A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

Yeah, that’s right. I’m soon to be homeless. As in, without a home. On the streets. In a van, down by the river. I was informed a couple days ago that my landlord is moving out of the city (I’m not sure where), so he is selling his rental properties in Saskatoon. The property has been listed as of today, and apparently there is already a couple of people going through to look at it tonight. It’s not going to take long to sell.

So what does this mean to me? Well I have a minimum of thirty days from the selling date to vacate, so at least that gives me a little time to figure something out. I guess not all is bad since this will be the kick in the ass I needed to buy something. I did in fact officially enter the buyers market yesterday after going to view a house in the city. I have my realtor uncle on alert to find me a good deal in this ridiculous market. It’s just going to be really annoying while realtors show my current place. I’m allowed at least 24 hours notice prior to a viewing, but that doesn’t really help much when the viewing is in the evening. I would have appreciated a little more notice that it was going up for sale. At least then I could have gotten out before it actually hit the market. Well I guess if I’m laying on the couch in my underwear everytime they show up they’ll try and schedule during office hours.

This past Saturday was the company Golf Tournament and Family Fun Day. The event was out at the Rosthern, Saskatchewan Valley Regional Park. The format was a Texas Scramble (best ball) with around ten foursomes in the tournament. The weather was looking fairly questionable since Saskatoon and area was hit by a massive thunderstorm the night before. Even though Saturday looked quite gloomy as well, the rain did hold off allowing the day to be enjoyed by all.

My team ended up finishing at four over par which was good enough to claim second place. This got me a ten dollar gift certificate to SportChek. I could have used that in the morning since I had just bought some golf balls at that very store prior to the tournament. I was also about ten feet away from winning the “closest to the pin” contest on the ninth hole - I blame the wind for this.

Following the tournament was dinner and a Bocce tournamnet (which I didn’t participate in). Steak, chicken, hot dogs, corn, and veggies were grilled to perfection and everyone stuffed themselves silly. The steak was incredible. Following dinner, Jeffrey, Rachel, Ryan (Cey), and I went to the park where we were extremely excited to go down this big, fifty foot tube slide. There was a faint smell of urine in the slide, but that didn’t hold us back. When we got down and our backsides were slightly wet, our poor decision was fully realized.

I took some pictures with my little point-and-shoot, and you can see them here and here.

Day two saw Chiara, Mira, and Liam get a little more comfortable with their new surroundings, so they started to get a little more brave with me. For some reason, Chiara likes to call me the “Muffin Man”, and as a reaction to my beard, Mira told me that I had a “silly face”.

Since it was still so hot, and the house was trapping the heat like a greenhouse, we spent a lot of time in the backyard. Mom and dad have been working their butts off in the yard this summer so it has been a prime space to photograph the kids. If you’re interestested in seeing more pictures of them, check them out here or here.

Today was an exciting day since my sister Yavini and her three kids were flying in from Chicago. It had been a while since I had seen my oldest niece Chiara, and I hadn’t even met her younger sister and brother - Mira and Liam. I met my parents at the airport since it was going to take two cars to transport everyone and all the baby gear back to Wilkie. While we were waiting in the airport we had a pleasant surprise when some of our relatives from Vancouver (who arrived in Saskatoon on Wednesday) decided to come greet everyone as well.

Since the kids had been couped up on the plane for four hours, we decided to go back to my place to grab a bite to eat and just chill, letting everyone regain their senses. For those of you who have never been to my place, it is far from “kid friendly”, plus I am a completely insane neat freak. As you can imagine the children flew through there like a hurricane, and my blood pressure probably shot up by about twenty points as we needed to rearrange my living room on the fly. Needless to say, it was all worth it to finally get a chance to spend some time with them.

After a couple hours we jumped in the cars and headed for Wilkie. Once we arrived we knew that the extreme heat coupled with no air conditioning at my parents’ place was going to be hard on the kids, so we went outside and ran through the sprinklers. They turned out not to be so brave since the water was “so cold”. I did however use the opportunity to spray my mother with the hose nice and good.

Since the four of them were up at 3:30 in the morning to get to the airport, they were all pretty tired so the evening was pretty low-key. After some delicious dinner, the lot of them hit the hay. I managed to fire off a few shots while the kids were outside, and you can check them out here or here. They’re pretty cute…..just like their uncle.

The 6th annual Team Dream Golf Getaway was held a couple weeks ago at the Elk Ridge Resort in northern Saskatchewan near Waskesiu. This was the second time that I have attended this weekend that is filled with golf and all types of shenanigans. Last year I took a quite a few pictures to document the trip, but this year I shot a lot of digital video in its place.

I was able to get quite a bit of footage and have cut together a short film that you can view below. I have also included links to download some higher quality versions of the video that you can find below as well. Enjoy, and I would appreciate any comments that you have.

Note : the film contains a small amount of explicit language.

• Small Download 87 MB (360×240 Windows Media)
• Large Download 284 MB (540×360 Windows Media)

For all of the years that I have lived in Saskatoon, I had never visited the Mendel Art Gallery. I’m not sure why, but I just never got around to it. So to remedy this oversight, I decided to head over to the gallery this past Sunday. For those who are not familiar with the Mendel, here’s a brief description from their website.

Indeed, the Mendel Art Gallery is at the forefront of recasting the image and vibrancy of the City of Bridges as a major creative cultural centre in Saskatchewan and Canada. We recognize our role and responsibility not merely as stewards of the art objects we collect, preserve, research, and present, but as a potent agent of social change, driven by the multiple social, cultural, and educational possibilities of an expanded vision for the public art museum.

Through synergistic partnerships with contemporary artists and curators, like-minded organizations, special interest groups, and progressive members of the local business community, we demonstrate, on a daily basis, the necessity of art to the quality of life, and to the cohesion and advancement of Saskatoon as a first–rate, creative city.

Prior to leaving for the Mendel, I visited their website to see what the current exhibits were. There were two in particular that I was most interested in seeing. One was called “COOLART” which is an exhibit displaying artwork by students of Saskatoon’s schools. The other was “artistsbyartists” featuring the work of two Saskatoon artists - Yuka Yamaguchi, a self-taught artist born in Kobe Japan, and Dave Geary whose politcal work focuses on a “Great Saskatchewan Socialist Utopia that never was.”

The gallery is free to the public, but there is a donation box so I threw some money into that before making my way to the “artistsbyartists” exhibit. Yuka Yamaguchi’s work is described in the following manner. I tend to agree with it.

Her drawings are inward-looking, reaching both extremes of cute and the grotesque.

Looking at her work I found them interesting, but difficult to determine the meaning of. I thought I had a pretty good idea about some of them, but most of them were just way out there. This led me back to a bio of her at the start of the exhibit in hopes of getting a few hints to where she was coming from. It stated something along the lines of her work being done on the fly, with her just drawing without knowing where it would take her, without meaning. This definitely made sense. For example there was one piece that had a little girl sitting on the ground with a dismembered leg. She was proceeding to braid the muscles and tendons that were protruding from the piece that was still attached to her. Another one entitled “Inside of Me”, was of a fish impaling that same little girl.

The first piece I saw by Dave Geary was of two plush, stuffed animals. One of them was shaped like the province of Saskatchewan, and the other one was fashioned after a Saskatoon Berry. I said something along the lines of, “What the fuh?” As I made my way through the rest of his work, these two characters actually made sense, and went along with the rest of his pieces. Here’s a brief bio of him taken from the Mendel’s website.

Dave Geary is well-known as an artist, designer, cartoonist and zine producer. Images represented in artistsbyartists are a continuation of a political poster project Geary began in 2005 entitled The Great Saskatchewan Socialist Utopia that never was.

On display were Geary’s pieces that are influenced by posters found in 20th century socialist movements throughout eastern Europe. Geary takes the look of these posters and adds his own twist on them to fit into his “The Great Saskatchewan Socialist Utopia that never was” project. I generally liked them and thought they were quite clever.

The “COOLART” exhbition was in the main gallery so I made my way over there. I was surprised to find out that the Mendel presents the work of about two hundred students from kindergarten to grade twelve. There was a wide range of artwork including drawings, collages, sculptures, photography, and paintings. A lot of the work was very impressive, even from some of the younger participants. There are definitely some talented artists in Saskatoon.

There were two other exhibits in the main gallery including “Articulation Express : Celebrating Ahasiw” which looks at the life of aboriginal performance artist Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew. There was a movie playing, but I only watched it for a few moments.

“Lasting Impressions : Celebrated Works from the Gallery of Hamilton” has made its way through six venues across Canada. This exhibit focused on the modern art movement of early 20th century art - some of the most defining times in Canadian Art. I made my way this exhibit, but honestly I had little interest.

Overall I’m glad I finally made my way to the Mendel Art Gallery. I thoroughly enjoyed the two exhibits I specifically went to see, and will definitely keep my eye on the new exhibits that will go on display in the future. I’m already looking forward to the next “artistbyartist” featuring Sonya Adams who finds, “inspiration for her disquieting drawings from the remains of outmoded communications technology.” Sounds interesting. If you’ve never been to the Mendel, or haven’t been there in a long time, I highly recommend heading out there and supporting this Saskatoon gem.

In an attempt to attract youth to the province, the Saskatchewan government in May will launch a new ‘wireless hotspot’ program in four of the province’s cities - Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw, and Prince Albert. As exciting as this sounds I really hope the service is top-rate. Nothing will be more frustrating if one has to constantly battle with dropped connections, or really poor bandwidth in the hotspots.

I’m not sure this is going to retain or attract youth to the province, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. Major props to Lorne Calvert and the NDP government. I’ve included the article from the Star Phoenix for your reading pleasure.

Free wireless Internet to be offered in city
By Janet French of The StarPhoenix

It’s time to add the phrase “wireless hot spot” to your vocabulary — Saskatoon is about to be covered in them.In a move the Saskatchewan government hopes will attract and retain young people in the province, a new free wireless Internet service is set to launch in May in four Saskatchewan cities.

“I think it just opens up possibilities,” says Victoria Morris, one of the facilitators at the province’s first youth summit held three weeks ago. “If you’re at the Broadway Roastery or you’re in a park and you want to check your email or you want to surf the Internet, you have a place to do that.”

Free wireless Internet access was one of the recommendations emerging from the SaskatchewanYouth Summit, Morris said. Although the service is one of many changes youth are looking for, they’ll be excited that government heard their voices and took action, she said.

On Monday at the Broadway Roastery cafe, Premier Lorne Calvert and Andrew Thomson, the minister responsible for information technology, announced the province will provide free wireless Internet access downtown, on university and college campuses and in trendy areas of Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert.

Once the government spends $1.3 million installing wireless transmitters the size of coffee cans on light standards and telephone poles and a central antenna within each coverage zone, people with laptops and other wireless devices can surf the web and read e-mails around Saskatoon. Socalled “hot spots” where people can connect to the Internet will include River Landing, downtown, the University of Saskatchewan, the Kelsey campus of the Saskatchewan Institute for Applied Science and Technology (SIAST) and on and around Broadway Avenue, north of Eighth Street.

Since I don’t take possession of my new pad in Saskatoon until December, I will be staying with my parents in Wilkie, Saskatchewan for the time being. Even though I grew up in this small town of 1400 people, you tend to forget the way some things are here. Living in Saskatoon for eight years, and then Guelph for six, I got used to lots of things that come with living in a city. Here’s just a few examples of what I am talking about.

Despite having the best Chinese food in the western world, the service is a little questionable at a local restaurant. About a week ago my dad and I decided to order some stellar Ginger Beef from the aforementioned eatery, so I called in to place my order. After the phone rang about ten times, someone finally picked up. Expecting to get a standard greeting such as, “Thanks for calling, how can I help you?”, I instead got a, “What you want?” Taken by surprise, it took me a couple seconds to respond. I placed my order and the person on the other side hung up without saying anything. It was a little strange, but when I went to pick up the order, everything was right - and the ginger beef was in fact, stellar.

Yesterday I was feeling a little bored so I decided to go watch some high school 6 man football playoffs - yes 6 man football. Despite freezing my butt off for the entire game, I managed to stick around and watch my alma mater lose. I did manage to fire off a few good photos during the game, so it wasn’t a complete write-off. Following the game I headed to one of the grocery stores to pick up a few things (during my high school years I actually worked at this grocery store as a bag / delivery boy).

Since I was going to be buying a few things I grabbed a shopping cart. You know those little shopping carts they have for kids at the ‘big’ grocery stores to keep them occupied? Well, I kid you not, that is what these carts were like. Anyway, the first order of business was to grab a few things from the meat department. I’m usually accustomed to having a pretty good choice of stuff to choose from. Well, that wasn’t quite the case at my old place of employment. I needed a couple chicken breasts and a beef roast. Lucky I got there when I did because there was exactly one ‘bulk pack’ of ten breasts and one big-ass beef roast. I then headed over to the bakery section to grab some bulk whole wheat buns, but there were none left so I had to settle for hamburger buns. I guess I did manage to get everything I needed, but I’m not sure that I could shop here all the time. But what I was happy about was the Old Dutch Chips that are not available east of Manitoba. I did miss those.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am looking forward to getting back to Saskatoon so I can do some real grocery shopping (but I will miss the Ginger Beef, and the comical service). This may seem sad, but I love shopping for groceries. It is not odd for me to head to the market when I’m bored - seriously.