Well, sorta.

Had a nice kayak ride in the river Saturday. If you have never partaken, I highly recommend it. It's an inexpensive rental at the harbor. I have all the boating skills that an elephant would have on a tightrope and had a grand time, even managed a snap shot quickly taken underneath the skyway.

Hate to see Borders go. Back in the day, when I worked for a book publisher, our CEO envisioned news like this. It was a little hard to imagine because in the early to mid 90s, the race to build bigger better bookstores was fast and furious. We had to gear a lot of efforts towards things that would be pleasing to Borders, Brentanos, Waldenbooks and Barnes and Noble.

Less places for actual books is like neighborhood record stores going away, the material is still out there, but it is kind of sad to see it come to that. Given expense, my awareness of my neighborhood library has returned, because I guess I’m old school, something about the experience of having actual pages to turn.

I don’t have any issues with Kindles or Nooks. A colleague even successfully stripped a nook of its software and replaced it with Android software and it runs like a champ.

One of the greater parenting cons of all time was my dad suckering my siblings and me when we were kids. We would hit a branch library pretty regularly, but special occasions meant “DOWNTOWN!” Hidden treasures could be found on various shelves that rarely met the racks in Clarence. I know you can arrange that now, but when you’re a kid, finding something cool on your own is a joy that can’t be adequately described here.

That was the cool thing about the big stores like Borders. Sure, Amazon has everything under the sun and then some, but places like Borders would have something right there. I wasn’t there a lot, but appreciated what their efforts. It was never terribly important that “Seattle’s best” was brewing in the corner, but after getting my son all hyped up to help me find the latest Tom Robbins book, to the point of chanting “B is for Beer” as we entered the store and finding it was pretty cool.

One less venue for that, so that is a little sad.

Remember when you were learning to drive, and more importantly, learning to parallel park? Yeah, me too. More importantly, remember waiting while somebody finished parallel parking, since you know there might be traffic coming the other way. Yeah, me too. I’m not sure when it happened, but apparently you are supposed to just go around the poor devil who is trying to park. This is troubling to me. If you take that chance, what if the parker messes up and needs to come out? What if you are the parker and the guy in the Humvee can’t wait and comes close to hitting you because he HAS to beat the traffic….into submission?

I see this on Elmwood all the time and watched as the folks at the marina over the weekend were routinely breathing down each other’s necks seeking parking. Relax, ya’all, we’ll get there.

Great slate of music in the area for the summer at next to no money. It’s funny since Western New York is such a sun starved people, there is a high population of folks who take in a show, not to see the show per se, but being seen at the show or saying they caught it. I was struck while mostly enjoying Pat Benatar by the sheer amount of people, just there, not particularly for the show, just to be there. I had a crappy vantage point of one of the tv screens for much of the night and dumbstruck when a sloshed woman came up to ask if I would be move because she couldn’t see the screen from her chair even further back. It’s a concert not a movie, fool.

Social Media can be a funny thing. A guy who decided sight unseen that an untested intern would be better at my job than I would some years ago, now wants to be LinkedIn. That makes me chuckle as only one of us is working in this market.

Not going to weigh in on the Casey Anthony case, as I’ve come down with a bad case of disinterest.

Okay, you say it without looking at it and it sounds like a bar on Main Street with a two drink minimum between City Lights and the Jam Club, but it is the Water Taxi, that I admit from a distance to me looked like the Mini-Me the Miss Buffalo never needed. But before I’m branded a neigh-sayer or anything bad buffalonian-esque, I shoved my semi-willing young son on for a lap around the waterfront. I thought we’d a two hour ride to inner and outer harbor, but it is one of the other. We happened to hop for the inner harbor jaunt, but it was still a groovy ride. Got out onto a bit of the open water for a bit. along with some different perspective of the city, so I said the heck with it and played tourist and took a few pictures.









There are a few more over at mikespub.wordpress.com, but you get the idea.

Yes, dear readers, both of you, a few shots for the historical recreated village from last week's Quebec trip. This is the estrip equivalent of sitting through my vacation pics....but I had a decent camera.

I have a pretty cool job. Despite having every travel clinche possible happen while traveling this week, this week’s sojourn to Granby, Quebec had some cool moments. For both of you who regularly read this, I hinted at Zoo pics and the good folks at Zoo de Granby were happy to oblige with two trips over to their great space for some fun, and a sneak peek at their latest exhibit. Those who hate animal pictures, should probably avert their eyes at this point, but this is how we were greeted last monday evening:



And now the fun stuff

There, wanted to see I could spell it without looking. The marketing group I’m with took a break from discussions and whatnot for an en mass tour of the aforementioned village.

It is a recreated 19th century farm village halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. Our hosts from the Zoo de Granby arranged for a very nice tour, which led to informal chats prior to dinner.

For dinner, it was culture shock for everybody except the french canadians at the table. The Village put on what they referred to as an Sugar Shack meal, meaning it was similar into scope to what folks ate then before then went to work, or what us marketers would eat before descending into an international food coma.

Sitting with folks from Germany, Austria and exotic Philadelphia, we watched as it kept coming: Crouton, Bread made on the premises, pork and white bean soup, ham, sausage, egg, potatoes, and syrup. Vindication for Buddy the Elf as syrup is indeed a major food group.

It was pretty funny given the reactions and the curiousity from the Europeans, who made me laugh with their assessments of the Canadian beer being offered. You can imagine trying to explain Philly Cheesesteak or our Wings to them.

Properly toured and fed, we were sent back on our bus for the ride back only to have to loop around for our driver to recover his lost coat, which doubled the length of the journey back to Granby.

He reappeared with the jacket and was greeted by some sarcastic cheers.

Sarcasm apparently is universal.

3 airports, 2 countries, what could go wrong?

Monday's Odyssey. I knew my gates, studied up to know protocol and in the words of one of my favorite bloggers “tossed out the water, took off my shoes, put the laptop in its own bin and hurried the fuck up.”

I booked my stuff through Orbitz, so naturally the United Airlines check in machine had no idea, but that was quickly rectified. I got onto the plane in Buffalo. It was operated by Mesa Airlines and was old enough that I expect Wrongway Feldman was at the controls.

I struck up a conversation with a Buffalo Expat who was on the way to his retirement home in Maui. I can’t help but wonder if he got to his destination before I got to mine.

Being almost as smart as I think I am, I went on Orbitz and got gate information as there was about forty minutes from I landed in DC and the next Spirit of St. Louis would take me the rest of the way to Montreal. If you have ever been to Dulles Airport in DC, c and d are good letters to have near one another. What Orbitz doesn’t tell you is that flight updates they give you sometimes hit your phone when you cannot use it, as what happened today.

Bastards made my gate change, sending me from C to A, which requires a train, a stairmaster, and considerable respiratory skills to get done in short order. Flight was scheduled to leave at 12:12 and I arrived at 12:05, (this is where more frequent travelers laugh at me.) Because we were waiting on a few folks, the plane sat…and sat as they won’t leave without you. After 20 minutes, they did (so I can say screw you frequent traveler, shit do happen).

And we were off, on an even older plane that before, which a flight crew of one, she looked like a combination of Blythe Danner (a good thing) and Witchypoo from H.R. Pufenstuf.

Flight was fairly straightforward from there, but flying the planes out of my high school history book somehow drained the life from my cell phone so, if I was a little abrupt, I do apologize.

Made it to the hotel which despite some skilled photoshopping to make it look Chalet-like is on the Granby equivalent of Niagara Falls Blvd.

Got my first look at the Zoo de Granby this evening and it is a sight. I’m looking forward to seeing the full thing on Wednesday night, but they have some neat toys here, Ostrichs, I tell ya.

And the initial ice breaker supplied with me with personal favorite: Sleeman’s Ale! Good Zoo, good Zoo.

And if it warms up, I’m so hitting the waterpark.

Good Canada

The ex is out of town so I'm running the show domestically till Sunday, which is all well and good, been there done that. The only real wildcard is that the Zoo holds one of its bigger fundraisers of the year, so I fan out some help to make sure the kids all get to where they need to be and whatnot.

I'm not a big fan of traveling for work, but my boss would like me to journey to Granby, Quebec for a conference on Zoo marketing. That is great, I love that I have a boss who places value to my work and wants me to grow and succeed. That is a nice feeling.

Except I don't want to go particularly. If it was a month later, I could even overlook the crappy per diems rates, but next week just blows and this week isn't finishing strong.

My younger daughter is down with what is most likely mono, but a test came back negative so I'm gonna go all Aurora Greenway on the pediatrician's office so she gets relief tomorrow instead of next Tuesday. So, she is bummed about missing her jr. prom.

I'm just tired of giving the same medical report to the grandparents, the partner, ex's travelin companion, so everybody knows the same thing.

Oy, so there is that.

Number one son is making his debut as Gaston in the school production of Beauty and the Beast, which I'm sure will be pretty awful as a whole, but he'll be great, and I'll be in Quebec (God apparently as a sense of humor).

My Dad volunteers in a couple of labs lending his computer expertise to some folks at Roswell, which is a good thing because he is also dueling with redolent lymphoma. We've been told a handful of times that he has it beat, yet it has reappeared again. I went with him last week and told his doc that if he says nothing to worry about, there is a chance we'll be fighting.

So, Dad goes back for further testing on Tuesday while I am in Quebec.

Elsewhere in my humble employer, per diem is a laughable $20 a day. I suppose it is possible in most instances, but to truly do so, you have to do much declining of super-sizing. I pointed out that this is worse in Canada with the crappy US dollar and the added fun of the GST to our CFO who thought she was hilarious with McDonalds jokes.

Yeah, a little stress.

The flight arrangements on Monday have me going to DC then to Montreal (to save money), with about 40 minutes between flights, that will be close.

Ah, but there might be a few Sleemans Ales to be had so there might be an end to the stress.

I learned some important things: Lamaze is crap and Petocin doesn't speed your contractions, it makes labor one big long spouse's hand-crushing contraction.

My eldest arrived on June 2, 1991 after 23 hours of "sheer bliss." I think there is a file on my former spouse and me because the experience really molded us for when we returned for the other two kids.

But despite it all, she arrived quite nicely.



We were feeling pretty good about a year after. She's continued to age quite nicely. I can't do that beard anymore without there being "Santa-like" connotations.