Blue Heeler Iditarod

Moxie and Django got the chance to try out their new snow boots today. We got 4 inches of nice clean snow last night and it was only about -5 Celsius (23 Fahrenheit) so I thought I would take them out for a run. Now all we need is a sled!

Watch with the sound up!



Until next time... Adventure!

The finished snow ship

It doesn't look like much in the photos Raul posted, so here is the ship when it was done. People really liked it!

Mast of ice and cardboard tube, sails of cheesecloth, windows made of ice (poured into forms in Jesse's back yard) the rest is hard-packed snow, shoveled by bulldozers into two 8' square plywood boxes and left to sit a week or two until set into solid cubes. Jesse did most of the sculpting with a chain saw.

 

 

 

I loved how the final ship looked; the ethereal cheesecloth sails juxtaposed against the big solid blocky shapes of the ship made out of snow...

Until next time... adventure! (hopefully in slightly warmer weather...)

Obedience class!

Last night C and Moxie started obedience class at the Regina Kennel Club! It's her first step toward taking agility classes, that's where the dogs run through an obstacle course as fast as they can. There are tunnels, weave poles, tire jumps, etc.

We had taken beginning agility courses with both dogs at another trainer, but the classes weren't that good and they said Moxie needed to go through obedience training first. Moxie's just a little skittish around other dogs. Django seems to be ok with them, but if he senses his sister getting apprehensive, he gets wired and goes on the defensive too. And you don't want two dingoes teaming up on another dog in the middle of agility class.

So we found another kennel that some friends had recommended and we decided it might be better that Moxie be in a class by herself instead of the self-feeding dingo frenzy the pair of dogs spiral into when they're together and think they're being threatened.

Moxie is being so good.

Last night was C and Moxie's first class and they did great! This was the kennel's next class after beginning obedience which C asked if she could skip, since we went through the other class with the other kennel, and afterward the instructor said Moxie did fine and could stay in the class! Cool. This time, without Django there to bolster her anxieties, Mox was able to focus more on C and what she wanted her to do. I was so proud of both of them!

"Did I do good, mama?"

In a couple weeks Django and I will start Beginning Agility Class. Ha ha! Cool.

Until next time... adventure!
R-

Sculpting in -35 weather

C was out yesterday helping on an ice sculpture for this year's Fire & Ice Carnival. Last year she and our friends, Dauminique and Kevin, and their son, Dylan, sculpted a polar bear sitting on an iceberg, a design that we submitted as a group and was selected by the carnival organizers. They toiled in -30 weather for 2 days to get it ready in time. Needless to say, they didn't have a great time. The sculpture looked great but C swore up and down that she would never do that again.

So this year she did it again.

Ship ahoy!

C was commissioned by the festival organizers to build a sculpture of Tom Sukanen's ship. After last year's harrowing experience, C was going to turn it down. But a sculptor friend of hers, Jesse Goddard, offered to sculpt it for her. So after coming to an agreement on how to share the money and credit, she accepted.

WeatherNetwork.com reported that it was -35 at noon yesterday, no windchill factor but they did say there was a 9 KPH wind coming from the south. Although Jesse worked on the ship until 5, C only stayed out for a couple hours. I thought she was crazy to stay even that long. At least Jesse had proper Arctic gear on, C only had long johns and several layers of clothing.

Yes that's ice on her eye lashes.

The Fire & Ice Carnival kicks off tomorrow, which coincides with the Olympic torch relay coming through Regina on its way to Vancouver for the Winter Games in February. Cool!

Until next time... stay warm... and adventure!
R-

U-S-A! U-S-A!

The IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship was held in Saskatchewan this year, holding games in Saskatoon and here in Regina. The World Juniors is a pretty big deal in Canada and the fact that Saskatchewan was hosting the tournament made it even more exciting the last few weeks. It's junior level hockey which means players must be under 20 years old.

But last night Team USA defeated Team Canada in overtime, 6-5, to win the gold medal! Wooo-hooooo! That's only the second time the US won gold in the tournament, the first being in 2004 in Helsinki --coincidentally the same time C was there doing research for Sisu. The Canadians had won every gold medal since.

C and I watched the game at home, and man was it ever a great game. Probably one of the most exciting hockey games I'd ever watched. The lead kept changing hands, until the US took a 5-3 lead with 15 minutes left in the 3rd period. The two teams had met just a few days before on New Years Eve when Canada erased a 2-goal lead with 10 minutes left in the game to tie it and then ultimately won in a shoot out. And they did it again, with Jordan Eberle --a Regina native by the way, and who plays for the Regina Pats-- scored twice in the last 3 minutes of regulation to force overtime. The crowd in Saskatoon was going nuts!

Thankfully the US won it in OT. C wasn't too happy, she was pulling for Canada. Oh well. Hey 5 straight gold medals in the tournament is enough, give someone else a go.

The World Juniors will be held in Buffalo, NY next year.

Anyway, congrats! U-S-A! U-S-A!

R-

Puppeteering!

Last week C built a puppet for a commercial that Global produced. It was for Capital Pontiac's Holy Truck Event. Terry Bell, the producer, wanted an animated Muppet-style puppet for the commercial but I suggested C build a real puppet. I asked C if she wanted to do it and she said yes. Unfortunately it took her a lot longer to build a puppet than it would've taken me to half-ass something on the computer, so the project wasn't terribly profitable for her. But the end product is no doubt 1000 times better!


The commercial was low budget, as is most everything that Global produces. Terry's friend played the part of the director in the commercial and he had a full time job so we had to shoot the entire thing over his lunch hour. Ha! Terry directed and worked the camera while C operated the puppet, who we nicknamed Cappy for Capital Pontiac, and I was on the boom mic.

On set with the stars.

All in all the commercial is quite annoying, thanks in large part to Terry's god-awful attempt at a Muppet voice. I'm sure he thinks it's great but for everyone else outside of his skull it's not that enjoyable.

Shopping for clothes for Cappy at the Value Village

Anyway, it's airing now in the greater Regina area. If you happen to see it... we apologize. Ha! For those of you who aren't in the area, here's a link to it on YouTube.


Until next time... adventure!
R-