Caronport birds are weird.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been working as part of the Grounds crew here in Caronport. We're the "Make It Look Good" team, trimming trees, cutting grass, working the landscape, and weed wacking constantly. A day usually goes by without too much to speak for. However, yesterday we had some strange visitors.

We were digging up some dead bushes beside one of the dorms, and we noticed a few little robins making their way toward us. Usually birds fly away at a moments' notice, and at the drop of a pin. But Caronport's robin population is very weird. They are almost completely tamed. A little robin stood only 3 feet away from my shoe as I dug a hole, starring up at me, waiting expectantly. When I threw the load of dirt to the side, the robin bounced its way to the top and plucked out a few worms. Then down it came and stood, waiting again for the next load. This was very astonishing to me, so I tried another. I dumped the soil, and again the little bird bobbled its way to the soil pile and plucked a few more worms, and then down to its waiting spot again! This continued for several minutes until the robin had no more beak space for more worms. It flew away only to return about 20 minutes later!

These birds' tameness does not only extend to shoveling workers. Another day I was whipping some weeds down with a very load 4-stroke engine Honda weed-wacker. As I made my way around a picnic bench, I saw a robin standing on the ground, looking the opposite direction. I thought it would surely fly away since the machine I was using is so loud, and should frighten such small animals away. But I actually walked around the robin with the weed-wacker as I continued working. I thought for a moment that maybe it was dead or deaf. But that couldn't be. When I walked closer to it, the robin walked a little further away. And it couldn't be deaf, because when I left, it continued to hunt for worms by pecking its beak into the ground and pulling out worms. (As far as I know, they must have quite the sensitive audio to detect underground worms.) So I really don't know what's up. The only explanation I have is that Caronport birds are weird.

Interview gone biblical

The last few days I've been job hunting in Moose Jaw. I've been hired half time by the school to do some maintenance stuff around the campus, but I've been in search of job #2. When I dropped of a resume at Staples a few days ago, they set up an interview right away for today. It was very strange... Possibly the weirdest, and most enjoyable I've ever had!

When Tony, the manager interviewing me, saw that I was studying to receive a BA in Biblical Studies, he became interested and asked all sorts of questions about what sort of ministry I wanted to get into. He talked for a long time on the importance of having a wider view of the Gospel - not just that Jesus died for our sins, but that the Gospel encompasses all of life once a person has surrendered him/herself to God - and that he was quite glad to see people taking biblical education working in secular jobs. He continued saying, "The secular job environment is a ministry in itself, wouldn't you agree?" I started thinking, "What the heck? Is this an interview for Staples, or is this a pastoral candidacy?" So I kept him going for a while so we didn't have discuss all the regular questions.

Later on he asked what my most difficult class had been. I explained that it was Old Testament Social Justice -- a class that looked at the Law of the Old Testament along with its promises, blessings, and curses, and used those as a framework to look at social issues in our own time - such as how Nike treats its factory workers, or the way the homeless are dealt with in different parts of the world, world hunger, prostitution, slavery, etc... I told him it was a tough course because it makes you feel like a bad person for being so rich and doing basically nothing, and also because it's an interdisciplinary class forcing you to smash two areas of study into one. Weirdly enough, this is his main "extra-curricular" interest, and he talked about this for 10 minutes or so, even siting Christopher H. Wright's book, "Old Testament Ethics," the book that was the textbook for the class.

So, by the time we finished discussing all that stuff, we had to hurry through the regular interview questions before the hour was up. I have another interview with the other manager tomorrow. I doubt I'll have a repeat-experience. But just incase, I think I'll brush up on a few things tonight...

It's Alive!

Hooray! Since we moved in, we've had a lingering frustration with our internet. We've spent so much time on the phone with SaskTel... Finally we grabbed a new modem and behold, it lives! This is a lame story, but believe me, I'm riveted with excitement right now. I'm not joking.

So it is now with complete freedom that we may blog and bank and surf right from our kitchen table (until the office is finished with painting...)! No more trips to Briercrest's library!

A New Job for Jennifer

Today Jenn starts her brand new job. She's working for Dr. Wes Olmstead (Dean of Academics at Briercrest College and Seminary) as his administrative assistant. She'll help him with research and keep him organized, as well as assisting the chaplin in planning chapel times. So we're superly excited today! I'll let her write about it. Way to go, Jenn!

High Steaks

Jenn and I have made the move. We're in Caronport now. It's strange to be away from places like D'Anjou and St. Jean Baptiste, and to hear no more French chatter everywhere we go. Wednesday (June 13) we flew back to Regina. It was weird to be back at 3414 as a visitor instead of a housemate -- though I am quite glad to be moving in with my wife. We spent the day doing errand sort of things, and headed over to Jordon and Jill's for the night. Thursday they told us, "You guys feel like chomping down some steaks?" A nice harty steak after so much running around? No reply needed! They were huge, juicy, and homegrown. The best. Steak #1.

Friday we picked up our U-Haul and made our epic trek to Caronport. The move was a smooth one. Cory and Rachel gave us some couches, and set us up with some cleaning supplies and even our first batch of food for supper! (Food is sometimes forgotten in the busyness of moving, so we were estatically grateful.)

We arrived in Caronport in the early afternoon, and found the painters still hard at work in our apartment. We were to live in the building next door, but they had some plumbing problems, and had to move us to 342 instead. Because of the quick move, their painters had some quick work to get done before we could fully move in. (It's not quite done yet, but Doug the Housing Guy said I could do it, and he'll pay me. So that's just fine with me.) Anyways, the painters turned out to be very nice people and ended up inviting us to their home for supper. And what did they serve us? Steak! Big steaks, the size of a dinner plate. That's a lot of beef, and two days in a row! On our way home, Jenn said, "I think that's as much steak as I can handle for a while!"

Our second day in Caronport was our unpacking and make-the-kitchen-and-living-room-look-good day. That's about it. Sunday we slept in due to exhaustion. Sometime in the afternoon, our doorbell rang. A man named Stafford was standing there and invited us over for supper that night. He and his wife Jo are new to Caronport too (they moved here just 3 weeks ago). They saw our U-Haul and thought they'd be hostpitable and invite us over. They ended up being connected to the Alliance Church and to CBC since Jo was a student there two years before I was. So we know some of the same people. Stafford is an accoustic guitar player and pseudo-hockey fan like me, so that was fun too. And what did they serve us? Tenderloin . . . pork. We were secretly afraid of more steak, but pork was an excellent surprise.

So, I think all this meat-eating has cured us for a little while. On our honeymoon in Niagra Falls, we couldn't seem to find an affordable place to eat steak the whole time. And so now we've had our fill.

Go for the Donuts!

During our week in Niagra Falls, we decided to visit the States since we were so close by. We had risen rather late that morning, and were in search of a good place to have breakfast (though it was almost noon!).

I don't know how often you get to experience the wonders of border-crossing, but I'm sure you'd agree it's always a treat. We were kindly greeted by the American border patrol officer as we were crawling up to the stop line. Rather, I guess we missed one of the stop signs, because he came out waving his arms, yelling at us to "STOP!" When it was our turn at the window, the first question he threw at us was, "So, do you know what a stop sign is? Do you know how to read one? Because you missed one right there." Thanks for the warm welcome to your country...

He had all sorts of questions for us. He was kind of puzzled as to why I was from Regina and Jenn was from Quebec. (I'm not used to this whole "we're married now, and so therefore we're from the same place..." thing. I keep telling people Jenn and I are from different provinces... But typically husbands and wives live in the same spot. One of these weeks I'll get it down.) Finally he let us go through.

It was our mission to find a good place to eat. However, Niagra Falls USA had not restaurants, but rather endless streets of boarded up business. The only nice looking buildings were abandoned churches. So we continued on to Buffalo (about a 20 minute drive). Not much else greeted us there. No boarded buildings, but recognizable restaurants were not to be had. After 40 minutes in the city, we chose to turn leave the States and get back for some reliable Canadian cooking. Just before crossing the line, Jenn noticed a Dunkin' Donuts. We violently swerved off the road and into the parking lot. Jenn tried to order her long time favorite coconut "munchkins," but I guess they don't make those anymore...

We did pick some stuff up. They have super cream donuts! But when we tried to pay with Canadian dollars, the worker had no idea what to give back as change. I gave him my debit card instead, explaining that "if you charge us $1.20 US, the bank will do the work, and will charge us like $1.57 CND and there will be no problem at your end." But when I handed him my card, all he said was, "What is that?" I guess they have a different sort of debit in the US. So, out of his confusion (and since our bill was so small), he pushed our little bag toward us and motioned his hands as if to tell us to leave. So, if nothing else, we got some free donuts out of our Buffalo excursion.

If you know where you are going, I'm sure Buffalo is a nice place to visit... Too bad the Sabres didn't get further into this year's playoffs. It could've been fun to take in the excitement.

At any rate, New York, thanks for the donuts.

Reservations About Reservations

The first week of our honeymoon was to be spent in Niagra Falls. We won a prize-package months ago at some lame wedding show giving us two free nights at the Ramada Coral Inn Resort in Niagra Falls, Ontario. We were excited to get there -- Jenn hadn't been to the Falls since she was much younger, and I had never seen them. We arrived at Ramada just after dark. The young man at the desk most cordially informed us that we were late for check in... According to their records, we should have arrived two days earlier... Another snag was actually seeing the room. According to our reservation, we were to have a large non-smoking suite with a hot tub. However, when we made our way up there (thank goodness we didn't lug our luggage), we found the room to be large enough, but the room was filled with the repungemnt odor of smoke. We zipped back down to the desk to tell him we would need a different room. He apologized and sent us on our way to a different room. Again, it was large with a hot tub, but the room smelled as if it had just been used for a smokers-only party. Again we returned to the desk, and repeated this process another four times! I'm not sure if they actually have a list of smoking and non-smoking rooms, but the poor guy got it wrong every time.

Finally, after we had had enough, I explained that the hotel was not suitable and that we would be cancelling our reservation. Fearing some kind of retribution from his boss in the morning, he offered us a discounted regular room. But upon inspection, Jenn found foreign hairs in the bed, and tons of grime everywhere. So we left and told the poor lad we'd be back in the morning to deal with his superiors.

We drove up and down the street in search of another room (it was now approaching midnight). We finally found a good place, a Travelodge with a nice Quebecoise lady working the front desk. She showed us to our room, and it was super! The next morning our travel agent promised to get this all sorted out for us.

So, this is our word of advice --- If ever you find yourself vacationing in Niagra Falls, don't stay at the Ramada Coral Inn Resort. It's filthy! Here's a picture so you don't get fooled:

The rest of our stay at Niagra Falls was great! We found a neat little place very close to the falls, and just out of the way of all the noise. It is the Crystal Inn, as pictured at the top of this entry. It's a wonderful little place. Family owned, huge rooms, $59/night with A/C, a balcony, free movies, and a fridge! This is a shameless plug, to be sure. But we really loved it there. If you ever stay in Niagra Falls, that's the place to go.