A horse named Thor

Thor and I

I went horseback riding last Saturday. I thought that was a nice way to spend my time off. My horse's name was Thor and he was very nice. I thought he was going to throw me off a cliff, but it turns out he just wanted to eat some tasty greens near the cliff edge.

I managed not to fall off, and even to get him to go where I wanted him to go. I think I'll have to do it again some time.

I am spoiled. It's official



Proof that I am spoiled

 I'm going to take a whole blog to brag about the fabulous things people have done for me on my birthday.

Today, flowers arrived to my desk (see picture). They are absolutely gorgeous, smell fantastic, and are going to sit on my desk until they die (and maybe even after). We have a subcontractor that brought 7 or 8 guys to our site for the next week or two to do some liner. They found out it was my birthday yesterday, and drove the hour drive to town to bring back flowers. How nice is that? I'm going to have to get a vase of some sort.

Yesterday, Brandon surprised me. He somehow managed to talk to some people, pull some strings, bribe the mail man... I don't know how he did it really... and sent me a package. The package was cleverly disguised as a delivery to someone else on site.  Inside, carefully wrapped in hand made packaging, was a gorgeous necklace, a cup of my favourite spicy instant noodles, a framed picture of my cat who I miss dearly, and... a two little chocolate birthday cakes. The cakes came full with four candles, a pack of matches, and those funny curly party things that you blow into.

Tonight, since we didn't get a chance last night, we're going out for dinner. Happy 25th to me!

I am truly spoiled.

Birthday in the Mac

Well, today is my 25th birthday.

I think this might be my first birthday out of province. I can't say it really feels any different. So what's new about being 25, rather than being 24? I suppose I can now rent whatever car I want, in any country. I think that's about it. From now on I'll be looking ahead to the seniors' discount.

I was going to go out with the crew tonight, but there's a lot of work to be done tomorrow on a very tight deadline, so we decided that having the crew hungover would be a bad idea. Maybe we'll go out tomorrow night.

The trees have lost almost all their leaves now, so it must be winter. I think this morning was the first morning where I couldn't feel my nose. I think everyone else on site is used to the cold from working other jobs, but it might take me a while get get used to. I think the cold won't be so bad so long as it's sunny, and it's sunny almost every day here.

Last Thursday I went for a visit to Firebag (a Suncor site further north of Fort McMurray) to check out a potential landfill project. It was quite the drive, I have to say. It took about 2 hours to get there, 1.5 hours of which was on dirt roads. I love road trips anyways.

The new landfill site was formerly wilderness. They chopped down all the trees and stripped away most of the brush. All that was left was small branches laying on the ground, moss, plants and the smaller animals flying/scurrying around wondering what happened. We were also informed that there was a wolf den in the nearby trees (that were spared the wrath of the loggers), and sure enough a large wolf trotted by while we were there. Wolf paw prints were everywhere, showing that these wolves were very familiar with the site. I was surprised how large the paw prints were, so I took a picture of them next to my own foot.


Wolf prints next to my workboot (oops camera string) showing scale

I don't think I have to explain why I felt upset as I was leaving the site. It's just a perfect example of what's going on up here. Economy vs. Ecology.



Here's an idea of how beautiful the landscape should be... minus the garbage in the bottom left



Existing landfill. Ravens love garbage... apparently