If I wanted to fool you all, I’d tell you that basically nothing noteworthy took place last week. Consequently, no new interesting blog posts came to light. But that would be a bald-faced lie. Between billionaire handouts, the sad passing of brilliant leaders, and strange and random encounters, there was a lot to blog about in Edmonton last week. A few lines down, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

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Here are some of the posts I considered to be must-reads from last week, in no particular order:

• During a trip to a Farmers’ Market in Ontario, Trent Wilkie met and had his picture taken with Stephen Hawking. His recount of the tale is both funny and fantastic.
• Alberta’s great statesman former premier Peter Lougheed passed away this week in the Calgary hospital named after him. David Climenhaga looked at Lougheed’s legacy in the context of today’s conservatism.
• Savvy Do Gooder Nadine Riopel completed and is now publishing the results of her Edmonton Do Gooder Project. Follow along — she’ll be posting updates every Tuesday and Thursday.
• Daryl Katz accomplished the impossible last week when he came back to city council asking for more money: he pissed off everyone, even those supporting him. There was a lot of coverage on this issue. Definitely check out Kathleen Smith’s take, Mack Male’s take, Robin Brownlee’s take, Alex Abboud’s take, and councillor Don Iveson’s perspective.
• Relatedly, NHL players are officially locked out. Robin Brownlee wrote a post on what it means and how fans ought to express their outrage.
• On the lighter side of things, the author of Shallow Be My Name explained why gift cards are absolutely necessary when it comes to gift-giving.

Image by Amanda Woodward on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

darryl katz, downtown arena, edmonton oilers, gift cards, nhl lockout, peter lougheed, stephen hawking