No bloggy long time

Was watching a show called "How It's Made" on Discovery last night just
before bedtime. Lucy had me write down the steps in making a piano.
Seems she has some big plans.
She later said my scribbles (I had to write fast, a piano is a large, complicated apparatus)were fancy writing that she could not understand.

Time for a little Hip

This is worth watching for the very last camera shot.
This is the Hip live with Gord Downie ad libbing between verses.

Latest from Lucy

We went to see Peter Pan last Saturday at the Palace Theatre. It was a local production done very well.
Lucy was very excited and after the show met all the characters and got their autographs.
When we got home she made a book of the autographs with pictures of the characters below.
She is fearless when it comes to spelling, which is a good thing. It doesn't interfere with her train of thought.

Oral History

It is important for young folk to talk to and listen to old folk so they can learn how the world works.

A bad joke

We are a good team when it comes to poor performance. I first heard this joke, nigh unto 40 year ago.

Movie #10

The last movie in our 10 movies in one day project. If you listen closely, especially towards the end when I cranked up the volume, you can hear the little angel snoring.

Movie #9

This one is a little long. It is a reading of "Joey Runs Away" a book Lucy brought home from the school library.

Movie #8

Note to self: Don't let Lucy have the camera unsupervised.
This was the unplanned movie number 8 in our 10 movies in one day project.
Some viewer discretion is advised. But, if you have kids, this is just normal life.

Movie #7

It was getting late and this is the seventh movie in our 10 movies in one day project. Lucy is eating dinner.

Movie #6

The sixth movie in our 10 movies in one day project. Lucy wanted to be a turtle that dances. She talked about it all day. finally, we did it.

Movie #5

This is the 5th movie in our 10 movies in one day project. Lucy is baffled by the fact that I bought some disks for the computer that didn't work. I never took them back to the store and she asks me about them everytime she sees them. Which is everyday. I have to throw them out.

Movie #4

The fourth movie in our ten movies in one day project. Lucy and I went to Lincoln Park to do a little sledding. Watch for the trip down the hill where she bangs her head on some debris. She laughs and laughs each time she sees this.

Movie #3

This is the third movie in our 10 movies in one day project. Lucy made me leave the room while she was filming this. She calls it the dumbhead dance. She is six and thinks that name is hilarious.

Movie #2

This is the second movie in our 10 movies in one day project.
Lucy said she had a joke to tell. When it didn't pan out the way she thought it would, she tried to distract me by pointing at the cat.

10 movies in 1 day

this is the first of our 10 movies in 1 day project movies.
We started with Lucy waking up.
We decided on Friday night that this was what we were going to do. She must have forgotten. She wasn't too happy.

10 movies in 1 day

Lucy and I completed our 10 movies in 1 day project. We will start posting them soon.

Syracuse (Actually Liverpool) Snow

These pictures in front of my brother's house are pretty impressive until you realize that he is only 3 feet tall and his two-story house tops out at just over 10 feet. He lives on a cul de sac in Liverpool with seven other "small" families. They refer to themselves as Liverputions.

Kind of proud of this one

Click here to link to a video I did for work. A reporter shot the footage, I did the editing.

snow scenes

We ended up with just under a foot of snow. It is all cleared up. Her is a movie I shot downtown



Here are some pictures of snow.

My entire family from Evergreen, Colorado to Plattsburgh, New York were visited by the same storm.
Here is a photo from my sister's backyard in Colorado:



And here is a photo from the backyard of some friends in Marion. Caden is King of the Mountain!

snow

We came in at just under a foot.
Here is an image that Bill Sinden took for the newspaper
Check out marionstar.com for more

Lucy's Math Problems

This is a simple one - House plus People equals Home


This one is more difficult - Girl in pajamas (notice the yawn) plus Getting dressed minus Pajamas equals Dressed girl


Eggs plus Bacon equals Breakfast - it's yummy


While this one is obvious, she is a unclear on the concept.


Now we are back at the beginning, only this is the transverse. Home minus People equals House.
She is a clever little girl, isn't she?

Weather

Walked into work yesterday. There was about 3/4 of an inch of snow on the ground. Word was that is was going to keep snowing. I didn't want to get my car stuck at work, so I walked.
I got to work about 5 a.m.
I walked home at about 8 p.m. with more than 6 inches of snow on the ground.
Six inches is a lot.
I hope to post some video later tonight to tomorrow.
Probably tomorrow. I have to get ready to hoof it in again today. I am sure that fewer people will show up today than did yesterday.
It is sort of fun. But not too fun.

1 plus zero does not equal 100

Here is a book that Lucy is working on.




I will post some of the problems later this week.

Enaman

I was checking out the Colossal Colon Web site this morning. The Web master is Molly McMaster who is from Glenns Falls, NY. The Colossal Colan was the cause of me discovering my cancer. Molly works for the Adirondack Frostbite, a hockey team in the United Hockey League. That's the league that the Asheville Smoke played in.
Anyway, I ran across a weird photo while cruising the site. It was an Enema Man. I thought I would share it with you.

Sunday weather column

This was my regular Sunday column. I don't understand why we overreact to the weather.

Now, when I was a kid, it was really cold
I can think of no better way to get people to stop reading your column than to start off with a description of a New Yorker cartoon.

But, I'll take the risk.

A woman is speaking on the phone in the cartoon: "We'd love to visit, but the weather mongers have us paralyzed with fear."

I thought about the cartoon a lot this week as we reported on delays and cancellations because of cold weather.

School superintendents face an impossible situation.

For years the TV weather mongers have been dialing up the fear of weather.

This week it was windchill.

You can't expect the superintendent to let the kids wait for the bus when the TV is talking about dangerous wind chill conditions.

Before I start, let me tell you that I know a little bit about cold weather.

I spent my teenage years on the fringes of the Adirondack Park in New York.

I spent many winter weekends skiing or camping in the high peaks region of the park. When we camped we usually had tents but occasionally we slept in open lean-tos.

Skiing is just downright fun and the cold was rarely a factor. We did our skiing at Whiteface Mountain. On days when it was below zero they handed out wool blankets at the chairlifts that brought you to the summit.

We never heard about windchill. The temperature was the temperature and you dressed appropriately.

But the temperature is not good enough when you need to scare people to keep them interested.

Why say it's 5 degrees when you can say the wind chill is 25 below zero?

So what does windchill mean? Here's the definition from the National Weather Service:

"The windchill temperature is how cold people and animals feel when outside. Windchill is based on the rate of heat loss from exposed skin caused by wind and cold. As the wind increases, it draws heat from the body, driving down skin temperature and eventually the internal body temperature. Therefore, the wind makes it FEEL much colder. If the temperature is 0 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind is blowing at 15 mph, the windchill is -19 degrees Fahrenheit. At this windchill temperature, exposed skin can freeze in 30 minutes."

The key term is "exposed skin."

If you jump out of the shower, forget to put your clothes on and run out of the house when the wind chill is 25 below zero, you could be in trouble.

If you bothered to get dressed, are wearing a hat, scarf, gloves and a coat of any description - no problem. The wind chill isn't a factor.

Remember, also, that the wind has to be blowing at a constant rate - which it rarely does.

Does it feel colder when it's windy? Yes.

Is it dangerous? Not really, not unless you are naked.

If it were dangerous, skiing would be impossible.

Soon the TV weather scarers will be turning to thunderstorms.

Anything to make you afraid of the weather.

One day spring will come and you'll be home, watching TV, when the scroll will come across the screen warning you about a possible thunderstorm.

You're already in the house. What are you supposed to do?

The only thing I can think of is to turn off your TV.

It might not make you any safer, but it will make you feel safer.

I never thought I would get to the age where I started bragging about how much tougher it was when we were kids. My dad says he walked 5 miles uphill to and from school in three feet of snow year round.

I tell my daughter that it took us so long to walk to school that we had to get up a half hour before we went to bed.

Now she sits at home in the morning and waits for it to warm up a bit before she gets in the car for the a block-and-a-half ride to school.

Again, I'm not blaming the schools. They have to do what they have to do.

I'm just worried that my daughter will have nothing to brag about when she discovers that her kids have it even easier than she did.

My Cancer Column

My Saturday Cancer Column

This is the column I wrote for our Saturday Health section. The topic was cancer

Don't be afraid to talk cancer
If there is an upside to being diagnosed with cancer it's that you get to meet a lot of nice people.

It's really not surprising. There are plenty of opportunities. I spent nearly a year visiting doctors, treatment centers, hospitals and imaging centers. I never encountered an empty waiting room.

I have said since the beginning of my cancer journey that people don't talk enough about cancer.

Let me clarify. People don't talk enough about cancer publicly.

People talk to you individually.

As soon as I let people know about my diagnosis, I started to hear stories.

"I was given three months to live and that was 15 years ago," was one of the first stories I heard. It was followed by several survivor stories.

It wasn't just local people, or friends, or business acquaintances.

One night, while I was home alone, the phone rang.

On the other end of the line was the aunt of a friend. A woman I had never met before.

It turns out that 11 years ago she had the same cancer I had and wanted to tell me that she got through it and I would, too.

Believe me, it was great to talk with someone who had been there before.

The best thing she told me was that, while she would tell me everything she knew, she would only tell me things she knew from personal experience.

She wasn't going to tell me stories she had heard or read or offer any speculation.

It was going to be straight up truth about what exactly happened to her.

She gave me tips on diet, let me know what to expect and most importantly, gave encouragement when I needed it most. She constantly reminded me that my experience would likely be different.

We talked almost weekly through my treatment and right up to my surgery. I don't know if my friend on the phone knows how important she was to me.

Her influence lingers. I talk

about my cancer a lot. Some might say I won't shut up about it.

As an editor of a newspaper, I don't like it when we refer to someone by their disease. I cringe when I see phrases like, she is a diabetic, or he is epileptic. You can't define a person by an affliction or a disease.

But, in a way, my cancer has defined me. My cancer is there when I make decisions. My cancer makes me treat people differently. My cancer affects the way I do my job and the way I feel about my family.

And, even though I won't shut up about my cancer, I am sticking to the lesson my telephone friend taught me.

I only talk about things I know from personal experience and I will always emphasize that everyone's experience is different. You might get chemo and have no side effects. Mine for the most part were mild, yours might not be mild. You can't tell how anyone is going to react and I can only tell you what happened to me.

So, here is what I learned from my personal experience.

# Don't be embarrassed to talk to someone about things that might be happening to you.

I kept my symptoms to myself for more than a month because it had to do with what was happening in the bathroom.

If I hadn't finally said something to my wife, who knows what might have happened to me.

# If you are a grown up, you have to have a relationship with a doctor. You might not need a yearly physical if you are young and healthy, but you need to have a medical professional that knows you. You need to have someone you can go to when you notice something going wrong.

# Don't be embarrassed to tell or show your doctor anything. You make your doctor's job a lot easier if you are open and honest. Don't make them figure out what is wrong with you, tell them.

# If you notice a change in how your body works don't assume it is a normal part of aging.

# Don't be afraid of medical procedures no matter how invasive. Nothing hurts for very long and you can get used to most anything.

This is the second time I've been cured of cancer. In each case I had only passing knowledge of the disease before I was diagnosed.

If someone was trying to send me a message, believe me, they got their point across.

I know, from personal experience, that cancer can be beat. But, it can't be beat, if we don't talk, if we don't ask questions, if we don't share our experiences.

3 Saturday afternoon movies

Lucy and I went to Lincoln Park to sled on the "Big Hill." Lucy did all of the sledding, I just stood around at the top and got cold.
Here is her description. Notice how she can't stand still.



While we were at the park Mary had nothing to do but watch the cats indulge themselves.



Late, Lucy decided she wanted to make her own movie, despite my objections.
I don't know what we are going to do with her.

Saturday

Lucy wrote a book today. It's called "1+0 does note equal 100, Lucy's Funny Math Problems."
The math problems are like this.
Lucy plus cat equals mad cat.
Of course, she does it in pictures. Clever girl.
We also made a video. It is Saturday, after all.
It's all Lucy. Her idea. Her Direction. Her Editing. She even typed in the titles.
I tied the knots in the string and manipulated the hands (badly).
Lucy hid under a blanket and only popped her head out at the end. Patient girl.
Here it is:

Haven't blogged in a while

I think that I have not been blogging because I have been feeling good. Actually, I have a cold, but it is just a cold. It is not knocking me flat on my back like it might have a few weeks ago.
I have also been busy with work, so here is a Tragically Hip video about work.
I think of it as the copy-editors song.
It's starts out
"Everything is bleak, it's the middle of the night, you're on your own and the dummies might be right."
If you work at a newspaper, you know what I mean.



The Hip almost always refer to themselves as another name when they appear as a band in their videos. In this one they are "The Filters."

Nephew is funny

Here is my Nephew Marly and his funny college buddies mocking authority.
Excellent work you private school snobs (Just kidding, I love you, you crazy bastards).

Not everyone likes The Hip

I respect everyone's opinion, even when they are not as appreciative of the Tragically Hip as I am.
Take my buddy Chris's fiance who is a photographer.
She recently got a chance to photograph a Hip show in Canada. You would think she would be thrilled. At the foot of the stage with the Tragically Hip!!!???
Take a look at the photo. Does she look thrilled?
Still, I respect her opinion. Maybe it was because she was there for work and not for fun. Yeah, that has to be it. Everyone loves the Hip. I do. Don't you?

Speed Stack challenge

I look a bit short busish in this.
Aunt Babs gave Lucy the speed stackers for Christmas.We haven't practiced that much.
But we are still getting ready to challenge Aunt Babs this summer.
I have a hunch she is not too worried.

Lucy's Cancer Ball movie

Lucy conceived this video while in the car on our way back from Columbus. She was listening to Joe Jackson and really liked the song. She was playing with the ball and decided that it would make a good symbol for cancer. She drew the background and edited the video herself.

Thanks to Dirk!

Here's a clip from a band called Catnap
They kind of sound like The Damned a little cleaned up
Dirk aus Germany sent it to me
Thanks from Catnap aus Ohio!