The End is Near!

This time last year I was studying for first semester finals. Now, I am running around trying to get everything finished while also trying to get my practicum in place. My college experience has felt so short yet so packed with information. I have learned so many things in such a short amount of time. I can't wait to be done school FOREVER but I will still miss having TV classes (and partial radio classes) and all my classmates.

Thanks for everything!

I'm outs!

The 11 Dollar House!

I recently went by the 11 Dollar House and checked out what it was all about. It's amazing! For people who don't know, the 11 Dollar House is a house that was supposed to be condemned but two people, David and Esther, were kind enough to save it. Now they are fixing it up and giving it away. Yes, an entire house. For free. True story. I would not lie to you. I went and saw it with my own eyes.

The house is three stories: main floor, upstairs for bedrooms, and the attic, which could be another bedroom or a den. AND the basement. The entire house has been gutted and is in the process of being redone. David does, well, pretty much all of the work and it's pretty much a full-time hobby. He's there from 9-5 every day of the week working away at completing the house.

The interesting thing is this: David is a lawyer, not a carpenter or a tradesman. He has learned everything from books or from his dad. When I visited him at the house, he was putting up siding. Honestly, how many people actually know how to do this?!

Here's how the contest works: you, YES YOU, any random person, sends $11 to David and Esther along with reasoning for why you deserve the house. No job? Need more space? Whatever your reason is, David and Esther want to know. Now of course, people are going to think, "why waste my time? I won't win it." WRONG. The winner isn't just randomly placed in a draw. The entries are all taken into consideration individually. They vary from videos to letters to songs. Whatever you can think of, do it! A lady entered and said that if she won the house, she'd use the basement as a studio to teach people how to do flower bouquets. What would you do with the basement?? ENTER! and tell David and Esther.

They need to have 25 000 entries by December 31, 2008. If they don't get it, the deadline may be extended and if that doesn't work, the house will be sold. Honestly, how often do you get to pay $11 for a house? That's it!

I just think it's crazy that these people have worked on this house for more than 2 years and they're just going to give it away! I don't think I'd even work on my house for 2 years. Seriously. So enter. And tell me if you win the house so I can come visit!!

http://www.the11dollarhouse.com/

DO IT!

CFR=Not Okay

Let's start out by saying that rodeos disgust me.  I watched recent footage of the CFR and couldn't handle it.  First of all, what's the whole point?  How is it fun to go and watch someone tighten a saddle around a horse and watch him buck until someone almost gets injured?  Not that I feel sorry for the people who do get hurt, because it's their own fault.  But what is this proving?  The worst part of it all was watching the cattle roping.  A small, innocent calf goes running out and two cowboys come after it, rope its feet, and pull it in two different directions.  WHY?  This is sick and twisted.  Then, another calf comes out running and a single cowboy follows him out, throws a rope around his head, jumps off the horse, picks the calf up and throws it to the ground then walks away while the poor calf runs for its life.  How is anyone sick enough to do this to an innocent animal?  And if that wasn't enough, Taft wants to make the rodeo Alberta's official sport.  WHAT?  So we can see more people torture cattle?  Yeah, that's a real good idea.  It's bad enough that the CFR rolls in once a year.  Making it Alberta's sport will just be a cruel, year-long reminder.  Don't tell me the animals aren't bothered by all of this happening.  Do people really know that the calves don't mind this?  I don't think so.  They're scared out their mind and are running to try and get away, not running so someone can catch them with a rope.  For those people who take part in these activities, you should be ashamed.  If you want to play a sport, go play a real sport where you play against other humans who can equally hurt you back.  Leave the animals alone.

American Election

If I have to hear one more thing about Barack Obama becoming the new president, I'm probably going to puke. Sure, he beat out McCain and became the first African-American president. And yes, I did want Obama to win and I am happy that he was voted in. But that's it. That's as far as it goes. I will not rant and rave about how he is going to fix everything and be the greatest thing that ever happened to the US. After each Canadian election for a new prime minister, I barely heard anything about who won or how great it was. Yet when the US election was over, everywhere I went and every radio station I listened to talked about how Obama won. How much coverage do Canadian elections get in the States? Next to none, because if you head anywhere down south, how many people know who the Canadian prime minister actually is? Hardly any, and most people think we have a president as well. People who made ecstatic phone calls to their friends when they found out Obama won need to relax. Calm down because a week from now you'll have forgotten all about it.

Wayne the Denny's Guy

I had the greatest experience at Denny's a short while ago. Yes, I did say Denny's. Most people have good experiences here the morning after they've been partying all night and are ridiculously hungover. I, however, went there for the sole purpose of meeting up with a friend and we would both term this Denny's location "epic". Generally speaking, when you head into a restaurant of any sort, you get the typical server who is polite and cheerful and gives you pretty good service for the duration of your stay. Then you get the occasional server who you know doesn't want to be at work that day and it shows in the way you get treated. On this day, however, we walked into Denny's and right off the bat our server and seater, Wayne, was the most flamboyant server I have ever seen. He was amazing. He whisked us to our seats and took our drink order immediately, and then was back in a flash to take our food order. When it was my turn to order, he turned and said "fire at will!" rather than your typical "what can I get you?" As he was running in between tables, Wayne continued to look over and, while running by, would yell "you ladies okay?!" We'd always laugh and say yes and then he'd be gone again to help another table. When our orders did come, Wayne came to our table and stood there, setting down one item at a time and letting us know what it was.

"App sampler. Marinara sauce. Honey mustard. Jam. Butter. Grand Slam. Syrup. There you go! Enjoy!"

Then he was gone again. We ate our meal and as Wayne tended to another table of two guys, he asked them how they were doing. Clearly annoyed, he walked by our table saying, quite loud, "That's okay, don't answer me. I like to be annoyed." Awesome. Because quite clearly, the table of two guys were not enjoying this service as much as we were.

Wayne came back to clear away our plates and when asked if there was still pumpkin pie to be had, Wayne joyously told us there was and quickly brought a piece to the table along with a can of whipped cream.

"Say when!!" He seemed quite excited about placing the whipped cream on the pie.

Probably the best server I have ever seen. He wasn't at some high end restaurant, where you are expected to act classy. He works at a Denny's and has fun with his job, which more servers should be like.

Needless to say, we tipped him quite well at the end of the night. While leaving we let him know that the money was on the table and his response was, "Alright ladies, thank you so much! Have a great night! See you later! Bye!"

Epic.

ICE School

When you head out to a hockey game, most people see a sign that says "Oilers ICE School" but have no idea what it is. I got the chance to spend a day up close in ICE School on Monday and it answered a bunch of questions I had. What happens is a school applies to bring their class to ICE School and priority is given to some special needs classes and schools outside of the city.

On Monday, I happened to be there when a grade six class from Entwistle attened the school. They show up in the morning and head up to the classroom and on that particular day (October 20) the Sportex was being taken down. So the class got together and walked from Rexall across to the Northlands grounds and watched tractors destroy the walls of the Sportex. The kids then headed back to Rexall where a security guard was waiting outside the entrance doors with his security car. The class got a chance to try out their interviewing skills and then had the opportunity to look inside of the car.

The kids then headed back up to the classroom where they were able to eat their lunches followed by a quick reading period. After gathering together again, it was then time to do a building tour. This is probably everyone's favourite part of the day because we all got to see the ins and outs of Rexall Place.

We first headed up to the gallery section (aka the "nosebleeds") and on this day, the staff at Rexall was actually getting setup for the NBA pre-season game that night. It was an interesting setup, as the basketball floor they used was actually the basketball court from the U of A main gym and the nets were brought in from Vancouver.

While sitting in the seats of the nosebleeds, we all got the chance to sit and watch the Denver Nuggets practice - definitely something that is not seen every day!

After touring the other levels of Rexall, the class was finally taken to level 2, a level where no one sees but the employees of Rexall, which was a neat experience for everyone. After the tour, the class headed back up to the classroom and wrote about their experience in their journals. After a quick question and answer period, the class then headed back down and out to the bus after a busy first day.

Since the class was from out of town, they only attend the school for four days, compared to the five days for schools from Edmonton. The difference between the two is that the four days are longer days, as more information must be crammed into a shorter period of time.

Overall, it was a great experience for everyone, including me as I now know what the ICE School is and can see the signs hanging around Rexall and know what they're all about.

Good times parking this week

I had tickets to the Oilers season opener on Sunday and left work at my usual quitting time, 6pm.  I had forgotten that the hockey game actually started at 6 as well, since it was a Sunday game and those games are generally earlier.  I got off work and drove to Rexall where I expected to outwit the parking gate guys and park in the Northlands parking lot and walk over to Rexall.  As soon as I got to the gates where you should pay, I realized all booths were empty.  I looked around and proceeded to drive straight through the gate, saving myself a whopping $12 on parking.  But I wasn't just going to be satisfied with free parking.  I maneuvered around parking attendants and illegally park cars until I found it.  At last.  After I had just missed the first goal of the game by Shawn Horcoff.  The closest parking spot possible right by the ramp to get to Rexall was open, or at least it looked that way from where I was.  I figured when I drove up to it, it would have a Smart car parked in it and I would have to park miles away once again.  But no.  Shockingly, it was open and I pulled right in and was in to watch the game in no time.

THEN, my parking luck continued yesterday.  I parked in the loading zone at school because really, it was way too cold and windy and I had too much to do to want to park at least 15-20 minutes away in residential.  When the time came to move my car when my 30 minutes was up, I drove around the parkade in hopes of finding a semi-close parking spot.  I turned the corner and luckily, two cars up, there was an opening.  I pulled up and checked for a fire hydrant or a "no parking" sign.  There was bound to be one of the two because those spots are never open.  But no.  It was actually an open spot.  Now it was time for me to perfect the finer points of parallel parking.  Let's face it: whenever someone gets their license, all driver's ed tips go out the window, and the first one is generally parallel parking because everyone hates it.  It's difficult to master and time consuming to repeatedly try to park while people that walk by just laugh because clearly you are having trouble.  This was definitely one of those days for me and took me at least three times to even partially get my car in the spot.  I did succeed, however, because I would never pass up an opportunity for close, free parking.

AND that's not all!  Today when I arrived at school at the early hour of 7am, I pulled into the closest parking lot there is to the RTA building.  Parking is generally $5 but for me today?  FREE.  Yes, my parking luck continued yet again as the parking machine read "Machine out of Order".  I really didn't have a problem with this but figured I should call the number on the machine just so that I wouldn't get a ticket.  Security picked up and when I told them the situation, he replied with "I''ll have someone check into it.  You'll be fine to park there today".

Score.