Check out the (short, amateur-hour) video footage of our snow storm last night. After several days of temperate weather thanks to a visiting Chinook weather system, the far more typical Canadian winter conditions returned with a vengeance last night. I’ll be dusting off our snow shovel after posting this blog… Just press play!

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So, on that note - today I will confess that after deciding initially to stay put for Mrs. That Dan Guy’s upcoming holiday break, we have recently made some last-minute plans to depart this God-forsaken prairie hinterland. If a higher power expected us to endure snow and cold year round, airplanes would never have been invented.

We had tossed around a number of options. One at the top of the list was flying somewhere to see Bruce Springsteen in concert, he who has thus far eluded us. We must see The Boss.

However, what with the recent Ticketmaster scandals, we didn’t want to pay $800.00 each for the privilege, as well as flying somewhere to boot. The only person I’d feel like booting is the CEO of Ticketmaster – who should really be boiled in oil for putting together a ticket-scalping system within the umbrella of Ticketmaster. For shame, CEO!!

A first option had been to fly out to California, for the annual "Coachella Music Festival", headlined this year by none other than former Beatle Paul McCartney, and also featuring Amy Winehouse, and Leonard Cohen, among many other huge concert draws. Alas, we are showing our age – we no longer salivate over standing in boiling sun for 12 hours a day, hoping to avoid eventually using an outdoor biffy, where some other concert-goer has disengaged his breakfast of hot dogs and Peach Schnapps all over the toilet seat. Pass, thanks…

The option we had alluded to yet never revealed was a return trip to New Orleans, for the annual “Jazz & Heritage Festival”. They have an AMAZING line-up of entertainers over the course of two weekends in April, and we would have gone in a heartbeat, except that we are already committed to a conference coming up in June. We ain’t the Rockefellers, so we must incorporate SOME prudence in our jet-setting..

The winner, later next week – a compromise getaway – with a flavour of the New Orleans festival! A place we are well familiar with, AND just happens to have two of the headline New Orleans acts in one Mardi Gras Mambo show, which will be a total thrill – Dr. John, and The Neville Brothers. On the same stage that we recently caught Barry Manilow!!

Ooops!! Did we give away our getaway? Stay tuned, read all about it!

Now, where is that friggin’ shovel…

Chow for now!