Another Work Event

My feet are throbbing! No matter what (formerly) comfy shoes I try, they still hurt. I had to sit with my feet in a cold ice bath for half an hour this morning just to be able to stand in the shower. I guess that's what 10-12 hours a day on my feet every day this week will get me.

We had our annual Jail-N-Bail event this week that I have been planning since May. It is a signature event for the Canadian Cancer Society and Calgary holds one of the biggest in Canada. Ours is a lot of fun I have to admit. I was an assistant for last year's and the coordinator that ran the whole thing this year. We have people sign up their unsuspecting friends and coworkers to be arrested and thrown in a fake "jail" that we build in one of the high-rises downtown on fake and funny charges. Calgary's event is also unique in the fact that we have partnered with our police department who sends us off-duty cops in full uniform with their cruisers to make all our arrests. Our "jailbirds" get tried by a local celebrity judge and an unruly jury in a fun trial and their bail amount is set. They get their mugshot taken, get plenty of good food and beverages and get comfortable in the "jail" where they get on the phone or computers to contact friends and family to give them pledges to make their bail to get released. The event brings in about half a million for us each year.

Monday and Tuesday we set it all up, Wednesday and Thursday all day was the event and Friday was tear down and unpacking. It was so fun and ran pretty smoothly but it was exhausting. I'm glad its over - although next week starts all the post event stuff which will take about a month to wrap up, at least I think I'm over the nightmares that keep me awake of everything that can go wrong with the event.

Here I am, pre-event showing the girls who weren't at last years event what our mascot Jed the Jailbird looks like by trying it on. My friend Clare liked the Jailbird's tail.

Our first judges for the event were the Calgary Stampede Queen and Princesses. We also had our radio sponsor give us their morning DJ's as judges and we had a couple politicians and an Olympian judge for us too.

We had our Chief of Police, who is retiring in October, do his last arrest for our event. He testified against the Jailbird that he brought in. He took a picture with my friend Kelly and I as we were talking with him.















Part of my job now is to handle the media for our events. I did several TV interviews onsite and a radio interview before the event. At first I was terrified but now I really enjoy it.

Our mascot was excellent - he was part of the jury for awhile and visited the Jail to make the Jailbirds laugh. He also posed with me and Kelly.

I was able to sit on the jury for awhile. Here we are laughing at a Jailbird's testimony.

Pictures of a couple Jailbirds awaiting trial in the holding cell and a Jailbird on trial.

Jailbirds in the Jail raising pledges for the Canadian Cancer Society.





























The cops were great. The first picture is of Constable Mark and Sargeant Wendy who are our police coordinators for this event. Our police volunteers had a lot of fun with the event and would get on the stand to testify for or against the Jailbirds they arrested - if the Jailbird had tried to resist arrest the court would hear all about it! One cop even got on the stand with the Jailbird he arrested to sing "Bad Boys" to try reduce the Jailbird's bail.

This is me and my coworkers taking down props and cleaning up after the event - we were exhausted.

Mountains

Over our vacation we went to the mountains near Calgary several times. I tend to forget how beautiful they are and every time we drive up there I am surprised again by the breathtaking scenery. I've looked at our vacation pictures a lot and wanted to share with you some of these amazing pictures. These pictures can't capture the richness of the colours or the sheer size of the mountains towering around you. You can't smell the fresh mountain air or hear the trickling of the cold clear mountain streams and the roar of the waterfalls. But these will give you a small taste of their beauty.

(Click on the pictures to get a larger view.)

The Plane Flew!

Stephen bought a very cool remote control spy plane for my nephew Olson that he gave to him at our family reunion. Jeff put the plane together and practiced flying it on the computer simulator that came with the plane.








They took it out to test the controls and all seemed to be working well. But then, tragedy struck on its maiden voyage. The plane crashed on take off and the nose broke into small pieces. My nephew was distraught. We were disappointed.








We didn't take it out again over our vacation and sent it back to Minnesota with Olson although I didn't think it would ever work again. But Jeff was able to put it back together and then he and Olson took it out to try it again. And it actually flew! Without a crash landing. Yay!