Resurrection

Wow, two months...not entirely sure how that happened.

It still might be dormant except for a couple of incidents in the last week or so. A couple of very nice emails from people, not asking what's happened to the blog, but just saying how much they like it. Like most bloggers, ego plays a role and nice comments (this isn't a fishing expedition for compliments, by the way) are always a happy treat.

The other one was a touch weird. I was at a course recently and the professor decided that the way for everyone to get to know each other was for us to interview one of our classmate. Somehow the guy interviewing me recognized me from the blog and then, when he was "introducing" me to the class, mentioned the blog. Half the class recognized the blog and the Moving to Iqaluit FAQ. A couple told me how valuable it was when they were in the process of moving up here. So that was kind of cool.

I tend to forget just how influential that blog post is. Although, curiously, I noticed this website is now up. Thankfully it doesn't seem to have robbed any of my content from this blog, so that's nice. I also remember that I was going to update that post and I haven't. I have a busy next couple of weeks, but I'll try and update it before the end of October.

So, what else is going on.

1. When last we checked in, I was doing a recap of our European adventures. However, shortly after I started that I was speaking with an editor who wants to serialize our trip into a feature series. It'll run next summer. Because of that, and that I'm being paid for it, it doesn't seem fair to put it up here for free. My apologies. If the stories make it online, I'll link to them as they run.

2. Cathy and I also went to Greenland over Labour Day Weekend. I'm afraid it falls under the category of "I'm being paid to write about it", so other than it was an amazing experience and I'm really happy we finally got to make it to Greenland after pining to do the trip for years, you'll have to wait for more details. But here's a couple of photos from Nuuk, Greenland. Just for a taste.

3. I mentioned a few months back I was trying to lose weight. Well, that continues along quite nicely. I'm now down 55 pounds in about 7.5 months. That puts me about 25 pounds short of my ultimate goal. Considering I was trying to lose all that weight over a two year period, I'm extraordinarily happy with how I'm doing. Even if I do grumble when I have a week like last week where I put on 0.8 pounds. And because I'm very proud of her, Cathy is down more than 40 pounds herself. So between the two of us we've lost the equivalent of a 12-year-old.

The only downside to the weight loss is the amazing amount of clothes we're giving to good will. Stuff we bought a year ago now looks like we're wearing tents. We dropped a fortune at Tilly the summer of 2011 for travel clothes...none of it fits anymore. And yes, it means we get to go shopping for new, smaller clothes. But I guess there's enough of my father in me, that winces at spending money, to give me pause.

4. Curling is coming up soon, so some of you might be subjected to that. We'll see how much I'm involved in it this year. Been feeling a bit burned out on it. Plus I've been really focussing on the gym. I have to give up a night at the gym to curl. And while it's a lovely sport and more exercise than you might think, it's not exactly the equivalent of one of my workouts. So we'll see. Although I am curious to see what impact the weight loss has on my delivery.

4. Quite enjoying my job these days, which is useful. I shan't say more about that as A. I have a longstanding rule about talking about work and B. I know for a fact my two immediate supervisors have read this blog. So there's that.

5. Next up is another trip - I'm off to New York next weekend for a week. Just me. Cathy has to work and she, bizarrely, hates New York. A few days of sightseeing and then four days of getting my geek on at the New York Comic Con. It is hilarious/scary how much I've been organizing my plan of attack for that con (there are certain artists I need to hit up for artwork before they get booked up for the weekend). I'll be sure to post up lots of pics of people wearing weird costumes when I come back.

And, as always, if you have any favourite things you've done in the past in New York, feel free to pass them along in the comments section. I only have three days and at least one of them is going to be spent mostly in MOMA, but I always like hearing things to do, or places to eat, that I might not have thought about.

So there you are...mostly caught up. And once again, I'll try and post more often than every couple of months. I actually liked writing this, and I haven't been doing nearly enough writing lately. Let's see if I can fix that.

Right. Off to the gym to do penance for that piece of chocolate chip cake with toffee icing I had last night at a get together...

Last Five
1. Set yourself on fire - Stars
2. Speak the word - Tracy Chapman
3. Train in vain (live) - The Clash*
4. Trying to throw your arms around the world - The Fray
5. How - Maroon 5

Ice bound

I wrote in my last post about shocks to the system when coming back to Iqaluit (I will get back to the European adventures, I promise). None more so than realizing the ice in the bay was still here. When we left at the end of June, the last gasp was going on. There was still ice there, but it was melting quickly. I figured it would be gone a few days after we left. I remember being in Ottawa a couple of days later and reading the first boat of the year had made it into Iqaluit. A bit later than in previous years, but it was the start of resupply season in Iqaluit.

Except the ice didn't go away. Not really.

When I came back on the 23rd I flew over Frobisher Bay and I could see plenty of ice out there. There was a sealift boat in the bay, but it didn't take long for me to hear that she had been damaged trying to get to Iqaluit. She had about a six-foot gash on her hull. Bad enough that she had to unload the rest of her cargo onto another ship before she headed back south for repairs. Then the CBC started reporting that two other sea lift boats were stuck at the mouth of the bay. They couldn't get through because of the ice and even ice breakers were having a hard go of it.

I hardly claim to be an expert on such things as I've only been in Iqaluit for seven years, but it's the first time I've seen ice like this at this time of the year. There's the real possibility the bay may not be ice free all summer. I took this photo last Friday and was cursing as the ice seemed to be drifting closer to shore.

Which I thought sucked. I didn't realize it could get worse until I opened the curtains this morning. It was raining then, so I didn't take any pictures, but it cleared up this evening. So this is what the bay looks like right now.

That is a shitload of ice. Aside from it being a touch depressing to see that much ice floating around the bay and knocking several degrees off the temperature, there is a more pressing problem. It effectively stops the sealift from continuing. You'll notice a boat in one of the pictures. She should be unloading material right now. She was yesterday. But when all the ice came in this close to shore, they can't run the barges back and forth. There were great big chunks of ice aground down by the beach this afternoon. It's not melting any time soon.

Sealift schedules are always part fantasy. We were told our order should arrive in late August. That roughly translates into mid-September at the earliest. We have orders arrive as much as two months behind schedule (that was our last one with NorthMart. We were done with them after that fiasco). So while I'm not waiting for stuff to come off that boat in the bay, it's a sure bet this ice is throwing that boat off schedule. And future boats off-schedule.

So yeah, getting a little worried about all of that ice out there. We bought a lot of stuff and we would actually like to get it at some point. We're not on the last boat, so there's no need to panic. But I promise you, there were not many happy faces looking out over the bay today.

Ah, the north...

Last Five
1. Long since gone - Matt Mays and El Torpedo
2. Sleep together - Garbage*
3. Fashion coat - The National
4. Elenor - Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies
5. Takes this waltz (live) - Leonard Cohen

Back in the routine

There's a problem with coming back from vacation for most people...I suspect that's slightly more the case when you're coming back to Iqaluit. For most of the month of July I was in places filled with greenery. Or in some of the major capitals of the world. I could drink good cappuccino on a daily basis (even in Scotland), get amazing food of any kind almost any time with nearly unlimited shopping and cultural activities.

And then...bang. Iqaluit.

I'm trying not to put down my home, because there are many virtues to the place. I'm just saying the first week back is always a bitch, and last week was no exception.

Although the hardest part of last week was getting back into my diet and exercise routines. I wrote a couple of months ago that I had managed to lose about 35 pounds. Well, prior to going on vacation I was down 43 pounds. Although my weight loss had slowed, I was still losing about 1.5 pounds per week, which is nothing to sneeze at. If I kept that pace up, I'd hit my goal of losing 80 pounds in the new year. Considering I was planning for that to take two years, I was quite pleased.

But there's nothing like a good vacation to screw up the best laid of plans. Actually, it seems to be cruises. Five years ago I was barrelling along on a novel, heading into the last quarter of the book when I went on a cruise. I've barely written a word since then. That's why I was so worried going on this trip...would the diet and exercise routine curl up and die afterwards?

It's been hard to get back into the swing of it. Part of the problem was that while I was pretty good with keeping active on vacation, the diet was locked in a closet and ignored for the entire time. Yes, I did plenty of walking around cities. Hell, I was even a good boy and managed to get to the gym on the cruise ship a half dozen times.

But the food? Forget it. The first morning back in Iqaluit when I had my usual breakfast of a bowl of Cheerios and a banana I could practically hear my body screaming at me: "What the fuck is this? Where's the chocolate chip pancakes, croissant, hash browns and 10 pieces of bacon?" Supper wasn't much better when it was just a stirfry and, most importantly, no dessert. Well, specifically, not four or five desserts, which is what I tended to do on the cruise ship.

What can I say? They had really good desserts and I simply had to try them all. I couldn't just choose between carrot cake, a cappuccino cake, fudge cake and a few other treats when they're saying I can have all of them and they might not be back the next night, meaning I would miss out. That's just wrong.

The fact I was only up 1.4 pounds after the end of the trip borders on the miraculous, it truly does.

So right now it's just fighting to get back into the routine. I'm managing, but it's hard. Last time I started working out because it was something I needed to do mentally. It actually made me feel better. This time the elliptical is just mean. Last time it took about three weeks or more to get used to the new diet routines. Now that the beast got a taste of life outside of the cage, it's been resisting going back in there. I've finished a perfectly normal supper and I'm still hungry.

I'm managing and I haven't cheated on the eating and I haven't skipped a day at the gym. But until I settle back into the pre-cruise routine, things are going to suck.

Last Five
1. Mambo swing - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
2. Capturing moods - Rilo Kiley
3. Let's get lost - Lloyd Cole
4. Eye candy - Ron Sexsmith
5. Tighten up - The Black Keys*

The Cruise: Copenhagen and Oslo

Copenhagen
I think if we made a mistake on this trip it was underestimating Copenhagen. I remember when doing the initial research and considering catching a ship for another port because, well, how exciting could Copenhagen be? We ended up pick it because the other ports added extra sea days to the trip. But still, I  figured 24 hours in town would be more than enough.

Not even close.

It's a really nice city, I have to say. It's got a great mix of old European style and a modern city. It's staggeringly clean, people bike everywhere (which freaked out Cathy because they don't seem to lock them up, and they all look like they were designed in the 1940s), they're exceptionally polite and just about everyone speaks English. I also got the feeling there was a lot going on (like a great photo exhibition that we sadly just didn't have the time to go and see). There was a nice energy, a nice...vibe, to the place. Something that was hard to put your finger on, but that you knew this was a city you could grow to love if you had more time there.

Because of my little medical...incident, we had even less time to see Copenhagen then we had planned. Through dumb luck I picked a hotel in Nyhavn. In fact, it was the old sailor's hostel. Basically they would show up, go out drinking and whoring (it's the former red light district) and then collapse back at the hotel. Attached next door is a church, so after a night of debauchery they could go and confess their sins.

I mean, the hotel was nothing great, but it was clean, in the middle of things and that's an awesome history. Plus, this was the view from our hotel room.

It was a great area to wander around. Sort of like St. John's, but with a different vibe. Lots of bars and restaurants, so I guess you could make the argument that this is Copenhagen's George Street, except it never felt tacky, which is how I feel about George Street.

After that we wandered. We found the main shopping district, so it was nice to do some European window shopping. Plus, there was a Lego store, so I was good there. In the evening, we walked along the waterside to head towards the Little Mermaid statue, which tour books warn (Rick Steves Guide to Scandinavia was invaluable on the trip) is highly overrated. And while it's not as epic as a lot of the statues you see around Europe, it's nice. Plus, it's nice to watch people's reaction to it. They really love that statue. And the fact it's not covered in fencing or protected by police or having to pay money to see it is pretty cool as well.

And to get to the statue we walked past a restaurant that was offering salsa dance lessons, an exhibition of sand castle art, a couple of massive fountains, a few huge churches and a lovely park. Not bad for a 40 minute walk along the water.

It's just a nice little city. We considered this a scouting trip, of sorts. Yes, we wanted to enjoy the cities we visited and get as much as we could out of them, but we also wanted to get an idea of what cities we'd like to come back and see more of. Copenhagen is definitely near the top of the list.

Oslo

Oslo got screwed because of the weather, I fear. It was misting and raining on and off in Copenhagen when we left. We then sailed north and took that weather with us. Except it managed to magnify during the trip, so it was pretty miserable most of the time we were in the city. Now, you can still have fun in a city where it's raining, but combine that with the fact you couldn't really see anything (heavy fog) and that Oslo is one of the more expensive cities in the world (which meant window shopping tended to give you a stroke) and we just never warmed up to the place.

Oh, there were still cool things. We went to their national art gallery and I got to see "The Scream" which was interesting. It produced one of those "never thought I'd actually get to have this experience in my life" moments. We walked the grounds of the royal palace and watched a changing of the guard where the soldiers (all in their early 20s) seemed to barely be able to keep a straight face. Scandinavians have very practical looking royal palaces. Not at all over the top like some of the other ones you see in other parts of Europe.

I think the highlight was probably going to the Nobel Peace Prize museum. Now that was a fascinating place. We could have spent hours there, but just didn't have the time. A fantastic photo exhibit on the first floor about Afghanistan, a section featuring this year's winners, then a room featuring previous winners on iPd like devices, followed by an interactive wall display of past winners, like this.

I'm not sure we'd consider going back, mainly because of the cost. But there's obviously a lot going on there and if we had hit it on a better day, we would have liked it more. As it stands, it was when we were leaving, when the weather finally cleared up, that we saw cool things. Like their new opera house, which looks like something from Star Trek.

And this wonderful church we sailed past as we were heading out. We past awfully close to it, as you can probably tell. A wedding was just concluding as we went by. That was pretty fun, with everyone waving...

We saw a lot of churches this trip, but that was one of my three favourites. Pity we couldn't get to go inside, but I don't think the docking facilities could handle our ship.

Next up, Aarhus and Berlin...

Last Five

1. Marathon - Heartless Bastards

2. Turn into - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

3. China - Tori Amos*

4. Hey porcupine - Josh Rouse

5. Reign of love - Coldplay

The Cruise, Part 1

Despite my best attempts at brain damage, I did manage to survive our vacation. I really did have plans to update more regularly, but my stubborn refusal to pay Princess Cruise Lines ridiculous internet charges (oh, and by the way, the speed was 1 MB/s at peak and they wanted upwards of 70 cents per minute for that. Christ preserve me) coupled with my desire to actually see the cities we were visiting as opposed to hunkering down in an internet cafe put an end to that idea. Oh well. There are worse things than not constantly being on the internet for weeks at a time. The break probably did me some good.

So how was the cruise? It was pretty good, I think. This was our second cruise and I think if you were comparing the vessels - The Carnival Miracle and The Emerald Princess - they are remarkably similar. They're pretty close to the same size, can handle about the same number of passengers (although our ship wasn't sold out. I suspect the accidents from earlier the year have affected many ships in the same way) and have many of the same things to do on board. That wasn't planned. I think if we had known going in how similar the two vessels were we would have been concerned because we were frequently bored when sailing the Miracle.

The problem with the Miracle was the number of sea days. We had four of them and then four at different ports. And most of the stuff on board wasn't of interest to us. I'm not a sit on the deck and let myself get irradiated by the sun for days on end. I don't like casinos nor am I a big drinker. Take those away and the options for entertainment on the Miracle, when she was at sea, were quite limited.

The benefit to the Emerald Princess was that of the 11 days we were on board, nine of them were spent in ports. The two days at sea worked because they were spend recovering from all the land activities. So lounging on our balcony reading a book as the Baltic Sea swept on past was actually quite relaxing. We aren't going to be rushing off to do another cruise any time soon, but at least we know we prefer the "destination" cruise as opposed to the more aimless wander through the Caribbean.

The thing that most people seem to care about on these cruises is how is the food. In our case it was fine. It was nothing spectacular, but it was certainly good enough. I wasn't looking for the meal of a lifetime on board. Although it was amusing that the one night we decided to splurge on one of the two "higher end" restaurants on board - an Italian one where you have to pay a cover charge - was the day of the choppiest seas of the cruise. And since the restaurant was on the back of the ship, well, it was entertaining at least.

There was certainly plenty to eat, which isn't great news if you're trying to lose weight (one of our waiters was quite insistent that he could bring us everything on the menu if we wanted). I found the deserts to be better than the main courses which, again, bad news if you're on a diet. And our one big gripe was that so many of the meals were seafood (Cathy's allergic) and the bad habit they had in the main dining rooms of having meals containing nuts and not mentioning that on the menu. Happened three or four times when Cathy would get something on her table and there they were. Seriously, who puts almonds on mashed potatoes?

The other secret to cruise ships is to have some will power. They have you on board, therefore they're constantly bombarding you with ways to spend your money. Especially since you don't have to use your credit card directly. You have a ship card that everything goes on. At the end of the cruise, you get your bill. We saw one lady have a six page bill printed off. Having learned from the previous cruise to watch our spending, our bill was quite reasonable. About half of it was simply the mandatory gratuity that gets charged every day to your account.

But yeah, they're trying to get you to spend. There's the gift shops and the constant reminders you should buy your stuff on the ship because if you want Baltic Amber or nesting dolls, you're taking a big risk buying them onshore because they're probably fakes (I mentioned that to a tour guide in St. Petersburg. I thought she was going to drive back to the boat and set it on fire she was so mad). Or the spa, which had some truly spectacularly expensive packages. And, of course, the booze.

The staff was also pretty good. You tend to hear a lot of nitpicking complaints on these ships, but honest to God, they're all insanely friendly, they all say hello to you or wish you a good morning or evening. They cater to your every reasonable whim. I'm not sure how much more some people are looking for.

I tended to look at the Emerald Princess this way...she was a very nice, high end ferry. I didn't need to spend a lot of time aboard of her...I just needed her to get me to the next city I wanted to see in a degree of comfort. And she did that just fine.

Next blog post, I'll talk about some of the cities we visited and how I will completely judge a place in the eight hours we normally got to spend there...

Last Five
1. I would die for you - Garbage*
2. Codes and keys - Death Cab For Cutie
3. Oh Carolina (live) - Elton John and Ryan Adams
4. Taste it - INXS
5. Sky blue and black (live) - Jackson Browne

Welcome to Copenhagen...

As a method of entering a new country, flat on your back lying on a stretcher certainly does have a dramatic flair, although I can't say I really recommend the experience. First of all, I'm fine. Second of all...oi, what a day. We're currently in Denmark getting ready to start the big leg of our vacation, which is a Baltic cruise. Copenhagen was only ever meant to be a 24 hour buffer, just in case something went wrong with flights, luggage or something else. Still, the more we read up on Copenhagen, the more I was kind of regretting not spending more time there, especially since we basically just killed a day doing nothin in Ottawa, having completed the sealift ahead of schedule. Our flight was Ottawa-Toronto-Copenhagen. The later leg is about 7.5 hours long, which is the longest stretch we've done by plane in about three years. Anything less than three hours, Cathy and I can do in our sleep. Still, I figured that since most of the flight would happen at night, we would just sleep it off, wake up the next morning and hit Copenhagen running. Yeah, not so much. The first problem was I couldn't get to sleep, which was weird. I could have slept on the Ottawa-Toronto flight, but I could not get comfortable or drift off. The second problem hit about an hour before landing when I began to feel....weird. And it was a weird I had a funny feeling I'd experienced before. Back in 1996 I flew to South Korea to teach English, including a hellish 14 hour Toronto-Seoul leg in which I quietly lost my mind wondering if this wasn't the stupidest thing I'd ever done in my life (I'd got a job offer to teach English in South Korea 10 days earlier). I ended up having a panic attack and passing out. The plane stewards, not quite knowing what to do with the white guy passed out in the bathroom, just brough me back to my seat and quietly ignore me for the next several hours. So yeah, I knew something weird was happening. I got up, tried to stetch, then went to the bathroom, but things got worse. I managed to make it out of the bathoom and sink to my knees. Someone asked if I needed help, I said yes and then it was light's out. Next thing I'm hearing is Cathy's voice, sounding frantic, and a group of people around me trying to figure out if I'm all right. Oh, and an elderly retired doctor who was travelling on the plane, trying to determine if I had a seizure or something (I didn't). What happened over the next few hours was really quite extraordinary. Air Canada's staff were fantasic. One of the stewards was also a fireman, so he had first aid training, and stayed with me until the plane landed. Even brought me a lovely tank of my very own oxygen. I kept insisting I was fine and tried to make jokes, but they made everyone on the plane wait until the paramedics came on board and took me off. Despite my protests, they carted me away to a hospital in the back of an ambulance, where they ran a bunch of tests. All came back negative. I'm pefectly fine (well, as fine as I was before all of this. Oh, and a scrape on my head from where I hit the floor). But we didn't get charged a thing. Some paperwork, but assurances there was no bill to settle up, which is amazing. We had to go back to the airport to get the bags, which was pretty straightforward. And we got reassurances that we were in the country legally, although our passport wasn't stamped. No one can figure out exactly why I passed out like that. I think the flow of blood to my brain was restricted because I was trying to get comfortable and I did something weird. Or sitting for 7.5 hours without getting up to stretch my legs or take a walk. I will be walking every 10 bloody minutes on the return flight, I can say that much. So anyway, a dramatic entrance to the country. But I'm fine. Once we got to our hotel, we actually spent several hours wandering around the city and even walked out to see the Litter Mermaid statue (it's a touch anti-climatic). So the worst seems to be over. Beautiful city, by the way. Just wished I had entered it properly....

Ah, our national airline

(This was supposed to go up on Canada Day, but the internet at the hotel collapsed before I could post it. So let's pretend it's still July 1, shall we?) So on this, our national holiday, let us consider a national instution and pastime - Air Canada. Because the airline is an institution and hating it as much a national pastime as watching hockey. And today we got to see the very thing that makes Air Canada something you want to punch in the face, but also kind of admire. And before you express concern over the admiration, keep in mind that surveys constantly rank Air Canada as one of the best airlines operating in North America. It baffles people, but really, you're not flying on enough American air carriers. Once you do, you kinda respect what Air Canada is doing a bit more. Today was supposed to be fairly straight forward - get Boo on a cargo plane. The plan was simple - get up around 6, have him at Air Canada Cargo around 6:30, he gets transported to the airport around 7, goes on a plane around 8 and then heads to St. John's where he summers with his grandparents. Things went off the rails around 6:31 when we arrived at Air Canada Cargo in Ottawa and there was no one there, even though the office hours state it opens at 5:30. The place was closed. Keep in mind we confirmed this flight a month ago, was told the offices would be open and it would be business as usual. Not so much. So after some waiting around, and discovering that no, they weren't running a little late, we managed to flag down someone in the warehouse. Seems he was the only one who came into work that day. The agent and office staff - no idea. And he couldn't book the dog because he didn't have the codes or training to do it. And as this was 7 am, on a Sunday, on Canada Day. No one was answering their phones. Thus began The Stress. Because the dog had to go out today. I let Cathy take to the lead when dealing with this, not because I'm not capable, but because a stressed out and pissed off Cathy is far scarier than I am. She made it pretty clear to the poor bastard at Cargo, then she wasn't happy and, what was worse, there was at least one more level she could go to, and it wasn't going to be pleasant if she had to go there. I've seen it. It's not pleasant. You don't want her to go there. Thus ensued many frantic phone calls. Cathy's parents were involved. The 8 am flight came and went. The Stress was building. A complete stranger who was dropping off mail from Canada Post offered to watch the dog for us for a few weeks if we couldn't get him out today. No reason, just wanted to help out obviously stressed people. Which is astonishing when you think about it. Finally, there was a resolution. I'm not going to get into the details because I'm fairly certain rules, and possibly laws, were broken. But Air Canada staff rallied at the last minute and Boo managed to get on a flight and made it back to St. John's today. Which is what makes Air Canada awesome and frustrating at the same time. The fact they had almost no staff at Cargo, nor could they find anymore for more than 90 minutes who could help makes you want to smack your head (or the senior managers at the local Cargo office's heads) against a brick wall. But when the crunch came, ordinary staff rallied, helped out, were extremely apologetic (and sided with us in our frustration) and managed to get the situation resolved. On a Sunday morning. On Canada Day. Ladies and gentlemen....your national airline. Much like the rest of Canada, it's frustrating and often doesn't work the way it ought to. But the ordinary people can still rally and surprise you. And because it was said to us many times today as we wandered around Ottawa and made me smile every time - Happy Canada Day.

Four things

1. I have no less than two draft posts saved on the fiasco that is the new Access to Information legislation which the government of Newfoundland and Labrador just passed, but I wasn't happy with either of them and put them away, figuring I would go back and make them better. Yeah, didn't happen and now it reads as awfully dated.

Not helping was the fact that there was already a lot of excellent commentary coming out on almost a daily basis ripping it apart. So rather than try to replicate what they produced, I instead recommend you go and read what Ed Hollett, Russell Wangersky and Geoff Meeker have to say about it. They pretty much smack it out of the park.

It's a bad piece of legislation and one that I think the government badly misjudged the level of opposition to. Will it sink them in three years time? Not on its own. But when they're listing the reasons this government lost, it'll be on the short list.

2. Meanwhile, back in Nunavut, it's a couple of days until Summer Solstice and the bay is finally starting to show signs of breaking up. They're have been no snowmobiles on the bay in a couple of weeks and there's now some open water showing. Granted, there's no way all this ice is going to be gone by the end of the month, so I'll get to go on vacation and be able to tell people there's still ice in the bay. That always manages to freak out southerners. The downside is it will soon start to throw off the sealift boat schedule, which is always a nuisance.

I'll post up a pic of what the bay looks like in a couple of days. I have an idea for a picture of the bay at sunset on the 21st. Just to give you an idea of what the first day of summer looks like in Iqaluit.

3. But in the meantime, here's another picture for you.

There's a fun group on Facebook called the Iqaluit Auction Bids, which is pretty much what it sounds like. They've cracked down on some of the junkier stuff recently, so pretty much everything there is northern crafts related. You can find some very nice stuff there. For example, if you happen to need a pair of polar bear pants (the seller promises they are very warm), well, you're in luck because there's a pair being auctioned right now.

I found the above on the site and managed to win the auction. What we have here is an ulu, which is the half moon shaped knife, and a men's carving knife. The knives are steel, the base is made from a caribou antler and the handles are made from muskox horn. It's the last detail that really caught my eye because muskox are not native to Baffin Island. They're both really nice and quite sharp. I almost feel bad that I have nothing to use them on right now. But who knows. Anyway, they're a nice addition.

Also, anybody can sign up for the auction site. A lot of people from Ontario have and tend to snap up kumiks (boots) to the point where insane price wars have broken out. Give it a look.

4. And finally, because I have been remiss, let's all leave a few nice comments for my lovely wife Cathy, who got her marks back yesterday and graduated with her Masters in Special Education. That alone would be enough, but she managed to do that while getting straight A's. It's a hell of an accomplishment and I'm insanely proud of her.

Last Five
1. Meeting across the river - Bruce Springsteen
2. Babylon - David Gray*
3. Rockville - REM
4. I didn't know that you care - Lloyd Cole
5. The charging sky - Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins

Virginia Park Condos?

So this story with CBC back in St. John's caught my eye. For those not clicking on the link, a building known as Virginia Park Plaza is giving notice to all its tenants to leave by the end of September because they're converting the building into condos.

So why is this worth mentioning in the blog? Because I grew up in Virginia Park. I remember when that plaza went up and spent more than my share of time hanging around there. Whether it was going to the Mary Browns for a Snackaroo or a Big Mary, slowly devouring most of the collection of kid's books at the library, or buying comic books from the convenience store I spent my share of days around that building. It's also possible I was beaten up once or twice behind the plaza as well. But I have less fond memories of those occasions.

I'm not exactly surprised they're getting rid of the building. Virginia Park has always been an...odd neighbourhood. When I was growing up half of it was middle class housing and the other half was social housing units. Let's say the dynamic was interesting. And straddling the line between that was the Plaza and the elementary school (our house was pretty near the middle line as well).

So yeah, a lot of things happened down there. I suspect the Plaza was a regular stop for the RNC for many, many years. I haven't lived in the area for many years, so I've no idea how bad it is now, although it wasn't in great shape last time I walked past there. Most of the storefronts were empty and there were plenty of signs of vandalism. That wasn't always the case. I remember when it first opened all the spaces were full. There used to be a bank and a Pipers department store there. Not so much now. Not for many years.

So no, I'm not shocked that they've decided to give up on the place and try something else with it. What I am shocked is that they're going to build condos there. Seriously? I understand building condos in downtown St. John's, out by the university, down by Quidi Vidi Lake or in a few other spots around town. But Virginia Park? They've had problems with vandalism and other incidents around there (pretty sure most of the woods behind the Plaza were cut down decades ago after a few sexual assaults happened) so it's not exactly what I would view as a dream area of town to build high end condos.

Let's put it this way, I grew up in the Park, I still have family and friends there, and if I was getting ready to drop a couple hundred thousand on a condo, this would not be my first choice.

So exactly how crazy is the housing/condo market in St. John's that this seems like a sound business idea?

Last Five
1. 505 - Arctic Monkeys
2. Still the same - Bob Seger
3. On - Bloc Party
4. Acid tongue - Jenny Lewis*
5. Back in your head - Tegan & Sara

Ah, to be in Iqaluit in June

Today at 5:23 pm...

Today at 6:57 pm...

Now, I believe the traditional responses to when it snows here at this time of the year and you complain are:
1. Suck it up, buttercup.
2. You live in the arctic, what else were you expecting?

To which I will point out that a mere two days ago it was 17C, sunny and people were wearing shorts and mini-skirts around town. So this is a bit of a jarring to the system. I will also add that my co-workers, many of whom are Inuit, were cursing a blue streak when this snow started to fall around 4 pm or so.

So I believe I will complain, just a little bit. And say that the clock to when my vacation officially starts kicked into overdrive today.

Last Five
1. Father Lucifer - Tori Amos
2. Up in flames - Coldplay
3. Hurricane drunk - Florence and the Machine*
4. Fred Jones, part 2 - Ben Folds
5. Every part of me - Sam Roberts

Sea lift preparations

Vacation planning is lovely and all, but flying out of Iqaluit is a two-stage affair. I did most of the planning for the fun stuff, which is running around Europe. Cathy handles the more practical aspects of the other stage of the trip - the sea lift.

I'm sure I've explained the sea lift a dozen times, but for those new to the these parts and who don't want to dig through the archives, it's basically this: Living in Iqaluit is not cheap, nor can you just wander down to the store and find everything you want. This isn't a sea lift item for us because it's perishable, but for example, I have walked into North Mart and not been able to find chicken. Or bell peppers. Stuff like that. So if you want to save a few dollars, and make sure that things you really like to have are at your fingertips, then the best way to go about doing this is to do a sea lift.

There are two ways to do this. The first way is to just do an order online (North Mart does it) and in a few months time the stuff you ordered will be delivered to your door once the cargo boats (sea lift boats as they're called here) start to come in. Or you can do what we do; we go down to Ottawa and do it ourselves.

A sea lift order can be a fun, scary, frustrating and intense few days. But before you even get that far, you need to start your planning. Cathy's already started. It involves taking the master list of what we ordered last year and then walking through our storage room and see what we ran out of, what we're running low on and what we clearly over ordered last year. Trying to figure out how much you're going to use of something from week to week can be an issue. Trying to do it for a year is something else.

For example, soft drinks are easy. We budget one can, per person, per day. Pretty straight forward number although it does get you some deeply odd looks when you're going up to the cash at Costco with two shopping carts full of soft drinks.

But the rest can be dicey. How much pasta do you order? How much rice? We actually appear to have slightly under-ordered the amount of toilet paper we need this year. And then there's the things you over-order, like toothpaste. When we first moved here in 2005, we did a sea lift. Complete shot in the dark so we were all over the place in terms of how much we needed of different items. And in no area were we further off than toothpaste. Nearly seven years after that sea lift crate landed on the beach in Iqaluit, we are finally on our last tube of toothpaste. We'll need to buy more, although I think we'll probably cut back on the order this time around.

So yes, trying to juggle what you need to order, what you might want to try, what you might want to drop...it's a tangily business. And that's just the non-perishable goods. We're also looking at buying a new box spring and mattress, a new dish washer, maybe a dryer, some more flooring and to replace a few power tools that have up and died.

So you make your master list, then prepare with military precision what places you need to hit, what you're going to buy there, and how long you're going to spend there. Oh, and in what order you're going to visit different stores. And you need to rent a vehicle large enough to carry most of this stuff because having things delivered can cause all sorts of problems. We had $800 worth of items go missing two years ago from the time we left Costco to the time our sea lift crate arrived in Iqaluit.

Now, once you start buying all of this stuff (and you can remember to start breathing once you see the bills. We dropped nearly two grand at Costco in less than three hours last year) you have to drop it off somewhere. In our case we use TSC who will take our purchases, package them properly, crate it up (and use more nails than you can imagine) and then send the whole works to Montreal. From there, it gets put on a boat which will eventually arrive in Iqaluit.

From the time we make our purchases to the time it arrives at our front door will take about two months.

It's not for everyone, obviously. You need the patience and organization to do all of the prep work and actual work. I may be...somewhat...lacking in those skills, but fortunately Cathy is quite good at it. You need to be able to mentally and financially handle how much money is coming flying out of your bank account in a short period of time, knowing that over the course of the year you will save money because you paid $2 for that jar of pasta sauce at Wal-Mart as opposed to $5 at North Mart when you need it in January. And we won't even get into how much you save on toilet paper. If you have a baby, the amount you can save on diapers, formula and other supplies can be truly staggering.

Oh, and one other quirk to the whole sea lift, again for the new people here, we have no wharf facilities in Iqaluit. So when our stuff arrives on the boat, it just sits there in the middle of the bay until a barge can reach it. From there the crates are loaded on the barge and then driven ashore on the beach at high tide (and only high tide. We get 10 metre tides here). Once it's loaded onto the beach, we have to wait until a local company gets to it, picks it up on a forklift, drive it through the community and then deposit it in front of our house. We then get to spend about two hours using cutters and a pry bar to open the crate, and then off-loading the works of it into our house.

The scary thing about all of this is that it can be kind of fun. Which goes to show you don't have to be nuts to live here, but it's certainly helpful.

Last Five
1. Cold, cold ground - Tom Waits*
2. Hold on loosely - .38 Special
3. Jefferson Jericho Blues - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
4. Glendora - Rilo Kiley
5. Creepin' in - Norah Jones and Dolly Parton

Going down

The other obsession over the last few months, which my friends on Facebook are undoubtedly tired of hearing me post about, is trying to get back in shape. Since mid-February I've managed to lose 35 pounds. Which, don't get me wrong, I'm quite pleased about. However, there are certain things that prevent me from getting too smug about this.

1. Having lost that much weight makes me realize in retrospect what a fat bastard I'd let myself become. I mean, it's genuinely appalling that managed to happen, or all the creative excuses you manage to come up with to overlook that fact. "Oh, I'm not fat in that picture, the wind was just blowing a certain way to make the shirt look puffy." (or you could just be fat). "Oh, I haven't put on any extra weight, I'm still wearing the same size pants" (Yes, conveniently ignoring that my dress pants had elastic built into the waist, covering a multitude of sins).
2. Having lost that much weight and looking better can make you feel cocky. Until I realize that I'm right around the weight I was when Cathy and I got married. And when I see those photos I realize I was still quite over weight even then. So there's obviously still a lot of work to do.

The weird thing is that once you start having some success people start looking to you as if you possess some magic and hidden knowledge. I really don't. I've tried many, many times before to lose weight and it always failed. This time, it clicked. Well, clicked so far. The possibility of relapse is still there.

The only thing I can offer is that I had a genuinely awful few weeks back in February and March. My friend's death hit me a lot harder than I thought and I'm pretty sure I was depressed. I've been down before, but I'm not sure the last time I felt something like that. And one day, I just got so frustrated feeling that way, that I went back to the gym, hoping some endorphins or something might work.

It did.

I felt better for most of the rest of the day. The next day, when I started feeling bad, I went back. And I've kept doing that. Five days a week, for at least one hour each time. Thirty minutes on an elliptical, 30 minutes on different weight machines. And then I started to change my diet. I only eat three meals a day. No snacks. I've reduced my portion size. I've tried to cut out a lot of processed foods and eat more fruits and vegetables.

But I think the most important thing is I've got myself in a routine and I've sufficiently scared the crap out of myself over the consequences of breaking that routine. I didn't go to the gym for two weeks in April between being in Florida (even though I walked at least 10 km a day on the beach) and a head cold (in which I nearly drove Cathy nuts over my anxiety about not being able to get to the gym). Any time I get hungry, I have a glass of water.

So even though I'm a bit hungry even as I write this, I've just started my second glass of water.

Because I am apparently a creature of routines. I've been told that I do not handle change well. Normally I think is a disadvantage, but I think in this one case, now that I've settled into this routine I'm glad I'm reluctant to change it.

I'm sure there are any number of dieticians or fitness experts that would say what I'm doing is wrong, but as long as it keeps working for me, I'm not going to mess with it. Thirty-five pounds in 15 weeks is nothing to sneeze at. The ultimate goal is 80 pounds, but I still have until February 2014 to get there, so I have time. And I'm not going completely nuts. I'm going to be on a cruise ship this summer. There will be food. I will eat the food. Plus I'm going to be in Denmark. If you think I'm not going to eat Danish there, you're nuts.

I imagine there will be some tweaks later in the summer. A friend has sworn that these are supposed to be really good for tracking activity, so I think I might invest in one. And if things keep going well, clearly new clothes are going to be needed. I have a depressing amount of money tied up in jeans that no longer fit. And a co-worker described one of my dress shirts this week as looking like a peasant blouse, which I'm assuming is bad.

I'm also setting up two rewards if I hit my goal...one I mentioned the other day...the big trip to Peru and the Galapagos . The other is a nice, hand tailored suit. Cathy doesn't get that as I don't wear suits and lord knows my job doesn't require it. But I think if I had a really nice suit, one that fit well (which I don't think I've ever owned), I'd wear it. Plus it would help me keep the weight off...no sense spending that much on a suit and then not being able to wear it.

So yes, the Secret to my Success is apparently temporarily losing my mind and acquiring a mild case of OCD. As I said, not sure I can recommend it. But hey, whatever works for you...

Last Five
1. Chocolate Jesus (live) - Tom Waits*
2. The Wanderer - U2
3. Sugar mountain - Neil Young
4. Mongrel heart - Broken Bells
5. Object of your rejection - Chely Wright

Travel planning

So what with it being a month and all since I last blogged...and what with me now having to endure some mocking from the peanut gallery, I guess it's time to do an update.

Basically the last few weeks have been consumed with two things...I'll talk about one this evening and the other over the weekend. The first thing has been trip planning.

I quite like trip planning. It's something I rarely got the chance to do before moving to Nunavut. The resources just weren't there. Now, a combination of having the resources and essentially spending money on nothing other than trips once you get past the usual necessities (Yes, I consider buying my graphic novels a necessity. Because if I don't buy them, I go crazy. Which makes things unpleasant for all concerned) we're able to do more travelling. And through a nice confluence of events, we're able to do more travelling than usual over the next six months.

I like trip planning. Perhaps the simple thing would be to go to a travel agent and get them to do all the work. But I like scouring websites looking for the best deals. I like reading travel journalism and books and finding cool things to do. I'm the type of person who is planning several years in advance for what the next trips are going to be.

As I said, a bit of luck this year, as we're able to go to Copenhagen for a few days, then hopping on a cruise ship where we're going to putter around the Baltic sea for 11 days, going to places like Oslo and Saint Petersburg (we'll have been to the one in Florida and Russia in the same year, which is kind of cool, now that I think about it). After the cruise we're stopping in Scotland to visit an old friend. And to buy a nice bottle of Scotch. Because if I'm in Scotland, I'm buying a nice bottle of Scotch. I'm currently thinking of an 18 year old bottle of Macallan, but other suggestions are welcome.

That alone would be a pretty good trip for the year, but as I said, we're getting lucky. For example, Air Greenland is starting flights into Iqaluit twice a week for this summer. Which might not seem like a big deal. After all, Greenland isn't that far away from Iqaluit. Except there hasn't been a direct flight between here and Nuuk, the capital, in 10 years. So if you wanted to get from here to there, you either had to hire a charter (let's say it's not cheap) or fly there via Copenhagen. It could take you two days or more to get to a place that is, realistically, a two hour flight away.

So there's a direct flight. This may be a one time thing if sales aren't great. So rather than take a chance, on Labour Day weekend we're going to pop over to Nuuk. Not entirely sure what we're going to do - I suspect there may be a tour of the fiords - as I've been focusing most of the last month on getting the Europe trip planned. I've also been told by people who have been there that, you know, there are limits on how much there is to do, especially with that much time. But we're going to Greenland.

I also have bragging rights. None of my university friends have ever been there. I get to be the first. This makes me happy in deeply petty ways, but I'm all right with that.

With some luck I might get to New York in October for the New York Comic Con. But I've thought that in 2010 and 2011 and it's always managed to fall through, so I'm not jinxing myself over that one yet. And it looks like we'll back back in Newfoundland for Christmas. Which I'm happy about, don't get me wrong, but steps will have to be taken to prevent us from losing our sanity and being completely exhausted at the end of it. Because that's what usually happens.

As for the future...I think we're about 90 per cent sure we're going back to California next summer. I'd like to go to Thailand the year after, but Cathy has serious dietary concerns (their tendency to cook a lot of their food in peanut oil which would kind of kill Cathy a lot). I think a trip to the Galapagos/Machu Picchu is in the mix as well. We've never been to South America. That seems like a good way to go about doing things. And then there are other trips that rattle around in my brain...the Canary Islands, Morocco, Egypt, Belize...

I'm always a touch reluctant to write about these plans. A couple of years ago I got chastised for talking about how much we buy/spend and it makes it sound like that's all we're focussed on. And it's not. But one of the big benefits of living where we do is that it offers us the opportunity to be able to do something we both love...which is travelling. None of this would be possible if we still lived in Newfoundland. I recall when we went to the Dominican in 2004 that the choice was literally we could go there, or we could make an RRSP payment, but not both. So we decided to hell with it, we can eat cat food for a few weeks when we're 90, but we wanted that trip.

So I hope no one is offended with what seems like bragging, but is honestly just excitement that we get to go and do a bunch of cool stuff over the next six months, but even more after that. I'm going to Talinn, Estonia this summer. I wouldn't have found that on a map when I was 16. Now I get to visit there. That's pretty awesome, any way you look at it...

Last Five
1. Mockingbird - Ryan Adams
2. Give me one reason - Tracy Chapman
3. Should I stay or should I go (live) - The Clash*
4. A little rain (live) - Tom Waits
5. Last of the American girls - Green Day

Ah, spring...

We all celebrate the arrival of spring in different ways. For some of you down south, perhaps it's breaking out shorts or skirts and sitting outside of coffee shops sipping lattes. And then there's how we roll in Iqaluit...

Cathy actually took out the deck furniture last weekend in a fit of optimism and was punished for it by getting about 30 cm of snow this past week. Mother Nature can be a vengeful bitch when she wants to be. I understand that much snow may not seem a lot, but consider two things:

1. This is still an arctic desert. We actually don't get much snow in the run of a year.
2. It's the end of April. Thirty cm of snow sucks at this time of the year no matter which way you cut it.

And it's not like we're entirely out of the woods. I recall there was a blizzard in Iqaluit back in 2004 that hit in May. Guy actually lost his life as he was caught out on the land. Still today it's sunny and beautiful and warm, hovering right around 0C. The bay looks like a speedway with all the snowmobiles zipping back and forth across it.

So yeah, this is nice. In a few weeks it'll be insane mucky and potholes will show up everywhere. But for right now, we're just enjoying the rare combination of sun, snow and warmth.

Last Five
1. Be the one - The Ting Tings
2. Something so strong (live) - Crowded House
3. Through & through & through - Joel Plaskett
4. Four kicks - Kings of Leon
5. Old shoes - Tom Waits*

A little catch-up

Huh, wow, two and a half weeks. Well, let's do an update here...

1. Florida went pretty well, even though Cathy and I both got nailed with fairly vicious head colds. Nothing like getting sick while on vacation. Mine managed to stay on a low boil for most of the vacation, only getting bad the second last day there. Cathy got hit early and, for extra flavour, managed to couple it with an allergic reaction. So we had no idea what drugs to give her to combat what. And "All the Drugs" is apparently not a good idea as it does weird things, like self-medicated comas, for a start.

As this is our third trip to Florida in as many years, I think I'm getting used to the weirdness. One of my friends asked me what strange stuff I saw down there, and I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head. The weird is the new normal. I mean, giant billboards advertising Emergency Rooms didn't even really register. Or doctors advertising their services for lawsuits. For that matter, the sheer volume of ads for lawyers....none of it really registers as weird anymore. The Wagon Wheel flea market was actually boring. The $1.50 pineapples didn't make me break down and start crying as they did in previous years.

Even belly dancers with fire doesn't really startle me anymore.

Or bunnies on the beach.

That bunny was actually on the beach right before Easter Sunday. Taking a break before the big day, I guess.

So yes, Florida is now kind of boring. Which means it's probably time for a change, but we'll see. We like going some place warm over Easter, but doing an all-inclusive is a bit of a waste of time when you don't drink, for example. And Florida is still quite cheap. But we have a year to figure things out.

Is it wrong, by the way, that I know most of the vacations we're going to take over the next four years?

2. There was some mild panic over whether or not Republic of Doyle coming back or not earlier this month. I confess I had mixed feelings. I've obviously been frustrated with the show, but was I frustrated enough to wish people out of jobs? Not really. I wish they would hire a proper script doctor to fix they many faults in the writing.

But despite the panic, there was never any real risk. It's still one of the CBC's highest rated shows. Also, and I'm sure they knew this when the decision was being made, the Newfoundland government kicked in something like $3 million to help with the cost of producing the show. I assume that doesn't count all of the tourism ads they put on during the show as well.

3. We're entering one of my favourite times in Iqaluit. The temperature is warm enough (around -10C) that you can put away the big winter coats and wear much lighter jackets. We can also crack open a window to let some fresh air circulate into the house. I understand that sounds insane for those of you down south as -10C is still too cold. But after a winter of -40C, well, the extra 30 degrees feels positively balmy.

But it's other stuff...it's warm enough to spend more time outdoors. The light at this time of the year, shining on the snow and the ice on the bay, is stunning. I'll try and get out and take some photos this weekend. It's nice to sit in the living room at the end of the day and watching snowmobiles going back and forth across the bay.

It's all on an edge, of course. In a few weeks time the daylight will go from nice to a little too much, when it will essentially give up being dark for the next few months, which leads to an increase in the craziness. The snow will start to melt, so there will be muck and potholes everywhere.

But for right now, it's nice.

4. Blogger has switched to a new format. Which I hate. So we'll see how this post works out...

Last Five
1. Cold desert - Kings of Leon
2. Never give up - Ron Sexsmith
3. I'm yours - Joel Plaskett Emergency
4. Breakdown into the resolve - Ryan Adams and the Cardinals
5. Here comes the rain again - Eurythmics*

Where the weird end up...

I guess before I get too deeply into this blog post I should mention something about the last Republic of Doyle....which is that it was that stupid that I think I finally might give up on the show. If the whole plot about accidentally robbing $2 million in gold bars didn't give you a brain cramp with it's overwhelming stupidity, then I have nothing for you. At all. It was dumbass from start to finish.

Also, and I know this is purely me, the last song they played before the credits rolled, really annoyed me. I like the idea that they're apparently going to end each season with a Ron Hynes slong, but "Atlantic Blue" is as close to a sacred Newfoundland song as there is. For those whoe don't know the history, it was written as almost a hymn for the men who lost their lives in the Ocean Ranger disaster 30 years ago. So yes, let's use a 15 second clip of it over a closing montage showing Des bleeding from a gunshot wound.

Gah. It just really annoyed me. It's a beautiful, beautiful song and you're going to waste it on this? Someone deserves a boot to the head. Seriously.

Anyway, as we clearly needed to recover from the mental damage the show inflicted, Cathy and I find outselves in warming climes. Yes, it's our annual (well, third year) pilgrimage to the land of the crazy....Florida. As a percautionary measure, we've left our hoodies at home.

Florida is always guaratneed to produce a steady stream of weird moments. Yesterday was my quest to get a hair cut...because as nice as my guy in Iqaluit is, we're looking at 30+ dollars there, versus $12 here. Which is why I was looking like bozo the clown the last week or so. But my usual marginally racist barber was closed unilt Monday, so I was left scrambling. Finally found a place that was open, walked in and discovered that, including me, there were exactly two white people out of the 20 or so people in there.

Still, excellent hair cut. Seriously, one of the best I've had in years. I mean, the guy spent 20 minutes on my hair. If you've seen how much I have left, you understand that you have to work to spend that much time on my hair. But man, they were thorough. Hell, there was a guy there who got in the chair next to me 20 minutes before I did and was still there when my cut was finished. If I had run into him on the street, I wouldn't have said he needed a cut to begin with. But they were seriously good barbers. Next time I'm back here, I'm hunting them down again.

Last night we did a walk down the beach and back (in lieu of my gym workouts, I'll be walking the beach at least twice a day) and came across a woman with a bunny (the easter bunny?) who were watching a pair of belly dancers playing with fire...literally. One had a hula hoop of fire, the other was doing something with a sword. I have pics to prove I haven't been drinking, but don't have an adapter to transfer them to the iPad. Not yet anyway. Maybe later this week.

Today was just the redneck flea market of the damned. Except I'm apparently getting blaise about it's charms. We burned through it in less than two hours this time. It seemed less interesting this time, although the price of food ($1.50 for a pineapple) still made me weep.

This evening is a buffet (a good one, apparently, as it costs more than $6 per person) and tomorrow is our Restocking of the Wardrobes, as we hit an outlet mall and drop an appalling amount of money in a few hours so we don't have to buy clothes for the rest of the year. Cathy's mom isn't coming this year. I think we scarred her for life last year.

More updates as more weirdness happens.

Last Five
1. Everybody knows (live) - Leonard Cohen
2. Magpie to the morning - Neko Case*
3. Gone tomorrow - The Monday Nights
4. Buzz Fledderjohn - Tom Waits
5. The loneliness - Fightened Rabbits

Curling finale

No Doyle this week. Between the gym and a few things that needed doing around the house after I got back from the gym, it was about 10:20 before I sat down. I think this week is the season finale, so I'll try and make time to sit down and watch it.

As for other things happening, curling season wrapped up for me this week. If I haven't spoken about curling quite as much as I usually do it's because I found this season a bit frustrating. I just wasn't playing well and it wasn't...fun, although I'm not sure why as the guys on my team are pretty cool. My third, a nice guy named Jeremy, joked during our final game last night that I never listen to his advice. My response is that in previous years my Third has been a cute woman and I'm apparently more receptive to their advice.

(There are many women I should apologize to for that last remark, but let's start with Cathy, and then move on to Stephanie and Ashley, who were my Thirds in recent years.)

I suspect many people would wonder why I was so frustrated. We didn't win our Tuesday League night, but we did win the B final that night, which was nice. We curled in the Canadian North Bonspiel last night (no plane ticket again, alas) and won the B Final in that event. Apparently, it's been a B kind of week.

The weekend was actually a lot of fun. It was only a three person team due to various weirdness. After losing an annoying game on Friday night (two of my final stones picked up debris and did weird thing. Cost me six points), we won Saturday morning, a nice strategic battle in the afternoon to get to the final and then an epic one in the final. We were the last teams on the ice, all I had to do with my last shot was make a take out to win...which I missed, of course. So now we're tied, it's 10 p.m. everyone else is eating and they're trying to convince us to go to an extra end.

We deferred, as we were all exhausted. Instead, we did a fun little bit of mental torture called skip stones. Basically each skip throws one rock, closest to the button wins. No pressure. The other skip went first and put his rock in the eight foot (the white rings, for those of you who watch curling on TV). I threw mine and put it on the button. It must be said, there is something nice about doing a pressure shot like that and making it, and then looking up and seeing people applauding (everyone was watching) and pounding on the glass.

I threw the last rock, in the last game of the season to win a final. I like that.

But I'm not sure it cancels out everything in the weeks before. As I said, I was frustrated a lot, my patience was thinner that it has been in years. My broom went flying a few times when I was frustrated, which I haven't done in about five years. That's not acceptable.

So I figure one of three things will happen.
1. Business as usual. I'll go back next season and do it all over again. The odds of that are marginally better after this week. And not just because of the wins. I notice my delivery is better as I've been losing some weight.

2. I'll put my name out there and if some team wants to recruit me, I'll curl with them on the condition I'm not the skip. I'll shoot Third stone or something.

3. Take a year, possibly more, off.

We'll see. I'm leaning towards #3, but that might change come September. Maybe the itch will be back.

But for now, time to hang up the curling shoes. I'll also have to see if I'm going to add Tuesday nights to the gym schedule. I've been going five nights a week, except Tuesday (curling) and Friday (recovery). Not sure I want to do six days a week at the gym, but I'll make my decision after Easter.

Last Five
1. Ribbons undone (live) - Tori Amos
2. The letter - Mark Bragg
3. Your heart is an empty room - Death Cab for Cutie*
4. Girls like you - The Naked and Famous
5. Tiger Lily - Ron Hynes

Recent Acquisitions

We haven't been down to the museum in town for a couple of months, I think. There's always lots of nice things there, but it can be expensive walking in there. There's a tendency to walk in with a full wallet and then walk out with it considerably lighter. Bringing your check book is a tremendously bad idea. Trust me.

There are several places in town where you can buy really nice carvings, but the museum consistently offers nice little pieces at quite reasonable prices. Let's put it this way, anytime someone comes in town and expresses and urge to buy a carving, they're steered straight to the museum.

We didn't go there looking for a carving yesterday...we were there for the Pangnirtung Print Collection. Cape Dorset gets all the attention when it comes to prints in Nunavut, but Pangnirtung has a history with prints (and tapestries) and sometimes you can find a nice print at a price that's not as high as what the Dorset ones have reached in recent years.

(I'm not saying the Dorset prints aren't worth the price, by the way. I'm all for artists getting what they can for their work. But I've noticed the spike in prices over the last seven years as their national popularity has spiked.)

We didn't find one we liked, alas. However, as this is why the museum is dangerous, we were poking around and seeing what else was there and fell in love with a carving. Several hundred dollars later, this guy is now in our carvings display.

The artist is Quraq Nugushuituq from Cape Dorset. It's also carved out of quartz, which is a little different. We have a couple of polar bear carvings, but this is the first one that's actually the same colour as the bear.

And because we're showing off a bit, a couple of other acquisitions I've just forgotten to put up on the blog. First, there's the one of a woman in an amunti we bought back in November.

The stone is serpintine and the face is made from caribou antler. The artist is Mosesie Ipeelee from here in town.

And finally, a couple of ookpiks (owls). The one on the left is more of a traditional one. The one on the right, well, someone got the idea of doing a set of ookpiks and dubbing them Angry Ookpiks, and dyed them the same colour as the Angry Birds. They were $30 each, so while it was tempting to go and buy the set, Cathy just settled on the blue one. I suspect, judging by how fast they disappeared (they were advertised on one of the Iqaluit Buy/Swap sites on Facebook) the artist is going to do quite well for herself over the next couple of months.

That's the thing about Iqaluit. It's dead easy for us to resist hitting the bars or eating out. But the sheer volume of art that's routinely dangled in front of you...that's the hard thing to pass up...

Last Five
1. Peace - Weezer
2. Mother - Emmanuel Jai
3. Champagne for my friends - Fall Out Boy
4. Yankee bayonet - The Decemberists*
5. Smoke detector - Rilo Kiley

Plate madness

Friends of mine on Facebook have already seen this, so my apologies to them. But for the rest of you, this might be of interest. It is also a cautionary tale.

A friend of mine posted a link to an eBay auction earlier this week (he's not the one running it) for a used Nunavut licence plate. Now, if you had asked me how much something like that would go for, I would have said $10...maybe. I would have been off by a considerable amount.

There's less than 30 minutes left as I write this, but allow me to say that $197 for a licence plate is insane (Note: It went for $213. Unreal). I would also like to point out that the plate is almost exactly the same as the plate for the NorthWest Territories. For that matter, $20 in shipping for the licence plate is also batshit crazy, but anyway...

I made the joke after I read that auction - when it was at $110, by the way - that I had a new retirement plan. It involved me taking the day off, going to my tool box for a screwdriver, and then taking a casual stroll around town. You know, for my health and all...

If that plate goes for $200, then aside from P.T. Barnum really being a genius philosopher, I am tempted to go out this evening with a screwdriver. I figure 300 licence plates would be enough to take care of my sealift this summer.

To my knowledge, they're still making them for another couple of months, so they're not really that rare or scarce. But I have to admit, if someone offered me $200 for the plate off the back of our car, I wouldn't sell it. So perhaps there is some truth to the value of the plate. I also have no idea what the licence plate collectors market is like. Maybe it is in demand, but I find $200 a touch insane.

Although I will say this...if this actually becomes a trend, and those plates start getting a couple of hundred dollars, my plate is going to disappear (i.e. it's going to be hung on my wall) and I'll go and get one of the new ones. I'll suffer the ugly one on the car; but having someone steal it (because word is going to get out around town about this) and sell it on eBay would be really annoying...

Last Five
1. Lithium - Nirvana*
2. The Jessica numbers - The New Pornographers
3. Anna...go to him - The Beatles
4. Follow the arrows - Sean Panting
5. Ireland - Tori Amos

This week's Doyle

See, it is entirely possible to do a solid, entertaining hour of Doyle without going completely off the rails. I think the difference is that this wasn't a silly episode. It had amusing moments and a few laughs, but the writers didn't chase them so desperately that the ran the plot clear off the rails, which they tend to do.

See, playing it straight can be your friend as well.

As is typical of Doyle, especially this season, we have several plots going on. The main plot involves Des father getting paroled from jail, and then promptly getting kidnapped. So the Doyles have to spring into action and figure out what's going on, if he's actually been kidnapped, and try to prevent Des from acting more of a spaz as always.

In plot #2, A retired RNC officer with a connection to Mal's past has been found murdered. Mal is acting vague in a way that fools absolutely no one (I assume they only thing he's worse at, other than being a father, is playing poker). Lesley knows he's hiding something, which is making her...crankier than normal.

Plot #3, we have Kathleen dealing with a sinister man from her past, along with a blue book and some money she possibly stole. Unsurprisingly, this is the least interesting of the plots. Fortunately it's also the one that gets the least amount of screen time.

The Des father plot actually holds up pretty ok. I like that they show his father his basically just an older version of Des - a geeky guy, who is a bit of a savant when it comes to electronics, a clutz and easily distracted. The difference is that he didn't have the Doyles to rescue him, like they did with Des. And lots of nice moments with each of the cast reacting to Des and his situation. Rose and Mal saying he's a good guy, Jake's mildly stunned reaction in realizing how much Des worships him and a lovely little scene with Rose and Tinny, where Rose essentially smacks down all of Tinny's bluster about how she feels about him.

Tinny, for all my bitching and moaning, can be an interesting character if they can ever figure out what to do with her. This episode she mostly worked.

Plus, there were few plot holes. Yes, it was mind blowingly stupid for the crook to take Des back to the spot where he held his dad, but I'll forgive that.

And, you know, for all the times that Jake gets hit in either the balls or the head, it's pretty well assured that he's sterile and probably should be showing the post-concussion symptoms you would see in a veteran NHL enforcer. But I digress...

The Mal subplot has some intrigue, just because it's nice to go back into his past a bit before he became a PI. The show is nearly three years old now. You can reach back into some of their pasts for story ideas. Rose's...checkered...history is a nice example. I hope they play it a bit straight, however. Lesley knows he's full of shit, so it would be nice to see if the rest of the Doyles quickly figure that out as well and Rose in particular, should be chewing his ass out. So a decent set-up for a story to come.

As for #3, Kathleen's whole point in the show seems to be more annoying than Tinny, thereby making her more sympathetic. If ever there was a time for a tragic death in the family, I'm leaning that way with the character. I imagine it's being all set-up for the season finale.

So yes, a good show. Solid, nice juggling of multiple plots, no boneheaded silliness...I could stand to see more of this.

Last Five
1. Scott Pilgrim - Plumtree
2. This is our perfect crime - The Von Bondies
3. Cold hands - Brendan Benson
4. Stop the clocks - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
5. Cigarette - Ben Folds Five