It seems winter has hit hard here in the frozen north, and quite a bit sooner than expected. Is this a portense of the winter to come? We hope not. However, the roads turned immediately icy which initiated the annual "Idiot Drivers on Ice" show.
Things are going along well at work and the various networks are being transferred over sort of on schedule. We have another service terminating today and Thursday is the last day for our french Teletoon feed. That will only leave two networks remaining and they are scheduled to go dark around the 15th of the month. I am scheduled to do a midnight shift starting the 11th and I'm praying that I am released before that day. I thought I had done with the midnights, thinking that the next one was at the end of November but on checking I realized that it was only a couple of weeks away, so I hope I can get out of them.
I'm trying to get a few projects out of the way so that I can get down to the job search business once I am released at work.
Things are going well with the rest of the family. Sandy is busy preparing her application for her trip to Japan to teach English next year. Lee and Angela have bought themselves a condo in Edmonton right on the riverbank overlooking downtown. They are quite excited about it and looking forward to not having the long drive in from Leduc every day. They move in at the end of November.

---

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Where's Our Indian Summer?

A little bit of rainy weather has put a damper on any outside activities this weekend although we did manage to get out for a nice bike ride yesterday before it started raining. It was a bit chilly so we bundled up but found we were starting to get a little sweaty after warming up and had to start peeling layers. Tonight we had the kids over for a nice ham dinner which was our official thanksgiving dinner with all here.
Things are beginning to start transitioning at work as our different channels are being slowly transferred to the broadcast center in Toronto. As each channel gets transferred it is shut down here and the equipment will be packed up and shipped east. Our goal now is to transition everything as quickly as possible as the sooner everything is shut down here, people can be released. I'm hoping I will be done there within the next two or three weeks although it could drag out to the middle or end of November. So it is our best interest to accomodate our counterparts in the east by helping them get going as quickly as possible.
I am still in the process of brainstorming ideas of where to start aiming in terms of job searching. It's a growing process, but already I have a few ideas and have the seeds of an idea for setting up a small business that will exploit my various talents.

Posted 8:11 PM by Jeff

---

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

The Autumn Leaves

I guess it's time I updated the blog a bit. It's been a couple of weeks of just working and doing the odd project at home. Nothing much spectacular. Dianne has spent much of this week at home with her mom and dad in Sedley as her mom has been somewhat under the weather. So it's been fairly quiet at home as I have been working and Sandy has been at school. Angela, Chris and Lee came over on Saturday night and cooked supper for us, barbecued steak with some yummy hash brown potatoes and delicious pumpkin pie for dessert. Then I was invited out to friends for turkey on Sunday after work, so I have been eating pretty good.
The weather has not been quite up to my satisfaction recently as I have wanted to bike down to the river valley to check out the fall colors. It was about 8 degrees when I got home today and I went for a short ride but found it very chilly. I hope we get a few days of nicer weather before I have to hang up the bike for the season and resort to the stationary in the basement.
I haven't done much in the way of job hunting yet as I am working on a strategy for how I want to do it. We are not even close to being dismissed yet but the hope is that most of us will be gone by the end of November. It is comforting to know that I have a fair bit of time to find work and that I don't really have to panic.

Posted 10:11 PM by Jeff

---

Home