-26 degrees right now...and the wierd feeling of frozen snot

It's quite interesting...outside it's minus 26 and inside i'm sitting here with a singlet on...
Poor Khan is out there working...I catch up with him sometimes halfway through his 12 hour shift...this morning his eyebrows and eyelashes had icicles on them...he's very tired but it's his birthday tomorrow (today in Melbourne) and tonight is his last shift. Big night at Woody's tomorrow, lots of people are coming...unfortunately I'm working the next day...
I've made a cake for him which I'm hoping to ice when I get home from work...

PLease if yr going to call, check the time...I'm going to be cranky if the phone wakes me up...i should be asleep now...got to get up in less than 5 hours...

Saw the northern lights tonight...freaking amazing...couldn't catch it on film too well but may try again with long exposure and a tripod...it's a little hard to stay still when the beyond freezing air is biting at your hands...

Our floor is now full.there is a total of 9 of us here and we've won the cleanest floor award for this month which means we get beer and junk food...cool...

oooooh nearly forgot about the snot...as you breath, it kinda freezes and it feels like when you've got really crusty snot yanking at the tiny hairs in yr nostrils...very peculiar feeling...

rugging up big time tomorrow, looking at 3 pairs of thermals under my snow pants and 2 thermals, 1 wind fleece, 2 long sleeve fleeces and my work jackket but i may take another fleece as back up.

I have managed to get a cold, Laura my floormate graciously gave it to me, but the way I see it is, at least I'm getting it over and done with...

ok sleep time...

make sure you wish khan a happy birthday...

Forecasted -19 in Calgary on Wednesday! OUCH!

So we had +4-7 degree days a couple of days ago and now it's snowing...
We've had probably about 20-30cm in two days which is fantastic...but it's forecasted -19 degrees for Wednesday, -24 in Canmore which is closer! and oh and shit, I'm rostered on Gold, which means outside a lot of the time...

Khan will be working as well...ugh and he's on the midnight to noon shift which means he's gonna be out there in the coldest part of the night making snow...poor baby...apparently when they're working they don't like natural snow. Was speaking to one of the other snowmakers and he was saying a gun run (checking to make sure they're working properly etc.) usually takes about half an hour, it took them 5 hours as they had to dig the guns out of all the snow the other night... ekk...

They're currently working on one of the runs home which I'm happy about...it'll be great being able to board down to the base...Just sucks that it's mostly man made...

Oh and one thing I forgot to mention about Khan going into snowmaking, which incidentally he's liking, is that they finish up in Feb, they get their season pass, a bonus and are either allowed to leave graciously or stay on as lifty scum. This means we can leave then if we want and get into other places for half price (by leaving early I forgo my season pass and bonus)...not sure what we're going to do yet, leaving our options open...

Connected finally!

We finally have net access in our room! yayyyyyy!
I think we can leave it on all the time so i probaBLY WILL.
I'll start giving out our phone number when we've got a handset.

Still not having much fun at the moment...no snow on the beginner trails and the ones we're allowed on get very icy after ski racers are going down them all day and they just happen to be black diamonds (for those who don't know, the hardest...) so they're steep to boot...not a very good place to learn...and my ass is extremely sore from slipping on to it...

oh, and, i was so exhausted after work yesterday that i managed to put a load of washing on and after about ten minutes in the dryer i realised my phone was still in the pocket...shiat...it's dead...there's bits of chewing gum paper pulp all through the electronics and behind the screen...so don't bother sending sms's...send them to khan instead

i think i'll try and see if i can recoup through travel insurance...

anyway, trying to keep my spirits up a bit...got to go fix my glove that a dumb racer broke when he smashed my hand between the chairlift and the stupid racing poles...a-hole...

send me emails or something

Gonna buy a truck (well a van...)

So we're looking seriously at buying a van now...
we're always the last ones out of the supermarket, everybody else is waiting in the car often for 10 or more minutes...
got the $5000 and under car trader and gonna find something that might get us [places without costing us the earth...
wish us luck...

Khan's gonna be a snowmaker!

So Khan originally applied to be a snowmaker and since getting here we've come to know a lot of them...lots of Aussies...
but a guy who screwed his knees up by smashing into a tree with a skidoo now wants to be a lifty so, Khan's gonna be a snowmaker..
This means he has wierd hours... we're talking 12 hour shifts, 12 noon to midnight, midnight to noon, or 8 to 8 either way and 4 days on 4 days off or 3 days on 3 days off...
then when he finishes that in Feb he's gonna come back to being a lifty...he's secured a position there as well, being the first head lifty nominated...
YAY KHAN!
it's pretty intense work but a lot of the guys who do it love it...and I think Khannie's gonna be buff as when he finishes up...better watch those cougars...

New photos!

New photos at http://www.3littlepenguins.com/photos/canada/index.html

Elaine! where's photos of what's going on in Melbourne town!?!

lifty fun...

oh my god...so there's industrial action which means no internet access in our room until the 24th...
aaaggghhh...
Dalyce my floormate is letting me use her connection every now and then so might be able to do a few updates here and there...

So we've been trained to be lifties and it's currently the pre-season. That means there's a bunch of ski teams that pay megabucks to come to Nakiska and race. Being a lifty is alright...as there's only about 40-60 racers it can be a bit boring...lots of sitting around...I've been taking my ipod and itrip and tuning it into the hut radio as that black eyed peas hump song drives me absolutely insane...

We've found out that Nakiska is 85% man made snow, which kinda sucks...there's definately not enough around to board on on our days off, like today. The snowmaking team is huge and they're constantly up there with so many snow guns going...

Bryan was telling us that apparently the Native indians from the area told them not to build the resort here as it gets too much sun, they ignored them and now they have to make all the snow which costs heaps....talk about stoopid...

Tonight we're going to Banff for a snowboard video launch party. Should be a bit of fun...

we're here...

we're now in Nakiska...

OH MY GOD IT"S IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!!

internet is limited to dial up...slit my throat now!!!

i've got a minute left on this pay machiney thingy!

I'm getting the phone connected so should have a phone number and a better presence in a week or so...this also means more photos/emails...

pretty cold here but still not enough snow to board on...

more soon i promise!