Three years ago my brother moved down under to live a year on a work/travel visa in Australia. He got some great photos at many famous Ozzie locations including this one at Uluru (Ayres Rock) that he’s selling on iStock photo:
He messaged me yesterday to let me know he found out it’s being used in a political ad created by Paul Andersen and Adrian Elton, This is what we Australi-Are. The video is the winning entry in a contest to create television ads that promote a better, fairer, more progressive Australia. A friend of his from London recognized him.
My brother Gary is down in Argentina this month taking photos and visiting old friends. Today a couple of hooligans, about 15 or 16 years old, tried to rob him. He punched one of them in the face and then made a run for it when they pulled a knife.
Read his story.
Despite repeated emails and Christmas cards that continually expound the details, I can’t seem to regurgitate my parents’ plans for Christmas except in the most general terms. I’m expected in Medicine Hat on Sunday? Food will be eaten? Religious differences will be tolerated? The important details just don’t stick in my mind.
However, ask me which questions I couldn’t answer on my 4th grade aptitude test to see if I qualified for AIM, and boy, do I have a list for you!
For the record, I didn’t answer “Christopher Columbus” because my fellow test taker, Christine, who finished it the day previous, told me, “contrary to popular belief it was Captain James Cook that discovered America.”
Why WOULDN’T I believe her? And to be honest, I don’t even know if Columbus is the answer they were looking for—what about the Vikings? And while we’re at it, do the “natives” count for anything?
Don’t lose any sleep over it. I got into AIM anyway.
In case you’re curious, AIM was this once-a-week afternoon program they had for students who were high achievers. While my peers at George Davidson were learning about the Native American Indians and the settlement of Western Canada, I was busy across town learning advanced science, math, and computer skills.
In AIM they taught us about negative numbers, statistics, and among other things how to use a word processor—this was a pretty big deal considering that in 1988 most people hadn’t even heard of word processors. I still remember typing away in front of those state of the art monochrome green monitors. Our teacher Mr. Freeman insisted typing would be a useful skill later in life. Who knew he’s be so right?
And even though this might sound pretty cool, I hated AIM.
One of my complaints was that I wasn’t interested in learning how to type. Computers were for games! and as any 9 year old of that time will testify, learning about home row is significantly less entertaining than Lode Runner.
They also demanded too much homework. Any “extra” homework, is too much. The weekly afternoon assignments at AIM more than doubled my load for the entire week. And to make matters worse, I was completely stressed out that I wouldn’t do a good job.
Homework wasn’t the worst part though.
The worst part was that none of my regular teachers had ever gotten around to teaching cursive handwriting. Mr. Freeman, liked to mix his chicken scratching with cursive shortcuts. Basically I was in a class of “geniuses” and I when it came time to read our homework off the board, for all intents and purposes, I was illiterate. Talk about HUMILIATING.
Mr. Freeman wasn’t exactly understanding either. There were a few of us in the same boat and he lipped us off saying that if we couldn’t read his writing, that was our problem. It was the next week that I began skipping. (How did you think I found out what everyone in my regular class was up to on Wednesday afternoons). Shortly after that I ended up dropping the program—but I’ve kept the guilt.
And in so many ways, I can’t help but feel like my performance in AIM has been a reflection of my life in general. If only my circumstances had been different… if only I had a half decent teacher, or someone to inspire me… and besides whatever it is I should be doing, it’s significantly less entertaining than any number of my daily distractions.
At least I can take a break from my worries with some holiday cheer. So, last time—I promise—what time is Christmas dinner, Mom?
Yesterday my uncle Judd passed away. He was 90 years old.
Almost every year, for as long as I can remember, our family gets together on the first of July to watch the Canada Day parade. Afterward, it was our tradition to enjoy a delicious potluck meal at my aunt Lois’ and uncle Judd’s place.
Despite Judd getting on in years, he kept his wits about him right to the end, and I always enjoyed chatting with him. He will be missed by many.
My brother-in-law, Glen, was in Wyoming a couple weeks ago competing in an Open Long Drive competition and ended up winning a ticket to the Re/Max Long Drive World Championship Tournament in Mesquite, Nevada this October.
Longdrivers.com lists him as the Open Division Winner with a distance of 337 yds 24 inches. I’m looking forward to watching him progress through the 11 rounds that it takes to win the Championship in Mesquite.
(Photo credit to Glen’s talented wife Jackie Hutchinson. IMHO she’s the best photographer in Drayton Valley.)
The relatives are headed home and my hard drive has been replaced. I’m going back to Lethbridge tonight and getting back into my blogging routine and finishing up the odd jobs that I have been putting off.
In the meantime, to satisfy your New Media hunger, please enjoy this Stop Motion collection and this short film about Stop Motion that I came across in an email awhile ago.
(Thanks Gary)
I’ve been spending some time with my family in Medicine Hat over the last week. While I was here, we received some very bad news. A cousin of mine, Michael Scoville, passed away last Friday at the age of 26 years old.
Of all my cousin’s, I hung out with Mike more than any other. We lived in the same city for most of our lives and were pretty much the same age. We never went to the same school at the same time for very long but I was always amazed at how many people knew Mike all over the city.
Growing up we had our share of fighting between us but within the last ten years, or so, we made up and I enjoyed running into him at his parents house on the many occasions when they would invite us all over for dinner. It’s sad that he’s gone.
I may be headed for an involuntary hiatus from posting because my hard drive is beginning to act like it has Alzheimer’s and files are beginning to disappear. Each time I start my computer is worse than the last. Pretty soon I won’t even be able to boot the thing up. I should have started to migrate my photos and songs as soon as I saw it happening, but alas it looks like I might lose everything. C’est la vie—in the meantime I’m at least I’m enjoying the week visiting my sister and her family. Here are some photos of my cute nephews.
Last Friday I saw “Live” at the Festival d’été de Québec and tonight I’m going out to see Hot Hot Heat (official site|myspace). I’ve never heard of Hot Hot Heat, but listening to their music on the net, it appears I’m in for a great show tonight.
So another little family update: currently I’m still loving life in Québec. My parents have survived some of the most intense tension in Israel recent years and are now headed home. My brother and his wife will be arriving back in Canada later today after spending a year in Australia and my sister is still taking beautiful photos of her (mischievious) kids. I can’t wait to chat with them all about each of our adventures.
I hope my parents are having a good time in Israel this month. I also hope they stay at least 6 miles from Gaza.
I ended my week on such a high note I can hardly believe it. To keep this interesting to the casual reader, I’ll try and keep this short.
Spending some time with my kid sister and her two kids was fantastic. I really can’t get enough of her kids. Her 18 month toddler is just so much fun, and I’ve never had so much time to spend with a newborn—yes I even changed diapers and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I was led to believe. Of course, I never had to change any seriously smelly ones. Oh man that kid does drop the occasional bomb in which hazmat suits would be ideal.
Then yesterday I had a good time hanging with one of my best friends in Lethbridge and her mom—which was totally nice if uneventful. However today was even more excellent than any day of the previous week.
It started out as one of those bland Saturday’s where even though the weather is nice, the lawn needed to be mowed, the laundry to be done, repairs made on the damage that my psycho roommate inflicted upon the house while I was gone (that’s one I’ll save for a different post), and it didn’t look like I had much on my plate that I was interested in actually doing.
But then, by the glorious miracle of the Internet, I found a group of guys that had blogged about going kayaking in less than an hour; all I had to do was show up with a boat on my Jeep.
We hit the lower St. Mary’s river which I had never been down before. Pictured below is a one of the guys that went with us and a bunch of Calgary folks’ vehicles and boats—we were all getting ready to hit the water.
The thing is, there has been a lot of rain in the last week. Apparently it rained pretty much everyday while I was gone to visit my sister. Well with lots of rain comes a high river and let me just say, wow that river was flowing! I was getting pretty confident going down it though and noticed that the other guys were all pulling off to the side, but thought, oh well I’ll just go down a bit further and pull off after a few of these big waves.
Well HELLO, the waves kept coming bigger and bigger, until I noticed that the whole river was raging around me. I found out later this was probably in the area of class four rapids. The best thing to do in a time like that is just go for it—which I did; which was awesome! I got right through them without even flipping and then parked in the eddie like a pro. The other guys were mighty impressed. Two of them followed my path and the other two opted to walk around these particular rapids.
Later one of the guys lost his boat—which looking at it now is kind of funny but I was quite worried at the time. The two more experienced boaters wanted these other two guys to come over to the shore with us so we could check out the hole around the next bend. Well I think they might have scared him slightly because while crossing he was a little unstable and then dumped. Well knowing he was in trouble he quickly bailed and didn’t even hang onto his boat. I went after him—again charging into the great unknown but at least the other guys told me to keep left. I went down this even bigger set of rapids, but this time a little less gracefully (I did it upside down)—depending on how you think about it perhaps I should get extra points for style. Luckily I flipped myself back up (after several tries) and we found his boat circling in a nearby eddie.
So to treat myself for my hard work today I made myself what I consider a perfect supper fit for a king and watched the Oilers shut-out the Hurricanes 4 to nothing, sending them to game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals and giving me the perfect ending to a perfect week.
I think I’ll start out next week with more kayaking; I’m going again tomorrow.
I had some big plans to go down to the States this week and drive all the way to Indiana. However, due to the way things just work out sometimes, the trip is cancelled and now I’ve got to make something with this pile of lemons I’ve been handed.
So I’ve decided instead of the beautiful Red, White, and Blue, I will head north to visit my kid sister again and her, ever-so-cute, kids. Life seems to be an allusive adventure lately. Hopefully we’ll spend some time at the lake and besides the drive will be a good chance to practice my French. Only twenty more days until I leave for Quebec.
Sometime in the early hours of the morning, my sister phoned my mom to let her know the new baby is on the way. Still no word if it’s a girl or a boy but we’re all very excited. I’m off to Edmonton to meet the newest member of the family.
Update: It’s a boy! Eric Robert was born Sunday, June 4th, 2006 weighing in at 9lbs 9oz and measured 22 inches tall. I’m so excited for their family.
Here he is, about 6 and a half hours old. He was pretty quiet and very tired. He did wake up for awhile and check out the people around him.
Seeing as he was such a big baby, I’m sure Jackie is glad she didn’t have to wait a day longer. I can’t wait until he gets older, it will be so cute when he is big enough to play with Ryker.
I had a fantastic weekend. The May long weekend is one of those fickle beasts where anticipation is rarely meted out with actual reward, but I have to say I never would have imagined mine would be so fun.
My kid sister and her husband Glen invited me out to Buck Lake for some fun and adventure with their family. Glen’s brother Jason even picked me up halfway in Calgary so we’d each have someone to chat with on the way up and of course to save a little gas. What a fantastic family. I’m guessing the invitation was due, in no small part, to the fact that I’ve seen better days. Though I might have a thousand people read this website, when it comes to the real world I have been a little bit of a recluse lately. So again, this weekend was a lifesaver.
First thing when we arrived on Saturday morning the boys immediately started to play. It was one game after another, tossing the baseball, a little catch with the football, and then the competitions started. I bet you I can knock over the lawn chair from here, next time make it Ryker’s minuscule plastic chair. Of course the chair was no match for the pig skin.
“Yeah, it was weird, the wind knocked it over and the leg just broke right off”. The grandparents are apparently used to the their sons breaking Ryker’s stuff as Grandma says with a smile, “Oh, sure it did”.
It rained that night as Chris (Glen’s oldest brother) and I finished up the Texas Hold ‘em Poker match. I had a pretty big lead, but it was getting late so we went all in blind on one deal and I ended up losing everything. Still that game is extremely fun, and we weren’t playing for money. Seeing the rain pouring down on my little tent—though I’m sure it wouldn’t have been bad once i got in it—I opted to sleep on the floor of the fifth wheel. The next day Jason, Jock, and I took the Quads out through the fresh mud and had a spectacular time. Part of the fun is trying to go through the most impossible rutted up mud traps to see if you can make it. If you can’t, well then that’s what the winch is for and with a little help from the other guys you can pull yourself out of anything. It’s great!
That night the Oilers beat the (not so) Mighty Ducks and afterwards we took the boat out wakeboarding. I have never been wakeboarding in such perfect conditions. The water was like glass and as the sun set it left pink and purple streaks that glided down into the reflection of the lake. I wish I would have had my camera out that night because except for swallowing a few bugs, the mood was absolutely perfect! I even landed a few big jumps across the wake.
I got to spend the next morning playing with the little man, my nephew Ryker, at the park and got a few pictures of him there. It’s so fun to watch what he finds entertaining.
Back in Calgary that evening I met up with one of my old friends from Medicine Hat and we went to dinner together.
Things are really starting to line up for her. We started talking about when we were younger going to church together. We talked about what everyone else in the same church age-group was doing with their lives. We talked a little bit about what our Sunday School lessons were like and how even as a kid she realized that I was the only one in class asking the hitting questions and she could see the pain in my eyes when the responses I got weren’t very satisfying.
She also helped me realize something that night which might very well change my life. She pointed out that I’ve had quite a hard time letting things go, whether it be a misunderstanding from junior high or a break-up or whatever. She claimed (ever so kind that she is) that she thinks I’m a genius and on that same note that sometimes my great mind refuses to just forget about things. Obviously I’ve been aware of this my whole life, but something about the conversation just stuck and I began to finally realize that holding onto anger for things whether they happened 20 years ago or just last year was pretty ridiculous. What was I trying to accomplish anyway? It’s high time I let things go; it’s high time I learn not to cling onto things so much; and it is such a burden off my shoulders.
So I’m back home, reclusing as usual, but I feel good. I’ve done all my household chores, the lawn is mowed, the DVD I have been meaning to burn for a friend is done, and it’s got me thinking, why shouldn’t I be happy anyway? After all, every day is a gift, and some days are extra special gifts—like the ones where you go quadding and wakeboarding in the same day. I’m a lucky guy.
And I’m not taking it. I’m heading back to Lethbrige. Thanks so much to everyone I saw on this trip. It’s meant a lot to me.
(What do you know Anna-Maria, I guess seeing me wasn’t so bad, eh?).