time-zones away and an extra hour thrown by Arizona's disdain for Daylight Savings Time). It was early to rise and an easy-peasy stroll from the Westin directly into new-ish the McNamara Terminal. Along the way we discovered that the Westin billing department applied some new math and left us with a full Club rate for our overnight stay (approximately double the rate we should have paid). The front-desk staff (again) apologized for the screw-up and left us with the name of an Accounting Drone who would fix everything during office hours. We were still obliged to pay the bill since the front-office folks seem to be powerless to do much of anything. Nice, Detroit Airport Westin. Very nice.

We were undaunted because it was holiday time! The flight was uninteresting, and 4 hours later we were landing in the 90F Arizona morning heat. And then.... the pixie-dust began to fall from the heavens in the form of 2 semi-retirees named Dick and Joan. They were waiting for us as we left baggage pickup, holding an ABD placard and greeting us all by name. That's right, we were welcomed with warm smiles by name! Amongst casual conversation with our new friends, Dick took our luggage somewhere secret while Joan escorted us to a shuttle that would take us to Terminal 2 where we'd meet our ABD Guides. With clear instructions, we bid our goodbyes (all the while wondering where our luggage might be!).

We had some time to kill before the 12:30pm meetup with our Guides, so we took Joan's advice to grab an early lunch at Paradise Bakery Cafe. It was good advice - excellent food. Incidently, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport bills itself as America's Friendliest Airport - and they truly, truly are. If you're a cynic like me, genuine friendliness from strangers demands immediate suspicion and nervous glances towards the dark corners. But I will testify that everyone we met in Terminal 2 seemed genuinely nice and helpful.

After our lunch and a little email-checking courtesy of the free wifi, we headed to the appointed place (near Starbuck's) where we'd meet our fellow travellers and Guides. There was Joan (again!) waiting for us. And within minutes our Guides Chris and Mike were there. It was obvious that they were great friends with Joan, with lots of laughing and hugging. Joan's next piece of advice was prescient when she let us know that Chris and Mike were two of the best ABD Guides around.

Chris and Mike made their introductions and we chatted quite a bit about our previous ABD trips (they had both led a Costa Rica trip, so we got to compare notes). Then came the semi-bombshell: there were only 15 Guests on the trip - 4 families in total! Our previous trips had included something closer to the 35-40 maximum, so we knew there was going to be a very different ABD dynamic this time around!

Sure enough, the other families - all first-timers with ABD - filtered in and we all made our introductions. One of the families had come in a day early and were already in Sedona waiting for us, so those intros would come later. Into the coach we went, and we all pondered the proper etiquette for 13 people to claim seats on a full-size coach. It was a great problem to have!

Dan, our driver, pointed the coach out of Phoenix and soon the concrete vistas gave way to brown, scrubby desert. We made a brief stop off the road to look at our first Saguro cactus - an iconic giant of the old West. For a family from the farming bosom of the Great Lakes, this was really something to see!

The Prickly Giant

After 90 minutes of this unfamiliar (but spectacular) landscape, we made a stop at Montezumas Castle, a National Park whose centerpiece in the collection of ancient cliff-dwellings carved long ago by those who had gone before. We were met there by Doug, a local Guide who took us on a walking tour beneath the dwellings. Doug's knowledge was as impressive as his dry, cowboy humour. It was fascinating stuff, but I will admit that coping with +100F tempratures was a new experience. We knew after that stop that our hats and water bottles would be good friends for the duration of the tour. And we also learned that our coach would have a magically endless supply of cold bottles of water for us all.

We were back on the coach by 3:30pm and drove 30 minutes until we reached the Amara Resort and Spa in Sedona. This would be our home for the next 2 nights. Driving through the sleepy red rocks of Sedona's main drag, we spied an odd blend of New Age influences (crystals anyone?), expensive-looking vacation homes, and upscale-looking tourists shops. If nothing else, Sedona is lovely to look at - and their local bylaws keep it that way.

Montezumas Castle is a lot higher than it looks!

Check-in at the Amara was a breeze. A table had been setup in the lobby where a nice lady was waiting to hand out our room keys. We were quickly in our room where our luggage was waiting for us. The hotel is compact and simply beautiful to look at. The rooms were not the biggest we'd ever seen, but they were well-appointed and the beds - oh, the beds! - were like sleeping on a cloud. With a couple of hours to kill, we all freshened up and explored the gorgeous grounds. The kids elected to soak in the pool just a little while in order to beat back the unfamiliar Arizona heat.

The Amara's front entrance.

A Welcome Dinner was scheduled for 6:30pm out on the Amara grounds. Tables had been setup with white linens and china. Appetizers were waiting on a side-table along with local beers, wines, and lemonade - all supported by Amara staff standing by. A local husband-and-wife duo, Ken and Lyn Mikell, quietly serenaded us all with some old-time cowboy songs. Mike and Chris, our Guides, presented us with our lanyards and ABD 'pin of the day' as we mingled with the other ABD Guests.

After some opening remarks from the Guides - and a special hello for my family of ABD veterans - we all dug into a Southewest-style buffet - good and spicy! For the Junior Adventurers, the Amara staff had made up plates of less exotic fare - chicken fingers and the like. All in all, it was a great meal and a perfect cowboy setting to begin our trip!

With dinner out of the way, Ken and Lyn put on a short show of cowboy songs and spoken-word poetry. It was absolutely fantastic, and I made a point to ask them afterwards if I could buy a CD of their music. And wouldn't you know it, they had some CDs with them!

After some more chit-chat with the other ABD families, the time crossed the 8pm threshold, and everyone drifted off to their rooms to get rested for the next day. And it would be a busy one - exploring Sedona's Red Rock Country!

SWS Day 0 - Bad Moon Rising

2010-09-12T11:24:00.004-04:00

Dear Friends - Inevitably (perhaps regretably), this is Day 1 of a 9-part trip report documenting our recent family vacation to Arizona and Utah. You've been warned.

Monday, August 23, 2010 - We were one day away from a full moon. One day away from weird s**t goin' down. But today would be weird enough without the full celestial event.

The next day, August 24th, would be the start of our latest Adventures By Disney trip. This time it would be American Southwest - Grand Canyon (although I swear it used to be called Southwest Splendors). We'd had a few options for a vacation this year, but we abided by JediBoy's (my son) wish to see the Grand Canyon - and we ended up with Disney yet again.

The goal for this day - on the threshold of a full moon - was to finish packing and then take a leisurely 2.5 hour afternoon drive from our digs in London, Ontario to the Detroit Airport Westin. This would give us more manageable logistics for the next day's flight to Phoenix, Arizona where we'd begin our Disney-fied cowboy adventures.

An hour into our drive, we crossed into the U.S. at Port Huron, Michigan as we've done many times before. It's typically an easy crossing, with fairly short waits to state one's business to a guard. As expected, we waited about 10 or 15 minutes until it was our turn to cross the border. As unexpected, the guard informed us we had been randomly selected for a vehicle inspection, so would we "please turn on your four-way flashers and pull over into the inspection area".

We parked the van where we were told and then the four of us - Dad, Mom, and 2 Teens (17 and 14) - stood in line to speak with some other official person. There's safety in numbers, and I was sort of relieved to see many other people in the same boat. It was a banner day at the Port Huron crossing, with lots of 'randomly selected' miscreants looking just as guiltly as my family.

The entertainment portion of our 15 minutes in line was provided by an obnoxious middle-aged couple who were very unhappy to have won the border lottery. They were letting a very patient guard know that they did not appreciate that 'a complete stranger' would be 'touching their stuff'. I later noticed that the couple would end up in a interview room while us lower-tier terrorists would only get counter-service. Since I could not perceive the tell-tale thwack of rubber hose meeting yielding flesh, I could only assume their interview room was soundproofed. Pity, that.

In all, the process was painless. We were met by an officer who sheepishly asked us to fill out a declaration card while he went outside to poke around inside our van. Less than 5 minutes later we were free to go (and received one guard's admiration for our 'Super Mickey' antenna topper).

We celebrated our freedom with an early dinner at a nearly Cracker Barrel (my wife's guilty pleasure). While we had lost almost an hour at the border, we were fed and read to press on to our hotel. This leg of the trip also took a bit longer courtesy of federal stimulus money clogging up Interstate 94, but we arrived at the Westin at a decent hour nontheless. Our valet - a nice fellow named Richard - met us as we pulled up to the doors and within minutes he was whisking our van away as we pulled our luggage to the front desk. I made a mental note to verify that our friend Richard was actually employed by the hotel.

The Westin was nice - open, airy, with a lovely stone-lined pond separating the lobby from the restaurant. But any thoughts of being relaxed were smacked out of my head by a confusing conversation at Check-In. In short, our reservation was gone, as in 'not on our system'. It did not matter that we had pre-paid for the night's stay. We did not exist.

It took a few minutes of tense conversation and clickety-clackety keyboarding to get to the root of our woes. The reservation we had made a few months prior had been accidently entered for July, not August. According to the Westin, we were a no-show and a month late. The nice Westin Lady assured us she could check us in as 'walk ins' at the same discounted rate as our original booking, She also gave us the contact for someone in their office who would sort out the whole 'pre-paid' room accounting. She then handed us a room key (Club level!) and bid us goodnight.

We spent the remainder of the evening sucking up free hotel wifi and enjoying expensive room service snacks. We'd survived everything the day had thrown our way. We had made it to a savepoint.

Tomorrow would be better. Tomorrow we would be cowboys.

Surfacing

2010-09-05T21:20:00.000-04:00

September 5th? You're kidding me, right? Last time I checked it was early June and I was making my detailed plans for Summer. By the end of June I'd have the home maintenance projects done: the deck would get new stain, the driveway would get a coat of something luxuriously black, the skylight would be repaired and re-trimmed, the bricks in the garden path might (just might) get a bit of levelling.

After the must-do stuff was done, I'd get onto the want-to-do projects. I'd work some more on the fountain idea from last year, that topiary would finally come to life, the pond would get some cool lighting, some video games would get played. Connections with friends would be exercised - and exercised well.

Alas, not much of anything got done. The skylight got crossed off the list in July. The deck saw its new stain only today. The pond took a baby step towards lighting. The driveway and topiary will have to pin their hopes on 2011. The fountain is still more concept than fact. And very little in the way of video gaming got done.

Like the man said, life is what happens when you're making other plans. There were illnesses and deaths in the family - never expected, but needing lots of time. There were kids and jobs needing time. There were a hundred other of life's details seldom considered and always needing time.

But now it's September, and September has magic. It's that yearly threshold when the gears of time produce an audible click and everything is made normal and orderly. Our routines become routine again. And for a short while nothing unexpected is allowed to alter our schedules, our plans.

So even if Summer 2010 has left a sonic boom, I'm glad it's September being sucked along in the wake. I will read my books, I will play my games, I will do geeky things with my kids, and I will connect with the people who mean something to me. And if I'm lucky, September will make sure it all happens - on time.

Giddiyap!

2010-08-23T13:54:00.000-04:00

Time to unhitch ol' Black Jack and point our noses towards the setting Sun for the dusty ride westward. I'll write when I can and hope that the Pinkerton Men don't find me before the Pony Express does. In the meantime, keep yer backs to the corner and yer sideirons oiled and cocked.

I'll be seein' y'all soon, partners.

If You Read Something, Set It Free

2010-08-15T13:50:00.000-04:00

What do we do with books?

Libraries aside, we buy them, put them on a shelf for a bit, take them down and read them, and then put them back on a shelf. After a time, we might go back and read them again. Sometimes we lend them out to people we trust. Inevitably, they go back to their shelf to wait some more. Most of our books live on their shelf forever - collected and admired, but not feeling very useful.

It seems like a bit of a waste to me. All these ideas that someone laboured over to create. All the hands needed to print those ideas on a page and to sell those pages to someone like me. These are valuable things that deserve more than to simply collect dust for the majority of their useful lives.

I thought about all this after recalling an attempt to give one book its freedom. It was August 2008 and we were visiting Costa Rica. I was reading Joe Hill's 'Heart-Shaped Box' while on our travels and finished it late one night while a Pacific Ocean blow threatened to flood our hotel room. I loved the book, but I was thinking that maybe I didn't need to lug its hard-cover back to Canada.

My plan: I'd leave the book in the hotel room for someone else to enjoy. Lest someone think the book was left behind by mistake, I wrote a little inscription on the inside cover. I think it went something like this:

This is for you, Stranger. I loved this book and now it's someone else's turn to maybe love it, too. Whether you read or not - and if you feel so inclined - let me know what you think.

Crazylegstoo@gmail.com

P.S. And when you're done, feel free to leave your own message and pass the book along!

No one ever wrote. But in my disappointment I like to think my book felt useful to someone else and maybe it's not sitting on a shelf somewhere.

Remembering this has me thinking about my books, again. I think I have too many books that I don't need, so it's time to donate a bunch to those who might find them enjoyable. It's a tough thing, cleaning off a bookshelf, and I know there will be many volumes that I will keep just because I can't bear not to have them around. As for the others, those that will earn their freedom, I'll hope they feel as useful somewhere else as they were to me.

Spammity Spam

2010-08-15T10:01:00.000-04:00

Anyone who takes the time to leave a comment (or read what others have to say) will notice I've turned on the dreaded and annoying CAPTCHA feature (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). This is the little hangnail that makes you repeat a random set of letters and numbers to prove that you're not a spambot. As you can guess, I've been innundated with offers of good wishes, large genatalia, and web-based fortune-making - to the point where I'm tired of deleting such shite.

So for you kind souls who take pity and leave a comment from time to time, I hope this is not a pain in the ass. And for those who lurk and nothing more (I'm looking at you Disboards), just ignore this post.

Cowboy Cosplay

2010-08-08T14:31:00.000-04:00

There is a peculiar brand of arithmetic in my house that I like to call 'vacation math'. It goes like this: since my daughter, BandGeek, will be attending university here in London, she'll be living at home (at least for the next year or so). Since she's living at home, we've avoided the expense of paying for her to live in residence in some other university town. And since we've avoided that expense, we must magically have extra money to do other things - like taking a family vacation this summer. Don't bother to quibble over 'expense avoidance' versus 'money in the bank'. This, my friends, is 'vacation math'.

The end result of this nebulous equation is that, in a few weeks, we're off to Arizona and Utah to visit the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, respectively. The Cowboy Way dictates a leisurely survey of this part of the world, but we don't have time for moseyin' down the dusty trail on the backs of shuffling steeds. Instead, we'll be joining up with a (sort of) adventure tour to pack as much cowboy culture as possible into 8 days and 7 nights.

The plan is to do a lot of hiking, river rafting, and off-road excursioning as we make our way through Sedona, Grand Canyon National Park, and Moab. We'll even throw in a campfire or two as an excuse to empty the dust from our boots. I'm curious about the experience ahead because, truthfully, all I know about being a cowboy is what I've learned from the odd Hollywood film, my father-in-law's synopsis of Zane Grey stories, and tales from the virtual Old West.

As always, I'll promise to blog some photos and thoughts along the way and, as always, it won't work out as I'd planned. But if you'll excuse me, I need to go practise my tobacco chewin' and calf ropin'. I reckon I'll see you on the trail sometime.

Birchbark Achievements Unlocked

2010-07-25T10:42:00.001-04:00

We arrived home last night after a week at my wife's family cottage. Even after 20-odd Summers of these trips, my feelings are still conflicted. It's isolated, quiet, and incredibly scenic. A better place for burning through your reading list, I cannot imagine. It's ageing badly, constantly in need of repair, and sports an outhouse. A better recipe for diverting your reading time towards repair chores, you will not find.

This year was different, however. Number One: we were there alone without any other family. Number Two: there were no major chores to tackle. This rare confluence of events meant that we could actually spend a week on Georgian Bay doing we whatever we felt like doing! And when a geek has a free time, a geek will do those things that make him or her a geek:

Reading: I finished all 784 pages of Dan Simmons' DROOD. I'll summarize that: I read DROOD.

Gaming: ~~I finally got around to playing MUNCHKIN~~. My family - all four of us - learned to play (and love) MUNCHKIN. To satisfy any need for video gaming, I spent a lot of time wrestling Angry Birds out of my daughter's hands.

Watching: We brought a stack of Series 2, 3, and 4 Doctor Who DVDs to watch. Thanks to MUNCHKIN, we never actually got around to watching them.

So while a few of us got the DTs from Internet and Xbox withdrawl, I feel like we probably sustained at least a faint glow of geek. But it's still good to be back in a world where porceline is readily available.

The Filler Post

2010-07-16T20:57:00.003-04:00

The Theater (or Theatre) will be closed for the next week or so to afford the staff a well-deserved break from cleaning sticky floors, spooning congealed grease from the popcorn machine, and taping old pieces of film together for cheap matinees. The Manager (that's me) will be heading to the family cottage in Parry Sound, but we'll be traveling there via Sudbury. That's how the Settlers did it and Settlers made this land great!

I won't be counting on Internet access for the next week and I'm bloody ticked that we're going to miss Day One of SCOTT PILGRIM 6 on July 20. But when I get back - if I get back - I'll be ready with a post about a family trip being planned for August that I'm calling 'The Red Dead Redemption Cosplay Tour 2010'. Pretty catchy, huh?

Until then, don't break the Internet.

Shameless Promotion

2010-07-11T10:34:00.000-04:00

View Larger Map
There's this young lady I know who, in just a few days time, will be embarking on the adventure of her lifetime (so far!). Nisha - just barely 18 years of age - will be spending the next year of her life in India under the auspices of the Rotary Young Exchange program.

She'll be blogging about her experiences throughout the year to allow us less adventurous types to see India through her eyes. And since Nisha is - in all the ways that matter - part of my family, I'm going to offer up her Nisha In India! bloglink here (and in the sidebar to the right) in case any Theater patrons would like to join the ride.

Remember, Nisha: we're watching!

The Die Was Cast Early

2010-07-04T16:50:00.002-04:00

I recently finished Achtung Schweinehund! - a first-person account of one man's lifelong relationship with table-top wargaming. I won't review the book in this post, but if you're at all curious you can find a semi-literate opinion or two over at All Your Basecast (episode 13, also available on iTunes!).

While I did enjoy reading about Harry Pearson's obsessions, an unexpected consequence was having the dust blown off some long-ago memories of my own experiences with wargaming. It had been years since those memories had lit up my neural pathways, but Pearson's reminisces eventually teased a few mementos out of the quiet corners of my past.

Going back to my teenaged years (somewhere in the late 1970's), my pasty-white friends and I spent countless hours constructing small-scale WW2 tanks and warships. It didn't hurt that my friend's family owned a local hobby shop and were only too willing to extend us the deep discounts we used to amass our armies. Meticulously constructed and painted, our legions of British, American, and German military hardware spent their most useful hours in a friend's garage, where we had constructed an elaborate gaming table - complete with landscaping, beachfront, and the bombed out villages we copied from Kelley's Heroes.

I cannot recall very much about the rules for our campaigns, although I do remember they were furnished and refereed by a friend's older brother. It was all about math: how much a Tiger Tank could move in one turn, how far the Graf Spree could lob 11-inch shells at a 32-degree angle from its watery outpost, and so on. Games would run hours, days, even weeks, with the winner typically chosen by attrition rather than brilliant tactics. Winning was never really the point of it all. It was the 'act' - selecting, building, painting, arguing, and being together with like-minded geeks.

Thinking about all this led me to recall even more ancient geekery from my past. It was a board game my father brought into the house when I was 10 or 11 years old: Richtofen's War. This was not the typical Monopoly or Candyland style of boardgame. This was different.

The point of it all was to simulate WW1 arial battles - all white knuckles on joysticks and canvas stretched over wooden frames. I remember the board being an arial view of some European countryside, with an overlay of honeycombs to guide various pieces of cardboard with pictures of airplanes on them. There were dice involved and a set of rules that seemed to me like 100 pages of inscrutable gibberish. I desperately wanted to make the game 'work', but I could never explain the rules well enough to myself or my friends.

Like I say, I hadn't though about model tanks or cardboard Sopwith Camels in years until Harry Pearson's book came along. Richtofen's boxed set of WW1 has long since passed from my family's hands (probably into a dustbin somewhere along the way). As for my plastic tanks and ships - so lovingly put together all those years ago - they were handed down to my brother when I moved away to attend school in another city. I'm pretty sure they, too, have been consigned to the municipal dump. But these are good things to think about, if only to confirm that I Am Me, and always have been.

I Love Ninja Artists

2010-06-16T19:36:00.000-04:00

Why? Because they use the cover of darkness to pretty-up those places I like to stroll during my lunchtime constitutionals.

Behold! Knitwear railings! Safe and colourful!

This Is Not The Post You're Looking For

2010-05-28T21:13:00.007-04:00

With not so much as link to a link (the laziest species of blogpost) appearing in this space in 3 weeks, you'd expect something really special to turn up eventually. So here's a spoiler alert: this is not that post.

However, there are a few items of note to talk about, so we're going to 'up' the Awesome Quotient by talking about both of them in one jam-packed missive.

Ready?

School Concert or French Foreign Legion March?

With both of my teen-brats involved in school music programs, we attend a Metric ass-load of concerts. Don't construe this as complaining, because we get to see some really high quality performances around town. One recent example: I had never heard of the Finnish a capella supergroup, Rajaton, until my kids spent a full day in a workshop with these amazing performers. Their combined concert that evening was some of the best live music I've ever seen. That's the good stuff.

Then there are the wonderful-but-dreaded school concerts. The 'wonderful' bits are the music and the commitment from the kids and their teachers to do high-quality stuff. The 'dreaded' aspect is the length of these concerts - always an audacious challenge from every kid in the music program to every parent in the audience to see who blinks first.

But 3 1/2 hours of Spring Music Night this week was about 90 minutes too much. When my knees have gone numb and I fantasize how it must feel to run through a meadow, I know I've been sitting on my ass much too long. Of course I'll listen to every note, check my raffle tickets during intermission, and smile with my eyes when my kid is onstage, but I'll also murmur a little prayer that maybe, just maybe, someone might think to pull a fire alarm sometime before 10pm.

I Gots The Looks for Radio!

Earlier this week I got the phone call that all of us secretly-extroverted blogwhores dream about. It was my friend Sean - one third of the All Your Basecast crew - asking me if I wouldn't mind sitting in on a recording session for their fledgling podcast. I didn't care that I only had a few hours to prepare. The Basecast crew of Sean, Vanessa, and Brian are great folks and I was going to enjoy spending an hour or two chatting with them. That there was going to be a microphone in the room was not going to matter, for it would only serve to feed my Ego and give me a little push towards 'celebrity'.

So we met, we chatted about geeky things, we laughed a lot, and we recorded. In the following days, Vanessa would recite some Editting Spells and, presto!, Episode 8 of Basecast would take it's rightful place in iTunes. In the meantime, I cleared my inbox in anticipation of the deluge of admiring emails to come.

Upon my first nervous listen later that week, I was pleasantly surprised at the results. The Basecast folks were their usual fine selves - Vanessa mixing geek joyfulness with strong opinions, Brian offering true insights and honest admissions, and Sean playing the role of Master geek while drawing out his crewmates' thoughts with an interviewer's touch. And I was pleased to discover that the sound of my recorded words was not too cringeworthy, and that I even had something to say once in awhile!

Upon my second listen later that week, I got self-critical in that way that us glass-half-empty types can be self-critical. My voice was too raspy. My voice was too quiet. I stammered right there! I used too many adjectives in place of actual insights. I couldn't remember that author's name. I paused for too long. I didn't finish that one thought before going on to the next.

What was I doing there?

It might not have been as bad as all that, of course. And I did have a blast (thanks guys!) But I will say that it's harder than it looks to have a casual conversation and make it interesting enough that other folks will want to listen in.

I'd do it again in a New York minute, but first I've got this inbox to clean out...

Blue Light Special

2010-05-08T16:11:00.000-04:00

Here's a quick tip: There are good bargains out there for smart shoppers who don't mind that replacement parts might not be readily available. Apparently.

David and Dog Both Begin With 'D'

2010-05-02T17:01:00.006-04:00

I heard through an excitedly quivering grapevine that David Sedaris is coming to London in October. I can't say that I'm a rabid fan. There's just too much media Out There and too little time Right Here. But what I've seen, I liked - in the same way I liked Spaulding Gray before he took one last swim to Cambodia.

So I thought maybe my wife and I should go see him when he lands at Centennial Hall on October 1. Off to the Innertubes went I and by pure, dumb luck I found something I had never expected:

Dog The Bounty Hunter - The Mercy Tour 2010

Tuesday June 22 2010, 8:00 pm Centennial Hall - Auditorium
-------------------------------------------------------
Super VIP - includes Best seats in the house, An exclusive after party with Leland and Duane Lee, Meet N Greet and Picture with Dog, Beth, Leland, and Duane Lee, an Autographed Poster, and a SUPER VIP Commemorative Laminate
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VIP - includes Best Seats in the house, a Meet N’ Greet & Picture with Dog & Beth, an autographed poster, and a VIP Commemorative Laminate

Balcony Reserved All Seats $47.00
Mezzanine All Seats $47.00
Orchestra All Seats $47.00
VIP All Seats $206.00
Super VIP All Seats $309.0

As you'll imagine, I'm absolutely torn. I cannot decide: is this or is this not a sign of the End Times?

Mean Streets for Gamers

2010-04-26T19:57:00.000-04:00

Because I spent some bad-ass formative years EOA, I walk the dangerous parts of the city core without fear. And by dangerous parts I mean I cut through a parking lot near King and Wellington to get into the Convention Centre underground lot. That's where my rusting, beige minivan waits for me while I earn money.

Between the Convention Center and an adjacent building is a sort-of alley. Just big enough for a person to fit into, it is usually strewn with the detritus of whatever the hell goes on downtown when night falls - as you might notice below.

I make a point of peering down that alley on my twice-daily passing. Usually, there's nothing very interesting, save the occasional bad-ass squirrel (the EOA type) scrounging for whatever bad-ass squirrels need. But today I noticed something new: a cracked DVD case laying open with a shiny DVD inside.

You'll notice the handwritten lettering on the home-burned disk. You'll also notice that 'Dragon Age of Empire' is kind of nonsensical. And since you're looking at pictures here, you'll also notice I picked it up and took it home for investigation.

The disk has no viruses or trojans. The handwritten case insert has instructions for installing what appears to be a software crack. While my ageing PC cannot run this game, nor would I steal something like this, see for yourself below what I found.

Now I can only wonder how that DVD came to rest in a downtown alley frequented street folks and ne'erdowells. My theory: a stolen backpack - useless items ditched in an secluded place. Still, there's a story there, and I'm guessing the squirrels know something, but ain't talkin'.

I Choose YOU, Pikachu!

2010-04-24T20:44:00.001-04:00

The neverending story that my wife Dee refers to as 'Painting a Few Rooms' has, surprisingly, all but come to an end. Today, the Family Room received a final coat of Benjamin Moore and far too many touch-ups before I ceased hostilities with my brush and roller.

My son, JediBoy, strolled by as I admired my handiwork. When asked for an opinion on the choice of colours, he replied without pause, "The room looks like the inside of a Pokeball.". And he's right - it does. So I'd say we're pretty damn pleased that we can now hang out in our very own Pokeball to watch TV or read or whatever it is that Pokemon do when they're not on the clock.

And by the way, the corner of the room shown in both photos will forever hold a special meaning. As I listened to Basecast #5 for painting company, I happened to be running a brush down that very corner when Basecaster Vanessa (at 34:49 into the episode) posed a question for the Ages, "Am I not good enough to masturbate in front of?".

To which my answer must be: Pika! Pika!

Kicking This Old Ass

2010-04-20T14:04:00.002-04:00

One of the great questions of our age is whether geekiness can honestly co-exist with sportiness. I think it can and does, of course. While I consider myself pretty geeky in so many ways, I do play a few sports. I generally can't stand to waste time watching sports on TV, but you'll find me playing a bit of pickup hockey, soccer, or baseball when 'tis the season. Lest you think I'm faking it, many of my teammates are the same chaps with whom I've spent countless hours wandering imaginary dungeons or arguing that Madagascar is the key to expanding your armies into Africa.

I like to think that playing these games - often with those unfortunate souls with whom I survived high-school - has been the secret to my relative lack of maturity. Sure, I can hold down a job, wear a tie if I have to, and be passably serious at parent/teacher interviews, but I know in my bones that I'm still a 16 year-old kid with 10 bucks in quarters for the arcade and an old tennis ball perfect for road hockey. I just have never felt old and grown up - at least not before this past weekend.

Almost every Spring my friends and I play in a hockey tournament for charity. It's a lot of fun for a good cause and the food is free. For reasons that don't matter, our team (most of us in our mid-forties or worse) is usually placed in a division where the other players are likely 20 years our junior. We never win very much against those younger legs and quicker hands, but we never embarrass ourselves too much, either.

This year was different. Our skates were caught in molasses. Our sticks were made of rubber. Our lungs became old, cracked leather. Sure we scored some goals and we never quit trying, but we knew from each other's eyes that we were struggling this year. Having a bad game or two doesn't bother us too much. It's just one of those 'on any given day' kind of things.

And then I had this exchange with an opposing player between first and second periods during our last game:

Kid (with a good-natured chuckle): You guys are slowing down! Everything alright? Your bench is quiet!

Me: Ah, we're just pacing ourselves for a kick-ass third period! That what experience teaches you, man!

Kid: Experience?

Me (laughing): Well, you know... most of us have been playing hockey for, like, 30 or 40 years. You learn stuff.

Kid: Holy shit! You must be older than my father!

Me: Well, I guess...

Kid: ... We didn't know! We don't need to be pressing you guys so hard...

And with that - and genuine concern - he reported back to his bench that they were kicking Old Guy Ass. We still lost the game, of course, but they took it easier on us older-than-Dad-guys. My body might have appreciated the break whereas my psyche had no good thoughts for those nice young boys.

Old? Insinuations of feebleness? My roll of quarters and balding tennis ball say, "HA!"

Next year, we'll be ready for them - ready to teach them a life lesson. That is, if my knees hold out.

Because I'm All About Public Service

2010-04-05T11:59:00.005-04:00

Definitions are a tricky business. Similar to art, pornography, and Neo-cons, Douchebags are easy to spot, but diffcult to concisely define. In the interest of self-awareness and a desire to leave the World in a better place after I'm dead-and-gone, I offer the following (Beta 1.0) 12-step test that can be used to identify Douchebaggery - male or female, young or old. Only through classification of Douchebags can we offer them the help they need in the internment camps that will keep keep them far away from the rest of us.

Disclaimer: The Innertubes seems to be littered with such quizzes. But I'm having a slow day at the office, so I made my own. Okay?

Instructions: Answer each of the 12 questions honestly - for yourself, someone you know, or someone you want to mock. You can do this silently in your head or do it out loud for the enjoyment of those around you. For each 'true' statement:

Score 1 point!
Try your luck at the 2 bonus questions for each question
Score 1 extra point for each Bonus question you answer 'true'

When you're done, add up your score and see how you rate on the Douchebag Standard Scale.

1. I’ve spent money at a tanning salon.
    a. I have membership.
    b. I use the spray-tan booth.

2. I drive a black SUV that’s large enough to carry 6 adults comfortably.
    a. I have no children.
    b. My spouse drives one, too.

3. I shop for clothes in the same establishments as my teenaged children.
    a. I share clothes with my teenaged children.
    b. They’re not my children.

4. I wear work-out attire to places other than the gym or my home.
    a. I buy my workout attire from lululemon.
    b. I don’t go to the gym.

5. I go to Starbuck’s more than 4 times a week.
    a. I’ve yelled at a ‘barista’ more than once.
    b. The name of my favourite Starbuck’s beverage has more than 4 syllables.

6. I wear a gold chain around my neck.
    a. I like to make sure the chain can be seen at all times.
    b. I bought the chain for myself.

7. I wear golf shirts with the collar turned up.
    a. I use the term ‘popped’ without irony.
    b. I wear more than 1 popped collar at a time.

8. I use some manner of hair gel, paste, etc. regularly.
     a. My hairstyle involves a ‘point’ at the top of my head and/or streaks of alternating colours.
     b. I refer to anything I use on my hair as ‘product’.

9. I actually enjoy having my picture taken while in social situations.
     a. My signature pose includes ‘serious eyes’, pursed lips, and (optionally) some manner of hand signals.
     b. Everyone else in the picture looks like me.

10. Whenever possible and in all situations, I like to wear casual sandals.
    a. When sandals aren’t feasible, I wear Crocs or Uggs.
    b. I own at least one pair of each.

11. All my children are named similarly – e.g. start with the same letter.
    a. I named our purebred Golden Retriever in a similar fashion.
    b. This helps me remember their names since I don’t spend much time with any of them.

12. I live in a big house surrounded by other big houses that look just like mine.
    a. There are no trees within 5km of my house.
    b. There is nothing but the colour beige within 5km of my house.

Douchebag Standard Scale:

0 to 6 - You're a normal, imperfect, self-aware human being. Congrats!

7 to 18 - You have dangerously Douchebag-like tendancies. Substitiute Tim Horton's for Starbuck's for the next 30 days. Ballcaps must not be worn at a jaunty angle any longer.

19 to 26 - You are an acolyte Douchebag and require immediate intervention. The standard course of shock treatment must include a rusted Chevy Cavalier, a Walmart wardrobe makeover, and a punch in the face for every utterance of dude, fo sho, or woot.

27 to 36 - You are a Douchebag - Douchebag. Proceed to the closest Aeropostale for further instructions.

Let Them (Not) Eat Cake

2010-04-02T11:51:00.001-04:00

There are two reasons why I seldom write about serious topics here. Number 1: the Innertubes has more than enough people willing to tell you why you've no excuse to smile. Number 2: people who are not capital 'W' Writers (like me!) too often come off like the inside-cover of a 15 year-old Emo kid's notebook.

I'm going to break that tradition for this post because of this Globe and Mail article.

Let me summarize: If you live in Ontario and collect welfare (euphamistically called Ontario Works) or a provincial disability pension (called ODSP to those in-the-know), there is an optional benefit called the Special Diet Allowance (SDA). Got Diabetes? That'll get you an extra $20 a month for fresh produce. Allergic to eggs? You'll get a few bucks a month for egg substitutes. For most folks on OW or ODSP, you could see an extra $50 on top of your standard benefits. The maximum SDA is $250 a month, but you're likely on a first-name basis with the Grim Reaper if you hit that jackpot.

Despite the Province's best plans to keep the SDA a secret, people found about it and used it. According to an audit report, many people abused it, too. There's no surprise there, of course. If you rely on government benefits to survive, you're going to find ways to maximize your income. But that doesn't discount the fact that thousands of Ontarians have a legitimate need for the SDA.

But Dalton & Co. have a different perspective. The SDA costs too much, they say. They claim the program cost has ballooned from $6 million bucks a few years ago to well over $200 million today. This is the same governmental brain trust that finds billions of tax dollars for failing auto manufacturers and guarantees employee pensions for companies that get kicked to the curb in the free-market.

So let's do away with the SDA and replace it with something more manageable, says Dalton. Of course, 'manageable' means that the Province will make damn sure they spend less money on the poor and the disabled. They're an easy target, of course, since they can't scream loud enough or vote often enough to be a problem.

You might wonder why I'm worked up about this? Beyond the simple social injustice, I've been up-close-and-personal with the ODSP racket - and I know how little we do for the needy in the Province of Ontario. A few years back, my mother had a stroke and lost both her physical and financial health. Effectively part of the 'working poor' for many years, she had no private insurance coverage and little in the way of savings when everything in her life changed in August 2006.

Long story short: I spent many months learning the Ins and Outs of the Ontario Disability Support Program in order to find some means of financial support for my mother's 'new life' - a life that would no longer her permit the dignity of working for a living. It's a topic for another post, I suppose, but suffice to say that ODSP is constructed to minimize benefits and built on the tenet that anyone who applies is a crook. As a Systems Analyst by profession, the ODSP labyrinth impresses the Hell out of me. As a human being, it's almost disgusting.

And if you're successful in negotiating the months-long hazing that is the application process, the very best you can expect to receive is about $1,000 a month if you're single. For anyone living on ODSP, that's likely your entire income. Lord help you if you don't have family or friends that can help - but don't tell the Province's ODSP administrators about that (seriously). In short, the ODSP system is the stuff of which Terry Gilliam films are made.

So when you're living on a pittance and Dalton wants to get rid of the SDA, it's a big deal. In my mother's case, this won't matter much. Once she turned 65, the Province took their ODSP and went home - leaving her with a Drug Card and a phone number for the Federal CPP/OAS/GIC hotline (a much more humane world, by the way). But for those not lucky enough (yet) to qualify for an old age pension, Dalton's assault on their disability benefits is a mean-spirited attempt to chip away at Provincial debt on the backs of those who can't afford it and can't fight back. For a Premiere that never met a tax or a user-fee he didn't like, it's disgusting that we cannot afford to take care of a small number of our most vulnerable cititzens.

But, hey, at least we could help out Chrysler, right?

The Old Ways

2010-03-28T19:58:00.002-04:00

When I was a kid, there was probably no bigger treat than a trip to the movies. It was rare that we could afford that kind of extravagance, so spending a few hours in a theatre - all velvety and exotic and lacking any kind of practicality - was a bit like a mini-Christmas. It didn't hurt that I loved movies (still do). I never cared what was playing. So long as there was a story in Technicolor, I was engaged.

The idea of the movie theatre, even now, enchants me. I love that you get to sit in the dark, lose yourself up on the screen, and have a shared experience with everyone else in the room. Opening night for the first Lord Of The Rings, a midnight showing of Rocky Horror, a new Disney classic - these are the times for magic.

But I've come to realize that I almost dread going to movie theatres anymore. It's not the expense. It's not the nostalgia for long-gone opulence now replaced with sad pastel neon and carpeted walls. It's not even the parade of commercials that turn my popcorn cold while I wait for Coming Attractions.

It's people - those wretched assholes who are somehow unaware of the most basic of movie-going equations:

Movie.Theater not_equal Living.Room

I'm tired of the idiot with stunted attention span whose cellphone display shines out as a beacon to warn all those around them, "I have important text messages that must be addressed NOW!". I'm tired of the confused couple who cannot fathom what they are seeing on the screen, and simply must deconstruct the plot for the benefit of all around them. I'm tired of the young people who need to claim their row (and mine) for socializing and resting weary feet on whatever seems handy - their rude bravado made more possible by their numbers and the presence of the opposite sex.

I say bring back the Usher. Beat back the cretins using a crimson jacket and a flashlight. Since I'll pay a couple bucks more to see a 3D movie, I'll probably pay a couple bucks more for someone to stand vigilant against the forces of Incivility.

Until then, the magic is tough to find in the dark. And I'll thank my stars for DVDs.

S. Pilgrim: 1 World: 0

2010-03-25T17:11:00.000-04:00

The first trailer is here.

It looks kind of awesome, no?

I Bow Down to the Captain

2010-03-21T14:33:00.000-04:00

A Frenchman and his wife take a cruise and it changes his life.

Nope, it's not the opening line for a joke. It was a catalyst for what turned out to be this fellow's life work. I've been following his progress off and on for a few years now. I am in awe and more than a little jealous. See if you don't agree with me.

France
Uploaded by reelgood0008. - Explore exotic destinations and travel videos.

Are All Gamers Are 'Bi'?

2010-03-18T20:20:00.001-04:00

There was a time not long ago when there were two distinct Gamer camps - PC and Console. The PC Gamers - and I was one of them - surveyed the World from high atop their expensive, overclocked, super-cooled tower machines and felt sure theirs was the realm of the 'serious' games. Our PCs had lots of buttons and (almost) infinite upgradability to tackle the biggest, bloatiest, most complicated games out there. Simple interfaces, cartoony colour palettes, and 3-button controllers were the domain of the kiddies in the Valley of Console Gaming.

Likewise, Console Gamers declared theirs was the One True Religion - although I suspect they didn't think about it too much. These were not like the hardware junkies who considered PC-pimping to be part of the gaming experience. They were only too happy to trade 'game complexity' for the joy of popping in a cartridge or disk to just play their damn games in their comfortable living rooms.

Like I said, I identified with the PC Gamer camp. I'd owned consoles forever, but the kind of games I liked back in the day required the kind of horsepower that consoles could not match. Sure, Super Mario 3 was a lot of fun to pick up and play, but a real man played King's Quest V on a PC. And we were sure that the 3D badness that was Wolfenstein 3D would never see the light of day on a puny console.

Somehow between Then and Now, I've changed. There was no epiphany, no audible click. I think I've just grown tired of worrying about my PC. Is my processor fast enough? Do I need a new video card? How about a bigger monitor? Can I play BioShock2 on this thing?

These days, I jones for the XBox360 hooked up to 36 inches of HD goodness. It's a more comfortable experience to pop in a disk or (gasp!) download a game from XBox Live from my comfy sofa. My PC could never match this experience nor could it possible render Arkham Asylum (without become a puddle of molten silicon). And in full turnabout, my PC gaming experience is more and more those cartoony Flash experiences that were once the domain of the 8-bit Famicon system.

So there you have it. I'm a Bi-Gamer, with a predilection for XBox and Wii consoles and totally secure with hitting up the PC when I get the urge. Still, I do miss my mouse and W-S-A-D keys from time to time - especially for first-person shooters. But I'm sure that I just need more time with my new friends to explore my boundaries.

Pure Pwnage

2010-03-14T19:54:00.001-04:00

How did I not hear about this? Pure Pwnage is Web video series with a serious cult following among the gaming crowd. Produced in someone's Toronto basement for the past few years, it has recently moved into the mainstream as a Showcase TV series. Episode 1 is already available online.

That I have never heard of it before can only mean that I'm over 40 and out of touch. For shame!

Does This Colour Make Me Look Fat?

2010-02-20T11:48:00.005-05:00

Yeah, I changed the look of this place. I'm not sure if I like it, so I'm bound to be tinkering for awhile. But don't let the spiffy layout and 'haute colours' (pronounced: cooloorz) fool you. It's all just lipstick on the same old pig.

Update:

I just knew I should have avoided that awful green colour those VANOC guys have been splashing around at all the Olympic sites. So I've gone back to something closer to the old layout, albeit with a bit of screen-stretching thrown in.

To The Mothership We Went

2010-02-18T20:09:00.001-05:00

Visiting my In-Laws is an ordeal. It's not because they're evil (they aren't) or they don't enjoy visitors (they do), but because it's a long, long drive to the little mining town 30 minutes north of Sudbury that they call home. The degree of difficulty is increased since we typically make this trip during the treachous Winter months only.

A good trip is several hours of travelling with only the occasional snowflake making it's way across old highway 69 enroute from Georgian Bay. A not-so-good trip is significantly more than several hours on the road with white-knuckle whiteouts randomized between Barrie and Anywhere North. This year's Family Day weekend excursion was (mercifully) under the watchful eye of St. Christopher, and our only problems were the usual Toronto traffic snarls that kick-off any long weekend.

While I do my usual grousing about making this trip, I'm increasingly aware that this is a respite from the rest of the World. Their little town of 1,200 souls - many of them retired miners - is the stuff of which NFB documentaries are made. There is a sense of community (and community involvement) that seems to revolve around 2 churches, the hockey rink, and a 3-sheet curling rink. Throw in a bank branch, a post office, a beer store, and a couple of variety-come-hardware-come-grocery stores - and it's a wonder that Stuart MacLean hasn't brought his schtick to town.

It's a place removed from the typical frenetic, self-important drumbeat that seems to govern too much of my professional and personal life 'down South'. Everyone takes you at face value. No matter what you look like, how you dress, what hobbies fill your time, what you do for a living - you're accepted with common courtesy. Not that it's particular to small, northern villages, but I like that way of looking at things.

When Winter weather keeps us inside during our visits, it's okay by me. There's a small, little-used room in my In-Law's basement. It's got a gas fireplace that heats the tiny space too much by a half. There's a misshapen sofa laden with expansive homemade afghans sporting godawful colours and patterns. There's a rocking chair tucked into the corner if you need to get away from the heat. The wall-shelfs sag under the weight of a lifetime's treasures: old hockey trophies, old pictures, Peanuts paperbacks, even a few 8-tracks of old-style country tunes. There's the TV - willing to play any old movie that bests fits your mood. And there's the sound of my father-in-law padding down the hall with a couple of beers or maybe a few glasses of Scotch to share. By any measure, it's a cocoon against anything, anywhere, anyone else.

When Winter weather lets us outside, that's okay, too. Snowy walks are surrounded by valley slopes filled with grey-tinged evergreens. There's real sliding to be enjoyed at the abandoned ski hill a few blocks away (although you can shorten the walk to 3 minutes if you cut through a few neighbour yards - they don't mind). If the place is empty, you're always welcome to throw a few rocks over at the curling rink. If you're so inclined to sit through a church service, there's pretty decent coffee and treats in the basement afterwards. Sometimes, someone might loan you a spare snowmobile for a few hours.

It's age that makes me consider these things, I think. Everyone is getting older and these respites, this cocoon, will fade away in time. So I'll just appreciate them a little more while it's all perfect.

What Do You Call 10 Geeks Sitting Around a Table?

2010-01-31T11:11:00.001-05:00

A pretty fine way to spend an afternoon. Thanks again to the The Kid for pulling everyone together. I'm already looking forward to the next Meet!

Plans Are Made

2010-01-24T10:49:00.003-05:00

Yesterday did not go as planned. Since we don't really plan for bad days, our common understanding of Plans Not Working Out is that it's a bad thing. And it was - a bad thing.

A belated Christmas gathering needed a last-minute rescheduling because some virus found the perfect receptor in someone's lungs.

A friend's offer of coffee and conversation could not be fixed into the correct space/time continuum.

A visit to the RMT brought pain that would squeeze a tear from even Jack Bauer's eyes (I believe I confessed to the Lindbergh kidnapping at one point).

Pre-exam jitters made for a prickly atmosphere anywhere in the house where textbooks might be present.

Nothing much was working out the way I'd hoped.

So when life hands you lemons, retreat to the basement and find something to do. And since the cat had not figured into the day's disappointments (at least there was no sign of furballs), the new goal for the day was to add some padded levels to the cat-tree and turn this:

Into this:

Geeking Out Is Hard Work

2010-01-16T16:56:00.003-05:00

Where do we find the time to be Geeks? After being a Husband, a Father, and a Worker, how do I manage what little time is left for those frivolous things that make me well-rounded and suspicious of sunlight?

I have a giant stack of books waiting to be read. I'm woefully behind on the few comics I collect. I need to re-finish a staircase. There's a cat-tree that needs a renovation. There are too many podcasts. Hours of home video need editing. The media server project mocks me still. Last Summer's fountain project needs some re-imagineering. The workbench has the entrails of some Doctor Who craft-work that may (or may not) ever see the light reflecting off a glass of Who Tavern Rickard's. Facebook sucks time. There are fascinating things on the Internet. The new skylight needs new trim. Video games are poked at in fits and starts. Blogging feels like work anymore. It would be fun to build a wind generator for the pond. Some guy has turned me onto this library thing. My hockey equipment is old. Sometimes there's something good on television. Twitter makes me laugh. I need the nourishment of beverages and good conversation with like-minded souls. I feel like writing some software. I love to read other blogs. And I covet Gord Harrison's workshop.

Time doesn't care, however. He taps my shoulder and points at the couch. "Go there", he says. "Sit with your cat and your book. If you're sleepy, you just close your eyes". And then he laughs.

Am I alone here, or is Time screwing us all?

Are We Not Whores?

2010-01-06T13:22:00.002-05:00

One of this trip's Disney souvenirs was a box of noodles and goo. For comparison purposes, the $6 we spent on this box could have bought 4 or 5 boxes of Kraft Dinner. I would never actually do that, of course. Charitably, the pasta does have the vague outline of Mickey's head. Realistically, it tastes like you might expect keepsake-grade mac'n'cheese to taste.

Port Huron Cracker Barrel Is Awesome....

2010-01-05T11:09:00.003-05:00

....because you can find TREASURE there!