take me out to the ball game

That's where we were last night - watching the Vancouver Canadians (NWL affiliate of the Oakland As) play the Boise Hawks at Nat Bailey Park. It's close enough to son's basement suite that we walked from his place.

Enroute to the game he took us to Splitz Grill, where we had the finest gourmet burgers ever. Mine was Lentil, all decked out with hot peppers, garlic mayo, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, pickles, red onions, cheddar and Swiss cheese. Yum!

Nat Bailey is a beautiful little baseball park, right in the middle of Vancouver. We got seats ten rows up behind home plate, which gave all the boys (E. son and his roommate) a chance to jeer the ump whenever he made the wrong calls.



Between innings we were entertained by BirdZerk, his offspring BirdZerk Jr. (or something like that) and a few other mascot-type characters. Here is naive-looking Jr. trying to get something going with the plate ump. They were funny enough one didn't want to miss the between-inning shenanigans.


The best thing was that Vancouver won 6-5. That killed all pain - even the fact that the evening turned damp and chilly with rain for our walk back.

Ah baseball - the perfect way to spend an evening in late-summer.

curling!

What a fabulous week of curling we've just come through -- the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Regina. The game tonight between the first and second-ranked teams (Alberta skipped by Shannon Kleibrink versus Ontario skipped by Sherry Middaugh) had shot-making I've rarely seen in women's curling. (How about 115 lb. Amy Nixon, Alberta's third, who heaved a granite bullet into a house with about five rocks frozen around the button and blew the whole thing apart. Who says the women can't throw the big weight?) The Alberta rink won, but it came down to the last rock of an extra end.



The morning and afternoon games, both won by Jennifer Jones of Manitoba (who at one point was one loss away from even making it into the round robin) were also great.

The big disappointment of the week was Team Canada. The girls from Kelowna just weren't their old selves. They struggled all week (were actually painful to watch) and didn't make it into the finals.

There are two games left in the tournament. Sherri Middaugh (the loser of this evening's match) plays Jennifer Jones tomorrow. Then on Sunday is the final with Shannon Kleibrink playing the winner of tomorrow's match.

I get so little done on curling weeks it's disgusting. It's the one sport I love to follow, and I indulge myself. We have one more week of it in March, when the big annual men's curling tournament, the Brier, happens in Winnipeg.

(And I see that the Scotties are coming to Victoria next February. I'm determined get to one of those big bonspiels in person one of these years -- maybe next...)

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Update: Jennifer Jones stole the end of the very exciting 2008 Scotties Tournament of Hearts story Sunday afternoon. Read about it here.

He shoots, he shoots ...

This story about an autistic boy and basketball will warm your heart.

ice? nice!

One of the ways weather impacts our lives is how it determines what we do for recreation. As someone who grew up in Saskatchewan, it was natural for me to take for granted things like skating outdoors in the winter. But you certainly can't count on a winter skate on an outdoor pond in the more temperate lower mainland of British Columbia where I live now.

In this era of indoor rinks, the weather is no longer a factor for activities like hockey, figure skating and curling. However it still is for skiing, snow-boarding, snowshoeing, dog-sledding and - ice sculpting.

Last week I got an email with some pretty amazing photos of ice sculptures. These are from one of the biggest ice and snow sculpture competitions on the globe, Harbin China. You certainly need an outdoor deep freeze to keep these building-sized ice structures intact. But the results, especially with the reflection of all the lights at night, are stunning. Dates of this year's festival are right now - January 6-13








And did you know there were ice hotels? These are actually giant igloos, converted into destination hotels. They are usually built beside rivers or lakes from which the builders draw water, freeze it and cut the ice into large blocks before trucking it into place. A large hotel takes five to six weeks to build.

The original ICEHOTEL is in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden. From an article on How Stuff Works:

ICEHOTEL boasts unique rooms, a starkly beautiful church and the ABSOLUT ICEBAR, where the bar and the glasses are all made from ice. During the day, the hotel opens to visitors who tour the rooms without staying the night. But at 6 p.m., the ice museum closes and overnight guests take over. They leave their luggage with a porter, who takes it to a heated storage area. Bathrooms and changing rooms are also heated. By 9 p.m., most people retire to their rooms. Guests wear long underwear and sleep in mummy bags on ice blocks covered by mattresses and reindeer skins.
- read the rest

There is also an ice hotel in Quebec (Hotel de Glace Inc.). It is Located at the Station touristique Duchesnay on the shores of Lake St. Joseph and comes complete with a chapel for weddings. Check out these photos.

As for the weather here - today I woke up to snow. But it's currently raining. My town would be a heartbreak of a place for ice sculptors.

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To learn more about the weather all over blogland, go this post at Rebecca Writes.

political correctness

and hockey. (And get this: "The case may not be settled until 2010." What a great way to spend taxpayer dollars!)

curling!

It’s nearing the end of my favorite week in February – the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. This is a week-long bonspiel featuring women’s rinks from every province and one from the territories. This year has been especially fun for us in B.C. because we have two rinks – the Kelly Law one representing the province, and Kelly Scott’s rink, the present Team Canada (who also ended the week at the very top of the standings! Now they only have to get through playoffs to extend their reign as Team Canada).

Photo: The Kelly Scott rink - champions in 2006.

TSN, bless their hearts, have been telecasting three draws a day. Of course I haven’t watched them all. Life does go on. But most afternoons and some evenings you would have found me parked on the couch for several hours watching these very athletic but otherwise ordinary Canadian women (from lawyers to housewives) sweep the house, while mine stays neglected. Oh well, I did find something to do to keep me busy during the hours spent. I’ve now shredded at least five years’ worth of old home records.

How to curl.

Curling facts.