Julie picked up this kitty sleeper and bunny slippers Friday at Superstore.
9 years ago
Fort Whyte
We visited Fort Whyte Tuesday afternoon, which proved to be an interesting excursion. The park boasts walking trails, a small museum and fresh water aquarium, buffalo, and prairie dogs. I took my camera along (of course!), and took a few pictures of interesting things we saw. Enjoy!
(The pictures above and below are of a 1/4 scale buffalo pound.)
And Her Name Is...
After much thought and deliberation, Julie and I have finally settled on the perfect name for our little girl. It's a beautiful name for a beautiful baby. The name will remain a secret until she arrives. We're so excited!
More Baby Duds
Julie and I picked up this "halfa-parka" yesterday at Superstore. Zips up at the bottom to keep little baby toes warm. Also, a matching toque and mitts.
Carol found this pretty pink outfit at Winners. She says "it's very impractical", but she couldn't resist buying it. Julie thinks it's cute.
Week 31
This videos shows what my little girl looks like this week. She's been kicking a lot lately; last night, she was either dancing or doing calisthenics, because I've never seen Julie's tummy bounce so much. The upcoming fetal assessment will probably determine when she will make her grand entrance... which, I think, won't be soon enough for Julie, who is becoming increasingly ready to get her out.
Don't Wear it Out
Shiloh spent part of the Friday afternoon with Melissa. Apparently, he was quite noisy during his visit, and she noticed several "Duh" sounds in particular.
At one point, as she sat close by, he said it again -- "Duh". Only this time, after a moment's thought, he added a slightly slurred "Aniel" to the end. Mellisa turned to him incredulously and said, "Did you just say 'Daniel'?!" Shiloh looked at her very seriously in reply, as if confirming that this had, in fact, been his intention.
How cool is that?
How Not To Be Seen
Thomas -- er, Agent 98 -- has been interested in spying recently (probably from watching too many The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Get Smart reruns). This reminded me of a very important skill which all master spies must possess in order to be successful: that of Not Being Seen. Fortunately, Monty Python is here to help:
MRI
The human body is largely composed of water molecules, each of which contain two hydrogen nuclei (also called protons). When subjected to the powerful magnetic field of a scanner, the magnetic moments of these protons align with the direction of the field. Next, a radio frequency electromagnetic field is briefly turned on, causing the protons to alter their alignment relative to the field. When the field is turned off, the protons return to the original magnetization alignment. This alignment changes create a signal which can be detected by the scanner, and extrapolates this information to create a three-dimensional image. This process is called Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
Cool, huh?
Poirot for Free
I just discovered that Hercule Poirot episodes (among many other things) are available for free on the internet. Simply go to BlinkX, punch in the show you'd like to see, and select from the list of links. Below is one such video.
To view this video, click the red ">" button once. It will cycle and turn green. Click it again, and your video will begin. I haven't seen any overly offensive adds on Megavideo yet, but be careful.
*Hint: Megavideo will only allow you to watch 54 minutes or so of video before it pops up and says you must sign up for an account. The way to get around this is to simply reset your internet connection (or, more specifically, your IP address), and clear your cookies.
For more info on streaming free television online, see my earlier post on the subject.
Sickie
Shiloh developed a chest cold yesterday evening, and is under the weather today. Hopefully, he'll be over it in time for his MRI next week. In the meantime, we're still trying to get used to the sudden quiet.
Eye Spy
I took this picture one day while waiting in the car for Julie. If you zoom in on the reflection in my iris, you can actually see what I was seeing -- my hands holding the camera, a bit of my red shirt, the inside of the car, and the gas station sign on the other side of the parking lot. Weird, huh?
Can you tell what I was looking at in this one?
Pooh at the Zoo
This sculpture of Lieutenant Harry Colebourn and his bear, "Winnie", stands at the entrance to the Winnipeg Zoo.
Zoo
Julie, Shiloh, and some rather anti-social camels.
Shiloh and the leopard both refused to cooperate for this picture. Shiloh was more interested in looking at the leopard than having his picture made with it, and the leopard seemed to have something else on it's mind entirely. But it's a decent picture of me, anyway.
No matter how hard the rest of the flock tried to include him, Hubert always knew he was somehow different from the others.
Chris Fonseca
A Colorado native, Chris Fonseca was born with Cerebral Palsy. He was raised by an aunt and uncle after his mother died in the delivery room. Despite the fact that he is wheelchair-bound, he has done stand-up comedy for twenty-one years, appearing on numerous television shows (he has also preformed at the Winnipeg Comedy Festival). Fonseca was the first person with a visible disability to entertain on The Late Night Show with David Letterman.
Canuck Turkey Day
Canadian Thanksgiving is tomorrow (it's observed on the second Monday of October), but we're celebrating it today. The Canadian version of the holiday is very similar to the American one, with a few notable differences.
Canadians don't have a Pilgrim-and-Indian story like the Americans do, so they had to jump about and find something to officially pin the day on. What they came up with was to make thanksgiving a celebration of the fact that noted explorer Martin Frobisher had returned from one of his long voyages in search of the Northwest Passage safe and sound (the fact that he appears to have been largely unsuccessful in his attempt doesn't seem to make much of a difference).
Another difference is described in this quote from Wikipedia: "Thanksgiving is an annual Canadian holiday to give thanks at the close of the harvest season. Although some people thank God for this bounty, the holiday is mainly considered secular." I'm not sure exactly who or what the secular folks are giving thanks to on this day. Perhaps they're sitting around radiating warm fuzzy thankful feelings into the environment. (Of course, another Wikipedia entry labels American thanksgiving as a "secular" holiday as well, so go figure.)
It strikes me as odd that Canadians don't celebrate many holidays with the zeal of their American counterparts. To me, thanksgiving and independence day are linked with the founding of our country, and patriotism is the backbone of many such celebrations. Canadians have a completely different view, having arrived at national independence through a long, peaceful, and, at times, apologetic diplomatic process. Subsequently, holidays like Thanksgiving tend to pass without much hoopla or fanfare (except, of course, for the commercially bloated and greed-mutated version of Christmas that most of the world celebrates nowadays).
Our thanksgiving meal should consist of chicken, ham, meatballs, stuffing (the bread-based Yankee version), potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, home-made pickles, and... beets. (According to all things good, holy, and decent, our meal should include turkey, but two members of the family -- who shall remain nameless -- flatly refuse to come into contact with any form of flesh other than the white meat of a chicken. Moose meat, which was a traditional staple of Canadian pioneer diet, and which is also painfully delicious, would be completely out of the question.) We also have enough pie to feed Coxey's army.
Despite the fact that the true significance of the day is lost on the average Canadian, I intend to spend the day actually thanking my maker for the many blessings I have received this year -- and, especially, for one particular little blessing that is still on the way.
Weather Update
This is the result of yesterday's dusting of snow. It's been flurrying lightly off and on all day today, and the white stuff is beginning to collect in spots.
Canadian leaves got seriously gypped this year. They didn't even get a chance to change color. We went from mostly green "summer" weather, to frigid and bleak in less than two weeks. Carol keeps telling me that this isn't what Canadian weather is normally like. "It never snows in October," she says. "Just wait, we'll have an indian summer yet." (I'm still not sure why this term hasn't been updated to the more politically-correct "Native American summer", but I'm sure that somewhere there are liberals who are hopping mad over it.) Personally, I rather suspect that this year may well set the "new" norm, as the cooling trend picks up momentum. I guess this remains to be seen.
Wow, Wow, Everyone
This cartoon is Shiloh's favorite. His favorite characters are Wubbzy, Walden, Widget, and the one that says "Koooky!"
Multi-Tasking Seasons
It was fall at Bobchi's yesterday afternoon, as most of the leaves abandoned the trees to carpet the front lawn.
Fall ended a mere couple of hours later, and winter flurried in:
I guess it makes sense that it should be this way. We didn't get a spring, after all, or a summer. Why would we get a fall?
Opa!
This is a souvlaki pita wrap from Opa!, and it's GOOD. Mine has lamb, onions, tomatoes, jalapeños, feta cheese, and Tzatziki sauce. $5 worth of heaven.
Photo-Double
Alfredo was recently cast as a "photo-double" in a Manitoba-based television series which runs on APTN. Cashing In is a dramatic comedy about a native-run casino on a scrubby reserve in southern Manitoba, and is filmed at a Winnipeg casino.
Alfredo's acting gig consisted of driving a truck into a parking lot while wearing a cowboy hat and goatee -- standing in, of course, for one of the show's main characters. I, of course, find it hilariously funny that, in a city full of native people, the only person they could find to look like their native actor was a Mexican. Ha!
The Result of Boredom
I had a few minutes of downtime before supper last night, and this was the unfortunate result. Of course, I could have been doing something edifying, productive, or, in the very least, tasteful. Instead, I chose to create... this. I'm still limping along with my ArcSoft PhotoStudio, because my beloved Jasc Paint Shop Pro is 1500 miles away and I can't seem to get anyone to SEND IT TO ME. Although, this fact may actually be a blessing for the readers of the Confederate Canuck.
Props
Kudos to Carrie for posting the "Never Fail Brownies" recipe on her blog. Shiloh made them today and they are DELICIOUS. Thanks for satisfying my craving for a perfect brownie.
Picture-Symbols
Because Shiloh does not yet verbalize, we have put together a book of picture-symbols. Called "the idea book", it is a picture list of things that Shiloh can do. This is to compensation strategy that was designed to help him deal with his uncertainty (of what to do next).
His therapist took some of the photos, because she has taken pictures for magazines and brochures in the past. By the time they were ready, however, we had thought of a number of other things to go in the book. After getting my new camera, I was able to take the pictures myself. Are they magazine-quality?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
