My grandfather is celebrating his 100th birthday today.

Since being born in 1908, he been around for…

• the sinking of the "unsinkable" Titanic
• the first crossword puzzle
• The Great War (which wasn’t so great)
• The Great Depression (which also wasn’t so great)
• World War II
• 16 Canadian Prime Ministers
• 18 US Presidents
• Four kings and a queen (not a bad poker hand)
• the building of the Berlin Wall
• the tearing down of the Berlin Wall
• the first satellite in orbit
• the first dog in space
• the first human in space
• Man landing on the Moon
• the formation of The Beatles
• the break-up of The Beatles
• the invention of the colour photographic process
• the invention of the fortune cookie
• the first trans-Atlantic phone call
• penicillin and bubble gum (in the same year!)
• television
• the Internet
• email
• spam
• the invention of the pocket calculator
• the first man-made object on another planet
• the end of smallpox

More significantly, he’s been an important part of my life since before I can remember. 🙂

Happy birthday, Granddad!!!

It’s always exciting to see someone you know mentioned in the news and especially so when it’s someone you’re related to.  Well, my cousin, Grace O’Connell, was announced as one of three finalists for this year’s Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers for her short fiction entry entitled The Bottlenecks.  The award is given to a writer below the age of 35 who has yet to have a book published.

The winner will be announced on January 15th.  Good luck, Grace! 🙂