Looking at Life From on High

Some time soon the actual article will show up in the Globe and Mail, describing my first day at the Cambridge Gliding Centre. When that happens I'll be sure to let you know. And yes, I now own the Official Bucket Hat. In the weeks since that introduction

Call me Ishmael

My teen years were spent in our family's new home on Charolais Road in Kelowna, part of a new development near the Guisachan Heritage Park. What is more memorable, for me, is that one road in the subdivision was named after the developer's daughter: Rhondda Crescent.

If I Had a Million Dollars

Icons of Canadian pop music, the Barenaked Ladies are coming to Cambridge, for a show at the Corn Exchange, which I walk past every time I head into town. It's part of a whole Christmas season tour of the UK. Honest to God, there are about a hundred

Canada. Are we a backwater?

One of the great irritations about living outside of Canada is realizing how hard so many businesses work to avoid letting you give them money. The image above is from https://www.rew.ca. If you're looking for a house in British Columbia that's 95% likely

A Week Inside My Head

Aside from keeping the home-fires burning here in Cambridge, and learning to fly gliders, I've been finding time to focus on the novel that has been an on-again, off-again project for a few years. It began with a never talked about bit of Rueger family

Maybe it is Genetic?

Of late I've been digging into the history of my mother Evelyn's side of the family. Inevitably that leads to records of homesteading in Saskatchewan. Carving up the western territories in Canada was the government of the day's way of blocking the suspected American

I’m an accidental tradhusband – I have newfound respect for my mum

Published today in the iPaper (UK): Today in the iPaper I write about being a stay-at-home husband to a Cambridge University scholar. I really like this column, and hope that you do as well. (Note: I don't write the headlines...) I know which brand of Greek

Hot Off The Presses!

It's been a busy week for more reasons than one. The big one though has been a run of writing gigs, all of which I suspect will pop up in the next few weeks - including one in the UK. So I've been a little quiet here

Call Me on the Telephone

My first cel phone was around 1990. Big, heavy, short battery life. It was rented for a trip down into the US for Michael Caplan Entertainment, hauling trade show booth stuff for some Toronto area tourism outfit. The phone proved invaluable when the rented van died along highway 400 between

Shaken, Not Stirred

This week, for the first time ever, I stepped out in a tuxedo. Perhaps not quite as well-tailored as Sean Connery's suit, but still very cool, and very confidence building. The occasion was the Alumni Dinner for the Cambridge University Guild of Change Ringers. This year it

Up and Away!

Oh, long-suffering subscribers. I haven't forgotten you, really. Last Wednesday I managed to finally do something I've dreamed of since I was a teenager: flying. I visited the Cambridge Gliding Centre and enjoyed an amazing and even sunny day learning the very basics of piloting

Well, Yankee-Doodle!

This month, I'm finally back to working on the novel. It's loosely based on family history - something that my family is utterly awful at doing. In any event, I started with my mother, growing up near Dorintosh, Saskatchewan. My Grandfather and grandmother were homesteaders in the