Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Roof over our heads

We finally found a place to live - signed the lease this afternoon. It's nice... very nice and I'm excited about moving in. We get access to it on Saturday and have a truck booked for Sunday, so by the end of the long weekend, we should be settled.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Well, we're here

We're in Calgary. We lost most of day 3 of the trip sitting on the side of the road and waiting at a mall in Illinois while the fan belt on the truck was replaced.

We're desperately trying to find a place to live. We managed to see only 2 places today, even though we called almost two dozen listings. We're hoping for a good dose of luck because it's risky not to take something right away because places are going in a single day. We have three possibilities to look at tomorrow, so hopefully one of them will be good and we'll unload our truck tomorrow or by Saturday.

Wish us luck. More later when I'm blogging on my own account. In the meantime, you can get an idea of how tense the rental situation is around here by reading the 'greedy landlords' thread on the local craigslist.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Enroute

Sitting in a hotel room in Buffalo, NY getting ready to start day 2 of epic trek back to Alberta. The UHAUL truck was smoking as I came through the toll booth last night, so keep you fingers crossed for us that it keeps running, or that if there is a problem, it's a minor one.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Northwest

Looks like we're Calgary bound! Those of you in those parts, look for us to arrive in a week and a half or so. Posting will likely be sparse till then. Wish us a smooth move, okay?

Monday, August 07, 2006

Changes

Happy civic holiday Albertans!

Unfortunately, because of your holiday, I'm still waiting to hear where we're going to live... but hopefully we'll figure it out soon! I haven't blogged much about moving because there's not much to say. We don't know where we're going, and there's not much I can do other than put things in boxes until I know where we're going. At that point, I have a huge list! Every day I think of another thing to add to it, which is a bit scary just because it is getting a bit long, particularly if our move will require crossing an international border, but I try not to think about it and just concentrate on putting stuff in boxes... I guess that summer job I had two years ago was good practice...

Friday, August 04, 2006

Rafting on the Bow

The other week while I was in Calgary, we drove across a bridge spanning the Bow River, and both of us caught our breath noticing everyone floating down the river.

Now that's a way to spend a Sunday afternoon! Drive one car down to the weir and park it - drive the other one up to Bowness Park, pull out the raft and let yourself drift downstream till you reach the first car. Such a fabulous way to spend an afternoon!


It's impossible to wear a watch or worry about the time, because you're at the mercy of the current. Sure, you take an oar, but it's not for propelling. You only dig it out if you get stuck in one of the shallow parts.

I've discovered that this seems to be a uniquely Calgarian thing to do. There's lots of other cities with rivers running through them, but very few that seem to have developed a river floating culture.

Of course Calgary takes it and makes it big with the annual Bow River Raft Race, which gives you some idea of what it's like when there are several other rafters on the river. You definitely don't want to forget the supersoaker at home!

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Blogging in academia

This time, the shoe's on the other foot.

Certainly the blog has been a political force for several years already - I won't say since it's inception, since the earliest blogs usually focused on a filtering function - surfing the web for interesting items then linking to them - but the usenet group's politics has spilled over into the blog format for quite a while now. Guess it just goes to show how the ivory tower invades every aspect of academia that the political power of the blog is just now being felt.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Dog days of August

I am hiding in my house for the rest of the day. My weather page says:
Excessive heat warning in effect until 8 PM EDT this evening...
Heat advisory in effect from 11 am to 5 PM EDT Thursday...

Besides, there's still lots to be packed.