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For five and a half months each year, I don't buy myself anything. This is so I don't use up all of the good gift ideas. Here are some examples of why that is a good policy. It would be a shame to deprive my wife of the chance to give great gifts.
This was the first time we could afford to give a sizable gift. I'm still not sure where she scraped up the money. Anybody who has had the chance to spend some time on the still lakes of northern Ontario has got to be a fan of a cedar strip canoe. This is an excellent example of the craft and one that gets purchase offers most years. It's been down a few rivers, across a number of lakes, and been a giant hat portaging in Algonquin Park. Its best use was taking my daughters 'fishing'. They both had fishing rods, but the day was really about being in the quiet and having a lunch on the water. We'd paddle up a river so the scenary was always changing, tell some stories and nibble away at whatever snacks found their way into the backpack. What more could you ask of life?
This gift almost didn't happen. The day before I was supposed to get it, the dealer was touching something up, per the manufacturer's instructions, and melted a large hole into it. This error became a free trip for two to the sportsman show - conveniently starting the next day and a promise to let us have the boat we liked best from the manufacturer. The result is the one pictured above. At the time, it was billed as a rodeo kayak and was the shortest ever made. The kayak is specifically designed to go in any direction on a whim, and as such is inherently unstable. There is no lazing about floating down stream in this. It is an active boat meant for moving water. It is a great little kayak and came with three days paddling in spring run off on the Madawaska River. While this is the most adventurous time to be in white water, the tradeoff is that the water isn't much above freezing. Paddling in 4C water is barely tolerable and taking a swim is extremely unpleasant. That's all just motivation to watch the water flow and not the big rocks so you stay upright.
These guitars weren't made for very long, but they are incredible instruments. They are kind of a hybrid between an old school jazz guitar and a violin. The top and back are carved inside and out. The workmanship is impeccable. Maybe they just came out at the wrong time, but I'm glad I have one and plan to keep it. It serves very well playing jazz or classical music.
This came with a trip far enough south to give the trike a good workout. Myrtle Beach happened to be the first place that was warm enough so we set up there for a week. This trike is incredible fun. It feels super-fast, though part of that is due to being so close to the ground. There is no denying how responsive a vehicle it is. You can turn on a dime. And you can stop on the spot - with those big discs and the balance of 3 wheels, grabbing the brake is like throwing out an anchor. And through it all the trike tracks straight. Greenspeed did an excellent job of the balance on this thing. Bonus that you can fold it up so it doesn't take up too much space in your car. Double bonus that it is bright yellow.
I've had a Mesa Boogie Mark III since the late 80s and it has always had a good enough sound that I never felt the need for another amp. The only downside the Mark III ever had was that you had to keep a cheat sheet of the right settings to get a particular sound. Without a cheat sheet, the interaction of the controls is too complex to give yourself a fair chance of getting the sound you want at any particular moment. The Mark V gave you separate controls for each of 3 channels, which lets you have 3 presets to switch through. I thought this would be very convenient, but not enough so that I was going to buy one. I was; however, willing to kill some time in my favourite music store seeing if any of the other manufacturers had caught up to Mesa Boogie for the sound I like. I decided they were still my favourite and left. A few months later the bubinga encased Mark V pictured above landed in my living room. Sweetness in a box. Each of the 3 channels has 3 flavours of amplification built in and each of them gives a very satisfying sound. The range is enormous. The two amps were meant to live in different places, but they look too good together in the music room to separate.
This guitar is the result of giving my friend Brent no constraints in a guitar builder's wood shop. He put together specifications for twenty guitars and this number one of the bunch took no prisoners. Great wood selection and excellent workmanship make it beautiful to look at and exceptional to listen to. All of the best acoustic woods are there: rosewood back and sides, spruce top, mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard and koa highlights - including on the Laskin arm rest. I had a chance to play a few of the twenty. I'm sure Brent would have let me try them all, but I didn't want to overstay my welcome. Every one of the bunch is an excellent guitar, but number one is a real treasure. |
