Category: life

Vancouver is a small town, an isolated town, and a vast city. It sits at the end of a river that winds south, then west, then south again, and then winds a bit to the north before splitting into two parts that wind generally west until they lose themselves in the sea. The city lies just north of the river, but not as far north as the mountains that churn up from the ocean and ripple into the distant heart of the BC Interior like a glass of water when a Tyrannosaurus is around.

The land, once a rain forest land, a land that undulates in and out of water, rises into the alpine in places, and in other places — the low places, the deltas — doesn’t. It’s a land where, in the dead of winter, the water flows down, down, down, then a bit to the left, and then out to sea, as if the city it passed were a fleeting thought in its consciousness. Had the river known, as it rippled in the breeze, burbled over rocks, and bubbled up with little brown things outside the pulp mill, that the city, too, was alive, then it may have paused in its long meandering pilgrimage over the low hills that tumble down from the ripply part of the mountains, down and down, and then a bit to the left.

Or maybe, in its rush to the sea, the rain-fed river would drive ahead like a blinkered horse, sweaty after a long trek through the mountains in the east and then down and down though the low hills — the hills that are lower than the ones before, and lower still than the ones before them — and down through the delta. And like a horse, the river ploughs through the fertile farmland, before rushing out to sea. Fortunately, the horses usually don’t get as far as that.

From the mountain in the north, slides the never-ending flow of laden clouds that drench the city in an endless torrent of rain. Vancouver, the city perched between the rippling mountains to the north, the winding river to the south, and the low hills to the east that seem to have tumbled out of the rippling mountains to the east of that, is not really a city at all. It is rain.

I think it’s a fundamental law in tech writing that glaring typos and errors are never noticed until after the manuals have been sent to the print shop. Entire teams of skilled people pore over the drafts to ensure the highest quality. Yet it’s entirely probable that, when the proofs are returned by the print shop, the first thing you notice is that the name of the product is misspelled on the title page.

Sometimes you get a good one. In one guide, the table of contents showed the heading “Duplicates….. 176”, which was immediately followed by “Duplicates….. 176”. Oh, the irony.

Usually the mistakes are things that are so obvious that none of those several checkers bothered to even check. Like the page numbering that mysteriously restarted in the middle of the book. Or the page header that showed the title of another manual. Or the fact that hundreds of instances of the word “function” were spelled “fuction”. Blame that one on search-and-replace.

There’s really nothing you can do to avoid these things. Besides, of course, beating your head against the wall and shouting Doh!! when the same glaring mistake is printed ten thousand times.

I have been asked about the penguin content on my site. As you have probably noticed, the site’s subtitle is currently “theatre, penguins, words”. My About page explains the “theatre” and the “words” but has no mention of “penguins”. This was deliberate.

The truth is that it touches on a very frightening and turbulent time in my life, and I hadn’t anticipated exploring my feelings on the subject so soon. I’ll try to summarize.

When I was a small boy, shortly after my family and I moved to Vancouver, there was a tragic accident. As you may know, Stanley Park at that time had a small zoo with a few animals on display — monkeys, reptiles, seals, otters, polar bears, and… and penguins.

Yes. Penguins.

One fateful day, while my parents and my brothers were peering into the otter pool, I wandered off and soon found myself fascinated by the dozen or so penguins — waddling, diving, and swimming — it was as if they were flying underwater. I leaned farther over the rail to get a better view.

The rail must have been slippery from the recent rain, because I fell headfirst into the icy pool. At first I panicked, but then I remembered my survival training from Wolf Cubs: when lost in a hostile environment, stay where you are and wait for help.

So I did.

My parents, must have looked everywhere, but never imagined that I was waiting for them in the penguin pool. The penguins were very kind. They brought me herring and entertained me with their antics.

Minutes became hours. Hours stretched to days. Days stretched to weeks, which skipped over the stretching-to-months stage and suddenly became years.

Eventually, of course, someone noticed the unusually large penguin, and I was freed. To this day, I think fondly on my friendship with my adoptive family of penguins.

I hope that answers most questions. There is more of course, but I may save those stories for another time.

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