Modus Structures Inc.

School officially ended yesterday, I have a day off today but I'm back to full-time work on Monday for the rest of my life. I'm starting a new job out in Crossfield which is about 15 minutes north of Airdrie. The place is called Modus Structures Inc. and they design and manufacture portable structures for schools and such. I got the job through Paul from school who's been working there part-time for the past semester. Paul lives just around the corner from us so we'll be able to carpool out there together. Tammy and I are really excited about this opportunity. We've always wanted to move to a small town someday and if things work out at Modus we could potentially find ourselves out Crossfield way. The housing costs in Calgary are insane right now, and we're going to be outgrowing our house soon, so the hope is to be able to sell it and buy something a bit bigger but for less money. Gas prices are getting crazy now too so maybe we can cut the comute down to a walking distance as well. We feel very blessed and very grateful and look forward the opportunities the future may hold for our family.

Out Forever

I wrote my final final yesterday so i'm officially done school! I have to go back today to pick up my final projects and then there's grad next month but other than that it's over. Although I'm pumped about finally being done with homework, assignments, and tests, I'll miss the people....ah the people. This is the final sentance in this entry, and I say that because I noticed I've used the word "final" at least once in every sentance in this entry. Except this one.

Car Show 2006

Went to the car show today with my brother, Joe, Tyler, Graham, and Mike Cutler. It was good but I wish more of the makers would bring out the concept cars instead of the usual suspects you can find in the dealerships. Ford did pretty good with the Cobra concept, the GT, and all the Mustangs they brought but it was pretty rare to find anything conceptual or customized from the rest of the lot. I can't afford anything I saw on the floor anyways so what's the diff? The pic is the Cobra concept which is a super cool car but I think I still like the origional better.

Ice Fishing

This morning got started early as Devon Maucieri and I took some of the young men out near Church Ranches to go ice fishing. It was pretty cold but we managed to brave the winds for long enough to catch 6 rainbow trout. We set most of them free but each of the young men got to take one home. This is a pic of our first catch of the day. From left to right is Jared Velasquez, Isaiah Emtage, Jonathan Shaw, and Devon is holding the fish. Devon is Clint Maucieri's younger brother for those who know Clint.

The Perfect Age

Yesterday I turned 28 years old. Thanks to everyone who called to wish me a happy one. 28 is an interesting age because it is a perfect number. That means it is the sum of all its divisors. 28 can be divided by 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14, and 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14 = 28. The last age I reached that was a perfect number was 6 and the next one will be 496. I don't know if perfect numbers are lucky or not but you can probably tell I received my birthday call from Dale Shoultz.

Work Week

I just finished "work week" which is a part of my course requirements. Everyone in the program drew names of architectural firms from a hat and then we got to go work for them for a week. I drew Randall R. Gibson and Associates who happen to work down the hall from Dejong Design Associates. It was good to try something new as The Gibson associates do mainly landscape architecture for community developments and parks and such. I was a bit worried my first day when the computer they sat me down at had the word "slave" rotating around on the screen as the screen saver, but I later found out that it was just the name of the computer. I spent most of the week drafting but on Thursday Jeff and I went out to Randy's place in Bragg Creek to do some measurements on the gigantic log house he's building out there. It's a ways out of town but it sure is beautiful out there. I'd move out to a place like that in a second if I could ever afford it. Anyways, I'll be back to Dejong part-time again next week and back to full-time school as well. I have to say it was definitely nice having evenings again. I'll miss certain aspects of school life but I'm really looking forward to full-time work again. My thanks to the Gibson team for a fun an educational week.

Picture Pages

I'm stealing a picture off of Kevin's site and posting it as my own. This is a group shot from that get together we had over the holidays at Luke and Jenny Smith's place. There were more people there than shown in this pic including Tammy and Emma, and Jessica and Chad Dean, but they all left before it was taken. If anyone wants to see them all you can go here:

http://www.kevinandelise.com/EntryBrowser.aspx?Home=1&EntryID=7305

Aguape

Just as a quick sidebar, tonight at the young men's activity I introduced the group to Aguape, the exhilerating game of anything goes volleyball. They loved it. Me and my friends invented that game back when we were in young men's. A few weeks back I introduced them to Fugitive and Stairway to Heaven as none of them had ever heard of those before. They were instantly sold. I just thought my old chums who frequent the sight might get a kick out of remembering those sweet games.

Christmas 2005

This year was the year where we would spend Christmas Day with Tammy's side of the family. We drove out to Olds for Church on Christmas morning and then we headed back to Tammy's parents house in Carstairs for the big breakfast and the big gift exchange. It's getting crazy having everyone on her side together in the same house these days. I think there were 18 people, one cat, and one fetus gathered around the tree that day if my math is right. We spent the rest of the day there hanging out and playing games. Aaron and I had our traditional Christmas Chess game (which I won) and everyone joined in for some Mad Gab. It was a lot of fun and of course Emma was showered with gifts from her Grandparents and her cousins. We had our Christmas dinner on Boxing Day when everyone went over to Kristie and Iain's for turkey and some figgy pudding. If the family continues to grow like it has, we may have to rent the Ranchlands Community Center for Christmas 2007. I have connections there.

After festivities with the Olsens came to a close we still had some presents left at home that Emma had yet to open. We opened one a day and by the end of the week I think she really got the hang of it and started to understand what was going on. She loves all her new toys, especially the cheapest ones, ironically. That week we also got invited over to Luke and Jenny Smith's place for a party since Derek and Rachelle were in town. It was good to see everyone and find out who looks the best and who is the most successful. On Thursday night we invited my family over for a bit and then we all went out to Boston Pizza for a warm meal and some hockey. The food went down and the Flames won so it was a good night. I had the week off of work and Tammy didn't have to watch Madison so we spent our days cleaning house. Even though it was "work" I still felt it was a very relaxing holiday compared to the mad schedules we've been keeping lately.

The day of New Years Eve was spent having Christmas with the Bourne side of the family. My parents hosted and we spent the day merrily playing cards, 8 person Star Wars on Xbox, and watching the hockey game. Our traditional gift exchange involves drawing names from a hat but this year we changed it up a bit. This year everyone bought a gift that started with the letter "C" for "Christmas" and then we took turns opening them and stealing them from each other until everyone got something they wanted. It was fun but I don't think it caught on as a continuing tradition. Tammy got a Betta fish complete with an aquarium and I got the Nonesuch Dickens Christmas Books. Come to think of it I don't know how the fish had anything to do with the letter "C", but oh well, Tammy loves it and she named it Chester so what are you going to do? Most people were pretty tired at the end of the day so the new year rang in pretty tamely. I cant remember everything we did but I do remember not getting home until 4am for some reason. After changing Emma twice and finally getting her back down to sleep we finally hit the hay around 5am. We had a full session of Church the next day but only Tammy ended up going for the last 2 hours to teach her Sunbeams class while I stayed home with Emma. After Church we went back over to my parents house and had our 2nd Christmas feast. Then we hung out the rest of the day playing more games and just chilling like the Bournes do. By and large it was a fantastic holiday.

SAIT Christmas Party 2005

The holidays were busier than I thought they would be so I'm a bit behind on the news machine. Our program at SAIT hosted another Christmas party this past December after finals. All the usuals and the unusuals were there, including most of the faculty who seemed to out-party the students. It was a swell time and I even came away with a door prize, Snoopy seat-belt covers! Goodbye caloused colarbones!