Love this song

 

The COVID-19 Pandemic (14 months later)

14 months later we find ourselves in Canada 

https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-statistics.htm

A LOT Has Happened in the Past (Pandemic) Year.

 I'm just going to list all the stuff that happened since March 2020.

• March 2020 COVID-19 hits Canada
• April 2020 My daughter is born during peak 1st wave of Pandemic here in Canada
• June 2020 Civil Unrest in the USA due to George Floyd Murder by Police https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests
• I watched this everyday in disbelief and with uttermost sadness. 
• World tries to start up in Sept 2020, minor hockey in Calgary resumes but is cancelled by Remembrance Day of Nov 2020 as cases increase and no vaccines available yet. A second round of lockdown happens while the world awaits for a vaccine to be developed. 
• Dec 2020 - Covid Vaccine completion announced. 
• Jan 6, 2021 - USA Insurrection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack
• I remember watching this as it unfolded at my work computer and my stomach just flipping. 
• April 2021 - First COVID vaccines released in Canada. 

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Trailer

 

Always loved Harley Quinn's character in DC. Her unpredictability is hypnotizing and her love for the Joker is bizarre and unexplainable. She only had little roles in Batman/Justice League/DC cartoons, comics, and video games. Then came Suicide Squad where she stole the show. I thought that was a pretty fun movie (good and bad). I haven't seen her spin off movie Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey and a new video game based on the Suicide Squad called Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League game trailer is out and it looks amazing. Watch till the end. Chills!

Here’s some Harley 😍

The COVID-19 Pandemic Around the World (Part 1)

 

Who would have thought that this is where the world would be but here we are. I've been meaning to write this and plug it back with a date around March to look more Chronological but with the situation ever changing and developing around the World and at Home I think I will just leave it with this August 2020 Time stamp. 

I think I first heard of reports on social media around the time of the Mac's tournament (Dec 26,2019-Jan 1, 2020) . I was busy and I thought it was crazy to hear about an outbreak but I wasn't really concerned. It was across the world in one city/province of china. I wasn't worried about it.

Fast forward to the weekend of Jan 18th, 2020, my family and I were on our annual winter vacation in Radium. I was seeing on Twitter the talks of Wuhan possibly going into lock down. I remember talking to my wife about it and telling her my thoughts about it. I thought this was insane to lock down an entire city that had a population of 10 million plus. I still wasn't overly worried, more looking in amazement from a distance. 

Then media started reporting on how the novel coronavirus was spreading despite of the lock down and quarantines. It was getting more and more serious. I talked to my friend Mark and we were discussing why our borders weren't going to close to travelers from China. We didn't know why it wasn't happening. 

Then on Jan 26th, 2020 the first presumptive case was reported in Toronto. It started becoming more real now. Feb 4th there was an presumptive case now in BC. It was getting closer. I started getting worried, but nothing close to a panic. People though, started panicking. People started hoarding. Toilet paper was the first to go. What?! Right but yup, toilet paper. Then all the hand sanitizers, and other sanitizers such as Lysol Wipes. Purel was nowhere to be found in the city.  Amazon prices for these items were 100x their normal pricing (surge pricing). 

March 9th, the government of Italy was on pandemic lock down. If you followed it up to this point you were aware of the absolute carnage that was happening. I remember seeing death counts of 900, then 1000, then 1000+ per day. I read Italian doctors accounts of the horror of too many patients and too much death. Reports of doctors not having enough respirators and having to basically choose who got to live or die. It was terrifying. The World was watching and in complete shock. 

Fast forward to March 6th, 2020 in Calgary Alberta. It was reported that morning that we had our first presumptive case. By the end of the day my work sent out an email that the first case was one of our own employees. I remember this well. I was leaving a minor hockey playoff game I was covering and came out and read this email on the way to the car. I was shook now. Within a week of this we played our last minor hockey game playoff on March 13th, 2020...won a bittersweet South Final vs the Flames. But by that time we knew that our season was done. We were told before the game that the hockey season was suspended, at the first intermission Hockey Canada sent a notice that all hockey was cancelled in Canada...that included us. 

Calgary shut down within a week of these developments. Things started changing fast. I remember running to the rink to grab everything from the room as I was worried we wouldn't be able to get in any time soon. My mother in law closed her nail shop by St. Patrick's day. It was becoming surreal. People who could work from home did. People who couldn't still had to go in of their business was deemed essential. Others were laid off. Fuck it was intense. 

Everything was intense by now. Watching daily local and national reports for updates. Watching the infected rate rise, imploring everyone to stay in and isolate to "flatten the curve". So little was known about COVID-19 at the time and it made for some frightening times. My first few trips to the grocery store was an experience I'll never forget. I wore gloves, had a wipe in my gloved hands. Wiped everything that we bought and wiped it again when we got home. Not many were in the stores either. At that stage, it felt like COVID-19 just jumped out at you and infected you. Things were so uncertain then due to the lack of how it spread.

To be continued...

42nd Mac's Invitation Tournament Champions!

When I first joined the Calgary Buffaloes Hockey Association in 2008 I remember going to the Mac's Tournament final to watch the Buffaloes win the tournament vs Ryan Nugent Hopkins and his Vancouver NW Giants on New Years Day at the Calgary Saddledome. I still remember how amazing I thought it was that these teams and kids at this age (U18) got to play in a NHL Arena.

             

Fast forward to New Years Day 2020. The Buffaloes haven't won this tournament since 2008. This time I'm with the team behind the bench as their Trainer. We played the Moose Jaw Warriors and beat them 6-2 to claim the 42nd Mac's Tournament Championship. 

The experience was surreal. The tournament itself was a grind. We got the right bounces and the right contributions from everyone at the right time. The feeling of waking up that New Year's Day and walking to the rink to get ready to go the Saddledome was unreal. I'll post a link to a video I made of it. The best thing though was I got to share this experience with my wife and son Cooper. Cooper was on the bench with me and also got to come out on the ice with me for the celebration and photo. What an unreal experience. 

I :heart: Biking

 As a kid a bike meant freedom, exploration and convenience.  No longer did I have to wait for my parents to drive me to school, to my friends or to the local stores. I was able to explore all the nooks and crannies of my neighbourhood. It was finding cool paths by the river or taking me to places I have never been able too. Sure I could have walked or taken the bus but it’s just not the same. Waking takes forever and you have to wait for a bus that only takes a specific route. Having a bike was amazing. I rode it everyday I could from spring to the early days of winter.  It didn’t matter the weather. I just loved riding.  I rode it to school, carried my saxophone for band class, picked up groceries, did jumps on it.....you get the point.  I loved it.

It was my life from 7-14 years old. Then we moved to a bigger city and it stopped. The city was busier with more cars. Street traffic was intimidating and bike lanes were non-existent. Park pathways weren't the greatest.   School was a lot further (15km one way compared to 5km total) and we had special public transit arranged to pick us up every day.  So not man kids (pretty much none) rode their bikes to school. So I didn't ride at all. Then came the "car stage" of my life and really once you have a car...it's rare to go back to a bike.

Eventually in 2006 I tried to get back into it. I bought a MTB and only did little rides. Tried to ride to school for Spring and Summer classes, but getting to class all sweaty wasn't great so that stopped quickly. I brought it downtown with me when we lived in a condo from 2008 to 2014. I used it a few times, one for an infamous wipe out after a night of drinking (no worries both the bike and I came out of well aside from a deep gash on my elbow).

Fast Forward to 2019. The itch to ride was becoming overwhelming. I wanted something with a drop bar and good for commuting but also able to take some gravel and dirt paths when needed. After a lot of researching and talking to biking enthusiasts (something I didn't do the first time and was my biggest takeaway from 2006 bike buying) I decided that the Hybrid/Gravel Bikes would be the best bike for me. Gravel bikes are a mix between road and off road (not full mountain with no suspension). Great for speed on pavement and commuting and can take the abuse of rougher paths if I cut through fields or unpaved back alleys. Luckily I caught a sale and got a a great deal on the bike in the picture above. A 2018 Norco Search Carbon Fiber frame Bike. The plus is that Norco is a Canadian company as well!

My first ride to work with this was definitely tiring. It took 30 minutes to cover 9kms but it was super rewarding. The crisp morning air was great, discovering new parts of the city, and no traffic to fight with is amazing. I tried to do once a week for a ride and it did pan out

2018 - 2019 Calgary Buffaloes Road to Telus Cup!!!

Holy shit. We did this thing!

I honestly didn’t think it would happen. We even started the year pretty slow and losing a few in a row. It didn't look very promising. We never overly dominated but we never completely sucked. We sucked real bad in the Mac's 2019 tournament and didn't even make it past the round robin stage. After the Mac's we regrouped and beat the teams we needed to. Lethbridge came up short against us twice and that was unbelievable and because of that we came first in the whole league. Then we won the South Finals, then we won the Alberta Provincials, and then we won the Pacific Region to make it to Nationals! What an amazing journey.  I put in a lot of hours and it was very well worth it. Nationals was in Thunderbay Ontario, it was a crazy experience. 7 days there, 6 days of hockey. It was a war of attrition. Eventually we couldn't push more and earned 4th place (losing the Bronze medal game) but by that time....we did all that we could do. We might have shed a few tears but realized what we had accomplished was unreal. It was a very memorable year and probably the most fun I’ve had in a long time. The staff was great and the boys were amazing. The leadership group was amazing.

1st Round Bye

2nd Round vs NW Flames 3-0

3rd Round vs Royals 3-2

4th Round vs St. Albert 3-0 = Provincial Champions

Pacific Regionals vs Prince George Cougars (Best of 3) 2-0

Telus Cup (Nationals) made it to quarterfinals and lossto Toronto Young Nationals who went on to beat Magog (coached by Felix Potvin) to win the Telus Cup. 

Veronica Mars (is back)!!!

Wow. I loved this series when I was younger. The movie was pretty cool also. So glad to see it back!

*Note that when this series was out, there was no such thing as streaming!