Columnists

The North Coast of B.C. is one of my favourite places.

As the economic downturn deepens and job losses across the country mount, more Canadians may have to look beyond their town, city or even province to find work.

When a kitchen fire destroyed the lakeside heirloom cottage of Mike and Alice Ogden back in June 2005, they decided to rebuild in a way that blended appropriately with the lakeside setting of their property, while also allowing the new cottage to become a year-round retirement home.

You can practically hear the sproing, sproing, sproing of spring springing to life all around us as all the pretty flowers poke up their pretty heads in bloom and the meadowlarks sing their happy Spring song and Mr. Sun winks at us from his happy place in the beautiful blue sky.

Last fall, we sent our 18-year-old son off to college. He was excited to be living in the dorms, meeting new people and starting new classes. He had dreams and goals. After one month, he had some sort of mental breakdown and was hospitalized for three weeks. He had to drop out of school.

Tomorrow, Christians find themselves perched on the pinnacle of their cyclical Church Year. As author John Irving’s fictional Owen Meany proclaims, “Any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event.”

My sister, Shelly, has two kids — a 10-year-old boy from her previous marriage and a two-year-old girl from her current one.

My wife and I are very strict with our 12-year-old son, “Jonathan.” He has normal adolescent issues, but he really is a great kid — well-mannered, hardworking, gets good grades, etc.

In case you had not noticed, Microsoft unleashed Internet Explorer 8 onto the cyber world this month, which brought with it some good news and bad.

This is a good Samaritan story with a modern twist. What if you help someone who really, really needs it, and what if you don’t know when to stop helping.