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End of June family party all bundled up!
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Smoke Show - blech!

Here's a rant for ya.

Last weekend, Forestville was host to the 'forestvill toasté' event. Junior hockey ass'n sort of asked/obliged us to volunteer for the event in the food area - hotdogs and beer.... so dragging our feet a little, we went. I was curious about what a smoke show was, explanations hinted at cars doing some simple stunts while spinning their tires and it gave off a fair amount of smoke.

Once there, we discovered that the price for entry was a whopping $15 which is more than most events cost out here. luckily (?) we were volunteering and so, got in for free.

It seemed that I was an extra volunteer and not immediately needed so while daniel got to the hotdogs and started cooking, i stood around and looked to see what all the fuss was about. what a disappointment.

What the show was all about was smoke. ok, i can deal with that but, the smoke was created by cars/trucks/ 4x4's... coming into the 'ring', some being attached by a strap to ensure that they didn't move too much and then spinning their back tires until they popped or shredded and sent pieces of hot rubber out into the coughing and applauding crowd.

My big problem here was first that i saw women with strollers and very young children at the show - with faces in the smoke! (it was tough to avoid it due to changing wind directions...) also, all the kids in general present standing on benches to see better and be in the clouds of burn rubber stinking smoke and also, that it was the junior hockey ass'n as well as the local gymnastics club that did the majority of jobs to be done at an event like that. what kind of model are we giving to our kids to support such a stupid, unhealthy and terrible event?

this town is called forestville. kinda inspires thoughts of nature, trees, healthy living....
in our 'newspaper' we see lots of stuff about recycling, govm't subsidies for various earth healthy projects ect. happening in our area. Then, there's this contradiction of a show happening. it polluted out air, i mean, there's a reason why we cant just burn our old tires in the back yard when we want to now isn't there? what do they think was happening when the tires were spinning and creating sparks (and fire in 2 instances) and smoking? i'm sure someone somewhere thought it must be good for our ozone layer!

This was a disgusting example of 'fun' at an irresponsible price and i am ashamed to live in a place that would host this kind of activity! I know that these things happen all over the place and probably too in toronto, but i my case, my ignorance was bliss and for every activity, there had to be people opposing it (that's life in the city folks!) but here, no one seems to have said 'boo' about this.

photos: various machines participating, the snow mobile was turned on and revved at full capacity at the same time as the pick-up under it. note the debris on the tarmac that had to be swept off to the side after almost each vehicle!

gross and very sad are my last comments about this particular experience of life out here. maybe i'll go plant a few trees next week to feel better about what i witnessed last week.

track and field comp.

Jérémy competed in his first track and field competition a few weeks ago. This was his first time, he was among the youngest competitors and it was cold while we were there - despite it being very warm and pleasant in Forestville.

While there are no pics of his sprints (due to photographer stupidity!), the javellin ones are here for posterity!

here are a few photo highlights from then, all taken on my cell phone so, don't diss the quality!