Notes from a Canuck condorcation, Part 1...

Growing up as a kid, you could say I was a somewhat the model student. I paid attention in class, did my homework, made good grades, didn't act up, etc. In fact, I spent no time in detention my entire academic career. Apart from my long absences due to illness (or perhaps a bit of good acting on my part) and a worrisome threat of possible remediation if I didn't get my attendance up (despite the fact that I was well amongst the top 5% in the class), my parents never got any calls regarding my behavior or performance at school. The only time I remember getting pulled for doing something wrong was sometime in my junior year of high school when the assistant principal pulled me aside to comment on the t-shirt I was wearing that day which I had recently bought from Dick's Last Resort during a Latin convention trip to Dallas.

"You can't wear that in school," he said.
"Uh, why not?" I asked in a somewhat timid tone.
"Don't play games with me. You know exactly why. Now go home and change into something more appropriate, young man."

In all honesty, I really didn't know at the time what he was getting at, and I don't think it was until a couple of years later that I finally figured out the more raunchy meaning of the phrase "You Can't Kill a Man Born to Hang!"

. . . .

So last week, the wife and I took advantage of some frequent flyer miles we racked up on Frontier Airlines to take a vacation. My wife was burned out with work and all the things going on with my transitions in life, and I was pretty sure she was going to have a nervous break down if I didn't get her out of town for awhile. I, myself, was ready for a change of scenery, too. Since the tickets were free, we decided we go as far away as our points would allow us, which meant Vancouver.

Flying Frontier is always kind of a nice experience. Every seat has a TV (although you have to pay to watch anything), and every plane is slightly unique with each one painted up with a different animal. Wally the Wolf was our plane on our leg of the trip from Denver to Vancouver. This was particularly exciting to one kid I saw on our plane who enthusiastically waved goodbye to Wally after we reached our destination with his own stuffed wolf (complete with leather jacket) under his arm.

The view from my seat somewhere over the state of Washington. Note Wally on the wing. And that spot in the middle of the photo is not a UFO. I think a speck of dust is trapped on my digital camera sensor. Blurg!

We left St. Louis sometime around 6:00 AM and after changing planes in Denver, touched down in Vancouver sometime just after noon. I thought this was going to leave us plenty of time to enjoy the first afternoon of our vacation, but our bad luck had us arriving with plane loads of foreign Chinese college students coming over from Asia to start the new school year. Add to that, Canadian customs was short-staffed due to the new academic year, as well, as many of their temporary workers had left to go back to school. This left us snaking through a labyrinth of a line serviced by only six custom agents that made anything at Disney World look as short as Gary Coleman in comparison. After about three hours, we finally made it through the imaginary border, and were free to enjoy our vacation.

We were famished, and luckily I spotted a Vera's Burger Shack driving up on our way from the airport to the hotel. Vera's is a place I had read about on Chowhound before I left that was supposed to have some of the best burgers in the city of Vancouver. I don't know if it was our relative hunger at the time or what, but the fresh cut fries were amazing and their Baja Burger was just what we needed. Vera's secret to success is supposedly cooking their food to perfection and using really fresh meat, as they attest to on their logo.

Now perhaps I got too sensitized to double meanings when I got in trouble that day back in my teens, but somehow I think this wouldn't have been appropriate to wear in high school either:

Interpret that as you feel fit.