They needed some help with software and and expertise
to build an interactive traveling trailer. 
They weren't sure what they needed and even if it was possible.  Most said it wasn't do - able.

So I met with them and found them ready for some help. 
So I showed them a thing or two. After showing them 
how one began designing a multimedia traveling trailer.

After a few days it became clear that one of the missing pieces was the team programming the "big effect". Could I attend  the executive producer on a trip up to the software companies offices in Canada. Yes, I could, I'd blocked out the time.

She said tickets would be made available, for the following morning. We agreed the airport at dawn, an early flight so 
we can do a full useful day up in the T-Town. We worked 
well into the evening and took an early drive to the airport.

And as I pulled my drivers license out to hand to the 
American Airlines ticket processor, I remembered that
I'd been meaning to replace my drivers license. 

The edge had broken off in my wallet right up to the edge
of the data strip. This had evidently allowed small amounts 
of moisture to enter and attach themselves to the photo. This, the pressure and the heat had smeared my picture transforming it to a nearer match to the shroud of Turin,  than a photo of a living saint. And thus, I traveled with a picture in my wallet that represented a 12th century tint more than a contemporary photographic. More a warm 
blur in sepia tone, with a glowing cloud of hair and aura 
than a photograph. 

No passport, says I, I'm only going to Canada, heck. 
They're not even a real country for gosh sakes. I've driven
in two times in the last few years, only a slight exaggeration. We drove in just four years back. And while I'd been questioned closely on GUNS. Which obviously all Americans, especially MIAMIANS carry multiple armaments of. A
nd of course, we had no more than our normal complement 
of NONE.

The attendant looks up and says, "I need your passport." 
"I don't have it, its at home." "Go get it,"  "Home, is the southern tip of Florida." 

"Well, what can we do, is there any alternative?" "What can we do, I need to go up to Toronto. I've driven there, I was 
never asked, when we drove in." "Its when you fly in, when 
you fly, in you need your passport." "Come on, what are my options?" "Well, you could have someone fax a copy of your passport, that would work." "OK I will. What's the number." They fumble for it, it rarely comes up, here at the counter. I furiously punch at my cellular link.

I called my wife, normally she wouldn't be home, but home, she was. "Get my passport please honey, xerox it, and fax it up here to the Portland airport. In fact, xerox it, and scale it up. It may be easier to read larger."  "OK, but skip the accountants office on your way into work, just head right in to the office."  "Sure" she said. "I'm leaving right now." It was about seven-thirty am and we're hoping to catch a nine am flight.

So the hands on the clock hit eight, then eight fifteen. 
I figured, driving a little faster than normal, she would arrive at her office about eight. Allow enough time to copy the passport and then fax it, it should arrive any second now. 
I ask the various staffers behind the counter, the VP of this project arrives, and checks in.

I explain the situation. She surprised, "You need a  passport?" "Yes", pausing to deliver the solution, but it's OK, mine is on-the-way. Its being faxed here. She looks up at me, another marvel of technology? No, just a flexible attendant, he will settle for a "faxed", and "xeroxed" copy 
of my passport, it's coming from Miami. "Oh", she looked puzzled, "sounds like a rather modest low resolution, alternative"... her voice trails off. But if he'll accept it, I reply. S'good enough for me.

I call her office, has she reached it? No, one of her co-workers replies, she hasn't arrived yet. Why not, I puzzled, she's normally at her office at eight, but now, it eight- thirty, and she was asked to hurry but still hasn't arrived. I try her cell. This is possible now, my wife and 
each of our three children, all have personal cellular phones.

She answers, yes, she's on the way to the office, she had 
tried to send the fax, from the accountants office, but that turned out not to work. The only copier in the office was a "feed - through" type and the passport jammed going through. The image was one long smear. I picture my passport, stuck deep in the bowels of a fax-copier machine pages folded, crimped and inked. Did you get it out of the machine?  Yes, So she's on her way should be at the office before nine.

Nine was the flight. Its now eight thirty, then eight forty, still no fax. The attendants are now impatient instead of bemused. I ask again, probably the dozeneth time. Could you check the fax machine again. I call my wifes' office in Miami. Have you sent the fax yet?

I've tried faxing it three times, it keeps giving the busy signal. Could you check it again. They said they would check. No not yet, Is there a second number. Well, they look at each other. The Delta counter people who've been following all this with amusement offer their perspectives that they don't require a passport, for their customers. Can we use your fax number, we can't seem to get through on the American fax line. Well, ok

I get there fax number, I write it down, call my wife again, 
give her the fax number, for Delta, and as I'm giving her the last few digits. She says, its going through. Thanks honey, she says, well they'll be getting several copies, I sent it several times. They'll be receiving faxes all day.

"Check it again", I shout, turning to the cluster of American counter agents now gathered as if, to the scene of the crime. One returns, holding several sheets of paper, they all gather round the pages. 

Let me see the fax, you'll be needing this. He hands me, 
a crumpled paper, with a large poor copy of the inside 
of somebody's passport. Looks like a very dark fellow from maybe Cameroon, or an aboriginal from the interior desert. It looks no more like me, than the shroud of Turin drivers license, I carry.

After we catch our luggage from the carousel, we head toward Canadian Customs, he asks for my passport. I carefully unfold my faxed xerox copied version. 
He looks at me, you've got to do better than this, let me see your drivers license. I hand him, my shroud of Turin drivers license. He seems momentarily impressed 
by the rich sepia tones of the presumably ancient visage. This is it? He asks? You've got to do better than this. 

I leaf through my wallet, let see, my voters registration also a well used article, is bereft of my sterling visage. Only my expired YMCA membership card caries both 
the pertinent data and has a readable snap. How's this, all the data matches, I offer hopefully. He looks at me, bites his lip thinks better of it, and says just go ahead.

We spend the day deep in negotiation. Working to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the software, what the constraints are, and how best given the limitations of our delivery vehicle. We work well into the evening, and break for dinner about eight. The lead software developer one of the two founders, offered to join us for dinner. We wander down the street, into a cellar bar, and what kind of lovely painting do they have on the wall of this fancy chi-chi bar underground in Toronto. Is a scene of my home town. It's a painting of an aerial view of the Florida Keys.

It might've been painted from a photo taken about three hundred feet up in the air, of the northern Florida Keys, just a few miles south of my house.

The next day we returned to their offices, and rejoined the discussions. We look at options, consider alternatives. Later on that same day, it crosses my mind that I need to check with the airport, because, I'd seen the weather report earlier and they'd called for a windstorm coming through town, that afternoon. All afternoon, while we were having our meetings, the wind pushed through 
the window, rattled the frames, jostled the papers and made the spirit move. Meteorologists that morning had warned that seventy-eighty mile per hour winds 
would be blowing through town just about the time my plane was scheduled to depart about six thirty.

I asked one of the helpful staffers to call the airline to see if Air Canada would be flying with winds of seventy to eighty miles per hour. Yes, I was told, they would be flying. However busy I was, I was still quite mindful that I would be flying home after work. 

Getting the news that Air Canada would be flying, I asked a simple question.  I turned to the graphics artist "how long does it take to get to the airport?" "Bout half an hour to forty-five minutes." OK, So my plane leaves to six thirty, I'll head out from here about five then. Gives me an hour and a half, wait at the airport half an forty-five minutes to half an hour, sounds good. Unfortunately, I failed to include the "five o'clock" phenomenon in my calculations.
Five o'clock arrives and I begin packing up, Take a couple extra minutes for goodbyes, I head down to the street level to hail a cab. Several unsuccessful minutes later, one of the cute little secretaries took pity on me, came down and within seconds a cab stopped for me.

I get into the lovely cab of a indian gentleman, and explain that I'm in a hurry and how fast can we be there? I'll get you there very fast sir, you won't miss your plane. He exclaims and we're off. However, in a moment or two we were while in motion, it was the motion of mollasses in a cold January. You could say, we crawled nearly the whole way, until we arrived at the airport. I should of asked how much time should I allot for a trip to the airport in RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC.

Let me tell you with Gundesh, we turned three corners and met up with a solid gridlock of five oclock traffic. Cars on everyside, cars stopped sideways,. Cars at intersections trying to pull into already filled streets. 

There was no yielding you could do, since every lane had it's full quota My driver has merrily chatting me up as he jostled from lane to lane, cadging a foot here, a edge of a bumper into this other lane now. We're up into parkinglots, bumping over curbs and medians. All the while, with very proper British my cabbie apologises for each of his rather extreme driving techniques.

After all, no one is to blame, he, but a driver, a bondsman who to undertake his task,  is to be the Krishna to the Arjuna of his passenger. Bear his burden, the passsenger / guest, who likewise blameless, who must rush under the unrelenting sun, with his own burden of tasks and troubles. 

Each struggles with his own, angels and demons. And while begging and apologizing to each driver, he cuts off and squeezes in line ahead of, tells me the story of how he has traveled from Bangladesh with his family and has worked here in Toronto for thirteen years and just today, has achieved his Canadian citizenship. 

As we weave and dodge first down one street, then turn into another completely jammed block of sidewalk to sidewalk creeping traffic, I began to think of the current dilemma as relatively under control. I then remembered  my folded two-day old faxed and xeroxed passport, and my "Shroud of Turin" drivers license.

Would I be allowed to exit the country, and then I figured Sure, I can do it, after all, I talked my way into this country I imagine that if we can get to the airport we will. I ask, so are we about half way yet? We're now crawling out of town edging back and forth at an average speed of about twelve miles per hour.

Oh no, sir, we are about one-third of the way there. I look gingerly over the headrest From the back seat the meter has reached $14.00. My heart sinks again. I only have $22 dollars and some inconsequential change on me And while there are cars, cars, cars, all around. Five O'clock leaving the city on one of the main expressways leaving town and theres just not an ATM in site.

So between not having good identity, being late for an international flight,  and probably being about ten dollars short for my cab fare, I had very little to occupy my thoughts as I prepared to leave Toronto that Friday afternoon.

I did send him a check, which I'm sure surprised him greatly. With a small gratuity, and my thanks.