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March 22, 2025
A pretty uneventful week, all told. The weather couldn’t seem to make up it’s mind as to whether it was the beginning of Spring or mid-fall. Heck, even today it was overcast, sunny, and snowing all within a few hours. Perhaps it was a good thing because I got up this morning and got a few things done around the house. Nothing really important but a few things to cross off the To Do list.
My Mom has been working on getting the house ready for when we get the new windows installed, so she’s been busy changing things up. It makes me want to change my areas of the house around as well. Of course, I have to redecorate around my cat. (Pepper has to have a shelf unit that is high enough to reach the catio…and then I have to put the filing cabinet next to the shelf unit so Pepper can reach the top shelf and then the catio.)
Meanwhile, I finally bit the bullet and pulled the trigger (two firearm metaphors in one sentence) on an Amazon order. (And no, I don’t want to hear how everyone hates Jeff Bezos and Amazon now because the Washington Post didn’t endorse either candidate in the most recent U.S. Presidential election.) I bought the newest MLB and WWE games so I will most likely be using next weekend to get those set up.
While today may have been a stay-at-home day, my Mom and I are looking to head out to Glencoe tomorrow to check on my Dad’s cemetery plot and possibly stop at Value Village in London on the way home.
March 15, 2025
Beware the Ides of March! Ironically, five years ago (even though we didn’t know it) we were a day away from our whole world shutting down. I won’t get into all my thoughts about what would transpire over the weeks, months and years to come, but I think the term “the sh!t hit the fan!” should suffice.
Speaking of illnesses, there’s a reason there was no update for last week: I was sick! No, I didn’t have COVID or anything but I sure got myself into something. When I came home Thursday night, I was tired and had a headache. I figured I could just sleep it off (no, not like a hangover…although having never been hungover, I’m not sure what that’s like). Next thing I know I’m running a fever, vomiting, just wanted to sleep. And let me tell you, having an unexpected three day week and sleeping about half of it away totally screws you up as to what day/time it is.
Thankfully by Monday I was feeling…well let’s call it 90% better. Just in time for some better weather. It’s been nice to go back to wearing shoes instead of boots to work, and changing into a lighter jacket as of today. I was even able to go for some walks on my lunch break for the first time since before Christmas.
Even though it was raining today, my Mom and I headed to the One of A Kind Antique Mall in Woodstock this morning. For what I think might be the first instance in the entire time we’ve ben going there, my Mom got more than I did. I did, however, pick up the hat that I am wearing in the photo that accompanies this post. My family is not thrilled with it – and my cat even looks at me like “What is on your head?” – but too bad, I like it.
And so I’ll head into another week. Again if you read this – actually know me – and want to discuss, Facebook Messenger or via email.
March 1, 2025
If you’re looking for reflection and/or conspiracy theories on celebrity deaths, the Ontario election or U.S./Ukraine relations, you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m just here for a few life updates
After two weeks of vacation (and I highly recommend taking two weeks to really relax and not feel like you have to rush to get stuff done), it was back to work on Monday. It seemed like a fairly long and busy week but I’d like to think I accomplished a few things here and there. (If you ever want to check out the writing that I have done in terms of telling the story of King’s, you can check out our Newsroom.)
On the homefront, my Mom is looking into getting the front windows replaced. She’s been in touch with a local company – with a rep that lives just down the street from us – and it appears things are progressing nicely. She’s using some of the money that Dad left us, so he may not be with us but he’s still helping out the family with the help. He always said we were a team when it came to keeping up the household – and he’s still part of the team.
I always have this huge “To Do” list and while I worked a lot on that list during my vacation. However, as I suspected, I didn’t really come close to getting it finished. However, this week instead of coming home every night and wanting to get a bunch of stuff done, I just decided to relax, watch Storage Wars (YEEEEP!!!! Kenny Do It!) and leave the To Do list for the weekend.
Speaking of which, I got up this morning, looked at my To Do list and thought “Let’s get ‘er done!” I’m already well ahead of schedule and while I’m sure I’ll wake up Monday and not gotten as much as I would have liked, I’m hoping I can still make a good dent in it.
One of the things I like to do during my lunchbreak at work is to read Wikipedia. One of the featured articles this week was on the Roswell UFO incident. While the article is very much written in a “This is all a conspiracy theory” mode, I was interested in learning that if it wasn’t aliens, it wasn’t the weather balloon but instead a balloon being used to detect Soviet nuclear tests. Here’s a theory: Any chance the government created the alien spacecraft hoax and then quickly officially discredited it, knowing that would only pique people’s interest in the possibility that it involved aliens, further distracting them from the project to detect Soviet nuclear tests? Just an idea.
Hey, if anyone reading this is from the Toronto area, check out the Experience Hendrix Tour that’s coming to Massey Hall on March 15. I’m not able to attend but it’d be cool to check out. If anyone (who knows me) attends, let me know how it went.
And so I’ll head into another week. Again if you read this – actually know me – and want to discuss, Facebook Messenger or via email.
February 22, 2025
Before I get too far into this, I want to let people know that I am doing okay. I had my good friend, Chris, reach out to me after I had posted on Facebook that I was leaving social media to check in on how I was doing. (He said I sounded depressed!) I want to say how much I appreciated that. It’s great to know that if there had been something wrong, I have at least a few people out there paying attention and willing to reach out to make sure I’m okay.
My second week of vacation was a lot quieter than the first. Due to the weather, my Mom and I stayed pretty close to home. Wednesday was our big day out as we went to London twice and to Ingersoll to do some chores. Initially we had planned to do some stuff on Wednesday and a few things on Friday but ended up just combining everything into one day. I was tired by the time we finally got home but I think it was worth it to be able to be to have Thursday and Friday at home.
Okay. Elephant in the room. The Daytona 500. I’m sure none of you reading this stopped by because you were wondering “Hey, I wonder what John thought about the Daytona 500?” Overall, it was the Daytona 500, it’s like what they say about sex or pizza, even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. The rain delay was a pain in the behind. Joey Logano had the best car all day but got caught up in a wreck that, despite what a few people were saying, was not his fault. Despite the stereotype of NASCAR fans, this redneck hillbilly does NOT like watching wrecks. I’m always cheering for the underdogs and the smaller teams to get the wins at the superspeedways. William Byron from Hendrick Motorsports does not fit that description but he’s a good young driver with a great career ahead of him. Atlanta’s another fun track so we’re on to that this weekend.
As I was telling my friend Kelly, I had this dream about a book I wanted to write. I haven’t got as much done as I would have liked but I did get a very rough draft of the first chapter done. (Scroll down to the end of this post to read it.)
To give you an overview, a one-hit wonder band from the 1980s reunite to perform one last time at the request of a eccentric millionaire at a dive bar in the middle of nowhere. Of course, there’s a lot of baggage to unpack for the band.
Oh…and it’s an alternate version of 1994 as a comet is about to destroy all life on earth.
What do you think? Would you read it? Check out the first chapter – which needs to be fleshed out a lot more – and let me know, either on Facebook Messenger or via email.
Damn! WordPress is really testing my patience. It’s bad enough that it’s almost un-editable at this point and you try to delete one character and end up deleting the entire “block” that you’re working on. For a while, it gave you the option of using the much more user-friendly “classic” editor but I see that’s gone.
I guess it’s just one of those things you have to put up with. However, yesterday on three occasions, I found that what was on the public-facing website was more up-to-date than what I was able to edit. In the first case (and thankfully, the more important one) I was able to copy and paste and make the update and in the second case, I had made one minor addition that was lost. but it should take me five minutes to re-add. However on my Track Talk blog, I basically lost everything I’d done since September. (I had been writing the drafts in Words so I might have some of the content backed up.) I’m not sure what the malfunction but I’m not happy.
Chapter One of my novel-in-progress. (All rights reserved!)
“Welcome back to CJMM – Death Rock Radio. I’m Devon McKichan and with me is “The Round Mound of Sound,” Taylor Christianson. We are going to be piloting you through these last few hours.”
“Yoah, yoah, yoah! We’re not going to be rocking your world away with lame, predictable crap like “The End” by the Doors, or “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” by R.E.M. No sirree, Bob! We’re going to deliver the greatest soundtrack to the biggest event in human history, playing selection after selection…”
BANG!
“What the fuck was that?”
“I think that was Lindsay, the intern. And for those following along at home, that would be the fourth CJMM employee in the last hour or so who has decided to off themselves rather that stick around to see how all these plays out.”
“See, this is the problem with these kids today. No commitment. I mean, I’ve heard that when the going gets tough, the tough get going but this is ridiculous!”
Not for the first time, Erika Gettys questioned just what the hell was she doing. Driving across the desert in the middle of a December night in the same green Gremlin she’d bought when she went off to college? Listening to two morons fill the airwaves with the worst gallows humour they could think of? At least there was no traffic. Why would there be? Every sane human being – or what passed for sane human beings at this point – where all hunkered down somewhere, just waiting for “the biggest event in human history” to arrive.
“Hey now, I liked Lindsay. She was a good kid. She scored me some good weed a while back. She wouldn’t tell me where she got it, though.”
“Oh yes, the tragedy in all this isn’t that billions of people are about to die, it’s that Lindsay the intern will never fulfil her destiny as ‘Weed Dealer to the Stars’.”
She should be at home with Mark. If Mark was even at home. I mean, wouldn’t he be these last few days? Before the phone call, she had hoped that she and Mark might put all of their past transgressions, more his than hers, behind them and spend their last moments in each other’s arms, making love.
Who was she kidding? Talk about delusions of grandeur. That was number one with a bullet. No matter what awaited her at the end of this road, it was probably better than turning around and going home to…well, whatever was back there. The Gremlin had about 50,000 miles on it. Why not put a few more on it and see this ridiculousness through?
“We can’t mourn forever, and we’re going to lose our audience – I mean, before we really lose our audience – if we don’t play some of the rock and some of that roll. Without much further adieu, let’s go back to one of my favourite one-hit wonders from the big-hair days of 80s…”
“You mean, back when you were part of the nerd herd in high school?”
“Fuck you, Taylor.”
“Dude, you can’t say the F-word on the air!”
“Oh yeah, like the FCC’s top priority is an F-bomb on the radio. There ain’t no way I’m getting fired. You and I have more job security right now that at any time in our careers. We can say what we want, do what we want, play what we want, and right now I wanna play a song that every moron from my high school loved but I knew was a piece of shit! It is so bad that it totally fits this situation. From 1984, this is ‘Nothing Like A Party to Get the Night Right’ by the Bus Stops.”
Erika slammed on the breaks so hard that her little green Gremlin fishtailed for about 100 yards or so. Part of her was thankful there was no one else on the road but part of her wouldn’t have been too upset to see the lights of an oncoming tractor trailer barrelling towards her. Her hand darted to the on/off switch on her car’s radio. She couldn’t get it off fast enough!
She slammed her head against the steering wheel and left it there. She knew she’d hit it hard enough that she’d probably get a headache but maybe she had enough aspirin to OD on.
What the hell was she doing?
It was a question she had asked herself dozens of times over the last couple of days but she hadn’t even come close to coming up with the right answer. Even if everything else wasn’t going on, she couldn’t fathom what had possessed her to drive all this way to some dive bar in the desert to see Willy and Patrick and Cindy and…
Ronnie…what was she supposed to say to Ronnie and what was he going to say to her? After everything between she and Ronnie.
Erika just sat there. For how long, she didn’t know. Listening to the silence. Pondering where she was supposed to go. She didn’t want to go home to an empty apartment, or worse, to walk in on how Mark was going to spend the time he had left. She thought about just getting out of the car and walking out into the desert and finding a nice, quiet spot to lay there and watch the world end.
Then she remembered. The desert had coyotes and who knows what else? Who knows who else, for that matter? She didn’t feel like spending her last moment fighting off a coyote, or some drunk moron who wants one last piece of ass before going to his maker.
And so, while she didn’t walk on down the hall, she did roll on down the road. After a moment, she hated the silence and the thoughts that were sneaking into her head about what she was driving towards. She turned the radio back on, just in time to hear Willie wailing away on the cymbals to end the song.
“I can not believe this turned out to be the Bus Stops…well, not just their only Number 1 song but their only single. And it sucked balls but every moron in my high school wanted it played at every friggin’ dance. Why…just why?”
“Shut the fuck up, asshole. It was a great song,” Erika said to the radio. “Just not the song we should be remembered for.”
February 14, 2025
WOW! I guess all I have to do to get a $*#@-load of hits on my blog is just to tell people I’m leaving social media and if you want to keep tabs on me, just come over here. It was great to see all the people who obviously care enough to read what I’m writing here. (Hope a lot of people remembered I said I’d try and update on Fridays and come back and see what I have to say this time!)
Happy Valentine’s Day for those of you who celebrate. (I don’t!)
Another day of vacation. Another road trip for Mom and I. With the sun shining and no snow in the forecast, we headed to Ingersoll to stock up on groceries, then on to a few area antique stores in the area including the Courtland Treasures and Antique Emporium in Delhi. Great place with great people, providing great customer service. If you’re in the area, definitely check it out!
I ended up purchasing a Joey Logano diecast and one for Kenny Wallace. The latter was a cool pick-up since it was similar to the paint scheme that Wallace ran in the 2000 Winston 500 at Talladega when he helped push Dale Earnhardt from 18th to 1st in four laps for Earnhardt’s final win. The irony is that I picked up the Earnhardt Talladega win diecast at another store. (I’d had one for several years but this was a back-up, if you will.)
Meanwhile, in between the road trips, I am still working through my To Do list. One of the projects I’ve been wanting to work on is an update of the Ingersoll District Nature Club’s website. I’ve been wanting to do that for the Club for years and I’m pretty close to sending it off for review.
Another “project” so to speak was to update my YouTube playlist. When I’m working (whether at home or at the office) I enjoy listening to music. I’ve had an old school iPod for a long time. Unfortunately. the battery no longer seems to last too long, so I’ve switched over to YouTube on my phone or computer and included a good number of songs that I had on my iPod. If you check it out at the link above, let me know what you think. (I tend to have some pretty eclectic taste.)
O.K. Elephant in the room. I’m sure people won’t want to be “tuning” in to my blog if they think it’s going to be all NASCAR, all the time. For one thing, I have a blog for that. But in the interest of keeping people up-to-date, it is Daytona weekend and I’ve been watching the qualifying, practices, the Duels and will be watching the Truck race later tonight as the NASCAR world gets set for the Daytona 500.
Also, as a community service, if anyone out there finds themselves in a place on Sunday where the race is on and is looking for a long shot to root for, try Ty Dillon! (If you want to go for a favourite, it’s Denny Hamlin!) But after watching qualifying and the duels, go for Ty (Dillon, not GIbbs!)
And on that note, I hope everyone has a safe and happy Family Day weekend (for those who celebrate THAT!) And I will hopefully check in next weekend. Feel free to drop me a line (if you know me, of course!)
February 12, 2025
I’m hoping that a number of you saw the post on Facebook and decided to check my blog out. As I may have mentioned, I am trying to ween myself off social media as much as possible. I deleted my Instagram, Twitter/X, and TikTok (not that I used the latter all that much) some time ago. To me there was too much toxic content, including almost my entire Facebook feed being from accounts that I do not follow nor would want to, and the main draw, to keep in touch with old friends, former co-workers and classmates, just was no longer there. I still have a Facebook account to maintain some accounts I’m involved with (the Heroes of Zorra, Shelf Life Magazine, and the Ingersoll District Nature Club) so if you want to drop me a line about anything I write about here going forward, (or anything you want to talk about on a personal note) you can still contact me on Messenger or via email.
On a day like today, I’m glad to be on vacation and have the ability to stay indoors and work on some personal projects. I’ve been on vacation since last Friday, part of my usual celebration of NASCAR Speedweek and the Daytona 500.
Hey, anybody who has, or knows someone who has, taken the Monday after the Super Bowl off has no right to judge me! 🙂 I’m not taking the time off to recover from the hangover. I’m giving myself some leeway in case the race gets postponed due to the weather. Those of you in Canada know that the Monday is Family Day here so even if the 500 gets pushed back a day, I’m still home to watch the race. Taking next week off means that (a) if the race goes late or is pushed back another day, I don’t have to worry about being at work the next day and (b) it gives my Mom and I a chance to take some more day trips.
I’ve only been on vacation for four full days and already I’ve packed a lot into my vacation. We went to the One of A Kind Antique Mall in Woodstock, we went in and did a few things in London, including a trip to Value Village. We went to Ingersoll twice and also, on the spur of the moment, headed to Stratford on Tuesday afternoon.
I’ve also taken this as a chance to get some of my “To Do” list dealt with. While I find myself adding items almost as frequently as I cross things off my list. But in all seriousness, I am getting a fair amount of the small items done this week, and am hoping to tackle the big projects next week. One of the major projects I was able to take care of this week, however, was the update for the Shelf Life website. If you are looking for your next good book to read, check out the website.
With the bad weather coming in, we’re sticking around home the next few days. However, I am hoping that we can head to Delhi by mid-week next week to visit the antique stores there.
Most of the antique and collectible stores are having their “Cabin Fever” sales this month so it’s really great to be able to get out and visit them, and see what deals I can get on stuff I would have bought anyways. For the uninitiated, there is something very relaxing about walking through these antique and collectible stores. I think it’s because every booth offers up something different. There is the risk of sensory overload because you’re seeing so much, but at the same time, my Mom has said multiple times that everything going on outside, all the stress and worry, just melts away as you peruse the aisles.
When my folks first started going to these stores, I was never interested because I assumed it was all antiques (furniture, etc.) but once I started going, I realized just what a wide variety of items they offer. No matter what your hobby is, you can find something you’re interested in. If anything, there are times when I need to tell myself to look for other stuff besides NASCAR memorabilia because these stores do offer a ton of other sports, movies and music items.
And with all the talk now about “shopping local,” you can do just that by taking a trip to your closest antique and collectibles store.
Thanks for those of you who stopped by to check out my blog. My hope is to check in on Friday nights but if something strikes me, it might be mid-week or over the weekend.
By the way, for those who partake, my “bold prediction” for the Daytona 500 was Carson Hocevar but my realistic pick is Brad Keselowski. The Milner family will also be rooting for Chase Elliott (in memory of my Dad), Joey Logano (my Mom), Kyle Busch (me) and A.J. Allmendinger (Pepper, our cat!).
johnmilner.ca 