Canada to award “Sacrifice Medal” similar to U.S. Purple Heart

A new military medal has been inaugurated to commemorate soldiers and civilians who are wounded or killed while serving Canada.

Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces, announced the creation of the Sacrifice Medal on Friday. It is to be awarded to members of the Canadian military, troops from allied forces or civilians working under the Canadian Forces.

The medal can go to anyone killed or wounded after Oct. 7, 2001 — the date of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan — “under honourable circumstances as a direct result of hostile action,” the Governor General said in a statement.

New Sacrifice Medal

This replaces the wound stripes and includes civilians which I think is a deserved given the nature of today’s dangers military and civilians face in theaters like Afghanistan.

You’re 13 and they are down a goalie, what do you do?

From the Ottawa Citizen:

Christian Rusu got to live the dream of a lifetime yesterday when he was called to play goalie during a Senators scrimmage at Bell Sensplex.

Christian Rusu will have quite the story to tell when he goes back to Broadview Public School with his Grade 8 class next week.

One minute late yesterday morning, the 13-year-old house league goaltender was laughing with his friends, taking off his equipment in the dressing room after a hockey camp session at the Bell Sensplex.

The next minute, he was back on the ice, facing shots from the Ottawa Senators’ Chris Kelly, Chris Neil, Chris Phillips, Shean Donovan, Anton Volchenkov and Jason Smith and several other National Hockey League players.

“I was undressing and a guy just came running in and said, ‘We need a goalie’,” Christian said after his 90-minute whirlwind taste of life in the big leagues. “There were three other (goalies), but their stuff was already off, so, I guess, well, they picked me.”

While NHL training camps don’t begin until mid-September, many players have already returned to the ice for informal pick-up games to get ready for the season.

However, one of the expected goaltenders failed to show, so the call went out for an immediate replacement.

Enter Christian.

As he put his equipment back on, he could hear the sounds of NHL players warming up, their heavy shots ringing off goal-posts and crossbars and echoing off the end boards, no doubt wondering what he was getting himself into.

Was it a step up from anything he had ever experienced before?

“More like a big leap,” he said as he removed his goalie mask, revealing his braces and the beginnings of a moustache.

“At first, I didn’t know what was going on in the drills because they were going so fast. It’s nothing like I have ever seen before. I came out to the top of my (goal crease), and, all of a sudden, I looked one way, then the other, and the puck was behind me and I was thinking, ‘Where did that come from?’”

Christian, a goaltender for the past three years, will hook up with a Kanata Minor Hockey Association minor bantam house league team next month.

Regardless of where his hockey future takes him, no one can take away yesterday’s scrimmage against the big leaguers.

As the pick-up game went on, a small crowd gathered around the boards, wondering who, exactly, was manning the net.

Christian made several saves, but the highlight had to be a stop against Donovan, a 14-year NHL veteran, on a breakaway.

“It was great to see him out there,” said Neil, who tapped the young goaltender on the pads several times during the workout. “What a great opportunity. I’m sure it was exciting for him.”

Kelly says the NHL players tried to make Christian relax as much as possible.

“He was really good,” Kelly said. “I’m sure it was fun for him and the boys were trying to get a rise out of him.”

The game was also the only thing on the minds of Christian’s campmates for the rest of the day.

When Christian’s father, Petru, arrived to pick him up at the end of the day, he heard the story from everyone before Christian had a chance to fill in the details.

“All the other kids told me about it right away,” Rusu said. “It’s very cool. He was so thrilled when he was coming home. He has always been such a big fan of the Senators and when they said they needed a second goalie, he said, ‘For sure, yes, yes, why wouldn’t I play?’

“Something like this doesn’t happen every day.”

Just in case his school buddies think Christian might be putting them on, making up a story about what happened on his summer vacation, he may still have a few bruises to show them next week.

“I’m a bit sore, but I’m OK,” he said. “At first, the fingers inside my blocker really hurt, the way they were throwing pucks at me. And then it was the fingers on my glove hand, smacking into my palm really hard. But then I got used to it.”

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

Early to rise; not always wise

Precious likes her rest

“There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock. -Author Unknown

Super-Replicating Belief: A Belief that has some property which facilitates its own transmission, which makes it be held by an increasing number of minds.

There is a super-replicating false belief in our society that sleeping in is lazy. Sleeping in is not lazy- many individuals would actually be more productive if they slept in versus waking up early. But as a whole, promoting the belief that sleeping in is lazy serves the needs of a stable society, in which individuals are all on similar schedules.

What are some of the ways that society makes us feel guilty for sleeping in?

* “Early to Bed, Early to Rise, Makes a Man Healthy Wealthy and Wise”
* Early risers are considered more productive than those who sleep in
* We are only supposed to need 8 hours of sleep, and people often brag about getting by on less
* If we sleep in, we may feel out of synch with the 9-5 society
* The online community, including bloggers Steve Pavlina and Leo Babauta, promote becoming early risers”

There is no need to feel guilty or lazy- here are 5 reasons why sleeping in will boost your productivity:

Our Non Summer of 2008

In my post of August 1, I noted that we’ve had a long wet cool summer so far. “How Wet is it…” .  So now one third of the way through the month of August and we’ve had one day without precipitation.  We got to 27.2 c once on the 4th but the mean temperature is 21.1 c.   The 14 day trend forecast isn’t very promising with 5 days of potential rain and high temperatures maybe getting above 25c maybe twice.  No “Bermuda Highs” giving us 30 plus days in the next two weeks.  So much for swimming in warm waters to cool off, just step outside enjoy a walk in the wonderful summer rain.

The Adventures of the Schooner Niska

My cousin George or “GeeGnome” recently retired from working the rails.  He got a bit restless and seized an opportunity to crew abord the Schooner Niska

As GeeGnome writes “

For the last month or so I have been a crew member on the schooner Niska traveling from Georgian Bay to her new home in Twillingate NL. The boat was built 35 years ago by the skipper Heiko Bank and has plied the waters in and around Georgian Bay where he lived and chartered until his move to Newfoundland a few years ago. Now he’s come back to fetch his boat and take it to Twillingate where he owns a B&B called the Rumrunners Roost. She’s 60′ spar length, 13+ beam, 25 ton, fiberglass on wood, replica of east coast staysail schooners designed and built by the skipper. She has a very reliable 65 hp Perkins Deisel for power. This is not your turn on a dime space ship dinky toy power boat. No joystick operated, voice activated bow thrusters. It’s basically 1850’s tech with only a few modern additions.

We have managed to get the schooner from Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, St.Clair River, Lake St.Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Welland Canal, Lake Ontario, the Seaway system, the St.Lawrence River to Montreal where he is regrouping for the rest of the trip. She’s made it halfway and has another thousand miles to go. We’ve sailed and motored through, mishaps and misfortunes, trials and tribulations but surmounted all and sailed her gloriously through these magnificent Great Lakes and waterways covering a thousand miles. It’s a grand adventure in a seat of the pants old school way.”

To read part 1 of the adventure read here http://gwcollins.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/the-voyage-of-the-tall-ship-niska/

The adventure continues……

How Wet is it in Ottawa so far this summer

Here at the beginning of August we can look back at the months of June and July and see that we’ve had rain on 22 of 30 days with 106.6 mm rain as compared to normal rain of 85 mm for June and for July we had 17 of 31 days of rain but only 64.2 mm of rain as compared to normal rain of 90.6.  June was wetter than normal but July was drier.  The frequency just made it seem that there was more rain.