{"id":119,"date":"2009-10-29T08:06:17","date_gmt":"2009-10-28T22:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/?p=119"},"modified":"2009-10-29T08:06:17","modified_gmt":"2009-10-28T22:06:17","slug":"michael-penny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/2009\/10\/29\/michael-penny\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Penny"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Hi everyone,<\/div>\n<p><!-- \t\t@page { size: 21cm 29.7cm; margin: 2cm } \t\tP { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } --><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I have been getting some emails, and had at least considered travelling to Canberra, but time and money tell against best intentions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\">So, what have I been doing? You will know I didn&#8217;t finish high school at Watson, moving to Canada in 1967 when my Dad took a job at the University of Alberta. In 1972, he and my Mum and two brothers moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, but I stayed behind. I had met Virginia Lemieux, and we were married in 1974.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\">From 1974 to 1976 we lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I completed graduate studies in English. The academic job market in \u00c2\u00a0those days was so poor that we returned to Edmonton, where I went to Law School, initially just to get a job, but then actually getting interested in practising law. I did so for 25 years with the same firm of about 30 lawyers, spending my last few years with them as their Managing Partner. I used to joke that the position was &#8220;honorary,&#8221; as they were such an interesting, but ungovernable bunch.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\">In 2006, I joined the Law Society of Alberta (which regulates the legal profession in this province) as Counsel, and this year, became the Director of Policy and a member of the Executive Committee. I attach a photo of me relaxing in my office. (I know this is obligatory, so we can compare the ravages of time&#8230;.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\">Virginia and I have two daughters. Emily, who lives in Graz, Austria, has presented us with a grandson, Lukas, a well-travelled 10 month old, who has visited us here, and we have travelled twice to Europe to see him. (Which may explain why we don&#8217;t have the time and money to travel to Canberra!) Our other daughter, Jane, is in Montreal, attending McGill, and will graduate with a degree in Cultural Studies at year-end, and then face the same vocational dilemma as her Dad.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\">Virginia and I love travelling, and have visited over 30 countries, most notably spending a month in Tibet in 2001. I have kept up my interest in \u00c2\u00a0English, and have published a couple of books of poetry, both of which are widely unavailable!<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\">When I look at the class photos, I do recognize a dozen or so people, and would have loved to have joined you all next week in person&#8211;but a special hi to my particular buddies, Kim Rennick and Phil Henry. I am sad to note that Nick Richardson has gone.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\">But have a great time&#8230;I&#8217;ll be thinking of you all, and those days, and how long ago it all was, but the memories still so clear.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\">Yours,<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\">Michael.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi everyone, I have been getting some emails, and had at least considered travelling to Canberra, but time and money tell against best intentions. So, what have I been doing? You will know I didn&#8217;t finish high school at Watson, moving to Canada in 1967 when my Dad took a job at the University of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whs1969.ellerman.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}