Friday, November 15, 2013

Raincoast Crisps Get Me Wet

Well, not actually… although they are incredibly delicious especially with a nice soft cheese to spread on them.  If you’ve never tried them, I highly recommend it.

One of the ads on the in-seat video screen on our flights to and from Mexico last week featured this picture:

Layout 1

I get that Lesley Stowe is proud of her product, but does it look to anyone else like she wants to mount that whole stack of boxes?

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

In which I become a cowboy for a weekend

This past weekend, like every Canada Day long weekend, was the ARGRA gay rodeo down in Strathmore, Alberta.  This year was my sixth year attending, and although it’s always a lot of fun, this year had a bit of a twist: it was my first year competing as a contestant!
2013-06-28 19.56.27
Bright and early Friday morning, Aaron and I got dressed up in our cowboy gear and headed on over to the Rodeo School.  First up was Calf Roping On Foot, and Chuck did a great job getting us started.  The lasso action felt pretty natural after a bit of practice, and I very nearly roped a couple calves during practice.  Unfortunately, “very nearly” was as close as I got all weekend, and I quickly learned why the vets call this event “Throw Your Rope In The Dirt”.

After roping, I got introduced to Steer Decorating, which is a two-person event where one guy or gal reels the steer in with a rope, and the other person gets cow shit all over their hands.  Well, that’s how it worked out for me anyway.  My partner Colin did an awesome job of keeping an incredibly wild steer under as much control as possible, while I fumbled around with trying to tie a ribbon on its tail and got pooped on.  I ended up not competing in Steer Deco, maybe next year…
.
Last up at school was Chute Dogging, which is a rough stock event where you start in the chute with a fully grown steer (400 to 500 lbs), get it in a headlock, coax it out 10 feet and then flip it over onto its side.  Let me tell you, the steer is not happy about any of this and this year’s batch seemed particularly uncooperative.  I didn’t end up dogging any of my steers this weekend, but god DAMN what an adrenaline rush!!



TJ and I also decided to try our hand at Goat Dressing, and while we weren’t fast enough to get a ribbon, I must say that our goat looked very handsome in his tighty whities.

My favorite thing about competing was the atmosphere behind the chutes and the sense of camaraderie between all the cowboys and cowgirls.  Even though everyone is competing, everyone also genuinely wants the other contestants to do well in their events.  I got amazing support from all the participants.  In particular:
  • Thank you to Jamie, Rob and Kelly for all the support.  There’s no way I would have gotten into that chute with that 500 lb steer if it hadn’t been for their relentless encouragement and advice.
  • Thank you to Scotty and the rest of the Chute Crew for keeping some semblance of order in all the chaos that goes on back there.  You guys kept the show moving along and didn’t give me any time to change my mind!
  • Thank you to the ARGRA Board of Directors.  You guys do an awesome job of putting this all together every single year!
  • This one is going to sound a little strange, but thank you to my amazing boyfriend Aaron for not really introducing me around.  It was his third year competing and he’s already met most of these folks, but by letting me go out and meet everyone on my own, he helped me form my own connections rather than be his tag-along.
The rest of the pictures are posted to Facebook here!

Friday, April 26, 2013

AAOOWWOOOOOOO!

We just finished watching the first two episodes of the NetFlix original series “Hemlock Grove”.  The first episode was interesting, but a little slow; episode two definitely made up for that though.  The ending of episode had one of the coolest, and most jaw-droppingly gruesome monster transformations I’ve ever seen!

¡¡SPOILER!!
Don’t watch this if you’d rather be surprised when you watch the show.  If not, check this shit out!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Cocktails I Have Never Heard Of

So, my folks are spending some vacation time down at their place in Arizona, along with a couple of sets of aunts and uncles.

This text is from my sister-in-law, wondering if Mom can bring her back a few things from AZ.  It sounds like they’re having a good time.

:)

IMG_0452

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Google Reader Bites The Dust

Well, fuck.

RSS never really did catch on with the masses, and I imagine that’s a big part of why Google Reader will be closing up shop on July 1st.  Why maintain a service that’s difficult to monetize and hardly anyone outside of the tech community knows about anyway?  Google Reader is going the way of the dodo as part of a round of what Google is calling Spring Cleaning.

For those of us who ARE in the know and have been using Google Reader (either directly, like me, or indirectly through one of the many apps that syncs to your Google Reader feed like NewsNetWire) for years and love it, the news comes as a pretty big punch to the gut.

Google is offering a way to get your subscription data out as an XML file, but the question is, where do I stick it once I’ve got it?  I guess it’s time to start looking out for some alternate RSS reader.

Any suggestions?

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Well, Look Who Can Buy Me A Beer

Why, it’s Jann Arden’s breakout album “Living Under June”!

Aux.tv just released their list of 10 Canadian albums that turned 18 this year, and “Living Under June” is in there along with other blasts from my formative years like OLP’s “Naveed” and BNL’s “Maybe You Should Drive”.

It’s funny how in, say, 1987, the songs from 1969 would be playing on the Oldies radio station.  How weird would it be talk about Naveed as being an ‘oldie’???

Incidentally, Living Under June is still one of my favorite albums.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Songs That Can Choke Me Up

I was driving to work the other day when OLP's 4am came on the radio.  As I was belting along to the song in that way that you only do when you're driving by yourself, I was a little surprised to find that the llyrics were causing a lump to form in my throat.

Music has the ability to stir up powerful emotions in people, and I’m no exception.  I think everyone probably has that list of songs that can just get to them, here are some of mine:








Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Well, here we are again

I’ve been thinking about this blog more and more lately.  The posts have (obviously) trickled down to almost nothing as I moved more and more of my online presence to other social media platforms.  It’s so easy to post quick notes to to smartphone-integrated sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Foursquare, Google Plus, etc etc etc) that there’s not a lot of motivation to actually sit and type out my thoughts in a slightly longer-form format.

I think I’m going to try and stop by this neck of the woods more often though.  There’s something to be said for sharing your thoughts in more than 140 characters or a photo that’s been filtered to look like a Polaroid.