WTF

Did you know that women's ski jumping isn't an Olympic sport? Did you know that there were any Olympic sports where men can play but women can't?

I had no idea until I read this news article and this news article. Apparently, female ski jumpers filled a gender discrimination complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission back in September and a decision is expected soon.

Remind me again what year this is? 1908?

In related news, what would possess someone to name their child "Dick Pound"?

Yup, I'm Home

Fortunately for me, I'll take 9 degrees and rainy¹ over -11 degrees and sunny any day!

¹I'm not sure how this is possible, but I just noticed that I didn't have a tag for "rain" on my blog². How, exactly, one could blog for 2.5 years from the city of Vancouver *without* having a tag for "rain" is beyond me. But there you have it.
²As you can see, this situation has now been rectified.

Either Ottawa hates¹ or loves me so much that it really, really wants me have a reason to return, because everything we tried to do today was a no go.

First, we couldn't go to the Diefenbunker as the tour was all booked up when we called to make a reservation. Then, The Green Door was inexplicably closed when we tried to go there for dinner. Bah!

It worked out in the end though. We hung out at Sarah's parents place, where we had lunch, chatted for a bit, and then Sarah's mom gave me three (3!) pairs of shoes²! Then we watched more Veronica Mars and we ended up going to another restaurant, a veggie Thai place, that made most delicious food, for dinner. And, honestly, Sarah & Dave are just fun to hang out with, no matter what you are doing. And now I have an excuse to come back to O-town - 'cuz I totally need to check out the Diefenbunker!

¹Since they put a giant spider in front of the National Gallery, I'm leaning towards the former.
²And you all know how desperately I need more shoes!

Choose My Own Adventure, Ottawa Style!

For my Christmas present, Sarah and Dave offered me a "choose my own Ottawaian adventure." In the interest me not having to carry a bunch o' stuff back on the plane, they gave me some options of fun things to do in Ottawa, including:

• Canada Science and Technology Museum
• Museums of Civilization and/or War
  
• The Green Door vegetarian restaurant
• watching the Senators game¹
• the Diefenbunker, Canada's Cold War Museum
• National Gallery²
• chainsmoking episodes of Veronica Mars

I chose: most of the above. I'm unable to go to the National Gallery due to the fact that they have sculpture of a giant spider outside. And you know how I feel about spiders. Museums of Civilization and/or War are out because, um, I'm neither civilized nor war mongering.

Today, Dave had to work today in order to keep us in the style to which we have become accustomed while Sarah & I picked up the cats from the cat spa³, then went to the Canada Science and Technology Museum. The C.S.T.M. kinda made us feel like Canada hasn't done a whole hell of a lot in science and technology that isn't related to snow and/or hockey. Although we did learn that Ernest Rutherford did the work which earned him his 1908 Nobel Prize while in Canada. Which, you know, you think they would have mentioned when we learned about the Rutherford model of the atom in high school and university chemistry classes, given that we went to high school and university in Canada. But whatevs.

After the C.S.T.M., we came home and Sarah made us some super delish veggie sushi. Just like The Eatery, but with much better service. We chain smoked the first four episodes of Veronica Mars, which Sarah has been telling me about forever, but which I had never watched before. Now I'm totally into the mystery and need - and I mean NEED - to find out whodunit. Then we watched the Sens game, followed by the Canucks game - both which had happy endings. And now I be tired. But before I head to bed, I give you me, in a stupid large snowbank. With a pink hat on:

¹although not live, since it's sold out. But with PVR-y goodness, we can watch it without pesky commercials
²I can't link to this site, because I am afraid that a picture of the giant spider will be on their site.
³Where they had been living a life of cat luxury while S & D were away for a few days of family Christmas visiting.

Reporting from the Nation's Capital

I'm now on the second leg of my Christmas tour - at Sarah & Dave's place in Ottawa. Tired and should go to bed soon, but first I thought I'd show y'all a few Christmas photos.

Like this one, a picture of my niece with the stuffed Quatchi¹ that I gave her:

And here, she's tucking Quatchi into the new bed she got for Xmas:

And this is my sister's boyfriend, my niece and I, looking out the window of her new playhouse. The house is about 3 feet tall², and was packed with all the toys she got for Christmas, which she carefully placed into this house before insisting we join her in said house. Translation: it was rather crowded.

OK, Beth sleep now. Beth will blog more coherently tomorrow.

Update: For the record, I'm in Ontario, but my blog timestamps using Pacific Time. So I'm really not going to bed at 9:40 p.m.

¹Aunt Beth, spreading the love of Quatchi eastward!
²Disclaimer: I am completely useless at estimating heights.

I don't care what you say, I like Quatchi

So, they unveiled the 2010 Olympic mascots yesterday and the general sentiment I've been hearing is one of three things:

• they have nothing to do with Canada - there's no maple leafs/beavers/loons/moose
• they have nothing to do with Canada - they're "too Asian"¹
• what Olympic mascots?

But I don't care what the naysayers are saying². I like Quatchi.

Quatchi is a young sasquatch who comes from the mysterious forests of Canada. Quatchi is shy, but loves to explore new places and meet new friends. Although Quatchi loves all winter sports, he’s especially fond of hockey. He dreams of becoming a world-famous goalie.

Dude, he plays hockey! And I think he's cute! And he's from the "mysterious forests of Canada." *I* live near a mysterious forest! Maybe he lives in my 'hood!



Although I do have to agree with Darren that if you go to the official site and hear the mascots say their name, which you do by mousing over the characters, it's a bit freaky. I like to run my mouse across all of them really fast so that they keep saying their names over and over in quick succession. It's kind of psychodelic.

Apparently, I need to get out more.

¹Seriously, I've heard that a lot - listening to open phones on the radio and reading comments sections on online new stories.
²Or naysaying, as the case may be.

My First Ever Camping Trip

So, once upon a time I went camping. And then a week of internet-less-ness went by. And then I got really, really, really ridiculously busy at work. And then I could finally blog about it.

While I was packing for my camping trip:

Me: I think I'll bring this little notebook and a pen, in case I have any profound thoughts I need to write down while I'm camping.

Dani: You mean in case you have any ideas for your blog.

pause

Me: Yes, yes I do.

Just to give you some background, this was the first time in my entire life that I ever slept in a tent. Seriously. I went to "camp" in grade 8, where we slept in cabins. And I've been to my friend Erika's cabin. And I went to someone's cottage once. And that's the extent of my "camping" type experiences up until now. My family never did the camping thing when I was growing up and, despite the fact that everyone in Vancouver seems to camp all summer long, no one has ever invited me to go camping with them until Rachel did three weeks ago.

Rachel has a lot of camping gear, so all I had to bring was my food, clothes and a pillow. Neither of us own a car and it turned out to be much cheaper to rent one than to use a co-op car (which seems to be true of the longer trips, and we were driving pretty far). Rachel did all the planning (did I ever mention that Rachel rocks??) and I honestly didn't even know exactly where we were heading when we left on the Friday afternoon. It turns out we camped at Nairn Falls Provincial Park on Friday night, then headed out to Joffre Lakes to hike on Saturday.


To give you some perspective, Nairn is about 150 km north of Vancouver. And Joffre, unlike what Rachel's hiking guide book told us, is about 40 km past that. Rachel's guide book said "Drive 190 km north past Whistler & Pemberton," so we got up quite early on Friday expecting to drive 190 km (as Nairne is near Pemberton). What the guide book should have said was "Drive 190 km north of Vancouver, going past Whistler & Pemberton." Minor details.

We left Vancouver in the afternoon and arrived at our campsite in time to pitch our tent while there was still some sunlight, with time to then enjoy the glorious sunset. We also had, in our opinion, the nicest campsite of all the sites in the park. We had a great view of the mountains and the water running by:


I really like this photo we took of ourselves:

Although I think the sunset makes it look like Rachel has a halo and, really, I should have some devil horns to complete the image.

Before and after photos of our tent:

Before

After

Am I the only one who is amazed that the tent, tent poles and tarp all fit into that tiny little sack?

After pitching the tent, we went for a little stroll in search of water and firewood and we don't get but three campsites down when we here "Beth?" It was my friend Alicia, and her boyfriend Paul, who had just arrived at their campsite. It amazes me that in the 7 years I've lived in Vancouver, I can count the number of times I've just run into someone I know while out in the city¹ on one hand², but I drive 150 km north and run into a friend three campsites down.

After finding water, but not finding the camp ranger³ to get our firewood, we returned to our site, and cooked some dinner on our wee little camping stoves. The ranger did show up later so we could buy some firewood and build a nice little fire. Rachel had booked the campsite in her name, so when the ranger showed up she asked, "Are you the Molls?" Apparently I took Rachel's name when we got married.

We had a very relaxed night of playing cribbage, watching the stars and chatting. And then we went to bed, since we were planning to get up really early. And I didn't sleep a wink. The water that was so beautiful was also unbelievably loud! Funnily enough, we had been chatting, among other things, about how both of us almost never have problems sleeping! That'll learn me to tempt fate! Also, it was a bit chilly and Rachel, meaning to ask if I knew where the extra blanket was in case I got cold, uttered the best line of the trip: "Do you know how to operate a blanket?"

We got up early and, after a quick camping breakfast, packed up and headed out for a drive to Joffre. From the Ministry of the Environment website:

Steeply rising from Lower Joffre Lake, the glacier-laden peaks are visible from an easily accessible viewpoint 500 metres from the parking lot. If you carry on, the trail becomes a rough, rocky and steep hike through the Coast Mountain range. Evidence of the park’s glacial history can be found in the U-shaped valleys, glacial silts and lateral moraines. This magnificent area of jagged peaks, icefields, cold rushing streams and turquoise blue lakes was established as a recreation area in 1988 and became a Class A park in 1996. A highlight of the park is the turquoise blue waters of Lower, Middle and Upper Joffre lakes, all three of which are located along the trail, and each more stunning than the last. Their striking, saturated blue colour is caused by “rockflour” - or glacial silt - that is suspended in the water and reflects green and blue wavelengths of sunlight. Joffre Lakes Provincial Park has opportunities for hiking, camping, mountaineering, wildlife viewing, and fishing.

If it seems like they are going on and on about the turquoise blue waters of the lakes, it's only because the water is really turquoise! Seriously, don't these photos look like we standing in front of a fake backdrop? It was hard to believe that something this beautiful really exists!

After reaching Upper Lake, we decided that for our next trip to Joffre we will pack our tent and other camping gear and carry it up there to camp out by Upper Lake. Then we could hike up to see the glacier at the top. How cool will that be!

If you ever decide to go to Joffre Lakes, though, I recommend you beware of the wildlife! Check out this ferocious beast we encountered near Upper Lake:

In all seriousness, though, there are bears in the area. And we saw these (what we are pretty sure are⁴) bear tracks:



There was also a very large pile of what we believe to have been bear shit on a nearby log - making us think these were bear tracks and not, as some fellow hikers thought dog or squirrel prints. Seriously, we told some other hikers we saw what looked like bear prints and they said, "maybe they were squirrel prints." I mean, really - how big do squirrels get up north??

Then we hiked back down. And the hike did require that we traverse some very loose rocks and I twice slipped and slammed my ankle into some not very forgiving rocks. Ouch.

And on the way home we were stopped on the Sea-to-Sky highway for over an hour just south of Squamish as there had been a big collision which required them to stop traffic in both directions. Rachel took a picture in the rearview mirror of the traffic behind us:

... and there were 3 km of cars stopped ahead of us.

Word to the wise - if you are ever stuck in traffic on the Sea-to-Sky highway just outside of Squamish, I recommend taking a walk down the road and chatting with each of the carload after carload of hot boys also stuck in said traffic. Good opening lines include "Can you see what's going on up there?" and "Where did you get that pizza?"

Anyhoo, we eventually made it home and I even went out on the town that night. There's something truly wonderful about living in a place where you can hike glacial lakes during the day and still get home to go clubbing at night.

¹not counting while on campus. 'cuz that's not really in the city.
²ok, maybe on two hands
³is that what they are called?
⁴can anyone confirm or deny whether these are, in fact, bear tracks?

And so the fairy tale ends...

In my ongoing¹ coverage of this story, it is my duty to inform the public that Belinda Stronach and Tie Domi have broken up.

You heard it here first. Unless you've already heard it somewhere else.

¹And by "ongoing" I mean the two times I mentioned it a year ago.

Stephen Colbert In My Bed

I'm sitting in my bed as I type this. I recently bought some new sheets and they are sooooo soft. Sooooo comfy.

And since I have my laptop with me, I can watch Stephen Colbert clips in my warm, soft, comfy bed.

And recently there have been two clips in which Colbert refers to Canada. And, as all Canadians know, while we pretty much define our national identity as "hey, we aren't Americans!", we somehow still love it when American pop culture acknowledges our existence. "Hey, that character in that movie said 'Montreal'!" "Hey, Wolverine is in Alberta!" So, as a good Canadian citizen, I now share with you two clips of Stephen Colbert talking about his northernly neighbour.

First up, "Smoking Pole: The Fight for Arctic Riches":



Secondly, we have "Nailed 'Em: Northern Border":



Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch some more of Stephen Colbert in my bed until the drowsy stage of my latest dose of Tylenol 3 kicks in. Oh ya, I suppose I should mentioned that I did, in fact, survive my surgery and I've now been freed of four teeth and a heck of a lot of blood. I'll tell ya all about it tomorrow - I kept meaning to blog about it earlier, but I'm all loopy on the meds and would forget that I meant to do it in the time it took me to open a new browser tab to open up Blogger. Or I'd fall asleep. Which I think I might do soon now, the drowsiness seems to be setting in.

Pierre Chretien

I was just reading this article on the Global TV website and was looking at the "photo gallery" of the "10 Worst Canadians," as voted on by any jackass with Internet access. When I got to #6 in the photo gallery, I noticed this oddity:

[Click on the pic to see it in its full-sized glory]

Pierre Chretien¹? Really, Global TV? Really?

You seriously need to fire your editor.


¹For the benefit of my American readers, the man in that photo is Jean Chretien. He was our Prime Minister for just over a decade (Nov 1993 to Dec 2003). Certainly long enough for us to have learned his name.

Long Weekend Report and Some Overdue Photos

So, as I previously mentioned, the weather forecasters are dirty, dirty liars and it was a gorgeous, hot and sunny long weekend! Highlights include (a) a party on Saturday night to which I brought Canada Day cupcakes that I made from scratch and (b) doing the Grouse Grind again, for the second time in less than two weeks. I have now doubled my lifetime of Grouse Grinding compared to how many times I had done it as of June 21.

Also of note: my time to complete the Grind's 2,800 foot ascension on June 22 was 1 hr 43 mins. Time yesterday: 1 hr 18 mins! Granted the June 22 hike was done with a "let's take it easy" pace in mind as we had a first timer with us, whereas for yesterday's hike I went with a season's pass holder and nearly fainted trying to keep up with him until I finally told him to go on without me and I'll meet ya at the top. But still - an improvement of almost half an hour is nothing to sneeze at!

And speaking of sneezing, I was pretty sure as I sat in Altitudes Bistro that the hike had cured my cold, as my sinuses were clear and I could breathe through my nose for the first time in 8 days... but alas, it's now the next morning and I'm back to being all stuffed up. Perhaps I need to be on the top of a mountain to cure my cold - maybe cold viruses don't like the height.

Also, I was remiss in that I took no photos of either the Canada Day cupcakes or this trip up the Grind. A girl at the party did take a pic for me, but not of the cupcakes.... a pic of me drinking a Granville Island Maple Cream ale - a pic with which to make Sarah very, very jealous! Now I just have to wait and see if she accepts my Facebook friend invite so I can get the photo from her. As for the Grind, we were traveling light - I brought only a water bottle¹ - which may also help to explain how I shaved half an hour off my time (since last time I had a backpack full of stuff). In lieu of, however, I give you a photo of me, Christel and Tenny at the top of Grouse Mountain from the trip on June 22, since I'm a delinquent and haven't posted that yet:

Also amusing: Vancouverites are tree huggers!




¹I realized about 1/2 way up that I had no ID whatesoever on me (my wallet having been locked up in the trunk of the car for safe keeping) and if I fainted or tripped and fell down the mountain, there would be no way to tell who I was. And, since I told my much-faster-than-me hiking companion to go on ahead without me (I really hate feeling like I'm holding people back), if he got tired of waiting for me and took off (not that I thought he would, or anything), I wouldn't even have any money to take the cable car back down, let alone get home! Note to self: wear something with pockets next time!

P.S. Happy Canada Day

Last Canada Day, I gave you a picture that I had stolen off the internets and was off to the beach, as we were in the midst of a heat wave. Today, despite the forcast telling us that it would be rainy all weekend, I sit in the bright sunshine in my backyard typing this and I give you this picture of me, sitting on the western edge of Canada:

Happy Canada Day everyone!

Eagle Cam

My friend Erika recently took a very, very cool job. She is the resident biologist for Wavelit.com - a company that streams videos of wildlife to the net so that you can watch animals in real time, undisturbed, in their natural habitats!

Hired by Wavelit.com CEO Arthur Griffiths*, Erika is responsible for all things biological at Wavelit and recently oversaw the installation of this year's EagleCam** - a camera focused on an eagle's nest in Stanley Park 24/7 (they even have infrared for night-time viewing and a microphone, so you can hear the eagles chirping at each other). Right now the eagles come and go, but once the eggs are laid, there will be eagles there all the time and you will be able to watch the eggs hatch and the baby eagles grow! How freaking cool is that?

You can also watch orphaned grizzly cubs, Grinder and Coola, who live on Grouse Mountain on GrizzlyCam, Hummingbirds somewhere on the west coast of Canada***, and Nkorho Pan "a natural water hole in the prestigious Sabi Sands Private Game Reserve, in South Africa" on Africam. I'm watching Africam as I write this and, although there are no animals at the watering hole right now, I can hear crickets!

omg omg! I just flipped back to EagleCam and the eagle is there!!! S/he is fixing up her/his nest! So cool! What a beautiful bird!

I have a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time watching these cams!


*a Vancouver businessman, former owner of my beloved Canucks and the man responsible for bringing the 2010 Olympics to Vancouver.

**apparently previous years's EagleCams have received over 14 million hits PER DAY.

**it doesn't say where. I was just watching them and they are so cute!

In my continuing efforts to disparage all things Calgarian*, I would like to point out one of their many grammatical errors:

I would love to stay and chat, but there is playoff hockey to go and watch! Don't wait up!

*I would also like to point out that the Blogger spellchecker's suggestion for Calgarian was "Vulgarian."

The Badlands

Yesterday, we went to the Badlands. They were wickedly cool. They also have the richest museum EVER!

Here is a picture of the Albertasaurus:


Like most Albertans, it's a carnivore and kind of an a-hole.

This one is of another dinosaur, I think it's called a Vancouversaurus.



It's a tree hugger.

Weekend in the Mountains

Since every Calgarian that we have asked, "hey, what's good to do around here?" has told us (a) "you should come here during Stampede in July!", or (b) "um, leave Calgary", we decided to take them up on option (b) and spent the last two days in the mountains. We visited a number of places, including Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise in Alberta and Field & Golden in BC.

This is the view outside the hostel we slept at last night, in Field, BC:










































And this was a stop sign we saw in Golden, BC:

In Disguise

I hear they don't take kindly to vegetarians in Calgary, so I'm going undercover. Check out my luggage tag:

I'm pretty sure I'll fit right in.

Calgary-bound

Tomorrow, we leave for Calgary. We've spent a chillaxed few days in Vancity, doing such things as drinking Dirty Girl beer and getting our hair cut. I know, party animals, right?

We also patronized the following establishments: The Naam*, The Fringe Cafe, The Reef, Cactus Club**, The Eatery (where we got to have my favourite, Fat Elvi***), Bo Kong, Bellagio's Gelato and probably a bunch of other places that I've forgotten.

I have to go to work tomorrow and scramble around all day to get stuff done that needs to get done before I leave. I had to go in early today to do this extremely boring orientation****, so I can go home early tomorrow, which will make it a little less rushed to get to the airport for our evening flight to Cowtown. My luggage is pretty much all packed, except for a few things that I need to use in the morning (like my hair drier). Our instructions for Calgary are to bring "winter boots and bathing suits. Both for use on the same day." Should be good times.

Don't wait up.

*The only place Sarah has been on all of her trips to Vancouver.
**That was more about the company at dinner than about the restaurant. Although the $6 double margaritas and the cute waiter were also nice.
***Elvi, of course, being the plural of Elvis.
****Thank god they had free coffee - I couldn't possibly have stayed awake otherwise. On the plus side, I now know what to do in case of a fire alarm, because surely after 11 years of postsecondary education, I'm not qualified to react to a freaking fire alarm.

Western Canadian Hijinks

As I write this, Sarah is in a cab on her way here from YVR. We spend now until Tuesday in Vancouver (I have to work on Monday & Tuesday, but I have tomorrow, Sat & Sun to goof off), and then on Tuesday night we fly to Calgary, where our plan will land within minutes of Dave's flight from Ottawa, and then our friend Justin will whisk us all away to stay for a week at his downtown abode. I am told by pretty much everyone I know that has lived in, or ever even been to, Calgary that we need to go to Cowboys.

I'll keep y'all posted.

Oh ya, and big props to my boys, you have clinched a playoff spot. I can practically taste the Cup.

Update: SARAH is here!!! (Apparently I'm a slow typist!) And you'll never guess who was on her plane! David. Freaking. Emerson!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!

With Apologies to Darren

Yup, Darren and Anil were in the social pages too:

My bad for cutting it from my previous posting.