TmT-Calgary Pay Attention! – e23s1

episode 23 season 1

100th_ 23 Pay
Calgary Pay Attention

Todays Two Minute Tuesday we are looking at Calgary Languages. Welcome back to Valerie’s Variety Podcast, with your host me, Valerie Moss todays show is short and sweet. I’m calling these Two Minute Tuesdays or TMT’s. As I’ve been doing more and more research for my episodes and working full time, it doesn’t leave enough in the kitty to record and produced timely, so instead of releasing less often I’ve decided to do these short spurts in between the full episode segments. Let me know what you think. My focus as always will be Calgary, this great city, and all that’s captured within it. Enjoy the episode.

Since we do live in a predonimantly english speaking Country, Calgary mother tongue language is English, however in the 2011 census we learned that 70% speak English, 1% speak French and 25% speak a foreign language with the top 3 being. First: Punjabi which is a Indo-Aryan language with more than 100 million native speakers worldwide, The Punjab extends from northwest India through eastern Pakistan. Second/Er: Chinese Dialects, which is separated into 5 main groups. Mandarin, Yue (which includes Cantonese), Min, Wu and Hakka make up the other four. Cantonese lay claim to approx 55 million speakers in China alone. Third/Thres: Spanish which makes up approx 2% of our Calgary population and approximately 2% of our Canadian population consists of Latin Americans.

We also have many other ethnic backgrounds flourishing in our amazing city for work and to take care of their families in a safe and clean environment. I know many people who employ Philipino Nanny’s to take care of their families. These women love to nurture and support the good care of kids ultimately sending money back home to their families in the Philippines.

Welcome to all our languages within Calgary and thank you for bringing your amazing Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Mexica foods into our city, what a fantastic exposure we have and our children get to explore your culture through food.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Canada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_Canadians

http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Rise+immigrant+tongues+makes+Calgary+global+city/7442733/story.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Hindus

TmT-Calgary’s Lodgepole Pine, PinusContorta – e22s1

episode 22 season 1

100th_ 22 Lodgepole
Calgary’s Lodgepole Pine, PinusContorta

The Lodgepole Pine, Welcome back to Valerie’s Variety Podcast, with your host me, Valerie Moss todays show is short and sweet. I’m calling these Two

Minute Tuesdays or TMT’s. As I’ve been doing more and more research for my episodes and working full time, it doesn’t leave enough in the kitty to record and produced timely, so instead of releasing less often I’ve decided to do these short spurts in between the full episode segments. Let me know what you think. My focus as always will be Calgary, this great city, and all that’s captured within it. Enjoy the episode.

Two Minute Tuesdays Cover Art…
Calgary’s Lodgepole Pine: Pinus Contorta

Calgary is known for the Lodgepole Pine Trees. Pinus contorta, with the common names lodgepole pine and shore pine, and also known as twisted pine, and contorta pine, is a common tree in western North America. It is common near the ocean shore and in dry montane forests  Like all pines (member species of the genus Pinus), it is an evergreen coniferPinus contorta is a fire-dependent species, requiring wildfires to maintain healthy populations of diverse ages.  They have serotinous cones. This means that the cones are closed and must be exposed to high temperatures, such as from forest fires, in order to open and release their seeds.  There is also a species of bark beetle  known likely to local Albertans as the Mountain Pine Beetle native to the forests of western North America from Mexico to central British Columbia. It has a hard black exoskeleton, and measures approximately 5 mm, about the size of a grain of rice.  In western North America, the current outbreak of the mountain pine beetle and its microbial associates has destroyed wide areas of lodgepole pine forest, including more than 16 million of the 55 million hectares of forest in British Columbia.

Please visit Valerie Moss.ca for all show notes and research details.

Calgary Summer Camps for a 6 year old – e21s1

episode 21 season 1

100th_ 21 Summer
Calgary Summer Camps for a 6 yo

Welcome to a fun podcast about Calgary Summer Camps for a 6 year old kid. Being a mom of a 7 year old, and a working professional it’s hard to juggle camps, interests and driving around the city figuring out the best spots to put your kids, convenience, safety and costs are all a factors I look at. For this episode I’m going to review all of the camps we signed up for this year and my daughters perspective and of course mine on these gems.

Swimming – Crafting – Biking

ONE, WinSport Summer Camp

Winsport:

Camp: Downhill Mountain Bike for girls

Cost: $400

Facility review: this place is what you’d picture at a ski resort. It’s industrial, lites of windows, tables benches. The coaches that volunteer and work are shredded out with long hair and talk like surfing guys lol. It’s god a great vibe and everyone is pumped. 

  • choosing the class: it gives you some benchmark of skills to choose from plus the option of co-ed class or just girls. I chose co-ed as lives more fun when you have good dynamics  
  • Bike pre-requisites we’re front and back brakes plus padding for knees/elbows etc plus riding gloves. Why do we let our kids influence our purchasing decisions…
  • Day one: she was in a group with all boys…so they tried to find another group for her which ended up being all boys also. There maybe have been a ratio issue also but I’m not exactly sure. So she stood her ground and said she would have preferred to stay in this first group as she’s already getting to know the boys names then move to a new all boys group. Good point kid! 
  • waivers

Why is everything today initiated with a waiver? You will have the best time but only if you sign this waiver first

  • nestled in at our Canada Olympic park site where we held the 1988 Olympic Games here in Calgary Alberta. I wasn’t living here at the time  of this global stamp on our amazing city but my husband was and he has very fond memories of City Pride and sense of community and euphoria rooting for our Canadian olympians. 
  • Camp name: mountain biking camp

Signed her up for this thinking this would be good experience for her to learn control of her bike, hills, more aggressive biking and of course make friends and have a good time. 

  • turns out she needed a better bike with many gears and front and back breaks- who knew? they lent her a bike for the week

She had a good time very challenged and satisfying. We ended up upgrading her bike to the next level. They biked 10 plus Kim’s each day. 

TWO: City of Calgary Summer Camp

Village Square Leisure Centre

Camp: Red Adventure 

Cost: $225

Facility review. This place is so busy located off 52 street NE it’s always a buzz being a full service leisure centre with swimming-gym parenting rooms all kinds of fitness classes and more.

This is through the City of Calgary is a combination camp with crafts activities and swimming. This is her all time favourite camp. The volunteers want to be there. They love the kids and always a good time. London comes home exhausted and happy. Always a good option for camp

THREE: Storybook Theatre Summer Camp

Storybook theatre 

Beddington art centre

Camp: Drama camp

Cost: $200

Great camp they use a combination of public speaking memorizing lines and acting. This is a fun camp for her she likes it and has taken away a few lines and scripts that have impacted her like Shakespear and Sally field to name a few. Fun group of staff and organized.

FOUR: Peddleheads Bike Camp

Peddleheads

Camp: Bike Rules

Cost: $350

Location: Rosemount community centre 

This was such a great camp, the kids learned hand signals for turning and learned proper road riding. They do a parade at the end showing off what they learnt. They know and announce all the kids by name. 

These bike camps when you are car people can be a challenge. Hauling the bike to and from the locations. But it proves fruitful on what the kids learn. 

FIVE: Calgary Zoo Summer Camp

Calgary Zoo

Camp: Grade 1 rangers 

Cost: $375

Obviously this setting is amazing outdoors and surrounded by animals. Nature wakes. Red hats are given to each kid lol London was not a fan of these hats. She came home good and tired.

SIX: University of Calgary Summer Camp

U of C mini university

Camp:  Mini Black Belts

Cost:  $200

Location red gym through Olympic Plaza

Boxing undercard Ring black room with kicking and punching bags  you have to be 8 and over to go into the boxing ring.

SEVEN: City of Calgary Summer Camp

Sir Winston Churchill Pool

Camp: Swim and Fun

Cost: $200

Through City of Calgary this camp was fun they swam twice a day one being a technical swim and the other being freestyleSir

EIGHT: Mount Royal University Summer Camp

MRU

Camp: Magical Adventures

through Mount Royal university

Cost: $300

this camp was full of making potions, slime, dragon eggs, wands, and craft. There is also swimming as part of the daily activities.

NINE: Summit Kids Summer Camp

Summit Kids

Camp: West Hillhurst

Cost: $200

Through Summit Kids website

located at 19street and 6 avenue NW I need the Westhillhurst community centre.  The community centre is a bit older  you need to walk through the whole to get Tom the summit kids room  there’s lots of parking tho and the take the kids as early as 8 am with before care costs and pickup by 5 without added costs so this is a bonus  London says this camp this camp is babyish. They played at a fun park they was a couple minutes walk. There was an outdoor heated pool but it was too cold to go into. Plus you had to be 8 and older to go into. The camp volunteers were okay boys and girl were just boring according to my daughter. This camp isn’t structured mostly just arts and crafts.

Well that sums up our camp listings for this year, thank goodness for this summer full of camps and for school starting up again finally…sheesh, 9 weeks of camp and I need a summer vacation.