My Name Is Jasper

There's a Road (Noorderlaan)

First they teach you how to walk

But you really wanna run

They tell you how to swim

But you don't know how it feels to drown

So back for an end

Cos your life has only just begun

There's A Road (Noorderlaan) – Tom Van Laere (213)

In Canada the most common status symbol – yes I know that is a contradiction – is the Canada Goose jacket. Not that I've seen any recently, the summer of 2015 turned out to be very nice. But when the temperature drops roughly 50 to 60 ℃ over the next 6 months, they'll start popping up everywhere. They're quite pricy jackets, but they're quality too. I remember when my buddy Tom got his first. He told me: "I now realize there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing." In deep winter he actually parked his car on the company parking lot as far away as possible from the entrance, just to enjoy the comfort of his jacket more. Our jolly German would almost dance from his car to the door.

Belgian Arctic explorer Dixie Dansercoer – who wears the Canadian Goose jacket in climates it was made for – said it even better than my friend: "If problems follow you, you don't suffer bad luck, you are simply ill prepared." Dixie said that during a speech he delivered at a Belgian Microsoft event a couple of years back.

Now that I've mentioned the term luck, I can't help but quote the immortal Ron Swanson: "I'd wish you the best of luck, but I believe luck is a concept created by the weak to explain their failures." (214)

You might be wondering why my mind is thinking about proper preparation...

I'm in the supermarket, tying to decipher which kind of electrolytes resemble the description my friend Martin – an avid mountain and road biker – gave me. 2 weeks ago we were celebrating Julie's parents Bill and Nancy's 35th anniversary. As Bill was recounting his traditional Brockville-Montréal bicycle rides, I couldn't help - being a little intoxicated - but urge him to join me for a big ride. I don't even have a bike! In fact, the last big ride I did must have been roughly 20 years ago. Ah well, a friend lent me his bike and helmet, and a ride from Toronto to the majestic Niagara Falls was planned.

Before I went searching for the proper electrolytes, I stopped at a sports equipment store. I don't have a bike, so I also don't have the necessary accessories. Padded biking gloves. Padded biking shorts. 'Padded' really being the key word here.

Surprisingly, there were only 2 pairs of shorts in my size. One cheap, once twice as expensive. I'm probably only going to wear these shorts once, maybe a few times, but the change room mirror's judgement was swift: the expensive ones look better on me. After all, David Lee Roth (215)  once said: "It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's how fucking great you look."

Ironically, the change room has a poster of former tennis superstar Martina Navratilova saying "Whoever said, it's not whether you win or lose that counts, probably lost." I'll let Diamond Dave and Martina figure that one out should they ever meet.

My friend Tom these days doesn't live in Canada anymore, nor does he still work for Microsoft. He used to be in charge of our Dynamics business, the umbrella for all our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) products. No worries, I'm not going to go into deep technical narrative here. One of the lighthouse customers of those data analytical and business management tool is the Renault Sport Formula 1 team (216), who were racing down the streets of Montreal back in June at the annual Canada Grand Prix.