Thanks for the help with someone else’s garbage

Saturday night, one of our neighbours, Terry Pile, called to ask if I needed a hand loading the garbage that had been dumped at Jameson Creek by the garbage pig. He’d read my column in The Daily News. We agreed to meet around 11 a.m. Sunday.
Sunday morning, I’d barely started loading up when three carloads [...]

To the man with the garbage: you are a pig

Published in The Kamloops Daily News, Saturday, April 18, 2009
“Hey, Mel,” my neighbour Bob said when I answered the phone. “On your way home tonight, stop at the Jameson Creek turnoff and take a look. You wouldn’t believe it.”
Bob is the unofficial mayor of Black Pines. He loves talking politics and issues, and has strong [...]

Two very different campaign events

If today’s NDP and Liberal campaign events — held only a few blocks away from each other on the North Shore — are an indication, Terry Lake will walk away with the election in Kamloops-North Thompson. Whether they really are indicative, of course, is arguable, but there’s no question the Liberals generated several more times [...]

Update on an evening interrupted

I’ve been asked for a clarification on the post below. My correspondent would like to know whether this was really a spit stream or what she referred to — if you’ll excuse the expression — as a “snot rocket.”
As a runner, she defends the latter not only as necessary, but as an acquired skill, as [...]

A pleasant spring evening rudely interrupted

What a fine spring evening it was last night. It’s the time of year when people go outside again, energized by the warmer weather to bike, walk or run.
I had those thoughts as I drove past the Tournament Capital Centre, and saw a slim young woman running along the sidewalk. The scene epitomized what the [...]

Venture Kamloops needs a patch job

Originally published in The Kamloops Daily News, March 21, 2009
The first real conversation I had with Gail Scott was when I picked up the phone one day and received a somewhat shrill 10-minute blast about a story she didn’t like.
Her voice was loud enough that I held the receiver a few inches from my ear [...]

Media have to show respect for others’ grief

I’ve never been big on funeral coverage. It seems like an intrusion to me.
When the departed has been a prominent part of the community, it’s difficult not to cover the funeral or memorial service, though, because people who aren’t able to attend want to know a little bit about it. In a sense, the person [...]

The power of marketing

It would seem the decision on which city to pick for the multi-million-dollar theme park announced at this morning’s press conference hinged on a Powerpoint video.
Tom Aubrey, in explaining how Kamloops won the project, said he watched the Our Place in the Sun video over coffee one morning and used it to tip the scales [...]

Who did what on airport, TCC, water plant

A correspondent sent the following yesterday: “Brian Alexander published a rant in the KTW ’Daily’ (page 13) in which Terry (Lake) is to blame for the Water Treatment Plant, the Tournament Capital Centre and the loss of the KXA.  I know for certain that you are to blame for our water quality and I am pretty [...]

The importance of winning something

Well, that was quite a weekend. The B.C. Yukon Community Newspapers Association held its annual Ma Murray Awards gala at the River Rock in Richmond on the weekend, and it was a fine do.
The Daily News, in the days before it was a daily, was a longstanding member of the BCYCNA. We were able to [...]