Awesome one-day weekend...

Yeah, I technically only had a one day weekend. Friday we partied at our place but when the party moved to The Roadhouse downtown, I turned in because I was heading out to the field early Saturday morning. I picked up Pam Spencer, another Talisman student, and drove out to Turner Valley. The well site was just a few km's south. The rig was Jomax 9, a gigantic triple rig. That mean's it can load drill pipe sections 3 at a time into the hole, much faster than doing it one at a time. When we showed up they were most of the way through running in the surface casing. This is a metal tub that they cement in at the top 600 m of the hole to make sure ground water isn't coming into the well. I got a few tours and stuff from the rig manager and the drilling forman, both good guys. I also got to help set up the cementing pipes and be there when they loaded the scrapers. I appologize if this is making no sense to some of you, but you'd be bored and really hate me if I explained it more. I do have some pictures from that day but I'll have to put them up later. We left around 2:30 and the beauty is that instead of getting paid for Saturday, we get to take another other day of the year off. Save it up for July or something.

(Edit: Okay, here's a picture of the rig)



Mom was in the city that night so she came over for pizza at our place. Nevin and Lucas had stayed at home all day on the couch "recovering". Nevin had a LOT of recovering to do apparently.

Sunday I finally made it out snowboarding with my new board. It needs a new wax job (seemed to drag a bit on flat sections) but was absolutely amazing otherwise. Nevin and Lucas came with me as well as my cousin, Carly. She's just learning so I spent the day with her teaching her how to carve...smoothly. My dad had showed her his "jump-around" method at Christmas so I had to re-teach her the right way. (Sorry dad...it's true). Carly learned so fast, the other two were really impressed. She went down her first black diamond run before lunch and was able to keep up with me no problem in the afternoon. She's also goofy foot (right foot forward) so I spent most of the time doing the same (I'm normally left foot forward). The practice was great, I can do a whole run now goofy, steep parts, bumpy parts, and flat, fast parts, no problem. I don't think I can handle trees yet, but I can take off of jumps comfortably switch so that I can land some nice 180's. I hope Jeff comes down to board with us on the second weekend in February. I told the guys down here that he's pretty good at waxing boards. He could easily make $100 Friday night doing our boards and ski's because I know everyone would have no problem paying $10 each to get it done properly. With what they charge at regular shops and the crappy job they do anyway, it's a super deal to have Jeff do it. So Jeff, are you coming down February 11th? Do you need anything from home to wax boards? We'll set you up on the ping pong table downstairs at our place if you're up for it.

Okay, work time, break is over. Later people.

What a weekend...

Okay, had a great time this weekend and I should take the time to tell it all properly, but it's late and I have to get to bed soon. So here it goes.

Yes Nevin did get a Hummer last week...three days in a row! Still don't believe me? Here's proof:



Nice work! Friday he was back and that night Nevin, Ada, Andrea and I went to Aussie Rules. I'd never been, didn't know what to expect, but I'd heard that it was really good from a few people. They lied! It's not really good...IT'S FREAKIN' AWESOME! The food was great, the beer was great, and the music and entertainment was absolutely top notch. So much fun but I don't really want to explain more because it's ruins the effect. If you want to know, you'll just have to come with us next time we go. I think we'll be there again February 12 when some buddies of mine come down from Edmonton (hopefully).

A few other firsts this weekend. Finally saw one of Matt and Tom Melbourne's Junior B games in Okotoks. They stomped the other team. I also saw their new appartment over by SAIT. Little empty at the moment but I'm sure they'll fill it soon.



Tonight was also a special night. I sat down with the roommates to an awesome meal (good pork chops Nevin) and a movie I hadn't seen yet. Vanilla Sky. Um...Wow! I don't really know what to say except that it's one of the most incredible movies I've ever seen. It had everything. An actor I can hate (Tom Cruise), an actress I was instantly in love with (Penelope Cruz), it had...woah, must stop myself. The reason it was so good was that I had absolutely no idea what it was about. It was also a new one for Lucas. He said after that he likes it better than Donnie Darko. For those of you who know Lucas that should be enough for you to stop what you're doing, work, homework, whatever, and go see it RIGHT NOW! I'm going to be thinking about it for days, especially since Lucas and I plan on watching it again tomorrow.

I'm sorry to leave you with so many loose ends in this entry but such is life. I'm going to see a comedian tomorrow at lunch and get a free meal at the same time. There are definitely perks to working oil and gas...too bad it's bad for the environment. You know, they do need environmental engineers in the oil and gas industry, keep tabs on them. They way I could have my cake and eat it too. Unless the environmental engineers are the ones that don't get invited to the free lunches. Boo...go Earth! Okay, bed time. 'Night all!

I don't wanna be anything other than me...

Nevin finally found his song, "I Don't Want To Be" by Gavin DeGraw. It took him a lot of time and anguish, but he found it. Good song too. In fact the whole CD is good, I recommend it.



Well things are going along swimmingly here at home. I read an excellent quote today at work, went something like this: "People are like crayons; some are new, some are shiny, some are dull, some have interesting names, and some are just plain cracked (Kolla) but they all manage to live in the same box." I've heard it more than once already down here. When people me me and all my roommates they ask, "How the hell do you guys live together?" Apparently we're different. Hmm, I don't really know the answer to that one but we make it work. Update on the roomies:

- Lucas is in Edmonton this weekend with his bro, Ben. All of his snowboarding dreams were washed away by the rain this week. Bonus story here, I put Ben out of the poker game last night with a killer hand. Boo-ya!

- Mike is going on a company fieldtrip tomorrow...to play hockey in Stettler, AB with his coworkers. I wish Talisman did something like that. He's borrowing my equipment to go do it so if he plays good, I'm going to compliment the knee pads. Bonus story here too, Mike pretty much put me out of the game one hand after I nixed Ben. Crap!

- Nevin got home from a visit to the field with Husky. He left for Athabasca on Tuesday. In Edmonton they found that the car rental company had no more SUV's left for them to rent, so they settled for the next best thing...a fully loaded H2. AN H2!!!!!! The lady he went with didn't want to drive it at all so he got to cruise around in that thing for 3 days. He called us the first night to gloat! I can't wait to see the pictures. Bonus story....um....Nevin's gay.

So yeah, good stuff all around. I went to dinner with my parents tonight, getting to be a regular at the BP's near Westbrook Mall. Tomorrow I'm going for lunch with a bunch of people from my office and some other students I've met or know from the U of A. It was hard to plan this, believe me. Next time I'm going to post ONE email saying where I'm going and when. You want to come with me fine, make your own damn reservation. I gotta get some sleep. There's some jokers in my office, I'm afraid to let my guard down now. Peace y'all!

Great weekend peoples...

I wish more weekends could be this fun-packed and productive. Work went by pretty quick on Friday so Nevin, Lucas and I whipped home, changed, picked up Janet and went to a place called Crush on 12th Ave SW. Neat place, nice waitress, awesome prawn fettuccini. Kolla was there too with some coworkers. We left that place and drove up to the U of C to watch Phil and the Golden Bears take on the Dinos. Unfortunately it was a bit of a blowout game not in our favor. Phil wasn't too happy but he still came out with us after to party a bit. He brought a friend, Isabell, too.

Saturday Lucas, Janet and I did some shopping at Chinook Mall and came away with some new LG cell phones from Bell. I found out today that it's going to take a whole month for them to cancel my old Bell plan...that's really gay. Saturday night was the highlight of the weekend. We started off the good times at our place. A few drinks, playing some guitar, Janet passed out, and the rest of us headed out to The Stetson on McLeod Trail for a concert. Tupelo Honey, from St Albert, was in town. Lucas knew the one guitarist. Excellent concert. We watched for a while with drinks in hand and then went out on the dance floor later...still with drinks in hand. I didn't spill too much.

Sunday was pretty sweet too. There's an outdoor rink about 6 blocks west of us so we played a few hours of outdoor shinny with others from the neighbourhood. Some grocery shopping after that ended the day.



While I do like the warmer temperatures in Calgary now, I do wish it would stay below zero to not undo all of the lovely winter things that have happend: outdoor rinks, powder on the ski hills, soft snowbanks to fall in when it's too tough to negotiate your front walkway after a night of drinking at a concert....yeah, that happened.

Petey lays a woopin'...

Yup, Peter's Midget team kicked some butt tonight in Nanton. They were missing a few of their players but still managed to come out on top. Peter took a penalty in the second period, totally hacked this guy, almost took his head off, shouting "DIE YOU BASTARD!" so that gave me a chance for a quick pep-talk. You know, to calm him down a bit... JK. You all know that ain't Pete's style. He did get a penalty for hooking some guy but nothing major. I did see him try to lay the smack down on one kid. Didn't really catch the body but the kids stick flew out of his hands and stuck in the ceiling. It stayed there for about 20 seconds and then fell down. He also took a few bad hits. One left him crawling through the door to his bench, looked like it really hurt.



This is another picture from Hawrelak Park in Edmonton. I like the snowflakes in the forground. Nice work by the photographer.

The start of a new and happy year...

Yes, it is 2005...finally. I was really looking forward to 2005 because it meant that I would be done with school and homework for 8 months. It also meant that I would be working for Talisman, making money, and living with some awesome roommates. Yeah, it's going to be a good year, I can tell.

So what else have I done since my last entry? Well let's see...(screen fades out)

We missed our Christmas Even sleigh ride last year (Costa Rica) so I was really excited about this one. For those who weren't there, we take a ride around the streets of Nanton on the back of a flatbed trailer, sitting on bales, looking at lights, and sipping on hot chocolate and Bailey's.



Usually it's really cold but it was actually pretty nice this year and we were able to get in a few laps around the town.

Next, of course, was Christmas Day. It played out in the usual way. Peter gets up way before any of the rest of us, brings us our stockings in bed, and continues to pester us until we all get up. I'm not sure what he got here, but he looks happy.



I came away with some really nice presents for a 21 year old. New tires on my car and some IKEA gift certificates! Both have come in handy already. Boxing Day was a nice relaxing day, including dinner with my Mom's side of the family and some family pictures.



For the rest of the week we just enjoyed ourselves around Nanton, skiing, snowboarding, shinny at the HUB, and skating on the creek.



I've got one week of working for Talisman under my belt. I'm in the drilling department and I'm finding it really interesting so far. I didn't know any part of the oil and gas industry was so fast paced. On Tuesday, my first day, I was doing work on a well that had run into trouble only on Sunday. My office is in a center room, on the 32nd floor of Banker's Hall, with 5 other coop students. We do manage to get some work done, but it's really nice having other to talk to around the office.

This weekend I went up the Edmonton with Jeff, Terry, and Nevin to take the bros back up for school. Terry actually had to put in some time on an essay and Jeff was content to start moving everything into the downstairs room. I got around to see some of my other Edmonton friends. Dinner at Red's with Matt and Rhonda, playing Scattergories with Brendan, and a really nice walk around Hawrelak Park with Cheryl.



Tomorrow is my first Monday of work, as well as my first day at the gym. We're all getting memberships at the YMCA downtown. I'm going to be hitting the gym most days and playing volleyball on Monday and Thursday nights. Should be back into shape soon. Hope the rest of you had a great New Year's break and are happy to be back at it, whether work or school.