Whether you call it Easter, Passover, Pesach, the Solstice or any of the other names by which you honour this change of the seasons, I hope that it's a good weekend for you all!

By happy coincidence this year, I noticed another anniversary arriving this weekend that's cause for good cheer to us all: Yuri's Night.

On April 12th, 1961, Yuri Gagarin rode Vostok 1 up into the Black as the first human ever to do so in recorded history and survive to tell the tale to the rest of us. Twenty years later to the day, the space shuttle Columbia made that same trip for the first time, first of her kind to do so.

Another happenstance of note: Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope began in St. John's, Newfoundland Island, on April 12th, 1980. He never finished that first run, but we carry on out of respect for his goal of ending the diseases collectively known as cancer to this day.

Here's to the spirit of exploration, of hope, that these people have represented.

Be well.

A bit of a catch-all post this morning:

Still working on pencils for Local Hero # 3. That's not stopping for anything.

Looks like the Canadian Space Agency's getting ready to narrow down their astronaut-candidate list. I'll be even happier when we start building our own fleet to carry them up into the black with, but one thing at a time still seems to be the rule for now.

If you're worried about peanut product safety issues up here, you might want a look at this item at CBC News.

More as we - plural, not royal - think of it...

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(Author's Note: I don't recall posting this...must've messed up with ScribeFire somehow.)

Some quick notes:

For any Winnipeggers lurking here, if you want music about your hometown, go check out the other Mike Ford for the lyrics of Canada Needs You Volume Two. It sounds a lot better when the CD's playing than you might think. (Same goes for Montrealers, Newfoundlanders, anyone who was at Clayoquot Sound, and a slew of others...)

In case you're wondering, Christmas was kind enough. Mostly clothes, gift cards for bookstores, and some snacks. It'll do nicely.

A belated note: I've started up chat and photo-posting on DEWLiners for anyone interested.

As a longtime Saint fan, I've been wanting to see the tales of Simon Templar getting back into print. Seems as if it's about to finally happen. Anyone up for cueing up Edwin Astley's anthem for Roger Moore?

Back to you...

From coudal: A laptop computer with a casing made of bamboo.

The societal impact of spaceflight continues, and continues to be discussed in various places. Not sure what I make of that essay just yet, but a bit of re-reading will likely be in order.

At publicbroadcasting.ca, you'll see some photographic work of mine.

On comic books...things are slowly getting back into gear re: Local Hero. I hope to share more news in the weeks ahead, so keep your fingers crossed.

Still looking for a day-job in office/clerical work, graphic design/DTP, writing, what have you. I've got skills and experience to varying degrees relevant to all those fields, so flexibility in work environment shouldn't be too much of a problem, right?

Other stuff in progress:

Comics and Animation Canada, the Google Group linked to publicbroadcasting.ca that I've been doing occasional volunteer duty with, has just added its 20th participant. I cannot say this enough: if you've got an interest in comic books done in Canada or by Canadians, this is a place for you. If you have a question, a book to promote, what have you...sign up and start talking. Please.

Computer skills? I'm about to add Mac 10.5 to my resume under that heading. I've been a Mac user since 10.3.not sure which version, and this week I became a Leopard Version user.

Working on getting ready for the fall edition of the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair this Saturday, as previously discussed. If you're in Ottawa that day, I'll be but one of the people glad to see you!

Bracing for the freezing rain coming today...

Some quick notes:

Thanks for the friendlisting to alexdecampi!

mdg1, you're welcome! Hoping you enjoy many happy returns of the day, and that we can enjoy them along with you!

Still doing volunteer stuff for and watching events at WritersFest over at Library and Archives Canada. That festival runs until this upcoming Monday, FYI. Website has as many details as needed on what's left on the schedule!

Broke the 5,000-word barrier on the short story project. Hoping to actually be done this weekend. Even better, whatever the word count, I hope to have it hold together as a story.

Making further progress on Velvet City, realigning a creek and adding a few streets, and planting an International Airport. More on this anon, but I don't plan on posting every set of changes. Maybe after I've designed the runway pattern, set down the public parks layer, and designed a "freeway interchange" symbol?

Just found out at ComicBloc that there's a revised edition of the DC Encyclopedia out from DC and Dorling-Kindersley. Knew it was in the works, but wasn't sure of the release date.

A bunch of little notes:

• My colour printer's driving me slightly nuts this morning. I wanted to do a test layout on the last page before starting to finalize the pencils, using some photo reference and ComicLife, but thus far, I've only gotten all-blue printouts. Can't get black panel borders at all. Probably time to swap out ink cartridges, so we'll see if the solution's that simple.
  
  Turns out that it was that simple.
  
  
• My sinuses are still bugging me in the mornings.
• I'm pleased with the outcome of yesterday's Winnipeg-Saskatchewan CFL game.

More to follow...

Probably not the first time that title's been used for a blog posting, but who cares at this juncture? I'm going to be a tad busy to worry over such things.

At any rate, I got back into Ottawa from PEI yesterday afternoon and was dismayed to be reminded by my brother that, what with time zone differentials, by the time I had gotten back to my home neighbourhood at about 6 PM, I had been effectively awake since 3 AM EST.

There is something Wrong in this.

The same goes for the seven-hour layover at Pearson between the plane that dropped me and my travelling company off there from Charlottetown(possibly the smallest airport in Confederation I've yet to pass through as an airline user) and the one that finished the job of bringing us back to Ottawa. You'd think that WestJet could manage more flights per diem from Toronto to Ottawa than that.

Anyway, I'm home. Back on the job of looking for regular work, drawing by nights and between appointments and interviews and tests, and so on.

Maybe I'll even finally get to see The Dark Knight?

Photos to come via my Flickr account...

Do I really need Twitter for anything?

Is there anything outside of the "Anne-iversary" festivities that I need to see on Prince Edward Island someday?

When do you think our next federal election is going to be?

First off, welcome to janet_harvey! Glad to see you! *offers virtual high-five*

Item two: check out this item from PEI on a formerly local guy making good, one Troy Little by name. Funny thing that I'm expecting to be in that part of the country in a couple of weeks and this news breaks.

Item three: Watching the Saskatchewan-Hamilton CFL game at the Patty Boland right now. If any other Saskatchewan fen show up here tonight, that'll be gravy however the game goes.

Item Four: TBDL...

Well, It's a bit of chaos at the moment. One of my extended family's getting married this week, so I'm haring off to Vancouver Island to attend the ceremonies and whatnot. It's a rare chance to actually do this without too much fiscal chaos, so I'm taking advantage of it. There's kin out that way I haven't seen in person in literally decades and others I've had occasional phone chatter and e-mails with, all of whom I want to get it touch with. And there's the friends and friendly acquaintances I've made online over the years I've never - or rarely - met...

One question I'd like to pose for anyone able to answer: do you know of any coffee-houses, restaurants, etc. in Nanaimo that offer the same combination of food menus(particularly the fair trade angle) and wi-fi service as Bridgehead here in Ottawa?

Something I'd like to see when I get there is the KRAZY! pop culture exhibit in Vancouver.

As to the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair yesterday, it was orderly, lively, busy...and not so oddly, the most fun I had while I was working the table was drawing sketches of hockey and Canadian-rules football players for local kids. Give-away sketches all, no charge on any of them. It didn't seem fair, especially as I'd shown up without even a single age-appropriate piece of merchandise at hand to sell to them. I simply hadn't thought it through far enough to expect anyone under age ten to show up for the Book Fair. I'm not sure if anyone else had either, but that could be chalked up to first-hand experience with past editions of the Fair. It's all too easy for past experience to guide future expectations into tripping you up, after all. I'm filing that under "Notes to Self re: future book fairs"...just in case.

It doesn't take away from the fun of doing the sketches, though. Those kids asked questions, on-point questions, about the work and I got a bit of practice on my spoken French, too. Something that happens all too rarely for me, which seems ridiculous given where I live right now. When I get back home again in about two weeks, that's...likely to stay on my "to do" list.

Kids, if you or your parents are reading this entry? Thank you! Merci!

More as I think of it...or if you think of it first.

Still working out the contents of the Ashcan Sampler 2008. Tracking down the right picture(s) for each page...well, it's fun digging through the files.

Meanwhile...fans of Bob and Doug might be interested in this bit of news.

Went to the Comic Book Shoppe's Clyde Avenue store today, as J was in town for the FCBD signing, and I wanted to say "hi". So the Jane's Walk plans are postponed to next year. Not that big a problem, as I'm regularly exploring something or other across the city every weekend on my own anyway.

I took photos of the Tunney's Pasture/Scott/Holland Avenue neighbourhood, the intersection of Wellington and Holland - the buildings there presently housing World of Maps and the Great Canadian Theatre Company provided plenty of visual entertainment excuses - and the Clyde/Merivale intersection for future reference and immediate amusement. I hope to post an explanation of the second instance on my Flickr account later on.

Nice to see the weather got the worst of itself out of the way this morning...at least so far. Tonight may be a different story.

Birthday shout-out to sfpro_studio: Hoping it's been a good one for you and yours, Wendi!

Shopping shout-out to ruckawriter: I finally got that Queen and Country Scriptbook today! Worth the money for the footnotes alone!

Hoping the weekend's been good to all of you, whatever name you're honouring it by...and it's come to my attention that there's a number of different names and traditions in play. Especially given the proximity to the actual Start of Spring this Gregorian-calendar year. So I hope you're all having a good time of it.

As for me, I'm bouncing between entertaining assorted relatives, reworking my home website, and drawing pages for Local Hero. It's busy enough to suit me, which is good.

Oh yes! I watched Justice League: the New Frontier this morning during a quiet stretch. Worth the money, beyond any doubt of mine.

Open thread time...and here's the "microphone"...

Gentrification and its fallout are on my mind a bit of late. Or perhaps it's more about the evolution of towns and cities over time in general that's been doing that preying. Whichever it is, I thought I'd ramble a bit. I hope you'll forgive me if it doesn't make complete sense.

Over at ottawa, there was some discussion that delved into the creeping gentrification in the back streets of Vanier, and the acquisition of several apartment complexes there and along St. Laurent Boulevard that seemed a bit suspicious to some. I can't say for certain if any of the commentary - including my own on that thread - was or is on the money. Not yet. And yet it still bothers me.

I have friendly acquaintances who consider Vanier a good place to run a business and raise a family. I'm not entirely sure they're wrong, based on the evidence of my own eyes and travels through that part of town in recent months and years. If ever I move out of Orléans, it might be a good place for me to move to. Or perhaps New Edinburgh next door, if the income situation works out just right. You see, I don't need a mansion. Just a place to hang my hat at night and stow my library and studio at any old hour at all. If it's convenient to a good tea house and art supply shop, that's even better.

Along comes Justin Beach with a new section added onto publicbroadcasting.ca devoted to the Casualties of Gentrification. He starts with a specific memorial to a particular building in Toronto that just fell to the wrecking ball to make room for something else, hopefully better than what was there...at least for those who hired out the wrecking ball.

And it occurs to me that a lot of honest people in Vanier see things in that part of town worth saving for the future of their neighbourhood and of the city forced upon them by Mike Harris' "shotgun marriage" bringing their homes into the borders of Ottawa, whether they liked it or not.

And if the improvements to the neighbourhood are done in just the wrong way, a lot of honest people who have little else in the way of alternatives are going to find it that much harder to get by. Or those who liked something they found there before it went "upscale" might find the "upscaling" has rendered the place no longer the joy it was.

And I worry.

And I don't even live there right now.

Getting ready for a rug cleaning on Wednesday is driving me slightly nuts. So what else is new?

More of that "fluffy white death" as kadymae called it falling from the sky today. Up to 25 cm more(close to a foot in non-metric-speak), in fact...which does run the risk of actually living down to what she called it if the drivers on the roads are less than careful today. And since I walk wherever a bus cannot take me...I worry. A lot.

We got the test-run shipment from our new printer for Local Hero # 1 in the mail from Florida today. Looks good, at least as good as the printer Ian picked for the Supanova launch. Yes, we're taking orders from anyone interested in buying a copy. Hoping to have a couple of local shops carrying the book before too long here in Ottawa as well, so interested retailers should feel free to e-mail me, or if you're on the CBIA Forum, contact either Ian or myself there.

Still looking for a day-job, as well. Can't afford not to at the moment.

More as it occurs to any of us...

By now, Supanova will be over and done. I've yet to hear or read any news on how things went, but I'm looking forward to the initial reactions to Local Hero # 1. I'm still working - slowly - on pages for # 2 as I type this, having sent off the latest scan to Ian and our new inker. More on that inker to come, I promise.

The ByMUG meeting went quite well, considering this was one of a near-literal handful of occasions where I've tried my hand at public speaking. I found myself learning more about ComicLife by trying to answer questions from the others present on the fly than I had in two years or so of having the software on my hard drive. My thanks to everyone who showed up to ask those questions, and thanks also for the Garageband demo!

Tomorrow, back to the day-job hunt(with a side of volunteer work at Writersfest)!

Winding down here. Long day's journey, and all of that.

Went from Software Freedom Day stuff at Carleton - which turned out to be small-scale, but informative and confusing by turns without losing its entertainment value - to Centretown's Bridgehead Coffeehouse for tea, roast chicken and potato salad and software updates, and thence to home again.

(One thing to be hoped for in the fall is that Bridgehead doesn't drop their summer drinks menu this time around, including something called a "vanilla crush". Milk, crushed ice, vanilla extract...mmmm. I expect that they will, however, partly for keeping things seasonal and to some extent ecologically responsible, too.)

I got some photography done today, too...( which you can look at if you want... )

Happy sidebar note: hawkward, I hope your birthday was a good one today!

And over to the rest of you...