Cal's Journal

We walked into the South Okanagan Event Centre and the air was filled with energy and excitement. The flow of people mingled toward their seats and loud booming rock thundered all around. After two cancelations and two years of hesitation, another rock concert was lifting off in the sleepy city of Penticton. There was very little sleep taking place in the areas near the event centre. We were filled with a sense of excitement as the first act Aryen Jones Read more…

Heat simmered off the asphalt and enveloped his body like a warm demonic hug. People walked by in various stages of undress, the extreme temperatures showered them like a sauna where only the tiniest bits of fabric were required.  Young women of various shapes and sizes flaunted their bosoms and their buns, little was left to the imagination. Barrman parked his motorcycle and dismounted, careful not to be too distracted by the carnival-like atmosphere. He was at the waterfront parking Read more…

What fills your cup?  What things in life make your soul sing and make your heart feel complete? We must never lose the things in life that make us smile, that make our life worth living. It is too easy to forget them and live the day-to-day repetitious existence.  Sometimes our cups get filled with so many things they over-flow. That’s when things get spilled. And life can get messy. My cup has been full of so many things lately Read more…

Dark clouds hovered ominously over Okanagan Lake. The sky had patches of blue that gave promise of sunshine but grey and black storm clouds swirled above. Along with the clouds came a steady breeze that whipped across the lake. I departed my boat slip in Peachland and set out across the choppy waters. The wind pushed the boat forward on top of the churning waves.  It was a forty-minute ride across the lake to pick up my intrepid group of Read more…

Recession. A scarier word than pandemic – almost.  And it is what our country and the world are in the grip of. Or so the media tells us. The reality is much more bizarre… And complicated. I have watched the phones for my business go silent. People suddenly are not booking lake tours, and I have wondered why? So I went to my local hotels, and B and B’s in search of new customers. The word is the same at Read more…

Barrman, Kaydee, Crispee and Cookster sat looking skyward in anticipation. It was 13:00 hours and the show was scheduled to begin at any moment. The four friends gathered on the old ferry wharf across from downtown Kelowna and awaited the return of Canada’s aerobatic finest. The crowd had gathered on the ferry wharf, and the day’s heat warmed the ground below. But the hot temperatures of the afternoon sun weren’t the only thing warming people who were looking to the Read more…

It’s back…  What’s back you may ask? Music in the park in West Kelowna is back. Westside Daze returned after a three-year hiatus and it came back to life with the glorious sounds of musical joy. The midway was packed with laughing kids and the bandstand was full of talented people filling the park with the refreshing sounds of Elton John. Andrew Johns led a very talented group of musicians in a two-hour tribute to the piano man at the Read more…

Happy 155th Birthday to our home and native land. It was August 1864 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, the beginning of a nation was born. It would take three years of negotiations that would culminate in the birth of Canada on July 1, 1867.  There were many reasons that Canada first came together as an independent country. Great Britain was afraid of American expansionism and the threat of a newly ‘United’ States of America that had a large army and Read more…

Summer arrived in full force and the timing couldn’t have been better. We were registered for a golf tournament and the day couldn’t have been more perfect.  I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to golf in the tourney until the last moment. We’d signed up for the Gonzo Okanagan tournament scheduled for September 2021. At that time we’d hoped the pandemic which had paralyzed the world was over and we were headed back to normal.  We were Read more…

Summer arrived in all it’s rainy glory. Alas on the first official day of summer the mysterious golden globe in the sky made a rare appearance in our valley.  What a difference a year makes. One year ago we were “suffering” in what the so-called experts termed a heat dome. When I was young we called it a heat wave. I’m not sure what changed to make it a heat dome but the results were the same. Man, was it Read more…