Snow, snow, snow. For the last few days we've been getting snow. A couple of nights ago it was -17 Celsius. Seriously, it's only October, did someone replace Calgary with Ulaan-Baatar (which you all know is in Mongolia and considered to be the coldest capital city in the world) while we were in Texas. Freakish weather for the last week, and starting tomorrow it's supposed to go up to 12 degrees Celsius, kiss that snow goodbye. That's right, you can cheer over the Internet.

Still, while it's here, it's good to be a kid. Keegan was doing full-on running body dives, like a Superman dive and landing flat out in the snow. Arms outstretched dives and loving it. He walked up a hill a fair ways away and I had no idea what he was doing, he turned around, yelled "CHARGE!" and ran down the hill as fast as he could then finished it with a Superman dive. Good to be a kid.



Wonder how much they will like the snow when I put them to work shoveling the sidewalk and driveway. ;-)

Good coffee inspires me.

Not the external kind of inspiration causing me to grab crampons and head for Mt Everest, but the internal kind of inspiration that affects my intellect or emotions, which interestingly sometimes forces the external form of inspiration (but that's a whole different topic).

Coffee inspiration usually expresses itself through a flash of memory, which can somehow be related to what I'm experiencing in the cup in that moment, such as happened this morning... or it might be an appropriate construct of my imagination such as a combination of sounds, smells, locations or such things that might by example place me in a Middle Eastern bazaar (that I've been to) but with somewhat different smells or noises or occurrences that somehow tie to the coffee that I'm experiencing at that moment. Wow, great run-on sentence.

Good coffee can transport my thoughts or emotions instantly if I pay attention to the moment. Of course the key is the paying attention part. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's ok, either you haven't drank really good coffee, or you haven't paid much attention to what you are experiencing in the moment. Maybe you are just drinking something brown and hot, no thoughts, no taste, just brown and hot, the end. That's fine. Don't go a changin' on my behalf, this isn't a lecture, it's just a rambling observation from my day. So what's causing the rambling today?

This morning I hooked up with Shawn in downtown Calgary for a couple of Clover coffee's at Kawa Coffee. We split the 2009 Honduras CoE Lot #3 - El Manzano which scored an 89.27 at the CoE and got purchased by 49th Parallel Roasters, the other cup was the Tanzania Karmaro Microlot also from 49th Parallel Roasters. The Honduran was easily superior in my opinion, I'm not sure the Tanzanian was presenting it's best qualities out of the Clover but if it was I would rate it as decent but not great. SO there's the details, what about the inspiration? Well that would fall to the Honduran coffee. Right around my fourth or fifth sip of the El Manzano I synced the coffee moment to a memory in the late 90's of me sitting in a famous Opera House in Berlin during a performance of The Magic Flute, which by the way was fantastic. There is a moment in the opera where one of the female leads sings a beautiful dancing high piece and it flash associated itself with the early sips of the Honduran.

Look for 42 seconds into this, not 41 seconds... 42 seconds:



Now, the female part in this YouTube clip plays a darker interpretation of the aria, so the visuals don't really jive with the Honduran coffee moment but the high notes of the singing do. Those high notes represent perfectly what I experienced in the cup this morning for a brief moment. Inspiring.

I suppose this post will only make sense to a few, sorry about that, if it doesn't make any sense at all don't worry... ;-)

We spent the day wandering around the downtown +15 skyway which for non-Calgarians is a bit of an oddity. Not so odd when it's minus 40 degrees Celsius. At over 16kms long and 59 bridges, it is the largest of its kind in the world.



Part of the plan for the day was to get the boys to the top of the Calgary Tower. We went with a 2 for 1 coupon for admission but when we learned the admission fee was waived, if you ate in the revolving restaurant at the top, the trip to Chinatown for salt and pepper squid was ditched.



It took some coaxing to get the rest of the family to stand on the glass panes on the observation deck that let you look right down to street level, you can see the apprehensive kid's shoes at the top of the image. ;-)



Mission accomplished, a successful "c'mon you don't have to be on there too long, just long enough for a picture". Wish I would have brought the flash to expose the gang a bit more against the bright background streaming in through the windows.



For a couple more images, head over to my other blog.

Keegan was off school today, before he went to sleep last night he mumbled "Dad, can we make your world famous blueberry muffins in the morning".

Everything I make is world famous (at least that's what I tell the boys) particularly my world famous pancakes, world famous blender drink, world famous BBQ chicken drumsticks and, well, you get the idea.

Here's a couple of images from this morning... Keegan in 'stirring mode' and Keegan upon hearing "You have to wait till they cool down". ;-)

It snowed here on Sat and Sun. The boys hadn't seen snow in a couple of years (there isn't much of the white stuff in Texas) so out they went into the big wet flakes. It was interesting for several minutes until it started accumulating on heads and in ears and running down the back of a neck or two. As you can see by the amount of snow accumulated on Keegan's head he had reached critical mass and shortly after it was back in the house. ;-)

What do The Kinks and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts for anyone who's been hiding under a rock for the last 10yrs) have in common? I'm not sure, but Evan gives a pretty fine example of how to combine a bit of freestyle dancing to The Kinks with a very nice impromptu roundhouse kick, look for it around the 26sec mark.

Everything the boys know about martial arts they've learned from me (and Kung Fu Panda) and they already know their fighting stances (Muay Thai based) can throw jabs, crosses, elbows and knees, plus a bonus front snap kick or two but I haven't shown them the roundhouse yet. Yikes.

Evan knows it's just something we do together and he's not to do it around other kids (especially his brother) and so this one came as a bit of a surprise. Doesn't look like he'll learn any Dim Mak this year. ;-)