When someone from Medicine Hat thinks about recreational things to do in town, it is not out of the ordinary to think of the South Saskatchewan River and all it has to offer. But how much fun is too fun? Enter the Peeper’s Delight and Indecent Exposure.

On the night of Thursday, August 19th, I was doing some running to prepare for the Bustin’ Loose 10km Race. I ran from the northern edge of downtown, along River Road, past the YMCA, and was returning when I noticed something odd: A man standing and looking at the river.

While I have seen this before, the odd thing was that he appeared to be on his tip toes on the edge of the sidewalk. He was not walking, and as I drew closer, his button-up shirt appeared to be unbuttoned. I could not see what he was looking at, so I continued to jog by. As I did, he must have realized he was idling, so he shuffled along the sidewalk in the opposite direction. Curious, I looked back and saw he had stopped again and was still peering over the edge. Then I saw why: Two people in the river, shoulder deep, embracing, and who knows what else? Though, he might know what else…

I have been to pretty much every grocery store in town and they all have their ups and their downs, but Safeway seems to be the slowest in terms of “get in and get out.” The marketing strategy that Safeway seems to convey is to have a clean store with good service. They absolutely have the clean store down and their shelves and bins are always stocked, but their service is very mediocre.

I like going to Safeway because I find their fruit and vegetables to usually be clean, nicely stocked and devoid of bruises, and the Safeway club card seems to minimize an enormous bill. The associates who work in the deli and pharmacy always seem very attentive and quick in servicing customers, but then you get to the nightmare of checking out.

In my experience, checking out at Safeway is a slow grueling task that makes shopping there not worth it at all. Unless you go shopping way later in the evening, the lines, whether express or not, always seem to take at least 15-20 minutes, then another 5-8 minutes to check out your groceries. There never seems to be enough cashiers on hand. For instance, the last time I was at Safeway, there were 20 people waiting in line for 4 tills, 2 of which were express lanes. It took me about 15 minutes to stand in line, wait, and check out my 5 items.

If I can help it, I will probably not go back to Safeway unless it is either very early in the morning or later in the evening to help minimize the amount of people in the checkout lanes.

Face it, we all hate waiting at the lights on Dunmore Road to cross the TransCanada, waiting to turn left onto 15th Street SW by the Husky, and to a lesser extent, turning left onto 7th Street SW by the Callaghan Inn.

I have seen many accidents at the Dunmore Road / TransCanada intersection and a few along the TransCanada through town. So why not just turn all these intersections into overpasses? It might cost a lot of money, but I would not rather see the aggravation of fellow drivers while they are waiting followed by them getting slammed by an 18 wheeler. Even one would probably relieve a lot of traffic congestion. Although that might increase the congestion at other intersections.

Unless we are willing to rename Medicine Hat from “The Gas City” to “The Vehicle-Emissions City” and let motorists idle for 5-15 minutes, especially driving to Walmart on a Saturday or Sunday, I think it is time a solution was created for these intersections.

We all have stories about pulling up to a 4-way stop and watching someone else come up to the same intersection who just slows down and goes without stopping. How many people actually know how to use a 4-way stop? Or for that matter, understand the concept of right-of-way?

For starters, right-of-way is indicative of who has the right to use a conflicting part of a road and who has to wait until the other does so. Generally the person who is at the intersection first has the right-of-way. If 2 vehicles arrive at an intersection that is controlled by a 4-way stop at the same time, you allow the person on your right to go. This is a concept which is usually taught in Drivers Education. Sometimes it seems to me that people believe they get higher priority on the road based on a number of factors, such as the size of their vehicle, their age, and so on.

For those who are unaware, when the power is out or streetlights are all flashing red, the intersection automatically turns into a 4-way stop. It also helps to think ahead and be in the lane that makes the most sense for the direction you want to go in and to eliminate any confusion for other motorists. For example, if you are coming up to an intersection and the lights are out, there are 3 lanes, the left of which turns left, the middle goes straight and the right goes straight and turns right, and you want to be going straight, you should be in the middle lane. If you are in the right lane and go straight, you may be confusing someone else in the intersection and that could leave you having a bad day.

During My96FM’s live show yesterday at the Medicine Hat Stampede kick-off pancake breakfast, Ed Stelmach sauntered over to have a chat with Kim Johnston and Grant Buchanan – and by sauntered, I meant basically interrupted them mid-sentence. Kim Johnston posted this on his Twitter: “So… I’m doing my radio show, and who taps me on the shoulder? Just the premier of Alberta. Really?!? True.” then, “@MedHatMedia Yeah @premierstelmach literally walked in w. his entourage, pulled up a mic and started shooting the s**t with us. Kinda cool.”

Listen the full interview here:

As my wife can attest, I am not one to get sentimental. Every house we have moved from, I shed not a tear. Each vehicle sold, I am more than happy to get rid of. Even tossing out that box of “art” from my kindergarten year(s), I did without a second thought.

But I am having a difficult time with the fact I will never have the enjoyment of sliding down the pigtail one more time.  Flying over the “Drop of Doom” as your stomach hit your throat.  Or floating down the lazy river on a tube with the sun beating on my back and my toes dragging in the water. Without a care in the world.

I remember going as a kid. Labour day weekend, the weekend when the slides would open every year. I would have a black X on my calendar marking the date.

We would arrive around 9:30am, slides open at 10. The lineup was all the way down those wooden stairs. After what seemed like forever, we entered the hallway were the cashier asked us for our right hand as she put an stamp on it. Not just any stamp, but a “magic” invisible stamp that could only been seen under a special light.

Then there was the floating tap, I must have stared at that thing forever the first time I seen it just trying to figure out how it works.

Was the mini-golf not one of the best courses you have ever putted? Seriously, any other course I go to now pales in comparison. The crickety windmill, the granary, the water running along side each hole… its still unmatched after all these years. THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when I posted about how Facebook didn’t have a “Medicine Hat” network? Well, it’s been quite a long time since then, and somewhere between then and now, a Medicine Hat network has been created on Facebook. I remember updating mine about 2 months ago and seen that there was now a Medicine Hat option instead of the Calgary one I had been using earlier.

The main reason I bring this up is because, like me, a lot of people used Calgary as an alternate – and still continue to use it! Most of them probably don’t know about the new Medicine Hat network, so hopefully this post will spread the word.

I’m sure we are all familiar with this Australian (or possibly New Zealand) innovation in footwear that comes in the form of a sloppy sheepskin boot that has somehow passed for fashionable for the past few years. As a nineteen-year-old university student I am the perfect target for this atrocious accessory, but I have so far managed to avoid its sloppy and shapeless grasp. Although I realize that many people will read this post and continue to wear Uggs, I hope that some Ugg wearers will see the light and put their boots away in the closet forever.

The ultra-sloppy "tucked-in sweatpants" style.

Uggs appear to have originally been used by aviators in the First World War to keeptheir feet warm in their unpressurized planes, however the boots have also been identified with sheep shearers in the 1920′s and surfer’s and swimmer’s who used them to keep warm out of the water, before finally becoming a fashion trend in the USA in the early 2000′s. In my opinion, until Uggs became fashionable they seemed to be very practical, so the fact that their reputation has been tarnished is very unfortunate.

A few months ago Sean and I performed a stakeout at the mall to photograph these monsters in their natural environment; in a mall being worn by fashionable young women (but many middle-aged women were caught too) as part of a carefully calculated “carefree” and messy look that is so popular these days. In a perfect demonstration of the popularity of the Uggs, Sean and I happened to be at the mall on one of the most dead weeknights in history, but we still managed to get a dozen pictures due to the fact that every second person that walked by was wearing them. My all-time favourite Uggs were definitely the pair with the illustration of some kind of character, as if that adds some kind of originality to an otherwise completely unexciting boot.

An attempt to make a hopelessly ugly shoe prettier.

In short, I hate Uggs. I think that no man, woman, child, or anyone in between should ever have to gaze upon these shapeless shoes that should have stayed in the cockpit in World War One. Although I’m sure they are the most comfortable article of clothing on the planet (next to the sweatpants that people also insist on wearing in public)  they are only appropriate as a slipper in one’s house, or as a therapeutic shoe for someone with trenchfoot. Please do yourselves a favour and open your eyes to the brainwashing the fashion industry has done: just because Sarah Jessica Parker wore them, does not mean anyone else should.

As described in a recent Medicine Hat News article, distracted drivers in Alberta could now be fined under a new law introduced by the Alberta Government on April 21, 2010, if their driving is deemed to be suffering from distraction.

The fine, which is set at $172, applies to anyone who is talking on a handheld cellphone (a headset may be passable), texting, reading, writing, grooming, etc. The aim is to lower vehicle collision rates and force people to drive safer. Many people will jump at the chance to agree that talking and driving is not safe. But what about talking to passengers, especially with all the hand gestures usually involved in talking to someone face to face? I have even seen people driving wearing Alain Mikli Shutter Shades, and if there is one thing Kanye West has taught me, it is that you do not look cool wearing Shutter Shades, plus your vision is probably reduced by like 25%. Who needs to see more than 25% of the road anyway?

Previously the only fine the Police could doll out was a hefty $402 for “Driving without due care and attention” plus 6 demerit points to your driving record. With a law being passed to enforce driving without distractions, we can either expect the average driver to be safer, or for people to hide their phones between their legs while texting. Now all we have to worry about are those police officers who often use their laptops while driving. Wait a minute! Are laptops not an even bigger distraction than cellphones and texting? Not to mention the fact that those police radios are kind of like cellphones too. Maybe they should pull over or come to a complete stop while using them, or maybe police officers are infallible, and unlike the rest of us they can safely do two things at once.

We all dislike left turns, especially left turns without advanced green lights, better yet, left turns without advanced green lights during heavy traffic.

In addition to these left turn dislikes that make them even more intolerable is drivers who do not advance into the intersection to wait for their oppourtunity to turn left. Instead, they wait at the stop line while the light turns yellow and proceeds to red, declaring the lost opportunity to get at least one vehicle through and advance the left hand turning traffic.

It is in this rant that I want to tell readers that the way to execute a left turn at a controlled intersection is to pull ahead to about the middle of the intersection to wait for your oppourtunity to turn left. The most important aspect to doing this properly is keeping your wheels straight until you are actually turning. Disobey this commandment and you run the risk of rolling into oncoming traffic if you get rear-ended. One time shortly after getting my license I waited at a busy intersection for 3 consecutive red lights before pulling out during the solid green left turn yield to wait for my turn after finally realizing the logic in this simple act.