Calgary Stampede

On friday Lorri and I travelled to Calgary to attend the Sugarland concert at the Saddledome. Our concert ticket also included an entry to the Stampede grounds. I haven't been to the Stampede since I was a child. We arrived a little early so we could get something to eat before the concert. Our choices were unlimited. Large hot dogs, polish dogs, elephant ears, deep fried oreos, deep fried cheese, deep fried onions, (lots of deep fried stuff) corn dogs, candied apples, chicken on a stick, pizza on a stick (lots of things on sticks). We settled for pizza and jugo juices.

We then realized we were over-dressed. The appropriate attire for the stampede was obviously cowboy boots, booty shorts or mini skirts and cowboy hats (even better with flashing lights!)

The concert was great. Sugarland is a country duo consisting of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush. They performed for about 1 1/2 hours and we really enjoyed it. There was about 9000 people in attendance and they played songs from their new album "Incredible Machine" such as Stuck Like Glue, Tonight, etc., as well as some of their previous hits (Baby Girl, Something More, Stay, All I Want To Do, and more.) They were opened by Casey James of American Idol fame.

After the concert, we walked the midway for a bit and then toured the exhibits. We realized we didn't leave ourselves enough time to see everything. Next year...

Canada Day

Last Fall I had the thought that, before Angie and Dylan leave Ottawa, we should spend Canada day on Parliament Hill. I mean, as a Canadian, there couldn't be anything more patriotic. So we booked our tickets and waited for the day to come.

Then I heard another couple had the same idea - Will and Kate. Great, I thought, now we'll never get anywhere near Parliament Hill because of all the Royal watchers. In fact when I looked at our schedule and compared it to Will and Kate's, I discovered that we were scheduled to arrive at the Ottawa airport on Thursday June 30th at the same time. I had visions of getting trapped at the airport.

Luckily when we arrived in Ottawa, the situation was calm. Angie and Dylan picked us up and we went back to their apartment and then off to the Civilization museum for some fun displays.

The next day, Canada Day, we awoke early, dressed in our red and white, and headed across the street (literally) to Jacques Carter park to begin our Canada Day celebrations.

This was one Park's Canada's beavers that was in the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics.

We looked at the displays and then decided to see if we could get near Parliament Hill. We walked across the Alexandra bridge, through Major's Hill Park (which had more displays and activities) and we made it across the Rideau canal to almost the East Block building. But after that point, the the police had blocked the entry to Parliament Hill because there were too many people. I read later that the crowd was probably near 300,000. So we turned around, walked back to the east side of the Chateau Laurier Hotel and waited on the street for the royal couple to come by (we waited about 1/2 hour).

The royal couple in a landau. Amazing RCMP horses!

We then went back to Major's Hill park and watched the program from the "jumbo tron".

Will gave a speach.

Catherine watched, and then the snowbirds flew over.

We enjoyed the activities, purchased a huge polish dog from a street vendor (delicious) and hung out until the amazing fireworks that evening.

Okay, so maybe the royals didn't spoil my fun as much as I thought they would...and it was kinda cool to see them (did I admit that?).

Exercise

I'm reading this new book called "Younger next year."

It's written by an internist from Columbia University in New York, Dr. Henry Lodge and a patient of his Chris Crowley. It talks about, among other things, the importance of exercise in maintaining good health, especially for those of us who are a little older than the rest of you.

As most of you know, my exercise of choice is my recumbent bike. I have been fairly regular over the past couple of years and I certainly notice a difference. I'm trying to ride my bike 4 days a week (aerobic workout) and use the Bowflex (resistance training) another 2 days as Dr. Hodge recommends.

Recently, I was setting new personal bests in distance and speed during a given time frame. I was feeling pretty smug until I looked down at the resistance setting. Somehow it had been reset to level 1 from my usual level 2 setting (?Sara). No wonder I was doing so well.

Oh well, back to the grind at level 2.

Hawaii

I thought I would post some pictures from Hawaii. We had a wonderful time, the weather was good and the medical conference was informative, at least the sessions I attended. It was hard to balance the pull of the meeting and the attraction of the beach.

Here is the view from our hotel room. We stayed in a one bedroom suite which had a full kitchen. It was probably one the best accommodations that we have ever enjoyed. HBO comes in handy when you are having trouble adjusting to the time change.

Here is a view inside the Hawaiian convention Centre.

We watched the annual "Battle of the Paddle" competition.

I was inspired to try it my self. I definitely could have done well in my age group!

We kayaked, snorkelled, and even hiked to Manoa Falls.

All in all another good time was had.

Vancouver

As most of you know, I was invited to a meeting in Vancouver last Friday. It was put on by Shire pharmaceuticals.

They brought in 11 doctors from Western Canada to get feedback on their product (Vyvanse). Vyvanse is a new ADHD medication which can last up to 14 hours.

They wanted to know what they could do better to promote their product and how they as a company could help us as physicians in our practices. I have been to a few of these meetings over the years for Shire and other companies. I really enjoy them, especially getting to know other doctors from around Alberta and the country. The meeting was held at the Fairmont Vancouver Airport Hotel.

This meant I didn't have to get any ground transportation once I got off the plane. Shire offered to not only pay the airfare, but to put me up in the hotel on Thursday night. When I looked at my schedule and flight options, the only way I could make it to Vancouver Thursday evening was to take the 9 pm flight out of Lethbridge, which would get me into Vancouver at midnight Vancouver time. Too long a day I thought after working in my office until 6 pm.

Instead, I thought of a different plan. What if I flew out of Lethbridge Friday morning? If I left on the 5:30 am flight, I could connect in Calgary and would arrive in Vancouver in time for the 8 am meeting. Then I could fly home after the meeting and I wouldn't need to stay over night or pack a suitcase. Perfect!

Well...I should have thought this through. It meant getting up at 3:45 am to get to the airport, travel to Calgary, transfer to a flight to Vancouver, attend the meeting, sit in the airport for 4 hours, get back on a plane back to Calgary, sit for another 2 1/2 hours, get on a plane to Lethbridge, arrive at midnight, drive home (20.5 hour day).

view from the meeting room

the new canada train linking the airport with downtown

Maybe next time, I will stay overnight in the hotel.

The bonus to this adventure was that I got to see the Royal Wedding live on T.V., cause it was playing in the airports in Lethbridge and Calgary Friday morning.

I also had the unique experience of flying into the same city twice on the same day. How many of you have done that?

My how times have changed

I just ordered a new Macbook air for my office. I needed a computer that was portable so I could take it with me to give talks. One of the perks of going to Montreal last weekend was that I received an nice honorarium, and it will cover the cost of the new Macbook air. 

The new 11 inch Macbook air is an amazing piece of technology. It comes with 128GB of flash drive storage (new technology), 4GB of Ram and a processor that runs at 1.6 GHz. I know it doesn't compare in speed and storage with a Macbook pro or even my iMac, but it is micro thin and only weighs 2.3 lbs. 

Marveling at the technology, I was taken back to my first computer, the Atari 400.

I bought it in 1982 (Diana was a baby), it was an 8-bit machine and had 8 KB of RAM. No that is not a typo, RAM only came in KB. A KB is 1000 less than a MB, which is 1000 less than a GB. So my new Macbook air will have 4 million times more RAM than the Atari. It also will be a 64 bit machine vs 8 bit. The Atari 400 did not have any storage (ie disk drive). Everything was contained in RAM. You plugged in cartridges which contained your whole program/game. It plugged into the T.V. No LED screens back then.

Another classic from my past was the Atari 130xe. I purchased this in 1985 when we were living in Riverbend in the townhouse (now we had Diana and Angela). This computer had a whopping 128 KB of RAM. Still millions less than the Macbook air, but at least you could connect a 5 1/4" floppy drive for storage. I had purchased a word processing program and used it to write one of my research papers. But the computer's RAM could only hold about 4 pages of text, so I had to save different parts of the paper as "chapters." But the amazing technology of word processing was wonderful. No more typewriter for me. I even had a dot matrix printer!

Next up was the Zenith Eazy-PC

This baby had a 20 MB hard drive. No more switching floppy disks between your program disk and data disk. Just think that whole hard drive would probably hold about 20 digital pictures!

Afterwards came a series of IBM clones, each with increasing computing power. Then came the magic of the internet and later the digital world (vs analog), etc. I know in time my Macbook air will be obsolete, but for now I just want to say one thing....I love progress (and Steve Jobs).

Weekend in Montreal

As most of you know, I was invited by Shire pharmaceuticals to attend a speaker training program in Montreal this past weekend. Given that Dylan and Angie live close by, I jumped at the chance to see Montreal again, visit with them, and learn more about a new medication.  Furthermore, I was able to arrange the travel so it didn't interfere with my office.

So at 4 pm on Friday, I boarded the infamous "Central Mountain Air" flight to Calgary on my way to Montreal. The connection in Calgary was quick, there was a limo waiting for me at the Trudeau airport and I arrived at the "Nelligan Hotel" in "old" Montreal around midnight. The hotel was a charming, modern renovation in some very old (19th century) buildings. The walls were brick and you could see where they had to brick up doors and windows to make this modern hotel. It had an European elegance to it.

My meetings went from 8am to 1pm on Saturday and then I met up with Dylan and Angela.

First on the agenda was lunch at the famous Schwartz delicatessen.

Schwartz is a Hebrew delicatessen that has been serving world famous smoked meat since 1928. We ordered up a feast and dug in.

"Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" would be proud.

Afterwards we went to the east lookout on Mount Royal. Notice the Olympic Stadium in the background. It was a beautiful Spring Day ~ 13 degrees C.

Then we toured Concordia University where Angela did her Master's degree and then walked around some parts of old Montreal. 

When ended the day with a lovely dinner at the Verses Restaurant which is a French cuisine restaurant located in the Nelligan Hotel where I was staying. We had a table at the window and I enjoyed seeing the many Infiniti's drive by. I concluded that Montrealers have good taste in Vehicles!

I was up this morning at 5 am (Montreal time - 3 am real time) was escorted back to the airport in another "limo" and arrived in Lethbridge at 12:30 pm.

It's good to be home, but I did enjoy my 45 hour journey. Thanks Dylan and Angela for a great day.