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Cookie Owns The Podium!!

Mulder

Ok, with all the Olympic hype the past week, I could not forget to toss my daughter into the mix.

Yesterday, here at home in Kanata, the 31st Kanata Cup was held. This was the biggest event put on by the local Rhythmic Gymnastics organization. There were over 60 competitors and in her age group, Cookie took a bronze and a silver and a bronze in the overall.

Talk about owning the podium!!!

She took a silver in her Free routine, and the bronze came in her Hoop routine. A bauble with her hoop had it roll out of bounds which was her only deduction of the day. She did manage to reach it without going out of bounds herself, which would have knocked her out of the medals in that event.

I was especially pleased to see our local MP, who happens to be the Minister of Defence, Gordon O’Connor at the event to present medals to the second group of girls and I had the honour of introducing him myself. Mr. O’Connor was kind enough to give the girls a few words of congratulations and inspiration.

Being a parent of one of the local girls, we all had our duties. My rubber arm got twisted to co-announce all day Sunday but it was worth it. I had front row seats!!

A-Channel showed up and took some footage for the 6pm news. I will strip the footage out of their broadcast and post it here later tonight.

All I Want For Valentine's Day…

Mulder

Am I being unromantic when I tell my wife that I would love to get one of those sheepskin hats our Canadians are wearing in Torino as a Valentine’s Day gift? I hope not, because I did. Man, they look sooooo warm, and how much more Canadian can you get with this one.

I really do want to congratulate HBC for this one. The Canadians look so, for lack of a better word, Canadian!! I love the fact that they take the Olympic uniforms to a new level each time. The Roots outfits were instahits on a global level, and I can see these fur trader hats being a huge hit. What I found to be funny was that in light of the pending sale of HBC, Canada’s oldest company, to an American conglomerate, HBC put a perfect touch on the uniforms with these trader caps. The creation of the Hudson’s Bay Trading Company so long ago was based on the fur trade, and the trader cap is such a symbolic Canadian headgear. Even more than the toque!!

So if anyone out there has a heart, please comment in this post and let my wife know that I REALLY REALLY want one of these hats!

I wonder if it fits over my Tory baseball cap.

My Election Day – From Bed To DRO Standby To Information Officer To Party Goer To Bed

Mulder

I worked for Elections Canada on Monday the 23rd. I arrived at the EC office at 8:30 am, and after about 90 minutes of waiting, my role as a standby DRO/Poll clerk quickly switched and I was sent out as an Information Officer to a public school gymnasium about a kilometer from my house. I quickly shot over and reported for duty to the supervisor at a 10 poll congregation surrounding the gymnasium.

My duty was, basically, to greet voters, guide them to the correct polling station or to the Registration Officer, a really nice lady named Barbara who managed her duty with such great diligence, that you would not have known it was her first election worked. It was great of her husband to make a couple of Tim Horton’s runs for us all. He was off duty until doing his DRO duties of counting ballots for the advance poll he managed.

I quickly let my salesmanship show through as I got comfortable and directed the voters with ease. I had to hold up a couple of voters due to the lineups being long enough to hinder other voters from making their way to a poll further into the gym. But they were very understanding and one of the DROs told me later that I did a wonderful job keeping the people in the right line ups. I give much of that credit to the intelligence of the voters themselves.

I had little time to eat the piles of food I brought with me. But I had to be prepared for a trek out to a single poll with an unknown access to food/drink.

I had a wonderful time teasing children who were holding their parents registration cards, telling them that I hope they had identification. One 4 or 5 year old said she wasn’t voting, and when her mom asked her why not? She answered in a loud giggly voice, “Because I’m too little!” Needless to say, it was one of the highlights of my day.

I also found my DRO training to be highly effective, as I faced several odd situations which I will be sending a recommendation to EC on. These included out of riding voters and numerous registration issues which Barbara handled great. I also jumped in and started helping her out a bit with finding the correct poll for those who didn’t need to re-register, but needed to know which poll to head to.

At the end of the day, I witnessed one of the poll counts, and then took a half dozen sealed, counted, ballot boxes back to the central returning station before heading off to the campaign office/celebration party of my Conservative M.P. Gordon O’Connor. I congratulated Gordon, and spent some time milling about talking to some of the other supporters I know and watched both Martin and Layton speak on the big screen. After that I was quite bagged and rolled into my driveway well after 1 a.m.

All in all, it felt great to do some civic duty, and even if they had not paid me for it, I was quite content to help out and enjoyed my long day thoroughly. I highly urge anyone and everyone to sign up at some time and do their civic duty of helping out at some time in their lives. The experience of seeing it work beyond walking in, voting, and leaving was very educational and fulfilling.