Transatlanticism

Exactly one year ago today, October 22, Jenna and I booked a one-way transatlantic crossing aboard the Queen Mary 2.

Originally, the idea was more joke than anything else. “Wouldn’t it be funny?” we’d ask each other. But the truth was, after almost a year living in France, we needed to get home to Toronto somehow.

We presumed we’d fly. That is, until we looked at the cost of one-way Christmastime flights from Lyon to Toronto. Or Paris to Toronto. Or London to Toronto. Or Anywhere in Europe to Anywhere in North America. Every flight we looked at seemed to be in the neighbourhood of $2,000. Per person.

So on a lark, we priced out Cunard’s 7-day Westbound Transatlantic Crossing aboard the Queen Mary 2.

$649.00 per person. Cunard was having a sale.

Jenna spent a lot of time on the telephone with a helpful rep to confirm the details. Yes, the price included a room (with a balcony!). Yes, it included all meals (breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner). Yes, it included complimentary 24-hour room service. Yes, it covered entertainment.

Obviously, we were going to sail.

So then, a little less than two months later, in the wee hours of the morning on December 15, we waited for a train to take us from Lyon to London St Pancras.

Arriving at St Pancras station, we were greeted by a Cunard employee who directed us to a coach that would take us (and a handful of other travellers) to Southampton, where we’d embark. The porter took our bags, and told us that the next place we’d see them would be inside our stateroom.

Given the sheer number of passengers, it’s impressive how smoothly embarkment went. Apparently, the QM2 has a crew-to-passenger ratio of one for every 2.1 passengers. It showed. There was a lot of hustle and bustle, but everything was quite orderly.

Our room was exactly as advertised. We picked the Britannia Balcony Stateroom which was small, but perfectly fine for two people. And, as promised, our bags were waiting for us inside when we arrived. Along with a bottle of sparkling wine.

If I had to sum up the QM2 experience in a word, it’d be fancy, with everything that word connotes. Fancy formal dining. Fancy servers, wearing fancy white gloves. Fancy dancing, on fancy dance floors (“among the largest at sea”). Fancy entertainment. And fancy passengers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a higher concentration of well-dressed classy older ladies than aboard the Queen Mary 2.

The food was good, the bars were well-stocked, and there was plenty to do aboard. Jenna and I took in a few of the lectures that were offered, and saw a handful of movies in the onboard theatre, but we didn’t partake in many of the formal, organized activities.

Because internet access was prohibitively expensive, we stayed offline the entire week. It was kind of nice.

Mostly, we ate, read, and walked around, exploring the ship. There was a lot to explore.

When we first told friends and family we were planning to come home by sea, we got two common responses. The first mentioned the Titanic. The second was a question: “Do you get seasick?”

As we learned, I don’t easily get seasick. Jenna does.

We knew we’d be crossing the North Atlantic in mid-December, and expected the seas to be rough, so we brought along a healthy supply of seasickness medication.

The first few days at sea were relatively calm, but mid-way through the voyage, things got rough. One particularly bad night, I remember waking up with my fingers clinging to the edge of the bed, because I thought I might fall out. I didn’t.

Over the next day or so, the waves got stronger, as did the smell of industrial-strength carpet cleaner. Walking through the hallways, I regularly passed small damp sections of capet, cordoned off with caution tape. One morning, sitting in the theatre, waiting for a lecture to begin, I watched a man in an aisle ahead of me stand up to quickly leave. But as soon as he stood, he lost his lunch all over the laps of his aisle-mates.

There were really only two really rough nights. I managed to catch a daytime video as things calmed down:

Looking back now, I didn’t take very detailed notes about our crossing. I wish I had. But on our last full day at sea, I stepped out onto our very windy balcony and asked Jenna what she wanted to remember:

Then, very early in the morning of December 22, we approached Brooklyn. After six full days at sea, land was a sight for sore eyes:

These days, the world can seem very small, and far-away people can seem very close. I can pick up the phone and dial friends and family anywhere. I can get on a plane and be halfway around the world in a handful of hours. I love that.

But spending a week aboard the Queen Mary 2 was a good reminder of just how big the world is. And how far away we’d really been. And how nice it was to be home.

My bike is not a health and safety issue

Update September 19, 2013: Success! Thanks to a terrific, sympathetic manager or two (or three), our building’s “no bikes inside” policy will be re-written to accommodate folding bikes like my Brompton. The new rule: I have to keep my bike in a bag. Fair enough.

There are a handful of things about our national public broadcaster (disclosure: my employer) that bother me. A few infuriate.

But today took the cake. Let me explain.

I own a bright blue Brompton folding bicycle. I love it.

I originally bought the Brompton to combat bike theft. After losing my fourth beater to Toronto’s intrepid bicycle thieves, I opted for something portable. Something I could fold up and bring inside with me.

Most days, when the weather cooperates, I cycle to work. I ride to the CBC on Front Street, fold my Brompton, and carry it upstairs, where it spends most of the day living under my desk. Many of my colleagues have passed by my desk hundreds of times (thousands, perhaps) without knowing that there’s a bike under there.

My Brompton is convenient, and portable, and tricky for most bike thieves to steal. I love it.

I’ve been riding it to work and storing it under my desk since 2009. The first day I brought it through the CBC’s doors, I got a strange glance from the security guard. But I have never had a lick of trouble getting my Brompton safely upstairs to my desk.

Until this morning.

This morning, I arrived at the CBC, folded Brompton in hand. But when I approached the security desk, I was told I wouldn’t be allowed in with a bicycle.

I explained that I’d been bringing my bike upstairs for years.

No dice. Why not?

My bicycle is a “health and safety issue.”

I spent 45 minutes at the security desk, trying to get answers. Multiple security guards were telephoned. The head of security was telephoned. Nobody would let me into the building with my bike. Nobody could tell me how this morning anything was different than the day before. Finally, I was permitted to temporarily store my Brompton in the security office for the day.

But bring it upstairs, like I’ve done hundreds of times before? Not a chance.

As I learned later in the day, the CBC’s Front Street building has a “no bikes inside” policy. It’s been that way for years. Maybe forever. But at least in my Brompton’s case, that policy hasn’t been enforced.

Until now.

Apparently, the CBC security apparatus doesn’t see a difference between a full size 21-speed mountain bike and my tiny little Brompton folding bike that quietly sits under my desk and has never been a problem for anyone ever.

“No bikes inside” means no bikes inside.

What’s more, because my bicycle is a “health and safety issue,” pretty much the only way I can resume cycling to work as usual is if a health and safety committee (a comittee!) can somehow change the language in the official CBC security rulebook to make some sort of exception or exemption for folding bikes like mine.

Yes, that’s right. Before a draconian approach to a made-up “health and safety issue” that doesn’t really exist can be addressed, a committee has to meet.

This morning aside, not once in my 4+ years owning a Brompton have I been denied entry to a place while carrying it. I’ve brought my bike into countless places, public and private, in Canada and across Europe. Shops, restaurants, public transit, movie theatres, libraries, university classrooms… the list goes on.

I never expected the first place I’d be turned away would be my workplace.

Light bulbs and laser beams

This past week, I borrowed John Maeda’s The Laws of Simplicity from the Toronto Public Library. It’s a slim book, but it gave me a lot to chew on.

While discussing his sixth law (Context), Maeda says:

I was once advised by my teacher Nicholas Negroponte to become a light bulb instead of a laser beam, at an age and time in my career when I was all focus. His point was that you can either brighten a single point with laser precision, or else use the same light to illuminate everything around you.

This struck me, particularly when I thought about it in terms of my own work, which often feels very narrowly focused.

As someone who works in public radio, I really need to remember that I’m in the lightbulb business.

So long, Empire Theatres

So, Sobeys is getting out of the movie business by selling 24 of its Empire Theatres locations to Cineplex.

I started working part-time at the Empire Theatres in Bedford, Nova Scotia in the spring of 1999 for $5.50 an hour. I know this because I still have one of my first paystubs:

I worked at Empire Theatres for three and half years, until the end of 2002. By then, I was making the princely sum of $7.94 per hour:

But what’s most astounding to me is the figure in the lower left hand corner: 4,206.70 hours is a bit more than 175 entire days. That’s just shy of half a year, which seems a little bit unbelievable.

Working at the movie theatre was a great part-time job. It was air conditioned. The free movies were a really nice perk. And it helped me pay for school, one minimum-wage paycheque at a time.

Not only did my time at the theatre help me pay for school, it also helped jump-start my career in radio.

The very first story I ever sold to CBC Radio was a profile of Doug Woodbury, one of the projectionists who worked at Empire Theatres. Here’s the audio from December 2003:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/99599363″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=false” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

I was sad in 2007 when I heard they were closing down Empire Bedford. And I was sad last week when I heard that Sobeys was getting out of the movie business entirely.

But I’m glad they got into it.

That time I was 30

A year ago this evening, I was enjoying dinner with Tristan at Joseph Leonard in the West Village. I had a steak, many tiny French pickles, and perhaps one too many Hendrick’s and tonics. I was in New York to take part in ITP Summer Camp at NYU. Tristan was in New York to get out of Toronto for a few days, and to help me celebrate my birthday.

A year ago this evening, I turned 30.

Tonight, on the occasion of my 31st birthday, I’m sitting on the back deck of our Queen Street apartment, as the city slowly cools down after the muggiest day in recent memory. And because celebration without reflection is empty and hollow, I’m sitting here, reflecting on the year I spent being 30.

It was a good year. Full of change.

I’ve never been more places in a year of my life. I spent the beginning of 30 in New York, and about a week later, returned to our home base of Lyon, France. Almost immediately after returning, Jenna, Dom and I spent several days cycling the Loire Valley, visiting castles and wineries. When friends and family visited, we showed them our favourite places in Lyon, did underground degustations in Beaune, and hit up Nuit Blanche in Paris. I visited London, Venice, and Edinburgh for the first time. My in-laws visited, and we drove around Belgium and northern France, visiting cemetaries, memorials, and battlefields. I saw Vimy, Dieppe, and Juno Beach – up until then, places I’d only ever read about in history books.

Standing in direct contrast to the inexpensive EasyJet flights we took full advantage of, I also had the opportunity at 30 to take a decidedly old-timey means of travel. Returning from our year abroad, Jenna and I spent six nights at sea, crossing the North Atlantic aboard the Queen Mary 2. A serious amount of fun. And seasickness.

My stated goal for 2012 was to “learn to code (again).” I did that. I now know just enough Python, Django, and Javascript to be dangerous. I shipped The Kickback Machine, and a handful of other little coding experiments.

Though it’s far from perfect, I improved my French, thanks to a handful of patient conversation partners. My understanding of French language and culture deepened, as did friendships with our friends in Lyon.

Despite being out of the country for a year, my professional life somehow continued to improve. I taught a course I’d never taught before at Ryerson, and I got a full-on promotion at CBC (I’m now officially a Producer, assigned to Spark).

At 30, I became a home owner. Or rather, Jenna and I are about to become home owners. We bought a tiny little house on Percy Street in Toronto, and we’re looking forward to moving in later this summer. If we ever get through the home inspections, lawyers, mortgages, and insurance paperwork, that is.

And, on a sadder note, I lost my Grammy this year. My mom’s mom died. It was hard. Mostly in the “I’m really sad and everyone around me is really sad and there isn’t really anything I can do about it” kind of way.

My grandmother was, and continues to be, a real inspiration to me. She was born in Reserve Mines, Nova Scotia in the year 1930, just in time to spend almost the entire Great Depression living in a coal mining town in Cape Breton. Twenty-one years later, she married my grandfather Charles, in the same town she grew up in. Over the next few years, they started a family. By December 1960, they had three daughters, and were expecting another child.

That’s when my grandfather was killed in a workplace accident in New York State.

Sitting here, typing this out, and doing the arithmetic, it’s hard to imagine. Grammy, thirty years old, married less than a decade, suddenly widowed with three kids and another on the way.

Suffice it to say, Grammy was a strong woman. Her 30 was a very different 30 than mine. Losing her was hard, and immensely sad. But thinking about her life and her strength helps put things in perspective.

It helps me realize that I am a lucky son of a gun. I am married to a wonderful, beautiful woman that I love. I have a job that not only pays the bills, but that I find incredibly fulfilling. I have friends that I can count on, and colleagues I respect.

I have no idea what 31 will bring, but I’m excited to find out.