Riding the Fly-Overs

Visit Gillett Wyoming, check. There goes another one off the bucket list… no one has ever said that, no one actually knows what a ‘Gillett Wyoming’ is. But they should. Not because it’s hiding a fierce to-do list of summer Musts, or because it’s charm rivals my own, but because it’s a destination at the end of an adventure. What more do you need?


One of my own has been stationed in the quiet North East corner of that deserted in-between state of Wyoming. He’s manning a “Somebody’s Gotta Do it” post as one of those heroes who leave the real-world and battle the elements of the unknown. That was their plan for him, our’s was to life-line him back to reality.

Waiting 1300km from Calgary, Gillett was just close enough to tickle the idea of getting there on the pony. I hadn’t yet unleashed the Honda VTX on an endless highway since befriending it this Spring, so when a 5-day weekend gave the 1300km the respect in deserved, we started strategizing.

‘We’ was just enough of a team to be a convoy; Ali paved the way in the black Jeep making room for my VTX work-horse and the Royal Star’s two man team of Rick and Marie. We packed essentials, mapped out the possibilities, and drove off into the unknown lands of the Fly-Overs.

There’s something that carries the adventure a little deeper when you push yourself up off the crutch of jet-set travel, when you return to the road and become a part of the trip. On a bike it feels like you move the road, not the other way around. Without the window to hold back your imagination, freedom becomes the only thing that’s ever existed; you, the bike, and the unfolded stage are all in pursuit of the next line of the story. We were carrying everything we needed and charged south, one step up from the saddle of a cowboy’s old West ways.

The two bikes were sewn up at the hands of a couple of bungee-cord artists – bags draped across seats and saddle bags, equipped like life-rafts piggy-backing rocket ships. Our crew rolled out of the garage with more than enough enthusiasm to break through the city’s limits. We hopped from gas-bar to truck-stop, sampling coffee, beef jerky, and the best of the Diner’s 2010 circuit. Alberta faded away along with Wednesday’s setting sun. Time stalled only briefly as we waited at the border crossing, calming the motorcycles as they bagged us to push on. On the other side our introduction to Montana was a strange little world that existed only as two empty lanes. Beyond our modest head lamps, the secrets of darkness.

Nothing rewards the fight against wind and rain and bugs like bed. Like the distraction of competition found in sport, the open road and revealing landscape let you forget about the toll the task takes on you physically and mentally. It became routine for us to get off the bikes at the end of the day and instantly fall into a happy exhaustion.

The Thursday morning light mustered up an amazing Montana. This was why Gillett was introduced into our lives. Throughout the day the country side offered up everything from the big skies of the open plains, to the hidden valleys where land had escaped its surroundings, to towns that had always been there and never wanted more than their own existence. We weren’t in a rush. Scenic Byways, Alternate Routes, Rest Stops, Look Outs, Points of Interest, it was all part of our schedule. And along with some of the most beautiful performances that we could have hoped for, Montana carried us through into Wyoming with just as much disaster as dazzle. Depressing, desolate places that had seen nothing but tough times before coming across tough times. Ghost towns without the ghosts. And yet, even in the misery of broken down buildings, abandoned homes, and worn out schools, there was something captivating about this unknown. In each place that wandered across our path we caught a piece of the story, a sampling of what had moved through, shaped the community, changed the people into ‘folks’ (something that had found a home in these lonely states and felt comfortable enough never to venture on). In some cases the wild of the wild west had slowly started to take back what was once its own, leaving towns partially swallowed up by the land, half way between cute and crooked. If you didn’t keep moving, you would never move again - that’s how these places worked. We never stayed much longer than a fuel-up and a stretch, because although we weren’t racing the horizon, we could feel the next turn calling our names.

We left a short stretch ahead of ourselves for a Friday morning meet and greet with Gillett. Big Barbeque staked its claim on Thursday night, and worked hard to defeat our traveling appetites. Those American Cowboys know how to put together a meal, and they weren’t concerned with the confines of a single plate. There was almost as much barbeque chow on the table as there was great outdoors on the walls (it was a who’s who in the Wyoming zoo of trophy heads cozying up the cook house). We would pass other grill specialists, and our trip would eventually bring us to another BBQ house where once again I would be out done by the table full of plates that the kitchen challenged us with. Quantity, Quality, Atmosphere; these parts know how barbeque is done. The American Roadhouse has now become a staple of the open road in our circles.

Gillett, Wyoming. Over 800 miles had reunited us with Scotty. We settled into his apartment like escaped convicts resurfacing from the fugitive run. I was surprisingly comfortable with not moving. Even though the ride was the adventure and we had grown to love life on the road, a destination can be quite soothing; no need to play favorites. We told stories of the trip and were introduced into Scott’s new world. He had found his place in the town and had heard stories of the front lines, but only from the comfort of his desk. Scott wasn’t quite fighting the same pipeline battles that Daniel Plainview did in There Will Be Blood, but a pipeline’s a pipeline, things can get intense (I’d like to confirm that There Won’t Be Blood in Gillett, however I am told that evil Wyoming winters rile up the crowd something fierce…).

We toured by foot and by truck. On the run we got creeped out by the locals (antelope that suddenly appear in the open fields, watching, waiting, up to no good), but managed to convince them we wanted no part of their strange behavior. While seeing the sights via four wheels (I use the word ‘sights’ in a pretty casual way), we learned two things about Gillett; one, it’s entirely possible that no one is actually from Gillett (or visiting Gillett for that matter – you do your job and you get the he!l out of there), and two, you are only allowed to drive a truck. Motorcycles are allowed to cruise on through, but in no way does the term ‘Smart Car’ get you anything close to a nod of respect, it would probably get you a punch in the face. You gotta man up when you’re in Gillett.

In the US, the July 4th weekend is 1 part pride, 1 part waving stars-and-stripes, and 34 parts Fireworks. Every stop we made on our way to Gillett was decorated with a roadside shack covered in ‘explosive deals’, ‘blow out sales’, and ‘FIRE!’. At one point, a clown-car of a hatchback opened up and a pile of kids jumped onto the scene. After a nice round of the kind of too-much-excitement that only flashy bombs can put in the hearts of children, their dad walked away from the Fire Work Stand with a Wiley Coyote sized crate of celebration. He tossed the kids, the crate, and all that July 4th enthusiasm into the back seat of his stay-out-of-Gillett hatchback and took off to make some memories. Every night we’d been south of the boarder there had been a light show, and Gillett was no different. We saw everything from ‘Professionals’ to ‘a dude in a field trying to start a grass fire’. Grass Fire guy wasn’t very good at getting the Fire Works to go up in the air, he was better at having them jump up ten feet, dropped down into a crowd of kids, and fizzle out. The Fire Work scene never got old and we spent Friday night in Gillett becoming expert Fire Work critics.

The road was calling and it called us back west. We were on the move again Saturday morning, but only after Scott’s hospitality filled our bellies with his homemade flapjacks. He knew what the trail had in store for us. We explored more of Wyoming, and like the road to Gillett, our new route revealed more of American’s ‘Best Of’. Rick reminded us that the first rule of Road Rides is, never travel the same route twice. So we had kidnapped Scott and the five of us rolled through State Parks and National Forests into the booming rodeo world of Cody. As it turns out, everyone in Wyoming was in Cody. This was a complete one-eighty from the peace and nothing that makes up the rest of the state’s hot spots, and we ate up the energy.

You don’t have to own a motorcycle for long before it becomes part of the family. Not in the sense that unconditional love is dished out and you ignore siblings and parents in order to max out the quality time with the bike, but more so in the sense that the motorcycle is now part of your photo collection. It’s come to the point where it may actually be more likely to find a picture of the VTX and the Royal Star mugging for a shot in front of some expansive Wyoming display, than it is to find any of the Webbs locked in frame. I have dozens of shots documenting the travels of my bike. Like the Travelocity Gnome, the background becomes a slide show and the VTX stands front and centre, smiling about all the attention.

By Sunday afternoon we were watching Old Faithful continue its Cal Ripken Jr. streak, and the 5 of us to pictures of each other taking pictures of Yellowstone’s geyser king. It was after circling the park’s scenic highway, dodging herds of buffalo, and catching a Yogi and Booboo photo shoot, that our convoy split apart and passed each other the good-byes. Even Long Weekends are still a little too much Weekend and not enough Long. Scott and Al turned back eastward while Rick, Marie, and I reigned in the bikes and pulled them north; it was time to head home.

There’s no way to fake the kind of connection that creates itself when a couple of motorcycles train it through the country side. At first the stories are told at the rest stops, the moment the helmet pops off. The bikes will stop rolling and the Did-you-see’s, Remember-when’s, and When-we-were’s begin to fly back and forth. It becomes circled wagons without the campfire every hundred miles. Then, after enough highway has come and gone the detail of the debriefs isn’t needed, and the group becomes synchronized. Before long the rest stops are filled with only cues, collections of words and incomplete sentences that bring everyone on to the same page. “Back when we first turned on to the 87…”, “Yep. Incredible”, “…and that green truck?”, “Hahaha, I love it!”, “I couldn’t believe it, that last town…”, “I know, same…”. It turns into code, a language open only to the privacy of the bike entourage. But that doesn’t mean that isolation will creep into your ride, the motorcycle is your ‘In’, and from there the stories really get wild. We met people who had travelled near impossible mileage, bounced off each corner of the continent, traveled solo, as a pair, in a group, on stripped down Harleys, in tricked out Gold Wings, and with glossed up Victorys. We ran into stories about great stretches of road, terrible weather, must-see sights, and encounters with the bizarre. We shot-the-sh!t, talked about nothing, and discussed everything. It was an exclusive club that hide in plain sight, and we’d found our way in.

The three of us shared the journey home like it was a secret we had stumbled upon; some great discovery that gave depth to our understanding of what was happening and why we were doing it. An experience like the motorcycle trip cultivates history within the group almost instantly. And this history only gets stronger on the other side because once the bikes are tucked away and the pursuit of the next horizon fades, the memories start to fuel that tickle in your mind. The road never dies, it simple swings to the side and waits for you to leave your day-to-day rest stop. The key is to plan to plan and start your next countdown to adventure before your last outing has taken you back to base camp again.

In Bed with Television

Yesterday’s inbox gave me a subject line filled with ‘Sleep Deprivation Study’. Très appropriate since I both ‘don’t sleep’ and ‘have an email address for people to send me links to a world outside the cubicle’. The email took me to FuturePundit which deals in “Future technological trends and their likely effects on human society, politics, and evolution”, it’s always a good time. Specifically, this article wandered around the idea of Sleep Deficit and the inability to recover with only one massive weekend dose. More generally, it Jeopardy’d the answer “I am Jack’s unhinged thoughts” with “What is, all that stuff written just below that pundit link?” The article is definitely worth a hey-how-are-ya, especially if you are interested in the mysteries of the human body’s rechargeable battery, or if you ever Sleep.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/007378.html


In my world it’s the latest fad, it’s the new magic elixir, it’s the cure for anything and everything; it’s all I see. And I believe it. I don’t get enough sleep and the only thing worse than the lack of sleep I get is the lack of action I take to get more sleep. Lately I’ve done better and I’ve never been as bad as ‘less than 4 hours a night’, but it’s hard, it’s throw-a-moody kind of hard.



Basically what I’ve come up with is that I need to sacrifice things I like in order to create more QT with the pillow. It could be the TV time that they’re talking about, it could be reading before bed, it could be anything from a round of chit-chattery to the post work work-out, maybe it could be cutting back on anything that keeps me out of the house passed 10pm. I don’t know yet. What I do know is that it can’t be is something I dislike. And this is where the problem lies; to find sleep I need to postpone a lot of Like in life in order to squeeze in all the Dislike I’m supposed to take care of. I don’t like it. The only way to ensure that I can fit in all that Like that I do like and that I’m so used to is to skip out on the early to bed, dislike the Dislike more, and continue to talk about how I don’t get enough sleep. BUT, if a little extra Like in the evening means that the Dislike is even worse because I can’t stay awake or that I’m only operating at 60% during all that Like I like so much, the trade off isn’t worth it. And that’s where I’m at right now. I’m tired of being so tired that I’m just ‘getting by’, it’s exhausting. All it takes is one good dose of Enough-Sleep and things become very clear – sleep is gooooooooooooood. Watch out Late-Night-Guy, your days are numbered.

As for this fool who’s cancelled his cable and unplugged his TV and ‘no longer misses it’, well La-Dee-Freakin-Da, how Zen/Buddhist/Stupid-of-you. When will people stop blaming TV for everything? People don’t kill people, TVs kill People, right? Unbelievable. If you like TV, watch it, if you don’t, then just don’t watch, but don’t hate on those who do. The haters need to stop selling fear and need to stop trying to convince the world that not watching TV has given them some sort of superpower. Be convinced of this, your superpower is the power of being a big idiot. The whole TV is the worst thing since Ever is ridiculous, it’s like candy or oxygen or hugs; ‘moderation’ is the cliché of choice. “I don’t get enough sleep, so I’m going to go all Office-Space on my TV”. How about “I don’t exercise enough, I’m going to slash my car tires”? Or maybe “I have a headache, I’m going to cut my head off”? Sound good? Issue resolved? No? Oh, sorry, I thought we were just smashing together random events that make no sense and solving all the problems of the world in the most indirect way possible.

And I pause to breathe and take a ten-count.

If you are doing a whole bunch of other non-TV related things with your after-work time, and then decide that you want some TV, and then wake up the next morning and are tired, and then conclude that TV has performed robbery on your sole and broken your trust, AND you send it to the corner for a talking to and a time out, well fine, your choice, just don’t talk to me about it, unless it’s during a commercial break.

To summarize: I like sleep, I like TV, I want to have my cake and eat it too. I also like cake.

You’ve been Hi-Jacked!

Inception Accomplished

So I think I’ve figured out what happened last night, Christopher Nolan put me under, plugged me into one of those clever little machines, popped into my head with Leo and the crew, and planted the tiniest of ideas deep within my mind. He did this, and it worked. Inception accomplished.

I can’t stop thinking about that film. It was outstanding. Set aside for a second the fact that visually it was a tour de force that did things to the big screen that I’ve never tried to imagine. Set aside the sound that tapped into my soul and muddled me up from the inside out with its bold twisted performance. Forget for a minute that DiCaprio has again created a scenario where the only way the Oscars won’t be a disappointment this year is if he wins the trophy. Don’t worry about the great accomplishments of that ensemble cast, the cool quick editing, the engaging camera work, and Christopher Nolan’s ability to execute. Set aside all these things that would normally be over and above the pre-recs to get a film into a year’s top ten, and what’s left? What’s left is what I’ve been thinking about, what’s stolen my conscious thought, what’s left me a little off centre and a little uneasy. What’s left is the haunting nature of that story.

I don’t know much about dreams, and I think I now know even less. And that’s where Nolan’s creation really captures its brilliance. In diving deep into the idea of the subconscious and running around inside the unknown of the dormant mind, Inception has blown open a part of my psyche that hadn’t even been warmed up. I had no idea that there was an entire subject all twisted up into a labyrinth of questions that I had never even ignored. I wandered into the theatre wanting a new chapter in the story of my Man Crush on Leo, wanting a big old bag of popcorn, wanting a little action and a little intrigue, wanting something fun to share with the enthusiastic, I wandered in with expectations, and hopes of greatness, and a longing for something new. I wandered in, but beyond that, I was not prepared. It truly is like Nolan snuck into my head and delicately planted something powerful that has since cracked my imagination wide open. And there is no hope for repair.

!!!Spoilers ahead - Good ones!!!

I was a lost cause the moment the dream-inside-a-dream concept was offered up. I went from watching a movie to pursuing a story. That was the first moment my mind started trying to wreck the anticipation and screamed ahead to what the end might be holding. I wasn’t imagining Cobb’s totem winding our excitement up with its mesmerizing spin, but I did begin to believe that Cobb’s reality was in fact a final hidden layer of his mind.

From there the suspense never let go of me. I was totally drawn in for every twist and turn. The pace of the film was surprisingly fast for its running time; at no point was I released from its hold long enough to wonder about anything other than the world of dream navigation. Part of this was the cast. One miss step would have broken the fine line that maintained attachement between this crazy fantasy world and the reality I knew, and yet it never came. Each of the actors demanded your focus and then with it toured you around through the corridors of emotion and suspense.

I also loved the dynamic that came from the crew of characters that took on the pursuit of Inception. The trust and lack thereof, the gentle bickering, the willingness to sacrifice for one another, the competition that lived between them, the friendship and the conflict, the bonds that come from being in battle, it all convinced me that this was my team, the team I was rooting for, the team I wished I could help.

And that’s what made me sweat, that intensity that came from high stakes and higher risks, and a connection to each of the team members. It would have been easy enough to entertain me with the concept of walking around in someone’s thoughts, but Nolan kept unveiling more impossibly inventive tricks; stealing a thought, then creating a thought, the darkness of addiction, the idea of time’s relativity, the power and weakness of the mind, a place called limbo, and all the other little issues that can turn a great plan into a full time disaster. By the time all the pieces were in place it was an endeavor just to keep up with the reveal. But it was beyond worth it.

The moment the screen went black my mind started replaying scene after scene of the movie. Not only to ensure that I had placed everything where it was supposed to go upon first viewing, but also to just marvel at the brilliance of what the film had accomplished. And like all great cinematic feats, the movie’s final frame wasn’t the end, it was the sparked that triggered contrast of opinion and discussion.

Nolan left just enough mystery with the spinning totem to keep the intrigue alive after the credits had rolled. I still chose to believe that Cobb was trapped inside his own fantasy, living out the complexities of his mind within a dream. Even though he had defeated a negativity that had plagued his being and found a bright corner to reward himself with the happily ever after, I think a second viewing of the film would be layered with hints of a darker denouement. I think he is still living in a dream covered in memories, I think his totem was created within the dream, I think his wife made it out, I think his subconscious has no idea, and I think he is so good at navigating through dormant thoughts that he is lost in his own mind. Some may believe that my side of the ending is opposing the eternal optimist who can almost hear Cobb’s totem tumble, but I think even in siding with the Dream-On finalé, Cobb’s final victories are enough to prove that he will find his way home.

Right or wrong, certain or hesitant, awake or asleep, Cobb’s reunion with his children and his ability to let go of his loss and guilt and fear was a perfect closing moment to an amazing film that is currently showing, endlessly in my mind. It’s not every day that a movie this good finds its way passed all the obstacles and is actually realized. Then again, maybe it never happened, because maybe I’m still dreaming…

A Near-Life Experience

The last that time I was called into the Department Manager's office it was a friendly invitation. It was the first time I’d had such a request. I was greeted with a calming smile and asked to sit down as the door was gently closed behind me. There was a quiet moment, and a new smile. The smile was still calming but no longer quite as happy. The quiet led to a detailed but brief explanation of recent developments on the project, developments that were ‘beyond our control’. Committees within boardrooms had been forced to make some ‘difficult decisions’. Suddenly names were being dropped of people I had never met because there were dozens of floors and several decimal places that separated us. The last time I was called into the Department Manager's office it was to be laid off. This morning I was called into the Department Manager's office. My last day is in 1 week.

Good morning, happy Thursday, welcome to your new life.

I’m not in love with this job and I wasn’t crazy about my last one, but there’s a comfort that comes from security, from certainty, from routine. The office is close to home, I have collected a number of friendly faces that revolved around my day, money is nice, my grasp is well within the work. I had found my place in something. I had built something. I was doing well.

Routine means control, control over some of the unpredictability of a day in love with chaos. Too much control kills life’s excitement, none at all…terrifying. This routine had solved the problem of survival for me. I could jump into the job, put in the time and energy, and know that when I came out on the other end, I didn’t need to worry about the essentials. So what’s left after survival? The good stuff. The best stuff. With the right job, the right routine, you get pushed up into a special place where important decisions are suddenly easier. With cashola answering to most of life’s fears, you get to answer to life’s unexplored adventures, you get to embark on Travel, have friends and family your priority, send some focus towards leisure, concern yourself with pushing forward each new day. You get to thrive.

I guess it’s the uncertainty that fills my head. The fact that what I knew before entering that office is no longer a truth that I can rely on. I now need to face a whole new set of questions and approach significant problems that weren’t my problems only moments before.

But those problems are built of the same risk that create opportunity. Without making any of the tough decisions, I am in a position where change is now my only option. All the cozy little hideouts that I’d created in my day-to-day, the comfortable corners of my world that let me postpone risk, they’re gone. I have no choice now but to reemerge from the 9-to-5 comatose and attack life once more.

There just wasn’t enough money for me. I have become a budget cut. I knew this was a possibility coming into the gig. The position was created as a luxury for a handful of busy engineers in the department. I was stepping in to facilitate. And the problem with making things easier is there appears to no longer be a problem that demands the Fix. It wasn’t a job that dealt in glory and heartache, and it wasn’t a job where the stakes ever got very high. It just was. I quietly moved about the work week, making my mark without ever really leaving it. I checked off my to-do list and when I wasn’t mindlessly cleaning up the trenches of this engineering war I was tweaking and touching up what I thought were minor glitches. I’m not saying things are going to fall apart without me, in fact, removed from the situation, my absences probably isn’t really even noticed. But that’s part of the beauty of what’s happened. I was hired, I made some changes, and now things work better. The only down side of course is that my reward for a job well done is a job no more. And that’s the game. That’s what I signed up for… from the beginning.

Evidence of this restlessness was showing itself long before Thursday. In a random rant with a fellow member of the Quarter-Life Crisis Club, I laid out some thoughts:

“So the following really turned into a bit of a tirade, haha. I never know when this type of thing is going to happen, but today it did. At first I was just writing back to you, a simple email, and then I let it open up into an outburst of an essay. As you can tell, I love this stuff…

I love your thoughts on the Outsiders perspective. They really can’t relate to what we are saying, and they don’t realize it either. It’s amazing that the great degree, the high paying jobs, the pride of the title, and the ‘guarantee’ for quality of life that comes with it all can be anywhere near ‘not enough’, but it is. And I think the majority of people finding themselves faced with the layout of our lives would feel the same way. I think the difference is that most people don’t strive for the same level of greatness that we do. I’m fine with admitted that I want it all. And for a long time I was apologizing for that, acting like I didn’t deserve to want it, and that I should feel guilty for looking beyond ‘Good’. I’ve spent my whole life working hard, hunting down admirable goals, fighting to be better. I grew up being told that if I worked hard enough that I could achieve anything. I was given opportunities with the understanding that if I took advantage of them, that more would follow. And people are surprised that we’re frustrated when one day the game changes. Suddenly you can’t make good money AND enjoy your work, suddenly that’s all just a fairytale, suddenly you can’t have it all. The sad part is that it’s not a fairytale. The sad part is that people find themselves closing in on the ‘real world’ and all of the sudden it’s too dangerous to do anything but play it safe. That’s what Engineering was for us, it was the safe move, the secure future, the guarantee. I hate that after spending my entire life doing amazing things and blowing through barriers and competing to be the best of the best, that when the ‘rest of my life’ was starting up, I just took my foot off the gas and coasted into Average. I’m not saying that Engineering (the schooling or the work) is easy, I’m saying it’s the easy choice. It’s the game plan that allows you to plateau. ‘C’s get degrees’ and then ‘you’re guaranteed a job’. So what?! If everything leading up to this point in life has me locking down successes in everything I do, why would I possibly need to rely on a guarantee? The truth of my existence is that I can succeed at anything I try, and the reason I know that this is Reality and not some fairytale, not some cocky collection of words, is because I was raised on that formula, and until recently knew nothing else. ‘Easy’ has nothing to do with it, in fact I’m advocating the opposite of ‘Easy’; I’d much rather pursue true success by continually struggling with ‘Difficult’ than settle on the plateau of something that will help me to ‘get by’, something empty. I’m not saying that Engineering isn’t the right choice, but I do believe that the reason it became my choice was wrong. The tragedy of my life as an Engineer is that I fell into doubt. I doubted life and I doubted myself. Over the better part of the last decade the world of Engineering has chipped away at my confidence and molded my mind into the shape of a Loser. One day I woke up and I had arrived at a place where I no longer thought ‘anything is possible’, in fact I was sure that almost everything was impossible. I was no longer Great, and I could no longer imagine myself finding Greatness. I was quiet and sluggish and hallow, and I was fine with it. There was no improvement, no successes, no goals. I was a creative mind that had shriveled. Part of that was my broken self image, but the rest of it was my jaded outlook on the world. I was told that what I had wanted, that what I was talking about, didn’t exist. That the kind of aspirations I had weren’t realistic. And I believed it without question. Don’t tell me that trying to find greatness is childish just because the Movies label it as ‘A Dream’. I refuse to settle just because I’ve reached a level of accomplishment that other’s deem impossible. To everyone that let’s life get in the way of who you are, wake up! You get one run at it, and there is no excuse for giving up. Yeah it’s hard, it’s supposed to be. And when you hit a speed bump and people start saying things like ‘that’s life’ and telling you about ‘being realistic’, turn around, ignore their lies, and man up! I’m tired of thinking that the amazing stories of great achievement are reserved for some exclusive club. I want mine, and I’m going to go take it! Every moment that you settle for Average is weakness, is a waste, and is proof that you have given up. So forget these make-believe ‘Rules’, find some passion, and start living! And if you are already in the fight, you are the ones that have inspired me…

And that’s my rant, wow. The good thing is, I don’t think I would have this outlook if I hadn’t fallen into this Engineering trap. This got me all riled up, in a good way, I hope it doesn’t get you going too much. I know we are both passionate about this topic, and I like that. Well, it’s the end of the day for me. Hope the week is going well for you. Talk to you soon buddy :)”

If anyone deserved to be let go it’s probably me. I put together excellent results, managed the balance between time and quality, answered yes to everything that any of my half dozen bosses asked of me, and I covered all of it with a pleasant demeanor. I found the middle, where ambition dies, energy disappears, and neither misery nor happiness have any sway. I figured out how the office worked, solved the problem of ‘how to make it?’, and settled calmly into mediocrity. A good kick out the door is probably exactly what I needed.

But maybe that’s just one way to look at it. Was I excelling outside of work thanks to my ability to coast at the office? Or was I hiding from professional progress behind a love for life away from the desk? Does it have to be All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy or am I not pursuing a life with love for career and love for leisure because I’ve been told it’s too much to ask for? Without my invitation into that office, I may never have asked these questions.

A lot of the secondary frustration, the intangible anger that bubbles below the surface and fuels a touch of attitude, comes from my score card. I am ‘That Guy’. At 26, after making some serious moves, after setting the stage with an intriguing intro, after creating anticipation, I’ve done nothing but struggle since the start of the show. 3 different jobs, 3 different companies, 3 different dismissals. Even excuses start to sound like excuses after 3 good-byes.

This farewell had a little something extra, a little twist. The whole thing reminds me a bit of the death of my childhood dog Gus. The tragedy of the old dog’s passing was an intense awakening of life’s power for someone who has spent most of their life protected from heartache. But it’s not tragedy that draws parallels between the two events, it’s the cold shock of Revelation mixed with the shattered innocence of naivety. My dog was sick, old, worn out, and dying, but Gus had no idea that this was happening. First off he’s a dog. And even if you believe that a dog can sense things like this, he was not a smart dog – he was a great dog, an amazing family friend, but just not terribly aware of much, at all. When I carried Gus into the vet, after our family had battled with a decision you try to believe you can avoid, he was as happy as the day we first met his puppy version. He loved the drive to the clinic, loved that I was carrying him, loved the attention he was getting from this new friend (the vet). He was so uncomfortable, and was struggling just to exist, but for him we could have been heading out to the park for the greatest day of his life. He had no idea that things were about to be completely different. This was it and I couldn’t make him understand. For me that was the toughest part of the whole situation. I hope he never realized what was happening. I hope that moment never came. I hope he just slowly drifted away from pain and never lost that beautiful lack of understanding. I hope.

My lack of understanding was crushed this morning. I had plans, ideas, a schedule, and it all stood on top of those 40 hours a week that I had worked into my life. It wasn’t easy going from 100% Me-Time to devoting over half my waking life to a new cause, but after several months I had adjusted and begun molding my life around this new routine. I had created a rare moment where Money and Time weren’t in a versus battle, where the two were working together to shape this great balance. It’s just a head-shake and a pitiful laugh to think that just when I was finding that zone, when the struggle was easing ever so much, it’s time to scrap that project and start the grind a new.

One of the most interesting challenges coming from my new situation deals with the fact that although my world has changed, the rest of it, the part that doesn’t revolve around me, seems to continue as though I’m not the most important part of it. Which is always a little overly refreshing.

My mind moved to the new life. I quickly came up with two strong options and a few handfuls of radical and ridiculous scenarios that found themselves somewhere between fiction and fantasy (Into the Wild style, leave my life behind and travel the world, maybe rob banks along the way). Putting my imagination in check, I focused on ‘Another Round of Work’ versus ‘the Life of the Full Time Student’. Pros and Cons, Lifestyle pitted against Financial security, Friends, Family, Me, Myself, I, 5-year-plan and 1-year-plan and 1-day-plan, Anger overlapping Frustration and Self-Pity with some Relief, my fondest desires, my casual wishes, whether I care what other people think, what I should or shouldn’t think, Fear of the Unknown, Excitement of the Unknown, the idea of Spontaneity, what I had, what I can’t have, what I might still have… it was tough to turn my mind off. It was not a speed-chess kind of situation though; I had all the parts I needed and I had plenty of time to map things out. I took a ten-count and let thoughts come and go.

That was Thursday. On Friday I was called into the Department Manager’s office. This was new. He cut to the chase. He left out yesterday’s delicacy and caution, he left out the strategic smiling, he left out the explanations, the name dropping, the committees, he left out the lay-off song and dance – we were passed all that. He was intense. I was calm. I was Death-Row sans appeal. It was Zen and the Art of Mechanical Engineering Maintenance going on in my mind. I looked at the Boss of my Boss; what’s worse than losing your job? Turns out the answer is ‘Not losing your job’? Yesterday was today’s day-mare. Did it even happen? It wasn’t until he smiled that I was able to wrap my mind around this new story. I needed this new smile, this excited unchecked smile, to help me understand because his choppy English was a task. “Not Quite Fired” was what my mind gave me. Yesterday, fired. Today, maybe not. Tomorrow…

Like clockwork the Department Head was contacted this morning with a request for an engineer to fill a position which directly describes the one I was just let go from. Since I hadn’t burned down the building, he offered my name up as a ‘Great Engineer who just became available’. He smiled as he told me this. He continued to smile until I did the same, and he told me that although nothing is official yet, that ‘we may have figured this thing out’. This was interesting since I had spent the last 24 hours seeing if I could ‘figure things out’, and although I’d come up with some interesting ideas, I was far from fixed. I entered the weekend in a place that was almost identical to how I had been entering every weekend since I’d started work four months ago; enthusiastic. I was almost the same guy I had been Thursday morning pre-office-invite. I was happy. I was energized. I’d had my near-life experience and hadn’t had to deal with any of the fall-out. But something had changed. Something had been awakened which I’d set my blinders to and ignored. You can’t ignore near-life. 24 hours is a long time have the mind unleashed.

That was Friday. Monday turned Friday’s ‘Maybe’ into a Wednesday meeting, and an email confirming this new opportunity moved me closer to ‘Still Employed’. The weekend bridged last week’s quick-draw fire-hire game with this week’s new reality. I’d found the time and place to walk through many different Jack Webb lives. Lives that start on the 16th of July’s fork in the road and roared off in all kinds of different directions. I dead-ended the ones that weren’t worth traveling and am ready to follow one of the paths that remain. I am probably less certain about a lot of details now than I was before this ride began, but that uncertainty I’m excited about. I’m now ready for a little less comfort, for a little more adventure, for a little of whatever gets thrown my way. What I now know is that I’ve broke free of the dazed zombie walk, and joined the ranks of the Participants. It’s time to remember what I’m doing, it’s time to shake off the dust, it’s time to start living the life I want, and not simply the one I wake up to.

That was Monday. On Wednesday I met with the Lead Engineer of a different group at the same company. They have work and lots of it. They talked about the position, I talked about the Jack, there were introductions and a quick tour, a handshake or two, and as quickly as I’d lost my grip on it, employment was once again mine. I start Monday.

This situation feels different, like anything is possible, like all is right in the world again, like I can embrace that warmth that’s filling my mind and take a moment to smile. But I now know the rules to this game. So even as I celebrate and spread the news and set my status back to ‘La Vita E Bella’, I’ve decided that Mr. In-the-Moment needs to spend a little more time checking in with Future-Jack (I let Future-Jack deal with a lot).

I need these spikes in my life graph. I haven’t decided on Good or Bad yet, but my standard setting that I cruise at day-in and day-out is a comfortable coast. I’m a happy guy, and I’m happy about being him, and other than the odd Spike, I let my mind default on ‘Everything will probably work out’, but nothing reminds you of your strength, your capability, like defeating the Struggle. This time around it was a test of confidence and composure (welcome to the world of the unemployed), in the past it’s been the challenge of performance and execution (the big game, the final Final Exam), next time maybe it will be the pressure of Pride vs Poise (listen then leave the big mouth to the big man who uses and abuses it) or Sacrifice over Comfort (when the look out for No.1 is less than for Loved-1). Either way, whatever my next Spike might be, Future-Jack won’t be alone, and he’ll be ready for action.

In the mean time I will continue to live the double life – EngiNerd Spy by Day, professional Life-Liver by Night... or Early-Evening (I like to leave some time to be free for spontaneous low-key adventures slash quiet time). I don’t know for certain yet, but it actually looks as though I’m going to be doing some pretty important work. The kind of work that NEEDS to be done, that has the attention of the higher-ups and important-people club, and has been more and more of a problem for the group of late. So like a Fixer, like some specialist called-in in the 11th hour to take a stab at saving the day, they bring in Jack. Could be fun.

[Actually the best part about this whole circus act, after starting up and doing my Hero Engineer thing for a Monday-to-Friday, I’m taking off and vacationating-it for a week. This will be round two of the ‘One-Week-On One-Week-Off’ routine, and I suppose it’s just how I operate]

When's your next Near-Life Experience?

Really British Open? Really?!

I don’t know what’s going on over across the pond there, but have you guys seen any of the first lap results of Round 1 of the Open? First off, the low score for the day is a -9, a MINUS NINE!!! That’s a 63! It gets better though. Who is this guy to send St. Andrews to the floor for the 10-count? All 21 years of Ireland’s Rory McIlroy. He shot a bogey-free round. The last player to shoot a 63 in a major tourney (cause it’s somewhat of a tough party to get into), Tiger, in the PGA Championship in 2007. It. Gets. Better. Although El Tigré had a solid round of his own with a nice little 67, he’s not the only back-pages trouble-lover to have opened up with a strong Thursday 18. John freakin Daly is at -6. Tied for third! Did anyone know he was still alive?! I guess he’s lost like 100 pounds and is very much not dead. I’m currently trying to figure out which ways up. Outstanding. Well done universe. So turns out the answer is ‘Watch the British Open’, cause I know I was asking questions about how to approach my new Vuvuzela-less world and whether my J-Daly Fantasy League pick was ever going to pay off. Now along with my chase of the mayo jaune and my love of the 90-min Sunrise Countdown, I have a third reason to wake up at 4am tomorrow…

What's Behind Door Number...

I work in a building that's shaped like a giant staircase. A massive cube that has been diagonally cut on both sides with a clever little zigzag. It's fun. It's what happens when an enthusiastic Lego-Baby visits the Pyramids at an impressionable age, and then unlocks his subconscious years later during the design process. Its an Engineering Office for Engineers by Engineers full of Engineers; very appropriate. The best part about the building however is not its 'Led Zepplin Stairway to...' concept, it is the fact that the inner workings of the Staircase are flawed. Within this creative exterior, the building's rat-race maze hasn't been engineered properly. The irony is gold. I love it!

Being an Engineer myself, I understand the complexities of a working system such as an office building. It's a living organism that incorporates the strength of structural design, the power of it's mechanical parts, the flow of the electrical circulatory, the hide-and-seek plumbing game, the wiring of computer-windows into the virtual world, and the chaos and unpredictability of all the people that bounce around inside it. It's a beautiful thing. I understand how any number of critical design components, derived from the brains of the highly intelligent, can lack precision. How a small slip up, years before the red-tap is cut, can cause disaster. How years of planning which leads to months of construction need nothing short of perfection. I understand that turning nothing into a giant staircase building is difficult. I can handle the idea that the miracle of engineering-perfection can be out of reach every now and then. But what makes this little flaw so fun is that it has nothing to do with years of preparation, with a dozen semesters of post secondary education, with big decisions, or wise innovations, in fact it has nothing to do with the actual engineering of the building at all. This flaw is the mangled icing on the top of a perfect cake.

Almost all the doors inside this building have been put on backwards.

This wouldn't seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of it all; it's not like they accidentally forgot the doors entirely and just built four-walled enclosures that they couldn't escape from, or replaced all the doors with gaping holes in the floor that turned the hallways into a parkour course. However, backwards doors do just enough damage to slowly chip away at the sanity of everyone walking through them.

For the most part doors don't get involved in our lives. They don't try to get too rambunctious or excited or difficult, and with the exception of the odd fashion statement, doors keep to themselves and play their role. But every now and then you get some door that thinks it can be a Hero, some door that wants to be it's own beautiful and unique snowflake with it's own ideas of how to change the world. Idiot. These are the doors that are out to get us.

Here are a few rules of the Door World that apply to general door behaviour...
the following doors will open outward:
- Exterior-wall doors of Public buildings
- Public Room doors
- Storage Room doors
- Doors leading deeper into a building
the following doors will open inward:
- Exterior-wall doors of Residential buildings
- Private Room doors

This system is tried and true and not to be messed with, because the human brain can't handle it. The use of a door is one of many operations that the mind has created an autopilot function for. It's a simple task that we can handle executing from our subconscious, like walking, or spelling your name, or doing both while finessing out a left-cheek-sneak. It frees up space in our heads for the more complex and detailed things in life that require the serious brain power (such as investigating door dilemmas). The only problem with this approach is when change is introduced into our habit driven routines, and we are shocked out of our subconscious and forced to deal with relearning something that we had previously mastered. You don't know that you know it, but when you are walking towards a door, you know what the door knows, unless of course the door thinks it knows something new, then all you know is you're in trouble.

You might wonder why the misbehavior of a door should matter, or why we are generally accepting of the standard Door Playbook. It's because the Playbook isn't based on a whim. It's because these decisions are rooted in the primary functions of a door, and deep in our subconscious, where we store our autopilot functions, we already understand and respect this.

The top two Door priorities are 'access' and 'security', or 'versatility' and 'safety', or simply 'to open' and 'to close'.

Inward opening doors, such as the front door of a residential home, place their focus on security. The magic of the door's design is in its hinge, but this is also its devastating Achilles Heal when battling for security. Unless a costly, heavy-duty door is used with concealed or protected hinges, an outward opening door leaves it's precious hinges exposed to the outside world. Even with a couple heavy duty dead-bolts, access to a doors hinges, its jugular, makes for an easy answer to the Répondez-s'il-vous-plaît of the break-in invite. Therefore, in the case of private residential homes or smaller personal rooms where security is at a premium, an inward opening door is a more appropriate Door response.

Public buildings have the same security concerns, however they also have to consider the complexities of an emergency that is complete with a mass evacuation. When a hysteric brood of people need to exit a building quickly and easily during an emergency, it can be more than a little counterproductive to have a large mob piling up against a door that can't burst open. In fact, in many cases emergency exits will be equipped with Panic Bars instead of door knobs or handles in order to accommodate the idiocy that accompanies hysteria; don't worry about how to use the door, just run at it like a crazy person and the door will do the rest. Public buildings will take a hit and go with the more expensive option (giving the hinges their Tony Stark Iron Man suits) in order to balance security with safety.

This is where the giant Staircase drops the ball. Although the exterior-wall exits follow the rules like good little doors, the divided interior and corresponding hallways that flow towards the light of day are a complete guessing game. Each access way is equipped with it's own Rebel with a Cause attitude, wanting nothing more than to fool people as they try and push a Pull or stop and yank on a Push. Not only is this a fire hazard, and a massive safety oversight - I'm picturing hundreds of EngiNerds cutting the umbilical cord from their life giving computers for the first time in years only to push up against a backwards door, unable to Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump their way to safety - but it's a day-to-day irritation that is slowly contributing to a future massacre of Postal Worker proportions.

At first I thought I was losing it, I thought 'Door, it's not you, it's me', I thought I had reached a new level of uselessness where I couldn't figure out how to successfully walk through a door anymore. But then I noticed that it was only happening at work, and it was only happening once I was inside the giant Staircase's maze. In fact, eventually, I realized it was happening to people at work that weren't me. This was great. I was seeing people charging towards doors with that end-of-the-work-day kind of enthusiasm, only to awkwardly collide face-to-door and have to muscle passed the embarrassment of reenacting an America's Funniest Home Videos' classic. People were double pumping in frustration and resorting to two handed pulls as they tried to dig deeper into the building through Pushes disguising themselves as Pulls. They were quickly assuming 'access denied' instead of 'backwards door' in order to avoid getting caught failing to enter or exit in front of co-workers. They were being fooled by the Door day-in and day-out and they weren't terribly impressed.

And even after days or weeks of running head on into these doors with their radical ideas, people continue to struggle with navigating themselves through this mine field of embarrassment. All thanks to their clever autopilot programs. The same thing would happen if you got too creative with the height of a table or counter top, the placement of a sink's hot-cold faucets, the layout of a keyboard, or the arrangement of a number pad on a phone or calculator. There would be a nice sizable learning curve for any kind of Traffic Twist. Change the side of the road that people drive on; accident. And if you think there's safety in going by foot, even the pedestrians needing to look right-then-left not left-then-right when trying not to die as they cross the street-in-reverse. Switch the order of Gas and Break peddles, reverse the Lefty-Loosy-Righty-Tighty rule, put your watch on the other wrist, or toss the buttons over to the other side of the shirt, and you have to start re-programming yourself from scratch. It's tough to alter the autopilot, and tougher to admit that you are useless without it.

Now it's entirely possible that this backwards door routine isn't a mistake at all. In the fun and happy part of my mind I've wondered, maybe one day, after a pair of Glasses crashes into a Pull Door in a particularly loud and awkward fashion, if Ashton Kutcher might jump out from behind a decorative plant and announce the return of Punk'd for another season.

Why not assume Conspiracy? It might be the best way to explain the challenging Rise-Depth Ratio of the stairwells here, which is another complete disaster that plagues the giant Staircase with it's ironic danger - staircase up the sides of the building for show, check, staircase inside the Staircase for connecting floors, oops... I don't know if their was a horror film style death that occurred, or if a constant flow of falls has caused the concern, but the stairwells of the building look like the jacket of a Formula-1 Racer who's sponsored by Safety. Bright yellow grip tap mark up each step, large loud signs line the walls with 'Warning' and 'Danger' advertisements, caution tap covers the walls and railings like the entire collection of stairs is a crime scene, and notices against 'texting while walking', 'failing to use handrails', 'taking two steps at a time', 'following too close behind another person', and 'running, jogging, or jumping up or down stairs' are posted at each landing. If it wasn't for the fact that the company has a massive Civil-Structural department, I might offer up a knee slap or two, instead it's just ridiculous. Sad and just plain ridiculous.

If the doors and the stairwells weren't already enough, last week another leak sprung in this sinking ship of a building, and we had Al-Gore style, End-of-the-World kind of weather inside the Staircase. It was the opposite of Anthropogenic though and it didn't disappoint like Gore's Global Warming folk tales, this was nature laughing at our lack of control over our climate control, and it was delivering us a serious blow.

For the first part of the week, Calgary skipped over Spring and settled into Summer. A stale heat slow roasted the office until the only relief was the light breeze found during a brisk march in and around the cubicle farm (walk around with a piece of paper or a folder wearing a slight grimace or furled brow and you can get away with anything - people will just assume you're a working machine). Monday was bad, Tuesday was worse. After two days of working in the sweat box, I chose Wednesday's EngiNerd costume assuming my cubicle would once again become a sauna by 2pm; light pants, a short-sleeved shirt, a hydration pack... It was the only way to avoid heat stroke. It was nice.

By Thursday, Calgary's brief encounter with Summer had ended and it was back to Winter. This coincided with the introduction of the building's Central-Air. I don't know why it took three full days for the people making the big tough decisions to convince themselves that turning on the AC was a good idea, or why they left it on level 'Hurricane' for the rest of what became a miserably cold week, but they did, and we went very quickly from sauna to tundra. Maybe it's because I only have a month and a half of HVAC experience or because I'm two decades younger than everyone I work with that I just don't seem understand these complex issues yet.

It should be noted that HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation, Air-Conditioning, and that our company has one of the biggest HVAC departments in the city. It should also be noted that just like the backwards doors and the death-trap stairwells, no one has apologized to me for the Day After Tomorrow style temperature swings. Maybe I'm sensitive like that, but I feel like some one needs to step up and get a good old fashion stare-down until they say sorry to me and I consider forgiveness. In fact, just yesterday I got the opposite of an apology - I walked by a plaque in the main lobby of the building that said the following:

"1988 Building of the Year Award - awarded by the Building Owners & Managers Association of Calgary".

I waited. I actually looked around and waited for Kutcher and his hidden camera team, because this was too much, it was just too much. The fix was in. I guarantee that in the spring of '89, during the heat of the exciting awards season, some amazing creation was cleaning up on the Building red-carpet circuit only to feel the cold slap of rejection by the BOMA selection committee when the Giant Staircase stepped in for the upset. Hell, that plaque is probably a fake. I bet if I tried, I could get you a Building of the Year Award plaque, no problem. If Walter can get the Dude a toe by 3 o'clock, than I can definitely get you a plaque, believe me...

One final thought: if it wasn't for my obsession with saving my work (you only have to watch a computer screen go blank and eat your unsaved efforts once before you change your life as a writer), this article would not exist, because the power in the entire south end of the building just went out for a solid half hour. We're just lucky we didn't have to evacuate, cause the only thing worse than being known as the building full of HVAC engineers that can't figure out the Heating and Ventilation, is to be known as the building full of HVAC engineers piled up at the bottom of the stairwells of doom, trapped behind doors that don't open...