Below the Rink - Sept 13th 2011



Official Univ Portrait

 Have you ever wondered what's below the ice rink? Well I found out today while sitting in my office, reading the paper over lunch. Yes...I have an office now. I'm teaching at the university! This is the job I've always wanted - to mold young minds, steering them along their engineering path to going and doing something, while I continue to steer. (There was no sarcasm in that sentence whatsoever). The photo to the right is the official one they took. I included it only because for some reason, every time I look at it, I laugh.

Sorry for that side note...The second part of that sentence that may shock you is that yes...I read the paper now. I even subscribe. I'm trying my best to be a full grown adult and read the paper everyday. Since I am rarely full grown, I lapse and try to catch up on previous news articles during lunch.

This paper is a bit different than the one you may receive in your fancy big towns. There were 5 articles over the last two weeks about a missing life-sized paper mache Elvis. Yup. That's right, a home made elvis. The first article was that it was stolen, the next was a plea from the owner to return it, next was a continued plea to the community to return it, followed by an announcement of a fire where blue suede shoes and a wig were found next to the rubble, and finally a nice piece on an Elvis impersonator donating a number of items to the family who no long have a paper mache Elvis. Now to be fair, the Elvis belonged to a man who made it for his adult handicapped son who is a big fan of the King, so I have to believe that is why so much attention was brought to the saga.

Nonetheless, I was riveted over the last few days to try to keep up to date on the events. In each of those editions, there was also a paragraph or two on the fires in Texas and a whole article on Libya, so they do cover world events, but special attention is given to those sweet pieces and local charm that often get overlooked by those big city papers. They used to list all of the crimes that were committed within the city, including every burglary offence, but that recently stopped. I read an article the other day about a 'battered woman' who's man was given a suspended sentence because although he never hit her, he did pull her hair in one heated argument. I love this town where that mild offence (though still really really bad) is news!

Okay back to my original story - today, while eating lunch and reading the paper, one of the other prof's came in and said he was going to get a tour of the hockey rink and pool heat exchange system. He was planning on taking his students there later in the week and wanted a pre-tour. If you take out the engineering lingo, this means, tour the ice rink....down below! I quite literally skipped along to see what goes on down there. It was really neat. There were a lot of pipes and I was surprised to learn that they use ammonia, brine water, and heated city water to make the ice. At the same underground location, they heat the swimming pool. They use this neat exchange system to simultaneously heat one and cool the other. Okay, this is the reason I started to write the blog and clearly I had more to say about the newspaper, but nonetheless, I got an unexpected tour today, and some some dorky fun!

A Princess Party! – April 29th, 2011

After watching an entertaining episode of the Middle, about a random middle-class family in Ohio or somewhere in middle America, I was inspired to plan a princess party. While I have not been caught up in any of the details of the Royal wedding, I do like parties, especially when you get to dress up like a princess. On this episode of the Middle, the mom was so excited for the Royal wedding that she bought memorabilia and a new tv to watch the event. I wasn't alive for the Diana Charles royal wedding, but all my cousins are quite excited to tell me their memories of the event. Even when I lived in England, I never really got caught up with the royal bug. I think we lived there when Princess Diana died and I don't remember watching the funeral. Anyway, this lets you know how surprised I was to hear myself suggesting a princess party to my cousins to commemorate the event. Since I missed so many of the 'where were you when events' – moon landing, the day JFK was shot, etc, I didn't want the only one I do remember to be 9/11. Plus not that I'm Canadian and all, it's practically the law to watch it.

Me, Kennedy, Michelle, Rita, and Leanne toasting

We hashed out a plan to meet at my cousin Michelle's house at 1pm. She had dvr'd the event on two different stations so we had a choice. I spent a bit of time braiding my hair in cornrows in a starburst pattern and then curled the rest of my hair, and dressed in a regal gold dress with matching shoes. I was thrilled to see my family had also dressed for the occasion in glittery wedding attire.

Once our tiaras were secured and the crumpets and snacks were within reach, we started the wedding. I had more mocking, sarcastic comments while the other guests were more positive, but I think we all had fun. Right before Kate stepped out of the car, we ran to the kitchen and brewed tea to be ready to see her dress with teacup in hand. It reminded me quite a bit of my mother's dress, with a very Disney princess neckline. When it came time for the announcement that they were married, we had the champagne cork popped and flutes filled.

Tea and crumpets

The best part of watching it hours later (other than getting to sleep in) was we were able to skip all of the boring parts and pause for personal commentary and judging of the amazing hats. It turned out to be a lot of fun and I was thrilled that an event that would have otherwise gone unnoticed in my book became a fun memory!

30 Hours of Isolation – May 11, 2011

So I have been putting off this one project for Mikinduri since we came back in March. Last year, I worked on the patient records database immediately as I was in Phoenix and 'homesick' for the Mikinduri crew. This year, I was on the road for 3 weeks and try as I might, cannot find the motivation to focus long enough to work on this. With the next three weeks quite full with other Mikinduri tasks (and family fun), I neeeed to focus and get this done! So I'm going out to the family cottage.

We have this great asset in the family that my grandpa built, slowly expanding it from a one room summer dwelling to a four bedroom cottage complete with an outhouse. My uncles did a lot of work to keep up the cottage, but despite their efforts, it was turning into a rustic fishing cottage with great character, but not a lot of cleanliness. My immediate family helped maintain the cottage one day every year when we came to visit PEI in the summer, and learned great skills like shingling, tarring a roof, and leveling. We also had a lot of fun at the cottage as the whole Grant clan would join together with cousins all over the place, swimming in the river, climbing trees, and the adults gathered with drinks in hand. (At some point before my time the outhouse had been renamed the pump house, there was indoor plumbing, and one of the bedrooms was converted to a bathroom complete with shower). When my uncles' grandkids popped on the scene, they simultaneously came to the realization that we should fix up the cottage to be safe, clean, and especially rodent free so the next generation could come and have fun and their mothers wouldn't be scared to bring them. Two of my uncles then devoted nearly every weekend for months to bring the cottage up to grandkid code, and boy did they! You would never know this quaint, clean, finished, beautiful cottage was ever home to bats, mice, or a swarm of mosquitoes. (One year the mosquitoes were so bad, I slept in a pup tent in the living room to avoid the blood-suckers!) All of the work they put in is so appreciated as this building is now a treasure that we as a family of 16 cousins and 5 parents maintain through our board with rules, dues, and calendars for timesharing.

I went off the grid to try to accomplish my goal. It's not really off the grid, as there is electricity, but there's no internet, phones, cell service, and since the pump isn't hooked up there's no running water. The only heat is from a stove in the center of the room. I love how quaint that is, and it really does a great job of heating up the place using the wood I cut as a lumberman last fall. It turns out though, that if you break that little glass window on the front, it doesn't work nearly as well, and goes through wood very very quickly! It was a bit chilly when I got out here yesterday, and while I'm not scared to be out in the middle of nowhere alone with no cell reception, I did want to take precautions. After driving my car through the entrance, I put the chain back up to make it look like the house wasn't being used, and I parked around back. I realize that having the lights on and smoke coming from the chimney might have indicated someone was present, but hey, it was a first glance kind of precaution.

My first task was to start the fire, and I did so after only 2 attempts! I then added logs throughout the day to keep the fire going. This plan was going great until about 10pm at night when I realized I needed to put a nice big log on to keep me warm all night. I opened the heavy cast iron door and tossed the log in. It looked like everything was staying in place, so I shut the door. At that moment the giant log rolled off the top of the wood that was already on fire and tried to escape through the glass. It was nearly successful as though it had no pointy parts, it broke the glass. I then spent the next 10 minutes looking for something to cover the front of the stove to keep the glass as in place as possible to keep the heat in and limit the amount of air getting in. There was the perfect lasagna sized aluminum foil pan that I put up to the shattered glass and thanks to it being so cold outside, this was sucked in and sealed onto the broken glass. Success! The next morning the fire was still on, but I had to open the doors to throw a few more logs in as it was getting cold in the room. At this point all the glass fell out and for the rest of the day I stayed in my sleeping bag while working on my projects. It's a good thing my dog is a Pomeranian; if he was any other breed he would have frozen his tail off. (Note: while crossing the bridge to get replacement for the glass, a rock flew up and cracked my windshield. What is that – 14 years of bad luck??)

Having noise in the background was still a necessity, so I was able to get caught up on the last 2 months of podcasts. I then walked down memory lane with Evita, recalling an awesome trip to Cyprus where my sister bought this on cassette and we listened to it for hours. (CD's were quite popular at the time so the fact that we bought it on cassette shows it was both on sale and probably a bootleg copy). After I had enough of Madonna trying really hard to hit the high notes, I stumbed on an old lp recording of Jesus Christ Superstar my dad converted to mp3. We listened to this lp around Easter when I was younger (when cassettes were around but not overly present in my house). I had no idea Jesus was such a fan of hair bands. I mean I know He loves us all equally and especially likes music praising Him, but I wonder if He has a musical preference. If so, I'll bet it's polka. You can find that familiar Oom-pa-pa tune in just about every culture, right now it's heavy in Mexican music.

I got a bunch of work done and the solitude was the perfect place to focus. I didn't finish my task entirely, but another day or two at the cottage should accomplish that. It was kind of fun trying to eat with no water running water. To make my highly nutritious Mac and Cheese (aka KD in Canada) I had to get water from the deep freeze behind the pump house. Luckily, the entire lobster I enjoyed for lunch didn't require any water, as it was mere leftovers from Mothers Day. (Yup I did just say that in between my can of peas and mac and cheese I enjoyed a fresh lobster!) Dishes were a bit harder task to accomplish and I was beginning to have to use the bathroom really bad. We'll not go into that.

Overall I had a great time off the grid and discovered text messages could still go through if I had the cell in just the right spot. I need to pack up my laptop now so I can go back to being on the grid…as if I was ever really off it.

Only 1 Vote, eh? May 2, 2011

Okay, so there's an election on Monday (has anyone in the US heard about this??), and since I'm Canadian and am so very informed on the issues, I should vote. Well, that informed part isn't actually true (especially with how much the US learns about Canada), so I decided to change that with the help of the internet. I started at www.elections.ca to find out who the parties and candidates are. After scouring each of the four main parties' websites: Liberals, Conservatives, Green Party, and NDP (New Democratic Party), I have learned that they all plan on spending a lot of money and yet somehow fixing the deficit. Huh, this is starting to sound similar to US politics. I then searched for a comparison of the parties side by side on popular issues, and after a few sites, I ended up on Wikipedia. This is not unexpected as most research online now ends in a wiki. Similarly common, I ended up researching completely different topics than I intended. I took wiki's Canadian government 101 and decided to share the results with you, though I've restricted today's activities to the federal level and kept it to snippets:

• The crown still rules, though only as a figurehead. The queen appoints the Governor General (GG - my acronym, purely out of laziness) to act on her behalf, based on the recommendation of the Prime Minister (PM) about every 5 years though it's based on 'her majesty's pleasure' (ha).
  
• Legislative: Parliament is made up of the Crown (GG), Senate (105 appointed seats), and House of Commons (308 elected seats). The Senate is appointed by the GG based on the PM's recommendation and holds the position until they resign or are 75 years old. The House of Commons has 308 elected Members of Parliament (MP). Legislation starts in the House and once approved, the Senate and Crown review and rarely reject it, though with more committees and complicated processes.
  
• Judicial: Supreme Court with 9 justices appointed by GG.
  
• Executive: The GG also appoints the PM. This person is the leader of the party that holds the majority in the House of Commons.
  

There are a few things that I find interesting with this system.

1. An election occurs only when parliament is dissolved by the GG, or if 5 years go by. It is not regular and rarely makes it the full 5 years without a vote of no confidence and new election. What a waste of campaigning money!
   
2. The PM holds a lot of power by appointing the Senators only when a seat opens up, instead of at regular intervals.
   
3. You only get 1 vote. (well duh you say...but think of the implications of the PM being selected based on the party that holds the most seats in the House). It means that when you vote for your local MP, you are also voting for the Prime Minister, not separately, so you have to decide whether you want to vote for the local candidate, the overall party, or the party leader. Kind of makes me less inclined to vote.
   

Now truth be told, I haven't researched this much about any American politics or elections, so maybe I'm growing up. Ick! Today I am more Canadian than I was yesterday, but I really haven't come to much of a conclusion. If only there were uniforms so I could vote based on jersey color like how I choose my March Madness brackets. Guh! Saturday Night Live, how do I choose??

My First Island Wake – 4/18/2011

There is something small town about the whole island of PEI. One of the nicer traditions is being friendly to your neighbors. Here, everyone knows everyone. It's nearly impossible to be out in public without seeing someone you know and stopping to talk about how their daughter's recital was, or the results of the procedure for their brother. People know the minutest details of each other's lives, a comfortable feeling, but you're definitely aware that there are no secrets. I have even experienced this phenomenon a few times, seeing people (outside my family), at the grocery store or out in public. Coming from such large cities as San Antonio and Phoenix, this truly is a phenomenon. I'm shocked every time it happens!

What goes along with this quaint custom is supporting each other after a loved one's life is extinguished. I expect to attend the funeral and possibly wake of a friend or close family member, but here on PEI (and most likely Atlantic Canada), you attend the wake for the family of your family and friends. I remember that the first two questions you asked my grandmother over the phone were: 'how's the weather' and 'how many wakes have you been to'? Once those two questions were answered you could talk about new business, but not before. My grandmother was always impressed when someone's wake had people lined up out the door of the funeral home. It was explained to me that this is almost a status symbol and especially comforting for the family. An additional marker is how many priests attend the wake and funeral. Now all of this was just information I had collected from my grandmother, until this week.

Here on PEI, cancer is extremely prolific. It is believed that this is due to all of the pesticides used over the years on the potato farms as it's a large concentration for a small area, though there are nearly no studies on the matter.

I missed my grandmother's wake and funeral (as I took all the time off of work that I could to spend with her in the last few weeks of her life), and I was only 3 months old when my grandfather passed. This week, I attended my first Island wake for a relative's relative. Had I been in the States, I doubt I would have considered attending the funeral, let alone the wake, but here on the Island, it's nearly expected.

In addition to the higher frequency of attendance at wakes, a typical PEI wake has all of the rules and order you expect of a local custom. Commonly, there are two different times for the wake to accomodate many people's schedules: a two hour block in the afternoon and a second one that night. It's printed in the newspaper to let you know the details and funeral arrangements. Once you get to the funeral home, the immediate family including spouse, children, siblings, siblings' spouses, parents, and sometimes even nieces and nephews stand in a receiving line around the open casket for the entire wake as people file through expressing their condolences. The position of the family in the line is specifically arranged based on age of siblings, or some other order. The common phrase to deliver to the grieving is 'sorry for your troubles', and you may repeat this to the family 20 times. It's a nice tradition to see a whole community supporting those who are in pain, but I wonder how comforting it is to have to stand there for such great lengths of times and try to remember how you know each person coming through the line, as you talk to every person.

When I arrived, I smiled to see how long the line was, thinking my grandmother would be impressed with the turnout. My cousin and I arrived 20 minutes early and the line was already 60 people deep, out the door and down the sidewalk. In the 20 minutes it took to get to the door, the line had doubled in length. I was glad to give hugs to my grieving family, and happy to give them a chuckle that this was my first wake. They seemed to laugh in either a 'oh you have no idea what you're in for' way or a 'what planet are you from that you don't attend wakes'. After shaking hands with the family and saying a prayer in front of the open casket (which is the norm), I couldn't help but think about something I read in a book that explains that there is no better evidence that people have souls than to look at a body that no longer has one. The part of us that is pure and holy is clearly no longer there and is now in a place of perfect happiness.

On the walk back to the car, in true PEI fashion, I saw people that I knew and we exchanged how we knew the deceased. Something that made me smile was that there was also a team of 10 year old boys in a soccer uniforms that were patiently waiting together to support their coach, who is the son of the deceased. Such a nice custom and wonderful respect to teach children. The main feeling I had though was awkwardness, as I knew so few of the grieving, but those that I did know seemed to appreciate seeing a familiar face and being supported in their time of grief.

While I am still struck by how commonplace it is to attend the wake for someone you barely knew, I appreciate the custom as just one aspect of a compassionate, loving community, and I am comforted that there's a place in the world that people truly care about each other. Thank you God for being so good to let me live here and please be with the family as they are grieving!

East Coast Music Awards in PEI! – 4/15/2011

Well I feel quite lucky to be on the island while the music awards are here. I went out last weekend with a friend from Kenya (as in she went to Kenya as part of Mikinduri Children of Hope mission trip with me, not that she's Kenyan). We went to a great pub called the Olde Dublin Pub that's in downtown Charlottetown. A group called the 'Boys in the Kitchen' happened to be playing live as free entertainment. Also the drinks were less than $5! Holy cow that's cheap compared to the bars in the States, and is especially surprising considering alcohol costs so much more in the stores here. Anyway, they had great little 'ditties' as my uncle calls them, most of which I had never heard, to the dismay of my friend. As the night wore on my feet started tapping and in a very unlike me move, I was clapping. Don't get me wrong, I like dancing in clubs or a good Texas two-step, but it's rare to get me moving while sitting at a table. Anyway she insisted we go enjoy the ECMAs (East Coast Music Awards) the following weekend so I could really experience this new type of music better. I find it a mix of the Country and Irish music, and the best songs have a good fiddle involved. You'll also hear a number of Johnny Cash songs, which is always an added bonus.

A week later I arrived back at the Dubliner (as it's fondly referred to) and met three more Kenyan friends to enjoy the music. I headed upstairs as the bar is located over a nice restaurant and was stopped at the first landing. There was a very large, intimidating man carding people. I laughed when he asked for my ID as the legal drinking age here is 19. I'm nearly 50% older than that! He then asked for an additional ID since I showed him my Texas license, which apparently isn't local enough for PEI, so he was satisfied with my health card that has only a name and my birthdate on it. Whatever! He then collected a $5 cover which I was a bit surprised since there wasn't one last week, but c'est la vie, what's $5 for some great music?

My friends arrived and we listened to a couple of great local bands. The Boys in the Kitchen played as did a younger group called 'Marian Oh' that threw more of a punk beat into the already eclectic mix. Charlottetown was alive that weekend with people from all over (aka away) who came to enjoy the festival. There were performances all day long from Wed evening to Sunday afternoon, and bars were now open until 3am! The Dubliner was filled with people from 19 to 70, and there was no one age group, sex, or socioeconomic group that dominated. It was truly a mix. People of all ages got up in droves to dance to the livelier tunes. The dancing was neat as if you are used to being in a club and seeing the 'booty dancing', this type would be considered much more innocent. It was group dancing where there was no one way people were moving, but I heard it referred to as the 'PEI shuffle'. I think Kevin James in 'Hitch' could have easily kept up with us. A few people were overachievers and had a great step-dancing going where their feet were flying and it was something between the highland fling, tap, and polka. It was quite an exciting night and even more fun to get up once the fiddle came out to try my foot (as it were) at dancing too. What a blast! We had so much fun at the Dubliner we never ventured out to the other 10 locations that were hosting music at the exact same time. I can see why everyone was excited to have the party come to town. Interesting though, like the good respectful people that are here, there were no reported car accidents, drunk driving, or destructive activity.

I left that evening well after 2 in the morning with the plan to start an airband with my three friends. We had all our roles down. I was either on keyboards or triangle. What a fun evening! Homework assignment: to listen to good east coast music, find some 'Stompin Tom' and get ready to tap your feet.

Up West, April 14 – 15, 2011

On PEI, they have a number of quaint local sayings. If you weren’t born on PEI, you’re ‘from away’. A kitchen party from the days of Anne of Green Gables is called a ceilidh (pronounced K-Lee) where there would have been dancing, music, and of course a fiddle. And even though American Idol is one of the biggest shows here (much larger than Canadian Idol), God help you if you’re from the US of A. Hmm, I seem to be getting off topic. Another fun colloquialism is how the west and east are described. You go ‘up west’ and ‘down east’. If you look at a tourist map of PEI, North is not directly up, so it looks like a ‘U’, so it seems you’d be going ‘up’ for both east and west, but now that I have looked at PEI on google, it’s apparent that the west is ‘up’.

My route - Red is getting there, Blue is coming back

North Cape

I took a trip up west for work. I’m teaching Excel to businesses through the community college and the latest one happens to be in Tignish, a 3 hour drive from my house. They’re even springing for a hotel and meals! It’s like I have a real job again, at least for two days.  So I took my time on the drive up and enjoyed the scenic route. PEI is long and slender so there’s the direct route to places, and the coastal route. In the summer the coastal route in gorgeous. In the winter is really nice and even better, there are no tourists (other than me). I saw lighthouses, boats, tons of lobster nets waiting for the season to begin, and those new fancy windmills. There were adorable houses and I passed through a few French Acadian districts where all of the signs were in French. Oh and churches. I saw a lot of big gorgeous churches. One of the great things about travelling on PEI with a map (other than getting to where you’re trying to), is that the distances look much further on the map. You just fly through the towns!

Church in Mount Carmel

I went through Mount Carmel where there is a gorgeous church right on the water, very similar to a church I went to in Ireland, apparently by the same builder and nearly the same latitude, only 5 degrees south. I went by Cap Egmont which has a picturesque view of the water and an interesting tourist trap called the ‘Bottle House Museum’ where there are entire buildings constructed of fully intact bottles held together with concrete. I saw a million gorgeous beach scenes and made it all the way to the North Cape, where there is a great mix of nature, and new and old technology. There were aerodynamic windmills, an antiquated working lighthouse, and gorgeous red cliffs where the Gulf of St Lawrence met the bay with crashing waves. Apparently this spot is a hangout for seals, as I can’t even imagine how cold the water is, but nope I still didn’t see any.  The sun set without any fanfare, and day became night without the bright colors you hope for to end a scenic day.

lobster nets

I then went to dinner in Tignish at a spot called ‘Shirley’s’ where they are also a certified Sears catalog dealer and have a dollar store in the basement. Nice! The kitchen was closed so I loaded up on the healthiest meal I could: cheesies, candy bars, and ADL chocolate milk (the most amazing dairy farm here whose cheese and milk have no comparison). Oh yea it was a good night! Especially since the Canadian chocolate is a much higher quality than Hershey’s, and there’s a much larger variety of chocolate bars. This is one of the best things about Canada. I found my adorable cottage at the Driftwood Cottages, right on the water, and enjoyed a few tv shows on the giant tv before retiring to the jaccuzzi bathtub that was so large a bathing suit would have been appropriate. The cottage was so quaint with a nice fire and two bedrooms I didn’t even need! What a night!

Near Borden, the sun was screaming to come through

The next day the training was quite effective and I went back to Shirley’s for lunch where every head is the place turned and looked at the outsider. Clearly, everyone knew everyone else in this town, and it was as charming and friendly, yet suspicious of outsiders as any other small town.  I had the local special, a scallop burger, as Tignish is primarily known as a fishing village. I got a bun with 5 huge deep fried scallops with the works. Oh my gosh it was heavenly and only $6! I followed this up with fries with gravy as I looked around and all of these hard core fisherman were feasting on a chicken wrap with Caesar salad. Hmm, I would have expected our plates to have been switched in any normal situation.

Victoria bythe Sea at sunset

I left that afternoon for the west cape and saw more idyllic beach scenes. Today the sun was shining and the clouds were giant puffy marshmallows scattered over the blue sky. I also drove by Borden, where my mom grew up, and grabbed some great pics of the Confederation Bridge, the longest bridge over frozen water in the world, that is the link to Nova Scotia. Before this bridge was built, ferries were the only transportation for cars. In fact, my Papa worked on the ferry for years! I drove through Victoria By the Sea, a cute tourist town, just as the sun was setting. I got the sunset I hoped for the previous day. There was bright orange erupting into red between the clouds and ground, and the effect was heighted as a reflection in the nearly still water.

Near Victoria by the sea at sunset with Canadian Geese

 This was a wonderful, but short, trip of the west side of PEI. I met friendly folk, enjoyed entirely private beach scenes, and ate nothing but junk! A completely successful business trip.

Correction (updated 4/18 at 8:35pm) - The confederation bridge connects New Brunswick and PEI, not Nova Scotia. I could just update this, but instead I'd like to include the text my mom sent me (she's now in Texas and loves everytime I learn something new about PEI, especially when it's her teaching me). The spelling is preserved as I sometimes confuse her texts thinking a drunken monkey has written me instead of my mom: 'Borden goes to new brunswick. Islanders will tease u. U engineer u fm away... This is ur mom fm away. Heehee...' Hey ma, I updated it. Thanks for reading my blogs and keeping me honest!