Mele Kalikimaka

A few pictures from Christmas day here in Hawaii. Luckily Santa was still able to find us here and mom cooked a great turkey! (I was responsible for making the Hawaiian eggnog aka Pina Colada's and I'm happy to say they were very well received.)

The pastiest people in Hawaii. We're working on it...I promise.

The girls wearing some festive jewels from Grandma

View from the Lanai

Hawaii bound

Off to Hawaii tomorrow morning! I'm really excited. I hope I don't get eaten by a shark.
Merry Christmas everyone (or other holiday wishes if you don't celebrate Christmas). See you in two weeks!

Unhibernation League

It's time to start up the unhibernation league again. Really it was time to start up the league in October, but I was lazy and busy getting used to being in school and didn't get my act together. So, I think the league should start after January 7th. Here are a few ideas I have so far:

• Climbing
• Speed Skating (either Steph or Maarten will need to be recruited in order for this one to work I think.)
• Roller Skating
• Skeleton
• Andrew's annual scavenger hunt

I'm pretty excited for the league to start up again. I had a lot of fun last year!

Wii

I'm thinking of buying a Wii. From what I've heard the sports games are supposed to be pretty fun (not to mention the potential of "Dance Factory") and you don't have to be one of those "gamers" to have one. I'm waffling about it though because they are still a bit expensive and I'm a poor student. Seems like fun though!

Farewell to Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman passed away last Thursday. I'm really surprised how little I've heard about it in the media. Maybe I'm just watching the wrong shows, or perhaps things have gotten so bad that the death of one of the most significant economist of the 20th century isn't important enough to interrupt the 24/7 coverage of the "TomKat" wedding. Either way it's always sad to lose a smartie.

procrastination strikes again

Procrastination has been getting the better of me lately. I just can't seem to convince myself to get anything done, especially school work and laundry. If this keeps up I may just have to buy new clothes. In addition this blog has also taken a bit of a hit due to my procrastination. So, in an attempt to rectify the situation here are a few things that I've been thinking about lately but haven't managed to get into print:

1. Short people. Short Pants: Why do I keep seeing short people in excessively short pants? Inevitably the people in short pants are also wearing white socks and bad shoes which only makes things worse and apparently these people are completely oblivious to the breeze on their ankles. I mean I can understand that tall people who don't care about their clothes sometimes end up with short pants because their legs are just too long for regular pants, but these short people actually had to put in effort to make their pants too short...they had to get them hemmed like that! Is this some sort of sick joke being played by tailors all across Calgary?
2. Bathroom reno: I'm renovating the bathroom. Today I had to go choose tile at the contractor approved tile store. The lady who was "helping" me was horrible...she was one of those people who is determined to do the least amount of work possible while at work without any consideration for the difficulty this will cause for the customer. Here's how our conversation went: I said: " I'm renovating my bathroom. My contractor said I needed to come here to choose tile. I think I like this tile here but I would like to take it home to see what it looks like in my bathroom. Can I do that?" Her response: "Well, I can't let you take the sample we have out here, so I'd have to check in the back for another sample" - awkward pause - Then I said: " Ok, I can just keep looking while you go check" -awkward pause - Then she said: "Oh, well I guess you can probably take the one out here if you can bring it back on Monday". Then i said:" Ok, could you tell me the price on this tile?" and she said: "Well I'd have to go to the back to get that"...I think you get the idea. This is when you really start to see the negative effects of the labour shortage...I think I'd prefer if they just hired monkeys or something.
3. I had more things I was going to write about...procrastination and juvenile alzheimers is not a good combination.

Football and Climbing!

I went to the Stamps game yesterday. They lost. I'm not really that committed to football though, so I wasn't too upset. Plus, the Roughriders are really all that people in Saskatchewan have to cheer for, so the least we can do is let them win once in a while.

I also had my first climbing lesson last night. Wow is it ever fun! (also a lot less hugging than football). I'm taking the class with my friend Stephanie and we are both at about the same level which makes it much less intimidating. The first climb up the wall was a bit scary, but after that we made it to the top a few times on one of the easier walls and we were sufficiently tired by the end of the two hours. I can't wait for next Sunday!

If I won the lottery

I had a dream a while ago that I won 300 million dollars in the lottery. In the dream I mailed a plane ticket to Hawaii to everyone I know with a sticky note saying "hope you can make it". Needless to say I woke up in a really great mood and I started thinking about what else I would do if I won the lottery. Here is my list so far:

• take everyone to Hawaii (as mentioned above)
• buy an iPod
• renovate my condo
• pay off the mortgage on the condo
• buy a house
• renovate my new house to include a room for Brinkley made entirely of that stuff they use to make Kong dog toys, and add a climbing wall to the kitchen
• hire a professional pooper-scooper to follow Brinkley around outside
• hire a dog nanny like Oprah

That's all I have so far...I'll add new items as I think of them. Suggestions welcome.

"Feelings"

I don't want to write the paper I should be working on right now. The main challenge with most of the writing I am expected to do for the teaching program is that I am supposed to express the "feelings" that the topic brings out in me and relate this to my past experiences. Now I realize that this doesn't sound that challenging, and in a lot of ways it isn't. For one thing, the amount of research required is minimal. However, the problem with this whole "feelings" thing is that I generally only have 2 feelings about the topics discussed in our classes. Feeling #1: That was pretty fun, I liked it. Feeling #2: That wasn't very fun. I didn't like it. This is completely the opposite of a lot of the people in this program who have WAY too many feelings. One girl even cried. It was ridiculous.

In an attempt to try to fit in better with some of my classmates (not the crier though...she's just insane), I have decided to start practicing the different emotions so that I can bring them out on command in my classes. The emotions that seem to be used the most by my classmates are: insulted, angry, overwhelmed, sad, and happy. I'm already pretty good at happy, so I'm going to start off by focusing on the other 4. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

A girl on the train

A girl sitting across from me on the train today took off her shoe, smelled it, and put it back on. I don't know how to respond to that.

Overwhelmed by toothpaste

I saw a toothpaste commerical on TV today that I can't stop thinking about. The toothpaste is Aquafresh White and Shine. Basically the message of the commercial is that this toothpaste will not only make your teeth white, it will also make them shiny! So apparently now its not good enough to have white teeth, they have to be shiny...go ahead and start feeling unnecessarily self-conscious now. At first the only goal was clean teeth, then they threw whitening in their and now they've added shiny. Based on this trend, I'm guessing the next step is tooth glitter. I can't wait.

Update on the TV remotes

So about an hour after I wrote my entry about the TV remotes Brinkley got another one! This time it was the remote for Sheena's DVD player...whoopsies! I was searching for a sock in my closet and he snuck downstairs and took the remote. As it turns out I think the reason I couldn't find the sock was because Brinkley ate it. Also, Sheena and I recounted and between the remotes he has destroyed at my house combined with the remotes he has destroyed at my parents house the count is actually up to 8.

Mourning the loss of TV remotes #4 and 5

Brinkley destroyed 2 TV remotes today. The first one was my fault. I accidentally left it sitting on the coffee table and went into the kitchen for a few seconds. I was going into the kitchen to get a handful of chocolate chips, yes I eat chocolate chips right out of the bag...don't try to pretend you don't do the same thing. In Brinkley-land leaving the TV remote on the coffee table is apparently a clear invitation to take the remote. It really only takes him one good chomp to destroy the remote...I wonder if they make titanium TV remotes?

(The second TV remote lost its life while I was having a shower. Brinkley managed to open the drawer where I keep the TV remote and destroyed it along with a pen. There is also a pretty good chance he ate a hair elastic.)

Winter Activities #2

Winter activity #1 is taken care of. My friend Steph and I are going to take climbing lessons! I'm really excited about it. From what I can tell climbing has some of the same benefits as yoga (makes you stronger, bendier, more coordinated) but without all the standing still and crazy breathing. I'm still looking into Skeleton as the other potential activity. The COP website doesn't have any information on it anymore, but a girl that I go to school with knows some of the bobsledder/luger/skeleton-ers so she's going to try to find some info for me.

YAY! So excited!

Winter Activities

I'm in the process of trying to sort out my activities for this winter. I figure that with school and the dog I can probably manage one evening activity during the week and then another activity on Friday and potentially something else on the weekend. Here are the ideas I have so far:

• (un)hibernation league
• skeleton
• pottery
• yoga
• pilates
• skate skiing

At the moment I think that I will forsure have (un)hibernation league, and maybe yoga during the day on Friday, and then hopefully skeleton or skate skiing sometime during the week.

Skool!

This week is immersion week at school. That means that I get spend the whole week with my grade 1-2 class. So far its been a blast and I am slowly getting the hang of things. Here are a few things I've learned so far:

1. If you wear shiny shoes, people are going to feel a need to touch them.
2. Never take someone's eraser without asking AND waiting for them to say yes...they may burst into tears.
3. Recess is seems even shorter when you're a teacher.
4. It's hard to sniff smelly markers without colouring your nose.

I'll keep you posted on what else I learn!

Back to School

I started school on Monday! It's hard to believe it's finally here. I'm a bit nervous since its been a while since I had to do homework, write papers etc. but I'm also pretty excited. For my field placements I'll be in a grade 1/2 classroom until November-ish and then I'll be at the Alberta Wilderness Association which is conveniently located up the street from my house! I think it'll probably take a few weeks to get used to being back at school but hopefully I'll catch on quick!

I wish I went to Stanford

I went to visit my sister in California over the long weekend. Well, to be fair since I'm "retired" I took an extra long weekend (Thursday-Tuesday). Being the organized sibling Kath had a whole itinerary set up for us so we got a lot of great tourist work done. A few highlights from the trip:
- The monterey aquarium: the otters are hillarious and they had a brand new Great White Shark! oooooh! To be honest, it was a baby Great White Shark...so not exactly Great...more like pretty big for a baby.
- Shopping!: J.Crew and DSW officially have all my money.
- Visit to the redwood forest: We totally won the hike. estimated time: 2 hours, our time: 45 minutes. Woohoo!!
- Sea Lions at the beach: We saw Sea Lions at the beach!!! at least I think they were Sea Lions...I'm not sure I totally know which one is a Seal and which one is a Sea Lion...

Lesson learned

I think it's only fair to post any lessons I have learned to my blog in the hopes of helping others (I'm convinced "Karma" is going to get me if I don't). So, here is my latest lesson learned:

Even if you've only had 2 double g&t's putting you duvet inside the duvet cover is going to be harder.

Hope that helps.

The Cabin

So I was going to write a blog entry about the trip to my cabin this past weekend, but it feels a bit redundant considering both Andrew and Justin already posted entries about it. Sooo I guess I'll just say we had a lot of fun...too bad the rest of you suckers couldn't join us aaaannnddd one batch of waffles is never enough.

(Justin and Andrew thanks for taking pictures!)

Brinkley and Lucy

Brinkley and Lucy hangin' out.

Door!

It's a good thing my parents are very understanding people. I dropped Brinkley off at their house last night when I went to lawn bowling so that he wouldn't have to go in his house for the evening. Brinkley and I had quite an active day yesterday so I didn't think he'd cause too much trouble for my parents...but of course I was wrong. Within an hour of being at their house he had dug a major hole in their garden and then got so excited about the hole he dug that he ran head first into their back door, shattering the glass part of the door with his head. Luckily there was a screen between his head and the glass so no trip to the vet was required, although considering his behaviour perhaps a CT scan wouldn't be the worst idea.

1 year old

Well, Brinkley is officially 1 year old (his birthday was actually on August 9th but it took a while to get a current picture)! Now only 2 more years until he will start to act like a grown up! Woohoo!

Ricky's Blog

Ricky has asked me to include his blog in my rating system. Since I know Ricky, and his current blog is going to give me a lot of material to work with I've agreed to add him. So here we go:

Ricky's latest blog entry is pretty awesome. It doesn't exactly present Ricky in the most flattering light, but I like that kind of honesty. As far as Ricky's current problems with the ladies go I think I may have identified the main problem.

Ricky, you need to take on a more active role. By giving girls your number and expecting them to call you you're putting all the power in their hands...if they don't call, there's nothing you can do about it. Also, you're placing them outside their comfort zone...I hate to break it to you, but girls don't call boys. Boys call girls. Take their numbers...at least that way you have some control over the situation. Rating: 4

My Last Day

Today is my last day working at Korn/Ferry. I've had a chance to meet some pretty interesting people and I've learned a lot about the business community in Calgary over the past year. Overall I would say this job has been a great experience and it could have led to some other great opportunities had I decided I wanted to stay in the corporate world. However, I'm still VERY excited to be done! I can't wait to have the rest of the summer off and to start school in the fall.

Now I'm in the process of figuring out what to do for the rest of the summer. Here are my ideas so far:
- Go to the cabin
- Visit my sister in California
- Play tennis
- Go golfing
- Go to the zoo
- Bake pies
- Hang out with Brinkley
- Play frisbee
- Watch seasons 1 and 2 of the Cosby show
- Ride my bike

Thoughts? Feelings?

My first review

I've decided that my blog reviews will be based on a 0-5 rating system. 0 meaning the author is being one of those jerks who hasn't updated their blog, and 5 meaning the author has really outdone themselves. So, here we go:

Andrew's Blog: Well, I tend to think that just posting pictures is cheating, but at the same time the photos that Andrew posted are pretty good and commentary might have taken something away from them. Overall I'm going to say that's a 3, partially because he's still earning points from the excellent folkfest rant from last week.

Justin's Blog: Ok, so I'm pretty sure a picture of your excessively messy bedroom should not count as a blog entry....unless the next entry is going to be a picture of the same bedroom magically clean with some sort of explanation of the cleaning process (how many elves it took, what kind of living creatures were discovered etc.). But considering this is review #1, I'm going to take pity on poor Justin and say that the entry about unemployment was enjoyable. Probably because I can't wait for this week to be over so I can start my own brief stint of "retirement"! Rating: 2

Mic's Blog: Mic's latest blog entry has a lot of things going for it. It's thorough, stays within the main "what has Micaela been up to lately?" theme of the blog, and provides a promise for future entries that procrastinators such as myself can look forward to. However, it's not the "feel good" blog I would have hoped for. The main reason for this is that it makes me feel both jealous and lazy. Holidays? 49*C? Cottage country? all the makings of a jealousy inducing blog. Pilates twice a week? weeding your garden? Dog Sitting? yup, now I feel lazy. Overall though a great blog entry and the fact that I feel jealous and lazy is probably more my issue than her's. Rating: 3.5

Mike's Blog: Seriously? Are we still expected to excited about the fact that Mike couldn't wash his car in May? Come on Mike, you work part-time....from home..take a few minutes to update your blog! Rating: 0

The Dilbert Blog: Ok so this is a bit of a tricky blog to rate. Mostly because he has a serious advantage over our other bloggers: 1. He is a professional writer/funny man 2. I'm pretty sure he gets paid to write the blog and I think even Mike could probably take a few minutes to update his blog if someone was paying him. That said this is a great blog that everyone should read.

I'm going to cut Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) a bit of slack for not updating his blog lately because he just got married and frankly I'd be a bit concerned if he was updating his blog on his honeymoon. His latest entry "Heat Wave" is both hillarious and it provides a solution to the conflict in the Middle East. Not too shabby. Rating: 4.5

My Blog

Well, its finally happened...I've started a blog. Whoa. Scary. To be honest I'm pretty nervous about the whole idea. Rationally I know that very few people will actually read this thing and compared to the other idiots out there ranting away on their blogs chances are this will come out somewhere in the middle in terms of humour/interest/proper spelling. But despite knowing that I'm still pretty nervous. Here are the main reasons why:

1. I'm lazy. This means that there is a pretty good chance I won't update this thing as often as I should, and we all know there's nothing worse than those jerks who create a blog and then never update it.
2. I'm pretty sure I don't actually have that much to say.
3. I'm not that funny in print
4. I'm not good at taking pictures (from what I've seen pictures are a key element to any half decent blog)
5. There's a pretty good chance that at some point my dog will decide to eat my computer and then I won't be able to update my blog and you'll all think I'm a big jerk even though it’s entirely beyond my control.

Despite these fears, I'm still committed to giving this whole blog thing a go. I have a few main plans for my blog so far:

1. Rating other people's blogs. I am an excellent procrastinator (one of my best features really), which means I read the 5 blogs that I know about everyday. I've linked these blogs to this one so that all of you can decide if you agree with my ratings or not. Basically I'll be rating these blogs on the quality of their latest update, or lack of update.

2. Letting you know what bizarre things my dog has eaten/done today.

3. Random updates about anything I feel like. I'm really trying to embrace the true spirit of blogging with this one. So far this is the part I'm the most nervous about.

Enjoy!