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?