Those of you who know me will know I am a Marriott maven. I regularly amass a bazillion points and have achieved platinum status. Alas, that’s not the top-most tier (you have to stay 75 nights a year to get to titanium and stay 100 nights plus spend at least $25,000 US to reach ambassador),
Just kidding. Never met the guy, although did come within 20 feet of him. This is the account of almost meeting him at an IBM event in 2001, which is in my most recent book (July 2025), If It’s Shreveport, It Must be Tuesday. * * * “Welcome to IBM ASP World 2001,” says the
My Friend Robert Redford Read More »
My interim snail mail address, until I move to my new urban digs, is a rural mailbox. The kind that sits on top of a pole by the side of the road. It’s shaped kind of like a loaf of bread, has the requisite front door you unlatch to retrieve the mail, and a flag
I cram my red hair into my helmet, heft my bike out the door and down the peeling wooden stairs of a sad porch that leans to the left, then wheel it along the cracked concrete of the front walkway. My route to work takes me due south and downhill on Broadview, west on Queen
Sneak preview of my latest memoir Read More »
Please suspend your disbelief. Ozzy and I had a very intense relationship in the early 1970s. Or at least, Black Sabbath and I were a thing at the time, although I admit it may have been a little one-sided. Let me tell you the story. In the 1970s in Deep River, Ontario (population barely reaching
My friend Ozzy Osbourne Read More »
As you may know, I have recently moved. Or I guess, more correctly, I have partially moved because my stuff has not yet settled into its new home because there is not yet a new home. The last time I moved was seven years ago and I had moved four years prior to that, which
I met Dave at my first job at a company called Dataline in 1979, a company I talk about in detail in my second book, How I Invented the Internet. I was in possession of a master’s degree in library science (ink barely dry), hired to be the systems librarian at the computer timesharing company
My Friend Dave Sage Read More »
Last night, I heard my owl for the first time this season. I’m not sure if it’s a girl or a boy, or even if it’s the same owl from year to year, but its “woot-too-woot,” usually around four in the morning, is my literal calling card for the start of the soon-to-come summer. The
Cottage Status Report 20250608 Read More »
The hummingbirds are back, complete with their asshole behaviour, dive-bombing each other to get to the feeder even though there is more than enough to go around. The day after I filled the feeder with pseudo-nectar, I noticed it was down just over half. I blamed bird gluttony until I discovered a pool of sugar
Cottage Status Report 20250510 Read More »
Today, I unearthed (un-snowed?) my Globe and Mail newspaper from February 7. I wasn’t completely sure what had happened to it at the time, but suspected it had been plowed under the windrow at the side of the driveway, and indeed that is what had happened. And that got me thinking. Where did the word
Suburban Status Report 20250330 Read More »
