And now we begin the second half of the holiday season: the trek from Christmas Day to the New Year. If you listened to my podcast, you know that Christmas was a little strange this year because my family had basically had our Christmas a couple of weeks ago, due to weather, lockdown and other concerns. With a couple of things popping up earlier in the week, it turned out to be a good thing that we had all the holiday duties out of the way, and that I was off work for the week. It gave us a chance to get things in order, without the added pressure of working towards a deadline of when we’d have people in, etc.

I’ve never been the huge New Year’s Eve-kinda guy. In fact, I think I have left the house to see in the New Year exactly three times in my entire life. I tend to enjoy doing some writing as the New Year comes in, as a way of starting off the new year on the right foot.

With the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I am hoping to get several major projects that have been on my To Do list for quite a while. I figure instead of breaking all these big projects down into small chunks and end up trying to do 10 chunks – each from a different project and/or small stuff – and not feeling like I got anything done, I am instead just going to concentrate on one project and get it done, as close as to once and for all as I can.

Wish me luck.

I know I usually wait until Saturday or even Sunday nights to update this blog. However, it was the first thing on my “To Do” list and so I figured I’d get it crossed off as soon as possible. (I am also watching the 1987 Winston 500 for a future posting for John Milner’s Track Talk.)

This is basically my Christmas weekend as my sister and nephew have come down and we exchanged our gifts last night. My nephew really liked the VR setup I got him. I even tried out the virtual rollercoaster which was really fun. Right now he’s on my PS4 playing Rocket League.

This coming week will be my final one at work for 2021. I am hoping to finally finish up my To Do list (or get as close as possible) over the holidays. I figure it’s going to be a tall task but if I can keep working away at it, I should be able to get a large chunk of it done.

With two free weeks I am trying to figure out what I should binge-watch (other than the 1987 NASCAR season, of course.) I tossed the question out on Facebook and I was impressed just how many people responded. I’m not sure if I’ll take a cue from those suggestions or just see what my To Watch list has to say.

I started watching Square Pegs on CTV.ca the other night. It’d be interesting to see how the show from 1982-83 (starring a pre-Sex in the City Sarah Jessica Parker) will hold up in 2021. I am assuming I can probably binge-watch the entire series – it only lasted one season – this week.

And just like that, less than three weeks until Christmas. I don’t want to suggest that I am completely ready for the holiday season because you never know what last minute item might come around the corner. I can say, however, that I believe all my Christmas shopping and wrapping is done.

I even have my Christmas greeting prepared – although I may change it up a bit, but that’s a small task. Back in the day I used to send a dozen or two Christmas cards but would only get a few back. I do have one friend who I continue to exchange Christmas cards with, but that’s about it. Say what you will about the advent of social media, at least this way I can post one Christmas greeting on my socials and let people “like” and/or respond to it and I’m not out a lot of time, money and effort if people choose to ignore it.

Tomorrow begins my final two weeks of work for 2021. I am going to be trying to get everything I can wrapped up before close of business on December 17. At the same time, I am hoping to work away on my own personal “To Do” list prior to, and during, the holidays. I’d love to be able to start 2022 with a clean slate and lots of energy.

This past week, I was actually back on campus on back-to-back days, for some social media training (a very informative afternoon) as well as a photo shoot for our departing VP of Enrolment Services. (We’ll miss you, Marilyn!) It was kinda nice to be back on campus and, temporarily, back in our Comms office.

I am starting to come up with more and more ideas for podcast episodes. It is simply now a matter of finding the time to write the scripts and produce the episodes. That’s a 2022 New Year’s Resolution. I’ve got a few of them. Perhaps not so much resolutions as goals to work towards.

My folks and I are still watching “Friends.” We are up to the point where Ross and Rachel first break up. For a comedy, they sure brought the dramatic scenes from time. With no NASCAR to watch, I keep trying to resume my review of the 1987 but it’s trying to watch a couple of hours of racing while pausing to write up my review. It is however on that Holiday To Do list so maybe some night this week, I’ll watch the Souvran Bank 500 – or whatever it’s called.

Okay, so I missed last week and I could tell, from the flood of emails and DMs I received, that you were concerned about what I was up to.

Okay, in all seriousness, last weekend was NASCAR’s Championship weekend, so I was pre-occupied with seeing Ben Rhodes, Daniel Hemric and Kyle Larson win their championships. Maybe an overview of all three champions should be the next edition of John Milner’s Track Talk (although I have semi-started a column on the 2022 Busch Clash being at the L.A. Coliseum). King’s also held their Open House on Saturday and I was doing my best to assist with that.

This weekend has gotten even crazier. I decided to take Friday off because my sister and nephew came down. They left on Saturday morning so I have totally confused as to what day it is. (And with no NASCAR races to give me any kind of compass, it is even more confusing.)

With no NASCAR to watch (we’ve even stopped watching NASCAR Race Hub on weekday evenings), what’s a family to do (especially since I don’t want to be sitting in front of CNN like my folks are most nights)? As it turns out, Crave TV freed up a lot of their content recently which meant that the Friends Reunion Special was available. So, as Kyle Larson was celebrating his Cup Series win, my folks and I were watching Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, Chandler, Monica and Joey (or rather the actors who portrayed them) reunite.

Spoiler alert: While the Friends reunion was fun, it was awfully disjointed. I mean, one minute they’re on their old set, the next minute they’re in some park in front of a studio audience, the next minute they’re playing a trivia game (which was fun by the way), then Justin Bieber is taking part in a Friends-inspired fashion show and a performance of Smelly Cat with some singer I’m sure is famous but I didn’t who it was. For the love of God, pick a lane, people! I would have also preferred them to have “reunited” with an actual “What are the characters up to now?” episode. However, that would have required some original creativity and, it’s the 21st Century, and that’s not going to happen. (They did have the creators kind of explain it away, mind you.)

All that aside, however, my folks decided they felt like watching Friends again, from the beginning. I had been watching the show for my fourth or fifth time and was up to about Season 3. However, if it meant I could spend an hour of so watching something with my folks instead of just sitting down on the computer all night, I was okay with returning to Season 1, Episode 1.

It reminded me that the show’s greatest moment was the cold open of Season 1, Episode 3 when Ross recounts how their childhood dog, Chi Chi, went to live on a farm owned by … THE MILNERS! (Personal note: while my family did live out in the country back in the early 1980s, we didn’t have a farm. We did have a dog show up for a while, but his name wasn’t Chi Chi and he got hit by a car.)

I’ve also gotten back on a reading kick lately. I finished up Robby Krieger’s Set the Night on Fire autobiography. It’s a pretty good book. Robby writes with no ego and admits that, much like previous Doors books, he may not have gotten everything right. He also admits to his own demons, health issues and drug use. While obviously Jim Morrison was the charismatic lead singer of the Doors, Robby also discusses his relationships with John and Ray, as well as his family, and his life and career pre- and post-Doors. I’m not sure how much interest people who aren’t Doors fans would be but for fans of the band and the guitarist, it’s definitely worth a read.

I have also been reading Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad (about the World War II battle) and Loren D. Estleman’s The Eagle and the Viper about an assassin sent to kill Napoleon. Both are really good. The Eagle and the Viper, especially, is one of those books you start reading and really can’t put down. (I mean, obviously, I was able to put it down long enough to write this blog.)

With Remembrance Day past (and I hope everyone took the moment to honour and pay respects to those who served our country), we can now look forward to Christmas. I have a few ideas on both the giving and receiving side so I have to craft my Shopping List. I also need to consider my Christmas card. Back in the day, I used to send cards out by the dozens but now I can just post it on my social media – and here on the side as well.

I am in the early stages of the NASCAR double-feature with the cut-off races for both the Camping World Truck Series and the Xfinity Series. Can I just say what an amazing invention the PVR (DVR for my American readers) is? I can set my PVR to record these races, have an afternoon nap and then watch the race – and be able to fast forward through the commercials. The only drawback is you have to stay off social media, etc. so you don’t have the results spoiled. (And having NASCAR.com as your home page in your web browser doesn’t help matters.)

I have to be honest, having an excuse to stay off Facebook (or whatever it’s called now), Twitter, etc. is actually a positive. I find if you are checking social media all the time, there’s not much to see but if you stay off for a while, there’s….well, there’s still not much to see if you want to be truly honest about it. Okay, forget I said anything. LOL!

As some of you may know, I am an aspiring novelist. I have two complete novels (plus a non-fiction book) that I would some day like to get published. I also have ideas for at least two more novels. Meanwhile, I have been working here and there to have a third completed novel. It’s just a matter of finding the courage to reach out to some publishers/agents and getting them published. (If anyone out there has any ideas about getting novels published, let me know.)

The reason I bring this up is the latest novel I am working on is an “accompaniment” to one of my previous novels. One of the main characters in my previous novel is the author of a novel chronicling those events in this “accompaniment”. Over the last few weeks, months perhaps, I just haven’t felt like I was going in the right direction. This morning, I was lying in bed and I thought about changing a major aspect of the main character’s life – and demoting another major character to a minor one – and realized just how much of a difference that would make. This isn’t quite a scenario where everything falls into place but it certainly opens up some exciting possibilities and has me excited about writing this novel again.

It’s going to be a quiet weekend – at least that’s the plan – around the Milner household. My folks and I are staying close to home (and will definitely be trying to do the same when it starts SNOWING late next week) to watch the Cup cutoff race and then 1917. (Crave TV just freed up a bunch of movies so when NASCAR comes to an end for the season, that might be how I spend my weekends.)

I have been whittling down my To Do list over this weekend. (Still got a bunch of things to do, mind you.) One of the things I was able to cross off my To Do list was the update for the latest issue of Shelf Life Magazine for the website. With it already being November, check it out for some great gift ideas. I already found one gift for my Mom because of it.

Happy (and healthy) Hallowe’en everyone!

This seemed like a really busy week.

Never mind the normal hustle bustle of the life in the Communications department at King’s University College. I was actually out and about a fair bit.

On Monday, I went to visit Paul and picked up the latest issue of Shelf Life Magazine along with a couple of books to read. I need to begin updating the website so keep an eye out for that.

Then on Thursday, I finally broke down and had someone come look at my laptop. I bought it in January or February but for some reason whenever I started working on it, my cable and internet completely shut down. I kept thinking it was just a coincidence but eventually I realized it had to be the laptop. By then, of course, COVID was well underway and I couldn’t get someone to come out and take a look at it.

The weirdest thing, however. On Wednesday night, for the first time in a year, I decided to boot up the laptop just to make sure it was working before the repair guy showed up. While it took about 10 minutes to get it up and running, once I did so, I had no issues with my Internet. Seriously! I let it run for about an hour or so and not a single glitch. I had him come over anyways and take a look at it just to see if he could find something that might be causing the issue. (He didn’t.)

Then on Saturday, my folks and I went to Ailsa Craig and Stratford. Over the last couple of years, my Dad has been wondering if anything is in Ailsa Craig to commemorate Earl Ross, who won the 1974 Old Dominion 500 and became the first and thus far only Canadian to win at NASCAR’s Premiere level. A couple of weeks ago, I contacted the North Middlesex Historical Society and the Donald Hughes Annex Museum and arranged to visit on Saturday to see their display on Earl.

I must give MASSIVE kudos/props/appreciation to Shawna, the curator, for the very warm welcome we received. She brought her Dad and their friend, Bill – both who knew Earl Ross personally – over to talk with us about Earl and his career. The display on Earl Ross was incredible, with several diecasts of his cars (both in NASCAR and the Ontario racing scene) and newspaper and magazine articles about his NASCAR win and his career overall. It far exceeded my expectations.

If you have an interest in NASCAR, auto racing in the area or any ties to the Ailsa Craig area, definitely arrange to visit the Museum. Even above and beyond their Earl Ross display, there was a lot of stuff about the history of the town and area there. (I really enjoyed seeing their model train display that runs through a scale model of the village.) And Shawna was so nice, very accommodating and really made us feel welcome. My folks are still raving how much they enjoyed the visit.

From there, we went to the Value Village and the Habitat for Humanity Restore in Stratford. My Mom had wanted to go there and it wasn’t too far to go on the way home. We didn’t come with any major finds (I got a couple of t-shirts from Value Village) but it was nice to be somewhere that wasn’t in front of the computer monitor in my home office. Especially since we’re headed into a long period of time where travel may not be possible due to weather.

So, all in all, a good weekend. Got to watch some racing in between, so that was a plus as well. I hope all of you had a good weekend as well. Stay safe and stay healthy.

It was a short week, due to the Thanksgiving holiday but I seemed to get a lot of work done at work. On the homefront? Not so much but (a) I’ve made a few appointments for next week to get a few things don and (b) it’s the weekend and in between the races in Texas, I’ll try and knock a few items off the infamous To Do list of mine. All told, though, this was a fairly decent week for me.

I have tried reaching out to people (via Facebook Messenger) a bit this week. Not with much success but I will keep trying. I will probably try more over the weekend evenings as that’s when I like talking to people. Speaking of which, I had the chance to chat with my friend Chris the other night. I was actually returning his call to wish me and my family a Happy Thanksgiving, which was very nice of him. He and I spent some time reminiscing about our days on the college radio station, which was fun.

There was a time when I would have never even thought of ordering stuff online. Now, I order stuff off Amazon and other outlets quite frequently. Some of this can probably be attributed to COVID-19 but there are also times when I’ll order something, knowing’ I’d probably not be able to purchase it otherwise. Now, a lot of that would be NASCAR stuff but I received my copy of Robby Krieger’s autobiography Set the Night on Fire this week and in checking bookstores in London, I discovered there was only one copy in one store in the entire city. Glad I ordered it online!

By now, it’s probably been a month and a half since my last update. There have been times when I’ve considered junking the blog, not to mention a lot of my website and the podcast given that I’m not getting much response on any front – save a couple of people from China who check in every few days. It probably doesn’t help that I didn’t think I had too much to say. I mean, like everyone else, I’m just sitting here in my “office” questioning a lot of what’s going on in the world and my place in it.

After 18 months in basic isolation, I thought I was about as low – mentally and spiritually – as I could get. Then, over the last couple of weeks, I seemed to be in a real funk, even worse than normal.

I did some thinking on the subject and decided I couldn’t wait for the world to fix my life for me. I couldn’t just sit around looking for people to blame. (There’s too much of that in the world.) I decided to try and look for the positives, rather than the negative. I’m sure it won’t be easy. (In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a lot of negative stuff on the Internet and the world, in general.) But if you don’t try, you don’t succeed.

I also decided that, rather than run away and hide, I’m going to be out there more. (Sorry, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram friends but there’s about to a lot more postings from me.)

On Sunday my folks and I went over to Delhi to Courtland Treasures and Antiques. We’ve been there a few times over the past few months – they have some great NASCAR diecasts, several of which I have added to my collection. (Dale Earnhardt 1979 rookie season car and Bill Elliott’s 1985 “Million Dollar Bill” car, for example.) This time around, I picked up a diecast of Darrell Waltrip’s 1983-1986 ride when he was driving for legendary car owner Junior Johnson.

My folks ended up getting a dresser unit they’d had their eye on for a while. Mom already has set it up in the living room, decorated it and she loves it.

My family got some good news on Friday (just in time for Thanksgiving). My Dad’s recovery from bladder cancer means he has to go in for a CT scan and have blood work done and then the idea is he goes to meet with his doctor. Instead, the doctor called him at 5 p.m. He said everything looked good so there was no need for Dad to come and physically see him (plus, you know, COVID, right?) In other words, my Dad is still on the right road to recovery, definitely something to be thankful for!

Last night, I watched Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. I had started watching it on Wednesday (?) night but when I told my Mom about it, she sounded like she wanted to watch it as well. I’m always up for a movie night with the folks (anything that stops them from watching CNN) so I said sure, let’s make it for Saturday night. (I ended up watching Hit and Run, which is a fun movie.)

My folks were not too impressed with Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. Their main beef is that it was quite long and there were times where my Dad was confused about the movie with in the movie. The phrase “What the heck are we watching here?” was uttered a few times. I, for one, rather enjoyed it. I have to wonder how many people younger than myself didn’t realize the alternate history aspect to it.

*** Spoiler ***

The film ends up with the main characters Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt respectively) running afoul of members of the Manson family. Instead of killing Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), members of the Manson family end up storming into DiCaprio’s house (next door to Tate and Roman Polanski’s house) where Dalton, Booth, Booth’s dog, and Dalton’s wife, Francesca (Lorenza Izzo) dispatch them in a scene that was probably way too violent for me to find it as funny as I did.

*** Spoiler Ends ***

I recently discovered Steve Moore, the Mad Drummer, who plays with Rick K and the All Nighters and it blew my frickin’ mind. If you are into drums, music, or just great showmanship, you have to check him out. (You can start with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hilv8PHueSI and check out the windmill drum action at 2:40. Seriously, this guy goes from Keith Moon to Pete Townsend in an instant.)

The weird part is the Rick K and the All Nighters would be a good show band even if Moore just played the drums like every other lounge act drummer. (And I don’t mean lounge act as a slight, just that’s what they are.) And Moore is a very competent drummer but you add in the theatrical style and you’re just mesmerized!

And on that note, I will sign off. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and you stay safe and stay healthy, physically and mentally.

I know I normally update on the weekend, but having not provided updates for the last couple of weeks I decided to check in – just to keep people on their toes.

I shouldn’t say it’s been a really busy time around the Milner household but a couple of things did happen. My sister and nephew came down for the weekend a couple of weeks ago. Unlike the old days where we had to have wall-to-wall activities, it was more of a lazy weekend but still great to have the family all together.

This past weekend was the Thamesford Town-Wide Yard Sale. We didn’t have the chance to check out the other yard sales in town because we were too busy having our own. When Cathy and Jack were down the week prior they had brought about 2/3 of Jack’s stuffy collection and I had rounded up a few things I no longer needed. At first, we weren’t sure how much we would end up selling but as the morning progressed more and more people came by. A lot were saying they weren’t allowed to buy their grandkids any more stuffies but others bought several. A fair amount of my stuff went as well. In total, we made over $100 – so not a bad total, especially when we were selling DVDs/Games $2 or three for $5 and stuffies for 50 cents or three for $1.

Since I know she reads this, I want to thank my boss, Jane, and her husband, Bruce, for stopping by. It was great to see her in a real life, real time, and non-working environment.

I am winding down watching How I Met Your Mother for about the fourth or fifth time. I am thinking Friends is back on next.

After what seems like a lull in just my own efforts of getting things done, I think I need to get refocused and work towards getting some of that To Do list of mine whittled down. I haven’t really posted too much (an article about Hailie Deegan on Track Talk, notwithstanding) on the website so I’d like to get back to working on keeping that updated. There are a few other projects I need to get to work on as well.

Wish me luck!

As the days of my vacation wind down, I can honestly say that – while I will never get as much accomplished as I want – I did get a few things here and there accomplished.

For one thing, I celebrated my 52nd birthday in my usual, down-played way. I want to thank everyone that took the time to wish me a Happy Birthday. I got a few gifts from the family including Season 1 of Family Ties, the Complete Series of Mrs. Brown’s Boys and the DVD of A Lot Like Love.

On Wednesday, we went collectible shopping and ended up travelling through four counties, including Oxford, Middlesex, Elgin and Norfolk County. My folks picked up some things and I snagged a 1979 Pontiac Ventura that Dale Earnhardt drove in the 1980 Charlotte 300, a Sportsman Late Model (the precursor to today’s Xfinity Series) race won by Dave Marcis. As well, I found a 1:18 scale Davey Allison diecast, 1:24 Jeff Gordon and Harry Gant diecasts and a Dale Earnhardt “fan kit” (coffee mug, shot glass and “beer mug”).

On Thursday, I joined a growing number of people and became fully vaccinated by getting my second dose of Pfizer. There was a pop-up clinic. at the Thamesford Library and so I made sure I was there right at 9 a.m. to get my shot. Little known fact: Pfizer sponsored Mark Martin’s #6 Roush Ford in 2001.

As I said I didn’t get everything I wanted to done but I did update the Shelf Life website with excerpts from Issue #231 and finally finished editing Part 2 of my podcast with special guest Lyz DeMarco. I have also posted some updates (including to my History Articles section, John Milner’s Track Talk and the Milner Mat Report) to my website so feel free to check them out.

I figure with two days left before I head back to work, I still have time to get a few more things accomplished. Wish me luck.

Meanwhile, stay safe, stay healthy.