Away 'Cross the Ocean, Away 'Cross the Foam!

Well here I am again surfing the net and listening to 96FM live on the internet. Sure. isn't modern technology great??!!!!

Still can't find an up-to-date link for a Douglas Weekly website!! JJ has kept me up-to-date with all the local news and our local councillors activities!

I was talking to my mum and dad on the phone just a second ago. Any time I ring I end up talking to them all and spending ages on, but don't get to talk to my dad much, but when I rang he was all alone in the house so had a great chat to him. He has got a few brochures about coming over here during the summer, my mum, dad and Jennifer. It would be great for them to see it.

They are thinking about doing the 13 hour flight from London direct to Calgary. I'm on such a buzz at the moment about the thought of it and finally starting the whole travelling thing which will only be starting tomorrow. Edmonton will only be the start of what should be a great adventure. I can't wait to get travelling.

Well I'll let ye know how Edmonton goes when I get back.
take it easy
D

Hi

As soon as i step outside my jacket freezes and it's like I'm walking in a straight jacket ...(It's about time somebody put one of those jackets on that boy eh??). In our apartment we have a parking space where we can plug our car in, to keep the engine from freezing. (All we need now is a car !!!). I wonder if it would work on my jacket?!?!

Well, not much to report from here. It is gradually getting to more "my type of weather" ... -35. Anything past this gets unbearable. One of the funny stories of -50...A girl I work with was telling us she left her dog out do do his "business", literally for 2 minutes, and she looked out at him and he was lying on the snow, licking his paw, because it had frozen. So she ran to get her shoes to go out and pick him up, and within the 30 seconds it took to do that, the dog was on its back, practically a fluffy block of ice!!

So without a car, we are walking and C-train - ing it everywhere. Calgary people just complain and complain about the weather...(a bit like me)...but they don't have to walk in it. We are tough, us Irish people!!

Anyway, its great to hear some of the emails from Eireann. I promise I'll get around to replying soon.
take it easy
David

Hey there,

Well, just about surviving the cold! I know there is non-stop references of the cold in this thing but there's no escaping it! On the link to the Calgary weather thing (at the end of the page I think!!) it says its -31 but feels like -41....I'm sorry but if it looks like -41 and feels like -41, it's -41!! (Wind chill, smind chill!!)

Well, its supposed to get better by the weekend. They said on the news we can get our shorts out by Friday because its only supposed to be -5!!! Hopefully it will be fine for our road trip to Edmonton this weekend. Not sure what is in store....might call into Lorna's relations for some tea!!! SO we finally have our hands on some Hockey tickets for the Calgary Flames (Thanks to Dhar and Crystal). It's not til the 13th of February but looking forward to it already. They are playing the mighty ducks....no, they are not the small kids in the movie....they have all grown up at this stage!!!!!! so it should be a good game.

That's it really. I'm looking for a way to travel Canada on $5 a day.....any ideas out there????

For all ye marketing people, I got a loan of NO LOGO and I'm reading it when its not busy at work!! I know it's a bit late to be reading it now, but its a good read. Got a couple of business ideas from it. Also I'm looking for a copy of John Oswald's version of Michael Jackson's song BAD. He was sued for making his own mix of it years ago but I thought it would probably be available somewhere on the net now??

Anyway, gotta run!

David

I love the snow...just wish it wasn't so cold!!! I am actually getting to love the sight of snow. Its just amazing, and if its going to be cold anyway, you might aswell have some snow, eh?. Our beautiful Calgary turned from a bunch of slippy ice into a 4-inch blanket of snow. Its lovely but bloody freezing too!...-24 as I'm writing this!

I don't know what the squirrels do in weather like this....probably freeze their nuts off!!!! All around by where we live there are trees infested with these tiny squirrels. They are very timid creatures and they flee at any sound so a couple have run out in front of me and scared the crap out of me....but its weird to see so many of them around, and the number of rabbits we see, just sitting at the side of the road too is funny. Its like our own zoo!!

Well I finished work early today because it was so dead and they needed to send people home. It's getting frighteningly close to the end of the contract...must look for something else soon. Sinead and I went to see Gothika last night in the cheap cinema, which only shows films that have been out a while, and are no longer considered a New Release. It's sort of a strange idea but the cinema seems to make the money still. I didn't really know much about the story, but I heard Halle Berry was in it...so what the hell, eh? It was pretty scary. A good one to see.

I also picked up these mints the other day in this Christian shop near us. They are wrapped up in individual packets and have bible quotes on them....and to top it all off, guess what they are called?......TESTAMINTS!!!

Well, gotta run. Thanks for all the emails. Great to hear from Michelle in Belfast, Lorna, Henrietta and get all the news from home. I'll try to reply tomorrow.

Take care

Hey there,

Well, work yesterday was a bit of a nightmare. There's this girl who sat next to me on her first day of work and her first day didn't really go the best! Let's just say she's not the brightest of sparks!! I was put sitting next to her yesterday. I still have the headache!!! HEADWRECKER is one word I'd use!

She was talking about Bein' Macked On (Being chatted up!) when on the phones at work. I thought she was just full of herself and making it up, but apparently a few of the girls are experiencing it. One of the main prizes in the lottery is a house. It's a cool prize but one caller yesterday asked one of the girls, "So, if I win the house, will you come party with me?!" They get worse too!!

Anyway, just trying to avoid the headwrecker so that I can get through work safely. I booked the weekend after next off (Fri, Sat, Sun) because Ryan said he 'd bring us to Edmonton for the weekend...ROAD TRIP, BABY!!!! And we'd go to the biggest shopping mall in the world, West Edmonton Mall (www.westedmall.com). You don't have to leave the place - apparantley they have a hotel there and everything!! So that means after working from Monday to Friday this week, I only have Saturday off, and then I'm working Sunday til Thursday. Hopefully it will be worth it for the trip though.

Time seems to be flying by, here. Kinda Crazy!

Well, thats it again. The shout outs are still not working...must get it sorted.

C ya!

Hey there,

Well, almost killed myself getting here, slipping all over the paths, with the slippy icey shit!! The warm weather makes it more dangerous to survive here than the freezing cold does. Its actually pretty warm here today but we're expecting more "winter" weather by the weekend - another HIGH of -15!!!

The weekend was good. Spent Saturday night with Erin, Sinead, the two Ryans and Christine in Ryans house, playing Settlers and just hanging out. Sunday was 7:30 mass and the usual BP trip. Working 4-12 this week, from monday to Friday but hope to do something at the weekend, to make the most of it, because working those hours kind of screws up the day.

Hoping to get to the Firefighters Museum at some stage to get Margaret Ann her badge!! And I'll ask them to keep Eilish in mind when they are doing their recruiting!!!

Not much else to report really. Just waiting for the Flurries of snow again at the weekend - Oh the joy of it!!

Thanks to those who have sent the odd email. It's great to hear the news from home. And for those who haven't sent emails.....I know where you live!!!!

Later!

Dave

Hey there all,

Well not much news to report really. Was walking home last night at 12 from work and parked at the side of the road in the car park was "THE INTOXILYZER" - a big-ass police bus, which was stopped there to test people suspected of having a bit too much to drink.....
but when I mean a bus I mean A BUS. It wasn't a mini-bus ....It was a big Greyhound bus (a bit like the Number 7 to Donnybrook!) with a big metal exterior and the word "Intoxilyzer" on it. I couldn't take photos of it coz I'd probably be arrested. It was pretty funny to see - a 52 seater paddy wagon!!!

Well, Ryan, (being as "connected" as he is!), got to see an advance screening of Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ'. He couldn't say much but it sounds like it will probably warrant an "18's" cert. Can't wait to see it.

As I was off slaving in work, Sinead, Ryan and Erin were off in the 'Atlantic Trap and Gill' with a live Newfie (Newfoundland) Band - which Ryan described as "Irish music on crack". Sounds like I missed a good night. We're meeting up with them again though tonight.

Well, as you can seee, I just set up these "Shout Out" links where you can type a message. It isn't really working at the moment, but give it a try and I'll try and sort it out.

Well, that's all from here really at the moment.

Take care

D

Apologies for that last posting (below) - just got in a giddy fit!! We saw an ad before Christmas in the bargain finder for Snoop Dogg Concert tickets and Ryan rang and left a message on the guys phone that somewhat resembled what I wrote below!!

Not much to report really! Thanks for the letter Lorna, and the best New Years story I have heard so far...ending up at a rave in Galway and everybody was so stoned that they didn't celebrate New Years until 12:15!!! Brilliant! i was laughing for a good 5 minutes when I read that.

Anyway, gotta run, as always
Later!
Dave

Put that meat on the shizzlekabob and then I'll stab that man with my shizzle, then rob his shizzle and shizzle the shizzle with a shizzle for shizzle.

Elefant man uses shizzle for quiet a time...uggu ma nuggu, dizzle ma bizzle. Rizzle up the bizzles and lizzle shizzle some pizzle. I gots mad shizzle up in this tizzle. We are gunna tizzle this shizzle up son. Shizzle this my nizzle and see what shizzle u can b.

My shizzles gone fazizzle.

Yo', think this shizzle iz da shizzle? I never heard of ne shizzzle like dis shizzle. Hit me back my nizzle.

David Nizzle.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=shizzle

Tabasco 2 Eisenhower, 0 Hermione 4!!!

Hey there,

Well, finally a day off of doing nothing, again! Worked 6 days on the trot of answering phones and repeating the same old thing every 2 minutes...It will pay the bills for a while though!

Went to BP's (Boston Pizza) again last night after mass - it's almost as much of a religion now, as the mass that goes before it!! Not much of the regular crowd were there because they were all off at some youth conference thng for the weekend in Vancouver. We went to hang out with Allison and her friends there and she dropped us to the train station then, to get home. She's considering coming to Ireland for University next year to do Medicine. Her Mum really wants her to consider it. Her grandparents are Irish and she has a contact in Galway, so who knows...maybe! It woud be cool if she could.

I walked down to get the C-Train this morning and this guy came up to me while I was waiting to cross the road and asked me if I had a ragged 20 dollar bill that I wasn't using!!!!!! I've never heard it put that way - Must try that one myself!!

There are quite a lot of homeless people in Calgary. I really don't know how they survive the cold winters. One of the ways for us to get downtown from the apartment is to go past the Drop-In Centre and there are loads of homeless people hanging around there, and the Cecil Hotel of course (Bar/Brothel/I don't want to know what else!!!) And of course it wouldn't be the same without BeerLand, where (supposedly) you can buy beer, by the milkjug!!!....or so Jeff told us!!!!

As soon as we get some photos developed I'll try to post them here. You should see the Bow River, and some of the photos we took of it when it was completely frozen over....weird, but pretty amazing too!

Well, not much else to report. Gotta run. As usual, spent way too much time on the net!! And they have loads of computers here where kids come in and go online playing these shoot-em-up games where they go killing each other, and the noise is something else...its like a real battlefield here, so gotta run, and dodge a few bullets!!

Later!

Dave

PS. Now that the Green Bay Packers are out of the play-offs, anybody with the tips of who to back??....We are really getting into our Sunday afternoon American football....addictive!!

Monday Jan 12 2004

Soaked-in skin
Running rough through veins,
Torn through living,
The heart remains.

Exterior dramas read interior players
The soul proposes,
Soothing the sayers.

Limited bruising,
Masking intrusions.
Outwardly inward, seeking restraints.
Confused darkness, making light of remains.

Adopted by history
Locked tight in long tongues
The verse that lines tundra
Concealed by its burns.

I'm a Barbie Girl, in a Barbie World!!

OK, so we are here about two months and I thought I had successfully avoided obtaining the Canadian "twang" in my accent, but that has all disappeared within 30 seconds of having to talk to Canadians all day on the phone!!....hence, my Barbie Girl accent...."Hi there, How are you doin' today? Oh my God, thats so great!!!" (HELP ME!!!)

So the job is for the 6 week contract (or so), of a huge Lottery here, called STARS. They have amazing prizes of houses etc. so all we are doing alll day is taking phone calls. It's nothing special but it will pay the bills!! And its something to keep me out of the snow too!! Its absolutely amazing though. The phonelines are open 24 hours so there are people there the whole time. And I swear you will just be off a call and another one rings and this is non-stop for an office full of 30 people taking phone calls!

Its not too bad really, but unfortunately on the 4pm - 12am shift, so Sinead is finishing work when i'm starting, but its only for a few weeks anyway I think. What will i do then?? WHO KNOWS!!! But not all that bothered at the moment

So if there are any Canadians out there reading this and you are looking for someone to work for you.....PICK ME, PICK ME!!!

Thank God for Chinooks!! The weather is getting slightly less cool (I don't want to use the word "warm", because that would suggest relative heat!!!)

Anyway, got a present from home for Christmas which you will be delighted to hear I'm wearing today!! They are boxer shorts with "FCEK...The Irish Connection"....pretty cool!
We actually got Ryan a present of boxer shorts for Christmas, which has a leprechaun on them with it saying "Do you want to see my lucky charms"!!!!!! How classy are we??!!

Well, thats all the news from here at the moment.

Check ya later, alligator!!

David

Canada.....Where Half-Four is 2 O' Clock!!

A Hat
A Scarf
Gloves
A Jacket
A Jumper
A Tshirt
A long-sleeve T-shirt
A thermal T-Shirt
Thermal Underwear (In this weather, you can only be proud of these!)
Jeans
Two pairs of socks
Shoes

No, this isn't my list of everything I brought to Canada...this is the clothes I had to wear to get to this internet cafe!!! Can you believe it's -35 degrees and has been varying around that for the last few days!! (Yes I really said "Minus 35 Degrees!!")

OK, so Calgarians talk about the weather almost as much as we do in Ireland, but they try to convince themselves it's really not that cold! The weather reports say "It's currently -27 degrees in the city, but with the wind-chill factor it feels like -34"......I'm sorry, its not -27 then, its -34. If it looks like -34, and feels like -34, then it must be -34!!! They love adding in this wind-chill factor thing!!

Well, we have braved the cold a small bit. We went to a poetry reading the other night (How very arty of us!!!), at the Epcor Centre. Ryan Fitzpatrick (the family where we spent Christmas day) was oing a reading of his stuff, as part of a programme of events. It's the first time I've been to one of those but it went down really well. He has had a lot of his stuff published, even in some Irish books. There's some of his stuff at http://processdocuments.blogspot.com if you're interested.

Well, that's pretty much all from me at the moment.
Off to work now, from 4 til 12. I'll let you know how it goes, next time 'round.

Oh yeah, just to explain the title of this blog.....Calgarians and probably all Canadians (!!!!) don't understand Half-Four...They say four-thirty. So half-four to them means "Half Of Four" which is 2!!! As you can imagine, many the appointments have been missed due to their stupidity!!!!!!!

Talk to you all again soon
Love and frostbite warnings!
David

How do you (Fon)-Do?!!!

Hey there all,

Well its getting to the frozen eyelashes stage here!!! I had to keep wiping the water beads from my eyelashes here. Its getting bloody cold here. Its supposed to get to about -25 here tomorrow. Remind me again why I didn't go to Australia instead?!?!?!?

Well, one thing I forgot to tell you, (whoever you are!!! That's reading this), is that over here they have things called +15 walkways. They are bridges over the streets from one building to another so you can avoid walking out into the cold, so you can actually walk a couple of blocks without ever stepping outside.

So we try our best to avoid catching our death of cold, because we would definitely prefer to catch our death by "death by chocolate". We went to a restaurant for Sinead's birthday which had death by Chocolate, an all-you-can-eat chocolate buffet. If I was to die, that is definitely the way to go!!!

We had a great New Years at Jeff's house. They usually have loads of people around for a new years fondu dinner, but it was a bit quieter this year. I had never had fondu before. For those not in-the-know, there are two sort of camping stoves in the middle of the table, with boiling oil in them and we had loads of raw food, from beef to chicken, and shrimp and meet balls, and everybody has their own skewers and you skewer the food and put it in to cook. Its a bit of a slow process but its really fun and worth it. They had batter too so we ended up having battered shrimp and battered chicken and beef for the more adventurous!!!! And to finish, we had chocolate fondu and loads of other sweet things. I literally couldn't move after it!! That, along with the Mulled wine, made it a really enjoyable evening. You wouldn't believe how great we have been treated since coming out here. It's amazing. We really landed on our feet. We are just looking forward now to making a bit of money and doing a bit of travelling. We haven't really organised anything like that yet, but soon hopefully!

Sinead is working part-time in a fancy clothes shop, Jacob, and will hopefully get a bit of lab work soon....its in the pipeline!!
I'm starting Monday with a company that manages Lotteries for Non-profit organisations. The "Stars Lottery" is just starting here so I'll be working on that. Its only a short term contract but that suits me fine. The prizes for the Stars lottery include Houses, Cars etc. Its amazing and its no wonder that they process 6,000 calls a day!!!

Well, I hope all is well with all of you. Let me know how your New Years went.
Take it easy and talk soon
David