Renewed Focus

I have to admit that the first few days of April are a blur to me.  The 31st of March was a daze and the first of April I spent buzzing off the walls.  The next few days I was pretty hyped but reality was easing in.

Now, I'm back to Herne.  I did some math and realized I don't have a whole hell of a lot of time before the end of school for the kids (The equation for 'a whole hell of a lot' is extremely complicated, so I won't go into detail here).  I'm hoping for a solid first draft by the end of June.

Other things have been happening.  BT Corner, the little park that our local Heritage Committee has been working on is getting ever closer to completion.  Last week metal face plates for concrete plinths and custom benches were installed

The custom benches set the right balance between function, beauty and style and mirror the industrial history of the Beatty Brothers to whom the park is dedicated.

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These sandblasted stainless steel plates not only cover the faces of the unattractive concrete plinths that will each bear information panels on their opposite sides, but they send a message.  

Family.  Community.  Industry.

Yeah, that's the town I choose to live in.

And look at that - 

the benches even work...

Shortlisted!

What a day.   And it has everything to do with this:

That's The Platinum Ticket - all printed out for editing.  That's the novel I was working on before Christmas, leading up to a New Years Eve deadline.

I am thrilled and honoured with a bit of news that arrived in the electronic in-box today.

Around lunch time I was informed that I have been selected among the shortlisted authors for the Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now First Novel Prize.  You can follow the link to see the press announcement.

The Terry Pratchett Prize

I was going to cook fish for dinner tonight, but something tells me we're dining out.

Back to the blog

It has been a while.

Last week was March Break Week.  With the kids monopolizing the house - my office included - it was hardly a time to get any work done.  It was just as well.  If I had been working I might have missed out on this:

The snow was fleeing the woods across the river.  As temperatures warmed during the day and plummeted at night we were treated to spectacular ice formations like this one.

And like this one:

When the kids weren't outside looking at natural scenes, they made their own:

On one of our outings - at Templin Gardens downtown - we saw this handsome gent:

We also experienced a "SUPERMOON" where, I was told, the moon was 2% closer and 15% brighter than average.  We were worried that it would be overcast, but the clouds drifted away.  We brought down the boy's telescope and the images through the eyepiece were astoundingly crisp.  Unfortunately we don't have specialized photo equipment, so the image below is a best attempt with our little digital camera.

During the March break week it became obvious that my long love/hate relationship with the Impala was growing to a close.  The brakes finally failed.  Fortunately it was expected and happened in the driveway.  We were not about to put another penny in the old red car, so I told the kids to say goodbye:

It was a good old car that had safely seen us to P.E.I. and back and all points in between.  Speaking of the moon, we'd almost racked up enough kilometres on the odometer to get there.  It has been consigned to the Kidney Foundation to be recycled.  I'm told a tax receipt will find its way into our mailbox.

Big Red Car

2000 - 2011