Monday, December 05, 2005
December Blizzard
Hello from a snowy, bitterly cold Calgary! Now this is what I call a winter!
It's been -20 and below for over a week, intermittent snow mostly and we haven't seen the sun for days. There's a massive 'arctic outflow' of cold air flowing down from the frozen north, blanketing all of western Canada in freezing weather.
First the snow came a wee bit, really just a dusting:
And then it came a bit more seriously:
Today we're having light snow again (this is type 2 snow - 1. is flurries, 2. is light snow, 3. is heavy snow and 4. is snow day snow), plus winds gusting up to 60kph, blowing the snow that's already on the ground into drifts.
This is what it looks like now:
I don't know if these are technically blizzard conditions, but visibility is poor (we can't see the river from our house and it's only a mile away). There's a weather advisory out suggesting that you should only travel if essential, but luckily we are taking a day off and we're staying put. Environment Canada says it's gonna warm up later in the week:
(Still don't know what a dewpoint is, must look that up sometime)
This is good news, because although winter activites have started up, it's really a bit too cold to be out and about doing them just yet. Snowboarding is fun when it's -10 and above and the sun's shining, but it's not much of a laugh when it's minus 20 with a windchill of -30 and you have to keep remembering to check yourself for frostbite. Same goes for skating. COP has been taking advantage of the cold snap and has been making snow 24 hours a day for most of the last 7 days, which means the boarding will be good there in the months to come. When you look at it from here, COP seems to be on fire, but rather than issuing smoke, it's pouring out clouds of snow!
The City has also been filling up Bowness Lagoon, ready for skating. Essentially, they have to fill it up with water over several days (and it's a _big_ lagoon), then wait for the ice to form and become stable and then send the polishers out (a bit like a Zamboni, but crossed with a tractor) to level the surface, as natural ice is usually very bumpy. This process was still underway last week, but I'll check in again in a day or two to see if it's ready for skating!
Speaking of skating, I've finished my second Adult Learn-To-Skate class at the University and have been recommended to join the Adult Beginner Shinny class in January. Shinny is to Canada what five-a-side footie is to home. Really it's an informal, turn-up-and-play game of ice hockey. I've never played before, but apparently my skating is now good enough to give it a go, so I figured what the heck, I might as well! I'll have all the protective gear on (don't worry) so I should be OK, and it should be a Real Canadian Experience! I might even be the first Northern Ireland White to score a goal on the ice!
I'm also getting my snowboard ready for the new season, and one of the snowboard mags I got had a good guide to tuning it up, so I have now ground the edges so they are nice and sharp (the edges are what lets the board 'bite' into the snow for turning and stopping). I have also done something else I've never done before - I waxed my board! FIrst step is to take a piece of tough plastic and scrape all of last year's crap off the bottom, so it's fairly smooth. Then to take a bar of board wax, which is about the same size and shape as a bar of hotel soap and you use an ordinary iron to melt it onto the bottom of the board. You just drip the wax down from the iron and it covers the board in lots of little 'splats' of wax. Once all the wax is done, the fun part starts. You turn the iron up a bit and then just iron the bottom of the board, melting all the little pieces of wax and spreading them out along to board and up to the edges, to form a single smooth layer of wax right along the board. If you keep the iron moving fast and it's hot enough, the wax spreads out like toffee.
And then you put the board out in the cold for a bit, let the wax harden and then take into it with your scraper again to smooth off any excess wax. And voila, you have a nice waxed board which should go like a rocket! I'll keep you posted on how it rides later this month!
Hmmmm... what else is new? Well:
We were out last night at the Huber household for a little Swiss-German-type Advent Christmas Party. A great time was had by all and the food was fantastic! The Breitmeyers were also there, and they're off back to New Zealand for a month from this Thursday. Safe travels!
My Fantasy Football team (Athletica Athabasca) is now officially third in the League, only 9 points off the top! Eagerly awaiting this week's update. Go boys go!
P went to the spa at the Fairmont Banff Springs on Saturday, and had a very relaxing time. Turns out if you get a massage, you can stay at the spa all day until it closes, so while it might seem relatively expensive ($149 for a one hour mountain stone treatment), it actually works out to be fairly good value. P and her friend from work arrived up there at 10am and left at 6pm, having been massaged with mountain stones, and having spent the rest of the day lounging around in hot pools, cool pools, steam rooms etc.
No news to report on jobs, no firm offers here or there. Time will tell, I suppose. We had a good visit to Edmonton and it seems like an excellent job, but I have to wait and see what's on offer. We omitted to show you a couple of good pictures from the West Edmonton Mall, which is a huge version of Abbeycentre on steroids, and comes complete with its own indoor ice rink, pirate ship, performing sea-lions and climate-controlled water world, as well as 100s of shops. Wow!
Ice skating
Pirate Galleon
Oh, we also discovered the true Canadian food, Canadian Smarties, or as they call them here, "Smarties, Eh?"
And we've had a nice few sunrises when the snowclouds lift for a bit:
Work-wise, I've been pretty busy lately with my assignments for the Masters in Medical Education courses, which accounts for the relative lack of blogging lately, and I still have 2 to hand in before December 14th, so I have to get my skates on. Iive finished on Gynae Oncology, and December is a research/write-up/holiday month for me before I start on colorectal again in January.
Oh, all of you NI/European people will be getting various envelopes and packages from us in the next few days - don't open until Christmas!
Love
J (&P)
It's been -20 and below for over a week, intermittent snow mostly and we haven't seen the sun for days. There's a massive 'arctic outflow' of cold air flowing down from the frozen north, blanketing all of western Canada in freezing weather.
First the snow came a wee bit, really just a dusting:
And then it came a bit more seriously:
Today we're having light snow again (this is type 2 snow - 1. is flurries, 2. is light snow, 3. is heavy snow and 4. is snow day snow), plus winds gusting up to 60kph, blowing the snow that's already on the ground into drifts.
This is what it looks like now:
I don't know if these are technically blizzard conditions, but visibility is poor (we can't see the river from our house and it's only a mile away). There's a weather advisory out suggesting that you should only travel if essential, but luckily we are taking a day off and we're staying put. Environment Canada says it's gonna warm up later in the week:
(Still don't know what a dewpoint is, must look that up sometime)
This is good news, because although winter activites have started up, it's really a bit too cold to be out and about doing them just yet. Snowboarding is fun when it's -10 and above and the sun's shining, but it's not much of a laugh when it's minus 20 with a windchill of -30 and you have to keep remembering to check yourself for frostbite. Same goes for skating. COP has been taking advantage of the cold snap and has been making snow 24 hours a day for most of the last 7 days, which means the boarding will be good there in the months to come. When you look at it from here, COP seems to be on fire, but rather than issuing smoke, it's pouring out clouds of snow!
The City has also been filling up Bowness Lagoon, ready for skating. Essentially, they have to fill it up with water over several days (and it's a _big_ lagoon), then wait for the ice to form and become stable and then send the polishers out (a bit like a Zamboni, but crossed with a tractor) to level the surface, as natural ice is usually very bumpy. This process was still underway last week, but I'll check in again in a day or two to see if it's ready for skating!
Speaking of skating, I've finished my second Adult Learn-To-Skate class at the University and have been recommended to join the Adult Beginner Shinny class in January. Shinny is to Canada what five-a-side footie is to home. Really it's an informal, turn-up-and-play game of ice hockey. I've never played before, but apparently my skating is now good enough to give it a go, so I figured what the heck, I might as well! I'll have all the protective gear on (don't worry) so I should be OK, and it should be a Real Canadian Experience! I might even be the first Northern Ireland White to score a goal on the ice!
I'm also getting my snowboard ready for the new season, and one of the snowboard mags I got had a good guide to tuning it up, so I have now ground the edges so they are nice and sharp (the edges are what lets the board 'bite' into the snow for turning and stopping). I have also done something else I've never done before - I waxed my board! FIrst step is to take a piece of tough plastic and scrape all of last year's crap off the bottom, so it's fairly smooth. Then to take a bar of board wax, which is about the same size and shape as a bar of hotel soap and you use an ordinary iron to melt it onto the bottom of the board. You just drip the wax down from the iron and it covers the board in lots of little 'splats' of wax. Once all the wax is done, the fun part starts. You turn the iron up a bit and then just iron the bottom of the board, melting all the little pieces of wax and spreading them out along to board and up to the edges, to form a single smooth layer of wax right along the board. If you keep the iron moving fast and it's hot enough, the wax spreads out like toffee.
And then you put the board out in the cold for a bit, let the wax harden and then take into it with your scraper again to smooth off any excess wax. And voila, you have a nice waxed board which should go like a rocket! I'll keep you posted on how it rides later this month!
Hmmmm... what else is new? Well:
We were out last night at the Huber household for a little Swiss-German-type Advent Christmas Party. A great time was had by all and the food was fantastic! The Breitmeyers were also there, and they're off back to New Zealand for a month from this Thursday. Safe travels!
My Fantasy Football team (Athletica Athabasca) is now officially third in the League, only 9 points off the top! Eagerly awaiting this week's update. Go boys go!
P went to the spa at the Fairmont Banff Springs on Saturday, and had a very relaxing time. Turns out if you get a massage, you can stay at the spa all day until it closes, so while it might seem relatively expensive ($149 for a one hour mountain stone treatment), it actually works out to be fairly good value. P and her friend from work arrived up there at 10am and left at 6pm, having been massaged with mountain stones, and having spent the rest of the day lounging around in hot pools, cool pools, steam rooms etc.
No news to report on jobs, no firm offers here or there. Time will tell, I suppose. We had a good visit to Edmonton and it seems like an excellent job, but I have to wait and see what's on offer. We omitted to show you a couple of good pictures from the West Edmonton Mall, which is a huge version of Abbeycentre on steroids, and comes complete with its own indoor ice rink, pirate ship, performing sea-lions and climate-controlled water world, as well as 100s of shops. Wow!
Ice skating
Pirate Galleon
Oh, we also discovered the true Canadian food, Canadian Smarties, or as they call them here, "Smarties, Eh?"
And we've had a nice few sunrises when the snowclouds lift for a bit:
Work-wise, I've been pretty busy lately with my assignments for the Masters in Medical Education courses, which accounts for the relative lack of blogging lately, and I still have 2 to hand in before December 14th, so I have to get my skates on. Iive finished on Gynae Oncology, and December is a research/write-up/holiday month for me before I start on colorectal again in January.
Oh, all of you NI/European people will be getting various envelopes and packages from us in the next few days - don't open until Christmas!
Love
J (&P)
Comments:
Post a Comment
