Doc shows daredevil was ahead of his time

The first day of school is a promise

This week, thousands of Manitoba students will walk through school doors carrying backpacks filled with new supplies, new hopes and, for some, new worries.

For parents and caregivers, this may be a familiar September routine — shopping for school supplies, adjusting schedules, preparing lunches and getting children ready for another year of learning.

For educators and school staff, it is the beginning of another demanding year.

But for Manitoba, this week should mean something more. It should be a renewal of our promise to every child.

For newcomer pizza purveyors, it’s all about crafting solid foundations

A recent poll conducted by an Internet-based market-research firm determined that close to 20 per cent of people eschew their leftover pizza crust.

Some argued that the residual crust lacks flavour. Others submitted that it’s too hard or crunchy to enjoy sans toppings. Given that information, what are we to make of Crusty Craft Pizza, a five-month-old takeout spot whose owners are so confident in their European-style pizza crust that they’ve chosen to highlight it in their business moniker?

Whenever somebody informs them they don’t like pizza crust, their response is, well, they haven’t tried theirs, says Oleksii Samokvhal, who together with his wife, Iryna Mehedyn, opened Crusty Craft Pizza in early April, at 1311 Day St. in Transcona.

“It’s thin in the middle, with raised edges we hand-form ourselves,” says Mehedyn, a native of Ukraine who, like her Kyiv-born husband, relocated to Winnipeg to escape the conflict in their home country.

Parts of River Heights hammered by storm

A powerful storm cut a swath of destruction through River Heights on Sunday, leaving much of the area without power.

Nobody was hurt in the storm.

By the time it subsided, parts of the quiet neighbourhood, especially Borebank and Lindsay streets between Grant and Taylor, had been ravaged: power lines downed, Manitoba Hydro poles toppled, trees splintered and crashed down on vehicles and homes.

In one case, a vehicle was flipped into a yard and sat under a partially downed tree. Shingles were stripped from roofs. Some residents described looking out during the storm and seeing power lines ablaze and the blue glow of electricity arcing over their backyards.

What’s open, what’s closed, what’s up in Winnipeg on Labour Day

Here's a roundup of hours of business for services and things to do on September 7.

Doc shows daredevil was ahead of his time

More than 20 years ago, St. Catharines, Ont. self-styled cable-access star Ralph Zavadil, a.k.a. Cap'n Video, looked exactly like the kind of headbanger so accurately lampooned in Fubar.

With his stylish mullet, his penchant for smoking weed, his minimal wardrobe and a capacity for self-abuse that makes Johnny Knoxville look like your old Aunt Mary, Zavadil is a kind of embodiment of a party-hard credo. (Zavadil does in fact use the expression "give 'er" without irony.)

Now in his 40s, he still seems to party pretty hard, knowing he is kind of lucky to be alive at all. The documentary opens with unedited footage of the good Cap'n's most notorious stunt. On a chilly day, he climbed a ladder with the intention of jumping into the centre of a swimming pool to demonstrate, evidently, the most dangerous method of taking off a pool cover. Zavadil ended up taking a header into concrete before landing and almost drowning in that pool, with two vertebrae broken. (The footage has been widely seen all over the world, but when I saw it, I practically jumped out of my chair in horror, as a few of my workmates may attest.)

Director Jay Cheel's documentary catches up with Zavadil two decades later, and in lo-fi VHS style, rewinds through the guy's life.

Dynacare labs quickly reach capacity ahead of strike

Patients were being turned away from several Dynacare locations Saturday morning as people packed the labs in hopes of getting their blood collection done before workers strike.

By 10:30 a.m. the lobby at the Dynacare at 1581 Regent Ave. was standing-room only and walk-up patients were being turned away as the wait time for those lucky enough to get in creeped past two hours.

One woman got in right before workers cut off walk-ins at 10 a.m. after travelling to two other locations.

“I was driving by at 7:15 this morning and there was already a line-up to the road, so I was like ‘nope, not going there’ so I went to the one on Sterling Lyon (Parkway) and it was closed, and then I went to the one at St. Vital Mall and there had a line zig-zagging all the way through the corridors so I gave up and came back,” said Joanna, who declined to give her last name.