Modern Problem -COVID-19

I have one thing to say right now regarding our modern problem with COVID-19.

As a writer of many news stories, I can see the truth and lies more readily than others. That’s what I call experience.

So, if you want experience to tell you what to listen to and believe.

I suggest you must start here: who.int

Let’s stop the panic and false news and start educating ourselves.

Current Updates

Well, this past few months have been so very new things happening that I have had little chance to blog. I will post again soon with more detailed information but for now, this is a quick outline

If you do not already know, I took on a morning show host position at Juice FM in Grand Forks, BC. I’m on air between 6 and 10 every weekday morning and I have a lot of fun there. The Boundary is a great place to live and work. I’m known on air as “Martin in the Morning” and my motto is “Taking You into the Light”. Bunny joins me at the station and she does the morning traffic report.

I also have been involved with the local volunteer fire department. I’m still developing my skills but I can drive the big red fire truck, direct traffic (in an emergency situation) and I can handle a hose with confidence. I can also help with medical emergencies by as a runner. I hope to have my First Responders ticket this year. Then I can help even more.

A book. Published. Yes. After many years of magazine articles, TV documentary scripts, news stories, ad copy, training courses, and so on, I finally wrote and published some fiction. I do have a 4 books of non-fiction on the burner but finally, a book has been published. It’s on Kindle and Amazon under the title of Counter Encounters.

Greenwood Board of Trade took me on as their president. This has also been a busy time for me. The BoT or gBoT was in need of improving its business advocacy in the region. I have made some changes to make it a business and trade development entity as opposed to just promoting city beautification.

Systems Solar is my design company. I have been working on this project for many years. I have entered a deal with the stakeholders of the West Kootenay Power Building (WKPB) in Greenwood (Anaconda). I will be preparing a report fo them to look at monetizing the site. It is a beautiful heritage transformer station. Built in 1905, it is an icon of the Crowsnest Highway 3.

I have updated some of my IMDB page. I corrected my name and I still have to add my Shaw TV show credits and a few other rolls on TV series. Lots to do!

Well that is what’s up these days. I hope that the book generates some income so I can do more writing. Time is money in our world and so the more I can earn the more I Can write. and on that note, I must get back to preparing my weekday radio show, the gBoT AGM next week, and finalize a site visit for the WKPB this week!

Quotes of Leonard Cohen

I read and listened to Leonard Cohen in my pre-teens. Maybe not the perfect romantic role model for a child, however his use of words were exquisite and the feelings as a child, who was likely more intellectually advanced than his station in school, craved creativity. Words are my outlet to the world. They were then, they are now.

Here’s just one quote I’d like to share:

“How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me?“

Email Subscription

I hope all of you that read this have either visited my site or have been alerted via my email subscription service. The service is easy to set up and it really helps me know when people know that I have posted to the site. As we know, social media is becoming more and more difficult to follow and I hope that this site and some other sites I have been developing are being utilized.

So, I have a question and favour to ask. If you received this via the service please let me know. If you are reading this post via other means (i.e. Facebook or Twitter) would you please follow the link below to sign up. It takes less than a minute and I promise that I won’t be sending tons of emails. I typically post a couple times a month. If you feel this is too much after a while, you can always unsubscribe.

I truly need to know who is actually following my site and the content I will be providing. I will be going into full production for podcasting and will also send out snippets of my new books. I do need some form of feedback to know that my work is actually being read or listened to.

So there you have it. Go to this page and find the “news feed subscription” to the right of the blog (or at the bottom of the page on tablets and phones) to sign up. You can also sign up for the podcasts there too.

Thank you so much, Martin

New and Old Connections

Background photo of Martin with his guest Haldun Dormen.

Well as time progresses there are many landmarks that we pass along the way. When I young I thought that I got bored easy. I later found out that I got bored of the status quo. I enjoyed my work however after getting used to the routines, I would start to look at improving the process for efficiency and the reduction of wasted energy.

Of course, when you want to ‘improve’ how things are done you need to have it approved by some one else. I understand that changing a huge operation is difficult but it is not impossible. I always wanted to grow. Growth is important but sadly, some times you just have to let some things go.

TheCrossroads.tv is one of them. I created this website to go with my popular TV program that I hosted in Istanbul, Turkey. It ran weekly for 66 weeks on the now defunct 6NEWS. The show was about people and how they made a difference in the world. From musicians to business leaders, I had a wonderful cross section of life that I do not think could be repeated. From Stewart Copeland to Cornel West (who never got on my show because my camera operator decided to leave the conference without telling me). These stories will be shared in my upcoming books. However, it was fun yet it took a huge chunk out of me: both physically and emotionally. After the second week, the station fired the entire production team. The team that was supposed to assist me in producing my show. So from that day onwards, I pretty much had to do everything myself.

When other globally aired interview programs were being produced with 15 to 20 people, it was pretty much me, the control room crew, one or two camera operators, and an editor. All of which did not speak much, if any, English. Upon my return to Canada, I did have a run with Shaw Access TV and did 13 shows as a volunteer producer, however Shaw decided in 2018 to decimate it commitment to community TV. I can understand, TV and cable has changed.

So now that a decade and 79 episodes later, I have decided to close down the show’s website. It goes with little fanfare and/or pomp. No problem, it secretly lives on with the name of this site. xRds.TV is an amalgamation of the abbreviations of x (cross) Rds (Roads) and of TV with I think you may know that that stands for. So now I will focus on the skills I have acquired with my globally recognized voice work, advertising & marketing consulting, my writing & editing skills, and to pursue my teaching & curriculum development skills.

Martin