I remember hitting the road with Alexis.

Alexis and I were visiting Pemberton to interview a 4-H Club pig-rearing finalist. (Admittedly, it was a slow story week and we just wanted to get out of town and hang out with pretty farm girls.) The drive was long. The CBC radio signal cuts out on the upper leg of the Sea to Sky Highway so we played tuneage on the CD.

Alexis and I are different people. He liked Wu-Tang. I preferred Public Enemy. To annoy others, he would turn up Justin Timberlake and Andrew WK. My guilty pleasures tend towards Journey and Cheap Trick (Live at Budokan).

Except, he couldn't stand the Beach Boys, and I was in a Brian Wilson phase. Not to get all Jackie-Chan-Chris-Tucker about it all, but let's just say it's best not to play the Beach Boys in a car when a black man is driving.

For some reason California Girls didn't do it for him. He hated it. Instinctively. Perhaps it's genetic.

To this day, somewhere between Whistler and Pemberton, my copy of the Beach Boys' Today and Summer Days (Summer Nights) lies at the bottom of a ravine.

And you'd think that would be that, but a week later he and I had to record a new theme song for our radio show (we changed it every week). Alexis brought into the studio a set of sleigh bells and a clap track a la Brian Wilson.

That was Alexis. Impulsive. Judgemental. Open-minded. I miss him.