The Wingman Chronicles

I was in Chicago for a few days this past week, for meetings related to an industry committee in which I participate.  It was an interesting trip for a bunch of reasons.

Photo by Tortipede

 I had the pleasure of staying at the University Club of Chicago, a wonderful old building built in the early part of the last century.  It has great architecture and service, with the downside of requiring a jacket and tie. It is located on the East side of the Chicago Loop, overlooking the newly refurbished area along the lakefront.

I arrived Wednesday evening, and met a few folks for a drink in the Presidents Bar.  I was introduced to a friend of a fellow committee member.  Milt had celebrated his 91st birthday the day before (Veteran’s Day in the U.S., Remembrance Day in Canada).  He had some interesting stories to share. 

Milt grew up in the ghettos of New  York in the 1920s and 1930s.   He was 16 years old when Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and recalls spending New Years Eve 1933 in Time Square, imbibing Bronx Cocktails (he mentioned that the only people who couldn’t get a drink during Prohibition were these people who didn’t want a drink anyway). He is also looking forward to celebrating the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition (December 5th, 2008).

Milt is a veteran, and was a combat officer in the second world war.  He served in the Pacific Theatre.

He has done many other things through his life, including being a navigator in Michigan road rallies, running Porsches for some 1,300 miles through Mackinaw and the Upper Peninsula.

Milt has had, in his own words, “a wonderful trip”.  His words of advice: Don’t complain.  Don’t explain.  And play the hand you’re dealt.  Not bad rules to live by.  And he was sure a fun guy to talk to.

Happy Birthday, Milt.

The Old Geeks seem to have once again managed to sink to their own skill level within the True North hockey league.

A four-four tie after the first win of the season seems to have relegated both the Geeks and their would-be opponents to a more competitive level.  This of course means, a lower level.

After being dropped a division, the Geeks won their first game in the new division 5-1.  However, there is some question as to whether the move in divisions is really responsible for the sudden turnaround.  The win was achieved with a venerable rent-a-goalie, which brings the whole win-loss-tie thing into doubt.

A detailed analysis of the Geek Lifetime statistics revealed that in fact ALL of the games the Geeks have won in the last twenty-one years have been with the benefit of a rent-a-goalie.  The careful record-keeping for which the Geeks are known has revealed An Inconvenient Truth – if the Geeks want to win, the Geeks have to pay.    And the price has gone up.  In these times of economic hardship, the going rate for a Rent-A-Goalie has gone from $30 to $50 a game.  Truly a recession proof commodity – but is it one that the Geeks can afford?

Although there is faint hope that Alex, recently promoted from backup to number one goaltender, may change this trend, there is concern that he is more interested in staring out his office window than backstopping the Geeks.  Then again, who can blame him….

The pep talk that turned the team around.

So, let me get this right.

• We are 0 and 4;
• We have given up twenty-six goals in four games;
• The team we’re playing tomorrow is in fifth place – but has scored 17 goals, won two games, and will likely kick the crap out of us;
• Woolley has been in on *every one* of our goals (!???!!) (all six of them);

These are dark days indeed…. We can only look forward to playing the Nighthawks, who are also 0-4, have also scored six (they seem to share the points), but have only given up 22 goals – better bring your “A” game Alex!! And they have close to twice as many penalty minutes as we do, so if they don’t beat us on the ice, they will beat us in the alley…..

Yikes. I think that at this point we should consider that the Coach/GM has the career life expectancy of Stephan Dion.

(Alex, maybe there is some relationship between our performance and that of the global markets).

This led to a 6-3 win against the Nighthawks (who were missing their leading scorer), and subsequent reassessment of whether or not we should be moved down a division in the league.

A follow-on message providing our Coach/GM with some guidance:

[As said (more or less) by] Sun Tzu ….. when your enemy is of superior strength……Evade Him – Translation – Relegate the Geeks to the next division …. Down. ;+ )

Nuff said. We’ll see where we end up.

We had a great long weekend at the Delawana Inn in Honey Harbour. The weather was gorgeous – about 27C, and sunny the whole time, with nice cool fall nights. We swam, canoed, kayaked, and spent a day on Beausoliel Island, where we mountain biked, and explored the beach and forest.

Sean (also known as “Lucky“) managed to put his foot down beside a snake – an Eastern Massasuaga Rattlesnake no less – and after shouting “Agh! Snake!”, his feet didn’t touch the ground for about a hundred metres. Clearly he has recovered from his injury of the early summer. Despite all the ruckus, an inspection of his boots and legs showed no damage. When asked later about the bike ride he said “It’s a nice trail. Well, except for the snakes.”

The Wye Marsh put on a couple of shows, one of which, Birds of Prey, fascinated the kids. They have many different birds – an Eagle Owl, a Turkey Vulture, a Barn Owl, a Red-Tailed Hawk, and a Harris Hawk (shown in the pictures).

Sean and I got to watch the Leaf home opener on television, a solid victory over the Red Wings. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to fish, but all around, a very nice time.

The Delawana has been rated as the top family resort in Canada for five years running, and it is a great place to visit. We’ve done three Thanksgivings there, and three or four ten day holidays in the summers. Highly recommended.

All the pictures are over at flickr, as usual. See if you can find the Great Blue Heron!

The Old Geeks have started their twenty-second season, and it could be one for the record books.

And not in the good way.

Despite finishing on an up-note, and one of the most successful training camps (photos here) in recent memory, the Geeks have lost three in row (6-1, 7-0, 8-3 – yikes) to start off season number twenty-two of Geek Hockey. This brings back memories of the Geeks worst start ever, a nine game debacle that almost led to the folding of the team.  Fortunately the temperature of the beer remained consistent as the team record plummeted, and the Geeks struggled through the dark days.

Although it is early in the season, the usual calls for the coach’s head have begun to be heard.

However, Woolley (right) seems immune to the abuse, and clearly has a new strategy this season.  He has decided to rebuild the team, and is not wasting any time. He is currently, uh, ‘between gigs’, career-wise, and has a lot of free time on his hands.

The pieces of the puzzle aren’t hard to put together:

• First, Woolley has replaced the Geek goalie of twenty-some seasons.  Although Higgins had been with the Geeks since the beginning, he is not officially a charter member, having taken a year off to ‘find himself’.   Given his subsequent goaltending performance, it seems that the search was unsuccessful.  In any event, Higgins has retired, and we now have added Alex to the Old Geek Cannon Fodder division.  Alex is refreshingly upbeat, but we will soon break his spirit, as we have with other goalies.
• Woolley has brought in a second rookie, putting the old fat guys on notice; Clint (not his real name) can rush end to end, and miss the net, just as well as some of the other Geeks, so he shows promise.  He gets the same results, only faster.
• Woolley has hired fans.  Along with the rookies, apparently as a package deal, we get fans.  This past Thursday, we played in a 5,000 seat arena (the Spectator rink at the Powerade Centre in Brampton), and were amazed to have two female fans – they even had signs!!

Although Wooley’s retooling is still in it’s infancy, he has BIG plans (well, so he says). So we will carefully watch future developments as the season proceeds.

I had another chance to get to Paris this year, this time just as fall was starting. It was a business trip, but I had a free day to wander around, and managed to walk about eighteen kilometers. I got to Luxembourg Gardens, the Luxembourg Palace, Pont Neuf, Le Pantheon, and an exhibition by Georges Briata at the L’Orangerie du Sénat in the Luxembourg Gardens (no, I am not an art aficionado by any stretch of the imagination, but the price was right).

I also did a walkaround of Notre Dame Cathedral. The Pope performed a mass about sixteen hours before I was there (hmm, I wonder why he didn’t call?). The place was still a madhouse when I got there, and had a very significant Gendarmerie presence. Spectacular architecture.

The highlight of the trip was a few days at Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay, a twelfth century monastery that has been converted to a hotel. it is about thirty miles west of Paris, and is spectacular. Much of the original Abby has been restored.

As always, all the photos are over at Flickr.

The first participant in the Squirrel Relocation Program (SRP), a little known rehabilitation and protection activity that deals with delinquent squirrels, has been officially relocated.

Although the squirrel’s conviction was somewhat hasty, his presence near the scene of the crime (a gnawed hole under the edge of the shingles), his desire for peanut butter and sesame seeds, and his tiny brain, have led to summary judgment. There may be further arrests in this affair, and surveillance of the crime scene continues.

Unfortunately for this chap, a previous experience with a recalcitrant squirrel who wanted to live the good life in my attic has led me to adopt the rather harsh line of expelling all squirrels, rent-paying or not. The results of the last such sublet included gnawed rafters, a wild evening of basement squirrel hunting, a broken canoe paddle, and a family who doesn’t take me quite as seriously as they used to.

I continue to be a geek.  I’ve spent the last little while upgrading my blog and it’s plugins, while placing it all under version control.  It’s a little bit tragic, but I must admit I still enjoy this stuff, and that’s probably a Good Thing.  Now I can get at the posts in my queue. 

Oh, and WordPress 2.6.1 looks like it has come a long way from 2.3.3 – I become more a fan of this stuff every day. I still have a few style things to sort out, but enough for tonight.

We’re getting ready to head to Silent Lake Provincial Park for a week, and we’re hopeful that this camping trip will last a little longer than the last one.

We spent four days in the park in 2007, at a walk-in campsite. The weather was great, and the sites are a stone’s throw from the beach.

There was lots of wildlife as well. Sean and I saw a beaver while we were biking, and he grumpily slapped his tail at us in indignation. Deer were pretty thick on the ground as well, and we had a pair of baby raccoons up a tree at our site at one point.

The best part, though, was the canoeing – this park has a breath of Algonquin in it, what with the Canadian Shield rock, and forest.

Although Silent Lake itself is not huge, there are a few connected lakes (which we’ll see for the first time this year), and it is motor-free. The park also includes a 15km hiking trail, a day-use beach, and number of mountain biking trails. If your interests tend more towards winter, you can reserve yurts here as well, for cross-country skiing or snowshoeing in the winter – maybe next year

The full photoset from last year is at Flickr.

After six weeks of wearing a cast (four weeks of which was part of summer vacation), Sean’s cast has been removed. He has a fair bit of physiotherapy to work through, and he still can’t walk on it, but he’s a pretty happy guy. And we’re pretty sure he won’t be climbing any trees in the near future.

All things considered, he dealt with it pretty well – no complaining, and he took good care of his leg. We made it to the zoo, a Blue Jays game (when his Aunt, Uncle, and cousin were in town), and various other cast-friendly venues. A word to the wise – it is a LONG way from Union Station to the Skydome for a kid on crutches.

We’re hopeful he’ll be able to walk short distances by next week sometime, as we’re off to Silent Lake Provincial Park for a week of camping and canoing – but that is another post.