I WAS IN THE VANCOUVER RIOT: a confession and apology

It appears that confessions and apologies are the new buzz words for the Vancouver Riot participants.  So here are my repentant statements.

I confess:  I was there.  I should have left because by standing in the middle of the crowds my wife and I were just adding to the problem, but we were held by a morbid fascination of what was happening.  As we were there we were also compelled to help.
My wife help some injured women and I removed crap that was being thrown around the streets and at the windows of the Bay.  Here is my account of what happened on Chris Wejr's blog

My apology:
I am sorry that I could not have done more.
I am sorry that my actions weren't enough to convince more people like Victor to defend our city from the loogans that were intent on smashing it.

My being there was not a mistake.  I was not emboldened to do these things because of intoxication.  I made choices to do things and I will stand by those choices, even if I got in the way and prevented  people from making there own choices to be a participant in the riot.

An apology does not make a damn bit of difference to the acts undertaken.
So please refrain from apologising for your ill thought choices.

Why am I making a statement like this on a page for the Canuck Place Adventure Challenge?
 Opportunity!
If you google Vancouver riot apology canuck place it might bring you here!

I will be kayaking, riding, and running in TWO races on Saturday and Sunday in late September.  I am required to raise $1000 for each race.  If you would like to donate I would be most grateful!
If you would like to join me...we can create Team Riot!
Thank you!
Malcolmhttp://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2198919891577&set=o.121837081234162&type=1&

The Money started to roll in...

Ok.  Not quite as dramatic as that but it started with $10.  One of my grade niners came out of his final exam and was in my room saying bye.  He takes out his wallet and pulls out a ten spot.  "Here", he says with a dismissive nod of the head.  I couldn't figure it out, as he kept waving me and the ten dollar bill away from his as if it had some communicable disease. 
"Its for your race.", he says.  Cool!  So I quickly retreated and wrote his name on the bill and stapled it to the wall.  That $10 is now $36!


Thanks Adam, Sam, and Kira!

Yikes!!

I am not sure if I am mentally well.  I know I am not physically well.  So I have had a long and serious discussion with myself  (see above) and realise that doing TWO  Canuck Place Adventure Challenge races in two days is a terrible idea...but I have come up with bad ideas before and they haven't turned out that bad in the end.

Saturday September 17th in North Vancouver and Sunday September 18th at Cultus Lake in Chilliwack!

In the ensuing 2 months I have to try fix my bike, start running, and do my normal kayaking challenging training regimen:  the day of the race 4k.

I would love your support.  Canuck Place Children's Hospice is one of the most beautiful places I have had the honour to spend time at.

Why are there two races?  Canuck Place is growing into Abbotsford.  The current house serves many families across BC and by having a house in the Fraser Valley it will make travel much easier for those families in the interior reaches of the province.  So it seems fitting:  2 hospices = 2 races.

Please help me raise money for the families of BC that belong to the Canuck Place family.

Malcolm

Hello

Hello!
It appears that this blog may have run its course.  I have not volunteered at the house for a very long time as I have undertaken a new volunteer position in a local halfway house for Corrections Canada!

I see that people keep popping in to see the site...thank you!

If you ever feel in a charitable mood...be sure to click here:  CANUCKPLACE.ORG and tell them Malcolm sent you!!

Normie is back!

Today's shift at the hospice was so wonderful, because Normie is back!!!
I could not believe how tall and big he has grown! I haven't seen him for a little over a year now, and the last time I saw him, he still too young and weak to walk, could not hold a full conversation, and was hooked up to oxygen all the time. But now, he is walking everywhere all by himself, talking a mile a minute, and tricking people too! One thing hasn't changed though: he still LOVES rockband. Tonight, he rocked it out with Santos, and hitting the drum set so hard we were worried we'd have another broken set. But it was all good.
And Normie is such an affectionate child. When it was almost 9 and I told him I had to go soon, he rushed over to give me a big hug!
Malcolm, you missed out! Hopefully you'll get to see Normie when you return from your hiatus. :)

Fimo is Fun

Hello, it's Joan! Sorry I've been MIA...but school has been taking over my life.

I thought I'd pop by and post a few cool pictures from my shift at Canuck Place a couple of weeks ago!

So it was teen boy's night, and whole bunch of them were eager to play games/watch movies/watch football with Malcolm and Santos...but there was also one girl in the house who needed hanging out too! So Janelle and I had wonderful girl time with Anastasia.

Anastasia gave us the idea of building animals and farm things out of clay, and then use them to play farm. Janelle had the even more ingenious idea of using Fimo and then actually baking it so we could keep our creatures!
Anastasia made a nice flag and some chickens, Janelle made an amazing horse (that looks like a dumb version of the one in Toy Story), and I made a little poodle, some vegetables, and a basket.
Santos came by for a bit and made this SUPER CUTE ancient looking bunny, complete with confused grandpa eyebrows.










So we popped it into the oven...and the basket melted - it was not Fimo! Boy were we lucky that we were nervous about the baking, because we checked it pretty soon after it started melting so we were able to salvage all the important figures.










So anyways...all our creatures came out safe and sound, after a much fussed over baking process (although Janelle's horse's leg broke off)...and us volunteers got to keep our little creatures!

It was one of the more productive nights that I have had at the hospice. :P

thank you!

one of the things I love about the feedjit widjit is that you can see where people who visit come from...kind of.
be daring....leave a comment...ask a question...if there is group of russian spam artists who leave completely random comments on another site i administer....you can leave meaningful spam on this site. let me know who you are...as long as you are not the person leaving links to naked asian women on this blog.

Funds Raised....

$250 000. AWESOME!
You all helped me raise $1500. THANK YOU!
As always the race was wonderful...except I missed the start. I was still getting into my kayak when my heat took off!! A few stops to help with broken bikes...mine being none of them...and a bunch of high fives, clapping and cheering on the run!

Thanks to everyone who participated and to every VOLUNTEER who made the day go smoothly.

A Milestone has been reached!

Not the $1000 mark. That is just a bare minimum amount...the milestone is my high school buddies! This is the first year they have all had their name to an amount. Taylor being the laziest.

Thanks guys!
Mal

Back to the house on Friday. I have had to miss the last two shifts.
A quick mention about Joan who sometimes writes here. She has passed the 750 hour mark for time at Canuck Place. Wow. I am not sure where I am. If there is a number it is probably inaccurate as I often forget to sign in!

Why does my Dad thinks this will be snap?

Mum and Dad always donate $50. My Dad is the only person who thinks things like this will be a snap:

Do you belong to any team? This year should be a snap for you.........Dad

thanks for the $50!
a snap? you have to be kidding! the only times i have had the chance to ride my bike I have gone out and hurt myself! have just started running...not very well either...and i was paddling my surf board around and my life jacket chaffed my armpit!
sure...it will be a snap!
malc

Why I do this race

Adventure. I have yet to do the race without an event happening that works as a sideline story.

First year I did the short race and I did the bike backwards. Second year I did the long race and my brothers $1500 mountain bike was stolen 2 hours before the race. Third year (2008)...was somewhat un-adventurous...but I introduced the Adventure Cam. Fourth year my $10 bike broke on the trail and I got to finish the race on the prize bike. WHat does the fifth year hold for me?

If you are lucky enough to be reading this than you will be ready to read the results in September.

Please give to the house!

Malcolm

Time to GIVE!!

If I had a 950 friends to donate $1 each I will have met my minimum goal of raising $1000 for the Canuck Place Adventure Challenge supporting www.canuckplace.org.
Who has a thousand friends?

I am entering the race for the 5th year and has admittedly put myself behind the 8-ball, but know that I have at least 20 friends with $50 in their pockets wondering what to do with it.
I have the suggestion for that $50: sponsor me in my goal of raising $1000 for Canuck Place.

I am in my 6th year of volunteering for Canuck Place. It is one of the best places to volunteer at. I write about what happens on my shifts at www.canuckplaceadventurechallenge.blogspot.com.

If you go to the site and click on the picture of Panorama Park in Deep Cove and sponsor away!
If you sponsor me...awesome! If not I encourage you to pass on the email to anyone you feel like!

Thank you!

Malcolm

Can I get a little Hannah Montana Here?

Friday was awesome. Again. Jenelle, Joan and I were on and the house seemed really full of kids, family, and a bunch of visiting nurses!

Doug and his sister Nina were in, Kyle, Sylvia, Leith (and his 2 brothers, mum, dad, and about 6 nurses visiting!).

Pizza for dinner. Good. BBQ chicken pizza? Awesome!!

I sat by Sylvia who I have known since I started at Canuck Place (~6 years). She like s to sing. She has always been a little grumpy to me but we usually warm to each other as the evenings progress! Kyle was having fun getting the food to the floor and Leith and his family took up the other table.

As always we try and figure out what we will do that evening while we are eating dinner. It was going to be all about Sylvia tonight! After dinner, clean up, meds, and whatever else needed to happen we found our way down to the music room. Sylvia armed with a little toy mic and her song book. The volunteers, Doug, Sylvia, and Kyle.

Doug is 14. His sister Nina has been at the house since I have been (or before). Doug wants to be a volunteer and talks about becoming a Peer Volunteer when he turns 16. He is patient. He really understands what happens at the house since he is there with his sister often.

He loves his sister Nina.

He will make a great Peer.

In the music room Sylvia handed me about 20 percussion instruments...one by one...piling them on my lap. She went and sat down and we all just made a bunch of noise. After a bit Sylvia sat absolutely still and and started to give everybody a bit of stink eye. We all quieted down. Then, ever so quietly, she started to sing. I could hardly hear her! She stayed quiet through the whole song. After the song I asked Jenelle to run up and get my i-pod Nano. I wanted to catch he singing! Here is the first one I got:

She is priceless!

Here is #2: I know...they are long...but it was sure fun to watch her sing. In the first at 3:20 the phone rings and she answers it without missing a beat.

Here is an autographed piece of cardboard with a deftly coloured logo to boot (courtesy of one of my students).
With help from the Canuck Fans at http://www.nucksmisconduct.com/ we are trying to figure out all of the signatures on the top! Once this is done I would like to auction off the poster to raise funds for this years Adventure Challenge!

Here is what we have:

Any help you can give would be appreciated.

Thank You!

Simple makes happy

Dinner: Simple; all protein. Happy. Fish, chicken, pork. There was an odd vegetable thrown in but it was a meatstravaganza.

The Brothers Dave were in the house. Shoot back to here: http://canuckplaceadventurechallenge.blogspot.com/2009/06/no-man-im-dave.html
and the magic of the brothers Dave comes to light!

Dave Senior to my left and Junior to my right. Junior decides he was full...turns out he was just a little unhappy with the dryness of the salmon. Sharpeyed nurse knows he is more like a garbage disposal unit when it comes to food and figures it out. On to the carrots! Seemed like we hung out at the dinner table for a long time. Eating and hanging. Santos was in, Joan was in, and peer volunteer Amanda was also in.
The other set of brothers were also in:
http://canuckplaceadventurechallenge.blogspot.com/2010/04/brothers-j-another-set-go-squirrel.html
and were in fact still intent on catching wildlife. This week they thought that birds were a good idea. . Junior J2 had made a bird catching apparatus and was intent on using it.
This makes two sets of Brothers J...so these guys are Brothers J2.

Senior J2 FINALLY got some glasses. Something I have been trying to get him into for over a year. I am well chuffed that he has them; more so that he says they make such a big difference.

It was such a nice night that we decided to road trip. A rolling caravan of chairs out through the rough and tumble streets of Shaughnessy. Always a sight!

These kids here all know what is going on. Junior J2 made the observation to me that he is having a much tougher time walking. He and his older brother both have Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy.
JJ2 gets out of his chair to get into the bathroom by himself. He is 12. I asked him if he knew when Senior lost the ability to walk. He answered "when he was 8...so I am doing way better".

Duchenne's is a progressive muscular disease that slowly works its way up from the lower extremities. Eventually it can make it difficult to breathe.

JJ2 knows that his condition will progress. That sucks. These guys take it as life. I'm not sure if they take it well, or if they live in a private morbid fear of dying well before anyone should, or have an insane jealousy of kids who don't need to belong to Canuck Place, but I do know that when they come to the house they are plain and simple kids.

Simple makes happy.

A Marshmallow Crazy Night

Hi....it's Joan! Long time no blog. Well, here I am - to post about tonight's Canuck Place night!

On the shift were Amanda, Marjan (new family volunteer), Kal (subbing for Tony), and I. All girls! We were pretty excited about it being an all-girls night during dinner because it seemed like all the kids who needed hanging out were girls too: Leanna, Leigh, and Monica (who is Gordon's sister). Leanna was a super fast eater, Leigh was looking forward to watching a movie, and Monica was excited about shopping for her elementary school graduation dress tomorrow with Mom!

Suddenly, a little boy named Stevy came sprinting into the kitchen and declared air hockey war (hence the almost all girls night). At first, chef Roberto played with him but he had work to do in the kitchen so Amanda accepted the challenge...and lost. I think. Stevy is a very good air hockey player.

After dinner, Leanna and Leigh were put in bed because they had a long day at Science World. Marjan, the techno guru, succeeded in wrestling with the DVD player and got a movie playing for them.

Kal, Amanda, and I went outside with Monica and Stevy to play Apples-to-Apples, and we brought with us lots of fruit, tea, and cookies. Stevy accidentally ate 5 cookies and therefore had tons of energy...that we needed to expend. He then decided that he didn't want to play the game, and ended up zooming around in the hand-bike, bicycle (with helmet, at my insistence), scooter, and merry-go-round. While Kal, Amanda, and I kept an eye on Stevy, we played Apples-to-Apples with Monica until it got rainy and Stevy wanted to go inside.
(If you don't know what Apples-to-Apples is...check it out at Wikipedia!)

We went in and struck a deal with Stevy: we would go to the Volcano room to have a "Marshmallow Fight" for a short time, and then finish our game. After a little discussion and a lot of help from Mom, it was settled. The marshmallow fight was a little too intense...I actually feared for my glasses. But clearly, it drained Stevy (finally!) and he was quite tired out.

We returned upstairs to play more Apples-to-Apples while I set Stevy up with some Rockband (it works now, Malcolm!) Very soon, Stevy's Mom took up him upstairs for bed, while Marjan came downstairs and joined us in our game. We played the amazing Apples-to-Apples until it was time to go.

It was a night of multitudes. Never a surprise at Canuck Place!

What can I say? ANother cool night!

Last night was the end of a long day and an even longer week, in spite of the fact it was only 4 days!

I was with Joan and Amanda, Santos having spirited himself away to the prairies for a family wedding.

At dinner we had the Island well represented. JJ and his mum, and Vanna (oh...she's going to hate that name...) and Breezy and her mum (who are from Chilliwack). Bob from Burnaby rounded out the group. I have known Bob for 6 years now and I am amazed at how much he has grown. He will always be the same little kid that I met 6 years ago...but he sure is getting big.

JJ is 13 and is a super cool, smart, and funny kid. If you have seen any of the Canuck PLace commercials he did one with Roberto Luongo: http://www.canuckplace.org/news_events/video_gallery/articles693.php

or this one: http://www.canuckplace.org/news_events/media_centre/psas/articles361.php

We had a chill night upstairs playing a game called Apples to Apples. We (joan, Vanna, JJ, and I) talked a lot...had a lot of laughs. Amanda was helping Bob figure out the ways to advance (uhm... cheat) in his video game that he plays all the time. I think he got a little further thanks to the internet!

I am never really amazed at what happens at the house. Everything just happens--it is all so normal. From the respite care to the end of life care the house works to achieve absolute normalcy for all of the families and volunteers involved.

Thank you, Canuck Place.

Where you from? Who do you be?

I get to see on occasion visits from far flung places to the site. Who are you? Leave a comment. Who lives in Beverley Hills? You come back often, Thank you!

As I write the blog posts I realise that I am not doing it for anything other than sharing. If one day a blog post that I write does something incredible for the person reading it. Cool. Come back and say hi.

fragile place

Grounding. A word I used the other day.

Nothing more grounding than learning that a little boy you saw on Friday night had to leave his Mum, Dad, and Big Sister on Sunday morning.

Another example of how Canuck Place works. Little Kyler quietly died, with his family around him, surrounded by a big , wonderful, old house.

What a cool night. Just what the doctor ordered. Having been told my job has been cut to .875 full time for next year I found myself chomping at the bit to get to the house. As I have said before hanging out at the house can be rejuvenating and also very grounding.

Tonight Steve, Amanda and Joan were all in to volunteer and we had Willa, who is a new addition to the house, Denise with her mum and grandma, Carter in with his mum dad, brother and sister, and a little boy named Kyler who had his mum, dad, and big sister with him and last but not least, Sadie who was there with her mum A full house.

Canuck Place is way more than a children's hospice. It is a family home.

I got to sit beside Denise and Willa at dinner. I helped Willa to get food on her spoon when she needed the help. Nurse Marg was helping Sadie.

After dinner we mosied up to the art room to hangout, colour, toss a ball around (something that Sadie loves to play).

Both Sadie and Willa are nonverbal. Sometimes communication is such a challenge. Eyes and facial expressions make up a lot of the communication process. Willa could speak a little but it is a struggle for her to form the words and it is especially difficult to decipher what is being said. I took a shine to Willa right away. She is an absolutely beautiful 13 year old with long dark hair and stunning eyes. I kept having to apooligise for not understanding the words she was trying to form. We did ok together, but I could tell how frustrating it is for her to try and speak without being understood. She reminded me of K-Dogg (who has left the program now that he is 19). Willa would grin at all of my stupid jokes like K-Dogg did.

At one point Sadie had a seizure...something she is prone to do. The seizures range from just zoning out to full muscular contractions of her body. I noticed the seizure and got mums attention. I held Sadie's hands and mum was at her head talking quietly to her. The seizure lasted about 90 seconds and then Sadie came back.

A little later we met Axel. He had just come in from the Island to stay for the weekend. He is over to play power soccer with a Vancouver team. We had a quick chat and then it was time to go.

After saying goodnight to everyone I realised what a good night it was.

I left the house happy.