Update

Life has been a little crazy around here lately. As you may or may not know, my current job is on contract, which is up this Friday and will not be renewed, so I have been doing a lot of job searching for the past few months. I had a lot of interviews and got declined quite a few times, but just this past Friday I accepted a job as an Exercise Specialist working with the Living Well with a Chronic Condition program. This program is part of the Calgary Health Region, and I will be doing exercise prescription for individuals with cardiac problems, diabetes, lung disease, arthritis, or who are obese. It should be very interesting. The bad news about the job is that it is a casual position, meaning that I will be covering shifts for people on vacation or taking sick leave (no guarantee of hours, although on average casual workers might work 15-20 hours a week). The good news is that there should be some more permanent positions opening up this fall with the same program, and with the experience that the casual position will give me I will be in a better standing to actually get one of those jobs. If you were reading carefully, yes that does mean that I will be moving to Calgary. Providing that all goes well with switching my work permit, I am scheduled to start work there on September 29.
I will have a lot to do in the next month before moving down there, but I have been saving money all year to go visit a friend who is on a university exchange in Sydney...so I'm going! I will be there for two weeks. I haven't done a ton of planning yet, but will mostly be in and around the Sydney area. Ideally it would be great to be able to go for much longer, but that would involve more time and money, so I'm happy to just be taking what I can get.
I don't know how much internet access I will have down there, but I'll definitely post pictures as soon as I can, and keep everyone informed about the move when I get back!

Biking Pictures

I've been doing quite a bit of mountain biking with Riley lately, both around town and in Jasper. These pictures are from two different weekends in Jasper.Riley with her "adventure dog" backpack on


The group post ride: my friend Lindsay is in the middle, her boyfriend Dan on the left, with Riley at his feet, and Dan's friend Rob
And seconds after taking the previous picture Riley was asleep in the bushes

Riley and I biking. This picture is a bit misleading. Shes really fast and generally runs in front of me, not behind!

Catching Up

I don't know why this is trying to turn my typing into a link. Anyways, I finally got my "real" pictures developed and put on a cd. Here are a few more pictures from my kayaking trip in Blackstone BayGetting ready to launch for the day.
My view out the front of the kayak heading down Blackstone Bay
We stopped for lunch on the terminal moraine of the glacier, basically a little spit that comes out across the bay from the island in the middle. There were a bunch of ice berg bits washed up there...I was pretending to lick this one.
Kayaking in front of the glacier. At this point we were probably still a good mile away, although the glacier looked huge
Loading the boats at the end of the day to head back to Whittier.