The Road Warrior

I often have to take a step back and shake my head at the twists and turns life throws at us. After some four years and change of agonizing over how on earth we were ever going to afford to buy a house, suddenly the new year dropped the possibility of doing so almost immediately right in our laps. The catch? (because there’s always a catch) It’s going to be in another city.

Just like that, out of nowhere, I’ve been promoted. While I’d love to tell you that it’s because I’m a highly intelligent and motivated individual and that this promotion is the result of my employer realizing that I’m simply too good not to promote, the reality is that I have worked many long and tedious hours to get to this point, and suddenly it is being recognized. The job itself came as a bit of a surprise. I saw the opening in early December and was offered an interview shortly after I applied, but due to the holiday season I didn’t actually get the said interview until last Wednesday. The shocker was that I was offered the position on Thursday- less than 24 hours later. The upsides are many: great opportunity, better money, huge visibility. It is not at all a stretch to say that this particular job is one that, if done well, could become a catapult for my career. The downside is the travel. The job is 90-100% travel. I get on a plane Sunday night and go to work in some remote location, then fly home on Friday to spend the weekend with my family. I am not exactly a stranger to travel; in fact in my previous job I used to do it regularly. The difference is that I was single then, and now I have four other people to worry about. Enter the move.

My wife and I discussed this at length before I agreed to accept the position, and I am grateful to havea spouse who is so encouraging and supportive. We decided that since I am going to gone most of the time, it doesn’t really make sense for us to continue living in Calgary. As much as we like it here, the spiralling cost of living in this city has effectively priced it out of our reach. The next best thing to being here is being in Lethbridge, so we have decided to relocate there. It really makes nothing but sense for us. The cost of living there is much lower, my wife will not have to work and will be able to stay home with the kids full-time, we have many friends there, and both my wife’s parents and my own parents live there. Paramount to the whole deal, we will actually be able to purchase our home.

I cannot honestly say that I am without reservations. The travel, although not as daunting to me as one might imagine, represents a challenge. I will miss my wife and kids a lot, and am not excited about spending so much time away from them. I cringe at the thought of the school concerts and birthday parties that I will not be present for, as well as the tiny evolutions in the lives of my children that I will more than likely miss. It will become extremely important to ensure that the time I do have available is spent in ways that will allow me to maintain and build relationships with my wife and children, because there will be precious little of it. I can already see how the travel will be very tiring. On the other hand, in some ways I am looking forward to it. Sitting in a hotel room alone every night won’t be terribly entertaining, but it will allow me to do things like finish the magazine articles I’ve been working on for the last three years, or maybe start playing my guitar again.

As far as the family goes, there will be ways to minimize my absence. Cellphones and the internet have made the world a much smaller place, and technology such as webcams and laptops will allow me to communicate nightly with my family. I am lucky enough that the company has agreed to fly me home every weekend to the city of my choice, so I will never have to go more than five days without seeing my family even though I may be working in the opposite corner of the continent for the rest of the week. With the hotel rewards points and air miles I’ll be racking up flying back and forth, I should have enough by the end of the year to take my family on a pretty decent holiday. Maybe my wife and I will finally be able to take that holiday to France we have been dreaming about for the past six years.

Honestly, I’m not really sure what to expect. Obviously there will be pros and cons to the situation, but from our perspective right now the positives seem to far outweight the negatives. Besides, we figure, we knew that at some point I would likely have to either relocate or travel extensively. Better to do it now while the children are relatively young than wait until they are older and have things like hockey games, music lessons, and scout camps in play. Hopefully by the time that happens, the travel phase will have played itself out and I will be able to transition to a position with a more stable schedule. Maybe it will be back here in Calgary; maybe someone out in the field, but wherever it is, it will be home and I will be able to enjoy it with my family. This could well prove to be one of those “short term pain for long term gain” opportunities. Whatever happens, it will be an adventure.

Happy frickin New Year

So here it is, the dawn of a brave new cycle. 365 untarnished days, 365 blank pages on which to scribe a story of decision, triumph, and disappointment. Another chapter in so many lives already reading too long, or a glorious beginning to those yet to open the cover of the volume that will document their existence here. 2007, here we come.

Really, I suppose this should have bee written ten days ago, but in keeping with the hectic nature of my life over the past few months, I’m just getting to it now. So much for that resolution about putting things off.

New Years used to be a bittersweet time of year for me. Sure, it was exciting heading off in to the great wide unknown, but there were always memories of people, places, and events that I was loath to resign to the often-musty rooms of the past. What was so great about a new year anyway? Why was I celebrating something that more than likely would play itself out with the same vigor and emotion as the one preceding it; whether the results be positive or negative? For all I knew at the time, I may well have been celebrating a death of a loved one or some other life event that I could not possibly have forecast at that particular juncture. Yes, New Years had always felt awkward to me. Not good, not bad, just unsure. Here was everyone around me celebrating and having a great time, and for some reason I never could decide exactly how I should be feeling about all of it.

About six years ago I just stopped worrying about it. Stopped caring, really. It was New Years Eve, 1999. I had friends up from Lethbridge and we were all set and determined to party like it was our last night on earth. For all we knew, it could have been; the threat of the Y2K bug loomed large and we half expected, half hoped that the stroke of midnight would bring with it something truly catastrophic. We went out. We ate, we laughed, we sang along with Silverchair’s “Anthem for the year 2000″ at the top of our lungs. Expectations for the evening were high. Then, unimaginably, nothing happened. The dance yeilded no new prospects, there was no New Years kiss, and midnight came and went unceremoniously; like a theif in the dark. While we had been waiting anxiously on the proverbial front lawn to celebrate its arrival, the new millenium had snuck in through the back door, made itself some mac & cheese, and settled in to watch a hockey game. It was as though we had come back inside, tired of waiting, only to discover that the guest of honour was already there. The car was much quieter on the way back to my condo, where we discovered with some disappointment that the computer still worked just fine, the phone was still in service, and the TV still dazzled us with its cable-fed glory. The digital clock on the microwave hadn’t even reset itself. The arrival of the year 2000 had been the most epic of letdowns.

We went to a party around 3 am, where we encountered much of the same. The girls were the same as they had been three hours earlier, the music the same; the mood the same. It could have been Halloween, or any other generic calendar holiday excuse to throw a party. It felt empty. I left that night feeling more tired than I had in along time.

By six a.m. we were all back at my condo falling uneasily into our first sleep of a new year, a new century, and a new millenium. I laid awake in my bed for about a half-hour, then rose, dressed, and retrieved my car keys from their resting place atop the microwave. There was something I had to see. I drove up on top of signal hill, just behind Canada Olympic Park, and parked the car facing east. Then, fighting off the persistent advances of fatigue, I waited.

1 January, 2000. 8:09 a.m.

Gradually it came. First the sky seemed to almost unknowingly lose its heaviness, the soft black-blue of the tired night fading to a deep ultramarine and finally to azure. The clouds, if they could be identified as such, hung immobile in ragged sheets; as if they had been there all along and were oblivious to the changing of the hours. The sky appeared to be torn in several places, bleeding colour as though it were a poorly-done watercolour painting. A sliver moon watched idly from above, not seeming to care that its careful watch had almost ended.
Finally, deep scarlet fingers reached skyward, changing the blues to reds, oranges, and pinks. The tired bulk of the sun eased its way slowly from the horizon, and the new millenium had begun at last.

Just as it had every morning for the twenty-five years I had previously spent on this earth, the sun came up just the same. After all the hype, all the worry, all the anticipation, and all the celebration, the morning came just the same. As I returned home and finally yeilded to the comforting numbness of a much-needed sleep, I came to the realization that regardless of its position on the calendar, New Years is just another day.

That was the last time I celebrated New Years with any real effort. The next year I would be in a car in northern Ontario, on my way to Montreal with my fiancée of two months. The year after that I would be married and watching movies with my new wife. 2003 was probably the most effort we put out; we drove to Banff with our six week-old first child and treated ourselves to the New Years Eve buffet at the Banff Springs hotel. We rang in the new year with a kiss on the frozen, moonlit shores of lake Minnewanka, and it was everything a new year should be. Beyond that, I can’t even remember what I did on New Years for the past couple of years. This year I worked until 7 pm, then came home and played cards with my wife and my brother & sister.

I think it is folly to choose one day to celebrate an entire year. We should celebrate each day of each year as if it is our last, and live our lives in keeping with the same idea. I hope every day of 2007 is cause for celebration for each one of you; whoever you are. I wish you strength through your challenges, joy through your victories, and hope through your dark times.

And the sun rises.

All I want for Christmas

I can assure you, it certainly is not my two front teeth.

Christmas is a funny time of year. If you let it, the obvious paradox between religious touchstone and commercial extravaganza can drive you mad with disgust. Instead, I choose to concentrate on more important matters; like what exactly is inside those packages under the tree….notably the ones with my name on them.

My wife and I have an understanding at Christmas. We don’t go overboard, and we don’t go into debt. It is also understood that I will break both of those rules while expecting her to abide by them. I love double standards. I am incredibly easy to buy for; all I really want is books or model trains to add to my collection. Amazingly, I rarely get either of those things. The books because I am known for opening one and spending the rest of the day reading it and ignoring everything else, and the trains because apparently nobody is confident enough to try and pick ones that I’ll like. I figure it’s pretty easy. If it has flanged wheels and a build date any time after 1970, it’s a pretty safe bet I’ll like it. Still, the problem remains.

My wife has a standing order for jewellery, which she has done pretty well with. Last year she got furniture instead – at her own request – but otherwise nary a year has come and gone without the glint of gold and/or diamonds. The obvious predictability aside, it simplifies my Christmas shopping greatly. One phone call to her mother (who works in a jewellery store) and I’m done! It does, however, complicate matters on another front.

Christmas should be all about the surprise. Unfortunately, my wife usually asks for something particular or even goes one step further and chooses her own present. While this has the advantage of ensuring that she’ll like her gift, it completely destroys the mischief and subversion that comes with trying to surprise her with something great and unexpected. In short, it wrecks my fun. Although my wife usually has a pretty good idea that she’s getting at least one piece of jewellery, she rarely knows which one. To try and keep her guessing, I am forced to take to deception each December to try and convince her that perhaps this will be the year the jewellery will give way to something else. In keeping with this theme, I try to diguise her presents and come up with new and inventive ways of changing their shape in order to conceal the true nature of the object within the gift. It makes me feel better, if only slightly, that at least surprise will factor some small part into her Christmas morning.

I suppose I would be somewhat amiss if I didn’t admit that I usually have an excellent idea what I’m getting as well. Although my wife is prone to the temptation to buy me clothes instead of toys, I generally have some input into my primary gift. This year, however, she has given me a taste of my own medicine. I have absolutely no idea what I’m getting. In her typical prepared manner, she has already finished her shopping and has everything wrapped and ready. I have seen, felt, and hefted the gifts in question, and for the first time in my adult life I am completely stumped. Either I didn’t get anything I asked for, or my wife has developed a wicked ability to disguise things- something that was never her strong suit before.

The reality of it is that I really don’t care. I would be happy if she threw a pair of socks at me and said Merry Christmas. I’ve been telling her that what I really want is a weekend alone with her without having to worry about the kids catching on fire, but that unfortunately is seemingly harder to come by than enriched plutonium. Still, I am intrigued. I want to know what is inside those damn packages, and my wife knows it too. She has been walking around the house with this smug little look on her face because she knows she’s got me. I have tried countering with a flirtatious “I know what you’re getting for Christmas”, but she won’t bite. She has completely turned the tables on me this year and it sucks.

I can’t wait for Christmas morning.

Just what the doctor ordered

I love Dr. Pepper. Just thought I should get that out of the way right up front.

It wasn’t always that way. In fact, my first encounter with the good doctor was in the United States when I was probably about twelve years old. We were on the way to Salt Lake City and stopped in Great Falls, Montana for some junk food. (as anyone knows, it’s not truly a road trip until there is junk food) In true American style, the junk food was cheap and plentiful. The supermarket where we stopped had chocolate bars three for a buck, and six-packs of pop for something like a buck fifty. Needless to say, we came out of that place loaded for bear. In addition to the dozen or so chocolate bars I had chosen, (remember, this is back in the late 80s before American candy was widely available in Canada, so this was a huge novelty for us) I had decided to take a chance on a 6-pack of Dr. Pepper; something I had never even heard of before but my father assured me tasted just like cherry Coke. Sounded pretty good to me.

Unfortunately, it tasted nothing like cherry Coke. In my opinion, the taste fell somewhere between cheap generic cola and Buckley’s mixture. In other words, it was one of the worst things I had ever tasted. I got about a third of the way through the first can and decided that I had made a serious error in judgment. I dumped the remnants of the can out the window, swiped a can of my brother’s cream soda to wash away the taste, and relegated the nasty-ass Dr. Pepper to the floor under the driver’s side seat of my parents’ station wagon. For all I know it may still be there, rusting away with that car in some forgotten junkyard.

It was years before I would try Dr. Pepper again. I remember seeing it when it again became popular in Canada and wondering why anyone would subject their taste buds to such a horrible concoction. I stuck to my grape Crush and shook my head whenever I saw someone buy a Dr. Pepper. Poor people didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.

Everything changed one day at the 7-11 near my high school as I was skipping seminary to go play pool with some friends. It was customary to stop for Super Subs and Jalapeno corn dogs on the way to my friend Ryan’s grandparents’ house, where the pool table was located. Usually I would wash it down with my customary crush or a slurpee; but this particular day, the stars were aligned for something drastic. I ate the Sub, played a quick round of Neo-Geo with my friend Tyler, and gulped down a corn dog before realizing that I was out of money. In the days before bank cards and Interac, once your cash was gone you were out of luck; and my cash was gone. Unfortunately, the jalapeno corn dogs had been unusually hot that day and my throat was begging me for a drink. I asked Tye to spot me a dollar for a slurpee, and he countered with an offer that at first glance seemed more cruel than offering ice cream to a freezing eskimo. He would lend me the dollar, but I couldn’t buy a slurpee with it. I had to buy a big gulp, and it had to be Dr. Pepper. Tyler was a confirmed Dr. Pepper addict, and I had taken great delight in pointing out how disgusting his favourite drink was on numerous occasions. For him, it was the perfect opportunity for revenge. I initially refused outright, but the persistent feeling of rawness creeping through my digestive tract urged me to reconsider. Finally I relented. Tye sprouted a mean-looking grin, then proceeded to pour me the Dr. Pepper.

As first I took only small sips, seriously concerned that I might vomit. To my surprise, however, it wasn’t as bad as I remembered it. By the time the cup was one quarter empty, I was drinking it freely and trying to pretend that I was really hating it lest Tye think he had gotten the upper hand. Halfway through it I was somewhat dismayed to admit that I actually kind of liked it, and by the time it was gone I was willing to try it again. Things worked out in my favour because Tye was so intent on getting everyone else converted to his favourite drink that all I had to do was say “Gee Tye, maybe that crap you drink isn’t so bad after all” and he would immediately offer to buy me one. Meanwhile I was secretly really starting to like the stuff, but it took Tye about a month to figure that out. By the end of the school year I was hooked, and I’ve never looked back.

The Dr. Pepper addiction followed me to university in Utah, then back home again. In a matter of months, I had eclipsed even Tye’s affection for the stuff, and drank it constantly. My mother was concerned that I was drinking too much of it, which was probably true. Just to prove to her that I didn’t have a problem, I stopped drinking it completely. Six months later, I started again. I just loved the taste of the stuff.

My mission was tough. Dr. Pepper was extremely rare in France, and extremely expensive when it could be found. Every time I located it, I would spend crazy amounts of money hoarding cans of it- to the tune of 15 Francs, or roughly $3.00 US per can. My return home was celebrated with a Dr. Pepper on the way home from the airport, and I have been drinking it ever since.

About a year ago, I was forced to make a choice. Working in a fairly sedentary job that demands long hours sitting in front of a computer, the sugar intake associated with drinking up to a litre of Dr. Pepper at work every day began to take a toll on my body. I had graduated from Big Gulps to 2-litre Double Gulps, and used to down between 3 and 6 of them in an average week. My once-impressive metabolism had finally met its match, and I began to gain weight. (yes, you’re probably reading this going “um, yeah“) Not a lot of weight, but enough that my mountain bike racer physique began to soften. As someone who had always been very physically fit, I didn’t like that. It was time for a change, and the Dr. had to go.

There was only one option: Diet Dr. Pepper. There was only one problem: it was DIET Dr. Pepper. I hate diet pop, and have been very vocal about this for many years. I hate the aspartame, and the nasty aftertaste, and the whole idea of diet pop. To me, diet pop was an oxymoron. If you didn’t want to drink pop and have all the crap that came with it, you should drink crystal light or something. Now I was flirting with crossing over to the dark side. I bought a bottle of DDP and sipped away at it for three days, unable to get used to the taste. A week later, I did it again. Finally, I realized that I had to take a stand. I went to Superstore and bought a 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper and put it in my fridge, forcing myself to either drink it or be consumed by guilt over the waste. Slowly, it began to disappear. I bought another 12-pack, and it disappeared as well. I began to notice the taste of the aspartame less and less, and to choose the diet version over the high-test whenever I had the option. Finally, at the end of the summer when I was on the road with the steam train, I was offered a can of regular Dr. Pepper. I could barely finish it. It tasted thick and syrupy, and sickly sweet; almost the way I remembered that first can tasting so many years ago. I had come full circle, and the conversion was complete.

I’m not even sure what it is about Dr. Pepper, diet or high-test, that I like so much. The key ingredient of the flavouring is apparently prune juice, but I’ve tried to drink prune juice before and lets just say it really doesn’t agree with me. (I’ll spare you the gory details) The Dr. Pepper, on the other hand, is still my favourite and most likely always will be. If you haven’t tried it lately, I suggest you do….but be careful. It may not be your last.

‘Tis the season

Christmas had always been my favourite holiday. I don’t know why, but something about it has always captured my imagination. Maybe it was the excitement of all the parties and family gatherings; maybe it was simply a cookies and chocolate-fuelled haze of excitement over having ten days off of school. Maybe it was something more. Something intangible and inexplicable that flavours the fourth week of December with a satisfaction and euphoria that no amount of candy can provide.

My family, as with most things, has always been heavy with tradition around Christmas time. Heavy on togetherness, heavy on celebration, and of course, heavy on food. The holidays brought with them an onslaught of dinners: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Eve, and New Years Day. Ham, turkey, scalloped potatoes, salads, and every type of pie known to man. Had I not been blessed with a metabolism bordering on thermonuclear, I’m sure I would have gained twenty pounds in those ten days.

Christmas represented a lot of things, but chief among them was family. All of the dinners were full extended family affairs, usually with my father’s side. It was customary for them to include about forty people, pushing the capacity of our 1200 square foot home. If there was one time in the year that we were assured of seeing our cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and long-lost estranged relatives we had never met before, it was Christmas. Beyond that, we planned a lot of activities within our immediate family. Every year we would do advent strings of gingerbread men to count down the days from December 1st to December 24th. As the six of us sat around the dining room table armed with sprinkles, raisins, chocolate chips, and about five pounds of icing, it was understood that none of us would escape the room without icing in our hair and chocolate stains on our clothing. We baked and iced cookies together, and hand-dipped chocolates together. We drove around the city together looking at Christmas lights, and put together treat trays of baking for friends of our family.

Chief among the traditions was the stake nativity pageant. It started out being our ward only, and I remember the first year it ran. I played a shepherd boy, and was outfitted with a fake beard that was so difficult to remove at the end of the night that I think it took three layers of skin with it. My family tried to get involved every year, although in later years that became more difficult due to the growing number of people wanting to play a part. The one constant was my father. A trained light & sound technician, he handled the technical end of the pageant for nearly fifteen years straight. His thanks for spending every night of the week before Christmas huddled in a freezing cold, four foot-square wooden box perched atop a rickety tower of scaffolding was the assurance that he would not get home until at least ten pm on Christmas Eve, missing the huge dinner and most of the festivities. It never seemed to bother him. As a child it used to bother me somewhat, but as an adult it stands as one of the best examples of service I have seen; and an indicator of the kind of giving that Christmas seems to squeeze out of even the most resistant of us.

I am reluctant to admit that while I recognize the opportunity to use the holiday as a way to reach out and support others or to give to those who are in greater need than I am, it is still the selfish indulgences of spending time with my own family doing the little things that define our Christmas traditions that matter to me the most. I look forward to the family outing to see the nativity pageant on Christmas Eve. My family no longer plays a part in the production, but we go to see it every year. I can’t wait to see my childrens’ faces on Christmas morning as they try to contain the excitement of opening their presents; of which I’m sure there will be far too many. I know I will enjoy the late night discussions with my wife and parents as we sit around the living room by the light of the tree and discuss the ills and joys of the world over cookies and hot chocolate. It will be a time for catching up with friends I rarely see, enjoying a rare opportunity to spend some quality time with those that I do see regularly, and making the most of ten whole days with my family, away from work and the demands of everyday life. I can’t wait….

The Firing Line

Anyone out there heard of the Waltons? They’re a folk-rock group from Saskatchewan that enjoyed limited success in the early 1990s. I discovered them when they opened for Barenaked Ladies during the “Gordon” tour, and they pretty much put the ladies to shame. I saw them twice after that before they ultimately fell victim to the unyeilding blades of corporate music’s production cost to album sales ratio. Their debut album, “Lik my Trakter” was brilliant. The second-last song on the album, “A Fine Line” seems strangely relevant for this weekend, specifically yesterday:

Maybe this doesn’t mean a thing
Maybe it’s just a stupid thing to think
about all the awful things in life
while I’m alright here

Nothing bad ever comes here
or grows out of the flat young lands of home
Just never leave and sure you will grow old
We’ll grow old

Maybe I don’t know a thing
Maybe it’s just a stupid thing to think
about all the awful things in life
and I’m alright here

Nothing bad ever comes here
or grows out of the flat young lands of home
Just never leave and sure you will grow

I’ve got my rights to be me
I’ve got no fights to displease my soul
will never know the dis-ease of
standing in a line, a firing line
Standing waiting in a line, wasting my time
Oh, time….

Maybe I should learn some things
Maybe it’s time I learned something about
all of the awful things in life
while I’m alright here

Nothing bad ever comes here
or grows out of the flat young lands of home
Just never leave and sure you will grow old

I’ve got my rights to be me
I’ve got no fights to displease my soul
will never know the dis-ease of
standing in a line, a firing line
Standing waiting in a line, wasting my time
Oh, time, oh time
It’s not to late
It’s not to late to say

I’ve got my rights to be me
I’ve got no fights to displease my soul
will never know the dis-ease of
standing in a line, a firing line
Standing waiting in a line, wasting my time

I have been so protected all my life. I have never gone hungry because my family was unable to purchase food due to supply line shortages or conservation efforts for a major war effort. I have never been forced to wield any weapon in anger, or to attack another human being with the intent of taking their life. I have never heard the sound of air raid sirens warning that people I know would soon be dead and the familiar streets of my neighborhood would soon be an unrecognizable mass of rubble. I have never huddled in a dark room underground with my family close by, hoping and praying that all of us would still be breathing in the morning. I have been so blessed, and so lucky.

I’m not sure what it is about Remembrance Day that moves me so deeply. I have always felt strongly about it, and those feelings were only reinforced when I was in France and saw the reminders of the terrible destruction of war firsthand. Even as a child, I remember being unable to really enjoy Remembrance Day very much because it always felt like a Sunday to me. Instead of playing, I always felt like I should be going to church or praying or something. I remember being bored in the Remembrance Day ceremonies, but still feeling like I needed to pay attention anyway.

As I grew older I began to understand the meaning of this day more clearly. I still at times struggle with the enormity of the sacrifice these men and women made. To go off to the other side of the world with the aching knowledge that there was every possibility that you would never come home is nearly unimaginable to me. The strain and urgency of having to fight for your life in a land you had never seen alongside people you had never met is something that I perhaps will never fully comprehend. I sit on my couch in shock watching “Saving Private Ryan”, and it is absolutely beyond me that people lived the experience that I can barely stand to see on a TV screen. Even more amazing; the ones who survived came home and lived normal lives again. How could you put that all behind you? How could you just shove it aside and go to wife doing something as mundane as selling insurance or delivering the mail, when every time you closed your eyes you remembered watching someone explode into a bloody mist when they stepped on a land mine, or having to pick pieces of your comrades’ bodies off of yourself after they found themselves on the recieving end of a mortar shell? Every time you washed your face, you would remember how long it took to remove the blood from you face after D-Day, when the doors of your landing craft opened and the three rows of men in front of you melted under a withering hail of machine-gun fire. Every time a car backfired, or someone lit a firecracker, you would jump in reaction. Even those who were not killed in Europe still lost their lives.

My wife and I took our children to a Remembrance Day ceremony yesterday. We wanted to go to one of the big gatherings at the Museum of the Regiments, but typically for our family, we couldn’t get out the door on time. We ended up at a park near our home, where a small group of veterans had gathered to place a wreath. The area we live in was once part of a Canadian Forces base, and the development has been built around that theme. The park is called Peacekeepers park, and it features a life-sized broze statue of a peacekeeping soldier with a little girl, surrounded by a granite wall of names of all of the Canadian soldiers killed while performing peacekeeping duties. It was alarming how many names have been added to that wall this year. The group consisted of about a dozen elderly men and women, with most of the men wearing their dress uniforms. At first we didn’t want to intrude, but we didn’t have time to make it to another ceremony and I wanted my children to take part in something to show their respect. There was a brief service, then a wreath was laid at the base of the wall, and we observed our two minutes of silence. It was humbling for me to stand there with my privileged children in the company of these men who have given so much for our country and all that we enjoy here. My children seemed to recognize the gravity of the moment as well; I think it is the only time I can remember that all three of them have gone a full two minutes without opening their mouths.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, one of the veterans approached us to thank us for attending, and we countered that it was us who owed the thanks to him and his comrades. Our boys both said thank you to him as well, and he stayed to talk to us for a few minutes. The Bear noticed his medals, and asked him what they were. His eyes clouded over as he said “oh, these are from when I had to go and do a few things….” and his voice trailed off. The things that man must have seen. The things that man must have had to do. I am eternally grateful that because of the sacrifices these brave souls made, my children have never known those horrors. Because they were willing to pay the price for freedom, we live a charmed life today. We truly owe them a debt we can never repay.

Lest we forget.

Community

I am alternately amazed, surprised, and sometimes a little alarmed at how many people I know in “real life” who also keep blogs. What is especially concerning about that whole situation is how seemingly easy it is to identify them, even though many of them don’t use their real names. Most times it is simply a matter of seeing who has links to who’s blog, and who is talking about how many kids they have or the new house they just bought. It’s amusing really when you think about how many of us wander around in the blogosphere using code names for our family members and attempting to retain some degree of anonymity so we can feel at least a little bit like the things we’re writing on these pages won’t come back to bite us in the ass. Meanwhile, someone is sitting in their den not so very far away, reading through your entries and thinking smugly: “I know who you are…”

It hit home exactly how recognizeable we really are when a fellow blogger who has visited this page on occasion approached my wife at church on Sunday to tell her that I thought she (my wife, not the other person) was hot. (note to that person; I think she knows. Helloooo, we have 3 kids…) My wife, who lives more or less in happy ignorance of this blog, was a little taken aback. Not offended or anything, just a little concerned that her husband could be writing all kinds of crazy things about her on the internet. I decided when I first started blogging to just use my real name and get on with it. I mean, the way I see things, if I don’t feel strongly enough about my views to attach my name to them, then what business do I have posting them all over the internet for other people to see? The potential problems arises in the fact that I have a family, and whatever I attach to myself also sticks to them. My wife is a very private person, so for her this was a little unnerving. I had to sit down with her and explain the purpose of the blog, (what is it again?) and try to put her fears to rest.

On one hand, I can understand her concerns. I also decided way back at the beginning that I would not make our kids’ lives public, and in fact dedicated one of my early posts to the logic behind the decision. It still stands, and I don’t use our kids’ names in my postings, nor do I include any photos of them or my wife on this blog. (or my spiffy new flickr page) There are a lot of reasons behind this, first and foremost being that they have a right to their privacy. Besides, anyone who might be reading this who knows who we are already knows what we look like anyway.

Ultimately, we reach a point where the whole idea of blogging this way becomes a bit of a paradox. You’re sharing experiences and situations that occur within your life and involve those who are dear to you in quite possibly the most public forum on earth, yet at the same time you are trying to keep them a secret. Makes sense eh? The truth of the matter is that if you know me, you know my family. Still, I feel a sense of responsibility to shield them from the prying eyes of those who would do them harm or use their images for inappropriate purposes. I am quite sure that any predators out there looking for kids to target aren’t going to be spending a lot of time reading blogs like this one, but sadly in today’s world you can’t be too sure. My kids are too important to me for me to expose them to something that I am anything less than 100% positively sure about. They’ll do enough of that on their own when they get older, so I’m going to try my damndest to keep them innocent for now.

The funny thing about it is that most of the other blogs I read are written by people I either know or used to know quite well. Others are acquaintances or friends of friends. A surprising number of them live in the same city as me, some within a few miles. You would think that instead of spending a bunch of time in front of the computer reading about their lives, I would just pick up the phone and call them, right? Wrong. That isn’t how it works. We are much more inclined to be honest or forthcoming when we write. I don’t know exactly why, but most people have no trouble writing things that they would never dream of saying to someone’s face. That’s why journals are so effective, and why people return to these pages day after day to find out what new epiphany has just blessed the thought processes of their friend three doors down. Through reading blogs, I have learned things about people that I never would have expected, and I’m sure that they have learned at least as much from mine. (like, for instance, that my wife is a supreme hottie)

Curiously, it all leads to a strange sort of fellowship. You check up on people and read their posts to see what’s new with them. You are concerned when they seem down, happy for them when they seem up, and you wonder if they’re OK when they don’t post for a few days. The simple act of pouring one’s thoughts out through a medium singled out by many as cold and inhuman can actually bring people much closer together than they would have become communicating by conventional means. Blogging develops a sense of togetherness; of being a part of a group and participating in something much larger than yourself. It provides an outlet for expression, while allowing others a tiny window into your life. It’s up to you exactly how large and how transparent you want that window to be.

I wonder sometimes how long I’ll keep doing this. I’ve tried to keep journals before, and never had much success. In fact, this is the most regular journal I have ever kept. That alone must be worth something. Even when I’m not writing though, I’m still reading. There are good people out there living good lives and having good experiences, and it’s a privilege being allowed to share in them. I’m sure those people know who they are……and so do I.

Giving thanks

My family is heavy on traditions. Some last for a few years, some a few decades, some for generations. Some are timeless, some suitable only for a specific frame of our lives or a certain reoccurring situation. The only thing that is constant with them is the ongoing struggle to incorporate them into our increasingly busy, ever divergent lives.

My family began the Thanksgiving weekend Waterton camping trips while I was on my mission. In this part of the world, October in the mountains usually mean snow or at least cold and probably a lot of wind. When they sent me the pictures, I found myself asking myself why on earth anyone would want to camp at this time of year. The Thanksgivings of my childhood were warm, celebratory affairs laden with turkey and pumpkin pie in quantities that bordered on obscene. Due to a strange convergence in our family, we usually ended up focusing on the dessert aspect of the holiday. My birthday usually falls within a week of Thanksgiving, so my mother would make a black forest cake to go along with the pumpkin pie. As if that weren’t enough, my brother hated pumpkin pie so my mother would bake him an apple pie. My Grandmother, not wanting to be left out, would usually come to Thanksgiving dinner with several pies of her own; usually of the cherry, blueberry, or mincemeat variety. When coupled with the gargantuan turkeys my parents cooked, Thanksgiving Day usually turned into Thanksgiving Week at our house, at least on a culinary level.

After the decadence of years of these overwrought dinners and their whipped-cream topped conclusions, the idea of going camping on Thanksgiving signalled a paradigm shift in my family’s mentality. Granted, by this point my Grandparents had passed away and the whole idea of the large extended-family dinner had faded away somewhat. Still, it seemed strange to see photos of my family hiking in a snowstorm when they should have been gorging themselves on pie in front of the fireplace. It was almost unbelievable that they would be off on a camp kitchen eating chips and hotdogs instead of turkey, mashed potatoes, and the usual litany of vegetables & salads. Times had very clearly changed.

It surprised me again when they went camping again the following year, and I began to realize that perhaps the Thanksgiving camping trips were not just a blip on the radar. By the third year, I was home and actually looking forward to seeing what made these late-season excursions so appealing to them. As it turned out, it would completely change the way I thought about Thanksgiving.

The weekend itself was more or less miserable. It was freezing cold and rained the whole time, which is pretty much what I was expecting. I slept in the back of the Suburban with my brother, and it was extremely uncomfortable. By the end of the weekend I was thoroughly exhausted and had caught a cold, but it had surprisingly been a lot of fun. The food had evolved into a respectable albeit somewhat downsized Thanksgiving feast, prepared with the help of the propane stove & oven in the trailer. The cake and pies (only pumpkin this time) had been prepared in advance and were just as good as I remembered them. We spent the weekend walking around town, going for hikes, and riding our bikes. It was the best weekend I could remember having in a long time.

That was 1997. Every year since, we have tried to spend Thanksgiving weekend together as a family in Waterton. When I think about it now, it makes nothing but sense. A holiday devoted to the idea of giving thanks for the good things in your life should be spent in the midst of the most important of those things. Even the location could not be more perfect. With my family’s long history in Waterton, there is no other place on earth I would rather be. It’s a perfect place to celebrate togetherness.

There have been changes over the years. Sleeping in the Suburban went the way of the dinosaur and we tried our luck with tents. Three years, two wind-shredded tents, and one torrential downpour later, we abandoned the tent idea as well. In later years, once spouses and children entered the picture for some of us, accommodations changed yet again. Some of us brought our own trailers, and some of us stayed at a bed & breakfast in Mountain View where we would still be within a 15 minute drive of the park. Making the weekend work required some flexibility, but we did our best to work things out. We missed one year completely when my mother was sick in the hospital, but rebounded the following year.

The weekend spawned some offshoot traditions of its own. One of the earliest was a family hike, born out of my mother’s impressive determination. The very first year they went camping, while I was still in France, my mother grew tired of the grumbling of a certain sibling who was not impressed at being confined to the trailer for the weekend and marched the entire family up the side of a mountain in the middle of a blinding snow storm. The story became a part of family legend, and the hike was repeated every year regardless of weather. In 2000, I invited some friends to join us for the hike and they came up for the day to meet us. One of those friends was a woman who would become my girlfriend a week later and my wife within a year.

The mountain biking also took on a life of its own. My brothers and I started making an effort to go for a ride every year on one of the three trails in the park that are open to mountain biking. The first year we tried Akamina Pass, and ended up riding through a foot of snow trying in vain to stay on the trail. We had so much fun that we decided to make it an annual event. The “Fall Ride” began to be a focus for us, and our numbers grew as friends and roommates would make the trip down, even if only for the day, to join the ride. Our crowing achievement was in 2002, when we rode all three trails in a single day.

In 2003, we added another element to the weekend. I had recently taken up golf and wanted my brothers and my father to come with me. We went to the Waterton golf course and shot a round of nine holes, the last three of which were in the middle of a developing snow storm. (see a pattern here?) We all shot horrible rounds, but we had a great time laughing at each other, and the Turkey Cup was born.

As great as these weekends were, they were not without their problems, and the Thanksgiving weekend tradition almost did itself in on more than one occasion. Bad weather, close quarters, and personal complications almost killed a few trips in very ugly fashion, but we always seemed to be able to work things out. It wasn’t until recently that an additional strain began to appear as the weekends began to become victims of their own success. My parents told some people in their ward about our family tradition, and they liked the idea so much that they invited themselves along. Then they told their friends how much fun it had been, and the next year we had half the ward camping alongside us. The weekends began to lose their ambience and took on a life not dissimilar to the chaotic throes of a ward campout. People began pressuring my parents to plan meals together, and trying to coordinate activities that 40 people would enjoy became a headache rather than an enjoyable weekend together. Of course, since my parents had started the trend, it was assumed that they would also spearhead the planning. It seemed to us that people were missing the point completely. Our fun “family” weekend had become a huge overblown production, and finally, exasperated, my parents decided to pull the plug on the whole thing.

Last year, there was no camping trip. We stayed in Lethbridge and broke routine completely. There was no hike, no Fall Ride, and we played the Turkey Cup at a crowded golf course near my parents’ home. It felt all wrong. We left feeling like we had missed something; it had been nice to see our families, but the weekend just hadn’t been the same. Thanksgiving had lost its lustre.

This year, we’re starting over. There may or may not be a Fall Ride, a hike, or a Turkey Cup, but we will be camping in Waterton. If there are other people there, they will be there on their own and won’t be part of our group. We’re returning to the roots of our tradition; going back to the things that matter. I’m glad that we are resuming the tradition. It is important to me, and it’s something I want to pass on to my children as well. There are precious few times during the year that enable you to really stop what you’re doing, take a step back, and appreciate what you’ve got and where you came from, and I’m glad that we aren’t going to let that go. Tomorrow night we will back our bags, load the car up way beyond capacity, and head for the hills. I don’t know exactly what we’ll do all weekend, but I do know two things for sure. We’ll have a lot of fun, and it will probably snow.

My wife is HOT.

It may seem shallow and sexist for me to say, but I love that my wife is a supermodel. I was never realy the guy to want a trophy wife; in fact for years I maintained that I would never marry at all. It was just happy circumstance that the woman I fell in love with happened to be uncommonly beautiful.

last night, she was on her way up to the airport to pick up her brother, who needed a place to stay the night. On the way there, she stopped by to visit me at work and brought me a slurpee. I have to admit, it made me laugh how pretty much every man in the room stopped what he was doing to watch her walk by. Yup, she’s a supreme hottie.

I’m still not sure what I did that somehow landed me such a gorgeous wife, but I’m glad I did it. Wow, she is spectacular.

Mercury morning

The glass felt cool and impossibly smooth against his forehead; a perfect plane of resistance for the turmoil inside his head. Beyond the window and far below, the lights of the city hung shimmering in the darkness, like tiny tarnished beacons dancing in the sultry depths of the early July morning. Watching them ebb and twinkle through a haze of sleep-deprived exhaustion, the man realized with a sense of resignation that he had literally and figuratively outstayed his welcome. It was time to go home.

The tiny apartment with its fantastic view of the city centre did not belong to him. At that particular moment, he was no longer sure he really knew the person it did belong to at all. It was three a.m, and he felt for all the world as though some malicious, unseen giant had taken his body in one of its massive invisible fists and begun to squeeze. As he struggled to shake off the feeling of oppression that threatened to settle over him and leave him helpless against the window, he turned his head slightly and suddenly realized that she was still standing in the corner of the room. As his eyes caught the reflection of her thoughtful face looking after him from behind a tangled mass of blonde curls, he felt the bottom of his stomach flip-flop with uncertainty. He had been in that apartment for far too long.

She was the reason he was there. In fact, she was pretty much the only reason he had done much of anything in the past three weeks. She had taken him by storm, and had made each day seem new and exciting. She seemed to understand him, and he had responded to that quickly. Maybe, it seemed now, a little too quickly. It had been difficult not to: she seemed to instinctively know what made him tick. Music, literature, film, art; even sports. It had been a long time since he had felt a connection to someone that had been so immediate, and he had allowed it to take flight right from the first encounter. Now it was all coming to an end.

Reluctant to leave the window as though the city would vanish into the night once he was no longer there to watch over it, he slowly lifted his head from the glass and exhaled heavily. It was difficult to accept, now that he realized that there was no future in any of it. In one evening, the possibility of anything lasting had evaporated with the last rays of the setting sun, filtering painfully away to the sound of a three piece jazz band playing in the basement of a little-known restaurant somewhere between the downtown buildings that he was watching now. For her, the experience of the initial encounter had apparently run its course, and her interest had migrated to the tall blond man playing the trumpet on that tiny stage, almost obsured by the cigarette smoke swirling below the poor lighting.

He turned away from the window and looked back at her, his eyes heavy with both sleep and disappointment. Even now she looked like an angel; the delicate features of her face looking somehow softer as her eyes followed him silently across the room towards the tiny kitchen counter. The apartment seemed still, as though a careful balance hung between its walls like the tension on a body of water that one dared not disturb. Only the quiet, mournful strains of Lisa Gerrard’s “The Mirror Pool” filled the space between them; the perfect soundtrack for a moment heavy with regret and unfulfilled potential.

As he moved retreived his car keys from the counter, the click of the metal as he lifted them into his hand seemed deafening and out of place. She looked at him questioningly, as though she wanted to say something but the words just wouldn’t come. Instead, she sat down on the couch and stared at the floor for a minute, then cast her eyes towards his once more. It was all he could do not to be frozen in place. He could remember the last time she sat in that spot; so close to him that he could feel the rise and fall of her breath. He could remember the touch of her hand, cautious but playful, as she secretly entwined her fingers with his as their friends laughed along with the movie they had rented, oblivious.

As he reached for his boots, he remembered the last time he had left this place. She had followed him quietly to the door and waited until he had finished tying his shoes and stood to leave, and she had pulled him quickly towards her and kissed him. Something about that kiss would stay with him for a long time. It had been urgent, but not aggressive. Soft, but passionate. There had been something in that kiss that he had been unable to place; something intangible and indescribable. Now, as he struggled with his laces, it seemed a beautiful but excruciating goodbye.

He had been sure that this time would be different. Something about it had seemed so new and fresh, and unlike anything he had experienced before. Now it all seemed like a lie; like a cruel illusion of something that simply was not what it seemed. He was tired. Physically, emotionally, and psychologically tired, and he wanted more than anything to forget all of it. There was nothing else to say; no more apologies to accept and no more excuses to make. The cycle had simply run its course, and it was time to go.

He looked back one last time at that beautiful face and could sense the fatigue in her eyes. He knew that it had not been an easy thing for her to do, and somewhere deep inside of himself, he was glad. It would be a long time before he would be able to rekindle the friendship, and they would never be close the same way that they had been; but that was the way it had to be. With heavy eyes and a heavier heart, he wordlessly opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. It was going to be a long walk home.