People who might actually read this journal know that , her dad, and I all spent a month in the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands recently. Of the many stories I could tell from that trip, this small one turns out to be first.

Mid-way through the trip, Sarah and I traded our space on the boat with her mom and sister for a few days. When we rejoined them in Sidney, BC, the five of us took a twisting drive around Vancouver Island to the Shipyard Restaurant and Pub at the Maple Bay Marina. Very good food, and after dinner the three of us “kids” enjoyed the swingset and small gardens on the grounds; but that’s not the point of this story.

The urinal in the men’s restroom in the pub has inside it a small cage with a little ball swinging free from it. I thought this was hilarious: I figured it was a way to get guys to, er, aim. It worked for me.

Several weeks later while reading about something completely unrelated, I saw a link to the Wee Goal, which looks almost exactly like what I saw in that pub. Sure enough: “The ball dangles tantalizingly from the cross bar of the Wee Goal. This is irresistible to the male of the species.” (It’s so true!) “The good news being that the new found focus on aiming reduces spillage, making the job of cleaning a lot less challenging.”

A different approach to the same idea was apparently tried with great success in Amsterdam.