Let the Games Begin

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I never post anymore. I'm very sorry people. It wasn't intentional. I don't even know where to start really. This summer was the summer of endless travel. I went to Montreal twice, Chicago twice, Dallas twice, Houston once, L.A. once. All in all including the driving to other towns outside of these major centres, I think I've covered over 10,000 miles this summer in travel. If you are wondering why all the travel, it was for work. I had to go and supervise a bunch of loading, unloading, and demonstrations of my company's equipment. It has been exhaustive, thankless, and stressful, but there were also a lot of good moments too. I got to see some really neat places I may never have seen had I not done this traveling. I also met a lot of really great people, and perhaps made some network contacts for the future. (For anybody wanting to know what I do, go to www.raildecks.com. It's the company my dad and I started a few years back.) All in all, while there were tough parts of it, it was a good summer.
In other news Jody, Colton and I are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the newest addition to our little family. We've decided on a name of Hayden Denver Crane. He's due October 5th, although I'm sure mommy won't mind if he comes a little earlier. he's quite an active little guy, as it seems Jody's tummy never stops moving. We've almost got his nursery set up, and Colton is trying to potty-train so that the baby can have the diapers... ha, ha, ha. It should be interesting, although I can't believe I will be a father again! Two boys, does it get any better? Hockey season is going to be so much fun around our house.
Moving on... life has been going steady and fast for our family, with no shortage of surprises. Our next biggest adventure starts this Friday, I will be leaving my job in pursuit of my education. That's right, I'm stepping away from my company to go back to school full time and complete my education. I have decided I would like to attend Mount Royal University here in Calgary in their Communications Program. I'll be pursuing a degree that should land my in the Broadcasting/Journalism field. Watch out people, you're looking at the future face of TSN's SportCenter... hopefully, one day. It's kind of crazy to think about, and I can't believe I'm doing it this late in life. My poor family, they'll be seeing a lot more of daddy around the house from now on. Perhaps, I'm crazy. Maybe I've lost my mind. We shall see. I'll begin in general studies in January, then transfer into the Communications program when it open up again next fall. Wish me luck.
Other than that, the excitement never stops for us. Colton and I are looking forward to the start of another Flames regular season. Hopefully the boys can pull their boots up for a full 82 games this year and actually make some noise in the playoffs. Here's hopin'. Jody continues her wonderful photography business in Calgary. She's had quite a bit of success lately with some great newborn shoots and family portraits. Obviously her availability will drop for the next little bit when the baby comes along, but still, there's no better time to book her for shoots in the new year! Check her out at www.jacphotography.ca to book her, and see some of her latest work on her blog at www.jacphotography.blogspot.com. You can also follow her on Facebook J.A.C. Photography. Ok, I think that covers all the plugs I can do for her.
Alright people, until my next post, you all take care. Wanna know when my next post will be? Well, you'll just have to keep coming back and checking.....

What's the Point?

As many of you are aware of, unless you've been living under a rock; the G-20 Summit were held in Toronto over the weekend. It was for the most part very successful. Toronto did a fantastic job of keeping the world's government leaders safe, there were no security incidents at all around the summit. However, there were some very real and very abhorrent incidents in downtown Toronto Saturday. Just to give you a very brief overview, a very fast moving and very violent crowd of over 1000 people, led by a main core of black clad "anarchists"; descended on the commercial district of Toronto. They smashed everything they could find, graffitied buildings, cars, booths, windows, etc. Police were forced to drop back temporarily and their cars were set on fire, or badly damaged. They were pelted with rocks, bricks, spat upon, hit with bottles, and bags full of urine, cursed at, assaulted, until they finally came back strong and hard to restore order. By days end there were millions upon millions of dollars of damage to a very popular and beautiful district of Toronto, and nearly 400 arrests, with more to come apparently. With all this it begs me to ask the question Therefore What?
Therefore what, people? What was the point to this, besides a bunch of idiotic misfits getting of on destroying property. What was to be accomplished by this? What was the platform that they were "protesting"? What attention do you think it got their cause? And does anyone care what their cause was? Lastly what do Torontonians think of all this?
The G-summits of world leaders always attracts protesting wherever they go. You get the whole mixed bag from extremely intelligent, passionate protesters, who want to bring attention to their issues, to the down right moronic idiots who are out their to just get their 15 seconds of fame. Some are true believers in their causes, and desperately want their voices heard, some are just paid to be a warm body on the lines, and others are just their to act like a fool.
I believe in free speech. I believe that if you have a cause you are married to, you have a right to speak out. However I also believe that you should be prepared to accept the consequences of your speech. Sorry folks, it's not a free pass. Just like it's your right to free speech, it's others rights to disagree or ignore you if they don't share the same views. It's also the laws right to reprimand where laws are broken. What happened on Saturday is very unfortunate, I think for the most part, there were people who had their protests going, with no intention of violence, they are overshadowed by the smaller minority of idiotic, knuckle draggers who "Just want to break stuff."
Gandhi, Martin Luther King, The Dali Lama, just a few examples of world changers who did not use violence to move their cause forward. It took time, but they are more revered in our day as influential fighters of freedom, than the black clad criminals who took to the streets of Toronto, along with the fools who were influenced to go along. Violence usually sets you back in your fight to be heard. Nobody cares anymore what you were trying to promote, all that is known now is that you were a bunch of organized criminal who set out to cause destruction. "Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals."- Martin Luther King, Jr.
If I were the other protesters at the G-20, I'd be angry. Your messages have been drowned out now, due to the actions of a few. Now your message as fallen on deaf ears because we're all distracted by the chaos. Maybe next time try and prevent this kind of garbage, or distance yourself from it, rather than follow the mob. More than anything I want to know what is going on in the minds of the people of Toronto. At first when the chaos erupted all your heard was complaints that the police weren't doing enough. Then as the crackdown began, and its aftermath, all you hear is complaints that the police were too heavy handed. Which is it people? Let me try to put this into perspective for you. Who's tax payer money is going to go into the clean up, and repairs? Who is going to have to pay more of their hard earned money to compensate for the lost business store owners will have due to them having to repair their stores, replace looted inventory, etc. It all ends up coming back to the tax payers in the end. Who's money is going to pay for the increased riot force that had to go out to restore order? Whose tax dollars are going to have to be used to prosecute all of these thugs who chose your city to have a good time in? Imagine being the little mom and pops jewelry store that had it's windows smashed and goods looted. That's your lively hood, how easily would you recover? Imagine being a police officer, and walking away with bruises all over, smelling like urine from projectiles tossed at you, and the toll of the physical, emotional, and mental abuse you took not only from the protesters, but stupid citizens whom you were only trying to keep safe. How would you react? When cowardly masked thugs come running at you throwing projectiles and wielding sticks, bats, bricks etc, how would you defend yourself? How does the normal citizen of Toronto feel walking down some of their favorite markets today seeing shops closed, and windows smashed? Does it make you angry? I sure hope so. It makes me angry, and I only lived there for 4 years!
Toronto became a second home to me, and I loved seeing the diversity and culture that existed there. When I see something like that happen to a place I grew fond of, it makes me angry, that someone would care so little about something I care for. I applaud the police who but their personal safety at risk to try and protect the average ungrateful citizen. I hope they gave the knuckleheads a few extra slaps to the back of the head for me.

Time for Dad to Brag

Well folks,
One of the Joys of being a dad is that you get to brag about your kids. It helps in the bragging process when your kid is one of the greatest all time kids ever! I have to be careful about saying that around him though, because he uses it to his advantage. He's quite the game player with people. He's very smart, and he knows he's cute, and can use that cuteness to his advantage. He also uses his baby face looks to get people to do things for him. For instance, Mommy and Daddy will tell him no, you can't have chocolate milk, you've already had plenty today. He'll then head over to the first person he sees, makes his eyes really big, places his hand gently on theirs and asks for chocolate milk in the most heart wrenching way possible. Then as you are walking to the fridge to get him chocolate milk, he's behind you with a massive smile on his face, but if you turn around, he quickly turns it into a sad face so you don't know you've been suckered. Then when mommy or daddy find out he has chocolate milk, he pretends not to know what's going on, and blames whomever the pawn was that got it for him. I could go on, but needless to say, this kid has the world pretty much figured out already.
So this blog post is to announce his latest photo shoot. He went out with mommy last week to downtown Calgary and took all these shots. He's one photogenic boy, although how could he not be; he's pretty much had mommy snapping daily photo's of him since life began. That's one of the perks/curses of having a mom who is a professional photographer. Anyway, the shoot went great, and there are a bunch of cute shots of the boy. I've attached a teaser at the bottom of this post, you can see the rest at http://jacphotography.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html#1553723085268317068

And remember, she loves taking pictures of children if you have any little ones in your life you'd like to have shots of.