My mom passed away the year Rob [Dyer] and [Skate4Cancer] did their first trip, from LA to Toronto. I found out about what they were doing, bought a shirt and mailed a little note about my Mom in with the money. When I got the shirt there was a response note that Rob and the Skate4Cancer crew had written for me, telling me to never give up and that this shirt was a symbol for the change he was trying to bring. Rob’s changed my life and is definitely my biggest inspiration. Thank you so much!

This quotation is a comment that my brother, Nick, left on the Skate4Cancer Short-Documentary Official Trailer #2 on YouTube three days ago.

I had met Rob in passing a handful of times while I was a student at Ryerson; he was a server at the campus pub when he wasn’t out skating the world and repping Skate4Cancer. I knew who he was, but I didn’t want to bug him while he served my friends and I food and pitchers of beer. It also seemed like the wrong time and place to talk about cancer and loved ones dying, even in a positive way, which Skate4Cancer is known for.

But I had always wanted to tell Rob how much he and Skate4Cancer had inspired Nick. Whenever I saw him on campus, it was all I could think about.

So when I found out I would have the opportunity to produce a video blog for work featuring Rob, of course I had to jump on it. And I had to do something for Nick.

Even though I knew Rob is possibly the nicest, most humble person on the planet (not exaggerating at all), I was a bit shy about asking him for this favour. Talking about my mom is still very difficult for me, and it becomes even harder at work where I like to feel very in control of everything.

Luckily, Kate, who pitched the video blog to me, was able to bring it up and getting it rolling. Rob was totally into it and helped us set it up.

Kate wrote on the whiteboard while I took down the equipment from the shoot and moved some furniture around. Rob took my picture.

Rob wrote his own text and I took his picture. He also hugged me countless times and seemed genuinely happy to hear the story and to hear how one little thing like that note could make such a difference in a kid’s life when he’s dealing with the loss of a loved one from cancer.

Nick loved the photos, so a HUGE thank you to Rob and Kate for being open to making this happen! It means so much.

This week I also bought Nick and I tickets to the Skate4Cancer short documentary premiere at the Mod Club on Feb. 19. As I’m writing this post, tickets are still available for sale here.

You can also support Skate4Cancer (and the future Dream Love Cure Centre) by following the organization online on Twitter and Facebook, buying t-shirts at West49 or buying t-shirts and other cool merch online (the prices are super reasonable), volunteering, and, eventually, donating money when they get the whole charity thing sorted out.

Continued…

*I wrote a much longer post and realized I should probably just get to the point at the top instead of the bottom (I guess that’s my journalism training kicking in), so the rest of the original text is below if you want to read it.

When our mom died from cancer in May 2004, he was 12 years old. Not exactly a child but not quite a teenager yet either. I was 18, and her death was the hardest thing I had ever endured. If I’m lucky (and I don’t say that lightly), it will end up being the hardest thing I have to experience in my entire life.

So I can’t imagine how difficult it was for him.

While I can say with confidence that it brought us closer together in some ways – we were the only kids we knew going through this horrible thing at that time – it was also the beginning of a somewhat unnatural sibling relationship where I became responsible to him as a sort of substitute parent. I felt responsible for continuing to raise an amazing kid into a smart, caring, productive member of society – to pick up where my mom left off. I didn’t want to let him down and I sure as hell didn’t want to let her down.

However, less than a year and a half later, I left home to attend Ryerson University in Toronto and, aside from spending two summers at my dad’s house after first and fourth years, never really looked back. I worried about him a lot, about what kind of person he would grow up into with neither me nor our mom around to guide him.

For both of us – for our entire lives, no matter where we lived – home meant Mom. And once she was gone, it felt like something was missing. Her lack of presence has lingered more strongly than the presence of the people in our lives who are still living, even in places she had never been. They’re not kidding when they say dead loved ones will always be with you.

I was worried, and many people in our family were worried, that her death would have such an impact on him that he would never be “normal.” He refused counselling while she was sick in the hospital and after her death (as did I, until I sought it out when I experienced emotional breakdowns for a brief period during university), and no one pushed it on us.

Today, though, he’s in his second semester at Conestoga College studying something that he loves. He’s known as a great guy. He’s kind, he’s intelligent, and he’s going to have a great life. Everyone, including me, is so proud of him and I know our mom would be too.

A lot of his ability to cope and overcome that experience has to do with the solid foundation that was laid by my parents when he was a child, but I also know that he’s found a lot of inspiration elsewhere – in friends, in girlfriends, in music, and in people who make a difference in the lives of others in one way or another.

His biggest inspiration in that respect has always been Rob Dyer, the founder of Skate4Cancer. Rob lost his grandmothers, mother and best friend to cancer within a year of each other, and in early 2004 set out to skateboard from Los Angeles to his hometown, Newmarket, Ont., to raise awareness about cancer – and has done so through various initiatives, including other skates, ever since.

My brother always loved skating and he was inspired by Skate4Cancer from the outset. He probably would have been interested in it as a normal kid who loved skateboarding, even if his mom hadn’t gotten sick and died, but it made it that much more important. Once he received that note from the Skate4Cancer team with his first t-shirt, he held onto that connection and will probably cherish it for the rest of his life.

While that first t-shirt was probably trashed long ago from wear and tear (he would wear those tees until they were full of holes and coming apart at the seams, like any self-respecting teenage boy), he still has that note. He still beams about Rob, whom he’s met at various events over the years. He’s bought countless t-shirts since; I just gave him one as a gift for Christmas and he loved it.

Rob is one of his personal heroes.

Well, I’d like to add a third item to that list: How to protect yourself from bad things!

I was awoken by my BlackBerry’s alarm at 7 a.m. one morning this summer, shortly after which I clumsily dropped my phone into about four inches of ice cold water. I pulled it out and jumped out of bed to turn on the light. My entire apartment was filled with water.

Both of my cats were using my bed as an island. My laptop was on the floor, under water. I grabbed it and opened it onto a towel on my bed; the towel didn’t do much good because water gushed out of the laptop casing, soaking my bed.

That day, there were a lot of frantic phone calls and tears and hyperventilating. It was seven weeks before I was able to live in my apartment again and, although I was able to recover the data from the laptop’s hard drive, my laptop was toast.

I didn’t have insurance.

Sorry, I should specify. I have insurance on my credit card and line of credit, and I have health and life insurance through work. But I don’t have tenant’s insurance. (Do you?)

My gutted powder room

So I had to suck up the losses. I wasn’t charged rent for the seven weeks I wasn’t able to live in my apartment, but I had to spend more money than normal to commute from Mississauga every day. I ate take-out a lot more. And I bought a netbook to replace my laptop.

I was lucky that I had family in Mississauga that I could stay with, and I was lucky that more of my stuff wasn’t damaged. I’d heard of tenant’s insurance, but I had never seriously considered it. What could possibly happen, right?

If you’re renting and you don’t have tenant’s insurance (sometimes called contents insurance), run, don’t walk, to the financial institution of your choice to apply for it. It’s not super expensive. Hopefully you’ll never need it. But I did.

Addicted by nataliej from Flickr

It’s been four months since I moved back to Toronto for work after a four-month stint living at my dad’s after graduating university and breaking up with a boyfriend.

Until four months ago, I’d had Internet access wherever I was living nearly continuously for over 10 years, maybe more. I feel like I’ve had the Internet for my entire life (or at least the half that I actually remember) and it’s been an important tool throughout my life.

If I hadn’t been so involved online over the last 10 years, I highly doubt I would be capable enough to do my current job.

But over the last year, I noticed the Internet becoming an addiction and a crutch.

I love consuming information and I could probably spend every waking hour of my life reading blogs, watching videos, listening to podcasts, checking out photos, etc. I know this is a good thing, but it’s also a dangerous thing if anyone actually does it because then you stop participating in all the other really great things about life.

And as my last year of university came to a close, and simultaneously so did my last relationship, I found comfort in focusing my attention on the computer because it meant I didn’t have to think about all the crappy stuff going on in my life at the time. It was a distraction and it became an instant wall between my ex-boyfriend and I when we lived together.

I didn’t want to talk, fight, clean up after him, open the mail, cook or do anything else that was an extension of our relationship. I wanted to ignore it all, so I did.

When I arrived at my dad’s last April, I didn’t really like anything about my life there either – I had grown distant from my family after four years away from school, my dad’s girlfriend had moved in, there was nothing to do in that town and none of my friends were there anymore – so, once again, I ignored all that in favour of the Internet. I sometimes worked all day and night. I read dozens of blog articles every day. I watched hours of TV online. Sure, I got out now and then, but not enough.

So, I finally realized that I had left one unhealthy situation for another and I needed to get out. Financially, I probably wasn’t ready, but I knew I could get by, so I moved to Toronto Sept. 1.

Four months later, I still don’t have Internet access at my apartment. I’ve found many reasons to justify it – Canadian telecom providers suck, I’m on the Internet at work anyway, I don’t want to be stuck on a computer all night after I’ve been sitting at one all day, etc. – but it’s starting to creep up on me. Sure, I have email and Internet access on my BlackBerry, but it’s not the same.

Sometimes I don’t leave work until 7 or 8 p.m. because there are things I still want to do. I’ve marked as read countless undoubtedly interesting blog articles in my Google Reader because I can’t spend my workdays catching up. I mostly forget about Twitter and Facebook in the evenings and on weekends. Until recently when I finally got a TV again, I’d mostly replaced TV shows and movies with podcasts I download at work and listen to at home.

The truth is, this extreme hasn’t felt right either, so now I’m itching to connect again, but I’m kind of scared at the same time. What if there is only one extreme or the other for me? Only being connected all the time or not being connected?

How do you balance staying involved online with staying involved in the rest of life?

P.S. Any testimonials for an excellent Internet service provider in Toronto that isn’t Bell or Rogers?

I still don’t have the Internet at my apartment, and I’m kind of getting used to it because it gives me the freedom and the time to do other things. But it also means I don’t have any time for blogging. And that sucks.

But I’m not going to beat myself up about it too much. I’m just going to post an article of mine that was published yesterday, and move on.

TalentEgg has been providing content for the careers and education section of the new free Toronto evening newspaper t.o.night, which is available in some newspaper boxes at major hubs (such as Union Station), but which is mostly handed out by old school newsies in the downtown financial district. For those of you who have access to t.o.night, our content appears every Tuesday.

I’ve simply edited some of the articles we’ve published in the past and passed it on to the editors at the newspaper, but this week I had the opportunity to report and write a short news story about the Canada’s Top Campus Employers rankings.

It’s the first thing I’ve had published in print since my stint at the National Post (which, dramatically, was almost shut down last week) and although I publish my own writing online through TalentEgg almost every day, there’s just something special about print.

So, here it is. (Somewhat surprisingly, they don’t publish any of their content online, so I’m going old school with a scan.)

I was inspired to track some of my goals here on my blog after seeing Rebecca Thorman do the same over at Modite earlier tonight (check out her post for the “rules”). I think it’s a great idea to establish and track goals in a such a public forum. I’m not a To-Do List person at all, but I like this concept a lot.

To start this on the right foot, here are some goals I had for August – some of which I accomplished and some I didn’t:

• Negotiate for a raise so I can move back to the city and not have to live in a cardboard box
• Go to the gym 3 times a week (I left my gym shoes in my cousin’s car and I haven’t seen her again yet, so…)
• Get a new cell phone and get on a plan instead of doing “pay as you go” (got a BlackBerry!)
• Start looking for an apartment for October 1st (found a cheap apartment in a good neighbourhood for September 1st, but with half price rent for September – score!)
• Go to Montréal to visit family (this is long overdue, but it had to be postponed because I can’t afford rent and such an expensive trip at the same time)

Life and career goals for September:

• Move into the new apartment, get all nest-y and finish painting over Labour Day weekend
• Go to the beach a few times before winter sets it since I live right on it now – I already took my first early-morning beach walk last weekend when I crashed at the empty apartment to begin cleaning and painting
• Get the Internet at home (!!!)
• Throw a house-warming party
• Hire an intern to help me with all the insanity at work
• Actually trust said intern enough to delegate tasks to him/her