Dragon

marius, in Canada our Thanksgiving corresponds to your Columbus day. I've always kind of liked that our is in October as it gives us a chance to get over one huge Turkey Dinner holiday before getting into Christmas and the inevitable huge Turkey Dinner there. (Though honestly I don't know if I could ever get enough, I think I could live on stuffing if I had to).
We do have All-Season tires (which come standard on most new cars and are really only good in dry conditions), All-weather tires (which are a little better) and Winter tires (which give you much better grip on packed snow and ice). You don't want to use winter tires year round because they are expensive and they have a deeper tread which wears down if you leave them on all the time.
I have a question for you (and anyone who cares to answer) do you guys have remote car starters in your neck of the woods? They are very popular here. On cold days you just point the remote in the direction of your car (you can be something like 100 feet away behind a wall and it will still work) press the button and your car starts and is nice and warm when you get out to it. My sister's mother-in-law was out last year from Oregon and was surprised by it. She'd never heard of them before and was quite surprised and fascinated by it.

As for Alberta, we're both mountain and prairie. Saskatchewan (the province directly east of us) is basically all prairie. We joke that in Sask. if your dog runs away it takes 3 days because it's so flat you can see him for that long. British Columbia (the province directly to our west) is mostly mountains and a beautiful coast. So we kind of get the best of both worlds here. We have a lot of farms and cattle ranches, we have a big investment in oil which had made Alberta one of the wealthier provinces and we have the mountains and some wonderful skiing and snowboarding.
Ok, that's enough plugging my province for now.

marius

Oh Dragon, there is serious envy going on here. How great it'd be to have that big break between T-Day and Christmas! (And yes to living on stuffing ... but would still need veggies. Can't have enough of them.)

Spouse explained tires to me. Says snow tires are 'self-cleaning" meaning they let go of snow so tire can grip better. (Who knew?) Since many cars here have front wheel drive, snow tires do not make much improvement over all-season tires. Then he told me you also have to shoe horses so they have 'self-cleaning" hooves. Really?

Have heard of remote car starters but am not aware of anyone, but you, who has such a thing. Sounds divine.

Alberta also sounds divine. (And 50 points for Saskatchewan joke about 3 days for a dog to run away! That is FUNNY!!!!) Now I'll have to add Alberta to list of places to visit. List is very long. Will have to learn to travel remotely (spirit leaving body - tee hee) to visit all these wonders! Or, maybe someone will invent a real star trek machine. Would love to be beamed here or there.

matthew

Perhaps this would help...

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article5489287.ece

Baldur

matthew,
that link doesn't work. Even tried changing the undercore line, removing it, shifting the words together etc
Explain how I can get to the site without opposable thumbs please.
Thank you
Your Imaginary Friend

Baldur

'All Baldur, All the Time'
Baldur just spent the afternoon boiling fresh beets to make Borscht. Grandma would have added the beet greens too, but as good as they taste they make the soup look rather ugly.
I cleaned and chopped the greens and cooked them in my wok with onions, garlic, mustard seeds, a little ground cloves and finished them with a tiny bit of sugar and a splash of vinegar.
I'll have those tonight with boiled potatoes, saving the borscht for later in the week.

Dragon

marius, if you ever do travel to Alberta be sure to stop into Red Deer and say hello. I'd love to meet some of the people I've met here in real life.

Baldur, your beet greens sound wonderful, I always steam them then sautee them with butter, onions and nutmeg. Never thought to try mustard seeds and ground cloves. Sounds yummy!

Dragon

Here's a picture of one of the most beautiful places in Alberta. Banff National Park. This one's of Morraine Lake (I may not have spelled that right)

http://eeepcrepos.tuxfamily.org/wiki/uploads/Main/Moraine%20Lake_Banff%20National%20Park_Canad a_800x480.jpg

(Fingers crossed that the link works, I'm only just computer literate)

Dragon

Okay, that one didn't work. try this one

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.paradiselodge.com/galhirez/images/Moraine%252 0Lake%2520TB_jpg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.paradiselodge.com/galhirez/pages/Moraine%2520Lake %2520TB_jpg.htm&usg=__HCiXhvHRoyRxvnah53bCn3po7us=&h=426&w=635&sz=85&hl=en& amp;start=3&tbnid=1wbbEKgYlNcx2M:&tbnh=92&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmoraine%2 Blake%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

Dragon

Well! I'm not having any luck today. Anyways, just go to Google images and type in Moraine Lake or Banff National Park and you'll see some real beauties.

Baldur

I was able to see the image in small format with your second link dragon, though it would not enlarge.
That is quite beautiful, Baldur imagines somewhere there are jigsaw puzzles with this image.
When Baldur becomes better funded I would love to take that scenic railway tour across Canada, I've heard it compared to the Orient express. but with the Canadian Rockies, pine forests and plains outside the observation cars.

Dragon

I saw a travel show on the train trip that ran all the way from Vancouver to Montreal. It looked so beautiful and relaxing it made me want to do it too. It's prohibitively expensive so I don't know if it's in the cards for me and my sweetie. We have a lot of places we'd like to go and a very limited budget.

Baldur

Though I'm eating leftover cassoulet of lima beans with a side dish of sauteed beet greens Robert will be having baking fish and scallopped potatoes.
I also bought 4 ears of late season sweet corn, there won't be much more this year. I parboiled them and cut the corn off the cob. Just before dinner I will pan fry it in a little butter with black pepper and freshly ground nutmeg.
That will be a bit of an indulgence

Baldur

Baldur has already driven through the Alps (on two separate trips!) and has visited Munich, Salzburg and Vienna. There are so many amazing things to see in this world.
I would have loved to see the Mideast but am certain that will never happen in this lifetime. Perhaps someday Eastern Europe from Turkey to Greece, maybe the Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics would be feasible

Baldur

I may be the only US citizen who has specifically gone to Salzburg on vacation but has not taken the 'Sound of Music' tour to see where Gretel dropped the tomatoes and where the vonTrapps hid in the cemetary from the Nazis. People line up for that stuff.
I do admit coming upon a beautiful mountaintop meadow and spontaneously singing 'The Hills are Alive.....' but there is no truth to the rumors that I extended my arms and spun while doing so.

Baldur

tomatoes -es =tomato
upon contemplation der kinder dropped but one tomato

Baldur

While cooking today Baldur loaded his cd player with discs featuring Django Reinhardt. I needed to be careful not to load disc no. 5 of the 7 disc set as it contained his version of Ravel's 'Bolero'.
Baldur truly cannot abide 'Bolero', even after listening to many different performances. It manages to get under my skin and grates on my nerves.
Luckily the other 6 cds in the set are totally Boleroless.
Why couldn't he have performed Dvorak's 'Hungarian Dances' instead?

Baldur

-Hungarian +Slavonic.

Though often Dvorak's Slavonic Dances is sometimes recorded together with Brahm's Hungarian Dances they are completely distinct.

Baldur

-often
Methinks Baldur has lost it today

Login

The links you folks are putting up here have developed spaces. delete the spaces and they may work.

Dragon

Methinks Baldur should take +15 points for 'Boleroless'
I have heard Bolero and liked it but I can see how it would get under your skin. It's very repetitive and it would probably get under my skin if it wasn't such a rar occurence for me to hear. My fella's mother absolutely loves Andre Rioux (I've likely spelled that wrong) and Bolero is on one of their DVD's.