Great to know your pacemaker has a ten year warranty...

I was down in Guelph today visiting with my dear father, who is 85 and just had a pacemaker installed. He was pleased to inform me that the pacemaker comes with a ten year warranty.

Let's think about this. Your pacemaker has a ten year warranty, but it quits after two years...

What are you gonna do?

Well, most likely you're gonna do nothing because if your pacemaker fails you're most likely gonna be dead! Shit, they might as well give it a fifty year warranty... who's coming back to claim the warranty after their pacemaker stops?

But it was a lovely visit. He's looking great. Getting a pacemaker used to be a big deal but today you're in and out in a few hours.

Nice opportunity to catch up on the family news. Nephew Sam has found a college course the curriculum of which runs from whitewater rafting to mountaineering.

I know! That used to be shit you did for fun in your spare time!

Now it's a college program? If they'd had that in my day I might have stuck around a bit longer.

And his brother Parker has been accepted at Trent.

I don't mind Trent at all. My daughter spent a couple of years there. In fact, I once delivered her from her Mom's house in Guelph to her dorm at Trent in a minute under two hours. Considering that mere mortals more often than not require over two hours just to traverse the City of Toronto West to East I found that a remarkable accomplishment.

I think they've still got Michael Neumann on staff. I've never met Michael but we've exchanged emails over political stuff. Here's why he should have the undying respect of anyone who cares about truth and justice.

That alone is a good reason to choose Trent.

After getting caught up on family news I had lunch with my dear son Jake. Sometimes I worry about him. He's a bit of a character. Takes after his old man a bit too much for my liking, although he's at least a hundred times more talented than me.

So he finally gives up the straight skinny on what really happened when his band got the slot at the Hillside Festival.

I was there. I knew what happened.

But it was nice to hear it from him.

Four dorkshit wannabee rockstars get a chance to play Hillside!

On hearing this great news they immediately proceed to halve their practice time and double their party time!

Ketamine, MDA, acid, and of course lots of pot and beer for the next two months... they're rock stars now, don't you know?!


Ya, I know. I saw the show. At the time I thought you idiots just blew the chance of a lifetime.

Good to hear Jake concur.

He did offer a post-script, though. He'd set up a web-site for future bookings. By the time he got around to checking it two months later the five bookings they'd garnered as a result of their Hillside show were all in the past.


Lesson for aspiring rock stars; keep your wits about you.

The long drive

Have to say I love the long drive.

That is one thing I have in common with my dear father.

He likes the long drive too.

After he had the auxiliary tanks fitted out for the motor home he was able to do the Great Lakes Circle Tour in a day and a half, where mere mortals thought two and a half weeks was a good time.

I've never left the old boy much reason to swell with pride at the thought of me, but he'd be proud of this; I made it from the door of ex-wife 2 to the door of my daughter's place in res at Trent University in exactly one minute under two hours.

Look at a map and figure that out!

Quite a few times when the co-spawn of ex-wife 2 and myself were living in Ontario and I was still at the Irving shipyard in Saint John I made the Saint John to Guelph trip in under 13 hours. In fact, I once nailed it just under 12!

Those were painful times. A twelve and a half hour drive and a four hour visit with my children and then twelve and a half hours back to fitting pipe-hangers aboard the good ship HMCS Vancouver.

But I digress. The long drive.

Paul Newman and I once did the Calgary-Toronto run in well under 30 hours. We were driving Paul's Grand Marquis. That right there is a sign of the times, isn't it?

What car company nowadays would have the audacity to market something called a "Grand Marquis?"

"Oh, I see you are piloting a Grand Mar Kiss, so I assume you are a total twat!"

But Pauli and I took turns and kept the hammer down and by God we set a personal best on that Calgary - Toronto jaunt.

The one highlight of the trip will forever be the pedal-to-the-metal 20 laps around a boarded-up gas station in North Ontario with an OPP cruiser in hot pursuit. I'm driving and the g-forces wake Paul up and he says "you're not playing ring-around-the-service-station, are you?"

Of course not... go back to sleep... meanwhile, the last lap I did I see fuckface the uber-keen OPP recruit has piled the cruiser into the snow berm, and we're good to carry on down that trans-Canada highway!

And I still like the long drive. What's even more fucked up is that my father still has his driving license, and he still revels in the long drive.

Not that long ago I was heading back home from a wedding in Montreal. I'm cruising at about 140 kph, and there's this motor home looming bigger and bigger in the rear-view... oh there it goes, he's well ahead of us now...

Talk to you when I catch up with ya, Dad...

The long drive...

Are we all Kerouac's children or what?