Fast and furious

Really groggy at the moment. No, it wasn't a mad Friday night romp. Nor was it some highly charged experiment requiring attention in the early hours of dawn. Instead, it was the fire alarm. A truly loud and stirring one. Unable to hear myself talk on the phone any longer, I attempted to figure out what the alien noise was shortly after midnight. At first, I thought it was the tube. Then perhaps the one next door. Maybe a clipped speaker wire downstairs giving some sort of weird feedback. But when I realized it was coming from all sides, I knew it was none of these. Opening the front door to the light scent of something burning didn't soothe my nerves either.

Throughout the last 8 years, I've been through a surprising number of fires - and survived. The stupid side to it is that I was responsible for none of them. Which means that on almost a dozen occasions, I could have succumbed to someone else's dim witted error. Like the guy who left his oven on while going out shopping, or the cannister of isobutane that took a floor out of the hospital. Last night, someone fell asleep while baking a cake at midnight. Midnight? Part of me says he should have went down with the smoke. Carbon monoxide poisoning from overdone Betty Crocker. I only found this out being the responsible hero I am at times of emergency. As I knocked frantically on doors to alert mothers to take their children outside to the blizzard, I came across a door in a corner that looked suspiciously smokey. In hind sight, I should have just walked away. But I knocked, and when I realized the door was unlocked, opened it. Sure enough, smoke came out, indicating I'd hit the flaming jackpot. Also coming out was a guy who had obviously been out of it for a while. Lack of pants said nothing but (if not nothing at all). Fuming that I had to cut two conversations and lose my train of thought because of him, I decided to let everyone in the building know of the mishap. That the kids didn't need to be outside in the cold anymore, and that this man was unimpressive uncovered. Hopefully, that will teach him a lesson...

The guy who blew this lab up actually went back in despite fireball and all to rescue his laptop containing all his data. Talk about dedication.

Picking wising

Like many other things in life, it's best to pick your mate wisely. That I seem to have done so. And history will one day verify to that.

Same goes for the fights. While some will be appear at your doorstep without beckoning, others you will have the luxury of choosing. Twelve years ago, almost to the day, an intriguing little number landed in my mailbox. Now that I'm recalling more details, it was actually forwarded - meaning that someone else had simply deferred their fight to me. I don't remember how many, if any, punches I threw. But like the times of my youth, they would have been lively (these days, I opt for gnarly, guerilla tactics - I'll be fighting, but you won't see it). With an additional decade of wisdom now soundly behind me, I am reminded that I was right and that the antagonist was only slightly above brainless. But time has also taught me not to reignite old battles, especially those that serve principle alone for if people didn't listen then, they won't listen now. But to the Montreal chapter of the NSBE (the irony!), I hope your intellect and sensibilities eventually reached beyond what you demonstrated back in 1995...