Picking Sides and Sidedoors

Back in 2010, I was on Spring Break in Hawaii with a couple of girlfriends when Conan O'Brien announced his Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour on his Twitter-feed. Specifically, I was in a line at an airport towing my luggage when the announcement was made and I immediately tweeted my frustration at being nowhere that I could feasibly buy a ticket from. To my rescue swoop my Newfoundland friends, Brian and Lori (THIS is why technology is awesome), who speedily bought me an e- ticket for a Vancouver show (the sold out #conezone one) which they forwarded to me through email (again, technology = awesome) and which is why I am now able to sport the Team Coco branding.

It is beyond fitting that technology provided a loophole for me to acquire a ticket for this show in particular as the whole tour was a giant loophole through which Conan evaded the illegality of him being funny in the public arena. In a nutshell, when he split with NBC in early 2010, he was not allowed to perform on broadcast television until September 2010. Live performances and any subsequent photos, recordings, or streamed videos resulting from said performances were not covered by the contract however and thus, the tour was born, fed on a steady diet of social media/networking until it grew to the mammoth proportions of a Self-Pleasuring Panda.

err... yeah, not exactly sure where I can go from that link so that's all I got for today but I may decide to wear the other Conan shirt tomorrow...

Knowing Where You Are

*Published verbatim on 27 May 2013, tee actually worn on 23 May 2013 hence the backdate stamp*

So I'm back on the wagon (aka Canada Line) and looking to confuse folks as I have tshirts from Tues & Wed (and one from a week & a half back) to write about and will probably back-date them all for accuracy's sake.

Today's tee is a bday giftie (from this most recent birthday!) from my Newfoundlander family who travelled 7,500km (with a toddler powered by Energizer bunny power and a far-too-cute-for-her-own-good 5-month-old) across the continent/country to attend my wedding. Yes, I got married during my blog hiatus (and aged out of a marketing category two days later). It's all about timing...

For those who have never been lucky enough to visit St. John's, NL, the tee depicts the city's harbour with Cabot Tower on Signal Hill on the left. It's a beautiful vista, almost as lovely as the people who live there. And the geekery factor of the 8-bit text-game presentation is amaze-balls.

Most similar Google Image I could find to the tee graphic

Part of knowing where you are has to do with knowing who you're with and, perhaps, making a conscious judgement call as to who is and who isn't a positive influence in your life. Family is family and there is an innate acceptance where they are concerned. Everyone else is present by choice - mostly a combination of theirs and yours. Some people are hard work and there can be times where the pay-off isn't worth the investment. 

I'm living proof of this.

And then there are some precious few who belong in your life no matter how far apart you live geographically or how many changes your life goes through.

Then and Now:
You really should be focussed on how much camera technology has improved ;)

I met Brian Kidney in the summer of 1996 in Hamilton, ON, at the annual CanJAC convention (he wasn't tweeting then). He was the tallest person I had ever met. His humour, warmth, and confidence was (and is) striking and of all the people I met that week, he is the only one I have kept in contact with over the last seventeen years. We wrote actual letters to each other (and even mailed them), sent birthday cards to each other (I have the advantage in remembering his birthday as he shares the day with my brother) and made odysseys across this great country of ours to see each other (his wife, Lori, won a cross-country VIA trip and they made optimum use of it, coming to Vancouver, while I took advantage of the most skookum airfare deal ever to go see them get hitched). As is common with many of my guy friends' significant others, I learned a lot about Lori before ever meeting her - police decoy, seal enumerator, lucky horseshoe, rescue beagle delivery person - and she exceeded every expectation. Add super-mom to the mix now. 

He and Lori have travelled extensively in their work and play and never fail to generously add to my Hard Rock Cafe pin collection on every excursion. This trip was no exception. After my wedding, they packed their happy little family into the mini-van and traipsed down to Seattle and back (before the bridge on Skagit collapsed, thankfully) and I found a new HRC pin from the Seattle store tucked in with my tee (which, appropriately, smells of baby powder - the tee, that is). I should also point out (if my faithful readers hadn't already clued in) that a large section of my tee collection originates from the East Coast thanks to Brian and Lori.

Of the many, many blessings I thank the 'verse for, I cherish the good people in my life who keep my feet on the ground, my head in the game, and my heart in the right place. Whenever, I need a guiding star, they're there no matter how far away the GPS puts them physically. And that, ultimately, is probably the key to knowing where I am.