I'm moving to Victoria! Now some of you may be thinking, "Haven't you been there for almost a year now." But I'm actually moving to Victoria. I'm going to find myself a real live place to live and the queen is going to move my stuff from good old storage unit U7 to the island. I'm going to miss not paying for anything like utilities and cable and living a 10 minute walk from work. I'm not going to miss wearing sandles in the shower and a "kitchen" consisting of a microwave, toaster oven, and a small fridge with a freezer that isn't cold enough for icecream. Can you imagine. I haven't had icecream in my fridge for 10 months. Insanity.

I'm also temporarily moving ships again. Off to Whitehorse for another set of workups. That's that intensive training period that I just finished with Edmonton. This time I have my A ticket so it will be a bit different for me but the idea is still the same. Lots of cleaning, wake up calls at stupid hours of the day. We're going to San Fransisco so hopefully we'll have time off to enjoy it. This is the last of the 6 reserve ships on this coast that I've been on and the fourth I've actually sailed on.

Stupid squirrels

I nearly ran over a squirrel today with my bike. Yes, my bike. I just bought street tires so I was going really super fast but I swear, if I had those big trail tires on I would have squashed his tail. Would have been better if it was a bird though. I was nearly shit upon by two birds this week and the geese have resumed pissing me off by waking me up at 6:00 instead of my usual 6:30. Plus they make noise durring my precious 20 - 30 min snooze time.

I took my fitness test last week. Eleven push-ups! When I left for basic in summer 2004 I could do the required 9. Leaving basic I could do 10. One day I'll do a one million push-ups.

I caught crabs in Prince Rupert

Yes, and you can even buy t-shirts with this catchy little slogan on it. We sailed up to Rupert last weekend to show off our boat and I went crabbing with my uncle. I could get used to that. It was an all day evolution from the buying of the fishing licence to the eating of the fresh caught food. We probably caught 40 but only kept 9. I liked the one who didn't like buddy's leg on his head while chilling in the bucket so he just cut it off.

I have my A-ticket now! I know all of you would be excited if you knew what that was. It means I'm now qualified to stand watches by myself and I can get a long term contract and I don't have to spend every waking hour "studying". I've never been a very good student but this was a painful procedure. Imagine getting ready for a huge test but you don't know when it's going to be.

I am becoming quite educated in the sewage treatment plant though. Two black water spills (sewage, luckily it was treated) and a grey water spill (water from sinks, showers, laundry ect.) all within a couple days of eachother. I wonder why more people don't want to be engineers up to their ancles in shit.