Logical Philosopher

The beginnings of a mycophile

2011-11-14T07:06:00.000-08:00

We were able to get away for the long weekend back to Hornby, a brief rest from the frantic pace of smart phones and home renovations.

The arrival was marked with a change in the weather, a thick black line moving across the horizon which departed the same time as our ferry, bringing 3 foot swells along with it. By late evening the clouds had blown off and revealed a waning gibbous moon, illuminating the field for Riley to fetch his toys in. Unfortunately the cold proved to be too much so we retreated inside to read by the heaters.

Saturday kept the wind and waves from the north but also brought clear sky and a hike around Helliwell. Wet and damp weather revealed 6 different types of mushrooms, a curiosity for Haley who is used to seeing them just in the store. I don't know much about mushrooms, but I looked up a particularly bulbous red and white spotted mushroom - an Amanita Muscaria - and found it is deadly if eaten. Who know such death was innocently living on a well worn walking path? Perhaps this is my year to get a mushroom book and turn into a mycophile.

By Sunday the storm had moved to a South-Easterly, so an excursion to do some storm-watching on big Tribune was on our list to do. Last winter the storms brought in a massive piece of driftwood, and the past few months have added a layer of algae which glowed greed against the white spray of the surf. In the calmer sections of the bay the cold water also brought a crystal clear blue water, giving us a view into the depths we don't normally have in the summer.

This was the last trip I remember where we forgot our camera, which was unfortunate given some of the unique sights we saw: Smurf-like mushrooms, clear ocean views and red-sky sunsets.

I'm not sure when our next break will be. December brings a rest for the holidays, and hopefully time to finish the hatch on the kayak. It also brings 3 more trips: India, England and Toronto, all packed into 11 days. I do have a day off in India this trip as I arrive over a weekend, so we'll see what excursions I can get up to.

Made in Iceland

2011-10-28T23:02:00.001-07:00

I totally want to visit Iceland after this....

MADE IN ICELAND from Klara Harden on Vimeo.

30 Cups of Concord Grapes...

2011-10-23T09:00:00.001-07:00

I came home to sour grapes.

With the wet weather we have been having, the last bit of sun needed to turn the grapes on the vines into sweet concord fruit never did appear. But, as they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I did not have lemons, but had grapes, so set about making some concord grape jelly on the weekend.

Haley and I took to the vines and picked about five gallons of grapes. If we had have picked them about 3 weeks ago I suspect there would have been about ten gallons, but between the birds and Haley, there were many portions of the vines that were bare.

I have canned before, making jam, but never jelly. Finicky at the best of times, jelly needs the right mix of pectin, sugar and fruit syrup. Pulling out the canning cookbooks gave me a few tips, but it also gave me three recipes that were contradictory in cooking time. One said boil hard for 10 minutes, another boil slowly for 35 and yet another said to only boil for a minute. With 30 cups of grapes I was going to have to make at least three batches, so would have time to try them all.

We set about destemming all the grapes. A few of the recipes said to squish out the seeds and separate them for cooking, but that was quickly abandoned given the volume of fruit and the limited patience of a 7 year old.

Next we crushed the grapes, loosening the seeds, and slowly boiling for about 15 minutes. This gave a mash mixture I was able to strain, and the remaining skin and seeds were separated from the juice. I think if I had a smaller batch to make, or had larger grapes (Haley and the birds seemed to have eaten all the larger ones) I would have separated the seeds and the skins, like the Hungry Moose did, as my leftover mix did not have the deep purple concord color I was hoping for.

Three batches gave me room to play with the recipe, and as concord grapes are low in pectin naturally, I added more lemon juice and sugar than I usually do with the strawberry jam we often make. I roughly followed the Epicurious recipe, to get the lemon juice ratio, but using our Clearly Delicious canning book, followed these plans:

2 1/4 cups of grape juice
2 1/3 cups of sugar
juice of 2 lemons (6 tbl spoons)

We gave the mix a medium boil for about 15-20 minutes, but in all three batches, even one I added pectin to and lowered the sugar content, I could not get the jelly to set on a frozen plate. We hoped for the best and simply moved on to canning the jars, finally boiling them for 10 minutes to seal the lids.

I did leave some jelly on the counter and it had set by the morning, but in one of the batches I was not so lucky. Some was still fairly liquid, so I am going to reboil it and add more pectin and lemon juice. If not, I have a large batch of grape syrup to use for desserts!

Perdu dans la traduction...

2011-10-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

Let's see.... Been home for 6 weeks and managed to fit in 5 trips:

1) New Mexico: Was cooler than expected. No really, it is not as hot as Mexico. I also found out the local golf course puts 30 million gallons of water on the greens a day. 30 million!

2) Seattle: It rained. The original Starbucks in Pike Place market was very busy, but I recommend the french patisserie, Le Panier, which is two doors down.

3) Fresno: Worst. Airport. Ever. Actually, the worst airport is LAX, which I need to go through, so Fresno is tarred with the same brush. My facebook status update was as follows: "I renew my statement that LAX sucks. TSA closed the line we were in because he had to go on his break. 50 of us waiting for the next agent to show and check our boarding passes."

4) Hornby Island: For a Thanksgiving weekend I drank Blueberry Beer. All was well.

5) Paris: Love it, but maybe that is because I am here on an expense account. In fact I am in France now, where the fashion is high and my french language skills are low. So far I have tried to order bread (getting a glass of wine in return, which was not rejected of course) and a latte (getting a hot glass of milk instead). I found this video on what a English sounds like to a non-speaker. This is totally what I feel like this week:

Souhaitez moi bonne chance sur le retour à la maison...

Been away on vacation....

2011-09-06T11:42:00.000-07:00

After 5 weeks of vacation (with only about 2 weeks of work spread in there, around spotty internet connections) I am finally back in the land of high speed internet, actual stoplights, and Starbucks stores on every corner.

Why no posts for a month? Check out this "130 seconds of Hornby" by Grant Baldwin and you'll see why I was too busy to write, at least write on the computer that is.

130 Seconds of Hornby Island B.C from Grant Baldwin Videography on Vimeo.

Pictures of my summer and associated postings coming soon, after I dig out of my laundry pile.

Kayak Build, Part 10

2011-07-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

Finally, the kayak has been launched! With summer holiday time approaching later this week we had to try the kayak out in the water for leaks before it was officially launched in the ocean. I had bad visions of hiking down to the ocean with the kayak, only to discover it was not going to float, so opted to try in the lake by our house before we left on holiday.

Little J was pretty excited, and even dressed up in his wetsuit for the occasion! We carried the kayak down to the water, and set about getting ready. Skipper Dave attended the launch, and had to explain to Little J about how we need to christen the boat before launching it. Although he wanted to use champagne, we brought the next best thing: a can of Coke! After a few tries, the kayak was christened, but the name is still up for debate: Scurvy Dog, Red Rock or Mario. I am secretly hoping he has some better names in mind...

As Little J paddled about, a flock of Canada Geese even came up to check out the new kayak:

There still was quite a bit of water in the back compartment, so the seal on the hatch wasn't 100% watertight. I may need to rig up a knob that turns and compresses the seal more, otherwise everything in the hatch will need to be put in a watertight bag. As well there is still a few things left to do to finally called it "finished!", such as paint the hatch cover, do lettering, and make a seat back cushion.

I estimate the time to build it was around 150 hours. There was much time spent working out the magnets to hold the hatch down, plus to make and epoxy / varnish the wooden tie-downs. Other unexpected things included having to re-sand and paint parts of the boat added a few hours, having an 8 year old helping, and generally not knowing what I was doing all the time and just sitting there looking at the boards wondering "How will this fit together?". If I were to do it again, I think I could easily do it in 100 hours or so, including painting and varnishing. Although, if I were suggest to do it again, I am not sure LP-ette will let me.

Kayak Build, Part 9

2011-07-21T00:25:00.000-07:00

We finally finished the painting, and have almost finished all the small parts! It is true that the last 10% is 90% of the work.

Little J helped do the final painting steps, which took about 3 weeks longer than anticipated. We ran into problems with the easypoxy on the combing for some reason, and had to sand it off. There was a yellow film that appeared and was fairly tacky, so not once, not twice, but three times it needed removed and sanded down to the wood. Even the final coats also would not setup properly in a few small places and is still a little tacky in places. I have a feeling this winter will be sanding and refinishing the combing all over again.

One thing Jordan also helped (and picked) was the red tie-down bungie cords. I am not sure I am totally sold on the color combinations he chose, but it was his kayak, so he got to pick. He is lobbying hard to name it "The Scurvy Dog", so I really hope to change his mind!

The Hatch:

The hatch is still not quite finished yet, but we did get the magnets all epoxied in, which seems to hold it down fairly tight. I talked a little about it in Part 4, but actually didn't know if it would work until I got it all built.

Here you can see we put 10 magnets around the hatch, each inset into the deck and epoxied/fiber glassed over them:

On the hatch, we ran into problems and had to cut some reliefs in the stiffner and then re-stiffen it with a camber to match the deck, finally just epoxying the magnets right on top of the wood. I will have to finish the hatch with an epoxy spread, and then paint it all white to match. Ultimately we will tie the hatch down with a bungie inside, just in case it the magnets let lose and it comes off.

It was actually a pretty tight fit, and I needed to put a knife in to pry the it off and break the magnetic seal. To finish the hatch we will either need to put a pull hole in the hatch, or a knob on the top to help open it.

Still to do:

Finish the seat for Jordan, as it needs to be adjustable for his small height.
Splice the ends of the rope together where the carry points are (I just tied them in a knot for now).
Talk Little J out of naming it "The Scurvy Dog" and into something more, er, normal.
Still some touch-up paint that needs done where the white bled through the tape.
Install a water bottle holder. Yes, Little J has insisted on such an addition.
End-pour, and if needed, some floats inside for buoyancy.

It is good enough for now to take it for the inaugural spin this weekend at the lake, then it will be packed up and will head up to Hornby Island for the remainder of it's life.

Next post will be Part 10 of the Kayak Build, and hopefully my last (for now). Then I will have to covertly figure out how to build a SUP....

Little J joins the Volunteer Fire Department

2011-07-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

Little J hanging out in one of the HIFD trucks. Thanks to Doug for giving us a tour! He was secretly looking for how to turn on the lights when he thought nobody was looking....

When we got back LP-ette asked me if I would join the rank of volunteer fireman if we moved up here. I think that his her way of placating me for when I wanted to go to back to medical school but was told "not during this marriage you're not", or something similar to that.

Kayak Build, Part 8

2011-06-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

Painting has started!

Bottom coat is done and next we start on the top.

Little J has opted for a red bottom that wraps around onto the deck, and a white deck at the stern, with a varnished bow. Jordan was in charge of tipping the kayak as I did the rolling:

It looks like I did have some bleeding under the tape, so we will see what that looks like tomorrow when we pull it off.

With any luck it will be water-ready fairly soon!

Kayak Build, Part 7

2011-06-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

Finally, sanding is all done!!!

Here's the kayak, as it rests in our living room under the guise of "I didn't want to ding it again carrying it down into the basement for a quick epoxy of the seat-mounts". I had to promise to get it out of the house as soon as the epoxy set, and back to the boat-building garage at Skipper Dave's.

Last week I took Little J down to the marine store to pick the paint colors for the kayak. He had been wavering between orange and blue, but since they didn't have orange in the Pettit Easypoxy Paint I was going to get and I wouldn't let him get blue (so he wouldn't blend into the ocean on us), a large discussion over the benefits and drawbacks of yellow vs. red happened in the paint aisle. Finally he decided on Bright Red, but would not divulge his reasoning.

This weekend we managed to sneak out of the house with J and get two coats of bottom-paint on the hull. I am hoping this will make it a bit more tough against the bumps on the barnacle covered rocks that will evidently happen. He was insistent that I take some pictures of him paining it.

Finally, after a sand and another coat the hull was all ready:

The bow is being varnished, while the rest of the boat is going to be painted red:

Once the paining is done I need to finish up the seat and the hatch cover, so only a few more hours of work before it is ready for a test run at the beach!

Little J's Triathlon

2011-06-15T23:28:00.000-07:00

Little J had his first triathlon this week. The 8 year old's version of short course consisted of a 100m swim, 5km bike and a 1km run.

The week before the race his procrastination subsided, and he started to get into the zone. "Dad, when can we practice transition!" was the echo heard throughout the house all week. Coming out of the shower "Dad, can I practice getting changed?". Finishing dinner, "Dad, can I go practice a quick transition!?", and then he would lay out his transition gear, and do a quick practice in the living room. After several virtual trials the one thing he decided was what not to do. "No socks! That saved me almost a minute!" While we applauded his effort to practice transitions the one - or rather three - things he did not practice was any actual swimming, biking or running. This meant while his race was bound to be slow, his transitions would likely be blazing fast!

Race day arrived, and he was up and ready to go the fastest we had ever seen him get out of bed and get changed. I was making my breakfast in the kitchen to fuel up for my long day of waiting when he plopped down. "I'm having some cereal for breakfast. Some Vector! Because that is what bikers eat!" The rest of the morning consisted of reminding him to get things ready, as he was so excited he kept forgetting things like "put water in your water bottle!".

The race times were set to have the different age groups go in waves, over a 3 hour period. Little J was excited about this as he was able to get there early and watch some of the older racers do the swim and transition. While we watched the other kids we went through his race plan, where to exit the swim and which way to run to the transition, and the route to get in and out of the transition area. All throughout it he kept asking things that implied he was going to be so lightening fast, people would be in awe. "So dad, what happens when I am riding in first, and I don't know where to go?". All I kept thinking was "I wonder if he'll dropout when he gets passed in the pool in the first lap and realizes he won't be near first place?"

Finally the time to race arrived and I offered him one more piece of advice. "J, before you go to the race do you have to go to the bathroom?" His reply was as anticipated: "Nooooo!" Knowing what was about to happen next, I tried to steer him towards the inevitable and tried to coax him with a "Ok, so go try anyway.". Not surprisingly I was rebuffed and he took off towards the pool deck for the briefing.

The next scene was classic Little J: Imagine a cluster of 20 kids, all getting ready to race and one line disinter realizes he has to depart the crowd and head for the bathroom. "Is that my child?" I think, only to confirm a second later that sure enough, it was. While all 19 kids went one way to line up for their swim, one headed in the opposite direction to the bathroom. It was at that moment I made a mental note to share with him the age old tradition of peeing while racing.

We had rehearsed his race plan a few times, and all of them ending with "Do a swim warmup, but only about 10-20 meters!". I was foolish enough to think he would heed my advice, and we all watched from the stands as he did a 100m warmup, about 2 minutes before the race was set to start.

Right before the race start, I took a mental note of what Little J's mental status was:

I had said to do a 10 meter warmup. He did 100.

He kept asking what would happen if he was in front but didn't know where to go.

He kept forgetting to do fairly important things, like pack his helmet and full water bottle.

He decided to make a break for the bathroom, 5 minutes before the race start.

This was going to be an epic something of a race, with the something to be determined in the next 30 minutes.

The gun went off, and like a shot he pushed off and proceeded to swim the fastest front crawl I had ever seen him do. Unfortunately for Little J his burst of speed only lasted for about 20 meters, then he dropped off and was passed by another racer. He must have decided to mix it up because at that point he floated over and switched to a leisurely backstroke pace for the remaining 80 meters. He finished the swim, and made a quick exit to his transition area, which he had strategically positioned by a tree so he could find it when he came out.

All the practicing of drying off and sitting down to get his shoes on seemed to go out the window, because once he hit transition he just wiggled on his shirt over his wet body, and then stood there while trying to stuff his wet, sockless feet into his shoes. Most of the kids seemed focused on transition, a few even ignoring the overbearing parents yelling instructions, but Jordan had a huge grin on his face as he exited on to the run. Two laps of ring-road gave the same picture: Most kids gunning it with a nice even cadence, tongues hanging out like MJ going for a dunk, and glassy eyes focused on the road ahead. Little J on the other hand was merrily biking along like he was out for a ride to the market.

He rode by us heading into the bike to run transition, and was out in under a minute, helmet gone but the same little grin attached to his running face. In fact, he was happily jogging along, only to add in a burst of speed when he was about to be passed by another racer. Like the swim, his burst didn't last long and he soon dropped back to his happy pace. We were all there for his finish, which his final time was 27:24. He came in 22nd, and later announced "I like the number 22, so I'm happy with that".

Like any true triathlete, his next stop was the food table where he devoured about four rice crispy squares and two slices of pizza.

He did have some post-race memorable quotes:

While riding home in the car:

"Maybe we should go back. Someone may want my autograph or something."

While eating a second helping of pasta at dinner that night: "Man, being a triathlete makes me hungry!"

Pretty much for the rest of the day: "Whew! My legs hurt!"

When we asked him why he switched to the backstroke he had two good arguments. "Well, first I am fast at the backstroke. And second, when the other racer passed me I knew I wasn't going to win so I just decided to have fun." We couldn't argue with that.

And with that his first triathlon was done, and he's already asking when the next race is.

Kayak Build, Part 6

2011-05-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

I finally found some free time to get the combing epoxied down and sanded smooth!

A few more hours of sanding and I should have the boat ready for paint! I know I said that last time, but I had to fit a trip up to Hornby Island, and then back to quick trip to Europe for work somewhere in my spare time.

With summer coming I better be getting to the painting soon...

BBQ some Artesian Bread!

2011-05-20T00:26:00.000-07:00

With the summer approaching, I am looking to see how I can move my no-kneed artesian bread baking from the oven to the BBQ. I find our gas oven in the trailer is temperamental with temperature (say that five times fast), and since we spend most of the summer BBQing wanted to use my Opposable Mind to solve the solution. Surprisingly with the long tail of the internet, there is little on BBQing bread, so I did some test this week.

In attempting to simulate the oven, I opted to bake the loaf on a cast iron pan (due to the high heat) and a smaller skillet for putting water in for steam generation:

To get the artesian crust, and airy crumb, you need two things: Steam and high heat for a quick initial rise. For no-knead bread the steam is usually created by cooking the bread in a dutch oven, but I was aiming to avoid putting LP-ette's expensive dutch oven on the BBQ so had to improvise.

Here was my final result:

And a nice open crumb:

The bottom did scorch a little so I think I need to put either a baking stone under the cast iron pan, or a firebrick to stop the direct heat. On the flip side, I did get the crust I have been working to replicate from the Tartine Bakery in San Fransisco with the constant addition steam inside the BBQ.

Overall, not nearly as good for what I was baking at home, but for my first try on the BBQ it was pretty successful. The kids liked the bread, and the baguettes were gone within a few hours.

I will be in NYC next month, so am planning a culinary trip to Jim Lahey's Sullvian Street Bakery...

Kayak Build, Part 5

2011-05-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

Finally, I arrived at the point of no return - fiberglassing the kayak. I did the hull first, and after the glass set cut along the shear line to have a clean line between the hull and the deck. Three coats of epoxy and I had the hull done, and then I moved onto the deck.

I followed the tips from Lazlo and when I put the fiberglass on the deck, ran a line of tape 2" below the deck/hull line. Before the fiberglass fully set I pulled it back off the tape and cut along the line which gave a good overlap of fiberglass with a clean line. A few more coats of epoxy and I had it smoothed out.

Then I moved from sticky to dusty, and my motto went to: Apply another coat of epoxy, sand 1/2 coat off. Apply a coat of epoxy, sand 1/2 coat off. Apply a coat of epoxy, sand 1/2 coat off. Apply a coat of epoxy, sand 1/2 coat off... More sanding details to come as I spend the long weekend sanding and attaching the combing.

By next week I should have it ready to start painting, assuming I stay in town long enough for work...

Kayak Build, Part 4

2011-03-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

With the hull and deck setting, we turned our attention to some of the smaller parts in the kayak: The combing and the recessed deck fittings.

Recessed deck fittings:
I'm not too keen on building this whole kayak, and then drilling some holes in the edges to mount strap fittings onto so I wanted to do some recessed deck fittings. I looked around on the web and found some good examples (Orca Boats, Kayak Forum discussion board, Andy Waddington's page, Clear Stream Woodworking and Guillemot Kayak), but after test trying to build 2 or 3 of them in my shop I opted for the easier version from Orca Boats.

You can see the rough blank on the left of the picture, and the rest of them tapered, sanded and epoxied and ready to drop into the deck before I epoxy it to the hull for good. The 1/4" dowel will be where the strapping can be tied onto.

The blanks were cut with a 3/4" ID hole and a 1.5" OD, plus a taper at about 10 degrees. For the mating hole on the kayak deck I drilled the hole 1 3/8" and sanded each hole to fit each blank. I think if I were to do it again I would get a 1.5" OD hole drill and start the first 1/2" for each blank way to ensure I had a perfectly round blank, and then drill a hole to match. I had sanded to a 1.5" diameter line drawn on the blank but wasn't that accurate with the sander so some of the blanks weren't that round, hence the 'sanding each blank and corresponding hole to fit'.

The blanks were epoxied in, with an added fillet of on the back with some wood flour and then sanded flat on the top side to smooth it out with the rest of the deck. There is 8 in all, and they look pretty slick.

Combing:

Part of the problem with cutting my own parts out was that I didn't make perfect cuts. This became glaringly obvious when I tried to line up 4 stacked parts that made the combing, yet none of the 4 had the same profile all the way around.

Nonetheless we epoxied them together the best we could and I am just waiting for a large cutting, scraping, sanding, filling, sanding, filling and sanding job to be coming out of this.

I am putting magnets on the hatch for hold-downs so it has turned into a monster project so I am sure it will get it's own blog post later in the build.

Here's my pro-tips for lessons learned (I seem to be creating alot of these!):

Wait until the kayak deck is assembled and make a template out of cardboard for the combing. This will ensure you get a combing that is properly matched to the deck in shape.

For the recessed fittings, route a large radius onto the insides. The small one I had virtually disappeared when I sanded the fitting flush to the deck. Whoops...

Vacation time in YYJ

2011-03-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

This past February I took a week to have a vacation in my own town: Victoria

Although it was mixed around the rest of my life schedule, I had my camera with me so had time to take a few random pictures while I roamed. Here's a shot from the top of a downtown building overlooking the Johnson Street Bridge.

The iconic blue bridge is soon to be replaced with something that will not be so blue, yet regardless of when it goes it will always live on as I hoist a pint of Spinnakers Blue Bridge Double Pale Ale.

I took a random walk through Chinatown, British Columbia's oldest Chinatown and second only to San Fransisco in North America.

There are a few old alley ways with secondary entrances to shops which provide a circuitous route for the shopper, with many of them catering to cheap reproduction antiques.

And of course no vacation in your own town is complete without an obligatory picture of our dog playing in the snow:

...and a frozen pond as I drove to work one day:

I also had a chance to go downtown in the evening, and took a few shots of the Parliament Buildings at night:

That is all, kayak building and world traveling will resume shortly....

View of Mt. Baker

2011-02-28T19:17:00.000-08:00

View of Mt. Baker and the Olympic Mountain range after a hike to the top of Mt. Doug:

Homemade Ravioli

2011-02-06T22:25:00.000-08:00

After being away for a week of travel Haley wanted to have some time with her dad so we decided to make some homemade ravioli together. She was pretty excited to be up on the counter mixing the ingredients.

To make it more colorful (and to use up some ingredients we had in the fridge) we made two batches, one Butternut Squash and the other Spinach & Cheese. The first make-work project for Haley was to pull off all the stems on the spinach and dice it up. Measuring in the cheese and other filling mixtures also provided a lesson in me about the attention span of a 6 year old cooking. I explained some of the measuring to her before she was to start.

"Haley, you need to put in 1/2 cup of this grated cheese. This measuring cup is 1/4 cup, so put two in"

Turning away to get the other batch of filling ready was my mistake. Even if I was only looking away about 10 seconds she managed to scoop in who knows how much of the cheese. I peered into the bowl, it now brimming with more grated cheese than I thought we even had in the house. "So Haley, how many scoops did you put in?". She postulated for a bit, then finally announced what she had done. "Mmm. One, but maybe two or even three. I don't remember."

The amount of scoops she put in was of no matter to her, only the fact that she was the one that got to do it. As a result this may end up being "Spinach with some Cheese Ravioli", or "Lots of Cheese with Little Spinach Ravioli".

Here was the filling recipe we used for the fillings:

Butternut Squash, Sage, and Cheese Ravioli:

a 2-pound butternut squash, baked and mashed.

1 medium onion, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 1/2 teaspoons ground sage

pinch of ground nutmeg

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 garlic clove, minced

2/3 cup ricotta cheese (or other)

Cheese Ravioli Filling:

1 cup ounce container ricotta cheese

1/2 cup ounce mozzarella cheese, shredded

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

1 egg

1 cup fresh spinach, chopped

Pinch of nutmeg

Salt and pepper

The butternut squash was a different story, as I "helped" out more closely and we got the proportions right. She dutifully mashed and measured the filling, all the time loudly proclaiming that she was only there to help mix but wouldn't eat any "mashed orange stuff", regardless of the culinary feast that awaited her.

While that was going on I made up some fresh pasta and rolled it out into strips, and Haley helped spread out the filling. Finally, after 2 hours of mixing filling, shaping pasta we were ready make the pockets of goodness using a ravioli roller:

Haley helped roll out the ravioli and cut them into the final squares. A light dusting of flour later we now had a heaping bowl of fresh pasta waiting for our dinner.

And in true 6 year hold fashion when it was all done and finished she looked at it and pouted "Chef Boyardee would have been better". Little J was too busy playing Wii to come for dinner and LP-ette was too busy reading to also attend.

So I did what any other aspiring weekend chef would do - had some fresh ravioli on my own and then went to bed.

Kayak Build, Part 3

2011-01-29T16:28:00.000-08:00

With the hull and deck tacked, I now had to fiberglass and epoxy the inside seams. This was a 16 hour day, with about 12 hours of breaks spread around. My goal was to get the interior epoxied and fiberglassed in one shot, which meant I had to put several layers of thin epoxy on without letting it fully cure inbetween. Although it made for a long day it did reduce the amount of sanding I had to do between coats because the new layer could still bond with the old layer as it hadn't 100% cured yet.

Step 1:

Little J and I prepped the seams with tape on one side, and he removed all the copper stitches from all the joints. We also pulled out the temporary bulkheads and left the one permanent one in place.

After that he set to work mixing, mixing, mixing up epoxy with some wood flour. To make it easier to spread I dumped it all into a plastic bag and piped the joints full.I dont' have much pictures of it because between mixing epoxy, trying to spread it on the fiberglass and keeping an 8 year old occupied I was too busy.

Here's the pro-tips I learned the hard way:

Mix up the thickened epoxy and pipe it in using a large ziplock bag with a small 1/4" cut off the bottom. It turned out it only took about 20 minutes to pipe the whole kayak, and then I filleted the joints smooth.

I would "pre-epoxy" the permanent bulkhead in so the wood was all sealed up nicely. It was difficult getting the unthickened epoxy on the vertical surface without it streaking down because I put too much on, and then when I worked it thinner it went cloudy on me.

Epoxy is a bitch: Easy to do, but hard to do well and still have it look nice when you're done. I floated in on too fast so it turned cloudy and I had to push as much out as possible so I could do several thinner coats instead of a lower number of thicker (and cloudy) coats.

I swear there is a "good" and "bad" side to 3" wide fiberglass tape. Some of the edges stood up on some of the parts, and didn't on others. This made for a ridge on some of the 3" fiberglass that I needed to sand down once the epoxy set.

Step 2:

With the fillets almost set we peeled off the tape and rolled out some 3" fiberglass on the seams. The tape made for nice and clean fillet lines, so when we put un-thickened epoxy over the 3" tape it made for a nice.

Step 3:
The seams were almost set (a few hours later) so Little J and I spread out the fiberglass cloth in the cockpit area. I taped the top 2" where I was going to cut the cloth after it started to set, but if I was to do it again I would have run the cloth over the edges and trimmed it right at the joins after it started to set. This would have made for a nicer finish.

Step 4: Epoxy, coat #2 over the full hull interior.
Step 5: Epoxy, coat #3 over the full hull interior.

There were a few Coke breaks in between all the steps, as well as some hockey on the TV!

Finally, we attached the hull to the deck temporarily so the epoxy would setup with the boat in the right shape:

Next up: Coamings, Magnetic Hatches and Recessed Deck Fittings!

Kayak Build, Part 2

2011-01-29T15:51:00.000-08:00

With the kayak stitched together we were ready to start tacking it together.

Little J was in charge of mixing the epoxy so he set to work stirring, stirring and stirring some more. With some added wood flour he got the mix to a thick consistency and then I dumped it all into a syringe and filled the cracks between the copper stitches.

Here's the bow:

And the stern, with some extra epoxy on the transom to strengthen it:

And the hull, nicely tacked together:

Now came the hard part:
Before the tacks set I had to wire the hull and deck together so the tacks hardened with the panels in the right spot. Lining up the pieces and stitching them together was pretty much a two man job, but I had little J, right? Well, not really. He abandoned the effort to watch the Canucks on TV after his "epoxy stirring job" was done, so I was left on my own to stitch. All was going well until I was tightening up the bow and POP! one of the panels slipped in. With the temporary bulkheads in place I couldn't get the panel back up. To say I was pissed was a major understatement, because it meant pulling them apart again and then trying to reset the sheer panel in the right spot. And after (finally) getting the bow and stern all lined up, I wasn't about to undo all my stitches, so I scraped off as much epoxy as possible from the front panel and let the rest of the epoxy set. I ended up stitching the bow panels together separately when I didn't have the stress of the hull-to-deck fittings pushing on the panel.

Finally, done:

Only time will tell if they set.

Next up: Fiber glassing the interior

Pro tips for next time:

Having 2 adults to stitch the hull and deck together would have sped up my job considerably. Also, the stretch tape worked to hold the parts together, but only when I had a second person there to keep the tension on the first few wraps.

Kayak Build, Part 1

2011-01-28T14:42:00.000-08:00

Over the Christmas holidays Little J and I ordered some plans to build him a kayak for the summer. We opted for a Wood Duck 10 by CLC, which would be big enough for him to use for a few years.

With a few sheets of 4mm okoume plywood ordered J was ready to go. We laid out the sheets and started to trace the plans onto the boards.

It started well, but after about 30 minutes of tracing he decided this was too much work and wanted to pack it in for the day.

It was at that point I realized this was going to be a lonnnnnng project.

With the boards laid out and the plans traced on, we scarfed and epoxied the sheets together making one huge 4x16 sheet of plywood to cut the long 10 or 11' panels from.

Finally, after what Little J seemed to feel was forever we set to cutting the shapes out. It took awhile before getting into the grove of it, but we found that the best way was to grind my jigsaw blade down to 1" and then cut the boards right on top of a 1" piece of Building Styrofoam. This supported the bottom and let me kneel down onto the board as I cut it, which gave a better cut. Unfortunately I didn't figure this out until I had cut half of the patterns out so it made for some extra sanding and spokeshave shaping for the pieces I did first.

With the pieces cut Little J set to work as the "copper cutter"... his job was to cut me 200 pieces of 3" 20ga copper wire. He found this job was much more enjoyable once he fastened a jig together with 3" markings on it and set down in front of the TV to do the cutting. Once he had enough we started to wire the kayak together. This is the bottom hull:

This is also the point where I discovered the book/manual that came with the plans really sucked. Getting the tips together and stitched in tight was a real struggle and I ended up spraying the tips with water to soften them up, all while getting a helper to hold them in place while I twisted the copper together. I think it took longer to join the bow and stern than it did to stitch the rest of the hull together....

We started the build in a garage, which isn't heated, so after a day of cutting and stitching the hull together both Little J and I opted to build the deck by the wood fire. Mom wasn't to happy we were doing it in her living room. Once built, Little J put on his best paddling pose:

Next up: Tacking the kayak together!

Pro tips for next time:

For the long curved lines next time I would drop a few points in with 1" finish nails, then take a long thin piece of flexible plywood (1/4" thick x 1" wide) and bend it to the curve on the points to trace out the line.

To cut the panels out, cut on top of a styrofoam panel with a shortened blade on a jigsaw. More control and less tearout!

A few of the curves, like the hatch cutouts, need to have 2 or 3 pieces that are cut exactly the same to line up together. I would cut one, then trace the one I cut before cutting the next one. I ran into some problems where I cut 1 part but didn't trace perfect (and compounded this by not cutting perfect) so the mating part didn't mate so well. I can fill the gap with epoxy filler, but it just creates more work.

Building a kayak

2011-01-19T20:31:00.001-08:00

I got bored so started to build a kayak with Little J.

The main thing I've learned so far is building a kayak with an 8 year old will take 3x as long as on my own.

Details to come...

2010 in review.

2011-01-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I only posted 11 times in 2010. That's 10% of what I peaked at in 2006. Here was the summary of my year:

January to June: Pretty much a blur.... kept on pace to fly 100,000 miles.

July: Discovered that I promised LP-ette that I would build a deck with railings for her by end of the summer. Spend most of my evening sanding, routing and staining 4x4 fir to make railings.

August: A month on Hornby Island. (And I only had to work 2 weeks of my vacation!). My motto: Don't bug me when I'm on holiday. Scotch was drunk. Treeforts were built. Stars were watched. Here's a time-lapse shot I took over Lasqueti Island.

September: Hand mixed the 18 bags of cement with colorant that I bought in July and formed a cobblestone path. It looks cool, but man, what was I thinking?!?

October: Don't remember what happened, except I don't think spend much of it in Canada or a timezone that was amendable to my body.

November: Sleeping to recover from the previous month. I do remember that.

December: 2 weeks of craziness of finishing year end goals and then 2 weeks of researching a kayak build to start in the new year (more to come on that later).

And to top it all off, my "to read" bookshelf grew by about 15 books, instead of being reduced. I've got alot to catch-up on in 2011....

Noetic Revalations

2010-06-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

I feel crampy.

Brain cramps to be specific.

Like the kind you feel right after you've crammed for an exam, but then realize you memorized a pile of useless facts, only to be given a multiple choice basic math quiz. Only I don't feel like doing any math.

Why all crampy, you ask? 2009 and 2010 (to date) has been a crampy year all around for many reasons:

Way too much travel. Hitting Air Canada's Elite Gold Status in under 3 months sounds fun until your body has to actually do it (and all in coach)... I did a quick calculation and I have travelled over 100,000 miles in the past 8 months. That is 4x around the world. India, Indonesia, France, Nashville, Toronto, Montreal...

Too much renovations. I am still working on the inside finish work of this enternal renovation and yes, the darned deck. Railings? Who needs railings?!? Apparently I do. And a cement stone path as well.

Not enough riding. I picked up a new Trek Madone in the summer and have well under 200km on it. Why? See my "Too much" list.

Not near enough writing: 21 blog posts in 2009. What was up with that? Yes I had probably 200+ Facebook or Twitter updates, but that doesn't count.

So here's what I tried:

I tried replacing the crampy feeling with high quality scotch, but the hangover was a wicked 2 days of blurriness.

I tried replacing the crampy feeling with Facebook status updates. All I got was a bunch of Farmville requests in return.

I tried reading all of Reddit, but did it all and then saw the repeats on Digg the next day.

I tried increasing my noetic stimulation by broadening my Twitter feeds, but realized all I received in return was a plethora of data which required manual extrapolation into meaningful informaiton .

So I have to bump my wring again. My notebook is out, and in the past few month many scribbles have been taken but none crafted into prose.

A prime example of some note-pad scribbles from this past year:

Toronto:
everyone wears a scarf - fashion over coldness.
couldn't understand why I wore shorts
women are better looking. What? Well, better dressed. I think Little Italy had something to do with it.
Bikers - crazier, no helmets. I aspire.
Less panhandelers more hot-dog stands. Standing at Bloor & Younge gave me 4 choices within 100 feet. Nice

For inspiration I have stocked up my bookshelf with some 2009 Giller Prize nominees:

• Kim Echlin for her novel THE DISAPPEARED
• Annabel Lyon for her novel THE GOLDEN MEAN
• Anne Michaels for her novel THE WINTER VAULT

So the table is set and I will read with veracity...and hopefully let the cramps be gone!

Who says I can't code?

2010-04-23T13:52:00.001-07:00

After an hour of recoding in HTML, I managed to re-insert the blogger comments field.

Comments are back up!

LP

A brief update...

2010-04-21T10:11:00.001-07:00

Yes, it has been awhile since I posted...

Since March I think I only have been home for about 14 days total:

...flew back from India, slept for a few days, traveled to Nashville, then Toronto, back to Victoria - where I finally had a weekend at home so I promptly packed and left for Hornby - returned home, but left for Vancovuer, then repacked and went to France. Fortunately I departed out Europe the morning of the European airspace shutdown, otherwise I would still be there. Arrived home, and after 2 days the wanderlust had already kicked in so I traded my dress clothes for comfort and then left again for Hornby, where I was forced to relax (in the pouring rain) with 2 children (and a dog!) in a small enclosed trailer.... but arriving home seems to have triggered my body to rebel and it won't make it out of bed this week... I think it is a combination of the flu, a cold, travel shots and swollen tonsils. I am supposed to leave for Asia in 3 days, so if I don't get better it looks like I will be grounded.

Maybe that is a good thing...

On the flip side I've got a new camera that is taking some good pictures of my travels. Here is Vancouver from the air, as I flew into Downtown.

Now I think I'll go watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off...

LP.

PS: In case you're wondering Haloscan totally screwed up the comments field and I need to recode the blog to make it happen.

A colored set

2010-03-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

Jordan was so excited today when we stopped at the store to pickup some new deck chairs for the house.

"Can I pick the colors?" is all I heard.... I agreed and after much deliberation about what mom would like the best, this is what he picked for me to bring home:

If his mom is impressed as much as he is excited, this is going to be awesome.

Put those on your hummock and smoke it....

YYJ to BLR

2010-02-22T05:50:00.000-08:00

I just was just subjected to a 10 hour flight from Vancouver to London while sitting next to a loud snoring Norwegian. I missed sitting next to the Swedish something Olympic team (yes, all blonds) by one row. Now another 9 hours of flying to India and I'm stuck beside a 7 year old who wants to know if we are there yet. We are still on the tarmac. This is going to be a loooooong flight.

Kids notes this week:

2010-02-21T21:18:00.000-08:00

Haley on Pizza: "I don't' want black circles, just ham & Pizza." "You mean olives?" "Yeah,
black circles!"

Jordan on skating: "You just put on your skates & walk!"

Ohh, they have so much to learn....

The digital domain is not coveal with prose...

2010-02-02T15:41:00.000-08:00

John Threlfall was right. Archived text files and blogs will never be the same as reading your words in print.

The Placebo Effect in Alcohol

2010-01-21T04:33:00.000-08:00

She giggled a little. Softly. Like she was getting away with something wickedly secret.

"Well, how about it?" I offered. I set my wine glass down and reached for a clean one. "I'll pour you some. You seem old enough." She paused, tilted her head and giggled a little more, only this time with her fingers pressed over her lips, and the sounds starting to rumble from deep in her gut.

The wide eyes of two women sat across from me. One, LP-ette, a bond formed by a twenty-eight year friendship (with some marriage at the end). The other, LittleH, our 5 year old daughter. Both couldn't believe I was doing this, but for very different reasons. To the sound of more excited giggling and snickering I pushed my chair back and walked over to the wine bottle, preparing to pour another glass for LittleH. More giggles, with some snorts added in for effect. At five years old it was as if Santa had arrived again: Mom and Dad were inviting me to be adults with them and drink some wine at dinner!

"Are you sure?" I called over my shoulder.

With another resounding bout of giggling as my reply, I took it as an affirmative reply. With my back turned reached behind the wine bottle and picked up another batch of liquid to share - only instead of wine she was getting the next best thing for a 5 year old: cranberry juice I had at the back of the counter.

Returning to the table LP-ette glanced over at the 2 glasses, immediately knowing what was up, decided to play along. LP-ette looked at me rather disapprovingly and shook her head. "Whoooh Daddy. I can't believe you're doing this. Not that she isn't getting old enough, of course," she added with a smile to LittleH while she grabbed hold of the glass.

It was as if time froze with the aura of breathless anticipation in the air. Punctuated by yet another round of giggles she raised the glass up to her lips, hardly able to contain herself. She paused, the oversize glass trembling in her little hands. "Daaadddd," she drawled, "I can't drink this!" It was as though reason had finally grabbed hold of her, the wafting placebo scent of wine swirling below her nose.

"Why not?" we asked in unison, glancing around to see if there were others around; Riley jumped up, sensing something was amiss, and trotted over. With 3 faces looking at her she broke into full on laughter, point at her mom and I. "Because, you know. Wine makes you...makes you....OLD!" With that reply it was now our turn to break out into laughter.

It took a few tires but she finally suppressed the giggling enough to have a sip. As the liquid hit her lips her eyes grew like saucers. "Hey! This is good!" And just as quickly as she had clamored to join in with a glass of wine, she went from sips to draining the entire glass in about 3 gulps. Looking mighty satisfied she smacked her lips. "Mmmmmm...you know what guys? That tasted like water and grapes!"

Epilogue: After she was finished we did tell her what was in the glass. She was a mixture of disappointed and relieved that she had not drunk any wine so "she wouldn't get any older like you guys!". What she did seem most impressed about was that she was able to drink out of an adult glass for the dinner hour. It was as almost as her karma was chanting "Small wins, LittleH! Be thankful for small wins!"

Holy Cow (India Part 3)

2010-01-18T22:34:00.000-08:00

Finally we arrived in Mysore, a 200km drive away from Bangalore. We took some time to visit Cubbon Park, where we were greeted to fruit and food stands which provided some color to the day:

The Mysore Palace was amazing. Built in 1912 it was by far the most decadent piece of craftmanship I have ever seen. It was a 3 story stone building, adorned with incricate stone carvings, guilded columns, stain glass ceilings and ivory / rosewood carved doors. There was even a golden throne which is used for occasional royal ceremonies.

The palace was also where we experienced the true indian experience of having to bribe some guards to let us in.

Upon entering the Palace grounds there were signs everywhere that said "No Photography", with directions to "store" your camera at a booth. Yet everywhere we looked people were taking pictures. Not wanting to leave our cameras at some random booth, we opted to keep them, as most people seemed to be doing. We went to enter the temple, some people going single file through the metal detectors and some just walking around. Again, being the only foreigners there we were quickly singled out by the guards.

"Excuse me sirs. Please stop there. Do you have a camera?"

We paused, not sure of what to do next, and looked at each other. A tentative reply was given: "Ummm. We don't plan on using it, if that's what you mean"

The guard looked us up and down, then signaled to his partner. "He'll take you to discuss the issues."

Before we knew it we were shuttled off to the side into a small nook. "You see sirs. There are no cameras allowed." He paused for a beat, then extended his hand and his eyebrows simultaneously. "...unless of course you wish to give a simple tip."

I looked at my coworker with a "I-can't-believe-this-is-happening" look.

"How about 20 rupees?" I said, peeling a bill out of my pocket.

His fingers wiggled with anticipation. "Oh no sir. American dollars only please."

I couldn't believe it. Here we were, people streaming into the temple, some using the metal detectors and voluntarily being frisked, and some just walking around the line if it was too much of a wait. We, however, were being asked for a "simple tip" to continue our passage. My coworker looked at me and pulled out his wallet, fishing out an American dollar bill.

"Ahhh, yes. Thank you sirs." he grinned. Then he pulled the 20 rupee out of my hand and vanished back into the temple.

On the way home we took some time to visit the Shri Chamundeshwari Temple, which is atop the Chamundi Hills. Vendors sat outside selling flowers and beads for the offerings:

Statue of the demon Mahishasura:

Purchasing tickets at the Shri Chamundeshwari Temple - note the cow I had to walk around to get to the ticket booth.

I decided we had driven this far and I wanted to go check out the temple. Given my last episode with the shoes, my coworker offered to stay outside and hold my shoes this time for me.
There were 2 tickets I could purchase, a 20 rupee and a 200 rupee ticket. A mixture of not knowing which one to purchase and the attendant not speaking English, I handed over 200 rupees and headed for the line. It looked like a long wait but being the only tourist had it's privilege so I pretended I was an aloof American and walked to the front of the line, handing my ticket to the guard as I went. My reward? I came out as LP the Blessed:

Holy Cow! (India Part 2)

2010-01-12T21:44:00.000-08:00

In Part 2: How I also got overcharged (no surprise there) and (almost) attacked by a Cobra.

A weekend off during my travels for work while in Bangalore India equaled 2 things: Silk Shopping + Temple Sightseeing!

For the first day off we were luck enough to have a guide give us a walking & driving tour of the city. Our guide was from Banglore Walks, and seemed to have a vast knowledge of the city's rich history. She also knew where all the deals were and took us shopping at the Flower & Silk Markets, a showcasing of the vibrant colors the city had to offer.

We took some time to walk around the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. Founded in 1760 it is almost 240 acres of flowers, trees and other architecture (including a swiss watch made of flowers with the Seven Dwarves (made out of cement) placed around it. Seriously. Seven Dwarves and a Swiss watch. Talk about a random monument.

Many of the trees were well over 100 years old, with this Silk Cotton Tree one of them. Each of the roots you see was 2-3 feed high off the ground, and the diameter of the main trunk about 10 feet.

Just outside the Botanical Gardens in Lai Bagn is the Kempegowda Tower. Pearched at the top of a hill it was uilt in 1513 as one of the 4 towers that originally marked the edge of Banaglore.

It was not easy to keep the pace, but we added another visited another well know temple - the Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple. It has several monolithic pillars, one of them made famous by the landscape painter Thomas Daniell in his composition piece of India, painted in 1799.

At the entrace to the temple was a bull used for offerings.

The actual inside of the temple top (seen below), but the entrance was below and was actually a cave carved into the rock.

Outside the Temple stood some Snake Warnings:

Throughout the city you will see these posts, which warn travellers that snakes may lie nearby.
Later in the week at the office I was at I was about to take a short-cut around one of the buildings I was in but one of the locals stopped me. "Oooh, don't go that way" he warned. "Head round on the path instead. There are some creepy crawlies there." It was evening so I assumed he meant the mosquitos and other bugs which would give me life threatening illnesses.

"You mean like some spiders?" I queried, spinning around and realigning myself to the path.

His reply was matter of fact: "Actually no. I meant cobras."

As you can see, having Snake Warning posts would have come in handy where I was.....

Overcharging, the standard for tourists:

Next we headed to Telugu to see some more sights. Everywhere we travelled we were the only 2 non-Indians visiting, which set us up to be prime targets to be poached off of.

To enter into the temples you need to remove your shoes. Fortunately there usually is an enterprising young man that will watch them for you - for a small price of course. He wanted paid (20 rupees, or about 50 cents) to watch the shoes but we told him he would get paid after we came out (and got our shoes). Sure enough, after we came out he gave us our shoes and asked me for 20 rupees. I paid him, but he looked at me disapprovingly and kept his hand out.

"20 rupees each!" he barked. Just wanting my shoes, I peeled off another 20 and stuffed it into his palm, grabbing my shoes at the same time. After I got back to the car I asked our driver how much we should pay.

"One rupee sir, and not a rupee more!". Then my coworker turned to me and noted, "Hey, I paid him 20 rupees for each pair as well!"

Score = 80 rupees, 78 over budget. I think we had just made his financial day.

Here's a shot of the Temple - it was big enough I had to stitch 2 shots together to get it all in:

Intricate stone work on the edges of the temple:

And this all happened before noon ... next up, Part 3: Bribing a security guard ...

Holy Cow! (India part 1)

2010-01-08T19:45:00.000-08:00

Shortly after this point in the trip I honestly thought I was going to die...

I arrived into Bangalore, India, on a Friday evening. Almost 35 hours of travelling non-stop had me wiped, but I was determined to let the timing work for me as my arrival time gave me 2 days to explore the city before starting work on Monday morning. Because the trip was planned at the last minute, I didn't really have any expectations (good or bad) to set myself up for. The only thing I really wasn't prepared for was the traffic. Specifically the masses of traffic and polar opposite amount of regard for traffic rules:

The traffic pictures you see here was a pretty typical scene, but the best I saw was a family of 4 on a motor-cycle (and a family of 5 in a tuk-tuk). They just sandwiched the kids in-between the parents on the bike. The rest of the time most of the women rode side-saddle, with their scarves hanging down looking like they are about to be spun into the gears of the bike at any moment. Busses passed carts pulled by donkeys, and road construction warnings consisted of a simple orange cone placed about 3 feet in front of a massive hole or pile of dirt... and the orange cone was optional in most casts.

There were some serious points I thought I was going to die in a grizzly traffic accident, but it (almost) never happened. The one time it did was the night I was riding with a coworker in a tuk-tuk. Imagine a 2 stroke scooter with a 2 person cab on the back, and then masses of traffic just moving around you. Cars just use the road lines as a suggested guide. No, wait. They don't actually use road lines. The mantra is a mix of: "honk to pass" , "fit 3.5 cars into a 2 lane road" and "if you need to go down the 1 way road the wrong way, that's ok as long as you keep honking".

Our driver was going down the middle of the street - more on the "wrong" side than the "right" - and a motor cycle decided to pass on our right. Unfortunately the car coming at us didn't have enough room to pass on the left so it just nonchalantly swerved in front of us, honked, and tried to pass on the right...which was exactly where the motorcycle was. It was at this point I thought I honestly thought I was going to die a wicked death on the streets of Bangalore. Tires screeched, bodies flew and our driver just gunned it and deftly maneuvered around any flying debris. After a moment the driver let off his throttle and peered back. "No problem sir! Just the motorcycle, not us!" he seemed to scream at us. With that he spun back around and promptly gunned it towards our final destination.

Yet it was just another day on the Banglore streets for our driver...

Geneva, On-Time

2009-12-15T23:30:00.000-08:00

Back October I spend the weekend in Geneva, and holy time do they take their watches seriously! Fortunatly, my trip gave me 2 full days to spare and see the city. Half of one of my days was spent exploring St. Pierre's Cathedral. With excavations under the church hall dating back as far as 350AD, and the actual Cathedral buildings being started around 1160AD, there was some impressive architecture.

The view from the North Tower offers a panoramic view of Geneva and the lakefront: Geneva. This would have been the view of all of Geneva and Lac Leman when the city was first formed:

Excavation underneath St. Pierre's Cathedral. This mosaic floor was from ~200BC, and would have been the original floor that the bishop would ahve welcomed their guests into:

Crest on St. Pierre's Cathedral:

Inside St. Pierre's Cathederal.

Corner of one of the towers in St. Pierre's Cathederal. I was allowed to climb up into the spires to look at the view. It was one of the highest points in the old city, looking both over the lake and the entire old-town.

The rest of my time was exploring the Old Town.
Place Neuve. The Grand Théâtre de Genève can be seen in the background:
The Grand Théâtre de Genève (Opera House), originally built around 1876

Rue de la Corraterie:

Mur des Reformatures: It is about 5-meter tall and 100-meter wide wall runs along one side of the Parc des Bastion.

You can see the Lords Prayer with a picture of John Knox preaching at St. Giles. Roger Williams (16th century theologian) is on the right.

And yes, for those who know me, I did visit [Jean-Jacques] Rosseau Island.

Unfortunately there was 3 things on my list I didn't get to do:
1) Visit the UN. I ran out of time but would have loved to see the Great Assembly Hall.
2) Impressionist wing of the Art & History Museum. I was looking forward to sitting and contemplating a blog post while looking at the works of Van Gogh & Renior. While the rest of the Museum was open, this wing was closed "because of the birds". I am not sure what that meant, but it sounded ominous when the Security Guard told it to me after I tried to get through the locked door.
3) The Jet d'eau. On the lakefront there is the world's tallest jet spouting water 140m into the air. I walked down to the Jet, both days, but it was too windy for the Jet to be operating.

All the more reason to visit again...

McNuggets

2009-12-07T12:49:00.000-08:00

Haley on her McNuggets explanation:

"You know how nuggets are made? These nuggets are actually chicken fluff covered by a layer of
crispy nugget crust"

I almost think I need to start a twitter feed for this.

H1N1

2009-12-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

Haley said to me today:

Dad, you know the H1N1? Well the "H" is the coughing part and the "N1" is the swine flu part...

A technical 5 year old

2009-12-07T12:35:00.000-08:00

Haley borrowed my blackberry to type a letter. This is what she wrote:

Haley mIChELle coWAN CUpcaKEe. Jhhgguutretykdtewabggujf.
B vhgghggghhghghghyhjh. Sdsdhgffhguklklooooo. Ggggffggfohjegdgvrvggrg

My blackberry spellchecker changed it to:
Haley Michelle Cowan Cupcake Jamborees Vaughn Sainthoods Gastrointestinal

Who would have known.

A Simple Tip Please

2009-10-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

They say India is corrupt and sometimes you need to pay up to play. Well, they were right.
I had to pay my first bribe to a policeman today... He didn't want rupees, but american
dollars. It was, as he said, "just a simple tip please". I guess that's what happens when you
are the only white tourists in the place...Too funny.

Between the crazy Bangalore drivers and the spicy pickled lime peels, this has been quite the
trip.

More details when I return....

LP.

5 weeks of training = 1 big Screw You

2009-10-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

Granted, I was unprepared. But I was fueled by the intrinsic motivation to be able to say both figuratively and literally "Screw you" if I crossed the finish line.

5:00 am Marathon Morning. I awoke to the alarm, a distant buzz on the other side of the bedroom which would ensure the actual movement from my bed to silence the noise.
5:10 am Breakfast of champions. Bananas and peanut butter. I don't like either, together OR apart. Having to wash it down with a Power Gel? Priceless.
6:00 am Time for a hot shower and Motrin. Anything to loosen up the muscles before they get raked over the proverbial coals.
6:15 am I headed out the door, leaving a silent and sleeping house behind me. In fact, not even Riley, our dog, wanted to wake up when I slipped out the door.

I arrived downtown around 6:45 and spent the next 1.5 hours contemplating dropping out and just going to hang out and watch the runners.

8:30 am - Race Start. After the gun went off I looked around and realized I actually started at the very back of the 5000+ pack. The entire back. Like where the special needs people start... that means my starting picture is with the Special Olympics of this marathon. Great!
Nowhere to go but up!

From this point onwards, time was not a relative measure. I would experience my day in a measurement of distance....distance ran to be precise.

10k Did the first 10k in 58 minutes...which was my goal so far.
14k I started to think my training motto of "Hills and Pavement are for race day" may have been misguided. Pavement is HARD and hills are STEEP!
16k I thought back to my chiropractors advice on "If your neck siezes up before 15k, then drop out. If not, then you'll maybe be ok". I recall her stressing the 'maybe', which was I am now sure for "like a 5% chance it won't" sort of 'maybe'.
16.5k Yep. My neck seized up. Good thing I made it to 15k and no backing down now!
20k I arrived with little fanfare, just under the 2 hour even mark. Slow and steady....
24k You know they say not to try new food out on race day? Well, I went against that. PowerGel has a new product out that tastes and looks like a Gummy Bear, but with a gel filling. Mmmmm...
26k I start to realize I have done about 150k of running in the past month in preparation for this race. That means my race accounts for 25% of my total running in the past 5 weeks. Usually over a 15 week program you ramp up and do about 600km. Whoops.
27k I am officially on my longest run since the Marathon last year. I feel it too....
28k I could feel the PowerGel Gummy Bear rolling around in my stomach....yes, perhaps it IS true not to try new things on race day...
30k At a 3:05 timing I have officially dropped behind any sort of target to set a PR, in particular since I have given up running and have walked the past 2k.
From about 30-40k I slipped into the cycle of walk 1k and massage out the kinks in my neck, then put up with the pain and run for 2k more. If I could describe the pain, I would have to say it felt like an ice-pick being shoved in between my shoulder blades, then about 1000 acupuncture needles simultaneously piercing my skin from the tops of my shoulders to the tips of my fingers. Fortunately my thumbs were not feeling anything by now, so they were good blunt massaging tools for my neck.
36k I arrived at the Harrier Hash Aid Station - which serves up shots of beer for passing
runners. I fought my previous encounter with drinking beer while running and went for it, dulling the pain as I walked. It was perhaps the best aid station of the day.
40k By this time all I could think was "fuck it. I'm sore. Let's just get this done and over with"
42.2k Finished!

My chip time was 4:32. A full 30 minutes slower than last year, but with a considerable decrease in training. When I was running I was doing about 5:30minute/km easy pace, and had a few km which were in the 4:30m/km mark. My legs felt great, which was nice, I just couldn't move my neck around to enjoy the scenery of both nature and runners (the latter seemingly improved the faster I moved up the pack of racers).

Things I learned about myself on this race:
1) 150k over 5 weeks in training is too little. Next time I should set the minimum around 200k for sure, or at least 6 weeks.
2) Allocate a little more budget to massage + chiropractor if I don't follow point #2.
3) I shouldn't move my bedroom upstairs the day before I race. Having to navigate stairs so soon after was a little challenging, and resulted in much mockery by my wife.
4) Flying to Europe on a 14 hour flight only 2 days after the race is not a good idea. (On a positive note the free liquor on the long haul fights seemed to dull the pain!)
5) Pain is temporary. Quitting is forever: Never. Say. "Can't". To. Me.

See you next year...just hopefully a little faster and a lot less sore.

How's this for marathon motivation?

2009-10-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

She looked at me with a look I can only describe as disdain, but with a professional attitude.

"How's the knee"

"They are a little sore."

She rolled her eyes at mem. "They? Great. Now its both of them. Have I mentioned you are stupid? What's with you guys?"

"I take it your husband is racing on a similar 4 week marathon plan? If I recall last year we both did pretty well with the little training we did."

"He better not be..." She started. "Yeah, because if he does race I'll have a pace bunny with the sign 'Idiots United meet here' out for both of you." And with that she slamed closed her file (as much as she could slam a paper file) and ushered me out the door.

Another marathon on 5 weeks of training? Only 4 runs at 20k? No problem. Why? All this "can't do attitide" around me has fired me up to proove them wrong.

Yeah, how's THAT for motivation? As most guys will confess to, I'll take what I can get.

I think I found my new Burning Platform

2009-10-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

Billings Learned Hand, a U.S. judge and philosopher from the early 1900s, once talked about change occurring only when
things reach a point that "cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of inertia and the
irksomeness of action."

Best. Quote. Ever.

Enough said.

Grandpa is a liar

2009-09-09T21:58:00.000-07:00

Little LP, very seriously, addressed me today with the following: "Dad, did you know Grandpa lies to me?"

"Oh," I said, "what kind of lies does Grandpa tell you?". I was hoping it was about things like the birds and the bees, but I soon found out - while animial related - I didn't have much to worry about.

"He tells me things like giraffe's have short legs!"

He was so serious, it was too funny to not laught at him!

The Bird is Asleep....

2009-08-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

A post from my notebook... a few months old....

"It's dead! It's dead" he cried, running down the stairs.

I looked up to see Jordan heading down the stairs, full tilt. "What?"

He arrived breathlessly, bursting to tell the news. "A bird. It flew into the window!" His hands animated his sounds as he yelled kabash! to punctuate his point. "And guess what, mom said YOU have to deal with it."

I groaned. "How come when it's something dead, I get to deal with it. But when it's something like, someone came to the door and dropped off chocolates, SHE gets to deal with it. Go ask here that."

A few hours later I got round to my task, but upon reaching the "dead bird zone" I found nothing. No alive bird. No dead bird. No bird at all. Not even a feather to suggest one had been here, and managed to break it's neck on the window yet fly away unscathed.

I wandered back downstairs and found the kids. "Hey guys, are you sure there was a bird upstairs? I looked but didn't find any."

Haley jumped up. "I know! I know!" she squealed. "It was on my deck sleeping, but I tucked it in for an afternoon nap." She took my by the hand and lead me up stairs to her room. Sure enough, I looked under her covers and placed gently on her princess pillow was a "sleeping" bird.
"He'll wake up soon, right dad?"

"hmmmm, yeah. I'll wake him up and set him to fly out the window while you go downstairs and ask mom if there is some chocolate around you two can go eat together."

Moral of the story: Sleeping birds may lie, unless you have children in the house. Otherwise they lie in their bed, waiting to be woken up.

There are times I wish I was a full time blogger....

2009-07-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

... and today is one of them.

1) It's well above 30 degrees outside. Nothing better than to be sitting by the ocean contemplating and writing in my journal.

2)My left brain is full. I keep trying to Load "$", 8, 1, but can't find the right disk to do a mental load from.

3)I have almost finished my deck, and installed the hammock at home now. Talk about the ultimate blogging location - close to wifi and the beer fridge.

and the best reason:

4) When you hear, in passing, someone say "So what do you you think Porn Stars fantasize about when the go home to their partner? Do you think they bring their work home with them?"

I mean, with line like that, all I think is of the blogging fodder I could get out of it.

Hammock's r' Us

2009-07-06T20:32:00.000-07:00

I spend my long weekend balancing the trifecta of being sick, snoozing in ferry line-ups, and entertaining at least to of: a dog, a 6 year old, and a 4 year old.

I did, however, bring something in my weekend arsenal which would balance these needs perfectly.

A Hammock. BUT not any hammock, a double hammock...... and with this double hammock spread between 2 trees in the shade, I spent the better part of the weekend trying to sleep off a cold that had been plaguing me for about 10 days now. I highly (and I mean highly) recommend the family size hammock from The Hang Out Place on Granville Island. As I dozed in and out, all I could think of was "This is what summer is all about."

The picture is from when I was at the Hang Out Store with LP-ette, testing out the Hammocks. It gives you a representation of what I was doing on Hornby, only I wouldn't let anyone in with me lest to spoil the tranquility. I will admit upon discovering the room I had to sprawl, I dutifully wiped out my Blackberry to update my Facebook Status: LP is testing the "Hang Out Place" queen size hammock, and is currently suspended between 2 trees... Man this thing has girth!

With a few naps out of the way I was strong enough to get out for a good paced ride up Mt. Geoffery, if you consider a "good pace" as riding behind Little J, age 6. He kept asking me to take me where I go riding, so we rode up to the green trails and did some gentle - yet undulating - out and backs. He had a great time, and upon the return back home I collapsed again in the hammock, and snoozed until the next requisite game of "hit something over the volleyball net".

Here are the statistics from my 3 day weekend:
4 naps
2 beach excursions
2 hours of riding
6 Tylenol for Cold
umpteen giggles from the kids...

Going to France so I can slow down....

2009-06-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

I have been writing. Not in the narcissistic way, but in a self-preservation. Unfortunately it has mostly been in my mind. Occasionally on scraps of paper, and although my leather bound journal has never strayed far from my side, the only time it has been opened was to record a fine wine or single malt notation.

To say the work-life balance has been interrupted is an understatement. But several days travelling across France this past week solidified my commitment to Go Slow, and spend all of August incommunicado on a small island, far away from the reach of technology.

We were 2 evenings in Annecy, France, a beautiful town that is connected to one of the historical authors and thinkers of the French Revolution, as well as the upcoming individual time trial for the Tour de France. Having a visit 18 days later would have climaxed this visit to a point beyond blogging...

The trip was for work, which usually means a 30 hour travel day (via 3 airports, a train and a car), followed by several 12+ hour work days, followed by a 30 hour travel commute home. However, when travel is required I make it a point to try to get out and see parts of the world I would otherwise probably not have the chance to visit. On this trip, I found 1 place I would visit again, especially if on a holiday.

On arrival we went on an drive to see the surrounding region from the top of Col de la Forclaz. In reality we drove most of the way but did have to portage through a cow maze, before getting to the point where we could watch some Parapenter's soar across the lake. Re-read that last sentence... yes, we actually had to go through a maze of cows.

On our way up we passed a field, reminiscent of the Sound of Music...

Had my wife been with us, I am sure she would have jumped the fence and ran into the middle of the field, spinning her arms like only Julie Andrews could.

You can see the dots of the Parapenters, essentially going from one peak on the side of the lake, across the lake and beyond another peak. Even from that height, we were unable to see the landing spot they were heading for.

At the top we watched both new and experts take their turn at jumping off the summit edge, their Parapents being buoyed by the thermal drafts a mere 1 or 2 feet off the ground. A colleague told me the expert Parapenters can stay up for a few hours, going across the lake and eventually to a landing site.

Annecy, with several small canals (with emphasis on the word small) snaking throughout the old part of the city, has a plethora of outdoor cafes which allow you to take in the afternoon and evening sights. Revelers mixed with lovers, tourists mixed with locals. I tried to make the transition from tourist to revelers, but had a difficult time convincing my coworkers to do some team bonding over many drinks (at least many in the Canadian sense).

By far the favorite part of the city was the discovery of this: Rue Jean Jacques Rosseau, and his monument.

Reading some of my early posts, circa 2005, you may see some influence of Rosseau. In fact, his book is one of 2 or 3 that sit along side my journal to read when I am in the contemplative mood (with Thoreau being one of the others).

We capped our 2 days in Annecy with a quick photo visit to the Monastery Church, with it timed by our local host to be both closed, but devoid of tourists. .

On our way back, our trip would not have been complete without a quick 3 hour tour of Paris, with a visit to the Sacre Coeur, and the Arc de Triomphe.

All said, short trip and full of historical monuments, but Doug's Summer Solstice post has me Pining for the Fjords of Hornby.

A 4 year old's perspective on travel

2009-05-13T00:27:00.000-07:00

On airport lights: Ohh, look, it is still lit up for Christmas.

On phoning home: How does daddy's voice get from there to here?

On Hotel Stays: Who are you staying with? Nobody? Well, that's lonley.

3 Months in 3 Pictures

2009-05-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

Holy Crap - 3 months and no posting. If you only knew how busy I was, you'd cut me some slack....

March: A month of trying to get up to Hornby (3 failed "I'm packing the truck!") I finally got up to get the water tank installed on Hornby.

This sign is what March seemed to feel like...

April: I basically spent most of April travelling for work, or sequestered to a small windowless room doing 8 hour Innovation Sessions with a group of 10 people. Nashville. Toronto. Rajpur. Vancouver. And not one bike ride the whole month...

It felt like the whole month I only got outside once, but barely refrained from leaping off the cliff:

This was taken at the Savage Gulf in Tennessee.

Fortunately I did manage a stop-in to the big T.O. to visit some Vodka Bars and French Restaurants. I have never had such an inkling for some petite castor in my life... (ahem, yes it is a restaurant)

I also found out I was a marshmallow, as compared to a piece of fruit. Go figure.

May: I traded my rental car back in for my truck and a mattock, and got a water line trenched from the tank to my trailer. That's Dave, my F.I.L., who also taught sailing on the island last year. I think this year he realized if he wanted a shower in the trailer if he came up again, he was going to have to help get some water plumbed in.

All that is left is a little 12V wiring to my pump then putting in a filter and I should be able to pump water from the tank into the trailer. I can't wait to have my first 2500 gallon shower this summer.

Later... LP.

Pink Haley

2009-02-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

Haley, who is sick with the stomach flu, came in to the kitchen holding the Pepto Bismol. She wanted more so when she threw up again it would be a "pretty pink".

Even in sickness she if fashion conscious.

A Blue Haley

2009-02-23T13:28:00.000-08:00

It was breakfast time, with some help from the kids. Or so we thought.

"Haley, can you set the table?" we asked, merely hoping for the placemats to be put out.

But not today. She was efficient. Not only did she get the placemats out, but also her plate. Without us knowing, she also managed to sneak the box of blueberries over to the table. By the time we looked over Haley had managed to open the blueberry container and put a heaping pile of blueberries on her plate.

“Haley! I just bought those! They were for muffins I was going to make today. Do you know how much they cost?”

Her reply was quick, and amazingly accurate: “Yes. Like sixteen dollars.”

“That’s about right.”

A Green Jordan

2009-02-18T20:43:00.000-08:00

“Dad, how much money do you have?”

“About $2000”

“No… that’s impossible. Nobody has that much. Maybe like $200, but that’s all you probably have.”

A 6 word memoir for 2008

2009-01-28T23:06:00.000-08:00

This week, Opinionistas reminded me of the 6 word memoirs that Boing Boing made so cliche in 2008.

It actually took days to think. Think of my six succinct words.

Here were my top 2008 reminisces:

Experienced complex cultures with new perspectives.

French wine, Irish beer and Hornby Island.

Juxtaposition of knowledge created serindipitous opportunities.

I finally came down to this:

Traveled lots. Made progress. Got behind.

It was true on many levels....

An Obamanation

2009-01-26T18:05:00.000-08:00

I made a Obamicon of myself at Obamicon.me

You should spend a few minutes on their Top Rated section. Some very funny ones have been uploaded...

For those wondering the backstory on the creater of the original Obama poster, Shepard Fairey, watch this short interview from the LA Times.

Buffed & Caulked

2009-01-25T20:28:00.000-08:00

I spent a large part of today buffing and caulking. Yes, back to the renovation. After a 2 month break the time has come to get my workbelt back on.

Finally, after 4 months of using it, I sanded down the butcher block top we had installed in our kitchen. At 5’ x 7’ it took awhile, especially considering I started with 100 grit paper (which actually smoothed it beyond what the kitchen company delivered it as), and finally ending up at 220 grit. I was sanding with one hand, and running the vacuum with the other, so the mess was reduced to only a fine layer of dust everywhere.I buffed in some beeswax and oil mixture, which set up nicely. A second, and maybe third, coat tomorrow and I can call the main kitchen island as done. Unless you count the missing fake drawer front, missing recycling sorter, incorrectly installed pull out spice rack and…, well, a few more things. At least I managed to sand out the pen marks the kitchen installer put in, right after he installed the top. Arrg!

Then I caulked… since installing the trim 3 months ago, my plan of procrastinating until the joints had settled seemed to work. I filled about 30 corners – which seemed much worse than when I originally put the 30 corners together.

Tomorrow night I sand 30 corner joints, and prime the bare parts of the moulding.

I checked my calendar tonight and it has been 295 days since the renovation officially began (i.e., ground actually broken by the excavator), but over a year since we first gave our sketches to the architect and the contractor. It really is the last 10% takes 90% of the work, especially if your budget finished up before the contractor did, and he left it all for you to do!

We started with this:

We moved to this:

And then to this:

And, while not yet finally, but it felt like finally, to this:

Still to do in the coming months:

Paint the trim.

Build a closet. We now have a closet in the house, but with no door or shelves I have the task of making something to fit some old antique windows we have. Ikea just doesn’t feel right for this...

Rebuild the deck. I put a temporary one up to get our permit signed off. I am happy with a plywood deck, but LP-ette isn’t.

Move the old kitchen entrance way over 3”. Who would have thought a 2” mis-measurement by the kitchen designer would cost me 50+ hours in rewiring switches from one side of a door to another, all while needing to move the door over!

Re-drywall, tape, mud, sand, mud, sand, mud, sand, texture, prime and paint the 2’x6’ chunk of drywall the electrician had to cut off to get our new panel rewired.

Move the shed I built a few years back to the other side of the house. Not sure how I am going to do that…

Install the ceiling fans. I have 2 to install. On the 15 foot ceiling. With a 6’ step ladder. Not sure how I am going to get that one done either…

Landscape. Landscape. And Landscape more.

And next week my water tank gets delivered to Hornby, which is 3 months behind the schedule I thought I would be on.

AhhHH!!

WTF?

2009-01-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok. Stop nagging. I will post soon.

I do have a day job again... sheesh.

LP.

Turkey Lurkey

2008-12-08T21:29:00.000-08:00

I had a blog post done up entitled "Turkey Lurkey" but at the last minute it was vetoed by LP-ette.

"But how will you know I even posted it? You never read the site?"

"I'll know... woman's intuition. Do you really want to tangle with that?" she replied, letting the last line hang.

"errr. Ok. I'll post something else instead."

So today's post is brought to you by the animated French, in the form of a animated short:

It takes a second to get going but it is pretty funny. At the very least it will give you a reason to practice your french.

No Logo

2008-11-28T19:01:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back I was up on Hornby for a few days. I managed to get away on my own, just with some tools to do some work and my mountain bike to get some riding. It was a true accession into my man-cave, complete with a mountain bike, some beer and some 'haut de gamme' steaks from the butcher. Almost blowing up the BBQ tank would have completed the rite of passage, but I narrowly avoided that (and I stress the word narrowly).

The thing I love about Hornby Island is the two ferry commute. The first ferry, Buckley Bay to Denman Island, is about a 2km crossing which takes 10 minutes. Another 10 minute drive and you need to sit and wait for another ferry to go over to Hornby. All completed it is a 20km commute that takes almost an hour between waiting for ferries and, well, waiting for more ferries. It really is the 2nd ferry that forces one to slow down. I recall last summer I had to go from being on Hornby time, which involved meandering down the twisted and bumpy roads to my beach destination, to the next day driving back home and flying out to Nashville for a week, which left me on a 4 lane highway (one direction) doing 120kph in the slow lane. When I got back to the hotel I was longing for the 2nd Ferry of Nashville, but none were to be found. Being surrounded by Country music at every bar on the main strip didn't help either.

As I sat in the zone of "the 2nd ferry wait" I looked across the straight at the trees that were turning a shade of golden yellow. Fall was here, and the colors of nature were starting to diverge from their green summer shades. As I looked at the trees, my eyes were drawn to the items I had packed for my trip. It was a contrast in nature vs. man because just within my view inside my truck I could see how advertising has really taken over everything we touch: I drive a Nissan, drink Sleemans and Coke, and eat PowerGels when riding my Kona bike in preparation for Ironman, or reading many a Random House books. I work for Schneider Electric on my Dell laptop, while listening to my Apple iPod. And I am a frequent traveller of BC Ferries.

During my 4 day excursion I got out for a ride up Mt. Geoffery with Doug for an hour or two (thanks Doug!). Having not hit any trails on my mountain bike for a few years I started slow. The trails were soft and smooth and the scenery at the top of the Ridge gave a great view of Denman Island, and beyond that Vancouver Island. At the top of the Ridge trail I took this picture.

Later that afternoon I headed to the beach, and managed these few shots of nature. It was cold, but incredibly clear and sunny.

It was a striking contrast to my view on the first ferry ride of my trip. In one view I only had to look in my immediate personal area to define what I was doing. On the other view I managed to go 3 days without seeing anything commercial. I was defined by my environment, not the other way around. Ironic that this thought happened at the commercial time of Christmas. What that really means is that it's too bad for anyone on my Christmas list that was hoping for something commercial from me.

No Stokie for you!

2008-11-27T21:56:00.000-08:00

Opps I did it again. Another bike accident, only this time I only managed to break 2 bones. Last Saturday I left for a short 1 hour ride, but arrived home via the hospital with one broken Radial Head, one cracked rib and one mad wife.

It was a great day for a ride. Sunny, but having just rained it was a little slippy out. I needed to do a errand so had decided to ride the back roads and stay around town. About 40 min into the ride I came across some railroad tracks.... and that is where I went down. One of my wheels must have slipped when I crossed the tracks, which were in my defence, at a 50 degree angle to the road. I remember seeing my wheel jam sideways, my bike instantly turning at a 50 degree angle but abruptly stopping thereafter, and then pure physics taking over and my body continuing to move in a straight line. Only without my bike.

I do recall the feeling of my head rebounding off the pavement at the same time as the rest of the side of my body hit the ground and literally slide to a grinding halt. Thankfully this time my helmet took a 2" crack right on the side. It is times like this when I remember why I wear a helmet.

As I lay there in the middle of the tracks, a car stopped and someone came running up. "Are you ok? Are you hurt?" I heard from up above.

I laid there for a moment, took stock of my injuries.
Feet moving? Check.
Arms moving? Check.
Neck sore? Negative.

Then I unbuckled my helmet and uttered my the first words that came to mind: "Man, my wife is going to be pissed."

And I was right. For the next few days she was answering the phone "Hello! I have 4 bikes for sale, which one do you want?"

Here's how my Text Message conversation when with my riding buddy waiting in ER to see the Doctor:

LP: At VGH after crashing my bike. Even got an ambulance ride. Shit
TK: What happened? Call me.
TK: Are you ok?
TK: No, is your bike OK?
TK: Another car? Is your Soloist OK?
TK: Get LP-ette to call me if you are getting turned into the Bionic Man.
LP: No car. It was my Trek.
TK: Whew! What did you do?
LP: Railroad Tracks.
TK: Don't think are are getting out of walking the dog this afternoon.

As you can see the importance of the bike was paramount. A true measure of a riding buddy.

With no riding for almost 2 weeks I have been itching to get out on the bike this week. I was thinking to bundle myself up like Tyler Hamilton in the 2003 Tour de France.

Because if I'm going to break some bones I may as well have an epic story to follow....

... and Riley makes 5.

2008-11-13T20:29:00.000-08:00

The newest addition to the LP family arrived yesterday. A nine week old Labrador Retriever named Riley.

Riley

After ~~months~~ years of begging and cajoling, LP-ette finally just did what she always does to get me to comply: ignores me and does what she wants. In reality she does what I end up doing, so I can't really complain. Except when I do what I want, the end result usually isn't her cleaning up after a puppy that happens to find it more convenient to relieve himself in the living room than the garden.

The first night at home he wouldn't stop crying when we put him in the crate so LP-ette ended up sleeping on the couch with him at her feet and getting up with him every 2 hours or so to take him out to the bathroom.

Today, after I asked her where she was sleeping tonight, she looked at me and threw her hands up in the air. "I know! Don't even say it!"

"Say what?"

"You know, me being crazy for this whole dog thing!"

"I didn't say that. I was just wondering if I would get to stretch out across the whole bed tonight."

Needless to say I am now more than 1 point down in the books of matrimonial support.

How to set a PR at your next Marathon

2008-10-12T15:50:00.000-07:00

So after 40 days of not-so-intense training, I did the marathon again today.

I can say with conviction, that less training will actually increase your time. And by less I mean about 70% less than recommended.

Here's how it went:

3km - my neck started to seize up. Usually it starts to seize on my long runs, around 23km. I am 20km early for a blowup. Or a 15km blowup, depending on who you are.

5k - I realize my 6am breakfast is now digested, and I am hungry. Luck me, I have a gel pack on me. Mmmm, vanilla goop for a snack. I also realize that I haven't raced for 3 years, which means I haven't practiced running and grabbing water off a table for 3 years. The grab goes well, the drinking it without spilling 95% onto the ground does not go well.

8k - my knee starts to tighten up and I start to think my Chiropractor may be right. I decide right then and there not to give her the satisfaction of being right. Foolish or Wise? you ask? Only the next 38k will tell....

10k - time = 54 minutes, right on pace for a 4 hour race. I look back and I am about 1/2km ahead of the 4hour pace bunny. Right then and there I decide to see if I can run a sub four hour Marathon. I think the endorphins had a large part in making that decision for me.

18k - the elites pass me (at their 28km mark) and I feel slow. And fat.

21.2k - time = 1:57. Still ahead of the pace bunny. I would have slowed down but he wasn't that cute.

26km - I am officially doing the longest run of the year. Surprisingly my mind has not reach the WTF are you doing to your body point in the race.

30km - time = 2:45. Sweet. I am on pace for a PB, and despite the burning sensation and numbness in my neck and hands. At least this race the burning sensation didn't happen elsewhere (that for another story).

32km - I lose my Motrin somewhere in a portapotty. I was sore, but not sore enough to dive in after it.

34km - I start to walk and get passed by the pace bunny. My blister, which feels larger than my entire foot, has reach boiling point. Pull off my shoe and a grain of sand falls out. Not any grain - a small grain which I suspect was entirely shaped like a pointy star.

I think back to a race I did where I saw a sign "You think 10k is easy? Well, you are in luck - the race just got easy."

I also reach the WTF are you doing to your body point in the race. I pushed it out. It was an epic feeling of mind over matter.

35km - I hear someone yell at me from behind. (full disclosure: I was delirious in pain so I am paraphrasing what I heard, from what was said). "Hey LP, nice post yesterday. Your Chiropractor sounds like a bitch!" I turned around to see my Chiropractor. Boy, can you say Awwkwarrrrrd!

38km - I realize that pain is temporary, but a sub-four hour marathon lasts forever. I pretend I am blocking out a 3 and 5 year old running around on Christmas morning after eating candy in their beds. Yes, the same technique can be used for blocking out physical pain.

39km - This song comes onto my iPod

I guess it is the Eye of the Tiger of the Rap generation. Whatever, it seemed to work.

Then, right at that second my GPS battery died and my Average Pace and Race Countdown. All I can think is Shit, now I have to go oldschool and do pacing math, which will probably reinforce the 'WTF are you doing to your body' thought process.

40km - I realize that yes, pain is temporary, but it is also right here, right now.. Again the Block your Children technique comes in handy and I put my head down and just give 'er.

My final time was a 4:02, a full 13 minutes faster than my PR, of which I did after 13 long weeks of training. Pfft! I think. Next year I wonder if I can do a sub 4 hour marathon if I cut it down to just 30 days of training.

Epilogue - It took 20 minutes to walk to my car, even though it was less than a km away. I didn't even make it across the crosswalk while the light was green. My time may have been faster, but my epilogue is going to be much slower this time.

Day 39 of my 40 Days to a Marathon plan.

2008-10-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

So in the past 39 days I managed to increase my mileage 130% per week, slightly above the doctor recommended increase of 10%.

I went from:
Drinking beer most of the summer, and generally lounging about on Hornby.

To, starting in the first week of September:
A 5k run (to make sure I could still run)
A 10k run (to make sure I could still do 10k)
A 8k speed run (to make sure I could still run fast)
A bike ride (to the running store to pickup some body-glide)
Then a 16k, 21k, 26k, 10k, 25k, a 20k and then finally, a car ride to the chiropractor for a pre-race checkup.

To say she was not impressed at my 40 day plan was a slight understatement. This was her rant: "You know, both you and my husband, you're crazy. He decided to do the same with only 33 days notice. And you know what?" At this point there was no replying, as I saw her talk with the same fury that LP-ette talks to me in. "Let me tell you what. I have to pick up the pieces of both of you! No sympathy here! None! Don't come to me when you're broken!"

All I could think of was about her husband beating me by one week less of training. Damn. If I was only lazy one more week, I too would be that cool.

Today I found myself in a bind - with a knee problem I couldn't stretch out I needed an emergency chiropractor visit to loosen things up. I am not sure what was worse: My wife's face when I said I was leaving a family function to go to the Chiropractor, or my Chiropractor's face when I showed up in her waiting room.

"Have I told you that you're stupid?" she asked me, as she inflicted a serious amount of pain during her adjustment. "I mean, seriously."

The only reply I had was one of pain. "Holy crap, where you are pushing, that really hurts."

I laid on her table for awhile, while she continued to prod and adjust my knee. "So will my knee hold out?" I asked. "It feels like if it will either blow up by 10k, or loosen up and I'll be good to run."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure your knee will make it to 10k. Don't worry about that, just worry that at 15k something else in your undertrained body will blow up."

So wish me luck tomorrow! With all the motivational talk I've been given, I am sure that the eye of the tiger feeling I have will be the only thing pulling me through!

Battleship Grey

2008-10-07T20:32:00.000-07:00

How come people at the dentist's office just don't listen?

To the 5 year old at the dentist today, who washed his hands with the Listerine, next time listen to your mom when she yells 'NoooOOO!!!". Yes, Listerine will sting those cuts little man.

To the self important business woman who kept trying to book a facial with multiple massage parlors, that just happen to fit into her "important and full schedule", next time read the sign that says "For the comfort of those in the waiting room, please turn off your cell phone or blackberry". Oh, and yes, we all heard you then whisper "Is there any students available to do it at a reduced rate?".

To the Hygienist that kept leaning on my face to get a better reach with your tool: Yes, for the last time, that hurts. My head was not meant to deform into the unnatural shape of your tool, particularly when the tip is pointing into my forehead.

Vivid moments

2008-09-20T05:09:00.000-07:00

I found this scrawled in my journal. No date. No context. Spelling mistakes are included as written:

Had a dream last night. Very quniten terinteno.
Samari swords, escape from rooms.
‘come with me’ – followed into dark alleyways.

Then there was this one:

Break the glass - safety at the edges.
Get by the ****
Seal off from the virus.

Sometimes when I have vivid dreams, I try to write down the high points so I can remember them later. Occasionally I wake up and think “Man, that dream was a major motion picture type dream”. A few months ago I even dreamt a plot for a cool sci-fi movie, which is strange because I don’t like sci-fi movies.

Apparently with this one I must have thought it was just for a local film festival, or I would have written more. Maybe I can get optioned by Lions Gate Entertainment to do some writing.

Day 8 of my 40 day Marathon Training....

2008-09-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

It has been 8 days since I decided to see if I can do a Marathon in 40 days. I have managed 4 runs and 1 bike, with my long one at about 16k. Looking at my past marathon schedules I was supposed to be doing a 30k run. I think my legs were happy I did the 16k.

This week I've got 2 short runs, 1 bike (for cross-training) and then shoot for a 20k next weekend.

For my alternate cross-training exercise I put up 550' of moulding in our new addition. As I was cutting and nailing up the moulding, I accidentally cut one too short, and had already nailed it up.

"Awww, Mother f..., I mean shoot!" I exclaimed, as I looked down from the ladder to see Little LP standing under me.

"Dad..." he drawled. "You said a bad word."

"What did I say?"

"You said 'shoot'. And that's bad. Unless you meant to say para-shoot!"

40 days to a Marathon

2008-09-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

After another week on Hornby Island, this time with all my inlaws camping on our property, I have multiple posts ready to write. Future topics include:

"How my inlaws put the fun back in dysfunctional"

"How my friend's piece of frozen assturd got me out of spooning with my wife"

"How I got a woodie when making smores"

and my favorite:

"How we put the letter g back into camping"

But before that I have decided to throw the gauntlet down. Apart from a few sporadic 20k jaunts, I haven't really run for the past three years as I've been too tired. Yes, you read that right. I have been tired. For three frickin' years. I go for a run, and come home and need to sleep. I go ride, and come home and need to sleep. I go to work,and come home and need to sleep. Heck, some days I wake up from a sleep and need to go for a nap. This past month I came to the conclusion that, well, fuck it. If I am going to be tired I may as well be tired while actually training for something I can pull off. Something simple like training for a marathon in 40 days.

LP-ette told me tonight I was crazy. Actually, there was a verb in front of the word crazy (or is it a noun or an action verb?). I kind of agree, but then again I did an Ironman on a drunken bet, so there has to be some crazy in me somewhere. Here is my thory: I estimate in 40 days I can work about 6 to 8 shorter tempo runs, and 4 longer runs in. A few 20k's, a 25k and a 30k. If I can do that I am going for it.

So last week I ramped up with a 5k run, then a 12k around Helliwell Park. As I wound around the parks cliffside trails, enjoying the solo view, I was sold. Mind over matter, for 5 hours tops was all I could think. The next day I even managed a cross training 2 hour mountain bike ride. Who knew I would go to the dark side of biking to train in my 40 day window!

My motto will be "as long as the body holds up, I'll do it."

And if I finish, I can finally give that big black SUV the one fingered salute!

And for all the loving support I got along the way? I'll get my wife this shirt:

... and then I will probably go for a nap...

Check back for updates!

Those M&M’s have girth

2008-08-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

Droopage. Girth. Tonight has been an evening of exploration.

“I have discovered the most amazing thing!” she exclaimed, eager to share her new discovery.

“As you know, we ran out of chocolate for our Smores, but…”. She hung onto her last words, looking us both in the eyes to ensure we were listening with rapt attention. “But… if you stuff the marshmallows with M&M’s and then roast them, you end up with a M&M infused Smore! Brilliant!”
Sandritia, having surprised us for a quick visit to Hornby Island on our holiday, was enjoying an evening campfire. Judging by her excitement, it had been awhile since her last campfire.

“What do you think!” she beamed. Like a new parent, she was looking for the accepting words that her newly created child was beautiful. And like the socially inept engineer-male I am, I decided to take this opportunity to tell it like it was. I looked over at her new creation of four marshmallows impaled on a stick, and studded with green and orange M&M’s, and simply answered “It has some good girth… “

Right behind me Logical Philosophette chimed in with a giggle, “…and droopage!”

Even through the glow of the fire embers, we could see both shock and disgust cross her face. “How can you have ‘girth’ and ‘droopage’ in the same sentence, describing the same thing at the same time? I mean, that’s just plain wrong.” She started shaking, the tip of the marshmallow stick exaggerating her movements. Hmm, nice fourier transformation of her movements to the tip of the stick I thought.

“Well technically it is both.” I stressed. “I am an engineer – don’t tell me what properties cannot co-exist. I mean, you rammed four marshmallows on the stick to roast, embedded another thirty or fourth M&M’s. I mean, once heated up gravity had to do something with all that weight.”

I was quickly rebuffed by the brilliant legal mind of Sandritia: “Girth brings visions of vigor. Droopage brings the reality of…well, reality. They can’t mix! It would be like Fabio hanging with the Golden Girls. Technically possible, but unimaginable!” she exclaimed, punctuating her words with her red hot marshmallow stick. It was, in her dictation style, technically a great use of a prop for her argument, but unimaginably inappropriate if she had meant to keep the seriousness of her appeal going.

And at that exact moment, gravity took hold and crossed the rubicon: The weight of the M&M’s pulled the warm marshmallow off the stick, the entire mass congealing onto the sandstone rocks surrounding the firepit. In an instant her prized delicacy had moved from Girth + Droopage, to Globular + Globular.

“Touché Counselor. Had you had one property of either Girth OR Droopage, you would still have a full stick. Now your stick is stuck with, well, I believe the scientific property you are looking for is ‘Globular’”

All I can say is thank goodness it was dark out as it allowed me to see and dodge the red hot stick being thrust in my direction.

My Blogging Mojo is Back...

2008-08-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

I was up at the crack of dawn today - my bag packed for a quick hike around Helliwell Park. Arriving at the point, I sat. I contemplated. I sat some more. Even at the hour of 7am about 30 people jogged by my place of contemplation. All I could think of was "man, fit people get up early."

I got back home and pulled out my blog notebook. It had been well worn until this spring, and needed put away until it called.

I think I found my blogging mojo.

See you in a few days.

LP.

Crap! Going back again...

2008-04-17T22:38:00.000-07:00

I had my France story written out, but then got delayed and now I am packing to go again. I have 4 suitcases this time - 3 of them filled with materials for the conference I am speaking at. That means 3 empty suitcases to come back with.

I am going cheese shopping on the way home. Anyone know the customs rules for bringing smoked meats back into Canada?

If all goes well there is going to be one big cheese party when I get back. I think I will have Air Canada status too, which means priority loading for my suitcase full of cheese. Sweet.

I think I need a sabbatical from work to get some of this blogging back into gear. Man, I can't wait for our summer to begin.

More Cheese Please

2008-04-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

2 weeks of france have opened my eyes to Artisan Cheese and Kilkenny.

Been busy getting out from under my email since then.... more updates to follow...

It will be a food-gasmic update. Old school LP at it's best. I promise.

Thanks for being patient.

Back from France...

2008-03-07T22:53:00.000-08:00

But I am already packing to go again!

After a 2 day layover in Nashville for meetings, and a 1 day in Dallas due to weather, I finally arrived in France. During my travels I had some great stories written up in my mind, such as:

Eating at the Pork Only restaurant with the vegetarian in the group

Accidentally ordering Pigs Ears and Feet off the menu. Now we all know what 'tête' and 'pieds' means in French.

The Vodka Bar... which only served vodka. And lots of vodka. I now know how to translate "spicy vodka" on the menu. I'll leave it at that.

French bathrooms. In a 2000 year old city it was amazing how the upgrades were only about 100 years the times.

The 68 gate sprint through Frankfurt Airport. Yes all 68 gates. And they still closed the flight out on us.

Upon my return from my travels my work kicked into high gear and I was wrapping up a project that I needed to get out the door this week. There have been lots of stories, just no time to write! It's funny how when I took a 5 week break from blogging how many people called or emailed me to ask where I went. It was like their free source of fine literature had dried up. I didn't know I was in such demand. Either that or I know which people really have lots of time on their hands to read things online.

Tonight I'm packing for another 2 week trip, flying out tomorrow. Here's hoping this time I get some time to write. At the very least I will try to recount the Spicy Vodka story. The ending has a great kick to it.

Stuck in DC

2008-01-18T21:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was in Nashville.

Then today I left for France, but got delayed and stuck in Washington DC with no luggage.

Tomorrow I do not really care where I am as long as I can find some clean clothes.

So far it has been a trip of many numbers:
10: "Just missed that plane by 10 minutes" x 2
5: "All I needed was 5 more inches"
4: Number of free Season Tickets to the Nashville Predators Game
3: Number of bars we had to go to find an open kitchen in DC at midnight.
2: Number of room keys we all got.

Let's hope tomorrow brings more happy numbers to us all.

Hornby Island here we come!

2008-01-10T18:41:00.000-08:00

After 10+ years of saving,
3+ years of searching,
2+ years of setbacks...

It is finally official, we found exactly what we were looking for, and the deal is ready to be closed!

Wanted
Minimum ½ acre island property
ferry boat accessible
walking distance (with 2 kids) to a public, sandy beach
Sandstone bluffs to walk on a plus

It was serendipitous, as we actually were up looking at different properties when this one, which had been taken off the market, was suggested by the realtor as a private sale. Within the day of us getting back from our 1 day adventure turned into a 3 day tour, the offer was in and we were on our way to testing the structural integrity of the outhouse, and making sure the well was not full of iron supplements for the kids.

While the only structure on the lot is an outhouse, we have our work cut out for us, but I'm hoping I have a lifetime to get the list done that Logical Philosoph-ette has started to draw up for me.

This is the view from the Galleon Beach across the road:

And from Grassy Point, a 5 minute walk:

And there is even a bike shop! Maybe this summer I will pull my Kona back out and turn back from being a roadie to the dark side of mountain biking.

Many thanks to Donna at Coast Realty for helping make it happen.

This summer is so going to rock.

Squirrel vs. Bunny

2008-01-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

I saw a squirrel and bunny try to simultaneously make it across 2 lanes of rush traffic today.

The result: Squirrels are much faster than bunnies. In fact, the evidence is probably still on the road.

Spears vs. Obama

2008-01-03T22:06:00.000-08:00

I've seen it all: The breaking news of Britney Spears beats out any relevant news of the day. I wonder what she would have polled at.

New Year, Logical Philosopher Style

2008-01-01T00:38:00.000-08:00

Logical Philosoph-ette and I were discussing plans for the 2008 new year and here's what we came up with:

Hang out and camp on our own private piece of West Coast paradise.

Have no family deaths, or unexpected pregnancies (sorry no link, she wouldn't let me blog about it!)

Do some cool schizzle at work.

As long as I spend a significant portion of time on the first or third point, the year will be considered a success.

What's your plans? I will be looking for some guest posters, so let me know if that is in your plans for the year. I would be happy to accomidate.

Overheard this week

2007-12-27T21:58:00.000-08:00

To my younger, more hip, relative as we walked along the ocean:

"Hey, check that out. The river otters are playing across the inlet."

"The River Otters? What band is that?"

"Uh, it's mother nature, not a Band."

****

Two friends sharing a futon: "Those are very special parts. Don't poke them."

****

Sandritia, on trying to decide what crackers to put out for an appitizer. "Digestives? It's the dessert cracker!"

****

Little LP, during a car ride home:

"Dad, can we go to 7-11 for a slurpee?"

"Maybe."

He then turned to his little sister and wispered "We're not going because maybe means NO!"

Procrastonation

2007-12-20T21:18:00.000-08:00

"Why do I always do this?"

"What?"

"You know, start the project the night before?" She plopped herself down at the kitchen table, bring with her a stack of cookbooks so tall it could have passed for the beginnings of a bunker under construction.

Although she had been talking about it for over two weeks, the night before 30+ kid-friendly Christmas treats needed baked for pre-school class tomorrow, LP-ette was still undecided what to make.

"I mean, it's 10pm and I have all these treats to bake. Safeway is still open, will you go and pick something up for me?"

I looked across the table, mustered all my strength and gave my best evil eye. It was hard to do over the stack of books, but I still felt I gave it my best shot. "No. And you know why? Because lack of planning on your part shouldn't be an emergency on my part - especially when you talked about planning for at least 2 weeks solid."

"You didn't answer my original question. Why do I always do this!"

"I know why. Like a Delta Force sniper, you are a highly trained to procrastinate. In fact, you are so skilled at it, you can do it without thinking. It comes as natural as breathing. Now that's a skill to be proud of."

She looked over at me and with almost no effort gave me back an evil eye that made mine melt.

"You want me to get my keys, right?"

"Yeah."

"Will 2 dozen cookies be enough?" I asked, getting up and reaching for my coat and car keys.

"Yes."

"And should I pickup a Starbucks Latte as well?"

"Yep."

Later, as I departed from Starbucks and felt the Jedi force wash off me, it was only then that I realized she had another, more powerful, skill to recon with. Not only was I her unwitting procrastination backup, but I also doubled as her Starbucks delivery boy. And it all started with her needing to bake cookies. All I could think was Wow. She's good.

One down, two to go!

2007-12-16T01:08:00.000-08:00

While the snowstorm subsided (and turned to flooding) I still am busy working out the details and subject-to's of a potential property purchase.

On the property front things have been going well, considering I am trying to coordinate the water, septic and other tests while I am 200km's away.

I have also spent the past 2 weeks dealing with the police and lawyer for my tenant, trying to negotiate getting her stuff moved out so I can re-rent the condo and not go through the courts to get her tossed out. While I do work with corporate lawyers most of the week in my job and have little problems with the profession, the criminal one I have been dealing with definitely wins the most "unhelpful lawyer of the year" award. Here's how our conversation(s) went**:

"So can you inquire with your client about arranging removal of her items?"

"I'm sorry, I can't comment on that."

"You can't comment, or don't know, or do know and won't say?"

"I'm sorry, I can't comment on that either."

"So what you're saying is you don't know."

"I can't comment on that either. You'll have to do what you have to do."

"So you are saying I should go and get an Order of Possession and take your client's stuff?"

"I can't comment on that either."

THEN on Friday afternoon I get a voicemail from the lawyer.

"I talked with my client and you have permission to move her items into storage."

No mention of how to move it.
No mention of where to move it.
No mention of who is paying for it.
No mention of how long I have to store it.

If I did call to inquire about the above, I am sure her reply would include the phrase "no comment."

I hope the property sale goes through because I will need a vacation from the tenant fiasco when this month is over. Next week will be the make or break for both points. Wish me luck.

**Disclaimer: Since I am quoting a lawyer who sounded like she would sue me at the drop of the hat, please not I am paraphrasing, and the conversation may not have gone exactly as quoted. There may, in fact, been one or two more "I can't comment on that" than I recall.

CCC 334(b)

2007-12-08T22:07:00.001-08:00

In the past 2 weeks I have:

Been stuck in a snowstorm for 3 days - with two small children and only 1 days worth of clean clothes and diapers.

Travelled to a small gulf island to put an offer for sale on a property.

Drawn up an eviction notice for one of our tenants, whose cheques are bouncing and I just discovered was arrested for theft.

Now you know why I haven't been blogging...

No, really, she's not here right now

2007-11-28T20:29:00.000-08:00

A telemarketer called my brother last week, asking for his wife, who passed away last September - or "Passed by" as Little LP says. Here's how the conversation went:

"hi, this is Britney and I am ......."

"no, sorry, already get it delivered at work for free."

"oh, and does your wife get it as well?"

" well, I am not married."

"oh, the listing says K?"

"well, that is because she died 2 months ago and your listing hasn't been updated."

"oh, oh, oh my god, I am so sorry....."

"well, it isn't your fault (laughing) but you must admit it is kinda funny about how you must be feeling. Have a good night calling countless others"

Now, you must admit that was pretty funny. Can't imagine what Britney is thinking right now about her last call.

Personally I can't stop laughing. Bet she doesn't call again.

The WSJ stole my idea

2007-11-24T00:09:00.001-08:00

Last June I wrote about the Dunbar Number and social networking.

This week Carl Bailak at the WSJ jumped onboard and did the same thing with his article entitled "Sorry, You May Have Gone Over Your Limit Of Network Friends"

Now all I need to do is figure out how to let them know where to send the royalty cheques....

Can anyone spare a rifle?

2007-11-12T13:55:00.001-08:00

I've been in Nashville for the past few days for work. I already am overwhelmed by the highways and miss the ocean breeze.

On the flip side I was given some good hunting tips today at lunch by a group of engineers.

I also have heard rumors of a Coyote Ugly bar in town.

It shall be an interesting week...

Remember, remember the fifth of November

2007-11-05T00:23:00.000-08:00

Great Movie, and today I have an excuse to watch it again.

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

I still have my mojo. I think...

2007-11-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

"I don't give out my number, but if you give me yours I'll be sure to call."

"How will I know?"

"I always call guys back that have an accent."

It had started innocently enough - what I thought was a couple on the plush chairs at Starbucks, relaxing and enjoying their drinks. Beside them were two empty plush chairs, facing the two they were sitting in. Not wanting to interrupt their conversation I made the international gesture for "are these seats taken". She gave me a look and quickly replied "Sorry, they both are." After a brief moment she broke into a smile and said "Just kidding, go ahead."

Getting lost in my thoughts I didn't pay attention to their talk. A while later he finished his coffee and headed off, while she started to pack her bag to go. As she got up she realized she needed to navigate around me to get out.

"Can you excuse me please?"

"No" I replied with a deadpan tone, dispensing payback without even thinking twice.

It took a second but she looked over and thinly smiled. "Ahhh, good one! Quick witted!" She stopped, tossing her hair to the side in a I-just-got-picked-up head flick. "Now that I have his number don't the guys give high-fives or something?" She continued on, adding some hand gestures. "You know, up high, down low, slide the fingers." Oh wait, I'm dating myself, I'm 34 so you probably don't know what the heck I'm talking about. Being only slightly younger than her I smiled silently to myself.

"Ok... got to go to the bathroom. Can you watch my stuff? I mean, you can leave, but if you don't that would be better. It's just my coat and scarf I have, but they are nice...”

I nodded and she headed off. After a few minutes she came back and plopped down on the plush seat.

“Thanks for watching my coat.” She looked me up and down – without looking me up and down – and continued on. “Aren't you a bike courier? You've got the biking jacket and shorts, with good legs and calves. I'm just assuming." Then she thought for a moment. "No...are you an Stock Broker? I mean, it’s 2 in the afternoon and you’re just hanging at Starbucks reading some business type book.”

"Was that what he was?” I replied, gesturing to the empty seat that the guy chatting in when I sat down. I did her them talking occupations, with the direction of gold-digging in her voice.

"Yeah, that’s what he said. But he was too old. Do you think I should call him? I should have told him I'm not dating.” She looked back at me again. “So what kind of job do you have that you can wear shorts to a meeting? Can I call you Biker Boy?”

“I’m a writer. You know, those people that hang out all day and watch other people so they have something to write about.”

"Oh, a writer? Oh my god, I'm so embarrassed.”

“That’s good because you just talked your way into something I will probably write about.”

She giggled “Hmmm, can you call me Isabella, no wait Paisley. If I see Paisley written somewhere I will know it was about me.”

Thankfully her swooning was interrupted by the ring of my phone with Sandritia coming up on my caller display. From four blocks away, she must have sensed the situation through her girl senses. “Sorry, I need to grab this” I noted, pulling out my phone.

“Hello?”

"OK LP, I'm ready for a night on the town. You ready to go?"

"Yep, I’ll be on my way now and meet you there in a few minutes.”
I closed my phone and bag in one swoop, standing and readying myself for departure. “Have a great day Paisley. I’m sure there will be a stock broker coming in sometime after the markets close.”

“See you Biker Boy!” I heard her call out as I stepped out onto the street.

As I left I realized I didn't give her the high five. Maybe it was for the best. When I get home I'll ask my wife and she what she says. I'm sure she will agree...

Logical Philosopher Becomes a Blogging Preschooler

2007-10-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

For the past few months Little LP has been taking drum lessons. Our goal was not to find him the noisiest instrument possible, but rather to channel his energy from banging on all the good furniture into drumming on a set of rubber drum practice pads.

Now, with a 4/4 beat down on the high-hat, kick-drum and snare, he has been progressing onto triplets and paradiddles to the beats of Tom Cochrane and Stevie Ray Vaughn. After seeing him play one of the 12 year olds having lessons exclaimed “Man, he’s going to be sooo cool when he gets to be in grade 6!” While he is far from banging out some Neil Pert solos, he can keep tempo with AC/DC’s For those about to Rock. Not bad for a 5 year old.

Another year of blogging has come up me - I am entering year 3 - the preschool years! While my posts have slowed down I have been working on more quality than quantity. Like Little LP, I’ve been working on the literary equivalent of triplets and paradidles, instead of just bashing the tom-toms all over the page and hoping some semblance of beat shows up in the form of well crafted prose.

In early January I started back to work, which shifted me towards writing more “Crazy Me” stories, instead of the historic “Crazy People” posts. To be honest I have missed being downtown watching the crazy homeless people and animated Starbucks yuppies providing me with stories. But I now revel in being at work where I can watch the crazy telemarketers from the building next door and animated Facebook Addicts updating their status between meetings. Blogging fodder – take it where I can get it.

You may be asking, what does this mean for the next year of blogging? I should be back to work full time, but plan to keep up with my posts, because I am hoping with all this writing practice I will become “soooo cool” when I get to the blogging equivalent of grade 6.

And when we all get there you’ll be able to say you knew me when I was still fumbling with the differences between a prepositional phrase and when to use an indefinite article.

Principal's Office

2007-10-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

Little LP was sent to the Principal's office today for punching another boy.

Not so surprising, except keeping in mind he is five and only in kindergarten. The other side of the story is that he swung back at the other boy, after he hit him first.

As a parent I am struggling between having my child hit someone elses child, and having my child not back down to the bully that hit him first.

pause

Now that I think about it, I'm proud of little LP for taking the swing back! All those days of watching Star Wars with him paid off. He's taking after Han Solo - the revised edition where Greedo shot first

I worked it out: Only 2500 days of school left between now and grade 12. That's a lot of days to shoot first.

50 cups of coffee

2007-10-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

“I need 3 large totes of your of coffee. To go.”

A look of panic crossed the barista’s face. She turned to her coworker and said “Start making coffee. Now.”

“Well sir, it will take ½ hour to brew that. We can’t use up all the store’s coffee in case people that come in want something as well.”

I looked down at my watch, mentally working out the commute time as compared to my meeting time. “Hmm. What can you do in 20 minutes?” I countered, seeing how far the Starbucks-Say-Yes policy would take me.

“We can do 2 totes for sure. I can do 3 but it will take another 10." I looked at my watch again, balancing off the need for being on time for my meeting, or being late but bringing coffee for everyone.

“Hmmm. Do two. It may be enough.” I added an extra bottle of San Pellegrino to my tab and sat down at the nearest table, settling in for my wait. With no laptop or work with me, I was forced to relax, just like the old days of 2005.

“Hey Coffee Guy!” one barista yelled over the counter at me. “How many people are there? I will have cups and lids ready to go for you as well.”

“50” I called back, realizing I was probably going to screw most of the people at the end of the line out of their drink, or at least make them wait longer. I felt like that big fat guy at the front of the buffet line that takes all the shrimp and doesn’t leave enough for the rest of the line. There were pangs of guilt, but they passed quickly. Very quickly.

She stopped and came around the counter waving her hands. “You can’t serve 50 people with two totes! You need four!”

I looked at her and shrugged my shoulders. Lack of planning on my part was not going to make it an emergency on my part because it was, after all, just coffee. Besides, she seemed to be taking care of being wound up for me. I sat there looking at her, wondering if when I came in and placed my order they all freaked out and had a shot of espresso before tackling the job.

22 minutes later the head barista came up to me. “Ok, here’s the scoop. It’s your lucky day as we’ve brewed a lot of extra coffee and everyone in the past 20 minutes only ordered bar drinks. So I have enough coffee for the four totes. That’s 50 people, easy. And do you need milk, cream, soy or ½ and ½? I can also give you decaf, dark roast or our light roast blend to choose from.”

“Well, I’ll take the three. I think that should be enough. And I’m not sure about the milk thing. Just give me what you think we need. For the coffee type, just surprise me.”

“Are you sure? Don’t you know what people want in their drinks, let alone what type of coffee they want?” Her voice was somewhat accusatory towards me, like somehow she was going to be blamed for me bringing coffee without the right mixes to make it like people want.

I decided at that point I should make my confession. “Look, here’s the deal. I don’t drink coffee. I have no idea how long it takes to brew coffee, or how many cups people drink in a morning. Nor do I know how much milk people need, or if they prefer cream. I just happened to be the guy from the team that was driving by Starbucks on his way to work and was asked to ‘pickup coffee for everyone’. I just made the assumption that when I needed coffee for 50 people, I could stop at a coffee shop and order some, and be on my way, even if I had to wait. And really, I don’t mind the wait and will just grab what I can before having to head out.” As her eyebrows rose at me I could almost hear her thinking How can you not drink coffee? I continued on “In fact, the only think I do know is that when I make coffee ice-cream for my wife at home, I need a free cup of coffee from Starbucks, and a cup is 12 ounces.”

A few minutes later she came out with my 3 full totes of coffee, and 4 venti cups full of cream, milk, ½ and ½ and soy. “I just gave you lots of everything. And just so you know, next time you can call ahead and we can have it ready.” With that I loaded up the car and headed making meeting on time with 2 minutes to spare.

Moral of the story: don’t send the non-coffee guy to pickup coffee for everyone. He may be late, will probably get the wrong type of coffee, and not bring the right mixers. The only reason I was saved was because of the barista, who must have felt the pain of my coworkers and ensured I had enough of everything.

Epilogue: I get to my meeting and put the coffee out for everyone. At the end of our presentation, everyone filed out of the room, having only drank the equivalent of one tote of coffee. That left two full ones there, standing beside 4 full venti cups of milk mixers. So now I know, people at my office drink it black, if they opt to drink at all. Lesson learned.

Thank goodness for romantic comedy

2007-10-12T20:50:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make.

I'm not proud of it, but she tricked me into it.

Honest. I thought it was a comedy. I was blindsided by Jack Black. And i'm sure she knew it.

In the last week I have watched not one, but two romantic comedy movies.

The Holiday where "Two women troubled with guy-problems (Diaz, Winslet) swap homes in each other's countries, where they each meet a local guy and fall in love."

Unhitched , where "A guy tries to help his best friend win the attention of the girl of his dreams."

Watching them gave me time to think about why it was I willingly sat through them. Tranlsted into academic-speak - it gave me time to develop a theorm for why I was sitting though the movies.

Spousal Movie Rental Theorem: A man's willingness to watch a movie his better half has brought home from the movie store is directly proportional to the amount of "Chick Flick" content, as measured against the length of the relationship.

It really comes down to the type of movie and how long you have been seeing the person that picked the movie for you. At the beginning of the relationship, it is anything goes! Not sure if you are there? A good check is consider if you would willingly sit though The English Patient. Over time the willingness drops, with fluctuations for events such as Marriage (going up), or having children (going down, because that's what started it after all!). Of course regardless of a relationship status certain types of movies will be a sure fire hit, namely any action movie. The comedy is usually a sure fire hit, with only small fluctuations dependant on the current state of the relationship.

In my case, both movies had more "comedy" than "romance" to outweigh and keep it below the relative threshold of "chick-ness" required for theatrical enjoyment. Having Seth Greene or Jack Black do their comedic routine of one liners and facial expressions was that "more comedy than romance" for me.

So there you have it. I was bamboozled. And I'm sure she knew it when she picked the movie. Now, armed with this knowledge, I can pass on some tips to all women who are about to venture to the movie store in hopes of finding a movie that will be measured a success when returning home:

1) Get all your chick flicks in during the early dating and marriage phase
2) Ensure there is enough comedic talent in the Romantic Comedy category of movies to spin them as a Comedy.
3) Ignore everything and say the immortal words "Why don't we snuggle and watch Star Wars together. I'll even wear my Golden Bikini."

This post has been recommended by 4 out of 5 dentists

2007-10-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

I spent part of my weekend with JT, who is our resident dentist in our group of friends. Apart from feeling self conscious about not flossing enough for the weekend, I learned something very value we can all draw from. Something we can all apply to about 80% of our lives.

Upon entering JT's bathroom I noticed not one, but two tubes of toothpaste sitting upright on his bathroom counter. One Crest and the other Colgate.

I peered around the corner and yelled out to my host. "Hey JT. I noticed you have two kinds of toothpaste. Which one do you use? I all of a sudden feel inferior with my tube of Aquafresh here."

"As long as it doesn't include diethylene glycol, you'll be fine. But for the record I use both. Or whatever I bring home from the office." I must have looked perplexed because he offhandedly finished his professional opinion with a "No preference really."

It was then I realized that about 95% of the statistics I hear in the form of advertising seem made up. Years of overexposure to corporate advertising turned into a statistical epiphany. "You mean to say, you're that 5th dentist we keep hearing about?"

"Yep!"

So now you know - when 4 out of 5 dentists recommend Colgate, that 5th dentist? Well, it's not that he doesn't recommend it, but rather he uses them all, or has no preference. Suddenly that 2nd doctor's opinion has greater statistical weight of being different.

Don't move that couch.

2007-09-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

I learned this weekend that having your brother in law over to drink your good Scotch and simultaneously help move things will cost less than having your wife help move things.

Because if things go wrong with your brother in law you're just out of Scotch.

If things go wrong with your wife then you're out of the bed and sleeping on the couch you just tried to move with her.

At least when she stopped helping move the couch it was abandoned beside the heater in the hallway.

The Short(s) Ambush (Part IV)

2007-09-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

"Nice Pants"

Overheard as I walked by reception during my last visit to Sandritia's office.

I like my shorts. It's not that I like showing my cycling calves off, it's just that I like the cool breeze blowing gently across my thighs. Full disclosure: my roots are Scottish, so you derive what you want about me wearing a kilt in a gentle breeze. And to answer the question that you are most likely thinking of now - yes, I have worn a kilt before. And yes, I was wearing the appropriate attire beneath it, from the Scottish perspective. My mother was mortified, for that I am sure, but that is another long pandora's box of a story not to open today. Suffice to say a warm summer breeze is quite a different feeling than a cold air conditioner breeze.

During my last run-in with HOG, chronicled previously in part I, part II and part III, I felt as I had finally pulled enough stealth Mission Impossible stunts to know how to gain undetected entry into Sandritia's building. Undetected, as measured by my ability to breeze by reception without getting chased down the hall when I didn't stop for an ID check.

Today was the day to put "no-ID and run" plan into action. Or so I had hoped.

The timing: I arrived at the offices, running late due to a delay in my flight. Not even in the building, the weather had thrown my plans behind. Coming in late was a sure way to be noticed.

Bad weather and a late flight = Strike One.

The attire: I was planning on staying in Vancouver for a few days so opted to pack light. In fashion language this translated into me wearing my casual attire so I would not be required to lug my dress clothes around town for an extra 3 days. In my world, the definition of "casual dress" equates to wearing shorts, regardless of the weather.

Wearing shorts as to not blend in with the rest of the staff = Strike Two.

The locale: Unlike previous visits, I was not aware of the actual meeting location and thus came to the sudden realization that I was going to have to to ask HOG where I was going this morning. This realization happened in the elevator. Specifically as the elevator doors were opening on my destination floor.

Having this realization happen during the end of my elevator ride and having no time to improvise = Strike Three.

If was going to pull my entry off, I had to hope that the umpire didn't notice one of the strikes, but rather I could get away with a tipped ball.

The elevator pinged, and I exited, pivoting left and heading towards reception. Tipped ball. Tipped ball. Tipped ball. I kept repeating over and over in my head. Before I was even at the desk she looked at me and said with the universal commanding Head Office Gatekeeper tone "You're late Mr. Philosopher. Your meeting has already started."

I stood there and all I could hear was an umpire yelling "Strike Three! You're outta here!"

She pointed to her left. "Down the hall and into the conference room at the end. You are welcome to hang your coat up."

I was so shocked by HOG blitzing the field on me, I didn't even have a response. Thankful for the long meeting coming, I used the time to compose myself.On my way out of the meeting I asked HOG, "Did you get a heads up that I was coming?" I was hoping that if she had some advance warning of my arrival, I could at least feel better about being ambushed.

"Yep, about 30 minutes before you arrived."

Later that afternoon I rendezvoused Sandritia. "Hey LP, I heard from HOG you were already here! And wearing shorts too!"

"Heard from who? I thought you tipped her off about me coming?"

"No, not me. I also heard someone lost a bet that you wouldn't be wearing shorts."

"What? You mean to tell me that someone other than you let HOG know I was coming? And on top of that they independently had a bet on my shorts vs. pants attire?"

Sandritia started to protest and set her position relative to my ambush. "It wasn't me! Honest! They did it on their own! And for the record, I don't know who the 'they' is!"

This was a significant step for me. Now my reputation is starting to spread - without the aid of Sandritia. I am unsure if this is a step back or forwards. HOG's response to my arrival for my next meeting will be the indicator of direction.

Here's hoping I'm moving forward. Whatever direction I am going, at least I can rest easy that while I am standing there, I can still feel a cool, gentle breeze.

Who sold my beer?

2007-09-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

As soon as he saw them on the shelf, the whining started. We were there for a roll of film and had so far managed to avoid the toy aisle, but like any five year old, he zeroed in on something else he “just had to have”.

“Come on dad, everyone has one. Even Grandpa, and he lets me use his!”

I tried to reason with him, wondering if I was yet again wasting my time. “Yes, but Grandpa has a boat and needs them so he can read markers on the ocean and doesn’t hit rocks. You are five. Five without a sail boat I should add. You’ll use them to spy on the neighbors.”

A moment passed and it became evident I was right. I had wasted my time. He peeled open the Velcro on his Mr. Incredibles wallet, spilling loose change onto the counter. “Look dad, I have lots of monies. At least 20. I can buy them!”

I looked at the pennies, nickels and quarters spread onto the counter and realized he was about $18 short of his goal to buy the binoculars. Sigh. This was going to be one of those times where I wasn’t going to get out of the store without some sort of scene. Seeing my face of desperation, the sales associate who has been watching the exchange came over to help out. “Hey buddy. Why don’t I count up your money and see if you have enough?”

After a few moments of counting he broke the news. “I think you are short a little money, but I am sure you can earn it. Maybe you’ll have to do some chores at home to earn some more quarters to get the binoculars.”

With a sigh and a shoulder shrug only a disappointed five year old can do, he slowly started to put his change back into his wallet.
Wanting to help some more, the sales associate offered some additional unsolicited advice to little LP. “You know, one thing you could do is take back some bottles. I am sure your mom and dad have some pop bottles that you could get five cents for. That is what I used to do!”

Little LP stopped, and slowly looked up, the wheels starting to realize that he could make his fortune after all. “Yeah…” he quietly exclaimed, looking back and forth between us. “I can take back bottles. Like dad’s beer bottles!”

He gave him an encouraging nod. “That’s right! Now you get it!”

The wheel turning picked up the pace to a rapid RPM of movement. “You know what I’ll do?!” he exclaimed. He was so excited about his idea he started to wave his hands around like he was doing a sales pitch. “I’ll take dad’s full beer bottles and sell them! That way I will get money faster and I can come back sooner to get the binoculars!”

Wow. Only five and he’s already scalping my liquor to pay for toys. A true entrepreneur… I just wish he would do it with some else’s liquor cabinet.

I thought I paid for that...

2007-09-12T23:33:00.000-07:00

He was new. Or at least new to me. It made no difference, I still chatted, although came out of the store bereft of my usual slurpee but clutching a receipt for a car wash in its place. I jumped in my car, started the motor and slowly pulled away, with the plan of circling around the lot and then heading over to the wash entrance.

I had not gone a car length when out of the corner of my eye I spotted the New Guy, sprinting towards my car and waving his arms like I was on fire. I’m a helpful guy, I thought. I should stop and see what he needs my assistance with. I rolled down my window to see if I could help, but was on the receiving end of an unexpected accusation.

“Hey! You didn’t pay for your gas.”

I stopped and slowly put the car back into park. “What?” I asked, confused as to what was going on. I had just been accused of theft by the New Guy who had just rung my purchase through.

He paused and took a deep breath. I guess the 10 yard sprint to my car was more of a battle than he expected. “Your fill-up. You didn’t pay.”

I looked at him with some bewilderment. “But I was just inside, I gave you my credit card. You handed it back and I signed it. Isn’t that the point of the transaction? For me to go in to see you, and you to take my money? Didn’t I pay for something?”

“I only charged you for the car wash.”

I looked down at my gas receipt and sure enough, I had been charged for just a car wash. Not only that, he had overcharged me for the car wash! I opted for the strategy of confusion by changing the subject from this whole "you stole some gas" thing. “Hey, you overcharged me for the wash. How come I paid $2.00 extra?”

He simply replied “Because you didn’t buy gas."

At this point all I could envision was Napolean Dynamite closing his eyes, tipping his head back and saying “unnnnnh. Idiot!”

After filling up at the same gas station for the past 5 years, I had become such a regular customer I was even comped a few slurpees now and again. But this New Guy was, well, new, so I figured I would see what I could get away with so I could tell the regulars next week. But my wife was with me so there was no way I could get away with anything.

This is what I wanted to say:

“What, did you think I just parked in front of the gas nozzle so I could go inside and buy a car wash?” As he would be opening his mouth to reply, I would cut him off and continue on. “So let me get this straight. I drive in, fill up and then head into the gas station to pay. I say ‘I would like a car wash with that’ and then you just assume I will request a second transaction to purchasing the gas? I went in and paid. You didn’t charge me for it. I’m not sensing this is my problem… except that you owe me two dollars for the overcharged car wash.”

Instead, this is what I actually said, keeping my inside voice inside of me this time:

"How about this - I'll swing back in after I go through the wash."

He nodded. "Great, much appreciated." then he headed back into the store.

But I couldn't resist and did let one thing slip out. As he walked back into the gas station I yelled after him. "And I want my two dollars!" Johnny the paperboy would have been proud. I'm sure in a way my wife was too...

Another angel has gone home

2007-09-07T00:26:00.000-07:00

I looked at the caller display and instantly knew what it was about. It was a call that deep down I didn’t think I would get, but always expected it would come. Just not today. Just not at this moment.

I wanted to let it ring, ignoring the call, but couldn’t. I flipped open my phone and turned away from the guests we were entertaining. “Hello.” I tentatively answered.

I heard a deep sigh as his initial response. “Hello,” he said, with a distant and detracted voice. “You don’t need to come back to the hospital tonight… if you get my drift.”

There was silence on both ends of the phone. After a moment I broke the silence. “When?”

“About half an hour ago.”

Another moment of silence came and went. “Thanks. I’ll call you later.” I closed my phone and looked up, almost as if I could see a new Angel looking down on us.

It is a difficult thing to watch those you love struggle with simple things we all take for granted. But it is inspiring to think that my worst day for a run or a bike ride, would be the best day of freedom for others.

My sister in law truly lived life to the fullest while refusing to allow her CF to limit passion, enthusiasm and joy for life. The reality is she was sick, and we all knew it. The hope was we would see a miracle. Now I know how John Wimber’s church felt.

For various reasons I have always avoided the talk of my Faith on this particular blog. However the occasion suggests for me to break with tradition for one time and leave you with 1st Peter 5:10, a verse which my sister in law had posted above her desk in her house:

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

For those who do not resonate with the above text, I leave you with Sia’s “Breath Me” song instead…

I’m going for a run… until then, see you next week…

What's the Hurry?

2007-08-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to A year of Living Edwardly.

I sat by the water. Stillness, with the occasional warm breeze blowing in to bring relief from the hot and muggy temperatures. A teasing of a summer shower, slow drop by slow drop. Then, the sun peaking in and out, clear sky moving slowly in from the horizon. Through it all, stillness prevailed. One hour. Two. Then three.

Those from the big city would remark on how still my own town is. “Where’s the traffic? Wheres’ the people? I can only see two Starbucks’s on one street – where are all the other coffee stores? And you have no Ikea!”

Yet I have come accustom to what I now see at bustle. But now, removed from a larger island to a smaller one – population 1000 – the pace has been downshifted another notch.

Don’t you find it odd that the older we get, the more experience we get, the more wisdom we get, the harder it is to put into practice what we already know what we should be doing?

Last April I wrote a 3 part series about the Speed of Slow. Perhaps this will becoming an unofficial part 4. While we all take cruise or Mexico resort vacations –then realizing we need to do it more, I am talking about something different. For those, even in their wisdom, that are unable to break from the pace of their work environment – an action plan is needed.

For the past few years my wife and I have been looking for a recreational property – on a slow paced gulf island. Close enough for a weekend getaway, but few amenities like phone or Internet which would only distract us from taking an actual break. Having it far enough away so “friends” can just “drop in for the afternoon” is also a hidden agenda of our location.

So, based on that, here’s my action plan: The Speed of Slow, Gulf Island Style.

Wanted

Minimum ½ acre island property

ferry boat accessible

walking distance (with 2 kids) to a public, sandy beach

Sandstone bluffs to walk on a plus

So far all eyes point to Hornby Island, but an exploratory visit to Maine and Galiano may be in the works.

If you know of anything of interest, let me know. You all have a vested interest because moving to a lifestyle of slow weekends may well increase my writing quality and quantity. Leaving town for 48 hours last time gave me time for 1 long run to the middle of nowhere and a hike to see the spectacular view of the Trincomali Channel, which solidified the need for this post.

I look forward to your suggestions, as much as I am sure you look forward to the stories the slow travels will bring.

Culture et Fasion

2007-08-21T22:38:00.000-07:00

I spent the last week exploring the city of Montreal, learning about Culture, Fashion and how to speak French Canadian. I came to the realization that my grade 11 french didn’t get me far in a conversation, but it did allow me to pickup a few words to understand the direction of the conversation.

Here’s my top 12 cultural notes I learned about Montreal:

1) On Kids: Future of the West is the East. Even the kids at McDonalds were fluently switching back between French and English. If this were the west, they would all probably have high ranking Government positions, right out of high school.

2) On Language: Everyone wears t-shirts with English phrases. I guess the Quebec Language Police haven’t gotten to the t-shirt factories yet. I also found that influence of English on slang is much higher than I thought. For example, I would hear the hip-hop crowd talking to each other: “French French French French what up dawg French French French?”

3) On Bikers: They are certifiably crazy – and not in a good way. Weaving in and out of Montreal traffic on a beach cruiser, I did not see a single person wearing a helmet for protection. Oh wait, most were wearing only flip-flops for protection, so I guess that is something after all. At least the soles of their feet will be protected when they are dragged along the pavement by the crazy drivers.

4) On Drivers: I never thought jumping into a cab and saying “follow that cab” could be so dangerous. He did, but almost killed us by running a few red lights and cutting off a car at least every block. I think the driver was jealous that Nascar was in town and he wasn’t driving himself.

5) On Fashion: the fashion in the east easily eclipses the west. Leaving nothing to the imagination seemed to be the status quo. It made me wonder what the town will be like once the university students join in the foray.

6) On Women: Francophone women are much hotter than Anglophones… maybe it has to do with the fashion?

7) On Weather: A 35 degree heat, compounded with a 65% humidity index, makes it incredibly hot. This means under any circumstance your clothes will cling tightly to your sweaty, glistening, body while outside walking for even a block. In itself that is not noteworthy, but take it into account this happens at the same time as the above 2 points.

8) On Clubbing: Getting into nightclubs is harder than it looks when, at an age of 30, you refuse to tip the bouncer just on principle. However, that is not required if you meet up with some beautiful women dressed in the appropriate Montreal attire that, once they wink their way by the bouncer with “I don’t speak French, so don’t know which line to be in”, adding at the last minute “and those 2 gentlemen are with us” as they are lead past the line directly into the club. Without them, Eduardo and I would still be waiting outside…

9) On Smoked Meat: It is true – once you have some real Schwartz Smoked Meat, you’ll never go back.

10) On Pretending to Speak French: If you say Bonjour or Hello (with a French accent) to the waitress, she will talk to you in French and hand you a French menu. This is not necessarily a good thing when you don’t actually speak French. It makes ordering much more difficult…

11) On Translations: When the guide at the Science Centre gave a 2 to 3 minute introduction to the exhibit we were entering, I didn’t understand anything. When he asked if anyone only spoke English, and I raised my hand, he looked at me and said “No food. No drink. And no picture taking. Any questions?” It seemed like he said a lot more in French. What's up with that?

12) On Signage: Finally, for once, the sign for the Le Chateau clothing store didn’t look out of place when I walked by it.

When we travel there are two types of cultures: language and local customs. Being in a location where only one was an issue for me, it gave me a better understanding of what it is like when travelling to a foreign country where both of those are new. For this trip, I was happy I only had one, the language, to worry about.

While everyone I met did speak English, I did attempt to speak French as much as I could, or at least catch the meaning of the phrases and reply accordingly. What helped was my understanding of the cultural environment of North America. By picking up a few key words in the question or sentence, and pairing it with the social transaction – such as purchasing a drink – I could guess enough to answer yes or no. Although I must admit it really threw me off when one cashier asked something totally different, like “do you have air conditioning in your hotel?”, as she packed my bag. And replying with “No, the receipt in the bag is fine” will bring an awkward moment for all involved.

Moldy Kids

2007-08-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

“I don’t think you’re going to be happy… again. I think we have mold growing in the house.”

“Ahhh….” I said, as I closed my eyes and sunk back into the couch. “I swear this house will be the end of me. 80 years old and always something to fix, rip out or totally gut and rebuild from scratch.”

“Look at it,” she said, pointing towards the bathroom, “it’s these weird black flecks that keep sprouting up on the wall, even as high up as on the ceiling!” Some days, I thought, all I want to do is live in a van down by the river. No maintenance, or responsibilities, required. As she pulled me up from the couch and into the bathroom I could see what she was talking about. Over the last month mysterious black specks - like small flat pieces of seaweed, were randomly covering one wall and parts of the ceiling. One day I would scrub them off, only to have them reappear a few days later.

A few weeks later – after multiple more random black mold episodes – I heard giggling and the sound of squirting water from the bathroom. Little LP was having a bath, so when I peaked in I was rewarded with a stream of water being shot towards me. Not quite quick enough I felt a wet streak go across my shorts. Then, as I looked down at my now dripping shorts, I saw some pea size flecks of the mysterious black mold – now stuck to my clothing. Huh? I thought. How did I get this on me? I looked up and on the wall, were wet dripping streaks of water, with fresh black flecks throughout!

“Hey dad” he giggled, “check out my new bath game. If I fill up my squeeze bath toy I can shoot these black bits of dirt out!” As I stood there in disbelief he continued on “And you know what? I can even hit the ceiling sometimes!”

You guessed it – Little LP was my random mold growth generator. By putting dirt in his bath toys he figured out how to mark his shots of accuracy, or inaccuracy in this case. Then, with mom and dad erasing his work of water art every evening, he was given a fresh canvas to work on during his next bath.

I suspect when you think about it kids really are like mold – you leave them unattended for any period of time in a wet environment and they manage to leave their mark. Leave them long enough and they become a hazard to your health, via the stress of house repairs.

Old Flames

2007-07-30T22:46:00.000-07:00

"Wasn't that TG? She was hot... and LP, you dated her!" JT exclaimed, motioning to me. While I normally would enjoy reminiscing about old flames to the guy - this was not the time to do it. Why? Unfortunately JT started this conversation while I was sitting beside my wife.

I am sure you all know what is coming next.

Logical Philosopher-ette looked at me, eyes opening up wide, and stated "TG, Who's that?!" I briefly had the 'deer caught in the headlights' look, but recovered from JT's fumble.

"Just a girl I dated in high school" I said, already on the defensive. Thanks JT, I thought, as I shot a look across the table at him.

"And JT - you knew her? I though she was the girl you dated when you lived up north?" Oh boy, I thought, they are bringing them all up now - and for what reason, apart from their enjoyment of watching me squirm?!

"Oh yeah," Sandritia helpfully chimed in. "Wasn't that the girl you cheated on with Logical Philosopher-ette when you were first dating?"

Hold up I thought. What exactly did I do to deserve this? Was the lull in the conversation a queue to dive into my past love life? I was being double teamed on my relationships of my youth, 10+ years after the fact. And, more to the point, why was it being done in front of my wife!?

As they looked to me for a reply - with my wife looking with eyebrows raised quite high - I realized this was a lose-lose situation, no matter my reply. So, like any oblivious male I opted to try to explain myself and opened my mouth.

"Well..." I cautiously started, "technically I was dating this, ahem, 'northern girl' first, and cheated on her with who is now my now lovely wife." After a long, and awkward pause, I foolishly continued to speak. "And since I married her, don't you think the whole cheating thing worked out for the good?"

After another, yet longer awkward pause, my wife slowly shook her head, noting to the group "I think he should have quit when you were ahead".

All I could think of was at exactly what point was I ever ahead in this conversation! Talk about a lose-lose scenario.

Got Religion? Part 4 of 4

2007-07-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

"So, after all that complaining, how was your weekend away?"

"It was ok" I replied after a moment's pause. With more indifference than interest in my tone, I continued on. "It was what it was."

Not satisfied, she pressed on, hoping for me to reveal some deep dark secrets of what happens on a weekend retreat. "Did you discuss your inner trauma eggs? Get into the midnight male bonding things over pizza and beer? At least talk Plato or Thoreau?"

"Not sure. They may have, but I went on a hike and a long run, then sat by the water writing out LP posts for the rest of the time."

"Arrgg!" she cried, throwing her head back in exasperation. "You must have liked something!"

"Well, yes. I liked that I learned things. Specifically about getting old."

She leaned forward, sensing that I was about to let her in on something big. I started to think, formulating the list in my head. I had learned many things, sharing a cabin with 7 other guys that were 25 years older than me. These included:

1) They go to bed early. Really early.

2) They get up really, really early. Like 5am early. What's up with that?

3) They make their beds, complete with hospital corners. I guess I still have 25 years to get into that routine, much to my wife's disappointement.

4) Even rough and tough motorbikers have timble collections. "Well, they fit in my saddlebag when I am on a trip!" was his defense.

I thought for a moment, and summed up my experience. "I liked that I learned that I never want to get old, mostly because I'll be forced to get up earlier and make my bed with hospital corners..."