Been a busy couple of days…lots more family goings-on: visiting, singing, eating, celebrating, playing, and so on. Now it’s raining and gray, so we’re all hiding inside and lying about. I just had my ass handed to me at crib (skunked, narrowly avoiding being double-skunked) so I’ve scampered into the office to blog and lick my wounds. There may be a drive to find fried clams later. There may not. That is the extent of our planning and forethought this day.
[tags]family reunion[/tags]
I’ve been back at the ancestral manse since about 1AM, following a pretty painless flight and drive with my brother, who picked me up. It’s been a nice quiet day, full of chores and playing with kids, until just now when copious amounts of relatives starting showing up. We shall soon leave them to their family dinner (just my mom, her nine brothers and sisters and their spouses).
It’s been nice so far. I get the sense, however, that four days of insanity are just about to begin.
[tags]family reunion[/tags]
Whilst taking a break from writing my term paper I put together a little CD for my dad. I’ll bring it to him when I’m back in Nova Scotia in a couple of weeks.
As with CDs I’ve made for him before, I expect him to love some and hate others. The Pixies and Camera Obscura might be wishful thinking, I grant you, but he’ll dig the Barry Louis Polisar…which happens to be the title song from Juno, so he’ll be cool without even knowing it.
[tags]mixed cd, music for my dad[/tags]
Today is one of my niece’s fifth birthday. My brother sent over some pictures of her party, including one where she’s holding a spoon like a lightsaber. He also included a video of her, in the back of their minivan, clutching a stuffed sheep (I think?), singing along with the Foo Fighters. Not well, mind you, but she’s givin’ er.
This gives me faint hope for the musical taste of the next generation of Dickinsons, which I had all but written off when he sent me video of my nephew dancing along to “Bootylicious.” The time before that it was Great Big Sea.
I guess all my prayers for their souls are finally starting to pay off. Hear me now, kids: “Dylan…Dylan…Dylan…”
[tags]foo fighters, cool niece[/tags]
reading: The Angel Riots by Ibi Kaslik and Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach by Charles Hill and Gareth Jones. Eye Weekly and Now Magazine every Thursday. Toronto Life once a month.
listening to: Saul Williams by Saul Williams, though any minute now I’ll move on to Death Cab For Cutie‘s Narrow Stairs or Visiter by The Dodos.
watching: almost nothing. I’m paying only marginal attention to sports (go Pens! go Celts!), The Office and 30 Rock are done for the season and The Shield hasn’t started yet. All that’s on right now is Battlestar Galactica, and even that’s on 2-week hiatus.
scanning: 190 news feeds, averaging about 509 articles per day. Of course, these are only my personal-interest feeds; I have just as many work feeds. I mainly skim the headlines here, and pay attention to maybe 50, flagging 5-10 to read later.
browsing: 6-7 websites per day. I rarely have a need to visit particular websites now (see ‘scanning’, above) but a few are applications (e.g., Google Analytics) or snapshots (e.g., the weather) that don’t work in an RSS channel. There’s also Bruce MacKinnon’s editorial cartoon every day which, despite my best efforts, I cannot wrangle into a Yahoo Pipe. Again, this is personal-interest only; there’re other work sites.
running: 3-4 times per week, 3 miles at a time. On a treadmill. Half flat, half slight incline.
eating: penne with sundried tomato pesto. Well…an hour ago, anyway.
looking forward to: our rockies/BC trip in June; Euro 2008; visiting Nova Scotia twice in August, once to visit with family and once to wrap up the MBA.
wondering: why the hell I started writing this blog post in the first place.
[tags]angel riots, ibi kaslik, toronto life, saul williams, death cab for cutie, narrow stairs, dodos, visiter, google reader, bruce mackinnon, yahoo pipes, euro 2008[/tags]
While talking to my dad today (he turns 65 today — happy birthday Dad!) we were chatting about what’s going on at the farm right now. He’d planned to start planting today but it rained, so they stuck to indoor work. One of the things he did was work on cleaning out the old farmhouse, which is being renovated. The house is over 150 years old, so he found some interesting stuff in there, including — get this — a tool to make musket balls.
I know any Europeans reading this are probably thinking, “150 years old…big deal.” However, when you’re rummaging through a house that was built before your country was even officially a country and you find a working tool that goes with a freaking musket, I’d contend that’s still a little surprising.
[tags]musket ball[/tags]
One year ago today we moved into our condo. Nellie has dubbed today condoversary. This does not surprise me. She has dubbed Feb 13 engageversary and Feb 16 cativersary. A little part of me is tempted to start sleeping around to see if I can invoke divorceversary.
Two months from today we will be hiking and sleeping at Lake O’Hara in the Rockies.
Four months from today I will be enjoying my first day of post-MBA freedom.
Today is April 23rd.
Big day.
[tags]april 23, condo, lake o’hara, mba[/tags]
I’m sitting in Fran’s and looking across the street at Massey Hall. The signs outside show that three of the upcoming acts are Gordon Lightfoot, George Thorogood and Emmylou Harris. There’s a good chance that same lineup is in my dad’s stereo at any given point.
[tags]gordon lightfoot,george thorogood,emmylou harris,massey hall[/tags]
Today is St. Patrick’s Day. I do not care about this so much since I’m about as Irish as pineapple, and my tolerance for drinking cheap draft in crowded bars is pretty much down to nil. However, a shocking number of people (many of whom I know for a fact are not Irish in any way, shape or form) are wearing green today, so maybe this is a bigger deal than I thought. Having grown up in a place named New Scotland, in a non-drinking family, the importance of March 17 may have been lost on me.
Today I am 89% of the way through my MBA. I have 157 days left. If the entire program were put on the timeline of a single day, it would be about 9:22 PM. I am officially phoning it in at this point.
Today my brother is in town again. He was here just last weekend; I guess he really missed the place. Anyway, we had a bite and a couple of pints at Smokeless Joe last night (I believe we have now taken pretty much everyone we know there) and he’s off to meetings today and tomorrow. Soon he’ll know the city better than we do.
Today’s it’s cold again, which is deflating after the semi-warm day we had on Saturday. Supposed to be above freezing & rainy tomorrow and Wednesday, which bodes well for removing some snow.
Today I’d like to be working for VanCity, like my friend* William Azaroff. He got to meet Muhummad Yunus and he does some cool stuff at work.
Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you. By now you should’ve somehow realized what you gotta do. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.
* It feels odd to call him that, since I’ve never met him in person, but rather have communicated only a few times over email and phone. Still, blogs & Facebook & Twitter give a strange sense of familiarity. Hmmmm…there’s a whole other blog post simmering there…
[tags]st. patrick’s day, mba, smokeless joe, toronto weather, william azaroff, vancity, muhummad yunus, oasis, wonderwall[/tags]
Last week The Onion did a brilliant piece making fun of Marmaduke (my favourite line was “Today, almost six decades later, this plucky octogenarian continues his tireless work, bringing laughter and joy to millions of readers long since dead of old age.”) which I sent to a co-worker. This prompted a discussion of other comic strips long overdue for death. He sent me a link to the King Features site and pointed out that most of the offending strips live there.
Honestly, I’m baffled. People still read Beetle Bailey? Blondie? Dennis The Menace? Hi And Lois? Mary Worth? Rex Morgan M.D.? Sweet tubercular Moses, The Family Circus!?! Were these ever considered funny? Granted, they’re all 48+ years old (Blondie being the oldest, having started in 1930) and taste in humour certainly changes over the years, but that raises the question: how many fans of these strips can possibly still be alive?
.:.
Those of you who know her should check out Nellie’s new blog. It’s the same address as her old blog, but she’s switched topics. Photography is her latest interest, which I’m all for ’cause I think she’s got some real talent. She’s taking a class to help her learn some technique, and she has a shmancy new camera from which I keep expecting to hear a HAL9000 voice. Anyway, link/subscribe to nelliedee photographee and have a look.
[tags]onion, marmaduke, king features, beetle bailey, blondie, dennis the menace, hi and lois, mary worth, rex morgan m.d., family circus, nelliedee[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 