Going to be really short this time out. Not a whole lot to talk about this week. I had a fairly lousy weekend as I had a migraine on Saturday and really didn’t get a whole lot accomplished. When the highlight of your weekend is going to the grocery store, you know it was not one for the record books. (Not that I particularly mind helping my Mom at the grocery store or on any other errands. Makes up for all the times I was a lazy SOB and let my folks do all the heavy lifting.)

I redid my “To Do” list and was still fairly far behind coming into Thursday but last nigth and tonight I seem to be really able to get some stuff done. Of course, I felt that way last Friday night and woke up with the migraine. (If that happens again tomorrow, I’ll take it as a pattern.)

Work was fairly busy this week but again I think I got a fair amount accomplished.

I finished up reading Bad Moon Rising: The Unauthorized History of Creedence Clearwater Revival. I have to say that of the 316 pages of the book, only 146 pages were devoted to the time the band was actually a band. The rest was all the fallout and legal battles along with the members’ post-CCR musical careers. At one point I was just shaking my head and thinking “Just get over yourselves and get back together!”

Why do the short weeks feel longer than the regular weeks? I swear, by Wednesday, I felt like I’d been working for a couple of days. Oh well, another week has come to an end and I’m looking towards a quiet – but hopefully productive weekend.

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving weekend. My sister and nephew came down. We all gathered round and helped trim the bushes in the backyard. (It was more fun and heart-warming than it sounds.) On Sunday, we went to the One of A Kind Antique Mall in Woodstock. With this being the first major holiday since my Dad passed, we were kinda wanting to focus more on being together as a family than the traditional holiday. We did have a good meal together though.

So last weekend was Thanksgiving weekend but it sure seems like it’s been a week of giving thanks. I’ve had several people, co-workers and friends alike, who thanked me for helping them out one way or the other. In each case, it wasn’t a big task for me but it was nice that they appreciated what I had done for them.

Last weekend, NASCAR went to the Charlotte Roval. In the latter stages of the Xfinity race, it looked like Parker Kligerman was going to win but it wasn’t to be, under some very controversial circumstances. I decided to devote a column in my Track Talk section to my thoughts on the situation. In an effort to drum up some more readership, I posted a link on my Twitter…er…X feed and tagged Parker. And sure enough, he liked my Tweet! That kinda made my Monday night!

Let’s see, I’ve been reading the late Eddie Guerrero’s autobiography, Cheating Death, Stealing Life. It’s really good and I must admit, unlike a lot of sports autobiographies which give a pretty clean cut white-wash version of the story, Eddie doesn’t shy away from telling all the dirty details of battling his demons – and he’s not exactly a choir boy when it comes to the language. (I really liked his assessment of Kevin Nash in WCW, it echoes what I’ve thought for a long time.)

As with any weekend, I have a pretty fair “To Do” list but it’s a lot of little things, like going back and updating the Shelf Life and Ingersoll District Nature Club’s website, organizing some photos I’ve taken over the past few months, that kind of thing.

Hopefully, I can work away on this and get some things accomplished…but then I saw that every weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend everyone! I know it’s been a long time since I’ve updated but when there’s not a lot to say, there’s not a lot to write about. It’s like I saw when I discuss communications: You can have the fastest car in the garage. If you haven’t gotten any gas, you aren’t going too far. Knock on wood, things are fairly quiet around the Milner homestead these days. I am helping my Mom where I can in making some adjustments to the house. We recently downsized the workshop and created what I hope will become my full-time writing room, as opposed to the NASCAR/TV/computer room next door. My plan – and it’s been my plan for several months – is to devote at least an hour or so every night to my current writing project. That hasn’t come to fruition as yet but I hope it will soon. Meanwhile, I am finally getting a handle of my infamous – at least to me – To Do List. I am moving the goalposts back a bit. Usually, I try to get everything done by the end of a weekend or the end of the month. This time, however, I am looking at having everything done by the end of the year. I figure that gives me a chance to do a couple of things every day and slowly work away on it, without putting too much on my plate at one time.

I made an addition to my NASCAR collection recently. A month or so ago, CanRacing.ca, was offering a 1:24 diecast of Tim Richmond’s 1986 Pocono Win car. Now, you don’t see a lot of Tim Richmond stuff out there so I was very interested in picking up this particular diecast. (I think it was released as part of their Hendrick MotorSports 40^th anniversary series.)  However, apparently, not interested enough to immediately order it. I kept putting it off and putting it off for about a week. Finally one Saturday afternoon, I said “As soon as I get up from my nap, I’m ordering it!” So I get onto the site and <BAM!> it’s gone. UGH! (I did get the Dale Earnhardt Sr. 1993 Coke 600 diecast as well as the 1:64 version of the Tim Richmond car.) Ever since, however, I’ve been hoping that they’d list the car again. And so, last Saturday, they did! This time I didn’t hesitate and I ordered it. As always with CanRacing, it came right on time!

At work, I have started listening to music via YouTube while I am working on things. (It makes the day go a little faster and more pleasantly.) It’s a variety of music that I listen to, depending on my mood. For a while, I was listening to a couple of medleys inspired by Daisy Jones and the Six (including music from the series as well as from the 1970s). Recently, however, I’ve started listening to 50s pop and rockabilly. I started listening to Eddie Cochrane’s Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie, and it became one of those songs that I just put on a loop for the better part of an hour or so.

As I said above, this is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. I’ve never been a huge fan simply because it’s just based around a meal. I’m a little hesitant this year because it will be the first Thanksgiving without my Dad. My sister and nephew will be coming down for Saturday night and part of Sunday so we’re going to try and focus on the four of us being together. Knowing the four of us, it will be a rambunctious time and I think that will be just what we need.

Another week of work has come to a close. My first week back after two weeks of vacation. I learned – or rather re-affirmed – a bit while being on vacation. The sad truth of the matter is that when you take two weeks’ vacation, the second week always seems like a bit of a drag.

The first week there’s that “Just started my vacation” vibe. I have the energy to get things accomplished, take day trips, make all these plans. The second week? I don’t know. It’s like I run out of energy and every day that passes just brings you more day closer to having to go back to work. On the one hand, I want to take a day and just veg, but on the other hand, I don’t want to waste a day and, instead, get things done.

I had scheduled my vacation so that it ended on the Civic Holiday. The only problem is that on the Friday while my co-workers who were at work were getting excited and geared up for the long weekend, I was like “Ah man…three more days and I have to go back to work!”

Okay, as someone who hates the “Oh woe is me!” victim mentality that has infected so much of our modern-day society, I realize that there are bigger problems than just having to go back to work after my vacation. If we want to get down to brass tacks, I’ve been in situations where taking even one week’s holiday meant going without a pay cheque for that week. (Of course, that was also the job where I was basically on call 365 days a year.)

One of the things I did over my vacation was finish up That 70s Show. The final episode was kinda bittersweet. Watching the cast all rush up the stairs as the countdown to 1980 begins was rather fitting. The end credits which harkened back to the first episode where the cast is singing “Hello, It’s Me” by Todd Rundgren after coming home from the concert was a nice throwback, I suppose. However, it might have been better if they’d created a mix of the opening credits to see how much the cast changed over the years.

*** SPOILERS ***

Having stopped into my “home office” and got caught up in the various episodes during this particular rewatch of That 70s Show, so she and I have started back at Season 1, Episode 1, watching a couple of episodes every night.

I had watched Season 1 of That 90s Show when it came out and was tempted to jump into Season 2. (I did end up watching a couple of episodes.) However, I was put off by a couple of glitches between the end of That 70s Show and That 90s Show.

First of all, the show ends with a definite question about whether Donna and Eric would end up together. Now that could be explained away by the fact that 20 years have passed and the two of them sorted things out, got married and had a daughter, named Leia.

The second thing is that Jackie and Fez become a couple as the original show ends. By the start of the update, however, there’s no talk about what happened between the two of them. Instead, Jackie is prepping for her second marriage to Kelso and Fez is dating the mother of two of Leia’s friends.

From a personal standpoint, as much as the Kelso-Jackie romance is the one That 70s Show always seems to remember, the Hyde-Jackie romance was a much stronger storyline (the spoiled whiny rich girl with the snarky, grubby Conspiracy-theorist Zeppelin fan). Of course, in 2024, the memory of Steven Hyde has been wiped clean from this universe. I found Fez and Jackie worked in the same way that Joey-Rachel did on Friends. And much like the Friends romance, I was probably the only one who liked it.

I don’t see myself getting too engrossed in That 70s Show. It’s like Star Wars, ironically enough. (Fans of the show will get that.) The original trilogy worked because of the strength of the characters. When the prequels and sequels came along, it was obvious that Lucas hadn’t put the same amount of effort into creating characters for the other movies.

(Of course, after reading an interview from Lucas and other experts liken the Star Wars trilogy and especially Return of the Jedi to the Vietnam War, with Vader as this U.S. politician and the Emperor as that one – thus meaning the stormtroopers represented American servicemen, I’ve kinda lost interest in anything from that particular franchise.)

Another issue is that by and large, the 90s, as a decade…well, sucked! (Although it was still better than the decades that have come after it.)  It was a lot of noise that passed for music and low-grade toilet humour that people thought was “cutting edge,” although I don’t really believe that the culture was as “problematic” as some would proclaim it today. It was pretty much the first decade where people just stopped caring about creativity and really started pandering to the lowest common denominator. 

I mean, growing up in the 70s, I would have told you that the 70s sucked. However, looking back on things, the 70s combined both the neon lights of the 80s (with disco) and the grunge-like grit of the 90s (with punk and the rock scene). 

I probably wasn’t as self-aware of my own life and times in the 70s as I was in the 90s so perhaps having not really enjoyed the bulk of the 90s has soured me on Hollywood recreations of the era. (I mean, the 80s produced a dance tune about Vietnam and had Robert Plant signing lounge-level tunes. Remember the Honeydrippers? So it wasn’t like the decade in between was perfect either.)

But the short story long is that That 90s Show takes an era that no one really cares to remembers, adds a cast of characters that are weak compared to the original and becomes yet another reboot in the modern day entertainment scene littered with them. 

Question: 

Have you ever had just enough of a song stuck in your head so that it bugs you but there’s not enough for you to Google the lyrics to find out what it is? I swear a couple of years ago I had this bit of a song stuck in my head. Where I had heard it I have no clue. I could hum a bit of it. There was a couple of possible lyrics I could pull out of the static radio station in my head. But as far as finding what the song was – no luck at all.

One of the things I like to do at work now is listen to montage of 80s tunes on YouTube. This past week, I was listening to a “Best of 1984” medley and there it was: Nik Kershaw’s “The Riddle.” I was like “Holy crap! That’s the song!” Ironically what few lyrics I could remember were – for the most part – misheard. 

It’s one of several songs, “Big in Japan” by Alphaville, “The Break Up Song” and “Our Love’s in Jeopardy” both by the Greg Kihn Band that I don’t remember hearing in the 80s but have heard multiple times since the turn of the century. (I did hear “I Lost of Jeopardy” by Weird Al Yankovic back in the day, however.)

And with that, this week’s update is complete. NASCAR is back with the Trucks and Cup Series in Richmond so I can have my fix again.

Welcome back to Your Milner Moment. I know it’s been a while but, as some of you may know, my Dad passed away during the first weekend in July. It was a bit of a blessing as he had been suffering from dementia for over a year and that suffering is now at an end. It’s probably a cliche to say he’s in a better place but I truly believe that.

With Dad gone, there have been a lot of changes in our lives. My Mom is still dealing with a lot of the paperwork and financial wrangling over my Dad’s estate. I’d like to think we’re near the end of it all, but you just never know. Just the other day, someone contacted us about a will Dad made in 1970! (It was more of a due diligence call than any huge issue.)

It’s been a weird month. After Dad passed, I had a week of bereavement leave. Then I went back to work, and a week later I went on the two weeks vacation I had scheduled.

As per my usual vacation, I always go into it thinking I’m going to get a lot done, but then I come out of it with just a big a To Do list as I went in with. My Mom and I have been out and about a fair bit. Mostly to London and Ingersoll on business, but we also went to Stratford and Glencoe, the latter for their town-wide yard sale. (Wow! That seems like such a long time ago now.)

I also went to Shelf Life to pick up the new issue and some new books. I’ve been reading Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky, about a service robot who has killed its owner. (I’m still in the early stages of the novel so I don’t know what all will happen.) I am hoping to update the website for the new issue this weekend.

I’ve been watching “That 70s Show” throughout my vacation and am up to the final season. (Spoiler Alert: It’s one of the many shows that probably should have been about five seasons and then ended. Two of the main cast members left during the last season and the characters they were bringing in over the last couple of seasons just weren’t funny.)

I was hoping to go see Twisters in the theatre during my week off but decided to stay home and watch the original – held up pretty well. I also got Hiding Out on Blu-Ray and my Mom and I watched it. It also held up well but having watched it a dozen times back in the 80s, I can’t believe I never saw the gym teacher wearing a Blue Jay cap or the Slushie cup with Robert Gibson on it. (I spent the majority of this watch checking to see if we got the trifecta and there was a NASCAR reference.)

It’s weird because for everyone else this is the start of a three-day Civic Holiday weekend. For me it’s the end of my two-week vacation. I am very tempted to take tomorrow and just veg on the couch watching as much of the 1986 NASCAR season as I can (or Daisy Jones and the Six again or Hiding Out with the trivia track on).

Happy Canada Day weekend – “for those who celebrate”!

I can’t say that I had a great week but with a three-day weekend, I am hoping to get as many little things crossed off my “To Do” list during my time off. Nothing too major but just every thing you can cross off is a plus.

Additionally, I will be taking two weeks off at the end of July so I am trying to work on that infamous “To Do” list so I’m not having to do 20 things every day. (I have it down to about a half dozen and even then, some of them are just five or ten minute jobs.)

There are a few things that I have had on my “To Do” list for a long time and I keep thinking “Oh, I don’t want to do that tonight!” Well, during my two-week vacation (ideally the first week), I am going to get as many of these things done as possible.

July 1 will also be my nephew’s 16th birthday. I can still remember rushing to the hospital, worrying about complications and the sheer joy of knowing that he had arrived safe and sound. Jack has grown into a fine young man, pulling off 90% averages, getting a job to help out him mother, and presenting himself in such a fashion that complete strangers have told his mother how polite and courteous he is.

Happy birthday Jack!

My week started with a call from an old friend of mine who was checking in since it was Father’s Day weekend. We spoke philosophically about the state of the world, which was weird for two guys who used to talk about pro wrestling. It was great to hear from my friend, Chris, and to know it was out of concern made it all the more special. 

I was working last weekend and the first part of this week on updating the Shelf Life Magazine website with excerpts from the June/July 2024 issue.  Speaking of Shelf Life, I’ve been reading “Bad,  Bad Seymore Brown” by Susan Isaacs. It’s a mystery about a former FBI agent who teams up with her ex-cop father to solve the mystery of who might have attacked the lone survivor of a house fire some years earlier. It’s one of those mystery that’s not fast-paced but really engaging, thanks in part to the main characters. Can’t wait to see how this all turns out. 

On the home front, and without going into too many details, my Mom – at long last – got some good news on some of the legal and financial issues she’s been battling through. I know it doesn’t solve all our problems but it should help to eliminate some of peripheral things she’s had to stress over. 

We went to the One of A Kind Antique Mall in Woodstock on Saturday. Having got a Victorola turntable off Amazon the other day, while I was looking for Dale Earnhardt and NASCAR stuff, I also checked out the used LPs. I was surprised to see just how much classic rock LPs there were. I ended up getting Twist and Shout by the Beatles. My family had the album when I was a kid. I ended up writing my “recasting” of the band with the cast of Gilligan’s Island and Battlestar Galactica and myself on the cover. (I can’t imagine what I did to the value of the album.) So when I saw a chance to get another copy, I decided to go for it. I played it on Saturday night and my Mom really got a kick out of listening it while she was working in her sewing room. I actually wanted to get a record player so she could listen to the copy of the Sound of Music soundtrack my nephew found for her so we need to have another listening-while-we-work-on-stuff session soon.

I keep telling myself I am going to get back to blogging and adding more content to my website, even if it doesn’t show up on the main page. (A while back I turned it into my portfolio site but the history and NASCAR and wrestling sites – as well as this blog – still remain.)

With the situation with my Dad I really didn’t feel like writing because what was there to really tell? But maybe I need to use this blog as a platform to write about some of the more positive things in my life.

For example, I recently published a story on the King’s University College website about 77-year-old Darlene Walker who went back to school and has completed her Sociology degree. King’s Herald magazine, a project spearheaded by my friend Jennifer Jones, was also published by the King’s Alumni department. You can check it out on Issuu. I am happy to say I contributed some content including an article on the Renee Soulodre-La France Excellence in Research Award (Early Career) on page 6.

Ironically, I need to follow up with something not so positive. I fell ill for a couple of days in the middle of week. When I was setting up to leave on Thursday, I was still feeling pretty rough and wasn’t sure if I was going to make it in on Friday (today). So I got our weekly newsletter scheduled and another web story set up to post for Friday. As I left, I thought “I’m got all this done in case I’m not feeling well and I’m going to end up feeling okay.” And, sure enough, I woke up this morning and felt fine.

Last weekend, I started watching the third season of Shoresy. Without spoiling anything, I got caught up to the final episode that had been posted (to that point) and that episode ended on a major cliffhanger so I will definitely be seeing what’s been posted this weekend. Meanwhile, I have been watching That 70s Show, having got the complete series on Amazon a little while ago.

In between watching a few more episodes of that and Shoresy (not to mention the NASCAR stuff from Iowa), I have a bunch of things I’d like to get crossed off my To Do list, including updating the Shelf Life website with excerpts from the June/July issue.

I am hoping that I can get back to making regular updates. I have it on my To Do calendar to update it on Friday nights. It may not be the most interesting thing you read on the internet but this might be more for my benefit than anyone else’s.

I keep thinking I need to restart just randomly blogging. Not giving everyone a full-on update on my life because, quite frankly, there’s not a lot to tell and even less that I want to tell. (Although my Mom has started telling me that I need to tell certain people in my life that things aren’t all rainbows and lollipops – she doesn’t say it quite that way!)

For now, I’m going to see about just writing about random things that I’ve been thinking about in the last while.

I will start with a bit of an update – two paragraphs after I said there wasn’t much to tell. Today was actually a pretty good day. My Mom and I went to see my Dad this morning and it was a pretty good visit. We then went to Ingersoll to get groceries which doesn’t sound all that exciting but I was happy to help her. The original plan was to just stay home and catch a nap this afternoon.

However, my Mom suggested we go to the antique store in Tburg because she also wanted to go to Fabricland. It turned out to be a pretty good day. Picked up a model kit of the Corvette that Tommy Milner drives in races like the 24 Hours of Daytona – which just happens to be taking place this weekend.

The Rolex 24 as it’s sometimes called (or actually I think it’s a more prevalent term) is one of only two non-stock car races that I watch each year. (The Indy 500 being the other one.) I don’t have full access to it but I did set my PVR to catch the first and last hours of the race, and follow along on Twitter/X.

By the way, I’m also following along with tonight’s Royal Rumble the same way.

I’ve been reading a bit of this book I picked up at Value Village called “Pep Talks for Writer” by Grant Faulkner, the Executive Director of the National Novel Writing Month. It’s basically 52 short chapters about getting inspired to be creative and write and it’s definitely helping inspire me to get writing.

I listened to the “new” Beatles tune, Now and Then. The haunting melody combined with the lyrics – and the possible story that seems to be heard behind those lyrics – almost moved me to tears. The images of the past and present versions of the Beatles in the accompanying video, only add to the sentimental quality.

The story behind the creation of the song is fascinating. John recorded the vocals in 1977. The surviving Beatles attempted to record additional vocals and the music in 1995 as part of the same sessions that produced Real Love and Free As A Bird, neither of which really speak to me the way Now and Then does.

However, the attempts to record Now and Then in 1995 were frustrated by the inability to separate Lennon’s vocals and piano, something Peter Jackson’s team and 2023 technology were able to do successfully. What has been delivered is as close to a true Beatles reunion – at least in spirit – as we will ever get again.

The tone of the song is one of friendship, forgiveness and desire for reconciliation. Perhaps John Lennon didn’t write the song about the Beatles, but it’d be nice to think that he did. Perhaps he had some thought about the long-awaited Beatles reunion, about the four friends gathered in a studio to put past differences behind and start anew, with a new album, new music and new bonds of friendship and collaboration into the new decade of the 80s. Perhaps it was just his way of expressing that friendship to Paul, George, and Ringo.

At the same time, in listening to Now and Then in 2023, rather than the late 70s, the song feels like a satisfying end to the long and winding road that was the Beatles story. It feels like a proper “Goodbye” from perhaps the most important band in history to its legion of fans.

Much like every other pop culture phenomenon from Jimi Hendrix to Star Wars, as long as there’s money to be made, there stands the risk that there will be another chapter. I’ve already seen jokes on social media about Paul discovering another lost Beatles song in 2035 anbd releasing it.

But if Now and Then isn’t the last Beatles song, it should be.