GO FLAMES!! and GO HOT TUBS!!

Well I went to my first NHL game in roughly 7 or 8 years. I went with my cousin and his buddies to the saddle dome, and of course we were in full form. I quickly got to know the fine gentlemen beside me who enlightened me in the fact that this was their 21 year of having season tickets. Nice young boys I would have to say. This weekend I will be going to the Stampeder's game but going to my first tailgate party. I think there are around 40 of us going and we have 2 barbecues and a bunch of coolers....should be a good time. I will start off the weekend with a house warming Friday night for a girl that I work with (the one in the hot tub on the left, Kristen).

I have tried to slow down this week, and start to pace myself for the weekend and so far I have been doing a good job. I have now spent two consecutive nights not going out to party. I think I am on a role. Work, like usual has been off the hook! I would tell you about it but I am afraid that I would loose all of my two readers, so I may just save it for another time.

A head light went out on my car yesterday, so this evening I made the trek to Ukranian Tire. To my pleasent surprise, I was overcome with a feeling of being at home. It is nice to know that no matter where you go Canadian Tire stays the same, and I hung out there for a while just because it felt good. After around 20 minutes I finally woke up to what I was doing (hanging out at the C.T.) and pinched myself and went to a near by buddies house for a beer to wake up.

This weekend shall prove adventerous and action-packed so stay tuned for some pictures of good times. But I will leave you with my good buddy Sabastien and a friend we partied with two weekends ago ......... ;)

And it was another hum dinger

Well it started off with a bunch of us coop students going to a bar called Caili's Friday after work. We started things off right and got right into business with the pints costing 6.50 (of which I found out after I had 4). This is the same bar that last week I went for the Lobster fest and wow, there was TALENT again. This time another coop student showed and she had brought 5 of her girl friends. Needless to say we all picked it up yet another notch. After that bar we went to a dance club (again back to Cowboys) and I think we all danced for around 3 hours. Now for those of you who know me, this is a good sign of what kind of shape I was in to do that. I still managed to get some digits from a cutie, but I will have to leave that for another post. I think I got to bed around 3:30 in the morning (not even my bed but a buddies couch who was downtown, I was not about to pay another 20 dollar cab ride). Well I woke up at 7 and rushed to the bus stop only to wait for 50 minutes before my bus came. Yes it was cold! I finally got home, packed my car with my bike on top, and picked up my buddy Sebastian and we were off to Lake Louise. Here my intent was to do some downhilling and really break in my new bike, but alas I was duped! You see Sebastian's cousin works at the Chateau and I thought he would be able to take us up the hill and find some crazy trails. Well no hill but crazy trails. We did about a 25 km ride, and of which 24 were up hill and about 1 km was done. I think my legs are still hurting from riding my stupid overly built 50 pound down hill bike up the side of a mountain all afternoon. There was a treat in store for me when we got back though. You see at the resort there are around 800 employees and around 95% are under 30 years old! The cousin we met (Stephan) was able to get us into the "Staff only" bar that night and what can I say ......sigh (another deep breathe) ... agian the bar was supossed to close at two but the locals don't really do it that way. The bar closed at 3:00 and then the party moved to Stephan's room where we were staying. (At this point I am going to schedule in some sleep time in the next month I hope).

Well we woke up at 11 the next morning to Stephan saying some curiously sounding french
words (very loud) it turns out he was supposed to work that morning at 9 and did not quite make it. Well he then decided to paly dumb if they asked and proceeded to make us breaky. After breakfast we went for a walk around the grounds and were just blown away by the beauty. We fought off a few tourists which I learnt to my surprise summer is the bussiest month there! Who would have thought and proceed to drive to a near by lake called Moraine, which was the lake that was on the old $20 dollar bills. Another amazing lake tucked away in the Rockies. We decided that we should role out and head home after that and got back to Calgary in the evening. No one was home when I got there, and thus Ferris the cat did not feel like sharing his house with me and we had a 20 minute stand off in the basement. I am starting to grow tired of this little hellion and am trying to figure out how to ease over the situation without too much blood (his or mine).


Well I think I should go now because Lincoln my cousin has just finished setting up the 40 inch LCD T.V. and the show is about to begin.

Well I hope that you enjoyed some of these pictures and some of my life. If you ever want to leave some comments or email you know the drill.

Peace

And so it has started

Well today was off the hook! I have been talking to other students who started at the same time I did, and some of them told me they don't have computers yet, two of them are even sharing a desk. My one buddy Sabastien does not have a computer, he is sharing a desk, he does have a phone though and there is still one catch, the phone that he has, does not have the cord to connect to the phone to the reciever! Myself on the the other hand have started by baptism by fire. I am not complaining by any means, it is just that I will not be bored for a while to come. Today they loaded it on and in a big way. I do have my commute home that will keep me happy. Today as I was driving home, I saw this lady (to the right). One might say to themselves "it looks like she is wearing a gas mask to sweep her sidewalk" . Well if one were to say such a ridiculous statement they would be right. I do not want to even venture a guess at what she was thinking. I guess not only Winnipeg has won the smartest people contest. Calgary can represent for themselves.

I have also added a pic of the trail that I have to take as well. I know it looks rough but it could be one of the nicest trails that I have ridden and it is the one that I can take to work in the morning. The trail is along the river that runs to downtown. There are so many people that ride their bikes into work here. It is kind of cool. There is some messed up thinking though, you see they have paved dedicated bike paths along the river that run almost across town, and they are completely smooth. Now the local people still complain about these paths and how they are not maintained and they are still dangerous. All I want to say to these people is come to the peg and ride 5 blocks down Pembina highway during a school day, and they will gladdly pay to ride their paved bike paths and keep their mouths shut and be happy for what they have.

I did find out that it is illegal to ride a bike here without a bell. So I ventured to the MEC (which is huge) and bought a $2.49 bell that sounds like crap so I would not get a fine. I also heard that the police set up speed traps on the trail. The speed limit is 20 km/h and at certain points on the pavement to work I get up to 50. I wonder if I will go to jail for doubling the speed limit?

This weekend coming up shall prove to be another adventure as a bud from the peg is coming up and we are heading out to Sun Peaks to see what kind of damage we can do to ourselves riding the mountain on our bikes. I just hope that I will still be able to come to work and do my crap load of work.

Stay tuned for the next adventure!!!

Breaking it down

Well I have been thrown in and loving it. Working with Shell is a little different than any other job I have had. Everybody is really relaxed and there is not a lot of stress in the air, which makes it for a real friendly enviorment. There is a lot of info that has happened in the last three days, but I will try to break it down.

The first day of work I didn't want to ride my bike into work, because I didn't know where to park it and other reasons so my cousin fixed a ride with his neighbor for me. Well this "neighbour" is 27 years old she is smokin! She has a super bling job, and drives a new Audi A4 all macked out. I could totally get used to this life I said the whole way in. Well as we are driving she lets me know that her parking spot is underneath a strip joint. As we get out of the parking lot and walking down the street she tells me that this is the stree that all the hookers are on the evening. 10 minutes with this chick and I am pretty set. LOL

me home. For the most part is was amazing, right beside a river, and then I turned a corner. I saw this hill almost brought a tear to my eye knowing that I was going to have to up it. Well I started to climb and got about a third up when I called it quits and decided try walking. I was also tired of all the older women with their crappy bikes loaded with crap passing me. There was one buy who passed me on my way up 3 times. He would go down, blast up and do it over. Every time heYesterday and today I rode my bike. Let me tell you that riding in the Peg and riding in Cow town are totally different. I found places in my lungs that I didn't know I had, and I didn't know could hurt like that. My cousin Linc (being his joking self) told me about a trail that would take would pass I would just smile and nod and continue to look to see if I could see top of this "monster"....

To Be Continued...

Finally arrived!

Well after one of the busiest weekends last year I did not think it could get any busier, but alas I was wrong and the law of statistics proved that I should stay in school, and keep doing math.

Well my sister's wedding was amazing! The weather was great, a little windy on the actual day but easy to handle when thinking about the alternatives. The sun was out, and everybody was wearing there sunglasses. Natalie, was beautiful like no other. I was very proud to be able to stand up as her "brides man". She did have four flower girls and then Brad's brother and I were the wedding party. The wedding was a full weekend endevour. It started on Friday, when we all drove out to the camp, (Camp Koinonia) to set it all up. The tent was set up the day before by the company we rented it from, (thank goodness cause it was huge) and we had to do everything else. I believe we set up around four hundred chairs, two hundred for the actual wedding and then another two hundred in the tent for the reception. We had to set up all the tables and all the place settings. The next day was the wedding, and like I said amazing! Pictures will follow as soon as I get a few things sorted out here at my new dwelling. The next day (Sunday) we had to clean up (did I mention the four hundred chairs and around 25 tables?) and clean up the camp as well.

I then proceed on my journey but now I had picked up a guest. My aunt from Red Dear Alberta who had hitched a ride with my other relatives to the wedding needed a ride back. Well I loaded the little Honda up with two bikes and two snowboards on the roof, and the back seat and trunk full of all the useless crap I think I will need in the next 8 months and loaded my aunt up and started to drive. The Honda topped out at around 115 km/h so I really worked her for 5 hours until we got to Regina. I figured that if Shell would pay for a hotel, I did not have to kill myself and try and do it all in one day. I stopped at the first real hotel in Regina which was the Days Inn and as I was checkin at the front counter if there was a vacancy, my fine cousin walked by who missed my sister's wedding because he was playing in a flag football tournament walked by. The evening was fine up until the bombers lost the labor day classic. I then stormed out of the room and enjoyed the hot tub with a few bevies. I was invited by a some people there to come and play a game of dominoes. One of the people I was playing with was a legitimate "Rain Man". We were playing with a dominoe set of up to 15 dots on each side of the tile. This rain man could add up 10 tiles in around 5 seconds! It was sure amazing to see. I later learnt that he was an accountant so my amazement dropped a little. I wanted to test him with his math skills and see how I compared to him and asked him a question I was asked once "what time is it when the minute had is EXACTLY one notch after the hour hand?". Originally when I was asked it took me about ten minutes to deduce the answer, and I was happily awarded when six people took roughly thirty minutes to figure it out.

Well the next day I had to drive another eight hours and it was very un-eventfull, except when I filled up at the Sask/Alb border. You see my car has a 55 liter tank and I put in 54.43 liters! The gas light was on for the last 30 kms and I was not sure if I would make it. We continued on and my car also continued to get 21 miles per gallon! For those who don't know, that is severe CRAP! I arrived at my destination here is Calgary, at my cousins Lincoln and Michelle's at around 10 in the evening.

Now I am dead tired and afraid I have my first day of work tomorrow and not sure how I am going to get there either. Well it's all about the adventure anyway. . . . . .