Vancouver

Business took me to Vancouver this week. A confusing town for visitors to navigate and a slow paced mega city to say the least. A real lack of highways adds to the slow grind, stress and frustration. Add some west coast rain and stir briskly and you have a wonderful recipe for communal anger.

I was once in Regina and someone told me that everything you need to find is 15 minutes away. Sadly this is not the case in Vancouver - poorly timed lights and Olympic sized construction projects make 15 minute drives an impossibility. Figure an hour wherever you are going unless it's real important, then figure two.

My temporary home was the Red Rock Casino resort in Richmond. Interesting name as there are no red rocks to be seen anywhere, just fake grey ones, however, the stay was a pleasure starting with a wonderful front desk greeting and capped off by a great room, great service and a stunning view of the clouds surrounding the mountains giving a look of purple cherries on top of a whipped cream sundae.

The view also included a yacht club of beautiful boats ranging from little outboard runabouts to large second mortgages.

Prior to my morning departure I walked the piers and admired the many ducks and geese making nests by the water, oblivious to the jumbo jets that scraped the hotel roof in their approach to the nearby airport.

Walking down the street I'm passed by several blond Asian women in mini skirts on their way to gamble or work - who knows, maybe it's the same thing.

Construction everywhere, dotted with "Help Wanted" signs making a liar out of the recession.

Friday morning the card tables are still full in the casino - seriously, who gambles at 8 am on a Friday?

At 10 AM I head further down the street to the ubiquitous Starbucks, past the rear loading doors of the casino and the pungent smell of garbage emanating from the Red Rock loading bays. Everything feels fake and the smell of decay is in the air. Social or physical, I'm not sure!

I feel strange surrounded by the beauty of BC, yet so much seems exploitative. Progress I guess!

The ducks don't care. Maybe I don't either.

My latte is too hot to drink so I sit in my rental car and watch the world pass by. It's surreal, I feel no connection to this place, it could be a TV show for all I feel. Time to fly.



M

Wine and Cheese

This week I experienced a moment of true happiness when, in the middle of a crazy work week of mind numbing strategic meetings, I escaped for a few hours of wine and cheese tasting at Bistro Champlain in the Quebec countryside.

My view stretched across a lake dotted with a few boaters while the dock was near empty but for a few dogs walking their humans and enjoying the pre "schools out" madness of cottage country.

In the Bistro I am surrounded by amazing works of art by Carson, and below me is a cellar of 18,000 bottles of wine. Far to many for me to drink in one sitting, but I was eager to try.

The wine steward and host was a wonderful man of great humor and hidden knowledge tucked away in folds of his wrinkled eyes. He delivered a centrepiece of cheeses and apples that looked too fine to eat. Cheeses my anglophone mouth could not pronounce but had no issue devouring,

the highlight being a 5 year old Gouda that activated taste buds that I thought long dead.

Champagne arrived, followed quickly by a 9 year old Chardonnay. Brilliant tastes of oak and apply danced across my pallet and flowed into my stomach, replacing the tension and stress that had sat there for days.

Then the reds arrived. Pinot Noir first - an aroma to lift your head off. Can we stop the world at this point because it just cant get better? But it did! 5 more wines followed, each one distinctly different and interacting with the cheeses in a most unexpected and creative manner. Dusty and mildewed labels revealed no hint of the pleasures they were protecting.

After a quick visit to the wine cellar, I settled back in my chair to finish off my new found liquid obsessions along with two wonderful colleagues who shared this surreal experience.

All talk of work was gone. Only mutual confusion as to why our lives are so regimented and stressed when paradise is all around us.

I didn't want to leave. It was upsetting, like being yanked back into existence after a near death experience, inches from Nirvana.

The drive back was filled with laughter and good natured opinions surrounding the wines and cheeses we experienced. But sadly, I surmise we all felt like something was left behind.

Maybe I will go back one day and look for it. Or maybe it was a moment never to be repeated beyond the retelling in stories and a knowledge that there is a different world of sights, sounds and tastes out there if we have the desire to seek it out.

M

Kicking and Screaming

Technology and I do not get along!

I am an painter and a writer, with an artistic soul and a well hidden emotional side that most who know my alter ego - corporate President - would never guess or suspect, or even want to associate.

So why a Blog?

I need an outlet, that most who blog or twitter seem to have found. Painting and writing is a fantastic emotional outlet, but on occasion, nothing beats a good political rant - posted for all to see. Though why anyone would care, is a mystery!

Since western society is obsessed with the narcissistic need to inform facebookers of their every mundane move, why can't I drop a comment or two about the futility and absurdity of it all?

So I plan to use this space to show some paintings, write a few lines of dribble, or just rant about the World, Politics, Business, Music, or anything else that pops into this 40ish brain. Running a business is stressful, with hundreds of lives depending on your decisions - I trust running a blog will be a little less taxing.

Let's see where this goes.





Cheers!







M