tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66976882012-04-15T20:09:02.005-07:00The Precarious Adventures of GregGreghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.comBlogger374125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-3111120067996349432010-08-05T17:27:00.000-07:002010-08-05T17:32:34.750-07:00

It's true. Yonny is married! Can't believe both Yonny and Ali had such "good" luck in terms of the weather...raining within an hour of the ceremony, and things working out just fine. Also, good eats, good drinks, good music...what more can you ask for!Simon, Jess, Laura and I went camping in Algonquin for 3 days after the wedding. Lots of fun, and again good weather. We scored a super sweet site

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-33243230220357843652010-06-22T04:26:00.000-07:002010-06-22T04:30:28.884-07:00

I've had two "firsts" this week.1) "Powered" razor (read: vibrating razor). In addition to smooshing about 15 blades onto a razor, Gillette now makes vibrating "powered" razors. I think in theory having the blade vibrate makes the hairs stand up more and gets a closer shave. Other than it feeling kinda funky, no meaningful difference in shave closenss has been observed.2) Homemade tortillas!

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-20673796208387917982010-06-20T20:01:00.000-07:002010-06-20T20:07:29.498-07:00

Got a good chuckle reading this about North Korea hiring Chinese "fans" to cheer for their team, since actual North Koreans either couldn't afford to go to the world cup, or would have had challenges travelling outside the country. Talk about international cooperation. If THAT isn't what the world cup is all about, I don't know.I've also driven past Jewels & Java a few times lately and gotten a

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-2738372984781223312010-06-04T14:57:00.000-07:002010-06-04T14:59:19.262-07:00

I was looking for a song that's in a car commercial that goes something like "something somethign something makes my heart go beep", and sounds kinda like noah and the whale, and I came across this video that cracked totally cracked me up. Also, the girl looks like Chloe from Smallville which is an added bonus.

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-60128527342864374292010-05-30T19:38:00.000-07:002010-05-30T19:41:30.147-07:00

Can't believe I just finished watching the last episode of Lost. Laura and I have plowed through all 6 seasons in the past ~8 months or so, basically one episode a night, every night. I admit I was pretty skeptical originally - when the shows were airing, I saw a couple here and there and though the whole thing seemed completely pointless. Oh, how I was wrong. I don't think I've been so

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-45363795475856664632010-05-03T04:52:00.000-07:002010-05-03T05:13:33.655-07:00

Had a weekend where I watched a bunch of tv/movies that made me really wonder how badly messed up we are as a collective society.Blood Diamonds: movie about the illegal diamond trade, focused on Sierra Leone. Child soldiers, rape/pillage/destructions of villages, and complicity by the major diamond companies. Conclusion: Happy I gave Laura a "pre-loved" engagement ring.Nature of Things: Exxon

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-64687332536292447362010-04-17T15:02:00.000-07:002010-04-17T15:09:05.253-07:00

I've been out in Seattle this week (got back from NYC on Monday night with laura, flew out to Seattle on Wednesday). Spent most of my time in Bellevue, which is one of the suburbs, and am hanging out with my friend Kaiser from UW this weekend in Seattle.I've been waking up at ~5am Seattle time in the mornings, and starting my days early which is really nice (back to my swimming days!). Got up

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-27327480665549998172010-04-06T21:23:00.000-07:002010-04-06T21:33:06.131-07:00

I'm in New York this week with work. Was at a bar tonight with a bunch of guys from the office. Had THE strangest bathroom experience ever.There's only a single washroom(guys/girls mixed), with wall of individual stalls. In and of itself nothing all that unusual. But the stalls? Ya. they have a completely see through door. ie from the "waiting area" you can actually completely 100% see into

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-467261404255465932010-02-14T08:40:00.000-08:002010-02-14T09:09:16.775-08:00

Alison posted this link on Facebooks: Reported TTC salaries, which includes salaries of people making > $100k.In fairness, the TTC has 11k employees, and only 500 who make > $100k - so ballpark 5% of their employees. Obviously the big honchos, the shift supervisors, the lawyers, etc are going to make some big coin. The thing that gets me?- 21 Station Collectors at > 100k, some making as much as

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-47549096980012253342010-02-09T20:52:00.000-08:002010-02-09T20:56:35.506-08:00

Just got back from doing a "mystery shop" with Laura chez Cineplex. Watched Avatar, and honestly was totally blown away. This is the first 3D movie I've seen in a decade, and couldn't believe how far the technology has come....completely different movie watching experience. Didn't hurt that the plot and characters were actually quite good, and the computer graphics were literally jaw

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-44926893289152868482010-02-07T07:54:00.001-08:002010-02-07T08:10:25.703-08:00

Laura and I have gotten by since we moved in together with a $14.99 "Shark" mini handheld vacuum. Not exactly high quality, but mostly gets the job done since we only really have 10 square feet of carpet.However, the Shark has sucked it's last breath, and the birds have brought our cleaning needs to a whole new level. We're looking at stepping things up on the vacuum front, and are thinking

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-19089545268969054742010-02-03T08:54:00.000-08:002010-02-03T08:58:21.135-08:00

The birds are working out better than I feared. They're mostly quiet, and fairly playful! Hawk is definitely more comfortable with us than Pip (Hawk will stand on our hands to eat food, whereas Pip is always scared of us). Pip "escaped" from the cage last weekend, and flew around a bit before ending up in the kitchen -- was "fun" trying to get him back in the cage....I ended up distracting

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-32284901570487075042010-01-23T12:52:00.001-08:002010-01-23T12:55:10.283-08:00

Well, it's done. The birds are in the cage - and that's not spy code word for anything....literally, the birds are in the cage.We just got back from the breeder's, and we chose two really nice birds. One mostly sky-blue (named Pip), and one that's white and blue (named Hawk). So far they've VERY quiet and just starting to explore a little.As some of you know, Vik's latest business venture is

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-66106375467416988502010-01-18T17:53:00.001-08:002010-01-18T18:01:52.868-08:00

There's been a couple "food challenges" at work in the past week: the "6 Cracker Challenge" and the "Cheeseburger Challenge". The cracker challenge seems like it should be easy - 6 soda crackers in 1 minute, while the cheeseburger challenge (10 McD cheezburgs in 1 hr) is just plain gross. Surprisingly, our marketing writer successfully took on the burger challenge, while the cracker challenge

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-68591340167789769212010-01-09T12:07:00.001-08:002010-01-09T13:02:08.864-08:00

You know we live a slow and sheltered life when both Laura and I had dreams about spider solitaire last night (I was even apparently talking about it in my sleep). That being said, my current win streak has been extended to 4...on the advanced level!The apartment is currently in turmoil. The upside is that I've most likely convinced Laura that we don't actually need to move in order to

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-70583501696503545462009-11-23T04:42:00.000-08:002009-11-23T05:00:34.674-08:00

It's been a full month since my last blog post...I've been busy!I started November with a 2 day trip down to NYC. Just so happened that was the week the Yanks won the World Series, and the parade went right in front of our office. I was meeting up with people in midtown for lunch, and had quite an adventure trying to get there, as the crowds for the parade were insane. We also went to this cool

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-54840553289571146262009-10-20T05:07:00.000-07:002009-10-20T05:29:04.722-07:00

Oi! It's been a few weeks since I last posted...just chugging away with work mostly.In the past two weeks I've:- bought a new computer! Whisper quiet, super fast, Windows 7 upgrade coming in the mail, and all for the rock bottom price of $299. Hard to believe computers used to cost 10x that!- Volunteered with Second Harvest at a cool "chef's day" thing at Yonge-Dundas square. About 14 booths

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-21513446488206184702009-09-25T04:01:00.000-07:002009-09-26T12:34:32.362-07:00

Last few days of the trip! We spent the night in Cordoba, and visited the Mezquita this morning, an massive building which has alternated between a church, a mosque, and now a huge cathedral. Really interesting blend of catholic and muslim influences in the building.Hope to get postcards sent before we leave madrid...hopefully!

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-46580688695146146682009-09-24T03:26:00.000-07:002009-09-24T03:34:12.596-07:00

Haven´t had internet for almost a week! Writing from a little (read cramped and busy) internet cafe in Granada. We really enjoyed Lisbon, and also visited Sintra and Cascais which were fantastic. Next two nights were in smaller towns, staying at gorgeous Pousadas. We stayed one night in a CASTLE, and another night on an estate at the top of a mountain with a stellar view on all sides,

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-1073314268060808102009-09-18T02:14:00.000-07:002009-09-18T02:30:35.684-07:00

The past few days have been super busy, but lots of fun. We drove from Braganca across to Porto through the Douro valley, one of the biggest grape growing regions in Portugal (home to all the grapes grown for Port wine). This has to rank among the top 5 drives of my life, easily comparing to the Rockies in terms of beauty. Crazy mountains and valleys, all with terraces carved into the sides of

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-22881076782147766252009-09-15T01:10:00.000-07:002009-09-15T01:22:44.220-07:00

We picked up the rental car yesterday, and did a 5+ hour drive from Madrid over to norther Portugal, to a town called Braganca. Our car´s actually quite nice, a Citroen C4...and most importantly, it´s an automatic!The drive was really gorgeous, very dry, rugged terrain. We saw lots of solar panels and lots of wind turbines. We made a pit stop in this very small town...probably about 200 stairs

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-38946966589516547092009-09-13T12:13:00.000-07:002009-09-13T12:23:14.891-07:00

It´s been a really hectic 2 days in Madrid, but lots of fun! We´ve managed to get all sorts of things done, and minus a small hiccup last night meeting up with my aunt and uncle, things have gone quite smoothly!Yesterday our flight got in around noon local time, and we took the subway to the hotel, which turned out to be gorgeous and super conveniently located. Went for a walk and saw an

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-69311821739851462922009-09-10T04:40:00.000-07:002009-09-10T05:29:53.382-07:00

We leave for the ol' honeymoon tomorrow! Really excited to get it started - we've been planning for ages now, and I'm tired at looking at MAPS of cities, and want to just get there and get started! First stop, Madrid. We're actually going to a Leonard Cohen concert on Saturday night with my aunt/uncle. Should be interesting!Aside - I've rekindled my love for the library. I'd been hitting

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-28841555609694088002009-08-30T08:49:00.000-07:002009-08-30T09:12:08.386-07:00

The upside of doing our honeymoon well after the wedding itself is that we didn't need to plan them both at once. The downside is that all the past month has been nothing but honeymoon planning...well...We also went to the Roderick Reunion out in Saint John. Did lots of canoeing, swimming and work around the property, but also did the traditional bowling, BBQ, bonfire and golf for the reunion

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6697688.post-14292551758415204522009-07-20T04:17:00.001-07:002009-07-20T04:30:22.971-07:00

So this weekend was truffle weekend. Literally.My flight back from New York was cancelled / bumped on Friday, so rather than getting out of Newark at 7, it was more like 9:30. By the time I got home, it was after 11, the perfect time to start making chocolate! Got to bed around 12:30 with the first batch of ganache cooling in the fridge.Saturday I got 2 batches done, and worked more or less

Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08122570452761963867noreply@blogger.com0