Thursday, July 13, 2006
Calaway, Spruce Meadows, the Stampede and a bunch of Pirates
Oh! And I guess a bit of Superman, too. Although I don’t count that last one because it wasn’t really involved in this blink-of-an-eye weekend. I think we went to see Superman Returns on Thursday; a treat I thought all of us would enjoy, to tell the truth. What actually happened was that a scene in the first 10 or 15 minutes of the movie, and I’m going to try to do this with out giving too much away for all you people who still want to see it, a scene involving one of two dogs, both Pomeranians, used for dark comedic affect caused Kristen to completely make up her mind that she hated this movie. She managed to stay for the whole thing, but she stated as the credits started rolling that she hated Superman Returns and never wanted to see it again.
When the credits started rolling, I was a little confused as to how I felt. First off, the movie had a constant barrage of pre-teen interruptions going against it. There was Kristen’s “moment” during the film, and then there was Rylee’s necessary trip to the bathroom. This wouldn’t have been too bad, but the bathrooms are located at only one side of our 12 theatre multiplex, and, of course, we were at the opposite side of this location. Thankfully, Rylee didn’t want to miss too much either, so she sprinted there and back.
Secondly, the movie was just too darn dramatic. Brendan Routh did a perfect job of channeling Christopher Reeves’ Clark Kent, but apart from that everything was taken soooooo seriously. This is a comic book movie, for crying out loud! Get with the COMIC aspect. Now, I’m not saying that the movie was bad as it was definitely above the level of being “meh.” I just thought that for 260 million dollars Bryan Singer would have made a movie that made me love the characters like he did when he mad the first two X-Men movies.
Anyway, it’s not like this is a movie review column. On with the weekend…
We literally did everything the title suggests we did, and the weekend went by with a flash. First I took Friday morning off to take Michelle and the girls to the Stampede Day parade. Man, it was long! This city sure makes a big deal about this 10 day event, that’s for darn sure. I now know that I definitely need to bring one of those umbrella chairs with me next time I go to an event like this as sitting on the pavement causes certain things to just seize right up. At one point I said to Michelle that I wanted to go as soon as the Calgary Flames went past, and she readily agreed since the pavement was affecting her in the same way. I actually almost missed them because the entire Flames section consisted of three players. I believe Robyn Regehr was one of them, but since it’s Thursday and I’m writing about last Friday, I could be a little hazy on the subject. I do know that the two players had the same last name, and seeing as I doubt that they were married, they were probably brothers. I just looked at the Flames’ roster, however, and they don’t appear to be on it (Hmmm).
After work on Friday, Rylee and I decided to make me a little nauseous by going on every spinney ride that Calaway had to offer. We discovered that Rylee does not like the log flume ride. No! Not one bit.
The following morning we awoke bright and early to head South of the city. Not very far outside the city limits since Calgary is almost the size of Alberta now. I don’t know if I’ve made this very clear, but Kristen is an avid horse nut. She will name the breeds of horses from half a kilometer away and claims that our backyard is big enough to sustain one of these creatures. She’s the same way about dogs, too. We were at Thetis Lake once, and I saw this dog retrieving a ball from the water for its master. I exclaimed to Kristen that it was a beautiful German Shepard, to which she replied that she didn’t think it was a pure Shepard but a Shepard-Husky cross. She even went up to the owner to confirm this. What a wonderful power she has! I wondered if she could tell what different nationalities I was made up off, but I believe her powers are only limited to animals. Where was I? Oh, yes! Saturday morning we went to Spruce Meadows to watch the horse jumping nationals. Horses and riders from all over the world came to this event, and it was spectacular. The weird thing was that it was free; we received tickets in our gas bill. Andrew said that you can find deals all over the place for good entertainment here, but I wasn’t expecting Enmax to mail me event tickets. Whatever! The event was wonderful. We saw two horse jumping events, a military salute (whatever they call shooting their guns off in the air…I forgot. I’m sure they were blanks, anyway, as anyone some miles away might find themselves in an oddly fatal hail storm), a mounty synchronized ride and the Prairie Dog show. The Prairie Dog show consisted of dogs racing through obstacle courses against each other. Very amusing!
Sunday was an early day, as well, because we had to get to the Stampede gates before 9am for family day entrance and pancake breakfast. I have four words for you: wall to wall people! I felt like I needed a machete to get through the crowds, but somehow felt that ending the weekend in a manslaughter arrest would be a bad turn of events. We managed to avoid the expensive pitfalls that are the Stampede Midway and attended many of the shows. We saw bull riding, the Iams Super Dogs show (like Prairie Dogs but huger), six horse hitch competition and watched some Border Collies round up sheep. Rylee and I did go on one ride that wasn’t so much a ride but a very long slide. I marveled at the fact that one had to be 36 inches tall, which Rylee is beyond, to go on the slide with out an adult, but the indicator was set at well over four feet. Carnies! To sum up, I spent ten bucks for Rylee and I to ride down this slide in ten seconds. Well worth it don’t you think? The whole experience was great, and, most importantly, my ladies had a fantastic time.
Sunday evening we saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, but you don’t want to hear about that do you? Actually, since it’s Thursday morning, and I’m at work, I should probably do some actual work, so I’ll let you know about that movie later. I did take a massive amount of pictures the whole weekend, but they’re on the memory card at home. If I get the time I’ll upload some this evening. No, I wasn’t allowed to take the camera into the movie, so stop wondering about that. I do have about 2000 photographs of horses for some reason, though.
When the credits started rolling, I was a little confused as to how I felt. First off, the movie had a constant barrage of pre-teen interruptions going against it. There was Kristen’s “moment” during the film, and then there was Rylee’s necessary trip to the bathroom. This wouldn’t have been too bad, but the bathrooms are located at only one side of our 12 theatre multiplex, and, of course, we were at the opposite side of this location. Thankfully, Rylee didn’t want to miss too much either, so she sprinted there and back.
Secondly, the movie was just too darn dramatic. Brendan Routh did a perfect job of channeling Christopher Reeves’ Clark Kent, but apart from that everything was taken soooooo seriously. This is a comic book movie, for crying out loud! Get with the COMIC aspect. Now, I’m not saying that the movie was bad as it was definitely above the level of being “meh.” I just thought that for 260 million dollars Bryan Singer would have made a movie that made me love the characters like he did when he mad the first two X-Men movies.
Anyway, it’s not like this is a movie review column. On with the weekend…
We literally did everything the title suggests we did, and the weekend went by with a flash. First I took Friday morning off to take Michelle and the girls to the Stampede Day parade. Man, it was long! This city sure makes a big deal about this 10 day event, that’s for darn sure. I now know that I definitely need to bring one of those umbrella chairs with me next time I go to an event like this as sitting on the pavement causes certain things to just seize right up. At one point I said to Michelle that I wanted to go as soon as the Calgary Flames went past, and she readily agreed since the pavement was affecting her in the same way. I actually almost missed them because the entire Flames section consisted of three players. I believe Robyn Regehr was one of them, but since it’s Thursday and I’m writing about last Friday, I could be a little hazy on the subject. I do know that the two players had the same last name, and seeing as I doubt that they were married, they were probably brothers. I just looked at the Flames’ roster, however, and they don’t appear to be on it (Hmmm).
After work on Friday, Rylee and I decided to make me a little nauseous by going on every spinney ride that Calaway had to offer. We discovered that Rylee does not like the log flume ride. No! Not one bit.
The following morning we awoke bright and early to head South of the city. Not very far outside the city limits since Calgary is almost the size of Alberta now. I don’t know if I’ve made this very clear, but Kristen is an avid horse nut. She will name the breeds of horses from half a kilometer away and claims that our backyard is big enough to sustain one of these creatures. She’s the same way about dogs, too. We were at Thetis Lake once, and I saw this dog retrieving a ball from the water for its master. I exclaimed to Kristen that it was a beautiful German Shepard, to which she replied that she didn’t think it was a pure Shepard but a Shepard-Husky cross. She even went up to the owner to confirm this. What a wonderful power she has! I wondered if she could tell what different nationalities I was made up off, but I believe her powers are only limited to animals. Where was I? Oh, yes! Saturday morning we went to Spruce Meadows to watch the horse jumping nationals. Horses and riders from all over the world came to this event, and it was spectacular. The weird thing was that it was free; we received tickets in our gas bill. Andrew said that you can find deals all over the place for good entertainment here, but I wasn’t expecting Enmax to mail me event tickets. Whatever! The event was wonderful. We saw two horse jumping events, a military salute (whatever they call shooting their guns off in the air…I forgot. I’m sure they were blanks, anyway, as anyone some miles away might find themselves in an oddly fatal hail storm), a mounty synchronized ride and the Prairie Dog show. The Prairie Dog show consisted of dogs racing through obstacle courses against each other. Very amusing!
Sunday was an early day, as well, because we had to get to the Stampede gates before 9am for family day entrance and pancake breakfast. I have four words for you: wall to wall people! I felt like I needed a machete to get through the crowds, but somehow felt that ending the weekend in a manslaughter arrest would be a bad turn of events. We managed to avoid the expensive pitfalls that are the Stampede Midway and attended many of the shows. We saw bull riding, the Iams Super Dogs show (like Prairie Dogs but huger), six horse hitch competition and watched some Border Collies round up sheep. Rylee and I did go on one ride that wasn’t so much a ride but a very long slide. I marveled at the fact that one had to be 36 inches tall, which Rylee is beyond, to go on the slide with out an adult, but the indicator was set at well over four feet. Carnies! To sum up, I spent ten bucks for Rylee and I to ride down this slide in ten seconds. Well worth it don’t you think? The whole experience was great, and, most importantly, my ladies had a fantastic time.
Sunday evening we saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, but you don’t want to hear about that do you? Actually, since it’s Thursday morning, and I’m at work, I should probably do some actual work, so I’ll let you know about that movie later. I did take a massive amount of pictures the whole weekend, but they’re on the memory card at home. If I get the time I’ll upload some this evening. No, I wasn’t allowed to take the camera into the movie, so stop wondering about that. I do have about 2000 photographs of horses for some reason, though.
