A Speeding Ticket - A Wedding - A Week Off - A Wasted Flight

A fair bit has happened so I want to jot this down before I fall any further behind.

So, my plan worked...mostly. I drove down to St. John's Thursday and spent the night at a B&B in St. John's. I was able to pick up my wedding gift although I did no other shopping since I wasn't sure I was going to have enough space after buying the winter tires.

Well, on Friday morning I showed up at the dealership just before 8 am and, as promised, they whisked my car in for another maintenance check. Once again they chastised me for not bringing the car in on schedule. I know I'm risking my warranty by not following the schedule but it seems like Canadians are being lumped into the "Extreme Conditions" schedule where you're supposed to bring your car in every 5000 km or every 3 months (whichever is sooner). Unfortunately, due to the remoteness of where I live, every 5000 km is going to be difficult but every 3 months is reasonable. It's just not going to be feasible for me to come in that frequently. On the other hand, I'm not obligated to get my car serviced in St. John's so I suppose I can get the oil changed here in town. Hopefully, the dealership in St. John's will treat me leniently seeing how I've been patronizing them for past 4 months.

So, just after 9 am they gave the car back along with 4 new Nokian Hakka 5 studded tires. I didn't check them out until well after I've returned to St. Anthony (about 10 days) and to my disappointment I saw that they were the plain boring black steel rims. The dealership told me they had a "sale" where you could get 4 rims for the price of 3 (at $75 ea.). I asked if they were authentic Suzuki Rims and he replied that they were. Now, in hindsight, I should have clarified if they were the aluminum rims with the Suzuki logo on them (which was what I was expecting). Since I could get black steel generic rims from Canadian tire at $45 each this was not a good deal! (Sigh).

I hit the highway and I had 6 hours to travel 600 km to catch a flight. Since I wanted to arrive at the airport with at least a 30 minute buffer before the flight leaves I decided to speed. It was a calculated risk but I tried driving between 115 and 120 km/h (the limit on the Trans Canada was 100). Although there were a few other cars driving as fast as I was, I also passed my fair share of cars. And then it happened....

For those who haven't driven on the Trans Canada, it is usually a 2 lane highway with no center median and there are 3 lane sections to enable passing. I was headed downhill in a single lane and I had the option to pass by using the center lane which had opposing traffic. There was a tractor trailer in front of me which was going at a good clip (~110). I just did what I always did when passing on a 2 lane highway -- I floored it. Well, when I completed the pass, I saw the red and yellow lights start flashing on a car going the opposite way. My stomach sank as I realized what was going to happen next...

Fifteen minutes later I was in possession of a yellow slip proclaiming my traffic violation. I was caught going 136 but the cop saw I was trying to pass a truck and he was nice and decided to knock it down to 130. Let me just say the Newfoundland traffic tickets are extremely uninformative -- there was no indication of what the fine was or how many demerit points I've incurred. I had to find that out later by calling a phone number ($230 and 3 demerits, respectively -- OUCH!). While I do feel a little guilty for speeding in general I'm actually somewhat unrepentant for passing at high speed -- passing at the speed limit is a contradiction in terms!

Well, I made it to Deer Lake with 45 minutes to spare and then I was on a flight to Halifax. On arrival, I caught up with some friends from med school and then crashed for the night. Unfortunately, my internal clock still had not adjusted from Daylight Savings Time the week before and being on Newfoundland time didn't help matters much either. We wandered around the Farmer's Market in downtown Halifax (held at the Alexander Keith's Brewery) the morning of the wedding and then returned to the hotel where the groom, the parents, and the photographers started off with the preliminaries. Next it was on to the church for a simple, efficient yet elegant ceremony. The reception was held at a ranch later that evening. It was a great time with good food. In fact, we were all amazed that seconds were offered (never saw that at wedding before). The bride and groom had to return to the rat race the following day while we hung out for 2 more days in Halifax with a short trip to Peggy's Cove.

Next it was off to Ottawa to visit another friend from med school. I haven't visited her for a few years so a trip was overdue. Having been to Ottawa before there wasn't much in particular I wanted to do but I was able to spend an afternoon at the War Museum which is one of the newer ones. I actually ran out of time as I found myself reading most of the displays. The rest of my time was spent chilling out and playing two viciously competitive games of Settlers of Catan.

Lastly, it was back to Toronto to catch up with the family. My relationship with my Dad is still somewhat strained. Somebody famous once said you should try to disagree without being disagreeable and, unfortunately, it ain't happenin'. Prolonged disagreements inevitably escalate and become somewhat heated with my Dad standing on one side not understanding why his kids can't just accept what he's saying and myself (or one of my siblings) feeling he's trying just a little too hard to impose his will on things. We were arguing over how to manage our savings especially in light of the current economic turmoil. For those who don't know, my Dad is essentially into real estate and into rental apartment buildings in particular. He has near total faith in the real estate market and he is totally confident in using it as a tool to generate wealth. He proposed that we all contribute and help him invest in apartment buildings and gradually work our way up to multiple buildings. This is essentially how he and his brothers started out when they arrived in Canada. I pointed out to Dad that this is quite a large undertaking and requires large amounts of capital to which he replied it was OK since he could go it alone without us contributing much. I was receptive up until this point but then he demanded that we stop making other investments, like RRSPs, because he wanted us to fully commit to his master plan, all or nothing. I won't repeat the litany of objections I had to this here (you guys can probably guess most of them) but I can slowly feel my "inner teen" rearing its ugly head against the "Dad knows best" attitude. The other interesting point in this discussion was that my Dad was hoping that by having a family owned business this would be a way of uniting the family so that we would not scatter to the 4 winds. This is clearly a deeply engrained fear of my father's and he clings tightly to the ideal that all family members must live within close proximity to each other. I initially attributed this to a cultural belief since in China (especially rural China) extended families typically lived under the same roof. While in Halifax a friend of mine astutely pointed out that this is actually a generational belief as well and my Dad simply hasn't accepted that times have changed. Indeed, I think if you were to go to China you'd probably find there has been more migration than in the past -- it is fairly common to see rural migrant workers leaving for the big cities looking for work.

To make matters worse my Dad also raised the issue of an arranged marriage again. He casually mentioned that he was thinking of going back to China in February and he wouldn't be expecting the entire family to come. Okay, so far so good. He wanted me to come along and asked how much time I could spare and I casually said maybe 10 days, maybe a week. He chuckled and said "A week? I can't show you that many women with that little time...."

To quote Queen Victoria: "We are not amused".

I am still reluctant to refuse my Dad outright but to (not so) subtly signal my displeasure I am thinking of limiting the trip to 7 days only and also insisting that my Dad pay for the airfare. If I am going to China "on business" (and not pleasure) then it's only fair that "the boss" pays for it!

I know, I know, I should try to act my age and sit down with my Dad and discuss this like adults. My challenge is to do it in a fashion so that I don't increase his stress levels and I don't leave him despondent over the impending doom of the Lee bloodline. (No worries, my brother can take care of that!)

Not only did I get my first speeding ticket this week but I also had my first wasted flight. I foolishly thought that only St. John's and Newfoundland in general had unreliable airports due to the weather. After this experience I can now wisely amend that to include Halifax and the rest of Atlantic Canada. I got on the plane in Toronto and 2 hours later we started to land in Halifax. I looked outside and what I initially thought was thick cloud actually turned out to be fog as thick as the proverbial pea soup. The descent was relatively calm and I kept staring out the window wondering when I was going to see land. Then the engines suddenly revved up and the plane started ascending. "Uh oh", I thought, the pilot just aborted the landing! After 10 minutes without turning I instinctively knew what was happening. The pilot went on the intercom and announced that due to the weather conditions we couldn't land in Halifax and we were being diverted to Montreal. Apparently, visibility was zero and there were sustained winds of 100 km/h at Halifax Airport. The ILS (instrumented landing system), an electronic guidance system which helps pilots land, was non-functional on the optimal runway so the pilot had an impossible choice: he could either have a guided landing with 100 km/h crosswinds or land into thick fog with no ILS. He made one attempt at an unguided landing and aborted.

So we turned around and head to Montreal. An hour and a half later my spidey sense started tingling and I thought, "why aren't we descending?". Sure enough, the pilot came on again and announced that 15 flights into Halifax were diverted and Montreal was now full! "Fortunately", we had enough fuel to make it to Toronto and we were being diverted there. A big groan echoed throughout the cabin while a number of us (yours truly included) laughed at the cruel misfortune which had befallen us. And so, I spent 4 hours on a plane only to return to Toronto.

Actually, it was fortunate that I returned to Toronto -- it is usually advantageous to get stuck at a hub airport as you'll likely have more options. It just so happened that there was a direct flight to Deer Lake leaving later that evening. Great! I can bypass Halifax. But the weather gods weren't going to cooperate. As we were boarding the plane they announced that the weather in Halifax had settled down...and was moving towards Newfoundland. The arrival of the bad weather was going to coincide with our arrival! Unfortunately, Deer Lake is a single runway airport which does not give the pilot many options when it comes to high winds. They made no promises and warned that we may be diverted to Halifax.

We all groaned again and got on the plane. As we descended the pilot again made no promises but he thought our chances were "better than average". The descent into Deer Lake was actually bumpier than the last time. This is only the 3rd time in my life I saw a commercial jet get tossed around by the wind. I think the lady behind me said it best when a particularly strong gust of tailwind caused the plane to suddenly drop: "Oh shhhhiiiiiii.......". A few moments before landing there was a strange lull and then the runway suddenly appeared and pilot successfully landed the plane. Just like my last flight, the cabin broke out in applause because A) we were still alive and B) we weren't going to Halifax.

Day 1: Toronto to Montreal -- Miscommunication

Uhh Houston, we're returning to the launchpad, the Captain forgot his lucky penny.

Whew, finally made it Montreal. I'm currently staying at the Jesuit Residence at Concordia University. (Why Concordia? Because McGill was McFull!).

Well, I had a bit of trouble getting under way -- I forgot my digital camera when I left the house! My parents frantically tried to contact me via my brother who texted me via cell phone. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough room to finish the message: "Mom and dad are planning on chasing after you". He did leave a voice mail but I didn't check it because: a) it's dangerous to drive stick and use the cell phone at the same time and b) I was too cheap to pull over and check my messages with the cell ($0.30/min).

So, I turned around, drove back, and arrived to find - an empty house. I called my parents on their cell and they were almost past Whitby before they turned around. I told them to come right back because they were in an unfamiliar area and I thought it'd be a bad idea to try to find each other with cell phones. By the time I got going again I had wasted a full hour.

The GPS worked pretty well. MS Streets and Trips 2008 has one fatal flaw, however: the speech system cannot pronounce street names! So, it can only say things like "keep right in 500 m" or "turn left in 1 km". Fortunately, on my laptop in full screen mode the next direction is displayed in very large font that's easy to read. Yes, yes, I know I'm being a bad boy and it's dangerous being distracted in the cockpit. I'm only casting quick glances at the laptop while it's in the passenger seat and I expect traffic to get less busy in the maritimes.

Driving away from Toronto was unexpectedly difficult emotionally. Over the past few days,
Dad was quite concerned about two things: a) the fact I'm still a bachelor and b) whether I'd be happy up in St. Anthony. His solution for a) was to get a bride for me from China and he has been trying to broach the subject with me. I actually think the idea has a low chance of success (a topic for another day) but my Dad has trouble taking "no" for an answer and was quite persistent. As a result, I clam up and say nothing because I don't want to argue with my dad and I wanted to signal my displeasure with the whole topic. In the end, I grudgingly agreed to let him try because I know that a flat-out refusal would upset him even more.

Now, my Dad would always bring up a) before discussing b). Since I considered a) to be the equivalent of going to the dentist for a root canal, I was not in a very talkative mood and I just wanted my Dad's lecturing to be over with. In the end, my Dad never got a satisfactory response from me regarding what I felt about going to St. Anthony despite asking me several times. Although I'd like to think that I'd be happy up there, I really can't say for sure at this point.

So, it was in this context that I pulled out of the driveway and started on my trip. My Dad saw me off and while he was waving I saw his face -- he was very sad. In fact, I could have sworn he was wiping away a tear. That floored me and for the first 2-3 hours of the trip I was quite unsettled. All the doubts I had about this career decision resurfaced and it mixed with the guilt I was feeling about leaving this unresolved.

Dammit, why do sons have so much trouble talking to their fathers?