As I mentioned in my previous post, we didn’t make it to Montréal during the three days my brother and I spent in Québec back in August, but we did make it as far south as Trois-Rivières, which is about one-hundred-and-ten or so clicks southwest of Québec City. It’s actually about halfway between Québec City and Montréal. We wandered around the downtown a little and popped into the tourist information centre. It’s a very attractive city, and it was nice to explore a place I’d never visited before

It also was incredibly hot that day, so despite how nice the downtown area was, air conditioning was something we desperately needed, so we ended up having supper at a very nice Italian place called Mondo Resto-Bar. Later we sought out a music store so I could actually purchase an André Gagnon CD in Québec. That was something I’d been wanting to do right from the start.

As with Québec City itself, we only spent a couple of hours in Trois-Rivières, but the city has a charm all its own, and I’d like to get back there some day and spend a bit more time. I also want to get to Les Forges de Saint-Maurice National Historic Site, which is about a dozen clicks northwest of downtown. It’s a site run by Parks Canada that commemorates the founding of the first industrial community in North America.

It also happens to be one of my André-Gagnon-related destinations. (more…)

Back in the summer, I went on at length here about the road trip I was about to take with my brother Scott. The road trip did take place, even though the blog entries that were to accompany it did not. It was a great trip, much needed, and a mere tip of the iceberg in terms of progress down the road of my ambitions.

Much has happened since that early August rumble down the highways of English and French Canada. The summer was good, filled with adventures and moments galore. It was a vast improvement over the previous summer, which saw me changing jobs twice in as many months and watching my mother go from hospital to transitional care to nursing home. The Summer of Stress, as I have dubbed July and August of 2010, doesn’t have quite the hold on me it once did, but it lives on in memory and serves as a reminder of how fickle life can be. (more…)

Wow, another blog entry only five days after the last one. And another video blog, to boot. I must really be jazzed about this upcoming road trip.

Okay, so the sound on this video sucks the big one. I’ll have to learn how to reduce wind noise on the iPod’s microphone if I want to do anymore outdoor video blogging. But it sure was fun talking into the camera out at Peggy’s Cove. It really was a fabulous day.

So far the footage from the day looks good. I haven’t transferred everything to the computer yet, but I like what I’ve reviewed so far. And in putting this video blog together, I learned about a few more features of iMovie that I hadn’t looked at yet.

Video editing is just major fun.

Counting down to the Québec trip.

Stay tuned.

The video pretty much says it all, but I do want to clarify one point: I’ll be using the iPod touch for video blogging while I’m on the road, not for taking actual documentary footage. I have my Canon PowerShot SX20IS for that. Plus, I’ll be taking a Zoom H2 digital audio recorder with me for capturing additional audio.

We’ll be stopping in Kamouraska (André Gagnon’s birthplace), Verdun (in Montréal, where my dad was born), Lachine (also in Montréal, where my dad grew up), Ville Émard (also in Montréal, from the title of André Gagnon’s song “A Ride to Ville Émard”), Forges du Saint-Maurice National Historic Site (from the title of André Gagnon’s song and album “Les Forges de Saint-Maurice, written for a television series of the same name), and Charlevoix (from the title of a movement of André Gagnon’s three-movement piece “Le Saint-Laurent” called “Devant Charlevoix”). I’ll also be taking footage of whatever strikes my fancy along the way. I’m particularly looking forward to visiting Trois-Rivières, a town I’ve heard of many times but know next to nothing about.

Did I mention I’m jazzed?

More updates as planning proceeds.

So, when I’m not rattling on about my lack of blogging, I can often be found rattling on about writing and language. Why? Because, dammit, language is important to me, and I happen to be fairly proficient at stringing linguistics bits together in coherent and interesting ways.

[Aside: Would we call a string of linguistic bits a linguine?]

[Aside Followup Fact: The word “linguine” literally means “little tongues” in Italian.]

I have on occasion been accused of the crime of pedantry in the sphere of language. I will confess to bouts of nitpickiness bordering on pedantry, but as to full-on pedantry, I don’t think I have the qualifications for that. One thing’s for sure. I need to loosen up a bit. While I’m not prone to fits of letter-writing when I read or see something that is grammatically, punctuatively, or orthographically incorrect, I do often cringe, and I do often complain about it. (more…)

… in which the blogger makes a confession and appears a hypocrite.

As you can see from the video above, I’ve done a complete, one-hundred-percent turnaround with regard to Apple. I know there’s at least one internet friend out there who is going to seriously take me to task for this, and there may be others as well, but all I can say is… what’s done is done.

I can’t fight it anymore. Mac has what I need, and I’ve gone and gotten it.

It’s going to make my creative life one helluva lot easier, and I’m going to be able to do some serious editing when I finally capture the footage I need for my documentary. Yeah, the one I’ve been saying I’m going to make for at least a couple of years now. The one about my father, music, and André Gagnon.

The documentary is moving closer and closer to becoming reality. All the signs are pointing to it coming together within the next few months. I have my new camera, which takes HD video, and now I have a kick-ass video editing tool.

It all bodes well. Now I just have to organize a road trip to the wilds of Québec and start a-shootin’.

It will happen.

Mark my words.

Let’s keep it real out there.

… in which the blogger attempts to get over himself.

You know, sometimes I think I take myself way too seriously. I mean, I do have a pretty decent sense of humor, and I can definitely poke fun at myself, but I also spend an awful lot of time inside my own head, dwelling on my own problems and trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong.

I’ve also shared a lot of this with the blog-reading public. I’ve written about my personal journey and challenges, and I’ve been most gratified by the fact that readers have commented on these posts and actually encouraged me. That’s part of the reason I write these things. I want to connect with others, and I hope to somehow make a difference in someone else’s experience.

But at what point does public journaling cross the line and become public posturing and whining? At what point does “This is me” turn into “Poor me”?

I hope I haven’t crossed that line, but something way in the back of my head tells me that I’ve come perilously close.

I need to face the fact that I’m a very self-indulgent person. I’m an approval-seeker of the first order, and all those comments I mentioned have been very nice ego strokes. I mean, yes, I know everyone wants approval; everbody needs validation once in a while. But seriously, when you refresh your Facebook page umpteen times to see if anyone has commented on your status update, you know you’re in serious trouble.

So, it’s time for me to—as they say—get on with it. Instead of doing tiny little things and looking to see if anyone noticed, it’s high time I took some of those big things I’ve been thinking about, mulling over, talking about, tweeting about, and blogging about and actually start doing them.

I mean, how many times have I mentioned this documentary I “need” to make about my dad and music? How long does it take to get through another draft of my novel? When am I going to continue the Voices of Reason project and get another interview up on my blog? When am I going to stop sulking about my precious pantomine script and get back to my involvement with community theatre? There are so many things I want to do, and I am doing none of them.

[Okay, I actually am working on the novel. It just seems to be taking a long time.]

I guess you could say I’m fed up with myself. I’m tired of blaming everything on my “inner saboteur”, as I like to call him, and citing all the wounds and traumas I’ve experienced in the past as reasons for my lack of action.

It’s time to take my personal journey and repackage it. Instead of using it as ashes to spread on my face, I need to turn it into fuel for my creative vehicles. And, yes, there are a quite a few of those vehicles parked in my mental garage, but believe me, there’s more than enough fuel for all of them. I just need the right mix. And then… whoosh!

I don’t mean to minimize everything I’ve been through. I’ve fought hard for my mental health, and it will always be an important issue for me. I just think it’s time to move up to the next gear and honor my journey by making better use of it.

And, hell, I’m a creative person. I can think of a few ways to do that.

Let’s keep it real out there. (Time to take my own advice, eh?)

…in which the blogger waxes nostalgic about his favorite band.

With yet another gaping chasm in my blogging pattern now evident, this time due to a bout of procrastination brought on by simple forgetfulness paired with a massive viral infection, I’ve decided to abandon the post I’d been considering—which was to be a heartfelt rant about the establishment inspired by a fascinating if abbreviated experience at PodCamp Halifax—and turn my typing fingers to a touch of time-traveling. Musical time traveling.

It’s something I enjoy doing. When I’m not constructing lengthy, single-sentence paragraphs.

I’m currently revisiting the early albums of Chicago, my favorite band. Their career has been an interesting one, to say the least. Many people can’t stand them. They’ve certainly had their sour moments, but I’m sticking with them. They’re amazing musicians all, and they’ve produced some incredible music over the years. (more…)

Welcome to the first interview of my Voices of Reason Project. I’d like to thank my talented friend Margot Sampson for agreeing to be one of two “guinea pigs” to get the project started. Margot is an accomplished singer, songwriter, actress, painter, and videographer. Oh, yeah, and she raps, too. Can you say “force of nature”? I knew you could. You can find out more about Margot at her website. Read on for Margot’s answers to my almost-probing questions.

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–First off, how would you describe yourself?

I would describe myself as a pretty happy person, someone who enjoys the adventures of life and who is genuinely interested in knowing what brings other people joy. I much prefer diving into an authentic conversation with someone and getting to the “real” stuff without too many of the usual pleasantries getting in the way. I laugh at myself easily and frequently—a good belly laugh goes a long way, and I’m a firm believer that laughter truly is the best medicine.

I am very sensitive to the emotions and energies of others, and yes, I sometimes get verklempt at a mere TV commercial, but let’s blame that on the hormones, shall we? I am fair to a fault sometimes (it’s the Libra scales!) and a good listener, though I do my fair share of talking too… some of it, admittedly, to myself. I’m starting to feel like I’m answering a questionnaire for a dating service, so I’m going to move on to the next question… (more…)

About a year and month ago, I posted a small gallery of photos on my blog (the old version of my blog… the one I had to delete because it got hacked… but I’m not bitter). I had taken some pictures at Lawrencetown Beach (here in Nova Scotia), and they’d turned out pretty well, especially considering that I’d been using a little HP Photosmart M437 that had no viewfinder. The LCD screen had been damnably hard to see in the bright sunlight, so I really wasn’t sure if I was getting the shots I wanted.

Thankfullly, most of them came out pretty well. Well enough that I felt inspired to post them on my blog. I received some nice comments from readers (including a photographer friend of mine, whom I deeply respect and whom I am interviewing for this blog’s Voices of Reason Project… no, the project is not forgotten… it is still in progress), and I got to thinking how nice it would be to get back into photography again. Time was, many years back, that I worked at the camera counter of a department store and learned quite a bit about photography from the experience. I took some fairly experimental pictures back in those days, and my Lawrencetown adventure stirred in me that old familiar longing to get out and start a-shootin’. (more…)