January 21, 2007

New Year Ok I admit, I've been lazy this time around and that's why I haven't posted an update for almost 2 months. Believe it or not, I've sat down numerous times to put something together, and each time my laziness has prevailed. I did however start typing something up earlier this week and wouldn't you know it - I forgot to save my changes. Oh well ... What can I say .... Christmas and New Year's was very ... relaxing. We had a very FULL HOUSE, but it was still relaxing. When you have so many people willing to look after your kids first thing in the morning, well ... I know what I'd do (did) - I slept in! Here's a roll call - Jen's Mom came in from Toronto on Dec 4th, my sister Manju and her husband Stephen came in from New Jersey on Dec 17th, and Jen's oldest sister, Jessy and her family - Joe, Joshua and Stephanie, came in from Toronto on the 22nd. Count in the 4 of us and my parents and you have 13 people. So from Dec 22nd to the 27th we had 13 people living under our roof. You'd think everyone would go crazy, but it was an extremely fun 5 days having everyone together. Mya and Yasmeen especially had a great time with all the attention they were getting. As an added bonus, Jen's cousin Sheila and family - Thomas, Rachel and Ben, decided to drive up from Helena, Montana. I have a feeling that we'll have similar family gatherings for future Christmas Holidays - especially after my dear brother-in-law Joe discovered the Boxing Day deals here in Alberta, which prompted him (and Joshua) to camp out ALL NIGHT at a local electronics store and come away with not 1 but 2 plasma screens for pretty much the price of one. I told him to bring a camper in from T.O. next time so that he could camp out in comfort and then have more than enough room to haul away all the electronics he can get his hands on. Who knows, maybe I'll camp out next year!

You want to make $20/ hour and work at ... ... McDonalds?. Yes you heard right - $20/hour to work at McDonald's and probably every any other fast food joint known to man. Last time I wrote about the oil boom here and this is basically a follow up to touch on how the it's been affecting everyone here. So ask yourself - if you can make that much money at Micky D's, then how much can you make in a real job? Well if you're working for an oil company or with a company that's tied to the oil industry - you're laughing. Because of the huge scope of all the Oil Sands projects and the requirement for skilled labour, a HUGE shortage of people has resulted. I have heard of High School students either waiting to graduate or even dropping out to join the work force due to the high pay being offered. Some are playing it smart by graduating with plans to work for X number of years to save up money and then go to University. The sector that's really being affected and affecting others is the housing market. The market in Calgary and Fort McMurray were already experiencing high prices due to the early stages of the boom, however with projects going full steam, Edmonton has now started feeling the pinch of a housing shortage which has pretty much doubled house prices in the last 3 years. The bottom line right now is - unless an alternative to oil is developed or oil prices themselves fall drastically, this boom does not seem to be slowing down for a number of years.