Carrick to Calgary

Just a quick update for those of you who know our friends Richard and Emma, otherwise known as the HERBs:

H=Hannah
E=Emma
R=Richard
B=Benjamin


Back row: R, E
Front row: B, H

We have encouraged them to set up their own blog, so here it is: HERBs in Calgary

Happy reading!

J

We've had a bit of a shake-up in our little family of Macs over the Christmas season, so we thought we should update the blog accordingly. We got a nice new iMac G5 with built-in iSight webcam, a fast top-of-the-range chip, a whopping 1GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. It's really very nice and the 20 inch screen is just lovely, really bright and clear. It also needs to have a lot fewer cables and bits and pieces associated with it, so our desk has become amazingly uncluttered:



As a result, we had to get rid of our old G4 eMac, and we also decided to sell my old G4 titanium Powerbook, sticking them both on ebay after Christmas.


Bye bye eMac


Bye bye PowerBook

We had to wipe the drives so all our stuff was securely deleted, so we hooked the four Macs up together to make a little disk-deleting-daisy chain:



So now we're down to a mere 2 Macs again, the new iMac and P's little 12-inch G4 laptop. Having said that, Apple's just released a few nice new models with the first generation Intel-Mac chips in them, and I think once they have the version 1.0 problems ironed out, I might consider upgrading to a nice new laptop...

Happy with the new Mac

J

Tomorrow sees the end of a long and bitter election campaign here in Canada. The minority Liberal government lost a vote of confidence before Christmas, throwing the country into a winter election campaign. There was a lot of controversy over this (no-one wants to go out and knock on doors in a snowstorm, and vote when it's minus 40), but the winter has been the mildest one for the last 10 years so far and the campaign has gone pretty smoothly. For those of us new to the Canadian political scene, there are three main parties:


The Liberals
Ideology: Left-wing socialists who have been in power for the last 13 years. Recently mired in scandal and corruption charges, criticised for paying 100s of millions of $s to party's friends.
Policies: higher taxes and higher spending, brought in gay marriage
Geographical power base: Eastern Canada and Ontario.
UK equivalent: Labour
US equivalent: the Democrats
Leader: Paul Martin, millionnaire business man, otherwise known as 'Mr Dithers'. Criticised for being a weak leader.

Perception: Liberals generally perceived as having no policies but wanting to hang on to power. Their minority government was elected in June 2004 and has been hanging by a thread ever since.
Election Strategy: frighten the country out of voting Conservative.
Current Poll rating: 27%


The Conservatives
Ideology: right-wing, free-enterprise party
Policies: lower taxes, personal freedom, "family values", want to abolish gay marriage, bring in private healthcare
Geographical power base: the West, especially Alberta
UK equivalent: the Tories
US equivalent: the Republicans
Leader: Stephen Harper, MP from Calgary south-west. Criticised for being a 'cowboy from Alberta', being too right-wing, having no personality

Perception: Much loved in the west for being straightforward, feared in the east for possibly wanting to ban abortion, make homosexuality illegal, etc. Easterners afraid of Albertans running the country. Also criticised for being too close to George W Bush. Might be coming at the right time, given the current wave of prosperity in Alberta.
Election Strategy: 'It's Time for a Change", "No More Corruption", "Stand Up for Canada", "At Least We Won't Steal Your Money"
Current Poll rating: 38%


The National Democrats
Ideology: left-wing, social enterprise party
Policies: higher taxes, save the environment, support working Canadians, protect public healthcare system
Geographical power base: the Prairies
UK equivalent: the Lib Dems
US equivalent: ?
Leader: Jack Layton, businessman, ex-hippie-type

Perception: a bit wishy-washy, bit of a tree-hugger
Election Strategy: "Give the Liberals the Boot", "Give Us Your Vote, Just This Once"
Current Poll rating: 20%

There are two other main parties, the Bloc Quebecois (Quebec separatist party) and the Green Party, but neither is large enough to form a goverment.

Before Christmas, the Liberals seemed to have the election sewn up and had a big lead, but then another scandal emerged and the Conservatives took a lead. The Liberals responded by putting negative 'attack ads' on the TV, which only made things worse for them, as they were generally regarded as being desperate and untrue. For the last 2 weeks, the Tories have had a commanding lead (10+% points) and the Liberals have been reduced to campaigning on the issue of 'Don't vote for the Tories, they'll wreck the country". The Prime Minister, Paul Martin, looks pretty desperate at the moment, as he knows he's going to lose.

So what's gonna happen? Well, the Tories will win, there's not much doubt of that. They might win enough seats for a majority government, but more likely they'll have a strong minority with NDP support. We'll keep you posted with an update on Election Night. If Harper becomes PM, it looks like Alberta's star will keep on rising...

See you soon

J

From CHQR radio...

"Warm Weather Good News For City's Roads Department
Jan, 06 2006 - 4:50 AM

CALGARY/AM770CHQR - The dry weather has kept sanders and graders off Calgary's streets, and given workers in the roads department a chance to catch up on maintenance work delayed by the wet summer weather. Normally more than 300 staff members would be working all sorts of hours dealing with snow and ice on city streets, however they've been able to turn their attention to pot hole repairs, fence repair, and litter pickup.
Don Basarsky, operations administrator for road maintenance, says while staff have to be paid, there are some savings to the city. "When we do have the nice weather, we're saving on the overtime, we're saving on fuel costs and of course we're not using any materials so that's another savings that occurs."



"Lack of Snow Means High Fire Hazard
Jan, 06 2006 - 4:40 PM

CALGARY/AM770 CHQR - A lack of snow, and warm, drying winds are causing a high fire hazard in southern Alberta forests. Wildfire Ranger Bart McAnally says there have actually been nine forest fires since Christmas, and one continues to burn just west of Calgary, near Morley. He says the nice weather also means people are out hiking and camping, and warns anyone starting a campfire to keep a close eye on it, and make sure it's completely out."


Can you imagine - camping in Alberta in January?? Still, I suppose you wouldn't have to worry about bears coming and eating you or your food! I think they should still be hibernating ...



When we look back at this time last year, we were shivering in the coldest temperatures we had ever experienced - just look at last year's blog...

Below is what we said on the 11th January last year (2005)...

"Just a quick update from The Folks in Tuscarora Way here. It's been a long, cold few weeks following Christmas, and we can't quite remember when the temperature was last anything close to zero (Boxing Day maybe?). January is apparently the coldest month here, and its second week is supposedly the worst, but normally it's -4 to -6, not the -15 to -25 we've been getting recently. Everything is covered in snow, the Jeep won't start cos it's too cold and the drive to work is 'BRUTAL' as the Canadians say. My normal 15 minute drive to the Foothills took nearly an hour today...
But... it seems that in terms of the weather, "we ain't seen nothin' yet"! The temp as I write is -10 or so, but overnight a storm front will move in from B.C. which will drop us down to -30 or so, with fresh snow and high winds. With windchill, the predicted temperature is -45. Minus FORTY-FIVE! "


Okay - it can still happen. We might get an arctic outflow at any minute that will plunge us into the depths of winter. But these warm temperatures are causing weird and wonderful problems for some people. For example, there are problems with the ice roads in the north of the province - they aren't icy enough to drive on....


CBC news January 4th 2006

"Officials caution early birds on ice roads
Last updated Jan 4 2006 08:44 AM CST

Highways officials in the Mackenzie Delta are urging people in Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk not to drive on the region's winter roads before they are ready. Delta residents are losing their patience with the unseasonably warm weather, which has delayed the opening of ice roads by almost two weeks. People in the communities can't travel far until the roads, cut across rivers and lakes, are ready."


"Diamond road delays
Work on the winter road to the N.W.T.'s diamond mines is two weeks behind because of the unseasonably warm weather.
The road won't be open to light traffic at least until early February, says Diavik diamond mine's Tom Hoefer, but there will still be enough time to get the thousands of loads of fuel, tires and other goods to the mines before spring.

Hoefer says there's just 25 to 40 centimetres (10 to 16 inches) of ice on the section of the road between Tibbitt and Gordon Lakes. There needs to be at least 40 cm for equipment to plough the snow on the ice so that it thickens. Hoefer says snow cats are working at the north end of the 567-kilometre road where the weather has been colder. The ice has to be just under one metre thick to hold a fully loaded fuel truck. But some have braved the routes to other communities, even though the department of transportation says it's unsafe and illegal to drive the roads."



Turns out that many places in the north of this country are only accessible by 'road' when the rivers freeze hard enough for long enough to allow people to drive on them. Otherwise they have to rely on airplanes, which are too expensive and also aren't generally equipped to bring in the size and weight of supplies needed - I don't think that there are many airstrips in the north that could accommodate something like a Hercules that would be needed to bring in some of the big mining equipment.

Anyway, we've seen for ourselves how unstable the ice is in and around Calgary. On New Year's Day we took ourselves up to Elbow Falls and Allen Bill pond in Kananaskis. It was a beautiful day, and J thought he might get in a little bit of skating on the pond. However, when we got there, there was no skating to be had...



Actually, I suppose that's not really fair. The truth is that there's no ice and no skating at the pond, not because of the warmer than usual temperatures, but because the pond has become part of the Elbow river. When we had all of the rain last June, the river burst its banks and made its way into the pond, meaning that the pond now has a raging torrent flowing in at one end, and a raging torrrent flowing out at the other end. In fact, rather than trying to divert the river to its original course, the parks people have simply redesignated the pond as part of the Elbow river, which means that you now have to have a river permit to fish there.



It used to be that they would stock the pond with fish, and any Tom, Dick, or Harry with a rod and line could come and see if they could pull the fish out. I'm not sure, but I think you now need a river fishing permit because some river fish are endangered and they need to know how many rods are licensed for any one stretch of river at a time (but I could be talking complete nonsense here!).

Anyway, it was a lovely day with pure blue sky, and warm enough to be out without the usual coat, hat, gloves etc that seemed to characterise all of our outings in January last year.



We could even say that it was warm enough for Mr White to be out in a short-sleeved shirt, but that would really be true of the whole year round! Even when he has to resort to a long sleeved shirt, it still has to have the sleeves rolled up. Note that the other people in the picture below are wearing coats and hats! Maybe they were tourists...



Elbow falls was lovely. The paths were still a bit icy, but we managed to make our way down to the river - this is me in my teenage mutant ninja (or hero!) turtles down filled body warmer...




So, here we are approximately half way through January and we still haven't had anything like the cold weather of last year. While it makes driving a lot easier, its BROWN, in n and around Calgary at least. We took ourselves out to Cochrane yesterday, and after a bit of a spending spree in the 'Pots and Peppers' cookshop, we wandered off to look a bit more closely at the statue of the cowboy on the 'big' hill just outside of town. For those of you who have driven past the cowboy on his horse, he probably doesn't look that big. However, when one is up close, he actually is pretty durned huge.
Here's a rather chilled Mr White with the Cochrane cowboy...



And as you can see, the landscape is pretty durned brown as far as the eye can see. At this time of year, it often reminds me of those old sepia toned photographs that everybody has in a box in a cupboard somewhere. There's no colour other than tones of brown - no vibrant green, no blue, just brown grass, stark black-brown trees and less typically, a grey sky. If you look at the next photograph, you'll probably be very surprised at just how blue a pair of blue jeans can look when everything else is BROWN!



On a more colourful note, the amaryllis burst into bloom just after new year... we were dead impressed by the big red flowers. I think I had tried to grow one before at home, but it didn't do anything and I was a bit worried about this one repeating the lack of activity. However, it didn't disappoint...



And the lipstick plant is coming on in leaps and bounds... This was what it was doing about 10 days ago, and I thought that this was the extent of the lipstick stuff...



However, this is it today. Turns out that the purple things aren't really the real deal; in fact there are red flowers that then emerge from the purple bits and I suppose that these are why its is called the lipstick plant - its a good job!




So there you go.

I'm off to Edmonton on Tuesday for a meeting but apart from that, next week doesn't hold anything very exciting (we hope!). I'm flying to Edmonton...not driving...

Welcome back to the Blog! This is our first post of 2006, and there's a lot to blog about - we're in the middle of the warmest January for years (no snow for the last month!), the election campaign is in full swing and we have a new Mac (pictures to follow). I've just started a new rotation down in the south of the city at the Rockyview hospital (it has a great view of the Rockies, not surprisingly) and this week sees the start of two new classes for me, Foundations of Medical Education and Leadership in Healthcare Organisations. Both look good on paper and I know a lot of people in the class, so they should be fun. We had a quiet Christmas, but we have a lot planned in the next few months, between making our Big Decision, finding a new home, attending various meetings and generally making the most of the winter. I don't want to rabbit on, as it's 11:15pm here and I have to be up for 6am tomorrow, but rest assured that there will be more frequent blogging for the next wee while!

Love

J