Grande Prairie Grande Prairie

Grande Prairie is cold. That's all I've got to say about that.

For some reason, I was thinking about Baden Baden again tonight. And by Baden Baden, I mean the nudey spa in Baden Baden. I think it's because I just had a roasting hot shower after a long cold day of work. Also after a workout at my hotel, Service Plus (it's a hotel which provides you with a good night's sleep, plus...?), which in my world makes it a great hotel.

Anyway, I had a nice hot shower, with a few things that reminded me of Baden Baden. It wasn't anything major, just a giant showerhead and a lot of lotion. I'm not going to lie, my skin is a tiny bit dry here.

The weirdest thing for me about the nudey spa was the lotion room. Yes, there was a whole room specifically for lotion. According to the sign on the wall, the spa recommended 8 minutes of nudey lotion time. Seriously, folks: 8 minutes is enough time to lotion the naked bodies of three fully grown elephants. I took a lot less time than that (I'm sure you're shocked), but it's mostly just because I didn't have verbal directions. I did overhear them in German, but I was fairly certain it translated to "it rubs the lotion on it's skin or else it gets the hose again". I didn't read the instructions, because I thought the best amount of time for putting on lotion was until you had put lotion everywhere you wanted lotion (about 15 seconds).

The sweetest thing for me about the nudey spa was the nap room. You get cocooned in warm blankets in a dim and silent room. Joy.

The least sweet thing for me about the nudey spa was the really cold pool. I misread the person before me's body language and thought it wa a really hot pool. Nasty surprise.

ps. Happy Birthday Jeff!

Meeting Owen and the Nabors Christmas Party

Weekends always fly by, and this one was no different. It makes me think that I would be really good at being independently wealthy. There's still time. Maybe my retirement plan, Freedom 35, will pan out for me.

Friday night was cool because I got to meet Owen Hogan at a fun pho night. He was tiny and SO cute. To check out just how cute he is, try http://www.thehoganfiles.ca/.

Saturday night was my work Christmas party, which turned out to be a lot of fun. I'm always a little skeptical of those things. It is work after all, you kind of have to be on your best behaviour. The meal was really yummy. I especially liked the asparagus, at least yesterday. Abandonrite did well representing and pretty much closed out the party. Not that that was late, but still. I didn't drink at all, since I didn't want to be hung over, and I've had a hard time getting a cab in the past. The band drank my share of the open bar (god they sucked!). Thanks band!

C as in Charlie

I've had a few conversations of late about the phonetic alphabet. You know, alpha, bravo, charlie, etc. Turns out it's different in German (anton....that's all I know), which is how the whole thing came up. The German version was one of Toby's lessons. Anyway, it's come up a few times.

So there I was, talking to the Bank of Montreal on the phone. It's a long story as to why, and I haven't decided if I'm going to blog about it or not yet.

Anyway, the BMO asks me to spell my last name.

Me: "eh, dee, eh, em, es."

BMO: "And your middle initial?"

Me: "C as in Charlie......"

Me in my head: "Fuck, he thinks my middle name is Charlie."

Me (bumbling): "....er, well, actually, as in Christine, but that's not the phonetic alphabet. You know...alpha, bravo, charlie.....so it's clear, and doesn't sound like anything else?"

I should just go by the Western Union Phonetic Alphabet. A as in Adams :)

http://osric.com/chris/phonetic.html

The picture is taken at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. More to come on Berlin. I may as well say this while I am blogging with a potty mouth: I fucking loved Berlin. What a cool city.

Germany Blog Props and the Plastic Boyfriend

In case I didn't send you the link at work the other day, check out the Spiegel article titled, "Petra Looks Forward to Cozy Winter with Plastic Boyfriend":

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,517899,00.html

In case you don't recognize it, the Spiegel is the German newspaper that's in the movie, "In the Lives of Others (Das Leben Der Anderen)". It won the 2006 Foreign Language Film Oscar. I'd highly recommend it. It's the type of movie that teaches you something, entertains you, and makes you cry at the end even though you've seen it coming for an hour and a half. Well, okay, not really cry*. Thanks Toby for sending me the link to the Spiegel and Bridget and Jayanti for the movie recommendation. For more information about either fun in Germany (including a great blog about the France trip!), or Toby's rate of pee flow (seriously), check out http://bgbingermany.blogspot.com/. Jayanti's blog lives at
http://bavarianbuzz.blogspot.com/.

Postscript: In confirming the "facts" of this post, I found this sad article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,496414,00.html about one of the actors in the movie.

+3

I had one of my best ever rounds at the lurker today. I ended up +3. I was par, aka "a mediocre round" until hole 5. You know, the hole that Mike got the hole-in-one on (http://thewrigs.blogspot.com/2007/08/hole-in-one.html). I had a solid drive and was putting for birdy. It went in and out of the basket. I would have been -1 if I would have made it. Yes, I know I suck and putting, but my "new" technique is helping. I decided to step a little more like I do in ultimate. Usually I just launch up this ugly thing with no spin. Anyway, so I missed the put and the round basically went downhill from there. A couple of bad drives and another missed put, and it was a mediocre round no more. Props to Alli for her fabulous round!

In case you are wondering about the scoring in disc golf, this is how it works:
0 = a mediocre round.
7 and under = a fabulous round.
14 and under = a fan-dubulous round.
14 and above = a fan-troubulous round.

If your wondering why I up so far past my bedtime to post this, I also had another hockey game tonight. We kind of killed them. Yes, Nellie. It's true. I think we one 11-0. It was the other team's first game in the league. They reminded us so much of Nellie one year ago, and our first loss. At least our name isn't stupid like the Workhorse Mustangs. Or the HERincanes (the team we played tonight) for that matter. Barf.

Photos

Here are a couple more photos from my trip. The wood pile was on the way back to town after a hike near Baden Baden. The squash and the wine and grapes were in France.

Hockey and Stupid Questions

I didn't say much about the last Nelly game, but check out www.thesills.net for some hilarity. Nice work, Linds. Today's game was night and day compared to the last one. We will just have shake this one off.

I also had some fabulous tips on what to blog about. Tonight I'm going to go with recent stupid questions.

Stupid question #1:
Background: Terri is deathly allergic to nuts.
Situation: Sunday brunch at Terri's, pre-disc golf. Me rummaging around in the kitchen, opening cupboards.
My stupid question: "Hey Terri, where to you keep your peanut butter?"

Stupid question #2:
Background: There are two Ken's at Abandonrite: Ken Bax and Ken Hahn.
Situation: I'm in the field earlier today, working with Ken Hahn. Ken Hahn knocked on my window and says, "I just talked to Ken and he would like you to give him a call."
My stupid question: "Ken Bax?"

Meh

This is one of my first blog posts where I haven't been able to come up with at least some focus before I start. It's not really for lack of material. Dev's birthday on the weekend was a lot of fun. The day after posting about the crazy sheep in Baaden-Baaden, I went over to my friends Tess and Eric's house in Millerville where they made a fabulous dinner with a main course of...lamb. I guess that's why they (the sheep, not Tess and Eric) looked so crazy. They must have known. Other fun hockey game. I ran for 45 minutes last night (keep in mind, I hate running).

But back to my point: no focus (note to self: stop getting distracted! Focus on the lack of focus). I wonder why that happens sometimes. Anyone have any ideas? I'm likely just tired after hockey was so late. Maybe it's being back at work after three weeks off.

I bought a lamp from IKEA. I've been meaning too for a year and a half.

My pee stinks because I had asparagus with dinner last night. If I were in the movie "Amelie", this would be in my list of dislikes. If only I could enjoy emptying out my hockey bag, cleaning it, and putting everything back in.

Meh.

Crazy Animals

Tonight's blog theme is crazy animals. Dog's seem to really enjoy biting me. I swear most people don't have this many dog-biting stories. There was Vernon and Drayton Valley (the dogs were successful), California (a good try) and now tonight. If you don't know the other stories, ask me some time. Tonight's was not all that exciting. I went jogging, I got bit by a dog. It hurt but didn't break the skin or anything. It did leave bite marks in my grey sweats. Shut up. The other ones were dirty.

On that theme, these sheep that I say in Baden Baden must have been drinking too much of that mineral water. Yikes.

Jerseys

These are two white jersey's from this year that "fit". Note the pen for scale. The Team Alberta jerseys were dubbed "the booby shirts" for obvious reasons. I'm not sure what the Nellie whites will be called, but I'll get back to you if they get nicknamed.

I'm still up because there was a hockey game tonight. It was my first game back after Germany and I was feeling more than a little rusty. I didn't have any full princess moments, but a few shifts I think I was close. We play again on Sunday, so I won't have to wait long to play again. Or feel jetlagged some more.

Squeak My Toy

Since I didn't post any pictures while I was in Germany, I'm going to post and re-live over the next little while. Today's are a few pics from Karlsruhe. I was lost (well, a bit lost) when I took the pic of my own bike. Nothing a short break, a map and a nice Germany lady couldn't solve.

I bought a t-shirt in Berlin from the company who did my bike tour. It had their logo on the back and the slogan "squeak my toy" on the front. All of the bikes on the tour had big squeaky toys and bells. I didn't love the slogan, and really people squeaking and ringing there bells was kind of annoying, but I really liked the colour of the shirt, and the logo on the back was sweet. SOLD. When I was exiting the country in Frankfurt, I was wearing the shirt. Naturally - I was new, and therefore the cleanest peice of clothing that I had. The very nice Germany fellow stamping my password asked, "vas is 'squeek my toy?"......awkward (insert robot hands here).

Jetlag and Synthroid

I'm back home in Calgary and back at work today. Errrrrrrrg. I'm feeling pretty good, although I am getting little waves of jetlag. Jetlag is a weird thing. I feel like I might be hungry, or maybe forgetting something important. It reminds me a lot of being off my synthroid. The brainfog is similar, although it increases exponentially with the synthroid. The worst of my jetlag feels like being off synthroid for 3-4 days.

Dresden

When I first got to Dresden, I thought Ron was here. Ron Weasley, that is. That would be because Dresden didn't seem to have lights. It was so dark that I had to stand directly under streetlights in order to read the map. I found the place we were staying, which was run by a dude who I thought might axe murder me. Ö

Today we did the Heather-reads-lonely-planet walking tour of Dresden. There are loads of really cool old buildings here, and lots of history. Most of what I knew of Dresden before, I read in Slaughterhouse 5. It's pretty cool to see the real place.

This evening, we took a bunch of night photos of the city off a bridge.

....2 days later: Dresden's revenge was to kill the computer right then. Or maybe it was the guy who ran the hostel who I referred to as "the possible axe murderer". Yikes.