Happy Birthday to my Dad … goodbye to an old friend ..

Today would have marked my Father’s 74th birthday and in a few days it would have been his 51st Anniversary. It’s a date I will always remember and celebrate in my own little way. I have another date not to forget now as one of my dearest mentors passed away yesterday after a long and hard fight.

Tony Eng is a hard person to describe. He is one of the few people I have ever met in my life who had no enemies. No one even disliked him a tiny bit! He was the father of two of daughters, a loving husband, committed business man and respected an admired magician.

I spent several years growing up in his home town of Victoria, BC and the most common thing I heard when telling people I was a magician was not “how do you do that” or “can you make my spouse disappear”. No what I heard was ” do you know Tony Eng?”. I heard it as many as a dozen times a day on the city bus. Once the bus driver saw me with a deck of cards and didn’t even ask if I was a magician, he just said “have you seen Tony Eng with a deck of cards?”. That bus driver, Carl Hemeon, was later to be my mentor too.

I find it hard to express how I feel as it is so soon. I suspect I will have more to say in the days to come.

On a happier note my good friend Claus has come out of his surgery and is now in his own private room at the hospital. He will be there for a few weeks as the removal of ones esophagus is quite an ordeal. Claus is a great guy and has the strength of a dozen men. I pray for his speedy recovery.

Jim Thielemann has posted a few more scenes from the Fins and Skins shoot. We are just working out when I will have time to return to finishing shooting the rest of the episode. I found out Jim won’t be able to be one of the camera guys so I have to start getting better at my golfing!