A Rain of Frogs

Hey all, just a quick post to let you know some of the changes that have been going on behind the scenes around here.

First and foremost, I’ve finally launched an information website for my sailboat. The Alberg 29 seems to be a rare and mystical beast when it comes to online information – the unicorn of ‘net boats indeed. So, I’ve launched www.twentynine.ca in hopes of finding all those other Alberg 29 owners out there and building some sort of knowledge base for those looking for information on one of the best of production boats.

In addition to twentynine.ca, I’ve made a subtle change to rain. Please note that the address for the RSS feed has changed. It can now be found here.

The reason for the change is twofold. First, 9rules was having trouble with the standard textpattern feed and some funky encoding issues. Second, feedburner gives me a saucy, sexy little graph that lets me track RSS subscriptions.

I’d be most grateful if you’d update your feed readers to the new address.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support and encouragement.

“Your father and I always put you first when you were growing up. We put you first then, and now that you’ve come home again, we’re putting your first again. You think this is easy for us? You think you’re not affecting our lives with the decision you make? I shouldn’t have to deal with this, not at my age. I’ve paid my dues, put in my time…”

The young man had heard this speech, or some variant, all through his life. His mother’s rant faded into a distant drone, and he sat with glazed eyes while she went through the ritual.

And then suddenly he’d had enough. Decades of pent up emotion finally burst through the shell he had created for it, and bubbled to the surface.

“Are you done?” he quietly intoned.

The monologue halted abruptly. His mother was not used to being interrupted while she was pontificating.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I asked if you were done.” he answered.

A bead of drool slipped from her stilled lips. He smiled, knowing she didn’t understand how to deal with this situation.

“The point is,” he stated flatly, “you’ve told us our whole lives how you and dad did everything for us, how we never went without. How you scrimped and saved for us. And that’s really admirable. Or it would be, if you didn’t keep telling us what a god-damned hard obligation it was. Trust me, we appreciate the effort you and dad put in for us. We know how hard it was for you because you’ve constantly told us how hard it was. How hard it still is. We appreciate the sacrifice. We really do.”

He could see the color rising in her cheeks, but plunged on anyway. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Maybe you could have done stuff for us just because you loved us. Why did it always have to be an obligation?”

He didn’t wait for her response. The leather sofa he was sitting on creaked as he stood. As he walked from the room he threw one final question over his shoulder.

“ Couldn’t it just be for love?”

I am a long-time skier. I used to race as a child, and have been strapping the planks on for more than two-thirds of my life. I remember a time before snowboards, and I’ve seen the evolution of the sport from an oddity to a common sight on the slopes. And I’ve always been curious about it.

Every year my father goes skiing in Utah with a bunch of men who are mostly younger than him. Because he’s a bit more competitive than he’ll ever admit, and because they’re all able to ski huge mountains regularly while we’re stuck on Southern Ontario hills, we almost annually go on a ski trip to the west coast to get him “trained up.” When I’m on the slopes, I’m skiing to help him prepare. This year it worked out that I couldn’t go, so he went out west for a week to ski with a cousin who lives very close to Mt. Washington on Vancouver Island.

And so the opportunity to try snowboarding finally presented itself.

Yesterday I rented a board and gave it a try. My first thought was “this is a hell of a lot harder than it looks.” My second thought (very quickly after the first) was “the snow is a hell of a lot harder than it looks” And both were true. I had been warned that most people spend the balance of their first day not on their snowboard, but in fact on their ass, and this proved to be the case.

It was recommended to me that I try to board the same way I used to skateboard, with my right foot forward, but this proved to be uncomfortable, so I had the rental tech switch the board so I led with my left foot. Goofy, I am told. It worked out much better for me.

I fell. A lot. On my ass. On my side. On my face. On my knees when my toe edge caught. That’s a long way down, let me tell you. And that one actually hurt.

But the strangest incident of all wasn’t a result of my inexperience.

I had fallen when I had dug an edge in, just as I had about a dozen times before. I put my arms out as I fell, and the second my hands hit the snow, another boarder – far more advanced and looking precisely like he knew what he was doing out there – ran over my left wrist. This hurt like hell, as you can imagine, and today it’s the primary source of pain in my body.

By the end of the day I had completed two “clean” runs without falling. I was and still am VERY proud of myself. Today I’m a bit tender and stiff, and my wrist hurts a little, but I feel great!

I can’t wait to get out and fall down all over again!

The 9rules site was just updated, and many new features added. While some of these new features are immediately obivous for the value they add for 9rules members (like this site) and the site operators, others haven’t yet made clear their benefit.

A few random thoughts on the new site:

• Mike did a good job of visually unifying some very disparate sections of the site.
• The site is currently suffering under the digg effect. And I mean suffering.
• The site is decidedly busier, and occasionally jarringly colorful.
• I wonder about the points system, but reserve judgement until I se it at work. On the surface it seems well thought out, but I’ve been involved in creating and running community sites for a really long time, and have reservations about any sort of community participation score.
• There is some questionable organization in terms of categories and subcategories – most specifically the Writing subcategory (which Rain is a member of) is currently located in the Opinion category. Again, to the credit of the 9rules operators (Tyme, Mike and Scrivs) they have been open to reassigning these subcategories.

Only time will tell if the new version is a success, if it balances the needs of the operators with the needs of the community members and the audience in general.

While I have no doubt that some members will be uncomfortable with the drastic changes to the site and its layout, it’s my belief it’ll meet and exceed its requirements.

They were frozen into the antifreeze. Little blue anchors holding captive those window squeegies – making sure nobody at the gas station could use them.

It was cold. And it was dark. The wind cut through coats and tuques like a hot knife through melted butter. Every second out in it pumping gas felt like a million years. And of course, they had taken off those nifty clips (damned government regulations) that let the pump operate unattended, so everyone had to stand there holding the filler trigger while the wind sawed straight through their gloves and their souls.

The car almost hadn’t started, in fact. Thankfully it was a standard petrol VW Golf, not a diesel, because it was cold enough for diesel to gel. It was an old Golf, and it had struggled to get the thick oil turning through the engine. But it had started and eventually, after an eternity, even warmed up.

Ah, winter in Canada.