The Good, the Bad, and the Good

We've got all our stuff moved into the new house now, thanks to Al, Krista, and Kasia, who drove up with us, and Keith, Meg, and Johanna, who helped us load at the Halifax end. Pretty great bunch of friends, and I'm just starting to realize how much I'm going to miss seeing them all the time. The place is coming together, but there's still an awful lot of stuff in boxes. Like books. Sure was nice having built-in bookshelves. I'm not sure where we're going to put all these dang things right now.

I guess it's been slightly chaotic over the past couple of weeks, which is why I haven't posted till now. There's been a lot of back and forth to Halifax on Alison's side, which I think is making her a little bit cuckoo. The buses are not exactly convenient, so she ends up having to stay overnight and come back the next day. And I've been working insane hours trying to get on top of all the design work that needs to be done right away at Acadia. I'm not used to dealing with "clients" so much. I spend a large portion of regular work hours answering emails and going to meetings to promise delivery of work to people, then I have to stay real late to actually do the work. But it's the beginning of the school year, so of course everyone has stuff they need done ASAP.

My grandfather in Montreal also died a few weeks ago, so that's been bumming me out somewhat. He was a really great guy whom everyone loved and looked up to, so it's quite a loss, even though he was very old and lived a full life and went out peacefully. I'll be taking a couple of days off work this week to go to the memorial service.

And really, that's all the bad news; everything else is going quite great, so I'm sorry to come off like such a downer. Wolfville is a beautiful town full of friendly people, everyone I work with is super nice, the campus I work on is gorgeous, we've found some great places to eat (NOT Joe's Food Emporium — sorry, K, K, & A for taking you there) and a good video store (I was worried about that one), there's a fantastic outdoor farmers' market every Saturday, the cycling around here is not difficult and very scenic, we get to take classes at the university for 50% of the usual price, I get a free membership to the gym facilities, and there are birds that all gather in one tree every evening and make the craziest, loudest bird racket you've ever heard. Even the weather here is generally pleasant, being in a valley.

Plus, I now have some radio to listen to every afternoon, as Rich Terfry (Buck 65) started hosting a daily, 3-hour radio show on CBC 2 today. Did anyone else listen to it? I thought it was pretty great. No surprise that he's a very entertaining host. He's filling Jurgen Gothe's former timeslot — serious business. I'll be checking it out a lot, I think.

By the way, Alison's got plenty of photos from the past couple of weeks, but I don't know where they are and she's in Halifax tonight. I'll have to put them up later.

Oh yeah, there was also a The Lodge show in there, at Baba's Lounge in Charlottetown, Friday night of the weekend that we moved all our belongings. It went great and was lots of fun, and we got to visit (very briefly) with our friends Joan and Jason, who recently moved there from Halifax. Alison came along with the band. I think the drives there and back were honestly the best parts of the trip. We listened to lots of heavy music and were entertained by Charles and Mike's rock talk and gossip. The band has gotten into the Halifax Pop Explosion this year, so I'm looking forward to that one in October. And also to finishing the recording we've been working on. So far it sounds mind-blowingly stupendous, if I may say so myself.

- Andrew