Pro D Day!  Hey that means something to me.  My weekend started early this week.  My weekend starts now….

 

Listen…

 

I finished off my speaking week in MacKenzie yesterday.  It was a great way to close out another awesome week.  I had been to MacKenzie during my last northern tour, and it was pretty apparent yesterday when I arrived that they remembered me.  Everyone was so awesome!  I went into their lunch hour and nobody budged.  I want to thank everyone from yesterday for being so awesome!

 

I drove close to 1000kms yesterday and am chilling in Kelowna now for the weekend.  I have some unfinished business to take care of here with my laptop that got ran over.  Also love the Okanagan and felt like I needed a little time away to relax.  The past couple weeks have been among the busiest of my life.  The drive here was LONG!  I actually saw a moose just outside of Mackenzie too.  I tried tracking it and taking pics but it must have been pretty scared because it didn’t waste anytime disappearing into the brush.  Enroute to Kelowna, I stopped in PG to pick up my laundry from my cousin Kyla; a couple stops for gas; and a stop in Cache Creek for another generous serving of veal parmasean!  I’ll be hitting it up again on my way back up north on Sunday.

 

I think this is going to be my shortest and least random blog ever!  I will be sure to come back with something a little more knar and / or deep once the weekend is over.

 

Thanks to Fort Nelson, North and South Peace Secondary Schools, Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, Chetwynd Secondary School and MacKenzie!  Your awesomeness made for another great week on the road.  Now it’s time to chill!

 

~: )

 

Kevin

Timing is everything in life…  Don’t you think?

 

Like tonight…  I just went for dinner at the Red Lion Tavern in Chetwynd, BC.  People ask me a lot do I ever fall in my chair… well…  As I was pulling open the door to the Tavern am I in Springfield or something - Moe’s Tavern with one arm and trying to manoeuvre up a little lip with the other arm, I lost my balance and went down.  I was lying on my back looking like in my green hoody and as helpless as a turtle on its back.  Luckily a big dude was on his way to the washroom just as I fell, and he helped me up.  Good timing!

 

I ordered Ribs for dinner…  So much for dieting on the road.  They were good but not the kind where you just pull the meat of the bone with your fork.  These were the messy kind you have to tear apart with your fingers… Vegetarians must love my blog.  As I was tyrannosaurus-rexing the shit out of one of the ribs - BBQ sauce smeared all over my face I’m sure - my waitress approaches and asks “how is everything so far?”  Bad Timing.  And this leads me to ask the question…  Why do servers always ask how your food is at the very worst possible time?  Like you’re munching down on Caesar salad and it is particularly creamy and uncut, so there is this huge-ass piece of romaine hanging out of your mouth and a load of dressing worthy of a best of RedTube clip-shot running down your chin… and unexpectedly you hear so how is everything tasting?  WTF!  I think next time this happens I am just going to spit my salad right out on the table and exclaim “Everything is AWESOME! Especially your timing!!!

 

Anyways… That is my rant for the night.

 

How was my day you didn’t ask…  Well let me tell ya…

 

So it started off pretty good.  I woke up to this Misfits song crooning from my Blackberry alarm.  Danzig Rules! 

 

My shower this morning was a nightmare.  Ok maybe the rant continues…  For some reason most hotels figure that a tiny little bench with no back, no stability, no handles or padding for comfort will suffice for a seat in a wet shower for someone who cannot utilize the majority of muscles in their body!  WTF?!  So I am all over the place this morning trying not to spill over in this thing.  My legs are spasming as they usually do in the morning.  The frickin bench is sliding all over the floor.  And just as I was rinsing my hair I feel it giving way and next thing I know I am on the shower floor.  RAD!  I’m sure many of you have heard I can get from the ground into my chair, but let me tell you it is not easy, let alone when I am half asleep and soaking f’n wet.  I figured this was deserving of a free room… But nope.

 

Speaking of rooms…  I am currently staying in the Pomeroy Suites in Chetwynd, BC.  The room is nice… whatever.  I could settle for smaller.  On with the rant…  For some reason a lot of hotels these days designate these quasi-extravagant rooms for wheelchairs.  I don’t get it.  I need a bed and a shower.  I don’t need as much square footage as I have in my condo at home.  I definitely don’t need a full kitchen for one night or two TVs.  I bet you feel sorry for me hey!?  HAHA…  But even less do I need to pay $150/night to stay in downtown Chetwynd.  Dude. This is wrong!  I can stay at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver in the heart of the city and that is a baller hotel - let me tell you for cheaper than this place.  It just doesn’t make sense to me.  GFYS Pomeroy!  GFYS Cheap Shower Benches!

 

Aren’t I pleasant!  HAHA…  Well yeah…  So I am a little testy these days.  BTW:  If you watch my latest YouTube addition you just might figure out what all of this GFYS stuff is about…  This is bad…  But I think pretty funny…  I curse a little or the way this video was edited by Mikey… A lot!

 

My presentation this morning in Tumbler Ridge was really cool.  I had spoken there a couple of years back and remembered it going well.  Today was even better than the last time in my opinion.  I say this because I am much happier with the presentation I deliver today than I did years ago.  I think it is more solid.  This morning I was flowing well.  My caffiene was doing it’s job.  Everything went off perfectly today, and I was rewarded by half of a standing ovation which I appreciated very much by the way.  I could have stayed at the school much longer chatting with students and eating delicious coconut cookies a substitute teacher had made, but I had a tight schedule today.  Nice chatting with everyone after the talk today and thanks to everyone in the crowd for being so awesome!

 

It’s about an hour drive to Chetwynd from Tumbler Ridge.  The weather was particularly nasty today.  It rained hard and even was snowing in higher elevations.  Crazy to me that winter is still kind of in effect where I am.  A month and a half ago I was laying poolside in Tuscon tanning in 30C weather!  Waddup Salpointe, Nogales, Payson…  My freinds - I miss ya!!  Sorry about the Coyotes last night!

 

I arrived at Chetwynd Secondary School a little later than I would’ve normally liked.  Yet everything got set up in time.  The crew there had it going on.  The audience was super chill and attentive.  I had a few dudes blatantly wearing iPODS and normally I don’t call anyone out.  But today different.  Today I said anything about it.  I thought it was pretty funny actually…  I just rolled up close to the dudes and asked in front of the entire school what they were listening to.  Since there is no My Story on Tape, they really couldn’t have answered that one right… well unless they said MANOWAR.  Then I would have said CARRY ON!  The one dude seemed pissed I called him out.  The other dude seemed chill.  I gave some other dude shit too.  Afterwards we chatted and I found out the dirty look I thought he shot my way wasn’t intended for me…  I think I need to chill hey?! I hope the prez was rad for all of those who heard it.  I really enjoy coming to your school and I only wanted all of you to get something valuable from our time together.  If I didn’t care I wouldn’t have said anything about iPODS or anything…  I hope no hard feelings.  CARRY ON!

 

Well that is about it.  I kind of wrote this email backwards chronologically-speaking because I started with the latest and went back.  Then just to F it all up I went back to chronological… My blog.  My rules! 

 

One last bit on the timing…  I have been getting a lot of emails and Facebook messages.  My Blackberry does not stop.  I put it down and pick it up ten minutes later and there are 20 notifications!  I started writing back all of the Facebook messages I have gotten in the past two weeks tonight.  Hours later and I still have a page and half to go.  And there were pages and pages!  I got some pretty intense messages to say the least.  It seems that my timing visiting and speaking at some of your schools has been right on.  Who knows…  I very well could be at your school because you need a wake-up call for whatever the reason.  I will say this…  It is important to recognize the opportunities, signs and glimpses of fate when they present themselves to us.  I take it so seriously to be that guy to help young people out in any way.  And I am very proud to read the countless messages you all write me and respond to them as well.  I am really inspired by this tour I am in the middle of right now.

 

I am going to end on a very serious note… 

I recently heard a story in my travels that may or may not be rumour about rapings going on in a community.  I felt the source who shared the story with me had no reason to embelish, and thus believe what I heard was true.  I was sickened by what I heard and disappointed in any man or groups of men as the story implied who would act in such a way.  To further my revulsion, I also received a message recently from a girl who had been raped.  I won’t say where or give any details because I would never want to breach this persons’ trust or privacy.  What I will say is that the story I read disgusted me.  I doubt any dude who would ever pull such a selfish, cowardly, dastardly act would ever read my blog, yet I feel a need to speak to this issue.  Getting a girl pass out drunk, roofies… any of this shit and taking advantage of her is not cool!  Man I have two sisters and if anyone ever pulled that shit on one of them I’m pretty sure I would be in jail.  Enough said.  Guys, we need to respect women.  Hey I love women and like being single and having fun and all of that.  But guys we have a responsibility to respect the girls around us.  If you know of anyone who is abusing a girl or girls in any way, you need to put a stop to it.  Notify your school, the police, whoever.  Any form of abuse to women is wrong.  To take something sacred from someone in order to satisfy or gratify oneself is an evil selfish act.  People, we need to look out for each other and protect our sisters.  Abuse of any kind to any woman is completely unacceptable.  And my final thought is this…  I believe in karma and I hope those who have committed such selfish, cowardly acts will on day find themselves in a similar situation in a prison shower.  Only then will they truly know the pain that they have caused.  I usually recently anyways try not to be vengeful but this really struck a chord with me. 

 

Treat girls the way you would want your mother or your sisters to be treated!

 

And girls if you are facing any kind of abuse at all or have been abused in the past.  Please seek out help.  Talk to someone and get yourself removed from the situation because nobody deserves such pain, degregation or humiliation.

 

Love and Respect Women and Treat Them Right.

 

Carry On!!

 

Kevin

I woke up in FSJ today and like yesterday felt less pep in my step… ah… er pep in my roll?  FML! You know what I mean? 

 

I am feeling pretty tired.  I put in 15 to 18 hour days almost every day these days between travel speaking, emails, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs etc…  Am I bitching?  NOPE!  I don’t intend to be anyways… Just stating the facts.  And you know what? I wouldn’t change it for anything.  I wouldn’t rather be anywhere than here doing exactly what I am doing right now.  It just can take a lot out of me…

 

Speaking of YouTube… So METAL DAVE uploaded him and I killing not to be confused with killing it – though he sounds pretty rad a little Bon Jovi.  Check this out Wanted Dead or Alive.

 

Obviously I enjoy 80s BUTT ROCK!  And to further prove this fact I’ll tell ya that instead of caffeine this morning, I got myself going by listening to Guns N Roses.  It worked pretty damn well too!  Though, I am pretty sure my neighbour in room 113 of the Super 8 in FSJ would’ve rather I stuck with coffee.   Nah, it wasn’t that loud… Then again, I heard her sneezing or something this morning so either those walls were pretty thin or my neighbour lady’s schnoz packs a badass punch!

 

Guns N Roses got me stoked… So stoked that I wore my Appetite For Destruction t-shirt today!  I even got the nice lady at the hotel to take a pic.

 

North Peace Secondary was a couple song drive from my hotel.  I pulled into the parking lot to be confronted by a teacher about parking in a wheelchair spot.  Mission accomplished!  I looked like a punk today!  I explained that the wheelchair I was about to put together validated my being parked in a wheelchair spot.  Then the teacher asked me where my sticker was.  I informed her that my “tard card” I never called it that though was on the side of my door.  “I don’t drive with it hanging up,” I explained…  I mean come on, it doesn’t exactly scream I’m awesome! I really feel no need to advertise that I am crippled - with the exceptions of getting good parking, purchasing concert and hockey tickets, getting rad seats at said events and dodging lines…

 

My talk at North Peace was pretty rad.  The odds were kind of against me!  One of my favourite bands… BTW.  The natural light in the gym made it basically impossible to see any of my videos and the mic echoed off the walls like a fart in wet shorts on a warm leather seat…  Yet the students were rad!  I want to thank everyone from today.  I am pretty sure I spoke to many of you years ago when you were in middle school.  I was really glad to come back and speak in FSJ today.  I enjoyed our time together and hope that you did too!  Oh yeah…  Watch my vid you missed here.

 

From North Peace I peaced to South Peace in Dawson Creek.  Despite the name I did not row a boat there and hang out with kids named Casey, Dawson or Joey… Shit… It has been so long I just went by memory.  Were those the names of the Dawson Creek TV Show people?  Well the people I met in Dawson Creek today were unlike those from the TV Show.  For starters they didn’t suck.  They were quite the opposite.  They were rad!  I learned before my talk that some pretty serious things had gone down in the school this year, so I knew that I would be dealing with sensitive matter for the ears that were hearing.  I intended for my time at South Peace to be a healing and inspirational for those who heard it, and I think I hit the mark.  I have heard quite a few times that the silence and attention I got today is not necessarily a given.  So I just want to thank everyone from DC today!  You were great and I loved speaking in your theatre! 

 

NOTE: I took a really cool shot of my video with the chairs silhouettes.  It looks like I am airing on my snowboard over my buddies.  I’d love to say it was planned, but I just took a shot and after realized how rad it looked afterwards!  Gotta love it when that happens.  Check the shot here.

 

I left DC and made my way to Tumbler Ridge.  I listened to Jason Ellis on Faction and wondered WTF he had a gearbox from the Backstreet Boys on his show for??  I guess random is cool these days.  The interview was actually pretty entertaining… though I am pretty sure that Ellis could interview a worm and it would be entertaining NOTE: worms BTW I learned today are more scary than anything to certain young men from a certain province that rhymes with Oofoundland…  Actually Backstreet Boys are kind of wormy aren’t they?!  I am kind of scared of them…  It’s like five Michael Jacksons!  Or A Nightmare on Backstreet…  I’d take Freddy Krueger any day over these puffs!

 

It frickin snowed as I drove to Tumbler!  Actually, it was pissing and puking rain and snow.  I noticed a lot of burned trees as well.  I recall a forest fire I heard about last summer in the area.  Apparently it was a pretty intense one.  The damage is quite shocking.  It must have been one Hell of a fire because entire mini-forests of trees stand blackened and stripped of everything but their gangly naked trunks.  I couldn’t help but think too bad when the fire was here they didn’t have this weather…  But such is life right!

 

I settled in my hotel after munching Subway for dinner and have been doing all sorts of stuff online ever since.  I’ve been staring at a computer screen so long my eyeballs feel like they may dry up and go join some peanuts, M&M’s, banana chips and any other assorted nuts that wanna get down with in a big happy trail mix party…  My eyes feel like raisins is where I was going with that.

 

Well it feels as though the road delirium has started to kick in.  Lucky YOU!  Oh the joyous blogs that I write when I am feeling this tired.  I hope I have entertained those who read these words!  I entertain myself writing them.  I truly do!

 

Well that is it…  I think I will end it here and do some editing which may turn an already random blog into a Madman’s canvas of knar’!!!

 

Thanks to North and South Peace Secondary’s.  Today was a rad speaking day for sure!!!

 

~: )

 

Kev Jovi

 

PS.  Thanks CTV for Crap-Chopping more than a half an hour of interview into “I’m glad I didn’t go to jail” and something else that was MEH at best.  This is why I am not a huge fan of going on TV…  Though I have to say it was cool that Mi-Jung Lee emailed me to inform me it was on.

 

 

PPPS: Speaking of The Misfits… my phone rang in my FSJ presentation this morning and I mic’d it as Last Caress (such an inappropriately demented song to amplify during a presentation) screamed from my wheelchair-fanny pack Joey Pouch!  It was funny cuz I’d just asked some dude to shut off his phone then mine goes off…  I put the ass in class…  My public speaking teacher from college would have been so proud!

I am pretty tired…  I need some tunes…  Cobra Skulls… Check em Out!

 

So today was a pretty good day and a long one!  I woke up at 6:00am and definitely could have slept more.  I showered, put on an Against Me! shirt and grabbed a coffee from the breaky room here at the Super 8 in FSJ.

 

I had an 8:30am flight to Fort Nelson I needed to catch and to be totally honest I was not stoked on flying today.  I was thinking I would’ve rather just drove, but too late for that.  My ticket was purchased so to the airport I drove.  The plane was a pretty tiny one click here, so I was physically lifted onto it.  It’s not the first time I have had this, so I wasn’t totally horrified by the ghettoness of it all.

 

It was a beauty sunny day – a great day to fly.  I read the entire four pages of the CRAP magazine on the plane (can’t remember the name but considering most flights are longer than 10minutes you’re think the reading material would have a larger range than a four page magazine and a barf bag.  I mean how many times can you read open and let your chunks fly into the bag?).  Once my reading was done, I entertained myself by playing a card game called Klondike on my iPOD.  Much like the Blackjack table on Saturday, I wasn’t showing off much skill today.

 

I was met in the airport in Fort Nelson by my buddy Dean.  I met Dean the last time I spoke in Fort Nelson.  He is with the RCMP there and a great guy.  The last time I was there he drove me the entire five hours from Fort Nelson to FSJ after I spoke, so we got to know each other pretty well.  Thanks for transporting my ass around today Dean and for the security and lifts as well.

 

My talk at Fort Nelson ran pretty solid as far as I could tell.  I speak so much that I can actually think about other things while I am rocking the mic these days.  All I was really thinking was “wow I am talking really smoothly today.”  I was being as concise as I can be – not very much – and was happy considering I was feeling pretty tired today.  And right now as well hence my fantastically positive attitude ie: CRAP magazine – it wasn’t that bad.  Just too short!

 

After the talk I chatted with many students.  I signed a few postcards, a couple of hats and the back of a students’ shirt.  I really didn’t write “kick me” buddy.  So if people we kicking you in the back all day it was purely coincidence.  I wrote “Wedgie me!”  Nah…  I wrote JUST WIGGLE YOUR TOES AND REMEMBER OUR STORY…  My catch phrase!

 

Dean and I had lunch after the presentation at the same place where we had hung out before my talk.  I don’t recall the name but it was a pretty sweet little joint.  The sun was shining today, so both times we sat outside.  It felt great to feel the sunshine on my face.  Summer is a coming!!!

 

My flight home was a pretty bumpy one.  The plane was super tiny too!  The plane even dropped a couple of times in the air.  I could feel my guts in my throat.  Somehow I was quite enjoying the ride though.  I used to be terrified of flying.  Such a ride a year or two ago would have surely left me trembling in fear terrified of death and quietly praying that my life be spared.  Yet today… Maybe it was the plane… I don’t know maybe because I could see the pilots in the cockpit and that they had shit under control… I felt comfortable.  So I just enjoyed the turbulence.  I enjoyed it so much I put my iPOD and the fourteenth consecutive ass whoopin’ Klondike had delivered me down and smiled like a special child on a merry-go-round.

 

Tonight has been pretty quiet.  I had dinner and watched a couple of NHL games.  It looks like the Nucks will be playing Chicago in the second round.  I hope we kick their asses!  We owe em one…  I am calling it again.  Canucks are going to win the CUP!  It is coming to Vancouver baby!!

 

Well people, I am going to have a little phone call with mon bel ami! and then call it an early night.  I need some rest.  Can you tell?!  I feel like my enthusiasm levels are low.  Nothing personal…  I think this knarly schedule has just caught up to me a bit.  I’ll be rested and rockin balls again tomorrow possibly in a GnR Appetite For Destruction t-shirt!

 

I’ll leave ya with this gem!  Rocket Queen live circa 88!

 

Night!

 

~: )

 

Kevin

Highway Donkey I’ve been calling myself…  It’s actually a rad Millencolin song..  Click here and check it while you read.  This beauty came on about midway through my drive today.  It stoked me so much that it became my road trip song…

 

…  So last week ended on such a high note.  Last week was amazing!!!

 

I finished the tour with talks in Terrace and Kitimat and both were just freakin awesome!

 

In Terrace I spoke in the lecture room.  It is pretty small and makes for an intimate setting.  This was a rad talk.  It was so chill.  I could feel this energy in the room.  Like we were all connecting.  I totally ran out of time but nobody seemed to care.  The bell went and I just kept going.  I was trying to wrap up and was going to skip my video but a teacher gave me the green light, so on I went.  Then when I actually was done, still nobody budged so we did a Q&A / Chillin Chat Sesh for the remainder of the next class.  In all I was speaking for over two hours I bet.  I was told this was a first for Terrace having the students not want to leave when the bell went…  It went multiple times too.  Thanks to everyone in the room.  We shared a pretty amazing couple of hours together I won’t soon forget!  I hope you don’t either ~: )

 

From Terrace I had to tear ass to Kitimat.  I didn’t have time to grab lunch since I went into like quadruple overtime in my morning talk.  So I munched granola bars and apples as I drove the hour drive to Kitimat.  I was stoked to speak in Kitimat because the last time I did a couple years back was so sick.  They have a nice theatre and just really cool people in that school.  I had high expectations and well… they were met and exceeded on Friday.  As soon as I entered the school I heard my name and cheers coming from a classroom…  In the theatre, I played my skate video while students were entering but it ended before everyone was in and settled.  So I just bantered on the mic with everyone and it was super fun.  It was like a little pre-game comedy show.  I had good vibes right from the get-go.  So cool!  The presentation was rad!  Like I couldn’t have asked for a better audience.  People laughed, cried, listened and learned for sure.  We shared a really special hour + together!  Man it was the perfect way to end the week!  Thanks Kitimat!  And special thanks to Amanda Bouvier, Karis de Medeiros, Clint Webber, Elizabeth Galary, Maryann David, Sara Weeres, Nathan Closter, Ufaira Ali, and of course…  Arbind Gill….. Oh yeah and my boy Evan Jones…  Supp brah!  Total name dropper… HAHA

 

Oh yeah… and the rad teacher / counsellor from Kitimat…  I so suck with names but I can picture her and I wish I could remember your name.  No disrespect.  You are awesome!  She dropped a yearbook from 2007 in my laptop bag.  It turns out that Kitimat did a story on my last visit to their school in their yearbook.  So cool!  So I took a pic and posted it on Facebook.  From this, I learned that other schools have also put me in their yearbook like  Indian Head in Saskatchewan and Payson, Arizona…  Both awesome schools like Kitimat!  It got me thinking how many yearbooks am I in!  let me know if I am in yours!!!

 

Friday night I chilled with METAL DAVE and his family and watched the Canucks game.  And what a sick game it was.  We kicked LA’s asses!  I ate pizza and drank near-beers.  It was a pretty chill night.  Once the game was over METAL DAVE gonna shorten that one to MD now took me to his jam room and we rocked out for hours.  We played a ton of different songs.  MD shredded the axe while I shredded MD and his awesome family’s ears with my singing.  But I think I did alright on a couple songs.  My GnR “Don’t Cry” was pretty rad!  I actually left a voicemail for this cutie back home of our rendition of the GnR classic and she said it was pretty good.  If Tracy can figure it out, my singing may just show up on YouTube for all of you to watch.  I had a rad night!  Thanks MD and family! 

 

Saturday I made my way from Smithers to Prince George.  It was another long drive full of reflecting and loud punk rock music.  I took some pictures along the way as you may have noticed if you follow me on Facebook.  I was thinking a lot about the fresh memorial outside of Vanderhoof as I approached the site.  When I drove by there was a vehicle pulled up close by.  I saw what looked like a father and his teenage daughter walking away from the site.  I could see the pain in their faces and their body language.  I couldn’t get the teenagers expression out of my head.  It was just so sad.  It brought me to tears to think about how many lives were turned upside down by this crash.  I don’t even know the details and won’t speculate on the cause at all.  All I am saying is it is so sad that some bright young people with everything ahead of them passed away.  All of these scenes and crosses on the roads really make me sad.  I know there are so many that we have kind of become desensitized.  But next time you are on the road just look at all of those crosses and know that those are great people who lived and loved and were loved that have passed away.  It is scary.  Too many people die in car crashes.  The more I think about it the more I realize that I need to be doing what I am doing.  I need to master my craft to be as effective as possible.  I need to keep the way I make young people feel the day of the talk at their school alive in them forever…  I hope this website and blog and all of the other links through here help do that.  I LOVE people!  More than ever.  And the more I love and respect people the more I feel this urgent need to save everyone.  I don’t want anymore young people to die like this.  I don’t want anymore friends and families to be torn to shreds from losing their loved ones too soon.  I am so deeply saddened by the realization that so many people have suffered this pain.  It really is time to take notice people and drive smart.  Life is already too short.  It doesn’t need to be cut shorter in a car crash.  I am a man with a mission!

 

Last night was a good night.  My cousin Kyla came and visited me at my hotel.  We had dinner and then hit the casino…  I learned that my Blackjack skills are not as great as I may have thought.  I should have just bailed because I wasn’t feeling it last night.  I was down like $70 on the $5 table, so I left.  As I passed the $10 table I thought “what the heck, maybe I can win my money back.” Well, I did.  I went from $20 to $120 real damn fast.  Then I got cocky and lost it all.  I should have just walked away like the girl told me but well I can’t frickin walk!  Still no excuse.  I should have rolled my ass out of there when I was at $120.  I have a bone to pick with the Blackjack tables in PG when I get back there next week! 

 

Kyla and I hit downtown PG and met up with a couple friends of hers after the casino ass whoopin.  It ended up being a pretty late night for me.  I got a cab home late and had the driver stop at Burger King for a Whopper!  That was tasty…  Not so much when I woke up this morning though.  I’d say my highlight of the night was this though… Apparently the wheelchair vans in PG don’t have a ramp at the back.  So random dudes just lifted me and put me in the Van.  So when we got to the hotel, I had to launch out the sliding door down to the ground.  Nice!

 

I slept well and met Kyla for lunch again today.  You’d think I had something against cows because I had a fat ass burger for lunch to compliment the Whopper churning in my belly still from the night before.  I said goodbyes to Kyla and left her with a bag of my laundry.  Isn’t family the best?! My cuz is going to wash my skinnies, my clothes from last night that smell like Whopper and all of my underpants.  Thank GOD!  I was thinking I would just turn my underpants inside out and re-wear until Kyla came around.  Oh yeah and Kyla…  Remember… hang dry my jeans.  Cold wash my darks and I love you cuz! 

 

After goodbyes I drove from PG to Fort Saint John (FSJ).  It was around a five hour drive.  I thought to myself more than once how I wish I had a passenger to share the burger burps with but no such luck.  It was just me, myself and my iPOD punking out on the long drive north.  I arrived in FSJ just in time to watch the Canucks game.  DUDE!  Another sick game.  I ate another big hunk of cow for dinner tonight too.  I killed a prime rib dinner.  Maybe it was driving through Hudson’s Hope… land of Damn Dinosaurs that brought out the carnivore in me…  I don’t know!  But it’s poultry for the rest of the week so I can slim down again for my visit this weekend with Mon ami le Plus beau que je ne peux pas attendre pour voir.  Thank God for the English / French translator on the internet!

 

 

Well that is about it.  I am up tomorrow at 6am.  I fly to Fort Nelson and speak there.  I have to say that so far this northern tour has not only exceeded my expectations but has blown them to frickin awesome little bits.  Every single talk last week was a home run.  Anyone reading this that was at any of my talks in Vanderhoof, Houston, Smithers, Hazleton, Prince Rupert, Terrace or Kitimat thank you.  THANK YOU!  This was such an awesome week.  The schools from this coming week have their work cut out for them if they are going to compete with the awesome audiences I saw last week!  I have faith in Fort Nelson…  We’ll see how she goes tomorrow.

 

Good night!

 

~: )

 

Kevin

 

PS.  Did you check that Bad Religion song I linked to Man With a Mission?…  Lyrics… Passing Through Your Town Today!

These are long days and I feel like they are catching up to me.  I have covered a lot of ground in four days… or is it five?  I feel like the week is a blur looking back.  I think I was calling today Wednesday when in fact it is Thursday!

 

Yesterday was a great day… it seems like a week ago though with how much has happened and how much ground I have covered.  Maybe that is where I lost the day.  I woke up in Smithers, in my comfy bed to this Flatliners song. Yep this is how I get pumped in the morning!  Then I listened to this as I got ready… which made me feel like this !!!

 

I spoke first thing in the morning Wednesday actual Wednesday not just I thought it was Wednesday at Bulkley Valley Christian School.  I had been there a couple of years back and remembered a few familiar faces and likewise them me.  The presentation was very intimate and personal as the room provided creates this atmosphere.  I was happy with the talk and hope that although I ran out of time and couldn’t show my video that you all watched it or at least watch it HERE right now!  I had some of my new friends Kenny and Kelly in the front row.  All three of us have had some pretty knarly times in life so I could feel them feeling me as I was feeling them.  Sounds wrong but not like that GFYS! Afterwards we got into my truck and went into town for a tea.  Oh that made it sound way better now didn’t it!? GFMS On the way we stopped for gas and Kelly and Kenny tried to figure out how to pump my gas…  Ok I am reading this and just have to say WTF?!  It must have looked pretty funny as I was in the driver seat and two dudes were working to figure out how to get my VISA to work on the pump…  I have to end this here…  Say something cool…  Say something cool…  My Chai Tea was awesome!  FML!  Thank you Christine and Kelly’s sister I suck so bad with remembering names and you can give me shit for not remembering…

 

I drove to Hazelton from Smithers on a serious mission.  I had mentioned it in my last blog that the suicide rate in Hazleton is very high, so I wanted very much to share my story with them all.  The audience was really cool.  They were full on laughing at my jokes and basically hanging on every word.  I was so into that presentation it felt like I couldn’t have said a word but every bit of my story still would’ve just shot out of me in electric currents.  Man I felt that presentation and I feel that everyone in that room did as well.  I hope that it made a difference.  I don’t want to seem like I am just labelling Hazleton though because the suicide issue keeps coming up everywhere I speak.  I get countless emails about suicide.   I hope anyone considering this tragic action as a solution to a problem will believe me when I say that 1)  Suicide is not a solution.  It just makes the problem everyone elses who cares for you and magnifies it by a million because the pain caused by suicide cuts way beyond just the person cutting themselves…  And none of these cuts ever properly heal.  2) You are more loved than you could ever know.  BONUS TRACK:  Life is an amazing gift.  Just trust me my friend.  The clouds always lift and the sun always shines again…  A KB original just for you!

 

I made the trek from Hazelton to Prince Rupert last night.  I picked up METAL DAVE in Terrace and then there were two.  We got gas and DAVE grabbed nuts, as he likes to do, before we hit the road to Rupert… isn’t that a Family Guy episode haha?  The road to Rupert is stunning.  It has to be one of the most amazing scenic drives I have been on.  Once in Prince Rupert, on BC’s rugged northern coast, METAL DAVE and I watched the game at the Crest Hotel Pub.  We watched the nail biter of a match up while eating fresh seafood and overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  The Canucks won, the food was great and laughs were had.  It was a great night and I slept well.

 

I woke up to Flatliners again this morning and in a great mood again.  I got a big sleep of about 6 ½ hours last night.  My talks today were at the Lester Performing Arts Centre.  I wore black skinnies and an Iron Maiden shirt because I was feeling like I was hitting the big time in such a sick venue.  Oh and was it ever sick!  I felt like I was doing something wrong during the sound check because it was so loud.  But James the theatre tech was super chill.  I blasted Sabbath, Flatliners and Manowar before the formal video started with some Strung Out!  It was so RAD to watch my old skating on an actual movie theatre screen.  The screen in the theatre is the old movie screen from the theatre in town. 

 

Both presentations today were totally rad.  After talking with some students afterwards it sounds like mine was a timely message and a story that the students could relate to on many levels.  I am really glad that I got to speak to both high schools in town. Next time I come back I am going to do some crazy METAL poster to get more hype because I want to fill that theatre next time…  Dude!

 

The drive back to Terrace was chill… well besides the fact that I blasted Steel Panther for METAL DAVE.  The scenery heading away from the coast and north is breathtaking.  There are massive snow capped mountains on either side of the highway.  The highway snakes along a huge river that runs into the ocean.  I made the comment that this is where someone who has never been to BC before would need to go.  It is unbelievable.  We even saw a black bear on the side of the road.  He was a healthy looking dude just foraging for grub.

 

Now I am chilling in my room in Terrace.  I really need to get to sleep.  I am SO TIRED!  It feels like it takes me about 10 times longer to do things that I am trying to do.  However I am writing this blog in good time…

 

I am off to bed!

 

Thanks to everyone from the past couple of days.  Your messages have inspired the heck out of me. Some have even brought tears to my eyes.  I am working to write everyone back as I go…

 

Well that’s it for tonight!

 

Well that and it was ainsi le grand fait de parler à mon bel ami ce soir!!!!!

 

~: )

 

Kevin

It’s a small, small world… and the more I travel and the more people that I meet the more I recognize this.  Those quasi-evil looking dolls in Disneyland just may have some truth to their song…

 

I spoke in Houston and Smithers Secondary Schools today.  Both presentations were awesome.  So far this trip has been RAD!  I would not change a thing at all. 

 

I started the day driving to Houston, then driving around Houston trying to find the school.  My directions from METAL DAVE (who specifically told me his goal was to NOT make my blog – wrong thing to say to me) were “turn right at 7-11, drive to the top of the hill and it’s (the school) on one of those streets.”"  Well as much as I’d like to blame Dave, my problem was that I figured I knew where the school was and neglected to even follow his instructions.  I suddenly realzing I was lost found myself asking school kids for directions to the high school, which in hindsight could have looked bad.  A dude in a black truck pulled over talking to grade school kids.  At least I wasn’t offering candy…  They told me the same thing as Dave had in his directions…  “Go to the top of the hill.”  I eventually found the school.

 

I would say that my talk at Houston was as good as they get.  I am really feeling these presentations these days.  There is an energy and an aura that I feel surrounds me right now.  I still can’t quite explain it, but it is there and it is enabling me to connect with people possibly like never before.  Thanks to everyone from Houston today.  Staff and students you were great and so prepared and accommodating.  I can’t wait to return.  I will be writing everyone back hopefully tomorrow, so please be patient and thanks for all of the messages.

 

My talk in Smithers was super sweet too.  I felt like I had my work cut out for me a bit more than in the morning since I had maybe 50minutes to do my talk with not really any flexibility.  But I got it done.  I found a way!  I am pretty sure that once I stopped talking faster than the old school Micro-Machine commercial guy the people in the audience understood me too.  And they felt me.  BTW:  I said hi to your cousins Jade.  I also said hi from Hazelton, which was supposed to be from Houston but I corrected it from Hazelton to Houston… GFMS!   Thanks to everyone from Smithers.  I really enjoyed my time at your school, and the time after as well.  I hit the skate park after school and hung out for a while with some new friends I had just made as well as an old friend…

 

STORY TIME:  I am sure it will come as no surprise that I was a full on badass in high school.  In grade 9 and 10 I was in the alternate program at school because I couldn’t keep my shit together in regular classes.  I had a teacher named Mrs. Polgar, who was nice but firm for sure.  I don’t remember much of these days, as I was on a lot of drugs.  These days were pretty dark.  I do remember Mrs. Polgar though.  And she is the VP at Smithers Secondary School now.  She now goes by Mrs. Willing.  NOTE: It is interesting to me when I am on the road and seemingly randomly (though I am feeling that things are maybe less random than I once had thought) that I meet someone who knew me from before the crash.  There is a special connection that is there.  Among all of those who have only heard the stories from before, Mrs. Willing watched me walk into her class with a skateboard, a mohawk a bag full of week ( i doubt she knew I had in my pocket) and a pretty badass confused attitude and outlook on life.  Yet she never judged. 

We talked a lot today.  Her and I both agreed it’s not so much that I was, or any other student giving their teachers, parents or communities a run for their money, bad people.  Moreover I and or we just make bad choices.  There aren’t really bad kids.  Just unfortunately sometimes good kids make bad choices and those choices sometimes lead to bad cirumstances, situations or consequences.

 

I learned a surprise today from Mrs. Willing…. another connection we share…  That the last party I left on the night of my crash was her brother’s house.  This is where I drove to with the 15 pack.  This is where I stumbled out of after.  I find out now too, I was apparently wrestled down for my keys only to have a spare pair.  FACT:  What a dick I was.  Tonight I visited with Mrs. Willing and her brother, husband and sister and her sleepy son.  It was great to get to know this family and share stories.  I know that mine has impacted their lives from being “that guy who left the party and crashed” and now that guy who spoke to their daughter and tomorrow their brother and son.  I have to say that I feel more and more like we are all connected these days.  I mean what are the odds that I run into this family 1200+kms from home and end up visiting with them at their dinner table conversing about the crash and it’s aftermath and life and so much more?  Life really does have a way of coming around full circle.

 

Another example of this I wrote of in not my last blog, but the one before that.  I wrote about a police officer who wrote me.  I actually just cut and pasted the response I sent him after an email he sent me.  if you haven’t read this please scroll down to the blog “Do Things Happen for a Reason…” Well today I heard back from Corporal Brennan giving me permission to post his email he originally wrote…  Thank You!  This email gave me Goosebumps while I read it.  It is another example of how we live in a small world and how life has a way of coming around full circle…

 

Please Read…

 

April 15, 2010

 

Kevin,

 

You’ve never met me and I’ve never had the pleasure of hearing you speak but I wanted to write and tell you how, more than a decade ago, you changed my life.

 

As a new constable with the RCMP, my first posting was Surrey Detachment.  It was 1996 and I was assigned to B Watch.  B Watch was a group of exceptional individuals led by a very exceptional individual and supported by an extremely talented cast.  One of those cast members was your mother, Ingrid.

 

Over the next three years while I worked on the watch, your mother watched over me as part of a dispatch team.  More than once, she had to pull my bacon out of the fire and far more than once we shared a laugh over the air.  We attended the same functions, shared the same friends, and eventually became friends within our RCMP “Family”. 

 

Eventually, in 1999, I was transferred to the Municipal Traffic Unit in Surrey.  I loved the work; patrolling the 176 Corridor looking for smugglers, searching out stolen vehicles in Whalley, and cruising for impaired drivers.  Eventually, I became interested in collision investigation and became part of a team assigned to investigate serious crashes in our jurisdiction.  We had a lot to do.  I helped investigate all types of crashes.  Crashes involving children, crashes involving the elderly, the impaired, even crashes involving men and women who I worked with that had occurred while they were doing the business we were all there to do.  It was professional work.  It was technical work.  I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I enjoyed it thoroughly.

 

Then, one fine morning, I got called to a crash near the border of Langley and Surrey.  I left me house in Cloverdale and was one of the first Collision Investigators at the scene.  It was pretty clear the collision was serious. 

 

There was some discussion about just which detachment had jurisdiction over the event.  It ended up being us.  In a short time, the team was on the ground and we began the work of gathering evidence from the twisted metal, dirt, and destruction we found. 

 

I was named file manager, a role I had held many times in the past, and I began to document the scene.  I learned your name.  I learned Brandon’s name.  I took photos of your Cavalier that were vastly different from the one on your website.  I measured the road and mapped the location of the evidence we found on it.  I did all of this with the professionalism and detachment that I had been taught.  Then it all changed.  It changed when I learned that you were Ingrid’s son.

 

Kevin, your terrible crash was the first one that I investigated that impacted me on a personal level.  A lot of things changed for me during that investigation.  I like to think that they all contributed to make me a better person but that’s not guaranteed.  Bringing charges to bear in that case was not difficult but watching the impact those charges had on the people I cared about was.

 

I left Surrey in 2000 and, since then, my career has seen me serve on Vancouver Island, in Newfoundland and Labrador, and now here in Nova Scotia.  Eventually, I became a traffic collision analyst myself and continued to work to explain why crashes occurred.  I learned the names of those involved.  I took photos of the vehicles.  I measured the roads and mapped the location of countless pieces of evidence.  But I never again regained the level of detachment I had to the events that I had before your crash.  

 

Almost every crash I’ve been to I have compared to yours.  When people said how bad a certain scene was, or how hard a meeting with family members was, I always told them, “I’ve been to worse.”  Explaining to those left behind the situation surrounding the loss of a loved one took on a whole new level of importance for me.  Some people want to know a lot, some only a little, and some want to know nothing at all but all are grateful for the closure they are provided.   

 

They say everything happens for a reason. Yesterday, I was reminded of my time in the Lower Mainland and I thought of a former supervisor and friend, Paul Mulvihill.  On a whim, I dropped Paul a note and, strangely, he said he had been thinking of me on the very same day because he had heard your presentation at a school in Burnaby during an event.  He worked your scene with me and, like me, has never forgotten it.

 

Kevin, I never got the chance to speak to your mother before I left.  I don’t know what I would have said anyway.  Obviously, I never got a chance to speak with you either.  My entire knowledge of you up until today was that you were the driver of a vehicle involved in a crash that killed a young man and changed many other lives - forever.

 

My job is not to judge, it is to gather facts and present them in a manner that recounts the events leading up to one particular moment in time.  Usually, my involvement with the lives affected ends there - but not in your case.

 

As a gatherer of facts, from the available evidence, it seems to me that you have become a fine man; a role model.  Someone young people can relate to and learn from.

 

Congratulations. 

 

My words alone cannot express the commendation I feel you deserve.  I am glad that you have chosen this route from the several that were available to you following that tragic day at 192 and Highway 10.

 

In closing, Kevin, I must add that while I don’t know what your relationship with Ingrid is now or has been since that day, I do know that she was everything to you during that time that any mother could be to her son: Loving, caring, concerned, and protective. 

 

She and I were part of the family of the RCMP.  While we became estranged by your crash, I hope it brought you two together.  She spoke of you often and always with pride and hope that you would find your way.

 

Good luck with your career and your life, Mr. Brooks.  Thank you for the work you do.

 

Doug Brannen

Corporal

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

“H” Division Headquarters

Halifax, Nova Scotia.

 

Life is full of interesting twists isn’t it?  I believe it is important to recognize these occurrences when they happen because they are reminders that there is more to life than just living it.  We need to be aware, conscious and open to more than just what we know, what we believe and what we have been told.  I am living 110% yet I also feel like I watching myself live at the same time.  I am observing life like I have never have before.  It’s better than any TV show I have watched.  Take time to observe people.

 

Tomorrow is going to be an intense day.  I just want to post that before I go to bed.  Hazelton, where I am speaking tomorrow afternoon has a very staggering suicide rate.  I watched a news special on it months back.  All I could think was I need to go to that town and tell our story.  Well tomorrow I will speak there.  I know it is going to be so emotional.  Tomorrow I intend to save lives.  This is my mission.  Plain and simple.

 

On that note, I should get some sleep.  I need my rest.

 

\m/ \m/

 

Kevin

 

 

 

 

 

… I don’t want to get behind on these blogs, so in feel the need to write one now.  Yes, I am sacrificing sleep for blogging.  Am I officially an internet dork now or what?

 

What I am going to try to do is write a brief blog… is it possible?  Well let’s find out.

 

So yesterday I left home WAY later than I had planned for my Northern BC Tour.  For starters I was supposed to leave Saturday haha…  But it worked out good that I left yesterday.  The weather was great; the roads were clear; and the Veal Parmesan I had for dinner in Cache Creek was as awesome as I remembered it!  NOTE:  This little hole in the wall diner attached to the Sandman there on the highway has the BEST Veal Parmesan.  If you are ever passing through and you like eating baby cows with cheese I recommend it!  You know…  I just thought how demented we are as people.  We take a baby cow then we cover it with cheese (cheese from the very milk that would be nurturing that little heifer should we not be eating it for dinner.)  People are barbarians…  Well us meat eaters anyways…

 

I got to Prince George and settled into my room at the Treasure Cove Hotel & CASINO!!!  NOTE:  They don’t actually spell it with caps and exclamations.  I am just really pumped there is a Casino at the hotel I am staying at.  I will be staying there on and off over the next three weeks.  Watch for me at the Blackjack table  FYI:  I intend to win at Blackjack enough over the next year and a half to fund a trip to Europe next summer dedicated entirely to attending heavy metal shows and festivals.  The ultimate goal is to follow MANOWAR around and just be a Euro-Skid for a week.  One of my best buds, Rick Neaks, is onboard for the trip already.  It has to happen.  Those shall be epic blogs!

 

SO MUCH FOR A SHORT BLOG…  I don’t want to find a way to write short blogs…

 

I slept minimal last night… maybe 6.5 hours.  I woke up to sunshine and unseasonably warm temperatures for northern BC.  It was a beautiful day.  My drive was great.  I listened to tunes and smiled and felt happy to be on the road again.  AVIS (who pretty well suck in my books along with WEST JET and Checkmate Cabs in Kelowna who ran over my laptop and still have not replaced it but offered me $400 for a $1300 receipt today) QUICK Q: Do I suck for keeping on using AVIS despite the fact that they are largely incompetent? Regardless, AVIS once again shat the bed.  This time around, my rental car I was supposed to bring up here was not available, so I have my truck.  To be honest, when I found out they had screwed up and not got my car, I saw it as a sign that my truck was the destined vehicle for this trip.  I am happy now that I have it, even if I just put over 1200kms on it in less than 24hrs.  Still, AVIS get your shit together and GFYS!

 

OK… I’m back from my rant.

 

 

I drove by a very noticeable memorial on the roadside this morning on my way to Vanderhoof to speak at Nechako Valley Secondary School.  I think I notice these memorials fairly often.  They always make me feel sad to know that someone or more than one someone has lost a life and that so many others have been hurt by the tragedy.  Today’s memorial really struck me as the marks from the crash were still very fresh and visible.  I later found out from the principal at NVSS that the crash had just happened last week.  I just looked it up online and feel sad again to learn two young girls aged 17 and 19 passed away in the crash.  This is why I do what I do.  My condolences to anyone who reads this blog that knew those girls. 

 

My presentation at NVSS had added purpose after seeing that crash site.  Knowing that people have just died is a reminder to me that these car crashes are still happening and the pain and suffering is sadly still all too real.  I had maybe 45 minutes to give my hour and ten minute presentation, so my work was cut out for me.  I knew that I had done it a week earlier in Oregon, so I would make it happen again today.  The audience were great!  Thanks everyone.  You definitely set the bar high for the rest of the tour.  I ended just in time for the lunch bell to go off.  But I hadn’t shown my video yet.  So I made it optional, and was quite impressed that all but maybe 8 people stayed into their lunch hour to watch my video. 

 

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE…  People, take my talk as the warning that I never had but that you do.  be smart out there and drive safe.  BTW:  I am LOVING the messages I am getting from students saying that they have pulled out a little JWYT (Just Wiggle Your Toes) in order to get themselves out of a sketchy situation or to help keep their friends safe. SO RAD!!  Read two of these stories via emails just tonight.

 

I was approached by most of those students that had stuck around watch my video today at NVSS.  I shook many-a-hand.  I love it when students line up to shake my hand.  It stokes me!  One student asked me if I wanted to hang out and play hockey at lunch with a bunch of the guys.  I kind of hesitated at first – not used to being able to hang out at a school most times with my busy schedule.  But with a free afternoon, I had no excuse not to play.  That and I wanted to.  I haven’t played road hockey / ball hockey since before my crash.  I figured I would be able to.  I just haven’t really.  Today I was goalie.  I called myself Kevy Luongo.  For the first two periods of our lunch time game I played more like Kevy Miller… or Kevy Brodeur.  But in the end I let in a quick four goals and earned back my Luongo moniker.  My team had some great guys on it.  Brian played some sick D!  Thanks to everyone from today.  You really made my first day on tour a great one.  And yet another thing I have done in a chair!  Check the pic or Brian and Kevy Lou.  Thanks for taking it Amy!!

 

I continued on from Vanderhoof to Smithers.  It was a little over a three hour drive.   Just out of Vanderhoof, I drove by Fraser Lake.  Fraser Lake is very special to me.  Every summer growing up my family would go to this lake for vacation.  My grandparents have a cabin on it. Some of my favourite childhood memories are at Fraser Lake.  When my dad told Allison and I as young kids that we were going to Disneyland… the happiest place on earth… the sickest present a parent can give (well the second sickest gift - read on).  My only response was “Do we still get to go to Fraser Lake?” My grandpa K always loved to tell that story.  It is magical almost to look back.  Fraser Lake is where I learned to fish, probably to swim, and where my love of nature began.  I thought of my grandpa K who passed away five or so years ago as I drove by my favourite childhood playground.  Tears came to my eyes.  I looked up and gave him a fist pump…  I am not sure why the first pump but that’s what I gave him.  I am not even a religious person, but I believe he knows that I am good and that he is looking down on me.  And he is in a greater place, wherever it is.  This is one way I deal with the loss of those I love.  I smiled to think how proud my grandpa would be of what I am doing.  The words “You vill be valking in five years” also rang in my head, as he used to always say in his thick Estonian accent.  Although I am not walking or standing Gramps, I do feel that I am standing taller than ever in the sense that I am in such a great place with life right now.  Would you have ever imagined this is what I would be doing?  My grampa was RAD! 

 

You know…  All of this time on the road gives me so much time to think.  I think a lot.  I believe solo road trips or just time alone anywhere doing anything that allows us as people to reflect on whatever comes to our minds is so healthy.  I sort out a lot of thoughts and feelings during my drives.  I feel I grow from these times alone.  One thing that kept coming to mind over the past 24 hours is that life really is such a gift.  It is such an amazing, precious gift!  I don’t know how many of us actually realize it.  I don’t think enough.  I can’t even say I always am aware or have been aware of what a gift life is.  But something lately… well you…  You reading this.  You whose schools I speak at and who write me, shake my hand, get tattooed, etc… You have made me realize even more so what a special gift life is.  David Gray and family…  You made me realize the gift.  Salpointe…  WOW!  The list goes on and on and on…  You reading this right now.  You have helped me with this realization and I really hope that I return the favour.  Life is the most special gift. 

 

I’m gonna go with this…

 

And although it is a gift, (the greatest gift) life is not assembled when we get it.  It is not that kind of gift.  We have to put our lives together.  Our lives are made up of people, places, experiences (good and bad), lessons and love.  Life is filled with joy, pain, sunshine and rain (hahah I just totally quoted cheesy 80s music) …  But seriously.  Life is so full of treats.  Sunsets.  Smiles.  Love.  Laughter…  MUSIC.  Whatever we are passionate about.  This blog could go on forever because the bottom line is all of it is a gift.  Each little piece makes up life.  Life is kind of like Lego.  You build as you go.  Like Lego, you probably have this big ass basket just full of seemingly random pieces.  some days you put some pieces together.  Some days we put a lot of them together.  It is almsot impossible to put all of the pieces together.  Then the journey would be over.  Life just needs to keep getting built and rebuilt.  You can take it apart and make variations of your creation.  No matter what you do you can always remove pieces or add some or adjust your creation to your liking.  DUDE LIFE IS LEGO! 

 

I will end with these words.  I believe that Life is the most special gift we get as people.  I don’t always win at Blackjack.  But I am willing to bet everything I have on this statement.  I believe in the gift.  I believe.  The greatest appreciation I have found so far in life and the biggest eye opener that has shown me the gift is to find something so rewarding and fulfilling to spend my time doing.  The more I give.  The more I grow.  It’s like a lego trade off.  I give you a piece of me.  In turn I get thousand of pieces of all of you.  It feels great to grow…  Here is another piece I will give…  Words of wisdom if you will…  Find your passion.  Follow your dreams.  Embrace your loves.  And recognize the gift.

 

Sleepy Time Now.

 

~: )

 

Kevin

Do things happen for a reason?  Or is life all about the choices we make in the wake of our previous actions?  or the actions we take in the wake of our previous choices??

I am not 100% sure either way.  If you have heard me speak, read my blog, read my bio or if you are spying on me for some reason (wtf again with the random when I am tired) you will know that I believe “Life is not so much about what happened.  It is more about what happens next.” 

Is it all mapped out?  I don’t think so.  But sometimes the ironies and coincidences in life are just too unexplainably eerie (in the best of ways of course) to think anything other than that someone or something greater than our human comprehension is creating these connections.

People, I am freakin tired.  But I am not complaining.  I am so happy and content right now.  I am so motivated and inspired.  I am living life 110% and I cannot say the last time I have felt this great!

 

I have a lot to do right now.  I need to book hotels for all this week.  I need to pack for three weeks on the road FMFL!!  I have a ton of students to write back and I really wanted to post this blog.  These blogs I write with editing and random-assedness take anywhere from 3 – 6 hours or more to complete.  Quite honestly right now… I do not have this time.

 

But I think I have something pretty freakin awesome that I am going to fill this page with that will make you think and will make you feel.

 

Yesterday I received an email from a police officer.  He had heard about me from a former colleague of his who had seen me speak earlier in the week.  I would share his email but out of privacy I can’t just post what he wrote me.  The just of it is he was on the scene of my crash almost ten years ago.  He was a crash analyst.  Now this is can be a difficult job.  Especially when as he put it the scene was as serious as mine and Brendon’s.  To explain the seriousness of our crash scene he wrote that he now bases all of the crashes he sees, still to this day, on the scene he saw years ago.  What traumatized this man the most though was the fact that he found out the driver of the totalled Cavalier he investigated on 192^nd Street and No. 10 Hwy in Surrey, BC on June 25^th, 2000 who had just killed his passenger and changed the lives of so many people around him was the son of his work colleague and friend, Ingrid Kozevnikov…  My mom.  She goes by her maiden name… her IRON MAIDEN NAME WWoooowwwwHH!!

 

I just spent a couple of hours writing, rewriting and editing what I wrote this police officer.  As I read it a couple of times I thought this could just be a blog posting.  It tells how I am feeling right now.  It covers the past two days that I have yet to write about in these pages and it definitely will impact some if not all who read it in some way…

 

Here it is…

 

I sit here in a wheelchair as I write these words.  My forehead and nose are a bit sunburned from a long discussion I had outside in the sunshine today with a cop, an ICBC Loss Prevention Coordinator and my uncle George (my mom’s brother) who all attended my presentation today at Panorama Ridge Secondary School in Surrey.

 

I am tired.  Yet I am happy…  extremely happy.  The path that the terrible crash that changed my life and so many others, including yours as I have just learned, has brought more good than I could have ever imagined could come from any event… let alone one so devastating and apparently negative as this one was when it all began.  I didn’t always feel like I do now.

 

Today, I get hundreds of emails.  I could honestly spend all of my time just keeping up with all of the people who write me to say that I have changed their lives.  I love hearing from students and teachers.  It never gets old.  I so appreciate that I have been able to give something positive to someone - to anyone.

 

I have never forgotten the crash or all of those that it affected.  I have found forgiveness through my passenger and friend Brendon’s parents and also from my own circle of family and friends and myself.  Yet of course there still are hard days. 

 

I started speaking about the crash almost eight years ago.  It was not easy but it was something I wanted to do.  It was pretty obvious right away that I was unlike anyone students at a school had ever seen or heard speak before - at least not in an assembly setting.  It wasn’t easy.  No way.  But right from the start I was 110% aware that the benefits outweighed any pain or suffering that sharing my story / our story caused me.

 

I have learned so much about life through this experience that sometimes my head feels like it could explode.  Seriously right now I am so completely in awe of the events that happen to me every day…  Days like today, yesterday, the day before and it basically goes back weeks… months… years…   The events of the last month in particular have left me speechless, amazed, and incredibly inspired and motivated countless times… This is my busy time of year.  I can do upwards of 10 presentations a week for weeks on end leading up to grad.

 

It’s crazy times because I don’t even really have the time to process the last event or events of a day before another one, two, three or how many other new events have blown my mind again.

 

Your email was definitely a mind blowing experience.  I got butterflies as I read it.  I didn’t know where it was going.  I am still processing what it all means.  But I am sure I am glad that you wrote it and that I read it.

 

I want to just share these few other life occurrences with you (for lack of a better term) that have happened since yesterday.

 

In the past week and a half I have seen a lot of people from the community in attendance at my presentations.  Now it isn’t rare to have RCMP, ICBC or community partners present at the odd presentation.  But recently I have seen people from the general public attending my talks.

 

Two families with sons who have been through recent crashes similar to mine with the fatality of a best friend in one and a girlfriend in the other have attended my talks.  I have been thinking how can I help these people.  What can I do?

 

I met a friend of my mom’s who you may know named Barb Rogers (I think she used to do dispatch too) at a school in South Surrey last November.  Barb is now counselling in schools, or at least she was then as she was filling in for a lady on mat’ leave I believe.  We bonded over the experience of me speaking to the youth at her school she was working at. 

 

Barb emailed me yesterday saying she wanted to start something or do something to help all of the youth out there who do not feel that they have support or someone to talk to.  I don’t believe it was a coincidence that I was thinking the same thoughts and that our paths were brought together again…  Much similar to yours and your former partners two days ago.

 

I read your email as I was getting my truck washed yesterday… 

 

FYI.  I regained my drivers license after a three year suspension following the crash.  Completely fair in my books.  I plead guilty to the Dangerous Driving charge and the Impaired was dropped.  I sat in front of the judge who told me that upon the wishes of Brendon’s family he was going to allow some leniency towards me.  That and the fact that he saw a life sentence in a wheelchair and the knowledge of the pain, suffering and loss caused by my poor choice on my conscience worse than any court imposed sentence he could ever throw my way.  I believe I am doing more good outside of a jail cell than I would be in one.  I have taken accountability for my actions from day one.  I made bad choices and faced terrible consequences because of them.  Many others did too.  I never once thought that there should not be charges against me.  I want you to know that I have no hard feelings towards you for doing your job and as far as I know neither does my mom.  I forwarded your email to her because I wanted her to read it.  We haven’t discussed it properly yet because I can barely keep up with all of what’s happening…  I leave tomorrow for a three week tour.  Tonight I have to pack, book my hotels, write a blog, respond to probably 35 students and I am supposed to hang out with a gal too…  HAHA…  Good luck right!!

 

I drove to Agassiz and spoke there yesterday afternoon.  Your email was still fresh in my head.  I shared its impact and your name with my ICBC friend in attendance Mike Weightman.  He also used to work in Surrey as a police officer at the same time as you and my mom did…  My mom still does work for Surrey doing dispatch and 911.  Mike was one of the first ICBC people to support and encourage me as a speaker.  Ironically (but I think it goes way beyond irony) he knows my mom well and Pete (my mom’s boyfriend on and off again for the past 10+ years - Pete and Mike went to the academy in Regina together).  He wanted me to mention to you this other connection.

 

Sorry if I am all over the place here…  My mind is so full right now… Again it feels as though it could burst.  I could write all night and just might.

 

So yesterday ends up being this phenomenal day again.  A day where I know that I have made a difference in the lives of young people.  Maybe I have even saved one or two or even more.  The student emails just keep coming in and all I can do is try to keep up in my responses.  Your email has not left my thoughts.  My brain and heart and soul feel like they are absorbing so much positivity and inspiration that they are blasting their way out of my pores.  My presentations I give benefit from the way I feel.

 

Today I spoke in Surrey, as I had mentioned earlier, and just blew everyone away again.  I am not trying to sound cocky at all and I apologize if I do.  I am just too tired to try and dance around the simplest way of explaining today’s experience.

 

There was a cop, as I mentioned above, in attendance today and she and I spoke for hours outside after my presentation.  Her name is Alice Fox and she is a character!!!.  HAHA… If she said any more kind things to me my head may have exploded.  She has recently started or become part of a team completely dedicated to combating impaired driving.  She started telling me of this grandiose idea that came to her as she heard me speak today…  I had to cut her off before the end to tell her that WOW!!!!  I had had the exact same idea.  Once again opportunity comes knocking and I have learned to always answer.  The idea we share is to have me speak to impaired driving offenders as a mandatory part of their sentence.  I have thought of this and talked of it before because I have learned that my story changes lives.  Whereas I believe in the legal system, I also believe that there are some repeat offenders who are not fazed or taught anything by the legal repercussions of their actions.  I believe this because they go out and do the same thing again and again and again.  Call me crazy but I believe that I can get these people where it counts.  I believe that I can get them in their hearts and hopefully help them change their ways and ultimately save a lot of carnage and pain for who knows how many people.  I may sound like a dreamer.  I may even sound over confident.  Again I want to say that being tired definitely may be contributing to a misrepresentation of the modest person I actually am.  But I do believe I can make a difference and I plan to.

 

Now I had to write all of these things out because I just don’t think that these things in life just happen.  There is more to it.  I don’t totally understand.  Maybe one day I will.  Maybe I won’t.  Maybe I will but it won’t even be in my own lifetime but beyond it…  really I don’t know.  What I can say is that I am very aware that something beyond my total comprehension and understanding is going on right now.  It is something so very positive. It is something that inspires me so much I don’t even know how to describe it or where even to begin…

 

Your email is yet another moment that has shown me that this life is full of surprises.  It also has shown me how connected we as people all are.  I think it might take these extremely hectic times of my life to simmer down a bit before I can fully understand or even just begin to understand what this all means.  I am kind of speechless.

 

I just wanted to write you to let you know that I am very glad you wrote me.  I hoped so much when I read your email that my crash had made you a better person.  I read that part a couple of times hoping maybe I had read wrong and that you could guarantee that it had. 

 

What I do know and want to share is that I know it made me a better person.  I will guarantee that 5000%.  I now dedicate my life to making the lives of others out there better in some way.  I just want to inspire.  I want to inspire good choices.  I want to inspire appreciation of life, love, family, friends, little things, big things…  I want to save lives.  I want to change lives.  I want to bring good from that bad choice.  I know I can’t change death.  My only regret is having a passenger that night.  I have come to terms with my choice and most days I smile.  Some I don’t but that is a small price to pay… Considering all that happened.  I believe that life is less about what happened and more about what happens next.  This is what happens next for me.

 

More than anything I just want to thank you for doing what you do.  Thanks for dedicating your life to making the world a better place.  I am sorry for any hardships or pain I caused you through your job and relationship with my mom and anyone else affected by the car crash.  I hope that in writing you right now that you can move forward from any doubts or any wonders or pain that the aftermath of my crash may have ever caused you.  I know as well as you do that you were doing your job.

 

As for me and my family…  We have never been closer.  My mom and I are very close.  We have actually spoken together on Vancouver Island with the Saanich Police Dept’s Conversations Program in previous years.  She is doing great!  So am I.

 

I want to close by saying I hope that this email gives you some closure.  I hope that now you can look back and say that my crash made you a better person.  I truly hope in some way it or these words have.

 

Lastly… I am So my mothers son because I always have at least one or two more things to say…

 

You are the third emergency personnel person that I have met in the aftermath of my crash.  I met a cop in the gym years back, and he was very affected by the crash.  I met a paramedic last year after her son came home from school talking about me.  She had been on the scene of my crash and had performed some extreme heroics that most definitely saved my life.  She also was very noticeably affected by what she saw that night.  And now I meet you. 

 

I wasn’t always on the right side of the law.  I don’t know how much you knew of my life before the crash but I definitely made some very poor choices.  Live and learn I guess.  It makes me smile to see how life can change so drastically though.  Whereas ten years ago I may have been in the back of a police cruiser, I now spend a lot of time working together with RCMP and police.  I also work with paramedics, firefighters, nurses, doctors etc…  What I have learned and I really think is important for the world to know is that behind the uniform you are all real people.  You have feelings, emotions and these events and sites you all see sometimes can, will and do affect you on a deep and personal level.

 

Thanks so much for writing me.  Please keep in touch.

 

I travel all over North America, so hopefully one day our paths can cross in Nova Scotia.  I have been to PEI and New Brunswick speaking, so it is only a matter of time.

 

Have a great weekend and all the best!

 

Sincerely,

 

Kevin Brooks

 

People…  I think that sums up where I am right now.  There is a lot of ground covered in that email I wrote the police officer. 

 

I think it describes how incredible these times are right now and the amount of positivity that has come from a tragic event.  I also believe it shows the consequences and pain that these events cause.  Some of the pain and struggle we may never even know.  I am still hearing from people ten years later that I affected with my poor choice years ago.  I am trying to right those wrongs.  I want to heal any pain I have caused.  I wish I could heal it all.  I know I can’t change what happened, so I just want to bring good, more good and even more good.  I feel that there is a lot of momentum going my way right now.  I can feel the thousands of you behind me pushing me and us forward to wherever this all goes next.  I am so excited to see where all of this takes me and you.  I feel like we are all joined through the experiences we have shared.  Something big is happening…  I feel it.

 

Thanks for reading.  I feel this was a good one.  How about you?

WRITTEN APRIL 15th MOSTLY ABOUT APRIL 14th

 

Yesterday was another awesome day!  Man… Life is treating me so good these days…

 

I rolled by rolled in truck not chair Alpha Secondary School in North Burnaby yesterday around 11:15am.  NOTE: 11:15am when I was told to arrive.  In front of the school I saw a ton of flashing lights: cops, fire trucks, ambulances, emergency personnel everywhere, police tape of the do not cross variety.  I couldn’t get to the school, so I drove around the block.  As I approached the parking lot and surrounding apparent madness, I could see a girl in a pink shirt with a shocked and worried look on her face running in a panic towards her school.  Had I of not known that this entire scene was a mock crash, my facial expression might have mirrored hers well minus the make-up.  No emo for this dude! – Though I did just go on a skinny jean shopping spree last week.  But I did know better.  I knew that ICBC, the RCMP and a ton of other community partners coupled with a leadership team and the admin’ at Alpha had arranged a big event to help drive home the dangers of drinking and dangerous driving practices….  And I was there to be the keynote speaker.

 

FYI:  On my way to the school I was in major need of some gas.  So I hit up the Chevron near the school that advertises“FULL SERVE.” Unfortunately for some reason most FULL SERVE gas stations these days have seemed to forget to put the SERVICE in SERVE.  Please tell me WhyTF a Full Serve gas station would not have those little sensors you drive over to let them know someone is waiting at the pump?  I mean they only have like 6 lanes to spot me out waiting for gas, and of course I am parked on the outer one.  And do you think the dip-shit working the counter ever sees me?  F*CK this pisses me off!  So I drive up to the front of the gas station and lay on the horn.  Dip shit doesn’t know what is going on.  SO I wave my tard card (wheelchair card) at him.  I figure he will recognize I need assistance.  Though this also could pose for the brain capacity that he has.  He should have a big ol’blue and white wheelchair tattoo on his forehead because his brain is obviously not working properly!  I don’t want to use the “R” word here but you know what I am thinking.  Anyways, there is this car parked behind me with a couple of nice looking girls and they have obviously recognized my honks.  One approaches me and offers to help out.  SO a random stranger pumps my gas and not anyone from Full Serve.  Yet, I still pay the extra price.  WTF!  I want to thank these nice girls.  I gave them my postcard so who knows maybe you are reading this right now.  THANKS!  FULL SERVE CHEVRON on Lougheed GFYS!

 

That is my rant!  GFYS FULL SERVE.  Get your shit together!!

 

So I roll into Alpha wheelchair rollage now and it is a scene!  There are a ton of students in the gymnasium – the entire school.  There are a lot of RCMP, paramedics and a ton of community partners too.  CBC news is there and approaches me.  It dawns on me that I may have underestimated the magnitude of this event.  Really I shouldn’t have because the last time I spoke at Alpha they did it up right like this then too.  Well that, and the fact that Gordo from ICBC can make stuff like this happen.  Alan Waterman from CBC awesome guy mic’d me up and I got ready to rock.  NOTE:  I have been feeling kind of like a rockstar lately.  Maybe it’s the new gloves… or just the hype… or the Just Wiggle Your Toes tattoo!  I am not sure, but I feel that this speaking thing has taken on a whole new level, and I am loving it!

 

The students at Alpha were stoked!  They were cheering for my skate video as it played during the beginning of my talk.  I heard YEAH’s and WWoooowwwwHH!!’s when I landed tricks in the video.  I was feeling their energy.  So when I took the mic I think I delivered some good stuff.  It was a bit challenging with so many people in the room, and so many on the floor.  I tried to move around so everyone could see me.  I hope that everyone did.  I felt that by the time I got to the suicide part of my talk I was killing it.  The audience was so great yesterday.  When I wrapped up the oral part feel a little awkward writing that word I got a standing ovation.  STOKED!!  Then after my video, I got another standing ovation.  Two in one day!  DOUBLE STOKED!! and with the news there too!!!  After my talk I was surrounded by students.  I signed autographs for at least a half an hour.  It was such an amazing experience yesterday!  WOW!!!  Just thank you to everyone in attendance, everyone I met, everyone who came and thanked me or wrote me I will write you back and everyone who put the event on.  Girls you did a great job organizing it!

 

I left Alpha and hit Coastal Riders.  I was smiling big.  WHAT A GREAT DAY!!!  To make it an even more special day, yesterday was Hayley’s birthday.  I had yet to get her or Allison for that matter whose birthday is on Monday gifts.  I bought some awesome gear for both sisters at Coastal and of course a couple of items for me too.  I got a rad CREATURE t-shirt and a sick pair of shorts! 

 

I picked my grandma up afterwards and we made our way to my place, then to my mom’s for dinner.  It was great to see my family and awesome to see my littlest sister celebrate another year.  She is such an awesome person.  I am so proud of her.  I sat beside her as she blew out the candles.  I wondered if she made her wish again.  I hope so…

 

I chilled when I got home last night and just layed on the couch and watched the ending of Harold and Kumar Escape… then went to sleep.  I slept good last night!  I needed it too!

 

This morning I woke up to the usual… red light flashing on my Blackberry.  I was thankful that I only had 20 messages when I woke up this morning  HAHA…  Good ol’ sarcasm!!

 

The one message that struck me the most and I want your opinion here in a second was from a friend named Barb…

 

…Barb is awesome!  She is actually one of my mom’s friends originally, but now we are BBFs.. or is that BFFs…  FML.  I hope when I get a little older that I am like Barb.  We formally met again for the first time back in November 2009.  Barb was filling in for the counsellor at Southridge School in South Surrey – a very nice private school.  I spoke there, and my day was pretty awesome.  The response from the students was just RAD!  I was stoked!  I still am months later.  I visited with Barb afterwards.  I couldn’t help but notice that there was a steady influx of students coming into her room just to chat.  The studenst were so relaxed.  All they wanted to do was just hang out and chill.  It was very apparent that Barb has a great connection with young people.  I like to think I do as well.  Maybe this is why we get along so well.

 

So here it is…

 

Barb’s message today was about starting a youth group or something along the lines of that.  It isn’t going to be a religious one or anything.  She envisions a place where teens that have issues they want to or need to deal with can go.  Barb’s reasoning and and I can attest to this is that so often we try to talk to counsellors but we can’t relate or they can’t relate.  So our issue doesn’t get sorted.  Have you ever found yourself in this situation?  I know I have.  The counsellor that came to my home after my talk was middle aged and hadn’t seen a fraction of the craziness or struggle I had seen.  SO “WTF is she doing trying to talk to me?” were my thoughts.  I couldn’t relate to her.  So Barb being awesome is thinking her and I start a youth group for these young people and give them the support they need.  HELLO!  I am so game and stoked for this. 

 

Now I believe that timing is everything in life.  I also believe that when opportunities present themselves we need to take advantage and recognize them for what they are.  I also believe that certain times in life have more momentum than others…  I feel like I am on a locomotive right now - full speed ahead!

 

I am so completely inspired and in awe of how much is happening right now.  And it just seems like things happen for a reason lately to me.  Like the stars have aligned and everything is falling into place.  If you read my blogs you know that I have been approached by parents and teens and young people in recent days who are dealing with some tough situations.  I don’t have the professional background to start a counselling service but I do have life experience.  Barb has the professional background and a great relationship with youth.  So her and I team up and change the freakin world!!!  Does this sound rad or what??  Seriously I want you opinion ie:  comments please!  Please tell me what do you think about this idea…

 

I think it is brilliant!  And as a topper, I am going to hit up my sponsors and take some formal schooling this summer, so one day I can have the proper credentials to properly help anyone who comes to me looking for it.

 

NOTE:  originally that was going to be the end of the blog…

 

BUT LIFE:  My phone just rang about 2 minutes after rolling away from this blog.  I answered and it was CDI College asking about my availability to start courses in Addictions Counselling and Social Work this summer…  Do you believe in signs?  I do… 

 

ONE DAY LATER:  Barb and I discussed our plans to change the world and help others for an hour after I wrote this blog.  Actually as I drove to Sardis…  Don’t sweat me!  I used hands free.  And it sounded like SHITE, but I obeyed the laws.  Barb and I are so game to make this happen and it looks like i will be going back to school and getting an education in counselling starting this summer.  Expect some really great things to be coming in the near future beyond me just speaking in schools…

 

BTW:  My presentation at Agassiz the afternoon of the day I wrote this was pretty sweet.  The students were super chill and apparently very into hearing what I had to say.  They were so attentive.  It was a very intimate experience…  Not like that creep!  It was awesome speaking in the gymnasium at Agassiz again too.  I bet the last time was at least 6 years ago. Speaking in the gymnasium yesterday took me back and brought me forward to see how far I have come…  Ok, so how do these days keep happening.  Please read my next blog about today!!!

 

~: )

 

Kevin