Jurisprudence

I missed the bus this morning. I watched it go past the end of the cul-de-sac and it disappeared into the morning haze as i rounded the corner and approached the meagre shelter of the bus stop. Usually I don't mind waiting 7 minutes for the next one; two more tunes on the ipod, a moment to savour my Colombian fair trade coffee in it's thermos mug, a read of the free paper from the roadside dispenser. A pleasant 7 minutes, no? Tickety-boo. This morning it was -23 degrees. That means it's so cold little icicles form on all the hairs in your nose when you breathe in. 'Why not breathe through your mouth then?' I hear you ask. Think about it; if the cold air is doing that to you nose, do you really want it going straight to your warm moist lungs? Hell no! Not sure how we'll fare skiing in cold like this tomorrow. I'd cross my fingers if I could; my giant padded gloves prevent it.





Anyway, onto the run in with the legal system of this eponymous post. Yesterday I went to pay my speeding ticket (see previous post "the longest day"). If you turn up in person and plead guilty they generally cut the fine in half. The Justice of the peace I dealt with also reduced my points penalty from 3 to 2. It all worked smoothly. I turned up, queued, sat, waited, talked to a lady, paid and left. The whole process took about an hour, and short of having to be up at 6.00 am to be at the front of the queue and paying a $178 fine it was fairly painless. The poor chap ahead of me in the line was not enjoying his litigious process as much. I guess he didn't know the maxim 'you can't fight City Hall.' (We were in City Hall at the time. Big Clue!) . He seemed to be labouring under the misapprehension that the Justice of the Peace (JP) had super legal powers and could wave her magic wand and the whole incident would go away. The conversation went something like this...

(FYI, it is legal to turn right at a red light here in Canada if you have stopped to check no cars are coming and no pedestrian wishes to cross. Pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way, which is silly but a whole other story.)

-JP: Well sir, the officer says you failed to come to a complete stop before turning right on a red light, so he issued you with a ticket for $179 and 2 points. If you plead guilty I can can cut that in half.

-Mr Man: But I came to a stop. He is wrong.

-JP: OK sir. I you wish to contest the ticket I can set a court date for you.

-MM: But I don't wish to go to court, I did nothing wrong.

-JP: If you don't wish to contest the ticket you can accept the offer now. I can only offer to cut the fine in half. Will you accept that offer.

-MM: No, I do not wish to pay. I DID stop.

_I hear that sir, but the officer claims you did not. He is not here now. If you wish to contest it you will have to go to court. Would you like to go to Court?

-MM: No

-JP: Would you like to pay the fine?

-MM: No.

-Everyone else in the ever increasing line up who can hear everything that's going on: (under their breath): Would you like to grow up and get a grip on how the REAL world works so we can all get on with our days?

-MM(in my head): No, I expect the whole world to revolve around me. I do not accept that I am not in control here. I do not care that all these people could be disadvantaged if the JP is in a foul mood after dealing with a self-centred oaf like me.

Everyone else: Bugger off then.

As it turns out the JP had plenty of experience dealing with situations like this and was still in fine spirits when I met her, but I did feel sympathy for her having to deal with people like this pleading their irrelevant sob stories every day. Those of you in the court system, we salute you, and the next time somebody wastes your time whining about how its not their fault, take heart and pity the poor schmoe next in line.

Sorry for the rant. Lets all move on...

Off to the Mall now. Comfy ski socks are worth their weight in gold, but I hope the pricing policy is more reasonable that his. Be well. R

Short term memory loss

Welcome to the Great Canadian Winter! Inches of snow all over today, traffic chaos and and an empty school. You have to wonder. If I can work out that the roads will be slow and manage to get here on time, where are all the students? Surely the snow didn't come as a surprise? They must remember that traffic slows down when braking and steering are compromised. It happens every year! Apparently it happens every Chinook. The snow melts, everyone gets back to normal and when it snows again 2 days later everyone is late or busy crashing. Doh!

Papa, you're right, I was a Red runner with QM. They don't have reds over here, so it's either tricky blues or soft blacks to be at the same level. I have forgotten some skills, the new shape parabolic skis work a lot differently that the old straight ones and I was young and fearless then, so I am playing catch up. I am now starting to get back to where I was in skill terms, not quite in confidence. Such is the passage of time. Vicky and I went to France one Christmas a few years ago but I took boarding lessons then. I've reverted to skiing for now.

Heads, Shoulders Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes (all hurt!!)

Weather update: -15 degrees this morning, snow on the ground, some windchill. Bloody bitter at bus stop, I'll be glad to get picked up tonight by my beautiful and accomodating wife. And so to the blog...



This last weekend saw another first; skiing in November. What a blast. Friday saw me and Vic heading up to Banff with Katherine and Drew to hit the slopes (Ozzie and Kiwi respectively, another couple over on exchange just about to head back to Sydney). We found a cheap hotel, sorted our lift passes and we were good to go! Only an hour and a half's drive from the doorstep to the glorious Rocky Mountains.

Saturday we went to Lake Louise because we had some two-fers ( 2 for one passes), so two people could get a day's skiing (or boarding) for the reduced November early season rate of $56. Bargain. There was a great atmosphere there in the lodge and the lower slopes brought by the carnival that is the world downhill ski championships going on all weekend and being won by a Canadian on Saturday.

I couldn't get a lesson that day as they were all booked up, but being super-geeky I had spent the last few weeks reading every website going on how to learn to ski. I don't recommend teaching yourself as the best way to make progress on the slopes, but as a refresher course to get back on my feet after 12 years away from skiing it was good to remember all that basic stuff about snow-plough turns and whatnot. By the end of the day I was paralleling with some limited confidence and control but without much grace down a long easy green/blue run called Wiwaxy. This started getting trickier towards the end of the day as the run got icier. Apparently man-made snow has a binding agent to make it stick but it also tends to ice up as it gets ski-ed on. Someone told me Lake Louise has the largest man-made snow-making operation in North America with a huge number of machines covering the entire front face of the mountain. There must be hundreds of them, and each one costs $250 an hour to run. My $56 ski-pass covers one machine for 12 minutes. That place needs to get seriously busy to cover costs like that. Once the natural snow starts falling it'll be much nicer there; it's softer, easier to ski on and much nicer to fall over on.

Vicky couldn't get a group snowboarding lesson, so she had a 2 hour private lesson to iron out some kinks in her boarding and Kastherine and I joined her in the afternoon while Drew was mastering the fine art of falling over strapped to a plank (day-one snowboarding lessons look much like this; Drew defied the odds be being actually quite good quite soon). Victoria is now riding with the style and grace of one born to it.

We got back to the hotel stiff and sore but triumphant, all having made progress in leaps and bounds (sometimes literally). First stop at the hotel was the hot-tub. With stiff sore legs nothing is quite as good for one's soul as a cold beer in a jacuzzi. Once dry we dined out at a 'pub' round the corner, The St James Gate. It was quire pubby, and the beer was fine, but the food was fab. Vicky swears they had the best seafood chowder she's ever had, and that girl knows a thing or two about cooking fish. The liver and onions was well up to scratch.

That evening Vic and I went shopping for warm headgear. We initially thought we'd get a good toque (pronounced toook) but ended up with helmets. Sadly the only ones that fitted us, despite being completely different helmets, each only came in white. All the other colours were too large or too small, so we ended up with matching helmets. This would be fine if we hadn't also bought matching red ski-pants and matching black North face parkas. We tried not to, we really did, especially me, but we look like Mr and Mrs His-n-hers.

The following day we headed off to Sunshine village, whee they rely on natural snow fall being considerably higher up. It was a pleasant change to get somewhere with 55 runs open and soft natural snow all over. Locals were saying that with only half it's runs open and 70cm of snow it was not as great as it will be, but it was still the best skiing I've ever had.

I left the others at the bottom of the hill, catching the Gondola up to meet my class. I had booked a group lesson to improve my technique and build confidence. I was expecting to meet 5 more improvers and an instructor. As it turns out, no-one else of my meagre ability signed up that day, so I had instructor Terry all to myself for some intense private coaching all day. An astonishing piece of luck and I really feel Ive got to grips with the basics now. I am pole planting usefully and coming down tricky blue runs even including moguls. There's not yet much style, but it's working and I'm having a ball.

I met Vic at the end of the day and we skied together for a bit, soaking in the last of the sun and taking in a few more spectacular views, but by now I was tired and cold. It had been between -10 and -16 degrees all day and the wind had been whipping snow in our faces at the top of the mountain. When the sun is in front of you and the snow comes in the very fine champagne-powder the Rockies are known for it looks like your skiing through fairy dust. It can be quite mesmerising, not always a good thing when you're concentrating on not falling down the bloody great hill you're stood on.

The day done we headed home in our Caravan and were back in Calgary by 6.30. A great weekend all round.

Pop quiz: SKIING, how many other words in the English language can you think of with a double i? Please comment. I can only get 2.

Also, why is every 'lifty' (chap or chapess working a ski lift) in the whole country seemingly Australian?

FW: State of the Union (or Assosciation)

Seems like a poor day to be an England fan. Poor old Steve Maclaren had the shortest tenure ever as England coach. Makes the rest of us seem like we have job security aplenty.

Also seems to be a worse day to be a Luton fan. Talk about licked when you're down, getting docked points because you've gone into administration. Sorry James.

Makes me glad I'm largely indifferent to the world of Association Football.

Saw Beowulf last night at the movies. Made me wish I could have a CGI'd body.

First of the season

It seems odd that the good Burghers of Walsall should experience snow before we here in Calgary, but that's how it played out this year. I wonder if there were the same casualties as we had here last night on our first proper snow-fall of winter? People here in Canada are pretty good at driving in snow, but seem to forget all this right at the start of every winter.

Last night there were 60 collisions reported to Calgary Police caused by a half-inch of snow. People were driving to fast (anything more than 15mph is TOO FAST on narrow inner city streets, it seems), braking to late, cornering too hard and generally driving in denial of the conditions. It happens every year. Poor Trish in the Math dept got driven into for the second time in two weeks!

What doesn't help is the lack of Grit. Rock salt just doesn't work below -5 degrees, so they don't bother. Bum. Better get used to sliding around, eh?

Ciao for now,

R

Ain't that the truth...

The pastor at our church is starting a series on marriage at the moment. He likes to start with an amusing anecdote and this one really tickled Vicky and I...

It seems a group of men and a group of women were asked to work out if computers were male or female.

The men though that computers were like women because:

1)They talk to each other in a language only other computers can understand.

2)Once you've made a mistake it gets stored in long-term memory for ever.

3) They have an internal logic only their creator understands.

4)Once you've made a commitment to one you find yourself spending half your salary on accessories.

On the other hand, the womens' group all agreed that computers were like men because:

1) You find it much easier to work with them once you've turned them on.

2) For something that's supposed to help solve the problem, often it is the problem.

3) Once you make a commitment to one you notice a new, faster, better slimmer one comes along six month later.

4) They store a lot of data but no evidence has yet been found that they can think for themselves.

I thought the women fared rather better than the men.

I also thought it was a little too cynical. Maybe it's because I'm a Mac user. I thought my wife was like my Apple because:

1) She does what I need or want her to do over 99% of the time.

2) She's pretty, efficient, reliable and thoroughly entertaining.

3) She responds well to a single touch.

4) She is totally different to most of my friends.

5) Once you've gone Mac, you'll never go back.

Longest day

A Mammoth day trip!!



Early November saw us visit Drumheller, home of the Royal Tyrell Museum and the Hoodoos. The Tyrell is a world renowned dinosaur museum and is sited in the badlands of Alberta where many fossils are found. For all that it's a small town kind of in the middle of nowhere it is prime real estate on the top of any paleontologists dream list of places to live and work.

They call it the Royal Tyrell Museum, which we wondered at. Surely Her Maj never made it this far west? Well she did, on the same trip she went up the QE II highway linking Edmonton and Calgary (one of the straightest, dullest most God-forsaken bits of 'pavement' I've ever had to roll along). Apparently she liked the Museum SOOO much she let them append the Royal prefix to it, and one can quite see why. It was very impressive, and not just to and uber-geek like me; even Victoria was kept interested for several hours.

Pictures you see here are of a Woolly Mammoth, Albertosaurus, Triceratops with T-Rex and some other local ceratopian, all found locally. It was nice that a museum of this world renowned would let us take pictures free of charge.

(Albertosaurus above was a ferocious carnivore. Modern Albertans are still vicious predators when chasing down meat. They'll do anything for prime Alberta AAA beef; it's really that good.)

There is a statue as you walk in of the fabulously mustachioed Joseph Burr Tyrell. Apparently he liked the museum so much that in 1907 he named himself after it.

That's about it for the museum. Lots of bones, lots of models, all cool for boy and geeks. I thought I'd put in some of the ordinary touches of life as a tourist too.

We left Calgary on the Deerfoot heading North. The Deerfoot is the local name for the No 2 highway (the QE II), a 2/3/4 lane highway running from Edmonton 3hrs North of Calgary all the way to Montana in the South. It picks up the name 'Deerfoot trail' as it goes though Calgary City for about 50 km. All the major highways running though Calgary are called the Something Trail; there's Bow (after the river), Memorial, Crowchild, Sarcee, Shagganappi (say it, it's fun!), MacLeod and probably others. Most of the snarl ups in Calgary happen when one meets the other at either lights or a clover leaf. This is the name for a junction where traffic has to Merge. Calgarians are notoriously bad at this, often cutting each other up and with a selfish tendency to drive right on the back bumper of the car in front so no one can squeeze in and looking dead straight ahead in their 3 or 4 tonne over-sized Dodge Ram truck so they couldn't POSSIBLY have noticed you. Come on guys; one in, one along, one in, one along etc. That way everyone actually gets home faster, soother, safer and without any stress caused by near-collisions/unnecessary horn tooting/finger-waving etc.

So there we were, merrily heading North on the Deerfoot at 108 km/h, listening to Billy Joel on the i-trip. We were being careful to not break the 110 km/h speed limit (67 mph). Sadly we missed the 80 km/h signs at the start of the construction work cones. (I rush to point out that there were no workers present.We'd TOTALLY have noticed them and slowed down. Sadly we were at the front of a run of cars so there was no one in front of us to prompt us to slow down. We did that kind favour to the cars/trucks behind us.) Anyway, we missed the signs, but the mounties didn't miss us. They radar gunned us and pulled us over. Sadly they were in winter uniform. I wouldn't have minded the fine so much from a pair of red coated picture-postcards. They said that seeing as it was a construction zone the fines were doubled, so even though we were trying to do 2 kn/h less that the speed limit, they fined us for going 56 km\h over it! Bugger! $333 fine. No excuses here, we should have seen it, but that REALLY put a crimp in our journey.

Nothing could improve our mood. Until we got to Drumheller and drove past a series of Gay-ly and gaily painted dinosaurs, mammoths and sabre-toothedtigers. That helped. Then we went to Boston Pizza and I had Chicken Tandoori Pizza. Not as good as Croma in Leeds, but pretty special.

After our pleasant trip around the museum we headed out to the Hoodoos where we watched the sun go down, something I always try to do on the day when the clocks go back. It's a nice way to spend the extra hour. As the long rays of sunset hit the sandstone of the Hoodoos the ruddy rocks came alive. These fabulous eerie formations left behind when the soft rocks wear away under the firm cap (see your local geologist for details) are a regular postcard feature in Alberta, and I hope you can see why.

City of ''Champions"

This weekend we paid a visit to the Capital of Alberta, Edmonton. Home to Ben Wiggins (benwigginsincanada.blogspot.com), Dr Gavin Searle and Mrs Dr Niki Webster, the Edmonton Oilers and the Edmonton Eskimos (Hockey and Football respectively) and the world' 2nd largest shopping centre, the West Edmonton Mall.
It picks up the moniker 'City of Champions' because way back when in the era of Gretzky (early 80's I think) both the Oilers and the Eskies won their respective leagues (NHL and CFL) in the same year several times. That hasn't happened for a while now so some non-Edmontonians are a little skeptical of the board at the city limits proclaiming the City's victorious status.
It was winning the unofficial 'Who's Got The Most Shops In One Place' award for a while, the giant West Edmonton Mall having been built by chums of the Shah Of Persia (or modern Iran) who fled the revolution of the Ayatollahs in the 70's and wanted somewhere in Canada they could feel at home, surrounded by a giant beach and lots of everyone else's money. Sadly the World's Biggest Mall is now in Phoenix (Arizona, not Lancashire), but there are plans to add a wing and reclaim the prize for the frozen North.

The mall was surprisingly impressive. It contains the beach; a large indoor pool with water slides and waves big enough to surf on (I've seen footage, it's true) that is comfortably as big as the aqualand I saw in the South of France on the French exchange last year; the Santa Maria, a full size replica of Columbus' ship; a theme park with a dozen or so roller coasters and rides and an aquarium with a shark, fish, penguins and a pair of Sea Lions. I believe these are the Sea Lions furthest from the Sea in the world. They are, in fact, so very far from any kind of Ocean that it would be more accurate to call them Lions, although admittedly rather wet and smelling-of-fish Lions.
We had to ride a roller-coaster. We avoided the giant super-scary one which killed a few people back in the 80s. The mind bender was just too much for us, being the longest indoor roller-coaster in the world. We opted for the Galaxy Orbiter as it looked much tamer. You can see from Victoria's face that it was not. I loved it, but I finished with a deaf ear and a sore hand from Vic's white-knuckle grip. Thank God we went before we had lunch...



We'll be back at the mall in January sometime to lie on the beach, swim, play and drink cocktails and generally give ourselves a summery feel when it's -30 or below.
Speaking of negative temperatures, I finally bought a winter coat. Sadly it's almost identical to Victoria's, so we look rather cheesily his-n-hers when the temperature drops.Trying to find something warm enough for -30 and below days with enough room to maneuver for skiing and waterproof so I can still use it in rainy blighty has been quite a challenge. Only the Giantest Mall ever was up to the challenge. I am almost totally confident my new parka and new winter boots will do just the job. I'm already finding them useful for waiting at the bus-stop on the way to and from work. So far it's only got down to about -5 or -6 in the morning, so quite how I'll cope with the extremes of January and February I don't know.
We had a fab time with Ben. You must check out his blog (benwigginsincanada.blogspot.com) for some original comments on Canadian driving and teaching. It was refreshing to hang out with Brits all weekend and relax about our sense of humour. Canadians are amongst the friendliest, most welcoming people on Earth (up there with Malawians and the Irish), but it can sometimes be a strain to hold in the sarcasm so as not to cause offense. Thankfully the cut-and-thrust and day to day banter in the math department is very British in feel; Irony-a-go-go.
We also stayed with Gavin and Nickie. Dr Searle (as he is now) was a housemate at university and a long-time friend, but as he moved to Edmonton 3 years ago we've barely seem them since. It was great to catch up and discover that we haven't changed all that much. Boys are like that I think; we're pretty rubbish at staying in touch but as soon as we get back together it's like no time had passed. We sat up till past midnight comparing a 18 year-old with 2 twelve year olds... scotch of course! Gavin and I bantered merrily about hints of honey and how 'round' was the 'peatiness' while Nickie and Vicky looked on with amusement as we described 3 drinks which they though all tasted the same; like petrol. The following morning we went to the sugar-bowl, an enormously popular Edmonton eaterie and bar where we queued outside for a seat. The food was great, but I was surprised to find a North American breakfast place not offering my favourite Eggs Benedict. Even better than to food was making plans to go skiing. Snow is falling on the pistes of Sunshine Village and Lake Louise down the road. Bring on the winter!



Final quibble. I have noticed a tendency over here to use "bunny ears" in random places. I'll try to point out the funniest ones. Noting them on here is safer than correcting everyone's grammar. Favourite this week was a meeting for "Married" couples at a church. BYO mistress I guess...

Weekly treats and the Piano Man

Wednesday has always been a day to look forward to.



Normally Wednesday is hump-day. You know that by lunchtime on Wednesday you are over halfway through the week, and it's all downhill form there. I like the feeling of momentum as the weekend approaches. By Thursday I always feel like Friday is just around the corner and Friday is virtually the weekend. That heady headlong dash to the freedom of Saturday begins on Wednesday, and God bless the Weekend! As much as I love my job, and I do, I love the bits in between a little more.



Anyway, this year, I have another reason to look forward to Wednesday. Wednesday is Treat Day! The various members of the TA ( Teacher Advisor group; home room, tutor group, form group etc) take it in turns to bring in sweet and lovely snacks. Several times we have had Doughnuts for Mr Tim Horton, Dairy Queen Ice-cream Sandwiches (kudos to you, zesty), home made brownies, oreos and other wonderful snacks. I particularly love that the group has quickly worked out the way to Mr D's heart: chocolate! Whenever doughnuts are provided, I tend to receive a personal chocolate glazed chocolate doughnut. Mmmm. Who said money can't buy love? It can, but only if you spend it on doughnuts or brownies. Thanks guys, you're making it a ton of fun every Wednesday!




Monday was a rare day too. Vicky and I treated ourselves to tickets to see Mr Billy Joel at the Saddledome, a huge arena here in Calgary built for the '88 Olympics and usually home to the Calgary Flames, the much beloved local Hockey Team in the NHL. We ended up with pretty good seats as well; one of my new friends has contacts who works at the 'dome. Nice!
Anyway, the man is a towering giant amongst entertainers. He was on stage for over 2 hours with no break and left 12000 fans wanting more. He played pretty much all the hits and some other stuff too, he was funny and charming between songs and managed to make it feel like a much more intimate gig than the numbers would suggest. I particularly liked when he told us the original lines to "She's Always a Woman" were
"She can kill with a smile, she can would with her eyes,
"She can ruin your face with her powerful thighs."
Try it, it fits perfectly. I'm not sure if he's spoiled it forever for me or made it even better.

He opened with a long piano introduction and it looked, to all intents and purposes, like he was just hitting the piano furiously for several minutes, but somehow this glorious music came out.

He rocks. Go see him if you can.

Last Wednesday, Oct 31st

Just another day in the Math department here at St Francis High. I just stopped by my colleague's room to chat with her. Generally Princess Tricia of Tuscany comes in mufti but had an official engagement after school and so came in her full regalia. Lookin' good, your highness...

...not really! Just another part of that most North American of festivals, Halloween! Not just the students, but the teachers too dressed up. I found it odd that a Catholic school would get behind what I had always considered to be a slightly Satanic holiday, but it seems, just like Christmas, the spiritual aspect of Halloween has been glossed over. Rather than appeasing evil spirits so they'll leave you alone, Halloween is about Fun, Fancy-dress and Farm-loads of Candy (sorry to stretch the alliteration there). I can't help but wonder, as fun as it was to get myself dressed up as the Grim Reaper, does glossing over the history take it away?... What do you think? Halloween; Evil or not? Just good old-fashioned fun?