Walking With Dinosaurs

Mitchell and I went to go see Walking with Dinosaurs at the MTS Centre on Saturday. Wow What a show! I was totally blown away. When you first walk in and the lights are bright, you are struck by how boring the setup looks. There is a whole lot of bare concrete floor and in the centre are these odd painted plywood polygons.
But when the show begins, the lights dim and the floor becomes lit by a textured light that makes it appear as the arena floor has been transformed into a mossy carpet. Combine this visual with the effective aural stimulation of small amphibian and bird noises and the setting is complete.
As the show progresses through the various eras (Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, etc) the lighting changes as well to represent the changing biosphere. The plywood polygons represent various props. Mostly they act as a landscape to make the field less stark. But they also represent the shifting of the continental shelf from the original Pangea to the separated continents as they are today.
The whole show is narrated from the floor by an Indiana Jones-y kinda fellow. The dialog is clear and understandable by most everyone. I'm sure even Mitch, at 5 years old, was able to grasp alot of the points.
The creatures were really awesome. The smaller ones were portrayed by costumed actors, while the larger creatures were moved about on self propelled carts. Yet, if you didn't focus too much on the cart, the image was quite believable. The hulking Stegosaurus, and the huge Brachiosaur pair whose head seemed to almost make contact with the arena roof, were very impressive at staving off attack by the ferocious Albertosaur. But the obvious hero of the show was the T-rex. The momma T-rex and her baby were very loud and quite entertaning trading roars at the audience. All in all a very entertaining show.
I found out later that Mitchell had trouble visually digesting the "dinos on wheels" concept. So that took a little bit of the magic out of the show for him. Oh well. 21st century kid. They're pretty jaded by the CGI effects. But until someone actually develops a working holodeck, or a time machine, this is the best show I could imagine.

European Tour - Postponed

I thought I should update my progress on my guitar playing. Back in June, I got a nice new guitar for my birthday from my loving wife. Well, I can play it as well, or perhaps slightly better than I could play when I was in my musical peak in high school. I have picked up on a couple of tutorial websites which, while good, have not yet coaxed me to visit them while I am holding my guitar.

I do have aspirations to pick it up again, however. I have fun with it, and it would be fun to be able to play some songs around the campfire. It would likely thrill Tannis that I had actually made the effort to put some wind into the sails of the family music schooner. Brooke is taking piano lessons and doing quite well. And next year, we will probably get Mitch in there as well.

But for now, concert dates are not confirmed. Stay tuned.

The Oasis has Landed

As I type this, my wonderful wife is having the time of her life. The long-discussed, often-fretted Oasis has begun its maiden voyage. We worked hard this morning getting everything ready. Setting up the projector, taping down cables, sound check, writing...and subsequently re-writing the PowerPoint presentation ad infinitum. Well, it seems to have paid off. It sounds great, and from where I am sitting, everything looks and sounds great.

I am very proud of her efforts. I hope she gets the buy-in from the congregation she seeks. It would be nice to offer a service that caters to the musically inclined new-agers.

There has been a large pause in the sound, so I think I'll go out and see if they need any help.

What a day!

Hope you are having a good day. I spent the morning at the regional conference. It was great to be having to answer as many questions as possible while setting up the a/v systems in 2 rooms.

Now I am at the Waverley giving advice to a user who has the mannerisms of a budgie and the attention span of a strobe light.



I hope we have some scotch left.

Camping in Blue Lake

Blue Lake is awesome! We went with the Young(?) Couples Group from FGUC to Vermillion Bay Ontario. It is about 80KM East of Kenora. This is truly a jewel.

There was a large group camping area that had a nearly new picnic shelter and washroom building. And it ran alongside the lake, so we basically had our own private beach as well.

Being that it was later in the season, we had some cooler temperatures than on past trips, but al in all, it was a really great time. There were 8 or so families, and just about 25 people. The layout threw off Tannis and I as we are not used to having such an expansive campsite. Kitchen tent and sleeping tent have never been so far apart! But we tore down the kitchen tent after a day or so due to the wind and made do in the kitchen shelter on site.

We took a canoe out for an afternoon tour around the lake. Mitch hates canoeing. 100M from shore and he wants to go back. He's so worried about the thing tipping. Dude. You're wearing a life jacket that would keep us all afloat. Relax. I tried to keep him interested by dripping water from the paddles onto his legs. He wasn't buying it. I think he got a bit too much sun on that journey, though, cuz he was a bit pissy that evening. Brooke seemed pleased enough.

I had one of those parental "ping" moments watching Brooke play with some of the other girls. They had gone off on their own to some little piece of bush beside the lake to, well...be girls. They established territory in their place on the Canadian Shield. They had a bathroom...no, two bathrooms. One for pee, and one for, well, you get it. They had a stump that the one who was talking would stand on and the rest would have to listen. There was a kitchen, and I think a living room. When I asked about the absense of the bedroom, I was told that there was NO WAY they wanted to be out here in the dark.

We went out to do a few geocaches on one of the days. It was totally fun. We did a few caches, built an anukshuk, and got some snacks. These pictures are at Wanapigow falls. There was a cache nearby, so we couldn't resist the view. Tannis was wearing the worlds worst caching shoes, so she had to be extra careful. I think we ended up finding 5 or 6 caches. So It was a productive day by anyone's measure.







We all went to Fort Vermillion to do some miniature golfing on one of the nights. Great time. Everyone had a blast. The mini golf course groundskeepers were 8 and 3 years old. But they kept a tidy course. It seems that family issues may be forcing the privately run Fort Vermillion to close. I hope not. That place is a treasure.

We ended up staying an extra night after everyone else left. The last day we spent there was kinds gross and dreary. I approached Tannis to suggest we go into Vermillion Bay to get some ice cream or hot chocolate and shop around in the general store. She beats me to the punch and says "Wanna go do that other geocache on the trail behind the fort?" Why, yes. Yes I do! I love her.

That hike turned out to be the highlight of my weekend. It is less than 2 KM, but it is absolutely beautiful. Instead of turning back on the trail and returning the way we came, we did the entire trail loop and I am so glad we did. That is a beautiful piece of the world. Loved it.

On the day we packed up, the sun was shining brightly and the temperature was nice and warm. Would have rather had this weather on the previous day, but you take what you can get.

Facebook

I have at least a dozen friends on Facebook. Which is pretty remarkable considering I don't even have a profile. I could go back and count I suppose, but if memory serves, I have gotten approximately 10 e-mails inviting me to join the Facebook community. I will say here that I will never belong to Facebook.

It's nothing personal, and for those of you with Facebook accounts who are finally able to get in touch with the kid you once swapped sandwiches with in grade three...well good for you. Seriously. If that is what your life was missing then great. Facebook is a perfect vehicle for you.

Are there people from my past I would like to know about? You bet. Do I care enough to have people "poking" me or, and I hope this never happens, "super poke" me? Do I care enough about how so-and-so's divorce/tour in Afganistan/liposuction/trip to the mall/quadruple bypass/haircut/gender reassignment went that I need to publish my every action on a public website where it can be viewed by all?

I prefer to live in the now. That's just me. People aren't accepting that though. They ask, and I tell them Facebook is not for me. Then they defend. Like they are not happy to accept my answer as I have accepted theirs. I am amazed at what people are willing to put out there. Shit that would never be divulged in person, or for that matter, on any other web page.

Let's say that your bank suggested that as part of your online banking you could put pictures of all of your stuff, children, family pets etc. You know, for fun. When you log in, you could put your mood, or current status. "Scott is trading in small cap assets." No. You would balk. I don't get it. And to have each and every activity I perform be tagged, dated and published. Not my idea of fun.

"But you blog", they say. Yes. I blog. I choose what is said, done, read. And if I choose to look at another person's blog and write a comment, the fact that I have done this is not posted on my blog. Nice and simple. I can not have a mini personal profile done of me by someone who looks at what I have typed or clicked on over the past week. That is my comfort level. It is safe here in my box. And I like it.

Back from Vacation!

We have spent the past week at Luther Village just past Rushing River, Ontario. Awesome. The weather was perfect (if not a little too hot the first few days). The kids had a great time talking part in the morning programs and the beach was the agenda for most of the afternoons.

We spent the week with Don and Michelle and their brood. They had a cabin on the beach, while we camped in the ball field at the top of the hill. This was nice as we had a place for the kids to change and play indoors if the sun got too hot. It didn't hurt that they had a fridge for us to use when our ice packs needed re-freezing, or our drinks needed chilling.

Michelle's sister showed up from BC for the last couple of days. It was kinda funny as I didn't know she was there until she plopped down next to me at the picnic table. As she and Michelle are very close in general looks, I just turned to her and said "Hello". Then in my head, I'm like "WTF? Did Michelle just go and pluck her eyebrows? And then go to the gym?" Thank God Michelle's Dad was there to make the introductions. Renee is a fun person. A little mannish...ok, ALOT mannish. But that's fine for her. If I were making a team on Survivor, I would likely pick her.

I placed a geocache there on the Bog Walk. The view at the end is awesome. You can see for about 60 KM. Well worth the hike. It is only 800m or so, but much of it is on a pretty steep grade, so I don't expect alot of finders. It was a last minute cache, so we had to buy the container on one of our trips into Kenora and I had to hand write the stash note. The camp owner seemed enthusiastic about the cache, so we'll see how it goes.

We prepared all of our own meals there. That turned out to be a huge cost saver. Even though we had to do dishes every time we ate, it still worked out to be the best idea. I don't mind cleaning and cooking. And thankfully, Tannis managed the laundry and the (constant) cooler re-organization. I think the only casualty was a bag or two of perogies. And that was actually my fault. I sure am lucky to have her.

The kids slept great. Brooke only got up once. And it wasn't a big deal. She just came and watched us play cards and went back to bed on her own a few minutes later. With all of the sun and swimming, we all slept like logs most nights. There was one night that Tannis had trouble getting to sleep over the noisy neighbors, but othere than that. All was good.

The last night was capped off by having the Swiston-Armstrongs up to our campsite for a good old-fashioned cookout. It went great! Burgers, dogs, bacon, fried onions, beans...and paralyzers. I think I have a new favorite drink. Although, I think I need to lay off the liquor for a while and let my body de-toxify. That was a little excessive.
After the meal, the kids had fun with sparklers and then everyone had s'mores. Yummy.

It was overall a really nice time. Unlike camping trips in the past when we are ready to go home before it is time, we could have stayed another night. But we did have a concert to go to on Monday. Everyone, except the driver, had a nap on the way home in the van. We got home to find our house still standing (always a good sign).

Unfortunately, while we were gone, Toshya's grandfather passed away. He was 739 years old, and they had been expecting it for well over a year, but he was a really nice person and will definitely be missed.