Literally: Making stupid people correct rather than correcting stupid people

You may have already seen this, but if you do a Google search for the word "literally", it comes up with the following definitions:

Note the second one, which was apparently added back in 2011 though nobody really noticed it until recently. I see it all the time in the sports world; a player will play very well for a few games in a row and people say he's "literally on fire". I've heard people saying that someone "literally took the bull by the horns" or something they didn't like "literally drove me crazy". Up to now, this has simply been wrong. Now, apparently, it's not.

At the risk of being (correctly) labeled a "grammar Nazi", the misuse of this word has been (figuratively) driving me crazy for years. Language changes and evolves, I get that. The sentence "My cell's out of juice so I can't tweet" would have made no sense thirty years ago. These kids today People younger than myself use the word "sick" to describe something good, but that's slang and was likely done intentionally for ironic effect.

This is not the same as giving a word (cell, tweet) a new meaning for which no word previously existed, or using a word ironically. In this case, people who don't know what the word means are incorrectly using it to mean precisely the opposite of what it actually means, and now we're saying that's OK. We are catering to the seemingly increasing number of ignorant people. Rather than teaching people the correct meaning of the word and correcting those who misuse it, we are just making it right so that there's no problem.

We are dumbing down the language.

If this continues, here are some other words that will be added to the dictionary sometime soon:

Prolly: (adv.) Probably. As in "I'll be there late in the morning, prolly around ten-thirty."

There: (adv.) Synonym for "they are" (formerly "they're") or "belonging to them" (formerly "their"). As in "They can't remember where they parked, so there looking for there car over there." Much easier to have just one word since people use them interchangeably anyway. Similarly, "its" vs. "it's".

Alot: (n.) A lot. Alot of people use this word, not knowing that it does not exist. But it doesn't need to make you unhappy.

Ignorant: (adj.) Rude. It actually means "without knowledge", as in "I am ignorant of the rules of cricket." But if someone cuts in line in front of you at the grocery store, that's rude, not ignorant.

National Home Services' dirty tricks

The doorbell rang this afternoon. I answered it, and there was a guy who said he was representing National Home Services. He even had a badge with the company logo on it, and it might have had his picture, but I didn't really pay much attention to it. He said that he and his colleague were in the neighbourhood checking on people's hot water heaters. (Aside: why do we call it a "hot water heater"? It doesn't heat hot water, it just heats water. It's a water heater.) He said they were making sure that the heaters were as energy efficient as they could be, and they were upgrading them for free if not. I told him that our heater was only a year or two old so it was unlikely that we had a terribly inefficent model (this may have been a white lie – I'm not 100% sure how old it is, but it's certainly not more than four or five years). Then he said that there was a mistake made at some point, and some of the heaters that were installed were the wrong ones and they should be replaced. Lie #1.

I don't remember the exact words he used, but the impression he gave me was that his company was contracted by Reliance Home Comfort (the company from whom we rent our hot water heater) to check our heater and make sure it's OK. I asked if Reliance was worried about whether we have the right heater, why didn't they call us? He said that he didn't know. I said that I was going to call Reliance to verify that they were sending someone for this purpose, and he admitted that he does not work for Reliance, and that National is one of their competitors. He then went on a little rant about Reliance, saying that they were an American company (Lie #2), that they are actually an investment company (Lie #3), and that George W. Bush owns 51% of the company (Lie #4). He must have mentioned three or four times that National is a Canadian company while Reliance is American. He also said stuff like Reliance had bought all the hot water heaters from Union Energy for $30 each as an investment, so it's not in their best interest to maintain them or replace them. I have no way to verify that but from what I've found, Reliance Home Comfort used to be Union Energy and just changed their name in 2005. I'm guessing that that was Lie #5 but I can't be sure.

He offered to come in and take a look at our heater and see if it was one of the ones "mistakenly" installed. What are the odds that he'd take a look at our heater and say "Nope, this one is OK. You don't need your heater replaced. Have a nice day"? Pretty low indeed.

Eventually he must have figured out that I was not going for it, and he left. Of course, I then did some research on the internet to find out how much of what he was saying was true. I found that Reliance Home Comfort is a limited partnership, whose brand name is owned by a Canadian "open-ended limited purpose trust" called UE Waterheater Income Fund (this could, I suppose, be viewed as "an investment company"). That company is privately owned, so it's possible that the ownership is American and it's even possible that Mr. Bush does own 51% of it, though I found no evidence of either of those. However, the Reliance Home Comfort part operates solely in Ontario and the corporate headquarters of both Reliance and UE Waterheater are in Toronto.

I cannot say with certainty that the bit about Reliance installing the wrong water heaters was a lie. But even if it's true, he tried to imply that he was there to simply fix the problem, when in reality he was trying to get me to switch to an entirely new company. He failed to mention that part until I pressed.

But even if what he told me was true, why do I care whether the company I rent my hot water heater from is Canadian, American, or Brazilian? As long as the heater functions properly, their service is reasonable when needed, and I'm not paying an unreasonable price for it, the fact is that I don't care. I've only had to call for service once that I remember, when the heater wasn't working very well. They came out within a day or two and replaced the heater with a brand new one, and the new one (more efficient and bigger – same monthly price) has worked flawlessly ever since.

The guy's whole sales technique was based on (a) misleading people into thinking that he was there on behalf of whatever company they were already dealing with, and then when that didn't work, (b) bashing Reliance by telling lies about them.

I posted this on National Home Service's Facebook page:

Pushy sales people are one thing, but sales people who mislead and tell outright lies about your competitors are unacceptable. It doesn't matter how good your prices or services are, I refuse to deal with a company that uses such underhanded sales techniques.

I also mentioned them on Twitter in a similar message. I don't imagine that the Facebook comment will stay there long or that they'll respond to it, but between those two things and this article, I've managed to say what I wanted to say. I don't care if they give me a brand new water heater for $5 a month, I'm not dealing with this company.

Open letter to Mr. Kobus

Dear Mr. Kobus,

I have no idea if that's your name, but it is your license plate. I'm the guy whose van you were parked behind at the Burlington GO Station tonight.

We arrived at the GO Station around 9:00am, and pulled through an empty spot into another spot, so that I could simply pull forward to leave rather than backing out. When I left my van, there was nobody parked behind me. When we returned around 9:45pm, we could see before we even got to our van that yours was right behind ours, parked very close. The front of your van was definitely over the yellow line marking the edge of the parking spot. When we looked closer, we could see that it wasn't just very close, the front of your van was touching the back of mine. My phone's battery was too low to take a flash picture and so this one is fairly dark, but it shows pretty clearly that the two vehicles were touching:

After taking this picture (and one of your rear license plate), I pulled forward to see if there was any damage, and saw a deep scratch near where the vehicles were touching. This is about when you arrived. You looked at the scratch and asserted "That's definitely an old scratch", but I saw no evidence to support this.

However I also saw no evidence that your van did cause the scratch. I did not see any damage to the front of your van. The front bumper of your van is plastic with an indent for the license plate, and it did not appear that the plastic could have caused the scratch. It also did not appear that the licence plate was sticking out from the indent far enough to have caused it. However if the bumpers were squashed a little (not unlikely), the screw holding the license plate on could have caused it, since it was at about the right height and would have been sticking out the furthest of any part of the plate. I found no red paint on your license plate or the screw. I also cannot confirm that the scratch wasn't there when we parked that morning; it might have been. I don't remember seeing it before, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

So in a nutshell, I cannot say with any certainty that your van definitely caused any damage to mine, so no harm done, I suppose. Please be a little more careful when parking in the future.

However, you should at least accept the possibility that you actually did park that close to my van. Simply saying "But we didn't park that close" does not qualify as proof that it wasn't your fault. Not accepting that possibility led you to an implausible alternative theory of what happened – that someone must have pushed your van into mine. "But I don't see how", you said, "the doors were locked." You even went around to the back of your van to check for evidence that someone pushed it forwards. You didn't attempt to determine if this is what actually happened, whether it was even possible, or why someone would do this; you skipped directly to "how did they do it?".

Are you really trying to claim that someone broke into your locked van and hot-wired it (something that's exceedingly difficult to do on modern-day cars and vans) only to drive it forward a few inches so it was pushing on my van's bumper, then locked the van again and left? Or that someone used their vehicle to push yours into mine and did this without leaving any damage to the back of your van or any skid tracks on the ground?

Yes, it's possible that someone pushed your van forward into ours for no obvious reason and without leaving any trace. It's also possible that Martians moved it forward with a tractor beam. Or maybe you just parked too far forward and didn't realize it. Which of those three is the most likely, do you think?

Sincerely,
Graeme Perrow

Oh Canada! Ribfest 2012

This past weekend was Waterdown's 3rd annual Oh Canada! Ribfest, and not coincidentally, this is my 3rd annual article about it. I find writing these articles helpful, since last year's article helped me remember which ribbers we especially liked or didn't like. In previous years, there were six ribbers but this year, there was an extra one. There were actually two new ones, but we lost Fire Island. This year, we had:

Kentucky Smokehouse – These guys were new, and I have to say we weren't that impressed. The ribs weren't very meaty, and there wasn't much sauce. What sauce there was wasn't bad though. Maybe we got a bad batch, because these guys finished second in people's choice best ribs and people's choice best sauce.

Boss Hog – My favourites last year, and this year I'd have to put them second. The ribs were very meaty, and there was lots of sauce. The sauce was somewhat sweet but not too sweet. Not as smoky as last year. These guys swept the awards: best judged ribs, people's choice best ribs, and people's choice best sauce.

Tennessee Fatbacks – Another new one and again, no big deal. The ribs were OK, the sauce was OK, but nothing to write home about.

Ribs Royale – Didn't think much of these guys last year, though lots of other people seemed to like them. This year, again I heard lots of good things but they just didn't do it for me. The ribs were OK but didn't "fall off the bone" as with the other ribbers. The sauce was interesting though – tangy but not sweet. Had a kick, but wasn't exactly spicy. Hard to describe, but pretty good. They got 3rd place in the best judged ribs.

Camp 31 – The ribs were really good, and the sauce wasn't bad. Had a bit of a kick and wasn't as sweet as last year.

Silver Bullet – Our favourite. The ribs were really good, with an awesome spicy sauce. For the second straight year, we bought a bottle to bring home. For the first time, we also tried a pulled pork sandwich from these guys, and that was fantastic. They got second in judged ribs and third in both people's choice best ribs and people's choice best sauce.

Bone Daddy – we didn't get there. Really liked them last year, but this year the timing just didn't work out.

Once again we volunteered as a family, first on Saturday afternoon from 3pm-7pm and then again on Monday from 11am-3pm. We originally signed up to be in the recycling tent, just like last year, but we said we'd go wherever they needed us. On Saturday they needed people at parking, so we stood at the entrance to the parking lot and collected money. This worked out pretty well, and the boys both got into it and were very helpful, collecting money and making change and everything. Despite the "No in and out privileges" sign, lots of people asked if they could leave and come back later. If they had a decent reason for it (my kid is sick and I'm going to drop him off at his grandparents place and come right back, I brought my dog who is not allowed in the park so I have to take him home) and they could be back in five minutes or so, I generally let it go, but there were people who wanted to come back "in an hour or two". Come on people, get real. And a couple of people didn't want to pay at all, so they just turned around and left. One guy said he was just going to the skate park and not the Ribfest, but I told him too bad, this was Ribfest parking. He said OK and drove into the parking lot, saying he was just going to turn around, and never came back out. The number of selfish jerks out there who just try to take advantage of everyone really amazes and disappoints me sometimes.

Anyway, on Monday, they split the four of us up, and Gail and Nicky went to one of the far entrances to the park and counted people coming and going, while Ryan and I were given the most glamorous of volunteer jobs, the one everyone strives for: walking around the park in 32° heat for four hours picking up garbage off the ground. After an hour or so Ryan was pretty hot and tired and was starting to get grumpy, so I sent him to sit with Gail and continued by myself. Have to say, there were an amazing number of cigarette butts lying around, considering smoking was not allowed anywhere in the park. One of the Rotary Club guys who was in charge of volunteers stopped me after about 3 hours, told me I was doing a great job, and then asked "Hey, would you like a beer?" Needless to say, I took him up on his offer – did I mention it was 32° and humid? It was only a ten minute break or so before I continued with my work, but man, that was nice.

I have but one complaint about the whole event – and I also heard it from a number of other people I know who went – and that's the beer selection. A local microbrewery called Nickel Brook was the only beer choice, though they did have a couple of types of coolers (Smirnoff Ice being one). Not a huge fan of the Nickel Brook. This year I only had one, which was an organic beer. (Yes, I'm the last guy who's likely to buy anything organic, but this was the one that the Rotary guy, Nick, bought me.) It wasn't bad, but I won't be partaking again. Once again though, I did enjoy Nickel Brook's root beer.

One thing that was new this year was the fireworks on Canada Day, which lasted a good 20 minutes and were excellent. There was no world record attempt this year, though maybe that's for the best. Last year we set a new record for "most people singing simultaneously live on a radio broadcast", with about 650 people. As it turns out, the record was smashed a week later in England, when 3,885 people sang at Wembley Arena. It's kind of too bad that so many people worked to make that happen, and then we only held the record for a week. Oh well.

Once again this year, snaps go out to the Rotary Club, the sponsors, and the rest of the volunteers who made this great event happen. Looking forward to next year already!

There is no reverse discrimination

A friend of mine posted a Facebook status yesterday about a man who did something, well, dickish. I am not here to defend him; in fact I don't even know the man and I have to assume that the description of what happened is accurate, though I do trust the source. Anyway, someone else (who I don't know) left a comment to the effect that the reason he did this thing was because he was a man and must have been "overcompensating for some deficiency".

I did not leave a response to this comment since I don't know the person who posted it, and it would have been off-topic for the original status, but this person's comment really pissed me off. Why is is still OK to be sexist towards men? If something similar had happened but the offending party was female, and I had posted something like "must have been that time of the month", people would have come down on me like a ton of bricks for being a sexist bastard, and rightly so. Even worse, what if I had made a snide comment about the size of her boobs? That would also have been way out of line, but it's apparently OK to say that this particular man must have a small dick. I thought we as a society were trying to get rid of these kinds of "jokes" and no longer accept sexist, racist, or homophobic humour.

Just because the joke is at a man's expense and not a woman's doesn't make it any less sexist.

Oh Canada! Ribfest 2011

Waterdown held its second annual Oh Canada! Ribfest this past weekend. I wrote about last year's ribfest and I'm very glad I did, since 5 of the 6 ribbers that were there last year were there again this year, and none of us could remember which ones we liked. Again this year, we tried ribs from each of the six ribbers. We had a half rack from two of them on Thursday, two on Saturday, and two on Sunday. This year's ribbers were:

Boss Hog – Sauce was nice and smoky, and the ribs were excellent. My favourite, and Ryan's too. They even had the best beans.

Fire Island – Our favourite sauce last year, but not this year. Last year, their sauce was smoky and had some bite, while this year it was much sweeter. The ribs we had were big but mostly bone, so they weren't very meaty.

Silver Bullet – Great ribs and nice tangy sauce. Gail's and Nicky's favourite and me and Ryan put them at a solid #2.

Camp 31 – Ribs were good and meaty, sauce was sweeter than most of the others.

Bone Daddy – Great ribs with a nice spicy sauce. Challenged the Silver Bullet guys for #2.

Ribs Royale – New to the Waterdown ribfest this year. We weren't that impressed with the newcomers, since most of our ribs were tough and dry. We even left one uneaten – a sacrilege. The sauce wasn't bad. A few other people I talked to said they really liked these guys, so perhaps the half-rack we got was an anomaly.

All of the ribbers also sold BBQ chicken and pulled pork, though it never occurred to me to try anything other than the ribs. They had the same non-rib food vendors as last year – Tiny Tom's donuts, corn on the cob and yams, hot dogs, burgers, fries, bloomin' onions, fresh lemonade, and an ice cream van. Unfortunately, the spiral spuds that we enjoyed last year weren't available this year.

Helping Out

Gail helped out by volunteering last year, and this year all four of us did. On Thursday from 3:00 to 7:00pm, we were stationed in one of the recycling tents, which was somewhat misnamed since all waste (garbage and recycling and everything else) was brought there and we sorted it. Unfortunately, Thursday afternoon was the least busy and so for most of our four hour shift, we just sat. Occasionally we would grab a blue box and walk around the tables picking up garbage that lazy people had left behind, and the boys played with a beach ball for a while. The worst part was that there were twelve people in this tent – the four of us, a friend of Ryan's, and a bunch of mostly grumpy high school students trying to get some volunteer hours in – so the place was seriously overstaffed.

While sitting in the recycling tent, we got to listen to a few local bands who were performing. The first one had the odd name of Science Ninja Big Ten, and they sounded like a B-52's cover band, except that they played (AFAIK) originals. They were OK, but not my cup of tea. The second was a trio called Trees and I really enjoyed these guys. They had a Wide Mouth Mason thing happening and did an assortment of originals and covers, though their covers were quite different from the originals - sort of funky and bluesy at the same time. Next was a duo, Ria and Bill, who played "standards" – everything from Petula Clark's "Downtown" to Van Morrison's "Moondance" to Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made For Walkin'". Again, not bad but not my thing.

We volunteered again on Saturday afternoon, and this time there were just six (the four of us, one grumpy teenager and another teenager who was quiet but not that grumpy) in the tent, and it was much busier. We certainly had some idle times, but other times the table was piling up with stuff just as fast as we could get rid of it. We got to listen to some different bands too. The Freeltones (who are presumably from the nearby town of Freelton, get it?) played first, and they played mostly 70's classic rock. They were pretty good, though it's unfortunate that the singer had his feet glued to the floor. I realize that nobody in the crowd came specifically to see you, and I'm not expecting Mick Jagger kind of energy, but dude, you're allowed to move. Next was a Dixieland jazz band with the cool name of Subourbon Street. They even had a sousaphone. I'm not a huge fan of jazz, and I have to say that Dixieland isn't my favourite – at one point they started a new song, and Nicky asked me "didn't they already play this?" I responded that I couldn't tell – it sounded to me like they'd played the same song a number of times. After they were done, a band called Straight Cut came out. They played heavier rock and even though there was a half-hour or so between bands, the juxtaposition was a little jarring – from oom-pah-pah to Judas Priest. They played some classic rock (Doobie Brothers, Cream, and both these guys and the Freeltones played Takin' Care of Business – more on that particular ditty later), but also some heavier stuff – Machinehead by Bush, Whiskey in the Jar (originally by Thin Lizzy I think but these guys did the Metallica version), and the aforementioned Priest. This is my kind of music, so I enjoyed this band.

The Record

On Sunday, the organizers put together an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of World Records – they asked everyone to gather in the baseball diamond to sing BTO's Takin' Care of Business, and the performance would be broadcast live on the radio. The world's record for most people singing simultaneously on the radio was 622, and we packed over 650 people in the ball diamond. If this seems like an odd record to try for, consider some other records that were set and recorded recently – "Most people dressed as Smurfs within 24 hours" and "Most people applying sunscreen at once". Those Guinness people take their records seriously – we had to close off all the entrances to the baseball diamond except one, and have a couple of people counting everyone who went in. There were a bunch of volunteers whose job it was to watch a small portion of the crowd, making sure everyone was actually singing and not just lip syncing, and count the number of people not singing. Those volunteers had to report their numbers later and sign affidavits to legally swear to the numbers.

Kudos once again to the Waterdown Rotary Club for putting this great event together and to our fellow volunteers. I saw people from my baseball team, people I know on twitter, people from Nicky's school, people from Scouting, some neighbours and other friends of ours in the area, plus the editor of the local paper and our local MPP. We all had a great time with some great music, a world record, and of course, good eatin'.

What a drag it is getting old

Gail volunteered in the beer tent at the Waterdown Ribfest last night. One of her duties was to ask people for ID if they looked like they were under 25. Step one: figure out what year one would have to be born in order to be able to buy alcohol legally. Some quick math, and the answer is 1992.

The same year Gail and I graduated from university.

Oh, God.

Our American Cousins

We went to Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario) this past weekend, and drove up through Michigan to get there. Now, it's not like I've never been to the US before, in fact I've been countless times. I've visited about half of the 50 states. At my last job (1994-1997), I traveled to Boston a couple of times a month for three years. I've also travelled on business to San Francisco (twice), Naples Florida, Washington DC, Baltimore (3 times), and New York City. I lived in Redmond, Washington for four months back in 1991. I live less than an hour's drive from the border at Niagara Falls, and even closer to Queenston/Lewiston. I even have a US Social Security number, though I have no idea what it is or where my card is.

Canadian and US culture is unquestionably similar, but there are a few differences (some subtle and some less so) that a seasoned traveler will notice. Here are some examples of the roadside signs and billboards we saw during our trip that you would not see in Canada:

• Bail bonds
• Fishing line (priced by the yard) – not that we don't have fishermen in Canada, but I've never seen ads like this
• Crossbows
• "Guns Galore" and "Gun sights and outfitters" – though there was a gun show in the Sault (Canadian side!) while we were there
• Bob Evans, Stuckey's, Cracker Barrel (never had these in Canada)
• Big Boy, Ponderosa (used to have these in Canada – why don't we anymore?)
• "Entering prison area. Do not pick up hitchhikers"
• Ads for health insurance
• One billboard was entirely in Spanish. This wouldn't surprise me in California, New Mexico, Texas, or Arizona... OK, maybe it would in Arizona. But in central Michigan?
• The Marines
• poopycredit.com – containing the slogan "Does your credit stink?"  This is a real web site, though one of the worst commercial sites I've seen. There are only six links on the site – two of them bump you off to different sites. Contact Us gives a "page not found" error, Privacy gives a document with multiple font sizes that looks like it was cut-and-pasted with no formatting, Additional Forms gives a very badly formatted form with a zillion fields, and I don't know about Video. I am not going to click on a link marked "Video" on any site with the word "poopy" in the title.

Please note that this is not a criticism, just an observation. In particular, I like the Marines billboards, and I'd love to see more billboards in Canada regarding the Canadian Forces – I like the "Fight with the Canadian Forces" ads that have come out recently.

Awesome-ness

One of the things we bought my sister this year for Christmas was a book called The Book of Awesome. It's a book based on a blog listing a whole bunch of awesome things, from waiters who bring refills without asking to the smell of freshly cut grass to the last few seconds of untying a really stubborn knot. It's a fun book, and I think everyone had at least a few minutes of looking through it. Every time I saw someone looking at it, it didn't take long before they were smiling and nodding, having found one they agreed with. I decided to come up with a few of my own, but note that I did not read the book cover to cover so it's possible that one of mine is actually in the book.

Turkey sandwiches the day after a turkey dinner. A couple of pieces of fresh bread, turkey (white or dark meat, doesn't matter), some mayonnaise and a touch of salt and pepper, then nuke it for about 10 seconds. I was going to say "soft white bread" instead of just "fresh bread" but this past Christmas I had one at my parents' place on fresh twelve grain bread that was just... well, awesome.

When your kids give you a hug in front of their friends. I remember dropping the boys off at school last year and after saying goodbye to Nicky, I saw that Ryan (age 10) was across the room talking with his friends. I didn't want to embarrass him so I just waved, said "Have a good day, buddy", and kept walking. He said "Daddy!" and ran across the room to say goodbye and give me a hug. It made my day.

When you get home from a long vacation and remember as you are walking in the door that you cleaned up the kitchen before leaving. We've had vacations where that wasn't the case, and when you've been travelling all day and you're tired and have lots of unpacking and laundry to look forward to, not to mention returning to work / school / etc., walking in to a messy kitchen just sucks.

Taking your ski boots off and putting your regular boots on after a full day of skiing. Doesn't matter how old and ratty your boots are, they are soooooo comfortable. Also, the warm glow you feel on your face when you come inside after a full day of skiing.

The sound of a baby giggling. Extra points if it's your baby.

That moment when your parents kiss at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance and you, your brother, and your sister re-appear in that photograph in your pocket. You know the feeling. Just makes you wanna pick up your guitar and wail on the Johnny B. Goode solo.

Working from home during a big winter storm. I've written about this in the past. The iPod in the dock, a cup of hot chocolate, and a fierce storm outside makes for a surprisingly happy guy working at home.

Fixing a particularly nasty software bug. You have been working on this bug for days. It seems random. There's seemingly no predicting when it will happen, let alone why. Customers are waiting for a resolution. You have made zero progress since the last time your boss asked how it was going, and you know that he's just about ready to ask again. Then in the debugger you see that a variable is set to 0 when it shouldn't be. "Why the hell is it 0?" you think. "If it's zero, then that would mean that —" and then it hits you. Suddenly you know exactly why it's happening, and why it's so hard to reproduce. All of the weird descriptions of the problems the customer is seeing that didn't make sense suddenly do make sense. Even better, you know you can give the customer a workaround, fix the problem easily, and even write a simple automated test so that the problem never happens again. It doesn't get any better than that.

Forgetting that it's garbage day until you think it's too late, and making the garbage truck anyway. Even better, when you get the green / blue bin to the curb just as the truck gets to your house, so you can wait for 15 seconds and bring the bin back in.

Being complimented by a stranger on your parenting. When we're out with the boys at a restaurant or store, I'm proud to say that sometimes they will be particularly polite or helpful. Sometimes, not so much. But when they are, the server will occasionally turn to us and tell us how impressed they are with our kids. When a complete stranger tells you that your kid is very polite, that feeling ("I'm not a complete failure as a parent!") more than makes up for the bowl of cereal that he (the kid, not the stranger) took 45 minutes to eat that morning despite the fact that you were already late for work.

Email scam

Gail received an email the other day from a friend of hers. The email said that she had gone to London, England for an impromptu vacation and gotten mugged, and now they needed money to get home, and asked if we could help them out. The email was fairly convincing:

Hey There,

    How you doing? This has had to come in a hurry as it left me in a devastating state...  Myself,<husband's name> and the Kids made a trip to London (United Kingdom) unannounced some days back on vacay, Unfortunately we got mugged at gun point last night! All cash, Credit card and phone got stolen, we are stranded in London, fortunately passport and travel docs was back in my hotel room.  It was a bitter experience and I was hurt on my right hand, but would be fine. I'm sending you this message cos I don't want anyone to panic; I want you to keep it that way for now!

Our return flight leaves tomorrow, but we're having troubles sorting out the hotel bills.. This is embarrassing enough, wondering if you could loan us some dollars to sort out the hotel bills and also take a cab to the airport about ($2000). We have been in contact with the police  and the Embassy here, but they aren't helping issues, We got limited means of getting out of here, Already canceled our cards and made a police report.. We don’t get new card numbers till we get back home! So we really need your help.

You could wire whatever you can spare to my name and hotel address via Western union:

<name>
56 Kentish Town Road
London, NW5 2AA
United Kingdom

Please get back to me with the details once you have made the transfer; would def refund it to you once I arrive! Hopefully in 2 days,  Sorry for any inconvenience this might cause you.

I await your prompt response.

Thank you,
<name>

Gail forwarded it on to me asking if we could help them. I was immediately suspicious (turns out Gail was too, but she didn't say that in her email) and I responded to Gail warning her that this had a bad smell to it. I told her that if she was going to respond, tell her friend to call us collect and send no money until we'd talked to her in person. I asked if her friend ever used the word "vacay" (I don't know anyone who does) or if she'd be likely to say "I await your prompt response". More importantly, is she the kind of person who would take off for England on short notice? Even if she was, would she bring the kids during the first month of school? Gail decided that this was not likely and called her at home. Sure enough, she was there, her email account had been hacked, and she had already had over 40 phone calls from other people. Hopefully nobody got suckered in.

I've seen lots of different email scams and most of them are obviously fake. This one looked relatively legitimate – so much so that while I was immediately suspicious, I didn't dismiss it out of hand like I usually do. Be careful out there.

And the winner for best soap box dispenser is...

While driving around town the other day, I spotted a local business sporting a new sign: "Your community's award-winning laundromat". I'm curious as to exactly what awards they won. I guess I've been remiss in my attention to the local laundromat awards.

When they "Your community", do they mean Waterdown, or is this Hamilton-wide? When and where was the ceremony? Is this a rent-the-Legion kind of event, or were they down at the Hamilton Convention Centre? Or Copps Coliseum? We get both the Hamilton and local Flamborough papers, and I don't remember mention of it, but maybe I just missed it. Must have happened while I was in hospital. Yeah, that's gotta be it.

I'm sure that Hamilton's A-list celebrities were all there – that would be star of stage and screen Martin Short, hoser Dave Thomas, Ti-Cats owner Bob Young, and sports journalist Stephen Brunt. And the bands Junkhouse and Teenage Head. Waterdown's A list might also have been there, consisting of... ummmm.... well, the guy that played Harold on the Red Green show used to live here, does that count? And I once saw the coach (at the time) of the Tiger-Cats in the local grocery store, but then he got fired and moved back to London.

Anyway, congratulations to Cedars Laundromat on their victory, and I look forward to seeing if they can make it two in a row at next year's Soapie Awards. Probably on pay-per-view.

Oh Canada! Ribfest

Waterdown held its first annual Oh Canada! Ribfest this past weekend. There were six "ribbers" selling not only ribs but chicken and pulled pork, and each one sold bottles of their custom BBQ sauce as well. Some had other sides like beans, cole slaw, and corn bread. There were other places selling Bloomin' Onions and Spiral Spuds, as well as pitas, roasted yams, corn-on-the-cob, and your standard nachos, burgers, dogs, and fries. And don't forget the ice cream and mini-donuts. And the beer! They had beer and coolers from a local micro-brewery, Nickel Brook. I tried the Green Apple Pilsner on Thursday, which tasted kind of like beer mixed with apple cider. Doesn't really sound that good, but I liked it. It's kind of like Corona for me - I wouldn't buy a case of it, but once in a while, on a hot summer day (like today), it's very nice. On Sunday, I tried their regular pilsner, which I wasn't too thrilled with. But I also tried their draft root beer, which was very different from regular A&W or Barq's root beer – almost had a black liquorice taste to it. That stuff was good, and surprisingly Gail, who likes neither black liquorice nor root beer, liked it too.

Besides the food, there was a stage where kids from local dance schools showed their talent, a bunch of local bands played, and at night on Thursday, they dropped down a huge screen and showed How To Train Your Dragon. There was a little midway with kids rides, and a bunch of local vendors set up booths as well. On Canada Day, they had a mountie present for a "Citizenship Court", as a number of local people became brand new Canadian citizens. Nothing says Canada like a mountie in full uniform, except maybe a mountie in full uniform on a horse. Holding a Tim Horton's cup.

The ribfest was held at Memorial Park in Waterdown, which is about 1½ km from our house, so we walked there and back – three times. (Well, two times. We drove on Sunday when it was 35° outside.) We went for lunch on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. There were ballots for voting on the ribbers, and we wanted to be informed voters, so we made sure we tried them all before voting. Plus the ribs were so good, we just had to keep going back. Good thing dental floss is cheap – I've gone through an awful lot of it in the past few days.

There were six ribbers showcasing their wares, and you could vote in each of two categories: ribs and sauce. The ribbers were:

Fire Island – Ribs: pretty good. Sauce: excellent. The sauce was more smoky and had a bit more of a bite than the others. All four of us chose this as our favourite sauce. We had BBQ sauce on the ribs, but we had a sample of their honey-garlic sauce as well (zingy!), and it was so good that we bought a bottle.

Boss Hog – Ribs: Awesome. Sauce: sweet. The meat just fell off the bones, and even the ribs near the end of the rack weren't dry at all. My vote for best ribs, and Nicky's too.

Silver Bullet – Ribs: Very good. Sauce: tangy. Gail's favourite ribs.

Camp 31 – Ribs: Very good. Sauce: tangy. Similar to Silver Bullet. [Warning: web site plays music.]

Bone Daddy – Ribs: Awesome. Sauce: excellent. For me, these guys had the second-best ribs and the second-best sauce. Ryan's vote for best ribs.

Hawgs Gone Wild – Ribs: not bad. Sauce: sweet. The ribs were OK, but kind of dry. Their corn bread was very good and we got two big pieces for $1 (or more accurately, we got eight big pieces for $4). We had the ribs on Thursday, but went back on Sunday for more corn bread. [Warning: web site contains no information whatsoever. Interestingly, it was designed by the same people who did the Camp 31 site. Hmmm...]

The ribfest had its own web site, which could have used some more work – lots of typos and spelling errors. Also, when some pages contain things like "check back later to find out more information" or "we will have a list of events here" during the event, you know the web site people haven't been keeping up. There's a list of the ribbers, but it's not up-to-date either – two of the ones listed on the web site aren't there, and Camp 31 and Hawgs Gone Wild aren't listed at all. But if my biggest complaint about an event is that their web site isn't up to snuff, that's not too bad.

Big kudos and many thanks to the Rotary Club and all the volunteers for all their hard work! This event was not only a lot of fun for our family, but great for our community, and we hope to see it return next year and for many years in the future. Gail volunteered on Saturday night for a few hours, and next year we're all planning on volunteering for various shifts. Unfortunately, it's likely to be at Joe Sams park next year, which is much bigger than Memorial Park but further north. It's not walkable from the Waterdown core, so parking will be a much bigger issue. Perhaps there will be shuttle busses available from "downtown" up to the park. They couldn't get a license to have fireworks at Memorial Park but they should be able to at Joe Sam's, so hopefully there will be fireworks next year. I'm already looking forward to it!

Gie's a minute for a wee blether

So there's this kid in Alberta who's graduating high school soon. His parents moved here in the 60's from Scotland, as did mine, though he himself has never been there (don't know what you're missing, dude). He's decided that he wants to wear a kilt to his graduation, to celebrate his Scottish heritage. Cool idea, right? I thought so, but his principal has told him that he is not allowed to wear the kilt to the graduation ceremony. Why? "It does not fit the dress code".

Now there are thousands of people from around the world who have joined a facebook page that are going completely apeshit over this, telling Jacobs to go to court, that his basic human rights have been violated, that this is a hate crime... OK, take it easy people. This is not a huge conspiracy against the Gaelic people. More likely, it's a principal who doesn't want this kid flashing his junk at people while on stage, assuming he's wearing the traditional undergarments. Don't get me wrong – I fully support the kid. Not allowing him to wear a kilt is silly, but it's not a human rights violation. "Scottishness" isn't a religion that he practices (which is why all the comparisons to turbans and muslim headwear and such are faulty), so I don't think he can play the human rights card. From the Globe article, it doesn't look like he's spent tons of time embracing his Scottish heritage – never been to Scotland and doesn't plan to go, never worn a kilt, that kind of thing. Now I've never worn a kilt either, and there are lots of reasons why his never having been to Scotland doesn't mean anything. But if he's trying to claim that this is part of his own culture and upbringing, I'd have a hard time believing it. It's not like he's going to get to his graduation in a suit and tie and think to himself "This is just wrong. I should be in a kilt." You want to take it to court, fine, but let's not get all bent out of shape and start calling it a hate crime. That would be insulting to victims of actual hate crimes.

When I was in Scotland in 2000, my cousin Hazel got married, and we were there for the wedding. My aunt told me that I had to wear a kilt. I think she expected me to jump back and yell "What?! I'm not wearing one of those things!!". Instead, I told her that it would be very cool and I was definitely up for it. When I was told she was joking and I didn't have to, I was quite disappointed. Kilts are very expensive, so buying one was out of the question, but I should have looked into renting one. I may never have a chance again. Ach well.

A day like no other

Here are some things that happened to me today, all of which are out of the ordinary:

• For various reasons, I left home almost an hour late. Actually, leaving late isn't all that unusual, but rarely that late.
• Because the car had a flat yesterday and was in getting fixed, I drove the van to work.
• The van doesn't have an iPod adapter, so I did not bring my iPod. Instead I listened to CDs (actual disks!) and the radio.
• Because my TimCard is in the car, I used cash at Tim Horton's for breakfast.
• A friend at work borrowed my kids' Lightning McQueen RC car last week - she made an awesome Lightning McQueen cake and used the car as a model. She returned it today so it was sitting on my desk all day.
• I played in a band at work – me and two other guys played guitar, another played keyboard, and four or five more sang Christmas songs. I can count the number of times I've played the guitar in a band – counting today, three.
• I had a full turkey lunch, complete with veggies, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and dessert.
• It took me two hours and fifteen minutes to get home from work (in the van, without my iPod). This was obviously annoying but strangely, I wasn't as pissed off when I got home as I usually am after such a long commute.
• I had a peanut butter sandwich for dinner.
• I came home to an empty house. It was movie night, so Gail and the boys were over at the school. I went and joined them after "dinner".

All these weird things happened in one day. It seems very surreal when I look back on it.

Sorry, must cut this article short – I need to take the rhinoceros out for a walk.

Sarah's Story

In the four and a half years that I've had this blog, I've written over six hundred articles (and trust me, nobody is more stunned by that number than I am). Most are about sports, technology, music, movies, and my family, as well as the occasional article on things like religion and politics. None of them are as important as this one. If you are only a casual reader of this blog, regularly skipping articles about subjects that don't interest you, I implore you to read this one to the end.

I first met Cindy Marshall in 1994, when her sister Kerri married my friend (and best man at my wedding) Jeff. I don't know a lot of my friends' siblings, but Cindy and Kerri (and their parents) are very close, so you can't know one without knowing the other. Cindy had her first child, Sarah, in February 1997, and Kerri had hers, Rachel, in June. But the fact that both children were girls and both were born in the same year is just about the extent of the similarities. Rachel's most significant physical problem is that she needs glasses. Sarah, on the other hand, had surgery before she was born, has had a number of surgeries since then, and has been close to death more times than I care to remember. The fact that she is still alive has been called a miracle.

Part-way through Cindy's pregnancy, a routine ultrasound showed that the baby's bladder was enlarged. Upon further examination, doctors discovered that it wasn't draining properly, so she underwent two surgeries (called "bladder taps") in-utero. At this point the doctors thought there was an obstruction of some kind and believed that it was a relatively mild problem. Sarah was born five weeks early on Valentine's Day 1997, and weighed less than five pounds. She wasn't yet two days old when she had her first major surgery, an attempt to repair her twisted bowel. Immediately following the surgery, her appendix ruptured and had to be removed – the first of a number of organs to be removed from Sarah's tiny body.

After three more surgeries in two months looking for bowel obstructions, Sarah was diagnosed with "megacystis microcolon intestinal hypoperistalsis syndrome". In a nutshell, her bladder was enlarged, and her intestines were pretty much non-functional. Sarah spent the next five months at Sick Kids hospital in Toronto. She was started on TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), which means that she was fed completely intravenously. This is not a big deal for adults – many adults can live on TPN for years – but it's very hard on an infant's body. It kept Sarah alive, but at a price – within a couple of months, it destroyed both her liver and pancreas. She already needed a bowel transplant, but now she needed a new pancreas and liver as well. In May, Cindy was told that Sarah's only hope was a multiple-organ transplant and she was placed on the transplant list. At that time, no child as young as Sarah had ever survived such a transplant. I don't know if Cindy knew that then.

Sarah's life expectancy during this time varied, but was usually measured in months or even weeks, and at times much less. I remember being at a gathering at Jeff and Kerri's house in Newmarket (for Jeff's birthday, I believe) when the phone rang. The call was from Cindy at the hospital, basically saying "You better get down here now", and Jeff and Kerri immediately grabbed their coats and left. I was standing right by the front door as they left, and as long as I live I will never forget the look on Kerri's face. The party broke up shortly after they left as we all contemplated what was likely to happen that night. Thankfully, Sarah made it through that night and a number of others like that before something both terrible and wonderful happened – another infant died.

I feel like a monster for even using the word "wonderful" in a sentence describing the most painful thing that could happen to a parent. But on what must have been the worst day of their lives, the parents of the child who lost his life (all Cindy knows about him is that he was a ten-pound baby boy) made a decision that saved Sarah's – they agreed to allow their child's organs to be harvested for transplant. Sarah was flown from Toronto to Children's Hospital at the University of Western Ontario in London and at the age of 5 months 24 days, she received a new stomach, pancreas, liver, and bowel. In addition, both her gall bladder and spleen were removed. The date of the operation was August 7, 1997, a day that Sarah and her family and friends still celebrate as "Life Day".

The transplant saved Sarah's life, but it hasn't all been roses since then. She spent the next five months in the hospital in London before finally coming home for the first time at the age of ten months, and to this day returns to the hospital regularly for treatment and checkups. Transplants are funny – the body can live with a transplanted organ for years, even decades, and then suddenly decide that it's a foreign body and needs to get rid of it. As a result, Sarah has to take several different kinds of medication every day to avoid rejection, and will for the rest of her life. The medication has serious side-effects as well. She never crawled as a baby because she simply didn't have the strength and needed help on stairs until the age of four or five. Sarah is a full foot shorter than her cousin Rachel (who is younger by four months), and despite being twelve years old, she weighs less than 60 pounds. She has very thin arms and legs with little muscle. She loves to dance and has been taking dance classes for years, partially because she enjoys it and partially to help her build up her strength.

Not only did the operation save Sarah's life, but it was special in a number of other ways as well – it was the first pediatric multi-organ transplant in Canada, and only the second ever with those four organs. Sarah became the youngest multi-organ transplant recipient in history, and has a certificate from the Guinness World Record people to prove it.

Despite all the hardships she's had to deal with, the surgeries, the medication, the procedures she still has to have done every day, all the trips to the hospital in London (did I mention that she lives in Cobourg, about 300km away from London?), Sarah remains a happy, bubbly, delightful little girl. She doesn't have the physical strength to do things that other kids do, even some much younger than her, but I have never once heard her complain about it. Now don't get me wrong, she gets grumpy now and again like any other kid. And Cindy has probably heard her complain on numerous occasions, but note that I said "I've never heard her complain". Seriously though, Sarah is almost always smiling, she loves having her picture taken, she adores her baby brother Austin, and she's just always fun to be around. She's spoken at public events about her experiences, and has been interviewed for a number of magazines. You may remember a Wal-Mart TV commercial a couple of years ago, where a number of people said "I was one", "one" being a child whose life was saved at children's hospitals. The little girl at the end who whispered "I am one" was Sarah.

Like all of my friends who know Sarah, Gail and I have signed our organ donor cards and quite honestly, other than having religious beliefs prohibiting it, I cannot think of one compelling reason not to. If Sarah had not had her transplant, she would almost certainly have died within a year of her birth, and those of us who have gotten to know and love her over the last twelve years would have been deprived of that. I signed my donor card so that I might be able to help others have a similar experience. Please sign yours.

Parking Lot Design FAIL

In front of the main door of the building I work in, there are several handicapped parking spots, as there should be. To the west of the main door is the door I usually use. When you open that door, there is a step up (no ramp), and the hallway you enter leads directly to a stairwell and nothing else. There is no way to access the main floor using that door (well, there is a door into an unfinished storage area on the main floor, but that door is permanently locked).

So why are there five handicapped parking spots in front of that door?

Burning question of the morning

Why do they put ProActive acne medication and Olay "regenerist" (or whatever) cream commercials on during The Smurfs?

Wii Fit

Our "family present" this past Christmas was Wii Fit. The boys were kind of excited about it, but not thrilled. It wasn't like their reaction when we bought them Star Wars Lego for Wii – that game was a big hit. Since then, however, they've really started to enjoy Wii Fit. It's not their favourite game – that would be the aforementioned Star Wars Lego – but I'd say it's in the top three. Gail and I also enjoy it. There are basically three "modes" to Wii Fit. It can be:

1. a fun game
2. a workout that doesn't seem like a workout
3. a real workout

The balance games may help your overall balance, but they certainly just seem like fun. Or, you can combine the balance games with a couple of the aerobic ones for a bit of a workout. There's a boxing one that combines throwing punches with step aerobics, or there are regular step aerobics and some running ones as well. Or, if you are actually in the mood to work out, some of the strength training and yoga exercises are quite difficult (the "dance" yoga one is the hardest one I've done yet).

Does it compare to an actual weight bench or going for an actual run, whether outside or on a treadmill? Well, not really. But there have been times where the boys are asleep and Gail is either asleep as well or doing something else, and I have some time to myself. Sometimes I read, blog, work, play my guitar, but rarely do I decide to go and work out for half an hour. However, on some occasions I have decided to play Wii Fit for a while and before I knew it, I had worked out for half an hour or more.

People have been trying to making exercising fun for non-fitness buffs for years, so kudos to Nintendo for finally succeeding.

Roll up the rim to lose

I buy a tea and bagel from Tim Horton's on my way to work every day. For the last couple of weeks, the Roll up the Rim to Win contest has been going on, and thus far I have won exactly nothing. Last year I won a couple of coffees teas and a couple of donuts — nothing much, but it's always nice to win something. But does my lack of winning make me get angry and not go to Timmy's anymore? No, it makes me want to go more because I know the chances of winning are pretty decent and the fact that I haven't won yet makes me more likely to win the next time. Yes, I know that is absolutely not true, but it sometimes feels true.

So if I win, I want to go back to Timmy's to win again and if I lose, I want to go back to Timmy's to try again. They can't lose. It's brilliant.

Update: A friend of mine pointed out on facebook that she wins more often when she buys a large. Last time they ran this contest, I bought a large tea every day, and I won a few times. These days I buy a medium every day and haven't won at all. Coincidence? Hmmmm...

Hotwash.... ain't so hot

For Christmas about three years ago, Gail bought me a thing from Canadian Tire called "HotWash". It's a device that you insert between the windshield washer fluid pump and the wipers, and it heats up the wiper fluid on the fly to help melt ice and snow from the windshield, and it also helps get rid of bug juice in the summer. Great idea, right? I thought it was. Did it work? I still don't know for sure.

When I first got it, I looked over the installation instructions and figured I could install it myself. After a half hour in the garage with the hood up, I decided that I should probably let a professional do it, since I'm no auto mechanic. I can change my air filter and wiper blades, but that's about it. I took it into Canadian Tire and had them do it, and figured I was all set. We had a relatively warm winter that year, so I didn't get to really try it out for several weeks. It did eventually get cold and snowy again, and driving home from work after a day of snow and ice, I remember hitting "wash", ready to watch in amazement as the ice on my windshield quickly melted away. Never happened.

When I got home, I remember standing in the garage for about ten minutes, repeatedly spraying the windshield and feeling how warm the spray was, but I never noticed a temperature change. According to the manual, once you spray it the first time, it takes 10-15 seconds to warm up, and then if you spray again after that, everything is warmed. The actual temperature was a mystery — it was listed in the manual in at least two different places, with two vastly different values. One said something like 60°C — warm enough that you should see steam (I never did) when you use it on a cold day. I don't remember the other number, but it was different from the first one by a significant margin, and wasn't simply 60°C converted into Farenheit or anything like that. Either way, the water coming out of mine was no warmer than the air temperature. The thing just plain didn't work. I took it back the next week and told them it wasn't working. They had a look and told me that it was, but that the manual was wrong — the fluid is heated up to above freezing so that it will still melt the ice, but it's nowhere near 60°. I decided that this was why I didn't notice a difference in temperature and assumed that everything was OK.

Over the two years, everything seemed fine, but I was unable to notice any kind of difference. I then had to bring the car in for service a couple of times for an unexplained power loss — the engine would just stop while I was driving. I'd quickly put the car in neutral, restart it, and get back into drive. Only once was I not able to restart it this way, and that was in the parking lot of a Canadian Tire. Three different Canadian Tire stores (Waterloo, Kitchener, and Burlington) were unable to find any problem. Finally I brought it into a local shop in Waterdown, Al's Auto Service, and he basically unplugged a bunch of things and plugged them back in to make sure the fittings were all tight and weren't corroded. He found no problems either, but after he did that, the problem vanished and I never had it again. Then last winter I brought the car into the brand spankin' new Canadian Tire in Waterdown. They fixed something (don't remember what) but while doing that, they noticed that my HotWash wasn't plugged in. I have no idea how long I'd been driving with the thing unplugged (and therefore doing nothing), but I suspect that during his investigation of my problem, Al unplugged it and simply forgot to plug it back in. They re-enabled it and once again, I didn't notice any difference.

Finally a few weeks ago, I noticed a big ad in the local paper saying that Canadian Tire was recalling the HotWash things for safety reasons, and were giving full refunds of the purchase price. Ironically, the problem was that they were overheating, which was certainly not the case with mine, which never got warm in the first place. I brought my car in earlier today and asked them to remove it, which they did. They also refunded the purchase price and the cost of installation, so when I picked up my car from the service desk, they gave me about $92. When was the last time you got your car serviced and they gave you money?