Thank you all the friends and family that have joined us here today to remember my sweet mom, Joan Roland. When my kids asked how I was doing, I said that I was holding it together ….unless people were nice to me and then I would get quite teary so given where we are right now, buckle up for some emotion. Welcome to this beautiful facility that meant so much to my mom, who was instrumental in the conception, fundraising,…
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. “ — Eleanor Roosevelt supposedly said that. My Mom, as you have seen in the slideshow, was fortunate enough to be both. Not just in the looks department, where she certainly ranked highly, but also in her spirit, her tenacity, her intellect and also in just how friking funny she was. In this she had always inspired me. Not in the beauty department, clearly. But…
What can I possibly tell you about the incredible force of nature that was my mother-in-law John Roland – the mother of my heart. I fell under her spell upon our first meeting, Gavin and I we’re simply friends then, stopping by his mother’s house to pick something up from the basement. Upon leaving my immediate comments to him were, “Wow! Your mother is spectacular! What is her accent? And if you ever get married, you should do it in…
My name is Charlotte and this is my brother Jack, we were lucky enough to be the grandchildren of a really amazing person. Growing up, our Granny was a source of constant comfort, reassurance and most of all fun. She loved to laugh and play with us, and was always so supportive of our creative endeavors. She had a number of games she invented just for us. Our favorite was called treasure hunt, we had made these various shapes and…
So, ya. I did the writing thing again. My first book was a mid-life crisis in book form, whining about my life and career stagnation in 2017, but told in an oh-so-amusing manner, with Time Travel & Beatles goodness sprinkled in. This one is different, however, as it has nothing to do with me but rather a deep dive into loneliness and loss and again told in an oh-so-amusing manner, but this time with aliens and global armageddon. Just a…
And the United States is not a functioning society. On March 11th there was supposed to be a regular-season basketball game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Utah Jazz. Fans were in the stands. The players were walking onto the floor for their warmup, and suddenly the game was called off. One of the Jazz players, Rudy Gobert, had tested positive and the game was cancelled. Later that night, the NBA postponed all games indefinitely, and Major League Baseball…
I am a veteran of the telecom industry – and I can tell you – not everyone in telecom is a dickhead. But I can tell you that there are those in the higher echelons of the big three – Rogers, Telus and Bell – who definitely are dickheads. And unfortunately – because they have the power – they force their minions to be dickheads just like they are. Take this case for example. Here’s the situations. I was on…
The thing about visiting your doctor when you are a middle-aged man who carries a keg around the middle is, the doctor no longer laughs at your jokes. For years I could laugh it off with a “but chick still dig me,” or a lame “I’m working on it” line, but when you hit the mid-stretch it’s reality-check time. That’s what happened to me last spring when I got a new doctor after years of a rotating batch of indifferent…
