It's been a long winter here in Canada with lots of snow. Apparently that is true for most of Canada and not only Southern Alberta. I was in Montreal last Monday. This trip enriched my life with a close encounter with an interesting Canadian winter practice. You may be familiar with the notion that it's generally rather cold in Canada and that is snows around here. In fact, in the Eastern provinces, the big sprawling cities (Toronto, Montreal) are densely enough populated and it snows enough there that they can't just push the snow to the sides of the streets, roads, highways. So what can you do: they pick up the snow, load it into big trucks, and dump it onto any empty space that happens to remain in the city. This results in huge mountains of black, dirty snow of say 5-10 meters smack in the centre of the cities. So when I emerged from the subway to go for supper in Montreal I stared on a bizarre apocalyptic landscape of dirty snow and city muck. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, so you'll have to look for an actual image on google/flicker. However, I can point you to a thoughtful blog if you have a deeper intrest in managing the snow removal service for a large urban center.
The birthday party was at the local gymnastics club with their ever cheerful staff. The theme was Super Heros (yes, really). From right to left: Lightning Dog (aka Berend), Batman (aka Skye), and a slice of Super Girl (aka Elise).
Jasper had a lot of fun with his friends at his home for a birthday party. Unfortunately, a migraine had knocked Jennifer out that day. We all loved her chocolate turtle and Peter managed to scare everybody around the table stiff by adding a sparkler to the turtle's tail.
David, Jennifer's cousin, had the wonderful idea to give Jasper an origami set for Christmas. Berend is big time into crafts, loves his markers, glitter glue, tape, watercolors, etc. It was therefore only a matter of time before Berend had appropriated David's present to Jasper in the best sense of the word. The paper never gets folded, but rather cut and taped and stapled and painted on. The results speak for themselves. We'll soon be immensly rich and plan to retire early, living off Berend's artwork. Thank you, David!
It's Lightning Dog as a puppy on the left and as a grown-up on the right.
The 2008 lunar eclipse was spectacular and very conveniently timed so we could watch it just before bed-time from the warmth of our sofa. So here, my point again: 2007, you got nothin'!
Moon (top) with streetlamp (bottom) over Lethbridge.
Erstmals seit 1996 wird Deutschland wieder Fußballeuropameister. In 2006, ich erinnere mich noch genau, jubilierte meine Nichte Jule: "Wir sind Dritter!!!" Diese Schande muß wieder gut gemacht werden - und zwar pronto.
Wenn Frankreich es schafft, dann ist es ja vielleicht auch OK.
The quality of Graffiti in Lethbridge has increased significantly in the past year. In the summer of 2007, we spotted the pinkfoot Graffiti below. Today, there was a "GARBAGE" written in never-come-off-indelible black marker (Edding) on a garbage container. Unbeatable self-irony. I'm loving it.
The University of Lethbridge's radio station CKXU tipped me off in late January on a very surreal, nightly car ride to Calgary during a snow storm. Then Luka from our regular radio station CKUA picked it up and it's clear: Burning Hell makes 2008 the year after the release of their first record/CD/set of mp3 files. "Dinosaurs" is a wonderful piece of melancholic pop with cello cum voice. They are currently on tour. Check them out, they're worth it.