July, about to roll out.
Here's a sneak peek at our next cover. I won't actually be shipping them out until next week but they should arrive at homes in the city before Canada Day Weekend. In preparation for this weekend, I thought I'd size and post the image though.
It's been a busy month and a half, more so than the busy months I normally gripe about. The June issue, as readers would know, went 32 pages which gave me a bit more work than usual, especially since most of those extra pages were for one client in particular. As soon as June finished, I commenced work on the schedule of events for the 21st Annual Nova Scotia Multicultural Festival (which is our first official contract job beyond the in-house stuff), and then I rolled right into July.
July was the regular couple dozen pages but with the weather we've had in June, it was still a bit of a chore to finish. Moods still hadn't changed much in Miramichi since the cold and rain were keeping folks in wintery/spring spirits. In fact, it wasn't until we capped the sales and started layout that the weather turned and the sun appeared. By then, I would have preferred the rain since the air conditioner in the office is still somewhat temperamental and layout required some long hours behind the computer.
In anticipation of summer activity however, we seemed to attract more and more contributors this month. We have two new columns, work by another new writer, and submissions from local photographer I discovered outside of the Tim Horton's the other day. He mentally jotted down my ideal picture requests and promptly started clicking away. Pictures from one such outing are included inside this month.
On the positive side, the weather is still warm and people are much more cheerful. Strangely, my sales total for the upcoming August issue surpassed July's final numbers, literally while July was still on the press. I'm really hoping that next month will be a grand slam since it will be the twelfth issue and therefore represent the completion of our first full publishing cycle.
[In other anniversary news, Yeji just passed her one-year mark of her stay in Canada. In addition to all the extra design jobs I had, we've spent the last month completing forms for her visitor's visa and permanent residency visa.]
Magazine redesigns are on the way in the coming issues also. With a full year under our belt, I'm hoping to evolve the magazine slightly to offer better organized coverage for the city, not to mention creating more graphics to dress up parts of the magazine that are still rather basic in layout.
Long-awaited summer blossoms.
Right now however, I am ducking out of work early for the weekend. Wendy's already gone home and I am just tidying up some neglected blogging and photos before running home, picking up Yeji, and dropping in to see my mother this evening, whose birthday it is today. Then, it's home early for a good night's sleep as we are both going out on a nature walk with Yggdrasil Forest Products tomorrow. I should have my camera handy and for the first time this year, it will give me a good opportunity to replenish my photo collection with nature-lovin' and summer-savourin' snapshots.
I really hope I can get out to enjoy this weather, or at the very least get back to some of my old hobbies. I don't like posting too much about work, but that tends to be the major factor in my life these days. Owning and running a small business tends to do that, I guess. I plan a followup on that sentiment later. For now, I'll let this entry find its way onto the blog. I have been delving back into a few old passions and they're surely post-worthy.
I'm also thinking about covering a few more local issues on this blog. I've hesitated partly to avoid rocking the boat with any local readers, and partly to take a break. In doing the cartoons for the newspaper, I had to keep on top of things constantly and after resigning that duty, it's nice to just sit back and accept things as inconsequential and transient.
Back to the basics of blogging. Miramichi in the news, re: The French Fort Cove Eco-centre
... but belabouring inconsequential and transient subjects on the Kyungnam to Kyunggi Journal, my former blog, resulted in many of my bread-and-butter posts. Given the time and energy, I'd like to take a look at small-town New Brunswick through the same eyes that I used to describe dusty and dynamic Korea. The more I live in Miramichi, the more it's starting to feel like Korea actually... did I mention that the local Chamber of Commerce is raising money to fund an eco-centre by selling tickets on a Hummer? Don't worry if that sounds a bit hypocritical. Readers from afar should note that it's not actually an ecocentre anyway. That's only a gimmick to get federal funding. It's really an elaborately-housed curling rink. Just don't tell Fredericton or Ottawa... shhh.
Still, nothing says nature like artificial ice. My real beef with this project is that the government funding only covers construction costs. The curling rink is the city's idea on how to fund the annual operating costs there after.
Firstly, eco centres are designed to showcase nature in an untouched form. Aside from salaries for park wardens and biologists, the ideal eco centre would have next-to-no operating costs at all. Instead, here you have a big building which will need to be powered, heated, and with the addition of the rink, refrigerated, at the same time, I guess. It's an expensive building, made more expensive by an non-related function which is expected to pay for itself via the fees paid by city's curlers-- the dozen-or-so of which must be expected to pay about $1000 bucks a string or something.
Maybe they'll cover the costs with revenue from bar sales. That way you'll get to see both kinds of Miramichi's famous wildlife in a single visit.
Of course, when you're critical of the project, people look at you the same way they do when you say, "I don't play golf." Thank the gods it's only my future and not my money.
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