Tamara and I have both submitted the paper work so that we can
defend our theses. I defend on August 29th, and Tamara on September
8th. I also have to give a seminar on August 23rd. So now my biggest
concern is getting slides together for my presentation and doing some
reading so that I sound like I know what I'm talking about when I try
to answer questions in my defence.
Once our defences are finished, we will be moving back to
Calgary. The plan right now is to move at the end of September, so we
have started looking for a place to live. Since I haven't secured a
job yet (I have an interview on Monday though), we don't know what our
budget will be, so its tough to know how much we can afford. A safe
bet is probably a student style apartment so that we can save up for
the next year or so. The problem with that is that University starts
in September and the students are bound to snatch up the affordable
housing near the University (we want to be in the NW near the
University). We'll be a month later, so we'll have to choose from the
leftovers I guess.
At the moment we in Calgary for a family reunion on Tamara's side,
and for my job interview. We drive back to Victoria on the 19th or
so.
On Wednesday we went to visit my parents. We (Tamara and I, my
parents, and my niece) drove up to my parents half section west of
Longview. Although I have not eaten as much stuff as
Dave, I know that wild raspberries are tasty. We spent a lot of
time picking and eating those. Yum Yum Yum!
My dad has an old Bombardier school bus, which is rather like a
tank designed to carry people. Or a very large, enclosed
snowmobile. Due to the large amount of rain we've had this year, it's
the only passenger vehicle capable of getting over the very soggy
quarter mile of ground to the water trough where the raspberries are
bountiful. It still needs some work unfortunately... the gas tank is
inside the passenger cabin and has a bad habit of leaking out the top
due to the vented cap. It also doesn't start unless gas is poured into
the carburetor. Just as we pulled up to the water trough, there was a
large lightening strike up the hill from us. Tamara became very
worried about gas fumes just then.
We got out and ate some raspberries. We also came across some goose
berries, and my niece asked me why they are called goose berries. I
don't know what it is that makes people want to tell tall tales to
kids, but I told her that when they get ripe they hatch into geese. It
started to rain quite heavily, so we headed back to the Bombardier,
which refused to start. Just as we became convinced that we were going
to have to walk back, Dad got it going and away we went. Thank
goodness, we were soaked as it was!
