I am not a professional! (Jasper Dark Sky, pick me)

But I am passionate about what I know, what I like and what I do.

That said, I am old enough that I know that I don’t know everything. Or much of anything for that matter. I’d much rather sit and listen to you tell me about new and amazing things. For the most part. I am afterall still human and like to be heard. Once in a while though, I’ll find myself with conversational regret. That I realize I was the that guy yammering and interrupting. So then I’ll get real quiet for a while and sit and stew on what a terrible conversationalist I am, therefore making me a bad listener.

Cripes. That’s not how I wanted to start this post.

“I am 38 years old, I am a talk a holic.”

me at my ONandONanon meetings.

So I take to social media. Here I can yammer on when I want. Listen when I want. Choose who means what to me, when I want.

That’s the best part. Like minds meeting. I have friends on here that may not be my friends in real life due to a wide variety of factors, probably silly factors, but because of this place (we are still talking about the internet, right?) and our common interests, we may overlook differing factors because we are so well suited in a specific part of life.

Like my buddy Lorne. He is a clean living fella, with a dedication to his family and his fitness. I am dedicated to my family. See? we have that in common. He forgives me for my ‘loose’ language at times, and I forgive him for telling me I have a foul mouth. We have ran together, we have similar senses of humor, and facebook is our meeting ground. Would we ever have them over for a Barbeque? Yep! Would love to. Even with our colorful language barrier, we still can play together. (and the fact that we are kind of self guided believers and they are a little more structured, we  tend to spend our Sundays differently is all, really)

Yeee… this is really getting off track.

I wanted to talk about Stars!

Ok. Did you hear about Alec Baldwin's latest public rant?

So I squeaked into the top 5 of the Jasper Dark Sky Correspondent contest. I submitted a starry night photo and a little bit about myself, and then let you all know what I was doing. And then you voted! Thanks to you I outlasted all but 4 of my competitors. However, now the award is in the hands of the Judges. My competition is really strong. They are all very web savvy folks with lots of travel and online experience, far exceeding my abilities on this here web, no matter how much I post and engage. They just do it as a fact of life, as a big extension of their life. Online-ism is a big part of my life too, but I tend to go out and DO life first, then report on it. I am ok if I do something and never post about it, as time gets in the way, as I want my online journals to have some quality to them.

I shoot photos. Photography is a big part of my life. It is my hobby, it’s something I wish I could afford to do for a living. I know I could focus on it and become a pro, but I am happy right now making my living at 9-5 and living my life after hours. I‘m not sure how much being a pro would change my love for photography, and that actually keeps me from diving in. What if it becomes tedious. That might just be the end of me. So I am letting my progression and learning come naturally and see what comes from it.

I spend time with my Family. I should move this paragraph up as it is the one thing I value over everything. Our adventures are many, and many of them don’t make the pages of this blog, or on Facebook, or anywhere, because if I was always writing, tweeting and texting about it, I wouldn’t be doing it.

I run. It’s true. I am an overweight runner, with an eye to being a just right weight runner. I talk a lot about my running, only because so many on here are interested and inspiring. My whole online existence came from writing about running and I owe all the good thing that have come from ‘writing about running’ to the people who follow and comment and inspire me!

I work. I have pretty specialized skills that only about 45 people in Calgary have. It’s selling contract office furnishings. When you add in the fact I am on full commission, it brings our numbers down to about 10 total. I think it actually makes me officially a crazy person. Because sane people don’t put up with the stuff I put up with. The skill is that I have empathy, incredibly broad shoulders and an iron cast stomach. That’s all. And the ability to tell people that they are wrong, and convince them that it’s true.

So. All of the above, along with an ability to use all the tools of social media-ism, should make me a pretty well rounded choice for the nice people in Jasper. Also, I have a 5 year old who will tell you all about it all! My competition doesn’t have that and my little reporter comes with the package. for free.

So. Jasper. pick me, ok? I will do very good for you.

Neil

ps. you won’t find one swear word in most of my blog posts.

I will leave you with a picture i took of a nice place where we were yesterday.