The Johnson-Rouleau Journal 2008

Greetings once again!

Before we get started I just want to let you know that you can click on any of the pictures to see them larger but remember to click your browser's "Back" button to return to the newsletter.

Here I sit aboard a Boeing 767 in seat 23E on American Airlines flight 16 from San Francisco to New York. For those of you not familiar with seating codes, let me explain further. The ‘E’ designation refers to a middle seat. No window to watch the world slowly pass by below. No aisle handy to stretch my legs. Just a person on either side of me …and also one in front and behind for good measure. Let’s just say it is a good thing that I am not claustrophobic since this flight will last about 5 and a half hours! However, on the positive side, this gives me plenty of “me” time with absolutely no interruptions from phones, or Blackberrys, or televisions, or radios, or kids, or wives (should this really be plural?). Just me, all by myself, surrounded by 300 or so perfect strangers. Well, I suppose I can’t really speak for how perfect they may be, but as far as I can tell, they are strangers. But the point I am trying to make is that this gives me a great opportunity to get going on the annual Johnson-Rouleau Christmas Newsletter. So make sure your seatbelt is fastened, and your tray table is in the full upright and locked position because we are about to take-off on a high-level flight back through 2008.


A Kid’s Life
This year Morgan moved into junior high (grade 7) and he loves it. After the first day he came home to tell me how nice it is that you have your own locker, that you can actually lock, and the teachers don’t bug you all the time telling you what to do. I hear ya Morgan, nobody likes to be bossed around. And although it is a lot more work than primary school, his marks are definitely reflecting his general happiness with the new environment. Fabulous. That means there is one less thing I have to worry about. André-Paul (A-P) started grade 10 this year. Man, how can that be? With me being so young … it is just not possible that I can have a kid that old, right? Sorry about that out burst. Ok, back to A-P. His love for soccer has not subsided. He was ecstatic to learn that he made the Level-1 indoor winter soccer team … in spite of the fact he is literally about half the size of the other team members. Something tells me there may be talk of a growth spurt in next year’s newsletter. Time will tell. Morgan was also very happy with himself, from an athletic perspective, this fall as he successfully made the competitive “CC” hockey team. It is his first time playing at the double-letter level and he is really enjoying it. If you want to see Morgan (#8) making a couple of nice passes for goals, click the links below.

AVPWCC - 08/09 - Game #9 - Goal #1 (Jean)

AVPWCC - Val D'Or - Game #1 - Goal #2 (Thomas)

He must be doing something right because Stephen Harper, Canada’s Prime Minister, came to watch one of his games recently! Well, to be fair, the Prime Minister’s son was on the opposing team, but still …
And last but not least, I must update you on A-P’s piano career. He successfully completed his Grade-10 level piano course this spring, both practical and theory. Not too shabby for a guy who just started playing a little more than 5 years ago, eh? He also managed to do two things this year with the piano that he has never done before. First, he was the overall winner at his music school’s annual competition … in the top category no less! If you’d like to see him in action, click the video links below:

APAJ - Piano - Winning Performance

APAJ - Piano May 2008 - Chopin

He has made it to the finals all five years but this time he took home the gold! Or should I say, the green, since the winner received a $500 prize in cold, hard cash. Something tells me the prize money may have had something to do with the amount of preparation he put in for his performance.
“What’s the second thing”, I hear you ask? Oh yes, A-P has decided to cease taking any more piano lessons. Oh, you heard me correctly. He found that with all his homework, his job, his soccer, and then all the piano practicing he needed to do, he just didn’t have time to enjoy being a kid. We supported his decision but I have to say, his piano teacher was more than a little distraught. I would imagine losing your top music student is never what you hope for. However, I chose to look at the bright side. Now A-P has a lot more time to play and compose whatever music he likes. So we're hearing less Chopin and Mozart floating through the house and more Rihanna and Coldplay filling the void. However now, instead of taking piano lessons, A-P is giving piano lessons. He has recruited 7 regular weekly students by offering lessons at half the going rate. It is the perfect way for parents to inexpensively find out if their children have an interest in the piano. And a pretty high-paying job if you are a 14-year-old! Everybody's happy and the result is that A-P is packing away some serious coin.

And this year marked a sad milestone for me. Earlier this summer Morgan and I finished the seventh and last Harry Potter book. I started reading the Harry Potter series books to both the kids just after the turn of the century. When you combine the speed at which I read, the amount of time we have available before bedtime, and my sometimes heavy travel schedule, it ended up averaging about one Harry Potter book per year. After the fifth book, André-Paul couldn’t take my snail-like pace anymore and he decided to read the last two books on his own … at his own, slightly accelerated rate. In fact, he managed to polish off the last book in two days flat. Now if he’s not careful, I swear one of these days he is going to get whiplash when he reaches the end of a book.


Bringing Home the Bacon
The close of this year marks the 6th anniversary of my time at ZixCorp. Incredible. That is actually a personal best for me … 6 years at the same company. Hmmmm, I must be getting old. The good news is that I am really enjoying my job. My boss is great and we get along very well. Business is doing well. And I get to travel to places like New York City, California, and London. Can you say, “Elite frequent flier status”? On the downside, I took 16 multi-city business trips this year. Fortunately I like to travel … and I don’t hear Chantal complaining about having a little more space at home now and then.
And speaking of my lovely wife, Chantal got a full-time teaching position again this year, so that is definitely a good thing. Another bonus about her job is that her school is right next door to the school that Morgan and A-P attend. So they have the option of catching a ride to school with maman if they don’t feel like taking the bus. Is it just me or do kids these days have it easy? This time around she has a Grade 5 class. Coincidentally she knows most of the kids in her class because she taught Grade 3 at this school two years ago. The only downside seems to be that the amount of marking involved is quite burdensome. She’s up until 11:00 many evenings just doing that. Perhaps that justifies getting the whole summer off? No, you’re right … not a chance.


Day to Day
Any talk of daily life in Aylmer in 2008 has to include the crazy winter we had. By the end of it all we recorded the snowiest winter since 1971. Can you believe that we received more than 4 metres (13 feet) of the fluffy white stuff!!! Thankfully I have a snow blower. I ended up not only using the snow blower to keep the driveway clear, but I also used it to keep the path clear to our then new hot tub in the backyard. The snow started piling so high by March that getting to the hot tub required navigating a trench cut through the snow that was higher than the hot tub itself (check the video link below). And, as you can see in the photo, the driveway had snowbanks that where over my head!

JRVideo - Winter2008 - Record snow in Aylmer
JRVideo - Sick Snow Blower

Just when I thought things were really bad in Ottawa, we visited Chantal’s family in Quebec City. Now THEY get a lot of snow. You couldn’t see the fronts of most of the houses because the snow was piled to the roof in the front yards! From inside it gave you the taste of what it might be like to live in a snow-cave. Sometimes I think they have Quebec City winters just so that people in Ottawa don’t feel so bad about their winters.

On a slightly warmer note, we took a family trip to Boston this past summer. We drove down in the van and I picked up one of the few kids quotes from A-P when we crossed the border from Quebec into the US. The customs official wanted to talk directly to the kids to ask a few questions, so he asked me if the kids spoke English. After the custom official finished with his questions and we passed through, A-P asked me if it was a requirement to speak English to be allowed to enter the US. Well, not exactly, but if George W had his way …
And continuing the nice weather theme, this summer Chantal was kind enough to allow me to take off, and leave her with the kids, for not one, but two weekends so I could go out sailing on my friend Pat’s 30-foot sailboat through the 1,000 Islands. Both weekends turned out to be absolutely fantastic weather with almost ideal wind conditions for us neophytes. You would not describe me as an avid or voracious sailor but we did manage to get the boat leaning over enough to get the rail in the water a few times. Once again, there were no lost-time injuries. By the way, Pat has let us know that he is more than happy to welcome female sailors aboard. The only prerequisites are that they wear a bikini and are able to hold a rope. Actually, the ability to hold a rope is really more of a “nice-to-have”.

Family Ties
This year marked a couple of milestones in the Johnson family. In September my father turned 75 and us kids decided to pull together a surprise party for him to celebrate. Kim invited him to her place in New Brunswick but did not inform him that the rest of us were planning to be there too. It was quite a shock for him since we all had to make a 12 to 15 hour drive to get there for the party, so he was definitely not expecting to see us there. Perhaps some of you might be wondering about the wisdom of springing such a big surprise on a septuagenarian who has already had quadruple by-pass surgery. However, they would only be the ones who are not aware of how well insured this man is! (just kidding, dad)
The other notable milestone was marked by my older (I want to make that point clear) brother, who turned 50 in October. Since we had just done the “surprise birthday party” thing with my dad, we decided to take a different approach. Instead, we chose to tell him there would be a gathering at his friends’ place, Joe & Sue’s, but just not tell him exactly who would be coming. It turned out better than expected as there was a continual stream of visitors all evening, ranging from university and high school friends, through former working buddies, to neighbours. It was starting to be like “This is your life!” which was punctuated later in the evening by the arrival of his parole officer. (just kidding, Eric) It was a great time and thanks definitely go out to Lenore, Sue and Joe for pulling off a fantastic party!
And this autumn Chantal and I and the kids finally got a chance to meet the woman that my father has been dating for the last two years, Barb. During this time they have been carrying on a long distance relationship, to say the least. Barb actually lives in another country …Cleveland, Ohio to be more precise. But in spite of the 8-hour drive required to visit each other, they have managed to make it work. However, when my father is not on his way to, or from, Cleveland, it is virtually impossible to get through to him on the phone on any given evening since he always seems to be chatting with Barb. So there is a good chance that these two may be single-handedly to blame for any upward pressure on gas prices or phone rates.

International Visitors
This year, believe it or not, we actually have two entries for this section. The first country represented was Germany. My old friend from high school, Robin, who is now a jazz musician in Berlin, paid a visit to his family in Canada this past August and we were fortunate enough to get together with Robin, his wife Katherina, and their son Jasper, while they were in Ottawa. It was great seeing Robin after so many years and it was nice to finally meet the rest of his family. Robin even took some time to show A-P some of the ropes when it comes to jamming (check video link below) while the rest of us frolicked by the pool. It is too bad our neighbours who speak German weren’t home. In a strangely ironic twist of fate, our German-speaking neighbours were away because they were visiting their extended family … in Germany!

JRVideo - Robin and A-P jamming

And then in October, my long lost buddy from Australia found himself in Toronto on business so I just had to make my way down there for a visit. We also managed to get our mutual friend, Joe, to join us that evening which was quite amazing since it was the first time the three of us have been together since we first met in Europe 22 years ago! Needless to say, we got slightly “over-served” that night and I was paying a serious price the next day. There’s an Aussie expression, “parking a tiger”, that, unfortunately, I got a chance to use. If you don’t know what I am talking about, maybe that is for the best. We are definitely going to have to make sure we find more time, and perhaps less alcohol, the next time we get together.

Kid Kwotes
And now for the part of the newsletter you have all been waiting for. This year Morgan dominated his older brother when it comes to eliciting words of wisdom that can only come from a fertile mind which is unencumbered with the burdens of experience and convention. So, many thanks to Morgan for this year’s Kid Kwote section.

Earlier this year Morgan and I were talking about the price of cars (go figure). I was explaining how you have to include tax when you talk about what you pay for a car because just about everything you buy has sales tax. Morgan asked some more questions about this and found out that you don't get the tax back when you sell the car. I think this was the first time Morgan realized how much money that can be when you are buying a car. He thought for a moment and then forcefully replied, "Tax sucks!" Welcome to the real world my young friend.

Last summer Morgan and I were listening to a radio show that was talking about a law in Québec that requires signs to be in both French and English. Morgan said the person who commented on it must be a languagist. I said, "You mean linguist?" He said, "No, a languagist ... You know, like a racist or a sexist."

At the dinner table recently we got talking about parenting. I was joking around with the kids saying that I really didn’t add any value as a parent. While we were debating about how I, as a parent, actually provide some kind of benefit to them, Chantal said that I help show the kids how to be responsible. In an instant, all the rules I have put in place when it comes to things like where you put your shoes after you take them off, what you do with your wet hockey equipment after a game, what you do with your dirty dishes after a meal, raced through Morgan's head. He immediately chimed in and said, "A little too responsible."

While I was driving Morgan back from a hockey game, another car passed us on the inside lane going much more quickly than we were going. I couldn’t help myself from commenting to Morgan about how, “That guy is driving in a rather dangerous fashion.” There was some silence as Morgan checked out the passing car while he processed my statement. He then turned to me and said. “I’ll bet people say that about you sometimes.” The truth hurts.

Once again, Morgan and I were having a chat while driving home from a hockey game. This time we were on our way home from a game we played in one of the small, rural towns in Québec that we sometimes need to travel to in our division. While I was concentrating on navigating my way back to the highway, Morgan had obviously been thinking. He started, “I don't really like the towns on the outskirts of Gatineau.” “Why not?”, I replied. “Because when we play hockey in these little towns it seems like everybody smokes, drinks beer and drives pickup trucks.” Kind of sounds like a line from a country and western song, eh?

And I would now like to end with a classic from Morgan from way back in 2005. I happened to stumble across this old quote while trying to find this year’s cache of quotes. André-Paul, Morgan and I were talking about the then new Chrysler 300 C. It is a 4-door sedan that comes with a big, powerful V8 engine that Chrysler refers to as the “Hemi”. I commented to the boys that it was really incredible how much power the car had and how fast it goes. The kids speculated that it would make a great police car because it is so fast. I jokingly said that if the police were driving these Chrysler 300s with the Hemi, everyone would want to be a cop. Morgan quickly added, “Even the robbers!”

Well, there you have it. Another year of fun, foolishness and frivolity chez Johnson-Rouleau boiled down into a hand-full of tasty morsels for your literary palate. All of us here wish you a joyous and generous Christmas season as well as a fruitful yet fanciful New Year!