J, I was jes' pokin at you!

I've been in all the provinces of CDA, except for BC, and the NW territories
and Nunavut. (Flew over them many times, lol!)
Gotta get to BC one day; maybe on an m'cycle or car trip.
BR,mD

More broadly, petroleum products. Oil, natural gas, etc.

Wheat? Lots of good quality durum semolina, but not a high value export.

Yes, I knew that! Is NBC playing the BC Tourism commercials with the local stars inviting the world? Kim Cattrall, Sarah McLachlan, Michael J Fox, Steve Nash, etc. Nice shots of the Okanagan vineyards, and west coast surf.

You need to come visit some time. There is another territory to add to your list (Yukon), and it is a great drive from Vancouver to Anchorage.

Thats on my list before I have to grow up.

Is it just me, or has anyone else thought the Olympics have been somewhat of a nightmare so far? The death of a luger, malfunction of the Olympic cauldron, having to haul Gretzky in a truck to another cauldron (because the other was indoors), significant amount of protesting, bad snow conditions causing horible skiing/snowboarding conditions (the women are crashing left and right as we speak), warm temps, etc. I know every olympics has issues (1996 Olympic Park Bomber, etc.), but man...

I agree with your list, except for the Gretzky part. They had the cauldron inside to light, just for the special effects on TV. The "real" cauldron was outside. The announcers said that part of the Olympic rules is the cauldron has to be visible to the public; inside the stadium it wasn't. So the hauling of The Great One via truck to the second cauldron lighting was planned all along. At least it worked properly. :thumbup:

Yeah, I know that was planned and it has to be visible. Lighting two just seemed odd to me and him just riding in the back of the truck seemed strange to me. Ehh, I don't know.

On the positive side, it looks simply beautiful there. Although, I don't think I could handle the cold/rain.

I also found it interesting that such a large percentage of the Canadian population lives within such a short distance of the U.S. border. I never realized that.

MM, You will fit right in.

I'll try not to be too defensive :D

It hasn't felt like a nightmare. The death of the luger was very tragic. The luge federation inspected the track again, and declared it safe. They reported he had only done something like 16 runs, which makes you wonder what he was doing at the Olympics on a fast track.

The stage show malfunction was handled pretty well, they got the indoor flame lit before the hand held torches ran out of fuel. We heard they had 20 seconds left in each torch. They are pretty high tech, apparently.

I have only seen one protest on TV, and that was led by imported anarchists from the US east coast. Send them home. Maybe we could send them down the luge track first, sans helmets.

Snow conditions on Cypress have been a challenge. Global warming?
We had the warmest January on record in Vancouver. They trucked snow in for weeks. Whistler has been much better, however. They had to postpone two events today at Whistler because of too much snowfall. I guess it is part of the logistics challenge.

We do notice that the media have a certain slant. They seem to be trying very hard to find negatives to report on. Part of the deal, I guess. One example was Steven Colbert (sp?), who many of us don't know. He has been running his own style of stories on Vancouver and Canada for weeks, reportedly. So today he was downtown, outdoors, taping live. A large crowd turned out to welcome him, laughing and singing Oh Canada. Great spirit.

What I have noticed most is the spirit around town. The crowds are universally well-behaved, people are smiling and happy, and it seems to be coming off well. I directed a Swedish contingent to Chinatown today (they were lost, looking at a map), and the Cultural Olympiad has lineups around the block at most sites, with live bands playing every hour.

Anyway, I am probably biased. It feels pretty good here, however. Now we just need a gold medal hockey game for both men's and women's teams.

I always thought it was so we could get US TV signals, BC (before cable).