Wednesday, September 14th, early: Burns Bog is burning, but the show must go on. Picket-Size Me will be part of the next Studio Zero podcast which should be posted by tomorrow. In the meantime, many locked-out CBC workers in Vancouver have pulled together a pirate radio station at CMGV 88.3 FM which you should be able to tune in throughout downtown Vancouver. You’ll be able to hear lots of CMG-produced programming in the days to come.
Quick Response: Some of you may have read on other lock-out related blogs about Alexis Mazurin, a CBC Radio 3 host who suffered a major heart attack while on vacation in Nevada. Alexis is being medivaced home to Vancouver today, and enterprising CMG’ers have pulled together an amazing fund-raising effort to help his family with some of the expenses. Andrea Lupini has to be singled out here, especially on this blog, because she charged ahead with organizing a bake sale, did most of the baking herself, and in one day had raised over $600! 
Of course on my current diet I couldn’t really eat anything provided but Andrea did make sure there were some healthy items on the table such as carrot sticks and oranges. Way to go Andrea! CMG Vancouver will match donations and CMG Canada will be donating some funds as well…and we all wish Alexis a speedy recovery. As I was listening to Tod Maffin’s podcast commentary about ‘Whither the CBC?’ this morning he talked about how flexible workers already are at the CBC, how they have put together pirate radio stations and podcasts and websites. And if you just look at this photo we took for Alexis you can see that 
the creative spirit is alive and well and pushing for a dear friend.
Dieting Continues: Oh yeah…the Picket-Size Me dieting continues, although it all seems a little mundane compared to what some people are going through right now. Anyway, for me it all comes down to a health benefit that should help me enjoy a long life as I roll down the road. I gathered with some old friends from the Afternoon Show on Monday at the Cambie, a pub that, well, defies description in the limited amount of time I have to post this morning. It was difficult to find anything on the menu that would fit my South Beach diet, 
but I was able to order a huge bowl of a quite tasty tomato-herb soup and a large green salad with the house vinagrette. The only hard part was looking at two shoe-sized pieces of garlic bread, all hot and golden, and really wanting to take a bite out of them, but somehow resisting.
Weight check: It looks like I might be down to about 185 or 186, from my start weight of 194. I say it looks like because I forgot my digital scale at my place on Vancouver Island, and the one we have here in Vancouver is hard to read. On Monday I put 11.3 km on the pedometer and will return to the line today, hopefully for another ten. And I visited my doctor yesterday to renew my prescription for my high blood pressure medication. She says marriage, picketing and dieting must agree with me, since I checked in at a very normal 115 over 80.
Tomorrow: I am cooking for a crowd, Yves veggie dogs and veggie burgers and Asian coleslaw on the picket line, wish me luck!
