Today was my first day back in the office since October 4.  It was a nice couple of weeks starting with the conference in Ontario then a visit to Niagara for the Thanksgiving weekend followed by a few days off while back in Calgary.  I ended my vacation by heading to Banff overnight to support a work conference.

Today, I worked from 9-noon.  Not a bad morning to ease back into the routine.  Tomorrow, being Wednesday, I work from home.  After that, I am out of vacation time, other than about 6 hours I think.  So, it’ll be a lot of full days.  Oh well.  We do get Remembrance Day off in Alberta so that is an extra day.  The cold weather is sure to hit soon – thus far, we have not had any snow.  They are calling for some on Sunday perhaps with highs just above freezing, BUT, the 14 day forecast looks pretty good.

I am glad to be back to work.  Having too much time off can be a little boring.  I enjoy going in, I also enjoy working from home on Wednesday’s.  With my job, working from home is easily done – there is another guy in the office to handle any office support issues, I jump on the “queue” and handle issues from all over the country.

As I have likely noted previously, I am now working 9-5:30, until the end of busy season anyway – that would be the end of April.  For the summer, I will switch back to 8-4:30 and next summer, I might participate in the flex program which allows you to take every other Friday off by working extra time each day.  A pretty good deal having additional long weekends.  The only thing that screws it up is if you take vacation while doing that – your vacation is deducted as hours as opposed to days so you still get the same number of hours off, just not the same number of days off.

Right now, I am sort of considering heading back to Ontario in August for a friends wedding.  Guess I will see how that plays out.  That would bring me back during possibly hot, humid weather which I do not enjoy.  I can likely survive a week of it though.  Will have to see how much a flight is and also factor in putting Zeus and Blondie into their “pet resort” at $62 per day for the pair.  Lots of time to figure it all out.

We will be having another conference next September or October – not sure where it will be though.  I have heard rumours of either Ottawa or Montreal.  Ottawa would be great – would give me an opportunity to visit some friends there, but more difficult to visit friends and family back in Niagara and Toronto.  I hope to be on that planning committee at work, so perhaps I will have some influence.  I am sure we will have it in Niagara again sometime as well so that will be VERY convenient.

For now, I am back in what I now consider home and looking forward to the winter, believe it or not.  I have a new 4×4 vehicle which I think will handle the snow and what not well.  I will have to, of course, be on the lookout for the other crazy drivers though.  Gotta love them.

Tomorrow also marks the arrival of the 2013 World Series.  I have watched quite a lot of the playoffs.  I don’t watch a lot of ball during the summer.  I am umpiring, so I see plenty of ball there and the 162 regular season games in the majors tend to be a little boring.

It is the St. Louis Cardinals versus the Boston Red Sox.  Typically, I would go for Boston, being an AL team, but this year, for the first time ever, I am pulling for St. Louis.  I hope it will be a good series regardless of who wins.

So, if you have a chance, catch some action and enjoy.  If you miss it, baseball will return in 5 short months.

Out.