Erik, whose around the world exploits I’ve been following through BlogAroundTheWorld.com, has finally reached Day 503 of his trip, returning to New York City from whence he came.

He’s a very good travel writer, and he’s had a good share of fun and adventure.

When I was 14 years old, 25 years ago, a man named Neil Evenden gave me my first computer programming job.

Neil owned Skycraft Hobbies, a business selling all manner of radio controlled planes and boats and other assorted fun gizmos. He ran his business on a souped up TRS-80 Model I: everything from accounting to inventory.

He wanted to expand the capabilities of a software package called “ICS” (for “Inventory Control System”) to allow it to handle point of sale tasks in his store (printing receipts, and the like). Because back then even complex applications were written in BASIC, you bought the source code when you bought the application, and it was possible to modify “off the shelf” applications like ICS.

And Neil hired me to do the job.

I don’t know how he found me, or why he thought I was qualified. I owned my own TRS-80, but that was my only real qualification. I’d dabbled in programming, but I knew nothing about accounting or inventory or point of sale.

For some reason Neil decided that I could do what needed to be done, and that was enough to get me going on the job. I did it, he was happy, and I got paid.

The self confidence I gained from that first job is a large part of why, 25 years later, I’m still a happy self-employed programmer for hire.

We were driving by the old location of the Skycraft Hobbies store today, and I asked Mom if she’d heard any news in recent years about how they were doing. She said she remembered seeing a death notice in the paper for Neil, and I looked it up tonight in the Spectator:

EVENDEN, James “Neil” - At St. Peter’s Hospital in Hamilton, on December 11, 2004, in his 62nd year. He is survived by his loving wife Faye, son Paul and wife Susan of Paris, ON, and daughter Nancy and her husband Andi Kyte. Grandfather of Jessica and Emma Evenden and soon to be born Lily Kyte. Son of James Evenden of St. Catharines and Beverley (deceased). Dear brother of Susan Wallace and Barbara Singleton. During his years of service to McMaster University he was Director of Personnel and founder of Skycraft Hobbies. Cremation has taken place. A Memorial Service will be held at the MARLATT FUNERAL HOME & CREMATION CENTRE, 195 King Street West, Dundas, on Saturday, December 18 at 1:30 p.m. with a memorial visitation one hour prior. Neil wishes that donations are made to the SPCA instead of floral tributes.

This is a much belated tip of the hat to Neil for giving me my start. May you rest in peace.

The City of Charlottetown, celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, has produced a list of 150 Reasons To Visit Charlottetown, and has purchased a huge banner ad on the Guardian website to advertise it.

Scanning the list, it quickly becomes evident that while this gambit may have worked well for the 25th, or maybe even the 50th anniversary, there simply aren’t 150 reasons to visit Charlottetown. Witness these compelling “honey, we’ve got to go to Charlottetown this summer” items on the list:

• 79. Virtual Tours
• 89. Career Skills Learning Centre
• 91. Department of Veterans Affairs
• 103. Novelty Shops
• 118. Meetings PEI
• 121. City Bus Service
• 125. Car Rentals
• 127. A Canadian Port City
• 138. Fantastic Volunteers
• 141. Capital Commission
• 147. Social Adventures

While some of these are obviously just fluff — car rentals? fantastic volunteers? — and some are outright narcissism — Capital Commission? Meetings PEI? — I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would think of listing “Career Skills Learning Centre” as a reason for visting Charlottetown. Do tourists usually factor in the availablity of Microsoft Word courses in their vacation plans?

The most galling “reason,” however, is “City Bus Service,” which, in fact, exists in such an anemic form at present that it’s more of a reason not to visit Charlottetown.

In past when I've looked at travel to Europe from here, there's always been a significant premium (a) for travel from Charlottetown (over Halifax) and (b) for travel to anywhere other than London Heathrow.

Much to my surprise, it looks like the usual Charlottetown premium is much less during the current Air Canada seat sale than usual. For example, the best fare on the Air Canada website for Halifax to London is currently $448, while the best Charlottetown to London fare is $600; usually the difference is three or four hundred dollars, enough to make the drive to Halifax worth it.
Similarly, it looks like travel to places in Europe other than London doesn't demand as much of a premium either; while Charlottetown to London is $600, Charlottetown to Paris is only $718.

USA Today reporter Laura Bly goes around the world in 8 days. Thanks to Edward for the link.

One of the first things I learned as an apprentice compositor was that “am” and “pm” are properly typeset “a.m.” and “p.m.” Because I “learned” this by having the error of my ways pointed out to me by my severe (yet goodhearted) mentors, all long-time compositors, it stuck with me. As a result, I am now constitutionally unable to type a time any other way.

Similarly, I cannot misspell beginning because Mr. Sarabura made me write out out 1,000 when I misspelled it on an essay for Grade 9 English.

CBC Television will air the Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein film The Take on Thursday March 24 at 8 p.m. This played at City Cinema earlier in the year, and was quite interesting: if you’re around a television on Thursday, it’s a good watch.

One of my personal weaknesses is a tendency to favour the new over the old. Put something in a shiny new wrapper and call it “new and improved” and you’ve got a good chance of suckering me in, whether it’s “New Improved Huggies with Barrier Leak Shield” or “New Improved Motomaster Titantium Alloy Wiper Blades with Wind Cutting Action.” Indeed the dirty secret of my penchant for world travel is that world travel delivers a whole new set of “new and improved” (at least to me) in every city.

Fortunately this is a tendency that Catherine and I share, both with travel and with variations of Swiffer, Glad, Saran and Ziploc products. While I may mock Catherine for falling prey to the “Press and Seal,” this is simply a cover for my own glee (something I used to similar effect with New Teen Titans comic books, purchased by Johnny and Steve but secretly devoured by me with just as much fervour).

All of which I offer as explanation of, if not excuse for, the fact that Oliver and I are pictured front and centre on page A5 of today’s Guardian as two of the crowd clamouring to get into the new Sears store in Charlottetown.

I realize that this sort of incautious consumer behaviour places any future “that Tim Banks certainly is a dink, isn’t he!” posts here on the blog in danger of being dismissed. But that is a risk I must take to feed my lust for the shiny.

Of course the inevitable result of this passion is the let down that comes from the new and shiny being not so new and shiny and wonderful and transformative as expected. Weeks go by of anticipation about the wonders of the new version of OS X; once it has arrived and is installed, well, it’s just an operating system, isn’t it. I thought riding a Segway would be like riding one of those hoverboards from Back to the Future; it wasn’t (and it tried to kill me, to boot).

And so I am ashamed to admit that I bought the whole “bold and radical new Sears concept” line entirely: I was convinced by the APM and Sears propaganda that the new Sears here in Charlottetown — the “first free-standing off-mall format in Canada” they crowed — would be unlike any Sears I’d ever seen. I imagined robotic product butlers, Italian espresso in the cafe, mens fashion in colours other than brown and blue. I imagined a cross between Ikea and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

In other words, I am an idiot. A whore for the shiny and new.

Post-clamour at the door of Sears, Oliver, G. and I did the complete loop of the aisles. We witnessed frothing Islanders giddy at the sight of pillows on sale for $2.99 and a 5-piece luggage set for $24.99. We toured the Mastercraft (or is that Craftsman?) aisle, the Kenmore aisle, and the toy section.

And it was just a Sears.

A plain old boring Sears with the same old boring Sears crap that every other Sears in North America has, presented in the same old boring fashion. Indeed because the new Sears store has no windows, the effect was oddly similar to being at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut: you could be in any department store in any city at any time of day.

I can’t imagine why I would ever return.

So consider that I have performed a public service for you, preventing you from the need to go and visit yourself a place that you would emerge from only feeling moribund and depleted.

Sears, especially without the clandestine allure of escaping to Moncton for off-Island shopping, is, in the end, just Sears.

Hey, did you hear the Gap is coming to Charlottetown…?

Rob’s online course The Customer Revolution has a long thread of discussion in response to an assignment about the CARI pool and its failure to perform as hoped.

Ironically, if you search Google for “cari pool”, the first search result leads you to the selfsame discussion.

I stumbled across this when looking for the CARI website. Suggestion for CARI: ditch the meaningless name, and call yourself the “Charlottetown Swimming Pool” and set up a website at www.pool.pe.ca.

Oliver and I have been swimming at CARI every Wednesday since Christmas. When we go, during the supper hour, we usually have the pool to ourselves. It truly is a great resource, something that the “customer perception” of which does, indeed, demand study. Perhaps part of the challenge is that Islanders don’t know quite what to do in a leisure swimming pool, especially without kids. Float around?

Television views do travel in packs. Look at this mediocrity wavelet (red markup is mine):

Original link from kottke.org.