Let's get busy!

Man, the work is sure starting to pile up. Fortunately my group finished Phase I of our project today so there will be no problems handing that in tomorrow. Nevin and I also took a good chunk out of our homework for the weekend. We're going to finish up a bunch of assignments at the lake this weekend. My dad will be laughing as he read this but we're serious...WE'RE GOING TO GET SOME WORK DONE!

Also some news on the job search front. I now have three interviews lined up. Cosyn in Edmonton, Alcan in Kingston, and Talisman in Calgary. I just hoping I at least get a shot at something in Vancouver or Victoria.

Played some squash today too. Finally beat Mike, he's been pretty hot with the raquet this year. Of course he'd forgotten his shoes and had to play with bare feet but I still wupped him good. I'm sure his revenge will be sweet next week. I want to get a regular time set up but you can only book courts two days in advance, not the standard week. I'm never in the Van Vliet center but maybe Terry can make it part of his regular shedule to sign us all up for some Wednesday times.

Oh, my mom is also coming up to the city tomorrow...well Beaumont at least. She and her mom are up for a wedding in St. Albert this weekend so they're driving to my Aunt Denise's place tomorrow for supper. Terry and I are going for some free grub...unlike what we eat here. Ah, still, it'll be really good to see my mom and grandma. Bed time people!

Vancouver bound!

Okay, before I get anyone's hopes way up, let me clarify. Last time I was feeling bad because I really want to go work in Vancouver or Victoria this next term but all I'm getting is job opportunities in Edmonton, Calgary, and ...Alcan. Oh, by the way, I got another interview for the Wednesday after Thanksgiving with a company called Cosyn. They're party of Colt Engineering (Ron will like that) and do work for oil and gas companies, mainly Syncrude. Anyway, Vancouver bound? Even though I have had any "offers" yet I'm sure trying my darndest. Amber gave me a few good websites with job opportunities on them in the area so I spent the afternoon applying to as many of them as I could. I also applied to some of the ones I tried for last year like Kona and Norco. Working for a mountain bike company on the edge of Vancouver would rule! So yeah, nothing yet but I'm feeling a lot better knowing my resume is out there. I write a new cover letter for each company, really trying to suck up to them. Keen Engineering (really cool design engineering group) said they had no jobs for me in Victoria but Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary are still possibilities.

Ugh, the pressure. Once I get to the weekend I'll be fine. Get this Phase I of my project out of the way, get out to the lake...it'll all be good. Later people!

Am I going back to oil & gas?

It seems like 90% of the jobs opportunities are oil & gas. I guess this is typical "Alberta" but what about those of us who don't want it or have already done it once and want other experiences. Last year I only applied to non-o&g jobs but started to get worried when I only received a few interviews and even less rankings. I consider myself lucky to get the Alcan job I did although I think I would have picked it over most other jobs. And if I'd known before how much fun I would have had and the people I would have met (ie. Amber and the others) it wouldn't have been a choice at all.

So what about this year? Am I going to luck out again with a sweet job in a sweet city? So far I'm pretty sure I'm going back to Calgary. I think that's okay because I missed out on a lot of family stuff on this last work term but at the same time I really enjoyed being forced to hang out with my roommates every weekend and having to find my own stuff to do. Plus I loved the size of Kingston, the streets, the lack of traffic, the bars, the students. Calgary is good but I seriously don't know if it can compare. I think if 4 or 5 of us get jobs in Calgary and can all get a place together it would be so sweet. I could bypass the first few months of not knowing anyone and feeling really depressed and closed off and go right into the awesome Rocky Mountain snowboarding. I've also applied for quite a few Edmonton jobs. That would put me far away from Amber (although Vancouver-Edmonton flights are a lot cheaper than Vancouver-Calgary flights) but Brendan is most likely staying in his apartment, Nevin might leave, and Jeff will be back at school. I think it would be pretty sweet to be around the campus here without having to worry about school. I could do all the fun intramural stuff, I could play hockey, do all kinds of stuff and just make sure I'm at work on time. That's my only responsibility. Hmm, now that I look at it this way...it might be pretty easy to have another sweet 8 months. We'll see how it's looking once interviews are up. Sorry for the length but this is one of the bigger things on my mind right now. Later people!

Go see "The Forgotten"

As you might guess from the title I watched "The Forgotten" tonight. Brendan, Heather, and Kimberly came too. Very awesome movie. I'm not going to say any more about it because I don't want to ruin the experience for anyone else but I really recommend you go see it.

I'm not sure why I'm so tired right now. I slept in until 11:15 this morning. Maybe it's the work I did over at my aunt Anne's place. Grandma and I went over with Murray to clear out some of the lower branches on her spruce trees because they're getting their fence re-done. Turns out it wasn't the 15 minute job we thought it was. After 4 hours we decided we'd pretty much done all we could. Murray's truck was loaded up, there are 20 piles of spruce branches along their alley, and there is still a few huge piles in their back yard. The garbage guys will only take away so much at a time I guess.

Brendan showed me the pictures he got developed today. They're from yesterday at the lake. That guy's on top of things. Anyway they turned out really good. I have to start getting some of mine printed out on photo paper. Maybe tomorrow I'll burn a CD with some pictures, from Kingston and from here, and get them developed somewhere. I'm not sure where would be best though. Costco does it but it's $0.25 a picture. Seems expensive to me and I'm worried because Costco is usually really cheap. Oh well, it'll be so much nicer for showing people then.

Ugh, I'm fading here. I still have to call Amber, tell her how great the movie was and how much I wish I was with her now. I was just talking to Lucas a bit, he's missing his girl too. He met her on his work term in Fort McMurray and she moved back to Sarnia, Ontario at the end of the summer. I'm so happy that Amber's only in Vancouver. He's thinking of going to see her in November. I hope that works out. And since I know he's going to be reading this...Lucas, you're a jackass! JK buddy. Goodnight people. Hope you're all enjoying the weekend.

Do I have to pull a work-weekend?

Yeah, it's the weekend! I've been free since 11:00 am this morning. We don't have an afternoon lab. I still had to get together with my Mec Design group for a bit and plan what we have to do this weekend. It kind of seems like a lot but if I sit down for a bit tomorrow and actually put some effort in I think I can be done really soon.

I'm definitely not doing any homework today. We're leaving in an hour or so to go out to Wabamun. Brendan, Heather, Mike, Dan, and Lucas are coming out I think. Hopefully there's some wind for sailing. If not we'll just sit around, eat food, play poker, and relax.

I'm just in such a good mood. It's been a really great week and last night it got even better. Amber sent me a little package in the mail. Inside was a lovely letter (complete with a poem about her cupcake inside), some seashell chocolates (which are my favorite nice chocolates), and a CD she made that included songs we listened to on our trip across Canada and some others that really mean something to me coming from her. It was awesome. I grabbed my CD player out of the next room so I could listen to it as I went to sleep. Ben Harper is the last thing I remember hearing (very early in the CD) so I'll have to listen to it on the way out to the lake today. Thank you so much Amber. I love it.

Yes the assignments are really piling on but I'm still happy. So even though this will mostly be a work weekend I'm going to make the most of it. I'm going to hit the gym a few times to improve MY body composition and hopefully Nevin and I will make it out to the drop-in volleyball on Sunday night. Terry's going home this weekend to do some homework and go to Jeff's huge, kick-ass, ghetto-theme party. I wish I could go but I was just there and can afford to spend Sunday nursing a hangover. I'll be partying with him again soon I'm sure. Okay, gotta run people. Have a great weekend...call me!

Terry is cool...really

Not too much happening for me right now. Just more assignments and reading to do. Terry had a really cool weekend though. I was going to get him to tell you guys about his awesome camp on here but he wrote it up on his new homepage instead. You should really check it out...now. I'm so proud of my younger bro. He's doing so much with me and with his class and still get's all his homework and stuff done. He's really showing Jeff and I up right now, hope he can keep it up. And yeah, he's in Phys Ed, but he's also taking a joint degree in Education and has a ton of classes. He's taken on a lot but it'll be great for him when he's done. Okay, I'd better get some of my homework done now. Later people!

Home on the Smokey Hollow Ranch

I doubt most of you know that our house in Nanton actually has a name. My dad called our property the Smokey Hollow Ranch because of the small hollow across the creek where people used to have campfires and the smoke would collect down there. Pretty cool little bit of trivia for you. Anyway, that's where I am right now. I came down for the weekend to see the family and attend Kristen's wedding. It was pretty fun last night. There were a whole bunch of friends there I hadn't seen in a long time, many I knew before I ever met Kristen. So I ate, I danced, and I listed to some really funny speeches. Good times.

Today I finished off some home work and did some work around the backyard for mom. Dad is off mountain biking this weekend in Kelowna, Jeff is in Calgary, Terry is at his phys ed camp, and Peter is putting in a lot of hours over at the golf course. That leave mom and I. I collected all the hoses, drained them and piled them up, picked up a bunch of garbage and beer cans from the back patio, played with the dog and cat for a bit. Tipsy (the cat) was trying to tackle the hoses I was dragging across the grass. Pretty funny stuff.

Mom is making some delicious hamburger soup so I'm going to stick around until that's done and then get on the road to Edmonton. I only have one more assignment to do for tomorrow. I wish that the world had cars that would drive themselves, at least on highways. Maybe I should start thinking off good ways to do that: GPS? magnets? cameras? AI? Who knows, but then I could get so much stuff done on my trips home and back. Terry will be coming with me next time I drive down, I'll do some then. Hope everyone is having a great weekend. I'll be back in Edmonton soon.

...got the "at school" blues

Well not really. I can't complain about today. Things are moving a little slow but that is to be expected. I'm done all my lectures for the day and I only have a 1 hour seminar left at 2:00. So in my three hour break I'm determined to get all of my homework done...haha, not likely. I just don't have any motivation. We were thinking the other day that we only have one work term left and the marks from this semester won't be a factor in our applications. In fact, we don't really need good marks for anything anymore. I wish I'd never heard that because even if you try to fight it, sound logic like that slowly seeps in. Ugh...like a lump.

On a good note, my three hour lab tomorrow from 2:00 to 5:00 turns out to be more of a semi-optional help session. I'll go to the rest but not having to stay tomorrow means I can leave for home after 11:00 am...if I'm done my homework. It's all due Monday and I know from lot's of experience that I don't do ANY homework when I got home for the weekend. Never have, probably never will. Peter makes that pretty much impossible. Terry and I were trying to talk to mom on the phone last night but it was really hard with Peter practicing his terrible singing voice in the background. He has a good singing voice but he likes to practice his terrible one where he makes his voice crack and hits notes that deaf man could tell are off. Good thing I'm going home tomorrow, sounds like he's behind on his regular beatings. I'll tune him up for a month or so. Okay, I'm GOING to get this engineering management assignment done...right now...this instant...ooh, minesweeper!

Can the 12" Discs go 1-0?

Yes, our first ultimate game is today. We have a super sweet roster. Me, Terry, Nevin, Brendan, Matt, Dan, Andre, Kevin, Mike, Ashley, Heather, Kimberly, Lindy, Rosina, Alexis, andEmily. Oh yeah, we're going to rule. Most of us are over at Nevin and Brendan's right now watching our pre-game movie, Donnie Darko. Terry and Matt are seeing it for the first time. Matt is really into it, Terry...not so much.

The weather is holding pretty good too. Nice day today. It's supposed to start raining tonight or tomorrow and lead into a really crappy weekend. Lucky for me I'm going back to Calgary. Southern weather, here I come.

Monday is Marvelous...

I'm enjoying my nice 3 hour break over at Nevin and Brendan's. I'm really like my schedule, other than the 8:00 am start every morning. But if Terry can do it, then I'd better be able to. I bought my plane ticket to Vancouver last night. I'll be there at 6:15 pm November 10 and I'll be there until late Monday night. Vancouver-ites...be ready. The Nan'n hick is heading west...further west. I hope to spend most of the time there with Amber but I'll give her enough of a break from me to make my rounds with the other people I know. Chris...wanna pick me up from the airport in your Mazda? So that's got me really excited, and it's closer to the end of the school term so it will keep me happy well past midterms.

I'm also excited about going down to Montana. Brendan is coming with me and I'm trying to convince a few others. The water might be a little cold but I still need some wakeboarding hours. I also need to see Jeff land a few of these tricks. Hmm, break is almost up. I lost big time in poker but thankfully there was no money involved. Phew! Later people, lab time.

Go Canada Go

Another sweet game by our Canadian hockey team yesterday. I was starting to freak out when it went into overtime. When Lecavalier got his chance in overtime everyone in the room went "YEAH..OHH........YEAH, YES, YES!" I'm pretty sure most of the country did that. Anyway, team Canada is on to the finals on Tuesday. That game is going to rock against Finland.

Crap it's nice outside. Normally that would be good but I just sat down to do some homework. Should I do it now? Or late at night when I'll be in a big rush. Maybe Terry should get a laptop here so I can borrow it and do my assignments outside. Yeah, the sky is too blue, the weather too warm. I'm outta here. Hope the rest of you are having a great weekend!

School...sweeeet

Two days of school under the belt and I'm feeling fine. I'm over at Nevin and Brendan's right now. Just finished using the gym and re-energizing with a healthy slice of meat-lover pizza. I'm even looking forward to going home and doing a quick bit of homework. Tomorrow night we'll probably be catching the Eskimo/Stampeder rematch. It snowed this morning (yeah you people in Vancouver and Kingston just laugh it up) but I'm hoping it's gone at least for the weekend. Hmm, my grandma just left a message on my phone and is trying to track me down. Something about helping Terry buy some books. I hope that kid has some money on his bank card, I'm out. Just bought another $140 book today.

Before I leave I should use Nevin's comp to check flights from Edmonton to Vancouver. Have to call my uncle Ron tonight too and see if he knows of any companies in Vancouver or Victoria that could use a well rounded mechanical engineering student that can do any job, including slacking off. It's tough, but someone's gotta do it. I also have to finish my present for Amber tonight. If I'm going to get it to her any time this semester I need to send it soon. Peace out people!

Internet frustrations

I bought a wireless internet router today so that I can hook up my desktop downstairs to the internet. I spent most of the afternoon trying to get it to work but nope...nothing. The computer upstairs here stopped working for a while so I had to unhook it to get on here. Augh, Brendan...please help me. Maybe tomorrow I'll get it done. I also bought a cheap video editing program today and tried to make a VCD of my trip with Amber across the states. Almost done it, again, maybe tomorrow.

Russia just lost to the USA in the World Cup. I'm not sure who I was cheering for that game. I kind of wanted the USA to win so that Canada can repeat and kick their asses in the final but I just like the Russian team better. I think they have good players, both in skill and in personality. Look at Brett Hull, bench for two games now, what a jerk. And there's more of them on that team. I can't imagine what the American hockey program must be like down there. Anyway, Terry and I are going over to kick some ass of our own. Brendan and Nevin have a pool table in their building...they're so going down. Peace.

PS: Terry says "hi, university rocks".

I'm back in Edmonton

Well people, I'm finally here. I'm excited to be back too. I miss my friends back in Kingston as well as those in other places, and I especially miss Amber. She did very well to survive the road trip with me. The final count on my odometer was 5180 km from her front door in Kingston to my house in Nanton. Good trek. We camped along the way, except for the first night. Mostly cloudy weather for driving but we did get a nice sunny Wednesday to spend poking around South Dakota. We saw Mount Rushmore the night before all lit up. In the morning we went for a hike by Sylvan Lake to the top of Harney Peak. It's the highest point of land east of the Rocky Mountains and west of the Piranese Mountains in Europe. Our legs were killing us the next day. We also stopped for a while in Deadwood, which was once the home of Wild Bill. Late Thursday night we pulled into my cabin in Montana and stayed there until Monday wakeboarding, sailing, floating in the water, soaking in the hot tub, or lying around in the cabin reading. Then it was off to Nanton!

I think I should let Amber give the description of Nanton as it's hard for me to do cuz...well, it's Nanton. I spent quite a bit of time with Amber for the next week and a half. I've never felt closer to her. We did many different things but the best part was just being with her. She did get a few days up at her sister's place in Calgary for a cupcake break. I dropped her off at the airport two days ago at 5:30 in the morning. I was sad to see her go but we both managed to keep the feelings in until after I watched her pass through security. I missed her immediately and haven't really stopped thinking about her since. It's hard starting conversations with my friends here because everything I want to say starts off with "Amber and I...". I'm going to have to plan a nice weekend to fly out to Vancouver and see her. And yes, I'll see the rest of y'all too. Chris, we're going for a ride in your RX-7 okay buddy? I think we're going to try a trip out to the lake today. Sounds like it might be a crowded cabin but I think we'll be okay. I miss everybody, and once I get my computer in my room hooked up to the internet I'll start talking to the rest of you. I'll even take some time to fix this freaking website. I was on the road when Blogger changed their template. So have a great long weekend people, I'll be back in a couple days. Peace! Miss you Amber.