Festival of Jason: Intermission

Further blogging regarding the second half of the Festival is on the agenda, but it may take a few days before I get the opportunity. In the meantime, I wanted to share one of my lovely presents.

The show was compiled by two of my dearest friends, Sue and Michelle, with support from the archives of several others. Enjoy.

Happy Birthday, Mr Wagoner.

Festival of Jason: The Winterlude Weekend

Our return from Montebello ushered in a very busy couple of weeks at work for Jane. So I spent most of the week simply looking after the kids and having dinner more or less ready when Jane was finally able to drag herself home. The weekend was another matter.

Saturday, to be honest, was a bit of a bust. You see it is Winterlude here in Ottawa, and Jane was mad-keen to get out and slide on the ice. Unfortunately, she told Tom we were going to the Museum (Winterlude is right next door and spills onto the museum grounds), aka his most favorite place in the world. Tom spent the entire time grizzling and asking if we could go to the museum, which he could see, and eventually had a bit of a tanty about the whole thing. Fine, kids on shoulders and to the museum we go. Jane took the shorties to the kids’ area and I took the opportunity to wander through the Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures exhibition (which Jane had previously seen). I rejoined them, and about 15mins later had to return to the car for the nappy bag, of course) and Tom started to complain about being hungry. Right. Kids on shoulders, back to the car and then home with a stinky Lillian, hungry Tom and grumpy Jane.

Snow sculpting at Winterlude, and Tom's grumpy face (you should see the one behind the camera)





































































Sunday was a better day. We organized for a sitter to come and entertain the children while we snuck out. The plan was to go ice skating and get some lunch, but I also ended up driving Jane around in a mad scramble to collect odds and sods (and presents) for my birthday. We still managed lunch and skating at the local park.

Its Log - Supplemental Pictures

For your enjoyment, a few more pics that didn't quite make into my previous post.

Lillian plays arctic hide and seek.

















The gateway to carrot-enhanced animal adventures























Ibex way up on the ridge-line (camera on max zoom).



















Got any carrots?

















The view out the car window while on the Ferry.

















Bear meets bear.























Thomas the pole-sitter.























Jane and Lilli in a teepee.























Playing outside

The Festival of Jason: Its Log!

My 40th approaches. It’s a milestone birthday for which – because my wife is so very clever - I will be far away from the great majority of my friends. As such, my very lovely wife has been working hard to make it awesome. And so, the Festival began last weekend with a 3 days and 2 night family package at the Fairmont Montebello resort. And by resort, I mean the largest log cabin in the world. No really, it is made of logs.

















Once you get inside, the place is even more amazing.















It was built back in the 1930s and has been retrofitted to accommodate more modern requirements, like electricity, plumbing and gift shops. Even though Montebello seems to be the place Canadian-kitch goes to die, it claims 5 stars, and so long as we are talking about ‘Canberra-stars’ I would agree. The room was a touch pokey, but you just have to love the décor. I am especially impressed by the carved wooden bear lamp and the art depicting a pipe-smoking, deer and rifle carrying dude that was no doubt singing robustly between puffs as he strides manfully through the glen.














































One curious omission, there was absolutely no evidence of taxidermy to be found. No moose heads or stuffed bears. Not even any antlers. Nada. In any case, Montebello isn’t so much about the room as everything around it. Like…

The enormous indoor heated swimming pool with its awesome roof


































There is also curling on tap, a brilliant buffet, ice fishing, health spa & sauna, tobogganing, cross country skiing, snowshoeing and more. It was also amazingly child-friendly. I swear every staffer we met must have had a colouring book and pack of crayons in their back pocket. Jane and I took advantage of the hotel babysitter to enjoy dinner sans children on both nights of our stay. Amusingly, our dinner was accompanied by one of Wayne Gretzky's finest reds. It was nice, but not as nice as the Dan Aykroyd wine we had previously in Ottawa.

If you aren’t the lead dog, the view is still pretty cool.

As part of the package we got to go on a family dogsled ride, which was really cool. The kids *loved* it and got to pat one of the dogs afterward. The driver was a short hairy Qubecer with a cheery, chatty disposition and terrific accent for yelling at dogs. We took a nice run through the hills around the resort. Very scenic.
































We finished our stay with a drive through the nearby Omega Nature park, which made admirable efforts to make up for Montebellos utter lack of antlers.



Aside from the two immediately below it was the wrong time of year to see bears, but we saw plenty of other animals.






























































Aside from the above, we got a good look at some foxes, porcupines, arctic wolves and wild boars. My favorite would have to be the juvenile elk that was very keen to enjoy our carrots (feeding is allowed with bags of carrots on sale in the gift shop). He just about stuck his entire head into the car, prompting rather urgent direction from Jane that the windows be put up, all the way up now, right now. NOW! So of course now our windows have elk slobber on them.



Shortly afterward we found ourselves surrounded by a milling throng of carrot-seeking elk. I edged the car slowly forward until we had cleared most of the herd, at which point Jane lobbed the remaining carrots out the window to cover our escape.

But wait, there is more…

One odd thing about our GPS is that it often sends home via a different route then it used to get us somewhere. In this case, instead of going home via the highway, we took a back road and crossed the river on a rather small car-ferry. The ferry ride was good fun and the kids had never before been on one. The trip only took about 3 minutes, bit provided great excitement over being on a boat, and in the car, at the same time! The ferry was small enough that you still got a sense of motion sitting in the car such that opening the door felt wrong. It did seem a little odd to pay for a ferry when we could see loads of people driving around and ice-fishing on other parts of the river, but then again the ice just didn’t really look all that thick to me. And certainly not to Jane.

And my friends, that was the 1st three days of the Festival of Jason.

Why am I here?

No, not why am I in Canada. Why am I in Middle Earth?

I played this game for a few weeks when it 1st came out, but eventually I gave it up. I simply did not have time and I prefer games with a much stronger - as in face to face – social dimension. Even more embarrassingly, I recently advised a mate to avoid playing WoW, specifically because it lacked the face to face social element. And now here I am back playing lotro.

I suppose there are a few reasons.

The last time I tried this I was using a 17” screen and 3yr old graphics card, not the 22” monitor or stonking great graphics card that I have now. Armed with these recent additions, the game is beautiful. Sure, it’s no holiday in New Zealand, but the game developers paid a lot of attention to the oscar-winning design work in the movies and I really enjoy exploring their incredibly huge game version of Middle Earth. And it really is huge. The game has a phenomenal amount of content and they add more on a regular basis. Mirkwood is the most recent, but I am especially looking forward to eventually galloping about in Rohan.

It’s also a relaxation for me. Some people read, watch TV, knit, whatever. I have been tentatively scouting the Trollshaws, looking for seams of Dwarf-iron I can mine. It’s very profitable, but risky because the Trollshaws are meant for higher level characters than mine. Even the local chipmunks could take my head off if I give them a chance. So in the afternoons, Lillian (fingers crossed) has a nap, Tom watches his favorite TV shows and I ponce about Middle Earth. Everybody gets to relax a little and then its time for everyone to get onboard the dinner/bath/bed slide. This is also why the face to face aspect isn’t important. Most of the time I am playing I actually don’t want to be social. I want to sit quietly and decompress.

Still, there must be dozens of things I could better spend my time on than culling wargs in the foothills of Weathertop. And so, I have come up with this. Before I login, I will do 10 push-ups. If, on any given day, I log on a 2nd time, I’ll do 20, and so on. That ought to keep my online time in check.

And if nothing else, playing lotro helps keep me off Facebook.

Spock in Da House

And on a related note, I still kick myself for not buying that copy of Highly Illogical I saw at the 2nd hand CD shop many years ago back in Brisbane.