2026 can SUCK IT!

This year has been amazingly DIFFICULT.. and frought with much more than just speed bumps.. more like concrete barricades.. at almost every turn! From the death of one of my oldest friends to the loss of the Boat Shed rental space where I was working on the boat.. to another and another and yet another emotionally draining and psychologically debilitating setback.. I am basically DONE with this year!

Storage of The Boat fell through while I was in Calgary moving things in to the storage unit.. and there wasn’t enough space to store the pieces of her so.. she was hauled to The Dump and deposited there..  

So, while the act of abandoning the boat at Spyglass refuse site was disheartening, I had spent most of the day *meticulously* measuring her.. tip to toe, side to side.. documenting her measurements and angles, all, because.. 

While I was there, I found a *guy* selling a cool product.. raw 4′ by 8′ sheets of hex- core foam panels.. the image, at left, prolly doesn’t do any justice but you get the idea- with the purchase of 10 panels/ sheets, I have enough to build out the entire BOAT all over again.. and the plan was, initially, to use the hull~ as I had built to that point~ just as a FORM to lay- up the cut panels prior to adding fiberglass and epoxy.. so, really~ everything I had done up to that point just needed to be measured and then replicated on a strongback.. all parts I have in the storage unit! 

This means.. TheBoat will be lighter.. MUCH MUCH lighter than before! I mean, I was overweighted with just the hull in pieces when I went to the dump.. and I had removed plywood panels. So, the hull~ as she sat in the boatshed prior to chopping her up~ was probably in the 300lb range. Not car- toppable, not maneuverable.. one panel is about 6lbs so, add fiberglass and epoxy she should weigh in under 500lbs when finished (unladen). 

Just gotta find a place to build her
(yes, I am working on that!)

So, this year has been.. interesting.

My best friend passed away while I was sicker than sick and laid up in bed for.. far too long with some sort of sickness that totally whiped me out. To paraphrase my wife, I have never been as bad as that.. ever! 

And while I was convalescing and mourning.. the owner of the property that I rent in Bowness as a space to work on The Boat contacted me to let me know that.. it’s going up for sale! 

Add to that, the fact that the Mainstreet Bowness BIA (manager) decided *not* to have the Tiny Galleries exhibit this year.. things have been difficult. I’ve not really felt like interacting with people much.. tho, I have wanted to get back to YYC to work on The Boat.. but, you can only progress through outreach and outreach only happens when you talk to new people.

So, I sent a note to the local Farmers Market manager and asked if I could set up for a Show and Tell session which resulted in me talking a lot yesterday.

One person I talked to was the News Director for CTV (and his mother 😉 ) who is super psyched for the project and wants to do a periodic update segment for me! We’re gonna start with a bit about the upcoming Film Festival “Phreaq0ut” (formerly “Steam- 0- Thon“). So, we’ll do a meet and chat preview of the festival and how it’ll work with enough time to push people to the locations that’ll be screening the submissions!

Know a film maker? Send them to FilmFreeway to apply! Regular Submissions get print coverage in the first issue of my print magazine “The Standard Exhibit.”

testing out a repost.. edit to draft, republish with flavorimage at header.. see what happens due to IFTTT and all that jazz.. 

Oh, and if you wanna, check out the video- it’s fun!

I’m starting to post my old radio show to the site.. it was a fun (?!) experiment and I loved the interactions..

The station was 93.9FM in the Hudson River Valley and I was a digitally connected “Mixologist” broadcasting live from the sunny Okanagan in to their “drive to work” time slot.

I had to get up at 3am to prep myself and proof my scripting (I hate hearing the “uhmmm” of dead mind space so I thought out what I wanted to say, wrote it out, and prepped it over and over before saying it live) so I’d be live at 4am.. if you can see the track names, you’ll notive that the last few numerical designations are usually 400 or 359 or something like that.. that’s the time I would flip the switch and take over broadcast from the previous mixologist. 

I seem to remember a show I had to keep going for awhile.. but not sure.

Anyhow, after a year and changing job situations, I had to give it up. I’ll be posting these sporadically.. and sharing thoughts as I go.

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