Family Post

Been wanting to do this for a while now, but such is life…

Kyle and Charlize are obviously growing very quickly. As such, it’s always nice to remember certain moments and there are a few I wanted to note. And so…

Charlize:
– Knows what she wants! Will go right up to an object (or as close as possible) and point at it repeatedly. When you ask if that’s what she wants, she nods her head vigorously, big smile on her face, and gasps out “ya! ya! ya!”
– When she’s eating, if she accidentally drops something on her table, she’ll go: “uh-oh! De-gah!” (french for “mess”)
– When she’s playing with her puzzle pieces, she’ll sometimes pretend to not be able to pull them apart. She’ll look up and say, “tuck!” with a big smile on her face 🙂
– This past weekend, when Chantale picked her up in the kitchen, she pointed to the cracked egg shells on the counter (we were having brunch) and said, “Co-co!” which took us off guard. We referred to eggs that way for her, and now after all these months, she’s naming them 🙂
– When I put her and Kyle in their car seats, she pointed to the toys I keep nearby and said, “Caaahr” which made me do a double-take 🙂 Kyle often asks to hold the toy cars (it keeps him quiet) while we drive. This was the first time she did it 🙂
– When she’s hungry, she’ll walk to the fridge and state, “Mnum-a-Mnum!”
– a couple of weeks ago, I was in the kitchen cleaning up from lunch while she played in the living room. Abba Gold was on the CD player and at one point Charlize ran into the kitchen, pointed to the radio, and announced, “MaMaMnyumMeeya!”. I knew what she meant and followed as she raced back to the living room, pointed up to one of the shelves we have where we keep regular-rotation-DVDs and she repeated what she had just said. I asked, “You want to watch Mama Mia?” and she nodded vigorously, big smile on her face, gasping out “ya! ya! ya!” and then hauled herself up on the couch 🙂
– When the movie started and the song “I have a dream” began? The little tyke started humming -in tune- “na na nanaaaa…” 🙂

Kyle:
– What can I say about him except that he’s very demanding, is always trying to negotiate for everything, highly active, rambunctious, both argues with and plays very nicely with his sister 🙂
– One thing that stands on its own: he’s now seen Monsters Inc. so many times that he “speaks” along with the movie as he watches it 🙂 And not just the “big” moments, all the small chats, too! 🙂
– Conversation of a few weeks ago, “Daddy, how come houses don’t come with machines that make pizzas?”
– Another conversation, “Daddy, it’s not nice what you said to me that I broke that toy when I was little.” “But sweetie, I wasn’t trying to be mean. I simply told you what happened and why it’s broken.” “But I didn’t know. I was little!”

Heh heh 🙂

By the way, I finally got around to starting to upload some of the 2009 Birthdays Click the link to see some photos from Chantale and Melyssa’s b-days 🙂

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Editing Praise

You know when you unexpectedly get praise for something you did? Doesn’t it feel really good? Especially when you know you really worked hard on it?

I took on some new work earlier this year and recently got this totally unsolicited feedback in return:

“I just went through your edits and suggestions today and revised my book accordingly. I want to thank you again for the excellent work you did. You know this, I am sure, but you have a sharp eye. Not only did you catch numerous little mistakes that needed to be caught, but you made a number of perceptive comments.”

I have to admit that I was just really happy to have been able to help – after all, along with being such a hard-working writier, I respected the work and training that he’s done throughout the years. So, to get this note from him really made my day 🙂

The author in question? Paul Lima. The book in question? The excellent (re)Discover the Joy of Writing.

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New Covers Redux

So… interested in seeing the comparison between the first run of The Mysterious Minute-Men Omnibus side-by-side with the soon-to-be-available-everywhere edition? 🙂 Yes, of course you are 🙂 Here are the front covers and spines. The back covers are pretty identical – the only difference being the sharpness of the text.


What do you think?

I love the new logo and the cartoon font 🙂

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Comicopia

I realized I hadn’t posted up the cover to the latest issue. My bad. But it’s a beauty and worth sharing so here it is, by Chuck Rhodes:

clicking will bring you to the main site. just select “covers-> year 18” to see the others (and in larger format)

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Busy, always busy…

It’s crazy. I’ve done SO much in the last couple of weeks, and yet I still feel like I’m chasing after myself with all the stuff STILL yet to do!

On the family side, we had a fun March Break, even though everyone ended up sick and we’re still all taking antibiotics to fight off the various infections. I’m talking EVERYONE being sick – all 6 of us!

On the renovation side, I got the ceiling installed in the basement hallway, plastered, sanded, and put up the primary coat. With picking up a 10-position ladder, I was also able to finish the 1st plastering of the stairwell to the basement. Didn’t have the energy to sand it through or start the 1st prime coat but it’s coming. Still also have a few minor touch-ups in Melyssa’s room (such as installing the various quarter-rounds onto the baseboards and the closet’s sliding-door frame).

On the editing/ copyediting side, besides getting through The Mysterious Minute-Men: Ready for the Future (still aiming for a release within 2 months – , if you’re going to get me that 2nd pin-up, I’ll need it very soon!), I worked (and continue to help) on the upcoming Star Trek a Comics History by Alan J. Porter (last year’s book James Bond The Illustrated History of 007 is a beautiful production and a must-have for Bond enthusiasts!). I also recently lent eyes and thoughts towards Paul Lima’s (re)Discover the Joy of Creative Writing which is chock-full of great ideas to spur you back to the road of creativity and one I heartily recommend. There were also a number of other scripts, proposals, and books but too many to mention right now.

Finally, a big thanks to Von Allan who was very kind in lending his time to trying to resolve a big issue I was having getting the revised cover for The Mysterious Minute-Men Omnibus set to the correct format required by the printer. I’m still awaiting the proof copy but once all this is finalized, TMMMO will be re-released at large. The reasons? Simple. I’m not ready to set PDF copies of my books “free” to the world. And the shipping costs for Lulu are bloody atrocious. So, the best of everything is to get the book off of Lulu and out to on-line vendors so folks who are used to shopping online can simply include it in their everyday shopping and save on Shipping (amazon and indigo chapters, for example, have free shipping over $39).

Anyhow, more news when that happens. For now, here’s the updated cover – still by Gabriel Morrissette – sporting the new logo 🙂

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Clear Clutter

Just a short safety note in the event you don’t read the lj posts on security, etc:

http://www.livejournal.com/tools/emailmanage.bml

Go. Delete any old email accounts associated with your LJ Account to avoid any possible hacking attempts.


Update on what’s been going on with me these last two weeks will be forthcoming. Just been busy as heck!

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Give me a break!

Most of you know that I tend to get to work early and if not in the office I’m usually online working at around 430am-5am. Well, today, seeing as next week is March break, I took the car to a closer train station so I could leave a little earlier this afternoon. What this does is allow me to take the very early bus in and get to the office quite early.

Case in point, I walked onto my floor at 620am. As I get off the elevator, I smell smoke. Not fire-smoke, cigarette-smoke. That’s pretty bizarre seeing as not only is the building and the office smoke-free, even the cleaning folks overnight aren’t allowed to smoke. Heck, doing so can inviolate our insurance simply due to the “potential danger” of. Yet, I know what I smell.

I take my jacket off and start to go sniff around (literally). I have a very sensitive nose and can trace this without real effort. It’s 620am for gump’s sake! There shouldn’t be anyone IN the office at this time! The first person to show up is usually at 7am and he opens the lights (I prefer to work in the dark so never open them when i get in 😉 ). Anyhow, within a few steps I can smell it getting stronger. I turn the corner and literally almost at the end/ back of the floor, there’s a guy actually fucken smoking at his desk! As I approach him with a “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” he tosses his butt in his coffee and smiles sheepishly. He chuckles at my comment that I smelled him as soon as I got out of the elevator – like he didn’t believe me. Duh. The air vents are all off, dude! Of course your smoke wasn’t pulled and pushed away, it lingered in the air on the whole floor!

Sometimes I just wish people would look BEYOND their fucken noses and think about the shit around them. Life’s not just about them.

Unbelievable.

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March Break Coming Up…

Yes, it’s only Tuesday, but I have to say I’m seriously looking forward to next week’s March Break. The financial crunch has taken a big bite out of a lot of the plans I had initially made (Chantale has to work, so I’ll be home with the four kids most days – I might send Kyle and Charlize into daycare for a day or two in order to get ahead on more of the renovation work) but it will still feel really good to just “BE”, ya know?

One definite plan, however, will be similar to last year. Melyssa turns 12 on March 3rd and I’ll be taking all four munchkins over to the Canada Science & Technology Museum. So, any of you in Ottawa or thereabouts who think they’d get a kick out of walking around the museum for a couple of hours, feel free to come along! 🙂 The kids never change their schedules, which mean we’ll be up at 630am anyhow. So, I’m planning on hitting the road after breakfast (around 730am) in order to get there when it opens at 9am.

(Dwight/ Von, I’d be happy to pass along a bunch of Comicopia back issues if you’d like 🙂 )

A couple of hours of discover, followed by (more than likely) Pizza Hut ;), and then potentially running an errand or two before making our way back home (no later than 2pm so we can get back by 4pm). (Moggy, if you want to escape back to Montreal, now’s your chance to hitch a ride with me 😉 )

Okay. Gotta get my head back into “today”

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