Jail House Rock

We spent an enjoyable evening at Celebrations Dinner Theatre on Sunday.  As you may have gathered from the title, it was Jail House Rock and so many familiar singers from several years back were there in person to sing for us. 

Headlining the show were Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley, with appearances by June Carter, Dusty Springfield, Jerry Lee Lewis, Grace Slick, Johnny Rivers, Eric Burden, Nancy Sinatra, Roy Orbison and Bobbi Gentry.

The show was dated in 1967 and held at the Moose Jaw Jail, where John Storm, the Guitar Doctor was being held for not paying his taxes.

The shows at Celebrations are always a lot of fun and this one was no exception.  The music was great and the singers were wonderful!  The serving staff are always part of the show and their interactions are a lot of fun also.

To top it off, one of the meals offered was prime rib.  This used to be a regular selection there, but it suddenly disappeared some time ago.  For several shows, I moaned about it on the comment card, but gave up awhile ago, thinking it was gone forever.  This time I commented on how great it was and hoped it would be back again very soon.

The show is almost over with less than a week to go, and the next show – Starting June 1st is Ghostbusted.

I just looked at the schedule and realized that the shows only run for 2 months each now.  I’m sure they used to go for 3 months.  This explains why it was so crowded there on Sunday.  It has been awhile since I’ve seen a full house in the crowd, but with less shows, the audience will have fewer dates to choose from.  With fewer shows, they will run more in a year – instead of 4 shows per year, there will now be 6.  I’m not sure when this change happened, but it must have been very recent – maybe Jail House Rock was the first.  There is also very little down time in between shows now.  There used to be about 2 weeks and now it is just 6 days from when Jail House Rock ends on May 26th and Ghostbusted starts on June 1st.

Jail House Rock

So far on Africam today, we have seen Elephant, Waterbuck, Wildebeest, Impala, Nyala and Zebra.  We are still (im)patiently waiting for the outdoor camera to be installed and working so we can watch our Cheetah Salome and her cubs again.

Celebrations – Jump for Glee

My friend Connie and I went to Celebrations last night.  The show was Jump for Glee.

It was a great show and we both enjoyed it thoroughly.  The songs and storyline were fun and entertaining.

Of course we enjoy all the shows.  The actors and the servers all get into the act as do some of the audience members and the food is delicious.

Jump for Glee

I’ve never seen the television show Glee Club, but I have enjoyed the shows at Celebrations, whether I’ve seen the show they were based on or not.

Our waitress was Mrs Beasley and she made sure we were well looked after.

The next show is Two and 2/3 Men and that will be starting in mid January.  You still have another 6 weeks to see Jump for Glee though. 

I still have one more Rainbow Bridge dog to write about, but am having problems finding pictures of him.  Hopefully his story will follow soon.

So far on Africam today, we have seen Impala, Terrapin, Vervet Monkey, Egyptian Geese, Oxpecker, Mongoose, Elephant, Nyala, Waterbuck, Wildebeest and Scrub Hare.  Click here to see all of today’s pictures.

Africam recently introduced Africam Pro, which is Africam without the ads.

Africam

Now, they have having a contest to give away free subscriptions to Africam Pro.   See here for more details, but give it a try – there is nothing to loose. 

It is a pleasant +3C this morning as Chester and I prepare for our walk.

Corner Gassed 2

Last night was Celebrations night and Corner Gassed 2 was playing.

My friend and I go to all the Celebrations Dinner Theatre shows and of course we had seen the first Corner Gassed and were looking forward to number 2.  We were not disappointed.

The show was great!  The food was great!  The service was ok.  My friend asked for another basket of buns and that never did arrive – but we had already had 2 each, so I wasn’t looking for any more anyway.  For some reason our server only asked 2 people at our table if they wanted coffee and since they didn’t, she didn’t bother asking us, but turned and raced away before we could ask for tea.  We did get tea when the dessert came, but it would have been nice to have had it earlier.

The show and the food made up for the so-so service though and other than those 2 instances, the service was also fine.  The place was quite crowded, which always increases the breaks in between the acts, since there are so many people to get the food and drinks out to – but that is normal.  We sit in the middle of the audience, so get our food in the middle.  They start serving at the back and work their way forward.

We are still waiting for the results from Chester’s blood tests and will hopefully hear on Tuesday if he will continue on the same meds or make a switch to adjustment.  He is anxiously waiting beside me for his morning walk now.  I’ve started feeding him when we get up and then waiting for an hour to walk him, but he thinks we should walk right away.  For one thing, he shouldn’t exert himself too much right after eating and for another, it will be light out soon.

On Africam today, we have seen Zebras, Cape Buffalo, Warthogs, Elephants, Impalas, Bushbuck, Nyala, Duiker, Wildebeest, Jackals, Reedbuck, Cape Turtle Dove, Woolly Necked Storks, Barn Owl, Egyptian Geese with babies.  Click here to see today’s pictures.

When you go to the main Africam page – or any Africam page for that matter, there is a bar across the top with all the links.  If you want to see the cams for a particular waterhole (Nkorho for example), hold your mouse pointer over Live Safari Cams, scroll down to Nkorho and click or it.  You can also choose a pop up cam by scrolling down further to Pop Players and then choose Nkorho from there.  This way you will still have the Africam  home page to choose another cam.  If you want to watch them all, the best choice is to click on MULTIVIEW – then you will have a page with the 4 active cams and you just click play on each one.

Africam's Multiview

This is what the multiview cams look like – although obviously smaller than what you would see.  It was taken just now and something is active on each cam. 

Hard Days Knights

About every three months, my friend Connie and I go to the Celebrations Dinner Theatre.  We have our usual seats along the rail at about the same height as the main stage and always enjoy ourselves.

Last nights show was Hard Days Knights, which you can probably figure out was with music from the Beatles about kings, queens and knights with Sir Lancelot and Merlin as added entertainment.

I have never been disappointed in one of the shows and we have attended every one of them for a few years now.   We were disappointed in the service yesterday though.   For the first time ever, we did not leave a tip and in the comment cards we indicated the problems -  this was the first time we ever left a negative comment.

My hives are almost gone now, but they still get itchy if I don’t take the Benadryl, so I’m still taking it – but 1/2 the amount I was when I first started on it.   They can’t be completely gone soon enough for me.

Back a few years ago, I had some renovations done on my old house.  One part of this work was a new bathroom.  I had never had a shower in this house because the ceilings were too low and a shower was part of this new bathroom with the walls being removed and put up where I could have a better room.  I was supposed to get a shower that was hand held, but when the dust had settled and the work was done – it was just a regular shower.  So, I finally went out and purchased a new one that has both hand held and stationary and handyman Mavis put it in yesterday.  :)

old shower

new shower

Its so nice – with lots more settings and you can have both on or one on.

Now for the pictures from today’s walk along the Red River with Chester.

big tree Apr 18

It hardly looks as if the Red River has changed in the last several days, but the crest is not expected until early May sometime.

bird Apr 18

bird Apr 18

This little bird posed front and back for me, but I haven’t had time to look him up in a bird book yet to see what he is.

May 4th

Its a beautiful morning here today.  It is a little cool – but the sun is shining!!!  I would love to ride my bicycle to work again, but rain is still in the forecast for today and along with the winds, I think I will take the car one more day.  I started the season off great with a week of riding and then the temperature dropped quite a bit and the rains came for several days.  I am still digging mud out of every corner of my house that Chester brought in on his feet.  Even though I used a towel to clean his feet at the door, there was still plenty that found its way in.

There was lots of good viewing at Africam this morning. I turned the Elephant Plains cam on to find an elephant directly under the cam, so we were looking down on him. Zoomie did a great job of showing us closeups of various body parts. Thanks zoomie!      By the time I got my MW Snap open to get pictures, I only got one as he was starting to move away.

Elephant at EP

A nice little herd of Impala were next at Elephant Plains.

Impala at Elephant Plains

Meanwhile at Nkorho, there were Zebras, Impalas and Wildebeests grazing.

Zebra at Nkorho

I really like this head shot of a Zebra.

After breakfast, I walked the dogs – Dakota on her short and slow walk, followed by Chester and his much faster and much farther walk.  All the pictures taken were on Chester’s walk, since I don’t make it as far as the Red River on Dakota’s walk now.

Mallard May 4

Wood Duck 1

Wood Duck Flight May 4

Then I took some pictures of a bird in my plum tree.  It is a sparrow or thrush of some kind, but I haven’t had time to check the bird book to see if I can figure out what type. It doesn’t help that he was hiding behind a twig.

bird May 4

bird May 4

On Sunday night, some friends and I went to Celebrations Dinner Theatre for Greased!  It was GREAT!

Have a great day everyone  

February 20th

Well – here it is – one day before my sister Sharon has another of those birthday days.  It has been a decent day here (for mid February) and is a balmy -6C as I prepare this.  It was a sunny day, which is always nice.  We do get a lot of sunny days here.

The Red River is still solidly frozen at this time, as you can tell from all the paths going across and along the river in these pictures – taken a couple of days ago on another similar sunny day.

Tracks on the Red River Feb 18th

more tracks on the Red River Feb 18th

A lot of people walk along and across the river in the winter.  Quite a few people walk their dogs along the river – some on leash, but most off-leash.   I walk my dogs on the path above the river, which is where I took these pictures.  Another month and the ice may be weakening which will make walking on it very unsafe.

Tomorrow – in celebration of my sister’s birthday, Connie and I are going to Celebrations Dinner Theatre.  We are hooked on these presentations and are looking forward to seeing the latest one.  We used to look forward to the meal more than we do now though because they no longer serve prime rib, which we both ordered and enjoyed each time.  The steak that they offer instead of the prime rib just is not as satisfying.  On every comment card, I mention how much I miss the prime rib.

Another work week starts early tomorrow morning at 6:30 am

September 15th

OK – I’m writing this – or at least most of this on the 14th, but it is evening now so it is close to the 15th.  We waited here until September to start getting warm weather and I have been enjoying the days outside as much as possible.

Last week I went on vacation!  I left the city for 4 whole days and spent them with my friend Connie at Riding Mountain National Park – or just outside the park at Elkhorn Resort.

The initial idea was to go someplace where we could go horseback riding and then it expanded a bit to include a spa day.  Those were our two main objectives, but we also did quite a bit more.  We took the little cruise ship around Clear Lake, we walked along the shore of the lake for several kilometers, we walked the boardwalk in the marsh and we went on a game drive (well – kind of anyway).   Each day we walked into Clear Lake from the lodge (about a 10-15 minute walk), where we wandered around, had a meal or snack, took the boat ride and started off on the game drive.

For the game drive, we followed a park ranger to a few good viewing locations for elk or moose in the hopes that we would see them.  He had several ways of calling the animals and he did get responses from the elk – but we did not see any.  We did finally see a moose and the moose was responding to his calls also – but the moose could see all of us standing on the road trying to get his picture, so he went off into the bush instead of coming closer.  We did get to see a bear den and a wolf den on the trip, heard some coyotes and learned about some of the different plants and trees that grow in the area.

Instead of trying to put pictures in here, I am just going to give you the links to both my facebook pictures and Connie’s facebook pictures for you to see.

my pictures
and
Connie’s pictures

We were beginning to wonder if we would ever get our horseback riding in because there was a sign up at the stable saying that the ride had been canceled due to the weather and trail conditions.  Of course, we walked over to the stable pretty much as soon as we had checked in and that is when we first saw the note.  Next morning we were up bright and early to head over there again to see if we could get on that day’s ride – but the sign was still up and no one was around.   We did hang out with the cats at the stable though and made friends with them.  Later that afternoon, the hotel told us that the next ride would be in the morning, so we quickly booked with them.  That meant our ride was in the morning on Thursday and our spa treatment was in the afternoon.

The ride was great – there was just the two of us, plus a newlywed couple from Saskatoon and two employees – one to lead us and the other to chat with us and ride circles around us. We didn’t see any wildlife on the ride either, although we were told that it was not unusual to see deer.

Thursday was also the 3rd anniversary of the Nkorho camera going live with Africam and on the Friday a party was being planned at the waterhole. I knew I was going to be on the road at that time and would miss it. One day soon, I will make the time to sit down to watch the videos made at the time.

Saturday morning, one of the tires on my car was flat – completely flat! I have a small pump in my car that runs off the cigarette lighter (I knew that lighter would come in handy one day), so I pumped the tire up. An hour later, it was starting to get low again, so I called my friends at CAA to change the tire and put the little donut on. I was told a 50 minute wait, but had hardly hung up the phone when I got my 5 minutes away call.

I took the tire into a garage this morning before work to get it fixed, only to get a call from them a few minutes later, saying that it was a goner. The guy from CAA had mentioned that it might be too far gone to save – so that really didn’t surprise me. The car stayed with them for the day to get 2 new tires put on.

Last night we went to see Luck Be A Lady at Celebrations Dinner Theatre. I have never seen such a small audience at one of these performances – but the show was great. It finished much earlier than usual, but the breaks were shorter because it didn’t take long to serve the meals to everyone.

Apparently, the house next door to be was sold again, shortly after the last sale when the new owners just didn’t finish the purchase.  This time is has been bought by a young couple who plan on building a duplex.  The came to see me last night and brought a drawing of their proposed home and indicated that they would be living in one side.  They have to get the property re-zoned for a duplex and there will be hearings scheduled over the next few months.  There is one coming up that I should attend, so that I know I am getting all the information I should have before demolition begins.  Although I would prefer a single family home, this is better than the 4plex that the other owners were thinking of and the design fits in well with the neighbourhood.  I do appreciate that the new owners took the time to come and see me before they put up a huge re-zoning sign in their yard today.

After the vacation, it was nice to get back to some of the normal things, like walking the dogs along the river.  While we were there, I thought a few times that they would both enjoy some of the walks that we went on – although Dakota probably couldn’t have covered some of the distance we walked.

My first day (actually my first and second days) back at work were very busy days.  Programs started back up Monday and both days had many new and returning members joining up and lots of questions.  The days both went by very quickly and now that vacation days are used for the year, I have to work 5 days each and every week.

May 11th

Well, Mothers Day has come and gone.  I hope you had a great day – whether you are a mother or not!

I had to work (of course), but it was a good day at work and then I walked the dogs once I got home.  After that we went to Celebrations Dinner Theater to watch Elvis.  The food was good – the service was good and the show was good!  What could be better.

Of course, the day started with -3C temperatures, but by afternoon it was quite pleasant – although I didn’t look at the temperature later.

Here are yesterday’s pictures.

The Ducks

The male Duck

The Styrofoam covered block

a pile of styrofoam blocks

Tulip Buds May 10

I didn’t take any pictures at Celebrations so the next picture was taken on today’s walk along the Red River with sunny skies and 7C temperatures.

The Wood Duck took off just as I was about to take his picture.

The picture is a little blurry because I wasn’t expecting him to fly, but I kind of like it.

Then I took another picture of the tulip buds. 

Tulips May 11

It doesn’t look like they’ve changed much since yesterday.

I’ve been missing everything on Africam lately. This morning though, I did see a pair of Ibis on the branch at Nkorho. I got a bunch of headless pictures as the one always seemed to put his head back to preen, just as I snapped the pic.

Ibis

headless Ibis

Ibis

headless Ibis

I’m riding my bike to work today, so it is just about time to head out.  Have a great day!

March is Here

OK – so March arrived yesterday, but I didn’t have time yesterday to write anything.  It was my early day at work – starting at 6:30 am and another really busy day – but at least we had more staff, so it wasn’t crazy busy.  I was only home for about an hour – just long enough to feed the dogs, check a few emails and look in on Africam and Wild Earth. Then I was off to pick up Connie and head to Celebrations Dinner Theatre to watch “Sexy Girls in the City”, which, by the way was a very funny production. We had the same waiter that we had last time – and that is the first time we can remember ever getting the same one, even though we have been there several times now.

We just went through another cold snap, but this morning it is just -18C with a windchill of -28C and that should be rising today and not going down again for at least a week.  Hopefully it will continue to warm up and spring is just around the corner.  We still have a lot of snow to melt here.

The dogs and I just returned from our walk.  The sun is shining and it is certainly cool, especially when facing the wind, but at least it is walkable weather.  -35C is the cutoff point, where we do not walk and there were several times this winter that it got to that or below for several days at a time.

Right now I am watching Zebras and Wildebeests at Africam,

Wildebeests and Zebras

Zebras

and at the same time I am watching Impalas at Wild Earth.

Impala

Impalas

Here are other pictures from the last few days.

Wildebeest and baby at NK

The youngest baby Wildebeest is still doing fine, I’m glad to say.

Butterfly on Wild Earth

Mongoose on Wild Earth

Elephants on Wild Earth

I put a new jigsaw puzzle up at the birds site at bellaonline yesterday.  You can find it at Polly, the Double Yellowhead Amazon.

Today it is summer day camp registration day at work.  Due to the construction there, the last couple of years we have had limited registration, so the parents got in the habit of being at the Y at 6:00 am to make sure they got their children registered.  I spent a good deal of time yesterday letting everyone know that registration has increased again and that the first month is restricted to members registering.  Hopefully that will reduce the rush today, but I think that when I arrive there soon, there will be a lineup of both people and papers to look after.  Last year we were almost full by the time the first day was over and it was full within the first week.

The house next door to me has finally sold again.  I have e-mailed the young man who spoke to me when he was thinking of purchasing it to see if he is the one who bought it.  I did notice some people looking at it the day after he was here, but because he indicated that he would like to work with the neighbours in coming up with a design, it would really be great if he is the one who bought it.  I would like to know in advance when the house is being demolished as well as know that it will be fenced immediately where the house is part of my current fence.

I just got a couple more pictures of Wildebeests – one of the older babies and then a today picture of the young baby.

older baby Wildie & mom

youngest baby Wildie & mom

Busy Days

Saturday started out with a workout at the Y, followed by breakfast at the Red Top Restaurant.  I am quite sure that I consumed more calories than I worked off, but it was so good.  Then I took the dogs for a walk, so hopefully I at least evened things out. 

In the afternoon, Angela and Damien arrived with a truck and we loaded it up with junk from the basement.  They took all the big stuff to the dump and now we can fill lots of garbage bags for the city to take away from the back of the house. All those trips up and down the stairs and out to the truck added a bit more exercise to my routine too.   Now, there is also more room in the old bird room for me to rip away more of the drywall, but that will be after we get the rest of the basement cleaned up. 

Sunday was back to work day, so as usual I was the first person in the door at the Y, so the alarms could be turned off and the lights could be turned on before the doors are officially unlocked to allow members in.  Before I left home though, I had to get my newsletter for the birds site at bellaonline.com out to announce the newest article, which is a jigsaw puzzle.  This puzzle is Kia, the Blue and Gold Macaw in a Christmas tree.  You can see the puzzle at http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art59647.asp  The jigsaw puzzles are always popular articles and lots of fun to put together.

After work, I only had a short time to check my e-mails before it was time to pick up my friend Connie to head for Celebrations Dinner Theatre.  We have gone to several shows over the last year or so and really enjoy both the meal and the show.  This time it was Corner Gassed.  The show was hilarious!  Our prime rib dinners were excellent as well and the extra shows put on by the support staff kept us in stitches between acts.

Monday morning, it was back to our regular schedule of taking a walk with the dogs after breakfast and before work.  After work, I came home to find that Angela had been over again and removed a few more bags of trash.  It will be so nice to have that basement cleaned up and at this rate, it shouldn’t take long.