ode to my neighbour

he lives one floor below downstairs,
i listen to music he pulls out his hairs.
the heavy bass goes thump, thump, thump,
he hits the ceiling bump, bump, bump.
7 am was too early for him,
so was 9 and 10 and saturday night at 6:30 pm.
i don't think he likes the hits i play,
too bad i don't care anyway.
i want to be nice and do my best,
maybe i should yell down and take a request.
if the windows are shaking at 582 indian rd. apartment 2,
it may just be the red haired bass player living above you.

be careful this holiday season

after living in toronto for a year and a half i have only run into the 'ride program' once. when going out with friends there is no reason to have a vehicle with you. i've lived on both a main street-car line and the bloor subway line. one night i did have my car with me. i was dropping friends off at home, going west-bound on dundas west, when i drove straight through the 'ride program'. i guess that i didn't think much about seeing police-car lights. after dropping a friend off, was going back down dundas west, and stopped the second time going through.

i was at home in the sarnia area this weekend for xmas, and out with a friend for a couple beers. it is about a 40 minute drive from sarnia to my parents in sombra. i've seen the 'ride program' many times in the sarnia area because, unlike toronto, you've to travel a long distance to got home in the country. so when driving home this saturday night i ran into the 'ride program' in their classic spot on the curves coming into corunna (a small town between sarnia and sombra). i was honest with the officer and told that i did have a drink that night. he nicely asked if i would use the roadside breath-a-lizer. i pulled the car over and got into the back of the squad-car (second time in my life in the back of a squad-car). i was scared. i felt somber but the difference between feeling somber and being breath-a-lizer somber can be very different. as i waited for the results to come up on the little machine the officer was doing a great job at trying to scare me more. 'hmmm, it's taking along time. you must have had alot to drink tonight. hmmmm.....'

i past the test, and he let me go home. but wow, what a way to end the night. so be careful this holiday season (especially at the NYE party), don't drink and drive ... or just tell the cops that you didn't have anything to drink.

home for the holidays

it took me a meer 5 hours to drive home to my parents on friday night. this drive can be done in only 3 hours. but some truck driver parked this transport through the concrete median between trafalger road and james snow park on the 401. it took me over an hour to drive through the 8 kilometres of backed-up traffic. i was very close to having a 'falling down' moment, but i lived through driving a standard vehicle in 8 km/h traffic.

music is very important during a long drive like this. if i'm driving by myself, i normally just put my ipod on shuffle and listen to a random mix of all of the music that i love. if i'm driving with others i try to make sure that the guests of my car like the music that is being played. i try to be a good host.

i love it when a song or album or band has a strong memory associated with it. i had been driving for about 4 hours on this trip on friday night, listening to my music on shuffle the entire way. as i'm turning off of the 401, south of london, to finish the trip along the country road to my parents house a song by my favourite new band of 2006 comes on. this song (and album, and band) have a very strong memory to driving down this very road. i got a speeding ticket this summer on this road, listening to this song, when i was doing 48 kilometres over the speed limit. so i turned the ipod off of shuffle and picked mutemath's album. i finished the drive listening to the whole album, remembering the great trip this past summer to the warped tour with ben, dave and steve. gt's as ben would say, gt's.

big word: remembering (11 letters)

interesting and scary

like most of you, i've spent a good amount of time surfing the net just looking at what's out there. the thing that most recently interested me are financial blogs. a blog where people post everything about their financial situation and how they are working to improve it. 'make love not debt' is one of my favourites. i was amazed by how much detail people are willing to put on the net. i think it is a very scary thing to do. no one posts their name, but someone with enough desire and intelligence could so easily steal from you. i'll blog about my life, but not my finances.

other financial blogs:
millionaire artist
2million
boston gal's open wallet

big word: intelligence (12 letters)

a brief history

your past definitely directs your future. maybe not in the small details of your day-to-day life, but the habits, ruins and interests that you develop through life. one interest i developed as a child was skateboarding, which turned into snowboarding, and now more recently longboarding (thanks again for the b-day present). as you see, one interest developed the next.

so my brief history of righting (and reading) goes like this; can only remember reading charlotte's web and some barbara smucker books as a kid, joel eagleson gave me his copy of the hobbit and LOTR in grade 9 (four great books), struggled with english class through every grade of school, including getting just a passing mark on the english language proficiency examination (ELPE) during frosh week in university. the strongest memory that is burned into my mind is not being able to spell the word 'look' in grade 2 and my teacher making fun of me in front of the whole class because of it. thanks ms. townsend.

last night we play white elephant (aka dirty santa or yankee swap) to my home church xmas party. i put my $5 gift in an empty ipod box. if you like the show 'the office' you'll get my joke.

big word: skateboarding (13 letters)

m.env.sc

i have decided to apply for a masters degree at the university of toronto in environmental science. when i finished my bachelors degree, what will soon be 4 years ago, i told myself i would never go back to school. but now that i have found the job that i feel i truly want to be doing, i want to be educated in this specific field. also my company is willing to pay for the degree. how sweet is that? so this is my problem. i am a horrible righter (please just except that i will be using 'right' in the blog for the word 'write'). i always have been, a brief history to come soon, but i cannot be anymore. if i get accepted to this program, i am going to have to right papers. so i am going to work on this problem. i am hoping that by righting in this blog daily, i will develop some righting skills.

i am also hoping that this blog works out better than my last one. righting a blog out of necessity, will hopefully be more productive than one out of boredom. those were not happy times (check the last entry).

big word: environmental (13 letters)

welcome

welcome

i'll work on being able to right more