Death.

Almost a year and a half ago, I lost my grandfather. He struggled with various health problems his whole life. But for most of mine, he lived on the other side of the country. Even when he moved back near Toronto during his last few years alive I still never saw very much of him. I hold single, isolated memories: He taught me to play cribbage. He was a master woodworker and spent hours upon hours practicing his craft alone, only talking briefly about it when he finished another beautiful piece of art. The Pickle Barrel in Sherway Gardens was the last restaurant we ate at together along with my brother and grandmother, and I have a picture of my grandfather, brother and I together, from that day.

He suffered for about a year up until the day he died. There was no sudden passing. He was kept alive by machines, and the decision to let him go was ultimately made by our family. And they helped him go as he went. I don’t know if I regret not being there, or if I would have regretted it had I did. The unfortunate conclusion I came to was that, it really didn’t matter.

There was no funeral. There was no wake in the springtime. There was a simple gathering at his burial site by close family. And that was it. Grandpa never wanted a funeral, he made that clear. I can’t help but feel, though, that he also didn’t want a wake either.

He was of the Ansell blood, through and through: enjoyed being alone, introverted, proud, stubborn, and opinionated. Of all my relatives, I am most like how my grandpa was. And that scares a part of me. It’s one thing to be true to yourself. It’s quite another to step back and see the big picture, the consequences of your actions and how it affects others. Even if you don’t think others matter to you. But that’s a topic for another time.

Similar circumstances have prevented our annual Labour Day fishing weekend from taking place this year. My deepest condolences go out to all those affected.

—————————————————

Three angels set the table for me tonight.
They know my face, they set a place, and it’s for me, tonight.
I can’t disappoint them.
I guess I’ll join them.
They’ve been waiting on me forever.
And I’ve been down on Earth and in this town,
and I swear there’s got to be something better.

New suit, a new tie.
A real nice service for me when I die… ~

- Headstones: Three Angels

I think I’m suffering from mild depression.

Maybe its been obvious from the drivel I keep writing about my job and environment, and like a typical Rational I refuse to admit what the problem is even though I know what the problem is.

So, dear reader, let’s review the symptoms, as ripped off from some British health site (http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Depression.htm):

“The following is a list of common symptoms of depression. It is unusual to have them all, but several usually develop if you have depression.”
Alrighty, let’s see how this goes. I’m so excited.

* Low mood for most of the day, nearly every day. Things always seem ‘black’.
Not sure how else I’m supposed to feel sitting under flickering fluorescent lights in a cubicle all day with people whom I deem “incompatible”, and in this case I choose to use a gracious PC term. However, that problem will remedy itself in eight work days.

* Loss of enjoyment and interest in life, even for activities that you normally enjoy.
Come to think of it, I don’t play guitar nearly as much as I used to. I feel more indifferent to going fishing up north, but once I’m there, I’m immensely thankful for being in nature and among friends. Hey, there’s another remedy.

* Abnormal sadness, often with weepiness.
I haven’t reached the salty-discharge phase, but sometimes I do feel intense unhappiness and anger, which usually ebbs and flows over the course of a few days.

* Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or uselessness.
I don’t feel these feelings directly. Instead, I feel them for others, particularly the last two. Sometimes very strongly.

* Poor motivation. Even simple tasks seem difficult.
Definitely. It’s immeasurably hard to summon the tenacity to write the same C hardware interface 45 times over.

* Poor concentration. It may be difficult to read, work, etc.
Again, this has nothing to do with the 50-hertz fluorescent lights shimmering over me all day, or the noisy network switch whirling over the top of my cubicle. Absolutely nothing.

* Sleeping problems (assorted list).
Not really. If I’m tired, I’ll sleep no matter what. Sleep is actually one of my favourite things to do, because it usually leaves me feeling better when I wake up.

* Lacking in energy, always tired.
I sit on my ass all day in a chair. I think this is more related to my environment and its inherently stagnant nature than the depression itself, but I reckon they feed off each other.

* Difficulty with affection, including going off sex.
I don’t feel, or rather, display it outwardly. This is a fundamental aspect of me, and its not related to depression. Although I suspect I’d probably lose an argument on this if someone challenged me to one.

* Poor appetite and weight loss. Sometimes the reverse happens with comfort eating and weight gain.
A resounding NO. My love of food, again, is defined in the very fibre of my being. Mmmmmm, Swiss Chalet club wrap with rice, fries and two extra rolls……

* Irritability, agitation, or restlessness.
Absolutely, I’m afraid to admit, though this tends to develop when you’re surrounded by tools all the time. And it has leaked into my home-life, too, but I’ve gone in-depth before about how itchy my feet are anyway. I think that’s more of the heart of the problem. I want to be free, but I’m trapped within a contract, dude…

* Symptoms often seem worse first thing each day.
Nope. And nope. My symptoms are actually pretty low-key at the beginning of the day because either I’m outside running, which makes me feel like I can run away from everything negative, or eating a big, healthy, and hearty breakfast, which never fails to put a smile on my face. Doubly so when I do both in a morning. My symptoms are the worst when I get home after a mind-numbing day that consists of reading Slashdot and writing that C hardware interface for the 46th time.

* Physical symptoms such as headaches, palpitations, chest pains, and general aches.
I feel pretty bad tonight, but I think that it’s the bottle of whiskey I consumed last weekend at Hartley Bay finally catching up with me. My lower back has been bothering me since the Friday before last weekend. I pulled a deep muscle somehow and its one of the ones that, no matter how you contort your body, you just cannot stretch it out. And whatever sluggishness I feel, I attribute to my sedentary existence at work.

* Recurrent thoughts of death. This is not usually a fear of death, more a preoccupation with death and dying. Some people get suicidal ideas such as …”life’s not worth living”.
Who doesn’t think of death every so often? After all, every person subjected to a two-hour meeting that consists of staring at the work project wondering why it doesn’t work would want to kill themselves no matter how you slice it. Actually, this is an interesting argument. Imagine that for a minute. Eight grown men, staring at a hunk of metal and glass for a full five minutes, with nothing to say. I either wanted to burst out laughing or stab a pen in my eye. But maybe that’s a sign of a more significant mental issue than the one I’m diagnosing here.

“The severity of the symptoms can vary from mild to severe. As a rule, the more symptoms from the list above that you have, the more severe the depression is likely to be.”
I guess I’ve got it pretty bad then.

However, I have got a brilliant cure for what ails me. I will list the steps below:

1. Move away from home for a little while and gain my perspective, get some experience of living alone, etc.
2. Survive for eight more work days, and the job problem will take care of itself.

Hopefully my symptoms will dissipate in a couple weeks, so I can get back to being me again.

Hartley Bay was an enormous bust.

This past weekend, me and my uncle went to a lodge on the Lower French River and stayed at a marina on a backwater known as Hartley Bay to, first and foremost, escape reality for a while. We definitely did that, in more ways than one.

* The fishing we experience on Lake Nipissing has far and away spoiled us beyond belief. At Hartley Bay, we worked our asses off and put in roughly eight hours each day. All we got out of it was two small bass the first day, and one small walleye and a mediocre pike the next. It was brutal. What killed us was that there were so many likely fish-holding spots: rivermouths, deep channels, rocky islands, weedy bays and stretches, isolated humps and numerous channels. The fishfinder doesn’t lie: most spots didn’t mark a single fish, and only once did we encounter a baitfish school that we would consider worthy of holding a predator or two. The water was, for the most part, devoid of fish life.

* Clearly, the marina’s top priority was canoeists. I didn’t see a single license plate that was from Ontario for all the canoeists hitting the water. This explains why the cottages were so shoddy: they account for bonus income and likely “came with the place when they bought it.” I’m not one to complain about accomodations, but even by my standards, it was pretty bad.

* The staff were mopey and miserable. They were most jovial when taking money from canoeists before they paddled away for the weekend. We gabbed briefly when we got there and when we left, but besides that they didn’t so much as stop by with a smile when we were around the cottage and ask how things were. Or stir up conversation in general. Usually, that’s what people who share a common love of the land do, and usually you can’t shut them up once you get them started. Oh, I’m mistaken. The lodge owner told us not to drink in the boat when we got there, and told us watch out for flying sparks from our small campfire and to never leave it unattended on the last night. Hopefully they didn’t blame us for not saying goodbye.

We still had a great time, though. We solved all the world’s problems; we just need to find who to tell our answers to. We drank a lot. The Whacker also was up to the challenge, and worked flawlessly all weekend. And the setting of the place was, truth be told, pretty breathtaking.

I can relate the entire experience to hooking into a snag: it’s not a fish but instead a pain in the ass, and though you’ll eventually get off it and it’ll cost some tackle and time to replace, at least it provides some entertainment and emotion when nothing else is happening.

Next year, it will be Pointe Au Baril.

In other news, I have nine days left until I finish my internship and go on an anti-corporate tyrade. One of my close co-workers won’t be there for my last day, and I don’t even know if my supervisor will be there either. To me, it really doesn’t matter because a great man named Cosmo once said *points to head*: “Up here, I’m already gone.” I forget the context of that quote, but I’m pretty sure it was about nothing.

Rush was… well, Rush, I guess. The classics were good, and the new stuff… well, not so much. I’ve never been a big Rush fan.

Andy McKee was fucking incredible, and definitely worthy of a Top-5 Concert honour for me. My brother and I could literally reach out and touch him from where we were sitting: dead center, with a single table separaring us and him. Andy McKee has been my little brother’s guitar idol for a very long time, but I found that I was just as excited to see him play in such an intimate venue (Hugh’s Room on Dundas where Roncesvalles starts). I was transfixed all evening long as he made his way through Art of Motion, Into the Ocean, Africa, as well as newer material from his most recent album, Joyland. There was also definitely something to be said of the acoustic quality of the venue; it was sparklingly clear, rich and warm.

Andy is an extremely humble and grateful individual who genuinely loves what he does, and he displays immense respect for his fans. I enjoyed his banter with the crowd just as much as his musicianship, which is top notch; he was spot-on all night long. He is a definite class act.

What’s more, we actually got to meet him. Some people took minutes to talk to him, get him to sign this or that. I just decided to shake his hand and simply thank him for his incredible music. My brother turned to goo when he got his chance to meet Andy, but he managed to get both his new copy of Joyland, and the pick guard on his guitar, signed. I got Andy to sign a Joyland tour poster that I stole off one of the walls of the venue (which I later gave to my brother), and I held the camera for his photo with Andy. What a moment.

The Walleye Whacker is as done as its going to get for this season. I worked on adding the last final touches to her a couple weekends ago: a new transducer for the fishfinder, GPS marine mount for my Legend HCx, and new gas line. If I have a spare evening this week, I’ll get some steel wool and the Dremel out and polish the hull up good and nice. But for all intents and purposes, the Whacker is done.

My free time will now shift more to the band. We had a gig last Wednesday at Timothy’s Bar. It wasn’t terrible, but the rust was definitely there. That was the first time in two years that I had played with a band live.

I spent some time up north this past weekend with my grandparents. All the little things I did to the Whacker really paid off and added so much to the enjoyment of using the boat.

The pike were on fire at the mouth of the Sturgeon, but it was almost a passed opportunity. I had spent a couple hours in Cache Bay struggling to find enough water with which to use the motor, never mind find fish. Finally I decided that this wasn’t worth the effort, and headed back. I decided to try a couple casts at the river mouth, just to see what happens. Good move. I nailed three decent-size pike in four casts, the largest being 27″ and a hearty 5 pounds. In half an hour of fishing I had my limit.

It was so relieving to hit a fantastic bite at the mouth of the Sturgeon since the fishing there has been so poor the past few seasons.

I’ve mostly got my courses figured out for the Fall/Winter terms upcoming. But because I was one half credit shy of holding fourth-year-student status (*sob* I’m never going to graduate…), I had to wait about a week after the fourth-year students before I could actually go choose them on ROSI. Because of that, I missed out on a chance to take CSC454H (Business of Software).

Fall 2010:
ECO342Y: Twentieth Century Economic History
ECO429Y: History of Economic Thought
CSC369H: Operating Systems
CSC458H: Computer Networking Systems
ECE385H: Microprocessor Systems

Winter 2011:
ECO342Y: Twentieth Century Economic History
ECO429Y: History of Economic Thought
CSC318H: The Design of Interactive Computational Media
CSC336H: Numerical Methods
CSC488H: Compilers and Interpreters

For the fifth year running, the most interesting courses are offered in the Fall term, lucky for me. I almost wish I didn’t have to do those year-long Economic History courses, but I know I’d die with 5 CS ones. Also, after 16 months of cultivation in a cubicle farm, I realize that I need culture, a breath of really, really fresh air. Not to mention the mantra that has truly encompassed my mind, body and soul, and all my inner desires and passions. I say it after I eat, before I lay down to bed, and when I wake. It consists of six succient words. Take a deep breath and recite it with me now:

I.
Just.
Want.
To.
Graduate.

Soon.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially irritated, I’ll throw in a “Fuck” immediately before the “I”.

I’m also still partially debating CSC363H (Computational Complexity and Computability, affectionately referred to as CCC in some circles. Which, oddly enough, is also an acronym for Continuous Cause for Chronic. Fitting description for the course, really. Zing.), mostly because one of my favourite professors is teaching it. CSC465H (Formal Methods in Software Design) also looks like it would be Interesting, if Useless in a real-world setting.

But at this point I’m leaning towards courses that are Useful, Practical, Interesting, and Down-To-Earth (kind of how I like my women. Double zing.). Hence the current leading alternative, CSC458H.

I’m pretty excited for ECE385H, since it wasn’t listed in the calendar at first but magically appeared in the latest revision.

My new boat stereo works flawlessly, and the dashboard job looks beautiful, there’s no better word to describe it. The Whacker is once again the most comfortable and classy fishing scow on the water.

The two big jobs (installing the new Suzuki motor, and fabricating a new dashboard) are finished, and both added a tenfold improvement to the enjoyment factor of using the Whacker. All that remains are a handful of little jobs that can be chipped away at over the course of the next few weeks:

* Adding metal trim to the sides of the floor along the gunwales: In addition to adding a slick look to the floor, it will also serve to hold down the rubber-backed carpeting; it’s starting to lift as the glue loses its tack over time.
* Install my GPS marine mount: I experimented with the best spot to put it over the weekend by holding my GPS in different places while the Whacker was under power. Initially, I wanted to put it on the right side of the dash above the switches. However, after trying to get on some fishing spots in the middle of nowhere and constantly swinging my head from the fishfinder to the GPS to what’s in front of me (the fishfinder is mounted near the center of the dash, angled toward the driver), I immediately decided it would make more sense to put the GPS mount beside the fishfinder. That way, all my navigation and sonar instrumentation is in one place, and I can see that information as well as what’s in front of me without moving my head.
* Replace and change my fishfinder transducer: I noticed this past weekend that my fishfinder was acting up. Since I first noticed the problem with the motor running, I figured that the transducer was getting interference from the new and bigger motor. Then it would stop working randomly while we were fishing. It was very frustrating to be perfectly motionless and not have the fishfinder work. Since the fishfinder unit itself seems to be working fine, I’m pretty sure buying a new transducer unit will fix the problem. There must be a damaged conductor inside the cord somewhere, maybe from all the commotion of changing the dash.
* Polish up the hull and motor: Some minor cosmetic work would go a long way towards improving the look of the boat itself. Some places on the hull are getting pretty dirty, and one of the most annoying things about the Suzuki is the dirty grease all over the motor pivot, right where the engine lock switch is. Every time I go to lock or unlock the motor pivot using the switch, I get my hands covered in grease. Nothing a little solvent won’t fix.
* Do something about the broken tunnel cover: I chose to leave the tunnel cover on while trailering the boat, which turned out to be a bad idea. The ridgepole ripped right through the fabric, taking with it the grommet.

The whole G20 / G8 thing is bullshit and an absolute waste of resources. How can billions of taxpayer dollars be spent on security, not to mention the millions lost on tourism and lost business, just to satisfy a bunch of bureaucratic government leaders’ urge to display their superiority? Not to mention disturbing the lives of millions of citizens and making them feel like prisoners in their own city. Would it have been so hard to hold the summit at a military airbase, like the one in Trenton? I hear that Lake Ontario isn’t too far away from there; rather than disrupt the lives of people in Huntsville, why couldn’t they have just set up lawnchairs on the pier and watched the sailboats go by there? But who does the responsible thing anymore? Politicians are all a bunch of liars, anyway.

I am pro-capitalist, but anti-corporate. A conservative who also holds a handful of far-left ideals. I am a firm believer in the Henry David Thoreau quote, “That government is best which governs least”. Too bad that people are collectively too stupid and panic-prone for that approach to work.

So, change of plans, On account of the fact that it’s going to storm all weekend and the Whacker still isn’t fully put back together, I’m staying home.

The new dashboard is now mounted (and looks fuckin’ gorgeous if I do say so myself), and the speaker brackets are installed. I had the neighbourhood shaking to some Pearl Jam, Walleye Whacker style. At the Home Depot I bought some angle trim for the floor of the boat along the sides. The carpet’s starting to rise a little, and rather than slap more glue down, the trim should hold it while looking half-decent. This week I’ll install that, along with tidying up the wiring behind the new dash, and installing the steering wheel. After that, it’ll be time to start tweaking the Suzuki.

My Clymer manual for the Suzuki motor has arrived from Kansas. It’s something like 500 pages long and it’s all about tweaking, repairing, tuning, and adjusting Suzuki motors.

I hope to throw the Whacker into Lake Ontario later in the week if the bad weather tapers off by then.

~80 more days to go at work. A large part of me has shifted to the opinion that it’s corporations which I am not suited for. I don’t follow protocol; never have, never will. So maybe it’s wrong for me to have written off technical work completely. After all, there has to be degrees of technicality.

I break down an employment experience into three major areas:

1. The work itself.
2. The atmosphere of the workplace.
3. The people.

In terms of relative importance, in this ordering they are ranked least- to most-important.

But beyond the employment itself, there’s also the environment you’re in. Having a great job is of course good, but then there’s what’s after work as well. What’s in Toronto for me? Not much. Sure, my family is here, but the city itself is flat, largely concrete, and boring for me.

So, if I could get a Great job in the Ideal setting, then I’d be in paradise. Allow me to speculate.

The place foremost in my mind is Calgary. It’s a large city, but it rests on the edge of a beautiful mountain setting. Being a large city, there should be jobs in line with my education somewhere, and jobs not immediately in line with my education in abundance. A short drive should place me in said mountains, on a lake, or in a forest.

But I’ve lived in a big city my whole life. I’m not sure if the change will be radical enough for me. After all, I’d still have to drive to get to the mountains or lake. Why not try for a place that’s contained within the wilderness?

The next place is Yellowknife. Four-hundred kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, home of the Midnight Sun and the Northern Lights. Situated on the northern shores of the Great Slave Lake. An outdoorsman’s paradise.

The only issue is whether there’s work up there for me. If there is, it would more than likely be infrastructure- or government-related. My ability to find work up there would rely almost entirely on connections. And I get the feeling that there aren’t many people who know a friend of a friend who’s looking for a junior software developer in Yellowknife.

But that might prove to be a good chance to see how my education transfers to another type of job. Don’t ask me how it would, but it might.

Another thing on my mind is this logic: the smaller the city, the less chance there is to meet people. But the higher the chance to meet people who share the same interests as me: the outdoors, good music, solitude. I’m leaning toward taking a chance on the latter.

Then there’s the other extreme; a place like Greenland where I’ve been given notions of work, but that might be too far extreme on the isolation scale, especially if I’m there for a long period of time. The setting would be striking, I may end up working with some of the best people I’d ever meet, but no one else speaks English, and the loneliness might get to me after a while. Especially after three seasons of darkness.

For the short term, say a few weeks or maybe a couple months, yea, it would be an unforgettable experience. But no longer than that.

The Eagles were incredible, I can’t say more than that about them. There was plenty of Joe Walsh (Funk 49? Rocky Mountain Way? AWESOME!!), just the right amount of Don Henley (Boys of Summer? Dirty Laundry? AWESOMER!!), and all the necessary Eagles songs.

I thought that this tour was for Long Road Out of Eden, so I was more than a little distraught when their fourth song was Hotel California. Then I realized that they were doing songs in chronological order, which upset even more. The songs from Long Road Out of Eden would be last. Not that it’s a bad album. I don’t like going to concerts for music I haven’t heard beforehand.

As it turned out, I don’t think they played anything off of that album; they were all songs I had heard before. And they were all flawless.

On a scale of one to ten points, I’d give Victoria Day Weekend 2010 a seven.

First, the negatives. There was an absolute fire ban in effect for all districts north of the French River. Right there, that’s an immediate minus two points. No campfire means no long yarns, no mutual recapping of the day, and a lack of true camaraderie. Especially with the gorgeous weather, staying indoors at night only because there was no campfire was a brutal hit to an otherwise magnificent weekend. But it’s true; no one wants to stand out in the dark with no fire.

I can’t deduct any points for the lack of fishing because, for one, the Suzuki motor lived up to its expectations but didn’t exceed them, and for another, whoever wanted to go fishing could easily take a rental out to wherever they wanted… mostly. Which leads to a half-point deduction for the extremely low water levels. We had a tough time getting ourselves into the boats at the docks, never mind into Cache Bay and its potential pike bonanza. This may have had something to do with the terrible fishing; I caught a 20-inch pike, and a friend of my cousin nailed an eating-size walleye on the morning of the last day. Fishing is usually bad on the opener, but even by Victoria Day Weekend standards, this Weekend was pretty bad.

Another half-point is lost for the dual reason that I am a pessimist by nature, and I am also a Computer Scientist: I don’t round, I truncate. And so, that’s a seven out of ten on my completely arbitrary grading scale.

Highlights include an intense Texas Horseshoe tournament; watching the Habs lose on a 50-inch big-screen TV on the front deck hooked up to an air antenna; all the work that the new lodge owners are putting into the place (new docks, levelling the cottage, redoing the driveways, etc); and the unbelievably balmy weather (this is the first time in the history of the Victoria Day Weekend fishing trips that the temperature has consistently been both sunny and above 10 degrees).

My lower back and shoulders are roasted.

The Suzuki is the ideal motor for the Walleye Whacker. However, it has some fully-expected issues. One such issue is that the shifter cables need adjusting. It doesn’t shift fully into reverse, causing some pretty severe gear-grinding. It’s also either running too rich, or the coils on the motor need replacing. After putting new spark plugs in, and running the motor for ten minutes, they were already covered in oil. Using the ripcord all weekend was an annoyance.

But when it was running, it ran, and ran well. With three people in the boat, it topped out at around 50kph; almost twice as fast as the 20hp Mercury, all else equal.

The issues are due half to the motor not being consistently used for past few years, and half because it simply is on a new boat: it just needs some tweaking and adjustments.

After a backbreaking weekend of work, we removed the old dashboard and put in a brand-spanking-new one out of special pine board, and covered it with aluminum. In the center of the dash is the new marine stereo I got for my birthday. It’s gonna be amazing when it’s finished.

I won’t be writing for a while since I’m heading north for four days on Friday. Cheers until then.

Feeling a little thoughtful tonight…

_________________________________________________

The physical domain of the country had its counterpart in me. The trails I made led
outward into the hills and swamps, but they led inward also. And from the study of things
underfoot, and from reading and thinking, came a kind of exploration, myself and the
land. In time the two became one in my mind. With the gathering force of an essential
thing realizing itself out of early ground, I faced in myself a passionate and tenacious
longing— to put away thought forever, and all the trouble it brings, all but the nearest
desire, direct and searching. To take the trail and not look back. Whether on foot, on
showshoes or by sled, into the summer hills and their late freezing shadows—a high
blaze, a runner track in the snow would show where I had gone. Let the rest of mankind
find me if it could.
john haines,the stars, theSnow,THE FIRE: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE
NORTHERN WILDERNESS

_________________________________________________

Wilderness appealed to those bored or disgusted with man and his works. It not only
offered an escape from society but also was an ideal stage for the Romantic individual to
exercise the cult that he frequently made of his own soul. The solitude and total freedom
of the wilderness created a perfect setting for either melancholy or exultation.
roderick nash,wilderness and the american mind

_________________________________________________

two years he walks the earth. no phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. ultimate
freedom. an extremist. anaesthetic voyager whose home is the road. escaped from
atlanta. thou shalt not return, ’cause “the west is the best. ” and now after two rambling
years comes the final and greatest adventure. the climactic battle to kill the false being
within and victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution. ten days and nights of freight
trains and hitchhiking bring him to the great white north. no longer to be poisoned by
civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to becomelost in the wild.
alexander supertrampMAY1992

_________________________________________________

Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human
eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so
inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music,
or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!

_________________________________________________

I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for
happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to
people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to
them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music,
love for one’s neighbor—such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you
for a mate, and children, perhaps—what more can the heart of a man desire?

Everything was hooked up: new gas line, battery, throttle and shifter clips, controls. It was time to turn the key and see what happened.

Before I turned it, I quipped that I was afraid to see what would happen. After all, so far it all had gone like a dream. The motor started with virtually no effort when we saw it in Port Carling. The lower unit was in utterly flawless condition. I had removed residual grease on the outside of the motor with a rag and some solvent so it was sparkling in the evening sun.

My heart was pounding, and I was nervous and apprehensive. I turned the key.

Nothing.

Not even a click. Just silence.

A car drove by. A breeze kissed the leaves of the trees on the front lawn. A cricket chirped in the neighbour’s back yard.

“Son of a bitch…”

After some sleuthing with a light tester and multimeter, we ruled out the controls, any cables intermediate to the controls and motor, and fuses. Jumping the boat battery to the one in my Trailblazer didn’t fix it either, so it wasn’t the battery. Eventually, with nothing else to test, we inconclusively ruled the solenoid or starter as the problem.

Then I remembered that in an emergency, one can bypass most of the motor’s wiring and jump the starter directly. With the battery hooked up to the motor as usual, we used the red jumper cable, one end connected to the positive terminal on the battery and the other end to the hot post on the starter, to try and see if the starter would kick. With no moment’s delay, upon touching the starter’s hot post, the starter jumped.

After turning on the hose to give the motor some water through a set of lower-end muffs and fixing an issue with leaky clamps on the gas hose, we soon had the motor roaring to life.

That was three days ago.

Tonight, with only the gas line hooked up to the motor and the key in the ignition, the motor started with six hearty pulls of the ripcord. As of right now the solenoid (motor relay) hasn’t arrived from Vancouver (according to the Suzuki dealer, it’s the only one in Canada, for a stiff price of $150), so if it doesn’t come by tomorrow night we’ll have to make do with the ripcord this weekend. Which won’t be much of a problem once the motor stretches its legs a little.

My fishing stuff is all ready to go. I just have to throw some clothes in a duffel bag and I’m ready to kick off another fishing season. Tomorrow night, in a surprise change of plans, I’m seeing Alice Cooper at the Molson Amphitheater, then Saturday morning I’m hittin’ the ol’ dusty.

Cheers until next week…

Two nights ago, we removed the lower end of the Suzuki outboard. I’m not sure it’s possible for a used motor to be in any better shape.

The Suzuki’s long journey to my garage started in St. John’s, Newfoundland, around ten or so years ago. Some good ole boys from the Rock bought this motor for cod fishing, clam-trapping or whatever it is they do out there.

An indeterminate amount of time later, for one reason or another the Suzuki was thrown in a truck and driven to Ontario. The gentleman we bought the motor off of got it from the Newfoundlanders for cash in exchange for a couple lobster traps, a jar of salted cod tongues, a length of fishnet. And of course, the motor itself.

After perusing online classified ads last fall for used motors, I stumbled across an ad on the 10th page for a Munro Comet with a 40hp Suzuki outboard. It looked promising. Seeing that I was heading up to Parry Sound that weekend to close a cottage for a friend, my old man and I took a detour to Port Carling in the Muskokas to have a look at this potential diamond-in-the-rough.

Its owner was extremely knowledgeable and straight-shooting. He custom-built a metal fishing deck on a smaller tin can, turning it into a fantastic fishing boat. A machinist by trade, he made the long-shaft mounting plate on the Comet out of a solid chunk of metal himself.

The Comet, however, was in rough shape. And the trailer wouldn’t dare be moved for fear of it disintegrating. But on the back of the Comet was the most perfect-looking used motor you’ve ever seen. It was literally glowing on the back of that beaten-up Comet. It hadn’t been started since the spring and you could tell this was true just by looking at it, but it started for us with exactly three cranks using the electric start. It roared to life and ran with deep, throaty compression.

The motor was as good as sold.

Until a couple days ago, I didn’t realize that this Suzuki was a saltwater motor. However, after tasting a little bit of the greasy water from the lower end, we concluded that there was no salt traces left over. This meant one of two things, the first thing being that this Suzuki was extremely well-made. The majority of the parts were made of stainless steel. Underneath the grease, they were all in absolute perfect condition. The seal on the lower end was excellent. We drained the fresh lower unit oil we put in last year and found that it was dirty, likely from the motor sitting unused for so long.

The whole reason we took the lower unit off was to check the impeller. We were amazed to see that it was in virtually new shape: the impeller itself, made of tough rubber, was moist with its original lubricant, and still flexible. Positive that we would need a new one, this was a huge surprise. Not what you expect from a used motor.

This pointed us to the second thing: The motor was hardly used, and was well taken care of. The only thing that could go wrong is if some moisture is in the pistons, and one pops when put under stress. Not likely given the lovingly-perfect condition the motor is in. But even in the worst case, for the condition that the rest of the motor is in, it would be worth fixing.

Once we put the motor back together and fill it with fresh gear oil, the next thing to do is hook up the battery (which has been freshly conditioned by the folks at Interstate Batteries next door to the family business) and make sure the boat’s peripherals are in working shape: the bilge pump, fishfinder, cigarette lighter. After that, the cabling for the motor can be tucked underneath one of the gunnels and secured.

After that, using a pair of muffs, the motor can be started in the driveway. Then, the plug can be put in the boat, and the boat can be driven on the trailer down to the Promenade and thrown in the water. That’s where the rubber meets the road.

RIP Ronnie James Dio, you will be missed.
It’s heaven and hell, oh well…