BT Edmonton Blogs

Norwegian rainbow

Lauri was thinking of us when she was in Norway, and for that we are grateful.    S-u-r-e,….she shared this photo, but not the pot of gold!   You are looking at the bottom of a mountain road called “Trolls Road”.     The Trollstigen Mountain Road is one of Norway’s most popular tourist attractions & here’s why.   Eleven hairpin bends take you from the Isterdal Valley up about 1 kilometer to the top of the pass.    The Trollstigen (Troll Wall), is the highest vertical mountain wall in Europe.    And here’s one more factoid — The mountains that encircle Trollstigen Mountain Road are majestic in beauty and name.   They are called:  BISHOP (BISPEN @ 1,450metres),  KING (KONGEN @ 1,614 metres), and  QUEEN (DRONNINGEN @ 1,701 metres).

DID YOU KNOW?     Almost 70% of Norway is uninhabitable and covered by
mountains, glaciers, moors, and rivers.    Norway has hundreds of fjords that cut into the coastline and give the country an oceanfront of more than 19,312 km.

YOU TOO CAN HAVE YOUR PICTURE TURNED INTO MY CLIFFY CLAVEN FACTOID OF THE DAY!     BECOME A MEMBER OF OUR FRESH AIR PHOTO NATION — UPLOAD YOUR PHOTO(S) TODAY!     YOUR WORK OF ART WILL ALSO BEEN SEEN ON BT.

Darryl Brinkley

PLAY BALL!    We love our Boys of Summer — in this case, the Edmonton Capitals.   Thank you so much to the Capitals for giving me the honour of throwing out the first pitch (a long-time dream come true).   So if you haven’t taken in a game yet this year,…first of all:  Why not?  And second of all:  Why not?   You know that phrase “fun for the whole family”…?    This is one of those occasions when it is absolutely true.    It’s your chance to back a winning team.   And you can see below — a great place to celebrate a birthday!!!              

Ehrnsberger stretch

Baseball birthday

                             The Capitals treat everyone like a rock star!   Imagine how fun it would be to have a birthday at the ballpark.   In the back row are:  Rob and Ty.   In front are:  Kaitlyn, McKenna, and Courtney who is celebrating a birthday.   At Number 8–Courtney is great!   

Pre-game stretch

SEE YOU AT THE BALLPARK!

You might think I am nitpicking.    But for some reason – I am fascinated by mistakes, errors, slip-ups, and oversights in movies.   For example:  An actor has a hat on in one angle, and it’s gone in the reverse angle.    You probably also know what it’s like when surfing, (surfing-do people still say that?)  the inernet.    One thing leads to about a thousand ‘other’ websites.   So I landed on www.moviemistakes.com.    -not sure how I got there from my online banking but I digress…..     SO when I saw the pictures — I just had to share!   Below you will see how someone forgot to hide the microphone battery packs in Harry Potter.   Scroll down for a few more …       

Movie Mistakes

Shirt shifting

Transforming alright!

So now – I turn to you.    Do you have any mistakes to share that you’ve seen on the screen?   And uh .. by the way, my mistakes on screen don’t count,…or should I say there are too many to count.   BLOG ME~!

Ontari-ari-ario!

Boy oh boy!   Bragging rights go to Northern Ontario for this beauty and tranquility.   Debra is the lucky one who experienced this for herself and we thank her for sharing!   Want to hear a cool story?   (hope Debra doesn’t mind me sharing).   She and her now boyfriend Tom, went to high school together.   Years later in 2007 they connected through a school alumni website, and they’ve been: reunited and it feels so good – Ever since!   This is the view from Tom’s mom’s house.    You know what that means dontcha???    Debra has met the family — & that’s a good sign!    Welcome to Edmonton Debra, glad to have you as a member of our Fresh Air Photo Nation! REUNITE WITH MOTHER – uh MOTHER NATURE THAT IS, AND SEND US A PHOTO & A STORY.    I PROMISE I WON’T GOSSIP ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL LIFE (UNLESS YOU WANT ME TO).

There’s an admiral on deck!

Who was surprised to see Reid ready to return to The Bachelorette for next Monday’s finale? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?…

Monday’s “The Men Tell All” episode had a little bit of everything – including David on the hot seat, Jake in front of the firing squad, and a conspicuous absence by a certain aspiring country singer whose plan to string Jillian along and “sell a bunch of records” appears to be falling flat.

Next Monday night, we’ll know which man will rise above all the others to claim Jillian’s heart. Until then, it’s up to our esteemed BT Panelistas to take their best guess…click on the video below to watch!

rpj.

The man may be gone, but his dance will never stop.  If you would like to be part of a worldwide moonwalk — now is your chance!
 
It’s easy — just go to the website and upload your video.  Don’t know HOW to moonwalk?  No sweat–lessons are provided free of charge.
 
My friends and I did it!   So please enjoy your one, your only, your beloved:  BT Team taking part in the Eternal Moonwalk.

 You can also watch us as part of the Eternal Moonwalk here

Powerful Push!

This picture shows what happened on Saturday night — but first, let’s think about a big juicy thunderstorm with the usual mechanics of up drafts and down drafts.    High school science taught us:  warm air rises, then cools, condenses and water droplets (clouds) form!    This activity – also referred to as up drafts - increases and the droplets get big and heavy, freeze and become ice particles.    When the particles become too heavy,….they fall.   On the way down, some (not all) melt … that’s a rain and hail combination.

OK,…getting back to Saturday night’s storm.    The up drafts were really strong, and were able to hold those water droplets up long enough so they didn’t completely melt — and they fell as hail.   And THAT “falling hail ” creates down drafts.    Now, very strong downdrafts create a DOWNBURST … a new player in this game.     

A Downburst is a column of sinking air.    Don’t forget,…we are talking about a HUGE column of sinking air (that means: A VERY STRONG WIND).    So imagine you have a very strong wind being forced from the sky towards the ground.    And as it crashes to the ground, it is pushed out in all directions.    & what you have now ladies and gentlemen is a STRAIGHT LINE WIND — and a powerful blast it is!    Winds can, and DID reach 100k/hr.

This kind of storm is not a tornado.   But as you have witnessed, it has a whole other fear factor of its own.    Hey — be careful out there, ok?

Here’s a few photos from before, during and after the storm. Thanks a lot to our BT viewers and Twitter followers for all the great shots!

Saturday, July 18th .. a hot hot humid day that turned into one violent and destructive thunderstorm.   

Don in Sherwood Park was watching the sky and knew that the way the clouds were churning, it would lead to no good.   Here is what he had to say:

Impending Doom

Winds of Fury

Trees whipped

 Melsha was camping when the storm blasted through the Brazeau Reservoir area.

Plow Winds

They watched and prepared for the worst — this cloud formation looks like a hug hose about to do a whole lot of destruction.    This is what Melsha tells us about the clouds:   “For the most part they passed our campsite, except for a 10 minute hail storm.   We ran to the car for that – the tent was no protection!!!”