Stacey, Inc.

you're up and you're down

2009-01-10T21:38:00.001-05:00

I saw you there last night

2008-12-20T16:55:00.001-05:00

I am here for you.
Here I am for you.
I am for you, here.
For you, here I am.

[I was going through things I'd saved as "drafts" and thought I'd post this little silliness I wrote in 2004(!)]

are we stronger than we believe

2008-05-25T20:26:00.000-04:00

Sometimes this is what you have to resort to when the bugs are too stupid to be deterred by gallons of bug juice. I don't think they were biting last night at Leslie Lake (might have been mostly blackflies?) but HOLY, they were annoying. They would just cluster in a cloud around you and fly right in your ears, eyes, wherever... It was such a beautiful spot to be, the bugs were the only thing wrong with our second camping excursion this season.

We spent a couple hours on the water yesterday practicing our kayaking skills, and I just had a blast. Instead of sharing a boat, we each got our own and it was so liberating to just paddle like crazy and feel the wind in my face and have the water splashing up on my feet as I bounced over the small waves.

Since it's still early in the season, we practically had our section of the campground all to ourselves, so it was incredibly peaceful. Last night just before bedtime, I had to just stand, head back, with my mouth open in awe at the explosion of stars in the sky above me. It was one of those clear nights where you just want to stare and stare. Alas, it was chilly and scary out there by myself, so I reluctantly inched my way into the tent.

More pictures and videos here.

she wore a dress with cherries on it

2008-05-19T22:34:00.003-04:00

Wow, it was COLD camping this weekend. Luckily I was well prepared with lots of layers of clothing (Devin was less ready...). We had a lovely escape out to Bon Echo Park and camped near Mazinaw Lake, a place we'd been last September with Patrick and his dog Louis. It's a pretty cool campground with lots of trees and good sized sites, so despite the chilly temperatures and the rain that woke me up around 2 this morning, it was an excellent kickoff to the camping season. Yesterday after a lovely breakfast we went for a nice long hike around the grounds, and had intended to go back to the waterfront to rent a canoe after lunch, but instead I had a nap and we never made it back. One of these times we'll get out to that rock (Mazinaw Rock is on the far side of the water). Some of my pictures are here.

if you'd rather hold on to your pride

2008-05-16T22:06:00.003-04:00

We're being super-keen this weekend and attempting our first camping outing of the season. It's not supposed to be terribly warm or sunny, but we're armed with tarps and brand new tarp accessories (top quality poles and extra rope) so we're going to create a little camping village for ourselves and bring lots of warm clothes to keep ourselves warm. After a few instances of being caught in the rain last year, we figure we're prepared to plan the perfect shelter. I'm looking forward to it; camping is always a nice project to put some planning time into. Already I spent the evening prepping food for our meals (it makes it easier to pre-cook certain things), hauling out camping gear from storage, and we hit a couple stores for some additions to our gear (fancy new headlamps!).

That's the update.

I'm a dreamer

2008-05-13T11:59:00.002-04:00

froo's got a new critter over in her cat palace. Only, Ginger's a dog! This video makes me laugh.

all we need's a little earth to stand on

2008-05-01T14:13:00.003-04:00

Scattergories.

Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following... they have to be real places, names, things...nothing made up. You can't use your own name for the boy/girl.

1. What is your name ?........... Stacey
2. 4 letter word................. scar
3. Vehicle: ................... subaru
4. City / Neighborhood/country:.......... Scotland
5. Boy Name: ................ Steve
6. Girl Name: ................ Sally
7. Occupation: ............. Statistician
8. Something you wear:........ slacks
9. Food: ..................... soup
10. Found in a bathroom:.......... soap
11. Reason for being late......... speeding ticket
12. Something you shout:......... score!
13. Animal: .............. snail
14. Body part: ....... skin
15. Word to describe you: .......... super

how 'bout remembering your divinity

2008-04-08T13:52:00.004-04:00

I spent the weekend in Calgary for some belated birthday celebrations and visiting (some photos here). Wouldn't you know it, though, after enduring the masses of snow in Ottawa all winter while Calgary was its typical brown, dry, snowless self, it snowed three times when I was there. One minute I'm walking downtown in the sun thinking how nice and spring-y it was, and the next I'm at the airport waiting for my plane, watching the snowflakes fall. Even worse, at that moment, was that the entire airport went dark with a power failure! Fortunately, it was handled quickly and didn't delay any flights.

My mother drove me to the airport yesterday with my nieces Caia and Ella for company. On the way there, Ella (who's five now) says, "Gram, I can count to a hundred. Really, I can. Do you want to hear?"

Now, my instinct was to say, no, I believe you can count to a hundred, Miss Ella. But not my mother. She says, "sure!". This is how it went down (or up, I suppose I should say, starting at 28).

it's changing you, it's changing me

2008-04-02T20:51:00.002-04:00

Happy birthday to me and froo. People laugh, but I've been hankering for some Red Lobster (where they try to kill you with food), so that's where we went tonight. Cheese biscuits, crab cakes, lobster and shrimp linguini. Oof, I'm stuffed. This is what 34 looks like.

do you remember how it used to be

2008-03-28T15:46:00.002-04:00

Well, the day has finally arrived. froo arranged for a little adventure for Kyle as a Christmas present, as you can see in this video.

So everyone's meeting in Toronto today for a good old NBA basketball game. I'm actually flying in just after the game, and will spend the weekend with my people from West and East (my father - "granddad" to Kyle - is coming from Moncton). Woop!

just about the time the shadows call

2008-03-22T22:48:00.002-04:00

I Am Legend is a very scary movie. I watched it tonight with my father and step-mother (I'm in Moncton for a quick visit, don't you know). Barb and I were hiding our eyes under blankets during the many startling parts. Eek.

Why am I watching all these scary movies lately? I watched Sunshine last week. Alone. It also scared the shit out of me.

Time for some 30 Rock before bed; gotta ward off the monsters before dreams come!

I'm queen of attention to details

2008-03-19T16:09:00.000-04:00

Sometimes when Devin and I are watching TV in the evenings, I'll say (out of the blue), "did you say you were making cookies?" (or coffee) (or chocolate macaroons). The other night, he jumped up and said, "yeah, I did" and began to blend the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. At first I milled around, observing, because he has a knack for making cookies that have something wrong with them; there's something missing, and we can never place it. But hovering only makes it worse, because he gets flustered, so I avoided the kitchen, just yelling out now and then, "did you make sure the butter and sugar are really well creamed together?!"

Yes, he assures me. Everything is super-blended and measured carefully. But when he brings me a taste of the dough, I can tell already that something's wrong. And when the cookies come out of the oven, looking perfect, they are fine, but bland. "Did you put salt?" "YES".

For the heck of it, on this particular night, I said, what if I made a second batch right now and we'll compare the result? So I did. And as I got to the final ingredients - the flour, baking soda and salt - I say, "hey, did you put baking soda?"

And finally we had our answer. At that moment I declared the baking soda to be henceforth known as "cookie deliciousness powder". My cookies came out perfect.

everything's here, all out of place

2008-03-17T21:41:00.000-04:00

I'm afraid I have nothing but lameness to report for my own observance of St. Patrick's Day. Nossir, nothing but laundry-doing and TV-watching going on in my life tonight.

Oh, and some deep thoughts. I think it might be time to start considering boycotting the Beijing Olympics. How can all these democracy-promoting nations in good conscience condone the actions of the Chinese military in Tibet? Less outrageous acts have been more strongly condemned before.

a lemonade to cool you in some leafy glade

2008-03-15T23:31:00.000-04:00

The idea is probably familiar as an concept, but once you see it in practice it seems pretty unfair. That is, that employees of the government / civil service really do not get many perks that you come to take for granted working in the private sector. Little things like coffee in the office - you won't find that around Ottawa (but holy, a ton of coffee shops). Or water coolers. Employee lunches are not frequent. And even for team-building activities like a half-day outing or an afternoon pizza gathering, employees often have to pay for themselves! Sometimes they even have to use their own vacation time to attend these events. It's a bit stupid taken to that extreme.

Although I worked recently at a Crown corporation, this past week has been my first exposure to true government working conditions. The Crown corp at least had an employee cafeteria and a water cooler in my department. My new workplace does not have a cafeteria or coffee supplies - but I was excited when I noticed a water cooler in the kitchen. I tend to drink a lot of water during the day, so this seemed like a bonus. I found a glass, but when I went to fill it, I noticed a sign on the water cooler that said "for members only". Apparently somebody was ambitious enough to organize some kind of water-drinking pool. Alas, I'm resorting to drinking tap water, which isn't a terrible thing, but it's sort of a depressing reminder how little you get as employee perks in this business.

Another thing that I've observed is the 4:00 on-the-dot near emptying out of the office. Granted, everyone seems to start pretty early in the morning (I'm more of a literal nine-to-five girl myself), but it's almost eerie how deathly quiet the place goes so suddenly. I enjoy it 'cause I work better with less cubicle chatter, and it makes me feel like a keener to be the last one to leave.

I don't know if anyone else had this problem, but I was super-sluggish all week. Can I blame it on the loss of that hour last weekend? That's what I'm going with.

I don't feel like singing tonight

2008-03-11T22:26:00.002-04:00

Almost every day I eat oatmeal for breakfast. So I was glad to see that Quaker recently introduced some "weight control" oatmeal to their product line.

'Cause you know, oatmeal used to be so fattening.

I stare into some great abyss

2008-03-09T22:01:00.002-04:00

Hey, guess what. I'm starting a new (temp) job tomorrow. This is the one that they made me interview for last week, and will apparently last until the end of the month. Look at me, all working regularly and stuff. I don't like to be too specific about where I'm working, but let's just say it's a branch with the biggest employer in town, and that I've been jokingly referring to it as being at the "prison". I hope it doesn't suck.

Did you see all our snow? Wow! I went on a reconnaissance mission this morning to assess the situation and really got a workout clearing my own path on the sidewalks. It was like walking through deep water, having to lift your legs up high and making those hip flexors work extra hard. Hopefully the sidewalk plows have a chance to do their work before morning.

I tried out another kind of squash this weekend. Before the great storm hit we were at the grocery store along with everybody else in town, and because of "armageddon", the produce section was looking a little picked over already. I couldn't find a butternut squash like I wanted, so I went for a spaghetti squash instead. If you've ever baked one of these, you'll know why they call it "spaghetti" - as you're scraping out all the meat-y stuff after baking, it comes out in strands, just like spaghetti. Some recipes even instruct you to serve it baked and mixed with other vegetables as though it were a casserole (no pasta added). I didn't do that today - I made another one of my soups. This time my veggie combo was squash, potatoes, garlic and spinach. I boiled the potatoes and garlic in chicken broth, steamed the spinach, then pureed the whole batch. Add some milk to make it soupy and you're all done - quite tasty! A lot of squash soups are served with a dollop of sour cream in the middle, and I've found that this is a genius flavour enhancer.

Good luck with the daylight savings transition tomorrow. I have a feeling it's going to be a bit of a tough morning for me.

blank stares at blank pages

2008-03-09T13:15:00.003-04:00

"The two-day total accumulation of both systems was 51 centimetres, and at 2 a.m. Sunday morning Ottawa's total snow tally for the season was 407.3 centimetres." Story.

I like to sit on chairs and you prefer the floor

2008-03-06T18:48:00.002-05:00

This is a nice way to make a point. There should be more media coverage (with photos) about just how destructive all that development in the oilsands really is. Here's an excerpt from a pretty creative piece:

Mr. Harper said that the Rockies were beautiful and all, but that nature tended to be overrated, and that he and Mr. Dion were off to a new, all-inclusive resort near Fort McMurray called Alberta Oil Sands Land. Mr. Dion said that Alberta Oil Sands Land was supposed to be better than Wonderland in Ontario or Disney Land in California and more exciting than the West Edmonton Mall.

I have to admit that the place did sound tempting.

Well, the beach area next to the ponds was pretty crowded, but it didn’t take me long to find Mr. Harper and Mr. Dion. Mr. Harper had bought a pair of high-top rubber boots from the Protective Clothing concession so he could dangle his feet in the water without the risk of sores and lesions. Mr. Dion was building a large sand castle that looked a lot like Parliament, and he took the time to show me how the contaminated oil in the sand helped to hold the whole enterprise together.

Now my feet did get greasy, and I did wonder if this might be a health concern, but Mr. Harper said that you could get detoxifying sprays from the Ralph Klein vending machines and that the oil was actually good for your skin and helped to block the sun.

I should say that I was disappointed with all the “No Swimming” signs and the barbed wire.

in these deep city lights, girl could get lost tonight

2008-03-05T23:59:00.001-05:00

I don't want to count my chickens before they're hatched and all that, but it seems like maybe this one successful temp gig recently has given me some kind of credibility with my agency. They take a YEAR to send me on an assignment, and I'm pretty sure they heard some solid reviews, so all of a sudden they're calling me about other opportunities. I went on an interview today (that's me trudging through the snow to get there) - for another temp gig, which I find weird, but I guess that's how they do things here.

I've been scrambling this week to get my secret clearance for another government position, too. I mentioned this last year when I first attempted to complete the "secret" security clearance forms, but wow, is it comprehensive. To facilitate the information-gathering, I sent out a mass email to the family on Monday asking for all their details (middle names, employers, addresses). I had to cover all siblings and parents, including "step" relatives in this exercise, and that's eleven people in my family. Then I had to provide ten years of employment history, and ten years of residential history. I also had to find three character references and one "neighbourhood" reference. I find it kinda random that they want to talk to one's neighbour. I ended up attaching four Schedules to the forms with all my extra information - silly.

As I wait to hear about working again, I'm preparing for a midterm on Friday. My Global Politics class is a TV class, and I haven't been so good about watching or even taping the lectures this term (it's aired on Saturday evenings - I seem to forget), so I recently borrowed all the DVDs from the CUTV centre in order to take notes. It's tricky in a way, though, when you can so easily pause and rewind the lectures; I ended up with way more notes than if I'd been attending a live class. Ah well, better to be over-prepared, eh.

it's that same old cannonball coming back for your heart again

2008-03-02T12:39:00.001-05:00

"Tories Propose Morality Clause On Film Tax Credits"

...the amendment to Bill C-10 could allow tax credits to be cancelled even if government funding has already been secured, potentially stranding the development of a television show in pre-production or bankrupting a film in mid-production.

A closed-door panel of representatives from both the Heritage and Justice departments would decide what content is too sensitive for freethinking adults to manage their own exposure to. Annette Gibbons, a representative from Heritage Canada, says that the enhanced powers of censorship are merely a minor revision to the existing act, stating, "It's our responsibility to ensure that public funds are not invested in certain types of material, such as hate propaganda, excessively violent material, or pornography."

It is even more disturbing to discover that an evangelical activist claims to be behind this new proposal to police the morality of Canadian artists. Well-known partypooper and self-proclaimed Harper pal Charles McVety (right), president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, says that non-right-wing "values" are unwelcome in the Canadian entertainment industry—including sexual content devoid of any educational value, and, unsurprisingly, depictions of homosexuality. McVety boasts that his lobbying of Conservatives like Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day led to the revised draft of Bill C-10.

This it outrageous. All of a sudden it's all over Canadian media, but only after it has been passed in the House of Commons. I saw that McVety dude on CBC Sunday this morning and it chilled me to hear him talking about his opposition to spending "family budgets" on Canadian film projects; since when are tax dollars designated solely for families? I'm going to be doing some research on the matter to see what can be done about it. As soon as I find out who I can email, they will be hearing from me.

I'm becoming a bit of a letter-writer lately (an interview with a sobbing Brenda Martin on CBC radio this week really got to me). My gig at the unnamed Crown Corp has made me aware of how correspondence from the general public is handled in government: it's addressed! ALL of it! So if you feel passionate about something, find out who's in charge, and whip off an email. It's my new hobby.

knowing is the easy part

2008-03-01T23:59:00.003-05:00

It would have been my grandmother's birthday last week - her 90th. At the time of her 89th birthday last year, my brother Kris was visiting with her. We knew her health was deteriorating, so some of us made an effort to get back to New Brunswick for a visit. I went in May, and although it was a long drive (with a cat!), I'm glad I made the trip.

Nana was already preparing for her own departure over her final few months and made a point of giving away some of her possessions as we visited. She gave me an afghan she'd knitted. And you know, for several months after I visited, I had a note on my calendar "send thank-you note to Nana R". I'm so bad for that kind of thing, though, and I never did.

I didn't know my grandmother terribly well as an adult, but have lots of random childhood memories and have heard plenty of stories, and I really respect the person that she was. It kinda seems like she never sat around feeling sorry for herself or complaining about anything; she just made the best of things and just lived. Whatever that gene is, I hope I have it.

Recently, on a night when I went to sleep feeling troubled, I had a dream about her. In the dream I was repeating my visit with her, only this time I knew it was the last time I'd see her. But she's so alive, I remember thinking - how can she be gone so quickly? Because that's how it was when I visited - she mentioned that she was having some pain, so my father, the dutiful son, went out to the store to grab some painkillers for her. When he got back and buzzed to be let in, she jumped up and got to the intercom so quickly, I was almost surprised. This is a woman who spent many of her last years hardly being able to see; I was incredibly impressed with her agility and sure-footedness. She was still so vibrant, six months before her death. I believe that the spirits of the dead communicate with the living by visiting us in our dreams sometimes, so I've tried to take something from my dream of our visit. I guess she was telling me, live; be fearless.

a spot in the shade where oranges fall

2008-02-28T23:57:00.000-05:00

I really do love the transit in Ottawa, but my recent job assignment has me working in a spot not so well served by the main routes. So what happens is, I take the bus downtown to the Rideau Centre and power-walk from one end to the other before exiting at Wellington and Sussex for the next part of my journey. The Rideau Centre, for those who are not familiar, is a large downtown mall (with an excellent selection of shops), but doubles for many Ottawa-Hull commuters as a pass-through point twice a day. I am one of those lucky few this week who get to seek shelter inside for a few minutes before braving the brutal winds that blow up Sussex Drive.

Yes, Sussex Drive is where the Prime Minister lives, and I do keep an eye out for him, but I don't actually pass his house, nor have I seen him drive by in any of the many chauffeured cars passing by. I have, however, seen a Saudi Arabian man in the backseat of one car, which makes sense since the Saudi Arabian embassy is right around the corner from my workplace. Right across the street is the Kuwaiti embassy, too. I have to wonder how representatives from those countries like living in Ottawa, especially this week, the week of frigid winds.

Lucky me, I also get to walk by the American embassy twice a day. It's a fortress. One day I saw the security guards having a wicked snowball fight, and another day I saw them searching a car for bombs as it entered the garage. They don't mess around at that place - you should see the various poles and barriers that prevent anyone from even getting a vehicle close to the actual building. I don't usually walk on that side of the street.

everyone is talking about me

2008-02-28T12:18:00.002-05:00

I've been meaning to post this for a while, so here it is. For anyone who reads here solely via RSS, you're probably missing out on my oh-so-active comment thread provided by Haloscan. Okay, the truth is that we're not so active with the commenting around here, but every once in a while there's something to see, so I am giving you the address of my comment thread for your continued reading enjoyment. It is this: http://www.haloscan.com/members/rss.php?user=franchesca.

You are so very welcome.

when you speak the words you know to those who know the words themselves

2008-02-26T11:02:00.002-05:00

For those who think that more choice is better (a la "triple Venti nonfat half-caff soy latte, low foam, non-fat whip, extra-hot steamed milk"), this is an interesting article.

Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships.

He explained this was to focus them on moving forward — a motivational speech that was not appreciated by many of the soldiers watching their retreat option go up in flames. But General Xiang Yu would be vindicated, both on the battlefield and in the annals of social science research.

I'll help you feel young again

2008-02-24T23:41:00.003-05:00

Weekend report in photos:

Kyle turned 11 on Saturday. I wasn't in Calgary for the celebrations, but it probably looked a bit like this.

We skated again today. It was a lovely day.

I've been asking him for a while, and Devin finally gave me the pictures he took in Calgary over Christmas. The entire set is here.

okay, we'll do it your way, but this is the last time

2008-02-21T22:58:00.000-05:00

It's a good thing it's our "spring" break at Carleton this week, because I haven't been so good at attending to any school work while I've been at my temp job. Fortunately the work is going pretty well. I went into the job blind because my [useless] agency didn't even explain what I was being sent in to do. Turns out that one of the executive assistants was going on vacation, so she spent the first day training me to do her job, then took off to Hawaii (sweet). The job consists mainly of answering the VP's phone and arranging her meetings, as well as keeping her on schedule. She's a super-cool lady who happens to be a bit of a social butterfly, so her meetings neither start nor end on schedule, as the talking before and during said meetings tends to run a little long. Ah well.

In other job news, I spent one morning this week attending another ridiculous test and interview for a different government department. It's interesting that so many of these jobs use the same type of questions to test your abilities. Proofreading, a short writing exercise, then way too much time to review interview questions in advance of the actual interview. But there again, a list of administrative tasks that one is supposed to prioritize and explain reasons for the choices. I used fifteen minutes of my allotted hour to do the test and interview prep, but then left my solitary confinement to seek out my interviewers early. I did not want to waste forty-five minutes of my morning in that room. Argh. I won't even get into the part about being interviewed by young French girls who could barely read the English interview questions to me. Good times.

My kitties are missing me this week; they've been spoiled by an unemployed person being home to chill with them all the time. That's Silker trying to look cute enough that I'll stay home with her. Nice try, Black!

you're a lovely creation and I like to think that I am too

2008-02-17T23:14:00.002-05:00

There has been a disturbance in the force. Last week I kept getting calls from one of the agencies I registered at a year ago, and wonder of wonders, they're sending me on an assignment this week. It's even a government job without a French requirement. Oh wait, I think it might actually be a crown corporation, so maybe things are different there.

So if you're looking for me, I'll be the girl reminding herself what it feels like to work for a living.

funnyman, got a plan to be something wonderful

2008-02-15T23:58:00.001-05:00

I like this idea:

From today to Feb. 24, Ottawa residents caught doing something kind might receive a Kindness Citation from a police officer.

Sounds like a fun plan. I'd read about it so when I was out earlier I helped a woman struggling with a grocery cart in a shopping plaza. I opened the doors for her and helped her drag it through, since it was one of those ones with the locking wheels that you aren't supposed to remove from the store. Eep.

But a kindness mission sure makes more sense than this other nonsense going on in Quebec: "Irish pub not French enough for language police".

I'm becoming so anti-French, anti-bilingualism, anti-Quebec living in Ottawa. I want to initiate a referendum for the rest of Canada to vote Quebec out of Confederation if they insist on continuing this tomfoolery. Would that go against a kindness mission..?

even when she breaks my heart, it's music to my ears

2008-02-14T11:09:00.001-05:00

I think I've almost mastered the making of a good butternut squash soup. I'd experimented with various pureed vegetable combinations before, and I think I was getting overly ambitious and mixing too many together, so this time I kept it simple. After baking a buttercup squash and a butternut squash, scooping out the good stuff and pureeing it, I also boiled a couple potatoes and pureed them. The whole mixture was blended together with a bit of milk, margarine, chicken broth and pepper, and I have to say that my soup is just about perfect this time.

The funny thing about squash soups is that they do not need cheese to add to the flavour. I typically put cheese on everything, so I did try it with one batch, but it's really not necessary, so I'm foregoing it this time.

This concludes your soup report.

I never meant to make you cry

2008-02-13T11:34:00.007-05:00

"Well, your timing couldn't be worse."

That's what froo was told by her VP yesterday when she quit her job. I thought it was a lovely, lovely sentiment.

unpacking the bags and setting up

2008-02-12T23:19:00.000-05:00

It was chilly night on the canal tonight - very painful windchill. But when they said "ice conditions: excellent", I couldn't wait to get out there, especially since I went and got our skates sharpened today. Tonight was the first night I've skated the entire length of the canal, too, so we covered ten kilometres in that biting wind! Here is a fun little video just as we reached the home stretch.

even if you try and hold me back there's nothing that you can gain

2008-02-11T23:47:00.000-05:00

In December when I was writing exams, one night Devin came home with two cups of coffee from Tim's and handed one to me, saying, "this one is the decaf". He's got a serious caffeine tolerance so it doesn't matter to him if he consumes coffee before bed. I'm like the old lady who can't drink coffee after 3 pm. That night I sat in bed wide awake watching the hours tick by and knew there'd been a mistake. Which wouldn't have been a massive problem if I didn't have an exam the following evening that I was counting on getting rested up for. So be it, somehow I get through these things.

Yesterday around dinner time Devin brought me the cup of coffee I'd asked for a couple hours earlier in the afternoon. And I always forget that he makes his espressos with two shots, so they're that much more potent (he says that he made it half-caf this time, but I'm not so sure!). I could feel it kicking in as we made our way on the bus to the canal to meet Rama-lama for some skating. And I could feel it bouncing around inside me around 1 am, 2 am, 3 am. Even the after-skate wine didn't take the edge off that caffeine jolt.

And wouldn't you know it, I had a midterm tonight that I was planning to get rested up for. So I did some late-night studying, some early-morning studying, some mid-morning napping, and then some afternoon review. And you know, somehow I get through these things.

I can't help but think there's some kind of conspiracy to keep me from sleeping before my exams, though...

I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity

2008-02-08T23:58:00.000-05:00

I spent the last two days preparing for an accounting midterm this evening. My study habits are not quite the ones of the committed student I was back in 2004-5, however, so there were lots of breaks and even a nap as I did my final review today. It's too bad I don't take the school thing more seriously because I find myself thinking that the material is actually pretty interesting as I learn it for the first time just before exams. Okay, that's not quite accurate - we do weekly accounting quizzes online so they kinda force you to have at least a little familiarity with the material as we progress. Who knew that Managerial Accounting was so nice and logical?

One thing I find funny about my TV classes is that I get so used to seeing my professors on the television screen that when I get a glimpse of them at exams, there's this moment of "...hmm, that guy looks familiar; I think I know him from somewhere..." And then when it hits me, it's like they're celebrities and I want to go introduce myself.

If you haven't heard the songs of Sara Bareilles, check her out. She's got a song on the radio these days called Love Song, but my personal favourite is one called "Gravity". I have probably listened to it two hundred times this week. Devin knows it better than he would care to.

Now that it's February, I'm making a new year's resolution, and it is this: I resolve to sit up straight and improve my posture. I think I'm developing a nasty slouching habit, so if you see me slouching, give me a slap.

I'm trying to let you hear me as I am

2008-02-06T16:36:00.000-05:00

Proof that I'm French-er than they think:

set me free, leave me be

2008-02-05T23:53:00.000-05:00

I shouldn't whine about it; it's the system. But you get the call, the one opportunity you're still holding out for, because nothing else seems to be happening, and the story they tell you seems unbelievable somehow.

"You were are our star candidate, and you were aces in the interview, but since you didn't score high enough on speaking french we can't offer you the job."

I did the French oral assessment yesterday and it wasn't pretty. I knew it didn't go well, but it still kinda takes the wind out of your sails to hear something like that.

I think the universe is telling me something, and it goes something like this: Ottawa can suck it.

here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I'm supposed to be

2008-02-04T13:11:00.000-05:00

Weekend report in photos:

We had a snowstorm on Friday. That didn't stop us from going out for after-work drinks, though.

My brother dropped by for a rushed breakfast.

One of the resident cats needed a mode of transportation, so I picked up this nifty bag.

they tell me to breathe easy for a while

2008-02-01T13:12:00.000-05:00

Here's a new stunt done by the same group who does a recurring no-pants day on various cities' public subways. They're called Improv Everywhere, and this is a pretty cool trick they pulled off.

(via Kottke)

this little universe between our backs

2008-01-31T23:46:00.000-05:00

We skated again tonight. I kinda like the ease of it, since we're so close to the canal. We can hop on a bus with our skates in backpacks, get off after two quick stops, and walk from the University of Ottawa across the street to the canal. You can lace up near Somerset, skate the entire length of the currently open section to Bank Street, stop to take quick photos, eat Beaver Tails (fried dough with sugar), make the entire trip back, get back into street shoes, and still catch a bus home on the same fare (the transfer expires after ninety minutes, I think). It's super-easy and a good way to get some winter exercise.

Look at me, all embracing winter in Ottawa this year!

losing my memory, saving my face

2008-01-30T19:43:00.000-05:00

On Saturday an editorial was published in the Ottawa Citizen that I could relate to. It was about a topic that I've written about before and have begun to feel more and more frustrated about the longer I live in Ottawa unable to get a job.

It's SO French here that temp agencies won't even consider you unless you're bilingual. I've done all the same things here to find work as I would in Calgary: scan all the ads, register with a bunch of agencies, take all their competency tests, but when I tell them that my French isn't so good, it's good-bye Charlie!

In this piece he talks more about people having a hard time getting promoted within the government, but my job search has shown that to even get an entry-level position, most of the time bilingualism is expected. Here are some excerpts from "Bilingualism a very low glass ceiling in Public Works":

In the national capital region, 75 percent of all Public Works jobs are designated bilingual. In the supervisory ranks, there are 1,331 positions and all but 76 are designated bilingual.
The bilingual federal workplace is an idea that is 40 years old. It was originally intended to offer fairness to francophones and anglophones, but in the end, it is fair to neither. Only the bilingual are benefiting from the system that has evolved and the government's unwillingness to offer language training on the scale it did in the past ensures that the situation will continue.
Only 17.7 percent of Canadians are bilingual and only 8.8 percent of anglophones can speak both official languages.
Here is the cold reality. In the national capital region, our federal government is only interested in people with a high degree of bilingualism. Other Canadian aren't welcome, and if they do manage to get on the first rung of the employment ladder, they will be stuck there. That's grossly unfair to the majority of the Canadian population and it greatly narrows the talent pool for the federal government. That makes it bad public policy.

Next week I'm taking my oral assessment for French. I'm still in the running for a position at the Justice Department, but I need to get a B on this test. The reality is that I wouldn't want to speak French in my workplace anyway, so it seems like a pointless exercise.

Je veux travailler encore dans le monde des Anglais.

see the look on my face from staying too long in one place

2008-01-29T12:58:00.000-05:00

Chief: big day in Ottawa. The canal is finally frozen enough so they're opening it for skating. Woop!
Persuade: Yay. Carnival is in a week and a half here.
Chief: about the same as "Winterlude" here. Starts Feb 1.
Persuade: you are skating on frozen water and I am parading the streets in a thong!
Persuade: wow - like parallel universes

Chief: a thong, eh? I don't know if my butt is suitable for that kind of thing anymore...

I would give everything just for a taste

2008-01-23T20:43:00.000-05:00

Something of an update with substance:

Since I was such a half-assed student last semester and ended up dropping two classes, I need to complete said two classes now, so I'm enrolled. Also, as I learned when investigating student loan funding for another term (I'm their best customer, don't you know), you need to be in at least three classes to qualify as a "full-time" student, so I decided to add another elective to my course load. Look at me, the keener all of a sudden.

So I'm taking International Relations (one that I dropped last term), Ontario Politics and Government, because it's taught by a very cool prof that I had last term for Canadian Provincial Politics, where we covered all the provinces besides Ontario, and since Financial Accounting went reasonably well, I'm taking the follow-up course called "Managerial Accounting".

The other part I should mention is that these are all evening classes, and two of them are even TV classes, so I actually don't have to be physically in class except once a week, which will be nice when I get the job I'm intending to get (uh, yeah right - are there any jobs in Ottawa?).

But a funny thing happened when I tried to get to that ONE silly little class. I couldn't find it. The course outline said that the class would be in "University Commons 214". Only, if you look at a campus map, there isn't anything with that name. There is a "Learning Commons" in the library, where I originally thought the class was. And there is a "Residence Commons" in, duh, the residence complex. Turns out that the University Commons is the Residence Commons, but I only found this out by emailing the prof to say, "duh? where's this?".

Add to this some glitch in setting my VCR to tape my livingroom lectures, and you get the typical miss-the-first-two-weeks-of-class scenario. Okay, typical for me anyway. But it's alright, I'm all on track now, got my first accounting assignment done, found my Ontario politics class, have the books for everything. Now I just need a job to fill my days. I'll let you know if there turns out to be any in Ottawa, 'cause in the meantime, I'm getting a little too good at yoga...

so take me far away and hold me close

2008-01-21T11:35:00.000-05:00

Devin recently purchased a fancy Krups espresso maker for our kitchen. I haven't ventured into lattes yet, but I have to admit that I'm pretty hooked on homemade Americanos every day. They're perfect after a nice walk in the snow.

and that's the deal my dear

2008-01-17T16:55:00.000-05:00

froo spent some time in Cancun recently and asked me to assemble a video from her media. I'm still learning the iMovie business, so this isn't as slick as I'd like - I was experimenting with using multiple songs for a change, and the transitions could definitely be smoother. On a side note, I've been reading up on the new iMovie as compared to the earlier version and the word is that although this one is slightly easier for newbies to figure out, it is seriously lacking in features, so it's less powerful. I might just have to teach myself the earlier version. Here is my latest production.

Dan's Cancun Adventure from Stacey Ryan on Vimeo.

make me a channel of your peace

2008-01-16T14:08:00.000-05:00

I'm watching the CBC coverage of the funeral service for the seven young men in Bathurst last weekend, and I would like to request a suspension of teenage boy deaths in New Brunswick (or anywhere, for that matter). My home province has had too much sadness lately.

A man who knew the boys mentioned this video project that a couple of them worked on, and it's really quite cute.

I'm hiding from the storm 'til the damage gets done

2008-01-15T21:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I stopped to get a coffee and it only cost me seventy-nine cents! I was heading to the Justice Department for an interview and knew from my previous visit to their building that there was no coffee shops inside, so I ducked into a building across the street. I followed the escalator down to the food court and if I'd been more familiar with the place I would have maybe passed right by Edo Japan and gone to a proper coffee shop, but I wasn't sure what there was to choose from and I was in a hurry, so when I saw a fresh pot brewing next to the Japanese food, I darted over. Seventy-nine cents!

Do you know what it's like getting interviewed by the government? How they tell you to get there early so you can review a printed page of the questions you will be asked, and even provide you with a notepad and writing instruments to take notes and prepare your answers..? It's an interesting process.

Even more interesting was the notice I was given about a "role-playing" segment to the interview. I thought I would be spoken to rudely by a pretend co-worker / superior / client to test my interpersonal skills or something, but it was more fun than that. More along the lines of "go down the hall and deliver this agenda to Miss X, then go down the other way to Finance and deliver this invoice for processing". I laughed as I performed my duties.

On an unrelated matter, why do you suppose our eyelids aren't thicker? If the point is to keep out light, why don't they do that? In the lingering days of my headache from hell, I've found myself to be super-sensitive to light (wearing the sleeping mask religiously), and have pondered the absence of effective light-blocking eyelids.

wherever, whenever

2008-01-09T23:15:00.000-05:00

Sitting at the table in her suburban kitchen, with her four young children tumbling in and out, Ms. O’Brien, 36, seems an unlikely candidate to be food’s Erin Brockovich.

Her theory — that the food supply is being manipulated with additives, genetic modification, hormones and herbicides, causing increases in allergies, autism and other disorders in children — is not supported by leading researchers or the largest allergy advocacy groups.

Ms. O’Brien encourages people to do what she did: throw out as much nonorganic processed food as you can afford to. Avoid anything genetically modified, artificially created or raised with hormones. Don’t eat food with ingredients you can’t pronounce.

Once she cleaned out her cupboards, she said, her four children started behaving better. Their health problems, which her doctor attributed to allergies to milk and other foods, cleared up.

“It was absolutely terrifying to unearth this story,” she said over lunch at a restaurant in Boulder, Colo. “These big food companies have an intimate relationship with every household in America, and they are making our children sick. I was rocked. You don’t want to hear that this has actually happened.”

Whether there's scientific evidence of it yet or not, I'd tend to agree with this lady. There are too many children with food allergies these days, and there's too much crap being put into even "natural" food (i.e. meat, dairy).

and I am one of many

2008-01-05T23:57:00.000-05:00

Well, this is something kinda random and fun. I guess there are people out there searching other people's flickr photos to use for their miscellaneous purposes. I got an email recently from someone wanting to use a picture I took of the Supreme Court at an online tour guide-type website called Schmap.com. So here is what the page looks like with my photo. Nifty, huh?

it's the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance

2008-01-04T23:58:00.000-05:00

I have been having a decidedly unpleasant week. The headache has given way to loss of appetite and a general feeling of being seriously unwell, with relief being found only in high doses of medicine (that Percocet can be wild stuff) and desperate sleep. When I awake from my slumber, I take stock of my body ailments and note that the sleep seems blissfully unaffected by my waking pain. As I ease further into waking consciousness, I sense a gradual tightening of various facial, head and neck muscles, and the accompanying pain of a crippling headache. There is something wrong with this.

Today I forced myself to eat a bowl of oatmeal even though eating has been thoroughly unappealing for days, and somehow that seemed to make a world of difference. I suppose it doesn't take a genius to compute that eating is good for the body. So I've been feeling steadily better throughout the afternoon and hope to find a physiotherapist tomorrow who can attend to my neck and ensure this thing subsides completely.

I can at least say that I'm doing better than Britney Spears today. That poor lost little girl...

I'm lying in a hotel room miles away, voices next door in my ear

2008-01-01T19:50:00.000-05:00

Oof.

I'm starting 2008 in a strange fashion. I don't know why it started, but I have been suffering with a brutal headache since just after Christmas in Calgary, and it just doesn't seem to want to go away. Drugs of various sorts barely succeed in offering any relief, so you can imagine that I'm getting a little frustrated.

Yesterday, the fifth day of my headache, I finally decided I better do something about it, so Devin came home early from work and accompanied me to the local hospital. I presented myself to the emergency room and asked for a diagnosis and something more effective than the Advil, Motrin, Tylenol and aspirin that I've been taking for days. I'll admit that I felt kinda stupid walking in to the hospital for a "mere" headache - didn't know if I was being melodramatic, but something had to be done.

I was lucky - given my prolonged and obvious pain, they didn't make me wait too long to be seen. After being examined and questioned by a couple doctors, they took some blood for testing and then began to give me drugs through an IV. First, Benadryl, which was apparently to calm me down for the next drug, one that makes most people pretty antsy and restless. The Benadryl made me very chilly (cold fluid running through your blood vessels acts fast), but I didn't notice much other effect. So they started the Maxeran next, which is apparently a type of drug for migraines. Yup, it made me "squirrelly", just as nurse Beth had warned. It was annoying - mostly a feeling that I had to shake my left leg around. I tried using a mind-over-matter technique that I heard recently in one of my yoga podcasts, "you can do anything for a moment". Yes, tolerate that for a moment. It was tough. I kept watching the drip in the IV bag to see if it was almost finished, and it was never close enough for my liking. Luckily, the Benadryl seemed to kick in around then and made me drowsy, so I may have dozed for a while.

I really don't think this thing I have is a migraine, though, so migraine medication didn't really kill the pain completely. I felt fine lying still, but that's true of my condition generally, so once I started moving around again it was clear that it hadn't "fixed" me. So they sent me off for a CT scan, which was sort of a cool experience. They didn't find anything that looked like the source of my discomfort, however (yay, no tumour!). Nurse Beth gave me more drugs at this point - a shot of a powerful anti-inflammatory drug through my IV, and a Percocet pill. The doctor came in and announced that this was likely just a "big bad headache", and prescribed a powerful drug regimen consisting of Percocet, Tylenol and ibuprofen every four hours. We came home after just about five hours at the hospital. And then we partied. Just kidding - I heard the fireworks around midnight from the coziness of my bed.

So that's about all I'm doing now - loading myself up with drugs that make me feel pretty stoned. Earlier I went for a walk in the snow and it was pretty trippy. I think what I really need, however, is a chiropractor. Because it's really when I move my head around that the pain shoots up into the intolerable range. I feel pretty fortunate to live in a country where all of the above treatment was "free" with the presentation of my provincial healthcare card, but frustrated when I realize that it is the chiropractor that I cannot afford. I made Devin walk on my back already, but he's not certified and the improvised treatment didn't have much effect.

So yeah, Happy New Year..!

all roads lead to Jamaica

2007-12-28T20:42:00.000-05:00

Until I'm back in my own environment, here is one more video to entertain you. If you can't see it below, it can be found on the vimeo site here.

Ryan Project 3 from Stacey Ryan on Vimeo.

deck the halls and give a cheer for all the things that Christmas is each year

2007-12-24T13:13:00.000-05:00

Ryan family Christmas from Stacey Ryan on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas from Ottawa

2007-12-21T23:38:00.000-05:00

I'm leaving tomorrow for Calgary, so it was my last chance tonight to see the lights on Parliament hill before all the snow melts; they're forecasting rain and ten degrees for Sunday. It's still pretty chilly out there tonight, though!

I saw some footage of Stephen Harper landing in Calgary yesterday - there was a dude saluting him as he got off the plane. I'll be expecting the same type of reception...

Oh, and good news! I got B- and B+ on the two courses I was worried about after last weekend's poor showing on both exams. I'm smarter than I knew! Also, last night's exam in Research Methods was pretty easy, so I'm crossing my fingers for an A. Yay, me.

kumbaya, my lord

2007-12-19T11:36:00.000-05:00

Oh my. I better watch out.

In 1989 the Vatican issued a document saying the practice of Eastern traditions like yoga "can degenerate into a cult of the body," warning Catholics against mistaking yoga's "pleasing sensations" for "spiritual well-being." It was signed by then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger--now Pope Benedict XVI.

From the article Stretching for Jesus on the Time Magazine site.

you can't stop my happiness, 'cause I like the way I am

2007-12-19T10:53:00.000-05:00

Awesome collection of observations from Michael J. Fox.

That’s one of the things the illness has given me: It’s a degree of death. There’s a certain amount of loss, and whenever you have a loss, it’s a step toward death. So if you can accept loss, you can accept the fact that there’s gonna be the big loss. Once you can accept that, you can accept anything. So then I think, Well, given that that’s the case, let’s tip myself a break. Let’s tip everybody a break.

My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.

Acceptance is the key to everything.

Which isn’t to say that I’m resigned to it, or that I’ve given up on it, or that I don’t think I have any effect on the outcome of it. It’s just that, as a reality, I get it.

Who gives a shit how it looks? It doesn’t matter. I look like what I look like.

(Via kottke.)

if I squeeze my grapes, and I drink my wine

2007-12-18T23:58:00.000-05:00

The other day Devin remarked that January will likely "be a debt repayment month" for him. I agreed this was a good idea, and observed that that is probably a common theme in the Western world. And just to be funny (or something), I announced that I think January will be a "travel-around-the-world" month for me. Because I have no idea what I'll be doing or where I'll be living so this sounds about as likely as anything. I'll just throw on a backpack and get hitchhiking. Only he reminded me that even to backpack around the world, you can't just stand on the side of the airport tarmac with your thumb out and get a lift off the continent. Well, I never..!

But for now I'm sorta busy this week studying for my last exam on Thursday. I figure I should perform decently on at least one of my finals. Eep.

We got some wicked snow this week; I like it, but the too-cold wind isn't for me. This Ottawa place is a windy town. I'm mostly staying inside huddled over my books or doing some lengthy yoga sessions (yoga champ!), and counting down to my flight out on Saturday. It will be nice to visit Calgary again, with its warm winds.

spring time feelings in the middle of December

2007-12-14T21:07:00.001-05:00

I was inspired this week. My brother asked me once whether I was keeping all the random video clips I've taken of family stuff (i.e. his kids) over the years. I considered making a compilation DVD of all the clips, but then it hit me - why not try to learn iMovie, which apparently isn't that difficult, and make a fun compilation that the whole family will enjoy? It took two solid afternoons of sorting through clips and editing out the sections I wanted to use, and I had the genius idea to use a song from "High School Musical" that the kids are apparently pretty crazy about these days. So, a quick review of Wikipedia to determine the best song to use, and a few minutes watching iMovie tutorials, and I was all set.

When it's your own family, some of the cheesiness doesn't seem so bad, but if you're not a Ryan, this might not interest you terribly. I had a blast making it - it was pretty easy and just made me giggle. Especially sticking in little clips of Jamie eating - he'll love that...(!)

You know what this means? I need a Mac - they don't make iMovie for Windows!

Ryan family collage from Stacey Ryan on Vimeo.

to be all that we can be

2007-12-13T12:28:00.000-05:00

Regardless of who did what wrong, I always find myself feeling sorry for any old folks that find themselves in a position of defending wrongdoings of their past. Both Mulroney and Schreiber are rather weathered old men, and I feel bad for them and their families for having to endure this obviously stressful event.

I guess this is a lesson for people in general. If you do things in life that are going to make you worry for years to come about whether they will come back to haunt you, it is probably best either not to do them or deal with them as honestly and quickly as possible when they rear their heads later, and just deal with the consequences. Things get pretty messy when you compound your past misdeeds with complicated stories trying to justify these actions.

This committee hearing has some pretty intense moments, with the members mostly being respectful and deferential to Mr. Mulroney, but they do get testy when he gets evasive and off-point, which he is quite adept at doing, I must say. He and Schreiber are some slippery characters.

Mulroney is confusing things, I think, by sometimes answering questions posed to him by reading back some of Schreiber's sworn testimony from his appearance either in front of this committee or in other court settings. He's using Schreiber's words in these instances to confirm a point. But then he turns around and generally asserts that Schreiber is not to be trusted because he has contradicted his own sworn testimony. So on the one hand Schreiber is a lying guy, but on the other, here's his answer to your question. It's a muddled way to respond to questions.

This concludes your live-blogging update of the Mulroney testimony.

would we get that old-time feeling

2007-12-11T23:57:00.000-05:00

I feel like I've been in a bit of a sleep-deprived haze for too many days, and compounding the off-balanced feeling is the nagging sense that my two exams did not go very well. It isn't supposed to be like this.

This morning I fell asleep in front of the television just before CBC Newsworld started showing the Ethics Committee hearings yet again. I was drifting in and out of awareness so my dreams and the TV voices were combining into some crazy world where Karlheinz Schreiber used to live in my apartment and somebody saying he should have done the repairs that Mulroney told him to back then. Huh?

After I watched the coverage, I did some baking. Last week after I made my kale and bean soup I had extra white navy beans to use up. When I searched the internet for bean recipes, I stumbled on this unusual one for chocolate chip cookies. So it was a bit of an experiment making them, and they turned out okay for the most part, but the commenters who said that they were rather bland were correct. I'm not sure if they'll all get eaten - a little too boring. But heck, they've got beans in them!

It was interesting to watch the excerpts from Question Period today where the debate on the Chalk River Nuclear Plant / radio isotopes fiasco got pretty heated. I guess Harper wants to force the plant to start back up before the regulator thinks they should. I get confused when he makes everything into a partisan issue, though, and wanted him to back up his statements about the "liberal-appointed watchdog". Apparently he got some external advice indicating the reactor isn't as dangerous as the regulators think...? As Devin pointed out, these regulators aren't supposed to be political - their job is to be removed from politics, isn't it?

rock me gently?

2007-12-10T16:41:00.000-05:00

You know that new commercial, I think it's for the Jeep Liberty, where the guy is driving through a forest singing a song, and these animals keep coming in the sunroof and singing along with him?

Yeah, I don't get it.

I cannot help but hear his voice

2007-12-09T23:33:00.000-05:00

Well, I might have proven that I'm not an idiot by federal government standards, but I don't think my other exam went so well yesterday. I didn't sleep much the night before, kinda doing some cramming for that accounting exam in the morning, and by the time it was time to write, I was almost too tired to focus. In the afternoon, when I went to write my "general competence" test, I was even having trouble with some simple math questions! I really hope everything works out alright.

This studying-for-exams nonsense is reminding me that I'm done with school, as in, can't raise my motivation to the appropriate level for optimal learning. Please, oh please, can I just get a job in January. I've been applying like crazy, with the government mostly, since they're the big employer in this town, but the process is so slow (they told us yesterday that our idiot-test results would only be available in February) and the potential necessity of speaking French looms over me.

Did I mention I've become somewhat anti-French from living here..? I just don't get how a language group that represents less than twenty-five percent of the population gets to dominate civil service jobs. Devin told me that at an employee event he went to a while ago (he works for a pretty big branch of the government), something like sixty percent of the attendees indicated that French was their first language. We learned in my Political History class last year that a Quebec politician long ago got frustrated that Quebecers couldn't work for their own federal government because of the language barrier, but I feel like we've gone too far in the other direction. I wrote a test at the Justice Department recently and felt like I'd wandered into some deep French territory. Everyone around me was French, and most of the people in the room were taking the test in French, but pas moi - you're allowed to take your testing in the language of your choice. Almost all of the jobs I apply for indicate at least a minimal level of bilingual-ness as a required element. And yeah, I've already scored C and B (these are higher than 'A') on reading and writing, but it's the speaking assessment I'm worried about. I suspect I'm not quite at the often-required B-level.

For now I've got a couple more school exams to get through. I'm writing Provincial Politics tomorrow night. Time to get rested up.

one of these things is not like the other

2007-12-08T00:46:00.000-05:00

It looks like froo's cats have a new playmate. Who's your friend, kittens?

gimme gimme more, gimme more

2007-12-07T13:54:00.000-05:00

Some things I did this week:

For the jobs I keep applying for at the federal government, I keep getting invited to write tests to prove I'm not an idiot. Last weekend, the test was even called "idiot detection" - okay, not really, but "general competence" is about the same thing, don't you think? You can test your own competence on their website here.

But something went wrong on the way - I couldn't find the test location. They keep holding these at theUniversity of Ottawa campus, so I had my trusty map all printed and knew where to go. But there was nobody there - no signs, no line-ups, nothing on any of the four floors that I checked. It turned out that I had been told the wrong building, so it wasn't a measure of my incompetence that I couldn't find the thing. Argh.

I made a new soup. For a while I've been meaning to purchase and find a way to prepare kale that would be reasonably enjoyable. You always read about what an amazing food kale is, health-wise, so I thought I should try it. Well, it's a big leafy green thing, and most of the recipes I found were for hearty soups, so that's what I made. Bean and kale soup! It's super-healthy and pretty yummy, I have to say. I'm glad it turned out so well, 'cause the prep time was a bit crazy. I didn't use canned beans - soaked 'em overnight and cooked them for a couple hours; also, chopped kale for what seemed like a long time.

I endured the obnoxious, overly-loud and piercing shriek of the fire alarm in our apartment building. Seriously, I get that it has to be loud, but this thing would cause hearing damage if you stuck around - maybe that's the secondary strategy, to force you out in order to save your hearing, not to protect yourself from fire. In apartment buildings like this, it's typically a false alarm or practice drill anyway.

My poor, poor kitties, though. They had followed me to the kitchen to request dinner and when that thing went off in the next room, they couldn't move their little paws fast enough to get safely under my bed. The floor mats strewn about the kitchen were evidence of their panic. I really didn't want to put them through the further stress of being yanked out, shoved into a carrying device and lugged outside, so I just closed the bedroom door and we left them inside. I wasn't too worried about it being an actual emergency, and at that point I was just angry about the stupid alarm making my eardrums bleed with the unnecessary blaring.

I finished writing and submitted my term paper for Provincial Politics about Ralph Klein. I handed it in a bit late, but my prof was understanding about it.

I'm studying now. I have an Accounting exam tomorrow and Provincial Politics on Monday. Oh, and I've re-scheduled my idiot test, so if I can find the damn thing, I'll also be writing that this weekend.

everybody's telling me I'm over my head

2007-12-04T10:27:00.000-05:00

I haven't really tuned into American politics much for a while, but I have just stumbled upon George W. Bush giving a press conference this morning, and oh my god the man is still as dumb as a box of rocks.

Also, it is SO obvious that he is getting fed his information through an earpiece. He's a terrible improviser, too, and barely manages to cobble together sentences that even make sense. The topic of the event is the newly released report by the intelligence agencies in the US which concludes that Iran halted its nuclear program in 2003, and no evidence can be found that they continue to pursue the development of nuclear weapons, despite the ongoing program of uranium enrichment. You can see Shrub look down and to the side as he tries to focus on what he's hearing and then attempts to turn it into something that ever-so-slightly resembles the English language.

"My opinion hasn't changed. If the Iranian regime could hide their covert nu-cu-lar program before, well, they could do it again." How this man has bumbled his way through governing Merca for so long is in itself mind-blowing.

in the end close is all there is

2007-12-02T23:42:00.000-05:00

I do quite a bit of yoga these days. At first I just did beginner video routines - the people at Gaiam have put together some good basic videos over the years, so I've learned quite a bit. My latest thing is to try out yoga podcasts, and I've been pleasantly surprised with a couple of these. My favourite right now is the series by YogaDownload.com. I discovered them on iTunes, in the podcast directory. If you're interested in checking it out, I think it's better to obtain the files through iTunes, because it appears that you can't download them for free from the site - you have to purchase them.

The tricky part about assembling an audio-only yoga podcast (or any instructional file, I would imagine), is giving sufficient detail in the verbal instruction. I've been a little frustrated with some other podcasts that seem to be merely recordings of class instruction, where the teacher responds to the class instead of focussing on clarity in directing listeners, it seems. YogaDownload is incredibly precise in its routines and it makes it much more enjoyable to practice.

That's not to say that I don't sometimes pause the podcast and do a quick search for images of poses. I've done a lot of standing poses, so "pigeon" was new to me (that's the one you see here). The Yoga Journal website is excellent for pose instruction, I've discovered. It gets even trickier when instructors use only the Sanskrit for some of the poses. You gotta know what "Chaturanga Dandasana" is to complete your sun salutations! Namaste, eh.

"Schreiber Talks"

2007-11-29T14:00:00.001-05:00

Okay, now he's got something to say. Very interesting...

the very next day, you gave it away

2007-11-29T11:50:00.000-05:00

They're doing renovations on the hallways of my apartment building (for a much-too-long period of nearly six months now) so the electricity was out this morning for a while. I kinda chuckled when I turned the TV back on to CBC Newsworld when the power was restored to see the headline "Schreiber refuses to talk". Wow - shocking. Who knew that was going to happen..?

The first thing I did, actually, was brew a cup of coffee. I had no idea the power was going to be out that long (just over an hour) and I'm a little anxious for my morning caffeine! Time to sip and listen to bewildered politicians discuss their bafflement at Mr. Schreiber's unwillingness to tell them what they want to hear.

it's not the liquor I miss

2007-11-25T13:06:00.000-05:00

I've been having a hard time caring much about this whole Mulroney - Schreiber business that is erupting. I was like, "so yeah, Mulroney got some cash from a dude to do him a favour, years ago, so what..?" And Devin was always like, "yeah, but Mulroney sued the federal government for daring to investigate him and got a couple million dollars!" And I was like, "yeah, a couple million - it's not that much in the grand scheme of federal government shenanigans, and this Schreiber guy seems a little suspect in his motives, don't you think..?" 'Cause seriously, this whole business of "I have some scandalous information that will rock your country, but I'll only tell you if you don't throw me out" is shaky ground. Let's get this straight - we're going to do YOU a favour and keep you out of German prison so that you can tell us something that may or may not be a big deal, but will likely get everybody's knickers in knots..? Uh-huh.

But this morning I saw something on CTV's Question Period that gave me a little more context to appreciate the validity of the potential issues. Craig Oliver was speaking to the author of a book called "A Secret Trial", Bill Kaplan (a great review is here). This is the same man who wrote "Presumed Guilty", an earlier work that actually showed that Mulroney was not guilty of the things he was accused of in the Airbus Affair (another term that makes me yawn). Kaplan discussed how many journalists have been threatened with lawsuits by Mulroney over the years. He said he personally had received several letters, which is interesting given his position in his earlier book (I was just reading how he wasn't so popular after his earlier book, and accused of being a "Mulroney apologist"), but no journalists have actually been sued. Mulroney saved his legal action for the federal government, which I think, given these new allegations, takes a special kind of arrogance. It turns out that although Kaplan is a very smart man and good researcher, he had no way of knowing about certain other information and documents that contradicted his ultimate findings about Mulroney's "innocence". I guess that's what the "secret" trials were all about.

Kaplan made the point that the inquiry called for by Mulroney and ordered by Harper is a rather pointless exercise. A man like Schreiber, who is desperate to stay in Canada, he says, is not going to sit before an ethics committee for a couple hours and give up all his information, only to be deported. And that makes sense. Schreiber's motives may be completely self-serving, but if he has anything of value to say, he's smart enough to withhold it until he gets some kind of commitment from the powers-that-be that his residency status is secure. Everyone is saying that a special prosecutor should be appointed to handle it quickly and effectively. I tend to agree with that; this thing needs to get wrapped up quickly, not drawn out for years.

By the way, I stole that pic above from Rick Mercer's site - it is the object of this week's "photo challenge". Looks like a good one for that task.

wire hanger thingies

2007-11-23T17:20:00.000-05:00

This is a pretty cool idea. Especially for word geeks (like me). It's basically a vocabulary test that results in rice purchases by advertisers for the United Nations food program. Try it out, it's genius!

I'm letting go, so give me one more chance

2007-11-22T12:30:00.000-05:00

I just put this in my Google Shared Items (on the right if you're on my page, or here if you want to get the feed), but I have to put in a stronger recommendation for it. I thought it was a pretty fascinating article, about the social / economic structure in Denmark. Here are a few paragraphs, but read the whole article if you have the chance.

Last year Danish toymaker Lego announced plans to outsource most of its manufacturing to Eastern Europe and Mexico. Of 1,200 blue collar jobs at Lego's headquarters in the town of Billund, only about 300 would remain.

You might think this would make union leaders at Lego hopping mad. You'd be wrong. "We thought it was the best way to keep as many workers' places in Denmark as possible," maintenance man and union shop steward Poul Erik Pedersen tells me. "We aren't against the management. We want to make sure that they make money and we make money." Then, unprompted, he takes the argument a step further: "There are some good things about outsourcing. Where the jobs go, the standard of living is growing, and then they can afford to buy more Legos or other things from the West."

The way Denmark has achieved its success has made it a darling of European social democrats and American liberals, and the country has been overrun lately with visiting journalists, academics and politicians looking for insights. One of the things a visitor discovers, though, is that Denmark's size and homogeneity--5.4 million people, of whom all but 478,000 are of Danish ancestry--are crucial to how the economy works. "We've been one small nation for 1,000 years," says Hans Skov Christensen, who as director general of the Confederation of Danish Industries negotiates the nationwide bargaining agreements between management and labor every few years. "We're basically a clan."

Informality, disputation and disrespect for authority are core Danish traits. But there are limits, and Danes seem to know in their bones just how far they can push them. The result is an economy that looks like something out of an enlightened management textbook. There are a few clear goals and lots of leeway to achieve them. In one fascinating study, two American sociologists found that Danish line workers have nearly as much job autonomy as supervisors do in the U.S., while supervisors in Denmark have about as much autonomy as upper managers in the U.S.

I'm not ready to back down

2007-11-22T11:04:00.000-05:00

I don't know who signed me up for some bonus spam, but I seem to be getting an overload of emails for somebody called "Shari Barr" lately. I usually scan my spam folder quickly before doing a mass delete, but wowza, has the volume gone into overdrive all of a sudden.

"Don't tell them your secret SHARI"
"shari, name that band and get a shopping card in hand"
"shari, View photos of singles in your area!"

Can someone tell Shari that I'm getting her mail? Spam sux.

the tea leaves say I'm gonna die one sunny day

2007-11-21T13:25:00.000-05:00

I suppose this day was coming, but it's still frustrating to realize that the safest bet might be to get rid of plastic as a method of food storage. I have gotten into the habit of re-using plastic water bottles, and I store leftovers in plastic dishes. I gave up re-heating said food in those dishes, but it sounds like I might need to take it a step further.

Both the FDA and Health Canada warns that using plastic containers and wrap for anything than their original purpose can cause health problems. In most cases this means not reusing plastic containers or water bottles.

The main concern is with food becoming contaminated due to leakage of the chemicals used to manufacture plastic, especially when the plastic is heated or damaged. Depending on the type, plastics can contain bisphenol A (BPA), di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), di-2-ethylhexyl-adipate (DEHA) or polyvinyl chloride/PVC. While none of these chemicals are healthy for us, BPA is proving to be highly toxic, linked to different cancers along with endocrine and hormone disruption.

I was also interested to see this story in the Globe and Mail today:

Ontario could become the first jurisdiction in Canada to place restrictions on bisphenol A, a controversial chemical that is found in hundreds of consumer products, ranging from plastic baby bottles to sports helmets and the resin linings on the insides of most tin cans.

Although Health Canada is currently assessing the safety of bisphenol A, Premier Dalton McGuinty said yesterday the province won't wait until Ottawa rules on the chemical's safety.

It's a challenge to keep track of the safest way to live your life sometimes! I guess I'll be shopping for some kind of aluminum or stainless steel water bottles.

it's like I'm looking from a distance, standing in the background

2007-11-21T01:54:00.000-05:00

I'm back safe in Ottawa. What a long, long day. More on that later, but just this for now. After the fellowshipping time after the funeral, we did a bunch of family photos - hey, that's what you do when you realize that might not ever be together again, at least not for a long while. Here is one of most of the grandchildren (and two great-grandchildren). We look like a graduating class, don't we?

and if we're lost, we are lost together

2007-11-19T23:33:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow is my grandmother's funeral. It is a sad time for the Ryan clan, but it is somehow a magnificent event here in Miramichi "city" in New Brunswick. Over the last three days, her seven children have arrived from St. Catharines, Petawawa, Moncton, and Victoria. Her twenty or so grandchildren have arrived from Vancouver, Calgary, St. Catharines, Toronto, Ottawa, Petawawa, and Fredericton. The youngest family member present is my cousin's four-month-old daughter, who took her first flight today. We are a convoy of vehicles travelling about this quiet town back and forth from my aunt's house to the funeral home. There are a lot of tears, but a lot of hugs and laughter, too.

The family received visitors at the funeral home today for four hours, and my grandmother, having lived in this region for all of her eighty-nine years, was visited by hundreds of well-wishers. After visiting was finished, my father, being the eldest of the seven children, called all family into one room and requested that we make a giant circle. So there were forty plus Ryans who stood shoulder to shoulder and solemnly joined hands for one final prayer and to silently acknowledge the importance of this family, our family. Each subset of the clan then approached the coffin to say one last tearful farewell to this family's matriarch.

The circle of life has some powerful moments.

you don't have to put up a fight, you don't have to always be right

2007-11-16T23:54:00.000-05:00

I've been reading a great book lately called "Healthy Aging" by Dr. Andrew Weil. He's a very knowledgeable writer with very practical advice on improving lifestyle habits in order to maintain optimum health throughout one's life. Although I think my father has mentioned the concept to me before, this is my first significant exposure to the idea of "compression of morbidity". That is, to have an enduring quality of life into one's final years, and when the end comes, it does not drag out. Seems like a reasonable plan, right, to not prolong suffering..?

That happened today, in the Miramichi area of New Brunswick. My 89-year-old grandmother, after recently being diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, left us to breathe freely in the next life. Katherine Ryan was a huge part of my father's life and he will feel this loss tremendously. Her seven children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren will gather to bid her farewell on Tuesday.

too sober to sleep, too drunk to cry

2007-11-14T14:24:00.001-05:00

I did something wrong when planning our Buffalo trip last weekend. I assumed that since the concert venue was right downtown we'd be able to find a hotel room in the vicinity and we'd be all set, so no need to make a reservation, right? But apparently there was a hockey game on Saturday - maybe even against Toronto - so it turned out that all the hotels downtown were pretty much booked solid. Eek.

We were cutting it close to show time, so when I saw the "Lafayette Hotel" sign shining a few blocks ahead of us, I figured it was worth checking out. Well, the word from this website is that "In its heyday, the Lafayette Hotel was considered one of the 15 finest hotels in the country", but let me just say that it is far, far from that state now. Hell, it was built at the end of the 19th century, so it is well past its heyday. Full of potential, but not living up to it. Definitely needs a little love...

When we got to the front desk to say we wanted a room, the woman handed us a key and told us to go look at the room first before deciding to register. We laughed most of the way up in the ancient elevator, down the super-wide hallways, to room 609. The room was not fancy, that's for sure, but I didn't quite know what we were looking for. It was clean, too hot, and seriously old-fashioned, but we were a little anxious about finding something and weren't about to be too picky. It ended up being super-cheap, too, so that was a bonus. One thing we hadn't anticipated, however, was the super-thin walls and the super-trashy neighbours who spent most of the night yelling at each other. I even knocked on the wall at one point and was able to request in a non-yelling voice that they respect our decision to, um, sleep given the late hour. Pretty amusing, that whole adventure. But I don't recommend it, especially given that it was in an end of downtown that seemed a tad sketchy.

It really was surprising how rundown, dirty and poor a lot of that city seemed. Maybe I'm just good at finding the roughest parts of cities (I've toured them in Seattle and San Francisco too), but it seems like many US cities are struggling. Devin and I talked about how the US may not tax its wealthier citizen as much as we do in Canada, but isn't it something to say that, to a certain extent, we at least take care of our own..? Healthcare, education, social assistance of various forms - I'm proud that we are better at sharing our wealth. You just have to read the various articles outlining random facts about Americans having a higher infant death rate (in my shared items recently), or the one about how most developed countries have citizens who are progressively getting taller, but in the US, because of the unequal distribution of social services and basic healthcare, they're not keeping up. Kinda random, yeah, but food for thought.

More randomness:

I've started watching the ABC show Brothers and Sisters this year and am loving it more and more with each episode. They were kind enough to do a re-cap show at the beginning of this season, and I'm pretty much hooked. The only problem is that I keep forgetting to watch it on television, am not even sure what night it's on (Sunday maybe?), so I end up downloading it. This week's episode was particularly good, I thought. Check it out if you're looking for a quality show to watch.

When I upgraded my banking fee package recently at the Royal Bank, they were kind enough to send me a $150 gift card for the Bay as a token of their appreciation. So a couple weeks ago I went appliance shopping. You see, I'm a fan of minute rice, mostly because it's so quick and easy (and goes good with cheese!), but I know it's not really the best rice you can eat. I just never had the patience to wait for traditional rice to cook on the stovetop, and wasn't really a fan of the way it turned out. Enter in Stacey's new rice cooker: add rice and water, turn on and walk away. The machine just knows when the rice is cooked and shuts itself off. Pretty quick, too - genius! I'm totally going to start buying fancy rices like Basmati.

My second purchase was a small food processor. For pureeing stuff, I suppose. Monday I took it on its first test drive with potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots, for a kind of cream-of-potato-and-carrot soup. It turned out awesome!

And because I know you want to see more of the Blue Rodeo show, here's a clip of them accompanying young Justin Rutledge (an amazing Canadian artist in his own right). It was a "Blue Rodeo & friends" show, so Ron Sexsmith and Luke Doucet also made appearances. What a show.

they handed you a map to show you where to go

2007-11-12T12:28:00.000-05:00

We drove to Buffalo, New York on Saturday to see Blue Rodeo play. The city failed to impress us (pretty rundown) but the show was AMAZING. It took five hours to drive there, but seeing Blue Rodeo play in such a small venue (the Tralf) with a crowd of only a few hundred people as opposed to an arena show with many more was so, so worth it. Just look how close we were. I took some great photos and captured a few good video clips too.

And yes, my kitties were not happy with me when I got home this morning. We had intended to come home yesterday. But yesterday we spent a little time in the Walden Galleria Mall in Buffalo (the one nice thing about that city) before crossing the border and driving to Burlington to meet up with Scott. By the time we sat down and had some dinner we realized just how tired we were and weren't feeling much like doing another 4-5 hours driving to Ottawa. So we ended up crashing on the floor at Scott's hotel before driving back to Ottawa this morning. I usually leave plenty of food for these greedy girls, but they were cleaned out when we got home.

Here's a Blue Rodeo peek. This is one of my favourites from the new album, called "This Town".

Kitty blog

2007-11-11T22:04:00.000-05:00

Dear Mom & Dad,

I hope you're having a nice time on your weekend away. I'm not - Silky ate all my food right after you left on Saturday and she's been taunting me ever since. I really am hungry. Next time, just take me with you so I can eat. Okay?

Meows,
Salsa

~~~~~~~~~

Dear Mom & Dad,

Salsa's a big liar. If she tells you I ate all the food, don't believe it for a second. Right after she heard your key in the lock yesterday, she cornered the food dish and didn't leave until after she had licked up every last crumb. How am I supposed to get any meals around here?? Please come back and feed me.

Meow meow.
Silky

no one sees me but the silver moon

2007-11-07T23:27:00.000-05:00

Devin's workplace is having a bake sale tomorrow for a United Way fundraiser. I was trying to help him out with a volunteer contribution tonight by making a classic (in our family), "fudgy brownies". But, um, our oven kind of sucks in this apartment, so it's hard to know just how long stuff is going to take to cook. I kept checking and checking and the brownies were still gooey, so finally I took them out when the edges seemed pretty cooked. I let them cool and went back much later to cut them into bakesale-sized pieces. Only to realize they were still very, very gooey. Argh.

So I put them back in the oven for a while. They're cooling now but I'm afraid to check them. I suspect they're kinda messed up.

I used to be such a good baker...

stars all aligned in a runaway sky

2007-11-06T17:58:00.000-05:00

Well, after a red-eye flight from Calgary froo almost missed her flight to Nassau yesterday while dozing by the gate in Toronto (they were about to remove her bags from the plane), but it looks like she has found herself a beach in the Bahamas. I didn't ask, but I think the guy showed up this time.

that boy there, well he's playing the fool

2007-11-03T19:08:00.000-04:00

For some reason I'm suspicious of the job reports that come out that continue to be consistently and mysteriously "better than forecast". Especially under Bush, who seems to have people willing to fudge numbers and data all over the place to make his presidency look like less of a fiasco. So I was interested to see this article in the New York Times about how the markets (i.e. analysts) didn't seem to trust the report either.

Some economists saw distortions in the data. With seasonal adjustment factors removed, nearly half of the gain in private jobs came from an estimate that the Labor Department makes each month about how many jobs were added by new businesses, known as the “birth and death” model. The Labor Department did not actually find evidence of these jobs; it assumed they were created based on historical patterns.

A separate survey of households, also conducted by the Labor Department, presented a very different picture of the job market. It showed that fewer Americans over all were employed in October. The labor force shrank by 211,000 jobs, and 465,000 Americans said they were no longer working or seeking work.

So yeah, he's doing a great job, Mister Bush is. And he's quick to point it out for you if you missed it:

President Bush, speaking in Columbia, S.C., said the report offered support for his administration’s economic platform. “This is now our 50th consecutive month of uninterrupted job growth, the longest in the nation’s history,” he said.

That country is headed for some rough times, that's what I think. And we're all going along for the ride, whether we like it or not.

still we made it through, only god knows how

2007-10-30T11:05:00.001-04:00

Kristin used to blog at a different site, but she went away for a while and came back refreshed at better now. I'm enjoying reading her stuff again - if you read today's entry, maybe you'll be impressed, too, at how she can give life and insight to a play-by-play of her morning. An excerpt:

8:30: I'm wearing jeans that are three sizes two big and a long blue shirt with a front pocket. I am suddenly feeling my age: I am getting older and I can say it without the hint of irony reserved for twenty-somethings who roll their eyes between cigarette puffs and confess,"God I'm getting old." I see small crow's feet and veins in my hands. My bones creak when I sit on my chair. I want to tell my Nanny not to get married at 23, God, you have so much life to live. I think oldness can be equated with the intense urge to dispense asshole advice to the young.

it's been a little too long, holding it in, trying to be strong

2007-10-28T23:55:00.000-04:00

I recently acquired a new water-resistant shell jacket (in lovely green) so I'm more inspired to get out and exercise no matter what the weather. I've been out biking twice in the rain lately. I don't have fenders on my bike tires, so that means plenty of water splashes up my back as I coast through puddles on the pavement. I try not to focus on that, though, and concentrate on making sure my feet aren't slipping off the pedals.

Yesterday morning Devin and I went out for a nice ten kilometre ride in the rain, and by the time we got close to home, we were so wet, I figured riding directly through the puddles wouldn't result in being any wetter than I already was, so I aimed straight for them. It kinda made me laugh, to play so carefree-like, even though my socks and shoes got drenched through.

you woke up screaming aloud, a prayer from your secret god

2007-10-26T01:23:00.000-04:00

The sky is falling in Alberta. Exhibit A:

Mike & Michelle

Thu, Oct 25, 07 at 08:20 PM

We feel that Stelmach has made a big mistake. We feel that the revenue hike was done out of greed and didn't think enough about the overall outcome. Our economy is going to be hurt by this decision; this could lead to less people moving to Alberta. We just bought a condo and fear that this may lead to property price depreciation. We will never vote for Stelmach again!

That comment page from the Calgary Herald website is predominantly comprised of similar sentiments, expressed with varying levels of sophistication. I don't know if what he decided was good or bad, but people sure are quick to predict doom and gloom out there. This report was not exactly created by idiots:

Chaired by Bill Hunter, former president of Al-Pac with more than 30 years experience in the natural resource sector, the six-member Royalty Review Panel also includes experts in resource taxation and the royalty system. The panel will collect input from Albertans and key stakeholders.

I think the reaction is mostly a result of the campaign waged by the oil and gas industry prior to the report being completed - emails and editorials circulated weeks ago (from what I've seen anyway). I don't have time to read the entire 105-page report right now, but I quickly glanced through the "How does Alberta compare?" section and the committee presents a convincing case for amending the formula at least a little. Go ahead and read it if you are so inclined - the report is posted on the Alberta Royal Review homepage. They do a pretty good job explaining how they reached their conclusions, breaking down industry jargon so it makes sense to the average citizen.

I will be very interested to see how this plays out in markets and in the business community over the coming weeks.

I have already paid for all my future sins

2007-10-21T21:04:00.000-04:00

Friday night after my midterm I treated myself to a movie at the Rideau Centre. Lately I've been feeling lonely and restless, so I fought the urge to go "home" afterwards and decided to do something that would help me lose myself for a while.

I saw the overly long-titled "Assassination of Jesse James (by the coward Robert Ford)". It was a really good movie, but be warned if you plan to see it, that it is long (around two hours and forty-five minutes), and has a bit of a slow pace. One glowing recommendation I can give is for the performance of Brad Pitt. Surprising, I know, because he's not generally known (in my books at least) for his acting. But this movie, he truly pulls it off. He's different than he usually is, and it works - you forget that it's Brad Pitt and get lost in the story. Just what I was looking for.

It hasn't been a very good week for me. I had several school deadlines to meet, and when you're sensing a general, but strong, lack of purpose about what you're doing, even a deadline isn't terribly useful to get you moving toward what you need to accomplish. Mostly I just end up feeling guilty about my lack of discipline and frustrated with myself for the seeming inability to care.

But don't worry, I think I still did alright on my accounting exam Friday. If you're wondering why I'm doing accounting for a political science degree, it's because I have to satisfy one elective criteria, so that's the one I chose. I figure it can't hurt my life to have a better understanding of financial matters. I loved the introductory accounting course I took in high school, so it's at least something I can wrap my head around. Another perk is that I ended up in the TV section of the course, so that means that class happens in my livingroom, which is always a bonus.

This weekend we are re-visiting summer for a bit here in Ottawa. I went on a nice 12 kilometre bike ride along the Rideau River, and some sections of the path were so covered with colourful leaves you almost couldn't see the pavement underneath. I stopped to take this shot (with my cellphone) at the halfway point of my ride - at Vincent Massey Park, where there are picnic tables and barbecue pits. Pretty lovely, huh?

look how they shine for you

2007-10-19T08:22:00.000-04:00

Okay, this made me laugh.

Women in several countries have begun sending their panties to Myanmar embassies in a culturally insulting gesture of protest against the recent brutal crackdown there, a campaign supporter said Friday.

The group, Lanna Action for Burma, says the country's superstitious generals, especially junta leader Gen. Than Shwe, also believe that contact with women's underwear saps them of power.

Saps them of power, eh? The power of the panty!

you end up living someone else's dreams

2007-10-18T14:35:00.000-04:00

Ottawa will plow ahead with its push for a common securities regulator even in the face of unanimous opposition from Quebec's National Assembly, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said yesterday.

I realize this is a random dorky point that might not interest most people, but I think it's good that Jim Flaherty is pursuing getting a national securities regulator for Canada. As a person who worked in an industry where the ten-regulators-for-ten-provinces made an impact on the amount of paperwork you had to do, I can appreciate this. Not only that, but the regulations were also subtly different for different provinces, so I can definitely see the motivation for merging these regulators together. For instance, doing private placement financings, you had to file separate paperwork (containing different levels of detail) in each individual province where you had investors living - it was tedious. Oh yeah, I even had to file paperwork for a single investor in Nunavut once! Who knew there was a securities regulator in Nunavut, I ask you. If they can do it in the US (the SEC) for a much larger business community, surely Canada can implement a comparable system.

east of the sun, west of the moon

2007-10-16T23:59:00.000-04:00

There are the Facebook resistors out there - the ones who don't want to jump on the bandwagon just because everyone else is doing it. There are a variety of reasons, of course - just plain not being interested is a good one. I've sung the praises of Facebook for the way it facilitates re-connecting with people from one's past. And sure, it might just be a simple click to accept someone as your "friend", but sometimes these initial encounters amount to more. Emails are sometimes exchanged, giving the old friend the scoop on what has happened in the decade or more since last contact. And sometimes, if one is in the same city, meetings can occur. We all have different friendship styles - some are better at keeping in touch over time - but re-connecting without judgment or resentment is an affirming aspect of friendship for me, since I've moved around so much and have found it hard to be a presence in the lives of everybody I've left somewhere.

When I was in Moncton earlier this year, I got the chance to visit with my "best friend from junior high". And sure, we have gone down very different paths and have very different lives (she has three kids - eek!), but she is still the generous and accepting person that I remember, and hopefully she still thought I was interesting too (!).

And tonight I got the chance to visit with another old friend, a gal pal from the Bishop's days. Tracy works as a flight attendant but had a layover in Ottawa, so we had some snacks and drinks together. We were both a little nervous about the meeting, wondering whether we'd still have stuff to talk about after all this time. But we realized that we were friends for a reason back then, and that is that we are similar creatures and have plenty to talk about.

And God saw that the book of face was good.

the low moon helps me sing

2007-10-14T23:38:00.000-04:00

There are some TV shows that you sense you need to see from the beginning to get into them - like "Lost", which I have not become a fan of. Heroes is another one that I suspected you needed to get all the background for. I didn't watch it on television when it aired last year, so I recently downloaded the first season to see what all the fuss is about.

I can report, after dutifully watching all twenty-three episodes of that season, that although it is a somewhat intriguing storyline, it's not terribly intellectually challenging, and man, do they drag it out. Twenty-three episodes were probably not necessary for the amount of real storytelling they actually do. I particularly enjoyed Episode Twenty, though.

And yeah, now that I'm all up to speed, I'll probably keep watching. The characters are likable enough.

now I know that I'm right here where I was before

2007-10-11T23:56:00.000-04:00

We'd done most of the grocery and supply shopping on Thursday night, and not even knowing it was Alexander Keith's birthday on Friday, we stocked up on cans of Keith's for sipping around the campfire. Devin even had these cool foam hats from his, um, lunchtime observance of the date. I felt like a good Maritime patriot, let me tell you.

Getting out of Ottawa ended up being a bit of a nightmare. That damn Queensway, on which we live at the East end, gets pretty congested with all the folks heading anywhere West after work (so, everyone). It was mid-afternoon already, and I'd planned a quick stop at Canadian Tire for some tarp poles. But after an unintentional detour through Quebec (oops!) and inching through traffic for what seemed like ages, we figured we had to be at the Kanata exit. We left the highway, though, and learned we were, in fact, still in Ottawa, albeit the West end.

It was gloriously hot and humid that day - I mention that because it has not been that nice since then.

It was dark when we arrived in Algonquin Park, so we couldn't really take in the scenery that first day. Before night fell, though, we drove through some cute little towns. This is a really beautiful part of the country in these parts, I say. The dark was not daunting, though; I'm getting to the point with the camping that I enjoy the challenge of setting up in the dark or de-camping in the rain (more on that later). We're pretty good at getting organized and it's just so fun to pick the perfect tent location and then arrange the "kitchen" and get the fire started. Fun indeed.

We knew it was going to rain, so our tarp system had to hold. We're a little less experienced with the whole tarp business - Devin's got lots of rope and we get by by improvising and using bungee cords when necessary, but ideally you have to get a set-up that has good drainage (i.e. no men peeing outside the tent!). So that first night was a bit of an experiment, trying to ensure that the tarp was angled just right and fighting with the cheap-ass poles we'd gambled on at Canadian Tire (that's my thumbs-down review on that page). The rain eventually woke us us in the early morning hours. Worrying about whether the poles and tarp were staying put combined with the very bright lightning and very loud thunder ensured that we were wide awake, so we got up to check things and tweak the system. Devin even dug a couple trenches to give the water somewhere to drain. Being huddled in a tent under trees is pretty scary when the thunder and lightning roll in. I was counting the time after a flash before the clap of thunder - it was so very loud but not instantaneous, so I figured we were safe. Man, though.

Thankfully it was not raining later in the morning when we eventually woke up for the second time. We enjoyed a yummy breakfast cooked on the new campstove (we're all fancypants now, don't you know). And then we had an entire day to chill out, which was a little strange since all of our camping outings thus far have been for one night only. It was sorta grey with on-and-off drizzle, so we went for short walks around the campground, purchased a deck of cards, and sat in our "kitchen" trying to remember how to play rummy and crazy eights. It was nice way to spend the afternoon.

That second morning, though, it was c-o-l-d. As they'd forecasted, the temperatures plummeted and it was little tougher to get warm. I'd packed well, though, and had lots of layers to maintain my core temperature. We took our time leaving that day, and that ended up being a bit of a mistake. Another mistake was the taking-down of the tarps before packing everything else, because the skies opened up and the rains poured down on us. We thought we got a lot of rain that first night, but it was nothing compared to what we got hit with this time. The packing was half-done so we left the tarps draped over things to protect as much as possible, and we hunkered down in the tent to wait it out. But you get impatient and figure you may as well be working, so we ended up doing a fair amount of packing in the rain. A lot of pine needles and wet items were shoved into the trunk. Here is the video Devin shot just after we got on the road.

And the rest of my pics are here.

seeing it all so beautiful, the way it oughta be

2007-10-08T23:58:00.000-04:00

Camp story to come. This was me on Saturday morning.

the rain rain making me cry

2007-10-05T15:02:00.000-04:00

If you need me, I'll be the soggy camper at Algonquin Park for the next two days. It's hot here now, but they're calling for rain. We should have the tarp-placement sorted out by the time it starts..! I'm off to the beach at the Lake of Two Rivers.

I can't tell dreams from truth

2007-10-04T15:04:00.000-04:00

You know what I don't like?

I check the online People magazine site almost daily for my fix of celebrity news. They update their photos everyday with about 15 new shots of celebrities doing this or that from the day before. Lately it seems like so many shots are behind-the-scenes on movie sets. For movies that won't come out for a very long time...! They're filming the Sex & the City movie in New York right now, so they've had plenty of shots of the cast hanging out in fabulous clothes, but yesterday they showed a shot of Carrie (the main character if you don't know) in a wedding dress. Is that not a movie spoiler..?! Thumbs down.

You know what I like?

You know there's a provincial election happening soon in Ontario, right..? I'm not terribly familiar with Ontario politics and wasn't really planning to make any kind of effort to get registered or vote (the referendum question does interest me, though). But somehow the voter registration people have me on their list already and without me even having to do anything, I got a voting card in the mail. To make things even easier for me, the card indicates that I am to vote in my own apartment building. I could go down in my pyjamas...! (But I won't.) (I will vote, however.)

remember when I was so strange and likeable

2007-10-02T21:24:00.000-04:00

My prof for the Politics of Law & Morality class leads a good lecture. She's knowledgeable, informal, and welcomes participation, so the classroom is full of pretty intelligent opinions (no noticeable idiots yet) and we cover some very heavy topics, so it makes for some very thought-provoking lectures.

We've covering more theoretical stuff for the first few weeks (who defines what morality is and is there a universal agreement on right and wrong, that kind of stuff) before we get down to specific topics like environment or terrorism. The following is an excerpt from one of our readings about "student relativism" ("SR") that I found to contain some particularly good points. The article introduces the topic of SR thus: "Many, if not most, college students say the believe that morality is all relative. In this article on student relativism, Stephen Satris suggests that the relativism of college students is not a genuine philosophical position but a way of avoiding analysis of one's opinions". Right there, I'm already interested. Here is an excerpt:

"...SR is primarily a method of protection, a suit of armor, which can be applied to one's own opinions, whatever they may be - but not necessarily to the opinions of others. "Who's to say?" is not an expression of one's own intellectual humility, broadmindedness, or unwillingness to condemn others. Rather, it is an expression of the idea that no one step forward and judge (and possibly criticize) one's own opinions. One would not like that. One says it is impossible. One's own opinions are proper and acceptable just by virtue of their being "felt" as one's own. No further scrutiny, judgment, or improvement is to be allowed or tolerated...

It is my belief then, and the argument of this paper, that SR is fundamentally misdiagnosed when it is viewed as a philosophical position, and that it is no position at all but rather a powerful, elaborate, and at times devious defense mechanism for protection against having to maintain any position or make any serious critical (reflective) effort...

One must be brought to realize that one is in a real world, not a fantasyland of platitudes and complacency."

See what I mean?

I hope that my sanity covers the cost

2007-10-01T23:40:00.000-04:00

I've got a new plan of action for this month. It involves me going to class, doing my readings and assignments (I haven't missed any, but they're looming), and accepting the fact that I'm a student for just a little while longer. Yep, that's me.

So, since I know you're dying to hear, here is the scoop on my classes:

Canadian Provincial Politics - I have a short assignment due in two weeks, analyzing a chapter from a book. I got the book from the library today.

Intro to Financial Accounting - We have weekly online quizzes. I got a perfect score last week and the next is due Wednesday.

The Politics of Law & Morality - we have a major paper due in three weeks (oof). I think I will maybe cover the topic of abortion in Canada (we have a choice of many controversial subjects like homosexuality, child pornography, genetic manipulation - you get the idea). I have yet to do any research. I'm also behind on my readings. This class needs a lot of attention.

Intro to Research Methods - we have an assignment to submit online by Thursday. It's a series of short-answer questions for which there has already been a lot of online discussion on WebCT, so I'm not super-concerned about it. But I have to do it yet.

International Relations - hmm, I don't think we have anything due (maybe a midterm?) until late in the term. I better check that.

In other news, I'm planning a camping trip for the weekend. No yoga this week.

stones taught me to fly

2007-09-30T18:53:00.000-04:00

Yesterday morning I went to the grocery store and a man I didn't know gave me flowers. Peach-coloured roses, to be precise.

I've mentioned it before, so you probably know I joined a yoga class this term. It's the only class from my full course load that I haven't missed yet. That shows you my dedication to my academic life, I guess. I knew the first day I was supposed to attend class (a school class, that is) that I wasn't feeling the student life. I'm really over it, and I do not like living in Ottawa as a student. But yoga, well, that's kinda been a treat. Because, you see, I've never taken a class before. I've done a lot of yoga at home - all taught by the masters via TV and video. Rodney Yee, Susan Deason, Patricia Walden, and Kate Potter have done a good job teaching me.

It's a 90-minute class for "intermediate" practitioners, so I was a little anxious about how I would do. I was pleased to discover that I'm keeping up just fine. I was actually surprised, too, that I was sore for days afterwards. Granted, I've never done yoga for such a long stretch of time at once, but I have done lots of yoga and was surprised at the tightness in my muscles. But I love it. Yoga is one of those things that is hard to describe how it affects you. It's supposed to be a time of self-acceptance and quiet self-awareness, where you focus a lot on your breathing and being present in your body. And afterwards, you feel all stretched out and somehow more settled within yourself.

This weekend was more about being that way: settled. After so many weekends on the go, I am reporting a non-camping weekend this time around. This includes no wild nights out celebrating anything, and no frenzy of activity preparing for or going camping. No, this weekend was about chilling out, of the variety seen above (and literally, since it has finally cooled off here), watching a couple movies, doing some home-based yoga, pretending to do school work (soon..!), and a leisurely bike ride this afternoon with Devin. It was a good day for a bike ride - the leaves are still just turning colours and slowly floating to the ground, so it's very pretty out there, and smells refreshingly like fall. See more of our bike ride images here.

I think the man was just a store manager trying to clear out inventory (who the heck buys peach roses anyway?) and score points with the female customers. I appreciated it.

it's a small crime, and I've got no excuse

2007-09-26T10:34:00.000-04:00

And so then we camped. After all the adventure-packed weekends this month, we couldn't let this one go without another. It was off to Bon Echo Provincial Park we went, this time with Patrick joining us.

It was about a 2-hour drive southwest from Ottawa, and I was delighted to see the bright sun illuminating the already-turning leaves along the way. Not a ton of red yet, but lots of hints of yellow and orange. Very pretty. The park itself is massive - over five hundred campsites - and a little confusing to navigate without a map, but it was mostly empty and we had our pick of locations. We got a sweet spot with no neighbours around us whatsoever (not even raccoons this time).

We quickly settled in and got our tents pitched and a fire started. Fire-building and maintenance became the focal point of the evening for Patrick, who had not camped in a long time and was pretty excited about the whole thing. We were smart this time and brought an axe, and with the vast amount of empty campsites, we were able to pillage around for fallen trees and abandoned firewood without having to buy any. This meant Patrick got to do lots of chopping, and I think he was thrilled about it. The guy even brought oven mitts to handle wood adjustments in the fire, and you can see the end result in this photo. I told you he was excited.

We had a spectacular dinner cooked over the fire - steak, potatoes, vegetables, fresh bread - then relaxed around the campfire with wine and beer and a guitar. Patrick's dog Louis really enjoyed the heat of the fire, too, and got so close that he melted the rope we had him tied with a couple times . He was an awesome dog to camp with - even when not tied, he didn't wander far and always came back when you called him. He actually helped with the wood chopping by chewing on lots of the smaller twigs and branches we collected, breaking them up for the fire.

I was pretty tired that evening after Devin's party the night before, so I didn't stay up too late. Patrick played with the fire for a couple hours after we went to bed, I think. The nights are getting a bit cooler in these parts, but I was blissfully warm in my fantastic sleeping bag, so I slept like a champ. The boys were a bit cold, though, and were pretty anxious for some hot coffee first thing in the morning. We weren't rushing to get home, so it was nice to enjoy the sights of the park in the sunny morning.

We walked down to Mazinaw Lake and wow it was beautiful. And warm(-ish)! After testing it on my feet, I was determined to swim, so I trekked back to our site to get my swim gear on and slowly waded into the water. Nobody else had brought their swim gear, and neither were they inclined to swim (there was a bit of a cold wind), so I had to brave the water alone. I'm glad I did - it was very refreshing.

There were boats out on the water - canoes, kayaks and some kind of tour boat. Apparently when you get up close to the rocky cliffs on the other side (it's called Mazinaw Rock), you can see all sorts of old pictographs drawn by natives from years past. Also, this is one of the deepest lakes in Southern Ontario, so divers like to explore the depths. Who knew, eh.

I've been pleasantly surprised at the spectacular campgrounds we've discovered the last few months. Just when I think, "I definitely want to come back here", we stumble on another place that is equally worthy of such a sentiment. Camping is a lot of work (it takes us three trips each to load up the car, then unload, too), but it's so satisfying, too, that even getting away for one night is worth it. Even when we woke up in the rain last weekend at Lac Stukely, that was fine (because it wasn't cold!). When you have the right gear (i.e. tarps and warm sleeping bags) and you don't forget anything, the experience can be truly delightful. The rest of my photos are here.

Here's a glimpse of our experience (taken in the morning):

volcanoes melt you down

2007-09-24T23:35:00.000-04:00

It was Devin's birthday on Saturday - he's finally a quarter-century old don't you know, aging like good cheese. Or wine. Or something.

So you know what that means - a little bit of celebrating with some cocktails. We started at the Brig Friday after work (for me, after yoga class) and were joined by some of Devin's current and former co-workers (only the cool ones, of course). I learned about a shooter called a "polar bear" from one of those co-workers, Heather. Very tasty, like an After Eight mint.

We later moved on to the Blue Cactus where somebody decided that we needed to go ahead with "bottle service". Yes, of course, we definitely needed a 26-ounce bottle of vodka. For sure. The argument is that with all the mixes they bring when you do it this way, you save money. Yeah, save money, but who needs that much vodka?! Anyway, the night got a bit silly from that point on, and you can see some of the evidence here.

The important thing is that the birthday boy had a good time. Happy 25th, Devin - you're definitely getting up there!

why'd you fill my sorrow with words you've borrowed

2007-09-20T16:42:00.000-04:00

I'm a little obsessed with Damien Rice, especially after having seen him play in Montreal. This is a bit of a long clip (has two songs), but he's just so good. The sad part of his music these days is that the woman seen sitting in this clip (she sits when she's not doing vocals?), Lisa Hannigan, who has recorded and performed with him for a long time, is no longer doing so. She wasn't in Montreal, and not to take away from Damien on his own, but there was definitely something missing.

I recently downloaded a BBC special that he recorded (with Lisa still with him) and it blows me away. It's so intense to see him perform his songs live. They start so slow and pretty and build into something hard and edgy - very powerful.

Have I convinced you yet?

can't recall when I last felt that way

2007-09-20T13:15:00.000-04:00

I think that one good thing about being something of a transient person is that you really start to appreciate the things that not every place has to offer. When I was in Calgary, on the three Fridays I was working downtown I spent a couple solid hours after work walking around the downtown area taking it all in. I'd been away from the city long enough to feel like a bit of a tourist, but it was all still familiar enough to give me a sense of comfort. And since it's boomtown, there's always some old building being knocked down to make room for another, so there's lots to see.

In Ottawa, it's the weather and greenery I'm enjoying this month. Last month in Calgary it was already cooling off noticeably, and I hear it's getting pretty chilly there this week (i.e. flurries). Not that I want to rub it into anyone's face who lives there, but we're having a spectacular week of temperatures in the high 20s here. It's really, really nice to have the sun warming you and the leaves still on the trees. I think if I move back to Calgary I'm still going to find a way to spend the month of September in the East. Ha ha!

Calgary always gets the last laugh anyway - they'll be outside having patio drinks at some random point this winter when a Chinook blows through. I'll be sure to be there then.

all I've got is your hand

2007-09-19T14:32:00.000-04:00

You'll be pleased to learn that the Carleton support staff were able to resolve their differences with the university and are back to work. I noticed a big difference when I went to school yesterday, let me tell you. The OC Transpo bus drivers, in solidarity with the CUPE union, were not crossing the picket line during the strike, so it meant students bussing to school had a bit of a hike from Bronson Street (the school even started offering a shuttle service). But yippee, now we get dropped off on campus along the proper bus route.