Have you any Grey Poupon ....?

Lloydminster's "Arts Without Borders" festival plays all this week. As Director of Protocol I will be meeting most of the cultural elite that pass this way. My table mate tomorrow for the Lt. Governor's Gala Banquet is Dr. Lynda Haverstock (have you any Grey-Poupon?), and her husband, amongst others.

Now, I know some of you are used to this, but for me it is a bit novel. Tonight, I will be meeting the six finalists for the Lt. Governor's Alberta Arts Awards. Bob Baker – artistic director of Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre; Greg Hollingshead – Edmonton author and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta; Sharon Pollock – Calgary author and playwright; One Yellow Rabbit Ensemble – an ensemble of Calgary theatre artists; Tom and Isobel Rolston – husband and wife musicians and administrators at The Banff Centre; and Rudy Wiebe – Edmonton writer and editor, have all been nominated. Three of them will be taking home a cheque for $30,000.00 each. I will also be attending three receptions with His Honour, Norman Kwong over the next three days.

Megan probably has most of the people on her speed-dial, but we folks in Lloydminster are all a-twitter. Did I mention that I just had a little chat with Fil Fraser in the bookstore at the mall? Oh, and do pass the Grey Poupon....

What's With Jason???

So I'm having a coffee whilst digesting the NHL Playoffs Leader board stats this morning and who sits atop the pack with 6 goals and 12 assists? None other than our friend Jason Spezza!

What's with Jason? Is this not the Jason that our inaugural NHL Underachiever Award is named after? Can this be true? Have I unfairly impugned poor Jason? Allan, what's happening here?

Mother's Day Surprise!

Roni, Kel and I visited Mom in NB on Sunday. She looks and feels good. Her garden is growing like a garden is supposed to grow in the spring with lots of flowers and blossoms on the fruit trees.

She was particularly delighted with a bouquet of cut flowers that had been delivered a day or two before. "Oh Ray, thank you so much for the lovely flowers" she said.

I looked at the card which read something like:

"From the good-looking one.....
the one that lives in Calgary......
the one that you last gave birth to .....
to the best Mom in the World .......
Happy Mother's day!"

"Didn't you read the card yet" I asked?

"Only the first line. I didn't have to read the rest, because I just knew it had to be from you", she said.

Well, what could I do?

"Happy Mother's Day Mom", I said. "You're the best Mom in the whole world"!

It Was A Great Day ........!

As "Badger Bob" Johnson once said, "It's a great day for hockey". . . . and so it was in Calgary as the hardware for the 2006-07 Bailey NHL Hockey Pool was handed out May 1st.

Media interest was intense as a crowd gathered in a SW Calgary neighbourhood watering hole for the presentations. Last year's winner, "HerKelly's" was unable to attend (due to having four wisdom teeth extracted) but was ably represented by her famous and youthful-looking father Raymondo.

With the backdrop of the Canucks-Ducks game, first up was the newly-anointed winner, Theodopolis! Ted was nearly lost for words (unusual for him) as he tearfully accepted the trophy (and a $20.00 cash award). "I've reserved a special place for this special trophy" said Bailey, as he placed the cup on a shelf above his newly minted HD TV. The cash award quickly disappeared into his wallet.

Matthew Bailey, youngest of the entrants showed up big-time this year, pulling down a cool $8.00 for his third-place finish and a share of the prize money. The assembled photographers and media reps were temporarily blinded by the flash of his white smile.

Second-place finisher, Douglas W. Bailey, was unfortunately unable to attend to collect his $12.00, but his older brother kindly offered to hold it for him until the next family golf game can be arranged.



This year's festivities also featured a new award, won handily by Laurel Bailey. The "Jason Spezza Underachievement Award", commemorating the last-place finisher in the Bailey Pool was presented amid much fanfare. "There was no question who deserved this award", said Raymondo as he presented the lucide prize. "This 'laurel' could only go to 'Laurel' as she set an all-time record for being so far behind the next-lowest contestant, let alone the winner", said the senior Bailey. Even sidekick Copper showed more than his usual excitement as he nearly swallowed the prize before Matt put him in a double-fisted headlock to save the award for next year's presentations.

The evening's festivities continued with drinks all around, and the recognition that every day truly is "a great day for hockey"!

Is there Life after the Oilers?

Even though we still have snowdrifts in the backyard, check out what I found growing in the flower bed this afternoon!

Update on the "Change" thing, and a contest!

Well, you can see that the glaciers are indeed moving, and, I pray, receding. This image was taken April 11th. At this rate, we may see actual new growth by.......... ???

Now for some fun! Who will be the FIRST to identify the following image? Think real hard now. All of you have seen this object. What is it, and where is it? Tick tock, tick tock....

Change

To those of you that think things always stay the same, I have news for you. To those that say change is too slow, sit up and pay attention.

Observe, if you will the two images below.

Now, these two images clearly record the same backyard (mine, in fact). Yet there are obvious differences. The top one has more snow on the branches of the trees, more snow on the rooftops of the neighbouring houses, while the bottom image clearly, clearly shows that there has been some retreat of the snowdrifts in our yard. True, there is snow falling in the bottom photograph, so that point may soon be moot, however, the fact remains that at one time in the near past, there was actually old grass showing through the snowpack. This is kind of like "spot the differences" isn't it?

Now, here's the really amazing part. The bottom photo was taken yesterday, April 4th, while the top one was taken on November 15th, 2006 - hardly 5 months ago! See! Change does happen!