Isn't It a Shame?

A few updates:

- Chocolate: I've made truffles twice this week, and am now pretty confident with it. Thanks to everyone for my bday present last year...it's been tons of fun, and I'm all stocked up (except an immersion blender and a candy thermometer, both of which are on my christmas list). Today I made 3 kinds - hazelnut coated, crushed almond coated, and white chocolate dipped. Pictures to follow.

- Donating blood: I'm finally stepping up and doing this (it was Ali's Christmas Donation request last year). I've organized a group trip for work, and there's 18 of us going, including the company president! It's on Wednesday - wish me luck, as I get really queasy about the whole thing.

- Food and Wine Show - I volunteered with Second Harvest on Friday at the Food and Wine Show here in TO collecting people's used glasses. (People use get a glass on the way in and use it for their samples for the night). For each glass collected, Second Harvest got $1 from the organizers. I worked from 5pm - 10pm and with one other guy collected ~6000 glasses. Literally. It was something...picture your living room with trays of glasses stacked 3 high. This was an entertaining event....around 5pm it was all retirees and older, quiet folks. By 7pm it was like a night club in there.... Highlight - I got winked at 6 times by cute girls.

- London: I'm going to London for a week for work in December!! I'm VERY excited about this, and booked the flight on Friday. I'm going over to run training for the London office...probably about 15-20 people, similar to the training I did for the Toronto and New York offices back in October. If anyone has any tips or "must see" recommendations, let me know. The training is in the evenings, so hopefully I'll be able to sneak away during the day and have some fun.

- Wedding: We've had tastings with two of the caterers now and I think we'll make a decision this week. Sadly, I think we're not going with the 'best' one, just cause the costs are pretty nutty...an extra $30 / person is a big difference. I think the one we'll go with is still really pretty solid though and should be fun!

- New Credit Card: I decided today to upgrade to the CIBC Aerogold Infinite credit card, my first ever "paid" credit card. I think the math with make sense for this year with the costs of the wedding, and with the bonus signup aeroplan points. Realistically I'll probably cancel it next year and go back to the free cards....but I feel fancy for now!

- Movies: I think in the past few years I've turned into a real movie junkie. Watched Iron Man, Quantum of Solace, Run Fat Boy Run, Hulk, What Happens in Vegas, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and a few others lately. Run Fat Boy Run was probably the highlight for me, although Bond was pretty damned good. Apprently there's some vampire movie that came out this week that's done fantastically well.

- Soduku: Laura got me a "Level 6" soduku book for christmas last year. I've been doing these on the TTC on the way to work lately. They are FRIGGIN HARD...probably takes me an average of 1.5 hours each, although it would likely be faster if it wasn't a bunch of 10 minute segments.