Month: March 2010

We went up to Ghost Lake about a week and a half ago. Beautiful day. I walked out on the ice with no little trepidation. The week before Gwen van Kleef, Peter Van Kleef and Alf Hauk had fallen through the ice in Lake Erie (fortunately it was only a few feet deep but nonetheless very scary). Anyway, with this in mind I ventured out. There were two fellows ‘para-skiing’ on the ice with their cars parked nearby(on the ice) and a truck loaded with ice fishing gear had driven across a bit earlier so I felt somewhat safe. Here you can see one of me out on the ice that Yvonne took and also one that I took while out on the ice.

BTW – Gwen, Peter and Alf did make it out of the lake and onto dry land.

“No Ice is Safe Ice?”

I’ve been in Calgary a couple of months now. Other than the ever present mountains a couple of other notable things:

My boiled eggs seem to take slightly longer to cook. I’ve been cooking/eating them all my life and had the timing down to a science but at the elevation in Calgary it does seem to take a bit longer.
The elevation in Calgary is 1,048 M (3,438 FT) whereas Toronto is only 253 ft/77 meters and Clearwater, Florida is sea level.

The other notable is the length of the day. It is not yet the end of March and there is still light in the sky at nearly 8:30 in the evening. A few degrees of latitude seems to make quite a difference.

Calgary Latitude: 51° 05
Toronto Latitude: 43°42′59.72″N

Summer days, I expect, will be very long.

Yesterday – Sunday – was another day in paradise. We went out to visit a friend of Yvonne’s in Millarsville for lunch. Grace served us Pumpkin soup, her home made bread and Guinness. It was about a 45 minute drive southwest through the foothills with the ever present Rockies in view. Before lunch we went for a walk through the pasture, picking through the dung and met her horse of about 18 years and got stared down by her assorted cows. (The neighbours bull sometimes jumps the fence and has his way with the cows – or so Grace tells me.)

Triy as we might we were unable to get lost – lunch drew us back as if a magnet.

The simple fare was fantastic. Grace bakes bread for Community Natural Foods in Calgary. She served us a hard rye and a wheat along with Gouda and some smoked cheese.

You can see her here preparing to serve the soup.

A friend of mine Uwe Zundel, moved to Calgary fairly recently bringing with him a product that is new to the area called liquid vinyl siding. I’ve been out of that part of the world for some time (Home renovations, etc) so wasn’t aware of the product but if you own a house and have siding, then you may want to find out more. You can find him at Chinook Home Improvement Center (CHIC) – Check out the website: Calgary Liquid Vinyl Siding

I had no idea that ph balance in the water one drinks could affect the amount one needs to drink. I was staying at a friends recently and they had a machine that would alter the PH balance of the water in the kitchen tap. I was unaware of what it did but was using it for a few days just thinking it was a regular filter.

I was doing a trade show at the time – a long one – 17 days. I talk a lot when I’m selling – even more than usual! As a result I drink a lot of water. Well, after a day or so of drinking this ‘filtered’ water I realized that I was drinking much less to quench my thirst. I asked and was told that the PH balance of the water was changed to help the body absorb it better or some such and well, generally, we drink and eat too much acidic foods and liquids so this increases the PH to make the water more alkaline. Much better for the body. As I’m on the road a lot, I wanted a way to increase the alkalinity of my water without lugging a machine about with me – Lemon juice. I did some research and found that even though one would expect lemon juice to increase the acidity of water it does the opposite. So, now I squeeze lemon into my water pretty much every day and do notice a difference. Apple cider vinegar will also increase the alkalinity of your body as well but it does not taste nearly as nice. (Other types of vinegar are acidic – do not use them for this purpose.)