Last month, I went on a kind of Quest, ferrying my 85 year old father back to the places where he (where we) come from. The trip took us to parts of Canada that never appear on television, to places unimportant to few but those who live there, meeting people whose life stories have never been much published or produced. It was a journey that taught me a lot about my country, my people and myself. I’m still not sure what it all...

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It’s not unusual for me to return from a vacation more tuckered than when I departed. Work hard, play hard is a cycle that eventually results in diminishing returns. So, I’m taking a breather for one last day. Regular irregular blogging resumes tomorrow. In the meantime, I float amid images like these. Sometimes this is the only vacation you really need. Just let them wash over you. Enjoy your Sunday....

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Are you starting to get the feeling that the CRTC, Canada’s TV, Internet and Telecommunications regulator, is beginning to think it’s a branch of the CIA or maybe even CSIS? I mean, what’s with all the fricken secrecy lately!? Have these guys got real classified information to protect or would they just like people to believe they’re suddenly that important? First they were redacting hearing documents, as if the public...

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40 years ago tomorrow, I watched the moon landing while ripped out of my gourd on Peyote buttons. I could’ve sworn Neil Armstrong’s first words were “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for Mankind.” But I was also dealing with several R. Crumb style cartoon hot dogs and root beer bottles doing a kick line on the window sill to a selection of show tunes from “Oklahoma” and “Camelot”, so I can’t be considered a...

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We’ve all got friends who screw up from time to time. Sometimes they mess up so bad that the authorities get involved. More than once, I’ve been asked to write a nice letter to a Judge indicating that the guy he’s about to sentence isn’t as evil as all that and somehow happenstance or a momentary lapse caused them to detour from their normally more appropriate behavior. And while everybody, no matter their crime, is equally...

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I’ve literally been wandering the wilderness for the last two weeks, lost in the Badlands of Alberta and Great Sandhills of Saskatchewan, emerging yesterday to learn that I’d lost an old friend. Others will remember Jan Rubes as the proudly protective Amish grandfather, Eli Lapp, in “Witness”, as the terrifyingly deranged psychiatrist in “Dead of Winter” (his own favorite role) or the singing coroner of “Due South”. But my...

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I've become convinced that people go on vacations for one of two reasons. They either want to relive a fond moment from their past or create a fond moment for the future.And moments are more easily recalled if they are recorded -- therefore the recording of the past fondness or newfound ones is primary when vacationing.This morning, in the midst of a quiet clearing in the Rockies, my dog and I ran...

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