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Aug 30, 2008

Well, that's a stunner.

I mean, Michael Palin is a talented comedian and frankly, was one of the best performers in the Monty Python troupe.

The Dead Parrot sketch?

The Spanish Inquisition?

Spam?

The Lumberjack Song?

All legendary comedy bits. Add to this his work in the film A Fish Called Wanda, and he borders on legend.

But is he qualified to be vice-president of the United States?

John McCain's surprise announcement of Palin as his vice-presidential running mate is, well, curious.

First of all, to seek this office you have to be an American, and Palin is a Brit. That seems problematic.

Secondly, Michael Palin has never been commander of a state national guard, and he knows nothing about domestic commercial salmon fishing. Sure, he's won some leg wrestling matches with the odd Islamic fundamentalist extremist, but is he ready to be a heart beat away from the Oval Office?

I mean, the guy's a comedian and . . . What?

It's not MICHAEL Palin?

It's Sarah Palin? The lovely young governor of Alaska less well known than most MOHA directors?

Oh.

Never mind then.

Read more on Sarah Palin here.

But, if you'd rather see MICHAEL Palin perform the lumberjack song, here you go. Personally, I'd love to see either of the Palins plus McCain perform this at the Republican National Convention next week.

 

 

Aug 29, 2008

Interesting. Ever heard of the Oakville Oilers?

After yesterday's comment from me about MOHA and the OMHA and onerous travel, rising gasoline prices, and the plethora of rep hockey teams within 15 minutes of Oakville, readers pointed me to some interesting chatter.

On another web site, renowned for its anonymous postings, vile attacks and often cowardly commentary, is a thread about the Oakville Oilers. This is alleged to be an Oakville-based GTHL franchise to take flight in 2009-10, running a full slate of teams through midget.

No names, no details, just gossip. But interesting for a couple of reasons.

First, in my business you learn early that where there's smoke, there's fire. Maybe a small fire, but still, a fire.

Second, is the even-handed commentary, and the volume of commentary, attached to this thread by Oakville hockey parents.

I wrote what I wrote yesterday without benefit of having seen this stuff, but it does lend credence to my theory that Oakville parents are getting tired of hauling their kids all over creation to play rep hockey when there's a lot of rep hockey right next door.

I'm not posting a link to the site because frankly, 99 per cent of the other posts are fairly vile, cowardly commentary offered by the usual brave souls who like to thump their chests with from behind a curtain of anonymity. I won't promote their cause.

But many of you will know exactly of where I speak, and the really clever ones among you who know how to use Google can find the thread easily enough. There's a ton of reasons why such a development is virtually impossible without some amendments to the OHF's Lake Ontario Region boundaries -- and it might be simpler to resurrect the Meech Lake Accord than have that happen.

But still. I see smoke.

- - -

I was watching the Democratic convention last night and talking on the phone with Laura when CNN announced that singer Michael MacDonald would be performing on stage in Denver next.

Laura said: "Well you better go! You'll need something to blog about!"

It's an inside joke.

When I first met Laura she learned quickly that I was a big fan of the old Doobie Brothers, and not so much a fan of the newer version, which added Michael MacDonald (What a Fool Believes, etc etc). The running joke was that whenever he would appear -- and he became a fairly big solo act in the 1990s -- we'd say in unison: "It's Michael MacDonald. He ruined the Doobie Brothers."

Yes, I know. It's sad. But this is what passed for wit in our house. We need to get out more.

MacDonald was great last night, BTW.

- - -

Obama gave a great speech last night, one which surely rocked the Republicans because Obama is the best orator among active politicians in America today. I found the speech fascinating in that it was big on partisan politics and low on the sweeping majesty stuff so often littered in acceptance speeches.

He went right into campaign mode, which was an interesting decision, no doubt driven by the knowledge that he had the biggest primetime TV political audience maybe in history. He wanted to define what separates him from McCain. Voters will decide if he did.

Anyway, that's my pop analysis.

John McCain's campaign ran a very classy ad congratulating Obama, a black man, on winning the presidential nomination and doing it on an historic day -- the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech in Washington. That was a smart thing to do.

Interesting times ahead.

- - -

I expect I will be working through much of Labour Day Weekend, but I hope you're not. School starts Tuesday, Chris has Dick Decloe next week, the first Ranger rep game of the season for us is less than two weeks away and we will soon be back in the saddle of hockey.

Bring it on.

Endless summer? Not a chance.

Enjoy your weekend.

 

Aug 28, 2008

While we enjoy the sunny late-August days of summer, back in Cape Breton they've seen nothing sunny since my smile got on a plane Sunday night. Rain, rain, and more rain. So Laura and the boys are getting a little stir crazy, and my position on the s--t list rises higher each day. Mornings are easy -- the boys like to sleep late and even Laura enjoys a slow start to a day with tea and newspapers. But the afternoons become a bigger challenge when it's too wet to golf or swim or any of that fun stuff.

Sorry guys. But the five-day forecast for the weekend looks much better for you. Here's hoping. I wish I was there.

- - -

My days have quickly found a routine of getting up at 6:30a, catching a train and then working. I get home by 8p, and the last two nights I've actually cooked for myself. Pizza Nova and Swiss Chalet are picketing the house. I channel surf politics, baseball and tennis, listen to music, work a little and talk on the phone. By 11:30p I'm ready to crash and the cycle repeats.

So what I can tell you from last night is that Bill Clinton still has his fastball -- his speech to the Dems was terrific and if you like politics at all, I hope you saw it. He may be the best stump speaker I've ever seen and he also gave the one of the greatest political speeches Canada has ever heard while he was president. In the fall of 1999 at an international conference on federalism at Mount Tremblant, Quebec, Clinton gave a reasoned and virtually bullet-proof defence of federalism with Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard sitting right in front of him.

Anyway, I digress. The point is no one -- no one -- can rally a crowd or a cause like Bill Clinton. He comes will steamer trunks of baggage, but he can still hit big league pitching (to torture my baseball metaphor one more time.) It was fun to watch and the Republicans have no one who can match him.

- - -

While watching the warm up acts to Clinton (and flipping over to the Jays and US Open tennis) I ventured way down the dial on my iPod and rediscovered two old classic albums.

The first was Neil Young's 1972 Harvest. I listened to it twice. Harvest may be the greatest album ever released by a Canadian -- and Neil Young is, without doubt, the greatest Canadian singer-song writer (with apologies to Leonard Cohen and Anne Murray and Paul Anka and Gordon Lightfoot and and and . . .  His body of work spans five decades and he's still going strong, discovered as fresh and new by every generation that comes along. He's amazing.)

The other one I listened to was 1973's Wings' album, Band on the Run. Probably Paul McCartney's most successful post-Beatles recording, it won gazillions of awards. But more importantly, the music actually stands up really well. My two least favourite songs on the record are the title song and another AM-radio hit of the day, Jet. There are much better songs on the LP if you take the time to listen to it -- and you should!

- - -

Pad's AA minor midget Ranger team have started pre-season skating (without him) as have most rep teams. For kids in his age group it's an interesting time. Major bantam and up are the years when kids start dropping out of organized hockey -- for house league kids, they find other interests in high school they want to pursue (football, volleyball, beer, girls, etc.)

Rep-level players start dropping out to play house league, or to play high school hockey, or also pursue other interests that high school presents.

And for kids who are 15 going on 16, their school grades matter. They have to grind the books so that when they hit Grade 11 and 12, they are ready to compete for spots in colleges and universities, to win scholarships, etc. And make no mistake, it's a competition.

The workload at school makes rep hockey not terribly appealing to some kids, or their parents.

Finding yourself in Orangeville on a Monday night in January for a game that starts at 9:30p or 10p means you don't get home until after midnight and you're up early the next day for school.

And yet less than 20 minutes away there are at least eight minor midget AA rep teams in Mississauga that Oakville, Brampton and Burlington are not allowed to play with. We're in the OMHA, so we have to pack a wagon train and head off for Guelph or Ancaster or Fergus or Georgetown or . . .You get the idea.

And don't get me wrong. I like the OMHA. I think the hockey is better, I love seeing the towns, and even GTHL coaches I've met speak enthusiastically about the gritty brand of hockey the OMHA has.

I raised this months ago and I heard all the bureaucratic reasons why it "can't" happen. That's fairly typical of Oakville in a lot of things, not just hockey. People will line up 10 deep to defend the status quo, or tell you why a new idea sucks, or to say why this or that won't work.

So Oakville parents have to spend $1000 a year more on gasoline travelling around southern Ontario when we live next door to lots of teams that are, in many instances, better than the ones we travel to play.

It might not change this year or next or the year after that. And my kids will be long gone from the system when it does change. But mark my words, it will change. $1.30 gas (or $2 gas, or $4 gas) will drive the change - - families (even OAKVILLE families) will get sick of spending the money on travel to go to Elora on Tuesday night. It's called a tipping point.

If it doesn't change, people will vote with their feet. Kids will bolt from Oakville in larger numbers to play in the GTHL, and you can bet the the GTHL and the MHL will eventually make rules to accommodate them and their money. Or they will do something other than hockey.

Which brings me back to where I started, with the kids. If you make hockey an expensive nuisance for the parents (gas, travel time, etc.) and inconvenient for the kids (trying to get by on six hours of sleep) they will leave or quit. Wait and see.

 

Aug 27, 2008

Channel surfing last night was a little more complicated -- not only did I have the Democratic convention and the US Open tennis, but Roy Halladay was pitching for the Jays last night (and wow, they actually gave him six runs of offence for a change and he won handily.)

So, I have surfer's thumb today. I'll get over it with proper treatment.

- - -

Hillary blew the doors off the convention hall in Denver last night. A really first-class speech on the 88th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the US Constitution that extended the right to vote to women, Clinton gave her unequivocal support to the party's presumptive nominee, Barak Obama.

She could have been difficult. She could have been bitter. She could have held back her enthusiasm.

She did none of that, and took the high road, and then some. Thousands of Democrats are no doubt wondering why her name is not on the ticket now instead of Joe Biden.

It's a good question. Read more here.

- - -

Speaking of elections, it's looking increasingly like Canadians might be voting on Oct 14, which means things around here will be busier than . . . than a news agency covering a federal election? Something like that.

Conventional thinking is that Obama is going to win the US election, and a Democratic win will boost Liberal fortunes here, so the Tory prime minister wants to get his election out of the way first to avoid that prospect.

I dunno. We should know by this time next week. Predicting Canadian elections and cabinet shuffles is only moderately more difficult than predicting the weather in Cape Breton in January, or understanding the Oakville Ranger rep tryouts. Chants and beads might help.

- - -

I continue to be impressed with the pace of the work being done to built an additional rail line from Toronto to Hamilton (the construction comes within 30 feet of my parking spot at the GO Station.) It will be good to have additional rails lines for GO Transit to break down in.

Also, while I was gone the old Oakville Hydro building adjacent tot he GO Transit parking lot was knocked down, giving me an unfettered vew of . . . rubble. I think they plan to add some parking spots there.

And the Kerr Street exit off the QEW is also now gone, ending the fun game of taking the Kerr Street exit and then turning left, seeing if you could get to Dorval faster than the cars that took the Dorval exit. Come on -- you know you did that. Right?

I just want the bridge on Fourth Line back. And I want it NOW.

Anyway, leave town for two weeks and the place gets a makeover. Sorta, kinda.

- - -

Mats Sundin, if you are reading today, please call me. You're time is up, dude.

- - -

The LPGA is in the news, and for all the wrong reasons. The premiere women's golf circuit in the world is insisting that all it's members speak English. The tour has a fair number of athletes who have a first language other than English, most notably South Koreans, where some of the world's most exciting and talented young women golfers are from.

The reason is that if the athletes can't communicate with the fans, the media and (most importantly) the sponsors, then the tour will be in serious financial trouble.

While I understand the economic issue, this just feels heavy handed and wrong. As someone who has at one time or another spent many, many hours in a mostly futile bid to learn the language of Moliere, I have an acute understanding of the challenges of learning a second language later in life.

I rarely watch women's golf, but when I do it's not to listen to them speak. The same with women's tennis. Or women's beach volleyball. OK, OK. I watch that for a different reason.

But my point is that I watch to see the athletes do athletic things.

Sponsors, on the other hand, want to be able to talk to the participants. Every tournament has a Pro-Am day and if some big-wig CEO shells out five figures to play with a pro with a couple of his buddies, he's not going to enjoy it much if she can't talk to them. And he won't come back. And therein lies the problem.

There has to be a better way. Read more here.

- - -

Was a dark stormy night
As the train rattled on
All the passengers had gone to bed
Except a young man with a baby in his arms
Who sat there with a bowed-down head
The innocent one began crying just then
As though it's poor heart would break
One angry man said, "Make that child stop it's noise
For it's keeping all of us awake."


--Grandma's Theme, Tradition American folk music

 

John Mellencamp included this on his Scarecrow album way back in the 1980s, and as I was flying to Toronto on Sunday night I couldn't get the song out of my head. And that was because on both legs of trip a young boy -- maybe 18 months old -- was sitting three rows behind me, as if stalking me, screaming his head off. The kid screamed from Sydney to Halifax non-stop. He screamed for the first 40 minutes and last 40 minutes of the Halifax to Toronto leg.

He screamed like he was being forced to sit through a MOHA board meeting. He screamed like he'd been told that his new babysitter was Brittney Spears. He screamed like someone just game him season tickets to the Leafs and he had to use them. He screamed like he was told he was moving to Georgetown.

I mean, he really, really screamed.

There's not much you can do. Throwing a soft drink at the boy won't help (trust me.)

Laura and I have many hours of experience hauling toddlers across the continent and all you can do is hope they fall asleep. (Gravol helps.)

Pad racked up more miles between Nova Scotia and Edmonton before he was two than most people travel in a lifetime, and I have no doubt we annoyed some people along the way.

Sunday made for a generally miserable flight for the rest of us and one can only turn up the volume on the iPod so far for so long before inflicting inner ear damage.

Having said that, a tip: if trying to drown out a screaming toddler, I recommend Guns N' Roses (Paradise City), or if you want something more contemporary, Linkin Park (anything).

 

Aug 26, 2008

I'm back.

- - -

  • Got to Oakville Sunday night at 11:30p. I won't slag Air Canada out of respect for the readers whom I know work there. But it was grim.

  • Anyone who knows how hard it is to find a slice of pizza at 11:35p on a Sunday night in Oakville, raise your hand.

  • Monday was tough. Everything I did was measured in the context of what I was doing 24, 36, or 48 hours earlier. The GTA lost on every count.

  • On the train home last night four drunk guys from North Bay, Ont., sang David Wilcox songs before they thankfully got of at the CNE. It wasn't pretty, but everyone was pretty good humoured about it. I mean, been there, done that. Right?

  • Nerd test: if you're flipping channels between the Democratic National Convention in Denver on C-SPAN and US Open tennis, you're a nerd. I at least have the advantage of being able to email reporters on site and taunt them. But I acknowledge my nerd status just the same.

  • The Swiss Chalet guy missed me. Or, so he says. I'm not buying it. I'm holding out for extra fries.

  • I finished the Eric Clapton autobiography. If I may summarize: he grew up poor; he liked music; he got drunk and met women; he became talented at being drunk and a guitar player; he resented commercial success; he liked the money; he liked cocaine; he really liked heroin; he really, really liked booze; with all three he was a real swell guy; way beyond the point that most people would die, he acknowledged he had a problem; he met a lot of women; he broke up his best friend's marriage; he got really really drunk; he got help; he failed; he got help; he got straight; something really awful happened that he didn't cause; he got past it after a long time; he did some good stuff. Oh, and he got really, really stinking rich. My review: A good slap across the chops early on might have made all the difference. He was a jerk. Don't waste your money on his book. He has lots of money.

  • I'm doing laundry. It's not pretty.

  • If you order Swiss Chalet and put it in the oven while you're doing laundry, take it OUT of the plastic tray and put it on something that won't melt. I'm just sayin' . . . theoretically.

  • Jimmy Carter looks old, but has any former president ever made more of his time as an ex-president as this man? A not-great president, a great citizen of the world.

  • Caroline Kennedy. Is it just me, or is she OK? Never became a celebrity attention whore. You have to respect that. I'd take her to Kinoak for hot chocolate. Metler would pay. He'll buy hot chocolate for anyone. I've seen it.

  • I should have ordered two half chicken dinners. They probably have a rule about that.

  • Caroline's introducing her uncle Ted's tribute. Oh my. Biggest. Ovation. For. A. Drunk. Ever.

  • Jankovic is winning in straight sets.

  • John McEnroe is one of the three best colour commentators in television today. He may be simply the best.

  • What's the deal on Tide HE? Special overpriced detergent for overpriced washing machines? HE? Is that like High Definition detergent? Anyone know? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

  • Tomorrow is recycling day. I have NOTHING to put out. I'm gonna stand on the sidewalk with my hand on my hips and smile smugly, with my head moving slowing from side to side, nodding. I'll be so smug. I'm saving the planet for the whales. And I don't mean Charles and Camilla. Next week, the whales are on their own again. (Update: I had a big bin of unread Oakville Beavers and Oakville Today that I did put out. Does anyone actually read Oakville Today? It's usually in pieces on my lawn.)

  • Ted's done. Michelle Obama up next. Time to check the laundry. Later dudes.

- - -

There's an interesting piece in the Globe this morning on kids and sports and year-round training. The emphasis is on hockey and the hook for the piece is the decision last week by Stefan Legein -- an Oakville kid -- to retire from hockey at 19.

The premise explored was, naturally, burnout, though Legein has not addressed why he decided to take a break.

Interesting question, with no easy answer.

Every kid is different and I know kids who sign up for summer 3-on-3 at Canlan and go to the rink every night with their gear waiting to sub on a team needing bodies. That doesn't sound like a kid having hockey force fed to him/her.

On the other hand, there's no question that there are kids out there doing summer hockey and whatnot because a parent thinks they need to keep their "edge." Whatever that is.

Hang around a rink sometime and listen to the way some AAA parents of 9 and 10 and 11 year old kids talk. A conversation among Oakville parents I overheard at a rink in Brampton last winter was, in a word, disgusting. They slagged kids on their own team like they were escaped convicts.

I remember reading Wayne Gretzky -- he played hockey in the 80s and 90s with some success -- say once that at the end of hockey season he threw his skates in the closet and he played baseball (his first love) from dawn to dark.

Like I said earlier, all kids are different and there's no right answer for everyone.

Our experience? Pad played a couple of seasons of summer hockey at Canlan but bailed out in favour of rep lacrosse. He hasn't had his skates on since April and I don't think he's missed them. Minor midget AA is starting up and he will be in better shape from lacrosse than a lot of players, I have no doubt. As for his edge? I don't worry about his "edge." Whatever that is.
Chris plays a limited 10-week 3-on-3 shinny season organized by parents that ended a month ago. He LOVES it. Chris can't wait to get to the rink, and he too, played lacrosse in the summer.

The Globe article talks about parents paying $5000 for hockey camps and training. I guess if you can afford it (I can't) then, well, go nuts. Will it improve your kid as a player? Maybe. Will it get him to the NHL? No. Not in my view. Good athletes become the best players with good coaching. If your kid isn't a good athlete, no amount of camps or training will make him one. He may have fun, or he may burn out. But it won't get him to the NHL.

In any given season there are 4,000 kids playing hockey in Oakville. The chance that even one of them will go to the NHL is remote and shrinking as European players take more and more places in the drafts.

If your motivation is to get your get to the NHL, seek counseling. You have a problem.

All kids should be encouraged to chase dreams, whether they are 8 or 12 or 15 or 19. As a parent, my job is to make sure they have fun and they are safe and they can chase those dreams as long as they like. We get them where they need to be. We support the coaches and team staff. If extra ice time and some Dick Decloe training makes them a little better, great. They'll enjoy the game a little more if they have more skills to compete with. It's also part of my job to keep them busy -- in sports, out of courts, as the saying goes.

That's what works for us. Your mileage may vary. But my retirement planning isn't built around an NHL signing bonus.

Anyway -- read the Globe story here.

 

Aug 24, 2008

(Eds note: This is your Monday update. Unless I get inspired on the train in the morning. And like, don't bet on it.)

- - -

It's Sunday afternoon and we're kind of catching our breath. We packed up and left Ingonish this morning, always a bit of a mournful exercise, and it was especially so because of the blazing sun and the promise of another perfect day. But if there was good news, it was that we were collectively almost "perfectly-days'd out" after the run we had in the last week.

When last we left you, our whale watching was postponed and golf lesson abandoned.

Then came Friday.

Friday was the type of day you think about in January, when your arm is tried from trying to scrape the ice off your windshield and your head is full of agenda items for big meeting or a detail that needs to be checked on a contract or whatever your world presents. Friday was the type of day that as a father, you think about when you're pushing a baby carriage around the block or holding a colicky baby and you think, "some day I'm going to go golfing with this boy, just us. It will be great."

Friday was, simply put, that day.

Pad and I arrived at the Highland Links for our 8:10a tee time to be informed that we'd be playing as a twosome, just us. The sky was a brilliant clear blue -- vacation blue, to regular readers -- and there wasn't even a breath of wind. It was 12 degrees when I got up at 7a. It was 22 when we teed off, the temperature hit 28 in short order.

The Highland Links is a bear of a course and on queue, the starter cautioned us that there were three bears on the course and if we saw them we were told what to do. We never did.

The highlight of the day was on the par-3 third hole, about 155 yards. I hit a high seven iron that landed on the front edge, took one small jump and rolled hole-high, about 12 feet left of the hole. The Foursome in front of us were watching and yelled their approval.

The best was yet to come.

Pad stepped up and also hit a seven, that landed a little short but caught a wondrous bounce off a bank, and then rolled right at the hole, and stopped 18 inches short. The guys in front of us REALLY enjoyed that one, as did I.

Pad tapped in for his deuce, I missed mine on the top edge. An older gentleman in the group in front yelled back at Pad, "Great shot!" and he waved and smiled.

I yelled back.

"That's MY kid!"

The old gentleman grinned and gave me the thumbs up.

I haven't had as much fun golfing in ages. A perfect four and half hours.

- - -

By the end of the day, the events on the golf course, as grand as they were, would be relegated to second-tier status. After a quick lunch after golf, we headed off for the whale watching excursion. It was a highlight not of the day or week, but of the year and the decade.

The Zodiac Whale Tours depart from the modest government wharf at north Ingonish. Patrons put on survival suits (they float) and the pilot then takes you out of the harbor, toward the open waters of the Cabot Strait off Neil's Harbour.

Here's Pad in his suit, looking like he's heading for the flight deck of a space shuttle.

When we headed out Chris sat on the bow and had the best view of everything. There's something to be said for being the youngest (and in this instance, smallest. He better enjoy it -- his days of being smallest are closing fast.)

 

I think when most people -- me included -- think of whale watching you think, oh, that sounds interesting, and not much else. But this was really a moving experience.

The first animals we saw were porpoises -- small and playful, but still thrilling to us. We had no idea what we were in for.

The pilot was on the radio talking to fishermen, asking whether they had seen the pod of finback whales that had been feeding in the area. Yes, replied one boat. About a mile north of me. Off we went.

Finback whales are the second largest creature in the world, after the blue whale.

We got the appointed area and the pilot cut the engine. The ocean was about as flat as you're likely to find Atlantic water and we bobbed silently in a soft rolling sea.

The pilot -- a bit of a character and showman -- cooed into the void, calling for the whales to appear.

"Come on little guys. Don't be shy. You know you want to see us."

We just sat for about three minutes and then off to the left, about 500 metres away ---SHWOOOOSHHHHH -- the sound of a whale surfacing and blowing through it's blow hole. We all turned in time to see the massive spout of mist and water and a big dark back submerging. The pilot started the boat and we raced over.

It's really hard to do justice to these animals with words. What you see above is about the most you see of a finback whale in the wild. They don't jump out of the water like Orcas -- but if you were 60 to 75 feet long and weighed 75 tonnes, you wouldn't jump a lot either.

After surfacing and taking several deep blows, or breaths, they submerge again. And they're gone. They can stay gone for 10 minutes or longer, so we waited. And waited.

And then that sound again, and off about 400 metres, more spouts. Honestly, it was like being in the middle of a bunch of submarines.

I was told by the locals that this image, above, is a tough one to get -- you can clearly see spouts from four whales, almost simultaneously. It looked, and sounded way more impressive in person.

Here's another, with three spouts.

At the closest we got within maybe 25 feet of a whale, which for me is close enough to a 60-foot creature. And it's hard to express but there was an overwhelming sense of calm -- there was never a sense that as large as these things are that they posed a threat to us, or more importantly that they sensed any harm from us. You could just tell.

I found it to be quite an enlightening hour and 15 minutes. Three miles offshore, the gannetts are diving for fish, the whales are feeding; there's a whole other world out there at our doorstep, no doubt annoyed to some measure about what humans are doing to the planet, and who could blame them?

As I mentioned, finback whales are the second largest creature in the world, after the blue whale. If you ever get the chance to see one, go. Before it's too late.

- - -

Saturday was 30-plus degrees, and sunny in a relentless, you-can-run-but-you-can't hide kind of way. But we did run -- into the ocean, out of the ocean, repeat until tired.

As Pad said, it was "stupid hot."

We have friends who have a cabin down the beach from where we stayed this week (actually, the blue place in the photo above) and we had dinner there Saturday night. The light on the beach and the hills beyond was perfect. Here's the view.

Laura and the boys are spending another week in Ben Eoin with her folks. Duty calls and I'm headed back to Toronto. Within 24 hours I'll be bitching about GO Transit and all of this will feel like it happened weeks ago, not hours ago.

Life is funny.

If you're at all familiar with an early 1980s film, Local Hero, that's exactly my state of mind right now. If you're familiar with it, I recommend you rent it some evening. A wonderful movie.

We stopped en route from Ingonish to Ben Eoin at a favourite take-out place for a feed of fried clams, which went some distance to improving my disposition. Always check to make sure you're getting whole clams. Clam strips aren't worth the bother.

- - -

Oh. The Olympics are over. We had the closing ceremonies on the TV while we packed up this morning. Canada won a bunch of medals (18) and finished tied for 13th or something. More medals than Canada won in either Athens or Sydney. All very exciting, of course. No word on how the Chinese people locked away without benefit of trial or representation are doing, and not much word on awarding medals for free speech and breakthroughs in basic human rights. Why of all the places on Earth they could hold the Olympics did they decided on China? (Um, the answer is money. It always is. Human rights and advancements in free speech were not part of the math.)

If you're interested in more, read this from the Boston Globe.

- - -

Less cynically, I asked Chris this morning if he thought we'd all be in Cape Breton watching the Olympics in London in 2012. He said he thought there would be just me and Laura and him. "What about Pad?," I asked.

"Oh, he'll be 18 so he'll have his own house. That's the rule."

Hmm. Interesting rule (and maybe not a bad one.) Who's rule is this I asked?

"Homer Simpson," said Chris. "You turn 18 and you're out the door! That's the rule!"

OK. I'm writing it down.

 

Aug 22, 2008

No whale watching on Thursday because of high winds, and again not a great beach day because of the temperature. Laura slept a little later than usual, the kids slept in longer, and I did two conference calls with Toronto, because I miss them so much.

Once we realized the 1:30p whale excursion was a no-go, we did the sensible thing and went out to lunch, and then hiked the Middle Head trail that takes you about 2.5 kilometres out to a rocky point literally in the middle North Bay and South Bay.

Yesterday's hike in the river valley was fairly true to old fire roads, so it was mostly level. We encountered one other person on the trail. Thursday's hike was on the one hand more arduous -- hilly, narrow paths snaked with tree roots and roots, waiting to snare an ankle -- but there must have been 50 other people on the trail coming and going. It was more like a nature walk than a hike per se, but there were no Blackberries or PSPs or laptops or blogs.

One reason the trail is popular is its proximity to Keltic Lodge, the area's only true resort hotel -- pool, spa, gourmet dining room, etc. The other reason is the spectacular vistas off the trail, which at times are breathtaking and intimidating.

The good people at Parks Canada have taken care to post warnings for people like, um, Chris.

When they suggest the cliffs are dangerous they are not kidding and it's really easy to find yourself getting way too close to the edge. The cliffs are impressive in that often, there is virtually no toe hold to grab should you make a bad decision and find yourself in trouble. Below, Pad inspects the view from a safe distance.

One of the things that will tempt you into looking over the edge is the wildlife. Like this big fat gray seal sunning itself in one of the coves at the bottom of the cliffs. We were hoping to spot some whales a little further from shore, but the seal was good enough to hold our attention on Thursday.

On the hike back to the car we also saw a very large bald eagle. We kept waiting for it to take flight, and I think it kept waiting for us to put the camera away. So, this is the best we came up with. Again, still very cool to see a creature like this in the wild.

Oh. And rainbows. It never really rained over the past two days but there was some mist at times, even when it was sunny. So, there were rainbows. It's getting that you can't swing a dead cat here without seeing a rainbow. Or marine mammals. Or bald eagle. Or sea birds diving head first into the bay for herring. On second thought, it's a pretty spectacular place. This was the view of the rainbow from our deck.

Pad and I are up early for golf Friday. And then we immediately take another run at the Zodiac boat whale tour thing. Weather is forecast to be awesome bordering on spectacular. Hopefully we'll have some interesting pictures for a weekend blog update and no whales (or Oakville residents) will be injured in the process.

Till then, cheers.

 

 

Aug 21, 2008

We never did get the golf lesson for Pad. There's no driving range at the Highlands Links, but the pro has a practice area off site some place. He told us to meet him at the post office at the appointed hour and we'd drive there. We waited and waited and waited, but he never showed up.

Turns out that tiny Ingonish has two post offices, and we were at the wrong one. That's the way life goes sometimes.

So Pad dragged himself out of bed at the unseemly hour of 9a -- imagine! -- for a 10a lesson that never happened. I offered to reschedule but he said he'd rather sleep in.

He has truly become a teenager.

All of which is to say there was no golf at all yesterday -- or today for that matter.

The weather stayed sunny but the thermostat was dialed back to about 18 degrees, which meant it wasn't an attractive beach day either. So Laura put on her boots and took us all on a hike up the Clyburn Valley, a wonderful old-growth birch canyon that follows the Clyburn Brook (it's more like a river) up into the highlands to the ruins of an old gold mine. We did about 3.5 kilometres in -- which is most of the way -- before turning back down the trail. Chris said seven kilometres was plenty for him.

Here's a shot of the boys by the creek -- it give you a partial sense of the valley.

 

 

A little further down the canyon we were able to get right on the river bed and --wait! what's that? an old log? Let's throw rocks at it. And we did. It's a guy thing. Laura patiently waited.

 

When we turned to walk back, Chris walked with his mother the whole way and she said he chattered the whole time. If you know Chris, then you know this isn't unusual.

Pad walked with me and I couldn't have dragged a complete sentence out of him with a tractor. He'll be 15 next month and most of his communication is done in single-syllable bursts. Though only separated by three years, the boys are now often separated by diverging interests and priorities. The days of turning them loose on the family room floor with 10,000 pieces of Lego are long, long gone. In spite of that they share their passion for sports, and they both love guitar, and Chris learns much of what he knows about music and pop culture from his older brother. They get on remarkably well and the sort of brawls that can highlight brotherly relationships in these years have, thankfully, been avoided thus far.

In the old Bugs Bunny cartoons of my youth there was a reel with a bulldog and a much smaller, energetic, yappier pup. "What are we gonna do today Spike? Huh Spike? Huh? Huh? Wanna chase some cats?" Spike was always indifferent, or so it seemed. At the end of the cartoon you found it was not actually the case. It reminds me of the boys.

When we were walking back and almost off the trail, Chris decided he was going to run the rest of the way. It just struck me as a nice photo of two brothers and the younger one working hard to keep up, or ahead.

 

- - -

It's still sunny today, but not much warmer, and very windy. Our next golf game is scheduled for Friday morning -- Friday and Saturday are supposed to be major league nice here with sunny skies and temperatures hitting 26 or 27.

The main event today is a whale watching expedition in a zippy Zodiac boat. We're all quite pumped up about this. I'll let you know how it goes because right now it's really windy. Wind and water means, prepare to get wet.

 

Aug 19, 2008

Today was better, weather-wise, than Monday, and Monday was amazing. It was about 27 and sunny today with a better onshore wind, meaning great waves and warmer water.

Me and the Padman were up early for our tee time at the Highland Links, a bear of a course if you ever get the chance but blessed with some breathtaking vistas. Me and Pad stopped just short of bringing the course to its knees, unless maybe it fell down laughing at us. I managed to play a stretch on the back in one over over five holes, but the rest of my day was unremarkable. Pad's getting a lesson from the local pro tomorrow, and while he does that I'll be doing things with my laptop, sadly. No, not blogging.

We lit a bonfire on the beach last night and met some folks from Ajax. Nothing like fire, marshmallows and kids to create an instant mixer.

Chris gives his review to one of his creations, below:

And we were treated to a sight the likes of which I can't ever recall seeing in all the times I've been to Ingonish -- a moon rise over North Bay. It was so slow at first I thought it was the light from a cruise ship passing by in the gulf, but it was the moon. Orange and bright it soon dominated the evening sky and cast a light across the water that, as a more famous writer once said about a different time of year, it gave a luster of midday to objects below.

Naturally I tried valiantly to capture this wonder for loyal blog readers to enjoy, but I failed. Shooting an image of the moon in near darkness is not one of my strengths.

Take my word for it though. It was cool.

We spent the afternoon on the beach in the pursuit of nothing in particular and watched the gulls dive for herring with precision that our Olympic divers would do well to emulate.

More of the same tomorrow, we hope.

 

Aug 18, 2008

We woke -- correction -- I woke (everyone else was sleeping) to a brilliant Cape Breton morning. No pelting rain in sight, at least for the next couple of days, although anyone who has ever been to Nova Scotia knows that can change in about a minute.

Anyway, here's the view this morning from the front porch.

 

That big bright thing in the sky is apparently called "sun." Weird.

- - -

We arrived here about 5:30p last night and were delighted to find that absolutely nothing had changed in the 12 months since we were last here. Ingonish is a state of mind as much as it is a geographic location. Everyone has a such a place in their lives I think, whether it's a favourite lake north of Toronto, a mountain retreat, a rustic camp in the woods, whatever. This is ours.

- - -

A bit of a travelogue to amuse you -- the big news on the trip here yesterday was that there's a new ferry at Englishtown -- a small village on the Cabot trail where travellers pay $5 (until a few years ago it was 50 cents) to cross the narrow channel that separates St Annes Bay from, basically, a slow route to Ireland. Below is the line of cars (I think there were seven in total) waiting for the ferry at Englishtown. On the other wide the ferry lands on a sand bar and from there you have about a 40 minute drive to Ingonish, up and down the sides of cliffs and hills. Yes, a bridge would make more sense. It's Englishtown. Please turn your clocks back accordingly.

 

Once you get off the ferry the drive is scenic but uneventful until you get to Cape Smokey, where you basically go from sea level to about 700 feet up in about two kilometres.

I asked Laura to snap some pics as we drove up Smokey, following a rented van full of tourists who wisely took their time after narrowly missing two moose that were standing in the road about 10 minutes before we took this photo. We narrowly missed them narrowly missing the moose, so there is no photo of the cow and her young calf.

The thing about this drive up Smokey is that the other side of the guard rail is pretty much straight down. So, in the following photo, if you miss the hairpin turn, you'd better be taxiing a plane, not driving a car. Otherwise, you're on the news, dude.

 

We and the van full of tourists both made it around the bend OK. If you look out the side over the guard rail (I don't recommend the driver do this) this is what you see.

- - -

That about covers it from here. I understand the Olympics roll on on the other side of the planet and Oakville continues to alternate between sun and rain and sun. We're going to the beach, which is 60 feet away and deserted. The commute will be fairly easy and this afternoon I plan to pick up a book (Clapton -- The Autobiography) and fall asleep with it on my nose.

Later.

 

Aug 17, 2008

Eds Note -- Limited Internet access means no time to do hyperlinks. Sorry

We woke up Saturday morning to the sound of a pelting rain -- if I wrote songs, I'd write one called "Pelting Rain" and it would serve as the soundtrack for the summer of 2008 thus far.

By the time we got organized enough to pack the car the rain had stopped -- the bad news was that meant I actually had to go out and pack the car. It was not easy.

It never is, but it was more challenging this time because Pad and I had flown directly into Halifax, meaning there was no opportunity to double up on suitcases and conserve space in Ben Eoin. Plus, my golf clubs came in a big-hard-shell travel case, which takes up a lot of room. But protecting the Taylor Made r580 is important.

Anyway, I managed to get everything in and there was enough room left over for maybe a baseball hat.

Chris, who always has the best words to put thing in perspective stood in the street surveying the back of the borrowed SUV.

"Dad," he said. "You must have been very good at Tetris if you could fit all that stuff in there."

You bet buddy. I'm the Tetris packing champ.

- - -

We did get our golf in on Friday and we had a great time. Ashburn's new course is a bit of a beast and it was particularly unkind to my older son, but he endured the ugly holes with quiet frustration and good humor, traits I will say I did not have as a 15-year-old golfer.

The course didn't treat the rest of us much better but after the first five or six holes I actually played pretty well from tee to green -- it was the hands of stone which defined my short game that did me in.

Hugh and Kevin were both pretty good off the tee and like me both found creative ways to inflate their scores with errant chips and putts and other such things.

The beer afterward was cold and cleansing and as always the trip to Ashburn was a highlight of my time in Halifax. I've been a member there for 26 years and when I walk into the pro shop, the guy behind the counter still looks up and says hi to me like he saw me three days ago, not a year ago.

I like that.

- - -

We woke up today to -- guess? anyone? anyone? Bueller? -- a pelting rain. Actually, a driving rain. Ben Eoin is a soggy, wet corner of Cape Breton and I'm not going to pack the car for Ingonish until the rain stops. We will head off for Ingonish and seven nights right on the beach and what represents the only vacation that is selfishly just for the four of us alone. Golf, hiking, whale watching, football and lacrosse on the beach, evening bon fires by the bay, smores and tall tales around the fire, lots of sleeping in for those so inclined, lots of time to read non-business things, and generally relaxing. The weather forecast is mixed. The enthusiasm is clear and sunny.

- - -

Canada's medal drought came to its inevitable end and right now we have seven medals, including two gold. It's funny how during the Olympics we all actually start to care about where we rank against the superpowers, and against countries closer to our size. Generally in the summer games we compare poorly -- that's no intended slight to the athletes. The results tell the story. Australia made a decision prior to hosting the 2000 summer games that it was going to be a summer power, and they were -- and still are, despite a population and economy smaller than Canada's.

Our test will come in Vancouver in 18 months. I think the departure of Ken Read from the alpine ski program is a somewhat ominous development, given that under his leadership the program was again putting a premium on excellence and winning.

We shall see.

In the meantime, optimism reigns supreme for Canada over the next week. We'll be cheering too.

- - -

Michael Phelps' incredible run to true Olympic glory ended in Beijing with his eighth gold medal. His performance defines what it is to be a champion.

With his medley relay team in third place when he hit the water for the third leg of the race, Phelps took over and handed off to the anchorman a lead the Americans would never give up.

Phelps set seven world records and one Olympic record en route to eight gold medals. He achieved a personal best in every event he competed in.

If that's not a champion, I can't imagine what is. I hope the kids -- all the kids -- were paying attention. The last time someone did something like this was almost four decades ago in Munich.

 

Aug 15, 2008

Golf was rained out yesterday. We were on the practice tee under ominous skies when the skies went from ominous to wet. Very, very wet. So, that was that.

The original plans to have the women folk meet us at the club for steaks and merriment gave way to plans for an evening out at a downtown bistro, which was a big hit. Pad was a little disappointed he didn't get to battle test his new Cobra driver, but the sun is shining now and he'll get to let the big dog run later today.

This is our last full day in Halifax -- tomorrow we'll be decamping for Cape Breton. A one night stop in Ben Eoin to load up on provisions and then off to the highlands for a week. The weather this summer has been an adventure here as it has in Toronto, so what the Cape Breton highlands will hold for us, we don't know.

Laura and I could be happy just staring at the waves falling on the beach in a blizzard, but for the sake of the boys I hope we get some decent beach weather.

Me and Pad will tackle the Highland Links, one of Canada's toughest and most beautiful golf courses, and we're booking a Zodiac boat trip to see whales. Some good books, some hearty meals, long walks on the virtually deserted beaches.

I can't wait.

I gotta run. I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep . . .

 

Aug 14, 2008

I've only been on vacation for three days and I'm already having trouble remembering which day it is (I got the date wrong yesterday -- thanks to all who pointed it out). I think that's a good start.

There were no sporting events on the agenda yesterday but my sons wanted to go to Golf Town to sample the toys and Pad emerged with a new Cobra driver that is, as a friend of mine says, as big as a Volkswagen on a stick.

We'll find out later today whether it works in competition as well as it did on the test range when we head out to tackle Ashburn Golf Club's new course, site of two or three Canadian amateur championships and the home course of my youth. I maintain my membership there with out-of-province status (which makes it a lot cheaper but still lets me and my friends onto the property when I'm home. I'm sure the powers that be regret that.)

- - -

The other adventure of the day was IT related. I can run, but I can't hide.

The motherboard on my dad's laptop fried itself so I took it in for an estimate on repairs and the estimate came back: not worth it. So then we set about replacing it with a newer model and getting it configured and what not. All of which was remarkably easy and my dad is once again reading the baseball sections of North America's finest newspapers.

We celebrated with brownies

- - -

Driving in Nova Scotia is different than driving in southern Ontario. In the Toronto area if you're approaching an exit on 300 metres down the highway, a car two kilometres behind you will race to try to cut you off and make the exit before you. In Nova Scotia, the first car would slow down to a crawl on the off chance that the car two kilometres behind it might perhaps want to exit ahead of it. It's not uncommon for drivers in Halifax to stop at the mere sight of a pedestrian, again on the off chance of someone perhaps, maybe, wanting to cross a street.

So, in this context Pad commented the other day as we got on a highway that driving in Halifax is nothing like driving in southern Ontario. Noting that we were travelling 110 kilometres an hour and passing every car on the road, he laughed.

"In Toronto, if you go 110 kilometres an hour you wouldn't pass anyone -- everyone would pass you!"

Yes. They're all crazy.

- - -

How many gold medals has Michael Phelps won? 30? 40? I dunno. More than Canada, that's for sure.

Read all about his amazing run to record medal counts here.

Read all about Canada's dismal showing here. It's not good. Better things are predicted for the weekend and next week.

Do we care?

- - -

If you go into a Burger King and see an employee taking a bath in one of their giant stainless steel sinks, run. The bad news is that it wouldn't be the first time as folks in Xenia, Ohio could tell you. Read more here. Feel free to insert your own joke about the home of the Whopper.

 

Aug 12 13, 2008

We arrived in Nova Scotia and I've been too busy eating to sit at the laptop and bore you to tears with our adventures. Me and Pad hit the road Monday morning and had no trouble getting to Pearson in spite of departing at the launch of rush hour. We dumped the car at Park n' Ride and boarded the bus for T1. The first heavy traffic of the day we saw was outside the terminal as the taxis jockeyed for position and blocked off everything.

Once inside the terminal the next traffic jam was at baggage drop -- we'd printed our boarding passes the night before but Air Canada's new baggage policies dictate that all bags have to be weighed so Air Canada can suck a few more dollars out of passengers for overweight luggage. And this process does nothing to speed your transit through the airport.

The third traffic jam was at security, which if you travel much you will know is very typical at Pearson on a weekday morning, especially Monday. I got through fine but Pad had so many gizmos in his pack -- iPods, games, etc. -- that he got sidelined for a thorough check, which went fine.

Once on the plane, the very good news was that we had no one in the middle seat between us and we each slapped on our iPods and promptly ignored one another for the remainder of the flight.

- - -

The we arrived in Halifax. And then we started to eat. My mother should have been Italian or Jewish because no one gets in or out of the house without a meal. And mother mother can bake -- I mean really bake -- so Laura's birthday was belatedly marked with lemon meringue pie made from scratch, and she added on my favorite, strawberry rhubarb pie, just in case any one was bored with the lemon offering. And of course, there were brownies.

I actually had one meal this week that consisted entirely of pie and brownies. On vacation, these are two of the essential food groups.

- - -

Tuesday dawned with ominous gray skies and plans for golf. By 8:15a a light but steady rain was falling but -- no worries. A friend we were going to play with said he knew of a place in the Annapolis Valley where it never rained. It was a 75 minute drive to Eagle Crest Golf Club near Kentville, through wind and driving rain. And when we arrived, the parking lot was dry. We got a little heavy mist a couple of times but nothing serious and we indeed got our 18 holes in.

My front nine may have been the most forgettable stretch of golf I have ever played (which is saying something), but things got better on the back and my earlier tendency to resemble a roto-tiller gave way to some approaching golf. The weather guru had a very good day, just missing breaking 80, and Pad and Kevin (our host in Halifax) were variations of me -- kind of up and down. But it was a fun afternoon and we laughed a lot and no one got wet.

As a friend always says, "it's all good."

- - -

I've have been happily out of the news cycle for a couple of days but one of the more appalling items to pass over the Internets in the last 24 hours is the story of Yang Peiyi. She's the seven-year-old sweetie who sang "Ode to The Motherland" at the Beijing Games opening ceremony on Friday night -- or so we thought.

In a ham-fisted Communist take on the Millie Vanelli scandal of years ago, the morons in charge deemed Yang wasn't cute enough to be on TV as the face of China's future. They scoured the available minions and came up with a more acceptable sock puppet, pretty little Lin Miaoke, 9, who moved her lips to a recording of Yang singing.

The news of this has created quite a stir and has Chinese officials and Olympic apologists defending the move and downplaying the significance of the move.

Bull.

It's all propaganda and it's a 20-20 view into the wormy black hearts of both the Chinese politburo and the spineless Olympic apologists. It's an embarrassment for the people of China, who deserve better, even from their totalitarian regime.

What a joke.

You can read more here.

 

Aug 10, 2008

Good grief, have we had enough rain yet? When I drove Chris and Laura to the airport Thursday morning it rained so hard we could barely see. And all weekend in Hamilton it was sun then rain then sun. Last night's lightning show was fun to watch but made me a bit nervous running back and forth to the BBQ (which is under a tree). Pad and I agreed that wasn't really smart but as I noted: I have lightning speed. Those bolts could never catch me.

Yeah right.

- - -

Pad and I are wheels up for NS tomorrow and our house sitter arrives from the east later today. We usually coordinate it so that relatives from the east can visit here and use the house, and that way the place is never empty. But aside from cleaning up for that visit, I've got laundry and packing to do, though not much as I think we're in pretty decent shape on that front.

I can usually pack well enough to get me through a work assignment, although I have been know to forget the pants to a suit, for example. I'm a big-picture kind of guy. Detail work -- like, um, remembering pants -- is someone else's forte.

- - -

I will update the blog sometime Monday after arrival in NS, but I'm not sure when that will be. After lunch certainly, so today's entry will have to pass as your morning coffee reading for Monday.

- - -

Under the category of, I Thought of That First: Have you seen the new Nike ad? The one with all the images from the 1970s, 80s, 90s etc? John McEnroe, Michael Jordan etc etc set to a song that repeats "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier."

I have been known to make year-end videos for teams I coach or have some involvement with (although I haven't done it lately, other than my parents' 60th wedding anniversary last year.)

Anyway, I was going to do one for the bantam 1 Hawks lacrosse team last summer and had started rough production work and the song I was using was . . . . All These Things I've Done, by The Killers, which is the song in the that new Nike ad.

The big finish was going to be a rapid montage of image from the season, with the lyrics coming on the screen from the final stanza:

While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done
All these things that I've done

 

See? It's about learning and finding redemption and victory in the face of defeat? Get it? Get it? Anyone? Bueller?

So, would someone at Nike pay me big bucks to put emotional pictures to meaningful music? Because I have a lot of ideas like this. And for a million dollars, I'll move to Oregon. Nike, you know where to find me.

You can view the Nike ad below. Mine would have been better!

 

- - -

Best t-shirt I saw this weekend in Hamilton was one a midget player humping his goalie equipment into the rink:

"Playboy is a poor excuse for porn."

Cracked me up.

- - -

Brett Favre finally got his trade and the good news is that he won't have to have his stylist redo all his colours for him because he'll still be wearing green. I'm sure that was an important element of finding a place for him to play.

The Packers sending their hall of fame QB to the Jets is a big deal for Wisconsin, and it's interesting to football fans, but it would have been way bigger if they did it 10 years ago when he was in his prime.

Like when, almost 20 years ago to the day, the Oilers sent Gretzky to Los Angeles. Now that was a trade!

I was travelling in Nova Scotia covering a provincial general election when I heard the news and it was a stunner.

If you want to read more on Brett and his most excellent Big Apple Adventure, click here.

If you want to get all nostalgic and realize how fast 20 years can slide by, click here to recall the Gretzky trade.

- - -

I didn't watch much of the opening ceremonies of the Olympic game -- I'm not much on dancing and spectacle. But Friday night while I was getting dinner ready I reminded Pad that it was on and he tuned it in.

He actually came into the kitchen and said: "Dad, I know this stuff is usually pretty boring but once you start watching it's mesmerizing." This from a 14 year old.

So I watched the big finale.

I'd feel better about it if I thought that anyone carrying a "Free Tibet" sign would not be locked up and have their knuckles crushed. But that's just me.

- - -

The PGA Championship -- the minor major as it's known -- is supposed to conclude today outside Detroit. Detroit is enjoying the same weather we get which is to say, they're under water. No clue if they will get it done today.

Usually I'm catching glimpses of the PGA on TV in airport terminals as we come home from vacation. This year is one of the latest starts we've had for our summer break, so it's a different feeling.

But so far the weather has sucked big time in NS too (except for the week that Laura and the boys were there in July.) So we're hoping mind-August is a charm.

 

Aug 9,  2008

Another interesting day for the midget 2 Hawks in Hamilton at the provincial championships.

Every game today was an elimination game, which adds an element of pressure for the teams and adds a few decibels of volume for many of the parents.

Oakville had a 9a game with Milton, who advanced by virtue of a an 11-0 pasting of Six Nations 3 the night before. We have not played Milton this year so we didn't know what to expect. And certainly what we didn't expect was to be losing 3-0 after the first period, but that's what happened.

So, at this point I'm thinking "gee, I can golf this afternoon" or watch the PGA Championship on TV or whatever. But my mind is now moving along to other things because this is a team that doesn't play well when they're down.

So what happens?

The Hawks explode for five goals in the second period and take a 5-4 lead into the third. They extended that to 7-5 with a couple of minutes left and hung on for a gritty 7-6 win. Milton was eliminated, and one of their guys decided to run our goalie at the buzzer, just to prove how much class he had I guess.

So that set up a 2p game vs. St. Catharines -- we played them once earlier in the year and beat them so we're expecting a tough, competitive game.

It didn't disappoint. The teams basically traded goals most of the way and St. Kitts pulled out a 6-5 win to end our season. A late third period goal post by the Hawks was as close as they came to tying it. Instead of the chippy stupidness that so often characterizes the end of close midget lacrosse games, the Hawks played clean and hard, shook hands when it was over and left the floor with their heads up.

I think in a day or two the disappointment will give way to satisfaction --this team came a long way from it's winless field lacrosse season to be one of the final 10 teams at provincials.

Tomorrow all the boys can sleep in and no doubt, they will. Maybe some parents will, too.

I think they did better than many expected and they never quit. They beat some good teams. They came from behind to win. They handled losing with dignity and honor.

It was a good couple of days.

 

Aug 8, 2008

OK. Sorry. I didn't update as promptly as I said I would but the day didn't play out entirely as expected at midget provincial lacrosse championships.

Pad and the midget 2 Hawks drew Peterborough 2 in the first game -- Peterborough 2 having beaten them by 10 goals twice this season already. Peterborough 2, prohibitive favourites to make the provincial championship game.

Wednesday night when I arrived at Maplegrove to pick up Pad at practice, the coach had the team outside, sitting on the grass. He was talking. They appeared to be listening for a change.

I asked Pad what he had to say. Oh, just lineup stuff, he said.

That's all?

"He said he expected to play on Saturday."

The implicit message in that was that the team would have to win at least once on Friday. Two losses, and you're out. Opening against Peterborough made that a tough challenge.

In fact, here is a list of people (other than the coaches) who expected the Hawks to be within five goals of Peterborough today:

1.

2.

3.

That's a complete list too.

So, back to why I didn't update here this afternoon.

Simple. The Hawks beat Peterborough.

Peterborough who beat them twice already by 10 goals.

Maybe it was the music. Maybe it was the wine.

But there was magic out there and the Hawks rode Adam Smith's four goals and Brennan Donville's heroics in goal to a 7-5 stunning upset win. They opened the scoring. The Lakers tied it. 2-1 Hawks. 2-2 after one.

3-2 Lakers. 3-3. 4-3 Lakers. 4-4. Then, 5-4 Hawks. They never trailed again. 5-5. 6-5 Hawks. 7-5 Hawks -- Adam Smith scored, and Adam jumped into Pad's arms. It was a funny sight.

So instead of a night game, we suddenly had another afternoon game, which meant we didn't come home from Hamilton in between and the blog went unattended for a few more hours.

The bad news is the Hawks lost that second game 8-4 to a larger, older Gloucester team, but honestly, that felt academic.

Coach Mark will get his Saturday game.

And the Hawks beat Peterborough, which was simply huge.

I can't expect you to understand how huge, but suffice to say in all the games I've seen my boys play in any sport at any age, this win rates in the top five for sure.

It was a great moment.

And what's more, a lot of the parents missed it because of work commitments (and maybe a feeling that the Hawks couldn't win against the powerhouse Lakers?) There was lots of teasing on that point this afternoon.

So, that's why I wasn't here. I was there.

I have much to blog about but it will have to wait. Come back on Saturday or Sunday. I promise to have more, and not just on lacrosse.

Right now I have to get some ice for the Padman and the impressive welts on his arms. And a big steak dinner for the big guy.

He earned it. They all earned it. It was one of those games we'll never forget.

 

Aug 8, 2008

Vacation for me began this morning with a 90-minute conference call with New York. Which means the leisurely morning I was going to spend at least some of writing here is now gone. It has been replaced by a frantic rush to get Pad out of bed, fed and delivered to Hamilton for a very tough opening game at lacrosse provincials.

So, I will have to do that later.

And I will. Check back after lunch.

 

Aug 7, 2008

I was up at 3:45a this morning to get Laura and Chris to the airport so excuse me if I'm less than my brilliant self right now. It's going to be a long day.

This is supposed to be my last day of work before my summer break, but I've already got one, and perhaps two conference calls scheduled for Friday. We do what we have to do, right?

- - -

The Summer Olympics open officially Friday and I guess there's no doubt that will be the largest story on the planet for a couple of weeks. But this year's games leave me a bit cold I'm afraid. I'm not a big fan one-party rule and tyranny and oppression, but hey -- who am I to spoil everyone's good time?

I have no problem with the Chinese people, and I get all the arguments about reaching out to their government to try and bring them into the global community and all that.

I just don't buy it for a second. I don't think the Chinese government gives a rat's ass about what the IOC or anyone else thinks of its human rights policies and I can't imagine the Olympics are going to change one single thing.

I am curious about Chinese culture and history and all of that and there will be no shortage of propaganda over the coming days to sate my interest.

And yes, I hope all the Canadian athletes compete hard and do their best and maybe bring home some medals. But at the end of the day, the Chinese government will still censor what its people can read and view; it will jail and torture those who disagree with them; and nothing much will change for the people of China in that respect. Which is too bad. They are the economic and geopolitical force of this century and they deserve better.

Talk about your Olympic ideals, right?

- - -

On a lighter note, I was channel surfing last night after watching the end of the Jays game and I stopped on The Golf Channel -- yes, insert your own joke here. The season's final major championship, the PGA, opens today and the show was, appropriately, Live From the PGA. Good name -- sort of like Kraft Slices.

But here's  the good part -- The Golf Channel was running one of those scrolling BREAKING NEWS banners on the screen. The big story? Kenny Perry has a scratched cornea.

Now, by all accounts Kenny Perry is a swell guy and he's also having the best year of his life.

But when Kenny Perry having a scratched eyeball triggers a breaking news alert, well, at that point I go outside and stare at the sky and look for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because this may be a sign of the end of days.

I mean really. Anyway, you can read more here about Kenny's optical challenges.

- - -

So me and Pad will be batching it for the next few days -- how long the midget 2 Hawks manage to stay afloat in lacrosse provincials will dictate how hard we'll have to work to entertain ourselves during this time. Given the tough draw the Hawks pulled for the Hamilton tournament, we could be all done by the end of Friday.

Then we'll just stand around grunting and scratching for two days probably.

Well, the sun's coming up so I better go to work. As Chris would say, later dudes.

Actually, as I've noted before Chris likes to make videos and he has loyal fans on Youtube. And here's his video telling the fans why he will be out of reach for a while. Please note that Chris does not actually talk this way in real life. Also, note the wardrobe changes. It's actually quite clever.

 

 

Aug 6, 2008

The countdown is on for Nova Scotia. Laura and Chris fly out to Cape Breton tomorrow morning at 6:20a if you can imagine, and I'm driving them to Pearson (very, very early) and then going to work. Pad and I are hanging around for the final weekend of the lacrosse season and the midget provincial championships in Hamilton.

Expectations are low for Hamilton, but you never know.

In the meantime, since Laura will continue to work for part of the time in Nova Scotia, I've been on IT duty, tuning up her laptop, checking to make sure it works etc etc.

The good news is she has three ways to connect to the Internet -- dialup (ick), wirelss (yay!) and EVDo wireless (booo! cool, but pricey).

Anyway, this is all really boring. Suffice to say in the last 10 days I've done more IT duty than any non-IT guy should -- including fixing my dad's wireless connection back in NS (which, BTW, I was happy to do since I know he uses it a lot.)

- - -

Beyond the IT challenges, Chris is simply a ball of pure excitement. This will be his third trip to NS since April but it doesn't matter. Every visit is better than the last. He's a different character than his big bro', and that's meant as a compliment. He keeps us in stitches. There's nowhere he'd rather be than Nova Scotia -- eating Laura's mom's chocolate chip cookies, or my mom's brownies. He comes by that naturally.

- - -

Brett Favre is apparently finished as a Packer. I think both sides in this mess have handled matters horribly. Number 4 starting in Tampa? Stupidity.

- - -

I love watching American politics. It's a 24/7 blood sport at the best of times and on the eve of the conventions it gets really good. Three months ago I thought that if there was one Republican who could make Americans forget the debacle of the last four (or eight, depending on your POV) years, it was John McCain. Maybe he would beat Hillary or Obama.

I don't see it now.

Every time I see the guy lately he looks like a grumpy old man yelling at Barack Obama to get off his lawn.

If I was running for president, I don't think I'd be going for that look.

I think there are 100 reasons to question whether Obama is ready to manage the White House. I really do.

On the other hand, I think electing a 72-year-old man to be president is not a great idea either. When Bill Clinton beat George Bush Sr in 1992, it marked a generational change in presidential politics that continued with George Bush Jr. Returning to the pre-boomer generation to select a president is, in my mind, a step in the wrong direction.

I have nothing against over 70 people -- my parents are in that category. But it's time to move forward with new voices and players.

 

Aug 5, 2008

Come on. You're back in the office after a long weekend and already you're surfing around and reading blogs? Don't worry. I won't tell.

- - -

Our weekend had three basic components and highlights.

First, Saturday was spent in the pursuit of virtually nothing. Every time someone laid down a plan to do this or that, it was swept off the table in a breeze of freedom and indifference. No where to be; no schedule to meet. No games. No practices. Just time to . . . be. So we did

We watched the movie 21 that evening and that was about as ambitious as the day got.

- - -

The Sunday highlight, besides the parades, food and celebration marking Laura's 27th, was a trip to see The Dark Knight. This film, the sequel to Batman Begins, has been the subject of much hype and adulation, as has the performance of the late Heath Ledger in a demented interpretation of The Joker.

For once, you can believe the hype. This film is a blockbuster. But be warned: this is not a comic book-style tribute to Batman (or as they say in the movie, The Batman.) This is a very dark, extremely intense and horribly violent film. It is at its core a film about a large American city in the grip of a sick terrorist. The writing is dark and foreboding. The acting is brilliant. The cinematography is captivating.

But this is not a happy film. Bad things happen to good people.

This is not Die Hard with better actors. It is a very dark theme.

My recommendation would be to carefully assess the ability of anyone under 13 or 14 to process what they are about to see.

Me? I loved it. Heath Ledger is every bit as good as the reviews say he is. It's a wild ride.

- - -

The third highlight of the weekend was yesterday's day spent in the country, with golf (or what passed for golf) for some of us and just hanging out away from the phones and Blackberries for others. A great meal, and a lot of time spent in a gaze of awe and wonder over a new gas barbeque that is only slightly smaller than the former HMCS Bonaventure and throws more energy than the Darlington reactors.

It's a guy's machine. Very cool and -- howdy mister! -- can it cook a steak dinner! For 30. With potatoes.

Brilliant.

- - -

I have heard that Jane is no longer in the employ of the Minor Oaks Hockey Association. I am outside the beltway on this one so you might want to bounce over to Wayne's blog to read more there. But I will say that Jane was always extraordinarily helpful to me personally, to others who helped with teams I coached, and many others I know. I wish her good luck in everything.

- - -

If anyone, anywhere, can explain to me the Brett Favre saga in 300 words or less, you know where to reach me. A first-ballot unanimous hall of famer, Favre retired in March. And then changed his mind. And his old team made plans. But there are allegations of skullduggery and malfeasance. It should be a soap opera. Read more here.

- - -

The Oakville Little League Minor AA All-Stars -- a squad of hot-shot 10 year olds -- won the Scott Tokessy Tournament in Kanata on the weekend. More details and a team photo have been promised. Congratulations, guys. (And you people thought I only cared about sports where guys can hit each other with sticks!)

- - -

Michelle Wie shot an 80 on Friday to miss the cut in a big way at the second-rank men's PGA Tour event she played in instead of trying to qualify for the women's British Open. It's no secret to anyone who listens to me (which is almost no one) that I think having her try to compete with men is stupid. But two things.

First, a PGA staffer followed Wie during her round Friday and blogged the event live. He did a great job and it will give you some insight into how well she actually did. You can read it here.

Second, The Globe and Mail's Lorne Rubenstein says -- basically -- that while Wie has admittedly helped make herself a target for critics, those critics on the Tour should shut up and thank her, because she sells tickets, improves purses and frankly, at 18 has more talent than many of them, and certainly way more potential. You can read his column here.

My view is that maybe winning a US Amateur Championship -- or two -- would have been a good learning experience for Wie. Instead of turning pro so young. Instead of losing to men (she's now missed eight PGA Tour cuts) she could be not just succeeding, but blooming into the dominant woman golfer of her generation. As it stands now, she doesn't even have an assured spot on the LPGA Tour next year.

It just seems odd to me.

 

Aug 3, 2008

So, I got up early and went to RONA to get Laura's birthday present (those new brass fittings for the garden hose are going to go over very nicely) and run to Sobeys to get some groceries for breakfast.

I have three basic culinary areas of greatness.

1. Cooking any warm-blooded creature over an open flame.

2. Caesar salad. People have fallen down and wept after eating my Caesar salad. I make the dressing from scratch. Yes, it's that good.

3. Eggs Benedict. I make the Hollandaise sauce from scratch and it's not easy to get it right. I call my Hollandaise sauce "the Tingler" because you can feel your left arm go numb as you eat it.

Eggs benny are on the birthday brunch menu for Laura today.

I also got some fresh fruit and we settled down in the back garden with newspapers and fruit and THEN LISTENED TO THE NUTBAR THREE HOUSES AWAY FIRE UP HIS WEEDWHACKER AT 9A ON THE SUNDAY OF A LONG WEEKEND.

Luckily, I'm not bitter.

I mean really, what level of self-awareness do you need on a cool long weekend morning where everyone has their windows open to JUST LAY OFF THE POWER TOOLS UNTIL NOON?

Anyway, I'm not bitter.

The fruit is almost gone so it will soon be time to start the eggs benny. I have been known to dirty every frying pan, every mixing bowl, every spoon, fork and knife, every serving dish and every other thing I can find while in the process of making this breakfast. On occasion I even dirty some of the neighbor's dishes. Just because.

Yes, I clean up the mess.

Yes, it will taste spectacular.

Yes, I was kidding about the gift from RONA. (It's Home Depot. Nothing but the best . . .)

 

Aug 1, 2008

As Dr. Nick would say, "Hello everybody!"

A long day yesterday precluded the usual drivel I offer here, but I'm back.

As we march headlong into the dog days of August, it is sadly not to early to ask: "Where did July go?"

The midget 1 Hawks played their final pre-provincials game on Wednesday night, whipping Brampton 7-2 in their own barn. And last night Pad officiated his final lacrosse game of the season as the novice 2 rep squad from Oakville thumped a game but overwhelmed Orangeville 3 team a lot to a little.

My intention was to drag the laptop to the rink last night and peck away, but, as a friend of mine says after a long day or meetings: my brain was full. Very full, in fact.

So I just sat quietly off to the side off the home section, some of them clearly first-year rep parents, bordering on lunacy, who continued to cheer with gusto after the novice Hawks scored their 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th goals. It came as no surprise to me that the Orangeville kids, completely dispirited and humiliated, walked off the floor without shaking hands.

Admittedly, it's a tough chore to convince tyke-age kids to stop scoring. Peewee, bantam and midget age kids usually get it. Novices just want to have fun and what's more fun that scoring goals? Kids will be kids. But I don't think the boys from Orangeville had much fun.

One of the Oakville parents spoke to me after the game. My only comment was that after years of watching and coaching lacrosse (and hockey) at many levels, I can say this: what goes around will surely come around. The Orangeville tyke kids will get bigger and they will improve. And someday down the road they will be playing Oakville, and some of those boys will use what happened last night as additional motivation.

Wait and see.

- - -

The general rule of thumb on the teams that I've been involved with is that when the route is on, you ease up on the throttle. Respect the game, respect your opponent, etc etc. The acknowledged exception to that rule is Halton Hills, that has a reputation of running up scores when the opportunity presents itself. (Not to mention that it's pretty rare that anyone gets to run up a score on Halton Hills. They have a very strong program.)

- - -

On the threshold of the summer's middle long weekend, I am proud to say we have nothing particular planned. Laura will celebrate her 27th birthday this weekend, so feel free to drop her a note. The smarter, blonder, and better looking component of our partnership, she will be the beneficiary of all manner of honours, tributes, parades, and general all-purpose worshipping.

She is usually in Nova Scotia for her birthday (she and Chris leave next week) so this will present a rare opportunity for local dignitaries to extend their personal best wishes.

I have not bought a present yet and have no clue as to what to give her. But my  theory of "you-already-have-everything"  won't hold up and she has no interest in my old golf clubs. So, we'll see where it goes.

As for a cake, care to guess who will be making it? Because of Pad's peanut allergy we can't use store-bought cakes. Someone who knows how to bake will have to do it. Hmmm.

- - -

The Mats Sundin saga continues with no resolution. Do we still care? More here.

- - -

Scotty Bowman, who already has Stanley Cup rings from Montreal, Pittsburgh and Detroit, has signed on as an advisor with Chicago. Why didn't the Leafs think of that? Oh right. They did. But they took a pass. Brilliant. More here.

- - -

Michelle Wie shot 73 (one over par) in the first round of the Legends Reno-Lake Tahoe Open, putting her in a tie for 77th place, eight shots back of leader Jeff Overton (the top 50 players in the world are at Firestone in a World Golf Championship event, so this is a second-tier event.) Nonetheless, she has a good shot to make the cut with a decent round today. More here.

 

July 30, 2008

My comment yesterday about how hot it was at the Kinoak Sports and Entertainment Palace generated a couple of emails from readers who enjoyed the irony. Complaining about the heat at Kinoak is sort of like yelling at Jessica Simpson to put on more clothes (well, to male readers anyway.)

But Kinoak's reputation as the coldest, most inhospitable piece of sports real estate in the known world Oakville is well earned. Having spend a torturous winter there as a convener, I know of what I speak. But pretty much any parent who has crossed its threshold in January knows of what I speak.

- - -

The midget 2 Hawks play Brampton in Brampton tonight at the almost-as-luxurious-as-Kinoak Memorial Arena. Brampton's Memorial Arena has what you'd call "character." What it doesn't have is a lot of room on the floor for midget-aged lacrosse players. So, it will be an interesting evening I'm sure.

- - -

Teenage woman golfer, former teenage prodigy, Michelle Wie, is skipping the women's British Open to play in a second-rank PGA tour event against men. Wie's career -- such as it is now -- has been in free fall for two years and this is yet another indication that she's getting really, really, really bad advice.

Blessed with awesome talent and physical gifts, she came close but never won on the LPGA Tour. And then someone had the bright idea that she should try competing against men. She's never made a cut competing with men, let alone win.

I just don't get it. While other young women like Paula Creamer have exploded onto the scene to become true superstars, Wie now struggles to break 75 -- or even 80 some days -- but chooses to pass up a major so she can continue her exercise in futility against male golfers who are stronger and more talented and better able to cope with the longer courses.

It's like she is knowingly turning herself into a novelty act at the expense of the big picture. She's only 18 and has lots of time to get back on track. But skipping the British Open to play in the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open (now there's an important tourney) is a bad move.

Anyway, read more here if you care.

- - -

The Transport Canada report is out on that horrific crash last winter in New Brunswick that killed eight people, including seven high school basketball players. It's a disturbing read. Most of the kids were not wearing seat belts. The vehicle was equipped with worn all-season tires on a very slippery, slushy road. The bus itself was in poor repair. Awful.

More details here.

- - -

The Blue Jays have an afternoon game today and there's a move afoot to bolt from the office and take in the game. It would be a great idea except for work getting in the way.

I tried to find the clip from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (which, by the way, is on the list of Gerry's 25 Greatest Films Ever) with Ferris and Cameron playing hooky at the Cubs' game. But I couldn't. So instead amuse yourself with this one, the parade scene where Ferris lip-synchs The Beatles' Twist and Shout.

Sometimes, aren't we just supposed to go to a mid-week ball game, eat a $10 hotdog, yell "swing batter-batter" and forget about the other crap for three hours? Aren't we? What's happened to me? What's happened to us all?

 

 

 

 

July 2008 and other archives here