Who's the coolest person you know?

I know an awful lot of really cool people... famous actors, athletes, musicians. If we talk about people I knew, my father was by far the coolest ever. He wasn't stylish and he cussed a lot, but he could build anything -- check this out: http://tinyurl.com/yc3sgom -- and he was the most hard-working and honest man I've ever known or will ever know. But he's not here any more.

Out of my current roster of acquaintances? What constitutes "cool", anyway? I mean, I have a close friend who's a stuntman that sets himself on fire and crashes motorcycles on purpose for a living. That's pretty cool.

Then there's the army of doctors that have spent the better portion of 20 years helping me fight my multiple occurrences of cancer. They've saved my life more than once, and save other lives every day. That's way cool.

There's every-day cool, like the guy who works at Peets Coffee that can still give me a genuine smile after dealing with the lady in front of me who ordered a half-caf, half-skim-half-soy mocha latte with a shot of hazelnut, no whipped cream and double chocolate sprinkles while holding a deafeningly screaming baby. Or the ancient Asian lady at my dry-cleaners that re-knitted the worn elbow of my favourite sweater and I can't tell where the hole used to be. It was a really big hole, too.

So truthfully, I can't peg one person as the coolest. I'm surrounded by cool. From the people I work with who build the lighting package for the Vancouver Olympics to the grocery bagger at Trader Joe's that made me laugh after a hard day at work. They're all pretty cool.