What's Wrong With This Corner?

I’d really like to know what’s going on at this corner.

While great strides have been made downtown, we’ve also seen some ugly developments. Downtown lately seems to have striated. There are safe streets, and there are not quite so safe streets, and in Saskatoon they’re meters apart. Islands of “ick” have sprung up here and there, attracting a certain demographic class. In between are “normal” people, the downtown workers and tourists.

One such island can be found on the north-east corner of the intersection of 2^nd Avenue and 22^nd Street. For some reason, all kinds of street people seem to have declared this their turf. The benches in front of the McDonald’s are ones you want to avoid. Every day you see lowlifes congregating here, crowding nervous citizens off the sidewalk. A half-dozen times or more, I’ve seen the police in attendance.

It's not just the corner itself, exactly. On sunny days, I take a stroll during afternoon tea, and I’ve noticed quite a few things. There’s a great deal of foot traffic in the alleys between Second and Third Avenues, just north of 22^nd. Scruffy-looking people go in, and hand things to one another. It’s not unusual to see people lying amongst the dumpsters, feeling the effects of whatever they’ve taken. Disagreements and fights are common. I used to cut through there after work on my bike, but now I’ve had to stop.

One fine weekday afternoon this summer, all hell finally broke loose in the form of an all-out turf war. I was taking coffee in an empty lot, my face turned toward the sun. I ignored the yelling across the street behind me…nothing new, after all. Suddenly, there was a lot of yelling. I turned, and saw tourists and citizens up and down the street stopping to do the same. Everywhere, street people were running to and fro, or standing and shouting at others. Was it my imagination, or were some wearing a certain colour? And those ones over there…were they wearing a different colour? I reached for my cell to call the police.

“Thank you for your call. We are currently experiencing a higher-than-normal volume of calls. Please continue to hold…” Good grief—it reminded me of an American sitcom I’d seen, back in the 70s.

“Come on!” Across the street, a skinhead with a Mohawk haircut screamed for his friends to follow. He charged up the sidewalk, tourists diving for cover, a long metal bar in his hand. He and his posse raced into an alley even as others raced the hell out.

“Thank you for your call. We are currently experiencing a higher-than-normal volume of calls….”

 Finally, I got through, and the dispatcher already knew. “Can you see the police yet?” she asked.

“Just the one so far,” I answered. “He’s looking lonely, though. He’s standing by some unconscious guy laying in the middle of Second Avenue, completely surrounded by…concerned citizens.” By now, though, you could hear the sirens. The bike cops were first to arrive, zipping into the alley.

Not much else to report, really...except that whatever’s going on at this corner seems to be getting worse. Not sure why, unless it’s related to the transit mall at the north end of the block - or maybe the Welfare department half a block south?

My humble suggestion for improvement is Baroque or New Age music, piped through speakers from the McDonald’s. Done properly, this actually works. Done improperly, it does not. (Witness the transit mall experiment. Note to city workers: No, Shania Twain doth not Baroque music make.)

Still, that’s really only a bandage. Fixing whatever’s going on here will need a whole lot more than Mozart.

[Update, 4 October: It appears that the city has removed the benches from the northeast corner of this intersection, the corner in question. There are still questionable characters hanging about, but perhaps fewer than before. The ones who are left are content to sit on the landscaping dividers, or even directly on the sidewalk, while some have crossed the street to get to the other side. It remains to be seen what the long-term result will be.]

Changes: River Landing Promenade

I’m back, after an extended summer made far too busy with looking after other things. ‘Tis blogging season once more!

It seems Saskatoon’s oft-delayed River Landing project has finally taken root, right on the wind-swept banks of the South Saskatchewan. Here’s the first of a few aspects I’ll highlight, featuring some photos from the summer.

The downtown portion of the riverbank, west of the Traffic Bridge, has never been soft on the eye. Three short years ago, this was a gravelled road trailing down to the water’s edge, a non-descript, weedy surface on which downtown workers parked their cars. Given our crime rate in Saskatoon, that would seem to be a gamble.

Now it is a place to take your kids, a promenade where lovers can take in the prairie sun. For the first time ever, this stretch of land—between the Traffic and Senator Buckwold bridges—actually looks like it belongs to a city, rather than a little town. For the first time ever, it’s a place to be enjoyed. Most notable of all is the water park for the kids, which shows the path of the river as it tracks across the prairies. Above, there’s art of sorts—those “sticks” in front of the new Persephone Theatre. There’s also a snack bar restaurant.

Lastly, the founders of our community are featured at the bottom of the traffic bridge, in the centre of a new traffic circle: Chief Whitecap and John Lake. (This occupies space near the present Meewasin Centre, the intersection of Spadina and Third Avenue.)

"Emerald", My Butt: Emerald vs. Brandon Cedars

I’d like to offer a public service to anyone in Saskatoon considering the purchase of an Emerald cedar for their yard, in the form of a bit of shocking news. You’ve seen them offered by the hundreds this year, from the Real Canadian Superstore to Canadian Tire. They’re beautiful, lush, green, and reasonably priced. And…

…they are NOT recommended for our climate!!!!!

Emerald cedars (Thuja occidentalis 'Smaragd') are rated for Zone 4. Saskatoon, like it or not, really is not Zone 4—it is Zone 3, at least when it comes to the planting and caring of pyramidal cedars. The Brandon cedar (Thuja occidentalis) is the one you want—if you can find it. For some reason or other, most of the major chains are carrying only Emerald cedars this year. Don’t buy them. Don’t, don’t, don’t. Some of those Emeralds, in fact, are already dying in the store’s lots.

I do own four of the things, lovingly nurtured for over a decade (note, however, that the ones in the photograph are the much more successful Brandons). If you do as I have done with my Emeralds—fertilize, water well, prune carefully—you too can have a nice crop of wilted brown lopsided monstrosities. Or you can pick up some Brandon Cedars, plunk ‘em in the ground, and watch a lush hedge sprout up in your yard. On my own property, I’ve got over two dozen Brandons, mostly purchased at end-of-season sales for three or four dollars. The older ones are taller than me now, and even thicker.

Why are so many places offering only Emerald cedars? One website I came across mentions the possibility of a breeding mix-up, coupled with a limited number of growers. There may be hope yet, though: http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/pnw0152/pnw0152.html says we may be able to start new Brandons from cuttings.

I did find Brandons at Wilson’s this year, so you might still be in luck. If all you can find are the Emeralds, do yourself a favour: keep your money in your wallet.

Also, Alberta Dwarf Spruce: despite the name, really only good for a warmer clime.

[Update, 4 October, 2010:  This past year has devastated even mature cedars across Saskatoon, either Emerald or Brandon.  I lost much of a row of my Brandons, some of which were 3 metres tall. It appears the better taken-care of ones went first, probably because of the bizarre heat wave last fall (lilacs blooming in September?) followed by a sudden death deepfreeze. Instead of taking their autumn soaking into their roots for winter, they put it into fast autumn growth. The resulting shock to the tender shoots destroyed many mature trees.

Sadly, with the shortage of real Brandons about, I've had to break my own rule and replace them with Emeralds. Lots of Emeralds. Lots and lots of them, in the hopes that some will survive to maturity.]

Parkade

Only I would write a blog entry about a parkade, but this one seems worthy of mention.

I’ve shown the newly converted Hudson Bay Company building, as well as the newly converted King George across the street. Across the alley from the King George was what could possibly have been the grossest parkade I’ve ever had the misfortune of using. The place looked like it was about to cave in. There were no lights over the ticket machine, the crumbled floors dripped consistently, the railings were sketchy at best, and the whole place had an unsafe feel about it. Even the few businesses in the retail strip beneath it looked run down—or closed shop entirely.

A development company—I’m afraid I don’t know which—got hold of this pile of misery, and attempted to renovate it. Good luck, many of us who work downtown said. Better just to knock it down.

Again, we should have believed. The parkade has been transformed from end to end. They literally spent months on this (and who knows how many dollars). I’m not saying it’s an improvement to the downtown core, it’s an immense improvement. The car exit even features a keystone above the door—that’s elegant.

There’s new businesses in there too, much cleaner and more respectable ones. The railings have been replaced, the walls dismantled and rebuilt, new lighting, wiring…what a work of art.

Kudos to whoever did this. Another blight in downtown Saskatoon has been transformed into something good.

Saskatoogle

I couldn’t resist snapping this picture of a car that snaps pictures of us.

It seems the long arm of Google has come to town, or more accurately, the all-seeing eye. What you’re looking at is a Google car with a special camera on top, covered up for the day, apparently. I found it parked outside Superstore on 8th Street—even Google needs groceries, I guess.

For those unfamiliar with Google Street View, see the screenshots attached (click for larger view). Basically, it allows you to “walk” virtually down any street they’ve visited. You can turn around 180º, look up at high-rises, into gardens, etc. All you have to do is look up a city in Google, click on Maps, and drag the little yellow guy onto the map.

If the street has been covered, you’ll get a recent (say last year or so) image, one you can move around in. It will show you the address as you do so, so you’ll always know whose house you’re looking at.

Privacy watchdogs have been in a frenzy, but it seems a little late. The map shows parts of the world (in blue) where Google has already been.

This doesn’t include areas being scanned now, like Saskatoon. Google does make concessions to privacy: faces and licence plates are digitally blurred. They’re done so by computer, of course—imagine blurring every face down every road on the planet. As a result, sometimes a face gets missed.

There’s good to be had from Street View. Let us assume, for example, that you are being transferred to a new city. Now, not only can you hunt for houses virtually, you can check out the neighbourhood. Are those car parts on the neighbours’ lawns? Does anyone here mend a fence? Best to try a different neighbourhood—which you can do with a single click. And Google only sees what you would see driving down the street. They stay off private roads.

Still, this seems an extreme project just for the sake of…what? It’s interesting, to be sure. I’ve checked out Manhattan, strolled through Beverly Hills, walked down endless highways in the Australian outback. But it still doesn’t seem worth the enormous effort this must take. An individual more paranoid than I would wonder what they were really doing this for.

That’s likely why there’s been some pushback. A community in Britain, for example, formed a human chain to prevent Google from entering. And now, in Japan, Google is being forced to reshoot it all. The camera was too high, Japan ruled. You can see into people’s private yards.

Is Google Street View good? Or evil? Maybe the words of Sun MicroSystems CEO Scott McNealey ring true: “Privacy is dead, deal with it.”

Review: The Leonard Cohen Concert

They say turnabout is fair play.
Since writing about our less-than-stellar experience at the (otherwise excellent) Eagles concert, I did not expect nor desire to attend another concert in Saskatchewan other than the one I’d already bought tickets for. Imagine then my surprise, at the age of 46, to find myself walking into Credit Union Centre—okay, being dragged in—to see a concert by none other than…

The New Kids on the Block?!

I do not even have a teenaged daughter to use as an excuse. What I do have is my wife Maya, who works in the hospitality industry. She served the “Kids” when they were in town, and as a result, was offered free tickets. Never being able to pass up anything freely offered, she naturally felt obliged to accept. At least the eleven-year-old seated on my other side was better behaved than the unfortunate twenty-year-old brainstem from the previous event.

But Maya cares little for the singing voice of Leonard Cohen. Not the music—she agrees with me that he is an excellent songwriter—but the singing itself. She insists that he can’t sing, and my efforts to convince her that it is the manner in which he can’t sing that does the trick fall on disbelieving ears. “It’s like the way Neil Young or Bob Dylan can’t sing,” I insist. “It’s all in the technique.” She just agrees that they can’t sing either.

She also doesn’t get the whole Cohen lady-killer thing. “What do women see in him?” she wants to know. “Besides, isn’t he like seventy years old?”

“Seventy-four,” I corrected. “Here’s your ticket.”

Mr. Cohen recently graced a Saskatoon stage, immersing the audience in a deep pool of talent that included Sharon Robinson, his collaborator of recent years. The gents in the band dressed smartly, complete with top hats like the ones businessmen used to wear. Even the guys at the sound board wore them. The stage had an aura of a more sophisticated era.

One might be forgiven for expecting this esteemed gentleman poet to rustle softly onto the stage with three generations of autumn leaves swirling about him (along with a few “cigarette” papers from the sixties). One would be wrong. With his entourage in place, Mr. Cohen ran onto the stage like someone ready to pound out a rock concert. I know sixty-year-olds that would fall and break an ankle had they tried to do the same.

The second the music began, Leonard fell to his knees, facing one of his extremely talented musicians, to croon “Dance Me to the End of Love”. The crowd went suitably wild, and LC won a few points with Maya. I’d shown her a YouTube copy of the song’s poignant video (the “live” version) the night before, and she’d actually liked it. We were off to a good start.

I can honestly say that I have never in my life enjoyed a concert so utterly much. There was not a missed note anywhere, even when the guitarist lost a string in mid-flight (right on the big screen, as Leonard serenaded him again). Further, they knew in just what order to lay out the wares: by the time we were treated to “Halleluiah”, we were ready for it.

That one was amazing. As anyone familiar with the song knows, it starts low and rises, finally breaking through the clouds like God sailing down a sunbeam. To see Cohen in the flesh performing this is a memory to keep. For one thing, he’s seventy-four, and for another, he’s a little guy, maybe five-six, and razor-thin. As I watched him build to the song’s crescendo, it seemed to me—I swear it really happened—that his pant legs actually began to ripple. You couldn’t help but know something amazing was about to erupt.

Erupt it did, and the crowd went to its feet as if on cue. The woman in the row in front of us broke down and cried. I confess, a tear came to my own eye as well; it’s good to have lived to see and hear this.

It took a while, a long time really, for the applause to die away, and then the concert continued. We received at least a full three hours, with a break in the middle. And when he performed the player’s anthem “I’m Your Man”, there wasn’t a dry lady in the room. Six years away from 80, and the cheers and happy sounds emanating from the female half of the audience were something to behold. In fact…

“Woo-hoo!” shouted someone near. 

I blinked. There was something oddly familiar about that particular “woo-hoo”. It sounded awfully similar to one I’d heard at my side at the Kids’ concert. I turned to Maya and found her radiant, flushed with the sort of female glow that I generally only see on special occasions such as our anniversary or a new James Bond film. 

Mr. Cohen, you rascally lady’s man, you’ve won over another one.

By the end, I myself was tired—I’ve no idea how someone Cohen’s age does it—but happy. He wisely saved some of the biggest for the three or four encores, and then he skipped off the stage. Skipped, I tell you, like a kid.

If the concert could be summed in a word, it would be this: respect. Mr. Cohen is both a Jew and a Buddhist, and the discipline shines clear through. Whenever anyone plays a solo, or takes the lead vocal, he has always turned toward them, making himself part of the audience to focus our attention on the other and not on himself. Now he’s added the removal of his hat, which he holds to his chest as a sign of respect to the person performing. When introducing the members of his team—twice—-he bows to each in turn. The guy has class, and a deep respect that you rarely see anymore. To see him perform is an honour.

He also has a new fan:

“Okay,” Maya admitted as we made our way to the car. “I get it now.”

Changes: The King George Mark III

Another “bright spot” is taking shape in downtown Saskatoon, at the corner of 2nd Avenue and 23rd Street.

When I was a kid, back in the mid-70s before they’d discovered electricity, the King George was still being touted in television ads as Saskatoon’s “family hotel”. It had, sometime in the 1960s I think, been “modernized”: the fine old brickwork pictured here in the vintage postcard (click for closeups) was covered up with green and white art-deco tile, similar to what covered the Hudson Bay building across the street. The arched windows facing 23rd on the ground floor’s north side were ripped out and replaced with standard aluminum-and-glass fare, allowing retail space which would eventually give way to a beer store.

There were many great things about the 1960s, and architecture wasn't one of them. The new look wasn't great at first, and it slowly transformed itself into butt-ugly. See for yourself in the second photo. You’ll note the weird, elongated pyramid sort of shape down the front corner. In the late 1970s, this held a giant revolving sign that glared light into the windows of the corner rooms. (I always wondered how thick the drapes had to be.) In the 1980s that disappeared, and the “Times Square” news ticker appeared beneath it. By the 1990s, that was a broken dream of randomly-lit pixels, apparently never to be repaired.

The KG had fallen on hard times. I’m not saying the clientele took a dip, but by the mid-1990s the challenge at the gift store I worked in nearby was throwing out all the over-served drunks that wandered out of that place looking for trouble. We developed a pet name for it: “The Barry on Second”. Finally, mercifully, the place shut down for good. A fire took place, under mysterious circumstances (see my posting from 17 February, 2009).

Buyers came. They promised great things. Property taxes fell into arrears. This happened, I think, more than once.

By the time Meridian Development took the place over, I’m sure no one had any great expectations left. When they announced their grandiose plans, even I admit to thinking, “Yeah, yeah…we’ve heard it all before.” 

Oh we of little faith.

Today, the new King George is nearing completion—on a scale far exceeding even the developer’s. They’d had, it seemed, plans to restore the old brickwork. They were going to remove the horrible green and white tiles (which were breaking loose and raining down on the sidewalk below anyway). Unfortunately, they soon discovered the brickwork had been destroyed in the earlier “modernization”. Down it came. Down came the walls behind it. Down came nearly everything, in fact, until the KG looked like a really tall parkade. Nothing but floors and pillars, open to the world. They were keeping the place weren’t they? It didn’t look like much was left.

But look at it now. The top three floors are condos, the second is office space, and the main floor will accommodate retail. A new addition has gone up on the south side, and the building features underground parking. Little regal touches at the top restore the “King” to the “George”. Sweet.

Not so long ago, the KG was just one more reason to want to leave this town. Strike that off the list.

Well done, gentlemen!

Link:  http://www.meridiandevelopment.ca/KG/page_1863744.html

Another Visit From the Shadow People

In my last account of the Shadow People, I mentioned the fact that Saskatoon seems to have perhaps a bit more than its share of wackadoodles. I also mentioned the fact that I appear, of late, to have become a wackadoodle magnet. In this second account, I document a slice of human behaviour that was not only surreal in its overall weirdness, but which played, ironically, off my own midlife-crisis-generated paranoia. The following might best be read while listening to the theme from “The Twilight Zone”…

Wackadoodle 2
We’d returned from an enjoyable vacation in Vancouver, and the second I set foot at the Saskatoon airport, the feeling of weirdness returned. Two weeks away from this place, and one can see the difference. I’ll admit, I was feeling paranoid as hell, and for the purposes of this story, it’s important to keep that in mind. I stayed indoors for a day and a half.

The next night, I needed to make a very short trip downtown to pick up Maya from work. I got into my car, and got onto the street. Slowly, 40 to 45 klics, keeping an eye open for traffic. There was none. It was another Sunday night, and very little going on. I moved slowly into the downtown core. Take it slow, I told myself, Saskatoon has weirdness in it. Yes, again I’m being melodramatic, but it’s how I was feeling that night.

I picked up Maya from where she works, and started home again. Very little traffic as we crossed the Broadway Bridge. We stopped for the light at Main.

A horn sounded, four or five cars away. Someone yelled at someone else. Someone else yelled back. “Sounds like another road-rage,” my wife commented. “Yes,” I said, my stomach tightening. I hunkered down and stared straight ahead, hoping whatever violence might erupt stayed with the participants. Only a few blocks to go.

The light turned, and we moved on. We got onto 8th Street, where not much was happening at all. We turned right, alone, onto Clarence Avenue. No one else on the street, the entire way down Clarence. We passed a temporary illuminated sign placed there by the police. “YOUR SPEED:” it read, “44 km/h”.
We turned off Clarence onto our street. Just a few more blocks to go.

Suddenly, a car was right behind us—and I do mean right behind, tailgating dangerously. Here we go, I thought. And we’d almost made it, too. I felt the urge to speed up, to get him off our tail, and decided not to anyway. Let him pass if he wanted to. If he bumped us, it wouldn’t be me paying. We turned at last into our driveway, and the car behind us sped on.

As we got out of the car I saw the other vehicle make a u-turn at the end of the block. Great—someone from our very own street. We used to have such nice neighbours. A bizarre image entered my mind: what if he came back, and stopped to accuse us of something we didn’t do? I nearly laughed out loud. Preston, old boy, I thought, you really ARE getting paranoid.

The car came back. The driver lowered his window.

“Hey,” he called to us, “are you staying in for the rest of the night?”

I shaded my eyes against the streetlight. In the dim light, I thought I recognized my new next-door neighbour. “Yes,” I told him. “What’s up?”

“You’d better do just that,” the man ordered, obviously trying to sound like a cop. I instantly realized this wasn’t my neighbour, nor anyone I’d seen in my life. “I just clocked you doing 89. You’d better stay in tonight.”

The world lurched beneath my feet.

It’s rather hard to describe the whirlwind of thoughts and notions that swirled into and out of my mind in the next two seconds. Suffice to say, it was almost like the gods had read my very thoughts, and decided to play a twisted practical joke. It was, in fact, so bizarre a coincidence that I thought at first I thought I’d heard him wrong. And still might, were it not for Maya at my side to hear him too.

“Boy,” I might have responded, “are you barking up the wrong tree.” But I was still too steeped in the surrealism of the moment. There’s coincidence, and then there’s this.

“... uh …,” I responded instead. “…Er…”

“You’d better take care how you drive.” The man rolled up his window, glared at us, and moved his car slowly past our house. He took care for us to see him checking out the house and yard, soaking all of it in. Ominous. As slowly as he pulled away, however, it was still too fast for me to recover. By the time I thought of grabbing his plate number, to pass on to the real police, he was already too far away.

Back into his Shadow World.

We all have shadows in our own lives, and sometimes even the actions of the most obviously lost and confused Shadow People can cut through to our own insecurities. No doubt this poor soul was dealing with his own frustrations with the behaviour of his fellows, frustrations I can identify with. I’ve often felt like doing exactly as he did that night, just nailing someone verbally (and I’m grateful it was only that) for their anti-social behaviour—and doing 89 on a city street at night would certainly qualify as that. The difference, I suppose, is that I don’t—I try, through my own feelings of righteous anger, to contain myself.

And if ever I do begin to act like a guardian of the world, if I ever do start berating my fellow drivers for their actions…I hope I maintain the presence of mind to at least pick out the right vehicle.

Just Because You’re Paranoid: A Visit From the Shadow People

Saskatoon has Shadow People. And (gulp) I think they’re after me!

They walk among us, shoulder-to-shoulder, awash in the glow of a silver moon only they can see. They look like us, talk like us, and act like us—until the moment that they don’t. No, I’m not going off the deep end, and of course I’m being melodramatic. But Saskatoon has its Shadow People nonetheless. 

Though things are turning around now, let’s face it—during the past few years Saskatchewan bled an enormous amount of talent. Not everyone could make it in Alberta, though; some who tried turned back before the tide reversed. Others, devoid of anything like a polished résumé, or the life skills needed to fill one, never even tried. One could therefore be forgiven for concluding that the remaining population contains a larger than usual subset of wackadoodles—the Shadow People, itching to be discovered.

Lately, though, the Shadow People have discovered me.

For some males, part of the whole “second adolescence” thing (aka, middle age) includes a tendency to feel under attack, or paranoid. This, for me, is a whole new experience, though one that only seems to affect me here. I’ve crowded onto the Hong Kong subway at rush hour in Kowloon, enjoying every moment. I’m still at ease strolling down a crowded street in Vancouver, or exploring the busy markets of Ottawa. I’ve an experienced public speaker, having talked to hundreds without breaking a sweat. But every time I venture out in Saskatoon, something bizarre or unsettling happens. It’s making me reluctant to leave the house.

Lately, though, I don’t even have to do that. The Shadow People have found me.

I won’t get into the entire string of events that led to this conclusion, but I’ll describe the most recent. If anyone cares to offer a suggestion as to what could be happening, please feel free to comment or drop me a note.

First of all, it’s important to note that we live in a so-called “smart house”. Our home, whether we’re there or away, tends to think for itself. As a life-long techie, both amateur and pro, I’ve accumulated a bigger raftload of campy digital apparatus than an episode of “Doctor Who”. Lights and appliances and utilities operate themselves, or run by remote control, even across the ‘net. Every room has a motion sensor or two, and everything is run by a server. Any track from our 800 albums can be accessed for play in seconds. There are cameras, a fairly recent addition. And no, they were not put there in response to the wackadoodles, or because I’m paranoid. They were put there because, well…I’m a geek, they are gizmos, there was a sale, and therefore I needed one. Okay, eight. Most are invisible, even when you stand in the yard. And if you do stand in the yard, an alert sounds within. (Did I mention the sale on motion sensors?)

Wackadoodle 1

Last Sunday, at 10:30 pm, a dark sedan pulled up in front. Two youths got out, and walked in different directions. One went left, into my neighbour’s front yard, behind a tall cedar hedge. The other went right—right past our front gate and into and up our driveway. A pair of motion sensor lights illuminated the scene, going from half brilliance to full as the boy strode past our car. He didn’t blink, or look at the lights. He didn’t look at the house. He didn’t look at any camera, and in fact was likely unaware of their presence.

The temperature was -8ºC, with a wind chill of -14ºC. He wore a T-shirt and shorts. Right away, I knew I was looking at one of the Shadow People.

He reached the end of a partial fence separating our driveway from the front yard. He then turned and walked around the end, moving back now toward the street on the sidewalk at the side of our house. He reached the walk between the front door and the gate, and stopped in front of the steps. It’s important to note that he could have shortened the trip considerably by simply walking in through the front gate.

Two more bright motion-sensing lights came on, right beside him. He didn’t move, or look at the house. He just stood, a weird smile on his face, looking about the front yard, and staring toward the tall hedge toward my neighbour’s yard, where his buddy was hidden.

One of our dogs began to bark.

Apparently, for the Shadow People, terriers hold terror that security lights do not. He turned to run—back down the side of the house, around the fence, and the long way back out the driveway! He ignored the front walk and gate to the street, which would have got him out of there in half the time. Apparently, for the Shadow People, gates also hold terror. The whole time they were here—less than a minute—they touched nothing, looked at nothing, did nothing but act quite strange.

They got into their car and left. Back to their Shadow World.

In my next entry, I’ll describe another recent visit from the Shadow People. That one makes this look downright normal.

Saskatoon: #1 in Canada, #9 on the Planet

We’re Number One!

In something, at least. In its annual crime rankings survey, Maclean’s magazine has again placed Saskatoon near the top—in fact, at the very top—of the list of most dangerous cities in Canada. Big surprise to some, no doubt, but no surprise whatever to those like myself who work downtown, and who must dodge the dodgy on our way home after dark. 

I’ve had quiet evenings devoid of incident, long after sunset, strolling toward the Broadway Bridge. But I’ve also had harrowing nights of chance, winding my way between flashing blue lights and dangerous laughter filtering from unlit alleys, wondering if, at last, my turn had finally come round.

I’ve stepped over fresh ponds of blood.

Saskatoon, it turns out, is 163% above the national average crime rate. “Pish-posh,” cried my fellows, “numbers can be made to spell anything. Those ratings are per capita. We’re only high on the list because of the number of crimes versus our small population.” One could then find oneself explaining the basic concept of the words “per capita”. The brighter denizens at this point would begin to clue in, and would inevitably express surprise. Others have already experienced the violence first hand, and have concluded that they have less need of a pie graph than security cameras. In any case, the cry of disapproval was one made thinner still by the announcement a little bit later:

RealClearWorld.com, a blog of international news, came out with its list of the world’s most dangerous cities. Only one Canadian city made the grade—#1 in Canada, #9 in the world. You guessed it—Saskatoon.

On the other hand…
No doubt this can be contested, especially given the distance of the authors of this list. They even made a sarcastic reference to the tourism industry of Saskatchewan “(if there is such a thing)”. Maclean’s, one would expect, being closer, would have a much better grip on the handle. It claimed that the top three in Canada—Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and Regina—have much in common: a large gang presence feeding off the drug trade, a young transient population, a low level of education, substandard housing, high levels of unemployment, broken homes, addictions, and psychiatric issues”.

Good grief, Charlie Brown!

Where exactly did Maclean’s get those numbers? Not Statistics Canada, surely. For example, StatsCan found the unemployment rate in January to be 4.1% in Saskatchewan (a “have” province), just over half of the 8% in Maclean’s home province of Ontario (a “have-not” province). Presumably the rest of Maclean’s data can be found to be just as reliable. They might have found more solid ground with the observation of Calgary alderman and police board member Diane Colley-Urquhart, who claimed that many Eastern criminals have followed the wealth to the West.

One wonders…could those criminals have left behind a smattering of old Eastern establishment bitterness? It’s interesting to note, that of Maclean's top ten, only one (Halifax) can be found east of Manitoba.

A final observation: the RealClearWorld site offers up videos of each of the “dangerous” cities. Saskatoon’s was usurped from YouTube, and what a dangerous, scary place it looks like. Check it out. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Links: 
Maclean’s:  http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/03/05/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-canada/
RealClearWorld: http://www.realclearworld.com/lists/most_dangerous_cities/saskatoon.html
 
The lists:
Maclean’s 10 Most Dangerous Cities in Canada:
1. Saskatoon, SK
2. Winnipeg, MB
3. Regina, SK
4. Prince George, BC
5. Edmonton, AB
6. Chilliwack, BC
7. Halifax, NS
8. Vancouver, BC
9. Surrey, BC
10. Victoria, BC

RealClearWorld’s 10 Most Dangerous Cities in the World:
1. Mogadishu, Somalia (Civil War)
2. Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (Anarchy)
3. Linfen, China (Polution)
4. Caracas, Venezuela (Crime)
5. Detroit, USA (Crime)
6. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Crime)
7. Johannesburg, South Africa (Crime)
8. Norilsk, Russia (Pollution, Cold)
9. Saskatoon, Canada (Crime)
10. London, UK (Crime)

Long Road Out of Saskatoon

The other night, I decided I’d treat myself and the woman of my world to a golden flake of our past, by taking $300 out of my wallet and lighting it on fire.

Not literally, of course—or at least not intentionally. No legal tender becomes tinder in the Copeland household; that’s far too similar to touching a flame to entire days of your life.

No, the money involved was spent on concert tickets. Not just any concert tickets, mind you, but tickets for none other but The Eagles, creators of the soundtrack of my youth. I’d purchased them online from Ticketmaster (motto: “We’ll make youse a deal youse can’t afford”). I hooked them three minutes after they went on sale, paying the afore-mentioned premium for medium-priced seats high in the bleachers. I’m not sure where the lowest-cost seats were, but I’m thinking drive-in speakers in the parking lot.

It would be a magical night, nonetheless. The music of the Eagles had spoke to both Maya and myself, years before our lives ever touched. I was that “Desperado” when she found me. She was a “Victim of Love”.

So off we drove to Market Mall, the nearest Park and Ride. The wind chill was -30°C as we waited for the bus, but I had no intention of dealing with the 90+ minutes of car stampede that would ensue after the concert.

We arrived in good order. We took our seats. The lights dimmed, and the crowd went suitably wild as the purple silhouettes of Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and Timothy B. Schmit morphed onto the darkened stage. I have to admit, I was somewhat jazzed myself. Soon I’d be singing along to “Lyin’ Eyes”, having carefully prepared myself by memorizing every single word 31 years ago. I only hoped the animated conversation going on behind us would abate.

Then the owners of the two seats next to us arrived. 

Is there, anywhere in the known universe, any one human person as charming, as sophisticated, as witty, as knowledgeable in the ways of the world, as talented, wise and utterly steeped in confidence, as masterful, warm, generous, and forgiving, as selfless, as educated, as cool, hip and chic, as possessive of the kind of quiet, noble leadership we all look for in our heroes...in short, as wondrously, undeniably sophisticated, as a 20-year-old Saskatonian with six beers in his belly?

No, I didn’t think so either.

I’ve been exploring of late a new philosophy, a sort of eight-fold path to kindness and contentment with the world. Anyone who’s explored the same system of belief already knows what I’m talking about. I won't get into it here, because I’m still no good at it, and I’m far from a good example. But I’m working on it.

So I tried to block out the antics of the pair beside me. The music, after all was good and loud, nearly loud enough to drown out the drunken partying going on right up against my shoulder. I focussed desperately hard on the deep pool of talent gracing the stage. I lost my concentration, and found it, and lost it again. Maya, all too aware of my inner battle, glanced at me anxiously.

But I wasn’t the first to snap.

Apparently the same inner battle was going on in the minds of the 30-something couple in front of us. Exactly as the first notes of “Lyin’ Eyes” hit the air, the male half of this couple turned around and grabbed the 20-year-old beside me by the neck.

The battle was on...and stayed on, non-stop, for the remainder of the show.

I know, I know... by their very nature, rock concerts are supposed to be a bit wild. Rock, after all, was born of rebellion, and letting loose at concerts is an age-old rite of passage. Everyone has the right to celebrate differently. I know all this, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s hard to focus on the music when there’s beer and fists flying beside you.

I won’t get into the number of classic rock anthems that slid by, barely noticed, as I gritted my teeth and tried to focus. Suffice to say, by the end of the show, the row in front of us was empty. And the twenty-year-olds at my side—they’d taken the time to tell me their ages—cursed and roared and partied on. They did this, I might add, in clothing adorned with logos of a provincial Crown corporation. They hadn’t even bought their tickets, they proudly informed us. They’d been given them by their parents.

Ah. Suddenly it all made sense.

We were fortunately not far from the main entrance, and as the last notes died, we shot out of there like cub scouts out of Neverland Ranch. The wind chill was now into the -40s C, but at least the buses awaited...or did they? Transportation at previous concerts had been a calamity; the Saskatoon Transit System promised things would be better.

They weren’t.

A terrifying hour later—during which Maya tried to help enlarge the one-foot hole in the frost the driver was valiantly trying to peer through—we arrived at Market Mall. The last thing we heard was the radio crackling: “We’ve got hundreds of people freezing out here and all kinds of empty buses. Should we put the people on the buses?”

Doh! Or maybe, Duh?

In the days that followed, a trio of Saskatoon Star-Phoenix columnists offered theories and opinions. In regard to people talking during the concert, Les Macpherson said, “This I blame more on the sound setup than on inconsiderate concert patrons. If you can hear someone talking in the audience during a rock concert, the music isn’t loud enough.” He may have a point. He went on to say, “A completely positive concert-going experience is perhaps too much to expect. If we can’t improve the experience, we could cut back on the attendant bellyaching.” Fair enough. Next time, Les can sit next to the drunken SaskTel yuppie larvae.

Another SP staffer, Cam Fuller, put forward the theory of decreasing attention span. This could also be part of the problem, the fruit of a generation raised to think watching epic movies on cell phones is a good idea. There’s a surreal aura about arena concerts after all; the band performing often seems the size of a postage stamp, not all that different from what you’d see on an iPod. Is it real, or is it on a flashdrive? In the digital frontier, the line between reality and otherwise is blurring like the Joker’s makeup in a bad mpeg.

Finally, columnist Sarath Peiris weighed in. In his opinion, what’s important for some concert goers is “their presence at the event, not the event itself.” Others at the concert “simply become the supporting cast whose needs can be dismissed without a second thought.”

A friend of mine, who tends to view our fair city with a somewhat darker cast, offers the following: “Saskatoon may not be ready for these kinds of events. As a populace, we’re more familiar with swilling beer while watching local bands at the local pub then seeing world-class-anything live. The bus thing is just another symptom...how many times now have they tried, and utterly failed? We haven’t the infrastructure to put on shows like this. We haven’t the experience to know how to appreciate these events when they happen.”

I’m not certain I agree, at least not entirely. If nothing else, we’ve proven we have the demand. The Rolling Stones put on a second show when they rolled into Regina — tens of thousands at each. The Eagles put on a third, something they didn’t even do for many major centres in the States. And we’ve had other names hit Saskatoon, often to return: Cher, Elton John, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young...

Could the problem just be society? Our increasingly selfish attitudes toward one another? The thought chills, but demands attention.

One final thought from me: The concert, what I experienced of it, was magnificent. The Eagles brought along a great deal of talent and polish...I did not hear a complaint about the performance from anyone. They well deserved our attention and respect. If they're coming to your town—and you are prone to better luck with concerts than us—do yourself a nice, and go see them.

That said...I recently enjoyed another concert where people cheered and grooved to the music, where my view was unobstructed, and where the sound was utterly perfect. It was an Eric Clapton charity concert, and he came with friends: Johnny Winter, Willie Nelson, Jeff Beck, Robbie Robertson, Sheryl Crow and others. It was amazing, beautiful...and I can watch it again and again.

It was a DVD.

Review: Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change, by Bob Seidensticker

First of all, this is not the kind of book I normally read.

The non-fiction I normally devour promotes technology as a way of life. The volumes I crack open paint pictures of digital Nirvana, its circuits woven through our lives until they become invisible ingredients of the very fabric. The tech-tomes I love are ones which tell me that all problems known to mankind can be solved with technology.

Well, not quite…but I am obviously a techie. Anyone who’s expressed the goal of making his house a self-monitoring, intelligent entity—more on that some other day—has got to be a fan of tech. So it was a bit unusual for me to pick up a book that proclaims the e-Emperor to be wearing no clothes. It might be because I’ve noticed lately that too much of my time is spent configuring things. I’m just old enough to remember when the world was analogue…things seemed simpler then as opposed to now. What’s happening to our digital utopia? I decided to get another point of view.

The author of the book, Bob Seidensticker, wants to talk to us about the times we’re living in—these times of rapid-fire change unlike any that has ever been in the history of man. And what he wants us to know about all this change, this acceleration, this what-on-earth-will-they-invent-tomorrow blur we live in is simply this:

It’s all a bunch of hype.

The book is intelligently presented, first with examples of technologies developed in centuries past. It weighs the importance of each, and comes up with surprising answers. Not everything we’ve done in the past generation or two was really all that important in comparison. And not every technology of millennia past pales in comparison to those of today.

The book is peppered with quotes worth remembering, from tech and political leaders present and past: “We are drowning in information and starved for knowledge.” “I have seen the future, and it’s still in the future.” “The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.” My personal favourite: “For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.”

Seidensticker never seems to be content to state an opinion without backing it up with relevant facts. For example, he points out how “the next big thing” is usually just a technology that has temporarily received society’s spotlight…until the next big thing after that comes along. Thus, the age of cathedral building…of printing…of steam…of nuclear power…the space age…the information age…nanotechnology…and onward.

The book is divided into two main parts, the first dealing with the ways we see technology incorrectly. The second part discusses how “the more things change, well…”

The author wisely makes no attempt to get us to disrespect technology. What he does do is to leave us with a healthy set of guidelines for interpreting change correctly. What signs are there that the “next big thing” really will be? Is it really going to change humanity in the way that the printing press did? Or will it wind up as a footnote in the path of mankind’s development?

In all, a fascinating book, one guaranteed to help us keep it all in perspective.

Changes: 2nd Avenue Lofts

I promised to update the blog from time to time with some of the good things happening around town. I’ll begin with the obvious ones, before moving on to areas that even current residents might not have noticed. On the way, I’ve already discovered tidbits of history I never knew. Apparently there was a city here before there was a city.

You’ll be forgiven if you don’t recognize the older building pictured on the left. It is, or was, the five-storey J.F. Cairns Ltd. Department store, opened in 1913 and purchased by the Hudson Bay Company in 1922. Its five storeys contained just over 8300 square metres of space (90,000 square feet). It stood on the northwest corner of 2nd Avenue and 23rd Street.

The building, which included a grocery store, served Saskatoon until 1958, when the Bay announced its replacement. The store was torn down that year, and reopened its new digs on the same location in 1960. Though only three storeys tall at first, the new store boasted 14,500 square metres (157,000 square feet) of retail space. The building was constructed with expansion in mind, as an additional two floors could be added in the future.

The fourth floor was added soon enough, in 1966, and a skywalk built to the Bay’s six-level parkade across 2nd Avenue. A vast area below this parkade served as the Bay’s shipping and receiving area. Eventually, the Safeway store abutting its northern edge was demolished, and the Bayside Centre shopping mall built. The Hudson Bay Company continued in this location until the turn of the century, when they moved to the old Eaton’s location in Midtown Plaza.

For more than half a decade, the building—apparently built like a brick—stood empty and forlorn. Ideas were passed, of course: the library could move there, for example. Somehow, none of it fleshed out. The skywalk was torn down and the parkade bit the dust, to be replaced with a parking lot. Talk began circulating of doing the same to the store. The Bayside mall, once a home to higher-end retail outlets, soon floundered and sunk. For a time, that became home to Heinze Career Institute, then to two separate furniture stores.

Then along came a developer with the pie-in-the-sky idea of turning the Bay building into condos. No doubt many a citizen secretly rolled their eyes at the thought; there’s been a lot of pie-in-the-sky ideas in this town. (Remember the old A.L. Cole power plant condos?) This time, though, the timing must have been right. 

The revamped Bay building is not only near completion, but it finally has that elusive fifth floor…bringing it to the height of the original store (though it is also longer). The adjoining mall soldiers on, now as a home to several government offices. The condos feature underground parking, a central atrium, open floor plans, etc. (See http://www.2ndavenuelofts.com/).

This appears to be just one small part of Saskatoon’s downtown revitalization. More to come in this blog.

TD Waterhouse: Then Again, Maybe I Won't

This is another reason I use the Opera browser: it tells me things Internet Explorer can’t.

A couple of years back, I decided to dabble in investing. In doing so, I attempted to set up an online investing account with TD Waterhouse. The results…well, let’s say I changed my mind. One trusts that a national bank’s website would be secure, but one might trust too much.

Click to open the screenshot, then read the first area I’ve boxed in red, the one at the back. Now read the warning Opera gave me.

Yikes. 

Review: Las Palapas Resort Grill

We’ve been three times so far, attracted by this small restaurant’s reputation, location and décor. We’ve experienced two hits, and one unfortunate miss. 

Not much to look at from the outside (especially in winter), but the décor within is colourful, funky and unique. There’s enough in the way of Latin-American-style knick-knacks and ambient eye-candy to keep you from tuning out. This is not a place to go for quiet, one-on-one dining; in fact, it can be rather noisy for a small restaurant. Groups of friends, however, may like this, though you may sometimes have to raise your voice to be heard. Tables are grouped in the common rather than separated by dividers. It’s meant to be an invigorating atmosphere, and it works.

As to the food, it’s a somewhat Canadianized notion of Mexican food, but really quite tasty. The actual menus – a bit garish to read, but fun – are available for viewing at their website (something I wish more restaurants would do). In all, the offerings are fairly priced, and the portions reasonable. For the most part, we’ve been pretty happy with anything we’ve ordered.

The first time we went, the restaurant was full, but the service remained quite good. Our orders were correct, and did not take long to arrive. Our second visit was just for drinks, and again the service was fine. Unfortunately, the third time, we ran out of luck. Though our meal was fine for the most part, it was difficult to get attention paid to our table, the last one down at the end. We were not asked about drinks, nor did our server drop by to ask how everything was. We had to wave our arms about to snag any attention at all. In the end, while contemplating dessert and a second drink, we were left completely alone.

Receiving the bill - and then paying - proved especially challenging. By this time, our server had vanished, apparently for a chat in the kitchen. An item that had been replaced had been added onto the total. With no staff at all in the dining room, I finally left to start the car, while my wife went off to track down Houdini. Disappointing, especially since we’d enjoyed the restaurant so much in so many other ways.

Every restaurant has its off-nights, though, so we’ll likely try again—maybe in summer, when the deck (under a thatched-style roof!) finally re-opens again. The food is good after all, and this looks like a fun place for friends.

910 Victoria Avenue, Saskatoon (Two blocks off Broadway at Main Street)
http://www.laspalapas.ca/contact.php

Traffic Rant # 1

Beep.

So I’m strolling down 22nd, in downtown Saskatoon, and something strange is going on. I’m one of the few who notice.

Beep. Beep.

It’s like specks in your vision, those little transparent “floaters” that drift across your field of view unnoticed, all day every day. Only when you focus on them do you ever see them at all. At this particular moment, the speck for me most demanding attention was a sound instead of a sight.

Beep, beeeep!

All right, already, what is it? I look up, wondering if I’ve been spotted by one of my many adoring fans (yeah, right). No such luck. Instead, I see a young woman in a small car with a big horn, waiting to turn left onto 2nd. She can’t, due to the even younger man in the car in front of her.

He’s waiting for a break in the traffic, but when one comes, he doesn’t turn. Beep. What up? What’s the matter with this kid? Another gap in the stream, and again he doesn’t move. Beep! Soon the lights will turn, and the offending youth still won’t have. What’s the lady to do? Oh, the humanity!

The reason he did not turn was partly because of me.

I was, at the time, crossing the street, along with many others. Had he started his turn—as I’m certain the driver behind him would have—he would have had to stop halfway through. There ‘d be in mid-turn, blocking any fresh traffic coming the other way. And for what, exactly?

What this young man knew not to do is one of the most basic premises of driving:  you don’t turn left into traffic. That’s all traffic, including the pedestrian kind. In most cities I’ve lived in or travelled to, that’s considered obvious, common sense.

Sadly, the lady driver in question is much more representative of the typical Saskatoon driver. Many motorists in Saskatoon will make that turn, stopping only when they get close—maybe dangerously so—to the line of pedestrians before them. Then they will sit, angled before oncoming traffic, looking genuinely surprised. “What the— Where did those come from?” No kidding at all, some actually manage to look annoyed.

Good grief, Saskatoon.

I’ll not suggest that we have a monopoly on bad driving habits. In fact, I recall reading the results of a study a couple of years back, which showed the worst drivers in the nation to be in metro Toronto. By comparison, Saskatchewan drivers came in middle-of-the-road (and not necessarily because we drive there). But people, please...can we do some growing up?

Saskatoon is getting bigger, and with the provincial economy doing so well, that will likely continue. It’s time to stop behaving as if we all just tumbled in from the fields. Increasingly, every space we move through will already have people in it. That’s just the way it is;  let’s all learn to deal with it.

By holding his ground, the young man who waited to turn demonstrated just a degree of that mystical something-or-other that we seem to need more of in this town. Something the woebegone driver behind him sorely lacked.

I think they call it sophistication.

Changes

(Yes, this blog will be about more than the city I live in. It might also be about whatever stumbles into my brain on a bleary midweek day.)

I worked retail for a decade one year, and two of the wares we pedalled were books: The What’s Happening to My Body Book for Boys, and The What’s Happening to My Body Book for Girls. I’ve come to the conclusion of late that there needs to be at least one more entry in the series: The What’s Happening to My Body Book for Old Guys.

The questions would be mostly the same, although the answers might be different:

• What are these parts of my body for, and why are they suddenly getting bigger (love-handles, earlobes, boobs)?
• Why am I suddenly growing hair in places I never had it before (ears, knuckles, between the eyebrows)?
• Why am I suddenly prone to fits of depression/rage/stupidity?
• Why am I suddenly so awkward?
• Will I ever, ever have sex?

You get the picture. Speaking of which, I do envision the book with explanatory diagrams of the midlife reproductive system, if only for comic relief.

Good Luck With That

I call this one “Good Luck With That”, and you can see why. At the time, I thought the pairing of these two signs was hilarious. It’s a shot taken a couple of years ago of a window in the abandoned King George Hotel…back when it was nothing but a decaying pile of despair. If you look at the reflections, you can see the old Hudson’s Bay Company store, also abandoned at the time. I missed taking a picture of a window over there, where a security company’s sign was posted right next to the broken glass.

How things have changed.

Both buildings are now front and centre parts of the recent downtown renewal. After years of neglect, it seems all of a sudden we’ve realized that we still have a city core. We’ve a long way to go, of course…but the starts so far are amazing. Most amazing of all is the fact that these projects are being started—and finished—right in the middle of a so-called recession!

In future posts, I’ll document some of the changes. Roll on, Saskatchewan.

If Buildings Were Vegetables...

be+gin (bi'gin) vb.   1. to start or cause to start (something or to do something).   2. to bring or come into being for the first time;  arise or originate.   3. to start to say or speak.

If buildings were vegetables, would we keep our cash at the Credit Onion?

When I first toyed with the idea of writing a blog, I had a different sort of beast in mind altogether. It was maybe 2005, a summer in which grasshoppers ranged across the prairie and thundered into Saskatchewan’s largest city like buffalo from some other year. Whether they were blown in by the furnace winds that seemed to drag everything in from everywhere that summer, or whether their sheer numbers would not allow a swiss-cheese hole to form around Saskatoon’s borders, I’ve no idea. I only knew that every damn direction in which you walked downtown, these things would fly up like so much moon dust and pepper you in the face.

Gawd, I hated Saskatoon.

I hated the very sidewalks. Many of them seemed to be more suited for ankle-turning hiking expeditions than walking to the office.

I hated its decaying centre, that ever-shrinking downtown core in which I worked. I hated the abandoned Bay building. I hated the abandoned King George hotel (which I was certain could be improved only by application of a match—not that someone didn’t try). I especially hated the bus mall, that giant misstep of civic planning just kitty-corner from City hall.

I even hated its culture, those weird diamond-in-the-rough gleams of talent that seemed to glitter unexpectedly from cowpie fields. Authors, actors, musicians and artists, talented people all, so what the hell were they doing here?! For that matter, what was I?

Most of all, though, I hated the crime. Saskatoon has always been in a heat with Regina for the title of Crime Capital of Canada, though I can’t remember if that was a year in which we won. We’re # 1 this year, but we may have been # 2 back then. But it seems we tried much harder.

So I envisioned a blog, a dark, blood-stained, graffiti-coated, broken-window, burnt-out hulk of a diatribe aimed at my very own city. Aimed at stupidity. I even went about and collected photographs, to document these travesties. And I broke out the HTML.

I started the page—“SaskApathy”, I called it—loading it daily with rants and rages and shards of appalling news. Truthfully, I didn’t have far to look. One week in particular brought out headlines in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix that would have made the gangland jungles of L.A. blush. Ah-hah, I thought, evidence of further degradation. I’d listen to the police scanner online, something you could do back then, and the hair went up on the back of my neck. I realized that the daily news didn’t report on half of it.

How the hell, I thought, can a place so utterly flat go so amazingly fast downhill?!

“SaskApathy”, however, lasted only a month. It only ever existed on my own computer’s hard drive. Why, I wondered, hadn’t I published it yet? Surely I had enough to begin. Was it the work of maintaining it that made me hesitate? Was it pity for Saskatoon? Or was it something else?

The main answer: it was depressing the hell out of me. Beyond that, however, I was starting to see a change. The economy was changing, of course, and that had something to do with it. All of a sudden, the focus was shifting away from Alberta, and onto…Saskatchewan? Besides, what had I expected all this bitching and complaining to accomplish? It flew in the face of the many people in this town who genuinely strive to make things better.

I decided to do something different. I’ll not bore you right now with the path I took to that decision. I’m not even sure where it’s all going, but I’m going to try and do something nice for a change. I’m going to focus more on what’s going right. Maybe the rest will fall inline, now that we’re “SaskaBoom”.

I intend to provide some insight into one man’s view of Saskatoon. Along the way, I hope to show some glimmers of recent changes to the “ex-pats” who are still away. And for those who’ve never been, maybe I’ll throw some light on the burning question “Why would anyone want to live where the temperature falls to minus forty?”

I’ll still rant, of course. But hopefully I’ll do it about both the good and the bad.

Back in my grandmother’s day, newspaper columnists (remember them?) would throw a virtual “rose” to credit the good guys, and an “onion” to the bad. So that’s what I’ll do here.

Hence, the Saskatoon Credit Onion.