More Stories

Jon

Jon (Whoops—time to get caught up on some of Jon’s creative writing pieces. The first, third and fourth stories were based on photos; for the second and fifth stories he was given the titles. —L)

The coallers of fall

The callers are red yellow green brown black orange. I like to see the leaves fall. I love seeing the blue sky. Do you like autumn? Yes I do! I like going outside with my family. I like the smell of the fresh air.

If Dogs Could Talk….

Sapoase a dog is talking to me. I tell the dog to sit. And I like to sit down. I love to go to pick out some dog food The dog tells me what to buy. I feed the dog some dog food. I like to say by to the dog. It would be great if dogs could really talk.

Jon

The owle

An owle goes hoo hoo hoo. I like to visit the owle. Do You like to see the owle go hoo hoo hoo? Yes I saw a snowy owle at the zoo. I like the snowy owle Because It is wite and it raminds me of snow.

Jonathan

My Airplane ride

I like being on a airplane. When theres a first ping that meens that I fass in my seat belts. When I hear the sekond ping that it’s time to take off and we fly in the air. When we hear the third ping I take off the seat belts. It’s fun to be in an airplane.

Jon

If I was Invisible

I was playing joakes on peaple. I was making funny faices at me. I clean with my Mom and my Dad. I like to play a joke on me Do you like to play jokes on me? Yes I do! I about to play a joke on me I like to play jokes on peaple.

Jon

So what’s up with Clarence these days?

Cool Stuff

PeterClarence Porter, for those of you who haven’t been introduced, is a very close friend and illustration guru, who showed me the ropes as I entered the big world of freelance illustration. Clarence has mounds of talent and boundless energy, leaping from one medium to another without missing a beat.

But the landscape of commercial illustration has changed a lot in the past ten years. Stock art, technology, and a barrage of new illustration schools flooding the market have driven prices down, even as the number of publications shrinks. Some experienced freelancers are leaving the biz. It’s cold out there.

So what is Clarence up to? While he hasn’t entirely abandoned the computer for freelance work, where he’s heading is portraits, and an early love: pastel on paper.

A couple of Clarence’s latest are in a Open Juried Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Hamilton from now until late January.

Take a look at these:

portrait of red vase at sunrise

portrait of plant over porch boards

portrait of tabby cat

portrait of black cat

You can find more of Clarence works, past and present, at these sites:
Drawer of Pictures
Pastels
Pastel Artists of Canada
Portfolios.com
Yet another site

Rock on, Mr. P!

How Rogers blew it…

Family Life

Laura It seems to be a national pasttime to grumble at our telecom companies, but they really do it to themselves…

Yesterday we got a call from a Rogers person asking us if we wanted to switch our phone service from Bell. (We’re Rogers cable and internet customers and we had previously indicated an interest in phone service if they could give us a deal.) I went over all the fees and premiums with a very nice salesperson and it looked reasonable compared with the Bell plan we currently have.

I agreed to be put over to the “verification agent” who would finish the sale. I was a bit amused by the voice of the woman on the line who had a strong East Asian accent but claimed her name was “Allison Williams” or something equally WASP-y. As she was going over the details of the sale, she hit on a couple of snags (one technical, one contractual) that I never heard from the first guy, so I aborted the sale.

Let me stress that both customer representatives were very polite, reasonable and non-pushy throughout. I kind of felt bad about cancelling the sale after all of their time involved, and in fact apologized a couple of times to “Allison”. She was still very pleasant, and didn’t sound too disappointed, as people on commission often do when you say “no” (maybe she was on straight salary). I finished having fairly nice feelings about Rogers, which is rare.

Then they blew it.

Later that afternoon I got a call from one of Roger’s next-tier representatives asking me exactly why I didn’t want to switch my service, and starting to play hardball. This person, by contrast with the other two, was pushy, argumentative and very quick to say “no, let me finish: YOU don’t understand…”, which is not a button of mine I like getting pushed! She also continually split hairs about whether the fact we would have to stay with Rogers for two years or get penalized was really a “contract” (another button: wannabe lawyers). It finally got to the point where I was yelling at her (NOT something I do often!), and finally hung up on her in disgust, leaving me cranky for the rest of the evening, and almost—but not quite—willing to endure a lot of crap from Bell just to spite Rogers.

Bravo, Rogers, well done.

Phobia

Jon

PeterTHX logo So the Cars DVD came out yesterday, and Jon was delighted to watch it, until the dreaded THX logo came up.

Sigh. Jon used to have no problem with the THX logo and creepy sound on video. But come his first trip to the movie theatre and, with his anxiety already high, they had one of the jokier versions where the little man adds a cow “moooo” toy to the logo, making it sound like an entire herd. Jon’s vision (much more limited back then) shut down, and the surround-sound lowing made him want to join the stampede.

Since then he’s been able to tolerate it in the theatres, but he goes wide-eyed and avoids certain Pixar movies in his DVD collection because of the brief appearance of the logo at the beginning. (The earlier DVD’s also made it so you couldn’t chapter skip from it).

Because it’s not rational, when it plays he freezes, and can’t use his many abilities with multiple remotes to mute/fast forward past the obstacle. Afterwards he’s stunned and takes a while to come out of it. Poor Jon.

How do we reduce the fear?

Costume accomplished!

Cool Stuff, Family Life, Jon

Laura Tah daahh! Here it is, the finished costume! A well-deserved round of applause for David B., who guessed it correctly: the character Mater from the movie Cars. As usual the costume-building took until the last possible minute (read 3 a.m. Hallowe’en morning). Jon’s school scheduled its costume parade at 11 a.m.; we had to drive it into the school separately because there’s no way it could’ve fit on the bus!

Jon in the costume parade at school
The costume parade at Jon’s school.

front and back views
Front and back views.

These pictures were taken late afternoon while the sun was still up so you can’t see the working running lights at the top of the cab.

three-quarter view
rearish view
More views.

door view
Detail of door and eyes.

aftermath
What a haul!