It's My Life

Today I went out to shoot some photos of a wakeboarding clinic featuring Shawn Gratzfeld, a pro wakeboarder and coordinator of the clinic who resides just outside of Edmonton. The clinic is held at Alix Lake in Alix, a village about 45 km east of Lacombe, each summer. In addition, the village hosts the wakeboarding provincials also featuring Gratzfeld among others. That runs this weekend. I'll probably host more pictures online after.

I'm also covering the rodeo in Tees, another small village east of here, and baseball provincials. Unfortunately, I don't get to go anywhere for the long weekend.

THANK GOODNESS FOR WEEKENDS

I'm not a big fan of the small town. While I enjoy having less traffic and how I don't have to spend as much time traveling to get places, I don't like the slower pace of any small town. I grew up in a city of 80,000, and while that isn't huge by any means, you notice the difference in pace coming from a place like that to a town of 10,000. And living in Port Alberni for a summer was my first experience of living in a small town, or as they like to call themselves, a small city.

That's why being in Lacombe five days a week is tough. As tempting as it is to drive the 20 km to Red Deer each weeknight to visit my friends there and get up to speed, gas is expensive and even that adds up. Plus when you're working on a journalist's salary at a weekly paper, budgeting your money becomes all more crucial. I knew if I drove the 20 minutes from my place into Red Deer I'd be spending money down there.

I live for the weekends. The closer I am to Friday the happier I am. That's why I'm happier today than I was yesterday, and why yesterday I was in a better mood than I was on Monday. I don't mind my job one bit, I just enjoy doing my own activities more. And being relatively close to Edmonton and Calgary makes the weekend a prime time to visit the city and escape small town living.

This weekend I might check out Klondike Days in Edmonton, but it's more likely I'll just go to Red Deer. I've left the area the past three weekends since I've been here, so I'd be nice to hang around for one. Sure, one of them was only to Calgary, but that still takes a lot out of you.

Last weekend I went to a wedding in Prince George which was tons of fun. I took some good wedding photos, drank lots with my friends and family, and managed to visit a pub and three bars in only two nights there. Ah, good ol' PG. I have to say I don't mind being from there. I've learned to respect it more by spending time in Port Alberni and Lacombe. This isn't me bashing Port Alberni or Lacombe, if they were bigger cities I'm sure I'd like them. Ah, maybe Lacombe will grow on me. I'll have to wait and see.

Also, in two weddings over the past year I've taken lots of photos and gotten compliments for them. I'm thinking I need to become a wedding photographer on the side for some extra cash, because God knows I'm not making enough of it right now.

MY TRIP TO CALGARY FOR THE STAMPEDE

This past weekend I went down to Calgary go check out the famous Calgary Stampede. After a free stampede breakfast at an RV dealership in town, shopping for a cowboy hat (I picked up a real beauty for $20), and a little drinking beforehand, me and my cousin Blair arrived at the grounds at about 5 p.m. After grabbing myself a slice of pizza for $4, I decided to check out the Nashville North tent, where country singer Aaron Pritchett would be performing. Well, the lineup of about 100 seemed like too long a wait at the time, so we grabbed some more expensive food and set out for more alcohol. Our destination - The Bud Light Beer Gardens. Beers were a whopping $5.25 there but we didn't care, we just wanted to drink. After all, we were at the Calgary Stampede. We met some cool locals and ended up hanging out with them the rest of the night, therefore missing out on many other attractions to the event, like the Midway, Pritchett performance, and all the rodeo events. Oh well. The highlight of my night wasn't waiting around downtown Calgary trying unsuccessfully to get a cab back to Blair's aunt's place that's for sure.

While I was in Calgary I went to the airport to get my tickets for a round trip to Prince George I'm taking this weekend to catch my cousin's wedding. As it turned out, it only cost me $290 to get there and back because I had a $200 voucher. Any of you who joined me at the Canadian University Press (CUP) Conference in Edmonton back in January will recall we each got $200 off an Air Canada flight to anywhere in Canada over the next year. I figured it's been long enough and now was as good a time as any to use it.

Here's a little scoop on what else has been happening around my life:
- my family's dog back in PG is getting put down tomorrow. This is upsetting, but at the same time he's old, blind and overweight so I guess his time is up.
- My editor at the Globe, Lyle Aspinall, is leaving to bigger and better things. He landed a photography position at the St. Albert Gazette. Looks like another Globe newcomer will be arriving here soon. Maybe another Thompson Rivers University journalism school alumni.
- As I already mentioned, I'm going back to my hometown of PG this weekend to attend my cousin's wedding, taking place on Saturday. On Friday night I'm hitting the local pub with some friends.
- I'm attending my first town council in quite some time tomorrow, covering council in Blackfalds, a town of roughly 5,000 about 11 km south of Lacombe. Because it's in Lacombe County I get to cover events there as well.

Also I have posted my Funtastic Ball tournament pictures online. Check them out here.

SETTLED IN LACOMBE

This is going to be a quick post because I'm at work right now. Anyways, to keep you updated on what's happening here's some notes:

- I moved into my duplex in Lacombe on Monday, so I'll no longer be commuting to the Globe from Red Deer.
- Last weekend was the annual Funtastic Slow Pitch Tournament in Vernon, BC. After reading last year's post on the event, you probably figured it couldn't get much worse. Well it did. We finished 0-4 this year. I'll provide more detail on that tournament in a later post.
- I got cable internet set up at my place, but it's a faulty connection that Shaw is going to fix so it doesn't cut out. Nonetheless I'll have unlimited high speed Internet access at home soon.
- This Saturday I'm going to Calgary to check out the Calgary Stampede since I've never been and it's the self proclaimed "Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth."
- More important than all of the above is the first issue of the Globe since I've been working here came out last Tuesday. Check out my intro story here:

Sports fanatic joins Globe team