This Much is True

Four years ago, I wrote a blog post about remembering those lost on the Ocean Ranger. Since then, I have moved my blog to this place but the old one still remains. People still find that post, at the old blog, through search engines and some people have left lovely messages in the comments section. Some have been addressed to me but many end up being addressed to someone lost as a message to them. Every now and then I will get an email letting me know of another comment and it is quite moving to read things from the people who knew and loved someone who was on the Ocean Ranger on that terrible day. I thought maybe you might like to read them and know that these men are not forgotten, not by those who love them and not by thousands and thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and people the world over. Every year on this day, we feel their loss, although surely not as deeply as those who knew and loved them. So, take a moment and remember them today and look at the words of those that are doing the same. If you’d like to read the post that led to the comments, you can find it here on this site or on the original blog site here. (I did not include one comment pointing out that while there were 84 men lost that day, I only listed 82 in my post. I have tried numerous times to find the names that are not included and if you know, please tell me so I can rectify this.) Let’s never forget.

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Well, Word on the Street in Halifax was a blast. The first night we got there, there was a VIP reception for those participating in the literary festival. It was at Brussels Restaurant and Brasserie. What, you may ask, is a brasserie? Well, it’s a French word and means a place that serves beer and food. And boy, do they serve beer. At the brasserie, there were 17 different draft beers and over 130 imported and Belgian beers by the bottle. No, we didn’t try them all but we did quite a lot of sampling, we’ll say and were among the last to leave the reception (actually long after the official reception was over). I had a great time chatting and laughing about all things literary and non-literary with fellow panelists the next day on the main stage, Russell Wangersky and Darren Hynes. As well, got to meet and have a few laughs with a local publishing force and her niece, along with some members of the Word on the Street organizing committee, who were all warm and welcoming, and, of course, my husband who came up to Halifax with me. We all walked back to the hotel the Word on the Street people had put us up in, in gorgeous suites, and stood around outside chatting some more on what was a beautiful and warm September night. Next thing I heard someone say, “Tina Chaulk” and turned around to see a friend from Aspen Cove I haven’t seen in many years. She just happened to be in Halifax for the night and happened to be walking by that hotel at that time. There were screams and hugs and I guess I should apologize to the guests at the Radisson for all the noise.

The next day was a bit cooler but still fairly nice for the actual festival which took place in beautiful Victoria Park. Having it there, in tents for various venues, meant lots of foot traffic and curious people. I did a book signing and a reading with the panel on the main stage and then another signing. I’m happy to say that my fabulous publisher, Breakwater Books, had sold out of my first novel, this much is true, and only had a couple of copies left of A Few Kinds of Wrong when I left the festival around 2:30. I enjoyed signing all the books and meeting the great people there who obviously love books and reading. All in all, it was a great festival.

Vince and I stayed in the Radisson another night and then went off to another hotel we had booked that was much farther away from downtown (we would have stayed on at the Radisson but they were booked up–we’ll know better next time). At this time, the cold I had been battling for more than a week, set in. My body held out until my duties were done and then hit me with a cold, two ear infections, and a sinus infection. As I sit here, I am on the second round of antibiotics trying to get rid of the ear infections which were well rooted by the time I got back home and got a doctor’s appointment. It’s hard to hear and even harder to know how loud I am talking all the time so be glad you just have to read this post and not listen to it or else you’d probably hear shouting or mumbling too low. Anyway, the rest of the trip to Halifax was mostly just relaxing, a bit of sightseeing and walking around, and some shopping. It was nice to have time to ourselves without the kids but we missed them a lot and were eager to get back home. Halifax is a great place with a waterfront that St. John’s could take some cues from. It was a fun and productive trip and I’d do Word on the Street again in a heartbeat. Thanks to the organizing committee for all their hard work.

The sad facts are that women in Newfoundland and Labrador have one of the highest rates of cervical cancer in the country and the number of women who die from cervical cancer  is double the national rate. Screening is vital to catch this disease early or to prevent it by finding precancerous signs. Dr. Roxanne Cooper has created a mobile pap clinic which will be going to several communities over the summer. Check it out and see if it’s in your area and pass the word on.If you’d like to know more about the great work Dr. Cooper is doing in pap screening, check out this article from the NLMA newsletter. And, most importantly, get your regular pap test and encourage the women you love to do the same.

I, like many other people who tried to install iOS 4 from Apple, got stuck in backup hell where the new OS downloaded quickly but then a backup started and that is where I got stuck. And stuck and stuck. The backup progress bar moved slower than BP doing something about this horror in the Gulf. After three hours of this backing up, I gave up and started looking for workarounds. I found one. It wasn’t seamless and it wasn’t even that quick but it did move along, which is more than what I can say for the backup process after I’d downloaded iOS 4. I have found two ways around this. I used the first one but wish I’d tried the second (although I read conflicting reports about success with the second one). NOTE: I am just telling you what I did. Anything you decide to do with your device, you do at your own risk and I’m not recommending any one way of getting iOS 4 on your iPod Touch or iPhone.

1. My way was to restore the phone to factory settings and use the downloaded OS to restore from. Then restore my backup. To do this (in Windows) I,

• synced and did a  back up first
• I had already downloaded iOS 4 by using the update process in iTunes and then cancelling once I got stuck in backup mode so I had the new update on my laptop. (If you haven’t done that, the fab folks at Gizmodo have some links so you can download the update directly–remember where you save it because you’ll need it later.)
• Once that was done, I restored to factory settings by pressing Alt and Shift at the same time I clicked on the Restore button in iTunes. Then I was given the option to choose the file to restore to (in this case, my new iOS 4). Mine was located in “C:\Users\Tina\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPod Software Updates”. If you’ve downloaded the update and can’t find it , you can  just search for *.ipsw and make sure it says 4.0 near the beginning of the file name.

• My iPod Touch was restored. This took about 5 minutes maybe.
• Then iTunes said I had a new device attached and asked me  if Iwanted to set it up as a new device or use a backup from my old device. I chose the backup and then waited while all that happened.
• I had never used a backup before so I was disappointed that none of my apps or music were there when I started my Touch. I had to go to iTunes and checked which apps I wanted then did a sync and got all the settings back and even all my books on my various reading apps. That’s how it worked for me anyway.

2. I read in a number of forums that some people are having success unchecking sync for apps, music, videos, etc. in iTunes. Then they’ve done a sync.  Then once they have the new OS, they’ve checked sync for each of these again and did a sync.

First I told you I wanted Apple’s as yet unannounced Tablet. Then, when the details of the iPad came out, I told you how much I still wanted it. Well, now I’ve actually touched the iPad and things have changed a bit.  I fondled an iPad last week. I made a special trip to the electronics store, just to check the new device out. I touched the iPad and lifted it and surfed the web on it and perused through books and watched videos on You Tube and played a game and typed quite a lot and…you know what? I wasn’t overly impressed. I mean, I’m sure that if I didn’t already have my beloved iPod Touch which I depend on so much, then I would think the iPad was the most awesome thing in the world. But I do have little Touchie and I’m so used to touching programs to open them, zooming in and out with my fingers, flicking to scroll, tapping on books (in Stanza which I love), and tilting the device to maneuver in games, that the iPad was, well, meh. A big iPod Touch. Now, don’t get me wrong, if someone wants to buy me an iPad, I’m in.  And if I had buckets of money, I’d have one in every room. My life would be kind of like this.

But, if given the choice between getting a newer iPod Touch and a new iPad, I’m picking the Touch. Here’s why. Mostly it comes down to portability. When my two-year-old was recently getting his head stapled in the emergency room, after a fall off a chair, the nurse kept saying, “look at the fishy, Ben. Look at the fishy” while my husband held my iPod Touch over Ben’s head with a Koi pond full of fish on it. The koi pond app (Pocket Pond) had kept him entertained in the procedure room as we waited for the doctor.  The iPod Touch can save the day when you’re left with an unexpected wait and there are games, music, videos, and books galore on it. It can help organize tasks, create lists, write notes, check facebook, pass the time, research things, etc. etc. And the iPad can do all that too. But I can’t stick it in my pocket. I can’t whip it in my purse or put it in my glove compartment. iPad has all the cool stuff without the pocket factor and the pocket factor is as important to me in these busy days as anything. With a few improvements, I can see the iPad possibly replacing my computer someday but I don’t see it replacing my iPod Touch anytime soon. So I’m glad I played with the iPad because now I can let it go in my mind and start dreaming about a new iPod Touch. Or maybe even an iPhone.

Okay, I love Lost, the series. Great character development, cliffhangers, spooky, creepy, mindbending things. And the finale of Season 3, Through the Looking Glass was one of my favourite TV episodes of anything ever.  It was just brilliant.  From the beginning of the series and all the way through it, though, I kept thinking how are they going to explain all this? Really.  I’d never be able to write a series like this because the great thing about writing novels or short stories is that you can go back and change things once you’re finished. Instead of leaving loose ends, you can go back and take them out completely if you want. Or put a section in earlier that explains it. But the Lost creators threw so much into the story as they wrote, I can’t imagine how they could have explained it all. And no way to go back and cross off the whole Walt as important/mysterious in so many ways story bits, as but one example. So they left a lot of questions hanging, I’d forgotten many of them until collegehumor.com did this fantastic compilation. If you really liked the finale (and I was okay with it but a little disappointed–or maybe that was just the idea of no more Lost), be prepared to realize how very much was left hanging.

(Movieline attempts to tie up these loose ends in this great post.)

The thing about blogs is that the more you post, the more you think of to post but the reverse is also true and most days I can’t think of much to say. Well, okay, I can but usually they would include long, rambling rants about things in the news or things that annoy me. And most of them probably annoy you too so you’d agree. Like the slaps on the wrists people are getting for everything from sexual assault to drunk driving to abusing children and animals.  So it becomes  kind of like the inane facebook groups I see all the time. Do I really need to publicly tell you I’m against the abuse of animals or cancer? Do you really want to hear my ranting about these subjects? Do you?

But it’s just a matter of getting back in the habit and I will definitely be blogging more because I have something to procrastinate and you know that writing blog posts is one of my favourite forms of procrastination. Much, much better than procrastinating by cleaning the toilet or deciding to gut out the toy box (which I just did). So what, you may ask, do I have to procrastinate? Well, I’m very pleased to say that the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council has kindly given me another grant. This time it’s for a new novel tentatively called Rewriting History (see, that’s where the title of this post comes from–I knew you were wondering).  And it’s not that I’m not enjoying writing this book. You know that. I just procrastinate the writing. Like if I let it stew longer and wait to put pen to paper, it will come out in a great flood of words, easy as rolling balls down a hill. And it does.

This new book is as much fun as I’ve had writing. There are three main characters whose lives are entangled in complicated and not nice ways. It is full of black humour so far and that will continue. But that’s about all I’m willing to say about it now. I hate talking about things like that when they’re new which is one of the disadvantages of applying for grants. In order to apply, you have to tell the Arts Council about your project and even include a writing sample, preferably from the book you want to write. You have to think ahead a bit and figure out what the book will be about. And I like to just have an idea and then see where the idea takes me. No plotting or mapping or anything. But I looked ahead, saw, in broad strokes, where the book would be going and worked hard on a writing sample. And now I have something to procrastinate.

I am also, perhaps as another form of procrastination, still revising my mystery/thriller novel which I first finished in 1997 and needed a good overhaul. And now is the time. It’s just one of those books that I had to hone the craft of writing a bit before I could go back and make it what it needs to be. But it’s very different, in tone and content than anything I’ve had published or the other book I’m writing so it’s an excellent form of procrastination for me.

So, that’s what I’m doing and that’s what I will be doing for the next while. And wrangling Ben, who really requires complete wrangling concentration (I had to stop writing this post so I could get him out of a dangerous situation AKA he was standing on his tippy toes on the edge of a chair saying “tada”). And helping Sam with homework, swimming , Tae Kwon Do and all the many other parts of his life. And  all the other stuff that I can either procrastinate or use as a form of procrastination, depending on the day and the mood. Like laundry. That’s measurable and I can definitely tell you I’m procrastinating that. Oh, and I’m reading an amazingly fantastic book but I’ll tell you about that on another day. For now, I have to go wrangle and procrastinate something. The one consistency in life is that there’s always something to do and always something to put off doing.

Well, it’s been a while but I have good excuses. Really, I do and I’ll tell you about them later. But some of those things still continue so this will be brief.  Just a heads up on some upcoming events and to let you know about a couple of new reviews from Novel Escapes and The Current. I am grateful for the opportunity to read and share about A Few Kinds of Wrong, but, as always, am nervous about speaking in public (no matter how many times I do it, it doesn’t seem to get easier) so friendly faces are always welcome (not that there are ever any unfriendly ones at these things) and I hope I’ll see you at some of these events.

• WANL Spring Tides Reading featuring Enos Watts and Tina Chaulk (St. John’s) will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 26, at The Ship Inn off Duckworth Street. There will be a Q&A period following the reading. Free and open to the public.
• NL Writers and Friends talks about A Few Kinds of Wrong by Tina Chaulk: On Monday, May 3 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Tina Chaulk’s second novel, A Few Kinds of Wrong, will be the featured book in NL Writers and Friends (Book Club), offered by MUN’s Division of Lifelong Learning. Discuss A Few Kinds of Wrong and then chat with the author about it. To register, call (709) 737-7979 or visit http://www.mun.ca/lifelonglearning/.
• The Salon I will also be part of The Salon on May 29th, where you can come listen to me read and chat with me as well as listen to some live music as well. I will post more about this as info becomes available.

Happy International Women’s Day to all you phenomenal women out there.

A fantastic poem but one that is better when it’s read by the awesome Maya Angelou.

People have been asking me what I think about the iPad and so I thought I’d let you know, even though most of the world seems to have already weighed in. I still want one. It’s pretty much what I thought it was going to be: a big iPod Touch. I actually watched the big announcement event live, well, I tried but video and audio was sparse and I ended up listening to audio from Leo Laporte’s Ustream and looking at Engadget’s coverage in pictures and words. There was an air of waiting and expecting a big reveal of some super-amazing thing that the iPad would have but I doubted it. What were people expecting? Oh, I know what they wanted. They were hoping for multitasking, which it doesn’t do, and flash, which is doesn’t have but neither does my iPod Touch and I still use it a lot. I read on it and listen to music with it and use twitter on it and surf the web on it and check facebook on it and play games on it and occupy my toddler with Elmo videos on it during long car trips and on and on and on. And I would do the same thing with the iPad and will because by hook or by crook, I plan on getting one.

There was one surprise for me, during the great reveal of the iPad: the price. Wow. I expected $1000 and hoped upon hope for $799, but a starting price of $499 was totally unexpected, although I assume it will be more in Canada. I really liked the iBooks on it and fear this may be it for the poor printed book industry, much to my chagrin as a writer and my pleasure as a reader. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still love a printed book–the feel of it, the smell of it, the look of it, especially if it’s one of my own I’ve written but I love the convenience of having twenty-odd books in my iPod Touch and knowing I can flick from The Lovely Bones to Twenties Girl to I Feel Bad About My Neck to an unpublished manusript by one of my friends who wants my opinion on her book, is a pleasure. The big problem is the bathtub so I keep some books for reading in the tub but I also put my iPod Touch in plastic baggy so I can read it there too. I figure I can find a big one for the iPad.

That’s not the only drawback of the iPad, though. There are others and it is not the perfect device quite yet. It’s mostly all screen so, just as my iPod Touch, I will be nervous of cracking the bloody thing. And I will probably have to get a case  to make me feel safe with it and probably a big screen protector, which I haven’t gotten yet for the iPod Touch. The truth is if I had a lot of money, or even a moderate amount, I’d have tons of iPod Cases because there’s something about them that I like. So, now a new obsession may be checking out the huge variety of cases for the iPad, no doubt being developed as we speak.

And where will I put it? The iPad won’t fit in my little purse or my coat pocket or my kid’s diaper bag. How will I carry my iPad? These are all questions to be answered and I think I’ll have fun figuring it out. So, what do I think of the iPad? iWant!