Back in Vancouver, and so glad to be home. I didn't really realize how tense I was until I stepped foot back in my own home, and felt my shoulders unknot themselves.

Edmonton was... interesting. My first impression of it feeling almost Vegas-like was rounded out by some more experiences there. On the "Kinda Like Vegas" side, a friend of B's took us under his well-connected wing and looked after us in a big way. B's friend... we'll call him L... seems to know everyone in town. Like, everyone. We walked into restaurants, and the owner would come out, seat us, go back to the kitchen without asking what we wanted, cook us a meal, then bring it out and eat with us, all the while opening up continuous bottles of wine. People would migrate into the circle, then migrate out, so the whole evening is this sort of continuous flux of interaction with various people. Very interesting and un-Vancouver-like.

And the food I've eaten in the last few days. Oh, the food. Edmonton has some truly kick-ass restaurants, and I'm pretty sure baby will have grown another inch after what I've been feeding him or her for the past few days.

Also cool was the chance to explore the city a little more while we were finding our way to and from the clinic where we did the prenatal testing. Our travels (okay, we got a little lost) took us through some really cute neighborhoods... totally NOT Vegas-like, and that's a good thing. I could see how the city could be very livable and fun.

On the other hand, there's not great stuff too. The Vegas atmosphere is exhausting and overstimulating. The mall is pretty fun in small doses, and don't think I don't love having an H&M, Zara and not one, not two but THREE Aldo stores all under one roof, but really... it's just a mall. A really, really big mall, but a mall. We watched a sea lion show, but it was strange and a bit sad to realize that we were standing in the middle of a mall in Alberta in March and watching sea animals perform. The overall experience is fun if you don't think about it too much and let yourself be swept away in the consumerism of it all. I think two to three days would be the maximum amount of time I could handle it though... and then only if you're staying in the hotel like we were and can regularly escape to the relative sanity of your room and its ginormous hot tub. (I pointed at it when we first walked into the room and told Brian, "I'll be spending the next two days in there. Just toss me a cheeseburger every now and then.")

I do think if I were younger, and more into the party scene, I could probably have a very fun time in Edmonton. For where I'm at right now... that side of things isn't so appealing. I'll let you know next time I go, and actually get a chance to experience some of the other aspects of the city. I've love to see some of the museums and art galleries, and actually walk around in some of the parks.

Our time in Redwater was primarily spent with Ken, a drinking buddy of B's who we had hired to come up and launch the company we're starting here.

Yesterday we left him. He shook B's hand, gave me a hug, and sent us on our way.

This morning he called to let us know he'd hurt his back and was going to the hospital, and that we'd have to deal with some business stuff happening tomorrow.

A few hours later, there was a call from his landlords to let us know he was being rushed to emergency. No one knew why.

And a few hours ago, another call told us that he died on the operating table. His aorta had burst.

News like this doesn't sink in all at once. There's a sense of disconnect, of unreality. How is it possible that he's dead? Yesterday he was talking to me. The practical considerations suddenly crowd into your mind. How are we going to find someone to work his job? Do we even know any of his family? Who do we call? There's almost a sense of guilt. Why should I still be walking around when he's not any more?

He was ridiculously young to die like this... only 49, I think. It seems trite to call it tragic, but there's really no other word for it.

We saw our baby for the first time today, and that experience made me want to be a hell of a lot more grown up and responsible. Tonight's experience reminded me that I also need to savour every second that I have left, because it could be taken away at any moment.

Any now I'm off to sit in a huge soaker tub with my husband, after which we will cuddle next to each other while we read, and fall asleep together. And I will savour every second of it.

On the drive up here, no sooner had we crossed the border when I noticed the huge labour shortage that everyone's been talking about. Every restaurant, every gas station, every coffee shop seems to have "Help Wanted" signs up. McDonald's was advertising scholarship programs for their employees on their signage! Last time B was here, he walked into a Tim Horton's that closed in the middle of the day every weekday, because they couldn't get staff. Gas stations are apparently offering signing bonuses, and paying people upwards of $15/hr for unskilled labour positions. A few weeks ago I heard a story about someone sitting down in a restaurant, giving the waiter his order, and then not seeing him again -- the oil executive sitting the next table over had offered him a job on the oil patch, and the guy quit on the spot. It's insane.

Redwater is apparently on the verge of just such a boom. A couple of huge oil projects are coming in here in the next few years. Yesterday we drove into Edmonton for dinner, and on the way out B pointed out the massive amount of land that's been allocated and cleared for these developments. They're apparently going to be roofing over about ten square miles. On the other side of the road, he pointed out what I have to assume is the town's largest employer... a huge manure plant. It's not the sexiest business in the world, but the sheer magnitude of this operation was unbelievable. I'm utterly confused as to how a plant that big, located next to a town of 2100 people, in a province with a negative unemployment rate, has enough employees to run itself. They must be paying their people ridiculous amounts of money. Conveniently, money seems to be one thing that there's a lot of here.

I haven't been to Calgary in years, so I have no idea if this is an Alberta thing, or just a Northern Alberta thing, but they don't seem to do anything small here. Driving through Edmonton, a quick perusal seems to offer nothing but big box stores. The initial impression is that it's kind of ugly, all urban sprawl and the kind of huge signage you'd see in Vegas or Times Square. I'm sure there must be cute neighborhoods here, but they're not immediately apparent. It made me love Vancouver just a little bit more -- the geographic constraints of Van have made things grow up instead of out, and to me it seems like everywhere you look in Vancouver, there's something beautiful.

There is a sense of prosperity here though. Even our quick drive through Edmonton yesterday made me want to spend money -- it feels everyone has cash to spend, and the economy has provided plenty of places to spend it. Again, oddly enough, I felt a little bit like I was in Vegas. There's that same scent of unreality in the air.