My File is Trying to Kill Me

This picture isn't great, but you'll get the idea. I thought for a brief, stupid, wide-eyed millisecond that the file I was reading on Monday morning was trying to kill me. I opened it up to this page and read "Choke Heather". Clearly not, but I hadn't had my coffee yet.

Shortest Blog Yet

I walked past a 'napping' homeless man in the plus 15 today, and right when I went by, he let out a ginourmous fart.

A Blog About Not Blogging

The little running blog counter on the right tells me that I have been blogging far less than before in February. This isn't exactly a surprise to me, but I didn't think it was quite to the extent that the counter tells me it is (3 in February only). Thus, I decided to do a little blog about not blogging. Don't think I've lost interest! It's not that it was fresh and new for a while, but now I'm bored with it. I actually have a little list beside my computer about what I plan to write about in the future. February has just been a little crazy. I've been as busy as I get during the summers. Usually February is about as dead as it gets for me. A couple of things are taking extra time these days. For starters, I'm training really hard (5-6 days a week) right now. It would kind of defeat the purpose if I then came home and ate poptarts, which means a lot of time in food prep. - I'm also a religion lunch-packer. I'm trying to learn German as well. My class is Monday nights from 6:30-9:30, so Monday is not a good blog day. Lastly, I'm helping out coaching the juniors ultimate team. It's not a giant time commitment, still ends up being somewhere in the 3 hours a week range. So anyway, the whole point of this: I haven't lost interest, and every thing of my list of blogs to come. I'm not saying I'm trying to meet anyone's expectations but my own on this...as if anybody had any - ha ha ha. I'm definitely not posting as much as I would like to right now, which means there will be more to come.

Books

First off, sorry for the hiatus in posting. Hopefully nobody did what I do, which is get pissed off if I check someone's blog more than once and discover it has not been updated. Silly, I realize. I do this even if it's only been two days. I should clarify: I don't really get pissed off, but I do find myself thinking, "what the hell, I've read this already. Come on people, it's been...like....2 days."

I have read three books lately that are worth recommending. If you are looking for something to read, check one of them out.

The first book is Mark Tewksbury's Inside Out: Straight Talk from a Gay Jock
. Despite the cheesy title, I really enjoyed this book. It's basically his life's story, from growing up gay in Calgary to winning a gold medal at the Olympics in 1992. After his swimming career is over, he goes on to an interesting career in public speaking, television, and remains very involved with different aspects of the Olympics. Mark Tewksbury is a really interested and inspiring guy, and I'd recommend his book to everyone, even if it does speak to you quite the same as it did me.

After that, I read A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan
by Canadian-Afghani author/film maker Nelofer Pazira. She is also telling the story of her life, with focus on the contrast between her life, having escaped Afghanistan after the Soviet occupation, and the life of her close friend who stays in Kandahar. Nelofer returns to Afghanistan to try and film a movie and to find her friend. The movie is a fictionalized version of the story of her and the friend, who's only contact with Nelofer has been through a series of letters that mysteriously end one day.

Now I am reading Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
by Malcolm Gladwell. If you've read The Tipping Point
, you will like Blink. Blink is about thin-slicing, which is essentialy making quick conclusions with only tiny amount of information to go on. He talks about conscious decisions versus unconscious decisions, reference some interesting social science experiments and historical cases. This is everything from the case of police officers in New York who's thin-sliding-gone-horribly-wrong ending in the shooting of an innocent man to the Pepsi Challenge.

Check any of them out if you get the chance.

ps. The picture may also shed some light on why it's taken me so long to post. Tartan would prefer to nap, and that makes it really hard to type.

Abbotsford and the Virus

Westjet had super cheap flights to Abbotsford - $20.08 + tax etc each way, which really means $120 roundtrip. What that meant to me was a trip not-quite VanCity to visit my Grandma. She's 85, and I hadn't seen her since July of 2006.

My parents came with for the visit too. I have have an aunt and an uncle in Abbotsford (who we stayed with), as well as my only cousin that is my age (Melissa), her husband Corey, and my other cousin Jim. It was really great to see everybody. I find seeing family changes your perspective a bit, in a good way. I lose a lot of the day to day crap that I tend to bring with me even when I try not too.

I haven't had any posts since last weekend's Fernie trip becuase I got quite sick just after that. I think there are a lot of sick folks around right now. I didn't have the energy to post before leaving for Abbotsford. I missed a lot of stuf, and what I did go to, I just kind of got through. I still have a cold, but I'm feeling a lot better.

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but here is one of Grandma and Mom in the Swiss Chalet. I don't think I warned either of the them that I was taking the picture.

Riding in Fernie

I spent this weekend snowboarding in Fernie, which was quite the contrast from outdoor frisbee in Vegas. Mauri, Weaze and I borrowed my mom's pimpin' Buick (thanks Mom) and headed down after work on Friday. I was really glad we had my mom's car, especially when the weather turned shit just after Coleman.

Mel and Lucy were in town (from Libya), and they invited to stay at the Labine house in Fernie (thanks Labines). We boarded on both Saturday and Sunday. The snow was amazing on Saturday, and pretty good on Sunday too. Weaze and I had one run in a newly opened bowl that was an absolute blast. It was really tiring too, because if (okay when) I fell over, my board would get stuck. You kind of had to dig yourself out after every bail. Sunday was lots of fun too, although I am quite sore today. We were boarding terrain that was quite challenging for me at times. I had 6-7 solid good hard bails over the course of the weekend. My legs are tired and my neck is sore, but it was so worth it.

The other fun thing about this weekend is all the people that were in Fernie. There were loads of people there, some at the Labines place and some at Cat and Aarons place. The Labines had everyone over for a big and delicious dinner on Saturday night. Yum and funsies.

Oddly enough, I wasn't the only one to go to Vegas one weekend and Fernie the next. Monteith did the same thing.

Today, I'm paying the price for all my fun. I'm feeling really sick. I mostly blame the fact that the office has been freezing cold for 2 months. It's only a matter of time when you are cold for 40 hours a week. I felt sick before Vegas, but managed to keep healthy by pounding the Cold FX. Even that couldn't help me this time. You know how your nose gets all red and horrible when you have a bad cold? That's what I have, only....typical, I suppose, a little more weird. My (tube) eye look like that too! I look like I've been bawling.

ps. My favorite plaid kitty is back!!

Seriously?

You really clicked on that? I mean I wish, but come on. ;)