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I have a few things that I need to write about, but right now I will write about filmfesting. I'm volunteering at the Edmonton Film Festival this year. It's a lot smaller than the Vancouver Film festival, but it's still a decent size. Yesterday I went to see "Heaven on Earth", the new Deepa Mehta film. The theatre was pretty full, and there was a large continent of Indian women in attendance. The film itself is quite heavy, as it deals with themes of spousal abuse in arranged marriage. I thought it was extremely good, but I can't really say that I enjoyed watching it.

Today I went down to the film fest to volunteer. I ended up working a cash machine and sold tickets for several movies. One of the films showing today was Kevin Smith's newest "Zach and Miri make a porno". People started lining up for tickets an hour in advance, and one of the other volunteers and I kept on laughing at the Kevin Smith fans. I'm a fan myself, but there was definitely "a look" to the fans. His fans tend to be dudes in their 20-30s. Many of them had glasses and some were overweight. I can't do this justice, but I'll just say that you could really tell who the fans were, and what they were there to see. I had to speed sell the tickets and did a really good job, if I do say so myself. I sat in the booth with a woman named Elaine, and she and I cracked jokes and sped people through the line and it was a total blast. I'm going back tomorrow, and will be wearing a fancy headset to talk to the projectionists, which should be interesting.

Last week I was out in the field a lot, and this week, I'm at home, writing. When I'm not writing, I'll be out film festing. I also have 2 visits to look forward to as Debi and Darrell will be passing through town, and my friend Pete is coming later this week.

Stock dogs...

Saturday I drove out Smoky Lake to attend a clinic on training stock dogs. I was sort of excited for this event, because I am a major dog fanatic, and had never seen anything like it. The drive there was beautiful; the road was good and the autumn colours were magnificent.

When I first arrived, master trainer Elwin Kopp was helping people in the first session, which was titled "Establishing Dominance with your dog." It didn't take me long to figure out that Kopp is akin to a dog whisperer. He doesn't yell "NO", he disciplines with a "Hey..." which sounds like a low growl made in the back of a dog's throat. He uses his body and eye contact to engage and communicate with the animals. It was absolutely amazing. There were about 10 people in the session and the dogs included border collies, two kelpies, and a few heelers. Gorgeous dogs.

Kopp is world renowned. He travels all over North America and has trained with sheep dog trainers in Britain. His handling methods will work with all sorts of dogs. I wanted to turn my current and future dogs over to him immediately.

After lunch, we took the dogs out into the yard and let them go after the sheep. This was very, very exciting. The dogs were supposed to perform a series of maneuvers, including circling, changing direction and releasing. Watching some of the dogs work was incredible. I especially liked seeing the dogs who had never seen sheep before, because you could see their natural instincts kick in. I'd highly recommend watching stock dogs if you ever get the chance. It was an extremely fun and rewarding day.