Leaving New York

In just a couple of days we've had our first tastes of New York, of discovering Broadway in all its glory, of tasting great food, of riding the rails of the legendary subway, of sampling neighborhoods that we had only previously read about in books and seen in movies. New York is a fabled city, with as many aspects as there are stars in the sky. It is flavorful, infinitely interesting, bustling, bursting, always on the move.

For the millions of immigrants who arrived here, craning their necks to see the Statue of Liberty before off-loading at Ellis Island, this city represented a great hope, a belief that America would provide opportunity, riches and a fresh start in what was then regarded as the new world.

In comparison to our home, New York seems ancient, with old buildings and neighborhoods, one of the largest, busiest and oldest subway systems in the world, and a sense of history that stretches back almost 400 years.

We visited Soho, Greenwich Village, Midtown, Uptown, Central Park West and East. We walked through the Financial District, Theatre District and Little Italy. In truth, we barely scratched the surface of what the Big Apple, the City that Never Sleeps, the Capital of the World, the City So Nice They Named It Twice, Gotham City, Empire City, New York-New York has to offer.

I have been to a few places over the years, but this is the first place that I can guarantee a return visit...or two...or three. NYC has settled into our souls and will linger in our hearts till we come back and share its wonders with our sons.

We are sitting in LaGuardia Airport waiting for them to board our plane to Toronto then on to Fort McMurray. The sun is beating down on our necks as it hovers over Manhattan off in the distance across the East River. The weather has been incredible while we've been here, not a drop of rain, and about as much heat as we could comfortably handle.

It's time to head home, to the land of the never-ending smoke and a week ahead with no sign of rain.

Up and down Mulberry Street

Mulberry Street had been closed to traffic, slicing through the heart of Little Italy in lower Manhattan. Games of chance were peppered with vendors of different sorts and a constant stream of people. In the middle of the celebration was a statue of St. Anthony, patron saint of miracles, with dollar bills attached to the area near his feet.

If you think about the scene in The Godfather when Vito Corleone, played by Robert DeNiro follows the white-suited local mafia boss through a walking parade honoring this very same saint, you would have the picture. While the technology has changed and the streets have been probably paved over a couple of times, not much else has changed in 100 years.

We had discovered yet another fantastic neighborhood in the city that never sleeps, brimming with life, activity, food and fun.

Our third day in New York began with a stroll up an uncharacteristically quiet Broadway Avenue, as it was still pretty early. Not able to blend into the crowd, we were an easy mark for pitchmen trying to raise money for a homelessness initiative and others trying to sell bus tours.

My purpose in getting started early was somewhat rooted in the idea of getting tickets for an afternoon matinee. So, while Heather went to do some shopping, I stood in the line at TKTS in Times Square. This is a nonprofit service that sells remaining ticket inventories for most of the shows playing on and off Broadway. Most are there, priced between 20 and 50% off. The only exceptions are the mega-hot items like Wicked and The Lion King.

The line to grab tickets for the musicals was already winding back and forth stretching hundreds of feet. The good news was that I was looking to buy tickets for a drama, a decision that had me about 8 individuals from the front of the line.

I enjoyed a lovely visit with a couple from Austin, Texas who grew up in NYC. They shared with me how much things had changed.

"Times Square was nothing like this," she said. "I remember bringing my kids when they were old enough and arriving at a subway station not far from here. The smell was indescribable."

"The people are nicer, too," chimed in the husband. "It didn't used to be this way."

The show we chose was Tom Stoppard's Arcadia playing at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (note the Canadian spelling, which I just noticed myself) on West 47th Street. It was an outstanding show starring Billy Crudup who played the rock star in Almost Famous and the lead in Big Fish. Though I struggled to stay awake - seeing shows in the afternoon has always been difficult for me - it was a great experience to see a strong ensemble from our enviable position four rows from the stage.

The Barrymore was opened in 1928, during the heyday of theatre activity in the Big Apple. It seats just over 1000 people. Lush, ornate, and majestic, it has hosted an impressive list of productions and stars ranging from Wait Until Dark and Pal Joey to Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier.

One of the many great things about being in the heart of Manhattan is that you're a $20 cab ride to almost anywhere you want to go on the island. Last night, a small Italian restaurant was the destination on Bleeker Street in Soho. The food was wonderful, my favorite being an artichoke and crisp parsley dish along with the main course of pasta with a 5-mushroom sauce that was to die for.

Unlike so many places that we've been, there doesn't seem to be many pauses in energy in this great city; the action just keeps going and going. It is fantastic.

We will spend the morning exploring yet another neighborhood before making a dash for LaGuardia to begin our journey home to Wood Buffalo.

Subway City

People that live in New York City are way less likely to have a car than those of us that live in smaller centres. They rely on the tentacle reach of the subway system to get within a convenient couple of blocks of where they want to go. You gotta know what you're doing, because one missed station and you could find yourself 20 blocks off your target destination. It's accessible (small staircases that descend into the multi-layered system of trains are everywhere), affordable (only $2.25 to get in and on) and well-maintained. And yesterday, there was no difference in usage between 6 pm and 12:30 am, the trains were packed at both disparate times.

New York City has an energy to it, unlike any other city that I've visited. It is truly remarkable how alive it is, 24-7. We left the Imperial Theatre at about 10:30 pm, after enjoying Billy Elliot The Musical, and found ourselves in Times Square and on sidewalks crammed with people, shoulder to shoulder. Being Fleet Week, servicemen and women were scattered amongst the crowd, which led me to imagine what this stretch of excitement must have been like back on the day they shot Bin Laden, or at the end of WWII.

It was another full day for us, starting off with a warm walk through Central Park and up the street that borders its east side to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A mammoth building, it would take a month of Sundays to fully experience its many nooks and crannys. We focused on a couple of exhibit areas including one that featured works by the great impressionists and another that featured an incredible collection of weapons: old pistols and rifles, swords, and suits of armour. Ben would have been in his glory seeing the intricate designs and variety of weapons of historical destruction.

We met up with Alex at a French restaurant not far from the hotel for a pre-show feast of food. Alex is a professional actor and handyman/mason extraordinaire who lives in Brooklyn, but was in Fort McMurray last year for multiple weeks getting ready to perform DNA and the Dancing Fool at interPLAY. He had just returned from a regional production in Cincinatti.

As he arrived and started dishing out hugs all the way around, I lurched up to offer my welcome while taking our tightly packed table with me and sending my martini flying. And despite the fact that after drinking its replacement I was feeling a little loopy, I enjoyed hearing Alex's many stories of life as an actor, of living in the great city of New York, and of having a Minnesotan mother who once ran with the same crowd as a post-pubescent Bob Dylan.

This was another surprising interlude of Alex's mom's life that popped out of the past only recently as they had walked by her old apartment building as it was being torn down. On the street was a dumpster, with a door sticking out of the top of the pile. She glanced up and said to Alex, "That was Bobby's door."

"Bobby who?" asked Alex, which is how he discovered the one degree of separation between himself and one of the great icons of American music.

We sat in a jazz club in Greenwich Village late into the night, winding down after the David Furnish production of Billy Elliot, starring the venerable Emily Skinner and young Joseph Harrington, rotating the lead role with three other actors.

Alex gave us a further glimpse into the interesting life of a 40 year old actor and what it's like seeing many of his contemporaries and colleagues up in lights on Broadway, featuring in the next big TV show or sitcom. He once played in Julius Caesar with Lance Reddick who played Chief Daniels in The Wire, a wonderful series that Heather and I watched from start to finish just a couple of months ago. Alex played Marc Antony's servant, Reddick played Marc Antony. The production was pretty awful, but it forged a friendship that continues to the present as Alex struggles to not starve as an actor while Lance makes $150,000 per episode as one opportunity TV follows another.

Standing in the packed subway car, reaching up to hold the bar to stop myself from plowing into the group in front of me as we made our way back to the 50th Street stop, I couldn't help but marvel at how busy it was, that if I were oblivious to time, the scene in front of me would offer no clues as to the time of day. This city never sleeps, nor do the subway trains.

Centre of the Universe

It was a clear day as we flew into New York City airspace to begin our four-day excursion in the Big Apple. Gargantuan mansions started to give way to neighborhoods which gave way to burroughs which served up the landing strip of LaGuardia Airport-named for the transformational Mayor of this great city who served from 1934 to 1945, also its first Italian-American chief executive. We went from flying over water (Flushing Bay) to touching down on a strip built out over top of the water in an instant, a hard landing that welcomed us to the city that has welcomed billions over the past four centuries (almost)since it was founded in 1624 by the Dutch.

LaGuardia is an old-school airport, with a terminal building that smacks of a bygone era-unfamiliar narrow walkways, tiny kiosks and architecture that has a distinct 1960s feel. In its day, it was considered the greatest airport in the world. Now, it feels like a museum waiting to happen.

The taxi ride into Manhattan thrust us into some of the most incredible traffic that I've seen, multiple steams of buses, cars, trucks and cabs trying to merge into one or two lanes, the rush to downtown unceasing.

We arrived safe and sound at our hotel-the Ameritania, directly adjacent to the Ed Sullivan Theater and the home of Late Night with David Letterman-just ahead of Claude and Tiffany who were on the way from a hotel uptown that they had stayed at the night previous.

Checking our bags, as our rooms were not quite ready yet, we strolled up Broadway and into what felt like the centre of the universe-Times Square. Surrounded by giant digital billboards,remarkable in their luminosity and design, and scores of people moving about in mutual adulation of one of the world's most incredible spots. The energy, excitement, and anticipation were omnipresent as we made our was to a restaurant just a block off the Great White Way for lunch.

The Theater District is overflowing with advertisements, some several stories tall and a block long, trying to draw attention to the latest and greatest Broadway hits: Wicked, The Lion King, Chicago, Billy Elliot, The Addams Family, Rock of Ages, Jersey Boys and War Horse. Young ladies dressed as flight attendants stood on the corner trying to create a buzz for Catch Me If You Can, the new musical based on the film that starred Leonardo DiCaprio. We will be going to see a couple of shows today, which ones will be determined by the deals we can get at TKTS, a discount ticket service that sits facing the giant ball suspended at the tip of Times Square.

Following a short nap - by the this time I had had maybe three hours sleep over the past two days - we grabbed the A-train and made our way to the financial district to catch the Zeypher, a hour-long boat tour of East River and the Hudson. The older gentlemen who provided the narration on the trip, gave us a quick glimpse into the history of the city and its many iconic pieces like lower Manhattan, Battery Park, Governor's Island, Brooklyn (The City of Churches), the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the three bridges that traverse the East River (BMW - Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Williamsburg). It was a great way to see the city from the water, with the cooling breeze whipping across our faces, and the sun partially blocked out by broken cloud and menacing smog.

We walked from the boat terminal, up Wall Street through the Financial District with its towering buildings, hoards of smartly-dressed young titans of industry, and the New York Stock Exchange. As we walked by the long fence that parcels off ground-zero, the site of the former World Trade Center towers, Claude made a bee-line for Century 21, a clothing store that feeds the fashion frenzy of the business class, not only of NYC, but of the world. The prices, the selection, the amount of customers was unlike anything I have experienced - the exception perhaps being at Walmart on the last shopping day before Christmas.

"To do this right, you have to come in here with a strategy," I said to Claude, over-simulated beyond belief with an endless selection of ties, pants, suits and sport coats.

I ended up buying a couple of ties and a jacket before escaping the madness to the safety of the sidewalk and the great outdoors. Standing out there, waiting for the others to wrap up their purchases, I imagined what that spot must have been like on September 11, 2001 as those buildings collapsed to the ground just a couple of hundred feet away.

Did the pile of rubble reach this spot? I thought to myself. Would I have survived standing here?

For dinner we went to Keens, a restaurant and pub that has been around for the better part of 125 years. Clay pipes line the ceiling, with signed pipes from celebrities, politicians and power brokers who have enjoyed its mutton chops and sumptuous steaks over the years, behind glass display cabinets. The names are a who's who of the past century: John F. Kennedy, Liza Minnelli, Tom Hanks, Teddy Roosevelt and Wild Bill Cody, to name but a small few.

The food was plentiful and wonderful, the company delightful, and the atmosphere jovial and quixotic. Unbelievable carrot cake for dessert at Juniors and we were ready to head back to the hotel and fall into a satisfied sleep.

We are in the centre of the universe, and it feels wonderful.

Faces of Fort McMurray, Part 3

There are lots of wonderful things about Fort McMurray, but the aspect of our community that I most appreciate is its rich cultural diversity.  Walking through the halls at Keyano College in 2011 is very different than it was when I first made the big move to the educational environment in 1999.  People have come to this incredible place from all over the planet.  The languages you hear and the faces that you see can't help but remind you that we are ONE WORLD, a global community.

Ali Ahed Jomha is a former Iman of the Fort McMurray Islamic Centre, a mosque that opened in 1989.  Serving about 30 families then, the mosque and its religious leaders and educators now serve between 6,000 and 7,000 Muslims.

"It's a dynamic community," said Jomha.  "This is a very beautiful and peaceful city."

A cook at the Sawridge Inn and Conference Centre, Juan Rippe came to Canada from Bogota, Columbia about six years ago.  And while his parents came to Fort McMurray to work for Suncor, he stayed behind in Ontario, attempting to find work.  But after coming here for a vacation during the beautiful summer months, he was intrigued, and found the opportunity to explore his passion for cooking for which he had long been searching!

"I definitely see a career here," he said, "and a life."

Ronil Patel is an 11-year-old artist who is eager to share his cultural background with his new community.  Originally from western India, Patel loves to sketch using graphite pencils, to paint using acrylics and to play the piano.

"This is a really good home," he said. "It's a fun place."

Roni, Juan and Ali are some of the Faces of Fort McMurray, a series of video profiles that tell authentic stories about life in our northern town.  They tell it like it is, leaving us with an indelible picture of Fort McMurray, its people and its big spirit.

Faces of Fort McMurray, Part 2

Some of the biggest loads in the world travel through Fort McMurray, often at night, and most definitely in the dead of winter when the road is frozen.  But how do these gargantuan modules traverse traffic lights and other obstructions?  Meet Bob Kinley, one of the Faces of Fort McMurray, and a traffic supervisor with the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.

"It's unbelievable to see," share Kinley, reflecting on 16 years of facilitating wide loads through the urban centre. "I've been here 31 years now.  This place has done me well.  This is my home."

Michael Knight is what they call an urban forester, a member of a team that takes care of the towering trees that make Fort McMurray a beautiful city.  "I couldn't have had this opportunity anywhere else, especially at my age right now," said Knight.  "I love it out here.  I don't regret a single choice I've made since leaving Ontario."

I've known Scott Meller for years.  In fact, we acted together in the first play I did in Fort McMurray back in 1996.  He is the manager of Campbell's Music, a talented musician, and a fierce advocate for the arts in our community.

These are just some of the faces of Fort McMurray.  Their stories are all different, but you'll notice a distinct similarity: that they are all grateful to be here.

"A balance future with opportunity for all," it says on the sign as you enter Wood Buffalo.  This is not just a set of nice words, this is reality.

We hope you'll take a few minutes and watch all of these short videos.  These are real people, speaking authentically about life in this northern town.  They will help you understand why we describe ourselves as having a big spirit community.

Wildfire's Rapture

The smoke is so thick in Fort McMurray this morning that I can barely see the hills across the Clearwater River. If you were living in a bubble and anticipating the rapture that is supposed to happen today prophesied by tele-vangelist Harold Camping, you might wonder if it had started by looking outside.

We have been experiencing an unseasonably hot and dry May, temperatures hovering between 25- and 30-degrees with nary a sign of rain.  The combination of continuous heat, low humidity and no precipitation has left the boreal forest tinder dry.  Less than a week ago, over 300 buildings were incinerated in the catastrophic fire that pounced upon the unsuspecting town of Slave Lake.  The aftermath looked like a scene from the apocalypse.

Since then, wildfires have continued to spread across the province with some of the largest here in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.

The Wood Buffalo Environmental Association monitors the air in the region, and their Air Quality Index readings give an at-a-glance synopsis of where the smoke is more heavily concentrated in any given hour.  It changes almost constantly.  This morning the lower townsite (Athabasca Valley) and the Thickwood and Timberlea (Patricia McInnes) areas are covered in smoke while our neighbors in Fort McKay and Fort Chipewyan are relatively clear.

I've been in Fort McMurray since 1996 and I don't remember it being this bad.  That said, I missed the historic Mariana Lake fire of 1995, when the community was cut-off from the outside world for a period of a couple of days.  Residents who were here recall having to dust ash off their vehicles it was so bad.

For some of those who have never lived in an area prone to wildfires and an occasional blanket of smoke that  wraps itself around a community, there is a sense of panic and dread, as if a forest fire is looming just outside city limits.  But now, thanks to online sources of real-time data, the common citizen can find out what's happening, post questions on Facebook and get almost instant feedback, and monitor wildfire's rapture on your laptop from the comfortable confines of your soft office chair.

It's 6 pm somewhere and the earthquakes predicted by Mr. Camping to signal the start of the end of the world have failed to materialize.  So, just maybe, we'll see tomorrow, and the continuation of the smokiest Victoria Day long weekend in memory.

Faces of Fort McMurray

What is the real story of Fort McMurray?  Why do people come here on the two-year plan and stay for a lifetime (or, at least much of their working life)?  We've tried to articulate the answers to these questions with the BIG SPIRIT campaign, attempting, through a marketing platform, to bring into focus why this place is so special.  The Faces of Fort McMurray project is a slightly different approach, of getting the people who live and work here to tell their stories.  The authenticity is riveting.  They tell it like it is and it is powerful.

Did you know that Fort McMurray has a marine history?  Long before oil sands development, our rivers were a transportation gateway to the north.  Longtime resident Jack "Torchy" Peden describes why there is a marine park being developed along Prairie Loop Boulevard and why it's a piece of history that deserves to be celebrated.

Fort McMurray is a family town, a place where young couples come to start a family.  We make a lot of babies here, and each and every month the maternity ward at our local hospital provides care to expectant mothers and their anxious partners and families.  How many babies are born here every month?  What is it like being a nurse on one of the busiest maternity wards in the country?  Jennifer King provides a touching perspective on her choice of staying in Fort McMurray, even though she could go anywhere in the world.

We are two weeks away from enjoying the annual rodeo in Fort McMurray.  Yes, we have a rodeo, and yes we have horses.  Part of the reason that this is surprising, if you've never been here, is that there is little to no discernible farmland in the area. But Joe Lafond, who came here from Saskatchewan to work as a welder at Syncrude, carved out a ranching life and runs a local rodeo that annually attracts thousands of residents.

The Faces of Fort McMurray all have different stories.  Some were born here, many others came from points across the country and globe. But they all share something in common:  an understanding and appreciation that this place is unique, that it provides unparalleled opportunity, that it has a rich history, that it is the place they call home.

Slave Lake is Burning

I was tipped off to the tragic Slave Lake fire situation by a post on Facebook by a colleague of mine, formerly from Northern Lakes College, who made a comment about the scary images that were coming out of the community.  This was shortly after dinner on Sunday, May 15, 2011.  Information was sketchy at best but the Twittersphere kicked into gear, taking what little information was available and sharing it with the world.  Six hours later and into this morning, Slave Lake was trending #1 in Canada, with thousands upon thousands of messages being hurled into cyberspace about what will likely go down as being the largest physical disaster in Alberta history.

Wildfires in the area of this northern Alberta community began several days before, creating thick plumes of smoke as seen in this video posted on YouTube.

The scale of the devastation is almost unfathomable as reports on Twitter started identifying buildings that had succumbed to the flames.  But it was this image of the new Town Hall that created the gut-level understanding of the scope of the tragedy.

The image spread like wildfire being shared, tweeted and retweeted hundreds of times a minute.  I sent it to my Mayor and Council colleagues in Wood Buffalo shortly after it first appeared (our community is not out of the woods yet as we have more than several fires burning in our area).

For me, the situation came into emotional focus when I found out that 92.7 Lake FM had burned to the ground.  To their credit, their well-subscribed Facebook Group became a lifeline for people looking for information.  By that time, Slave Lake Town Hall was gone, and information direct from the local authority was impossible to acquire.

Rumours of a mandatory evacuation order of the entire community began mid-evening, at a time when well over 1000 people had already fled.  The direction to get out was soon verified and a door-to-door campaign to get everyone mobilized and moving began.  Those refusing to leave were to be arrested, as the situation had become completely unmanageable, catastrophic.

"I hear what I think are explosions at the Ford dealership," posted one person Tweeting live from Slave Lake.

"The cars are blowing up, one by one."

Frustration and desperation mounted as the order to evacuate rippled through the town, with gas stations all shut down and families who did not have enough fuel to run the gauntlet to safety.

Frustration about information flow also started to build as the evening television newscast came and went with nary a mention from our national broadcasters.  In this community's moment of greatest need, CBC was sleeping.  The best coverage was coming from Sean Amato from CTV-Edmonton and Josh Wingrove from The Globe and Mail.  Their reporting was spread virally as the Slave Lake Fire trumped the Survivor Finale and became the biggest social media news in the country.

Incredible wind and dry conditions turned Slave Lake into Hell on earth yesterday.  An improved forecast and the arrival of hundreds of fire fighters will hopefully bring hope and relief for a town on the brink of destruction.

An untold story

It started innocently enough with posting this picture on Facebook, of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen on the bus, a very private moment in the middle of a very public campaign.  I had seen the image in the May 16, 2011 edition of Macleans, a huge publication that covers the federal election, the Royal Wedding and the death of Osama Bin Laden - it was a busy news week.

I had this feeling looking at the various shots of the PM and his wife, scattered throughout the coverage of the most mind-blowing Canadian election in recent memory, that they looked particularly connected, vulnerable, in love. It was this feeling that compelled me to share the bus photo, as it shows a rare glimpse of Mr. Harper's human side.  I had no idea that lurking below the humanity was a potentially untold story.

Francine posted a response to the picture on Facebook that said "I would believe that this picture was staged, since they have been legally separated and living apart for more than a year now."

What? I thought to myself.  That can't be right.  How could I have missed that?  And how could the national media have maintained the cone of silence on something like this for so long, if it's true?

When I went looking for the bus picture, I started with a Google search, typing in "Stephen Laureen Harper". Popular queries came up automatically, which, in this case included the words "separation" and "divorce".  I didn't give it a second thought as the internet is peppered with erroneous content.

I went back to the Google search to see what I could find out about the first couple of Canada.  While there are a number of references to the matter on political forums and the like, I could find little in terms of verifiable evidence that a continental divide has pierced 24 Sussex.  That said, 99 times out of 100, where there is smoke...

Looking back at the images in Macleans through this new lens, everything changed.  What I saw before as love, now looks like longing, vulnerability is hurt, and connectedness is emotional panic.

I won't repeat what has been suggested in the various forums, but enough high-ranking sources have been cited to suggest that an untold story is there, simmering, waiting.

A lot has been said about the relationship between the PMO and the news media.  Mr. Harper's staunch control of the message, his cold and calculating interchanges with reporters, and his legendary grasp on information flow suggests that if any Prime Minister was capable of keeping the hounds off the trail of marital discord it would be him.  Or, is it possible that the story IS there, and that it's just not being told, because that is not the Canadian way of doing things? Maybe we're better than that.

The BIG LISTEN

The fledgling Alberta Party is heading toward a leadership convention, scheduled for May 28th in Edmonton.  Several of the candidates hoping to lead this grassroots organization were in town over the past week continuing the tradition of the BIG LISTEN, a commitment to connect with citizens from across the province in meaningful conversations.

A friend of mine, and fellow blogger (http://myoilsands.wordpress.com/), Matt Youens, is an Alberta Party member and community organizer.  He's been doing much of the heavy lifting with building the awareness of, and participation with, the Alberta Party in Fort McMurray.  Matt was very engaged in the municipal election process and helped inspire voter participation through his blog, Twitter posts and conversations.  He is very interested in keeping the flame of civic activism alive between elections.  That's exciting to me.

Matt invited me to meet with Alberta Party leadership candidate Tammy Maloney last weekend.  We met at what has become a revered gathering place for discussion, Coco Joe's at the corner of MacDonald and Main.  Matt was there along with Tammy and her Mom Lois,  the former two-term Mayor of Vauxhall.

Tammy shared her interesting life path and how she found herself wanting more meaning and global fulfillment for what she was doing.  In the end, building shareholder value wasn't enough; it was good, but she wanted something better.  The Alberta Party offered Tammy the opportunity to serve and create the positive change for which she was longing.  For 20 interesting facts about this aspiring political leader, including growing up in small town Alberta and what instrument she played in the marching band, click here.

Last night I had the opportunity to meet Glenn Taylor.  Currently Mayor of Hinton, Mr. Taylor is hoping to lead this new party into the future.

"Do I think we'll form the government in this next election?" he asked.

"No, probably not.  But will we be in a position to form the next government if asked to do so by the voters?  Absolutely."

A successful businessman, Glenn has led the Town of Hinton through a stellar period of community engagement, strategic planning  and progress.  And while the process had a different name than the BIG LISTEN, it was predicated on a similar notion, that listening to the people was the most important step in the process of governing.

At a modest gathering held up in the Clearwater Room in the Suncor Community Leisure Centre, Glenn offered up an interesting point of differentiation about the Alberta Party.

"It is in our policy that when matters come up for a vote in the Legislature, our elected members will have the ability to vote opposite to the position of the party, if the citizens in their riding are telling them to do so."

Their brochure states that the Alberta Party will "encourage MLA's to speak and act on behalf of their constituents."  What a novel idea!

I was so pleased to meet Glenn's brother-in-law Trevor and his daughters at last night's BIG LISTEN.  They moved to Fort McMurray from Hinton late last year, and talked passionately about being here and what it means to their family.  They also talked passionately about Glenn, his leadership impact in Hinton, and why he would make a tremendous leader of the Alberta Party.

For a person in politics I'm not very political.  I tried to help former Mayor Doug Faulkner when he ran for the Liberals in the federal election in 2004 (very unsuccessfully).  I once bought a Conservative membership to support a friend.  I've had great conversations with politicians of all stripes, and deeply appreciate the contributions they make with the best of intentions in mind.  The Alberta Party has set out on a path to offer Albertans a meaningful, grassroots alternative that sounds refreshing.  If you're interested in finding out more visit the party website at www.albertaparty.ca.

KISS sells out in 1440 seconds

I had popped into the liquor store to grab some beer when I thought to ask the twenty-something cashier his thoughts on THE HOTTEST SHOW ON EARTH, the Canada ROCKS 2011 headline show on July 2nd in Fort McMurray.

"As a young person, what do you think about the KISS thing coming to town?" I asked.

"Everyone's talking about it," he said.

That was a crystallizing moment for me, as it illustrated that KISS penetrates into the younger demographics far deeper than I could have hoped.  Paul Stanley said in a recent interview on Good Day NY that their tours are bigger than they were during their heyday in the 1970s.

Paul Stanley of KISS: MyFoxNY.com

Tickets went on sale at exactly 12 noon on Friday, May 6.  A line-up had started late the night before at MacDonald Island Park.  Some tried to phone in while the rest of us attempted to navigate the online ticket buying interface.

The fellows at the front of the line show-off their tickets to 
THE HOTTEST SHOW ON EARTH

I couldn't even get into the MacDonald Island Park website for the first couple of minutes, all that would show up was an error message.  At first, I thought the volume of visitors had crashed the site, but an insider at Mac Island assured me that all was well and to "keep trying!"

In the end I jumped over to the Events Wood Buffalo website to try the BUY TICKETS button there.  It worked!

I signed myself up, providing my personal and credit card information, and began selecting my tickets.   Something went wrong several times as the system timed out and I had to go out and start again.  With only a smattering of tickets remaining I managed to secure the seats I needed.  Whew!  My heart was racing and I had sweat on my brow.

"Sell out in 24 minutes," wrote Executive Director Claude Giroux in a text message that came over just a few minutes after I had printed out my ticket confirmation.

As an organizer there are two perspectives to an entertainment event that sells out in 1440 seconds.  First, there is the good news that you've reached your economic target and that the show will end up on the positive side of the balance sheet.  Second, there is the wish that you could wave your magic wand and make room for everyone else who didn't get tickets.  Sadly, our ability to do that is limited by the safety protocols that are established for the venue by the Fire Marshall.

Tickets started appearing on Kijiji moments after the show was sold out, the initial offering of pairs of tickets marked up to $500.  I'm sure there must be laws against profiteering on things like this, though I assume enforcement would be next to impossible.

KISS is the first mega city stadium act to come to Fort McMurray.  It's obvious to me that there is a pent up demand for this level of entertainment and that THE HOTTEST SHOW ON EARTH is the first of many to come as our community and region continues to grow.

The Power of Attraction

Earlier this year I discovered that this free blog interface (thanks Blogspot!) offers some tools to help me understand how widely (or not) my blog posts are being read.  Their analytics me enough basic information to figure out where my readers come from, how they found me, and what kind of operating system they are using.

On the weekend, something happened with my Royal Wedding post as its page views started to go through the ceiling.  To put it into proper context, a normal post may attract 30 to 50 page views.  One with perfect relevance and interest will flirt with 100 and beyond.  Up until this anomaly, the most read post was Christmas Eve with over 300 page views.  So, you can imagine my surprise when Royal Wedding's numbers began leaping by hundreds in just a couple of hours.

I think I discovered the reason for all this attention.  When you go to Google and search on "pictures of royal wedding 2011", then click on Images, here is what comes up:

The picture fourth from the left on the top row was the one I had inserted into my Royal Wedding blog. You may not be able to see, but this search query yielded 298,000,000 results.  Yesterday that number was over 400,000,000.  The picture that links to my blog post was fourth on a list of hundreds of millions.  THAT is why people around the world ran into my site, sadly, not because of my interesting writing style.

In truth, the picture fourth from the left doesn't always link to the Middle Age Bulge - that appears to be an inconsistent thing - and understandably, the number of hits has slowed down dramatically.  But, for a period of about 48 hours, I had this incredibly high ranking position which drove my page views to the moon.

As of this morning, Royal Wedding has hit 977 page views and will likely eclipse 1000 some time today.

The Surge

In a normal election, the story would have been that the Conservatives had achieved their majority.  But the Canadian election of May 2, 2011 was anything but normal.

My dad, a devout NDP supporter from Saskatchewan, was audibly giddy when I talked to him shortly before the polls closed and national election coverage on CBC was about to begin.  The last time the party had made a significant dent in the polls was 1988 when they won 43 seats under Ed Broadbent.  Up until a couple of weeks ago, it appeared like this national exercise was going to be like any other, with Jack Layton and his orange colleagues winning 30+ ridings and parliament remaining in a minority scenario.  That was, until the inexplicable surge.

Canadian politics reached the proverbial tipping point around April 20th, as the NDP numbers began a steep journey upwards from the mid teens to a high of 33% the day before the vote.

I was looking at some predictions, crafted around polling data, that prognosticated a Conservative majority (though just barely) and an NDP performance that would result in 70 to 100 seats.  Honestly, it was unthinkable to imagine this party getting into triple digits, as the skeptic in all of us had unavoidable doubt about whether the research would play out, if people would change their minds when they picked up their little pencil in the voting booth.

The Canadian Election of 2011 proved to be both transformative and destructive, a political earthquake that reshaped the landscape.  The Bloc, once unshakable in Quebec was decimated.

"I just realized that I have more seats in my car than the Bloc has," wrote one pundit on Twitter.  They plummeted from 47 seats down to 4.  Leader Gilles Duceppe quickly announced his resignation and the return to his other life.

The Liberal Party of Canada was equally crushed, dive bombing from a modest 77 seats to a dismal 34, uncomprehendingly less than John Turner's result in 1984 at the hands of the all-powerful PCs under the leadership of Mr. Mulroney.  Michael Ignatieff quickly threw in the towel, announcing his departure the morning after the election.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his calculating political machine rolled from coast to coast and sucked up an impressive167 seats.  The Blues were anything but as they stared in the face of the mandate they had long been courting.

But the story of this election is not the Conservative majority, nor is it the surprising end of Gilles Duceppe and disappearing relevance of the Bloc.  It's not the failure of Ignatieff's Liberals to re-ignite support for a party that was once invincible; that's a story that had been forming itself for quite some time.  Nope, the story of this election is the orange surge that swept from Atlantic Canada to British Columbia, a whisper that turned into a murmur that became a roar.

I suspect that political scientists will look back with keen interest on what exactly happened.  Political parties of all stripes will try to understand how they pulled it off.  Was it strategic and planned, or was it the stuff of miracles?  Was the tipping point a universal itch for change that spread virally through the social media networks and from mouth to mouth?  Perhaps it was a combination of all those factors, and a few more lurking under the rocks that will form the foundation of the NDP party, the Official Opposition for the first time in their history.

And I don't know if it was terribly surprising, but it was nice to see that Elizabeth May and her fledgling Green Party won her seat on Vancouver Island.  It was a pleasant end to what had been a rollicking ride that few would have expected just a few short weeks ago.