Signal to Noise

Campground, campground, campground–how I love the lessons you teach. I have amused more French-speaking campers than I can count (in any language) with my attempts to communicate. One of the families that came through was as hopeless in English as I was in French and we almost laughed ourselves foolish through pantomimes and gestures. The teenage daughter excused herself to laugh on the deck outside of the office because she was giggling too hard and eventually realized that she should be self-conscious because she was, after all, a teenager laughing like mad in the presence of her parents. Rather than describe the actions I will leave it to your imaginations to picture the discussions on the size and quantity of mosquitoes and the quality of the College of Piping’s dance performances in Summerside.

People on vacation want to be happy. That is the best part of being here (dancing in the office and making funny faces while pretending to swat mosquitoes is a close second).

The variety of people is wonderful. Not always the individuals, but the variety is amazing. I have accumulated many more stereotypes (very few are negative) and many more exceptions to them. I like to think that I am cheerful, polite, and resourceful enough to eventually figure out what people want and get it for them. I did blow one situation today through and only through the greatest of luck did things work out very well–all thanks to a lady from California.

For reasons known only to the gods that govern camping traffic near large bridges, there was a rush of people (about five groups at the same time) this evening around 7:00pm. This is quite unusual for a Sunday evening. As I worked through the groups that were in the office I had my head down quite a bit and when I had a piece of paper slipped into my view I was surprised. Two gentlemen passed me a piece of paper that asked me if I had a cabin to rent. I answered that I did not. They looked puzzled and wrote another note. It said that they would like to have a cabin but would take a tent site if there was no cabin. I again said that there was no cabin available but I had a tent site available if they wished.

I am sure at this point you, the reader, have figured out that they two men were deaf and me telling them that there was no cabin was very close to useless. How I could remain so damn stupid after these two exchanges staggers me. I figure I am pretty clever and astute (I even mentioned my cleverness above, remember?). Yet, I did not catch on that speaking to a deaf person is not the best means of communication–ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE IS A PAD OF PAPER RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. But, stunned I was. Then, because I have more good fortune than I deserve, a lady from California was waiting behind the two men and she was very capable with American Sign Language. She and the two men had a great conversation and quickly forgot about me and the cabin. I was able to help the remaining people in the office find camping sites and then waited and watched the silent and beautifully expressive conversation.

One of my deeply held beliefs is that communication is fundamental to understanding (obvious) and understanding reduces conflicts (reasonably obvious, I hope) and fewer conflicts makes people happier (not going to prove it but it has held true for me). Being in a situation where I was unable to communicate I immediately felt awkward and helpless. It was only a small step from that to being embarrassed at my gaff, worried about causing offence, and becoming more nervous than I had been when dancing and swatting mosquitoes to the mortification of a stranger’s teenage daughter.

The lady from California allowed all of us to communicate easily and, dare I say it, comfortably. She and her family went to settle into their camper and the two guys went off to pitch their tent. I came in here to write and think a bit. I will do better next time.

Time for a gratuitous Dead Kennedys’s (argue amongst yourselves on the use of the possessive here–I am taking the band to be a singular entity that happens to end with an ‘s’) finger poke in the eye of the music industry. I am sure that people will eventually kill the movie and music industries by making copies of movies and songs but they are going to have work much harder than they are now to make it happen. Even the efforts of Jello and company were not enough to kill the industries (and, I guess, all their profits).

I am tempted to write a book about working at the Sun-N-Shade campground this summer. There have been enough laughs, quandaries, and pearls of wisdom in the last two weeks to at least fill a trade paperback. If I could come up with a touchy-feelie title that evokes folk knowledge and caring (perhaps something involving chicken soup or self-healing) I might just might make my fortune and be able to ride the talk show circuit for a few years and retire in the splendour deserving of a modern-day oracle. Of course to do all of this I would need some reasonable stretch of uninterrupted writing time; so that idea is out.

I have come up with a chapter title for the portion of the book that relates the wisdom bequeathed to me by George, the social hub of to campground. George does everything from stand-up comedy to emptying garbage cans and is able to find humour in most any situation (self-deprecating or not). The chapter will be called “Grab the Easy Stuff First.” This is not so much a philosophy as a way of life that has been honed by years sailing off of the east coast of Canada. Even though he professes what might be construed as a lackadaisical attitude toward work I have yet to see any of his jobs undone. To abuse a nautical metaphor, he gets where he is going with minimal tacking and almost no wake.

Speaking of time, I have been writing this post for five hours now and I … cripes, I just got interrupted again and this sentence has taken me twenty minutes and I forgot what I was going to write. I cannot wait to see the narrative of this post when I am finished.

Ah, the jobs. I am fascinated by the number and variety of small jobs. The bigger jobs such as collecting the garbage, cutting the grass, and cleaning the facilities are all running without me getting involved to muck things up. There have been a few times that I have wandered in to clean up a large mess or move things about to make cutting the grass easier, but I am not needed much there. It is the “everything-else” jobs that fall my way. Here are some of the “everything-else” that I have undertaken (skilled in the area or not):

• wasp nest removal
• clothes dryer repair
• golf cart repair
• lawn mower repair
• reversing and parking obscenely large trailer
• argument mediator
• computer technician (including wireless network)
• tour guide
• restaurant critic
• delivery and shuttle services
• fan belt squeal remover
• and so on …

There are a ton of little jobs like that (some longer than others) and every one of them interrupts something–usually supper.

I would have to say that I am enjoying the variety and challenges that I am getting these days at the campground. There is a fair bit of tedium when it comes to checking people in and taking reservations and doing the books but the rest is a very interesting adventure. There is, however, a significant downside: the evenings.

I am alone in the evenings. When all of the jobs are finished and all of the music has been played and songs sung–then I am alone to finish my work and go to bed. I never suspected that this would be the hard part of the job. I have been married (with children) for quite a long time and this stretch has been the longest period I have been away from my family at night. I am missing my family at night a lot. It is just too quiet. There is no conversation, no discussion, no planning for the next day … just quiet.

I was talking with a man a while back who is a widower and he was telling me about how empty his house has become. We talked for about ninety minutes about this and that with always the underlying theme of emptiness. He was not unhappy, it was more adjusting the the change of not having a loved partner around to maintain their well-established pattern. I found myself trying to be sympathetic but not really understanding the nuance he was trying to convey. I suspect that like many people, I had simplified the situation to fit my understanding and past experiences.

My situation is a temporary dislocation and not a permanent loss. But I cannot help but feel that there is a part of both circumstances that is common, the disruption from comfortable routine and companionship. I have been struggling to put my finger on why I am bothered by this at all and this is what I have surmised. It may be complete twaddle and I know it sounds (borderline) silly, but so be it. As a footnote, part of the discussion on loss was the fact that very few people discuss that type of loss (I was told that it was discussed more with women and less with men) and it is very difficult to put into words. Maybe I understand the nuances a little better and maybe I don’t. I know I am looking forward to getting back to my comfortable routine.

I saw this and thought it was funny enough to implement and post. Of course I don’t get out much and have been spending my time at the campground so a little physics and HTML humour may be exciting the portion of my brain dedicated to hilarity to unnatural levels. Regardless, here it is in all its splendour.

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As I am going numb from doing bookkeeping at the campground I noticed an article on reddit.com. Reading Reddit is no substitute for information but there are enough tidbits that I seem to give it more time in a day than I should (that was my obligatory I-am-not-really-addicted-to-a-social-news-site disclaimer).

The article mentions a Canadian from Chelsea Quebec who was stabbed in the neck and then sat down with his attacker and called the police. During the call to 911 the operator ended up speaking to the attacker who gave his name and birth date and awaited the police. Not your every day sort of occurrence.

Now the bit that I was startled to see, the man who was attacked is named Christopher Holloway. I met Christopher a number of years ago when we were both working for Bell Northern Research and Northern Telecom was a company that was making buckets of money. He had recently finished skiing across the Arctic from Russia to Canada via the North Pole. The trek was called Polar Bridge and there is a short blurb about it on Richard Weber’s Wikipedia page. I did not know Christopher very well but I knew enough from his stories to know that he was (and likely still is) very capable and pretty darn hard to faze. So even though the article states that he was “surprised last week by an intruder in his basement who had been eating his fruit and using his clothes dryer” I picture him being surprised in the “that’s unusual” sense rather than the “what am I going to do now” sense.

I am very glad he was not hurt. My first thoughts were very much about hoping he was okay. My subsequent thoughts (not the caring ones … ) were much more along the lines of the look on his face and irritation of being stabbed while he was trying to figure out what to do about a guy eating fruit in his basement who had just stabbed him in the neck. I have no idea of the circumstances but I cannot imagine anything else but a matter-of-face expression (some concern about weak legs, bleeding, and the knife, I am sure) and one more story to add to his already substantial quiver of tales.

I also remember biking to his house and when he opened the door he shouted “kill” to his very large Canadian Eskimo dog named Franklin. Although their temperament is described as “loyal, tough, brave, intelligent, and alert … it is affectionate and gentle” I did not know this and was far more concerned about the fact that I had a 90lb dog running toward me and my friend Chuck (on bikes) wearing little more than Lycra and a terrified expression. Better still, we were unable to flee and the first thing that Franklin did upon reaching us was to put MY ENTIRE HAND in his mouth and lick off the salt I had accumulated from a long ride. Chuck’s next words (when Franklin) moved to him were “Teeth, I feel teeth.” Franklin was a great dog.

I would have loved to know Christopher better but we ended up working for different companies and I paths seldom crossed. It is good to read that he is still kicking and apparently very much as I remember.

We had a dandy storm Thursday night through Friday morning–lots of rain and thunder. There was one clap of thunder that was louder than anything I had previously heard. It was an enormous explosion at precisely 4:00am on Friday morning (to be fair, it might have been slightly before that but when I looked at the clock on my computer it said 4:00am).

I was up and running and ready to volunteer at NORAD to protect my home from alien invaders. My laptop was providing the only light in the room and when I finally managed to orient myself I realized that there was a stink of burning plastic (or the like, it is hard to identify funny smells in the dark with a heart rate that has yet to recede below 200 beats per minute). Now I had to find the fire and figure out what had just happened (after a rather urgent need to urinate has been settled).

With flashlight in hand my wife and I wandered around the house looking for the fire. We walked outside and looked around. We wandered into the basement. We found nothing and gradually were calm and confident to go back to bed still puzzled at what had made the huge (emphasizing huge, big, loud, scary, thundering) noise and the funny smell, which had since dissipated and I was figuring that I had imagined it because waking up scared caused me to smell funny things.

It was dark, the power was out, and we slept the rest of the night very comfortably.

The next day the storm was gone and we waited for the power to come back. Our area was out (according to Maritime Electric) so we waited. We got suspicious around 6:pm when we saw lights on at our neighbor’s house and we were still without power. When we called Maritime Electric again they assured us that everybody had power … we suggested otherwise and they sent a truck out to investigate.

At 8:00pm the truck checked out the line to our house (which is about 500m from the road) and the breakers on the line. All were good. When they checked the transformer on a pole just outside of our house the problem was found: the transformer was not working. It had gone boom. It had shuffled off its oil-soaked innards. The lightening had made it explode. Thus the exceptionally loud boom.

At midnight we had a new transformer and power flowing into our home again. The crews that fixed the problem were fast and neat.

The tally from the storm began to accumulate after we had power returned and we found that

• None of our (powered) telephones worked
• Our satellite connection to the Internet did not work
• Our router did not work
• My laptop power supply was toasted (and smelled funny)

The laptop was not on a UPS or surge protector (my bad) but Apple has put a new one in the mail for me. The phones were likewise not protected and we bought new phones the next day. The router and the satellite were both on UPS but got toasted–but they were connected by CAT-5 cable.

All in all it was not too bad. Nobody was hurt and everything should be back to normal in a week or so. My heart rate should have dropped to normal levels by then.

I am about to take three weeks and work at the Sun-N-Shade Campground (the world’s most underwhelming web site that belies an amazing place). This is an adventure for me and I have been drafted into the position by virtue of the fact that my parents are taking a bus trip for the last three weeks of August. My parents run the campground.

When we started with the campground we worked it together but I have spent less and less time at the campground in the last few years. As it turns out, my parents are far better at knowing what people want than I am. The result is that the campground runs in ways that are mysterious (to me). Most of the knowledge exists firmly encased in the minds of the two people who are taking a trip to Arizona for three weeks. It is a subtle thing, but I am beginning to suspect that there is a bit of fear within those same minds that they are abandoning the campground. Anarchy and horror awaits.

I, however, am confident that all will be well. I have run the campground before in a previous incarnation. I like to think I am level headed and not prone to violent outbursts. I have run companies in the past. But, I am still “the son” that is moving into my parents shoes.

When we dropped into the campground last night and all was running well. My parents were taking a break before the evening show at the hall and the people at the campground had it running like a well-oiled machine. We hung around for over an hour and chatted with campers and generally had a good time.

It was the cap to a wonderful evening to have my mother quietly pull me aside and tell me that if things are too tough for me in the next three weeks then my younger sister is willing to fly over 2000kms to help me run the place. And my aunt in Halifax can be available too.

No matter how successful or credible I might ever become … I am still a son.

There is nothing more sincere than a parent’s desire to protect a child. I will not sully the moment by allowing the possibility that the protective instinct is for the campground and not me.

I want to share the funniest thing I have ever heard while in the presence of my wife giving birth. There are many dangers in repeating said funny thing. The number of women who use the word “funny” in relation to childbirth (without an impressive stream of surrounding negatives) is very small indeed. The amount of breathing exercises, birthing classes, coaches, and pain-numbing drugs are a testament to the decidedly non-funny nature of giving birth … at least for women.

The great gift about being a sensitive supporting husband is being able to find the humour in any situation. I use this great power to rewrite history (and childbirth comes with some built-in amnesia; that is why women have more than one child, I am told) and turn any event I please into a rollicking laugh festival. Actually, maybe my great gift is my wife’s tolerance for that trait.

Here is the situation: the contractions are coming fast and furious; there is no time for an epidural; pain relief comes only from a cocktail of inhaled happy gas; and the doctor is standing in the room wearing black and red rubber boots. There is pushing. There is breathing. There are nurses looking impotent and hopeful. There is my hand with rapidly bluing fingers locked in my wife’s right hand. Her left hand holds the gas mask with a passion I could only envy. And the air is filled with the most impressively creative and horrifyingly obscene swearing I have ever heard–ever.

I may be overstating the hopefulness in the nurses but their impotence can not be overstated. Two of them just stood look at each other wondering what form of assistance they could offer. It is a tricky balance because (apparently, according to them, and I believed their sincerity or desperation) while the gas relieves pain it discourages pushing and the pushing bit is quite important. The benefit of the gas was a respite from the increasingly more profane swearing. They were torn; I could tell.

They finally accepted that they would have to reduce the gas to get the kid and (after attempting to remove the mask from an impressive left-handed grip) they reduced the gas and encouraged pushing. The implication that my wife was not doing enough was dangerous for them to make at this point but, fortunately for them, she was otherwise occupied. My hand was long numb. The swearing was now bridging multiple religions and sexual practises with surprisingly little repetition and some wonderfully inventive juxtapositions.

Then one of the nurses said something that pretty much halted everything: “you know, you can’t push when you are yelling and swearing.” I burst out laughing and even Jan took a break from agony to look over at me (I had been little more than a human stress ball to this point) with an expression that made me laugh harder and fear for the lives of both the nurse and myself.

I am reminded of this because it turns out that the nurse was wrong. It turns out that cursing can help cut pain. I now understand how a relatively calm, quiet, and non-swearing expectant mother was able to channel the entire stage show of the longshoreman’s amateur comedy and insult night with free beer provided. It was all pain relief. The deep-rooted, evolutionary response to pain is swearing loudly. I am now planning a program of birthing lessons (for a very reasonable fee) to take advantage of this newfound knowledge. And the best part is that I am pretty sure that fathers can join right in to help ease the pain.

I got a piece of news a couple of days ago that I was surprised has not been decried and denied in the local media: Charlottetown was ranked 29th out of 31 cities surveyed by MacLeans magazine to determine Canada’s best and worst run cities. Oh, and the two other cities that might have been number 30 and 31 could not be ranked because of incomplete data.

The most interesting part of the article is the companion bit entitled ““And now the bad news”” that explains that Charlottetown has some wonderful qualities but “[c]learly, Charlottetown’s future lies beyond Anne Shirley’s pigtails.”

The survey was not entirely negative on Charlottetown as the positive aspects (and the aspects I feel are exceptionally important) are mentioned:

Charlottetown is the safest city in the country. The city of 32,000 has governance and finance indicators that are near peerless in the country, and it is one of the more environmentally healthy cities among the 31 surveyed. Translation: it’s a great place to live if safety, governance and environment are your thing.

However, the survey focused on the manner in which the city is run and in those measures Charlottetown did not fare so well …

It is much more difficult to start a business in Charlottetown, however. Or get bang for your bucks paid in municipal taxes, or to find a park—or anyone who takes the bus, for that matter. … Charlottetown had the highest per capita economic development and infrastructure costs in the country. Quite simply, it isn’t a great place to germinate ideas, says Ken Gillis, a former manager of a Royal Bank in Charlottetown. “If people want to do something business-wise that is a little different, they have to jump through city hall hoops to get anything done.”

Ouch.

Charlottetown has relatively low population growth, perhaps because it has trouble attracting newcomers. … [Charlottetown] earns an F for new immigrants per 1,000 population. The effect of the lack of immigrants, often regarded as a city’s small business engine, is clearly visible: there are 45 vacant buildings in Charlottetown’s downtown core. (Notwithstanding its setting, the city also has few square metres of outdoor space per square kilometre, earning it an F in the AIMS survey category.)

That is enough of the negative side of Charlottetown. I like Charlottetown. But, as with many things with which we are comfortable and have come to love, it never hurts to have a little reflection. And it often takes an outside source to spur the reflection; they can see us without being blinded by the sheen of affection and comfort that insiders develop.

The problem is that no matter how important the reflection and how sincere the criticism it can still sting. Charlottetown is worth defending and “Charlottetowners are quick to rise to the defence of their city–particularly Charlottetown Mayor Clifford Lee, who took exception to the AIMS survey results, saying it is unfair to compare it with larger, more diverse cities like Halifax and St. John’s.” That is just the sting talking. It is embarrassing to be told that you are not as good as somebody else. It is also important to recognize the validity of the comparison (I am not as good a golfer as Tiger Woods but I am still a good person … right? … RIGHT?).

So, instead of decrying the survey as unfair, why not look at what was surveyed and see if the comparison is important. In some ways it is not. I am happy to sacrifice some aspects of city efficiency for safety, cleanliness, and governance; those are good things. However, let’s also consider the parts of the comparison that mention how Charlottetown can improve. Everybody around here knows that the city is littered with vacant buildings (please feel free to rant at me how that is all changing now and that we already know that and people have already complained about those buildings and isn’t that a Starbucks going in on University Ave …).

In fact, the biggest reason that the article stings is the realization that other people can see the same things we can see but they have the audacity to point it out to … us.

Charlottetown is a good city for the reasons above and more. It also has drawbacks (and the article even said that snow removal was a positive aspect of the city–go figure). If you take a look at the numbers there is a lot of good to be found, just do not look at economic development or transportation (effectiveness). Things look a little rough in taxation and recreation and culture as well.

Time to accept that everybody can see our warts and yet may still love us all the same. They may go to Halifax or Toronto to start new businesses but that is because those cities are better suited. I said it, other cities are better for business. We are better at a lot of things that other cities would love to have (like governance). Charlottetown can get more people on the bus, fill some downtown buildings, and encourage business development outside of tourism. These are things we should be doing. We should not be denying the truth, no matter how much it stings.

I do not think I have done many things more difficult than sending my daughter off to camp for a week in the Magdalen Islands (Le centre nautique de l’Istorlet on Havre-Aubert). It is difficult to let somebody you have been protecting and guarding go off out of protective range and left to her own devices … for a week … without any contact. I am not trying to compare myself to “America’s worst mom” , but it was tough enough to send her away with adult supervision for a week to an island (well, archipelago is probably more accurate) and not hear from her for a week.

The picture (above and to the left) of her leaving for camp shows a couple of things: she has already made a friend and is leaving hand-in-hand with her new friend; and she is not even slightly hesitant or showing any desire to look back once she took the first step toward the boat. I now have a more perfect understanding of what it means to have an experience be bittersweet. I could not be more proud of her being able to go off by herself to a place where she will speak nothing but French for a week, but would it have been too much for a father to ask to have even a brief backward glance? Just a little glance would have been okay.

So off she went. As much as we could do to research the camp (we went to the information session and talked to other parents who had children attend) it was still traumatic. As you can tell, it was a far bigger deal for mom and dad than it was for daughter.

Nonetheless, we survived and I was gratified to see her come back happy, tanned, and full of stories. She even managed to run the last few metres to greet me. I managed to maintain my cool just long enough to take a picture (on the right) and then dropped all pretence of cool and gave her a big hug. I continue to wrap myself in the comfortable knowledge that this was a great experience blah blah blah … she is more self sufficient blah blah blah … she learned a lot blah blah blah … and so on.

The truth is that all of these reasons are spot on the mark. She did many (nautical) activities she had not tried before and had fun. We had a great time spending some “alone” time with our other daughter. I am filled with a newfound (and possibly illusionary, but I do not care) feeling of being a good father. And, best of all, we are back to “normal” with the exception of the girls’ bedrooms; they have been torn asunder to improve them and paint them pink. Life is good.