Another protracted silence from this little corner of the online universe. After a period of forward progress and moving back into the civilized world, I've been backsliding a bit. A large chunk of it has to do with a headcold that I've been trying to shake for over a month. Most of the rest has to do with various things at work. The rest is snips and snails or something along those lines.

Work has had both positive and negative developments.On the positive end of the scale, I interviewed for and got a position as a trainer. I'm now one of the people who trains the new hires. Saturdays are machine operation, and Monday-Wednesday is order assembly and stuff, so the only day I do my usual job is Sunday. I just finished my 2nd week of it, and I'm finding it very enjoyable so far. On the negative side, it looks like my days off are shifting to Mondays and Tuesdays, so I'll only be able to train 2 days a week, with the other 3 days reverting to my usual job. But the change won't take effect for a while, so I shouldn't dwell on that too much. Also, there's been a push to change unions, which was scary since if we had voted out our current union there would have been a period of at least a week of being non-unionized, during which the company might well have implemented the concessions they've been seeking during our current contract negotiations. Thankfully, the results were announced today and we're maintaining the status quo. Now the stress comes from the negotiations, which hopefully will yeild agreeable fruit in time to keep us from a strike when April rolls around.

I'm going to make another attempt at setting some goals for myself for the year (even though 10% is already over!). I set some for 2005, but my father's illness and death sort of scuttled my attention span. Most of my 2006 list is actually a recycling of those failed ambitions of yesteryear. I want to have something published (my standards for this one are very low, so it's attainable). I want to finish ten of my songs-in-progress. I want to get back into doing more live performances (no set numerical goal at the moment). I want to get a much clearer idea of what my goals will be in my eventual return to university. I want to make definite progess in my Korean language studies. I want to completely revamp my personal website and the Ticklish Brother website... That's a partial list. I'll let you know if I manage to accomplish any of it. I guess the unifying theme that runs through all the goals is the idea of self-improvement and opening up possibilities for significant change in my life.

As for miscellaneous current stuff... Been preparing birthday packages for a couple of old friends of mine. They share a birthday actually, and in typical me fashion I'm running late. The day is already a couple of days in the past. But oh well. Hopefully I can mail the packages Monday. I'm also putting together the annual Ayyam-i-Ha package for my family, which should go in the mail Monday as well, if everything goes as planned. On March 2nd, I'll be taking a little trip into Toronto to see my dear old friend Amelia Curran perform at CMW. I haven't seen her since just before Korea, so it'll be nice to catch up a little. Plus her live shows are fantastic, so I'm in for some good listenin'.

Okeedokee. I'll leave everything else for the margins. I hope that everything's going well for you, though I know that for some it isn't. Rest assured that you're in my thoughts and prayers, even if my silence is loud.

Take care
-J-

Happy 5th Xangaversary to me!

Hi all

Many little largely-unconnected nuggets of information flaoting around
in my life, asking to be shared here. Not sure exactly where to start.
And despite my ardent desire to move back toward more literary,
thoughtful posts, I think this one will once again be a muddled
diary-type thing. Oh well. On my list of failures, that's pretty minor

So many things to say, all of differeng levels of significance. I guess
I'll start with the weightiest, and then get fluffier. And I'll use the
image-hosting capabilities of my Lifetime Premium which I got for my
birthday back in Septmeber but haven't really taken full advantage of.

Okay, first up is my father's
grave marker (click picture to enlarge). If you remember, he passed away back in August. We wanted
a grave marker that would suit him more than the standard polished
granite thingy. We thought that a peridotite boulder would be really
amazing. Peridotite is a rare mineral found in only a few places in the
wold, including the Tablelands
in Gros Morne National Park. We spent many wonderful hikes there over
the years, and the family house is full of many bits of peridotite and
serpentine (not, I should add, from the national park, but from public
land further down the mountain chain). My wife did a huge amount of
legwork and managed to find a local artisan who had a suitable boulder
and would cut a face off for us. We then designed a brass plaque to be
attached to the face, and had it mounted on a granite base. It took a
great deal of time and effort, going back and forth with sketches and
things, doing painstaking graphic editing,  but the result is stunning. It was recently installed at the
cemetary. I don't know when we'll be able to see it in person, but
knowing that it's there is a real step forward. How I miss my father...

Okay. On to brighter things. I have a new toy. For years, I've been an
avid audio recording enthusiast. In addition to multitrack recordings
of my music, I enjoy carrying a recorder with me to capture ideas and
act as a sort of diary. Unfortunately, my recorder crapped out on me
about 2 years ago and I've been without ever since. I've now remedied
that problem with the purchase of a shiny new Sony MZ-RH910. It's a
hi-MD recorder, capable of uncompressed 16-bit recording as well as a
variety of compressed formats, and the recordings can be uploaded
directly to the computer for editing and whatnot. It's very cute, and
hopefully will give me many years of service.

Next, work. The end of November quietly made this job officially the
longest-lasting of my life. In university, I worked every summer for
the same theatre company, but this is different. This is a regular job,
union and all. Too regular, in fact, but oh well. I've been here over a
year now, and unfortunately things continue to degenerate in terms of
my morale. Some of the new policies and stuff are just ridiculous, and
I spend many of my days in a foul mood. I had planned to stay with this
until my wife finishes school in a year-and-a-half, but now I'm really
not sure if I can last that long. Problem is that I don't want to
switch out of this job into another manual labour job. When I switch, I
want it to be part of my moving on into a proper job and a proper life.
I had hoped to have some pictures for you, but the camera's been acting
up so it'll have to wait.

In musical news, although I haven't made much songwriting progress
lately, I did have a paying gig the other day for the first time in far
too long. It was a short solo guitar performance at a private function,
and I had fun. It's nice to be able to use my talents in a professional
setting again. Hopefully it's the beginning of a trend. I'm not looking
to earn a living at it right now, but I really would like to be out
there more. Playing for fun is one thing, but playing as a pro is a
whole different beast. And it's not the money that I'm after. It's just
something about the distinction between the two... I also recently
finished translating one of our songs (3 Bears) into French, and a
recording of it was used as part of a series of cultural workshops at a
French-language school in northern Labrador. Our material has been used
in schools before, as part of an anti-violence curriculum, and I think
that's great.

My wife's birthday is coming up in a couple of days, on the 20th. We're
not going to do our traditional fancy-dinner-out thing, since finances
are still a bit strained, but I do have a lovely gift for her which I'm
really hoping she'll like. Still have to pick up some nive paper and
stuff to wrap it up. She's the one with the gift wrapping talent,
unfortunately, so she's going to have to make do yet again with my
sub-par attempts. But oh well. After 10 years of giving me the
it's-the-thought-that-counts benefit of the doubt, I guess I can get
away with another one as long as I try my best.

Been getting back in touch with some old friends over the past few
months. Got together with Dave when I was back in Newfoundland, and had
a great chat. Also went and visited one of my favourite professors,
Arif Hasnain, and spent a nice afternoon there. More recently, I've
electronically reached out to my old buddy DJ, who's currently teaching
English in Korea and having a blast, and to my pal Amelia, who's still
in Halifax working away at her 4th album. It's really nice to reconnect
with people, and hopefully I'll slowly start expanding my net to reel
in a few others.

Finally, if you have some prayers and kind wishes to spare, send some the way of Eileen,
a favourite Xangan of mine who is currently undergoing some pretty
radical and experimental surgery to combat her cancer. She has to spend
Christmas in isolation, and I'm sure she'd appreciate the support.

Okay, that's another long-winded missive ready for consumption. Another
goal of mine is to start posting smaller chunks more frequently, rather
than these occasional and forbidding brain-dumps. But then again, I've
also always wanted to be able to fly...

Take care
-J-

Hi all

Several times over the past few weeks, I've intended to write something
here. I've worked things out in my head, tried out combinations
of  topics and angles... I've gotten so far as to sit down at the
computer and open the New Entry screen. But the problem has been that
I've rarely wanted to write what I've felt like writing. It's almost
always been too dark, too brooding or pessimistic or whatever, and in
all the years I've been here, I've generally tried to stay away from
posting depressing stuff, especially if I don't have the energy to put
some kind of a spin on it.

So how am I? Well, some days I'm really quite decent. It's fall, and
when the air is crisp and the sun is shining and the wind is blowing,
it's awfully hard to feel too miserable. I've had some great moments
lately. The Richard Thompson concert, and the time I spent in Toronto,
were wonderful. I've had a couple of nice walks... On the flip side, a
lot of days have been really difficult. There have been some changes at
my job which find me doing work that I really don't like, and losing my
performance-based incentive to boot. The days have also gotten a lot
shorter, and the early darkness is tough. And thoughts of my father
still swirl around and bring me down.

And so... back and forth, back and forth. Basically, I'm teetering. Not
necessarily a good place to be. I'm trying really hard to tilt my life
toward the bright side, but on any given day, it can quite quickly head
back into darker places. I really don't want to end up sinking back
into another long period of 'lost time', like I did a few years back. A
time of paralyzed depression. I really want to move forward, to start
moving toward becoming what I want to be when I grow up. And I'm doing
some little things to that end, but they're not quite adding up to a
critical mass.

And here I am sounding all dour. Sorry about that. Comes and goes. I
think I need to find myself some counseling. That and get my creative
writing unblocked. It's amazing what you can dump into a song. Quite
therapeutic, really.

Anyhow, I should get myself to bed. Didn't do too bad this 'weekend'. I
made myself a list of 7 things to do, and posting this makes me 6 for
7. That's something, anyway. Think it's too late to tackle the last one
tonight, but oh well. Hope you're all taking good care of yourselves.
Please know that even though I'm not always able to find the energy to
comment, I'm reading what you're writing.

Take care
-J-

Hi

First of all, thank you all for your kind words regarding the tribute
to my father and the recent poem. I appreciate your taking the time to
read through something that lengthy, getting to know a little about a
man most of you never met.  The positive feedback has been very
gratifying, and I've even had people who knew him longer than I did say
to me that through it they learned to see him in a new light.

So.
How am I doing?

Well... That's a good question. Never having been through this kind of
grieving process before, I really don't have much to go by. By many of
the factors, I guess I'm doing well -- I'm able to go to work, function
pretty much normally... I don't spend all day crying... However, I'm
still facing some limitations and trying to keep focused on the fact
that I have the right not to be 100% right away. For example, we have
some purchases that we would like to make, so I though I would work one
day of my weekend last week (which would pay time-and-a-half). I was a bit
apprehensive, but thought I'd be able to do it. However, as the evening
of my 'Saturday' was drawing to a close, I just couldn't handle the
thought of going in to work the next day. I got all panicky and scared.
I felt trapped. Thankfully, my lovely wife was able to sit me down and
help me through it, and I didn't go in. After-work overtime is out as
well. I'll get back to it when I feel able to, and not before.

On the musical front, some exciting things happening. I have a ticket to see one of my favourite musicians -- Richard Thompson.
He's playing in Toronto in less than a week. It's a small-scale tour
promoting his recent solo album, and very excitingly he's being
accompanied by the world's greatest standup bassist, Danny Thompson.
I'm really, really looking forward to it. I'm going to go into Toronto
earlier in the day, to spend some time in Koreatown. Should be a great
day.

Anyhow, there's more to say but I'd best be off to bed. Saturdays are
my Mondays, so I have face my new week in the morning. I'm going to
spin off some things I was going to say in this entry into their own
entries, hopefully sooner rather than later. Thanks for dropping by.

Take care
-J-

Spin the room while standing still
Leave the food but pay the bill
Pile of birdseed on the sill
Tell the crowd to fire at will
Watch the cars from far away
Light that slants across the bay
Hide the things you want to say
Live to fight another day
Every night sleep less and less
Always always second guess
Sweep the floor but leave the mess
Only in your mind confess
Find a place 'tween sea and sky
Watch the world go rolling by
Smile at children, bake a pie
Plans are born to go awry

Patrick Michael Burnett  1948-2005

The evening of Monday, August 1st, my dear, sweet father passed away.

Born and raised in Nova Scotia, he was a rambunctious only child. He married my mother 33 years ago and shortly thereafter they became enthusiastic adopted Newfoundlanders. Other than a couple of years spent in Halifax back in the mid 80s while they went back to university, they've called the island home ever since. All three of us brothers were born here, me first in 1978 and Andrew in 1983, both in St John's, and Kevin in 1990 in Corner Brook.  Living in Newfoundland brings some definite difficulties, but they were never significant enough to drive the family elsewhere.

My father did many jobs in his life. He was a child psychologist for a long time, he taught life-skills and computers and things with the provincial college system, and he did all sorts of private computer consulting. In his spare time, he spent a lot of time on the computer, playing video games, tweaking the network and doing research. We got our first computer back in 1983 and never looked back. I have many memories of spending hours upon hours sitting at his side, working our way through the Ultima series. He also played the recorder, studied things like speech language pathology and geology, and was a fine amateur photographer.

There are so many wonderful memories of my father, a lot of them concerning the outdoors. Camping and hiking are extremely important to our family, and living just a short drive from fantastic Gros Morne National Park allowed us many trips every summer, either there or even closer to home in the Long Range Mountains. We camped summer and winter, in good weather and bad. It was a kind of concentrated time, boiled down and heightened. Whether it was tame campgrounds with showers when my brothers were young, or week-long backpacking excursions through the backcountry, few things are as dear to me as that time we spent together.

Toward the end of 2004, my father was displaying some strange symptoms. There were odd blips in his memory. New medication to treat his depression lifted him out of the reclusive slump he had been in, and the brightening of his mood was really a joy to behold. However the memory blips remained, and continued to be a worry. Then, one day back in March, he went aphasic. It was the last straw, and my mother bundled him up and took him off to the hospital. With something clearly wrong, the ran tests and discovered that he had a large and aggressive brain tumour.

There are many things I think of when I think of my father: chocolate digestive cookies, rocks, the ancient Chinese game of Go, Glenn Gould, good coffee, pastrami and marble rye bread, jogging pants... When I look in the mirror, my bright red beard is an instant reminder of the one I never saw him without. He was so kind and gentle, quick-minded and thoughtful. He helped people without judging them, was constantly intrigued by new ideas and inventions, and endlessly devoted and loving to his family.

It all happened very quickly. Just a day or two after being admitted to hospital in Corner Brook, they drove him in an ambulance, in a snowstorm, across the province to St John's, and immediately prepped him for surgery.  Shortly thereafter, they removed the tumour, and after several weeks of recovery, he started in on a course of daily radiation and chemotherapy.It went very well, and we were relieved to find that although there were new mental lapses, his personality was unaffected. His energy level slowly rose, though his periods of activity were short and bookended by naps, and he was released from hospital, though he still had to go there every day to receive his radiation treatments.

As I've mentioned before, my wife and I had been away from Newfoundland for almost 3 years at this point. The surgery and things had happened so fast that we hadn't really had the time to think about going out there. Now that he was recovering from surgery, we finally began making plans. We flew to St. John's and stayed with them for the remaining week or so of his radiation, then we all piled into the very rickety car and drove back across the island to the family home in Corner Brook, where we spent another week. The jumble of emotions, between Pat's illness and the reunion with the rest of my family was quite overwhelming, and the trip, though wonderful, was very demanding emotionally and physically. His mind had odd gaps -- inability to remember certain words, inability to tell you what time of the day it was even when there were clear visual cues, things like that. But he was still him. It was as if part of him had already moved on, like he was walking with one foot in the next world. We had interesting discussions about what it was like to be living inside this malfunctioning brain of his, laughing as he tried to talk about not being able to remember certain words without being able to remember those words to talk about them.

And so, at the end of those two weeks, reeling and happy and torn up inside, we headed back to Ontario and tried to get back into the swing of things. The doctors had done a risk factor analysis, doing their best to give us a time frame. Factoring in age and lifestyle and things, they said that he would most likely have 2 to 3 years. However, we had been back in Ontario only a few weeks when my mother called one evening and let us know that Pat had been admitted to Palliative Care. He had had those few good weeks at home, but then went quite rapidly downhill. He was less and less able to move safely around the house, and his ability to express himself verbally dropped right off as well. He was still his sweet self, but clearly on his way out. After a few days in Palliative Care, he had a seizure and passed away around 7pm.

People from all walks of life in Corner Brook and beyond came out to the visitation and the funeral, and a great many who couldn't be there sent cards and flowers and food. Two of my uncles were able to come in from Halifax, Byron flew in from Labrador, and despite a stressful delay from the miraculous near-disaster at the airport, I managed to get there too (Crista, unfortunately, didn't get there until the next day). Interestingly, the non-family-members who seemed to be the most shaken up were some of his former students. Everyone had stories to share about the ways in which their lives were positively affected by Pat's. The Baha'i service was simple and touching, with readings and prayers, a nice eulogy and a speech explaining our religion and his life in it. I improvised something on the guitar, and made people laugh with a few remarks. After the service, we went to Mount Patricia Cemetary and said our goodbyes. For sentimental reasons, we put a few selected items on the coffin -- a floppy disk, some Blue Mountain Jamaican coffee, a granny smith apple, a rock...

I'm certainly one of the lucky ones. I grew up with a father who is worth missing. It's sad that not everyone can say that. My father read to me, talked with me, hiked and camped with me, explained things to me, shaped my taste in music and books and art, supported me, laughed with me, comforted me when I was miserable, was always excited to hear what I was up to... We used to volunteer every summer at the Hangashore Folk Festival... He once drove 14 hours to see me in a play.... I was also fortunate in that I always knew I had great parents. I never went through the phase of wishing I had been born into a different family -- I've never seen one I would rather be a part of. Our life hasn't been affluent or glamourous, but it has most definitely been full of great riches of a more important kind. For that I am truly grateful.

Today, September 11th, would have been Patrick's 57th birthday. I've set myself the goal of posting this today, because if I keep trying to make it perfect I'll never finish. There's so much to say, especially since this is mostly going to be read by people who never had the good fortune to meet him.  I hope my muddled words have given you at least a sense of what he was like. As friends and family try to adjust to his absence, it's important to to note that although I'm sad, it's not for him. I know that he's moved on to a place more wonderful than we can imagine. It's the rest of us that I feel sorry for, having to do without him. It's a big adjustment, but we're carrying on, and someday I know that we'll all be reunited. Until that time, the ripples of his influence will continue to spread outward in this world.

Thanks for taking the time to read this one.

Take care
-Justin-

Please pray for my family.

Hi all

Even if I say that I've been repeating myself, I'll be repeating
myself. But at the risk of redundant redundancy, I'll say once again
that time has been flying by. Here it is nearing the end of July,
already almost a month since we got back from our trip to Newfoundland.
The heat wave finally broke here, thanks to some nifty thunderstorms,
though it's been quite humid. I've been overtired from the lack of
sleep brought on by my seeming inability to go to bed at a reasonable
hour, making me even more zombie-like than usual. Work is work, and
there's been overtime for the taking, though despite the extra pay I
haven't been taking much. I don't want to wear myself out any more, and
the added fact that it takes me an hour and a half to get home by bus
after overtime makes it even less attractive.

Let's see. What's been going on? Well, I finally completed a recording
of my latest song, called Upside Down, which is a good thing. As my
loyal readers will know, I write very slowly indeed, and even once I
get a piece completed I find it difficult to find the time to work on
the recordings, since I need the house to myself to really get anything
done. This is probably my most ambitious recording to date, coming in
at somewhere around 30 separate tracks. The poor computer couldn't
handle it, and I had to do some odd workarounds in order to squeeze in
those last half-dozen. But I'm pleased with the way it turned out, and
the response I've been getting so far is quite good.

I'll be emceeing (as in introducing, not rapping) at the local folk festival
again this year, which should be fun. I had a blast last year. It's
this coming weekend,  and my spots are 5:00-7:45 on Saturday and
Sunday evening. Should give me enough time to get home and clean up
from work before I head down there, as long as nothing weird happens.

Oy. There's more that I'd like to say, but I really should be in bed,
so off I go. Hope all is well in your necks of the woods. Be good to
yourselves.

Take care
-J-

Pictures!!!

Hi everyone.
Well, we flew back to Ontario on Canada Day, and have been trying to
find our balance ever since -- in both the equilibrium and financial
senses: It was such an intense couple of weeks that returning to our
lives here is a bit odd. And until my paycheque in a week's time, we
have 14 bucks in the bank.

But such mundane issues as sanity and finances aside,  I thought
you might like to see a few pictures. I've been trying to figure out
how to do this, since a proper recap of the trip would be far too huge
for anyone to read, so I think I'll just post the images, in
chronological order, and write a blurb under each so you know what they
are. Ok, here we go:

Here we have my lovely wife and my mother and I, in St. John's, up on Signal Hill. St. John's is the city I was born in, and lived there until I was 7, so it holds a special place in my heart.

Here we have Crista walking along the trail. It's a beautiful, quick,
and quite easy hike -- a pleasant way to relax when one has limited
time. Note the lovely rocks, and the way that the landscape is
relolutely non-flat.

This is a nice shot of Crista and I, sitting in a field. The fact that
this is a 15-minute walk from downtown illustrates one of the reasons I
like Newfoundland so much. I would have liked to sit there all
afternoon, but alas we had to move on. Back 10 years ago, during the
early times of our courtship, we spent a lot of time wandering around
in the wilderness. It's something that's long been at the core of our
lives, and something which has been absent since we moved from Korea to
this urban part of Canada. Feeling it again was very nice, but largely
served to heighten my sadness that it's not something we can really do
at the moment...

Ok, on we go to Corner Brook, the town where I spent the most years of
my life and where my family still lives. This is my brothers and I
sitting on a bicycle rack -- Andrew, the older younger brother on the
left, Kevin, the middle brother, in the middle. Kevin grew more than a
foot since the last time I saw him (which, considering that was almost
3 years ago is not unreasonable, but still quite startling).

Here's the brothers and I up on top of  Marble Mountain.
We went for a hike, climbing the slopes then wandering through the
backcountry, linking up to some powerlines and old logging roads, then
along the highway home. A very pleasant way to spend some time with my
beloved siblings. Not sure exactly why I struck this cheezy pose, but
the separate boulders arose from the need to sprint across the rocks
before the camera's timer went off.

And finally we have a family shot. This was taken as we prepared to
board the bus to take us back to St. John's to catch our plane. I admit
to crying that morning. It's very difficult being so far away from
them, and God willing it won't be another 3 years before we get back
there again.

Anyhow, those are some pictures. I realize now that the captions
actually convey very little about the trip itself. Hmm. Well, I have to
be up for work in 6 hours, so that's all you're going to get for now. I
think I'll probably come back to the trip again in some future entries,
so don't despair

Take care
-J-