Not a strange land anymore

This is the fifth time that I've visited Edmonton en route to summer research on Devon Island... it doesn't feel like a strange or distant city, anymore. Yes, there are recognizable landmarks, shops I remember, restaurants, and music -- all of those things -- but it still feels vaguely homelike now. More so than Huntsville, Alabama, which I visit twice as often and draws from the culture in which I was raised. I'm sitting on a FirstAir 737 enroute to Yellowknife, pondering this. Politically, Alberta has enough of a libertarian streak that when combined with Canadian social attitudes (recent remarks by the Albertan premier on gay marriage aside), it feels not all that different from the SF bay area. The oil industry and flatness kind of remind me of a cooler, cleaner Houston.

But that's not it, really... not merely various echoes of familiar places, and besides, Houston doesn't feel home-like to me, more of a workplace. It's my friends in Edmonton... and their support over the past few years. I carry around this warm feeling that if I somehow got into significant difficulty, they'd pitch in -- they have in the past. Pascal and the whole HMP project owes them thanks for past favors.

In some sense, for me the home-like sense has to do with site familiarity, sure, but more with a feeling of affinity, of knowing people there, of being connected. Even with friends that I only get to see once or twice a year.