Mac Attack

On Monday, my boss randomly surprised with an overnight business trip....

....to Fort McMurray.

Seriously though, my company operates in Europe, the U.S., and Asia, and I get to travel to the exotic oilsands city.

Fort Mac is in the Athabasca River valley, which is actually a really beautiful area. Its too bad that they've reworked or destroyed most of it to get at the most dirty form of oil on Earth. On top of that, the whole Wood Buffalo region is a vegan's worst nightmare. In a sprawly city of 100,000, the only places we could eat at were McDonald's, Burger King, or Tim Horton's. Oh, and it was Camp Day, so Tim Horton's was just out of the question...

Before leaving, the biologist I was working with decided to show me the Syncrude Mildred Lake operation, one of the biggest in the region. I even got to see the infamous tailings ponds that were responsible for killing all those ducks! Those things are the size of lakes. Someone might actually think they look kinda cool if they didn't know they were full of toxic chemical effluent.

I would have just loved to go kayaking on this.

Otherwise, my week has been oh so lame. Work has been awful and it still feels like January outside. However, I'm getting a much needed break from the cesspool that is St. Albert this weekend and heading up to my friend's cabin. Weeooo!