Yesterday I completed a years long journey backward in time. My friend Jenn recommended that I check out the podcast of This American Life back in 2012. I checked it out a few months later during summer vacation and then began listening to it regularly during my commutes to work which involved walking and riding … [Read more…]
One of Montréal’s great failures is the construction of the Lachine Canal. It was built in the early 1800s in order to bypass the rapids on the St Lawrence and enable shipping to other big production centres to the west. The railways and some new American waterway made the canal irrelevant as it was slower … [Read more…]
On Blaise’s 10th birthday, I took him to his first football game. As we were walking into the stadium I learned it was also his first time in a stadium too! The first 15 minutes of the game were focused on catching a mini-football. Turns out we could have gotten a half dozen of them … [Read more…]
On our way to and from Regina last week, we stopped in Medicine Hat to visit some friends. Kris and Safira hosted us in their super hip apartment. The place reminded me of what natural cohousing would look like so I felt right at home and envious. It’s a row of brick apartments of varying … [Read more…]
The great Edmonton Oiler years in the last half of the 1980s were the milieu in which I developed a keen interest in watching hockey. From grades 5-9, I faithfully memorized the players names, numbers and stats. In junior high, several of us would surround the newspaper in the library and check the scores from … [Read more…]
A couple weekends ago, Calgary hosted an international speed skating tournament. World class competitors – I think all of them were at Sochi 2014 – competed in 4 different races each and scored points. The champions were the ones with the least points. You can find the results here. Blaise and I decided to attend … [Read more…]
Following my second marathon on June 1, I barely ran at all. I wasn’t trying to avoid running, it’s just that there was no time or urgency. I had moved; I was wrapping up a very difficult year of teaching; I was enjoying my summer holidays. I was content not running. However by mid-August, I … [Read more…]
2.5 months after running the Calgary Marathon, I decide to run the Victoria Marathon over Thanksgiving weekend in October. This gives me a mere 8 weeks to train, but since I was already somewhat conditioned from the spring I figure this won’t be an issue. I had 17 weeks to train for my first marathon … [Read more…]
Spruce Meadows is the premiere equestrian sport venue in Canada and it is just 30 minutes from where I live. If you saw Ian Miller compete on Big Ben in the 80s and 90s on TV, it was probably at Spruce Meadows. When Amber told me I had the morning to myself during my first … [Read more…]
June 20, eight Man Scouts from New Hope Church drove out to Silver Willow Sporting Club near Carstairs for an evening of shooting sporting clays with shotguns. Few things can compare to the sheer manliness of shooting a shotgun – maybe growing a beard? Anyway, we split into a couple teams and ran through the beginner/intermediate … [Read more…]