So life has been pretty crazy lately. I say that as my wife and I were speaking with our mortgage broker the other day, and she requested a 3-year history of home and work addresses.
As we sat down and looked back at the past three years of where life has taken us both, it definitely made us appreciate the stability we've found, finally together, here in Edmonton. This blog post is a little bit of reflection, and a means to bring the blog (and fancy new website) back to life after a long hiatus. It's been too long since I've put fingers to keys here, so let's get started!
Toronto - Summer 2013
Following the epic wedding of Carson and Lorraine in June of 2013, I found out that I had been accepted to the Environment Canada Meteorologist Operational Internship Program, or MOIP for short. Ever since 2009 when I'd had the chance to work in the weather forecast office in Toronto I'd wanted to become a meteorologist, so getting into this program was a bit like winning the career lottery. Unfortunately, this meant moving a few provinces east to Halifax, Nova Scotia and effectively putting my business into hibernation.
On the upshot, I was able to bring my mom along for my "big move" since she'd never been to Atlantic Canada. Getting to celebrate her 50th birthday in one of the best pubs in Halifax while a two-piece band played their cover of Gangam Style (complete with full Korean lyrics) was simply incredible. I'm always going to cherish those 8 days of marginal Maritime weather and phenomenal Maritime culture.
It was in my first week of living in Nova Scotia that I had the opportunity to come back to Ontario and shoot the wedding of my mentor and super-awesome friend Calla Evans, alongside the amazingly-talented Tara McMullen. It was so amazing to be able to be there for her and her phenomenal husband Adrian, and I wouldn't have traded that whirlwind trip for anything.
Halifax - Fall 2013/Winter 2013-2014
Settling down into the MOIP course was a dream come true. I've always been a weather nerd and the long path through university made the fact that I was there all the sweeter. Days and weeks rolled by filled with lectures and hands-on weather "simulators" - intensive training that attempted to get you used to life as an operational meteorologist. Before I knew it, it was Thanksgiving and my coursemates and I were watching people canoe across a reservoir in the Windsor, NS Pumpkin Regatta. Soon it was November and I was trying to grow a terrible mustache for Movember (which is immortalized in some really bad selfies I took while on a trip to PEI).
Through all of this though, it was a bit tough being so far away from my girlfriend - at this point, she and I were 3 timezones away from each other - and I was really looking forward to a much-needed Christmas holiday when I'd be headed to Edmonton to visit her. I should really mention that we're truly a nerdy match made in heaven, as she and I had met during university in the midst of getting her Atmospheric Science degree. She had been accepted into and completed the MOIP course in Halifax the year before me and had received a posting to Edmonton.
After an amazing Christmas, it was back to even more intensive weather simulators in preparation to receive our post-MOIP assignments. This was a super-stressful time full a huge amount of uncertainty - will I make the cut? will I get posted somewhere awful and far away? will Heather and I be in the same city? Needless to say, when the final assignment postings came out in February I was elated to find I'd be sent to Edmonton in April to start my weather forecasting career in earnest.
The MOIP course came to a close after 8 stressful-but-awesome months in Halifax and my 11 coursemates and I bid our adieus in mid-April. People from my course had been posted to places across the country, but 5 of us had drawn the Edmonton straw, including my best friend Phil. April 18th, 2014 was my last day in Nova Scotia, and the first day of my new Alberta adventure.
