word of the day

xzibit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xzibit

i think ...

... i have given up on blogging. well the second coming of me blogging lasted longer than the first. maybe there will be a third coming. maybe i'll learn to write ...

something is missing

i took felicity, rachel and rob to the airport last wednesday night. they were off to germany for a 10 day vacation. rachel is going to see her parents and to meet shane. let's just say rachel is very very excited about meeting shane from kazakhstan (that's ah nice).
so it's been 4 days without having my girl around, and simply put i miss her. i haven't written because no one really wants to read about how much i miss the woman i love, and how it's weird not being able to talk to her. about how i think about her in almost every free moment. how i talk about her with everyone i'm around. it would be just too gushy.

so instead i'll announce the awesome and amazing event that is coming up at the drake. i'm going to romania this summer for two weeks to run a summer camp for the orphans of cluj, romania. the team that is going is having a fundraiser night at the drake. everyone is welcome, but we are only sells 200 tickets. check out the poster for details, come out to the event to my team and have some fun too.

it's sunny out ... so welcome to my city

wow, what a beautiful weekend. the sun was out in full force for another weekend. this can only mean a couple things; there will be group events that screw-up traffic, tourists that fill-up downtown and i will get a sun burn. well two of three happened this weekend.
i got up early on sunday morning and took my bike out for my normal short trip down parkside and east across the lakeshore path to bathurst and back. there was a bike race on the path this weekend, but it was the weirdest race. it was a short circuit race just within marilyn bell park. if you know marilyn bell park, you know it's just a small piece of land along the waterfrount. so i had to bike on the lakeshore, which is normally very dangerous, but it was a quiet sunday morning.
next was the giant sikh parade in downtown. it was huge. it took me about 20 minute to travel from dundas to king on university on sunday afternoon.
but my favourite moment of the busy weekend was the tourists, or more just one tourist in general. i only assume it was a tourist because it was a sweet driving manuever. i'm driving with felicity on the lakeshore going west, and we were first in line stopped at yonge. as we waited at the light a southbound car on yonge turned right onto lakeshore west. as soon as the car turned onto the lakeshore, it quickly made a 180 degree turn on the lakeshore. so now the car is facing me, and the other three lanes of traffic that are about to drive straight at the car. the look on the ladies face as priceless. as we all slowly moved forward, some people honked, everyone stared, i motioned for her to turn around again, but she decided that she was going to continue working on her driving skills. so she decided to hit the gas, turn back-up yonge, cutting across three lanes of live traffic and continue on her way. it all happened in about 5 seconds, but it was an amazing 5 seconds.
so i say welcome tourists. enjoy this summer shopping at the eaton centre, walking slowly through the downtown looking up at the cn tower and i'll be looking for you as i drive through the city this summer.

yes ... that's a guys ass

i was working in oshawa on tuesday at the gm plant. just collecting some water samples for mary k's project. i went to the location 'pizza and sub' place for lunch, go-go's pizza and subs. being a first timer at go-go's, i asked the nice lady behind the counter, 'what's good for lunch? what should i have?'. to the great response of, 'the pizza is good, and so are the subs'.

i got two splices of pizza-pie and sat by myself (there was no one in the place) for lunch. on the radio was your normal sub-urbans top-40 easy-listening music of the last 30 years, but nothing from the last 5 years. working for the weekend by loverboy came on. it made me think of the coming weekend of course. but it was only tuesday. i think that this song should only be played on friday's.

everybody's workin' for the weekend
everybody wants a new romance, hey yeah
everybody's goin' off the deep end
everybody needs a second chance, oh

time for a rant

handicap door activation switches, let's discuss them.

the front doors of my office have a one. many times i've seen the fedex or ups guy with a large handful of packages use the button. makes sense to me. i've used the button, when i've been carrying a full size cooler full of samples. i've also seen a fully healthy adult, carrying no more than a purse use the button. wait one second. this person would rather push the button and wait the 5 seconds it takes to slowly open, than using ... their God-given functioning arm. i see this happen most days coming to and from work. but it still blows my mind everytime. YOU ARE NOT HANDICAPPED ... physically. mentally??? maybe.

let's take it to the next level. a young child is begging their parent to push the button at the mall. to a response of, just once. NO, NO, NO. tell the kid they're not handicapped and it would be rude to use the button. IT'S FOR HANDICAPPED PEOPLE!!!!

huhhhh ... thanks i feel better now.

i almost have a new ipod

on monday felicity gone a new ipod. again sorry for not locking the car. so i almost have a new one. she's in the car most of the times that i am. we do drive to and from work together. so it's nice to have some great music to listen to again. but i do still miss my own ipod. so it's time to vote, buy now or wait for a new edition to come out and buy it later?

myPod and herPod, not yourPod

this weekend i went to my parents ... with F for the first time. it was a nice meet and greet weekend. i also got to meet F's sister wendy for the first time. the weekend was great, but it was tainted by a crime to society. on friday night, after arriving late at my parents house and running out to the car to grab one last thing we all tucked away for a nights sleep. i woke the next morning to discover that my and F's ipod had been stolen from my car. fffffoooooocccccccch. i was pissed. so i had forgot to lock the door of my car as i grab that one last thing. they didn't steal my work cell phone or F's expensive oakley sunglasses or even my wallet.
you have to understand, that next to a farm house, my parents live in the piss-middle-of-no-where. sombra to be exact, never heard of it (brouwer you don't count) not surprised. with a population of around two-hundred, i think i could do a door-to-door canvas to find our ipod's. the name sombra comes from the spanish word for 'shade'. i'd like to hereby rename to village, umbrio.
so i had to drive from toronto to the smallest town in ontario to get my and F's ipod's stolen. AHHHHHHHH.
sorry F.

facebook, no longer the face of evil

so i've been on facebook now for just over a month now. i have 237 friends, and it has become my third most visited website (next to gmail and google). really it hasn't done much for me, until today. ya, i have found some friends that i haven't talked to in a decade, but i have been found by some people that i really can't stand or don't remember. it is fun to post and look at pictures, the tagging option is actually really cool. and yes, everyone can she who F is.
but today i actually used to the site for extending my friendships/community. as you know i got a longboard, but riding with ben or steve doesn't happen often enough and riding by myself is just okay. so today i joined the 'toronto longboarders' group on facebook. hopefully, i'll get out for some rides, meet new longboarders, and discover great places in the city to ride.

longboarding

the weather is warm today, so perfect time to go longboarding. it's been a couple cold months of watching the longboard sit against the wall, as i rode the snowboard. i grabbed the board and the ipod shuffle, i've got to have some great music awhile i ride, and i was off to high park. after 45 minutes of dodging runners, cyclists and cars, i was a little tired and felt good about the ride. i didn't do the big hill down to the petting zoo. ben and i conquered that one last year. but it was the first ride of the year. my goal is to be ready for the torontolongboarders.com 'board meeting'. from the photos on their website it looks like an awesome event.

stick it to 'em ... oh would i like to

stick it to 'em, is a team in the recreational co-ed floor hockey league i play in on monday nights. i've had the displeasure of playing this team for the last three season's. this team is way too agressive, especially this dude with a pony-tail. i won't bore you with the details of us losing to them, again, but give one example of why i don't like 'pony-tail boy' (or ptb).

in our league there is no high sticking, so the stick can never go above the waist. ptb took a nice slap shot in front of me, and hit me in the throat with the blade of his stick. he scored on this shot. i called a high sticking on the play, and questioned if it was or not. YOU HIT ME IN THE F**KIN' THROAT!!!!!! i think your stick was too high. just sayin'

i look forward to the play-offs in the next two weeks, where we will have to play them ... yet again. until then ptb.

one isn't bad

i got onething done.
i saw dave.
we ate george's.
he beat me at golf.
on jared's wii.
felicity came.
she quoted beat poems.
from 'so i married an axe murderer'.

i told myself

i told myself last night that i need some time off from social stuff. i seem to always have something to do. for example tonight i can:
- visit ben, i haven't talked to him for a week or two now.
- visit dave, he did screw-up his ankle/leg at my floor hockey game on monday. i should see how he's doing.
- go to leigh's fund raiser, i like wearing a suit, and i can there.
- go see 300 with henry, man i want to see that movie.
- go to an art gallery with felicity and kevin, i need to meet kevin.
- do laundry, clean cloths smell good.
all of this after says just last night, that i would have a night off.

i have a blog?

doesn't look like i've remembered that. so it's been almost two weeks now since posting. i really have been busy. let's see what have i done.
snowboarding with the normal crew, plus felicity.
dave's 29th birthday and crokinole tournament.
the appleseed cast concert in buffalo.
lunch with felicity's parents.
played bass at church.
practice with the worship band.
help edit a video going to kazakhstan.
had dinner at rachel's.
played a floor hockey game.
got a hair cut.
went to the maddy's with matt and leigh.
went to freedomize.
hiked the leslie street spit in 4 inches of fresh snow.
went to the fox & the fiddle.
watched some entourage for the first time.
bought some cd's at sonic boom.
bought some cd's at hmv.
played some nintendo wii.
and when to work.

i'll try to fill in the details on a more regular basis.

wow, mute math review

so last night was as great, if not better, than i expected. another crew of us (ben, shawn, steve, christy, kenneth, gillis, jared, shannon and felicity) went to see mute math play at the opera house. first off was the dinner at the real jerk, so good. the jerk was just hot enough for me and the rice was one the best i've had in awhile. as far as concert venue's go, next to the molson ampitheatre on a warm summer night, the opera is my favourite venue in the city. the main floor has three levels and there is a balcony, so great views from every spot in the place. it's the perfect size venue too, everyone feels close to the front. thanks to jared for showing up early and getting a great spot behind the stage right bar, perfect view.

so mute math is the greatest band live that i have personally seen. they build-up this energy throughout the show that feeds into the crowd but is also fed off of the crowd. listening to the whole crowd sing alot to 'noticed' was one of the highlights. others were the acrobatics of lead singer paul meany, the at-times violence drumming of darren king and the new song they play about half-way into the show.

so basically go see mute math, for only $20 it was the greatest show. mind blowing music. wow.

happy anniversary to me

as many of you may know i've been pretty happy for a while now. and today is a very special day to celebrate why i've been happy. i know that not all of you may want to hear about me gushing about the happy in my life, but it is something very important to my life. i don't think i would be here today if i didn't have this. okay, enough walking around the issue ... i just wanted everyone to know that today, march 6th, is the one year anniversary for being at my new job. which i would now call simply, my job. it's been a great year at ch2m hill. i've learned alot, discovered the job that i want to be doing, and made some money on the way.

so here's to the happiness*.

* Copyright(2005) - Kenneth Friesen

so i've not been righting

but i have been living a busy life. for example this weekend ...

friday - got up super early to drive to work in the aftermath of thursday's storm. F and I made it to work with lots of time to spare, but both of our office's were closed. Ya another snow day. but F had to work from home. so that night we ate vietnamese, walked another the rom (it's $5 on friday's now) and checked out the radical dudez at the horseshoe. which became random run in night, as alot of our friends showed up too.

saturday - played a good 'round-robin' of squash with trina, ben and pearce. pearce thought he was rusty, but he kicked all of our ass'. had dinner with F before going out to two events. first was preface, a fund raiser for freedomize india. a great social art event at grace's church. nobody does an art event like those freedomize kids. i left for a while to celebrate ba's birthday at gabby's. to my surprise the ufc fight was on at the bar. my table wasn't into the fight, wish F was there.

sunday - started early again, playing bass at church. then lunch with ba again to celebrate her actually birth date (march 4th). F found out that a guy at the table (of five people) was born in the same hospital only a month away from her in zimbabwe. now that crazy. relaxed in the afternoon with a great movie, saved!. then met up at the wheat sheaf for wings and beer.

all-in-all a normal weekend in the city. i'm looking forward to going home to my parents in two weeks ... to relax.

i stayed up late

for the first time, in a long time, i stayed up to watch the oscar's. i even made it all the way to the end, after 4 hours of awards, to see the best picture award. but my favourite part of the show was watching these silhouette dancers. too cool.

a great way to connect and facebook

after much complaining about it, i've joined facebook. why you ask? well, because everyone is going it. and if i remember anything from highschool peer-pressure, it's just easier to give in. i've spend a little time on the site now, and well it's a good time, but nothing like actually talking to my friends or have a drink with them. but give me some time, this thing may grow on me.

i just had a great conversation with a new co-worker. she was asking about living downtown, she lives with her parents in mississauga, and the need for some new friends. i just mentioned that i met alot of good friends from the church that i started going to when i moved to toronto. i always love hearing the next comment from a co-worker. 'oh really, i'm christian too.' it's great to make that connection at work. in the end, she's going to come to a service in the next couple weeks. sweet.

the great wave off kanagawa - katsushika hokusai (1760-1849)

one of my favourite paintings. enjoy.

my life is a song

so i'm watching breakfast television this morning, like i do every morning to see the weather and traffic. they now have a commercial or two during the show. this morning's commercial was from ups. i start tipping my toe to the song in the background of the commercial. then it hit me, 'i know that song'. so, ups is using 'such great heights' by the postal service in their ad's. it was crazy.

just a thought.

three eleven

for a week now i've been hearing this small part of a song lyric in my head, but i cannot remember what song it is. i know that it is a 311 song and the lyric is "hey you, hey you, hey you ... (with reverb on it)". so i've started listening to all of my 311 songs. all 100 songs from 8 different albums.

311 is one of my favourite bands (as you could tell). i find that with 311 your a fan or your not. they don't really get any radio play, but maybe the song 'down' or their cover of the cure's 'lovesong', and their video are not played on muchmusic or mtv. i just laugh how they mix reggae, hip-hop, ska, punk and metal. and at times all in one song. nick hexum is the 'brian wilson' of the band, writing 99% of all the songs. but my favourite member is, of course, p-nut the bass player. this guy has chops. his style is very funky and his slap'n'pop playing is something that i strive to be able to do, as a bass player.

hopefully by the end of my day long listening of only 311 songs, i'll find the song.

word of the day

bubinga

botanical name - guibourtia demeusei
other names - african rosewood, essingang, buvenga

one of four species, all native to africa, by the genus guibourtia. the species are reported to be botanically similar but are very different in color. the most plentiful is bubinga, produced by g. tessmannii , and g. pellegriniana . the trees are reported to be large, often reaching heights of more than 100 feet and trunk diameters of 10 feet. these species are found in equatorial africa, from southeast nigeria, through cameroon and gabon to the congo region. they occur in swampy or periodically inundated forest, as well as near rivers or at lakeshores. bubinga can be an amazingly wavy-figured exotic wood, sought by guitar makers and small box builders.

what a weekend

i thought that life might slow down a bit this winter now that the very cold weather has moved into toronto. but alas, it was another weekend of go-go-go for me.

friday: got a call from steve's music at work, my new bass had arrived and was ready to be picked up. very exciting. i didn't have time to get it on friday, and it had to wait at the store one more day. after a full day of office work, i picked felicity up from work and started the weekend. after dropping felicity off at home, i picked up machina and headed to waterloo for the night. ba was back from australia, so we made the trip to welcome her home. had a great dinner with adele and tim (and penny the dog) then headed to the huether hotel for beers. i had my favourite 'black & tan'. conversation was great and it was nice to have ba back.

saturday: saturday started early, mostly because i couldn't sleep knowing that steve's music opened at 9:30am. so i was off to steve's to pick-up my brand new bass. that's the bass i bought, but i got the 5 string version. of course, i went straight home and played it. the played it some more. after about 2 or 2.5 hours of playing i was very pleased with my purchase. next was dinner with mark j. at swiss chalet before the leafs game. it was a great game versus the oilers. the high-light was a ceremony at the beginning of the game to honour the 66'-67' stanley cup winning team. after the game the night finished with a little brownie's and ice-cream, as i caught up with felicity at the end of a great dinner party at rachel's house. again, more great conversions and food.

sunday: sunday started off early again because of the new bass. i was on the list to play bass at church this sunday. wow, it was awesome (not just because the whole love of God part) this bass can play. i love the tone, the action, the feel, playing position and just how it feels in my hands. the new sermon series about sex started this week. i was amazed by how great the sermon was, i'm looking forward to the next four weeks in the series. had my traditional burrito boyz after church. then started picking people up to go snowboarding. machina first, then jody and finally steve. spent most of my time riding with machina, as it was his very first time snowboarding. good on ya machina. got home around 11pm, and went straight to bed. zzzzzzzzzz.

she finally paid off

so i've been having some girl troubles. let's just leave it at that. but today having an old girlfriend finally paid off.

let's start the story back in 1995 (12 years ago). i was a l.i.t. at my summer camp. who doesn't love a good summer camp story. i met mary k. that week, and over that week and two more weeks at camp that summer we had a great teenage summer camp fling. i was in love (for a 15 year old). the next time i saw mary k. (2002) was at my good friend randy's wedding. randy married mary k.'s cousin, and she was in the wedding party (small world). we made some small talk. the most recent time mary k.'s and me lives have crossed was this past summer.

i was invited to a boat cruise of the beautiful toronto harbour by maxxam analytics (lab that does my sample testing). so after 3 hours of eating free hors d'ouevres and drinks, and talking work all night, the boat was about to dock when i was picked out by mary k. we talked about where we each worked. "you work at ch2m, you could get me a job there!?!?". i replied, "sure". so like someone else (double d) did for me, i wrote a nice letter to my hr guy and give her resume to him. she got hired, and now works in the k-w office. so why did this pay-off for me.

today i got a $750 rsp bonus for recommending her. sweet. i won't see a penny of it for the next 35 years, but that sucker is going to grow. again, sweet.

so thank-you mary k., it was a great summer fling.

UPDATE: a mere 4 hours after posting this, mary k. emailed me from the k-w office. apparently i owe her lunch in 35 years. no problem, it'll be on me.

snow day

so today after driving to work for nearly an hour and a half and only making it about a quarter of the way up the DVP, I declared today a snow day for me. so i turned around and went home to work. working at home was great. mostly because of all the emails (personal ones) that I got to answer, the music that i could listen to at my level (loud), getting to wear my pajama's to work, and the long sushi lunches with other snow day friends (thanks trina). all-in-all i got about the same amount of work done on a normal office day. this is way i work best in the field, no distractions.

thank you toronto court services

it may be hard to believe, but i had a good time at the york civic centre today as i went to fight my recent speeding ticket. after going to the toronto courts office downtown this morning, only to find out that i had to go up to eglinton west and keele for this ticket, i headed north after a short day of work outside again (damn it was cold today). i think that i was in the office for maybe 25 minutes. got my number, filled out my request to see the justice of the peace form, went upstairs to see the JP, talked to her for like 15 seconds and paid the new ticket. so my 22 kilometres/hr over $110 ticket was quickly reduced to 10 kilometres/hr over and only $40 bucks. sweet, cheaper ticket and no points. definitely worth my time.

last night i almost killed a guy in floor hockey (maybe the killing part was in my mind). he had just slashed my ankles with his stick one too many times. so with 5 minutes of play left and one last slash to the ankles, i showed him how much of a red head i can be. i've been very easily irritated the last couple days.

but today i'm feeling better :)

it's been a week

i've now worked outside all day for the last 6 work days. it's not that special that i work outside, it's just that i've had to watch people work for the last 6 days. i don't get to do anything but right in my book and take photos. so other than being cold, i don't have much to talk about.

the truth is i have lots to talk about ...

time for a review

i've given the three new cd's a couple listens, some tracks more than others, so here's my reviews.

air - moon safari
after being a big fan of 'talkie walkie' i found the early album a little hard to go back to, but only because i already knew what's in the future. some great stand out tracks, 'la femme d'argent' (sweet bass line), 'sexy boy' (the big single) and 'remember' (damn, i wanted to sample the beach boys 'do it again' first). big miss track 'ce matin la', i can't stand that horn sample. overall: 7/10, where 'talkie walkie' would be a 9/10.

deftones - saturday night wrist
this one truly speaks to the heavy rocker in me. screaming vocals, pounding drums, thick bass, and stephen carpenters always present 'wall-of-sound' guitar'. but all of the heaviness and madness is played with such texture and grace. i find it to be a heavy rock album that can be easily loved by the masses. favourite song name, 'U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, A, B, Select, Start' overall: 9.5/10

dj shadow - endtroducing...
this one has gotten the least amount of play time. it didn't blow me away like i thought it would. i did have great expectations for this album. i tried listening to it by myself, with friends in the car on a long drive, just before going to sleep, but i just didn't get into it.
but this past saturday night at dave's place it was on while everyone was chatting and enjoying a small couch party. i found it's niche, the party album. it's a great party album. overall: 7.5/10

of course i have bought another album, +44 'when your heart stops beating'. let's see how the new blink-182 re-shuffle works out.

finally cut it off

after 4 months, finally i got a hair cut. and it was free, thanks lisa.

one step back

after much thought and discussion with my peers and collegues, i've decided not to do a master degree (right now). i feel that i'll be able to grow and learn through the work that i am doing right now, and once i have my p.eng this coming fall i'll have all the titles at the end of my name that i'll need to progress in the future. plus i looked at my schedule during a normal week, and i can't imagine putting two courses, studying, papers and exams into it. i'm a busy person.

another trip north

in what is becoming a normal event for sunday night a small group of us made the trip to blue mountain for some snowboarding. and trina skied. much fun was had by all as the snow fell from the sky all night long. the poor driving conditions made for short lift lines. we hunted out every little hit that we could find to get some air. dave gillis was the star of the evening as he plowed into shawn, nearly ran into me and his coat is green. possibly next weekend will bring us back to the blue mountains you never know what is going to happen.

my never ending quest

my never ending quest is for new music. i love new sounds and styles, great music by great artists, and stuff that makes my mind work when i listen to it.

recently my roommate decided that she was too lazy to fill out a free gift form from telus mobility. upon requesting if i could take the time (which really wasn't that long jana) to fill it out and use it, i went on a music hunt on amazon.ca with a $25 gift certificate.

normally finding new music is easy, i comb through the local hmv or have that new album that i've been waiting for by one of my favourite bands. but with a free certificate i wanted to get us the perfect album or two. because i would get free shipping by spend $39 or more, i bought three albums. and i do mean albums. i'm an album guy, i like awhole album as a piece of music. i rarely by an album for just that one song that i love. if i do, sometimes it works out (gnarls barkley - st. elsewhere) and sometimes it doesn't (fall out boy - from under the corktree). it took abou

t three days of looking over amazon.ca for the perfect albums.

last night i got these three albums in the mail. one for my lighter listening moments, one for my heavier listening times and one that is from a different genre (sampled music). i'll give each a good couple listens this weekend. reviews to come.

air - moon safari

deftones - saturday night wrist

dj shadow - endtroducing.....

my love of machines

yesterday i spent a good 6 hours sitting at a cubicle at the pickering nuclear power plant doing my cbt's (computer based training's). 6 hours of mind numbing power-point training and quizzes. after about 4 hours of just sitting there i really needed a little sugar boost to keep me awake.
i scanned my chooses in the lunch room vending machine and found one of my favourite snacks that i had not enjoyed in a long time. a crispy crunch chocolate bar, sitting in row C, column 10. this is where it all went wrong.

push C ... beep.
push 1 ... beep.
hmmm ... where is the 0 button????
rrrr rrrr rrrr ... blop.
what the ... i didn't want that.

yes, there is no 0 button. there was a 10 button in the bottom corner. so instead of a wonderful crispy crunch chocolate bar i got ... gum. so sad, so sad.

TVO scares the s**t out of me

conversations on the way to blue mt. are always interesting. sometimes i’m surprised about the topics that we get on during the 2 hour drive. later night was no different. a simple conversation about rainbow socks lead to rainbow bright and then all of the great childhood television shows that we loved. as a little side note, dave gillis has an amazing memory for the details of his favourite childhood shows. one of my favourite shows from way back in the day was ‘read all about it’. before the days of HD PRV digital cable there was TVO, ontario’s finest television channel. it had such great shows as ‘today’s special’, ‘sharon lois & bram’s elephant show’, ‘owl tv’ and the very funny ‘parlez-moi’. that French mime gets me every time. but my favourite was ‘read all about it’. now that i’m an adult (that’s still weird to say) i have very vague memories of the show. so I did some surfing to find a fan site about the show. upon doing so i found the picture below of the evil villain from ‘read all about it’. at that exact moment I felt like being electrocuted. i was truly scared. it was some deep childhood memory of being scared during the show that came back to the surface. completey weird moment.


if you want to enjoy the show again, check here.

it's me

i hate photos of me, i am far from photogenic. i feel that the image in my minds eye and the one in the camera lense are two very different things. 'i don't smile like that', 'why is one of my eyes closed' are only two of the many things i think when i see a photo of myself. this is not a lack of self-confidence, far from it. over the past couple years i have become more and more comfortable in my own skin. it is a very important to be happy in your own skin, feelings of discontent can have an affect on all the parts of your life. the truly happy people that i know love themselves and share that love to everyone around them. it's a cool thing to see.

all of this came from a picture (i'm not quite at a thousand words) that i actually like of myself. thanks for the camera dave, and for the shot danielle.

i'm a car pooler

today was the first day that i car pooled with ben. the wonderful rain/freezing rain/snow didn't make the drive much fun, but the passenger did. ben and i spent most of last winter driving together to blue mountain to go snowboarding. seeing that i was unemployed and ben was semi/part time employed we made the 2 hour trip to craigleith ontario many times. with this years lack of snow these adventures have not happen, and now that ben is in med-school i don't see them happening to often. but the car ride to work and school should be great to keep updated on our lives. things seem to happen and move fast in toronto.

in other news, i finally broke down today and bought some lotion. this winter has been really dry and i've been itching for weeks now. so with the advice of a 'happy' little voice i got myself some lotion. the only thing is that i can't reach the very middle of my back. hmmm, what to do?

i'm alive

i've been at a job site all week, and my internet is down at home (aka the free wireless web i've been 'using' stopped working). so that's where i've been. work.

a couple steps closer

i got an amazing email this weekend on saturday. after not talking to any of my professors for the last three years, i emailed my fourth year project advisor (and professor) for a letter of reference to get into a masters program at u of t. so she replied to me on saturday with a yes. that's awesome, step one.

i also got a my official transcript in the mail today. i had so quickly forgotten the marks that i got in university. it turns out that i got some good marks in 4th year. i need a mid b average in my fourth year to get into this program. and i have an average above that in both of my semister's. excellent, step two.

more steps to come.

it has to come back

just in case you forgot, this is what snow looks like. i miss it.

music and it's moods

i've been listening to top-40 hip-hop and dance music for the last month straight. to prepare music playlists for what was 'the greatest NYE ever'. but the night has past, and i don't have to listen to that music again. but i don't know what i want to listen to now. it's happened before. i was listening to lots of emo and punk-rock this summer before going to the warped tour. i think that i may return to what i always do. look for more new music.

i have an addiction. it's music. i consume it like the swiss chalet dinners before the NYE party (man we were hungry). the latest band that i've bought is Cansei de Ser Sexy or CSS. cool band from brazil with a great disco-punk sound. plus their lead single is called 'let's make love and listen to death from above'. death from above 1979 is one of my favourite bands from 2005. it's very sad that they parted ways.

got a band that i should listen to? leave a comment or link.

big word: addiction (9 letters)

the greatest NYE ... and the funniest

i'm pretty sure that i saw all my readers (but ben) at NYE at the castle. i've got to say, it was an an amazing party. at midnight kenneth counted 175 people in the house, and more came in after the midnight hour. so i feel comfortable saying that we made our guess of 200 people. that is crazy, the house was packed.

easily the best part of the night was only enjoying by a small number of us (11 if i remember properly, oh ya plus 2 others). for the 187 people that missed the event, here it is.

the mass exodus from the party started around 2am. the organizers started cleaning up cups and food and some general cleaning. we called for the last two cabs at around 3am. it was going to take 45 minutes for the cabs. so we all went upstairs and started dancing again. around 3:45am, we came back down and waited for the cabs on the staircase. then it happened, a complete random couple came out of the basement (no one was in the basement all night), walked straight for the door and left. we looked in amazement at each other, then laughed loud enough i'm sure the couple heard us. it was pandemonium.

the questions started about what happened. who were they? how long had they been down there? WHAT had they been doing down there? and more importantly, on what? it's a dirty empty basement.

as one person said, 'they so did it down there'

best NYE ever. thank you everyone.

big word: pandemonium (11 letters)