Let’s Get to Know, Brooks Alberta

Learned a lot, my brother is a great tour guide.

There are 120 different nationalities living here!

It’s an oil town; if you work in the on an oil rig, you’re a “rigger“.

I wish I had more time here, I want to go out to work with them, be a rigger for a day, HOW fun would that video be… my weak blogging arms failing me, getting coffee at the Red Basket at 5am, seeing oil up close gushing around.

This is Canada’s Desert… like, it rained twice this summer.

The sky is HUGE, it’s hard to explain, and it doesn’t translate in photo.

That’s the Brooks Aquaduct, built to water the fields in the 1910s… of concrete?!!

The new way, that machine, drives up and down the fields and you can control it with your iPhone.

During the tour my brother and I turned into ghosts.

Been playing lots of pool, my favourite spot is The Legion. I almost beat Ron there… SO close I sewered on the 8 UGH.

The bars are in hotels here, and many also have liquor stores in them, it’s kinda hard to explain.

The two main bars.

The people here are genuinely nice. Not happy crappy nice, genuine; then they’ll give you a shot or two, so Canadian I love it.

Pete took me to Brooks Animal Protection Society, where he volunteers. Special place, and heartbreaking, too. That’s his story he wrote about adopting his cat.

My lovely hosts!

And the tour will end of course the city’s very best radio station, 101.1 The ONE Brooks.

Where I messed up the song introduction.

Thanks for a great time Brooks, I’ll be sticking around for your giant Boxing Day party next year!

 

 

Hope Your Weekend was Fun and Productive Too

Went to the movies, saw Mission Impossible.  I’d have edited 45 minutes out of it.

The best part was the trailer for the new Batman, have you seen it come ON.  Where the SF guys take over the plane mid air gaaah.  That’ll be the next time I go to the theatre.

Did a lot of packing and purging, moved stuff to my storage unit.

Here’s a trunk update.

If you’re just meeting me… I gave away all my belongings three months ago, everything I own now fits into that trunk, that’s what’s happening here.

1 – USB collection and little glass friends

2 – from my first away-from-home home.  I’ve hung it up in every home, ever since.

3 – office supply box, after purging

1 – putting away my fur collection, one of the only things I’ll miss about winter.

2 – a skirt from when I was 16; I keep it to keep track

3 – sadly sent to storage

Me writing this blog post.

Night! Have a good start to your week, TTYT.

 

 

Cut Through the Mall to See the Tree

Beautiful.

In late November and December, whenever possible, I cut through the Eaton Centre to walk past the Swarovski tree.

It’s 7 stories tall, covered in crystals, and it spins.

The bows and red balls are new this year.  I’m curious to know the reaction, usually it’s only crystals. Being a minimalist, I like the latter.

I also like their sunglasses, which I didn’t even know that they make sunglasses, learned that a few weeks ago at an event.

Oh hi hi.

(I dedicate this gif to Allison )

At that same event I met Christine in real life… in 2009 we’d both entered a contest to win a trip to the Olympics.

At that time, she was a student and I was ‘The Canadian Explorer’.  Then out of school and tada, she’s working for a top PR firm, nicely done missy!!

The Contest: they were looking for mobile explorers (I know come ON), so you had to create an original video showcasing your blogging and social media skills, and the 5 entries with the most votes were sent to cover Vancouver 2010.

This was my entry.

Remember when we all had Olympic fever?  The excitement and camaraderie and patriotism?  Awesome.

And remember when Canada threw ‘The Party Olympics’ while SIMULTANEOUSLY winning more Gold medals in the history of all time?

GO CANADA GO!!

 

 

 

Keri
PS – I won the contest, here’s the proof, and yet I didn’t.  That day, I declared contests dead to me.

 

 

 

 
 
 

The Strombo Party was a Great Party

Casie, Lauren and I attended George Stroumboulopoulos’s party, which was _the_ TIFF party that night.

It was held at ONE bar inside Hazelton Hotel in Yorkville, you can stay there tonight for $1000.

Here’s the red carpet.

We were photographed and interviewed here, while those people looked on.

Fortunately the girls got better photos than me, so I went and grabbed them.

Casie and our host, George.

Toronto’s four favourite blonde bloggers.

Behind me is Amber Mac, finally we met.  She does a great job, has a million internet shows, a book; she’s been killing it online for forever.

And that’s Sarah, who introduced herself as, “hey I’m the one that stalked you on Twitter that rainy night”, ha!  Because she did.

I was tucked into a dark doorway on Queen Street in a hat a rainy night weeks ago, and she tweeted she’d spotted me driving past.  Good spy skills, lady.  (here’s her blog post about tonight).

This photo was on CBC Live.

Did you know I was CBC’s ‘inaugural made-for-web show”?  Yup.

Bono showed up, Clive Owen, John Hamm. I didn’t see any of them. I heard a rumour Bono deploys “fake Bonos” around town as decoys, funny eh.

Click here to see photos of all the famous folk who showed.

A happy me skipping home.

Spent Labour Day in Kingston, Where It’s Awesome

Spent the long weekend in Kingston, Ontario, visiting friends, a photoshoot with Suzy (I’m not allowed to show you anything yet) and celebrating a 60th birthday.

If you would like to get away for a weekend, come here.  There’s 1000 Islands, 1000 things to do, and Kingstonians are known as party-ers.

Let’s start with these four places:

1 – Go there for a beer – The Toucan

2 – Buy your books there – Wayfarer Books (smells so good)

3 – Pan Chancho – get a coffee and chocolate croissant

4 – I never go here, it’s for hippies, but green arrow: she’s _still_ there :O

Or, you could go see me on the walls of here.

My favourite ever army suprlus store is here – Smith Army Surplus.  If you’re lucky Kyle will be working, say hi.

I cruise through, sift through the patches, talk shop and swap lies.

You can shoot in Kingston, too.  Well I can, you might have a bit harder time.

This was S&R – Canada’s oldest (50+) independently owned department store.

It closed two summers ago, which I went around for weeks proclaiming sad and wrong.

I wish I had video of inside here; places like this don’t exist anymore.  I heard some mid-level-restaurant-franchise is going in.  Golf claps.

70% of all Kingstonians own something from here, maybe one of those glass balls, likely received as a gift.

I’m being dramatic, but not really.

Where you should be buying gifts from is Dwell Boutique, which I should have taken a photo of.

It’s a great place for Morning Drive.

YA BUDDY!  THE STUDIO LIVES!

Thanks Claus! <3

He also gave me silver dollar.  I put it on my fridge.

I left it there though, my car.  It’s no longer fit for the highway, not even I’m that wacked.  So kinda cool eh….

Me – “Pardon me?  Oh yes yes, I do keep a car in Kingston” :|

Ha.

This place below is my personal real estate brokering deal dream… it’s the old Psyc Ward down on the water.

Executed correctly, it could be one of the premiere mini-areas in Southern Ontario.

Kingston is a good-sized city that you’ll be leaning on a wall texting, someone strolls by you know, now you’re on a patio making jokes.

The streetlights are an inside joke.

Kingston is filled with buildings like this, Canada’s very first bank.

The arrow is pointing to my old apartment. I was the last person to live in it before the City took it over.

There was a restaurant on the main floor, who’d pass me ahi tuna on my way up the stairs, which I’d eat on the fire-escape (they removed it), from which I may have once thrown handfuls of mini-bouncy-balls from, to see what would happen (fun happens).

Go to Kingston, you’ll love it!