For my second Curio Cabinet column, I spoke to Mona Keith, the senior keeper in the giraffe section at the Calgary Zoo. The interview went for an hour. It was good times!

My column sets out to prove that giraffes are awesome.

Here it is:

What sound does a giraffe make?

Do you have any idea?

Mona Keith has been taking care of giraffes at the Calgary Zoo for almost 20 years, and in that time, she says she’s only heard a giraffe make a sound maybe half a dozen times.

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I’m in the newspaper workshop in my final year at the University of King’s College. We put together a weekly newspaper called the Halifax Commoner. I’ve just started writing a curiosity column called the Curio Cabinet. Basically, I just write about things I’m personally curious about.

For my first column, I met with Rob Fader, who is a ghost researcher here in Halifax. We talked at a coffee shop for an hour and fifteen minutes. Then, we walked to the nearby graveyard and took some pictures out front. Good times! Here’s the column:

Ghost hunter finds paranormal inactivity

Vincenzo Ravina

The custom license plate on Rob Fader’s car says GHOSTS.

By day, Fader is a concierge at the Prince George Hotel. But when he’s off the clock, he’s spending nights in potentially haunted buildings with cameras and audio recorders.

Fader founded the Halifax-based ghost research group, Grim Undertakings, eight years ago. Investigating hauntings is “sort of nerdy and boring,” he admits.

“Since we don’t bust ghosts or cleanse houses or anything like that, we basically just sit and wait and try to document anything that would happen .… The majority of the time, nothing happens. You spend hours going through tapes, getting nothing.”

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My first alcoholic drink since December 31, 2008 was at approximately 12:10 am on January 1, 2010. It was champagne.

Throughout my year of teetotalling, I was questioned again and again as to my motives. Why would I give up drinking for a year? I never had a great answer. I settled on ‘It’s a personal challenge.’

This answer was enough for most people, though they still tended to be incredulous. One person was outright hostile, lip curling with disgust and calling my reasons ‘bullshit.’ I suspect this person thought I was ideologically opposed to drinking. A lot of people said things to the effect of ‘Your force of will must be SO STRONG. I could never do that.’

But it really wasn’t very hard, I assure you.

The only real difficulty was accidental consumption.

A few months into my teetotalling, I wondered, ‘Am I teetotalling if I eat spaghetti? My spaghetti sauce has wine in it.’

For various issues like this, I would poll my friends. In the case of pasta, the consensus was that so long as I didn’t drench my fusilli in bourbon, I wasn’t breaking the rules.

So, yes, there were drips and drops of alcohol that passed through my system in 2009, but the small amounts were of little consequence. And they sure didn’t get me drunk.

In any case, I can drink now.

I have had alcoholic drinks on two occasions so far in 2010. The first, on New Year’s. The second, more recently, at the university bar with journalism school friends.

My findings: I am a lightweight.

However: This will save me money.

And now, here is a bulleted list of things that have happened since my last entry.

• I brought a bag of balloons to the New Year’s party and we blew them all up. I was inordinately excited about blowing up 25 balloons. I managed to convince most everyone to blow up at least one.
• For my New Year’s toast, among other sentiments, I read a passage from The Adventures of Pinocchio - the part where Pinocchio kills the cricket with a hammer. I don’t think that part is in the Disney version. I highly recommend The Adventures of Pinocchio.
• Saw Sherlock Holmes and disliked it because Sherlock Holmes is not supposed to be Jack Sparrow and someone needs to tell Robert Downey, Jr. The ideal person to play Sherlock Holmes would probably be Hugh Laurie. He’s already more or less doing it on House. I’m a big Robert Downey Jr. fan otherwise, though. Very much looking forward to Iron Man 2, and everyone should see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
• Played in snow.
• Saw Up in the Air and liked it. I am a fan of Jason Reitman’s movies about charming people who talk for a living. Thank You For Smoking is pretty great and you should watch it. (I was a bit underwhelmed by Juno.)
• Wrote about 1,500 words for my novella. Not as productive as I would have liked to have been over Christmas break.
• The Herald ran my story on cloth diapers.
• Started school again. I’m in the newspaper workshop. I pitched my idea for a ‘curiosity’ column and I think that’s going to work out.
• Michael Ian Black made fun of me on Twitter.

By VINCENZO RAVINA
Mon. Jan 4, 2010 - The Chronicle Herald

When her four kids are sleeping, she’s a one-woman assembly line. She’s tracing patterns, applying snaps and sewing. She’s making diapers.

Kristen Bassett runs her cloth diaper business, Banana Bottoms, out of her home in Clayton Park. She uses organic bamboo fabrics and designs the diapers herself. One diaper takes her about an hour from start to finish.

Her cloth diapers aren’t ones you have to fold and pin. These have snaps and elastic waists.

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If you were to ask me to name my least favourite year, I would tell you 2008. Though a lot of good things happened that year, it was a year of high drama. I’m not a fan of drama. I didn’t want to bring any of it with me to 2009.

At our New Year’s Eve 2008 supper, I toasted my close personal friends and said good riddance to 2008 with a poem from Moby Dick. I thought that closed out the year nicely.

If you asked me my favourite year, I’d say 2009. My personal and professional lives have both been very rewarding. I’ve been happy and busy and writing a lot and my relationship with Laura is going gangbusters.

Here are some of 2009’s highlights:

• Walked home from New Year’s Eve party in a snowstorm.
• Made the best bubble ever at the Discovery Centre. It was huge and it floated and shimmered.
• Stayed up all night many times, working After Hours Facilities at King’s College, until the job was phased out of existence. When I was working Facilities in April, there was a man sleeping in the basement of the gym. I had to help oust him.
• Realized I’ve been dating in alphabetical order: J - K - L.
• Coined the phrase, ‘No skin off my grapes.’
• Wrote a lot of fiction. Had an old “poem” published in Her Royal Majesty.
• Wrote a lot of journalism.
• Turned 21.
• Wrote and illustrated a rhyming picture book called Vampires Vampires and the Bittersweet Fudge-Bag for Laura’s 21st birthday.
• Did it all in summer 2009: went to Laura’s sister’s summer wedding (Laura was the Maid of Honour!), slept in a tent for the first (and second, third and fourth) time, flew kites, skipped rocks (Skipped the best rock of my life in here. It was like nine skips or something), climbed trees, went on the Insomniac’s Walking Tour of Halifax, watched a movie outside (alFresco Pulp Fiction) and stargazed.
• Went to Rome and various parts of Tuscany, including Pisa and Firenze.
• Went snail hunting in Italy.
• Also in Italy, met some giraffes really close up! It was GREAT. But I want to meet them closer up.
• Gave blood for the first time. Finally found out my blood type.
• Joined a magic club.
• Saw David Copperfield perform. Sat in the third row.
• Met some baby pigeons. They looked like weird ducks.
• Got a big furry hat at the behest of Laura. She later bought the same hat for herself.
• Let my facial hair grow for a pretty long while, and had a slight mustache for about five minutes.
• Wrote my Honours Project. Got an A.
• Helped produce six episodes of a weekly news program. Became more efficient and more comfortable on camera and behind the camera.
• Interned at the Chronicle Herald for a month. Did my first ambush-type interview and didn’t even get kicked out of Chapters and got myself a coop scoop.
• Avoided alcohol for the year.
• Celebrated one year with Laura on December 23.

After a lovely Christmas with more family than my house has room for, we come to 2010.

I don’t know about this year. I don’t trust it. I’ll be graduating in May and that is a bit scary. What happens then? I don’t know.

If 2008 was the year of drama and 2009 was the year of contentment and purpose, then perhaps 2010 will be the year of flux.

I hope it’s a good year, in any case.

See you then.

To preserve and protect
Land conservation plan takes province ‘hundreds of years’ into the future
By VINCENZO RAVINA
Thu. Dec 31, 2009 - The Chronicle Herald

Protected lands are forever.

“Land protection is about as permanent as anything gets in government these days,” said Peter Labor, the acting manager in the protected areas branch of the provincial Environment Department.

“We’re planning hundreds of years and generations out into the future.”

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Drop-in centre loses its spot
Chickenburger owner had donated Queen Street building, but now plans restaurant for site
By VINCENZO RAVINA
Thu. Dec 17, 2009  - The Chronicle Herald

Mike McGuire, who helped develop plans for a youth drop-in centre, stands near the empty lot on Queen Street in Halifax where the centre was supposed to be built. The owner of the Chickenburger restaurant was going to donate the building formerly on the site but has changed plans after the builidng had to be torn down.(Tim Krochak / Staff)

Plans for the Spot, a Halifax drop-in centre for young people, have been halted by the announcement of a new Chickenburger restaurant on Queen Street.

The Spot was supposed to be on that spot.

Mickey MacDonald, owner of the Chickenburger restaurant in Bedford, donated a Queen Street building over two years ago for the Spot.

That same location is where Mr. MacDonald announced Wednesday he is building a new Chickenburger restaurant.

Mike McGuire, who helped plan for the Spot for over a year, said the Chickenburger announcement Wednesday came as a shock to him and to Connections Halifax, the organization developing the centre.

“I called this morning a few friends (at Connections Halifax) to see if they knew anything and they hadn’t heard anything,” Mr. McGuire said Wednesday.

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Hillier mum on abuse
Former top soldier in Halifax for book signing, won’t comment on allegations of Afghan prisoner mistreatment
By VINCENZO RAVINA
Sat. Dec 12, 2009 - The Chronicle Herald

Retired general Rick Hillier signs a copy of his new book, A Soldier First, for Cpl. Shaun Fevens, a soldier wounded in Afghanistan, and his wife Lana. (CHRISTIAN LAFORCE / Staff)

Rick Hillier, formerly Canada’s top soldier, isn’t commenting about the recent revelations that Canadian-captured prisoners transferred to Afghan authorities were later tortured.

“I haven’t followed it,” Mr. Hillier said Friday in Halifax.

“I’m really not even in the mood or the ability to comment upon it, at this point, because I have not followed it in detail.”

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Are there any traditions that you would like to carry on (or start) with your hypothetical future children?

Yes. I would like to raise a child in an environment entirely devoid of a certain colour, like green. Make it so the child never sees the colour. Then, on his or her sixteenth birthday, make everything green. The cake, the banners, the table cloth, the clothing. Everything. Then observe the reaction.

I would also strongly encourage children to read The Phantom Tollbooth.

My child would not have a plain name. He or she would have an interesting and unusual name.

Ask me

- Search and Rescue workers agonize they didn’t get to James Delorey in time

- Melting gold teeth for profit

- SOCAN pressures children’s gymnastics clubs to pay fees for music

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