Pot Pourri (Not Pot....Pot as in Poe)

Tonight John and I went to see the Halifax Rainmen (finally) play at the Metro Centre. They were scheduled to play a team last night and tonight, but that team unbelievably didn't show. This is the ABA, a pro sports organization! The Rainmen scrambled to find another team on short notice and the Atlanta Vision stepped up to the plate...er, court. I was chatting with the Rainmen's head coach, Rick Lewis yesterday about what happened and he said he's unsure, but that his team is always in a visiting city at least a day in advance of a game to avoid possible travel issues (and we have lots of them these days and especially in winter). Rick said they feel it's vital that they be where they're supposed to be for the paying fans of the game. They could have shrugged off the no-shows, but instead they worked hard at getting another team.

At the game we had excellent seats, sitting right behind the Atlanta Vision. At the half time we even chatted with the Vision's coach and thanked him for making the trip on such short notice. There were two university students sitting right behind us who were very vocal supporters of the Rainmen and razzed the Vision every chance they got, When the coach was talking to us they also thanked him for the effort in getting to Halifax and apologized if they were bugging his team too much with their cheering and chanting. The coach laughed and said no, it's good to see the team support. By the way, the Vision had to play in borrowed "Team Canada" T-shirts as the only piece of luggage that got lost was the one with the team jerseys. They had numbers in masking tape on their backs.

I have to say that both these teams and their coaches showed true class. I really enjoyed the family atmosphere and even the two guys behind us were fun. I asked them a lot of questions about some of the fun stuff going on during time outs and half time. They were loud but polite. John and I are definitely going to more games next season.

A couple of days ago, John and I took a drive on one of my training routes just to see how the road was shaping up. We saw a couple of funny things. The first was this.

Now, a dead squirrel on its own isn't funny, but every time we come across some unfortunate creature like this we say "Stupid place to take a nap". It works for raccoons, deer, coyote....and if it's in the middle of the road, I move it to the side.

The other funny thing is this. Two "Smart Cars", tiny little things.



Again, on their own, not funny, but it's the commentary that goes with it:"One for each foot".

At the lecture I attended after work today and before the basketball game (yes, full day), I learned about some of the work being done in Halifax on Parkinson's research. There really wasn't time to go into depth about neurogenesis sadly, so I have little to report on that front. I'll do a little digging and report back at a later time.