View from the Cheap Seats is kind of an extension of the newsroom. Whenever our three regular reporters, Calvin Daniels, Thom Barker and Randy Brenzen are in the building together, it is frequently a site of heated debate. This week:
New telling old stories
It is that time of year when the news cycle starts over again.
And that always starts with New Year’s resolutions, which I don’t make, so I am left to find something to write about regarding resolutions that doesn’t reprise what I wrote last year.
Perhaps I shouldn’t worry so much about that because it seems unlikely few people other than me will remember what I wrote about last year.
It is a bit of a joke around the newsroom that we could save ourselves a lot of work just by re-running the stories we did the year before on the things we report about every year.
Before you know it we will be into Snowarama, then the Gun Show, the Seed Festival, Spring Expo, Outdoor Show, Kalyna Festival and Film Festival.
Throw in the more generic events, such as Valentine’s Day, Family Day, March Break and Easter and that’s a big part of the paper already planned. Also, at some point during that string of events there will be a provincial budget to cover.
Then we’re into the summer (a subject in itself), end of hockey season, graduation, release of the 2014 crime statistics, the Exhibition, the Cardinals and Back-to-School.
Perhaps I should resolve to try to find new and innovative ways to tell the same old stories.
There will be one thing in 2015 that will be truly new and exciting, however, the federal election.
I certainly do not need a New Year’s resolution for casting my ballot for anybody but Stephen Harper; that is a long-standing resolution.
- Thom Barker
Disc dreams in ‘15
By a glance at the calendar it’s that time of year to think about the dreaded New Year’s resolutions we all make, and let’s be honest, only rare carried off over the months ahead.
It is a ritual I sometimes wonder why we still indulge in, but then that’s the thing of tradition, the reasons are lost to time, and we continue to follow them for no reason anyone can remember.
And so here I go following my fellow lemmings over the cliff to the awaiting failure of New Year’s resolutions broken.
To begin, I am pretty sure it was a year ago this time I resolved to throw my first 180 in steel-tipped darts at the Legion Monday nights (a plug for anyone interested to join us). Well that never quite happened in 2014, and since it is a perfectly fine resolution, albeit a bit on the used side, I’ll trot it out for the year ahead.
Next up, I have become a bigger and bigger fan of disc golf, so a couple of things are on my list to achieve in the new year.
First up, I want to make a trek to throw the course at Watrous. It was the first disc golf course in Saskatchewan, and for that reason I want to try it out.
A bit closer to home I, along with a few others are hoping to achieve a couple of things at Patrick Park Disc Golf Course; organizing a regular night for anyone interested to come out as a way to build the disc golf community, and secondly to pull off a night disc golf event.
On a bit broader note on the sport, I know there is some interest from a community or two in the local region contemplating new courses, and I would be up to help those efforts any way I can.
And finally, I’ll stick with sports and resolve to get in a few games of horseshoes in 2015, a sport my dad loved and one that like disc golf gets one out of the house for affordable fun.
- Calvin Daniels
Waiting on weight loss
Once again it’s that time of the year where people make promises to themselves and keep them for, maybe a month, before letting them fall by the wayside only to pick them up again a year later and vow “this year will be different”.
I know I did that last year. I said that I wanted to lose a bunch of weight and learn a new language.
I’m not saying I didn’t try. I did lose a couple of pounds (literally, two… so that’s definitely not ‘a bunch’) and I did take a Spanish class so I did attempt that as well.
I’m nowhere near fluent yet, but the foundation is there.
So for the year 2015 I WILL lose a bunch of weight (let’s say 27 pounds at the very least) and become fluent, or nearly fluent, in Spanish.
But in addition to those two goals, I’ll add one more to my 2015 New Year’s Resolution.
This one plays a part in my losing a bunch of weight goal. But whereas going to the gym is easy (or the idea of it is), change ones diet is not.
However that’s what I plan on doing. In 2015 I will eat much healthier than I have ever done in my entire life.
You know, or at least I’ll try.
-Randy Brenzen
