Fog and Sun on a Sunday

A few minutes can be transformative.  Love you, Vancouver.

On the subject of dads and books...

Recently I told the somewhat embarrassing story of going to Lordco in Osoyoos to buy wiper blades.  That story prompted some reflection on my present and past and led to a story about my father.

In the meantime I have still been thinking about the novel Your Face in Mine by Jess Row.  The book is pretty memorable for quite a few reasons.  This book also has a 'dad' connection that is worth a little storytelling.  I got lucky with my own dad, but I also got lucky with my two fathers-in-law, and the book is emblematic of a tiny part of that.

If I walk into my in-laws apartment, I know with unwavering certainty that the coffee table will be covered with an assortment of thought-provoking books.  New and interesting, classic and unforgettable, it's all there.  My fathers-in-law being who they are, they usually encourage us to leave with at least one book.

It's one of those nebulous things that, simply by its existence, reassures and comforts me - something like a bowl of soup on a wet Vancouver afternoon.  It's nice to know that there will always be a pile of books there, that there will be people reading those books, and that someone will insist you take one away to read.

It's nice to know that the people you're stereotypically supposed to dread being around, love to talk to you about books, ideas, films, and plays.  They engage with the world and with you and crave new experiences...

As I'm writing this, I'm realising that I really don't have any point.  I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than to say I'm lucky.  Perhaps I'm just feeling sentimental about Dad and the season in general...

Whatever it is, I am glad to know those books will be there on the coffee table.  Thanks, Dads.

Out of My Element at Lordco (part 2): A Dad story

I wrote recently of the humbling experience of shopping for wiper blades at Lordco.  If you didn't read the other post, it basically came down to being relatively smart but not knowing how to do much of anything.  That's where I am now, but it wasn't always this way.  In fact, I could have turned out to be a pretty good guy to have around in the zombie apocalypse, but life had other plans.

I come from handy stock.  My dad, and it seems all the men before him, knew what they were doing with a toolbox.  My dad apprenticed early on and did all kinds of construction work in his early years. He worked on huge infrastructure projects, installing major machinery and, along the way, picking up a bunch of different skills.  Once he had a family, he left behind the vagaries of construction and the life of work camps in the bush for a steady office job.

That didn't stop him from doing physical work, though.  My parents bought a major fixer-upper when I was very young.  My dad fixed dry wall, painted, cleared pipes, and repaired wiring before we moved in.  The weekends of my childhood were filled with my dad working on the house to make it better.  He turned our unfinished basement into the second living room (but the one we actually used as opposed to the one upstairs).  He poured cement to fix the cracks in the masonry and the paving around the house.  He installed insulation in the walls and ceiling and added Tudor-like touches to the eaves of the house.  He planted trees, fixed fences, and even managed to put up a basketball hoop for me.

Somehow he even found time to help other people do work on their houses.  Friends and neighbours always knew my dad could and would help.  Trips to my grandmother's cottage were essentially work trips for my dad as he fixed everything that broke over the winter (which seemed to be a stunning amount of things).  While others saw the cottage as a way to get away from it all and relax, my dad knew it would be a lot of work.  Loving my grandmother (my mum's mum) as he did, I don't think he minded as long as she made him eggplant at least once.

In truth, it was pretty amazing, especially since he had little or no training in most of those areas.

I think even as a little kid I was kind of in awe of all the things he was constantly doing.  I started out just following him into the basement, watching and asking constant questions.  'What's that?'  "What does that do?'  'Where are you putting that?'  'What kind of glue is that?'

I was the shop assistant that basically didn't assist but just asked annoying questions.  It might have been to shut me up, but my dad eventually started giving me pieces of wood, extra nails, a hammer, whatever was lying around.  I happily started banging away at things.  Making things would be way too big a stretch, but I was doing things.  Then I got the best Christmas present of my life - my own tool set.  Not one of those little plastic things, but a real set of tools scaled down for smaller people.  I had a saw, clamps, a plane, a hammer, a level, hand drill...it was awesome.  Now I was hooked.  Every time my dad went down to the basement to work, I followed.  My dad showed my how to mark wood and cut straight.  Sometimes I even cut things for him and sanded them down after.  I had my own little corner of the work area with a hang board and everything.  I kept all my tools clean and put them away neatly at the end of every 'shift.'

I guess I was on my way to being handy, and then life intervened and threw a wrench in the works.  My parents separated (temporarily) and sold the house.  Though they eventually got back together, it was apartment living from then on.  No more work space, no scraps of wood, and no real projects.  I don't think my dad minded too much.  After all, his weekends actually became a time to relax instead of fix something around the house.  My mum was probably pleased too since they could finally do something together on the weekend.  I, however, was bumped off the track of becoming the handy guy who could fix or build something for you after the zombie apocalypse.

I had two more forays into the world of tools.  In high school I took wood shop and actually made some pretty good stuff.  A woman I brought home once was even shocked that I had made the cutting board my parents had.  It was pretty good.  That said, the B+ I got in shop meant that I wouldn't risk taking another class like it for fear of it messing up my grade point average.  Easier to take an academic class with tests and essays.  I could study for those.

Later on, when I returned to Toronto as an adult, I taught myself how to do all my own bike repairs.  I even collected a decent set of tools.  Once again though, my homes after that have all been apartments with no real work space.  If you asked me to repack the bottom bracket on my bike now, the first thing I would do is probably go look for a youtube video to figure out where to start.  Today I am probably best described as intelligently incompetent.  The woman at Lordco might not even credit me that much.

Now that I have started life on theBside, however, I am determined to get started on that path of being somewhat self-sufficient.  My first step is knots (something else my dad was damn good at).  I figure I can learn that while watching a movie.  We'll see.

Either way, I feel like I have a lot to live up to.  Coming up on three years since his death, my dad still gives me something to aspire to.

Out of my element at Lordco

To begin this post, let me say that I am a reasonably competent and intelligent person.  I have been successful at most things I have tried.  When I have found skills or tasks difficult, I have generally put in the time and effort to figure out how to do them passably well.  Some of those things were quite difficult.  Most of my colleagues in my career have considered me to be good at the things I do.

That said, there are some ENORMOUS gaps in my skills.  If the zombie apocalypse occurred, I doubt I would be anyone's first pick to join their community of survival refugees.  I might be in demand if people wanted a good conversationalist or a good storyteller.  After all, I am well read and can talk about everything from literature to government and from current ideas in science to innovative agricultural techniques for our climate changing world.   I'm not completely helpless either.  I love solo camping and can take care of myself reasonably well out in the wilderness.

But ask me to repair your water pump and I won't really be able to help you.  Change the oil on your car?  Sorry.  Catch your fish, gut it and clean it?  Give me a manual and I might be able to figure it out, but otherwise we would all go hungry.

So it was with great trepidation that I walked into Lordco, an auto parts store in Osoyoos last week. To be honest, even the name scared the hell out of me.  LORDco?  The name has nothing to do with religion (just a combination of the two founders' last names), but it just conjures up this incredibly intimidating image of hardcore Christians quizzing me about things like fuel injectors and venial sins. Talk about being out of one's element.  

We were driving back from the Okanagan and had just left when we realised that the windshield wiper blade was broken.  It was a drizzling, grey day and we would be driving through some areas that could get snow, so we stopped in Osoyoos to pick up a wiper blade.  At first I was insistent that I could just drive back with one (since the broken blade was on the passenger side), but humiliation was trumped by my desire to get us back home safely.  As soon as I parked, I braced myself for a humbling experience.

My nemesis

For someone like me, walking into an auto parts store is akin to taking a trip to another country.  If there were passport checks, I am pretty sure they wouldn't let me in.  I know more or less what everything is, but I don't know what to do with any of it.  I said (out loud), "Brace yourself for a humiliating experience."  I took a quick pass through the store and, not finding the wiper blades, went up to the cash register.  There was an older woman wearing a witch's hat, but she was busy so a young woman called us over.  Damn.

Just to establish the situation clearly, I said, "I am probably your most ignorant customer, but I need wiper blades."  She looked at me completely stone faced and then asked, "What size?"  Exactly what I had been dreading.

"Umm, I don't know.  Do they go by make and model of the car or something?"

"No."

Okay, now I was stuck and kind of just stood there going 'hmmm' with a sheepish smile on my face. For some reason she suddenly softened and took us over to the wiper blades and helped me choose a pair.  Maybe she remembered that time in elementary school when she had trouble figuring out how to solve a math problem, and the teacher helped her through it...whatever it was, she went from incredulous at my stupidity to quite helpful.  I had the broken blade so we could quickly determine the size, but the connection was now the problem.  I had no idea.  I meekly asked if she could take a look at the car, but she said she wasn't really allowed to do that (which I can understand).  She seemed to be taking pity on my stupidity and led us to the cash register saying that if they didn't work, we could return them.  We walked out with me mumbling, "God, I hope that was the hardest part."

It wasn't.

After I paid I moved the car to the centre of the parking lot where no one from the store could hope to see me fiddling around with the wipers.  I like to try and fail in private.  In fact, I don't mind trying and failing repeatedly as long as I don't have an audience for it.  The package had no written directions.  Instead it was the diagrams intended I suppose to be 'universal'.  The problem with these 'universal' directions is that there is no 'if this happens, do this' kind of thing.  Universal directions basically suck.  For everyone in the universe.

Anyway, the directions showed the blade and a little connector that came in a small box inside the main packaging.  In the diagrams, it showed (or at least it seemed to) the connector fitting inside the wiper blade and then the hook of the windshield wiper arm (the part actually permanently attached to the car that moves back and forth) fitting into that connector.  I fiddled and fiddled and came to the conclusion that the hook from the wiper arm did not fit into the connector.  It was too wide.

This meant another humiliating trip into the store.  If we hadn't had a 5 hour drive ahead of us, I probably would have spent at least an hour in the lot trying to figure it out on my own.  As it was, I walked back in wiper blades in hand.  The same young woman was waiting for us.  I started with, "Your most incompetent customer of the day is back."  This self-deprecating but true opener was meant to soften her up and make her sympathetic, but I got absolutely no reaction.  I explained how the blades didn't fit.  In my mind, she was looking at me vaguely sympathetically but thinking, 'What kind of idiot can't change wiper blades?'

She was willing to take the blades back but didn't seem to really know what to do with me.  "Let me get my manager.  Hold on a second."

He came out a moment later and asked me to describe the problem.  He asked me if the 'j-hook' didn't just slip into the wiper.  In my defence, this is an important illustrative moment.  I knew instinctively what the j-hook was (so I'm not totally incompetent - only partly so); I just could not get the j-hook into the connector.  Thanks to the gods of Lordco, he offered to take a look (thank you!!!) and came out with me.

As you might guess from the situation - especially if you have ever installed a wiper blade - it took him all of three seconds.  What was the great mystery that had eluded me for fifteen full minutes?  I didn't need the connector.  The 'universal' directions had misled me.  In the case of our car, the blade attached directly to the wiper arm.  Vaguely humiliated but very appreciative, I thanked the manager profusely and the woman from the register.  Though she could have massaged my ego a bit more, she was helpful.

As it happened, there was no rain or snow for the rest of the drive.  In fact, we ended up driving through a gorgeous sun-filled fall day.  I saved that second wiper blade change until today.  I had some time and, most importantly, some privacy and went outside to examine the car.  I took a look at the recently replaced blade, examined how it fit, went over to the driver side and quickly removed the old blade.  A few minutes of wiggling and another glance at the new blade and how it fit, and it was done.  No problems.

So you see, I may not be the kind of person you need in a zombie apocalypse, but I'm not a complete idiot.

Seen one, seen 'em all, right, pops?

You would have been 91 today.

You handsome devil you...

Something dad would have liked

He would have said, "Just wait until it rains" right after that, but he would have liked this. 

The Dad Shorts: A Story

Once upon a time, I took my first overseas job in Cali, Colombia.  My dad, up for just about anything as always, agreed to come for a visit during my first extended holiday over the Christmas break.  We would have three weeks together to travel around Colombia and see what there was to see.  

Dad flew in a few days before the break started, so he had a few afternoons to explore the city along with my wife.  He unpacked that night...one pair of pants, one pair of jeans, a bathing suit, a few shirts, and socks/underwear.  

"Where are your shorts?"

"I didn't bring any."

At that, my incredulous, what-are-you-doing voice kicked in.  "You came all the way to Colombia, a country with a primarily tropical climate, and you didn't bring shorts?"

"No, I'll be fine," said Dad.

So the next day, my dad and my wife went out exploring the city and the neighbourhood.  This was more of an adventure than it would seem.  My wife didn't speak Spanish at that point, and whenever my dad (never much of a language man) tried to say anything, a French word long lingering in the recesses of his brain would pop out.  He was more likely to say 'merci' than 'gracias'.  In those days, not very many people spoke English in Cali, so ordering a meal was a bit of a challenge for them.  

On top of that, Cali was a very dangerous city at the time.  The Cali cartel was on the run and their many employees were at loose ends.  With less stable work available, random crime, already quite common, had increased substantially.  I warned both to be very careful where they went and made plans to see them for dinner.  They spent the afternoon checking out places, found lunch, had some coffee and were waiting for me when I got home.

By this point, Dad had perhaps realised his packing mistake.  

"It's hot out there," he noted.  I pointed out that he might be more comfortable in shorts and asked if he wanted to buy some before we left for the coast (where it would be even hotter) a few days later.

“No.  It’s okay.  I can’t be bothered.”  Typical Dad response.  He wasn’t cheap, but he was more than willing to put up with a little discomfort before buying something he didn’t need.  Especially since he had made the mistake of not bringing shorts, it was somehow something he should do - forego a bit of comfort to make up for the silly error in judgement of forgetting something.  Buying shorts to replace the ones he didn’t bring to a country where the average temperature was around 32C every day was the easy way out. Being uncomfortable for a few weeks was a way of making up for his bad packing.

I left the room and returned with a pair of scissors.  “Here.  Let’s make you a pair of cut-offs.  We can take the jeans [which I didn’t particularly like anyway] and make you some shorts.”  This was the way around dad’s feeling that he shouldn’t pay his way out of a bad decision.  Dad readily agreed.  A few minutes later, Dad stood in the living room in his new shorts.  The effect was something like an old boy.  Perhaps a bit like Bob Denver as Gilligan, but they looked good on him.  

We spent the next three weeks travelling around some of the most remote parts of the country.  Me being me, we didn’t make a lot of concessions to comfort just because Dad was 70.  We stayed in some clean budget places and some real dives.  We flew twice but also covered huge distances on dirty uncomfortable buses.  We ate some great meals but also found quite a few places where the only choices were ‘chicken, meat, or fish’, each option fried to tasteless oblivion.  We also swam in beautiful Caribbean coves, lounged in mud volcanoes, hiked jungle trails, and read in swaying hammocks.  

My dad, happy and easy-going travel companion that he was, never complained once.  The worst elements of it all actually became fodder for long-running jokes between him, my wife and I.  Upon our return to Cali, my wife and I kept the shorts and recorded all those jokes in permanent Sharpie marker.  When we next saw my dad, we presented them as a gift.  Unsentimental as he was, my dad kept the shorts for 18 years, all the way up until he died.  

Bye, เมืองไทย

มา8ปีแล้วเราอยู่ในประเทศไทย เป็นโอกาสที่จะไม่ลืมตลอดไป ทุกครั้งะที่คิดเรื่อง8ปีนี้จะยิ้มเพราะจะจำได้เพื่อนดีนักเรียนยอดเยี่ยมอาหารอร่อยและความสวยงาม ความตัดสินใจนี้ยากจริงๆแต่เวลาขึ้นเครื่องบินเรารู้ว่าใช้8ปีของชีวิตของเราในประเทศพิเศษกับคนพิเศษ 

We couldn't ask for anything else. ขอบคุณมากๆ

Evil washing machine in Taipei

Okay, I love Taipei, but this evil washer/dryer has been torturing me for over four hours. Evil, evil, evil incarnate. 

Below is the translation of the message on the machine.