Club Events 2007

Trip List Calendar

2007-09-17 : COC - MTBiker of Steel
We lost Joni to the hill on the first round up. I felt satisfied after two trips up that infernal new paved path. Smoo and Jayne must not like themselves very much because they stayed for a third time around. Ugh! ;)
Thanks for coming out and sharing my pain!
- Rhonda


2007-09-20 : COC - Italian Fine Dining + Urban Walk in Mount Royal
Wow-o-wow-o-wow.

The food was wonderful. The people were friendly, that pretty much sums it up, but let me describe it for you.

From the meeting site we made a bee-line for the restaurant as many in the group were hungry and eager for food. We sat down on a raised table that half of us could overlook into the very busy cooking area.

We split ourselves into two groups of four. My group shared 3 kinds of appetizers and 2 entres. We ordered a real mix of food, and then made a delicious mess on each of our plates. Amazing. Just amazing.

In fact, the food was much better than I had known before --- maybe it was the company that I was with.

Rhonda said it was the best food she had ever tasted. I believe her, I felt the same way.

Some of us had room for desert, so we lingered until about 9:00 or maybe 9:30.

We had planned a meandering walk back to the vehicles. The evening was fresh with a recent rain. We were about half way back when the rain started afresh.

I thought it was cool how nobody complained, we all just pulled up hoods and/or curled up shoulders and soldiered on (what troopers !)

Suffice to say we did not have the picnic desert I had hoped we could enjoy after the meal. All was well, because Joanne distributed her homemade Oatmeal raisan cookies.

Thanx to all for making the shared meal and the walks to and from into such a memorable evening.

'-)
Dave


2007-09-21 : COC - Ice Skating at the Olympic Oval
Surprisingly nice ice (compared to some recent events), surprisingly few people (the first 45 min.), and, not surprisingly, a nice company!


2007-09-24 : COC - Hiker of Steel


2007-09-25 : COC - Fall Colours in Sunshine Meadows - Slow but Steady Pace
Sunshine Meadows can rival Larch valley for the number and beauty of the larches, even with a lunch time snow storm. Easy meandering hike that takes you by several lakes, lots of larches and some amazing views especially when the sun peaked through. Definitely a photographers paradise. Carl the Sunshine bus driver is a pro with lots of information and he stopped for us hitching a ride on the road. A fun day, lots of laughs, snow, sun, larches, 2 ptarmigans (almost in their winter white) a mouse, many stops to admire the views and to end it all dinner at the Drake in Canmore with Char the best waitress. thanks to Rhonda for helping me through this event.


2007-09-27 : CCC - Calgary International Film Festival: Outsourced
Though the theme of jobs being replaced by robots has been a constant theme in films, jobs outsourced to foreign countries has become an increasingly more prevalent fear.

John Jeffcoat’s first feature-length film tells the story of a novelty product salesman who avoids the axe by agreeing to go to India and train his replacements. This comedy focuses on the cultural differences and challenges in the salesman’s efforts to train new staff, and the changes in the way the job will actually be done. In a corporate world where tele and web-businesses are thriving, and new work environments mean some employees never even meet one another, this film has come along just in time.

Outsourced had its Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and received rave reviews. Since Toronto, the film has won numerous awards and accolades around the world.

We will meet at 6:00 in order to get in line by 6:15. Exact information on where to meet will be sent in an email.

When the audience actually applauds at the end of a MOVIE, it must be good. The Calgary International Film Festival is quickly drawing to a close and everyone enjoyed a great comedy with Outsourced. Fortunately, we all got our tickets ahead of time this time so everyone got in. It was once again a packed house.


2007-10-01 : COC - MTBiker of Steel


2007-10-04 : COC - East Coast Trail Maybe/Maybe Meeting


2007-10-06 : COC - Novice Mountain Bike on Nose Hill


2007-10-12 : TOC - welcome social- meet, greet, play some pool
From COC:

Unlike my frenzied 24-hour-trip to Toronto last fall for our first “Runs With Scissors” RPS (cheers, Jason, El Rey Del Fuego – you’re the best) this year I decided to make a long weekend out of it, and it worked out great for Joel to join the fun, and Sam and Jason who were in town visiting family even came in for the RPS tournament!

I flew in on Thursday night while Joel was still out visiting his relatives, so I tried to talk some of my TOC friends into playing hookey for the afternoon and hanging out with me, but alas, there were no takers. On my way downtown to get into some trouble, I was riding the TTC subway. We stopped at this one station where all of a sudden we heard a bunch of yelling for help (a man’s voice). Everyone started looking around and a few people got up and got off the train (which was stopped for the duration) to see what was going on. I stayed where I was until I heard him yell “I can’t breathe” and I thought someone was in medical distress. Armed with my rusty first-aid course, I thought I might be able to help. There was a small group gathering around and I could see a man – some grey hair – on the ground and more yelling that he couldn’t breathe. I thought he was having a heart attack or something until I got closer and saw that the older guy wasn’t the one yelling – it was the scummy looking younger guy who the older guy had in a headlock who was doing all the yelling. Long story short, what I pieced together is that the younger guy tried to mug the older guy and didn’t count on him being strong enough to restrain him (in the headlock) until the authorities arrived. Heh heh. The younger guy was yelling for help and squirming to get away – trying to get the sympathies of the crowd by claiming the old guy attacked HIM. He managed to do a whole lot of yelling for someone who “couldn’t breathe”.

But anyway, I digress. I had no takers to hang out on Friday, so, I took Mel’s advice and went down to the Kensington Market, which is basically a really cool little neighborhood full of funky shops. I had a GREAT time looking around – Toronto really has some neat places to poke around in – and enjoyed the best Mexican food I’ve ever had at “El Trompo Restaurant”. If it had some mountains… um… some really GOOD mountains… nearby, Toronto would be a perfect city. Then, Joel made it into town so we took a stroll down Queen St. and had a really good Vietnamese dinner before going to Chalker’s for the “Welcome Party”.

Being the guests of honor, we made sure to arrive at the Welcome Party on time (ok, 15 minutes late) where we enjoyed a star-studded social of old and new friends at their “clubhouse”, Chalkers.

On Saturday, we went on a really nice little hike to Silver Creek and Scotsdale Farm which was a nice D2 hike to get us outside without pooching us before the big RPS tournament in the evening.

On the way down to RPS on Saturday evening, Joel and I wandered over to “Wally’s Restaurant” on Dundas near Mel’s apartment and had the most enormous plates of Schnitzel we’d ever seen. I ordered the “Small Schnitzel” and ended up with a great big oval plate of schnitzel, sour kraut and spaetzel. Seriously – Joel and I could have shared this meal and had leftovers, but he’d ordered the FULL SIZE Cordon Bleu schnitzel. Yikes.

On to the real reason for my visit… my second-annual trip to the World “Rock Paper Scissors” Championships with my “team”, “Runs With Scissors”. This event is an absolute riot – a nerd-fest to end all nerd-fests - perhaps even topping a Star Trek Convention (although I admit I’ve never been to one of those). My inner nerd fully expressed herself, competing enthusiastically, knocking out Scott, the boy-scout from New Jersey, and then being knocked out herself by a Toronto journalism student, and then stepping in to the necessary role of pimping out our Street RPS champion, Jenn, to try to win the unofficial prize for the night. Although Jenn did well, we did not take the Street RPS prize, but I enjoyed watching the enthusiastic warm-up routine of the young guys from New Jersey, Jenn and I got to grab Captain Morgan’s butt, and Joel and I both soundly thrashed the Crazy Bunny Man (Joel in competition and me in Street RPS). We got our picture taken with “Team Rock” (with our “Runs With Scissors” t-shirts on) and were impressed with the “Rocked Your Mom” team’s t-shirts as well. We bought Jenn’s way back into the competition when extra spots were opened up, but she got knocked out again and went back to where her true talent lies – as a Street RPS shark. See the TOC Write-Up and Photos.

On Sunday, we knew we wanted to do something, but we didn’t want to have to get up too early, or be out too long since Joel and I had flights back to catch. So, Cynthia found the perfect solution – an event to Casa Loma. Lots of TOCers came out to join us and we enjoyed learning about this quirky place (”the former estate of Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, a prominent Toronto financier, industrialist and military man. An unabashed romantic, Sir Henry engated the noted architect E.J. Lennox to help him realize a life-long dream – the creation of a ‘medieval’ castle on the brow of a hill overlooking Toronto.”).

A huge thanks to all who contributed to making this trip a fantastic wonderful time, and thanks to Mel for letting Joel and I crash at her place.

Be sure to visit the links on this page for the photos from the actual TOC events – I’ve only posted the Kensington Market ones here.

-- Rhonda
Event Coordinator(s): Stephanie A
Participants: Stephanie A, JennP, Cindy B, Ihsan, Erik S, Jose Z, Rhonda from Calgary, Joel, David B, Julian L, Elliott, Pierre, Jason M, Justin H, Chris T, bearman, Mel Tan, Perkin, J-L


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