When Words Collide 2013

This past weekend was the third annual When Words Collide here in Calgary. It's sort of a reader con, or a literary festival of genre fiction, and it's a great opportunity for learning and networking for writers, readers, editors, and publishers. My schedule is full of notes and stars next to names - I have a lot of new-to-me authors to add to my to read list now...

It started on Friday at 1 pm, and I wasn't as early as I would have liked. There were three workshops that afternoon that required signing up ahead of time, and I wasn't there early enough to get in line. There's never been a lineup for the signup sheets before - I didn't realize how much bigger it was going to be this year!

I went to the Live Action Slush: Early Bird Edition, which is always fun. I learn so much about editing and what publishers are looking for from almost every live action slush I go to. I did have a writing submission in that pile too - and while it didn't get the  book offer I was hoping for, I did get some good feedback. :)

Next I sat through three mystery-oriented panels in a row - Have Gun Will Murder, Violence in Literature, and Pushing the Limits of Traditional Mystery. Have Gun was about western mystery genre, and the panelist posted a list of recommendations on her website. I didn't get a chance to chip in, but Hell on Wheels, Dead Reckoning by Mercedes Lackey, and The Apparition Trail by Lisa Smedman are all western-based fiction that I recommend. Violence in Literature was an interesting panel - there was discussion about whether violence in fiction is necessary, and the general consensus seems to be that some of some sort is necessary - the panellists were clear not to glorify it, and some introduce it off-screen rather then on, but there's violence in real life, and it's a good tool to use to move the story along. One of the panellists is a paramedic/former cop, and he had some good info about violence and how to write it realistically, and fielded questions about things like how long people tend to stay unconscious. Pushing the Limits talked a lot about the genre of 'cozy' mysteries and why they work and why, for some readers, they don't work. Apparently there's a new line of gluten-free cozies, which produced general hilarity. :)

Then I went to a YA-focused live action slush, and a live action editing panel, where we looked at handouts of things that make publishers reject stories and got some hands-on experience, which was pretty cool. Hopefully they'll do one like that again next year. Although one of the plots that they rejected reminded me a lot of a Monty Python animation I watched last night, and we all know how popular Monty Python ended up being...

The guests of honour (six of them who were paid to be there - EVERYone else volunteered) spent about an hour and a half each giving a short talk about their work in the industry and told stories and whatnot, and it was interesting as always. All of the guests this year were new to me, so it's a good chance to get a feel for the personalities, which helps when trying to choose between three panels later in the weekend. On Saturday, there were ELEVEN scheduled things every hour to choose from, which is hard! Then I popped into the EDGE party room until it go too crowded and noisy for this introvert, then I fled. :)

Saturday was jam-packed with all kinds of goodies. I was there from 9:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night, and I'm still trying to recover! If there's programming running, I want to be participating in it, so it can be rather exhausting. The first live action slush of the day was all about fantasy, and it had some good content - there were a lot of manuscripts that were really well received. A panel called Doom and Gloom and Dark Despair, Young Readers Love Them Everywhere was a bit disappointing. In hindsight, they really should have had the guest who's a child psychologist on that panel, which is what I was expecting. It was a discussion about the darkness of YA books these days, but the panel was really big and not super focused, so I left unenlightened. Making the Everyday Fantastic was a really good panel, with writers talking about how they take everyday places and things and make them fantastical, and I ended up buying Through the Door by Jodi McIsaac because of its setting in Halifax.

Each Generation's Sherlock Holmes was a fascinating look at Sherlock Holmes through his various incarnations on stage and in movies and tv shows. The two guys who led it, Charles Prepolec and Jeff Campbell, have co-edited a bunch of Sherlock Holmes anthologies and what the two of them don't know about the 'franchise' isn't worth knowing. Next year I'd love to see a panel discussing the influence that Sherlock Holmes has had on detective fiction as a genre, or something like that.

The Steampunk Art and Science Society did a couple of presentation on steampunk costuming (I'd give my eyeteeth for mad sewing skills!) and on Tesla vs Edison, which is always a fun topic. :) The panel on Canada as Our Exotic Home was quite good - lots of discussion about Canada as a place to set stories (will that turn off American readers?) and if there's something that defines Canadian fiction as a genre. There was a good mix of panelists, and I really enjoyed that one.

I went to another Sherlock Holmes panel called Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Bag of Tricks, which was really interesting, but the AC was running really loud, and I was too tired to focus, so I ended up sneaking out early. I wish I knew what all his tricks were, but I just couldn't sit still anymore! :P The last panel I was going to go to before dinner was about this software called Wattpad, and I thought it might be interesting, but after looking at the leaflet they were handing out, and not being anymore prepared to focus, I went and dozed in a big chair until Trevor came to have dinner with me. Dinner and a walk gave me a second wind for a busy evening, thankfully.

Editor for Hire was a great panel that basically convinced the burgeoning writers in the room that they need to hire an editor of some sort to look over their manuscripts before submitting them to publishers, which was just what I wanted to hear, that being my developing speciality. :) Make Your Mark Online turned out to be not really for me, although I did pick up a few ideas about some Wordpress plugins to check out. I don't have a need for a blog or a newsletter promoting my editorial business, so it mostly just wasn't relevant to where I'm at right now.

Then I went upstairs to the Steampunk Arts and Sciences party room, and chatted with a few people about their costumes, and tried some Absinthe (an acquired taste, but interesting...) and then fled again when it got too crowded. The party rooms at this new venue are smaller then I remember the ones at last year's hotel being, so it didn't take many people to make me feel claustrophobic.

By Sunday my attention span was even shorter - Pantser, Plotter, or Quilter was a good panel that caught my attention for supporting the Oxford comma, and turned out to be an interesting mix of people and had some good discussion about writing styles. The Live Action Slush: Mystery Edition turned out to be a bit of a disappointment because there weren't very many submissions, but I guess a lot of people didn't know that would be an option, so hopefully there are more next year, and I kind of wish I'd just gone to Getting Past the Middle Doldrums in Novel Writing.

Writers Tools in the Digital Age was a fascinating look at the availability of software tools to help the world-building author. I'm not a world builder myself, but it was incredibly interesting. I wanted to ask about editing tools, but the panel went too long for many questions. Mystery, Science Fiction, and Fantasy was a panel with three authors, each of whom write in one of those genres. I went to it mostly because I'm a big fan of Robert J. Sawyer, but it was a really interesting discussion and good combination of panelists. Here's a blog by Barbara Fradkin, the mystery guest of honour, who was on that panel.

I went to the EDGE book launch up in on of the party rooms, where they had readings from some of the new books EDGE has recently published. Shanghai Steam is a Chinese steampunk anthology that sounds really good, but again the claustrophobic feeling had me getting out of there before it was over, so I kind of wish I'd gone to The Role of Beautiful Language. I went to the Live Action Slush: Romance Edition, but it was over really early, so I also went to the last half of Historical Whodunits, which had good panelists who didn't seem to be the right fit for that topic. And the very last panel of the weekend was The Publisher's Panel, which was a good discussion between a bunch of publishers about the market, trends, things they're looking for, and developments in the industry, which was a good way to end the weekend.

Last year I stayed for the wrap-up party, but I was so tired I just came home. I'm actually still quite tired - I started getting ready for bed at 8:30 last night! But it's one of my favourite weekends of the year, and I'm SUPER excited for next year - Diana Gabaldon, one of my all-time favourite authors is coming. She's an experienced con guest, and really good at giving writing advice, so I know she'll be excellent. Sometimes I think I learn more in a weekend at WWC then I do in a whole semester of school...too bad they don't issue BAs! :)

The team of volunteers that puts this conference on does a fantastic job, and I'm very thankful to have the opportunity to attend, and to have the rare opportunity to go to a conference where I'm not volunteering in one capacity or another. It's definitely worth every penny of the very low registration fee, and I highly recommend it!

Lost! On Tunnel Mountain!

(The title of the post is intended to be read loudly, with dramatic flair, in a deep announcer voice.)

 

What with one thing and another I hadn't managed to get out of Calgary to go hiking at all this summer, so last Monday we headed to Banff for the day with a couple of friends. I wanted to hike Johnson Lake again, to see it without all the snow, but when we got there, the road in was closed due to a grizzly sighting. So we heeded the sign and went to Tunnel Mountain instead.

 

It started out beautifully - the sun was shining and the view of Banff through the trees was lovely.

I'm the only one without an iPhone...

 

The Banff Springs Hotel

 

By the time we got around to the other side of the mountain, looking east (-ish?) it had started to cloud over a bit, and the cool breeze was nice.

 

 

 

 

Not to mention the fact that the light rain was still clearly far away. I wasn't prepared for such an uphill hike - Johnson Lake is rather flat - so I was pretty winded, and when it started to drizzle and we heard a crack of thunder we thought about turning back. But someone coming down said that the top was only about five minutes away, and since we'd come so far we pressed on.

 

My plan had been to eat our picnic lunch at the summit, but by the time we got up there it was POURING rain so hard I was soaked to the skin. I didn't really mind cooling off, but it wasn't exactly picnic weather, and then the hail started, so we booked it back down as fast as we could go, which wasn't very fast, because it was so slippery.

Drenched at the Summit!

Somehow in the downpour we managed to miss the proper path and ended up on a goat trail that stopped a steep slope that was clearly not the way we'd come up. Frustratingly, we could still see Banff, but not the main path. We bushwhacked around for a while, trying not to slip and break any limbs, and eventually met up with the path again, and by that point the sun was back out and except for the lingering damp, it looked like the storm had never happened. Welcome to Alberta...

 

I was talking to someone later who knew someone else who'd gotten lost and had to spend a night up there, so at least we didn't get THAT lost!

 

I was disappointed to find that there isn't actually a tunnel in Tunnel Mountain - CP Rail was going to build one, and then they didn't.

 

The view of the mountain from Banff.

 

The rest of the day involved a picnic in Banff, in the sunshine, a hot, crispy, sugary BeaverTail, and a lightening-delayed dip in the hot springs. The storm came back just as we were in line to pay for admission, and they waited half an hour to be sure the lightening was over before they opened the pool again. And on the way back we chased a rainbow from Exshaw almost to Calgary.

 

 

Such an adventure-filled day. :) Hopefully there will be more hiking this summer, but likely not till we get to Jasper later this month - stay tuned! This weekend I'm going to the third annual When Words Collide convention, and I'm very excited. I always learn so much and meet interesting people. I went to the first one in 2011, and last year I even blogged about each of the three days. Not sure if that'll happen this year or not, but watch for something about it sometime next week.

 



Star Trek Into Darkness: My Favourite Moments and My Biggest Pet Peeves

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

This post has been so long in coming for two reasons; one, I didn't want to spoil the movie for anyone, and two I was waiting to see it a second time, in the cheap theatre. :)

I realized I'm being really hard on Into Darkness because I expected SO MUCH from it - don't get me wrong, I think it's very good, especially when compared to a lot of other movies, but there were a few things that could have made it even better. I saw it opening night in 3D and when it was over I just sat there gasping like a beached fish because EVERYTHING happened so fast I almost wasn't sure what had happened. And after about an hour of amazed silence, the more I thought about it the more a few things annoyed me.

Star Trek was all BAM! Then it was BAM BAM! Then breathe, but no, just kidding-BAMBAMBAM! And I'm like WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Must see again...
— Michelle Heumann (@MichelleHeumann) May 18, 2013

And they still annoyed me the second time, but I think I understood the characters, at least Kirk and Spock, a little more. I still jumped out of my skin when Khan popped up off the floor where he was supposed to be stunned unconscious, and the friend I was with, who was seeing it for the first time, grabbed my arm. :)

One of the most entertaining internet things about Into Darkness has been all the crossover graphics, some of them combining Sherlock AND Star Trek AND Middle Earth, which I find highly amusing.




Source

 

See? Fangirl fodder galore.

As for the movie itself, there were lots of things I really like about it.

Scotty's facial expressions are brilliant. Simon Pegg's Scotty needs his own movie. BUT I was disappointed that he actually left the Enterprise. It turns out there was a job for him to do, so it wasn't pointless, but I didn't really think he'd actually gone, and when the warp drive failed and Chekov was sent to fix it, I expected Scotty to pop out from behind a console and safe the day. After keeping him apart from the crew for large chunks of both of the first two movies, I really hope he's more present in the third one.

Which brings me to Chekov, who's now probably all of 18 years old? Just a baby, really, and he's ADORABLE. His accent and his puppy eyes - I just want to pat his head and tell him he's wonderful. :) It's also sad that he's exiled from the bridge for a good chunk of the movie, because he's such a wonderful character. I guess that's the problem with such a big cast - there just can't be enough screen time for all of them.

Sulu does an excellent turn as acting captain, which is one of my favourite moments in the movie, as is Bones' response.

Bones gets the best one-liners of maybe any franchise ever. But what I didn't like was the fact that he just happened to have a dead tribble on hand, and he thought that injecting it with the blood of a super-human they knew little about was a good idea. (facepalm) I get that they were setting up Khan's blood as a cure for Kirk's radiation poisoning, but that had already been done in the sequence that introduced Khan at the beginning of the movie. I just though that was really lame. And does that mean that there are now super-tribbles infesting the Enterprise?

This is one of my favourite moments...

I didn't really buy the relationship between Spock and Uhura, just because it doesn't seem to fit with what I know about Spock. I don't dislike it, it just didn't seem that convincing, but it made for some really funny moments. When they actually talk on the shuttle to Kronos, then it started to make more sense to me. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it in the third movie.

But I think my favourite part of the movie was Uhura standing up to the Klingons.

There was a job she could do, and she did it, and it wasn't blowing things up, but simply using her linguistic skills to try to complete the mission. It almost ended horribly, but not for lack of her trying. Her bravery was amazing.

For me the movie's biggest flaw was lack of character development. I've never seen the original Star Trek movies (except for the Voyage Home), and I didn't realized that Into Darkness was going to follow the same general story arc that the original movies did. I BELIEVED J.J. ABRAMS WHEN HE SAID THAT BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH WAS PLAYING JOHN HARRISON AND NOT KHAN. I think that's what ticked me off the most - he didn't need to lie, he could have just not talked about it. So lame! I was looking forward to a totally new bad guy, and given what little I do know about the original series, I was thinking of someone along the lines of Gary Seven. Alas, it was not to be. :(

Anyway, lack of character development... I felt like the movie relied too much on character development that I assume had been built in the original series rather then building its own. Kirk and Spock's friendship was rocky, and the crew's loyalty didn't seem to have much of a basis when Kirk was acting like a spoiled brat for the first half of the movie. He was just going to blow up a city on the Klingon home world, and then he (tried to) beat the crap out of Khan - I just expected more honour from the character, so I was really disappointed. It was hard to root for the 'hero' when I wanted to give him a good lecture and a time out.

Don't even get me started on the epic lameness of Quinto's Spock calling Nimoy's Spock for help, and how despite his vow, old Spock told him what he knew about the Khan from his timeline, when there was so much scope to do something new with the character. Spock says that Khan's goal is genocide of anyone he thinks is inferior, but the character doesn't actually display any of those traits - he seems like a straightforward eye-for-an-eye type guy, and in that moment when Kirk and Khan were waiting to space jump to the dreadnaught, I really thought Khan was going to get his happy ending. Crushing Admiral Marcus' head with his bare hands, in front of his daughter, was a bit sickening, but then the Admiral was a manipulative bad guy...

Kirk's death scene was unfortunate, and I actually didn't even really see it coming. I figured, given the demonstrated potency of Khan's blood in the opening fifteen minutes of the movie, that they'd get Kirk injected with it BEFORE he died. But even when he did die, I knew they weren't actually going to kill off Captain Kirk, so I was actually a bit bored. Apparently in the original, it was Spock who died, and he stayed dead for a whole movie? But I didn't know that, and the hero appearing to die is such an overdone trope that it left me cold. Not to mention the fact that ever since I saw K-19: The Widowmaker the whole idea of radiation poisoning grosses me out beyond words - I find it scarier then zombies or vampires.

And finally, other then the poor character development, my least favourite thing was Carol Marcus' underwear. I mean really, was it absolutely necessary that the camera take a long, slow pan down her body? Seriously? Her and Kirk's reactions to the situation are interesting, and I read a good blog analyzing it, but her state of undress could have been hinted at in order to achieve those reactions. It felt cheap, and quite frankly I expected more from Star Trek then 'sex sells'. I sincerely hope that they avoid anything like it in the third movie...there was a bit of it in the first one, but I don't think it was as gratuitous as this was. Her character is really great and has a lot of potential - she sees things that she can do something about and she does them - and I hope they make good use of her character in the next movie.

I'm only hard on it because I love Star Trek so much. I really, really, really hope that the next movie spends more time on character development, and that breaks away from the established storylines. When it was first announced that J.J. was going to be doing the new Star Wars movie, I was really excited, but Into Darkness has made me a little bit more hesitant. I love the action/adventure stories, but if they don't have good characters, I don't feel them, and that's a problem that plagued the recent Star Wars expanded universe stuff, so I hope the lack of character I'm feeling in Into Darkness doesn't creep into Star Wars as well.

Of course, that won't stop me from buying Into Darkness, or seeing the third movie, or seeing the Star Wars movies... :)

Touring Nova Scotia - The Lighthouse Route

This is part two of my series on Nova Scotia. You can read post one about Halifax here.

For ease of touring, Nova Scotia is divided into seven regions and ten scenic travelways. I don't think we had the seven regions when I was a kid, just the travelways, because simply seeing each scenic logo on the map makes me feel like I'm about ten years old again! Anyway, if you travel clockwise from Halifax, the next region over is called the South Shore and the route is the Lighthouse Route, which stretches from Halifax almost to Yarmouth. The most famous tourist attraction in this region is almost certainly Peggy's Cove.

My dad and I near the Peggy's Cove Lighthouse in 2008

I heard a rumour that the lighthouse is up for sale and that it's in danger of being torn down if no one buys it. My information is kind of out of date, so if anyone has heard anything more recently, please let me know! But I would say that if seeing the lighthouse is on  your bucket list, you should probably go sooner rather than later. :)

The Cove is about an hour from Halifax, and it's a great place to stop for lunch. The tiny community is full of shops and whatnot, but the most famous is the Sou'Wester restaurant and gift shop. It's been there as long as I can remember, and the food is reliable Nova Scotian fare.

From Peggy's Cove, continue up around St. Margaret's Bay until Peggy's Cove Road meets up with St. Margaret's Bay Road. There you have the choice of following SMB Road as it winds along the coast (beautiful!) or continuing a bit further to the 'new' 103 highway. It's about an hour and twenty minutes to Mahone Bay from Peggy's Cove taking the coastal route through Chester. If you skip Chester and take the highway, it's only an hour.

I've never explored Chester, known as a sailing hub, but plan to go next time I'm out there. If you go during Chester Race Week, you might see my brother lurking among the sailboats!

About half way between Chester and Mahone Bay is the infamous Oak Island. When I was a kid the popular theory was that the island was the hiding place of the pirate treasure of Captain Kidd. Since then, probably thanks to the invention of the internet, wild theories abound. It looks like tours go there now in the summer to view the "money pit" (which was originally called that for the pirate treasure, but now has the irony of also being a bit into which modern people sink money in the hope of finding something at the bottom of it...) and I would love to go on those one day.

Mahone Bay is another one of Nova Scotia's top must-see locations. Famous for its skyline of three churches, it's also the home of Amos Pewter, and they have a Pirate Festival in early August, which I'd love to check out.

From Mahone Bay it's about fifteen minutes to Lunenburg, a UNESCO world heritage site, one of five in Nova Scotia. My favourite thing in Lunenburg is the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. The Fisheries Museum is part of the Nova Scotia Museum system, so considering getting a pass to all 27 museums if you're going to be going to several of them.

Go aboard the ship docked at the museum for a clean look at shipboard life

Lunenburg is the home of the Bluenose, the sailing ship pictured on the Canadian dime, although it's not there very often. Here's a bit of the history of the Bluenose. It's an absolutely beautiful and scenic place to stop.

About half an hour on from Lunenburg is Bridgewater. Honestly, I'm not sure that I've ever stopped there - when I was a kid it was just a place we drove through on our way from point A to point B, but I'll stop next time! It's home to one of Nova Scotia's museums, the Wile Carding Mill. It's also where actor Donald Sutherland, who was born in New Brunswick, grew up.

The most important thing about Bridgewater is that if you don't want to go all the way around the very southern tip of Nova Scotia, this is one of three places where you can cut across the interior and get to the Bay of Fundy. I don't recommend it unless you're extremely pressed for time and in a hurry to get to Wolfville. At the very least, I would go (and have gone) another half an hour on to Liverpool and then across the interior to Annapolis Royal on the Bay of Fundy from there. Next time I'm going all the way around the end though, and that's what we're going to do in this post.

About half an hour from Bridgewater, Liverpool is home to the Perkins House Museum of the Nova Scotia Museum (Simon Perkins was a privateer...), Privateer Days, and Fort Point Lighthouse where Champlain landed in 1604.

Another half an hour on is Thomas H. Raddall Provincial Park, with campsites and walking trails if you need a leg-stretch on the arduous 45-minute trip to Shelburne. :)

I haven't been to Shelburne since I was about five, but it's on my list of places to go again. It's the home of two Nova Scotia Museums - Ross-Thompson House and the Dory Shop. It's also the home of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society, a fascinating and often-overlooked piece of Canadian history. There used to be a small military base there, starting during the second world war, which closed in 1995 and is now apparently decaying, and I'd LOVE to go see it. Apparently a German U-boat surrendered there in 1945, which sounds super interesting.

From Shelburne it's half an hour to Barrington, which is apparently the lobster capital of Canada. It too is home to two Nova Scotia Museums - the Woollen Mill and the Old Meeting House. There's also an independent museum called the Western Counties Military Museum. I don't think I've ever been to Barrington except to drive through, but it looks historically fascinating.

Cape Sable Island is about fifteen minutes from Barrington, and there's a causeway linking the island to the mainland. The pictures make me think of Florida...

You'll now cross the border between the South Shore region and the Yarmouth and Acadian Shores region, but it's still the Lighthouse Trail until you get to Yarmouth.

Pubnico is the first stop in the YaAS region, and it's about half an hour from Barrington. You'll find the Nova Scotia Museum called Le Village historique acadien de la Nouvelle-Écosse. I want to go there very badly. It's one of the places where staff in costumer go about the daily business of life in the Acadian era. So fun!

The Église Ste-Anne Church is the oldest Acadian parish on mainland Nova Scotia, and is a beautiful wooden building. It's about fifteen minutes on from Pubnico and looks like a beautiful place to take a few photos. Another five minutes down the road is the Argyle Township Courthouse and Gaol, Canada's oldest standing courthouse.

At this point it's another fifteen minutes to the town of Yarmouth, which we'll keep for another post. It marks the end of the Lighthouse Route and the beginning of the Evangeline Trail, which, if I HAD to pick a favourite part of Nova Scotia, would probably be it. :) Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to track down ideas or answers for you!

I just realized that this post took about three hours to write. Please don't let my labour be in vain - visit Nova Scotia today! :) And we're having a massive thunderstorm that made the lights flicker, so I'm posting this quickly before I lose all my hard work! If there are any typos, please don't let me know...

Top Five Must-Read Books for (Lutheran Youth) Leaders

You may have noticed that my dedication to weekly blog posts totally lapsed since the flood! I spent almost a week out of town at a youth conference in Winnipeg with some kids from church, and that totally threw off my groove. :) I'm still recovering from spending one night on a hot church floor, four nights in a non-air conditioned Manitoba-summer-hot dorm, and one night on a bus, but we had such a good time. Two of the youth were new to our group, 'adopted' from a smaller nearby church, and it was a joy to spend time with them, get to know them a bit, and watch the entire group gel.

We spent one afternoon helping clean up along the banks of the Seine River, joking about wildlife such as gators, killer rabbits ala Monty Python, and killer deer. I learned today that apparently in Winnipeg there's a law against provoking alligators...does that mean there are actually some there?! Glad I didn't know that at the time... :P

Our group at Grand Beach, Manitoba

At the youth gathering, there was a bookstore. It  prompted a post I've been thinking about for a while, and a sequel post I hope to do, which will be about materials that should either be avoided, or read with great caution, discernment, and simply for research purposes. For today though, here are five indispensable books for anyone who wants to make sure their church is teaching solid theology. Children and youth are not the future of the church, they are as much a piece of the church now as any adult, and all elders, pastors, teachers, and volunteers should be aware of these resources.


NUMBER 1: The Lutheran Study Bible (LSB)
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that Lutherans value the teachings of Martin Luther over the teachings of the Bible. Actually, while I suppose some misguided Lutherans might do that, really what we, or I specifically, since I can't speak for all Lutherans, value are Luther's explanations and teaching of Biblical theology and parts of Christian doctrine like the Creeds. The LSB is a wealth of information brimming with footnotes, prayers, historical information, a checklist for reading through the Bible cover-to-cover, and extra resource pages. For instance, if you want to know why Lutherans believe what Lutherans believe about communion, turn to the page between Revelation chapters 19 and 20 in a copy of the LSB, and you will find a whole page on communion, cross-referenced to the applicable Bible verses. SO HANDY! Anyone in leadership should have this valuable resource, and read it regularly to explore all of the helpful explanations.


The rest of the books are all in no particular order because I think each of them is as valuable as the others, and they're all different enough that I highly recommend reading them all.


Broken: 7 "Christian" Rules that Every Christian Ought to Break as Often as Possible by Pastor Jonathan Fisk
Read this book and then figure out who in your youth or young adults' group needs to read it, buy a box full, and hand them out like candy that won't rot their teeth or their souls. Beautifully illustrated with steampunk-esq sketches and sprinkled with Star Wars references, Pastor Fisk details seven dangerous trends in North American pop culture Christianity and firmly squelches them with scripture. I've been watching his videos and reading his blogs on Worldview Everlasting for quite some time now, I enjoy his geeky, sarcastic, theologically-sound teaching, and his passion for sound doctrine. When you go to the CPH website to order your copy of the LSB, make sure you pop at least one of these into your cart...


Already Gone: Why Your Kids Will Quit Church and What You Can Do To Stop It by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer
Last fall we gave a copy of this book to each of the youth groups that came to our retreat, and all of the leadership at our church read it. It's published through the excellent ministry 'Answers in Genesis' and while it discusses some deep stuff, it's fairly small and the print is fairly large, making it not too intimidating for people who don't really like to read. Go prayerfully read it now, please! Another excellent book by Ken Ham is The Lie: Evolution, which explains why it's so vital to know and understand God as Creator, and how/why the world tries to undermine Him. It helped me get through geology in my first semester at university, and now there's a revised edition, which I'll have to add to my wishlist. :)


Eutychus Youth: Reaching Youth on the Ledge by Dr. John Oberdeck
Another great resource from CPH, including a study guide, is a dense, well-written, super informative book. The youth gathering actually brought in Dr. Oberdeck to do sessions for the leaders, although they were the same as the one that Trevor and I went to at the LCMS youth symposium in California a year and a half ago, I still picked up a few things that I either hadn't hear last time, or had forgotten. :) Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a dangerous thing that is undermining Biblical Christianity. So, so, so good. I even have an extra copy that I'll lend you if you're around here...


The Creation Answers Book by Batten, Catchpoole, Sarfati, and Wieland of Creation Ministries International
This handy little book doesn't really need to be read in order - it can just be pulled out and referred to when a specific question about something pops up. Chapter titles include things like "How did the animals fit on Noah's Ark?" and "How did all the different 'races' arise?". It's an brilliant resource to have on hand, and I can't recommended the work of Creation Ministries highly enough.


Bonus book for Alberta Residents!
Tour Guide: Royal Tyrrell Museum by Margaret Helder of the Creation Science Association of Alberta
I haven't read this myself yet, but I have it on very good authority that this is an excellent tool for countering the evolutionist propaganda that is fed to hundreds or even thousands of Albertan school children every year. We're hoping to take a group of youth to Drumheller in the fall, perhaps in conjunction with this event that Creation Ministries is putting on, and are planning to use this book as our tour guide. Check out the book and let me know what you think!


Well, hopefully this suggested your reading list for the rest of the summer! :) If you've read all of these already, then please comment, because I'd love to hear from you! I hope that these suggestions deepen your faith, grow your desire for solid spiritual food, and equip you as a church leader. Youth ministry is my baby, and I'm passionate about doing everything I can to make sure that our kids are getting the best spiritual nourishment they possibly can get. Enjoy!

How to Help Southern Alberta

There are lots of ways to help out in Alberta right now! I'm frustrated because I'm limited by school, allergies, and physical limitations, but I'm trying to do what I can. Maybe this will give you some ideas for how you can help too.

YYC Helps is a website that's coordinating volunteer and donations requests. Needs seem to change from minute to minute, and they're on top of them.

The Volunteer Calgary site is similar, coordinating needs and offers.

Samaritan's Purse mobilizes mud-out units to go into communities in the days, weeks, and months following natural disasters, and stays after the media attention has died down. You can sign up for their volunteer database (physical labour or admin jobs) or make a tax deductible donation.

If you're on Twitter, check out the #yychelps hashtag for the most up-to-the-minute needs. For instance, NeighbourLink is in desperate need of pillows and bedding before 8 pm tonight. They also need hygiene items as they put together toiletry kits.

Most places are indicating that they're full up for clothing donations, although some places were still saying they need men's clothes. I'm sitting on a big pile of women's clothes (mostly business casual) I'm planning to donate to Dress for Success when I can get down there. (I have a final tomorrow! Eeep!)

There are two First Nations communities just south of Calgary, and they were hit really hard and are in need of food and water donations. A MLA in south Calgary, Jeff Wilson, is doing an amazing job of coordinating donation drop off/delivery out of his office. The city is asking people to stay off the roads as much as possible, but I was able to send a couple of boxes of food down with someone from the university who collected a whole bunch of stuff in the north west and drove it all down at once. That type of opportunity seems to form fairly quickly - stay tuned to social media for that kind of thing!

And on the topic of food, the Calgary Food Bank is busy feeding, and while donations are pouring in, there are never enough, and they need hands to help sort.

The town of Exshaw, west of Calgary, about half way to Banff, is a somewhat overlooked disaster zone. Mrs. Harper (Canada's equivalent to the First Lady) was in Exshaw today helping with cleanup, so they're getting more media attention now. I heard from a friend who has a friend who lives in Exshaw that 75% of the 400 homes have been damaged in some way, and they were (or maybe still are?) without power, running water, or any kind of sanitation. If you want to go in and help them mud-out, you have to first register with the Municipal District of Bighorn.

The city has guidelines on organizing your own clean up team, and a booklet on how to safely clean up a flood muddied house. The silt left behind can have all kinds of toxic things in it, and has to be totally removed. It's a crazy intense process - the pictures of the piles of debris along affected streets is mind-blowing.

And last, but I hope not least, our youth group/church is right by the university, where they have 400+ displaced people staying right now. We're hosting a bit of an open house on Saturday afternoon from 1-4pm for people to drop in, have a drink and a snack, and let their kids plays some games, do some crafts, and hopefully make some good memories in the midst of so much uncertainty.

If you want to help, there are dozens of ways - find your strengths and see what you can do! Clean up will be doing on for months, so don't forget about it after the news attention dies down!

Calgary Floods - Friday Night

After the sun came out yesterday evening, we walked back to the ridge to check out the river again. It was really quite beautiful!

Looking toward the mountains

 

Little island - still under water, and will be for a while!

 

There were even more people out looking around then there were in the morning.

 

Same house from the morning - looks like the water level went down a bit, but not enough to make much of a difference. It really sucks for all those people!

 

It will be days before the business core is up and running again, and months of cleanup. Trevor's gone over to a Samaritan's Purse briefing about ways to help - it's ironic that this organization usually has to deploy to other countries to help with disaster cleanup, and this time the disaster is right at home. Although on a scale of disasters, with only three confirmed deaths, the community has been quite blessed. Business will lose money, and people have lost possessions, but most people's friends and family are safe, and that's the most important thing!

 

 

The First Day of Summer, Calgary-Style

Things in Calgary are a bit discombobulated today! I've never seen anything like it - after surviving winters of -40 wind chills where the roads are dangerously icy, the trains can't run, and people still nearly kill themselves to get into downtown, I didn't think anything would just it down, but not-frozen water did it today! Low-lying neighbourhoods are evacuated, including downtown. Train tunnels into downtown are flooded, and most of the bridges are closed, as are government buildings and offices. Everyone who doesn't need to travel is being told to stay home, although of course a lot of people aren't listening...

 

We went for a walk to the top of the ridge, which is a couple of blocks from our house. We're very, very far above the water line, thankfully! There were two choppers circling around the bridges, and another one just flew over our house.



Looking west - you can see the train stopped on the bridge. The clump of trees on the river-side of the building in the top left corner is Bowness Park, which is apparently completely under water.

  

I don't think I've ever seen so many people in our park - there was a steady stream, and the parking lot was full.

 



This house usually has a nice wide lawn between it and the river. We talked about buying in that neighbourhood, but it's too far from the C-Train. VERY thankful we decided to buy at the top of the ridge instead!

 



A little island, completely submerged.

People who are out and about are tweeting lots of interesting photos. The photo of 11th Ave shows floodwaters stopping just a block away from where we used to live! The Stampede grounds are submerged, and the lower levels of the Saddledome are under water. It's all very surreal!

 

Finals and Papers, Oh My!

No post today...I have two papers due this week, and two finals next week! But after next Friday, I'm done until September and I'm really looking forward to reading and writing just for fun!

If you're looking for summer reading suggestions, the Calgary Public Library is running a thing on their Facebook page today. You give them the  last three titles you enjoyed, and they suggest one or two more they think you'll like. I'm waiting to hear back now... :)

A Bag of Hair and a Trip to Vulcan

Lots of people who haven't seen me in person have been asking for a photo of my new haircut. I give you a bag of hair, and the back of my neck. :)

I sent 12 inches of hair to 360 Hair in BC - they make wigs for children with cancer - so I'm really happy about that. And people donated $225.00 through my Canadian Cancer Society fundraising page as well. I'm THRILLED to have short hair again, so all in all, a successful endeavour, I think!

Last Saturday I went down to Vulcan with Shelli to check out the parade, visit the new Star Trek museum (but the grand opening was actually cancelled :( ), and gawk at Robert Picardo (who played The Doctor on Star Trek Voyager). He was also there with Ethan Phillips, who played Neelix.




Parade Float - it played music, and there was smoke coming out of the nacelles.



Phillps and Picardo, in a blue Mustang.
(A vintage blue Mustang convertible is my fantasy car...)



This is HILLARIOUS on so many levels...



An old-school school bus.



There were bagpipes! I didn't get a good shot of them because there were too many people in the way. :P



Picardo and Phillps clearly understand the weight of responsibility that comes with being inducted into the Star Trek Walk of Fame in Vulcan, Alberta.



They gave him a replica of a hypospray used by a Star Trek doctor. I think it might be an original series hypospray - I couldn't hear very well! But it was a very cool gift.



The tourism centre

I give you tweets, mostly by Picardo, who is HILLARIOUS. He's wearing his "You never forget your first doctor" shirt in some of these shots, which is of course a Doctor Who reference, but his Doctor was MY first Doctor, so I really appreciate it. :)

Steampunk Details!

Once upon a time I read this blog post by Jen at Epobt, and I thought it was one of the coolest things ever. I'm no where near as crafty as Jen and John are (although Trevor could be if he had as many cool toys as they do!) but I thought I'd give it a try. It took pretty much two years to pull together, thanks to school keeping me busy and me being a perfectionist whose fine motor skills don't function to perfectionist standards, but I went steampunk on the Sunday of this year's Calgary Comic Expo.

My friend Teresa Rehmann asked if I was interested in doing a photo shoot, so I ended up with some waaay better photos then I would have gotten doing them myself. :) (And she made us dinner!) All of the photos of me in this post are by Teresa! If you want to see some behind-the-scenes shots of the shoot, I've posted some here.




The ray gun is super fun! Trevor gave it to me for Christmas in 2011 - he bought a toy gun, took it apart, and spray painted it, and we added the gears on later. It makes very non-period-accurate noises, but I like it. :)
My earrings I got at Comic Expo, but I'm not entirely happy with them. Modifying them before next year is on my to do list...
I'm also wearing a watch on a chain that you can't see - Mom gave me the watch, which actually does keep accurate time, and I got a chain from Value Village for it, so I didn't keep pulling out my anachronistic cell phone to see what time it was. :)
And the hat! My mother-in-law picked it up somewhere, and while it was the general look that I wanted, what a lot of work it was trying to figure out a way to wear it...it's a burlesque dancing hat, and came with an elastic chinstrap, which was not at all the thing.



I ended up sizing a paper bowl to the opening of the hat, sewing a headband to it, and then Trevor glued it inside the rim of the hat. It took like, a year of thinking to come up with that... Sadly in the end, the hat was too heavy to stay on very well, so I only wore it for the photo shoot when I wasn't moving around much! I have NO idea how burlesque dancers would have been able to keep it on...hopefully I'll come up with a better solution in the future!
(Dax wants to know why I'm trying to take a picture of something that isn't her...)



I really like this one...it's my second favourite! This is an old building in Union Cemetery.
I'm thinking about how nice it'll be to go back to my airship and have my clockwork butler serve a cup of tea just the way I like it. :)



This one is my favourite - I love the light!
My cuff bracelet is one of the pieces I'm most happy with. I got it for a few dollars from Value Village, and it was just a tacky, battered, faux-silver discard. Add a coat of copper paint, glue on a few gears and a key charm, and voila! EXACTLY what I had in mind. The glass amber beads on copper wire, on the other wrist, were also from Value Village, and all I had to do to them was wash them. :)
The goggles were never really meant to be worn. They're the flippy-bit off a pair of welding goggles my brother gave me, painted copper (seeing a theme here?!), with some added gears, and a brass button with a military-ish logo on it. I glued gears to the sides and sewed a brown ribbon to them, for hanging them from my belt.

This is my third favourite shot! I'm aiming for the airship piloted by my arch-enemy, that French scoundrel called Jacques Pierrot.
My blouse I had in my closet - bought on a whim and never worn. The navy velvet skirt was Mom's, passed down to me randomly, and also in my closet, never worn. The black velvet vest is a total credit to my mother-in-law, who modified it from a weird sort of housecoat with odd sleeves (bought at Value Village for a few dollars...) into what is now EXACTLY what I had in mind. Why not a corset, you might ask? Well, have YOU ever tried to fight off airship pirates in a corset?

This little hat I adore - I got it at Claire's pretty cheaply, and liberally adorned it with dollar store feathers. It came with really awful fake pearls, so I chopped them off and replaced them with buttons that are shaped like gears. My friend Shelli found them in a button store in Vancouver! (She also brought me a large antique silver belt buckle that I love, but haven't found a use for...yet...)
The earrings I'm wearing in this one were a gift from my mother-in-law as well, 'Demure' by lia sophia. They're not exactly steampunk, but I like them!
I'm also wearing a vintage cameo pin, which I think Mom must have given me, but I'm not sure of its provenance at the moment.
The 'silk' parasol I got in Chinatown on a memorable rainy day...and Trevor sawed off the bamboo handle and attached a brass candlestick, and added an eye hook on the end so I can clip it to my belt or bag. (He's SO HANDY!)

The slightly 'Oriental' aspect of the costume was influenced by (a) finding a velvet jacket-thingy with a mandarin collar and clasps, (b) watching Firefly, and (c) the fact that the Opium Wars are frequently steampunked, so it all seemed to fit together rather nicely!

I still have lots of things I want to do. I'd like hot air balloon earrings like these, or maybe earrings from this Etsy vendor, I'd like to turn an old powder compact into a gage, kind of like this:

I'd like to turn some of Dad's old air force pins into a medal,

I'd like a cloak, and a white lace petticoat,

And a chatelaine,

adorned with keys and little vials, like this!

Shoes that are more steampunk would be nice too - I quite like these!

And last but not least, I would love an arm bracer! I haven't been able to find a picture of one that's exactly like what I want, but this should give you an idea, if you don't know what I'm talking about. :)

I have this 'leather' holster in brown, and I got it on a heck of a sale, but I don't love it. It's a smidge big for my ray gun, and you can't really see the gun when it's in it. So if you have any ideas on modifying it, I'd love to hear them!

Ok, there's my steampunk life! Now, back to student life...midterms start tomorrow!

Halifax, Nova Scotia

I had a conversation with a friend a few weeks ago where she asked about things to see in Nova Scotia. It got me reminiscing, so I thought I'd plot out my dream tour of Nova Scotia, if I had all the time I wanted, and money was no object. Yes, I love NS that much. Well, if money was really no object I'd probably go to Greece, but NS is pretty special!

(There are a TON of links in the post, and I think they're all pretty interesting, so take your time and go through them!)

British-flavoured NS as we know it was shaped by the Treaty of Utrecht, which referred to it (and some of some other provinces as well) as Acadia, as at that time NS was largely French. If you know ANYTHING about Canadian history, you probably know that the French and the British fought over the Atlantic coast like two siblings over the last piece of cake. This treaty-to-end-all-treaties was massive and divvied up colonial holdings all over the globe like so many Monopoly properties.

 

Downtown Halifax from the ferry

So, having an appropriate appreciation for the hundreds of years of European history in NS, start a grand tour by flying into Halifax, of course. You could probably spend a week in Halifax and only brush the surface of what's there. NS is OOZING with history, which must be where my love for it came from. The province has a chain of 27 museums, large and small, all over the province. Make sure you check out the pass that gets you into all of the museums, because if you're going to go to more than a couple, it can be a decent savings.

If you're wondering about when to go, spring through fall is the best time, but if you go late June/early July, you can catch the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo. It's kind of hard to describe, but it's sort of like the Calgary Stampede Grandstand Show meets a Celtic-influenced circus, only a gazillion times more exciting. You can see last year's promo video to get an idea of what it's like. I just went the once when I was a kid, but watching the video now takes me right back, gives me a quiver of excitement and maybe a tear or two, and the intense desire to take up Highland dancing. :)

 Probably the biggest event in Halifax history is the Halifax Explosion. Until Hiroshima, it was the largest man-made explosion ever. It was during WWI, when a couple of ships (one of them loaded with munitions) collided in the Halifax Harbour. It was tragic, and scars of it are still everywhere. It was a powerful force in shaping Halifax to be the city it is today. The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is the best place to learn about Halifax, and a must-see. Even if you're not really into museums you'll find fun things there. I recommend starting all of your touring of Halifax here, because it will change the way you view the city, and make your experience there all the more rich!

I mean, when you walk into a museum and are greeted by a dead pirate, you know you're in a quality establishment...

They have a huge Titanic exhibit, as well as lots and lots of ships - big and small. When I was a kid they had an old surveying ship permanently docked there, and they did summer camps on it where you could learn to tap out your name in Morse Code and eat weevil biscuits (gingersnaps) and drink grog (hot chocolate). It's the little things in life...

Just down the waterfront is the Canadian Museum of Immigration is at Pier 21 on the Halifax waterfront. I've never actually been there, because it opened since I moved away. But it's on my list next time I go back...it's also a prime place to do genealogy research.

Near Pier 21 is Alexander Keith's brewery. The tour is super fun, winding up in an old pub with samples of the brew, staff in costume, and music. Even though I don't like beer at all, I quite enjoyed the tour. (Tip: the Keith's pottery/glassware is nice, but EXPENSIVE. Go to Value Village instead and look for some gently used pottery instead. Second-hand shopping in NS is da BOMB - they're big into the 3Rs there!)

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia has two locations - one in Halifax, and one in Yarmouth to which I've never been. If you go on a Thursday evening, admission to the museum is free! My favourite part of the AGNS is their Maud Lewis exhibit. She was a NS folk artist who did amazing work, and after she died, they put her WHOLE HOUSE in the art gallery. It's definitely worth going on a Thursday evening just to see that.

The 'crowning glory' (haha!) of Halifax is Citadel Hill. You don't necessarily need to pay the admission and go into the fort, but you should at LEAST go up the hill and look at the view. If you go at noon, they fire the cannon everyday, which, at least as a child, was very exciting. Also check out the round clock tower, one of three significant round structures in Halifax.

St. George's Round Church is a really cool building near the foot of the Hill. In 1994, the year we left Halifax, it caught fire and was really badly damaged. I've never actually been in it, but I need to do that one of these days!

If you're near Citadel Hill, and want a place to sit down and rest, or eat a picnic lunch, the Public Gardens are the place to go. Bikes, pet, and jogging are forbidden, and there's often music in the bandstand, which gives it an othertimely air. There are also ducks, and I really like ducks. :)

Source

I used to call the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History the Frog Museum, because of the GINORMOUS frog statue clinging to the outside of the building. I'm not sure if the frog is there or not, but the very same tortoise has been living in the lobby since at least when I was 9. The geology gallery has always been my favourite. I'm pretty sure it's to blame for all the rocks I have in my library...

An interesting bit of Halifax history that I heard of since I moved away is about Africville. I don't remember Africville from when I was a kid, but now that I'm an adult, it really intrigues me. If I had access to university archives in Halifax, I would definitely research it. I'm not sure if it's something that's not really talked about there, or if it didn't have reason to cross my pre-teen radar, but I WANT TO KNOW!

Province House is the old Provincial Legislature building and has beautiful architecture and artwork. When I went there with Mom she saw her MLA, which was sort of fun! It makes government feel very accessible, and the guards are pretty friendly if you chat with them.

Halifax is home to one of Canada's two major naval bases, and the Maritime Command Museum is worth a visit if you're a huge history geek like me. (Although at this exact moment the website doesn't seem to be working, so double-check before you try to visit it...I haven't been there in years.)

Still in Halifax proper, but further away from the downtown core is Point Pleasant Park. It's a beautiful place to spend an afternoon. It's HUGE - 77 hectares. In the summer, you can see Shakespeare by the Sea. The park is home to a Martello tower, the third round structure I mentioned. It also has a ruined fort and some other interesting features that make my inner archaeologist salivate. If you've read Anne of the Island by Lucy Maude Montgomery, you might get a little thrill out of knowing that Point Pleasant is the park that Anne walks in, and Dalhouise is her university. (And I JUST discovered that the Halifax library has a literary walking tour guide!! Ahhh!!!)

Because Halifax was a major colonial-era military power, there are a lot of old forts scattered around the city, and the province. York Redoubt is the home of well-maintained historical decay, part of the Halifax Defence Complex, and has a beautiful view of the Harbour.

Point Pleasant and York Redoubt are near-ish to each other, and so is the Sir Sandford Fleming Park (he was best remembered for spearheading worldwide standard time), and the Dingle Memorial Tower, which is a cool piece of architecture.

The Bedford Institute of Oceanography is on the Bedford Basin part of the Halifax Harbour and has a lot of interesting information on how humanity affects natural resources, a sea pavilion with a touch tank, guided tours of the research being done, and fascinating images of the bottom of the Harbour. I really love it there - and I took Trevor once, and I don't think he was totally bored... :)

The Shubenacadie Canal once linked the Halifax Harbour and the Bay of Fundy. Restoration work is under way, but parts of it are still open for canoeing or kayaking, and portions of it in and around Halifax have walking paths. If you want to get out of downtown Halifax and experience a more rural setting, following the canal will lead you to all sorts of interesting and beautiful spots.

When I was a kid Dad was stationed at the Shearwater air force base, and now my brother volunteers at the Shearwater Aviation Museum when he has time (and he worked there for a couple of summers, too!) so I'm kind of attached to it. My brother helped with the Swordfish and the T-33 that are on display, and interestingly the T-33, also known as the T-Bird, was the type of plane Dad flew in back in the day. Simon checked though, and that specific T-Bird wasn't one that Dad flew in. T-Birds have a pylon thingy on each wing tip (I'm sure there's a technical name for it...) that from on the ground when they fly over head looks like the S-foils on an X-Wing. Just FYI...

Fisherman's Cove, just across the harbour from Halifax and near Shearwater, is a beautiful little fishing village with a boardwalk, and it's the best place EVER to get fish and chips. The community is called Eastern Passage, because it's on the eastern side of Lawlor Island. It has some neat wartime and pre-war history, as well as some connections to the Halifax Explosion (see the Hydrostone neighbourhood in Halifax, which has some cute shops, including one that has steampunk jewellery that I'm dying to check out). And of course now that I've implied that the Hydrostones were built out of Eastern Passage sand, I can't actually find proof of that anywhere. Sadly, it must have been childhood lore.

Fishing boats in Eastern Passage
photo by Chris Rehmann

In Fisherman's Cove, the tourist info place can hook you up with a guy with a boat who will ship you out to McNab's Island, drop you off at one end, and come back later to pick you up at the other end. Given that's the only way on and off the island, the beachcombing is prime, and the 'urban' decay is amazing.

Old Fort McNab

It's a beautiful walk, and although Halifax Harbour is a busy seaport, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. It's an amazing place!

George's Island

George's Island is easily visible from the ferry between Halifax and Dartmouth, and I'd love to go there, although access is limited. Another island of note in the Halifax Harbour is Devil's Island, which has a fascinating history. I have a thing for islands. :) There's a guided tour of Gorge's Island coming up this summer, put on by the Halifax Citadel, and I'd give my eyeteeth to go on it! Unfortunately, no one wants my eyeteeth badly enough to pay for airfare to NS, which is the great drawback to living in a country that's so spread out. :P

If you're looking for a place to stay in the Halifax area, I recommend The Inn at Fisherman's Cove. I haven't stayed there myself, but Dad has. It's right on the harbour in Eastern Passage, and is perfectly located for easy access to downtown Halifax via the passenger ferry. (Can you imagine having to take a BOAT as part of your everyday commute? I would so be all over that!)

If you don't find a souvenir in the artists' co-op in Fisherman's Cove, going over to Bedford to visit Clayworks is worth the trip if you like local pottery. I have a few of her pieces that I love. Her hours seem sporadic, so call first!

For food, I recommend the donair pizza at Pizza Delight - there are a few of them around the city. It's an Eastern Canadian chain that I miss! Stayner's Wharf is right by the passenger ferry in Halifax, and has great atmosphere, and I'm told they have great chowder, although I haven't tried it myself. The Lower Deck is a very popular pub with a good reputation, although I haven't eaten there, I don't think. I've only been to the Old Triangle once, but the music was memorable. And speaking of music, the Mellotones definitely worth tracking down wherever they're playing, and so are Sons of Maxwell.

Source

And last but not least, what's a trip to the coast without BEACHES?! I haven't been to Crystal Crescent since I was a very little kid, but I remember the beautiful white sand. Apparently there's a family section of the beach, and a nudist section of the beach, so be warned! :P Rainbow Haven is the one I go to most often, because it's not far from where Mom lives, and it's very beautiful, although there's not much in the way of beachcombing because it's protected by reefs far out. Lawrencetown Beach is a bit further away, but the drive is lovely and the people watching is great - it's a prime spot for crazy surfers. There's also a cute tea room, the MacDonald House, up on the hill and it's got an art gallery and an antique store.

I've never really been a fan of lake beaches, but I just found one called Chocolate Lake, so I'm adding that to my list of things to see next time I'm there...

I hope this has given you a taste of my love for Halifax, the variety of things to see and do, an idea of the enormous range of history, and the burning urge to go experience it all for yourself. :) And now that I look at all of this, I have no idea how I thought I could get all of NS into one blog post...yeesh!

And I really hope you're still reading...that's a lot of links...I couldn't even include all the tags I wanted to because I hit the character limit...

I leave you with this video of a band performing 'Barrett's Privateers', which is set in Halifax, originally written by the late and great Stan Rogers, who wrote this in the mid 1970s, but managed to make it sound much, much older. This is a really fun bouncy version - enjoy! :)

Edited Feb 1, 2017 to add:

Scott Manor House was a happy discovery last time I was home. Tucked away at the very top of the Bedford Basin, they offered a very nice afternoon tea.