Free Hugs

When I visited Montreal last year, I saw a street performer who called himself the Hugger Busker. His performance wasn't really a performance; he just had a sign offering free hugs. Since then I've noticed a trend building. Once in a while I hear something on the radio or see something in a newspaper about ordinary people who go out on a street corner one day with a sign offering free hugs.

And now I will continue my occasional habit of talking about one tiny aspect of an event in my life while almost completely ignoring the event itself, good though it may be. Last weekend I went with my church youth group to YC, a big annual Christian event for teens. It happens at Rexall Place (home of the Edmonton Oilers) every year. This year the big trend was--you guessed it--free hugs. Many times I saw people with signs offering free hugs, and once in a while I saw people take others up on the offer. Then I saw a sign that said:

FREE HUGS
are dumb.
Don't touch me.

What a party pooper!

Coming Home

Today I return to Edmonton. I've had a good time in Toronto, hanging out with my friends and visiting all kinds of tourist stuff. I've even visited every Toronto landmark mentioned in "The Toronto Song" (which is by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, NOT the Arrogant Worms--see the bottom of this page for proof).

Here's a picture:

Arrival

I have arrived in beautiful Courtice, Ontario (a suburb of Oshawa). I'm staying at my friends' house there. Here are a few highlights of the trip so far:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgX-hiQdfFw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJQVlVHsFF8

People I haven't seen in a while

Recently one of my friends that I met on my trip to Uganda last year came to visit Edmonton. (She lives in Vernon.) We got together last night along with another person from that trip (who lives in Edmonton), her boyfriend, and a cousin of the one from Vernon. Incidentally, this cousin has the same first name as the Vernon girl's second-cousin who was also on the Uganda trip. So when she emailed me last week to arrange a time to meet, I was a little confused about who I'd be seeing. And it turned out that I'd met her cousin 4 or 5 years ago at Navigators (a Christian ministry at the U of A). Small world, isn't it?

On Friday I leave for a week and a half in Toronto. I'm going with two friends and we're visiting friends of ours who moved there two years ago. (I also visited them last summer for a few days and mentioned them on this blog.) I'm excited to see them again and travel with these friends. I don't know if I'll get the chance to do a blog update next week, but I'll tell you about the trip sometime.

My Car's Thermometer

Every car develops some personality over time, but most of the time that means they're working worse. But in my case, my car actually developed a built-in thermometer all on its own. It can only tell the difference between below freezing and above freezing temperatures, but it's a start. Here's how it works: if the ABS warning light is on, the temperature is above 0°C, and if the light is off the temperature is below 0.

This started last year in the spring. I thought I might want to get my anti-lock brakes fixed before winter came, but the day the first significant snowfall came, the warning light stopped turning on and the anti-lock function on my brakes started working. (By the way, with the ABS light on, my brakes are still fine, they just don't do the anti-lock thing. If the light was blinking, then I'm in real danger, but that hasn't happened.) They worked for most of the winter and maybe stopped working for a while during a thaw. For the part of spring when the temperature was below zero at night and above zero during the day, the warning light would be off on my drive to work and on on my drive home.

Now I know what you're thinking: if ABS isn't working for half the year, my car is getting worse, not better. But who needs ABS when the temperature is above zero?