Welcome Home!

I got back into Banff at about 11 at night after spending time with Bonnie's family in Calgary. Opened my door and was greeted with that lovely "your house/basement has flooded" smell.

So now I don't have a place to live that won't get me sick until it gets cleaned up. Love vacations.

Pre-Trip Considerations

Hey Folks!

Well I'm coming out in a week (August 22nd land in Detroit) and will it ever be well-deserved. I'm currently on day 15 of 21-days in a row working. Oooooooooooo boy. How I love Banff staffing!

Hey speaking of Banff staffing, Bonnie got a gift pack from a place just for showing up!! And she got another job without an interview. Hah! She's currently in the interview process for a GREAT job up at the Banff Centre (for the arts) too. It's got the word "co-ordinator" in it. High class!

Anyway I'm coming out in a week and my schedule looks like this, tenatively:

London - Thursday/Friday
Detroit - Saturday/Sunday
Sauble/London/Canada-in-general - Monday/Tuesday

As well, I would like to take this time to post the following "THINGS THAT I REQUIRE". Some of you may remember my incredibly crappy Christmas list a while back. This should make up for it. And since Christmas happens in November out here with the start of ski season, might as well count it all as early Christmas gifts!:

- A new computer/laptop (mine fried)
- Money towards my ski pass (not cheap)
- A winter jacket that can actually be used for sporty things (no more puffy coats. They don't work)

I am also adding on "THINGS THAT I WANT". Some of you may have noticed that the list of "Required" items contains, in fact, no items actually required for my continued existence, healthy or otherwise. So take the downgrading from "require" to "want" appropriately

- XBOX Games (NHL 07, Gears of War, Elder Scrolls. Lovin' this thing)
- Climbing gear (60m rope, quickdraws). This one's fairly long-term considering summer is almost over




Ok so the list isn't any longer, but it's at least more expensive. As Bonnie just said: "I'm pretty low maintenance"


See you all soon!

I must be taking crazy pills

I'm going to cut straight to the point.

I walked to work this morning, the clouds broke, and I saw this




THAT WASN'T THERE YESTERDAY

August 10th. Fresh snow. Must be in Canada. Can't wait to see what all the mountains look like. Still cloudy with veyr low-hanging clouds so it really cuts down on the visibility


And now I'm going to go on one of those tangents that seems designed to scare the life out of my parents and loved ones. I'll not comment on whether or not this is actually true.




This is Grassi Lakes in Canmore - huge sport climbing here. SO soso so many routes, and, obviously, some nice scenery too. Bonnie and I went out for some climbing. This is me climbing!




You'll notice that there's only a rope going up from the bottom. That's cause I'm going up first and "setting" the route. Fun! So you can see a coupel things in this photo. For instance, look at where the rope is attached to the rock. WHat you can't see are the secured bolts that somebody else has placed into the rock. YOu climb up along the route laid out by the bolts, attaching your rope to the bolts as you get to them. In this way, as you climb higher, your protection is getting higher with you. If you fall, though, you're not secured from the top so you actually do fall some distance (the full distance is dependant on how far above the last bolt you are. For the super-curious, the actual distance is: Double your distance above the last bolt plus rope stretch and pull on the belayer). Really gets the adrenaline pumping when you are "run-out" above the last bolt (meaning you're a good distance above it. Usually just before clipping in to the next bolt which is probably just barely out of reach).

At the top is great though. Get to hang out up there and create an anchor so that the next people up can climb and be top-roped (meaning that they are secured the entire way from the above). I have a personal anchor, (thanks Trace and Anth!) and attach it directly to the final bolt then it takes several minutes to do my work. All along, just hanging (quite safely too!) 20-30m above the ground and checking out the view. Good stuff!!!

This is me doing that. Hanging out, making the anchor, enjoying the sun.





Can i get some smelling salts for my mother on aisle 4 please?

What's up with that guy!?

You can stop checking the obituaries, I am still here and well.

WE're finally getting some rain. I think it had been about 6 weeks since it rained for longer than 5 minutes - wow did we need it. Bonnie's been working long hours at forestry and there's been a complete fire ban for most of Southern Alberta. I imagine there were a lot of unhappy campers on the long weekend when they couldn't make a fire...at all. I mean, light/cooking aside, how do you entertain yourselves if you can't make a 20ft fire?

Climbed Cascade again because a friend begged me to help him out with his quest. At this point, if Jesus himself asked me to climb that mountain with him, I would probably say no. My favorite part is at the end which is not only UPHILL (after 9 hours of hiking, you get to go up to finish) but is also low, humid, and near a river so it's appropriately full of bugs. Imagine:

You stop to catch your breath and are instantly swarmed, IN THE FACE, by probably about 25 mosquitoes. Fun stuff. You literally can't see through them if you stop. If you think I"m exaggerating, I'll be happy to point the trail out to you and you can go check it out for yourself :D

In other news, the main street of town is fully closed off now to car traffic. This is actually less irritating to drive in than it was before the full closure but now is far more irritating to walk around since there are no crosswalks at the interesection and to cross the road you have to walk a block int he wrong direction, go around the construction, and then the block back to the main road. *sigh*

I thought I'd share some tidbits of the local economy/job market for you. I read an article in the paper estimating that in Alberta there are 100,000 available jobs. 100,000!! Seems impossible but i'll bet there are 1,000 or more in this town alone if you include positions that bosses would *like* to have filled but are managing to get by without. The whole town has been saying how this year, for some reason, is much worse than normal. Every year there is a staff shortage but something about this one is worse, apparently. So the tidbits for you:

--> A nice restuarant in town is offering a finder's fee of $45 gift certificate for the store and 36 bottles of beer for any staff member that brings in an applicant that makes it to the second interview.

--> Another restuarant is offering $150 bonus on your next paycheque if somebody you bring in stays to work for (get this) 2 weeks.

--> Many stores have altered their hours based on lack of staffing.

And in real estate news:

"Half Duplex - 2000 sqaure feet" ------ $475,000

Condo - 2300 sqaure feet ----- $669,000

And so on. Good market!!

Coming home for a week on the 22nd. Hoep to see you all then