Regina’s main summer fair is the Queen City Ex in August but there’s a smaller fair that sets up earlier in the summer each year in the parking lot of a random local mall.
The wristbands for unlimited rides costs the same as the “big” fair but there’s no gate admission charge and instead of (un)fair priced concessions on the midway, you can slip in the mall for food if you want.
Since this mini-fair was at the mall closest to our house this year, since we wanted to do something to celebrate Pace’s kindergarten graduation (er, not official yet so making a wee leap of faith there!), Shea picked me up from work and we went to check it out.
Here are some highlights…
Parking spot right by the entrance is a great start…
I swear bumper cars went faster when I was a kid…
Can you spot Jason and Pace?
How about Shea and Pace?
Pace’s favourite ride was also the fastest, highest and most gut-churning. He went on The Rainbow more than ten times including two different times when he went three times in a row! (Another bonus for a smaller fair – rarely any lines for rides!)
Pace being goofy on the Ferris Wheel…
City view from top of Ferris Wheel…
A fun day for the family – great idea Shea!
The only one of us to not go on any rides is the most zonked!
Found this clip buried in a folder on my hard drive…
One thing I’ll always remember about this trip to a writing event I helped organize in Medicine Hat in 2002 – why do event organizers (even other writers who should know better!) often provide a huge meal right before an event when the energy and nerves often make authors unable to eat much if anything at all?
Myself and the evening’s featured reader, amazing spoken word poet, Sheri-D Wilson, get to Medicine Hat and the local host, author Don Lemna takes us out for a gigantic steak meal. It was beyond delicious but I was *really* glad I didn’t have to do more on stage than bring greetings from the Writers Guild of Alberta and a couple local media hits! 😉
Oh, there’s one other story I’ll remember from this trip that Sheri-D told me. I’m not going to share it – only because it was such a mix of sweet and shocking that I intend to use it in my own fiction writing someday! 😉
So I was flitting around YouTube this weekend and came across this video of a member statement made by Carrot River MLA, Fred Bradshaw in the Saskatchewan Legislature and which was uploaded a couple months ago on April 17, 2013.
Although they don’t specify who the “prominent NDP blogger” in question is (and out of the three or so bloggers who regularly write about the NDP in Saskatchewan, I’m probably number four on the list of prominence!), I’m pretty sure this guy is referring to this post I wrote a month after the Leadership convention.
Although my goal with this blog isn’t to provide ammo for the Sask Party back benchers and conservative radio hosts in Saskatchewan, one of my goals *is* to tell the truth (or at least the truth as I see it) while also being open and transparent.
To me, the altercation in 2009 took place in a public lobby when any member of the media or anyone with a camera phone or a blog or Facebook account could’ve reported what happened, just as I did. And similarly in 2013, my post about the lack of outreach I’ve noticed from the Broten campaign (other than a few fundraising appeals including a recent one that urged a donation to help keep up the momentum – grrr!) is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me dog.
Like the two approaches to politics I outlined in the original post, I think there’s a couple different approaches to how you behave as a member of a political party. Some believe that we’re all on the same team with our ranks closed to the outside and following the leader simply because he’s (or she as the case may be) is the leader. Others believe that we have a duty to tell the truth, speak out about things we don’t agree with and endeavour to be as open and transparent as possible – even about things that others might not want to hear.
The one thing I’d change if I re-wrote the post is to not make it appear that I’m speaking broadly for the Meili and other campaigns. I only know that I personally have not seen anything I would consider significant outreach and also that I have heard similar sentiments expressed by others who were involved in the leadership race in a variety of ways.
But of course, I also do not know what is happening behind-the-scenes and/or at the highest levels so perhaps Cam, Ryan, Trent and Erin are all attending secret meetings to plot how to rule the world (oh wait, that’s Brad Wall.) 😉
Anyhow, the worst part of all this as far as I’m concerned isn’t that the Sask Party used my blog for an attack that’s struggling to get to 100 views as I type this (and I’m probably responsible for half of those as I watched and re-watched it over the weekend thinking really?).
No, the worst part is that it was so easily preventable. As I said in the entry, had I seen some type of outreach – maybe not a personal phone call from Cam to everyone who supported a different candidate but something, I wouldn’t have written what I did and my post wouldn’t have become ammo for Mr. Bradshaw.
Seems almost too easy, doesn’t it?
(Coincidentally, today happens to be the three month anniversary of the NDP Leadership convention. Since I still haven’t seen anything I’d personally consider significant and meaningful outreach, as a mini-protest I’ve resolved to stop opening the NDP fundraising mailers and e-mails for the time being!) 😉
Pace went to a birthday party today and got a bubble tube as part of the goody bag treats. As soon as we got home, he suggested using it as a “light saver” so we could play Star Wars.
(I also have to note that after the party, Pace told us that he was the only boy from his class there. So that either means that any of the other seven boys in the class who were invited didn’t make it or my son’s got his first girlfriend!) 😉
Going to Hawaii a year and a half ago was one of the best trips of my life and I’m constantly thinking about when we’ll be able to get back (short answer: probably not for a long time!)
But if I can’t get there in person, I can pretend I’m there, even when I’m still in Regina. During my walk around Wascana Lake today at noon, there was lots of inspiration…
One person I passed was wearing coconut-scented sunscreen. If that doesn’t put you right on the beach, nothing will!
Another person, heavily tattooed and looking like a lifetime surfer was getting ready to take out a paddle board from the marina
I was listening to all kinds of “summer” music I also listened to in Hawaii – Bob Marley, Beach Boys, Jason Mraz, etc.
It was hot but not too hot, slightly muggy but not too muggy. In other words, just like Hawaii, perfect weather.
Lots of people in shorts, bathing suits, sun hats, etc. If I’d seen someone carrying a shave ice, I wouldn’t have looked twice! 😉
I might have to replace the “Cute” tag with one that says “Mega Cute” for this one…
(This pictures comes to me via a new app Shea and I have started using called Couple. It’s basically just like Facebook except it’s a social network for only two people. Why not just use Facebook? Couple is more private and there’s zero chance of accidentally sending some snarky comment to your entire friend list instead of just as a private message to your spouse.)
Plus it has a couple (er, no pun intended) features that I don’t think Facebook has – ability to send voice messages, option for private photos (ooh-la-la!), basic Events calendar and To Do List functionality. It even has the somewhat corny “thumbkiss” option although I can’t say Shea and I have used that one yet.
Went to TEDxRegina yesterday and honestly, my thoughts on the afternoon, with a couple exceptions, are pretty much the same as my thoughts on the inaugural one in 2012.
Perhaps because I usually cherry-pick the best TEDTalks when watching online, both years I’ve gone in expecting all TEDx talks will be stellar too. But honestly, like any conference you go to, some sessions are good, some aren’t as good
Different attendees will disagree about which is which and a lot depends on what you’re bringing in terms of your own viewpoints, interests and experiences (for example, last year one presentation done with a lot of heartfelt emotion didn’t resonate for me. This year, as a new father, hearing a very emotional story of a mother of a special needs child had me cutting onions throughout.)
Meeting new people is cool, especially new people you might not otherwise encounter. In some ways, those conversations are equally good or even better than the presentations. How do you get that in “real life” – meeting new interesting people on a regular basis outside your usual circles?
Partly because of the opportunity to meet new people, I preferred last year’s full day format which had (I think) the same number of speakers in the day but lots more time for socializing/networking/chatting including a lunch break.
Once again, there were people attending from my main circles – other librarians, politics, online communities including Twitter and MetaFilter, etc.
I liked the bigger venue this year as well after last year’s rather cramped (and exclusive feeling – which appealed to my own ego since I was in the room but not what I’d like to see in terms of maximizing people’s opportunities to participate in events like this – and I know that small size was due to the TED license, no decision of the event planners.)
At the risk of getting sued, I was joking with a couple colleagues who were able to attend with me that we should propose a parody for the next RPL Staff Conference (ReadxRegina?) where librarians and other staff members could get up and do their own 18 minute talks on whatever area is of interest to them.
Speaking of RPL, my former colleague at RPL, Library Journal “Mover & Shaker” and current Public Policy PhD student, Ryan Deschamps, was one of the presenters. In his presentation, he mentioned that “librarians know nothing…but we know how to find stuff” (I prefer the formulation “Librarians tend to know a little bit about a whole lot of things” which I think means basically the same thing – we are the ultimate generalists able to help people find credible, useful information about everything from health concerns to the tax code to the answer to 37-Down in today’s crossword puzzle.
The obvious is do something library-related (and that’s what I told people when we chatted about this question during breaks throughout the day). But what about libraries might appeal to a TED audience?
Libraries as the “grandfather of the current ‘sharing’ age”
A Swiftian “Modest Proposal” about why libraries are terrible places, wasting taxpayer dollars and should be abolished (When I inevitably daydreamed at different points of the day, I even had a plan for how you could do this using a storybook as a prop. Librarians love props!)
Why copyright should be eliminated (I did this one as part of a debate for a Librarians Forum at RPL so have much of the research done already.)
I did a special project on the relationship between Canadian publishers and public libraries in school and I’ve been published on the charging of user fees by Alberta public libraries but I think those are both pretty inside-baseball (hmm, maybe I should submit that latter topic to TEDxCalgary?) ;-)Beyond library topics, what else am I interested in?
I’m fascinated by the idea of a maximum wage so, although I think about it from a very layperson perspective, that’d be one topic I think I could have a lot of fun talking about. (Now where’d I put my Bono wraparound sunglasses?)
