I'm still updating my blog on Word but STILL havn't been able to find a connection. I'm going to a friends house in the next little while and I'm hoping I will be able to connect and update from there. Cross your fingers!

It's proving rather difficult to find hotels with Internet connections. I'm at the Public Library in High Prarie right now waiting till my next job. I've been passing the time by listening to CBC's call in show about the strike that is going on in Brooks, Alberta at the meat packing plant. Suffice to say listening to a radio call in show on CBC without the obnoious Mark Forsyth (the man I love to hate) was refreshing. Callers who didn't agree with Marks point of view wern't cut off or anything! Very good and insightful program even though I did have my finger on the 'Send' button of my phone most of the time as I wanted to weigh in on the topic. Likely best I didn't as I really wanted to scream at most of the callers.

Later on it's off to Slave Lake. I have been blogging on my laptop and will post when I get the chance.

The Baron's surprise party was an absolute success! I'm very pleased with myself. I had invited Sister over last night for supper under the pretense that she hadn't seen The Baron for a long time and wanted to have dinner with him. This worked wonderfully aside from the fact that we ate a large lovely meal and were excessively full by the time that all of his friends arrived carrying all sorts of appetizer. The actual arrival of the guests happened in two stages. One of them arrived exactly at 7... as planned. She explained herself fantastically by saying that because he missed dinner with her last night that she thought she would stop in for coffee. So of course The Baron was slightly confused but happy to see her. As we were all sitting in the family room having coffee and chatting the door opened and in rushed all of his other friends singing 'Happy Birthday!'. He was completely flustered. Such a great thing to see. The rest of the night involved everyone sitting around the house and enjoying each others company while enjoying coffee and snacks.

In other, not so exciting news, I've caught a very nasty cold. Not so happy about that. Although the experience that all of the colds I had in the last year while working for HBC have helped cause I know there's no point in waiting it out I'm taking as many pills as I safely can to decimate this virus!

Today will be spent doing some laundry and getting prepared for my Alberta trip that starts on Monday. I'll obviously try and keep in touch but I'm not sure what the facilities I'll be staying at will be like so I'm not sure if I'll have internet access.

Well it's finally happened! My Baby's turned 30... 30,000 that is! On my way to Kamloops tonight I had to take this picture. I'm so upset. Why can't they stay young and cute forever?

In other news I'm conducting entry research on a business idea I had last week. I've got a partner who's very excited about the idea as well and we're going to see if it'll work. I just found out about one potential competitor already though and I'm slightly worried. Oh well to soon for that. Cross your fingers and wish me luck! If all goes well I plan on opening our doors sometime in April or May.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAPHAEL! May life continue to be a float down a pleasant stream with Wifey and all those you love. You have always ment an aweful lot to me and I truly love you. May the next 25 years be full of the colour green, fabulous music, good friends, good books, and all the other things you love.



Well I managed to get a whole bunch of things out of my system last night... mainly the desire to go dancing and have some fun with some great friends! The Murder Mystery was completely hoaky but because Tim and Lisa were so much fun we had an absolute blast. Not surprisingly our table managed to entertain all the surrounding tables. There's a little tradition that we have when we go out for food, we name the waiter or waitress. Well last night, inspired by her flashy earings, we named our waitress Margarita! Turns out that it was the poor girls first night serving and well... lets just say we made it fun. We're still not sure if she really enjoyed it when we implicated her in the murder with the actors but we thought it was uproariously funny.

After dinner we went to Penticton's Blue Mule danced for a few hours. All in all a great evening with the promise of more fun today!

I believe the picture speaks for itself! Yes, this was my hotel room this week. Honestly when I opened the door I think the carpet assulted me! Either way I feel violated for having stayed there. I don't think my sense of colour will ever be the same. The beauty of the thing that you can't quite see is the bed spread in the bottom corner of the pic. The bed was actually a BRIGHT peach colour! OMG The whole room only looked ok in the dark... and even then it was bad. I really shoudn't complain to much about this place though because it was meticulously clean. So basically the final word on this is that if your of Ukrainian extraction (as I partly am) you really won't have a problem staying at the Greenwood hotel.

Next in this mini picture tour is a lovely little number I've entitled RAGE! Why you ask would a seemly innocuous little red Jeep cause rage? Well normally this wouldn't cause me to even give it a second thought. Well when said cute little Jeep is driven by a very old man wearing a cap, the cap wearing variety of old men are perhaps the most infuriating drivers I've even encountered, and doing 70 Kms/hr down a straight stretch of road Clearly marked as a 100 Kms/hr zone the rage is explainable. Now when there is a steady line of cars in the opposite lane thereby not allowing a chance to pass for quite a while the rage is downright excusable! I fear that Raphael is going to be a hat wearing little red wagon driver someday... seeing as Wifey already is (it's true minus the red wagon... so far)!

Overall my trip to the Grand Forks area was quite a success though. As mentioned in my previous post I enjoyed the food and overall the people I was dealing with were a very pleasant lot. I'm hoping that my 4 week trip to Alberta in a few weeks will prove as pleasant as this one was... although I'm not expecting the weather to be nearly as decent.

Since I've been getting up at such ungodly hours this week 3:00AM etc. I'm dying right now even though it's only 9:18. So that said I'm signing off and going to bed. Very busy weekend coming up. Tomorrow is a quick Thanksgiving dinner with my family. A Murder Mystery dinner with Tim and Lisa and Sylvia in Kelowna then likely going to Penticton with Sylvia and will end up meeting with Janet and going out. Then Sunday it's Thanksgiving dinner with Janet's family and Monday is recover from the previous two days. Happy Thanksgiving to all you Canadians out there... displaced and otherwise.

Yes I'm still alive. I've been down in the Grand Forks area eating Borsch and Bread with Vereniki. Yum!

I actually took a picture (will be posted soon) of my hotel room in Greenwood because it's so God damned ugly! Once you see the picture you'll know what I mean. Of course the town of Greenwood doesn't have Cell service and I just noticed while checking out of my hotel room that they do offer internet connetivity... Oh well. I'm using the computer at the town's combined Tourist Information Office and Museum. The pasty animic looking fellow at the front desk seems to be getting antsy because I've actually come in and taken them up on the use of a computer. It's rather a strange set-up because I actually had to come into the back office of the Museum to use the computer! Come to think of if I'm getting antsy just setting in here... it's kind of creepy with the big pasty guy floating around...

God Damn does my head hurt. I thought I was actually going to throw-up a couple times today because my stomach was so upset from the head ache. Thankfully the job today went fairly quickly for 11.5 hours. Tomorrow it's off to Grand Forks where I'm very anxiously awaiting a meal of Borsch and very likely bread! Sometimes there are perks to travelling to the middle of nowhere.

Oh in case your wondering the new template got changed again. Didn't like it.

Tonight I'm thinking about some of the kids that are left on the outskirts of society. Ruth came over tonight and we watched a movie and ate some pizza. Ruth is staying with an Aunt and Uncle in a poorer part of town and as I was driving her home I commented on how many kids there were out wandering the street. We pulled up in front of her gate and across the street there was a young guy, I would guess around 13 or 14, wearing a t-shirt that he'd pulled his arms into, sitting on the back bumper of a van. Ruth and I sat watching him for a few moments and discussed whether we should do anything. Finally I said we have to at least ask him if he's ok. So we dropped the window of the car and asked if everything was alright. He tersely answered that it was. His face was clearly telling us to leave him alone. We backed away. Now everything about this situation was ringing alarm bells in my head and frankly still is. Of course once help has been offered there is nothing that can be done once it has been refused but still the desire to help doesn't dissipate quickly.

I bitch and moan about my life and the wrongs done to me all to frequently but the truth is that overall I've got it good. My parents love me and would do anything for me. And I have friends all over the world who would come through for me. If only every kid were so lucky.

So it was time for Template Change... not sure I like this one. Possibly a bit to frilly. I also added Site Meter Counter to the page as I'm totally curious to see if there are more people reading this thing than the ones I know are. We'll see.