mike the mountain

1. Pick a exotic, interesting country, somewhere not unknown to Western travellers but not over-touristy either. The kind of place fun people go backpacking in groups.



2. Pack one black suit/white shirt and dress shoes with good grip. Be willing to lose them.
3. Find a group of younger (20s) travellers. Hang out, socialize, get to know one guy (specifically a male, doesn’t work with a female, best if he’s a movie or comic fan), find out his name, home town, etc. Give them a fake name, background, etc. If he’s got a background or family in government, military, or law-enforcement, pick someone else.
4. Casually find out where they’re staying, how long, where they’re going next. Give wrong info for your hotel/hostel (i.e., don’t be easily findable).
5. One night, be “accidentally” spotted wearing your suit. Don’t talk, run.
6. Find a web café, get pics and details of target (Facebook, etc.), info on where they’re staying, where they’ve been and are going if possible. Delete web history/cache/etc.
7. Print as much stuff as you can, build loose “dossier” in a large envelope. No fingerprints.
8. The day before you leave: trash the suit, rough yourself up, make it look like you’ve been attacked and beaten up badly. Has to look real.
9. Late at night show up at the target’s room, out of breath, near panic.
10. Act like you’re in trouble, don’t say who or why. Give him the envelope, tell him NOT to open it.



11. Tell him he has to deliver the envelope to a specific trash can (in a market or church or other high-traffic location) tomorrow before midnight.
12. If you can get a convincingly realistic prop gun, take it out. Tell him to keep the lights off, give a dramatic farewell, and run off into the night.
13. Get cleaned up, ditch clothes (and prop gun), head to the airport or bus station. If you know their next stop, send postcard with a cryptic message about everything being “safe” now.

If he does what you ask (not open the envelope, throw it in the garbage), you’ll be a topic of conversation, an interesting story with a question-mark ending.

If he opens the envelope… he will freak the hell out, and probably come looking for you (which is why you used a fake name, location, hotel, and left the country. Also why you avoided fingerprints, in case he’s extra motivated). The mystery will only grow as everything you told him ends up being false. Every James Bond, spy or assassin movie he’s ever seen will resonate in his mind for days, weeks, years. And even though nothing will happen to him, and even though he’ll get a postcard saying everything’s “safe”, he’ll wonder for the rest of his life who you were and why you were interested in him.

What an awesome year.  Even though by some measures it wasn’t quite the year I had hoped for, there’s never a bad time in the world of Mike.

One unfortunate thing that I allowed to affect almost everything in ’08 was my shoulder injury.  In February I had what seemed like a very minor fall while snowboarding that ended up dislocating my shoulder and tearing my rotator cuff.  I have NEVER had any kind of injury take so long to fully heal!  I’m still not at 100%.  The toll this took on my usual fun and games was catastrophic: couldn’t go snowboarding for the rest of the winter, couldn’t golf at all during the summer, had to drop out of a marathon training program (still managed to run a 1/2 marathon), couldn’t wear a backpack with any weight so no overnight hiking, couldn’t do any of the normal physical activities that I usually enjoy (weightlifting, rollerblading, squash, swimming, etc.) and, as important, that keep me in any kind of healthy condition.  End result is me being in the absolute worst shape of my life: fat, weak, and pretty dang pathetic.

Enough!  That’s the other thing I let that injury do for me all year: gave me an excuse to be a whiny lazy bitch, eat badly, not do the exercise I could do, etc.  Starting TODAY, I’m back to eating well and working my a$$ off.

One goal I thoroughly enjoyed surpassing was writing at least one blog post a week.  I managed to put up 62 posts in 2008, some of which actually involved original thought!

The big highlight vacation was a roadtrip through BC.  Chrystal had never seen BC outside of Vancouver and our West Coast Trail hiking trip, so I resolved to show her as much of the rest of this incredible slice of paradise as I could.  We did a whirlwind tour of the southern interior, wine country, up the Sunshine Coast, across the island, a week (SUR-fing) in Tofino, then up through the central-BC backroads to Jasper. Tenting the whole way, enjoying some incredible local produce, grilling fresh fish over a campfire, drinking amazing wine every night… awesome.  A trip every Canadian needs to do at least once in their life.

I got all fired up about the proposed copyright legislation some twisted, ignorant, bought-and-paid-for, miserable excuse for a public servant tried to force down our throats and wallets.  Not that I have an opinion about it or anything…

In May I moved this humble little blog from Blogger to my own WordPress site.  Also started Twittering, because I really don’t have enough ways to waste time online.

Dreamgirl (who I think should start her own blog) had a huge year as well: running her first marathon in Edmonton at the end of the summer, on one of the hottest days of the year!  Also, to the joy of us both, she took a part time job at Mountain Equipment Co-Op.  Just for the extra money, of course.  Nothing to do with the staff discount, amazing trips, cool people, or any of that stuff.  Really.

A big personal achievement in the work world was finally building and launching our new website and blog.  I’m pretty dang proud of this, and I hope you will swing by every once in a while and let me know how I’m doing!

So I get a phone call last night. Asking for Chrystal, but happy to talk to me. Probably should have been my first warning.

So this guy (Nick from Georgia!) tells me “congratulations!!”  Apparently Chrystal ‘won’ a fantastic vacation package to Orlando.  Sponsored by Universal Studios; 7 days at a resort near all the attractions, full-access passes, rental car with unlimited mileage, then 4 more days on Daytona Beach. Chrystal and I and two more people at no extra cost! Of course I’m doubtful, but Nick starts rattling off all kinds of info: Chrystal’s email, birthday, home address. Hm. Not asking me for anything, just giving me a bunch of info, and telling me the package is in the mail, just make sure to send him a postcard!

Cost?

Oh there’s no charge for the accommodations or car, but there is a “registration fee” of $199 per person. Not that unreasonable, I guess. Nick keeps talking about sending us the info package, doesn’t ask me for anything, I’m starting to think this might be legit, I’m actually getting a little excited about everything… then I get transferred to the “shipping department”.

Now I’m talking to “Tony”.  Robo-caller extraordinaire.  He starts fast-talking about how they’re a very upstanding respectable company and I have nothing to worry about and they work with Universal Studios and I’ve heard of Universal Studios and if they work with Universal Studios then they must be totally legitimate and he’s confirmed that Chrystal has a Visa and it’s a 16-digit number and it starts with a 4 and if I could just read the rest of the number…

Woah. Wait. Stop. Excuse me?

“Yes I see Chrystal has a valid Visa card, it’s a 16 digit number starting with a 4.”

(At this point you’re probably thinking the same thing I am: “What the heck was in that Jamaican meat patty I just ate? Also, isn’t every Visa number 16 digits starting with a 4?”)

Also also, Chrystal doesn’t have a Visa. Red flag on the play, this one’s done. But my curiosity’s been peaked, so I’m going to drag this out a bit longer.

I tell “Tony” that I’m not comfortable giving out my girlfriend’s credit card number over the phone, is there some way they could send the info package and I’ll call back?

“We’re a perfectly legitimate company sponsored by blah blah blah… I see Chrystal has a Mastercard 16 digits starting with a 5…”

I tell him again that I’m not giving out her credit card number, do they have a phone number that I could call them back? Nope, I can’t call back without a confirmation number but they can’t give me a confirmation number until they have the credit card number because blah blah blah and what’s her Mastercard number 16 digits starting with a 5…?

At this point he’s repeated the same word-for-word script to me at least 3 times, even using some of the exact phrases that my old buddy “Nick” fed me. I’m tired of this guy now so I ask him for the name of his company. “We work with Universal Studios…” Shaddup. This is obviously a scam, what’s the name of YOUR company??

He finally mumbles out “E Tour and Travel” before I hang up, disappointed but at least relatively confident that I made the right choice here. Chrystal might have been a teensy bit upset if she came home and found out I gave her credit card info to someone over the phone.

A quick Google shows me that E Tour and Travel is some kind of super-aggressive somewhat shady looking outfit that sells timeshares (that part was never mentioned to me). Their marketing tactics are at best borderline illegal, so even if this offer (not a “prize”) was completely legit, I’m still pretty glad to not have fallen for it. To be fair, it looks like even though there’s been a ton of complaints against them, they have resolved or “made every effort to resolve” nearly all of them (according to the BBB).

I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say that **NO** reputable business is going to call you at night and ask for your credit card number…