Trevor Watt married Bre Derewianko on the Mayan Riviera at the end of June and sixty of us were on hand to celebrate. This video is a synopsis of the week with songs from the wedding.
https://vimeo.com/101050135
Trevor Watt married Bre Derewianko on the Mayan Riviera at the end of June and sixty of us were on hand to celebrate. This video is a synopsis of the week with songs from the wedding.
https://vimeo.com/101050135
Dear friends and family of Cory Stananought:
We are producing a short film about Cory over the next few months and would love some help from everyone who is interested in contributing, either by recording a short voice or video message or with any photos or other media (songs recorded, video, etc.) that you may have in your archives.
We will review everything that has been placed on facebook and try to use the comments and pictures posted there. If you have other media, higher resolution pics and especially if you are willing to share some specific memories with a recording then you can upload it here.
At the Kelowna Celebration of Life, a number of lovely interviews were recorded by Lindsay which will be incorporated.
To upload a file, simply use the control below to link to your file and upload one file at a time.
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Some ideas for what you might share could include:
– a special memory of Cory
– what you will remember about Cory and who he was
– how you knew him
– something you would like to say to him
– it could be a simple 5 second selfie/video to say “I miss you Cory”
– please tell us your name at the beginning, we will probably edit this out and put your name in text on your video clip but this will ensure we don’t have any mix ups 🙂
We will share the Memories of Cory video with everyone who is connected to Cory on Facebook. The family is very appreciative of anything you are willing to share so that we have this lasting memorial for Cory.
Note – we are also hoping to visit Camp Pinecrest this summer to get some footage..
A “Best of” collage from some of the Clifton short films, along with some new footage, was submitted to the Multimedia Film Festival of York Region (http://www.yorkregionfilmfestival.com/). Selected films are shown at various venues around the region.
I just found out that on May 7th, “Clifton” has been selected to screen at the Aurora Cultural Centre along with 16 other short films.
I must confess to being a touch squeamish about this showing as, for the first time, I put myself on camera to pull the various stories together, playing Clifton’s frustrated neighbour “Janet”. I have preferred to hide behind the camera up until now. 🙂
Here is the film that will be showing:
https://vimeo.com/85310688
Cory was my cousin. Being almost 20 years older, I remember him as an adorable, little boy, always smiling, high energy, impish. I know he had some troubles along the way, some issues as a teenager but many of us have to overcome growing pains… and he certainly seemed to overcome his. He grew into a charming, handsome, gregarious young man. We’d see each other at family events, Christmases and birthdays and anniversaries… and he seemed to be in his element. Happy, friendly, easy to talk to… everyone was drawn to Cory. His smile, his eyes, his charisma drew you in. He was interested in people. He had interesting stories to tell. He laughed easily and made you feel special.
When he decided to become a sommelier, we were all keen to hear about his adventures, what he was learning, what to look for in a good wine. He loved to share his wines and we loved to drink them. We were all so excited for Cory when we heard that he was accepted into the prestigious Masters of Wine program.
I don’t remember ever seeing him sad or unkind or angry but of course we all have our down times, our struggles and we don’t always want to show them to the world. With the beautiful light that Cory projected, I wonder if there was a price to pay to keep that light shining so bright, to hide the dark thoughts.
In this past week, hearing and reading the comments on facebook from people he touched in his life journey from so many places – Kelowna, Caledon, Camp Pinecrest, Insifil, even France from his vineyard tour – I am hearing the same things that I saw: “one of the greatest smiles I’ve ever seen“, vibrant, caring, kind hearted, exuded positive vibes, enthusiastic, giving, fun, “one of my favourite people I’ve ever met”, “an infectious laugh“, “the most genuine straight up coolest dude ever”, loving, energetic, warm, personable, “the best brother anyone could ask for”, one of the nicest guys, a zany sense of humour, wonderful with kids, the best uncle ever, charming, a very special person, truly a good spirit..
Cory touched people everywhere he went. But now we are all shocked and saddened, trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. How could such a wonderful young man, with so many talents, with so much personality, with so much love to give, leave us so tragically and so suddenly?
His mother, my Aunt Rene, has asked how she can go on. I know how close they were, how much she loved Cory. I feel deeply for her, and for Ron, and for Ryan and the rest of the family and his many friends. The questions haunt us. How do we go on? How do we make sense of this? How do we understand why? And.. What might I have done so that he could still be with us?
In the end, we must accept that some questions in life just do not have answers. I know we must not dwell on Cory’s tragic end but on the beautiful arc of his life, the smiles that he directed just at us and just for each of us, the loving, kind spirit that he was. They say only the good die young. Some spirits grace our life for a while, not forever. We must see and remember the gift that his life was. To honour Cory, perhaps we can smile a little more, be a little kinder, a little more sensitive to each other’s needs, understanding now that sometimes people are shouldering pain that we just don’t see. We must not blame ourselves or anyone else for his departure, we must let go of our anger and our bitter frustration at not being able to hold him down, to keep him with us. Cory is free now, he is at peace. I will always remember his beautiful smile and I know we will see him again someday.
(This was the speech I gave at Cory’s funeral on April 14th in Collingwood).Everywhere I go, I’m hearing people grumbling, like an echo of my inner voice. “When is this winter going to end?” The snowbanks have been higher than I’ve seen here in years. Shovelling was particularly challenging because there was just no where to put the snow with the snow along the driveway as tall as I am. Today, we have above zero temperatures and rain is coming so hopefully we will experience spring in the next couple of weeks. It will be such a joy when the weather is more hospitable, the birds are singing and the snow is gone.
Here are a few photographs in a series I call “Nature’s Etchings” of a log with some intricate scratchings on it as a result of travelling down Silver Creek until it got lodged across the creek behind our Collingwood house.
Vision Speak News
A lot of people have been asking me lately about my novel. Until recently, I have to admit that I have been neglecting “Vision Speak” and have not been involved with any activities related to promoting it. Two small announcements in this area:
1) I have decided to pull the podcast of “Vision Speak”. Although there were steady downloads, I’ve not had any evidence that it’s really helping to drive sales or interest and, as I never finished with the podcast, it seemed time to move on. I am so busy in so many different areas, that it’s time to focus.
2) I am working with a small script-writing group and my project is to create a bible for a TV series for “Vision Speak” along with the pilot script. I hope to have this done before summer and then will look into selling it.
I’ve also been very busy with my IT/business pursuits – more on this on my Future Day site.
Alpine’s annual dummy downhill race on Festival Day was on March 15th this year and the theme was ‘Jungle’. Some years, we’ve had warm weather for this event but true to form for this winter, it was cold and snowy which is why a lot of video was shot from a window in the upper floors. Also there is a bit of footage taken by our dummy. He had a camera mounted on his base as he made his way to the bottom. Again this year, due to my brother Randy’s engineering, our Jungle Fury Power Ranger was the fastest down the hill. My nephew, Jasper, is a big fan of the Power Rangers so he and his mother Rebecca designed the dummy.
https://vimeo.com/89330769
An escape to the Central American country of Costa Rica was the perfect cure for a long, cold, white winter in the Toronto area.  We went to an all-inclusive resort on the Pacific side, near Liberia (the Riu).  Iguanas roamed the property and beaches and howler monkeys lived in the forest behind the resort.  Looking for monkeys and trying to photograph them were one of my challenges on this trip. http://robertrobb.com/2015/07/ cialis from india If men have acute prostatitis, due to the inflammation, men can also experience dreaminess, hypomnesis and other psychasthenia symptoms. Anxiety bargain prices tab viagra and pressure of performing often discourages erection. Most of the health the buy cialis professionals recommend for 100mg dosage as a superior one for the people facing erectile dysfunction is Sildenafil citrate. It is for this reason that the developing industries are not expending much on investigation and brand endorsement activities for these pills. cialis india price is a recently expanded category of generic medicines.  Very dark, moving creatures, high up in the trees in the shadows with bright light behind make it very difficult to capture the details.  So, in searching for  monkeys between the back of the resort, the forest near the ‘monkey bar’ and an excursion to the Borinquen retreat for ziplining and mudbaths in the spa, I tried desperately to catch their faces.  Out of about 50 pictures, a few are worthy of posting here.  I also have video of various wildlife and ziplining (which absolutely terrified me!) so a video collage will be posted soon.
https://vimeo.com/85310688