Mundare Ball Tournament

This weekend my slo-pitch team heading down the Yellowhead to Mundare for a ball tournament.  Our team has been coming together pretty well in our league so we had high hopes for the tournament.

When Christina found out where the tournament was she agreed to come check out the action as my designated driver in exchange for the opportunity to see the giant kielbasa of Mundare. It was not a disappointment.

From certain angles the sausage's profile changes quite a bit.

Saturdays ball games were pretty good. We started at 9am with an easy win and followed that with another lob sided victory. I played alright - not great.

I even struck out once for the first time this year. I blame a combination of alcohol and sun. Tournament rules stated that I had to wear a dress until another member of our team struck out. I ended up wearing it for awhile so I just decided to really own it.

For lunch Saturday we went down Main Street to M&M's Kozy Kitchen. Fantastic food at a great price in a kozy environment.

We lost the final game Saturday to a team called the Heat. Their name was apt for the weekend as the temperature was easily around 30 degrees.  They pulled out a win against us by a couple of runs to hand us our first loss. At 2-1 we had a bye for the first game of Sunday morning - so it was time to relax in the shade.

Sunday was equally as hot and we started playing at the height of the afternoon beating the Scallywags by coming from behind in the bottom of the final inning. It was an awesome game with a lot of good defence.

By the time the finals began against the Heat, I was literally melting in the sun. Our team played ok but we had one bad inning in the field and some hot and cold batting. I didn't play very well and had an extremely ill timed overthrow to first. We ended up losing the game by 6 runs.

By the time I got home today I looked a bit like a lobster.

Even though I didn't play that well it was a good time at the tournament with a great group of guys and gals. Mundare is a nice little town. It's only a short 2km's off the Yellowhead between Vegreville and Edmonton and worth a stop.

For a more full photo album check out the following link http://bit.ly/Mundare_ball_tourney

What I have seen the last couple weeks

Edmonton Street Performers Festival

One of my favorite Edmonton events, the International Street Performers Festival concluded today. I went on 3 separate occasions over the last week to Churchill Square to check out the action. Unfortunately I kept on seeing the same acts from earlier in the week or the years previous. That being said, they always put on a great show.

My first trip was over a long lunch hour from work with some colleagues. We grabbed some food from the vendors, found a spot at the top of the stairs and settled in for my favorite act I saw this year, Basketball Jones.

Basketball Jones' show was capped off with him juggling 3 basketballs atop a giant unicycle and then sinking each one into the hoop held by a crowd member. Awesome! 

 

Other performances included another juggler with his glass balls (teehee), and a Doctor for the kids.

Adding to the charm of the festival are roaming performers stilt-walking and making balloon animals.

Checking in on the Barbie Twins

They have accumulated more junk.

World Cup Sunday

I was pretty pumped to watch the World Cup Finals last Sunday. Most of the time I could care less about soccer, but every four years I get really excited by the spectacle of it all. I think the fact that so many people around the world are glued to every second of it is an attraction for me. Every game is like a Stanley Cup game 7 for hundreds of millions of people. Because of this I tried to experience as much world culture that day in Edmonton as I could.

My favorite split ukie/pollack met me in the morning and we walked over to Whyte Ave. We cut across the legislature grounds representing our own country Canada and our roots to England in our parliamentary government.

Once we got to Whyte we settled in at the Empress Ale House. Chris and his buddy were already there and had picked out sweet seats in front of the television. The Empress was about 97% full of Dutch fans and the management were great hosts in putting out tulips on the tables and supplying free food. 

Chris and Colin were decked out in their Dutch best.

The game was close the whole way through and I think Chris had more than one heart attack.

Right after the Spain win (boo!) Christina and I headed down the road a bit and caught the trolley.

The Hannover #601 is a six-axle high performance car built in 1970 as a prototype LRT car for the German city of Hannover. It's now part of the fleet of the Edmonton Radial Rail Society going over the high level bridge between Old Strathcona and Downtown (the highest streetcar crossing in the world).

The car is well preserved and maintains certain German charms.

Christina is kind of a big deal and knows the driver: Jason. You may remember him from previous posts driving the boat at Lac La Biche.

My final 'global encounter' of the day was back at Christina's parents place where I was lucky enough to be invited over for supper. Her Uncle was visiting from Poland and they put out quite a deluxe spread for with traditional fare like cabbage rolls and local cuisine like pickerel fillets.

One final picture of my international day. Christina with her Polish men.

From left to right: Cousin Mike, Uncle from Poland (not going to attempt to spell), Father Frank

OKGO

Last Friday at the Starlite Room Christina and I checked out OKGO.
It was a cheap ticket at $20 and a great show.

Some highlights:

They had cameras on the end of their microphones that played on the screen behind them.

Shooting pieces of paper into the crowd.

Bell solo

At one point some dude jumped the stage. Instead of immediately kicking him off they lectured him then passed off the guitar to the dude and he strummed along for awhile. It was cool, but the skeptic in me thought he might be a plant.

They finished their set off with their LED lit jackets and laser guitars that I read about in WIRED magazine

Video Bonus - Laser Guitars - beware heavy feedback.