Day 1, Wapasu Lodge-Evening

4:45pm Depart Kearl Lake Jobsite

Before I can actually begin my evening at camp, I have to leave site. It looks to be roughly 200–300 people lining up for the buses back to camp. I score an awesome seat, with nobody sitting next to me!

5:47pm Dinner

A leisurely trip back to camp at a maximum speed of 60 km/h brings us to camp just before 6pm. Dinner is a fabulous array of meats and starches with a few vegetable thrown in the mix. Something out-of-place is the couscous salad, which looks untouched. I get rice, beef stew, pork, mixed (frozen) vegetables, spinach salad and some sort of cake thing.

Dinner is acceptable, but barely. I’d rate it as Denny’s or Smitty’s quality. My dining companion made the meal that much more enjoyable.

Smiling Ola is a from Nigeria. He has a degree in architecture, but he decided to pursue a career in industrial construction instead. It’s nice to have dinner company. I think Ola got the same dinner as me. He was critical of the quality as well, but suggested that it’s better than getting back to camp and having to make your own dinner.

6:13pm Nightshift

I’m covering for Matt the Engineer, but nobody is covering for Dean the Engineer back in the Edmonton office. After putting in a 10 hour workday, I get ready for around 2 hours (I hope) of extra work.

7:43pm Call Home

I call my girls. They’re just getting ready for bed. I talk to them about their days, I tell them about my day, and I tell them I love them and I miss them. I know there are a lot of people in camp, a lot of them with families and I suspect similar phone calls are happening all over camp this evening.

So…that’s day 1. Any questions?

My Other Texas is Alberta…Our Secret is Out

U.S. bloggers are onto our secret in Alberta. I previously wrote on The (de)Evolution of Alberta, and now The FriendlyAtheist has spilled the beans to Americans in this post.

The issue boils down to this: creationists want creationism taught as science, and if they can’t have that, then they want to pull their children from classes. Well, that’s what I think it boils down to, anyways.

What do you think?

The (de)Evolution of Alberta

Evolution is science. Creationism is religion. Evolution should not be brought to Christian Sunday school, and neither should creationsim be brought to public schools.

The phrase “slippery slope” came to mind after reading this article: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2009/04/30/cgy-bill-evolution-law-alberta-classes-teachers.html

Full disclosure: I’m a devout Unitarian Universalist (see what that is here http://www.westwoodunitarian.ca/aboutUU.htm) and I’m also a engineer and a complete science geek.

 I think pretending evolution isn’t science is wrong. The Alberta government isn’t denying evolution yet, but I think they’re well on their way. The government wants to allow parents to withdraw children from classes where the subject matter is “controversial”. Right now, controversial subject matter is sex education, homosexuality, and now evolution. I think this is wrong. As a parent, if my child learns something in school that I disagree with, it’s an opportunity for me to present my viewpoint and acutally be a parent to my child. Telling my child to cover her ears and say “blah-blah-blah-blah” is not giving them an education. Some parents will say they want to teach their ideas and ideals to their children, which is great, that’s what I plan to do to, but pulling children out of class and telling them to pretend certain subjects don’t exist is ignorant. In my opinion, ignorance isn’t an ideal I want to pass on to my children, but other parents may feel differently.

This is a slippery slope, and to be honest, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened in Alberta “Texas of the North” sooner. When I shake the magic eight ball and ask it “Will the government demand intelligent design is taught alongside evolution?” the magic eight ball says “All signs point to yes”. This cannot happen. Mixing science and religion in this way is a bad idea. I’m not saying science is superior to religion, that’s like saying ovens are superior to watermelons…the comparison doesn’t mean anything. Science is about discovering everything possible about the universe, religion is about discovering everything impossible about the universe.  Keep creationism in Sunday school and keep science in the classroom.

I hope we don’t require the help of Professor Steve Steve at The Panda’s Thumb. He may be the only one who can help us if things slide further into the abyss. “Please Professor Steve Steve Kenobi, you’re our only hope!”