Ah those iconic words from a great historical movie. Stumped? It’s about one of my favourite periods in history, the Renaissance. Got it yet? Charlton Heston? Painting? Come on, you should have known it’s from The Agony and the Ecstacy! Yes, that 1965 movie with Heston playing Michelangelo and Rex Harrison playing Pope Julius II which depicts the painting of the Sistene Chapel. As Michelangelo labours to finish the ceiling and months drag into years, the Pope constantly asks “When will you make it end?” His enigmatic response is always “When I’m finished.” That’s awesome, but the big question is what the hell does all of this have to do with anything? Please, read on!

Well, we’ve almost reached the end of February and I’m tired already. Why? Take a big guess! If you said the weather, you win the year’s supply of Monarch cake mix (who remembers that one?). God, I’m so tired of this crap! Today’s title is more like a plead to God, “when will you make it end?” This past weekend was Family Day long weekend and my wife decided that we should go to Minneapolis with the kids since we’ll be away during the Match break. We were supposed to leave on Thursday after school, but we got a huge dump of snow that day and it was impossible to drive (so I spent the evening cleaning the snow). We left at 6 the next day and drove straight through to Minneapolis and spent an enjoyable weekend there. Unfortunately there was another big storm on Monday and had to drive home right through it, white knuckling it the whole way. After I got home, I had to clean snow again!

Winter snow, February 2014.

I guess it all isn’t bad, since the temperatures are supposed to go up to more seasonal values, but I think everyone is experiencing some form of Seasonal Affective Disorder. It just seems that winter is dragging on and on this year. Thank God there are a few things that will break up the routine over the next little while.

So we are now into our third week of new the semester and things are moving along fairly well. The classes are good and keeping me busy as usual. Last week was our annual open house for Grade 8 students and I was busy setting things up for the department display and for the football program. Talk about double duty! The event was well attended and it was good to be able to chat with a number of future students and their parents. Hopefully it will translate into some solid numbers for our school next year.

Speaking of football, things are starting to pick up again on that front. Last week we started our offseason weighting program, BFS (Bigger, Faster, Stronger). I didn’t have a chance to supervise on my usual Wednesday shift because of open house, but I was there this week. We also have a number of our Grade 9 players trying out for the Thunder Bay Minor Football Under-16 team, which is pretty exciting news. Planning continues for our June trip to the UMD team camp which is always a great experience.

With March just around the corner it means that I’ll be heading to Europe very soon. This week was our final meeting with all the travellers and their parents. It’s great to see the kids so excited! For many of them this is their first trip overseas and I know it will be an awesome experience for all of us. I’m still a bit nervous, but as I said before I just want everything to go as smoothly as possible. We are now less than 15 days from departure!

With everything going on at school and with football, I really haven’t had a lot of time to devote to railway work. The long, dreary weather has really made me look forward to spring and a chance to get out and do some hiking. I already have a number of locations and dates in mind, but everything will depend on the weather.

Almost one year ago the Silver Mountain and Area Historical Society was incorporated in the province in Ontario. We’ve come a long way in that time, but there is still a ton of things that we need to accomplish to become really fully functioning. At the end of March we will have our 2014 annual general meeting, so I have a lot to do in the meantime. The big priority is to get the winter edition of our newsletter out to the membership, which I should have done by the end of next week. After that, I’ll working on the agenda for the AGM.

Anyway, I should get going. Lots to do, and obviously god isn’t amused by my post; we’re expecting another big storm that may dump upwards of 30cm of snow on us! I’ll be back in a few weeks before we leave for Europe. Until then…