Church Memories

Some of my earliest memories of church are from when we lived in Mississauga, Ontario. We were able to walk to this HUGE church – although when I think about it, everything was huge when I was four years old. I always remember trying to have the same stride as my dad as we walked. I was always looking down at his shiny dress shoes and I tried so hard to match him step for step.

Old and Young Travelers

At one of my yearly physical exams, my doctor and I were discussing everything and anything under the sun when he says out of nowhere “You know, once you hit 45 years old, everything starts to go downhill”. Where that came from, I don’t know – we were talking about hiking trails in National Parks. I might have mentioned that my knees were hurting a bit and it was harder to see the fine print on things like stop signs and the like. Still, saying something like that during a physical exam can be disconcerting. 

Seven Miles Downhill

My buddy Murray, called me up one day, to see if I wanted to go cross country skiing. He had found a trail that would take most of a day to ski but had a great thing going for it – after a short climb of a few hundred meters, it was a long, shallow downhill run. Seven miles downhill, he swore.

I really should have known better.

Older Brothers

So I’m driving my Number One son somewhere out of town and ask him “What’s with you and your younger brother today?”

“Well. I think he’s repulsive and I hate him” he said calmly.

Not one to have knee-jerk reactions, I promptly pulled over and said, “Okay, we’re going home”.

Then I thought it might be better to continue on and try to get to the bottom of this, to delve into the mind of a teenager. After all, I was a kid once, and many of my peers believe I still have that mentality.

Showers

I made it. I finally made it. The plan this morning was to go for a walk first thing with my darling wife and our goofball of a dog. We could be up and out for a brisk thirty minute walk and be back in time to see the kids appear sleepily from rooms, look at the clock and then do the mad morning dash to get ready for school. That never gets old. Then it would be a quick shower and right downstairs to write a column or two.

Percussive Maintenance

Everyone knows that I have older, more mature vehicles. I’d like to say that I prefer older vehicles because they’re easier to fix. The fact that there are more of them on the road certainly doesn’t hurt. More spare parts, for one. You don’t have to worry where you park it, either. A great thing about older cars and vans is that for many minor repairs, there is a maintenance procedure that everyone, I mean everyone, can use. I’ve heard many names for this procedure while it’s being performed (most of them not fit to print) and the one I prefer is ‘percussive maintenance’.

Flying Fish in the Rockies

Flying fish in the Rocky Mountains. Not something you see everyday.

My buddy, Murray, and I had made plans to hike into the Kananaskis backcountry and camp by a small alpine lake. The idea was to relax for three days, away from university life, take in nature and fish a little.

The reason we picked this lake was because Mur had never fished before and we needed any and all the help we could get. The lake was used as a breeding pond for trout and it hadn't been open for fishing for a couple of years. I was hoping the fish were really hungry.

Tourist Questions

I just have to pass on some of the tourist questions that I and others have had to field over the years. I had the pleasure of working and living in the Kananaskis region, both in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park and in the Canmore/Banff area. Believe me when I say that I love tourists unequivocally. They force me to answer questions diplomatically and imaginatively. Excellent skills to develop.

Here we go...

Indispensability

We’d all like to be indispensable at one time or another. Sometimes you plan to be that way and other times it’s accidental. This is about the latter.

I started work at Nakiska Ski Hill in 1987, in preparation for the 1988 Olympics. In case you think I’m dating myself, remember I started working when I was eight years old. Or was it six?

Just had to put this in...

"We've always been here and we'll always be here. We are a specific arrangement of particles and this instant is infinite. Did we luck out, or didn't we? The odds against this sentence having ever being typed, much less the odds against you reading it were inconceivable. Smile, because the fact that you're able to is almost impossible to comprehend."

Jeffrey Rowland

Hamburgers and Eagles

A few years ago, my wife and I learned how to sail together. We also have wall-papered a kitchen and painted a living room together and we’re still married. Amazing, isn’t it?

After we received our sailing certification, we promptly chartered a sailboat for a week in the summer and invited a couple of friends to come with us. Now, stocking up a sailboat that has an ice box instead of a fridge can be tricky. Since this was our first time bare boating, we made a few errors.

Men and mornings

I’ll admit to everyone that I am not a morning person, not anymore. I was once, ask anyone. I could get up at any hour after midnight and be ready to go forth and do what needed to be done. I may not have been happy about it, but it could be done.

When my darling wife first met me, she was astonished by this talent. Once she called my name, barely above a whisper from the bedroom door and I was instantly awake and conversing with her. In English, no less, with all the words in the right order.

Low Flying Station Wagons

My sleep deprivation started just before the twins were born - literally two days before. We were living in Dawson City, Yukon, and my wife and I were eight months pregnant. All fathers know, if their wife is pregnant, then both of them are pregnant. So for all you new dads-to-be, get used to it.

Hitchhiking Saga

One winter day, I had to go from Canmore to Calgary in my trusty 1970 Toyota named Tat. The weather was the usual for that time of year in the Rockies – rain, snow and slush mixed and only a few metres of visibility. Nothing unusual.

On the way out of town, I saw a poor soul hitchhiking towards Calgary. The car obviously thought we should pick him up, as it spat, coughed, stalled and rolled to a stop a little ahead of the guy. Knowing what happened, I got out of the car just as the hitchhiker ran up, looking very thankful. I was happy to see him as well, because I needed someone to work the throttle as I cleaned out all the snow and slush out my air cleaner and carburetor.

Full Contact Baking

Today was not a particularly great day for me in the kitchen. We were out for the morning and as we got home around lunch, I realized I needed to bake. Bake something, anything, just to move and create. Time for cookies, Nanaimo bars and jello!

Just so you know, I am considered the baker of the family. I make all types of cookies, Nanaimo bars, quick squares that are like s’mores and cheesecakes of all sorts. For those that know me, no comments or you’ll never see another cookie from this house. But enough of the digressing, it’s time for digesting!

Weird Family...sayings

Okay everyone, I’m going to say this right up front. My wife is a fantastic person – smart, beautiful and close to being a saint. That last part is because she actually married me and has put up with me for this long. She still says that alcohol had nothing to do with it…

I love her dearly and what I am about to tell you should in no way, at all, whatsoever  be considered a criticism. Never in a million years. Been married long enough to know better. That being said, I’ll let you know now, my darling wife has some very weird sayings in her family.

I’m talking about sayings along the lines of “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” (or in my case, “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it”). Another is “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”. Both sayings are well understood, even by folks who have never heard of them before. Easy to pick up, easy to remember.

Ahhh, cars...

A while ago, I talked about having new drivers in the house. It brought to mind all the memories I have of the vehicles I’ve owned over the years.  Everyone has that special one or two and they are a source of pride, amusement, gossip, envy, pain and heartbreak. For me, mine have been all of these things, sometimes at the same time.

The first car that I really have fond feelings for was a 1970 Toyota station wagon. Yeah, I didn’t know they made station wagons either.

Cool ideas - worthy of a story

Time travel experiment demonstrates how to avoid the grandfather paradox (Update)


(PhysOrg.com) -- Among the many intriguing concepts in Einstein’s relativity theories is the idea of closed timelike curves (CTCs), which are paths in spacetime that return to their starting points. As such, CTCs offer the possibility of traveling back in time. But, as many science fiction films have addressed, time travel is full of potential paradoxes. Perhaps the most notable of these is the grandfather paradox, in which a time traveler goes back in time and kills her grandfather, preventing her own birth.


I'm thinking this could be such a good thing for some of us. Think of the possibilities for getting out of trouble. Forget the anniversary? Zip back a few days, put a reminder into the smartphone to pick up flowers and voila! Saved! How about that term paper that you forgot in University? The one that would have saved your final mark? Head on back to a month before the due date and leave a copy on your old desk for submission. You might as well leave a note to yourself reminding you not to drink the whole bottle of rum the next night, to avoid those awkward moments at the Police Station...


Then again, you might not be as interesting as you are now without those past experiences. And let me tell you, you ARE an interesting sort...

February Blues

It’s wonderful to see more sunlight these days. Even though February is the shortest calendar month of the year, it seems to take the longest to go by. I don’t know why that is, but I’ll take a stab at trying to figure it out.

I’ve heard a lot of people saying February is tough because there’s no real holiday to look forward to. Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s have gone by and there’s nothing until Easter, which this year starts late April. That’s why the Alberta Government made up our very own February break, calling it Family Day. I applaud this day, simply because I’m a big fan of days off.

Be that as it may, when you factor in the arrival of the Christmas credit card bills, lack of sunlight, and the beginning of tax season, it sure looks like February is out to get us all. Maybe that’s why they only made it 28 days long...

I think it’s also because the storms in February always seem to have more of a bite to them. The rosy glow we had in November and December has given way to the redness of frostbite. Having to put on everything you own to keep warm outside has lost its thrill. It seems to take longer to defrost your windshield in the morning, especially after the freezing rain from the night before.

The only thing that seems to run counter to the slow pace of this month is when I have a deadline to meet. That’s usually when I would like another few days added on to every month of the year, come to think of it.

Ah, well. February is only 28 days long and now we’re just at the halfway point. It must be why the ancestors made Valentine’s Day a February celebration. The chance of a quick kiss and the presence of large amounts of chocolate can make most people happy. Lots and lots of chocolate. Maybe a few extra kisses as well.

You know, February isn’t so bad after all.

So much for keeping up...

Okay, who made the time go by so quickly already? We got the tree down and back into the garage just after New Year's, vacuumed the carpet and today I look at the calendar and apparently, it's now January 16th.
I thought there was a rule that time only sped up on your weekends and/or holidays, or the two weeks prior to school starting. That's the way I remember it, anyway.


I'm looking at my desk and see that work has been done, so I know time has passed somewhat productively. I think.