Home
Skating (2)
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2497
With the unseasonably warm weather we're forced to search further afield for our skating destinations.
Last week we drove to Canmore, an hours skating, then back. A long drive for very little practice...
This week we find the indoor arena schedules - a different arena every day throughout the city. Yesterday, in the SW, Today, the NE, it's cheap, $6.20 a person, and you get an hour or two's practice on practically empty ice.
They've senior sessions as well, for the 50+ set, more of those than for the public, and while I hate to label myself, hate to acknowledge that I might have some connection with this group (I'm pretty sure I don't), I'll have to swing by one day to check it out, if only to ...
Strange, this, we're Canadian, and I imagine it's the midday hours that are keeping the ice empty. Or not. Maximum of 5 people on the rink at a time, we count as 2, Canada, we are, Canadians, losing our heritage, although I was impressed to see some less "Vanilla" Canadians teaching their children how to skate, play hockey, the little bastard, at 2 years old, is running down the ice in his helmet and hockey outfit faster than me, I can't help but be impressed, it's laughably cute, he's only a foot and a half tall...
She's getting better, much better, quickly, me, not so much, I was never that good to begin with. I observe some oddities, I'm better skating backwards than forwards, forwards I'm forever losing, finding my balance, backwards, well, backwards I'm fine. I need a couple of sessions on my own, without the pupil, to practice...
Curious this, the physical memory, remarkable even that it exists, my cells, the cells of when I last skated as a teen in high school, they've all died, been replaced, died, been replaced, a dozen times, yet still I retain some physical memory of how it's done, there's a naturalness to it, the physicality of it's carried forward, survived as what? Memory, composed of chemical signals? Electricity? How does it pass on, survive, the death of it's host, messengers, but perhaps a little esoteric and abstract for a posting on skating...to resume...
She's speeding up, teaching her to skate backwards, to lift her feet, practice the crossover steps, she's hesitant, small steps as her confidence increases, but she has her moments where her grin lights up the world and she smiles and waves to an invisible audience, and I have to wonder what's going on in her little brain...
"Stars on Ice is coming" she tells me, breathlessly, May 15, how does she know this? Really? I remember that, or Ice Capades, not sure which, does it matter? From when I was a child...thought of taking my own kids to it, but it somehow never happened...
So soon, the next week or two, the trip to Lake Louise, the reward for her progress, need to shuffle my days off, have to hurry as winter is disappearing fast everywhere, and need to get her up there before the ice melts and the Castle disappears, but she can live her little Canadian dream, and while to me, I take it for granted, it's lovely to be in the company of someone who appreciates it all so heartfelt and sincerely...for an hour or so you're out of yourself and seeing the world fresh through their eyes...
Winter - Drumheller Valley
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
- Hits: 2514
Sunday Off and I've promised to take A***** to Drumheller, in lieu of the usual night out at .... etc. A better bet I thought.
And the weather, Calgary, +10, thinking that I might get a shovel or two in the river and perhaps do a bit of prospecting...
No. Just past Beiseker the landscape turns to snow, Calgary isn't Alberta, after all. I'm still surprised. Like with how the rest of the world's economy is surviving...
Nonetheless, a few pictures from our trip. Photos, I could have spent a month, year taking, these are off the cuff, Samsung phone pics.
Phone Box, Dorothy. Fisher Price...
Grain Elevator near Dorothy
...moonrise between cell-towers...
Abandoned railway bridge near East Coulee. Bridge fenced off, hazardous, many broken ties, note the state of the walkway...
Enhanced Panorama over the Suspension Bridge at Rosedale...
Horseshoe Canyon. A***** is the red ghoul, the stitching software didn't like him so much...
A fine sunset approaching Beiseker. The best time of the day to be on the prairies (or in the badlands). Except for morning, when the rivers are thawed and there's the prospect of ...
He visited the museum (Royal Tyrell), I read a book. And we ate lunch at a generic pub (the "Last Chance Saloon & Hotel" in Wayne was closed, I checked their hours, not the days, my bad, shame, it's without a doubt - for ambiance alone, the best bar for 100 miles), so we found the pub, he took the waitresses recommendation and had the steak, I had a burger...the burger was delicious, topped with jalapenos and crispy with black pepper, poutine smothered in gravy on the side, can't go wrong with a burger in a small town, his steak, well, a boot on a plate with a side of frozen superstore veggies...he survives it. I give him a bite of my burger to give him the taste and remembrance of his pretension...
Still, not a bad trip, not a good one, when the snow/ice is gone we'll try again for the Wayne Hotel, the other sights he's seen, and maybe a few hours sinking the shovel into a few of the nearby rivers...
The Source - $39.99 For Cassette Adapter
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 3029
I'm tired of putting myself through the commercial radio stations. Can't do it, forever scanning the airwaves looking for something decent to listen to, trying to imagine my life on the road, prospecting, 8, 12, 16 hours a day driving, listening to this shit, lucky if you catch even just one good song an hour...
"...You can call my on my cell phone..". Fucking hell. Buddy, if I called you on your cell phone ass hole it'd be to find out where you were so I could track you down and shoot you. You've done for music what Donald Trump has done for politics.
Anyways, I've decided this will end, I have a perfectly great car stereo left over from the Jetta, but no time to install it (or no son, he's in Victoria...). And so I pop by Westbrook Mall to find some options. Into the Source...formerly Radio Shack, they have what I'm looking for. NextTech, the offbrand of offbrands, kinda like V-Tech and other anonymous tech names that no educated consumer would touch with a ten-foot pole. It's $39.99. Seems a bit pricey, maybe I should shop around a bit, I never go shopping for new shit, I'm a pretty bad consumer...
Not worth my time, I buy it, with tax it comes to 41.99. The salesman looks at me with dead eyes, tries to upsell me a ten years supply of value priced off-brand AA batteries. I must look like a real pervert. I politely decline. He asks if I'd like to, for an extra $8.00, purchase their extended warranty, these particular cassette adapters have a known issue with the plug breaking off, for an extra $8.00 they'll replace the plug, twice, over 3 years, no questions asked...
This is the lamest thing ever. And I've experience with the Source's Extended Warranty program...it's fucking shit. I decline. He offers to take my email, put me on their spam mailing list. Is everyone that shops here such a sucker, I wonder? No thanks.
$41.99 later and I have a vaguely uneasy feeling and my cassette adapter, now to find an MP3 player. Nothing great, just something that takes batteries (I don't wanna be charging it) and holds a lot of music. The Source has nothing, and so I shop around...bad quality MP3 players, designed to look like Ipods, $30, $40 bucks a pop, more even, for a lousy 2 or 4 GB memory, this is the gift the saddest kid on the block got at Christmas, I can hear him screaming just looking at it..."I asked for an IPHONE!!!", name's like "Hip Street" and "Cool Tunes" tell you just how uncool they are...
I head to London Drugs, and their MP3 players, like everywhere else, hold nothing, don't take batteries, $50, $100, WTF? Why not just buy a Tablet? Laptop? I mean, for the price...bloody hell...
But they do have a cassette adapter. $7.99. Unbelievable.
Now, a dollar or two, three, five, ten even, I'd swallow the loss, shoulda shopped around. But this boils my blood...
...Back to the Source, $5.00 Gas, this is their strategy, hopefully it's just not worth the suckers time to return it, it's not worth mine but they're not getting my money, fuckers, return cassette adapter, the manager assists me, asking innocuously why I'm returning it...
"Because I found it for $8.00 at London Drugs." I reply. I'm visibly not impressed. He's got no reply, then, after collecting a load of irrelevant data tells me:
"Well, you know, the quality isn't all the same, if you decide you need a better one...". It's the best he can do, I get it, he's gotta try. But really, I could buy 3 of them, use up my extended warranty, for half the price they're selling them for.
My new slogan for "The Source" - "The Source of Dollarama Shit at Holt Renfrew Prices..." Really guys, get a fucking life. And get it together. When you finally close your doors forever don't blame the internet, blame yourselves for your fucked up exploitative pricing.
The Unicorn Chaser
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: WTF
- Hits: 1898
This is absolute undiluted brilliance. Courtesy of Vice, who do some amazing documentaries and character studies.
Note that Polyamory is a major theme, and while I know that before JC we were all essentially polyamourous, and reason allows it, there's that romantic bit inside me that it just doesn't sit with. Never mind, each to their own, and the world's a richer place as a result...
{embed:youtube:nm6JnhPbHCQ}
Really, while it's set in London and worthy of it's own mini-documentary, in Nelson you wouldn't give it a second glance...
(Thanks to Lesli for sharing...)
Page 692 of 1086