It's My Life

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

To all my friends and relatives living throughout B.C. and Alberta, and other blog users just casually visiting my site, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I'll update my blog with another post after Christmas. I wish all the best to everyone this holiday season. Cheers.

I was browsing on the Jeff Gaulin media website at work today and came across the best job posting. They totally sell themselves on the first line. Check it out:

http://www.jeffgaulin.com/jobs/JobDetails.asp?id=3345

NEARING CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS

I have a very busy few days in front of me. In fact, I have a really busy evening ahead of me as well. I have a few stories to type before I call it a night, but I'm stalling. I figure if I begin by typing an update on my blog that may help.

Another week has flown by and I'm just a few days away from boarding the Greyhound to go to Prince George for what is a six-day Christmas break. The fact the holiday is so close hasn't really sunk in quite yet. I know I'm going home soon, but things have been busy here.

I've been nursing a typical Al McInnis hangover today. Last night was the Tribune's Christmas party. I spent roughly four hours there. The event included a meal, games, karaoke and free alcohol.

Now believe it or not I didn't sing karaoke. I usually do, and I'm never one to shy away from grabbing the microphone when I've had some liquid courage. Matt Silver knows this as well as anybody. One of the biggest highlights during my last school year in Kamloops was beating out the competition in a karaoke singing contest during the Omega's annual party in December. I was singing Rod Stewart's "Do You Think I'm Sexy" and bringing up his then girlfriend Jen. It was really quite a display and I may have overdone it for the big reward of a pitcher of beer. Oh well.

Now, back to last night. After a few pints of beer and a couple rye and cokes, it was off to the Overlander, which has become my watering hole here in da puddle. I like the staff there and it's always a solid crowd (there's not much else here for selection so that helps).

I guess it was a fairly low key night even though the events were lots of fun. I didn't do anything too extreme.

Since this post isn't that exciting to this point I'm going to spice it up with a list of 10 things I want for Christmas (not all material possessions). So in no particular order of importance, I'd like:

1. My car back on the road - walking is okay, but it's starting to get annoying. I'll be happy once I get it insured with ICBC.
2. More money - I'm struggling a little right now. Yes the bar doesn't help. Neither does eating out. But I happen to enjoy dating, getting out of the house and living a social lifestyle. Believe it or not, I think having wheels would help me save money because right now I'm repaying my friend Sarah for driving me around by buying her meals at pubs and restaurants.
3. A little more excitement in my life - I emphasize "a little" here. My life isn't boring, it's just too routine right now. I need something exciting to fall on me, a stroke of luck if you will. A solid story would help too. Now I'm aware the media makes the news to a certain degree but I'm not in charge of selling the TimberWolves. I want to know what's happening with the future of this team soon. Right now there's been no other major sports stories, and there's a stall here until the owners know if the city lands a new arena or not. That may take a while considering our mayor here has said we're getting a Walmart like 10 times and nothing has happened yet.
4. A mountain bike - I want to start doing more adventurous physical activities and I think mountain biking would be a start. Williams Lake is known around B.C. as being a great area for mountain biking. Now my parents won't fork out like $1,000 to get me a good second hand one so I'm hoping to do that myself this winter.
5. A trip to the Island - Dani, Silv and Sam are living life on the Island right now and I haven't seen any one of them in a while. Dani I've seen most recently, but even that wasn't recent (unless you consider October 2005 recent). Now this is something I'd like to do soon, but due to lack of money and time may not happen right away. But I'm thinking of using one of my weeks off in the summer to hit the Island. Dani took a plane to Calgary to visit me. I feel I owe her one.
6. The Internet at home - this is an absolute must at some point. I'm waiting until the new year to see where things stand. At that point I can see how my finances look after the car is back on the road.
7. To get back into shape - again, this is really something I can change tomorrow. But when you're walking everywhere, I find it's harder to make the extra effort to do things like work out at a gym. I plan on doing more of that once my car is back on the road.
8. Some nice new clothes. Considering that's all I came up for as far as what I'd like my parents to get me (anything else is too pricy) I think my wish will come true. I need to try a new style, show off some different colours.
9. A helluva New Years - I'm aware this holiday may be one of the most overrated considering it's really just another night of partying (it just happens to be over the last night of the year) but I've never had an over-the-top, ex-rated, almost too hot to handle experience on New Years. I mean I've gone to a few decent parties, and can recall a solid house party in PG a few years back, but nothing that thrilling. Now I'm in Williams Lake for it this year, but I'm not going to be quick to judge. Small towners can party hard too.
10. A ticket to a major rock concert or event of some kind - I'd like to see a bigger scale concert in a city other than PG or Kamloops, I'd like to watch the Grey Cup one year, I'd sell my soul to watch the Super Bowl (slight exaggeration), how about hockey at the Olympics, or a PGA tour event (yes golf may be boring to some people, but I'd love to see Tiger Woods swing a club up close), or a Major League World Series game? Now I was front row for Motley Crue in Red Deer last April, but that's the last big act I've seen.

That'll do it for this post. I should have something interesting while I'm in PG.

COLD WEATHER BLUES

I've been feeling limited in what I can do lately, and while I could blame the cold winter weather on that, that's not entirely the reason. For reasons I don't feel like going into, I'm without the use of my car until early January. Let's just say I can't afford to cover the insurance until then. Just over a month can't be too bad right? Well, not really when the weather is decent. Right now walking around sucks, but at least the weather has been warming up a little.

As far as the location of my car, it's actually in Prince George. I drove up there on my days off a week ago to figure out the whole insurance scenario and when it turned out I couldn't cover the costs, I had to leave the car there. Technically I'm insured with Alberta plates but because I've been a B.C. resident for almost six months already, I'm technically driving illegally. So it wasn't worth the chance in case I'd get pulled over or an accident.

The trip up to PG was an interesting one, fairly low key. Actually the most excitement, to be honest, was probably the drive up since I came in close encounters with moose.....twice. It wouldn't have been so bad had it been earlier and brighter outside but it was dark out and they snuck up on me. I luckily maneuvered around the animals, which of course wouldn't move because they're so dumb. Well, that and they probably barely noticed my little white Nissan 240SX sports car driving up.

So in PG aside from dealing with ICBC over the phone I played my brother's Nintendo Wii. I enjoyed the tennis on there because as a tennis player myself I understand the game and the swinging motion was similar to that if you're really playing tennis. I thought the remote control of a video game remote was cheezy at first (I kind of still do) but it's a cool concept and you can't accuse the Wii of not being original.

I also watched 40 Year Old Virgin again, and I think I laughed at least as hard watching it this time as when I watched it the first time last winter. I did a lot of lounging around as the weather was cold. Plus having a Thursday and Friday as my weekend results in me doing a lot of anti-social activities since all my other friends are Monday to Friday people.

The most excitement I may have had over the past few weeks was joining the TimberWolves on the road this month. I went to Kelowna for a night on Nov. 17 to watch them play the Westside Warriors and the next day I went to Trail for their game against the Smoke Eaters. I just have to say that any sports fanatic who hasn't checked out Cominco Arena in Trail should. There's a library, gym, a 2,100 seat hockey arena and Trail Sports Hall of Fame display featuring like 15 players out of Trail who have played in the NHL. Ray Ferraro and Adam Deadmarsh are a couple former NHLers who are Trail products. In baseball, Jason Bay came out of Trail. Not only does he now play in the majors, he was the National League Rookie of the Year in 2004.

Speaking of the TimberWolves, I had another update on the team's status going front page of tomorrow's issue. By the sounds of it, the team may be sticking around as long as the City can secure funding from the provincial and federal governments to land a new arena. They've already shown their support and they have developers, Chiefs Development Group of Burnaby, which built the Prospera Centre in Chilliwack four years ago.

There's no indication that the team is heading to Whistler or Dawson Creek athough that's what the rumours are. At least those are the cities that have shown interest. But it could still happen. The owners are waiting for confirmation that the governments have shown they'll financially support 2/3 of arena costs. I'd like to see the team stay. It'd be too bad and would really break up what's been a good northern rivalry between the TimberWolves, Quesnel and Prince George.

This is going to be a relatively short post since I really don't have much to say.

I thought there may be some people out there interested in checking out my story on Williams Lake's own Rick Hansen, the Man in Motion. It ran in Tuesday's Tribune this week. Check it out online at www.wltribune.com. That's not a suggestion, it's an order!

So another week has come and gone here in Williams Lake. I've been employed at the Tribune for five months now. It feels longer and shorter than that at the same time. Well, it feels like it's been longer than five months since I was working in Lacombe but shorter than five months since I've been here if that makes any sense. Then again, Lacombe is more than 900 kilometres away so the vast distance between the two towns makes it feel like it's been longer. I still believe that it was the best decision crossing the provincial border and I have no regrets doing it. But I still haven't ruled out moving back to the prairies, I'm just done with the small town Alberta living. If the right job were to pop up in Edmonton, Red Deer or Calgary I'd be tempted to go for it. Actually the Calgary Herald is looking for a sports reporter right now. I think I need at least another five years before I'd even be qualified for a job like that.

My cash flow at the bank is also reaching a low point again. But at least with winter approaching and the temperatures dipping I'll be spending more time at home and less time travelling so saving up money should come easier.

I have found I've been getting lazier lately, which is a habit I need to get out of. I think it's just the time of year. I've always found the fall a little depressing. There's Christmas to look forward to but other than that what is there? The other big thrill of the fall, Halloween, has come and gone. I also worked this weekend so I missed out on what could've been a three-day weekend like some of our staff here enjoyed. If I had that off I would've certainly went up to Prince George for the weekend.

Wow, that's probably among the most boring posts I've ever typed. It was getting too painful to type any longer. I think I need another crazy party soon, or a trip somewhere.