Miles Davis Cool

There's probably little coincidence that my son has taken an interest in his little plastic trumpet after we started listening to Miles Davis. While August has no idea who Miles Dewey Davis the third is yet, I hold hope that his music will play some kind of a role in his development.

Even before my son was born, I consciously selected music that I wanted him to hear. I am not only into the music and lyrics of artists, but their back stories also lend to my impression and appreciation of them. When I look at Miles’ beginnings, it’s cool to learn that at a young age his mother wanted him to learn piano, as she, unknown to Miles, could play the blues. Miles didn’t start learning music formally until he was 13, after his dad gave him a trumpet.

At our house, August is surrounded by drums, percussion, guitars and a piano. We’re not pushing him to one specific instrument, he is way too young to even understand what they really are now, but we don’t keep anything away from him. My true love plays piano, she’s classically trained, so there’s a good chance that will influence my son.

The little plastic toy trumpet, which is not the easiest instrument for a one-year-old to get sound out of, keeps getting picked up. Then again, it also keeps getting dropped, for what I can only guess is for the sound it makes when it hits whatever surface it lands on. That might seem annoying, but to him, that’s pretty cool.

The Attack of the Tunnel Monster

When I woke up beside my true love this morning, I felt like I was an inch away from falling off the bed. Some time during the night, my son woke up and wanted nothing to do with doing back into his crib, so he ended up in our bed.

I don't mind when the night plays out like that because he is a morning person, just like me, so it's all fun and games until my true love gets her bearings.

The morning was the first in eight days that I got to wake up with my family, so we made breakfast and tidied the house before taking a walk to the playground. You can watch my son eat pancakes and strawberries for over two minutes if you like.

While at the park, fun sparked an idea to create a short horror film as my true love played the role of the Kraken and my son, the baby pirate.

Enjoy.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Is Colder Than You Think

I was nominated to complete the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge by my friend Ken Steeves, London Police's media officer.

In the days leading up to my nomination, I did hold some reservations about the campaign because of criticism over the actual challenge drowning out the cause. Despite the skeptics, the challenge continues to raise buckets of money, and awareness. To the nay-sayers, get dunked.

After my nom, I took some time to learn about ALS and how it affects those who have to live with it. I gladly dumped the bucket of ice water on my head a couple of hours after being nominated, and contributed a donation.

For more information on ALS and where to donate, visit ALS Canada.

On Saturday, September 27th, there is a fundraiser walk for ALS my family and I plan to attend.

Here's video I took of Ken Steeves taking a total of six buckets of ice water to raise money. The guy is fearless.

9 Weird Things at Ikea

We love to shop at Ikea. There isn't an Ikea store in London yet, so we have to take the hour plus trip to Burlington if we want to get our Swedish shopping fix.

The other weekend, we decided it was time get a few things for the house, so we went. Besides the obvious weird names that everything in the store gets branded (those actually do have meaning), we thought it was time to document some of the other weird things we saw.

Adventures in Video

I noticed I have been creating a lot of content lately, but have been really lax with my site, so here we go. Here are a few videos I created lately using my iPhone or GoPro when my family and I are out.

We Like to Walk

Gaining momentum after a little creative buzz, I've been taking lots of video and putting together shorts, sort of like a video diary.

This one was filmed with my iPhone 5s.