My wife, who is a musician in the Canadian Navy, was invited to the Lieutenant Governor's house for dinner one evening. This woman, the LG, is a great supporter of the arts, and has honoured the band every year since she began serving in this position. Now I, as a military spouse, was also invited. But there was a dress code. I had to wear a suit and tie.
A suit I have no problem with. They're formal, look good and are fairly comfortable to wear. A tie, on the other hand, is just plain silly. It came about because a king was too fat and a bit of a slob. He wore a wide necktie to prevent the food from spilling all over his shirt. It was nothing more than a glorified napkin. They're also uncomfortable when worn "properly". In short, I don't like ties.
What was I to do?
Make one in scale-mail, of course.
And that's just what I did.
I laid one of each of the scales on my suit and chose the colours that I thought would go best with it. I made it that afternoon, and wore it that evening. Voila. Problem solved.
Of course, while I was at the dinner, I had tons of people looking at it, and even sold two while I was there. It was so popular that I had some people take photos of it and post them on Facebook.
I went home, and thought nothing more about it until the very next morning.
"Hi", someone wrote, "I saw your tie on Facebook and was wondering if you had any more of them?" It turned out that they were a photographer and wanted to do a photo shoot in Vancouver a few weeks later.
The photo shoot was in black and white, so I lined up all the scales and took a shot of them in black and white, just to see how they would turn out. I then selected the colours that showed best in that medium and made a tie just for the shoot. No problem.
I gave the ties to the organizer, who worked in downtown Victoria at a store, and she took them to Vancouver. A few days later I was to pick them up, again at the store.
Which didn't open until 10 am.
(Don't you just love how this story winds all over the place? And where's the coffee? Patience, Grass Hopper.)
Well, that morning I dropped off my wife at work, my son at school, and it was only 8:15. I had some time to kill, which is generally not a good thing, since that's how you wound eternity.
I drove downtown and beheld a miracle: a parking spot. Without a moment's thought, I parked, knowing that it was free parking for a little while longer. I got out of the car and paid for an additional hour (I love the fact that you can pay ahead of time like that in Victoria), and then thought "Where to get some coffee while waiting?"
That was when I noticed I was parked just in front of a coffee shop: Hey Happy Coffee. (You know, they actually have a web-site, which I've never visited. This is it: heyhappycoffee.com. Let's click on it now.) (Pretty simple. Straight forward. To the point. And at least they link to a map.)
Anyways, despite the simplicity of their web-site, their coffee is unbelievably incredible. it`s one of those places that measures out the beans ahead of time for each cup. They then grind them when you order, and measure out the precise amount of water.
And you know what? It's really worth it. I was amazed. Like, totally amazed.
I even ordered a donut, which I would never do. I don't like donuts, not much. But this donut was a delicacy. I was really impressed.
Anyways, I ended up talking to the owner, and mentioned why I was there. I was waiting to pick up my ties.
In the end, he asked if I could come back and show them to him, for he had seen me making some chain-mail while I was waiting. After all, what else would I do in a new coffee shop?
I went down, got the ties, thanked the woman who organized the shoot, and headed back to show Mr Hey Happy Coffee dude.
Who just happened to be the partner of the woman who produces Style File on CTV.
He took a quick pic of one of them, sent it to her, and she proceeded to contact me about doing a show on my work.
(This is where I just sit here for a few moments in silence, shaking my head in disbelief about how the world seems to work when you look for delightful miracles everywhere, and saying a prayer of thanks to whoever is in charge of receiving these sorts of prayers.)
Now, let me see. What else do I need to put here?
Oh, yes. Photos and links.
So, in order, here is my photo of the tie:
Here is the black and white test shot:
Here is the link to photos that were taken in Vancouver: http://www.bellomag.com/farris-by-martinareem/
And here's the link for the video interview: http://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=602146
I'd paste the last two directly in here, but want to encourage you to visit their sites. Traffic figures and all that.
Anyways, this morning I wandered back to Hey Happy for a cup of coffee this morning and thought this would make a good story for today. You never know, something may come of this.
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