Halloween Madness

Last night was sweet. Terry was off on his own at the Phys Ed party on Whyte Ave. They went to Bar-None. He had on a superman costume ment for 6 year olds...only Terry could pull that one off. There were red and yellow lights on his crest that would blink on and off, really stood out. I guess the girls were all over him. Best comment: "You really fill that out, you must have some muscle!"





Nevin and I went to an Edmonton Road Runners hockey game before our party. I haven't been to Rexall Place in a while. It was pretty exciting hockey. They were tied at the end so they had a 5 minute, 4 on 4 overtime and then went to a shoot out. I've never seen a real shoot out, very awesome...but our team lost. Nevin and I came away with some prizes for our costumes. Only a handful of people were dressed up there so it wasn't too hard. We got a lot of stares.



As soon as the game was over we picked up Daneen and Katie and raced off to Reds in West Edmonton Mall. There was some confusion in getting us all in but eventually we did. Very cool party. So many neat costumes, there was arcade games, a stage, dance floor, 10 pin bowling. There was a costume judging competition worth $1000. I was trying to get some drinks when they announced the winners but Caveman Brendan came back from the stage screaming "THEY WON, LUCAS AND CHRIS WON". Lucas and Chris had dressed as Ace and Gary: The Ambiguously Gay Duo. I found them later to congradulate them, their baby blue spandex costumes were priceless...well no actually, they were worth $1000 I guess.



We danced for a while then Katie "AKA Kutie", Daneen "AKA DaDream", and myself "AKA The Pimp" went upstairs for some bowling. I think that a few beers really helps my form and I also found that too many beers really brings my game down. I won the first game but Daneen really schooled us after that. During our second game I looked over and noticed that the rest of our group (Nevin, Matt, Mark, Brendan, Heather, and Kimberly) were bowling just a few lanes over. That was the rest of our night. Nothing eventful happened on the way home.



This morning was different. I was sleeping off my "tiny" hangover when grandma woke me up at 9:00 am and said "Terry isn't home yet, I'm really worried". I kinda thought this was going to happen so I told her not to worry, that Terry was just sleeping it off at some friends place nearby and that he'd probably try to make contact sometime after 2:00 pm. He surprised us by making it home before 10:30, in rough shape, but he was home. His superman crest was still blinking. Okay, time to go to school and get some more design work done on my tail landing gear. Happy Halloween everyone!

Halloween...AUGH!

I need some costume suggestions. I know it's a bit late but I still want to fit in at Red's tomorrow night. Going to be a blast I'm sure. Lucas and one of his friends are going as the "Incredibly Gay Duo"...I don't think they'll have to dress up much. I was thinking of going as a wrapped present, "God's Gift to Women" but apparently that's been done... a lot. So what should I do?



Any of these look promising? Didn't think so. I guess if I absolutely have to I can wear Terry's orange "convict" jumpsuit. He's got a little kid's superman costume to wear so he won't be using the coveralls. Okay, time to go find some Friday Fun. Later people!

Call me a Talis-man

Well I was finally able to choose one of the job offers I got on Friday. Looks like I'm moving back to Calgary. I'll be working for Talisman Energy which has their global head office in Banker's Hall (west tower) downtown. Lucas will also be working their with me. After talking with my uncle Gerry and my parents it just seemed like the best choice. There's a good wage, great company structure, possibility of future employment...and even Spanish lessons. I may finally become bilingual...or at least well on my way. Nevin is working for Husky and Mike Kolla is with Bonavista. The rest don't know at the moment but we think Matt is working for Courtney Berg in Linden, Alberta, just north of Calgary (50 mins). We'll know soon. I got a bit of a scare today when I got a "Congradulations- you're working for CoSyn in Edmonton" email from the coop coordinator. I know that must just be a mixup since I didn't even get ranked with CoSyn but I emailed her back right away just to make sure I'm still in Calgary.

I'm really looking forward to this now. Nevin, Lucas and I are for sure living together. We don't know where yet but in a house near downtown somewhere. We'll see if Kolla moves in too. He's a pretty high energy guy and I don't know if he could stand living with us. Anyway, I'm super excited. We'll be playing hockey 2-3 times a week, snowboarding every weekend in the winter, wakeboarding in the summer, and playing Tiger Woods 2005 on Lucas's X-box. Oh yeah, it's going to be awesome.

Amber is pretty sad that I'm not going to Vancouver anymore. I really hate to see her feeling like that. There's not much I can do now. I just really wanted to stay closer to home this time around. I'm sorry baby. When I first got back to school I was excited about possibly working in Vancouver but that changed as I was home longer. I'll see Van in a couple weeks here and who knows Amber, maybe you'll find yourself in Calgary or Banff next summer. I think it's going to all work out. I hope you're having a great time in Toronto, I'm thinking of you.

Oh, how I wish I had my pilot's license...

I'm going to take a look at a small airplane today. It's for my design class. My group is trying to redesign a tail landing gear for the thing. I'm not sure exactly what we're going to try and accomplish but I haven't seen it yet so I'm going because I love planes. If I could fly and plane I wanted it was easily be the P51 Mustang. My dad had a really cool book on P51 stories from the second world war. These planes were just so sweet. Very exciting stories.



This is mostly a study weekend. I tried to do a little bit yesterday at Nevin's but we didn't get too much done. We were a little distracted with job offers coming up, watching movies, and just being so happy that we didn't have a report we had to be working on. Movie first, we watched the Punisher last night. I actually thought it was a really good movie. Dark character but he had his funny moments too. I loved his fight against that huge Russian.

So yeah, we got to see all of our job offers for the first time last night. I have some real decision making to do this weekend. The way it works is if the company ranked us first we see the word "offer" beside their name and if they ranked us 2nd, 3rd, ... we see "ranked" beside it. I have 9 offers, mostly from oil and gas companies in Calgary, and 6 rankings, mostly from non-oil&gas companies. Hmm, kinda shows me which way my marks and work experience are steering me. The offers are with Anadarko, BP, Burlington, CNRL, ConocoPhillips, Enbridge Pipelines, ExxonMobil, Syncrude, and Talisman. The only reason I'm writing down all these names is because I'm not quite decided yet and hoped some of you might have some comments for me.

My top 3 are Burlington, Anadarko, and Talisman. During the interviews Burlington just sounded like such a great company. It's a drilling position, which sounds cool but really I don't know much about it. I'm going to call my friend Michael Yee see what he though about it in Calgary last workterm. I'll try to get ahold of my uncle Gerry too. Oh, and the pay is around $3600 /mo. Anadarko is midstream engineering. I don't remember exactly what that is but I do remember thinking "well that's kind've cool but not like Burlington" and then they go and offer me $4000 /mo! Ah, I know money shouldn't be a big part of choosing these student jobs but an extra $500-$400 per month is hard to ignore. Talisman is the first offer I saw and it's appeal is that it's drilling, $3650 per month, and Lucas and Mike Kolla also got offers from then doing other positions that they were excited for. If they don't take those jobs then Talisman and Burlington are more or less the same but I know that they do a lot of fun things at Burlington (baseball, bowling...days off...sounds like Alcan). So I need some input. Mom and Dad, I'll try to call you today but what do you think? Amber, you have any input? I know you have had much oil and gas experience but you always seem to have great wisdom. What should I look for in the company aside from my actual position? Meh, I'll think more about it later. Breakfast time!

3-0-3, I hate thee!

That has been my MSN screen name for the past 2 days. It refers to the formal lab report we have to write for our Mec 303 class. While I know it is useful (and that we're getting off easier than other years) I still feel it is GAY. Why would I want to spend a perfectly frozen October day inside writing a report. Okay, so that's not such a good arguement. How about the fact that this same report has been done hundreds of times over and really has no value. I wrote longer reports at Alcan (but had more than 2 days) and enjoyed the fact that they would be read, examined, and put to use. I was USEFULL. Now I'm GAY. What the hell happend? Why not have the prof give us the raw data from one of his experiments and then have us write the report for him. He can change whatever he wants after but I think he would enjoy having the bulk of it done.

Just had my 4th phone conference of the night with Brendan. It hard for me to believe but he sounds like he's in worse shape with this report than me. The poor guy, I'm betting he won't sleep tonight. I'll try to send him some positive energy....(sending)...there. Hopefully he's feeling better about it. I may as well send some energy to the rest of the guys too. We're all pretty much in the same boat. Nevin was trying to feed me some line earlier about having finished at 8:00. I believed him for a second, liar. So yeah, tonight sucks, but tomorrow will be oh so beautiful. Please some tomorrow, please, please come..du du duh! That's the tune that's going on in my head right now.

Oh yeah, Red Sox won. Good for them. I've usually been a Yankee fan but it was nice to see the underdogs (if you can call them that) win. I don't know if I want them to "reverse the curse" though. It's one of the coolest things in baseball. If that goes, what will Yankee and Red Sox fans have to get worked up about? I think the fact that they can never seem to win brings more people to the Boston stadium than anything else. They all really want to be there when they finally do win... but what about after? Meh, not up to me really. Okay, time for a kick ass discussions section...then conclusion...then summary...then start from the beginning and make sure it's all right. Yeah, can't wait for the work term. Peace!

Ah, she is such a wonderful girl, this Amber...

I had a really good conversation with Amber last night. We've been pretty unsuccessful lately in trying to call each other so last night was really nice. It's only 3 weeks and 2 days before I fly to Van-groovy and it's getting both of us excited. I'm not exactly sure what we're doing once I get there, she seems to have it all planned out. I think Chris will be the first one I see if he picks me up from the airport. I'll hopefully see most of the others too on November 10th.

The best part about going to Vancouver in 3 weeks is that I can look forward to it. When school and homework starts getting really tough, I know I can say "hey, just a little longer and you can take a nice long break." I'll probably have some homework or reading on the plane with me just so I don't get too far behind.

Matt, Brendan and I made a good dent in our Mec 303 assignment tonight too. I think we could have done more if were weren't watching the baseball game. Overtime is cool but not when you just want to see a winner, any winner, and turn the tube off so you can concentrate. We did get everything we planned to done tonight, but we really did have time to do more.



Another "cool" thing happened tonight. Our first ultimate frisbee game got cancelled due to the snow. I know my team is tough and was ready to play, too bad the campus rec guys are such pansies. I think we could have won by default if the games were still on. I don't know how many of the other teams would have showed up. Oh well, I guess we can just do it next week when we have 4 feet of snow and it's -20C instead. Ok, just a little more homework and I can go to bed. 'Night all.

Happy 21st Birthday Lucas...Fun Times at the Rugby Club

Yes, that guy formerly known as Lucas, mostly known as the Big Queer, is 21 and had a huge birthday party at the Rugby Club in St. Albert to celebrate. I guess I shouldn't knock him because it was a pretty sweet party. Thanks for the invite Lucas!



Yeah, so Jeff was up and came out with Terry and I. Nevin brought Heather and Brendan, Josh and Kimberly showed up later. Kimberly was also celebrating a birthday, her 18th, at midnight. So Happy Birthday Kimberly. She's on the right with her sister Heather on the left.



We were there for a pretty long time so I'll try to sum it up:
Nevin and I were pretty chill for the night as the two DDs.



Terry and Jeff were acting like a couple of homos.



Brendan and Matt were...well...also acting gay. I mean, look at Brendan's face, that is a really gay face (in the "really happy" sense).



And Lucas...yeah Lucas was all about the alcohol tonight if he liked it or not.



I bought him a few beers and a couple of SourJacks shots. I saw him take quite a few others during the night. I know Terry got him some scotch. So yeah, sweet party. I'm really sad that it's over though, that means I have to go to sleep, wake up sometime, and start chipping away at that iceberg of homework that came crashing in recently. I'm actually starting to feel overwhelmed a little bit. But then I remember that I'm in the same boat as everyone else. It may suck but at least I have some company. Good night all!

Amber...you're 24...do you feel lucky?

I was about to start off saying "YES It's Friday" but then I realized it's actually Saturday already. My misconception there probably comes from the fact I spent most of my day at school...and all my classmates were there too. We have so much work due in the next few weeks...it almost makes me sick to think about it. AND THERE'S SNOW!!! It's been snowing like crazy since last night...WHY!?!?!



Thankfully I have some fun stuff to take my mind off of it, mainly birthdays. Amber turned 24 on Thursday (Happy Birthday Baby!) but I still haven't been able to get ahold of her. We've been playing phone tag for a few days here, but I'm going to get through. She needs to hear me sing, I'm not sure what song yet but she's going to hear me sing. I'm sure her friends are doing a great job with her birthday weekend but I haven't heard anything yet.

Lucas turned 21 on Wednesday and his party is tonight. Jeff and dad drove up to Edmonton last night so Jeff is coming with Terry and I to the party. Lucas has got the whole Rugby Club to himself up in St. Albert. The weather might not be the best but I wouldn't miss it. I need a break. Okay, quick bite to eat, a shower, annnnnndddddd I'm outta here!



Later peoples!

Long weekend aftermath...

Augh, I hate using the word math...reminds me of school work. Yeah, the assignments are really starting to pile on, I'm going to be super busy until, well, until I go to Vancouver. That is my beacon of light. Seeing Amber again soon is a real boost to my spirit. But for now I have to be content with my friends here, jk. I have some candid camera pictures of a few of them along the top. I say candid because there is no way that most of those stupid looks could be poses. Wow Brendan, washing a lemon...nice work buddy.



I did have a really good long weekend as I'm sure most of you did. Terry and I drove down to Nanton on Friday, partied it up with Jeff and some friends at the Nanton bar. Jeff turned 20 on Friday. It seems like that kid is growing up so fast he should catch me sometime soon...never will though...at least not in official age. Saturday morning I drove the rest of the way to our cabin in Montana with a couple of grouchy slugs. I'm not sure what happened to my brothers after I left them at the bar, it sure didn't seem like them in the morning.

It was really good to see the place again. Water was pretty cold but we got the pier out and went for a few canoe trips around the lake.





Saturday was mom's birthday, I think she's almost 30 by now. Yeah, that means Jeff was born a day before her birthday, worst present she ever got. Judging from these pictures though, I don't know if either of them are actually getting older. Maybe they're just senile now.





We had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday, Peter and I mutilated, I mean, carved up the turkey. We helped dad with a few outside chores like finishing the roof and...well the rest we left him to do.



All in all, a very enjoyable weekend. Now if I can just find some way to change that 9 hour drive back to Edmonton.

Yes, those are new pictures

I finally decided to put some new pictures up on my website. A couple days ago I uploaded around 20 and there will be more to come soon. I thought I'd leave them up for a week each but I'm way to impatient for that. Plus, it might get you guys to read this more often if you're worried about missing pictures. And just so you know, all pictures up there have come from my camera, even the sunset ones. I showed those to my uncle the other day. He's been going to this cabin since he was born but he was still really impressed with the sunset we had that night. I really need to get some pictures of my ultimate team. I've had my camera there every time but never think to get it out during the game. Next time...

Oh yeah, speaking of ultimate, we WON last night. Some of us were thinking that it would be nicer to lose and go into the easy pool for playoffs but we played really good, spanked the other engineering team, and now we're in the B Pool. I think we'll still do pretty well, especially if everyone shows up. If we play like last night I think we can win. We should have Brendan (yay!) and Lucas (boo!) back for playoffs. Both have been out with foot injuries/surgeries. Terry was sore for a while too but made it out last night anyway. Homework time! Later peoples, check regularly for new pictures along the top. And remember, you can click on them to see a larger view.

Sweet weekend

Yes, we did do homework at the lake. Ha! Take that dad. Terry, Rosina, and I drove out around 2:00 and met up with Jacob, Matt, and Lucas at the cabin. There was some wind and sun but we wanted to get cracking on the work right away but a few hours later the wind had stepped up and I couldn't ignore the sailboat anymore. I went out with Rosina and Jacob first. Rosina got drenched almost immediately. The wind was really starting to blow so it made for an interesting time, the water was freezing cold too. On the way back I decided just to ride the boat right up onto the beach. I knew the rest of them wouldn't want to go out and freeze and I couldn't really work my hands anymore by then. Oh well, back to the homework and a beer... yes they do mix.

At around 11:00 we got a knock on the door. Terry said it was a couple of girls he didn't recognize, we couldn't think of who it could possibly be. Then Janet Jackson, Denine, and Adam walked in. They made fun of us for doing homework on a Saturday night so we quicly closed up all the books, grabbed some more beer and went down for a bon fire. Really good time, Terry was the entertainment.

Terry and I were the only ones who stayed over, everyone else bailed out, so just my uncle Murray and cousin Colin were there the next day to help bring in the peir. Thanks a lot guys. It wasn't too hard and I only pulled half of the muscles in my back. Good times. I'm home now, homework is all done, and I think this is going to be a really great week.

Wabamun Lake ho!

Yes, it's the weekend! I'm done most of my assignments but I have the rest packed up and ready to go out to the cabin with me. The rest of my friends have their work packed too are are really gung-ho about getting it all done. Man, are we nerds or what? But where would we rather be? In a small cramped library, trying to be quiet while we listen to half of the other people cough their brains out or sitting on a sunny deck, nice record music going, barbecued hamburgers...yeah, I'll take the second one. I'm also taking my camera out again, going to get some more good pics of the lake. I wonder if I can blow a 3.2 megapixel picture up to 8x10 size. I'll have to find out sometime. Ok, we're outta here. Have a great Saturday everyone!