It's a beautiful day...

in the neighbourhood... well at least it is in mine, I don't know about yours.

The sun is bright and warm, the snow is glistening on the ground (along with the crazy amounts of super slippery ice) and everyone seems to be in fairly high spirits. That is, if you ignore the fact that it's 0 degrees out but feels like -5 or colder. It was warmer and rather pleasant around noon but now is's just bloody cold. Even our house can't quite seem to warm up. If you walk past a bus stop, you'll notice everyone pressing their arms against their bodies and bouncing from one foot to another, or just plain pacing. I should know, that was me earlier.

But despite how cold it feels, I know it's far worse where my Dad is. He left on Wednesday to work at one of the larger oil rig camps as a kitchen manager. It's between Edmonton and Grande Prarie, about 40 clicks north of a place called Rainbow Lake. The place he's at has no name save that the camp is designated as "Camp 160". Anyway, last I heard, it was -18 there, which felt like -38.

I think I'm quite happy here in Vancouver, where I at least don't have to cover every bit of skin to prevent things falling off. I did that when I was in Ontario thank you very much and I'm really not interested in a repeat performance.