Poem for a buck

In lieu of real content (ie about weddings and such) here's a poem some guy wrote for me for spare change. I only gave him $1. He looked kinda sad when I gave it to him but I can't see why. He just asked me to make up a title. At the time I was reading Dose. And normally I don't read Dose but they had a fairly informative article on why Mark Emery may or may not be extradited to US. I guess I had pot on the brain. And I like penguins. Hence, Stoned Penguin. But there are no penguins smoking up in this poem. Alas.

So here it is. Poem copyright Shone (last name illegible)

The Stoned Penguin
The Stoned penguin that thought it could
fly flew not but brought itself to
the edge of an ice shelf having first
burst forth his exclamation stationed
to all the other brother penguins...
that he would show them how to
use their fins or wings wung-it...
so that they all watched sitting this
scene...
only that fat stoned penguin
failed, and flailed into the water dropped,
plopped the stoned penguin...

Brad, Toni, Will, Melissa (or How the Summer of the Wedding Came to a Close)

First, apologies. I've neglected to post for some time now. It's not that I've been too busy... it's more like too lazy. Once I realized that Tony had posted recently (and he never posts), I figured I'd better pick up the keyboard and do an update. I've been meaning to for a while, honest.

So our story begins with the marriage of Brad and Toni (wedding 3 or 4 for 2005). To summarize: beautiful wedding, lots of bees, still honoured to have been Best Man/Emcee, lost shoes, lost bag, good times.

It was a stressful weekend in general for a number of reasons. I had been working non-stop for the week prior as I geared up for a couple of big BBQs I was helping to organize for a client of mine (funny story in that, but you have to ask me for an update in person). The Friday morning began with a 4:45am wake-up to be with my client on a morning show cooking demo in north east Calgary. Then I work like mad to have everything in place by noon for when Natalie picks me up to head up to Edmonton. For the first time ever, I need to be attached to a cell phone for the weekend because media/client could call (I got two calls, both on Friday before 7pm).

So, I was stressed about work. These were big events coming up and I needed to be on top of a lot of details.

But, more importantly, I was stressed about the wedding. Theoretically, I shouldn't be because it's not like it's my wedding, right? But, as it was someone else's wedding, I was getting stressed because I didn't want to screw up and ruin anything (Rule: you can ruin your wedding, but ruining your friend's is unforgivable). So, tucked in with my work binder and my cell was a detailed emcee's agenda and a Best Man's speech. The latter I practiced to myself a few times in the Devonian Garden parking lot (after a while you get use to talking to yourself in public).

At this time, I, Nat, was driving Jeff to Mary's place. Jeff was also going to Edmonton to cover the Fringe Festival for FFWD and was getting mileage. So out of our love for someone paying for our gas money, we drove Jeff, not because we like Jeff. We end up getting lost. Daorcey drew a route but we missed the turnoff. We eventually make it to Mary's and now I have to return the same way. Daorcey said to follow the same route, but on the map it twists and turns and is confusing. Mary, a non-driver, says to take another route which in the end was much better. I pick up Chris and Daorcey and to the dinner we go.

Did the rehearsal at 4pm Friday and promptly lost my work bag with all my stuff in it. Of course, I didn't notice right away... I had to go home first. Don't worry, I got it back, but I still had to leave the rehearsal dinner early. Speaking of rehearsal dinner, I'll have to let Natalie tell you how she feels about broccoli and bacon.

Best salad ever!

Wedding day was wonderful with good sun and not too much heat. Happy times all around. Hopefully there might be a couple of digital/scanned photos of the wedding floating around that we can upload some time.

Photos, standing around, more photos. It was a typical after wedding event. Then we piled into the limo. Although generously donated, it was a tad tight. Chris and I should have opted to sit in the front, but we didn't want to miss out, so we crammed into the back with the rest of the party. Sitting on the floor with a number of shoes poking into us, we poured champaign and toasted to good times and the such. There was a bit of smell and my legs went numb, but good times nonetheless.

Meanwhile, I walked around the gardens with Daorcey's parents. As it is a Saturday in the summer, there are wedding parties everywhere. We stopped for some ice cream as it was hot and just people watched. I think I saw the most hideous bridesmaids dresses. I saw one and thought it was just an old grad dress someone was wearing to a wedding. But then the whole party showed up and... well Daorcey says Direct Energy must have sponsored their wedding. From the front it was this electric blue, ugly but not too bad. But the back had BRIGHT ORANGE STRIPES. Not just little stripes but huge stripes. Even the flowers and limo were decorated with these hideous colours.

OK... I'm getting into details here that may not be too exciting for the general public. Don't get me wrong, there are stories to tell and each wedding is different, but not everyone likes them so I'll keep all my excitement to myself. Maybe we should get back to the summary: reception was fun, food was tasty, being emcee with Becca was all good and my Toast to the Groom didn't suck. There was dancing and more food, PG-13 jokes shared between new friends and karaoke.

Daorcey misses out on fun details like the native friendship dance we did. Turns out Toni is part Metis and everyone joined hands in a huge circle and danced to this song. Well tried to. Toni said you could tell who was native because they were dancin' it up. Us non-natives sorta stumbled around. But it was cool.

Also, my table was pretty cool. I met a guy whose second sentence to me was he was divorced. I met another guy who was Chinese, looked like Eric Fung, but was a CBC just like me. And he was hilarious. We got to making jokes in the cake room other people would consider racist but we're laughing it up. I think we got some strange looks. Even Daorcey's parents had fun. They thought they would leave early as they didn't know anyone but their table was pretty cool. The DJ, Toni's uncle, played the Metis national anthem and Colin, being a social studies teacher, had to dance, so that was neat as well.

We had a good time and stayed until the hotel made us leave.

Oh, speaking of the hotel, they lost our reservation again! Lame. This is the second time this has happened this year. Fortunately, there were some rooms left so we were able to snag something. It could've gotten ugly.

So we slept in and were ready to make our way to breakfast when I noticed my shoes were missing. I had been wearing tux rental shoes all day prior, so I didn't pay attention to where my actual (work) shoes were. Only minorly concerned (they had to be somewhere!), we checked out and prepared for breakfast.

I admit that it must have been hard to notice that I wasn't wearing any shoes in the hotel lobby, but as all of Brad and Toni's relatives noticed it only helped to reinforce my image as a klutzy, slightly dense, absent-minded fool (stories about poo ponds, tree forts and rides tied behind a skidoo originally planted that image for people). I don't really mind the image (there are worse things to be seen as), but every now and then, it's nice to be thought of as a successful, moderately intelligent, interesting person. Oh well, it's important to throw one's ego out the window now and then.

So here's a list of things I did without shoes: breakfast with the bride and groom, packing the car, driving, shopping for cheap replacement shoes, not finding cheap replacement shoes, purchasing a new pair of shorts instead, driving to the the gift opening, attending the gift opening, leaving the gift opening early to find my shoes, getting laughed at by Moores' employees when I walk in without shoes, finding no shoes at Moores, finding my shoes where I left them: at Nelson's place.

Thanks, again, Nelson, for leaving the party early to help me clothe my feet. I probably owe you.

I don't know why Daorcey felt it was important to buy shorts. But he came out of the dressing room to show me and the door closed behind him. Instead of asking an employee to unlock it, Daorcey slithers under it. Eww.

More importantly, thank you, Brad and Toni, for asking me to be involved in your wedding. It was a great experience! Lots o' fun!

Fast forward one week and Natalie and I are going to wedding 4 of 4 for 2005--Will and Melissa. And, more importantly, we're going to the first wedding of the season where neither of us has any responsibilities as part of the wedding party! Hip, hip, hooray!

Yes, it was kinda nice to just be able to sleep in, get gussied up and show up at the wedding. For the first time ever, we were also able to change and run errands between ceremony and reception. This was also the first wedding of the season in a church. I like churches (probably because I've been to so few in my life) so I found the whole ceremony really nice. Sacred Heart Church in Calgary is a very pretty place (way to go Will and Melissa!).

Summary of this wedding: posh and surprising. It was easy to see that a lot of work had gone into this one (two years in the making). Everyone looked great and the reception was held in the classic Crystal Ballroom of the Palliser Hotel.

Jeez, describe the dress. Melissa is very petite so they had to look everywhere for a dress. But she had this beautiful gold dress, with a sweetheart neckline and off the shoulders straps. The train was huge as was the veil but it fit the church setting. The bridesmaids had brown sheath dresses with a strap going diagonally across a shoulder. The boys were in tuxes as well and looked good.



Surprise #1: Getting thanked in the Bride and Groom's speech. Background: Natalie had volunteered to help design and layout the programs for the reception. As she's said before, it was totally no problem and she was happy to help. We gather there were more people on that thank you list that did more work than we did... still, it was a pleasant surprise. We're happy we played a small part in your wedding, guys.

Surprise #2: OK, so we knew Will and Melissa did traditional Filipino dance and all that jazz, but we were blown away when, instead of a typical first dance, they came out in traditional garb and did the Filipino national dance (what's it called again, Will?). Now that little dance ain't no sissy square dance or anything like that. It involves something that might be described as two-person jumprope using two hulking bamboo (?) sticks that are smacked back and forth by two handlers while the jumpers dance/jump in and out of them. We sat beside the two handlers during dinner and one of them, Connie, said those sticks can do major damage to your ankle if it hits you.

That dance pretty much kicked up the energy of the wedding a touch and everyone seemed ready to dance. It set the scene for quite a party. We stayed for a bit after that for some photos and cake, but being non-dancers, we opted to leave a little early and hit the sack... and slept until 11am the next morning (something I haven't been able to do for a few weeks). That was nice.

Daorcey also neglected to mention the wonderful Toast to the Groom. This one had a powerpoint presentation. They explained the phases of Will, including hairstyle and dress, with photos. To further the hilarity, the best man and one of the groomsmen dressed up like that Will. The best costume was the Will's phase where he had bright bleached hair and wore blue sparkly shirts. It was a shirt you would wear to the club but I've seen Will wear it at school. So the groomsmen puts on a blond wig and the infamous blue shirt. Hilarity ensues.

The blue shirt made another appearance as well. At the garter toss, Will starts stripping and I don't understand why. He gets down to the shirt and starts unbuttoning. Melissa starts laughing like crazy and from my angle I can't see why. He rips off the shirt and there's the blue sparkly shirt. He wore it for the rest of the evening complete with the white tie from his tux.

Wow... this has been a lot of writing. It took me three lunch hours to complete. Once I have some photos, I'll add them in. Speaking of photos: Toni/Brad and Melissa/Will if you happen to have some digital photos of your weddings handy, I'd love to put up a couple.

And that's how the Summer of the Wedding came to an end. Four weddings later I'm married and so are three sets of my best friends. Now that's a productive summer! Let's do it again sometime.

Even more wedding photos

Anna has finally processed her photos and presumably gone to the Gauntlet to steal their internet. So click here for more wedding action plus some caption action.

In other news, Daorcey and I got haircuts, one more expensive than the other. Photos to come soon. My hair is much, much shorter now. You can see in some of the Moose Jaw photos how long it was. Now it's just below my ears. I can not use enough superlatives to describe how awesome it is to have shorter hair.

Daorcey opted to ask his boss for haircut advice. But I will leave it to Daorcey to tell why he spent three figures on a haircut.

Panoramic

Gary has a fascination for Autostitch. This program allows you to blend together photos that normally you couldn't. What you get are panoramas, either vertical or horizontal. They look pretty cool.

Here's ours from Saskatchewan. It's on the way from Moose Jaw to Regina, at about 7 in the evening, hence the yellowish colour. I would suggest clicking on it to see the bigger size.



If you want to see more, click here for Flickr's tagged collection.

And if you want to do your own, here's the link to the site, done by two students at UBC.

More photos from the wedding

To make my "not Uncle" Johnny, happy here are some photos he took at the wedding. Are you happy now, Johnny?


Ah, nothing says wedding and love like Mulder and Scully.



Here my other uncle, who still lets me call him uncle, is dancing up a storm. He competes in professional meets with his wife. Here he's trying to teach us a samba or mambo line dance.



We took family photos but without my sister. I guess she was too busy posing for. Tut tut.



And of course, since its our blog, a photo of us.

Moose Jaw 2005

I don't know why we went to Moose Jaw. You'd have to ask Daorcey. I think we went because we would stay in a swanky hotel with a swanky spa pool, get free tickets to some tunnel tours and gambling money. Wouldn't you go to Moose Jaw for those reasons?

We left early and started our long drive to Moose Jaw. It takes 6-7 hours to get there. We passed through Brooks and Medicine Hat. On the way I took photos of trains. They were honking their horns and I thought it was because I was waving at them. Daorcey spoiled that thought when he pointed to the upcoming train intersection. Stupid safety measures.



We almost ran out of gas. The gas light started flashing and we started looking for a town. We pull into Mortlach. I told Daorcey that I didn't think they had gas because the road sign didn't have the gasoline icon--it only had an Internet icon--but Daorcey still pulls in. Strangely, we see no gas station. Daorcey pokes his head into a restaurant and finds out we need to head 10 minutes east to find a gas station. Turns out, I was right. So don't stop in Mortlach unless you need the Internet.

The gas light is worrying me and I ask Daorcey what the name of the town with the gas is. He paid such good attention all he can recall is that it starts with the letter "E." When we do find a Petro-Canada, the name of the place is Caronport. Good job.

We finally arrive in Moose Jaw and find the Temple Garden Mineral Spa and Hotel. The room isn't ready due to some sprinkler problem. I later found out a girl was getting married and she put her wedding dress on the sprinkler. I guess the dress had a train and she didn't want to get it dirty. Instead she got it wet when she hung it on a sprinkler and triggered it. To make it so much better, it was just before her wedding. And, judging by our walk around town, there aren't many places to get a new dress.

In our room, was a oil painting of the hotel's namesake, a dance hall (Temple Garden Dance Hall). It's a nice touch and a reminder of Moose Jaw's past.

To kill some time, we walk around the hotel, checking out the pool and other places. The hotel was the site of Peter Gzowski's last Morningside broadcast, so a little corner is dedicated to him and his show. Moose Jaw is proud that Gzowski called Moose Jaw "the most Canadian of towns."

Here's Daorcey fondling Gzwoski's mic.



We finally get our room and take a much needed shower. No air conditioning in the car means much sweatiness. I turn on the weather report and it turns out Sunday and Monday it will be 33 and 34, respectively. And, boy was it hot those two days.

Daorcey always reminisces about Bonanza, a place with an amazing salad buffet. It was a big part of his childhood and when I pointed out the restautrant still survived in Moose Jaw, he seemed less enthused. But I made him pose in front of it.



After dinner, we headed to the casino. We were hoping we couild just get our cash and leave and luckily we could. But we decided to put in $10 each and gamble. It was not enjoyable. It was just sitting in front of a computer screen pushing buttons, which I can do in Calgary. Plus many of the patrons were old and white, making us feel out of place. So we took our losses and left with only $10.50.

The next day we did the two tunnel tours: the Al Capone and Chinese one. I really hope Moose Jaw isn't betting on these tunnels to boost their economy. They are at best midly entertaining and at their worse completely false. We did the Chinese one first. This made me feel awkward as my parents are immigrants. An added bonus, the tourguide called us coolies, a racist term meaning poor labourer. So I paid someone to shout racial slurs at me. Fun.

We watched this absolutely horrible video of an Asian actress gushing about the hardships her great grandfather had to endure. To make it worse, they put a stethascope around her neck to connoate her position as a doctor. Yes, because all Asians are doctors. Then we were lead through the laundry areas, the living areas and other rooms. The living area was especially laughable. There was a large table where the men would eat their meals. Carved into this table were names and lillies. However, the names were in English and I highly doubt many men knew enough English to translate their names.

The Al Capone tour was more entertaining but just as false. There is no actual evidence that Capone ever visited Moose Jaw but the tour insists he spent much time there. But the acting was fun and it was very Disneylnad what with doors cutting of our escape and false gunshots.

Reading Will Ferguson's book Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, I learned that no Chinese ever lived in those tunnels. The Chinese community was appalled that this was being presented as truth. In fact, Moose Jaw was very accepting of the Chinese and these lies smear Moose Jaw's accepting nature. Also, the tunnels people walk through are quite roomy. They can accomodate wheelchairs. But next to the box office building, you can see remnants of the tunnels and those give you a sense of how large the tunnels really were. A few years ago, some priceless heritage buildings burnt down and revealed some old tunnels. And these real tunnels could barely accomodate a child on his hands and knees. I think we were spoiled by Vimy Ridge which had real tunnels and real stories.

To kill some time before our massages, we walked around Moose Jaw. The downtown isn't much to look at but it is better than it was a few years ago. The downtown revitalization was fueled by private money and the old buildings were turned into businesses. There's a few signs documenting a building's old past but not enough of them. What I found interesting in Moose Jaw was the 1950s feel to it like a police sign and the newspaper's outdoor sign. But there is a definite split between downtown and the newer parts filled with big box stores.

Here are the retro signs:




To kill a little more time, we ducked into the casino which also had air conditioning. We put in $5 and walked away with $10. So take that Casino of Moose Jaw! The massages were pretty good and made us feel like yuppies. We took a quick dip in the spa pool and then headed to Regina for dinner.

Again someone would wonder why we would go to Regina. We both have a thing for provincial legislatures. We'd like to see all of them eventually, and Regina was only 45 minutes away. Why, that's a nothing drive! Prior to leaving we made a reservation at an Indian restautrant. We called Tourism Saskatchewan and had to clarify "East" Indian which I found funny. We stopped at this road to take a photo because it seems so Saskatchewan (although I'm sure their tourism offices would hate to hear that).



For some reason, 45 minutes seems like a long time but 30 minutes from the city, we can see it. That's how flat it was. It blew Daorcey away. We had a nice dinner and then tried to find the legislature. The legislature is situated in the middle of a nice park. At this time it was dark but not too dark for some people to go for a walk or play some football.



We walk up the stairs to the entrance and see a couple of people walk out. We started to open the door when those two told us it wasn't open. We stammered we weren't trying to break in but wanted to see it. Luckily, one of the fellows is a tourism guy and gives us lot of advice which doesn't do us much good as were leaving the next day. But we find out the legislature is open at 8 a.m. and is giving tours in honour of Saskatchewan Day. Good enough for us. We also learn a lesson in how the rest of the country sees us.

The tourism dude asks us where we're from and we reply. He laughs and says he can see our money flying out of our pockets. We talk some more and he comments that he's glad to have our Albertan tourism dollars. That was a little weird. It's not like we have a lot of money. We're comfortable but not rich by any means. Daorcey felt really uncomfortable. He feels that everyone else sees Alberta as arrogant and unwilling to share its riches with the rest of the country. Thanks a lot, Ralph Klein.

Our last day in Moose Jaw we have to take a couple of photos. One is the McDonald's that looks like a farm. The silo is the play area and the eating area is the barn. Oh, the irony! It's where the fat kids grow. The second is the giant moose, Mac. He's so huge, Daorcey can barely fit me into the photo.




We take the legislature tour which was pretty cool. The coolest part is the reading room in the library. They have the table where Sir John A. and others discussed confederation. It's missing 6 feet because it had to be cut down to fit into its previous resting spot, which somewhat reduces its majesty. But it's not behind glass so you can touch it. You can feel the scratches and marks. You want to imagine the founding fathers getting drunk on champagne, dreaming of Canada.



After that we hopped into the car and made the long journey back home. Now, I've done long drives in hot weather (Salt Lake City to Calgary) but it was nothing like this. The whole weekend had been hot. We would eventually discover the water we left in the car was scalding. But it was searing, the drive home. The water in our Nalgene bottles was not cool enough to cool us down. The carrots we brought had cooked in the heat and were too mushy to eat. We stopped at the Alberta tourist centre just after the Alberta/Sask border and Daorcey's shirt had white salt stains from the sweat. Gross but indicative of the heat. During the drive, we had seen rain clouds in the distance and even had a spattering of rain but it never cooled it down. Not until two hours from Calgary did the sun start to set and it cooled off.

And that was the end of our trip. Overall, it was fun. Now I can say I've been to Moose Jaw. I wish we had structured our second day better so we could have gone to the Mountie academy/museum in Regina. Regina was way more interesting than some fake tunnels.

For more photos hit up Flickr to see more.

Nordegg coal mine

On May long weekend, we went camping at Rocky Mountain House. Nearby is the small hamlet (village?) of Nordegg, home to a golf course and abandoned coal mine. The previous year we had seen the signs for the coal mine but had no idea how to get in. This year we figured out there was a tour and took it. This coal mine was a big deal for Nordegg, and when it closed town, it took most of the economy with it. The most interesting thing is that when they closed the mine down for lack of profit, they left everything there. There's still coal in the hoppers and such. So now it's a national heritage site. It's pretty cool and I would recommened it if you're every down that way. Go to my photo site to see more photos.

I want David Suzuki's face

I think I have a weird CBC fetish.

I blame Daorcey. I guess growing up in the hinterlands of Edmonton would do that to a person. No cable and only Peter Mansbridge to keep him company. Poor kid. So naturally, when he moved to Calgary he kept up the habit. And it's rubbed off on me. I find myself watching more Newsworld in the morning and CBC documentaries at dinner. At least I'm getting my money's worth.

Then at the folk fest, we saw these retro CBC shirts at the CBC booth. We both coveted those shirts and found out the good ol' Mother Corp had a shop.

On another note, the Moose Jaw post is coming as soon as the photos are processed. So tell Anna to hurry up.