The Honeymoon Adventure - Day Two - Calgary Zoo Two

We continue our adventure through the Calgary Zoo!

When last we met, we were wandering through the Canadian Wilds, today... I bring you a little bit more of that, because I haven't planned out each post to be about a different area. Maybe if I had taken an equal number of pictures in each area... but I didn't do that either... I HAVE DIGRESSED!

Little Prairie Dogs at the zoo... so many holes!

Past the Wolves we saw Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs who were having a fantastic time being harassed by the mutant black squirrels in the area; the squirrels were running in and out of the prairie dog holes stealing their things and playing with the prairie dogs. It really was quite a sight and I'm a little bit sad that I wasn't able to get any good pictures, but I was able to get a short video of one of the squirrels.

Seriously, these squirrels are actually a mutant strain of gray squirrels which escaped the zoo back in 1929 and now run rampant throughout the area. They're very beautiful to see and they seem to be quire the troublemakers. Luckily I was able to get a very short video of one of them jumping around seen below.

Look up on the edge! There's a little black squirrel jumping up and over!

On the other side of the trail was something a little bigger than little prairie dogs...

TEDDY BEARS! Okay no, a little bigger and more real than that.

There were quite a few bears in there actually; black, brown, and even a white one hidden in there somewhere. We were lucky enough to come back to the bear area later on in the day to see them doing training with one of the bears. They explained to us how the training with the trainers is good for the animals because it helps them if ever there was any sort of emergency or situation where someone would need to be in control of said animal or the animal would need direction. The example they gave us was when half the zoo ended up being flooded a few years ago, their animal training really helped them keep the animals calm and direct them to control the situation.

Whoa, that's a BIG cat!

The last awesome creature we saw in the Canadian Wilds area was a Cougar! How crazy is it that there are wild cats that big possibly outside in our backyard? I think it's bad enough when I see a house cat wandering around outside because I don't know if it's going to be friendly, or if it's going to try to scratch me up on the sidewalk... what would I do if I ran into one of these on my way to check the mailbox?

There are so many animals living just outside the walls of our houses, but it's so hard to imagine them because we spend so much time inside staring at our screens we forget about the beauty of being outside and enjoying the fresh air. Learning about this stuff is truly amazing and I hope as we progress into the future that it isn't the only way we are able to learn about these things.

Fun Fact: I heard the results of a survey recently where about 90% of Canadians felt happier when surrounded by nature... and about 75% said they find it easier to stay inside.

Let me know in the comments below what your favourite outdoor activity is.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Back to Honeymoon Adventure

Age of Wonders -- Keepers Scenario 6 - Part 6

Looks like we're starting to get overwhelmed by this silly teleportation point right next to our starting town. We might have to give this location up and move somewhere else. Another short part for you this time.

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This campaign and more can be found on my Age of Wonders page.

Check out more of my stuff!
- On YouTube
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- On Twitter

~ DaemonVirus

Age of Wonders -- Keepers Scenario 6 - Part 5

I haven't uploaded a video for quite a while so finally I've managed to find some time to do so. I can tell I actually recorded this quite a while ago, but NO MATTER! New videos will be coming out right away as we get going on all content production now that we have a proper schedule going. This part is a little bit shorter than usual.

Previous

Next

This campaign and more can be found on my Age of Wonders page.

Check out more of my stuff!
- On YouTube
- On Twitch
- On Twitter

~ DaemonVirus

=== Age of Wonders -- MolzyMoz - Fire Rebalanced -- Mod Review - 5/5 ===

Okay so here's something a little bit different today. Normally I review games or food or movies... but today I'm reviewing a MOD for a game. I'm also going to take this opportunity to start using a 1-5 rating system because I think it's a much more straightforward system for just how good I think something is which I'm reviewing.

So FROM HERE ON OUT I will be rating everything on a scale of 1-5.

MolzyMod - Fire Rebalanced (Download)

Rating: 5

Even though I am a long-time Age of Wonders player, using mods is something I'm not super experienced with, so this managed to be my first mod to EVER use for this game. I have to say I'm very pleased; I honestly think this may be what I start using in my own games from now on.

There are quite a few changes to units, some of which are in their stats and many of which are in their abilities as they increase in skill; especially for making level 4 units more powerful and unstoppable just by having empty fortified cities. I haven't been able to experience much of this as I just started using the mod and have only read about the majority of the changes so far.

One of my favourite changes includes the change to the Goblin Bomber at silver level gaining a Call Flames ability (which would only be attainable using an arena or the Warmonger spell).

Speaking of SPELLS... Many of the lower level combat spells have been lowered in casting cost which makes spell-based leader and hero builds possible to use throughout the game. Many of the spells such as flame arrow only have a cost of 1 now which means your hero can be useful even with Spell Casting I and low stats.

So all in all, this mod is pretty sweet. It's super easy to put into the game and doesn't make a huge number of overwhelming changes; if you have any thoughts about using any other mods in the game but are unsure after reading all of the HUGE number of changes... this is truly a great place to start when getting into trying out different mods.

As a result, I'm giving this mod for Age of Wonders a 5/5 rating as I really do think it has been done very well and has broken down the door for me to try other new things with an already great game.

~ DaemonVirus


To Age of Wonders Directory

=== Food Review - Moose McGuire's (Calgary) - Sports Pub -- 8/10 ===

This was our first food stop of our adventure in Calgary on our honeymoon. It was a late night visit to a sports pub which wasn't too busy at the time... In fact that were maybe three other tables currently in use. Of course that isn't an indication of the quality of the place; late night on a Sunday right before the labour day football game... the heavy business was probably due for the following night.

The service upon entering was prompt as a result of the small number of other people around. So I definitely have no complaints about that because I love having prompt and efficient service! I assume most people would prefer quick and efficient service when visiting an eating establishment. Our server was very friendly and super helpful when it came to providing suggestions for Carley's drinks.

I ordered myself a tray of lemon pepper the buffalo wings. Some wings you order our absolutely drenched and sauce and soggy when you bite into them which can make you question whether or not they're actually finished cooking, but these ones were nice and crisp and crunchy between my teeth. The flavor it was absolutely fantastic with a nice lemon kick. In fact they were so good that I totally forgot about how awful buffalo wings are when you reheat them in a microwave. If you're looking for a good set of wings to eat, these are a good way to go.

I often like ordering a caesar salad to start my meals; this one was.... blah. It certainly wasn't awful and inedible, but I honestly thought I could get the same thing when ordering a takeout pizza from a pizza place. It was a good enough salad, but I wasn't terribly pleased with it considering what I was expecting. I could brush it off as it was only a sports pub, but I have experienced a higher quality of food at other sports pubs and brew houses.

For Carley, she ordered a double cheese & bacon burger with sweet potato fries. I didn't see any issues with her food and she definitely had no complaints about it (and she's pickier than I am when it comes to her food). This seemed like a great comfort food for the type of person who would like a good burger to eat during their stay.

For some reason I didn't take any pictures of her drinks and I really don't remember what it was she got, but the service for getting the drinks was pretty great. Our server was quite helpful for recommending drinks when Carley didn't know quite what it was she wanted and they were very accommodating right up to making a special drink just for her which wasn't on the menu.

Verdict

Lemon Pepper Wings: Great for eating in the restaurant; not great for leftovers. Nice and crunchy. 8/10

Caesar Salad: Nothing special which couldn't be ordered for delivery from a pizza place. 5/10 

Double Cheese & Bacon Burger: No complaints from the wife about her food. 8/10

Service: I was pleased with how much attention we got and super please with the server being able to give us recommendations and even getting the bartender to make some special drinks which weren't in the menu. 10/10

Overall, I would say our experience there was excellent! I'm giving Moose McGuire's 8/10; even though the caesar salad didn't excite me, the rest of the food was the good comfort food we were looking for and the service was stellar. After a long drive, we just wanted somewhere quiet to sit down and enjoy some nice food; This was exactly what we received during our visit.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Back to Honeymoon Adventure

The Honeymoon Adventure - Day Two - Calgary Zoo

After our long six and a half eight hour journey to Calgary thanks to driving back home and then stopping in Medicine Hat for a bit, we managed to finally get to the Days Inn hotel in Northwest Calgary. The staff were super helpful during our visit including taking our payment in such a way that our yet-to-be deposited cheques weren't an issue. We unpacked, hung around the hotel for a little bit, then decided to explore our first location of Calgary, Alberta... which happened to be an outing for food at Moose McGuire's; seeing as we hadn't really had much for food since we left home. Following this adventure was pretty much back to the hotel and off to sleep with some television to keep us company for the night.

Day 2

The next morning was a highly anticipated day for us; the day of the Calgary Zoo. After having a lovely breakfast at the hotel of a couple muffins for myself, we left bright and early for a long drive through an unknown city. As it turns out, even though getting from point A to point B takes a while, if you leave super early in the morning and arrive at your destination before nearly anybody else... the traffic is quite similar to driving around here in Moose Jaw during the day... (non-existent). We did get there and find a super parking spot right by the entrance super early in the morning and despite the dreary and rainy weather, we excitedly paid and entered the complex with gusto hoping to goodness that we would be able to see everything there would be to offer.

We made it into the Calgary Zoo!

The first thing we saw was a special exhibit they have right nearby the North Entrance which is a penguin habitat. I tried not to take pictures of everything I saw everywhere I went; if you want an idea of what it was like in there, imagine going outside in the cold of winter only to see a gathering of penguins outside your home as if you're in the middle of a Happy Feet movie... only without any singing. We even managed to witness one of the handlers removing a penguin from the area (for some reason we weren't aware of). As it turns out, these penguins are about half the size of a person and even though it looks painful to be a person getting wapped and nipped by one... the handler didn't seem to mind. I should mention that we were warned not to stick anything out over the glass because they WOULD take our things if they got the chance to do so.

From this point we started our adventure into the "Canadian Wilds" where we were about to see many animals which are out and about within our fantastic homeland if you're brave enough to go find them. I won't go into detail about each and every thing we saw out there, but I did see a lot of really cool creatures, some of which would be beautiful to see in their natural habitat, and some of which I think could be absolutely terrifying to see. Now it's hard to remember exactly what everything was, but I'll do my best to caption each picture correctly and try to tell something interesting along the way.

This I think was a young caribou?

Now I couldn't get any awesome pictures of the wolves, but here are a couple anyways.

 

Unfortunately a pack of wolves just don't really stand still very much which makes it a little bit difficult to take a good picture of them.

Something super fun that happened to us while we were near the wolves was a sudden attack of pinecones from a nearby tree. As it turns out... there was a little guy climbing around up there knocking them off for some reason and I was lucky enough to get it on video.

Here's one of the squirrels in action; I've never seen this happen before.

This picture is a little bit low-quality; apparently it's difficult to get a picture of a squirrel sitting still.

There's so much to tell about our visit to the Calgary Zoo, that I think I'll have to stop here for now and continue on again next time with another post. I'm super excited to share this all with you and I apologize for the delay in the coming posts; it's difficult having a family and starting a new job all at the same time. :P

Have a great day everybody and wish me luck with my new job! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Back to Honeymoon Adventure

The Honeymoon Adventure - Day One

Let us begin our new journey with a telling of our honeymoon adventure.

After driving home the night of the wedding and sleeping in our own comfy bed for one final time before going away on our trip, we got up nice and early and finished packing so we could head on our way to the wondrous land of Calgary, Alberta. So began our drive away from our home in a direction we had never travelled before, what a fantastic time this wou--wait... forgot my wallet... Okay! And off we go again!

So we ended up leaving a little bit later than we had previously planned because we chose to be lazy and not finish packing until the day of the trip... and I forgot my wallet which was needed for ID and whatnot SO WE COULD ACTUALLY CHECK INTO THE HOTEL. It wasn't such a big deal, we still made it with plenty of time to spare before the end of the day and I really enjoyed seeing all the new sights I hadn't seen before on the drive. Carley was wonderful and drove up until Medicine Hat where we picked up a little bit of groceries to eat at the hotel; I drove the rest of the way.

I didn't realize it at the time, but driving through Medicine Hat on the way to Calgary is actually driving through three different little cities that are right next to one another, how cool is that? I can't even begin to describe the sights on the way. Around here I'm used to seeing fields upon fields of farming space and not much else. Once we got into Alberta though... it became fields upon fields of grazing land for HUGE flocks of cows. Also there were lots of trees and hills and... ugh... my words just don't do this justice.

If I could take good pictures and drive at the same time, that would be super helpful in this instance, BUT that's illegal and dangerous... and the pictures wouldn't turn out great anyways. So I guess you'll just have to take my word for it that the sights are much different than around Saskatchewan and if you get the chance, you should totally go on a trip to see for yourself. I should also mention how awesome the Alberta highways are compared to ours; the roads seem to be in better condition than in Saskatchewan and every few kilometers there are spots to pull over and dump your garbage, recycling, and sometimes even compost in bins on the side of the road with actual road space to pull over safely... kind of like when race car drivers go off the track into the little sidelane thinger to get their tires changed and whatnot.

The drive wasn't the only amazing thing though; as awed as I was by Medicine Hat with the two cities on either side which were all connected... the size of Calgary compared to the cities here is insane. Once we hit Calgary, it was still another half hour drive for like 25 km THROUGH THE CITY! Let me tell you, Carley didn't drive anywhere the entire time we were there because the amount of traffic and the size of the city was a little bit scary compared to what we're used to around here. I didn't mind the driving though because it was always an adventure to every place we went during our trip... but those are more stories for next time.

Stay tuned for more stories of our honeymoon adventure! ^_^


~ Kyle Welykholowa

Back to Honeymoon Adventure