Ottawa Silver Seven

  • The thrill is never gone

    The thrill is never gone The thrill of seeing your name on something you’ve written is something I will never get jaded about and that’s especially true when your name is on a book. When my first one, Watchdogs and Gadflies, came out, Penguin’s office was a couple of blocks from my house. As soon […]

  • The Dempster

    The Dempster There are lots of things I’d like to do while I am here in Dawson City, but if there was one thing I had to do, it was the Dempster Highway. The Dempster runs from a little outside Dawson to Inuvik, NWT (and in the winter, via ice road, all the way to […]

  • Berton House

    Berton House Big Tim and I thumbed to Dawson City, though not as quickly as we’d hoped. Hitchhiking in 1979 was far easier than it is today and, in Yukon, just about any car that was going our way stopped to pick us up. We worked in a mine in Elsa that summer and were headed […]

  • Alex Russell speaking about parenting

    Alex Russell speaking about parenting Alex Russell, my co-author on Drop the Worry Ball: How to Parent in the Age of Entitlement (and when I say co-author, I really mean the brains behind the whole thing because I just helped a bit with the words), has become quite a popular speaker on the subject of […]

  • You’re invited

    You’re invited Drop the Worry Ball: How to Parent in the Age of Entitlement, a book I helped Dr. Alex Russell write, is just about out. Needless to say, that’s a good reason to throw a party. Here’s the invitation: We also have a Facebook event page here. Hope you can make it.

  • Back cover copy for Drop the Worry Ball

    Back cover copy for Drop the Worry Ball Alex Russell and I, with the help of my friend Amy Spach in LA, wrote the back cover copy for Drop the Worry Ball this weekend. Here it is: Want a More Resilient and Independent Kid? What happens when you combine children who expect the best of […]

  • Middle-aged teenager picks his albums of the year (2011 edition)

    Middle-aged teenager picks his albums of the year (2011 edition) Music aficionados who are a lot smarter than I will ever be have already made the point that this year was one full of lots of really good albums, but not that many truly great ones. That made coming up with my top ten even […]

  • A fond farewell

    A fond farewell Over the last four years, I’ve spent a lot of time in the magazine lab at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism. That’s because I’ve been the instructor on five issues of the Ryerson Review of Journalism (Summer 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Winter 2011 and Winter 2012). The job is an unbelievable […]

  • Nick Lowe Starter Kit

    Nick Lowe Starter Kit Nick Lowe, a 62 year old with a shock of white hair, is the opening act on the Wilco tour. And if last night’s performance at Massey Hall is any indication—he earned a standing ovation—a lot of people will be checking out his music for the first time. If you’re one […]

  • Jobs, like the legendary magazine editors, trusted his gut

    Jobs, like the legendary magazine editors, trusted his gut My first journalism  job was at a magazine called InfoAge, which was all about what we then called microcomputers. I went to a lot of press conferences where hopeful manufacturers launched new models; the release of the Apple II in 1977 had turned a hobbyist gadget […]