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826 Valencia

I just watched Dave Eggers TED talk about the 826 Valencia project. It’s inspiring and funny; please enjoy:

Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to personally, creatively engage with local public schools. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open their own volunteer-driven, wildly creative writing labs. But you don’t need to go that far, he reminds us, “it’s as simple as asking a teacher: How can I help?” He asks that we share our own volunteering stories at his new website, Once Upon a School.

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Woman Loses Finger in Pit Bull Attack

Kelli’s parents have a friendly Irish Setter named Riley. A couple months ago, while taking a walk with Kelli’s mom, their family pet was attacked by a vicious pit-bull. Despite attempts to separate the attacker from Riley, by hitting the wild dog, she was unable to get him to release his clamped jaws.

Luckily a woman driving by in a van saw the incident and helped to separate the two dogs, finally getting Riley into the safety of her vehicle.

Suddenly a man appeared in a blue sports car, claimed the dog as his brother’s, and apologized for neglecting to keep him in control.
Riley with StichesLong story short, after a vet bill of a few hundred dollars (that Kelli’s folks paid themselves) and some minor cuts to Kelli’s mom’s hand, Riley has healed up and the only lasting damage appeared to be psychological.

Today the Medicine Hat News has reported another attack on the same street by a dog of the same description. This time not only did the dog attack another dog, described as a small Shih Tsu, but in the scuffle the dog bit off a woman’s finger.

See the article after the jump:
Continue reading “Woman Loses Finger in Pit Bull Attack”

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Punta Cana

I’m leaving for Calgary in about an hour and then tomorrow I’m off to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. There’s not likely to be much action around here in the meantime.

Update: I’ve got some photos from my trip up at Flickr.

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The Future of Dubai Buildings

Designboom has picked out 50 amazing architectural projects currently being proposed, constructed, or developed in Dubai and its surrounding region in a new article entitled, The future in Dubai, any one of which is truly an amazing endeavor.

There is some amazing stuff there and they didn’t even mention the World Islands, a collection of man made islands made to resemble the world continents or Dubailand, a collection of amusement parks twice the size of the Walt Disney World parks.

Pictured here is a render of the completed Burj Dubai. Construction began in 2005 and is expected to be completed this year. At an estimated height of over 800 meters, it will easily be world’s tallest building when finished. It will be almost 40% taller than the the current tallest building, the Yaipei 101.

Apparently the Al Burj, when completed will take over the title of world’s tallest building at 1200 meters. That would make it more than 30% taller than the Burj Dubai and three times as tall as the Empire State Building.

Some other interesting projects not mentioned in the article:

  • Dubai Sports City. A huge collection of sports arenas located in Dubailand.
  • The Dubai Marina is an entirely man made development that will contain over 200 highrise buildings when finished.
  • The Dubai Mall will be the largest shopping mall in the world with over 9 million square feet of shopping and around 1000 stores.
  • Ski Dubai, which is already open, the largest indoor skiing facility in the world.
  • The Dubai Metro system, once completed, will become the largest fully automated rail system in the world.
  • The Dubai World Central International Airport will become the largest airport in size when it is completed. It will also eventually become the busiest airport in the world, based on passenger volume.
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On Voting

I recently attended a forum for local candidates in the provincial election that is taking place tomorrow. I felt a little overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge of current events in the province and also by my confusion over what should make a candidate deserving of my vote.

Provincial Candidates for Lethbridge East and West

I have decided not to be apathetic though; I’ve decided to vote for Tom Moffatt of the NDP. I haven’t jumped to this conclusion lightly. Among other reasons, I’m voting for him because the NDP is a party that DOES NOT TAKE corporate donations—EVER. It’s a party for the people, one that has proven it can be trusted.

The other thing I wanted to bring up, is voter apathy. It’s become a big problem here, as in many western countries. My friend Andy wrote an article on the subject, Voting: part of a healthy democratic diet, that has been published in this weeks issue of The Meliorist (the student run paper at the University of Lethbridge). Seriously go read the article, it’s short and it very nicely sums up why people don’t vote, and why it’s important to take part in the selection of our government.

He states that one of the biggest causes of voter apathy is the lack of proportional representation. According to Andy’s article, I can see why the current party (the Progressive Conservatives) have nothing to gain and everything to lose from proportional representation.

The differences based on the last elections results would be as follows:

  • PC – would have 39 seats instead of 61
  • Liberals – would have 24 seats instead of 17
  • NDP – would have 8 seats instead of 4
  • Wildrose Alliance – would have 7 seats instead of 1
  • Green – would have 2 seats instead of 0
  • Social Credit – would have 1 seat instead of 0

Albertans are ready for a new government and if we had a more democratic way of getting the people we want into power, more voters would vote with their hearts and we’d see an even bigger shift away from the PC party.

Here’s hoping more people will vote for the party they believe in, despite a lack of proportional government, in the hope of moving our leadership in the direction the people want.

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Early Easter

According to an email that has been floating around, Easter is coming particularly early this year, and won’t be this early again for another 220 years.

Do you realize how early Easter is this year? As you may know, Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.

Found out a couple of things you might be interested in! Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) but that is pretty rare.

Here’s the interesting info. This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above!). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier! Here’s the facts:

1) The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you’re 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).

2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!

I took a look at the dates Easter has fallen on over the last few years:

  • Sunday 23rd April 2000
  • Sunday 15th April 2001
  • Sunday 31st March 2002
  • Sunday 20th April 2003
  • Sunday 11th April 2004
  • Sunday 27th March 2005
  • Sunday 16th April 2006
  • Sunday 8th April 2007

So, it’s not insanely early, just a week or so than the earliest Easters we are accustomed.

Remember, even though the holiday is early, there is still time to buy your chocolates, eat them and get more in time for Easter. Happy hunting.

(Via)

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Not Voting for PC

There are a myriad of reasons to NOT vote for the Progressive Conservative party in the upcoming provincial election but this one in particular makes me chuckle:

PC election sign placed without permission

Remember that on March 3rd, Alberta needs a new government.