January 2007 Archives

Cassandra and April were sitting on a bench beside the dining tent smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee when Tony and I drove back into camp. I felt a sudden lethargy when I stopped the truck. I couldn't bring myself to get out so I just rolled down the window.

"We're back," I announced. "Are Brendan or Joe around?"

April shook her head. "They're out on the blocks. They left a bit after you did. Did you forget something?"

Tony popped his head out of his window. "The bridge is gone! Absolutely destroyed. Poof! Presto-chango! No bridge."

Tony's excitement made the truck seem suddenly confined. I left him to describe things to Cassie and April and headed for the radio in the dining tent. Everyone inside stared at me as I entered. The rumour mill had been working overtime that morning.

Brendan was the first to answer when I asked them both to get back to me. "What's up?" he asked.

"The bridge is out. We're cut off."

There was nothing but silence for about 30 seconds. Then Brendan clicked his mike and said "Well... shitsicles on toast." Another pause. "Right, well, I'll head back into camp. Keep trying to raise Joe. Maybe we can fix it."

I doubted we could do anything about the bridge. There was no bridge left to fix. "I'll keep trying Joe," I replied. "See you soon."

I got a hold of Joe a few minutes later. Both he and Brendan met up at the remains of the bridge. After a few minutes staring into the river, they drove back to camp together.

Brendan phoned his contact at the Ministry of Forests while Joe and I had a look at the maps. The maps didn't give us much cause for hope. It looked like there was another bridge but it was so far upriver that it didn't help us. Even if we did get across the river, there was nothing connecting us to the main road system. We'd still be stranded. We'd just be stranded on the other side of the river. We were stuck on a road to nowhere.

After Brendan phoned the ministry, he called Virginia at the office back in Edmonton.

"Sweet buttery waffles!" she said when she heard about the bridge. "Is everyone all right?"

"Well, a few folks are a bit hungover, but aside from that everyone's good."

"How are you doing for food and fuel?"

"As far as food and propane goes, we're good for about a week. Gas... Depends on how much driving we do."

"Well, sounds like that shouldn't be too much of a problem," cackled Virginia. "And, most important, how are you doing for trees? Are you going to be able to keep working?"

"We've probably got two days worth of trees left and there's a reefer due tomorrow which should give us another five, give or take."

"So, basically, as long as you can get the trees across the river tomorrow, you're good for a week."

"Well, yeah, I guess so."

"What about Kent? Which side of the river is he on? Did he make it out?"

"Nope, He's the one who told us about the bridge."

"Ha! That poor bastard! I bet he's pissed. Oh well. Adversity builds character. Tell him I said that."

>> Farts Like Gold: 52

I have been punished by a vengeful God for not making any resolutions on New Year's Eve.

Said deity gave me a good 54 hours before unleashing its wrath. Or maybe it was just waiting for the first decent opportunity to cause me injury. In any event, 10 minutes after getting on my bike for the first time this year, I came off of it again. Unfortunately, I did this with a minimum of grace and a generous amount of brute force.

I was riding along Canonbury Place when I spied a small green car stopped on a side street. I like to think of myself as a wily old cyclist. I'm fully aware that even if a fellow traveller has a human-shaped skull, it does not mean they have an actual functioning human brain inside of it. Accordingly, when I spied this car, I scooted back a bit on my seat, adjusted my hands on the brake levers, and moved slightly further out into the road to make myself more visible. The driver looked right at me. I made eye contact with her and then I did a foolish thing. I relaxed. It was plain that she had seen me, so I let my weight shift forward and I started pedalling again. The driver also did a very foolish thing and pulled out right in front of me.

I immediately hit the brakes. My front wheel gripped the ground admirably.

I am a weighty fellow, though, and this means I carry a fair amount of inertia with me when moving. This inertia caused the bike (and me) to rotate around the front wheel and slam into the ground. The rotation converted the vector of my inertia downward rather than forward. This prevented me from sliding into the car. However, it also meant that there was an awful lot of force directed at the paved street. Paved streets are unyielding things. One of the problems is that they are usually placed on the surface of a planet, and planets are big. In any war of inertia between a planet and one lone man and a bicycle, the planet is bound to be the favourite.

In retrospect, if I had been wearing one of those big padded fake sumo-wrestler suits, everything would have been fine. Instead, I opted to absorb the force of my epic battle with planet earth with my skeletal system, thus cracking one of my ribs.

I've been thinking about it for the last couple of days and I've decided I don't like having broken ribs. Thus from now on I resolve to make my new year's resolutions promptly. The first of these is to break no more ribs, perhaps by donning an enormous foam rubber suit if it looks like I am going to smack into a planet again. Admittedly, this may prove difficult under the circumstances, but resolutions aren't meant to be easy. Many people find it impossible to quit smoking, yet they resolve to do just that every year. So for my impossible resolution, I hereby resolve that the next time anyone with the brain of a ferret pulls out in front of me, I will attempt to find, rent, and put on a large sumo-wrestler costume before hitting the ground.