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kristannafever · 7 years ago

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July 7th

*Just a personal tidbit about what July 7th means to me, and some personal observations about what happens in this city for the Calgary Stampede. I wrote it because I wanted to, and desbite my best efforts to get it done yesterday, I was just flat out too busy. But it was fun to finish this evening, and great to reminisce*

Yesterday was my 10th wedding anniversary.

Yup, we got Married on 7/7/7, a whole decade ago. You would think that booking a year in advance would be enough time to secure a venue for a wedding, but not for that date, ohhhh no There were a lot of people apparently who had the Lucky Sevens in their mind for a wedding, and there is an extra added busyness to this time of year here in Calgary, that I will explain… but So, SO many venues were already booked, and as it turned out, one of the hotels had a small banquet room available, and a garden restaurant that they could convert into a space for a ceremony. Incidentally, this was also the place that my Husbands parents had their reception (The Glenmore Inn off Ogden road). I mean how weird is that right? Most of the other places I inquired were either booked or didn’t call me back, and suddenly we’re celebrating in the same place my Husband’s parents did 27 years prior.

Now I have to explain something about Calgary, for anyone who doesn’t know. Every year since 1912, the City hosts the Calgary Stampede (the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth), and the first part of July in this city, is Bananas. It’s a world-class rodeo, and an amazing midway, and it’s absolute insanity. It’s a 10-day Party is what it is. This pretty much sums it up;

- Booze. Booze everywhere. Even at breakfast. Bars open earlier and stay open longer and the C-trains and busses run 24 hours. Not uncommon to see someone drinking a beer with breakfast… or maybe that’s the crowd I run in? If not beer then there’s Bailey’s for the coffee. - Free Pancake breakfasts! Every single day. All over the city. If you don’t mind waiting in lines, you can get a free breakfast all 10 days, and more than one if you desire! And if you’re lucky enough to get invited personally to one, it can be a small intimate affair, with amazing live music and delicious pancake fluffiness, and bacon and sausage and eggs and all the good stuff. (Hubs company throws one every year and it is that type of awesomeness that I got to enjoy yesterday morning all while listening to an amazing live band) - And it’s not just breakfast. There is a lot of lunches and BBQ dinners too. And yes, MOST are Free (although it might take some sleuthing to find them since the breakfasts are usually where it’s at) - This city vibrates. It VIBRATES. There is no other way to describe it. I have lived here all my life, and have always been around for the Stampede, and the energy is Palpable. - You wanna hear country music? It’s everywhere. Doesn’t matter if a store will play light rock or easy listening the rest of the year, for Stampede, it’s always Country, country, country… (even today we went for lunch at a smoked meat place KNOWN for Blues music, and they were playing Country) - Oh and all the storefronts are painted with cowboy and rodeo themed cartoons. And there are bales of hay everywhere (inside and out). - The Calgary Stampede Parade. That shinning jewel of a Parade that starts off the whole event. I remember many, MANY happy years in my youth attending, and in 105 years, it has never rained during it. No joke. We are ridiculously proud, and a little but smug about this fact. - Which doesn’t mean it’s never rained during Stampede, because this is usually one of our hottest times of the entire year (even yesterday it as 32 degrees Celsius), and the Thunderstorm threat is eminent. There have been many whoppers over the years, making the rodeo and chucks a complete mud-fest. And hail. Hail is the most prevalent here in July. - Some of the biggest names in music come to this party every year, and if they aren’t preforming in the Saddledome (home of the Calgary Flames), they are preforming at the Coca-Cola stage. How do I describe this stage… well, that’s exactly what it is, a fucking Stage like in a school! It’s on the north end of the midway, and anyone can walk up and watch whoever is preforming, for FREE! I mean that’s crazy. It’s stupid and packed and I have never bothered with it because I would freak in a crowd like that, but it’s still awesome. - And the Coca-Cola stage isn’t even the end of it. Every year at Nashville North (a GIANT tent of a bar set up in the middle of the Midway), Country Artists will preform concerts at night (again, for FREE), and it is something to experience. In my opinion, it is more fun than the Coke Stage because at least you can get a drink and go to the back to mingle with friends and listen to music and not have to be in the thick of the crowd. - The midway itself! Rides! and Beer gardens! and WAY overpriced food and drinks, and some of the craziest culinary concoctions you would ever think about. Deep fried coke, yup. Grasshoppers in a popsicle, sure. Scorpions on a pizza, why not? A lot of people brag about having the balls to try this crazy shit, but seriously? Most of that crap is beyond me. This year features the worlds hottest pizza (which is apparently just loaded with Carolina Reaper peppers), a pizza covered with slow roasted rabbit and vegetables, and deep-fried chicken feet. Yeah… I wouldn’t go near any of those with a 10-foot pole, but I will be all over the BBQ burgers and the corndogs and mac n cheese and poutine. - But not just that at the Midway… there’s animals in the Agrium barn to see, and a trade show in the Big-Four, and a brand-new spot over the river for the Indian Village to honor the natives to this wonderful country and celebrate their heritage, where you can get the best fried bread (Bannock) you will ever eat in your life! - The Midway and the Stampede are packed with events (hell the whole city is packed with events), and to see and do everything, would take more time than you would think. There is just SO much going on. It is an organizing marvel all the stuff they put on in 10 days. - We all have a section of our closet for Stampede wear. It’s plaid and cowboy boots and hats and I am not kidding! We drag this shit out once a year and we wear that little part of our wardrobe anytime we go Stampeding. And not just that. Anywhere you go, and I do mean anywhere, people who are normally in uniform, are allowed to wear their stampede gear to work for the entire duration of the stampede (they are even encouraged to). Everyone who works in grocery stores, and banks, and restaurants and you name it, will all be in this get up for work. Even cops will be seen wearing cowboy hats. - A lot of people have to work regular hours during Stampede, but there are more businesses than you would think that pretty much shut down for 10 days. But for every bit of hard work put in over the 10 days, there is 10 times the amount of partying. And although there are a lot of people who detest the Stampede, or just hate how busy this city gets (like our friends from Saskatchewan who leave the city every year to avoid it), most Calgarians are game to take part and have a bit of fun. - And I haven’t even mentioned the Rodeo and Chuckwagon races. The Calgary Stampede gives away over a million dollars in prize money, making it one of the biggest Rodeo’s in the world. There is a lot of controversy surrounding Rodeo’s of course, but the Stampede is part of Calgary’s Heritage and History, and I love every second of it, any time I get to go to one or both of the events. My parents took me as kids, and we will take ours too when they are a little older. It’s a blast. That’s what this city does for Stampede. We “Cowboy up”.

But I digress… We realized on the first anniversary of our marriage, that since the Stampede will always fall after the first Thursday in July, so our Anniversary will always, ALWAYS AND FOREVER, be during the Stampede, and there is a shit ton of things going on and this city is FILLED to the brim with people.

Going to a restaurant anywhere near a major road at dinner time is impossible. Hotels are booked solid (which is why we were so surprised that we were still able to book our wedding and reserve some rooms, even though we did it a fuckin YEAR in advance). Not only that, all of our Stampede loving baby-sitter options, are usually too busy with Stampede stuff to babysit, so we can go out and enjoy an Anniversary dinner by ourselves. We have taken the kids with us before, just so we could treat ourselves to a dinner out. (We were lucky enough my Mom was free yesterday, so we enjoyed a blissful kid-free day).

So back to the planning; we manage to book the photographer I wanted, who was somehow otherwise not engaged for that ridiculous date (even though he was booked the rest of the weekends for the entire summer), and his shit is gorgeous (he even did both my sister and brother in-law’s weddings afterwards too because our pics were SO beautiful). We managed to book a Justice of the Peace to preform the vows (we had to phone around because they were all busy and luckily she had an opening, although it had to be an hour before what we had in mind for a time), and we got married in a sun-lit, inside garden terrace, with about 65 people there to help us celebrate. Despite microphone issues, that were comically remedied by the JP tapping the mic on her chin, it was short and sweet and perfect, and we were surprised by everyone blowing bubbles at us, as we walked back down the aisle as husband and wife.

There is no way to described how fun the reception was, after a long, hot, couple of hours after the ceremony to take pictures. The reception was the icing on the cake for our day. We even had a couple of people from the 250+ guest wedding, in the giant banquet hall on the end of the hotel, come to party with us. Our DJ, was AMAZING. He knew what drew us all to the Dance floor, and he kept us there with that theme. By the end of the night, it was non-stop AC/DC, with hubs and I, and handful of our closest friends, singing along at the top of our lungs, jumping up and down, doing air-guitars and mimicking Angus Young’s famous move, until the hotel staff had to ask the DJ to shut it down. Twice.

We stumbled back up to our hotel room but were intercepted by some of our drunk friends on the way, and ended up going to have a drink in one of their rooms. One of our buddies climbed into the cabinet on top of the old-school television (yeah not a flat screen) and asked the whole room “guess who’s on TV” with a drunken laugh, and that is forever burned into my memory.

By the time we got to our room, it was almost 3 in the morning, and we were both so tired we could barely keep our eyes open, and yet an older family friend to the Hubs, had ordered a bottle of Champagne to be delivered to our room, so it was there and chilled and waiting for us.

So, of course we figured we had to pop it to celebrate. I think we got a few sips in, sitting on the bed and watching TV, when we both unceremoniously passed out from exhaustion.

I woke up at one point to a very dark room. The TV must have turned itself off, and as soon as I got up to walk to the bathroom I hit the pedestal thing for the champagne, and knocked the mostly full bottle and melted ice all over the carpet. I grabbed some towels from the bathroom after and threw them over the soaked wet floor, still in the dark, and crawled right back into bed and fell fast asleep. When I woke up in the morning, I was shocked to see that a HUGE area of the carpet was a darker shade than rest, because it was SOAKED, and my feeble attempt at throwing two towels on it, did nothing. Who knew they put that much ice in those Champagne things anyway?

So, we had to get up early the next morning and meet my parents for breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which I am pretty sure we were late for, and I remember a distinct discussion about Polkaroo from the Polka Dot Door (which is a ridiculously Canadian childhood thing), to which even the next table form us chimed in in their reminiscences.

That was ten year ago. Where does ten years go? Two kids later and time seems to have sped up. Anyone with children will know that. Years doesn’t even seem like years when you add ankle-biters into the mix.

So, we celebrated a decade of Marriage yesterday, and although our day didn’t go as we had initially planned, it was wonderful and fantastic and a future fond memory.

There were a lot of other fun and interesting things that happened on our wedding day of course, but I am sure they are only amusing to me, just like this ramble. But my emotional ass wrote this little bit of crap, because yesterday was a milestone, and I love the Calgary Stampede.

Polkaroo (this thing as goofy af right?) But as kids, my brother and I LOVED the Polka Dot Door

#cee says stupid stuff

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thegregorybruce · 5 years ago

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Tim Carter Reads

The following is a list of books I've read. You'll discover quickly I'm enamored with history with a sprinkling of mystery thrillers.

In a display of shame-filled vanity, I listed my own book, Roofing Ripoff, at the top of the list. In all seriousness, it's the one you should read first as it only takes one hour and it will save you THOUSANDS of dollars.

Asphalt shingles, like many things, are not made like they used to be.

My 30-year-warranty shingles started to show serious wear in less than ten years.

I was so upset I decided to find out what was going on within the industry. I sent an email to the Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers PR people and they blew me off. I knew then I was onto something.

Using the wisdom of the crowds, I decided to devote one of my national Ask the Builder columns to the topic. Readers from all across the USA responded to a survey form I mentioned in the column.

A deep-throat source who works in the asphalt shingle industry also stepped forward and assured I'd not reveal his identity, he agreed to a 90-minute recorded phone interview. What he told me will shake you to the core of your being.

Roofing Ripoff is available as a paperback, a Kindle download, or an Audiobook!

CLICK or TAP HERE now to get your copy. Wait until you see the full-color graphics on each page. I doubt you've ever seen a book like this one.

Say what you will about Steve Jobs, his life story is beyond interesting. I think part of the allure of this book to me is captured in the lyrics of Don Henley's hit song, Dirty Laundry.

I've been told by many of my friends that my attention to detail on craftsmanship borders on obsessive-compulsive. When you look at how I make sure the slots in the screws in switch and outlet cover plates are always straight up and down, you might be right.

Steve was OC too - to a fault. He also understood how to sell sizzle. One other character flaw was not trusting doctors. He had all the money he needed to get early treatment of his cancer. Who knows, he still might be with us and his family had he attacked the demon earlier. CLICK or TAP HERE to see how close Apple was to going out of business back decades ago, yet Steve died a billionaire.

Although widely rumored, I'm not the grown-up Ralphie. All too often people say I look like him and wonder if I was the child actor.

When you read the actual book that inspired the classic film, you'll howl with laughter. The actual screenplay and audio from the movie are in the same voice.

It's important to realize that I did own two BB guns. I didn't have a Red Ryder, but the one I did have was very accurate.

I also owned a CO2 BB semi-automatic pistol.

In the spirit of doing stupid things as Ralphie did in the book, one day Johnny Boncutter and I decided to play real cowboys and Indians in the woods behind my house shooting at each other.

Johnny had my rifle and I had the pistol. When you first put in a fresh CO2 cartridge the BBs come out with tremendous force. One of them hit Johnny in the thigh and I shot him out of a low tree.

We were NUTS to do this with no eye protection. This is why women live so much longer than men. CLICK or TAP HERE to read some of the other crazy stuff Ralphie did that wasn't in the movie.

I can't remember how I stumbled across the Bill Travis mystery series by George Wier, but I'm glad I did. Desperate Crimes is the first in the series and I think George is up to #15 now.

Bill Travis is the main character and his diligence and determination are inspirational.

George is a good writer and he keeps the story moving.

If you think you're good at guessing the endings of mystery books, then George will put you to the test.

I'm convinced you'll feel you got your money's worth and the books get better as the series expands.

CLICK or TAP HERE to start reading or listening to Desperate Crimes.

Have you ever been to the Hoover Dam? I was lucky enough years ago to be able to drive across it. After the terrorist attacks by the radical Islamists on 9/11, the Federal Government knew they had to make it nearly impossible for a terrorist to blow it up, so they built the new bridge that now crosses the Colorado River next to the dam.

But I digress.

This is an insanely interesting book. Built during the Depression years, men and their families streamed to the bleak and blistering-hot desert to build this incredible dam.

The US Government solicited bids for the dam. They only wanted contractors to bid for the labor as the government was going to buy the materials directly.

What do you think the winning bid was for the labor?

Can you imagine what it took to create the two diversion tunnels that had to built to channel the mighty Colorado River as the dam was being built?

Can you imagine pouring concrete NON-STOP for years no matter what the weather was? Think of those logistics.

CLICK or TAP HERE and be ready to be blown away.

My college degree is in geology. I'll never forget going out West for the first time.

I went with Pete and Charlie in Pete's new 1970 Volvo. I had never seen such scenery and I feel that trip sold me on studying geology.

Rough Hewn Land is a book written by a geologist, but it's for people like you that don't know the difference between a piece of schist and a strike-slip fault.

Wait until you see the sense of humor Keith shares in the captions in his photos. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHA!

Did you know that The entire state of California is built from rocks scraped off the deep ocean floor like you'd shave a wafer of wood using a plane?

Did you know that the astounding Sierra Nevada mountains were made by melting an enormous slab of ocean floor as they are sucked beneath the North American continental plate?

Do you like to invest in ocean-front land before the prices go to the moon? Keith shares why you might want to visit Las Vegas and start looking around for vacant land out in the desert.

I could go on and on and on about all the things you'll discover about what you see out West, but Keith does a better job.

CLICK or TAP HERE and be prepared to be amazed. The next trip you take out West, you'll have such a great appreciation for what you see.

Do you live in the Pacific Northwest? Do you have family and friends that live there?

You'll want to read Cascadia's Fault. It reads much like a thriller as Jerry Thompson peels back the onion of clues that reveal the Northwest is going to have an earthquake that will end up in the geologic history books.

Do you remember the earthquake that shattered Mexico City back in 1985? No one ever thought that was possible.

The plate tectonics theory that's now widely accepted was just beginning to be understood. The locked-up plate that finally snapped hadn't moved in recorded history.

Guess what other plate hasn't snapped in hundreds of years? Who would think that the appointed local scribe in a Japanese shoreline village would provide one of the key clues to what's going to happen when he wrote about the devastating tsunami that destroyed his village hundreds of years ago.

Cascadia's Fault will mesmerize you and you'll be ordering an earthquake rider on your insurance policy if you live in the Northwest starting in Mendocino, CA. CLICK or TAP HERE now to start reading this book. WOW is all I can say.

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manuelclapid · 5 years ago