Virtual conferencing has become important as countries lock down to slow the spread of coronavirus. Virtual Conferencing includes Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams as well as a variety of other platforms. Several months ago I spent a few hours experimenting with the new kid on the block - Zoom. I had been doing conference calls for years. Since I was working in the remote wilds of Saskatchewan in the nineties it was very common. Skype calls were a thing for awhile and when my wife and I were apart it was one of the tools we used to connect.

"Vulnerable" is not a word I have ever applied to myself. A stoic Scot, I have always chopped my own wood, carried my own water, and been able to make my own way. Not that I'm superhuman, I don't like to ask for help. If there is one thing I have learned over the last two years, it is to ask for help. Well I thought I had. It turns out though that I still struggle with it. And that it is a lesson that I still need to learn.

    A Place In The Sun

Though it seems like so much of my life the last few weeks has been spent in front of a computer writing or researching, I have enough people asking how things are going that it is time for another update.

Several weeks ago Lung Cancer Canada asked me to make a little video for them. I thought about it, conned my son into helping with taking some video, tried using my web cam on my laptop and just generally had fun with relearning video editing software.

This is the result

:

Bonus points if you can identify the theme music...

I've caught you up on my Christmas travels and my wild trip to Toronto. Let me bring you up to date on the latest craziness to impact my life.

The flight back to Vancouver was uneventful. My seatmate had been one of the last people to board the plane. After exchanging some perfunctory greetings and establishing territory as passengers in economy do, I put my head down a few times and caught a few winks of sleep. It has always been a blessing to be able to sleep pretty much on demand.

Because of my involvement with one of their programs, Canadian Cancer Society invited me to a peer support workshop that required me to fly to Toronto to participate. It focused on improving some of their services. Toronto in January - not on my bucket list but there you go.

A good adventure story begins at the beginning and this one should be no different. When Evan called saying, "Dad I don't know what to get you for Christmas." I was kind of shocked. We don't really talk about that in our family. We don't think a lot about what we want. We just do it. Last year he gave me a copy of Ashley's "Book of Knots" Thoughtful. He is pretty good at this gift giving thing.

A few strains of "Silent Night" drifted across the sparsely filled sanctuary. And I cried. "Silent Night" was the first Christmas carol that I learned by heart. As a child, I sat in the car waiting for my father, a veterinarian, to finish his work with a farmer. To amuse myself I would sing it to myself. I don't know if I was feeling sorry for myself or just feeling the blessing of being with others that had suffered loss and were struggling to celebrate this Christmas season. As hard as it was, I was glad I had come to the "Blue Christmas" service.

The examination room isn't big enough for cartwheels. But if it had been I would have turned one. Yes it was better than good news. It was great news. Let me back up a bit.