Thoughts for Company

Running is widely regarded as the simplest form of exercise.

Want to get fit, quickly and easily?  Just lace up your running shoes and go!  There’s no need for fancy gear or equipment that you don’t already have.  It can be done any time, anywhere, and by anyone (barring some sort of physical impediment).  So what if your gym is closed all week for the Jewish holidays, or even a forklift can’t lift your gym partner off the couch?  It’s just you and the open road.  No more excuses.

But, as I learned the hard way this weekend, there’s a lot more to the art of running than you might expect - and it’s going to require serious commitment and mental faculty to make it work.

You may recall that I’d been taking some lessons in the Alexander Technique with local guru Dr. Gabriella Minnes Brandes.  So when I learned that Gaby was bringing renowned running innovator and Alexander teacher Malcolm Balk from Montreal to deliver a series of workshops, I carved 4 hours out of my busy weekend (ha!) and patiently waited for Malcolm to turn me into a running artist.

About the clinic (from the Art of Running website):

Learn to run efficiently, effectively and enjoyably at one of Malcolm Balk’s ART OF RUNNING workshops!

‘Art of Running’ workshops are based on the proven principles of the Alexander Technique, which encourage good use of the body and greater awareness of the way it functions. Malcolm Balk is a Level 4 athletics coach, certified Pose Method instructor and a world expert on Alexander Technique and running. He shows how to achieve and maintain fitness without injury and overcome self-imposed limitations to successful running.

I have to admit, seeing this video of Malcolm running on ice in regular running shoes didn’t exactly make it a tough sell.  And I figured the $100 fee wasn’t too steep if I considered how I’d be able to avoid all future ice skate rentals…

To be honest, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with running.  My dad was supposedly a runner in his younger years, though my mom never saw such a need to rush anywhere.  And I’m no scientist, but I guess the powers of genetics managed to create a wholly mediocre hybrid.  I recall participating in grade school track and field clubs, though I certainly can’t claim to have excelled.  I favoured events like the 100 m “dash”, 4x100 m relay (can’t blame me, it’s a team effort!) and long jump - anything under 30 seconds, I suppose.

At that age, you’re encouraged to try basically everything.  There were years when I, the least tall of all girls in my class, was selected for high jump training at a nearby school.  (Maybe I was so bad they brought me just to catch up, or they just wanted to stop me from distracting our legitimate athletes during practices.)

In any case, I enjoyed the social aspects, mainly -  “training” after class at the boys’ school and missing tests for track meets.  As for those “long distance” fitness tests (where the runs should have taken less than 10 minutes) in high school - I’ve effectively erased all memories of when we may or may not have hid behind some bushes and pretended we ran 3 laps instead of 2.

I’ve never considered myself a runner.  Sure, I ran a few Vancouver Sun Runs and posted decent times.  I even ran at lunch hours during some of my university co-op work terms, either with my manager or with a fellow employee who moonlighted as a running coach.  (Did I tell you about the first time we ran together?  I later learned it was a 7.7 km loop around UBC, completed in under 35 minutes - no big feat for real runners, but for a short-legged poser I’ll take it!  Anyway, mid-run and desperately out of breath, I told him I felt like I was going to die, and he ignored me completely and kept on his way.  And it wasn’t exactly like I could just stop by myself, deep in the woods of the UBC forest, without any idea of where I was… I still had to report back to work, after all!)  But I’ve never (intentionally) run more than 10 km at once, and certainly not with the same pretentious vigour of those virtuous marathon trainees around me.

Running simply failed to excite me.  I didn’t seem to experience the same “runner’s high” that I thought I was supposed to feel.  I got bored.  Still, I went through the motions because it’s good for you and, let’s be honest, I’m kind of a sucker for those things.  I was always far happier to be done the run than to have actually been running in the first place.

So when my knee started acting up (and I found myself facing an unrelated physical issue), I took that as my excuse to stop running.  Fortunately, this “ailment” didn’t seem to affect some other, more interesting physical activities.  Funny how that works out perfectly, eh?

When Malcolm first came to deliver the workshops in Vancouver last fall, we had the opportunity to meet, although my knee prevented me from participating.  Malcolm, bless him, called me on my bullshit and said that I could indeed still run, despite my supposed knee problems.  “Alright”, I replied incredulously, “I’ll come to your workshop next time!” - which is a particularly convenient line to use if you’re not sure exactly when “next time” is.

But “next time” turned out to be the past weekend.  I still hadn’t been running for some time, though it wasn’t for a lack of effort (not entirely, anyway.)  I had tried to run on the treadmill the previous week in Vegas, but my knee still hurt, so I was relegated to entertaining the spa’s trail mix dispenser for the remainder of our gym time.

Turns out the running motions I was so sternly attempting to execute were all wrong!  How is it possible that running - something considered so natural, so innate, so instinctual - could be performed so poorly after all these years of evolution?  Apparently, children running barefoot in the yard are fairly good examples of how we old folks should do it, how we used to do it, before we overcomplicated things, learned and then reinforced bad habits.

We spent much of the afternoon session outside in the gorgeous Vancouver sunshine.  And while I can’t explain the concepts nearly as thoroughly (or in such an amusing manner) as Malcolm, I did pick up a few good points.  That “heel-toe” business?  Now why would you want your momentum working against you, forcing you in the opposite direction as you try to propel yourself forward?  Putting on the brakes, literally, is a waste of energy.  Same goes for those long, grandiose strides (lean and leggy runners be damned!) and bopping up and down any more than a few inches.

Of course, Malcolm shared many more juicy tidbits, but I’ll have to leave some of those for him to explain.

(from theartofrunning.com)

Malcolm recorded a video of our running form “before” and “after” his workshop.  The whole group then watched as Malcolm ripped our form to shreds, albeit in his complimentary but constructive sort of way.  And although there were almost a dozen participants at my session, not once did I feel like I didn’t get enough individual attention.  In fact, the group setting gave us the opportunity to learn from others and ample time to work through each of the exercises.  We even did some short hill runs, which - and I swear it’s true - did not even feel like hills.

I managed to squeeze a few extra tips out of Malcolm regarding my bum knee, which shouldn’t be a problem after some basic exercises and adjustments to my running form.

And, perhaps most importantly, I left the workshop surprisingly motivated to take up running again.

If you’re at all interested in running, I’d highly recommend attending Malcolm’s next workshop, likely in Fall 2010.  But until then, you can get a head start by picking up his book, Master The Art of Running: Raising Your Performance with the Alexander Technique.  It’s no substitute for time with Malcolm in the flesh, but it may save you some jabs at your running form when he critiques your videos.

A very special person likes to tell me that there is always WAY too much going on in my head - as if I needed a reminder.  While I am, generally speaking, intensely focused, I have my scatterbrain moments.  Sometimes too many genius ideas are born at once - I can’t help it!

I like to cite this as an excuse for my bad habit of not finishing books - though I’ve yet to decide if this is actually a “bad” habit.  On one hand, my parents taught me to finish what I started (I think this applied mainly to meals); on the other, why waste my time with a book that fails to capture and/or retain my attention?

A few years ago, it happened with Orson Scott Card’s critically acclaimed sci-fi novel, Ender’s Game.  Even with the rest of the series at my disposal, I just couldn’t bring myself to finish it.  And it happened again with Christian Lander’s “Stuff White People Like: The Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions” (as well as a handful of other books along the way).

You may recall my post from August 2008 (!), when I first learned of Lander’s satirical vignettes about white people’s shared appreciation for certain people/places/things/ideas/etc.  At the time, I had every intention of breezing through the easy read and immediately reporting on my whiteness.  The writing was witty, entertaining, and - best of all - light.

Then I lost interest.  I made it all the way up to #69 (Mos Def) before taking an indefinite hiatus.  The material wasn’t offensive, but I could only relate to so many items on the list.  So I picked up a different book, and then another… which brings us to March 2010, over a year and a half since I introduced myself to The White Stuff.

(from StuffWhitePeopleLike.com)

Today, I resurrected the book from the three-foot-tall, barely-started/almost-done/still-to-tackle literary graveyard next to my bed to bring you this: my whiteness score!  Skimming through the rest of the entries (#70-150) ensured that I sufficiently understood each one before I proceeded to fill in the trusty checklist at the back of the book.

I wanted to set up a table with separate columns so that you could easily compare the items that fell in each of the categories - but I couldn’t figure out how to do this, so here are the basic lists (along with some important commentary, of course).   I even have one for N/A items, which were omitted from the calculation!

Note that I’ve considered the opposite of “Like” to be “Not Particularly Like” - and not “Dislike”.  “Not Particularly Like” is a more comprehensive term that encompasses a range of emotional states, including apathy.  “Dislike” seems kind of harsh, no?  (Dear Mr. Zuckerberg: Facebook should consider using “Not Particularly Like” - or “Indifferent” - as a replacement for “Dislike.”)

LIKE:

1. Assists
2. Farmer’s Markets
3. Organic Food
4. Diversity (I’m not biased!)
5. Barack Obama
6. Asian Girls (Again, not biased at all…)
7. Tea
8. Yoga
9. Gifted Children (Biased, obviously! :p)
10. International Travel
11. Architecture
12. The Daily Show with John Stewart/The Colbert Report
13. Renovations
14. Arrested Development (Waiting for the movie!)
15. Apple Products (A loyal Blackberry user, but Macs sure are pretty.)
16. Sushi
17. Plays
18. Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops (Power Muffins. ‘Nuff said.)
19. Living by the Water
20. Sarah Silverman
21. Dogs
22. Kitchen Gadgets
23. Apologies (I’m Canadian, eh?)
24. Natural Medicine
25. Toyota Prius
26. Recycling
27. Bottles of Water (I drink a lot… of water.)
28. Musical Comedy
29. Multilingual Children
30. Modern Furniture (Especially when it doesn’t look like furniture anymore!)
31. Dinner Parties (Because this involves food.)
32. Scarves
33. Self-Deprecating Humour
34. Free Health Care (Anything with the word “free” in it. Though there is no such thing as “free health care”. We pay for it.)
35. Platonic Friendships
36. Reusable Shopping Bags (As long as they’re clean.)
37. Acoustic Covers
38. The Simpsons (Used to watch at least 3 episodes a day in high school; don’t ask how I was able to graduate.)
39. Following Their Dreams
40. Not Having Cash (I’m paranoid about misplacing things… especially money.)
41. Singer-Songwriters (Biased!)
42. Books (I collect them. Don’t necessarily read them, but collect them.)
43. Hardwood Floors (Better than carpets for sliding around. Rug burn is not so much fun.)
44. Therapy
45. Self-Importance (see Like #9)

NOT PARTICULARLY LIKE:

1. Coffee (Like the smell though. Love the smell, actually.)
2. Religions Their Parents Don’t Belong To
3. Film Festivals
4. Making You Feel Bad for Not Going Outside
5. Wes Anderson Movies
6. Nonprofit Organizations (I have nothing against profit. Plus many are poorly managed.)
7. Having Black Friends
8. Hating Their Parents (I love mine!)
9. Awareness
10. Being an Expert on Your Culture (I’m not an expert on anything.)
11. Writer’s Workshops
12. Having Two Last Names
13. Microbreweries
14. Wine
15. David Sedaris
16. Manhattan - and Now Brooklyn, Too! (Never been.)
17. Marathons (Too lazy.)
18. Not Having a TV
19. 80’s Night
20. Wrigley Field
21. Snowboarding (I can barely ski - and that’s on two independent legs.)
22. Veganism/Vegetarianism
23. Marijuana
24. Brunch (Why condense two perfectly good meals into one… Why?!)
25. Netflix (Damn, Canada.)
26. Indie Music
27. Public Radio
28. Asian Fusion Food (Confusing. You must mean Asian ConFusion. Har har!)
29. The Sunday New York Times
30. Liberal Arts Degrees
31. Vintage
32. Irony
33. Lawyers
34. Documentaries
35. Japan
36. Bicycles (Not if you like your crotch.)
37. Knowing What’s Best for Poor People
38. Expensive Sandwiches (”Expensive” anything is unattractive. Except maybe shoes. And handbags. And jewellery.  And - wait…)
39. Coed Sports (Face it; it’s not a level playing field and never will be, no matter how hard we try to pretend.)
40. Divorce
41. Standing Still at Concerts (What about sitting?)
42. Michel Gondry
43. Mos Def
44. Difficult Breakups
45. Study Abroad
46. Gentrification
47. Oscar Parties
48. The Idea of Soccer (I like The Idea of Fitness and Sport. I don’t like The Idea of Getting My Shins Kicked.)
49. Graduate School
50. Hating Corporations (Quite the opposite, in fact!)
51. Bad Memories of High School (Loved it - sorry! see Like #23)
52. T-shirts
53. The Wire
54. Shorts (Unless it’s really hot out. Otherwise, I’d be way too cold.)
55. Outdoor Performance Clothes
56. Having Gay Friends
57. St. Patrick’s Day
58. San Francisco
59. Music Piracy
60. Rugby
61. New Balance Shoes
62. Beards (Please don’t.)
63. Having Children in Their Late Thirties
64. Red Hair
65. Noam Chomsky
66. Non-Motorized Boating
67. The Boston Red Sox
68. Cleanses
69. Integrity (Defined in the book as “when an artist succeeds to the point where they are paid for their work and are exposed to a larger audience”. No apologies here.)
70. The Criterion Collection
71. Natural Childbirth
72. High School English Teachers (Ha!)
73. Native Wisdom
74. Trying Too Hard (I try just hard enough.)
75. Portland, Oregon
76. Che Guevara
77. The New Yorker
78. Non-American News Sources
79. Subtitles (I’m at the movies to watch, not read.)
80. Premium Juice
81. The ACLU
82. Plaid
83. Dave Chappelle
84. Tibet
85. Nintendo Wii (Except sword fighting.)
86. Conspiracies
87. Avoiding Confrontation (Bring it!)
88. DJs
89. Carbon Offsets
90. Adopting Foreign Children
91. LEED Certification
92. Expensive Strollers
93. Eating Outside (Show me a Chinese restaurant with an outdoor patio.)
94. Music Festivals (Too old for this.)
95. Glasses
96. McSweeney’s
97. Bakeries
98. Modern Art Museums (Tried this in London, but just didn’t get it.)
99. Cheese (Not part of the traditional Asian diet - unless you count Cheez Whiz.)
100. Public Transportation That Is Not a Bus
101. Dive Bars
102. Rock Climbing

NOT APPLICABLE:

1. Being the Only White Person Around
2. Threatening to Move to Canada
3. Pretending to be Canadian When Travelling Abroad

At the end of the book, Lander includes a simple formula for determining one’s whiteness; unfortunately, I had to complicate the formula by accounting for the N/A category (not to mention his error with calculating percentages, but I won’t get into that).

45 / (150 - 3) = 31%

Not far off my estimate of 50/150!  (And in fairness, it’s possible that I’ve become slightly less white since my original post in August 2008 - that’s a long time ago!)

So how white are you?

I blogged some time ago about the creative genius that is the Snuggie.

Some of you apparently got the impression - and I have no idea how - that I was propagating an unfounded hatred for the infamous backwards robe.

Who are you to judge, you asked.  You don’t even own a Snuggie.

A fair argument - at the time.  But no longer.

One of you was compelled to send me a Snuggie for Christmas - thank you for indulging me!

And so, in a brief episode of diligent investigative journalism (hey, it happens), I jumped arms first into my very own Royal Blue Snuggie.

Forwards.  Backwards.  Inside out.  Upside down.

The verdict: Yes, I experienced “total warmth and comfort”.  Yes, it’s “super-soft”.  It is very easy to read a book in, and to watch TV and eat popcorn in.  I am able to talk on the phone while wearing it, and work on my laptop (thank goodness for home offices!).  And, most importantly, I look incredibly stylish, if I may say so myself.

But it’s not nearly as liberating as it purports to be.  It is not actually very easy to leave the house in.  It is not one size fits all, those liars!  And if it were a hospital gown, I’d be very concerned for whomever was unfortunate enough to have to walk behind me, as the ends like to come apart and cause the whole darn thing to fall off.

It’s worth mentioning that the booklight, which is of the “compact press ‘n open” variety, is a real life saver.  You don’t actually have to unfold the light from its compact state; instead, you simply press a button.  Already it has saved me so much time and effort, leaving my hands free to catch the open ends of my Snuggie and prevent throngs of werewolves from converging on a brief full moon.

I can’t provide a conclusive opinion, however.  I haven’t had the opportunity to take my Snuggie camping, or on a plane.  I haven’t had a small child at my disposal, to really test the “complete freedom of movement” supposedly afforded by a Snuggie.  I’d anticipate having a very challenging time cheering at a soccer game, but it’s completely impossible to tell at this point, given the lack of evidence.  (I am currently accepting loans of private jets and babies and soccer teams for this purpose.)

And I haven’t tried sewing in my Snuggie.

I guess it will be quite some time before I am ever able to provide a definitive answer, as I would first have to learn how to sew, but least I know what my first project will be.

A sleeveless Snuggie.

Now there’s a novel idea!

“Your start-up disk is almost full” - the ominous, oft-repeated mantra of my ailing Mac.

Oh, how many times I’d heard this pitiful lament…

…until, by some combination of most excellent fortune and exemplary effort on my part, I willed the timely solution.

A couple of weeks ago, in what could well have been my Mac’s darkest hour, I came across Vancouver blog royalty Miss604.com’s latest contest, aptly titled, “Mac Tune Up Giveaway“.

The prize was almost too good to be true: “Two hour spa treatment for your Mac, with some tutoring on getting the most from your setup – (valued at $190). An Apple-certified Macinhome consultant will visit your home to basically perform a tune up on your Mac, doing the computer equivalent of an oil change & tire rotation.”

What a novel idea!  I love reading up on successful businesses built on fascinating ideas and exceptional customer service, so you can imagine my delight upon learning of the company and the range of services it offers to everyone from technopeasants (myself included) to corporate clients.

But back to the contest.

I rubbed my eyes vigorously in disbelief.  Was I reading the post correctly?  Was this the glorious and merciful answer to my deepest, darkest prayers?

Surely, my mind would not play a cruel trick on me… not so soon after the last one, anyway (I was still recovering, after all).

The sole obstacle standing in my way: those “other” contest entries.  How could I compete?  What would it take to get an edge?  My cunning wit and frugal bribes would be no good here - or would they?

Turns out they wouldn’t.  But neither did I need them.

Alas, I actually won something!  Finally, after the years of turmoil, I was a real winner!  (Well, there was the time I won tickets to an event I didn’t want to attend, but I was really just being respectful.  How should I have known not to obediently call the radio station when the DJ commanded so, without knowing the prize?)

I was immediately impressed with Macinhome.  After being contacted directly by the company’s Principal (email being the medium of choice here, naturally), the Team Lead Consultant followed up to arrange an appointment.  When the daily grind rendered me unable to immediately return the calls/emails, the Macinhome team was relentless in pursuing my case - a wonderful surprise, considering the circumstances in which I would be receiving their highly sought after services.

Then, the afternoon before Spa Day, my very own Apple-certified consultant (or, as I like to call them, Mac Doctors) gave me a quick ring to discuss the symptoms and treatment options.  It was an appropriate and much appreciated level of contact one would expect from professionals affiliated with the Apple brand.

There is something refreshingly different about how Macinhome interacts with its clients - and something simultaneously familiar in that you actually speak to a human being in a reasonable amount of time.  Even the automated hold message is honest and unpretentious.  And it doesn’t hurt that they name drop the iPhone, informing callers that consultants have been alerted of my call via their shiny little gadgets.

Stay with me here as I fast forward to the day after the session, when the Principal of Macinhome personally sent me a short email requesting my feedback on the experience.  He explicitly stated that they’re “keen to hear feedback - good and bad.  :)” It’s not every day that the head of a company will use a smiley face in an email, and I certainly appreciated being treated as an actual person and not just a number (especially one that won free services).

So it turns out the Consultant who was originally scheduled to help me was held up in a tragic event of some sort, or so I was told by his replacement (jokingly, I think).  But it was hard to tell, as I initially wasn’t quite sure how to read the one who showed up.

In short, I was surprised.

Not in a bad way at all, but… it was just unexpected, although in hindsight, I’m not quite sure what I was expecting.

The Consultant, who we’ll call Agent A, rang my doorbell about ten minutes after our scheduled appointment time - but I can hardly complain about this, as it seems customary for companies to make grand promises of house visits “some time between 9 am and 5 pm”.  Fortunately, this was not the case with Macinhome.

At first glance, I wasn’t sure if he was indeed my Macinhome saviour. With his blue jeans, red checkered short-sleeve dress shirt over a white T-shirt, curly locks, and requisite laptop backpack, he wouldn’t have looked out of place in a second-year Science class. He was very friendly, though somewhat tentative in his mannerisms - at least until I buttered him up with juice and roasted nuts!  The more time we spent together, the more confident I was that he probably spends a good number of hours playing World of Warcraft and reading comic books.

But this is what you’d want in your computer technician, no?

I have to admit, I questioned whether he would actually spend the full two hours with me (a free contest winner, after all) - but he did!

I was also concerned about what he might dig up on my computer… nothing scandalous (I’m fairly square, you know) but embarrassing nonetheless.  (Fine, I read gossip sites!)  I even asked him if he finds questionable material on his clients’ computers, which he was not at liberty to divulge - but the look on his face suggested that he had indeed serviced some interesting units.

But to the root of my problem: in response to my computer’s pathetic white flag, manifested most spectacularly in repeated failed attempts to import sizable clips for my video blog, Agent A quickly pointed out that my “movies” were selfishly consuming prime real estate on my hard drive, particularly since Time Machine backs up the files on an external hard drive.  So he moved that third of my space onto the external drive as well (I like my backups to have backups, don’t you?), at the same time using analogies to illustrate in layman’s terms how computers work, and the problem was solved.

He spent the rest of the time scolding me for hanging onto things I’ll never need (not my fault - no one told me that you don’t need to keep installers once you’ve used them!), giving me some insider tips on the wonderfully fantastic features of all Macs (even antiques like mine, purchased almost two years ago), upselling me on Apple Care and Snow Leopard (though in fairness, both are probably a good idea anyway), transferring gorgeous, high resolution desktop images and setting them to an hourly rotation…

I now use Safari instead of Firefox (simply for its fancy Top Sites page), my Macintosh HD logo is so fresh and so clean, and I’ve even created another user for my dear mother (who should not, in any circumstances, be granted administrative access on any type of technological device).

And there’s so much more we accomplished that I can’t even remember (surprise!).

Agent A was very knowledgeable and understanding of my technological deficiencies.  Not once, despite my stupid questions, did he seem judgmental or pretentious.  He fixed the problem, in far less time than was allotted, and proceeded to deliver outstanding service.  His demeanour was the perfect balance of technical professional and friendly neighbour.  I did not feel uncomfortable having this stranger in my home (I left the room several times but returned to find everything still in its rightful place).  And perhaps most importantly, he was honest when he didn’t have all the answers (he could have easily told me that the world is flat and I would have believed him in a second).

Let me say here that I can’t imagine the life of an in-home computer consultant to be an easy one.  After my session, Agent A was off to his next, c’est-la-vie-ing the absence of a lunch break.  I almost felt guilty that I was about to enjoy one of my usual midday feasts.  So I sent him off with a granola bar along with my many thanks.

I would highly recommend Macinhome and will likely turn to the company to assist with an “erase install” of Snow Leopard when the time is right.  The $95/hour rate is steep but seems to be worth the investment solely for the piece of mind (and ability to blame any problems on someone else).

The Principal asked me to rate my experience on a scale of 1 to 10.  I’d give it a 9 - one point short of top marks only because Agent A had to take a couple phone calls during our session.  But again, I suppose this could have been expected considering the nature of the service…

Macinhome, on behalf of my personal (also reluctant and exhausted) Mac troubleshooting and technical support team, I thank you for the countless hours and headaches you’ve spared us all.

One final note: when I let them know that I would be blogging about my positive experience with their company and services, the response I received almost immediately was “Hurrah! Awesome, thank you!  :)”, which pretty much sums it up!

Yes, there’s a “Dawn” in Livingston County, Missouri.

In “fact” (according to the only legitimate source of information, Wikipedia!), Dawn “is located on Missouri Supplemental Route C about eight miles southwest of Chillicothe.”  FYI…

But calculated coincidence aside, I attended the City and Colour show last night at the Orpheum Theatre - as a +1 to the fan for whom I purchased the tickets as a birthday gift.

To be honest, I didn’t know much about the headliner or the opening act (Kathleen Edwards), so I really couldn‘t expect much from the show except good company and a comfortable seat.  After all, my pre-show familiarity with City and Colour ended with Save Your Scissors, the serene though somewhat dull first single.  And although I had heard of Kathleen Edwards, I had never heard any of her music.  (But my vague impression was quite accurate - when asked by someone equally clueless, I claimed that she was a Canadian country-ish singer-songwriter that played the guitar.  “I think…”)  Both are in town for the Juno Awards.

What I got, in addition to company and comfort, was a renewed appreciation for live shows and pared down production.  Kathleen took to the stage with only her guitar and a fellow guitarist - and still managed to captivate the audience with her dry wit, claims of illicit drug use in her youth (met by hoops and hollars from the primarily teenaged crowd), and rhythmically-driven songs.

Which, per country music custom, were stories - albeit devoid of obvious cliches and full of interesting Canadiana (NHL references are always appropriate).

As for Mr. Dallas Green and his entourage - which included his moms (?), dad, and wife/MuchMusic VJ Leah Miller - they did not fail to impress.  Though he admittedly writes all his songs with the same chords, jazzed up with the use of the trusty capo, it works.  If you like one of his songs, you’ll probably like the rest, too.  But what he lacks in harmonic creativity, he more than makes up for in simplicity, emotional intensity, and an impressively wide-ranging (and gorgeous!) voice.

Clad in tapered jeans, flannel (apparently, he shares the same stylist as Kathleen), and his signature glasses, Dallas doesn’t look the part of rock star in the least.  But he’s clearly very talented and charismatic.  And, perhaps surprisingly, he seemed to elicit an equally enthusiastic response from avid male fans as he did from the hormone-raged females in the crowd.

Note to self: Phone does not take good pictures.

I have to admit, I felt kind of… old at the concert.  I was surprised by the number of high schoolers whose parents let them attend a rock concert on a school night!  (And it always surprises me how many people are wandering the downtown streets at 11:30 pm on a weeknight - don’t they have jobs?!  But I should really talk, eh…)  We were ridiculously overdressed, having gone to the show directly after a long day of work, meetings, and appointments.  And I really fought off the zzzzzzz’s as the clock struck 9 pm.  (Hey, I’m not as young as I used to be, and I have to wake up early!  I am that lame!)

But the HON (Highlight of the Night, for those of you who don’t watch sports) was definitely the interlude by some random guy (kidding, but we knew no better at the time), who took to the stage with only a guitar and began playing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.  Felt a little like the Sound of Music singalong, but the crowd ate up every moment of the clever stall tactic!

Vancouver’s foodies needn’t venture far for the ultimate culinary experience…

Just hop on the B-Line (public transit is the only way you’ll be able to afford dinner!) to Tojo’s on West Broadway, just a few blocks east of Granville.  Even the author of the book, 1000 Places to See Before You Die, concurs!

For the low, low price of just under $300, you and a guest can dine on an assortment of Tojo’s most exciting dishes, omakase style, prepared by the chef himself and his loyal crew, before your very eyes at the bar.  (My very eyes, by the way, are a great deal larger than my stomach, as I was practically stuffed after the first of 10+ plates.  Luckily, my eating partner gladly took half of each of mine so that I could keep up.  What a gentleman!)

Note: I should mention here that we cannot afford to go very often, obviously.  But on a certain special occasion, Tojo’s is our go-to place.  (I’m convinced this is mostly because it takes the thinking out of an anniversary gift, but I can’t complain! :p)

Omakase is a sort of Japanese roulette, where your entire - and pricey - experience is left in the (hopefully) capable hands of the chef.  No menus, no requests, unless the chef approves.  But Tojo never fails to impress.  From delicate sashimi salad, through various adventures in shrimp cakes and sole and geoduck and cucumber-wrapped rolls with yam tempura, shrimp tempura, mango, asparagus, avocado, a thin layer of mayo (excuse me while I wipe the saliva from my chin), right through to our staple pre-dessert dessert (a special request): the spicy tuna cone… which is like eating butter but better!

There’s just too much to explain it all.  We had all this and so much more.  (Did I mention that Tojo’s is the only place I will eat white rice?  Not even in Chinese restaurants!)  The crepe roll with various seafood is hands-down one of my faves.  And the whole experience is capped off with the perfect dessert - different each time (different for each group of guests, even, as we noticed at our last visit!).  We were served the green tea creme brulee with a sesame cracker and fruit.

Don’t worry, it’s not like you have to know your food to enjoy it.  The chefs will always give you instructions on how each dish is to be savoured.  (”No soy!”  “Use hands!”)  So you can still pretend to be a food snob, even when you have no clue.

Sure doesn’t hurt that you get to rub elbows with the rich and famous either!  Four years ago, we sat next to the Harrison (Ford) and Calista (Flockhart) at the bar.  Each and every time you go, you’re treated like royalty - especially if you’re not (but also especially if you are!).  One time, our favourite server (code name: “Hot Dragon”, according to the tag on his shirt) served us a creamy white alcohol he affectionately called “Tojo’s milk”, gesturing to the breast.

Sitting at the bar lets you feel as though you’re part of an exclusive club.  And I don’t care (that much) that Tojo doesn’t ask for my autograph for his washroom displays.

One day…