News!

I mentioned in my last post that I had some exciting news. Here it is:
As of today, I am a merchandise supervisor at the North West Company in Baker Lake, aka the Northern, the local grocery store. The decision was made for a variety of reasons, and one of them is that I eat food far more frequently than I fly, so a food discount works more in our favour than a flight discount.

In other news, we are now midway through May, and while you Southerners are fretting over the rainy weather and tending to your gardens, we are not. I wish we had those kinds of problems, but we are dealing with other difficulties at the moment, such as freezing rain, 70km/hr winds, and blizzard warnings. So, if your garden perennials are not sprouting they way you'd like, the best advice I can offer you is this:

We don't care.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have been testing out Lily's Striiv pedometer, and it has made walking to work a lot more fun. I calculated it takes roughly 2,700 steps to make it from home to the store, and that translates into a lot of energy for buying plants and buildings. This is good because I'm trying to build two Greek Parthenons and two Fountains of Youth so I can access the restricted areas of the island to build more things. They are friggin' expensive, and there are lots of cheaper items like Grandmother Trees to tempt me from that lofty goal.

I think I finally understand the obsessiveness of people who play games likes Farmville incessantly. The big difference of course is that the Striiv forces me to exercise to build my empire, whereas most of those games only require a computer, internet access, and 8 hours of free time a day. I also like the fact that I don't have to harass my Facebook friends to get further ahead, which is another unattractive quality of those games.

The other reason why I am committed to walking so much is because I have two weddings to attend later this year, and I want to look my best. My good friend is getting hitched at the end of September (I am standing for him), and my brother is doing the same in early October. Coming to Baker Lake has also worked as a great weight-loss program, given that we eat out far less often than we did (there are less than 5 places in town to 'eat out', and they average $35/plate). Since we moved up here, I'm down over 50 pounds, and I intend to lose another 30 before September. There will be less of me to love, but I'll be so attractive, everyone will love me more. I know what you're saying - how could anyone love me more than they already do? I mean, I assume that's what you're saying.

Tomorrow I will drag out my Baffin boots as it appears winter is not ready to part company with us just yet. Hopefully we can put them back in the closet around the same time you Southerners are complaining about how humid your weather is. ;-p

-J