Into the future

My profound apologies for being away from blogging, for so very long. It has been over a week since my last rant. It has however been a busy week. What started out as a single article for the examiner.com turned into a 5 part series… who knew that Luminato 2010 would have soooo many free events. The festival started this weekend and will continue until next Sunday. If you are in Toronto you should totally check it out. http://tinyurl.com/2f434rd this link will take you to my articles listing all the free events. I took on the examiner.com column because it was another avenue to raise awareness about homelessness and poverty in Canada. But I only have half a dozen readers, and if it is going to keep me away from talking to you guys it really isn’t going to be worth the time.
The past week has been mostly about… looking at Angels of the Road pragmatically. How can we make the most effective use of the information I have gained from this experience. Even at this point I know more about homelessness and the shelter system than anyone else in Canada…. to say other otherwise would be disingenuous (an insincere lie to make me appear modest). Having said that… there is still much for me to learn from Angels of the Road. Another year to year and half of my life, thousands more miles, 7 provinces (in fairness 4 are Maritime Provinces which are quite small) and a couple stops up north should turn up a few surprises yet. But none of us puts two years into getting an education without the intention for using what we have learned to make the world somehow better. So I had a very encouraging meeting last week with Dr Hayden who has volunteered to help me prep my findings for submission to “the powers that be” (policy makers and those who influence them). I think Dr Graham is still on board for that end of the project, and Lord knows, if we are going to make any substantial changes we will require all the help we can get.
Another subject of this week’s pursuits is funding the remainder of the project. One option up for consideration is to begin selling advertising on the website and/or on the blog-site. The big issue for me is control… I would only want products, services or companies which I can personally endorse. I endorse TELUS my carrier and Shaw who went above and beyond to help me retrieve my old emails. Another option is to shut down the project and go back to work until I can save enough money to continue. Let’s face reality, homelessness is not going to magically cure itself in the six months or so I would need. If it did I would happily go back to working with the street people and or maybe take my free-style brand of social work and move into the Correctional system. All good options in their own way.
Now you know where my head has been over the past several days. I hope to be back to blogging at you very soon …til then have a joyous day.
p.s. we are closing in on 5,000 hits woo hoo