Boiled. Fried. Baked.

What's the history behind the Society? The Children's Cottage Society opened its doors as a crisis nursery back in 1986. It's our flagship program. It primarily helps families, a lot of young mothers, single mothers in the community. They're looking for support when they have no other support available to them. It might be respite support. [Example] They're going in for surgery and they need someone to take care of their children. So we'll do that for them.  How did it evolve into what it is today?  Since then, the cottage grew up with the city, and the nine beds that we had when we started in 1986 are now 20 located here in the new family and child centre.  You also have a facility down in the southwest? That's in the Killarney area. It’s called Brenda's House. That's our family shelter; an emergency shelter to support families that are experiencing homelessness. It is for families that are transitioning. They've lost their home, or lost their j...

All I want to do is read the news.  The print media is struggling and no longer a great choice. I've never been a fan of scheduled reports on TV and radio. I want to digest the news on my schedule, not theirs. So, what about the internet?  Too many websites. Too much biased reporting. What to do?  I have gravitated to daily, semi weekly and weekly newsletters. The ones I follow tend to be aggregators of information I want to know, or need to know.  I subscribe to:  The Peak  Peak Money  The Peak Tech  Maple Syrup Mind Your Business Broadcast Dialogue Forbes Daily Money Digest Daily Hive  The Peak, Peak Money, and Peak Tech are creations from the fertile mind of Moses Znaimer. Slim compendiums that deliver on three fronts.  Maple Syrup keeps me current primarily with Canadian cell phone news and internet provider news (and with Canadian pricing). Mind Your Business is one of a slew of newsletters that originate from the CBC. Broadcast Dia...

  I worked for Newcap Radio from 2008 to 2018. The company was a major player in Canadian media with over 100 radio stations from Newfoundland to British Columbia, making it the second-largest radio conglomerate in Canada behind Bell Media.  The company was founded in 1986 by Harold R. Steele as Newfoundland Capital Corporation. Although it was traded on the TSX, the majority of shares (over 80%) were held by the Steele family. The company was acquired by Stingray Media in 2018 for 530 million dollars.  Rob Steele, Harry Steele's oldest son  was the CEO during the ten years I worked for Newcap. I met Rob a few times during my tenure at Newcap's Cape Breton stations. In addition to talking radio, we chatted about airplanes, not cars.  Rob has his pilots license and has owned a few aircraft, including one of my favorites, a King Air.  I did not realize during those brief chats, that Rob has an all consuming love of cars.  Rob's company Steele Auto Group ...

Gord ...  Good morning. Thanks for the email.  No I did not go to, or take in, any of the Calgary Stampede events. Why? Well, I don't like crowds. And many of the events are standing, no sitting. And my legs aren't that great. But the real reason? I have overdosed on concerts and other crowd based events. I know it sounds like a cop-out but due to radio commitments during my broadcast career, I attended or emceed so many (too many) hence my term - overdosed.  I've been to three concerts in the three years I've lived here in the west: two were at the Saddledome, one was at a high end acoustically perfect theatre.  The Chris Stapleton concert at the Saddledome was a family affair; my son Zach, daughter in law Emily, me and Emily's dad who was visiting Calgary.  The John Fogarty concert at the Saddledome was a no brainer. A great artist. And I played every CCR hit during my years on air.  The Herb Alpert concert at the Bella Concert Hall at Mount Royal Univers...

According to Edison Research, "for every hour that Americans listened to podcasts in 2021, they listened to 6 and a 1/2 hours of AM/FM radio". This does not surprise me. You have to search for a podcast. You simply turn on radio. Instant gratification. A podcast is one subject stretched out.  Radio is variety. Radio can be a background form of audio. When we hear something interesting, we pay attention and turn up the volume. Suddenly passive becomes active. If you lose attention listening to a podcast, you have to rewind or start over. Radio is more in tune with our fast paced society. Short, interesting material ... when done right. 

My Dad was a Flight Instructor for the RCAF during the war. He was stationed at three different locations, Uplands in Ottawa, St Hubert near Montreal and Whitby east of Toronto; all part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). Dad didn't talk much about the war. It reminded him of the pilots he trained that were killed overseas. But he talked openly about flying and the aircraft he flew during instruction with the BCATP. He loved the Harvard. He  was fascinated by the history and the experience of flying the Tiger Moth, the older, ever forgiving biplane. And he was impressed by the manoeuvrability of the much larger twin engine Avro Anson. My oldest brother was able to coax more information from him than I could. He admitted he was one of the the RCAF flying instructors at Whitby that was tasked with teaching some of the 'Camp X' crew how to fly single and multi engine aircraft for their spy missions in occupied Europe.   From my oldest brother, Ken: "A...

Do I have the attention span of a gnat?  Or the roving curiosity of an international explorer? Or something in between, based on the day of the week or the time of day? Case in point. I started reading John Steinbeck's: Travels With Charley. This is what happened:   A few pages in, he refers to Sag Harbor. So I jump on Google maps and discover it's a community on Long Island; part of the Hampton's. Now I am aware that the Hampton's are an expensive place to live (maybe not so in the early sixties when the book was written). So now I check real estate listings for Sag Harbor, dreaming of living next to the beach in that Long Island community. But now I'm thinking "Isn't there a Long Island in the Bahamas?" And that reminds me of my bucket list: my long term desire to vacation on St. Lucia. So I check out accommodations on that island.  Now my Kindle has gone to sleep. And it's time for lunch. Back to Steinbeck and Charley later.