Notes
Family and Life Milestones
- Two sons, two daughters, ten granddaughters, three grandsons, one great-grandson, one great-granddaughter
- Eric’s birth story
- Day before: wife picked raspberries in Abbotsford
- Spent all day at Burnaby Hospital until midnight, then went home
- Next morning: back to work in Delta, framing houses; visited hospital again in the evening
- 2010 Mexico family trip: Chris was secretly invited by Michelle and
surprised the family at the airport
- Courtney was speechless; mom didn’t believe it until Chris pulled his suitcase out of the car
Framing Career: Business, Hardships, and Houses Built
- Ran a framing business for decades, typically with just two
employees (one experienced carpenter, one helper)
- Kept it small deliberately: more employees meant more stress and less money
- Biggest business stress: keeping employees happy and covered when someone dropped out
- Houses built and lived in: Lilac (1971), Leburn, Ash, Walmsley, two
in Chilliwack, and the current home (renovated, not built)
- Spent $10,000 renovating the Rainbow house: new flooring, cabinets, casings, doors
- One house built to sell resulted in a $3,000 loss; all others profitable
- Best job: a Mission house priced $10,000 above the next contractor, still won the bid, made $200/hour
- Hardest seasons: winter (rain, snow, ice on trusses) and August heat
(35°C, working inside wall frames like an oven)
- Best months to frame: October and April/May
- Retired now; blood pressure normalized since leaving the business
- Worst professional relationships: engineers (“they want to make me look like I knew nothing”)
Health, Mortality, and Travel
- Aortic aneurysm discovered about six years ago after a sudden
episode while drinking mate
- Initially thought it was a heart attack; MRI and ultrasound found the aneurysm instead
- Monitored annually by a specialist; surgery performed last September when it reached 5.5 cm
- Likely caused by years of very high blood pressure and stress; possibly congenital
- Surgeon’s note: many people have no idea until it bursts, which stops the heart from pumping
- Cousin Blinkev died of heart congestion after hiding his medication in a bathroom drawer
- Friend died at hole 2 of a golf course; 1984 accident on Number 3
Road killed two men leaving for a hockey tournament
- Reflection: “everybody dies right on time”
- Mexico travel: favourite destination is Puerto Vallarta; has visited
Cancun, Los Cabos, and Mazatlán multiple times
- Cancun disliked: long flight from Vancouver, arrived in a thunderstorm, bad weather for most of the trip
- Best accidental upgrade: missed original flight, rebooked on 11am departure, seated in business/column section with free drinks
- First Mexico trip involved an Alaska Airlines cancellation, a Delta reroute through Portland, and 17-year-old Eric navigating alone to meet the family in Los Angeles
Transcript
Speaker AYep.
Speaker BWhat else? What else do you want in your book? What other stories? Becoming a dad.
Speaker ADad. Yeah. I have two sons.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker ATwo daughters.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker ATen granddaughters. Ten granddaughters and three grandsons and one great grandson and a great granddaughter. And they're just as crazy as I am.
Speaker BDo you remember what it was like when Eric was born? I guess you were telling me he was the. You told me yesterday.
Speaker AYeah, well. When? The day before she was born, she picked Tony flecks of raspberries here in Abbotsford.
Speaker BThat is crazy.
Speaker ANow, we went home, and then in the morning, we woke up and she said, we're going to the hospital. Okay. So. Took her to the hospital. Spent all day in Burnaby Hospital till midnight.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AThen they went home and I phoned my parents and her parents. Yep. That they had a grandson. Yeah.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker ANext day I went to work again.
Speaker BReally? Next day?
Speaker AYeah. Okay. Well, there's no use for me hanging around. Sure. Then in the evening, went to the hospital again, you know, so that's what I did. No, you were busy.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AI had to go from Vancouver to. To Delta. That's where we were framing Delta houses, you know.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AYep. Cool. Yeah. So that's. This was on July 8th. Then October 1st, we moved back to Abbotsford.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AStart working with a couple guys in Abbotsford. Yeah. Yeah. Good guys. Work for them. Both of them are gone already.
Speaker BOh, yeah.
Speaker AMan. 11. When I sit and start thinking how many people I know that are dead.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AI come very easy. 200 people really, just like that, tell of their death. You know, like, for instance, kangaroo, church. Lot of people came out of church there those days. They're all gone. And so many other guys. I knew a family of boys, four boys from Paraguay. They're all gone. Just. It gives me a warning.
Speaker BYeah. Well, I guess we all need to.
Speaker AYeah. Yeah.
Speaker BWe all will.
Speaker AYou don't think about it, but really, we should more think about it. Could this be our last day? You know, I mean, Blinkev and I like my second cousin and, I mean, he had heart issues, you know, apparently he wouldn't go and see the doctor. She found out later on that he never took the pills that he was supposed to take. They were all hidden in the drawer in the washroom. She was quite upset about it when she found out he never took his pills. He had what they called heart congestion. Lots of water on his heart and I guess. And he was just in the townhouse and doing nothing. Not exercise, nothing. And you know how it is when you go to the golf course that's our job. Walking out and hitting the ball. He got up to the second hole and all of a sudden he upset his partner. I'm feeling very, very sick. And he had leaned over onto him and all of a sudden he just done went down to lord his. His heart stopped. So you, you just never think it could happen to you and that is, you know, like my accidents, I never thought it could happen. Just like that blink of an eye, it's done so. Or like my sister husband and Mom's Camels brother. 1984, it was a big accident by number three road there. 35 vehicles fell off and Hedman and another friend, they were on the way to Surrey to hockey tournament. Yeah, they got up to there and they got crunched and killed the right way, just like that. But five minutes after they left, the porter left home. You have five kids and a wife, you know, all younger kids. Nope. Just like that. You know what? And he didn't die one minute too soon or one minute too late. Everybody dies right on time.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AIf you believe it or not, to my opinion, you die right on time. Yeah. Same thing with your dad.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AWas his time right when he was supposed to? Yeah, yeah. How long did your dad have that situation? Did he.
Speaker BIt must have been a couple years. They kept telling him to lose weight because it wasn't safe to do the surgery. He was quite overweight. So it must have been several years that he had it. And then eventually it got too big and they were like, we have to
Speaker Aoperate and no matter what, see how they found out. Mine is about six years ago one morning we were drinking mate and all of a sudden thought I had a heart attack.
Speaker BReally.
Speaker AI just fell over. I'm very, very sick. And it's very interesting. I have that attack quite sometimes and as soon as they quick water and breathe a little thing, then it's gone. So this lately hasn't happened that often. And so I went to the hospital, they did tests, you know, I thought I had a heart attack. But they found out had nothing to do with my heart, what I had. But I still couldn't figure out what it is. They did all the ultrasound and MRI and all that. That's when they found out that I had this. Yeah. So they have been watching it constantly. I would see once a year. They're specialists. And so last year, September, I said, oh, we have to do surgery now. Really? Yep. The totalness 5.5 cm. It's very serious now. So that's how they detected that. If I hadn't had with a check that probably still would know that I have it. But that's what the surgeon said. A lot of people, they have no idea they have it. All of a sudden that thing bursts and of course you have a heart attack.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AHe said when that thing bursts your heart, your heart almost stops 70 pumping blood.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker ASo I guess. But I guess well, now, so he says people are born with it.
Speaker BOh, really?
Speaker AOh, yeah.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AYeah. He said yours could be that you were born with it. I don't think so. And so I had asked California, what does it come from if you have a lot of high blood pressure, a lot of stress? That's what I had. I had number of years, very high blood pressure, terrible blood pressure and a lot of stress. Yeah. I think that's what has created that. So it's amazing what stress can do to you.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AAnd now that I don't work and have no employees anymore, my blood pressure is still fine now.
Speaker BOh, really? Yeah.
Speaker AYeah. I have sometimes a little bit stress, but not much. Not the use of, you know, when you're in your business, the biggest stress is employees. To treat your employees that they're happy and to keep employees, you know, especially when you're very busy. And all of a sudden one employee can't come anymore. Now what?
Speaker BRight. Yeah.
Speaker AYou have all this line up, all this commitment, you know, that gives you a lot of stress.
Speaker BHow many employees did you have? How many employees did you have
Speaker Anormally? Just two.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AOne experienced carpenter, one helper. That's when you make the most money.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AThe more employees you have, the more running around it is, and you lose right away. Time. No, that'd be the best. Just three or three guys.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker ABecause I'm one of those guys. I like to hands on myself. Right. I can't just stand there and. No, I like to do work too.
Speaker BHow many houses have you built that you've lived in? Because you did this one. But what was before Rainbow was built?
Speaker A1971. He built the first one on Lilac, then one on Leburn, one on Ash, one on Walmsley. Oh, yeah. Two and two in Chilliwack.
Speaker BRight. And you lived in both of those in Chilli. Okay.
Speaker AThen two of them. Both of them, yeah. And then this one.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AThat's it.
Speaker BYou didn't build the one on Rainbow?
Speaker ANo.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AOh, no, that. That was built in 1972.
Speaker BOkay. Just moved in.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AWe did a lot of renovating there. Spent $10,000 renovating it.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AYeah, well, like they had the real Old casing and old doors and I ripped everything up. I stepped everything, all the baseball, the casing, all the flooring and all that. Put everything brand new in, you know.
Speaker BYeah, yeah.
Speaker ACool. Yeah. Put brand new kitchen cabinets in. I could have, I should have built more every time. Seems to me I had luck. Well, I built one house to sell and there I lost. And that one I lost $3,000.
Speaker BOh yeah.
Speaker AOkay. But other, other than that I did good, you know, I could build more. Well, the thing is if you're a framer, you can't do both. Right. Frame and build house.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker ABecause when you build a house, you have to be constantly there looking after your sub trades. Okay.
Speaker BRight. Yeah.
Speaker AWhen you're study framer and you have the employees there just. Just doesn't work. You can make all do if you want to make money, you could do only one thing.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker ADo that Good. Okay. Yeah. So. Yeah, that's it. I had good, bad days and good days, you know, I built, did some houses. I made eight bucks an hour. My employees made 25 bucks an hour.
Speaker BWow.
Speaker AYou can do that only a couple of houses then. Then things have to change because you can't survive at that. But then somehow I made a lot of money. Cool. I did one wholesome hope. I was very busy in a couple of mission. They had bought the lot there. They were after me, they wanted me to do it. I don't. I give them such a ridiculous price. I figured there's no way that I'm going to get it.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker ASure enough, yeah, they want me to do it. And later on I asked them and I was 10,000 higher than the next builder, next contractor after me.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AAnd that house, I made 200 bucks an hour.
Speaker BWow.
Speaker AI made up from what I had before. Yeah, yeah, no, that was the one. But I managed to do it, you know, with all the busyness I was, you know, so you just have to work a little harder.
Speaker BYeah, that's good.
Speaker ABut I didn't, no, I'm very happy that that stress is all gone all over, you know. So dealing with customers, employees and building inspectors and the worst dealing is with engineers.
Speaker BOh yeah.
Speaker AI told couple of engineers, you guys don't know nothing. They want to make me look like I knew nothing.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker AHere I have this 40, 50 years experience. They're pretending that I don't know nothing. I told couple guys where to go. Yeah, good. Yeah. I had ups and downs in my business too, you know. But in general, general was good, you know. So how's things at Your job. Do you have employees under you?
Speaker BNo, I don't. I'm just there to write code, like Mike does. Yep.
Speaker AOh, I see. Just write code.
Speaker BExactly what Mike does. Yeah. And it's great. They pay me really well and I'm good at it, so I'm very happy.
Speaker AGood, good feel it's good.
Speaker BAnd we'll see what happens over the next couple years.
Speaker ASo you have made a commitment for four years or what?
Speaker BYeah, until they sell the company.
Speaker AUntil they sell the company.
Speaker BAnd they're thinking they'll do that in 20, 29. So two and a half years from now. Yeah, it's not so bad.
Speaker AWhy would it. Why would it sell?
Speaker BThat's kind of the. It's the goal that the CEO wants to get to. He wants to get to $200 million in revenue and then sell it to private equity, some of the big investment bankers, and then be done. It's his 10th company he started, so I think he's ready to retire too. And I have equity in the company, so if we do that, I'll get a nice paycheck and then we'll figure out what's next. Yeah. Gotta work hard to get there, though. So we'll see. It's not guaranteed.
Speaker AThat's what everything. You have to work hard to get there.
Speaker BIt's good, though.
Speaker AThe hardest I found on my framing was in the wintertime.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AWorking that rain, cold weather every day, you know. Oh, that was sometimes not much fun.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker AWorking on the roof, snowing a little bit and working on the roof.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AYou don't know if you'll be on the ground next time, your next minute, you know.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker AYeah. No, every morning when I was first thing, I woke up and looked out of the window. What am I going to deal? What are we going to deal with now? Today, rain or snow or ice. We have sometimes come to go outside where the truck stop ice on the trusses. Now we have to scrape all the ice off before you could do anything, you know? Yeah.
Speaker BGross.
Speaker AIt wasn't always fun, I tell you that.
Speaker BAnd you did that for a lot of years.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BThe summers must have been nice. Summers must have been nice.
Speaker AYeah. Well, comes August, was it when it's freaking hot.
Speaker BHot. Yeah.
Speaker AWhat was the worst when you had all the outside walls up and it's 35 degrees sun. Yeah. It was like you're in the oven. Yeah. By the time the day was over, your face and everything was just almost burned because you're facing the plywood all the time. That's the worst. Yeah. You have to make sure you had lots of water with you, drink lots of water. And you would have to take once in a while a break. You just couldn't continue there. Okay. Yeah. The best framing was came October. Those are usually. Was usually the best months. October or April, May. Those are good months, you know, in between.
Speaker BBetween. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker AHave you ever flown Flur jet airline?
Speaker BYes.
Speaker AYou have?
Speaker BYeah, we did that when we came for Christmas that one year.
Speaker AYou flew with Fleur, right? Yeah, yeah. They are getting bigger, bigger now. I see about four or five times floor coming into Abbotsford.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AMore than WestJet. Yeah. So what day are you flying back then?
Speaker BDelta again.
Speaker AWhat day?
Speaker BOh, what day? The Sunday. So the fifth.
Speaker AOh, Sunday, huh?
Speaker BYeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker AWe flew once for Delta. What happened is when we went the first 10, first 10 to Mexico, we were supposed to fly with Alaska to Seattle. When I was smaller than F8.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker ASo here we go in the waiting room. Wait there. And supposed to leave it, I think at 7 o'. Clock. 10 to 7, there's no plane there. 5 to 7, still no plane. All of a sudden they made the announcement that we had to go back now to. They said they had, I guess, airplane plug problems. Right. But the one guy said, he said, they're lying to us. He said, I know what it is. There were not enough passengers. It's cheaper for them not to send them send us a different plane. So we had to go all the way back to L. AU get our suitcases and go to security.
Speaker BReally?
Speaker ASo then we flew with Delta to Portland.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker ASo yep. And yep, we flew to Portland and see what happens. We had Mattel arranged in Seattle and Eric stayed back. See, there was play of hockey and the guy said that if he would stay back, play a hockey game. This was I think Friday or Saturday, they would. After the game, they would bring him to Seattle. Okay, so here we got this. What's going to happen now? We want to cancel. We didn't have to cancel. The Alaska canceled our motel.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker ASo then Eric went and so he had a motel all by himself. And we took. Next day we took off from Portland, but Alaska flew to Los Angeles. That's where he met us in Los Angeles.
Speaker BOkay. How old was he?
Speaker A17, 18.
Speaker BThere's like high school.
Speaker AYeah, something like that. Yeah. Okay, so he met us, well, in Los Angeles. We walked into the plane where he was in then.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AFishing from there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was quite something. Yeah. We flew with Delta to Portland and we got there and There was a shuttle waiting for us. We got to the motel and everything. And that was very nice. You know, we didn't have to do nothing. And when we got there, the motel, and he said, you have a choice for tomorrow morning. We have to serve you with breakfast or I have to give you $30 U.S. okay. So we chose the $30 U.S. yeah. Next morning, he woke us up, the shuttle was there, picked us up again, and we figured we could eat at the airport.
Speaker BExactly.
Speaker AYeah. That was our first flight to Mexico.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AHad a good time there. Good, Good time.
Speaker BWas it just the family?
Speaker AYeah, it was just us and Michael, Michelle.
Speaker BOkay. Yeah.
Speaker AOh, no, Eric. Eric was, too. Eric was there, too. Yeah.
Speaker BBecause I guess mom and dad would have been. Where were they?
Speaker AYeah, they were. They were married already.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker ASo. Yeah. And 2010, that's when we flew as a family down there, you know. Remember when I remember put my foot. But it carried me into the boat. Was going there.
Speaker BI remember. That was a great trip.
Speaker AThat was something. Yeah. And it was interesting there, you know? And all of a sudden, to Grandma, I said, you should maybe take Chris along, too. So. And then we give everything over right away to Michelle.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker ASo she checked out, and. Yeah, there was a ticket available. Yeah. I said, let's take him. I figured that's one way to get to know you a little bit.
Speaker BYeah. Yeah.
Speaker ASo the whole family.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AYeah. That was quite something. The way we did it, I think we had really surprised them.
Speaker BYeah, you did.
Speaker AThat was fun. What did they say when they found out that you're coming with?
Speaker BThey didn't believe me. They didn't believe me. So I. We went to the airport, and I was like, oh, hang on. There's one extra suitcase in the back. And I pulled it out, and it was mine. And I was like, I'm coming with you. And mom was like, no, you're not.
Speaker AWhat?
Speaker BWhat do you mean? And they just couldn't believe it. They were so surprised. Courtney was speechless. I remember she didn't say anything. Yeah, it was fun.
Speaker ANo, I figured. That's good. That's a big stunt here. Yeah,
Speaker Byeah, it was. I was actually. I was in Strathmore when Michelle emailed me and said, hey, have a look. Can you come this day and keep it a secret? So I was visiting Courtney.
Speaker AYeah. No, I figured I want to keep a secret. I don't want anybody to know about it.
Speaker BYeah. Yeah, it was fun. That was a great trip.
Speaker ADid you have no problem with keeping a secret?
Speaker BNo problem.
Speaker ANot at all.
Speaker BIt Was easy. How many times have you done Mexico? You've gone quite a bit now.
Speaker AYeah, we've done even four times in Las Cabos and over Mazole. Four times. Three or four times. Los Cabos fights in Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. I think six times.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker AOr more. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah.
Speaker BDo you have a favorite area?
Speaker AYeah, Puerto Vallarta.
Speaker BPuerto Vallarta.
Speaker AYeah. Yeah. I mean Las Comas is okay too, you know. Yeah, that's where we went. That was 2000 Cancun. I don't like.
Speaker BNo.
Speaker AFirst of all, it's a freaking long flight. It is a long six hours from Vancouver.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AWhat happened is when we went flew, the first time was fine, but the second time when we flew there, we landed in a big thunderstorm and by the time we got our suitcase and waited forever by the time we got our suitcases and all that. And then for the next couple of days you didn't want to be outside anywhere windy and cold. And finally the last two days, all the time well done. It got better, you know, the weather was not very good, so I didn't like it. Now let's say it's a long trip. I used to didn't mind flying a long trip trips, but these days it's a long time. Four hours. It's long enough for me. I don't sit in those cramped seats.
Speaker BHave you ever flown first class?
Speaker ANo, but. But a couple of years ago we flew to Mexico.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AWe got to the airport. Well, what happened is we were kind of late, a little bit already. And then we leave at home. Uh oh, on the other side of Alim Road and highway. Civic accident. Traffic stops. Of course we take now for the highway or of course everybody will pray the highway now. Right now we take 16. So everybody's there now because of all that. We got into the airport and ended up at the wrong parking lot. Airport backed up at the parking lot.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker ASo there was a 15 minute delay right there.
Speaker BSure.
Speaker AGo to different parking lots where we belong. Then we got into the airport and he said you're 10 minutes late, can't catch you on a plane.
Speaker BReally?
Speaker AWell he said he could get us on a plane, but not the suitcases. But he said I will get you on the next flight. We were supposed to leave at 9:30. The next flight goes 11 o'. Clock. So we got on that one and we ended up in column section. Yeah, that's right behind first class.
Speaker BYeah. Yeah.
Speaker AYou got drinks and everything. Everything was free there too.
Speaker BSo. Nice.
Speaker AYeah. No, I said to Eric, I think next time I should fly economy section.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AThose seats are right away wider already. Much better. Yeah. First. First class is not affordable.
Speaker BNo. It's so expensive.
Speaker AVery expensive. So, yeah. I know a friend of ours, John Tanraby. He flies on first class. I think flying to Mexico, he pays, I think $3,000 for first class.
Speaker BIt's more than the resort.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BYeah. It's so expensive.
Speaker AIf I would fly a long, long flight. Yes. But going up to Mexico, you can
Speaker Bhandle a couple hours.
Speaker AI used to set up the window seat, but not anymore. Seat. If I sit on an aisle like a stand. Stretcher, like so. And I found out the plane will. Will get there anyways, even if I. Yeah. I don't have to sit on the window.
Speaker BYeah, yeah.
Speaker AThe thing is. Sit on the window there. What can you see, Fry? It's a freaking high, you know, so.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker AYeah. Is the coffee all gone?
Speaker BYeah, coffee's all gone. I can make you another one if you'd like, though.
Speaker AI wouldn't mind having a little bit. Sure. You need some coffee too?
Speaker BYeah, I need another one.
Speaker AI'm getting. Oh, I am not even finished.
Speaker BA little more in there.
Speaker AI find a little bit chilly out here.
Speaker BIt is chilly. Yeah. Put on a sweater and it's still cold.
Speaker AOh, the back. What? They sneaked up on us. Here's some blueberries to eat. Blueberries? I thought that.