Summer's End

It's official, summer has come to an end. Growing up, I always associated the end of summer with children flocking back to school. Don't see any reason in changing that view now. Before I really start to write this blog, I'd like to thank everyone for stopping in and reading. A huge shout out to my friends over at Rookie Blue News. They are like my own person band of FanGirls who I won't compare to Justin Bieber FanGirls. A huge shout out to Chuck as well for promoting and pushing everything I seem to produce, edit or publish. Now, what was I doing? Writing about Summer.

My summer has been stressful but rewarding. I got to see my two nephews whom I have not seen in a year but they can be a handful. My older, but not oldest sister can also be a handful and she tends to drive us all nuts. Not to mention she drinks milk and uses ketchup like they are going out of style. In the month she visited it, what would normally take my house hold a year to consume in ketchup was gone. It's quite crazy really.

I tried to keep a lot of my summer low key and good wholesome fun. At 23 years old, alcohol has never been factored into my idea of fun. That's not to say I won't kill you like Dexter in a game of beer pong! I took a few outings with the family to Laser Quest, Malls and the amusement park. All of which were quite fun, except a few malls trips that turned into me being dragged out to lug around peoples purchases. ( Amusement Park Video Located at the Bottom)

The movies, Movies are something my Dad and I bond over quite a bit. For as much as I talk, my Dad doesn't sometimes we are like Chalk and Cheese. My oldest sister often joins Dad and I for a night at the movies as well. Our tastes are often pretty streamlined, until I find a romantic comedy, Guilty Pleasure! This summer we saw The Incredible Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises and The Expendables 2. I personally wasn't all that thrilled with Spider-Man or Batman. Expendables 2 was amazing. With my younger nephew over and us seeing movies much to big for his age. I took him to see Dairy of Wimpy Kid, which turned out to be really funny. I didn't mind, I have read the books. I actually recommend them for any growing child.

Another theme for this summer has been, Pools. I have been kind of a serial pool hopper this summer. It was one pool to the next. I'd  recieved a GoPro camera last Christmas, and boy did it get some use this summer. Some of the church youth and myself had a lot of fun recording our fun and games in the pool and creating memories that will last us a life time. ( The Dog Days of Summer Pool Video is at the bottom)

Through out the year I do a lot of networking. Most of the time it's for my video editing, but I love networking and getting to know new people. One of my networking highlights of the Summer has been getting to know Cody Jackson The One Boy USO who I affectionately call my baby jar head. This young man reminds me a bit of me. In love with his country's armed forces, thirsty for the war stories of  veterans and learning all he can. He plays baseball, wants to be a catcher just like I once was. He's pretty much the little brother I always wanted. Code however took it all to the next level. While most kids his age are inside playing video games, you can find him shaking veterans and enlisted soldiers hands thanking them for their service. Promoting his mission to send care packages for those on deployment or debating over which jerky to send at Sam's Club. I don't hold high respect for very many people but Cody sure holds a lot of mine.

That pretty much concludes my Summer. It may not be anyone's idea of a great summer but it was for me.
Please enjoy the videos.
-H

9/11 - 11 years later

Before 9/11/2012 is out, I want to write something about it. I was 12 years old. I remember I was in the 7th grade. We'd all been pulled from our classes from kindergarten to the 8th grade and ushered into the gym.  I attended a small Seventh- Day Adventist faith based academy. I'm not of that religious denomination, however the school had superb academic standards and looked passed the " Mentally Retarded" brand some child specialist gave me at the ripe old age of three. But I digress.

In the gym we were all asked to pray for the citizens of New York, we were never told why. All we were told was there were people who needed our prayer. I did not matter if they believed in our God, it did not matter if they were Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Taoist, Agnostic, Muslim or some other kind of weird to us religion. Didn't matter if they were Gay, Straight, Bisexual, Asexual, Pansexual or utterly confused. They needed our prayer and pray we did. At the time I just thought the principal got some creative wild hair for praying.

I remember my sister picking me up at 3:30pm, which was kind of rare. She said " Aunt Doreen( God Rest Her Soul) and Uncle Nello are OK". I probably looked at her as if she'd gone mad, which wasn't to far from the truth in my general opinion. It wasn't until I got home and couldn't find a bloody hockey game to watch. I was kind of an absent minded 12 year old and had probably flipped through dozen of channels and all thought they were playing the same movie. It wasn't until I really looked and listened that I realized what had happened.  Funny enough I still didn't figure out the significance to my sister saying my Aunt and Uncle were fine. I was young and thought Buffalo was Buffalo , New Jersey was New Jersey and New York was New York.  Didn't know the reality of the three being right on each other's arses.

11 years later, I have heard about it being a terrorist attack as well as a blacked out planned stunt by the U.S government to solidify itself as the only super power in the world. Truth be told, I don't give much of a damn what the true story is. Either way shame on them, you can't change the past, you can only work on the present and hope for the future. I will always remember the fallen from that day. The Heroism of those on the Pennsylvania jet. I will remember not how a nation pulled together in a time of need but an entire continent. People often forget the part us Canadians played in the heroics of 9/11. Maybe because all our skylines stayed the same but we were a part. So Canadian 9/11 heros and American 9/11 heros we love you all the same. I'll always remember wondering if I had to start calling the Pentagon the Square. I'll remember not wanting my dad to go to work on the 12th incase they came here. Most of all, I'll remember that being a day when a part of my childlike innocence died. When I realized there really was darkness in the world but it was also the day I realized, I had to be a light in this world because I never wanted to be darkness, I wanted people to find me if they ever felt trapped in the dark.

If you happen to be reading this blog and your member or veteran of any North American Branch of Military from United States Marine to Canadian Air Force. Thank you for your service. If your a First Responder thank you for your Service. I'll never take you for granted.

That wraps up my 9/11 story, memory. I don't think I've ever shared everything with anyone but today I have.
-H

At The WTC in 2006 with the Gymnastics Team

Goals, Bucket Lists and Resolutions

You know what? I'm going to buck the trend and write about Resolutions and Bucket Lists and all that Jazz in September. After all, January is just so over rated. I've decided by hook or by crook their are things that I want to do with my life. Despite the local scuttlebutt( Gossip) around me, I do quite a bit with my life and I'm not just trying to let it coast and ride somebody else's wave so to speak.

In life everybody needs goals, everybody should have to make resolutions, change things their doing and have bucket list. If not, there is something seriously wrong with their life. Because nobody is perfect. Yes you can start a sentence with because, no matter how much mommy said you could not do that growing up.

One of my first goals is to get fit again. I'm not horrible or anything but I'm definitely not where I was at this time last year. I've got quite lazy and I even venture to say sedimentary in comparison to my previous years of life. I can't say I'm going to plan to do weights four times a week and get 50 minutes of cardio daily. I've tried such things in the past with no real success. That has also never been my style, even when required for P.E credits. Instead I'm going back to the gymnastics gym.

Find a job has been my goal for the past four years, nothing is really happening in that department. It's starting causing a lot of stress and frustration in my own personal life. I will even venture to say it has caused a level of depression within me. Even though I don't show outward signs of depression, it's there and I'm not to proud to admit that. Instead I'm going to focus on getting myself back together and just let the job happen.

This year I'd like to get certified as both a gymnastics coach as well as snowboard instructor. Both are things I have a passion and aptitude for. Maybe they'll lead some kind of employment during the summer and winter when I get back to college.

Now college, this needs to happen and I'm going to make it happen. I'm not sure how, but I will. I'm a smart person and I'd like to become smarter, academically. Sometimes post-secondary doesn't always teach you common sense.

I've decided in the upcoming summer, I'm going to take my first trip. A trip solo from my parents where they've no control nor another adult. Although I'm a pretty cheap person so it might translate to me and a couple of friends.

What can I say, the Hutch needs to launch in life...or perhaps relaunch. I was doing good for awhile but things kinda stopped but this cowboy is getting back on the horse.

-H

Back to School.....Not for Me

Today I find myself in a pit of depression, I should be going back to school, I want to be back at school, But I can't be. School, costs money; and money is something I just don't have. I live in Ontario. Ontario proudly has the most expensive head price for post-secondary education in the country. The province is great for a lot of things, but not for the wallet of a starving student.

When find a job to finance your education is like winning the lottery or plucking up a four leaf clover, you start to feel this bitter sting of failure. A lot of young adults, try to avoid taking out loans because we've grown up with our parents talking about paying off their loans well into their adult prime. We've grown up schools having out teachers talk about it and we're in the world were we need a post secondary education in order to live above the poverty line. With the baby boomers retiring all of these trades are being opened up but a lot of us can't get the training or apprenticeships because college is financially out of reach. Ontario either needs to create a lot more jobs slated for only young people trying to fund their current college years or find away to rude the cost of tuition.

Scholarships, Grants and Burseries are out there but a lot of them have criteria that leave the average joe in the wind. It often feels as though your crap out of luck unless you are above averagely high intelligence, your entire family is destitute, your Native American or another ethnic minority,  Disabled, Homosexual or in the 1.2% of the university population thats a sports prodigy.  More scholarship options for every day guys should be out there.

Now the military on the other hand, is great. They subsidize education fully or in part to Reservists and Full Service members. However there will always be people that shouldn't be remotely close to the service because it's a bad fit and neither student nor military would benefit from such an arrangement. I've seen to many people join up just so they could find away to afford education, despite hating all things about the military. That should really be avoided.

All in all there is some work that needs to be done or the province is slowly going to be screwed in the next 15 years. It'll either be run in extreme debt from unpaid student loans or have tens of thousands of shortages in all work fields from demanding a higher education for everything, while also making that education substantially harder to come by.

And yes, I'm currently depressed. I see the disappointment in my parents eyes. Hearing about a grandson heading out for his second year of college. A niece thats heading back to university after a year off. Then seeing me, unemployed, uneducated at home. Then taking that frustration out on me because nothing is happening, trying to motivate me while simultaneously sinking me into a further state of depression and self disappointment. Because at 24, I should be done school and be out in the world but I'm right friggen here. I'm not a guy who wants pity, I'd just like people to see that it's hard. Maybe the daughter your frustrated with over not having a job, isn't being lazy but the job market is just that hard and she's working hard. Maybe your son really wants to be in college but he just can't find away in the front door without taking out a loan and putting himself deep into debt before he even starts life.

We are spending what should be the greatest years of our life, stressed and worried that we'll be unemployed, uneducated and on social assistance the rest of our lives because our starting blocks have been flawed.

This is whats been going around in my head with back to school happening for the university and college crowd. Maybe it's my emotions talking, my self-frustration but I needed this out of my system.

-Hutch