What's Worse Than Finding a Blue Jay in Your Car?

This is a whole blue jay.

Everybody's heard this riddle:

Q: What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?
A: Finding half a worm.

Many years ago I was driving through the Annapolis Valley on a beautiful late summer day. In the car with me were my ex- wife (front passenger seat), her mother (rear right seat), and her mother's boyfriend (rear left seat). Everybody had expressed an interest in stopping for lunch so I declared that we would stop at the next eatery we found.

I forget where we were exactly, but the road was straight with flat fields on both sides, and I was tooling along at about 90 km/h with all the windows down.

In the field to my right was a solitary tree. As we drew nearer I saw something detach itself from the tree and propel itself with amazing speed in the direction of the highway. As my vehicle converged with the object, it first resolved itself into a medium sized bird before becoming identifiable as a blue jay. I judged that we were not on a collision course if the jay maintained its path, pulled up, or did anything but what it actually did.

I forget the name of the German general who spoke the words, but it was once said, "You will usually find that the enemy has two courses of action open to him, and of these he will choose the third." The jay maintained altitude level with the cab of my car until the last moment and then broke into a tight left turn that terminated on the door post separating the front and rear windows on the right side of the car.

There was an amazingly solid THUD as the jay struck and then there was blood everywhere I could see in my rear view mirrow. I stopped as quickly as I could and turned around to inspect the carnage. Both back seat passengers looked liked extras from "Carrie", seemingly spray painted with blood. The jay had broken in two on impact, the right half catapulting straight through, missing everybody, and going straight out the left rear window. The left half had passed between the heads of the two back seaters and landed on the deck in front of the rear window. To make the experience exceptionally cool, both pieces sprayed blood and organs all the way through leaving my ex-mother in law's boyfriend with what appeared to be a segment of intestine dangling from the end of his nose.

Besides the blue jay, nobody else was hurt, and I stopped at a gas station so the victims could clean up. No one in the front seat was even touched by a drop of gore, and even though I was still hungry I couldn't get anyone to express interest in the food they were so desperate for only minutes before.

If there's one memory my ex-wife still carries about her time with me, I hope this is it.

Nevermore! What WAS in your wallet?

You never know who's watching. Readers please note that, while certainly not innocent, the raven in this picture was in no way implicated in the sordid tale that follows.

One day in the summer of 2000, while I was on duty working police/fire dispatch in Lunenburg, I received a call from a tourist who was at one of the waterfront restaurants wanting to report that his credit card had been snatched from his hand while he was seated by the rail on the restaurant's outside deck. He also reported that he still had the thief in sight. The tone of his voice sounded like a combination of concern and embarrassment, and as the conversation progressed, here's the story that came out.

For background, the caller and his wife were visiting from the US and had been eating lunch at the Dockside Restaurant. You enter the restaurant from the street and walk to the back that faces onto the harbour where the deck is located. The building sits on a hill so the deck is on the second floor at that side, overlooking the street that parallels the harbour. On the other side of the street is the parking lot for the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic.

A view of the crime scene. The culprit landed on the peak of the rightmost of the red buildings visible in this photo. The victims were seated on the deck of the white building to the right of that.

The couple had eaten their lunch, received the bill, and were waiting for the waitress to return so they could pay. The caller had pulled out his credit card (platinum) and was holding it between his index and middle fingers as he talked to his wife, apparently turning it back and forth. The sun was reflecting off the card and, unknown to our hero, it was attracting some unwanted attention from the perpetrator.

The couple were seated at a table near the railing closest to the street. Without warning, what he described as, "... the biggest fucking raven I've ever seen in my life", landed on the railing, fixed him with one eye in that way that only ravens can, plucked the credit card from between his fingers, gave him one more look, and flew off. It landed on the peak of one of the museum buildings where he could see the flash from the card as the raven enjoyed playing with its shiny new prize. As I was speaking to the complainant, the bird flew off out of sight, and I assisted him in cancelling the card.

Several pigeons were questioned as well as some crows, but the conclusion was reached that the raven was some hooligan from out of town. As of this date the credit card has not been recovered.

Don't Ever Change

The "memento mori" (reminder of mortality) was a curious photographic phenomenon popular in 19th century North America. You never looked better.

About 15 years ago, one of my medical alarm clients dropped her panic button in her toilet. She fished it out right away, but in trying to wash it off, water penetrated the casing and caused an alarm. After the dust settled, and she told me what had happened, I went to her residence to take whatever corrective action was necessary.

After dismantling the device (these were the old days, electronically speaking) and thoroughly blowing out the small amount of visible water with compressed air, I asked the client if she had a hair dryer I could use to be certain that all traces of water had been removed. She said she didn't have one herself, but that she was sure her neighbour had one we could borrow.

My client lived on the second floor of a senior citizens' apartment building in Lunenburg, and her neighbour lived directly across the hall. Just before I went to speak with her, my client whispered, "She's as dippy as the day is long, but she'll do anything for you."

Taking that for what it was worth, I was soon standing in the neighbour's foyer while she rummaged in closets trying to find the hair dryer she obviously hadn't used in years. Her search technique was amazing to watch. She would throw open a cupboard, a closet, or a drawer and root through the objects therein, sometimes pulling something out that wasn't a hair dryer, and then tear past me on her way to the next target. As she passed, she would thrust the object into my hands with a breathless, "Look at this!" If she didn't have a new curiosity on her next pass, she would make a comment on the one I was currently holding.

As her search neared its climax, she came by and passed me a black and white photograph of a man. Although it was in a modern frame, the photo was obviously very old. The gaunt man was seated in a wooden chair. His face was sunken at the cheeks. One eye was open, the other half shut; both eyes looked in different directions. He was wearing a dark suit that was more than a little rumpled. One side of his shirt collar was up, the other down, and his tie was askew. He didn't look in the least comfortable.

As I studied the picture, there came a crow of success from the end of the hall followed by the neighbour's triumphant approach with hair dryer held on high. As I relieved her of her cargo and handed her the picture, she said with obvious pride, "Isn't that a wonderful picture?"

I had to admit I'd never seen anything like it.

"That's my grandfather," she said, "He was dead when we took this."

Forget Me Not

"Hello Doctor? It's been three weeks and I still haven't heard back about my x-rays. I still get the headaches, and they seem to get worse when I walk through low doorways."

The family doctor I had known since my junior high school days retired in 2001, and even though I am no longer a patient of his he is still a client of mine. He recently phoned me with a question about his security system that I handled in my usual highly efficient and professional manner.

The sad thing about it all was that, hearing his voice, and mindful of how far down the road to ruin we've gone in this country, the first thing I thought was, "Great! He finally got the results back on those tests!"

We all know the scenario. You go to your doctor for some reason and they schedule blood work, x- ray, you name it. Some sort of diagnostic test. As they pass you the requisition, they speak some version of, "If the tests come back negative, we won't call you."

Speaking as one with a not insignificant amount of training and experience in the field of emergency communications, I have a hard time accepting a situation in which it becomes impossible to tell the difference between "all clear" and "oh shit, I forgot". At what point did the simple concept of closure leave the profession of medicine?

My late father was of the mind that, if the doctor didn't tell you you had a problem, then you were good to go. Don't feel you're being rude by following up on your own health. We all respect the fact that a doctor's office is a busy place staffed by overworked and harried people, but all that pales in comparison with the possibly life changing consequences of an illness being left to advance untreated or, worse yet, the unmitigated inconvenience of being dead, all due to an administrative oversight.

Self reliance is a virtue. Don't play "Mother may I?" with your health or that of those you love. Curiosity may have allegedly killed the cat, but we're still waiting on the results of the study that identifies the health risks of excessive politeness and blind deference to authority.

Interpreting Sexual Body Language

How a woman accessorizes for her date with you will often give subtle hints as to your chance of getting lucky.

I recently came across an advice article entitled "Everyone wants to know how to read the sexual body language." You can read the entire article at http://funreports.com/fun/03-05-2006/1366-body-language-0

After reading it twice and letting the laughter subside, I felt compelled, as your security and survival professional, to comment on its contents. For clarity, I am quoting items from the article in bold type below. My comments are in normal blue type. Here we go:

"It is well known that men and women use a wide variety of gestures while paying court to somebody. Most gestures are used unknowingly. The success of the relationship depends on your ability to give certain signals and perceive the ones that are being sent to you."

From this it is clear that "success of the relationship" really means "chance of getting laid".

"Raised eyebrows. When we see a person that we consider attractive, we begin raising and lowering our eyebrows. If the person also feels drawn to you, his eyebrows will also start going up and down. This gesture lasts only 1/5 of a second but it takes place all the time, with people of both sexes and all ages. This "eye making" can be easily left unnoticed, but if you do notice it, you will certainly be given 100% of the person's attention."

Really? Just take a moment to picture this. Two people across the table from each other, desperately trying to signal attraction by doing their very best Groucho Marx impression. Dat's da funniest t'ing I evah hoid. According to the last sentence there, you win some kind of attention prize for noticing what the other person's eyebrows are doing, but I think you have to mention it to them to get all that attention.

"Slightly opened lips. If a person likes you, his or her lips automatically open the moment your eyes meet."

I must be incredibly popular. I'm constantly running into people whose lips open the minute they see me and who won't shut their mouths long enough to take a frigging breath.

"Standing at attention. If a man is standing straight, with his shoulders squared and with his belt tightened, he’s trying to show himself in all his beauty. If he is leaning forward to hear what the woman is saying, it is even better."

Good posture is always attractive, and you should practice it every day, even when alone. If a man really wants to show himself in all his beauty he should make it obvious that his spine isn't the only part of him that's "standing straight". On the matter of leaning forward to hear what the woman is saying, that might be correctly interpreted here but I think it's more likely that she should speak the fuck up.

"Adjusting the clothes. If a man is adjusting his tie, he really hopes that you will notice it. He may also sleek his hair, pull down his jacket, see if his lapels are in the right place. When a man is playing with the buttons of his jacket he’s probably nervous. Using this gesture he’s also trying to demonstrate his subconscious wish to get undressed for you. The next stage is when he takes his jacket off and places his arms on his hips. If he has used all these gestures, it means he’s already imagining your shoes under his bed."

A guy who worked for me used to say, "You have to keep your nose to the grindstone, your shoulder to the wheel, your eye on the ball, and still be able to work in that position." That's kind of what sprung to mind when I read about all this tie adjusting, hair sleeking, jacket yanking, lapel checking, and button pulling. Now, I can honestly tell you that for me, wanting to get undressed for my woman is NOT a subconscious wish. Nope nope nope, it's right out there in the realms of constant and obvious, and was from the beginning. And the "next stage" confuses me. First of all, after you've exerted all that effort pulling and tugging and sleeking that jacket into perfect alignment it seems a waste to take it off. Also, how do you put your arms on your hips without looking like a dolt? Lastly, we are told that only after a man "... has used all these gestures ..." does it mean he's "... imagining your shoes under his bed." Honestly, there is no convulsive seizure relay race on the road to getting laid, and if this guy ends up with the woman's shoes under his bed it's because he stole them.

"Playing with the hair. In order to show her sympathy towards a man, a woman makes a movement with her head to get her hair off her face. She may also move it aside with her hand. She tries to send the same signal by licking her lips. By the way, men also like sprucing up while talking to a woman. At the same time a woman will never miss a chance to count the number of times a man sleeks or bristles up his hair during the conversation."

Sympathy? Is that what we're going for? The underlying philosophy here is that a mercy fuck is still sex. It can't be denied that "... a woman will never miss a chance to count the number of times a man sleeks or bristles up his hair during the conversation ...." but the count will be against you. No woman wants a man who behaves as though he thinks he's prettier than she is.

"Voyeurism. A man is openly trying to show that he’s examining the woman’s body, by casting some looks at its most beautiful parts. Ladies, you shouldn’t be flattered, he automatically scanned your figure the first second he saw you. All he wants to do now is to let you know that he considers you as his sexual partner."

This one is a little too subtle. What's the point of sex? To make babies and lots of 'em! To accomplish this, Nature has equipped us to check out a prospective mate for all the best attributes. Is she built to keep me warm in the cave at night? Check! Child bearin' hips? Check! Good strong teeth that are actually hers so she can chew the skins for my moccasins? Check! Don't ya just want to breast feed right now? Check check check!!!! You get my point.

"Crossing the legs. If the toes of a person's shoes are pointed at you, he or she is certainly interested in you. If you point your knee towards the person you’re interested in, you’ll demonstrate that you’re ready for a closer relationship. One of the most captivating poses is when a woman is sitting with her legs crossed under herself and her knees are exposed to the person she’s talking to. It means she's (sic) wants a man to take more decisive steps."

When someone shows "interest" in you, it isn't always good. How about having the police show interest in you? Having someone's toes or knee pointed at me has never been on the top of my list of good things, but I do keep an eye out for this behaviour, and especially for what part of my body they're pointing their toes or knee at. About this "captivating" pose the woman is supposed to get into, maybe she's trying to tell the man that he should take the decisive step of buying some fucking furniture so she doesn't have to sit on the floor.

"Playing around with cylindrical objects. A man, as well as a woman, when excited, will definitely find a glass or even a fork to stroke it or to touch it with his fingers. Cylindrical objects remind men of the woman’s breasts, and the women of the man’s genitals. Woman’s wrist has always been considered one of the erogenous zones. When a woman is interested in a man she’ll try to keep her palms and her wrists in the man’s sight."

Where in hell do they get this shit? Cylindrical forks? And unless you've been knocking back shooters all night, the glasses on the table won't be cylindrical either. Ladies, if a guy tells you that he's playing with cylindrical objects because they remind him of your breasts, believe me, you'd better own a strap-on because I can see where this is going. Also, should a man be happy because a woman is thinking about his penis while fondling an item of cutlery? On that last bit, it has always been my advice to tell your date to keep their hands where you can see them, at least until you know each other better.

"Touching the face. If a person is interested in you, he’ll keep touching his chin, his ears and his cheeks. It means that he or she is subconsciously fixing the lies. This is a combination of nervous and autoerotic actions. When we’re interested in somebody, our lips and the lower part of the face become very sensitive to stimulation. If you're smoking, you'll begin inhaling more often. If you're drinking something, you'll begin taking more sips. You enjoy touching your lips, and what is more, you let the other person know that a kiss is not far off."

Fixing the lies? I expend a lot of time and creative energy in crafting my lies thank you, so they don't need to be fixed. All this head touching makes my eye twitch. If the touching goes lower, or they start touching YOUR chin, ears, cheeks (either set), then you'll get the message loud and clear. And apparently, in my case, I have a very long face because that increased sensitivity they talk about goes all the way down to my ... chin. If you're smoking, bugger off chump. It's a deal breaker. If the other person is taking more sips, consider that you're close to getting lucky, but they need a little more thickness on those beer goggles before they take the plunge. Lastly, for most losers, a kiss is never far off. It's getting the other person to reciprocate that creates the problem.

"The leading hand. It is a good sign if a man is holding you by the elbow or by the shoulder. In the first place, it is a good way to lead you through the crowd. Secondly, this way he can be sure that you don’t get lost. Thirdly, this will frighten away the other men: after all, you already have one by your side. Fourthly , this lets him accidentally touch you … All in all, it’s a good gesture."

I really enjoyed this one. Last week Diana and I were in Canadian Tire and saw the loss prevention guy leading a customer out by both the elbow AND the shoulder. We did not see this as a good sign by any definition. Also, would you really want to date someone so disoriented that you need to manhandle them to prevent them from getting lost? Is this guy dating drunks or toddlers? If I want to frighten away other men, and the occasional aggressive lesbian, I bare my teeth and growl menacingly, signaling my intention to bite. I'm not sure how you would go about holding a woman by the elbow or shoulder and make it look like an accident, but if you succeed she'll think it was accidental and keep hoping you'll grow some balls and take hold of her for real. Too bad you're a useless tit.

"He's offering you his sweater or his coat. Few men would be very glad that a woman came back from a date wearing somebody else’s jacket, even if otherwise she would have died from cold. Men offer their jackets or sweaters to women because it’s a defensive, sexual and proprietorial gesture. He’s saying “What is mine, is also yours ” (and otherwise ). At first the jacket smells of him, and then it smells of you. Eventually, by giving it to you, he’ll have one more cause to appear on the scene again, at least to get back what belongs to him."

He's not saying, "What is mine, is also yours ...", he's saying to everybody else, "If my jacket is on it, it's mine!" Everybody understands this. It's why nobody takes your seat in the bar when you've gone to the bathroom. A similar rule applies to dogs peeing on trees.

There's my take on it kiddies. Now go forth and multiply.

Something Good Actually Happened on September 11th

Today Diana and I celebrate our anniversary so I'm directing all my creative efforts in her direction. Tomorrow we'll return to normal programming. Enjoy what's left of the day.

It Turns Out There's NOTHING You Can't Come Back From

Yes, that's Sean Connery. There has been no Photo-shopping of any kind on my end, and if Diana had done it he'd be naked so I'd say no. No Photo-shopping of any kind.

In 1974, Sir Sean Connery was in an incredibly shitty movie ("starred in" would be a bit extreme) called "Zardoz". This post bears a picture from that film of Sir Sean in his man diaper (later refined and brought to perfection by Borat) brandishing his .455 Webley revolver. It's a big gun and I don't see a holster. I saw the movie, but can't remember where he put it when it wasn't in his hand. Sorry. I won't even comment on the boots although I would pay to hear what he said when first approached with this costume.

Forget about James Bond, take a good look at the photo, then consider that Sir Sean has starred in a number of incredible movies since "Zardoz". In fact I recently read that Catherine Zeta-Jones has "... a derriere as tight as Sean Connery's smirk ....". That puts Sir Sean's smirk in some good company indeed let me tell you.

In 1989 Sir Sean was voted People Magazine's "sexiest man alive". Even more, in 2000 he was knighted by The Queen, which is why I keep calling him "Sir Sean".

So the next time you think you've been embarrassed to death and can never show your face in public again, revisit this picture and soldier on.

Strange Lyrics From Rural Nova Scotia

Rural Nova Scotia has spawned some strange ditties.

One of the summer jobs I had while attending university was as night watchman at what was then called the "Adult Residential Centre" at Dayspring, Lunenburg County. A vast and rambling structure known locally as "the poor farm", the ARC dated from darker times when the mentally ill and the destitute, unwed mothers cast off by their families as irretrievably soiled and disgraced, the malformed and the mutated, as well as those who were then referred to as "mentally retarded", were thrown together under the care of the state. Before the pharmaceutical industry gave us drugs to lock up the mind, physical restraint was the norm, and the building contained a basement and several attics full of thick walled spartan cells complete with heavy rings set at convenient locations on walls and floor. Most of the building was demolished when what is now LaHave Manor was built, absorbing staff and "residents". What's left of the old structure is the two sections at its furthest extremities, now employed as offices and meeting spaces by the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg as the Municipal Activity and Recreation Centre or MARC, and an almost forgotten cemetery on the summit of the hill behind.

On one ward that housed most of the lighter needs cases lived an old guy named Albert who was as spry as anything but crazy as a coot. Lovable though, and he'd sing for you, with very little encouragement, a strange ditty I've never heard anywhere else. It went like this:

I went to the store to buy a jum,
Knocked on the door but nobody come!
Oh he smashed through the window
And he broke through the glass,
Down came old Jesus slidin' on his ass!

Never mind what the hell a "jum" is. Albert was from somewhere way out in the woods and singing this never failed to break him up.

Now rewind slightly to the early seventies while I was still in high school and my mother worked at Lunenburg's Harbour View Haven home for special care. Every Sunday, one of the local clergymen, a different reverend each week, would rotate through conducting services fror the residents. At this time, a tiny birdlike toothless crone the staff referred to as "Nanny" kind of fitted the same mold as Albert, only less spry. She needed help to get around. She also had an entertaining way of eating the hard candies she liked that kind of looked like she was trying to swallow her own head as she sucked them into oblivion.

Now Nanny had a ditty of her own, and an interesting sense of timing. One Sunday, while seated with her thin white hair fluffily quoifed amid the flock attending the weekly service, she found herself still bursting with song as the hymn that was being sung ended. So into the silence that briefly existed between the end of the hymn and the start of the sermon she dropped this gem:

Asshole asshole,
Daddy shot a bear!
Shot him up the asshole,
Never touched a hair!

With all due respect to the clergyman of the day, I don't know how you follow an act like that.

Favourite Quotations

For your edification dear readers, this is a selection of words of wisdom, presented in no particular order, that have stuck to me along the way.

No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place. ~ Zen saying

If your anger goes forth, withhold your sword; If your sword goes forth, withhold your anger. ~ swordsman's axiom

Better to do a little well, than a great deal badly. ~ Socrates

Either do or do not. There is no "try". ~ Yoda

Like picking fly shit out of pepper with boxing gloves on. ~ My father, Lawrence Whynacht, on the subject of things that are very difficult to do.

There's facts about dogs, and then there's opinions about them. The dogs have the facts, and the humans have the opinions. If you want the facts about the dog, always get them straight from the dog. If you want opinions, get them from humans. ~ J. Allen Boone

If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. ~ Red Adair

None are innocent. There are only those weak enough to believe they are, and those strong enough to revel in the knowledge that they are not. ~ Jacob Strauss, Magus of the Shining Hill

Don't start vast projects with half-vast ideas. ~ Unknown

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

When I want you monkey, I'll rattle your chain. ~ My mother, Evelyn Whynacht

If you are going through hell, keep going. ~ Winston Churchill

You are permitted in times of great danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge. ~ Bulgarian proverb

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

God grant me a good sword and no use for it. ~ Polish proverb

May those that love us love us, and those who don't love us may God turn their hearts, and if He won't turn their hearts may He at least turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping. ~ Irish toast

A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition. ~ Rudyard Kipling

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. ~ G. K. Chesterton

Black as the Devil,
Strong as Death,
Sweet as Love,
And hot as Hell.
~ how the Tuareg tribesmen like their coffee

You can make a shit house look like the Taj Mahal if you shoot it from the right angle. ~ My Father, Lawrence Whynacht, on the subject of why some people and places look great in pictures, but like ass when you see them in person.

Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes BETTER, but it doesn't make perfect. ~ the incomparable Diana Kleszczynski

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not. ~ Mark Twain

Those who won't listen have to feel. ~ My mother, Evelyn Whynacht

When the Fool Killer comes lookin', you better be hidin' in the tall grass. ~ African warning

No man meets a friend in the desert. ~ Arab proverb

The thorn defends the rose, yet it is peaceful and does not seek conflict. ~ Unknown

Are those pants too tight Toulouse? ~ Toulouse Lautrec's tailor

Never give a sword to a man who can't dance. ~ Celtic Proverb

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. ~ Will Rogers

Musings as Hallowe'en Approaches - Part the Second

"Evelyn: The Cutest Evil Dead Girl". My spectral girl didn't look like this, but the video is worth a peek on YouTube.

In 1984 I moved into a large house on Lincoln Street in Lunenburg. The layout of the stairway to the second floor prevented me from taking my bedframe up to the master bedroom, so I had to sleep on the mattress on the floor as a stopgap measure.

On the first night I slept in the house, fagged out with the toils inherent in moving, I crawled under the sheets, my faithful beagle/spaniel mutt Jasper curled up at the foot of my makeshift bed.

Jasper had a very low growl. Almost inaudible, and he was sparing in its use. Nevertheless it was the sound of his growl that woke me. Opening my eyes and raising my head to look down at him, I could see his silhouette against the wall. He was looking straight at the bedroom door which was to my left, and a ball of fur was raised on his shoulders. When I looked at the doorway I saw why he was growling.

What I saw in the dimness was a little girl, I would guess about five or six years old, standing in the doorway smiling at me. She had long hair and was wearing a plaid jumper with an old timey cut. When our eyes met and I registered what I was seeing I yelled, "Hey!" and quickly began to get off the mattress. At this point I really felt I was looking at a child.

I heard her giggle and saw her run off. In the five or so seconds it took me to get to my feet, pull on my robe (she was a kid after all) and reach my bedroom door, the little girl had gone to stand grinning mischievously at me from the doorway of another bedroom across the landing.

"Wait!" I called as I moved toward her. She stepped inside the room and I saw the door begin to close, but it wasn't quite shut when I reached it.

Tired and getting irritated at incompetent parents who let their kids run riot through strange houses in the middle of the night I grabbed the door and pushed it ahead of me as I started to enter the room. Suddenly I felt the door stop as though it had hit a solid obstruction, and then it flew back at me. The edge of the door hit me in the forehead and the impact threw me backwards onto the landing.

Now really pissed off, I went back and kicked the door fully open. There was no resistance this time, and my strike threw the door open hard enough for the door knob to break through the lathe and plaster wall as it impacted against it. Stepping into the room I saw ... no one. The room was empty except for a couple of boxes I had placed there earlier in the day.

The next day I had a beautiful bruise on my forehead, and I checked with everyone I knew who had ever lived in that house to see if any of them had ever seen or heard of the mysterious little girl. Nobody had.

I never saw the little girl again, but to the end of his days, Jasper wouldn't enter that room, giving it a wide berth, and a suspicious look whenever he passed it.

Musings as Hallowe'en Approaches

"Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head ;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."
~ From "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I attended elementary school at Lunenburg Academy, a massive, brooding, castlesque pile completed in 1895 on a windswept

hilltop in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The school grounds are bordered on two sides by the Hillcrest Cemetery, and my walk to and from school passed first in front of the local funeral home before following another two blocks along the border of the oldest portion of the town's largest burial ground. Once at school, for a child with a powerful imagination, a simple trip to the bathroom was an adventure rivaling anything Tolkein wrote about taking place in the Mines of Moria, the washrooms lying as they did deep in the lonely creaking bowels of the Academy's basement so far from any hope of salvation.

Lunenburg is an old town officially settled in 1753, and from such age is born much mystery and superstition. My father was a beneficiary of this and, with no disrespect to him, I will reveal that I came to know his faith in the old stories held more power in his life than anything his attendance of the Presbyterian Church could ever provide. He believed in witchcraft and malevolent magick. That bad luck could be simply bad luck, but persistent or exceptionally ill fortune could be the result of a spell cast by a witch on behalf of an envious or malicious rival. That warts could be "charmed" away. That a suspected witch could be tricked into identifying her or himself by constraining the suspect to enter or exit a premises by means of a doorway across which a broomstick had been secretly laid because a witch would make every desperate excuse possible to avoid stepping over it. That if you knew who cast it, a spell against you could be defeated by peeing in a bottle while thinking of the suspected witch, then corking it tightly and hiding it in a secure place. This would cause urination to become impossible for the witch requiring him or her to either find and uncork the bottle or, in final desperation, lift the spell from their intended victim.

From an early age I was acutely aware of the perpetual tug of war between reason and primal fear of the unknown. While as a child I was very religious in the Christan sense, something I have since been cured of, I somehow grasped that there were things and forces sharing the universe with me that I could not yet understand or even detect, and that became progressively more obviously beyond the ken of my available stable of adult authority figures the more of them I consulted. Asking a question along these lines always met with an answer lying between a patronizing reply embracing the "we are not meant to know" philosophy on the one hand, and the making of the secret sign to ward off evil on the other. In fact I'm not completely certain that my paternal grandfather wasn't advocating driving a stake through my heart while there was still time.

Every child understands fear. But fear of an identifiable danger or threat makes sense while fear of the ambiguous does not. As I worked my way though this, and still at a very young age, I was acutely aware of the fact that I felt different going into the old hoary basement of my own home in the day time than I did at night. That I felt better being there with the lights on than with the lights off, regardless of the time of day. That I walked along the border with the cemetery, could in fact enter it, without a qualm in the day time but felt a rising sense of dread just being near it if the walk was after dark. This fear of something I had never seen, heard, smelled, or could otherwise describe; a thing that had never actually harmed anyone I knew or had ever heard of, bothered me. It bothered me a lot.

My age could still be written with a single digit (and I'm not referring to Roman numerals) when I came to the realization that I needed to confront my fear. I was not going to be afraid simply because others were afraid. I began with sneaking into the century old basement of the house I grew up in, during the day but without turning on the lights. I would pass down the stairs and traverse the circular route that passed around the massive and ancient slate bake oven that marked the center of the foundation, forcing myself to a steady pace no matter how hard my heart throbbed, the dark gaping maw of the bake oven and the strange square opening in the stone foundation that led under the porch notwithstanding. When this became easy I did the same thing at night, and my stealth grew so my parents were never the wiser.

At last, one summer night in the full flower of my bravery, I waited until my parents were asleep before executing my tour de force. At 11:40 PM, to the accompaniment of my father's snores, and having earlier loosened the latch on the back door to facilitate silence, I made my way out of the house on a mission to face my greatest fear. By 11:45 I was at the edge of the Hillcrest Cemetery. Taking a deep breath, and drawing on the power I had cultivated, I stepped fearlessly into the dark expanse of monuments and shadows, making my way without hesitation into the deepest part of my heart of darkness. When I reached my goal, I sat with my back against a tombstone and calmly waited through the "witching hour", not rising until the treasured old watch my father had given me read fifteen minutes past midnight. When it did, I rose and walked with a slow, powerful, triumphant tread through the cemetery and back to my bed.

A little boy slew irrational fear that night and his parents never knew how it happened.

ATM Security Issues

A familiar situation; turn your back on the world while you access your cash. For good measure, maybe stick some ear buds in your head and obliterate all background noise with some non-stop "feel good" music.

A few years ago I was quaffing some ales with a group of my cop friends when the conversation turned to public washroom etiquette. Never mind how or why. My friends and I have eclectic interests. Anyway, in the course of the conversation I disclosed that in a public washroom I prefer to urinate in a stall with the door locked rather than at a urinal. I sipped my ale as I waited for the expected utterances of shock and awe to subside and then explained my reasoning which has nothing to do with shyness and everything to do with personal security precautions. Given a choice, I would rather not stand in a room I can't secure, possibly in the company of assholes I don't know, with my back to the door and nothing but my dick in my hand. It's not a tactically sound position. After that, my friends nodded their heads, stroked their chins, and sipped their own ales thoughtfully. Of course, they all went on to practice safe urination from that point on, although none of them will admit it.

I call this "the urinal model", and hold it forth as an example of unsound practice in matters involving structural design. When people talk security, they usually think in terms of locked doors, surveillance cameras, and high technology artificially intelligent systems, but for most security solutions these are only layers on the skin of the greater onion that can lead us to overthinking the problem and misdirecting resources. The first things to examine are those that take us back to first principles; the most fundamental human and natural ones:
(1) What procedures can we change to minimize risk?
(2) What physical structural design features can we add, alter, or adopt to minimize risk?

This brings me to the subject of this post; specifically, the good old Automated Teller Machine (ATM). If there was ever a shining example of nearly criminal negligence in design this is it. As the price of admission (aside from extortionate user fees) we are asked to either confine ourselves inside of a barely secured cubicle where we stand with our backs to the door (as well as anyone else in the room) or we have to stand facing the wall of a building with our backs to the world, in both cases relying on a half-assed rear view mirror with a CCTV camera behind it to watch what's going on behind us. The camera, by the way, is to identify us later and link us to the transactions we are performing in case we commit fraud against the bank. Any other evidence it collects is purely incidental. This, dear readers, is bullshit of the most aromatic kind.

Large cats in Africa stake out a watering hole where the animals they prey on must come to drink and this is sound predatory practice. The ATM is human society's watering hole and its present incarnation ignores the most basic realities of Nature. An ATM should be built like a podium with open access on either side. The person using it steps behind it and turns to face outward with the wall behind him or her. There is no need to shield your password from nearby onlookers because they're all in front of you. Suspicious individuals can quickly be identified before they shove a knife or gun in your back.

Modern society needs the ATM and users keep accepting that the banks have our highest level of security at heart. That isn't what's going on here. They're just holding your dick for you.

One of My Dogs Had a Hate on for Robert Mitchum - Tiny Strikes Again !

Robert Mitchum in the role of Raymond Chandler's fictional private detective Philip Marlowe. Tiny hated him in that part too!

I discovered an interesting phenomenon one day while watching “The Yakuza”, a 1974 film directed by Sydney Pollack starring American actor Robert Mitchum as a detective who has come to Japan to rescue a friend’s kidnapped daughter. The phenomenon was that Tiny had a hatred for Robert Mitchum.

Tiny was lying in her normal position for helping me watch a movie; on top of the right arm rest of my chair. Every time Mitchum appeared on screen, she raised her head, stared at the screen, and growled. Nobody else in the movie disturbed her and she would relax in between, but Robert Mitchum seriously pissed her off.

Things got even stranger when Remembrance Day rolled around. I watched “The Longest Day”, a 1962 film about the invasion of Normandy. The cast included just about every actor of note at the time it was produced including Eddie Albert of “Green Acres” fame, Paul Anka (the singer/actor, not Lorelai Gilmore’s dog), Richard Burton (the actor formerly married to Elizabeth Taylor, not the famous swordsman of the Victorian era), Red Buttons, Sean Connery, Peter Lawford, Roddy McDowall (of the original “Planet of the Apes” movies), John Wayne, and, you guessed it, Robert BLOODY Mitchum.

“The Longest Day”, as its name implies, is a LONG movie, and through it all Tiny slept, instantly waking up at the sound of Mitchum’s voice. Mitchum plays Brig. Gen. Norman Cota, a character who appears only at certain points in the movie, and every time he showed up, whether he spoke or not, she growled; occasionally becoming so incensed that she leapt to her feet to bark shrilly at the screen.

I have to ask, what did she know about that man?

A Tiny Tale

Diana holds Tiny, the canine cannon ball, during the little gaffer's "Welcome to Canada" party.

Back in 2000, I was in Florida on business and ended up rescuing a little ragamuffin toy poodle puppy named Tiny. Because I was traveling on business, I flew there and back in uniform. This was before we transitioned to the black field uniforms. At the time, we used a navy blue tactical uniform for field operations with "Whynacht Security & Survival" shoulder flashes and mine also had a bright yellow "Dog Handler" patch on the right sleeve.

Boarding my Air Canada flight out of Miami for the first leg back to Nova Scotia, I was carrying Tiny in a small standard crate of the approved dimensions. Because of her young age and small size, she was prone to sudden onsets of hypoglycemia that would cause her to lose consciousness and could be life threatening. To combat this, I was equipped with a tube of Nutrical to quickly administer a blood sugar boost as soon as the symptoms presented.

This was an early flight so breakfast was served. I was sitting six rows back from the front on the left hand side of the aircraft. With no one sitting next to me, I sat in the aisle seat with Tiny's crate stowed under the window seat in the row ahead. When my breakfast arrived, I noticed that Tiny had moved to the front of her crate where I could no longer see her. In case she lapsed into hypoglycemia, I decided to fish her out for inspection. She was fine, and I ended up putting her in my lap while I ate, periodically feeding her pieces of scrambled egg. Only the little girl peeking over the back of the seat in front of me and the elderly couple sitting across the aisle were aware that she was there, and kept smiling approvingly.

I was nearly finished with my breakfast when the flight attendants came through to clear away any empty plates. The one who gave the impression of being in charge, an attractive Asian woman, came down the aisle checking trays right and left. When she looked at mine, her eyes flicked to Tiny who quietly looked back at her. Staring at my lap, her eyes widened in delight, she exclaimed in a loud voice, "Oh my GOD, if that isn't the CUTEST thing I've ever seen in my life!" Since only a few people knew what was going on, I can only guess what everyone else in earshot thought she was talking about.

The flight attendant looked at me and said, "Wait here," which, under the circumstances, I thought was good advice. About a minute later, she came back to say, "The Captain is a dog nut too. He asks if, when you're finished with your breakfast, you wouldn't mind bringing your dog up to meet him." I told her I'd be happy to.

So after no less than three smiling flight attendants took away my plates and tray, and with Tiny riding in my hand like Cleopatra on her barge, I made my way forward to the flight deck where she ended up perched on the First Officer's knee while the Captain and I talked dogs for about half an hour. He was a beagle man, and I never hold that against anyone.

Our plane landed in Dorval after which we transferred to another Air Canada jet, this time a DC-9. My seat was at the extreme rear of the plane on the right. The flight was only half full and I was in the aisle seat with an empty seat between me and the window. A solitary male passenger who I recognized from the previous flight was in the aisle seat opposite me, with no one else around for six or seven rows forward.

Different plane, different crew. The first thing I noticed on boarding was a less than welcoming look for Tiny's crate from the senior flight attendant. Making my way to my seat, I stowed my carry on and immediately found out that Tiny's crate wouldn't fit under the seat. I signaled the one woman who appeared to be in charge, showed her my problem, and asked if there was somewhere I could stow the crate. Since there had been no problem with Tiny being in the cockpit of my first flight, I didn't expect an issue with her in my lap this time.

"Absolutely not," she said, "Your dog will have to go in the cupboard behind you. She pointed to a compartment about the size of an airplane washroom immediately behind me.

I looked at her in disbelief, calmly explained the hypoglycemia issue, and that I needed to keep an eye on Tiny to administer immediate treatment.

"No, it's against regulations," she replied.

Now I was getting pissed off. "False Authority Syndrome" always does that to me, and I've always followed the adage that rules are made for the guidance of the wise, and the blind obedience of fools. What transpired next would have gotten me thrown off the plane in the post 9/11 era.

"This is an Air Canada flight, is it not?" I asked, looking pointedly at the airline name embroidered on her jacket.

"Of course it is," she replied.

"Are there different regulations for this flight than the last one I was on? Because on the last flight my dog was nearly flying the damn plane."

At this point, the man across from me chimed in with, "He's right. The Captain had him bring that dog up to see him in the cockpit!"

She sighed then and said, "It can't be out of its crate because if something happens that dog could become a projectile!”

I looked at the few ounces that were Tiny, the canine cannon ball, and then at the woman with the baby on her knee sitting in the aisle seat 8 rows up.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, pointing at the woman with the infant, “That baby is more of a potential projectile than my dog will ever be. You go tell that woman her kid goes in the closet and I’ll put my dog in too.”

The flight attendant looked at the woman with the baby as though seeing her for the first time, then back at me. She opened and closed her mouth but no sound came out. Then she walked away toward the front of the plane. About a minute later, another flight attendant came back, quietly took away the empty crate, and stowed it in the locker. Tiny slept in my lap all the way to Halifax.

It's Pissing Me Off

Eats, Shoots & Leaves, The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss should be required reading in every school system that claims to teach English.

Words can be misspelled in a sentence without losing your meaning. The ability to read "typo" is a vital skill, and we all forgive it when we encounter it. Typographical errors have become even more prevalent in this day of instant messaging when the "send" key is pressed before the error is noticed by the sender. Both Diana and I have a zero tolerance policy on typos in our own writing, and even we are still afflicted at times. We've even been known to post something on someone's Facebook wall, subsequently delete it, and repost the same message with corrections. Nonetheless, a typo usually doesn't prevent the message from getting through, although there are a few words you should stay away from just in case the Gods of Literacy decide to fuck with you at the wrong moment. For example, if you're dashing off a quick sales message to a customer asking them to peruse your "extensive" line of wares, don't forget that only one letter keeps you from admitting that your goods are "expensive".

Punctuation though; now therein lies the single most powerful tool in English. Forget one tiny little bit of punctuation and the entire meaning of your message is changed forever. For want of a comma your chances with the woman or man of your dreams could sit on the knife edge between endless nights of passion on the one hand and why don't you just slit your wrists and get it over with on the other.

An example of this is provided in the book I recommend at the top of this post. An English teacher goes to the chalk board and writes the words, "A woman without her man is nothing". He then asks the class to punctuate the sequence and create a sentence.

All the males in the class write, "A woman, without her man, is nothing."

All the females in the class write, "A woman: without her, man is nothing."

Now tell me you don't just want to cuddle the sweet living shit out of punctuation.

So what's pissing me off today is the common misuse of the simple little word "it's". Quite simply, it's fallen into common practice to use "it's" incorrectly and I'm (short for "I am") here to do my part in fixing what is obviously so broken that even otherwise literate people are falling afoul of it. Here we go.

First of all, everybody should know what a contraction is, but I always like to assume infinite ignorance and unlimited intelligence in my audience, so I'll explain. A contraction is a word created by combining two words or shortening a longer one. It contains elements of the original word(s) and the connection between the two elements is signified by an apostrophe. For example, "cannot" becomes "can't", "will not" becomes "won't" (although strangely not "willn't”, but I do use that one from time to time just to fuck with people - it's not illiteracy if you're doing it on purpose), "are not" becomes "aren't", "you are" becomes "you're", "it had" becomes "it'd", "we have" becomes "we've", "I will" becomes "I'll", and so on.

Contractions are used when writing in an informal style mimicking the way one would speak, and should never be used in any formal or professional correspondence. Now let's (that's short for "let us" ... and that other word is short for "that is", and I'll leave it up to you to figure out which one. Damn right "I will"!) move on to the annoyance du jour.

"It's" is a contraction for more than one word combination. "It's" can be a short form of "it is", as in, "It's my opinion that your parents should have used better birth control." "It's" can also be short for "it has", as in, "It's been years since we've seen each other, and I wish to Christ it'd been longer."

Now remember dear readers, the apostrophe is also used to signify possession, for example, it could be correctly written that, "Randy's penis is better than all the others. It's received official approval in Canada and several foreign countries including Quebec. Its rampant silhouette, photographed against a rising sun, was the cover shot on the April 2006 issue of 'Maclean's' magazine."

Now, in the first sentence, the apostrophe connecting the letter "s" to my given name specifically identifies that the penis referred to is mine. But I am a person and my penis is not. I own it, not the other way around, no matter what your mother may have told you. Keep this in mind as we proceed because it's important.

In the second sentence, we see that it; i. e., my penis; HAS received official approval. Hence, "it's" means "it has" in this case.

Now let’s take a LONG, HARD look at the third and last sentence where you’ll notice that, “Its silhouette …” contains no apostrophe. That’s (meaning “that is”) right. Take a moment to absorb this. When referring to characteristics, accessories, appurtenances, or any other aspect of any entity including, but not limited to a penis, a tree, a car, a country, or a planet; anything you are referring to as “it”, leave the fucking apostrophe OFF.

So here you are; feeling better educated after reading about my penis.