FANTASTIC REALITY: GUNS, SOCKS AND HYGENISTS!

After carefully placing my coffee on the raised table near the window, I flip open my laptop . As I usually do when not thinking hard about anything, I'm running a scenario through my head. I was thinking about how it would be neat if the guy sitting at a nearby table decided to strike up a conversation with me, having seen me open my laptop. I envisioned him asking me if I was using the laptop to connect to the Internet. I would tell him that, unfortunately, this coffee shop doesn't have a wifi connection. He would then reveal himself to me as the owner of this Second Cup, one of those savvy entrepreneurs who likes to connect with his customers (the type of entrepreneur I imagine myself being), conducting some covert customer surveying to help improve his business. He would then exclaim: "Surprise! I just installed a wireless router!" As I was just concluding that heart warming thought, a message pops up on my laptop, proclaiming that there was an unsecured wifi connection nearby. I snap back to reality from my thoughts to confirm that this message was real. Sure enough, this Second Cup now has wifi. How weird is that?!?!? Anyways, my fantasy of this business owner implementing some altruistic gesture remained just that, a fantasy. For it will cost me $6 an hour to use their Internet here. Grrrr!

Only in Cow-town, a recent announcement at a church I attended: "We want to thank everyone for coming out to the gun range with us yesterday. The highlight of the night was when we got to fire off a 357 Magnum hand cannon!"

As a runner, I go through socks. Now matter how gently I wash them and even if I switch them from foot to foot, they inevitable get "hole-y". I especially like the technical socks which seem to cause less blisters and last a bit longer than your typical cotton socks (though costing at least double). I'm so delighted when J&P return from a recent trip to Portland and gift me 3 pairs of Airmax socks from their visit to Nike Town. Yah!

When going to certain places to conduct business, one expects to see a certain age range in the people providing the service. You would not be surprised to see a high school aged worker if you, say, went to a fast food restaurant. Perhaps a college aged barista at the local coffee shop. As is usual before any first appointment at a dental office, I had to fill out an information and consent form, which was handed to me by college-aged-looking receptionist. Nothing unusual about that. The door opens as they are ready to receive me and I am greeted by this girl (and I use this term in a very respectably accurate manner) who looks like she could be the daughter of said receptionist. Except, she's wearing scrubs and a surgical mask hangs around her neck. She is my dental hygenist! It's not even how young she looked, but by the way she asked me how I was doing, I was ready to tell her to stop playing hooky and go back to school right that instance! All throughout my session, I was just lost in the irony that, as my dental hygenist was cleaning my teeth, she was chewing gum the whole time! Mind you, she did a really good job. She took her time, making sure that she got to all the hard to reach places. Still, as she was working, I couldn't get the image out of my head of someone sitting in a classroom carefully colouring in a map of Canada.

My legs hate me. The weather in Calgary changes every 10 minutes and weather forecasts are useless. So, whenever a window of "non-rain" opens up, you have to take advantage of it. So, after finishing a long run yesterday, I noticed the nice weather this morning and decided that this would be the perfect time to try a long ride. So, I hop on my bike and ride out to Bragg Creek, some 34km away. By the time I finished this near 70km loop, my legs are spazzing out. I am beyond hobbling, and I drag my legs along like 2 useless stumps. Still, it was worth it: while riding to Bragg Creek, the mountains loom towards you, getting larger and larger with each pedal stroke. You need to focus, though, because you are riding on the shoulder as trucks and cars are whizzing by at 100km/h. Then, you need to dodge the curious pocket gophers who like to crawl up to the shoulders, pretending to be hitchhikers, then dart away at the last second!

Video version of this blog

It looks like I've been blogging for some time now. Like anything else, something that starts to become a routine makes the mind lazy. So, in order to keep my creative juices fresh, I've taken on the challenge of creating a matching video log to each blog. This will allow me to express myself in ways that written text could not allow. It will also have me practice "public speaking", although in this case, my audience is a camera.