Northern Lights

I did actually get to see them, a little, last night. By the time my friend Mariola called me outside, they were just barely visible. But they were dancing, and colorful. I'll never get tired of the aurora borealis. :)

Cell phone services was down today. Pretty much every cell phone carrier was out. However, on the bright side, my own U.S. cell phone which has had no service at all for about the last 5 or 6  weeks, was back once the repair to the tower was made. It was painful listening to my buddy Ben calling the problem in to the Telus support line. Trying to explain that no, we do not have an address here. No, there is no postal code. The municipality is Wood Buffalo. W-O-O-D  B-U-F-F-A-L-O. Had to spell it several times. Nearest town is Anzac. A-N-Z-A-C. No, there are no street names here. Took him about a half hour, and had to ask for a supervisor, to get the message across. I mean, Telus owns the tower that services this site. They should know how to find it!

Went for a walk outside today, the first time since I've started here that I've actually walked outside. A person is required to wear safety stripes, or reflective "suspenders" for those of us that don't have safety vests. The view is actually quite lovely, being up at the elevation we are, gives a good view of the surrounding area, and the lake that's just to the east (I think it's east!) of us. And the leaves are changing color, although the only color we get is yellow. Then dead. No red or orange leaves here. I don't know if it's the type of tree, or the particular weather, but fall colors just aren't the same.

I'm getting a little tired of the food right at the moment. I need to eat more salad and raw vegetables. There's no shortage. You do get tired of the same things all the time. The healthy line is good, but the main line has more variety and sometimes you just want perogies and not steamed chicken. The healthy line always has steamed chicken, usually a steamed fish, usually a noodle bowl, then 7 grain rice or couscous, sometimes whole wheat pasta and tomato sauce and yes, it all sounds good, but after 3 weeks you are definitely ready for a change.

My rotation will be changing to 20/8, instead of 21/7. Doesn't seem like much different, but it does make a difference!

On Monday, I had my first "triple split" shift. I worked a morning shift, 7 am - 1 pm, came back for the evening check ins, 5 pm - 9 pm, then we got word that three buses were going to come in late as they were stuck in London because of a bird strike. Yeah, that stopped us for a few minutes too. A bird strike?? Like, the airplane was on strike? Something hit the airplane?? Guess it was actually a bird hitting a plane and it grounded them for a few hours. Bottom line, I came back in to work at 1 am to help with the check ins of these poor men who had been traveling all day, close to 24 hours for some of them. All went smoothly though, and even though the buses didn't arrive until about 1:40, we had them all checked in by 2:09.

Hey, it was hump day today!