Edmonton 2013

Had a great time on my trip back to Edmonton this past week. Fortunately the flight through Houston was uneventful. My friends Joe and Alexa were nice enough to let me stay with them and all I had to do was remember how to get around the city.

Wheat
Wheat

Most of the trip was spent visiting with the parents and making sure I got to dim sum several times over the week. It was great. I’m pretty sure there’s been some serious dim sum inflation going on though, because some of what I had was a lot larger than I remember them being when I was a kid.

Me, dad and mom.

Spent some time rummaging around in the basement of mom and dad’s place to remind myself of what I still have stored there. One of these days I’ll have to ship some of that stuff back to Charleston.

Started off the week with a stop at Boston Pizza with Joe and Alexa once I managed to find my way from the airport to St. Albert. Mmmm, Great White North. Then I went with Joe and Tom to their favourite gun shop on Saturday, where I got to lay hands on a monster of a 50 calibre rifle.

EM50cal.jpg
Checking out a 50 calibre rifle

That was kinda cool.

Met up with friends at some new-to-me places for wings and beers. Went to Hudson’s, Original Joe’s, Average Joe’s, Brewsters, and Old Spaghetti Factory. Always a good time getting back together with friends. Realized that “pints” served in Edmonton are bigger than “pints” I get around here. I was drinking a pint of my usual Trad, and thinking to myself “this glass sure seems a lot bigger than the ones I get in Charleston”. Turns out that they are.

Brought my HT with me and had it doing the APRS thing while I was out there. Nice to hear a fair amount of activity on the VE6HM repeaters.

YaesuGPS
GPS coordinates on my Yaesu VX-8DR

Edmonton’s at a much higher altitude than Charleston is!

Every time I go back home, the amount of change, new construction and growth always surprises me. There was even more construction and spreading out of Edmonton since my last visit. I suppose if I went back a little more often than every three years, it might not be as much of a surprise.

Made a trip out to the U of A and wandered around the campus a bit. Last time I was there the new science building was just about finished. It’s a pretty nice building. Big open spaces, high ceilings, lots of outside light. More new buildings on campus, especially around the U of A Hospital.

There wasn’t a whole lot of touring around the city like I would normally do, and I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I did last time.

Thursday afternoon I got an email telling me my Friday morning flight from Edmonton to Newark was cancelled and that I was rebooked to head out the next day, Saturday morning. Inconvenient but hey, bonus Edmonton day! Fortunately except for the cancellation, the trip back to Charleston was uneventful.

Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls

Off to Edmonton

Heading back to Edmonton tomorrow on hopefully existing flights that will be uneventful. I should probably start packing or something like that.

So far the only things on my itinerary are wings with the guys (Wednesday at Brewster’s Pub) and dinner with my former grad school supervisor on an as-yet unspecified date.

Aside from visiting the parents, finding a place to eat dim sum (shouldn’t be hard) and wandering around my old stomping grounds, I think I’m going to keep things pretty open.

Haven’t decided yet if I’m going to bring my HT with me. I’ll probably leave the laptop at home and just bring my phone and tablet loaded up with reading material.

Squeaky clean teeth

Made my first visit to the dentist today in who knows how many years. Much to my surprise, aside from probably years worth of plaque and tartar build up, my teeth are apparently in pretty good condition. There’s a filling that needs to be replaced, a wisdom tooth that needs to be removed and possibly another filling for the molar next to the to-be-extracted wisdom tooth.

Today was all about cleaning. Had some x-rays done, and then the dental hygenist went to work with the pick and an ultrasonic probe for removing the hard to remove stuff. The cleaning all went pretty well, and aside from the feeling of having stuff stuck between my teeth while she was using the pick, it didn’t really bother me.

Back in a few more weeks so they can do a little more cleaning at and below the gum line, and to get the filling taken care of.

Charleston Eats: Cory’s Grilled Cheese

Cory’s Grilled Cheese has been open for a few weeks now in the spot that formerly housed one of my regular eating joints, Great American Grill. Finally got around to stopping there for an early lunch today.

The menu offers a selection of several grilled cheese sandwich variants, or you can build your own from the wide variety of options. Since I’ve already sampled the grilled cheese sammich, I opted to try the burger. The standard burger comes with lettuce, tomatoes and onion. From there you can add whatever extra toppings you like. I ordered mine with cheddar and bacon.

CorysGrilledCheese_Burger.jpgWhen the burger came out they’d forgotten to add the bacon, but that was easily fixed. Not mentioned on the menu is the fact that their burgers come with two patties, and cheese on each one. Not bad for $4. The two patties makes the burger pretty substantial and with a big basket of fries, it’s a pretty good deal.

CorysGrilledCheese_Fries.jpg

While it’s probably not going to be the greatest burger you’ve ever had, I enjoyed it and found it quite satisfying. Simple, basic and tasty, just like the rest of the menu.

Carolina Mantis

Spotted this guy, which I believe is a Carolina Mantis, hanging out near the garage yesterday morning. A little different from the other green mantises that I sometimes see around the house. I think it’s got some neat brown camoflauge coloration going on.