resistance to persistence

teeth are all clean

had a checkup at the dentist today. glad to report, all’s well. no cavities. back in another 6 months

Dad’s memoriam was in the newspaper over the weekend. I think mom did an amazing job writing some great words. “bright eyes and cheerful face” are my favorite parts.

KENDALL, Wally - In loving memory of a special husband and father who passed away January 25, 2006 A life well lived, A man much missed, A sorrow felt so deeply… Nothing can ever take away, The love a heart holds dear, Fond memories linger every day, Remembrance keeps him near. His bright eyes and cheerful face, Are pleasant to recall, He had a loving word for each, And was beloved by all. - Lovingly remembered by Pamela, Blaine, Jennifer, Jillian and Peter.

it was one year ago today that my father had his accident while on vacation in the dominican republic. i looked back at my work notebook from that day. the morning started off very normal. a list of work items, things I needed to do during the day, notes from meetings. then nothing else on the page.

i don’t remember anything from that day before i received a phonecall. just a regular day, nothing special. until the phone rang and i got the tragic message. just thinking about it still gives me chills. i remember everything from that point on very vividly. my heart racing trying to absorb the contents of the phone call, struggling to understand what was being told to me, wondering how this could have happened, continually trying to wake up from this bad dream or a cruel joke, worrying about my mom by herself. calling my wife, trying to keep it together. the longest 20 minutes of my life waiting for her to drive to my work and pick me up. the drive to my sister’s work to tell her, seeing her collapse from the news, driving to her apartment to rest. calling mom. waiting to find out if and when mom would be flying back to toronto.

the weeks following were brutally hard. coming to grips with the changes in life. finally seeing dad come back and realizing it wasn’t all a dream. somedays i still imagine that this never really happened and it’s like he’s still in kingston, i’m in toronto and i just haven’t been home in a while. but i know that’s not real.

the last thing i remember of my dad is hugging him goodbye after christmas. i never thought that would be the last time i saw him, but thankfully, i remember that vividly as well. mom, dad and the dog on the front step waving goodbye as we left.

the past year has been a year of firsts - first birthday without dad, first father’s day, first thanksgiving, first christmas. i’ve heard the first year is the hardest as you go through each of these events. i’ve come to accept he’s no longer with us and i think of the good memories from each of those special days. memories are very important, so get a camera and take lots of photos and videos of your family and friends. they’ll be priceless as you get older.

left: british knights shoebox, right: alist/staple design

pulled from “jeffstaple blog”

check this out. my brother in law, alist, did some work for staple design and had a show at their store/gallery, the reed space.

british knights (a well known shoe company in the late 80s/early 90s) hired a designer which took alist’s design and slapped it (aka stole it) on the boxes for their shoes. even leaving the names and staple company logo on it. back in highschool, teachers would call this plagarism and you’d be suspended. out in the real world, they’re trying to get away with it.

read more here…

this image was picked for my second appearance of blogTO Friday Flickr Forum. The blogTO Friday Flickr Forum is a weekly dialogue for Torontonians and is based on their photographs and the stories behind them. check it out to see some questions about my photos and other photographers.

trailer for tony hawk’s project 8

i can’t believe how far games have come. i’ve bought every version of the tony hawk games from “tony hawk pro skater” all the way up to “wasteland”. “project 8″ is the most recent and it visually looks amazing. it won’t look this good on my ps2 - i’ll need to get a ps3 or xbox 360 to have these great graphics, but it’s such a far way away from the old blocky single textured polygon bodies of the older games.

i did some research into january 22. turns out there’s a few cool people born on this date and a few very cool events on this date in history.

i’m no trekkie, but Sulu will be born today…172 years in the future

Born on January 22:

2179: Hikaru Walter Sulu (character on Star Trek)
1981: Willa Ford
1976: Balthazar Getty (actor )
1967: Olivia d’Abo (actress Wonder Years)
1965: Diane Lane (actress)
1965: Jazzy Jeff Townes (DJ Jazzy Jeff)
1960: Michael Hutchence (singer INXS)
1959: Linda Blair (actress Exorcist)
1957: Mike Bossy (NHL forward)
1949: Steve Perry (vocalist Journey)
1940: John Hurt(actor)
1934: Bill Bixby (actor The Incredible Hulk)

Great moments in history on this date:

1946 - Creation of the Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.
1973 - George Foreman breaks Joe Frazier’s professional career undefeated heavyweight world boxing champion status, later going on to sell some tasty burger cooking appliances.
1984 - The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, is introduced during Super Bowl XVIII with its famous “1984″ television commercial.
1990 - Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet worm.
1992 - Space Shuttle program: STS-42 Mission - Dr. Roberta Bondar becomes the first Canadian woman in space.
2002 - AOL Time Warner brings a federal suit against Microsoft alleging that the market for AOL’s Netscape Navigator Internet browser was harmed when Microsoft started to give away a competing browser.
2003 - World premiere of Chappelle’s Show on Comedy Central.

my birth certificate says i’m old, but i’m still a young fool at heart

today is my 33rd birthday.

i don’t really look forward to birthdays that much anymore. it’s just one more day, with a little bit extra excitement. presents aren’t necessary. i just like hearing from friends and family.

i’m hoping for good things in my life this year. 2006 was very shitty, so i want to put that year behind me. i’m hoping for great things for 2007.

2006 wasn’t completely bad though. my photography has progressed a lot and i’ve made a lot of headway in getting the exposure i’ve been looking for. I want to continue that in 2007.

also, 2006 marked a huge year in terms of growth physically. i joined a gym, paid a ton of cash to a trainer and packed on a lot of weight, which for me is a good thing. i’m at the strongest and healthiest point in my life and i hope to continue with it. i had never been a gym guy before this. in my previous attempts, i had given up after 3 months even though I continually paid month after month to get out of my contract. having a triainer made a huge difference since i could actually see results and kept motivated.

today i also get to celebrate my birthday by going to see a physiotherapist. i think physio will wrap up a big present of stretching and core exercises. not fun, but necessary i guess.

and j will shower me with presents tonight. this morning she forced me to open at least one. she gets so much fun from watching me open them. i drive her crazy by playing like i’m not interested and opening the gifts as slow as possible. this morning i opened up “arrested development season 3″. season 1 repeats are on CBC right now, so after that’s done I’ll watch season 2(got for a previous birthday) & 3 again.

j will be taking me out for dinner tonight. she’s being going crazy searching for restaurants to take me to. surprisingly, a lot of the places she tried aren’t open on monday. since when does swiss chalet close on mondays?

how do you celebrate your birthday date? let me know in the comments.

new design of my photoblog

i just posted a new design on my photo blog site. it needed a facelift and with all the new traffic from my 3rd place finish at the canadian blog awards i wanted it to look better. voting for the 2007 Weblog Awards (”the bloggies”) starts on monday, so i hope i made it through the nominations process.

take a trip over to the photo blog and browse for a while.

this photo is from last year - we don’t have this much snow yet.

monday, january 15th - we finally got snow. there’s been no snow on the ground all year and it showed up with a blasting storm. but it almost didn’t happen. it was still warm enough that it wasn’t quite snow, but very close to hail and ice. as i was shovelling the driveway, it was hitting me in the head and bouncing everywhere. shovelling it was more like pushing salt than snow, very granular much like spring corn snow or manmade snow at some ski hills.

and with the storm comes all the related problems. bad driving, accidents, train delays, etc. i chose to avoid it and worked at home for the day. if i had taken the train into work, i would have been waiting 1.5 hrs for my train to show up. instead i stayed bundled and warm and worked away.

the ski hills are happy. they finally have the cold weather needed. people now realize it’s winter and think of going skiing again. i know i won’t be skiing in ontario this season, so i’m looking forward to the snow melting so i can walk to work easier and don’t have to freeze in the cold winds. give me the warm weather again.