I managed to get a lot of writing done last night, the challenge is that the posts I'm writing are still not complete. Sigh. I'm continuing to pick up my pace post-election, the challenge now is that I'm finding myself juggling many coffee meet-ups, and not finding time for writing. It's an interesting thing, in that I enjoy the coffees and conversations, I need to be catching up on friendships. Hopefully, I'll get more focused in the week ahead and finish a bunch of the nearly complete writings....

It's two weeks after the municipal election, and I have yet to re-establish my routine. The best explanation I have for this is that for the first week, I had to catch up on all the things I didn't do for seven weeks, all the people I didn't see for seven weeks, and work to recover from the burnout I caused for myself in creating The 155 Podcast. This week, it's Tuesday and I've still not done what I hoped to achieve on Sunday. I haven't slipped back into the routine of working at my desk for hours on end, I probably just need to force myself to do a full night in the office. Maybe it's just a matter...

There wasn't any openly gay students in my early years of high school, and when I graduated in 2001, only one openly gay student. In my first years of high school, I had no awareness of homophobia. Like many of my peers, we made homophobic jokes and taunts at each other. Then the horrible and shocking murder of Matthew Shepard happened, my peers and I were shocked. We discussed it, we became more aware of our words and behaviour - which is not to say that we become LGBTQ friendly, we only scaled back our taunts, but they still existed.It was a moment in time, one that shocked a society that was not tolerant. It didn't change anything immediately,...

Finally took the time to watch Solo: A Star Wars Story this evening as I sorted papers and cleaned up a Facebook list. I've enjoyed both of the stand-alone Star Wars stories, especially Rogue One. (The new Trilogy, not so much, and even the recent comics have disappointed me)The Solo movie gives a great back story to the most interesting character of the original trilogy; well it's a standalone movie ties so much into the plots of the other Star Wars. Much like Rogue One, it fills in the loose ends of plot lines from the original trilogy.A couple of things I especially enjoyed:The back story of how Han gains the name SoloThe story of Solo's failed...

It is September 27, 2018, less than a month until the municipal election and I'm presently in the middle of one of my most ambitious projects ever - The 155 Podcast, a series of interviews offered to all candidates in the election including School Board Trustee hopefuls.Today, I completed the 97th interview. It's been a six week marathon of nearly nonstop interviews. The interviews are the easy part, I'm presently editing episode 41 and will really need to bunker myself down and focus to complete the remaining 60 edits in the coming week.In many ways the interview series reminds me of my days refereeing. I've had to enforce a rule book: the questions, I've had to exercise judgment...

Reflections on a man who made a difference, and lived life like so many of us do - fighting peace, after some bumps along the way....

With Dave Kuruc's Mixed Media moving to Westdale, Joey sits on a street patio and writes his musing on the changing James Street North....

Do not miss the chess pieces for the checkers board. Kathleen Wynne is sacrificing the Ontario Liberal Party of today to save it's future....

I attended a public meeting tonight on the John/Rebecca Park, I said silent when one person expressed that they wanted the City of Hamilton to install gates on the park to keep out the homeless and prevent people from sleeping in the park. They referred to the gates at the Ferguson and King "Ferguson Station" park as being very effective at keeping out the "undesirables". I sat there, waiting for someone to say something. This was an official City of Hamilton meeting, two City staff were leading the discussion, Ward 2 Councillor Jason Farr was the official host of the meeting. Nothing. I served my term on the Beasley Neighbourhood Association executive and am no...

Thank you to everyone who voted for me in my nomination to be a director of the Canadian Association of Journalists; I congratulate Karyn Pugliese, Dale Bass, and Zane Schwartz on their election as National Directors, and thank fellow candidates Ken Partridge and Brent Jolly on standing for election alongside me. The results were closer for third place, and the final seat than what I expected. I gained 25 votes, just short of the the 31 votes for third place. In the coming year, I'll make The Public Record sustainable and become more involved in advancing journalism nationally. I hope to run for National Director in 2019....