Blair's Blog

It’s difficult to believe that autumn began this week. It has been quite the roller coaster of a year. The economy generally has been difficult here and the job market has been abysmal – the worst employment market in 30 years, some say. Even this week, two individuals that I know were let go from their companies.

In some good news for us, though, both Brenda and I landed jobs in September, which was an incredible relief after months of scrambling for small contracts and juggling finances to keep the bills paid and food on the table. Brenda is going to be working in the information booths at the Calgary Airport that provide all manner of assistance to travelers going through the airport. This month and next are largely focused on training and getting oriented to the new international terminal building that will be opening for use at the end of October after about 6 years of construction. One of Brenda’s current responsibilities is to guide groups of airport staff on familiarization tours through the new terminal.

I was fortunate enough to bring my “unpaid vacation” to an end after 352 days off – I started on a contract with an oil company downtown just this past week. I will be reviewing the operational policies and procedures over the next 12 months and updating them where needed to improve the effectiveness of the processes and to help ensure that all of the requirements of the business and industry regulators are being met.

In the midst of all this change for Brenda and I, of course there is all the hectic back-to-school activity with the kids – it’s not to bad for the boys, as their situations and routines are very similar to last year. However, one of the sacrifices that had to be made with the lack of employment was that we had to withdraw Alyssa from her school – this year she is doing Grade 9 through a distance learning program – her classes are on-line each morning and she works independently on her assignments in the afternoons. So far, that has been working well for her.

All in all, September has been pretty eventful and, finally, in a good way.

Comments Off on Finally! Jobs!

One of the problems with Christmas is that there are far too many delicious goodies around the house – and this while the days are short and the weather cold. The antidote is, of course, to get out and get moving – something that we are finding a little easier to do now living in Calgary. We can actually walk though really nice parks that are just a few blocks from the house. Or, as we discovered over the holidays, just by stopping and walking while out running errands.

Over the past week, Brenda and I walked up Nose Hill on a bright clear day, took Chloe to the dog park in her new coat and did a long walk through Sandy Beach while the kids were swimming at the local pool.

The plan is definitely to keep up the walking – at least until the Christmas calories are dealt with!

Comments Off on Winter Walks

Christmas day has come and gone; the new year is just around the corner. It seems that this year has just flown by! The week leading up to Christmas Day was full of family activity; we hosted Brenda’s two brothers and their families on the 23rd and had twenty-one cousins, aunts and uncles over for dinner to celebrate Barry’s birthday and it wasn’t even a major milestone (unless you are counting in hexadecimal, then it’s 40). Barry and Breana and their 6 kids headed home on Christmas eve (after an all-cousins laser tag outing), then on Christmas Day we gathered with my side of the family at my Mom and Dad’s on Christmas Day.
Continue Reading »

Comments Off on Merry Christmas!!

Sounds bleak, doesn’t it? November can often be blustery and grey – flurries of ice pellets rattling the windows as Old Man Winter stretches and yawns after a long summer’s slumber. This November has seen some of that, but we have also had some fine clear days with blue skies in abundance. Certainly the landscape’s palette has had the yellows, reds and fading greens removed in favour of browns and muted gold, but in the thin, bright sunshine there is still plenty to admire.

Brenda and I spent three days this past week working in the country around Gull Lake, Lacombe and Ponoka. We were doing antenna upgrades for the rural customers of a wireless internet service provider. I wouldn’t say that it was glamorous work, but since my contract in the energy industry wasn’t renewed at the end of September, it helps to cover the mortgage. Brenda had started in on this project a week or so earlier and had upgraded the transmit/receive equipment at a dozen towers throughout central Alberta. This past week, we were upgrading the customer’s antennas and inside equipment. We visited 32 properties over the three days.

We were fortunate with the weather, apart from a morning long snow squall on the second day that turned the roads and roofs icy slowing our progress considerably. By afternoon though, we were back to sunshine and temperatures just above freezing. At one point between customer sites, we stopped at the top of a hill on Range Road 11 north of Township Road 432 in Ponoka County. While Brenda took advantage of half-decent cell coverage (2 bars!) to call in the previous upgrade, I took a few (nine, actually) pictures and created a panorama of the view:

I used the Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor to build the panorama (5300 pixels wide) from the still shots – quite a cool program, easy to use with some interesting features. Features like the ability to extrapolate to fill in the black areas:

There are a few funky artifacts like half fence posts and the trucks shadow disappears suddenly, but it is pretty interesting to see how well it completes the image.

In any event, on this day at least, it was anything but bleak.

Comments Off on November on the Prairies