Our long time friends Ted and Joanne Koopmans invited us to come along and house-sit a house that a friend of theirs had made available for 4 weeks in February. The prospect (and reality) of -30 weather in Edmonton in February, was but one reason we accepted their invitation. We also hoped we would learn […]
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Category: Personal
An encounter with the Chinese health sys...
You can tell when a blogger is getting old by the percentage of their posts relating to health issues- and especially their own. This is one of that genre. About three months ago a painful bump appeared on my heel, and after a couple of weeks of denying its existence, Susan talked me into going to […]
Classical Chinese Dance and Music Concer...
Did I ever tell you about the time I starred in a Classical Chinese Dance and Music presentation? Last night my host here at Jiangnan University invited to go with her to the annual performance of the students in the classical fine arts program here at the University. We got great seats in the campus performance […]
Teaching at Jiangnan University, Wuxi Ch...
My 4 week trip to China is a week done, and I thought I would document the trip to date (you know us old guys have trouble remembering the details!). Four years I received a request to host and sponsor a PhD student from Bejing Normal School. Zhijun Wang soon worked her way into our […]
Our trip to Italy – April 2017
Note: What follows is a 6 page account of the 24 days that Susan and I spent as tourists in Italy in April 2017. Hopefully it can be used by ourselves to recall those names and dates we too easily forget and for others to help plan similar vacations. Introduction: Despite the numerous personal and […]
Our Spanish adventure
Unlike most of our voyages, this month I was accompanying my wife Susan on a trip to her conference. She registered in the 16 European Symposium on Suicide Prevention that took place this month in Oviedo, Spain. We took the opportunity to rent a car and bought a GPS with European maps (thank god!) and travelled […]
1st Birthday – Riverdale’s Little Free L
My Little Free Library celebrated its birthday with a party for its patrons on Saturday. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t terrific, but the rain held off long enough for cake, music and wine! The only challenge is that the party goers each bought books and the Library is already FULL! I had to open Riverdale Little Free […]
Front Lawn Fun-Raiser concert
Susan and I were really pleased to host a fine evening of music last evening here in Riverdale. Our neighbour Cam Neufeld is touring this summer with Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestra (Jez and bassist Nye Parsons). Jez and Nye are from the UK and royally entertained us with a rich collection of origional and traditional tunes. […]
Order of Athabasca University
Yesterday at Convocation in Athabasca, I was deeply honoured by my former colleagues at Athabasca by being installed into the Order of Athabasca University. Most other members have been individuals from the community who have made exceptional contributions to the University. I was the first Faculty member (other than Dominique Abrioux, who also served as […]
Success with FlyKly Wheel and Kickstarte...
Despite what may be an idealistic techno-solution, I was attracted the FlyKly video when I first saw it advertised two years. The video shows a cool European 20+ cruising along on his electric assisted bike and then EASILY able to take it off (theft issues?) and or share the wheel with his girl friend. The […]