Pique'n Yer Interest

I begin this week with a mea culpa . Two months ago I told you about Kai Nagata, the 24-year-old journalist who rose to the rank of bureau chief at CTV Quebec.

My editor thinks I'm nuts but I listen to music when I'm writing. For one, it's an effective way to drown out the office chatter when I'm on deadline and a steady rhythm can help loosen the word flow.

I've lived in four provinces and spent at least a few days in nine of them. And I can say with relative confidence that B.C. is the lamest in Canada when it comes to its public policies on alcohol.

What is wilderness? The thought hovered last week as I rafted a 100-kilometre stretch of the Wapiti River from remote northeastern B.C. to northwestern Alberta. Other than the launch and take-out points there'd been no sign of humanity.

I saw a man and what a man he was. He was in mid-20, a slender fellow, wearing skinny jeans, slim-fitting leather jacket and a red scarf. Hardly the archetype of alpha-masculinity. But he had a beard. And not just any beard.

Nothing can ruin a summer vacation faster than these three little words - "Back to School!" Even now, 14 years since I walked out of my last exam, laughing maniacally, never to darken the doors of academia again, I still get a chill up my spine when

Hot yoga - the unanticipated whipping boy of a dinner party discussion about the Shiva (destruction)-Shakti (creation) of yoga - eventually caught a break, though the humorous litany at the table continued.

Living in a small town brimming with overt and unbridled devotion, I tread carefully when referencing someone's religion, but here's the thing: I frickin' hate yoga.

Kai Nagata had it made. At 24 years old, he became the Quebec City bureau chief for CTV, one of Canada's most prominent television networks.

So, because I'm a man, she asks me, "Will you come by and get rid of the mouse? "Um, sure. Of course." "Are you sure?" she says. I've already forgotten her name. I actually never knew it. "I hope you don't mind.