I hereby announce the winner of this years “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty” award is R. JACKSON the proud owner of Prestige Glass International!

Ok everyone … please calm down and take your computer seats!

It wasn’t hard to come to this decision. You see … Earlier this month I was ill and we thought it might have been a heart problem that had plagued me a few years ago. You might have heard about this on my wife’s blog You are in my World Now. During the short period of time that I was ill, I’m better now, I found out that one of the greatest keyboardist in Rock history, no it’s not Robert even though he is an accomplished keyboardist in his own right, Rick Wakeman, is playing a concert this Sunday at the Danforth Music Hall here in Toronto.

The prices for these tickets were quite pricey and at the moment I couldn’t afford them. The concert might even be sold out by now too.

Now this is where Robert comes in. He was searching for information about the Rick Wakeman concert and he came across the post on my wife’s blog that discussed how much I wanted to go to the concert. He read it and then replied:

I just realized that Chris is ill, by looking at this site a little closer. The spare ticket to Rick Wakeman is yours for free.

Now that is the reason why he is this years recipient! The man went way out of his way to provide me with music that will sooth my ill heart!

At the beginning of this post I mentioned that Robert has a company called Prestige Glass International. Well I took a moment to visit his company site and his company makes some very cool stuff that you should check out.

My favorite pieces are under “Canadiana” Inukshuks (in-ook-shook) and Vases & Bowls. The Vases & Bowls remind me of some of the ones that my relatives make in Ireland.

I don’t think that I told you about my family roots, but we are from Waterford Ireland. Yes, the place that makes the world famous Waterford Crystal. As luck would have it, I still have 2 cousins that do the glass blowing and cutting at the plant. Too bad they weren’t there when we were doing the tour of the factory a few years ago.

Since my cousins weren’t at the Waterford factory when we visited we did a tour of the plant with the regular tourists. While watching some guys do their work on their benches I kept asking the the tour guide some detailed questions about cutting and the tools they used. After a while he kept wondering why I had many questions I told them that I was a goldsmith and diamond setter. I also said that during the tour we saw some pictures of our cousins through out the plant. He then laughed and said “Oh ya, they did say some of their cousins were going to show up some time.”

At this point we were nearing the end of the tour and he said why don’t we hang out and talk to the boys on the floor, and that’s what we did. After being introduced to them the tour guide told them who we were and they said “Do you want to take a crack at it?” and I said “Why not!”

So cheers to this years recipient! Maybe he’ll let me take a crack at glass blowing behind his bench.

Keep on Jammin’