Thank you for not giving me the same first name as you... and your father... and his father... and, well, you get the idea.

Thank you for whistling all the time.

Thank you for taking an interest in the music I was listening to. In retrospect, your disgust for NWA was just as important as your affection for The Violent Femmes.

Thank you for spanking me a couple of times when I was a little brat. It was thoughtful discipline and not angry revenge, and I learned that my behaviour had reasonable boundaries.

Thank you for teaching me to be comfortable around dogs, and how to train them patiently and humanely.

Thank you for teaching me perspective in dealing with the good and the bad in my life; it's helped me stay positive, optimistic, and get through my tougher times.

Last but not least, thank for you bringing home comic books for me to read whenever I was sick. It was something to look forward to when I was miserable.

Let me start off by truthfully answering the question posed in the title: because it will save you time. Really Simple Syndication (RSS), for the average internet surfer, is a concept that will give you back hours of your life in any given month. And if you're a heavy web researcher or news reader, it will pay you back in hours per week.

There, There

Before we start, don't worry about all that jargon flying around: RSS, XML, Atom, burner, feed, aggregator, etc. You don't have to know what any mean in order to benefit. These are just sexy terms we geeks use to make us feel better about the fact that we're not doctors.

Step-By-Step

For our demonstration, let's assume you are a consumer (someone who reads stuff) and I am a publisher (someone who writes stuff). This is how it goes down:

1. I create a small file, called a feed, and put it on my web site with a link (and usually a icon nearby). The file contains information about my recent writing, like headlines, summary text (or entire articles), and links to the full article pages.
2. You use a special program, or web site, called a newsreader, or feedreader, and add the feed (that link from the previous step) to the list of feeds you like to read. This is sometimes called subscribing.
3. Magically, the feedreader will create a summarized list of all the new stuff in all your feeds. Now you can click on only the articles you want to read about, just like skimming a newspaper. But this is a custom newspaper with only the articles you think you want to read.

Ta-Da!

That's it. Sounds innocuous, doesn't it? In practice, it allows you to become an information ninja, and keep up on many more topics and ideas than were previously feasible. In a typical day, I will look at a dozen or so web sites. These sites often have hundreds of new articles in total. By using RSS, I see one page with a long line of headlines and summaries, grouped by web site, and I can quickly scan for anything I should read. I no longer have to visit a whole bunch of different web sites, dig around for new articles, click into submenus or dodge advertisements. It's just pure information. And when you are finished with the list, you can mark it "read" with one click, and those articles disappear, like a recycled daily.

Recommendations

You've probably noticed that you need a feedreader doohickey. As I mentioned, you can either use a program (that runs on your computer), or a web site application (that you run in a web browser). With a program, you sometimes get more features, but if you're away from your computer (where the program lives), you can't get your feeds. This is very 1980. Nobody wants that. I've gone the web site route, so I can check feeds from home, work, or anywhere I can access the internet, and that's what I recommend for you.

Go to Newsgator.com and sign up for a free account. One nice touch is that you can subscribe to a large selection of news and special interest feeds right from within NewsGator, so you don't need to go out and find them. Now, whenever you want to follow a web site, just get the feed from the home page (look for the icon!), and add it to NewsGator; it will immediately be added to your list, and any new articles will appear. Cool, eh?

Suggested Usage

I start each day by checking the headlines, and opening any links I like in a new window (just right-click the link and select Open in New Window) or tab (if I'm using Firefox). Then I read all of the windows/tabs, closing each as I finish. If the article is worth keeping, I go back to the NewsGator page and save it (another nice feature) for future reference. When all of the windows are closed, I'm done, so I mark all the articles as "read" and close my browser. Information Ninja-fied!
For me, RSS is especially useful for the technology classes I teach; almost every day there's something I can talk about with the kids. RSS is very handy for keeping up-to-date with industry news, and if you poke around a bit, you might even discover some new web sites you've been missing.

Happy Feeding, and if you have any questions or comments, just use the link below!

Let me be blunt: I hate divas. Especially jazz divas a la Holly Cole and Diana Krall. They all seem to sound the same, and they all seem to sing other people's music indiscernably from the original artist. So I was skeptical when my friend Gillian (serendipitously in Vancouver from Taiwan during my equally brief visit) suggested we go see Coco Love Alcorn at the Railway Club.

At most small club shows, you wouldn't be able to spot the talent in the crowd until it took to the stage, and this one was no exception. Gillian (a friend of Coco's from the days they both travelled with 54-40) found Coco before her set started and I got to meet her and have a brief chat. While Coco didn't mention it, I learned from another one of her friends that Coco wasn't feeling well, and every word she spoke was agony.

Coco started her set with an a capella song (something I first saw with another great Canadian up-and-comer, Adrienne Pierce) that had very inspiring lyrics, along the lines of you're-greater-than-you-think-so-rise-to-your -greatness. But the words were secondary; halfway into the first verse, the chatty, indifferent audience of the Railway Club was stilled and silenced. Behind the bar, servers put down their glasses and stood transfixed by what they heard. The sound was so raw, and pure, and strong, that it was less like listening to a new voice than discovering a new sense altogether. She moved smoothly, but not stupidly and acrobatically, through octaves and phrases, with textures ranging from crisp clarion to soft, sexy whisper. And let me say again: she wasn't feeling well.

All I can do is to put this as clearly as anyone familiar with my preferred style would understand: My ears had hard-ons, and by the end of the show, I was in desperate need of a cotton swab.

Coco has a new album coming soon, which you can look for on her web site. If you see this unforgettable name in the entertainment listings near you, please, don't miss out on Miss Alcorn.

Let me say from the start that this is not an artistic or cultural reflection on the South Socialists. In fact, when invited on junkets during the week, I would ask, "Is it going to be a cultural experience?" If the answer was yes, my answer was no. After an exhausting first year of teaching, I was up for sun and fun, plain and simple. No culture. No education. No introspection. Just lots and lots of drinking. Yaaaaay, rum!

We stayed at the Barcelo Solymar five-star resort. It was a first rate operation, but I have one word for the all-inclusive virgins: moderation. On the first night, by conservative estimates, I had 4 glasses of wine, followed by 24 Cuba Libres. While I didn't puke, I probably should have, because I was very, very grumpy the next day. And still drunk, which is no way to eat breakfast.

By day 3, I discovered that I wasn't ready to relax. I missed my timeline. I missed knowing how to get in touch with people. I missed a feeling of control. In a faux-laid-back mood, we had made no attempt at check-in to track each other's room numbers, or what our plans for the week would be. In a group of 32 people, across 20 rooms, meeting up for lunch, beach volleyball, or even just adjacent lounge chairs by the pool was firmly in the hands of the Fates.

But by Tuesday, I was finally ready to let go. I did whatever: when I was hungry, I ate; when I was tired, I slept; when I was thirsty... you get the picture. It was an enlightening look at my own addiction to information and connection to other people.

Ed's Note: This enlightenment was okay, of course, because it wasn't culture.

As for activities, there was ping-pong, pool tables, oversized chess and checkers, tennis courts, beach soccer, and two courts of beach volleyball. Most of the time, it was too windy to play beach volleyball,

Ed's Note: This is foreshadowing.

and when it wasn't too windy, the courts were mostly full of volley-cationers who were wincingly uncoordinated. I had been hoping for a few good games of competitive ball, but even when the courts were empty, as soon as a few of us would hit the sand, we would be mobbed by people who wanted to join in "for fun." I hate them. So... much....

Wednesday was the wedding, which was great, once it got started. The Justice of the Peace was on "Cuban time," which meant we were baking in the noon-day sun for half an hour longer than we should have. We quickly got over this with cake, champagne, and a Cuban guitar trio that followed us right into the buffet for lunch. I MC'ed the reception that evening at a local restaurant that had all kinds of crazy crap hung up on the walls: upholstered chairs, huge couches, musical instruments, and more. It was like a classy version of our cheesy pubs with moose antlers and plastic toys from the 60's masquerading as interior design. Anyhow, the food, the speeches, and the atmosphere were perfect. It was exactly the wedding experience the couple wanted. I know. I speak for them.

Thursday a friend and I went to the Varadero Golf Club for a 7am tee time. We had optimistcally brought our clubs, and were amazed to discover that we got such a great time without a problem, and at a discount. For the price of a midrange Canadian green fee, we golfed one of the most beautiful courses I've ever seen, with a cart, all by ourselves. I mean, COMPLETELY ALONE. There was nobody else on the entire course! All I can say is that if you are a golfer, bring your clubs, and tee off early, before the heat. If we'd had more time, we would have gone back for another round or two.

On Friday, the reality of Hurricane Dennis sunk in. Hotel staff were taping giant Xs on all the large glass windows,

Ed's Note: There was much speculation as to the safety purpose or function of the Xs, but the best to date is that after the storm, you can quickly count how many windows you have to replace by counting the missing Xs.

and moving all the loose displays and tables into storage. At a local beach-side pub on Thursday night, the owner had said that the people, who were accustomed to the yearly hurricane season, were very nervous about this one. Yikes. By midday, the skies were gray and the palm trees were bent to 45 degrees. The wind was a high drone in your ears that you never quite got used to. By now Dennis had been upgraded to a level 4 hurricane.

If you pictured the resort as a person lying down, I had the misfortune of having a room located in the crotch of the shorts up which Dennis was blowing. All the wind power focused on the sliding glass doors of my balcony. Coincidentally, these were the only large panes of glass in the entire building that had not been X'ed over with tape, and they rattled often and ominously. The weatherstripping under the door was not sealed well, and by lunch, half my room was flooded with a centimetre of rainwater.

In the hotel, non-critical services (like cigar sales) were shut down. At meal times, people tried to remain calm at the buffet,

Ed's Note: Let's give credit where it's due here: there was a hurricane coming, but the resort staff kept the buffet open.

but there was much blatant (and strictly verboten) pocket-stuffing of bread and bananas. I'm not sure what we expected to happen, but if our behaviour was any indicator, we were confident that small portions of bread and bananas would separate the survivors from the herds of dead, buffet-rule-following sheep.

Meanwhile, on the non-crotch side of the building (the rear end?), the storm was relatively quiet. It sounded like a severe gale you might get in Southern Ontario. Something that would make the news, and maybe blow down a tree or a power pole. It was tolerable, so I spent most of my day with friends in a room over there. But at night, when the worst of Dennis had supposedly passed us by, I returned to my room to hunker down and fight for sleep.

It might've been the fact that I was by myself, in a dark room, with a howling wind outside, but Dennis seemed to be getting stronger. The doors hammered in the frame for longer and longer periods of time, and I thought I could hear tiny splintering sounds of glass cracking. At this time I was in the bed closest to the balcony, but after 15 minutes of imagining the cleaning lady coming in to find my lacerated and dismembered body scattered about the room, I moved to the far bed. As a final measure, I flipped the mattress from the other bed up so that it would act as a barrier between me and the near-certain flying shards of death.

By the next day, most services (except cigar sales) were back to normal, despite the still furious winds outside. Staffers poured Pina Coladas behind the bars, maids tried to clean our rooms, and front desk staff politely encouraged us to check out at the regular time. To this last request, we mostly raised our middle fingers. We had no idea if the airport was open, and if we couldn't fly out, we had no intention of lingering in the hallway couches like the stranded Germans the night before. Besides, with the airport closed, who could be arriving to take our rooms?

By mid-afternoon, new tourists began arriving to their devastated vacation spot. Dirt, water, and greenery stripped from the elaborate indoor plants carpeted the floor of the lobby. The pool was full of lounge chairs. Everywhere were groups of frantic, grumpy capitalists, demanding information. This information (like flight changes, tour group insurance, etc.) was held by local tour group operators, most of whom were busy keeping their own homes from blowing out into the Atlantic ocean. It was mayhem. But the good news was that new tourists were arriving. This meant that the airport was functioning.

Later that night, our airport shuttle arrived. We drove silently through the pitch, unable to measure the effect of Dennis on the average citizen of Varadero. We didn't know it at the time, but 10 Cubans were dead. And we had endured the storm eating swordfish, drinking pineapple juice, playing Texas Hold 'Em and bitching about how there was no satellite TV reception.

The wait at the Varadero airport was long, but we got checked in, boarded our flight, and arrived in Calgary without incident. It was good to be home. If I ever go on an all-inclusive again, I think I will opt for two weeks, though; I spent most of the first week acclimatizing to the pace of life, and learning the tricks and timing of the resort. If anyone would like to recommend other destinations, I'm all ears.

The only useful information I can relate is about rum. I bought two bottles of the famous Havana Club at the Duty Free: one is simple white rum, which cost about $5 CAD; the other is a 3 year aged rum, which cost about $8 CAD. There were many more expensive rums, including a "reserve" rum that was roughly $18 CAD, and said to be so tasty it should be consumed as a liqueur. At the local liquor store here in Calgary, I found both the white rum and the reserve rum on sale. The white rum is an outlandish $24.50, but the reserve rum is only $24.95! The only reason I can imagine for this difference is that maybe North Americans don't really appreciate aged rum, and just use it to mix with coke and get pissed. If that's the case, I'd recommend just getting the cheapest bottle on the shelf. But if you'd like to try tasting rum, give that reserve bottle a shot (pun intended).

An interesting rum anecdote has to do with the opening of a fresh bottle of rum. The toast "a los Santos" means "to the Saints," and any Cuban tarbender worth his salt will spill the first drops of rum from a new bottle for the Orishas, the saints that watch over him. So there's a good luck ritual to try with your next bottle. Just don't spill too much.

This last Mother's Day, I decided to do something a little different. My mom isn't in the same city as me, so to do my part, besides my annual phone call and list of thank yous, I ran in the Forzani Mother's Day Run.

I've never run any significant distance all at the same time, and on purpose before, so I was a bit nervous. It was only 5K, so to prepare, I went out the night before and ate a big fatty steak and drank a lot of alcohol. Just like in the Olympics.

In the morning, I walked from my friend's house in Inglewood (did I mention I had been too, um... tired to drive home the night before?) to the Calgary Tower where the race started.

I should mention that the only reason I knew about the race was that the Track and Field coach at my school has forced every kid on the team to be in the race. I respect that kind of abuse of power. Also, since it raises money for a good cause (I think), it was hard for me to beg out. So when I got there, dozens of kids and teachers from my school were huddled together, waiting to go. We had a banner, and the girls were dancing to the music, and the TV cameras even came over and shot some coverage of us that I understand was on A Channel later that night. I missed it, seeing as I have no cable.

Anyhow, after the wheelchair athletes left, and then the elite 10K runners, and the elite 5K runners, and the 5-minute-per-K runners, and the... well you get the idea... eventually I started running with my colleague from school. He set a pretty brisk pace, but I just kept running and even chatting with him from time to time. We seemed to be passing a lot of people, but lots of very small children dodged past us as though we were actually moving backwards. I hate children.

Several times during the run I felt tired and would have stopped if I hadn't been running with somebody else. When it really started to hurt, I used the mantra I had thought up the day before: This hurts less than childbirth. It worked!

We had enough energy left to sprint the last 100m or so, and the next day my time was in the paper: 27:07! Not shabby for a first run, without training, so I'm told. I may just start long-distance training!

Ed's Note: HA-HA-HAH-AH-HAAAA-HHAH-HAAHAHA!!! Whew! That was a good one!

After the race, they clipped the little timing chip from my shoe, and then we were pummelled with free bananas, apples, OJ, water, granola bars, yogourt bars, newspapers, roses, protein bars, and beer. Yes, the beer was low carb and low alcohol, but it was free.

All in all it was a great experience, and I'll definitely do it again. I don't anticipate moving up to a 10K, but I could certainly work on my 5K time. At least I'll have an excuse to buy cool sneakers.

Dear Mom:

Thank you for making fantastic birthday cakes. Especially the ones that had waxed paper-wrapped quarters hidden inside.

Thank you for reading to me when I was little.

Thank you for letting me slide down the stairs wrapped up in a sleeping bag, over and over and over again, even though the noise was probably driving you crazy.

Thank you for hiding the Easter eggs.

Thank you for coming all the way across the country to help me to pack and clean up when I moved apartments.

Thank you for being a stay-at-home mom when I was little.

Thank you for always being willing to loan me anything-- including time or money-- when I needed it.

Thank you for always having huge jugs of Kool-Aid ready for me and my friends when we were playing basketball in the driveway. And for not skimping on the sugar.

Thank you for coming East for Christmas so that we could all be together.

And finally, thank you for blow-drying my hair like the guy from The Young and the Restless before my roller skating dates. I still can't manage this myself.
Love you, Mommy!

Most of my friends know I'm a stickler about music piracy. At one point or another they have casually requested to borrow one of my CDs, and I have said "of course, but just don't copy it."

Sometimes I get a funny knowing look in return, as though I'd winked and nudged them, and didn't actually mind them copying the CD. Then I have to say, "No, seriously. Please don't copy it."

I have a thing about music piracy. I know there's an element of hypocrisy to my attitude, since I have been known to pirate the occasional piece of computer software. My argument is that there is almost always a large, paying, corporate base for commercial software programs, and individual pirating doesn't amount to much in the overal total. Also, this commercial base has a lot to lose if they pirate, both in terms of possible lawsuits and bad press. In the record industry, there is no guaranteed market base to pay for new music. If somebody buys a copy of a CD and puts it up on a file sharing network, nobody else in the world needs to buy it if they have access to a computer. That's one copy sold.

Ed's Note: He's going to get to the free Radiohead CD, don't worry.

The availability of cheap CD burners means that anybody with a computer can make a 100% digital copy of any existing CD. And anybody does. This supposedly costs the record company a lot of money in lost revenue; there are many valid arguments that the actual dollar amounts are greatly exaggerated, but that doesn't really matter. The truth is that piracy is stealing, and it's wrong whether you're stealing from a starting soloist on an indie label, or from Metallica and a major corporation.

On one hand, I think this is technology finally coming back to bite big records companies in their fat asses. After all, the technology that allowed them to create CDs for pennies and sell them at astronomical margins is the same technology that allows consumers to create copies of these same CDs.

I guess what I'm concerned about the most is losing the music that's important to me: the anti-Mariah, un-Celine, completely new and naked music that can't happen without a little risk and faith on the parts of both the musicians and the record labels. But when profits drop, record companies stop risking and start signing multimillion, multi-year contracts with American Idol "artists" and similar concocted music products that have proven profitability.

So what did the record companies do in reponse to pirating? Some, like EMI, are testing out copy control schemes on their products that make them impossible to copy. What they do is scramble some information at the beginning of the disc to confuse modern, computer-based CD players. It works well, but with the side effect that any device that attempts to read ahead on the disc (like your typical anti-shock discman) will likely run into problems. And in fact, the CDs are still very easy to copy if you have older computer CD equipment, which can ignore the garbage data. And as soon as one person has copied the songs and put them online, all the time and effort (and millions of dollars) put into the copy control scheme was wasted. Which is exactly what happens on an hourly basis. Current copy protection schemes are worthless.

I had my first exposure to this copy protection with a recent CD purchase, Radiohead's Hail to the Thief.

Ed's Note: Radiohead's web site is very weird. Weirder than this one.

I bought the CD, took it home, and attempted to "rip" it to my hard drive. "Ripping" is the process of copying music from a CD to your hard drive, so that you can listen to it without having to have the CD physically loaded in the computer. In this way, I have a nice library of several thousand songs, all legally purchased by me, available simultaneously. I use jukebox software (in my case, the Quintessential Music Player) to listen to any song I feel like, whenever I feel like it. Considering I've paid for the music, this seems like "fair use" (a popular concept in media law), and one of my favourite things is to come home, rev up the computer (which is attached to my stereo), and put my jukebox in shuffle mode, which randomly plays songs from my collection.

So here I was, trying to rip Hail to the Thief to my hard drive. Nothing was happening. In fact, as far as my computer was concerned, there wasn't a CD in my CD drive. Not only couldn't I rip it to my hard drive, I couldn't even play it. It wouldn't work on my anti-skip discman. I never tested in on my stereo's CD player (which I never use now that my computer has all my music on it), but it did play in my car.

After some research on the internet, I discovered that this disc isn't even a valid CD. Since it purposely violates the CD standard in order to confuse your CD player, they cannot legally display the term "Compact Disc" on the package anywhere. What you will see is a "Copy Controlled" logo on both the package and the disc, which is meant to warn you that it might cause you some grief. Unfortunately, this logo was obscured by the anti-theft packaging in the store (Hail to the Thief indeed!), and most people, myself included, wouldn't know what to expect even if they did see the logo.

Luckily, further research unearthed this gem, the title of this article:

If you write to EMI and tell them you bought the copy-controlled version of Hail to the Thief and are very upset, they will send you a new, non-copy-controlled version. Free.
That's it. I didn't believe it, but I read it several places, so I thought it was worth a shot. I don't have the text of my original message, as it was typed into a web form, but essentially I just explained my situation, my frustration, and that I understood it was their policy to replace these disc when requested. I sent the message on December 30, 2004. Today, I received a small package from EMI. Inside was a replacement disc without the copy protection, and this letter:

Dear Mr. Prowse,

We are in receipt of your email and regret that you have experienced a problem with one of our products.

Please find enclosed your replacement disc, which should be compatible with your equipment. Proof of purchase will not be required at this time.

We hope that you do not experience any problems in the future.

Regards,

Nimmi Mudhar
Mfg. Dept.

Did you catch that? Proof of purchase will not be required at this time. No, I'm not saying you should just rip them off for a free CD. However, if you did buy the copy-controlled disc and want a replacement, just go here, select "Copy Controlled CDs" from the department drop down, and be sure to include your mailing address.

One particularly bitter aspect of this experience is that I've read that this copy controlled business only exists in Canada and Australia, where EMI is testing how accepting we will be of this technology. My advice is to take one minute of your time and make our lack of acceptance very obvious and very expensive for EMI.

The music piracy debate is complicated, and I'd like to see something fair for both producer and consumer. I imagine a wireless subscription service that would give you access to all your music anywhere in the world. You have a little physical key, and a compatible player. Plug the key into the player, and the player connects with the music network and gains access to all the songs you have purchased. This is great for everybody, because you could either buy one-time unlimited access to certain songs (like buying the CD), or time-limited access to every song in the world for $19.99 per month or something. You get what you want, and the music companies get a continual stream of revenue from a product they only have to produce once. It makes so much sense it's crazy, but we're a few years away from having that kind of delivery system. In the interim, we can only hope that record companies will have the foresight and humanity to hail each of us as a partner in commerce, instead of a thief.

Dear Dad:

This year, instead of a card or a gift (or anything else that costs money), I'm writing you an online letter for Father's Day. It's really just a list of thank-yous for all the dad stuff you did for me over the years, some of which I'm only now coming to appreciate.

Thank you for not killing me when I wrecked your beautiful car. I always look now when I'm turning left.

Thank you for driving around looking for me when I was in grade 10 and broke curfew because I was dating a chick in grade 13 who had a van.

Thank you for supporting me when I decided not to get confirmed.

Thank you for encouraging me to task risks, in work and in play.

Thank you for having the patience and control to put an end to the abusive parenting you were taught by your father. This one act will improve the lives of all the generations that follow you.

Thank you for our summer family vacations.

Thank you for being active in sports, and encouraging me to play.

Thank you for telling me the truth about hard topics when I asked. After you gave me the straight goods on sex and Santa Claus, I knew I could talk to you about anything.

Thank you for always buying me the athletic shoes I wanted.

Thank you for paying, and always seeming to have an extra twenty when I was going out with a girl.

Thank you for teaching me how to play so many sports; they contributed a lot of my happiness and confidence.

Thank you for driving me to, picking me up from, and cheering me on at, all of the events in my young life. I didn't know it then, but it really meant a lot of me.

And finally (for now), thank you for trying to teach me how to fish, no matter how futile it seemed.

I love you, and I'll see you soon!

Ed's Note: If you're not interested in Josh's inane commentary, you can skip down to the "how to save" part by clicking here.

When I was moving to Calgary, I needed to reinsure my car. Sounds simple. After all, I was last insured in British Columbia, where the public insurer, ICBC, made everything seem so easy, and obvious, and no problemo. I miss ICBC.

The insurance companies in Ontario were in the process of jacking up the rates as much as possible before Premier Dalton McGuinty could cap them, which meant that nobody seemd to be available to answer the phone. So the only way I could efficiently compare rates was online, in particular at Kanetix. After much searching and form-filling and hair-pulling, the best rate I could find to insure my car for use in Alberta was over $2,200, with RBC Insurance. Arranging this was a total nightmare too, since I was adding insurance to a car that sat uninsured in an Ontario driveway, had last been insured in British Columbia, but was destined for the fine flat pavement of the prairies. Eventually they managed it.

When I told my friend here in Calgary how much I was paying, he was dumbstruck. He was insuring two vehicles, for two drivers, for less than I was paying. I was sure this was because I had had an accident in 2001.

Ed's Note: After driving to St. John's and back, he slid on some black ice the last day of his trip, heading to Vancouver. His car's thermometer said 8ºC, so he never imagined there could be ice on the road. There he goes, trusting technology over his brain again. When will he learn?

But still, he had me wondering. Maybe I should make a call.

As it turns out, I can get group insurance through my university's alumni association. If you're not a university grad, don't panic. Read on.

Today I called Meloche Monnex, told them where I graduated from, and gave them my particulars. The total cost of insurance: $1,150.

Ed's Note: Yep. You read that right.

My jaw dropped. But here's the kicker: they never asked me for a student number, graduation year, degree program, nothing. I'm pretty sure they didn't contact my school, since it was closed when I was setting up the policy. Frankly, I don't think they really care. One of the tough things to do in insurance is build up enough of a client base so that you can make money. This is why group insurance is cheaper.

Ed's Note: And, this is why public insurance is a smart-- no, brilliant-- idea.

So if you don't mind pretending to be a graduate of an Ontario university, you can likely cut your insurance costs in half. If you want to know which universities you can pretend to be from, just search Google for meloche monnex auto insurance and you'll get a whole bunch of links containing the names of qualifying schools. I don't want this to sound like an advertisement, either; for all I know, there are lots of companies offering similar group discounts. I just didn't find any.

Disclaimer: Now, I'm not saying that you should lie about where you went to school. I'm only saying that if you're willing to pretend to have graduated from one of these universities, you might be able to save a lot of money. After all, it's not like only having a high school diploma makes you a bad insurance client, right?

Speaking of being a good client, I called RBC immediately and gave them a chance to match the price. You should've heard the guy asking me if I was sure about the quote.

RBC:

Did you tell them everything?

Me:

Yep.

RBC:

Did you tell about your accident in... 2001?

Me:

Yep.

RBC:

Did you tell them about your speeding ticket... uh... last fall?

Me:

Yep. [giggling] I even told them about the one I got in May after I got my insurance with you guys. The one you don't know about yet.

RBC:

Oh. Well, did you tell about the gap in your insurance from... uh... December 2003 to May 2004?

Me:

Yep. That's everything. That's what I told them. They told me $1,150.

RBC:

Well sir, we can't match that quote. Now you understand that there will be a fairly high short-term penalty for cancellation?

Of course there will be. And there was. RBC kicked me with a $170 cancellation fee, after Meloche told me it might be "as high as $50." In the end, I still saved over $800.

Yay Meloche Monnex! Boo RBC! Booooooo!

Near the end of May, I moved from Ottawa to Calgary to look for teaching work, hang with old friends, and stir things up a bit. I figured it was time to chronicle my experience, including a couple of strange and serendipitous events for which I am truly grateful.

Ed's Note: Don't get too excited. He just drove a lot and hotboxed the car. Woo-hoo.

Day 1: Ottawa to Some Wide Spot on the Highway
Things never go according to schedule, especially driving trips. Which is why I always set ridiculous goals about how early I will depart and arrive. That way, when I'm late by a couple of hours it's no big drama. Like today, when I left Ottawa at 4:00pm instead of 11:00am.

My car was so jammed with gear that when I finally draped my comforter over the junk in the back seat, I couldn't see a thing out of the rear view, the side view, or even over my shoulder. Luckily, I called Jen, who was coming to visit me in a week, and she agreed to be my mule and transport two enormous bags of clothes courtesy of Air Canada. Did-you-pack-these-bags-yourself my ass.

On the road. Rush hour. Ah yes: this is why I had planned to leave before noon. An hour later, I finally escape the outskirts of the nation's capital. Not that there was anything to indicate this fact; the whole greater-Ottawa area is basically farmland, and by the time you see any signs of life you're practically downtown.

Did I mention how much I liked Ottawa?

Anyway, the first day was quiet and the roads were good. I queued up CD after CD of internet-downloaded comedy albums.

Ed's Note: Yes, Josh realizes that this is incredibly hypocritical considering his self-righteous stand against pirating music. But he really, really doesn't care.

I quickly fell into a couple of old driving trip routines:

1. Refusing to fill up anywhere but Petro-Canada,
2. Always having Doritos, Dr. Pepper, Reese's peanut butter cups, and beef jerky strewn about the front seat, and
3. Stopping at every Dairy Queen for a Skor blizzard.

Those first two things actually dovetailed nicely: by filling up at Petro-Canada and collecting Petro-Points, I could get my snacks for free! God love the loyalty programs.

Being without a general plan for the trip, and also badly, badly misled by an internet-based distance estimator, I found myself ripping along the No. 1 at midnight, drowsy, and nowhere near a major (or minor) hotel-wielding town, so I pulled off into one of those make-shift rest stops around 2:00am and killed the engine.

Charlie (my car) was performing admirably considering the cracked windshield, heavy load, and the fact that I hadn't driven him all winter, waiting until Calgary to give him the tune-up he deserved.

Ed's Note: He STILL hasn't gotten that tune-up, or even a much-needed wash, wax and vacuum.

Oh shut up.

Anyway, it was raining, and I was in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road. There were no lights and no stars, only the steady thrumming of water on the tin of my car. And me, wedged into the driver's seat, trying to find a good napping position. The complete blackness was unnerving. I can't remember the last time I felt so isolated and vulnerable. A moose could have walked right up to my driver's side window and I wouldn't have seen it.

I didn't sleep so well, or so long.

Day 2 - Middle of Nowhere to Winnipeg
5:45am. I'd had enough of this so-called rest. It was still raining, and I knew I wasn't completely awake, so I took it slowly.

After a couple of hours I found an A&W that was empty, but open for breakfast. Finishing my bacon and eggs, I went in search of jam for my toast. In my groggy state, I apparently took a jam packet out of the jam rack the wrong way. Two aging female employees were chatting at one of the booths, and one of them pointed out, suppressing a snicker, that it was "easier to take them from the bottom." I suppose when your life culminates in the morning shift at A&W, you are able to find humour in things subtle and sublime. And I guess I looked like a big-city jackass. Either way, I was glad I wasn't at the end of my trip.

Eventually the skies brightened, and with a meal in my belly and a tank full of gas, things seemed right with the world. I love a good road trip. I wished I had someone to act as navigator/stay-awake shaker/food handler, but otherwise I was enjoying the experience.

I recognized the town of Dryden from my trip east back in August. Headed the other way, I did things in the reverse order: Dairy Queen first, Petro-Canada second.

The roughly 300km stretch of road between Dryden and Kenora was under construction, so a friendly police officer stopped me as I tried to leave Dryden to give me a hand-drawn detour map.

According to the map, instead of driving 300km west, I would now drive 300km south, then 300km west, and then 300km north, bringing me to Kenora. Essentially, I was driving the long way around between two corners of a huge square. Piss. Me. Off.

During the 300km west portion, in the town of Fort Something-or-Other, I looked at my atlas and realized that I could continue straight west and eventually the road would curve northwest and join up with the Trans-Canada in Winnipeg. Using my grade 9 geometry, I concluded that a curvy northwest line was a shorter distance than a straight line north and a straight line west. There was only one problem: I had to cut through the United States of America.

Why would this be a problem? My passport was expired. My car had no plates, and was travelling under a temporary permit from Ontario. I was unshaven and had a car full of junk. I was a flashing neon sign of suspicion. Decision? "Let's take the shortcut! U.S.A here we come!"

At the border I was greeted by a friendly customs agent who cheerfully asked me about my trip, amicably inquired about my unlicensed vehicle, and then politely suggested that I pull over and come in for a chat and some good ol' American hospitality. Dammit.

I brought in my atlas to show the officer why I was taking the detour. He nodded appreciatively and commented that indeed this was a good route and would save a lot of time. He looked at my shirt. I looked at my shirt. It said: "Canada Kicks Ass." Dammit. I said, "If I'd known I was coming through, I would've worn my 'I Love New York' shirt." He smiled politely and asked for my keys.

The poor bastard had to search my car. My car, crammed with boxes and pillows and gym bags and old food wrappers, steaming with two days of fast-food farts and a crusty, unshowered driver. I wondered what he hoped to find. After about ten minutes he returned and handed me my keys.

"What's 'Cape Spear'?" he asked.

My stomach dropped. Two and a half years ago, driving across Canada, I had stopped there and filled a film canister with ocean water. "It's the most eastern point in North America," I said. "I collected a water sample and was hoping to have another one from the western most point one day."

"I figured it was something like that," he said. The canister is still in the passenger side door pocket, roughly 900 days later. Guess he found it, good little searcher that he is. I imagine him prying back the lid and hearing, "Parkay!" Poor bastard.

Driving through the quiet American countryside seemed to take forever. The sun set down the hood of my car, making it hard to read road signs, and for a while I thought I'd missed my turn-off. The Canadian customs officer let me through without a hassle, and I was soon in Winnipeg, where I found a cheap room at the Howard Johnson. It felt like a huge indulgence to have a big tub and two big beds all to myself. The only drawback was that my TV remote control didn't seem to work. But when it suddenly flickered to life around midnight, I figured that some wise-guy must've switched remotes with an adjacent room. I unplugged the set.

Day 3 - The 'Peg to Cowtown
In the morning, I packed my gear back into my car, and was about to pull out when I noticed there was a Toyota dealership right across the street from the hotel. Now remember that Charlie needed a tune-up. What were the odds of my being right across the street from a dealership just before starting my last leg of the trip? It was too coincidental. Even though I was anxious to leave, I walked over to see if they had an appointment.

They were closed for the weekend. What a waste of time to walk over and find that out, right? On my way back to the car, I noticed that I wasn't wearing my ring; I'd left it in the room, and had I not taken the time to check about Charlie, I'd have left it in this godforsaken motel on the outskirts of the 'Peg. That's why you have to listen to your guts; they always give you the right answer, but usually in a round-about, Yoda-like way.

Back on the road. And here, the road means business. The speed limit is 110km per hour. Fantastic. I jacked my cruise control up to 125 and sat back to enjoy the ride.

Turning on the local radio I heard that there was a horrific traffic accident in Kenora the day before. So horrific that it took them an entire day to find the bodies of those killed in the crash. I couldn't be exactly certain about the time, but without the road construction, detour, and decision to head through the states, I either would have either been in the accident or seriously delayed by it. Unluckly in cards, lucky in travel. Or so it seemed.

I zipped under an overpass and then around a bend. Moments later I saw a cop car on my tail, lights flashing. Dammit.

"Do you know why I stopped you today?" he asked.

It has always been my experience that when you break the law and get caught, if you are polite and honest, cops are very friendly and accommodating. "I'm guessing speeding," I said.

"Did you see our spotter on the overpass?" he asked.

This question baffled me. Was he asking to see if the spotter was too obvious, or mentioning it so I would know what to look out for next time? Did it matter? I mean, do I get a discount for spotting the spotter? And if I see the spotter, hasn't he already measured how fast I'm going? It was all too much. "No," I said.

"We clocked you going 125 in a 110 zone," he said. This was accurate, but I really didn't think they'd be pulling anybody over for a measly 15km/h. Then the other shoe dropped. "It's National Road Safety Awareness Week," he said, "so we've got extra officers enforcing speed limits." Looking at the road in front of me, I saw three other cars pulled over by three other cop cars. That was one hell of a trap.

He went back to his cruiser and did whatever it is cops do before they give you a ticket. I sat quietly until he came crunching back along the gravel shoulder to my window. "I'm giving you a ticket for 125km per hour in a 110 zone," he said. So much for getting it knocked down.

"OK," I said, "but be straight with me, 'cause I'm moving to Calgary and I've got a long haul ahead of me. What do I need to keep it under to avoid getting pulled over again?"

He looked away and said, "Honestly, with all the cops out this week, you have to stay under 100."

In my mind, it was a bit excessive, but fair enough, to pull me over, even to give me a ticket. But in all my life, I've never heard of a cop not taking a km or two off the radar reading. To then add insult to injury by not letting me know how fast to drive was downright unsportsmanlike. Then I looked at the ticket. It had my temporary permit number. It had my Ottawa address. It had my Ontario driver's license number. I was moving to Calgary: new plates, new address, new license. That ticket is $230 Manitoba isn't seeing anytime soon.

Ed's Note: Josh was too shell-shocked at that point to consider that the cop knew all of this as well, and might have written the ticket that way in order to be a nice guy. Maybe politeness with authority does work after all.

As I got closer to Calgary I got a call from Aliza, a friend living there. She gave me directions on how to quickly and easily get to where I was heading. The only sticky point: she wasn't aware that the main road I was to take was under construction. The result was 45 minutes during which I literally drove in circles trying to find a way in to the subdivision I needed. Calgary's "convenient" way of breaking the city up into quadrants (NW, NE, SW, SE) and numbering north-south corridors as sequential "streets" and east-west corridors as sequential "avenues" isn't good for a toss when most of these roads end abruptly at rivers or disappear mysteriously: 26th Ave, 27th Ave, 28th Ave... 30th Ave. And yes, I was looking for 29th Ave.

I eventually found my destination, but not until well after midnight. Almost 4000km later, bedraggled but satisfied, I left the unpacking for the next day and curled up in the attic bedroom, feeling at home in my new home.