Give me a quad over a snowmobile anyday.

I like to quad. I live in the sprawling RM of St Andrews with a large farmer's field complete with rolling hills running down to a creek, right behind my house. I enjoy taking walks and occasionally jumping on an atv for a further excursion. So being conditioned on a quad and having not been on a snowmobile for years, the machines quite frankly scare the crap outta me.

I'm bringing this up after a man was out walking in Transcona, when he was struck by a snowmobile. He later died from his injuries. You can read about it here. When I heard about this I remembered just last Saturday another one on highway 317, on the way to Lac du Bonnet, coincidentally where I was that Saturday. So it made me think about the dangers of those fast-paced machines, and my fear of them.

I suppose a quad can do as much damage to the human body as a snowmobile, yet the few crashes I've been in haven't garnered much more than a few bruises. Don't get me wrong, I think snowmobile's are great, you can use them to go over lengths of snowcovered highway to reach stranded motorists. Or drive down long stretches on northern Manitoba to a neighbor's. Or even some relaxed trailblazin' on a Sunday afternoon. Tons of my friends a snowmobile fanatics. They peer excitedly out the window at the snowfall. You can see the wheels turning as they devise a plan to make it out to some of the trails north of Winnipeg.

But when it comes to myself ever owning one- I doubt it will ever come to that. I think for my own personal recreation I'll stick with the quad.  It's less speedy, coming in at a max speed around 80-90 km ( still extremely fast) where as snowmobiles can reach 150km speeds. Safe Kids Canada says that each year snowmobiles cause 200 deaths and 14,000 injuries in North America. I couldn't locate similar stats on ATV's.

It's all-terrain means yes, you can use it in snow as well as the warm muddy summers of Manitoba. And mastering the all-terrain-vehicles in all kinds of terrain is half the fun. And more bang for your buck, wouldn't you say?

Needless to say, I won't be investing my hardearned cash on a snowmobile this winter, or ever for that matter. But that's just me.

KFC's UNFry Day- Get a free piece of grilled chicken

On April 27, 2009, Kentucky Fried Chicken launched their pseudo-event, " UNFry Day." UNFry Day was KFC's attempt to sell a healthy version of their extremely unhealthy, main product; fried chicken. By serving a free piece of unfried, grilled chicken they hoped to promote their new product which was launched earlier that month. (April 14, 2009)
The news release stated that it is KFC's "second secret recipe." They created the UNFry Day to promote the new product in all US stores. Also the website said it shows KFC is, and I quote,"not too chicken to think outside the bucket."
Later, May 5,2009 Oprah Winfrey, who is known for her own yo-yo dieting ways, gave away coupons for free KFC Grilled Chicken on her hit show. The pseudo-event became never-ending with the creation of the "Unthink what you thought about KFC" website that they launched with contests and places to upload videos of people doing chicken dances.
According to one blogger who went for the free grilled chicken, there was no lineup, as she had expected. But when she asked the workers there they said it was a busy day with a lull when she came by. Also that other KFC's in the region had run out of grilled chicken.
When looking at this event from a PR perspective it looks a little lame. If you would like to add grilled chicken to your menu, as they did with the burger previously, why not leave it at that? Why remarket the entire brand over the addition of this  so-called "healthy alternative?" This healthy alternative is not going to win KFC any awards. And we haven't seen much in the way of revamping the standard KFC acronym. What would it be anyways? KFG? Now that's tacky.

The timing wasn't right they should have made the event on the actual release day of the grilled chicken, instead of two weeks later. They did add someone famous into the mix. (They must have done otherwise you wouldn't get a picture of Oprah when you google KFC grilled chicken.) That helped them extend their event. And according to one website (unthink KFC)when they had  Oprah give away the free coupons it made they google Oprah Winfrey KFC coupons was the fifth most-googled thing the next afternoon. This just explains the devotion to free stuff. People love it when it's endorsed by someone as big as Oprah.

Eric Church in Beaver Dam, August 2010

I just found this video on YouTube someone uploaded of Eric Church's song "Smoke a Little Smoke". Definitely one of the best off his newest album Carolina. This particular video should be fast-forwarded to 1:00 when he introduces himself. This was by far the best concert I have ever been to. It took place in a little town called Beaver Dam in Dodge County in the state of Wisconsin. My family vacation that year was to drive down to the Wisconsin Dells for some waterslide fun. So I, a huge Eric Church fan, got the idea that maybe we could go see one of his shows if he was performing in Wisconsin. (He never comes to Winnipeg) So, seeing he was performing at the Dodge County Fair, we headed on down there. We made it early afternoon on the Saturday he was performing.

The stage was on an outdoor muddy car derby track. We were sitting on lawnchairs that were slowly sinking into that muck. But no one cared as we watched Church go perform. And perform he did. He put his whole heart into every song, dancing and shaking his boots.

What made it so good was the hot summer air melting away to the cool evening and the crowd. Everyone was rowdy off their cheap american beer hollaring and cheering. Everyone at the Dodge County Fair had spent they day showing off their cows, baked goods and chickens. Some were like me all tan lines and sunglasses, sweaty from the day in the sun. There were cartons of squiggly fries everywhere. And a good mix of young and old. In front of my sister and I were four older folks with their Brad Paisley concert shirts on. They must have been sixty but that didn't stop them from standing up and hooting and hollering along with the rest of the crowd.

But when we went to see Church open for Miranda Lambert ($50 for floor seats) I was a little dissappointed. I tried to explain it to my cousin that nothing beats an outdoor concert at a county fair. Something about the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, ND just lacked that intimate atmosphere of the Wisconsin concert. It made me think about what an experience it was to drive another hour west of the Dells just to see Church at that county fair. And yet it for sure made my summer. Unfortunately it sort of ruined my winter concert experience. But the weekend in Grand Forks wasn't a complete loss with tons of shopping crammed in!

If you like this video Eric Church is playing at Dauphin Countryfest July 2011. (Yup, I got my ticket) You can purchase a day pass or there are still weekend passes available. Check out the Dauphin Countryfest website for more details.

According to Howmanyofme.com

Lita
	There are 4,663 people in the U.S. with the first name Lita. Statistically the 2762nd most popular first name. More than 99.9 percent of people with the first name Lita are female Hnatiuk There are 171 people in the U.S. with the last name Hnatiuk. Statistically the 110523rd most popular last name. Lita Hnatiuk There are 1 or fewer people in the U.S. named Lita Hnatiuk. We have information on both names, but chances are low that someone has this combination of names. Click here for more details    Well, this is just the US but I am sure surprised to find out there at 4,663 others there with the same first name! Maybe it's Spanish counterpart? I bet the number of Hnatiuks is higher in Canada with the amount of Ukrainian immigrants. I found this website pretty interesting. Since you often wonder when you have an unusual name, just how unusual it really is. well, apparently not very!