Month: February 2006

Photo by Rannie “Photojunkie” Turingan.

Dad passed away peacefully at St. Joseph’s Health Centre on February 27, 2006. He was the devoted husband of Dr. Maria A. deVilla and the loving father of me and my sister and Eileen and father-in-law to my wife Wendy and Eileen’s husband Richard. He was also the beloved grandfather of Aidan, Nicholas, and Ryan, who knew him as “Dodo” (their mispronounciation of the Tagalog word for grandfather, lolo) and the adored brother to Thelma Leelin, Regina Morabe, Elizabeth de Villa and the late Scarlet Santos.

Born in San Juan, Batangas, Philippines, he studied at Ateneo de Manila and the University of the Philippines. He trained in the U.S. then lived and practiced medicine in Toronto for over 30 years.

Dad was a friendly, outgoing, and generous man. He was devoted to work and family and was a pillar of the community, playing key roles in the Filipino Centre Toronto and the Filipino Canadian Medical Association. He touched the lives of the many patients he cared for as an obstetrician-gynecologist to the many friends and associates who sought his wise counsel, and to his family who love him and will miss him dearly.

The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century will return to its regular blogging schedule on Monday, March 13th.

I never understand the twisted logic of many retail stores’ “no cameras” policies. They don’t make sense within the context of a place that is open to the public, even if it’s not publicly owned.

A couple of years back, I caught heat from IKEA for taking a snapshot of some of their toys, Urban Outfitters has given me heat for seeing what I look like in a hat with a self-portrait and someone at a Home Depot once thought I was dictating prices into a portable tape recorder (I was actually talking to Cory using the then-new walkie-talkie feature of my cellphone).

The last such incident of this sort took place last summer at the Runnymede and Bloor branch of the retail book chain Chapters, where I saw my friend Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series of books on prominent display. I often carry my camera with me and decided to take a photo to send to her.

“Excuse me, sir,” said a young woman in a golf shirt with a Chapters logo, “but you’re not allowed to…hey, don’t I know you? You’re the guy from the party with the accordion!”

After some brief re-introductions, I told her that I knew Diane Duane and have actually met gone out drinking with both her and her husband, Peter Morwood, she decided that it would be all right — “just this once” — to take the photo. The photo’s since been sitting in my “to be blogged” folder for some time, so here it is at long last.

This is yet another preamble for yet another story that Boing Boing caught first. I thought it was still worthy of blogging since Diane is a friend and I thought it would be nice to promote her work.

Cory wrote:

The first two volumes of the Feline Wizards trilogy drew a sizable

audience, but not enough to convince Diane’s publisher to pay her to write book three. Over the years, an anxious audience has demanded a conclusion to the series, so back in December, Diane posted an open question to her blog: would her readers support her if she finished the trilogy without a publisher?

 

The answer’s been a resounding yes — one reader’s even gone so far as to offer a $1,000 matching grant to Diane toward the completion of the book.

For more details, see Diane’s entry about the subject in her blog, Out of Ambit.