JoeyColeman.ca

Thank you to everyone who allowed me the privilege of serving our neighbourhood as the Minor Variances Coordinator for the past year. I remain a member of the BNA, and will be available to assist our new executive as a neighbour. UPDATE: I missed the first portion of the meeting (due to City Council being at the same time), and learned a few days later the membership voted to postpone our AGM until November seeking continuity during the upcoming municipal election. Other members, aware that I wished to leave the executive at the end of my one year term, moved that the association accept my "resignation". So, on a technically, I've "resigned"....

An interesting academic discussion of why hazing continues to exist within militaries, despite efforts and regulations designed to remove this rituals among modern Western professional armed forces....

In my 2015 column looking at localisms I tried to define the boundary between Central and East Hamilton; stating that I look at the boundary as being a cultural marker....

We don't need to grovel in front of Facebook asking them to do fix our problems. We need to double our efforts to build local news that our neighbours read and value funding....

Each time I see a forecast high of 8°C, I'm drawn back to a childhood memory of defining that as being cold. Why? Association. I was eight years of age, just learning about temperatures, and reading the newspaper. It was the beginning of a short obsession with weather. It was a typical fall day, sunny with a bit of wind. I lived in the Lisgar neighbourhood at the time. Playing outside on Lockheed Drive, for some reason, probably a gust of wind, I felt really cold, and decided I was going back inside. To this day, I continue to have the image of the house I was looking at during that moment....

As a journalist, I regularly encourage people to be engaged citizens, and lament when people do not engage. It is hypocritical to sit on my butt, not engage, and claim being a journalist as the reason for non-engagement. Be the example is one of my mottos. I'm involved in my neighbourhood association, the Beasley Neighbourhood Association, and am pleased to serve in my current role reviewing minor planning and variance applications in the neighbourhood. Due to the nature of this role, it is position on the BNA executive. No volunteer role comes without entanglements and difficulties; there have been applications which abuse the minor variance process, and which I should be covering as a journalist but I'm sucked into due...

Meet you for coffee at 2:15pm, I tell someone. Then I don't show up until 2:22pm. This is something I've done with regularity in the past few years, and something that I'm ashamed of. I once pride myself on my punctuality, my order. In high school, one could set their watch to my walking down the hallway from my locker beside room 205 to the server room in room 232. Each day, this walk would occur at 8:12am. When I was in the military and based in garrison, I picked up breakfast from a local restaurant at 7:07am. Even my days ended with routine, during my final years of high school, I had an apartment at...

One of my greatest fears is that one day I'll decide that I've reached one challenge too far. It's an odd fear because it seems that no matter the challenge that is placed in front of me, life prepares me for it and I'm ready to overcome it. Today came a new challenge - which caught me by surprise, and one which the solution for which was foreshadowed on the weekend. Dealing with this challenge is going to require me to focus and work hard in March, but the timing may work in that many of the things I need to do to succeed are things I've prepared for independent of this unexpected circumstance. Being an entrepreneur is a seemingly...

Biting my nails is such a habit, I don't even notice when I'm doing it. In Grade 5, over 20 years ago, I first thought of stopping the habit. In September, I started a series of personal changes. I'm now at Phase III, and have succeeded for two months at not biting my nails....

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent in my faith as a member of the Roman Catholic Church. I use Lent as an opportunity for personal reflection, and change. I've already sent my personal goals, and begun on many of them. Ash Wednesday is traditionally the only day of the year during which I wear a visible sign of my faith, the ashes on my forehead. This year, I'll only be wearing ashes for a few hours in the early afternoon. There is a meeting of the Beasley Neighbourhood Association that evening, and I am now titularly a member of the executive. My role on the executive is very limited, nonetheless, when exercising a position of public trust,...