1 August 2019 - Kelowna Trip, Break-In at Home

We got to Kelowna on Tuesday. We've done a few great hikes. Unlike in 2017 when we drove Nick and Alex out to live, it's been cool, a little rainy, and wildfire-free. Thank God - didn't want another overheated St. Bernard on our hands.

Today, we scattered some more of Nick's ashes, on Stephens Fox Ridge, right across from Nick and Alex's apartment. As this was our final scattering ceremony, and Kelowna represented Nick's dream of living in a beautiful, mountainous place, we buried a little 'time capsule' on the ridge, basically a funeral card, a poster from our September 8th fundraiser/memorial concert, letters from both of us, and a little stuffed bulldog. Looking past a gnarled tree on the edge of the cliff, N&A's apartment can be seen directly below. Hopefully our pictures capture the beauty of this place, a ridge that Nick would climb after work. 

A variation of Alex's tattoo design, drawn by Sam, a lovely tattoo artist camping next to us 

Better rainbows than wildfires in Kelowna 

Our 'time capsule' 

View from the ridge

Our memorial site.

This month's Byron Villager features a writeup about our plaque, in Nick's honour, which has been installed at the Byron Skate Park, as well as a poster for September's Great Balls of Fire (raising Awareness of youth cancers, rasing funds for Act Now For Cancer)

A view of Nick's memorial site (immediately behind the little gnarled tree frame between the two tall pine trees) from street level. 

This trip was quite stressful from day one. Just before we piled into the car, our St. Bernard needed one final jaunt through the park. He ripped his leash from Tanja's hand and immediately killed a goose! A grisly and ominous way to begin the trip.

On our second day of driving, we'd stopped at McDonalds for coffee in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. I checked my email and was informed that burglars had broken into our place and stolen, at the very least, Nick's old laptop. "No worries", I thought: I'd backed up Nick's data to our external hard drive (which also had all our home video footage), and there's no way burglars would want that. Hah! When we got home, we discovered that this hard drive, Nick's old phone and other small electronic items, were gone - evidently stuffed into one of my musical gear bags containing speaker cords for my bass rig, part of my sax case, and who knows what else. 

Tanja wrote a plea on Facebook for the burglars to return our stuff, no questions asked. Fortunately, I'd backed up all our video and picture files on Google, so that's all been recovered. But, we'll never know what musical sketches Nick left on his laptop. I can only hope that most of them eventually became recordings by his various bands, which we have and are publically backed up on Band Camp.  

Tanja's plea on FB was immediately picked up by local media, which sent interviewers to our place that day. As much as we may bitch about the time-wasting rabbit hole that is social media, it sure has its uses.

CTV London News Clip

CBC Radio London Morning Clip

We're not holding our breath for our stuff to be returned, but we do feel we've done all we can to put the word out.

Well, it's August 1st. It's my (Matt's) plan to return to work in September, and of course the thought gives me the heebeegeebees (like every other teacher on the planet!), so I guess I'm gradually rejoining the human race. 

Our hearts go out to our friends Faye and Kevin, who we were blessed to meet at Easter in Cozumel, Mexico. They met up with us in London yesterday, and informed us that they'd lost their eldest son Ben under suspicious circumstances in Vancouver. I can only hope we can help them deal with their loss in some small way, as so many have helped us. Their plan is to help build a community centre for disadvantaged youth in Cozumel, in memory of their son.