Epic Travel Day

It was my birthday yesterday. As a special gift, my company sent me on an all-expense-paid trip to Memphis, Tennessee (for business meetings today). And so began the adventure...

Was flying Toronto-Memphis with a connection in Chicago (90-minute connection, no problem). Started seeing delays in my flight starting at around 11am. First, 30 minutes, then 60, then an hour-15, then 2 hours-15, then 4 hours. After a while, decided to go to the airport and take my chances. Joined my colleague in the lounge who was also on the same trip, when suddenly the flight departure time moved up by 3 hours-15...giving us 5 minutes to dash from the lounge to the furthest point in the airport.

Dashed.

Boarded in Toronto with only a 40-minute delay, then waited another 40 minutes for other passengers who didn't know the flight had moved up by 3+ hours.

Eventually took off with a chance that we'd make Chicago in time for our Memphis connection. After all, flights rarely leave Chicago on time.

Landed in Chicago with 10 minutes to get from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 before take-off. BUT, the Chicago-Memphis flight showed a 20 minute delay, so maybe, just maybe, they were waiting for us.

Dashed. Sprinted. The shuttle between Terminals arrived promptly. Dashed again. AND MADE IT, just in time to see them close the plane doors. It was a holiday miracle! A flight left on time! Agent at the gate said she held it as long as she could, but the flight was now irrevocably on its way. Next step was to go to customer service for a new flight and a hotel voucher (next flights to Memphis were in the morning - 7:30 am and noonish.)

100's of people waiting for same at customer service...line-up with no end in sight.

Fortunately, we had decided to buy my co-traveller a ticket on the 7:30 am flight just in case, so that at least one of us could get there in the morning. That paid off and he was set. For me, neither flight had seats remaining. I got on standby for the noonish flight.

That's when I noticed a Little Rock flight that I could take earlier, rent a car in Little Rock, drive a couple of hours to Memphis, and arrive earlier than the noonish Memphis flight was scheduled to arrive. Spoke to our agent and had her arrange that, car and everything.

Had drinks and a late dinner at the airport hotel we booked for ourselves (rather than waiting 2+ hours in line for the airline to do it) and set the alarm for my 8:58 am flight to Little Rock this morning.

Off went my colleague on the 7:30 am flight to Memphis. A little later, I headed over to the Little Rock gate. But wait! Little Rock was delayed by 30 minutes, then 60, then 3.5 hours.

Heard from my colleague (now in Memphis) that there were 4 empty seats on his flight (any one of which would have sufficed for my purposes, thank you very much).

Took that as a cue that maybe the noonish flight to Memphis now also had seats. Called my Agent. She switched me to that flight (another Terminal, same shuttle as last night). And now I sit and await my Memphis flight, boarding pass in hand.

My Memphis flight just got delayed 45 minutes. And in fact, I just checked again - literally this moment - it's been delayed again by another 2 hours.

I wish I was kidding.

Good news is that I fly back to Toronto tomorrow morning. That should go smoothly I'm sure.

Lessons learned:

• With all the apps available to let you know departure times, you still need to assume your flight is departing at its original time...because it might.
• Travel agents still have lots of value to add. Even if it's just the off-load of waiting on the phone for airlines to pick up.
• No sense in getting frustrated or angry. The airlines don't (can't?) care because whatever is happening to you, something worse is happening to a whole bunch of someone elses... including those in the line in front of me last night who don't have agents, can't afford to buy extra tickets and/or are going through these situations with little children and/or infants.

Wish me luck...

How Will 2016 Be Remembered?

Wow. That was quite a year.

I've heard a lot of people talking about how horrible 2016 was - the rise (return) of all sorts of terrible behaviours and beliefs around the world and too close to home, the painful US Election, the set-backs on important social gains for vulnerable groups, uncountable human tragedies resulting from natural and/or man-made disasters and wars and terrorism, the deaths of beloved figures from just about every Trivial Pursuit category, ...

Sad. Depressing. And nearly over.

I'm not sure that 2016 really stands out in these respects compared to other years, but it is recent and therefore most-easily remembered. Certainly, we haven't lost so many icons in any year that I remember.

However...maybe we made a few gains? Maybe we learned a few things from 2016 and get better as a result?

Maybe 2016 will be remembered as the year that the under-30's genuinely woke up to the fact that they need to step up and rescue the world from their parents. The grown-ups really dropped the ball this year on all sorts of fronts and it feels like the under-30's watched in horror but didn't realize they could have made an enormous difference. Maybe they know that now and stop assuming we know what we're doing?

Maybe 2016 will be remembered as the year that we all woke up to what we've been hearing for decades - that if we don't remember the past we are doomed to repeat it. At the same time that we're losing the last few people on the planet with first-hand experience of the horrors of WWI and WWII, maybe we're getting the kick in the pants we need to finally believe them and do something about it?

Maybe 2016 will be remembered as the year that we became mobilized around the death of the truth, the importance of honest journalism, and the degree to which we have become vulnerable to lies.

Maybe 2016 will be remembered as the year when the voice of the people being left behind with respect to employment, health, education, and "the American Dream" overall, was finally heard.

Maybe 2016 will be remembered as a breakthrough year for mental health, when we finally started to talk about it openly, when it became as real for us as physical health. When gender issues finally started mattering to everyone. When the rest of us realized that women still aren't safe. When we finally started dealing with simmering (but carefully hidden and anonymous) xenophobic hate.

Maybe 2016 will be remembered as the year that we finally began to deal with bullying and started to address the harm that people do to each other and society when the Internet gives absolute freedom to absolutely everybody to do absolutely anything they want.

Or maybe 2017 will be even worse?

I can't shake the feeling that that depends a lot on the under-30's. Not shirking. But I think I'll remember 2016 as the year when I personally realized how much better our kids can be at fixing the world than we have proven to be. They care. They are connected. They have reach. They are frighteningly smart.  And maybe now, they've been activated by all they witnessed in 2016.

I hope so.

Thoughts from an Italian Restaurant

I had dinner last night with a few childhood friends - one I've know since my teenage years at camp (in from the States with her husband) and two others who go all the way back to grade school.

My friend from camp (let's call her "Jennifer"), her husband, and their two sons had spent most of the week in the area and told us all about their adventures: CN Tower, Grey Cup Game, Leafs game, Hockey Hall of Fame, a well-appointed Airbnb in Liberty Village, long walks downtown, great restaurants, sports bars, and so on.

I remarked at some point how great this "Toronto" of which she spoke sounded: "I really should visit some time".

Funny how we can get so used to being in a place that we lose sight of how great that place is. I take a commuter train in from the suburbs every day, I work in the building that sits on top of the Hockey Hall of Fame, the CN Tower is on full display from my office window, and I have hundreds of world class restaurants big and small, expensive and not, a short walk from my building. But I don't even notice that stuff anymore and I choose the food court every day because it's fast and easy.

Nothing new in any of this: I'm not the only one who loses sight of the city around them and needs to be reminded how great it is by people who visit from elsewhere; and I'm certainly not the first person to call it out.

But David's posts are never really about what they seem to be about. As someone once told me, David's posts are like an onion (I think they meant that after you read them, you can't get the smell out of your fingers for the rest of the day - or something like that).

The real insight that struck me this morning as I took the train in to work is that lifelong friends are like the city you live in. You get so used to them, that it's easy to lose sight of how amazing they are and how vital your relationship with them is. (Same goes for family, of course, but I didn't have dinner with family last night - this is about friends).

It takes American visitors to open my eyes (again) to the city around me. And it takes a far too infrequent get-together with people I've known most of my life to remind me of the cherished place they have in my heart. (And even then, I don't realize it until the next morning).

Sometimes it's months (and it's occasionally been years) between times that we're together, but every time it's like the needle on the record player slipping back into the groove over which it's been hovering since I last heard the music, and the melody continues like it had never been interrupted.

And to continue the sappy analogy, the music that's playing isn't them...it's us. It's me.

Signing off now before I ruin your breakfast. Speaking of which, I have to run down to the food court and grab something.

...David

Penguins vs. Seals

If you're reading the title of this post and thinking that today I've chosen to write about the rivalry between the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins and the California Golden Seals, man you're old. They last played on March 13, 1976 (a 4-2 win for Pittsburgh).

But this post does have something to do with age and generations.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting my eldest daughter in Vancouver (beautiful place, lousy hockey team). While there, one of her good friends invited us over for a dinner party and I found myself in a room with some really nice 23-29-year olds.

Somehow, at some point in the evening, the topic of seals came up. Suddenly, I was confronted by a prejudice of which I had theretofore been unaware. At least one of my daughter's friends HATED seals. Seals! Seals? How can anyone hate seals?

I was aghast. Seals are my favourite.

As a child, I spent long hours at the zoo watching the seals. Whatever weather, whatever time of year, seals were one of the few animals that would be active, playful, fun, engaging, and engaged. Bumbling idiots on the land, and sleek, graceful and majestic entertainers underwater. My spirit animal? Maybe. (Although I was always a bumbling idiot in the water - because my parents never bothered to teach me to swim as a child - and sleek graceful and majestic on land).

Later in life, when I first got out to San Francisco, I saw mounds of seals at Pier 39 lying one on top of each other, soaking up the warm summer sun, occasionally barking their pleasure at the world. I remember thinking to myself at the time, "What other animal enjoys the simple life as much? Why can't I kick back and take that much pleasure in being with my peeps and just loving life?"

So what did this kid have against seals?

I asked.

In 2005 (when some of these people in the room were 12-ish) March of the Penguins debuted. 

The following year gave us Happy Feet.

For these kids, at a young and impressionable age, the movies were teaching them that seals were "horrible and evil" creatures (to paraphrase the person to whom I was speaking that evening).

Now, I love penguins too. They too, at the zoo as a child, were a go-to animal for me any time of year. They too, bumbled on land and flourished underwater. They too entertained. They too seemed to be generally happy with their lot in life (although I of course recognize that zoos shouldn't be their lot in life and they probably hate it).

But I never EVER thought of penguins as the good guys and seals as the bad guys just because some seals enjoy the occasional penguin. Penguins eat fish, don't they? If seals are villains because they eat penguins, shouldn't one also conclude that penguins are villains because they eat fish? Or don't fish count?

I say we retreat from vilifying animals for doing what they must to survive. And instead, let's look at ourselves - humankind - and our seemingly innate tendency to pick sides, to get righteously indignant about the behaviour of one side or the other, and to hate for no good reason at all.

Love thy penguin. Love thy seal. Love life.

Condemn those who hate wherever you encounter them. They are the villains, not the seals. And certainly not the donkeys or the elephants (look it up).

(And no, daughter's friend, I don't mean to imply that you're a villain of any sort. I thought you were sweet and a great friend to my daughter. I loved dinner and enjoyed the company. Sorry you have a shitty bottle opener. I meant to buy you a new one but the weather in Vancouver was lousy and I was only there a couple of days so I didn't get everything done that I wanted to. Your pal...David.)

We've Found Our Place at the Heart of Complacency

There's a lesson to be learned in all of this about complacency.

Maybe that's getting lost in the fallout of the US election, maybe it's not. But I won't assume.

Complacency about the real problems plaguing large segments of society: There are clearly a whole lot of people who feel like their leaders don't care about them any more and were fed up with being ignored.

Complacency about people's support: Within the party that lost, many of their "faithful" felt ignored by their own candidates who took their support as a given.

Complacency about the democratic process: Voters who could have made all the difference chose to assume someone else would make that difference for them. Or sulked about their preferred candidate being defeated and left the hard choices to others.

Complacency about the importance of leadership: Surely there are still amazing leaders out there somewhere... but why would they choose politics and the limelight that comes with it in an age where they know they will be caught, tried and convicted for anything they've ever done anywhere anytime in real-time without any chance to explain, where their family members will be scrutinized in the same way without mercy, and where the prevailing desire is to tear them down and destroy them rather than enabling them to lead?  

Complacency about the responsibility of media: An entire industry stopped doing it's job because ratings were more enticing than integrity.

Complacency about individual rights and freedoms: For all. Not just for the few who share your beliefs, your looks, your gender, your socioeconomic status, your sexual orientation, and your neighbourhood. It feels like a lot of people are losing sight of the first one - the right to believe what you believe - in righteous indignation about others who have lost sight of all the other ones.

Complacency about the truth: The truth is out there; unfortunately, it's every truth that anyone wants to find. Shouldn't we be most appalled by the assault on the truth? Have we even noticed?

It's Remembrance Day once again. Time to remember the people who fought and continue to fight for what we have. But let's not just remember the people...let's remember what they fought for.

And stop being complacent about all of these things.

Halloween 2016 - Evil Gets All Dolled Up

The little girl awoke with a start.

Something was stirring in her bedroom... and through her now squeezed-shut eyes she saw that a red glow had replaced what should have been the tranquil darkness of night.

"Oh no," she thought, "not again."

With a barely audible whoosh, she felt the air around her suddenly heat up, heavier than the moment before with an unmistakable flow towards her bed, where she now lay trembling, pillow over her head, clutching her favourite - and only - boy doll, Liam.

Just then, the sound of uncountable tiny skittering feet sent chills ratcheting up her spine. She could imagine the claws and feet and antennae and pincers and stingers that were making that sound, slowly dragging themselves directly towards her from the direction of the intense heat across the room from her.

Now the sound was also on the wall beside her.

And over her head.

And under the bed.

Scuttling...

Crawling...

Slithering...

Creeping...

But worse (as if anything could be worse) there was something else under the bed. Something much, much bigger: A presence she felt as much heard. Something inhuman dragging itself out from the dark.

"G-g-g-o-o-o aw-w-w-ay", she moaned, daring a timid peek out from under her covers.

The source of the heat - a hole in the corner of her room, just feet away - was a spiralling inferno of red and orange, filling the room with an unearthly glow and casting shadows that danced all over her.

And the opening to who-knows-where - was spewing forth not just horrible insects and reptiles and rodents, but something not of the earth that she knew... something with wings and glowing red eyes and... fangs? Were those fangs?

She tried to scream for her Mom and Dad but couldn't get a sound out of her terror-constricted throat.

Instead, unable to close her eyes, she took in the rest of the room. And her horror reached new heights...

Her dolls! Her prized collection of ceramic dolls! They were...rising...standing(!)...in the places around the room where she'd last kissed each of them goodnight (as she did every night, ever since the last time).

These were the dolls that were supposed to keep her safe.

The ones her parents bought her to ward off the things that they had dismissed as the workings of a child's imagination.

And now they were caught up in this nightmare too.

Rising.

Inching forward.

Sprays of red (blood?) across their faces.

Even Annabelle - last year's Christmas present, life-size and huggable, last seen lying at the bottom of her toy box at the foot of the bed - even Annabelle was now upright, lurching around the box trying to find a way out...empty eye sockets, white hair...not exactly the Annabelle she knew, but Annabelle for sure. Because she was talking - as Annabelle did - with twisted versions of the loving words she'd say when you pulled her string: "Why won't you play with me? Now you're making me ANGRY..."

That was all she could take. Back she went under the covers, reciting in her head the words that the 'doctor' had told her to use if she ever had an 'episode' again: "I am real and these things are not. I am real and these things are not. I am real..." But she stopped mid-chant as she felt movement on the bed with her, something crawling across her covers. Something with sharp claws.

This time, she managed a feeble scream - maybe loud enough(?) for Mommy and Daddy to hear - "he-e-lp! He-elp! HELP!"

She didn't dare get out of bed (even if she could will herself to try) because the thing under the bed was now halfway out and scratching at the carpet right where she would have to put her feet.

Then, at last, a sound from outside her room. Her Mom's footsteps coming to the door? She braved a look in that direction: "Mommy?"


No.

It wasn't Mommy.

At least...it wasn't her Mommy...her loving mother who had tucked her in and kissed her goodnight not so long ago.

It wasn't Mommy...was it?

This thing was stiff and staring without seeing, but it wore Mommy's pyjamas and held her beloved childhood teddy bear, the faithful bedtime companion that she had always clung to before the last time.

 She squeezed Liam even more tightly...

And then a horrible thought struck her, and she looked down at the thing in her arms...her favourite - and only - boy doll Liam... and he...he...turned...his...head towards her with bloody tears glistening on his cheek.

His lips moved and a soft sound came from his ceramic throat:

"Trick... 
Or.... 
Treat..."

Happy Halloween!

On Holding Hands

With all three of my daughters, the first time we held hands was within moments of their birth:
Daddy offering an index finger to a skinny, naked, newly-formed person; daughter instinctively grabbing on for dear life (and it's not often those words "grabbing on for dear life" are said and literally meant); and Daddy, again, wrapping the rest of his hand around her tiny, perfect fist.

If there's a first imprinting moment between father and child, it's got to be that one.

Then there's the learning-to-walk phase too soon later. Again, holding on for dear life, the fledgling walker grasps Daddy's hand and wobbles and stumbles and teeters sideways, then forwards, before Daddy's other hand swoops in to restore order. And then, too soon later, one hand is enough. And then no hands (a celebratory moment of independence that also brings an overwhelming melancholy), and my daughter no longer needs my hand to make her way in the world.

But she really does. And we hold hands to cross the street. And when it's dark and scary. And when it's crowded. And when it's cold. And when we just want to because it's comforting and safe. For both of us.

And then, I remember with each daughter, a moment where it's more exciting (for her) to only hold hands when it's a must. I reach for a hand, it comes, and then it's gone again because it can be. Like getting jilted, but not like that at all. Just the new normal.

And then, a golden era of holding hands again because she is still young enough to be seen doing that and old enough to relish the bond and choose it over the available freedom.

I'm there now with my youngest. We're walking anywhere, it's safe, it's bright, and I subtly offer my hand with a sweeping gesture (that could easily be pulled back if rejected, without betraying that anything had happened) and there it is: Her hand given freely and happily without any good reason but the closeness it brings.

What's nice about having been here before is that I can savour the few years of this that I have before the onset of pre-teen and teens, and the mortification of being caught holding Daddy's hand (or later, being seen with him at all) when friends are around.

When that happens, I'll be crushed again but I'll know that it's just a thing replaced by sitting close on the couch watching a show, or sad and lonely phone calls in the night when she just needs to hear Daddy's voice, or working in the same room just to be in the same room, or hugs when we see each other and leave each other. I'll take what I can get.

But it will never be easy to watch any of the three hold someone else's hand. And I won't be able to get a word out, I'm sure, if and when the day comes that someone else is taking their hand in marriage, and I've been asked to say something uplifting and joyful despite a breaking heart.

Still...always there...through each daughter and each phase, is and will be my wife's hand. We joined hands in marriage, we had these three daughters together, we watched them grow, and we've had to say our (temporary) goodbyes to the girls over and over again.

All of which leads me to one simple thought: There is no greater blessing than to have someone's hand you can hold onto for dear life.

What's Your Air Travel Personality Type? Take this simple quiz...

I recently had occasion to fly with my wife and a couple of neighbours. It made me realize how different people can be very different air-travellers. Based on that experience, I devised this simple quiz to help you identify your own ATPT (air travel personality type), the ATPT of your fellow traveller(s), and how to cope during those times when varying ATPTs travel together...

The Quiz

SECTION A. Online Check-in

At what time do you do the online check-in /seat-selection for your flight?

1. The second the clock strikes 24-hours prior to the flight (with help from the alarm I set for precisely that time).
2. When I get around to it, or at the airport if I haven't had a chance to do it earlier. 
3. Wait. There's a way to check in online?

SECTION B. Seat Selection

When do you select the seat you'll be sitting in?

1. At the time I purchase my ticket, and I'm always in 12C if I'm flying coach. If my admin screws it up, I choose the seat when I check-in online.
2. I take what I'm given, then ask at the airport if there's anything better.
3. Wait, I get to choose my seat?

Given your preference, what seat do you choose?

1. Aisle, so I can get off the plane asap. 
2. Window or aisle, but it doesn't really matter to me; I'm content either way.
3. The one the flight attendant brings me to when someone tells me I'm in the wrong seat.

And given your preference, what row?

1. As close to the front of the plane as humanly possible. Exit row if nothing else good is open.
2. Not too far up and not too far back, but it doesn't really matter to me.
3. The one the flight attendant brings me to when someone tells me I'm in the wrong seat.

SECTION C. Customs, Immigration and Security

Which description / duration best fits your experience with Customs and Immigration?

1. Nexus/Global Traveler, 2 minutes.
2. I wait patiently in line, but it's usually only about 20 minutes.
3. Is that the part where they ask you to take off your shoes? That takes a while if I've got laces.

How about Security?

1. Nexus/Global Traveler/TSA Pre, 2 minutes.
2. Another line, but it's also usually only about 20 minutes. Not bad.
3. Oh, that's where I have to take off my shoes. I like to wait until I get to the front because they have a helpful person there to tell me what I have to do. They give me a little bag to put my shampoo in, which I like to keep because then it doesn't spill into my suitcase. They make me put my phone into the little bin thing. Oh yeah, and my laptop. And the shoes of course. Silly me, I always seem to forget to take my water bottle out of my bag before it goes through that x-ray machine, so I have to stand there and finish it. I'm not sure how long it takes, but the last time a guy behind me said it was taking a century.

SECTION D. Boarding

At what point during the boarding announcement do you get up and join the boarding line?

1. Get up? I'm on my feet already and moving as soon as I hear the recorded pre-boarding announcement click on.
2. I wait until they've called my zone and the lineup has died down a little.
3. I usually wait until the announcement starts, so I know it's time to go to the bathroom.

What's the first thing you do when you arrive at your seat?

1. I turn on the entertainment system so it can start loading. While it's doing that, I take out my at-seat package (containing a crossword puzzle, pen, book, earphones, credit card, ...) and put the rest of my stuff in the overhead. By the time I sit, my movie is ready to go.
2. I tuck my bag neatly under my seat, sit down, put on my seat belt and await further instructions.
3. I sit down and wait with all my stuff in my lap until another passenger shows up and tells me I'm in their seat.

SECTION E. In-Flight

What do you tend to do during the flight?

1. I watch as many movies and/or TV shows that fit in the time allotted. (Neat trick: if the seat next to me is empty, I start a second movie on that seat's screen and keep it on pause until I'm done watching the first. Also, going to the airline's website beforehand to find out what movies are on can save you from making a bad choice in the heat of the moment).
2. I read the nice magazine they give you in the seat pocket and watch as much of a movie as I can. I sometimes fall asleep.
3. I just sit there and stare straight ahead.

How often do you go to the bathroom during a typical flight?

1. Once - as soon as the seat belt light goes off and before the service carts come into the aisle.
2. Once or twice. But if I've got someone sitting next to me and they're asleep, I'll just hold it. 
3. Wait. There's a bathroom? 

Scoring and what to do about it

Obviously, there are three ATPTs. Those for whom the first answer in each section is the right answer ("Type A"), those for whom the second answer in each section is the right answer ("Type B") and those who shouldn't be travelling and for whom the third answer is consistently right ("Type C").

When forced to travel together, most Type A's can bypass their Type B and Type C counterparts using mechanisms like Elite Status, Elite-privilege Credit Cards, Trusted Traveller Programs, and (when all else fails) sheer force of will.

Type B travellers are fine travelling with others, no matter their type.

Type C travellers don't even know notice the other types of travellers as they make their way on their epic journey through the airport and onto the plane (to the Type C, a Type A is a ghostly figure speeding by leaving only a small gust of wind and a high-pitched buzz). Sometimes, their fellow travellers are handy for watching the Type C's bags when they go to the bathroom at boarding time.

When A's and B's travel together, B's need to understand that they can't and shouldn't try to keep up with the A's. Best to stay out of their way altogether.

B's and C's are more compatible, as both are easy-going about the whole experience, but B's need to recognize the C's vulnerabilities and guide them as best they can (lest they get trampled by the barely visible A's).

When A's and C's travel together, it's not good, and when they are married, it is a recipe for disaster. The C shouldn't be offended when I abandon her as we arrive at the airport only to meet up again after the flight is over.

Happy travels!

The Trade

I had a subway token, but I no longer take the subway because I now live in the suburbs. So I made a trade with someone in my neighbourhood. For the token, he gave me a book he had just finished reading.

I read the book and then I didn't need it anymore. So I made a trade with my sister. For the book, she gave me a DVD.

I watched the DVD and then I didn't need it anymore. So I made a trade with husband-and-wife friends of mine. They have a young child, so I threw in some babysitting. For their "movie night" they gave me a Starbucks gift card.

I don't particularly like anything at Starbucks, so I made a trade with a co-worker. For the gift card, he gave me a bottle of red wine that was dropped off at the office for him by a client.

I'm not a big fan of reds, so I made a trade with another neighbour who knows lots about wine. Apparently, this was a good bottle so he gave me a pair of his baseball tickets in exchange.

I couldn't go to the game that night, so I sold the tickets on StubHub for a lot of money (I guess they were good tickets).

Yesterday, as I was heading for my train home, there was a guy sitting on the street asking people for a subway token. Everybody was walking by and ignoring him.

When he wasn't looking, I slipped the money I got for the baseball tickets into the cup in front of him.

Inspired by my middle daughter's foray into the Bunz trade-based community (bunz.com). The slogan on their website is "You Can't Buy Happiness But You Can Trade For It" (capitalization and punctuation is their fault). Also inspired by the story that I thought must be an urban legend, but apparently is true (albeit a bit dated): http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/from-paper-clip-to-house-in-14-trades-1.573973.

The Three Little Purple Arks Where the Wild Things Are

(With thanks and all due credit to Maurice Sendak, Crockett Johnson, and the original authors of The Three Little Pigs and the Noah's Ark story...)

The night Noah wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another
his Mother called him “WILD THING!”
and Noah said “I’LL EAT YOU UP!”

So he was sent to bed without eating anything.

Now his Mother saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time, and that poor Noah was being influenced by this wickedness.

So his Mother said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race —and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground and under the sea—for I regret that they have made you misbehave."

"Make yourself three arks", she told Noah, "one of wood; one of sticks; and one of bricks".

"Take with you pairs of every kind of beast of the land, a male and its mate, and put them on the ark of wood. And also pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth, and put them on the ark of sticks. And also pairs of every kind of creature of the sea, male and female, and put them on the ark of bricks."

After thinking it over for some time, Noah decided to listen to his Mother, but he had no wood nor sticks, nor bricks, so he took his big purple crayon and made three arks as he was instructed.

And he put the beasts of the land on the ark of wood, and the birds on the ark of sticks, and the creatures of the sea on the ark of bricks.

That very night in Noah’s room a storm grew and grew -
and grew until his ceiling hung with clouds and the walls became the world all around
and an ocean tumbled by.

The ark of bricks was too heavy for sailing, so it sank to the ocean's floor and there it sat. And all the creatures of the sea escaped the ark and swam in the ocean.

The ark of sticks could not withstand the salt of the ocean nor the huffs and puffs of the storm, so it broke into many pieces. And all the birds flew into the sky, and used the floating sticks as perches when they could fly no more.

But the storm couldn't blow down the ark of wood, on which Noah himself and the beasts of the land all took shelter, and it sailed off through night and day
and in and out of weeks and almost over 40 days.

And when it came to the place where the wild things could land, they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws
till Noah said “BE STILL!” and tamed them with the magic trick
of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once
and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all
and made him king of all wild things.

Then all around from far away across the world
Noah smelled a pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I be wicked, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood"
so he gave up being king of where the wild things now were.

And Noah stepped into his ark of wood and waved good-bye
and sailed back over 40 days and in and out of weeks and through a day
and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him with a note from his Mother saying "Never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done and please clean this purple mess from your walls before you eat your dinner."

And it was still hot even after he was done.

Relationships are like Bikes

The seven-year-old learned to ride a bike over the last few weeks.

She's normally afraid of getting hurt, but in this case she found a deep well of determination: She fell off the bike, got back on, fell again, got back on again, dealt with the bumps and bruises and scrapes, and slowly but surely learned.

She's a proud kid and doesn't like to be bad at something. Doesn't like it one bit. And in this case she had two choices: Give up on the tantalizing prospect of riding on her own, or keep trying despite the embarrassment of falling down in front of others, the (apparent only to her) shame of accepting that she couldn't do something that other kids her age can, and the need to slow herself down and take the time to learn. Unlike playing Crazy Eights, nobody else could give her this victory...it was up to her to persevere.

Learning to swim or to skate was a similar experience, but we jumped those hurdles years ago when she was small and wobbly and expected to be clumsy and mistake-prone. Now she's a big kid and this was not easy for her.

We all learned to ride bikes at some point in our life. We all got bruised. We all sucked at it until we didn't. We all persevered. And then in a magical moment for each of us, it came together and we were suddenly able to do it. 

---

Enough about bikes. Let's talk about relationships.

Relationships are like bikes.

Relationships are hard. They give you bumps and bruises and scrapes. They take determination and perseverance. 

When you're at the 'learning' phase of a new relationship, everything's wobbly and precarious. It's easy to make a mistake and sometimes it's the right thing to do to give up. If it looks like a worthwhile relationship though, you've got to work hard to create the conditions where that magical moment can finally arrive and it's suddenly easy (while still requiring diligence, of course). A great relationship is a tantalizing prospect and so it's ultimately worth the effort.

Family relationships are another matter. They aren't a choice and there isn't a real learning phase. Family relationships are just there; they always were and they always will be. When they get wobbly and precarious, the bumps and bruises and scrapes are sometimes even more painful because this kind of relationship is usually so stable that you don't even have to think about it... Now, seemingly out of the blue, you find yourself sitting on the pavement, wheels spinning in the air behind you, head spinning too, in pain, and completely confused by what just happened.

It might have been a stupid little stone that you didn't notice until it was too late that threw everything off balance, but you're not sitting there thinking about the stone. It's the stupid bike. And stupid you. And the feeling of betrayal. And your bruised butt. And your bruised pride.

Do you climb back on (figuratively) and make it right again? Or do you dust yourself off and walk home sulking and angry, possibly kicking the stupid bike on the way?

Depends on whether you want the bike anymore.

But the answer to that lies in the inadequacy of the bike analogy, I think. It's probably more accurate to compare a fall-out with a close family member to suddenly being unable to walk. You might leave a bike behind, but you're not going to accept being unable to walk anymore...

Are you?

David Launches a New Word: Bzik

As promised in this post's title, my intention today is to launch (re-launch?) a word that I learned years ago from my parents that seems to have since disappeared: "Bzik".

Last March I was in a conversation with a couple of colleagues and one of them was talking about something that drives her crazy. I said, "That sounds like a bzik". She didn't know what I was talking about so someone else in the car did some Googling and came up empty, mostly because we had no idea of its spelling. I called my Mom while still in the car with these people (given that I knew for sure that she knew the word) and on speaker-phone she answered "Hi Lover Dover!" and then went on to say that she knew the word but didn't know how it was spelled either.

That sent me off on a search that quickly confirmed what I was beginning to suspect: There was a hole in the Internet. The word simply wasn't out there. I posted on Facebook and nobody could help me, though several tried.

Finally, on March 6th at 10:48 am Eastern, I found it in a Polish dictionary:  
Bzik [b'źik] (think of the 'zh' in Brezhnev, if that helps).


What's it mean?  

First of all its a noun. I'd explain it as a light madness or mania; a petty annoyance taken to the level of an eccentricity. A pet peeve on steroids.

It's something you have. It's a part of you. It's a defining characteristic.

Instead of using it in a sentence, I'll give you some examples:

• One of my daughters' bziks is "mouth noises". It drives her crazy when people slurp their soup, swish their saliva around, or...you name it.
• Another of my daughters has a bzik related to being shushed. I wouldn't call her disgust related to compost or sink-strainer-residue a bzik (just by way of comparison); that's more of a revulsion than a mania. It's also a convenient excuse.
• Amongst her thousands of bziks, my wife has a visceral reaction - a madness so to speak - when it comes to clothes on the floor. Or maybe a better example, because it's more eccentric, is her bzik related to upside-down loaves of bread. I kid you not - try inverting a loaf of bread around her some time and you'll see what I mean.

It's actually quite therapeutic to come to grips with your own bziks (and fun to call someone else on theirs). Attaching that label let's you manage bzik-related encounters with significantly more grace. It allows you to discuss it. To give it form. To neatly step around it as you navigate life.

And, by the way, when it comes to the bziks of your loved ones - they're a lot of fun to activate; each bzik is a button just waiting to be pressed.

Thankfully, I was born bzik-free. Nothing bothers me. I especially don't have a bzik related to careless spelling and grammar. People borrowing my stuff without asking doesn't affect me one bit. Being told what to do doesn't get under my skin at ALL. IT DOESN'T DRIVE ME AT ALL CRAZY WHEN F*ING INCONSIDERATE A*HOLE DRIVERS STOP AT A LIGHT IN THE RIGHT-TURN LANE WHEN THEY'RE NOT EVEN TURNING AND THEY CLEARLY SEE YOUR SIGNAL LIGHT FLASHING AND HAVE AN EMPTY LANE TO THEIR LEFT.

Anyhoo. You get the picture.

Please spread the word. Let's bring it back to life. Let's fix the hole in the Internet.

You may now return to your day...David

Caught a Shooting Star

Years ago, when my older two daughters were about the youngest's current age (7 and 9? 5 and 7?), we heard about the Perseids Meteor Shower and spent an hour-or-so in the backyard one night, lying on sleeping bags and watching for shooting stars. We saw a few, and I believe both of them still remember that night as a magical one.

So when I read that the Perseids would be putting on a show starting late last month and peaking on  the morning of August 12th, I felt a deep obligation to give the 7-year-old the same experience.

We made our plans, we looked at the calendar and saw that August 11th was a Thursday, and we talked about it being okay to stay up late that night. We even tried to catch some preliminary glimpses on the Fridays and Saturdays leading up to the big night.

She dubbed August 11th "Micaela's Day" because that would be the day that she finally realized her dream of seeing a shooting star.

Waiting out there on our back patio one night last week, she asked me if there was a particular way one was supposed to make a wish on a shooting star (you know, akin to "Star light star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight"). We came up with "Shooting star, shooting star, take my wish from where you are..." as an alternative lead-in.

Each night that we went out there, getting ready for the 11th and hoping for a sneak preview, she'd use her "first star I see tonight" wish to wish for a shooting star. I asked her, "What will your wish be when you do see a shooting star? To see another one?" She thought that was just about the funniest thing she'd ever heard.

In all the lead-up, one shooting star was seen...and that by me. So the 11th gained more and more significance as the time when it would finally happen for her.

Then, as you must know if you live in the GTA, last night turned out to be a cloudy, cloudy night with on-and-off drizzle. I sent her to bed angry and sad after staying up a bit later than usual watching tv and praying that the sky would clear.

Now, what I failed to mention so far is that EVERY SINGLE DAY for the last couple of weeks, I have been sneaking out onto the back patio some time between 4 and 5 am (when I do my daily routine of waking up too early without meaning to) to see if there was anything to see. Aside from some bats, which each morning freaked me out enough to send me back indoors... nothing.

And then today, August 12th at 3:50 am, I opened my eyes and wondered if the skies had cleared yet. I snuck downstairs, peeked out the window, and lo and behold - a few clouds, but mostly stars.

I lay down on one of our gravity chairs to see if there would, indeed, be a show. Within 3 minutes I witnessed the most glorious, clear, slow-moving, shooting star EVER. Decision-time: Do I wake her up or pretend it never happened.

If you know me, you know what I decided. I shook her gently and dragged her out of a deep, deep sleep: "Wanna see your shooting star baby?"

She awoke, leapt out of bed, grabbed my hand, and we made a dash for the patio. I grabbed a couple of blankets and we took our respective places on the gravity chairs.

It was stinking humid but a cool breeze made it bearable.

We waited. And waited. She mumbled a "star light, star bright..." asking once again for a shooting star.

And then it happened. A quick flash, a split-second, and a father-and-daughter gasp.

"Did you see it?!?" I asked her. "I think so, but I forgot to make a wish. Can we wait for another one?"

A few more minutes, and then we got a much better one.

I heard her quietly reciting "Shooting star, shooting star, take my wish from where you are..." I don't know what she wished for and, of course, she didn't tell me. Maybe one day she will.

As I put her back in bed she whispered "You're the best daddy ever" and gave me a blissful hug.

Wishes granted, both hers and mine.

Knowing us, we'll be out there again tonight to try for one more bit of magic. You should too.

(This image is from the Web, there's no way I'd hide behind a camera at a moment like this).

Happy 30th Birthday to My Wife

(For the purposes of today's post, imagine that we live in an alternate universe where human beings all have 17 fingers and thumbs - 8 on their right hand and 9 on their left. In that universe, everything else is exactly the same as in our universe except people have a much easier time distinguishing between right and left AND the numeral system is base 17. In that universe, my wife is celebrating her 30th birthday today!)

On this, the 30th birthday of my dear sweet wife, I offer her 17 reasons that I love her...

1. She sleeps with her cell phone beside her bed in case one of her daughters needs her in the middle of the night and genuinely offers them carte blanche to call any time.
2. She has three "blood" daughters and countless others who consider her a second Mom.
3. She makes instant friends everywhere she goes - most recently while waiting in the Returns line at IKEA and standing in a parking lot at Niagara-on-the-Lake. Moreover, she will recognize and remember these instant friends if she ever runs into them again.
4. She can walk into the house and instantly detect that something is out of place, even if it's as small as a shot glass on the dining room table and not currently in her line of sight.
5. "Six-and-a-half of one, half-dozen of another".
6. She can be on Episode 3 of a series we're watching together when I go to bed, and Episode 8 by the time we sit down to watch again the following night. Furthermore, she will happily re-watch each Episode in order to hide the fact that she went on without me.
7. "I'm not weird, I'm just not like everyone else".
8. She is the most formidable customer in the world, and wins pitched battles with cable companies, banks, home renovators, window installers, and the like over any amount of money that she feels she was overcharged. She will then turn around and empty her wallet for anyone on the street who is in need.
9. Even at 30, she will happily grab a fake microphone and dance like nobody's watching when a song she loves comes on.
10. She likes it when people hurt themselves in funny ways (see earlier blog post).
11. She will not sit down at the end of a long day until the house is in perfect shape or until she can no longer physically continue to stand.
12. Weeks after she discovers that somebody has hacked her phone so that spellcheck replaces the word "love" with "fart", I continue to get texts from her that say "I fart you".
13. She is the world's greatest hugger. Ask anyone.
14. She gave up a life of freedom to start over with a third daughter and has never looked back.
15. Her happiest place in the world is our family room couch.
16. Keep your penny, her thoughts are always free.
17. She is mine and always will be.

While I have not yet scratched the surface on the reasons I love my wife, I've run out of fingers and thumbs to count on so I'll stop there. Next time, I'll use my 23 toes to keep going.

Love you honey bunny...David

Dear LinkedIn...I Don't Like You

I remember when my Dad brought home his very first calculator. It cost a fortune and was capable of adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and nothing else. (Well, that's not completely true: You could also do things like type in "7734" and then turn it upside down and show your friends what you had written.)

I remember his first "luggable" computer. It was called a "luggable" because it was moveable from place to place, but its manufacturers couldn't quite find it in themselves to call it "portable". (It was portable, but in the way that a piano is portable, which is to say it was basically a desktop computer with a handle on it.)

I remember when we got our first game console. It played one game: Pong. That game consisted of two lines and a dot (unlike our first hand-held game console, which was a football game consisting of lots of dots and no lines). And by the way, I remember that both Pong and the handheld football game were amazingly fun and addictive.

I remember writing a high-school debate speech with my friend Carrie on my Dad's office "word processor". That was a machine the size of a filing cabinet with a keyboard and an orange and brown (or was it black and green?) screen. It did one thing and one thing only...word processing.

I remember in my first part-time job at my Dad's office getting a chance to touch his brand new IBM PC AT ("Advanced Technology") which was breathtakingly fast and had a seemingly exhaustible amount of memory (16K). I remember that with all of the computers back then, when you first arrived in the office each morning you'd boot it up, then go downstairs and buy yourself a coffee, say good morning to people, and head back to your desk about 20 minutes later and wait while it finished loading.

I remember being excited by the AT because back at high school in our computer science class, we were learning all about programming using punch cards and a PDP-11. I also remember entering a contest in high school to name the brand new PDP-11, winning by acclamation (having submitted the only entry), and having my name and the new name for the PDP-11 announced to the whole school. I can't quite remember what that did to my social status, but I can only assume it made me even cooler than I already was.

I remember when the user interface that confronted you each morning, after your PC had finally come to life, looked like this:

Ahhh...the good old days. 

Because back then, software knew its place. It sucked. It crashed all the time. It was slow. It didn't do much. BUT, it knew its place: I was the master and it was my servant; I was the user and it was the "used". I overpaid to buy my software, and my software was grateful to have been bought by me.

Everything else about the experience was horrible. But I never once felt like the software was using me (abusing, maybe).

Fast-forward to present day and the reason for this post: I have a big hate-on for LinkedIn. 

I've been quiet about this because so many people seem to like it and put it to good use (recruiting, networking, job-hunting, etc.) and I don't like bashing something that some people really rely on for important things. But I can't hold my tongue any more.

The very first time I used it (and that was relatively early on) I felt tricked into opening up my rolodex so that it could send a bunch of e-mails to a bunch of people with whom I almost never communicated. I didn't understand what it was asking me in whatever that first-entry tutorial put in front of me, and the next thing I knew it was reaching out to a bunch of people on my behalf and inviting them in my name to sign-up. How stupid of me not to understand.

Another time, it asked me to endorse my wife's skills. Is she a good Project Manager? Youbetcha. Consultant? Of course. Educator? Nobody better. And so on. Next thing I knew, everyone she knows on LinkedIn was hearing from me. What? I didn't know I was doing that! You didn't ask me that!

A few times now, I've received an onslaught of congratulatory e-mails for anniversaries I didn't know I was celebrating. This happened again just last week in fact (I still don't know what anniversary it was). So thank you everybody for the congratulations, I feel blessed on this occasion of my (???) that so many of you took the time to think of me. And thank you LinkedIn for unilaterally deciding that I wanted everyone notified. Next time, let me know what milestone it is please.

And so on.

If Facebook is a sweet little old lady who invites you to sit on the couch next to her, showing you album after album from the last seven decades while you slowly dissolve the sugar-free candy she offered you, LinkedIn is a vampire that shows up at your door and tries to trick you into inviting it in. Once inside, it rifles through your stuff while you have your back turned ("Blah. I vant a glass of bl...I mean water. If you'd please get me some. Blah") and then stands outside your house shouting out whatever it has learned about you.

Every time I have an encounter with LinkedIn, I come away feeling used.

I just went into my settings to finally turn off all the things that I (by default) gave it permission to do, and I couldn't find much. I certainly turned off "Notifying connections when you're in the news", but the rest of it I couldn't find as I quickly and easily as I should be able to. (I was looking for an overarching one that says: "Ask permission before taking liberties with my stuff".)

So why don't I just shuck my account altogether? Because having an account is a business necessity where I work. It's one of the social media platforms on which a company must be present if it is to be relevant these days. I will drop my account the minute I am allowed to.

Know your place LinkedIn. Serve me, and not the other way around. Ask me in clear and concise questions what I feel comfortable having you do. Check with me before sharing things about me with others. Enable me to use you in a way that is friendly, easy, and non-obtrusive. Stay out of my house unless you're invited in. 

You make me pine for the days of 20-minute reboots, luggable computers, and Pong. 

Blah.

Pratfalls, Face Plants and Other Indignities

My wife is a wonderful wife and mother. Nothing matters more to her than the health, safety and happiness of her family.

And yet, she suffers from an unmotherly affliction that overcomes her whenever she sees one of us get hurt: her eyes get wide, her body shakes, her mouth opens, and out comes a rolling, gleeful, and completely uncontainable fit of laughter.

One of her daughters might have just walked into the kitchen table - at whatever age put her at exactly the right height to hit the table after never having had to bend down in the past to get under there - and she's likely crying in genuine pain...but before Mommy can hug her and kiss her and make her all better, Mommy must first stop laughing hysterically.

When we were first married, we lived in a small semi in Richmond Hill. The stairs to the basement had a low ceiling (low even for someone of my stature) and one day my wife and I were on the landing and she sent me down to the basement to get something. With the youthful exuberance of one first married, deeply infatuated with his (relatively) new bride, I bounded down the stairs excitedly - keen to grant my bride's request - and promptly smacked my forehead into a 4-inch vertical piece of the ceiling (probably fashioned that way by the builder to somehow help its overall downward slope while saving a few moments of effort). My feet continued down the stairs a few inches above the next one or two steps while my forehead remained temporarily attached to the piece of ceiling it had found. Then I remember being completely horizontal in the air, with a bit more forward momentum. Then bumping down the stairs. And then I was on the ground, at the bottom of the stairs, dazed and confused, with little birds carouseling about my head. Back up on the landing, I heard my beautiful young wife, bent over, laughing uproariously, stomping her feet, and otherwise of no help to her possibly dying husband. She didn't dial 911. She didn't ask if I was okay. She didn't dash down the stairs to take my pulse or check for broken bones or any other damage...she couldn't. For a good 5 minutes, she had no control over her bodily movements.

I could have been badly hurt and those first few seconds/minutes might have made the difference between life and death, but I don't blame her. I was mad at her - don't get me wrong - but as I then learned, she's got an affliction. My Dad has the same one. As does my childhood friend Paul. Great people, all of them, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want any one of them with my life in their hands after I've walked through a plate glass door, or tripped over a curb and face planted onto a sidewalk.
(Watching a movie like Rat Race with slapstick galore, yes, I want them with me then. Nobody makes the experience more fun.)

I watched a businessman yesterday, uniformed in his suit and tie and hustling off to one of the downtown towers, lose his footing as he climbed the stone steps from the street. He didn't go all the way down, but planted a knee, caught himself with his un-briefcased hand, and quickly righted himself. His first reaction, once back in control, was to swing his head around and scan his surroundings to see if anyone had seen his stumble. Why? Because nobody likes the indignity of being caught in a clumsy moment, let alone laughed at.

Years ago, friends and I were at a concert at the Ontario Place Forum on an icy autumn day. The Forum was a stage surrounded by a few rows of seats, and then large hills on which people could sit and watch the show. Back then (and maybe today?) you could enter the Forum in various ways, one of which was to climb a hill and then make your way down the other side to find a seat. On this particular day, the hills were slick with ice on the interior side, and a whole lot of people coming over the hill suddenly found themselves airborne and then on their butts sliding down the hill - with hundreds of people laughing and applauding their very public misfortune. It became a game - the stadium holding its collective breath as each new victim appeared at the top of the hill, then losing its collective mind as the inevitable wipe-out ensued. Imagine the humiliation. Some people were graceful about it, stood up, dusted themselves off, and took a bow. Others pretended nothing had happened. I remember a kid crying. I remember some genuine anger. I guess we all handle the moment differently.

Not that long ago (15 years? 20?) I had the opportunity to play softball with my oldest sister - the unofficially ordained "Queen of the Pratfall". She got a hit, which itself was something I'd never expected. She rounded first and then second with speed and drive I didn't know she had. And then she fell. But not in a way that ordinary people fall: Her face went down first (for most of us, our hands would have instinctively shot out to take the brunt of the fall - but it was her face that nobly declared "don't worry hands, I've got this one.") When running at full speed with little dexterity, the face suddenly hitting the ground significantly alters what the rest of the body is doing. In her case, her feet continued shuffling forward - in the air now - until not so gracefully touching down on the back of her head. For a moment, she was completely folded in half, and then her legs' inertia continued forward, completing the least athletic flip it will ever be my pleasure to witness.

And my sister sat up, looked at us - some of us laughing, some of us staring in horror - brushed the infield sand off her clothes, and laughed harder than anyone else. She handled the moment well.

When I was lying at the bottom of the basement stairs all those years ago, I didn't handle the moment well. I think I yelled at my wife. I think I said something like "Would you mind fucking checking if I'm fucking hurt and might need to be fucking hospitalized before fucking laughing at me?" Like I said, I guess we're all different.

Two-year-olds and three-year-olds are only partially people at that age. They are clumsy. They've only recently learned to go about on two legs. Their heads are too big and heavy for their tiny little bodies. They bump into things. They fall down stairs. They bang their head. They lose their balance when there's absolutely no reason to do so. When these things happen, they want (and need!) their Mommy's tender loving care. In my house, they used to get Daddy's tender loving care and Mommy in tears, laughing hysterically, pointing, and then finally stepping up to the TLC plate, trying to hug them but still shaking with laughter, trying to console them, but still giggling under her breath. And yet they love her.

She's got an affliction. So does my Dad. So does Paul. And yet, they're all good people.

Some people don't like being laughed at when they fall down go boom. Others don't seem to mind as much. Some laugh at themselves. Some scream profanities at the person/people laughing at them. Again, they're all good people.

And sometimes, people who laugh at others when they hurt themselves marry people who don't like to be laughed at when they've hurt themselves.

True love means staying together for decades despite our differences.

Patterns, Patterns Everywhere and not a Stop to Think

The street is crowded and all sorts of people are walking toward you. That man looks dangerous, so you keep a watchful eye on him. The woman over there is clearly in a bad mood, which is a shame because she looks like a nice person. Maybe she's in the middle of a relationship that's ending? Those two girls walking together are such good friends that they've even started to look alike. That kid's gonna have to marry rich because he's not getting a job any time soon (not until he loses the skateboard at least). That guy's way too busy for his own good; slow down man, try smelling the roses...

All that in the blink of an eye.

We are walking, talking pattern-matching machines. Our brains instantly assess and categorize who and what we see - instinctively looking for threats, opportunities, and so forth. All part of our survival programming.

Our senses sense and our brains make sense of what's sensed by looking through our storage banks, file-after-file, for similar patterns that can be quickly translated into meaning. We do it when we read. We do it when we watch movies and listen to music and eat. And we do it when we're strolling down the street looking at complete strangers and making instant judgements about them.

Nothing new or particularly insightful here, except that we tend not to pay attention to this particular aspect of our human experience. We just trust the processing we do and go about our days blinded to the impact it might be having on our moment-to-moment encounters with the world.

As we get older and experience more and more things (and books and movies and people) our storage banks become richer, the patterns become more firmly associated with meaning, and we become more and more trusting of and governed by the "wisdom" we've accumulated.

That's why we become so frustrated with our kids when they don't trust us and when they don't listen to us and when they challenge us and act as if they know and we don't. We expect that we can do the pattern-matching for them (don't date that loser, don't trust that "friend", don't hang out in that neighbourhood, ...) and they will implicitly have the faith in our experiences that we do.

And, of course, the frustration goes in the other direction as well: How would you know? You've never even met him! Things have changed since your were a kid. (Even more frustrating when your parent turns out to be right so often).

But here's what's wrong with the pattern-matching: We're programmed to do it fast. Survival often requires immediate decisions, after all. So our brain takes short cuts, filtering out the minutiae and paying attention to a finite set of cues to which we've ascribed meaning (...that growling sound reminds me of the time that a sabre tooth tiger ate Jimmy).

When it comes to people passing us on the street, our assessments come down to things like the cast of the eyes, the slope of the eyebrows, the way the hair is worn, the posture, the clothes, and of course the accompanying equipment (skateboard, designer purse, knock-off purse, abacus in the pocket, and so on). Furthermore, our brains are doing these assessments based on stimuli provided via imperfect sensory devices (sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and tactile sensations all filtered through input/output equipment that is limited by design) and a relatively small sample-size of experiences (our own and others' with which we have been programmed).

We're getting partial data, dismissing cues we don't recognize or pay attention to, and making instant judgements that we innately rely on. Of course, being the good people that we are, there's a layer of conscious judgement that overlays the more mechanical snap judgements and governs our responses so that we don't act on impulses in socially unacceptable ways (like running away from the mean-looking dude, or hugging the sad, but nice-looking woman.)

In the course of the work that I do, I meet many, many, many, many, many people from across North America (mainly), from different industries, different jobs, different hierarchical levels, different pay grades, different geographies, different demographics, and so on. Increasingly, I see patterns in people. I meet someone and find myself acting as if I know how they're going to sound and behave before we've even shaken hands. I'm actually reacting to the person of whom he/she has reminded me, but I'm often (suprisingly) bang-on accurate in the superficial pattern-match.

One of my psychology-student daughters tells me this is because we all reinforce the patterns we see, and society has made this new person in front of me just like the person I matched him to (he's big, so he's a jock, which means in a group he's treated this way, which means he responds that way, ...). I guess that means there are legitimate human archetypes that society develops and perpetuates and those are the patterns I'm picking up on. Which isn't a very good thing at all (even if it simplifies my job).

Pattern-matching fuels racism and ageism and sexism and other -isms. It makes us leap to conclusions about people and their actions based on what we've seen in the past. It drives us to shape people to meet our expectations. It blinds us to nuances about people and situations that are genuinely new but difficult to process in our pattern-matching heads. It makes us crotchety old people who think they know better than everyone else, especially as our senses decline and the only signals we can pick up on in our pattern-matching machines are the extreme ones. It's what and how we teach our kids about the world.

But...

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana 

We need to remember past data points that may signal future dangers, or else we learn nothing from those experiences and should expect to see them repeat themselves time after time. That's wisdom.

And...

We need to recognize our own limitations as pattern-matching machines - let our survival instincts do their thing and save us from the occasional sabre-tooth, and then slow down and use our highly-evolved brains to consciously question our own assessments.

Just because our sensory equipment and pattern-matching processor has put us on alert to something or someone triggering a match, that's just a data point surfacing from a past experience. Wise to note it, and far wiser to then apply some real thought to what the trigger was, why it fired, what it matched, and all the many reasons why it's probably a false match. In that way, we don't act on and perpetuate the false signals as if they are reality.

That'll never be instantaneous, but how often is it a survival imperative to instantaneously judge a person, and when is it ever right?

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P.S. Did your own personal pattern-matching processor catch a few words breaking the pattern of font usage throughout? Go back and re-read them in sequence, and you'll find a corollary to Santayana's famous quotation above.

What it Means to be Canadian (Perspectives from a 7-Year--Old)

On this Canada Day, I asked my 7-year-old to share her thoughts on being Canadian. What does it mean to live in Canada? What does it mean to be a Canadian? What makes Canada a special place to live?

Her 10 answers were surprisingly deep. That said, in case you can't quite see the deepness I've added my own "David making sense" commentary to help you get there.

1. My friends and teachers live here. If I wasn't here, I never would have met them.

David making sense... Here our 7-year-old is pointing out the importance of multiculturalism and tolerance in Canada. She also extols our education system. Digging deeper, there's a bit of the if-a-tree-falls-in-a-forest question implied as well: If she didn't live in Canada would her Canadian friends and teachers still be friends and teachers never having met her, or would they just be people? Speaking of fall...

2. Sometimes it's summer and sometimes it's winter. In some places it's cold in summer and in some places it's hot in winter. In Canada, in the summer you can play summer games and in the winter you can play winter games.

David making sense... In Canada, we enjoy an array of seasons - sometimes in a single week. That seasonal variety enables Canadians to be mediocre in all sports, instead of being really good at any one specific sport by focusing on it all year round (the exception, of course, is hockey because Canadians are the only people who have Tim Hortons to drink when their kids are playing it). We do love winning, but we love trying hard just as much. And if (when) we are disappointed with the outcome in a given sport, along comes the next season and we quickly move on. Where else but Canada?

3. I like the food. McDonald's here is better than in other places.

David making sense... Say no more about Canadian food. My 7-year-old thinks McDonald's is the culinary signature of our country. The wife and I were recently talking to some Americans in Stratford Ontario. We passed an Asian restaurant that proclaimed it served "Canadian Food". They asked what that means. We answered that it means the food is bad. McDonald's, on the other hand, is the place to get good, distinctly Canadian food. McDonald's elsewhere can't compare (unless of course you've eaten there, which our 7-year-old has not).

4. I like shoe stores.

David making sense... Shoes matter. Especially with the Canadian seasons changing all the time. You can tell a lot about a country by its footwear. In Canada, we have lots of it and many, many places where you can buy it. With two sisters in their twenties, our 7-year-old has seen her share of shoe stores and clearly she has chosen to like being there. What she doesn't like so much is shoes (and socks for that matter). She routinely spends 30 minutes trying to get her socks just right (so the little toe seam doesn't bother her, which it always does) and then her shoes just right (so that they don't put undue pressure on the socks' toe seam). Needless to say, I don't share her affinity for shoe stores.

5. Talking Canadian is nice.

David making sense... From eh to zed, there's no better language in the world. And Canadians use their language to say lots of nice things. So talking Canadian is synonymous with "nice", not to be confused with Nice (in France) where they speak French, which is not to be confused with the language that Canadians in Quebec speak.

6. We don't have tornadoes or earthquakes.

David making sense... Nothing ground-shaking here, other countries blow, Canada doesn't.

7. There's a spider living in our basement.

David making sense... Ahem. I can't make sense of this one. I don't know what she's talking about. If there was a spider living in our basement, surely it wouldn't be living anymore. Ahem.

8. People have pants. In other places people wear loin cloths (like Tarzan).

David making sense... We wear pants here, but not always and not everyone. For example, in our house, only the spider-killer wears pants. In other countries, loin cloths are a lot more common. And the problem with that is that when you're swinging through trees (like Tarzan) people can see up your loin cloth. When people say "Tarzan has balls" they don't mean he's courageous. But in Canada, where we talk nice, we'd never say something like that.

9. The baseball team has a bluejay, and bluejays are blue, my favourite colour.

David making sense... I'm just glad she didn't say hockey team. That makes her a much bigger sports fan than my other two daughters.

10. People can dye their hair.

David making sense... Clearly the 7 year old is reflecting on the freedom of expression we enjoy in Canada. People aren't persecuted for flamboyance, for looking different, for being different, and for showing who they are on the inside in how they make themselves up when they're out and about. All that said, in my family PEOPLE CANNOT DYE THEIR HAIR. Your hair is beautiful the way God gave it to you and once you change it, you can never go back to how it looks best. My wife has never dyed her hair and look how beautiful and young she still looks. So yes, in Canada people can dye their hair and all that stuff. Just not in this little corner of Canada.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!