New apartment; Golden; festivals; squash; work update

To be honest, not too much is new from the last time I posted, but here's an update for posterity.

My roommate Ian (with whom I've lived for a year) moved to a new apartment on Bellamy Hill at the end of June. It's just south of the Chateau Lacombe. My unit is the 18th floor, and I face east over the river valley. It's more expensive than other units in the building we looked at, but it was the only one available when we signed the lease and anyway, I'm quite partial to the view (see below). The building is a converted government office tower, so it doesn't have balconies but does have A/C and ensuite laundry. It was quite the gong show getting moved in but we got everything moved, unpacked and cleaned in one day. The new place is a fifteen-minute walk from work, too - probably less once they finish tearing up Jasper Ave/101 Street.

There's been a lot of changes at work so I have a new boss who is temporarily covering for my old boss. The old boss was doing a mat-leave cover but then recently moved departments, so my new boss will only be my new boss for three months, until I get another new boss fresh from mat leave. So all of that should be interesting. It's slightly unnerving having a new supervisor as we go into one of the two busiest periods of the year, but that probably means I'll just get saddled with additional work. So it goes.

 A friend got married in Golden a couple of weeks ago, so Nancy and I looped through Rocky on our way to and from the wedding and met the new G.T. Ferrey (while also saying hi to T.G. Ferrey, Mom, Dad, and Will, who were all there at the same time as me). Wedding was really good. The ceremony was at the top of Kicking Horse Mountain, so guests took the gondola up. It actually hailed right before the wedding was supposed to start, but everybody kept themselves occupied at the bar and the weather cleared up nicely (and cooled things off). We stayed at the resort as well, so it was quite simple to get to and from the festivities. The day after the wedding I was feeling somewhat queasy but Nancy and I still went tandem paragliding. For the curious, this entails strapping yourself to an Italian dude with a big parachute and then running off a mountain and floating around. Overall it was fun.

Went to K-Days and the Taste of Edmonton, but missed the Heritage Festival this year. Nearly walked away with a stoneware cookset at K-Days because I'm a sucker for sales-pitch demos, but Nancy talked me out of it.

In less exciting news, I'm getting a new squash racquet tomorrow after game-testing three different models over the weekend. I've been working with a  cheap Sport Chek special ever since I broke my graphite/titanium model in a fit of rage a few months ago. If anyone is in town and wants to try squash, let me know since I'll have an extra racquet again.

I've been thinking of getting a bike this year, as I haven't had one since mine was stolen last year. May wait until the end-of-season sales come out, which is pretty much any day now.

A few views from my unit. In my opinion, it looks even better at night but I couldn't seem to take any decent pictures because of the bright light reflecting off the lens/glass. I'll try again tonight and update this later if I can pick up something reasonable.

Overlooking the Low Level Bridge and James MacDonald Bridge. Gallagher Park is just across the river.

Refinery Row.

Hotel MacDonald and Bellamy Hill.