September 23, 2008

More pics from Vegas

Just added a few more pics from Vegas to the gallery. Hope everyone is having a fab week! Busy here, but I'll try to post again by this weekend. :)

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September 21, 2008

Weekend in Vegas

Vegas, baby. Or at least a few of the details that are fit to print. My life day-to-day tends to be very busy -- and having said that, I'd never trade it. :) My long weekend away, though, was the ultimate chance to just let go, relax, and have a lot of FUN.

Vegas began midday with drinks by the pool, lovin' the sun and just chilllllllllllin'. Breathe in, breathe out and just be in the moment. Later that evening, my friends and I got glammed up and headed over to the Mirage to catch the Cirque de Soleil show Love. I'd never before seen a Cirque show, and it took my breath away. Not only watching all the performers, who were absolutely incredible (and who made me want to resume the dance classes I took when I was younger, and to definitely devote more time to yoga) -- but the music. Love, as its website says, "celebrates the musical legacy of the Beatles." The show made me appreciate all that the Beatles contributed to music in a way that my university "History of Popular Music After 1945" class couldn't quite put its finger on. The funny and random part of the night was seeing Billy Idol in the lobby. ;)

After Love, we were stopped by a few of the lounge and nightclub staff who were looking to draw clientele in for the night. We were already on the guest list for LAX nightclub though, AND managed to get free champagne for most of the night. The next day was some shopping at the shops over by Caesar's Palace, some more pool time, and an amazing dinner at CatHouse. Followed by a short excursion a few hotels over, random run-in and a drink with "The Mole" from the TV show "The Mole" (except that I've never seen this show!), then another night out dancing at a club.

Vegas is such a cool place to explore. I love it! I'm not a huge gambling or casino person, but there's so much more to do there, and so much nightlife.

The rest of this week was pretty busy, and on Friday I went sea kayaking in Monterey for a team off-site. Love the kayaking part, just not the wetsuits. ;) Chalk that one up to six years working for Canada's federal health department and reading one too many consumer advisories or communicable disease reports, heh. It was a beautiful day, though, and we saw so many sea otters, sea lions, and harbor seals. I love Monterey.

And now it's Sunday night, with a few things still to do before heading off to sleep. Hope everyone's had a great weekend!

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September 18, 2008

And so the point of Air Miles then is...?

Say, hypothetically, you thought it might be nice to head to Canadialand for Christmas. Cos, y'know, you haven't seen your family in almost a year -- and hey, if you could get an Air Miles ticket and stay for a couple of weeks, maybe you could also take a few days and hop another flight down to Ottawa and Montreal to visit some friends there too, who by then you wouldn't have seen in a year and a half. So you pick up the phone and call Air Miles, because you know you have oodles of flexibility on both travel dates and airports. So for travel dates, you give them the option of departing Dec. 15 to Dec. 24, and the option of returning Dec. 27 to Jan. 4.

Choices of departing airports: San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, and Sacramento.

Choices of arriving airports: Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, and Toronto.

Silly me. I must have lost my mind there for a few minutes. No? No flights? No?

Well, Air Canada had some but it was the only airline out of the list. I like Air Canada, but unfortunately Air Canada doesn't like pets in cabin (and not that I'd ever put my dog in cargo, but for information's sake, most airlines don't take pets in cargo during the Christmas travel season).

Soldiering on. Anyone else think it's funny that the fare from California to Thunder Bay is about the same as the fare from California to Melbourne or Sydney, Australia? Same continent vs. other side of the world. There's something more than a little wrong with this picture. And you at least still get complimentary non-alcoholic drinks on trans-continental flights.

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September 15, 2008

Fun weekend!

Hello... random babble before I go to bed. I'm sleeeepy!! I got back today from a very fun weekend in Vegas! Sometime over the next few days I'll put up more pics in the gallery (too happily sleepy today to resize and upload all the photos) and I'll post about the weekend!

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September 09, 2008

Forget "Turkey Day," better make that "Turkey Week." I decline to comment on whether or not that's a political statement.

I have to say, it took me the better part of yesterday to figure out that an election had been called in Canada. The only reason I even clued in was because Rick Mercer had written a blog post that was in my inbox yesterday morning when I woke up. And even after reading that, it wasn't until late afternoon as I was getting ready to leave work for the day that I thought, "Wait a second..."

So I ventured over to CBC.ca, naturally assuming that if an election had been called, it would be the top story on the front page. Silly me, I've been in the U.S. for over a year now, where one facet or another of the presidential election has made top news headlines since last summer -- and the election here isn't until November. At 5 p.m. PDT yesterday, though, prime "real estate" on CBC.ca's front page included Wheel of Fortune being on at 5:30 p.m. (6 in Newfoundland), coverage of the Canadian Country Music Awards, and something about discovering online fun with Gofrette. And on the CBCNews.ca section below it, left-side of the page? Some stock image of a dude yelling at his cell phone and a headline for and link to the accompanying story, which was obviously more important than the future of the country.

When I checked again this morning, CBC.ca had remedied their temporary lapse in news value judgment and was giving much more prominence to election coverage. Having said that, though, I can't really blame them for yesterday. When you call an election in September for October 14, the DAY AFTER CANADIAN THANKSGIVING, when a lot of people have likely already made travel plans and will either have to vote early or not vote at all, I can't say that it reflects well on a certain political party taking the notion of democracy all that seriously. Good job trying to set the stage for low voter turnout, an admirable election strategy. (And by admirable, I mean... well, you fill in the blank.)

I have to say that I truly like how the U.S. political system works, leading up to a presidential election. The political parties take it very seriously, as do the news media. Even though I've always been heavily interested in politics, I've never been so informed about the candidates, their positions on issues, and, well, everything they've eaten or worn this week, or as excited about an election -- and I can't even vote here.

But I can vote in Canada, and no thanks to the blink-and-you'll-miss-it campaign time, I will be voting via an absentee ballot. All Canadians outside of the country, remember to visit Election Canada's website to complete your absentee ballot application form. I don't care who you vote for, just VOTE -- don't let their choice of election day and 5 1/2 week campaign time make a mockery of the democratic system.

And if you're looking for some great reading, check out Rick Mercer's latest blog post about the election, "Lights, Camera, Action!"

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September 04, 2008

A commentary on the summer they had?

I was adding the WeatherBug application to my Facebook profile a few minutes ago -- what? I grew up in Canada, I'm a weather freak, I will forever be obsessed by it even though I no longer have to deal with skin freeze warnings, flash freeze warnings, blizzards, ice storms, black ice, tornado watches, or humidity levels that could put a sauna to shame -- and I thought hey, let's check out the weather in my former hometowns of Ottawa and Thunder Bay.

When I got to the bottom of the Thunder Bay weather page on Environment Canada's website, I burst out laughing. Check out the circled minimum temperature recorded for "Yesterday" in the "Historical Data" table.

While I've heard the summer weather was sub-par there this year, somehow I think I would have heard about almost 73 degrees below zero. Unless, you know, all the phone lines froze and the power went out alongside the dawn of the short-lived new ice age. So is it a data input error or sarcastic weather commentary? Whatever the case, it made me giggle.

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August 31, 2008

It's back!

What's back? The SPPNTCJ -- The Society for Preventing Parents from Naming Their Children Jennifer. Also known as a site I kept between 1996 and 2000.

I'm still waiting for some application approvals for adding site advertising, etc., and can't wait to get rolling with the Jennifer stories, Jennifer links, and SPPNTCJ members pages. So go on, have a look, and be sure to add the News page feed and the Jennifer stories feed. If you like it, please spread the word!

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August 20, 2008

About as S-M-R-T as purple ketchup

Some product genius somewhere in the world clearly had a serious case of cabin fever, likely having forgone his or her vacation due to the cost of gas and the airlines' recent favorite pastime of "I'll see your second checked bag fee, and raise you a first bag money-grab while bleeding economy passengers dry for half a glass of water." That's the only thing that can possibly explain BERRY SCENTED RAZORS. Because we all like to raise sharp blades to our nostrils while inhaling deeply to fully absorb that sweet aromatherapy meant to transport us to a far off berry patch Utopia, where we can imagine ourselves languishing in the sun sipping pomegranate margaritas while, you know, not paying attention to the actual act of razor to skin. Huh. Must've missed that part of Hygiene 101.

It's not like you can draw with a razor, like you can with Mr. Sketch scented markers. And you can't really light a razor like a scented candle, because last I checked, burning rubber anything was just a bad idea. I suppose you could use berry scented razors as a substitute air freshener. Not recommended if you have small children or pets, and on that note, thank you for the advent of another small object that to my dog, probably smells good enough to eat. Not that I plan to keep razors anywhere he could possibly get ahold of him, but never underestimate dogs and adventurous toddlers. My Shih Tzu can pull tea towels off the kitchen counter and for him, that's an Olympic-worthy high jump.

And so I remain entirely perplexed. And I'll say it right now, that if Liquid Paper comes out with berry scented white out, I'm going to be just a little bit concerned. ;)

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July 19, 2008

Past, present, future

Nothing big, just three questions from a meme I saw on Iris' blog. I decided to stick to the "What were you doing, what are you doing, what would you do" questions. Enjoy!

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

July 1998. I was 18 years old and had just finished grade 12 -- in Ontario at the time, there was a grade 13, aka OAC, so I had one year of high school to go. I had just started working in the bedding, bath and linens department of a department store, quite happy to leave my job at a movie theatre. I lived in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, where I was born and raised. I spent a lot of time hanging out with Allana, before she moved to Ottawa for school (I would visit her in Ottawa that coming winter, and move to Ottawa -- as planned for several years -- the following year). In July, I would have had a crush still on T, a high school friend whom I hadn't seen in a year, but encountered at grad night and hung out with at the grad party. He'd had a crush on me the year before, but I'd been kind of oblivious -- some things don't change! I remember talking to him on the phone a couple of times after that. (I wonder what he's doing now?) A month later, I would begin designing a website for an indie band based in Toronto, something that ended up shaping the next few years of my life.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?

1. Drink more coffee. No, for real. I was out til 2am, yet answering texts from Tina at 8am, then outside for a walk with Pico and just finished playing fetch with him. It's either more sleep, or more coffee.
2. Finish editing a video and work on some design mocks for a side project in progress.
3. Continue re-reading the Tao Te Ching (Blakney translation) -- it's been several years since I last read it.
4. Take Pico for a long walk, then take him to Petsmart so I can get him some more food.
5. Same thing I do every day, Brain... plan to take over the world. ;) Oh, and maybe stop at Borders.

3) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Get more sleep, probably. ;) Yeah, who am I kidding? I would do a lot of what I do now, since I always need to be doing something. If I have a few days off just to chill, I end up driving myself bonkers if I don't plan things to do! I'd move my family out to California (or at least build them a home they could visit during the winter months, if they didn't want to live out here full-time). Take a few trips I want to take - Australia (Melbourne, Sydney, and the Gold Coast), New Zealand, London, Paris, Greece... Definitely donate to the Humane Society and Animal Rescue groups, and also the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario -- CHEO has held a special place in my heart since j-skool. Help out friends if they need it, and see some of my friends a lot more I'm sure! Start a scholarship fund at my former high school. Think about what I could contribute to the world, not just monetarily, but what that monetary backing would allow me to instrument and move forward. So many possibilities.

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July 14, 2008

Hey there Delilah Jenn-a-lala, what's it like in New York City California, you're a three thousand miles away, but girl tonight...

The title isn't really related to anything, that song was just stuck in my head after hearing it on the radio last night. So I changed the wording a bit. And yes, I AM in California. Even the part of California in which I live. My dog can't believe it either.

So aside from friends trying to marry me off on Facebook and inviting themselves to a wedding I didn't know was happening... and criss-crossing the continental US a couple of times... and covering a whole lot of my home state... things are pretty busy! Okay, I'm kidding about the wedding part, but not about the friends inviting themselves to it, or the rest of it. Hey, life's not boring, I'll say that much, which is very much the point. I haven't had a lot of time to be sarcastically introspective about something, which is when I usually come and blog. Is that called behaving like an adult in addition to actually being one, or does that mean I need to clone myself into three people and assign one of us to resume having random encounters or thought patterns that result in highly sarcastic blog material? Your call.

Nah. There ARE stories, actually. Good ones, too, although you might not believe me if I told you. I'll share them some day, when I find out how it all goes.

In the meantime, I'm keeping my eyes and ears open for something I can get all tangential about again!

A couple of updates... there are some new pics in the gallery that I put up last week. I also recently joined a site called Adoptic, which is kind of like a webring but not really. If you have a blog, though, definitely check it out.

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July 02, 2008

Here's where I've been, how about you?

Breathe in. Exhale. Wooooooosh. Do you hear that sound? That's me, finally sitting still for just a moment, after two jam-packed months that included 10 planes, 2 road trips, and a house move. Last night I (quite accidentally, actually) got 8 hours of sleep, and miracle of all miracles, woke up much more rested this morning than I've been awhile, which also meant I wasn't Grumpy the Narcoleptic Grouch all day. This is good, I think I'm going to go with it.

I'll be doing my best to stick around home this weekend, continuing to catch up on sleep and some other projects, playing with Pico, 'blading, swimming, all that good stuff. Right now though, it's time to think about winding down for the night, seeing if I can get another decent night's sleep, and off for a busy and hopefully productive day of work before the 4th of July weekend.

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June 13, 2008

Airline fever, and a note about The Great Walk to Beijing

Hi there everyone! It's been a very busy week over here. I'm a little wiped, just got off plane #10 in 5 (or 6?) weeks in the wee hours of yesterday morning, coming back from Chicago! I was there for Internet Retailer Conference, which was a great experience to have, both booth time and sitting in on speaker sessions.

Right now, though, airports, airplanes and I may need a bit of time off from each other. Or at least for this weekend! ;) I am getting a really good sampling of a lot of the airlines in North America, though! In the last 12 months, I've been on flights (sometimes more than one) with all of the following: Southwest, Northwest, American, Alaska, US Airways, United, Air Canada, and WestJet. Otherwise known as my list titled "These are the Daves airlines I know, I know, these are the Daves airlines I know." One day I'm going to have to write up a post about things to do on an airplane when you're grounded on the tarmac for an hour without Internet access and mildly bored out of your mind, that won't get you kicked off the plane. Tip #1 is to make sure you've rented a movie from the iTunes Store. I watched "Stardust" on my flight out to Chicago, and girly as it's going to sound, absolutely LOVED it!

I'm on lunch right now, and as we head into the weekend on this beautiful Friday the 13th, I wanted to make a note about a good cause I'd love for you all to support, if you're able.The awesome Aussie boys of Juke Kartel are taking part in a cancer research fundraiser called The Great Walk to Beijing, which will support both cancer research and funding for building the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. You can read more about the centre and its purpose here, and can make a donation or sponsor walkers at the site. To sponsor Juke Kartel's walk, you can click here or on the banner below to be taken to that section of The Great Walk to Beijing site. It's sad to say, but we've all lost either relatives, family friends, or family pets (or all of these) to this horrible disease, or know someone who has. Even if you can only read up on the centre, the stories, the strides being made and what the event's all about, education is a great thing. If you'd like to support cancer research and treatment, all it takes is $10, and you can dedicate your donation to those you know and love who've battled cancer. Thank you.

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June 04, 2008

You can take the girl out of Canada, but you can't take the innate Canadian-born need to watch the Stanley Cup finals out of the girl...

Or, "An Open Letter to the CBC," that would begin something like this:

Dear CBC.ca:

Look. I *know* it was probably prompted by the laws of the land, but c'mon. Since when does the Internet have borders? You know what I'm talking about. That... ugh... f-word. Dare I even say it? That firewall, magical filter you have detecting IP addresses, that would let your scripts-o-video-player-on-high know when someone outside of Canada would try to be accessing the live video stream of Stanley Cup playoff games on CBC Sports.

And as I try to load the video stream in the player, I can sense your scripts laughing and pointing, saying "Look! Isn't that cute? An ex-pat trying to watch the playoffs. Hahahaha. I don't think so, cos if you're not here suffering through 6 months of winter followed by the equally brutal season of Canadian Idol like the rest of us, then you clearly have not earned the right to watch the final moments of the quest for Lord Stanley's cup on a Crown corporation's video player. Should have thought of that BEFORE you left, chickie!" Bugger.

And so on it would go, but I'm going to stop here, and give you a little bit of back story. Here in the U.S., the Stanley Cup playoffs were being broadcast on NBC, and yes, normally on any given day, I'd have NBC. However, I moved over the weekend, and somehow when I scheduled a satellite re-hook-up for the coming weekend, I didn't factor the playoffs into the equation. While ABC, CBS, and even the CW are all part of California's equivalent to Canadian "farmervision" (don't require cable or satellite), apparently NBC deems itself above all that jazz and does not make an appearance in the free TV lineup. Bugger.

So two nights ago, during the triple overtime game, I found another TV to watch the game on. Tonight though, was a different story. I tried more ways to get access to a broadcast than I should probably admit to in writing. Well, desperate times call for creative search engine queries. And at last, the result I was looking for, courtesy a kind group of folks posting over at Yahoo!Xtra (New Zealand) Answers. Third period, and YES, I could watch the rest of the game! Crisis averted. Where there's a will, and the help of kind folks sharing information across the globe, there is a way to watch the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Let us all bless the Internet.

Time spent researching ways to access the game broadcast online: 2 hours at home, plus another half hour at lunch, plus an hour or so last night. (Um. A lot. What? See my post title.) Getting to watch the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs? Worth every second.

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June 01, 2008

Happy one year Cali anniversary

Today is my one year anniversary of being a California girl. I remember everything about this day, last year, from Karen dropping me off at the airport in Ottawa, early in the morning, to lugging my three jam-packed suitcases through the customs area at Pearson airport, to posting a blog from the airport about moving out here, to arriving here and the kind man who helped me stack my jam-packed suitcases onto a luggage cart, to the incredible obstacle course of getting myself and my luggage cart to the car rental area, to finally being on the freeway driving to my new home. Then, once I was here, going out for dinner with Jen and Adam, and seeing a tumbleweed tumbling its way across a street we were driving on.

The last year has been one of the busiest of my life, filled with so much change and growth, learning and loving and laughing and fun, getting to do all the things I've wished for and worked for since I was very young. Moving clear across the continent on my own, away from my family and close friends and familiar surroundings, is not something easy to do... but it was the RIGHT thing to do, what I needed to do to actually, truly, finally live my life and discover my dreams, and just let go and start being me. It was both the craziest and BEST decision I've ever made.

So one year later, I sit here in my living room, on my big comfy red couch, with Pico curled up beside me, and am thankful. What would life be like if I hadn't been willing to dream? One of the things so many people noticed upon my moving to California was how much happier I sounded, and it's true. While I have days where I miss the people I'm closest to in the world like crazy, I'm also the happiest I've ever been. Because I'm living, really and truly. And I want to thank everyone who supported the decision I made last May. I love you, my family, and my friends. And thank you, Universe, for this gift of the life I'm living, the love that surrounds me, and the realization of these dreams.

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May 21, 2008

A good way of shooting yourself in the foot, or, how to destroy the airline industry, one user fee at a time

It could be because I'm rundown, fighting a cold and fever, and therefore have less patience and zero mind-to-keyboard filter. Or, it could be because this is one of the more messed up lines of thinking and business plans that I've ever come across. Either way, what I'd like to know is what in the name of actually getting people to travel is the airline industry thinking?

No, I'm not talking about the fee for a second checked bag - that's old news. It's the fee for the FIRST checked bag proposed by American Airlines that has me going jigga-wha?

Yes, I realize the ever-skyrocketing cost of fuel has hurt the industry badly. It's hurt just about every industry. But in an economy where the ripple effect of fuel costs has been less disposable income because of it costing more to fill up your car, higher heating costs (if you use gas heat), higher food prices probably because of transportation costs (and, of course, droughts), higher public transportation costs, and other current economic factors such as the number of people having to sell or foreclose on their homes, do they honestly think adding yet ANOTHER fee on top of all the others is really going to ENCOURAGE people to fly?

Admittedly, I'm far from a number cruncher, so I could be speaking out of turn. Still, in the long run, don't you think this will just discourage people from travelling? Already, there's so much that can't be taken in a carry-on bag. And hey, they've reduced the number of those that can be taken on board too. Maybe we should just start sending our luggage to our travel destinations by overnight courier. Eventually, I'm sure it will be a cheaper alternative.

So let's think about the effect of discouraging people from travelling, shall we? While the business travellers will still travel, how about the leisure travellers? How about family vacations? Not only could the ever-mounting fees piling up dissaude families from travelling, or cause them to travel less, but they could also prevent those who do travel from partaking in what goes hand-in-hand with tourist attractions: buying memorabilia. Why? Because they're going to need to add a whole lot more to the sticker price of souvenirs just to get them back home.

So there we have one ripple effect: less people travelling to tourist destinations, so less $$ for the airlines, less $$ for the hotel, restaurant, and related services industry, less $$ spent in these cities, and there we go, another dig at the economy.

How about at the airlines themselves? Already the number of flights are being reduced. Less office staff, less ticket counter staff, less airport staff, less ground crew, and so on we go, down the line. With less people booking flights, what about travel agents?

You can probably see where I'm going with this. And sure, maybe my outlook is a little extreme. But before we start offloading more user fees onto people and sing its praises because it's not actually a tax (coughahemshadesofCanadacoughahem), let's think this through. Do you want people travelling, or do you want a whole lot of empty seats on the flights you're still offering?

So I'm going to issue a challenge to the rest of the airlines remaining out there. Don't be sheep in the barnyard parade that seems to inevitably happen whenever one airline comes up with some way of extracting more cash from a vein tapped so often it's just about ready to collapse. Otherwise, you might find that the rest of us are perfectly happy to stay right here at home.

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