As you can see above, my wife successfully obtained her Saskatchewan Driver's Licence by passing her road test this afternoon ... fantastic! Congratulations, Amor!

This is from the latest copy of The Onion. If you know me, you'll know why this is hilarious. If you don't, it's because my cat's name is Bonkers.

(Hat tip to Nicholas Hill)

I just want to shed a virtual tear for the Coronet Cineplex on Albert St. Sofi and I drove by there tonight and we saw that it had been torn down. I saw many a movie there (when they reduced their prices the first time I must have seen 2 movies a week there for over a year) and I have many fond memories from both inside and standing outside that theatre. Even though I stopped going there long before it closed, I'm still sad to see it go.

I recently received a message from my buddy 1LT John Avera in Baghdad. Here's an excerpt:

(Our team) has seen a lot of action in the last few weeks. We believe the Anti-Iraqi Forces (AIF) were testing us as the new soldiers on the block. I have survived two mortar attacks and one direct fire engagement. After that, it has been relatively calm. This is the first combat engagement our Brigade and Battalion has been in since 1945 (WWII). The results were positive, although we did sustain a few casualties. All the casualties were "Return to Duty" (RTD) except one. The one soldier was sent to Germany to treat his wounds, but is expected to have a full recovery. It was a good test of our fighting skills. The AIF are smart and adaptable. I constantly spend late nights planning with our intelligence officers on how we can defeat the AIF. It is not an easy task.

The environment is here not as bad as it may seem. The majority of the local populace are supportive of us. They give us a lot of information of where the bad guys are, because they are scared of them. Sometimes, they will stop one of our patrols and tell us where the bad guys are and where the IEDs are. It is a sign of people tired of all the violence and wanting to help. The Iraqis are not the enemy, it is the local thugs and foreign fighters that are the enemy.

The Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Police are stepping up. Unfortunately, there are not any in our Area of Operations (AO). There is an effort to train more and we hope to see them help with patrolling our AO in the near future.

I am planning on sending John a care package via Treat Any Soldier. If you've been thinking to yourself that you wish there was a way you could make life easier for the boys and girls out there defending your way of life, feel free to send some cash my way. I'll collect all the donations and put them towards sending John care packages. I'm sure John would more than appreciate the sentiment!

After work last Thursday, Sofi and I drove the 45 mins. or so out to Buffalo Pound, where we met up with Brad. Brad managed to snag the last two electrical camping sites in the place, so it was fortunate we went out early. We set up our tents before dark and stayed up late by the fire drinking beer and waxing poetic about our camping skills.

The weekend was pretty much tremendous. On Friday pretty much everyone else who was coming showed up, and it was a scorcher. I can't recall the last time I've been outside for so long in what seemed like African temperatures. Thought I spent most of the day hung-over, day turned to night and life went on. Saturday was just as hot, but we went to the (disgusting) lake to cool off and try our hand at Ian's jet-ski. Even though that day ended on a sour note with the Rider loss, it was still a great weekend. We got our fair of thunderstorms, but it only rained at night and was otherwise good weather with few(!) mosquitoes and we had lots of shade. We even fit four tents and eight people in one of the sites. If you are ever in the area, I can recommend Shady Lane #1!

Camping at Buffalo Pound 2005

This week has been a busy one. I had an interview this week with a client downtown so if I get that job I will get to walk to work for the foreseeable future. With all the heat and humidity it's been rough going outside, but I've managed, even though I got caught in the rainstorm last night.

Doteasy had a promo offer for registering domain names a few weeks ago so I took the opportunity to register achsreunion.com, which I'm going to use to organize our high school reunion which is coming up in 2007. It looks like the plan is for Christine, Kylie, and I to organize it. I'm hoping I can write some cool website software for it and that more than just our class will be able to use it in the future.

This weekend I'm planning on laying low. I have a bunch of work work to do, thanks to ever-increasing job responsibilities at work (hey, Janson, five people in two provinces report to me on my current project, does that count as being a manager? It's as close as I'll ever get for the next 10 years!). I'm going to be leaving on Wednesday night next week for the big cabin party - I can't wait!

Saskatchewan’s Family Fishing Weekend will be held the weekend of July 9th – 10th, 2005. For more info, you can visit http://www.nationalfishingweekcanada.net/. Here's the short of it: you can fish that weekend without buying a licence (normally $15 for a three-day licence) but you still have to obey the catch limits and other angling rules.