Go ... Australia?

So here we are in the middle of the olympics and we're touring all around North America. It's made for an interesting and different experience of the olympics from what I am accustomed to.

For the first couple of days we were in Eastern Canada and so watching Canadian broadcasts of the event. Right now though, we're in Lake Placid, home of the 1980 (and 1932) winter games in the good ol' US of A.

THe canadian broadcasts I've found in the main to be quite watchable. One of those things about Canada, is they don't have quite as many athletes featuring in medal winning events. That means that although they focus on the Canadian atheletes when ever they can, they tend to show a wide variety of other teams as well. And their commentary doesn't appear to be too biased.

But now, in the US, my god, what a difference. Its all america all the time. Australia might rate a mention if we happen to win a medal, but its a big chest thumping, self congratulating style of presentation. It may be the same back home when someone from outside of Australia is subjected to our TV coverage (hell, even I've complained about the sort of coverage we get at home .. swimming swimming and more swimming ... but this has sure rammed it home!

The Bastard Tour of Canada

Caroline’s cousin Klemens came to stay with us for a couple of weeks last month and it was great to have him out. There were moments though, when reflecting upon his time with us, that I had to rate it as something of a bastard’s tour of Canada.

It wasn’t all bad, it was probably just a piece of it that really doesn’t sound all that good upon reflection.

Klemens landed in Calgary and Caroline and the kids picked him up from the airport. One of the first experiences that he was treated to was the Calgary Stampede. Sounds great. But then one has to consider that he was attending this wondrous event with Caroline and the four kids in tow! I believe his comment was something along the lines of ‘its very busy, isn’t it?” in reference to the efforts associated with successfully negotiating such an event with the four children (he is one of four himself, so by the time he left I think that he had a new-found respect for what his own parents had been through when he was growing up).

He was left to spend the latter part of the evening by himself when Caroline brought the kids back to our accommodations and from a couple of conversations we had, I’m sure he appreciated some of the finer points of the cow’girl’ population.

After that, the next thing that we decided to do to him was sit him in the back of the car with the smalls and casually take off for Montana. Then, the following day, show him all the lovely scenery from a bus, make him sit and mind the pizza with us while some people went horse-riding (admittedly it was by his choice that he wasn’t part of the equestrian activities) and then bus it back down the mountain.

Then, there was another long drive in the car, a stop at a decaying and no-longer used aqueduct (the risk of travelling with engineers) and then even more driving until we stayed at Dinosaur Provincial Park. Even there we gave him a chance to have some time alone and sent him off to climb to the top of the formations and capture the sunset (only to find out the next day that he hadn’t actually made it all the way tot the top as he’d stopped halfway up!)

Of course, with the dawn came another day and another car ride in the back of the car with the kids. This time we had to get all the way back to Fort McMurray, but we decided that we should be make a stop at the actual Dinosaur museum that lives just outside of Drumheller. It was an impressive looking building that held great promise. But because this was the bastard tour of Canada, all we did was look at the outside, glance at the café and tell Klemens that it was time to get back in the car, visit the supermarket in town for some food and off we went again, driving solidly until about 10:30pm that night when we finally arrived back in Fort McMurray.

We said goodbye to Klemens a week after that and I think that I can say that he actually had a good time and we did manage to send him out drinking with a couple of girls from work, so he wasn’t caged for the entire time1

Cowboys and ... well, more cowboys

One of the things that we wanted to do when we headed down to Calgary the other week was attend the Calgary Stampede.

We were driving down and making arrangements with our generous Calgary hosts, the McColl’s when they let us know that they were going to be at the Stampede that day. A plan quickly formed and soon Caroline had us heading off to ‘The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth’ the first instant that we could upon our arrival in town. We dropped the car off, jumped on a shuttle bus and made our way to the Stampede.

It’s a big event. And like the Royal Adelaide Show, it brings the rural to the city but in a way like I would never have imagined. Now given that we’d driven 700+ kilometers to get there in the previous two days I can’t exactly say that I was approaching this with the best frame of mind. And what I saw when we arrived, quite frankly filled me with dread.

Everywhere you looked there were cowboy hats and cowboy boots. Sure at the Royal Show there’s always some dodgy trend going around, but its typically restricted to that youthful group of people with spare cash and little sense.

At the stampede, there is no such restriction. Age, race, weight, no matter how you cut it, someone was there in their cowboy boots and hat. Now don’t get me wrong, there were some people there that looked hot in their boots and hat, but let’s face it, those were the people that would probably look good in a hessian sack. And I must thank those people (especially the girls) for their attachment to their tiny daisy duke denim shorts and bared midriffs.

Unfortunately fashion sense, apparently like intelligence, is not something that is handed out to all comers. And its particularly sad when the people that have missed out on both of those things decide to cowboy it up. If your belly is two feet past your breasts and your four foot tall, a cowboy hat, boots matched up with a frock really isn’t a good idea. But I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

I can’t say that I really did the Stampede justice as I only managed to spend the one afternoon there and all I saw was the chuck wagon races (great fun for the first three or four, but not something I’d want to spend 2 hours watching again) and the Grand Show.

My first impressions (that those dancing cowboys might be more inclined to participate in a bit of brokeback mountain action rather than any rodeo) of the grand show, weren’t so grand, but it did warm up as things went along. It was possibly detracted from a little by the fact that we all had to stand up and the damn thing went for so long, but by the end of it, I was glad that I’d seen it.

Of course, having said all that, I missed the rodeo and from all reports, it sounds like I missed the best bit. Only Caroline (with due support from Klemens) was brave enough to take the kids a second time! At least everyone had another great day and Mum will be loved for that.

A Beary Scary Adventure

Ever since we've arrived in Canada we've eyed off the great outdoors and talked about how much fun it would be to go camping in this amazing place. But I have to say, one of the biggest deterrents for me has been the thought of bears. And I have to say that it's the first time that I can say that I understand the foreigners consideration of sharks when they visit Australia. I mean, there's probably as many people killed over here by bears as there are by sharks in Australia (can't be bothered searching for any real stats to support that).

Anyway, all those little thoughts about bears that chased themselves around and around my head led me to lean towards the sort of holidays that involved cabins and hotels. And what i really wanted to buy was a big kick arse, solid walled trailer (aka caravan) that no bear was ever going to get into.

Of course, as you'll know from my recent post, we didn't buy the big kick-arse solid walled thing, we got the canvas sided tent-trailer that can be peeled open easier than a sardine can. I finally came to the conclusion though that since most of the bears up here are the black variety rather than the grizzly variety. To some extent it's like saying that they're only gummy sharks, mainly and there's only the occasional great white.

So of course, when we decide to take the thing out for our first trip, I didn't even consider where we were going and in fact it was later that we actually changed our travel plans. It wasn't really until we were at Glacier National park and we pulled in to set up that I realised exactly what we'd done.

We'd driven right into the heart of grizzly territory.

Fan dabby dozy.

It became fairly evident that there was a very proactive 'don't attract the bear' culture going on in that park. Something about the signs that demanded that you weren't allowed to keep food, cooking utensils, water, eating utensils ... pretty much anything that might have a trace of food upon it in the actual tent trailer.

So for the first time in our lives we'd gone out with everything in a place where we wouldn't have to pack and unpack and pack and unpack and the first thing we had to do was bloody unpack it all and load it into the car!

Fortunately, despite the fact that the ranger assured us that there had been a very credible mountain lion sighting the previous night, we slept well and long and after cooking our hot dogs over the camp fire, made sure everything that might attract a bear was safely stowed away. It made for a very full car and a very empty van. It's amazing what a lot of driving, staying up late and utter exhaustion can do to allay one's beary fears.

So we survived our first night camping in the rockies, even if we were to cheap and lazy to walk all the way to the showers which you had to pay for. We might have stunk for a couple of days, but maybe we'd just been spoilt by the McColl's, our hosts in Calgary.

The fact that as we prepared to get ready for the day a couple deer wandered through the park started day two of beautifully.


The second night we were a little better prepared and by virtue of the fact that a lot of people moved on that day, we were able to shift some of our storage from the car and into one of the bear-proof storage bins that are provided in the camp. And the best thing about the second night was the sky. Night one ended when the rain came down and put a downer on the camp fire. Night two was clear as can be and it was stunning. The stars were like carpet. You felt like if you reached up and swept your hand through the air, you could collect a fistful of diamonds to bring sparkling to the ground.

It was so gorgeous that when I got up to pee at 3am i was left staring in wonder ... gazing to the heavens ... right up until I remembered the bit about the mountain lions and the bears!

Honoured

Growing up in Australia, we’re influenced by North American culture in a multitude of ways that you don’t even think about. Now that we’re living over here, some of them occasionally pop up out of the blue and where you’d be surprised if it happened at home, over here, you tend to think, “Oh yeah, I guess they do that here.”

The most recent example of this that I’ve come across popped up at the end of the school year. Michael and Sam were invited to a presentation evening. I didn’t actually wonder too much about it other than to make sure that I got to the school in time to be there for the presentation.

As it turns out, both of the little blighters ‘made honour role.’ Quite impressive really. And one of those things that I remember having heard about randomly through all those American TV Shows and movies that I watched as a kid growing up. I have to say though I never understood the mechanics of it until now.

As far as the school that our boys are at, to make the honour roll, you have to exceed 80% in all of your subjects. Now given that they both skipped half a year of school and moved forward, I have to say that I am very very proud of them

We’ll leave out questions about how good the education system might be, about the fact that it seems to be a very test-orientated, seventies kind of environment and just bask in the fact that they both managed to do it. Hopefully they keep their heads down enough next year to manage it again!

How to start a holiday

If you’ve ever read any of my entries that happen to relate to packing for a holiday before, you’ll realise that it’s not exactly what I call the happiest portion of the time designated for relaxation and escapism.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been trying to make a break from Fort Mac so that we could a) escape Fort Mac (a vital sanity restorer) and b) christen the camper trailer that we’ve bought. Yes, that’s a bit of news in and of itself. We’ve bought a Bonair camper trailer (or as they’re known as over here, a tent trailer – photos hopefully included).





With the turnaround finalisation dates being somewhat elastic in their timing, it was something of a challenge for us to actually pin down dates upon which we could travel. We finally did manage to get some dates together and also managed for them to coincide with the Calgary Stampede.

The plan was, leave Fort Mac Friday night, travel the rest of the way to Calgary on Saturday morning and then spend Sunday through Tuesday in Calgary and the local surrounds (I was then going to fly back to Fort Mac for the remainder of the week before returning to Calgary to drive back with the family again). During this time, one of Caroline’s cousin’s from Switzerland is going to be arriving for a short visit with us as well. We haven’t seen him since we were in Switzerland on our honeymoon (when he was 8) so it’s going to be interesting to meet him again.

Things in this world tend to be a little fluid though, so my plans changed and although we managed to get down here over the weekend, I’ll be flying back to Fort Mac on Monday and then back to Calgary on Wednesday night).

Anyway, the point of all this is that we did manage to leave Fort McMurray late on Friday (mainly because I got home from work an hour later than I had planned). And because I was late, I did manage to avoid that heart palpitation inducing period that involves getting crap in the car ready to leave. What I did find out though as I wound down the support to lower the van onto the tow ball was that there simply wasn’t going to be enough clearance to tow it adequately. Of coure, we live in Fort McMurray. Which means that when you go to purchase the draw bar, you get the ONLY one that they have in stock, which happens to have a 4 inch drop.

Now that was fine for getting the camper back to our house from the people that we bought it from, but once Caroline had had her way with it and stuffed it to the seams with the things that a of six needs for a week away from the civilised comforts of home, it was simply too much. We weren’t going to be able to get out of the driveway, let alone the 700 odd kilometres required to get to Calgary. And of course 6pm on a Friday night is the ideal time to be wanting to go to town to purchase a new drawbar.

I did ring friends on the insanely remote chance that they had one lying around (hey it worked for spit and swallow one year) and wondered what the hell I might do. It was then that I pulled it from the car and noticed the little piece on the labelling that noted that it could be used either way up.

Fortunately, although not in an overly aesthetic towing position, it was good enough to be able to safely tow and get us underway.

And thus, with a minor panic settled before it escalated into a major Dave moment, we left home. I managed to turn three whole corners before we had to come to the first stop of the journey. And I must say that the fact that it was a set of flashing police lights illuminating the skyline over the top of the camper was a reason for a minor panic all of its own.

As it turns out, turns two and three of the three corners that we took from our house prior to stopping have stop signs at them. At the first one, I didn’t quite come to a complete stop, mainly because I was still feeling the weight of the laden camper and getting used to the handling of the car. It turns out that at that point a police car nestled in quietly behind us.

When I reached the second stop sign (turn 3) there was a car coming. Its position was such that if I rolled through the sign and didn’t come to a complete stop, I could continue, where as if I stopped, I’d have to wait that little bit longer. So I rolled through.

And it was at that point that the fancy lights display started up behind me. I quietly pulled over and waited for the local officer of the law to come and have a little bit of a chat for me.

He opened with “Do you know why I am pulling you over?” to which I had to reply in the negative in case I suggested that I’d done something wrong other than that for which I’d been stopped (no point dobbing yourself in for more trouble – I assume its because of the kilo of coke in the back?)

He pointed out the fact that I’d failed to stop at two stop signs and added, for information purposes only I’m sure that each one in and of itself was worth a little donation to the Province of Alberta (or city of Fort Mac) to the tune of $287. As he said, “Not a good start to a holiday.”

I took it like a man though, after all, I did break the law, and kept the crying on the inside, saving the outward tears for the signing over of the funds. We had a bit of a discussion at that point about the fact that he done me a favour as had the highway patrol stopped me on the open road (because the driving behaviour I had exhibited in the 300m he had observed clearly meant that I was off for a family spree of recklessness and law-breaking) they would have the right to tow my vehicle if I were unable to provide valid insurance.

Because when you get stopped over here, they ask you for you license, registration and insurance. We found items one and two and then handed over item 3 … which was invalid. Recommence the heart wobbles.

There was an error on what we’d received from the insurers though as it stated that it had expired at a time before we’d even set foot on the fair shores of Canada.

All in all it was lining up for a severe and expensive bollicking, but to my surprise, he finished off with the fact that he’d do a license check and if it came up clean, he’d let me off with a warning. At that point the heart settled (a little) and I knew we’d be on our way as I have no license problems in Canada (yet?).

Thank God Caroline wasn’t driving, because one of the tasks for Calgary was for her to get her Canadian license!

Singapore Stories - the tooth ache

It was a Sunday. I was due to fly off-shore the following morning. But before that, there was a staff vs students soccer game at the school that Caroline was teaching at. I played to bring up the numbers on the faculty side of the game.

During the game, I started to notice a disturbing trend. When I headed the ball, it felt like one of my fillings was jarring loose, or wobbling around in its socket. As the day progressed, it started to worry me more and more, mainly because I was about to head out to the middle of the South China Sea for a couple of months with nary a dentist in sight.

After we’d eaten dinner and it was still bugging me, I decided that I should try and do something about it. And of course 8pm on a Sunday is a great time to try and get into the dentist. I went through the phone book and finally managed to get a dentist that would open up for me ... for the measly sum of $200 (plus whatever treatment they would provide).

I ventured in there and explained my situation, that I was leaving first thing in the morning, that I wouldn’t be back for about 2 months and so I wanted to know what was going on with my tooth. So after taking a look and not being able to find anything, the lady said that she’d need to take x-rays, so x-rays were taken. Then she came out and happily told me that she’d be able to view them tomorrow. Quietly and calmly (well almost) I reminded her of the fact that I had already told her that I was leaving first thing in the morning and that I wouldn’t be there to view them tomorrow.

She had a bit of a think and presented me with 2 options. She could give me some painkillers and hope that things went away, or she could take the nerve out. Now is it just me, or are those two options just ever so slightly diametrically opposed to one another?

I nearly shat myself at that the time and decided to go with the option that didn’t involve tearing into my mouth late at night at least until I was absolutely sure that it was actually the best option for me to take. Besides, I’d been told that a severe toothache is actually not a bad way to get some time off of the barge. I wasn’t keen that as a back up plan though and opted for a course of painkillers!

We left the surgery and Caroline suggested that perhaps we should call her friend back home who was at the time in the latter stages of studying dentistry. I was all for a bit more information. After a couple of quick questions, she asked exactly the right one. Did I have any sinus trouble. As it turned out I did at the time and it was suggested that referred pain from sinus trouble could result in the sort of sensation

More importantly, she referred to the fact that a nerve removal procedure should be done over a period of two visits, spaced something like 2 weeks apart. The thought of what might have happened in my mouth had I opted to go with ‘just rip it out’ quite frankly sets my bladder quivering!

I was very relieved when my sinus trouble cleared up a week later to note that my tooth was in fact fine!f

the itch you shouldn't scratch

Summer's back here in Fort McMurray and there's a couple of things that come with summer. The first notable thing that comes about with summer is the caterpillars. And not just one or two of the little blighters, but literally swarms of them.

Apparently its an annual thing here. Such an annual thing that it was reported on the radio near hatching time that the municipal council was out spraying .. because there were something like a billion caterpillars expected to hatch.

Now that is a lot of caterpillars. There were patches of them on the trees, square feet of black patches of caterpillars. I went out to Tom's soccer and there was some pine fencing and there were lines the entire length of the fence, caterpillars crawling from one end to the other, head to tail.

They don't last for too long though, only a couple of weeks, so that now there are really none to be seen.

But they have been replaced. There's a new menace on the prowl.

Mosquitos. And maybe they're not quite present in the same numbers as the caterpillars, but they're more mobile and they're a hell of a lot more vicious.

We brought the rid back with us when we came back after easter as we've been told that the local stuff doesn't have the active ingredient that makes rid so good. And so the other night I went out to play a game of soccer and Caroline told me to remember to take the Rid, because i was playing on the field that she usually plays on and its a bit of a meeting place for the winged vipers.

I of course agreed that that would be a good course of action and promptly left it home. I borrowed some stuff off of one of the locals and covered every inch of my bare skin and that seemed ok. After the game, as we stood around and had a few beers, it was an interesting little dance that one adopted, trying not to spill the beverage whilst trying to swat away mosquitos like the planes attacking king kong at the top of the Empire state, though they seemed to bring more friends than the planes did against kong.

I thought I had survived ok, but then the following day, the dots started to appear. Little red, mosquito induced welts all over the backs of my calves. Turns out that the little bastards had found something of a loop hole. Get me through my socks. Being long socks, i'd left them up, thinking that this would at least protect part of my body from the swarm.

It wasn't really until the following day that I realised this though. Not until about the time that I suddenly felt itchy all down the back of my calves. And after a day in jeans, with the denim not so gently caressing them all day, I finally took them off and found my legs to look something like a crazy drunks version of abstract join the dots.

Eventually, they might even fade away ...

Chemical Warfare

When we were growing up, we had an apricot tree in the back yard. For awhile, I was a big fan of apricot jam and even apricots straight from the tree. As time went on though, I think it reached that too much of a good thing point and I started to eat them a lot less.

We also had a dog that liked the apricots, but being something of a small dog, she wasn't really of the right sort of stature to reach the apricots until they'd already fallen from the tree. Added to that, i think she had something of a taste for the softer, baked in the sun, slightly fermented fruit rather than the fresh stuff.

The result of this was usually discovered later in the evening when the dog was asleep inside. You'd be happily watching tv when a stragne aroma would suddenly waft through the room, usually with enough stench behind it to clear out anyone unfortunate enough to remain in the vicinity.

Well, apparently the affect of apricots isn't limited to K9's. The dried apricot variety, particularly when processed through a woman's digestive system, produces an effect almost to a level equivalent to that of the dog.

So it was with great delight that I sat watching TV the other night that I discovered that one of the things that had been consumed during the trip back from Edmonton (that Caroline had made with the kids (and without me)) was dried apricots.

And let's just say that I didn't discover this fact through discussion. Ahh memories.

The Christening

A month or so ago now, with Summer on the horizon (somewhat distant, but there none the less) I decided that it was about time that I invested in some golf clubs. After all, the only clubs that I’d ever had had been handed down from Paul to Dad and on to me. I was one of those rare people that pulled out a driver that was actually made of wood! Not to mention the size complex one get’s when everyone else’s driver is about 3 times the size of your own.

I was in Edmonton for work and so walked into the shop, got the guy to show me some clubs and walked out with a brand new, complete set of clubs. They go well with the bag that I won several years ago. It never quite looked right with the old clubs in it.

I am getting invited to a number of golf days through the unions that I am now dealing with and other work functions. I have been looking forward to that point where I get to pull the clubs out and actually have a hit.

Caroline has also been somewhat keen to pursue a it of golf and went to an information night at one of the courses here a little while ago. In doing this, it was suggested that she might need some clubs. I told her that if it really came to it, she could use mine (at least until she decided whether she was actually going to enjoy the game or not).

And yes, you can probably guess what happened at this point. I came home one evening to be told that Caroline had managed to get along to a bit of a give it a go type session at the driving range and that she’d used my clubs.

My new clubs.

Not the old clubs

My brand new, never used, never touched a golf ball, barely even swung, brand new golf clubs.

“It was only the driving range and I didn’t use them all.”

They were my new clubs. I still haven’t used them. And now, they’re not even virgins anymore. What more can I say?