Sarcee Meadows Housing Coop Construction

On By Rick McIn good news, government, McCharles familyLeave a comment

For decades my family has had a place in Sarcee Meadows Coop in Calgary.

My Dad ran their maintenance department for years. Later, my brother Rob took over.

My brother Randy and his partner Val live in the Coop now.

I post as there is a massive construction renovation happening. All units are getting new front and back decks. And I saw plenty of work being done on the roofs, siding with new insulation, windows and doors.

All good ➙ BUT it’s a mess while under construction.

It’s a massive complex.

I recall playing tag in the original construction site when we were kids. It opened 1971.

It’s a Trudeau era non-profit housing cooperative. In 2025 it might just be the best value housing in Calgary. Here are the benefits for tenants. This coop worked. Socialism at its best.

Here are a few photos of the mess in C block May 2025. 😀

Sometimes you really don’t want to see how the sausage is made. 😀

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

Another book where young people kill one another. These are shockingly successful.

… Sunrise on the Reaping contains enough both to snare new readers and to satisfy the most bloodthirsty fans.
Guardian review

Sunrise on the Reaping (2025) is a dystopian novel by American author Suzanne Collins.

… the second prequel novel to the original The Hunger Games trilogy, following The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020). …

Set 24 years before the events of the first novel, the narrative delves into themes of political manipulation, the power of propaganda, and the complexities of societal control under a totalitarian regime and centers on the 50th Hunger Games …

We are cheering:

  • Haymitch Abernathy – male tribute from District 12
  • Maysilee Donner – female tribute from District 12

Needless to say, this book is a huge hit, the biggest debut for any title in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series.

Woody Harrelson plays Haymitch in the Catching Fire film. … Many years later.

Joseph Zada and Woody

The next will star Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy & Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner.

Dark Harbor by Stuart Woods

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Dark Harbor (2006) is another fun, quick read.

Stone Barrington hasn’t heard from his cousin, Dick Stone, in years.

Then, an otherwise pleasant meal at Elaine’s is interrupted by the CIA with news of Dick’s death—apparently by his own hand.

It seems that Dick Stone, a quiet family man who doubled as a CIA agent, methodically executed his wife, daughter, and then himself…or did he?

Appointed executor of Dick’s will, Stone must settle the estate and—with the help of his ex-partner Dino and friend Holly Barker—piece together the elusive facts of his cousin’s life and death as a CIA operative.

As usual, womanizing gets Barrington in a lot of trouble.



Two-Dollar Bill by Stuart Woods

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Two-Dollar Bill (2005) is one of the most unlikely plots in the Stone Barrington series.

Not long after Stone and his ex-partner Dino make the acquaintance of Billy Bob—a smooth-talkin’ Texan packing a wad of rare two-dollar bills—someone takes a shot at them.

Against his better judgment, Stone offers Billy Bob a safe haven for the night but almost immediately regrets it. The slippery out-of-towner has gone missing and someone has been found dead—in Stone’s town house no less.

Now, Stone is now stuck between a stunning federal prosecutor and a love from his past, a con man with more aliases than hairs on his head, and a murder investigation that could ruin them all.

Trump declares MARTIAL LAW. “Postpones” Elections.

On By Rick McIn bad news, economics, GOP USA, government, human rights, Islam, things getting worseLeave a comment

An international crisis. Trump uses the excuse to declare martial law in the USA.

He suspends civilian legal processes. Commander in Chief Trump and the U.S. Military are in charge.

It could happen.

The martial law concept in the United States is closely tied with the right of habeas corpus, which is in essence the right to a hearing on lawful imprisonment, or more broadly, the supervision of law enforcement by the judiciary.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday lent some support to calls to suspend habeas corpus as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown after aide Stephen Miller said the White House was considering the idea.

The Hill – May 14, 2025

We know Trump wants to be a Royal like murdering dictator-for-life MBS in Saudi Arabia.

Trump’s first international visit?

To the nation of bin Laden. 15 of the 19 terrorists in 911 were from Saudi Arabia.

Is this really America First? It looks like Trump First.

You know Elon Musk would be 100% supportive of declaring martial law. He’s already openly emulating Hitler who did exactly this in Germany ➙ February 28, 1933, effectively suspended many constitutional rights, creating a state of emergency and giving the Nazis significant control.

Here’s the best discussion on this issue, I’ve seen. Timothy Snyder is an American historian who’s an expert in Tyranny.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

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John Sandford’s introduction of Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers was an immediate critical and popular success …

Indeed, he’s my favourite of the Sandford characters.

It’s a hot, humid summer night in Minnesota, and Flowers is in bed with one of his ex-wives (the second one, if you’re keeping count), when the phone rings. It’s Lucas Davenport. There’s a body in Stillwater — two shots to the head, found near a veteran’s memorial. And the victim has a lemon in his mouth.

Exactly like the body they found last week.

The more Flowers works the murders, the more convinced he is that someone’s keeping a list, and that the list could have a lot more names on it. If he could only find out what connects them all . . . and then he does, and he’s almost sorry he did. …

JohnSandford.com

A Meditation on Murder by Susan Joby

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Book #1 in this series was excellent ➙ Mindful of Murder.

For me, Meditation on Murder is not quite as good. But still worth reading.

Butler-detective Helen Thorpe returns to help a wannabe influencer get her life in order—and solve the murders of her fellow content creators …

When Buddhist butler Helen Thorpe is loaned out to help Cartier Hightower get her life in order, Helen finds herself working for a young woman entirely unbound by the fetters of good taste or sound judgment.

One of Cartier’s fellow content creators has recently died in a strange accident. Soon after Helen arrives, another is killed in an equally bizarre way.

Cartier begins to drag Helen around on the influencer circuit, where neither of them is particularly welcome. Then comes the terrible incident at the EDM nightclub that turns Cartier into a global pariah, at least according to social media.

Helen hopes a period of simplicity and reflection and an internet detox will help Cartier find her true nature and maybe acquire some social graces. But Helen’s job getsmuch harder when Cartier’s friends show up at the lavish ranch where Cartier and Helen have retreated.

Soon, Helen finds herself trying to avoid becoming Instafamous while bringing some peace to a girl who very much needs it. This task turns out to be even more impossible when it becomes clear that they have been followed to Weeping Creek Ranch by a murderer. 

Juby is a creative writing professor at Vancouver Island University, in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

My 50th High School Reunion

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Our thanks to the 2025 Viscount Bennett High School reunion organizers, Rod Peterson and Dayle Conlin.

They host a reunion in May each year at Schanks Sports Grill in Calgary.

It’s open to all Viscount grads, teachers, from any year — and any +1 who wants to come along and shoot the breeze with ol’ timers.

After 25 years or more, former classmates look familiar — but I usually couldn’t quickly come up with their names. 😀

I attended Viscount Bennett High School in Calgary, graduating 1975.

Due to the area’s ageing population and the opening of other high schools nearby, after only 30 years Viscount Bennett closed in 1985.

Ron, Brian and myself were organizers of the 2000 reunion which was hosted in the old school — at that time a continuing education institution. 

The day before the 2025 reunion, I stopped by my ol’ school to check the state of demolition.

Sad. But change is inevitable.

I returned a student I.D. to our High School President, Greg Cole. He had dropped it in the time capsule, way back when.

Brenda Mikkelsen and Debbie Dalton made it.

Drinda Miller Rainville was there.

I was too busy chatting to take any photos.

All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

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Excellent writing. Lyrical prose. Modern literature.

I believe I’d read this in the past. The story seemed so familiar.

All the Colours of the Dark (2024) by Chris Whitaker is a …

  • missing persons mystery
  • serial killer thriller
  • love story

Late one summer (1975), the town of Monta Clare is shattered by the abduction of teenager Joseph ‘Patch’ Macauley. Nobody more so than Saint Brown, who will risk everything to find her best friend.

But when she does: it will break her heart.

Patch lies alone in a pitch-black room – until he feels a hand in his. Her name is Grace and, though they cannot see each other, she lights their world with her words.

But when he escapes: there is no sign she ever even existed.

Left with only her voice and her name, he paints her from broken memories – and charts an epic search to find her.

As years turn to decades, and hope becomes obsession, Saint will shadow his journey – on a darker path to hunt down the man who took them – and set free the only boy she ever loved.

Even if finding the truth means losing each other forever…

LindasBookBag review

Both Patch and Saint are unforgettable characters.

As a teenager, Charlotte, is even more entertaining.

Their story ranges over a quarter of a century — but I still found the book too long. And somewhat too complicated.

I’m OK with the ending, however. Something like the end of Shawshank Redemption.

Reckless Abandon by Stuart Woods

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Not the best Stone Barrington book. But I still found it entertaining.

Reckless Abandon (2004)

… now that Stone Barrington, on a Florida trip, has helped nail the guy who killed Holly Barker’s fiancé, Orchid Beach police chief Holly comes to the Big Apple to involve him in her hunt for a mobbed-up fugitive from her brand of justice.

Even though he’s a killer many times over, second-generation criminal Trini Rodriguez (Blood Orchid, 2002) can’t be brought to book because he’s an FBI informant who’s repeatedly called on to testify against higher-ups presumably even worse than him …

A skeletal thriller, evidently written on the back of a series of cocktail napkins, that’s most notable, like Woods’s other recent novels, as a pretext for bringing his stable of stock heroes and villains …

YES you should ignore the plot. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.