Hey All,

Our heat wave seems to have passed. It had been in the middle to high 30s for a couple of weeks. As you go inland, it gets hotter so working in Whistler was a scorcher. We hit the low 40s a couple of times. Good thing there is no humidity, the air stays clear. Now we are back to 'normal', low to mid 20s. That's nice and comfortable.

The kids spent most of the week over on Vancouver Island. They had a great time. Ryan took Emily to all the spots he has been to as a kid. They camped for a couple of nights at the same beach we did right on the Straight of Georgia by Courtenay. They went over to Tofino but had to camp in a picnic ground as there were so many tourists that everything was full.

Sue was in Brandon all week so they came back to the main land in time to pick her up at the airport on Friday. The kids had the van so I used a rental car to get to work. Ryan is too young to rent a car, you have to be 25. We are sort of looking for a new car to solve some transportation needs. Sue has been able to balance travel with the bus etc but as she does more 'local' audits see will need a car each day. The bike is recreation, not for dependable daily use. (I'm older than I used to be.)

Been picking blueberries in my back yard every day lately. Sure are good. Na Na.

The best part of having a job now is that it has made me determined to get self employed again. Working in Whistler is an experience in it's self. There seems to be no work ethic, you just need to be good at pretending to be doing something. Huge amounts of money are spent on stupid things. The only people that can afford to own anything in Whistler have so much money that it's almost a competition to see who can spend the most. The successful contractors are the ones that can drag out a job the longest and have the most cost over runs. And to make it interesting, Whistler has bears the way Kitchener has raccoons. You don't leave your lunch sitting unattended.

There is still snow in the high country, we can see lots of it from the house. Some of the fields stay all year. There are large glaciers and snow fields in the surrounding mountains that don't even shrink during the summer. The local streams and rivers are water that was ice only hours earlier so they are always ice cold with a blue, green colour that's really neat.

The Doug