We Are Travelling

Travel 2 Replies

Last night, in a dim room in front of a bright monitor, SharkBoy and I hit “Submit” on a pretty big purchase. After much hoo haa and hemminghawness, we are making plans to travel again.

Our next destination is not Florida or Disney related!

I know, right? At this rate I’m not going to see Galaxy’s Edge until 2021.

Gonna keep the destination a secret for a little while longer because I don’t want to jinx it but know that we are pretty damned excited about it. Now if you excuse me we’ll be binging YouTube videos for research.

Mexico – Day 2

General 2 Replies

Such a busy day! Syl, Meesh and I started with a pleasant walk to Starbucks and caught up with family talk. When we got back To the condo we picked up Pogo and hopped in the car. We drove to Sayulita, a funky surfer’s paradise town where we had a massive breakfast – mine was eggs on corn chips topped with different hot sauces. Meesh tried one of the table sauces and nearly died. Like. Literally died. He’s dead now. From eating hot sauce.

We wandered the town taking Instagram worthy wall pics (see Sharkboy’s IG account) then drove to Lo de Marcos to a nearly vacant beach (with serious undertow issues) and had a soda on the beach. Meesh’s lemonade came in a glass so dangerously chipped that at any other restaurant anyone would have sued the owner. Not in Mexico. We were chill.

We had a quick drink on the beach in Punta Mita (see a pattern yet?) while we watched rich kids learn to surf.

Then off to La Cruz for dinner where we ate al fresco in the road and were treated to a wedding entering a church and vaqueros dancing their horses just metres away from our table. We were chill.

Back home I passed out on the balcony to the sounds of kids frolicking in the condo pool and waves lapping the shore. A very good day.

Puerto/Nuveo Vallarta

General 3 Replies

The last time I was here was about 17 years ago. My father was a Snowbird that took residence in Old Town, PV. We’re going to spend some time walking those streets and I hope I can find his old apartment he rented – no real reason other than to dig up some good memories.

Meanwhile Sylvie and Pogo took us to $1 tacos. ONE DOLLAR TACOS, PEOPLE. I had three. I’m being good. Then off to a festival that was a bit of a dud (we didn’t stay) and margaritas and dessert at their favourite local restaurant. The couple who ran it are super charming. We’re going back for breakfast this week.

Did Andrew make these types of comments often?

Andrew Kinsman Leave a reply

Carly Thomas, CBC
Thu, Mar 8, 2018, 12:10 PM

Hi Ted,

Thank you again for doing this. I’m sure this is a difficult time for you.

There have been some questions around some of Andrew’s facebook posts/text messages, particularly those that seem to indicate he had a very dark sense of humour.

These include references to killing a family, references to murder devices and “building a better body with parts cuts from my prey.” (I have attached some of them to this email for you).

What is your take on these posts? Did Andrew make these types of comments often? And why?

There are so many rumours swirling around this case, we’d like to confirm or deny them if possible.

Thank you again for your help.

Ted Healey
Mar 8, 2018, 12:57 PM

to Carly

Hi Carly,

Ever since Andrew went missing I was wondering when someone was going to address this. I’m surprised you didn’t find the “head on a pike in my front yard” comment.

I understand that Andrew’s black sense of humour is gaining him some noteriety online. I’ve been told that armchair detectives in closed Facebook/Reddit groups are starting to question his posts/personality online. I’m not a part of these groups, but I’ve had friends tell me about it.

Andrew was punk. He had anarchist sensibilities wrapped up in a socialist personality and loved shaking things up and seeing the results (Andrew could have gotten any number of 9 to 5 office-type jobs but really wanted to stay working with social programs like PWA/ACT even by volunteering when his contract ran out or could be renewed). He had a seriously dark sense of humour in real life and would not mask it with his online persona and yes, I played into some of his comments because I knew he never really meant them. He got a thrill out of seeing people dispair about it. So call him a troll. If you didn’t get it, he didn’t care.

When we lived together he had a strong curiousity with death and decay – Check out his photos on his Facebook page. They’re stark, minimalist and cold. Perfectly the “front facing” or “online” Andrew. But, when you got past the mysenthropic exterior you found someone who was deeply loyal, caring, generous and intelligent. I’ve aways said Andrew was the smartest guy in the room but he never let you know it.

Your inquiring about this whole dark humour thing is something that would make him laugh hard from the other side, because he knew I would have to spend the time explaining it.

If you have any other questions I’d be glad to respond.

Ted

PS: I’m pretty sure that “kill the entire family” comment is most likely directed at the Ford family after one of them had done something outrageous.

Ghost Punching

Distractions Leave a reply

I get an email at work from SharkBoy yesterday:
We need to watch this episode

Yeah. That’s a log attacking Jamie Summers, the Bionic Woman. I’m in.

At home SharkBoy puts on the show and we are treated to a schmorgesborg of late 70s goodness. In this particular show Jamie needs to fight a ghost.

“But DeadRobot!” you say, “How does a scientifically enhanced cyborg woman fight an entity from the spectral plane?!”

Jesus, calm down. I’ll tell you.

In the opening scene we’re POV-ing as a ghost from a graveyard into a big scary mansion, into a super science lab where the ghost we were following wrecks a Alpha Series 1 sensor. The ghost! Is mad! At electronics!

Cut to Oscar Goldman telling Jamie she’s off to Salem (spooky!) to pretend to be a nanny to the scientist so she can secretly oversee the construction of this OSI funded jiggermajooley thing.

Wearing a beauuutiful creme pantsuit, Jamie is welcomed by *GASP* a very young Kristy McNichol who is the pistol whipped child of said scientist. (My brother had posters of her all over his walls so I loved her by proxy I guess) Loverboy Scientist immediately starts putting the moves on Jamie. He calles her “a vital woman” and not in a “jeeze I need you here to cover this mopey kid of mine, you’re vital to my sanity.” kind of way. No he means “sexy” in his sad widower monolog. It’s skeevy how fast he’s all up in Jamie’s personal space.

Let’s pause for a moment: I hold the following theory to be true: In every Bionic Woman episode Jamie must bionically clean something, and, it’s done using sped up film, as opposed to the slo mo run. jump, wreck shit effect they use for her bionics. I’m not disappointed: She cleans up a pile of books with her bionic arm.

Besides the aforementioned bookcase that falls, a metal shelf in the lab is bent. Jamie fixes that of course which makes the Loverboy Scientist say: “You’ve got a thing for shelves” – such a sweet talker…

I want to talk about the lab for a second. It’s full of chemicals. Every flat surface has a vial of some brightly coloured liquid – SCIENCE!. During a ghost attack (things shake, people don’t freak out, they just stare at the shaking things) a vial of sulfuric acid falls on Jamie’s robo-foot and burns her shoe off, much to Kristy McNichol’s amazement. Loverboy Scientist is working on an electronic circuit – why all the liquids? Go figure.

Loverboy Scientist decides he needs a break and suggests to his daughter that they go on a picnick. He then demands that Jamie comes along too in a slimey, insistant kind of way. Cue the video above. The adults are attacked by a tree. So beautiful.

I won’t bore you with the rest so I’ll fast forward all through this stuff: Jamie discovers that Kristy is telekenetic and is subconciously trying to kill Jamie for replacing her mom. There’s a Eastern European in there too, with the only redeeming quality of having the name of “Lazlow”. All is resolved after a bedroom of stuff is thrown at Jamie, powered by a sleepy telekinetic pre-pubescent teen.

The ending is cut right from a F is For Family episode where they’re all lined up in front of Jamie’s car, ready to wrap this shit up:

Oscar Goldman: Jaime, we’ve got to leave or we won’t stand a ghost of a…
[Jaime rolls her eyes, but Alan and Amanda laugh] Oscar Goldman: … chance to catch that airplane.
Amanda Cory: [giving Oscar the thumbs up] That’s the spirit, Mr. Goldman.

If you’ve made it this far, here is the payoff: After sitting through all this hot garbage, I look over at SharkBoy when the credits roll. The fucker is asleep.