Carburn Park

It was an extremely cold day today but we wanted to get out and do some skating and I suggested a new place: Carburn Park. The Lady was not quite on the same page but accepted. We found it after the second try but happily it didn't waste so much time. It's close to Bow River and it's a curved lagoon with lots of room for tens of people. It was around -22º C and but wind was not blowing to harshly. The low temperature had kept many people away and there were only 4 other people on the ice. I quickly geared up and got on it. The ice was no too bad. Of course there scratches ad grooves but what do you expect. The Lady geared up as well but just after a few minutes she said that she didn't like the ice and added that she wanted to leave. I know she was cold. I was too but not as much as the night that I basically ran away from the ice! I had suggested in the morning to buy a Monkey Hat but she refused.

So I skated a bit and circled around. I didn't even had my gloves on me but I stayed. Overall it's a nice play and very roomy for skating and I'm sure it was easy because of the cold. I bet if it's just a few degrees below the place gets packed with the skaters in that neighbourhood. It's a bit far from our place but worth trying off and on. 

(Photo: Carburn Park skating rink gives plenty of space. In a beautiful but extremely cold of Feb. there were only a handful of people on the ice)

Reunion with The Chef

It had been a long time, over 5 months or more, since I had hung out with The Chef. I knew something had went down. I kept calling and there was no answer. I said to me: Either he is in trouble or left the country for the old country, something he has been wanting for a long time, after probably more than 25 years living abroad! Just the weekend before I received a call from him eventually and my second guess was correct: He was in trouble! Apparently he and couple of buddies had been to drinking and on the way back to home after midnight someone caught him on Langevine Bridge and beat the shit of him! The neighbourhood is quite a dangerous place as it's where the rehabilitation center is. One person was stabbed to death last year and I guess he was lucky that he could come alive out of this.

Langevine Bridge over Bow River, in Calgary in a cold night of 2011. The Rehabilitation Center is seen on the left side of the photo. Regardless of its beauty at night, this corner of the city could be a death trap. You never know what the people around you might do to you!

According to him he was so drunk at the time that he could not even see a meter ahead of himself. His buddies had left him, obviously after spending all his money on booze(!) and that was on the bridge where all of a sudden the big beast appeared before him and started beating him with a club or something similar. This was not the first time he had a trouble similar to that but I hope that was the last but seems he never learns the lesson. He has bruises on his head and bellow eyebrow and although he's dark-skinned, you could see them especially the one on the head which is right above the forehead and looks like someone has it him with a Machete or Samurai Sword! I have passed that neighbourhood several times always trying to ignore the poor, ignorant and stupid who hang out there. The people who go there are mostly consist of the Natives, poor Caucasian homeless, African Blacks who found themselves lazy enough to start a new life in the country which gave them the opportunity and of course at times people from other backgrounds! One I and The Chef where going somewhere and this Iranian guy heard us talking and approached with a cigarette in one hand and a can of Pepsi in the other. He said that he had not been able to afford his internet bill and that made him to decide staying in the Rehabilitation Center!! We left him soon with his big dreams and then I know there was another guy, whom I have to say his stories here as well, who stayed in the other center which is a nicer place and is organized like a hotel but of course low quality service. People, according to him, whom I would like to call him Penny-Picker here, share a room. I guess there are four in one room. I will tell his story later but to clarify he works for a major Engineering Contractor, either Worley Parsons or J. V. Driver's, making over, my guess is, $130,000 annually, if not more and has purchased a property just outside Calgary! 

Anyways he, The Chef, is fine now and we spent a few hours drinking beer and then dinner at his place the weekend before. That was really pleasant especially for me whom had not had any alcohol since Christmas Party, last year. Then again I went to his place last night and we checked out Superstore and but some seafood to cook. We bought two Lobsters and one giant Crab for almost $57. The Chef cooked them, of course with my help and we had them with beer. It brought back memories of years ago where we first did that. I don't remember how much we spent in 2007 but to me it sounded a big expensive to pay that much on three live sea creatures. The Chef wanted to get more and his idea is that we should just eat them by themselves not anything added such as rice or bread but I lowered the number simply because I thought we would have too much but it was not. Every pound of Lobster is sold for $9.98 while Crab is sold for $11.99. The crab is more delicious and I have said that before and probably that is why it is more expensive. To me, unlike The Chef, the better idea is to take the meat out and make a good sub sandwich out of it but he likes it that way, which is also fine with me. We will probably hang out more as long as other restrictions are lift. 

(Photo, top: The Chef is putting the second Lobster in boiling water)

Winter is not Finished

It has been extremely cold in the past two days and that came as a surprise to the idiots who saw 12º C weather and higher the week before. They don't know that a few warm days does not necessarily mean that the winter is over. It's a break as a result of Chinook phenomena. They probably also don't know that they live in Alberta and it's supposed to be cold in Jan. otherwise it would not be Canada! 

Nevertheless I don't know whether it's the affect of the weather or something else that I'm exhausted now. I was exhausted the entire day today, yawing off and on and was trying to keep my eyes open! 

I went for a skating practice last night and it was -21º C! Adding the wind-chill it felt like -30º C! There was not a single soul in Olympic Plaza but I was not able to do my exercise for a long time. I guess I was ready around 21:00 hours and by 21:20 I was ready to leave. It was of course not only the extreme cold. It was the timing as well. I had my dinner and I was a bit heavy as a result of that although I had not had much. 

(Photo: This sculpture is erected at Olympic Plaza as a commemoration to the skaters of 1988 Olympic. I took it last night when it was quiet dead!)

Homemade Bread

I had been wanting to bake some bred for a long time so when I encountered a recipe in the last issue of Impact I decided to do it. Here is the recipe with its modifications by me(!):

• 3 cups Whole Wheat Flour.
• 3 1/2 to 4 cups warm Water.
• 1 tablespoon Yeast.

1- Mix everything together in large bowl, cover and keep in the refrigerator overnight. I put it in, it was almost 14:00 hours and then took it out I guess 11:00 hours the next day! 

2- Cover the mix with a tea towel and let stand outside for another hour.

3- When you go back to it and remove the towel, you'll see a disgusting-look liquid which also does not smell very good. Use flour on your palms and mix as well as the bowl itself to be able to make a ball and get it out! At this moment the mix is so sticky and disturbing that you promise yourself that you will never bake any bread while you're cursing! 

4- Use a cooking sheet and put the ball in a container which could shape the ball. 

5- Preheat the oven to 475 º F and bake for 30 minutes.   

6- Turn the oven off and let the bread stand in it for another 30 to 45 minutes.

7- Take it out of the oven and let stand in the room temperature uncovered.

8- Cut to thin slices. 

The bread is so delicious that I could not stop eating. That is amazing with almost everything. I tried with Salsa and Cream Cheese and it was wonderful. I will try it with Butter and Quince Jam and Peanut Butter and Date later on. Pay attention that there's nothing harmful in this bread: No Salt, no Sugar and no damn Fat. Just pure bread. 

(Photo: Homemade Whole Wheat Beard right out of the oven. Although the picture does not look very good but the bread tastes awesome. Next time I will take a nicer photo and will post it with what it's eaten with!)

Maintaining the Ice

It's very good that The Lady is accompanying me in practices this year so I could have practices and exercises as many as possible, this year. We wanted to try the other outdoor rinks but she insisted to go to Olympic Plaza this afternoon as she was hoping it wouldn't be crowed and ice had been maintained. 

We got there shortly before 14:00 hours and surprisingly the ice seemed maintained. There are a few people there but not as many as made it impossible to practice. So we hit the ice. But shortly after that and while we were warming up we learnt that a little Zamboni was coming out of its nest. It went back and forth for about 15 minutes and then we jumped back on ice. Having not very cold weather and pleasant sunshine with not much wind attracted a good crowed but happily and first off they were mostly beginners so there was not disturbance or crazy skating second off you can not skate more than 1 hour. You simply get exhausted especially if you fall a few times! So the crowd does not stay on the ice for a long time. We stayed up to an hour and then we realized we have had enough. What I realized that the had grooves just shortly, let's say 40 minutes after it had been maintained. I don't know anything about ice management but I realized U of C's doesn't get that much scratched after too many people skate every day. I don't know it's how they maintain the temperature on the surface or what but I've heard that Olympic Oval has one of the best ices and fastest ones in the world. After all we go here and there just for being active and having fun. Speed in not a problem for us but maintaining good ice by the City is. 

(Photo: City of Calgary little Zamboni is maintaining the ice in Olympic Plaza)

Paths of Glory

I watched Path of Glory, one of Stanley Kubrick's movies, a few days ago. I had bought the DVD a few weeks before that from HMV. This sort of movies are not very easily found and HMV is the only retailer, as far as I know, who carries them in Canada. This is a coincidence that watching the World War I movie is done 100 years after the beginning of the war. The First World War actually started in Sarajevo the town which as the time was part of Austro-Hungarian Empire and then became part of former Yugoslavia. After Balkan Wars it became the most important city of Bosnia-Herzegovina. An assassination triggered the war, it has been always said and that happened on June.28 which will make the anniversary 5 month from now. I'm not going to say the whole history of the Europe before and after the war here as it is available and people can easily reach, if they want. I would like to talk about the movie only.

I had decided not to write about the movies after just watching them once but couldn't resist again! Path of Glory, first of all, is not a war movie. I mean it just does not narrate a story of a conflict or battle the way movies such as Saving Private Ryan or Platoon do. In fact there is a little part of the movie which consists of a battle and that scene in my opinion has not been filmed and directed well. When you're showing a scene of a battle in which a wave of soldiers are invading to take an enemy position, you cannot just show one side in your shots even if your focus is the effort that one side's soldiers are showing. That's what Kubrick has done in the movie. Is there any particular reason for that? I don't see one. Perhaps if there's any, it could only be found after reading Kubrick's interviews or films critics'. For that reason the battle scenes which actually do not comprise a big part of the movie are not attractive to the audience. I bet Kubrick saved lots of time and money by not portraying German Empire's soldiers in the movie! I read it somewhere after watching the movie that Path of Glory is an anti-war movie! I don't know how they concluded that! Is that what really Kubrick or the author of the book, with the same name, wanted to convey to the audience or reader!? I personally did not see any sign of being anti-war in the movie. This could be anti-anything else rather than anti-war! A country is involved in a war with another one for a reason and unless both are agreed upon the preliminary conditions, they will not go to ceasefire, even if the war is unfair and unjustified. So people should fight, I mean the soldiers and in cases volunteers. Should they be tried and executed by firing squad because they, in the eyes of officers only, show cowardice? No! You could say it's a movie which questions the justice system in France in early 1910s but anti-war? I don't think so. Even if that is the message of the movie, it has not been said clearly, I would say. Maybe the author of Papillion also wanted to say the same thing. Although as popular of Path of Glory, maybe even more but they are completely different movies. There is another twist to the movie: The personal conflict between two members, one who has a higher rank, results in the lower-ranked guy to be killed but no further follow up is seen in the story. One other soldier believes that he witnessed the tragedy but there's no action in the movie from the comrade of the supposedly intentionally killed guy. At the time of execution the guy who is alleged of killing is ordered to command the firing squad. He first refuses but since this is an order from his superior officer, he is not able to refuse.
This movie is considered one of the famous ones stared by Kirk Douglas, who surprisingly is still alive! Good for him. I did not see much of an act by him. Nothing significant. Just normal dialogues and he's not the lead role, at least in my opinion, but he argues with his superior officers and criticizes them. So in a way he is! Overall Path of Glory is another questionable movie of Kubrick and as he says A movie should be interesting, not realistic. So the movie is worth watching and a good one of course.
(Photo: The scene in the movie that the French soldiers start their invasion by leaving their trench)