Happy Halloween!

It's Halloween for you folks down South, but with our weekly party happening on Friday we all celebrated last night. I honestly don't know why, but here's another horribly embarrassing picture of me for the whole world to see.

I've got to be fairly diplomatic and political talking about my costume. There are people out there that know why I dressed as I did, but I'm not going to go into specifics about the character on such a public forum. It was a great idea provided to me by my Toronto-based boss Andrew while he was up here in mid-September. The sweatpants were provided by Byron, glasses from Kevin, wig from Mom. I had to buy the t-shirt, as I needed some extra room for my 'padding' :)

I almost defended my Best Costume title from the Medieval Times night, and while I was a definite fan favourite Byron beat me out with a stunning, working Transformers outfit. He looked like a robot standing up, but he could crouch down and turn into a tank. It was truly amazing...and HUGE. He only had about 1/2" clearance in the doorway (sides AND top) getting into the bar! He had my vote all the way, and the EC GAW lab guys swept 1st and 2nd place, so we're happy.

I did my best to catch up on my sleep last night too. I was woken up briefly at 8ish when there was an announcement telling us that we were now in Storm Condition 1 due to a combination of wind and visibility. We're currently at -22°C with 15m/s (55km/h) winds. That works out to -55°C windchill and a complete whiteout with the loose snow we've had on the ground from the past few weeks of calm weather. I slept in until 1pm knowing that I couldn't go outside anyways....at least that's how I justified it to myself as I rolled over :)

Finally, being in the choir finally has an upside! I convinced the CO to get us all Alert t-shirts that I could embroider with my Latin "We Are Better Than Nothing" slogan, so that was great. But, as I was talking to Carl (Tradie, in charge of the store) I noticed that he had a really nice Alert Rugby shirt on. So, I talked to the CO and now we all get $80 shirts instead. Screw the silly phrase...these shirts are nice! :D

Have a great time trick-or-treating tonight knowing that I can't even step foot outside! Miss you all,
Graham

What's this?

There's free shipping to Canadian Forces posting locations from now until Christmas? Alert is one such location?

Not that I'm expecting parcels or anything...I'm just saying is all :)

I don't have the official memo yet, but your local post office should know about it. Anything going to a Belleville Stn Forces PO box should be free of charge until Christmas. I hate that I sometimes have to get things sent up and you guys always foot the bill...so consider this my gift to you.....although I'm not really sure how that works :P

Haven't posted in a while, mainly because things have been pretty routine. On the work front, Byron and I have settled into a smooth schedule. In terms of "extracurriculars", the torch is coming up pretty soon, and so we're having some activities this weekend. I was made team captain of Team Sumi (one of the 5 Olympic mascots), so I'm basically the fall guy for when our team fails miserably :) The sport challenges are fine, but the snow sculptures that we're making leave a lot to be desired. Our team is going for more of a 'participation' look, rather than trying to be any real challenger. I'll post up the pictures once we get it finalized. Also, in addition to being conscripted into the choir (which, in my personal opinion, STILL sounds atrocious) Byron is making the stage for it and other presentations to be made. Since Byron's making it, so am I :) So, if you see a stage on the news, it will be partly (a small, small part) my handiwork.

I realized that I haven't put up any animal pictures yet, so I'll throw in a wolf to keep you interested. This is maybe the most sheepish looking wolf I've seen...especially with the snow on his nose :) They're staying away from Station a lot more this term, and this was a few weeks ago while it was still (obviously) light out. We're down to a faint glow at noon. By the weekend we'll likely have no light at all.

Miss you all, Happy Halloween!
Graham

Crisis Averted

UPDATE: A wig has been procured, and it should get here in time for Halloween. Thanks to everyone that tried to track one down for me!!

Well, as I'm putting up a new post I might as well throw in some stories and a few pictures. For the sun setting officially on Tuesday, we had a HUGE bonfire out of all the crates and pallets that came up during Boxtop. This was a BIG fire. The only problem for the evening was that the people in charge of starting the fire were the firefighters :) They were a bit timid, but eventually we got it going and it went like the blazes. You might not be able to tell from that first picture, but the fire itself is likely 40 feet in the air.

I also took some pictures without the Visible light filter on, making for some interesting results. As Byron mentioned, this one looks like the people watching the fire are witnessing a nuclear blast!

Finally I took a full spectrum shot and took only the green channel to make a pretty nice looking shot.It's only twilight-y for an hour around noon now. Soon it'll be dark until Christmas for me.

Talk to you all soon,

Graham