Passing Gas

I recently moved to Calgary (aka Cow Town aka Boom Town aka Gold Rush aka Dallas of the North aka aka Foothills City and if you are lost, ask for the home of Da Flames) from Ontario (out here referred to as "the east").

I've been roaming around this city for the last 3 months, getting to know its pulse, its smells, its colours, its flavours. However, I wasn't quite feeling it. My senses were pleasantly surprised by some elements, but the undercurrent was not within my reach. And then I ended up at a dinner party. As we go around from person to person inquiring where we are from (a great Canadian custom since it is at the core of our identity that nobody is from where they actually are), I meet Scott. Scott just returned from traveling - so he has this lazy slash pleasantly crazed look in his eyes. I asked Scott what he was doing in Calgary - he leaned in and very earnestly responded "I'm passing gas". I blushed (not Scott, me). Oh...but really, what do you do?. 'No really', he kept on (earnstly) 'yes, I work in the oil and gas industry (stock market analyst of some sort)' he starts with bored matter of fact tone '...but really, I pass gas all day'. Nothing that a little Cuban Rum won't cure. But there it was - I felt a pulse....

So, I'm starting this blog because, well, I have this opportunity to spend sometime in Calgary and the Western end of this massive piece of land. When in Canada, most of my life I has been lived in Ontario and I have aquired a mildly "ontario-centric"perspective, particularly about regions of this country that are far away from Ontario. So this is a challenge to myself - to check out the sterotypes and to confirm or deny them; to bring out the undercurrent that exists here; to see how the landscape (human and otherwise) changes as the miles from the central pulse (that is Ontario, or rather Toronto) increase; to tap into those boring old questions of "what is Canadiana?".

In a city whose downtown is dominated by modern day momumental high rise structures that leave me with an impression of competing phalluses, a city in the midst of a gold rush, and a city whose culture is undeniable affected by the cowboy culture that is deeply entrenched here...I think the potential for adventure exists.