Canadian weather

It's a topic Canadians talk complain about all the time.  The weather.  In the winter, it's too cold or there's too much snow.  In the summer (however short it may be) it's often too hot.  However, our rants about the weather might be valid sometimes.  For example, last summer in my home town of Hamilton, Ontario, it reached 48°C (118.4°F).  This is the same place that in the winter it has been known to reach well below -20°C (-4°F).  In fact, the coldest I've experienced was -35°C (-31°F).  So yes.  We might complain about it a lot, but I think we have a good reason to!

Anyway, while most of the people complain about the snow, I love it.  Actually, this morning there was snow on the lawns and cars.  The first time I saw snow this year was October 1st.  It was short, but it happened.  Generally, snow continues until March or April.  That might sound like a long time, but if you enjoy snow like me, it's fun!

Our seasons are weird.  Spring and Fall are very short.  The temperature can be 15°C (5°F) one day and 0°C (32°F) the next.  It goes up and down for a few weeks, then we have the two actual Canadian seasons - winter, and road construction.  Even though the drastic changes in weather are yet another target for our complaints, we owe our ability to produce more than 80% of the world's maple syrup to them!  Mainly in spring, we tap our trees during that crazy time and get delicious results.

Right, well I'm not sure why I made this post... I just felt like discussing the weather.  Perhaps it's because my parents are in Florida right now enjoying the sun and the beach!!!  (anger & jealousy abound)

Here's a picture of my parent's house during the winter.

This next one is from last winter, when we had a particularly nasty storm that was dumped so suddenly that the people in this traffic jam got stuck.  It resulted in one death - even though winter weather can be pretty and fun, things like this remind us that it's always important to stay careful and prepared!

Well that's that!  Stay tuned for more mindless rants about random topics!

Chantal Kreviazuk and the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra

Last night I saw Chantal Kreviazuk singing with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra.  When I first heard about the concert, I thought to myself, "this will be a nice night out with the family!"  I also thought it would feature the Philharmonic orchestra and Chantal would be featured here and there.  Well, I was right on one thing.  It was a great night!!  However, she was the star and the orchestra was the backup music.

Anyway, it was such a fun night - she has an amazing sense of humour.  I was laughing really hard at times!  That's not the only thing she has going for her though.  Her voice was so impressive.  Some people when they sing live their pitch is all out of tune or shaky or something else, but she had really good control of all of that.

She sang a bunch of songs that I knew already, like "Feels like home", "Surrounded" and "Leaving on a Jet Plane", but she also sang a bunch of stuff from her new album Plain Jane.  My favourite of the whole night was called "Need Anyone".  The music was really all-consuming at one point.  I'm not sure if that's the way she wrote it, or if that's the way Mr. 'Fox' arranged it, but I found myself lost in the the accompaniment and it was a very welcome thing.  Hard to explain.

Right, well it was a great night and I think I'll pick up her new album.  Now, I'm going to enjoy the rest of my breakfast - bacon and eggs sandwiched between 2 apple cinnamon eggos.  It's a good morning.

Remembrance Day

Well, it has been brought to my attention that I haven't updated the blog for a while (Kate!!).  I came to the realization that things here in Canada seem so normal to me that nothing is post worthy, but then I realized that I had forgotten to say something on November 11th.

That, of course, is Remembrance Day.  It's a day that Canadians take quite seriously and with every year that passes I see more and more awareness.

I'm personally connected to this day through my Grandpa who served in World War II.  Here's a picture of the two of us on Remembrance Day a few years ago:

This year, there were approximately 3000 people at the ceremony, which is held annually at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton Ontario.  During the ceremony, the last post is played and the famous Lancaster Bomber is flown just overhead.  It's quite impressive.

Here is a video I made earlier this year that has the music of the last post in it, as well as pictures from the largest common wealth cemetery in the world.

I can't predict when I'll post again, but my guess would be when I get my courses for school!

Stay tuned, I haven't forgotten about you!!