Bunny Killing

Last weekend I got a strange email from my Swiss coworker Walter, entitled "Kill da' Bunny!". He was inviting friends to his place to consume chocolate bunny. He had a link to his website where he took many photos of his Swiss bunny around Vancouver, including removing its wrapping at Wreck beach. He said to bring our own chocolate bunnies or wine to go with bunny. I brought some little Swiss bunnies to go with the big one.

When I arrived I found we were having chocolate fondue before the bunny. It wasn't Swiss chocolate (or melted bunny) but it was still quite good.

We dipped pieces of apple, banana, orange, pineapple, and rice crackers in the chocolate.

His landlord brought a plate of ham and pickles

and one guy actually dipped a piece of ham in the chocolate.

The fondue set which was brand new apparently had a flaw in it, because out of nowhere the bowl of chocolate split right down the middle and fell off the platform.

Finally it was time to slaughter the bunny. We considered a few different ways to go about it and turned all the little bunnies away so they couldn't see.

We decided to do the classic beheading with a quick chop through the neck.

My boss had brought some ice cream that we ate with the chocolate. Also, Walter had some egg liquor which I've never heard of before. We poured it over the chocolate and it was very delicious.

Close ups of food always look weird.

We barely managed to eat the head between the 7 of us that were there. It didn't take long to feel like I'd had enough chocolate for the night. Walter gave me a bunch of pieces to take home though and I still have one.

Easter 2010

So for Easter weekend I spent Thursday night to Monday afternoon on Saturna Island where my family lives. It was a fun and relaxing weekend.

Thursday, April Fools, was my youngest sister's birthday so we had a cake for her.
She's now 13. I can't believe my sisters are in grades 7 and 8 already.

Around dinner time on Friday there was a power outage on the island. Ferries were not running to it for a short while (due to large waves) so some friends of the family never made it over. We played a French card game called Mille Bornes by candle light and it took a ridiculously long time to finish because everyone was being ruthless. The candle we used was only about a quarter of this size by the end.

My sister made a person out of candle wax.

In the morning my mom made some pancakes

by putting the frying pan on the downstairs stove.

The power came back on around 10am in time for the Easter bake sale. We took part in the cake walk many times like we usually do. My mom donated a cake to it.

We ended up winning two cakes. My sister picked a double decker one with oreos, nibs, and chocolate eggs on it. Here it is mostly demolished.

During the weekend we also played lots of disc golf at the course my dad made up on the school grounds. We played 5 times and I had an average of 0.4 above par with my best score of -4. It's the best score I've ever gotten on any disc golf course. Perhaps all the Ultimate frisbee play has increased my throwing abilities.

My brother managed to get a hole-in-one on Monday which is referred to as an eagle since it's two under par. During our first game on Friday though there was an actual eagle in our way that was hurt and could not fly away.

I took lots of photos of it and some video too. My dad phoned some animal care people and one of them came over with the coast guard the next morning. By then the bird had wandered into someones garage but they got it into a cage and took it over to another island to get fixed up. When it's good to go they will bring it back to Saturna and release it.

We also visited the SEEC outdoor site where they are still working on building the cabins for groups to sleep in.

They're on a crazy angle but the floor is level inside.

The windows look like old fashioned TV with circles at the bottom. The windows are going to have glass and only the little holes at the bottom will be able to slide open to let air in.

We came back to the site later in the weekend

and roasted some hotdogs and marshmallows over the fire.

This little frog hopped right through the fire.

While I was on the island we also played RoboRally at least once a day. I brought it with me and one of my sisters is addicted to the game. I just had to make sure that Triscuit didn't mess it up.

Of course we had a good family game night too. We played Probe which is like a multi-player version of Hang-man where you take turns guessing letters in each others words. I won the game!

On Sunday morning my little sisters hunted for Easter eggs around the house. They're still not too old for candy.They definitely don't feel too old for the annual large Easter egg "hunt" at Winter cove. It's not much of a hunt because the chocolate eggs are scattered all over the grass. My sisters got so many eggs they later walked around and scattered them near searching toddlers or kids that came late.

We also walked through the nearby park and out to the point

where the waves were quite big.

They looked a lot like waves you'd find on the west coast of Vancouver Island at long beach or Tofino, not here in the Strait of Georgia.

The ferries were back up and running fine though by the time I headed home on Monday afternoon. Now I have lots of work to do and it's time to get back to the reality of school.

Sledge Hockey

On Friday I went to the Sledge Hockey match for 5th place
with a group from my work at the hospital.

The Czech Republic was playing

against Korea.

When they met before in the preliminary round, the Czech Republic won 4-2, but this game went rather slow with very little scoring. Korea was controlling the puck most of the time during the first couple periods.

Korea scored the first goal. Here is the puck on its way to the net on the scoring shot. Korea did some pretty fancy passing where one player shot it under their sledge and across to a teammate.

The Czech republic played really hard in the 3rd period and the game was a lot more exciting. They more than made up for having less shots in the first couple periods. They managed to score to tie the game up at 1-1.

Then a couple minutes into overtime they scored again.
The whole team skated around the ice waving to the fans.

There were photos of the teams taken before there was an announcement basically telling us to leave the building as fast as we could since they had to get ready for the Canada vs Norway game for the bronze medal.

Walter was the most enthusiastic one of us but unfortunately he happened to be out when we got on the big screen. He had a ticket to see the Canada game afterward and said he'd be cheering for Norway.

Sledge hockey was fun to watch, if a little slow, but the third period was a lot better with both teams playing harder. It looks pretty dangerous when players basically ram into each other on their sledges and knock each other over. Sometimes it can take them a while to get back up and collect both their sticks. It's quite different than normal hockey but still very entertaining.

Wheelchair Curling

On St Patrick's day I went to a wheelchair curling match in Vancouver.

After the pre-game practice a few bag pipers played

and the teams rolled out with mounties holding signs for each country.

Wheelchair curling is much different than normal curling since they use a stick to slide the rock along the ice and stay in one spot while they do it. To keep them in one spot one or two of their teammates sits behind them and holds their wheels. There is also no sweeping involved so they have to be more skilled at using just the right strength.

The Great Britain team differed from all the others in that most of their players like to release the rocks from way back behind the circle. It seems like that would make it harder, but perhaps that's part of the rules in Britain.

Four games happen at the same time so I got to watch them all. On sheet D, farthest from me was Switzerland vs. Korea.

On sheet C was the USA vs Norway.

The Norwegian curlers wore the same crazy pants that
their country did during the Olympics curling.

One of the American players wore sunglasses, I assume just to look cool.

On sheet B was Sweden vs Great Britain.

On sheet A, closest to me was Germany

versus Canada.

At first none of the games were very close. After Germany got 1 point, Canada got 2 and than 4 putting them way out in front.

The 6th end was the most interesting one of the game with both teams somehow sending rocks all the way through the center of this without hitting anything.

Germany did make this nice shot though to knock out two of Canada's stones. In the last two ends they scored 4 points.

Ultimately though Germany didn't come back fast enough to catch Canada who won 8-6.

The first game to finish was at the other side where Korea dominated Switzerland. Not only did Switzerland concede after the 7th end, but the end was finished before some of the other teams had even started the 7th end.

The other 3 games were all a lot closer with the teams that were down working hard to catch up. On sheet C they had to measure how close the rocks were to the center at the end of the 8th (and final) end. If Norway had the closest rock than they would tie it up but they didn't so the US won 9-8.

The Great Britain vs Sweden game also needed a rock measured in the 8th end. Sweden successfully got 5 points in the last two ends to tie the game and force a 9th end.

The 9th end was intense with a lot of stones sitting in the house (rings). Sweden successfully curled this shot in behind some guards to place it closest to the center.

Great Britain hit a rock into the center in an attempt to get one closer.

Great Britain also had the hammer (last rock) and made one final and close attempt to grab the point but didn't make it. Sweden pulled off the win which helped them get a good enough record to face Italy in a tie-breaker today. They won that and tomorrow they face Canada in the semi-finals at 10am. When the teams met during the round robin Sweden won 8-4 but Canada had a record of 7-2 in the round robin while Sweden's record was 5-4 plus the tie breaker win.