The Story of the Suicidal Fan

Elkford has been a much hotter place to live than I originally anticipated. Of course, part of that is probably due to being on the third floor, facing the evening sun. But still, it's been 33 degrees quite steadily for about the past month. I think my apartment in Egypt was cooler than the one I have now. Hard to say due to the fact that I've gone through another Canadian winter since then and have probably been reclimatized to Canadian weather. At any rate, sleeping has been difficult in this steady heat.

Luckily, while complaining to friends about the sweltering heat in our apartment, Aaron (with an 'a') mentioned that they probably had a fan they could lend me. After a peek downstairs, Kristine (with a 'k') came up with a small retro fan. It was a light blue thing that weighed as though it was made entirely of metal. And it probably was, too. The actual fan portion of it could probably double as a boat propeller. The grill on the front of the fan was not much of a grill, either. You could probably stick your fist in there and lose your entire hand. At any rate, I think it is safe to say that this fan was not built to run through the entire night, day after day, week after week. My first clue to this was when I would wake up in the morning and notice that my bedroom was much hotter than any other room in the apartment. I put my hand over the back of the fan and felt waves of heat billowing out of it. Had the surface been fit for cooking an egg, I certainly could have cooked an egg on it.

That was the first problem with that fan. The next problem was that it had a slight rattle to it. It wasn't so bad at first, but each day it seemed to get louder and more annoying. Last night the rattle was so bad that I couldn't even sleep. I lay there, glaring at the fan, willing it to stop rattling. Soon, my wish came true. The fan jumped off the chair it was sitting on and made a giant leap towards my bed. It tried too kill me! Now, when I say it 'jumped' off the chair, I probably mean it fell... but that doesn't make for a very exciting story now, does it? Anyways, that murderous fan jumped to its death, for upon landing, the metal propeller dislodged from it and started clawing at the sad excuse of a grill. Clearly the propeller was making a last ditch effort to kill me. I pulled the plug as it repeatedly bashed against the metal grill. It lay there, motionless. Dead. That was the end of the suicidal retro fan.

There is a happy ending to this story, though. Not for the crazy suicidal retro fan, but for me. I was telling the pastor of my church about the super crazy suicidal retro fan before church started this morning. He couldn't bear the thought of me trying to sleep in my hot apartment without a fan, so during the announcements, he told the congregation about my great need for a fan. Now I sit in my apartment with not one, but TWO working fans, one of which is massive. Tonight I shall sleep like a baby. May that super crazy killer suicidal retro fan rest in pieces. The end.

Customer Support at the Royal Bank

My new credit card arrived today. The number is 3405 1697 3843 1101, expiry date 4/10. Just kidding. Now, as I called the 1-800 number to activate it, I was welcomed by a woman by the name of Kalifa... or something like that. By the sound of her scripted greeting I wasn't sure if I was talking to a human or if I was still stuck on the automated menu system. Eventually I took a shot in the dark and talked into the phone. Turns out she was real. Sort of. Perhaps she was an intelligent voice activated bot. Hard to say, really. Before she activated my card she gave me a FIVE MINUTE speal - schpeal? - about balance protection. If it weren't for her monotonous reading of the benefits, I would've thought she was quite passionate about the subject. I continued to doubt her humanness throughout the 'conversation' because she ceased to take a breath, which left me unable to say I wasn't interested in the product. At this point I considered hanging up the phone... but my credit card wasn't activated yet! I figured this is the type of torture I'd have to sit through in order to get a time-share or something... not a free credit card. Eventually she asked me if I wanted to activate Balance Protection on my card. I said 'no'. Thirty seconds later she said she was going to activate Balance Protection on my card if it was alright with me. Yet another sign that she wasn't human. The final test was to ask her a question that had little to do with activating a credit card. I asked her if she could increase the balance on my card. She seemed startled that I asked her a question that wasn't on her script. Eventually she said she would transfer me to someone else to complete the task. Before I forget, I want to recommend to you right now, "BOYCOTT BALANCE PROTECTION ON YOUR CREDIT CARDS". Judging by the force with which they are pushing this service on us, they are making a killing off of it. Stay away from it.

The person I was transfered to was a human being. I know this because he actually had a personality. After I gave him my credit card number he kept grunting and mumbling, 'hmmm...' for about two minutes straight. No words, no typing, just 'hmm...' I wondering if he was playing a game with his co-workers, trying to see how long he could string a customer along without actually saying or doing anything. Anyways, eventually he asked me where I worked. When I told him I worked for a coal mining company, he started going off about global warming and the ozone layer. Then he told me about his great aunt who had lymphoma or some other weird disease that she apparently contracted by living a mile away from a coal pit. Multiple times he warned me to stay safe at my workplace. I told him that I was just an office worker, but he was convinced that my health was at risk.
"Try not to breathe," he said.
I told him that all of life's problems would go away if I stopped breathing at work.
Eventually he decided to increase my credit to the amount I suggested after saying, "as long as you think you can handle it."
I thanked him and told him to have a good day.
He responded, "me too."
Not "you too."
"Me too."

Maybe he was a robot too...

Thunder in the Valley

Last night I attended the legendary "Thunder in the Valley" fireworks display in Blairmore, Alberta. This was unlike any other fireworks show I had attended before. People began flooding into the town at 6 pm for a show that didn't even begin until 11 pm. The town is overrun by people for this event. Police, RCMP, and firemen are brought in from surrounding towns and cities to help control the onslaught of people. The railroad through town was shut down and speed limits were lowered along the highway.

The show was ushered in with AC-DC's 'Thunderstruck'. The fireworks began in huge quantities as if we were already at the show's finale. Throughout the show I remember my chest shaking from all of the explosions above me. The sound was truly thunderous. Now and then flame mushroom clouds would shoot from the ground, instantly warming our faces. Other fireworks were so bright that they lit the field as if it were day. This was one firework display that my camera simply couldn't capture properly. Most of the time there were too many colors in the sky, too many different things going on. These pictures simply don't do justice to the show.

All too soon 'Thunderstruck' began a second time as the finale of the evening began (though, as I said before, it seemed as though the finale began when the show did). Now all that was left was a sea of people in a town unfit to hold them all. We spent over two hours sitting in my vehicle, waiting for traffic to move. The town had been hit by a plague of tourists and simply couldn't cope. Despite all of the rerouting of roads and police directing traffic, things simply weren't moving. Our only entertainment was watching drunk people brawling outside the bars, angry drivers shouting at each other, and the odd group of police officers chasing after someone. It was truly a festive evening.

Comedy

Do you know what the best kind of comedy there is? Some people will say puns are, because they're witty. Those people are idiots. Others will say sarcasm. But that gets old after a while. According to the comedians on TV, sexual comedy is the funniest. That's clearly not the answer, though. If it stops being funny when your grandma walks in the room, how funny can it be?

To me, the greatest form of comedy is none other than physical comedy. It's universal! Kids laugh when you stub your toe and dance around teaching them new words. People who don't even speak your language will undoubtedly laugh when you get bonked over the head with a frying pan. Take a look at 'America's Funniest Home Videos'. Every show has a segment of guys getting hit in the balls.

Why is it so funny to laugh at other people's misfortunes? Why is it that I will go to a skateboard park just to watch people fall? Why is it always tough to hold in your laughter when your friend gets electrocuted? C'mon! I know it isn't just me that finds this stuff funny. Think about it... You're sitting at the dinner table, eating some Shepard's Pie. Sally takes a drink. As she swallows, and bit of her water goes down the wrong pipe. Suddenly she starts coughing uncontrollably. Between coughs you can hear a bit of a gurgle and the odd burp. The rest of the water in her mouth comes splashing out all over her food as she continues to cough. Soon she's dry coughing with a little string of slobber hanging down into her plate. Sally thinks she's dying. Everyone else at the table thinks it's hilarious. You must find this funny. I always get loads of laughs when I do this gag. Of course, I never do it on purpose, but that's besides the point.

Now that I've convinced you that physical comedy is funny, let me tell you about my favorite part of each day. The ride home from work. Each day at 4 pm, the office staff from our mine file out of the building and onto a blue and white prison bus. Since most people wake up at 5 am each morning, they are quite ready for a nap during the ride home. I never sleep in vehicles any more because I'm too scared the driver will fall asleep (thanks dad). So, while sitting bored for the 25 minute drive home, I watch people as they nod off to sleep. The exciting ones to watch are the people who sit fully upright in their seats and sleep. As they sleep their heads bob back and forth as the speed of the bus changes. The best part of the drive is when we reach the switchbacks near the bottom of the mountain. The bus turns corners so sharply that those upright sleepers with the bobbing heads suddenly get their head smashed against the window. They wake up in a panic wondering what in the world could be happening. Then they rub their head and glare at the window for a while. I can't help but laugh to myself every time this happens. It's even funnier when it happens to the same person multiple times. Some people just never learn!

Fun with Silica Gel!

The great Silica Gel Experiment of 2007 is approaching. Today, while carrying out the mundane task of inventorying new computer products, I found a package of Silica gel. Noticing that the package says "DO NOT EAT. THROW AWAY" on it, I promptly dared my coworker, Chad, to eat one. Haven't you ever noticed that when something says DON'T you have an uncontrollable urge to DO? I was reminded of this about a week ago when I opened up a new hard drive that had a tiny hole on the top of it. Beside the hole was a sticker that said, "Do not cover hole." Naturally I covered the hole with my finger. I half expected a spike to shoot out of the hole and penetrate my finger. Nothing happened, though. I'm still alive, and so is the hard drive.

Back to my story, though. I offered Chad one dollar to eat one Silica gel capsule. "A shiny new loonie with your name on it," I said. He was tempted, but being the safety conscious guy he is (Chad will lecture a police officer on not being safe), Chad decided to look up the qualities of Silica gel on Wikipedia. While learning all about Silica gel, we learned that if the capsule turns pink after it gets wet, then it is toxic. To test this theory, we poured some Silica beads into a little indent in a piece of styrofoam and added some water. The Silica beads didn't turn pink. But they DID start popping like popcorn. After a minute or so of popping, the Silica gel settled down again.

Seeing what fun that was, Chad and I poured a much larger amount of beads onto the styrofoam and then poured water onto it. If a few beads were fun, more beads would be hysterical! This time, the beads got a little out of hand and started popping all over our office. We shielded them as best we could with our hands while trying to stifle our laughter. You'd be amazed at the things that amuse you when you have an office job. Anyways, this little experiment gave us a great idea: for the rest of the summer, we will stockpile all of the silica gel we get from packages. At the end of the summer we'll take the beads outside and throw them into a bucket of water. Can you imagine the fun this will be? Oh joy!

For the rest of the day I kept slipping on Silica beads that had popped all over our office. It's actually kind of cool when you roll over them because they shoot straight into the air and hit the ceiling. It's kind of embarrassing when this happens when the boss comes in, though. How do you explain Silica beads shooting through the air in your office? Anyways, give it a try. Add some water to your Silica beads. The fun is never ending. I dare you to eat one!

While in Calgary this past weekend, I picked up a book entitled "Walking the Bible". It is "A journey by land through the five books of Moses," written by Bruce Feiler. Last year I read William Dalrymple's "From the Holy Mountain" which was a journey through the shadows of fading Byzantine culture in the Middle East. Dalrymple's book whetted my appetite for travel literature, particularly in the Holy Lands which is why "Walking the Bible" seems so appealing to me. In this book, author Bruce Feiler grabs his Bible and heads off to the Middle East to travel around to each area mentioned in the Pentateuch. As he is at each spot, he reads the Biblical account that happened around that area. This is something I enjoyed doing last summer while I was traveling through Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. I only wish I could've packed more of it into my short travels. At any rate, if you notice a lack of blogs in the next week or two, it's probably because I'm journeying through the Holy Land with Bruce Feiler as my guide. Feel free to run to your local Chapters/Indigo/Coles store so you can join me on this journey. For my lazy Canadian readers, you can click here to purchase the book on Amazon.ca.

Mt. Wapiti

These are a few of the pictures I took during Saturday's hike. Click here for more!

A Manly Day

Yesterday (SATurday) I woke up at 7 am (on a SATurday), ready to hike a mountain (yes, on a Saturday). The weird thing about this is that 7 am was sleeping in for me. The van Leeuwens (my host family in Egypt) would be proud of me. Three friends and I set off to hike Mount ______ (I actually don't know the name of it... neither did anyone I was hiking with). The bottom portion of this mountain is a ski hill, so, many people just refer to it as 'the ski hill' (have you noticed how many brackets I've been using? It's like I'm giving a commentary on my writing as I write it... stay tuned for more). By the time we reached the top of the ski hill, one of the guys we were with was sweating quite profusely and unable to catch his breath. He decided he could no longer go on with us and turned back. Being the men we were, we let him leave so he wouldn't slow us down. By 11:40 we reached the peak of the mountain. Now, when I say peak, I don't mean a nice flat area where lots of people can sit and enjoy the view. I mean a place where three guys can barely sit comfortably to enjoy the view without falling off the cliff in front of them, or falling back down the shale slopes of the other side. Definitely the least accommodating mountain peak I've ever been to.

After enjoying the view for a few minutes and seeing if our (my) belches would echo through the valleys, we slid (unintentionally) down the shale until we reached more solid ground. From there we scouted out of a good spot for a fire where we could cook up some lunch. Naturally, I brought along my Heinz Ketchup (because there's no other Keinz) to garnish my burnt hot dogs. This is when I realized that I brought along as much Ketchup as I brought of water. This is also when I realized that 7 hot dogs will make a man quite thirsty. This is when I ran out of water.

Going down the mountain wasn't the speedy endeavor I was hoping it would be. The whole way down we were doing controlled falling (as much as we could control, at least). At one point, the guy in the rear fell and let loose a huge rock which came shooting down directly at us. Chad and I both had to jump in the air to dodge the rock as it bounced up just before reaching us. We narrowly cleared the rock as it continued rocketing down the mountainside. On the way down I realized how inconvenient is was to bring a digital SLR camera on the hike with me. The other two guys were struggling to keep from breaking bones. I was struggling to keep from breaking my camera. As we descended farther and farther down the mountain, I became more and more parched. At first I was getting the pasties (how did that glue get in my mouth?). Then there was nothing. Not even cotton. I quickly realized that my lips were chapping. I was surely going to die (not from chapped lips).

Eventually, we emerged from the thick brush and trees at the top of the ski hill. I saw the lodge at the bottom of the hill and began running towards it. Fifteen minutes later I reached it, with newly formed blisters on my feet from the run down the hill. Surely that was in record time. I chugged 1.5 Litres of water, forgetting that I needed to breathe. This is when I remembered the seven hot dogs I ate... and the seven buns they were in. Those buns suddenly expanded in my stomach. But it was worth it. Water was my new best friend. After getting home I drank as much water as I could stomach. Soon I was able to pee for the first time since waking up that morning. I don't want to over-elaborate here, but my pee was a distinct orange color, much like the time I was OD-ing on multi-vitamins.

That evening, with a searing headache from dehydration, I decided to go fishing with my friend Joe. He taught me to fly fish! I caught three fish that evening. Two with the fly rod, and one with a spool rod. Not too shabby! Anyways, I got home and reflected on all the outdoorsy stuff I did that day, and came to the conclusion that it was a manly day. That 'Wild at Heart' fellow would be proud of me. Click here to see some pictures from the hike.

Fireworks!!

These are a few of the pictures I took this past weekend of the fireworks from Wildcat Days and from Canada Day. Click here to see more of them!

Wildcat Days

These are a few photos that I took during Elkford's "Wildcat Days" this past weekend. Wildcat Days is the town festival, complete with parades, bands, beer gardens, games, and fireworks. I'll be posting some pics of the fireworks at a later date. I was amused while taking these pictures because so many people would see my big camera and ask if I was from the newspaper or a magazine or something. Ha! Small town folk.

Soccer Tournament

I'm sure you're all dying to know the results of this weekend's U16 soccer tournament. The day began at 9 am with a game against Sparwood 1, which was the only team that ever beat us during the regular season (and only because their ref was clearly sleeping with someone on the Sparwood team... what an outrage). The Combat Wombats (that's our good ol Elkford team, in case I haven't told you that before) took out Sparwood 1 no problem. Next game was at 12:20 against Pincher Creek (yes, they're the ones with the new Wal-mart and they're pretty cocky because of it). Pincher Creek couldn't handle the Wombat Power and quickly (two 40 minute halves later) handed Elkford yet another victory. This brought us to the Gold Metal Match against Sparwood 2, the climax of our year. Going into this game we were all pretty confident that we would walk away with the gold. Perhaps too confident. The first goal of the game was by us... only it was on our own net (a slight defensive redirection gone wrong). Eventually we tied it up with another goal. Late in the second half we scored once again. 2-1, Elkford. Sparwood has yet to score their own goal. A few minutes before the end of the game, Sparwood gets their first REAL goal, tying the game at 2-2. This brought us to five minutes of overtime, which quickly disappeared. The goal metal match was to be decided by a shootout. Apparently it only makes sense for a team game to be concluded by putting all the hopes of winning on a single individual. Poor goal keepers. I won't bore you with the dramatic details of the shoot-out because in the end... we lost. Not to worry, though, we still got silver metals. I took a bunch of pictures throughout the tourney, the are uploaded into two galleries. Click here for soccer galley #1. Click here for soccer gallery #2. Here are a couple to whet your appetite: