Curling

World Curling Championships
(5-Apr-07)

In April, Edmonton was host to the Ford World Men's Curling Championship.
Bill from work had a spare ticket for the Canada vs Australia game, so he invited me along.



Out came the Aussies. I bet you didn't know that Australia had a curling team, now did you?
Neither did I. Turns out that they are all ex-Canadians - except for the ex-Scot that is :-)





The Australian Canadians chat with the Canadian Canadians.



And the games begin. For the uninitiated (me before watching this game), the teams take turns sliding rocks down the ice to the target shaped thingy at the other end. The team with the closest rock to the centre of the target wins the round, and gets a point for every rock they have that is closer to the target than any of the other team's rocks.

For the Glenwoodians, it's just like the whiskey bottle coin toss at the trivia nights.



So one dude pushes the rock, and the others sweep their broom things to slicken up the ice to control the speed and direction of the rock.







At the end of the round, they work out who is closest, and how many points the winner gets.



Of course, the Aussies didn't really stand much chance against the Canadians, but they gave it a fair go. Not bad when you consider that there are no curling rinks anywhere in Australia for these guys to practice on...



Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

(or perhaps as the crowd was chanting,
Canada! Canada! Canada! Eh! Eh! Eh!)

Cinderella

Cinderella
(31-Mar-07)
Somebody got some new shoes for a rather special occasion.



A ballet performance of Cinderella.



(Only the girls went - I think the boys were quite happy to give it a miss...)



Look! Down there! There's some culture going on!

Apologies

Ok, so I'm about two months behind with my blogging...

I'll catch up soon (I hope :-)

Lots of fun stuff to tell you all about.

Spring Break part 6

Spring Break part 6
(31-Mar-07)
(Yeah, I know - I'm way behind with my blogging...)

Breakfast for the ladies.



So, after our night at the museum, it was time to check things out properly.

This is the guy that invented dinosaurs, or something...


Some of Tyrrell's early fossilisation experiments...



We're going on a dinosaur hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,



Just trying to work out which is the scariest...



Halloween - trick or treat!



What??? You criticise my art? I will eat you!



Moo! (ok, so it's actually a mastodon skeleton, but hey)



Here is where the dinosaur people do stuff.
With big tubes.



Cayde being irradiated with the dreaded fossilisation ray.



Woof!



Look down there - that's where we slept!



Meow!



What happens when a dinosaur runs into a stone wall - splat!



Some dino skellies checking out the boy.



Quack!





Mmmm - yummy!



Baa!



Squeak!



Neigh!



Squawk!



What are you looking at?



Enough dino silliness. It's off to the badlands for the Fowlers.

(Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah Bad to the bone....)





Tumblin' like a tumblin' tumbleweed.



If the Mars Rover actually landed here, I reckon you'd have a fair bit of trouble working out that it was in the wrong place...











Poignant yet ambiguous.





Yep, we were in Oil Country.
A lot of the farms around here had their nodding donkeys pumping up the oil.





All the barns around here looked pretty much the same.
Here is one that was not red.



Little farm on the prairie.



Flat.



Really flat.



And finally we made it home to Edmonton.