Date: December 4, 2005 - Weather: - 29 and cloudy
Sunrise – 1:11 PM
Sunset – 2:20 PM

7:30AM
We got up early this morning – 7AM (if you can consider that early). Actually, I got up early. Lorie “rested her eyes”.

My normal routine for an early Sunday morning is to take Ripley and go for a ride in the jeep, probably stop at Tim’s and get a coffee, maybe go to the Canadian Tire and buy some other tool that I will use twice in my life. Both ideas are out this morning though, as there is no Tim Horton’s, nor is there a Canadian Tire (Hmmm…brain wheels are turning!!) – plus there is no point in driving around in the dark. Hey, look at all the money I’m going to save, right?

Having a coffee down in the hotel lobby with the other “continental breakfasters” will have to do this morning. Maybe I’ll find someone interesting to talk to down there.

The sun will be up for exactly nineteen minutes less today than yesterday. And the weather forecast says -26 with light snow.

One thing that I forgot to mention in yesterday’s entry is that we have found our new home. We went to the rental office yesterday and dragged in the lady who will be handling our rental – it had been her day off. She didn’t seem too upset about be called in! We visited the house and we were pretty pleased with what we saw. Pleased enough that we will be taking out a six month lease on the place. We will likely move in on the 15^th of the month. Just in time for Christmas.

The house itself is one of four in a row, and it was likely built in the early or mid 1970’s. You would never say though, because it had been completely renovated – top to bottom. There is all new flooring, new appliances, new kitchen cabinets, new lighting fixtures – everything is new. It’s a two story that has about 35 square meters per floor – that’s about 900 square feet for you non-metric folks. It has a full complement of appliances including fridge, stove, dishwasher, washer and dryer - and all these are brand new. It has three bedrooms and plenty of closets and storage space. The place looks excellent, although it is a lot smaller than what we are used to. We will have to figure out what to do with the appliances that are on the way here – I guess we will have to sell them. If we could find storage, I imagine that it ill be too expensive to make it worth our while to keep them until we have our own place.

9:00PM
We spent about a half an hour driving around town today. We went to the airport and the industrial park, and took a look around the shores of the Mackenzie River. It didn’t take long to do the touring.

Actually I would have to say that this town is pretty typical of what you might find in Newfoundland. There are nice areas of the town, and there are the not so nice areas. There are areas of development – at least one condominium development is underway, as is a new hotel. We will have to look into one of the houses being built in a new subdivision. I wonder how expensive they are.

The rest of the day was basically spent in the hotel room taking it easy and watching TV. We had a pizza for supper – it cost us $20 GST included. I don’t think that was too bad a price to pay. I really don’t know what a pizza costs back home. Although I have bought my share of them, I never really took notice of the cost.

Tomorrow I plan to go into work and meet my new boss and make contact with Human Resources. I also need to get our temporary accommodations resolved. Otherwise we will sign the lease for our new place and check out other things like arranging for phone and cable services.

Here are a few pictures for you. First, here’s a picture of the sign welcoming visitors to Inuvik. It’s a little more elaborate than most I have seen.

Also, here is a picture of Sadie, the mascot of the hotel we are staying in.

That’s it for today.

Cheers!