Apr 1

Apr 1 If Your Photographs Could Talk!

If your photographs could talk what sort of story would they tell? You did stand there with your old camera or your phone and snapped away. Yep - you now have seventeen pictures of the Empire State building.

So, can you recall why you took all of those photographs? I imagine you must have had a good reason. No doubt it was to capture an image of the moment - however, is it fair to say that every image has a story behind it?

I looked at my storage on my phone and computer and noticed that I have over 3,000 images being stored on the “cloud.” Of course some of the images are more important than others and it probably makes sense to start reducing the clutter. But it can be challenging to figure out which ones to delete.

I do not have any digital pictures of my parents or other members of my family, but I know we have a box somewhere downstairs in the storage locker of older, printed photographs, which I probably should sort through and take a look.

So, as I have been reviewing them, I thought it would make a fun blog post - so here goes.

As many people say it’s all about the children. It’s probably fair to say that the majority of the pictures I have are of Ms. Sarah.

It was not in our original plans to have children. Both of us were working a lot of hours and frankly, we were living what some people would consider a selfish lifestyle. We could travel whenever we wanted to, go out for dinner more than we should and ultimately we only had to answer to ourselves.

I don’t recall the exact moment that changed everything for us. It might have been looking around and seeing more and more people we knew deciding to have children? So we discussed the idea and figured that we should go ahead and give it a try.

Should be simple - correct? Not so fast. After many months of trying and failing, we knew we needed a new plan, so we decided to undergo fertility testing and found that I was the problem.

Seriously - who would have thought? How could that be? Now what?

We made the difficult and expensive decision to go through IVF treatment. To be candid, I actually didn’t have to do much. We had some trials and tribulations, but we managed to eventually succeed, and Ms. Sarah was born just over 16 years ago. There is no manual to prepare or teach you how to raise a child and sometimes you do have a moment or two and wonder - OMG! But we know we have been lucky and she is a good kid!

Of course Ms. Sarah was not the first born child in our family!

Unless you have a dog or dog’s, its hard for people to understand what role they will play in your life. They never talk back, they give you unconditional love and all they really want from you is some love back (and some food of course.)

We have had two wonderful dogs - Yogi Bear and Ms. Daisy.

They were very different in their personalities - which of course shouldn’t be a surprise. When we picked up Yogi, we always felt that he really selected us. We drove about 3 hours north west of Toronto to visit the breeder and they would bring out the puppies one at a time. Our eyes were on this little one with white paws, but the dog seemed a bit skittish. When Yogi was brought out by the breeder, his personality and independence was very self-evident and I think he was actually interviewing us. We just knew that he was the one.

He was incredibly smart and loyal. He loved us and we loved him and he left us way too soon. It still is one of the saddest days in my life when he passed.

Yogi Bear - on the left with his sidekick Ms. Daisy

Now Ms. Daisy was quite different. All credit for her has to go to Sheila.

We had discussed getting a pal for Yogi, so Sheila found the breeder and she arranged with her father to go with her to visit the breeder. I do recall that she did call me and as I often do, I told her to go with your gut and so Ms. Daisy became the next member of our small family.

She was very different from Yogi. She would drive him crazy (she was a puppy of course). but Yogi made it very clear who the boss was. However deep down it was easy to see that Yogi cared about her because when other dogs would come over, Yogi would immediately become very protective of her.

Ms. Daisy has now been gone for just over a year. The last few years of her life were not a lot of fun for her. Her eyesight and hearing were basically gone - and she didn’t want to venture out too far.

She surprised all of us by living for 17 years, and she had a good, long life. I still get a tear or two when I think about her. She was a good friend and we miss them both.

The next person who seems to appear in a lot of the pictures is someone who has stood the test of time. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has a bad word to say about her. I know we drive each other crazy at times - yin and yang, I guess, and for some odd reason she puts up with me.

If I post her picture on Instagram, it will always receive more “likes” then of my pizza images - I don’t get that?

I have a lot of what I would call “work pictures.”

Its no secret but I’ve been very lucky because I have had the opportunity to travel all over the world. I have to been to Asia more than twenty times, Europe countless times and of course to the USA more than I can count.

Two of my favourite places to visit have always been Chicago and the Big Apple - NYC.

Chicago is a place I became quite familiar with and I have some great memories - mainly because I had the chance to work with some good people.

New York has always been a special place and every time I am there I can feel the energy when you walk the streets. The hustle and bustle is overwhelming and I love it.

I would tell the “younger” people in the office - don’t ever take the travel for granted. Yes, sometimes you had to travel on weekends. My wife reminded me recently that I missed a lot of Canadian Thanksgivings.

When I traveled I always had the view that one day this will all end - so pinch yourselves and enjoy it while it lasts. To think that someone else was paying for those great hotels, flights and great meals.

Some of the trips were challenging. Eating food that I had no idea what it was or dealing with constant jet lag wasn’t fun. But some of them were what I call “working holidays.” I don’t mean you were not working - but to get up in the morning and look out at the ocean or walk in some of the great cities of the world was always something special.

Sometimes I was invited to the Global Sales Launch (GSL) and they were usually held in Europe. I managed to see France, Spain and Greece - a few places that maybe I would not have been able to go to. If possible I would try to arrive early or stay on afterwards for a few extra days - take in the sights and experience these places first hand.

Okay - enough of the travelogue. Time to get back to reality.

We have lived in two homes in an area of Toronto known as the “Beach.” I grew up playing tennis in this area so it was a place that was very familiar to me. Its a quaint cottage type community with parks, boardwalks and a small town feel.

We had been living in a small 560 sq. foot condo downtown and we felt it was time to buy a house. We drove up and down every street east of Woodbine Avenue and west of Victoria Park, and wrote down the address for every for sale sign. Remember this was pre-internet.

We only looked at a few places and felt this was the best choice - so - $285,000 later we had purchased it. As soon as we moved in things went wrong - I can’t recall everything, but I remember we had a problem with racoons amongst various other “old” home issues.

We lived there for at least 10 years. Just a bit west of us, we observed a new subdivision going up on the old Greenwood racetrack. I would walk over with a neighbour and I remember saying to him - “who would pay this much for a house?”

Little did we know.

I convinced Sheila to take a look at the model homes but she wasn’t seeing it. Eventually with a bit of coaxing she agreed and - $460,000 later we had purchased a brand new home. We basically traded one house for the next one. However in retrospect we should have spent a bit more and bought the detached version - oh well.

If you read my condo living blog you would know that this wasn’t the end. But we had some great times in the Beach and I do miss a lot of things - but life does go on.

I grew up playing tennis in Scarborough. I wasn’t a great player - probably what would be considered a good club player. I spent a lot of years playing at a large public club facility called Kew Gardens Tennis. I had started playing there as junior player and continued on and off as an adult, eventually serving on the Board of Directors and a year as its Club President.

Because of my day job, I would get the opportunity to go to the Toronto Lawn for various tennis functions and sometimes I would pick up the membership application and make a pitch to the accountant (Sheila) but it simply didn’t make sense at the time. I left out that we were also members of the Toronto Hunt Golf Club, so two private clubs was not in the financial plans. Eventually we were able to find the right time and it has become an important part of our life.

I was asked to serve on the tennis committee and so I volunteered for a few years pitching in wherever I could.

Shortly after that my name was put forward to serve on the Board of Directors and I was elected. I ended up staying on for five years including one year as the Vice President and my final year as the Club President.

It’s easy to talk about it now, but its fair to say that the year as the President was one of the most difficult years of my life. During my term, there were two large projects under consideration and anytime you want to make large scale, expensive changes at a private club you become the poster person for criticism.

One of the projects was eventually put on the back burner but one project that did make it to the finish line was the replacement of the indoor clay courts with brand new hard courts. This project was almost as political as the first project and it’s gratifying that it has worked out and the members are generally happy with the result.

One disappointment was losing friends over the issue because you don’t get involved as a volunteer with the idea that you will lose friends. I could write a book on that year but let’s save that for another time. The picture on the right is the tennis committee having the very first hit on the new hard courts.

I frequently post pictures of pizza (and red wine) on Instagram. It really started off as a bit of a lark. I suspected the more images I posted, people would think that all I eat is pizza.

Nothing could be farther from the truth of course. I’ve actually recently lost 30 pounds, so if all I ate is pizza then I would have probably put on 30 pounds. And yes, I do enjoy a glass of red wine but only in moderation.