Sunday, February 28, 2010

Melting

It's been warm the past few days, lots of melting goin gon. Today at church Pat Lyster told Geoff that if any of the kids are home and go out float walnut shell boats to give him a call. He has wanted to do some floating ever since they lived across the street.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Sivak's, hockey

I was in the bank yesterday and the teller asked me about my middle name. Sivak, she was from the Ukraine had been in Canada for 3 years and really likes it here. She said the name was very familiar in the Ukraine and Slovakia. She kept her maiden name when she got married, apparently in the old country you only get 1 name. Some times you get your father name i.e. I would be Laura Joseph Sivak to indicate I am related to Joseph. Kind of neat discussion. I watched the hockey game and enjoyed it. I have watched a lot of the olympics this week, even curling, with the hammer and the brick ( they are curling terms for you uninitiated). I am looking forward to Edmonton in 3 weeks and Montreal in 4.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Who is watching the hockey game? There is a Slovak player named Cibak, pronounced Sivak. Every tim they mention his name, I get a start.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Poor Judith. Another month before we visit again. How will she fill her weekends?
We sure had a good visit with Anne and Del here. Anne and Grace (and Jovita) took him out skating and tobaggoning, and skiing. Went out for supper on Fri with Tim along as well, then the younger ones went on to the bar while Geoff and I went home and to bed. We had to get up early on Sat to drive them to the airport. It was foggy on the way to the city but we made good time anyway.
We got to see David Francey last night. Such a good concert. I love his voice and his stories were so good. It was great.
I didn't really like dropping everyone off. Will miss them all, especially watching the Olympics.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

John Wort Hannam


I'm starting to feel like this blog is turning into Will's Awesome Olympic Adventures Blog! There has just been so much cool stuff happening around here. The Olympics are a pain in a lot of ways, but they've been good enough to me that I think they can come back again sometime.

Anyway, the latest tale of awesomeness has to do with John Wort Hannam, who is a folk singer from Alberta. He's been at Folk Fest a few times, and I borrowed his CDs from Mom last summer when I was looking for any music to get me through the driving from Rocky to Vancouver to Barkerville. Turns out, I really like his music. I found out that he was going to be in town last night, and managed to get tickets.

It was part of a four part show of Canadian singer-songwriters. The others were the Gordie Tentrees band (from the Yukon), Christina Martin (from New Brunswick, who was hilarious. She talked a lot in between songs about random stuff- she introduced one song by saying "so, in New Brunswick, if you need to make a living, you rob a bank". Then she sang a song about her father, who apparently robbed a bank) and Jimmy Rankin to round out the evening. Everyone was really good, but John Wort Hannam was the best.

He played right before the intermission, and I was walking out with my two friends Shantel and Chelsea, who are both from southern Alberta. They were talking about how it is surprising that they don't know of him, since he is from Fort McLeod. Just then we hear a voice behind us "hey, don't talk about me, I'm right here!" Sure enough, JWH was standing right behind us. Shantel told him that I was singing along to every song, and he said that he should have had me on stage. I assured him that was a terrible idea. Anyway, he was really nice and down to earth, and I managed to talk him into this picture.

What will the Olympics bring me next? Who knows! I can't wait to find out though.

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Monday, February 15, 2010

Olympics



Well, I went to the Canada Slovakia game expecting a pretty uneven score, but I was surprised at the result. The play was not even close- Canada is much better, probably in part because they have a very established program for female hockey players. Anyway, in anticipation of the blowout, I bought a Slovakia shirt to wear over my Canada shirt (topped by the yellow scarf of course!).

Today I went downtown to volunteer at the Cathedral, and then spent the afternoon looking for free or interesting things to do. Turns out, in an Olympic city, there is a lot to see! We stopped by the Slovak Representitive House, but it cost sixty three bucks to get in, so we didn't do that. They had a tourism person standing outside, so I had my picture with her, and she gave me tons of info on Slovakia, including four DVDs about how awesome it is. It pretty much convinced me to go back!

We also stopped by Russia house, which was ok. They had a hockey hall of fame with all the old Red Army sweaters, and skates and sticks from famous Russians. They also had Russian clowns. Those were a little freaky.

To wind up the day, we walked over and found the outdoor cauldron. It was a good day, but huge crowds (even though today was Monday, I can't imagine it on the weekend).

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Fruit and Nut Bars and the Olympics

I had all the Ferrey's and Sivak's who were in town, along with Del over for supper. Del brought us Fruit and Nut bars (yea!!!) coached by Anne I am sure. We had a good visit, in between watching the Olympic coverage. The hockey game was a bit of a blowout. The Slovaks beat the Belarusians by score of 82 to 0 to get into the Olympics , so imagine how much more of a blow out it could have been. I expect to spend quite a bit of time watching the Olympics over the next couple of weeks. At work, we have the kitchen all decorated, and there is a TV there so we can keep up on what is goin on.

We also celebrated Geoff's birthday, with two different kinds of cake. yumm. The amazing Race starts tonight, Grace won't be hear to watch with me, so it is not the same, but I will enjoy it anyway, I am sure.

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A good fellow


We finally got to meet Del. He and Anne got to Edmonton on Friday, I picked them up at the airport and we met Geoff at Steph and Rem's for Feast. Which was great. Rem went all out for Chinese New Year. Dumplings, rice, soup, noodles, three or so stir fry dishes, steamed fish . . . it was so good. Although we didn't have much chance to talk to Rem as he was cooking the whole time. There was a big crowd there, so we had a bit of a chance to talk to a couple of Anne's friends we have not seen for a while.
Jude had us all for supper (and surprise birthday party for Geoff) on Sat. night. That was where we had a chance to visit with Del. He is a a nice guy, very amiable, easy and interesting to talk to. When he brought out the case of Fruit and Nut bars, I thought ok this is a great guy. I'm sure Geoff thought the same thing when he hauled all the different kinds of beer out of his birthday bag.
Anne and Del are off to Jasper today with Steph and Rem, then will come to Rocky later in the week.
Grace is home for reading week, but no Sam this year - he does not get reading week at PWC. He says he is getting really busy now that tax season is here.
Will texted to tell us where he was sitting at the women's hockey game but we couldn't find him.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Hockey

Well, the craziness has pretty much hit the city. The Olympic torch apparently was on campus this afternoon, but I was in class, so let it pass me by. I was downtown last night, but it was on the east side, well away from the Olympics, so I didn't see all the massive security measures. I'm going down on Monday to volunteer at the Cathedral (they are keeping the doors open 12 hours a day, so they needed lots of hosts!) I think I'll spend a bit more time when my shift is finished, check out the Alberta Pavilion and Slovakia House (maybe they'll have cabbage rolls?) The really big news is that I have tickets to a hockey game this Saturday - Canadian Women vs. Slovakia Women! I'm not really sure who to cheer for (well, I mean, I'll cheer for Canada so I don't get beat up, but I'll cheer for Slovakia quietly as well).



Of course, not everyone here is super happy about the Olympics. Check out this video. It's a about the "Share the Gold" campaign. It's not quite a protest, more of an awareness thing. They are asking people to wear yellow or gold as a reminder that if we can raise 6.9 billion for the games, surely we should be able to raise enough to end homelessness. The place where this video was filmed is the church that's become a shelter where I have a class every week. Ric, who you see in the video, is a minister who runs the place and is one of the instructors.

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You Mean this Picture

Back to work

Good news, Tim is back at work. He told his doctor last week that he was ready to go back. There wasn't much happening work-wise when suddenly a couple of jobs showed up, so he started back last Saturday. He has not worked since August but said it was not hard to get back into it.
So the renovation pace has slowed down. He got most of the hardwood laid in the living room. It is beautiful. He's got the tiles for the bathroom but probably won't get to that for a while as he will be working the next couple of weekends.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Who does this remind you of?

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Dare to Dodge

I captained the Libraries' dodgeball team that competed in a campus-wide game series on Sunday. You can see a few librarians here. No direct link, but select the “U of A students and staff compete in dodge-ball tournament” link under the CTV News Video Player section on the site.


We lost all games but one. A few injuries. Beer bought by my boss. Good times!

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Sunday, February 07, 2010

It's good to be a Pirate King

Grace and I went to see Pirates of Penzance last night, put on by the Edmonton Opera. It was so much fun, I love the music, and it is just a "feel good" story. We went to the Upper Crust for supper before, it was crazy busy, but the food as always was terrific. I was happy that Grace enjoyed the show as well (at lest she said she did). The crowd at the Jube was very well dressed, lots of long fancy dresses, and even a few men in tuxes. Hearing the music reminded me of when Anne, Will and Tim came to stay with me on Saskatchewan Drive, and we watched Pirate videos (the Princess Bride, Pirates of Penzance and the Pirate Movie), and how much fun that was.
Not a lot going on here, Winter is hanging on and we still have quite a bit of snow, but the weather has not been that freezing cold we had around Christmas.

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010

It's Booked Danno

Mirage 56, early board-means board on Aug 23, return Aug 30th. Since we are repeat customers-early board is free and $200 gas credit.
We can only change free of charge until Feb 13th, so speak now or forever hold your piece.
Good thing I booked as there was only one left!
In other news, despite having put in a high efficiency furnace, heat bill last month for rental was $350!!! and this month $300!! Renters assured me that they had heat set at only 21 in evenings. We called furnace people to come look. Though when I opened bill, my 1st instinct was to call tenants and freak out at them, Richard stopped me.
We have been in new house 1 year as of end of Jan. I still love it.

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