The Selfish Giant of Cardston

While I was in Lethbridge today I spent a few minutes in the woods down near the river to check on my geocache. Although the trails were still a bit muddy in places it was such a nice day there. Part way along the path that leads to my cache I came across a young rabbit which of course ran away as soon as it saw me, or rather, as soon as I saw it. The sun was shining, there were rabbits hopping, birds singing and in general it was just spring all over the place there.

I found my 5 ½ year old cache still in amazingly good condition, still bone dry on the inside and containing a traveling monkey named Fred. Fred seems to have began his world adventures in 2005 in California and has so far traveled over 16,000 km including two trips to Hawaii. This is a photo of "travel bug" Fred who was placed in my cache just three days ago.

After meeting Fred and completing my other business in Lethbridge I started back toward Cardston. This time spring gradually gave way back to winter, first with snow in the ditches then more and more remaining in the fields. Finally the view of Cardston in the distance included an immense blanket of pure white snow. I was instantly reminded of the story of the Selfish Giant that I posted about recently and how the scene looked so much like the giant’s garden still held hostage by the relentless winter while just outside spring had already come to everyone else nearby.

Apparently there is another Selfish Giant living right here in Cardston who is obviously responsible for this blatently localized and unacceptable delaying of spring. For all I know, he could be me. Yikes! All these years I had attributed the ridiculously long winters in Banff to its northyness and location in the mountains but maybe it was me all along. I apologize to all the residents here and promise to move on just as soon as possible. In the meantime, hopefully spring will somehow manage to find its way here soon.

New Blog Background

Made you look, made you look!

Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. Indeed nothing has changed.

I know that some of you, perhaps my regular visitors, (whose numbers hopefully will someday reach double digits) may have thought at one time or another, “I can’t believe he’s still using that default setting blogger template. Doesn’t he know it’s totally lame?" Actually I do know it may well be considered boring and uncreative to be still using an original blogger template after… let’s see… hey, two days from now (March 19, that’s Marlan’s birthday) will be my second anniversary of my venture into the blogging world. Anyway, it’s not that I haven’t thought of changing it, or that I haven’t looked for a new background, but I just haven’t been able to find anything I like I guess. I know some people like to change their background every week it seems. I’m definitely not that fickle but I wouldn’t mind a change of scenery once in a while.

The problem is, it seems all of the blog template creators are under the impression that only females blog. Women may indeed be the vast majority of casual bloggers but there are a few of us men doing it as well. Whenever I search for a new template all I can find is unicorns, ribbons, butterflies, flowers and rainbows. Either that or they are so loud and busy that I find it hard to believe that anyone who visits a blog with such a background is ever able to read it due to being instantly and terminally distracted by the “in your face” background. (I wonder if that qualifies as an oxymoron.) I have enough trouble getting people to read my blog without having some hallucination inducing shenanigans going on all around it. Oh, and don’t get me started on those backgrounds that actually intrude into the space meant for the writer’s text, often covering it up rendering it unreadable. What’s up with that?

Okay, I feel much better now. I suppose I just needed to get that rant out of the way. In the meantime, I plan to periodically continue my search for a new blog background. For now though, I will continue on with my tried and true, blogger original, newbie template. I’ll just be hoping that instead of finding it lame and boring, you might find its consistancy at least a little bit cozy and comforting.

Finally, just in case you're thinking of suggesting that I make my own template, I'm afraid that is quite impossible. Just as in most other areas of my life, I must rely on the use of other people's creations in order to express my own individuality.

Junior Cougars smack mini Comets…

… out of orbit and into deep interstellar space.
Return to galaxy unlikely some say.

Congratulations to Kendall and his team on their 92 – 59 obliteration of the Junior Comets! The once mighty comet has been smashed into a million tiny pieces and blasted into oblivion like the dying embers of an exploding firework.

The Cougars had their backs up against the wall and needed to give 110% in the final shootout of the zone playoffs. Some members of the team were overheard saying that they were just happy to be there and hoped to be able to contribute. Others spoke of believing in themselves, digging deep to turn it up a notch and bringing their play up to the next level. With both teams playing at such a high level turnovers will be the key some noted.

After the Cougars built a nearly insurmountable lead early on some Comets fans became upset when, during a timeout, an ABBA song (Mama Mia) was played. This unusual choice of song at a boy’s basketball game apparently caused some Comets fans to infer that their team was playing like a bunch of girls. Any such implication however was denied outright by the AV nerd running the music thingy.

In the post game interview the coach may have been heard saying: In the end we played our hearts out and really took it to them. We had several kids making a living out beyond the three point line. We brought our A game today and I’m really proud of the way our guys hung in there. This win hasn’t really sunk in yet. We’ve got the greatest fans in the world bob loblaw…

While the victorious victors ride off into the sunset in victory our thoughts now turn to the surely baffled and bewildered mini Comets. Defeat is not suffered lightly in their town, well known as the center of the basketball universe (at least to the people who live there.) A genuine butt kicking by over thirty points though is likely to cause emergency meetings to be convened at various levels and grief counsellors to be brought in to help the locals deal with a tragedy of this heretofore unheard-of magnitude.

The players themselves will of course not be riding all the way home on the loser bus but will nearly certainly be dropped off at the last junction and be forced to walk the final five miles in order to ponder and reflect upon the great shame they have brought upon their entire town.

So anyway Kendall, Well done! Now I hope you get to enjoy your extra hours away from school!

Welcome to Earth Lucas!

(Banner and balloons thanks to KJAMBD)

It’s so nice to meet you. Sorry about all the snow and the minus 20°C. I promise it will get much nicer soon. Hey think of it this way, at least you’ll have one more day to look forward to in February than most of us.

We do really have quite a nice planet here, I’m sure you’ll love it even though it’s probably not nearly as nice as what you’re used to. For the first while, the food is nutritious but can get a little “didn’t I have this for breakfast and for dinner last night too,” but when you get a bit older there is much more variety I assure you. There are so many things to learn and do, I hope you take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way. You have an awesome family who love you and will help you as much as they can along the way. I wish you all the best in the life you began just today.

Happy Birthday Lucas! This first one is a freebee, next time around the count up begins.

Love,
Uncle Lorin

2009 OSCARS - In Memoriam

So it's Sunday night and I just couldn't find any good WWE, Ultimate Fighting To The Death matches, ( I think that's the one where two guys are in a cage and the winner has to knock the other guy out and then kick him in the head until at least five teeth or one eyeball falls out) or even a Michael Bay movie on TV. I was therefore pretty much forced to watch the OSCARS which I reluctantly (cough) did.

I'm not here to do a review of the show or comment on who won what or who didn't. Overall I thought things went well with the one glaring exception of the segment where they pay tribute to some who have passed away in the previous year. What they have always done in the past is show the video feed directly to us but this year apparently they wanted to show off all the flat screen monitors they had going in the building and had the camera pan and zoom while the camera man was being chased around the room by a pack of wild dogs, or so it seemed. The ridiculous camera work rendered many of the names and faces unreadable and unrecognizable, was disrespectful and ultimately a big fat train wreck even if you don't ask me.

Luckily someone with access to the original video, not what was broadcast to all of us, has posted it on YouTube. So just in case you were frustrated like me, care at all, or are just a bit curious, here is the segment the way it should have been shown in the first place.

The Selfish Giant

It seems I overestimated people's familiarity with the story of The Little Match Girl a few posts ago. So now I have another old nostalgic animated tale to share with you and I hope that this one is at least a bit more familiar to everyone. It's called The Selfish Giant. This one is definitely not done by Disney which becomes obvious when watching it. It used to be shown on TV every year or so but I haven't seen it for many years which is too bad. I wonder if you remember seeing it at all. It's about 25 minutes long and is split into three parts on YouTube. Here they are:





I still have my copy of the book that mom gave me many years ago.

For Your Eyes Only

Below is a link to a rather plain web page and the start of simple yet difficult game called "The eyeballing game", hence the title of this post. You can use only your eyes to play the game and, may I add, any inferring done on your part that you may have been about to become privy to any sort of top secret information or spy grade communications whatever must unfortunately be deemed wishful thinking.

You are asked to manipulate seven images to obtain the desired result. These tasks will be repeated twice more, slightly modified, for a total of 21 attempts. When you have finished, it will show you your average score and how your score compares to all others who have played.

My best score is 3.22

So, are you up for it?
Be sure to come back and tell me how badly you beat me.

Game on!

The Eyeballing Game

The Little Match Girl - Part Two

Having revisited my early childhood memories of The Little Match Girl recently I gradually recalled and came to decide that my original knowledge of the story resulted from listening to a record which contained a few of Hans Christian Andersen's stories that were narrated by Danny Kaye. I wasn't quite 100% positive but I was fairly sure that was the case. I wonder if anyone else in my family remembers listening to such a record.

I didn't really have much hope but thought that just for fun I would try to find any evidence of such a record on the internet. I googled "little match girl danny kaye" and the very first hit led me to a web page with a long list of old children's story records including the one I was looking for. The record containing HCA's stories narrated by Danny Kaye did include TLMG plus a few others that seemed to ignite recollection in my head so I'm sure it was the one I had heard long ago, and here it is.



The page also includes downloadable mp3 files of the records so of course I did just that and upon listening to Danny Kaye tell the story of The Little match Girl I am now sure that it was the very same recording that left such a big impression on me all those years ago.

If you would like to hear it for yourself you can listen to it right here.



I must admit that now I prefer the silent animated film version I included in my previous post but Danny Kaye had the advantage of being the first to tell me the story and that, when I was still so young. He must have made an quite an impression, for me to search out the Little Match Seller once more all these years later.

Anyway if you or your kids might be interested in listening to some old stories told the old fashioned way, here is the link to the web page.

http://www.artsreformation.com/records/

(The record containing The Little Match Girl that I downloaded is "GLP 74")

Finally, to close, may I just quote another great old story teller and say, "now you know...(dramatic pause)...the rest of the story."

(Um, yeah, that's Paul Harvey)

The Little Match Girl

Do you remember the story of The Little Match Girl - by Hans Christian Andersen? Of course you do. Maybe not every detail but you do remember the general plot right?

For some reason I got to thinking about her tonight and decided to see what I could find on the YouTube. I found this version done by Disney which is surprisingly (‘cause it’s Disney) faithful to the original story and still contains the saddest parts and has absolutely NO talking animals in it. I wish I’d have come across this a few weeks ago when it would have been a bit more timely. Even so, it’s such a wonderful telling of a sad but beautiful story.

Here is a link to the text version of the story in case you want to refresh your memory before you watch this “silent animated film” version. (The story is shown accompanied by some perfect music but there is no talking in it.) I hope you will take a couple of minutes to read the story once now. I think it will help you get the most out of the film version.

http://www.online-literature.com/hans_christian_andersen/981/

And now for Disney's "The Little Match Girl".



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The Little Match Girl, poor, abused, and unloved. We witness the final moments of her life when, although literally freezing, she is too afraid to go home having been unsuccessful in selling any of her nearly worthless matches. At first she resists the urge to use any of the matches for herself but she finally gives in and, as she slowly freezes to death, we are shown her desperate wishes for only the most basic human needs of shelter, food and love. Things we so often take for granted. Has there ever been anything sadder? Finally her grandmother, the only person who had loved her, comes to take her away from all the pain and the last thing we see is a shooting star, which as the Little Match Girl knew, having been told by her grandmother, meant a soul had ascended to God.
The contrast in the heart breaking yet somehow happy ending is something long lost in modern children’s stories I think.

I’m not sure why I made a post about this. I guess it’s not so much for you this time as it is for me. I was just so happy to discover this little gem and to be reminded to be grateful for all I have, especially on a cold winter night; happy to remind myself to keep an eye out for the Little Match Girls out there and when I encounter one to be sure and buy every one of her matches and then some.

P.S. I also found out that this very same video is included on disc 2 of the two disc version of The Little Mermaid (another Hans C. Andersen story) DVD in the bonus features. So if you happen to have the DVD, it of course looks much better.

Big News Day

As I read the headline "Iconic Waterton Hotel Burns to the Ground", and momentarily forgot how the media likes to sensationalize everything as much as possible, I immediately thought that the Prince of Wales had finally caught a spark and gone with the wind. Clicking on the link and opening the article I was somewhat relieved to learn that it was merely the second worst case scenario and not the PoW.

I have driven, walked, biked, motorcycled and rental scootered past the Kilmorey Lodge many times but I had never actually set foot inside it. I had always hoped to someday stay for a night as I had heard of it's great reputation and it always seemed like such a cozy and inviting place. It's a shame to lose such a lovely lodge but hopefully the owners will be able to rebuild something just as nice in that same spot.


In other news, apparently the US got a new president today.
For the sake of the country I wish him all the best with his new challenge.

I also had my new poster ready just in case they asked me to take over but surprisingly they never called.

Maybe next time.