teflon ghost

Wasting Time

Not long ago a friend of mine made me an offer. He purchases books for the Surrey Library system and he told me if I wrote a book, even if it was a single copy and self published, he would purchase it and stock it on the shelf. I thought that was a great offer, but I have nothing in the pipeline. In fact, between work and chess I don’t have all that much free time to dedicate to writing a book. On top of that, my first writing goals were writing for prestigious contests like the CBC Fiction contest and the Bronwen Wallace prize. Ha! Who has the time to do it all?

Today I was in the kitchen doing not much at all when I got a notification on my cell phone. It was a weekly report on my usage and it said I had averaged 5 hours and 13 minutes per day on my phone. There are 168 hours in a week: 40 hours working, 36 hours on my phone (evidently) and about 50 sleeping. That’s still 42 hours left. I spend about 5 hours a week commuting these days, with so much road construction underway, and another 5 disappear on chess night. The Canucks play about three times per week for another 9 hours wasted. That’s still 23 hours a week unaccounted for.

Where does the time go?

Let’s say I cut my phone usage back to 3 hours a day, giving me another 15 hours a week. Add to that the 23 hours that evaporate each week and I have 38 hours I could have spent writing my book. In a year that would be 1900 hours. A typical novel is about 50,000 words, so to complete a novel in a year, I would need to settle on around 26 words an hour. That is crazy few words. And that still leaves me chess, hockey, and 3 hours of empty-calorie gawking at my device per day. And my god! If I could complete 50 words per hour I could polish off two books a year.

How much time does the average person spend on a device these days? I don’t see myself as excessive when it comes to looking at my phone. I check sports scores, watch Keno draws once in a while, look at emails, and sometimes (the horror!) I actually speak to someone. If my usage is typical, and the Outlier theory says you will be a master at something if you spend 10,000 hours at it, a person dedicating the amount of time on a skill that I have at my disposal, would be world class at it in five years. Low income teens in the USA average over nine hours a day on their phones! They could be fabulously skilled at something in a few years if they cut back to three hours a day and invested the time wisely. A quick Google search – not on my phone – says the average American spends over four hours every day on their cell, a whopping 1.4 billion hours a day collectively. Although we can’t assume it is fully wasted time, I imagine the majority of it is.

Going back to the offer to have a book on the shelf of the library, the federal government does a survey every year of library books written by Canadian authors. The author has to register a book on the database first. Then there is a list of libraries they look at, but the gist of it is the government has a formula by which they calculate how many books the author didn’t sell because his or her book was available for free at the library. It looks at how many books the author has, and in how many of the surveyed libraries, and they send the author a cheque. If I did write a book or two, I would be mailing a copy of each book to all the libraries on the survey list, and maybe I would find some of my tax money in my mailbox once a year. If this ever happens, I promise to rush back here and tell you how much it paid.

Annual Drive, Great Plains Edition

It seems every year now we go on a road trip. While most people our age are flying to Europe or Hawaii, we continue to act like college age kids and drive around. At least we were ambitious this year.

First day we made the grueling ten hour drive to Calgary where we stayed overnight at my lovely niece Lyndy’s house. We were drooling idiots on arrival so not much to discuss about that night.

The next day we drove to Medicine Hat and picked up my wife’s sister, Marie, and her husband Russell. Originally we planned on going to Saskatoon and attending a pow wow, but as we drove north through Saskatchewan we collectively decided against it. So we stayed overnight at our nephew Tyler’s house, and found out they are due to become parents in January. The original plan also was to stay two nights with Tyler, but we let him off the hook with only one night.

Day three saw us drive south to Estevan, which is near the border. My wife and her sister were born in the area and lived on a farm in a little settlement called Roche Percee. The name is a French reference to sandstone caves in the area which have ancient native writing in them. And they also have a lot of graffiti, but they are cool anyway. They found the location of their old farm, but it was abandoned as the local river flooded a couple times and washed away everyone’s enthusiasm for living there.

Roche Percee. Cool cave formations that look like nothing in a photo

The fourth day we crossed the border in North Dakota. We thought we’d go for breakfast once across the line, but then we found the nearest diner was hours away. Fun fact: ND has the fewest McDonald’s restaurants of any state. Not that we wanted McMuffins, but it might be an indicator of the scarcity of eateries. We finally found a Dairy Queen and were loading up on fries and burgers when Russell got to talking with one of his “native brothers.” Apparently there were Indian Relay horse races going on that afternoon nearby, so we headed over and watched. The sport consists of three riders racing horses bareback. After each lap they jump off their horse and onto the back of another bareback horse and gallop another dusty lap. The racers each do three laps. Some races were razor thin wins and everyone was cheering. Other races the rider fell off and the horse ran off without him, or once a guy jumped on a horse that wouldn’t run. It was great fun and I’d go to another event if I knew of one around here. That night, after the races, we gave up trying to get to South Dakota and stayed the night in Bowman. It isn’t far from SD, and it proclaims itself to be “God’s Country,” as seen on signs around town.

Sign that goes well with all the Trump ’24 signs

After a sad breakfast of white toast and jam with yogurt, we took off again for the most exciting day of the trip. First we drove south to the partially done giant sculpture of Crazy Horse. We got in for free because of Russell’s heritage, but we did pay a little extra to take a bus trip to the base of the sculpture. They’ve been carving at that hill since 1947 and they are maybe 1/3 done, refusing any help from the government that is offered. They think they will soon have computer-guided drills doing the precision work much quicker than humans and are willing to work in the cold and the dark. So maybe it will be done in our lifetime, who knows? We left Crazy Horse and went to Mt Rushmore. None of us was very excited about the four presidents as we are Canadian after all, and we’ve seen pictures of it ad nauseum. Still we parked, took a few pictures and left again, heading for Sturgis. The biker mecca was quiet, but there were signs of the annual rally everywhere in town. It seemed like every business had a skull or flames in their logo, and who can blame them? And we continued on to Deadwood.

World’s largest in-progress sculpture, Crazy Horse

We booked a cheap room in Deadwood, only to find it was like a 5 star hotel only not expensive. Downstairs in the hotel was a casino where they serve you free beer if you’re playing. Marie and Russell won hundreds of dollars right away so we went for dinner. The diner we ate at has been in business since 1877 at that location. We strolled around after and found most buildings had casinos in them and there was music and fake gun fights in the streets. They had several tours you could take, and there was even a stage coach that took you around town. I went shopping for a t-shirt and the boutique gave you beer while you shopped. My kinda town! If there was a major airport anywhere nearby this would be a destination. Since we never had time to take any tours or visit the graveyard to see Wild Bill Hickok’s grave, (or Seth Bullock’s), I will seriously consider returning here one day with a little more time on my hands.

The building Wild Bill Hickok got killed in, holding a winning hand

The next day we headed to Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, where Close Encounters of the Third Kind was filmed. There was a couple gift shops full of alien stuff and mementos of the tower itself. There was also a lot of Sturgis mentions there as it turns out the Sturgis rally has a run to Devil’s Tower every year. Then off we drove, through the waving grass of the ranchlands, speckled with cows and buffalo. We reached the Battle of the Little Bighorn memorial in Montana not long before it closed for the night, so we did a hit and run tour of the place. The battle took place over a huge area several miles long and wide. It also turns out that 350 of Custer’s troops survived the battle, so it wasn’t the total massacre it was made out to be. Custer’s body was dragged away and buried in West Point, but most of the fallen troops were buried in a mass grave with a big monument on it. The place was eerie and sad. There was a stone ring with inscriptions inside it where it told the events from the Indian point of view. The most chilling one for me was Custer smoking a peace pipe with the Cheyenne leader Stone Forehead where Custer promised never to kill another Indian, and Stone Forehead told him if he ever broke that promise he and all his men “would go to dust.” That night we drove to Billings.

Mass grave marker at Little Bighorn memorial

Billings may be a nice town, full of beauty and fun, but our hotel room was terrible. The sign said there was a restaurant, a casino and a pool, but it turns out each of those things was not open. Our room was laid out crazily with the bathroom sink in the hall beside the door, and the door to the bathroom wouldn’t close. Our mattress had some kind of plastic liner that crinkled loudly every time you moved. Marie and Russell’s mattress had a big blood stain on it from the last murdered guest. Why we didn’t demand a refund and leave, I don’t know. That evening we went shopping at a Ross store and a Walmart, but the atmosphere in both places was bleak and empty. After midnight when we were all through crinkling our mattresses, the smoke alarm went off and woke us all up with a jolt. The next morning we tried to turn on a lamp but it started flashing and sizzling with electric danger so we left it off. After Deadwood, this was hell.

The next morning we created our own grand slams over at Denny’s then headed home. The border crossing north of Havre, Montana is called the Wild Horse crossing. The American side is a businesslike brick affair, bristling with flags and gates. The Canadian side is an Atco trailer with the lonely Maytag repairman of border guards in it. It took him a few minutes to come over and check us out, but when he did he joked around, looked at our passports and sent us off. I think as we were finishing another car pulled up behind us, but I could see there wasn’t much traffic there, and the crossing is only open from 8 until 5. It poured rain all the way back to Medicine Hat where we bid farewell to our in-laws. We pushed ourselves as far as Calgary that night and drove home the next day. Our trip home was going well when suddenly the highway stopped and we had to reroute through Kelowna, adding a few hours and plenty of snarled traffic to our drive.

5800 km and a week later, our holidays, like summer itself, are over.

How to Ruin a Coronation

I don’t know what’s going on, but the statistics say some people have been reading my blog. If you’re reading this, then the answer is at least partially you! Thanks, it’s reassuring.

In earlier posts I made mention of some 100 word stories I had written for a contest. I sure did like the one I wrote for Round 2! Oh boy, it was going to launch me into the final round where all the glittering prizes are. So… it failed. It didn’t even get an honourable mention. The genre was Historical Fiction, the action I had to include was shoving someone, and the word I had to use was ‘establish.’ Unless your house is currently on fire, or your dog is barfing up a newspaper, you will have time to read it.

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Coronation Day

Napoleon’s glorious moment had arrived! The cream of European society packed Notre Dame, while at the altar, Napoleon radiated power in silk robes embroidered with golden bees. The Pope walked slowly toward him, holding the Charlemagne crown above his head.

The Pope lowered the crown to place it on his head, but Napoleon snatched it out of his hands and shoved the pontiff, to the gasps and shrieks of the crowd. He put the crown on himself. “I hereby establish a Monarchy based on my greatness, not your Church,” he told the stunned Pope.

Napoleon rose, “France! Behold your Emperor!”

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The feedback from the judges was mostly positive. Their main complaint was that the point of view seemed to be off. One judge concluded his feedback with “please keep writing!,” as though I may be discouraged and ready to toss my laptop in the recycling bin. I thought they might scold me for using three exclamation points in a tiny story.

As for the story itself, Napoleon really did grab the crown away from the pope at the ceremony, but there are two versions of it. One group says Napoleon had arranged for the pope to hand the crown over, and it was agreed upon, so there was no tussle and everything was good. The other version is that the coronation was like what went down in my story where he pulled the crown away from the very surprised pope and gave him a short lecture about his greatness vs the Church. Sadly, no one had thought far enough ahead that wintery day in 1804 to bring a camera, and eyewitnesses never fail to see different versions of the same event.

Meanwhile, back in camera-mad 2024, I have now completed my third of four norms toward getting my FIDE Arbiter title. Someone suggested I should do a blog series about the journey to getting this title. Can you imagine how un-riveting that would be? I mean unless you’re captivated by chess lingo and long periods of observing people playing a board game, I think it would be sleepy time for anyone who tried to read it. I could publish pamphlets about it and have them available for use at sleep clinics.

Falling asleep on the board is usually a forfeit loss, especially if you have inhaled any pieces

Well it’s coming up to mid-August and time for my annual rant about fall. We’ve gone past mid-summer and the days are already noticeably shorter. Pretty soon everyone will be bundled in sweaters drinking hot, overpriced, pumpkin flavoured coffees and the Christmas shit will be in all the stores. The exits from those stores will be blocked by panhandling packs of snotty kids with fundraising crap of all manner. At least hockey will come along and provide us with a sane diversion to the declining atmospheric conditions and public begging. Almost enough to make you want to shove the Pope, right? I’m talking to you, Francis!

(Ok, just kidding, I’m not really that grumpy.)

Father’s Day and Very Short Stories

Recently I entered a new NYC Midnight writing contest. This one I find quite hard – the 100 word microfiction challenge. I got my assignment, and I banged off my tiny story and sent it off into the great Void, and then I forgot all about it. So the other day I got an email with results of Round 1, and to my very great amazement I came in 4th (out of 50) in my group. A couple days later I got sent a new assignment for the second round, which I just completed last night. Because they ask you not to publish your story until they have had first crack at it, I never put my first story on here, but I will now. I remember the genre was Thriller/Horror (which my story barely qualifies for, in my opinion), and the action was hiding money. I can’t remember the specific word I had to use, but it was something commonplace like “without.” If you have 30 seconds to spare you can read this little 4th place story of mine.

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Brick by Brick

The thugs were thorough. They had ripped open walls, dug up the yard, and even torn down his newly-constructed brick barbecue, all without finding the missing money.

“Are you satisfied?” Julius peevishly asked the mobsters.

“Yeah, looks like you might be telling the truth, but five million dollars doesn’t just vanish. If we ever find it was you, YOU will be the mess.”

When the thugs had left, Julius surveyed the destruction. He picked up a hammer and smashed a random barbecue brick. Inside the masonry was a plastic bag with $1000 in it. Might as well go to dinner.

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The feedback I got was terrific. They mostly liked the story, but they said I should have cut out the word “had,” which I used twice. Without that word the story unfolds in sequence as you read it, not as a past event. I’ll try to use that advice going forward.

The next story is Historical Fiction, with the action being shoving someone and the word “establish.” I was quite pleased with the Round 2 story, but that might be the kiss of death. When I was in high school I realized I was really bad at guessing how I did on tests. There were some tests I aced but thought I failed and vice versa. We shall see. I’ll post it when the coast is clear.

Today is Father’s Day. I went out golfing and then to lunch with my father and uncle. I saw my son and three of my grandkids, and got a text from another kid, so I got my pat on the head for this year. My dad and uncle are getting old and frail. They both had great long runs of good health and mental well being, but it becomes sad on days like this, as my preference would be to have all the kids, grandkids, father, uncle, brother in law together somewhere for a gathering. My brother in law had his knees (yes, plural) replaced, so he isn’t getting around quickly either. We are becoming scattered and downwardly mobile, and frankly it stinks. My poor bro in law is so immobile my sister is calling him Brian Wilson for all his lying in bed. He made it to lunch with us, but he is walking with a cane and doing some hobbling. I am pausing to knock on wood as I write this, as this could easily be me or anyone else. All the people mentioned were all strong and active for decades, not a weakling in the lot.

Father’s Day started in 1910 by a woman who was raised, along with five siblings, by a single father. In the UK, USA and Canada it falls on the third Sunday in June. It’s celebrated in 111 countries, and in some it is a national holiday. And around the world it falls on lots of different days of the year, but the biggest group is the third Sunday in June group. Yay us!

My dad was a good father, in my opinion. My sister and I grew up in a beautiful place, and our parents made a happy home for us. We always had enough to eat and went on nice holidays, had great pets, and we knew our connections to our past by knowing our grandparents and quite a few of the great aunts and uncles. We were taught to question things. At most family suppers someone had to run for the encyclopedias to answer something someone was wondering about. I noted once before that we rarely ever said “I love you” to each other, but I don’t believe anyone ever questioned it. I became a father very young, so I think I was kind of a half ass dad most of the time. When my boy was young I worked a lot of low paying jobs, and we bounced around a lot and had pretty boring holidays. Then I got with a mother who had four kids, and I have tried to treat them as my own as much as possible. It is they who have shown me the way to say “I love you” because they say it all the time. My son has three sons and I think he’s a better dad than I ever was. His boys are always the #1 priority and he does a lot of it on his own. I am proud of him, and his boys are turning into very nice young men. Boy do I feel old writing that!

Busy Times

It was a memorable week. First we hopped on the Amtrak train and went down to Seattle to see the Rolling Stones at cavernous Lumens Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks. We met up with my sister and niece there, and they had an Airbnb rented near the venue. I was always of the opinion that the Stones were crappy in concert. Every so often you would hear a live version of one of their songs, and it would not sound good at all. So my expectations weren’t high for musical quality. It turned out that they were actually pretty damn good! And no band on the planet can come near them for the depth of their catalogue of tunes. They played around 20 songs and without using Google I could probably name 100 more they didn’t play, and many of those would have been great to hear too. They did a “vote a song” promo for the concert, and Seattle voted to hear Wild Horses which, it turns out, they rarely play live. Mick had tons of energy for a guy of 80, and Keith looked pretty spry as well, possibly aided by the fact he quit smoking a few years ago. Mick took a little break and let Keith sing a couple songs – You Got the Silver, and Little T&A – which was my favourite part of the show. For some reason I’ve always loved Keith’s singing voice. It’s sort of flat and atonal, but in a good way. I wished he had picked Happy as one of his songs to do, but hey, you can’t always get what you want.

A great vantage point to see a concert if you happen to have a Hubble telescope

By the way, despite the testy caption, the seats were just fine! Who wrote that?

The train trip down was a throwback to an older time, sort of a nod to the Mt Rushmore of rock oldsters we were going to see. It’s a beautiful part of the world to go clickety clacking past the window. There were conductors and little towns’ stations and the wooded corridors into every town, and then endless miles of beaches and boats and trees. We only got a couple hours of sleep the night of the concert, so staring blankly out the window was infinitely safer than having our hungover asses careening toward home down the crowded I-5.

After the trip south I worked as an arbiter at the Keres Memorial chess tournament, Paul Keres was from Estonia, and he is a national hero there. He is widely regarded as one of – if not the – best chess player who never became world champion. He came close five times to being world champion, but got thwarted by the outbreak of WWII and by coming second four times in tournaments that would have given him a shot at the world title. In Estonia, he is sometimes referred to as Paul the Second. In 2000 he was named Estonia’s Sportsman of the Century. In 1975 he came to Vancouver and played in the Vancouver International chess tournament, which he won. On the way home he died of a heart attack, aged 59, and the tournament was renamed in his honour. Every year it is the biggest tournament in BC, and this year I got to be an arbiter which gives me my second of four required FIDE arbiter norms. There were 205 players, of which we had a Grandmaster from Romania and several masters.

2024 Keres Memorial underway in Surrey, BC

The next week I had a gruelling two days of work, then I attended a retirement seminar Thursday and Friday. I knew of the existence of the seminar, but I sort of thought it would be like two hours one Tuesday night, not 16 hours of info packed into two long days. There were 14 of us there, grey haired and ready to take the plunge into obsolescence. The guy doing the seminar was 80 and an aged-spot speckled old fellow who knew more about the ins and outs of paperwork and legal matters than anyone should almost be allowed to know. In fact they say a person should take the seminar twice: once about five years before retirement and once again when you are near enough to peer into the abyss – that’s how much info was jammed into the subject. Well, I got my pre-emptive seminar out of the way, and the real goodbye one is about six years off. I expect those six years to go streaking by.

Post #100: Down Time

Welcome to Post #100! It’s been a little over eight years – 99 months in fact – since I started this blog. It doesn’t seem like I’ve written one post per month, but I guess I have. The first month or two was a few per week, so soon it will be less than one per month unless I get motivated.

Spring is in full bloom now, and the days are warm and bright, but a couple months ago I was depressed. I feel as though I was misled about some things at work, my writing had completely dried up, my biggest hobby – chess – had become more work than fun, and frankly I think the lack of sun was affecting me. I remember thinking once or twice, that it would be cool if someone asked me how I was doing, or observed that maybe I wasn’t my chipper self, but no one did. I am no better. When I come across people who look sad or pissy, I often steer clear of them. I direct my little parade away from the rain clouds whenever possible. I guess this is how others feel, too, so I certainly don’t blame anyone. It’s hard enough keeping yourself happy without exerting a lot of energy trying to cheer other people up, especially ones you don’t have any tangible connection with. So I pulled through it all in the end, not that things were all that dark. I wrote a little bit, chess has brightened up again, and the weather has helped. At work, I still feel underappreciated and misled, but I’m not stewing over it night and day. As for anyone who had to bear the brunt of one of my many whiny tirades: I am sorry.

Next week we’re taking the train down to see the Rolling Stones in Seattle, followed by a few days off in which I hope to golf at least once. This is the sort of therapeutic week I need to charge up the batteries! The weekend after that I am being the arbiter at a huge chess tournament where I will get my second (of four) norms toward getting my FIDE Arbiter title. In June I am going to arbiter the BC Seniors Chess Championship for the second time. Last year I had a lot of fun doing it, as the oldsters are well behaved and friendly. If you happen to see me coming, you needn’t dash the other way, you can engage me in conversation, knowing I will (probably) be my self again.

*Note: I wrote this, then didn’t feel great about talking about being depressed, so I put off publishing it for a while. In fact, some of the things I wrote about coming up have already happened, and they will be the subject of much more upbeat post soon.

St Patrick and Being Generous with the Whiskey

Happy St Patrick’s Day! I was just reading about the man, the myth, the legend that is St Paddy. I used to think I was mostly Irish, but my sister got into genealogy and found we are more Scottish than Irish, and we have a muttly blend of a variety of northern European nationalities. Anyways, St Patrick. I always just thought of him as the guy who was credited with driving the snakes off the Emerald Isle, but I found a story about him I like better. It’s also one that explains a wee bit of the Irish identity. He was moving about the country and came to an inn where the hostess was being rude and uncharitable to her guests. He told her there was a devil in her cellar that got fatter every time she was cheap and nasty. He came back to that inn some time later and the innkeeper was filling everyone’s glasses to the brim with whiskey. He took her down to her cellar and the devil was wasting away from her kindness. After that it became tradition to drink whiskey on his feast day, March 17, the alleged anniversary of his death. By the way, some early accounts of his life have him living to the age of 120, which would be amazing in modern times, but absolutely stunning in the 400’s AD when everyone was slogging around in shit and living until 35. Must be the whiskey! Bottoms up!

Not that I’m picking on the health obsessed among us, but it’s worth noting St Patrick rarely visited the gym, nor did he advocate a morning ritual of protein smoothies.

In fact, rarely do I read an obituary or any account of an abnormally long life that advocates going to the gym or eating macrobiotic super food. The common threads among the super aged, if there are any, is that they stay mentally active, have a positive world view, have a social circle they interact regularly with, and a whole friggin bunch of them drink socially and even smoke sometimes. I will adjust my world view accordingly when I come across a 100 year old guy who is pumping weights with his “bros” and has an alarming pair of gym tits. There, I said it. And gyms have been around long enough to become a longevity factor to someone – there was a gym on the Titanic.

This guy would soon put his rowing prowess to the test

Sadly, rowing was about to become a highly sought-after skill.

Another thing old St Pat did that makes a lot of sense is he used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to the people. Most stained glass renditions of him have him holding a clover leaf and also what looks like a lacrosse stick. I’m not sure what the lacrosse stick thing is about, but hopefully it wasn’t around after the whiskey got flowing. In the Surrey of my youth, that’s about the last thing you’d want to see some drunk carrying.

Another odd fact: St Patrick was never officially canonized, although he is recognized as a saint. And judging from other drawings it looks like the thing in his hands might be what he chased the snakes away with, but that’s only a guess.

Another Year, Another List of Wishes

Hello and Happy New Year! 2024 is here, and if I can manage it, this will be the end of Teflon Ghost the blog. Not that I intend to stop, I just want to make it what it should have been from the start: Six Beer Shakespeare. (or Eight Beer Shaksespeare?) The catch is, I want to make it so all the stuff I’ve written over the last almost 8 years is still attached in some way so it can be found. I hope I’m not talking to myself here, as I haven’t had any feedback for months and my statistics say nearly no one is going to my site. It’s ok, I enjoy writing in here, whether or not there is an audience. It’s my version of singing in the shower.

A funny thing about the recently departed 2023 is that I intended it to be a year full of writing. I had won a prize late in 2022 in a writing contest, so I wanted to build on that, submit to some larger contests with bigger prizes, freelance for the local paper a little. Maybe make a few bucks, maybe get long listed somewhere prestigious. So what happened? I got sucked into two major distractions. One was I took courses and tests for work, and the other was I got pulled deeper into the local chess scene, becoming a National Arbiter along the way. How did your plans for last year work out? Did you find yourself accomplishing all your goals or did you also find yourself going down some side road? Comments are welcome.

I found out today that we got tickets to see the Rolling Stones this May in Seattle! Our early plan is to take the Amtrak train down and get an airbnb somewhere near the stadium. I think the four fares on the train, plus room, plus a few meals and the tickets will cost about the same as one ticket in Vancouver on the secondary market. I know the people who resell those tickets are “providing a service” in that they have a way for you to get in the concert. But what makes them vultures and parasites is the fact they don’t create extra seats or extra opportunities for you to go, they just get between you and the promoters and jack the ticket prices way the fuck up so normal fans can’t even afford to go. There won’t be too many more chances to see the Stones, as the clock is ticking when all the members are 80+. Luckily the Seattle show didn’t sell out too quickly and didn’t get bought up by blood sucking low lifes.

Same douchebag who made the Hip's last tour unaffordable — Same douchebag who made the Hip’s last tour a rich man’s affair

Hopefully this will be the year that the wars in the Ukraine and the Middle East end. People only get one fleeting chance at life – to feel purpose, to fall in love, to have dreams – and no one should die for an imaginary line on a map or because their neighbour reads a slightly different religious text. At least the Russians won’t be invited to the Olympics in Paris this summer. Their athletes may not be to blame, as the cheating is sanctioned by the people in charge, but you aren’t usually in a fair race with a Russian these days, and even their judges have been known to be corrupt. This year’s special Olympic event will be peddling your bicycle with a baguette in the basket, ringing a little bell that goes “bring, bring!” France is favoured to sweep the medals in that competition.

World Champion Jean Crumbier training hard, and frankly showing off a bit

I have written in the past about how I hope this and that for various years, hoping for peace or whatever. But the fact is, you and I are the people alive in this moment, and we can all make the world a little warmer by being kind and creating happy little ripples in whatever pond we are treading water in. It sounds corny and like some ridiculed dogma from hippy days gone by, but love is the answer.

We have been invited to dinner this first evening of the year, so I’m going to quit rambling nonsense and go. I will try to set up some sort of alert when my blog changes names, if it does. Hopefully, it won’t just be me echoing in the shower.

A Grinch’s Guide to Handouts, Plus a Story

In my last entry, I mentioned I had written a story for NYC Midnight. It was a 500 word story with a 24 hour deadline. Even when I wrote it I was saying it was heading for the virtual dustbin as it was a little silly, and I was right. It didn’t even get an honourable mention. I’ll put it on here and you can read it if you want.

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A Squirt of Revenge

Ryan was amusing himself in the playground behind his house. He was swinging on the swings and going in dizzying circles around the merry-go-round. His mother was working from home and casting the occasional glance his way to verify he was safe.

Three boys came around the trail and into the playground. They were walking with menacing swaggers. “Hey look, it’s little Ryan from second grade,” said the biggest, most menacing of the group. “Looks like he’s lost his mommy,” and the other boys laughed.

“I didn’t lose my mom, Derek, she’s behind that fence keeping an eye on me.” Ryan knew Derek wanted to be a bully, but at school he was kept in check.

“Looks like your mommy sent you with a can of bug spray. We wouldn’t want baby Ry-Ry to get a bug bite at the park.” Derek grabbed the bottle of repellent and threw it into forest. The other boys laughed again. “Well baby Ry-Ry, you better go find your spray before mommy finds out you lost it.”

Ryan held back hot tears. “Thanks, you jerk!” He ran into the forest after the bottle. He didn’t think his mom would care too much about it, but the stillness of the trees was a welcome diversion to being insulted by thugs.

The forest was dark after the bright sun, and he wouldn’t find anything until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. A squeaky voice nearby made him jump. “I saw the whole thing. Those boys are cowards, picking on someone small and alone.” A little elf stepped out from behind a shrub. “Sorry if I startled you. I am Tim. We elves are everywhere but we mostly stay out of sight. I could give you some magic to defend yourself with – just a little bit, not enough to harm anyone seriously, and only enough to use once. Would you like that?”

“Yes! Please, that would be great,” Ryan said.

Tim touched Ryan on the forehead, and he could feel a tingling in his skin.

“Now hurry, your mom will look and not see you at the park and she’ll panic.”

Ryan knew the elf was right. He took a quick glance around and decided to go back to the playground.

“Thanks, Tim!”

Back in the daylight, Derek and his gang were at the far end of the park throwing rocks at a tree when they noticed their little subject had returned. “What’s the matter, didn’t find your bug spray, babykins?”

“No, but I found something even better, come and see,” he called back.

Derek approached Ryan, towering above him scowling as hard as he could. Ryan closed his eyes and called upon his one dose of magic. Suddenly Derek and his mates’ bowels let go, and they went running for home crying, as diarrhea ran down their legs.

“Wouldn’t it have just been easier to be nice?” he called after them.

A squeaky laugh emanated faintly from the forest.

**************************************************

The judges said the dialogue and the method of revenge were age appropriate and well done. They criticized me for not putting more detail into the elf, and even ignoring Ryan’s reaction to the elf which likely would have been surprise or maybe even fright at first. They acknowledged the lack of words would have made me cut something else out, and they suggested I cut out his mother to buy more words. Anyway, I agree with that, I guess.

I also talked in my last blog about a test I had to write. I got 81% and passed, but I don’t get to be relief foreman because the superintendent says I need to take more courses. It gets further away with each test. It’s like putting a doughnut on fishing line and reeling it in, making some fat kid (me) run after it.

Speaking of doughnuts, you know what’s starting to bug me? The combination of cute kids and menacing parents that greet me at the exit of the grocery store, trying to sell me stuff. I dodged by the Krispee Kreme kids yesterday, but the Scouts guilted me into buying an apple today, as a couple of fathers were giving me menacing looks. At work I have a full box of Girl Guide cookies in a drawer that I bought last week. Girl Guide cookies used to have two flavours, chocolate and vanilla, and they were actually decent. Now they have this thin chocolate mint thing, almost like an After Eight wafer, and it just isn’t that good. But when a big-eyed 6 year old with a sad expression is selling them, I am doomed. Pretty soon the Salvation Army will come and replace the Guides, Scouts, Air Cadets, Wheelchair Rugby, Girls’ Soccer, Boys’ Hockey, Cancer Researchers, Veterans with poppies, and whoever else is out there making eye contact with you and your groceries. And the Sally Ann doesn’t take “I don’t have any cash” as an excuse – they have credit and debit tap options so you can’t say no without being a grinch of the highest order.

Speaking of polite ways to be embezzled from, what’s the deal with tip options? I remember not too long ago 10% was the going rate for tipping wait staff at restaurants. Then it crept up to 15, then 18, now 20%. I now feel like a total jerk if I leave less than 18%, especially if the waitress, let’s say, has made an effort to interact with me. That’s ok, at least they served me. The really awful tip options are the ones at regular businesses like the beer store. Sometimes the staff at the beer store helps me out, but that is sort of their job. When they offer me assistance, I will consider giving a couple bucks. But when some goth girl has stood at the counter looking at her phone chewing gum while I search helplessly for the Moosehead Radlers, she can kiss my ass if she thinks I’m giving her anything. Once I was handed a debit machine in a store and I couldn’t quickly find the solution to declining the tip, so I wound up tipping some lazy kid who spent my entire time in the store texting her buds. That set me off, and I quit going to that store for at least a year, even though it’s about 500 feet from my front door. Take that!

Another fairly new thing to do is to stand on the median on a busy street and beg from people who stopped at the red light. They always have a cardboard sign that explains their predicament, with most signs being too long winded to read at one light. Those people probably need the money and would get the most use out of it, but the thinking is it will likely be spent on drugs or booze, so you’re doing them more harm than good. I was told a story not long ago. At the light at 1st Ave and the exit from Hwy 1 in Vancouver, there’s a guy claiming to be starving, needing anything you can give him. So lots of kind people hand him bananas and apples, things to keep him alive, you know. But there’s a big Welcome to Vancouver sign nearby, behind which is a mountain of bananas, apples, muffins and such that the guy chucks as soon as you drive off. So I give these people change sometimes, but I’m always a little leery, too.

Aging Man Seeks Non Flammable Retirement

Hello person reading my blog! Long time, no see. I haven’t written here for a while, and I have been nutso busy. After today I am going to be busy again for a couple weeks, too, so this is my tiny oasis of time to write something.

Prior to this weekend our chess club held its annual big tournament. It’s online at SwissSys.com/events under Langley Open if you’re curious. For the weeks leading up to the event, I go crazy with emails and calls; and the weekend it happens I basically work about 14 hours a day for several days. We had 88 players this year, and it went off so well I am excited to run another one! After this weekend I start studying for an exam I have to take for work. I tried to study at work when I wasn’t on the clock, but the material is so monstrously boring that my eyes glaze over and my head starts bobbing within minutes. The carrot at the end of this stick is that if I can pass this exam I will be qualified to be a foreman and fill in when my boss isn’t around. It’s a big jump in pay and will help my pension. One day, far in the future, it will help keep me in diapers and nutritional supplement drinks.

Speaking of retirement, I was hoping to move away to some sunny locale when I quit working. Somewhere with a lake, a junior hockey team to watch, and access to health care and grocery store options. Seems easy enough, half the towns you could name in BC would check all those boxes, it’s just that every summer one of those towns catches fire and gets evacuated now. I’d be on the run with my cats, photo albums and denture glue, trying to get somewhere less flammable. So maybe I’ll have to stay near the fire retardant coast which hasn’t had any big fires or evacuations yet. It could change I guess, but so far our rain forests and urban sprawl have managed to thwart any major fires, unlike the sun-soaked and crispy dry interior regions.

By the way, I’m so hungry right now my ass is trying to eat my chair. There are cabbage rolls in the oven and the house is starting to smell like heaven.

About two weeks ago I wrote a short story for NYC Midnight’s 500 word challenge. In the past, I usually put my story straight onto the blog, but I think I’m not supposed to, as they get first rights to publishing what you submit. Of course, I could get away with it probably as I’m not a literary figure, but more like a literary figurine. I don’t think my story is going anywhere and I don’t see it getting published, as I wrote into it some distasteful things. In a month or so when it has hit the official wastebin in the contest, I’ll put it on here.

Next time I write in here it will be Autumn – another summer will have expired. With all this talk about my retirement years, it gets me to wondering how many summers I might have left. If I die at the average age, I have about 21 left, and if I think back over the last 21, they went by very fast. Oh well, I’ve had a pretty good time and there’s reason to think that could continue for a while yet.