paddle your own canoe. I sign off like this often — it’s a mantra that guides a lot of what I do. It’s something my family’s said to me forever. On its surface, it means find your own course, do your own thing. Be independent. Don’t let someone else put you in a box and tell you where you’re supposed to go. But paddling isn’t just about driving yourself somewhere. The canoe as a mode of transportation isn’t as bruising as a motorboat, isn’t as clumsy and backwards as a…
Category: Blog
The Longest Paddle: A Story of Woodworking and Carving Out a Family
When I finished cleaning my tools and putting them away after finally finishing carving my 6-year-old’s stepdaughter’s first paddle today, I had to wonder why it had been so long since I worked on it. A little background. My family has deep ties in Algonquin Park, and a lot of my family’s history has to do with rangers and guiding and paddling. Through Omer Stringer, we have ties to most of the major camps in Algonquin Park and to Roots through the Beaver Canoe brand. This is no brag; it’s…
#mo365 Day 5
Tug of war.
How Heroes are Made: a Kerbal Space Program Story
Orbital flight. Missions to the mountains. Experiments in the water. The Kerbal Science Centre had done everything they could think of short of producing a Kerbal-rated mission to the Mun. To land a Kerbal on the surface of the Mun and to return him safely to Kerbin — that was the goal, said the director, before we leave the office on Friday. Once the engineers picked their jaws up off the floor, they got to work. Progress was slow, mostly because Jebediah was so excited that he wouldn’t get out…
#mo365 Day 4
The 4th was a cold day. But the dog had to be walked. Follow me on Instagram!
#mo365 Day 3
Drawn quickly on the Note 3. Hey, follow these shenanigans on Instagram!
#mo365 Day 2
Every so often, I find my character drawings a little inconsistent, and need to rework them. This was one of those times.
#mo365 Day 1
I decided to get in on a little hashtag game on Instagram that’s called #mo365 — simply, upload a mobile photo for every day of the year. Well, to keep myself honest, I’m going to repost them here. Enjoy! Paddle your own canoe, folks. -Trevor
What This Year Was, And What The Next Will Be
This year was good to me. It was. I can look back at January and realize that I had just started working at a school that wasn’t quite yet a school, making peanuts and generally being totally unsure of where I was going and what I was doing. I’m still plenty unsure about where things are going, but I’m a lot more secure in my insecurities. I buried a lot of insecurities this year. I have a generally older peer group, and 2013 is the year in which I owned…
5 Reasons Why You Should Support Cardamom & Cloves’ Indiegogo Campaign
Cardamom & Cloves is an upcoming herbs & spices shop in Ottawa. It’s on track to open, and Jodi, the proprietress, is running an Indiegogo campaign to help launch the store with the appropriate level of pomp and awesome that the foodie community here in Ottawa deserves. Here are 5 reasons why you should support the campaign in its last 14 hours. 5. Ottawa is a frozen, blasted wasteland and we’ll turn to cannibalism without it. Don’t let the pretty lights fool you. Ottawa is the last bastion against the…
We broke everything!
Hey folks, business will resume as usual soon. In the meantime, please be patient as the site is undergoing some pretty heavy back-end restructuring.
Failure to Communicate
Natalie Joy is a cutie. And I love drawing her. It’s a rare gift to have a muse, model, best friend, and partner, all in one. I am drawing on my new phone, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, and it is WONDERFUL. The Wacom-powered S Pen stylus is spectacular, and the built-in version of Autodesk Sketchbook is a delight to use. Not to mention that the bundled Samsung apps are surprisingly good. S Note in particular, with its Evernote integration, is a lot of fun to sketch in. I also…