I Cooka Da Fish

Obituary

2009-05-11T15:54:00.000-07:00

Brownsville

Tim Smith

Brownsville. Timothy Darrell Smith, 45, of 1565 Riverview Drive, died Monday, May 11, 2009.
Born in Greenville, he was a son of Leon Smyth of Greenville and May Cashion Robinson of Simpsonville. Mr. Smith was employed with Cherokee Kellogg Inc. and attended Marathon Community Church.

Surviving in addition to his parents are his wife, Frida Wilbanks Smith of the home; two daughters, Kelly Hashta Smith and Katy Blanche Smith, both of Brownsville; a sister, Tammy Wilcocks and husband, Richard, of Simpsonville; a brother, Chris Smyth and wife, Mary, of Greenville; a special angel, Nancy Charles of Greenville; a brother-in-law, Tommy Eubanks of Pickens; and two nephews and six nieces.

Visitation will be held Tuesday from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Thomas Centurion Funeral Home, Northwest. Services will be Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. at the funeral home. Burial will be at Robinson Rose Gardens. Memorials may be made to Marathon Community Church, c/o Children's Ministry, 615 Roaste Road, Brownsville, SC 29611.

The family is at the residence.

Did Your Parents Beat The Laughs Right Out Of You?

2009-05-10T22:17:00.000-07:00

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- CBS Sports golf analyst David Feherty apologized Sunday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a morbid joke that went bad in a Dallas magazine.
Feherty, one of the most popular golf analysts for his sharp wit and self-deprecating humor, was among five Dallas residents who wrote for "D Magazine" on former President George W. Bush moving to Dallas.
"From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this though," Feherty wrote toward the end of his column.
"Despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death."
Feherty, a former Ryder Cup player who grew up in Northern Ireland, has gone to Iraq over Thanksgiving the past two years to visit with U.S. troops, and he created a foundation to help wounded soldiers.
"This passage was a metaphor meant to describe how American troops felt about our 43rd president," Feherty said in a statement. "In retrospect, it was inappropriate and unacceptable, and has clearly insulted Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid, and for that, I apologize. As for our troops, they know I will continue to do as much as I can for them both at home and abroad."
Feherty has lived in Dallas the past dozen years. Along with working for CBS Sports, he writes a monthly column for Golf magazine and has written four books, the last one titled, "An Idiot for All Season."
CBS Sports distanced itself from Feherty's writing, saying it was "an unacceptable attempt at humor and is not in any way condoned, endorsed or approved" by the network. The PGA Tour also criticized him for an attempt at humor that "went over the line."
CBS is not broadcasting The Players Championship this week. The network resumes its PGA Tour coverage next week in San Antonio with the Valero Texas Open.

David Feherty said nothing that I wouldn't have said in my blog. CBS called what he said "an unacceptable attempt at humor". You know what an unacceptable attempt at humor really is? The New Adventures of Old Christine!

Lighten up assholes.

If Necessity Is The Mother Of All Invention, Her Last Name Must Be Edison.

2009-05-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard the expression "busy minds have little time"? I bet you haven't, because I just made it up. It does describe me to a tee though, if half of the tee was missing. As far back that I can remember, I have been inventing things in my mind, some of which are still convinced are good ideas. Some have even made it to the initial prototype stage and are lying about in some corner of the attic. That is where my process stops.

My father always told me to "not do half the job". I should have taken that to heart. If you take into consideration the success of the pet rock, had I followed through on any of my ideas I might just be a jillionaire by now. My busy mind does have little time, but it does have enough time. Oh well, maybe someday someone will call me up and ask me if I have any inventions they could develop for me. Could happen.

I was looking through a list of the best inventions in history the other day and something strange caught my eye. The Etruscans invented the button around 700 BC. I read this and thought to myself, "impressive". Being an alphabetical list that I was reading, the next invention on the list was the buttonhole. I skipped to the next column on the chart and found out that the buttonhole was invented in Europe. Odd, I thought. Then I skipped to the next column. It was invented in the 13th century, 2000 years after the invention of the button. How could an invention be an invention if it does not have a purpose for 2000 years. Maybe I should go into my backyard and throw some twigs and glitter into a fresh pile of Ruby's turd and get a patent on it. I guess you never know.

Later in the day, being still bothered by the button, I searched google for a list of the ten greatest inventions of all time. I read the list and was not impressed.

10. The Television - It was a great invention until Happy Days was replaced with Joanie Loves Chachi. In addition, The Oxygen Network.

9. The Printing Press - Have you seen how many newspapers are folding and going out of business? Soon to be irrelevant.

8. The Laser - Other than the Pink Floyd show I saw in the late 80's, cutting their way through the hue of blue smoke in the stadium.....I have no use for them.

7. The Automobile - What came as a result of the invention of the automobile? My 90 minute commute to work.

6. The Internet - A fine vehicle for your kids to find the latest in Japanese porn. Hustler was good enough for me.

5. The Plane - If you like to find out how culturally devoid the place you live in is, get in a plane and cross the ocean. Just make sure there is a Canadian flag on your back pack.

4. DNA - Don't you think calling DNA an invention will further fuel pointless and unsolvable religious debate?

3. The Steam Engine - I have never had a steam engine, you have never had one and your sister has never had one. If personal possession contributes to making an invention great, where does crabs rank on your sister's list?

2. The Pill - Although a useful invention, its potential side effects led me to having to get a vasectomy. Again, I have no need to rehash that debacle.

1. The Computer - Do you remember when life was slower?

It has taken me a couple of days of thought, but unlike my inventions, I have completed something. The REAL ten greatest inventions of all time.

10. Toilet Paper - Before the invention of toilet paper, people used spoons. While spoons were actually quite effective in their ability to scoop and scrape, they often got mixed in with the regular household spoons and as a result, no one would eat their soup.

9. Clocks - Without clocks, it would never have mattered what time it was.

8. Gas Cans - If gas cans had not been invented, all of the idiots who run out of gas would still be stuck on the side of the road.

7. Steroids and Cocaine - In the absence of these two chemical wonders, professional sports just wouldn't be the same.

6. Fast Food - Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection ensures that the human species will continue to propagate and thrive with the best and brightest mating and strengthening the gene pool. When Darwin's theory falters and fails to cull the weak and stupid at an early age, they can be found in the dining room of McDonald's doing the species a favor by ending their lives early through cheeseburgers.

5. Global Warming - Just when you thought Al Gore could never out do himself and his invention of the Internet, he goes and invents global warming. Now he has a cause that might keep him away from politics.

4. The Wheel - My grandfather told me that before there were wheels, cars just sat there.

3. Ranch Dressing - Without the invention of ranch dressing, you would have had to taste your mother's cooking.

2. Makeup

1. Priest Collars - Other than constantly referring to the online sexual predator database, the collars do a fantastic job showing us who to keep our kids away from.

If you think I have left anything off of this list, feel free to leave a comment with your suggestion. I would be happy to tell you why you are wrong.

I Owe My Life To Cheddar Cheese

2009-05-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I have written 57 blog posts and haven't yet scribed about the time I pissed the shampoo bottle of a nerdy guy in gym class and watched him unknowingly wash his hair with it for the next month, even though it must have seemed a little thin. Honestly though, I didn't do that. Someone else in my class did, but had I thought of it first, I am sure I would have jumped at the chance.

Contrary to popular belief, Napoleon was of normal stature, not a runt as is widely believed. It just so happened that his selected guards were very large men and in comparison, he seemed small. From his rise to fame in 1795 during the rebellion of the National Convention to his ill fated invasion of Russia in 1812, Napoleon was considered a ruthless tyrant by the rest of Europe. Much was made about the fact that a man who was thought to be so small could be so callous in his aggression. This coupling eventually adopted the phrase Napoleon Complex, in which a smaller than average man tries to compensate for his size through aggression, be it physical or mental. That was me.

I was always the shrimp growing up. I was the shortest boy in my class from the get go and had a mesomorphic stature that could barely cast a shadow. It was doubly difficult having two older siblings that were on the opposite side of the bell curve when it came to physical stature. I remember once asking my father why he thought I was so much smaller than my brother and sister. He thought for a second and told me that it was because I was the weak seed. I wonder if that helped me in any way.

Looking back to my time in grade school, my physical shortcomings for the most part excluded me from compensating through aggression, but my evil thought processes and rapier tongue could make mince meat of anybody, no matter how big they were. I could one up anybody. On only one occasion I can remember, did I intentionally go after somebody physically. He was bigger than I was but I had singled him out like the lions do to the weakest baby gazelle. Something told me that he would just cower and cover up. I even drew up free tickets to the fight the night before. What a prickish move that was. If I didn't have a good sense of humor, I don't think I would have had much going for me.

High school came and it afforded me not only a new set of friends to make laugh, but a new set of targets to unload on. Walking the halls with my feathered hair and sporting tight Jordache jeans that did nothing but accentuate my flamingoesque legs, I was a whole lotta cocky. I would put cayenne pepper on the dorky kid's mouthpiece in music class and watch and laugh with my idiot friends. I stole dead frogs that were due for dissection, snuck into the girls restrooms and stuffed them into the single sheet toilet paper dispensers. The kind you had to reach up into to get to the first sheet. I had a million of them and people usually knew it was me behind the festivities.

I guess it shouldn't have come as a surprise to me when I got what was coming to me. It was in 12th grade. My friends and I had piled into a buddy's car and went to go see a movie. There were 2 movie theatres in town but only one of them had the good movies. The other did show softcore porn on Sunday nights though, so that was a plus. When we exited the movie with the couple of hundred or so other people, some of the slime dudes were sitting on the roof of our car. It was no shock that one of them went right after the owner of the car as he was as mouthy as I was, but when I was approached by a particularly tough slimer and greeted with the words"Smith, you're going down" I nearly shat my pants. I tried to reason with him but he was having none of it. I tried to turn and walk away but as I did, a punch to the head and a knee to the face later, I was down and out. If it had not been for my guardian angel stepping in, the great Chucker V., my face would surely have taken a couple more for good measure. The slimer knew the famous saying that "the only way to silence a barking dog is to kick it in the throat and beat it with a stick". It was no Russian invasion, but it was just as devastating. My last year of high school was pretty uneventful, but gratefully I did have sex a lot.

My second year of university was spent living in a house, for the first time in my life having to be responsible for feeding myself. Vegetables not yet having entered the fray, I was reliant on processed and pre-packaged foods to get me through. My best discovery though was cheese. Every second or third day my dinner consisted of a bag of cool ranch Doritos topped with a half pound block of cheddar cheese. Forty five seconds in the microwave oven and Voila!

That May when I returned home, I went to say hello to my ever coddling grandmother. She opened her front door, looked me up and down and said "you're fat". Thanks Grandma. I could finally kick Napoleon to the curb.

Any 12 step program contains steps 8 and 9 that deal with making amends to those you have hurt. It is not so much an apology and doesn't have anything to do with the word sorry. It has to do with confronting the past and being able to get on with your life without being under the umbrella of past wrongs. In my early twenties I didn't pay taxes for 4 years and lived in fear of the phone wringing until I confronted the tax man and made things right. Now I make sure I file my taxes at least every two years.

There are times when amends may not be appropriate, for example if it would hurt a person to know the truth. Most of the things I did to people growing up were done to people long forgotten. I would struggle to come up with any names. In my case I need to rely on what is known as a living amends, which means adopting a genuine change in behaviour and a different way of life. I hope I have done that.

The only person whose name I could come up with to make direct amends would be the boy I gave tickets out to fight. As for being the one that I knew would fold in the face of aggression, there was a reason..It turns out that he came from a very abusive home and the last I had heard about him, he had shot his father. Tragic. I will stick with the living amends as no one should be hurt in the process.

I Am An Genius

2009-05-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning as Tim Smith. Although I am probably smarter than you are, I have never fancied myself an uber genius, that is until today. At the end of this you will surely worship the brilliance that is mine.

As I do every morning, I shuffled into the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee that I had prepared the night before. As I pour the roasty nectar into my cup, thanking myself for remembering to make it since no one else in the house seems to know how, I gaze through the window, through the clear morning air and look at the life growing in my garden. I examine every plant from a distance trying to see if anything sprouted vigorously overnight. This year its a ton of sugar snap peas, red peppers, black beauty eggplant, beets, radishes, snowball cauliflower watermelon, cucumbers, four kinds of heirloom tomatoes and green beans. No matter what I plant every year, I am sure to plant some green beans. Any fool can grow green beans.

Half of the garden gets the morning sun and half of the garden gets the afternoon sun. As a result, my overbearing fear of failure has me watering the vegetables at different times of the day in order to maximize use of the suns rays and turn our bumper crops of goodness. Today then, when I read the news saying that we will most likely be put on water rationing this summer, I thought about my garden and thought that there must be a solution to our water problem.

Seventy percent of the earth is covered by water. That seems like a lot of water but when you learn that only 2.5% of that water is freshwater, the problem begins to emerge.

Firstly, I propose that everyone immediately cease consumption of water. Humans have a very adaptive capability so stopping drinking water should not be a problem. Working on our side is the fact that water tastes like water. It's bland and uninteresting and actually since it is so tasteless, we probably don't consume enough as we should. What we should be drinking is diet coke. It tastes good, it has zero calories, it is refreshing and best of all it has a high sodium content and therefore can be made with ocean water. We have plenty of ocean water. In addition, since the diet coke is loaded with caffeine, society as a whole will be much more productive.

Next, we need to kill and eat all domesticated animals since they are a bastardization of nature in the first place and upset the global ecosystem to no end. It can be done by way of a massive worldwide barbecue on one day that will go down as the ultimate "Earth Day". There are over 2 billion domesticated cows on earth, each consuming gallons of freshwater every day and emitting enough methane to wreak havoc on the ozone layer. This doesn't even take into consideration the pigs, chickens, sheep and goats. I know that all the manly carnivores will be upset at this but if they want some meat, they can hunt it in nature and give animal a chance.

So now we have reclaimed all of the freshwater on earth, and other than nourishing our pets, it is available to be diverted and triple the amount of farmable land at our disposal. That increase in production will be enough to not only feed us, but to export and combat hunger in other countries.

I watched a story on coal this evening on 60 minutes and learned a lot. It also got my mind racing. Coal currently powers 50% of the electrical plants in the United States. The good news is that we are sitting on a 200 year supply, the bad news is what it does to the environment. Along with methane (which I have already curbed), carbon dioxide is the main atmosphere pollutant and it is what is emitted during the burning of coal. That is a huge problem for the future. The 60 minutes story focused on the problem of the massive CO2 emissions and the billions and billions of dollars the government is spending to find a solution to cleaner burning coal. Idiots! The trick is to find a way to tap the CO2 and find a use for it. Ding Ding Ding. It can carbonate the diet coke.

Staying with coal for a little bit, coal has more useful by products. It is an ingredient in sugar substitutes. Diet Coke. The Chinese are pioneering coal to plastics engineering. Diet Coke bottles. Coal is used in the manufacture of insecticides, fungicides and fertilizers, all which can be used on the new crops that will be grown with all the new water.

So my mind raced and raced and raced. Where else would this train of thought take me. It was time for my shower. I went to the bathroom, turned on the shower, disrobed and looked at myself in the mirror. Thankfully the mirror didn't crack. I shook my head and thought back to what I had eaten the day before and was appalled. Then a light went off. POPCORN.

Over the past 5 years, half of the potato crop in North America was converted to grow corn. This was brought about by the demand for ethanol due to the rising price of gasoline. Not only is ethanol a bullshit solution to curbing our demand for gasoline, now with the plummet in oil prices we are left with a glut of corn.

Screw the South Beach Diet. Fuck Dr. Atkins, he's dead. I am going to give you the perfect diet for free, foregoing book royalties.

The Perfect 2000 Calorie a Day Diet:

-20 cups of salty popcorn (a whole grain)

-unlimited vegetables (must include soybeans for protein)

-2 tablespoons of oil to use with the vegetables. Open a cookbook, it's not hard.

-Flintstones vitamins. They taste great.

-all the diet coke you can drink

The diet will satisfy you more than you think since you are not limited in the amount of salt you can use. The salty popcorn and the diet coke alone should combine and bloat you so badly that you will feel stuffed all day even without the produce, and if the meat eaters have actually gone out and hunted for their dinner, they deserve it. In addition, since we will be consuming so much salt, and salt is expelled in urine, if we keep our pee in the Coke bottles, we will not pollute the water table with salt to find its way into our fresh water supply.

To Summarize My Greatness I Have........

-allowed me to water my garden

-fed the world

-reduced obesity, heart disease and high blood pressure

-cleaned the atmosphere

-ensured our existence as long as we have coal

Instead of bailing out the douche bags at the banks and mortgage companies, the Obama administration has it all wrong. Those companies did it to themselves and until they are left on their own, we will never find the bottom of our economic disaster and begin to rebound in a real direction. I suggest we rally Washington to take a piece of the trillion dollars and give it to who will make a real difference. Coca Cola and Orville Redenbacher.

Tim Smith. Nobel Prize 2010.

You Would Have Done It Better, As Always

2009-04-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

I don't like torture unless its inflicted on geese, but a recent news story got me to thinking. As questionable as this may sound, there may be a time and place. I may get lynched by the ACLU for suggesting that, but if they do lynch me, I could probably get the ACLU to go after itself since they are opposed to such egregious practices as lynching. Hypocrites.

I remember the morning of September 11, 2001 they same way you do. Being a west coaster, I woke up to the sound of my wife's voice saying "get up Tim, you have to see this". The festivities had already started and by the time I had downed my first cup of coffee the first tower was on the ground. The news buzzed and scrambled for information. It was all sketchy at first but bit by bit the story unfolded and by the end of the day 2,976 civilians and 19 suicidal sheep were dead.

Over the next couple of weeks, the rawest emotions of people were on display. Sadness, anger, hate......not since Pearl Harbor had the country, and other countries by the way, banded together and shared the same feelings. Through countless conversations during the hot period following the attacks I never once heard the phrase "gee, when we catch the folks that are responsible for the destruction, I hope we aren't too mean to them". Yes, you felt the same as I did.

In my opinion the expression "Monday morning quarterback" describes one of man's great displays of cowardice. Its so easy to say woulda, shoulda, coulda. In the present day, with the instant availability of information, as well as lasik, hindsight is more that 20/20. We can all make decisions after the fact but to make them when the heat is truly on is the real test of fortitude. I believe that in the moment, most people make the best decision possible and do what they deem to be the right thing to do. Its the Monday morning quarterback that sits in the background and avoids putting his neck on the line, only to have the perfect solution after the fact. Your daddy woulda, coulda, shoulda pulled out so that my world be spared your perfection.

I don't think its right that now we are choosing to have 2000 photos of interrogations from 2002 released. I think it is unfair to the soldiers. The soldiers who were protecting the country from another possible attack. The soldiers who were doing what they were told to do. The soldiers who watched their friends get killed on a daily basis and somehow continue doing the best job they could. At the time the consensus was that we had invaded the right country, that they had weapons of mass destruction, and without bringing Iraq to its knees, Haliburton would not achieve the profits the so rightly deserve.

The history books are filled with things that either turned out to be the wrong decision or didn't turn out as we had hoped. Conversely, there are things that if taken as a single event, would be considered horrible but served their purpose as part of the whole. In the end they were people with good intentions doing what they thought to be the right thing at the time .

In the 1980's we armed the Afgan mujahideen resistance with every weapon that they needed to defeat the Soviets. Those were the same weapons that eventually fell into the hands of the Taliban and were used against us.

Ernest Rutherford was knighted in 1914 for his contribution to physics, in particular his research into nuclear fission. That discovery provided the knowledge to create perhaps the most dangerous invention in history, the atomic bomb. I wonder what the Japanese equivalent of knighthood is?

Jean Van de Velde provided the golf world with its greatest collapse of all time at the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie. You can go ahead and google it to read the whole story, but Van de Velde made every decision in the best way he knew at the time. That kind of bravery could only be displayed by the French.

Decisions either turn out to be brilliant or not. I am sure there were a few bad apples, but most of the soldiers who will be outed if those pictures are released were doing the best they could in order to get information that they thought might save your ass. They didn't know the Iraq invasion was bullshit. When Colin Powell gave his presentation to the United Nations regarding the imminent danger we faced with the current Iraqi regime, you were on board right up through the capture of Saddam.

Looking back and scrutinizing what was done by the soldiers in such a time of uncertainty is not fair. Just saying please wasn't going to get them anywhere. At the time they were making the best decision they could, and you're glad it wasn't you. If Bush and Cheney didn't get impeached over the Iraq debacle, why should we bother the people who took the orders?

Have You Seen Mary Lately?

2009-04-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

For the first 18 years of my life, I was one of ten thousand. For the next 4 years, I was one of three hundred thousand. For the following 5 years, I was one of three million. For the last 14 years, I have been one of ten million.

Growing up in a town that had about half of the people that are in attendance of the Lakers game I'm watching right now had its advantages and its disadvantages. We had more friends. We had closer friends. We waved to people in passing cars and talked to pedestrians on the street. Compared to living where I live now, it may as well have been Borneo. The only real difference is that we didn't have tribal communities of head-shrinking cannibals, but we did have Fin Town.

I could wax poetically all night on the benefits of living in a small town. What small towns lack in structure, they make up for in substance. Their virtues are never ending. Wholesome people living ideal lives, surrounded by close friends that will catch them when they fall. Wholesome people living ideal lives, surrounded by neighbours that know when something might be amiss. Unfortunately, therein lies a big drawback.

Small towns can be a little myopic in their views of difference, and the difficulty is that difference cannot get lost in a small population. If someone drinks too much, the town whispers. If someone gets divorced, the judgements and assumptions of fault fly faster than a peregrine falcon on a lemming's trail. And if you happened to by gay in a small town, your walk-in closet better be big enough to fit a cot, a kitchenette and a porta-potty because you're never coming out. Score one for city life.

The anonymity is something I appreciate. I'm not gay but I like the fact that my neighbour could be and no one would look twice.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I rarely wear a chef's coat anymore. If I need to teach or write a recipe I may throw one on to save my normal clothes from the inevitable splatters, but I avoid wearing one if I can. There is something strange about a chef's coat, strange good and strange bad. They are strange good in that when they are worn by someone who doesn't seem to be on parole, they can act as a pass to anywhere. Put one on and you can walk through the loading dock of any stadium or arena and see your favorite band or sports event free. Just tell them you are with the caterer. They are strange bad in that they attract nosey and invasive people who think you are around to answer questions. "Where do you work?"..."What is your favorite thing to cook?"..."What do you think of Rachel Ray?". I am not out to talk to you, I am probably just getting a can of pringles without my wife finding out.

I never hear anyone else who wears a uniform get quizzed. "Excuse me nurse, do you prefer assisting on bowel resections or diabetic amputations?"...."Excuse me maid, don't other peoples' pubes gross you out?"...."Excuse me cop, when you beat someone with your club, do you pretend its your wife?"

I live in a big city and I like the fact I can get lost in the masses and just do my thing. When you see me in the grocery store wearing my chef coat, please leave me alone. If you do, I promise I won't ask you why you buy bourbon by the gallon jug.

Here We Go Again

2009-04-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

I told Tim not to share the Princess Polly story with anybody. Sure 'nuff, the cops and two people who says they was from Child Protective Services came and took Tim away. Said they just needed to talk to him for a while. I hope he doesn't say nothing that'll get him in trouble.

Tom

Nighty Night

2009-04-17T19:44:00.000-07:00

I am crazy nuts for Ava. As I am typing this, I can hear her playing in the bath tub, talking to her imaginary friend and displacing enough water from the tub to effectively demonstrate Archimedes principal. No worries though. Just knowing that she is enjoying her life, that she is always safe and is beyond a healthy specimen makes up for any little mess or havoc she could create.

When Ava came to our family we were complete. Noah had a sister and a soul mate for life and my wife and I had the daughter we had patiently waited to meet for a couple of years. Although adapting to a bigger family was difficult and awkward at times, we knew that we were in it for the long haul and that we would thrive.

Tomorrow is Ava's birthday. My wife has Noah at the movies and I am being treated simultaneously to the olfactory pleasures of birthday cake in the oven and a freshly scrubbed child. Even Ruby dog got a bath today. I don't think our house has ever been more of a home.

I will be putting Ava to bed in about 20 minutes, after her teeth get brushed and her hair is dry. She will undoubtedly ask me to tell her a story, as she always does, and I will gladly tell her one. I always let her make a choice as to what she would prefer. Sometimes she wants me to read her a book. Sometimes she wants me to read her a book and play guitar at the same time. And sometimes she wants me to tell her her favorite story. It is a story that I have been telling her for the last 3 years and she just can't get enough. No one knows it but her and I. I am sure I will be telling it to her for the next ten years, and I don't mind at all.

I know this is a little away from the norm for my usual cock-eyed views of life, but I just wanted to share Ava's favorite story with you in case you have a daughter you cherish as much as I do mine. Be warned that if you use it, you may have to tell it over and over but you probably won't mind. I am sure you'll like it also.

The Story of Polly Princess

By: Daddy

Once upon a time, a little girl came into this world, surrounded by a family that had waited patiently for nine months to see her. She was born on a perfect day. The sun was rising over the mountains, the songbirds were chirping in their pitch-perfect melodies and an angelic cry could be heard flooding the floor of the hospital. It wasn't the cry that was so often heard, the one that said "I'm scared, I want to go back". It was a softer cry if even a cry at all. A soft siren call to the world telling it "I'm ready to live my life". They called her Polly.

Polly was a beautiful little baby with a blessed disposition. She had hair that shimmered an iridescent strawberry blond, saucer sized chestnut brown eyes and a plump little set of baby lips that were meant to make anyone swoon in awe. She looked just like her mother. She was early to smile, eager to cuddle and constantly cooing. If you put your ear up to her mouth, her sweet baby breath would almost seem to say "thanks mom and dad!".

She was daddy's little girl......his little Princess Polly. Whenever he would come home from work or just walk in the room, she would seem to bounce and wiggle a little bit more, and her toothless smile would be so wide and joyous that a little drip of spittle would always leak out onto her bib. As was the case in so many houses, mom fought the battles and dad won the war, but mom didn't mind. The house now seemed as if the light inside was softened, as if it had been granted immunity from the world outside, a kind of inner sanctum for the family to grow and flourish.

As if things weren't great enough in Princess Polly's life, one day her mom and dad sat her down and told her that she was going to have a little brother. Polly was so so so so happy. She was only 3 years old at the time, but she was old enough to know what it meant. She had none of the feelings of jealousy or abandonment that some children have when they feel like they are about to bumped down one notch on the totem pole, but only feelings of excitedness and gratitude that she would be able to share her storybook life with someone else. In her mind, she had already named her brother Prince Peter.

The months of waiting for her brother passed slowly for Princess Polly, and she passed the days drawing pictures for her new brother that could hang on his walls to keep him safe and happy. She talked to her dolls like they were now her baby brother, she practiced changing their diapers, and she would rock them to sleep while she sang lullabies to them in her most angelic voice.

One day Princess Polly's mom and dad called her over and said they needed to tell her something. Polly thought that they would tell her that it was time for Prince Peter to come home since she had noticed that her mommy's tummy didn't seem as big as it was a few days earlier. Her mom didn't look as happy as the time she told Polly she was going to get a brother. If fact, she had tears in her eyes. She looked at little Princess Polly and said "your brother won't be coming home". Polly was confused. She wondered why Prince Peter would not be coming home. Her mom and dad explained to her that he had been choked by his umbilical cord and had been dead inside of mommy for the past week. Polly asked if she could still see her brother but her dad explained to her that the doctor had thrown him away. Princess Polly felt pain, sorrow, anguish and resentment. All feelings that she had never felt before.

The next few years were not quite the same in Polly's house. Everyone seemed to be a little angrier than before, more quick to blame each other for every little wrong that happened. Polly was now in first grade and her mom had taken a job to try and take her mind away from the troubles at home. After school, Polly had to go to her grandma's house until six o'clock until her parents came home and she could join them at her house. Every day she would get picked up from school by grandma and they would walk the three blocks to her house, entering quietly as to not wake up grandpa from his afternoon nap. At five o'clock, they would eat soup and crackers and pack up for the walk home to see mom and dad.

One day when Grandma and Polly rounded the last corner before home, they saw some fire engines and an ambulance outside of Polly's house. As they got closer, they saw Polly's ashen-faced mother go by on a stretcher, blood soaked bandages on her wrists and eyes nearly closed. Just then Polly's dad came screaming up the street in his car and slammed on his brakes, exiting the vehicle just in time to catch his wife's eye one last time as she looked at him and said "if it weren't for you...". Then she faded away.

Polly and her dad were now alone, but they were still great friends. They knew that they were all they had and they did their best. Her dad struggled to make things work. He did his best to provide for his Princess both monetarily and emotionally, but sometimes the overwhelming role he had been thrust into proved to be too much. Polly noticed that her dad was starting to grow distant and was falling asleep at weird times of the day, smelling strangely like the juniper bush they had on their back patio.

The summer after first grade, Princess Polly's daddy knew that he needed a break. His brother was a rancher in West Virginia and had offered to do anything he could do to help his struggling brother. In a gesture of brotherly love, Uncle Rod and Auntie Bess had opened their home to Polly for the last six weeks of summer break. The time on the farm would do Polly well and it would give her dad the break he needed to recharge his batteries and reorganize.

On Labor Day weekend, Princess Polly stepped off the train accompanied by her Auntie Bess and Uncle Rod, and ran into her daddy's arms. They were together again and they seemed to have rekindled the love that they had experienced early on. It was better.

One morning while getting ready to go to school, Polly's dad came out of the shower wrapped in his Chicago Bears towel and he ran into Polly as he turned a corner in the hall. As they bumped, his towel fell off and he stood in front of his daughter in his birthday suit. Polly seemed to stare for longer than she needed to at her dad. Time seemed to stand still a little as her dad bent down to regain his modesty. When his towel was securely affixed around his waist, Princess Polly looked up at her dad and asked "Why doesn't your pee-pee have that skin hanging off the end like Uncle Rod's?".

It was a closed casket, since the bullet had gone up through Polly's dad's jaw and had blown off the entire top of his head. After the funeral, Uncle Rod and Auntie Bess took Polly to the farm to continue her childhood as only they could provide.

When she was old enough and wise enough to do so, a shell of the former Polly filed and received emancipation from her Aunt and Uncle. Before she left, she took all of the money and valuables that she could find in the house and made her way to Las Vegas where she met a man in a long fur coat named Don Juan Smackaho who offered her a place to stay in return for the odd favor.

When she finally turned eighteen years old, she started to dance at some of the local clubs and moved out from the Don's pad. She eventually became a headliner in the best clubs under the name Princess Polly. For five years she made more money than she would ever need and invested it in the booming Las Vegas real estate market.

Princess Polly now lives a happy life in a simple home with a white picket fence and two adorable Persian cats named Shaggy and Moe. Some days she still thinks about Prince Peter and asks the question "what if?". Then she gets back to what she was doing and enjoys the day at hand.

The End

Little girls love a happy ending.

Nothing Endures But Change

2009-04-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

There are only a handful of civilizations that have been around as long as the Chinese have been, and none have been close to as prosperous in the modern world. They are exception to the rule, proving that sometimes the early bird really does get the worm, but for the most part, the early bird needs to take a nap.

The Chinese civilization was not the only one that enjoyed a felicitous existence in the years B.C. Unlike its namesake comic strip, the times "Before Christ", and "Santa Clause" for that matter, were not filled with cavemen walking around with clubs and chiseling wheels out of granite, but with societies with well formed social systems, mind-bendingly forward thinking infrastructure, and massive monolithic structures built as viewing chambers for human sacrifice and lion feeding. Darwinism is a bitch.

Mesopotamia was known as the cradle of civilization. The Indus Valley civilization created the first rudimentary sewage system. The Mayans mastered large scale construction projects that experts consider groundbreaking given the lack of tools and machinery. The Minoans laid the seeds and early development of what became Europe. The Ancient Egyptians tapped into the riches of the Nile and cultivated abundant harvests of life giving crops amidst an otherwise arid and unforgiving landscape. They also gave us toga parties and inspiration for The Bangles biggest hit.

China however gave us much much more and unlike their peers, have been able to hold their ancient society together, defending itself through centuries of attempted conquest and maintaining its identity and pride as a true ancient civilization. Over the course of six thousand years, they have given us such life necessities as paper, the compass, gunpowder, pasta and fermented beverages. They posses what perhaps the other ancients did not. They have the ability, or perhaps lack of myopic vision to embrace change and adapt to the world around them. The following passage by the timeless poem "If", by Rudyard Kipling seems to have been written with the Chinese civilization in mind.

"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

Having had the opportunity to absorb China first hand for two weeks while we were adopting out darling little girl Ava, I was astounded at what was around. One one hand, there was an ancient side of the country that stayed true to its roots and customs, admiring history instead of shunning it, even though most of the historical buildings had been replaced by lifeless, sterile living boxes during the cultural revolution of Mao Zedong. On the other hand there was modern China. A land which has seemingly risen like the Phoenix from the ashes from under the rule of the PRC and horrors like Tienanmen Square. A place in which modern capitalism is being cautiously embraced after the rule of Deng Xiaoping , who in 1978 ridiculed the Cultural Revolution's slogan that held it was "better to be poor under socialism than rich under capitalism".

Though he passed in 1997, Deng's vision lives on strongly. China has emerged as a global power in manufacturing, export, research and commerce. The people of China posses a work ethic which is second to none, and due to their humble history and modest wants and needs, wages have remained stable, thus giving China a huge advantage in the quest and ascension to become the world's leader in the manufacture and export of cheap stuff. As a rule, it is five times cheaper to have something made in and shipped from China than to make a product domestically and hassle through stumbling blocks such as living conditions, basic wages and quality of life.

I am sure that this adaptability will continue to flourish in China. With their willingness to change and their "where there's a will, there's a way" attitude, continued success will undoubtedly be theirs. The strive for perfection can be seen in many areas. In the field of biochemistry and infectious disease, what is more perfect than the SARS virus. I guess they thought that Avian Bird Flu was for pansies. In the field of genetics, they have mutated genes to almost completely eliminate body hair except for on the places that make sense. I am sure that given a few more years, they will finalize the project and get rid of those long, thick, gnarly hairs that grow out of old dudes' facial moles. In the field of manufacturing, they are stealing a chapter from Lee Iacocca's playbook and trying to find a reason that lead paint on children's teething toys is actually a good thing.

I guess the above weak attempt at humor is out of place and unnecessary, and may just be an attempt to sabotage the world's view of a country that is poised to dominate the next few hundred years of global trade and become the next real super power. After all, if we are to consider ourselves the leading country in forward thinking, shouldn't we have thought of this first?

Click For......The Best Business Plan Ever

Would You Still Like Me If...?

2009-04-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! I got another one sent to me today!

Don't get me wrong, I like facebook as much as the next guy but I am predicting its failure within the next two years. When I first signed up, I enthusiastically engaged in its functions, posted all of the information about myself that I wanted to share and satisfied my inner voyeur by sifting through all of my friends pages and catching up on the last 20 years. Admittedly I was a bit of a facebook junkie.

Lately however, it seems like other than acting like a semi-private instant messaging forum, it has become a victim of its quick success and has run out of unique and interesting functionality. It is possible that facebook jumped the shark when the original Scrabulous was pulled from the site. It was then that a large number of boring, thoughtless applications started being created and circulated to attempt to fill the void. "Jana's Spring Fairy Name is Iris Lake-Mist". "Carole's real age is 25 years old". "Trish took the What Color Are You quiz and the answer is orange". Wow, knowing those fascinating tidbits will certainly provoke some deep thoughts.

The above trash applications however can not hold a candle to the 50 questions quiz that I get requested to take every few days. I have a few problems with this one in particular. Firstly, everything I want you to know about me is already listed in my profile. Secondly, requesting I fill this out is only a veiled way to make a little contact with me since you always regret never having the opportunity to get hot with my hotness and you will surely die unfulfilled. Thirdly, the questions suck.

1. What is your favorite lunchmeat?

2. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?

3. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

4. Do you wear contacts?

5. What color shirt are you wearing?

Really? If I answer these will you know me better? Will you have satisfied your inner curiosity in regards to me? If I send this list to 25 more people, won't I look like a huge knob just like you looked like to me?

Let me try to save Facebook and get people buzzing again. Its time to run the tape backwards of Fonzie's leather-clad water skiing daredevilness and re-energize Facebook to its former glory. Just like the original 50 questions debacle, fill your answers in to the following questions and send the quiz to 25 of your friends. Its a real fun quiz.

1. Do you think any of your friends' children are ugly?

2. Do you go to church because you believe or because you are afraid?

3. Was it a mistake giving women the right to vote?

4. The last time you had sex, were you alone or with someone else?

5. If a continent (excluding Antarctica) were to get flooded and lose all of its inhabitants, which continent would you want it to be? Antarctica is excluded because penguins are cool, but if geese migrated there, then it would have been included.

6. What is your suicide plan?

7. If your spouse told you you could have a one night stand, would you take them up on it?

8. If you could say anything to Chris Martin, what would it be?

9. Do you pee in the shower?

10. Have you thought about which one of your relatives might die and leave you money?

11. Have you ever wanted to get busy with a cousin?

12. Did you think it was funny when Britney Spears shaved her head?

13. If you were guaranteed no one would find out and you would be handed an envelope containing $50,000.......would you?

14. How old was your child the first time you left their vulnerable body alone at home so you could run an errand without having to be burdened with their presence.

15. When you are at a stop sign and someone from an ethnicity other than yours is walking in front of your car at a pace too slow for your liking, what do you say under your breath?

Do you really want to know your friends? Happy Forwarding!

So You Want To Come See Hollywood?

2009-04-02T08:38:00.000-07:00

I often cut through the heart of deepest darkest Los Angeles in order to avoid the myriad of constipated, undersized freeways that service the heart of the City of Angeles. I have lived in Southern California for over fifteen years now and have gotten to know the ins and outs of surface street shortcuts in order to maintain sanity. Strange then that one of the best routes I know of takes me directly through the heart of insanity, a modern day leper colony at the foot of the gleaming skyscrapers that define our capitalistic drive known as Skid Row.

Bounded by the textile district, the jewellery district, the manufacturing district and the financial district, Skid Row exists virtually unknown to ninety-five percent of the population of Los Angeles. Apparently out of sight, out of mind. Apart from the yearly fame whoring of B-list celebrities doling out Thanksgiving dinner to the local populous, it sits as a black eye on the city, covered up my a team of Hollywood's premier make-up artists.

We created Skid Row. Its a place for cast-off wounded vets, mumbling and stumbling hoards haunted by voices and doe-eyed children of prostitutes and addicts. At night, tricks are turned in porta-potties, amputees roll around in their wheelchairs and dealers brazenly peddle death in the open air. By shutting mental hospitals, adding thousands to the rolls of medically uninsured, skimping on rehab and keeping social services out of respectable neighborhoods, we've guaranteed this teeming human landfill. City of Angels.

To think that this is reserved for a certain social strata, think again. A few years ago a network news program did an expose on Los Angeles' Skid Row and they focused on a mid thirties Caucasian lady who seemed strangely out of place, taken into consideration the stereotypical appearance of its denizens. In the follow up to the story a couple of months later, the family of the lady had seen the program and had retrieved her. As it turned out, she was a successful lawyer from the right side of town who had missed her meds and had quickly spiralled downwards to the anonymity of Skid Row.

So we have chosen to cast these people off to a life of despair, horror and certain demise. Are we so shallow that we can't be bothered with them? The inhabitants, save for the odd drug dealer who preys on an easy target, are sick. Drive through when you get a chance and look into their eyes and you will see immediately. For whatever reason, mental illness has taken them over and we as a society decide to do nothing. Would It cost too much to help them? The new stimulus bill has $550 million earmarked for additional space exploration. As far as I know, Mars isn't going anywhere soon.

Your Aunt who died of cancer a few years back didn't get dumped there. Your friend's retarded brother is well taken care of. George Bush became president. So why do people with mental illness get treated so? In the end, Boo Radley was a good guy.

Irony pops up in many places in life. Looming in the skyline above Skid Row every night is a regal silhouette of the modern Twin Towers jail. Inside, killers, rapists, pedophiles and arsonists are fed 3 square meals, given a bed to sleep on, given warm clean clothes and can go to the restroom indoors. All of this is done in the name of political correctness and fear of damaging our perception of being a fair and just society. Nobody on Skid Row, in a time of lucidity, would say that was the case.

The people on Skid Row aren't bad guys, they are sick. Hitler was a bad guy. Ted Bundy was a bad guy. Nikolai Chauchesku was a bad guy. Most of the guys in the Twin Towers are bad guys. We should trade the resources we currently spend on incarcerating our hardcore criminals and divert it to the mentally ill. As in the case of the female lawyer, the correct dose of the correct drug can do wonders. If the Twin Towers were a rehab facility for the mentally disabled, perhaps the people who got released would not return nearly as often as its current residents.

As for what to do with all of the hardened criminals in the system? John Carpenter had it right in Escape From New York but he forgot one thing. Had Coldplay been played over loudspeakers on the island 24-7, the bad guys would have killed each other and themselves within a week of arrival.

Shame Knows No Boundaries

2009-04-01T19:31:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in my chair a la Archie Bunker this evening and I heard the front door swing open and my wife say "Tim, come here!". Thinking something may be wrong, I sprang out of my chair quickly and vaulted myself out the front door. There she stood in front of the newly blooming rose bushes, pointing at the soil with a look of both amazement and bewilderment. "Look", she said. My eyes followed a straight line from the tip of her finger to the ground. I saw nothing. "Look closer", she said in earnest, "Ladybugs humping!". Interesting, yes, but deserving of a look of amazement and bewilderment? Not as much as this......

We grew up tough in my hometown. The elements could get brutal but for the most part we knew what we had and we managed. The only part of the year that more or less paralyzed us was the depth of winter. The weather hovered around -30 degrees, we were limited to only 9 hours of daylight and the freshest vegetable the grocery store had was a turnip. To deal with it and avoid the Finnish winter suicide phenomena we could do only one thing. We would suffer through school Monday to Friday, knowing that starting Friday night we would end up in someones parent's basement, partying like it was 1999, only 15 years earlier.

We had the routine down pat. First we found out whose parents were out of town. Then we went on the hunt for our beloved Canadian beer. There were usually enough conciousless but well meaning people around town to purchase our contraband for us, but if all else failed, for 5 dollars a local taxi driver would go to the beer store and deliver it to any address we wanted. In our eyes, that man was a saint.

It was always the same cast of the usual suspects that would show up. All of the cliques would be there. The heavy metal crowd, the punkers, the pre-Emo pale kids, everyone was let in and for the most part, aside from the occasional testosterone and alcohol fueled fisticuffs, everything was good harmless fun. The town was small enough that once the time came, we could bundle up in our winter coats, don our toques and make the walk home before our blood froze. Once in a while however, that was not the case.

I can't remember whose house it was since everyones' basement was similar. Low ceilings, musty smell and relatively soundproof to shield the neighbours from making any sound complaints. I can't remember anything strange about the crowd as it was always the same. The night did stand out for one reason. A moment of genius. A moment of desperation. A place in history.

The weather grew particularly nasty as the night went by, thinning the crowd at a quicker pace than usual. No one wanted to get stuck trying to make it home in a full fledged blizzard so at a point in the night, the remaining revellers knew they would be staying the night. There were probably around 20 of us that had to camp out. The lucky ones got to sleep/pass out in one of the beds in the house and the rest of us were relegated to find a spot in the basement and curl up for the night. It was a good opportunity to get in some unwelcome but necessary spooning with the opposite sex as the room was cold as hell.

The moment of infamy came after about 20 minutes after the lights had been turned out. The Cheezy Whale was a hoot. He was the tallest guy in the crowd, he was friends with everybody and he was a laugh a minute whenever he was around. In addition, he apparently had no shame. He had been fortunate enough to get the basement couch and had been joined by an unexpecting classmate that was only looking for a little warmth.

Most people had fallen asleep but I was still awake. It was probably because I was on the floor at the foot of the couch. It sounded like there was a little extra curricular going on and it was starting to warm the room. The Whale was having a great time and so was she, but excitement got the best of him and it was apparent he thought this could be it. She was a nice girl and the odds of Cheezy Whale scoring were less than zero. Undaunted, he reached deep into his bag of tricks and pulled out a line that would put "does this rag smell like chloroform to you?" to shame. He waited for what he thought was the right moment and let it fire. "If you let me put it in, I promise not to move it."

Much more amazing and bewildering than ladybugs humping.

They Make Good Comforters

2009-03-31T17:05:00.000-07:00

I remember autumn in Canada. The same things happened every year as we prepared ourselves for six months of house arrest by way of old man winter. Ironically beautiful, the environmental changes took place like clockwork, as sure as the sun would rise. The leaves turned striking shades of crimson and yellow, the animals fattened up to prepare for hibernation and the Canada Geese flew south for winter in their signature pattern. Though high in the sky, you could still hear their resonating honks as they passed overhead, and if things were quiet enough you could hear the odd goose take a break from honking to say "later suckers". I am sure that if it weren't for their webbed feet, they would be flipping us the bird as well. Geese are fowl.

It hurts me to think that my proud homeland is represented by such a nasty bird. I know it is not the national bird, Canada doesn't have one, but it is impossible to ignore the assumption due to its name. I like to think the particularly horrible ones come from Quebec.

I can't think of one good thing about them, which other than mosquitoes and black flies, almost puts them in a category by themselves. They have taken up residence and overrun urban parks that don't contain any natural predators, leading to an unprecedented population explosion, spreading like a migratory SARS virus.

Geese will readily attack just for the fun of it. They park should not be a place that children need to be protected. Kids' little eyes are at the exact level of a well placed goose peck and as a result parents are always on guard to take the defensive to protect their child, chasing the goose away and inevitably stepping in large numbers of goose craps.

The phrase "your goose is cooked" has a very negative connotation. I have yet to hear of any doomsday expressions about robins or swallows. And have you ever tried to actually cook a goose? They are tough, fatty birds with a gamy aftertaste that needs to be cloaked with some sort of cloyingly sweet fruit sauce. Your goose is cooked and you can't even eat it.

You wouldn't know it by watching American news, but Canada has a very long and storied history when it comes war. It will always do its part for a cause that it feels will make the world a safer place. Canada was a major player in WW1 and WW2. Canada has taken part on the Korean War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War and the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, all of which it decided were noble reasons to go to war. For some reason, Canada didn't invade Iraq.

Now it is time for Canada to be a little selfish. This spring when the geese try to get back in your country you must go to war for yourself this time, take up arms and eliminate the enemy. Don't listen to PETA or any other tree hugging organization that will try to sell you on the fact that all living things have the right to live. The only good goose is Mother Goose. So when you line the border with your 12 gauge shotguns and take aim, buck your Canadian nature and dump the compassion and remember, geese fly in a V formation because that is the best shape to fit inside a plane's engine.

Rose Colored Glasses

2009-03-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

Circumstances being what they are, I have had some spare time on my hands as of late. A lot of that time was filled with deep introspection, some energizing and some deeply problematic, and if I don't let the aforementioned introspectii out, I fear my brain and soul will collapse into a black hole of confused emptiness.

Taking my nature into consideration, I am weary of sounding like a middle aged Andy Rooney, only finding fault in whatever the topic. I want to take more the approach of Aldous Huxley in his 1928 classic, Point Counter Point, balancing the things I hate with something I love. I think it will be a healthy approach.

Hate Number One:

I hate the fact that there is no new classic rock. I don't just mean Zepplin and The Doors, but really everything other than Journey that was made before the mid 90's. The end of grunge gave way to the urban movement, club, and trance and through to the likes of Dave Matthews, Maroon 5 and any rapper featuring any other rapper. I disliked it all. My Ipod is filled with classic stuff from XTC, English Beat, Talking Heads, Beatles etc. Unfortunately even 400 songs eventually become repetitive so I decided to give some new music a chance and loaded some of my son's Coldplay onto it. Coldplay sucks.

Love Number One:

I love when bands like Dave Matthews, Maroon 5 and Coldplay break-up so they don't produce any more crappy music to pollute the airwaves.

Hate Number Two:

I hate that feeling I get a couple of minutes before an attack of diarrhea. The wave of hot and cold that flushes up through my head, the lower abdominal cramping, the excess production of saliva and the fear of what is about to come all make for a few minutes horror that I hope never to experience again. Unfortunately I know I will.

Love Number Two:

I love when people I hate as much as Dave Matthews gets diarrhea.

Hate Number Three:

I hate bluetooth earpieces and the strokers that use them outside of their cars. They come across as self important blowhards that think the world wants to know their business. Have you ever noticed that you never hear a guy getting chewed out by his wife and backpedaling faster than Lance Armstrong on a bluetooth, but the same guy will let an entire restaurant in on the fact that he just closed a big deal? The other day I got on the elevator to take me up to my office and there was a very beautiful lady already inside. The doors shut to take us up to our respective floors and she asked a seemingly random question to which I eagerly answered. Turns out she was on a bluetooth. I left the elevator never taking my eyes off my shoes.

Love Number Three:

I love the fact that Ruby the dog ate my bluetooth.

There, I think that was a good approach to letting things out. I feel good now.

A Message From Tim

2009-03-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

This is Tim's brother Tom clippin' on the keys with a message from my bro. He says to tell you he had a little problem with the pigs last weekend and got put away for a couple weeks for some bogus tickets. He says he paid em though. And he says they took his car also and a little of his weed he keeps for his glaucoma. He should be back in a couple of days. His cats are fine.

Tom Smith

Mo Meaty Meat Burgers

2009-03-19T11:04:00.001-07:00

Raise your hand if your net worth is forty percent less than it was one year ago. If you didn't raise your hand you either are too young to have started accumulating wealth, too stupid to have ever saved anything or too scared to let anyone else ever touch your money because you lived through the last depression.

I realize that the entire world is in this economic maelstrom and that the United States is not alone, but maybe we were the ones that led the sheep to slaughter. We strive for more. We always strive for more. We need a better car. We need a bigger home. We need the newest ipod because all of a sudden ours sucks. And up until the last few month's reality check we loved paying a lot of money for things, being the good capitalists we are. When I was in China four years ago I purchased the newest model Canon digital camera for $220. When I got back home I went to Best Buy to find it and it was almost $600. A friend of mine is in the shipping business. He told me that if a shipping container filled with cameras was loaded onto a boat in China and unloaded in the United States, the cost per camera would be about forty cents.

I don't mean to shit in anybody's cornflakes, but let me try to use an example of how our society has come to accept overpaying for something that doesn't deserve it.

I went to culinary school in 1990 at a very good institution in Toronto where one year's tuition was under a thousand dollars. When I got out I was a humble cook with no real experience. I ended up taking a job to do my apprenticeship at a large city hotel making $6.75 an hour. Knowing what I know now, what seemed like a crap wage at the time turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I put my nose to the grindstone, learned everything I could and at the end of my first year I had learned enough and had gotten enough confidence that I felt I could walk onto the line of most restaurant kitchens and do quite well. Plus, I had made about fifteen grand.

I always knew I that for some reason I wanted to go work in California. The culinary scene was a fresh and innovative one being driven by such visionaries as Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck and Joachim Splichal. They never went to culinary school.

I landed on the sunny shores of Orange County in 1993 and was taken aback by a few things. The weather was mind blowing, the people were very laid back and relaxed, and there was something called The Food Network on television. It was a channel that was completely dedicated to romanticizing the culinary industry and elevating chef's status absurdity. I could walk into any grocery store while still wearing my chef whites and ladies would want to chat me up even though I smelled like salmon bile. The people who once went unknown sweating behind restaurant walls were now working in open kitchens, taking in the limelight and gracing magazine covers.

Naturally what came next was a parade of wannabes who fantasized about being the next big thing, stirring their special sauce in their special copper pot in some fake restaurant / production studio. Applications to culinary schools skyrocketed and so did the cost to attend. There is no other school that I know of that you can get into with just a GED, yet costs so much. I looked today at what it costs to attend one of the known schools and I almost threw up on my shoes. It will now cost you over $50,000.

You basically learn three things at culinary school. The first and least important is basic cooking. Least important because although you get to see and do a lot of different things, you do them once and move on. Like anything, you learn by repetition so making one pate in the course of a year doesn't exactly make you an expert. In fact, you will probably have forgotten the basic principles by the time you have to make one again. The other two things are the real important ones but the ones that aren't exactly glam. You learn how to not cut yourself and most importantly how not to poison anybody. $50,000???

So we have learned that if we want something, we will pay whatever we are told to pay, not how much we should be paying. The basic principle of supply and demand applies to gas, milk, concrete and the like but seems to get lost when it pertains to what we want versus what we need. To feed this mania, we need to have more money, earn more money, get huge returns on our investments and so on.

The dot com bust of the early nineties should have taught us something but I don't think it did. If we were meant to make thirty percent returns on our money, then money wouldn't be worth very much. As we know now and hopefully will remember, feeding our lust for more eventually catches up to us and Ponzi's walls come crumbling down.

Maybe the car we have is ok, maybe learning how to cook can be done at community college, and maybe the eight track wasn't that bad. Only Spinal Tap needs to go to 11.

I'm Not Itchy Any More

2009-03-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

I have never considered myself a lucky person. This being St. Patrick's day and all, the luck of the Irish was on mind and it got me to thinking. Other than being blessed with a great family, my luck in life has not been particularly awesome. I have never won the lottery, let alone a raffle. I have never come into a great business deal, or a great inheritance. But people say "Tim, you have your health. You are lucky". I have never thought my luck in that department has been been worth a damn either.

Age 1 Day

Some butcher stole my foreskin.

Age 2

Enjoyed a bout of chicken pox that would come back to haunt me later.

Age 3

I was operated on for a hernia. My dad already had me carrying in the firewood I guess.

Age 4

Diagnosed with scarlet fever. I don't even know what that is.

Age 5

I loved peas so much that I inhaled one and needed a nightly round of massage therapy to work it lose before it rotted and made me get pneumonia.

Age 7

Had surgery to remove eight of my molars. What an effective diet that was, I stayed thin for years. I should probably get some pulled again.

Age 8

While building a tree house of sorts, a 2x4 fell off the tree and on the way down, the nail in it went inside of my mouth and shredded the inside of my cheek. Another effective diet.

Age 9

While running as fast as I could down the street while being chased by a mean neighbour, I tripped and slid to a stop, using my face as a breaking mechanism.

Age 10

Went under the knife again to remove a large mole on my neck that kept getting partially torn off while being beaten by my sister.

Age 11

The freezing needle from a dental procedure severed a nerve in my tongue. I had no feeling in it for about a year. I bit it on a daily basis.

Age 12

Some kidney ailment that had the doctors take enough blood from me to satisfy the toast at Dracula's wedding. They never found anything.

Age 13

Dan Charbonneau kicked me in the nards.

Age 14

Not thinking the blackheads on the sides of my nose would be too appealing to the girls, I scrubbed them so hard one night that the next day my nose was a scab. I don't thing the girls liked that either.

Age 16

Punched a wall and broke three bones in my hand. My right hand. Not good for a sixteen year old boy. Wax on, wax off Daniel-san.

Age 17

Suffered a severe allergic reaction on New Years Eve that incapacitated me for almost three full days. To this day, I am still allergic to Crown Royal.

Age 20

Tore the labrum in my right shoulder while playing baseball, causing my to throw like a girl for the next twenty years.

Age 22

Enjoyed a delicious hot dog from a street vendor outside of Union Station in Toronto. I was bedridden for days and lost seventeen pounds. Yet another effective diet, maybe I should write a book.

Age 23

Went out for drinks after work with my boss and decided to pick a fight with him even though he was about forty pounds heavier and four inches taller than I was. Bad idea. Broken shoulder blade.

Age 26

Tore the meniscus in my knee while trying to teach my pale Canadian ass to surf.

Age 31

The childhood chicken pox came back for a visit, this time disguised as shingles.

Age 32

Scabies. And no that's not a venereal disease.

Age 32

Suffered a prolonged bout of poison oak. I finally figured out that it was coming from the neighbour's dog.

Age 34

Diagnosed with melanoma. Thankfully it was spotted early and was able to be completely removed from my body.

Age 35

I was diagnosed with depression. It is under control and I have felt mostly great for the last bunch of years. Thankfully, whenever I put on weight, I can say it is depression when I know damn well its the cheeseburgers. It might just be time for a bout of salmonella.

Age 38

I dropped the cast iron fireplace log holder and it was a direct hit on one of my toes. The toe lost.

Age 39

http://icookadafish.blogspot.com/2009/03/im-taking-my-balls-and-going-home.html

I won't re-hash this debacle.

Age 41

I finally got the torn labrum surgically repaired. A few screws and five months of rehab later, good to go.

This weekend I am going to the desert to play in a golf tournament with my dad. I am really looking forward to it. While I am driving out there I will undoubtedly be thinking of my brother-in-law who is in the hospital battling cancer that has spread from his leg to both of his lungs. His chances of survival are less than twenty percent. I guess I am lucky.

A Fish Tale

2009-03-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

My beloved northern Ontario might be truly the greatest place on earth. It produced me. Thank you very much, I'll be here the next three nights. Try the veal and don't forget to tip your waitress.

But seriously folks, growing up there is the exact polar opposite of where I am raising my children. Southern California has crime, over crowding, a shitty education system, rationed water and weather so blessed that my warmest jacket is considered a windbreaker where I come from. Growing up in Northern Ontario we never locked our doors, we knew everyone around, the education system was great except for the nuns that got out all of their pent up sexual frustrations by giving us the strap, the weather was less than desirable, but we were surrounded by all the pristine fresh water that one could want. Nature was our playground.

When I came home from university each summer, I was lucky enough to work at the golf course early in the morning and have the late afternoons and evenings open to enjoy the summer sun that lit the sky until almost ten o'clock. Fortunate stuff. For a couple of years, those nights were filled feeding a fishing jones that seemed bottomless. I went with a few different people, but for the most part my partner in angling addiction was Killer. Killer also worked at the golf course so it was perfect. Work, go home, load the truck, stop at Ye Olde Bait Shoppe for da leech, da dace or da chub and speed out to whatever lake or stream that interested us. It was almost always a great time.

Normally the target of our inner Winkleman was either walleye or smallmouth bass. There were dozens and dozens of freshwater lakes at our disposal to catch these fish, but once in a while we wanted to fish outside of the box. There were a few places around, usually a little remote, that housed brook trout. We only fished for these a few times a year. They are small, shy fish that really test your patience and mettle.

Mondays were a day off at the golf course so Killer and I called another friend and planned an excursion for brookies. Normally we fished the trout by canoe, portaging glacial lake after glacial lake until we reached areas so secluded that the mosquitoes had never seen a human. This was a different kind of trip. We were going to fish one of the creeks that drained away from the lakes and held many trout and as it turned out, some bad memories.

We got to the spot, unloaded our gear and slipped into some hip waders. Hip waders are basically chest high waterproof rubber pants with attached boots. Mine were old school. They weighed about 15 pounds, were way too big and they were missing the cinch belt, but onward ho, there were fish to be killed. The area we were fishing was a creek that varied in width from about ten to twenty five feet. It was overgrown, littered with old decaying logs and filled with plenty of water flora that provided ideal cover for the trout. The plan was to separate since the creek was too small at any one point to have two of us fishing so Killer and our friend headed downstream and I headed upstream. We would meet back in a couple of hours to admire our catch.

I wanted to go about a hundred yards upstream. I had been there before and I knew it opened up to a little pool that was ideal to fish. Walking to our spots, we stuck as close to the banks as we could where it was only a couple of feet deep. The water was cold. I was glad to be wearing the waders. I had trudged along for about fifteen minutes, finding my footing and being as quiet as possible so our targeted buffet was not spooked. The pool was just around one more bend in the creek. There was a tree that had been felled by a beaver a few years ago in my way and I needed to get over it to reach my spot. Carefully I got on top of the log, caught my balance and hopped down to the other side. As I did, the small fishing net that was fastened to my side snagged a small branch on the log and my balance was gone. I did a faceplant into the water that would make any spastic proud. The water was about two feet deep and I was belly down on the bottom. As I sunk my hands into the loose layer of loon crap on the bottom of the creek I got a sinking feeling. The bottom was too soft to get a good push from and what was worse, since my waders didn't have a belt they instantly filled with water, turning me into a human anchor. The more I pushed on the bottom, the more I panicked. Uh Oh! I was probably under for about forty five seconds but it seemed like five minutes. Knowing that it was useless to push on the bottom any longer, I reached my hands up above my head in a last ditch effort but it was too late. I had died. I just lied. I had lucked out and grabbed a sunken branch that was affixed to the log and was able to yank my head above water and slowly make my way out.

Not to be conquered by a little body of water, Killer and I returned the next week to the trout creek but this time I was going to paddle a small canoe, figuring I had burned all my chances with the hip waders. The canoe was loaded with my supplies. I placed one foot in it and pushed off the shore in a triumphant return to my maker. As I kneeled down the canoe flipped and I spent the next hour sifting through loon shit to retrieve my equipment. What's up with that?

Redrum

2009-03-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

Mr. Miyagi never quit and neither will I.

Up late again last night, I had put Noah and his sleepover buddy to bed in his room and had taken my rightful place on the couch. My wife loves to move furniture around and this time she hit it out of the ballpark. The angles in the room not only look great and give the room an open yet defined feel, they allow me to slovenly watch television from the best position ever. I never have to shift, its a man's dream come true.

I was flipping around the channels and wham, there it was staring me in the face. Little Danny was wheeling around the corridors on his big wheel as free and innocent as you would hope for your own children. He rounds the corners with the freedom of knowing he is unobstructed to do as he likes, to go where he likes, he zooms past room 237 and continues on his way. But wait....what's that up ahead....why are those two little girls so pasty? Click.

When I was young, I was a little on the freakoutable side. The horror movies back then were much more psychological and mind intrusive than they are now. They didn't rely so much on blood and gore as the movies to now but rather they relied on a great script and a great director to make them come to life and keep you awake at night. Amityville Horror, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, they all did their jobs at the time and solidified their places in the Horror Film genre hall of fame. The problem with these films though is they they have not aged well. When I watch them now, for some reason their punch has faded over time. It might just be me that thinks so, but there is a reason that they aren't played much anymore or talked about when the chance should arise. That is except for The Shining.

I have tried to watch The Shining at least fifteen times, all with the same result. When Danny starts to talk to his finger and write on the walls, I'm done. Last night I actually switched over to the Deer Hunter to take my mind to a better place. If the Deer Hunter is a better place, I guess The Shining is my purgatory of darkness.

I guess life keeps some things unattainable for a reason, to keep on pushing you, to keep you alert and awake, not settling for what you've done. As it turned out, the fly can be caught in the chopsticks, so I will keep watching The Shining whenever I see it's on. After all, the couch couldn't be in a better position.

Worm Food

2009-03-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2009/03/13/8740461.html

Megan's Law Website

I'm OK You're OK

2009-03-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

Aren't we all so average? We all have a few things we are very good at and a few things we are inept at but for the most part, the bulk of us hang out at the middle of the bell curve of life. That's a tough pill to swallow. My brain and body always want to be the best at whatever it is put to task to do. Striving to achieve excellence is a good thing, a great thing really, but settling with averageness is upsetting. I have a great job, I want a better one. I am a very good golfer but I always should have played better. I think we criticize ourselves too much and expect generally to much from ourselves. We need to do a better job accepting what we have. We need to take a lesson from our farts.

Our farts are a product of us, just like everything else we do is a product of us. Why is it that when we walk into the bathroom of an airplane, we brace ourselves for the worst. Other people's farts entering our nasal passages is just a plain revolting thing that we try to avoid at all costs. As soon as we catch the first wiff, we hold our breath and walk away. Farts can even be used as a weapon. A friend of mine used to fart in his empty popcorn box when we were at the movies and wave it in some poor unsuspecting soul's face.

Have you ever tried to avoid your own fart? You can't really do that. Even if you have unleashed the mother of all cabbage bombs, it is useless to run as it will simply surf the wake you leave behind only to meet you again when you stop. Fart in bed? You never leave the covers. Fart in a ski-doo suit? The only place for it to escape is past the zipper toggle that lies under your chin. I bet you don't even actually find your farts disgusting, but more of a curiosity factor. Why? Because we settled, it was a matter of survival or we would all go mad.

The next time you are performing a task and you are not happy with the results, just think of how you learned to embrace your farts. As long as you tried your best, you should be happy with yourself because just like the fart that follows you wherever you go, so does, for better or for worse, the person in the mirror. And for the most part, they're remarkably average.

Innocence Lost

2009-03-11T19:37:00.000-07:00

A couple of Saturdays ago was opening day of my son's little league. In a flash of chivalry, I offered to take the kids to the field myself and save my wife the agony of listening to the annual 90 minutes of self congratulatory speeches delivered by the city's most blowhardy officials. The park is only a few traffic lights away but I almost didn't make it there. I was driving down the street when I quickly glanced to my left to check the intersection I was going through and I almost hit a car parked on the side of the road. I had been distracted by what I had seen and my mind was sent for a loop. When we arrived at the ball park, I dumped Noah and told him I was going to park the car and I would meet him inside. What I really wanted to do was go back to look at what had distracted me. It was a yard filled with kid's play equipment, not unusual except for the fact that I had mistakenly thought It was the yard of one of the two registered sex offenders in my neighbourhood. Thankfully I was off by one block.

They say everything happens for a reason. I'm not sure who "they" are but you usually can interpret something good out of most situations, no matter how horrible. In 1994 seven year old Megan Kanka was brutally raped and murdered. The public outcry from this was so strong that in 1996 President Clinton signed Megan's Law into effect. This law made it mandatory for all child sex offenders to register in a sex offender database which includes their updated address. In addition, Megan's Law trumped normal privacy safeguards and provided public access to the database in order to help ensure public safety. Before we bought our current home, I accessed the database and found the two offenders that lived just a few blocks away. They are very old men but nonetheless, I am happy Megan's Law is there and I know where they live. Don't be shocked, they live in your neighbourhood also.

Not every victim of pedophilia is killed, in fact it is a rarity, but they all lose something they cannot get back. They lose their innocence, they lose their trust, they are affected in so many ways that stay with them for the rest of their lives. Statistics show that 15% to 25% of females and 5% to 15% of males have been victims of sexual abuse of some sort. I have people in my life and you have people in yours who have suffered. Every child deserves to be protected.

When I was growing up, a couple of my schoolmates' father was rumored to be involved in the disappearance of a 12 year old girl who happened to be his second cousin. There were always whispers, but the story seemed to fade with the memory of the little girl.

Today, Barry Manion pleaded guilty to the 1970 murder of his cousin, Katherine May Wilson and was sentenced to life in prison. He will be eligible for parole in 10 years. If "they" are correct, maybe the Canadian laws will be changed. The fact that this person could be free in ten years is shocking. Pedophilia has one of the highest rates of recidivism of any crime and has been basically deemed incurable by medical professionals. Knowing this, the lawmakers surely would not want Mr. Manion in their community in ten years.

Megan Kanka lost her life but the loss facilitated change. No child killer should be eligible for release after 10 years. Maybe that too can change.

Nobody Told Me That

2009-03-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

I find it to be more than a little bit ironic that I write a blog. I am willing to bet that I have read less than 15 different books during my forty one years on this planet. Taking into consideration that I didn't read my first book until approximately the age of ten, simple math would calculate that I have read a complete work every six years. So much was my disdain for reading while I was growing up, I wrote a ninth grade book report on a book that didn't exist,by a fictional author named Morris Bruce. The man who lived in the home three houses from ours was named Bruce Morris. He was actually a teacher at the high school I was attending while I wrote that masterpiece.

I think it's humorous that a few people have asked me if I've had anything published, or if I have considered writing a book. I thought that by now most of my old acquaintances would have given up smoking pot, but I guess not.

My attention span is about equal to that of a flea so I assume that is why my writing tops out at about one thousand words. After that my mind wanders off to something different. If that were not the case though, I know what I would write a book on. It would be titled "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Moving Out of Your Parents' House and Not Having to Take Twenty Years to Figure Shit Out". Amazon has tons of Idiot titles, but they all deal with a single subject. I did a little poking around today and found that basically everything is covered. Crochet, Pole Dancing, Adoption (that is disturbing), Communicating with Spirits, Amazing Sex ($12.95 and super saver shipping. 2-3 days).

Everything has been written and published except the guide that explains to someone fresh out of school some practical lessons on how to stay out of debt, save for the future, not get ripped off during your first big purchase, avoiding scams, why you shouldn't get visible tattoos and so on and so on. I frankly think that this should be made into a mandatory high school course of some kind. Most people would think twice about racking up their credit card charges if they knew how much it would really cost them in the end.

My favorite blog had a quote by Soren Kierkegaard in it today and I am shamelessly going to steal it. I am sure the Author wouldn't mind. It would be a great single line forward to this book if it every were to be written. "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards"

A good friend of mine called me this morning while I was driving to work. He is the national training director for a large restaurant company. The company he works for is struggling a little bit, like we all are, in this economy so they are doing some shuffling and restructuring to cut some costs. He is currently looking for someone to hire to work in three different locations, thus being able to let two people go and realize some savings in the benefits department.

The purpose of his call was to share a couple of responses to his job posting with me and to generally scratch his thinning hair and vent confusion. The contents of the first response was pretty cookie-cutter except for the use of the word "cuz". The great part was that it came from the email address iluvpudding@XXX.XXX. The second response was the real classic. The following is the thread he sent to me.

-Look at this chain of e-mails I was sending this applicant. I asked him a serious question, and just read his response.

from applicant
To whom this may concern,

My name is Lyle and am very interested in obtaining this floating cashier position, I have my resume attached, but anyway I don't work at Pizza Port Brewery any more and have been desperately seeking for a job for the past two months, and with this current economic situation, no one has been has given me the opportunity to show them how great of a worker I am. Well, I am very proficient with the Aloha computer program and am very talented with computer programs in general, and I am also very good with math as I have taken very high levels of math at college. Well, I look forward to getting an interview soon so we can set up my first day to start.Thank you for your time and consideration, and I hope I stand above the rest and get a call for someone soon.

Sincerely,
Lyle xxxxxxxxx

from my friend
Lyle

I know how hard these times are. I've had over 100 applicants for this one position. Let me ask you, do you see yourself sustaining a job between 3 stores at $9.00 an hour? There is always room to grow (i.e. become a shift leader), but whenever i get applicants from casual dining, they can't swallow taking the big pay cut. How do you feel about that.

from applicant
Hello,

Right now, in this time I see my self taking whatever I can get and running with it, most jobs I've applied for are with restaurants washing dishes, and of course the room to "grow", and I know that there is no room to grow, I'm I'm willing to deal with that because I know that those jobs are reserved, and excuse me for saying this, border hoppers, and as soon as this economy stabilizes itself they will start hiring back those people for way less than right now. I know what's up, and I will take anything, and being a cashier at three locations is way better than washing dishes, and besides I love interacting with different people and just can't help myself from keeping my mouth shut when I meet someone new. I hope you can look past past bluntness in these times and accept my words as a commitment, and if not, I'll just find someone else that will not hire a girl with her boobs hanging out or a cheep worker that will work for two dollars less, which I will gladly take as well. Take that into consideration, and I thank you for your time and consideration, and hope to hear back from you soon, and like I said if I hadn't said before I will be the best worker, and the best face with customers you will ever have. There's something about me, and I'm not bragging that people just can't resist, that you'll just have to see for your self.

Sincerely,
Lyle xxxxxx

Time to Course Correct

2009-03-09T21:58:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it, the thinking of our spoiled societies is about to change. lmao. Not since the depression have times been so tough. roflmao. We have been living through extended times of prosperity and have grown used to getting all of the material things we want, not necessarily need. lshmbh. That entitlement applies to most age groups, with only the very young and very old being exempt.lol.

When my son was five years old we took him on a trip to Sea World in San Diego. lmao. He was starting to read at the time, using the usual phonetic tricks to sound out words the best he could. lol. When we got to the hotel room, he was super duper excited. icwum. His innocent enthusiasm just to be on the trip was best displayed when he whipped open the bedside table, took out the book that was in there and said "look, we even have a holly bibble". roflmao. He really appreciated that trip. lol. Now he gets bored. lmao.

When my dearly departed grandfather was about 90 years old, his house was broken into in the middle of the night by some late night drunks who were apparently looking for some additional fuel. gmbo. When he awoke in the morning, the basement door was still wide open and upon inspection the only things missing were some beer and eggs from his downstairs fridge. nvm. He told that story for the next couple of years, always confused as to why the bandits took the eggs and not the bacon. lol. Gramps really appreciated having bacon.otoh.

The morale of this is simple. As the economy tanks, people are cutting the fat out of their lives and getting back to basics. I think in the long run the end result might just be a happier, more contented society that learns to live without that second Rolex and begins to enjoy the simple things in life again.

Another morale of this story is that if you constantly use those texting and chat short-cuts, you kind of look like an ass.

We Talk Good

2009-03-08T15:52:00.002-07:00

How many languages do you know? By know, I don't mean speak, spell and/or understand. By know I mean how many do you know exist. I consider myself a fairly well educated person and have always been a student of the world. Geography, geology, anthropology and sociology have always been of interest to me and I am always looking to learn more. I guess I have some work to do. If you had asked me yesterday how many languages there are on the planet earth, I probably would have said somewhere between two to three hundred, maybe a little more if you were to consider dialects and regional vernacular variations. As it turns out, there are at least five thousand languages being spoken today, with another five thousand having gone the way of the woolly mammoth. I stand humbled.

Learning this got me thinking. I hate when I get thinking because that always presents the opportunity to flip the switch of my self diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder and send me into a research frenzy that knows no end. Thankfully this was not one of those times however it did stir some questions in my mind.

If one were to open the book of Genesis and read about the theories of creationism therein, the question would need to be raised as to why more than one language exist. I'm not taking sides here, but why wasn't the language spoken by Adam and Eve good enough? Did it evolve and change as man migrated across the globe. If so, why. Isn't the world a difficult enough place with Americans refusing to learn metric?

If one were to prescribe to evolutionism, the number of languages on earth are easily explained. Apes were global and somewhat migratory in nature in pre cro-magnon times, thus leaving pockets of colonies across the earth. The apes evolved during relatively the same time frame, but while being somewhat sequestered from each other their languages developed without input from their distant cousins. The end product was an evolved species of early human with their own versions of language depending on their locale. So sayeth the book of Tim Darwin.

The differences in the world's languages are staggering. Some languages are choppy and sharp to the ear, and to an outside ear are somewhat hard to listen to. Chinese comes to mind. Having spent 2 weeks in Guangzhou I can testify to that. Some languages seem very primitive and un-evolved. Certain tribal dialects from across the ancient world contain sounds that westerners find difficult to pronounce or understand. I worked with a dishwasher for three years whose native tongue was Aztec in origin. It couldn't have sounded any less similar compared to the language I had come to expect from the rest of the kitchen crew from south of the border.

Then there are the romance languages. The ones that are a pleasure to listen to and have the power to soften or sway any situation. I was once a business partner of a die hard Italian. Listening to his family wax poetic about the old country and the old traditions was romantic. Listening to a Spaniard speak in his or native tongue, particularly if they are from the Andalusian region, is romantic. I lived with a Dutch guy for two years. Listening to him speak to his relatives on the phone sounded like someone was choking and gagging. I guess that can be romantic. And then there is French.

To say my wife and I had a whirlwind courtship is an understatement. First date in October, married in March. Fourteen years later we have a stronger relationship than ever.

When I first saw her, I got that feeling. The feeling that says she's the one. At first we watched each other from afar, then we made small talk, then we flirted and then we went on our first date. I was nervous during those first few dates, probably because I knew that I didn't want to blow it with her. Finally the time came to share the intimate moment that all couples eventually do. As we laid down, lights down low, she asked me to say something in French. Damn French. I thought back ten years to high school French class, brushed her hair away from her ear and in my softest yet most confident of breathy breaths said "vous sentez comme mes fesses". She was mine.

Good Bye Good Friend

2009-03-07T10:44:00.000-08:00

History is filled with places of reverence, places that evoke strong emotions and memories, places that are meccas for endless pilgrimages and worship of some sort or another. In my opinion they are necessary for the continuation of people's respect for the past and their respect for the future.

A large number of these places are religious in nature. Christians have Vatican City, Canterbury Cathedral and The Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janerio. Islam has its ancient cities. Medina, Karbala and in particular Mecca hold high in importance and attract millions of worshipers a year. Hinduism has Varanasi, Hare Krishna's have airports and Scientologists have John Travolta's house. Whatever religion you can think of, it has its place or places that are important and will continue to for centuries to come.

Other types of places that fall into this category and supply us with a certain awe and respect for the past are historical in nature. The great pyramids, Maccu Picchu, the Coliseum, Stonehenge. They all attract huge numbers of visitors a year merely to take in the breadth of these monuments and to imagine and wonder how they were built in a time without unions.

A third category of place that may lack the historical significance or longevity of the above are the ultimate testosterone infused of buildings, the professional sporting venue. Be it Dodger Stadium in Chavez ravine, Wimbledon Stadium, Fenway Park or Michael Vick's backyard, these places may be more specific in nature to who worships them but the fever and fervor to which they are worshiped take no back seat to anyplace in the world.

History has had a way of preserving its places of importance. It seems that the older a place gets, the more respect it garners and the higher it moves on the historical ladder. They have a way of surviving. Natural disasters, wars and fires, they have been through many and have a way of coming out the other end, not necessarily unscathed, but stronger and more important than ever. It will be interesting this spring to watch the New York Yankee faithful move from "The House that Ruth Built" to "The House that A-Roid Brings his Sorry Ass To". The old Yankee Stadium was steeped in such tradition and held so may memories, the new park will need a real Feng Shui makeover to win the fans hearts.

It may not be the Taj Majal or the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, but this week I was devastated to find out that my original place of worship had been razed. I was baptized catholic, attended catholic school, occasionally went to service when my parents thought it was time to put in a showing, but I am not talking about that kind of worship.

In high school I had one of the best part time jobs in town. I worked in a sports store on the main street of town with a couple of my friends, a few full time employees and a walking talking high cholesterol poster boy of a manager that I would not have let manage my toenails. (more on him in a later post) The store was across the street from the only strip club in town. It was hard (he he he) knowing that there were naked ladies right across the street as we told lies to the general public in order to sell them the latest greatest in whatever sports equipment they were interested in.

On one beautiful spring afternoon I was working the front of the store, stocking the racks, pricing some items and basically killing time waiting for the next sucker to walk in the door. For some reason I had looked across the street to the strip club that taunted me like the proverbial carrot in front of the donkey, and bless all that is great to a virginal high school boy, two dancers were in a second floor window, enjoying the breeze and the fresh air when...........they saw me staring at them. I didn't look away. I don't know if the following 15 minutes could be claimed as a charitable contribution on their taxes, but the show they put on, knowing I was the only one watching (other than my friends Joey and Rutts who I had called over but insisted they stay buried in the clothes racks) would surely have won them either an AVN award or the Nobel Peace Prize for horny teens.

This week I saw posted on facebook a picture of that building, the building that housed the strip club, the building that raised my temperature every time I passed it, the building that held a little part of my development as a red blooded man had been destroyed. It had been deemed a fire hazard to the community. I say not. If it could have withstood the heat of the fateful afternoon that the 2 lovely ladies ushered me into manliness, surely it could have withstood a spark from that oven dangling in the window.

I will go on, confident with my place in the world, but when the opportunity arises to visit my home town, I will be hard pressed not to look at the open space that was once my Wailing Wall and slow down to pay hommage to the visual that got me through my teens.

A Wolf in Sheeps Clothing

2009-03-05T23:16:00.001-08:00

Up until the age of 14, our family would take an annual summer vacation to my mother's hometown. It was no minor trip. Eight hours of hell actually. Being the youngest of three kids I was always relegated to the middle of the back seat, feet resting on the big hump on the floor that for some reason was designed into our Starsky and Hutch style Gran Torino. I never looked forward to those rides since I was and still am prone to severe car sickness and every trip began with my mom shoving a motion sickness suppository up my puckered ass. At least that wasn't humiliating.

We would stop once to eat and for gas as needed along the way, but our mission was to not lallygag and to get there as quickly as possible. And thank God for that. We were trapped in the back seat of a car behind two chain smoking parents with no air conditioning and an old kitchen pot to catch my puke. It was no five star experience but once we got there and hopped out of the car, bellies filled with red licorice and lungs filled with cancer, we were greeted by Grandma's smiling face and warm hug and we knew we were going to have a great time.

Except for Muggs. Muggs was an adorable looking cockapoo that belonged to my cousins. My cousins' house was the backdoor neighbor of Grandma's house. There was no fence separating the two properties, just a concrete sidewalk that meandered through my Grandfather's immaculate garden and led to the devil's lair. Muggs was evil incarnate. As much as I enjoyed making the daily trek up the path to my cousin's house, I was equally in fear of Muggs. Maybe it was the fact that on one trip, Muggs made a bloodthirsty lunge at my brother, severing a tear duct below his eye and almost blinding him. I was always put at ease if I could see the beast tied up outside of their basement door. I could enter the house with my guard down and relax, but if I didn't see him, I was on high alert. Muggs sensed my fear and fed off it like a shark on a fresh chum bucket. If I came within 5 feet of him, he would growl, tense up, curl his lip and show an attitude of aggression not seen since the days of the Roman Gladiator.

In retrospect, I guess Muggs did have some redeeming qualities. My cousin's family were fond of him and in fact could use his as a sort of home field advantage. I remember one time we were playing a game of chase with all of the cousins and some of the neighbourhood kids. I ran down the side of their house, turning into their back yard and abruptly screeched to a halt, happy I had stopped in time, but unhappy I had lost the remainder of my undissolved suppository. My nemesis was tied up and ready to defend the alamo.

Thinking back, I guess Muggs subscribed to the addage "you don't bite the hand that feeds you". I guess I never fed Muggs anything because had the ability to make me cower on a dime. He had my number and he knew it. For whatever reason he had singled me out of the crowd of cousins and he probably had a good laugh about it when we left to drive back home.

Muggs. I hope you sat for a long time in doggie purgatory before you took your place in hell. My world was a better place knowing you were gone. I hope you humped the wrong dog down there and it tossed you into the fire and brimstone barbecue of the underworld for all dogs smaller than you to devour.

Run Forest

2009-03-05T23:06:00.001-08:00

I walked outside our front door the other day to take out some garbage and I smiled at what I saw. I saw a fat guy.

Now before you jump to conclusions about any fetishes I may have in my closet, let me assure you that fat guys are not one of them. Other than a slight man crush on Norm from cheers, I am generally put off by the way their thighs rub together and the fact that they have a penis. I am a very open and accepting person and would never judge a fat guy lover, its just not for me.

The reason I smiled was that he was trying his best to jog. Even though he had the gate of a drunken penguin, at least he was trying. I've seen these guys before. Everywhere I have lived there has been the neighborhood "recent brush with death due to poor habits and general self torture and now he is going to turn his life around by exercising and jogging with those 1 pound purple foam covered miniature dumbbells" guy. I never really paid much attention to them or gave them much in the way of credit for what they were doing. Not until I realized how resilient the human body can be and how it can rebound from the edge of death's door did I appreciate the effort they were putting in.

My best friend's ............my dad has had a rough last 6 years. He was always in good shape while I was growing up. He was a very athletic, good looking guy who enjoyed his life and his ways. Other than the occasional problem with his back and a nasty bout with hemorrhoids, he was a fine physical specimen. Then about 6 years ago he started to have some problems in his personal life that he found very hard to deal with. His mood changed, his looks changed, he was perpetually ill and frail and he went though a stream of problems that culminated in him losing half of a lung. The doctors weren't even sure that he would make it through the operation.

I come from a family of drinkers. Some more than others, some more than most. It seemed as though the fire water had gotten the best of my father and was going to win. I am intimately involved and exposed to the evils of alcohol abuse and at this point in my life I am pretty well informed and educated on what it does to the body and mind. My dad's downturn had been swift and ugly and I was pretty sure he was going to lose the battle.

Imaging Eye of the Tiger now playing in the background.

The selfish self in me likes to think than an email I sent to my dad had something to do with it but for whatever reason, he quit drinking cold turkey. His stubborn nature would not have it any other way. No programs for him. I am convinced his pride and ego had part in an internal intervention that took place. If he died from something that was his own doing, he would kill himself.

In two weeks I am going to see him and we are golfing in a two day tournament together. I can't wait. Two years ago, he could not break 100 and he hit the ball like his clubs were made of cat food. He called me a few days ago and told me he shot 74. He is 68 years old and in the best mental and physical shape that I can remember. If he were to get hit by a truck and killed tomorrow, I would take comfort than he would die a proud man. I love you dad.

And to the fat guy who might still not have reached the end of the street, keep it up and remember that the human body can thrive with half of a lung, but not with a daily half bottle of rum.

I'm Taking My Balls And Going Home

2009-03-04T18:07:00.000-08:00

Being a father who is very involved in my children's activities, I am thus surrounded by other fathers that are approximately my age. I am around them at social functions. I am around them at the kid's school. I am around them at the ball field. It probably happens about once a month or so that I run into someone who has scheduled themselves for the ultimate male test of courage....the vasectomy. I love to tell them my story and watch the blood drain out of their face.

After we got home from China with our new daughter, my wife and I knew that 2 children were enough, quickly learning that 2 kids were twice as fulfilling as one, and 5 times the work. We discussed what we should do as a preventative measure to pregnancy should the event arise that we ever have the time or energy to want to prevent a pregnancy. Follow? We decided that a vasectomy was the best decision, and I decided that I would be the one to have it.

First let me say this. If you make yourself an appointment, make sure you are not the last procedure on a Friday as just like anyone else the doctors want to get out of dodge asap.

My wife came with me to lend support.

We checked in and went right into the operating room.

I stripped and laid down on the cold operating table. Wife was sitting beside me.

Nurse came in and cleaned and sterilized what needed to be cleaned and sterilized. I had taken care of the shaving part the night before.

Nurse draped my body with operating linens with only my junk exposed.

Nurse took a little warm lube and gave me hand relief. Not really, but that is what I tell people. I say it is just like fasting for any other operation, they like everything empty. I know some people believe this, probably looking for a little good with the upcoming bad.

Doctor comes in and pulls up the equipment tray.

Doctor gives me a shot of Novocaine in each side of my scrotum.

Doctor waits the customary 5-7 minutes for the medicine to kick in. Oh wait, no he didn't. He waited about 12 seconds (Friday after noon after all) and before I knew it, he had one side cut open and had crochet hooked one of the tubes and had it pulled to the outside of my body.

My vision darkened, I broke out in a great flop sweat and I almost broke my wife's hand that was so caringly holding mine.

Holding back vomit, I squealed in my most masculine of voices "I can feel everything"

Doctor used his years of training and best bedside manner to say "well maybe we should wait for the freezing to set in"....ass

After 5 minutes, my heart rate dropped below 300 beats per minute and the rest of the vasectomy went as planned.

Doctor hustled out of the room. Probably slipped on a diaper and went to his dominatrix.

For some reason I still don't understand, my wife took the two excised pieces of vas deferans home and kept them in the freezer until I threw them out a couple of years later. By the way, that is not normal.

After I tell the story, I smile and tell the prospective patient that it will most likely go well for them and my story is the exception, not the rule. I pat them on the back and walk away, hoping they get the same doctor.

Pick Your Place

2009-03-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

We all have that place..... I think. The place we go to do whatever we want, to feel protected from the world, to feel invisible in this world of instant information and google earth. I had one growing up and I have one now. They just happen to both be sofas. I love sofas. My wife had one growing up. It was a tree stump in her back yard. As she tells it, she would sit there for hours on end reading a book and getting lost in its world. She still loves to get lost in a book. These days she has replaced the stump with another place. Or maybe her safe place is actually the book.

I am sure that everyone who reads this can think of their own fortress of solitude. Like crawling back into the womb, it wraps you up and feeds you the energy you need to recharge. There, you can do what you like and not be judged. You can think what you like, sing out loud without fear of mockery or be naked and have the confidence that it is for you only.

Dear Lady in car behind me this morning,

Your car is not your place. You need to get a new one. Yes you can sing in your car. Yes you can think or say what you want in your car. You could even drive around without pants if you didn't drive thru anywhere for a burger. But when you were picking your nose this morning I saw you. You were so into it I thought you were going to eat it or save it as some kind of trophy. I just wanted to let you know.

Sincerely,

Tim

Fly and Be Free

2009-03-02T09:47:00.000-08:00

Like clockwork, certain things happen every spring. Flowers bloom in the warmth of the afternoon, baby birds get fed by their tireless mothers, and high school seniors sit with their parents at the kitchen table while they map out their future and send off applications to institutions of higher learning. I remember the day I filled those papers out. I sat with my dad for this great bonding moment while my grandmother, always interested, hovered in the background. Amidst the scroll of paperwork, there was an application to stay in the school dorms. They tried to do their best to match students with similar interests in the same rooms so their were lines to fill in things such as hobbies and interests. As I was about to put pen to paper, my grandmother leaned over my shoulder, read what I was about to fill in and in her nicest grandma voice said "sleeping, uselessness and nothing else". Ooofa, way to go grams.

My first year away I actually did live in the dorms. It got a little crazy in there sometimes but somehow it was kept in check. Everyone had to answer to everyone else so it was a rule by committee atmosphere and no one wanted to rock the boat too much. The worst thing that would happen was the odd case of alcohol poisoning or the occasional abortion gone public.

My second year I moved into a house off campus with three friends. It had two main problems. Firstly, everyone refused to clean since no one else would clean. It was a kind of pretzel logic that resulted in having wear shoes in the house or risk stepping on Kentucky Fried Chicken bones. Secondly, it was geographically challenged in its location and distance from school. It was so far that being without a car, my only solution was to try and engage in a type of education by remote osmosis. That is not very effective.

My third year I ended up living in one of the most lauded houses of debauchery in the history of the school. It was affectionately known to us, to the many previous proud tenants and the to the countless transient students that visited and left with a few less brain cells as the Keg Kastle. We had three fridges in the kitchen, one of which had food in it and two of which were retrofitted into fully functioning draft beer fridges. We had four sofas in the living room strategically perched on a framework of milk crates to act as bleachers. The bleachers known to capture the odd reveller and not release them for days on end. We had mushrooms growing all along the base of the bath tub, emerging endlessly from the damp and rotting floorboards that could be seen underneath the peeled back linoleum. Roommate Pat had a snot collection on the living room window. We had Keg Kastle business cards to lure the odd unsuspecting young philly into the lair, although that worked better for the other guys. And I won't discuss the audio tapes.

Don't let my experience jade you though. Don't let my experience make you try and home school your kid all the way to a law degree. I turned out just fine. And besides, child is nothing like me.

The Joke's on You

2009-03-01T10:32:00.001-08:00

My best friend during high school was my kitty corner backyard neighbour. We could climb the fence back and forth and be at each others house in about thirty seconds. This came in handy often, especially when we needed to cover up or hide our wayward ways.

Bood was a good guy, not without his quirks and flaws like we all have, but he was a ton of fun and we clicked. We were peas in a pod, especially when it came to our sense of humor. Crank calling, tacks on chairs, tacks taped to the inside of door handles, whatever crossed our mind we did spontaneously and rarely planned, and we always cracked up. Sometimes to the point of tears. And god forbid if we were stoned...

Both of our parents seemed to go out of town a little more than the average parents, so when one of ours was gone it was that house that turned into the weekend home base for general mayhem and tom-foolery. On one particular weekend, it just so happened that both of our parents were out of town, but the party wasn't at either of our places. It was at Blip's house. At about 2 am Bood and I gathered ourselves and stumbled the mile or so home. He went to his house and I to mine.

When I was alone in the house I always stayed in the basement. It was a split level so the basement was actually half above ground. That is where I felt safe and comfortable when I was alone. I had settled into the old experienced couch that had acted somewhat as a security blanket for the last 12 years and began to visit the land of nod. Suddenly I snapped up as our dog "Tweed the Barbarian" started growling at the adjacent laundry room door, hackles raised like a wheat grass forest. I heard the ground level window being opened and the hangers on the clothes rack underneath it begin to clang. In a half inebriated, half conscious sprint I ran up one level of stairs and whipped open the door to the den. I flipped on the light, got what I needed and popped back down the stairs. I cautiously walked into the laundry room, flipped on the light and raised a 12 gauge shotgun towards the window. Bood's eyes opened wider than a hyper-thyroid poster boy's and he shouted "Fuck Tim, its me". We usually laughed after our pranks and hijinks's towards each other. Not that time.

A Walking Oxymoron

2009-02-28T17:02:00.000-08:00

My son Noah never ceases to amaze me. From the time he was born a decade ago until now he has filled my life with endless joy and all of the other stuff that parents are supposed to say to about their kids. He's a great son, a great brother and a great friend. We are lucky to know him.

All that being said, he is also a walking and talking conundrum. I remember my father telling me that if my head weren't screwed on I would probably lose it. I knew I would never lose my head but I have serious fears that Noah may someday actually lose his. His blissful unawareness 0f his environs and the contents therein continue to both baffle and amuse us. How can someone who is in a class for gifted students, whose standardized test scores hang out around the 97th percentile, and whose memory is better than an elephant's sometimes be so dumbo?

There was the day he came to me in the kitchen and asked me where his shoes were. Frustrated at his ability to lose anything, I told him that he was on his own and had to find them himself. The first place he looked was in the oven.

My wife has a White Jeep Grand Cherokee and I have a blueish grey Civic Hybrid. This morning we were going to his baseball game and I was taking Noah, Ava and Noah's friend who had slept over. Walking out the door I told Noah to get in the front seat. He got in the front seat of my wife's car. The rest of us got in my car and just watched him stare out the front window of the Jeep. He sat there for about 30 seconds, jumped up, ran back into the house, returned with the glove he had forgotten and tried to get back into the Jeep before I waved him over.

Tonight he is sleeping at a friends house. The parents asked us if we wanted a quick dinner when we dropped Noah off since they had made a lot. About an hour passed and we were getting up from the table when Noah asked me if we were sleeping over also.

We call it Noah's world. The place he occasionally goes for quick mental vacations. I am sure if he sold tickets to go with him it would be a fascinating adventure. Maybe that's where he goes to drop off baggage and get recharged and refuelled with the humor and kindness he oozes. I hope he never changes because things would not be the same.

24 Carat Town

2009-02-27T18:57:00.000-08:00

The last time I was in my home town, I was saddened to see the state into which it had fallen. I thought I would never go back. That was five years ago. Growing up it was a vibrant place, bustling with action for a town its size and offering more than its share of things for a youngster to do. Then I got into high school and began to adopt the typical teenage attitude thinking things sucked, school sucked, parents sucked etc. The town was dependant on gold mining. So went the mining, so went the town. By the time I left high school and went to university, the price of gold and the population had dropped by 30% and it seemed like the grass was greener somewhere else.

I moved around a little. I spent the next 7 years in Southern Ontario and ended up moving to the Los Angeles area in 1993. It has been my home since. In the past when people would ask where I was from, I would would always find a way to mock my roots. The weather, the isolation, the hardships, all seemed to validate my move South. I never mentioned the town by name because I knew that no one had ever heard of it.

Over the past few years, life in the big city has become progressively less attractive to me. Growing up I could wave or talk to half of the people I ran into. Today a lady across the street got taken out of her house on a stretcher for some reason. I hope she will be OK. I don't even know her name.

The other night I was poking around on my computer and I popped onto facebook. I was sent a message from a friend that said "OMG rockburst!". Over the next hour or so, facebook blew up with chatter about what was going on. The town had immediately banded together in an earnest concern for others' safety. Three separate ground shakers had occurred, and in a town that sits on a labyrinth of mining tunnels, some active and some not, that could be disaster. I remember a couple of rockbursts taking place when I was young, one actually taking the life of someone I knew. The last big one had not only taken the lives of men, but it had taken the lifeline of the town. The main employer had to shut down production.

Over the last few years thankfully the town has gone through a resurgence. The price of gold is way up, there is lots of work to be found and there is a shortage of housing. That's a great problem to have.

Watching what happened the other night gave me a renewed appreciation for where I grew up. I realize the importance mining played in giving me opportunities in life and the importance it still has to the people living there. Joni Mitchell's song Big Yellow Taxi has a line "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot". I thought the town was headed that way, but now I doubt it. Going back onto facebook today a friend had a status update that simply said she loves her town.

From now on when people ask me where I am from, I will probably say Kirkland Lake. I hope I get back there soon. I also hope they've done something about the black flies.

Personality Flaw #38

2009-02-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

My phone rang on Tuesday. I saw it was my older brother calling but I was unable to answer. As a rule, my family probably phones each other less than a family in Papua New Guinea does. I doubt they have many phones there.

I sat on the call for a few minutes and decided to call him right back, thinking that something may be wrong. Without saying hello he said "I'm sitting in a bar having a beer and the guy next to me is telling me that Mardi Gras originated in Brazil". So much for the family emergency. Knowing that I had prepared many Fat Tuesday celebrations in the past, he wanted me to settle the argument. I quickly and confidently assured him that it had originated in Europe, in particular France and Italy during the Roman Empire. He thanked me and we quickly said goodbye. Being able to answer his question somehow felt good. He was always the smarter, bigger, older brother that I was measured against. Maybe I was catching up.

That encounter however satisfying somehow took a turn for the worse. I guess I was thinking about the bar he was sitting in and the nature of bar arguments, fueled mostly by beer and bravado.

I have a brother-in-law who for sake of decorum I will call Dave. Dave loves to tell the story about a time he was in a bar just up the street from his house. Judging by the collection of smokers that regularly hung out just outside the front door, the Green Iguana may not have been the best place to engage in a deep philosophical discussion so he had decided to talk music with a patron he had just met. The song Helpless by Neil Young was playing in the background and Dave told his new friend that the line "there is a town in north Ontario" refers to the town that his brother-in-law (me) was from. As the story goes, the guy listened, paused and emerged with a sharp and loud "he's full of crap. Everyone from up there says that". Dave just loves telling that story to a crowd.

Well Dave, after a little stewing and a little research I found the following quote from Neil in a 1995 interview with Nick Kent in Mojo. "Well it's not literally a specific town so much as a feeling". That's good enough for me. Vindication is mine.

Batten Down the Hatches

2009-02-25T18:04:00.000-08:00

I have been to three therapists in my life. The first time I was 3 years old and had inhaled a pea into the deepest darkest reaches of my lung. It took a week of getting repeatedly beaten on my back like a conga drum to shake it loose. It had finally emerged with a sharp cough. Yellowed, slimy and smelling of rot. The second time I had torn the meniscus in my knee and had to get that taken care of. It was more of an xray and bandage job. I left on crutches and didn't go back for my follow-up. I had no insurance. The third therapist is current. My wife and I go every Thursday morning. I am convinced it saved our marriage. It is the best $50 I spend during the week. My buddy says he also goes to a therapist once a week up in Hollywood. He says she is a nice Thai lady and it always costs him an "extra" $50. I am not sure what that means.

The main thing that my wife and I have studied during our therapy is human cognitive behaviour and the trouble it gets us into. It turns out that many to most of our fights came from the phenomena known as catastrophizing. Generally its not having enough information, not asking the right questions, never clarifying the issue and hence turning it into a ten out of ten on the marriage Richter Scale of unsolvable problems.

Ten years ago I tended to be a little on the tippy side when I was having a rough day at work. I had to restrain myself from showing my fuse to my guests and for the most part I was successful. It generally showed itself as unnecessary sarcasm or cynicism. The last time I was unable to reign in my foible, I had been called to a couple who had been dining for about an hour. It was my third visit to the table. The first time the music was too loud. The second time the lady asked me if there was any shellfish in our soup. I assured her there was not since they were all my recipes. The third time I was summoned by dreaded raised hand and finger. I approached the table with disdain as I knew this table would challenge my night. The lady proceeded to say "sir, I need make sure that there is undoubtedly no shellfish in this broth since I am deathly allergic". I asked her how she knew. Her husband laughed out loud. He may have been a therapist.

A Cook by Any Other Name

2009-02-24T15:07:00.001-08:00

During the fall of 1995 I took over the kitchen of Newport Beach's newest hottest thing. It was a huge, 430 seat restaurant/entertainment venue/Gomorrah. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights it resembled more of a Cirque de Soleil than a restaurant. The newly rich 25-45 year olds would pile in to show off their latest designer clothes, newest body augmentation and their latest blister. Was I ever happy driving home after watching the ritual of debauchery unfold night after night; watching as they spent more money on booze and coke than was held in the banks of some small countries.

We had only been open for a couple of months and the freshness of the place was still in the air. The tables still had their fresh varnish, the bathrooms still sparkled and the who's who of who cares kept lining up to get in. One Friday night I will never forget, two of my line cooks didn't show up. We were as we say in the biz "in the shits". The two cooks that hadn't shown were a couple of stoney white guys that were born and raised in Newport Beach. Say no more. There had been a storm in Baja and the waves were "epic". Surfing was obviously priority and we were down two guys.

It was early enough that I ran into my office to look for the first application I could find. It didn't look like much but as a lot of the Latino cooks down here aren't exactly master scribes, I have learned to ignore the content. I called the number on the application and a Latina with a hurried voice said "hola". I said "can I please speak to Rico". Dial tone. My pantry cook knew what I was doing and offered to help. He got on the phone, dialed the same number, had a short conversation and hung up. He told me that "they won't steak to gueros (white people) because they think you might be the Feds". 15 minutes later Rico Lopez showed up at the back door. Rico sat across from my desk. He was dressed in what appeared were someone else's cooks whites but A for effort I thought.

Me - "Nice to meet you Rico. Can you tell me a little about yourself and why you would be a good addition to our kitchen brigade?"

An uncomfortable amount of time passed before ...

Rico - "I cooka da fish"

HIRED! He handed me an unsigned social security card that was crispy and smelled of fresh ink. I smiled on the inside and had Rico sign the card. I shook his hand, he walked onto the line and so started a stint at my restaurant that went on for 3 years. Rico had done so well that he had been promoted to Sous Chef and was trying to climb higher. One day Rico came to me with a sullen look on his face and said that he had to go back to Mexico to see his sick mother. I gave him my sympathies and asked him when he would be back. He shrugged and said "its up to the coyotes" We shook hands and he walked out the door.

Two years later I was working at a different restaurant. A familiar face came through the back door. It was Rico. We hugged like men hug, not some weird sort of hug, and went to my office to chat. As it turned out, he was looking for work and I needed a Sous Chef. It was perfect. He quickly filled out the paperwork and handed me his identification. I said "thanks Rico, I am looking forward to this". He pointed to his identification and in a humble voice he said "please call me Juan".

It was a great lesson for me really. Living in the world of the haves and ultra haves and working with the have nots, and appreciating the latter much, much more.

I remember the last time I came back across the Mexican border, looking up to the tin shacks in the mud covered hills they call home and being solicited to buy Chiclets by 7 year old children as I sat in line to cross the inspection line. I was happy that I had won the sperm and egg lottery and that I could still call myself Tim Smith.

The Haunting

2009-02-22T11:36:00.001-08:00

As a child, I was the pickiest of picky eaters. I liked peanut butter sandwiches, cereal and raw bacon. I have been blessed or cursed with an ultra sensitive nose and when I was young, olfactory tortured came my way in a variety of forms.

overcooked vegetables

canned tuna

egg salad or deviled eggs

cabbage rolls

my fathers smoked oysters

cheese

etc.

It seemed as though if I could smell it, I wouldn't want to eat it. And yes I said raw bacon.

The height of my battle with stinky foods came on a hot spring day when I was about ten years old. I rode a bus to school and back while I was in elementary school. The bus was driven by the aforementioned Hemorrhoid, a standard yellow school bus, a rolling tube of ill behaved youngsters who were up to no good. We were on the way back from school when a taunting match took place between a couple of boys. The confrontation seemed particularly ornery, probably fueled by the claustrophobic temperature inside the bus as well as an overdose of cola. In a move for the ages, the boy in the back rose out of his seat and hurled his uneaten lunch at the other boy. It was an egg salad sandwich. The bus immediately smelled of dog farts. I made it to my stop but proceeded to throw up as soon as I stepped of my moving hell on wheels. The smell didn't clear the bus for a couple of weeks. To this day, I get queasy just looking at egg salad.

I have outgrown most of the smell issues and luckily so due to the line of work I'm in. As a matter of fact, other than canned tuna and egg salad, I struggle to think of something I won't eat or at least give the old college try. Unfortunately my wife is aware of my kryptonite and I am convinced she humors herself by toying with me. She has an interesting sense of humor. Like the time she told me to smell our old dog's breath because he had been eating rosemary. I bent down and took a deep wiff of what I had expected to be a pleasant pine like scent when wham....the dog had been eating cat shit. She still laughs about that one.

This morning I opened the fridge and what was staring me in the face. On the front of the middle shelf was a half eaten, seemingly pried open can of tuna. Ugh. Tonight, I leave the toilet seat up. Revenge is mine.

You Can't Keep a Good Girl Down

2009-02-22T11:33:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning to a sight that no pet owner wants to see. Ruby, my bacon stealing, cat chasing, fetch machine of a black lab was limping down the hall. Assuming she had something stuck in her paw, I flipped her over to help her out. What I saw made my stomach turn. She had an inch and a half gash on her back leg that went down into the muscle. I had no idea what had happened to her but the crate she sleeps in looked like a scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She must have gotten hurt on her last potty visit to the back yard night as there was blood all over the back patio and some drops on the dark bamboo floor that showed themselves in the morning light.

I am convinced that for the most part I like dogs more than people. Now I am not saying all people and I am not saying all dogs, but I have met more people that bother me than dogs. Take for example a certain father/team dad/general protagonist/cold heart that I will have to be exposed to for for the remainder of Noah's baseball season. But I digress....

Without hesitation we scooped up Ruby and took her to the emergency veterinarian. Two hundred forty one dollars later, we brought home our beloved family pet with a few enhancements; six staples, a pound of bandages and a satellite dish on her head. She hit the ground running as every animal I have had spayed or neutered had done. Throwing caution to the wind and displaying absolutely to signs of self pity she took her post in the back yard, running in her habitual circles and looking for fun.

I watch Ruby with admiration. She drinks from a glass that is half full.

A Look Inside

2009-02-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

Had I paid as much attention to my academics as I did to my social calendar, my university experience may have helped me recognize what Freudian psychic apparatus I witnessed for a few hours today. Id, ego or superego, whatever it was, it was a textbook case.

I was at Riviera Country Club today watching the best golfers in the world display their mastery of the game to the appreciative throng on hand. All appreciative except for the group of six or seven beer swilling malcontents that joined me on a thin isthmus of land between the 12th green and the 13th tee. I had a perfect view of both. It should been great had it not been for the endless line of self-serving and self-validating comments that came from the group next to me. "He really screwed that one" "Scott hits it like a pussy compared to the rest of the guys" "that's how I would have played that one" and "he should have....."

As I drove away from the tournament today I wondered why it was that some people have the need to feel superior to anyone they may be threatened by. I thought today a sad display of male jealousy and insecurity and wondered why it bothered me so.

A few weeks ago I was in a restaurant by the front desk and David Spade was just hanging around, looking like he was ready to leave. He was kind enough to give me a nod when he noticed that I had recognized him, and then he turned away to be as inconspicuous as possible. I remember looking him up and down, instantly having thoughts of how he was so boy like in stature, how he wore such a scraggly moustache, and wondering how the hell someone like him made it so big. I thought I was bigger than him, better looking than him and an altogether brighter package than him- and that other than Joe Dirt his body of work left much to be desired.

A couple of minutes passed and David was joined by his model/actress du jour who had emerged from the ladies room. They quickly left the restaurant, climbed into a sleek foreign automobile and drove off into the Hollywood Hills. I didn't do that.

Don't We All?

2009-02-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

I live about 2 miles from a Veterans Administration hospital. Its located at the junction of 2 busy urban streets, therefore its buildings and patients are highly visible as you must inevitabley wait at one of the traffic lights in the area. I am not sure of the services that are offered at the hospital, but it seems there are an above average number of shopping cart pushing lost souls in the area. Maybe the VA offers meals or counseling services to the transients. I hope so. Homeless people really seem to be a magnet of curosity to kids. I was driving a few days ago with Noah and Ava in the area of the hospital. Noah tends to repeat himself and for the thirty second time he asked why the man had all of that stuff in that shopping cart. I had to catch myself from throwing a smart-assed comment in his general direction as I had told him too many times about how homeless people may have gotten that way, the danger of the streets, etc. etc.

My mind then flashed to a couple of things that related to the transient's situation. Firstly, I personally am in the middle of this financial crisis as are millions of others. I have a large mortgage, large debt, and a job in an industry that is teetering on the edge of collapse. Secondly, when we adopted Ava from China, she had a habit of feeding herself with both hands and always tucking away a few bits for later in her curled up baby and ring fingers. Orphanage survival 101 I guess. My new answer for "why does the man have all that stuff in that shopping cart" is simply "we all want to hold on to our stuff".

Better Than None At All

2009-02-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

I visit the restaurants I am responsible for at lease once a week. Twice if I can. It typically turns out that I am at the individual locations at the same times and on the same days of the week. The rotation is designed mostly on how I can avoid the massive cluster %#@! that is the Los Angeles freeway system. I was rightly surprised yesterday when I walked into the restaurant I was scheduled to visit and saw James, a relief manager in his late twenties who works once a week at whatever location we need him. The general manager needed to go to the doctor so she had called James in as a pitch hitter for the day.

I hadn't seen James since he had returned to our company a few months ago. James had been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer a couple of years ago. He has come and gone a couple times from the company during his fight with the disease. The last time he left he had received a bone marrow transplant after a lengthy search for a donor finally turned up someone who was a match. I talked to him for quite a while and found out that he still took chemotherapy treatments twice a week, he took twenty five pills a day (some to make sure his body dealt with the transplant well and some to fight a severe body rash that he had as a result of taking the first drugs) and he had put on fifty five pounds from the mass of steroids he was taking.

Today my son and I went for haircuts. Noah sat in the chair next to me and had some awkward small talk with the lady cutting his hair. I usually just sit and stare into the mirror, counting my chins and waiting for the cut to be over. Today however, as I tilted my head down to try to shake loose some of the ticklish clippings from the tip of my nose, I noticed something disturbing. The black bib seemed to come alive with the shimmer of fluorescent light that was glinting off of a large amount of grey hair. I wondered why the light reacted differently when it hit them. I wondered when I got so many of them. I wondered if James was going to have the opportunity to get some also.

Modern Day Spartan

2009-02-18T23:08:00.000-08:00

To say that the town I grew up in was filled with more than its share of characters in an understatement. I am not sure why this was so but I like to look back and remember them for the spirit they filled my first two decades of life with. There was Old Mary Witch, Crazy Legs, and Mung- just to name a few. There was even a fifty-ish year old bus driver that drove my neighborhood to school until 8th grade. He answered to the name Hemorrhoid. But this is not about any of them, their stories and antics may come later. I miss them and treasure their memories but this is about my friend Ray.

Ray grew up in a middle class family on "our side of the tracks". I think we met at the golf course that I was a permanent fixture at during our brief summers. Although we did not go to the same elementary school, in high school we fell into the same pack, a very tight pack that hung out together every weekend and had parties at the homes of whoever parent's were out of town. We did what kids do. We experimented and got ourselves into general mischief. Ray was often the mastermind of the mischief. He kept the party going, was happy-go-lucky and was generally an entertaining and loyal friend.

One memory in particular inked Ray's spirit into my brain with the permanence of a Mesopotamian tablet etching. A few of our crew were walking down a snow covered street when we encountered a group of guys that for whatever reason we seemed to clash with. Thinking back, they may have been offended that we referred to their group as the Slime Dudes. A bit of an ego stab I guess. I would have been happy to walk on by, but one thing led to another and before we knew it, Ray (as he never minded doing) was faced off with the biggest of the Slime Dudes- and we knew what was next. Ray was up against Herbie. Herbie was way bigger than Ray, but Ray never turned down a challenge and usually came out on top. This time was different. Within seconds, Ray was on his back being pummeled senseless. The beating probably would have ended sooner than it did but Ray, always the entertainer, kept repeating "stop hitting me Herpie". Spirit of a Warrior.

I read Ray's obituary a few months ago. I was very very sad, but not shocked. Towards the end of high school Ray started to get a little out of control. The fun and shenanigans we had taken part in a seemed to get the best of Ray. He seemed to lose his off button. His parents even tried shipping him to a private school for a year but when he came back he was almost a stranger. I don't know if it was a chemical imbalance in his brain or substance abuse. All I know is that he was now a stranger with a distant stare. As the rest of us moved on with our lives he was living at home, bouncing in and out of programs. His parents tried to help him. Over the years I would ask my family and old friends how Ray was doing. It seemed as if Ray's state continued to decline at a steady pace. Gratefully the last time I visited my home town, I ran into Ray and his father at the local McDonald's. His father said hi to me and we exchanged pleasantries. I don't think Ray recognized me.

When I heard of Ray's death, I emailed his old best friend Darren, who was also a close old friend of mine living in Toronto. He told me he had heard that not surprisingly Ray had suffered from liver and kidney problems but he wasn't sure if that was what he had died from. I asked him when the last time was he had seen Ray. He told me that Ray had made his way to Toronto and he had actually seen him a couple months prior. He was driving down Eglington Avenue and had seen a shirtless man posing and flexing his muscles while watching his reflection in a store window. It was Ray. Spirit of a Warrior.

You Ordered What Sir?

2009-02-17T19:41:00.000-08:00

I moved to California for work in December 1993. I thought I had landed in the proverbial pot of gold. I had left Toronto in the middle of a nasty winter, been bumped into first class on my flight down, picked up by limosine and driven to the Ritz Carlton Laguna Niguel where I would be roomed for free for the next 3 weeks while I found a room in a condo that shared the beach with the hotel. I had arrived. I had arrived. I had arrived too soon.

My work visa was supposed to take around 4 months to be processed and suprisingly it came through in about 6 weeks. It was so fast in fact that when I arrived at the hotel, there was no position for me. The chef I was to be replacing was still there and would be for a couple months. In the mean time I worked as a chef tournant (basically a pitch hitter) and learned the hotel's ins and outs. And then one day......horror! The graveyard cook had quit and I needed to step in that evening. The shift basically consisted of preparing the odd room service order of fatty alcohol absorbing bar type food, cooking poached eggs and hollandaise for the morning and trying to stay awake. This went on for 2 painful weeks until my saviour arrived.

Enter Leron

In a hotel that was filled with more culinary institute trained cooks with ambitions to climb the ladder as quickly as they could, Leron stood out. He wasn't any of those. I quite frankly couldn't figure out why he was hired in the first place but I did not care. I was put in charge of training my replacement on the graveyard shift and I was going to make sure he didn't fail. I was riding my 300 lb angel back into the daylight. It took 3 weeks to train Leron for a job that an experienced cook would have learned in a week, tops. The day came that I eventually had to stick my neck out and tell the executive chef that Leron was ready to fly solo. After all, cheeseburgers and chicken wings weren't brain surgery.

The morning following Leron's first shift I was called to the chef's office. He played me a voicemail that an irate hotel guest had left for him in the middle of the previous night. As well as I had trained Leron, I couldn't cover everything and as luck should have it, the guest had ordered an ounce of osetra caviar. The guest was firstly upset that he had to explain to the room service operator what he wanted, he was secondly upset that the order took 45 minutes to get to the room and what put him ofer the edge was the fact that something along the way had been lost in translation and preparation. When he took the plate cover off his order, he stared directly into the face of a cereal bowl filled with black sesame seeds.

For some reason I got a hall pass on that since the order was so out of the usual and didn't need to re-train Leron. I moved into my fulltime positon a couple of weeks later and shortly after that Leron got caught urinating in the potted plants in the lobby and was fired.

Monkey See Monkey Don't

2009-02-15T19:55:00.000-08:00

Tonight I watched the original Planet of the Apes with Noah my ten year old son. The lack of special effects and the cinematographic blandness posed a big hurdle to earn his interest. Thankfully by the halfway point of the film, a film I consider to be in my top ten of all time, he had settled into his corner of the sofa with his big stuffed duck, watching intently. I guess I have a paternal need to have him like what I like; perhaps to carry on my grand legacy and enormous sense of self or maybe I just want him to like me when I'm old. I worry about that.

The end of the movie came and I realized that though most movies lose relevance through time, this one is the best example of a film that gains credence as it ages. As Charlton Heston took to the beach and the Statue of Liberty was shown half buried in sand, Noah turned to me and said "I hated that ending". I had not realized how relevant that ending had become. I explained the irony to him and the reverse Darwinism that had taken place. Humans evolving on the planet, humans developing the planet, humans doing their best to ruin the planet and the results there of.

A little later Noah told me that it was cool that we could enjoy a movie even though what happens in the movie could never take place.

I will wait to have that conversation.

And now just for fun............

To My Love

2009-02-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

Dar

I love you to the moon

My heart belongs to you

Your eyes, your lips, your soul

All help to make me whole

Today's a special day

Just because you're here

The house is filled with cheer

Happy Valentines day sweetie

I will always be true

I better clean the windows

Before you get home

Love Always,

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxo

Random Creepiness

2009-02-13T09:36:00.001-08:00

Don't ask me how I found this picture, I just did. I really want to meet the mind that came up with these handsoaps. Hand Soaps. HA.

If these were sitting in a dish in our home bathroom, I can guarantee that my son would be peeing in the back yard.

From The Mouths Of Babes

2009-02-12T20:13:00.000-08:00

Today was a bit of a tough day on the parenting front. Equal parts parental stress and child shenanigans.

Our son was 5 years old when we decided to pursue the adoption of our daughter. The complete process took about 20 months and through it all, everyone we knew went out of their way to tell us how happy they were for us and what a great thing we were doing. I would always take their words graciously even though the "great thing" spin always kind of irked me. We were building a family, not lobbying for some kind of save the children award.

One person however did pull me aside. He is a father of 2, a great dad, person and friend. After all of his mandatory "I'm so happy for you" talk, he looked at me and said "dude, are you sure you want to do this? Because 2 kids are 5 times the work of 1". I thought at the time that it was a strange thing to say but know I appreciated his honesty. He was right.

As hard as some days can get though, we continue to be blessed with the little things. Our kids are great kids and once in a while they make us smile like they did tonight.

Ava walked past the television and looked up to see the above picture of octomommy. She immediately shook her head and said in a very concerned voice "whoa". Fascinating how even 5 year old children know wrong is wrong.

Noah listens to his ipod every night. I loaded him up with 500 of my favorite tunes and he seems to like most of them. Just before he turned out his light he came to me and told me he liked the song by Stevie Wonder called My Cherry Armour.

5 times the work, 5 times the fun. I wouldn't change it for a thing.

I'm Afraid I'm Not Listening

2009-02-10T21:34:00.000-08:00

I struggle with my brain. I know I am smarter than the average 5th grader but I have always been felled by the fact that my brain buzzes at light speed when people are talking. At me, with me, even if I am not at all involved in the conversation, the words I hear feed my inner asshole like winds feed a wild fire. I always find that my brain churns up as many one liners, cut downs, or snide remarks as most people probably think of in a month. I even resort to mentally rhyming back everything they say. Anything to keep me emotionally detached from the conversation.

The hard part for me is that my inner asshole makes me laugh and helps me get through the day. I do for the most part keep my comments to myself as they pertain to the conversation at hand, although I do periodically throw them in for a cheap laugh or to break the tension in the room. I have gratefully been able to stomp my brain into submission when deemed necessary though; a serious conversation at home etc.

I drive a lot for my work. I think everyone that lives in Southern California does. It is the payoff for not having to shovel snow I guess. At least once a day while in the car I have one of those moments where I realize I don't remember the last 5 minutes. I don't remember getting to where I am but at least I never hear siren in my wake. I am concerned that my brain is losing its ability to focus. Last week in a board meeting at work, the owner of the company was going on and on about something he had read or heard and had adopted as gospel when out of the blue came the words "what do you think of that Tim?" I panicked. For the last 5 minutes my thoughts had gone astray and I had been not listening, but rather I had been silently answering every point he had made with nonsensical cuss filled retorts that were very entertaining, at least to me they were. I needed to come up with something quick, as I was on the spot. I thought for a couple seconds and confidently said " I fully agree on every point. How about you Lisa?" Lisa had joined the meeting on speakerphone from across the country. I had successfully deflected a near disastrous situation like a pro, and was once again ready to stop paying attention and be entertained by my inappropriate thoughts.

And I still need a rhyming word for orange.

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Dead Fish

2009-02-09T21:17:00.000-08:00

I have had an interesting relationship with fish during my lifetime. I grew up in a small town in Northern Ontario. We were surrounded by good people, pristine wilderness and many many lakes. Even as kids, we learned to be one with them. We paddled canoes, swam, dove and fished, and as soon as the lakes froze over, we fished some more. The local community romanticized the taking of fish and the valuable nutrition it once provided to the brave gold prospectors that initially colonized the land.

Fish seemed to represent what was good, what was free, what was nature's gift.......living abundantly below the rippling surface yet remaining invisible, perfectly hidden by the tea colored water that was stained by the decaying fallen leaves of millions of autumns before. I should have liked fish. I didn't.

Was it the flavor? Was it the texture? Was it the rogue tiny bone that threatened certain death to anyone who dared take their meal in a cavalier fashion. Or was it one of the following events of my childhood?

1. 12 years old. Went fishing with friend Roger. Caught a pike. Put pike in a pail. Took pike to Roger's basement. Filled old bathtub in basement with water. Put Pike in bathtub. Named Pike "Pikey". Went to school next day. Went to see Pikey. Looked into an empty bathtub. Looked behind the dryer. Found beloved Pikey with lint filled gills.

2. 14 years old. Went ice fishing with friend Chris on same lake. Cold day. Lit big fire on the shore. He pulled a can of smoked sardines out of his gear. He threw the can into the fire. We were fascinated. We watched it grow. It blew up. My parka smelled like smoked sardines for the rest of the winter.

3. 17 years old. Halloween party at SJP's house. Good times. Bad friend. Large aquarium. Drunk fish. Dead fish. Fast retreat.

By that time I hated fish. Years of fish abuse coupled by being force fed over cooked fillet after over cooked fillet had left me swearing that once I left home I would never eat fish again. Years past. I had stuck to my vow.

Years later I had taken up my culinary apprenticeship and was working with a Japanese guy named Katsu. He was fresh to Canada and insisted on eating what he was familiar with. We happened to be working together one night when he was breaking down a large tuna into steaks for the next day. I watched him butcher the fish with envy and awe. His knife skills were absurdly smooth and his detail was unmatched. About halfway through, he deftly swooped down with his razor sharp blade and cut himself a gossamer thin slice of toro. The toro is the fatty part of the belly, highly prized for its unctuous texture and sublime taste of the deep. He anointed it lightly with a little ponzu sauce that he always seemed to have on hand and slid it onto his tongue. His eyes closed and he took in a deep breath through his nose. He only chewed a couple of times as the fatty toro melted on his tongue. He opened his eyes and got right back to work.

I watched this ritual take place time after time and questioning my own disdain for all creatures finned, finally asked him about his love of fish. He explained his love of the taste, the texture but above all his love of eating something in its true form. After all, he did explain that as we search for more natural foods and diets in the western world, we continue to cook fish to a rendition wholly unrecognizable to the original. His crowning point was that since fish lived under water, and flame cannot exist under water, fish should only raw.

I thought about Katsu's theory of natural food for a few days and then told him that I had seen him eating cooked steak. I then made the point that fires burn in nature but that cows would run away from fire to preserve their species. Katsu thought about this for a minute and told me that cows wouldn't necessarily run from the fire. I asked him why and was expecting a wise response steeped in centuries old wisdom.

He told me cows were stupid.

I love sushi.

If You Watched the Grammys

2009-02-08T23:12:00.000-08:00

I remember the day. My wife Darlene and I were hanging out in our apartment. It was a great place. The entire bottom floor of a house in Laguna Canyon, that would be the headquarters for CNN reporters during the massive southern California storms and mudslides of 1997. She turned to me and told me how she had been sitting in a parking lot watching a group of late teens walk by and how she felt entirely and wholey disconnected from them. Their fashion, their walk, their attitude........all left her feeling as if time had skipped a beat and left her in a time long long ago. I think at the time that I thought I may have actually been a little more in touch with the times than she was. After all, she was the cradle robber and I was the object of her thievery.

Fast forward 13 years and I turn on the television. The 2009 Grammy awards are on and I settle into the couch to watch. I rub my eyes, rub my eyes, clean my ears, rub my eyes, surf the net, check my facebook page, tune back into the Grammys and come to a conclusion. And then I revise my thoughts on that conclusion.

I was about to throw myself into the old "things used to be"..."i remember when I was your age" crap when I reached back into the notebook of one of the state assigned therapists I have "met" over the past years and mirrored the conclusion that maybe I thought I knew better that everyone else. I rock, but maybe I don't rock the most. Maybe my failure to embrace the present and the future is stronger than my will to hang on to the past. After all, I was raised in a place where difference was chastised, never embraced.

The show tonight was wrought with the new and the old, the classic and the soon to be, and the fact that Chris Brown (allegedly) kicked the crap out of Rhianna and proved himself to be really really macho.

Chris Brown.....you are no Ike Turner.

To Everyone Named Jacques

2009-02-07T08:11:00.000-08:00

I am a classically trained chef and have been on the receiving end of industry awards, fast promotions and general exhaltations for my talents in the kitchen.

I Said Chef, not Pastry Chef!

I have worked with 3 of the best pastry chefs that the world has to offer. Coincidence or not, they were all named Jacques. I have to admit I was always a little jealous of them. They never worked nights, they always got what I thought was more than their share of kudos, and they could always blame humidity if what they were making didn't turn out. I lost track of the number of times I waxed less than poetically about how they got to start out with ingredients like chocolate, sugar, butter and beautiful fruit, and I had to start out with a dead chicken. Not fair I said. I suppose I have spent too much time lamenting about their careers and not enough time studying their careers. Or is it just that chefs think pastry chefs are sissies and following recipes is for weaklings?

Look what is in my oven right now! TAKE THAT JACQUES!

It sure is humid today.

I Will Never Lie To You On This Blog

2009-02-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

That is a promise, for whatever that's worth.

A few years ago I worked with a guy that told me he was once offered a Senatorship for the state of New York.

Now I know that I am a Canadian ex-pat living in the United States but I can confidently say that being offered a Senatorship certainly bucks the trend of at least the most recent Senators I have researched.

I guess I have to ask myself which part of the human ego baits itself into having to make crap like this up. I remember Psych 101 in university and learning about the id, ego and superego and wondering why they meant anything to me. Then I met "The Senator" and it all made sense. We are slaves to our brains, our automatic, and for the life of us we can't escape its grip unless we wear our glasses on a string, much like Sampson's flowing hair fed his overpowering strength. I always thought the string on the glasses was worn to prevent them from falling into a big pile of result of the night before.

Its late for me.....almost midnight....I need to go to sleep. I wish I could but I need to call the afterlife and discuss my recent appointment to the

A Poem For Today

2009-02-06T08:36:00.000-08:00

What a day it is in Southern California. It started to rain last night and it is supposed to continue raining for the next few days. Please keep in mind we live in a desert and while from the outside it seems great, the rest of the country only knows half of the story of what it is like to live here. In honor of national poetry week, I decided to write a poem and share it with you. It is about the place I live.

Biff was a guy from Los Angeles
Who loved his Mercedes Benz
He loved to drive it around
And show off for all of his friends
He called his car Chad, and he treated it well
Then one day he was trapped in proverbial hell
It had started to rain, he had to leave work
Chad had never been wet, so things went beserk
The driving was fast, the driving was bad
Tailgating was close, Chad's owner was sad
Chad could not get wet, he never had been
Dodging these raindrops wasn't as easy as it seemed
Through his blurred windshield, Biff caught passing by
A glimpse of some chick with big stupid fake boobs
and swolen injected lips and he liked it for some reason
possibly because things like that around here pass for
beauty and no one pays attention to what is on the inside
so he swerved in the rain and slammed on his brakes
and skidded and crashed because he had no clue how
to drive in the rain and he caused a big accident and
everyone else passing by slowed down to watch and
they too were tailgating and looking for big tits and
half of them didn't even know how to get the top up on
their car.
Crash, Bang, Boom
At least its not snowing

Jeers and Good Fries

2009-02-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

Fifteen Minutes Later

That Sucked!

Cheers and Goodbye

2009-02-05T12:34:00.000-08:00

I remember watching an episode of cheers where Norm was working as a mid-level pencil sharpener for a large accounting firm and he somehow fell into the role of corporate henchman or Vice President of Dismissals. He was given the role by accident, but once the company found out how he blubbered like a baby while laying people off, thus turning the sympathy tables on the now unemployed, he was promoted and embraced his new duties. After a few months at his new post, George became callous and unable to cry, rendering him now useless to the company.

I am currently sitting in a corner booth in one of the restaurants I run, waiting for our corporate handyman (father of 3) to show up just so I can tell him we are cutting his hours and pay in half. I am feeling weird but disturbingly unaffected by the task at hand. Just as George became hardened, I am afraid that the current financial and job markets are doing to me just the same.

He will be here in 10 minutes, I might go cut some onions.

I Have A Dream

2009-02-03T21:24:00.000-08:00

How did I end up like this???????

I coach little league baseball and have for about 5 years. Same group of boys, same group of parents, not the same me.

Tonight was the first practice of the new season. Basic stuff. Batting, throwing, general stuff I thought - until I got home. Why do I feel like I was hit by a truck? It used to not be like this. Raise your hand if you remember what it felt like to be 10 years younger, no matter what age you are right now. Is father time really this cruel? Or do I officially treat myself like crap. Is it the shoulder reconstruction I had 6 months ago? Is it the stress of the economy and the fact that the restaurant industry is getting beat up worse than the Detroit Lions did this year? Or is it the fact that I have fallen into a personal rut of self mutilation via massive amounts of pork fat?

Well look out!

Like the 37 times in high school I drank too much and swore I would never do that again, I now embark on a journey. A journey to re-shape this temple in which I live back into its once mighty form. A journey to be something else.

Its 9:38 PM. I look to my right through a window that opens to the kitchen of our home. Therein lies pringles. God help me.

At Least They Liked It

2009-02-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

On Saturday my son Noah asked me if he could have his friend Alex over for a play date. I usually like the play dates he has. I like his friends and I like the sound of them having fun in the background. I even like their parents....for the most part.

After my wife goes to sleep (she is an early one) we usually put in a movie, eat some popcorn and act like guys like only 10 year olds and one 41 year old can. Lots of fart jokes et al.

After the kids went to sleep, I decided to prep a yummy breakfast for them and before you know it, I had spent almost 2 hours working on cinnamon rolls with a delicious orange glaze made with oranges from the back yard and some home made bacon I quick cured from some pork belly I just happened to have lying around.

In the morning, after having the obligatory Sunday morning still in bed coffee, I got up and spent 40 minutes finishing off the bacon with a little maple syrup, baking the rolls and scrambling some eggs. I called the kids to eat, including Ava our 5 year old. They dug in like truckers, ate for 2 minutes, retreated back to the room of video game purgatory and when queried as to whether they liked their breakfast, they all stated yes without breaking their gaze into the computer. I walked back down the hall towards the kitchen just in time to watch Ruby our Black Lab eat what was left of my portion.

At least the Superbowl was good.

I Cooka Da Fish

2009-01-30T18:25:00.000-08:00

I cooka da fish and I cooka da chicken.