I am a weirdo magnet

I am a weirdo magnet. I do not know why or how, but strange people are attracted to me. If you have spent any time with me in public, you already know what I am talking about. For instance, last week I was at the leisure center with Chris Ens, showering after a swim. An obese, nude man happened to be showering at the same time. He looked up and saw me and it was like something inside him snapped. It was like he just had to talk to me. He started out with the following: "so, I need to fix my car, and it will cost about $1000. I don't have the money so I went to the casino this morning" I really wanted to say "ya, that makes sense, the casino is just like a bank" but the thought of angering this obese, nude man in a slippery shower kept me quiet. He continued on with how he had won enough to pay for his car repairs, but decided to keep gambling. At this point I really, really wanted to say "at least your are not addicted to gambling", but he was still naked. I could not understand most of what he said after that, although I am pretty sure he ended up losing all his money. He was laughing and mumbling too much to be fully understood.

On the overall "weird people attracted to me" scale, this was maybe a 4 out of 10, and it only ranked that high because it was in a shower. You might be curious as to what an 9 or a 10 looks like, so I will give a couple of examples.

A 9 out of 10 - I was riding the bus into Vancouver one summer when I was about 15. The bus was about half full. At one stop, a large lady gets on the bus dressed in a snow-suit. As soon as I see her, I start to worry. Although there are lots of available seats, I know she will sit beside me. She won't be able to help it. She sits down beside me and I notice she is sweating profusely. After all, it is about 25 degrees out and she is wearing a snow-suit. She starts rumaging through her bag, and I assume she is looking for a drink or something to help her cool down. Istead she pulls out a Coffee Crisp, opens it up, and starts rubbing it all over her face. She is not even trying to eat it, just rubbing it all over. This lasted for about 20 minutes, until we reached her stop. Coffee Crisp's have never tasted the same for me since.

A 10 out of 10 - A 10 usually involves weirdness and fear. Again, I am riding the bus into Vancouver, this time I am with my friend Tom Grell. At one stop, a very large Native lady gets on the bus, and sits directly behind me. I can smell that she has been drinking, and she seems to enjoy breathing on me. All of a sudden, she grabs me by my hair, pulls my head back to about an inch from her face, and loudly proclaims "You got faggot hair" She shakes my head around for a while, then lets go. I instantly pulled the cord to indicate my stop was next, got up and moved to the doors. The whole time she was just staring at me, like a hungry man would eye a sirloin steak. We got off the bus, and waited for the next one to pick us up. the funny thing is, it was another 2 years before I got a perm.

The Plague

Some of you, like me, probably have already had the stomach flu going around that Heidi refers to as "the plague", but I bet nobody got get-well cards like these.

Nice eh? They are from my nieces Emme and Spencer. At least I thought they were nice and sweet until I opened them up.

I laughed so hard I had to run to the bathroom. Needless to say, I have some pretty awesome nieces.

I am a what?

A couple nights ago after playing a game of cribbage, (one of the dumbest games ever by the way) me and Heidi were talking about books and for no reason she called me a "stupid hag". Now normally verbal abuse from my wife rolls off me like water off a Ducks back, but a hag? My first thought was that maybe it was another one of Heidi's made up names from her childhood like "jag-star". (I still do not know what a jag-star is, I only know that Heidi is 100% sure I am one.) I asked her what she meant by hag, and she just said "that's what you are". I told her that I am probably supposed to call her a hag, not the other way around. She responded with "too bad, I used it first".

The next day I looked up hag on Wikipedia which is the most reliable source of info on the web and found the following definition:

A hag (or crone) is a wizened old woman, or a kind of fairy or goddess having the appearance of such a woman, often found in folklore and children's tales such as Hansel & Gretel.

Great, my wife thinks I am a kind of fairy, and a stupid one at that. I hate cribbage.

Staying safe this holiday season

If you have read my blog before, you may know that people in my circle of friends and family commonly refer to me as the "Safety Nerd". I will admit that I come by that nickname honestly, and I believe that the title comes with a certain degree of responsibility. So without any further adieu, here are my holiday safety tips for 2007.

Never, ever use a treadmill

Treadmills are the classic "wolves in sheep's clothing". They are supposed help you achieve your fitness goals, an aid in maintaining your overall health and well-being. Unless overall health and well being consists of severe rug burns to your knees and arms, it is a lie. I know this from personal experience. About 2 years ago I decided to go for a run on a treadmill at the Leisure Centre near my house. It is very hard to concentrate on both running straight, and watching a TV screen a few feet to the left. One second I am jogging merrily along and the next thing I know I am lying in a heap at the base of a StairMaster, knees and arms bleeding with the whole gym staring at me. I proceeded to get back on the treadmill, and finished my run while trying to act like nothing happened. Needless to say, I will not get back on a treadmill without some spotters present.

When the windows of your car have ice on them, scrape them BEFORE you drive away.

I will never understand how people think it is safe to drive around with only a small strip of eye level ice or snow removed from the windshield. Its like they think that anything behind or beside them is not their problem. Just to be clear, I do not consider using the windshield wipers and half a jug worth of windshield washer fluid an effective method of scraping windows. Heidi on the other hand, would probably design an arctic ice-breaker with windshield washer fluid and a couple sets of wipers to get through the ice.

Don't go to sleep with a book on your face

I did not even know that people did this until I met Heidi. I was shocked the first time I looked over at her to see a book covering her face as she was fast asleep. Now I regularly reach over to extract a book from her face, and turn out her light before I go to sleep. It may seem like a harmless practice, but what if one time she rolls over, the book starts sliding, and all of a sudden we have a horribly disfiguring paper cut? Doesn't sound too safe anymore does it? So I think it is best to put down the book, then go to sleep.

My Apologies

I told myself that I would not be one of those once every couple of months bloggers. Since my last post was in October, it turns out I told myself a lie. Thinking back, I have often convinced myself of things that might be considered untrue, such as:

1. I would look really cool with a perm.


2. If I was taller, I could have totally played pro basketball.


3. A 1965 Mustang is a practical daily driver


4. Chilliwack doesn't smell that bad.


5. Heidi's Dad would really like a Hickory Farms Meat Stick for Christmas (It was my first Christmas dating Heidi and she actually convinced me that it was a great gift. Later she admitted that she just wanted to leave the mall. I remember watching everybody open their gifts and thinking "what on earth would have possessed me to think a meat stick is a great gift?)

Anyways, the last two months have been pretty crazy with Heidi opening the store and all, but I will give a quick rundown of some personal highlights.



OCTOBER


One of our suppliers at work took me Sturgeon fishing with some other customers in October. It was an absolute blast. I did not catch this exact fish, but most of the guys that went on the trip were too drunk to get out of the boat by this time, so I ended up getting in quite a few pictures.

We also went away for Thanksgiving. We went to a really nice lakeside resort near Barrier. We all stayed in a huge log home, did some fishing, skeet shooting, and even participated in a beer tasting contest.

I have to admit I am a natural marksman. I hit 8 of 12 skeets my first time. Shooting a gun is probably in my blood due to the fact that I grew up on the mean streets of East Richmond

We continued our Halloween tradition of going trick or treating with our nieces and nephew. I thought I dressed up as 70's guy, but apparently I looked more like a sexual predator than anything else. A perfect costume to wear while walking around with a bunch of kids. Maybe next year I will dress up as a Scout leader, then I really will look like a sexual predator.

That is my brother-in-law Kris dressed as a pirate. A very unique and original costume, hardly anybody dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow this year.


November & December


Basically, Heidi opening up her store has been the highlight of the last 2 months.

Congratulations to my sister, Liz

How would you feel if you got an email from your little sister entitled "How does this make you feel?" and this is what the email contained:

I have to say I was excited. Liz has finally kissed a boy, and it only took her 24 years. Me and my brother Benj have often wondered if she had ever kissed anyone, and we always thought probably not. My Mom didn't even think so when we asked her and said "She doesn't even have her drivers license yet, so she is probably not ready". Well I am very happy that Liz chose to share this important milestone with me, and am very proud to say my little sister is growing up. Maybe soon she will be able to ride the bus by herself, get her learner's drivers license, or maybe even clean up her room without being told, twice.

Hat's off to Raymond, the tele-surveyor.

I was finishing dinner with Heidi the other night, and the phone rang. I picked it up, and to my absolute delight, it was somebody wanting to know if I would participate in a survey. Of course I would! My eyes lit up, and I guess the smile on my face told Heidi what I was doing, so she sighed, shook her head, and went to another room in the house. The surveyor explained that he worked for an independent company contracted by BC Hydro, and that the aim of the survey was to determine how effective their energy smart marketing campaign had been. I said I would like to participate, and immediately asked for his name. He said his name was Raymond, and I introduced myself as Tim Epp.

He asked for my name again, and I repeated it, and gave the spelling. T-I-M-E-P-P. He asked for the spelling again, so this time I said T-I-M-Edward-Paul-Paul. He said he got it and then asked for my last name. I explained how my first name was Tim, and my last name is Epp. Who would have a first name like Timepp? I could see it now, "Yes, my name is Timepp, and this is my brother Turnip". I was starting to think that I was going to really fluster this guy if he had this much trouble with my name. (Heidi was howling in the other room as she always runs into problems when saying our last name on the phone)

It turns out that Raymond handled every weird comment, or piece of very personal information that I gave him without any real trouble. Here are some highlights of our conversation:

Raymond: Would you say that the BC Hydro commercials have influenced you to use less electricity, say turn off the lights in a room that you are not in?

Me: Yes, I always do my best to conserve electricity. My wife does not however. She leaves every light on all the time. Maybe BC Hydro should include steps on how to get your wife to be powersmart, that would be helpful. (I should have also explained how Heidi often falls asleep with the lights on and a book on her face, but didn't think of it at the time)

Raymond: Okay. Can you identify any of BC Hydro's Powersmart slogans that you might have heard?

Me: I think so, let me see. (I went on for about a minute without saying anything before suddenly shouting "Powersmart") Ya, be powersmart, is that one? (Heidi also yells "flick off" from the other room so I quickly shout "Flick-off" as well)

Raymond: Sure. Do you think you will use less electricity in the future because of powersmart initiatives?

Me: No, I will probably use a lot more because I am going to get a hybrid car, and they run on electricity half the time. (I expected to really puzzle him with that one)

Raymond: Okay, sure. How many adults live in your household?

Me: Two.

Raymond: Do you have any children?

Me: No, but we are really trying for one right now.

Raymond: Good luck with that.

Me: Thanks Raymond.

Raymond: What is your overall impression of BC Hydro?

Me: I really like BC Hydro. If you were calling on behalf of Terasen, however, we would have had a problem. I really don't like those guys. I actually hate them, alot.

Raymond: That's good to know.

He asked a few more questions, thanked me for my time, took down my personal info so I could participate in future surveys, and hung up. I learned that tele-surveyors are a big step up from tele-marketers, and that I need to be ready with my "A" game if I want to fluster them enough to end the call without being rude. So my hat is off to Raymond, who maintained his poise for the entire 15 minutes he had me on the phone. Well done.