Well, we're back from Calgary and it was a great trip!
Pace was an amazing traveler, we saw lots of friends, family and old familiar sights. In many ways, it felt like we were trying to cram three and a half years of memories from when we lived there into just under a week of visiting. But even with that constraint, we managed to hit many of the spots we wanted to see - the Calgary Zoo, the Wave Pool, Shea's old unit at the Foothills, my old office at the Old Y Centre for Community Organizations plus lots of shopping and good eating. Oh, and the obligatory pilgrimage to IKEA that all Saskies must make when visiting Cowtown.
I haven't downloaded our pictures or video yet but was looking for something to sum up the trip and found the clip below.
If asked to name my single fondest memory of the three and a half years I spent in Calgary, it was when a dozen people (including the couple we stayed with while visiting on this trip) rented a 10 man dingy (yeah, I know I said it was a dozen people involved - but there were always two or more in the river at pretty much anytime so it wasn't *completely* illegal) spent a beautiful +30 day floating lazily down the Bow River that runs through the centre of Calgary.
The day had it all - beautiful hot weather, tons of other rafters to visit with, lots of chances to jump in and swim in the swift moving river or just hold on to the edge of the dinghy, a picnic lunch, getting ambushed by kids with water guns at one beach along the ride, a chance to drink directly from the river via one survivalist participant's new water filtration gizmo, a spot check by the river patrol (conveniently happening after our portage spot where we dumped a lot of empty cans!) and even a lost engagement ring swept away by the strength of the current (luckily not Shea's ring!)
We only did this once during the entire 3.5 years we lived in Calgary because I think we realised that doing it again might bring disappointment when it wasn't as magical as that first time.
I had the same worry going back to visit Calgary after so many years away and with so many good memories of our time living there. But except for a couple small pangs throughout the week (okay, and one big one when Shea and I spent a couple hours strolling 17th Ave aka "The Red Mile" where we'd spent so much time while we lived in Calgary), I realised I don't miss Calgary as much as I thought I would. It was a great city to spend a few years in during my 20's but I would argue that Regina's an equally great city to be a young parent in. (Comparing notes with a cousin who does a 2+-hour round trip to take her daughter to soccer three nights a week is all the proof I needed on this point! )
Anyhow, I found this video which doesn't quite do justice to how peaceful and wonderful and amazing our own day floating the Bow River was. But it may give you a bit of a taste...
Read at Work
is a site from the New Zealand Book Council that allows you to read classic books, poetry, samples from selected New Zealand authors and more, online and formatted to look like either the Windows XP interface and Powerpoint presentations. Very fun and cool (though I do not, of course, advocate performing non-work activities such as this while at work! Of course, if you work in libraries, this *is* work related...sort of.)
(via Reddit though I don't have the original link handy - you can search if you really need it)
As for Shea being a computer genius, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Swift Current right now. We made sure the room had an Internet connection as I've brought my laptop with me. I plugged it in when we got here, checked e-mail then trundled off to the pool with Pace and Shea. When we got back, Shea went to the computer and asked, "How come it won't turn on?" I pushed the power button, sure I'd left it running when we left. Nothing. Again, holding it a few seconds. Nothing. "Oh fuck" is the non-paraphrased thought that came to mind. I ran through the checklist...did the screen give out? The motherboard? The hard drive? Hopefully the motherboard - that's the least bothersome major error. The hard drive has a full back-up but would be PAINFUL to redo everything. We're in a poolside room...maybe the humidity just temporarily short-circuited it or something? Wishful thinking but maybe it'll work tomorrow if I crank the air and say a prayer to the techno-gods before I fall asleep. So I'm laying in bed with Shea and Pace and Shea goes, "How long were we at the pool? Do you know if the plug in you used was working? Maybe it wasn't and the battery died?" My battery life is down quite a bit from when it was new (now I get maybe an hour whereas back then, I got 3-4 hours) but w weren't at the pool that long...were we? I plug the laptop into a different outlet and...voila...it boots no problem. So I must say my wife is a brilliant computer-engineer level of intelligence that I am daily in awe of. (Also, I was up and out of the house by 5am today to go do weeding in a distant community. So I drove 3 hours round-trip, did six hours of weeding, then drove another three hours to get here. So hopefully that's an excuse for being such a moron at why my computer "died" tonight.) God, I need sleep... (Oh yeah, I didn't plan to get up at 5am but I had a dream about being at the library weeding and the branch librarian had got her whole board of 10+ people there to help - but in exchange, they wanted me to help them move their entire library...which is in reality a big part of the reason why I was going out - to do a major weeding to help them prepare for an impending move. But yeah...I dreamt about weeding. I think I've reached the next level on the Librarian Nerd Scale! )
I couldn't think what to post about so Shea suggested I give an update from my real life. So here it is...
- tonight we went for a big walk and ended up in River Park just down the hill from where we live in Weyburn. There was an In Motion celebration going on and Pace loved dancing and clapping and running around (yes, he's running now!) to the zydeco band that was playing.
- we're going to Calgary for a week, leaving tomorrow. Our main goals are to hit the zoo, do some shopping (Saskies have to make a pilgrimage to IKEA), visit some relatives and friends since we haven't been back since moving home in 2004 after having lived there for three and a half years
- blog posts may be a bit more sparse for the next week (but knowing me, probably not.)
- I had a day at work today where I accomplished tons, the time flew by, I wrapped up pretty much everything I needed to do before going on holidays. I love days like that!
- I'm on the road tomorrow doing weeding all day at one of our branches. This is completely different than smoking weed all day at one of our branches which is a practice that went out of fashion around 1977.
- Hockey is over. The other blood sport, the Democratic nomination proces is over. How will I entertain myself this summer. (Voice from next room: "Go outside!")
- I could see myself developing an addiction to energy drinks. I'd never tried them before but on a friend's recommendation, I gave it a shot and zowee-wowee. Them things pack a punch!
- Did I mention that I hope to visit a few of my old favourite CPL branches while in Cowtown?
- we probably won't go out to the mountains while we're there. We rarely did in the three and a half years we lived there - why change now? But seriously, we've got a pretty full week just with Calgary stuff so it's doubtful if we'll manage to head out that way.
- I've got a list of old favourite restaurants I want to visit as well. Beef satay at Viet West, chicken schwarma at Falafel King and a pizza from Hop n Brew are all on the menu.
- we've already been invited to a hot tub party - yay!
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