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 ...