They do grow up fast, don’t they?

Note, after checking road conditions and the weather prognosis we’ve decided to head out this morning for Slovenia.  Have a fine weekend,  and I’ll catch you on the flip side.

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After this one,  I promise to stay away from the “news” for a while.  Honest.

 

Runaway 13-year-old boy drives across Europe

 

Ooh look,  there we are…

A 13-year-old runaway boy who took his father's car and drove nearly 1,000km (620 miles) across Europe is being re-united with his family.

The boy fled after a reported row with his parents in Italy.

Having driven from Italy into Austria, he proceeded to Germany where he was stopped by police after his family had alerted Interpol.

The boy, who had been adopted two years ago, was reportedly heading to his original home country, Poland.

The teenager lives in the northern Italian town of Montebelluna.

After an argument with his adoptive mother - allegedly over a mobile phone payment - the boy, a keen go-cart racer, left on Thursday afternoon.

And he seems to have been completely confident at the wheel of his father's high-powered Mercedes car.

 

The boy was said to be comfortable behind the wheel

His parents say he was probably heading for Poland - he was said to be missing his sister who lives there and to have been in touch with her via the internet, according to Italian media.

The car was eventually tracked and stopped near Moisburg, about 150km from the Polish border.

Police said it was "incredible" that the boy-driver had managed to cross two international borders and filled up with petrol twice without anyone en route raising the alarm.

The teenagers parents are understood to have gone to Germany to bring him home.

 

Now,  you’re probably thinking at this point,  “Well Bob,  who cares, really?”  I mean, nobody got gunned down or anything.

The thing is,  this little story reminds me of something my ole Pappy told me once upon a time, when I was all of about 16.  I might have been 17, but I doubt I was much older.

By this point in our lives we had relocated from Nova Scotia to Ontario,  and it was the misguided notion of my father to go “back home” each summer for a visit.  I think he just wanted to show off.  I mean, both of my parents were gainfully employed, which wasn’t exactly a common thing for a fair chunk of Nova Scotia’s population at the time.   Not so sure it’s changed that much.

Of course,  Mom wanted ME to go along,  to “help with the driving”,  with the hidden agenda of trying to keep the two of them from getting wrapped around a tree somewhere in rural New Brunswick.  

See, the Old Man had a nasty habit of nodding off at the wheel. 

Ya,  scary shit that.

Of course, at the slightest indication that he was dozing off, with the subsequent offer of being relieved of his driving duties,  he would invariably counter with,  “Nope, I’m fine.”   and then proceed at some point to scare the living daylights out of us.

Vacations with Dad.  Oh ya.  Good times.  It’s a wonder we survived.

 

But here’s my little take on the “growing up” part.  At one point in time,  and I think he and I were driving through Middleton,  out of the blue he said, “You know,  it’s the damndest thing,  but when I was your age,  I knew how to get from our place out here,  and here you could drive back to Ontario if you had to.”   And he was right.  I knew the way.  It wouldn’t have been a problem.  Putting gas in the car might have been a consideration.  Well,  that and getting through Montréal but hey,  years later I would drive a class A motor home through Montréal,  so I’m sure I could have figured out how to get around Montréal in a ‘73 Caddy.

See,  by “our place”,  he was talking about the old farm out in Margaretville.  Well,  it’s now referred to as Margaretsville (and my spell check doesn’t even like that) but we always stood fast on leaving out that ‘s’.  It didn’t belong to Margaret,  it was just named after her.  Seems trying to use proper grammar goes way back in my family.  Some sort of genetic predisposition. 

OK, maybe that only applies to those of us with higher education.  Never mind.

No idea who Margaret was, and besides, my older siblings referred to the place as “Maggotville” most of the time anyway. 

Ya ‘cause,  they just loved growing up there.

Poor bastards.

Remember that “forced labour” on the farm thing?  Right.

 

It was roughly ten miles (no, not kilometres,  this was back when we too,  had miles.)  from the farm out to Middleton,  and my father had to know the way at the age of 16,  since his parents had bought a Model A Ford.  Neither one of them wanted to drive the thing of course,  which meant that my Dad was pressed into service.  He probably could have driven around most anywhere without a license,  since there weren’t that many cars on the road,  but they thought it best that he should get one.  The place to do that was at the Stedmans in Middleton.   There was no such thing as a “Licence Bureau”.  It was usually something handled over the counter at your local drug store,  or in this case, a department store.

This would have been about 1924.

 

So this is how it went down.  My Dad and Grandpa (whom I never met, by the way) saunter into the Stedmans, and mosey over to the counter.

“We’re here to get my son his driver’s licence”.

The clerk looks at my Dad and says,  “Can you drive?”

“Yup. Drove here from Margaretville”.

“Well, that’s good enough, here you go.  That’ll be two dollars.”

And that’s how you got your license in 1924.   Damn good thing those cars had sturdy bumpers,  and couldn’t do much more than about 25.

 

Me?  Even though I had been driving for at least a little while,  I still thought it prudent to take “Young Drivers of Canada” when I turned 16 to help with my insurance rates,  and nowadays?   Hell,  you damned near have to promise your first born!

There’s what?  G1.   G2.   Gee, this is getting expensive!

 

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That’s it.  That was the “story”.   Time is fleeting.  Have to jump in the shower.  Later.

 

Thanks for stopping in.

 

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If the snow keeps up.

We won’t be getting out of Dodge tomorrow,  that’s for sure.

I think I mentioned a plan to tool down to Slovenia for the weekend, but we’re supposed to get 40 cm today (that’s around 16 inches for you metrically challenged)  and my impression is that it’s going to continue….

 

I know it’s just a boring picture out our balcony door,  but that was at eight this morning.  Right after I got home from driving Travelling Companion to work.   We’re at opposite ends of the stress spectrum when it comes to driving in the snow.  She’d be nearly in tears by the time she got there if she drove,  whereas I’m more concerned with whether of not I might need to go to the bathroom.  The driving conditions are nowhere near the top of my list of “concerns”.

 

The traffic wasn’t all that bad, but then again we did head out at the crack of crazy time.  Something to do with someone waking up way too early?  It’s a gift.

We did encounter one slight mishap on the way,  where a hapless fellow was going a little too fast on one of the underpasses and pranged into the concrete barrier.   He started to skid out and managed to avoid hitting the right side,  but then went perpendicular and sort of wrinkled the front end of his Saab.  I think it was a Saab,  it was kind of covered in snow.

My guess is he didn’t have all the bells and whistles that some of the cars are equipped with,  since Travelling Companion mentioned how she nearly wiped out in that very spot one morning but,  “the car made some funny noises and I stopped skidding.”   The “funny noises”  were actually a combination of ABS and Traction Control.   Something that can easily be poo-pooed as unnecessary, until that one time when it saves yer ass.

Even after he extricated himself from his little dilemma,  which was a darned good thing too, as he was blocking the only way onto the highway,  he still managed to drive fast enough to disappear into the traffic ahead.

I just said to T.C. “Well,  you can’t fix stupid”.

We saw him parked at the side of the road not too far from the office of The Company that Cannot be Named,  and I was quite willing to take a photo for you on my return trip, except he was still in his car on the phone.  Didn’t think it was prudent. He was quite likely calling the cops to file a report.  Or maybe he was talking to his Mom.  

 

This is just outside the Museums Quartier,  not that you’d be able to tell.  I know that second word looks like French,  but it’s a German word that they borrowed, and so it’s pronounced ‘kwarteer’.  Rhymes with ‘steer’. My phonetic spelling is nonexistent, so that’s the best I can do.

You won’t see those streets looking like that in the brochures.

 

I actually did see someone on a bike this morning.  I suppose there’s some sort of thought process that sees riding in that stuff as a challenge.  It’s not a thought process I’m familiar with.

If it snowed that hard in the Netherlands,  where the bike was my primarily means of transportation,  I would either be driving somebody to work,  and would therefore have a fine set of German engineered wheels to tool around in if need be,  or I’d simply stay home.

 

The “story” that I was going to relate will have to wait for another day.   It was just something that I started spewing out a couple days ago,  and all I need do is check it over and hit “publish”.  It’s one of the reasons I kind of like this Live Writer program,  since I’m not really then dependant on having a working internet connection to blurt things out from the tips of my fingers.  Plus, all the spewing is saved right here on this computer.  Of course, it never hurts to hit the “save local draft” thingy once in a while,  as well as do regular back-ups of the whole shootin’ match.  Don’t ask.

 

I highly recommend it, and by that I mean the program,  but I may very well be preaching to the converted.  Oh,  and do the back up thing too.  So far so good on that front.

 

This is now at 10:00 o’clock. 

There’s a ball of bird seed under there somewhere.

OK, enough of that. 

 

Oh!   We do have a moving company.   It’s going to be Interdean,  and they’re the same bunch that moved us over the Atlantic back in 08.  I suppose as moving companies go,  they’re fine. 

Late yesterday afternoon Travelling Companion got a call from someone in Canada (quel suprise!)  going over the expectations.  It seems that the very smart people in Texas somehow thought we wanted out of here in the second last week of the month.  What?  Not sure where they got that idea.  I don’t want to talk about them any more. Just hurts my head. 

This time around we’re going to be doing an “Air Shipment” in addition to the regular move,  which has been an option for each of the moves over the years,  but one that we didn’t feel we had the need for.   We get something like 62 square feet.  At first I wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

So this morning I’m trying to decipher what the heck they mean by “sixty-two square feet”,  and as near as I can figure,  they’re trying to say it’s a cubic metre.  That makes sense,  but maybe someone forgot (again) that we’re Canadian,  and we can in fact do that metric thing. 

OK, that sounds fine.  Enough room for some extra clothes, and maybe a sewing machine.  Not sure about the guitar.  It might have to go with the regular dog and pony show.

 

I realise I’m at that age where I still use feet and inches when it comes to building materials and such, but it never hurts to be bilingual on the measurement end of things.  If you’ve never tried it,  you should.  Measuring by TEN instead of 12 is so simple even I can do it.   It’s just something you learn and get used to.  Not unlike driving on the left in the UK. 

OK, maybe that’s a bad example. 

 

Once upon a time I had to install an entire kitchen that had been purchased at Ikea and of course it was all metric.  It took a couple goes with the tape measure to figure out what was what,  but it wasn’t too long before I knew exactly what a “70mm cabinet”  looked like,  for example. 

I think that’s the part about measuring in metric that seems to scare the bejeepers out of those unfamiliar.  “Twenty centimetres?  What’s that?”   Well, try this.  Hold your (reasonably normal sized) hand up and spread it out so your thumb and pinkie are as far apart as possible.  That’s close enough.   Can you measure out eight inches without looking at a ruler?  Maybe.  But maybe not.   So if the snow is going to pile up to 40 cm?   Well guess what?  You just figured it out.  See,  it’s not that hard.

End of lesson.

 

And….it’s….still….snowing.

 

Have a fine day. The jury is out on ours.

 

Keep it between the ditches.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

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Not so fast there, Bucko!

Still hanging out with those phones,  as it were.  Somehow in our conversation I failed to point blank ask the Relocation Lady (that’s going to be her moniker from now on, methinks) if she handled everything right up until and after “moving day”.  Well, it’s probably just as well I didn’t, as I would not have been overly keen on the answer. 

See,  she can look after handing over the keys, reading the meters, closing accounts and all that stuff,  but she doesn’t get to pick the movers.  That’s not her deal.  That bit of activity has to come from the very smart people in Texas.  Oh joy.

 

When Travelling Companion finally got home last night she mentioned this little snippet,  and then proceeded to call someone in Texas to ask just what the plan was.  I don’t remember her exact words, since I think too much blood had rushed to my head at that point.  Deafening,  really.

The simpleton on the other end was going to “call someone right away”,  at which point T.C. mentioned that it was after 8:00 p.m. in Austria (and the rest of Europe for that matter,  not that they’d know where that is)  and whom exactly were they going to call??

 

I’m firmly of the opinion that the people who are running that dog and pony show only have one set of functioning teeth to go around,  and half their time is spent looking for it.   Not that I’d want to imply that they’re a bunch of toothless… idiots or anything.  Who me?

There was a word that starts with ‘f’ that I wanted to insert between ‘toothless’ and ‘idiots’,  but I’ll let you figure that out.

I’m calm.  Really. 

 

I mentioned that Travelling Companion was a wee bit late last night,  and that was due to her last ever trip up to the Czech Republic.  She and her replacement decided to make the trip together.  Some sort of act of solidarity or something.  Certainly not a requirement.  It wasn’t really T.C.’s deal at all,  but I guess she felt bad about sending the replacement off into the boonies on her own.   

My preference would have been for the two of them to just stay over night in Shrems or Gmünd, instead of driving home in the dark. 

None of us (I’m including myself here, especially) do so well driving at night any more.  Visual acuity going down the tubes and such.  To top off the lateness, the Crackberry that she had been using for the longest time finally decided to take a powder a few weeks back (wouldn’t hold a charge) and the new one has been having some fits connecting up to the Bluetooth in the car.  So phone communications were somewhat pitiful.  I therefore had no clue where the heck they were. The original plan was to leave at 3:00 p.m., and when I hadn’t heard anything until well into the evening,  I did start to vacillate between being concerned and annoyed. 

I gave up worrying about what could possibly happen on the road way back at some point in 1999 or 2000.  It’s just not even worth troubling my little pea brain.  Just the same, when there’s no word?  It’s very easy for the mind to wander.  It would have helped if my call at around 7:30 p.m. didn’t go straight to voice mail.  

Turns out the “leaving at three” plan was a bust.  Presumably there was some evaporated time involved,  since she came to the door with a bag of goodies,  along with some flowers.

 

Of course,  having an actual flower vase hanging around is a bit of a challenge in these parts,  and we only have one glass one,  which was part of a previous “parting gift” when we left the Netherlands.  It was in use,  so we had to rummage around for the collapsible green plastic one that Daughter Number Two discovered and gave to us for Christmas a few years back.   It’s actually kind of a neat thing really,  since it stores flat,  and then to use it you fill it with warm water which softens the plastic enough to make it into a vase.  Who thinks up this stuff?

You’ll notice though,  that the flowers are in the corner?  The vase is actually too small and the whole arrangement is top heavy, but it’ll have to do.

 

 

It’s ever so slightly above the freezing point today in Wienerland,  although it just didn’t feel like it.  Probably had to do with wind I would imagine.

The view out on the street this morning. 

Oooh,  look at all those shoppers!

You’ll notice the red and white sticks leaning up against the buildings?   Those are to warn passers-by of the possibility of snow falling off the buildings.  I guess it’s their version of “due diligence”. 

 

I think tomorrow is going to be story time around here.  I might have something in the wings.  

Y’all come back!    And keep those sticks on the ice.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

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