Alberta Needs This
AAAAAAAAAAAA Nenshi is doing political stuff again!
I’m so glad I’m able to vote now, because I’m totally going to join the NDP, vote for Nenshi to be the leader of the party, and then hopefully help to get him into the seat of the premier of Alberta.
Honestly, an angry wasp with a drinking problem would be a better leader than Danielle Smith, but Nenshi? That would be amazing.
LET’S GO, ALBERTA.
Family Day: Song Version
(Sung, of course, to this tune.)
It seems this month that all you see
Are snow and ice and temps in the negative degrees
But where are those good old lazy off days
That we all need to survive?
Lucky there’s a Family Day!
Lucky there’s a day that
Makes us want to take back
All the times that we said…
“Why can’t it be May?”
It’s our Family Day!
OH CRAP
It’s so cold here that everyone’s burning through power and the grid’s ready to bite it.
We really are Canada’s Texas.
The only things on in our condo right now are my computer and a few lights (we’ve turned the furnace down, but I guess that’s on, too).
Edit: we survived the failure threat! No rolling power outages.
Die another day, Alberta power grid.
So this is cool
Have you seen “The Last of Us?” Did you know many of the scenes were filmed in Calgary (and across Alberta)?
It’s too bad that none of the filming took place near locations where I usually walk/run; it would have been cool to see!
I remember that there were a lot of road closures for the 4th Avenue Flyover filming and it caused a lot of chaos because the closures lasted longer than expected, haha.
Band o’ Cloud
Bro, check out this snazzy band of cloud:
I LOVE the clouds up here. We usually don’t get super interesting ones until the summer (apart from the Chinook arches), but this one is pretty unique.
So, uh…
Alberta’s Premier resigned.
Because that’s apparently a thing they can do.
I’m fine with it. Was not a Jason Kenney fan, especially when it came to his handling of COVID. But now I guess the conservatives have to elect a new top dude, and there’s every chance he’ll be even more wacko than Kenney.
‘Berta: Canada’s Texas.
YEEEEEEEHAWWWWWWWW!
GOOD JOB, ALBERTA
This freaking province, man.
We’re not even the most populous asldfjweurdfhlsdfhssd.
‘Berta
I got my Alberta driver’s license today!
…am I cool now?
(Sorry not sorry for the short blog.)
UGH FREAKING PEOPLE SLJFLSAKGFJALSGHFLAG
So Alberta’s going back to the Phase 1 restrictions because people suck and can’t follow the rules and now variant cases are making up like 60% of our new daily cases (which have risen back to the ~1,000 per day level).
I just want to see my mom. It’s been FIFTEEN MONTHS.
I hate everyone.
GOOD JOB
Heyyyyyyy Alberta is doing a really good job keeping COVID cases down. I guess stricter lockdown rules work. WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED?!?!?!?
They’ll probably re-open things too soon again, though, ‘cause that’s what happened last time.
Edit from April: okay, yeah, we done screwed up. We’re in a serious wave three now.
Hey Alberta: Get it together, man
So remember a few months ago when Alberta was still doing quite well pandemic-wise? New daily cases were in the 100-200 range, hospitals weren’t overwhelmed, and people were generally still following the “don’t be a moron” way of life as far as dealing with COVID?
Yeah, no, that’s not happening anymore.
New daily cases jumped into the 300s; nothing was done. New daily cases jumped into the 500s; nothing was done. Now they’re regularly above 1,000, closer to 2,000 (in fact, Alberta holds the daily new case record for Canada). And guess what? Very little is being done.
We are the only province without a province-wide mask mandate.
Only recently have those in charge shifted from “educate people about COVID safety” to “enforce the rules with fines” – something I thinks should have happened from the start of all this.
People are gathering in big groups indoors and out.
There are anti-mask rallies being held in Calgary.
Space in hospitals is running out rapidly.
It’s quite frightening.
Is it a coincidence that the most conservative province is having the biggest issue with COVID right now? No, I don’t think so. Kenney is more concerned about “tHe EcOnOmY hUrTiNg” than saving peoples’ lives. Guess what? It’s not people going into grocery stores/small businesses/etc. that’s causing the main source of spread. It’s morons gathering indoors without masks. Surely that can be better monitored without damaging the economy.
It’s so damn frustrating. Those of us who are being cautious and following the rules are continuously getting screwed over by the idiots. Not to mention, I don’t know, all the people dying or having long-term effects from the virus.
Is this what it feels like in the States?
More C-C-C-COVID
Today, Alberta led the Canadian provinces and territories in new active cases of COVID-19. How many new cases did Alberta have?
121.
That’s a good sign, I think. I mean, the province leading in new active cases sucks (especially since it’s only the fourth most populous province in the country), but the fact that it’s leading with such a relatively “small” number is good.
Yay?
Open
I ran 10 miles today!
In completely unrelated news, Alberta published its “here’s how we’re going to re-open the province” plan. Let’s see what we’ve got.
Comments:
May 14 sounds awful soon for some of the “Phase 1” items. Farmers’ markets? Hairstylists/barbers? Daycares and summer camps (even with limited occupancy)? That seems…frightening. Hopefully enough people share my same sentiment so that these places won’t be overrun by peeps. Or maybe they’ll push it back.
Also, movie theaters in stage 2? And schools, even with restrictions? Oofs.
And I might just be missing it, but I don’t see anything on there about universities. Who knows when that nonsense will reopen.
I’m glad there are no set times on stages 2 and 3, at least. I think Alberta has done a really good job of dealing with all of this; I just hope they remain as cautious and health-focused as things start opening up and the economy starts chugging again.
We don’t want to have to do all this again in a few months.
The Calg
I really do love it up here.
One Fish, Two Fish, Oh God, More Fish
It’s Storm ‘n Hail time up here in Calgary! Don’t believe me? Check out these pictures/videos taken last Tuesday when a huge storm barreled through the southern part of the city.
I love that picture of the lightning behind the Calgary Tower.
I also love that #ABstorm is a hashtag, and one that gets used quite frequently at that.
DONE!
ZztZzt
So my knowledge about where various cities are in Alberta is horrible.
Example: I’m looking on Indeed for stats-related jobs and I see an ad for an instructor at Grande Prairie Regional College. Oh, sweet, I think. I wonder where that is. It sounds like it wouldn’t be all that far up north—
Hell.
Granted, I’m no Captain Geography when it comes to any other province/state/country/continent, but I’ve never really had a reason to study Alberta and the distribution of its population. Plus, it’s a big chunk of earth, so there’s a lot of it to know.
DON’T JUDGE ME!
Albrrrrrta
Welcome to April in Alberta!
To be fair, this was just south of Calgary; the city itself was cloudy but snow-free. We were down in Crowsnest Pass for the weekend and there was quite a bit of snow going on today in that area. Still better than that September storm, though, haha.
Roar
Hello again!
Today, Nate and I took a little road trip to Drumheller to check out the Royal Tyrrell Museum, a museum dedicated solely to paleontology. It’s tucked away a little ways outside of Drumheller proper, but it’s super cool and worth visiting if you have any interest at all in paleontology and/or dinosaurs in general. I should have brought my good camera, but since all I had was my iPod, these are the only pics y’all get.
Check it out if you’re ever in southern Alberta!
Stop blaming it on the bossa nova. The poor guy just wants some friends.
No Canadian Mall installment today, ‘cause the majority of the day was spent driving to EDMONTON with the rest of the new stats grad students.
It was pretty meh. You can tell that the city’s waaaay older than Calgary. Same thing with the university, which reminded me of UI except it was like 20 times bigger. It’s also flatter than hell up there. We drove down one hill and got all excited for the change in elevation.
Also this:
The ride back was spent listing super nitpicky reasons why Calgary > Edmonton (examples: “Edmonton’s buses are ugly!”, “WE have a bridge that lights up, too!”, “OUR sunset is better!”, etc.)
Also, you’d think stats grad students would have high enough spatial skills (or memory) to recall where we parked the rental van.
Or how to get back out of Edmonton and onto the highway.
Nope.
Do Narcissistic Bookshelves post Shelfies?
I FINALLY have an apartment in Calgary now! I shall post piccys when I move in at the beginning of September.
UGH this process has been obnoxious.
Here are more Canada pics.
(Only in Canada, man.)
The Frank Slide
I forgot to blog about this because I was so freaking pissed off about the last few days, but I’ll blog about it now: when we were driving up here, we drove through the aftermath of a disaster called the Frank Slide.
Back in 1903, when Alberta was still part of the Northwest Territories, there was a little mining town called Frank. It sat next to Turtle Mountain where—as you might guess—a lot of mining occurred.
On the morning of April 29 1903, a huge section of the mountain slid down onto Frank, burying its east side under 90 million tons of limestone within 100 seconds. A whole bunch of townspeople and non-town miners were killed.
And when I say we drove through the aftermath of the slide, we literally drove right through it on the highway. Piccy from the Frank Slide Wiki page:
In addition to the mining, the mountain’s anticline formation was unstable to begin with. Also, for several weeks before the incident, there had been very warm days and vary cold nights, causing water in the cracks of the mountain to freeze, melt, freeze, melt, repeat. ALSO, there were tremors near the base of the mountain that miners had felt for a few days.
So yeah. Cool but freaky.
Eigenblogger 