Elkford Crime Scene!

As pleasant as the town of Elkford is, it has come to my attention that it is not the innocent little mountain town I once thought it to be. Sure, I began to wonder when the old school mysteriously burnt down and a local church sign was ripped apart. It wasn't until I was personally victim to the town's plague of vandalism that I connected all the dots and realized that there is a major problem here. Earlier this week Matt walked into the room and asked me if I'd taken a look at my car recently. It seems the windshield got smashed by someone. The smash was dead center and definitely not an accident. The RCMP offered no help, naturally.

This brings me to the launch of the my new blog: Elkford Crime Scene. Why fall victim to the torrential onslaught of vandalism in this town without doing something about it? The Elkford Crime Scene site shall be dedicated to getting to the bottom of Elkford's vandals. If I hear about some vandalism going on in the town, I will post a summary of it on there. If anyone knows anything about the crime, they can leave comments on the post. If people wish to remain anonymous to the public, they can email their tips to elkfordcrimescene@gmail.com. Together we can catch the vandals! So far, my greatest resource is the high school students. I have a few of them working on investigating my windshield vandalism. We've already got a few leads, but will continue to gather evidence before approaching the suspects.

If the RCMP will not patrol this town, we citizens must band together to patrol it!

In other news, my credit card number was stolen this week. I noticed a charge on my credit card statement that I hadn't made. While I was checking it out online, Royal Bank phoned me up and asked if I'd made thousands of dollars of purchases online today. I had not. I don't think this was an Elkford crime, but it's annoying nonetheless. At least I won't be charged for all the purchases I didn't make. If only I wouldn't have to pay for the windshield that I didn't break.

Funny, while living in downtown Calgary I was victim to less crime than I am here...

Film Reviews

I am pleased to announce the creation of a new blog in conjunction with my roommate, Matt Yeomans. The blog is entitled Monson & Yeomans and it is a film review website. Check it out!

Bear Hunting

Last night pastor Ted and I went out looking for bears again. We found the remains of a moose that had been shot and a couple moose that were still alive and kicking, but no bear. These are a couple of shots I took last evening.

Office Excitement

This morning I was sitting in my office, working away like usual, when out of nowhere I heard a woman scream. Naturally I didn't investigate. As I continued working away on my computer, I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye. I looked to my right and saw a little mouse sitting in the doorway of my office. As soon as I acknowledged it, it scurried towards me as if I were calling it. I saw this as a perfect opportunity to try out my rubber band shooting skills on a moving target. The mouse ran off before I could get a decent shot off. I sat back down and continued working. I've come to realize that after living in Egypt, nothing phases me. Minutes later I heard another woman scream, this time from the opposite side of the floor as the first woman.

Following the second scream I heard the first woman call out, "How did he get over there?!"

I smiled to myself and continued working. A short while later I heard a smash that sounded a bit like wood against the floor. Then I heard jubilant laughing from the women in accounting. I assume that means Stewart Little is no more. Poor little guy. He was so friendly!

News

The Heagys have a new baby.
Andrew has a new wife.
I've got a 'new' car.

What's new with you?

School's Out For-EVER!

At 7 o clock morning I was awoken by the sound of sirens. After living in downtown Calgary for a few years, this seemed like nothing out of the ordinary, so I fell asleep again. After all, it was a Saturday and I deserved to sleep at least until 9 am. When I got out of bed a couple hours later, I realized that I'm a small town guy now and sirens should be a big deal to me. I figured this would be one of those things I'd hear around the water cooler for the next week or two.

I smelled smoke, similar to the smell of a camp fire. But there's a fire ban on right now, which should've been more reason for me to get excited. Yet I still didn't bother to look outside. After checking my email and reading up on the world news, I noticed the smell of smoke was even more prevalent. I finally sauntered over to the balcony and looked outside. It was quite smokey out there. Not only that, but it was snowing large pieces of ash. Again, you would think that this would pique my curiosity and send me outside in search for the excitement. Instead, I decided to have a shower... just in case the town was evacuated due to an uncontrolled forest fire (I wouldn't want to be driving around, looking for lodgings with bedhead).

After my shower I looked outside once again and saw more people than usual driving around town. I also heard someone on a loudspeaker outside. I put on an episode of the BBC's "Planet Earth" and closed the window to block out the noise and smoke. I had to get through this DVD if I wanted to fit in my maximum number of movies for the month!

Later that day Kristine with a 'K' phoned me up and asked, "So, did you hear the school burned down today?" I hadn't heard. The morning made a lot more sense now, though. Turns out I had that shower for nothing. We walked over to the smoldering rubble and I snapped a few shots. The fire chief came over and talked to us. Apparently his vacation isn't going very well. This is possibly the biggest fire Elkford has ever seen. Surely this event will be talked about for years to come!

Don't worry. This school was not in use any more so next month's classes will not be affected by this 'disaster'.