Carrick to Calgary

Well, it looks like the winter is getting hunkered down and is about to start in earnest. An inch of snow on Monday morning, flurries all day, minus 14 on Monday night, minus 11 on the way to work yesterday, minus 7 last night. It's a bit warmer today (only minus 4), as we're expecting a mini-Chinook to come over and drag us up to zero (and maybe into the pluses) for the rest of the day and maybe tomorrow. But checking out the forecast on Wunderground and The Weather Network, it looks like these are the last few positive temperatures we'll be seeing. Our little, late Indian summer in November is coming to an end, and we'll be saying goodbye to the freezing point and sliding further and further into the minuses in the next week or two. There will be a little snow on and off in December, but the major white stuff will only be coming in Jan/Feb when it's -30, and then we're expecting March to be a little rougher, with blizzards.


Snowman cartoon

Two of the local ski resorts have opened recently, Lake Louise and Sunshine, with the rest expected to follow suit in mid-December according to Ski Report.com. Richard and Emma have Richard's mum visiting from New Zealand at the moment, and she's offered to babysit for them so the 4 of us can go ski-ing in the next week or two, so we'll keep you posted on this. Sunshine (close to Banff) is probably our best bet at the moment, as it has 50 runs open and 7 ski-lifts compared to 2 runs and 2 lifts at Lake Louise. You can check out the latest snow state at Lake Louise here. We're also heading off to the Silver Dragon in Chinatown on Saturday for 'Chunch', (which is what Melissa calls our Chinese dim sum lunch) with HERB and Rich's mum. They've got over 200 different dim sums to try out and the selection is always different each time you go. Then we're off to the theatre on Saturday night, and we'll probably try to go out for dinner too, as it's out EIGHTH (!) wedding anniversary on the 30th. Where does the time go? (PS - thanks for the card, mum and dad!)

Hope Mum is enjoying her new video camera by the way - we're expecting a DVD containing full coverage of the Christmas festivities in Island Park this year (no pressure, take your time with the editing, you can send it to us in the first week of January!).

This week we also registered at the Kinesiology Department at the University of Calgary - i.e the Sports and Fitness Centre. As I'm a student, I pay 60 dollars (about 25 quid) for a year's membership and P gets in for about double that. Membership allows you to do lots of stuff like swimming in the Olympic pool, work out in the gym, play raquetball (yes) and squash (no), go ice-skating and play ice hockey at the Olympic Oval and also enrol for a variety of courses, as well as get stuck into activities in the Outdoor Department, like cross-country ski-ing, Nordic/Telemark ski-ing, backcountry ski-ing, snowboarding and snow-shoeing. P has her eye on a Yoga course starting in January, while I'll be going for Adult Skating lessons and am hoping to work my way up to playing Shinny, which is the ice-hockey version of five-a-side football, if I can just learn how to skate backwards... Combining these with swimming, the odd bit of raquetball, and regular ski-ing at the weekends, we should have enough going on to avoid cabin fever during the long, hard winter that's ahead. You can check out the webcam of people skating at the Olympic Oval here. Lots of speed skaters on the ice at most hours of the day and night - it should bring back memories someone in the Robson family!

Looks like a little good news from home on the funding front, by the way - I have been given the nod that the Powers That Be are going to give me a little money from my normal salary to use while I'm in Canada. The final amount has not been confirmed yet, but it'll probably cover the sum I get for 5-6 months' worth of nights on call, which will mean I can reduce the number of nights I'm working for some or all of the second year here.

Thanks for Uncle Jim for his comment on the 'Happy Anniversary' post. Please feel free to leave a comment after any of our posts - just click on where it says "(0) comments", write what you want to say, and submit it. The link will then change to "(1) comment" and your words will be linked to the post you read. Go on, give it a try - anyone can blog! Mum & Dad and Mel & Stevie have already done it here, here and here

And another thing... what's going on at home with the whole on-again-off-again Good Friday-decomissioning-peace-in-our-time thing? I read on the BBC that Ian Paisley had been in London talking to the government and Bertie Ahern (shock horror!) about a deal which may be about to go ahead with Sinn Fein/IRA.

The Beeb says:

"The Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein have been involved in intensive - though indirect - talks as the main unionist and republican parties in Northern Ireland. "

"Both the DUP and Sinn Fein are backing the creation of a £1bn peace fund as the price tag for any deal - about one ninth of Northern Ireland's annual budget."
(Finally they agree about something - must be a first!)

"Party chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said: "I have always argued that if you take the long view, then you can see that clearly we are making progress towards the achievement of a durable peace. We are a long way from never, never, never."

"DUP leader Ian Paisley has admitted he was surprised at how much progress has been made in negotiations aimed at restoring devolution to Northern Ireland"

"(Paisley was)... also due to hold separate meetings in London with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to discuss the proposals, then with Defence Minister Geoff Hoon to demand the retention of the Royal Irish Regiment"

"The IRA has agreed to allow a Protestant and a Catholic churchman to witness any future decommissioning of its weapons, the BBC has learned. "

Looks like a lot of the circles have been squared and it might even work this time... And both the DUP and the Shinners want a 'Peace Dividend' of a BILLION pounds for the Province as the cost of doing a deal. Now we're talking! Maybe they can build me a nice new hospital to come home to - Martyrs Memorial District Hospital anyone? Or what about the Bobby Sands Regional Cancer Centre. Seems like we're finally starting to think outside the box at home, maybe thinking the unthinkable at last.


Big Ian

Whatever happened to ULSTER SAYS NO, or refusing to talk to the Brits, or the Evil Empire of the Republic etc. etc. Who would have thought it... And isn't Paisley looking OLD? Maybe he wants to do a deal before the Big Man Upstairs blows the whistle for him... I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed that the DUP and Sinn Fein did so well in the last elections after the more moderate parties (UUP and SDLP) had started the ball rolling on the peace process, but maybe it was what was needed to get them more fully into the process, give them the reins of power, bang their heads together and say "right, we voted for you, now get on with it". Of course, it'll probably all fall apart again (like every other time), but you never know... think of the money...

Anyway, I'd better go soon - it's Wednesday so it must my Cancer Biology course this morning - at least I have the afternoon free, so I must be grateful for small mercies. Must get the Jeep washed on the way home - the windows have so much grime on them it's hard to see out!

See you later - J

Happy birthday Dorothy White, who was born on this day mumblety-something years ago! Many happy returns of the day!

Just a brief blog entry tonight, about 9pm on a fairly warm Sunday night (4oC). They're forecasting heavy snow overnight, so we're expecting to be shovelling in the morning. We've had a pretty busy weekend - I was on-call on Thursday night, so I came home on Friday morning for a bit of a sleep. Then we went over to the Hubers' house on Friday night for dinner - we had a very nice time, and met their 2 cats Elvis and Ella. The drive home was a bit hairy, minus 6 and sheet ice off the main roads, but the Jeep managed very well.

It was an "up and out" Saturday, as we had work to do... We headed off the Farmers' Market at Currie Barracks to stock up on our favourite Chinese dumplings and fresh vegetables.


Outside Currie Barracks


Inside Currie Barracks

Then it was off to the new IKEA in the south-west of the city. We had seen Geri and Christine's lovely new dinner table on Friday night, and we had decided that it was time to upgrade our own kitchen table from the small one we originally bought off Richard and Emma when we arrived. It was just big enough for the 2 of us, and when we had 4 or 6 round for dinner, it was getting a bit ridiculous.


Our original table

IKEA was packed, as it's only been open for about 2 weeks, but we managed to get a new table (BJÖRNA), as well as 2 chairs and various bit and pieces of kitchen stuff from their Marketplace section. We had brought the Jeep, as the parts of the table would never have fitted in the Honda. We got the back seats out, and also discovered where the jack and tyre iron live!


Fully Loaded

We got lost on 11th Ave on the way home, but finally made it to Canadian Tyre where we were looking for Christmas lights, a temperature sensor for the Honda and a new, bigger snow shovel (should come in handy tomorrow). We got all of these, and then decided to head off to our favourite kitchen shops, Pots & Peppers up in Cochrane, where we invested in our first Canadian Denby, 2 plates and 2 bowls from the Reflex range. To date, we've been making do with a set of dull, grey plates and bowls we got from IKEA when we were first here in May, and we decided it was time to get some nice plates again, having left our own Denby stuff at home. Then it was home for roast chicken dinner, after putting the table together.


Hard at work


The new table

The table is 1.5m long and can be extended with a middle section to 2 metres. So now our kitchen is looking better and it's more like home. Today was spent at home, constructing our chairs, putting up our Christmas lights and sorting out our present and card lists for Christmas, before a dinner of Chinese dumplings and noodles. And the Toronto Argonauts beat the B.C. Lions in the final of the Grey Cup this afternoon, against the odds. See you later,

J

Happy wedding anniversary Mum & Dad, married 39 years ago today. Have a wonderful day!

Love, J&P

And then we went to the sea-side...

We hadn't had a holiday since the last time we were on Tilos in July '03, so we thought we were due a few days off. And while we've been up and down (and in my case, in) lots of rivers in Alberta, there's just no sea to speak of. No fresh breezes, no salt in the air, no seagulls, no storms coming ashore (and no sailors to run away with, for those of you who wish to know!) So we decided a little bit of sea-time was in order. We flew over the Rockies with WestJet, the Canuck version of Easyjet, 90 mins to Victoria, the capital of British Columbia (or 'Bee Cee' as they say here) down at the south end of Vancouver Island.


Where we were going


Vancouver Island

We stayed in Sidney-by-the-Sea, which is 5 minutes from the airport and then hired a car on Thursday morning and headed north.


In Sidney-by-the-Sea

It was Remembrance Day here (and Veterans' Day in the US), which is a much bigger deal here than at home - you get a full day off, and there are parades of old soldiers in all the towns. We skirted Victoria and headed north for 3 hours on the highway to Nanaimo, only stopping to marvel at the view over the sound between us and the mainland; we were up above the clouds which were on top of the water - wow!


On the Road North


Our Route

We stopped for fish and chips at Nanaimo (B.C. is quite British in some ways, funnily enough) and then turned west on Highway 4. An hour more took us to P.A. or Port Alberni, which is the last outpost of civilisation before the Pacific Coast. Then it was 2 more hours on the mountain road, weaving up and down and around amid the sun and fog - pretty scary driving, and you start to appreciate just how far Tofino is from anywhere else. Some nice lakes by the road, though, made better by the fact that the tourists haven't discovered them yet:


Sun on Kennedy Lake

We also noticed that especially near Cathedral Grove, where there are giant cedar trees, the locals had assembled literally hundreds of hollowed-out pumpkins in groups of three or four, for miles and miles by the roadside, on tree branches, on the divider, on little walls. They went on forever! We're not sure if this is what you do on The Island when you're done with your pumpkins, or if they were put there specially on Hallowe'en night, with their candles lit and their eyes ablaze... If so, if must have been pretty spooky!


Pumpkins

We finally reached a T-junction where the road splits in two, going south the Ucluelet (pronounced You-CLUE-let) and north to Tofino, and spent the next half-hour behind an ambulance with it's lights on, doing 30 mph and weaving all over the road so we couldn't pass it. Either the driver was drunk or there was someone very fragile in the back, we never found out which...

And then we arrived in Tofino! It really is the end of the road - you just run into the sea eventually. It's long been a bit of a hippy place where people have gone to escape civilisation and apparently there are a lot of hermits living up and down the coast who come to town by boat occasionally to collect supplies. We checked into our Fred Tibbs apartment. It was just lovely, a small apartment with kitchen, bathroom, living room and fireplace downstairs and a bed-space upstairs overlooking the lower level with a 17-foot ceiling. Big picture windows too with a great view out over Tofino Inlet across to the First Nation fishing village of Opitsat, which is only accessible by boat. Lots of Indian folks in town too, and lots of First Nation art galleries, etc. Not surprising as the place started out as an Indian fishing village and only got connected to the interior of the island 30 or 40 years ago.


Map of Tofino area


View of Tofino Harbour


Clayoquot (CLAK-WOT)Inlet

To cut a long story short, we spent the next few days watching the boats come and go in the harbour, eating well, sleeping late, reading a lot, going for walks around the town and on the beaches and generally having a very nice time. The weather was cool but clear for the first 3 days and then on Saturday night it started raining heavily and kept it up for more than 24 hours, flooding the town and even sinking some of the small boats in the harbour.

We spent quite a bit of time on the beach, although it was a bit cold and the waves were really very big indeed. There were plenty of signs warning us that we could be swept away by freak waves or crushed by the massive logs which the Pacific has washed up on the beach over the years and which occasionally go for a roll if the water is high. This counts as our fourth visit to the Pacific, the others being San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.


The Pacific Ocean, Long Beach, B.C.


Big Logs


Girl on a Log


Dr Who Monster on the beach


On Tonquin Beach


P and the Pacific

Also highly recommended is the very unusual Botanical Gardens, which comes complete with hippy bus, Indian canoe, fishing trawler and free-range chickens.


Big Banana Tree


In the Botanical Gardens

We hadn't appreciated this before, but B.C. is really wet, which makes for a lot of mist and fog and also makes the forests nearby into tropical jungle zones, with lots of creepers and vines, etc. There are also a lot of vineyards on The Island, and B.C. wine is quite good.


Tropical B.C.


Radar Hill Lookout

I also stopped in to have a look at Tofino General Hospital (doctor not always available, but the nurse will call him if needed - sounds like a cushy number)


Tofino General

Local paper:

Tofino Time

Recommended eating spots:

Breakers Deli
Sushi Bar at Inn at Tough City

Not recommended:
Rain Coast Cafe (pretentious 'West Coast' place, avoid)

So we had a great time and we might go back sometime, maybe in the summer. The only downside is that it's a LONG way to come and that it's apparently much more expensive in the summer. Oh, and the scary mountain road. Whew!

J

Well, we're back.

We've had a great few days off from normal life, between Banff and Tofino and we got to see the sea again after a long time without it("I see the sea and the sea sees me!"). We got back late on Monday night, we've now been back at work for a whole 2 days and (worst of all) I'm on call tonight - when is the weekend coming?

Banff was nice, 3 days in the Rockies for free. The Jeep held up well, no break-downs on the road, and we got there in one piece. The conference centre was lovely, like a mid-price hotel, lots of big logs and exposed wood and loads of great walks in the forests on the slopes of Tunnel Mountain. The conference dining room was very grand, and provided all together too much food - you could eat all day long if you liked!


The Banff Centre


The Professional Development Centre (where we stayed)


All-Day Free Food Hall


Conference Hall

The conference itself was OK, but it was a bit too molecular for our interests - everyone was talking about this gene or that protein, which is a bit too 'labby' for us. My poster generated next to no interest, but this was pretty much what I expected, as it was to do with patients, not cells in a dish, and I only put it in so I could have an excuse to go with P! I skipped one of the totally-gened-up sessions to go for an afternoon walk in the woods. Tunnel Mountain drive is now closed for the winter, so the woods are really empty and quiet... I wondered what I would do if I happened across a bear which had come down to the road looking for food now that all the cars were gone...







It was also _very_ dark at night - we walked out of the centre a bit and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. The only light was from the Christmas trees which were everywhere:



P's talk was on the last morning (Wednesday) and was well-attended. She gave a great presentation and created a lot of discussion. Several people came up to congratulate her at the end of the session, including one who said that the talk was an 'unexpected pleasure'! What a star!

So, anyway, not a total waste of time as we got to meet some of the research movers-and-shakers in the Cancer Board and get a grip on what sort of research is going on here. Just a pity there weren't more actual doctors there - less than 6 of us in an audience of over 200.

We headed back home on the Trans-Canada via Canmore. We've been past Canmore a lot of times to date, but this was the first time we stopped in. We had lunch in Murietta's West Coast Grill, highly recommended. Canmore itself is lovely, a small town set with the Rockies all around, towered over by the Three Sisters Mountains. We'll be spending some more time in Canmore from now on, that's for sure.

And next... off to Tofino...

Happy Birthday Frances Jean Robson, born on this day some umptety-ump years ago! Have a lovely day!

Getting ready to go to Banff this morning, after our weekend of weird weather. Friday was mild, because of a chinook (pronounced shinook), over +10 all day, and it didn't cool off in the evening either - still +10 at 4am, apparently. Then when the sun came up the temperature dropped (eh?) to -2 and stayed there for the rest of the weekend. There was ice on the barbecue when I cooked our breakfast bratwursts! Saturday was relatively cold and clear and we spent the afternoon in our local Chapters, buying books for our upcoming mini-holiday on the Pacific Coast of B.C. Then we had Hannah, Emma, Richard and baby Ben (now known as the HERBs) round for pizza and a DVD (the Shawshank Redemption, an oldie but a goodie). They stayed until midnight, when it was -3.5. Hannah managed to stay up all night and Benjamin was amazingly well-behaved. It snowed about an inch on Saturday night, and Sunday was a day of freezing fog and drizzle, minus 2 all day, no visibility. A day for the house if there ever was one. And today the temp is +6 and the chinook is back again. Go figure. Banff will be cold for the next couple of days +3/-11 (min/max) tomorrow and -3/-11 on Wednesday. Tofino will be somewhat warmer but wetter, which is what you expect from the B.C. coast, I suppose.

So we're loading up the Jeep for it's first big trip, all 64 miles to Banff. Hope it goes OK in the wilderness! P is at work this morning, but will be back soon to supervise the packing, etc.

The Rocky Mountain Rovers remain stubbornly in 19th position (367 pts) in the Fantasy League, 105 points off the bottom but 150 points from the top. In the second stage (after the first transfers) we're at 14th, which is better but still not good enough. Lauren, Mellberg, Dickov, Anelka and Viduka are going well, and the three new boys, Cech, Okocha and Jenas are coming through, but Sun Yihai, Yobo and Djorkaeff are still in the pan. Wonder when the next transfer window is? Yer man Van Nistelrooy has come back from injury to score a stonking 75 points and bring Roy's Polish Plums up to 12th (426 pts), while Lampard and Jenas are keeping the Calgary Visitors afloat at 14th (418). Robbo's Robbers are down the ladder a bit from me at 22nd (358 pts) with Ljungberg and Lampard doing well but Naybet letting the side down (-6 pts).

Anyway, better get going and get the ironing done before we head off!

J

09:30am Calgary time (-3 this morning, no snow). Breaking news from the BBC, CNN and Fox News. Kerry has called Bush to concede the election, having given up hope of winning Ohio after all. So no long, drawn-out legal wrangling this time around. Just 4 more years of war and mangling of the English language. Turns out Bush was right when he said "Don't misunderestimate me". Maybe he'll invade Iran next. Or North Korea. It's gonna be a scary time until 2008...

05:30am here, and Bush is declaring victory but Kerry isn't conceding defeat yet. The Beeb says it's Bush 254 - Kerry 252 with Iowa, New Mexico and Ohio still to declare. They're still counting in Ohio, apparently, but it looks like Bush will get the state anyway, putting him at 274, which is over the magic 270. Oh well, maybe next time... Check out Betavote to see who would have won if the rest of the world had a vote...

Update at 11:30pm Rocky Mountain Time, Nov 02 2004. It's starting to look bad for Kerry - most of the networks are saying it's Bush 249 - Kerry 207 at the moment (you need 270 to win), and that whoever wins Ohio will be the next president. Also still waiting for results from Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. The only network we have which has 'called it' for Bush is NBC (update: also Fox), who says he has won Ohio (making it 269-207), but most channels say it may not be certain for another hour or two as there are another 1/4 million votes left to count. So it looks like we are going to be in for another 4 years of Dubya... what must the rest of the world think of the US now?


4 More Years

November 2nd has arrived, a mild day in Calgary, only 0oC at going-to-work time. P was up in Red Deer last night for her management course (more details later), but will be home later on today. I'm in the OR all day but I've moved my clarinet lesson up to 4:15pm so I can get home in time to watch all the US election coverage. My money is on John Kerry to win, although it will be very close. The last few polls taken in the last 24 hours seem to show a late surge to Kerry especially in three of the big Swing States, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. There are some numbers here which claim to be early exit polls showing it's going Kerry's way in states like Wisconsin and Philadelphia. But it's still much too early to tell...

It looks like a record turnout too, with over 120 million votes likely to be cast. The Republicans are doing their best to frighten people out of voting, but Michael Moore has apparently got a lot of people with cameras at voting stations to catch them out if they go to far with the 'legitimate intimidation' that got Bush the Presidency last time out. Here's hoping the will of the People will out this evening, rather than leaving the decision up to weeks of wrangling in the various courts of the land.

We'll be following the story all night on Canadian TV, US TV and on the web:

BBC Results
Fox News
CNN Results
Canadian TV
Instapundit
War Blogging
Technorati
The Guardian
John Kerry
Dubya

"It's gonna be one helluva night..."



(From The Pendulum Online