Friday, October 31, 2008
Latest updates
Aiight, here's the latest
Tercel Of Love is back in Ottawa: It was wonderful having the Tercel for the summer. She's still in terrific shape, and is all the car anyone could ask for. Twas especially handy having her around while wedding venue hunting. Parents are back in Ottawa for the winter, and retrieve Betsy last weekend. Laura's 'rents and my folks have now met twice. So far, so good.
CN tower climb...again Two weeks ago I did my second ever CN tower stair climb. Beat last year's time by roughly a minute, pulling in at 18:25. Interestingly, the time to beat (set by my coworkers gf) was 18:25-- so tied right on the nose. One of the new guys at the office did 11 minutes, which is INSANE (the record for guys is around 8 minutes). Overall I was highly unimpressed with how it was organized, but still enjoyed doing it. Lowlight: having to wait outside in shorts and tshirt for 15 minutes in 8C weather. (You can't bring anything in the staircase with you, so you have to leave everything over in this other building first). Highlight: Bumping in to Jon Gardam at the bottom of the tower! (he was a tourist, not a climber)
Bowling: As part of "Entertainment Book Coupons Expiring Soon Coupon Blowout 2008", LT and I went bowling with 2 of our friends. i) Bowling really is fun. ii) Girl next to us had the absolutely worst 'technique' I've ever seen - literally sorta just dropping the ball from waist height - yet consistently got spares or strikes. iii) bowling is f'ing expensive, $40+ for the lane for one hour, INCLUDING
coupon. Other noteworthy coupons: Pizza Rustica, Montana, Quesada.
Bridge / Creme Brulee: Sara and Dave came over last night for dinner and bridge. Sara brought home made creme brulee for dessert, sugar torch included! Seriously fun times, and yummy! Both LT and I and Sara and Dave have "beginner" bridge skills - enough for us to play, but we're also not good enough for it to be too serious, which is a nice balance.
Giving blood: As part of last year's christmas donation celebration, Alison asked for me to get myself added to one of the registries for Blood Services. I instead agreed to donate blood as a middle ground compromise. However, it's consistently been on my Todo list, and hasn't yet gotten done. I DID however organize a group blood donation trip Nov 26th for my work peeps....there's 16 of us going, so that's gotta count for something! Note: this was remarkably difficult to organize and took more than a full hour of phone calls with blood services to sort out.
Squash w/ Kaiser: One of my buds from UW was in town today from Seattle (he's at Amazon with Deaner). Sadly, he beat me at squash. One of these days I'm going to beat SOMEBODY at squash.
Tercel Of Love is back in Ottawa: It was wonderful having the Tercel for the summer. She's still in terrific shape, and is all the car anyone could ask for. Twas especially handy having her around while wedding venue hunting. Parents are back in Ottawa for the winter, and retrieve Betsy last weekend. Laura's 'rents and my folks have now met twice. So far, so good.
CN tower climb...again Two weeks ago I did my second ever CN tower stair climb. Beat last year's time by roughly a minute, pulling in at 18:25. Interestingly, the time to beat (set by my coworkers gf) was 18:25-- so tied right on the nose. One of the new guys at the office did 11 minutes, which is INSANE (the record for guys is around 8 minutes). Overall I was highly unimpressed with how it was organized, but still enjoyed doing it. Lowlight: having to wait outside in shorts and tshirt for 15 minutes in 8C weather. (You can't bring anything in the staircase with you, so you have to leave everything over in this other building first). Highlight: Bumping in to Jon Gardam at the bottom of the tower! (he was a tourist, not a climber)
Bowling: As part of "Entertainment Book Coupons Expiring Soon Coupon Blowout 2008", LT and I went bowling with 2 of our friends. i) Bowling really is fun. ii) Girl next to us had the absolutely worst 'technique' I've ever seen - literally sorta just dropping the ball from waist height - yet consistently got spares or strikes. iii) bowling is f'ing expensive, $40+ for the lane for one hour, INCLUDING
coupon. Other noteworthy coupons: Pizza Rustica, Montana, Quesada.
Bridge / Creme Brulee: Sara and Dave came over last night for dinner and bridge. Sara brought home made creme brulee for dessert, sugar torch included! Seriously fun times, and yummy! Both LT and I and Sara and Dave have "beginner" bridge skills - enough for us to play, but we're also not good enough for it to be too serious, which is a nice balance.
Giving blood: As part of last year's christmas donation celebration, Alison asked for me to get myself added to one of the registries for Blood Services. I instead agreed to donate blood as a middle ground compromise. However, it's consistently been on my Todo list, and hasn't yet gotten done. I DID however organize a group blood donation trip Nov 26th for my work peeps....there's 16 of us going, so that's gotta count for something! Note: this was remarkably difficult to organize and took more than a full hour of phone calls with blood services to sort out.
Squash w/ Kaiser: One of my buds from UW was in town today from Seattle (he's at Amazon with Deaner). Sadly, he beat me at squash. One of these days I'm going to beat SOMEBODY at squash.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Finally, a break
Phew! I really do feel so relieved - the past 6 weeks atleast have been very go go go for me, and FINALLY things have calmed down a bit.
i) Several weekends ago we were at Krobert's cottage. This was truly good fun and the weather was terrific - we've got to make a point of getting together more often! Highlights - that holywood styles acting game. Learning Boggle. Finding out that tomatoes can be eaten like apples(thanks Dave!)
ii) I made a pre-thanksgiving dinner two weeks ago. Low key, but fun - I love making slash eating stuffing.
iii)Last weekend we were down in Minneapolis for a wedding (one of LT's university friends). Smaller wedding, but lots of fun. The cathedral they were married in was HUGE and gorgeous. Hung around until the Monday, and had fun being tourists. Also, had the best mexican food I've ever had in my life. Note: light rail / subway connection from the airport to downtown really is handy.
iv) This weekend was "Team Lead Training" - this is something I've been working on since August for work. Basically, Team Leads, not surprisingly, run teams. Teams execute projects. I'm a team lead. Unfortunately, there's a shortage of quality, experienced Team Leads at work, so we brought together 30 or so folks from Toronto, New York, Boston and Houston for training. It was a good dry run for planning a wedding - myself and one admin assistant had to figure out the guest list, who was coming, who wasn't, how to get people to / from the resort (www.hockley.com), get budget approval, figure out menus / wine, plan the 3 day curriculum, get speakers to agree to do sessions, and actually pull the whole thing off over the weekend. Was tons of fun and went really well,but I was totally exhausted by the end - I think I did about 6-8 hours of talking...including teaching all 30 people how to juggle!
v) Tercel of Love. Sadly, the summer has come to an end and my folks are back in ottawa. They'll be coming down to retrieve the Tercel Of Love next week. I feel like I should go out with a bang and drive EVERYWHERE this week.
i) Several weekends ago we were at Krobert's cottage. This was truly good fun and the weather was terrific - we've got to make a point of getting together more often! Highlights - that holywood styles acting game. Learning Boggle. Finding out that tomatoes can be eaten like apples(thanks Dave!)
ii) I made a pre-thanksgiving dinner two weeks ago. Low key, but fun - I love making slash eating stuffing.
iii)Last weekend we were down in Minneapolis for a wedding (one of LT's university friends). Smaller wedding, but lots of fun. The cathedral they were married in was HUGE and gorgeous. Hung around until the Monday, and had fun being tourists. Also, had the best mexican food I've ever had in my life. Note: light rail / subway connection from the airport to downtown really is handy.
iv) This weekend was "Team Lead Training" - this is something I've been working on since August for work. Basically, Team Leads, not surprisingly, run teams. Teams execute projects. I'm a team lead. Unfortunately, there's a shortage of quality, experienced Team Leads at work, so we brought together 30 or so folks from Toronto, New York, Boston and Houston for training. It was a good dry run for planning a wedding - myself and one admin assistant had to figure out the guest list, who was coming, who wasn't, how to get people to / from the resort (www.hockley.com), get budget approval, figure out menus / wine, plan the 3 day curriculum, get speakers to agree to do sessions, and actually pull the whole thing off over the weekend. Was tons of fun and went really well,but I was totally exhausted by the end - I think I did about 6-8 hours of talking...including teaching all 30 people how to juggle!
v) Tercel of Love. Sadly, the summer has come to an end and my folks are back in ottawa. They'll be coming down to retrieve the Tercel Of Love next week. I feel like I should go out with a bang and drive EVERYWHERE this week.
Labels: Tercel of Love
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Get out there and vote!
Not sure how many of you tuned in to the CBC this week to watch the 5 leaders go head to head. Was a very exciting matchup, and the anticipation had really been building for me.
Yes, that's right, the top 5 finalists in the Hockey Night in Canada theme song contest were announced on CBC last night - this really is a critical turning point in the history of this country. Arguably the effects of this particular vote may well last longer then the federal election (although that's an important one to get out and vote for too!)
I have to confess that three of the songs I didn't much like, but there's 2 I think I could live with. I've cast my vote you should too! Click here to hear them and vote.
Yes, that's right, the top 5 finalists in the Hockey Night in Canada theme song contest were announced on CBC last night - this really is a critical turning point in the history of this country. Arguably the effects of this particular vote may well last longer then the federal election (although that's an important one to get out and vote for too!)
I have to confess that three of the songs I didn't much like, but there's 2 I think I could live with. I've cast my vote you should too! Click here to hear them and vote.
Labels: hockey, theme song
Free Dove Body Wash
For all the laaaadies out there, hit this link to get a coupon for thing of dove body wash mailed to you ($6ish value).
Free Dove Body Wash
you put your email in on this site, they email you a link to save.ca, and save.ca mails you the coupon.
Free Dove Body Wash
you put your email in on this site, they email you a link to save.ca, and save.ca mails you the coupon.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
I'm such a winner
Just realized that last week I overpaid my american express bill by 10x. Ya, smooth move. Especially when I hardly use my Amex at all - just happened that we had 2 plane tickets on there for a wedding in Mineapolis next weekend, so it was actually a fairly large bill to start with.
Called Amex to see what they could do -- the first thing the girl said "Well, the good news, Sir, is that it looks like you pre-qualify for our platinum card!".
Called Amex to see what they could do -- the first thing the girl said "Well, the good news, Sir, is that it looks like you pre-qualify for our platinum card!".
Labels: Mad skillz
