One More Day, Then Freedom...

I hate it when this happens. Earlier in the evening, I had a wicked opening line for tonight's blog entry, and alas, I have summarily forgotten it. Gah! It was really good, too. Not sure what it was about, exactly, but I'm sure it would have been scintillating. Now you're just going to have to put up with second-rate stuff that I just thought up.

One more day, as my title implies, until I am free, at least for a couple days. That's right, the college student's most sacred time of year has finally arrived: reading break. Those two words have magical powers, I'm telling you. And there's only one more day of classes before it happens. Okay, I've really only got two days off when you count the weekend and the fact that I don't have class on Mondays anyway, but it's something, and I'll take it. I might even read, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?

It was somewhere in between here and Calgary when the raging blizzard started. I'm serious--we were merrily heading toward the big city, when suddenly, it just hit. Bam. Out of nowhere. Lower Mainland-style snow, too; thick flakes that are wet and slushy causing general driving chaos. At one point, we were going 60 down the freeway (Highway 2)--the speed limit is 110. And getting back was terrible. What should have been a one-hour trip turned into just under two. And that was only because the snow magically stopped again about 40 clicks north of Highway 1 and Calgary. Weird.

It really was a bad drive. The snow was so heavy at one point that I couldn't see even 20 feet ahead of me, and I was driving down an unfamiliar road in the quasi-darkness of twilight. It's actually worse to drive in twilight than in pitch darkness. Seriously, that sucked.

Moving on. Since I really don't have all that much to report today, I figured I'd get to what I've been meaning to get to all week--pictures! And not just any pictures: pictures of Three Hills in winter. They're quite nice, actually.

For a while there, we were trying to get the quintessential fall picture. You know the one I'm talking about. The kind of shot that all movie directors use when they want to push your warm nostalgia button. And although there were some really breathtaking moments this fall, none of them really turned out the way we had planned in a photo, so we never got the shot. But all that's changed with winter here.

For example, this one. That building in the background, by the way, is Prairie's married student housing (read: dorms for the married folk). We're pretty happy that we've got a whole house to ourselves, let me tell you.

Here's another gooder...

Shots like this always make me think of the bigger story behind them. Where were those three sets of feet going? What errand took them across the snow? Who do these prints belong to? Are we alone in the universe? Okay, that last one was just a random thought, but the rest were good...

The water tower in stark relief thanks to the setting sun...

One of the fields near our house...

And finally, the finest example of pre-World War II architecture you ever did see: Prairie's East Gym...

Actually, many of the campus buildings date way back to the founding of the college in the 20's, so it's no wonder they're starting to tear some of them down. Although, the tearing down has left many in town torn up. These are the buildings after all, you can't just tear them down willy-nilly. What of our heritage? And no matter how many compelling and logical arguments you make (for example: we were paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to heat this massive building when we weren't even using it; or, but there's a dangerously high level of mould in the basement that's actually hazardous to human health), it doesn't matter. Those are the old buildings and they have to stay.

Our new president is doing good things, though. He's slowly winning people over to the new way of doing things, and the college is embarking on a major building project that will see a beautiful new structure up by the end of the year (so they say) with another one in the works for 2008. Slowly, ever so slowly, Prairie will catch up to the new century. By that time it'll already be the next century, but hey, any change is good, right?

Before I go, I think I've figured out why I like that Lunar Jim so much. Who does he remind you of? Perhaps this guy...

It's Tintin, silly people (sorry for the small picture). Oh, and of course, his dog, Snowy. Don't talk to me about snowy, stupid dog--you don't know what "snowy" is. Anyway, is Lunar Jim simply a Canadian rip-off of Belguim's most famous export? Seriously, what else has Belguim done? Oh yeah, chocolate. Okay, they get a pass. And Dr. Evil--that's a quality export, too.

He even has the same hairdo. That's a little odd, isn't it?

Anyway, I have this thing for Tintin and Snowy, ever since Expo '86 when I saw them at the Belguim pavillion and bought a comic book. I must have read that thing a thousand times. The kicker was that it was all about them going into space, so Tintin even wore a space suit just like Lunar Jim wears. Seriously, I'm on to something.

By the way, here's a belated warning: as my dad found out, the Lunar Jim homepage does in fact have sound. If you are at work, you should turn down your speakers first. But if you get there, be sure to check out the "Theme Song" section to get the catchy little thing stuck in your head all day. And to understand why the word "Lunar-iffic" may be entering my vocabulary on a regular basis.

Right-oh, that about does it. See you again tomorrow.