buddy

Buddy reading his horoscope to find out what his chances are that Stephan and Ulrike are coming home earlier than planned...

Just kidding! No worries - Buddy and I have become good friends and he seems pretty happy. The only thing he misses - apart from his human parents - is the fact that he can't go outside - other than that: alles roger in kambodscha!

ami

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Strange but Wonderful

Today I went to the farmer's market. It was awesome! Lots of fresh, local food. I will certainly go back. I also checked out the wine store and got some Austrian wine, which I found on the strange but wonderful shelf. Strange, because we Austrians drink our wine ourselves, we export hardly any, therefore I guess the Austrian wines are categorized as "strange", non Austrians not being used to the distinctive taste of the Austrian grapes ;-) I got a Gruener Veltliner from Neusiedl/Burgenland. Perfect summer wine!

And talking about wine: my new favourite red wine - Amarone, Italian wine made from partially dried grapes. Molto delizioso!

amarone

Yana

Yana - the Queen of the Rrrussian Mafia - was visiting and brought a real Russian Rabbit hat! Spasibo, Yanechka!

Serpentine

Norman, the yoga teacher is back from India. He also has a new friend in his yard: a serpentine sculpture from Africa with his big feet reaching into the air. My feet were also reaching into the air on several occasions during the backbending class this afternoon and now I feel intoxicated. Really. I feel tipsy from doing backbends. Just the right feeling for a Friday evening.

Nihahi Ridge

mobile

On Friday I Had Lunch With Jesus

And then I talked to an Angel.

I am not joking!

Okay, we didn't talk about paradise, but we talked about test samples, that Angel, a guy in manufacturing engineering is going to prepare for a project I am working on. Angel is from the Phillippinnes. And Jesus is actually pronounced Chesuess (German spelling) - he is Mexican.

But if I want a good true story to tell, I might just say the first two sentences :)

Who knew...

Did you know that Calgary was named after a place in Scotland? I didn't. Almost a little embarrassing after living here for 7 years. Well, now I know: Colonel McLeod named Boom Town after the Bay of Calgary on the Island of Mull. Apparently it means clear river in Gaelic. The Bow river is pretty clear. Not so much the irrigation canal I ride along on my route to work. But that came later.

I found out about Calgary's name when I finally made it to my police check to City Hall. In 2 weeks I should get it and then I have everything the Austrian government wants from me regarding my application for dual citizenship. I wonder why Austria is a little greedy with citizenships. Other countries don't seem to have restrictions, they just make you learn their capital cities and anthem. The only two countries I know, that don't allow dual citizenship are Austria and Germany. I hope it works out - I have heard the rules are less stringent now than a few years ago. I cross my fingers this rumour is true. The lady at the Austrian consulate was not able to provide me with any success stories. Instead she told me about an Austrian woman - living in Canada, who tried to apply and she actually went to Austria in person to talk to the official there - only to get yelled at: "why do you think you want two citizenships! you are only a house wife! " Good grief. Netter Beamter. She was so upset that she gave up her Austrian citizenship. As I said I cross my fingers and hope this story is 20 years old.

the hoop factory

Groovy Tool

Karen measuring the length of the tube - 10 feet

a coupler connects the tubing

we heated up the ends of the tubing, to make it easier to press the coupler into the pipe

What's does a hula hoop factory look like? You need two worker bees, 50' of Polyethylene Piping, PE pipe connecters, a cutter, a pot of hot water and some electrical tape. Oh yes, and some cookies and tea ;-)

The piping is irrigation pipe - found at Rona or Home Depot. Dave bought Karen 10' of PEX (if I remember correctly) and that hoop turned out well too. The cutter tool looked good, but we either didn't figure out the trick or it was the wrong tool, so we had to be GoGo Gadget alias McGyver and used a bread knife , which surprisingly worked! The tool prepared a groove - the knife did the rest. I feared a little for our hands, so doing so you definitely have to practice mindfulness!

We used 3/4" piping, but 1" piping also works. It's easier to keep the 1" hoop up, but you might pay with some bruises.

Karen suggested to make 10' hoop and I must say they hoop well! I have made them wider before too - up to 13' feet - you got to try it all out until you find the size you like best!

For decoration we used electrical tape, but there is all kinds of funky tape available. Larissa decorated one with wool string, which looks fantastic. She also found coloured hockey tape somewhere around Edmonton, it's a little stickier than electrical tape, so easier to move up and down.

not only a rainy day in Calgary...

Spiderman III the most expensive film in history. 350 Mio $. Wow. I guess I better pay my 15$ and go and see it, to help them recover the cost.

KARMA MAN

old lady: "that man just stole my handbag! What are you going to do?!"

karma man: "wait for something really bad to happen to him."

by Bizarro

Clean Calgary

Last month, Forbes Magazine released a list of the “25 cleanest cities” based on the following criteria:

Sanitation
Energy production and consumption
Waste management (landfills, recycling)
Transportation infrastructure
Logistics infrastructure
Air quality
Water quality
Ground quality

To view the list, click here. Calgary placed first!

This is puzzling: How can Calgary be the cleanest city based on the criteria above?

Calgary's electricity comes from coal plants;
Calgarians use 3 times the amount of water than the average Austrian;
There are two (!) places in Calgary (one of which is Ikea) where you can recycle batteries;
City recycling does not include plastics;
City recycling does not include composting;
Unless you are on one of the two lines of the LRT, public transportation has lots of room for improvement (e.g in my case: driving to work 25 - 40 min; cycling to work 45 min; taking public transportation to work 60 -90 min).

makes me wonder...