Enter Laughing, Neil Crone

New digital digs...

Hi folks and apologies for not being here much lately.  I've actually been blogging on a new site and through a few minor tech mishaps, had thought you were all being redirected my way.  But apparently not so!  Chalk one more up to miscommunication.  We can put a man on the moon but...

Again, apologies for leaving you hanging.  I appreciate your patience.  Please bookmark and come and visit me at the new Enter Laughing Blog Site .  Snazzier and now with five essential vitamins!

Look forward to carrying on our conversations there....And thanks for dropping by.

It makes my head spin...

Another major dose of perspective today.  This morning as I was driving into my job as an actor on a family television comedy...I heard the news that the Taliban had launched a major offensive against the US embassy and surrounding buildings in Kabul.  My brother, Tim, is in one of those surrounding buildings.  Thankfully when I got home, Tim skyped me to let me know he was still here and fine.  It had been a remarkably harrowing day for him and I could see he was exhausted.  Trapped in an armoured vehicle well outside the safety of the main base when the attack began, he and his fellow police officers had had to seek safety, hunkered down in the darkening streets of Kabul until it was quiet enough to attempt a dangerous and circuitous drive back to headquarters. 

I listened in disbelief as he told of the ground shaking as car bomb after car bomb was detonated and rocket propelled grenades whooshed through the air.  Of adrenaline charged tension as suddenly every stranger who came near them seemed like a would-be assassin.  I've no idea what that must feel like.  I spent the day making faces and doing pratfalls.  The incongruity of our two worlds makes my head spin.  

 

Another hidden gem...

Put the kayak in Lake Ontario this afternoon down at the foot of Simcoe Street in Oshawa.  What a beautiful spot.  Would've sworn you were in the Caribbean...huge swath of smooth sand beach, and fantastic surf pounding in.  Water was lovely and warm too. I may have been up to my ears in e coli and radiation but who the hell knows.  All I know is it was really fun.  But you sure couldn't nap at all.  Take your mind off of what you were doing for a second and a wave would dump you in a heartbeat.  Amazingly empty down there too.  Maybe everyone felt summer was over so what's the point.  But it was hot and perfect.  Can't believe I've not been down there before.  Another not so hidden gem I've been overlooking. Free parking  directly adjacent to the beach.  Fantastic.  I'll definitely be back before the real cold weather sets in. 

Day of the Dickweed...

Rough day today.  Just bumped into some seriously nasty vibes on a set.  Had to dig fairly deep to fight the evil villain with love.  Man, some people are just walking, talking pain-makers.  Plucked from the breast too early or something, I guess. What makes someone so intensely insecure that they compensate by making everybody else's lives difficult?  And how in Gods name do these people rise to levels of power and authority.  It would be so nice if there were some legislative/spiritual body that people had to present themselves to before rising up the ladder.  

"No, I 'm afraid you cannot have this job that will involve dealing with many people each day."

"Why not?"

"Well, not to put too fine a point on it...you're a dick."

Just some checks and balances in place.  And I guess we already have them. The Universe does have it's own set of scales...we all reap what we sow, ultimately.  And I suppose I really ought to be thankful.  Bumping into a guy like this and a day like this makes all the rest of my life and the wonderful people in it, just that much sweeter. I've haven't been so happy to get home in a long while. So, thanks...dickweed.

"I wanna go again!"

So, back to school tomorrow.  I'm not sure what I'm more gobsmacked by, the speed with which that summer flew by or the fact that my youngest son is entering his fourth and final year of highschool already.  How did that happen?  Lord it's intimidating how the world catches up to you.  I have ex-students from my highschool teaching days who are now married and raising children of their own.  It's terrifying how fast this life flies past.  It truly is the twinkling of an eye.  An author I once read, described this life as a rollercoaster ride.  We get on, we have the time of our life, literally, and then we get off. We arrive at the other side, gasping and laughing and screaming, "I want to go again!" And it all happens in a second.  Truer words were never spoken, brother.

Meeting the neighbors...

Not a great way for the dogs and I to start our walk this morning.  We had gone about a block away from the house, about to go into the greenspace we always head to for a good run, when I noticed something untoward.  I saw two little old ladies emerge from the house across the road with something very large on the end of a leash.  I think they were intending to take their pet behemoth for a car ride as one of them opened the door to the vehicle parked in the drive.  Unfortunately, just as they were intending for 'Snookums' or 'Dragonslayer' to jump into the backseat, he or she noticed me and my two targets and locked on.  This thing immediately charged in our direction.  It was one of those moments that was both terribly frightening and darkly hilarious at the same time.  A bulging eyed dog the size of a Garbage truck dashing across a busy street, dragging a panicked, screaming senior with it.  The lady didn't have a hope of controlling this thing.  She may as well have had a Brahma Bull on the end of the leash.  

Anyway, this thing comes crashing into me and my two and all of a sudden I'm in the middle of a snarl of hair, teeth and little old lady.  I'm trying, somewhat successfully, to keep my dogs near or behind me but it's not making much of a difference as the four-legged Kraken is tossing around it's by now, defibrillating owner, like a rag doll.

Finally the other lady arrived and the two of them, gasping and shrieking, managed to drag the beast off to it's lair with promises of fresh cuts of flesh and all the small children it could eat.  I and my dogs were left panting and exasperated.  I can only imagine the other parties were close to stroking out.

The weird thing was that not once did either of them look at me or apologize or even speak to me.  Throughout the whole ordeal I was asking them if they were okay.  I even tried speaking gently to their hound of hell, in a pathetic effort to calm it.  But nothing ever came back my way.  I suspect they were in a state of mild shock with a dash of embarrassment and chagrin thrown in.  No one likes to be a party to manslaughter after all.

 

 

 

Underwater Education...

I had an interesting experience on a wreck dive last night.  Eight of us took a boat ride about 2 miles out into Lake Ontario from Port Hope.  Sunk thereabouts, in 1912, is the wreck of the Schooner J. P. Locke. I was looking forward to this dive. I've never dived in Lake Ontario, it was a wreck I'd never heard of before and I was happy to get back into the sport.  The day before, I and a buddy had done a fast water dive at Burleigh falls.  So this would be my second dive back after quite a few years out of the water.

Things did not start well for me.  Lake Ontario is big, of course, and we were in a fairly good swell on the way out there.  Nothing enormous, but big enough waves to make moving around on the boat and getting safely maneuvered into a position to roll off the gunnel into the water, while wearing a tank, wet suit, mask, fins and a buoyancy vest with almost twenty pounds of lead stuffed in the pockets...a little  less than graceful.

I made my exit off the boat okay, but on the way over, the calf of my right leg struck a railing and...something I didn't discover until getting back into the boat later...pulled my knife out of it's scabbard and sent it quickly into 80 feet of murky water.  Great.

The really weird thing though happened during my descent.  My buddy Mike and I signaled to each other that all was well and we were good to begin slowly sinking down to the wreck...which lay at about 75 feet just below us.  We let the air out of our vests and let the weight we were wearing slowly take us down.  At about 40 feet or so though, I began to get the willies.  I'm not really sure why...maybe the lack of visibility and poor light, maybe the very cold water...but I began to feel the start of panic.  I've never felt this way while diving.  I've done many dives and had lots of weird things happen to me, even ran out of air once, but never felt this sudden inability to get enough air into my lungs and a nagging urge to maybe just quickly swim back up to the surface for the rest of the evening.  It's frightening.  Especially when you've got fifty feet of water above you.  You very quickly realize how fast things can go south on you if you give in to the fright.

Luckily I do have some training and it kicked in.  I signaled to Mike that all was not well with me and that I needed to just slow things down a bit until I'd gotten things under control.  He was great and hung in there with me.  It's amazing how even a little eye contact at moments like that can make a huge difference.   In a few moments the bottom appeared and for some reason just having my feet on the ground seemed to clear my head.  My breathing settled down to a slow, deep relaxed rythmn and I was good.  We turned our lights on and began to enjoy the dive.  The wreck was big and beautiful and mysterious.   

Then, I noticed that air bubbles were streaming out of the hose connection at my Buuyancy vest.  Another Great.  I fiddled with it, Mike checked it out but neither of us really knew what to do about it.  Luckily our Dive Master, Steve, was not far off and he spotted my dilemma.  He calmly set about disconnecting then reconnecting the hose.  Bubbling stopped, problem neatly handled.  The bummer was that I was now, as a result of the leak and my previous hyperventilation, well below a half tank of air and would have to cut my, and of necessity and safety, my buddies dives short.  Not such a bad thing as it turns out, as Mike was cold and my hands (improperly gloved with uninsulated gloves) were pretty chilly.  At 500 lbs of air left in my tank we began our ascent to the surface, stopping at about 15 feet for a three minute safety check.

I got back onto the boat, safe and sound and all the wiser for having come through some spooky stuff.  I am a better diver because of it and because I saw, first hand, the importance of training, calm, a good dive buddy and a fantastic Dive Master.  My next dive will be that much more enjoyable as a result.  And I learned a good deal about myself too...I am human and I have my limits...and those must be respected and listened to.  Another one of the reasons I love to dive...it's a great education...

I did not know that...

Here's a little something that may have flown by your radar.  Or perhaps you, and quite possibly the rest of the planet, were entirely aware of it and I am just an ignorant Luddite...but did you know that excavation has revealed that the famous giant carved heads on Easter Island are, in fact, enormous statues??  My son brought this to my attention at dinner tonight and quite frankly I was gobsmacked.  I didn't believe him...until he showed me the links on the Internet.  Unbelievable.  As if these things weren't inexplicable enough as it was. And these statues are big.  Really big.  Rita Macneil big.  The whole thing boggles the mind. It's also a little shaming. Using only the most primitive of tools  these Islanders could create works of art the size of office buildings and yet I can't mitre a joint to save my life.  I hate the internet.

Hulk Hogan or Wilfred Brimley

Sometimes not all the stuff human beings leave behind is crap.  We discovered this carving on the trunk of a red pine near the shore.  From a distance we simply thought some beavers had been busy, but when we paddled closer we were blown away.  I guess those beavers have been taking some art lessons.  Rob and I couldn't figure out who it was a likeness of;  it's either Hulk Hogan or Wilfred Brimley. Maybe even Jack Palance?  Still, pretty cool huh?

Great day on the river...

Great day of paddling on Eel's Creek today.  My buddy Rob and I put the Kayaks in just above Stoney lake and paddled upstream for the better part of the day then, when we were just about out of steam, turned around and headed back down river with a much appreciated boost from the current.  It's been a couple of years at least since I've paddled Eels Creek.  I'd forgotten how pretty it is.  The river itself is beautiful with a sometimes gentle, sometimes intense flow to it.  And, if you can get past the garbage some boneheads leave at their campsites, the shoreline is pristine crown land.  I had a major deja vus moment as Rob and I were getting out of our boats to portage around the rapids in this photo.  A young man and a woman and their two small boys came portaging in the other direction.  As they loaded up their canoe with all manner of camp gear and prepared to set off downstream, I was vividly and fondly reminded of canoe tripping here with my own little boys not so long ago.  At least it felt that way.  Rob kind of summed up what I was thinking when, looking at the family setting off, he said that when he see's people like that it makes him feel like the world is going to be okay after all.  I tend to agree.  Canoe tripping with your kids, just getting out into the wilderness with them for some quiet reflective time, is a fantastic way to ground them and give their young minds a rest from the pandemonium of their daily lives.  I've seen it happen to my own kids.  When you first get in the boats they're still bouncing, babbling little energizer bunnies, but as the kilometers pass, and they paddle or just sit and watch the world slide by...it's like their heart beats slow down.  They become calm and focused. It's pretty magical.  Like I said, a great day on the river.