Things that go crash in the night

At about 2:00 AM on Monday morning (AKA Sunday night) Jeannette and I were startled from sleep by a loud noise.  While both of us were immediately awoken there was some disagreement about the source of the sound.

I was of the opinion that the sound was that of something falling outside, though I couldn't imagine what that could possibly be given what I know of the area surrounding our bedroom window.  Jeannette, alternatively, was of the opinion that the sound was that of a car crash.

Being the attentive husband that I am (and also being interested in the source of the sound) I went to our bedroom window to see if I could see what had happened.

Just as I arrived I saw and heard a car speeding away.  Because it was dark all I could see of the car were its tail lights and general shape (probably a hatch back).  And the area from which the car was departing did not appear particularly disturbed.

As I couldn't determine the source of the noise and as nothing more appeared to be afoot we tried to return to sleep.  After a period of time we were successful.

By the next morning I'd inadvertently managed to put the whole incident out of my head.  Instead of dwelling on the strange events of the night before I made coffee, ate breakfast, showered, and prepared for work.  

It was only as I was starting my walk to work that I was reminded of the events of the previous night because of the presence of a police car, a neighbour sweeping up smashed car debris, and a newly totalled car.  Apparently Jeannette had been right to place the sound as a car crash.

Though the neighbour sweeping the debris lives much closer to the site of the accident she had not actually heard the event the previous evening so by speaking to the police officer I was at least able to provide an approximate time and semi-description of the vehicle.  Based on my exchanges with our neighbour and the police officer I also got the sense that the neighbours whose car had been hit had also managed to sleep through the event and hadn't learned anything was amiss until just a few minutes before I came on the scene.  I also learned that, perhaps not surprisingly, that this looked like the work of a drunk driver.

Despite the fact that this was a fair bit more excitement than our quiet neighbourhood is used to, I haven't heard much discussion of the event.  I am starting to think that most people slept through the original event and then weren't out on the street early enough to see the police presence and car removal.

This event taken with our own car troubles last weekend are leaving me with the impression that we might be best not to park on the street unless its absolutely unavoidable.

A Few Quick Notes 537

-We are presently in the midst of another grey day in Halifax. Fortunately, at least so far today doesn't seem quite as rainy as yesterday was.

-Shortly after I woke up this morning I was sitting at my desk checking my email when I noticed a German shepherd-like dog walk past my window. A few moments later the dog was followed by his two police handlers. Though the dog was sniffing aggressively I got the sense that they didn't find whatever it was they were looking for.

-Apparently 'Steven' Harper is finally coming to Nova Scotia for a rally today. Of course because it is in Windsor instead of Halifax I won't even be able to consider attending, and I have no idea whether or not it will be open to the public or not - or if prospective attendees will have to register in advance and then be screened.

-There is a pretty good sale today at Strange Adventures in Halifax. I bought a copy of Power Grid and an expansion map.

A Few Quick Notes 404

-Today has been a little chilly, though this hasn't really been much of a problem for me as I spent most of the day indoors. More problematic is that it has also been somewhat overcast, which certainly makes things less pleasant than the need to be.

-I haven't yet figured out what Wednesday night's police action was. I was hoping that it would show up in their daily update blog but it seems not to have made the cut.

-Yesterday we had chicken pot pie for dinner while I went with shepherd's pie tonight. What's up with all of the not-pie pies? Am I going to have to make a regular fruit pie just to balance things out?

-It seems that the Association of Canadian Archivists will be holding their conference in Halifax this summer. The upside of this being the case is that at least one friend of mine from library school, Mary, will be making the trip East to attend the conference. I am hoping that a few more of the archives students may also make the trip, though I didn't see any their names on the conference program.

-Halifax is hosting this year's Brier. Neil attended the first round of this year's Ford Hot Shots this afternoon at the Metro Centre. We have tickets for two games on Sunday. The plan is that Rebecca and I will each attend one game while Neil will go to both of them.

I recently realized that I haven't yet asked Neil if he got a chance to see K-Mart (Kevin Martin) and team while he was attending this afternoon's festivities. Apparently they, along with their gold medals, were to be part of the event and available to sign autographs (I imagine that Neil might have also been able to ask K-Mart what he thinks of the nickname 'K-Mart').

-I should get back to work.

Police Action

A few minutes ago I started hearing something that sounded like a walkie-talkie transmission. Moments later I saw what looked like guys with flashlights poking around in the area outside my bedroom window. Eventually I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be police uniforms. It seems that our neighbourhood (deep in Halifax's South End) is in the midst of a police ground search. I can't say that I find it particularly comforting to know that they keep coming back to the patch of ground just outside my window, and then leaving without seeming to have achieved anything. I guess I will have to read the Halifax police blog to try to figure out what they were doing in the neighbourhood.

Clips from Habs Celebration

Below are a few clips that were filmed during the victory celebrations that transpired after the victory by the Habs in game 7 of the first round of the play-offs.

The first clips are of the crowd and festivities before the riot police started to break things up. The latter clips are of the initiation of street clearing tactics by the riot police.













[Embedded video]

A Few Quick Notes 140

-Today has been another cool, clear day. As there hasn’t been all that much wind the cool temperatures have not been all that problematic.

-At about 1:00 AM last night about 10 police cars, with their lights flashing, congregated on the corner of Milton and Parc. Neither Nithum nor I could figure out what was going on.

It seems that the cars raced to the location with their sirens blaring and lights flashing, only to stop at the aforementioned location. Once there, cars were able to pass without interruption on Parc, and weave through from Milton to Parc.

For about 15 minutes the police cars just seemed to sit near the corner, lights flashing. Then the police cars, without a reason being obvious, left as quickly as they arrived.

-Yesterday morning I baked two loaves of bread for breakfast. Though I have now done this on a multiple of occasions, I hope that I soon learn that bread really takes to long to prepare to be considered a appropriate thing to make for breakfast.

-Today, for no apparent reason, I baked some raspberry almond bars. Maybe later this evening I will try to sample this batch.

-Several days ago I moved my bike from street level to our balcony. A few days after that I moved my bike from our balcony to our living room. For the past number of days it has been sitting below our living room window, not particularly doing much of anything.

As the bike has been doing much these days, except taking up space, and as we don’t have a Christmas tree, nor as we likely to obtain one, I requested Nithum’s permission to decorate the bike in a seasonal fashion. Nithum OKed the idea and I have since started to adorn the bike with paper snowflakes, Christmas lights, and our lone commercially produced ornament.

-Today I read that there are 82 000 000 people in Germany and 79 000 000 cell phones. I also learned that Austria, Belgium, and China are Germany’s three largest trading partners.

-It seems that in the past few years I have started to combine foods in a frying based almost solely on availability. For instance, tonight for dinner I took out the frying pan threw in red onions, garlic, mashed potatoes, couscous, celery, and wiener schnitzel. Though I was satisfied with the result I can’t imagine that I will ever encounter it again (except the portion that was leftover and that I will eat either tonight or tomorrow).

A Few Quick Notes 63

-The so-called snowstorm did not really materialize, instead we had a pretty standard issue snow fall. If we had the slightly stronger winds of today and snowfall rate of about 9:00 PM last night we might have been able to get something going, but alas, Quebec weather let me down again. So far today has been a pretty standard winter day, clear skies, a bit of wind, and about -15.

-On my way to school today I turned the corner from Lorne onto Milton and almost walked into a paddy-wagon like vehicle. I then noticed some police tape as well as a few other cop cars. Immediately I tried to figure out what had happened. The police tape was a good indication of the location of the incident, though it was not immediately clear exactly what had happened. As I got closer, I noticed that there was a piece of yellow plastic on the ground, held down by various household objects. Around the sheet of plastic there appeared to be red splotches in the snow.

When I arrived in class it turned out that a classmate of mine had walked by a few minutes after me. By the time that she walked past the plastic sheet had been removed, but the vehicles were still present.

After class, when I walked by again it seemed that most of the scene was back to normal, except the red splotches in the snow.

-A news reader on CBC just talked about “explosive experts” being called into deal with a bomb threat in Quebec City. This doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. If you think that there are explosives present why would you bring in even more.

-I love that North Korea was able to negotiate its way out of the Axis of Evil, I always thought that the list had more integrity than that.

-As you may have already been aware, Neil should be here in a few hours.

-I need to work on my assignment.