Old Man

Value this time in your life kids, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices, and it goes by so quickly.

When you're a teenager you think you can do anything, and you do.

Your twenties are a blur.

Your thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?"

Your forties, you grow a little pot belly, you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother.

Your fifties you have a minor surgery. You'll call it a procedure, but it's a surgery.

Your sixties, you have a major surgery, the music is still too loud, but it doesn't matter because you can't hear it anyway.

Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale, you start eating dinner at two, lunch around ten, breakfast the night before. And you spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate soft yogurt and muttering "how come the kids don't call?"

By your eighties, you've had a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse, who your wife can't stand, but who you call mama. Any questions?

- Billy Crystal as Mitch Robbins in City Slickers

Nobody likes getting old, except me.

Over the years, I have enjoyed many of the things that are typically associated with getting older. You don't believe me? Let me throw a few facts your way:

• I like Werther's Original
• I own a pair of 'indoor shoes'
• On several occassions, including while on vacation, I have taken naps in the afternoon
• I don't like to be in the sun too long
• I have trouble falling asleep
• I eat at odd times of the day
• I have utterred the words: "You damn kids"
• I have trouble remembering things that just happened
• I always look for the 'best' parking spot
• I'm fascinated by history

Yesterday, I went to see "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" with my mom. It's a movie about a group of British retirees who decide to 'outsource' their retirement to India. I thoroughly enjoyed it, not only because it was a good movie, but because I identified with the characters. I thought to myself: "there's a group of people that I would like to hang out with."

By all accounts, at 33 years old, I am an old man.

...like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. “Give me five bees for a quarter,” you'd say. Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

- Grandpa Simpson

ComicCon

William Shatner. Brent Spiner. Marina Sirtis. John de Lancie. Lou Ferrigno. Adam Baldwin. Names that would make anyone worthy to call themselves a geek literally wet their pants.

I’ve heard of ‘ComicCon’ before, the biggest one being in San Diego, which annually attracts all geeks and nerds in the known universe. It seemed an impossible dream that this phenomenon would ever come to Ottawa; but it did for one glorious weekend.

In the days leading up to the event, I must say that I felt like a child the night before Christmas: full of nervous energy and completely unable to function normally. All I could think about was seeing and hopefully meeting all these people that I had only ever read about and watched on television.

Each day, and multiple times each day, I would scour the internet for news about the Ottawa ComicCon. Where was it? Who was coming? How much were tickets? With all information in hand, Jeff and I decided to get VIP passes. We figured that if we were going to go, we might as well go in style. As it turned out, we were very glad that we did.

The day finally came, May 12. We got to the CE Centre bright and early, 9:15am. We couldn’t believe our eyes as we approached the venue. There were literally several THOUSANDS of people lined up outside, in front of the building, and around the entire parking lot.

We approached the building with an enormous sense of dread. ‘Do we have to lineup?’ we asked ourselves. ‘We have VIP passes!’ We went toward a guy holding a sign that read ‘Front of line’ and we thought ‘Okay, this is where we need to be’. We told the guy that we had VIP passes and he said that we needed to lineup with the rest of the people. WHAT!?!

Completely shocked and unable to comprehend what was happening, we made our way alongside the building looking for someone else to speak to. Surely that guy didn’t know what he was talking about. As we walked past the long line of people, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small handmade sign that read ‘VIP’. I gestured to Jeff and we immediately rushed over and presented our e-ticket. Now, I’m not a religious man, but I swear that I heard angels singing as we were instantly ushered inside.

All my nervous energy and my complete inability to function normally were now in overdrive. I vaguely recall the events that followed, only that by the end of it all, I had my picture taken in the driver’s seat of the Delorean, met and got an autograph from Adam Baldwin, met and had my picture taken with Lou Ferrigno, got an autograph from William Shatner, and attended Lou Ferrigno’s, Marina Sirtis’, William Shatner’s, Adam Baldwin’s, and Brent Spiner’s panels.

It was a once in a lifetime experience that I hope to do again next year.