Losing the war against caffeine

This appeared as part of my monthly column. I never actually posted it, so here it is. Enjoy.

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The year 2009 will mark a huge milestone for me. It's the year I lost a battle I'd been waging for more than a decade.

It was a long fight, lasting 27 years, a war of sleepless nights and heavy lids, of battles against the elements, and even the very night itself.

I'm talking about coffee.

Yep. It took a lot of time and effort but this was the year I finally lost the protracted struggle against coffee. I bowed down before the dreaded forces of caffeine, surrendering my sword and placing myself at its bitter, sweet mercy.

It was a long time in coming. Who knows how many times I've been offered coffee by friends or waiters, and refused. How many times have I had The Conversation with people about coffee, and how I've managed to squeak by in life without even a sip of the blessed elixir, insufferably proud of the dubious distinction of being probably the only reporter in Canada who Doesn't Drink Coffee.

I lived in Brazil for years. Brazil, the empire of coffee, where governments have been made and broken on the fortunes of the mighty bean. And I never touched the stuff, like a blind beggar wandering into an unguarded bank vault.

So you'd think, by now, I'd be immune to the unquenchable thirst, right? You'd think I'd have acclimatized my body to functioning without coffee, requiring only regular meals and decent bed times.

Except ... well, back in university, I was really a lazy bugger. I worked hard, but I avoided all-nighters like the plague, if I could. I even picked my courses so I wouldn't have to get out of bed before 10 a.m., most days, which was good, because me and the roommates were usually up until the crack of dawn watching bad movies and playing videogames. Even on the days when there just wasn't any way around a 24 hour marathon, I usually survived on adrenaline and sugar, then crashed for 12 hours to make up for it.

So, at last, when I emerged from my post-secondary cocoon and got a Real World job like the Big Person I now was, then began the nine-to-five. Or eight- to-six, or seven-to-seven, or however the split is, depending on how busy we are, plus the occasional weekend.

Yeah, 10 a.m. wake up times? All gone now.

So now, confronted with actual, tough work and sometimes difficult scheduling, of course, the mind and body get tired. They needed a boost. And they weren't getting one.

Enter: Tea.

I went to a couple of British schools growing up, so I picked up a lot of their mannerisms, but I didn't get to be a tea swiller until taking this job. But boy, did I ever become one.

One cup a day became three, then five, some days seven. It got to the point my boss could tell whether I'd had my cuppa, and when I hadn't. I became a regular fixture around the office, wandering from department to department, steaming cup in hand, lost in thought and wearing a track in the linoleum.

It was an ineffective placebo.

Finally, after a few hazy days of bleary mornings and titanic struggles with the alarm clock, I decided it was time to bow to the will of the universe.

I rose one Tuesday, gunned the car and made the grim, sandy-eyed pilgrimage I'd postponed for so long. The sun was just coming over the horizon, making it even harder to keep my eyes open.

When my destination, crowned with the two-word name so familiar to Canadians you could probably base a whole religion around it, hove into view, I pulled into the slowly filling drive-thru, like millions had done before me.

I was awed as the car inched forward, bringing me ever closer to one of the great Canadian rituals, central to our culture, like a young Aztec child's first trip to the sacrificial pyramid.

At last, the car stopped by the grille, and the tinny voice inquired as to my pleasure that morning. With a dry, slightly quavering voice, I said the words. Double Double. Medium.

There was a pause. For a moment, I feared I'd misspoken, and now the ritual was ruined. Had I doomed us all? Then the Voice spoke again, telling me an unfamiliar price and peppily asking me to drive on.

So I got my coffee, my first. As I drove to work, I gingerly sipped the hot liquid, like the last survivor of some Amazon expedition, happening upon the long-sought fountain of youth and unsure what to do now.

It was good. Now I have one every morning, just one - and one only - extra boost to get me going.

Although ... I could really use another right now ...

Blue Lobster

No, he ain't sticking that in the pot.


What we have here is a blue lobster ... one in two million chance of getting one. This lad hauled her up one day, stuck her in the deep freeze and intends to have her mounted in his finished basement.

He didn't seem to think it was a big deal. He claims he caught an albino one 15 years ago...that's like one in 500 million.

Never dream of eating one. First, they turn red when boiled. Second ... c'mon, really? That's like hanging the Mona Lisa in your basement bathroom.

Fail! Again....

Well, last weekend was that time of year again. Time for Danny boy to head to Halifax for the Atlantic Community Newspapers Association conference, gala and award dinner.

Like last year, I was up for an award, this time for outstanding photographer.

And, like last year, I won the vague honour of being a standing finalist, while top spot went to the photographer from the St. Croix Courier in St. Stephen.

:(

Ah, well. It's enough to be named top three in Atlantic Canada, at least for the weeklies! Suits me, and I got a free weekend in Halifax to boot.

For your viewing pleasure, here's the shots that almost got me the top spot. They've been up here before, but what the hell.

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The Hilary Bonnell vigil.


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The murdered girl's mother, Pamela, in a once-in-a-lifetime shot during the funeral.


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Nick Hardy of the Chatham Ironmen tumbles into first to earn the pennant-winning run of the 2009 season.

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Three ex-Boston Bruins in Miramichi for the pond hockey tournament.

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Lt. Tyler Hamm takes me up in the Air Cadets' training glider one fine Saturday.

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And, finally, local MLA and public safety minister John Foran caught in a moment of marvelous hunger


That is all.

Best of May

May turned out to have some good shots. Here you go.

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Here's Freeman Ward, newly elected chief of Metepenagiag First Nation, just upriver from us.


It turned out to be an excellent portrait of the guy. The incumbent was turfed out by, like 14 votes (a common occurrence). He had great ideas for the place, like alternative energy and, of course, a new gambling hall right in the heart of Miramichi. But it seems he pissed off too many folks, so out he went.

Or something. I don't know ... it's hard to tell what goes on behind the scenes in these places, but this reserve tends to be pretty quiet.

The new guy was VERY suspicious of me. When I got to his house, he was on the phone with someone in Mi'kmaq, and later he told me it was a band councillor from another reserve on the river who told him to slam the door in my face.

He didn't, and we had a long, long talk off the record before I turned the recorder on. I'm cautiously optimistic ... he called the next week to thank me for the article, and point me in the direction of a rising baseball star in New Brunswick who everyone thinks is from a reserve out of our coverage area but was actually born in Metepenagiag.

Of course, it happened to be his son. But hey, gotta start somewhere, and it turned out to be a cool story. Let's see what he does when I have to ask the tough questions.

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Aaaaaand, the token candid shot gone awry:

The lad on the left is Councillor Robert Trevors, just after he won the Tory nomination for the Newcastle area of the city in the upcoming provincial election. I love single-frame candid shots that make politicians look crazed.

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Just some lads painting the tennis courts. Turned into a nice enough shot, so here it is.

Apparently that paint is specially designed to deliver the right kind of bounce, and is used for the masters, or something.

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This lad, playing a young Max Aitken, shows off what a li'l scamp the old bastard was as a child.


Aitken, later Lord Beaverbrook, went to school in Newcastle, NB, and rose to become a cement magnate, later a newspaper giant who practically owned Fleet Street in the UK, rising to become part of Churchill's war cabinet. Apparently he was also a bit of a dick, but he left a sweet art gallery behind in Fredericton, so it's all good, right?

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This one isn't the best in the world. I just like the posing.

From a Saturday morning mosquito practice. Cute kids.

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This one is probably my favourite of this bunch: Opposition leader David Alward standing in the Miramichi city council chambers.


Stood on a chair to get the panorama shot. His handler was adamant he was behind schedule and wouldn't have time after the press conference. So I smiled, nodded, then went up to him directly to ask him to pose. As always, he was happy to oblige. Silly communications people.

Reason this is remotely significant is because the big Norwegian solar panel company that wanted to set up shop in Miramichi announced the lousy global economy was forcing them to shelve the project. The people blamed the Liberal government, and the Tories capitalized on that by arriving for a much-publicised meeting with the mayor just two days after the news hit. The speed of it was impressive.

This shot, sadly, never ran, but I guess I just liked its depth.

Best of April

April turned out to have a few good shots, so I've posted them here for your perusal. Enjoy.

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This young lady on the monkey bars was enjoying the first warm weekend on the Miramichi.



With a little help from her cousin, of course.

So, in other words, really slow day. So we all got kicked out of the office to go find people to take pictures of for a weather story. I felt like such a weirdo ... what must these people have been thinking? "Hey, you've never seen me before in your entire life, but your kids are really cute, and I'm from the paper, so could I get a picture of them playing?"

That's not exactly what I said. But you'd be amazed how often that works, as evidenced above.

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This guy, Lt.-Col. Joscelyn Paul, was down in Miramichi for a talk on a novel Canadian strategy for dealing with the Afghan insurgency. It involves not actually killing anyone.


Basically, he talked about this method of theirs where they garrison soldiers in actual Afghan villages, rather than just clearing out the Taliban and going back to base. If they stick around long enough, the villagers realize they can rely on them for security, so they start giving them tips. The guy claims it works, and it sounds like a good idea.

Pity about the Canadian soldiers dying for a hopelessly corrupt Afghan government, though. *sigh*

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That big hunk of scrap used to be the engine of a WW2-era torpedo bomber. Like many of its kind, it's been refitted extensively since then, and has seen service in water bomber fleets across the world, including the waterbomber base here in Miramichi.


About half an hour before this shot was taken, it was whirring happily away at a few hundred feet before the pilot of the craft lost control and crashed in the woods near the old airbase in town. He died on impact. Still don't know what happened, but he was in his 60s, and had been flying for 40 years. Probably had a stroke or heart attack or something, since Transport Canada said engine failure wasn't the problem, and it certainly wasn't inexperience. Very sad for his hometown.

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Also sad: This month was the birthday of Hilary Bonnell, who was murdered on one of the local First Nations communities last year. To commemorate, around a hundred residents launched purple-coloured Chinese lanterns.


Another example of upping the ISO, trying to keep camera shake to a minimum and hoping for the best. I'm not a good photographer, just a really, really lucky one.

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Moving unexpectedly away from the topic of death, believe it or not, here's a car that went flying off the bypass, flipped over a couple of times, then came to rest in the ditch.


The back window just shattered, the shocks and wheels are shot, but the young lady inside walked to the ambulance when it came, to be sped none-too-swiftly back down the same bypass she came up to the hospital.

She seemed quite glum about the whole thing.

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Also not involving death in any way, shape or form, here's Graydon Nicholas, New Brunswick's first and newly minted aboriginal Lieutenant-Governor, at a talk for aboriginal youth enrolled in a job training program on Eel Ground First Nation, just outside of town.


He's a better speaker than the last one, who tended descend into university lecture-style utterances. And, of course, by rising to the highest ceremonial office in the land, he's basically a hero to every aboriginal person in the Maritimes.

Impressive ... though I'll be more impressed when we have an aboriginal premier. We'll have to wait a bit longer for that, probably.

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And behold!

That magnificent mane and classic '80s suit belongs to Judy Losier, the wife of Dr. Gerard Losier beside her. He's mellow, laid back and obsessed with getting better equipment for the hospital. She's been involved in every community group ever and has the energy of a small nuclear reactor with a higher-than-allowed dose of Plutonium in the hopper.

Never ran this, but I thought it was quite the sight. Also, these two gave $1.5 million to the local hospital foundation, so they're pretty popular.

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*Sigh* And here the Losiers are again ... along with the mayor apparently sticking his tongue out and the city councillor on the right looking less than enthused at being there.

Well-timed goof shots FTW.

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Aaaaaaand, for your viewing pleasure: The back of my head.


A freelancer took this, and sent it along. Only time I've ever posted a pic of me at work, and what am I doing? I'm having a sip of fine ice brandy at a wine tasting one Saturday. Brilliant.

Hey, c'mon, this is journalism. The pay sucks. Let me have my perks.

Adventures in Redneckery

Observe, below:


Your eyes aren't deceiving you. It's a home made raft. With their backs to us are seated two young lads on a dislocated car backseat. Others weren't so picky. They're seated on what look to be barrels.

Also, that smoke from the centre? Yeah, that's from a barbecue. Not visible (but, boy, you know it's there) is a cooler filled with generous and probably illegal quantities of booze.

The water level was a bit low, so there weren't too many places where they could just drift like that. They'd probably have to get out pretty often, hip waders and all, to drag the divine contraption past the shallows and back into the pools.

So where did I see this marvelous invention ... and hundreds of others just like it?

Read on.

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Regardez: The Pollett River Run.

It is a springtime event, where the good folks of Albert County and beyond celebrate the seasonal awakening by a public appreciation of nature and the wild rivers of the Maritimes.

It's also, like, a vortex of redneckery.


You'll notice the numerous canoes in the background. That's the exception to the rule. The vast majority of vessels on the Pollett River that morning were of a somewhat more haphazard type.


I don't even know what that is. But it floats, and it stores enough beer, so, what the hell, it's good enough.

These fine lads were even lazier than me and my buddy, just got themselves an inflatable raft.


For their laziness, the redneck gods punished them by having their cheap paddles snap. A cruel blow, made easier to bear by the redneck gods' granting the two lads enough beer to see them down to the other end.

Others (quite a few, actually) took the time and effort to build their boats from ... well, scrap.

And to lock the event very firmly into this rollercoaster of redneckery is this baffling image:


Guh. Stars and Bars. Not the first time I've seen it in New Brunswick, but just as baffling. What, is that like the redneck national flag or something? It just makes no sense. Curiously, I've also seen it on some First Nations reserves during festivals.

I wanted to post a whole cavalcade of pics like that, but we never got the chance ... thanks to the lower than usual water levels, we just zipped by in our flat-bottomed plastic canoe, leaving the clunky rafts to founder on the shoals. From what I heard, there were hundreds.

Here's my guide, Ryan, a buddy of mine from the paper. Growing up in Riverview, across the mudstream from Moncton, he often took the 40-minute drive to the dark depths of Albert County to join the throng on the bridges along the way, laughing as the silly rafters capsize or hit rocks in years where the river was more than a couple feet deep.


However, he never actually went on the run himself in the past. He had to wait a few years until he could con a certain perpetual tourist to come with him. And even then he had to sell it as a "cultural experience."


These pics are taken with his little point and shoot. No way I was bringing my SLR. Kudos to Monsieur Ross for taking the occasional shot of me.

Shame. I could have stayed there all day. At the other end was basically a giant, drunken party in the middle of nowhere. A couple grim-faced RCMP officers could be seen by the road, but their function was mainly to check people for drunk driving as they came in and out. If there's ever any problems, they're fucked. Hundreds of revellers vs. a dozen mounties wouldn't end well.

And where there's rednecks, there's mudpools:


That's one of the many trucks and other assorted vessels whose owners prove their manhood through the time honoured ritual of getting 'em stuck in the mud, to the great cheers and adulation of the assembled, plaid-clad multitude.

No fear, though. They got, like, the biggest truck in the place to hitch up a rope and haul 'im out.

Yep. A rope. You can imagine how that ended:


Yeah. Anyone standing near the thing when the rope finally snapped like a piece of string would have had their heads taken clean off.

*Sigh* It was so awesome. But I had to head back to Miramichi, so we bade farewell to the party and headed back to Riverview, but I'll never forget my first-hand introduction to the great voyageur traditions of the great and storied province of New Brunswick.


Also, we ran out of beer on the way down.

The reason I barely get any visits

This appeared as part of my monthly column, based on the visit from the next post down. Given how my friend's visit was my first from the Ontario crowd in, oh, two years, I figured it was column worthy.

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The gods decided long ago to punish me for some forgotten insult, and their vengeance often takes unusual and creative, if petty, forms.

One of those forms basically boils down to divinely enforced solitude.

Now, look, I like the Maritimes. I like Miramichi. And I've been here long enough such that if I want a weekend away, I've got a decent pick of cities with hosts willing to put up with me snoozing on their couch for a weekend here and there.

Sometimes, though, you just want a visit from old friends in Ontario.

Living in Miramichi, it's always been a bit out of the way for my buddies back home who're reluctant to shell out hundreds of bucks in airfare just to come visit for a weekend.

Limited vacation time all around also makes it tough for me and them to take extended time off to make the trip worthwhile.

I go back there for a visit once or twice a year, which is nice, but when they come here, it's another story, where I get to play the gracious host and show them the wonders of the Maritimes, where most of them have never been.

Also, it's cheaper.

Occasionally one hardy band or another will make the effort to try come down. And when they do ... well, the gods usually have a plan.

Two friends were going to drive down here from Toronto and spend a few days, last summer. So I booked the days off, planned the itinerary, stocked the booze and prayed for decent weather.

The weather was gorgeous, and I enjoyed it tremendously when the weekend came.

My friends enjoyed the weather also ... in Toronto. Car trouble killed their travel plans.

The gods had spoken, but I decided the gods were to be defied.

This time, another set of mates were coming down. On past trips back to Ontario, I'd wowed them with tales of tubing, thick woods, fine beaches and ATVing. Now they decided to come chill for themselves.

And they were flying. No car trouble for them, they were going to be carried to the Maritimes on silver wings for a long weekend of drifting down the river, dozing off with beer in hand.

It would have been glorious.

Would have been.

See, when the gods (and make no mistake: this is their fault) looked upon my vacation plans and saw that they were good, they decided to take drastic action.

Remember that freakish weekend in August where there were tornados in Toronto?

Yeah. That weekend.

Flying's a little tough when Torontonians used to nice, quiet weather have a few twisters winding down Yonge and Bloor, so most of the flights were either cancelled or delayed.

Then it started to rain. My buddies said they'd try again next year. Bums.

So I resigned myself to a couple more years without visitors from Ontario, until one more friend e-mailed the other day to say they'd be in Halifax for work for a few days. Any chance of meeting up?

Halifax. Wonderful city, much to see, jewel of the Maritimes and four bloody hours' drive away.

No problem, she said, cheerfully. We'll meet halfway.

Halfway? Um...okaaaaaay.

Gods bless her, she didn't know a whole lot about the Maritimes. Halfway between Miramichi and Halifax is ... well, Sackville.

It was a nice, picturesque town of which I knew absolutely nothing. But, hey. A visit is a visit, so I set out to find what the hell there is to see and do in Sackville.

Turned out there was a lot, and my visitor was an outdoorsy type. So the fateful Saturday came, and I got up nice and early to head down there before her to scope the place out.

Walked out my building to find it was raining. And cold. And hideously windy. After what had been weeks of a toasty, unseasonably warm spring.

You bastards, I thought. You know who I meant, and so did they.

But I headed down there anyway. The rain stopped, but the cold and wind didn't, so when she turned up I greeted her sheepishly, and pointed her to a few things to do and see in Sackville that didn't involve freezing outside.

Nuh-uh, she said. We're going for a long stroll on the hopelessly exposed boardwalks of the waterfowl park. And then we're going to find a dirt road and you're going to take me to see the Fundy coast.

I blinked. Then smiled. I'd forgotten: This was someone who once went to Antarctica for fun.

So we found some out-of-way dirt road forgotten by the civilization of man and headed down to the coast. We dithered around some cliffs, and almost sank out of sight in beaches that turned out to be made mostly of quicksand, and laughed at how the dirt road was actually better than many paved roads around here. Took the usual cheesy pictures.

All with a freezing wind dogging us every step of the way until the sad hour of her return to Halifax came. It was awesome.

So it took awhile, but I finally got a visit. All I had to do was wait for someone who was prepared to join me in sticking the middle finger out to the heavens.

Of course, her flight was delayed on the way back home the next day. Her Facebook status said something about freak snowstorms, although I sure she was only joking.

And if she wasn't ... hey, the defeated gods had to save face somehow.