The Rural Alberta Advantage

The Rural Alberta Advantage is a Canadian indie rock band that formed in 2005. Based in Toronto, Ontario, the band consists of Paul Banwatt, Amy Cole and Nils Edenloff.

First formed in 2005, the band released a demo tape and an EP independently before completing their first full-length album, Hometowns, in early 2008. Hometowns was recorded and produced from April 2007 to March 2008 by Roger Leavens at BoomBox Sound in Toronto, Ontario. The band toured extensively across Canada, including shows at the Pop Montreal and Halifax Pop Explosion festivals, to support Hometowns.

The band was selected as eMusic’s featured artist of the month for November 2008. The band subsequently signed to Saddle Creek Records in 2009, and the label will be rereleasing Hometowns in July.

Via: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rural_Alberta_Advantage

Links:
http://www.theraa.com/
http://www.myspace.com/theraa
http://www.chartattack.com/news/69142/rural-alberta-advantage-sign-to-saddle-creek
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ipickmynose/3377217369/

mmmm Fully Loaded Tea

For the past few months I have been enjoying this tea I found, Fully loaded Tea. I was attracted to it first by the packaging then the name. i Guessed Fully loaded meant extra caffeine.

It turns out that it actually means fully loaded with flavor. I have had all sorts of tea’s from bags to loose, Cheep to expensive. This tea is honestly one of my favorites. The first tea i tried was the Goji Force Green Tea containing green tea leaves, natural flavors, goji berries, lingonberries, rose petals, blue mallow flowers. It was smooth and required no sugar or honey. Some Green teas have a slight grassy taste, this is not the case, every flavor is identifiable.

I also tried the Citrus Spiked Black Tea containing black tea leaves, orange peel, orange flowers, safflowers, blue mallow flowers, natural flavors. Again this tea was very tasty, i like this one better with a small amount of honey.

Production has finally started, but not without a couple of snags. Regular teabags couldn’t hold the huge pieces of fruits, berries, and tealeaves in our blends. Luckily, we found finely woven pyramid-shaped bags to hold all the ingredients. And we discovered that running the packing machine twice as slow gave it more time to pack in all the ingredients. After facing all these problems, it seemed quite fitting to call our company “Fully Loaded Tea”.

http://fullyloadedtea.com/story/

Oh and they are Canadian! Go out find some, steep it and enjoy!

Visit - http://www.fullyloadedtea.com/

Canada targeting dirty two-stroke engines

I found this interesting, if you were to run your lawn mower for about 1 hour it will produce about the same amount of pollution as a car that has driven 500km.

Using a two-stroke lawn mower to cut a decent-sized lawn can produce as much smog-forming pollution as driving a modern car from Ottawa to Toronto.

If Canada wants to have the average household drop there green house emissions then lets have a look at some flexible numbers.

It took me 1hr to mow my parents law, thats 50′ x 100′ lot, thats more or less the average size of an older lot in Edmonton (before the housing boom) so in that hour the lawn mower potentially released as much pollution as driving a modern car 500km. The grass usually gets cut at least once a week. So in a month thats 2000km most people don’t drive that much in city conditions.

It make sense for Canadians to look into more efficient small engines, i would assume this would account for small boats, dirt bikes, chain saws, and land escaping equipment.

People also seam to want the perfect golf course looking law, cutting the grass so its 1″ long. Believe it or not having your lawn cut that short will cause the lawn to loose moisture and is actually hard on the grass. Remember its a plant, grass grows long, so leave it longer. This will allow it to shade its self keeping i’m moisture and reducing your water bill.

Source:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/?/news/2001/03/26/ott_lawnmowers010326

Dan Barham

I had the pleasure of working with Dan Barham a few years ago in the bike shop. Dan a guy new to Canada from England. He came here in January, were he was introduced to winter. As i got to know Dan i found out he was a pro mountain bike photographer from over the pond. Since then Dan has moved over to North Vancouver were he is now close the the Canadian mountain biking Mecca. I was brought back to Dans site almost by chance and i noticed it has been updated.

I felt it was worth mentioning to take a look: http://www.danbarham.com

Oh Canada!

Well it’s that great time of year were Canada celebrates its independence from Brighton, with the signing of the proclamation by the Governor General, Lord Monck. On June 20, 1868 Her Majesty called upon all her loving subjects throughout Canada to join in the celebration of the anniversary of the formation of the union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of Canada on July 1^st.

Official Lyrics of O Canada!

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Here is a song by Five Iron Frenzy that I think you will enjoy.

Read on..

Urban adventures

Ok, so in Edmonton and some other Canadian cities there is a daily newspaper called DOSE it’s got what’s going on here and there with all the little things you might want to know about. Back to the point, there was an article on urban infiltration, as in people exploring every inch of there city and getting photographs off the beaten path. So that got me looking into other sites. This brings me to Daily Photography by Kendall Anderson. This site is full of fascinating pictures of the forgotten industrial buildings and surroundings of everyday life. Many of them look like people just walked off the job and the buildings were left to there own destruction. It makes me want to go out and search for more buildings, as far as I know this was the only one I could find.