Every time I tell someone we might be going to Squamish they say "Oh, there's great climbing in Squamish." This is the great climbing they are talking about. In my opinion, great climbing involves a flight of stairs with jelly beans awaiting me at the top. There should be no 2000' cliff faces involved.

Two weeks of checking my e-mail more often than normal (so, like, every 4 minutes instead of every five) wound down to a finish tonight. As I was sitting here doing some work at home, I noticed a new email in my inbox. After checking incessantly for the past 11 days, I have trained myself to be less disappointed when the four new messages in my inbox are from Yahoo, Audible, Air Canada and some business man in Nigeria who wants to transfer $750,000 U.S. into my personal bank account in order to immigrate to the states. But lo and behold an email with the subject line "Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton." Finally, the suspense is about to be lifted. One click of the mouse will reveal my fate.

And my fate is ...

Nothing.

No really, there was nothing there. It was a blank e-mail from some guy named Nathan Cicoria. Either information gathering technology has taken up the business of cruel pranks or this "some guy" was a legitimate representative of Bobsleigh Canada whose left-click finger was suffering from a minor case of latent trigger happiness.

With unbridled optimism I assumed the latter and shot back an e-mail begging for some relief from my 11 days of limbo.

He e-mailed me back within minutes.