April Update: New Content and New Business

Apologies for my lack of a post last month, but I really didn't have anything new to report at that time. I pretty much just did my regular shift for all of March, however I was working on two things that I can share in this month's update.

After the success of my monthly tennis blog last year, I was looking for a new project for 2019 that would let me create and produce some entertaining content (although I may bring the tennis blog back for a special occasion if I really have some success in tournaments this year).

Since January, me and fellow weather guy Ross Hull have been working on a 4-part series pitch called What's Your Fitness Age? It will be a competition series to find out how different our 'real' age is from our 'fitness' age. Joining Ross and I as competitors will be Liem Vu and Jen Valentyne from Global News Morning.

Ross and I spent last month devising the outline of the series and the challenges in consultation with the High Performance Sport Department at the University of Toronto. We will be shooting the series in the middle of April with the first episode scheduled to premiere the week after Easter.

It will be a lot of work added to our regular plate, but it should be a blast to shoot and I'm really looking forward to it.

The new business I referred to in the title has actually nothing to do with my media career.

For the past 18 months, I have been working on a side project in my spare time. It's a start-up company called VoiStory that I've recently launched with two other co-founders. VoiStory is a web service that allows users to record, edit, organize, store and share their life's memories as audio clips.

Here is a demo video to show you how the website works.

You can find out more information about what VoiStory is on the website plus here's a link to the VoiStory Facebook page. That's where you can find testimonials from some of our users plus additional info about VoiStory.

Right now, until the end of April, we are offering an early adopter discount for individual VoiStory accounts. It is only $20 for a forever membership and 1GB of storage, which is approximately 20 hours of recording time.

This early adopter discount is 80% off the regular price. Also, in the next few weeks, we will be releasing a feature where you will be able to upload photos to your recorded stories and chapters.

Thanks for reading and watching!

February Update: Too Cold

I write this as Southern Ontario is currently in the grips of the coldest air this area has experienced in almost five years. It's almost unbearable walking from my car into the station. And I played late-night tennis yesterday and my car almost didn't start because of the bitter cold.

But I digress and things will be warmer this weekend.

Speaking of tennis, I posted the final edition of my blog, Second Serve: An Inside Look at Canadian Tennis last month.

Yes, that is my real opponent in my final tournament of 2018. Here is the written portion of my final post.

Also, at the beginning of January, I had the opportunity to sit down with Canadian track star Andre De Grasse. We discussed his career since the Rio Olympics and looked ahead to this year and the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

On Sunday, I will be sports anchoring all of the early and late newscasts across the country (there will be lots of Super Bowl content).

And next Wednesday and Thursday, I will be filling in as co-host on The Morning Show.

Thanks for reading and watching!

January Update: On To 2019

Well, it was the quite the year.

It was, without doubt, the most tennis-focused 12 months of my life. From my monthly blog on the Global News website to TV interviews with Bianca Andreescu, Daniel Nestor, Denis Shapovalov, plus a rapid fire sit-down with Vasek Posposil.

The final episode of the blog will be posted later this week.

In addition to all of the tennis I played in the spring and summer, I did some work as well. Once again, I worked as a sideline reporter for CrossFit Media and covered two of their regional competitions (in Salt Lake City and Nashville) and the world championship in Madison, Wisconsin.

I spent Halloween week filling in on The Morning Show. That gave me the opportunity to disappear into character for the Halloween show. Have you seen A Star is Born?

And at the end of 2018, I worked as a news anchor for the first time, anchoring two editions of Global Durham to add another skill to my media toolkit. 

Also, last week, I was able to sit down with Canadian track star Andre De Grasse for a feature interview.

Here's to many more opportunities to further my skill set over the next 12 months. And I will be sure to document it in this space.

Happy New Year!