This blog post was inspired by a pile of unwanted DVDs in my living room.

I’m just letting you know. In case you want to spend your valuable time elsewhere.

Okay. So. We’re good?

Fine. It’s your time.

Traditionally, I open my blog posts by commenting upon how long it’s been since I’ve written a blog post, wistfully recalling the days of yore when I actually wrote blog posts on a regular basis, or casting aspersions upon myself for my inability to stick with anything in my life that I actually have the energy to start.

Well, I’m not going to do that this time.

[Aside for the ironically challenged amongst you. I just did what I said I wasn’t going to do. And I did it before I said I wasn’t going to do it. Isn’t that clever?]

So, anyway, as I was saying, this blog post was inspired by a pile of unwanted DVDs in my living room. And I’m repeating that so you’ll still have a chance to bail, in case you didn’t really get it the first time. Because sometimes we don’t really get things the first time we read them. I can read an entire page of something and have to go back over it because I wasn’t really paying attention. (more…)

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…)

Well, I think it’s about time I got down to talking about this August road trip to Québec before you, gentle reader, begin to believe that it was all just smoke and mirrors (or, to quote one of my favorite televison characters, “hokum”). The time has come. So, here goes…

The plan was simple: drive to Montréal, stopping at various André-Gagnon-related points along the way and taking video footage of attractive and interesting scenes. I had the camera, the tripod, a big-ass SD card loaded, and I was ready to rock and roll. I also had my new iPod touch and was psyched to do some on-the-road video blogging.

Well, you know what they say: The best laid plans… and all that.

Don’t get me wrong. It was a fantastic trip. It just didn’t turn out quite the way I expected. (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.

Every once in a while, life just hands you a treat. It’s usually unexpected, outside the realm of the everyday, and genuinely smile-inducing. When it happens, it can make your day.

Just such an event came my way last Friday as I was walking to work. I was at a major intersection, just up the hill from where I live, waiting for the light to change. I looked to my right, and there, also waiting for the light to turn green, was the oldest-looking car I had even seen in my entire life. It was sitting well past the crosswalk, it’s nose nearly in the intersection, and the driver was signalling to the cars behind him, presumably that they might have to go around him.

Needless to say, I gawked. I love old cars (I don’t know many people who don’t, actually), and this was total vintage staring me in the face. I was going to wave at the driver and make some kind of comment, but for some reason I held back. I just looked at the automotive wonder before me and grinned.

When the light changed, I had to be careful of my steps, because my head kept turning to my right to look at the old car. The sound of the engine starting jarred me into the realization that it had been shut off while the car was stopped for the red light. As I crossed the street, the old car got into gear and finally passed me as I reached the curb on the other side. (more…)

… 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…)

The beginning of a new year seems like an appropriate time to get back to the blog. It’s been a month and a half since my last entry, but I’ve decided not to judge myself about that. It is what it is, and the fact that I haven’t been blogging is of no real consequence. Life has continued.

The truth of the matter is that I blog for myself. The fact that other people have commented on some of my posts and given me encouragement is a bonus. I can’t blog for other people, though. That kind of thinking sets me up for failure. If I try to make my blog into something that will please a certain type of person, or a certain group of people, then it’s not authentic. The blogging has to come from my true self, and if other people connect with that, then the blogging experience is enhanced for both writer and reader alike.

So, yes, it’s a brand new year. I’ve mentioned on both the Twit thing and the Face thing that I’m not into making New Year’s resolutions. It’s just not something I do. I feel it’s over-hyped and that it’s a thing that people do because it’s a thing that people do. (Sorta like Paris Hilton, who’s famous for being famous.) It’s kind of a collective mass-consciousness phenomenon, and it rarely turns out well, because people set the bar too high for themselves and ultimately fail in their attempts to make changes in their lives.

Okay, so, I’m a party pooper. (more…)