Coldonion

Hard to believe thats its Thursday right now. It has gone by so fast, well yesterday I cancelled my hike to the store, cause we needed to get quite a bit of stuff.
Roanna came home, and we went to Safeway, shopped for the week, picked up tickets for teh Stampede, picked up some Chinese food & picked up some beer. This was the first night since Friday we did not BBQ anything.
Came home and packed everything away, dished up the food, and popped in a movie, The Two Towers, that is a good movie.
I'm getting excited to see Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong, from what I have read the trailors are being well recieved.
From what we hear, we won't be going to the horse races tomorrow, apparently they had to postpone it because the fields washed out. Well we are planning to have Roanna's Mum and Dad over for dinner, since we were all supposed to go the horse races. We will take the camera when we go to Stampede, so expect some more pics next week.
Tommorow is Canada Day for us up here. So everyone have a safe and fun..

Canada Day, Eh!

The rains back, hopefully for one day only, the water shortage is almost over, or at least we are not at water conservation level 3 anymore.

Making Salmon tonight, its been in the freezer for, like, 9 months, but it was vacuum packed. smelled ok. sliced it into two pieces, so I marinated 1 and gonna cedar plank grill the other. Should be fun.

Been indoors on account of the rain, so not much to talk about.

Keep safe all.

Ian

I give you "Kat In Sack". 

Hi all,
hope you had a great weekend. We had a good one ourselves, and ended the day with sitting on the balcony having a drink, then grilling up a steak and veggies on the BBQ. The only bad part right now is I am covered in moscuito bites from Friday, when I walked to Shawnesy and back, with all the rain we had, there was lots of standing water for moscuito breeding.
Now, lemme tell ya, back in Bermuda, the moscuitoes are pretty small, and they are also pretty "shy", they seem only to bite at nightime when you are asleep. Here these things are huge, and they are very agressive, they will keep coming after you until they either get thier fill or you smash them. My arms and legs are covered in bites, and these bites seem to be bigger and itchier than the Bermuda ones.
We have to go to Regina in August, last time we were there in the summer I stayed indoors, cause they were having a big moscuito outbreak then as well. These things were even more aggressive! Not only did they suck your blood, but the punched you as well, to give you more bruises.
Other than that, at least they don't seem to be hanging around the condo complex, just the grassy areas (so far).

Not much else to report, everyone keep it safe.

Ian

Hi all,
Got the LP gas last night, and hooked it all up, cleaned and tested the BBQ, and it works great. Gonna give it a proper try tonight, with some steaks and veggies. Hope everyone has a great weekend, ours hopefully will be a bit fun, now I'm off to vacuum the house, and tidy up a bit. Tonight I make the german potato salad, and bake the cake.

Keep it safe all, and have a great weekend.

Ian

Well, helped Mark move his Futon, he had done most of the work so I just gave him a hand with the matress, his gym, and a couch.
Left to go get a BBQ, searched a few stores and ended up at RONA, saw a nice 40000 BTU that had side tables that could be put down, I just left them off. So it worked out, it is on my balcony, lots of BTU's and it looks good. I gotta get some gas tonight, and I will be testing it tomorrow.
Other than that, lots of driving around last night, getting lost for some strange reason, almost say a woman who was rollerblading get hit by a car. Luckily she was paying attention, 'cause the driver of the car as not. She ended up on her butt, which I guess is better than under the car, and wouldn't you know it but a police car had just passed through the intersection about 1 minute before. The car did not yield to the rollerblader. The Woman got up and kept blading so I don't think she was injured.

That's it, eveyone keep it safe.

Ian

Here it is, just need to fill up the tank, and test it for leakage tomorrow, before firing it up. 

Well it's been quiet and quite warm today, stayed in, relaxed, ate some soup that I made last week. Had some Pizza a couple of hours later (made it last night), nice pancetto & carmilized onions with mozza cheese & rosemary, it is a sauceless pizza, you just use olive oil.

Layed with the kitties in my bed and read for a bit, but fell asleep, now I am all groggy, I hate when that happens. Naps during the day make me feel worse that before I nap. It is supposed to be a bit warmer today as well, but at least we are not baking and pizza tonight, the condo was hot for about 2 hours last night.

Well thats the update, gonna move some furniture in a bit, at a friends house, so I gotta get a quick shower, and get dressed.

Take care all,

Ian

Hi all,
Just had my coffee and bagel (with cream cheese *yum yum*). It's a nice day, so far, though the city is still screaming about water usage to the residents. Everyone is using 50 million litres over the water treatment plants 350 million litres daily processing rate.
We are back into the old Bermuda mode of water usage, or to quote Meet the Fockers, "If it's yellow, let it mellow.....if it's brown flush it down."
Tonight or tommorow, they may start the turning areas off for a bit, we will have to watch the news tonight.
Aside from that, Roanna's birthday is Thursday, though we have bumped a small party to Saturday. Still haven't got a BBQ yet, but I have narrowed it down a bit.
News on the immigration...None, they have recieved my update letter, but have not updated the information on the website yet, they do that once a week. So maybe Friday I hope.
Everyone take care.

Ian

Here is a shot of the Lacombe LRT stop. It is about 10 minutes from our house, the grassy area on the middle right is part of Fish Creek. 

One minute to much water, now there is not enough fresh water for everyone. Hmmmm, not like back in Bermuda, when it didn't rain, you were in trouble, when it rained lots, long showers!
Again not much news right now (well news that effects us directly). Still waiting for "the papers", but we shall see.
It is interesting that back in the old home, their is a russian family that have been sailing around the world for something like 14 years, they are currently in Bermuda because they are waiting for Canada immigration to process some papers so they can immigrate as well. They had to leave Canada and sail to Bermuda because their time had run out on the fathers work permit that he was issued. So now they are in Bermuda, having to apply to stay longer so they can sail back up to Canada when their papers are processed. Hmmmm sounds familiar.
On the lighter side, the Canadian government is suing the Bermudian government, for something like $120,000 for unpaid bills. When you read the article, it ends up being a Canadian government sponsered printing company, did work for a Bermudian Goverment sponsered ad company, run by Walton Brown, Jr. Related to the deputy premier, and who used to be a history college lecturer (I used to attend his history classes). Nice guy, just apparently sucks when it comes to money, there was a pretty big scandel a few years ago when it came to ads at the Airport, and people not getting paid as well. It was even funnier cause at the end of the article, a check had been sent this very month by the Bermuda ad company for, get this, $500, that probably doesn't even cover the interest. You can't even rent an apartment for $500 in Bermuda!
We are all fine, cats included. Take care.

Ian

I remember:

Sgt. Foggo : Most feared motorcycle cop, in the island of Bermuda.

The first haircut given to me by my Dad, in the back yard in Prospect. It lasted about 1 day before it was "repaired" by my usual barber.

The sound of the Triumph that you used to travel to and from work, you could hear that bike from a distance off.

The explosion you created that quiet afternoon, when you decided to burn a year’s worth of trash in the moat. This is probably why I became a firefighter, so insure you made retirement age.

Building your boat, in the backyard of the first house in Prospect. Then going out on that boat for a fishing trip.

The pride I felt during later years when I meet people telling me of stories of being chased by you on your motorcycle. I believe of all the stories I was told I met one person who said they got away from you, though they didn’t get away with their bike.

Watching you go out jet skiing in the summer.

The cruise trip we all went on in Alaska.

You attending my wedding in Calgary, and telling that halarious story about your rental car getting towed.

Being in your wedding party, in Cape Cod.

Shaking your hand when I left Bermuda last September.

Thanks for providing for us, and taking care of us, and keeping me on the straight and narrow, and yes my spelling has improved.

Happy Father's Day.

Bow River seen from Deerfoot expressway. It is quite high from all the rain. 

Here's an interesting pic of my old dept. giving a "water shoot" for a newly inaugurated flight by USAirways. Depts. used to do this for retiring pilots as well as new airlines arriving to the island. 

Hey good news, the letter has been recieved, so hopefully, it should be moving forward now, and everything else is in good order. (Meaning we paid the fees up front.)
Gonna keep it quiet today, it's a bit rainy outside, and thankfully the water is staying outside!!
Thinking about seeing Batman tomorrow some time, but there are a few things I want to get, still no BBQ yet, have not made up mind for big or small yet, which means it either goes on the balcony (small) or has to be chained to the back porch, since we don't have a fence (yet), the condo association was supposed to have one built last summer, moved to this summer, but last I heard there were some concerns, so more delays.
Yes this is the excitement I have been dreaming of all my life!!
Have a great weekend eveyone!

Here's looking southish, today, thats the Shawnesy LRT station in the middle. 

It's midweek, now is the time to start planning some weekend stuff. I think I'm gonna go for a drive on Saturday, somewhere, and take some photo's. Maybe to Vulcan, or to the air museum, but just to get out of Calgary for 1/2 a day. Next weekend is more birthday stuff we are supposed to do some birthday stuff at Roanna's parents, some cousins are coming over as well.
Other than that, nothing. Take care everyone.

Ian

This is on my website links, but everyone loves Magical Trevor! 

We sent my letter yesterday night, then popped over to Mr. Schnaps for a coupon dinner, and chatted about the weekend and what's coming up.
We think we might plan an early camping trip next summer, we would like a week but if I am working I will probably have restrictions on vacation time, so maybe a long weekend or something. We have the gear, so it would be an inexpensive holiday, on the long weekends here you see the range of compact car stuffed with food, coolers, tenting stuff and tables, to those rolling mansions on wheels some being pulled by trucks some being driven, heading out of the city. We will be tenting it.
Hope you like the panoramic view I posted, I was just trying out some software I have had since I got the camera. Dead easy it was. It is of the Millrise area, they started construction just about when we moved in, there is supposed to be a Starbucks, chinese restaurant (oriental pheonix), Sobeys (shopping shore), Pharmacy, and Wine Celler. Once that Starbucks goes up there will be three with in a 15 minute walk from my house.
Quiet day today, gonna stay in, tidy, and wash some laundry. Hope everyone is fine.

Ian

View of all the construction going on in front of our area, notice the BIG lake from all the rain we had. 

Well good news is they have start to process, bad news is I gotta fill out a few questions they sent. I need to fill out info from what I have been doing in Canada since September 2004. I think they might be trying to trick me to see if I have been working (ha ha). Let's see, I'm filling out a form to immigrate to Canada, I moved to Canada Sept. 2004, I cannot work until you file this form there fore I probably am unemployed, and the actually ask for the reason of unemployment (hmmmmmm!). Considering I sent in about 25 pages of paperwork, photocopies and questioneers, three "please fill out these from September 2004" seem pretty good. I will fill out and mail tomorrow.
Anyhoo, lots of rain yesterday and more flooding in Calagary areas, so far out house remains dry.
I'm off for a coffee, see ya.

Birthday dinner for Trish @ Earls, cheers! 

It's been fun so far,
Kinda pissed though, forgot about the Sci-fi event at Vulcan, about and hour outside of Calgary, we will have to plan a trip there one weekend to see it. The town has made use of the name, and have been hosting events there for the past few years. Apparently they are getting bigger and bigger every year.
Hope everyone is having an enjoyable weekend as well.

Ian

It took me a few seconds before I got this, but I thought it was very funny. 

Woohoo!
The offical letter from immigration is in!! Well it's at my in-laws so I don't have it yet, gotta REAALLLLLLYYY wanna go there, besides we are there on Sunday to celebrate birthdays and aniversaries. So I assume it is the we are processing your paperwork letter, cool!

Ian

Hmmm, having problems with the coldonion website, tried to update some more photos, and about half of them will not show on the page, now I can't even log on, I'll have to call the cable company when I come back and try to fix it.
At least the Kenya link is working spiffy! Now I don't feel so bad. Gonna go wander down and get some coffee, and if I have the debit card some kitty food from the pet store..ohh fluffy bunnies view and petting area!
The rain has stopped and the weather is chilly, but at least there are not any houses floating by on the river.

Bye all.

Where can you see Lions??? 

Thank goodness it has stopped, well at least over our area, feel really bad for the hundreds of homes that had to be evacuated, I can't imagine what that would be like. (On the lighter side I think Roanna would be packing bags and I'll be trying to grab the cats!)
It's very strange because it has been raining for a week, and it's just like a very slow moving disaster. I used to hate those aircraft emergencies we used to get hours in advance (when they were crossing over the Atlantic) you would get a pysched up and would be like that for 60 or 90 more minutes. Very bad for the body, even worse when they found out it was something like dust on a heater or something that they deemed safe and cancelled the emergency. So you had all this adrenaline with no were to get rid of it (I later found out that you should go for a twenty minute stroll). So last night your just watching the river double in size then looking at the weather prediction saying its gonna rain for another day, what can you do but wait. Well hopefully it is almost over.

I some how lost about 2 hours, I thought it was 4 o'clock, it's only 2, well I'm gonna go clean up and wonder down to the superstore to pick up some soy sauce, we ran out last night.

Take Care everyone

Ian

He is! 

Bleah!
What great weather we are having here, it probably makes up for the mild winter we had. At least I don't have to water the plants though, if they last that long, something is digginf through the soil to get at some seeds that I planted in the planter. I guess it is one of the "cute" squirels that run around the complex.
Other than that, I have joined another blog at another site, cause my Aunt and Uncle are there two, I will link if from my website soon. I have updated that as well, but am having a few problems with photo's from the Alaska cruise, I'll have to check the size of the site, though I thought we had lots and lots of room.
Not much today, just gonna make some coffee and read the paper. We have a busy weekend this week with dinners and parties and such.
Everyone stay safe.

Ian

Went to the Leighton Art Center yesterday with Kim, Roanna, Madaline, to view art that was for sale. The art center was having a clothesline sale, where they hang art to view. It was pretty cool because we knew some of the people that made the paintings, including Madaline. We also went for a Hay ride on the property which was pretty nice, then drove around the area looking at really nice (and big) houses.
The center was an old house, and was used to teach art to children by the Mrs. Leighton when her husband passed away in the early 1970's. The center gives lots of support to local Alberta artists. There were lots of paintings and ceramics, lots of landscape paintings, and some really detailed graphite sketches of England towns (I really liked these, plus we met the artist there).
Kinda reminded me of my lack of skills when it comes to these sort of things, in my opinion I have a pretty vivid imagination, unfortunately it seems to loose something by the time it get's to my hand.
Both Granddads were great working with their hands, and of course my Mom's dad was really talented with creating things. Bruce works very well with metal and has impressed me when I've seen him create freehand diagrams for making things. My Uncle Chris was good with photography, and drawing, and woodmaking (those maps were great) Send me a pic of one of those maps Chris and I'll post it. I think my biggest accomplishment in the art world has been a shoe drawing that was put up on the school board back in Whitney (my old high school), but I think I was helpped by the crappy condition of my dirty busted school shoe over the actual skill of drawing the actual shoe. Come to think of it I'm think I kept that picture somewhere.
Afterwards we went back and had a grilled steaks and play Trivial Persuit until about 11 o'clock, then came home and crawled into bed.
Today it is supposed to be cloudy, then rain tomorrow & Wednesday, but nothing big planned so it is no worries. So's I think I'll say in bed for a while after this and catch up on some sleep.
Hope you enjoy pics.
Stay safe everyone.

Ian

Pic from last year, I'll call it "Misty Bermuda Morning" 

Here's a farm that is close by the Leighton Center. That's Buffalo in the foreground and Elk in the background, those little guys are little buffalo's. 

Here's the hay ride, horse's and driver 

Well we went to Mark and April's last night to have dinner and a movie, nice curry and a drive down to DQ for some Ice creams while we watched a movie. I got to see the ultrasound of thier baby, which was pretty cool as well.
On the way back we stopped off to get some beer, and popped into a bar and played some NTN, those remote quiz games where you can sign in with some "vauge" name. We usually use weebl, at Dixon's pub we usually run up against Bubba and of course our arch nemisis rimlkr (heh, heh). Anyway, long story short, weebl kick some quiz hinney last night!! Which was pretty fun, some of those questions are pretty tough. The only bad part was the smokyness of the bar, blech! It is pretty unbelievable how much Canadians seem to smoke, especially since the packs cost about 10 bucks each!! Glad I never got into that habit, but I'm off to have a beer now.... Cheers!
Take care

Ian

Well yesterday we had Maxine, today we have Jenny (and weebl & bob). She is such a cutey! ....and a sheder. 

hot piss it works! 

Well finally got the picture program so's I can upload pictures to show.

Off to eat some curry.

Here are those deer I was blogging about last month. 

Here's Maxine on the nextdoor neighbours roof. 

Well, it's been raining for the past two days on and off, the big highlight has been reading my Aunt (in Rhode Island) and Uncle (back in Bda's) blogs, they are on a different blogsite so I won't list them here (I'll probably link them from my Website soonish).
I ditched the 90 minute presentation that I "won", last night for some travel/timeshare thingy, and went to Moxies instead, with Roanna. Eight bucks for a plate of Calamari that would have had a hard time to fill a coffee cup, what a rip. Roanna had pizza which turned out pretty good, went back home and watched Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade, we watched the whole series this week. After watching the Temple of Doom, which to be honest was about my 4th time since it came out, it wasn't that bad as I remember. I loved the first one, which is the best I thought.
Anyhoo, Maxine the cat, got out on the roof yet again, I tacked up some chicken wire in the spots I thought that she was getting through, but apparently there are some more! Ah well.
Aside from that, went and saw Episode III on Thursday night and really enjoyed that, might have to see it a few more times when it gets to the cheap theaters.
But I was telling Roanna, they showed the usual theater commercials while you are sitting waiting for the movie to start, which is better than showing them right before the movie (you know when the lights darken and everything.
They showed a Xtreme! Gattorade commercial, if you have seen it, it does the alphabet from A to X using sports themes to show the letter (like the "U" being a boxers mouthguard after is has been punched out of his mouth). Well I was telling Roanna, they got to "K" which was a shot of sports fans holding up the letter K on small plack cards for thier team, and ther of course are three fans in a row, who hold up thier plackcards all together so you get the KKK look, then a couple of fans around them put up some more. I acutually burst out laughing in the theatre, I don't know if it was obvious to anyone else, or if they cared but it was just very odd.
Hey, if they can digitally reduce Lindsy Loahan's boobs, and digitally make her wear T-shirts in the new Herby movie, cause it offended family groups, some one dropped the ball on the Gaterade comercial. Which of course brings me to the name of the Herby movie, I mean come on "Herby: Fully Loaded" works on so many different levels!
Anyhoo, supposed to go for a walk in Fish Creek park this morning, supposedly it is time for the ducks to hatch, so there may be lots of baby ducks to be seen, will take the camera.
Tonight, we are off to April and Mark's to watch a movie, and have a curry dinner, so that should be fun.
Eveyone stay safe,

Ian

Hi all, it's been a couple of weeks since I have updated anything. I would love to say that I was to busy invovled in really cool things, but sadly..... there was not much to say other than the usual "had coffee and read book at Starbucks".
I'll do a quick checklist for you.

Drank coffees....Check
Purchased BBQ....Pending
Cats OK....Check
Watched Doctor Who every Tuesday....Check

umm...thats about it.

On Roanna's side she had a jewelry party last Saturday, her Mom helped her out quite a bit, and she did pretty well. Unfortunately most of Roanna's friends were either working or at other events on the day, so the majority of the people were friends of Madaline. Which worked out pretty good anyway. Madaline made sangria, and I made dips and fruit and stuff, at one point there were 6 people in the house at one time, visiting, looking at her jewelery and buying stuff.
After it was over Ernie came back to pick up Madaline and we end up having some leftovers for dinner (chicken curry), and talked about the day. Roanna is thinking about holding another one, but we have to get out invites and such pretty quickly.

I have been called and have called back home with various family and friends, so it was good to talk to everyone, just about good news all around and nothing bad happening.

Really good news now... The have opened my letter and have been "processing" it since May 17th, though I have not received the letter from them yet saying they have done this. I can follow the progress via the internet, so hopefully things are going forward. It is hard to believe it has been 8 months, and will probably by at least another 5 months before I work. So i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Remember awhile back I went to the Woman's show, with Roanna on one of the days it was on? Well it is pretty much a collection of your name and phone number so you can win "free things" if you attend seminars, classes etc. We still get calls about products, and or services still. I am kinda worried about attending the upcoming SciFi convention in Calgary, since I will probably get a call later about being abducted and experimented on by "little green men".

Anyway, that's about 2 weeks worth of updates, I hope everyone is safe and I promise not to leave it so long next time.

Take care everyone.