NFB Vignettes Flashback

Any Canadian who grew up in the 1980's (especially those of us who grew up in a 2 channel universe) will fondly remember the NFB Vignettes that would be shown as filler between programming. My favourite was the Logdriver's Waltz. While these animated short films disappeared from Canadian television (a real loss to younger generations) and faded from my memory as I grew up, I was abruptly reminded of it one night while at a Captain Tractor concert when I was in university. While enjoying the show and waiting for the band's trademark version of "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", the band launched into a rousing rendition of the Logdriver's Waltz theme. Hearing only the first few notes, most patrons of Louis' that night immediately recognized the tune, jumped up and belted out whatever they could remember of the song. It was a very memorable moment. Having rekindled this fond childhood memory, I went out and found both the original and the remake of the song and they are both on my ipod's favourite list to this day. However, it was finding the original video on YouTube that really took me back to my childhood. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

If the Logdriver's Waltz doesn't take you back, check out this site for the archives of the Hinterland Who's Who nature shorts.

Field Trip to Wadi Adim

Every year during the holy month of Ramadan, the company I work for tries to do something to help the local villagers. This year, we took 30 bags of cement to a village in Wadi Adim to help them patch some crumbling walls in the school. I was invited along to help deliver the cement. The village is about an hour's drive from our site. It is really quite isolated and the poverty is obvious. I read recently that Yemen is the 10th poorest country in the world (to get a perspective, Canada's GDP per capita is about $39,000; Yemen's is less than $700). Here are a couple of pictures from the trip.


When the local oil company comes to town, it is quite a big deal and within minutes there was at least 20 young boys and a few adults checking us out. After I started taking some pictures, they were all very interested in getting into my photos. Check out a brief slide show of the Yemeni boys.

The Big Buck... my turn to play uninformed analyst

Prologue: This is sort of tongue in cheek as I really don't pay much attention to these sort of things. However, a couple of things clicked in my head when discussing the current situation with some co-workers today.

The newsflash across Canadian media yesterday was that our beloved Loonie is now worth the same as one American dollar. The last time this occurred, I was 2 weeks old (November 25, 1976) and it was 3 days before the Rider lost the '76 Grey Cup (I obviously don't remember the game, but somehow it got in my blood to hate Tony Gabriel/Tom Clements). It's a stretch, but perhaps the good year the Riders are currently having (who's kidding who...7-4 at this point in the season may be common place for other teams, but this is a GREAT year for the Riders) has something to do with the Loonie's run.

Obviously, this milestone is worth enjoying as means good things for us as personal consumers and shows our economy is at least headed in a positive direction, but there are two sides to everything. The dark side of this is that it has as much to do with high oil prices and a floundering American economy as anything else. It may not really highlight anything other than our reliance on a single commodity (of which we are in a very enviable position through not much more than luck) and having a seriously worriesome economy (the US's) as our prime trading partner. While everything is going to get cheaper for us, this will begin to cause havoc for our exports as all of the sudden our neighbour's goods begin to cost less than ours. This is an issue as a strong export market is the foundation of a stable economy. We are already seeing tourism down (not really an export, but along the same lines). As well, cross border shopping will hurt the lowest levels of business. I am guilty as I've made 2 trips to Montana in the last 4 months primarily because it is a good deal. This could be a large factor as four out of five Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border, making shopping trips easy.

Like most things in nature (which it can be loosely argued that the planet's economic structure is a part of), it is all about balance. What sort of worries me is how fast our currency gained against the US dollar (one Loonie was worth only 63 US cents as recently as 2001). Such a swift rise over the last few years indicates some sort of imbalace in our markets and I am curiously waiting to see if and how things correct.

Renewable Energy

While strolling the web, I found this posting about harnessing some of the inherent energy that our oceans hold. We need more and more of these great ideas implemented.

In anticipation of the Banjo Bowl

At a grade school in Winnipeg a teacher was talking with her students about football. She told the students that she was a Winnipeg Blue Bombers fan. She then asked her students to raise their hands if they, too, were Bomber fans.

Everyone in the class raised their hand, except Little Johnny.

The teacher looked at Little Johnny with surprise and said, "Johnny, why didn't you raise your hand?"

"Because I'm not a Bombers fan," he replied.

The teacher, shocked, asked, "Well, if you are not a Winnipeg Blue Bombers fan, then who are you a fan of?"

"I'm a Saskatchewan Roughriders fan, and proud of it," Little Johnny replied.

The teacher could not believe her ears. "Little Johnny, why are you a Roughriders fan?"

"Because my Mom is a Roughriders fan and my Dad is a Roughriders fan, so that makes me a Saskatchewan Roughriders fan too!" explained Little Johnny.

"Well," said the teacher, in an obviously annoyed tone, "that is no reason for you to be a Saskatchewan Roughriders fan. You don't have to be just like your parents all the time. Why, what if your Mom was a moron and your Dad was a moron, what would you be then?"

"Then," Little Johnny smiled, "We'd be Bomber fans!"