I was just handed a coaster for my cups. Doesn’t sound exciting, right? But this coaster is special. I made it. Well, I made the 3D template the 3D printer used to make it.

It’s a single face of the design we call Rubik, a 3D cube I created in Photoshop to advertise our New York medical software division. Rubik has popped up in print, excelled on e-mail campaigns, vroomed animatedly on video and stood proud on 10′ by 10′ stands at trade shows.

I have flipped open her lid so I could put things inside her, including a jack-in-the-box. We put lights inside her like a pumpkin and I even took out a wall so I could park a car inside her. As you can see, she is very versatile. She is the face of our Google Plus page.

And now, she’s sitting on my desk holding my cup. I think that’s pretty durn cool.

Well, at the ripe old age of 51 I am reluctantly forced to face the inevitable. My eyesight is not what it used to be.
At the age of twelve I could see power lines on the horizon. At the age of twenty one I could see the threads on shirts from across the room. By thirty I needed to be at arms length to do that.
By the time I was forty I had bigger concerns and ignored the steady decline that the years impose on us all.
To the present day. I type this at the bar. I cannot clearly see the keyboard I am typing on. I wish I could blame the beer. But I can’t.
I can still read a license plate from a hundred feet but the truth I don’t want to face is that I sometimes have trouble reading my phone. I have reading spectacles I picked up from the local drug store. I don’t want to wear them, and I kid myself I don’t really need them. But I do.
Perhaps this is natures way of hiding the wrinkles from me when I look in the mirror.
Bugger.

On Saturday March 8th, 2014, at 3:30 pm or thereabouts, at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel in London, Ontario, my nephew Nicholas James Green married Elysia Margaret Chopra.

The edible Nikki and I were in attendance, of course, and both enjoyed the festivities immensely. From the pre-wedding drinkies at the hotel bar to the farewells and closing ceremonies, coincidentally also at the hotel bar, the event went without any noticeable hitches, so I am glad to say that I lost that bet with myself, and I owe me $10. No punches, no fights, no hair pulling or hurling of drinks. No inappropriate pairings of tipsy guests. No exuberant dancing on tables leading to accidental injury. No singing of songs to make your grandmother blush. Actually, from that perspective it was quite boring, as weddings in our family go. Which is to say that in every other perspective it went exactly as it should have.

The ceremony was flawless. Bride and groom both glowed, particularly the groom, oddly enough. The usual components were in place: Top table, speeches, first dance, food and drink aplenty. It was a very nice day. Nikki and I wish to thank the parents of the bride, Pawam and Elaine Chopra, for their invitations and their hospitality. It was a pleasure to meet them both, as we welcomed their daughter into our family.

The photographer had a moment of panic when the camera in use announced it was full, just as the Father – Daughter dance started. The extra memory card they brought was not in their pocket, but back in the hotel room. As the nearest sober guest with a decent camera I was dragged up to take emergency photos and I was happy to oblige. I did get some rather fine shots on the day, including the one you see here.

Due to a hitch with the actual wedding ring it was not ready in time, so for the ceremony a different ring was used. During the reception the real ring arrived. This photo is the moment when the real ring was finally placed onto the finger of the bride by her groom, on the right hand in Indian style.

The cash bar at the ceremony didn’t have draft beer, so Nikki and I spent half the day running downstairs to the main bar, where they did have draft beer. If any other guests noticed our absences, we were unaware. It was commented at one point that we had been gone for over an hour. We did not notice the time passing as we took the party with us and everybody was deep in conversation. Certainly the bride and groom were too busy socializing to notice, though the way they looked at each other you would think they were the only two in the room.

It only now occurs to me that during those downstairs absences we may have missed some of those traditional wedding calamities listed above.  Bum.

Without further ado, on to the main point of this blog post: Here’s to Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Green.

Congratulations!

Stopped by the mall to check out the Apple store, which unsurprisingly held no surprises in terms of product or prices.
So here I am, tapping away while sitting in the London Arms, nursing a pint of Boddingtons after a highly forgettable day at work.
I find myself thinking, this is just no fun without my Nikki. She’s working for at least another two hours, so I guess I’m going to finish the one beer and head on home.
What shall I do when I get there? Work on some photos or watch YouTube? Decisions, decisions.

Some of you out there in the Interworld ether will recall a time when GYST 4 FUN was the place to be in Port Colborne. G4F was my Internet cafe and LAN centre.

With 25 networked computers running the best multi-player games of the day, GYST 4 FUN was a safe, secure place to hang out, relax, and beat up on some pixels mano a mano against your friends. While waiting for your turn you could shoot some pool or just listen to some music and relax. Some girls grew into great pool sharks just waiting for their guys to leave.

It was a level playing field, everyone used matching equipment. That was the rule. So only the quick and the fast survived the deathmatches. Many grudges were settled and many kings both crowned and decapitated. From Unreal Tournament to Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Half-Life Deathmatch, much fun was had, with yelling and laughing and the occasional temper tantrum. Alex Zimmer, though you were clearly a much better player, I still vividly recall the satisfaction I took from sneaking up behind you and beating you around the head with a toilet bowl I ripped off the wall. You taught me a new word that day. Ah, happy, cathartic days.

At that time, I had the biggest following in Niagara, and the web site was a thriving community of members arranging to meet up and play. On that site, I ran a blog. As a good little techie, I still have those posts in a database. I am thinking of digging through that database and reposting some of the more interesting entries, soon, just for fun. I should say, Gyst 4 Fun.

Let me know if you like the idea.

Nikki and I were mudlarking down on the beach (Beach? Ha!) at Hopewell Rocks in Fundy Bay this morning. Shoes and socks removed, I hobbled to the shore in a romantic attempt to enter the Atlantic in a symbolic act of crossing the ocean. 10 minutes and much good-humoured cursing later, I entered the water, ankle deep in mud which concealed broken bricks, sharp snail shells and who knows what other dangers for the unshod hoof of an English Idiot. Thing is, I bought beach shoes before setting off. I just did not want their first use to be wading through mud. Oh how we laughed when, in a symbolic act of self-preservation, I slid my squelching mud-covered feet into them and pranced gaily back off up the so-called beach.

Anyway, that isn’t the story I want to share. This is.

After setting up the tripod and camera to take the shots I wanted of Nikki and I, I was approached by an elderly gentleman who asked if I would be kind enough to take a photo of him with his camera. Of course! While preparing for this we got talking and he asked me where I came from. Of course, Yorkshire in England. He smiled and told me he had visited Yorkshire during his honeymoon many years ago. He was from California and was on a road trip, as were we. His wife, he said, had a bad knee which prevented her from getting down the several flights of steps onto the beach. She was at the top of the cliff, but she had insisted he go down there get a photo of himself, as a souvenir.

He spoke of his time in Yorkshire, and the inspiration which drove him there: James Herriot. Mr. Herriot was a fictional vet, based on a series of books written by a real vet, based in the Yorkshire Dales. I was introduced to this series many years ago by my mother and knew everywhere he talked about, all the locations being virtually in my back yard as a local. He wished Nikki and I many happy years together, thanked me for the photo, and wondered off.

What are the odds of a Yorkshireman meeting a Californian with a shared interest in relatively obscure reading material, linked by honeymoon vacations, on a secluded beach in New Brunswick, of all places? I know that I would not have taken a bet on it. He put a smile on my face, and I put one on his. Bill Duffy, it was a pleasure meeting you. Truly a story spanning decades and continents. I find that interesting. Don’t you?

Fun at Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick. Honeymoon trip, 2013