Published in The Calgary Herald, Saskatoon Star Phoenix and National Post on March 15, 2009. CALGARY — The 2009 Tim Horton’s Brier was the best-attended curling event in the history of Calgary, surpassing previous highs set at Briers in 1997 and then 2002. As 12,929 curling fans took in the action for Sunday’s national men’s championship final between Alberta’s Kevin Martin and Jeff Stoughton of Manitoba, the total number of attendees over the 10 days jumped to 246,126. That bettered the previous mark set in 2002 when 245,296 fans turned out, and is now the third-best attended Brier on record. “It was a good event, a good week all around,” said Ian Henderson, chairman of the Calgary host committee. “And it’s been good for the sport of curling in Calgary. After 2002, we saw an uptick in participation in junior curling and recreational curling in the city. And this time...
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Captain's log. Stardate 140206. I am. Not. Repeat, not.
Boldly. Going where. No man has gone before.
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By Nick Lewis Published in The Ottawa Citizen on November 10, 2008 I hadn't seen my girlfriend in two months, not since she began a four-month backpacking trip through Central America. What better place to reunite, we thought, than on our own tropical island in the Caribbean? I flew into La Ceiba, Honduras, where I met my girlfriend, who travelled to La Cieba via Guatemala. From this sleepy city we took a one-hour ferry out to the island of Utila, known among backpackers for the cheapest scuba diving on the continent. There, we were picked up by an affable, laid-back gentleman with a lilting Creole accent who would take us to Sandy Cay island. "We've had this place in our family since the '30s," Barry Jackson said in his cheerful sing-song manner over the sputtering of the boat engine. "And we been renting it out since the '70s to people...
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Published in The Calgary Herald on July 22, 2009 When it opens in fall 2010, the University of Calgary's new Taylor Family Digital Library will be the most technologically advanced student library in Canada, marrying traditional resources such as printed books and periodicals with modern media, including digital video, e-books and touch-screen information kiosks. Touring the unfinished site on Tuesday, federal Industry Minister Tony Clement marvelled at it and all it could offer the next generation of university students. "Clearly, the University of Calgary is moving to the next level and is ready for the 21st century, not only for its students, but for the brain gain of our country," Clement said. Once complete, the library will be 265,000 square feet, will stand six storeys, boast 260 kilometres of data cable and, according to U of C head librarian Tom Hickerson, will see daily traffic from 12,000 students and non-students....
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Published in The Calgary Herald on June 30, 2009 CALGARY – We fit? Well, somewhat, but most of us live a fairly sedentary lifestyle. And so with the new trend of exergaming –the genre of fitness video games–kinesiologists in Calgary see an opportunity to get kids twitching more than just their thumbs. Canada’s first Exergaming Research Centre was unveiled Thursday in hopes of having an impact on youth fitness and even dealing with the growing incidence of child obesity in Canada. It is located at Calgary’s Foundations for the Future Academy southwest campus, in a collaboration between the University of Calgary and Mount Royal College. “Our hope is to try to connect exergaming to the acquisition of fundamental movement skills,” said lead researcher Dwayne Sheehan, a professor at MRC and a PhD student at the U of C. “Can we develop skills like balance? Laterality? Reaction time? Agility? If we...
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By Nick Lewis, July 21, 2009 Reprinted from the Calgary Herald www.calgaryherald.com CALGARY – He still remembers the day. June 6, 1959 is when Daniel Dempsey first fell in love. He was a six-year-old Calgary boy whose parents had taken him to see the Golden Hawks, a team of Canadian aerobatic airmen who dazzled crowds below with a string of daring aerial stunts. “I remember the day vividly because I was mesmerized,” he said Monday. “And I recall the day before the show, my dad and I were on a gravel road not too far from McCall Field, and the Golden Hawks had to land because of strong winds. And they stopped and taxied right in front of us. “And the guy at the very back, who later I found out was Lt. Bill Grip, waved to me. And that’s all I ever wanted to do from that moment on...
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Loud motorcycles throttle Calgary residents Bike noise bylaw 'vague' By Nick Lewis, Calgary Herald June 15, 2009 CALGARY - When idling, a large Harley-Davidson motorcycle produces 100 decibels of exhaust sound. When it is revved, that loudness jumps to 120 decibels, which is about the same as a roaring jet engine. And some Calgarians say that is simply too loud for inner-city streets, where a passing motorcycle can throttle all other sound. "They all suffer from'Look at me,' syndrome, that's the problem," said a woman named Sam sitting in Tomkins Park on 17th Avenue and 8th Street S. W. on Sunday. "As a motorcycle rider myself, I couldn't do that to other people. It's just show-offy, and this is a show-offy street." As she said this, the fat crackle of throttle hit the park like a shotgun blast, as a muscle bike with a modified muffler roared past us. Her...
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Published in The Calgary Herald June 8, 2009 CALGARY - Representatives of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians say the No. 1 problem facing emergency care in Alberta is the inability to treat patients quickly and efficiently because of a lack of beds to send them to. "We've had one Band-Aid solution after another in the last few years, and while we have a health-care system in Alberta that is operational, it's entirely covered in duct tape," said Dr. Joe Vipond, a Calgary physician and chairman of a national medical conference meeting in Calgary. "Emergency rooms are really good at one thing--diagnosing and treating acute illness. Once it's diagnosed and the initial treatment has started, there is no need for them to be in an emergency room; they need to be in a hospital bed. "The feeling that we have is that we have a crisis in our hospitals due...
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