Things & Stuff

Karma

2009-11-05T20:59:00.002-05:00

So today, I was planning to go out for another walk with Steve. We're trying to take advantage of the good weather as long as it lasts, and it's been a very enjoyable form of exercise. I picked up Steve this afternoon, and we headed out in my car to the trail we've been walking.

On the way there, Steve asked if I could stop at the bank for him, which I did. While he was inside, Erin B called my cell, so I was talking to her for a few minutes. Erin had a little oops last night and locked her keys in her car. She ended up having to call a locksmith and pay $75 for him to spend 30 seconds unlocking her door, which really sucked. So she was telling me about this as Steve came back to the car. I asked her how that had happened, because I thought most new cars made it pretty hard to lock your keys in now. For example, I said, you couldn't possibly lock your keys in my car, because you had to use the key to lock the driver's side door. She explained the mechanism in her car, I said "ahh" and shortly got off the phone and Steve and I continued on to our destination.

So we get there, a place maybe 5km from Gord's house, where we left from. It's out on Bissett Road, kind of on the edges of the city. Steve got out and locked both of the doors on his side of the car. Both doors on my side of the car were unlocked. I got out of the car, closed and locked the door. Tossed the keys in my purse. I opened the back door and put my purse on the back seat as I put on my jacket. As I went to lock that door, a little voice in the back of my head told me to be careful. "Oh ho!" I said to myself. "I will not be so foolish as to lock my keys in the car like Erin did!" So I was extra careful to make sure that the keys were in my purse, and the purse was in my hand, before I locked and closed the door. Hah! I had fully locked my car, and did not lock my keys in the car. Fear not, little voice in my head, I had not been so foolish!

Then I pulled open the trunk, which I had popped before I got out of the car, and put my purse in it. And closed the trunk. This is what I have done on every walk we've taken, because I don't like to carry my purse as we walk, and don't want to leave it just sitting in plain view in the car. However, I put the keys in my pocket usually.

So I realized what I had done even before the lid of the trunk had closed. It was that moment when you know what you've done, and you have just enough time to regret your idiocy before the lid of the trunk slams down, protecting your purse from passers-by, and protecting your car from the chance that you might drive it home because now your keys are safely locked in the trunk.

The look on my face as I realized that I had just locked my keys in the trunk of the car, not 10 minutes after telling Erin how unlikely it is that you will lock your keys in my car, must have tipped Steve off to what I had done, because he looked as stunned as I felt as he stared at me. A choice curse word or three escaped my lips. Then Steve and I cracked up laughing. It was so ridiculous that there wasn't much else to be done for it.

Steve then shrugged and said "Well, we came out here for a walk anyway", and we started walking back to Gord's. I had my cell phone in it's holster on my hip, so I called mom to postpone the supper plans I had with her, as there was no way I was making them now (sorry mom :( ). I then sent Alan a text message (he was in class til 6:30) to call me when he could. The plan was that I would have to get Alan to get to Gord's after class, so we could go back to the car and use his key to get into it.

Then of course, we ended up taking a huge side track on the walk back to Gord's. Bissett Road, at least that section of it, is not pedestrian-friendly, with no sidewalk and a narrow shoulder. We decided to take a trail that, according to it's map, ran parallel to the road, and eventually came out where the sidewalk started. However, turned out that the map was not entirely representative of the trail, and we ended up taking this long loop that just put us back where we started before we found the actual trail we wanted, adding probably another 2km or so to our trip.

We did make it back safe and sound, and in very good humor all things considered. We didn't actually walk any further than we would have on our normal walk anyway, and I hung out with Gord and Steve til Alan got off school. Gord is pretty sick right now, so Erin drove me out to the bridge bus terminal, where Alan got dropped off by a friend. She then drove Alan and I out to our car, and we retrieved my purse and headed home.

Lesson for the day: karma is a bitch. Never say never, and tempt the universe to show you just how possible it is for you to lock your keys in the car =P

Little things

2009-11-03T20:24:00.003-05:00

Heyo, haven't had much to say lately, but I haven't forgotten you. Life has been mostly quiet here, which is not necessarily a bad thing. There have been some little things here and there, mostly some little improvements to lifestyle that will hopefully add up to something later.

I had a couple of weeks where I kind of got off the exercise and good eating train, and I'm happy to say I'm getting back where I should be. With the notable exception of a brunch at Gord's Saturday, I've been eating pretty well overall. I've also been exercising with increasing regularity again. I went for a 14km walk with Steve last week, and we went for another 10km yesterday. I'm also bowling twice a week, and doing some weights, yoga and cardio at home. I'm starting to feel a bit better and more energetic again, which is always a good thing.

The other little thing is that Alan and I are trying to change our sleeping schedule to make our days more productive. We don't sleep in particularly late, but later than we probably should. Alan suggested on the weekend that we take advantage of the time change, since our bodies will already think it's later than it is, so for the last two days we've gotten up at 6am, and our goal is to do it all week and see how we feel. So far it's actually going pretty well. I definitely have an issue with it being pitch black outside when I wake up, but that's always an issue I have in the winter.

It's actually been pretty nice in that I'm getting up that early...I'm definitely feeling more productive. I've had plenty of time to exercise and get breakfast, and still be ready to go to the office by the same time I would have been scrambling to get there before. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.

In other news, I finally count at my Tuesday night bowling alley. Since I came into it after the season already started, I had to spend 3 weeks as a spare to get my average established. This is the league where they were told that my average would be 94, and I had to prove a point. Well, after three weeks, my average is 101, so point proven. I actually got asked tonight by someone in the league if I found that the pins fall easier at my other bowling alley. I said that my average there is actually lower than this one (100 on the Sunday league), so that's not really an argument for it being easier to bowl there.

But yeah, that's all the news that is news. I promise I'll post if there's anything interesting to say, but my life is pretty boring at the moment.

I'm a real biker now

2009-10-26T17:35:00.002-05:00

Yes, it's time for more motorcycle stories. Sorry mom ;)

So after what felt like weeks of rain and bad timing, I got to go out on the motorcycle again today. I was feeling ambitious, and had a goal - getting to dad's house this evening, for his Monday night biker-friend gathering. I intended to go first to my friend Gord's house, then to dad's afterwards.

Well, the day didn't go entirely as planned of course, but I'm happy to say I did get as far as Gord's house, and back home. I was worried about the temperature, so i got my longjohns on (nothing says sexy like longjohns), put on two shirts under my jacket, and put my rain gear in a back pack. If it was still too cold, I'd put on the rain gear to cut the wind a bit.

All geared up, I faced my first challenge - the rotary. I'm happy to say it went without a hitch. Until I realized I'd forgotten to bring change to get across the bridge. I promptly turned around, faced the rotary again (successfully again), went home and got bridge money.

Thinking I was being very clever, I grabbed 6 quarters, 3 for each way across the bridge. I put 3 in one pocket of my jeans, and 3 in the other, again for each trip. I got back on the bike and restarted my trip to Gord's house.

Things went smoothly until I got to the bridge. The first thing that happened is that as I was stopped at the traffic lights at Gottigen and North, right before the bridge, an SUV pulled up beside me and rolled down the window. The guy driving flashed a police badge at me (he was clearly off duty), and asked me if that was my bike. I said yes and nodded in case he couldn't hear me over the bike. He asked if I knew I had no plates. I said yes, I had a temporary permit in my backpack (I did, you can't stick them to a bike the way you do a car window). He said ok, he had just wanted to make sure I knew and that someone hadn't stolen my plates. The light changed and we went on our merry ways.

As I was driving over the bridge, quite thrilled at the novelty of the sensation of being in the open air over it, it occurred to me that I hadn't fully thought through my bridge change plan. The change was in my jeans pockets...and I was wearing big driving gloves. I couldn't dig for change in my pockets with those gloves on. Uh oh.

So I get to the toll booth, and the first problem happens: I can't get the bike into neutral. This means that if I let go of the clutch, the bike will stall. If I don't let go of the clutch, I can't get my gloves off. I decide to shut off the engine, planning to restart quickly once the toll is paid. So I shut off the bike, and start yanking off my gloves. This is already taking long enough that I realize I've badly miscalculated this step of my trip.

Gloves off, I try to find the quarters in my pockets. I also had a twenty dollar bill in the pocket, which of course got in the way. I manage to dig the quarters out, throw them in the basket, and try to shove the twenty back in my jeans. Of course, since I'm starting to panic at how long this is taking me (and I have cars waiting behind me), I can't get it in the pocket. I slam it into my jacket pocket instead, acknowledging in my head that I have probably just lost the twenty.

Now I try to get my gloves back on. In the process I drop one on the ground. To get it, I had to put the kickstand down and lean the bike over, grabbing the glove. Someone honked at this point. You can't imagine how much I was cursing and how red my face was.

I retrieve the glove, manage to get them both on, and then try to restart the bike. It doesn't start. I try it again. It doesn't start again. I realize I forgot to turn the engine back on. I do so, and the bike starts right away. I start to drive away, finally. I think a total of about two minutes passed...it felt like 20. A normal drive through the toll booth takes like 10 seconds. As I drive away, I realize that the kickstand is still down. Somehow, I managed to get the kickstand back up as I drove off.

I was pretty shaken after this fiasco, but I made it to Gord's just fine after that. The twenty was still in my pocket when I got there too! I had a nice visit with Steve and Gord, and came to the decision that I would not go to dad's. I was too nervous about driving on the highway at night on my way home, as I haven't done any night driving yet and that seemed like too much to start with. I was also worried about the cold. Though I had been ok getting to Gord's, my hands were pretty cold by the time I got there, and I knew the temperature would drop quick at night. I decided to play it safe and left Gord's about 5:30, which was late enough that I missed most of the rush hour traffic, and early enough that the sun was just disappearing as I got home. I was definitely right about how cold it would get, because even with the sun low on the horizon it was noticably colder driving home.

The bridge was much less of an event going home. Since I knew the twenty had made the trip in my jacket pocket, I put the quarters in it this time. The jacket pocket is loose enough that I can dig in it with my gloves on. It was still a bit awkward, and I missed a quarter the first time, but it went much better. I also managed to get the bike into neutral this time, which helped. I think it was about a 30 second ordeal, instead of 2 minutes, so big improvement. The next time, I will just take the MacPass from the car and keep it in my pocket instead =P

So important lessons learned today - bring the MacPass, and it gets super cold as the sun goes down. I do not have the level of gear needed for night riding in late October. It was a great experience though, I'm really pleased that I was able to drive in real traffic in a mostly normal manner. I figured out the small shifting problems I had been having too, was just a matter of taking a long enough drive to find the pattern in what was happening. I am very happy, and feel like I'm a real biker now, since I have proven I can take it places :)

Social time

2009-10-21T21:20:00.003-05:00

Good evening!

As implied by the title, today was a day of visiting and social time with friends and family. It was nice :)

We had a nice lazy morning, having breakfast with Nanny. Once we were up and around, I called my other grandmother, Nana, to find out when I could visit her today. I ended up dropping Erin off at Steve's, then heading over to Nana's to visit with her and Arnold for a bit. I couldn't stay there long, as Nana had an appointment in the afternoon, but I was able to have a bite of lunch with them and catch up a bit. It was a good little visit and they seemed very pleased to see me.

After leaving Nana's I went to find Steve and Erin, who had gone out for walk, and we went back to Steve's house a while. We eventually headed back to Nanny's, as she was making pot roast for supper and didn't mind feeding a few extra people (Steve has enough of an appetite that he counts as a few people). We went for a nice walk down part of the Trans-Canada trail that runs near Nanny's house while we waited for supper. We saw lots of birds, including ducks and a heron, and I'm pretty sure I saw an eagle flying too, but I can't prove that as it was a ways off. It was a lovely sunny day though, perfect for a nice walk.

Supper was excellent, of course. It always is at Nanny's house. I took Steve home shortly after dinner, as Erin and I talked him into coming back to Halifax with us for a visit (and possibly for longer), and he needed to get his laundry and packing done. On my way back to Nanny's, I stopped at my aunt's house to visit her and my cousin Emma (Billy is out of town), but Emma had skating tonight and they weren't home. Ah well, hopefully I will catch up with them next time.

The rest of the evening was me, Erin and Nanny having what Nanny called a "stitch 'n bitch". Erin and I were cross-stitching, Nanny was knitting, and we watched TV and chatted. It sounds so domestic and the opposite of cool, but it's really nice to do that once in a while. It's one of the reason I love coming to Nanny & Grampy's. And now I am sitting in bed writing a blog entry before I go to sleep to rest up for the trip home tomorrow.

Look at me, posting two days in a row...the world must be ending ;) I will post again from home, where I should be tomorrow!

Edit - Oh, extra comment that Jacki's comment reminded me of. Erin passed the night in the basement uneventfully, and is dubious as to the extent of the haunting in the basement ;)

Hello from Moncton

2009-10-20T21:44:00.003-05:00

Yup, I'm in Moncton again. I was supposed to have a conference here tomorrow, and had planned on spending some extra time here with family and friends, and then they cancelled the conference. I decided that since I had planned on being away anyway, there was no reason to change my travel plans, so here I am!

Actually there was one change, and that is that I brought my friend Erin with me. She is currently downstairs, sleeping on the sofa in the basement. I did warn her that the basement is haunted (according to several members of my family that have lived here for long periods of time), but she didn't seem concerned. I had thought that she might enjoy the chance to have a change of scenery, and to be able to visit with Steve, and I was right :) I am glad to have her company while I am here too.

So there hasn't been too much going on lately, thus the lack of posting. I never see the point in posting "today was the same as yesterday pretty much", I always want to wait until I have some things to report. A few fun things happened this weekend. First, I dyed my hair red...well really I gave the dye to Erin and she dyed my hair for me. The point is, my hair is now red again! As soon as I saw it red, I wondered how I ever stopped dying it. I was meant to be a redhead, I love it so much. Erin took this picture for me...it doesn't capture the intensity of the red very well, but we were having trouble getting decent lighting that showed it off, and this was the best we could do. The important thing is that my hair is red again, brighter than it looks in this pic, and my intention at this point is that my hair will now be red for the rest of my life ;)

The other big thing is a motorcycle thing (sorry mom!). I took the bike out the other day for a short cruise in a sunny break between rain showers (I did end up getting a cover for it, so it was dry). I hit another new milestone in that I went out on Northwest Arm Drive, near my house, where the speed limit is 80 km/h. I had never gone that fast before, so it was another step up the ladder to driving confidence. This was after a short drive on some of the real roads in normal traffic situations too. I even had to stop at a red light on a hill, with the bike stuck in second gear (been having some trouble with first and second gear). I was terrified I was going to stall it, trying to start from a full stop in second, as I'd never done it before. It went fine though, I got the bike going no problem. Overall, it was another great confidence booster and I think I'll be ready for real trips around town just in time for the riding season to be officially over =P

I have to say though, my first thought when I got my motorcycle up to 80 wasn't "Holy crap this is too fast", like I thought it would be. Instead, it was "So this is why I need a windshield!". Wow does the wind ever amplify at that speed versus 50 km/h on normal roads. Brilliant me, though, never stopped to think that I did have a visor on my helmet I could have lowered, which would have made things easier. I will remember next time though. I would still want a windshield though, for the wind pounding on the rest of me. And a backrest for the seat...it would be nice to not feel like the wind was going to blow me off the bike! (No, the wind will not actually blow me off the bike, it's just the feeling. If the wind hit you that hard your hand would slip off the throttle, slowing the bike down, and allowing you to regain control. Just wanted to throw that out there.)

So that's the news for now, other than being in Moncton with my grandparents. We had a nice supper with them when we got here, before going out with Steve later in the evening. We ended up going to see Zombieland, which was very enjoyable. Comparable to Shawn of the Dead, though I think Shawn is funnier. It was campy fun though, and definitely worth seeing. Woody Harrelson was awesome in it, and there is a cameo in the movie that is just hilarious. I won't name the cameo though, it would wreck the moment if you haven't seen it. It's great.

I will probably post again tomorrow to tell you of our Moncton exploits. I know, posts two days in a row? Unthinkable! I intend for it to happen though. Stay tuned :)

Turkey Day!

2009-10-12T18:58:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Yup, it's turkey day again. What's funny is I've had two Thanksgiving dinners now, and no turkey at all. Lots of other deliciousness though!

Alan and I went over to dad's last night and had our first dinner with them. They knew we were having dinner with mom tonight too, so CJ decided to make lasagna instead of a turkey, so that we wouldn't have turkey twice in a row. Dinner was very good, as was dessert ( I <3 pumpkin pie), and it was good to have a nice visit with them :)

Dinner tonight was at mom's, and Rick's daughter Gwen joined us too, with her daughter Maya. Mom decided to make a ham instead of a turkey, which was delicious. And more pumpkin pie of course. Mom had also made a raisin pie, which I also like, and I took most of it home. Mom also gave me a big chunk of the ham to take home, so at some point this week I intend to make pea soup with it. Yum!

The only really big news from the last few days is that I finally took my motorcycle out on the road for the first time today. By out on the road, I mean off of the little side streets around my house, and onto the busy, main roads. As busy as they get on a holiday anyway. I drove around the neighbor hood a few times to get my nerves settled (haven't been on the bike for a week due to battery issues and rain), and then headed up to the gas station. The bike only needed $8 of gas, but now it's full so I can reset the trip meter and finally figure out how many kilometers I can get out of a tank. For those who don't know, motorcycles don't generally have gas gauges, so you have to judge the fullness of your tank by the distance you've traveled.

So it was just a quick trip around the neighborhood, then to the gas station and back, but it was a big step for me. These little trips are slowly building my skills and my confidence. I'd rather do it slowly and carefully like this than just try to take a massive trip all at once. I'm feeling really good about things, and will hopefully get out a bit more this week. I also learned that I need better gloves if I'm going to ride in these temperatures. It wasn't really cold out, but my hands were freezing even from a 10 minute trip.

Tomorrow I intend to get a cover for the bike, and I may go look at how much a warmer pair of gloves will cost me too.

Proving a point

2009-10-06T20:09:00.002-05:00

So as most of you probably know, I enjoy bowling. I've been in a league on Sunday nights for four years now. I like to think I'm pretty decent at it. I was in two leagues for a while, and my average got pretty high while I was in two leagues, up to 103. Last year I was only in one, and my average dropped down to 97, which made me sad after finally breaking 100 the year before. So, I decided this year to join a second league again. I wanted one closer to home though...my Sunday league is in Woodside, which is a fair trip from here. I don't mind making it because I adore my Sunday league-mates, but I decided that if I was going to do a second league, I wanted it closer to home.

So two weeks ago I went to a bowling alley over in the Halifax Shopping Center, which is like 5 minutes from my house, and just went to the counter and asked if they had any leagues still looking for people. The gentleman there said they did, and he could take my name, number and the nights I could bowl, and find a league for me. I told him I wanted Tuesday or Thursday nights. He asked if I was in any other leagues, and what my average in them. I told him I bowled in Woodside, and that my average last year had been 97.

This is when a surprising thing happened.

The guy looks me in the eye and says "Well you bowl in Woodside, so that's inflated", and then writes my average down as being 94. My face must have reflected the incredulity I was feeling, as he followed that up with a sympathetic look and said "Trust me, you'll see." I regained my composure, thanked him for taking my info and left, wondering if I was going to be sorry I'd signed up for a league at this alley. I was also definitely feeling like if I was going to bowl here, I was going to have to show them that my average is anything but inflated.

So I recieved a call from a league last week who told me they had a spot, and that they bowl Tuesday at 7. Tonight was my first night there. I was a little worried because of the attitude of the person I spoke to at the desk, but happily that seems to have been unfounded. The team I was on were all really friendly, and a bit rowdy, which is how I like my bowling. That's what my Sunday league is like, and it's so fun. They do seem a bit more competative than my Sunday team, but that's ok too, since I'm wanting to be in two leagues for the purpose of improving.

I started off the night bowling alright, with my first game being a 90. That is perfectly respectable, and I didn't expect the first game to be spectacular anyway. These were lanes I haven't bowled in since I was a kid doing tournaments, and every alley has a slightly different set up and feel to it, which takes some getting used to. I also had the nervousness of being the new girl in a club, which never helps.

My second game was a 102, which is a score I will never complain about. Anything 95+ is what I expect of myself, and that was at least enough that I felt I do actually have skill, not an inflated average.

The third game, I proved a point. I got 4 spares and a strike, and ended the game with a 124. Suck on that "oh that's inflated" guy. Tell me my average should be 94, and I end up bowling a 105 average. Of course, a 105 probably really is inflated, but that's ok. I just feel validated. I have skills, not a bowling alley that has easy-falling pins!

Checking in

2009-10-04T19:21:00.002-05:00

Hello, hello. I don't have much to say, just figured I should write a post and let people know I'm not dead.

My week was pretty busy with work, which is a good thing because I sold a house this week, so yay! I can't say much about it for privacy reasons, but I'm happy to have a deal coming together, that's always a nice thing.

Yesterday Alan and I had a little date night, which was nice. We went to Mexico Lindo for supper, and rented The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I am not a fan of westerns, but I agreed to see it since Clint Eastwood is the inspiration for the main character in my much-beloved Dark Tower series of books. I love that character, so I figured that anything it was based on couldn't be that bad.

When we brought the movie up to the counter at Blockbuster, the cashier just about lost his mind. He couldn't stop freaking out about how excellent a movie it was. I mean he was seriously losing it, I thought he was going to wet his pants, he was so excited. That's a lot of build up, combined with all the fantastic reviews I've heard of this movie over my lifetime.

It wasn't terrible, but I didn't think it was fantastic. It has not, sadly, changed my general feelings about westerns. I really wanted to like it, but after 2 hours of it I was beginning to wonder if would ever end. Long movies that feel long are never a good thing in my mind. So, we can add this to my list of classic movies that everyone freaks out about me not having seen, that turn out to be less than stellar. I am just not a movie person, for whatever reason.

The only big thing was that I had the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation's Run For The Cure this morning. My office has a team for it, and this is the second time I've participated in it. There were seven of us in it, 2 of them running, the rest of us walking (I was a walker). The weather was terrible today, but luckily the worst of the rain held off til after the event was finished, so it wasn't too bad. We went out for brunch at Saege afterwards. I had never been there before, and it was quite good.

My Sunday ended as it always does, with a night at the bowling alley. My team did well tonight, winning two games (out of three) and taking the points for total pinfall too. I bowled average, which is all you can ever ask for, and had a lot of fun with my friends. Overall, pretty good weekend :)

Dithering and grab bags

2009-09-29T19:55:00.003-05:00

Hello, hello. I know, I have been a bad blogger, not posting for like a week. I haven't had much to say, honestly. Life was pretty consumed by work the last few days and over the weekend. It does not make for very interesting posting, especially since I can't really talk about work due to possible privacy issues =P

Today was a fun day though, I was out with Erin this afternoon. We had gone out with the intention of getting jeans, and keeping an eye out for potential Halloween costume pieces. If we can, we intend to go as 20's flappers, but Erin's back up plan is to go as Rainbow Bright, while I am thinking of perhaps She-Ra or Jem. I suspect that Jem will be easier to pull off.

Our first stop was actually before we hit the mall...the old Future Shop near Mic Mac Mall is currently housing a place called Halloween Distributors. We hadn't know it was there, Erin just spotted it as I was looking for a parking spot. It was not as exciting as we'd hoped...it was mostly just pre-packaged costumes (titles starting with "sexy" for women, and the men's costumes all focused on breasts, beer and drugs), more so than costume pieces.

The one thing they did have that was nice is they had these lovely masks, the type you'd imagine for fancy costume balls with ladies holding them up on sticks. They were quite pretty, but I have no idea what kind of costume to make around something like that. I may have to think about that more though, as we had no luck finding flapper dresses.

We wandered the mall fairly aimlessly after that, just poking into every store we fancied. We ended up not really feeling like looking for jeans. The one thing I did get was hair dye! I have been wanting to dye my hair red again for a while now, and Erin agreed she can help me do it this weekend. I will post pics when I have red hair, I am eager.

After we were finished with the mall, we headed to Fabricville. Erin is wanting to take up sewing, and was looking for a simple dress pattern to make. We ended up being there for a very long time...by the time we got to the counter with some fabric, Erin told the girl we had been dithering for an hour. I just love the word dithering, and I think I generally love doing anything that can be called dithering. Such a great word.

Erin ended up finding two patterns, one for a dress, and one for handbags, and we found some nice fabrics for her. As we walked over to the counter, I noticed a big basket full of paper bags, marked "Grab Bag $1.99".

I am a sucker for grab bags.

Jacki and I were in the mall once, and found grab bags in Ardene. They were $6 I think, and we each got one. They were awesome. Mine had a nice scarf in it, and a really pretty necklace. There was a cute little pair of fingerless gloves too. I can't remember what was in Jacki's, but I know she had fun with hers too.

So the question for me became "What's more fun, an Ardene grab bag, or a Fabricville grab bag?" The answer to this is probably pretty obvious. However, in one of those "you had to be there" moments, getting a Fabricville grab bag became a hilarious idea that had me in tears, and Erin laughing pretty hard, if only at my foolishness.

The results of a Fabricville grab bag were pretty much what you'd expect, but the hilarity was worth the $2.

Not just about motorcycles

2009-09-23T12:13:00.002-05:00

I promise I'll talk about things other than motorcycles today...at least after I talk a little bit about motorcycles.

So dad came over last night to look at my bike and figure out what was wrong. It turns out nothing was wrong. It started instantly when dad tried. I felt a bit sheepish about dragging him out there.

We talked about what I did versus what dad did, and came to the conclusion that the problem might have been the choke. If you know nothing about chokes and engines, which I didn't, here's the quick run down. Most cars have fuel injection. This means that the car automatically gives the engine a bit of extra gas when it starts, to make it catch. Motorcycles do not generally do this automatically, that is what the choke is for. If the engine is cold and/or hasn't run for a while, you engage the choke when you start the engine to give it some extra gas, then release the choke once the engine is warmed up.

When I tried to start the bike on Sunday, it was early morning after a cold night and I assumed it would need choke, so I engaged it then tried to start. When dad started it he did it without the choke. He thinks that when I started it, it did not in fact need the choke, and that I ended up flooding the engine. So, another lesson learned - try to start the bike without choke first, don't default to using it. I also learned how to get the seat off of the bike, and how to get it onto, and off of, the center stand without help (Alan had to help me last time). So, I've missed 3 days I could have been biking, but many lessons were learned. I will get out on the bike tonight at least :)

Ok, time for non-bike things. There has not really been a lot going on, to be honest. I work, I do stuff at home, I go out with friends. That about sums it up. I should tell you about these great books I just read though. I just finished Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. This is the trilogy that starts with the Golden Compass, which I'm told was a terrible movie.

If the movie was terrible, then it in no way reflects the book. The book was great, and the series only got better as it went. Through most of the first and second books, you have a sense of where it's going, but there comes a moment when you really understand what the characters (and the author) are doing, and it is shocking. I felt as if I had actually been struck when I realized the scope of what was really going on.

The books are classified as young adult, but they are the same class of young adult books that Harry Potter belongs to, where the category doesn't really matter. They are fantastic regardless of your age. They are somewhat reminiscent of Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" series in theme and content, if you are familiar with those (if not, I recommend that series too).

The characters are well written, the world(s) are fascinating, and the story is original and intriguing. I don't think I've read anything like them before, and I highly recommend them. Go read some books, it's good for you!

Things never go as planned

2009-09-20T19:23:00.002-05:00

The plan for the weekend had been to spend a ton of time getting comfortable on my motorcycle. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans for me.

As I said in the last post, the bike ran out of oil on my first ride. I had the bike running briefly to move it to a flat piece of driveway so I could get it on the center stand, but I didn't want to take it out with no oil, obviously. I bought a big 4 liter jug of oil and filled it up. To my surprise, it took the entire 4 liters and had room for more. I had no idea a little motorcycle could use that much oil. I knew the bike was leaking at least a small amount of oil, so I had already been thinking that it might be good to let it sit overnight and see how bad the leak was. Combine that with fairly strong winds, and I decided it might be best not to take a ride that day. Alan and I had driven out to Bayer's Lake and the winds were pulling the car around, and I was a bit nervous about taking that on when I'm so inexperienced. I told myself that I would go for a ride first thing Sunday morning instead.

So I woke up this morning, all excited to finally go for another ride. Got dressed and all geared up, headed out to my motorcycle and flicked all the right switches. Nothing. The engine didn't start. It made some wheezy noises at me as it tried to turn over, but nothing happened. Now, I don't know a lot about how motorcycles work. I thought maybe it had something to do with the fact that the oil had been at pretty much zero the day before, and I had had it running anyway for a couple of minutes. I was afraid maybe I'd hurt something in the engine by doing this. So, I did what any clever girl would do, and called my father.

Dad assured me that the oil had nothing to do with it not starting and that I hadn't hurt it. He asked if I had made sure that I had the choke engaged, because it was cold out and the bike needs the choke when it's cold. I was fairly certain that I had done this, because I knew that, but I tried it again just in case. I am inexperienced, so it's possible that I had in fact forgotten to do that. I tried the choke in every possible position, and it still wouldn't start, just made those sad noises and refused to turn over. Dad said that the next most likely option was the battery.

Again, knowing very little about the mechanics, I had to ask if you could jump start a bike like a car, and if so, could you do it with a car or did it need to be another bike. Dad said you can do it from a car, the batteries are the same, but that I would have to take off either the side panels, or the seat, to get at the hook ups. He told me how to do this, and Alan and I went off to tackle the task, toolkit in hand.

Well, I got the first side panel off no problem, while Alan worked on the one on the other side. Unfortunately, my side panel was not the one we needed, there was no access to anything under it. Alan got the other side off while I replaced the first one, though a little knob that was used to hold it in place came off when he pulled off the panel. It's a minor detail though, the panel will go back on fine even without it. With that panel off, we could see the red connector for the battery, but not the black one, so we assumed that meant we had to get the seat off to get at both connectors.

Try as we might, we could not figure out how to remove the seat from the bike. Dad had told me what to look for to get it off, but I didn't see what he said to look for. There were no bolts holding it on that I could tell. There was a hook on each side of the seat, so it looked like you should just be able to jiggle the seat around a bit and get it off that hook, but that didn't work, for whatever reason.

Dad wasn't going to be home this afternoon, so I didn't bother calling him again, I just emailed him and told him what happened. Long story short, no bike ride again today. I know we'll get it fixed, it's just disappointing. On the bright side, I'm learning all sorts of things. I know how to fill up my oil now (as well as how to check it's level), and how to remove and replace my side panels, and where my battery is. This is all useful stuff that I wanted to learn anyway, so it's not all bad. I just don't want the riding season to be over before I get on the road!

Finally!

2009-09-18T19:25:00.006-05:00

I think that this has been the longest week of my life. As I posted previously, I bought a motorcycle, but couldn't bring it home right away. Since I was relying on the kindness of others, namely dad and his friend Glen (he owns a trailer), to get the bike home, it had to wait until Thursday. The week has consisted mostly of me moping and wishing the bike was here.

Finally Thursday came, and after a long day of waiting, I headed out to dad's when he got off work, and we hitched up the trailer and headed to Truro. It's only 45 minutes to an hour to get out there, so it wasn't a bad drive at all. We got there in good time, and got the registration signed over to me from the dealer. They helped dad load it onto the trailer, gave me the keys, and we headed home. I didn't panic at all about some silly disaster happening, like the ties on the trailer coming loose and the bike flying onto the highway. Ok, maybe I panicked a little bit.

Dad had to laugh at me on the way home because I was literally twitching and fidgeting the whole ride home. I am very lucky he's a patient man. The sad part was that due to some work obligations, it would be after dark before I would have free time, and I'm not comfortable enough yet to drive at night, so riding would have to wait for Friday.

We got the bike back to my house safely, of course, and parked it in the driveway. Then we promptly dropped the bike on the ground three times in a row. Yes, we did this on purpose. Dad was showing me how you lift the bike up if it tips over, without throwing out your back and/or needing multiple people. It's rough, but I can straighten it back up now. One more thing I have to repeatedly thank my father for.

Again, due to work and other obligations, I could not immediately jump on the motorcycle when I woke up this morning. I finally got to go for a ride this afternoon. I'm posting some pictures at the end of my bike and me on it. It was very exciting, but alas it was also very quickly over. I was just driving the quiet streets around my neighborhood, and very quickly realized that even that is testing my level of comfort. The bike is a lot more powerful than the ones we used in the training course, and I still have to spend enough time thinking about the mechanics of it that I felt a bit worried about meeting up with other cars. In addition to that, my oil light was on the entire time, which concerned me.

So after a few loops of the neighborhood I headed home again, where I promptly dropped the bike again. I can only imagine how hilarious I must have looked if any of the neighbors happened to catch me sitting on the ground next to my horizontal motorcycle. My driveway is on a bit of a hill, and I was going slow trying to get positioned right to park. I ended up stalling it, and the lack of forward momentum threw off my balance and I wasn't able to hold the bike up. No worries, I am perfectly fine. I had enough warning and control to lay it down gently, without pinning myself under it or anything. Thanks to the lesson from dad yesterday, and a bit of help from Alan, I got the bike standing again, no harm done.

Dad told me how to check my oil and what kind I have to get to replace it, so hopefully tomorrow I can address the oil light issue and go for another ride. I think my next trip out will be to a parking lot up the street from us that is empty on weekends. I definitely need a bit more practice there before spending any length of time on the streets. I'm taking it slow and easy, I'd rather be safe and careful than instantly cruising the highways. I intend to be having fun on my motorcycle for a long time, so there's no need to rush and do something stupid! I'm too cautious for that =P

Here's some pictures of my new baby :)

Being happy is nice

2009-09-12T14:42:00.003-05:00

Today is awesome. As of today, I am the proud owner of a 1982 Honda Nighthawk 650cc motorcycle. You can see the original ad (at least as long as it's up) here: HONDA 650 Nighthawk in TRURO, NS - AutoTrader There are good pictures of it there. I will post my own pictures when I actually bring the bike home, which will be later this week. It's in Truro, and I don't feel comfortable doing that long of a drive yet, so dad is going to talk to a friend of his who has a trailer, and we'll bring it home some evening this week that works for him.

So yeah, I'm ridiculously happy. Dad came and got me around 10 this morning and we drove out to Truro to look at the bike. We went on dad's bike of course, so I got a good ride. Not having a bike of my own, and not living with dad, I haven't gotten to go for a long bike ride in a while. It was all on the main highway though, so we got to Truro pretty quick and found the bike shop in good time.

Dad looked it over when we got there, as he knows all the mechanical stuff. There were a couple of small things, but dad said they were only an hour's worth of work, and $15 worth of parts, so no biggie. Nothing you wouldn't expect to find on a 27 year old bike he said, and I trust him. If I can trust anyone to know about motorcycles, it's dad! We also made sure the bike fit me. I could reach all the levers and pedals, and I could have my feet flat on the ground, so that was fine. The salesperson came out and started it for us too, so we could hear the engine and exhaust. It has an aftermarket exhaust, so you never know what those will end up sounding like, but it was fine. I didn't want one of those obnoxiously loud exhausts, so I was relieved.

With all my criteria met, I paid them for the bike (and I didn't pay what it was advertised at), and then sadly had to leave it there. I'm going to call them Monday to get the MVI number and the VIN, so I can get it registered right away, in hopes of being able to drive it as soon as I get it home. Dad is going to let me know tomorrow night what day we can get it. I'm a bit antsy, as I'm sure you can imagine.

After this, dad and I stopped to get some lunch. It was my treat, as I feel a free lunch is the least I owe my father for taking all this time out of his day to help me, and he has answered endless questions up to this point too. After that we headed home, but happily did not go back using the boring main highway! We took all the side roads and secondary highways out to the Musquodoboit Valley, then to dad's house in Lake Echo. It was just a gorgeous day and a great drive.

For those of you that have never been on a motorcycle, it is an entirely different experience than riding in a car. It's like the difference between looking out your living room window at the ocean, and actually standing on the beach. When you're on the bike the things you see just seem so much closer and more real, and you can hear and smell everything too. For example, we drove over a little wooden bridge somewhere, and you could hear the water running beneath you, and smell the difference in the air near the water. You just don't get that in the car. I'm sure those kind of things don't make a difference to everyone, but I just find you experience so much more of the places you travel then when you're in the car.

I think my day was pretty much summed up by a moment I had as we were driving home, not too far out of Truro. The road was empty except for us, the sun was shining and the view was incredible, and I thought to myself "Sometimes, life is awesome."

Home again

2009-09-07T17:13:00.002-05:00

Hello again, sorry for the lack of posting. This weekend has been a combination of vacation recovery and catching up with things at home, which has left me with not a lot of time for updates.

The trip home on Friday from Fredericton was uneventful for the most part. We did have a slight delay at the airport, as their was some construction going on on an overpass. While we were stopped on the highway, before we could see what the delay was, Alan said he was convinced it was another burned out truck. I wouldn't have been surprised if that was true.

After we got home nd got the car unpacked, we went and picked up the cats from the place we had them boarded. They were, of course, terrified to see us. It's nice to feel like you were missed =P After much cajoling and comforting we finally got them packed in the car and home. They adjusted pretty quickly to being home again though, and remembered that they like us.

The rest of Friday was just relaxing and being glad to be home. Most of the last few days have been that, though we've been out to see friends too. We went out for supper with Steve on Saturday since he's in town, and hung out at Gord's for a while after that. Yesterday we went over to see Erin's new place. She's got a very nice apartment in Dartmouth, it should be very good for her there. I also went back to work yesterday and did an open house in the afternoon.

A fair part of this afternoon was spent getting the kitchen ready for Alan and dad to do some work on it tomorrow. They're going to reframe the wall we tore out like a year and a half ago, so we'll have insulation there again this winter, how novel! After that was done we went out for supper with mom, which was very nice. Thanks again for dinner mom :)

So that's all the news from the last few days. It's back to the office tomorrow, the resumption of real life after the vacation. I will post again when I have more news!

This is not where I expected to be...

2009-09-03T22:01:00.002-05:00

So we had a great day with Jacki and John in Toronto yesterday. When we got there, we chatted and got caught up, and got to see their apartment. It's very nice, I think they've got a really good lace. Jacki showed us around her neighborhood a little later. She's got incredible little shops and restaurants all over the place around her building, and it's on top of a mall to boot. I got a couple of cute pairs of earrings at one of the places we went.

When John got home we went for supper at this awesome place called the Pickle Barrel. I had never heard of it before but I guess it's part of a chain. They had a huge menu, and every type of food under the sun. It was all really good. After dinner we went to a comedy club that I can't remember the name of. It was amateur night, and we saw 5 different comedians, who were then followed up by one of the writers from the Mercer Report. The first guy and the last two were really good, but the few in the middle were pretty bad. That said, over all it was really fun, and it's something I hadn't done before. We had a really good night, all told.

Unfortunately, we had to go to bed really early, as we had to be up and on the road early this morning if we were to get to Moncton at a reasonable hour as planned. We were in the car by 7am, and completely avoided the rush hour in Toronto. Things went exactly as planned and we were making good time...until we hit Montreal.

Remember when I was posting about going to World Con, and how I had previously had nothing but bad experiences in Montreal? Yeah, happened again. I've decided that traveling *to* Montreal and spending time there, but trying to pass *through* Montreal is asking for nothing but trouble.

Just outside the city we ran into a massive traffic jam. Alan managed to find a great detour through the town, but we lost an hour over all (we weren't the only ones trying to find another way through the city, traffic was awful). We later heard on the radio that the problem had been a truck that had gone through a guard rail, hit an overpass, and caught on fire. So that was random.

So after our long detour and lost time, we managed to make a bit of time back. Then, just outside of the exit to Riviere de Loups, we ran into another traffic jam. This one happily only took up another 15 minutes, but as we got to the front of it, we saw what was the problem - another truck on fire. I don't understand how two trucks could have caught on fire on the same day, on our route home.

Then, to make things really perfect, there was extended highway construction on the last stretch of highway from Quebec into New Brunswick. The long and short of it is that we lost so much time with the traffic jams and construction, that we came to the realization that there was no way we were going to make it to Moncton at anything resembling a decent hour. Based on what the GPS told us was the remaining distance, I think it would have been 2am before we made it. We just did not have it in us to drive that long.

So, Alan made a couple of phone calls, first to his mother. She had gotten us the room in Niagara with reward points, and she said we were ok to do the same thing to get a hotel room tonight so we could get off the roads before we passed out. Alan then called and got us a hotel reservation in Fredericton, another 2 hours from where we currently were. We were lucky the room was going to be free, because the rate on the room would otherwise have been $179/night. I was stunned at that, and was looking forward to seeing what kind of room we'd get for that money.

Two hours later, we get into town, and Alan checked us in. The person at the desk gave us another free upgrade, for whatever reason. I could not even imagine what an upgrade to a $179/night room would be. So we walk in to our room, and ours jaws simultaneously dropped, I think.

We aren't in a room, we're in a suite...we have a huge sitting room, with the bedroom separated by French doors off on the side. We have a full bathroom off the sitting room, and anothe ensuite bathroom in the bedroom. I have never even seen a hotel room with two bathrooms. I didn't know they existed outside of ridiculous places like Beverly Hills. The furniture in the suite is incredible too. There's these wooden tables with enamel inlays, and this incredible carved shelf that I want to take home with me.

So yeah, the night has not ended at all where or how I thought it would. This room is nuts. I feel very spoiled, and a little afraid that someone will realize that we don't belong in places this fancy, and that they put us in the wrong room. Until they do though, I'm going to pass out in this king sized bed, so I can finish the drive home tomorrow. Good night!

The only hotel in Niagara Falls with no view...

2009-09-01T21:26:00.002-05:00

...and it's the same one I'm staying in. I am seriously stunned that there could be a hotel this close to the falls and not have a view. It's weird.

The good news is that I already saw the falls today, so it's ok that my room has no view. Our original plan had been to go to Niagara Falls on Monday, but after some discussion we decided it made more sense for us (me, Alan, and his parents and grandmother) to go on Tuesday, and then Alan and I would spend the night here before going to Toronto on Wednesday to visit Jacki and John. This made a lot more sense than driving up to Ontario and then back to to NY on Monday, then back this way again on Wednesday.

So we drove up to the New York side of the falls this morning, and started our sight-seeing. The place we went is called Goat Island (apparently after a single goat that lived through the winter on the island when all the rest of the herd died), and from it you can see both the American Falls, and the more recognized Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side.

I have to say, the Falls are really impressive. I got some lovely pictures, but the cable to download the pics to my computer is buried in a suitcase somewhere in the car and I'm too tired to dig it out right now. I had never been here before, and I'm glad I've seen it now. We had a really nice day just seeing the sights.

The real highlight of the day for me was a boat trip we took on the Maid in the Mist. The boat leaves from a dock down the river a ways from the bottom of the falls, and goes close to the bottom of both the American and Horseshoe Falls. While the falls are gorgeous to see from the park above them, you don't get a real feel for the intensity of them from that viewpoint. To be on the boat at the bottom of the falls, rocking in the waves, the spray from the falls soaking everything, and the roar of the water falling drowning out everything else was just a completely different experience. It was just an incredible feeling.

After we had dinner with Alan's family, we parted ways as they went back to Geneva and we found our hotel on the Ontario side. Alan's new GPS was very helpful in finding our hotel...I think he's loving that thing. I think that overall we had a really good time in NY, and it was good to see his family. I always enjoy the time we spend with them, I'm lucky to have the in-laws I have! That said, I'm glad we're getting started on going home, this was a good enough length for a trip for me. I'm looking forward to getting home to my own bed, and cuddling my kittens.

Tomorrow we head to Toronto to visit Jacki and John, then Thursday we make the long trip to Moncton to spend a night with my grandparents. Friday is the big day when at last we are home! I will post more as I have things to share :)

More from New York

2009-08-29T19:33:00.003-05:00

We've been keeping nicely busy here in New York. Yesterday Art's brother and his brother's girlfriend came over, and we packed the family into the RV for some sightseeing. We went over to a town called Naples, which is part of the wine-making region here. We didn't go there for wine though, we went for their famous grape pies. We went to a little house where the front door has been converted to a counter, where they take your order and bring the pies and tarts you ask for. I believe it was called "Cindy's Grape Pies"...pretty self explanatory. We got a grape pie, a peach pie, and a raspberry pie, as well as some grape filled cookies. We were saving the pie for supper, but snacked on the cookies as we continued driving. They were fantastic, I've never had such good grape filling. It tasted like grape juice, but less artificial and better.

From there we went on to a little farmer's market and picked up a few things to bring back home. They had some great looking produce, I picked out a basket of fresh peaches that looked excellent (and turned out to be as tasty as they look). We also picked up some honey from a local places called Wixson's that was selling there. Wixson's is a place Alan and I had visited a few years ago while he still lived in New York, so we were happy to get some of their stuff.

The next stop on our tour was a ways outside of town. The area we're in is known as the Finger Lake region, which has 5 very large lakes cut out by glaciers, so they are all very long in the north-south direction, but fairly narrow in the east-west. Most of the lakes are bordered by very high hills on the east and west banks. The lake we were on is Canandaigua Lake, and along one of the hill ridges on that lake they've put in a wind farm, with lots of new windmills.

Art took us up this long, winding dirt road to the ridge with the windmills. It was so steep that we had not actually been sure if the RV would make it up, but it did. You could drive right up to the base of the wind towers. I've seen them before of course, but never up so close. It was incredible to stand right under them, they're so large it's almost unbelievable. I was actually getting vertigo looking up at them. In an odd way, it didn't even feel real, it was like I was looking at a movie screen. I think it's just because you never see something so large like that in real life..huge propellers and motors that look like plane engines, but on a massive scale, are just not something that are part of your everyday sights. It was hard to wrap your head around.

The other thing that struck me was how quiet they were. Now, it wasn't a particularly windy day, so maybe that was part of it, but the only noise you could hear from them was a slight "whoosh" as a blade went by. It was such a tiny noise for such a massive object.

Once we were done gawking at the windmills, we headed back towards home, taking a scenic drive up the shore of Canandaigua Lake. When we got to the town of Canandaigua, we pulled up on a wharf and parked to eat supper overlooking the lake. When we got through supper, we had one of the grape pies we had bought earlier. They were just as excellent as the cookies had been...I can't believe I'd never thought of grape pies before, they're wonderful. Jacki, you need to learn to make grape things.

After dinner and pie it was pretty late so we headed home for the night. All in all, it was a very enjoyable day. Alan's parents have a knack for finding neat places to go and fun ways to spend the day.

Today was pretty quiet and simple. We slept in a bit, and then Alan and I headed over to an outlet mall about a half hour from here to see if we could find some deals. Alan found a very nice leather jacket at the Wilson's outlet store. He got it for $130, down from an original price of about $300. There were several coats I liked too, but I have a leather jacket already, so I contented myself with a new wallet.

We also got some good deals at the Reebok outlet store. They were doing buy one, get the second half price, so Alan and I both got a new pair of running shoes. They were cheap even without getting one pair half price. We got the two pairs for $100 together...I don't think we could have gotten one pair of them for that price at home, so we were very pleased. Alan also got a pair of jeans from Old Navy for $6.50...I mostly can't believe he only got one pair at that price, I'd have gotten more. That store was so busy though, I didn't really want to stay to find some myself. I'm kind of regretting that though, so I may talk Alan into going back on a less busy day than Saturday. Overall, some good deals were had!

I think that's all the news for now, except that we've decided to extend our vacation for an extra day for the purpose of visiting Jacki & John in Toronto on our way home. The place we have our cats boarded was ok with keeping them an extra day for us. We won't get to spend much time with them since we have to leave early the next day, but we can at least say hi and catch up a little bit, and see their new apartment. So mom, we'll be Friday, not Thursday, ok? I will post more as there's news.

Whew!

2009-08-27T20:37:00.007-05:00

It has been a busy day. It was nice and sunny this morning, unlike yesterday when it rained, so we decided to go do some outdoorsy stuff.

Alan's parents have a few acres of land outside of town here, with a creek running through it. We went out there this morning, and did some hiking around and exploring. The creek has a lovely set of little waterfalls in the part that is on their land. It was really beautiful this morning, and I took several pictures of it. This is one of the nicer ones.

We had a really good time just poking around and exploring. I got to play archaeologist and point out chert deposits I found (a type of rock commonly used for making stone tools) and looked for artifacts (didn't find any). Alan's mom loves to ask me about that kind of stuff, and seemed to really want me to find a buried village on her land. I was sorry to disappoint her.

I got a special treat after this, as Alan's mom had driven her motorcycle out to the acreage. She was really pleased to discover that I recently got my licence, as both her and her husband are avid bikers. She was very quick to volunteer her little 250cc for me to go out on. While I am not yet feeling comfortable with taking a bike out on the road, there is a school across the road from their acreage, and she drove the bike over there and let me practice a bit in the parking lot. Alan took my camera and snapped a few pictures, so now I can prove that I do in fact drive motorcycles now! Here's me in all my gear, I think this is going to be my new profile pic for Facebook and Twitter.

I did a few laps of the parking lot, and Alan took some action shots while I did that too. It was a lot of fun to just putter around a bit. I was really pleased to find that I have not forgotten how to do it in the two weeks since the course. I was also happy to find that I am capable of going faster than 20km/hour, and can shift higher than third gear. A little more practice and I might actually feel road ready. My biggest obstacle at this point is that I am still paying so much attention to how to actually run the bike, that I'm not paying enough attention to things like blinkers and looking in my mirrors. I won't be going out on the roads until I have the mechanics of it down enough that I can pay attention to the roads around me. That day is a lot closer than it was a month ago though!

After I finished a few laps Alan and I went and found some ice cream, then headed back to the house. It was Alan's turn to have fun now! He and Art, his step father, got all geared up to head out into the lake for diving. I can't claim that Alan had all the fun though, as I got to go out on one of the jet skis while they were diving. And to put mom's worries to rest, not only was I wearing a life jacket, the life jacket had a radio built in, so I could call for help if I needed to. Alan's mom was on the wharf with the other radio in case I called. I was perfectly fine though...the jet skis are a lot less scary now that I'm a biker.

But yeah, back to Alan's fun. He and Art had gone out with the intention of checking out the drop off in the lake. The lake here is very deep at it's center, and the change in depth is fairly abrupt, going quickly from being about 20 feet deep down to 80. I think the deepest point in the lake is around 600 feet. They had just wanted to have a look at the drop off, because it looks very steep from the depth finder in the boat.

Their first attempt they just tried to swim out to the drop off from the wharf. It turned out to be further away from the wharf than they had anticipated, and it was too tiring to get out far enough. They happened to head back to the wharf at the same time I was coming back with the jet ski. After a few minutes discussion on the wharf, they decided to go out to the drop off in the boat and dive from there.

We ended up delaying a bit as Art's two sisters and nephew were coming over to the house, so we waited for them. Adding me, Alan's mom and grandmother, and we had a boatful heading out! We found a good spot where the depth started increasing, laid anchor and the boys headed in. Those of us on the boat just chatted a bit and watched Art's sister Paula goofing off on one of the jet skis (everyone else was on the boat).

Art and Alan came back up after about 20 minutes. Apparently the drop off had not been as spectacular as hoped...Alan said it was about a 15 degree incline, so not a gaping chasm of doom or anything. What had shocked them both though, was that the floor of the lake at deeper depths was nothing but zebra muscles. Alan said they went on as far as you could see, and were laid out in bands of of white and grey that looked almost painted, they were so precise and even. He couldn't believe how many there were. Unfortunately, he did not think to take his underwater camera out with him. I am trying to convince him that they should go out again to take pictures. Other than that, they said there was nothing of interest. They were glad to have gotten a bit of diving in just the same though.

The rest of the evening was just spent with the family. We just had a relaxed supper of pizza, and chatted til people headed home. Alan was pretty tired too, from the diving and hiking this morning, so we headed to our home away from home, and here I am now at the computer! I am pretty tired myself, but it's been a fun day :)

GPS fun

2009-08-26T15:14:00.003-05:00

So Alan got a GPS from his parents last night, for his birthday. Of course, we had to try it out today.

Our plan had been to go into the town of Canandaigua today anyway, and to take a trip over to the acreage his parents own. Alan programmed the GPS with our destination, and off we went. The GPS performed just fine, though it did take us on some routes that Alan thought were a bit strange. Either way, it got us where we were going.

In my typical way though, I got to thinking about the GPS and how it could be made more fun. The first way is that it has a little car on the screen that drives around over the map. They totally need to make that customizable to look like your car. If I were designing a GPS product for the market, that is the first thing I would do. People would love that. With ideas like this, I don't know why I'm not rich.

The other idea sprung up while Alan was testing the GPS...he kept taking roads other than the ones that the map wanted him to, to see how quickly it would re-calculate routes and how well it could problem-solve. So the GPS would be announcing "Turn right onto County Road 16" or whatever, and Alan would turn left, or keep going straight, that kind of thing. It would then announce "Re-calculating" and then quickly give us new instructions.

After Alan had ignored it's instructions three consecutive times, I got thinking about how that GPS must be getting annoyed. It keeps working so hard, and Alan keeps ignoring it. It must be wondering why it took this job. Then I got thinking how fabulous it would be if the voice on the GPS was the voice of the computer in Portal. For those that don't know, Portal is a computer game. The main character in the game, other than yourself, is an artificial intelligence computer that is at least slightly insane. The game is excellent, and the voice over even more so. It makes the most hilarious, passive-agressive and downright crazy comments about every action you do in the game, in this friendly female voice. If you have played this game, you will instantly be able to understand the humor in having that voice as your GPS voice over. If you have not, you will probably be bored by the rest of this blog post. Ah well, it's my blog, and I want to share my funny (to me) thoughts.

So with this in mind, the rest of the drive became a game in my head of "replace the real voice over with what the computer from Portal would say". So Alan skips the first instruction, and I hear the computer saying "You've missed the turn Alan. I'm very disappointed." After the next deliberately skipped instruction, it would be "I could almost think this is intentional now." The third would be something like "Why did you want a GPS anyway, Alan?" After the fourth I think it would get more threatening, and would certainly make a reference as to how you're not getting any cake this way.

If you have played Portal, you will know how fun this game probably was. If you haven't played Portal, I suggest that you do, then go get a GPS and play this game. It will be worth it, I promise. Portal is a great game even if you don't have a GPS.

The downside of this game is that I am fairly certain now that I will never be able to be in the car with that GPS without hearing the Portal computer. Every missed turn, I will hear that crazy lilting voice singing "You missed the turn but I am still alive." You'd be giggling if you knew the song, trust me.

"Hello America....we meet again"

2009-08-25T14:31:00.002-05:00

I said as we drove through Calais after crossing the American border. Alan thought this was funny and laughed at me.

So yes, I'm in New York now, typing in the comfort of the ridiculously nice RV Alan's parents bought, and which they are letting us use as our home while we stay with them for the next week or so.

The hurricane on Sunday was completely overblown. The reporters on the weather channel had been going nuts with dire predictions and warnings (i.e. telling people in condo buildings they should wait out the storm in the lobby rather than on higher floors). We did definitely get a lot of rain and a few areas did have some flooding, but on the evening news the only footage they had to show was of a single fallen tree. They showed that footage at least 6 times, I wish I was exaggerating. The storm did leave us a lovely sunset at least, as the sun tried to peek through the clouds as it was setting. I was driving over to Steve's house to visit him, and there was a break in the clouds with a beam of sunlight shining through, like the hand of something holy reaching down to bless the earth. It was gorgeous.

With no real damage reported, we decided to assume our house was fine, and to leave for New York on Monday morning, as was the original plan. We left Moncton at about 7:30 in the morning. The trip was largely uneventful, and we arrived in Geneva, NY only a half hour later than Alan had predicted, which was not bad considering we made a few more pit stops than we had expected. We took turns driving all day, though I'm pretty sure Alan did more than I did...during one of my turns my phone started ringing and I ended up having to let Alan drive so I could get some work stuff cleared up. It is a fact that as soon as I try to take time off, my phone rings off the hook.

All in all, it took us 14.5 hours to make the trip from Moncton. The worst part of it was not the distance (though I admit that many hours in a car is not fun on any level), but the lack of air conditioning in our car. It had been raining in the morning when we left, but it was much clearer in the afternoon, so our car was like a sauna. We were quite relieved when the sun started going down and it cooled down again.

Alan's family were, of course, very glad to see us when we got here. Having gotten in so late we didn't spend a lot of time with them though. They showed us around our accomodations, and we caught up for about half an hour, by which time Alan and I were nodding off on the couch, so we said our good nights and passed out.

We are much refreshed today, though we're taking it pretty easy after the long trip. Alan had a school paper he had to finish writing, which he did this afternoon (so yay, I can have my laptop back for important things like blogging!), and I took a walk in the sun for a while. I think Alan is in the house right now, visiting with his grandmother. I think I will go join him, and I'll be back here writing when we do some interesting things to tell you about! :)

Blogging from Moncton

2009-08-22T20:37:00.002-05:00

Wow, my blog is getting very well traveled...first posts from Montreal, now from Moncton. I feel so worldly ;)

So yes, I'm here in Moncton. This is a stopover on our trip to New York. The original plan was that we would stay here overnight, and head out tomorrow morning. We've changed plans, however, because of Hurricane Bill. We decided that we'd rather wait another night in Moncton and see if the hurricane is bad enough to have damaged our house. We'd rather be 3 hours away if we have to get home than 15 in New York.

So we had a good trip here. The cats had to be dropped off at The Cat's Inn early this morning. We've boarded them there before, they've got a nice place and treat the cats well. My cats don't realize that though, and were not pleased at all with being left. Alan and I both have the scratch marks to prove it. They'll forgive us for it eventually, I'm sure.

The drive itself was uneventful, there really wasn't much traffic at all. Most of the vehicles we did see had out of province plates, so I think all the tourists were heading out before the hurricane hits. It made for nice driving though, and we got to Moncton in good time.

We spent a nice afternoon relaxing with my grandparents, and then went out to a movie with our friend Steve after supper. We went to see District 9, which was pretty good. I think I would be raving about it quite a bit more if I had been able to watch it. It made unfortunate use of the "handy cam" type filming, which makes me ill, so I had to spend most of the movie looking away from the screen. It made it hard to get immersed in it. It was a good movie though, if you don't get bothered by that kind of filming, go see it.

That's all the news for today...we'll see tomorrow how bad the hurricane actually ends up being!

Slow week

2009-08-19T18:47:00.002-05:00

Hi guys, sorry for the lack of posts...as the title implies, it has been a really slow week. I don't know if I'm still burnt out from the weekend or what, but I have not had the energy to do much lately. I don't think the heat is helping, it's so hot I can barely move. We can't win...it's either rain for weeks, or oppressive heat.

The only big news is that the family piano is now at my house. We have a beautiful antique piano, I think it's like 120 years old or something ridiculous like that (my sister can correct me in the comments if I'm off). I say it's beautiful, but I have a tendency to love old, impractical things. My sister is a fantastic piano player, I've never done more than dabble with it, but I do enjoy it. Our piano is not one a professional would want to play, but I've always loved it.

My dad has had it for several years now, in his basement. I had said quite some time ago that I would like to have it moved to my place at some point. It happened this week because dad wants to renovate his basement, which means getting the piano out of it. The place I called to have it moved by were very quick, picking it up Monday afternoon, and dropping it off to us on Tuesday morning. Now I just have to get it tuned, and get some of our old music books back from dad so I have something to play.

I was worried about my cats harming the piano, as they have scratched other wooden surfaces, but I think they're scared of it. When it was first moved to the house they wouldn't go near it. A few hours later, I heard a few random keys get plunked, so I assume one of them tried to jump up on it. However, the sound seems to have terrified them, and I haven't seen either of them go near it since, nor heard any other random plunkings. It is rare that my cats refuse to go near something they could wreck, so I'm quite pleased with this result.

The only other real news is I'm going away on Saturday. We're off to visit Alan's family in the States for a bit. I'll be getting ready for the over the next couple days, getting laundry and packing done, that kind of stuff. Seeing as that's not particularly exciting, I probably won't have much to say for the next couple days, but hopefully the vacation will yield some stories.

Motorcycles are still awesome

2009-08-16T19:57:00.003-05:00

My apologies for not posting yesterday. I was so exhausted after a day of riding motorcycles in extreme heat while wearing black leather, jeans and a helmet, that I barely knew my own name by the end of the day. Most of it was heat exhaustion, but there was a fair amount of just plain old physical tiredness too. I have to say, I had no idea just how tiring driving a motorcycle could be.

We spent yesterday learning the basics, from "how do you turn the bike on?", to learning to shift, do turns and do figure 8's without knocking over all the pylons. I have so much more respect now for what goes into driving these things, it's incredible. It's much more physical than regular driving...there's no power steering to turn the wheel for you, you are physically moving the front tire when you do slow speed maneuvers (not like at higher speeds where a lot of it is in the leaning). The thing that hurts the most though, after 2 days of this, are my hands.

Overall, I drove somewhere between 30 and 35km this weekend, and never got higher than 2nd gear. I'd say about 90% of it was in first gear, and on a motorcycle, you ride the clutch in first gear a lot more than you do in a car. The clutch is a lever on the left handlebar, like the hand brake on a bicycle. So I was clenching on the clutch for the majority of the time spent on the bike. My thumb is so sore, it is ridiculous.

However, all the pain is worth it. A lot of the time I was concentrating so hard on getting things right that I would forget what I was doing, but then I'd have these moments of "oh my god, I'm driving a motorcycle!" It was so fun, I can't even describe it.

This morning they taught us emergency braking and swerving to get around unexpected obstacles. It was pretty easy compared to the complicated low speed maneuvers we had to do yesterday (and we got to drive faster, 20km/hour!). I was still pretty exhausted from yesterday, so I was glad that the morning was relatively easy.

After lunch we started the testing. First came the written test, which was ridiculously easy. If you had a pulse during the class, you could pass the written test. The practical test was another matter entirely. Two of the guys in my class already had their beginner's license (they were doing the course for insurance purposes), and they said that the DMV road test for a motorcycle license was essentially prove you can start the bike, and do a figure 8. I could have passed that test with what I learned yesterday morning. The safety course test was a whole other story.

It consisted of 5 different exercises, some of them timed. Now, I hate timed things. They panic me. You should see me trying to play video games that have timed tasks...I'm freaking out while I try to do them, even if I have way more than enough time to complete them. Knowing that some of the tasks were timed had me feeling pretty queasy while we were setting up. Even when they were explained to us, and I knew I had the skills to do them, I was panicked that I wouldn't be able to complete them in the time given (which we weren't actually told, btw). We also would not be allowed to redo tasks, and weren't told as we did them whether or not we'd passed them.

The first task was definitely the worst for me. I got through it ok, but I had no idea if I'd done it in time. I'd also had a pretty shaky start, having to put my foot to the ground a few times as I tried to get around the first corner. The worst was that at the end, we had to shift up to second gear, then back down the first as we came to a stop. The gear shift is a pedal on your left foot. To go to first, you put your foot on top of the pedal and push down. When you are in 1st and want to go to 2nd, you have to put your foot under the pedal and push it up. So I'm in 1st, put my foot under the pedal and shift up to 2nd. Then, I need to shift back down to 1st. I go to move my foot back on top of the pedal...and fail. My boot got stuck. I managed not to panic and did eventually get it free and stopped in time, but I was sure that in my panic I had slowed down too much and took too long. I was pretty nervous about whether or not I'd failed the task due to the time limit, despite having sucessfully done all the maneuvers.

The other tasks weren't bad at all, even when they were timed. The first exercise was the hardest of them anyway, and getting through it restored a bit of my confidence and soothed my nerves a bit, since everything else was so much easier. I felt pretty good about these four, but didn't know if the first task could make or break me.

So after all the test we had to wait a bit while the head instructor tallied up our marks. The two assistant instructors stayed with us and answered questions we had. It was a pretty nervous group of people there, because while the pass rate is high, there are often a couple of fails. So the head instructor comes back out of his office a few minutes later, and says they consider the pass rate to be a reflection of the instructors, which means that they must be great instructors, because everyone passed! There wasn't any cheering, but a lot of relieved faces and smiles (I was one of them).

He did take us all in one by one and go over our test results. He told me that you could lose a maximum of 11 points, and the average was 7 or 8. I had only lost 5 points, and all 5 of them were on the first exercise! I am perfectly fine with this, because I know the first exercise reflected my nerves more than my abilities, as I'm confident I can do the things that were required. I had done similar exercises in the class without any real issues. I was just nervous and flubbed it up a bit in the test.

So I am now the very proud owner of a motorcycle beginner's license, which I can trade in after 30 days to get my full license. I will not longer be a plain old class 5 driver! Alan is jealous that I know how to drive something he doesn't...I am sure he'll be taking the course next year. It was so fun, and I am so proud of myself for doing this, as it was very intimidating, and I tend to put things like that off.

I also need to put in a plug for Saftey Services Nova Scotia, the people who put on the course. The instructors were great, and the course was paced in such a way that each exercise felt like natural extensions of the one we did before. I learned so much, and can not imagine trying to learn to drive a motorcycle on my own. I definitely recommend them if you've ever considered getting your license.

In related news, dad has offered to take a Saturday with me to look at bikes and help me find one to buy. All the ones I've seen on Kijiji that I might like have been far out of town, and dad said we'll drive all over the province if we have to. Thanks dad :)

Motorcycles are so awesome...

2009-08-14T19:21:00.003-05:00

...and we never even started them tonight. But they're still awesome.

So I've been pretty much pacing the house all day waiting anxiously for my motorcycle course to start. By about 4:30 I had driven Alan nuts I think. I have been alternating between extreme excitement and extreme fear of failure.

As per normal, my fear of failure was completely unfounded. I think that overall, I was doing as well as anyone there. We didn't do a whole lot tonight, as it was only three hours, and half of that was signing waivers, doing introductions, and watching videos. There are 12 people in the class, and I'm one of three women (well, two...one of them was so short, she can't use any of the bikes there, and won't be returning). I actually knew one of the guys there, I used to work with him, so that was neat.

Our lesson with the bikes tonight consisted of first learning the major things to look for before you get on (lights working, throttle releasing properly, etc). Then they showed us how to properly get on the bike and stand it up, and then get off again. I know, sounds ridiculously basic, but they assume you know nothing, and I'm glad of that. It also taught me where both of the brakes are, which is really good to know.

Once we had mastered the safe mount and dismount, we paired up and took turns pushing our partners bike, in alternating straight stretches and corners. The idea was to start to get a feel for the balance, steering and braking of the bikes. We did that until it got too dark to see, and then watched another video.

Even though we never even learned how to turn the bike on, I already know I'm going to love this. I am very eager for tomorrow's lesson!

Hooray for exercise

2009-08-13T20:45:00.002-05:00

I know, who doesn't already know that exercise is great for them? Why am I bothering to celebrate it? Mostly because I just finished exercising, and it makes me feel good to do it, so I figured I'd write about it.

I've managed 3 straight days now of doing some sort of exercise. That is usually as many as I get before the weekend kicks in and I get lazy. Tomorrow is Friday, so we shall see, I guess. I try to alternate the types of exercise I do - weights and yoga one day, cardio on my Gazelle the next.

While I have not been consistent with this, getting in only two or three days a week, even that has been helping. I am starting to see something resembling muscle definition in my arms again, which is really nice. My biceps turning flabby is something that had really been bothering me, so it's great to see improvement. I also know I'm getting stronger because yoga isn't wearing me out quite as badly, and I'm doing longer sets with the weights (10-12 reps instead of 8). So it's little stuff, but it's improvement and it's encouraging. The more results I see, the more I actually want to exercise. I think I might even be losing a couple of pounds, which is really fabulous.

What I'd really like to work up to is biking. I have a really nice bike, and I really enjoy biking, but I live in the middle of a very steep hill. And all the streets around us are hills. It is really, really discouraging to try to go for a bike ride, and be too exhausted to move five minutes away from the house. I just don't have the strength yet to tackle the hills around here. While loading the bike into the car and driving somewhere else to bike always feels dumb to me, I think I'm going to have to start sucking it up and do that. I have a (very) long-term goal of biking the Cabot Trail, and I am never going to accomplish that by not biking.

It will have to wait until at least next week though, as tomorrow is the beginning of the other type of biking class. I will be blogging all about it!

Home again

2009-08-11T20:27:00.003-05:00

Greetings! Sorry for the lack of post yesterday, but I got home from Montreal early in the morning, and spent the day relaxing, getting unpacked, and spending some time with Alan since I hadn't seen him for 4 days. I also had to beg for my cat's forgiveness for leaving them. They seem to have gotten over it now.

Today I was back in the office getting caught up. One of my deals is getting a little messy, but we're having a meeting Thursday to sort it out, so everything should work out, though I suspect the closing date will be changing. Worse things have happened!

The exciting news was I picked up my motorcycle helmet today. I was a little worried about it getting in in time for the course starting, but my worries were, as usual, unfounded. It is very nice and shiny, I am pleased with it even if it isn't the girly one I tried to get. My cats seemed slightly alarmed by me wearing the helmet. This is not surprising though, as the cats still get alarmed when I'm wearing shoes, and I've been doing that since we got them. 3 more days til the motorcycle course starts! I am so excited.

I also picked up Alan's birthday present today (I don't think he reads this, but I'm not posting what I got him just in case). While I was in Montreal I missed both his and dad's birthdays, so I'm taking them out for lunch on Friday to make up for it.

Today was also the first day of getting my self back in order after the vacation. I did some weights and yoga today like a good girl, and I intend to do some cardio tomorrow. I find I do really well with exercise early in the week, but taper off as we get close to the weekend. This is an area in which I need to improve. I also need to get my eating in order. I started that today by cleaning out the fridge...that was more frightening than I had expected it to be. Tomorrow I get some proper groceries and work from there. I should figure out some good recipes to make over the next few days.

I guess that's all the news for now, I need to start finding some interesting stuff to post about. That will be part of tomorrow's projects too!

The last day

2009-08-09T22:03:00.002-05:00

Sadly, this was our last day here in Montreal for World Con 2009. We took it very easy today, as despite how great the panels and events have been, you do get to a point where you just can't sit through too many more lectures. Knowing we had little energy left, we focused it on seeing Neil Gaiman as much as we could. He had 2 talks today, and we attended both.

The first was described as an interview of NG by a book critic, but they knew each other and it was really just a conversation between them, dominated by Neil. I think that was actually more enjoyable than an interview would have been. They talked about some authors they enjoy, and the joy of literature with multiple layers of meaning. Neil is really good at being thoughtful and thought provoking, with wonderful stories and bits of humor throughout.

The second session was intended to be a chance for NG to talk about Neil the person, as opposed to Neil the writer. We got to hear about Neil's beekeeping, former hobby of "growing exotic pumpkins" as he described it (which makes you wonder what on earth an exotic pumpkin is), how he got his dog, and how he met his girlfriend. It was, again, very entertaining. He's a great story-teller even when speaking about his own life, and really has a knack for leaving his audience in stitches.

We didn't attend anything else today, rather took some time to actually have a vacation. We just relaxed in the hotel for a bit, and went out for supper and walked around town a little bit. Overall I have had an incredible time, I am so glad I came. Erin has also had a good time, but I don't like to speak for her, of course. The World Con next year is being held in Australia, and I'm trying to figure out if there's any chance in hell of getting there (unlikely, but man that would be fun). Getting to see Neil Gaiman has been wonderful, and has left me with the impression that he would be an awesome guy just to hang out with. For some reason it is comforting to know that an author I love and buy a lot of works from, is also a clever, funny and nice guy.

The convention has also left me with a huge list of books and authors I need to check out, which is very exciting, and a renewed interest in writing. I am also looking forward to attending other conventions and conferences in the future, since this has been so fun and informative. There is one in Halifax next year (Hal-Con), and Erin and I are even thinking of volunteering for it.

Oh, that's another bit of happy news, while I think of it - Erin got an apartment! I've gone to look at a few places for her over the last few weeks, and her brother and dad were also looking at places for her. Her dad called Friday and said he'd found a great place, and Erin agreed and applied for it. We found out yesterday she got it, so that's awesome :)

Now it's bedtime, as I must be up early in the morning to get my flight home. See you again soon, Halifax!

Day 3

2009-08-08T22:26:00.002-05:00

I can't believe I've been here three days already. I am having too much fun.

We had a bit of a slower day today. Slept in a bit to catch up on lost sleep, and spent a bit of time in the city.

We started the day with a fun lecture called "The Knights Who Say F***". Guy Gavriel Kay was one of the panelists, and it was on the use of contemporary language in settings of high fantasy. It was another fabulous and interesting discussion, and combined with several other people mentioning her in this convention, has left me with a desire to read some of the works of Ursula K. LeGuin.

After a little break, we attended another Neil Gaiman event. It was a reading. He read one of his short stories first, which was very good. It wasn't one I had read before, so it was a combined goodness of listening to Neil, and hearing a new story. His second reading was a "love letter", published in a collection of love letters released on Valentine's Day. He gave a funny intro about how he wasn't know for his handling of love affairs in his writing, and how he'd been delighted to write a "proper love letter" for this book. He then read his love letter, which was awesome, but showed why he's not known for his romantic literature. It was a really great reading overall, and he just keeps reinforcing my conviction that he is awesome.

After the reading we took a few hours off from the convention, and took advantage of the lovely weather to see a bit of the city. We strolled around a bit of old Montreal, and had lunch in a nice street-side patio. It was a really nice way to spend the afternoon.

For the evening we both went to a panel. I attended one on archaeology and world-building (i.e. creating histories for fictional worlds) which was pretty interesting, but not as good as I had hoped. Erin attended one on the making of "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?", a book of pictures of Amanda Palmer in various poses pretending to be dead, and stories about the deaths by Neil Gaiman. It's not a book I've read yet, but I think I will have to, as I love the concept.

The last event of the day was the Masquerade, which is the show of the costumes people made, to be judged. Most of the costumes were really clever and impressive. Some of the highlights were a phoenix costume, a vampire costume I think was based on a manga or anime character, and a Klingon/Batman crossover that was hilarious. There was a long break between the end of the show and the judging, during which they showed old Looney Tunes clips, including on of my favorites, the Barber of Seville. We stuck around to watch those until they were showing ones we didn't like, then headed out. We didn't care about who won the contest, we had just wanted to see the costumes.

Now we're having a relaxed evening watching The Two Towers, Erin doing her cross stitch and me blogging! Resting up for tomorrow, the last day we'll be here at the convention. It actually continues on Monday, but we fly out at the crack of dawn that day. I will be sad to leave, this has been too much fun. Ah well, I still have another day to enjoy yet!

Day two recap

2009-08-08T08:06:00.003-05:00

Wow, so yesterday was incredible. So incredible that I was too exhausted when I got back to the hotel to write about it.

The day started with waiting in line to get tickets to go to the Neil Gaiman signing. As you can tell from my previous post, I did get them, but it was a significant wait. He clearly has a lot of fans at the convention.

After the line, we went to a fascinating panel on intellectual property rights and laws. I'm sure that doesn't sound exciting, but it was a really good panel featuring Cory Doctorow, an author I hadn't heard of before this convention, but definitely have some interest in now. He was a very good panelist, very informed on his topic. He also managed to make what could have been a very dry, boring topic into a very entertaining one.

Our second panel of the day was entitled "I For One Welcome Our Zombie Overlords", about, of course, the coming zombie apocalypse. I had been looking forward to this one since I saw it in the program, as had Erin. I have to say, it was disappointing. I can't complain too much because everything we've gone to so far has been great, this is the first dud. I'm just surprised that a topic so potentially full of fun turned out to be so lackluster. I think the problem was mostly the panel itself, not the topic. There were four panelists, and only one of them seemed prepared at all. I didn't really like a lot of his points or his shameless self-promotion, but he was the only one that had done any research, had a thesis and stuck to it, and did raise some interesting thinking points. Of the other three panelists, two just liked zombie movies, and I'm not even sure why the fourth one was there as she admitted to knowing pretty much nothing about the zombie-verse. It definitely did not live up to it's potential.

Happily, the afternoon and evening more than made up for that. First came the Guy Gavriel Kay signing. There was a line up for that, but it wasn't too bad, maybe 25 minutes to get to him. He was very nice. Erin got to him first, and he actually thanked her for waiting, which blew my mind. I feel like he's the one doing us the favour, not the other way around. When I got up there he noticed the sequence of two Erins and commented on it, so we had a tiny little chat with him about how yes, we did know each other. I liked him a lot.

Next came the highpoint of the day, the Neil Gaiman signing. After the line up for tickets, there was a line up started to see him an hour before the signing even started. It was quite a long wait but it was sooooo worth it. In the line they handed out post it notes upon which you had to write the inscription you wanted in your book(s), to speed things up. I had written out "Erin, Anticipation 2009" for The Kindly Ones, and just my name for The Graveyard Book. As shown in my last post, he didn't just write my name in The Graveyard Book, he drew a little headstone for it (in Erin's Coraline he also drew a little mouse). For The Kindly Ones he wrote what I asked but broke up "Anticipation" into "Antici-pation" like Tim Curry in Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Erin was signing after me, and I just stood at the table while I waited for her. Neil noticed the duo of Erins as well, and started chatting with us while he signed her books. He saw on my tag I was from Halifax and asked about that and we said yes, we were both from there. He asked if everyone in Halifax was named Erin and I said, for the most part, yes. We had a little laugh with him and then he recalled an old sailor's prayer he'd once heard about preferring to go to Hell over Halifax.

Erin and I were just about beside ourselves when we left. We talked to Neil Gaiman! Actually had a little chat with him! He was so charming and nice, my face was so red while we were at the table. It was just so awesome. It was doubly nice to have my previous impression of him, from his writing and blogs, completely verified. I just think it's awesome that he goes to the trouble of adding little extra things to people's books, even when he has hundreds of people to get through, and even chat with you. He definitely gave the impression of having a good deal of apreciation for his fans.

The day's greatness didn't even end there. We later attended a panel on the lack of diversity in comics and SF. The panel was absolutely incredible, I think the best we've attended. It managed to take what could be a very touchy subject and dealt with it constructively, and entertainingly. It was very enjoyable, and could have been a lot longer and still worth it.

The day ended with a screening of the movie Coraline, introduced by Neil Gaiman. Erin and I have both seen the movie but love it and had no problem seeing it again. Neil was, again, very charming and great to listen to for the intro. He told us about the making of the movie and how they did it. I have even more respect for it than I did before. I knew it was mostly stop-gap animation, but assumed there was some CGI involved but Neil dispelled that. There is *one* scene in the whole movie that is CGI, everything else is stop-gap. The only CGI was to take out rigging lines and lines on thier faces where parts were. That just blows my mind and makes it an even more incredible movie.

Of course, there had to be technical problems. The poor tech crew could not get the movie to play, their Blu-ray disc kept crashing. It was handled with humor by the crew and the audience though, and really difused what could have been a rotten experience with angry movie-goers. The anticipation of the movie starting being broken by error messages on the screen was only greeted by laughter and shouted comments like "Is there a techie in the house?" which brought more laughter (there is something hilarious about asking for a techie in a sci-fi convention full off geeks, you had to be there).

They did eventually get the movie going, so we got to enjoy the show and then headed back to the hotel to pass out. Now it is time for me to stop posting and go start the day!

Oh. My. God.

2009-08-07T16:51:00.003-05:00

I will post more later, but look!!!

I had the privilege to meet Guy Gavriel Kay today, and got my much loved copy of The Fionavar Tapestry signed.

If that wasn't cool enough, I then met (OMG) Neil Gaiman, who signed both my Sandman #9 (The Kindly Ones), and my new copy of The Graveyard Book. He drew me my own headstone!

I seriously turned bright red when both of them spoke to me, and giggled like a school girl afterward. I am still pretty giggly. Today has been awesome. I will post more details of the day later, but it's supper time now! Just had to share the awesomeness.

Day 1 of World Con

2009-08-06T20:59:00.002-05:00

Bonjour!

Like my French? That's what they speak here in Montreal, if you didn't know. As mentioned a couple posts ago, my best friend and I traveled to Montreal today to attend the World Con. It has been a very fun day.

It started at 3:45 this morning, which was unfortunate, but I got a really good price on a plane ticket, in return for having to leave at the crack of dawn. Erin (my best friend's name is identical to my own, if you were not aware) also had an early flight, so I just waited for her in the Montreal airport until she arrived, and we traveled to the hotel together.

Our hotel is quite nice, as all the cheap ones were booked before we got our acts together. We have a festival going on outside our window though, so we were warned that it would be noisy until midnight every day. It's not that bad, we get free music, and neither of us go to bed particularly early anyway.

Our first impression of the convention is that it does nothing to dispel the stereotypes of the type of people you would expect to find a sci-fi convention. I guess that is not really surprising. What did surprise me is the number of women present, it really seems to be about 50/50, which I did not expect.

Our first big event was to see Neil Gaiman, the reason we came in the first place. He is one of our favorite authors, and he is the guest of honor for the convention. He was doing a question and answer period this afternoon, which was a delight to attend. He was just as funny and intelligent to listen to as I had imagined he would be. My desire to kidnap him has not lessened. He just seems like the kind of guy you would love to hang out with all the time. Yes, I have a bit of a crush on him. Tomorrow, Erin and I will be trying to get tickets to attend the first of the two book signings he's doing. I guess they're expecting enough of a rush on it that they decided tickets are necessary. I can see that, considering the number of people who were at his talk this afternoon, and rushed his table at the end to try to get signatures.

Later in the day we browsed the art expo. Some of it was quite good, and I'm thinking I may go pick up a few small pieces tomorrow that I liked. There were a few I was interested in that are definitely outside my budget. I wish I could have taken pictures of it, but that was not allowed unfortunately.

This evening we attended two lectures. The first was on genocide in sci-fi, and the implications of it's use and acceptance in sci-fi literature. It was a very interesting debate that made some interesting points, despite a few audience questions trying to lead it astray. The second was on Wonder Woman and feminism in comics. It was also quite good, but a little disappointing in that the panel was made up of 2 men and only 1 woman, which seemed odd for a discussion on feminism. The men on the panel were quite sympathetic, to their credit, but their perspective was quite different from that of the woman on the panel, unsurprisingly. For Erin and I it raised the question of whether or not the convention organisers were able to find more women for the panel and what that meant. It left us with interesting thoughts and much discussion anyway, which I think is the important thing.

Overall my impression so far is really good. Today was very fun, and I suspect it will only be more so over the next few days. I will keep posting!

Safety First!

2009-08-05T20:36:00.002-05:00

Hello! See, I'm a good blogger, posting regularly. If I keep saying that, it will eventually be true.

So yesterday I purchased a motorcycle helmet. But Erin, do you own a motorcycle? No, no I don't. But I intend to! And next weekend I take the motorcycle safety and licensing course to learn to drive one. Of course, they require that you have a helmet for the course (they supply the motorcycles, so it's not a bad deal in that respect).

Now of course, I know very little about motorcycle helmets, other than that the silly little half-head ones are dumb and won't protect you from anything unless it drops straight down on you from directly above. My motorcycle-enthusiast father has taught me enough for me to recognize that things like that increase your chance of being killed. While I recognize there is a level of danger inherent in riding motorcycles, as with most things, I do want to reduce it as much as possible.

Knowing very little about helmets and what I should purchase, I had invited my aforementioned motorcycle-enthusiast father to come shopping with me. He proved invaluable from the get-go, by telling me which of the local cycle shops would have the best selection of helmets. We met there when he got off work, and spent a fun hour of selecting from what they had.

Dad pointed out various features of the different helmets since I didn't know what to look for, and pointed me towards the best style for the type of bike I intend to get. Beyond that it was mostly selecting a paint job. My first choice was, I admit, a bit girly. Not super girly...from a distance it would just look like a silver helmet, but up close it had a nice design of swirls and flowers in another shade of grey. Feminine, but not in your face, OMG-it's-pink kind of feminine. I also did not opt for the helmet with the buxom woman riding what looked to be a motorcycle exhaust pipe. I did not really understand what kind of woman that helmet was aimed at.

Sadly, the pretty helmet was not there in my size. We asked one of the salespeople if he could order one in for me, and when he tried we found out that helmet had been discontinued. I was very sad, but clearly it was not meant to be.

The other helmets aimed at girls were way too over the top for me, so I went for a simple, functional model, which you can see here. I got the FS-15 Solid in Anthracite. If they had had red I would have gotten that, but alas, it was grey, black or yellow. Grey it is.

Again they did not have my size in stock, so I had to order one, this time with success. My helmet should be arriving early next week, and I will be one step closer to being a biker! I am very excited.

Catch up time

2009-08-03T14:14:00.003-05:00

So, four years...bet a lot of stuff has happened in that time. Here's the short version of the long story.

First, boyfriend and I bought a house. We have been living together here for almost 4 years. The house turned out not to be quite as fantastic as we thought it was, and we are trying to get it fixed up so we can sell it when our mortgage is up for renewal in a year. We have two cats for children.

The dream job ended up not being so dreamy. After much mucking about chasing contracts and empty promises, I decided that I was not getting anywhere there. Opportunities for archaeology are limited in Halifax and after much soul searching, I decided a new career path was in order. I am now in real estate, which has been quite enjoyable. It is definitely a hard business to break in to, but I work with some great agents and a great company (RE/MAX). I am two years in now, and they say it takes 3-5 years to really be fully "in" the business. I feel like I'm doing well at it.

My personal life has had its ups and downs, like anyone's does. I've slowly been making some changes for the better, like quitting silly games that suck my time and creativity away. I'm also trying to exercise more, and just generally develop some good habits and new hobbies.

My sister moved to Toronto last week, which is sad (only for selfish reasons, her and her boyfriend have great things awaiting them there). My best friend is moving back home from Toronto next month though, which is happy! Also, her and I are going to Montreal on Thursday for World Con, where we are going to geek it up hardcore. I am very excited. At the end of the month, Alan and I are going to New York to visit his family for a week, which should also be fun.

That's the last 4 years, and current events, in a nutshell. Now it's time for me to start blogging responsibly again so people have something to read if they check my site!

I'm not quite dead yet....

2009-08-03T09:10:00.003-05:00

...I'm getting better!

So yeah, here I am four years later. How have you been? Good, glad to hear it.

I know, I know. WTF have I been? Well, having gone back through my old entries, I can see the posts trail off at exactly the same time classes started ending and I felt like I was allowed to play MMO's again. MMO's for me mean nothing else goes on in my life. Blogging was one of the things I gave up.

So why am I here again? I finally got my head on straight, or something resembling it, and have stopped playing games. I've been trying to find something to do with all the spare time I now have, and remembered I used to really like doing this, and thought maybe I could resume.

It's good to speak to you all again (and by "you all" I mean probably no one, at least til I email people and tell them I'm blogging again), and hopefully I won't make a mess of things again.

Tales from the field!

2005-06-26T07:46:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am, almost a month later. Bad blogger, bad! Ah well, not like anyone reads this anyways.

So I'm home in beautiful Nova Scotia again. The weather was awful for a while, but the sun has finally decided to come out and produce heat again, so that's a good thing. I'm well into the swing of my new job now. It's been pretty cool, I'm getting to do a bit of everything. We've dug some archaeological test pits (all empty so far :( ), done some geologic sampling (I'm learning tons about glacial deposition features that I didn't know before...and yes, that's a fine and interesting thing, at least to a geek like me!), and if they ever get me the program I need, I'll be doing some GIS work and mapping as well. I'm really enjoying myself, and I'm very happy I took the job here.

In other happy news, I'm going to New York City in August with my boyfriend and best friend. I'm really looking forward to it. We're going to see the Broadway show The Producers, and we're going to see Blue Man Group. I'm really excited about that, I've wanted to see them again pretty much since the show ended the first time I saw them. And even better, we're in the splatter zone this time! Yes, their show has a splatter zone. I'm giddy with delight that we're going to be in it. If you've never seen Blue Man Group, you should. No arguments, just do it.

In the happiest news of all, the boyfriend and I can finally see the end of the long distance. In December he's coming here to go to school in Halifax, and we're finally going to get a place together. We're very happy about this, and I'm definitely counting the days. Yeah, I know it's still several months away, but we've been doing the long distance thing for over two years now, and it's getting old. I'm so glad to be able to put a date on it ending.

So there's my life for the past month in short! I'll be updating a bit more regularly now, I promise.

I'm taking the plunge!

2005-05-11T20:50:00.000-05:00

I accepted the dream job today, and told the company in Vermont that I was very sorry, but an opportunity I couldn't pass up was offered to me. Telling them was relatively quick and painless. They wished me well and I thanked them for offering me the job.

So I move home on the holiday weekend. My boyfriend is picking me up Friday, and we should be back in Dartmouth Saturday. I'm looking forward to being home again.

And Jacki, yes, he's going to go to school in Halifax. He actually wants to speak with you about the math department at SMU while he's there. I'll be in touch :)

Linda, are you back in res yet? I tried to clean it up as best I could, ask Norma Jean how much of our deposits we're getting back. You should have seen the small bathroom, it was disgusting :P

Hello again!

2005-05-09T17:40:00.000-05:00

Greetings all, sorry for the absence. I have moved out of residence since the year ended, and been living with my aunt and uncle in Kingston for a while, so have been unable to update. I'm still at said uncle's, but stealing a bit of internet time.

I had my live interview at Vermont last week. It went so well that they offered me a position higher than the one I had applied for. This is a good thing.

Then on Friday, I got a job offer from an archaeological firm back home. Essentially, they're offering me my dream job. The catch? It's a temporary position. However, there is the potential for other contracts with them after, as they have funding for the next year, and I can't even begin to tell you the contacts I could make here, and the potential research for my masters that could be done.

So tomorrow I'm calling the universities back home to see if my boyfriend's credits from his American program will transfer over, as I really want to do this job. I've told them that I'll let them know by Wednesday if I'm going to take it.

I'm really excited about this, and I hope it works out. I'll keep you posted as I can!

So far so good!

2005-04-22T15:10:00.000-05:00

So I had my phone interview yesterday. I think it went really well. I felt really comfortable talking to them (two guys on a conference call), and they seemed really pleased with the skills I already have. They said the job is aimed towards students just out of school, so my lack of practical experience doesn't bother them. They were really happy to find out that I know ArcView 3.3 and Visual Basic too. For all the trouble that VB was to learn, I'm glad that it seems to be paying off now. At the end of the interview, they told me I should hear within a week whether or not they wanted to do an in-person interview with me, and I thanked them.

My phone rang at 9:10 this morning. It was the company, asking if I wanted to come in for the in-person interview. So much for having to wait a week to hear, hehe. Of course I said yes. I have to figure out how I'm getting to Vermont of course, but right now the tentative plan is that my interview will be May 4th at 10am. That's the Wednesday of the week after classes are done, when I'm supposed to be staying with my uncle in Kingston. I think what I'm going to do is rent a car, drive up Tuesday, stay the night (they said they'd pay for the hotel), do the interview Wednesday, and head back to Kingston that day or Thursday.

So that's my big news! I'm really happy about this, I was so pleased after the interview yesterday because I could tell that it had gone really well. To get the phone call this morning just made me feel even better. They wanted me to come in next week, but I can't do that because of school, so I'm glad they were ok with waiting another week. I really hope this works out :)

Finally!

2005-04-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

So Monday I got an email back about a job I applied for the week before. They wanted to learn more about me, and sent me a Word document containing a "Virtual Interview". So I filled that out, and faxed it back to them this morning. When I got home from school today, there was a message on my machine from the company, asking if I wanted to do a phone interview tomorrow at 2pm.

So I have my first real interview!

I am very excited. The company does 911 GIS applications, which is something I wouldn't mind working in, and is a good, marketable background to have. It's located in Vermont, which is a beautiful state, at least the bit of it that I've seen. It's also close enough to home that I could still get back for vacations and Christmas and such, so I'm happy about that. It's definitely a place I could handle living. It's a very small town, less than 8000 people, but I'm getting used to that lol.

Wish me luck, and I'll keep you posted about how it goes :)

Thank you

2005-04-12T12:04:00.000-05:00

Both today and yesterday, I came home to find a package waiting for me. Yesterday it was a care package from my best friend back home, with a note saying she knows I'm stressed, and she hopes this makes me smile. Today it was a book from my sister, with a note about how the book was about sisters, so who better to share it with. Thank you to both of you, you've both made my week happier.

These random acts of kindness have made me think about how very lucky I am. I have a boyfriend who loves me enough to have spent weeks of his life driving to see me, and to put up with the horrid distance without a word of complaint. I have a mother who welcomes me back home, even at the age of 26, because I don't have another place to go. I have a father who will drive halfway across the country to pick me up and take me home. I have an aunt and uncle who are happy to let me stay with them for a week while I wait for my father. I have a sister who has sent me care packages and little gifts just because she can, and thinks I'll like them. I have generous and loving grandparents. I have an aunt who has always been like a fun, close friend, even when I was a kid.

I adore my family, and I have always felt that I have been given the best of all worlds with them. I have always been proud of the family names I bear, and to be a part of the bloodlines I share, no matter how humble my grandmother may tell me our beginnings are. I have laughter and fun, I have generosity and support. I have had a kick in the butt when I needed it, and a shoulder to cry on when I needed that.

I have wonderful friends, as well as family. They have always been a source of support, laughter, wisdom and advice. They have always forgiven me my often poor communication. Our differing philosophies do not prevent our friendships, only spark interesting conversation. My friends have gotten me through more hard times than I can ever tell them. My Epic Mess, no matter whether your initials made it into the name.

I am truly blessed, and I am so thankful for the people in my life. I thank you all for everything, and I love you all dearly.

Being a geek is fun

2005-04-06T19:24:00.000-05:00

My level of geekiness went up a few points today I think. In one of my classes today, we started learning Linux. It is my understanding that only nerds really know any Linux.

I am pleased about this.

I spent many years trying not to be a geek. I really did. I tried to hang out with the cool kids, do the cool stuff, say the cool things. I failed miserably. In high school I finally came to terms with my geekdom. Being a geek is fun. It means I get to know things that others don't, and they need me to fix their computer. It means that not only can I play video games, watch Star Trek reruns, program HTML for fun, read comic books and all sorts of other geeky things, but it means I'm allowed to admit it! My boyfriend thinks my geekiness makes me the coolest girlfriend ever.

Being a geek also means I get most of the jokes on Think Geek. That is the greatest site ever, it truly is. Check out the motivational posters in the Cubicle Goodies category. The one about meetings is my favorite. Sweet, sweet Think Geek. Learning Linux means I'm one step closer to getting every joke on that site.

Another thing about Linux - the different shells crack me up. The normal shell is the "Bourne" shell...a later version is the "Bourne Again" shell. I love that...I love it even more that it's abbreviation is "bash". There's also the C Shell. My prof said that the shells talk to the kernel...and one of the shells is actually the "Korn" shell. So the Korn is talking to the kernel. lol. The people that write Linux are obviously having fun. I like that.

Going Home

2005-04-05T21:12:00.000-05:00

Much has changed since I last posted. I apologize for the lack of updates...school has been stupid busy, and the boy was up this weekend :)

Returning to New York is a complete bust. I'm welcome to go back if I want, but they've gone from 6 month terms at almost $12/hour to 3 months at $8.50/hour. Yay for budget cuts. As much as I'd like to go back and do some field work, I can't move to NY for 3 months at those wages. The chance of having my visa rejected, and the $500 US that I'd have to put up front to get my apartment is just not worth it for $8.50/hour. For $12 I'm willing to take the visa risk, but I can make more than $8.50 at home.

Then there was the generous offer of my boss here. It was really good of him to offer, but for retail wages, I could go home and not have to pay $350 rent, plus groceries and utilities. Lindsay also isn't the most happening of towns, and I'd be bored out of my skull. All my friends from back home would be elsewhere, and all my friends here from school will have moved.

So, given all that, I'm returning home at the end of my course. Dad can't get me right away, so I'm going to Kingston to stay with my aunt and uncle, and visit the friends I have living there. I'll be home on May 10. I'll be out of residence on May 1. I'm going to find temporary work at home, and live with mom again, while I continue the hunt for permanent work. This is all assuming I don't find a real job before the semester ends, of course.

I can't wait to get out of residence. The morons set off the fire alarm at 12:30 last night. I had class at 8 this morning. That was not fun. Oh, and by "the morons", I mean everyone in this building except for my suitemates (and one of them is a moron too). Anyone who is too stupid to know to keep their door shut when they cook in the middle of the night so as not to make EVERYONE in the building have to go outside, doesn't deserve to breed. Most of the people in this building are good arguments for mandatory sterilization.

3 weeks to go.

2005-03-28T20:47:00.001-05:00

The search continues

2005-03-28T20:47:00.000-05:00

As the title implies, I have not yet found a permanent job. However, my current boss is trying to entice me to stay here until I do (for those who don't know, I presently work for a cell phone dealership, just something to make a bit of money while I'm in school). He's offering me a cheap apartment on a month to month basis, and told me to do some number crunching to figure out how much of a raise and how many hours I'd need to pull it off. He said he understands I'd be looking for permanent work and may leave anytime. He just wants me to stay and work for him until then, rather than let me go home to Nova Scotia and work a crap job there.

It's quite the generous offer, and it's very nice to know I have a back up plan. That said, I really don't fancy the idea of staying in Lindsay. There's not really anything to do here, and all my friends are far away. If I went home and worked in retail there, I could at least live with mom and save a lot of money that way (and by save, I mean make extra payments on my line of credit). I'd also be closer to some of my friends and family. The downside is that I'd be far, far away from my boyfriend, which is very bad. I also like the idea of having my own apartment (no offense mom! I love you lots, but I'm kind of getting antsy to not live at home anymore).

The alternative I really want, if I must take a temporary job while I seek real employment, is to return to the field crew I've worked on before in New York. Watertown is a yucky place to live, but I'd be close to the boy, still semi-close to Toronto (that's where my best friend will be this summer), close to Kingston where some of my other good friends are, and I would have my own place. Most importantly, I'd be working on archaeology, which is my real love. Work related to the field I want to be in is infinitely greater than a retail job.

So, in an effort to arrange this, I emailed my old boss from NY today. I explained the situation to her, and hopefully she'll get back to me in a day or two telling me they'd love for me to come back. I also called my old land lord tonight, to see if he had any apartments available. He was a good landlord when I was there before, his apartments were a great price, and he rents on a month to month basis, which is a must. From what he told me about the housing situation in Watertown right now, it's a good thing I called. It's apparently a mess there right now. But anyways, he thinks he could have one ready for me. He told me to call him when I know for sure if I'm coming back, and we can work out the details then. So that looks promising anyways, just need to wait and see what my old boss says.

That's the highlights of the job hunt right now. I can't even seem to get an interview with anything I've applied to. It's getting depressing. All the jobs in Canada require qualifications I don't have, and all the jobs in the US don't seem to want to consider hiring a foreigner. I'm really hoping that if I can go back to NY, the fact that I'm already working in the US will help me get some interviews there. Time will tell. Wish me luck!

Seismic Disco!

2005-03-23T20:34:00.000-05:00

So I was job hunting today, as per normal. One of the sites I check is GISjobs.com, and they had an interesting posting today. The job title is "Disco Seismic Processing Development."

That job title makes sense if you leave out the disco part. All I can picture is a bunch of geologists with expensive monitoring equipment hanging around a dance floor measuring vibrations from the bass. It makes me giggle.

/sigh

2005-03-22T23:31:00.000-05:00

Greetings all, sorry I've been neglecting you. Life has been lacking in inspiration these days. School is hectic, and I'm beginning to feel a bit burned out. On top of that, residence is making me want to kill people. It's been hard to think of something to write about.

In the few creative spurts I've had, I've managed to get a bit more work done on the story in my head. It's building up nicely in my brain, but it still doesn't seem quite ready to come to paper yet. I've written the opening scene, but I didn't get very far when I tried to go beyond that point last night. As far as writing goes, I usually have to let things stew in my brain for quite some time before I can actually write it. It will come when it's ready.

In other news, my job hunt continues. This is week 11 of 16 in my course. I've been applying for jobs since January, and I have yet to get an interview. It's getting a little depressing, and a bit scary too. Home for me is Nova Scotia...if I don't have a job lined up when I graduate here in Ontario, I'm going to have to return home. Now don't get me wrong, I love my home and wouldn't mind going back. That said, the job market there is less than stellar, and chances are I'd end up having to move somewhere else when I do find a job. This is inconvenient anyways, but the expense of having to do that is what gets me. It would be much easier, and cheaper, if I could just move to a job site directly from school at the end of April. My bank account would definitely like cheaper right now.

I've decided to give it to the end of this week. If I don't have anything by then, I'm going to speak to my old boss, Meg, in New York. I worked on an archaeological field crew there for two summers, and I'm in good standing with them. They're pretty flexible and easy going, so I'm hoping that if they still have room on the crew, they'd be willing to take me back even though it might be temporary (i.e. if I find a permanent job, it's just summer work there). They've always been understanding, and I think they'd be ok with that as long as I'm up front about it. I like the crew there, they've been good to me. I wouldn't want to mislead them and commit to a 6 month stay, and then quit in the middle because I found something else.

On the off chance that there are any appropriate employers reading this, I'm an archaeologist and geographer, with a background in prehistoric archaeology and geographic information systems (GIS). I'm more than happy to work in either of those fields, and to combine the two would be my dream job. Please feel free to leave a comment here with contact information if you think you have a position I could fill, or send me an email to the address in my profile.

Hey, it can't hurt, right?

Happy day!

2005-03-16T23:25:00.000-05:00

I'm just posting a slightly early happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone! I'm posting it early because Saint Patty's day is also my birthday, and I will be out with my friends and roomates :)

I hope everyone enjoys their green beer (though that thought of that makes me gag, lol), and kiss lots of Irish people. Have fun!

My story continues

2005-03-13T22:14:00.000-05:00

The story I mentioned a few posts back has grown again. Tonight I wrote what I believe is the opening scene for it. I'm nervous and excited. Excited because I feel like I'm writing something significant, for the first time in a long time. Nervous because I'm afraid that after talking about it so much, I'll end up abandoning it, and looking silly. Ah well, I've already talked about it here twice, so I might as well continue, eh?

I find writing to be an amazing, but often frustrating endeavour. I have no idea what it's like for other people, of course, but I find that an idea will sit in my head and gnaw at me until I get it out. However, it doesn't care how I go about getting it out. If I tell a friend what the plot I'm thinking of is, I will never write it, because the idea has already been expressed, just vocally. It's like the ideas are trapped in my mind, and as soon as they become free, they are gone forever. I have to be careful how I release them, so that they aren't lost permanently. For this reason you'll never see me discuss the actual plot of my story here. Until it is written, I must keep it trapped in my brain.

I'm finding myself wishing that I had taken creative writing classes at some point too. I feel that while my ideas are often good, my execution is often lacking, at least in my mind. I think I'm particularly bad at scene description, which is ironic considering the landscapes of my imagination are detailed to the blades of grass and the cracks in the stone walls. I just never convey my mental pictures well.

I'm still considering starting an actual website as well. Its main purpose would be to publish my writings, once I get a bit more done, to get some feedback and constructive critcism. However, I am completely unfamiliar with the complexities of internet copyrights. If I publish a story, or even part of it, does it become public domain because it's on the web? Or can I just write at the bottom that everything is "Copyright me, 2005, blah, blah", and that makes it so? Is there a copyright process I must engage in before I can write the copyright bit on the bottom of my page? I should probably look into that kind of thing. If anyone knows a good site with an outline or summary of internet copyrights, I'd be appreciative.

Biodiesel!

2005-03-12T22:46:00.000-05:00

I think this is awesome. As a girl who has quite strongly desired to have a hybrid car when possible, for environmental reasons, this is a very welcome discovery. In this age of incredible science, there is no excuse for the slow movement forward in finding alternative energy sources. Kudos to this company for creating an alternative, and to Willie Nelson for offering what publicity his name holds. I found this link on the blog of the Practical Hippie, and thought I should repost it to offer what small publicity my blog affords.

This has also served to remind me of the music of my childhood. My parents listened to nothing but country, and I grew up on some of the older stuff. I recall some Willie Nelson songs I liked...I should find some copies of them. And maybe some of the old Statler Brothers. I loved the Statler Brothers. I hate new country, but some of the older stuff was wonderful. I've got some Johnny Cash, but that's it right now. I should work on expanding that area of my music collection.

I am much amused and pleased by the title of "Practical Hippie". My boyfriend jokes and calls me a hippy sometimes. I definitely have hippy leanings, but if I had thought of the phrase first, I think I would have liked to have been considered a practical hippy. I did not think of the phrase first though, so I won't try to claim it ;) I still think the best title I've ever been given was "Queen of the Harpies". I was called this by a guy who didn't really like me much, and he certainly didn't mean it as a compliment. However, it appealed to my imagination, and I was very entertained with the idea of having an army of harpies at my bidding. That would be kind of cool. So I took the title with pleasure, which I think only annoyed that guy more.

Sad events

2005-03-09T16:54:00.000-05:00

A little while ago I made a post about why I don't drink or do drugs. I also said in it that I don't generally have a problem with other people doing them, as I feel everyone is free to make their own choices.

I still believe that, but a recent event has been troubling me. This article has the details. While my moral issues with marijuana are less than those with other drugs, I think this shows that a serious price may have been paid for the joint you're smoking.

Some people have said that this tragedy is an argument in favor of legalization. I won't say it isn't. Fight for legalization to your heart's content, but until it is legal, you should stop and think about what your purchase of weed has supported, and possibly contributed to.

I'm sorry to preach, I usually try to avoid that, but this horrid event has touched me and I could not ignore it.

I am very impressed

2005-03-08T19:52:00.000-05:00

The story I posted about yesterday is continuing to grow. Last night I was inspired to write a legend for the world I am creating. The thing I am very impressed with is that I finished it. That's the first story I've finished in years. So now my world has a legend, and is a little closer to being complete. I am pleased.

There is a story in my head

2005-03-07T19:34:00.000-05:00

It has been there for a few weeks now. I'm impressed by it's tenacity, and its slow but steady growth.

I used to write a lot when I was younger. I wrote a lot of short stories, most of them bad, though I didn't realize that at the time. I love to read, and love to write, and I used to think to myself that maybe I would be a writer someday. As I've gotten older though, the stories in my head have been few and far between. I am also tormented by being able to start stories, but never being able to finish them. They always start out so well, but just kind of taper off as I lose where I thought I was going with them. The great literary visions in my head never seem to translate well to actual writing.

I have, recently, had a bit more inspiration than I have in a while. I haven't actually finished any stories, but I've started more of them in the last few months than I had in the last few years previously. I'm pleased with this, as I enjoy writing. This blog is at least partly a reflection of my desire to write, and have people read what I write.

The story in my head right now is bigger than most of the little inspirations that come to me. At random times in the day a new idea will come to me. My subconscious is thinking up a world, putting people in it and writing its history and mythology. It is still very sketchy and there are huge gaps in it, but I'm liking it so far. I hope this story continues to grow in my head, and I hope even more that it eventually makes it to paper.

I have returned

2005-03-06T20:40:00.000-05:00

Spring break is over (*sob*) and tomorrow I go back to the grind. I'm back in res, my boy having driven me home again. It was snowing and really yucky for a while there. Thankfully, my boyfriend is a wonderful driver, and we got home safe, with my internal panicking kept to a minimum.

In case anyone was wondering "But did she get to drive??", no, I did not. My boy was feeling well enough to make the whole trip. I'm ok with that though, because he's a much better driver than me, and the more I thought about it, the more I was nervous about doing it. I'm never comfortable with the thought of driving other people's cars (which is ironic, because I've never had my own car, and have only driven other people's cars).

We went snowboarding yesterday, and the peasants rejoiced. I haven't been boarding for years, and I missed it. I am very sore today, but it's a good kind of sore. My boyfriend had never been snowboarding before. He sprained his thumb, but he says he'd go again anyways, so that's something.

It was good to have a week off. I'm not really sad to be back here with class imminent, but I can't say I really missed it either. Ah well, the semester is almost over. Maybe real life will start someday soon. I look forward to that.

Finally

2005-02-25T21:40:00.000-05:00

So midterms are done, spring break is here (though it hardly feels like spring). I have to work tomorrow, but my boyfriend is coming up from NY to get me, and we're going back to his place on Sunday. I will be gone for a week, and I will be happy to say goodbye to residence for a while. I will be even happier to have a week with the boy. Such extended periods of being together are rare, and I love it when they happen.

His car is a standard, which I can't drive (yes, I know, how gimp of me). He's driving his parents Jeep up here though, because it's automatic. He hasn't been feeling well, and this will mean I can drive for a while if he's tired or not feeling well. I'm a bit nervous about this. I have my license, but I've never owned a car, or had regular access to one. I don't drive very often at all, and do highway driving even less. I love to drive though, so I'm excited. I just don't have the comfort level of someone who drives frequently.

We will also be stopping in Kingston on the way to NY to visit a friend of mine from back home. He's in Kingston for school. I haven't seen him since Christmas, so that will be fun. We're just meeting for lunch, but it will be good to see him, and good to have a break in the drive. It's about 6 hours from here to my boy's place, and Kingston is roughly in the middle (though it's closer to here).

I am so happy about being on break. Not that I don't have work to do over the break, but at least I'll be somewhere other than residence or the computer lab. Res is driving me mad lately. There's too many stupid people here, the kind that shouldn't be allowed to breed. I'm usually a pretty tolerant person, and a pretty happy one, but the people in res have been causing me to be in a constant bad mood when I'm here. I'm not pleased about that at all, and getting away for a week will be wonderful, and much needed.

I'll probably still get in a post or two over the break, but I will be away. So, for the few people who read this, have a great week, and I promise I'll be back and posting when I can :)

I am extremely amused...

2005-02-21T18:21:00.000-05:00

...by the fact that I wrote a post about why I *don't* drink or do drugs, and now my Google ads are showing addiction support centers.

An explanation of my behaviour

2005-02-20T12:33:00.000-05:00

So I actually got to go out last night and pretend I have a life. Me and one of my roomates were going to go bowling with some friends from school. The bowling alley turned out to be packed (you know you're living in a small town when all the kids are bowling on a Saturday night), so we ended up going to a pub instead, and just hanging out and chatting, telling wild stories of our youth.

Now, I don't drink, or do any drugs. I never have. So, when we're sitting around telling stories of what happened while we were drunk or stoned, I don't have much more to contribute than what I've seen my friends do. I'm perfectly fine with that, but there are invariably the questions of why I don't partake in these things, and comments about how sure everyone is that I'd love it if I did.

You'd be surprised at how subtley socially unacceptable it is not to drink. I'm pretty sure people who don't know me well assume I refuse alcohol because I'm a recovering alcoholic. My mother asked me before if I had had some kind of traumatic experience with it and that's why I won't touch it. I think my sister just thinks I'm weird (kidding Jacki, love you!). People have a hard time with the idea that I just don't want to. So, I figured I'd post a bit about why I don't drink, and why I'm happy with that, and why I don't ever intend to be drunk or stoned.

Back in junior high, when all my friends were starting to experiment with alcohol and drugs, I didn't have any moral/philosophical reason for not joining in. I didn't because I was pretty sure mom and dad would kill me if they caught me. I was a very paranoid kid, with a worst-case scenario imagination. I was convinced that if I did get experiment, I would certainly get caught. And I usually figured it wouldn't be by my parents, but by the cops, and I'd get a criminal record and I'd never get a job and my life would be ruined. That was how I thought back then (and still do, sometimes, but I've gotten it a bit more under control).

So I get to high school. I've relaxed a bit now, and realized that getting caught drunk underage/stoned is not the life destroying thing I thought it was in junior high. However, by this point all my friends know that I've made a point not to ever touch the stuff. Through high school and most of university, it was more a point of pride, than anything. I had told everyone up to this point that I just didn't want to do it, and I felt incredibly self conscious that if I went back on that now, I'd look like I gave in to peer pressure, and that would be devastating in my mind. I had the self esteem issues most teenage girls suffer from, and I couldn't bear the thought that I'd look weak, that my principles were so flimsy as to succumb to peer pressure. Honestly, it was sort of a reverse peer pressure.

Then we come to my last 2 years of university up to the present. There were some major changes in my life then, some traumatic, some just life-altering. I spent a lot of that time in deep thought and self-analysis, and more than a bit of it in depression. Something I became very, very aware of during this time were the choices I made. Every little thing I did, I felt the possibilities and the resulting consequences of, and how they could echo through every subsequent thing I did, and every life I touch. I was hyper-aware of what went on around me, and how it was ultimately me that decided how my life went, not all the things I blamed and considered out of my control.

It was at this point that I made a conscious decision about drinking and drugs. Having realized how important my decisions are, I decided that I wanted to be able to look back at my life 10, 25, 50 years from now and be able to say "Maybe I didn't always do the right thing, but every choice I made was my own." I never want to look back and say "That was the alcohol talking" or "I only did that because I was high at the time". I am responsible for my life, and I want to take that seriously. My choices are my own, and the consequences are mine too.

I am not perfect by any means. I have been tempted to just give in. I blame other people for things that are ultimately my fault sometimes. I don't always think before I act, and I make stupid choices. I'm not always aware anymore of the consequences of what I do. That hyper-awareness I had is not usually with me anymore.

I want to make it clear that I do not mean to preach here. My friends, family and my boyfriend all drink occasionally. Some of my friends smoke a joint from time to time. I am ok with this. I don't think anyone is less of a good person for doing so. I have had many a good time and a good laugh with my friends when they've been drinking, and I'm fine with that. Much as I've made a choice, they have made choices too. They are content with the way the do things, and I am happy to accept that the choice that is right for me is not the choice for them. Everyone is different in how they think and live, and that is a beautiful thing that makes life worthwhile. It's just something I know a lot of people close to me, and some not so close, have wondered, and I felt it was time I gave a clear, complete explanation.

And that is why I don't drink or do any drugs.

Good bye Visual Basic!

2005-02-18T14:53:00.000-05:00

The project is done! Victory is mine!

I am a very happy girl, obviously. That project was hell on wheels. I can honestly say I know a whole lot more VB though, which is a good thing. I now feel confident in my ability to pass the practical exam, and probably pass it with very good marks.

In other news, my hunt for a job after graduation continues. For any out of work archaeologists out there, I found another nice job site, Archaeologyfieldwork.com. It's a message board where the webmaster just posts every job she finds or is sent to her. There's also a forum to post your resume for potential employers. I'm listed on there now, yay :)

And for you non-archaeologists, here's a fun site for you to check out: the Politcal Compass. I am a leftist libertarian. This was not surprising to me in any way. My boyfriend likes to call me a hippie sometimes to tease me, but I just remind him I don't do any drugs, and I bathe regularly (disclaimer: this is a joke! I don't really think that hippies are all dirty pot-heads). But yeah, that site is fun. There are a lot of really thought provoking questions on it really. Good site overall.

And finally, happy Friday everyone! Yay for that happiest of days, when work is done, and the whole weekend is still yet to come. I hope everyone has many wonderful adventures in their time off.

Glorious freedom!

2005-02-17T17:18:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm not totally free of VB yet. However, I did finish questions 4 and 5 of 6, today, so I feel that I'm ahead of schedule. I've been trying to do one question a day. Seeing as I'm ahead of that, I'm not going to the lab tonight. Yay!

Now to figure out what I'm going to do with my freedom...

Now I can put VB away for a while

2005-02-15T22:46:00.000-05:00

I now have 2.5 of 6 questions done on my Visual Basic assignment. I am happy. Not only that, but I think I have the third question totally figured out. We'll see when I actually try to code it tomorrow. I'm sure that will be an adventure.

I think that if not for yoga, I wouldn't have gotten much done tonight. Yoga is quickly becoming the highlight of my week. I'm so busy with school work, and tired and stressed from it, that I never go to the gym or go swimming lately. I'm either in the lab, or at home being too tired and stressed to want to do anything. Yoga is nice because since it's a scheduled class that I'm paying for, I'll go no matter how I feel. So it's nice just to get out for a bit, but yoga is also just good for destressing and relaxing a bit. It gave me a great little refresher so I could go back to the lab tonight and focus enough to get work done. This is a very good thing. For anyone reading this that is feeling tired and stressed all the time, I really recommend looking into a yoga class. It's not at all what I expected it to be when I started, and it's wonderful.

I think that if my third question works out as well as I have it planned in my head, I should get home relatively early. If I do, I think I will make some phone calls home and to friends. I've been really out of touch the last couple weeks. If any of you guys are reading this, I promise I'll be in touch soon, I'm just swamped right now.

If it's not VB, I can't think about it

2005-02-15T15:10:00.000-05:00

There is no room for anything in my head right now but Visual Basic. I have a huge assignment due on Monday, and I have 1.5 of 6 questions done. I wake up in the morning thinking about VB. I spend all day thinking about and/or typing out VB. I go to sleep thinking about VB. One of my classmates is literally having nightmares about VB. I haven't reached that point yet, and for this I am thankful. I think it might not be far off though. Hopefully yoga this afternoon will let me clear my head of VB for a little while at least.

Two more weeks til spring break. I can't wait! I get to go to New York and stay with my boyfriend for a week. That will be nice, and relaxing. He's still in class, so I can veg during the day, and see my boy the rest of the time. We're going to play some raquetball and try to go snowboarding too! I'm very excited about that. It's been like 4 years since I've been snowboarding, and every winter I pine for it. I love it so much, but it's pretty much impossible to go when you have no car and the hills are far away. If you've never tried snowboarding, I highly recommend it, it's a blast.

Just wanted to post a little update for now. Hopefully something interesting will happen later tonight and I can make a better post. Later!

And the dragon comes in the niiiiiiiiight!

2005-02-11T23:30:00.000-05:00

If you haven't checked out my link to Homestarrunner to see StrongBad's emails, you really should. I just checked the site to see a new video, the Peasant's Quest Trailer. That's comedy gold (but only if you've seen the StrongBad email about Trogdor, and the Peasant's Quest game...so do that!). As much as I love Trogdor though, the guitar email is my favorite one, by far. I fall out of my chair at much the same time StrongBad does. Man I love the emails.

Another good site is True Porn Clerk Stories. It's not what it sounds like. It's the blog of a woman who was a clerk in a video store, and her experiences there, mostly in regards to people renting porn. It's really funny, and anyone who's worked in any kind of retail can really sympathize with it, even if you've never done that particular line of work. Definitely good reading.

arg!

2005-02-10T21:59:00.000-05:00

School is killing me right now. I go in early to work, I go back in the evening to work. When I was going back in a couple days ago, I passed one of my classmates in the hall. His greeting was "Welcome home". It's certainly starting to feel that way. Residence is just where I come to sleep and shower, and occaisionally eat. So, my apologies for the lack of updates this week.

The constant school work certainly makes life dull. I don't have much of a life. And joy of joys, I don't have to go to the lab tomorrow, but that's because I'm working all day. Even better, after my 8 hour shift I have a 2 hour staff meeting from 7-9pm. That's a fun way to spend a Friday night. I can't even imagine what we have to talk about for 2 hours that is so important it had to happen Friday. I can't imagine what we have to talk about for 2 hours at all, important or not.

So in the bit of spare time I do have, I've still been thinking about getting a proper website of my own. Can anyone recommend a good, free place to get webspace? I know that anywhere free is going to require I have ads on my page, but is there anywhere that the ads are relatively unobtrusive (i.e. especially no popups...banners I can deal with, popups are the devil). Recommendations are appreciated :)

Back to the grind

2005-02-07T21:59:00.000-05:00

My boy went home this morning, so it's back to the lab for me. Ah well, it was wonderful to see him. I seem to have jinxed him with my last post though, as the border guards did give him trouble. Next time I'll be sure not to mention anything. They made him pay duty on a late Christmas present, which sucks.

The present in question is a beautiful stone inlaid globe, which he bought for me in Grand Cayman on our cruise. I've wanted one forever, and they were a steal there. It took a few weeks to get shipped to him, that's why he was only bringing it now. It looks like this, only the stand on mine is silver. The stone types vary of course too. I think it's gorgeous.

I adore maps and globes. I suppose this makes sense considering I have a degree in geography and I'm doing GIS now. My dorm room has two big maps on the walls, and now I have my globe. I also have one of those wonderful books of pictures of the earth from space (this one). That was another present from my boyfriend, he spoils me rotten.

I love satellite photos of the earth, they're so beautiful. They remind me of what a treasure we have in this planet. At the same time, they serve as a reminder of the impact of what we do. It's incredible to see an aerial view of things like the perfect geometry of farmer's fields, or the spiderwebs of roads and highways. The planet is so large, and our viewpoint so limited, that it's easy to think that what we do doesn't affect much, but the satellite imagery shows just how much land we've affected, and how few untouched areas there are. I find it very humbling, and it reminds me that we have to be careful because our planet's resources are not unlimited, nor is her capacity for recovery.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

2005-02-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

It really is. Lovely weather out today, you could almost believe that spring isn't that far away. However, I live in Canada, and I know that's impossible. Spring comes in April, if we're lucky. Ah well, today is still beautiful, and that's a good thing.

I am very happy today. My boy is on his way to see me. He should be here in roughly four hours. Yay :) I have to say, if a long distance relationship is good for no other reason, it sure makes the time you do get to have together special. I haven't seen him since he brought me back from Christmas to start class again...January 10, not that I'm counting :P Ah well, he'll be here soon.

Of course, this means I have to get my room cleaned up. I don't mind that however. Being in a good mood makes cleaning fun. I'm not generally a neat freak, and I'm pretty lazy, but if I get in a good mood with some upbeat music, I'll dance around and sing and clean, and it doesn't bother me a bit. It's pretty fun really, and with the dancing around, it can be a pretty good cardio workout.

I hope the border guards don't give him a hard time today. They once made him pull over and have the car completely searched because he was bringing me a bookcase. Apparently the fact that he was leaving it here made it completely suspicious. It was a $20 pressed-wood bookcase from Walmart. The back of it is cardboard, for goodness sake. But they apparently thought he was trying to smuggle drugs or something in it, and searched it and his car. They also made him pay duty on it, which is ridiculous considering you get like $50 duty free or something. They basically told him to ignore that fact, and pay the $2.50. What can you do? It's the border guards. You do what they say, or you don't get in.

Ah well, even if they do search his car, he'll still be here in a couple hours. The sun is shining, it's nice and warm. Life is good. Time to put on some music and clean.

Time flies....

2005-02-02T23:03:00.000-05:00

I just realized that I've had my blog for a week now. I'm quite pleased by this. While I recognize that this is hardly indicative of a long term commitment to my blog, it means I do not have one of those blogs that has one little post that says "This is the first post of my blog, hope you like it", or somesuch, and was posted months ago and never touched again.

I feel sorry for those blogs. Poor things, they had so much potential, but it was never to be realized. Not that mine is probably being used to it's greatest capacity. But hey, at least I'm not ignoring it. Maybe my blog will be like my bonsai...just a little sprout now, cute but not mature. Give it a while to grow, and maybe it will look like something.

I can only hope.

I can't think of a good title

2005-02-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

Titles are always the hardest part. Although I have to admit I'm hard pressed to find something to post about at the moment. All I've done the last couple days is work in the lab at school, and then come home and play video games or read. Exciting times.

I did have my second yoga class yesterday. Yoga is fun, but it hurts the next day. My hamstrings are not very flexible or stretchy, I've learned. One would hope that yoga will fix that. My boyfriend assures me that that is the case. I trust him, he knows stuff (and has been taking yoga for a few months now).

Speaking of boy, I'm hoping to see him this weekend. We had been planning on last weekend, but it didn't work out because of the weather. It's looking more promising for this weekend, though I did have to entice him with promises that he'd be allowed to watch the Superbowl. Aah, the Superbowl. The day that girlfriends and wives everywhere become football widows. My boyfriend is in a whole other world when football is on. It's kind of cute, and it means I can play video games guilt free (I'm an addict). So really, everyone wins. And that's always good.

Fun with lectures!

2005-01-31T14:05:00.000-05:00

So I just got out of class. As I mentioned in my first post, I'm taking a program in GIS. In the class I had today we were talking about networking, which is looking at things like traffic flow, figuring out shortest routes between points, that kind of stuff. Now, something to keep in mind here is that I'm a complete simpleton. I'm very easily amused and laugh at just about anything.

So my prof is talking about networking, and mentions that one application creates a file with a ".sec" extension. And then she says that yes, if you make an index of that file, the index extension is ".sex". I find this amusing. But then, my brain takes it a step further. What if you were doing a network of traffic, and the file was called "car"? You'd index it and get "car.sex". Or even better, what if it was a network of telephone lines, called "phone"? The index would be "phone.sex"!

It was all I could do not to crack up in the middle of lecture. I had to cover my mouth to stifle the giggling. I can never, ever work in networking, because I'd be manipulating file names on purpose.

Then, she starts talking about the kind of data you need to have to do a network. One of things needed is a table showing what kind of turn can be made at a given intersection (like right on red, whether or not there's a flashing green, that kind of stuff). This table is, of course, called the turntable. So now she's talking about turntables and I get "Where It's At" by Beck stuck in my head ("I've got two turntables and a microphone").

The end result is me thinking about "Where It's At" combined with "phone.sex". It was too much, I barely made it out of class alive. Yes, I'm a geek, and yes, I have too much imagination and not enough to do. It was fun :)

Whatever your feelings...

2005-01-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

....on how things have been handled in Iraq, I think we should all send our hopes out that the results of their first election in 50 years prove to be fair, and spare a thought for those who were killed trying to vote. They may not be soldiers, but they were killed for freedom, and are no less heros. I truly hope some good can come of the pain endured by everyone involved there.

I have been blessed!

2005-01-29T17:30:00.000-05:00

By none other than God himself. I love his blog, it just proves my long-held opinion that God is a lot more fun than the Bible would have you believe ;)

All in all, it's been a pretty good day. It was relatively warm again today, which is always happy. I also got an increase in my hours at work (which is good considering that my income was going to be in the negative otherwise). And, joy of joys, when I came home I found that the Japanese black pine seed I had planted has sprouted! Someday, it's going to grow up into a beautiful bonsai (assuming I learn to do it properly. This site has some lovely pictures that have made me want to pursue learning how to do bonsai, so I bought a kit to start with, and we'll see how it turns out. It will take several years apparently, which is understandable, but I love plants, so I'm sure it will be worth it. Even if the bonsai doesn't work out, I'll have a pretty little tree to plant in my yard.

I am also quite pleased that it is day 5 of the blog, and I have posted daily. And I still love to post. Now I just need an audience to appreciate my havering. 2 points to anyone who knows what havering means without looking it up! Not that I can prove whether you looked it up or not, but 2 points anyways! In the immortal words of The Proclaimers, as interpreted by Less Than Jake, "And if I haver, whatever the fuck that means, I'm gonna be the [wo]man who havers next to you!"

I love that song.

Yay it's Friday!

2005-01-28T14:12:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday everyone. I'm not sure why I like Friday so much, because sure, class is done, but I have to go to my job tomorrow, and I'll end up in the lab doing assignments Sunday, if not tomorrow night as well. Ah well, I like it anyways. Probably because I can do whatever I want tonight. 4 out of my 5 roomates will be gone, everyone else in residence will be drunk or stoned, so I can have my music blasting for once (I generally don't out of consideration of my roomates, but I love having my music loud so I can sing and not notice how bad I sound). Blasting my music is a rare treat, and I intend to take advantage of it.

The weather finally warmed a little here. For the last two weeks, most days have been at least -20 celcius. Today is a balmy -9. I miss Halifax. Sure, we get really cold days too, and right now they've got about 60cm of snow, but snow I can deal with. Temperatures of -20 and lower are the devil.

It would help if it would at least be warm inside, but they don't seem to allow heat in residence. We have this thing that has a temperature gauge and blows air around, but no matter what temperature you set it to, the temperature of the air it blows around never changes. I feel very strongly that if I'm inside, fully dressed, with a sweater, that I should not be shivering. That has been the case way too many days in the last two weeks. I guess they figure that if they aren't going to charge us for electricity, they aren't going to let us crank the heat. /sigh

I can't wait for spring.

If you post it, they will come

2005-01-27T13:22:00.000-05:00

Or so it seems.

The third day of my much-loved blog has produced my first email. I posted an email address in my profile and said if you ask me stuff, I'll post about it. I suppose that was kind of a general thing to do, and probably asking for trouble if I'm not careful, but hey, I'm a big girl, and can pick and choose what I talk about.

So I got my first such email today. It was from a person from Pakistan, and the question was very general: "What do I think of people from Pakistan?" I was surprised by this question, but then when I thought about it, I was very general in asking for questions and topics, so I tried to think of an answer. I like to consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, and was upset to find that I really don't know a thing about Pakistan at all.

So, I went to one of my new favorite info sites, Wikipedia,and read what they knew about it. From my readings, it seems to me that Pakistan has had a troubled past, but are making steps in the right direction, and that is a good thing. I particularly like how the nation got it's name (this link will tell you more).

While I learned a bit today (and that is always a fantastic thing!), I can't say that article really does anything to give me an impression of the people themselves. As far as that goes, I think people are people, no matter where they are from. I try not to say that I like or dislike any specific group of people, as I think that sells individuality short. A person may be from Pakistan, Canada, England, China, wherever, but that is only a facet of who that person is. An opinion of that person should be based on more than that.

So what do I think of people from Pakistan? I think they are human beings, and as such are entitled to the rights and opportunities of every human. I thank that particular writer for the incentive to learn a little more, and think about an interesting question :)

Ok, now that I have an answer...

2005-01-26T23:01:00.000-05:00

My thanks for the response to my last post! It's good to know it's ok to post links.

So now that I know that, I think every should go here and write comments to support this guy. And thanks for the return comment, Mick! The anonymous poster before you is actually one of my roomates here in residence. She didn't bother registering because I knew it was her. Oh, and I have no problem with you imitating my blog, it's not like I came up with the template or idea myself ;) And if you do write about other things, you should still keep us posted on the quitting.

Quick question

2005-01-26T21:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm becoming addicted to clicking the little "Next Blog" button up in the right hand corner, and seeing what's out there. I'm still pretty new to this blogging thing, and my question is this: Is it ok to link to other people's blogs?

Like, if I see something I enjoy, is it ok to put a little post saying "hey, you should check this blog out" and link it? Or do I need to ask permission of the site owner first? Sorry for being a newbie.

I love getting groceries

2005-01-26T19:07:00.000-05:00

I really do. Getting groceries has always been one of my favorite things, even when I was a kid. I just got back from getting groceries, and it makes me happy.

I lived in New York for a while (I had a job there), and my boyfriend would come over on the weekends. I'd always get him to take me grocery shopping. It would be one of the first things we'd do when he got there. The only thing that makes grocery shopping better, is grocery shopping with my boy. I think it maybe because it's such a cute little domestic thing to do. I hate cooking, but walking through the grocery store with him, I can think of nothing but how fun it will be to go home and put the groceries away and then make dinner, either together, or just me cooking for him. I am not usually the domestic type, but grocery shopping makes me silly.

................................

I am having a lot of fun with this blog so far. I spent all last night figuring out how to add things to it. Now I've got my little quote at the top, my current favorite word at the bottom, and my list of links on the side. I'm so pleased. I keep checking my email to see if anyone has emailed me something to talk about yet too, which is silly because this is only day two. It's highly unlikely I have a fanbase yet (if ever). Ah well, it's amusing me, and I love to be amused.

I should tell you some more stuff about me, as nothing really interesting happened today to speak of. I'm a vegetarian, bet you didn't know that. I don't have any moral problem with eating animals, and I don't freak out if my food was cooked in the same pan as meat, or if someone with me is eating meat. That said, I do have some problems with how animals are often treated, but I'm not here to preach about that. I just don't want all the chemicals, antibiotics and hormones they pump into the animals these days. If I could get organic meat at reasonable prices, I'd eat it. And yes, I realize there's a lot of chemicals and such that vegetables get sprayed with too. It's mostly a case of extent, and I have to draw a line somewhere. I feel like not eating meat is the lesser evil. It's a personal choice though, I promise I'm not judging anyone who eats meat. Your body, your choice, that's how I feel about it.

I feel that way about most things. I think that as long as you're not hurting anyone else, you're free to do as you wish. My sister used to say the Golden Rule is "Don't be dumb." I feel like that's a good philosophy. Don't hurt anyone else, don't be dumb. Words to live by.

And so it begins...

2005-01-25T14:17:00.000-05:00

I've never been good at keeping a journal.

I've tried many times, and it always looks so good at first. I'll write every day, maybe every other day if I'm really busy, but it always starts tapering off after a month or so, and by the end of two months I'm not even trying to fool myself into thinking that I'll write in it tomorrow. But, like everyone who has big plans but are inherently lazy, I keep trying every time I get a fit of inspiration. So here I am (and hopefully, here you are to read) starting another journal-type thing.

My present urge to write and create comes from the fact that I am learning HTML in one of my classes, and felt it would be fun to have my own website. However, I know that I don't know enough HTML (or any other programming language) to make anything worth looking at. It also probably wouldn't amount to anything more than me thinking out loud. So I decided to try a blog, where it seems thinking out loud is encouraged.

As the title of this blog probably implies, I don't really have a set subject that I intend to expound upon. I figured I'd start blogging first, and see where it takes me. My sister had one of these for a while, and it looked fun. She seems to be like me though, and has since abandoned it.

I guess I should start out by telling you a bit about me. My name's Erin, I'm 25. I live in Ontario, but I'm from Nova Scotia. I'm here going to school, and I live in residence. I'm in a post-grad program in GIS Applications Specialist (I linked GIS because no one ever seems to know what it is). I have a bachelor's in Honors Anthropology and Geography. Ultimately, I want to do GIS within archaeology.

As I mentioned, I have a sister. My parents are divorced. My dad has remarried, and mom is living with her boyfriend. I am not so lucky, and my boyfriend lives far away. He's American, and lives in upstate New York. Border guards have a hard time with the idea that a Canadian is dating an American. They always like to ask us how we met when he brings me to his place. Non-border guards have less of a hard time with this concept, but they always ask "Isn't long distance hard?" Yes, it is. It's worth it though. My boy is great and I wouldn't trade him for anyone.

Well, that's me in a nutshell (I can never say that without thinking of Mike Myers as Wayne and being amused...which is probably exactly why I say it). We'll know in two months whether I can keep this up or not.