The Long Road

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Michelle makes fun of me a lot. Once reason is that I really do love to “stupid dance”. This goes back to high school when Brook, Dean, Shawn, Rob and I all had our own signature stupid dances. Damn we were good. Really, we were.

And you all know that Mich and I also love to travel (and it’s been far too long now…).

Matt Harding combined both of these loves.

Watch this.

I saw this vid quite a long time ago, and maybe I’ve even blogged it in the past, but if so, I’m doing it again ‘cause I can’t watch without smiling. And I like to smile. It’s also cool because we’ve been to some of the locations that turn up in this clip.

After filming the first one, he ended up getting sponsorship and making another one. Also very good and certainly more slickly produced. It kinda cheapens the whole thing knowing that he had some gum company footing the bill, but it still brings a grin to my mug.

The Second One

Here is Matt talking about the whole experience.

Here are the outtakes.

Here’s Brook the other night. He was in town for two nights and we took the opportunity to ride Peterson Creek near our place. Was a beautiful evening. I think the pic is pretty cool though Brook thinks it makes his ass look big!

Been enjoying Springsteen’s new album. Wasn’t too sure I would. The title track is one of the standouts. It’s a pretty thinly veiled opinion of the current US administration.

…gross.

An interesting thing happened Sunday night in Ottawa. Springsteen and the E Street Band brought their tour to town. “So?” you ask. Well, in the encore, members of The Arcade Fire joined them onstage for a couple of songs (one Springsteen, one AF). Now that is cool. Two of my favs sharing a stage. The interesting part for me is that I know how fanatic fans of both groups can be, and that there is some overlap of these two groups. Below is a link to to a short article about it that includes video of the two songs. The sound is pretty good for an audience recording, though the camera work is rather lacking. But if you pay attention to the start and end of the songs (especially the second), the people filming are SO PUMPED. These people are passionate about this stuff, and it’s a bit of a musical dream come true for them right in front of their eyes.

Click for the article and vids over at Pitchfork.

So we have been keeping up with our “one new recipe a week” mandate. To review from last time…
Week One: Shrimp Fra Daivolo with Linguine
Week Two: Pasta with Bolognese Sauce

Since then we have tried lots of great stuff:
Zarina’s Mama’s Beefsteak from a wonderful (though sometimes time consuming) cookbook called Terrific Pacific

A Fall Salad of Corn, Cherry Tomatoes and Oven Roasted Green Onions from Bon Appetit magazine (Oct. 2001).

Grilled Chicken Burrito with Cucumber Salsa from Cafe Pasqual’s Cookbook (that Mich picked up from Cafe Pasqual in Santa Fe last year).

Tomato Mint Salad from New Best Recipe.

Turkey! Yes we did a turkey for pretty much the first time. It was great. We included gravy with a roux base. Mmmmm. The guide for that meal was New Best Recipe.

Oven Dried Tomatoes from Cook Like a Chef. Those these ones didn’t really turn out as promised, though others from this book were stunning.

Turkey Casserole from the classic kitchen companion (your mom has one) Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. Mich didn’t dig this one, but it was exactly what I was craving - like Mrs. C from Happy Days might have cooked!

We also did Sauteed Pork Tenderloin and Pears in Mustard Port Sauce from Bon Appetit (March 2001) that was great.

That’s about it so far. We have actually been successful at doing MORE than one new recipe a week.

Coming up this week are Pasta with Chickpeas from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites (which looks better than it’s boring recipe name) and African Peanut Stew from FatFree Vegan Recipes. Tonight is Moroccan Chicken Stew. Yum.

All in all, we’ve been eating well! Slurp.

One of the things we like about living in Kamloops is the Kamloops Film Society. These dedicated people bring in great films that otherwise we wouldn’t see on the big screen. The most recent was Once. It was a big hit at Sundance, and for good reason, part of which was the fab music. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are not names we’d heard before, but are not soon to forget. Check out the clip below to hear why. It is the scene from the film in which the two characters first play together as one teaches his song to the other. For those of you who end up seeing this film, I hope I don’t wreck it by providing the scene here. Anyway, this is one of several beautiful, melodic, moving songs that the plot of this “modern musical” is built around. This is a total low budget project that shines because of that fact.

Really, you should check this film out.

And no, it’s not really a sappy love story the way this trailer makes it out to be.

Spent last weekend at Deka Lake at the Conradi’s wonderful cabin getaway. We took the opportunity to head north from there for a few hours to hike up near Mahood Lake. This is why.

The top photo is taken from directly beside the top of the falls (from behind the yellow trees in the bottom shot)

**Updated Oct 8**

Well it is the next morning, and though I have been hamming it up for Mich, my body doesn’t feel THAT bad. A little stiff, but reasonable considering. Of course Mich wants to do another hike today and I’m thinking that doing my marking would be a better idea so perhaps I hurt more than I’m letting on. The hockey was fun - similar skill wise to the old Dalian Ice Dragons. Thus, I can skate with those guys, but just not look very good doing it!

Much like Dougie, I’m getting the call to once again don the skates and come out of retirement. I haven’t played since coming back from China and it ain’t gonna be pretty. Legs. Lungs. Never had much zip on my shot, so not too worried about that. Anyway, looks like this is a good bunch to play with and for now I’m only gonna be a replacement player when they don’t have enough. Hopefully I’ll play more regularly with them in the future. Should be fun at least!