Bad news for my hometown, Hinton, Alberta-
Obed mine is done. The mine where I used to work is winding down too, but hopefully Cheviot will be a go and I can get back to mining by the summer- it is the life for me.
I went to Calgary this last weekend so here is something I wrote a while back about another trip to Calgary I took one time:
A Ukrainian, a Frenchman, a Maltese and a Canadian walk into a bar. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn’t it? But it actually happened, and I was the Canadian. A few years ago I joined the U of A’s foreign student host program. There’s a large and diverse community of foreign students from all over the world who study at the U of A, and I enjoy meeting them. It’s sort of like traveling, but you get to sleep in your own bed.
They let you specify what nationality you are interested in meeting if you want, so I asked for a Ukrainian friend, since I had been to the Ukraine once, and they hooked me up with a Ukrainian PhD student named Dmitri. Dmitri was a pretty nice guy, outgoing and full of life, pleased to be in Canada but with a keen love for his homeland.
One of the first things we decided to do after we met was to go see Alberta. The Thanksgiving long weekend was coming up so we decided to go on a road trip. I picked him up nice and early at his place on campus, and waiting there with him was a guy from France, Marcel. The more the merrier. So off we went, heading south towards the badlands. I wish I could tell you more about Marcel, but his main characteristic that I noticed was that he was quiet.
Dmitri did not share this trait. Luckily for us all, he remembered to bring his guitar along with him, and he played many a song along the way. His guitar was badly beat up, in need of tuning, and I think it was missing a string, so a lot of the songs he played sounded the same, kind of awful. But he had a nice, rich Slavic voice. It was a fun drive. We looked at some hoodoos, hiked around in the desert a bit and went and saw the dinosaur skeletons they got down there in Drumheller.
From there we headed over to Calgary, where Dmitri knew a guy whose place we could stay at for the night. He was from Malta.
As you may or may not know, Malta is a small island in the Mediterranean not far from Sicily. I don’t really know all that much about it, except they apparently make little jade statues of falcons, and in World War II they were the target of extraordinarily heavy bombing raids by the Nazis.
Our host's name was David, and he was very glad to see Dmitri. I think they had met earlier in the year at a party in Edmonton. It being Friday night, Dmitri and David saw an excellent opportunity to recreate the circumstances of their meeting by going dancing at Cowboys.
I was kind of tired, and anyway Cowboys isn't really my scene, so I tried to retire for the evening. Only thing was, David didn’t want me staying in his apartment when he wasn't there. I was kind of stunned to hear this, especially since his apartment contained only some cereal and a piano. Nothing else, not even a couch. What did he think I was going to do, steal his piano? I tried to reason with him but his mind was made up, so off we all went to Cowboys.
My European friends were pretty excited to spend the night dancing, maybe meeting some girls. Me, I just hoped they were showing the Oilers game on the big screen. The odds weren’t great, since the Flames were playing that night, too, but amazingly, the Oilers were the featured game that night. Maybe that’s not so amazing, since even a Calgarian has enough brain cells to figure out how much better the Oilers are than the Flames. I ordered a drink that I nursed throughout the game, still smarting from David's lack of trust in me, while my friends hit the dance floor.
Generally speaking, Europeans tend to be a lot less reserved than us here in Canada, and better dancers, too. So they didn’t lack for dance partners, for the most part. The trouble was, when they couldn’t find a lady to dance with, they would dance with each other. When I saw this I panicked slightly, scared that some Calgary cowboys were going to take exception to this and that we would consequently have to fight our way out of there. But I didn’t have to worry, it turns out, the crowd at Cowboys was more enlightened than I gave them credit for (although I should have guessed by the fact that they let the Oilers preempt the Flames) and nobody bothered them. In fact, some of the patrons grew friendlier after that, like when this one guy bought me a drink. I had to draw the line when he asked me to dance, though. Just kidding, I danced with him. No, no, sorry, just kidding again, he didn’t actually ask me to dance at all. I just couldn’t resist.
That was about the extent of my opportunity to be part of a “three guys walk into the bar” joke. The next day the three of us (not David) went to Banff and climbed a mountain. Admiring the view, I once more reflected on the glory of God’s creation. Dmitri teased me good-naturedly for this, since being from a communist country he was of course a strict atheist. Later that night, back in Calgary, we decided to go to a movie. I wanted to see a good action movie, as befitted three healthy males who had just climbed a mountain, but the only movie playing was What Dreams May Come, with Robin Williams. This is a strange movie where Robin Williams’ wife commits suicide and goes to hell, so Robin goes to hell to rescue her. I didn’t really like it, especially since I wanted to see Arnie or Bruce Willis. But Dmitri came out of the theater raving about how this movie helped him to see that God does exist after all. So at least he liked it.
Anyways, the next morning we said good-bye to David and headed back to Edmonton. David was probably happy to see us go, and to be honest I wasn’t heartbroken either. But just between you and me, I snuck a couple of handfuls of his cereal before we left. Showed him.
I also contribute to a weblog dedicated to the Edmonton Oilers, called
Oiler Pundits. It's kind of fun, though we don't seem to have an archive, so here is my favorite post before it disappears into obscurity:
Ultimate Oilers Dream Team
First I'd pick either Wayne Gretzky, or the more cantankerous Maurice Richard to center ME on left wing. I think Legolas the elf would make a fine right winger, since his skill with bow and arrow would probably translate quite nicely to stick and puck. On defense, I'd get Donald Rumsfeld. Not sure if he can skate backwards or throw a decent bodycheck, but since he is Secretary of Defense for the strongest nation in the world, I'd say he knows a thing or two about D. Backing him up would be Jennifer Garner, because umm, well, you know. She's hot.
Even in these days of the instigator rule, every team needs an enforcer, and the Oilers are fortunate to have the very best in the game in Georges Laraque. But for my money, I'd sign the Incredible Hulk, cause NO ONE is gonna mess with him.
And in goal, Yoda, the Jedi Master. I know, I know, he's a little small, but size matters not, especially when you can stop the puck with the Force.
