Dirt-Biking Heaven
With the exception of the birth of my daughter, nothing in life has given me more joy than dirt-biking. My Dad introduced me to dirt-biking way back in 1978 when I went out West for a visit. He was so anxious to have me go biking with him that he bought a Honda 125 before I arrived. He knew I had ridden a street Honda back after I left school, but riding the street is totally different than riding off-road.
We went up into the hills behind Westbank and he showed me the basics. He told me to take it easy until I got used to the bike, but that didn't last one turn around the field. No sooner did I start out than I was bouncing along among the gofer hills, hooting and hollering, loving every minute. I remember him saying that I was going to fall any minute now and that I would not enjoy.
As the saying goes, I took to biking like a fish to water, and soon Dad and I were riding everywhere around Westbank, from short rides through the reserve to going up into the hills to pristine mountain lakes. Mum would make us some lunch and we would strap on a six pack of beer and head off. By the time we stopped for lunch the beer would literally explode when we opened it from being bounced all around on Dad's bike. They were such good times and I hated to go home. Dad later told me he sold the bike for more than he bought it for, which was the first of many bikes over the years.
Although I went out again in 1986, the whole family came to visit Expo 86 and I don't remember Dad and I getting in any riding. We also didn't plan on it so he hadn't bought a bike for me either.
The next trip out was with my son in 1989. I picked him up after work on Thursday and we drove straight through to Revelstoke, arriving on Saturday night after some trouble at the US border. Dad had rented two Honda 185 dirt bikes and trailored them up to Revelstoke. We did a couple of great rides up into the mountains around Revy, with one being to an old gold mine where there was gold literally lying everywhere, but you weren't allowed to take any. The mine had been shutdown because they used cyanide to extract the gold.
To this day I have never forgotten one of the best moments of my life. We had stopped beside the river to have our lunch. Chris and I were sitting on our bikes enjoying a beer and looking around at the gorgeous scenery. He said, "Dad. It doesn't get any better than this." So very true and a great moment between us.
The Wake-up Call
For most of my adult life I have woken up at 6:00 am. Not 5:59 am or 6:01 am, but on the dot of 6:00 am. It is a phenomenon I have never understood, despite much research on the internet but with no answers.
When I moved out West back in 1993, traveling through Canada's various time zones, I woke up at 6:00 am wherever I was at the time. For several months after arriving in Westbank and staying with my parents, sleeping on the beach, I woke up at 6:00 am despite the three hour time difference. When I moved to Panama, where the time zone is one hour different, I still awoke the first day at 6:00 am in the hotel I stayed at, despite having slept several hours on the bus trip from Panama City to Boquete. When I returned to Toronto in March of 2009 and stayed with my cousin I woke up at 6:00 am the very next day even though I had not managed a wink on the noisy bus to Panama City or the flights to Toronto on the same day.
Another confusing fact is that it does not matter what time I went to sleep or how much sleep I've had, even if I have napped during the day, fallen asleep watching TV or stayed up late. When I worked a factory job out West, starting at 7:00 am and finishing at 3:30, I would come home, have a couple of hours sleep, then go out, often not getting to bed until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, yet I still woke at 6:00 am.
Last night we put our clocks back one hour and one would think that I would wake up at 7:00 am, only yesterday what was 6:00 am, but this morning I woke up at exactly 6:00 am new time. How my body is aware of the one hour difference continues to puzzle me.
Ten years of good times
Like most people I played a bit of pool if there was time to kill and a table in a bar somewhere. I was never particularly great at it, but I enjoyed the game. Until I moved out West I never really had time to play on a regular basis in a league, plus for many years I worked all over the place and seldom would be able to make a regular playing time.
No question that the Okanagan is truly a four season playground and there's so much to do at every time of the year. Although the winters are mild, it gets dark by four o'clock so most activities like skiing are reserved for the week-ends. I started looking for things to do in the winter. I signed up to play racquetball in a Tuesday night league. Most Thursdays I went to the Corral to dance. The only thing that appealed to me on a Monday was the local pool bar league.
Best birthdays
Having had sixty-four of them you would think more of them would stand out in my mind. Obviously where you are, who are your friends and your family situation all affect how you celebrate your birthday. Maybe it's the ravages of aging but I don't remember any particular birthday as a kid or even during my marriage.
My first memorable birthday was while I was first staying with my parents in Westbank. My Dad came and woke me up early and said there was a phone call for me. It was my darling friend, Lenny, calling me all the way from Turkey to wish me a happy birthday. Now that's special.
No sooner had I hung up the phone on her than I got a full-face cream pie from my Dad. My BFF, Wade, had put him up to it. Nice start to the day. Only Wade could dream this up and I wondered what he had in store for me for the rest of the day.
At the time I was working at a client, Central Valley Trucking and I didn't even think they knew it was my birthday. Sure enough Wade had delivered a pie the day before and they nailed me with it. Made for a stinky day at work and I was happy to hit the shower when I got home.
The plan was to meet at the Corral so naturally I was on my guard. The darling manager, Meryl, said she wanted to see me in the back pool room. You guessed it. They nailed me with yet another cream pie. The problem was all I could do was wipe off what I could. What was left just turned sour and stunk like hell. My lovely dance partners kept telling me how gross I smelled. Thanks, Wade.
The next memorable birthday was my fiftieth. Unbenounced to me, my friend Karen Falloon had worked tirelessly to arrange a surprise party for me at the back of what I think was Dakotas. The ruse was we were meeting my parents for dinner. When we got there she asked me if I wanted to play some pool at the back while we waited for them. The doors opened and there was my parents and at least fifty of my friends, some of whom had traveled a long way to be there. It was a wonderful surprise and one of my best birthdays ever.
Another great one was at the Corral, of course. Lots of my close friends and my dance partners were all there and insisted on buying me a shot. After about thirteen of them my memory of the rest of the night is very fuzzy. The funniest part was a couple of days later went I went to the Corral everyone was congratulating me on how well I rode the mechanical surfboard. The only problem was I had no memory of it. Amazing that I was so drunk and still managed not to fall off.
Yet another one of Wade's excellent cakes.
Birthday celebrations have certainly gone downhill since I left the Okanagan. The only birthday I had in Panama was spent having a few beers and playing pool.
Since returning to Canada and especially in London where I have no friends birthdays have just been another day with little meaning except that I'm getting older. No fun at all.
The Mavericks
Oh what a thrill it was to see The Mavericks again! They played the Western Fair here in London and they were simply amazing. You would have thought they were playing in front of thousands of fans, just like the old days. They played for nearly an hour and a half straight with barely time to take a breath in between songs, then came back for an encore which included a fan favorite -
The last time I got to see The Mavericks was at the Merritt Mountain Music Festival. The act before them was an hour and a half late, which really annoyed the crowd, who were all waiting for The Mavericks. If you've ever been to the festival you know they shut down at midnight, period. We were all starting to panic when The Mavericks didn't start until just before midnight. They just kept playing and playing and the crowd of some fifteen thousand people loved it. Festival management was smart enough not to piss off fifteen thousand people. The Mavericks played for a solid hour and then tried to leave, but the crowd would have none of that. Fifteen thousand people screaming "more! more!" brought them right back on stage. This happened over and over again until they had played until at least two o'clock in the morning, but we all still wanted more. It was by far the very best concert I have ever been to. They had the whole crowd -
Although I love every single song they play, the best thing about The Mavericks is how much fun they have on stage. They love playing and they eat it up when the crowd responds. Even in London, where the venue was pathetically small and there were only a few hundred people it didn't matter one bit to the band. You could just tell how much fun they were having regardless of the small crowd and they were so happy to be back playing again. They had to eventually call it a night and, well, that was -
Diabetes - PLEASE heed this warning
Nine million Canadians are living with some form of diabetes. An estimated two million Canadians are undiagnosed. The number of people diagnosed with diabetes is projected to increase 56% over the next ten years. Juvenile diabetes has increased forty percent over the last ten years, mostly because of poor diet, physical inactivity and obesity.
Back in 2004, after I had crashed my dirt bike, tore up my ankle and couldn't do any physical activity for a year, I gained fifty pounds and I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. When I was able to return to my many activities I lost the weight quickly and my diabetes was managed with only Metformin.
In late 2007 circumstances led to a high level of stress and my sugars were literally "off the charts". My doctor put me on high doses of insulin and my sugars moderated. He told me I was a poster boy for a heart attack and I needed to get out from under the stress or it would kill me. I moved to Panama and my diabetes was managed with Metformin and daily insulin in relatively small doses.
Circumstances led to my return to Canada and, at one point, I found myself living on the streets, unable to afford my medications for six weeks. I did not know at the time that I was doing irreparable damage to the nerves in my feet. I developed severe diabetic neuropathy, a burning, excruciating pain for which there is no cure. A host of medications, plus huge increases in my daily insulin, do little to mitigate the pain. The only "relief" is when I sleep, but obviously I can't enjoy it because I am asleep. I wake to the vicious cycle of every step being painful.
I have gone from a healthy, ridiculously active person who hiked, biked, danced, roller-bladed, skied (cross-country, downhill and water skied), played racquetball and tennis, and even para-glided, to someone who can barely walk with the aid of a cane. All this in only a couple of short years. My doctors offer little hope and just tell me to learn to live with the pain.
I cannot urge you enough to get tested, regardless of your age. People often think that diabetes is an old person's disease, but this is not true. Diabetes can reduce your life expectancy by more than ten years. It can result in amputations. It is a leading risk factor for heart attacks. If diagnosed early enough diabetes can be managed, not cured, but the risks of amputations and early death can be greatly reduced. Don't ignore the warning and be part of that two million people undiagnosed. It is much better to know and be able to manage it.
Life Lessons Learned Too Late - How one mistake can ruin your life.
When you are young and foolish you make mistakes in judgment that are just part of growing up. Sometimes you "get in with the wrong crowd" with peer pressure to do something you know is wrong. If you get away with whatever stupid thing you did, well, that's just exciting, right? If you get caught; however, that's a whole different story. Especially these days with so much video being shot of those dumb moments, like the riots in Vancouver. In Kelowna there was the case of the kids who stole an SUV and trashed it, recording every moment of their crime like idiots.
Courier Companies. Do website programmers check their own sites?
It was a simple request. I wanted to ship my old computer to a friend in the Okanagan. I wanted it to arrive in a few days and I wanted to make sure it was handled carefully.
FedEx
Not sure why I chose them first because my computers had come Purolator without incident. I went on their website to get a quote. I had to enter my postal code and the postal code for my friend. I got an error message that my postal code didn't exist. Canada Post and the folks living in my building would be upset to know that FedEx doesn't think we exist. So much for FedEx.
Purolator
First, I've had an account with Purolator for years so I logged into my account and chose to get an estimate. I entered all the info, including my request for special handling, an extra $18, and got a quote that was reasonable so I proceeded to "Create a Shipment". After entering all my information, even though I had an account and this should have been shown, and all the shipping information for my friend, then hit the "submit" button. I was creating the shipment for the next day pick-up and wanted to charge my credit card, information they had on my account. I got an error message that they could not charge my credit card for a "future dated" shipment. Why the hell not? Every company in the world, except apparently Purolator, allows you to place an order and have your card charged when they ship the order.
My only choice was to give up all the data I had just entered and simply request a pick-up. No account info. No credit card info. No special handling request. Just a pick-up. When the driver arrived I explained what happened and he had no explanation. He filled out a manual bill and took the parcel. I went online to ask Purolator why I could not do a next day shipment and got back an idiotic reply stating that they cannot charge my credit card for a future dated shipment. No explanation as to why not.
Concerned that the shipment was going to be handled properly and that it would arrive on Friday, as the driver confirmed, I started trying to track it online. My account, of course, showed no shipments. The Bill of Lading number just came back with a blank screen and a note to call. On Friday I called expecting confirmation that it had been delivered. First I was told that it wasn't to be delivered until the following Friday. When I said the driver had said it would be delivered this Friday, she disappeared for a time and then came back telling me it was in Kelowna and it would be delivered on Tuesday. When I said it was to be delivered on Friday all I got was a "sorry". Knowing the depot in Kelowna I knew that it was sitting in the back. I asked if my friend could pick it up, but she said that wasn't possible either. Why not?
I gave my friend the contact information and told her to ask for a friend who worked there if she was in because I knew she would find it. Apparently they are now delivering it on Monday, which is better than Tuesday, but not Friday as promised. I told her to check it out thoroughly for damage because I doubt there was any "special handling" as I wanted. God knows what will happen to a computer if it's thrown around a truck. It had better arrive in one piece and working.
The next issue will be the bill because I don't intend to pay for service I didn't get. And whoever programmed their website needs their head examined as to why you can't create a shipment the way you should be able to. Frustrating!
A Bit of History
Almost thirty years ago I started getting into website design, more as a hobby at the time and to challenge myself to learn something new. I found a program called HotDog Pro, which was pretty well an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) program, so there was a lot of complex coding involved, which I really didn't have the patience for. It's so very long ago that I don't remember what sites I even created back then.
Choosing a Designer is Critical
Many designers take the approach that they build a site that will make them indispensable to maintain the site. They might charge a lower fee upfront, but then every time you want a change, no matter how small, they charge you an exorbitant fee that has little to do with the amount of work involved. These same developers often disappear as well, leaving the poor client in a mess.
I've lost track of the number of people who have called me in desperation to get their site working, let alone make changes. Unfortunately no designer will take over someone else's work because we then become responsible for it. Quite often the site is built with some obscure program that would take weeks to learn which makes no sense unless it will be used over and over again for other clients.
Not everybody is thrilled with the work that was done. Design is very much in the eye of the website designer and they often build sites that only glorify their abilities, but don't work for the client. I've seen too many gorgeous, feature rich sites that take forever to load, so very few people will see them. Study after study has shown that you have about eight seconds to make an impression and get the visitor to stay. When a site takes two minutes to load no one has the patience to wait for it. Often clients (not mine) are so unhappy that they simply don't pay the designer. This is when they sadly discover that website design is the designer's "intellectual property", in other words they own it not the client. This is usually when the designer will take the site down until they are paid.
My approach has always been different. After I have done the build, they are happy and have paid me, I give them full access to the code. They can download it. They can hire another designer if they want in the future. They can sell the site if they choose, for example, if the business is sold. I also take great pains to make sure they understand how to update the site with the things like new photographs and copy. Blogs are a great example of how clients keep their sites current and this draws visitors to come back. If you site includes advertising this is an important factor in whether they see a benefit in having their ads on your site.