b’s blog

Last night I went with Charlene, Jana and Johnathan to the Oilers game against Calgary. We had seats in the gold section (the lower bowl) but the best part was we had Club Access! That means we can go downstairs to the entrance of the Oilers Locker room and watch them come in and out. It was pretty cool. There’s a fully stocked bar, linen draped tables for eating your concession food, leather benches and an Oilers Store and the interview room (for tv) down there.

Still there were many people, so many that waiting in line for drinks wasn’t worth it but it’s definately shorter lines than the regular concession. The bathrooms, on the other hand, were almost empty! woohoo! No line!

Charlene and I were like children locked overnight in a candy store. During First intermission, she camped out near the locker room door so she could get some good pics, I wandered around looking at all the amenities and by the time I tried to get back to Charlene, the crowd was about 5 people thick so I couldn’t see our boys walking back out onto the ice.

At John’s suggestion, Charlene and I left our seats early and headed down to the Club Room before the end of the second period so we could take pictures of them heading into the locker room while Jana and John stayed at the seats. Good pics are going to be put up on Facebook if you wanna check em out.

I went to the Championships with Charlene on Sautrday. It was very family oriented with lots of parents with kids. The competition had two parts, obedience and agility as well as a police scenario. I was impressed with how well these dogs are trained with hand signals as well as voice commands. The Trainer must be very animated in their walking to make it more fun for their dog. I noticed that they all swung their arms exaggeratedly while striding and the reward their charges with playing/toy and not food. Dogs must always heel on the left side and at the same pace as their trainer (even running and slowly pacing). Hand signals can be used to get them to go from lying down, to sitting, to come, and stop.

The police scenario was a guy being mugged by two others and dragged to a car. This was interesting to watch because you can see the dogs in action. One of the muggers has a cap gun and fires it at the K9 unit before dropping it, then the dog chases the “offender” and grabs him by the arm. You notice that if the “offender” struggles, the dog will struggle. Otherwise it just biting on to the arm just to contain the “offender”. At the end of the takedown scene, the dog is challenged to run after an “offender” but is called off by the constable and the challenge is to see if the dog will.

We did see a coupleof newly graduated dogs that had trouble with that task. One dog actually had trouble with the agility too and ran head first into a pile of barrels! Pic to come in a bit.

Yesterday Maryann, Charlene, Adam and I went to Fort Edmonton Park to partake in the harvest fair celebrations. We saw a number of early 1900s machinery. One trimmed the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Charlene and I went to a Circus class last night. It was awesome! We learned a the basics of trapeze, hanging hoop, hanging silk, hanging rope, trampline as well as juggling and firesticks. This class is put on every summer ... [Continue reading this entry]

Last night Charlene and I had a great time at Bon Jovi. I think she might ... [Continue reading this entry]

Charlene had a Vertically Inclined Bday party last Friday where we got a lesson and did some top rope climbing. About half the participants ... [Continue reading this entry]

The venue was a temporary tent and very hot. What I thought was assigned seating turned out to be general seating as we realized folding chairs were ... [Continue reading this entry]

Sunday was raceday just outside Smith, AB. Adam and I drove up 2.5hrs that morning from Edmonton and on the way there saw a fox on the side of the road. [Continue reading this entry]

Here's a video I shot over the weekend of Adam's race. The first is the starting line. Adam is about the 2nd from the right. Everyone's engines are off, straddles their front tire facing backward on the bike. Once the ... [Continue reading this entry]