Last week Karen and I got together with a few friends from work for a going-away drink. I was blown away with the gift they presented me, a gorgeous blackthorn shillelagh from Canes Canada. How cool is that?

I learned something new with this gift, too. I was always under the impression that a shillelagh was an Irish walking stick. I was wrong. It's a short "club" that Irishmen carried with them on walks to fend off predators, 4-legged as well as the 2-legged varieties.